melting your mouth

I’ll get the mandatory text out of the way first this time: The June Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Jasmine of Confessions of a Cardamom Addict and Annemarie of Ambrosia and Nectar. They chose a Traditional (UK) Bakewell Tart… er… pudding that was inspired by a rich baking history dating back to the 1800’s in England.

I’ve posted a chocolate bakewell tart once before on this site, but I have never had the “regular” version.  A traditional bakewell tart contains a shortcrust pastry, filled with some kind of fruit, and topped with frangipane.  The frangipane filling is light and spongy, flavored mostly from the almonds.  For the Daring Bakers challenge, we had to include the shortcrust pastry and frangipane but could use whatever fruit filling we wanted.

I decided to make a rhubarb compote to fill my tarts.  We were watering some plants for some friends that are out of town and noticed that they had a meyer lemon tree.  Since there happened to be a ripe one, and I already knew I liked the combination of Meyer lemon and rhubarb, I brought it home and added its juice and zest to the rhubarb.  I also ended up flavoring the rhubarb with lavender by adding a few stems while it stewed.

Read the rest of this entry »

For Christmas last year, my parents gave me a “gift certificate” to go shopping with my mom for something for the kitchen.  Although I used some of it a couple months ago (to get those low bowls in the picture, come to think of it) we hadn’t found time for me to use the rest of it, mostly because I had been indecisive about what I wanted to get.  Last week I was told that my “gift certificate” would expire after six months, so I needed to get to it!  We went to Williams Sonoma one night last week and I decided to buy this beautiful pasta maker.  Isn’t it a beauty?  I love that it’s bright red and shiny!

I was eager to put this baby to work, so I decided to make ravioli for some friends we were having over Saturday night.  (I’m in a little bit of trouble for breaking it in without letting Mom help, but I was just getting the kinks worked out.)  My only previous experience with making pasta was for the Daring Bakers lasagne a couple months back.  In that case, while it turned out very tasty, it was really a pain to roll out by hand (tearing, etc.) and I could never get it anywhere close to as thin as I wanted. Read the rest of this entry »

I don’t know about you, but I am loving the vegetables available right now.  The only problem is I sometimes bring home a bit more than I know quite what to do with.  A couple weeks ago I bought a couple heads of that crazy, brilliantly colored cauliflower, one green and one yellowish orange.  They languished in our fridge for about a week before I decided I’d better do something about them, so I made this gratin with the cauliflower and some zucchini and squash that I picked up the next week.

It turned out delicious but just a tad soggy.  I’m used to making a gratin with potatoes, which tend to soak up the milk, but these vegetables didn’t need nearly so much liquid.  That did make it a little better reheated though since it didn’t dry out.  Definitely made an easy and delicious side with very minimal prep time.  I’m sure I’ll be coming back to this one!

Read the rest of this entry »

The cupcake craze is still in full swing in Palo Alto, where we can choose from Sprinkle’s or Kara’s Cupcakes (which originated in San Francisco).  I’ve been pleasantly surprised with the quality of the cake from Sprinkle’s on the couple of time I’ve tasted them.  I finally decided to try out Kara’s a couple weekends ago — after hiking up Half Dome the day before, I felt like I could afford a little treat.  While picking a cupcake may sometimes be a difficult decision, this time it was easy.  Fleur de Sel cupcake — “chocolate cupcake with caramel filling, ganache frosting and fleur de sel.”  Killer combination!  And while it was indeed a wonderful melding of flavors, with the sweet caramel, the rich chocolate, and the salt to cut through it all, the cake itself was disappointingly dry.  Honestly, I felt like I could do better.  So, the next weekend, if I do say so myself, I did.

I made the devil’s food cake recipe my grandmother used to use, adding a bit of extra chocolate, and topped it with a very dark chocolatey buttercream adapted from Mark Bittman.  I based the caramel on a recipe from — you guessed it! — Smitten Kitchen.  This was definitely the best caramel I have ever made in terms of cooking it the right amount of time (a feat I’m sure I will never repeat), but it was a bit runny for the filling, so I need to work on that.  Despite being a bit messy from the runny caramel, the flavor of these cupcakes was a hit, and I’m sure I’ll be making them again.

And finally, a word of warning. If you have extra chocolate frosting and caramel filling at the end, by no means should you alternate dipping a (clean) finger in each one and licking it off until you run out of fingers. If you start doing that, you may never stop. Not that I would know.

Read the rest of this entry »

It’s getting to be zucchini season — that time when, if you’re lucky enough to have a garden, you’ll have more zucchini than you can fit into dozens of loaves of bread.  We don’t have room for much of a garden, so we buy our zucchini at the farmer’s market.  Either way, these fritters are an easy, fast, and delicious way to use it.  The same batter can be used with lots of other vegetables too.  I keep meaning to try it with mushrooms.  The baking powder helps it puff up a bit; they’re also good without it, but a slightly different texture … maybe a little denser but crispier, too.  I love making them as an appetizer since they come together so quickly, but they’re also a fun side. Just eat ‘em while they’re good and hot!

Read the rest of this entry »