Tag Archives: dessert

Crepes Suzette

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Last weekend, in anticipation of the Downton Abbey premiere, my family marathon watched the show’s first two seasons (yep, I’m still on break from school). As we watched, we came upon an episode in Season 2 where Mrs. Pattmore makes Crepes Suzette for the family. For some reason, this intrigued me, and I asked if anyone knew what exactly Crepes Suzette were. Nobody did. So I looked them up, and I found this recipe (via The Food Network and Alton Brown) and knew I had to try them. We ended up making our crepes on Sunday night, just in time to eat them while we watched Downton’s Season 3 premiere.

Crepes Suzette are soaked in and topped with a sauce of butter, sugar, and orange liquer and are amazing. The batter is a breeze to make, and the main difficulty comes in the flipping of the crepe. Naturally, that meant that I made the batter and, as with all tricky cooking challenges, gave the crepe-flipping part of the process to my dad, who did a pretty sweet job.

We followed the linked recipe with two minor modifications. First, I sprinkled some orange zest over the top, mostly to make the plate look prettier. Second, we cut the amount of butter in the sauce in half; though two sticks are pictured below, we ended up putting one back because it just seemed like way too much. Even with the butter halved, the sauce is still really rich, making the crepes a dessert best suited to occasions when you want to splurge. Other than those two things, follow the recipe and you will be golden.

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(Recipe via Food Network)

Maize + Blue Cake Pops

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As an alum, I’m probably biased, but I tend to think Michigan grads are slightly more loyal to their alma mater than your average college grad. Maybe it’s the tradition of football that heightens our loyalty to a level of crazy, but, whatever the case, loyal we are. I love how you can be on the street in any city in the world and see someone in Michigan gear (I once saw a man wearing a Michigan hat in Chefchaoeun, Morocco). And I love how when you are wearing Michigan gear, you’re fairly likely to have a random stranger shout “Go Blue!” at you.

The amount of Michigan memorabilia I own is astounding. I have enough Michigan tee shirts to avoid doing laundry for a month, if I felt inclined to wear maize & blue everyday. I have Michigan gnomes, keychains, and earrings. I even have a little Michigan sweater for my dog. Why not, then, branch out to Michigan-themed food?

These cake pops were actually a birthday request from my sister, who was in town for a football game and wanted to take them to a tailgate. I used the same method I always use for cake pops (described here, here, and here), but just added copious amounts of blue and yellow dye to the cake mix. I love how they turned out – very bright, very fun, and very Michigan.

Go blue!

Pinterest Projects: Nutella-Stuffed Chocolate Chip Cookies

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Pinterest Projects is an ongoing series wherein I attempt to justify hours wasted spent on Pinterest by making projects from some of the inspiration I find there.

Let’s talk about Nutella, shall we? When I was a young lady of 19 (eons ago), I did a summer study abroad program in Florence. I discovered many things in Italy that summer: Renaissance art, sketchy Florentine clubs, and the joys of gallon-sized wine jugs, to name a few. But the discovery my friends and I were happiest about? Nutella. The villa we lived at served it with breakfast. Every. Single. Day. As you can imagine, it was a glorious summer.

Suffice it to say, whenever I see a recipe on Pinterest that includes “Nutella” in the description, I take notice. And when I saw this recipe (pin here; original recipe from Ambitious Kitchen), it looked to die for. So I made it. And it was to die for.

The Nutella gives these cookies a wonderfully gooey center, and the sea salt is the perfect contrast to the cookie’s sweetness. These are delicious, and I’m certain I’m going to bust this recipe out again over the holidays; I need to expose as many of my family and friends to these as possible.

(Recipe via Ambitious Kitchen)

Rhubarb Pie

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When I was younger, we went to my Grandma’s house almost every week for Sunday dinner. I spent many a Sunday afternoon running around Grandma’s backyard, and one of my favorite things to do was pick the raspberries from the bushes that lined her yard. One thing I rarely paid attention to? The rhubarb she grew in her garden every year. Grandma used it mainly for rhubarb pies – a dessert she made countless times when I was younger and that I ate a grand total of zero times. What can I say? I was a picky eater as a kid. Despite my non-consumption, I always think of Grandma whenever I see rhubarb used in a recipe.

Randomly, I started thinking about all of this a few weeks ago and, in a fit of nostalgia, decided I would try my hand at a rhubarb pie. I found this recipe on Wit & Whistle and it was so simple that I knew I had to make it. And as expected, it was a breeze to make and delicious to boot.

I read a lot of cooking blogs, and I’ve seen a bunch of strawberry rhubarb recipes floating around these days. And I suppose if you don’t like your desserts too tart, those are the recipes for you. But if you don’t mind the tartness of rhubarb, my vote is to make a straight-up rhubarb pie. Be a rhubarb purist. You know you want to.

And this is how you know I don’t write one of those slick, professional food blogs – because those bloggers would never take a picture of their pie that failed to set properly and kind of fell apart. But, you know what? Still delicious. I’m calling this recipe a win, regardless.

Macarons Round One: Snickers Macarons

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(Guys, this actually looks like a real macaron! And I made it! Victory.)

Okay. As my friends could probably tell you, I’m mildly (majorly?) obsessed with macarons. This started the first time I visited Laduree (in Paris a few years ago), and continues today (via my pin board devoted entirely to macarons). This year, I made it one of my 26 for 26 goals to make macarons. As I was making them last weekend, I came to a realization and refined the goal a bit: I’m going to attempt to perfect my macaron skills this year.

Because, I’ll be honest with you: they aren’t easy to make. I knew this going in; I had read about how temperamental and tricky they were from many sources. And everything I read? It turned out to be true. So that’s the new goal – learn from my macaron mistakes, and get better over the course of the year. It’s a delicious challenge.

Round one consisted of Snickers macarons (recipe here). I made these while I was home for “spring” break, so I enlisted my mom’s help. We followed the recipe to the letter because, having never made macarons before, we weren’t in a position to experiment. The big lesson from round one? Be very diligent about getting your almonds and peanuts (for the shells) crushed finely in the food processor. In our first batch, we weren’t careful enough about this – and it led to disasters when we attempted to pipe the shells.

Our main takeaway from this round was: shells = tricky; filling = not so bad. Here’s a peek at our process:

Yep, we bought an electric scale specifically for making macarons. Dedication.

Making the shells:

Letting the shells set (and, yes, you can see the almonds we didn’t crush finely enough):

Macaron shells ready to be filled:

Making the marshmallow ganache:

Adding the peanuts and marshmallow ganache:

Adding the caramel to the filling:

Voila! Mission semi-accomplished:

Okay, okay – none of those macarons looks the same. Odd shapes, different colors, varying amounts of filling. My next goal for future macaron-making endeavors? Uniformity.

Despite the challenges, this was fun. See you for round two!

Pink Champagne Cake Pops

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I saw these cake pops (recipe from Sweetapolita) and thought they’d be perfect for an Oscar night snack – they looked classy and fabulous. Only the best for my Oscar viewing parties (okay, I didn’t have a big party. But you have to have classy Oscar snacks!)

The other thing I love about these cake pops? Everyone ooohs and aaahs over them (they do look cute and special, if I may say so), but they’re simple to make. And I don’t know about you, but I’m always looking for that ideal combination of “making me look like an awesome baker” and “requiring minimal effort on my part.” This recipe hits that sweet spot.

I followed the above-linked recipe pretty much to the tee, except for three minor things. One, I didn’t have any red food coloring, but – randomly – I found burgundy coloring paste in our pantry, so I used that. The filling of the pops wound up being almost obscenely pink, but I dug it. Two, for crumbling the cake and mixing in the frosting, I didn’t use a mixer – I put on food prep gloves and mixed it by hand. I find it easier to do that way and, honestly, more fun. Three, I didn’t have fancy gold sprinkle dust, so I improvised with pearl sprinkles I found in our cupboard and with shaved white chocolate (I put white chocolate in a handheld cheese grater; it worked surprisingly well).

Here’s a look at the process -

Making the cake batter (yep, shockingly pink):

Crumbling up the cake:

Making the frosting:

Cake balls ready to be refrigerated:

Securing the lollipop sticks with frosting:

The finished products (I ran out of white melting chocolates, so some had to be covered with regular milk chocolate):

Neopolitan trifecta:

Up-close look:

Enjoy!

I Don’t Know How to Cook (aka Margarita Cupcakes)

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Sometimes, I start to think I’m getting pretty good at this whole cooking thing. Hey, I can follow instructions and combine ingredients together and make a meal out of those ingredients! But, other times, I come up against problems that remind me that I really don’t know what the hell I’m doing here. I’m making a gallant effort, no question, but I don’t think being a chef or a baker is really in the cards for me (good thing I’m going to law school).

Case in point: margarita cupcakes. I found this recipe, and they just looked so fun and summery. I started out with the cupcakes themselves – smooth sailing there, plus I thought that brushing the warm, just-out-of-the-oven cupcakes with an alcohol glaze was kind of fun. Tequila and triple sec in my cupcakes? I’m so there.

Where it all really started to go wrong was the buttercream frosting. And by wrong, I mean that I didn’t so much wind up with frosting as I did with soup. There was nothing to be done except spoon a bit of it on each cupcake, watch it drip down the sides, and feel overwhelmed with despair.

Here’s what they looked like:

I still think they look somewhat pretty, but when you know what they are supposed to look like, it’s kind of depressing. A mound of thick, fluffy buttercream atop each? No such luck. My dad thinks I might have overbeat the frosting (it was definitely starting to form semi-stiff peaks at some point before something went terribly wrong). In any case, something was way off.

I sent the cupcakes with my mom, who was going up north to Traverse City for a mini-vacation with some of her girlfriends. She reported back that they loved the cupcakes:

And the moral of this story is that, even when you think you’ve made a grievous culinary blunder, your friends and family will probably still think your food is pretty damn good.

Pina Colada Angel Food Cake

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When it comes to dessert, I am totally a chocolate kind of girl. Given my choice, I probably would not have picked an angel food cake. But, my sister loves this cake, and I guess the whole “moving away to a different state in a week” thing will earn you your choice of dessert.

I was also pretty nervous about making an angel food cake – I’d never done one before, and the recipe instructions said it was supposed to be springy to the touch. I kept thinking this would turn out like so many of my other mishaps – frosting that doesn’t rise in stiff peaks, bread dough that doesn’t rise period, and angel food cake that isn’t springy. But…it worked! I was kind of pleased with myself. Okay, very pleased with myself.

I finished the cake off with tons of toasted coconut, and I just love that as a topper. Plus, I think it makes the cake look so pretty:

As for the taste? It’s pretty delicious. I’m still a chocolate cake kind of girl, but angel food cake just rose a few notches in my book.

Red Velvet Cupcakes

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If I were to walk into a bakery and choose a flavor of cupcake, 9 times out of 10, I would probably choose red velvet. I just love it.

Now, the thing with cupcakes is…they are not really healthy for you at all (yes, duh, I know). And the recipe I used for these isn’t exactly chock full of nutrients either. But it is a Weight Watchers recipe, so at least when you enjoy your red velvet cupcake, you can feel a little less guilty about it. You can find the recipe here.

Are these cupcakes like the red velvet ones you would find in a bakery? No, they are not. You can definitely tell they’re a lower fat version – particularly when it comes to the frosting, which you don’t get an awful lot of, and which is nothing like the super rich cream cheesy goodness that usually comes atop a red velvet cupcake. But, despite that, I REALLY like these and have made this recipe several times over the past few years.

Now doesn’t that look tasty?