Elmore Mountain Bread! So good!

We were just up in Elmore, VT to visit our friend Blair's bread bakery...
What a treat to watch her and her husband Andrew in action at their wood-fired oven!

Check out their website, with lots of pictures of beautiful bread--
Elmore Mountain Bread!

Baking at 2 and 1/2!

When Scott and I were home over Christmas, we spent some time going through some of my old family photo albums! Here's a shot of me baking (probably with mom and dad!) at 2 and a 1/2!

S'Mores Cake!

This is a chocolate navy cake with a layered chocolate ganache, melted marshmallow, and crushed graham cracker filling.
I was afraid to spread the buttermilk buttercream frosting over the thick gooey center, so I just covered the whole cake with dollops.

You can see the different filling layers between the cake layers. Next time, I'll add about 4x the melted marshmallows! Sticky and chewy!

Teeny-Carrot-Print Cake

Yum! Carrot cake!
I've never made a carrot cake with little carrots on it--so I tried one last week :)

Halloween Spooky Cake

There is a triple chocolate cake hiding under all of this spooky gear:
Chocolate navy cake, brownie, and whipped chocolate ganache!
Somehow there is nothing like a spiderweb full of skeletal human remains to evoke a friendly Halloween atmosphere...
The skeletal pieces and the rats are not edible (they are plastic and rubber), but it was worth breaking my unofficial rule about preferring edible cake components--they were just too fun and too easy!

Help! The ganache is eating me!

...and the rats are eating ME!

(I think that everyone liked the rats the best!)

Candy Cake

Everybody loves a little candy around Halloween time, so I made a super candy-fied cake for the October birthday celebration at work today. This is a strawberry cake (recipe here) with cream cheese icing...enough sugar to turn 30 adults into giggling sugar-high kids!

This cake featured candy bracelets, Hot Tamales, Junior Mints, Mellowcream pumpkins, and the lovely Pirate Chompers around the bottom edge.

'Tis the Season... for Pumpkin Pie Cheesecake!

Pumpkin pie cheesecake has always been a favorite--combining the spice and fall-y flavors of pumpkin pie with the richness of cheesecake. Sometimes plain pumpkin pie can end up a little bit wet and slimy feeling, but the addition of cheesecake really fluffs it up nicely!
Some recipes tell you to mix all of the ingredients (for pumpkin pie and cheesecake) together at once. In typical fashion, I prefer to make them separately, and then mix them together. This allows you to attempt some artsy swirls--although I have found that a true swirl does not cook very well. Sunday's effort features some nice little splashes of pumpkin showing through.

Pumpkin Pie Cheesecake:
1. Make pumpkin pie (I use Libby's Pure Pumpkin in a can, and the recipe on the back: Libby's Pumpkin Pie. I use only half of the evaporated milk suggested. The recipe linked here is for a single pie, although I usually use the big double can of pumpkin, which makes two pies. My changes are in bold below for a 2-pie recipe (I've bumped up all of the spices, but you can experiment with the quantities:

Pumpkin Pie Filling:

1 1/2 cup granulated sugar

3 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon salt

1 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger

3/4 teaspoon ground cloves

1 teaspoon nutmeg

4 large eggs

1 can (30 oz.) LIBBY'S® 100% Pure Pumpkin

1 can (12 fl. oz.) NESTLÉ® CARNATION® Evaporated Milk

2 unbaked 9-inch pie shells (or make the graham cracker crust below)

2. Prepare a cheesecake recipe. Many, many thank you's to Debbie for sharing her famous and perfect cheesecake recipe!!! (see comment below).

Crust:
Preheat oven to 375F

1 1/2 compartments of graham crackers

1/4 cup sugar

1/4 cup (half stick) of butter at room temp

Crush and blend the crackers with the butter and sugar using a food processor or fork until it feels like wet sand. Press the mixture into the bottom and up the sides of a spring form pan. Tamp the crust down firmly, and back for 5 minutes. (I usually put the spring form on a cookie sheet for easier handling). I have also used store bought graham crusts (from the baking aisle), which are fine for the pumpkin pie cheesecake. Debbie's amazing cheesecake on its own deserves a nice 'real' graham crust.

Filling:
(The cheesecake alone would bake at 325F, see below for Pumpkin Pie Cheesecake baking tips)

1 1/2 pounds of cream cheese (3- 8 oz. blocks) at room temperatur

1 1/2 cups sugar

6 eggs

1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla

pinch of salt

1 1/2 cups sour cream

Blend cream cheese until fluffy. Add sugar and blend well. Add eggs, one at a time, blending well with each. Add vanilla and salt. Add sour cream and combine well until mixture is smooth. (This cheesecake alone would cool for about an hour at 325F. Mixture will be soft set - jiggling but not flowing. Cool for awhile at room temperature. A crack may form as it cools. Refrigerate for at least 6 hours before serving). See below for baking instructions for the pumpkin cheesecake.

3. Mix most of the cheesecake and pumpkin together. Pour into pie pans with graham cracker crusts (either made from scratch, or purchased from the baking aisle). A double can of pumpkin plus a full cheesecake recipe will probably make 3 9" pies. Remember that the ratio of cheesecake to pumpkin pie can and should vary--try it out, and see how you like it best! I find that it is very flexible.

4. Swirl leftover cheesecake and pumpkin on top to create decorative effect. Lightly sprinkled cinnamon looks nice too.

5. Baking this contraption is a little weird, because the instructions for the pumpkin pie and the cheesecake are different. However, for this most recent pie/cake, I started with 20 mins at 375F followed by about 40 mins at 335F. This timing will of course vary with the thickness and size of YOUR contraption. The smaller pies that I made did not crack like this big one did...

Rich and velvety!

Graham cracker crust - yum!

Tall Layer Cake with Piping

Another birthday cake- you can tell that I tried out my new, large piping tip this time! I'm still getting a feel for using the piping bag, and I'm having such a blast playing with it! This is a 4 tier cake, with alternating chocolate navy cake and vanilla layers.

Rustic Apple Crisp Pie

I didn't want to just make a cake for Scott's birthday, so we had a rustic apple pie- a style that my mom used to make. This crust was the best I've ever made- flaky and perfect!

Fun with Piping Bag

For some odd reason, I have never tried using a piping bag. I've always used a piping syringe with tips... So I finally bought some disposable bags and couplers, and tried it out on some cakes for work (for the August birthdays...).

A gigantic brownie chocolate cake with buttermilk buttercream frosting.

Carrot cake with cream cheese frosting.

The cream cheese frosting peaks don't hold as hard as the buttercream ones, but they sure are pretty!

Strawberry Shortcake Strawberry Cake

This weekend, I was thinking that it would be nice to bake a new kind of cake (I've been making my three standbys for awhile now--chocolate/brownie, carrot, and oranage), and thought that strawberry cake would be a good one to try.
I found this amazing, gelatin and cake mix-free strawberry cake recipe at the A Dash of Sass blog: http://adashofsass.com/2009/03/01/homemade-strawberry-cake/
I baked two large cakes (base and rounded top) along with a little 4-incher to make sure that it was delicious, which it definitely was, topped with some leftover cream cheese frosting from the fridge. No pictures of the tester- it was gone pretty quickly!

Strawberry flavored cake in the shape of a strawberry shortcake
dessert with "whipped cream" cream cheese icing.

Engagement Party Cake

We recently got to enjoy a lovely afternoon with our friends at their lawn bowling engagement party. This brownie chocolate cake is imprinted with their initials, which end up looking like "LOL" - which is an appropriate message for them to celebrate and have fun with each other for the rest of their lives.

Old School: PRL Creme Brulee

A few years ago, I brought food for a PRL lunch, which I topped off with some live creme brulee-ing action in the wood shop. What a treat. And of course, I had to bring in metal spoons for cracking the top- plastic just would not have worked...

Braided Challah

4 strand challah braid

Twilight Book Cake

This is a cake for a girl's Twilight-themed birthday party. We tried some new things, like the black marshmallow fondant from scratch. To depict the four book covers: the apple is a real apple, the parrot tulip is silk, the ribbon is satin, and the chess pieces are real chessmen.

The name lettering on the spine is cut from marzipan.

Groom Shower

A cake for a coworker's groom-shower at work.
Three tiered carrot cake with rounded edges.

Superman and Batman Cakes

Simple cakes with marzipan superhero logos.

Coconut Macaroons

Coconut macaroons with milk and dark chocolate drizzles for a friend's Seder.
These things are delish!

Scott's pretty piping

Simple Cakes

Just a few basic cakes for a monthly birthday celebration at work.

Baby Shower Cakes

Baby shower cakes. Chocolate and orange layers.
The little cakes were for the siblings of the baby-to-be.

Bridal Shower Cake

This is a tiered carrot cake for a bridal shower at work.
This was the tallest cake I had ever made, and it is clearly in need of some internal support!