ABC: Glazed Cinnamon Rolls

I started writing this post last Sunday.

This final post is not what the original post was.  The original post was much longer, full of explanations and key points and well, you know how I can ramble on and on.

Just so you know, I’m like that in real life too.

But, I was feeling it. I was in the writing “zone” - the one where it’s flowing and flowing and you are typing happily away.

Then about the third paragraph down, I stopped, because I got side tracked by a 180 pound dog tearing into the house full of soap and water.

Apparently Rufus, had gotten away from Tom during his bath time.  And that dog made sure that we knew how much he hates bath time.

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ABC: Nut-Crusted Chocolate-Banana Swirl Cake

I have not posted anything with my baking group from ABC in so long; I’m surprised to see I’m still part of it!

Thank you Hanaa for keeping me in the fold and not kicking me out to the curve.

For 2012, the ABC bakers decided to bake from Abigail Johnson Dodge, The Weekend Baker and she was kind enough to pick our inaugural recipe.

She describes this as an “elegant brunch coffee cake” and after making it today, I could not agree more.

I planned to do this cake back in late December in order to have it ready to post in our early January schedule.

Then, life; sort of happened and this fell through the cracks.

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FFwD: Marie-Helene's Apple Cake

The apple is the most cultivated tree fruit and the most used by humans.  There are more than 7,500 known variety of apples. The United States grows 2,500 of these, but just 100 of them are grown commercially. Apples are grown in 36 U.S. states, but six states — Washington, New York, Michigan, California, Pennsylvania and Virginia — produce the vast majority.  

Want to impress your friends with your uncanny knowledge of this autumn favorite?

• Apples float because 25 percent of their volume is air.

• It takes nearly 40 apples to make 1 gallon of cider.

• You could eat a different apple every day for more than 19 years, and never eat the same kind twice!

• The “Delicious” apple variety is the most widely grown variety in the United States.

• An apple tree has to grow for four or five years before it will produce an apple.

• Bobbing for apples started as a Celtic New Year’s tradition to determine whom you would marry.

• In ancient times, apples were thrown at weddings (instead of rice or birdseed, like today … ouch!).

• The apple belongs to the rose family.

When you Google “apple recipes” you are bound to get more than 40,900,000 hits.  There are a lot of people using a lot apples out there.

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GCC: Menu 3 - Empanadas and White Bean Soup

I had a surprise this weekend.  One of my friends that I have known for years was close to my side of town and decided to hop over to visit me and meet Tom.  I also got to meet her brand new husband as well.  Someone that I heard about for a while, but never had the opportunity to meet.

I’m talking about the duo that make up  SamCyn’s Edible Adventure blog.   Cynthia and I use to be co-workers when I lived in Miami, so we known each other a VERY LONG time.  We have keep in touch over the years, and she is a recent newlywed. I did know it at the time but, she keep tabs on me over the years by reading my personal blog and then Sweetbites.  And when I started the Gutsy Cooks Club, she totally jumped in with both hands in the air and dragged her very cute, sweet husband into the fold.

A couple of weeks ago, she sent me an email that they were going to be close by and if Tom and I had nothing planned, they wanted to stop by for a visit.  This time it was my turn to jump in with both hands in the air and sound off a hearty “YES!”, and promptly dragged along my boyfriend for the ride. The men in our lives have no say so in these type of matters.

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The Bake Brownies

I baked my first set of brownies when I was about 10 years old and we had just moved to the US.  We did not have anything like this dense cake in Venezuela, so upon my first taste of them, I was pretty hooked and ate A LOT of them.  And of course, like any 10 year old – my first brownie batch came from none other than a box.

I just cringe writing that.  Oh, if I could only go back in time and teach my 10 year old self a few things…

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HCB: Caramelized Pineapple Pudding Cakes

The first weekend of the months are the hardest for me when it comes to baking.  My commitment to three baking groups makes it a bit hard, since I technically have 3 dessert to bake during the first weekend.  So usually during this time one tends to fall of the to bake list.  Since I had passed last weeks choice on HCB, I could not bring myself to pass on a second week.  One of the other baking club is going to take a hit - the jury still out as to which.

I decided to start with HCB choice, because it was the hardest of the 3.  The pudding portion had 3 pages of instructions, add 4 more if you decided to do the Brioche and you got, once more, 7 pages of instructions ahead of you.  Which mean one thing - hold on to your whisk, its going to be a bumpy bake.  After reading, I realized that after putting into account the waiting time between the steps, I was looking at well over 12+ hours of work for six baby cakes.

God, I thought the Apple Charlotte was hard.

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FFwD: Gougères

And as some of you may know by now, Dorie Greenspan had published another book called Around my French Table.

And a cook-a-long group soon follow.  And because you guys know that I’m crazy, I joined up.  To be fair, this was being discussed in the TWD group months ago, and in fact it was projected to start in 2011.  But the book got an early release and here we are.  Over 1000 home cooks have joined the French Fridays with Dorie (FFwD) movement and we all be sharing our experiences in cooking through the 500 page book every Friday.  So along with my Sweet Kitchen Tips, I will also post any recipe that I make from the book.

And about that book….

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Palmeras {Palmiers – Elephant Ears}

In Venezuela there is a bakery in every single corner of every single neighborhood.  Most of these bakeries are owned either by Portuguese and/or Italian immigrants that came after the war – and in some cases pass down form generation to generation.  Do you know what that means right?

European pastries and breads.

I know, I know, I’m a total snob when it comes to my sweets.

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TWD: Tarte Fine

You can tell that we are entering fall.  The recipes that my fellow bloggers are putting out there are all about the fall ingredients - Soups, stews, and most of the desserts are being made with fruits found in the fall: apples, pears, gone are the summer light berries and citrus and in are the squash, cranberries, dates and figs.

This weeks Tuesday with Dorie choice is coming to you compliments of Leslie of Lethally Delicious. 

As Dorie mentions on the recipe, this is the most popular tart in France.  I can see why. It was simple to do, fast to cook and according to the testers “appetizing!” – can you tell that Tom’s food vocabulary has expanded since I started to give him more food to “taste”?  He no longer uses small words like “yum!” or “Delish!”, but things like “scrumptious”, “mouth-watering”, and “luscious”.

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TWD: Peanut Butter Crisscrosses

After all the cakes in the past week, this weeks Tuesdays with Dorie choice, which was made by Jasmine of Jasmine Cuisine, was a welcome change around these parts.

No cake, no buckle, no upside down fruit tart.  Just a simple, straight forward cookie recipe.

Cookies!

My cookie jar has been empty for a while now.  So when I started to make these Tom and the little man were ecstatic to say the least.  Asking if they were ready about a trillion times during the 20 minutes it took me to put them together.

And in times like this you realized that you really never fully know your other half.  Because after two years together, it was news to me that peanut butter cookies is Tom’s Holy Grail.  His words, not mine folks.  He has some serious Peanut Butter cookie love going there.

But, back to the cookies.  

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