Nutella Brownie bites

These are so delicious.

Brownies w/ a protein punch

It's been a while. Not much time for baking lately. Something I intend to work on. But, I got a little help from a librarian co-worker recently. Vegan black bean brownies. This really is the easiest recipe ever.

1 box Ghiradelli Double Chocolate Brownie Mix
1 can black beans (w/ juice)

Puree black beans (I used immersion blender at the suggestion of my co-worker & it worked well). Stir and mix in brownie mix. Bake according to instructions on the box. I baked at 325 for about 40 minutes in an 8 X 13 pan. They really are delicious. A wonderful chocolate slate...I'm thinking a peanut butter swirl next time. My co-worker mentioned adding cherries--omitting the black bean juice and including some of the cherry juice. So many possibilities.

By the way, I was warned to be sure to use the Ghiradelli mix. Other brand mixes apparently don't yield quite the same delicious results.

I never even liked brownies before I became a mom. Somehow chocolate has become much greater than it once was. Yum.

Happy Mother's Day

Saint Cupcake, Portland OR

As a wonderful birthday surprise, a friend sent these tasty cupcakes from a company based out of Portland called Saint Cupcake. I was so impressed with the freshness and clever packaging (kitschy and adorable). The cakes themselves came wrapped in compostable plastic. The icing was separately packaged in compostable plastic. The cupcakes can be purchased online and you can build your own gift set. My friend selected 3 cakes: vegan chocolate, vanilla toffee, and pumpkin spice. She also selected 3 different icings and 3 types of sprinkles. I'm always a fan of colored sprinkles, but the toasted coconut was pretty yummy. The set came with instructions, a candle, a "Happy Birthday" cupcake topper and separate wooden spreaders. Building our own cupcakes was so much fun. As cupcake businesses are taking off all over the country, I think Saint has an excellent idea with their shipping options.

Strawberry Lemonade Cupcakes

A lovely friend and neighbor recently graduated with her Masters.  When I received her evite for a berry themed party, I was very excited about all the wonderful strawberry possibilities.  We have a respectable number of strawberries coming from our little garden.  I started searching for more ways to enjoy.  

This neighbor never lacks for wonderful food at any of her shindigs, but, one of the best ways I know to show some love is to bake.  The cupcakes ended up fitting right in.  When we entered the house, we were served freshly picked beautiful, locally grown strawberries w/ either champagne or powdered sugar.  Beautiful and delicious.  Doesn't that sound like a fabulous greeting?

I'm a baking blog junkie--my little baking blog is small potatoes compared to the many wonderful options out there...have you ever heard of the Daring Kitchen?  Take a look at all the amazing bakers that participate.  Many of them are oh so inspiring.  I'm not a participant.  Just an admirer.

I like to look at blog after blog and see who some of my favorites follow.  Anyway, I stumbled across a new blog:  Love & Olive Oil, from which this ingenious little recipe came.  Doesn't it just sound delicious.  

I've had a lot of baking firsts this past year -- making the buttercream for this recipe was one of them.  I had always thought making a buttercream was a little out of my league.  It wasn't!  The main mistake I made was using my hand mixer.  It would have been so much easier if I had taken the extra effort to use my stand mixer.  A lot of mixing of the egg whites/butter.  

Check out the recipe linked above.  There's lemon juice and zest in the batter; the recipe also calls for full fat coconut milk.  It's so neat that they don't taste very 'coconutty'--it just results in a decadent, dense, moist cupcake.  Lemon, vanilla, and pureed strawberries go in the butter cream.  Yum.  I want to invest in a larger star-tip.  I'd like more practice piping too.  You'll see the Love & Olive Oil iced cupcaked look a bit more professional than mine.

These cupcakes were delicious.  I think I'm going to have to try this recipe again.  Maybe I'll have enough strawberries from my own garden for another batch.  We'll see.

Strawberry Pistachio Tart

Learning from mistakes....I should have done what Ina Garten suggested and stuck w/ the small 4 1/2 inch tart pans.  I decided I could make into a large 9 inch tart.  Maybe if I had done a little better w/ the pastry cream, it would have worked.  I had never ever made a pastry cream before - not the easiest, but it was delicious.  The tart would have held together much better in small rounds.  It was difficult to slice in this larger size.  

My husband and I had just returned from visiting my folks a few weekends ago in Travelers Rest (I'm behind on my blogging--I made this tart as soon as we returned - about 3 weeks ago).  My mom took us to the Cider House and we ended up bringing home a flat of "Sweet Charlies" grown not far up the road at Strawberry Hill, USA.  I was determined to make a strawberry tart.  I settled on Ina's recipe because I already had most of the ingredients.

The tart was delicious.  I loved the pistachios mixed in w/ the beautiful strawberries.  The sweet apricot jam made the plump strawberries glisten so beautifully.

The next day, I mixed some of the pastry cream w/ Grand Marnier and served spooned over more of the fresh strawberries.  This was almost more delicious than the tart.  I should know better than to stray too far from such a recipe.  Ina's pastry dough was very easy and I look forward to using again sometime soon.

Cracked Wheat-Honey Bread

I've been making Deborah Madison breads from Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone quite a bit recently.  Primarily, I've been using the classic white sandwich bread or mixing that w/ some spelt flour.  I've been sticking w/ this great recipe mainly because it's so easy.  

A while back I did try Madison's Cracked Wheat-Honey Bread.  I'm not going to reprint the entire recipe this time.  The recipe was quite similar to the classic sandwich bread, it just had slightly longer rise times.  

Madison suggests adding 1 cup of either cracked wheat or bulgar.  I used bulgar and thought the texture was fantastic.  I also chose to use molasses given Madison's suggestions of either that or honey.  

All of the Madison breads I've tried so far make great sandwich bread, but even better toast.  I'm a huge fan of breakfast--the cracked wheat-honey was delicious toasted w/a  little butter and honey.  

All of the recipes I've tried so far make two 4 1/2 x 8 1/2 inch loaves.  Works great for giving one away (always a nice option), or I've also enjoyed slicing and freezing.  I find that if I slice before freezing, it's so easy to pull out however many needed slices and just leave on the counter for about an hour to thaw.  Not as good as fresh, but still very delicious.  Again, the frozen slices make great toast.

Amy's Bread in NYC

Just had breakfast from Amy's Bread in NYC.  I'm tagging along on my husband's work trip.  After a great dinner w/ an old friend last night, we walked around the neighborhood where we're staying in Hell's Kitchen.  We stumbled on a bakery that was still open -- I thought that if the breads looked that good around 10pm in the evening, I bet they would be pretty awesome in the morning.  I returned first thing this am.  There was a nice selection.  Pictured above is my favorite so far: Almond Brioche Toast!!  YUM!

Along with the toast, I ordered a cheese biscuit and a chocolate sour dough twist.  The biscuit is rustic and dense--not my ideal biscuit, but still yummy.  It just wasn't quite the southern, flakey biscuit I'm accustomed to.  The chocolate sour dough twist was neat--really good, chewey, tangy sour dough with high quality dark chocolate scattered throughout the dough.

The almond brioche toast has a very thin layer of sweet almond paste.  It's not too much, I can still enjoy the rich texture of the spongy, buttery, thick slice of brioche.  It reminds me of an almond croissant I had at a French cafe once.  I think I like the brioche better.  It has such great textural variety.  

Anyway...enough of my rambling...Amy's Bread has three locations:  Hell's Kitchen, Chelsea Market, and The Village.  Apparently Hell's Kitchen is the original location.  I saw the new cookbook on display in the store:  The Sweeter Side of Amy's Bread.  Think I may have to try it out.