baking | loveliness.

Tag: baking
- tartine
  
  Posted at 10:33 pm by jasminedesirees, on January 23, 2014
  
  Every year for Christmas my grandpa gives all of us grandkids some money to buy whatever we’d like. I usually save most of it, and buy myself something that I’ve been wanting, or a few things if they are small.
  
  Last year I bought myself a new camera, but there wasn’t anything big that I wanted this year, so I bought myself a couple of things I’d had my eye on for awhile, including this gorgeous cookbook from Tartine, a bakery in San Francisco.
  
  It came in the mail two days ago, and I’ve pretty much been carrying it with me and drooling over it ever since. The pastries and cakes are so beautiful they are edible works of art, and the pictures are so lovely that I want to frame them and hang them in my kitchen. Or not, because I don’t think mine will look the same and I wouldn’t want anybody to be able to compare.
  
  I will absolutely be making their flourless chocolate souffle cake for my birthday this year, but I’ll probably have to make two in case anyone else decides they would like dessert as well.
  
  They also have a bread cookbook that a friend of mine has, and when I read through it I basically wanted to renounce my entire life so far and move to an Italian monastery on top of a mountain (which I’m assuming is where they learned to make bread?) and do nothing but bake glorious crusty loaves.
  
  I guess the moral of that story is, I like carbs. You can buy both Tartine and Tartine Bread on Amazon.
  
  Posted in books, chocolate, recipes | 1 Comment | Tagged baking, chocolate, recipes, tartine
- macarons
  
  Posted at 12:57 am by jasminedesirees, on January 10, 2014
  
  Is it just me, or does it seem like everyone in the world is obsessed with macarons? I’ve been hearing about these dainty little cookies and seeing pictures of them for years, but I’d never tried one until I received a box for my birthday last year.
  
  I had heard a lot about them though, that they are very difficult to make, and as a baker, I’d always wanted to try so I could showcase my skillz (with a z). I decided to give it a try. I found this recipe from CHOW, gathered all the ingredients (almond flour better be secretly made of gold because it is super expensive) and set to work.
  
  It was kind of a long process, just in that it’s a lot of waiting to do things, but other than that it wasn’t bad. I can see how it would be hard to get all of the cookies to the exact uniform roundness, but I have to say mine were pretty good for a first timer (NBD).
  
  They may have been a teensy bit crooked but they were delicious, although truthfully I bet you could put chocolate ganache in between two pieces of cardboard and it would still be pretty good.
  
  The next thing on my baking to do list is chocolate souffle, I’ve wanted to make that for as long as I can remember, which I realized this morning was probably a strange thing for a kid to think about? But then I thought about it a little more and had a flashback to watching Beauty and the Beast with all of the dancing pies and souffles, and my life made a little more sense.
  
  I wonder how many other things in my life I’ve wanted to do solely because of childhood influence by a beloved cartoon character? I realized a few years ago that the likely reason for my choosing Journalism as a university major was because of my undying obsession with April (and her saucy yellow jumpsuit) from the Ninja Turtles.
  
  Posted in chocolate, recipes | 0 Comments | Tagged baking, chocolate, macarons, recipes
- joie de vivre
  
  Posted at 1:07 am by jasminedesirees, on December 24, 2013
  
  I recently bought a book on Amazon called Joie de Vivre. It’s written by author and chef Robert Arbor who grew up in France. In the book he describes the simple joys of life in rural France, and how to emulate the attitude of simplicity and find happiness in the mundane tasks of everyday life.
  
  He describes visits to the market, the butcher, and the patisserie, and the small garden plots that many people in rural France use to grow flowers and small amounts of veggies and fruits for everyday use. He depicts traditional meals, idyllic dinner parties, and simple, delicious ingredients.
  
  He also provides simple, delicious recipes, like this one for simple strawberry jam. It’s only fruit and sugar, with a little bit of water added, simmered for a few hours to break down the berries.
  
  I almost never eat jam, I find that it tastes strangely artificial, but this is delicious. It’s a bit more liquid than most jams, but scooping it with a spoon onto a toasted baguette with a cup of fresh coffee, a very traditional French breakfast, was delicious.
  
  I am excited to try this with other fruits, I think nectarine jam will be amazing.
  
  Lovely, lazy day breakfast
  
  Posted in recipes | 0 Comments | Tagged baking, cookbook, cooking, France, jam, Joie de vivre, recipes
- brittle
  
  Posted at 12:50 am by jasminedesirees, on November 26, 2013
  
  My love for pomegranate is both legendary all encompassing, during pomegranate season you can find me eating one almost every day. I was recently the recipient of a gift of the best kind, a box full of huge, juicy pomegranates.
  
  After gorging myself every day for a week, I still had a few left and decided to do an experiment combining my two favourite things. I melted two bars of good dark chocolate, and stirred in half the seeds from a pomegranate.
  
  I spread the mixture onto wax paper, then sprinkled the remaining seeds on top, and threw it in the fridge for about an hour, and at the end I had pomegranate chocolate brittle.
  
  It was delicious, ridiculously easy, and it looks beautiful with the bright red seeds against the dark chocolate. I’d like to try it again with milk chocolate, since pomegranates can be a bit tart and the extra sweetness might be a good contrast.
  
  Posted in chocolate, recipes | 0 Comments | Tagged baking, brittle, chocolate, pomegranate, recipes
- chocolate chip zucchini
  
  Posted at 5:37 pm by jasminedesirees, on July 15, 2013
  
  My mom has been making me chocolate chip zucchini cake since I was little. Some people call it bread, but let’s be honest, it’s cake. It’s chocolatey and most, and super delicious, but it’s like 50% zucchini, so you can pretend it’s good for you, and eat the whole thing.
  
  These pictures aren’t great, I was making it late at night for my husband’s grandpa’s birthday the next day, plus it was during that ridiculous heat wave where even the thought of turning on the oven made you want to burst into tears, but I still made it. That’s how good this cake is.
  
  I used this recipe, and some fresh zucchini from the farmer’s market. This is actually really quick and easy to make, especially if you have a food processor to grate the zucchini for you.
  
  Posted in chocolate, recipes | 0 Comments | Tagged baking, chocolate, chocolate chip zucchini bread, recipes
- pinata.
  
  Posted at 4:05 pm by jasminedesirees, on June 10, 2013
  
  I’ve been seeing recipes for Pinata cakes for a few months now, so I decided to make one for my brother-in-law’s birthday.
  
  It was a bit tricksier than I thought, I had to make 4 cakes just to get two that I could use, because brownie mix and cake mix look remarkably similar, and also because baking a cake in a bowl apparently takes a lot longer than it does in a pan, and if you don’t bake it long enough, and then you flip it upside down, you get something that looks a little like this:
  
  Luckily it still tasted fine, so I ate it.. you know, for research purposes
  
  Finally, two good cakes
  
  The stuffing. I wanted to put in little bottle of booze, but I couldn’t fine any. They don’t sell them at Safeway, weird right?
  
  Cut off the tops of the two cakes so they are flat, and then hollow out the bottom cake
  
  Fill it up with candy, or whatever, and put icing on it to seal the two halves together
  
  Sharks colours are optional
  
  Cake anddd candy. What more could you ask for?
  
  Here are some tips if you’re thinking of doing this:
  
  1. Make sure you bake the cakes for at least an hour each, and then check them to make sure they are really well done, you can’t really go by the baking time on the cake mixes
  
  2. I didn’t hollow out the top of the cake, because I wanted it to still be a cake, and not be all candy, but if you want more of a pinata effect where the candy falls out, you can hollow out the top
  
  3. Do a crumb coating on the cakes first, before you ice them
  
  4. And this is important, make sure to spray the baking bowls with non-stick spray to make your life a lot easier when you try to take the cakes out of the bowl
  
  That’s it. Happy sugar coma!
  
  Posted in recipes | 0 Comments | Tagged baking, birthday cake, piñata cake, recipes
- brownie slut
  
  Posted at 8:49 pm by jasminedesirees, on May 27, 2013
  
  I’m pretty sure everyone has heard about slutty brownies by now. Cookie dough on the bottom, a layer of Oreos, covered by moist chocolatey brownie mix and baked in the oven. For some reason I’d never tried to make them before, and I finally decided to see what all the fuss was about.
  
  I decided not to do the Oreos, as it seemed like it would be a bit overkill, and also would have left me with half a package of Oreos laying around which I would have inevitably devoured, and since it was practically a guarantee that I would be eating most of the cookie dough before it ever made it’s way into the bars, it seemed like a good move.
  
  So my brownies were more promiscuous than slutty. But they were still delicious. They literally took 5 minutes to throw together (20 if you add in the time to eat cookie dough until you are feeling ill, before you proceed with the baking) and then 45 minutes of bake time.
  
  If you are feeling super ambitious you could make your own cookie dough and brownie mix and then combine them, but I used store bought. It is definitely a lazy man’s dessert, but it’s a bit more special than just making cookies, or just brownies to a potluck, and they are really delicious.
  
  Derek was calling me brownie slut the whole night after I made them, but you can’t have everything in life.
  
  It came like that, I swear
  
  I don’t know why I always want to bake when I’m wearing white
  
  I burnt my mouth trying it right when it came out of the oven, but worth it
  
  Yum
  
  Posted in chocolate, recipes | 0 Comments | Tagged baking, recipes, slutty brownies
- temptation.
  
  Posted at 4:25 pm by jasminedesirees, on April 15, 2013
  
  My first year living in Hawaii, I was introduced to the South Shore Grill by my boyfriend at the time. The relationship didn’t last, but SSG and I have been an item ever since. One of the best things they have there (although everything is delicious) are their desserts, especially their peanut butter temptations.
  
  Now that I’m not living on the island, I don’t get these delicious treats every week, and it’s quite sad. When I went back to Hawaii in January we took my mom to SSG so that she too might know the joys that are peanut butter temptations. I’d never even thought about trying to make them myself, since I couldn’t fathom the wizardry that would be necessary to get the Reece’s into the cookies without baking them into a melty disaster.
  
  My mother took one look at the cookies and declared “They probably just push the peanut butter cups in right when they come out of the oven.” I’m pretty sure that’s why we have parents, for exactly such moments as those.
  
  I was able to find a recipe, and made them last week and they were amazingly delicious, and so simple to make (literally 15 minutes from when I started to when I took the first bite) that I was kind of embarrassed I’d never thought to make them before.
  
  basic peanut butter cookies in a mini muffin tin, bake about 8 minutes
  
  push in peanut butter cups once they come out of the oven
  
  One final tip is to make these on a night when you are home alone, so you don’t have to share with your husband.
  
  Not that that’s what I did. I would never do something like that, especially knowing how much Derek adores these cookies. Obviously.
  
  Posted in chocolate, Hawaii, recipes | 0 Comments | Tagged baking, cookies, peanut butter, peanut butter temptations, recipes
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