Battenberg

Mandy of What The Fruitcake?! came to our rescue last minute to present us with the Battenberg Cake challenge! She highlighted Mary Berry’s techniques and recipes to allow us to create this unique little cake with ease.

To be totally honest, I'd never heard of Battenberg Cake before now. Obviously I've been missing something because when I took it in to my dojo, everyone seemed super excited. I think it was the fun checkered pattern; had them all impressed. I tried explaining it to them, that as long as you followed the set steps, it really wasn't that bad to make. They didn't believe me. But before this challenge, I probably wouldn't have believed me either.

The individual parts didn't seem so bad. Make cake. Cut it up. Glue it back together with jam. Cover with marzipan.

The Marzipan is what gave me pause. My experience with marzipan, both eating and making, is basically none. I didn't know what it was supposed to taste like (one would presume almonds) or what the texture was supposed to be. So obviously I decided to make it instead of search it out in a store.

The cake part of the Battenberg came together pretty easily (and the batter tasted pretty good too!) The biggest thing was jerry rigging the 8x8 pan into a Battenberg making pan. And even that wasn't too difficult thanks to the tips from Mandy.

Now, back to that whole marzipan thing. Yeah... I tried. I really did. My homemade attempt ended up being this crumbly pile of almond-y stuff. Tasty. But definitely not how it was supposed to end up. I assume it had something to do with the sugar/egg white syrup, but who really knows. I thought about trying it again. I even went back to the store to buy more ingredients. And as I was walking down the baking aisle I saw out of the corner of my eye this box. It said marzipan on it... I bet you can guess what ended up in my basket.

Overall I was pretty happy with how things turned out. I kinda wish I'd stuck it through and made the marzipan, but it's probably better for my sanity that I didn't.

Challah

May’s Daring Bakers’ Challenge was pretty twisted – Ruth from The Crafts of Mommyhood challenged us to make challah! Using recipes from all over, and tips from “A Taste of Challah,” by Tamar Ansh, she encouraged us to bake beautifully braided breads.

I'd never made Challah before. Actually, I'd never even had Challah before this past Thanksgiving. Hard to believe given my great love of bread. But there you go.

I had to wait to make this as for the past month I've been in the process of moving. Things were packed, I lost my internet access for a bit, etc. etc. This is also the reason why last months' challenge, Nazook, just went up as well. Sorry y'all.

So I broke in my new kitchen with Challah; the first of many wonderful things to be made here, I'm sure. I was a little nervous as I am switching back to electric after years of having a gas oven. I think things turned out pretty well. 

I used the whole wheat Challah recipe that was provided by our host this month. The recipe was easy to follow; though it was missing where to add the salt. Which I then proceeded to completely forget about until I started kneading the dough. I added it in at that point, and the bread still came out nicely.

I attempted a 3-strand and a 4-strand braid. They both came out ok, though I'm still not positive I understand how the 4-strand braid was supposed to go.

Though time consuming, this is definitely something I will want to make again. And while I can just knock back a whole loaf of bread plain, I decided to make some french toast instead...

Nazook

The Daring Bakers’ April 2012 challenge, hosted by Jason at Daily Candor, were two Armenian standards: nazook and nutmeg cake. Nazook is a layered yeasted dough pastry with a sweet filling, and nutmeg cake is a fragrant, nutty coffee-style cake.

Yes, I am super super late with this. I've been in the process of moving for over a month now (finally done!), and was a little distracted. Seeing as how I was already late with Daring Bakers for April, I chose to do just the Nazook. I do plan on, don't quote me on this though, to go back and try the nutmeg cake at some point.

The recipe came together quickly enough. And the hardest part for me was muscling my way through the refrigerated dough to get it rolled out. I split the work between two days; making the dough on Friday and finishing them up on Saturday. Though one day would be plenty to make these if you have a decent stretch of time.

I was kind of meh on these at first. I tried one fresh, and was underwhelmed. I tried one the next day and thought, well, maybe I can get used to these. By the third day they were growing on me. So if you don't like them right away, let them age a few days and try them again.

Chinese Three-Spice Almond Crescent Cookies

A friend of mine left for a six month teaching gig in China this week, and in order to send her off in style I wanted to bake something for her. After much googling of 'Chinese desserts' I finally settled on a recipe for Chinese Five-Spice Almond Cookies from Whole Foods.


                               


It's a fairly basic recipe, and I had all that I needed. All except for the Chinese Five-Spice. Apparently there was a run on Chinese Five-Spice. Whodathunkit? So when I got home from a fruitless trip to the grocery store I dug around in my pantry and come up with three of the five spices in Chinese Five-Spice. And thus was born, the Chinese Three-Spice cookie.


Chinese Three-Spice Almond Crescent Cookie
slightly altered from the Whole Foods Chinese Five-Spice recipe
makes around 20 cookies

1/2 cup flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
2/3 cup slivered almonds
1/2 cup unsalted butter, in chunks
1/4 cup sugar
~1/8 tsp of cinnamon
~1/8 tsp ground ginger
~1/8 tsp ground cloves
1/8 tsp salt
2 tsp almond extract

powdered sugar for dusting if desired


Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.

Put everything but the powdered sugar in a food processor and pulse until the dough gets crumbly. Then blend until it forms a soft dough.

Take a small pinch of dough, and roll it a bit to form a log. Shape the log of dough into a crescent. Repeat with the rest of the dough.

Bake for 20 minutes, or until the cookies are fairly firm to the touch. Let cool on the cookie sheet for 10 minutes and then transfer to a cooling rack. Once the cookies are completely cool, dust them with powdered sugar if you'd like. These aren't a super sweet cookie, so I think most people would appreciate the little extra bit of sweetness.

Dutch Crunch Bread

Sara and Erica of Baking JDs were our March 2012 Daring Baker hostesses! Sara & Erica challenged us to make Dutch Crunch bread, a delicious sandwich bread with a unique, crunchy topping. Sara and Erica also challenged us to create a one of a kind sandwich with our bread!

I'd never heard of these rolls before, though they reminded me a little of the Marco Polo bagel that Wegmans sells. Ah Wegmans... Ok, I'm back. I'm in a near constant state of Wegmans withdrawal so you'll have to excuse me.

I made these pretty much as soon as I could, my biweekly day off falling just a few days after this month's recipe was posted. So I scrambled around and gathered the necessary ingredients together and got started.

You can find the recipe here.

I got to use my much under appreciated doughhook on my Kitchenaide, and things came together nicely. The topping confused me a little, seeming thick enough when I left it to set for the ten minutes, but then it dripped around a bit when it was time to slather it onto the rolls. I think things turned out pretty well. Though I got the more giraffe spotty look as opposed to the larger cracks running down. I didn't mind too much, they still tasted good.

I ended up going with a fairly basic (but quite tasty!) sandwich: turkey, cheddar, and apple.

And in other news... I now have rice flour sitting around. Any recipe suggestions?

Banana Oatmeal Bread

The Daring Bakers’ February 2012 host was – Lis! Lisa stepped in last minute and challenged us to create a quick bread we could call our own. She supplied us with a base recipe and shared some recipes she loves from various websites and encouraged us to build upon them and create new flavor profiles. 

Banana bread is one of my favorite things to eat. Now, I don't bake it all that often given that I also love bananas and will eat them up well before they'd be ready for banana bread. But for Daring Bakers, I resisted temptation. Ok, ok. Actually I just bought seven bananas at once, definitely more bananas than even I can eat in a week.

This recipe from Joy the Baker came together quickly, not taking much longer than a few minutes before it was in the oven. But, it used three bowls. One for the dry, one for the wet, and one for the egg whites. Growing up, my family was often in the just-throw-it-all-in-one-bowl-and-mix-it-up class of baker. And I have to say, everything seemed to turn out just fine. So I'm wondering if you really need that separate wet ingredient bowl, and next time I try this recipe I may skip it and see.

I would recommend going out of your way to have large bananas or to have an extra banana or two. There was a shortage of bananas at my grocery store when I went and I ended up with a rather petite bunch of organic bananas (so not worth the extra cost, by the way). I had issues with the outside crust getting slightly tough while there was still a slightly gooey center and I wonder if my small bananas had something to do with that. Not enough moisture throughout or something. Though that gooey center? Oh. My. Deliciousness.

White Chocolate Chip Almond Chocolate Biscotti

I don't know what it is about biscotti, but people always seem really impressed when I bring it somewhere. Maybe it's the Italian name, or the twice baked-ness. Whatever it is, biscotti is always greeted with an awed 'ooo' from the crowd.

I found my go-to chocolate biscotti recipe on all-recipes, believe it or not. I've made the Double Chocolate Biscotti numerous times, though in all previous cases I turned up my nose at white chocolate (I mean, it's not even real chocolate!) and subbed in some ridiculously dark bittersweet chocolate instead. This time though, I wanted a change. And with my new found love of almonds, that was the first change I made.

White Chocolate Chip Almond Chocolate Biscotti
makes about 18 pieces

1/2 cup butter - softened
2/3 c sugar
1/4 c cocoa powder
2 tsp baking powder
2 eggs
1 3/4 c flour
4 oz white chocolate chips
1/2 c slivered almonds

semi sweet chocolate for dipping (I melted a whole bag of chips, but
didn't need nearly that much, probably half a bag would do)
white chocolate for drizzle (I melted... less than a cup of chips)

First off, cream the butter and sugar. 

Once that is all light and fluffy, mix in the cocoa powder and baking powder. 

After that, beat in the eggs one at a time.

Now add in the flour and mix until combined.

The last step in the dough making, mix in the white chocolate chips and almond slivers.

Chill the dough for at least ten minutes, you can let the oven preheat to 375 during this time. The dough will be fairly sticky at this point, so chilling it will help out a lot when you get to the next step.

Once the dough is nice and chilled we will shape the dough into 2 roughly nine inch logs. Space them out evenly on a cookie sheet, and flatten them a bit. They'll expand some but not crazy amounts.

Bake for 20-25 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean. Let the biscotti cool on the cookie sheet for about 5 minutes before transferring to a cooling rack where you should let them cool completely, about an hour.

Set the oven to preheat to 325 degrees. While this is going on you'll want to cut the biscotti. Cut slices 3/4 to an inch thick on a diagonal. The farther away from a straight up and down slice, the longer the pieces of biscotti will be. For biscotti beginners I would recommend starting with shorter slices, as it can be a bit crumbly at this stage.

Bake for 9 minutes, flip the biscotti and bake for another 7 minutes. Cool on a cooling rack. 

Melt the semisweet chocolate, I use a double boiler but use whatever method you prefer. Dip one edge of the biscotti in chocolate and let chill in the fridge until the chocolate is hardened.

Melt the white chocolate, again, however you are most comfortable. Drizzle over the biscotti with a spoon. I found white chocolate to be a bit more temperamental than the semisweet so be careful not to overheat. I'd recommend that once about 2/3 is melted, take the chocolate off the heat and stir until the rest is melted in.

Lemon Thyme Potato

A while back I bookmarked this recipe from The Kitchn and I finally got to it a few days ago. I tend to focus in on baked goods so the savory recipes get pushed to the side in favor of chocolate this or peppermint that. Understandable, but so not fair to all the delicious non sweets out there.

I'm not sure how many of you went camping when you were young (or not so young), but this is like a grown up version of a foil pack. Way back when we used to dump all sorts of raw veggies, salt, pepper, and some oil into foil, ball it up and shove it under the coals of a campfire. This took me back.

Lemon Thyme Potato

altered for 1 potato

1 potato - I used russet

1/2 lemon

Garlic

Thyme

Oil

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

The first thing you'll want to do is slice the potato. You want to make about 1/4 inch slices, and you do not want to slice all the way through. The potato slices should all end up attached to each other at the bottom.

Drizzle oil over the potato, getting some in between the slices. I actually forgot this step, don't tell! The potato turned out fine, I just let it cook for a bit longer than called for.

If you're using fresh herbs, prep those. Slice the garlic thin, and remove the thyme from the stalk. I used dried, not as good, but it works in a pinch. 

Also prep the lemon, slice it as thinly as you can. I got about 6 slices from a half lemon, plus two little end pieces that I didn't use in the potato.

Insert the garlic, thyme, and lemon slices in between the potato slices. The lemon has a tendency to pop out, just push it back in. When you wrap the potato in foil that will help keep things together.

Put the foil wrapped potato in the oven for about 45 minutes, mine took more like an hour. But again, that's probably because I forgot the oil. You can test the potato at 45 minutes with a fork, and if it isn't tender enough just shove it back in the oven for a bit longer.

Scones (aka Biscuits)

Audax Artifex was our January 2012 Daring Bakers’ host. Aud worked tirelessly to master light and fluffy scones (a/k/a biscuits) to help us create delicious and perfect batches in our own kitchens! 

So after the utter failure that was my bread starter from last month's Daring Bakers challenge, I was super excited to see something familiar as the challenge this month. Also exciting was the fact that I didn't have to go out and buy any special ingredients.

On one of my many mornings off this month (yay federal holidays!), I decided spur-of-the-moment that it was the perfect time for making these. Luckily I always store my butter in the freezer, otherwise this wouldn't have worked out so well. The dough came together easily, and yes, I did actually triple sift my dry ingredients. I'm sure it made a difference but I want to try these again with no sifting or just a single sift to see how they compare.

It's a good thing I don't often indulge in more than yogurt for breakfast because after making these I decided there's nothing better than a lazy morning with hot biscuits scones slathered in spun honey.

You can find the recipe here.

Sans Rival

Catherine of Munchie Musings was our November Daring Bakers’ host and she challenged us to make a traditional Filipino dessert – the delicious Sans Rival cake! And for those of us who wanted to try an additional Filipino dessert, Catherine also gave us a bonus recipe for Bibingka which comes from her friend Jun of Jun-blog.

I decided to focus on just the Sans Rival for now. The more specialized ingredients for the Bibingka were too much for me at this point.

While not quite as intimidating as my first Daring Bakers challenge, I was still a bit nervous. I've made meringue numerous times before, but in my current place they never turn out quite as I'd like them to. It could be that it's just far too humid down here in the summer to attempt meringue. So I was excited that this challenge was for a month where it's not humid here. 

The traditional recipe calls for cashews, and I tried, really I did. But I just couldn't like them enough to devote an entire cake to them. So I went with almonds instead. We were also given multiple options for flavoring the icing, I went with chocolate. Because, well, we all know how I feel about chocolate don't we?

The end result was pretty good, though it took me a few tastes to decide that I did indeed like the cake. I think I would also make the nuts that go into the meringue even more finely processed next time, as for me, it was a little disconcerting to have chunks of something in a meringue.

I also hear back that I could have used an even darker chocolate for the buttercream to cut the sweetness a little. Seeing as I used unsweetened, I'm not really sure where I'd go from there. Perhaps add a different flavoring to it?

Sans Rival Cake

makes 1 four layer, 9-inch cake

Meringue

10 egg whites, room temperature

1 cup sugar

1 tsp cream of tartar

2 cups chopped almonds - I just dumped mine into a food processor for a bit

Preheat the oven to 325°.

Line cake pans with parchment paper, as well as buttering and flouring the sides. I didn't have four cake pans so I traced two nine inch circles onto parchment paper to use as guides in order to bake the meringue on cookie sheets.

Beat the egg whites at a medium speed until foamy, should take a few minutes. Add the cream of tartar and slowly add the sugar, a little at a time. Once all the sugar has been added, continue to beat the mixture, at high speed, for 10 minutes - or until stiff, shiny peaks form.

Fold in most of the almond, keeping some out for decorating the cake at the end.

Divide the meringue evenly between the four layers, and bake for 30 minutes - or until golden brown. Don't be afraid to let this get nice and golden. I probably ended up turning the oven off a little too soon. 

Once the meringues are nice and golden, turn off the oven and let sit for fifteen minutes or so. Then remove from the oven. Remove the meringues from the parchment - be careful with this, meringue is fragile!

Then return the meringues back to the oven and let them sit in there for a good hour or so. This is supposed to help them crisp up. 

Buttercream

5 egg yolks

1 cup sugar

1/4 cup water

1 1/4 cups unsalted butter, room temperature

2 oz unsweetened chocolate - melted

Beat the egg yolks on high until they have doubled in volume and turn a lemon yellow. I usually just go by the color, judging when something has 'doubled' has always troubled me. 

Place the sugar and water in a pot and cook over medium heat, dissolving the sugar. Keep cooking until the mixture reaches 235°.

While mixing on high, slowly add the sugar mixture to the egg yolks. Hot sugar can be bad news so be very very careful with this step!

Continue on high speed until the mixture reaches room temperature, about 15 minutes. And this is why I love stand mixers... set it and forget it (sort of).

Once it has reached room temperature, add in the butter and flavoring. Refrigerate this for at least an hour, whipping it again right before use.

Assembly

Put a dab of buttercream in the center of whatever you'll be using to plate your cake. Place the first layer of meringue down. Add a thin layer of buttercream on top of that. 

Repeat with the remaining layers of meringue. I trimmed the meringue layers during this process. Taking away bits of edges and adding in little bits of extra meringue as needed. 

Ice the entire cake once you are done layering. Use the remaining nuts as decoration, pressing them to the sides of the cake.

Pumpkin Cinnamon Roll Pancakes

Yesterday I mentioned to my roommate and her sister a recipe I ran across for Pumpkin Cinnamon pancakes. They voted that we make them this morning for breakfast. I wasn't prepared to say no to that so, here we are. Gooey, cinnamony pancakes. 

The recipe can be found here.

The only change we made was to use 2% instead of whole milk, and it all turned out just fine. They were still more than rich enough, I had to stop after only two pancakes... which was sad since they were so delicious.

We did have some problems with the cinnamon filling kind of oozing/cooking out when the pancakes were flipped. Any suggestions on that front are more than welcome!

Daring Baker's: Povitica

The Daring Baker's October 2011 challenge was Povitica, hosted by Jenni of The Gingered Whisk. Povitica is a traditional Eastern European Dessert Bread that is as lovely to look at as it is to eat!

This past month, I decided to be daring and brave and bold and... ok, ok. All I really did was join Daring Bakers. I'd heard about Daring Bakers at the beginning of 2011 from a friend, who at one time was an active member of the group. I kind of hemmed and hawed and put off any serious thought of joining until just recently, when I thought, hey, why not? I can always join, see if I like it, and stick around if I do. And I most definitely do.

The challenge this month totally threw me when I first saw it. Povitica? How do you say that? What is that?

I had some huge reservations at first. Mostly because of the walnut filling. You may have noticed, but I am not an overly huge fan of nuts. So I was a little downcast that my first challenge kind of centered around them. In addition, most of my interaction so far with yeast has involved a bread machine. Luckily, fond memories of a walnut dumpling from a trip to China this past summer popped into my head. Ok, I can handle this walnut business. Hopefully.

The recipe turned out to be fairly straightforward. The part I was most concerned about, making the dough, turned out to be a cinch. How did I not know it was this easy to make dough? Activating yeast? Combine, stir, and let sit. I can so do that. From there, mixing in the rest of the ingredients, kneading, and letting the dough rise flowed on by. I think the hardest part for me ended up being the transfer of the final log of dough/filling from counter to loaf pan. Though, with practice that would probably get easier as well.

The end result was decent, there were some nice swirls of walnut. I'll probably revisit this at some point. For me, there was too much walnut, or perhaps the swirls were just to thick. Admittedly, I did throw in the extra half cup or so of ground walnut I had into the filling. I mean, what was I going to do with leftover ground walnut? So next time I'll probably grind smaller batches of walnuts until I have an amount closer to what the recipe called for.

I'd also like to try other fillings, something more akin to cinnamon rolls. Or something involving cheese, because well, who doesn't love a nice cheesy piece of bread?

Povitica
makes one loaf

To activate the Yeast:
1/2 tsp sugar
1/4 tsp flour
2 tbsp warm water
1 1/2 tsp yeast

Stir sugar, flour and yeast into 1/2 cup warm water and cover with plastic wrap, let it stand for 5 minutes. I used a 1 cup liquid measuring cup for this and it was plenty big enough.

Dough:
1/2 cup whole milk
3 tbsp sugar
3/4 tsp salt
1 egg
1 tbsp unsalted butter - melted
2 cups flour

Heat the milk, stirring constantly. Let it go until just before it'll start to boil and then remove from the heat and let sit for just a bit.

Mix the milk, sugar, and salt. Add in the eggs, activated yeast, melted butter, and about half of the flour. Mix well, adding in flour just until the dough starts to form a ball.
Flour whatever surface you'll be kneading the dough on, and knead the dough. Slowly add in remaining flour until the dough is no longer sticking at all. I used all 2 cups, and maybe slightly more.

Oil a bowl and place the dough inside, covering with plastic wrap and a towel. Leave it in a warm place and let rise for an hour and a half.

This gets more appetizing, promise

Filling:

1 3/4 cups ground walnut

1/4 cup whole milk

1/4 cup unsalted butter

1 egg yolk

1/4 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 cup sugar

1/4 tsp cocoa powder

1/4 tsp cinnamon

Mix the ground walnuts, sugar, cinnamon and cocoa. Heat the milk and butter. Once it's boiling, pour over the walnut mixture. Add in the eggs and vanilla, and mix. If the filling thickens up too much stir in a bit of warm milk.

Assembling:

See-through dough!

Cover a table with an old (but clean!) sheet. Flour a good sized portion where you will be rolling out the dough. Don't skimp too much on this, my dough ended up sticking slightly at the beginning, so I had to scrape it away a bit and add more flour.

Use a rolling pin to roll out the dough. You'll want this to be super thin, don't be afraid to put a little muscle into it. When you get the dough about a foot in diameter brush a bit of melted butter over it and continue rolling it out. You will want to see the design on your sheet through the dough!

Once the dough is appropriately thin, carefully spread the filling out over the surface. Leave about half an inch clear around the edges too leave room for oozing when you roll the dough up into a log.

Pick up one edge and gently roll the dough, forming a log. Carefully lift and place the dough into a loaf pan. I would suggest folding the dough in half and placing this in the pan, leaving the ends hanging out. Then fold the ends over top.

Cover and let rest for about 15 minutes. During this time you can set your oven to 350. Uncover the loaf pan and let bake for 15 minutes. After that, turn the temperature down to 300 and let bake for another 45 minutes. Be careful to watch. If it looks like it'll get too dark before it's done baking you can cover with a bit of aluminum foil. I peaked in about every 15 minutes, mostly out of paranoia. 

Once it's done, let it cool in the loaf pan for a good 20 minutes or so before removing and letting cool the rest of the way.

I recommend toasting a slice and slathering with some butter, yum!

Fluffy Pancakes

I hardly ever have time in the mornings to make actual breakfast food before work. Ok, well, if I woke up half an hour earlier I would... but who wants to do that? So when my day off rolled around today, I jumped at the chance to make something breakfasty. 

I found this recipe a while back on the Kitchn. Having grown up with pancakes more akin to crepes, yet still delicious of course, I was intrigued by these supposedly cloud like pancakes. And given that thes pancakes contain a whopping tablespoons of baking powder, they would be defying chemistry to not be fabulously fluffy, right? 

Pancakes

makes about 12 pancakes

2 cups flour

4 tbsp sugar

4 tbsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

2 eggs

2 cups milk

4 tbsp vegetable oil

Pancakes are super easy. Mix the dry ingredients, add the wet ingredients. Stir. This batter turns out kinda lumpy, and that's just fine. You don't want to over stir and deflate all that wonderful fluffiness from the baking powder. 

I like to turn the burner on while I'm finishing mixing up the batter, so the pan is hot for the first round of pancakes. I'd say medium or medium-low heat, but it's hard to tell with a gas stove. I used a nice sized serving spoon to portion out the batter, maybe a third of a cup or so. Let the edges of the pancakes start to turn up before flipping, you'll also start to see little air bubbles coming up.

Do be careful, when I first made these it took a pancake or two to get the timing right. These seem to be so fluffy that if you aren't careful the middle will still be bit gooey. 

Taste of DC 2011

So I was completely oblivious to the fact that Taste of DC was occurring over Columbus Day weekend until that Saturday, when someone off-handedly mentioned it. And I was like, say what?! At that moment, I knew what my weekend goal was; make it into DC for some delicious food.

I held off until Monday, in hopes that tourists and all those folks who had to work would be otherwise occupied. And, it actually wasn't so bad. The lines were good, we didn't have to wait more than a few minutes at any of the booths we stopped at. Granted, the one booth I really wanted to stop at (Wicked Waffle) had a line significantly longer than the others... so we skipped it.

Our first stop was at Ben's Chili Bowl. Where I got this

A chili half-smoke. Yum, the chili was perfectly spicy. My first Ben's experience was delicious, maybe I'll attempt the trek out to the actual shop sometime...

Next up was some Indian food, from Nirvana Express. I chose the samosa, which was delicious. Mostly filled with potato, the occasional other veggie mixed in as well. What really sold me on the samosa though was the sauce that they drizzled over top before handing it over. I have no idea what it was, but I do know that it was mighty tasty. 

From there we moved on to Irish. Sort-of. James Hoban's had a booth, and given the amount of food I'd already consumed, I thought well, I can probably handle a baby quiche. Is quiche Irish? Have I just missed this fact all these years? Oh well. It turned out to be more than I was expecting in a serving, but it was very tasty. Nice and eggy with little bits of ham and cheese. And on a side-note, next time someone tells you that the 'baby quiche' is made with babies... ask them if the babies are real or fake, as you only eat real babies... trust me, the reaction is awesome* 

To end the deliciousness I chose a simple bag of cinnamon almonds. These are a new favorite of mine after years of shunning any sort of nut. I wish they had been warm though, freshly made cinnamon almonds are hard to beat.

* not intended to offend anyone, sorry if it did. You're just getting a better picture of my bizarre sense of humor...

Cinnamon Chip Muffins

This is probably one of those muffins that is more dessert than actual muffin. Though it includes applesauce, so I like to think of it as healthy... ish. Soft and moist with delicious cinnamon throughout, these are so good fresh from the oven and slightly warm. To push it decidedly over into the dessert category I'll sometimes add a small scoop of vanilla ice cream on top. Otherwise the muffins will get a drizzle of powdered sugar glaze.

The recipe comes from Hershey, originally a coffee cake recipe. 


Cinnamon Chip Muffins


1 cup butter, softened
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1/2 tsp vanilla
3/4 cup applesauce
2 1/2 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
10 oz cinnamon chips
powdered sugar glaze - optional

Preheat the oven to 350°
Cream the butter and sugar, beat in the vanilla and eggs.
Add in the flour, baking soda, and salt.
Stir in the cinnamon chips.

Fill muffin tins about 3/4 of the way, bake for 18 minutes. Let cool and, if desired, drizzle powdered sugar glaze across the top.

Alexandria Cupcakes

Here it is, the promised review of Alexandria Cupcakes.


My sisters and I all went one weekend, each getting a different flavor. Between us we tried the Blackberry, Lemon, and Raspberry cupcakes. We did share little nibbles of the icings so we could all get at least an idea of each.

I got the blackberry cupcake. First bite was just so-so. But it grew on me. By the end I was really enjoying the flavor in the icing. I assume the icing was a buttercream, just because that's what the general cupcake is iced with. If it was, it was a good one. I tend not to like buttercreams as they can well, get a little too buttery. There was enough Blackberry flavor to it though that I didn't notice. Again, if it was a buttercream. The cake part wasn't too flavorful, or the icing just overpowered. It was also kind of a not so fabulous color, a greyish purple-y color. Ignoring that, it was a decent cupcake, maybe slightly on the dry side.

I didn't hear any complaints from my sisters, so I assume their cucpakes were good. As far as the icing flavors go I ranked them: Lemon, Raspberry, and then Blackberry.

Overall, a decent cupcakery. I have no idea if they're connected at all, but, the cupcakes have always reminded me a little bit of Georgetown Cupcakes. To which I have been but will likely never go back to, for many reasons... I won't go into it.

In the end though, if you are in Old Town and looking for a cupcake, I would recommend Lavender Moon over Alexandria Cupcakes.

Just to note: there isn't much seating; one table. So don't expect to be able to sit down and eat in. This isn't a big deal, unless you like to stage and photograph your food... but uhm, who does that... 

Weekend Visitors

I kept telling folks that I would bake over this past weekend. It never happened. Instead I hung out with my sisters and ate way too much. I wasn't too upset.

The weekend started off with a trip up to Columbia, MD for the Fleet Foxes concert at the Merriweather Post Pavilion.

I'd never been before and wasn't quite sure what to expect. I knew there was a pavilion and a lawn. Unfortunately it was raining and my camera is not waterproof, so all I got were some blurry Ipod photos. So let me try to describe it... the main concert grounds are shaped like a slice of pie. With the pavilion at the tip and a nicely sloped hill radiating out from there. There were numerous food stalls going up the sides, all mostly selling the same thing. I'd recommend packing a picnic dinner though, as the prices seemed quite steep. We had a nice meal of cheese (Gouda and triple X sharp cheddar), bread (sourdough, my favorite!), and fruit before heading in.

Due to the rain, all of the lawn ticket holders were invited inside the pavilion, yay! The concert was fabulous, only starting... half an hour late. What is it with this practice of concerts not starting on time? And how can it be stopped? The concert was good though. I'd pretend to be able to review music, but I'm not one of those people that can pick things out. Like, oh they were pitchy or weren't keeping the tempo or whatever. But in any case the opening band, The Walkmen, were good but I'm not running out to buy a CD. I think they got a bit farther from the folk feel that I was expecting. Fleet Foxes was fabulous, but, when you like a band enough to buy tickets to a concert, what else would you say? They have a nice folk-rock sound. Yep, that's right. Folk rock.

The rest of the weekend involved some very delicious cupcakes from Lavender Moon and Alexandria Cupcakes. I've already got a post on Lavender Moon, though I think I could probably write odes to their S'mores cupcake. And Alexandria Cupcakes will have a forthcoming review.

After Lavender Moon and Alexandria Cupcakes, we attempted a third cupcake in one afternoon... and failed. We got all the way out to Stickyfingers, looked at the display, looked at each other, and decided we just couldn't do it. We did however get some of the tomato soup, in hopes that this would temper the feeling of sweets overload. The soup was actually pretty good. A nice tomato-y flavor, not chunky but it wasn't thin like Campbell's; it had a little texture to it. We all agreed that it would have been fabulous with a nice hunk of crusty bread on the side.

Chocolate Chip Toffee Cookies

Growing up, my family got a box of fancy schmancy toffee from my Aunt every year. I wrinkled my nose and shook my head, no thank you. Toffee? What's that? Nuts? Eww. Luckily my taste buds have gotten much less picky as I've gotten older. I eventually tried that toffee, and actually kind of enjoyed it. Then one day I found a chocolate toffee cookie at Whole Foods, and wow. Was it ever tasty. Not wanting to make a habit out of spending three dollars on a cookie, I decided to make up my own.

I've had this recipe for chewy chocolate chip cookies for ages. It's a decent chocolate chip cookie recipe, for when I want something other than the classic Toll House cookies of course =) and i thought it would hold the extra toffee pieces well.

I made mine a little smaller than the original recipe called for, I was taking these to a function and wanted the most bang for my buck. Still good, but if you want that 'big, fat, chewy', don't skimp on the amount of dough per cookie.

Chocolate Chip Toffee Cookies

3 dozen or so

2 cups flour

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

3/4 cup unsalted butter - melted

1 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup sugar

1 tbsp vanilla

1 egg yolk

1 egg

1 cup chocolate chips

1 cup toffee pieces

First thing you'll want to do is set the oven to 325°.

Cream the butter, white and brown sugars. Add in the vanilla and the egg and egg yolks.

Add in the dry ingredients and stir until just combined. 

Spoon the dough onto cookie sheets and bake 15 minutes or until they get slightly golden.

Then, remember to nibble on the broken cookies; it's your duty as the baker to taste test =)

Fried Tofu and Roasted Veggies

Cooking is pretty much limited to the weekends for me. At least anything particularly involved. During the week I go from work to work outs with only an hour or so in between. So most of the time I'll make a large batch of something on Sunday and eat the same thing all week. Luckily I haven't gotten bored of the weekly monotony yet.

I have a rotation of meals that I go through, and wanted to add something in that didn't include meat. I found a recipe for Crispy Tofu Triangles and thought, I could give that a try. Sure, I've never liked tofu in anything else before... but, fried? That could work. 

To go with, I decided upon roasted veggies. Possibly my most favorite side ever. I also added in some Thai sweet chili sauce to dip the tofu in. If you haven't tried it, please, go out right now and buy some for yourself. So. Good.

For the tofu, follow the link above to the recipe. It's super easy, even for a tofu newbie!

As for the veggies, I'm sure everyone has a favorite way to roast veggies. It's so simple and you can easily change it up with different herbs or liquids. Generally I'll do a few crowns of broccoli and a head of cauliflower spritzed with some olive oil with some fresh cracked pepper and salt over top. 

Or, I love love love Penzeys spice mixes. Pick any of them, they'll always turn out good! Some of my favorites include the Northwoods and Cajun mixes. 

Halfway Bar Cookies

These were among the many recipes sitting in a long line of recipes; so why did I choose them? Well, first off, I had all the ingredients on hand. It was like fate! And fate was all too kind in this case. And besides who can resist the blondie-esque base covered in chocolate covered in a brown sugar meringue? Not me, that's for sure.

They were super simple, and earned rave reviews from the folks that I routinely foist baked goods upon. I mean, a girl can't eat a whole pan of bar cookies by herself... can she? Ok, she can, but only if she's willing to go running for the next week straight. And eat a bunch of lettuce. Given the choices, I opt to share the wealth.

Let's jump on in to the recipe, which I found here. I followed the recipe to a T. Well, as much as I ever do. I'm from the school of thought that doesn't stress the finicky, just so measurements. And I have to tell you, no one's complained yet.

Halfway Bars
fills a 9x13 pan


2 cups flour
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 cup unsalted butter - softened
1/2 cup sugar
1 1/2 cups brown sugar - divided into 1 cup and a 1/2 cup
2 eggs
1 tbsp water
1 tsp vanilla
12 oz semisweet chocolate chips

First thing, set the oven to preheat to 350°.
It was recommended to foil line your 9x13 pan, and spray coat the foil. While the bars ended up being super easy to get out of the pan, I'm not totally sure it was all necessary. Spray some pam on there sure, but the foil? Meh. Unless you're super worried about presentation, I probably wouldn't bother.

Combine the flour, salt, baking powder and soda and set to the side for a bit.
Next, cream the butter, sugar, and the 1/2 cup of brown sugar.

Separate the eggs, keeping both the whites and yolks.

Mix the yolks into the creamed butter mixture, followed by the water and vanilla.

Then mix in the flour, until just combined. The dough will be crumbly, kind of like a slightly damp shortbread dough. Once it's ready, dump the dough crumbs into the pan and press to make a relatively even layer of cookie dough.

Now, add the chocolate. Make a nice layer over top of the cookie crust, press the chips in a bit to help them stay in place.

Onto the meringue.

I would use either a stand mixer or hand mixer for this one.
Beat the egg whites until they are nice and frothy. The first time I made these I didn't beat the egg whites quite enough, and while still tasty, wasn't quite as fluffed as it needed to be, so definitely make sure to get these well frothed. Slowly add in the cup of brown sugar, keep mixing. And then keep mixing some more, until the meringue is in the soft peak stage - not liquidy anymore, but it tends to run back on itself, not holding a good shape for very long.

Once the meringue is ready, pour it out over the cookie and chocolate base. Spread it out gently to cover the chocolate. Doesn't have to be perfect, because you're going to be pressing some parchment over top anyways.

Bake for 20 minutes, remove the parchment, and bake for another 5-10 minutes. You'll want it to start looking toasty, like a perfectly done marshmallow... unless you like your marshmallows burnt, then, nevermind.


*disclaimer - the original recipe called these 'halfway cookies', my calling them 'bar cookies' isn't an attempt to make them my own in some way. This recipe is that same recipe,  I just have a hard time calling anything cut from a 9x13 pan a cookie...