Lemon and Currant Brioches

Happy 2013 everyone! I hope everyone had wonderful holidays with lots of delicious baked goods. I did make a lot of cookies, of course, but travel and family occupied my time and so I didn't do a great job of documenting them. I do have some delicious recipes for the new year, though, including some experiments with my brand new waffle maker (which I am very excited about). Here is a slightly older recipe for a lemon and currant brioche. It looks beautiful and was very good but I think this recipe was a better one so I'd recommend adding 1/3 cup of currants (I actually used  raisins) and the zest of 1 lemon to that recipe. The dough in the previous recipe was sticky so it was harder to work with, but this result was more dense. It could also be that I didn't knead it quite as well as I ought.

Hearst Castle Shortbread

I baked these for my former manager who was moving back to Scotland. The recipe was used at Hearst Castle. Hearst Castle was the 127-acre estate of William Randolph Hearst near San Luis Obispo, CA. I picked the recipe because my aunt lives near and used to be a tour guide there. Although not a traditional Scottish recipe, it did meet with approval from my Scottish manager (as well as everyone else).

Apple Streusel Cake

Happy Thanksgiving! First off, I want to comment on how crazy the weather has been in Seattle this week. Record rainfall then blue skies, hail and lightening. And it is really cold. Usually it is just grey and drizzling. Anyway, I am looking forward to having Thanksgiving dinner with Cory and my dear friend Sarah and her husband. I know my mother will be sad that I won't be home this year but all three of her children will be back in a couple of weeks for early Christmas and I know she is excited about that.

Rainbow Cake

I promised my friend Rula I would post more. We have a blog pact which I have been neglecting but I know she will both appreciate this cake and the sentiment behind it! This rainbow cake is in celebration of Ref 74 passing in Washington. I am super happy to live in a state where gay men and women have the same rights as everyone else, to marry the person that they love. In Washington, the additional revenue from marriage licenses for same-sex marriage (conservatively estimated at $50,000) will be going to help at risk LGBT youth. We also legalized marijuana but just to be clear, this cake isn't "special". Just beautiful and delicious.

Danishes

 Two friends of mine got married, which was lovely. They had a potluck brunch for their wedding reception. The groom is particularly big in the swing dance scene. It was probably the most impressive wedding I've been to. When the dancing started the dance floor was immediately full of people who clearly knew what they were doing. Girls were being thrown in the air. Basically it looked like a movie in a wedding. It was pretty fantastic.

Mocha Macarons

 When I went to Paris with my mom and aunt I had macarons for the first time. Real French macaron not American macaron with coconut (shudder). I consider myself a reasonably adept baker but was unable to master the macaron so I was very excited when I saw a French cooking class offered. I learned a lot. Apparently a lot of French cooking is about mastering the properly beaten egg white. We made a pear tatin, marshmallows (which I will have to make and post as they are great fun) and souffles.

Chocolate-Cream Cheese-Peanut Butter Bars

Hey, guess what: I'm alive! I know it has been hard to tell based on my posting frequency, but I'm hoping this recipe will make up for it. This is a peanut butter cookie bar base with a lay of chocolate, followed by a layer of cream cheese and peanut butter, topped with more crumbled peanut butter cookies. Yeah, I know, you still love me.

Chocolate-Espresso Snowcaps

This is the last of my Christmas cookie posts and it is only February. Although you wouldn't know it in Seattle where we're on day two of sunshine and 60 degree weather. Cory and I sneaked out of work a couple of hours early yesterday to enjoy the sun. Totally worth it. He is on a plane to Boston for a week right now, so I predict lots more posts in the next week especially when the weather gets nasty again (and it will, Seattle likes to taunt us every year with a couple of days of faux Spring before more rain).

Millionaire's Shortbread

Hey guys, look more cookie recipes. I was back at my parents' house in Moscow, Idaho for over a week this Christmas and I baked a lot of cookies. I am trying to catch up with them. I realize it lacks variety but really, who can complain about more delicious cookie recipes. I promise soon there will be non-cookie recipes (interspersed with even more cookie recipes, what can I say, I love cookies).

Nutella Cookies

I first had Nutella when I lived in Germany with my family when I was 12. I remember it being called something else but there is absolutely no evidence of this so it is probably a false memory. I went ice skating with a friend and there was a crepe stand where you could buy Nutella filled crepe. It was love at first taste.

Gingerbread

This is gingerbread. It is moist cake with ginger and molasses. Most people think of gingerbread cookies when they think of gingerbread; it is very confusing, especially because it is hard to be more descriptive than gingerbread. Gingerbread cake sounds redundant. However, after getting over the initial confusion, everyone seemed to love it. I certainly did. I tried to resist by cutting myself small pieces. I'm sure the size of the slices are much more important than the actual percentage of cake consumed (which was quite large in my case).

Pear-Cranberry Crisp

Crisps are one of those things I under appreciate. They don't result in particularly fancy or elegant desserts, but they take about 4 minutes of active work and they taste delicious. I made this to use up some remaining pears I had lying around. Cranberries and pears are actually seasonal in the autumn, but for some reason I always think of them as winter fruits (early winter probably) so I think it is perfect for right now.

Cinnamon Rolls

A friend of mine organized a 12 bars of Christmas pub crawl. I made it to 8 bars and then had to give up but I think some people hung in the whole time, over 12 hours. We also wore ugly Christmas sweaters. Anyway, in hopes to offset the quantities of drinking I decided to have some brunch at my house first and hopefully get some food in everyone's stomach.

Butterscotch Cookies

Cory actually picked out this recipe and did a lot of the work. I directed him, though and cleaned up after so I feel justified in posting it. These cookies were super tasty.

Rugelach

I am back in Moscow for Christmas but before I left I got to have over some of my wonderful friends (one of whom lives in NYC and I never get to see) to eat and decorate cookies. It made me so happy to see them. I made rugelach at the request of my dear friend Sarah O. I have actually always wanted to try them but thought they seemed a little difficult. But they weren't and they were so totally delicious. The recipe is cutting in line of a bunch of other posts because my friend Rula wanted the recipe and since I think she will have more time over the break to cook then when she goes back to med school I am posting it for her. So you can thank both of them for getting this excellent cookie recipe.

Peanut Butter Torte

This torte is basically the most ridiculous thing ever. It has peanut butter, cream cheese, espresso, chocolate and Oreos. It isn't something I would normally bake but my boyfriend wants to learn how to cook and he picked this out. He saw peanut butter and Oreos and wouldn't be deterred. It ended up being rich and decadent and amazing. Enjoy!

Peach Shortbread

Here is another recipe from my CSA box that may be a little out of season. However I think replacing the peach slices with apples or pears or even preserves would make a delicious year round dish. Shortbread is one of my favorite types of cookies. This bar type shortbread is especially nice for Christmas cookie season because it saves time on shaping the cookies but the shortbread still delivers on fanciness and flavor.

Blueberry Orange Bundt Cake

 I am totally behind with my posts. I have so many delicious recipes for you. But then I wen to Italy (and got even more recipes) and have been bad about keeping up. Anyway, I'll try to get all these old recipes posted along with the new ones from Italy.

Chocolate Chunkers

These cookies created a new record at the office: two minutes after I sent out the e-mail saying I had cookies I had to send out another e-mail saying they were all gone. Two minutes! I may have said these were the most epic cookies ever but I stand by it.

Blueberry Crumb Bars

Sorry for the terrible picture, I forgot to take pictures in the morning before I brought this into work, so this is with my cell phone camera. It is too bad, because it doesn't do it justice and they were really delicious. You should make it anyway! This is a recipe attempting to use up all my blueberries from berry picking (which I was successful with, after the 4th batch of blueberry pancakes I think).