Home for the Holidays

To celebrate being home for the holidays with the family I decided to create some lovely treats to share.  First, Chocolate Truffles as stocking stuffer.  Second, absolutely fabulous bread rolls to go with the Christmas Eve dinner.  Third,  White Chocolate Peppermint Ice Cream Zo-O's for Christmas dinner dessert.  These may have been my personal favorite.  The refreshing peppermint from the candy canes was stunning with the creamy white chocolate!  I will definitely be making more Ice Cream Zo-O's!  Fourth, the light and fluffy elegant homemade Marshmallows.  These are such a treat to make and even more to eat!  To go with these Marshmallows I used my Christmas present, Mexican Chocolate, and made delicious Mexican Hot Chocolate.  And to top it off, I also made loaves of Golden Raisin Toasted Pecan Bread with Dried Cherries to give to friends and family.  Happy Holidays and Happy New Year!

 

 White Chocolate Peppermint Ice Cream Zo-O's

 

Elegant Homemade Marshmallows

Holiday Update

To begin our upcoming holiday season I decided to make a Cranberry Golden Raisin Walnut Cinnamon Challah Bread, Double Chocolate Oreos, and a delicious batch of Cherry Almond Chocolate Biscotti's.  What a mouthful!  My Cranberry Golden Raisin Walnut Cinnamon Challah Bread is made with fresh cranberries, California golden raisins, and a local vietnamese cinnamon.  Not only does this make wonderful toast, but creates an aroma in the kitchen like no other.  The Double Chocolate Zo-O's with a Vanilla Bean Cream with a steamed milk is just what you need will snuggled up in snow.  And last but not least is the Cherry Almond Chocolate Biscotti's with a White Chocolate drizzle.  There is no better way to begin this white winter wonderland season.  Happy Holidays!

 

Cranberry Golden Raisin Walnut Cinnamon Challah Bread

 

Double Chocolate Zo-O's with a Vanilla Bean Cream

 

The Lovely Cherry Almond Chocolate Biscotti's with White Chocolate drizzle

A Time to give Thanks

Thanksgiving is more than just a time to feast, it is a time to give thanks  and to be grateful, and for this holiday- to be grateful for all of the food and flavors!  To celebrate this holiday, I decided to create a decadent apple cranberry golden raisin pie along with a spectacular pumpkin pie.  Also, to top it off, I mixed up some toasted pecan gelato.  As the leftovers and holiday began to go, I thought some lovely gingersnap biscotti's with a white chocolate would be a great way to lift the spirits up again. What a feast!

Apple Cranberry Golden Raisin Pie

Pumpkin Pie

Gingersnap Biscotti's with White Chocolate 

The 3 C's...Caramel, Chocolate, and Coconut...

 

 

Coconut Macaroons drizzled with Chocolate and Caramel Turtles, what a lovely way to spice up the weekend.  Thursday was the beginning of our snowy season in Saugatuck, Michigan, and whats a better way to celebrate than to make some snowballs.  In the kitchen of course!  These macaroons were a fabulous treat for any day.  Once these little guys were eaten up, I decided to go swimming in a sea of Caramel Turtles.  The caramel and chocolate go great with pecans.  Perfect for my cookie exchange get together.  This is a dessert you definitely cannot miss! 

The Beginning Of Winter

 

To start off the new season, I created a lovely combination of Pumpkin Mousse, Chocolate Ganache, Vanilla Bean Cream, and a Whole Wheat Crust.  I call them the Pumpkin Mousse Tarts.  This crust is filled with a layer of chocolate ganache, then a layer of pumpkin mousse, then topped with a vanilla bean cream.  All of them were gone within the next day!  The pumpkin and chocolate just make your tastebuds jump with joy of the new winter season.

Fall Flavors

As fall approaches, new flavors are reaching the farmer's market.  This weekend we decided to get some pumpkins and Jonagold apples.  About 99% of the time, I tend to chose the non-processed or canned food, to use in my baking.  So, before I could make the biscotti's I had to make some pumpkin-puree.  If you are looking to color all of your clothes orange, definitely start making some pumpkin puree.  Although, the homemake pumpkin puree is way better than the canned supermarket pumpkin.  So as you can guess here what was on the menu...Caramel Apples and Pumpkin Biscotti's...can you say delicious!  For my Homecoming dinner, I surprised my guest with a lovely dessert of Caramel Apples and Pumpkin Biscotti's.  

Something For You To Taste

Hello followers, I am sorry that my blog has not been updated in the past few months.  Anyhow, I am updating right now.  Aren't I?  I am going to get back to the weekly updates after this post, but for now here is a taste of what I have been up to.

Cody's One of a Kind Double Chocolate Cake with Strawberries

 

 

(after then before) Farmer's Market Blueberry Peach Pop Ups

Mini Lemon Cakes with Sweetened Whipped Cream Frosting, Lemon Curd, and Fresh Raspberries and Blueberries

Double Chocolate Cake and Sweetened Whipped Cream with Raspberries and Blueberries

Cinnamon Apple Pop Ups 

Carrot Cake with Honey Frosting

And last but not least, our famous Jonagold Homemade Caramel Apples (fresh picked from Crane's Orchard), with Semi-sweet Chocolate and Walnuts.

I hope this little tasting gives you much delight because there is much more to come this Fall!  Enjoy!

Reminder- Everything mentioned on my blog is homemade from scratch.  From the Sweetened Whipped Cream, Caramel, Lemon Curd, etc.  Also, everything baked is made with organic local ingredients.

Seeing Double

This farmers market we decided to go on the simpler side of baking and sticking to only a couple of options. There was pound cake and curds, simple and delightful to your tastebuds. We offered two types of pound cake, chocolate and butter, and two types of curd, strawberry and lemon. The crowd went wild! My favorite part was that we had no waste, we sold out of the pound cakes except for one(that my brothers will just eat up), and for the curd we used them in one of my cakes for filling. What a fantastic green market! Thanks to everyone for coming down and supporting me at the market, it really means a lot to me!

Cherry Cobbler, Cherry Pie, Oh My!

Best thing to do in Fennville today is to go to Crane's Orchard and pick some delicious red cherries.  This was my first time going picking this season.  It was quite and experience.  I ended up going for only 15 minutes, which happened to be long enough, but that my was time limit until my ride was going to arrive.  My ride was my mom and happened to show up late.  So I decided to do the best thing I could think of that whole day.  When life gives you cherry trees, eat all of the cherries!  Which is just stating the given but that was my only source of food at the moment for lunch.  I took one of the stool ladders that they have out in the orchard and climbed it until I got to the top of the tree, where my head would be hidden, and ate all the cherries I could in 15 minutes.  Crane's Orchard really does have the best cherries.  I ate about 1 pound of cherries, maybe even more, that's enough to make a cherry cobbler.  Well, I better go and get started on my cherry pie considering I ate all of my cherry cobbler cherries.  Stay in touch to hear all about our recent green market!

Extra, extra, read all about it...

Third farmers market, and by far the worst one I have had.  Although, things did not go exactly as planned it was a learning curve.  I also learned, never get your booth next to the hand popped kettle corn at the farmers market...it only leads to you smelling like popcorn and losing all of your respect for popcorn itself.  Even if that is the only booth left, just say no.   

Some of the pros today were that our Chocolate Mousse Mini-Cakes with berries was quite popular, but did not reach our goal of selling out of all 29 of them.   But on the bright side, the more for me!  I ending up taking them to the sailing yacht club (where my brothers sail) were there happened to be a regatta going on and there was going to be a barbecue  afterwards.  These mini-cakes were a HUGE hit!  They were all gone before I even got to have one!  

Lesson learned was that you must come prepared to sell, but also not to sell.  Also, to bring comfy chairs to the farmers market because you will be sitting in them for too long if you are a vender.  At the end of the day, even if I did only make 32 dollars that I could of made working at Starbucks, I do love baking and I hope to continue.  Except, I am going to be changing venues hopefully to the Kalamazoo market going on every Saturday!

Farmer's Market Special

This morning was the first time Carlo (my professional Kitchen Aid mixer named after Carlo's Bakery, home of "Cake Boss") whipped up this lovely goodie. This is the new addition to the farmer's market.  The Chocolate Mousse Mini Cake with home-grown blueberries and raspberries.  What makes this mini cake special is that is gluten-free, so you can have you cake and eat it too.  Gluten-free and totally guilt-free.  This is the mini cakes first debut in the Saugatuck Green Market. 8 am-2pm come on down!

Grand Opening

Hello soon to be followers (hopefully). I would just like to introduce myself before anybody jumps in. I am The Cake Chick, this all started when I joined a contest at a cute boutique in the city of Detroit. It's called Leon and Lulu. I went for a special event called "Let them eat Cake." It was held to help support and raise some money for Diabetes. I decided to make a sugar-free Carrot Cake and a 1-2-3-4 Lemon Cake along with sugar-free lemon curd. Simply delicousssss. I joined the amature competition and got 3rd place! I have been baking ever since and I have recently joined the Farmer's Market in my town. My newest baking creation of the week is the scrumptuous Chocolate Mousse Cake with Berries. To die for. I hope you all, the followers I soon hope to have, say tuned!