i heart gingerbread men

They just look so adorable when they are in a cluster, don't they? I made a personalized gingerbread man for each of my coworkers and since our group works on cameras for Google Streetview, I made little cameras to go along with it. They were an instant hit of course :) 

I used this recipe but substituted margarine with butter.  Make sure you watch them while baking because they are soft and chewy with slight crunch normally, but will turn hard and dry very quickly if overbaked. For the frosting, I mixed 1/2 cup of confectioners' sugar with 1 tablespoon of nonfat milk and a pinch of cinnamon for more flavor. 

Happy Holidays! 

apple pastry cake

My first entry! 

I baked this apple pastry cake for Thanksgiving. The recipe was from a book A Passion for Baking by Marcy Goldman (this is an amazing book for those home bakers out there).  It is a hybrid between a pie and a cake. The entire cake is filled with plumped raisins, cinnamon, nutmeg and sugar coated apples (I think I used at least 8 medium sized apples) and after about 40 minutes of baking, custard is poured into the filling and popped back into the oven.  

It can be served warm or cold. The apples still have a bit of a crunch and the creamy custard filling between these apple pieces give each bite a wonderful mix of textures. 

 

I wish I had a picture of a piece cut out... 

A Thanksgiving Treat...

Ahhh Fall. I love how as Summer melts away, it brings a crispness in the air and a dash of color to the trees. One of the other things I love about fall is the seasonal food -- PUMPKIN! I love pumpkin everything -- pumpkin pie, pumpkin cookies, pumpkin soup! Just writing this makes me crave more. If only it were available year-round!

Thanksgiving has just come and gone, and of course, a Thanksgiving meal is not complete without a pumpkin dish of some kind. Normally, I would've subsisted on buying a pumpkin dessert (Andronico's has the BEST pumpkin bread, btw), but I wasn't about to go this year without making something from scratch. And of course, since I have such a sweet tooth, I decided to make a lighter version. So I present to you my Pumpkin Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting.

Now, I'm not quite the baker that the other girls on this blog are. In fact, this is actually my very first cake! I do think it turned out quite good though... at least that's what my Mommy told me. But maybe she was just being nice :P.

Pumpkin Cake

1 1/2 c. + 2 tb. white sugar + 1 pkt Truvia
3/4 c. unsweetened applesauce
1/2 c. Canola Oil
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 c. canned pumpkin (Trader Joe's Organic Pumpkin)
4 eggs
2 c. all-purpose flour
3 tsp baking powder
2 tsp baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp cloves
1/4 tsp allspice
1 c. chopped walnuts

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour a 9 1/2 inch springform pan. Sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and spices. Set aside.
2. In a large bowl combine sugar and oil. Blend in vanilla and pumpkin, then beat in eggs one at a time. Gradually beat in flour mixture. Stir in nuts. Spread batter into prepared springform pan.
3. Bake in the preheated oven for 30 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. Allow to cool.

You may have noticed that I've included an item called "Truvia" as part of a substitution for sugar. Truvia is the branded version of the sugar substitute Stevia. Stevia actually comes from an herb and is supposedly sweeter than sugar! It's a zero calorie food, contains no aspartame and is completely natural. It also doesn't have a weird fake sugar taste like Splenda or Equal do. For more on Stevia, keeps your eyes peeled for a post dedicated to the substance.

I happen to like my pumpkin cakes with rich spices...hence why I added so much variety of the warm winter spices. The applesauce kept the cake very moist and tasty, while also reducing the amount of fat originally in the mixture.

In addition to having this be my first cake, it was also my first time making frosting ... of any kind. To say it was a daunting task was an understatement. Also, I had no confectioners sugar....so I used granulated sugar and some Truvia packets as well, along with some corn starch to give it a thicker consistency. It was completely ad-hoc...sad to say, but I think it turned out quite well. And of course, if you don't think it's sweet enough, feel free to add more sugar. Me? I don't like my frostings to be teeth-rottingly sweet.

Cream Cheese Frosting
4 oz. fat-free cream cheese (cold)
2 tbsp butter (room-temperature)
1 tbsp granulated sugar
2 pkts Truvia
1 tsp lemon juice
2 tsp vanilla extract
2 tsp corn starch

Directions:

1. Cream butter and cream cheese together. Slowly add sugar while creaming until smooth.
2. Add wet ingredients and mix.
3. Add corn starch as necessary for consistency.

I had enough to frost the top of the cake. Added some chopped walnuts and some orange zest and Voila! Pumpkin Cake!

mint chocolate cookies

These cookies are delicious, professional looking, yet super-easy to make! the trick is using andes mints for the chocolate mint topping. I used the recipe here: http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Chocolate-Mint-Cookies-I/Detail.aspx. Not much narration is required...

melting butter and sugar - yum!

adding some chocolate to the mix

plopping them down on our awesome silpat mats (you've got to get these!)

the shortcut - andes mints

stick one on each cookie right after you take them out from the oven. be patient, they will melt almost completely

the final result - delicious!

pumpkin cheesecake w/ gingersnap crust

this is a little late, but I promised it was coming so here goes... we had a thanksgiving potluck at work a couple weeks back, and I decided to try making a pumpkin cheesecake. once again i combined a couple of recipes, and it turned out quite well :)

gingersnap crust

the idea of a gingersnap crust sounded delicious, so I took the crust recipe from http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Pumpkin-Cheesecake-in-a-Gingersnap-Crust/Detail.aspx. Instead of ground hazelnuts, I used pecans, and I stuck it in the oven to bake for about 5 minutes before proceeding with the rest of the recipe.

filling

For the rest of the recipe, I used the double layer pumpkin cheesecake recipe here: http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Double-Layer-Pumpkin-Cheesecake-2/Detail.aspx. I made a few modifications based on recommendations by readers:

• I increased it to 3 pkgs of cream cheese
• I used most of a can of pumpkin puree ( i think it was 12-14 oz?)
• I added more ground cinnamon and more nutmeg
• I folded in 1/2 cup sour cream after blending in the eggs

Here's the cheesecake just prior to putting it in the oven I baked it for 1 hr in a water bath then left the door open for another hr, though it didn't prevent all the cracks:

whipped topping

The cracks didn't really matter though, because I covered it up with some yummy whipped cream (+ sour cream) topping. I followed this recipe exactly: http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Easy-Whipped-Cream/Detail.aspx

I can't say for sure how it turned out, but at our potluck, when I went to check out the desserts, all the other desserts were virtually untouched but there was only one small sliver of my cheesecake left. So... it sounds like it was a hit! I had several requests to make this again the next day as well... :)

bienvenidos y tres leches

Welcome to our blog! If you just happened to stumble upon us and don't know us personally, we are a bunch of friends who enjoy baking and cooking - and anything resulting in something yummy :) I personally wanted to call this "four girls and a spatula" but I suppose the official title gets a similar point across...

We'll try to post everytime we make something new and of note... we also have a couple resident photogs, so we'll give you a nice glimpse into the process/result whenever we can.

This first dessert was made for a VERY special event - Ji's birthday! Unfortunately that meant the cake-baking was rushed, hidden, and lacking photos. Even the first photo below we snuck in while she was opening presents ;) Next time I'll try to demonstrate the process a little more.

.: tres leches :.

This cake's recipe was courtesy of Emeril Lagasse on Food Network (Thanks Emeril!): http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/emeril-lagasse/tres-leches-three-milks-cake-latin-america-recipe/index.html. We didn't want it to be too sweet, so we cut out about a cup of sugar and only put in half of the condensed milk - compensating a little by adding in a tad more heavy cream. We also used two 8-inch cake pans instead so we could make it two layers (okay, also because we didn't have a plate/container to put a 9x13 inch cake), and baked only 20 minutes.

For the frosting/filling, we adapted the meringue recipe posted here that's used for the delicious La Duni Cuatro Leches cake in Dallas. For some reason that recipe wasn't very complete... so I've filled in the rest of the directions :)

Meringue:
2 cups granulated sugar
½ cup water
1 cup egg whites (from 7 large eggs)

To make the meringue, combine the sugar and water in a small saucepan. Bring to a simmer over medium heat and cook, undisturbed, until the syrup reaches 240˚F (soft ball stage) on a candy thermometer. Remove from heat. When the thermometer registers 200˚F, begin beating the egg whites on medium speed in an electric mixer fitted with the wire whip until soft peaks form. Once the peaks form, slowly pour the sugar mixture in a steady stream into the egg whites, while still beating with the mixer. Continue beating until all the sugar mixture is added, and the mixture is glossy and delicious-looking. Apply the frosting/meringue to the middle and the tops/sides of the cake. Use a blowtorch to add a beautiful effect!


The result? A beautiful, delicious, moist, still-very-sweet tres leches cake! It's all gone now... that speaks for itself :)

Up next... I'm planning to make a Pumpkin Cheesecake with Marshmallow-Sour Cream Topping and Gingersnap Crust for a Thanksgiving potluck later this week... stay tuned!!