Luscious Lemon Cake!

This fabulous cake is a family favorite that my mom has been making for years. It just melts in your mouth.

It's easy too! The cake is made with yellow cake mix and a packet of lemon jello. After baking it is soaked with a mixture of powdered sugar, lemon juice, lemon zest, and rum.

So simple and so delicious.

So long for now!

Lemon Cake- Source unknown.

1 pkg. Yellow Cake Mix

4 eggs

1 pkg. (small) lemon jello

3/4 cup vegetable oil

3/4 cup water

(1 T. lemon extract) optional

Mix all. Beat about 2-3 minutes. Put in a buttered bundt pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 50-55 minutes. (40 for me.)

Glaze-

juice of 2 or 3 lemons

1 cup powdered sugar

rind of lemons

1/4 cup rum (orange rum works very well)

Drizzle while cake is still warm, first before inverted, then when taken out of the pan on top so that it soaks in well.

Mamma Mia!

Itza pizza fresh out of the oven!

Everybody helped toss the pies, it was gettin' crazy. I dropped mine in the sauce bowl... so I kneaded it some more and we had tomato pizza dough ; )

We had so much fun!

This one turned out round, and I have no idea how.

He's a pro.

We had a lot of toppings... mozzarella, goat cheese, kalamata olives, spinach, artichoke hearts, basil, tomatoes, chicken and pancetta.

This recipe is from Saveur magazine and it's a keeper. The hotter you can get your oven the better. The article instructed to put your pizza stone in the oven at 500 degrees for a full hour before putting the pizzas in. Also brush the crust with olive oil and sprinkle with salt before baking.

Magnifico!

For dessert we had chocolate chip cookies from Phoebe's french grandmother's recipe...neh-slay         

 toll-how-ze... otherwise known at Nestle Tollhouse.

Does anyone remember the episode of "Friends" when Monica spends days trying to figure out Phoebe's grandmother's chocolate chip cookie recipe? She discovers it was Nestle Tollhouse all along. So funny.

Below is the recipe for the squash blossom pizza on the cover, as well as a great pizza sauce.

Buon Appetito!

From Saveur, March 2010

This recipe, inspired by Pizzeria Mozza, yields a crisp, chewy crust.

For the dough:

9 tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil, plus
more for drizzling
1 tbsp. active dry yeast
1 tbsp. sugar
1 tsp. kosher salt, plus more
to taste
6 cups flour

(For the squash blossom toppings:)
2 cups pizza sauce
60 squash blossoms, stemmed
1 lb. burrata

MAKE THE DOUGH:
 In a bowl, combine 1 tbsp. oil, yeast, sugar, salt, and 2 cups 115˚ water; let sit until foamy, 10–12 minutes. Stir in flour to make a dough. Transfer dough to a floured surface; knead until smooth, 8–10 minutes. Quarter dough; roll each portion into a ball. Put balls on a floured baking sheet. Cover with plastic wrap; let sit in a warm place until soft and tripled in size, 2–3 hours.

Preheat oven and pizza stone for one hour before baking at 500 degrees (broil).

MAKE THE SAUCE:
For many of their pizzas, the cooks at Pizzeria Mozza use an uncooked sauce of puréed canned tomatoes. It has a brighter tomato flavor and a more vivid color than the sweet, thick, long-simmered sauces commonly found on American pizzas. To make the sauce, put one 28-oz. can of whole peeled San Marzano tomatoes into the bowl of a food processor, along with 1 tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil, 1 tsp. dried basil, 2 minced cloves garlic, and half a grated medium onion. Purée and season with salt and pepper.

SHAPE THE DOUGH:
Dust a 16 1⁄4" x 12 1⁄4" sheet of parchment paper with flour and lightly flour your hands. Place a ball of dough (see Squash Blossom Pizza) in the center and use your fingertips to press, pat, and stretch the dough into a 10" circle, leaving a 1" rim of thicker dough. Once you become more comfortable with the dough, try this technique: make two fists and rest the flattened dough on your knuckles; lightly bounce the dough on your fists, allowing the weight of the dough to stretch it gently. If you like, make an extra batch of dough to use just for practice, until you've found a technique that works for you.


LET THE DOUGH REST:
To make a fluffier, chewier crust, leave the shaped dough on the parchment paper, covered with a tea towel, and let it rise for 15 minutes.

TOP AND COOK:

Uncover the dough and top with the sauce and other desired ingredients. When you're ready to bake, just leave the pizza on the parchment paper, lift it by gripping the paper at opposite corners, and lay it carefully atop the preheated pizza stone; this eliminates the need for a pizza peel, the paddle-like tool used for getting pies in and out of hot ovens at restaurants. The paper will turn dark but will not burn in a 500º oven and is thin enough not to interfere with the browning of the crust. When the pizza is done, use a metal spatula to slide the pizza onto a plate or a cutting board.

Squash Blossom Variation: Prepare the dough and follow the recipe below.

 Place a pizza stone on a rack in lower third of oven. Heat oven to 500˚ for 1 hour. Transfer 1 dough ball to a floured 16 1⁄2" x 12 1⁄4" piece parchment paper. Working from center, gently flatten dough with fingertips, leaving edges thicker than middle. Stretch dough to a 10" diameter. Cover dough with a tea towel; let rest for 15 minutes. Brush edges with 2 tbsp. oil. Season dough with salt. Spread 1⁄2 cup pizza sauce over dough, leaving a 1" border. (Arrange 15 squash blossoms over sauce in concentric circles. Transfer pizza (on paper) to stone; bake until golden brown, 10–14 minutes. Remove pizza with a spatula. Top with spoonfuls of burrata; drizzle with olive oil.) Repeat to make 4 pizzas.

Mascarpone Crepes with Peaches... and the Airstream?

These crepes are to die for!!!

They are filled with mascarpone and cream cheese, topped with peaches in a lavender brown sugar syrup, basil, fresh whipped cream, almonds, and a touch of cinnamon.

Holy Moly.

It's summer time, and peaches are in season!

I adapted the recipe from Sunset magazine.

Make the crepes to start.

The recipe called for ricotta cheese, but I decided to use mascarpone and cream cheese. Added to these are butter, sugar, and lemon zest. Mmmmmmmm.

Next spread the cheese over each crepe...

Then fold into triangles.

This is where it starts getting good. You put them back on the skillet to make them a little crisp. This also makes the cheese filling warm and irresistible!

Cue the peaches...

And the lavender sugar. This jar was a gift from my sister for mother's day. It was perfect! You put the sugars, peaches, cinnamon, and butter in a pot and warm until tender and syrupy.

The basil completed the dish.

Ahh. The whipped cream just melted over the warm crepes. I was wishing I could stop time to enjoy these very slowly.

I promise you will be this happy if you make these!!!

An Airstream?

 Airstreams don't have a whole lot to do with baking.  : )

This was the cover of this month's Sunset magazine (which also had the crepe recipe). And it is a dream of mine and my husband's. It doesn't have to be an Airstream, just a cute teardrop trailer to travel around the country with the kiddos.

 I can hear them giggling (and screaming), and feel the wind in our hair already!

"Maybe I had watched one too many episodes of Mad Men or ordered one too many Prohibition-era cocktails, but I became romanced by an idea that has been sweeping the nation: retroism. Which is how I ended up driving a retro icon- the Airstream- up a highway that looks like the backdrop for a Hitchcock chase scene. - As I opened the floor-to-ceiling drawers, turned on the saucer-size gas burners, and peeked in the tiny shower- the effect was like being in a shiny ergonomic playhouse designed by NASA. I mean, this thing was cool."

The article is so fun, and worth buying the magazine just to read it. No, Sunset isn't paying me. : )

May the rest of your summer bring delicious peaches and happy trails!

Ingredients-

Crêpe batter
3 large eggs
2/3 cup flour
1 cup milk
About 3 tbsp. melted butter

Cheese filling- (I used mascarpone and cream cheese in equal parts instead.)
1 cup whole-milk ricotta cheese
2 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon finely shredded lemon zest
1/8 teaspoon kosher salt
1 tablespoon butter

Peach topping- (I added lavender sugar, basil, and fresh whipped cream also. I made these without cognac because I didn't have any on hand.)
2 tablespoons butter
3 large peaches, sliced
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup packed light brown sugar
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
2 tablespoons lemon juice
3 tablespoons cognac
1/4 cup toasted sliced almonds

Preparation
1. Make batter: Whirl together eggs, flour, and milk in a blender until smooth.
2. Heat a small nonstick frying pan over medium heat and brush with butter. Pour in 2 tbsp. batter, swirling to spread evenly. Cook until golden underneath, 1 minute; flip over and cook 30 seconds. Make remaining crêpes, brushing pan with butter and stacking finished crêpes.
3. Make filling: Stir together ricotta, sugar, zest, and salt in a medium bowl. Spoon 1 tbsp. filling into center of a crêpe. Fold crêpe in half, pressing gently to spread filling evenly, then fold in half again to form a triangle. Continue with remaining crêpes.
4. Melt 1 tbsp. butter in a large nonstick frying pan over medium heat. In batches, carefully add filled crêpes; cook until golden brown, turning once, 5 minutes total. Transfer to a platter and keep warm.
5. Make topping: Melt butter in pan over high heat. Add peaches, sugars, cinnamon, and juice; cook, stirring occasionally, until sugars melt, 4 to 6 minutes. Remove from heat; carefully stir in cognac. Pour peaches over crêpes and sprinkle with almonds.
Make ahead: Make and fill crêpes through step 3, cover, and chill overnight.

Happy 4th of July!

What a special day to celebrate!

These crazy little cupcakes are perfect for the kids.

To start, some pretty little cupcake cups.

Cupcakes are so much easier with this little thing here. It is a batter dispenser, something I probably wouldn've never bought. My mom gave this to me and it is awesome!

All filled, they're ready to go into the oven.

I decided to fill these cupcakes with raspberry frosting. So while they were baking I prepared the raspberry sauce. It's a little tedious separating the raspberry seeds...

But the payoff is a beautiful, delicious raspberry sauce.

Next I filled the cupcakes with the raspberry frosting.

Let the icing begin! I used a star tip for a fireworks effect!

These little pinwheels are from Wilton, and they work really well. So after the kids are done with their cupcakes the fun can go on!

And there you have it! A festive vanilla cupcake, filled with raspbery frosting, topped with vanilla flour frosting.

Have a spectacular 4th of July!!!

Flour Frosting-

1/4 cup flour
1 cup sugar
1 cup milk
1 cup butter cut in cubes (cool butter)
1 tsp vanilla
pinch of salt
1 1/2- 2 cups powdered sugar

1. In a medium heavy-bottomed saucepan, whisk the sugar, flour, salt together. Add the milk and cook over medium heat, whisking constantly, until the mixture has thickened into a paste and is slightly bubbly at edges 2. Transfer the mixture to the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Beat on high speed until cool. Reduce the speed to low and add the butter; beat until thoroughly incorporated. Increase the speed to medium-high and beat until the frosting is light and fluffy. If the frosting is too soft, transfer the bowl to the refrigerator to chill slightly: then beat again until it is the proper consistency.
3. Add the vanilla and continue mixing until combined.
4. Add powdered sugar to taste. You can make the frosting more or less stiff by adding more or less powdered sugar.

Raspberry Sauce-
First separate raspberries from the seeds by crushing them over a sieve. Then add sugar to taste, and let simmer over the stove until reduced and thickened. Chill in refrigerator before adding to frosting.