August 2010

Triple Berry Curd at the 18 Reason’s Jam it Salon

August 30, 2010

I’m inherently a lazy person. Or that’s what I constantly tell myself, as I run around from food event to food event, baking 20 pies, or making cakes, running off to a dinner party, or going to get ice cream with drag queens, after baking three different types of petit fours because I wasn’t happy with the first two. But when it comes to make my own jams preserves, or say a Triple Berry Curd that I am making for the Jam It Salon hosted by 18 Reasons and Karen Solomon, I’m pretty content with making them on the fly, for consumption, and not for canning. Basically because I’m too lazy to sterilize and can the preserves, which is sad, as I’ve been told that it’s not that hard. The idea of eating my own homemade preserves in the wintertime is very Little House on the Prairie appealing, but oh to have to boil all those cans in water.

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A Day of Sweets – Berry Curd filled Petit Fours: a Daring Baker’s Challenge and the Big Gay Ice Cream Truck vs Humphrey Slocombe Mashup!

August 27, 2010

Another month goes by, and another Daring Baker’s challenge comes up. Sadly, last month I totally missed out on the daring baker’s challenge because I was busy baking 20 pies for a pie contest. Well, I guess it wasn’t that sad, as I won (whoo hoo!), but I really wanted to make some ice cream which was part of last month’s challenge. AJ and I were given an ice cream maker a few years ago, but we still haven’t busted it out. The baker’s challenge would have been the perfect excuse. But it turns out this months’ baker’s challenge was ALSO ice cream! Joy! The August 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Elissa of 17 and Baking. For the first time, The Daring Bakers partnered with Sugar High Fridays for a co-event and Elissa was the gracious hostess of both. Using the theme of beurre noisette, or browned butter, Elissa chose to challenge Daring Bakers to make a pound cake to be used in either a Baked Alaska or in Ice Cream Petit Fours. The sources for Elissa’s challenge were Gourmet magazine and David Lebovitz’s “The Perfect Scoop”

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A Gluten Free White Cake with Italian Meringue Buttercream Frosting – how mistakes can lead to wonderful things….

August 16, 2010

Lauren of Celiac Teen over on Twitter had asked her friends about their biggest kitchen disaster. I’ve been lucky that I had very few huge mistakes (but loads of minor to medium ones), but I’m sure there are many more huge mistakes to come. The one that immediately came to mind was a cake I made right before I moved to San Francisco. Though the recipe for the Gluten Free White cake with Italian Meringue Buttercream Frosting at the end of this post isn’t exactly what I made back then, it existence wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t learned a little bit about baking and frosting from my mistakes.

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Vanilla & Almond Scented Apricot Plum Summerberry Pie for a visiting pie fanatic friend.

August 10, 2010

After the insanity of the Pie or Die contest weekend, you’d think I’d be totally pie-d out. As in, I never want to see a pie ever again….or at least for a week or two. But that didn’t happen. Why? Because my friend Stacy was visiting right after the event and she LOVES LOVES LOVES pies. And who am I to deny her pie? I decided to head back into the kitchen, see what I had around the house and bake up another one. Luckily I had a some pie crust leftover from the SF Food Wars in the back of the fridge (this made me think that EVERYONE should have pie crust at their disposable. Pies are really so easy to make if you already have ready made pie crust! I think I might have to make some pie crust and freeze it). Though a bit of a hodgepodge of flavors, this Vanilla & Almond Scented Apricot Plum Summerberry Pie summarizes my personality in one tasty flaky crust package. A bit of this, a bit of that, slightly sweet, slightly flaky, slightly spicy with a kick and completely pragmatic (use up fruit in the fridge before it goes bad!) and dare I say it, pretty darn easy (Hmmm. Now what does that say about me?).

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