Thursday, December 4, 2014

Spritz Cookies 11.30.14

I made white snowflakes with blue sprinkles, green trees with yellow sprinkles, and red ornaments with green and white sprinkles.




12 oz butter
6 ¾ oz sugar (should  1 cup-increase this next time?)
1 egg
2 T milk
1 t vanilla
1 lb 5/8 oz AP flour (next time use 1 lb)
1 t bak pwdr

Gluten free pumpkin pie 11.30.14

This came out great.  The filling is the standard filling I use from Cook’s Illustrated.  The crust is from America’s Test Kitchen’s The How Can It Be Gluten Free Cookbook.  The flour used is a mixture of white rice flour, brown rice flour, tapioca starch, xanthan gum, nonfat milk powder and potato starch.



2.5 T water
1.5 T sour cream (I used cream cheese)
1.5 t rice vingar
3 5/8 oz white rice flour
1 1/8 oz brown rice flour
1 oz potato starch
0.5 oz tapioca starch
0.5 T nonfat milk pwdr
1.5 t sugar
0.5 t salt
¼ t xanthan gum
4 oz butter

Vegan Pumpkin Pie 11.27.14

I had difficulty with this recipe.  The crust was tough because I overmixed the dough.  The pie filling was made with soaked and pureed cashews.  I could taste crunch bits in the filling, so I think I did not puree them well enough.  Maybe I could try a blender instead of a processor.  The filling had a strange gummy texture to it.


Crust: (makes 2)
10.75 oz AP flour
½ cup (more as necessary) coconut oil, cool enough to be solid
1 t salt
1 T sugar
½ c ice water

Crumble coconut oil into dry ingredients.  It will stick together when you squeeze it.  Add water, and form into a disk, adding more water if necessary to stick together.  You can roll, refrigerate or freeze at this time.  

Filling:
2 ½ cups pumpkin puree
1 cup cashews (5 oz), soaked 3+ hours and drained of soaking water
¾ cups demerara, brown, or cane sugar (5 7/8 or 6 oz)
2 T tapioca starch
2 T blackstrap molasses
1 t vanilla
1 t cinnamon
½ t dried ginger
¼ t nutmeg
pinches cloves

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Blend all pie filling ingredients in a food processor till super smooth. I processed the cashew mixture first with the sugar and molasses.  But it still came out chunky, so next time I would try using a blender.  The mixture should be quite thick, but if it's too thick you can thin it with a tablespoon or two of water or non dairy milk. Spoon into the crust, smooth over, and bake until the edges of the crust are golden brown and the filling is dark (35 to 40 minutes). Let cool for a while before serving.  I baked at 425 oven for 15 mins, then 325 oven for 30 mins.
The cashew mix had the consistency of whipped butter.  Then I added sugar and then pumpkin both with a hand mixer.

Fruit Turkey 11.23.14


Fogo de Chao 11.18.14

Fodo de Chao Brazillian Steakhouse, 200 Dartmouth St, Boston, MA

Strawberry Cream topped with Crème de Cassis.  This was such a delicious dessert.  I’m not sure if it was ice cream or cream based.  It was similar to a strawberry smoothie, but thicker and colder.



Earl’s 11.17.14

Earls Kitchen & Bar, 698 Assembly Row, Somerville, MA

Frozen White Peach Bellini at Earl’s.  Made with sangria, which made it just perfect for me. Not too sweet.



Bunny Cake 11.15.14

Made by my incredibly talented coworker, Jen.



L’espalier 11.14.14

L’espalier, 774 Boylston St, Boston, MA

Pretzel Epi!  Amazing, and salty just as I like.



Birthday Sacher Torte.  How did they know sacher cake was my favorite?




Pear sabayon with coconut-sage ice cream and dehydrated apple rings.




Truffles and apple caramel.  The caramels were individually wrapped in wax paper and they were delicious.  Just like something you’d get from EH.  The truffles had an orange filling and something about them didn’t blend with the chocolate flavour.




Macarons.  Chocolate filling.  Yum.




Lyndell’s Bakery 11.13.14

Lyndell’s, 720 Broadway, Somerville, MA

Whoopie pie with marshmallow filling and a praline cookie. The whoopie was awesome.  I loved the filling.  It was a good proportion of filling to cookie.   And I love marshmallow so it was perfect for me.  The praline cookie had a nice crisp texture, but the flavor wasn’t my preference.




Budino at Gusto 11.9.14

Gusto, 15 Collegeview Ave, Poughkeepsie, NY

This is the butterscotch budino at Gusto.  Garnished with crème fraiche, toasted shaved coconut, and sea salt.  An absolutely perfect dessert.



Sponge Cake with Apple Cider Jam and Cream Cheese Frosting 11.4.14

The sponge cake recipe is from Baking Illustrated.  It came out great.  Excellent texture.  The Apple Cider Jam has the consistency of a simple syrup so it’s great for soaking into sponge cake.





For the cream cheese frosting:
12 oz cream cheese
4 oz butter
1 2/3 c powdered sugar

Sunday, November 30, 2014

Minty ice cream 10.28.14

This ice cream was a bit too eggy.  I used a mix of dried mint and fresh mint.  The taste was a little leafy.



8 yolks
6 oz sugar
1 c milk
2 c heavy cream
1/3 cup fresh mint leaves
1 t dried mint leaves

Debra’s Natural Gourmet 10.20.14

Debra’s Natural Gourmet, 98 Commonwealth Ave, Concord, MA

I was lured here by a job posting.  It’s a great store with a lot of natural products.  These crispy rice squares were my favorite.  Ingredients: Organic Erewhorn puffed brown rice cereal, almonds, apricots, brown rice syrup, almond butter, vanilla, nutmeg, cinnamon, sea salt.



This is the vanilla pistachio dream bar.  Also good and a more dense texture than the crispy rice bar.  The flavors are very clear, so if you like vanilla and pistachios, this is the bar for you.



Pumpkin maple cake.   The texture on this cake was a little gummy, so it wasn’t my favorite.   The frosting was very good though.



QBC cookies 10.17.14

Celebrating the two year anniversary of the Belmont store with some Quebradaman themed cookies.  The cookie press I made was a little too shallow, so the impression is not too clear.  The recipe is Cookie House Dough from Better Homes and Gardens 100 Best Cookies publication.  The cookies are very dense and tough.  They taste similar to a nilla wafer.  I would like to incorporate color into these cookies to make them a brighter way to show a logo on a cookie.




Kadayif 10.13.14

Mediterranean bakery, across from 905 Mass Ave, Arlington, MA

This is a new bakery, opening about a month ago.



This is their Kadayif.  It tastes a little like Baklava, although the texture is like crispy noodles.  It’s the first time I’ve had it, so it’s hard to describe.  The ingredients listed are Kadayif, butter, oil, walnuts, cinnamon, and sugar.  So I suppose it’s not like baklava at all since there is no honey.  But this was a great desert.

Angelina’s Pastry 10.13.14

Angelina’s Pastry, 1193A Mass Ave, Arlington, MA

I tried the Cannoli cupcake.  The frosting tasted like cannoli filling.  The cake was a little dry.



Mocha Ice Cream 10.6.14

The mocha ice cream was delicious. I used the recipe from Ben & Jerry’s Ice cream book.  Perfect flavour.



Apple Cider Jelly cocktails 10.2.14

Equal parts Apple Cider Jelly and Cognac.  An apple slice and dash of cinnamon for garnish.  Maybe add extra lemon juice next time.



Apple Cider Jelly ( I made ¼ x batch)
8 c apple cider
1.75 oz fruit pectin
4 apples diced
4 c sugar
2T apple pie spice

Apple Pie Spice
4T cinnamon
1T all spice
2 t nutmeg
1 ½ t ginger

Cook cider, pectin and apple until boiling.  Add sugar and cook to 220. Stir in spices and pour into jars. You can freeze or can this jelly. If jelly is too thick, return to heat and add 2 T for each cup of jelly until mixture comes together.

I haven't been able to figure out this recipe yet.  I can only get the mixture to 212 even after boiling for over 45 mins.  So this cocktail is an effort to save some of this jelly, since I can't use it for much now.  It is liquid.

Pumpkin Pie for the Masses 9.30.14

I made crusts for these out of a mixture of graham cracker crust, granola and an oat crust.  The pie filling I used was from Baking Illustrated using evaporated milk.



Chocolate Avocado pudding 9.30.14

I found this recipe online and the texture of the pudding is perfect, but I could still taste the avocado so I will try tweaking this recipe. I added more cocoa powder and honey, but the balance was not quite right yet.



1 avocado
2T cocoa
1T honey
1T agave
¼ t vanilla
1/4  t instant coffee
3T almond milk

Next time try the same recipe with ½ an avocado.

Quick Apple Strudel 9.21.14

Absolutely amazing and delicious.  This recipe is from Baking Illustrated and uses phyllo dough.  The dough was a little hard to work with (it kept ripping a lot, but I think defrosting it a room temperature was too tough on it).  I forgot to sprinkle sugar on the phyllo layers for the first one, but luckily it didn’t shatter. The apples amazingly cook in only 15 minutes.



Birthday Cupcakes 9.13.14

Playstation and Patriot themed cupcakes! The cake is Devil’s Food Cake from Cook’s Illustrated.  The flavor of the cake was good but it was soufflé like in texture and made it hard to bake correctly.  I think I’ll only use this recipe for Cakes, not cupcakes.  The frosting was a swiss meringue from Gisslen.
This frosting was cloyingly sweet and very butter.  It had great texture, but was very dense.  Perhaps I’ll try sticking with Italian meringues once I get a kitchen aid .




Orange Jam Oatmeal Bars for the masses 9.2.14

This recipe is from Better Homes and Gardens Baking.  The crumble and crust are the same recipe.




La Patisserie 8.22.14

La Patisserie, 30 Church street, Winchester, MA

The yellow cake was good, maybe a bit dry.   The frosting was very sweet and tasted more like shortening than butter.  I really like the look of this cupcake.



Peach Crisp for the masses 8.6.14

I started by using the recipe from Baking Illustrated, however I didn’t add the tapioca starch and blueberries which I should have since the mixture was very soupy.  After baking there was a lot of melted butter on top of the crisp.  I had wished the topping was more crispy instead of so buttery and soggy.



Bellmont Caffe 8.5.14

Bellmont Caffe, 80 Leonard St, Belmont, MA

On my search for great NY style bagels, I tried a bagel from Bellmont Caffe which advertises bagels from montreal.  These bagels were slightly sweet.



Harpoon Brewery 8.3.14

Harpoon Brewery, 306 Northern Ave, Boston, MA

The soft pretzels were delicious!  My favorite was the plain pretzel with the marinara sauce.  I had the UFO beer flight and the raspberry was my favorite.




Mixx 7.31.14

Mixx, 66 Brighton Ave, Allston, MA

Lychee yogurt!


Stuffed squash blossoms 7.21.14

What a find at the West Newton farmer’s market.  I love stuffed squash blossoms, and this recipe is dairy free.



½ cup pine nuts, soaked in hot water at least 2 hours (pressed through garlic press 1 T at a time)
1 ½ t Dijon mustard
3 T water
1 T apple cider vinegar
1 T plus 1 ½ t lemon juice
1 garlic clove, minced
2 T fresh basil
1 T fresh parsley
Leaves from 1 sprig fresh tyme
Combine all ingreadients in a food processor.  Taste and add salt and pepper.  (Was a little vinegary last time , use less vinegar or lemon juice next time?) Let macerate at least 30 minutes in the fridge.
Rinse blosoms and remove stamens. Make a slit in each flower and fill with about 1T of cheese.  Twist flowers closed and brush with olive oil and sprinkle with salt.  Bake 425 about 15 minutes.

Ben and Jerry’s 7.6.14

Ben & Jerry's, 1281 Waterbury Stowe Rd, Waterbury, VT

Lemon liz. Yum.



Nicolette’s wedding 7.5.14

A beautiful tiered fondant cake.   Yellow layer cake was served with chocolate drizzle.  Quilted pattern design on the fondant dotted with rhinestones.




La Chocolaterie du Village 7.4.14

La Chocolaterie du Village, L’art du chocolat, 888 rue St-Lois Quebec J6W 1J9, Terrebonne

Chocolate shop in Terrebonne.  The chocolates were delicious.  The chocolate enrobing was thin and crisp, just like EH.  Feuittine, ice wine, and a third flavour, but I forgot.




Terrebonne farmers market 7.4.14

Terrebonne farmers market, Québec, Canada

This was a maple beignet from a food truck at the market.



King Arthur Baguette 7.3.14

King Arthur Bakery, 135 US Route 5 South, Norwich, VT

With the likeliness of Clear Flour or Iggy’s this baguette was superb.  So crispy and great flavour.



Strawberry Shortcake for the masses 6.30.14

Strawberry Shortcake! A slightly sweet biscuit, topped with macerated sliced strawberries and creme chantilly.





I made these in lasagna pans.  Recipe from baking illustrated.
The shortcake is slightly sweet.
10 oz AP flour
2.25 oz sugar
1T bak pwdr
½ t salt
4 oz butter
1 large egg
½ c plus 1 T whole milk (or half and half cream)

I sliced strawberries and added some sugar to macerate.  For shortcake, blend flour, 3 T sugar, bak pwdr and salt.  Add butter pieces and pulse until coarse meal.  Mix egg with milk and pour into flour mixture.  Mix until dough holds together.  Lightly knead on floured work surface.  Pat dough into 9 by 6 inch rectangle and cut 2 ¾ in rounds with cutter.  Brush top with beaten egg white and sprinkle sugar.  Bake 12-14 minutes until nice golden brown.  (dough can sit in fridge for up to 2 hours).  Top with strawberries and sweetened whipped cream.


Masonic Museum 6.7.14

Scottish Rite Masonic Museum & Library, 33 Marrett Road, Lexington, MA

Scottish Rite Ice Cream Mold