This might be the most unattractive cake I’ve ever made, which is both disappointing and hilarious.
Disappointing because the pictures from the recipe I based it on are quite pretty, but somehow it didn’t translate (more on that later).
Hilarious because, as my darling Nate pointed out when he went to cut himself a piece, the bananas look like penises (yup, I just said that).
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Apparently making cupcakes only once in a month is not enough cupcakes. Obviously. Also, I saw this frosting technique done somewhere (I forget where) and was looking for any excuse to try it out.
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A good friend of ours had a milestone birthday this week, and to celebrate we got together with a bunch of good people for some Neapolitan style pizza at Pizzeria Prima Strada last weekend. I offered to make Aaron a cake, but unfortunately you can’t take a homemade cake into a restaurant… so instead I made cupcakes that we devoured in the parking lot after dinner.
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I almost never buy buttermilk, but a few weeks ago I had some in the fridge (leftover from making these) and was looking for ways to use it up. Scones jumped into my head because I also happened to have some lemon curd to use up, and there is practically nothing I like better than scones with lemon curd.
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Sarah from All Our Fingers in the Pie was our February 2013 Daring Bakers’ host and she challenges us to use our creativity in making our own Crisp Flatbreads and Crackers!
I had some trouble getting into this month’s challenge. I don’t eat a lot of crackers in the first place, so the desire to make them myself isn’t that strong, I guess. I kind of feel like I phoned this one in, which sucks because I also know how much work our host, Sarah, put into choosing, testing, and presenting the challenge recipes. So please don’t judge this challenge by my lack of enthusiasm. Instead, check out the amazing assortment of crispy, crunchy snacks the other Daring Bakers made this month.
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Valentine’s Day. An excuse for heart-shaped baking. I’m in!
Lemon is my favorite sweet/dessert flavour second only to chocolate, but it’s hard to buy decent lemon baked goods. I hate fake lemon even more than I love real lemon, and unfortunately most of the time, store-bought lemon-flavoured things are pretty dreadful. So in the case of lemon, it’s best to take matters into your own hands.
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There is a restaurant in Victoria called Pagliacci’s that is famous for its focaccia bread: light, fluffy, chewy, flavourful, and baked in olive oil so that the crust is both crunchy and almost buttery at the same time. I know several people who go there just for the bread (myself included), and it stands to reason that making a Pagliacci’s taste-alike focaccia was on my List.
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I always forget about Bread Baking Day, but this month it is being hosted by Jenni of the Gingered Whisk, so I made the effort to participate. The theme Jenni chose this month is bread with a decorated crust. I’ve been inspired by the gorgeous loaves of bread on this blog for a long time so this was the perfect opportunity to give it a try.
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Francijn of Koken in de Brouwerij was our January 2013 Daring Bakers’ Hostess and she challenged us to make the traditional Dutch pastry, Gevulde Speculaas from scratch! That includes making our own spice mix, almond paste and dough! Delicious!
I had just posted about the speculaas I made for Christmas, so it was like déjà vue to read that the Daring Bakers challenge this month was speculaas. But these ones are different: they are gevulde speculass, which means they are stuffed with almond paste to make more of a dense, crumbly cake than a cookie. Interestingly, the dough for gevulde speculaas is essentially the same as the dough as for making speculaas cookies, but you end up with something completely different. And as much as I like regular speculaas, turns out that I loooooove gevulde speculaas, and I implore you to make these as soon as possible!
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Sometimes I swear that Jenni and Shelley, the ladies behind Sourdough Surprises, are inside my head, reading my thoughts. I was just contemplating baking all my leftover Christmas chocolate into brioche buns when they announced that January’s Sourdough Surprises recipe was going to be just that: sourdough brioche swirled with chocolate and topped with struesel, also known as babka.
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