From the monthly archives:

February 2008

French Bread with Julia Child

February 29, 2008

Baking bread from scratch always makes me stop and really appreciate baking. This French Bread, a classic recipe from Julia Child, is like being in a sometimes difficult, but always rewarding, 9 hour relationship. You have to figure out what this bread needs from you, and the bread might not tell you in a language [...]

Buttered Pecan Oatmeal with milk and sugar in the raw

February 28, 2008

I’ll be the first to admit, that I’ve been breakfast obsessed lately. I fall asleep thinking about the breakfast. I wake up thinking I better hurry to the kitchen to get breakfast and tea started. I eat breakfast standing in front of my kitchen window watching my morning get brighter and brighter with the sun [...]

Mocha Coffee Coffee Cake

February 27, 2008

This breakfast cake is a bad influence. Not possible, you say? Well, when chocolate and coffee join forces against me, I crumble. This cake made me want to call in sick to work this morning, and just spend the day on the couch with cake. I didn’t, but oh, oh the temptation! Maybe it’s the [...]

Joy the Baker. The Podcast, 1.

February 26, 2008

I love to cook. I like to share. I have watched countless hours of cooking shows, and I have a camera. All of those things can only add up to one thing: I made a podcast! My first leap into podcast land is with Brown Sugar Apple Cheesecake. You’ll see the cake made from start [...]

Pecan Sour Cream Biscuits

February 26, 2008

These Pecan Sour Cream Biscuits take me back home. I come from a biscuit loving family. We take our biscuits rather seriously. My Dad makes what he calls Mile High Biscuits. They’re light and buttery, a beautiful golden color, and we always ate them hot with dinner. We were generally a happy family of 4 [...]

Simple White Wedding Cake

February 25, 2008

Some wedding cakes are more flash than flavor. This simple white wedding cake was definitely not one of those cakes. It was all flavor, no flash. Joe and Jen had a simple, but elegant wedding in a beautiful old hall in downtown Los Angeles. They wanted to keep the look of their wedding cake simple [...]

The Sweetest Week- Ever.

February 24, 2008

It’s been another sweet week folks! It really has. Sweetest things that happened to me? I was gifted a bag full of home grown blood oranges. Pretty sweet. Every night this week I read The Gourmet Cookbook before I fell asleep, using it as a pillow. Rather Sweet. And I bought these farm fresh, brown spotted [...]

My Peeps in a Row

February 23, 2008

I have my peeps in a row. Now what do I do with them? With over a month until Easter, I have many many days to spend with many many peeps. Don’t get too attached, things will to happen to these little buddies. I can’t say it’s all going to be pretty. Peep soup. Peep [...]

Gnarley Muffins

February 22, 2008

While they may not be the prettiest muffins you’ve ever laid eyes on, they just might be the healthiest. These little gems are packed with banana, apple and flax seed goodness. For those of you who aren’t nutrition obsessed California dieters, flax seed are rich in fiber and Omega-3 fatty acids which helps protect against [...]

Cinnamon Orange Hot Chocolate with Cinnamon tinted Mexican Wedding Cookies

February 21, 2008

Since I bake with what seems like a compulsion, I must admit that I often eat dessert for dinner. Photographed above is my Wednesday night dinner- Cinnamon Orange Hot Chocolate with Cinnamon tinted Mexican Wedding Cookies. I know… it might seem like I went a little cinnamon crazy, but I had good reason- Nikki at CrazyDelicious [...]

Cake Mix Couture?

February 20, 2008

I think I’m supposed to hate cake mix. I think, once you get a chef’s coat, you are supposed to turn you nose up at all things packaged, pre-mixed, and all around too good to be true. Well the truth is, I don’t hate cake mix, or at least I don’t hate it as much [...]

Almost Fudge Gateau

February 19, 2008

This week’s Tuesdays with Dorie delight is Almost Fudge Gateau. Don’t know how to pronounce Gateau? Luckily that’s not a prerequisite to eat this cake. The cake is an intensely chocolate, dense yet moist chocolate bomb. It’s the kind of cake you might serve to your guests after a fancy dinner, and wonder why you didn’t [...]

Apple Right Side Up

February 18, 2008

I took this apple tarte tatin, that wasn’t so much a tarte tatin at all, to a lovely dinner party of Sunday night. What was so fun about this tart was that I cooked the apples in a cast iron skillet with butter and sugar before I left the house. I let them cook in [...]

Baby Shower Cakes

February 16, 2008

I made these Baby Block Cakes for a baby shower. The expecting mom and dad didn’t know the sex of their little one, so they requested pale green and yellow, with their two initials ‘A’ and ‘V’ to top the blocks. Inside the pale green and yellow fondant is moist yellow cake with strawberry buttercream. [...]

Raspberry Oatmeal Pancakes

February 15, 2008

I had pancakes for dinner. I’m not a red roses kind of girl. I don’t need a box of chocolates or a store bought card on Valentine’s Day. But there is something so romantic about standing in the kitchen with my love, laughing and flipping pancakes in our pajamas. So last night, breakfast for dinner- [...]

Biscuit as spoon

February 14, 2008

One thing I forgot to tell you about the sorbet I posted two days ago is that you don’t need a spoon to eat it. How brilliant is that!? Use these no fuss sugar biscuits to scoop up the dark chocolate goodness. You’ll thank me, and that’s a fact.

Six Words

February 14, 2008

Have you heard of Ernest Hemingway’s six word story? For Sale: baby shoes, never worn. He does so much with so little, and it has a lasting power. This got me thinking about my six word story. Considering the years I’ve had in the world. The people I’ve met and the experiences I’ve absorbed- how can [...]

This Changes Everything

February 13, 2008

I had an experience with chocolate last night- and I mean EXPERIENCE: heart pounding, leg shaking, giggle coxing, divinely inspired- experience. I think I hurt myself. I think it was glorious. What did it? How did this happen? Dark Chocolate Sorbet. It swept me off my feet. I’m sitting here struggling to find the words [...]

Brown Sugar- Apple Cheesecake

February 12, 2008

I can’t leave well enough alone. Nothing illustrates this fact better than my adaptation of Dorie Greenspan’s perfectly great recipe for Brown Sugar- Apple Cheesecake. If the recipe says round spring form pan, I want to use a square baking pan. If the recipe calls for apples inside the cheesecake, I want my apples on [...]

Like Barefoot Contessa- but I’m not rich and I have my shoes on.

February 11, 2008

I’ve decided to jump into this food blogging world head first, eyes wide open, grasping for every bit of joy and pleasure along the way. What’s the best way share my love for all things sweet and baked? I could come to your house preaching the beauty of a preheated oven. I could scream ‘pate [...]

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