Blueberry Buttermilk Biscuits

St. Patty's Day Cupcakes

This is the third year in a row I've made these. The cupcake is dark chocolate with Guinness. It is filled with an Irish cream chocolate ganache and topped with an Irish cream frosting. Labor intensive and pricey but so worth it!

Strawberry Bars

These are similar to lemon bars but made with strawberry puree instead. I did add a little lemon zest to brighten them up a bit but the lemon flavor wasn't prevalent. These strawberry bars have a natural pink color to them. Food coloring was optional but I left it out. It is more like a mauve. The only thing I didn't like about these bars were that they were moist after baking but wet after refrigerating them.
 I sprinkled powdered sugar on them and it immediately melted leaving a bumpy texture which I didn't like. The bars tasted o.k. They were creamy and not too sweet. The crust on the bottom was a shortbread cookie recipe. The filling was strawberry puree sweetened with condensed milk. The strawberry on top added a little bit of freshness.

Velvet Fudge With Macadamia Nuts

 Marshmallow Fluff

I've always wanted to make really smooth velvety fudge. The past few times I've tried making fudge it turned out hard and gritty, more like tablet. This recipe is from Baked. Instead of using walnuts, I used macadamias. It was decadently rich and smooth. It was the best fudge I've ever eaten. The homemade marshmallow fluff was incorporated into the chocolate to make the fudge but the leftovers were also good for dipping fruit in.

Fleur De Sel Caramel Gelato

The first time I tried caramel ice cream was at West restaurant. Normally I'm not a fan of caramel but I changed my mind after eating this. I just had to make it at home. I made it both for Dagan's birthday party and the following week. It received rave reviews and was even better than the chocolate cake. I used fleur de sel instead of coarse sea salt. The only strange thing I came upon is that when you add cream to the cooked sugar, it seizes up. Just keep stirring it over the heat till it remelts and comes together into a nice caramel.

Golden Ninja Cake

Dagan suggested we turn this cake into the golden ninja which is his favorite character in Ninjago. This is a 6 inch round dark chocolate cake. It is covered with vanilla swiss buttercream. I used two slightly different yellows for the face and the ninja hood. The filling in the center is a white chocolate mousse.

Banana Bread with the Little Pastry Chefs

Candy Crush Color Bomb Truffles

I've been playing a lot of Candy Crush lately. So much so that I've had to curb myself to playing only on the weekends especially since I found how to get infinite lives. These color bombs are really spicy chocolate truffles. The centers are chocolate ganache with cayenne pepper, ancho chile powder and cinnamon. They are then dipped in dark tempered chocolate and then covered with multicolored sprinkles. These were so hot that I've cautioned people not to put the whole thing in their mouth. Much like the game, these explode. I think I'll tone them down a bit the next time and cut the amount of cayenne in half.

Minecraft Party

Mini Chocolate Chip Cookies

Diamond Sword Cake

Dagan Turns 7

Minecraft Treats

Dagan's 7th birthday party was so much fun to prepare. We had minecraft chess to play, a jewel craftmaking station, papercraft projects, and foam swords to fight with. For snacks we had apples, fish (graham goldfish crackers), TNT (red licorice), sticks (pretzel sticks), carrots, gold (ferrero rocher candies), slime balls (mint candies), eggs (yogurt covered almonds), and watermelon. I drew creeper faces on all the cups. 

Dagan's cake was a dark chocolate cake with vanilla swiss buttercream frosting. First I baked a cake in a 9x13 pan. Then I printed out a diamond sword template from the internet. There were two pieces, the hilt and the blade. I arranged these on top of the cake and then cut out the pieces. I assembled them on the cake board and then frosted the cake using a star tip. The most time consuming was coloring all the icing and filling all the piping bags. Dagan chose the design for the diamond sword cake and all the colors right down to the green for the writing.