TWD Apple-Coconut Family Cake

Caroline and I have both been a little busy the past few weeks and so baking has had to take a back seat. At the last minute, I decided to make this weeks recipe. Thankfully it came together very quickly and I had all the ingredients on hand (except the apple jelly, so my cake is glaze-less)! I haven’t had a chance to try it yet but it looks yummy.

I will try and post my thoughts on the cake later but for now, I will just say thanks to Amber of Cobbler du Monde for choosing this weeks recipe. The recipe can be found on Amber’s blog or on page 214 of BFMHTY.

Caroline and I will both be getting into the holiday baking spirit this weekend, so check back in the coming weeks for some holiday treats and hopefully more frequent posts:)

Cheers,
Claire

Tarte Fine

It’s 11:20 and I am just sitting down to write this post. Talk about a close call! I was in Oakville tonight, having dinner with my good friend Nikki. Nikki lives in Ecuador,  so we don’t get to see each other very often. We spent the evening eating and chatting; it was great. I made a nice healthy dinner, a Moroccan Chicken Stew, from an Anne Lindsay cookbook. Then, I made Tarte Fine. Not so healthy, but so quick and tasty.

Leslie of Lethally Delicious picked this week’s recipe and it was a winner. Shockingly I made the sweeter, playing around version! Anything that suggests adding more sugar and butter is good for me. Be sure to head on over to Leslie’s great blog for the recipe and check out Tuesday’s with Dorie to see what other bloggers got up to.

Caroline

Apple-Apple Bread Pudding- TWD

I have never been much for bread pudding. I don’t like that is seems kinda soggy and eggy and in my opinion, neither are good qualities in a baked good. But given that I had been away, and Claire hadn’t gotten in any early May TWD baking, it seemed we “had” to make this one. Fortunately, S. likes bread pudding (well let’s face it, he likes most baked goods) so I whipped this up on Sunday for him.

I have to admit that I ate some right out of the oven and it was tasty. I made a 1/3 of the recipe and substituted skim milk for the cream and whole milk. I really don’t dig cream so much and I sure wasn’t thinking bread pudding was worthy of the overindulgence (now caramel, that’s a different matter!) I liked that the recipe included apple butter, which I tasted for the first time in the process of making this. It’s a tasty treat and I am going to look for other things to bake with it.

The other thing I liked about this recipe was the caramelized apples. I have never caramelized before *hanging head in shame* and I was happy with the chance to learn a new skill. Plus, butter and sugar, my favorites! I can’t wait to try caramelizing something else now.

Thanks to Elizabeth of Cake or Death? for choosing a recipe I never would have tried on my own. My TWD peeps are going to make a well-rounded baker out of me yet. Head on over to TWD to see what other bakers got up to.

Caroline

PS Due to repeated requests we have decided to sign our blog posts. When I brought this suggestion to Claire she replied with indignation ”Can’t they tell???!!!” Apparently you guys can’t so we will oblige.

Caramel Apple Cake

Really, what is there not to love about a cake with skor pieces and apple? It’s like a caramel apple with cake, perfect! I have been making this cake for a while and I think it is a nice afternoon tea cake, breakfast cake, midnight snack cake, you know a go-to kind of a cake. It doesn’t have icing so it almost feels healthy;) This is the last of the baking from S.’s 30th birthday party. Needless to say there was enough baking there for two more parties, so he was eating birthday treats for weeks.

The recipe is available here. I didn’t include the white chocolate chips, mainly because I forgot. I think it would be tasty with milk chocolate chips, but then again, I add them to everything so I may be biased.

TWD – Cran-Apple Crisps

It seems like forever since I have posted a Tuesdays with Dorie recipe but I’m glad to be back! To be honest, some weeks it is hard to bring myself to make something I know will go to waste because my friend/family base here in Ottawa is just a bit too small! Plus, there have been the weeks where I am lacking a tool required to make the treat!

So even though I have yet to get the food processor (well actually, it is at home waiting for me open it up on Christmas day, Thanks mum!), I sucked it up and whipped up 1/2 a batch of this festive fall dessert for me and the bf. Oddly enough, I have never made a crisp before but I loved this and was happy to find out how easy crisps are! I loved the coconut in the topping and I think I will experiment with other fruit in combo with the apples. Maybe some raspberries? Or some caramels like Anne Strawberry!

You can head on over to The Repressed Pastry Chef for this weeks recipe. I omitted the dried cranberries but I’m sure that would taste yummy too!  Thanks to Em for choosing this recipe. My apologies for the sub-par aesthetics:)

Pumpkin Apple Bundt

Did you know that today is National Bundt Day (at least in the United States anyways)? I know because Mary The Food Librarian has just finished 30 days of Bundts, affectionately named I Like Big Bundts. Mary’s blog is awesome and she is a bundt aficionado and thus, we were treated to 30 days of bundts. I couldn’t let the day pass without getting in on the action so I made the Pumpkin Apple Bundt from day three. I was tempted by many of them and I am sure that I will refer back to them when the bundt urge hits again. Thanks Mary for such a great event!

Post photo taking I added a Maple glaze to the cake. I mixed icing sugar, maple syrup and a bit of water (you could use milk but I didn’t have any). I think this added a little something special, a good improvisation if you will.

Brioche Apple Tart- Tuesday’s with Dorie

I love bread and my goal this summer is to work on my bread making skills so this was a perfect recipe for me (that and the fact that I am on vacation and Claire isn’t). I was pleased that Denise of Chez Us picked the Brioche Plum Tart as I have always wanted to try making brioche. Now I would have tried the plum version but I am vacationing at my mom’s house and she is an apple fan so I needed to switch it up. I used seedless raspberry jam and I added a half a teaspoon of cinnamon to the sugar mixture and omitted the nuts (bakers prerogative, nuts are not my fave).

Heading for the fridge

Now given as I am new to bread I have to say this was a bit time consuming, the deflating and the refrigerating and warming, it seemed to be a time suck, not hard but it required a bit of attention. Needless to say I am glad that I am on vacation because I don’t think I would have time for this during the busy school year.

Ready for eating

So all in all it turned out very well. It is nice to have people to bake for; however, both my mother and Lisa (my vacation partner) have indicated that I can’t bake all the time. Lisa is getting married in August and is concerned that I am going to mess with her wedding dress, I say she just needs to run a bit more! With all this time on my hands I can’t help it if I bake up a storm.