Mario the cake

So little time these days to spend time in front of the computer to actually get it all down.  This past week was Thanksgiving and my youngest son’s 5th birthday.  I co-chair a charity event for the library that Mark Twain started a hundred years ago which is happening this Friday.  About 500 people are expected to come to the champagne gala and buy fabulous art by many local artists.  Then the following week I’m co-organizing a holiday party for 75-100 people.  Then several days later I’ve got our cooking club going to a demonstration by a local chef in a neighboring town. 

Ok, so then I also work from home, have 3 kids with growing homework expectations and a teething puppy.  I am not doing so much come next year!  I won’t be doing the library gig.  I will try to turn over some of the other event planning stuff to others (it’s not like I’m getting paid for any of this).  And then I will give more time to my family, my house and getting my business off the ground. 

Well, the one thing that has really suffered is my attention to this blog. I have wanted to take the time, because I love to write and I always hope by sharing that I will inspire others to cook. 

One thing I created this past week (besides a wonderful turkey feast on Thanksgiving) that I was very proud of was the cake I made for my son’s birthday.  I Continue reading

If you have time, this is a great Thanksgiving dessert

I made this last week for our cooking club. 

I remembered after making it why I don’t make it every year for Thanksgiving.  It is amazing and quite impressive, but it takes time and quite a bit of work.  If you have time, it’s worth it!  Last year I made it because I wasn’t hosting Thanksgiving dinner so there wasn’t as much to do.

I’m hosting this year’s Thanksgiving, so I am just making a simple pumpkin pie… and a turkey with stuffing, potatoes, sweet potatoes, roasted butternut squash puree, roasted parsnips, green beans, cranberry sauce, and probably Brussels sprouts.  So far I’ve made the croutons for the stuffing, cranberry sauce, roasted butternut squash and tonight’s dinner of pork fried rice.

I’m also hoping my sourdough starter worked and can bake some sourdough bread.  My husband is bringing home gravy with him from work— luckily he is just going in for a couple of hours in the morning.

Just in case you missed it— the recipe for the Triple Layer Pumpkin Pie is hereOh yes, and this year I made the crust of graham crackers and ginger snaps.

Happy Thanksgiving.  Hope you spend it with loved ones!

Gallery

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It’s my middle son’s birthday party/campout tonight.  I made a S’mores cake for our camping theme! Used TJ’s chocolate cake, marshmallows I softened in microwave, my own recipe vanilla cake and meringue frosting.  Then topped it with graham cracker crumbs.

Greatest Dessert Find

An opportunity to cook for a friend who recently severely broke his leg came up yesterday and since I had so much housework to do, I seized the moment.  I’d much rather help someone out, especially when cooking is part of it, than vacuum or fold laundry. (And I wonder where my son’s avoidance of non-preferred tasks comes from.)  I was going to make pork chops, but I must have purchased old ones because they were no good.  So I changed to a Moroccan style (of course) stew with chick peas, chicken, tomatoes, peppers and kale.  I served it with couscous.  I ended up saving a little for us, which came in handy when our dinner plans changed at dinner time.  The boys ate it all without complaints and they really loved the couscous (it’s so quick and easy to make too).

But what I really was excited about making and giving was the dessert.  It was the ultimate recipe that I’ve been trying to find but not quite finding the right one.  But this Banana Sticky Toffee Pudding was it; this one is really what I had been searching for all along.  The differences that make this recipe stand out against my other attempts are using less flour and baking it in a water bath but most of all roasting the bananas in their skins.  Roasting the bananas changes the chemistry of the starches/sugars before you mash them and their sweetness really comes out.  As one friend said, you could probably just take those mashed bananas and serve them over ice cream at that point.  I made the recipe in a one large dish a few days earlier but didn’t roast the bananas and realized what a difference it made after doing it.

The recipe comes from Ruth Pretty’s Favourite Recipes.  Ruth is a well-known New Zealand chef and author who has catered to cultural and political elite including royalty.  She has an amazing cooking school and catering facility on the Kapiti Coast, which I have had the pleasure of having touring with my close friend who works for Ruth.   Ruth herself was very sweet and I was truly in awe of her operation.  Well, I found the recipe while I was looking through the book trying to find a Pavlova recipe.  When I read it I knew I’d stumbled across the bestest of Sticky Toffee Puddings!!

Sweet Basil’s Sticky Banana Pudding via Ruth Pretty

3 ripe bananas (skin on)

180g unsalted butter, room temp

180g (¾ cup + 3 Tbsp) sugar

3 eggs

1 tsp vanilla extract

¾ cup flour

1½ tsp baking powder

¼ tsp salt

Grease 10 ramekins or other oven safe dishes.  Pour toffee sauce into base about ¼ inch deep and set aside.  Preheat oven to 200ºC (392ºF).  Place whole bananas in a baking dish and bake in their skins for 10 minutes or until they are mushy.  Cool.  Peel off the skins, mash and set aside. 

With an electric mixer, beat butter and sugar together until creamy and smooth.  Add one egg at a time, beating well after each addition.  Add banana and vanilla and mix well.  Sift flour, baking powder and salt into mixture and fold in.  Spoon batter into ramekins (allow for expansion) and place in a roasting dish.  Pour hot water to about 2 cm deep (or halfway up sides of dishes) in the roasting dish and cover entire dish with foil.  Place in oven and bake for about 30 minutes (until they’re spongy to touch).  Remove foil and cool on a rack.  To serve: run a knife around side to separate then tip upside down onto a plate, pouring toffee sauce from bottom over top of the pudding.  Add any additional warmed sauce you’d like and serve with whipped cream.  Sea salt on top is a nice option.This picture doesn’t really do it justice.  I was having camera trouble and this was the best I could do.

Of course my kids loved them… and the friend I made them for did as well! 

Thoughts of New Zealand

Lately I’ve been thinking often of my second home, the homeland of my mother and her family— reconnecting with old friends via facebook and linkedin, the Christchurch Earthquake and now my close friend’s father’s death (in Wellington) just the other day.  Well, all these thoughts turned into my contribution to our cooking club’s Global Cuisine Night. I made Pavlova, the national dessert of NZ for the first time.  

I have such fond memories of “Pav” and will probably make it again for my son’s third grade class when they have their monthly country food tasting in May.  They’ll be learning about New Zealand and trying foods from there then. 

Pavlova was fought over its origin by the Australians and New Zealanders up until recently as it was finally traced to NZ.  The meringue cake was originally made in New Zealand and an Australian chef named it after the visit to both countries of the Russian ballet dancer Anna Pavlova in the 1920’s.  

New Zealand Pavlova (national dessert of New Zealand)

4 egg whites

1 cup super fine sugar

1 tsp white vinegar

3 tsp cornstarch

1 tsp vanilla

1-2 cups fresh cream to whip

fresh fruit (cut and drained on paper towel)

Preheat oven to 400F.  Line a cookie sheet with parchment. 

Beat egg whites with whisk attachment of electric mixer until stiff peaks form.  Add sugar slowly (tablespoon at a time), continuing to beat entire time, add vinegar, vanilla and cornstarch.  Continue to beat for another 5-7 minutes until shiny and stiff.  Place mixture on parchment in a circle (or several circles for smaller/individual servings), swirling the top to be flat.  Place in oven and reduce to 250F.  Bake meringue for an hour.  Turn oven off and keep pavlova in there until cold (over night is best) so that the outside is crispy.

Before serving whip cream, spread on top and decorate with fruit (kiwifruit, berries).  I made two large “circles” and layered the cream between and on top.

The crispy outside and chewy inside make this such a popular dessert.  It’s light but very sweet.  The fruit you choose can give a great combination of sweet-tart.

More Birthday Week Treats

So for my son’s dinner at home with sitter I made cupcakes, then dinner with friends and his party at Chuck E Cheese’s (hate the place- torture for parents, bliss for kids) cakes with the vanilla cake recipe and meringue frosting with variations. I only made 12 cupcakes so I halved the recipe.  For the birthday party cake I made one layer chocolate and a middle layer of vanilla ice cream with crushed Twix bars.  If you read my post from my youngest’s birthday party in November my attempts at making an ice cream layer cake was a disaster.  This time I got it right.  Everyone seemed to like it though the cake itself was much harder than the ice cream.  Not sure how to remedy that.

Traditional Vanilla Birthday Cake  (Adapted from Magnolia Bakery)

2 sticks butter, softened

2 cups sugar

4 large eggs, room temp

2¾ cups flour

1½ tsp baking powder

¼ tsp salt

1 cup milk

2 tsp vanilla

Preheat oven to 350F.  Grease 2 round cake pans and line bottom with parchment paper. Sift flour, salt and baking powder together twice and set aside.  Mix milk and vanilla and set aside.  Using electric mixer cream the butter until smooth and gradually add sugar.  Beat until fluffy then add eggs one at a time, continuing to beat well.  Add flour and milk alternating each in 4 parts, beating well after each addition.  Divide batter among the two pans.  Bake for 20-25 minutes until golden and cake springs back when pressed slightly or toothpick comes out clean.   Let cool on rack before removing from pans.  Frost when completely cool.

  • If using ice cream as layer, put cakes in freezer for at least an hour after cooling. Soften ice cream until spreadable and store in freezer until nearly ready to serve. 
  • I added half a pack of chocolate pudding mix to my finished batter once I poured half in one cake pan so one layer was chocolate.
  • For cupcakes, just divide among lined muffin tins and bake for 20 minutes. I used naturally colored sprinkles I found at Whole Foods.
  • For friends’ visit cake I made a chocolate cream layer by whipping cream, adding 1 tsp gelatin dissolved over cold water, and ½ package of melted chocolate chips. I used up the leftover frosting from the cupcakes, which only half covered the cake.  It didn’t look as pretty, but was still pretty delicious!

Magnolia Bakery’s Meringue Frosting (“Fluff” frosting)  

3 egg whites

1½ tsp vanilla

½ cup cold water

1½ cups sugar

just over ¼ tsp cream of tartar

Combine egg whites and vanilla in mixing bowl and set aside. In saucepan over high heat combine the water, sugar and cream of tartar.  Bring to a boil stirring once, then let boil for 2-3 minutes and remove immediately.  On medium high speed of electric mixer, beat the egg whites and vanilla with whisk attachment for about one minute until foamy.  Without turning off mixer, pour sugar syrup into egg whites in a thin, steady stream. Continue to beat for about 5 minutes until stiff peaks form.  For stickier frosting(more marshmallowy consistency) continue to beat longer.

Only kids without sweet-tooths would not like these!  And, there are no artificial flavors, colors or preservatives so you can let them have a treat and not worry as much.

Birthday Week

My eldest son just turned 9 two days ago.  9!  As my friend’s daughter reminded us they’re now in their last single digit year.  So bittersweet.  Well, time for all the sweets to overcome any bitterness.  For my son’s school celebration I made a Sticky Toffee Banana Pudding per his request. And for his at home celebration, for which I wasn’t there because I had an event at Whole Foods an hour away,  I made vanilla cup cakes with meringue frosting (very similar to Fluff) and naturally colored sprinkles.  We had friends over the following night and I figured I should use up the remaining merignue frosting and made a vanilla layer cake with chocolate cream center.  It was the first time in years that I’ve successfully baked a layer cake.

I found the Sticky  Toffee Banana Pudding recipe on Bon Appétit’s website.  I had made it the week before but found the cake part too similar to banana bread, so this time around I cut down on the flour.  It was less bready but still needs tweaking.  It is so delicious— bananas and toffee, how can it not be good!  My son’s class loved it!  My youngest son was off from school and was also able to join in the celebration. A couple of kids said they had to lick their plates it was so good.  (Now that’s a compliment!)  I served it with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. 

Sticky Toffee Banana Pudding (adapted from original by Lauren Chattman)

Banana Cake:

1 ½ cups flour

1 ½ tsp baking powder

½ tsp salt

1 ½ sticks unsalted butter, softened

3 Tbsp brown sugar

2 large eggs, room temp

3 very ripe bananas, mashed

2 tsp dark rum

2 tsp vanilla

Toffee sauce:

⅓ cup cream

¾ cup brown sugar

1 tsp vanilla

½ stick butter

Preheat oven to 350F.  Grease and line with parchment an 8×8 square baking pan.

Sift together twice the flour, baking powder and salt and set aside.  Using an electric mixer cream the butter and sugar.  Beat in one egg at a time.  Add bananas, rum and vanilla.  (Looks curdled).  Add flour mixture in 4 parts, beating after each addition.  Spread batter into pan and bake for about 35 minutes until toothpick or skewer inserted into center  comes out clean.  Spread half the toffee sauce over cake and return to oven for 6 minutes.  Cool on rack for at least 20 minutes.  Serve with remaining toffee sauce and whipped cream or ice cream.

I will post the cupcake and birthday cake recipes soon.