Unto the life of every Daring Baker, there must be some fun.

We can’t always be about puff pastry, meringue and caramel. Not to say that those elements of previous challenges haven’t been “fun”, it’s just that every once and awhile I want to channel my childhood days when there were no rules and it was all about playtime!

As though they had read my mind, Deborah of Taste and Tell and Elle of Feeding My Enthusiasms brought the perfect challenge to the April table: Cheesecake Pops from the cookbook Sticky, Chewy, Messy, Gooey: Desserts for the Serious Sweet Tooth by Jill O’Connor.

Now I could go on and on about all the steps involved and give you an indepth look at the world of lollipop sticks. We could debate the merits of using real chocolate or candy coating to cover the pops and we could argue endlessly about decorations.

But that would spoil the fun.

Here’s what you need to know:

Bake a cheesecake.
Let it get very cold in the refrigerator.
Stick your hands into the cheesecake and scoop out mounds of it.
Turn the mounds into balls.
Stick a lollipop stick in each one.
Freeze them.
Dip them in chocolate.
Make them pretty.
Eat them.

NOW GO HAVE SOME FUN!!!

Ciao!

For the Cheesecake Pops recipe, please visit Deborah’s site or Elle’s site.

To see what all the other Daring Bakers created, please visit The Daring Bakers’ Blogroll.

Technorati tags: daring bakers, cheesecake

After putting up my last post, I realized that the recipe was somewhat incongruous with the theme of the post. Baked pasta is good and all, but not quite what one thinks of when one imagines the arrival of spring.

I returned to the inspiration drawing board and realized that it was time to finally post a cookbook review that I’ve had in the works for quite a long time.

Back in the winter, I received a copy of Valerie Peterson’s and Janice Fryer’s pretty book called Cookie Craft. As the title would suggest, the book is all about the craft of baking and decorating cookies.

While I’ve gained experience over the past few years decorating cakes and cupcakes, I’ve spent almost no time learning how to decorate cookies. For this reason I was excited to receive my copy and to see what I could learn.

And then three months went by.

So last week, finally, I decided it was high time to dust off this little book and challenge myself to a new baking project.

While not a very big or long book, Cookie Craft is divided into a number of chapters that are full of helpful tips, interesting projects and great basic cookie recipes.

Interestingly, the book begins with numerous project ideas (divided by seasons, holidays and celebrations) and follows that up with chapters on ingredients and supplies; planning; recipes and decorating techniques. As well, the book includes instructions on how to store and ship your cookies.

There are pictures throughout and some useful diagrams that help you to visualize the process. I especially enjoyed the tips and suggestions sprinkled throughout the book in sidebar boxes.

For my own cookie project, I decided to try the basic recipe for Rolled Sugar Cookies decorated with royal icing for the piped outline and thinned out royal icing that I coloured and used to flood the interior of the cookie.

In honour of spring, I broke out some very pretty cookie cutters and had a great time making the cookies. Personally, I could have eaten them just like that but the whole point of the exercise was to learn how to decorate cookies.

I started by whipping up a batch of royal icing to pipe outlines for the cookies. The icing was fairly easy but the piping … not so much. I do not have what I would call “a steady hand”, however, what I lacked in steadiness I made up for in fun as I thoroughly enjoyed trying to create neat outlines on the cookies.

This step was followed by whipping up another batch of royal icing (slightly thinned with water) that I tinted with gel food colouring. I dabbed blobs of this icing in the centre of the cookie and used a toothpick to spread it out.

Again, it wasn’t very professional looking but it was a lot of fun to see what colours I could mix and what the end result looked like.

In the end, I had some very funny-looking and bright cookies. I shared them with friends and family and everyone seemed to really enjoy them.

While I can’t say I see a future in cookie decorating for myself, I certainly came to appreciate the art of decorating the cookie thanks to this book. If you have a chance to pick it up, I highly recommend it!

Ciao!

Note: For another great review about this book (and to see how cookies should truly be decorated!), check out Anita’s post.

And just like that, the full force of spring hits us.

We went from chilly, rainy weather to “where did I put my flip flops” weather in the blink of an eye.

This morning I woke to the sound of birds singing and my Italian neighbours, two doors down, discussing the layout of this year’s garden (they’re very loud talkers …).

Wanting to take advantage of the beautiful weather, I decided to take an early-morning walk through the neighbourhood. Almost every house I passed had bags of old leaves and garden waste lined up at the curb, beside neatly stacked piles of trimmed twigs and branches.

A few people I passed were getting an early start on some home improvement projects.

One man was methodically sweeping his driveway clean.

The bocce court at one of our local parks has been cleaned and is ready to go.

I smiled.

Spring has sprung!

Ciao!

Note: On Saturdays, we usually don’t have a big breakfast. Instead we like to have a nice lunch, usually right at noon, that will tide us over until the evening when we most often go out. While it may seem that baked pasta is a dish for the fall or winter, this is a quick one that I made for a recent Saturday lunch. It’s simple with some very classic flavours. The original recipe calls for ziti but I used tortiglioni instead.

Baked Tortiglioni with Cream and Pancetta
Adapted from On Top of Spaghetti … by Johanne Killeen and George Germon.

1 tbsp. olive oil
1 to 2 slices pancetta (about half an inch thick), chopped up into tiny pieces
1-1/4 cups heavy cream (35% cream)
1/2 cup Parmigiano Reggianio, grated
1/2 cup Pecorinio Romano, grated
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. freshly cracked black pepper
1/2 pound dried pasta (I used tortiglioni)
2 tbsp. unsalted butter

Bring a large pot of water to boil, add salt.

In a skillet, heat the olive oil and add the pancetta. Cook for 5 to 10 minutes, until the pancetta is golden. Be careful not burn. Remove the pancetta to a plate and reserve the oil and fat in the skillet.

When the water is boiling and you’ve salted it, add the pasta and cook for 6 minutes. Meanwile, heat the oven to 500 degrees F.

In a large bowl, combine the cream, salt and pepper. Stir in the pancetta and a tablespoon or two of the oil/fat left in the skillet (flavour flavour flavour!)

Once the pasta has cooked for 6 minutes, drain and immediately add to the cream mixture. Stir well to ensure that the pasta is coated in the cream and cheese.

Pour the mixture into a deep baking dish and bake in the oven for 12 minutes. The pasta should be golden on top and the cream should be bubbling. If it’s not, bake for another 5 minutes and check again.

Remove the pasta from the oven and let sit for 5 minutes to cool slightly. Serve immediately.

Enjoy!

If you haven’t seen The Godfather, then you are missing a classic cinematic experience filled with many a memorable scene including one where one mobster instructs another to leave behind a weapon used in a crime, but to make sure to not forget the box of cannoli.

While I don’t count myself among the diehard fans of cannoli (I like them but don’t love them), I was inspired to try the recipe for Cocoa Cannoli Cake from Canadian House & Home’s June 2007 issue.

I can’t believe that my last Magazine Mondays post was February 25th! That magazine pile that I had been steadily working on has begun to rear its delicious head again. So it’s time to return to my Magazine Mondays ways.

While I made this cake quite some time ago, I’m happy to share it with you today. It’s one of those cakes that you will fall in love with the first time you make it. And I guarantee you that everyone will be asking for the recipe.

It’s essentially a sponge cake that’s halved and filled with a ricotta cream filling. It mimics cannoli in that the cake and filling taste strongly of orange zest. The cake is very adaptable so you can use whatever flavours strike your fancy.

Unfortunately I was unable to find a link to the recipe on the magazine’s site so I’m listing it for you here.

Welcome back to Magazine Mondays, everyone! Have a great week!

Ciao!

Cannoli Cake
Adapted from the June 2007 issue of Canadian House & Home magazine.

Ingredients for cake:

6 large eggs, separated
1 large egg yolk
pinch of salt
1 cup plus 1/3 cup sugar
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 tbsp. baking powder
1 tsp. almond extract
2 tsp. vanilla extract
2 tbsp. cold water
finely grated zest of one orange

Ingredients for filling:

125 g. cream cheese, softened
225 g. ricotta cheese
2 tbsp. Nutella
1 tsp. Grand Marnier (optional)
1 tsp. Frangelico (optional)
1 cup icing sugar
1/4 cup mini chocolate chips
icing sugar for dusting

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. and grease and flour a 9 or 10-inch springform pan.

Place the egg whites in the bowl of a stand mixer and add the pinch of salt. Beat whites until foamy. Increase mixer speed to medium and continue beating the whites while gradually adding 1 cup of the sugar. You want the whites to beat into soft peaks (don’t overbeat). Set aside.

In a clean bowl, beat the egg yolks with remaining 1/3 cup sugar, the flour, the baking powder, the vanilla and almond extracts and the cold water until smooth. Add the orange zest. The mixture might appear stiff or very thick but don’t worry.

Gently fold in the egg whites until you have a well mixed batter.

Spoon the batter into the springform pan and bake in the middle of the oven for about 35 minutes. The top of the cake will be golden and it will spring back when pressed.

Remove the cake to a wire rack and cool completely before releasing the cake from the springform pan.

To make the filling, beat the cream cheese, the ricotta, the Nutella, the Grand Marnier and Frangelico (if using), until smooth. Gradually add the icing sugar and then stir in the chocolate chips. Set aside.

Carefully divide the cake into two equal layers. Set the bottom layer on your cake tray or serving plate. Spread the filling over the cake bottom. If it’s a bit loose, refrigerate the cake bottom for about 10 minutes to firm up the filing. Top the filling with the second layer of the cake and refrigerate until ready to serve.

Just before serving, dust the cake with icing sugar.

Enjoy!

Technorati tags: Magazine Mondays, cannoli, cake

While I wish I had time to participate in more food blogging events, the fact is that it’s just not possible.

However, there are a few events that I refuse to miss and one of them is Barbara’s A Taste of Yellow event.

In support of LiveSTRONG Day, this event brings foodbloggers around the world together in a show of solidarity and unity in the battle against cancer.

In 2007, Barbara had 149 bloggers take part in the event and we’re all hoping that even more will take part this year.

I lost my father to cancer in 2001. Both of my maternal grandparents passed away because of cancer. And I can’t even count the number of friends and extended family members who have lost loved ones to this disease.

But for every loss, I know that there is a victory. Every day around the world there are people living with and beating cancer. And every day, everywhere in the world, people are making it their life’s work to find a cure.

A Taste of Yellow is about standing behind cancer survivors, those who have lost loved ones to cancer and those who battle cancer every day and saying, “We’re with you!”

I cannot thank Barbara enough for creating and hosting this event. She is an example to us all.

Live Strong! Every day!

Ciao!

A Taste of Yellow is hosted by Barbara of winosandfoodies. The event ends on April 19th. Please check out the details and participate!

The cake pictured above is a Lemon-Lime Coconut and Macadamia Nut Cake based on a recipe from Bill Granger’s cookbook, Bill’s Open Kitchen.

When making this cake, be sure to grease the pan very well. It has a tendency to stick. Also, be sure not to overbake it as that can cause the cake to stick to the pan as well and to have a rather hard crust.

Ingredients:

1 cup macadamia nuts
1/3 cup self-raising flour
a pinch of salt
6 egg, separated
3/4 cup sugar
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 tsp. finely grated lime zest
1 tsp. finely grated lemon zest
1/2 cup, sweetened shredded coconut
1 cup icing sugar
1 tsp. lime juice
1 tsp. lemon juice
1/2 tsp. each of grated lime and lemon zest

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Generously grease a 9-inch round or square pan. Set aside.

In the bowl of a food processor, combine the macadamia nuts, the flour and the salt. Process briefly until the nuts are finely chopped and you have a fine, crumbly mixture. Set aside.

In the bowl of a stand mixer, combine the egg yolks and the sugar. Beat on high speed for two minutes. The mixture should be thick and light-coloured.

Add the extract and the lemon and lime zest and mix for 30 seconds.

Add the coconut and the nut mixture and mix on low speed until just combined.

In a separate bowl, whip the egg whites until they form soft peaks. Carefully fold the egg whites into the egg and nut mixture.

Pour the batter into the prepared cake pan and bake for 30 minutes. Check with a cake tester to see if the cake is done. If it’s not, bake for another 5 minutes and check again. The cake should not take more than 40 minutes.

Remove the cake to a wire rack and let cool for 10 to 15 minutes. With a thin-bladed knife or spatula, loosen the cake from the sides of the pan and carefully invert onto the rack to cool completely.

Once cool, make the icing. To make the icing, combine the icing sugar, lime and lemon juice and lime and lemon zest in a bowl. If it’s too thick, add a tiny bit of hot water to loosen the mixture. Pour the icing over the cooled cake. For decoration, you can tint the icing with food colouring.

The cake will keep for several days at room temperature in a covered container or well-wrapped.

Enjoy!

Technorati tags: a taste of yellow, Live strong day, cake

I just can’t help myself!

The weather has been so gorgeous lately as spring finally begins to show itself, little by little.

Perhaps it’s the long winter that we had or the fact that for a good two months I had almost no time to think about anything outside of work, but I’m just so happy that it’s spring.

Or perhaps it’s the fact that the Daring Bakers were mentioned by Nick Malgieri in an article in the Washington Post … let’s hear it for the Daring Bakers and all the other incredible bloggers mentioned in that article!

So to celebrate sunny days and good news, I thought I’d share the lovely lemon tarts that I made for Easter dessert (can you believe Easter happened already?!).

For the Daring Bakers out there who had some difficulties with the Perfect Party Cake and for those of you that read about those difficulties, here’s one to restore your faith in the great Dorie! Not that our faith was ever weak, mind you.

This tart recipe comes from Dorie’s Baking: From My Home to Yours. It’s a lemon cream tart that is made in a very unique way. Usually when making lemon curd, you cook it until it thickens and then add butter off the heat. Once cooled, the curd is ready to use.

This particular filling is made by putting the lemon base in a blender or food processor and adding the butter with the motor running. What you end up with is almost like a lemon butter rather than a lemon curd.

However you want to describe it, it’s beyond delicious. To read about the tart straight from Dorie, you can check out her post (and recipe) on Serious Eats.

So open those windows, let some sunshine in and enjoy the rest of the week!

Ciao!

What is life without a little bit of the whimsical? The magical? The fanciful?

I think that is perhaps what I love most about the idea of decorating a wee cupcake: it’s an opportunity to let your creative heart out.

Call me silly, but I just can’t help but feel a bit of whimsy these days. Life is crazy as ever and the world is as strange as ever but some things never change.

I can smell spring in the air.

The other day I saw a few brave daffodils insistently pushing their way through the soil.

Today I saw the most perfect pair of summer sandals.

Ah, whimsy!

But whimsy also comes in other forms, namely a cookbook by the name of Little Cakes from the Whimsical Bakehouse: Cupcakes, Small Cakes, Muffins, and Other Mini Treats by Kaye and Liv Hansen.

A very sweet and kind person sent me a copy of this book after reading about my experience baking cupcakes for the wedding of a coworker. I was so touched! I made a promise to myself that I’d take a look at the book and post about it and then work and life got in the way.

Happily, over the past few weeks I had some time to finally look through this book and I have fallen in love with it.

It’s just adorable. Not to mention the fact that it’s filled with some very good recipes for baking basics like buttercream, as well as numerous recipes for all sorts of cakes and treats. The book is organized into a series of “baking projects” that are all accompanied by detailed decorating instructions. Through the miracle of the Internet, those instructions are augmented by The Whimsical Bakehouse’s web site, which has a number of useful videos on how to create various decorative accents.

While I was tempted by many of the projects in this book, the one that drew me in was the “Flower Power” project that features lemon coconut cupcakes decorated with buttercream in the form of a variety of flowers.

For the cupcakes, I adapted the recipe because while I love lemon and I love coconut, in a very strange twist I do not love those two ingredients together. Instead, I created dulce de leche coconut cupcakes by adding a blob of dulce de leche to the base of each of my cupcake liners. I replaced the lemon juice in the recipe with buttermilk to create a very tender crumb. For the buttercream, I used a recipe from the book called “Kaye’s Buttercream” and added coconut extract to augment the coconut flavour.

To decorate the cupcakes, I couldn’t resist trying the rose decoration and the hydrangea decoration. I’m not sure how successful the hydrangea was, but I was very proud of the rose.

This is such a sweet little book. I hope that as spring approaches and everyone’s thoughts turn to lighter days and warmer weather, you’ll take a moment to let some whimsy into your life and perhaps bake a cupcake or two!

Ciao!

Dulce de Leche Coconut Cupcakes
Adapted from Little Cakes from the Whimsical Bakehouse by Kaye and Liv Hansen.

Note: I used mini paper cups to bake these cupcakes. The recipe yielded 36 mini cupcakes. You can also make 12 regular-sized cupcakes. Be sure to grease a muffin tin and line with cupcake liners if you’re making the regular-sized ones. I used a buttercream recipe from the book but I didn’t adapt it in any way so I’m not going to post it here. For a really good buttercream recipe, try this one.

Ingredients:

1-1/2 (12 tbsp.) sticks unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs, at room temperature
1 tbsp. coconut extract
1-1/2 cups all purpose flour
1/4 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
1/2 cup buttermilk, at room temperature
1 cup sweetened shredded coconut
1 cup dulce de leche

Method:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Line paper cups on a baking sheet. Place a dollop of dulce de leche in the bottom of each paper cup. Set aside.

In a bowl, sift together the flour, baking soda and salt. Set aside.

In the bowl of a stand mixer, cream together the butter and sugar for 3 minutes. The mixture should be pale and fluffy.

With the mixer on low speed, add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Be sure to scrape down the sides of the bowl.

Add the coconut extract and mix well.

Add the dry ingredients to the mixture in three stages, alternating with the buttermilk in between each stage.

Be sure to scrape down the bowl to ensure that the batter is well mixed.

Remove the bowl from the mixer and stir in the coconut.

Spoon the batter into the waiting paper cups. They should be halfway to three-quarters of the way full.

Bake for 20 minutes and check for doneness. If a cake tester doesn’t come out clean, bake for a few more minutes.

Remove the mini cupcakes to a wire rack and let cool completely before frosting.

Enjoy!

“On top of spaghetti,
All covered with cheese,
I lost my poor meatball,
When somebody sneezed.”

I really struggled to pick a cookbook from The Overburdened Bookshelf to feature as the Flavour of the Month for April 2008.

As much as I love my baking, I wanted to focus on something other than sweets. The gardening bug is starting to get to me but while it is spring, we are still at least a month or so away from even considering going out into the garden. It will be awhile before we’re harvesting any local vegetables or fruits so I didn’t want to pick a cookbook that focused on fresh goods from the garden.

Stumped, I perused my stacks of cookbooks again and again until I finally decided on a book written by Johanne Killeen and George German called On Top of Spaghetti… .

Killeen and Germon are the famous chef/husand and wife team behind the restaurant Al Forno in Rhode Island. The couple has been featured on television and in print and their restaurant is quite famous (note to self: must visit one day).

I bought their cookbook last year and kept promising myself that I’d try some of the recipes. We’re big pasta eaters and while we have a fairly steady repertoire of pasta recipes, it’s always nice to augment the usual with something new. As well, I’ve been promising myself that I would spend more time making homemade pasta.

I’m lucky to belong to a family of master pasta makers. On both sides of my family, there is no shortage of skills when it comes to creating great pasta dough. I stand by Mama Cream Puff’s pasta recipe and firmly believe that my mom is a true master and I’m not just saying that because she’s my mom.

Having chosen the book, I decided to dive right in and head straight to the chapter on fresh pasta. Using my mother’s pasta recipe as a basis, I decided to try making ravioli for the first time on my own (no help from my mammina).

I thought it best that I try a fairly straightforward filling so I went with a filling of ricotta, egg, Parmigiano Reggiano and a touch of nutmeg.

Here’s a little photo essay of my journey into ravioli land:

Like most Italians, we have a hand cranked pasta maker that we used for years. However, about a year ago we invested in the pasta attachments for our Kitchen Aid mixer and haven’t looked back!

Using my mother’s recipe as a guide, I prepared the dough and then rolled out the pasta sheets to the second last level of thinness on the pasta roller. I then laid out my pasta sheets to await their destiny.

After making a simple filling of ricotta, beaten egg, salt, Parmigiano Reggiano and a touch of nutmeg, I mounded spoonfuls of filling at equal intervals on each pasta sheet.

I carefully folded one half of the pasta sheet over the mounded filling and then pressed down in between each mound to remove any trapped air and to secure the filling. Before folding the dough over, I dampened the edges of the dough with a bit of water to help the dough stick together.

Using a decorative roller, I trimmed the edges of the folded pasta sheets.

I then used the roller to cut out the individual ravioli.

I prepared a very basic tomato sauce, which I used to adorn my ravioli after boiling them. I was so anxious about the boiling process and keeping an eye on my ravioli to ensure that they didn’t open that I didn’t take any photos. At that point, I then became so eager to try the fruits of my labour that I didn’t bother with any photos of the finished product.

They were good.

They weren’t as good as Mama Cream Puff’s, but they were good. And I know she was proud of me.

Now I don’t want anyone fretting. There will be lots of sweet things on this blog during the month of April including some long overdue cookbook reviews. But there’s also going to be a lot of pasta.

Carbs, here I come!

Ciao!

For a pretty darn good pasta recipe, click here.

For the filling: Mix together 1 cup of ricotta with 1 cup of grated Parmigiano Reggiano, beat in one lightly beaten egg, 1/2 tsp. salt, 1/2 tsp. black pepper and a pinch of nutmeg (optional). Set aside until you’re ready to use as a filling.