I have known how to make caramels for three days and still feel like I just invented fire. The Salted Mezcal Caramels were a hit with the adults, but the kids didn’t really like them so I told Weezy I’d make some for her friends that were plain vanilla and she could decorate them. They ended up with so many sprinkles on them that I had to vacuum my kitchen counter when I cleaned up. Continue reading “Swedish Coffee Cake Caramels”
Pawpaw is the super-yummy native fruit most people have never heard of. It is the largest fruit native to North America and grows abundantly in midwestern forests. It’s the only fruit in its family that grows in our temperate climate. The rest, like the custard apple, are tropical. And the best, most delicious way to enjoy pawpaw is Pawpaw Ice Cream.
During all those walks around the neighborhood gathering violets and dandelions for jelly, I started to notice that baking inspiration literally grows on trees around here. There are lilacs, redbuds and magnolias galore. They all have edible parts but I was all flowered out. Then I happened to see a post from Once Upon A Weed about spruce syrup and remembered there’s a spruce growing in the parkway just a few blocks from here. It’s about 40 feet tall and absolutely covered in itty-bitty spruce tips. Continue reading “Caramelized Spruce Tip Syrup”
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”
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?
Continue reading “Easter Egg Cookies-Pussy Willows and Speckled Eggs”
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”
Winter will be here before we know it. Stock up on these quick and elegant paint and peel chocolate leaves now while there are tons of fresh and lovely leaves everywhere you look. I’m going to make a bushel basket full of these chocolate maple leaves to use throughout the fall on my special desserts. They keep well in an airtight container for several months, so feel free to really go crazy on these!
Continue reading “Chocolate Maple Leaves – Just Paint and Peel”
Crafty trees made with an ice cream cone and All Bran cereal. A snow bound gingerbread house, rock candy ice, and spiral-iced lollies. The cake was spice cake with Maple Italian Meringue Buttercream.
Continue reading “Gingerbread Maple Cake”
I don’t want to boss you around but you should definitely try making some of these cookies for the holidays. I’ve put them all in one spot along with some helpful tips for getting great results every time. But honestly, this is a selfish post. I’ve been baking batches and batches of holiday cookies and even though I’m using my own dang recipes, I still like to look them up on the blog every time I bake so I don’t get them mixed up. Is it weird to google and print my own recipes off of the internet? If that’s the type of narcissistic behavior it takes to get perfect cookies, I’m all for it. Yesterday I was wishing I had my go-to, foolproof holiday cookie recipes in one place so…TA DA! Foolproof Holiday Cookie Roundup!
