I’m always trying to think of new ways to serve up the gorgeous amethyst color of spring violets. This creamy violet sorbet is gorgeous. It looks gorgeous and it tastes gorgeous. This is technically a sherbet (a sorbet with added dairy) but since I can never figure out how to pronounce the word sherbet, I’ve decided it’s a creamy sorbet. It’s just the right amount of tart and sweet with a little floral kick of rosewater. Just like the violet lemonade and violet jelly, it’s the color here that makes it so special.
Along with the lovely tradition of making dandelion jelly in the spring, I also grew up with violet jelly. As a girl it took a lot of time to gather the hundreds of flowers needed to fill my mom’s pint jar. It often involved walking with my sister to parks and lawns that were further from the house than we were used to roaming. It was an adventure. Continue reading “Violet Jelly”→
Every spring, my kids and I make violet jelly. Walking through the neighborhood on one of those rare spring days where it’s warm in the sun and cool in the shade and picking violets is a lovely way to spend an afternoon. Yesterday when we were making our jelly for the year, my youngest asked if we could make violet and dandelion candies. I’m still working on that…but it did remind me that last year we made some bonkers-good violet lemonade and I never posted the recipe. Which is awfully selfish. So here you go!
These realistic rock cookies are so fun and surprisingly straightforward and forgiving to create! Once your cookies are baked and dipped in royal icing, you dilute food gel dye in vodka and just sweep, dot and stripe the cookies willy nilly. The surface of the icing is eaten away by the vodka, roughening the surface. These would be a great gift for the rockhounds in your life, or people you secretly think should eat rocks. Win-win!
I love to forage in my urban neighborhood for yummy things I can bake up into an elegant dessert. I’ve foraged violets, spruce, dandelions, and maple leaves in an area of just a few blocks of my home. My mom, who lives on a wonderful piece of land with oodles of amazing edible plants, had some red currants growing and offered some to me. I made them into this simple jam used it to cover a foolproof chocolate tart. Topped with a just-right layer of stabilized whipped cream and dusted with cocoa, this Chocolate Ganache and Red Currant Tart has lovely visual appeal and tastes incredible. I shared with the neighbors and received several texts that simply said, “Grooooaaannnnn” and “Good Lord!” I think that means they liked it.
I have been very impatient for spring this year. It’s been exceptionally cold in Chicago and everything has just been talking for-ev-er to come up. So when I saw the first bursts of yellow dotting the yards of the lazy I got super excited! I could almost hear Oprah announcing her next guest. Please welcome, Spriiiiinnnnnggg! Continue reading “Dandelion Lemon Bars”→
These simple and beautiful Easter egg cookies are dipped in royal icing and speckled with edible metallic paint. The pussy willow design is made by piping tiny chocolate branches and sprinkling little drops of white icing with sparkling sugar. They look all fuzzy!
Man do I hate making royal icing. I hardly ever do. Most of the cookies I make, I just work the designs around what colors are available in Betty Crocker cookie icing. But a friend of mine whose family ran a bakery posted some pics of cookies she had dipped in icing and they looked so lovely I thought I’d give it another try. Royal icing is a simple mix of egg whites, powdered sugar and extract or lemon juice. No big deal, right? Am I not the Master Of All Baked Goods? Do I not bleed icing?
I accidentally made the best little chocolate bird nests! Last week I was trying to make some chocolate curls with butterscotch chips to decorate the top of a chocolate and salted caramel cake. I usually make chocolate curls by spreading melted chocolate onto the back of a cookie sheet and freezing it for about 1 minute. Then I take it out and scrape it off with a wide spatula to create big lovely curls. Sorta like this. But because I’m always trying to do too many things at once (As I write this I am making a phone cake and eating lunch) I forgot about them in the freezer and when I took out the cookie sheet, the butterscotch mixture was frozen solid. Because I am an optimist, I thought I’d try to make curls anyway. This is what happened: Continue reading “Easy Chocolate Bird Nests”→
Glazing your gingerbread cookies is a deceptively simple way to create delicate and impressive patterns on your gingerbread cookies. The textured dough, once baked, gets brushed with a simple powdered sugar glaze and allowed to dry and crystallize.
Every year, my dad’s side of the family celebrates Swedish Christmas, with blood sausage and meatballs and headcheese and all sorts of things I’m not likely to eat any other time of the year. I’ve baked lots of things with nordic flavors like cinnamon, cardamom and white pepper. But this year I wanted to bake up a cookie that really says SWEDISH CHRISTMAS*. I saw some cute peanut butter heart cookies on Pinterest and their criss-crossed fork marks reminded me of the paper heart baskets we made as kids (and I still sometimes make for grown-up time). So I decided to try my hand at a Scandinavian twist on the classic checkerboard cookie. This was the result! To say I’m pleased would be an understatement. I just adore these cookies.
Man do I hate making royal icing. I hardly ever do. Most of the cookies I make, I just work the designs around what colors are available in Betty Crocker cookie icing. But a friend of mine whose family ran a bakery posted some pics of cookies she had dipped in icing and they looked so lovely I thought I’d give it another try. Royal icing is a simple mix of egg whites, powdered sugar and extract or lemon juice. No big deal, right? Am I not the Master Of All Baked Goods? Do I not bleed icing?
