Tag: dessert

Another Cupcake Heard From

No falling sprinkles today but one good cupcake leads to another.  My sister said cupcakes aren’t her favorite as the frosting is disproportionate to the amount of cake involved but many people are crazy for cupcakes.  I have seen a line around the corner on Bleecker Street at the Magnolia Bakery, many times.

A couple of weeks ago on a Monday, I went to a friend’s house and these chocolate cupcakes were the dessert.  Here is the recipe for Chocolate Heaven with Chocolate Buttercream.

I’m on a team for the Biggest Loser at work and we weigh in every Monday morning.  Good thing I had the rest of the week to try to make up for the indulgence.

I looked through the cookbook where J got the recipe from and everything sounded enticing.  Old fashioned baking with plenty of real ingredients. From Savannah Georgia, the  Back in the Day Bakery  is the name of the cookbook.  J had heard the owners, Cheryl and Griffith Day,  featured on the radio show Splendid Table.    Their specialty?  Vintage Desserts!

Chocolate Cupcake

Music and Chocolate Cake in Zagreb, Croatia

So I got home from my weekend in Ohio, Sunday night with no chance to photograph the neighborhood for the weekly photo challenge as it was dark outside.  Changing the clocks didn’t help me with enough light by the time I pulled in the driveway

-but in my inbox I found a message  from my son Matthew who lives in Zagreb, Croatia (9 years already!)

The  subject of his email:  Guest blog 🙂                  The dilemma of what to post?                    SOLVED!

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Dear Ma, 
Yesterday I spent the evening with the Kaplowitz family.  My dear friend Joe Kaplowitz is pretty much the only American I know over here and he invited me over for an American-style chocolate cake.  Not only is he a brilliant jazz musician but he is quite an accomplished baker to boot!  His beautiful wife Lela is a marvelous singer and they recently came out with a big-band album of original compositions called With Every Breath that you can hear (and buy!) here
 
After enjoying a generously-sized hunk of cake chased by a glass of milk, Joe, Lela, their daughter Lucija and I played a cut-throat game of Name That Tune. Lucija is also a budding musician, so as you might imagine the competition was pretty stiff.  Then we headed to the parlor for a concert.  Joe and Lucija, who plays the violin, teamed up for a set of traditional Croatian melodies played over some soulful blues piano.  
Perhaps I was witnessing the concept for the next album being born.
Joe’s cake was so tasty that I plan to go back over tomorrow for another sliver.  
In keeping with the spirit of the blog, will get the recipe tomorrow and send it to you!
 
Love, Matthew
p.s. Here is the recipe, just in from Zagreb this morning    

 
only got 3 stars but i thought it was fabulous!

Kaplowitz Family

 
 

Raspberries and Blueberries on Vanilla Häagen-Dazs

Accompanied by ginger snaps!

This is the dessert my friend V served at a lovely home cooked dinner last Saturday.  It was delicious.  A generous helping, too.

A nice finish to a simply perfect meal. Walleye caught by Cousins Jeff and Jeffrey, a baked sweet potato and salad with whisked lemon juice and olive oil dressing.  Found this in my phone tonight and was thinking about how everything was so good.  She said she was following the same idea my mother used to profess-  Buy the best food you can and do as little to it as possible.  Good advice.

The Pamela’s Ginger Mini Snapz are gluten free and quite tasty.    Hope you have a good day Saturday.  HBTY!

Bowl of Ice Cream and Fruit

Christmas Mice to Admire and Eat

Guest Blog from Euthemia where my sister is spending the Christmas holidays.

Her friend Joanne brought these to Christmas dinner . Euthemia emailed me the photo of them and then I wrote back to ask if it would be okay to post.  Directions below.  Thanks Euthemia and Joanne. photo-5

 

 

Here are the instructions for making the chocolate cherry mice from Joanne Maier of Glenmont, New York.  
They were a great hit at the holiday table.  

 
24 Maraschino cherries with stems
Waxed paper
1/2 cup chocolate chips
24 Hershey’s Kisses, unwrapped
48 almond slices (match pairs by size)
Icing – 1 cup confectioner’s sugar, 1 teaspoon of water
Black food coloring
Red food coloring
Drain cherries, pat dry. Cherries, unwrapped kisses and paired ears need to be lined up ahead of time on a cookie sheet covered in waxed paper.  Microwave chocolate chips 15 seconds at a time until melted. Be careful not to burn the chocolate.    Hold the cherry by stem, dip and swirl til covered in chocolate, put on the side so tail sticks out and on the front, push on a Kiss to make the head.  Where the Kiss meets the cherry, put in the two ears, and keep doing it until you finish.  Make icing, take a small amount and add black food coloring, another small amount for red food coloring, and the rest will stay white.  Put icing into 3 different baggies and cut a tiny hole in the corner of the bag.  Make the eyes white with a black dot in the middle, and use the pink for a nose.

Jim, the Baker at Slippery Rock

Field trip today with high school students, exploring  Slippery Rock Univeresity. The weather was almost like early Spring if you can believe it.

At lunch the kids were thrilled with the fare in the Boozel Dining Hall. Especially the desserts. Jim  the baker was gracious and allowed me to photograph him and his cupcakes but I was shooting into the window light so he allowed me to take another.  His coworker said he is already famous.  He told me he comes from England, or at least his forbears did.  It was crowded and loud and we had to catch the bus back to school. I wish I had gotten more info, how he became a baker and how long he has worked at the university. Thanks Jim!

What a great day the students had, touring and visiting the library and  a dorm room and trying out the climbing rock wall and pool, eating in the dining hall.

First photo taken with the iPhone.

And the middle portrait shot with Canon 5D with a 24-70mm L lens, available light,no flash ISO 400  f /4  shutter 100 

Final cupcakes photo with the Canon 5D as well. When you compare the first and third cupcakes you know you need your camera at all times.

Jim the baker with cupcakes

Jim the baker

cupcakes

Cheesecake Pie Made with Coconut Palm Sugar

Some of the family is eating gluten-free.  You might have seen the crumbled cake top from the other day (which was delicious)

And the family is trying to reduce intake of  refined sugar.  I wanted to bake something they could eat if they wanted to do so.

My mother used to make this with regular sugar when I was growing up. I just switched to the coconut palm for the body of the cheesecake pie and used a bit of maple syrup for the sour cream topping. I used FULL FAT cream cheese and sour cream. Some free-range organic eggs

I made this for Saturday night after Thanksgiving

This is a crustless pie.  Not too sweet.  It looks like it has a brown crust but it is just the butter browning the edge and the color of the coconut palm sugar.  It’s an iPhone photo today.

Here is the recipe.

Butter a glass pie plate.  Heat the oven to 325 degrees.  I baked this one at 350 and the electric oven  where I was staying is hotter and faster than mine at him and I think it was too hot for it. I think that is why it had more cracks than usual.

Mix well  2 -8 oz. packages of cream cheese (room temp)  with 3/4 c coconut palm sugar

Add 3 eggs. Beat well.  Add 1/2 teaspoon pure almond extract. Mix.

Pour into the buttered pie plate.  Bake for 45 minutes.

Take out of oven and let it sit for about 5 minutes, it will deflate and a crater will form for the topping, forming a “crust” without crumbs.

Spread on a topping mixture of  1 c sour cream, 3/4 teaspoon vanilla and 2 Tablespoons pure maple syrup

Bake for 5 more minutes.

Cool. Serve with sour cherries or fresh blueberries or strawberries or eat plain. Put it in the fridge when cool.

Bake until knife comes out clean in center