Tasty Pastry

It's official!

2010-03-16T21:29:00.000-05:00

As you can probably tell by now, I am not able to keep posting regularly on this blog. Buuuuu. This truly kills me, but as I mentioned in my previous post my life has been turned completely upside down, it is so hectic that it has just been impossible! I will try to post as often as I can but I just can't do it with the same regularity as I used to.

Hopefully one day I will be able to share with you great new recipes and photos every day, because I love this blog and the people who take the time to read it!!!

For now, I will leave you with this Pucca cake that I think came out absolutely divine! Not the best picture but I was in a terrible hurry, as usual!

This was a marbled red velvet and chocolate cake with ... wait for it ... Nutella filling! OMG, it was so good!!! And I think Pucca and Garu are just adorable!

Enjoy and tasty baking!!!

Life changing brownies

2010-02-11T17:08:00.000-06:00

Last year, right around this time, my life was being turned upside down. One of those awful gut wrenching you-feel-like-the-world-is-going-to-end upside downs. My life was officially going to change forever.

As it turns out, these moments of what we could call crisis are usually a blessing in disguise and as these things usually go, this was the best thing that could have ever happened to me.

Of course I didn't see it that way at first, but shortly after, I realized that I was completely miserable and had been for quite some time. Little by little things started falling into place better than if I had carefully arranged them myself and I can truly say that now I am the happiest I have been in a long time, years really. I honestly cannot see myself if nothing had changed, I would probably be 10 times more miserable and about 100 lbs overweight!

And now here I am and it seems as if my life is about to be turned upside down once more and to be honest, I am actually kind of looking forward to it. Even if it means that I may have to leave this blog for a while, which kills me of course.

Life is totally unexpected and you never know what's going to happen but I have a feeling that only bigger and better things are coming my way and I can't wait! I have come to learn that things really do happen for a reason and that more often than not, life has a way of arranging things better than you could do it yourself.

So the next time you see yourself in a situation where your life is being turned upside down, where there are changes coming that you have no control over, don't sweat it and bake yourself a batch of these brownies, cause life is sweet and everything's going to be just fine and dandy!

To make these yummy brownies you will need:

1 box chocolate cake ( I know!!!! This is actually one of the very very few recipes that everything isn't baked from scratch)
1 egg
1 stick of butter, melted

You mix these three ingredients together. This makes a very thick dough which you press into the bottom of your pan. Then comes the topping!

For the topping you will need:

8 oz cream cheese
16 oz powdered sugar
1 stick of butter, melted
1 egg
3 tablespoons cocoa
1 cup chopped nuts (Any kind you like. I actually don't like nuts in my brownies but you can use, walnuts, pecans, almonds, macadamian nuts and I think even hazelnuts would go great with these.)

On an electric mixer you beat the cream cheese, powdered sugar, butter and cocoa. Add the egg and beat well until combined. Stir the nuts in by hand.

You spread this mixture on top of you brownies and bake in a 350 degree oven for approximately 30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean. The top is going to look all crackly but the brownies are so fudgy!!!

Cut these out with a heart shaped cookie cutter and they would be great for Valentine's Day or maybe even add some dried cranberries or cherries, that sounds yummy.

Enjoy!!!!

Ladybugs and flowers

2010-01-23T23:10:00.000-06:00

This has been a really hectic week for me. I have been overworked, under slept, ill, and just plain old tired! Right now as I am writing this post (finally a post!) I find myself wishing I were under the covers and sleeping for at least a week. I hope the coming week is not as hectic, but I highly doubt it.

When I was asked to make a cake with ladybugs I was thrilled! All I could think about for 2 days was ladybugs and flowers. Enter the cake! I love making ladybugs, they're so cute and chubby. They're popping right out of the cake!

Look at this top mama ladybug, how cute is that??

Seeing as how this cake was kind of short notice and I was really busy, I had to recur to the help of my dear mother. She came up with the bottom border, of which she is extremely proud, might I add. Good job! Isn't it great?! She was also a big help with softening fondant and the decorating. Thank you mom!

This cake was vanilla with Dulce de Leche filling, one of my most popular. It was travelling to the beach so I really hope it made it there safe and still tasted great!

I apologize for the short post, but like I said before, totally hectic week.

Disastrous Meringues!

2010-01-17T20:54:00.000-06:00

Meringues or Suspiros as they are called here in Costa Rica were a staple at my house growing up. My mother used to make them all the time and I think it was one of the first things I ever learned to bake. They're so easy right??? Well, I have come to learn that these puffy treats can be quite temperamental when they want to.

Making these meringues was a total disaster! First off I was dead tired, hmmm, could that have been the problem? Nah! You're never to tired to make these, they are quick and easy...

As I separated the eggs, some broken yolk went into the whites, aaarggggghhhhh Charlie Brown! Don't you just hate that? You know you're not going to get it all, so why even try and scoop it out with the empty shell or a spoon!

Then, as I was turning on the faucet so I could clean my yolky hands, the water just burst out and splashed everywhere! I think some might have gone into the already semi damaged egg whites. What else could go wrong??

Well, let me tell you, the pesky whites did not want to stiffen. You beat and beat and beat until you think the mixer is going to melt, and they were just blah; runny. Not to mention the fact that they did not rise as much because of the nasty yellow yolk that crashed the party!

Seeing as how they simply refused to form stiff peaks I just said %^&;*/ it, they're baking as is and formed discs. Meringue shells which I think is what they are actually called are great all by themselves but they can later be filled or topped with all kinds of delicious goodies that will just melt in your mouth with sweetness. Aaaahhh. Add strawberries and whipped cream and you have a treat fit for a king. Scoop some ice cream on top and you would think you're in heaven! I am going to be making sinfully silky chocolate mousse later in the week, which may or may not go into one of these, depending if they're still here by then.

In the end, after all the hassle, they came out pretty great. They actually came out exactly how I wanted them. So I guess, these aren't as easy to screw up as I thought!

To make meringues you will need:
2 egg whites
1/2 cup of sugar
1/4 teaspoon vanilla

That's all you need. Three ingredients. Now some people like to use cream of tartar, but to tell you the truth, I have never really needed it. These three things haved always worked fine. Then again, seeing as how my mixture would not stiffen and rise as much this time, I may reconsider...

To make these all you have to do is beat the egg whites on the bowl of an electric mixer with a whisk attachment on low-medium speed until they rise and form soft peaks. You then add the sugar gradually and beat on high until they form very stiff peaks. Then you add your vanilla. That's it!

You can use a spoon and drop these one your baking sheet forming little puffy clouds or you can also use a pastry bag if you want a more sofisticated look.

You can bake these at 300 degrees for 20 - 25 minutes to get a crispy outside and chewy center (which is exactly how I like it) or you can lower the temperature to 200 degrees and bake these approximately double the time to get a crisp almost powder like meringue.

Like I mentioned these are delicious by themselves or with just about everything!

Enjoy!

A beautiful giveaway!

2010-01-14T11:36:00.001-06:00

Seeing as how I have not been able to post thanks to my lack of organization and terrible memory.( I have forgotten the cable that connects my camera to my computer twice already! ) I am going to steer you towards the lovely blog of Bell'alimento so you can have a chance to win this fantastic apron!

Isn't it absolutely adorable? She's giving one away, that's right giving one to a lucky winner! It's Bell'alimento's anniversary this month and if you haven't heard of the The Hip Hostess you're just missing out. To tell you the truth I hadn't seen the aprons before either, but I was just swooning over everything this morning.

They have some of the hottest aprons I have ever seen! So check out their site to be amazed and don't forget to hurry on over to Bell'alimento and enter this incredible giveaway, it ends tomorrow!!!

Enjoy!

Cinnamon Twists

2010-01-10T16:58:00.000-06:00

They may not be pretty, but they are tasty!

Big, chunky twisted bread sticks filled with cinnamon and sugar, drizzled with a sugar glaze. Yum! These are more commonly known as cinnamon rolls, sweet rolls or even sticky buns, but I chose to make these cinnamon twists.

Who doesn't love cinnamon rolls, right? They're sweet and gooey and simply delicious. These twists are just as sweet, maybe not as gooey, but equally delicious and they smell sooooo good when they're baking, they are irresistible.

To make these tasty twists, you will need:

4 to 4 1/3 cups all purpose flour
1 package active dry yeast
1 cup milk
1/3 cup butter or margarine
1/3 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 eggs

Directions:
Combine 2 cups flour with yeast.
Heat and stir milk, butter or margarine, sugar and salt until warm and butter is almost completely melted.
Add this to the flour mixture along with the eggs.
Beat with an electric mixer on low speed for 30 seconds, scraping the bowl, then beat on high speed for approx. 3 minutes. Stir in as much of the remaining flour ( 2 to 2 1/3 cups) as you can.
Turn out onto a lightly floured surface. Knead in enough remaining flour to make a moderately soft dough that is smooth and elastic (about 3 - 5 minutes). Shape into a ball. Place in a lightly greased bowl. Cover and let rise in a warm place till double in size. (About 1 hour)

Punch dough down. Divide in half. Cover and let rest 10 minutes.

Roll half of the dough into a 12x8 inch rectangle. Melt 3 tablespoons butter or margarine; brush half over the dough. combine 3/4 cup sugar and 2 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon; sprinkle half of the mixture over dough. Fold dough in half and then in half once more. Cut strips of dough along the short end and twist sealing the seams.

Place in a baking sheet. Cover; let rise till nearly double about 30 minutes.

Bake in a 375 degree oven for 20 to 25 minutes. (Be sure to check them, they brown easily.)

For the sugar glaze combine 1 cup sifted powdered sugar with 1/4 teaspoon vanilla and 1 tablespoon milk. Continue to add milk 1 teaspoon at a time until you get a drizzling consistency.

Enjoy!

Other places to find this recipe:

HALF HOUR MEALS
KEY INGREDIENT

Tasty Quiche

2010-01-04T10:58:00.002-06:00

It is finally a new year!!! I can't believe it's 2010, I am so happy about this upcoming year. I have a feeling that it's going to be a great one, I just know it!!!

I really want to get more into my blog this year. I haven't been posting as much as I would like, I just don't have the time you know, but I guess one of my resolutions is to post more, change a few things on the blog and really be more active with it.

That said, for this post I have some tasty salty pastry. That's right, salty not sweet. As you know I'm all about desserts and baking, making my cakes and cupcakes and whatnot but this time for the first post of this new year I thought I would do something different, so I would like to introduce my vegetable quiche!

I decided to give up meat a few months ago and I'm always looking for ways to get more veggies into my meals so I thought ti would be great to make a veggie quiche! I chose this dish because I wanted something in the area of a pie but I was too lazy to make a pie crust so I decided to use some leftover puff pastry I had from when I made Palmiers.

To make this tasty quiche you will need:

Ingredients

1 puff pastry sheet, thawed
2 cups cooked vegetables (I wanted lots of veggies! I sauteed some onions, shredded carrots and zucchini, broccoli and cauliflower.)
1/2 cup sour cream
3/4 cup grated Gouda (Feel free to use any cheese you prefer)
1/4 cup milk
1/4 cup heavy cream
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
2 tablespoons grated Parmesan (cause I love Parmesan)

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Roll out the puff pastry to fit your pie pan or mold. Press pie crust into the bottom and up the sides of a 9-inch, removable-bottom tart pan (or 9-inch pie pan). Set aside.

In a large bowl, combine the sour cream, cheese, milk, eggs, heavy cream, salt and black pepper. Mix well. Add the cooked vegetables and mix until combined. Place on top of uncooked crust and top with Parmesan.

Bake for approximately 40 - 45 minutes, until it's all puffed up and a knife inserted near the center comes out clean and crust is golden brown. And there you have it!

I wish you all a very prosperous and tasty 2010!!!!

Enjoy!

Cooks and Cookies

2009-12-28T10:59:00.001-06:00

My family is filled with cooks. It starts with our grandmother, she is a wonderful cook, my mother is an excellent cook, my aunts are great cooks, my cousin's a chef, I think even my uncle is a good cook. I have one sister who doesn't really like to cook, but I'm sure that if she wanted to cook, she'd be great. So you see, we come from cooks and we are cooks which is why it doesn't surprise me that my nieces love to cook. They like to bake most of all, but what kid doesn't love to make cookies right? I'm sure when they are all grown up they are going to be marvelous cooks!

I mentioned I had five nieces right, yep FIVE girls and they all want to bake cookies every single day of course! Just the other day, my third niece decided to alter the recipe for Grandma's Cornstarch Cookies and add chocolate chips, just like that, let's add chocolate chips. Well, they turned out great! Then I decided to roll some around in coconut before baking, just to mix things up some more and those turned out really good as well. So I guess anything can happen to recipes with a family filled with cooks!

If you would like to try these new cookies we came up with, follow the recipe for Gradmas's Cornstarch Cookies omit the guava jam and add chocolate chips accordingly. I made 1/4 of the recipe and added 3/4 cup of chocolate chips and then rolled them around in coconut. But I like lot's of chips in my cookies, if you want less chips cut down to 1/2 cup and so on. If you don't like coconut just take it out. Remember to flatten the cookies some with your fingers so they spread out rather than puff up.

Enjoy!

A Very Very Merry Christmas!

2009-12-24T12:51:00.000-06:00

Hooray I have a camera again! Actually, I always had a camera I just couldn't upload pictures, so, hooray I can upload pictures again! And just in the nick of time to show you all the Christmas cookies my niece and I made.

We had a great time decorating. Remember I used Martha Stewart's recipe for Cinnamon Sugar Cookies and for the icing I like to make a sugar icing which I prefer much much more than the regular royal icing. This icing does dry hard but not quite as hard and it has a nice matte finish.

For the icing you will need to mix:

1 cup confectioner's sugar

4 teaspoons milk

2 teaspoons light corn syrup

1/4 teaspoon vanilla

And that's it! Very easy and I just looooooooove the fact that it has no egg whites!

On to the cookies! I had gotten some squeeze bottles earlier in the day so that it would be easier to pipe the outlines and flood the cookies. Here's my niece working hard on a Christmas bell. She's so focused! She wanted them to be perfect and smooth. This is actually the only good picture of her I have, or let's say it's the best picture out of all the not so great pictures I have do to lighting issues.

After flooding came the dots, lines, sprinkles, Christmas colored nonpareils, sanding sugar, star sprinkles, tree sprinkles, big polka dot kind of sprinkles and whatever we could think of!

Here's a shot of some of our finished work! Aren't they really cute?

She came up with those squiggly lines and stars , I'm so proud!

We're probably leaving some out for Santa and having the rest tonight after dinner!

I would like to wish you all a very very Merry Christmas and I hope that you have a wonderful night with your loved ones which are the best presents we could ever get.

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!!!

Christmas and no camera!

2009-12-20T20:35:00.000-06:00

Indulge Desserts

I still have no camera!! Can you believe it? I know I can't! Which is why today my pictures come from some of my very talented friends at Flickr. I have linked their names to their Flickr photostream. That first picture is from Indulge Dessets, she's just amazing, here cookies are out of this world!

That said, this post is about Christmas cookies. What's Christmas without Christmas cookies right? I mean come on! They are so pretty and so festive that you feel bad about eating them. But are they really good or they just there to look pretty?

I love decorated cookies. I'm in awe at the things I see sometimes, and even though it is hard work to make really pretty cookies I enjoy doing it.

This year I wanted Christmas cookies that weren't the regular sugar cookies or gingerbread people. I wanted Christmas with a little kick, so I thought that sugar cinnamon cookies could be really good and a nice twist to the same old same old.

So I turned to the ever wonderful multitasking goddess that is Martha Stewart to try out her Cinnamon Sugar Cookies.

These cookies were really good and of course easy to make, but I couldn't really taste the cinnamon. That's the only downside to the recipe, otherwise, the dough is a delight to work with and they plump up and bake beautifully!

Hopefully I will be able to show you my decorated Christmas cookies and a little more of what I've been baking before Christmas. Keep your fingers crossed, I know I am...

In the meantime enjoy these beautiful Christmas creations!

Aren't they absolutely fantastic?????

Tasty Recipe Review: Bell'alimento's Panettone!!!

2009-12-13T19:59:00.000-06:00

Panettone is one of my favorite things ever, especially this time of year, but it is a labor of love. To make Panettone requires a lot of patience and I just don't have that. So you can imagine how I felt when I saw that my friend Paula from Bell'alimento posted a simple Panettone recipe. I was thrilled! I was so excited I nearly cried, especially since moments before I was thinking that I really wanted to make my own Panettone this year! Coincidence, I think not!

(The picture is actually her picture, Bell'alimento's, cause go figure I suddenly lost the cable that attaches my camera to the computer! So credits go to her, beautiful isn't it?)

I immediately headed over to her blog to check out her recipe. If you would like to see her Panettone recipe, head on over to PaulaDeen.com, that's right Paula Deen! She's a contributor at her site , isn't that just amazing???? You can find her recipe right here .

This recipe was very simple, you just add and mix, nothing to it!

Now this Panettone is actually a cake and not a bread like the traditional recipe, that's why it's much easier to make. That being said, it was very good! I loved the fruits she added. I believe the traditional recipe calls for rum soaked raisins but I think her combination of cranberries and golden raisins was fantastic!

On the other hand, I forget that Italian's sweet tooth is not as sweet as mine, so for me, it could've used a bit more sugar. Paula, you know I love you, I'm just saying that my taste buds need something sweeter. But to sum it up, these are very easy to make and very tasty! I think they would make wonderful presents this year.

Till next time, I hope you enjoyed this review and remember, if you have a Tasty Recipe that you would like to share, or if there's a recipe that you have been wanting to try and just haven't been able to, let me know about it. I'll give you a Tasty Review!

Tasty Recipe Review: S'mores!!!!

2009-12-06T20:53:00.000-06:00

Have you ever just needed to eat something? You know, you have this feeling that you simply must have something or you will absolutely go crazy? A craving I guess if you will, but a craving that is driving you mad!! This is what happened to me. I was taking a nap and I woke up needing S'mores. Not just craving them, but needing them. I had to have them, it was driving me insane! Now this may seem normal to a lot of people, cravings are an everyday thing, everyone has them, but you see, I have never had S'mores before! Never, not once have I tried them. I've always wanted to because they sound delicious, but I've never had the chance, so I was a little confused by my craving.

Now, I wanted these from scratch, so I decided to make my own graham crackers. I looked online and found a recipe from Smitten Kitchen that sounded simple, delicious and best of all I had all the ingredients in my pantry. I also loved the fact that it called for a food processor. I think making dough in a food processor is so much easier than user your mixer. (You can use your mixer if you don't have a food processor.)

Graham Crackers

2 1/2 cups plus 2 tablespoons (375 grams) unbleached all-purpose flour (a swap of 1/2 cup with whole wheat flour or 1 cup whole wheat pastry flour works well here, too)
1 cup (176 grams) dark brown sugar, lightly packed
1 teaspoon (6 grams) baking soda
3/4 teaspoon kosher or coarse sea salt (4 grams)
7 tablespoons (3 1/2 ounces or 100 grams) cold butter, cut into 1-inch cubes (This is just a bit less than a stick)
1/3 cup (114 grams) honey
5 tablespoons (77 grams) milk
2 tablespoons (27 grams) pure vanilla extract

You start by combining the flour, brown sugar, baking soda, and salt in the bowl of a food processor fitted with the steel blade or in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment.Pulse or mix on low to incorporate.

Add the butter and pulse on and off on, or mix on low, until the mixture is the consistency of a coarse meal.

In a small bowl, whisk together the honey, milk, and vanilla extract.

Add to the flour mixture and pulse on and off a few times or mix on low until the dough barely comes together. It will be very soft and sticky.

I did not find the dough to be that sticky. It was actually easy to work with.

Lay out a large piece of plastic wrap and dust it lightly with flour, then turn the half the dough out onto it and pat it into a rectangle about 1-inch thick. Reapeat with the other half. Wrap it, then chill it until firm, about 2 hours or overnight.

In a lightly floured surface, roll the dough to about 1/8 inch thick. Since the dough is a bit sticky, use flour as necessary. Cut into a rectangle and then cut out squares in the size desired to make your graham crackers.

Place the crackers on one or two parchment-lined baking sheets. Mark a vertical line down the middle of each cracker, being careful not to cut through the dough, this is to make the traditional cracker design.

I used a fork, but you can also use a toothpick or the back of a skewer to make any pattern you like. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F and bake the cookies for 15-25 minutes. Now this is a very wide range, mine were done in 15 minutes so be sure to check your cookies!

To make the S'mores, what I did was that about 4-5 minutes from the cookies being ready I placed a marshmallow on top so they would puff up and toast in the oven. I had chocolate chips and not the traditional Hershey's candy bar so after taking out the crackers from the oven I placed 4-5 chips on top of the marshmallow. Be careful, they're hot!

Take a hot cookie and place on top of the marshmallow and chocolate and press down.

And there you have it! That's how you make S'mores with homemade graham crackers!

These were absolutely fantastic! The crackers alone were wonderful. Not to sweet, with a light honey taste, they were absolutely delicious! And the S'mores, OMG!!! I don't know if I'm delighted or terrified that I finally tried these. I know my hips are probably terrified because they're amazing!

Till next time, I hope you enjoyed this review and remember, if you have a Tasty Recipe that you would like to share, or if there's a recipe that you have been wanting to try and just haven't been able to, let me know about it. I'll give you a Tasty Review!

Cute Cake!!

2009-12-04T15:31:00.000-06:00

This is a small post.

I just wanted you to show you a cute cake I was asked to make in sort of a hurry.

I was asked for a cake that had fuschia black and white.

This is what popped in my head as I didn't have much time to brainstorm on the design.

The bottom layer is chocolate cake with chocolate buttercream mmmmmmmmmmmm.

The top layer is vanilla cake with vanilla buttercream mmmmmmmmmm.

I think it came out pretty cute. What do you think? Would love to hear comments!!

Palmiers

2009-11-29T18:08:00.000-06:00

You may have noticed that today's post is not entitled Tasty Recipe Review. That's because there's really not that much to review, but I do have for you 2 Palmier options. One is the classic sugary elephant ears that we all know and love and the other is something I decided to whip up for Thanksgiving, sort of pumped up Palmiers if you will.

I had mentioned that I was dying to try and make these sweet morsels, well now I got the chance. I just went for it, decided to go get myself some puff pastry, you know I'm not going to make it it's too time consuming, and just go for it.

They are so unbelievably easy to make, I think I might just whip up a batch every single day for the rest of my life! Of course my hips will hate me for it, so maybe every other day.

All you need to make these are puff pastry and sugar and that's it! It's that simple.

You can find puff pastry anywhere these days, but if you would like to make it (congratulations, I admire you!) I found this site that shows you how to make your own puff pastry.

Sprinkle your rolling space with about 1/4 cup of sugar and lay your puff pastry sheet on top like so:

Now sprinkle another 1/4 cup of sugar on top of the pastry

Now you have to roll the sugar into the dough

See how the sugar becomes embeded into the pastry, when the layers spread during baking it's going to be one big delicious sugary goodness!

Now on to forming the popular elephant ears. You start by folding in the sides:

Fold another time:

And one more time:

You end up with a long roll of dough, press it down and then cut it to form the rectangles:

These are your Palmiers. I rolled the tops in sugar, you can also coat them with an egg wash if you like. Place them on your cookie sheet about 2 to 3 inches apart to give them room to puff up.

Aren't they cute?

These go into a 375 degree oven for 12 - 16 minutes until they are golden brown. You may have to turn them over in the middle of baking if you see the bottoms are cooking way faster than the tops.

Remove them from the cookie sheet while still warm and let cool on a wire rack. You are now ready to pop these babies in your mouth, Yum!!!

Now for Thanksgiving, I decided to give these a twist. I filled them up with pumpkin, dates and almonds. You prepare them exactly the same way, you just add filling instead of sugar to the dough.

For my pumpkin filling you will need:

1 cup pumpkin puree
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup finely chopped dates
1/2 cup chopped almonds

Mix these together to make the filling:

Then proceed the same way as the sugar Palmiers, roll the dough in sugar, but instead of sprinkling sugar on top of the dough, spread out the filling and form your cookies.

Here is the finished product, looks good right. Very tasty!

You can fill these with anything, sweet, salty, whatever you like, or make them with just sugar, they are always going to be delicious ... Enjoy!!!

Mixing it up for Thanksgiving!

2009-11-25T11:48:00.000-06:00

Thanksgiving is upon us!!!

We don't really celebrate Thanksgiving in Costa Rica, why would we right? But seeing as my sister is married to a Gringo (that's what we Ticos call someone from the US of A) it's celebrated in my house. We're having a big dinner tomorrow and I get dessert of course. I've been racking my brain to try to come up with something different. I don't really like Pumpkin Pie, it's never been my thing. There's just something about it that doesn't appeal to me. I LOVED the Pumpkin Cheesecake I made, that was absolutely wonderful, but they had tasted that already. I didn't feel like repeating desserts, I wanted to come up with something that would knock somebody's socks off!

Talking with my sister the other day I told her that I have been wanting to make Torta de Elote, which would translate into something like corn pie.( It's more of a corn pudding than a pie actually). She loves the stuff!! Myself, not so fond of that either but I have been wanting to share the recipe and since we're having Thanksgiving at her place I thought it would be a good idea to make it. The only thing is regular Torta de Elote doesn't feel that Thanksgiviny (yes, that's an actual word) so she suggested adding pumpkin to the mix. Her exact words were: "Corn and pumpkin, what's more Thanksgiving than that???" So I thought, what the hell, let's give it a try.

You will need:

1 can sweetened corn
1 can sweetened condensed milk
2 cups milk
2 eggs
1 stick butter melted and cooled
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup pumpkin puree

This is usually made in a blender, fast and simple! Seeing as how when I went to get out my blender a very important part was missing (go figure!) I had to improvise. So I decided to use my food processor instead. It was a bit complicated because you have to blend the corn and milk first and all the liquid was oozing out of the food processor, so I just added all the other stuff at once to see if it would combine better and gave it a whirl.

So in order to make this Torta de Elota you throw your corn and your milk into the ~~food processor~~ blender and whip that up a bit. Then you add all the other ingredients and give it another whip and voila you're done! how easy was that?

Grease a, I would say, 9X12 in. pan, dish, tray, I don't know, whatever you would like to bake it in and pour your corn and pumpkin mixture right in.

Pop it in a 350 degree oven for approx. 45 minutes until it's golden brown. Mine took a bit longer, about 55 minutes just check it and when it's nice and golden pull it out and cool on a wire rack.

Here's a closer look. See... golden!

I'm not sure if you're supposed to serve this warm or let it cool completely, I think it's just a matter of taste. When it's still warm the pudding is more on the soft-almost-bordering-close-to-the-runny side, once you let it cool it will thicken.

I decided to top this off with some cinnamon whipped cream, which is just whipped cream with a little cinnamon, nothing fancy. I think it complimented it really well. It's still not my favorite but it's pretty good and the whipped cream gave it a nice extra oomph.

There are two things I would like to point out. I used the canned pumpkin puree which comes with all the spices so I didn't add any more, if you use homemade pumpkin puree you can add cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and ginger to give it that pumpkin pie flavor and of course you can add the amount you like to suit your palate. The other thing is that I wanted a mild pumpkin flavor, I did not want the pumpkin to overpower the corn but instead blend with it and merge the flavors. If you would like to have a more pronounced pumpkin flavor just adjust the puree quantity to taste.

Enjoy and Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Tasty Recipe Review: Betty's Oatmeal Cookies

2009-11-22T17:47:00.000-06:00

I have had this book forever. It's worn, torn and burnt as you can see.

I have used it countless times and for numerous ocassions. I always thought this was a Betty Crocker cookbook, not sure why, maybe the red and white or maybe cause my mom always called it that. But it isn't is it. Is it? There seems to be a new cookbook out Better Homes and Gardens 12th Edition. I wonder just how improved it is.

I have been craving oatmeal cookies lately but I really wanted them to have some sort of twist. I wanted something different. I searched the web for recipes and founds tons of stuff, cookies, bars, etc. but nothing really jumped out at me. So I decided to go look in my old trusted Betty Crocker cookbook. I'm sorry, I will keep calling it that forever I think. she had oatmeal cookies with variations, chocolate chip, fruit topping. Hmm, sounded interesting. Wanting to get rid of unused apples that were sure to spoil in the future so I chose to try the oatmeal cookies with fruit topping. I also left some without the topping so I could taste only the cookie.

The regular oatmeal cookies were very good. Crispy on the outside and chewy on the inside. Very tasty. I don't know if you can really do wrong by an oatmeal cookie recipe, but I liked these, very good.

The oatmeal cookie with apple topping, wow! Very very nice combination, chewy cookie with crisp sides and outside, sweet apple cinnamon topping. I was very surprised. I didn't think they would be this good actually. I thought they would just be ok. It's like a cookie with a kick you know, that little something extra really made a difference.

I must say, they are pretty filling, I usually have like 3 or 4 cookies (right...), but with these ones 2 was enough for me. Don't get me wrong, they are very very good and tasty, but they are somewhat filling. But that's a good thing!

I found the recipe very simple and quick to make. Granted, it does take a little time for the topping to cook, but it's fairly quick, you can make these in 30 - 45 minutes. I like that, quick and easy recipes, they're the best!

To make these delicious cookies you will need:

3/4 cup butter or margarine
1 3/4 cups flour
1/2 cup sugar
1 cup packed brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon (optional)
1/4 teaspon ground cloves (optional)
2 cups rolled oats

In a mixing bowl beat butter or margarine for 30 seconds. Add about half of the flour, brown sugar, sugar, egg, baking powder, vanilla and baking soda. If you choose to add cinnamon and cloves (I did) add those as well. Beat till thoroughly combined. Beat in remaining flour. Stir in oats.

Drop by rounded teaspoons (oops I think mine were a bit bigger!) 2 inches apart onto an ungreased cookie sheet. Bake in a 375 degree F oven for 10 to 12 minutes or till edges are golden. Cool cookies on a wire rack.

Fruit topping:

To make the fruit topping, in a medium saucepan combine 11/2 cups finely chopped (finely??? hmmm) peeled apples, 1/2 cup sugar, 1/3 cup raisins, 1/3 cup chopped pecans (ok so I didn't have raisins and pecans, so I just did apples, some cinnamon and sugar, could that be bad? I also added about 2 tablespoons brown sugar,just cause it was left over from the dough and I thought, this can't hurt!) and 2 tablespoons of water.

Bring to boiling, stirring constantly. Reduce heat. Simmer till fruit is tender and most of the liquid has evaporated, stirring occasionally. After dropping the dough onto the cookie sheet, press centers with your thumb. Fill each indentation with a level teaspoon of topping. (I made like little wells on mine, I was affraid the topping would spill down the sides. I also have to admit that I didn't measure the level teaspoon, I just eyeballed it, Yeah, I'm a rebel!)

I would like to apologize for the lack of pictures, but besides the fact that my camera sucks (yes it's the camera!) my lighting is apparently worse, so I really don't have any decent pictures of these cookies or the process except the one up top.

Till next time, I hope you enjoyed this review and remember, if you have a Tasty Recipe that you would like to share, or if there's a recipe that you have been wanting to try and just haven't been able to, let me know about it. I'll give you a Tasty Review!

Whole Wheat Goodness

2009-11-18T19:31:00.000-06:00

I love Focaccia, who doesn't right? A long time ago I had an Italian boyfriend for many years. Great guy, just not for me, anywayssssss,,, his mother got a hold of this Focaccia recipe and we would make it all the time, I just love it. The Focaccia is thick and crisp on the outside while soft in the center. Olive oil, salt and Rosmarino (Rosemary) are what top this delicate bread and give it a wonderful smell and taste. Here in Costa Rica, people are used to the flat Focaccia, you know more of a flat bread than a thick bread. I like them both but I believe I prefer the thick one.

Seeing as how I had no regular flour at hand and am in sort of a health kick at the moment, I used whole wheat flour, I said, what the hell, let's try to make it whole wheat and see what we get, it can't be that bad.

It came out really good actually, I mean, it's the same recipe, you're just substituting the type of flour right? I like whole wheat and I thought this Focaccia was really good, the texture may be better with regular all purpose flour but this option is somewhat better for you.

500 grs. whole wheat flour (or use regular that's ok and yes, Italians use grams, not cups)
1 small glass of warm water ( this is how I got the instructions, I'm just passing them along)
3 teaspoons and a little bit of dry active yeast
salt
Olive oil
Rosemary

Pour flour and salt in a bowl, mix to combine. Dissolve the yeast in the water until there are no lumps. Add to the flour and salt, stir until a uniform dough is formed that no longer sticks to your hands. Form into a ball, cover and let rise. This takes about one hour, but the more it rises the better the end result.

When the dough has at least doubled in size, grease a pan with oil, using your hands. That's right, pour some oil into a pan and spread it all out with your hands. Now take the dough and spread it out onto the pan. I like mine kind of square, I don't know where it says that by law they have to be round. But you can spread it out any way you like, hell, make a star shape if you want, as long as you spread it out. Poke holes into the dough with a fork or knife. Sprinkle Rosemary, salt and drizzle top with olive oil.

Now the dough is ready for baking, that's right, you don't need to let it rise again, goes straight into the oven.

As for the temperature, my instructions were, have your oven as high as it goes. Ok, what temperature? As high as it goes. My oven goes to 550 F, so that's what I had it on. It sounds scary I know, but trust me, just turn that sucker on to the max setting and pop the Focaccia right in. It usually takes about 20 minutes for it to be done, but be sure to check it. Mine was done really fast like 15 min this time, maybe it was the whole wheat flour huh. I suggest you check after 10 minutes, just be sure that the bottom is golden and crisp. Take it out and enjoy!!!!

Came out kinda round in the end huh? Still tastes great though!

Did you happen to notice how many times I said Focaccia????? Love it!!!!

Tasty Recipe Review: Cinnamon Spiral Crisps

2009-11-15T19:42:00.000-06:00

Who doesn't love cookies? They're fun, easy to make (most of the time) and delicious!!! I really really wanted to try and make Palmiers today. You know those big elephant ear cookies that are crispy and sugary and just truly irresistible. Unfortunately I could not find any puff pastry and I sure wasn't going to try and make some!

I sat down with my book from Elinor Klivans 125 Cookies to Bake, Nibble and Savor to see what inspired me. I reviewed one of her recipes before remember. Parisian Toffee Crisps. The word crisp just gets me going you know, it just sounds like something you want to taste. Crisp. This is how I came across this recipe here Cinnamon Spiral Crisps, they sounded fascinanting!

Let me tell you, these are quite addictive, be careful!

The first thing I noticed about this recipe is that the dough is quite the same as making pie crust. So I thought what on earth are these going to taste like? Cinnamon pie? I don't know what a cinnamon pie would taste like, but probably it would be these cookies and let me say they are delicious! I could not stop eating them.

The recipe is extremely simple. Unfortunately it does not specify the temperature and cooking time. Big slip on her part! Since most things are baked at 350 degrees F, that's what I used to be on the safe side. As for the time, it was a bit more complicated. I started with 16 minutes and then checked every 2 minutes or so. I ended up baking these for 20 minutes. But I recommend start checking them at 16, you don't want to overbake these.

Be sure to remove these from the pans while they are still hot, otherwise they are prone to break. My first batch was all but completely destroyed before I heated them up again so they would loosen.

I found this recipe wonderful and very versatile, you can practically fill this dough with almost anything and they would come out tasting great. I am definitely trying these with a salty filling soon. Yes I said salty!! So many things come to mind I don't know where to start Yum!! I'm sure this dough would make some pretty good Palmiers...

Cinnamon Spiral Crisps
1/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 cup flour
8 tablespoons (1 stick) cold butter, cut into 8 pieces

Put the sugar and cinnamon in a small bowl and stir to blend.

Put the flour and salt in the large bowl of an electric mixer. On low speed add the butter pieces. Mix just until they are the size of small lima beans. Slowly add 3 tablespoons of ice water, a tablespoon at a time. Stop beating as the mixture begins to hold together and come away from the sides of the bowl.

Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured rolling surface and form into a square disk about 1 inch thick. Refrigerate fro 15 minutes, until the dough is cold an firm.

On a lightly floured surface, roll the dough into a 12X9 rectangle about 1/8 inch thick. Sprinkle the cinnamon sugar mixture evenly over the dough. Roll the dough into a tight roll. Pinch the edges to seal them. Press the seam. Freeze the roll unbaked, or refrigerate for about 1 hour until it is cold and firm, then slice an bake the cookies.

This is what my roll looked like

And this is what the unbaked cookies look like

Kinda like a cinnamon roll right?

Tasty Recipe Review

2009-11-09T11:56:00.001-06:00

I apologize for the lateness of this post, I've been having technical difficulties with my home computer and also my camera is somewhat dysfunctional at the moment so I don't have any pictures! I had to ~~steal~~ borrow this picture from an amazing blog called Stick To Your Hips it's fantastic!! Clarification: THE RECIPE BELOW IS NOT THE ONE IN STICK TO YOUR HIPS. Although I am DYING to try her recipe.

My current obsession is bread. I am completely and totally delirious with the idea of making my own bread. I have made things like focaccia and cinnamon rolls which are some forms of bread making but I have never truly made my own loaf of bread. Yes I know how it's done, yes I know how to knead but to truly sit down and have a piece of toast, or make yourself a sandwich from slices of bread that you have prepared at home has to be an incredibly gratifying experience that at this moment is all I can think about!

There are so many kinds of bread that you can make, the possibilities are endless. It is said that if you get really into bread making, you can delve deeply into the art and science of the perfect loaf and that there is no limit to the level of obsession passionate bread makers can have.

This recipe was so easy, I couldn't believe it. I wasn't really that intimidated about making bread, I know some people are, but this recipe was fantastic. In 15 minutes, literally in 15 minutes the dough was done. What you need to have is some patience for when the dough needs to rise, because it does need to rise, if it doesn't rise, your bread making days are over! Besides these couple of excruciating hours , because you're so anxious in seeing the final product, this recipe is one of the simplest things I've made in my life.

The verdict: very good! I made my loaf whole wheat and it was very tasty and great as toast! The recipe is so easy and not intimidating at all. I loved making this bread!

RECIPE TAKEN FROM THESIMPLEDOLLAR.COM

1/4 cup milk
5 teaspoons sugar (or 1 1/2 tablespoons)
1 teaspoons salt
5 teaspoons butter (or 1 1/2 tablespoons)
1 package active dry yeast (there are 2 1/4 teaspoons in a package)
2 1/2 to 3 1/2 cups flour
Oil or nonstick cooking spray (just to prevent the bread from sticking to the bowl or pan)

Directions:

Dissolve yeast in 1 cup of warm water until there are no lumps. Add melted butter, sugar, salt and milk to mixture and combine. Add 2 cups of flower and mix. Keep adding flour 1/4 cup at a time until you get a uniform dough that is slightly sticky but does not stick to your hands.

Now comes the kneading. I like to knead the bread, I find it therapeutic in some ways. I'm not sure how good I will be at explaining how to knead the bread, because I'm not sure how good I am at doing so, so I thought I would just redirect you to a VIDEO instead. It's not complicated, just be sure not to over knead the dough. This video is great I'm sure you will have no problems!

Coat the inside of a bowl with oil or cooking spray. Form the dough into a ball and put in the bowl. Cover with a towel and let rise! Just leave it be, preferably in a warm place, many people WARM up their oven a bit and then turn it OFF and put the dough in there.

Leave the dough to rise for approximately one hour, it should be roughly double the size it was before. Punch the dough down then lay the dough out on a lightly floured area and spread it out in a rectangle shape, with one side being roughly the length of the bread pan and the other side being about a bread pan and a half long.

Roll the dough and tuck the ends underneath. Then spray the bread pan down with nonstick cooking spray or grease with oil and put the loaf inside of the pan.

Bake at 400 degrees Fahrenheit (200 degrees Celsius) for thirty minutes. When it’s done, pull it out and immediately remove it from the pan to cool.

I have decided to make my own bread at home from now on so I hope to be posting more recipes hopefully with my pictures!

Till next time, I hope you enjoyed this review and remember, if you have a Tasty Recipe that you would like to share, or if there's a recipe that you have been wanting to try and just haven't been able to, let me know about it. I'll give you a Tasty Review!

Hello November!

2009-11-04T18:35:00.000-06:00

November spells warmth to me. We're getting close to Christmas and New Year's but not quite there yet. The air is chillier, and as summer approaches, the afternoons are getting heavy downpours just before it stops raining all together. You see, in Costa Rica we have two seasons, rainy season and dry season, that's it. We're approaching the dry season right now, but right before it gets here there are usually heavy rains preceding it. That's where we're at, heavy rains.

Seeing as it is still raining and doesn't look like it's going to stop soon, my mind immediately goes to comfort food. One of my favorite childhood memories was when my mother used to make Pan de Miel or Honey Bread, literally translated. Recollections of the smells surrounding the kitchen, cutting the bread while it's still warm because you can't wait to try it and the sweet taste of this dense cake are what prompted me to make this tasty reminiscence of my childhood.

Pan de Miel is more like a very dense cake than an actual bread. At least that's what I think since there is no yeast in this recipe, there's also no kneading involved so I say it's a cake, and while it is called Honey Bread it is not too sweet. As the days go by, this loaf of cake gets even better!

I pried the recipe from my mother since I have been dying to make it only to find that she has decided to change some things. What?? Are you sure about this?

I guess I take after my mother, always trying to improve recipes or just adding stuff until they come out like I want!

But how could she change this recipe? Will it taste so utterly different from what I remember that I won't like it? What if she has ruined it for me all together, Oh no!

I had to try anyways, I needed to see if there was still any part of my childhood left in that bread! Um, I mean cake, whatever, I'll call it bread.
You see she's added icing now, I wonder what that will taste like...

Did my mother's new and "improved" (still to be decided) recipe for Pan de Miel deliver???

Yes it did!!!!

It was all that I remembered. Needless to say I ate half a loaf while it was still warm. I blame you mother! Good thing they were mini loaves.

And the icing? Did that work? It did, but I must say I prefer the original recipe, without icing.

To make these honey breads you will need:

1 kg. flour
1 stick butter at room temperature
1 cup honey
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 tablespoon cocoa
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon cloves
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1 cup warm water
1 teaspoon baking soda

The icing is just confectioner's sugar and water. I don't have the exact measurements because my mom likes to do things as she goes, but you just add water to the sugar until you get a desired consistency.

With an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add honey and water and mix well. Add the dry ingredients until incorporated.

Grease two loaf pans and pour the batter until a little over half full.

Bake at 325 degrees F for 50 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. Let cool on a wire rack, remove from pan and pour the icing on top, just like the picture.

Enjoy!

Tasty Recipe Review: Pumpkin Cupcakes

2009-11-01T14:04:00.000-06:00

Pumpkin is back and it's scary hehe! This week I'm reviewing a recipe by My Kitchen Addiction Pumpkin Cupcakes with Cinnamon Brown Sugar Buttercream. That sounded wonderful to me, I just needed to try them. Unfortunately I did not have a chance to make the Cinnamon Brown Sugar Buttercream but it sounds absolutely delightful I will have to try it one day, that's for sure!

The cupcakes were incredibly easy to make. I did add a few things to the recipe, more pumpkin, a bit more spices, honey and some orange zest, because I think orange zest goes great with pumpkin. And I was right!

These cupcakes were not only easy to make but they were delicious! I loved how all the flavors came together and created a wonderfully complete and balanced taste. The orange zest really gave this recipe a nice twist and brought out the pumpkin at the end. I truly enjoyed these cupcakes and found them very light with great texture.

To make these delicious cupcakes you will need:

1 cup sugar
1/2 cup dark brown sugar, packed
2 cups all purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
4 eggs
1/2 cup milk
3/4 cup pumpkin puree
1 stick unsalted butter, softened

(For my variation add 1 tablespoon honey, 1 1/4 cup pumpkin puree, 1/4 teaspoon cloves, 1/4 teaspoon ginger and orange zest to taste.)

Combine all of the ingredients (yes, I said all of the ingredients) in the bowl of your stand mixer (or just a large mixing bowl if you are brave and have a hand mixer). Beat on medium speed for 20 minutes (that’s why I said you must be brave… or at least energetic). (I found that there is no need to beat the mixture for this long)

While the mixer is doing all of the work, preheat the oven to 350°F, line two standard muffin pans with cupcake papers (for 24 cupcakes).

Once the batter is smooth, fill each of the cupcake liners about 2/3 full with batter. Bake the cupcakes for about 20 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Cool the cupcakes in the pans for a few minutes, and then transfer to wire racks to cool completely.
Cinnamon Brown Sugar Buttercream

1 stick unsalted butter, softened
1/4 cup shortening
1/3 cup dark brown sugar, packed
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
3 cups powdered sugar (varies based on temperature/humidity)
3 tablespoons half and half (varies based on temperature/humidity)

In a large mixer bowl, combine the butter and shortening. Whip together with the whisk attachment until light and fluffy. Add the brown sugar and cinnamon and whisk until well combined.
Gradually add the powdered sugar, 1/2 cup at a time. Alternately add the half and half, whipping the icing on medium-high speed after each addition, until the desired consistency is reached.

Till next time, I hope you enjoyed this review and remember, if you have a Tasty Recipe that you would like to share, or if there's a recipe that you have been wanting to try and just haven't been able to, let me know about it. I'll give you a Tasty Review!

Tasty Treats!

2009-11-01T00:27:00.000-05:00

I've been having the hardest time posting this week. My schedule has been so incredibly busy that I rarely get a chance to sleep! Well, that's actually pretty normal, but I'll tell you all about that in another post.
I really wanted to have my Halloween Cookies post done before Halloween! Ugh!
Anyways... Happy Halloween everyone! This year I wanted to make Halloween cookies, I have seen some amazing cookies this year. One of my favorites and the one I chose to replicate (read steal) are these spiderweb cookies from this great blog Bake at 350. These cookies are adorable! I chose orange and green for my cookies, they didn't come out quite as perfect but everyone loved them! Which is always good. You can find a step by step tutorial for these cute cookies at the Bake at 350 blog by clicking here.

I also wanted to make some ghost cookies for the office and because I thought they would be really cute.

Take a look

Spooky!

I made some white ghosts to keep with the tradition

The white ghost cookies were made with MMF and royal icing.

To make these cookies you will need:

Sugar cookie recipe

Marshmallow Fondant MMF

Royal Icing

Enjoy!

Tasty Recipe Review: Parisian Toffee Crisps

2009-10-25T17:30:00.001-05:00

Putting the pumpkin aside for now (I'm coming back to it, don't worry!) this week's Tasty Recipe Review comes to us from Elinor Klivans's book 125 Cookies to Bake, Nibble and Savor. I bought this book like a million years ago and have really only tried very few of her recipes, not sure why because they were very good. She has little anecdotes with all of her recipes which always make for interesting reading. This recipe's introduction in her book is this one:

"Most people who dine at the Ambassade d' Avergne in Paris try the aligot, an elastic puree of cheese, potatoes and garlic which the waiters lift several feet into the air as they serve it. But I go to this family restaurant so I can have these toffee crisps that are served with the house-made ice cream. They are dark cookies with the crunch of butter toffe candy and the intense taste of caramelized brown sugar and butter."

After reading this I knew I just HAD to try them!

One of the first things I noticed is how simple the recipe is. It's just 5 ingredients and go! No whisking or folding or incorporating. There is some sifting, but that's pretty standard. I love the simplicity.

First of all I have to say WOW. I did not expect these cookies to be so good. They are crisp and buttery and sweet, but not too sweet.They're just as she described!

Recipe follows:

Parisian Toffee Crisps

Makes 26 cookies

1 cup plus 2 tablespoons unbleached all purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
12 tablespoons (1 1/2 sticks) soft butter
2/3 cup packed dark brown sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla

Position 2 oven racks in the middle and upper third of the oven. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line 2 baking shhets with nonstick liners or parchment paper. (I just greased mine)

Sift the flour and salt together and set aside.

Put the butter and dark brown sugar in the large bowl of an electric mixer and beat on low speed for about 1 minute, until the mixture is smooth and blended. Mix in the vanilla. Add the flour mixture, mixing just until it is incorporated (Whoops there's incorporated! ) and a smooth dough forms. Stop the mixer and scrape the sides of the bowl during this mixing. (She's so thorough!) Form each cookie by rolling 1 tablespoon of dough between the palms of your hands into a 1-inch ball and flattening the ball into a 1 3/4 inch circle. Place the cookies 2 inches apart on the baking sheets.

Bake about 12 minutes, until the edges and bottoms darken slightly and the cookies flatten. Reverse the baking sheets after 7 minutes, front to back and top to bottom, to ensure that the cookies bake evenly. Cool them on the baking sheets for 5 minutes, then transfer them to wire racks to cool completely. The cookies become crisp as they cool.

How easy is that? It took no time at all to make these cookies and they were great! The dough was a bit sticky but easy to work with. They cooked in exactly 12 minutes and smelled delightful. The texture is crisp and buttery, the taste,well, actually there is no better way to describe them than how she does! This is definitely a Tasty Recipe in my book!

Oh Pumpkin!

2009-10-22T18:59:00.000-05:00

Pumpkin again! That's right, I'm all into pumpkin right now and seeing as how my last two attempts at making something "blogable" have failed, here's a pumpkin cake recipe for you to enjoy.

As I mentioned in my previous post, pumpkin hasn't really been my thing all these years, but after loving that pumpkin cheesecake I'm obsessed with making pumpkin desserts and I thought, why not try a pumpkin cake, see how that comes out?

You will need:

2 cups sugar
1 cup vegetable oil
4 large eggs
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 cups pumpkin puree

Combine sugar, vegetable oil and eggs in a large mixing bowl; mix well. Sift dry ingredients in a separate bowl; stir into oil mixture, beating well. Stir in pumpkin puree.

Pour batter into greased and floured bundt pan. Bake at 350 degrees F for 35 to 40 minutes.

Now this recipe was supposed to be this Sunday's review but due to the lack of material, I had to post today. I have to say though that I didn't love this cake. I would have added shredded pumpkin as if it were a carrot cake and more spices, maybe some pecans to give it a nice crunchy texture. It's a pretty good cake, but I didn't find any wow factor in it. I dusted it with confectioner's sugar and it improved, then I tried it with the cinnamon whipped cream I had left over from the pumpkin cheesecake and it was much better!

Hope you enjoy it!

Tasty Recipe Review: Pumpkin Cheesecake

2009-10-18T15:35:00.000-05:00

Pumpkin. So widely used at this time of year it's like a cliche. I have never been that into pumpkin, but this year I really wanted to try it out and hopefully with something different, so instead of the regular Pumpkin Pie, I decided to go for a Pumpkin Cheesecake.

This week's review is a little odd. I'm not sure if I can call it a recipe review since it is a combination of recipes with my own changes, so I guess I'm reviewing myself!

To make this cheesecake you will need:

1 Cherry Cheesecake recipe (without the cherries of course)

Prepare as you would the Cherry Cheesecake adding the following:

For the crust add:

1/2 tablespoon brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
pinch of nutmeg

To the filling add:

1 cup canned pumpkin puree
1/8 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon ginger
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon cloves

I normally top off my cheesecakes with whipped cream. For this one, I decided to add cinnamon to the whipped cream and it was the perfect compliment.

Let me just say I loved this cheesecake. It was easy to make, the flavors were subtle yet there, the cinnamon whipped cream went beautifully with everything else. It's like cheesecake with a spice kick. Also, I didn't have any at the time but I feel that orange rind would go wonderfully with this dish. I found it delightful and will definitely be making this and hopefully more pumpkin recipes over and over again!

Till next time, I hope you enjoyed this review and remember if you have a Tasty Recipe that you would like to share, or if there's a recipe that you have been wanting to try and just haven't been able to, let me know about it. I'll give you a Tasty Review.

Single Serving Pies

2009-10-17T21:46:00.000-05:00

I have had this recipe for years. I'm not sure where I got it from unfortunately, but it has always been a hit. I was in the mood for something kind of cute and instead of making a whole pie, I decided to make miniature personal apple pies.

I have to say, I wasn't sure if I wanted to post this today or if I wanted to use it for my recipe review tomorrow. But, I already had my recipe review, well, reviewed so I decided to show you these cute pies!

Recipe

Ingredients:

Crust:
2 cups flour
1 teaspoon salt
2/3 cup butter or margarine
6-7 tablespoons of cold water

Filling:

6-8 apples of your choice, no preference here
1 tablespoon lemon juice (optional )
2 tablespoons flour
3/4 - 1 cup sugar ( I like my pies on the sweet side so I use the full cup! )
1/2 - 1 teaspoon cinammon
pinch of nutmeg

Directions:
Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F.
Spray muffin tins with non stick cooking spray
For the crust, I like using the food processor, it makes it so much easier!

Mix flour salt and butter in your food processor until the butter is the size of peas. Add the water one tablespoon at a time using the pulse button until you get a uniformed dough.
On a lightly floured surface roll the dough to about 1/8 in. thick. Or you can just roll it out to any thickness you like.

Using a round cutter, cut out the bases of your mini pies.

Place them in the prepared muffin tins.

For the filling, peel and cut your apples into small sized chunks. Combine with lemon, sugar, cinammon, flour and nutmeg. Toss to coat.

Like so

Fill the muffin cups to the top

Roll out the remaining dough and using a smaller cutter make the tops of the pies.

Cover the pies and pinch the edges

Using a toothpick, poke holes into the tops of your pies to let the steam out

At this point you can use an egg wash on the tops of your pies if you like and even sprinkle some sugar so it looks pretty. Personally I'm lazy and didnt' feel like wasting an egg, so I didn't do it.

Bake for approximately 45 minutes until the crust is golden brown.

As you can see, some of my filling did ooze out and spill over so be sure to pinch those edges well.

Now you have single serving apple pies!

Enjoy!!

Grandma's Cornstarch Cookies

2009-10-14T19:43:00.000-05:00

These cookies are very common in Costa Rica and a family favorite.

This recipe comes from my grandmother and it's truly what I would call a comfort cookie. It's crumbly and buttery and it just disappears as soon as you put it in your mouth. The dough is a breeze to work with and it's so simple to make you won't believe it!

Traditionally these are made with guava fruit jam but you can use any kind of jam you like, they will taste just as great!

The recipe I have makes a ridiculous amount of cookies. I'm posting the full recipe but I usually make only 1/4, at the most 1/2 of the recipe because of the massive quantities of cookies that come out. Although, I'm pretty sure I could eat them all in one sitting!

Ingredients:

2 cups cornstarch
2 cups confectioner's sugar (sifted)
4 cups flour
6 sticks of butter at room temperature (that's right SIX!!!)
1 teaspoon vanilla
Directions:

Preheat your oven to 325 degrees F.

Line cookie sheets with non stick mats or use a cooking spray.

Using a standing mixer with a paddle attachment cream the butter and vanilla until it is very light in color, approximately 10 minutes.

Add the dry ingredients and then mix on low until a uniform dough forms.

How easy is that??!!!

To form the cookies, you can make balls or use a pastry bag and drop the dough in about 1/2 inch circles.I like the pastry bag personally.You can use another pastry bag for the jam or a with a spoon add a small drop in the middle.

Bake for 12 - 15 minutes until the bottoms are slightly brown.

Make sure to leave enough space between these cookies as they expand in the oven!

Like so

When the cookies come out of the oven they will look like this

See how they grew? Doesn't seem like much, but they do grow quite a bit.

That jam center is great and makes all the difference!

Enjoy!!

Tasty Recipe Review: My Big, Fat Chocolate Chip Cookies

2009-10-11T13:54:00.000-05:00

This week's recipe review comes to us from the fabulous Tyler Florence at Food Network as well and I will be reviewing his recipe for My big, Fat Chocolate Chip Cookies.

Let's get started! Below is the recipe and the review follows.

Ingredients

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/2 cup white sugar
3/4 cup packed light brown sugar
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
2 large eggs
1 (8-ounce) block dark chocolate, coarsely chopped

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Line 2 cookie sheets with parchment paper. Sift together the flour, baking soda, and salt into a medium bowl and set aside.

Place the butter, sugar, and brown sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer; cream together on medium speed until light and fluffy. Scrape down the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula. Beat in the vanilla and eggs. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the creamed mixture and continue to mix until a smooth batter forms. Turn off the mixer and fold in the chocolate chunks using the spatula.

To form the cookies, scoop about 1/4 cup of cookie dough into your hands and roll it around into a ball; place them about 3-inches apart onto the prepared cookie sheets; you should get about 4 cookies on each pan. Press down the tops of the dough slightly and bake until the cookies are light brown, 12 minutes for chewy cookies, or about 15 minutes for crispy cookies.

Allow the cookies to cool on the baking sheets for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely. Repeat with remaining dough/cookie sheets.

The first thing I noticed about these cookies is that they are indeed big and fat! The second thing I noticed is where are the chips????

In my opinion the recipe did not ask for enough chocolate, the cookies looked kind of naked.

See! No chips!

I have to say I found this a little disappointing, let's take another look

See what I mean!

The misterious case of the disappearing chips!

Ok, putting that aside I hadn't tasted the cookies yet, maybe even without the chips they were fantastic!

So it's all about taste now cause by looks it's not going so well. Sad to say it all went downhill from there. The cookies were more cake like than cookie. It didn't appeal to me at all. The dough was normal, nothing special, just regular chocolate chip cookie dough you know, but cake like and there was just too much of it!

I'm sorry Tyler, I love you and everything but these cookies just didn't cut it for me. I will stick to my variation of Martha's cookies... with a little Tasty twist for the time being.

I will say this, on the plus side, they are very easy to make!

Till next time, I hope you enjoyed this review and remember if you have a Tasty Recipe that you would like to share, or if there's a recipe that you have been wanting to try and just haven't been able to, let me know about it. I'll give you a Tasty Review.

It wasn't me

2009-10-08T11:58:00.000-05:00

Ok so maybe it was, but I couldn't help it, they looked so good!

Last week I posted about the effects of a banana cupcake that had no baking soda. You can check out my post HERE.

Well, I decided to make some of my banana cupcakes yesterday and share the recipe so that you could see what I meant.

Come on, tell me they don't look good???

Here's the recipe for you to enjoy

Banana Cupcakes

Ingredients:

1/2 cup ( 1 stick ) butter or margarine at room temperature
1 1/2 cups sugar
1/2 cup milk
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 cups flour
1/4 cup of wheat bran ( if you can find it with honey even better)
2 - 3 tablespoons honey ( I like to use 3 depends on your taste )
5 ripe bananas
Directions:
Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.
Place paper liners into muffin tin.

Cream the butter and sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment for about 5 minutes, until light and fluffy. Add 3 bananas. With the mixer on low add eggs one at time, mixing well after each addition. Scrape the bowl and add the milk and vanilla. (The mixture will look curdled.) Add the dry ingredients mixing until just combined. Add the remaining bananas and honey mixing on low speed until bananas are just broken down but you still have some medium sized pieces.

Pour into tins filling 2/3 of the way. I like using the 1/4 cup measurement for this. Bake for 20 minutes.

Enjoy!!

Tasty Recipes

2009-10-04T20:16:00.000-05:00

Being a baker I love to try new recipes all the time. I have found some wonderful recipes as well as disasters!

This is why I have decided to create this segment Tasty Recipe Review. Every Sunday, I will post a new recipe that I have tried out during the week and let you all know if it’s up to my standards and hopefully yours as well!

This week’s recipe comes to us courtesy of Paula Deen from foodnetwork.com (don’t you just love her?!) and it is a Ginger Cookie recipe.

Recipe:

Ingredients:

* ¾ cup vegetable shortening

* 1 cup sugar plus more for rolling

* 1 large egg

* ¼ cup molasses if I don't have molasses I use dark corn syrup, works just as well

* 2 cups sifted all-purpose flour

* 2 teaspoons baking soda

* 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

* 1 teaspoon ground ginger

* ½ teaspoon ground cloves

* ½ teaspoon salt

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Line cookie sheets with parchment paper or nonstick baking mats. You can use a nonstick spray as well.

Using an electric mixer at low speed, cream the shortening and sugar until thoroughly combined. Add the egg and molasses and beat until completely incorporated.

Sift together the flour, baking soda, cinnamon, ginger, cloves and salt and add to the mixture. Stir until combined.

Roll the dough into balls about 1 inch in diameter. I use the tablespoon measurement, they come out perfect!

Roll the balls in sugar.

Place ½ inch apart on the prepared cookie sheets. Flatten the balls slightly with your fingertips.

Bake for 12 minutes. Cool on wire racks.

I find that 12 minutes is the exact amount of time if want a nice crispy outside and a somewhat chewy middle. If you want a much crispier cookie all around bake for approx. 15 minutes.

This is what the cookies look like when they come out of the oven

See how the tops are all crackly. That's from the sugar that we used to roll them in before baking.

Take a closer look

They look good right?

Well, the truth is they are good. They're very good!

These cookies are truly delicious. The recipe is so easy and quick to make, you can even ask your kids to help. I'm sure they'll love making the balls and rolling them in sugar. The dough is great to work with, it's not sticky at all. I found it perfect.

Another great thing about this recipe is that your house smells wonderful as they're baking!

Did I mention they were delicious? OMG! I wanted to eat them all straight out of the oven.

I found that they can also make a great gift, especially for the holidays, they have all those autumy - chistmasy spices baked right in!

In the end, these cookies deserve all the stars available, this is truly a Tasty Recipe!

If you have a Tasty Recipe that you would like to share, or if there's a recipe that you have been wanting to try and just haven't been able to, let me know about it. I'll give you a Tasty Review.

Winnie The Pooh

2009-10-03T12:35:00.000-05:00

How cute is Winnie The Pooh?

I was asked to make a Winnie the Pooh cake along with 12 cupcakes for a girl's birthday. Freaking out here! How am I going to make Winnie the Pooh???

I was really nervous that I wouldn't be able to get him looking right, but it turns out the didn't come out that bad after all!

Here, why don't you be the judge:

Kinda cute right?

Here's a closer shot

Ok ok, I know he's not perfect and doesn't look exactly like Winnie the Pooh and looks like he's been eating a little too much of that "hunny" but hey, he still looks pretty good to me!

The cake inside was three different colors, red, orange and yellow, it looked very cool!

And take a look at the matching bee cupcakes:

How cute!!!

Bonjour French Cuisine!!!

2009-10-01T11:49:00.001-05:00

Aaah the french and their wonderful pastries!!!! Don't you just adore their Eclairs, Croque en Bouche, Croissants and Pain au Chocolat? I know I do!!!!

There are of course many other kinds but these are the ones that come to mind when I think of french pastries.

Just this morning I had a wonderful Pain au Chocolat from a local patisserie which I believe is the best one here yet.

I do have experience in making Eclairs and Cream Puffs , which are used in the Croque en Bouche (take a look at my Caramel Cream Puffs recipe, they're delightful!) for quite some time but I have never mustered the courage to try out the Croissants or Pain au Chocolat. It is definitely a labor of love and very intensive.

There are hundreds of recipes online for any one of these pastries. If you have managed to create one or more of these exquisite works of culinary art I would love to hear about it. Do you have a favorite? Which is the best recipe you have tried? Have you ever tried and failed? Any and all experiences all welcome!

I will, one day soon, take out the time to bake some of these and will surely let you know how it goes!

Au revoir!!!

Bananas and Soda???

2009-09-30T17:11:00.000-05:00

Yum! Those are some pretty nice looking banana cupcakes right? To be honest, that's not my picture I found it on Tesco.com but that's besides the point because all I wanted was the picture. For now at least!!

Here's my issue. I have a tried and true recipe for banana bread that I have tweaked and trimmed and I absolutely love it! I had some bananas lying around the other day but not enough for my recipe and coincidentally I received an email with a banana cupcake recipe that asked for the exact amount of bananas that I had!

Well, needless to say I decided to try it out right away. Here's my problem, the recipe did not ask for baking soda. At first I didn't give it much thought, but after I had them in the oven (of course!) I thought what?? No baking soda?? That's weird. First banana bread or cupcake recipe that I see that has no baking soda.

I know what you're thinking, flat cupcakes right? Well no, rising wasn't the problem because the recipe did call for baking powder, so that was fine. So what was it??

Texture! And worst of all, color!!!

OMG!!!! Horrible, sad looking little cupcakes! And they were dense and not at all melt in your mouth good!!!

So, here's a tip, always, always, ALWAYS use baking soda, NO MATTER WHAT THE RECIPE SAYS!!! If you don't, your bread, cake or cupcakes will come out all gray looking and... and... and... just not right at all!

If you have a recipe disaster, please share it!!

Hola Dora!

2009-09-03T23:39:00.000-05:00

These are Dora the Explorer themed cupcakes that I made for my friend's daughter's birthday, wew, what a mouthfull. The little cutie celebrated her 2nd birthday and she wanted a Dora the Explorer theme.

I pondered whether or not to make Dora, the monkey, the map (sorry, don't really know the names). In the end, I really liked the simplicity of the stars, plus I thought their faces came out really cute!

Pretty cute huh?!

Red velvet cupcakes with Buttercream icing mmmm can you say yummy??

Thankfully, everyone loved them, specially the dad!!

Pucca & Garu

2009-08-12T18:09:00.007-05:00

When I was asked to make a Pucca & Garu cake, at first I was a little intimidated but then I said, what the hell, I'm going to rock this cake!! This is a red velvet cake with chocolate swirls and vanilla buttercream hmmmm...

The hardest thing to make was actually Garu's ponytails! Those took a few tries to get them like I wanted, but the rest wasn't really that big a deal. I should never have doubted myself, just take a look at this baby!!

Here's another shot!

I have to say that my lovely 9 year old niece helped me out with this cake, unfortunately I have no pictures of her! Thank you Anna for all your help!

Mario Bros. Cake

2009-07-17T12:08:00.007-05:00

As usual my pictures are anything but great, but I wanted to share this cake. This is a Mario Bros. Cake that I was ordered and I think it came out pretty cute. I have to admit I love this giant Piranha!

Check out the mushroom and and fire flower here, pretty cool.

Next, we have a Goomba!

And here's a mini Piranha, watch out!

I didn't have time to take a picture of the entire cake, but you get the gist of it. Hope you enjoyed it!

Cute Cookies

2009-06-11T19:09:00.005-05:00

I am obsessed with cookies at the moment. I have seen the most beautiful cookies lately and I'm just passionate about cookies right now, I want to try and bake and decorate ever single one I see. I want to bake them for home, I want to bake them for friends, party favors, for the dog, anything at all.

For my niece's first communion we decided to give dress cookies as a favor. Much like these ones in the picture, but not the same ones. I had no time to take pictures of my niece's. I think cookies make a great gift and if they look beautiful as well as being delicious, even better!

I got these great wedding cake cookie cutters (I'm pretty sure everyone has them) that also come with a stencil so the cake looks decorated! Of course I had to try all 3 stencils.

This one's cute but not my favorite.

This is my favorite!!

The sugar cookie recipe I use is the best one I've tasted. And you won't believe where I got it from, the back of a Wilton's sugar cookie cutter box! I know! Unbelievable.

You will need:

1 cup butter
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 egg
1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
2 3/4 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt

Preheat oven to 400 F. In mixer bowl, cream butter with sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in egg and extracts. Mix flour, baking powder and salt, add to the butter mixture 1 cup at a time mixing after each addition. Do not chill dough. Divide dough into 2 balls. On a floured surface, roll each ball in a circle approx. 12 inches in diameter and 1/8 inch thick. Dip cookie cutter in fluor before each use. Bake cookies on ungreased cookie sheet 6-7 minutes or until cookies are lightly browned.

Makes about 4 dozen cookies. 4 dozen!!!!!!!

These are topped with Marshmallow Fondant and Royal Icing. You can find both of these recipes here and here.

Enjoy!!

First Communion Cupcakes

2009-06-06T09:22:00.006-05:00

I don't know if you know this but I have 5 nieces. Yes, FIVE! So you can imagine that when I have to bake them something it's never easy. They all have different tastes, the mothers want different things and they're always adding on at the last minute.

This year, today in fact, two of my nieces have their first communion, so we had been thinking about their favors for a while and what to make them. Well, my sister saw these really really cute cupcakes in Bakerella's blog and she just flipped! She wanted them, had to have them.

The catch was that she wanted them with Buttercream, not fondant, but also they had to be packed in individual bags. Impossible! So what we did was fill them up with buttercream and just top them off with marshmallow fondant so they would look great and taste even better!

I used this great MMF recipe from Cake Journal which comes out perfect every time.

Aren't they the cutest thing ever?

They came out great and delicious. My sister's going to love them, my niece is going to flip out and all the other parents are going to hate my sister when all the little kids dressed in perfect white are covered in chocolate! Hehe.

I also had to make 50 cookie favors for my other niece, but for those I will probably post tomorrow since I didn't have time to take pictures yesterday...

Vote Now!!

2009-04-30T10:22:00.002-05:00

Voting is now open over at No One Puts Cupcake in a Corner !!

Head straight to it and cast your vote today to see if I win one of these babies once and for all!

It's about time I win!

2009-04-23T21:12:00.011-05:00

Iron cupcake challenge is back on and I think it's about time that I win one of these suckers! Since the pictures are very important in this competition and I have terrible pictures, this time I decided to make the cupcakes as beautiful as possible, so that would make up for my crappy pictures!

The ingredient for this month was Soda Pop so I chose Gingerale and decided to make Lemon Ginger Cupcakes with Lemon Buttercream. The flowers are all made from MMF (marshmallow fondant) that I made using guess what... yes, Gingerale! You can also use Sprite or even 7up instead, any light colored soda will do. I chose Gingerale to complement the ginger cupcakes.

So first we need to make our candied ginger for that extra oomph in the cupcake. Candied ginger is really not hard to make at all.

Candied Ginger:

Slice fresh ginger about 1/8 inch thick, toss into crock pot and pour Sprite over it until just covered. Add 1 cup of sugar and 1 cup of water. Cook on medium heat for about 8 hours. Pull the slices out and let them dry on a wire rack. Once cooled toss in granulated sugar.

This is the finished product:

Lemon Ginger Cupcakes:

2 sticks butter
4 ounces cream cheese
1/2 cup gingerale
1 1/2 cups sugar
4 eggs
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1 1/2 tablespoons grated lemon zest
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 1/4 cups cake flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoons ground ginger
1 cup finely chopped crystallized ginger

Beat butter until light and fluffy. Add the cream cheese and beat well. Add the eggs one at a time mixing well after each addition. Add and beat until just incorporated the lemon juice, zest, vanilla and gingerale. Sift the dry ingredients and then add the to the mixture, mix on low speed until smooth. Stir in the ginger by hand. Pour into cupcake tins 3/4 full and bake for approximately 18-20 minutes until golden. Yields 24-26 cupcakes. 350 degree oven.

Buttercream: I think everyone has a favorite buttercream recipe, so I suggest use your favorite!

Lemon Curd:

In a saucepan bring to boil:
1/2 cup strained fresh lemon juice
1/2 cup sugar
3 ounces (3/4 stick butter)
1 tablespoon grated lemon zest

In the bowl of an electric mixer at medium speed, beat well:
4 eggs

Whisk the hot juice mixture into the eggs. Return mixture to saucepan and cook over medium-low heat, whisking constantly, until it coats the back of a spoon. Pour the curd though a strainer into bowl. Place plastic wrap directly on the surface of the curd and refrigerate until cold. To make the lemon buttercream, add 1/4 cup of lemon curd for every 2 cups of buttercream.

Marshmallow Fondant made with Gingerale!

Remember the great prizes for the winner... hopefully me!!

*A creation by FRUITFLYPIE
* as well as a pair of cupcake earrings from LOTS OF SPRINKLES
* PLUS, the fabulous CAKESPY , who is now going to be doing a piece for the winner each month until further notice - sweet!

A sweet surprise from SWEET CUPPIN CAKES BAKERY AND CUPCAKERY SUPPLY

And of course don’t forget the corporate prize providers:
HEAD CHEFS by FIESTA PRODUCTS
HELLO CUPCAKE by Karen Tack and Alan Richardson
JESSIE STEELE APRONS
TASTE OF HOME books
UPWITHCUPCAKES.COM .
Iron Cupcake:Earth is sponsored in part by 1-800-Flowers.

Remember to vote for me at No One Puts Cupcake in a Corner!!

VOTING STARTS APRIL 29TH!

Sunhats Bows and Dresses

2009-04-19T17:48:00.007-05:00

I know it has been a while since my last post, but I have been busy making the cutest things for my niece's birthday. This is the setup of all the pretty goodies at her party. There was the cutest birthday cake with a fabulous bow made of roses and a gorgeous dress, with a hat, purse and even flip flops!

Now how cute is that?

Look at this cool bow!

I also made 50 cupcakes, all different colors, topped with delicious buttercream and sunhats!

Look at those tiny flowers.

We set up the cupcakes on stands and they looked great!

This one was special for the birthday girl, cupcake with hat and purse!

I also made 50 dress cookies as the party favors, but I didn't get pictures of all them, can you believe that??? Too exhausted from all that decorating I guess. We had pink, blue, green, yellow and white. They looked great!

Here's a bad picture of the white ones:

The idea for the cupcakes with those beautiful hats came from a photostream I found on flickr by this wonderful artist, because that's what she is, named Zalita do check it out.

The idea for the cookies came from another beautiful photostream at flickr from Glorious Treats

Check out the photostreams because they are absolutely wonderful!

Polka Dots and Roses

2009-04-02T16:23:00.007-05:00

Here's another not so great picture of a really cool cake.

I have been dying to make these roses and have never been able to. I've seen people make them and they always look so easy, darn roses! I could never do it. After many many failed attempts I thought, hmmm, I might have a book that illustrates how to make these. I was right!

After searching up and down my cookbook and cake decorating collection, I found the wonderful Cakes to Dream On by super fabulous Collette Peters. She makes amazing cakes, I'm sure all of you know her.

Well, Collete did have an illustration on how to make these cute fantasy roses and I was able to finally rise to the task. Yay for me!

Just look at how cute they are!

I think this cake is so cute! I must admit that I was copying a cake from the amazing Pink Cake Box, her cakes are also super fabulous!

I have to say that I also love the ribbon with the teeny roses :
By the way, this was a vanilla cake filled with Nutella Mousse... yummy!! Seems to be one of the crowds favorites!

Princess Cake 2

2009-03-31T20:05:00.004-05:00

Another Princess Cake!!!

I know this picture isn't great but I had to take it in a real hurry and it's the best one I have, I'm sorry.

So, this is another Princess Cake for the same girl, only this one is a chocolate cake filled with chocolate butter cream... mmmmmm chocolate....

This one came along with cupcakes too and they are the cutest things, check them out:

The cupcakes were marble cupcakes with butter cream... delicious!

Princess cake

2009-03-30T14:58:00.007-05:00

How cute is this cake?? This is a Princess cake I had to make for this saturday along with 100 cupcakes! That's right 100!

The cake is vanilla with a Nutella Mousse filling and the cupcakes were Red Velvet with Butter Cream. YUM!!

Now, you will never guess what the cake looks like inside though, so here's a picture...

COLORS!!! Yes, the cake was all different colors inside, it was so cute!

And here we have a picture of the cupcakes, also very cute.

This is what the cake with the cupcakes ultimately ended up looking like set up at the party, I know it's not the best picture but it looked good.

Cherry Cheesecake

2009-03-19T20:57:00.004-05:00

I haven't been able to post in a while and I feel terrible about that. Since my camera is still on the fritz, I decided to put up this photo of a mini Cherry Cheesecake I baked. I swear this is the best cheesecake recipe I've tried, and I've tried quite a few believe me!

The recipe below is for a regular sized 9 inch cheesecake not the mini one I have here on the picture. I usually add the flavors like vanilla, nutmeg and lemon rind to taste, feel free to add lemon juice or anything else you wish, this combines well with everything. I will have to post my Oreo Cheesecake so you can see how good that one is! It uses the same recipe, just add Oreos!! Imagine. As for the topping you will see this one is store bought but any topping is great with this, I also use Dulce de Leche topping that I make or Nutella .... YUM!!

Enjoy!

For the crust:
2 1/4 cup graham cracker crumbs
1/4 cup butter or margarine, melted
1 TB sugar

Cheesecake:
3 (8 oz.) pkgs. cream cheese, softened
1 can condensed milk
2 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
nutmeg
lemon rind

1. Combine graham cracker crumbs, sugar and butter, press into buttered 9 inch spring form pan to form crust on bottom and sides.
2. In a mixing bowl, beat cream cheese until fluffy. Add condensed milk and beat well.

3. Add eggs, 1 at a time, mixing well after each addition.

4. Add vanilla, nutmeg and lemon rind to taste. Pour filling into crust.
4. Bake at 350F for 40 to 45 minutes or until set.
For this cheesecake I bought a can of cherry topping and just added whipped cream to the sides. The good thing about cheesecake is that you can top it anyway you like or leave it plain, it's still delicious!

Daring Bakers Chocolate Valentino!!

2009-03-01T11:07:00.006-06:00

I joined The Daring Bakers and this month the February 2009 challenge is hosted by Wendy of WMPE's blog and Dharm of Dad ~ Baker & Chef.
We have chosen a Chocolate Valentino cake by Chef Wan; a Vanilla Ice Cream recipe from Dharm and a Vanilla Ice Cream recipe from Wendy as the challenge.

***You are not going to believe this!!! Just as I was trying to load the pictures of my Chocolate Valentino with vanilla ice cream and blackberry sauce (yum!) my stupid camera decided to just not do anything! I poked, probed, looked, examined, took things out, put things back in, not knowing at all what I was doing of course, but the damn thing just didn't want to work. So unfortunately, I have no pictures of my delicious dessert. I have posted the pictures from Wendy's and Dharm's blogs so you can see their amazing work.

Dharm's

Wendy's

Don't they look fantastic???

I could not believe how easy this cake was to make and how great it tasted! I also made vanilla ice cream by hand! Yes people by hand, with no ice cream maker and that was incredibly easy as well as delicious! Unbelievable.

I baked a round cake and then cut out hearts and served them with the ice cream and a blackberry sauce that I prepared. It was fantastic! I love this recipe and will definitely be doing it again along with the ice cream!

Chocolate Valentino
Preparation Time: 20 minutes
16 ounces (1 pound) (454 grams) of semisweet chocolate, roughly chopped
½ cup (1 stick) plus 2 tablespoons (146 grams total) of unsalted butter
5 large eggs separated

1. Put chocolate and butter in a heatproof bowl and set over a pan of simmering water (the bottom of the bowl should not touch the water) and melt, stirring often.
2. While your chocolate butter mixture is cooling. Butter your pan and line with a parchment circle then butter the parchment.
3. Separate the egg yolks from the egg whites and put into two medium/large bowls.
4. Whip the egg whites in a medium/large grease free bowl until stiff peaks are formed (do not over-whip or the cake will be dry).
5. With the same beater beat the egg yolks together.
6. Add the egg yolks to the cooled chocolate.
7. Fold in 1/3 of the egg whites into the chocolate mixture and follow with remaining 2/3rds. Fold until no white remains without deflating the batter. {link of folding demonstration}
8. Pour batter into prepared pan, the batter should fill the pan 3/4 of the way full, and bake at 375F/190C
9. Bake for 25 minutes until an instant read thermometer reads 140F/60C.
Note – If you do not have an instant read thermometer, the top of the cake will look similar to a brownie and a cake tester will appear wet.
10. Cool cake on a rack for 10 minutes then unmold.

You can find the ice cream recipe and instructions that I used from David Lebovitz right here.

Please check out Wendy's and Dharm's blogs to get specifics on the recipe and any other information I may have missed on this post.

Also, don't forget to head over to The Daring Bakers Blogroll

Not your average Joe

2009-02-23T16:16:00.006-06:00

I'm not really sure how to start this post. It's time for the Iron Cupcake Earth challenge again and this month the ingredient to use was coffee. I was very excited at first and unfortunately have had the busiest month ever so I didn't really have time to make anything until last minute.

I love butter cream and I wanted to make some sort of coffee butter cream which I find delicious so I decided that for this challenge I would make chocolate cupcakes filled with coffee infused Dulce de Leche mousse and coffee butter cream! Wow, that's a mouth full isn't it? And since it's February, I decided to decorate them all Valentinesy (yes I decided that was a word!)

The pictures may not be that great but I have to tell you the cupcakes are, you can really taste the coffee and the Dulce de Leche in the filling. And that smooth butter cream, mocha heaven!

Remember to vote for me so that I can win a fabulous prize pack featuring:

* DIANAEVANS
* as well as a pair of cupcake earrings from LOTS OF SPRINKLES
* PLUS, the fabulous CAKESPY , who is now going to be doing a piece for the winner each month until further notice - sweet!

As an added bonus for February, SWEET CUPPIN CAKES BAKERY AND CUPCAKERY SUPPLY will be tossing in a variety of cupcaking supplies, .

And of course don’t forget the corporate prize providers:
HEAD CHEFS by FIESTA PRODUCTS
HELLO CUPCAKE by Karen Tack and Alan Richardson
JESSIE STEELE APRONS
TASTE OF HOME books
UPWITHCUPCAKES.COM.
Iron Cupcake:Earth is sponsored in part by 1-800-Flowers.

I'm truly sorry to say that for this challenge I didn't have a chance to photograph all the steps, I'm barely having a chance posting this and sending in the recipe. Please forgive me. I still hope you vote for me at No One Puts Cupcake in a Corner!!

Voting starts on March 1st!

Thank you! I promise I won't be as busy next month (I hope)

Valentine's Day Cookies and Cupcakes

2009-02-16T12:43:00.003-06:00

I know I should've posted these 2 days ago but honestly I've had no time at all. I also know that these aren't the best pictures, please bear with me until I have some cash to get a good camera.

This Valentine's Day I embarked in making decorated cookies. Let me tell you, no rest at all! I made, I don't know how many cookies, maybe 300 and decorated all of them!

Fortunately, after 3 days of sleep depravation, endless amounts of dough and icing they came out great and the people loved them!

I also made delicious chocolate cupcakes with buttercream frosting. The picture isn't that great, but they were soooo cute! I'll have to post recipes tomorrow though... enjoy.

Amazing...

2009-02-10T10:30:00.004-06:00

I haven't been able to post anything for a while because I've been incredibly busy.

Seeing as Valentine's day is just around the corner and of course we bakers are expected to whip something up I have something amazing to show you. This is not mine, I'll probably be posting maybe some pictures of the cookies that I'm making for Valentine's. They're actually pretty cute, nothing like what you're about to see though.

The following picture comes to us from the fabulous Bakerella she has one of my favorite blogs and is incredibly creative and fun. Just look at this:

Pretty cool huh! Wait till you check out the whole story... go here to see how you can make these, yep that's right, you can make them!

It's time!!!

2009-01-29T09:28:00.002-06:00

It's time people!! Time to vote for your favorite cupcake recipe of the Iron Cupcake:Earth challenge ... meaning mine. Hehe.

So head on over to No One Puts Cupcake in a Corner and cast your vote, for me and my delicious Apple Cinnamon ... Boozecakes? Hey, I honestly had no clue what to call them and since the IC ingredient was wine, well that's all I could come up with.

Scroll down a bit for the recipe and post to my boozecakes or if you want, just click here.

So come on, help me win please, it would make my day!

Very cool giveaway!!

2009-01-22T12:34:00.004-06:00

All About Cakes is having an amazing giveaway and I was lucky enough to find out about it just in time!

All you have to do is post, blog about it and link back to the blog. That's it! Could it get any easier than that? I don't think so!

You're still here? Go post!

Ok ok, so what's so great? Well here's a hint on the prize:That's right!! She's giving away a Betty Crocker 100 Piece Cake Decorating Kit ... but wait, that's not all! She decided to make it a double prize and got an extra set

Yep, you heard right, double! 2 sets so in addition to the first set, you're going to get:
*60 more bags
*20 decorator sculpting combs
*6 large tips
*5 new stencils
*Carrying case
*Storage bag for letter tiles
*Tri star tip and more

How great is that huh?? I say pretty great, so GO, POST, LINK, NOW!!

And congratulations to Rose on her 100th + post, keep up the great work.

An apple a day... may make me a winner!!

2009-01-21T12:37:00.025-06:00

Apple, cinammon, wine! Hmmm, sounds good right? I thought so, so I decided to bake these cupcakes for the Iron Cupcake:Earth challenge for this month in which the ingredient was... yes you guessed it... apples! Nooo! WINE, how's that for a shocker? Cupcakes and wine? What the *//&*$%%# bleeeep??? Don't get me wrong, I like wine, I do, I even enjoy getting drunk on the stuff once (read often) in a while. I just didn't know how to incorporate (fancy bakers word) it in a cupcake recipe and have it be fantastic! Hey, maybe I need more experience, I'm sure Martha Stewart could do it with her eyes closed, who knows.

Anyhoo... I racked my brain thinking what cupcake am I going to bake with wine that is worthy of winning this challenge and what wine, red, white, frizzy, bubbly, cheap, expensive ... jeez! Make a girl think why don't you?

Sooo, to make a long story short (too late huh?) I decide to bake these sweet wonderful cakes that I love and mix up the recipe a bit with booze!!

I would like to apologize for any bad pictures, lighting, framing, bluriness and everything else that could go wrong with a picture. I am not a professional photographer and do not have one of those fancy cameras that cost like a gizillion bucks and take amazing pictures all by themselves.

And finally... the recipe, with pictures yay! If you want to skip the recipe and amazing professional photography that's fine but please keep reading afterwards to check out the prizes I'm going to win, um, offered and how you can help me win... yes!!!

To make these tasty delights you will need:

*1/2 cup of water

*1/2 cup of red wine (I used Port or Oporto which is sweet)

2 cups sugar

2 cups grated apples

2 cups raisins

2 sticks butter

2 teaspoons cinnamon

2 teaspoons nutmeg

1/2 teaspoon cloves

1 cup chopped walnuts

2 teaspoons baking soda

3 1/2 cups flour

Place water, wine, sugar, apples, raisins, butter, cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves in a saucepan.

This is how it's going to look, can you see the wine? mmmm...boozie

Bring to boil. I'm not going to show that picture cause it doesn't look that great. Cool completely.

This is what the cooked ingredients will look like.

Stir nuts and baking soda into the flour. No picture for that one, I was too engrossed cooking and forgot! Add to the cooked and cooled mixture.

Here is the complete mix. Looks pretty yummy eh? (eh??? wtf?) Anyways, I can taste the already.

Fill your muffin or cupcake tins till about 3/4 full and bake in a 350 degree oven for about 15 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. If you want to make these absolutely fantastic like mine, combine about 1/4 cup sugar with 1/4 water and simmer until a syrup is formed and then add about 1/2 tablespoon of wine and with a pastry brush, brush these puppies as soon as they come out of the oven. This makes them incredibly moist and delicious!

Now for the important part, getting me to win!! Please go over to No One Puts Cupcake in a Corner and vote for me!! Yep, that's it, you can do it come on!

Check out the fantastic prices:

When I win, I mean, the winner will receive this amazing ETSY PRIZE-PACK from artists:
DOGBONE ART

cupcake earrings from LOTS OF SPRINKLES
CAKESPY, who is now going to be doing a piece for the winner each month until further notice - sweet!

As an added bonus for January, SWEET CUPPIN CAKES BAKERY AND CUPCAKERY SUPPLY will be tossing in another treat as well.

Last and certainly not least, don’t forget the corporate prize providers:
HEAD CHEFS by FIESTA PRODUCTS,
HELLO CUPCAKE by Karen Tack and Alan Richardson,
JESSIE STEELE APRONS
CUPCAKE COURIER
TASTE OF HOME books.

BEGINNING IN JANUARY; UPWITHCUPCAKES.COM will be providing the winner with one of their cute cupcake attitude t's!
Iron Cupcake:Earth is sponsored in part by 1-800-Flowers.

Who decides the winner of Iron Cupcake:Earth?
You will. You and the entire blogosphere.

During the 5-days following the baking period, a summary of all cupcakes, their photo, and links to their blog post will be live on No One Puts Cupcake in a Corner. In the right hand column of the page there will be a button to vote for the 3 favorite cupcake, based on appearance and summary of each recipe.

French Toast...Pudding??

2009-01-19T17:06:00.002-06:00

On sunday mornings I always like to have something special for breakfast. Not sure why, but I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one. As this sunday morning arrived I was thinking what are we going to have today? There's a french toast recipe that I have always wanted to try, but the batter has to be in the fridge overnight and of course I had done none of that the night before. So, I thought about adjusting a great topping for cinnamon rolls that I have to this breakfast favorite. Came out pretty good, nice and gooey, kind of like a pumped up bread pudding. The original recipe calls for pecans, but since my pantry is a little empty I had to improvise with the nuts I had which were almonds and walnuts. I'm not going to post a french toast recipe because I do mine different all the time, I just add stuff until it looks kind of right and that's what I go with. But here is the topping if you would like to try these baked "french toast".

Combine: 2/3 cup packed brown sugar, 1/4 cup butter or margarine and 2 tablespoons light corn syrup. Cook and stir until combined, pour into baking pan and sprinkle with pecans. I love pecans, so I use a lot!

Put your french toast on top of this and if there's any liquid left add that too. Bake at 350 for about 40 min.

Enjoy!

Buzz...Buzz and a another cake!

2009-01-13T18:47:00.004-06:00

Since my oven is still on the fritz, I haven't really been able to bake anything new to share with everyone and it's killing me! I'm posting another specialty cake picture. This one is a Hawaiian themed cake for a girl's birthday party. They loved it! Delicious white spongy cake with a little bit of an orange flavor, filled with cookies 'n' cream... it was a big hit, complete with a flower hopping bee and all on top. I chose this cake, not only because it's one of my favorites but also in honor of a new community I joined called Foodbuzz. It's a really cool place filled with great people, I am brand new but I've found everyone to be very friendly, real food lovers and to have great sites and posts! Check it out and become part of this wonderful sharing community.

To everyone at Foodbuzz.com thank you very much for being so welcoming and keep on buzzing!

Move over Willy Wonka!

2009-01-10T08:44:00.000-06:00

I realized I had not posted any pictures of my special cakes so I chose this one which I love. I had a great time making all the lollipops and candy. I even had one of my nieces help out. But the best part was the look on the little girl's face when I arrived to her birthday party with this symphony of sweets!!

Martha's Cookies... with a little Tasty twist

2009-01-09T13:51:00.000-06:00

These are by far my favorite cookies I think. I got this recipe from Martha Stewart, (not from her directly of course, I wish!) which of course is great, but I decided to change it a little bit and what came out was a truly different and delicious cookie.

So, here's Martha's recipe with my changes...

You can buy chocolate that has already been chunked, or you can just cut up your favorite chocolate.
Ingredients

2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 cup packed light-brown sugar
1 cup granulated sugar
1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
3 tablespoons milk
2 large eggs
2 cups old-fashioned rolled oats or powdered oatmeal (I use this)

1 cup shredded coconut
12 ounces semisweet chocolate, chopped into 1/2 inch chunks (I just use chocolate chips)
1 1/3 cups coarsely chopped (5 ounces) pecans
Directions
In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, salt, baking powder, and baking soda. Set dry ingredients aside.
In the bowl of an electric mixer, combine butter with both sugars; beat until light and fluffy. Add vanilla, milk, and eggs; mix well. Add reserved dry ingredients, and beat until just combined. Remove bowl from mixer, and fold in oats, chocolate, and pecans. Place dough in the refrigerator until firm, at least 2 hours or overnight.
Heat oven to 350 degrees. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper, and set aside. Remove dough from refrigerator. Using an ice-cream scoop, shape into 2-inch-diameter balls. Place six balls on each baking sheet, spaced 4 inches apart, and press down
Transfer to oven. Bake until golden, but still soft in center, 15 to 16 minutes. Remove from oven, and place on a wire rack to cool completely. Repeat with remaining dough. Store in an airtight container up to 2 days.

Caramel Cream Puffs

2009-01-06T12:34:00.001-06:00

Ok, so I decided to take a vacation also. Hey, I really needed it.
Last week I had a dinner party and had to do all the cooking. The menu consisted of a salad with pears and caramelized nuts and a gorgonzola dressing. Roasted sirloin and potatoes with a mustard and pickle sauce and a Bernaisse sauce, fancy... and the most important, the dessert. Caramel Cream Puffs!! Oh my, I've been making cream puffs and eclairs for a while now, and have the pate a choux down thank goodness. But, I had never tried caramel pastry cream, have always wanted too but just never got around to it. OMG!! Why did I wait so long??? I found this recipe, tweeked a little bit and got the creamiest caramel pastry cream I've ever tasted. Not too sweet, just a hint of caramel and very velvety! No need to say, the cream puffs were a big hit! All gone in seconds and not hard to make at all.

Pate a choux
1/2 cup butter or margarine
1 cup all purpose flour
4 eggs
Combine butter, 1 cup water and 1/8 tsp salt in a medium saucepan. Bring to boil. Add the flour all at once, stirring vigorously. Cook and stir till mixture forms a ball that does not separate. Remove from heat. Cool 10 minutes. Add eggs, one at a time, beating with a wooden spoon after each addition until smooth.
This is your cream puff batter, you can drop by spoonfuls or use a pastry bag and make the puffs or eclairs.
Bake in a 400 degree oven for 30 to 35 minutes or until golden brown. Cool on a wire rack. Split puffs and remove any soft dough from inside. Fill with the Pastry Cream!! Yum.
I used a caramel glaze to top the puffs, I dipped them in caramelized sugar before I split them so they wouldn't crumble in my hands later.

Caramel pastry cream
1/4 cup cornstarch or flour (you can use either)
1/2 cup sugar
4 egg yolks
1 cup milk
1 cup heavy cream (this makes it much silkier)
2 tablespoons water
1/2 tsp vanilla

Add cornstarch and 1/4 cup sugar in a medium bowl and mix together well. Add the egg yolks and mix until paste is formed. Stir in 1/2 cup milk.
Place remaining 1/4 cup sugar and water in small heavy pot and stir to combine. Cook over medium heat, swirling pan but not stirring until sugar turns medium amber.
Carefully pour in remaining milk and heavy cream and stir until smooth.
Bring mixture to a simmer and then pour hot mixture over mixture in bowl whisking constantly.
Pour back into pan, cook over moderate heat stirring until smooth and thick.
Remove from heat, stir an additional minute, add the vanilla.
Transfer to a bowl, immediately cover with plastic wrap. Cool for at least 2 hours.

Strawberries and Cream

2009-01-06T12:31:00.000-06:00

Due to an unforeseen oven malfunction I am forced to come up with a dessert for tonight's dinner without having to bake anything. What on earth am I going to come up with that doesn't require me to use my oven? Thankfully I didn't have to rack my brain for too long since there is a simple and easy dessert that requires no baking at all. We have been having strawberries and cream at our get together's for the longest time and they are always delicious and never boring. You are always safe with this dessert, it does not dissapoint and you can vary it in so many ways. You can use peaches instead of strawberry, you can add vanilla icecream... delicious! Normally, I would take this up a notch and make some merengue shells to go with it, that's always good, but since I don't have an oven to work with, I'm going to have to stick to old fashioned strawberries and whipped cream.
For the strawberries you only have to wash and cut in fours and then sprinkle with plenty of sugar so that this sweet syrup forms.
Here is a recipe I found for the whipped cream, honestly, I would use more confectioner's sugar and vanilla than recommended but that's because I like my whipped cream to be sweet, you can adjust to your taste of course this is always the best way to make anything. Remember to have all your utensils cold and not to over whip the cream or it will curdle. Enjoy!!
In the bowl of an electric mixer, whip until stiff:
3 cups heavy whipping cream
4 tablespoons confectioner's sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
And that's it, you have your strawberries all ready in that sugary syrup and your whipped cream and you're ready to go!

Favorite Cookies

2009-01-06T12:27:00.000-06:00

My mom came over the other day with a gift. A box of homemade assorted cookies!! Yay, just what I needed! There were Russian Tea cakes, Almond cookies, these yummy cornstarch cookies that are like shortbread but better and Biscotti. This got me to thinking about which was my favorite. Now, I really like cookies so I have a lot of favorites but from this batch today I would definitely have to say the Cornstarch cookies... they're just melt in your mouth goodness. Coming in a close second, Almond squares. This one is actually a secret family recipe and I've never tasted anything like it.
Let me know if you have any favorite cookie and the recipe and I'll try them out!
Thanks mom!!!