Woullet Bakery's Princess Torte

My birthday treat, purchased with one of the groupon-style deals, was the Princess Torte from Woullet Bakery. I first tried this amazing dessert this fall in an internship and fell in love instantly. I honestly think it is the best dessert I've ever had in my life. It's worth every penny and is a great way to mark a special event!

 Straight from the website: "Raspberry and Bavarian Cream layered with genoise (egg-rich golden cake) and wrapped in pastel marzipan." There are sliced almonds around the outside for a salty kick and the beautiful frosting rose is edible and actually tasty. Overall? Soooooo good.

Christmas 2011- Rest and New Recipes

I think Christmas 2011 will go down in the books as one of the most "unChristmas" feeling Christmases of them all.  Between the unusually warm temperatures, lack of snow, and Christmas-on-the-weekend, Christmas this year just never quite settled in.  We made the most of it and managed to have a meaningful and restful season together, but hope to have a more Christmassy Christmas when we're both through school, more settled into our home, and without Sunday/Christmas Day morning worship.

Here's a taste of the Christmas we were able to enjoy:

Quiet Journal Time

Warm light from a sunrise to greet the day

A beautiful tree

A new tradition for Christmas Breakfast - recipes to follow

Cookies, of course 

And plenty of them...

Caramel & Chocolate Kettle-Corn Crispie Bars

On the trend of self-care: dessert. Now we're REALLY talking!
Jake found these bars in the June 2011 edition of Midwest Living.  They were the big winner for a recipe contest held by the magazine.  Trust me, once you taste the final product, you won't even wonder what other recipes were submitted.

8 cups popped kettle corn (careful to get all of the unpopped kernals out before starting)
1 8-oz package chocolate-covered toffee pieces (Heath bars worked out well, too)
1 cup pecans, toasted and finely chopped (aka crushed to bits in a zip lock bag by a rolling pin)
2/3 cup light-color corn syrup
2/3 cup sweetened condensed milk
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
5 Tb butter
3 Tb granulated sugar
1 t vanilla
1 12-oz package semisweet or milk chocolate pieces, melted
1/2 cup caramel ice cream topping (optional-- but, really, why hold off now?)
2-3 t coarse sea salt


Start by lining a 13x9x2 baking pan (your lasagna pan, perhaps?) with foil.

Grab a stock pot or the biggest mixing bowl you have. Add the popped kettle-corn, toffee pieces, and toasted pecans.

 To make the caramel sauce: Bring corn syrup, condensed milk, brown sugar, butter, and granulated sugar to a boil over medium heat. Be sure to stir constantly. Once boiling, reduce heat and boil gently 6-8 minutes until sauce is a light golden brown. Be sure to stir constantly. Remove from heat and add vanilla.

**If you're feeling lazy (like we were) you can use caramel sauce from the store in place of making your own. Our bars didn't completely set after chilling. This could be due to: (a) use of store-bought caramel sauce instead of following the recipe exactly, or (b) not allowing for full chilling time due to strong desire to taste bars before 45 minutes passed.**

Pour caramel sauce over kettle-corn mixture and stir until thoroughly mixed. Transfer to lined pan.

After smoothing and leveling mixture with the back of a wooden spoon (apparently you can also use wax paper, that may work better), spread the melted chocolate pieces over the top.

Drizzle with caramel sauce and sprinkle with salt.

Chill 45-60 minutes. Chocolate topping should be set.  Enjoy!

Nectarine and Blueberry Clafouti

from Epicurious, Gourmet Magazine May 1999


Ingredients:
2 nectarines (white nectarines are delicious in this recipe)
1 cup blueberries (we used 2 cups...because we had a ton of wild blueberries that needed to be used)
1 cup fruity white wine, such as Riesling
5 T unsalted butter, melted and cooled
4 large eggs
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/8 tsp salt
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup whole milk (or 2 oz half and half and 6 oz skim milk)
1 T vanilla
confectioners' sugar for dusting

Instructions:
Preheat oven to 325 degrees and butter a 2-quart shallow baking dish.

Place washed blueberries in mixing bowl with 1 cup wine (we used enough wine to cover the fruit-- then made Sangria to go with dinner!).

 Slice nectarines into 1/4" wedges and place in wine with blueberries. Soak for about 15 minutes.

 Meanwhile, whisk together eggs, sugar, and salt.

 Slowly whisk in flour until well combined.

 Whisk in milk, butter, vanilla, and 1/4 cup of the white wine from the fruit bowl.

 Remove fruit from wine with a slotted spoon and arrange in bottom of baking dish (remember to grease the dish before adding fruit!)

 Carefully pour batter over the fruit.

 Bake in the upper third of your oven for 55-60 minutes, or until puffed and set in the center.

 Transfer clafouti to a rack to cool.

 Just before serving, dust with confectioners' sugar. Can be served warm or at room temperature. (This also makes an outstanding breakfast option!  If we had enough eaters in the house to warrant serving brunch, I would definitely include this dish.)

How we do frosting in my family

I feel lucky to have shared Christmas celebrations with a variety of wonderful family and friends-- wonderful company, quirky traditions, and always delicious food.  It seems like every family has a specific style of sugar cookie frosting...and I haven't found any that I enjoy as much as the glaze-frosting I grew up with!

It's not exactly Christmas time; we were in a July heat wave with an 110 degree heat index when I whipped these up.  I found the perfect cookie cutters for a summer weekend at the cabin and couldn't resist.

Ingredients:
Powdered sugar
Half and Half
Vanilla
Food coloring
Sprinkles/cookie decorations

I opted for cookie decorating at my parents house: central air AND a big, sunny kitchen. Perfect! (I'll post another picture soon with our cute, galley kitchen that accommodates 1 1/2 people at a time.)

Instructions:
In a medium mixing bowl, pour a mountain of powdered sugar. Slowly add half and half, starting very conservatively in adding less liquid than you need.  I've always been amazed at how little liquid it takes to cut through powdered sugar!

 Stir in the half and half completely.

 Too runny?  Add more powdered sugar.  Too thick? Add (a little) more half and half.

 You'll want the glaze-frosting to flow off the spoon, not glob off in chunks, but at the same time it needs to be thick enough to leave the spoon well coated.  If the frosting is too thin, it will run right off your cookies.

 Once you've got the consistency down, add a drop or two of vanilla and stir well. (Warning: vanilla will slightly color your white frosting-- if you want the pure-white color, don't bother with the frosting flavoring.)

 Next, pour your white frosting into separate bowls, one for each color you want to frost with. Keep in mind you may want to keep some in your mixing bowl so that you can frost with white frosting.

 Drop 2-3 drops of food coloring in each of your separate bowls...

 ...Mix well, and you're ready to go!  (When I was growing up, we always had popsicle sticks around the house. Frosting with popsicle sticks works very well in that the sticks are light enough the frosting holds them in the bowls, where as with heavy table knives...well, let's just say it gets messy.)

 Turns boring sugar cookies into...colorful, delicious treats!

 Loons and bears...forgot to get pictures of the moose shape, too.  Thanks to my husband for the surprise extra birthday gift of summer time shapes cookie cutters!