Chocolate, Chocolate Chip Scones

These scones are based on the traditional scone recipe I learned at the FCI. Basically I added cocoa powder (instead of some of the flour, plus a bit more) and a bit extra sugar to the dough to give a delicious bittersweet chocolaty dough. Then I just substituted chocolate chips for the dried currants or raisins. Yum!

Plum Muffins, revisited

Remember these? They were great the last time I made them. They were great this time too! There's something about the fresh plum with the coffee cake-y muffin that is just amazing. Yum!

Cake Inspiration

About a month ago I was wandering around Fortnum and Mason in London. They have a display case filled with sample wedding cakes. I snapped some pretty bad photos of them but hopefully they will serve as good inspiration at some point. Here they are:

I love the the flowers go from bottom to top rather
than top to bottom as is typical

The brush embroidery on this is beautiful and
I like the colors (although I'm not sure about
the top being so plain.)

Pretty and elegant and I love the matching
cookies. Plus the silhouettes are a nice
substitute for a traditional cake topper.

There is a lot going on with this cake,
but the elements are all done perfectly
and I really do like all of them
(I especially like the way the stripes start
halfway up one layer and go halfway up the next)
albeit I'd prefer them on multiple different cakes.

I think this is the most elegant ruffle cake
I've seen. I love the flower topper.

Chocolate, Orange, Espresso Brownies

These are based on a recipe by Marian Burros from the New York Times Dessert Cookbook. I've always liked Starbucks mocha Valencia (which they long ago discontinued, now it's just a mocha with a shot of orange syrup) so I figured these would be good. They weren't good. They were GREAT! The orange stood up for itself but didn't overwhelm the coffee flavor that stays in the background a bit. The chocolate, of course, was the predominant flavor and, because I was using really good chocolate, it was a particularly deep chocolaty flavor. They were very fudgy, I may actually bake them a little more next time--and I already baked them about 10 minutes longer than the recipe says--but as long as I stored them in the fridge they were fudgy and delicious (at room temp they started to get a little too gooey).

It was a little late for Valentine's Day, but we were having friends over and I decided what the heck, it's only a few days late! So I got out my new heart shaped cookie cutter (which I had yet to use) and cut out a dozen heart shaped brownies. I saved the scraps in the freezer for snacking on and putting on top of ice cream. A fun shape for the brownies and a good use of the scraps (who doesn't like frozen brownie on vanilla ice cream?)

Valentine's Day Pancakes

I didn't want to go out to a restaurant on Valentine's Day. My pops was out of town so my mom felt the same way. So we decided to do Valentine's Day dinner at home (after a lovely Valentine's Day lunch at my new favorite burger place). For fun we had breakfast dinner! I made sautéed pink lady apples (very much like my stove top baked apples but without the vanilla and a bit less sugar) and homemade chocolate pancakes. Pancakes are actually surprisingly easy to make from scratch and they really a better than when they're made from a mix. I decided to make them heart shaped. It wasn't terribly easy since I don't have a mold (I used to have a heart shaped pancake shaper/mold thing, but it disappeared a year or two ago.) Basically I just used a spoon to carefully drop/drizzle the batter in a heart shape. It was tedious and time consuming, but it wasn't too tough and it was worth it because they looked incredible! The cocoa-y pancakes and the sweet yet tart apples were delicious together with just a drizzle of pure maple syrup.

Valentine's Day Cupcakes

Pink rose cupcakes

I'm not a huge fan of Valentine's Day. I don't mean that to imply that I'm bitter about being single on Valentine's Day--I've had dates for it in the past and it still didn't thrill me. It's just an odd sort of holiday that makes single people feel a bad and puts pressure on couples to do something extra special for no real reason. That said, I totally stand behind Valentine's Day desserts. Chocolate and more chocolate with the occasional red berry and a hint of pink. What could be better?!

Anyway, in keeping with tradition, these are dark chocolate cupcakes and the vanilla buttercream is a lovely pale pink. To decorate, I used different tips to get a rose-like swirl and a couple other simple swirls. I'm not sure how I feel about the rose swirl. I know they are in right now, and they are very pretty, but they are a bit flat so there isn't as much buttercream as with a normal swirl. Then I sprinkled them with beautiful vintage-y colored coral, pale blue, and white jimmies. I think they are quite pretty for Valentine's Day but still sufficiently un-Valentine's-y to work for any time of year.

All three different icing swirls

Grapefruit Tart

I love fruit curd. I usually make lemon curd tarts, but I decided to do something different and went for grapefruit. I couldn't find gelatin at the local shop and I didn't have any at home so I used a couple extra egg yolks but it didn't make it thicken quite as much as I would have liked. It would have been a fine consistency for individual tarts, but it got a little messy when we were slicing the large one. Ah well, it tasted amazing. The grapefruit has a bit less tang than a lemon curd but it was a bit more bitter...in a good way.

I made the crust out of shortbread dough, which was sweet and balanced out the bitterness of the grapefruit. To decorate, I just topped it with a bit of whipped cream around the edge and some homemade crystallized grapefruit zest. Delicious and elegant!

Walnut Stilton Scones

These savory, walnut and Stilton scones from Alice's Tea Cup's cookbook are delicious! They resemble a really nice, flakey, buttermilk biscuit more than a traditional scone. The veins of blue cheese in the scones are strong but not overpowering. The walnuts are relatively soft, as nuts go at least, so they add texture without being so crunchy as to distract from the normal scone texture. The scones are perfect for an afternoon tea if you are also serving a sweet scone (such as pumpkin scones) but they are really lovely on their own with a cup of strong tea or even on the side of tomato soup.

Clementine Mini Loaves

Remember the lemon loaf I made at the FCI? These are the same recipe, except instead of lemons I used clementines (they are more wintery) and just a dash of orange extract. I also broke in my new mini loaf pan and made a half dozen mini loaves instead of a normal size loaf. I think they look very nice in miniature and the clementine gave the loaves a slightly sweeter and milder flavor than the lemon one did. Delicious!

Chocolate Chip Cookies, revisited

These are my chocolate chip cookies made with my secret recipe. They really haven't changed much since I last made them except that I was out of my usual baking powder and the stuff I got when I ran to the local store to get it was cut with flour instead of a proper starch. That and the ridiculously dark, dark brown sugar I have--it's organic and free trade, so I guess it's just more flavorful like so many organic products--changed the flavor and texture ever so slightly. And they were good! They were crisp on the outside, chewy on the inside and richly earthy from the higher molasses content in the sugar. (You can see how dark they are from the dark brown sugar in the photo.) Also I used really good quality chocolate chips (Belgian chocolate instead of my usual domestic brands) that happen to be significantly larger than normal chocolate chips (you can see that in the photo also), so they were chocolaty-er too! I do think I'll switch back to my usual baking powder and brown sugar, but I'm sticking with these (or similar) chocolate chips.

Pan Fried Ravioli

I'm not sure fried is the best word for these; they are really sautéed ravioli. Basically, I cooked lovely, fresh, asparagus ravioli very al dente--about 2/3 of the normal cooking time. Then I gently drained them, put the still steaming hot ravioli in a pan with just a thin coat of olive oil, and cooked them on one side then the other until they were just golden and a bit crispy. Then I just drained them on a paper towel and served them with some marinara sauce. I think the tiny amount of oil I used means they weren't fried, but it didn't really feel like sautéing. They really don't teach you the exact definition of either in pastry school. Whatever I did to them, they were delicious and a really lovely appetizer! I think I will try this with different ravioli--perhaps pumpkin--soon.