It was my mothers birthday this past weekend. I am very incredibly poor so I wasn’t able to buy her a proper present, instead I figured I would try to make her a decadent dessert.

I get my sweet tooth, and maybe a bit of my love for baking, from my mother. So I knew that no matter what I made for her, she’d love it. But being her daughter, and a kindred candy spirit, I know she love love loves chocolate, so of course chocolate would be incorporated in some fashion. 

Unless someone requests something specifically I almost immediately go to chocolate, and then directly following that: raspberry. I’m sorry, they’re just so perfect together. And also I found the most perfect recipe for a chocolate raspberry truffle layer cake.

How can you pass that up?

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Phase 3 of “When life gives you 16 egg yolks, bake a bunch of shit” ( a two parter): Tiramisu, made with pound cake (sorry no photos!).

I made tiramisu many moons ago when I briefly worked as a dessert cook at a restaurant. And when I say briefly, I mean briefly, like 2 weeks maybe? But this was my first experience making everything from scratch, and using pound cake instead of lady fingers.

The pound cake was very simple, and I made it about a week in advance of actually assembling the tiramisu. I would suggest maybe letting it sit out uncovered for a day before using it so it gets a little more stale and easier to use. 

I adapted my tiramisu recipe from one of my favorite online goto cook books, Joy of Baking. I opted not to use the marsala/rum in the custard mixture, partly because I didn’t have any, and partly because I just wanted to make a pretty traditional custard filling. 

After the custard has cooled sufficiently, I would suggest actually beating the mascarpone with an electric mixer, to make sure you get it to the perfect consistency, then adding it to the custard. 

I happened to have some extra Kahlua lying around, so I added about 2-3 tablespoons to the coffee mixture, and I loved the way the flavoring turned out. My assembly of the tiramisu turned out to be rather sloppy. I sliced the pound cake and then cut them in half. In hindsight I think it would have been better to just cut the loaf in sliced from top to bottom, so all of the pieces are the size of the pan, making it much more sturdy, and easier to serve. 

Overall, except for presentation, I thought this worked out great and I will definitely be making it again to perfect it!

Phase 2 of “When life gives you 16 egg yolks, bake a bunch of shit” : Butter Cookies. I’ve recently been running into this recipe a lot and had never heard of these little delights before. 

They are a very versatile cookie and can take on just about any flavoring. I had also recently come across a citrus sugar cookie and thought that I might be able to meld the two. 

I added finely grated zest of one lime and one lemon to the butter cookie dough and voila, a lovely little summertime treat!

I took the cookies into work and they were a huge hit. Not a single one was left over by the end of the day.

This is a great recipe to have in your repertoire, and I definitely plan on reinventing it as many times as humanly possible.

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I probably shouldn’t just inundate you with the plethora of things that will come out of my oven from 16 egg yolks. So, I’ll post them over the next few days.

First, I decided to try a recipe that I found for a “custard pie.” But I didn’t like the sound of that so I was going to change it to “custard cake,” but that didn’t work out, so finally I got to the perfect berry custard bars. 

I made quite a few changes to the recipe I found, because it just wasn’t working out for me. In the end it turned out pretty favorably. Although next time around I may add a bit of lemon to the custard to give it a bit more flavor.

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I have 16 left over egg yolks from making four batches of coconut macaroons. I’ll be spending a lot of time in the kitchen for the next few days…

I had big plans for these cookies. They never came to fruition. 

Thats not to say these cookies didn’t turn out spectacularly, I just didn’t follow through with all I had planned for them. 

I came across this recipe while perusing some baking blogs and thought it would be fairly painless and easy, since I already had all of the ingredients at home and wouldn’t even have to leave my apartment! I love not having to see the light of day.

I ended up not adding any chocolate to the cookie, therefore taking away the whole S’more aspect of it, but it was still delightful. The cookies on their own are a great alternative to a molasses or sugar cookie, very soft with a brown sugar cinnamony taste. I had planned on adding the chocolate by dipping the bottoms of the cookies in melted chocolate and letting it cool, then adding the marshmallow mixture and making the sandwich, I just didn’t do it.

My cookies didn’t spread out as much as the photos suggested they might, not a big problem, and I made my cinnamon sugar mixture a bit more cinnamony. The most important step is to NOT OVER BAKE! It is very easy to do this, you want the cookies to just start to set and crack on the top, I also rotated my pan half way through the baking time, otherwise the bottoms will become too hard.

Happy Baking!

S’mores Cookie Sandwiches

Today was a big day. Today I took a sampling of my goodies to a local caterer. Eeeek!

I was feeling pretty confident about what I would bring. Maybe a couple of cookies, a couple of cupcakes, some truffles. But then the caterer uttered a word that completely threw me off my track: “fancy.”

What does that mean?! 

So instead of spending the weekend baking, I spent it stressing myself out about what a fancy dessert was. I ended up with one solid idea by 8 p.m. Sunday evening, truffles. By midnight I had dark chocolate raspberry and spicy mexican frozen balls. Time to go to bed and set the alarm for 6 a.m.!

Well that didn’t work. 

At 5 a.m I was awoken by the sound of wind. Yes, it was so windy last night that the sound woke me up and I could not get back to sleep. Shortly after that the tornado sirens began blaring. And shortly after that there was a procession of cop cars and fire trucks blaring their sirens. 6 a.m., I don’t think so. Reset the alarm for 8.

I reluctantly dragged myself out of bed and swiftly got to work. At some point during the night I had had an epiphany and now know exactly what I should make. I had until 2:30 to finish off the truffles, make orange marmalade cookies with an orange marmalade icing, flourless chocolate mocha cake, coconut macaroons dipped in chocolate, and lemon curd bars, and I still had to go to the grocery store!

Once the groceries were bought things went pretty smoothly. I had everything baked and plated and was even showered by the time 2:30 rolled around. I loaded everything up and I was shakily on my way!

For all of the stressing I did, everything went over pretty smoothly. All of the goodies were enjoyed by the caterers. We exchanged information and they promised to pass my name along to people looking for baked goods! Now I just need to get to work on my business cards!!

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Yes I know it was four days ago, but I am just now getting to posting. I was invited to a cookout and asked to bring some sort of dish to share. Of course I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to bake an America themed treat. 

I’ve been obsessed with cupcakes lately and have been wanting to try my hand at some sort of filled cupcake. What better way to show my American pride than by baking red velvet cupcakes, with white chocolate cream cheese filling, and blue cream cheese frosting! 

These things turned out beautifully! The cake was so moist. The filling, the perfect combination of white chocolate, cream cheese, and fluffiness. And you just can’t go wrong with cream cheese frosting. 

The cupcakes were a hit at the party. Everyone was raving about them and they were being gobbled up left and right. Feeling I had fulfilled my duty of providing an oh so American delight, I retired to the air conditioned indoors. And then tragedy struck.

I returned to porch area to find all of my cupcakes gone. I was delighted, I hadn’t thought they would be that much of a hit. Then I seemed to step in something squishy, and looking down found two cupcakes smashed into the porch floor, expected casualties at an outdoor party. I quickly ran to get some paper towels to clean up the mess, and went to throw them into a plastic bag I found on the floor, but instead inside the bag I found over half of my cupcakes.

How did this happen?! Who would do this?! Was it an accident? Sabotage? My sister immediately began interrogating people. No one was fessing up, or seemed to have seen anything. The only conclusion we could come to was that someone had tried one, been blown away by the scrumptiousness of it, and wanted to take the rest for themselves. It still remains a mystery.

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Last Friday was my friends last day at work before he moved half way across the country. To celebrate his leaving (okay just kidding, to mourn his leaving) I decided to bake him a special cake to be enjoyed by all of his coworkers: Jack Daniel’s Chocolate Cake with Jack Daniel’s Chocolate Frosting. Yeah. Yum.

This is one of my favorite cakes as well, as I am whiskey girl myself. It has a the perfect amount of chocolate and whiskey in it to make it oh so rich and spicy. I’ve made this cake countless times before, in layer form, in cupcake form. But for some reason when I made it in its intended form, bundt, it gave me some trouble. 

I have this really great bundt pan I was given for Christmas that is in the shape of a castle and I thought my friend would get a kick out of receiving a castle shaped cake. I prepared the batter and poured it into the greased and floured bundt pan. As I’m cleaning up after myself I begin to smell something funny… something burning?! I quickly flick on the oven light and throw open the door, and there, surrounding my beautiful castle bundt pan, is a moat of chocolate jack daniel’s cake batter. ( I really should have photos of this)

Oh what a state of despair I was in. I was just about to begin sobbing in the fetal position on the kitchen floor when a thought struck me. I CAN SAVE  THIS! There was still a good amount of batter left in the pan and I had another, more ordinarily shaped, bundt pan. I transfered the remaining batter into my newly greased and floured bundt pan, and continued with the cooking. And low and behold, I ended up with a beautifully perfect, although slightly miniature, Jack Daniel’s Chocolate Bundt Cake. And it was smooth sailing from there as I made the glaze for this lovely little gem.

I like to taste the whiskey in this cake because it can give it a real spiciness. If you just want a super rich chocolaty cake, I would omit about a tablespoon from each recipe. But I always recommend taking a little taste to make sure you’re satisfied!

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Lemon Bars