Despite spending some time in NYC, I did get some baking time in! But, since I was slightly exhausted Monday afternoon after returning home, I wanted something that was easy and required only a few ingredients. The answer was the colorful Confetti Cookies.
Continue reading “Magnolia Bakery #21 – Confetti Cookies”
Happy Valentine’s Day to those who celebrate. Or, Happy Singles Appreciation Day, if you celebrate that. This year, I wanted to bake something special for Valentine’s Day that wasn’t the traditional chocolate-based recipe.
Continue reading “A Valentine’s Day Bake”
I had a few days off from work this week. I didn’t go anywhere, I was able to take some time for myself. While I didn’t get everything done that I wanted (mainly due to my own laziness and poor planning skills…and the fact that I took a nap one afternoon), I did spend the majority of Tuesday in the kitchen making something tasty.
I also took the time to try and take some halfway decent photos of what I made, which you can see in this post! I am really working on upping my photography game.
So what did I make?
It appears that I am on a Magnolia Bakery kick lately. I’m not sure if it’s because of an article about their vanilla cupcakes is making the rounds online or I’m still just infatuated by the cookbook itself. Whatever the reason, I decided to tackle a recipe from the Icebox Desserts chapter this week.
Continue reading “Magnolia Bakery #8 – Blueberry Jamboree”A couple weekends ago (yes, time has been flying!), I was in the mood for a chocolate treat. I didn’t feel like making a cookie and I would be having cake the following weekend (A post about that is coming later). I settled on brownies.
Luckily, the Magnolia Bakery Handbook has some wonderful brownie recipes. I decided to make the simple and basic Double Chocolate Brownies. These are a great brownie. Not too cakey, the right amount of fudgy, and very chocolatey. I felt like I died and went to chocolate heaven!
Plus, they were really easy to make. No stand mixer required!
Continue reading “Magnolia Bakery Handbook #3”This recipe can be found in Barefoot in Paris, pg. 176.
Monday was my day off from work. And I had the opportunity to make dinner for us all once again. I made a recipe out of Cook Like a Pro. Check out Recipe #38! But, the original plan for Monday was to make a dessert! I think I’m becoming a dessert person. Ha!
So, sticking with the Paris and French theme I started last Friday, I decided to bang out a dessert recipe from Barefoot in Paris. Meringues Chantilly called to me as soon as I laid my eyes on it! So I knew that had to be it. But there was one problem. I’ve never attempted meringue before.
Well, this was definitely the recipe I would because, after all, one of the reasons for this blog is to learn new things, right? So the meringues were made. And to be honest, after I accomplished separating the egg whites successfully (went through a couple more than I wanted to, pesky yolks!), the stand mixer did most of the work.
Then came the piping! I read the recipe, drew my circles on the parchment, made of mess of the piping bag, my hand, and the counter and piped my circles. It wasn’t until after I stuck them in the oven that I realized they were supposed to be discs. Oh well! I’ll work with it and it still came out fine.
Since meringue can be kind of bland and dry on their own, I decided to whip up Ina’s sweetened whipped cream and the raspberry sauce that is a few pages later in Barefoot in Paris.
When it came time to serve, I spooned some raspberry sauce on the bottom of the plate, placed one meringue ring on top, added some whipped cream, more raspberry sauce, another meringue ring, a dab of whipped cream, and finally some more raspberry sauce. I garnished with some fresh raspberries and a strawberry.
How did it taste?
One word: DIVINE!
The recipe is from Modern Comfort Food, page 208.
A number of weeks ago I purchased a quart of heavy cream for a recipe that I wanted to make. However, plans changed and it didn’t happen. Soon, I realized that the expiration date on the cream was nearing and I didn’t want to throw it out. So, I started searching for recipes that would use a decent amount of the cream. Enter Ina Garten’s Banana Rum Trifle.
This is Ina’s take on banana pudding and let me tell you, it’s one of the best desserts I’ve had in a while! I will say, I did omit the rum from the recipe. I also chose not to “decorate it” with the whipped cream. However, this wonderfully light and sweet dessert can easily serve a crowd. In fact, I can see it going over very well at a summer picnic or holiday.
You begin by making a plain pudding….at that moment it is unflavored, just quite sweet. Once that chills for a while, you whip 3 cups of cream with vanilla and vanilla bean seeds. Then you add in the pudding and whip some more. Then the building phase begins.
The layers of cream and Nabisco wafers and bananas blend so well together and make this dessert taste like it came from heaven. A tip: follow the recipe and actually WAIT the time stated in the recipe before digging in. I know it will be hard, but it will be worth it!
The only downside to this dessert? It’s addicting! Be prepared to go for a jog afterward…for like an hour.
This one is going on the Favorites list!
This recipe appears in Barefoot Contessa At Home, page 192.
Last week was a busy cooking week for me. I made a total of three different recipes! Earlier this week I posted about the first two which you can read about here and here.
But, I still haven’t written about the dessert that I made last week — until now. For dessert last week I made the Ultimate Ginger Cookie. This was definitely a new type of dessert for me since I am usually not a fan of gingerbread. But, I have to admit, these cookies were tasty!
Continue reading “Recipe #25 Ultimate Ginger Cookie”
