Wild Bluberry Pie

The girls and I have been picking blueberries from a local farm by the gallon full.  The farm is this quaint little house with field behind.  They house chickens for eggs and turkeys for breeding.  Luck us, a clutch hatched the first day we picked and the Mallory’s let us climb in the pen and hold the cute little babies.  We do enjoy the farm life, especially Kaighty.  Back to the kitchen, with all those berries and company coming over, it was decided we needed to make a Wild Blueberry Pie!   I have never actually made a pie from scratch before (with out my mother in the room), so I headed to one of my favorite books for a recipe.  In the Sweet Kitchen by Regan Daley is an amazing book, almost an encyclopedia for bakers, and only half full of recipes.  It is one of my favorite kitchen treasures.  The pie took most of the morning to make, or the crust rather.  This recipe called for lard in the crust, which was a new ingredient to me. This definitely made my crust very flaky and delicious!

When removed from the oven, the blueberry goodness was bubbling up from the slits in the pie, and releasing the most wonderful smell.  Oh pie, how I love thee!   Served at room temperature with wild blueberry home-churned ice cream was divine!  Thanks Regan for a great book full of amazing recipes and kitchen knowledge!

Dogs, dogs, and more dogs for Lili

This was a great cake.  Kaighty’s little friend Lili from school turned 5 in May.  Her mother had always made her birthday cakes up until now.  After Kaight’ys 5th birthday party, which Lili attended, she decided that her mother made tasty cakes, “they just weren’t as pretty as Kaighty’s cake”.   Luckily her Mom is not nearly as sensitive as I am, because that would have broke my heart.   Lili’s mother order a Strawberry Cake with Cream-cheese Icing, and dogs.  That was my only guide, dogs.  Lili loves all dogs.  I decided a plaque was n order.

I have been sewing with Heather Ross fabric lately.  I know what your thinking.  What does that have to do with baking?  A lot.  She has this really cute fabric line called lightning bugs and other mysteries.   There is this supper cute print with dogs randomly placed all over pale blue fabric.  This was my inspiration for Lili’s cake.  Lili turned 5, Lili got 5 dogs.

The strawberry cake was totally organic, and light (not fat free).  I used a gallon of freshly picked strawberries from our local u-pick farm, Southern Grace Farms.  The girls and I  love to pick fresh berries.  The cake is made with vegetable oil instead of butter, and was very moist and delicious.  The filling was a very rich, almost pure cream cheese (no powdered sugar here).  Topped with a  light cream cheese buttercream.

Little Pet Shop Cake Plaque

My very dear friend asked me to make a cake for her daughters 6th birthday this year.  She loves Pet Shop and does not eat cake.  Hum, I thought, how do I solve this problem? She does however, love chocolate chip cookies.  So I made two plaques from fondant and used a technique called run out to draw on her favorite Pet Shop kitty.  One was place on the half chocolate chiffon cake, half white trillium, and the other was placed on top of a cookie stack.  They turned out very well and the birthday girl was very pleased!

American Cheesecake

The April 2009 challenge is hosted by Jenny from Jenny Bakes. She has chosen Abbey’s Infamous Cheesecake as the challenge.

We love cheesecake, the hubby and I.  This challenge was definitely for us, but not a challenge in the least.  I have over the past few years perfected my cheesecake baking process to a T, so that is now the easy part.  That leaves me plenty of time to do what I love, alter the recipe.  Thankfully this month we could do just that, Jenny even encouraged us to “alter” the recipe and make it our own.  I am calling this one American Cheesecake.  It takes diversity to make it work, and oh how it works!

Kaighty was my assistant daring baker for this challenge, as she was on spring break.  We first crushed 20 Oreo cookies in a bag (counting to 20 is my 5 year olds speciality).  Added the butter, spread the mixture in the pan and baked our crust for about 10 minutes.  Now to mix the base recipe.  I used Abby’s recipe but added a few extras such as flour and one more block of cream cheese, as well as omitted the lemon juice.  Once we had our base mixed up, I poured 2/3rds of it into our cooled spring-form pan and crust.  The we doctored up the last third with some instant espresso and a smidge of cocoa powder.

To ensure and even layer, I pipped on the espresso layer.  Into the oven it went, for about an hour and half.  I do open the oven door long enough to test the cheese cake, then close it back up and turn it off.  I leave it in the oven until the cake is at room temperature, this will prevent a crack in the top.  I realize I am about to top mine, so a crack could be covered.  At this point I carefully remove the cake from the pan, then put it right back in the pan.  pour the prepared ganache over it and place it in the fridge overnight.

Overnight is the key to a good cheesecake.  For some reason it continues to meld together and comes to it’s creamiest point at about 36 hours out of the oven.  Don’t skip this step, as it is crucial for optimum taste!

The following evening, we cut and served it.  My girls ate the ganache off the top, and that was it.  The hubby and me, oh, we ate the whole thing, it was divine.  Like fresh cold watermelon in the summer, just amazing on your tongue!  Thank you Jenny, it was a wonderful challenge and a wonderful April in our house!

Cup Cakes for Kaighty’s Class

I baked these delicious cup cakes for Kaightlyn’s school birthday party.  Her fellow pre-K students and teachers loved the moist chocolate chiffon and strawberry cakes topped with my light swiss buttercream icing!  Oh to turn 5 again, and have the world at your finger tips!  Happy Birthday Lover!

Lasagne, Daring Bakers March 2009

Better late than never, right?   March is always a huge month for us, and I just could not find the time until yesterday to make this months challenge.   The March 2009 challenge is hosted by Mary of Beans and Caviar, Melinda of Melbourne Larder and Enza of Io Da Grande. They have chosen Lasagne of Emilia-Romagna from The Splendid Table by Lynne Rossetto Kasper as the challenge.  I have made fresh pasta many times and really love it, so I was supper excited with this challenge.  Hence the late production and post.

Avery and I dropped Kaighty off at school and headed strait for the store for the last few fresh goods I needed.  Then I began chopping, wow was that a lot of cutting.  Other bakers had noted they were short on the Country Style Ragu’ , so I made 1.25 times the original recipe.   It did take quiet a while to complete the Ragu’, but man o man was it worth it!

I mixed up my dough for the Spinach Egg Pasta by hand.  Then I read the next step, kneed for 10 full minutes.  Ah, I am a weakling from America who is so used to gadgets I could never muster up enough to kneed for 10 minutes.  Into the Kitchen Aid it went and my dough hook took over, good thing too, it took almost 15 minutes to “come alive”.  So worth it, look how beautiful it is, the most gorgeous shade of emerald.

On to the Bechamel, which was supper easy and very tasty.  I will definitely double this portion of the recipe next time.

I had let the pasta dough rest on the stove, as it was a chilly day and the cool dough was sticking to my pasta press.  The stretching and thinning of the pasta took almost and hour, it was a long process.

Then on to the boiling, cooling and drying.  I had things to do and was rushing through the assembly process and only managed to cook half of my noodles, so my lasagna is very short.  However, it melted in our mouth and was divine.  I can’t honestly say I would change a thing about this recipe.  I almost like it more than our American Lasagna with caned sauce, dried pasta,  ricotta and tones of mozzarella!  Thank you for a wonderful challenge Mary, Melinda, and Enza!

Check out the new Daring Bakers Website here.

To view the recipe for this challenge, click on more.

Dr. Seuss Dessert Contest results are in…..

One of the 1/2 sheet cakes the Library ordered for the community to eat if there were not enough desserts entered in the contest.

There were five entries in the competition. The panel of judges were:

• Myrna Ballard – President of the Chamber of Commerce
• Amy Carter – Georgia State Representative
• Sue Cox – Owner of Covingtons
• Mayor Fretti – Mayor of Valdosta
• Kay Harris – Editor of the Valdosta Daily Times

First place was The Cat in the Hat cookies made by 3 local children.

My cake took second place.

For my competition cake, I made a two-tier cake.  The base layer was an eight inch, three-layer white cake with Swiss butter cream filling. The second tier was a six inch, three-layer chocolate chiffon cake with Swiss butter cream filling.  I covered the cakes in a pale-blue fondant to match my Dr. Seuss’s theme of black, white, red and blue, just like the original book Horton Hears a Who! Earlier in the week, I made Horton and Vlad Vladikoff with white fondant and hand painted them in Seuss style, pen and ink.  Once the cake was assembled, I added the Jungle of Newell to the base layer, Horton’s pond, and foliage in white, red, pink, and royal blue.  To the second layer, I added the field of  clovers, the mountains Horton climbs in an effort to save his clover, and of course, Vlad with Horton’s clover.  The entire cake took about nine hours to make and was by far the best piece I had ever produced.

Click here to see a picture of my daughter,Avery and myself after the competition in our local newspaper!

Progress Report, Dr. Seuss Competition

I am going to be providing cake for the community to eat at our local library for a Dr. Seuss birthday party this Saturday.  If you live in Valdosta, please stop by for stories, games, bounce houses, and of course, cake!  The celebration is at the Valdosta-Lowndes County Library on March 7th from 1-3pm.

Now on to the good news, they are also hosting a dessert contest.  Not exactly a cake contest, however it is the first contest I will have entered.  I am quiet beside myself with excitement.  The only rule is to “create a dessert item that is Seuss-like”, how hard can that be?  My theme is Dr. Seuss’ book Horton Hears a Who! for all 3 cakes.  Yes that is right, 3.  Two sheet cakes for the community and 1 contest cake.  I am planning a two layer wonky cake.  This will be my first wonky attempt so we’ll see how it goes.  I though I should post my progress, as I have been working on this all week.  I hope to see you at the contest, and hope you enjoy my cake.  I will post the results Sunday!

The List— WOW—

Have you ever bought $30 worth of butter?  At one time?  Now I have.  I seriously need to find a supplier!

This is 18 egg whites and 3 cups of sugar in my double boiler (home made of course)!

The meringue almost spilled over the side of my 6 Quart bowl!

Four quarts of Seuss blue.

The mountains Vlad flew over.

The one and only Black-bottomed eagle, Vlad Vlad-i-koff.

Lastly but not least, the honorable Horton, whom we all can take a valuable lesson from……

“A person’s a person, no matter how small.”

Chocolate Valentino Raspberry Zuccotto

This challenge was a challenge, as I have been with out a working oven for almost 3 weeks now!  I had made my ice cream base last week and was wondering if I would ever get to process it.  Luckily my angle (the carpenter), came and installed my new oven this past Monday.  It was an ordeal to say the least, cut our old oven and base unit, move a cabinet, rewire the wall, remove and cut down counter top, reinstall and slide in new oven.  But alas it is done and I am BAKING again!  We love cake and ice cream in our house.  So much, if our Netfix arrives and we no ice cream, someone has to run out for some Ben and Jerry’s or Breyers.  I make a lot of home made ice cream now that I have the kitchen-aid ice cream attachment.  This is by far the best batch of fruit ice cream I have ever made.  Recipe to follow.  This all being said, I settled on a Zuccotto: is an Italian dessert with origins in Florence, a semi-frozen, chilled dessert made with brandy, cake and ice cream. I did however omit the brandy and replaced it with Ganache, my third favorite thing.  I made the cakes in 6″ rounds, this recipe made enough batter for two 6″ cakes.  The cake was so incredible easy to make.  Who would not love a 3 ingredient recipe?  The cake came out of the oven, and I had to shave some off just for a taste.  Ah, what bliss, like velvet chocolate on your tongue.  Marvelous.  I processed my raspberry ice cream and then pressed it into 1/2 round 6″ moulds and froze them overnight.  Lastly I made the ganache, assembled my layers and poured the cooled ganache over the cake.  I then popped it back in the “blast chiller” for a final 30 minutes before cutting.  Served with fresh raspberries, this desert was divine and will be made in my home again, very soon!  We give this 4 hearts, our highest rated Darring Bakers challenge.  Thank you to our hosts.

The February 2009 challenge is hosted by Wendy of WMPE’s blog and Dharm of Dad ~ Baker & Chef.
We have chosen a Chocolate Valentino cake by Chef Wan; a Vanilla Ice Cream recipe from Dharm and a Vanilla Ice Cream recipe from Wendy as the challenge.

My girls were present during my photo shot, and wanted to taste so badly.  If you can imagine me saying over and over “please stay back for just 1 more minute, this is mommies important project”, until they could stand it no more…….

Dual Cakes

These cakes were commissioned for the Lowndes Youth Leadership League, or LYLL, by G. Green.  She needed to feed 30 teenagers cake after a long day at camp.  I was given full leeway and opted for two cakes.  Teens tend to be picky, and this would give me an opportunity to please everyone.  The first cake was my Traditional White Cake with Swiss Alps Buttercream and was filled with a layer of Cream Cheese Buttercream.  The second cake was my Chocolate Chiffon Cake with Mocha Buttercream and was filled with a layer of Dark Chocolate Ganache.  A snail trail graced the bottom of both cakes set atop textured card-stock basses. They were both adorned with hand made shimmering flowers in brown and white, about 200 each.  I believe they were quiet stunning when paired together.