Cranberry Orange Scones

I always have thought of scones as a not-so-savory biscuit. They should be light and flaky with plentiful layers just like a biscuit but also have a touch of sweetness. Going to afternoon tea and getting scones with jam and clotted cream, delish!

For that person you know who doesn't have the biggest sweet tooth and isn't the biggest dessert person, scones are an excellent treat for them because they only have a hint of sweetness. These make a great homemade gift, with an extra personal touch

Any type of fruit, nut, candy or chocolate can be thrown in to make a unique scone recipe of your own and the person you are gifting with these delicious little pastries will be ever so thankful.

Cranberry Pistachio Biscotti

Biscotti are such lovely little crunchy cookies that can easily be turned into an elegant homemade gift. For the person who enjoys  'not so sweet' desserts, these are be the perfect treat for them. Biscotti can be left plain, but are most commonly found chock full of dried fruits or nuts.

 
Cranberries & pistachios are the perfect green and red representation for the holiday season in a dessert. To dress these cookies up even more, you can dip them in white and dark chocolate and coat them in red & green sanding sugar.

Rainbow Birthday Cake

 One of my besties birthday was this past weekend and naturally I wanted to make him a birthday cake. I saw this layered rainbow cake on a blog I follow a few months ago and I knew at that moment him + the rainbow cake = a match made in heaven. He loved it, everyone loved it, I was happy and considering my blog is in dire need of an update,  I'm going to talk about it.

This is such a fun cake, especially for summer or birthdays or anything festive to celebrate. Some birthday cakes can be so one-note, so instead of just layering cake/frosting/cake, I soaked each layer  in a vanilla syrup and filled it with some blackberry preserves as well. The purple frosting piped on the top and sides is also a blackberry buttercream to keep with the theme. If you don't like blackberries, you can use strawberries, raspberries, etc.

Mini Lattice Cherry Pies

Summer is upon us, and that means its pie season. The best fruit pies are always made in the summer with fresh, ripe, in-season fruit. However, this post doesn't have that. This post is about the cutest little mini cherry pies I made yesterday, with pre-made pie filling ::gasp::. While this normally goes against every fiber of my culinary being, I took home some cherry pie filling that was used in class when we scratch-made Danishes last week, and I had been dying to practice a lattice-topped pie so I went with it. At first I was a little apprehensive about doing a lattice top and kept thinking how am I supposed to weave the dough under and over without making such a mess with the filling? Well, thats not the case at all- you'll see.

 For a store-bought pie filling, it was actually very good. Sweet and tart with bright red juicy cherries. I did make the pie crust and this was such an easy, busy weeknight dessert to create. I do not own mini pie dishes, so I swapped them for mini tart shells. These unconventionally wonderful tartlet pans gave the pie crust a pretty fluted design and they popped out so easily, making them almost hand-held. I think I'm going to always make individual pies in these from now on.

Just a side note- I did buy a beautiful box of peaches at Trader Joes recently, which are almost ripe and I will be making a peach pie with it very soon.

Vanilla Custard & Berry Trifle

With the abundance of baked goods I bring home daily from my patisserie class, I rarely have time [or fridge space] to bake anything at home. I made petit fours in class recently and about a third of the layered cake became scrap dough, so I took it home along with some fresh creme anglaise my chef made that day in class and made a trifle.

I thickened the creme anglaise by mixing it with some fresh pastry cream, layering that between cake and some raspberries and blueberries. Some piped fresh chantilly cream and some more berries on top, and voilà, trifle! 

I do own a trifle dish, however with the limited amount of sponge cake I had to use, it seemed silly to fill a giant trifle dish only partially. I found this crystal goblet instead which does make the layers hard to see, but its unconventionality is what makes it perfect for a trifle on a whim.  

Mango-Lime Cheesecake Bars

I have wanted to make this cheesecake for a while now. I am proud to say this is my own recipe. I did use guidelines from another fruit cheesecake(which I've made and it is delish) just for measurements, but the concept was completely my own. My inspiration for this mango lime cheesecake came from an episode of the cooking show "Mexican Made Easy", where Marcela Valladolid was making galaxy fruit pops and talking about how in Mexico, there are street carts that sold fresh mangoes with chili and lime to squeeze on top. I remembered after that when I was in high school I would go to this local Hispanic supermarket with my grandpa sometimes and they sold these fruit lollipops covered in chili and lime.

So I got to thinking and came up with this cheesecake. Cheesecake is an amazing blank canvas for many different flavor combinations, and because the flavors of mango, lime and chili pair so nicely together I might as well give it a try. Also, it has been excessively hot in Southern California (where I live) the past few days, a cold fresh fruit cheesecake sounded very refreshing. So here it is, my mango-lime cheesecake bars with a graham cracker chili crust.

Caramel Apple Upside Down Cake

Remember when I said I had lots of left over caramel from the other night, well I found this recipe for a caramel peach upside down cake, but since I also had a couple apples I decided to make it a Caramel apple upside down cake!

The recipe does have its own caramel recipe included, but I just used the cake batter part and used my own caramel

yom kippur & apple crostatas

It was Yom Kippur this past weekend (fri night-sat night) and as part of the holiday, we fast for that 24 hour period and no work is meant to be done. Once the sun has set on the second night, it is customary to have a big dinner to break the fast, which my family did. It is hard to have a dinner prepared when you are not supposed to be cooking during the day, so my go-to recipes are easy and mainly make-ahead dishes.

I'm only going to be posting about the dessert I made, but if anyone is interested about the main courses I made a variety of salads: spinach salad, curried chicken salad, egg salad, and potato salad. The chicken, potatoes, and eggs can be cooked the night before and the rest of the ingredients can be mixed in minutes before guests arrive.

The dessert I made, an apple crostata is basically a free-form tart. This recipe comes from my favorite chef, Giada De Laurentiis, with a few additions of my own. I love this dessert because it is rustic and virtually impossible to mess up. It is free-form, meaning you can shape it however you want, and it will always look yummy.  I also made a quick caramel sauce to drizzle on top.

Recipes and how-to pictures below!