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.