A whole lot of butter later...

I was so excited for last weekend! Mom and both my sisters headed up for a weekend of girl fun in Wakefield to celebrate (very late) mom's birthday. I haven't spent much time with the girls in way too long. Living so far away from everyone always lends a frenzied edge to my visits. But this trip was such a nice and relaxing weekend, with no agendas or frenzy. Just what I need!

I've had almost no opportunities to treat my family with the new baking skills I've been picking up, so I went a little bit overboard for the weekend. It's just so nice to be able to share some of the goodies, and not have them sitting around my kitchen for ages, tempting me.

The first treat for the weekend was a pecan cupcake with maple buttercream and was a breeze to make. I've made the cake once before with walnuts, which is light and delicate. A hint of cinnamon adds a bit of spice that works so well with the nuts. However, maple buttercream is the real winner in this recipe. It's smooth and rich; every bite is filled with maple. I've made it a few more times and it works wonderfully as a filling for macarons. We kind of dolopped the icing on top of the cakes in a mad rush to get on the road, but the taste didn't suffer!

The next treat of the weekend were croissants. I haven't made them since last summer and was feeling a little adventurous and tried a different recipe this time from Baking with Julia. I had to make two batches, as I promised to bring a tasty treat in for the morning meeting at the office.

I can tell you that I was seriously cursing my eagerness while rolling out the croissant dough. The turning process wasn't too bad, but rolling it paper thin to form the croissants was backbreaking. Seriously. I had to put a hot pad on my back to relax some of my muscles. The worst part were the bruises. I had fallen up the stairs a couple days earlier and had small bruises along my forearms. The dough was so hard I ended up rolling using my whole forearm with the rolling pin in order to get some real pressure behind it. By the next day, I had purple bruising running up my arms from the elbows. Ouch! I don't know how bakeries only charge like $2.50 for one of those things. It's worth so much more!

The results, however, were divine! For the ladies, I made three different kinds: plain, chocolate-almond, and raisin-cream. The chocolate-almond were my favourites, so I made extras of those for the office. And they were so well-received at the office. I had a few people telling me that they hadn't had croissants that good since they'd been to Paris. Despite my earlier vows never to make that recipe again... I think I'll give it a go after the good reviews they got. I just have to start saving up some money for a sheeter machine. Those are pretty cheap, right? We should have some fresh croissants ready in about 5 years.

A Mountain of Chocolate and Salted Caramel

I received a new order for the week for a self-professed chocolate lover with a special request for some caramel. It was right on time for me. I've been in such a mood for chocolate caramel, I decided to make a second batch so we could have cupcakes for the house. Phil has become so unabashedly spoiled this past year. Heaven forbid that he doesn't have a dessert every day of the week.

After a bit of browsing, I finally decided upon using a recipe for a six-layered salted caramel chocolate cake from Martha Stewart, which you can find HERE. A true behemoth of a cake.

The chocolate cake was incredibly easy to make and the result was wonderful. It will replace my standard chocolate cake recipe from now on. The cake is extremely moist and rich.

I found the salted caramel didn't have enough salt in it, so sprinkled some more between the layers, which effectively helped to cut the sugar so you can more easily stuff your face without succumbing to a sugar-induced coma. I made a batch and a half of caramel (to use for 2 full cake recipes) and still have a mason jar full of the stuff. It really goes a long way.

For the cupcakes, I scooped out a bit of the insides with a melon baller and poured a little caramel into it. Not nearly enough, though. The caramel works best when it's cold for layering the cake, but it should be warmer when filling cupcakes, otherwise it is very difficult to work with. Next time I'll heat the caramel up a touch so that I can really fill the cupcakes to bursting. Sprinkle a little salt on top for a nice touch and a salty finish.

Pumpkin Bread French Toast

Today was one of my favourite types of days as it was spent completely in the kitchen. I had a huge list of recipes to catch up on and only managed to get through half of them, limited by missing ingredients, not enough stock pots and, most importantly, insufficient time. If only I hadn't lazed around so long this morning. But after a breakfast like we had, it takes a little while to get moving.

Yesterday I managed to tackle one kitchen project: pumpkin muffins. I still had a lot of pumpkin puree leftover after the pumpkin creme brulee at Christmas, so decided to make some muffins out of it. Maybe soup would have been an easier option, because I had so much puree I had to make a triple batch of muffins. My arms were aching trying to stir all of the batter!

After all of the rich food we consumed over the last month, we're trying to make things a little healthier than we normally would. I found this delicious recipe from Cooking Light for pumpkin muffins, using sour cream in place of some of the oil. The triple batch made 3 pans of muffins with a lot of batter leftover, so I made a loaf with it. I sprinkled white and brown sugar on top of the muffins before baking, which lends the top a delightfully sweet crunch when you bite into it. 

Inspiration hit this morning when I was trying to decide what to make for brunch: pumpkin bread french toast. I added a bit of cinnamon and vanilla to the eggs before dipping the bread, but otherwise kept the mix pretty simple. The french toast came out moist and dense, with just the perfect amount of spice. A lot denser than your average french toast, though.

Among other ventures for the day was turkey stock so we could use up the leftover turkey bones from Christmas. I've never made stock before and I found a recipe from Michael Smith that is ridiculously simple. Just put the turkey bones and chopped carrot, onion and celery into a stock pot, add thyme and 2 bay leaves, and cover with water. Simmer it for 2 hours and you get an amazing stock at the end of it. If I had known how simple it was to make, I would have started doing this years ago. The only issue I have with it is dealing with the turkey carcass as I found myself getting a little squeamish while I was hacking away. Reminds me of my reasons for going into pastry instead of cuisine.

Next on the list was rye bread. I've made it once before in school but today I decided to use a recipe from Baking with Julia. It's half rye flour and half all purpose; the gluten content in the all purpose flour lends it a bit more structure and elasticity. Raiding my pantry revealed that I had a full bottle of flax seeds, so I tossed a bunch of them in the dough and sprinkled more on top of the loaves for a little added decor. The bread is delightfully chewy with a crispy exterior. I can't wait to have some for breakfast tomorrow! However, this experience has convinced me that I need to save up for a heavier duty stand mixer. The little one I had struggled painfully to mix this dough and I thought it was going to explode at one point.

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year everyone! I don't know about you, but this new year brings for me an amazing sense of freedom and well-being. Almost like I could tackle anything. Which might have something to do with the loads of awesome gadgets I got for Christmas and the 2nd kitchen we've set up in the old bedroom. I am planning on focussing a lot of my attention this year to exploring more recipes and techniques, which means I'll have a lot more to post. And hopefully, without school to worry about, I'll have the time to do it all. 

Both sides of the family were really looking out for me this holiday season and I have a new bright red KitchenAid Architect Food Processor. It's so pretty I've spent much of my time just looking at it and stroking the smooth finish. I also received a Kenwood immersion blender with so many cool attachments. I can't wait to get started making all kinds of soups and purees this year. Maybe I'll even be able to make my own pistachio paste so I don't have to take out a loan to purchase it from Farinex (at a whopping $80/canister, ouch!).

The other major item was a new digital SLR Canon EOS Rebel 3, courtesy of a really great boxing day sale. Paired with my new book on food photography, I have absolutely no excuses for blurry iPhone pictures anymore. It's going to be a bit of a process, so please bear with me while I experiment with the new camera and lighting techniques. Hopefully, it will only improve. In the meantime, I predict a lot more cat photos while I'm playing with it, as the lazy bums always seem to be around whenever I take off the lens cap.

Bright Eyes looks like he'll smiling at me

Headley stretching out along the couch

The first baking project of this year was a simple carrot cake that's been in my family for years. Phil has been on my case for a couple months now to make him a carrot cake and I can't blame him. After all of the decadent mousse cakes I was making at school, I was really excited to get back to making a regular cake. But I wouldn't be me if I didn't try to fancy it up a little bit.

The cake itself uses 2/3 apple sauce in place of oil to help reduce some of the fat content of the cake. I also finds it gives the cake a bit more of an elasticity than using full oil. I've found a really delicious cream cheese frosting that I normally use with pumpkin cake. It has a portion of butter in it that just makes it so much richer and smoother than the normal frosting with just cream cheese. I made two batches of it and added chopped pecans and shredded coconut to one of them. I layered the cake in 4 layers with the nutty frosting between each layer, then used the plain cream cheese frosting to smooth along the top and sides of the cake. I had hoped to make a smooth finish to the cake with the plain icing, but impatience got the better of me and I just slapped it on. Despite the mediocre appearance, the result is so decadent and delicious. Phil's eyes simply lit up when he took a bite of it; I don't think it will survive the week in this house.