Dobash Cake

I made this Dobash cake for my brother's birthday. He used to like the ones from Zippy's but since he moved to Seattle, they were harder to come by. The cake is a moist chocolate with a rich chocolate frosting. Unlike the Zippy's cake, it doesn't have crumbs coated on the sides. I added more cherries since I knew the kids would fight for it if I only put one in the center.

Emoji Cookies

My niece Chloe came up with the idea for making Emoji cookies. She was inspired from the site Nerdy Nummies. Little did I know what a feat I was to undertake. Most of my baking supplies are packed away in boxes in the garage until they find a permanent home. Luckily I had my trusty stand mixer and the Internet.

Making the dough was easy. But then it had to chill for two hours. The kids wanted to eat the cookies that night so I had them use half the dough to cut out a few random shapes, sprinkle, bake and eat. I wasn't even going to attempt icing when it was already 9 at night. The next few days we spent gathering supplies. Fred Meyer had red icing only and piping tips but didn't have any cookie cutters. We were looking for hearts. But luckily I found my round biscuit cutters. Walmart had icing in black and red, candy eyes and mustaches. Yay! The kids were all about the mustaches.

We went home and rolled out and cut the second half of the dough and baked the remainder of the cookies. I said only round so we could make Emojis but Sage wanted to make butterflies. We made three batches of  icing in  four different colors- white, yellow, green, blue. We used store bought black  and red because it's hard to make them. They turn out gray and pink.  We used  ziplock bags and plastic piping tips with no couplers. It was messy. All in all, the kids had fun and were proud of their Emojis. We had enough cookies to eat for a whole week. They wanted to make the poop Emoji....maybe next time.

Mint Chocolate Shamrock Mini Cupcakes

Happy St. Patty's Day! I had the idea to make shamrock cupcakes. I thought they would be easy. Unfortunately I had to battle with the challenge of piping candy melts in the shape of shamrocks (you should have seen the failed ones), drippy icing running off the sides, and cupcakes that were moist but  very fragile, many breaking as I took them out of the tins (next time I think I'll use liners).

Apples! Apple Oat Scones, Apple Strudel, and Apple Muffins

Apple Oat Scones

 

Apple Phyllo Strudel with Vanilla Almond Ice Cream

 

Apple Oatmeal Cranberry Muffins

I love apples all year round. My favorites are Fuji, Honeycrisp, Cripps Pink, and Ambrosia. I use Granny Smith for baking if I'm going for more of a tart flavor. Cranberry, oatmeal, cinnamon and walnut are great flavors to pair with apples.

Chocolate Ice Cream Sundaes

Mine

Sage's 

 

Dagan's

We made our own chocolate ice cream today. It was the real deal- egg yolks, heavy cream, whole milk, sugar, vanilla, dark chocolate, and cocoa powder. The ice cream turned out rich, thick and tasty. I set out whipped cream, maraschino cherries, raspberries, and chopped walnuts. We had fun decorating our own sundaes. It was funny because we made these right after we got back from the dentist. Yum!

More Greek Baking

Troufakia ( Walnut and Biscuit Chocolate Truffles)

Tiganites (Greek- Style Pancakes with Honey and Walnuts)

 

Finikia (Orange Cookies)

 

Phyllo Purses (Raspberry and Chocolate with Raspberry Sauce)

 

Phyllo Purses (Mushroom and Onion with Red Pepper Sauce)

Our Greek baking adventures continue. Phyllo dough is challenging to work with because it dries out so quickly.  I hadn't worked with it for a long time but thought I'd try it once more since we were studying Greece. Although, I had to work swiftly buttering the layers, these purses both savory and sweet were well worth it. The pastry is so thin and crispy that it makes a joyous sound in your mouth while the fillings burst with flavor. I can't wait to make more yummy treats with the remaining dough. 

The sweet purses were filled with chopped dark chocolate and a fresh raspberry. These were plated with a sauce made out of fresh raspberries and caster sugar. The savory purses were filled with a mixture of sauteed button mushrooms, portobello mushrooms, red onion, garlic and red wine vinegar. These were plated with a roasted red pepper sauce from Bobby Flay's cookbook.

Strawberry and Milk Jello Hearts

I saw some cute jello heart squares on a blog and thought I would make my own version. It looked easy. All you do is make the strawberry jello, cut hearts out of it, then make the milk jello and pour it around the strawberry hearts. Unfortunately when I put my heart jello into the glass pan, I poured the milk layer, and they all fell over and floated. So I used the remainder of the milk layer in a smaller pan then cut out large hearts and cut small hearts out of the middle. The red hearts were way too tall for the white layer so I had to cut them in half. Then I placed them in the center. All in all, the  boys loved them. Happy Valentine's Day!