Posts from the ‘Other Sweets’ Category

May 24

Coconut Pancakes With Caramel Sauce

When you look at a food magazine, the photo on the cover should invite you to open up the magazine, have a look, and then convince you to carry it to the checkout to purchase it. Most food magazines deliver this invite pretty well to me, especially if it has something sweet on the cover.

In this particular case, I was at the library browsing through the small selection of back issues of delicious. magazine. That’s when I saw it. A photo on the cover of November 2009′s issue that looked like a stack of Heaven with Heaven sauce and Heaven cream and a scattering of Heaven thrown on top. I clutched on to it immediately.

What was actually on the cover was a beautifully arranged stack of 3 coconut pancakes. In between the layers was a hearty creamy dollop of creme fraiche and sliced bananas. From the very top of the stack of pancakes, caramel sauce drizzled down and scattered about the stack was shredded coconut and a dusting of icing sugar.

Oh. My. God. The photo looked fantastic. And then, I made it for myself.

My stack looks sort of similar to the photo on the cover, but it doesn’t have the elegance that the cover photo did! But in the end, it didn’t matter to me one single bit what it looked like, because this is one of the most delicious stacks of pancakes I have ever eaten. Ever.

May 10

5 Comments

Treacle Scones

This was my fourth year as a mother for Mother’s Day. It’s been pretty amazing, the past four years. Mother’s Day hasn’t ever been a big celebration for us, maybe just a nicer meal than usual and a “Happy Mother’s Day”. This was the first year though that my four-year-old daughter was able to understand what Mother’s Day is, or well, sort of! She made a pretty sequined magnet and a collage at preschool for me for the special occasion.

I also got an Eco Cup because I mentioned earlier that I’d like to take a cup of coffee along with me on those cold, early mornings when I have to walk my daughter to preschool, but I didn’t have a nice travel cup.

And now I do. It looks almost just like a takeaway paper coffee cup, but it’s not. The cup is porcelain and the sleeve and lid are silicone. Apparently I can use it at coffee shops, if I request for the barista to fill it instead of a paper cup. Neat!

Apr 13

1 Comment

Teriyaki Beef Sushi And Green Tea Meringues

Wow, a whole seven days without a post, what am I coming to? I have been a little busy over the Easter holidays and while I haven’t quit baking, I have had less time to spend on the computer. Now that the holidays are over, I hope to resume some sort of normality. To make up for my lack of posting, I did a makeover on my “About” page by adding a lot more information about myself, so have a read over that if you’re curious.

To get back in the swing of things, I have a sort of Japanese-theme for this post. We’ll start off with teriyaki beef sushi. If you read my new “About” page, you will learn that sushi is my ultimate favorite food. I love sushi with raw salmon the best, but this recipe that I found in the March 2010 issue of Australia’s Recipes + is pretty good too.

I’m really sorry for the poor quality of the photo. The sun had already set and lighting was dim in the house. I keep saying it’s time to make my own lightbox, but haven’t gotten around to that yet.

Mar 26

7 Comments

Faux Hot Cross Buns

The closest I’ve ever came to a hot cross bun while growing up was reciting the nursery rhyme, “Hot cross buns, hot cross buns, one a penny, two a penny, hot cross buns”. I never actually knew what a hot cross bun was. I grew up in a cornfield in Indiana, after all, so I didn’t know very much of the world!

Later on, I came to realize that a hot cross bun is a sweet, golden bun speckled with raisins and marked with a cross on top, and sold at Easter time. The cross is supposed to symbolize the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. Or at least that’s what Wikipedia tells me about hot cross buns.

Whatever the original meaning of hot cross buns, it is obvious that they have evolved over the years. Hot cross buns can now be found studded with chocolate chips instead of dried fruits, and I recently even tasted a mocha-flavored hot cross bun.

Feb 7

17 Comments

Nutella Cream Cheese Fruit Dip

As you may know, February 5 was World Nutella Day. I submitted my entry, a fried Nutella and banana sandwich with cinnamon sugar crust, but a comment on that entry inspired me to make a Nutella fruit dip. It’s basically a variation of this peanut butter dip, which I have made before and absolutely loved. I replaced the peanut butter with Nutella, omitted the brown sugar and added a pinch of salt instead.

It tastes amazing! We used apples to dip into it, but it would taste great with bananas and strawberries as well.

This is my bonus World Nutella Day recipe for all you Nutella-lovers!

Nutella Cream Cheese Fruit Dip
Adapted from In Mama’s Kitchen
Print this recipe via Tasty Kitchen
Makes approx. 1/2 cup

Ingredients
3 tablespoons Nutella
3 tablespoons cream cheese, softened
pinch of salt
1/4 cup milk

Method
Thoroughly mix Nutella, cream cheese and salt until no streaks of cream cheese remain. Mixture may be a little grainy-looking. Slowly add milk a bit at a time and stir until milk is thoroughly mixed in. You should end up with a nice smooth, creamy dip for your fruit. Store in refrigerator. To soften up the dip after removing from the refrigerator, just stick it in the microwave for about 10-15 seconds.

Nov 8

19 Comments

Pumpkin Walnut Cheesecake

Cheesecakes are not one of my favorite dessert foods. It’s the cream cheese that I don’t like. I like cream cheese when it’s sweetened, like in frosting, or when mixed into muffins, but I don’t like it on its own or when the flavor of the cream cheese is too prominent.

This month’s Taste Of Home magazine featured quite a few cheesecake recipes and they all looked amazing to me. It made me wish that I liked cheesecakes! I decided to try one of the recipes; maybe my tastes had changed since I last had cheesecake. I chose the pumpkin cheesecake, because I love pumpkin.

Now, I’ve never made a cheesecake before, so I was entering new territory! The process of putting it together was extremely easy. I was looking forward to having a cheesecake that was as beautiful and yummy-looking as was in the picture in the magazine.

But, it ended up being not as pretty…

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Oct 30

2 Comments

Quick, Easy Cinnamon Rolls

One of my all-time favorite breakfast foods is the cinnamon roll. Paired with a steaming cup of coffee or hot cocoa, it is perfect for when you’re feeling all warm and cozy on a chilly morning.

Unfortunately, I’ve noticed a lot of people are scared, or reluctant, to bake cinnamon rolls from scratch because of the yeast, the waiting, the rolling, etc. That’s fine though, because Cinnabon sells a great cinnamon roll, and you can even bake up a Pillsbury cinnamon roll from a tube in just 10 minutes. But sometimes maybe you find yourself longing for a homemade cinnamon roll, and for those times, I recommend you print out the recipe for these super easy no-yeast cinnamon rolls right now!

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See, I’m scared of baking with yeast too! But I promise myself that I will one day face my fears about yeast. That day is not today, however. When I saw this recipe for no-yeast cinnamon rolls at Ezra Pound Cake I was so relieved to see that I really could make cinnamon rolls without yeast. Read more

Oct 27

19 Comments

Divinity

I haven’t seen divinity around much these days and there’s only one time in my life that I remember eating this candy, and I was very young. My neighbor, a kind elderly woman, made great divinity, or so my mom says! I don’t even remember what it tasted like. My grandmother, on my mom’s side, also made divinity years ago when my mom was a child. My mom says that when her mom was making divinity the kids were not allowed anywhere near the kitchen!

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A few months ago, my mom challenged me to make divinity. I’ve been trying to get around to taking up the challenge for a couple of months now and just yesterday I finally decided to do it. I’ve researched as much as I can about how to make this candy and found so many tips, but generally the recipe is the same. Read more

Oct 9

15 Comments

Easy As Pumpkin Pie Ice Cream

In Parke County, Indiana there is an annual event known as the Covered Bridge Festival that runs for a week in early October (it actually starts today, too bad it is rainy and dreary!).

Parke County is famous for its 32 covered bridges, and has festivals throughout the entire county each year to celebrate their bridges. Throughout the county you’ll find some great seasonal foods and classic favorite foods such as baked potatoes, onion blossoms, barbecue chicken, sausages. The smell of the air during the festival just screams FOOD at you! Read more

Oct 4

Muffins You Can Enjoy With Coffee

Soon after my third child was born, I had went a couple of weeks, maybe three?, where I didn’t bake anything. I was experiencing withdrawal symptoms! I found that cookies were easiest and quickest for me to bake, so I entered a cookie phase. A couple of good cookies from the cookie phase were the cowboy cookies, which were laughably easy, and the chocolate chocolate chip oatmeal cookies.

After the cookie phase ended, I entered a muffin phase! Muffins from this phase were jumbo cinnamon struesel coffee cake muffins…

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This was the second time I had made these; for some reason, I can’t fill the muffin tins with the right amount of batter and both times the batter overflowed. That’s fine, they were still really satisfying with my morning coffee. Read more