Recipe Round-Up ~ Feb 14-20

I tried to get this out on time (on time being by Sunday). While trying to think of a picture to use for this week, I decided to make the Sweet Vanilla Challah from the Yeasty Stuff section and use the results as this weeks pic. Unfortunately my photo editing turn-around is a bit slow, hence a Tuesday posting. Better late than never though right! Enjoy!  

Don’t forget your breakfast:

These Buttermilk Pancakes from Dalla Mia Cucina look divine!

How about Raspberry Mascarpone French Toast Strata from Piccante Dolce? Try it with the Sweet Vanilla Challah below. Talk about a tasty breakfast!

Yeasty stuff:

Brioche and nutella…oh yeah! Douhmesticity (love the name!) blasts her blog off with these brioche rolls with nutella. Talk about rolling out the big guns for your first post!

Holy cow! This Sweet Vanilla Challah looks fan-freaking-tastic! That’s one beautiful swirl from The Fresh Loaf. I reeeeally want to get into making my own bread (I have a  day 6 old pâte fermentée in the fridge, originally slated for baguettes, which will probably be going in the garbage soon) and I will seriously have to make this! (Actually, I did this weekend hence the pic for this post. I ended up steeping a vanilla bean and seeds in the hot water for about ten minutes. I still added about half a teaspoon of vanilla extract. One thing to note about this recipe, keep an eye on your baking time. I got this amount of color after just 40 minutes. I should have been checking because I would have taken it out much sooner. Still tasted great though!)

Cookies:

Hazelnuts and coffee, are there any other two objects more MFEO (made for each other)? I suggest you start your research with these Hazelnut Espresso Chocolate Cookies from pastry studio.

I don’t know why but I’ve had lemon on my mind. Maybe I should give these Lemon Cookies from My life in two words a try. Or how ’bout Lemon cookies with lemon and raspberry filling from Salt and Chocolate.

These Chocolate Covered Strawberry Cookies from Once Upon a Gourmet Gin (in reference to “Ginger” the blogger’s name and not the drink (my fav)) sound delightful.

According to Colloquial Cooking, Zimtsterne are miracle Alsacian and German cookies. I’m not sure if they’re a miracle, but I am seeing stars! Go see them for yourself.

Dana Treat puts her Palmiers mildly by titling it “Two Ingredients”. Sure, all Palmiers are made of is sugar and….puff pastry. According to her, “Of course you can make your own puff pastry but why? Why when there is DuFour out there?” Apparently its $13+ a box. I don’t know about you, but I don’t have that kind of cash. That being said, if you are strapped for time instead of cash then by all means DuFour all the way. I, on the other hand, have my situation reversed and have more time than cash so I would opt for the do-it-yourself version, and let me tell you, puff pastry ain’t easy. Of course, another nearly two ingredient recipe of flour and butter (of course there’s fun things like salt and sugar and who-knows-what else in there, but what essentially makes puff pastry, puff pastry is the proper layers of butter between flour), but you’re going to have to get your 1000 layers in there somehow so you might as well add “elbow grease of the Gods” to the list of ingredients. I’ve done it, so anyone can do. That being said, I’ve done it once and only once in the last year. I LOVED the results. If you’re like me and on a “only if it came out of my oven” journey, give puff pastry a shot. You won’t be disappointed.

Cakes:

I’m putting this Flour Frosting from Obsessed With Baking in the cake section since this would apply to a cake. She swears by this frosting, but I confess that the idea of adding flour to frosting grosses me out too. I’ll have to give it a try since it sounds like we’re both searching for the same holy grail of frosting, and we’ve had mixed results with buttercream.

If you’d like to literally stop your heart try these Chocolate Chip Oreo Cupcakes from The Good Mood Food Blog. This actually reminds me, does anyone have a good recipe for homemade Oreos? I refuse to buy any packaged baked goods, Oreos (gasp!) included. So if you have a good Oreo recipe let me know!

Kuih Bahulu or Kuih Baulu are the East Asian answer to the French Madeleine. Beachlover’s Kitchen posted a recipe for these diminutive cakes that apparently are served at Hari Raya or Chinese New Year.

Spoon! Desserts and the like:

Besides macarons I can’t resist a crème brûlée recipe, so here’s Crema Catalana (Catalan Crème Brûlée) from Not Quite Nigella.

Learn all about cardamom in Taste Buddies’ post for Cardamom Custard with Caramelized Oranges.

Tranceport yourself to Athens with this Greek Sweet Semolina Pudding called Halva from Cafe Nilson.

This Orange Sherbet in Ginger Baskets sounds like a luscious pairing from Cooking In the Kitchen With John. The post is in Bulgarian, but John was kinds enough to include some links for translation so check for your flag on the right sidebar.

Pies, Tarts, & other pastry stuff:

Oh, and go eat a cherry pie…it’s good for ya!

Candy:

The picture of a sliced S’mores Cup blew my mind from The Hungry Mouse’s Homemade Peanut Butter & S’mores Cups.

Careful man, there’s a beverage here!:

Here’s a decadent recipe for Roasted Hazelnut Hot Chocolate from Eggs on Sunday that I’m going to have to attempt once I get my hands on some good chocolate.

While I’m a fan of Pomegranates, I’ve never been crazy about Pom. That being said I still would love to get a taste of this Pomegranate and Blood Orange Refresher from The Adventures of Kitchen Girl.

This Ginger Bee from eat make read sounds a lot better than drinking some lemon tea when you’re sick!

Miscellaneous:

Not only did eat make read provide us with a tasty beverage, but also a recipe for butter! After seeing Alton Brown’s Case For Butter in a recent Good Eats episode I thought that it would be neat to try making my own. I just haven’t gotten around to finding a recipe and now I don’t have to!

You know I always thought that pink lemonade was concocted by some mad scientist locked away in some lab at Minute Maid. Cake and Commerce has set me straight though and pink lemons actually do grow on trees! Check out her post about this surprising little fruit.

I have to include some of the most beautiful photos of tomatoes I’ve ever seen from Souvlaki For The Soul and her Kumatoes.

Lastly I’m including this tech tip from BitterSweet. In her post Three-Handed Photography she provides some inventive ways to get more creative when photographing your food. My fav of course is the server taped to the box.

Tagged as: RRU