feliz cumpleaños a mi padre

I dunno, I felt like it sounded better in spanish. :)

Vanilla butter sponge cake (a la Julia Child), with an apricot cake filling (I cheated- this was the canned stuff in the baking aisle) and vanilla whipped cream frosting. Wording written with chocolate ganache b/c that's what I had on hand. I topped the cake with the extra apricot filling because (1) it looks pretty and (2) that meant I didn't have to do another layer of frosting to cover the cake crumbs (I should have anyway to cover the sides better, but it was late on Wed and I wanted to go to bed).

I think I may have finally found a good frosting that will set and is not uper sweet. I used this sturdy whipped cream frosting recipe from all recipes, only I used marscapone cheese instead of cream cheese and added about 1/2 packet of unflavored gelatin (dissolved in about 2 tbsp of hot water). This stuff tastes vaguely like the cream filling of tiramisu (it's actually very close, just without the eggs and marsala wine), and I have eaten the leftovers by the spoonful. That's not bad, right? Cream cheese would of course be much more cost-effective than marscapone cheese, but marscapone cheese is actually super easy to make. I would just need (1) time, (2) a store that sells something other than ultrapasturized whipped cream (i.e. not Jewel or Dominicks), and (3) a sieve. When I've made this in the past I've used paper coffee filter rather than the cheesecloth, b/c I found that the cheese mixture just drained right through the cheesecloth and I'm pretty sure that's not supposed to happen. But I always forget to cool it before pouring it into the cheesecloth, so perhaps that's the problem.

baby brioche

It seems it's either drought or downpour here. Third post in two days. :P

So that brioche dough I made yesterday? I made some baby brioches. Katy very nicely sent me a set of 4 mini-loaf pans for my birthday (back in October). This is the first time I'm using them. The pans are super cute and lovely, but I don't bake a lot of things that need a loaf pan (quick breads are not really my thing, regular breads get just the pizza stone from me). Anyway. Instead of the one regular brioche using 1/2 the batch and one chocolate brioche, I made 2 mini regular brioches and 2 mini chocolate brioches. Let me just say, the chocolate brioche is wonderful and I am cutting myself off for tonight. Haven't tried the plain brioche yet, but I have some plans for brioche french toast in the near future...

up close

mmm, chocolate

I still have half the batch of dough left (I made enough dough for two one-pound loaves). I think I may bake it and then freeze the loaves, and make a brioche bread pudding in the future. I miss the brioche bread pudding from Sarah's Patisserie (well, I miss everything from Sarah's Patisserie, I have not found another bakery that does it quite like Tammy).

kitten mittens

Oh, and I almost forgot. Those kitten mittens I made for Nick? He wanted them for a friend, and they totally put them on a cat.

Poor cat.

it's been a while...

It's been a while since I updated here. So, a quick recap:

December involved a lot of cookies. This was my first time with royal icing. They look a lot better from this distance than they did up close.

I tried being creative with the circles.

gingerbread men made of sugar cookies

sandwich cookies with strawberry-blueberry jam

turtle thumbprints- chocolate cookie, chocolate caramel ganache, pecan garnish

January involved Eugenia's baby shower, I made this baby blanket for her little Nathan (who was born in the middle of a blizzard!)

February was Kristin's baby shower, but I didn't actually get this to her until March. As far as I know, baby's not here yet.

For my mom's birthday, I made her a cake from Julia Child's "Mastering the Art of French Cooking." The cake was delicious, but the icing was a bit too sweet. Sometime, I will find a frosting that is not super sweet. I think I'm just going to have to use a whipped cream frosting (so no butter, less sugar) and add some kind of a stabilizer so it doesn't separate. Dad's birthday is coming up in a few weeks, perfect chance to experiment! ;)

orange sponge cake with orange icing

And February was also a bake-off at church. It was a busy month. I made tiramisu. Kevin says this is cheating, because tiramisu doesn't involve baking, but I will have you know that I made the ladyfingers from scratch. I also baked a biscuit jonde for a shell. Thanks to the daring kitchen for the recipe. I am of course completely remiss as a Daring Baker, and haven't done any of the challenge recipes in months. Somehow it's less motivating to bake when you don't have an audience. And then, their recipes are always so involved... I'm getting lazy.

the biscuit jonde. piped out the chocolate pattern, froze, then spread the cake batter over it. 

tiramisu in the springform pan

unmolded in all its glory

I actually wish I had a picture of this sliced, because it had nice layers (from what I saw). Unfortunately, as it was for the church fellowship time, I only saw one person's slice, and most of it ended up rather mutilated. But, even though several people didn't get to try it, I still managed to win the bake-off. ;) My brother told me that I was a baking bully, because everyone else brought cookies. But I didn't know everyone else was going to bring cookies. Tiramisu is one of my go-to recipes though, it's never anything less than amazing, so if that's cheating then I'm sorry.

Finally, tonight I made some blueberry mochi cake. I managed to forget to add the evaporated milk until after I had added both the rice flour and the blueberries, so my batter was shockingly purple. The baking toned it down considerably, but it's still obviously blueberry. These are delicious. They're mini-muffin sized, but I've still eaten about 10 so far, which means... more than I care to think about. I've been meaning to try this for a while and I will have to make them again (this time adding ingredients in the proper order, :P) I'm pretty sure that the original recipe was in regular-sized muffin tins, so I reduced the bake time, but it was still about 25 min total. I made 72 mini mochi cakes. Roughly half are going to my parent's house this weekend, I have the feeling my dad will really like these (don't tell him that butter went into the recipe! shh!! my dad is always on a diet).

I have a baking extravaganza planned. I just threw together a batch of brioche dough, and I'm hoping to bake it tomorrow. I've got my fingers crossed that this brioche recipe works, because I've tried it before and it's been a dismal failure. But I'm using the recipe from Artisan Breads in Five Minutes a Day. This is the first time I'm trying anything that isn't the basic master recipe in the first few pages of the book. :P Not from anything against other kinds of artisan breads, I just love basic french bread (and this one develops a bit of a sourdough flavor as you let it sit in the fridge) and I'm also lazy (as discussed above). Also, I don't really keep ingredients on hand for everything, despite what you might think. I don't know if that makes me a poor excuse for someone who calls herself a baker, but seriously, how many different kinds of flour does one girl need? In my opinion: one. All-purpose. Haha. This is why I'm not a healthy baker. (Wheat flour is also way too dense for me, but I read somewhere that whole wheat pastry flour is much lighter. My only problem is I'm sure it's also more expensive, and I'm trying to keep expenses down these days.)

Anyway. We shall see how the brioche goes. I've made enough for 2 batches, so I'm going to try regular brioche first, then a chocolate brioche. I'm excited!!

a cozy, a scarf, and the cutest little turtles you have ever seen

Been busy knitting lately.

A mug cozy, take 2 for my sister's bridal shower (which is not until next April). The first one I made went to my future brother-in-law, when he and my sister were visiting earlier this month. That one was a ribbed cable (can't remember if I ever posted it here). This is just a ribbed pattern with knits and purls, a little different than your standard knit/purl rib. We'll see what else I come up with, and in what colors (they're a great stash-buster, especially because my "stash" is mostly leftovers from previous projects. I'm definitely not a "ooh, that's pretty yarn let me buy it!!" person, I'm a "how much of this yarn do I need for this project?" person.)

My Wakefield Scarf. I made it much wider than the pattern, and added some fringe to the end. I wanted to use up the entire amount of this yarn I had, and I succeeded. :) It's a lovely wool-silk blend, and it's the first really nice yarn (read: expensive) I've treated myself to. I used the first half of the skein for the swallowtail shawl I finished this summer, but already this scarf has gotten way more use. Simply because- when do I ever wear a shawl around?

Say hello to Sheldon #1. One of the girls at work pointed me to this pattern. I guess it started with one of the guys at work, his girlfriend made him one of these and he brought it into work as a desk decoration. Then my friend made one, she even made a mini version using sock yarn and size 0 needles. The shell comes off. It's adorable. I made these for a friend's baby shower, she's expecting a little girl in January. And since she already has a little girl (age approx 18 mo?), I made two. I could sit and knit these cuties all day.

 Sheldon #2:

Sisters. :)

Current projects: more mug cozies, the tomato sweater from interweave. I finished those kitten mittens (a la "it's always sunny in Philadelphia"), and sent them to Nick. If he sends me a picture of the cats, I will post it, hopefully they aren't too traumatized. Future projects include a blanket for my sister's wedding present, and a few more baby shower gifts...

I would like to sit around and knit all day, except I don't think it would really make me as happy as I would hope. But I'm contemplating opening a store on etsy.com. Except my list of things to knit is already quite long. (People need to stop having babies. And stop getting married. Except, not really, because babies and marriages are wonderful things. I just wish I had the time to knit something for everyone.) And I have the suspicion that knitting is not really my calling in life. Not quite sure what my calling is. If someone tells you, let me know, cause I'm still searching.

I haven't been baking much lately. I made a batch of orange chocolate chip cookies a week or so ago (they were fantastic). And I have plans for a pumpkin cheesecake for thanksgiving. But it's hard to be motivated to bake a lot because baking is meant to be shared and it's best to share it when it's fresh but that's kind of hard for me to do right now. I don't want to give my friends stale cookies or leftover cake. Again, probably not my calling in life. 

On a light-hearted note, thanks to Becky for this clip that indulges my super nerdy side: