Halloween 2009

Just a quick little post!! M and I just recently moved into a new house and were excited to shell out candies to all the kids in our hood! We had about 40 kids but would've had more had we not stopped to watch the Leaf game. Check out our pumpkins, they were done last minute but cute nonetheless!

I also made some pumpkin seeds with a recipe from here: http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Spiced-Pumpkin-Seeds/Detail.aspx

They were quite tasty and super easy!! Here's a pic of the yummy snacks.

Daring bakers October Challenge: French Macarons

The 2009 October Daring Bakers’ challenge was brought to us by Ami S. She chose macarons from Claudia Fleming’s The Last Course: The Desserts of Gramercy Tavern as the challenge recipe.

Well this was a challenge for me. I have to say not one I wish to repeat any time soon. Perhaps part of my problem was that I've never had the pleasure of trying one of these famous macarons so I didn't have anything to compare it to. That being said, I got some great tips from a fellow daring baker and I think had I not had these tips I probably wouldn't have been as successful as I was.

The difficulties I ran into were these, a)still kind of chewy/raw inside, I did manage to get the "feet" but I think I may have needed a few more minutes in the oven. I was scared as they were starting to turn quite golden regardless of using the 2 pan stacking method! Grr... b)sticking to the parchment paper. Now I did try using a few drops of water under the paper and still had troubles with the macarons sticking. Partly I think due to the fact that they were still under cooked. c) Also I wasn't sure if I under beat the egg whites. I had soft peaks but maybe I could've whipped it a tad bit longer. I was fearful of over beating!! Urgh!!

Overall, I'm satisfied with the results, everyone who had one enjoyed them, that being said they've also never had the pleasure of having tried a real one from a proper pastry shop! I used Dulce de Leche and Nutella.

Next up was when I decided to bake a proper cake with marshmallow fondant and all!! Turned out pretty good with the exceptions of a few tears in the fondant, never having taken a cake decorating course before I think the results were pretty decent. I had a friend of mine explain most of it step by step over the phone when I was at a troubled point!! LOL! It was great fun!

My first endeavor that I came across was a version of the famous custard tarts or Portuguese custard tarts. I was always picking up one whenever I visited the St. Lawrence Market in T.O.

Early rising

Ahh the calmness of an early Saturday morning......chill is in the air, sun is shining brightly, what to do?? So I decided to cruise the Internet for some dinner ideas for my weekly grocery list and thought what better time than now to update my blog!! I think this will satisfy a fellow blogger who has been asking me to put some past baking successes on my blog!

I decided to go through my abundance of pictures and see what I might have that would be blog worthy, so far not a heck of a lot but I'll put them up nonetheless. Enjoy!

Daring Bakers April Challenge: Cheescake!!

The April 2009 challenge is hosted by Jenny from Jenny Bakes. She has chosen Abbey's Infamous Cheesecake as the challenge

Alright, this is my very 1st blog and daring bakers challenge! Being new to the whole blogging scene I'm kind of at loss for words....

This month's challenges was cheesecake, and I love cheesecake. I found it really hard to make up my mind as to flavours but in the end went for lemon and blueberry. I ended up making it for Easter dinner and combined with my Step father's Birthday so I had a good group of people to test it and to my delight there were no left overs!!

Seeing as I've made quite a few cheesecakes in my lifetime I wasn't to worried about the challenge but I must admit I've never used the water bath technique so I was curious to see how the results would differ. I have to a say I was thoroughly impressed!! No cracks, the cake was light, fluffy and delicious! I used vanilla beans in place of extract, I love the flavour you get from them and seeing the little black flecks in the cake. I also used lemon zest and doubled the amount of freshly squeezed lemon juice in the recipe. For the sauce, I used 1 pint of blueberries, 1 lemon zested and juiced, and 2 tablespoons of sugar. I simmered it down until the fruit began to break down slightly and let it cool until I was ready to put it all together!!

I have to say this challenge was fun and Delicious, I will forever use the water bath technique! I'm looking forward to next month's challenge!