Unprocessed October party (and a new project)

The little girl greeted our halfway mark through October with, "I HATE unprocessed month!!"

It's easy to see why when you think about what unprocessed month means to the kiddos. Our dinners are basically unprocessed anyway, so there aren't a lot of changes there, at least not ones they notice. And they don't really notice the lack of unprocessed treats in their lunches (Annie's bunnies or a Simply Fruit fruit stick) because they appeared so rarely.

What unprocessed means to them is: no Oatmeal Squares for snacks (I'm doing pretty well managing the no cereal rule this time!), no going out for pizza or Chinese once a week, no stopping at the local frozen yogurt shop, and no special candy treats when Mommy is around (although the various grandparents have indulged a couple of times, and I didn't say no when they were given tootsie pops at the homecoming parade).

We had a talk about how this month didn't really mean that you couldn't have *any* treats -- it just means that we think a little more about the kinds of foods we choose to put in our bodies -- and really, that's not a bad thing, is it?

For myself, I'm being strict, trying not to "cheat" my own rules at all, but I don't want to micromanage the kids to the point where all they want is processed foods or to where they hate talking about food choices. And I'm not harassing hubby when he chooses to order a pizza when I'm not home or sneak a pop during parent/teacher conferences. Everyone has to make this work for him/herself.

Nevertheless, I decided we needed an unprocessed party today, so I made a cake: I used this recipe from KAF, but subbed in whole wheat pastry flour for the all-purpose. At some point, I'd like to try honey or maple syrup in my cake, but today, I just went with white. It was a party after all. I made a simple vanilla bean ice cream, opting not to use my normal recipe which calls for both cream cheese and corn syrup.

The cake also assisted me with my new baking goal -- at this point, I can comfortably follow a recipe to make just about any bread, cake, pie, cookie, pastry, etc. (Not that I'm an expert or anything, but I don't feel like I have soooo much to learn anymore.) But my cakes and cupcakes never *look* good. So I bought myself a little starter decorating set (I had been using an old one of my dad's with very little success), and have decided to work on decorating. So this cake fit multiple bills.




The little girl declared, "That looks magnificent, Mommy! This is the best unprocessed party ever!"

Ice cream sandwiches! (and why I love Evernote)

Do you use Evernote? Everclip? More than Pinterest or any other online tools, I have fallen in love with Evernote and its ability to organize all of my recipes.

It's so simple: I read a recipe on a friend's blog, in one of my cooking mags, in a newspaper article. I clip it with Everclip and voila! It is instantly in my Evernote collection of notebooks, which I can access even when I am not connected to the internet.

Evernote organizes information by notebook, and you can set up as many as you want. I have a bunch of notebooks...a couple for work (I occasionally use Evernote as a simple word processor to take notes at meetings), and then a ton for recipes: breakfast foods, lunch ideas, dinner main dishes, side dishes, desserts, breads, food tutorials, snacks. And then I have a notebook called Weekly Meals into which I dump any recipes that I want to make this week. It's so easy to switch recipes (notes) into different notebooks, so I can pull recipes from my other notebooks into that notebook for easy access and then put it back in its original notebook when I'm done.

I seriously use it multiple times every day. When we were out west visiting my inlaws, I was able to bring all of my favorite recipes without bringing any cookbooks or magazines. Evernote even has a camera function, so I've taken pictures of some old family recipes to keep in my virtual notebooks. When I'm stuck for dinner inspiration, I just browse through my dinner folder.

Sometimes, a recipe looks good and then isn't that great; with one click, I delete it from my notebook. So easy.

Occasionally, I have recipes in my Weekly Meals notebook for quite a while, constantly reminding me that I MUST MAKE THESE...that was the case with ice cream sandwiches. I had recipes from both KAF and Deb at Smitten Kitchen saved, and I knew I needed to make one of the versions. After re-reading the recipes and the comments from SK, I decided to go with the version from KAF's blog (actually Jennie Schacht's recipe from her book i scream Sandwich). It seemed less fussy (you just bake the cookies as a large sheet and then cut them out rather than trying to roll them out and cut them before baking) and many of the SK comments suggested that, while delicious, those cookies were crispy rather than soft.

I used my normal vanilla ice cream recipe (Jeni's) and then made the other Jennie's :) sandwich cookies. After freezing them both on parchment-lined cookie sheets, I pulled them out and used cookie cutters (a heart and a small circle) to make some smaller sandwiches, and then a knife to cut out the rest in the more traditional rectangle. Rather than smearing the ice cream, I just used a cookie cutter on that tray, too; then I could be sure that everything fit together perfectly.

These were just as delicious as you'd imagine they would be. I wrapped each sandwich in plastic wrap, and put them in a tub in the freezer. They were the perfect treat at the beach today! (I used my Zak ice cream container to keep our four sandwiches cold.)

Nurse Rachel's Ice Cream Celebration Cake

Well, hello, little blog. Long time, no see!

We just returned from nearly a month out West, staying with my in-laws and cooking in my mother-in-law's gorgeous new kitchen. I'd assumed that I would spend much of my time there cooking, baking, and catching up on my blog. Instead, I spent my time cooking, baking, and catching up on my very-neglected old-favorite past time: reading! Ever since I discovered food blogs, I have spent my precious little reading time on the web: reading new recipes, studying new techniques, following my friends' kitchen stories. This trip, I never even pulled out my computer, spending every non-family minute plowing through book after book. It was marvelous.


But it also meant that I never told you about my sister's super amazing celebration ice cream cake that I made a full month ago. My baby sister (I'm sure she won't mind if I tell you...) struggled in school. There was a time when we were worried she wouldn't graduate high school. So we were especially proud when she discovered her passion and decided to go back to school to become a nurse; this June all of her hard work paid off, and she graduated from nursing school with honors.

We hosted a family graduation party for her, and I wanted to make an especially special dessert. I thought of these ice cream sandwiches that I'd made last year, but we were hosting 20 people.... What could be better than an ice cream cake?!

As with the ice cream sandwiches, I started with Dorie's devil's food cake, splitting a full recipe between two half-sheet pans. After baking and cooling, I wrapped the cakes and placed them in the freezer. Then I made a batch of Jeni's vanilla ice cream and, after churning, dolloped it onto one of the layers. I wanted the traditional ice cream cake crunch, so I also made a batch of Dorie's cocoa crumbs. I sprinkled these on the layer of ice cream and pressed them in gently. Then I placed the other cake on top, and returned the whole thing to the freezer.

I debated a lot about the frosting: traditional ice cream cakes seemed to be covered in something almost like buttercream. But many of the recipes I found actually used more ice cream, or ice cream combined with cool whip. I decided to go with a simple sweetened whipped cream.


I am no good at fancy frosting and decorating, so to make the letters, I used some of Jeni's magic shell. I cut out a sheet of parchment paper and put the magic shell in a baggie, cut off the corner, and wrote letters on the parchment until I was happy with them. Then I stuck them in the freezer until they hardened and placed them on the top of the cake.

The cake was such a hit. The kids had a great time picking out which letters they wanted to eat, and everyone gobbled up every last bite. Because the cocoa crumbs made the layers a bit slippery during cutting, I thought I might leave them out next time; one bite convinced me that they were a necessary, crunchy, and delicious component. My only other complaint was that the cake was too thin; I think I would make a double recipe next time, so each cake would be a full layer tall.

Wouldn't you know it, today Deb posted a fantastic-looking ice cream cake recipe on Smitten Kitchen, and I am eager to try some of her additions: adding a layer of chocolate ice cream, as well as hot fudge. The second flavor of ice cream may mean that I could get away with only one recipe of cake (she didn't use cake at all). I'm also curious to try her homemade oreos and compare them to the cocoa crumbs.

Regardless, you can't go wrong with ice cream cake: such a fun-to-make, amazing-to-eat treat!

Fudge success!

One of our most-anticipated treats at Christmas time is my mother-in-law's creamy and delicious chocolate fudge.

While I experiment in the kitchen all of the time, fudge is not something I've ever tried. Paging through their new Star Wars cookbook (yes, they have two Star Wars cookbooks), the kiddos found a recipe for May the Fudge Be With You, and insisted we try it. In the recipe, it talks about stirring the fudge until it goes from glossy to dull, but I had no idea what that meant or how long it would take. I stirred it for a minute or two, and then poured it into the pan.

Now that I know better, it is not a surprise that the fudge never set, and while tasty, it had a grainy texture.

A short time later, Joanna mentioned Celia's tutorial on fudge, and I decided to try it. Celia actually has two tutorials; I studied them both, but tried the chocolate recipe.

With Celia's detailed, helpful instructions and pictures, it became very clear why my first attempt didn't turn out, and I finally realized what it means for fudge to "snap" and turn from glossy to dull. Clearly I didn't mix for nearly long enough. And clearly I was not patient enough.

Happily, it worked! Thanks, Celia. :) I can now make a delicious and creamy fudge, and I can't wait to try other flavors.

Lego cake & a mother's love

I'm not sure how, but somehow, my little guy is turning six. When I asked him several weeks ago what kind of cake he wanted for his (first ever!) friend birthday party, he responded with, "A weapon's case with weapons on it like a sword and shield and ax." ??! No idea where this stuff comes from. When I explained that that probably wasn't likely, he decided, "How about a blue six-studded Lego block?" Hm...well, that I could probably do.

I did some research, but couldn't find much, until I stumbled on this article from the Kitchn: How to make an anatomically correct Lego cake. I was really impressed with the math and research that went into it...but I wasn't that concerned with the precise measurements of my cake. The one piece of advice I did take was the idea of using mini-muffins for the studs of the Legos.

Following my friend Di's lead, instead of making a sheet cake and trying to slice it in half horizontally, I decided to bake the cake in two jelly roll pans. I was nervous that a 9x13 wouldn't be big enough (we were expecting up to 20 people, depending on how many parents stayed at the party), and then I found two 15.5"x10.5" pans. Perfect!

I settled on Dorie's devil's food cake (you can find the recipe here), remembering that it was sturdy, moist, and yummy the last time I made it. I made a full recipe, divided into the two jelly roll pans, plus 18 mini muffins.

I asked the little guy what kind of frosting he wanted in between the layers, and he decided on chocolate. Knowing how rich the cake was, I wanted a light chocolate frosting and found this recipe, which was just the thing. Unfortunately, I only had one stick of butter at room temperature, so I made a half recipe; I wish I would've had a bit more, but it was enough to make a thin layer in between the cake layers.

Looking for a stable, easy-to-color frosting, with a light taste and texture that wouldn't compete with the chocolates, I decided to try seven-minute frosting. I used ATK's recipe, adding blue food coloring with the vanilla at the end. I was impressed with how easy the frosting was to make, and as promised, it tasted very marshmallowy, and was a huge hit. As I tried to frost each individual stud without getting too many crumbs in the frosting, I said to my little guy, "This is proof of a mother's love." :)

The cake was a huge hit; even I couldn't think of any "it's good but"s. My mom, brother, and sister couldn't stop raving, and the little guy begged and begged for a second piece (I didn't cave). When I asked the birthday boy if the cake lived up to his expectations, he said, "It was perfectly excellent."

Showers of food

Photo credit: Asha Thao

One of my good friends from work is having a baby. At my old school, this meant all of the ladies in the school got together in the school library for a little informal baby shower. But apparently high schools are too big for that kind of thing, so showers are done by department...which kind of left me in charge. This is not a good thing, as showers are not my forté. I have been lucky enough to avoid having to host a shower up until this point; my strategy is usually to delay volunteering until someone else offers. :) I barely tolerated my own showers. I am not good at the formal thing, nor the cutsie thing, nor the everything-matching thing. I don't enjoy the games or the piles of presents. I don't think of the little details, like having everyone write out a little piece of advice for the mom-to-be.

Luckily another friend in the department offered to co-host, and she is an excellent party hostess. She has a beautiful house, complete with matching serving dishes, :) and is really good at all of those things I mentioned above. But she doesn't like to bake. She took care of the cutsie, I handled the food...it was a match made in heaven. :)

Yesterday afternoon, twenty past and present teachers gathered to gossip, eat, tell baby stories, and wish our friend well.

Photo credit: Asha Thao

The mom-to-be requested chocolate cake with chocolate frosting. I tried Dorie's cocoa and buttermilk birthday cake with a chocolate ganache frosting from the best chocolate cake ever. The cake didn't seem quite done at the suggested time, but I should've pulled it out of the oven anyway; it was a little overdone, dry and crumbly. The one thing on my list that I didn't have time for was a Swiss meringue buttercream to decorate. Oh well, the flavor was still good and the cake was a hit...practicing my decorating skills will have to wait.

I also made lemon bars from my America's Test Kitchen Family cookbook and NM's truffle brownies. The lemon bars were extremely lemony (6 lemons' worth of zest and juice), and they were quite tasty. I was disappointed with their stamina, though: they didn't hold up well to being transported and moved around. NM's brownies were amazing, as always.

One of my favorite new recipes that I tried were these soft frosted sugar cookies from Tracey's site that I have been drooling over for months. They were even better than the ones from the store, which are a guilty pleasure of mine. And they were so cute!

My other favorite new recipe is these turkey and spinach rolls, which have been on my to-try list ever since Andrea posted them nearly two years ago. I can't believe I waited so long to try them. They were so easy, and soooo delicious. And such a good base for so many other cute sandwich creations. I used the soft dough from ABED that I always use for buns, with half white whole wheat flour. I rolled it out into a giant rectangle as though I were making cinnamon buns, and then spread it with Boursin cheese, spinach leaves, and a couple different kinds of turkey. Then I rolled them up and sliced them, cinnamon bun style, put them on a baking sheet covered with parchment and stuck them in the fridge overnight. The day of the party, I just had to take them out and let them come to room temperature and then bake them for 25 minutes. Everyone who tried them loved them, and people commented on how much easier they were to eat than other party sandwiches. This is definitely a repeat recipe.

The new best ever: individual ice cream cakes!

February and March are birthday-ful around here. All of the grandmas (my mom, my mother-in-law, and my stepmom) have birthdays within a few weeks of each other, and this year, we had a birthday dinner for one grandma on Saturday night and Nana's birthday brunch on Sunday morning. All of the grandmas love cheesecake and my stepmom, in particular, has a new fascination with limoncello. So when Natashya posted this recipe for limoncello cheesecake squares a couple of months ago, this year's birthday treat was a no-brainer; and since we were celebrating two birthdays in one weekend, I was able to make one pan of treats for both.

too much yellow!

But I knew that, while this was a perfect grandma birthday treat, it would not be appealing or appropriate for the little ones, so I set out to find a fun and delicious birthday party treat for them. When my little guy turned five a few weeks ago, we got a bakery cake for the first time ever (eek! provided by the place where we had his party). But I wanted to make a little something for home, too. I had the idea of an ice cream cake, so I baked up a quarter-version of Dorie's perfect birthday cake in a mini-loaf pan, made a batch of lemon frozen yogurt, and layered the two together. And then I realized that the lemon curd I'd used in the frozen yogurt was way past it's prime, and I ended up having to throw it all away. It was very depressing. And I also realized that an ice cream cake should use a cake and ice cream with contrasting colors.

And then I re-stumbled upon this post from my friend Di for individual ice cream cakes, and I was sold.

For my version, I made a batch of peppermint ice cream. I used Jeni's vanilla ice cream recipe, but skipped the vanilla bean, and stirred in a teaspoon each of vanilla extract and peppermint extract at the end. After churning, I spread the ice cream on a half-sheet pan covered in parchment paper and set it in the deep freeze.

Then I made (as recommended by Di), Dorie's devil's food cake recipe from BFMYTY. I made a half-recipe, and somehow misread Di's instructions: she used a 9x13 pan, but I mistakenly thought she'd used a half-sheet pan. I thought the batter looked too thin when I spread it out, but I baked it anyway (it took about 15 minutes). This turned out to be a really happy mistake! It made a nice, thin cookie/cake layer that looked just like a real ice cream sandwich, and I thought the cake was in perfect proportion to the ice cream. Once the cake was cool in its pan, I added it to the deep freeze.

When it was time for assembly, I used a 2" biscuit cutter dipped in a bowl of hot water to cut out the cake circles and the ice cream circles. Then I used my mini heart cutter to make baby ice cream sandwiches out of the leftover pieces for the family to sample (since by that point, they were all sitting at the counter watching me and saying, "When can we eat these?!"). I stuck the assembled sandwiches back into the deep freeze.

Finally, I made a 1/2 batch of Jeni's chocolate bombe shell, and used that to coat the cold sandwiches. I scattered some sprinkles on top, and once more into the deep freeze until the party.

There were a lot of little steps, and this recipe definitely takes some serious planning to put together, but nothing was too difficult and the results were sooooo worth it! These little sandwiches were a huge hit with the kids and adults alike: they were so delicious and so fun to eat. They definitely go into my top five desserts I've ever made. I foresee many different variations in our future, although the peppermint-chocolate combination will be repeated as well!

(ignore the plate: we were having a use-up-all-leftover-paper-plates party!) ;)

Wordless(ish) Wednesday: Dorie's bittersweet brownies (BFMHTY)

I'm not a coffee person, but I followed Dorie's suggestion for adding instant espresso powder to her bittersweet brownies: OMW, these were amazing!!! My 9" square pan was in use (baking the caramel chocolate pecan bars you see under the ice cream), so I used an 8" round...kind of fun to have little wedges of brownies!

Chocolate truffle oreo dreamin' (TWD: BwJ)

Our second recipe for the Tuesdays with Dorie: Baking with Julia group was chocolate truffle tartlets. I'd initially intended to make these as a Valentine's treat because, come on, don't they sound perfect and romantic and decadent? But with all of the birthday goodnesses still hanging around, plus Valentine's cookies baked with the kids, I just couldn't introduce another sweet into our house.

Until the weekend, of course! :) I made the tart dough on Saturday night. Having read the helpful comments left in the P&Qs, I knew the tart dough tended to be a bit dry, so even though I cut the recipe in half, I used the full egg yolk and tablespoon of water. The dough was still pretty dry, but eventually it came together. Then it went into the fridge for an overnight rest.

Sunday afternoon, I divided the dough in three and rolled it out for my mini-tart pans. I decided to skip baking the tarts without their bottoms on a bigger sheet pan; I've baked enough tarts in my mini-pans (thanks, NM!) to know that I can get them in and out of the oven okay. The dough rolled out fine and was easy to work with. I chilled the crusts and then baked them for 15 minutes.

I melted the chocolate (60%) and unsalted butter and let the mixture cool while phone calls and birthday party planning distracted me (can't believe my little guy is going to be five this weekend!!!). Then I made the rest of the topping: whipped egg yolks and sugar, combined gently with the chocolate/butter mixture. Finally I added in chopped milk chocolate, white chocolate chips, and Oreos (I didn't have biscotti in the house, but had already purchased Oreos to make mint Oreo ice cream). I divided the filling between my three tart pans; they didn't look set at 10 minutes, and then I got distracted and didn't take them out until almost 15.

The tarts definitely should've come out a few minutes earlier; they were a little dry. Still, this is a winning recipe: we loved the melty chocolately bits and the crunchy bites of cookie. Especially yummy with mint Oreo ice cream! (Good the next day after being in the fridge, too.)

There are four hosts this week, so check their blogs for the recipe: Spike, Jaime, Jessica, and Steph. Check here for links to everyone else's tarts!

Better late than never: Dorie's CCCs

Finally, finally after reading so many of my Twitter pals' delicious TWD posts, I caved and ordered my very own copy of Baking: From My Home to Yours.

TWD: BFMHTY started before I even knew that food blogging existed, or had even heard of Dorie Greenspan. In fact, if I remember correctly, I believe that in January 2008 when TWD started, I was busy with a not-quite-one-year-old, trying to figure out how in the heck I was going to deal with the new baby who was due in a few short months.

Anyway, I've made quite a few TWD recipes, after seeing the recipes posted on my friends (and others') blogs, and finally realized that if I was going to make so many of those recipes, I needed to own my own copy of the book. And it is gorgeous! I am so excited to own it...I can't believe how many incredible recipes there are and how many variations. The pictures are amazing and I love the baking techniques. So I know I'm late to the party, but I'm really happy to be here. :)

My first official recipe that I baked from the book (rather than from recipes posted on blogs) was her chocolate chip cookies. There were no surprising ingredients, but I did follow Dorie's advice to use quality chocolate, chopped in chunks. I did need to shorten the baking time, as mine were really brown after 10 minutes. Regardless of degree of doneness (I experimented with several baking times), these cookies were amazing: almost toffee-like, tons of chocolate, filled with buttery goodness.

This is all that was left for a photo.

Sour cream brownies (Modern Baker)

My bookclub enjoyed the brownies paired with homemade marshmallows.

My fourth Nick Malgieri brownie recipe is another from the cookies & bars section of The Modern Baker. This one is made with technique similar to the others (truffle, Florida, and cocoa nib), but includes the addition of sour cream and walnuts. I knew that most of the people I was baking for (my kiddos and my debaters) wouldn't eat the nut version, so I actually made the recipe walnut-free and then stirred walnuts into the batter in one corner of the pan.

For all of the other brownie recipes, the 30 minute cooking time seemed perfect (even when I only made a half-recipe in an 8x8 pan), but for this one, I wondered if they might have been slightly over-baked. The toothpick test came out mostly clean. Nevertheless, these were a big hit with the kids, hubby, friends, and students. The one brownie I sampled okay; these were definitely my least favorite of his brownies...not that that's saying much, since the rest are so out-of-this-world fantastic!

Chocolate-filled Napoleons (Modern Baker Challenge)

For my dad's birthday dinner on Thursday, I'd made two puff pastry layers. But because my hubby and baby girl don't like raspberries, I decided to turn one of the layers into chocolate-filled Napoleons, another puff pastry recipe for the Modern Baker Challenge.

NM's instructions indicate forming these into rectangles or squares, but my puff pastry layer wasn't big enough for two of my 8x8 pans, so I decided to go with circles and cut out two 6" rounds.

The mousse is made with heavy cream whipped with Grand Marnier, a meringue made with egg whites, sugar, unflavored gelatin, and cold water, and finally some melted bittersweet chocolate (I used 60%).

Assembly is easy: puff pastry, mousse, and puff pastry. A half-recipe completely filled my 6" round cake pan and left a little left over...hubby and I were not sad about that! =)

This was ah-maze-ing! After dessert, the little guy and baby girl wandered around our tailgating table, using their fingers to scrape out everyone's bowls, looking for tidbits of chocolate left on anyone's spoon. Even the birthday boy, who doesn't like chocolate, thought this was a yummy dessert. I, an admitted chocoholic, could've eaten a vat of the stuff. =)

Check out Margaret's beautiful Napoleons!