Chocolate Toffee Cookies

I apologize for the lack of posts but I moved recently, and my house is under construction [finally, its almost done!] and that includes my kitchen which is almost finished. So lack of kitchen, means lack of oven & mixer, and therefore lack of baking. Luckily, I was able to bake once at Josh's house which made me a very happy girl. I also started school again, so I am constantly baking but it's just not the same as in my very own stress-free kitchen at home.

I went to Fresh & Easy for the first time with Josh and on their candy aisle was chocolate covered toffee bits, and I just knew they would make for a delicious cookie add-in. Chocolate chip cookie dough base is so versatile and delicious that you don't even really miss the plain chocolate chips. You get a little added crunch from the toffee and an additional sprinkle of salt on top rounds off into the perfect salty sweet cookie bite.

Simple & comforting.

Pain de Mie

Soft, fluffy, fresh-out-of-the-oven white bread is the best kind. This is definitely not the wonderbread that was put in your lunchboxes throughout elementary school. During my breads class this was probably my favorite bread to make because its such a staple pantry item in most households. Being able to make it fresh and by scratch transforms this simple sandwich bread into something completely wonderful.

The butter, the salt..you can taste all of the ingredients in it. It is not just a bland slice bread. Add some honey if you desire and make it a honey-white bread. It is delicious just on its own.

Browned Butter Brown Sugar Oatmeal Cookies [w/ Maple & Cardamom]

Growing up I always hated oatmeal cookies. I was convinced they were only the 'healthy' cookies that my grandparents and their friends ate, especially the ones with raisins. I could tolerate the ones that had chocolate chips in them. Things have changed though, and while I still do not like oatmeal-raisin cookies, having fun with flavor combinations can turn a dull oatmeal cookie into something completely wonderful.

When you brown butter, it becomes rich and nutty which is a perfect way to transform these cookies. Brown sugar and maple syrup compliment each other perfectly and instead of the typical cinnamon that goes with this cookie, how about cardamom? Its very potent, but the perfect pinch brings these cookies to a whole other level. I would definitely recommend these to those who are not a fan of oatmeal cookies, because that will become a thing of a past.

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.

Irish Car Bomb Cupcakes

Everybody loves cupcakes. They are fun, cute, and endlessly customizable. Cupcakes with beer and hard liquor = even better. Although I  do love a good cupcake like the next person, they are truly the remedial treat of the patisserie world. If you can make cake batter, you can make cupcakes. So it irks me that so many classically trained pastry chefs have settled by just making cupcakes, and only cupcakes day in and day out. We don't even make cupcakes in my patisserie program because they are so simple and many of my chefs have mocked said cupcake makers. So since cupcakes are so simple in nature, but so fun to make, one should thrive for perfection and come up with creative flavor combinations that really can outshine a plain chocolate, vanilla, or red velvet cupcake.

Adam's birthday was on Monday, I offered to make him a birthday treat. I wanted to try something I don't bake often, and then a light switch went off. I thought about chocolate stout and how its used in baking and then remembered Adam's obsession with Guinness and it was settled, my birthday treat was born.

A Guinness cupcake with Bailey's Irish Cream Buttercream. And it was delightful.

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.

Turkey Sausage Pizza

I'm really enjoying the bread class that I'm currently in, so much that I go home and like to make more of the breads I've learned that morning.  In the past when I've made pizza, I would buy the pre-made bagged pizza dough that Trader Joe's sells, but since I made pizza in class a few weeks ago, I decided to not be lazy and just make the dough. It was much quicker than I thought, especially using my kitchen aid mixer versus all the kneading we do by hand in class [its my daily upper body work out!]. I let the dough slow-ferment in the fridge and by dinner time, it was ready to roll out and become a pizza. Usually when I order pizza out, I looove the stuffed crust ones and since I bought some amazing Italian truffle cheese the other day, I turned that into a delicious crust.

I don't know why many people are so intimidated by making yeast doughs. There are only a handful of mixing methods for doughs, and usually its a straight dough method aka everything in the bowl + mix. Taking 15 minutes to make a dough sure beats spending $10 on a pre-made dough or buying those already baked cardboard "pizza crusts". Once you make doughs a few times, you should get a feel for how its supposed to be.