Apricot Tatin Cake - The Cake Book

I love CostCo, but what does a single girl do with two dozen apricots.  Answer" make a Tatin.

The clear platter make the cake look a bit red, but it is basically a upside down cake.  (which only used three apricots, next time I'll make a pie).

The recipe was for peaches, but I used the apricots instead.  You make a caramel with sugar and water and I had the hardest time getting this to a carmel.   It just wouldn't burn.  What's up with that?  When I don't want things to burn they do!

Also, it called for a 10" cake pan.  This will be my next investment at the housewares store.  It's got to be cheaper than cleaning the oven.  I did use a deep dish pie pan.  It was 10" across at the top, but the cake still went over the edge, or may be it was the carmel.  Anyway, the cake looks beautiful and taste good too.  I think is should be eaten quickly, within three or four days, or it gets a bit soggy and heavy, but never dry.

This does work with different fruit, so you may see these back on my blog again.





Quintessential Cheese Blintzes



yum

I have to admit, the only Cheese Blintzes that I have eaten,up until now, are those at a smorgasbord.  Let me tell you this is not the smorgasbord food.

To start, you make crepes.  This is not my normal crepe recipe.  The one I normally make has more butter, but I certainly could not tell the difference.  Also, I usually rest my crepe batter for 30 minutes, this recipe has you rest the batter for at least 1 or two hours.  For the filling, I could not find farmers cheese, so I used ricotta.  This filling was great with a bit of lemon zest added in. 

I tried to pan fry the blintzes to cook the filling, but I did not do so well.  I finished up the crepe batter and filling a night later and baked those blintzes.  The filling cooked up better baked than pan fried.  Still had that great lemon flavor.  And me, I had to get more raspberries since they are in season.  Drizzled with a bit of my home made raspberry jam. 

This recipe is from Flo Braker's Baking for All Occasions and was made for the Avid Bakers Challenge.

Corn Soup for French Fridays

I'm late again.  This has been a terrible week.  Busy at work and home. But, it's the weekend and a long weekend at that.

It's summertime and corn is cheap.  Six ears for a dollar.  This is a great time to make corn soup, except it's warm outside.    I have never made a corn soup or chowder, so this is a first.  It is so easy and pretty fast.  Cut the corn off the cob and boil the cob with milk.

 Saute the onion.

Cut veggies and add

Ooh isn't this pretty

After the veggies saute for a while you add the milk mixture back in and let it cook for a while.  The recipe can be found in around my french table.  Once everything is done, blitz in the blender, or I use an immersion blender.  (remove the corn cobs, very important)  Then plate. 

 Since the sweet corn and the whole mike make makes this soup pretty sweet I made a chipotle chile oil to drizzle and added a dollop of Greek yogurt.  This is good stuff. I will try to freeze some for lunches.  Try this while corn is in season.  It is really good.

Congo Brownies

OMG these brownies are so good!

I saw these brownies on another baking club and I could not help myself.  I bought the book, I joined the club.  The book is Baking for All Occasions and the club is ABC On-Line Baking.  This will be a once a month club. 

The only change I made to the recipe was to use pecan's instead of walnuts and where the recipe says to wait until the bottom layer comes out of the oven to start the top layer, I didn't. 

You just make the bottom, kind of like a Toll House cookie without the chips.  Cut up some nuts and press them in to the bottom Blondie layer and cook.  While the bottom layer was cooking, I mixed up the top layer, so it was ready to spread on when this came out of the oven. Then slide it back in the over until done.

I was suppose to wait until it cooled and make a chocolate drizzle, but I ate some while it was warm.  Yum.  These got a thumbs up from everyone who tasted them at work.  They were not to rich or to sweet and yet it was very chocolaty.  This is a keeper recipe and worth the price of the book.

MS Cupcake - August

I was supposed to make Rhubarb Cupcakes with Whipped Cream, but I really don't like rhubarb, well I didn't like it as a kid.  I used to run it over with my bicycle so we couldn't eat it.  Come to think of it, I didn't get caught.  There were to may kids with bicycles, how would they know it was me?  Check out MS Cupcake for information on the real August Cupcake.

But I did bake.  I made the Strawberry Cupcakes from Martha Stewart's Cupcakes.  I love strawberries and this time of year I always have them in my fridge.  My taste testers say these are in the top 5  of the baked goods I have brought into work so far.  They are good and pretty easy.  The only problem I had is that I made the icing one evening and was going to frost them the next evening, although the icing instructions say you can do this, the icing separates and is not pretty.  It still taste good, it just not pretty and darn it after all this work, I want pretty.  So I covered the top with strawberries.  Now they look pretty.

Baked - Grasshopper Bars

Okay, it's official.  I should not be taking photos at 5:30AM. 

What can I say.  These taste like deep dark chocolate and mint.  The mint section is a bit gooey and they are so rich that I can only eat one.  Me, eat only one!  This is almost unheard of until now.

Anyway, I made these Thursday evening.  It's just like the recipe says,  (BAKED Link)  First you make the brownie.  It's a short brownie, mine was only about a half an inch tall.  Then you make the butter cream, but is was kind of strange.  Made with flour, sugar, and milk.  I finally got it thick and mint and poured it on the brownie which I forgot to let cool.  I was amazed that the butter in the butter cream melted on the spot.  Not all of the butter.  This sucker went into the fridge as fast as I could move.  I check on it every 30 minutes and was able to incorporate the melted butter back into the butter cream.  Once that was pretty solid I poured the chocolate glaze over the whole thing and popped it back in the fridge.

I got mixed reviews from my taste testers.  No one had seconds because they were so rich.  They are tasty, but fussy to make.  Overall a good recipe for those chocolate mint lovers.

FFD - Salmon and Potatoes in a Jar

This is an intriguing concept, especially on these hot summer day's were the idea of turning on the oven makes me sweat.  This is not a hard recipe, but it does take a couple of days to get through the steps, which is why my French Friday's post is on Sunday. 

The photo in the cookbook is lovely and looks wonderful, mine was not so pretty.  I did not have any quart jars, so I used what I had.  Not bad for looks, lots of color and different flavors, but I did not like the texture of the salmon in this dish.  Not sure why.  I like sushi and salmon pretty much any way.  But I don't think I will make this again.  And of course I would not have know this without making it once. 

I liked the idea but not the Salmon.  The potatoes I do like.  Strange!!