Cooking with Alison

Posts Tagged ‘food’

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Peanut Butter Hershey’s Kiss Cookies

In Cookies on January 21, 2010 at pm

Most people call these Peanut Butter Blossoms and they are Very Very good.  These are my favourite peanut butter cookies and I’ve tried 13 different peanut butter cookie recipes.  There are many different kinds of Hershey’s kisses, so use your favourite.  I imagine these would taste great with the caramel kisses (available in the USA) or Rolo’s.  I made these for a baby shower and even though there were several other desserts, not a single one of these cookies made it home with me.  I’ve tried this recipe using shortening, butter, and a mixture of both.  All of these options work well, but I prefer using half shortening for the texture and half butter for the flavour.

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Apple Tart

In Pies & Tarts on January 21, 2010 at am

Thanksgiving 2008, Ed’s parents came to visit me so I made them a big lunch.  For dessert, I made them a French Apple Tart and they couldn’t stop complimenting me on my dessert.  At that time, my desserts RARELY received compliments, haha, so I knew this recipe was a keeper.  I like it because it’s light, not too sweet, and beautiful.  It’s very easy to make, but there are several steps with waiting times so it’s not a quick recipe.

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Favourite Pecan Pie Recipe

In Pies & Tarts on January 21, 2010 at am

My family really likes pecan pie so I went in search of my favourite pecan pie recipe.  I only had to try 2 because John Thorne’s Pecan Pie from the book Outlaw Cook was such a huge success.  For the pie crust, I used the recipe that I like from JoyofBAKING.com.  Also, I love making miniature or individual sized foods so I used small tart pans with this recipe.  I served it for dessert when my family was visiting and they couldn’t get enough.  Ed liked it so much he refused to let his co-workers try some, haha, my little piggy  😉  I love my pecan pie warm with vanilla ice cream.

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Favourite Carrot Cake Recipe

In Cakes, Cupcakes on January 21, 2010 at am

My mother really likes carrot cake so I tried a few different recipes.  Most of them were too dense or not moist enough or worse, too moist.  I was beginning to lose my appeal for carrot cake until I tried the Silver Palate Cookbook carrot cake recipe.  In my opinion, it’s a really good balance of sweet, dense, moist and depth of flavour.  The frosting is good too.  Time saving tip:  Make a large batch of pureed carrots and freeze 1 1/3 cup portions for future batches of carrot cake or muffins.

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No Bake Strawberry Torte (or Trifle)

In Cakes on January 20, 2010 at pm

I always found baking much more difficult than cooking.  So I eased my way into baking by first making no-bake desserts like this strawberry torte.  Perfect in the summer, this dessert tastes wonderful and contrary to what my first attempt may have you believe, it can look beautiful too.  I had trouble finding the proper lady fingers so I settled on these large, cakey, irregularly shaped ones.  Although they made for an ugly cake (photo below), they tasted very very good and lended the perfect texture.  I also used too much strawberry sauce, as you can tell from the leakage  😉  But like I said, it was delicious.  I’ve made this several times now and people always love it.

I used the leftovers for a strawberry trifle.  If you adjust the amounts accordingly, this recipe makes the best trifle.  Photo below.

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Fruit Bouquets (make your own)

In Other Desserts on January 20, 2010 at am

I googled the price of fruit bouquets once and I couldn’t believe how much they were charging for a few slices of pineapple, grapes, wedges of melon and a handful of strawberries.  So I decided to see if I could make my own fruit bouquet.  I convinced Ed to make one too for our mothers’ day gifts.  In the beginning, Ed was grumbling about doing “arts & crafts” but then he really got into it and had a lot of fun with it.  It was really cute to watch him try very hard to be delicate with the fruits and thoughtful of the placement of them  🙂  Both of our moms Loved it.  It was so easy that I made one for my friend’s bridal shower too.

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Foosball Cake

In Cake Decorating on January 20, 2010 at am

To celebrate my long awaited purchase of a foosball table, I threw a foosball tournament among friends.  So, naturally, I made a foosball cake.  I used teddy graham crackers for the men, a white gumball for the foosball, and red and blue sour crazy straws for the bars.  For the goal posts, I found two finger football games at Dollarama, discarded the pieces I didn’t need and turned the football posts upside down.  It was a Really great find.

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Favourite Chewy and Dense Brownies

In Other Desserts on January 19, 2010 at pm

At a recent dinner party, a friend of mine brought brownies that had been made from the Ghirardelli brownie mix (she bought it at Costco).  They were good and chocolatey but they were closer to cake than I prefer my brownies to be.  So I was inspired (more like obsessed) to search for the best chewy and dense brownie recipe that is halfway between cakey and fudgy.  I focused on recipes for plain brownies only, because I believe that it’s important to find the best base recipe first.  Then you can make it even better by experimenting with all sorts of variations (ie. icing, nuts, cream cheese, etc.).

I tried more than 15 different brownie recipes and my favourite is adapted from http://www.instructables.com/.  I especially like this recipe because with just a tiny change in the number of eggs, you can choose between a texture that’s in the middle of cakey and fudgy or a texture that’s closer to cakey between the two extremes.  Personally, I prefer the denser version.  Also, I discovered that brownies freeze really really well.  I cut my brownies before freezing them.

One of the brownie recipes that I tried was that of Julia Child’s.  Even though I don’t consider it to be a true brownie (too cakey for me), I absolutely Love her recipe.  I serve it warm as a gooey, slightly chewy chocolate cake with a scoop of ice cream.  I will forever be grateful for discovering her recipe (link here).

Below Right:  Variation of this brownie recipe with cheesecake.

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Chocolate Raspberry Pavlova

In Other Desserts on January 19, 2010 at pm

I made Nigella Lawson’s Chocolate Raspberry Pavlova for a friend’s birthday party and everyone Loved it.  It was elegant, sophisticated, simple, and not too sweet.  I look forward to making this again and again with different fruits (ie. strawberries; mixed berries), because I imagine any fruit that pairs well with chocolate and cream will work beautifully.

I may have spread it out too much before I baked it because it turned out very large and could have served 12 – 15 people.  Even though there were only 8 people at the dinner party, and two other desserts, they still managed to finish it.

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Penguin Cookie (3 dimensional)

In Cookie Decorating, Cookies on January 19, 2010 at pm

For the 2009 holidays, I organized a cookie decorating contest at work.  I entered anonymously and placed second (photo of first place below).  I was pleasantly surprised when my cookies turned out very similarly to what I designed in my head  🙂  This was my first time working with fondant (link to the fondant recipe) and my second time working with gumpaste (link to the gumpaste and edible glue recipes).

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Gumpaste Recipe

In Cake Decorating, Cakes, Cookie Decorating, Cookies, Cupcakes on January 18, 2010 at pm

Gumpaste is used for decorating cakes, cookies, and cupcakes and is actually very easy and cost efficient to make.  I think of it as an edible cake decorating play-doh.  It holds up better than fondant so I use it for decorations that need more structure.  Also, unlike fondant, once gumpaste decorations dry out, you can keep them forever.  I buy tylose online and use the recipe provided by Nicholas Lodge’s isac (international sugar art collection).

Please note that you need a stand mixer to make gumpaste (although I wonder if a food processor would work… let me know how it works out if you try it).  The first time I made gumpaste, I broke my handheld mixer.  I was So Happy when it happened because then I knew that I could finally justify buying myself a Kitchenaid stand mixer.  You see, I try to only purchase kitchen stuff that I absolutely need and I try to be resourceful with my already versatile tools.  Even while sticking to these strict rules, I’ve still managed to accumulate a Lot of kitchen stuff, haha.  In October 2009, I bought the Kitchenaid Professional HD model from Costco for $275 (on sale).  I chose the stainless steel colour because it reminded me of an industrial kitchen.  I absolutely adore it and use it all the time.

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Valentine’s Day Cookies

In Cookie Decorating, Cookies on January 16, 2010 at am

Shortly after I completed my cake decorating course (link here), I applied the techniques that I learned to decorate cookies.  I made royal icing (recipe from Joy of Baking) for the first time and bought a good paint brush to flood sugar cookies.

I’ve never liked the taste of iced sugar cookies, but I would consider these to be good recipes, because the texture and taste are very similar to the store-bought ones.  They were very popular when I brought them into work.  Also, if you like the taste of almond extract, you’ll probably like these.

I use the recipe for sugar cookies from Joy of Baking when I’m decorating with icing.  See here for my favourite plain sugar cookies recipe.