Wednesday, February 26, 2014

Baked Sunday Morning - Whisky Chocolate Tart




Well I guess I fell of the blogging earth for a little bit! But no worries, I'm back! I decided there was nothing better to kick start blogging off again then with a Baked Sunday Morning recipe.

This time round we made a whiskey chocolate tart. This was my first tart ever and I was extremely happy with how it came out. This whiskey chocolate is not for the chocolate faint of heart. The tart is extremely rich with a nice subtle whiskey taste.

First I made a short bread tart crust that was very simple and delicious. Short bread cookies, butter, salt and sugar are the ingrediants. Once combined I baked for 12 minutes to let it form a shell and then I made the chocolate filing, which was also extremely simple! Cream, dark chocolate, milk chocolate, eggs, a little bit of flour and of course a splash of whiskey. It says to use a nice whiskey but I used what was available at my house. Not the top shelf but not far from the bottom shelf. I'm sure the better the whiskey you use the better the taste. It only was in the oven for 20 minutes and came out looking delectable. Letting this delicious tart sit and cool was a challenge, I could only think about slicing a piece. Thank goodness I waited because it was completely worth it. Since this tart was so rich, my friends and I opted for smaller pieces. You could easily serve this dessert at a dinner party of ten or so. I opted out of making the whiskey whipped cream due to a lack of time. However, if I plan on making this for a party, I'll definitely include it, it sounds too good. Instead I will be having a scoop of vanilla ice cream with my next serving.

I hope you all give this dessert a try some day as it is very easy but seems like you slaved in the kitchen all day long to the untrained eye!

Sunday, February 16, 2014

Practice Makes Perfect!


In my quest to become a baker, I feel I need to start perfecting my decorating skills. I was on Pinterest  (because I am always on Pinterest) the other day and came across a Cupcake-A-Day challenge. First off, there is no way I have the time to do a cupcake a day but I can do a cupcake a week or every couple weeks. But I figured this would be a perfect time to start that decorating practice that I knew needed to happen. After much debate about what kind of cupcake to make I finally decided on a chocolate cupcake with a raspberry butter cream frosting.

These cupcakes did come out great but the decorating is what I was most concerned about. When I was in my class at Michael's here in Park City I made a cupcake that looked like a bunch of hydrangea. I set out this time to make the same looking cupcake. I really like how these cupcakes looks as a final product. Next time I think I will mix in a little bit of blue or purple food coloring to give it that flower look. More and different colors give the frosting a little more depth.


Over all I am very excited to see that these cupcakes turned out well. Next time I will have to decorate the cupcakes a totally different way! I can't wait to see what that next batch has in store!

Friday, February 14, 2014

Brown Butter Snickerdoodles are AMAZING




As you are aware I have joined a baking club of sorts to get me trying new recipes and also blogging. Last week was a nut-tastic bar that I decided to skip on since my lovely boyfriend is deathly allergic to them. Instead, I looked back at the recipes before I joined and came across the Brown Butter Snickerdoodles. I figured these would be a great substitute for the recipe due a few weeks earlier. Of course I let life get ahead of me and didn't make it in time to post a rouge blog post. Instead, I'm doing it now -  two weeks later. Regardless I had to share this recipe, it is fabulous! The perfect amount of cinnamon and sugar anyone could want and I could easily eat all of them in one sitting. Thank goodness I had some self control and let them last a few days before leaving them at work to be demolished.

This recipe is a dolled up sugar cookie. Since I'm a trained robot before I started this recipe I pulled out all my ingredients and softened my butter. When I went to start putting things together I was pleasantly surprised that I would be melting the butter which gives the cookies a nice nutty brown-butter taste. The browned butter smells so good on the stove, don't taste it because it just tastes like melted butter. I was hoping for the nutty, brown sugary taste...instead I had to wait for the finished project.

I made these after work one day - threw them in the fridge while I made dinner and then put them in the oven right after dinner making them the perfect desert. I know these little delights will be coming out my oven frequently as they are a great winter cookie. The browned butter, cinnamon and sugar mix are perfect for the final months of cold. I hope you enjoy them as much as I did!