June 2010

Chocolate Pavlovas with Chocolate Mascarpone Mousse and Fresh Berries – June’s Daring Baker’s Challenge & Gay Pride Catchup

June 29, 2010

Oh man. Has a month gone by already? After making last month’s croquembouche, I was all prepared to whip this one up way ahead of schedule and then write the post for the end of the month. And this month’s Daring Baker’s Challenge looks awesome as well. But life got in the way (as it always does), and the mad dash to the finish line was pretty much in order (which clearly didn’t even work, as I am a day late). The June 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Dawn of Doable and Delicious. Dawn challenged the Daring Bakers’ to make Chocolate Pavlovas and Chocolate Mascarpone Mousse. The challenge recipe is based on a recipe from the book Chocolate Epiphanyby Francois Payard.

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Gluten Free Snickerdoodles – The Very First Thing I Ever Baked Redux

June 25, 2010

A couple of weeks ago, Shauna over at Gluten Free Girl sent out a tweet asking her followers what their first thing they ever cooked was. It morphed into a mass blog posting event (if you haven’t read her post, go there now, and then scroll down to her list of other bloggers who wrote about their first food making experience) with some fantastic reading of everyone’s walk down memory lane. I posted about my snickerdoodles and how I feel in love with the magic of backing in response, but I felt slightly guilty about it because I wanted to make the snickerdoodles the way they were, AND make a version of them gluten free – not only because Shauna inspired the post, but I figured there would be a few readers asking for it, bouncing over here from her site.

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Meals On Wheels – Star Chef’s and Vintner’s Gala Event 2010 (a recap one month later)

June 22, 2010

Let’s talk for a moment. Now, every post I’ve put up so far has been a story about my life, followed by a recipe of a food item (usually a dessert or baked good) that was an integral part of the story. And I hemmed and hawed about breaking this pattern, but friends of mine have been asking me (nay hounding me) to post about an event I went to about a month ago – the Meals on Wheel’s Star Chef’s and Vintner’s Gala. And I’ve been on the fence as to whether I should post or not (clearly I decided to).

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Snickerdoodles: The Very First Thing I Ever Baked

June 14, 2010

The fabulous Shauna over at Gluten Free Girl sent out a tweet last week asking everyone what the first thing they ever cooked was. I immediately thought of the simple basic snickerdoodle. Some people love it, some people find it boring and some people have never heard of it. For me though, it’s ripe with history and nostalgia…because it’s the first thing I ever learn to bake.

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Black Bottom Cupcakes with Salted Caramel Cream Cheese Frosting and a caramel decoration: an AIDS Lifecycle pre-ride dinner dessert!

June 7, 2010

Today, AJ left on his 10th fundraising ride for the AIDS Lifecycle in support of The San Francisco AIDS Foundation. It’s still not to late to donate to his ride (every dollar counts), if you haven’t had a chance or didn’t know about it! I’ve written about his ride twice before (in 2006, and in 2007) in my former, now defunct, blog. I’m always a little sad when he takes off (a whole week without him!) and so proud of him as well (a whole week cycling from San Francisco to Los Angeles – that’s 535 miles on a bike!). And every year there is a pre-ride dinner with his cycling team, the Gutterbunnies. This year, the annual dinner, was held at one of the bunny’s house, and it was a potluck. Of course I was tasked to bring the dessert and I decide to try a new recipe for black bottom cupcakes, paired with AJ’s favorite frosting – salted caramel cream cheese. Because I had such a great time with spun sugar, I decided to top the cupcakes with a little caramel decoration as well.

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