coconut almond macaroons

Why: Because I love coconut!

What: For other recipes I've had sweetened coconut around and have been snacking on it here and there. It's just so tasty! I had tons of egg whites left over from the crack pie so I decided to make macaroons. I started looking at recipes online but ended up using the recipe on the bag. My dentist (a very chatty fellow) made the point that the recipe on the packaging is going to be the best because they want it to showcase their product. It was a good recipe, with a few tweaks. I added about 1 extra egg white and I added about 2 tablespoons of almond paste instead of almond extract. Much to my disappointment, it didn't have much almond flavor, needed much more almond paste. They were tasty by themselves but a light drizzle of chocolate made them even better because it broke up the flavor. These would be super simple to convert into a homemade almond joy, one of my favorites. Annnd, best part, these are practically diet treats because there isn't any oil or butter.

My adaptations:

• 1 (14 ounce) package sweetened coconut (5 1/3 cups)
• 2/3 cup sugar (minus 1 tbsp or so)
• 6 tablespoons flour
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 5 egg whites
• 5 tbsp almond paste, chopped into tiny pieces
• 1/4 tsp vanilla extract
• 
  
• 1- Mix coconut, sugar, flour and salt in a large bowl. Stir in vanilla extract, egg whites (recipe says not to whip but I mixed to small peaks, I don't think it made a difference either way) and almond paste until well blended. Drop by tablespoonful (I used cookie scoop lightly packed) onto sprayed parchment paper, MUST SPRAY! Continue to stir as you scoop as the egg whites might settle at bottom of the bowl.
• 2. Bake 325F for 20 minutes or until edges of cookies are golden brown. Leave on pan until cool enough to transfer.
• 3. Melt some semi sweet chocolate in microwave or double boiler (careful not to burn it) and drizzle over top. Refrigerate until ready to serve.

crack is whack

Why: Darn you top chef just desserts! I've been bitten by the baking bug again and have been cranking out treats. For our recent vacation I brought pumpkin cinnamon rolls, chex mix, rice kripsy treats, magic layer bars, the previously mentioned pumpkin cake, sugar cookies and on top of all of that, I made this pie. Granted, I made this pie for my husband for his birthday but with all the leftovers I decided that I'd better drop it off at work instead of bring along yet another treat. I don't really recall exactly how I ended up at this recipe but with a name like crack pie and a description of caramel butterscotch goodness - I had to try it.

What: I guess crack just isn't my drug of choice because this pie just didn't really do it for me. Was it tasty? Yes. Did it change my life? Hardly. Is it worth the amount of time and butter? Highly debatable. It did work out that I have tons of egg whites when I want to make macaroons (to come)but really, 8 yolks is a lot. And I had to buy powdered milk just for this recipe. Making the crust, breaking it up and then mixing in butter and whatnot to make the actual crust was a little too labor intensive for me. At the end of the day it tasted like my butterscotch caramel bars but with a lot more time and money involved. And my bars don't require a fork. It's a good idea and concept but I'm going to save my veins (and arteries!) for something better.

Holy tastiness

Why: I buy all the baking magazines around the holiday and cut out recipes and slap them into a binder. I hadn't cracked open the binder in months so I thought it was time to give it a peek. It was between this recipe and a caramel pudding cake but since my husband always leans towards pumpkin, the pumpkin cake it was. I had high hopes but I wasn't expecting the most delicious thing I've baked in a long time.

What: Imagine a pumpkin cake with a caramelized pecan topping. Yeah, it's as good as it sounds. Add some vanilla ice cream and I have just made a new friend for life. I feared that my husband would eat it all so I took most of the cake into work and people officially lost their crap. One person told me that he "lost himself" in it and another gave some to their friend who then offered me a marriage proposal. The best reaction was a coworker who ate 2 slices before he left the office only to call me later in the afternoon and hide him 2 more slices. Now it haunts me, weeks later people still bring it up in regular conversation.

oldie - wedding shower cakes

Why: Word has spread about my tasty cakes and I was asked to make something for a bridal shower. The colors where black and white and they wanted buttercream. This was my first time working with black frosting and man, it was no fun. I learned that no matter how much black coloring I mixed into the frosting, the best I could get was a dark grey. I ended up having to run out and buy black frosting in a tube – for shame. I can’t imagine it was terribly attractive to eat this cake either as your gums/tounge would probably turn purple. Yikes.

What: The cakes were almond flavored cake with fudgy chocolate frosting between the layers. Because it had to black and white I did the outside in buttercream that had a slight almond flavoring to it. I had a grand vision of what I wanted to pipe on the cakes and it was a harsh reality when I first tried to pipe on the vertical sides. It’s all about pressure on the piping bag which was very hard to do because it was actually coming out of a plastic tube. Honestly, I kinda freaked out mid decoration but I think the result wasn't too horrible.

pumpkin cinnamon roll

Why: Again, the food part of apartment therapy was calling my name and I just had to make these.

What: Fall baking is sure to include pumpkin so that wasn't too exciting but pumpkin cinnamon rolls? Hell yeah! The dough was pretty sticky/difficult to work with but all in all it was a pretty simple recipe and the results are deeeelicious. I ended up baking off just 4 of the cinnamon rolls and freezing the rest. Now when we feel the need for a comforting treat we can defrost and bake some off. Even so, I know we'll burn through these and I'll have to make some more soon. And I am totally ok with that.

last minute wedding cake

Why: A coworker was getting married in a very casual setting and was having a potluck reception. I offered to bring treats and when she went down the list of what was already being made, I asked about the cake. She didn't have a wedding cake - at most she was thinking about going to a discount grocery store to get one. I wasn't about to let that happen so I offered to make a simple cake for her - with 6 days notice! Ah!

What: I asked my coworker what kind of cake she wanted and the only guidance I received was "chocolate". To keep things quick and easy I made a chocolate take for the top and bottom layer with chocolate mousse in the middle. Because the cake had to be white I frosted it with white buttercream and then covered it in white marshmallow fondant. Her wedding colors were fall centric so I made flowers out of the marshmallow fondant to put around the tiers. All in all, a major success. It wasn't perfect (I wish the bottom tier was 1" taller) but considering the short notice and lack of planning I couldn't be happier with how it turned out.

about to pop off

Why: While surfing the food portion of apartmenttheropy.com there was a post on popovers and they looked too tasty and seemed super easy.

What: Popovers with gruyere cheese. This was the first time I've ever had/bought gruyere cheese and man does it pack a punch. It's smoked so it almost smells like bacon. I got the cheese sliced at the deli counter (silly!) so I couldn't shred it like I wanted so I did itty bitty cubes. They looked perfect and we were super excited until I lifted the pan and they were bricks. Definitely not the light and fluffy popover I was expecting. I made the again a few days later and not only were they still flour-based bricks but they didn't rise! I'm not giving up but we've taken a break to give my ego a rest.

oh baby baby

Why: For my sisters baby showers I was on cupcake duty. There was the usual, lemon but we also mixed it up and did some chocolate.

What: Because I was so sick of doing the typical lemon cupcakes I decided to mix it up and put the lemon curd in the center of the cupcake. For the chocolate I chilled some ganache and put it in the center. I was pleased with the results but not sure if it's worth the extra effort of cutting out holes in each cupcake.

I had leftover chocolate cupcakes so I brought some into work. I didn't have enough ganache and frosting to do them exactly like the baby shower cupcakes so I just dipped the tops of the cupcakes in the ganache. Quick, pretty and oh so tasty.

Flying saucers! or.. flying.. prep bowls.. fail

After a long day of some not so fun activities and getting sun burned I decided that I was going to make a streusel coffee cake with coconut. If you're lucky enough to be local, it's my version of the terribly addictive cake that they serve at the Dodo. I really didn't want to bake (..my desire for a tasty treat won) but I made my way through it and turned out 2 lovely bundt cakes. One for my work and a smaller one for Mike and I.

If you've had the cake at the Dodo you know that you have to get it with ice cream because it comes warm with caramel sauce and the ice cream is just the perfect companion. I was in the middle of making caramel sauce and reached for a prep bowl to fill with water to wash down the sugar crystals and wouldn't you know it.. it started raining prep bowls. I can testify that pyrex does in fact break and makes a very loud sound and a very large mess. As if cleaning a kitchen full of glass shards wasn't bad enough, the cakes were surrounded by broken glass so they had to be thrown away. I think today is just one of those days to sit in front of the tv until it's time to go to bed as an insurance policy against anything else going wrong.

a mild nutty failure

Why: I used another game night as an excuse to bake. Little secret about me, I love love LOVE 2 things; donuts and marzipan. Almond paste, marzipan .. I'll take what I can get, however I can get it. I've made the terrible mistake of finding a local bakery that makes a HUGE marzipan danish and I have day dreamed about it every single day. With my almond paste craving running at full speed I decided to make an almond pear torte. How fancy.

What: I made this recipe, almost exactly as is (slight change in baking times) except I added a tiny bit of almond extract to the almond paste. I also poached the pears with a vanilla bean but you couldn't tell the difference. Isn't it a little surprising that mine isn't as lovely as the picture on the recipe? Ha! The verdict? Flop! I wanted a super sweet almond flavor with a flakey pastry crust. What I ended up with was a mild flavored filling on a shortbread crust. It wasn't disgusting or even horrible but it wasn't what I was craving. One person at the game night claimed to like it but then quickly refused to take some home, aha!, the easiest tell of someone who is trying to be nice. Back to the drawing board for this idea.

Popcorn popping on the apricot tree

Why: My family likes to play boardgames. Lame, I know. Every now and then we get together to play games and I use it as an opportunity to try new treats. My husband declared "NO CAKE!" when I was planning for our next game night so I turned to the internet and was captivated by the idea of caramel corn. I've never ever had a successful run with caramel at home but I was willing to give it another go. I don't know what I did wrong previously but making this caramel for the popcorn was super easy. I even forgot a few of the ingredients from the original recipe without any major issues. Not only did I escape without major issues but I ended up with the most addicting treat! It's buttery, salty and sweet. Ugh. I'm drooling already.

• 
  
• 3 bags of unbuttered microwave popcorn (the best I could find was lightly salted which worked just fine)
• 2 cups brown sugar
• 1/2 cup light corn syrup
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup butter
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 250 degrees.

Pop the 3 bags of popcorn and empty the popcorn onto a cookie sheet or anything with a lip. IMPORTANT: Be sure to remove all the kernels that didn't pop. Biting into an unpoped kernel is the quickest way to ruin your caramel corn experience. Heat the butter, brown sugar, light corn syrup and salt in a large pot on the stove. Stir continually to keep the ingredients combine and continue to stir until it starts to boil. Remove spoon and insert the candy thermometer. Do not stir or touch the caramel until it reaches 280 degrees. Remove the thermometer and add the vanilla (it will fizzle a little). Gently pour the caramel over the popcorn and stir the popcorn to evenly coat. It doesn't have to be perfect - you will stir it while it's in the oven so everything eventually gets coated. Pop the pan into the oven for 1 hour, taking out and stirring every 20 minutes. Remove from oven and let cool. You may have to break apart some of the larger clusters, I find that putting all of it in a Ziploc bag and then crushing it is most effective. Store in an airtight container overnight if you happen to have enough restraint to not eat it all in one sitting.

I tossed in a handful of peanuts when doing the initial caramel pour. They became my favorite part of the treat. I read somewhere that this can be done via microwave (making the caramel and having the caramel set/coat by putting it in a paper bag and nuking/shaking a few times) but I haven't given it a go yet.

Birthday weekend = parade of treats

Excuse the crappy phone pics - I was too lazy to get out the real camera.

Why: My sisters birthday was a few weekends ago and of course I was put on treat duty. As requirement, if she's eating it, it better be lemon. To meet the lemon requirement I made mini lemon bundt cakes with lemon curd and vanilla buttercream. I've mastered this recipe by now because I've made it so often for her. This time to mix it up I used meyer lemons which I have never used before. They're smaller than regular lemons and so much sweeter. It's like a weird hybrid between a lemon and orange. I don't think anyone noticed but I enjoyed the slight variation. Because I couldn't handle having an entire dessert selection of lemon I decided to make some chocolate meringues.

What: Meringues are weird little creatures. They're crispy and hollow but have a little bit of a chew to them once you start eating them. They are typically made with nuts but I love love love the chocolate meringues. They're almost like eating a brownie but with none of the guilt because it's literally sugar, egg whites, cocoa powder and some potato starch. In one of the Martha Stewart magazines I saw that they baked the merginues in muffin cups. Adorable! I used little cups that you put chocolates in and they turned out to be a great grab and go treat. A little bit more annoying to eat but they make for a cute display.

I made a small cake for my sisters birthday, same lemon cake and curd as the mini bundt cakes. I wanted purple frosting but when I mixed in the color by hand it just turned into a muddy blue. Frustrated, I tossed it in the mixed and instantly I had a very very purple frosting. Not that attractive but I don't think she minded.

Apple Spice Cake the Recipe

• Finally, the recipe I used for that delicious apple spice bundt cake that tasted just like pie.
• 
  
• 
  
• 4 apples (I used gala)
• 5 tablespoons plus 2 1/2 cups sugar
• 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 
  
• 4 large eggs
• 1 cup vegetable oil
• 1/4 cup orange juice
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 3 cups all purpose flour
• 3 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 tsp cinnamon

dash nutmeg, cloves

Preheat oven to 350°F. Cut apples into small thin pieces. Mix apple pieces, 5 tablespoons sugar and ground cinnamon in medium bowl. Combine 2 1/2 cups sugar, eggs, vegetable oil, orange juice and vanilla extract in large bowl; whisk to blend. Stir flour, baking powder, cinnamon, other spices and salt into egg mixture. Fill the bottom of the ban with 1/3 of the batter and top with half of the cinnamon apple mixture, cover with more batter, add the remaining apple mixture and top with the rest of the batter.

Bake cake until top is brown and tester inserted near center comes out with moist crumbs attached, about 1 hour 30 minutes. Cool cake in pan on rack 15 minutes. Run knife around sides of pan to loosen. Turn cake out onto rack. Cool at least 45 minutes.

You can just cover the cake with powdered sugar or I made a simple powdered sugar glaze to drizzle over the one I made. Of course, if you can stand waiting, this cake is so much better the next day.

Zucchini Failure - seriously.

Why: Internet, I have a confession; I struggle with zucchini breads, especially chocolate zucchini. Baking has always been easy to me. In my mind it's just following instructions. How hard can that be? I've made some of the fanciest desserts without issue but when it comes to a gosh darn zucchini bread, I get my butt kicked most of the time. My problem is that it falls! I've done well with a regular spice zucchini but I have yet to make a successful chocolate zucchini. Wanting to give it another go - today I made both.

What: Determined not to fail this time, I made the chocolate zucchini into muffins and the regular spiced zucchini bread into a loaf. I put the loaf in the oven first and when I opened the oven to put the cupcakes in I wasn't being careful and the oven moved and my loaf sunk. BAH! My muffins turned out ok but still fell a little bit. Overall, the chocolate zucchini wasn't chocolate enough, I could definitely still taste the zucchini. Back to the drawing board for me.

Cinnamon Spice Cake

Why: When I got married my mom gave me a recipe book full of her most popular recipes that she made for us. It's really been invaluable. My little brother's birthday was this week but my sister was out of town so we slightly delayed his birthday party for the next weekend. Not wanting to leave him high and dry on his birthday, I invited him over for a solid home cooked meal. I knew he would love anything out of my moms cook book so I made him his favorite, ribs and cheesy potatoes. For dessert I chose a cinnamon swirl cake. I haven't had it since I've moved out of the house and Michael has been dreaming about it ever since his fork hit the plate. It appears that it's going to become a staple around our house which is great because it's super easy and quick.

What: This cake is pretty much a cinnamon roll without all the fuss and work. Also known as the best idea ever. I don't know about you, but around my house growing up all cakes came in a rectangle pan. I halved the batch and it was the perfect amount for 3 people with a little bit for leftovers. Once the cake had been cooling for apx 1 hour I did a simple powdered sugar glaze which was so necessary. Next time I make it I'll increase the cinnamon mixture a little but overall, mom knew what she was doing.

Apple Spice Cake

I had a sinus infection last week which meant that I spent the entire weekend sleeping it off. Hopefully I'll be baking more and posting more soon.

Why: I have this pipe dream of doing upside down cakes so I bought apples with the intention of doing an apple spice upside down cake. The problem is, upside down cakes are best fresh out of the oven which means that it's a crappy idea to make one when you have guests over because you'll be in the kitchen making it. I got sick of looking at the apples in the crisper and decided that something needed to be baked.

What: My new favorite thing ever is the bundt pan. I never had one growing up so I was missing out of the magic that is baking with a bundt pan. It's already molded into a pretty form and frosting is a subtle flavor addition, not smothering the whole cake. I find that most cakes have too much frosting so the bundt cakes is usually my desired route. Quick, easy and well balanced. This cake was like an apple pie. It was so-so right out of the oven but the next day it was amazing. The apples get coated in brown sugar and cinnamon and then layered within the batter so it's evenly distributed.

Recipe to follow in a few days.

Okkie monster!!

Why: A friend of my sister asked if I could make a cookie monster cake for her little one's birthday.

What: My sisters friend has a gluten allergy so I'm going to be perfectly honest and admit that I totally cheated and used a gluten free box mix for the cake. I'm great with making gluten free brownies and meringues but gluten free cakes and bread are still foreign to me. The cake was a yellow cake with real vanilla bean, the filling was chocolate mousse and the frosting was vanilla buttercream. It took a lot of food coloring to get close to the right shade of blue and I hope it didn't turn her kids face into a blueberry! The eyes were cupcakes that I cut into a dome shape (because really, a giant blob of frosting for the eyes just repulsed me) and the pupils were unsweetened chocolate pistoles. With the extra batter I made cupcakes and what I didn't use for the eyes I made into little cookies.

April showers bring May flowers

Why: Awhile ago I saw a cake on www.cakewrecks.com (it was an example of a good lookin cake) that I really really liked. I decided to work on my gum paste skills and make a display cake that was inspired by the original.

What: The original cake was all daffodils which was beautiful but I felt that it need a slight variety in color and type of flower. I made all the flowers out of gum paste (over 2 days! Way more intense than I thought it would be) and the green stems is marshmallow fondant. I am so very pleased with the results and now have a greater appreciation for gumpaste flowers ..well.. gum paste anything! I am so glad this was just for fun and practice because I severely under estimated the amount of time it took.

Adding a little color to my life

Why: I wanted to do something fun and a friend had mentioned her love of rainbow cakes/cupcakes. Since her super bowl party was quickly approaching, I thought it would be the perfect time to give it a go. I also thought it would be a great opportunity to break out my new light cube for the photos.

What: I did a simple white cake batter that I split up and colored with my gel food coloring. To get the layer effect I careful dropped some into each muffin cup and made it level. Towards the end I lost my patience and just did a mishmash of colors. For the party I did half with lemon curd and buttercream on top (a requirement for my sister) and the other half was a orangesicle frosting. I hate all things orange flavored but the orangesicle was still pretty tasty.

Almond paste is my new best friend

My new all time favorite!

Why: One of my sisters worker wanted an almond cake for her birthday. She sent along a recipe but I was sketched out because there was no flour! I've made some flourless items before but this recipe had no obvious substitutions so I had to come to the conclusion that the author just forgot to include it when publishing. I found something I was comfortable with and I'm very happy with the results.

What: Part of the guidelines was almond cake, pastry cream, fresh raspberries. The fresh raspberries were a little hard to find since it was the dead of winter but I managed. The cake is an almond bundt cake with almond paste mixed into the batter *drool* with pastry cream that I lightly flavored with almond extract and fresh raspberries. Since it was the first time I had made the cake and fiddled around the with the recipe I made a mini bundt for myself and it quickly disappeared which in my book means that it's a huge success. One of the cakes didn't release from the pan cleanly so I saved it for a super bowl party and filled it with pears instead of raspberries. I hate to say, the pears couldn't hold up against the almond flavors and the pear flavor was completely lost.

Who you gonna call?

Why: My sister's friend wanted a birthday cake that matched their halloween costumes. They had the full ghost buster uniform and instead of going for the no ghost sign that everyone and their dog thinks of, I decided to go with the Stay Puff marshmallow man.

What: The cake was a spice cake with cream cheese frosting. The background is all frosting (it was very thick frosting and difficult to work with!). I thought it would only be fitting if the Stay Puff man was made out of marshmallow fondant. The writing was done in white chocolate. Around the side it said "We came, we saw, we kicked it's butt"

Monkey business

Two of my most favorite things, cakes and donuts!

Why: One of my husbands coworker wanted a monkey cake for his kids birthday. His wife saw this decorating idea online and after 2 failed attempts, was ready to ask someone else to give it a go. Later on, a friend of mine wanted the same cake for her little boys birthday. Not wanting to miss the opportunity to make sure that their little one got all sugared up, I made a "smash" cake just for him.

What: To be honest, I don't remember what the first monkey cake was. I think it was yellow cake with raspberry whipped cream. The second cake was a chocolate cake with vanilla pudding in the middle. Both cakes were covered in ganache and the mouth and eyes were made out of marshmallow fondant. The small smash cake was just remainder chocolate cake covered in ganache.

Wedding Day

Why: Wedding cake for my sister's wedding.

What: The bottom layer was white cake with pastry cream and fresh raspberries. The middle and top layer was a lemon cake with lemon curd and vanilla buttercream. Covered in marshmallow fondant and gum paste flowers. For the reception there were also cupcakes in the same flavors.