Helloooo, I wanted to share with you guys a special treat that I made this weekend. In case you didn’t know, it is Thanksgiving in Canada so a feast was in order. One of my favourite parts of the meal was these roasted garlic mashed yams. I was in charge of dessert, and I decided to make a more savoury dessert- something I’ve never done before! I chose a walnut, fig and brie tart with pear sauce from Anna Olsen. I always trust Anna Olsen for baking recipes. The crust was really crumbly but I liked the rich, nutty flavour that the ground walnuts gave it. I love brie and I feel like I would use a bit less ricotta and a bit more brie. The figs combined with the honey are delicious, and the pear sauce was sooo subtle and yummy. This was really fun to photograph, even though I only had a minute or two before it went from oven to table. I just wish uploading it to the ‘net didn’t make the colours go off!

Walnut, Fig, and Brie Tart with Vanilla Pear Sauce

Crust

• 1 3/4 cups all purpose flour
• 1/3 cup lightly toasted and ground walnuts
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 cup + 2 tbsp unsalted butter, cut into pieces and chilled
• 3 tablespoons cold water

** LOL LOL LOL I just realized as I was typing this that I forgot to add the 3 tbsp of water….perhaps that was why the dough was crumbly. Too funny. Instead of rolling the dough out, I simply pressed it into the tart pan- no big deal!

1. Combine flour, walnuts, sugar and salt. Cut in butter until the texture of coarse meal. Add 3 tablespoons cold water and mix just until dough comes together. If needed, add up to 1 more tbsp. Wrap and chill for an hour before rolling.
2. Preheat oven to 350 F.
3. On a lightly floured surface, roll out dough to 1/4-inch thick. Line a 9-inch tart shell with crust and trim edges.
4. Line tart crust with foil and weigh down with dried beans or rice. Bake for 15 minutes, then remove weights and foil and bake for 10 minutes more. Allow to cool.

Filling

• 1 1/4 cups walnut halves
• 7 tablespoons honey
• 1/2 cup ricotta cheese
• 6 ounces brie cheese, (triple crème is best!)
• 12 fresh fig

1. Toss walnuts in 2 tbsp honey and spread onto a parchment-lined baking sheet. Bake for 10-12 minutes and let cool.
2. Mix together ricotta and brie. Spread over the bottom of the tart shell.
3. Cut figs into quarters and arrange, flesh-side up around tart. Sprinkle walnut halves over figs. Bake tart for 10 – 12 minutes, just to melt the cheese and warm the figs. While warm, drizzle remaining honey over tart.

Pear Sauce

• 2 ripe pears
• 4 tablespoons honey
• 1 vanilla bean
• 1/2 cup white wine

1. Peel and dice pears, and cook with honey, scraped seeds from vanilla bean and wine until tender, about 15 minutes. Puree and strain sauce. Chill before serving.

Enjoy!

I’ve been interested in raw foods for a while now but I hadn’t yet dabbled into the actual ‘cooking’/eating of it- until now. I decided I would make a raw cheesecake. As I study to become a holistic nutritionist, I think it is very important to experience many different ways of eating, in order to be able to give effective information to my future clients. I’ll definitely be trying more raw foods but I will probably stick to savoury recipes. I was thinking of purchasing a pack of cookbooks from Kristin’s Raw. Has anyone tried these?

I noticed that most raw foodists use cashews as their cheese and I was curious as to how the flavour would be, especially in a dessert raw food. The crust tasted quite like a Larabar- just fruit and nuts blended throughly. The cashew cheese was actually quite nice and I really felt like it wouldn’t be difficult for me to adjust to. All in all, I think this would probably be a delicious recipe as a treat for any raw foodies out there, and it’s definitely an interesting dish to try. I think smashing some of the berries into a sauce of sorts would be quite nice on top!

The recipe came in my e-mail from Vegetarian Times.

Raw Cheesecake

2 cups macadamia nuts

1 1/2 cups cashews

1/2 cup pitted medjool dates

1/4 cup dried coconut (I used unsweetened of course)

6 tbs coconut oil (liquid)

1/4 cup lime juice

1/4 raw agave nectar

1/2 of a sundried vanilla bean (I just used a regular vanilla bean…not sure if it was sun dried or not)

3 cups mixed berries (I used blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, and cherries)

Place macadamia nuts and cashews in two seperate bowls. Cover each with cold water and soak for four hours. Rinse, drain, set aside.

Pulse the macadamia nuts and dates in the food processor to a sticky, crumb-like consistancy. Sprinkle dried coconut on the bottom of a 8 inch pie plate. Press macadamia nut mixture onto it, to form a crust.

Place cashews, lime juice, agave nectar, coconut oil and 6 tbs water in the food processor. Scrape seeds from vanilla bean into the food processor. Puree until smooth and then pour onto crust. Freeze 1 to 2 hours, or until firm. Slice while frozen, but defrost on counter or in the fridge. Top with berries and enjoy! (*I think the mixing some of the berries into the cashew mixture could be neat as well, but I have not tried it!)

What better way to welcome Spring than with a lovely Hummingbird Cake! This was my first time trying a hummingbird cake and I must say….DECADENT. LUSCIOUS. WONDERFUL. It was delicious! This cake was polished off in no time at all! It was densely packed with the goodness of bananas, pineapple, pecans and spices and the addition of cream cheese frosting just made it to die for! I was curious as to how this cake obtained it’s name, but it seems there are about a zillion explanations for this question. Some say Southerners would hum as they ate this yummy cake, others say that the hummingbird represents sweetness and this cake is just that. I’ll be posting this recipe a bit later, and just so you know, I have updated the post below with the recipe for the warm lentil salad.

I love the combination of chocolate and peanut butter and after seeing chef Michael Smith of the food network make these, I could not resist! I made mine in teeny tiny mini muffin cups, but you could follow Michael Smith and use large ones, which I think would be delightful, but I knew that if I only made 4 big ones, I would have eaten them before anyone else got a taste…

Homemade Peanut Butter Cups

This month’s Iron Cupcake theme was coffee. Now, I’m not a huge coffee drinker though I do usually have one cup a few mornings each week. For this competition, I wanted to create an extravagant cupcake that didn’t only feature coffee, but one that took after a yummy, fattening, Starbucks drink! I took a recipe for Mocha Chip Pound Cake Cupcakes and added my own touch my making Dulce De Leche to fill them with. Then, I made a Cinnamon Whipped Cream Frosting and placed a chocolate-covered coffee bean on top. I had never tried dolce de leche, and I rarely eat whipped cream but I must say that these were delicious! They look and taste just like a fancy barista-made drink. If you like the sounds and looks of them, please vote for my CINNAMON DULCE MOCHA POUNDCAKE CUPCAKES in the Iron Cupcake Competition! Voting opens on March 1st at 8pm.

Cinnamon Dulce Mocha Pound Cake Cupcakes

Mocha Chip Pound Cake Cupcakes (Courtesy of A Baker’s Field Guide to Cupcakes)

• 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 1/2 cups unsalted butter, at room temperature, cut into small pieces
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 1 tbsp vanilla extract
• 6 large eggs
• 2 tsp instant espresso powder
• 2 tsp Kahlua
• 2/3 cup miniature semisweet chocolate morsels  (**I omitted these)

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Place paper liners in all wells of one 12-cup and one 6-cup cupcake tin.

Whisk flour, baking powder, and salt together in a small bowl to aerate and combine; set aside.

In a large bowl with an electric mixer on medium-high speed, beat butter until creamy, about 4 minutes. Add sugar gradually, beating until light and fluffy, about 4 minutes, scraping down the bowl once or twice. Beat in vanilla extract. Dissolve the espresso powder in the Kahlua and beat it into the batter. Beat in eggs, one at a time, scraping down after each addition, allowing each egg to be absorbed before continuing. Add the flour mixture in 4 additions, beating just until smooth on low-medium speed after each addition. (Fold in chocolate morsels).

Divide batter evenly among cupcake wells. Bake for about 25 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center shows a few moist crumbs. Cool pans on racks for 5 minutes, then remove the cupcakes to cooling racks to cool completely.

Dulce De Leche (Recipe here)

• 2 can sweetened condensed milk

Place the unopened cans into a pot large enough to hold them.

Cover the cans with water and over medium-high heat, bring to a simmer.

Reduce the heat and gently simmer for 2 hours. Keep an extra pot of boiling water on the side to replenish evaporated water from the pot. The cans of condensed milk should always be covered by simmering water.

When cooked, let the cans cool in the water bath. When cooled, remove the cans.

Open the cans, scoop out the Dulce de Leche and serve.

After making the dulce de leche, I simply cut the middle of my cupcakes out by moving my knife around the top, cutting inwards to create a triangle-like space in my cupcake. I put a small spoonful of dulce de leche in it and then squished the top back on (cutting the tip of the cut-out top off, if needed). If this does not make sense, a fabulous tutorial can be found here.

Whipped Cream Frosting (Courtesy of A Baker’s Field Guide to Cupcakes)

• 1 1/2 cups heavy cream
• 3 tbsp confectioners sugar
• 1/4 tsp vanilla extract

In a large, chilled bowl with an electric mixer on medium-high speed, beat cream until it begins to thicken. Add sugar and vanilla extract and beat until soft peaks form.

Continue to whip until stiffer peaks form, but do not overwhip. If it shows clumps and lumps, it is overwhipped. Simply stir in some additional liquid cream to smooth it out. Frosting is ready to use and is best used immediately.

Dollop it onto your mocha cupcake in a way that makes it look like the whipped topping of a latte. Add some cinnamon and a chocolate-mocha bean on top. ENJOY!

The prizes offered include:

• DIANAEVANS - http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5599270
• as well as a pair of cupcake earrings from LOTS OF SPRINKLES at http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=6057281.
• PLUS, IronCupcake:Earth can not forget our good friend, CAKESPY, http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5243382, who is now going to be doing a piece for our winner each month until further notice - sweet!

As an added bonus for February, SWEET CUPPIN CAKES BAKERY AND CUPCAKERY SUPPLY will be tossing in a variety of cupcaking supplies, http://www.acupcakery.com/index.html.

HEAD CHEFS by FIESTA PRODUCTS,http://www.fiestaproducts.com, HELLO CUPCAKE by Karen Tack and Alan Richardson, http://blog.hellocupcakebook.com, JESSIE STEELE APRONS http://www.jessiesteele.com; TASTE OF HOME books, http://www.tasteofhome.com; a t-shirt from UPWITHCUPCAKES.COM http://www.upwithcupcakes.com/. Iron Cupcake:Earth is sponsored in part by 1-800-Flowers,http://www.1800flowers.com .

In September it was my boyfriend’s birthday, so I really wanted to make a special cake. I decided it was time to try out rolling fondant. For this cake, I decided to cover it in white fondant and then ice the logo of the BC Lions football team in coloured buttercream. My boyfriend has seasons tickets for the lions so we had been to a few games together and watched the rest on TV. I was really proud of how it turned out, as it was my first time using fondant and attempting to ice a design like this.

These were soft and chewy, melt in your mouth cookies! I adapted the recipe from Anna Olsen’s chocolate chip cookies. Perfect with a glass of milk!

Ingredients:

3/4 cup unsalted butter, softened
1 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 egg
2 tsp vanilla extract
2 cups all purpose flour
2 tsp cornstarch
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
8 oz combination of bittersweet chocolate cut into chunks, white chocolate cut into chunks, and butterscotch chips

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 F.
Cream together butter and sugars until smooth. Add egg and vanilla and blend in.
Stir in flour, cornstarch, baking soda and salt. Stir in chocolate chunks.
Drop by tablespoons onto a greased baking sheet and bake for 8-10 minutes, until golden brown around the edges.

Let cool, and enjoy! Or…bite into them straight out of the oven and experience the warm, gooey chocolate!!!

*Note: these cookies taste delicious veganized by simply using an Ener-G Egg Replacer for the one egg, and using only dark chocolate, or vegan white chocolate and butterscotch