Cooking Show: St. Patrick's Day Recipes

We filmed an episode of the cooking show last week.  

St. Patrick's Day is fast approaching, and given that Dan the Awesome Cameraman hails from the Emerald Isle, it seemed appropriate to feature recipes for a St. Patrick's Day celebration!

We started with a batch of Homemade Irish Cream Liqueur.  If you like Baileys® Irish Cream, you will love this recipe!

My friend, Maureen, was my co-chef for this show.  When we were setting up before the show, I poured her a shot from a batch I had already made.

I wish the cameras were running to capture the look on her face when she took that first sip!  All of a sudden her eyes popped open, like OH MY.  

No special skills are needed for this recipe!  Just pour all of the ingredients into a blender and five minutes later you will be having an OH MY moment of your own. 

Irish Soda Bread

My favorite moment came after we were done filming.  Dan the Awesome Cameraman took a bite of this bread, closed his eyes and said, "Ahhh, lovely!" in his lilting Irish brogue.

Click here for the printable recipe.

 And finally, Chocolate Guinness Cake with Whipped Cream Frosting .

Let's take a closer look, shall we?

These photos simply do not do this cake justice.  It is so chocolatey, so deep, dark and delicious.  And the frosting is the perfect combo of whipped and creamy.

If you make this cake, I promise that you will not be disappointed!

Cooking Show Featuring Donna's Cakes!

We recently filmed a special episode of the cooking show.

The fabulous Donna Grandy, from Donna's Cakes joined me in the studio (a first!  All previous shows were filmed in my kitchen).  We had a very enthusiastic studio audience, all fans of Donna's Cakes!

During the past two weeks, I have edited/rewritten/deleted dozens of attempts to write this blogpost. How can I possibly convey through words how spectacular these cakes are?

I decided to blitz you with photos!


Part One--

Donna opened her shop in 1990, which happens to be the same year that my husband and I bought our first home.  Since then, her cakes have always been a part of our family celebrations.  I chose three cakes (one for each of my children!) to represent my own family's Donna's Cakes Archives.  (Yes, that's a thing in this house.)

Donna made this cake in 1995 when my daughter, Erin, was christened.

This cake is a perfect example of why someone who has no idea what they want their cake to look like should go to Donna's Cakes!  I just wanted a christening cake for my daughter.  When I phoned in the order and was asked what I wanted the cake to look like, I think I said something like, "I trust that you could design a better cake than I ever could!" Yes, they could and they did, as this cake proves.

I responded the same way when I ordered this cake in 1999 when Caitie made her first communion.  What do I know about decorating a cake?  Not as much as Donna does, that's for sure.

However, there were times that I ordered cakes when I did have a theme in mind.  Usually, it was for a birthday party, in which case I would bring in a plate or a napkin and ask if a cake could be made to match the theme.

I went to Donna's shop last month to film a short segment for the show, and when we entered her back room I noticed several large boxes full of file folders, alphabetized by subject.  She explained that they have graphics that they use when they decorate cakes, or sometimes a customer will bring in a picture of their own, and they save them all for future reference.

It took me all of 30 seconds to locate the "dinosaur" file and pull out the plate that I brought her TWENTY years ago when I requested a dinosaur cake for my son's birthday!  I doubt that even the latest digital state-of-the-art filing system could have located this plate any quicker.

Here's a picture from 1996 of three-year-old Sean with his dinosaur cake!  Oh, my heart.

Part Two--

Photos of cakes from Donna's Archives.  She sent me dozens of photos to look at.  Here are a few that I think you will enjoy!  You can also head over to Donna's Cakes on Facebook to check out more photos!

Whether you need a cake for an expectant mom,

 someone who loves buffalo wings (yes, they're all made out of frosting),

a Strawberry Shortcake-themed birthday,

the birth of a child,

an elegant wedding,

 (or two!)

 someone who likes a cake as finger-licking-good as their chicken,

or a good-natured, good-tasting poke at longevity---you will find the perfect cake at Donna's.

Part Three--

Filming the show.  Decorating with Donna!

Donna brought all of her own supplies to the studio.  A rainbow assortment of frosting.

Royal icing flowers that she had made in advance.  

She gave a quick demonstration of how to make flowers using different piping tubes.

I told her that I consider it a success if I can frost a cake without getting crumbs into the frosting.  She  instructed me that the key to avoiding that problem is to use a "crumb coat," which is simply a thin layer of frosting to completely cover the cake.  It doesn't matter if you get crumbs into the crumb coat, because you will then frost over it and cover all of the blemishes.

She then demonstrated how to get the frosting to look flat and smooth, by lightly patting it with a paper towel.  The key is to use a flat paper towel, one without an embossed pattern.

And then she proceeded to decorate the cake, making roses out of frosting to complement the royal icing flowers and finishing with a swirly border around the flowers and curlicues around the sides.

 It only took her a few minutes to decorate this cake!

Next, she instructed us how to transfer an image onto a a cake.  She started with this Hello Kitty graphic.

She outlined the borders of the graphic with icing, using a plain pastry tube with a fine tip.  She then flipped the image upside-down onto the cake (or in this case, a board for demonstration purposes), and lightly pressed on it to transfer the image.

She then filled in the image with frosting, using the original graphic as a decorating guide.

Finally, she decorated a cake with a jungle theme.

Before we knew it, a tiger, lion, monkey, elephant, giraffe and alligator were all relaxing on top of this cake!

A few palm trees complete the scene.

The members of the studio audience were all fans of Donna and her cakes, and I think they really enjoyed watching how she creates her designs.

When we finished, everyone in the studio was given a piece of her cake.  One person told me that her family has been ordering Donna's cakes for over 20 years, they love the cakes because they're beautiful but especially because they taste homemade--which is probably the highest compliment that you can give a baker!

Cooking Show: Summer Treats!

We filmed an episode of the cooking show last week, with a "Summer Treats" theme.

I thought it would be a good idea to prepare a few recipes that met the following requirements:

1. Refreshing on a hot day
2. Will not heat up your kitchen because you won't need your stove or oven.

I almost met the requirements with all of the recipes.

Raspberry Lemonade

Check.  Met requirements 1 and 2--refreshing and no cooking involved.  Click here for the printable recipe.

Ice Box Cheesecake with Berries

Refreshing, and no baking required!  Here's the printable recipe.

This brings us to our final recipe, the only recipe that didn't meet requirement number 2.

Toasted Almond Butter Toffee Crunch Ice Cream

(Printable Recipe)

You need the oven for four minutes to toast the almonds and the stove for six minutes to melt the toffee ingredients.

I suppose that you could make the almond toffee a day ahead of time so that all you would need to do on the day you make the ice cream is chop it up and add it in.

I can't promise, however, that the toffee won't disappear if you prepare it too far in advance.

In the words of Dan, Our Awesome Camera Man (best spoken with a lilting Irish brogue): "Forget about the ice cream!  We'll just eat toffee!" --Dan's proclamation when he sampled the toffee.

Fortunately, the recipe makes more toffee than you will need.  Plenty to mix into the ice cream, with enough left over for snacking.

Ice Box Cheesecake with Berries

Okay, the summer heat has finally appeared here in the Northeast, which prompts me to find ways to cook without actually cooking.  

You understand what I mean, right?

This ice box cake fits the bill.  There's no cooking at all--just layers of graham crackers and a cream cheese/whipped cream mixture.  Topped with berries.

Make this ASAP, while berries are still in season!!

Today's Playlist

• "Rag and Bone"...The White Stripes
• "Rollover D.J."...Jet
• "Someday"...The Strokes
• "In One Ear"...Cage the Elephant
• "Holiday"...Green Day
• "Everybody Talks"...Neon Trees

Ice Box Cheesecake with Berries (10 to 12 servings)

Printable Recipe

• 14 graham crackers (full-size, with 4 sections)
• 3 cups whipping cream
• 8 oz cream cheese, room temperature
• 1 cup confectioners sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 cups assorted berries

Line a 9" x 13" baking pan with half the graham crackers, in a single layer.  Break them to fit if you need to--you will be covering them with the whipped cream so nobody will ever know if they're not straight and perfect!

Whip the cream in the bowl of your mixer with the whisk attachment until stiff peaks form, about 2 minutes.  Add the confectioners sugar and vanilla extract and whip until completely incorporated and fluffy.

Add the cream cheese (cut into 1" chunks) and whip until it is thoroughly mixed and smooth, with no lumps (about 3 minutes).  Test it to be sure there are absolutely no little lumps hiding in there!

Spread half of the cream mixture over the graham crackers which you've already layered into the pan.  Top the cream with another layer of graham crackers, then spread this layer of graham crackers with the remaining cream.  Top with the berries.  Refrigerate for at least one hour to enable the graham crackers to soften.

 Enjoy.  

Chocolate Cake with Buttercream Frosting and Berry Mousse

This is my go-to cake recipe.  What's not to love?  

Fudgy, moist chocolate cake...yum.  Buttercream frosting that is silky smooth and perfect.  Mousse filling that is to-die for.

Pumpkin Whoopie Pies

I can't help it.

Now that autumn has arrived I want to make pumpkin everything!

We're barely two weeks into the fall season and I've already made five batches of pumpkin whoopie pies.  Seven batches, if you take into consideration that two of those batches were double!

Cooking Show #5--Cupcakes!! With Salted Caramel, or Nutella Filling...& Mascarpone Frosting

We filmed cooking show #5 this week.  My featured guest, Emily, is a friend of my daughter's.  Emily is currently enjoying a gap year before enrolling in Harvard this fall.  She's doing all sorts of fun things--taking classes, working on service projects--but I'll bet it'll be hard for her to top the three months she spent in the south of France this fall.

Here's Emily behind the counter of a bakery that she worked at while she was in France.

Before she left on her adventure, I asked her if she would be a guest on my cooking show when she came back.  She enthusiastically said, "YES!"  I've been eagerly awaiting her return, wondering what types of exotic treats we'd prepare when she came back.

The best-selling treats at the bakery?  Cupcakes!  And the best-selling flavor?

Nutella!

Not quite the exotic recipe I was expecting, but I've never filled cupcakes with anything, so it was a bit of a challenge.

Emily also suggested making salted caramel cupcakes.  GET. OUT.  My favorite.  How did she know?

We used my vanilla cupcake recipe.  Emily told me that the recipe at the bakery was a very closely-guarded secret.  She was allowed to make the cupcakes, but the ingredients were already measured and she was never told the exact amounts.

We used Emily's frosting recipes, however.  Can I just state for the record that I, a staunchly loyal fan of buttercream frosting, have evolved into an even bigger fan of mascarpone frosting?

You'll need to put a bit more time and effort into these cupcakes than you would for basic frosted cupcakes. I think you'll agree, however, that the extra time that it takes--to make the salted caramel and to fill the cupcakes--is time well-spent!

Cooking Experiments, and Pear Coffeecake with Maple Frosting

I'm so lucky that my family puts up with my cooking experiments.

Recently, there have been a few failures.  Nothing that was so terrible that they wouldn't eat it, but stuff that was definitely not going into the "mmm, must make this again" recipe file.

Like these caramel-filled snickerdoodles.  If you're looking at this picture and thinking, "Hey! Those look pretty good!" you would be half-right.

Half-right because they were good while they were warm, but when they cooled down the caramel hardened and was impossible to bite through.  As in take-a-bite-and-now-I've-pulled-the-entire-caramel-center-out-but-I-can't-chew-it-because-my-teeth-are-glued-together-by-caramel sort of impossible.

PRETTY CARAMEL COOKIE, YOU FAIL.

And there was my Caprese Egg Roll experiment.  I LOVE Caprese salad in all of it's incarnations, whether it's a basic Caprese salad or Caprese skewers or Caprese salad with avocado and olives.

It looked promising as I rolled it into egg rolls.

They looked good as I arranged them around the tomato sauce that we would be dipping them into.

They look okay, right?

But the truth is, I'd rather just eat a plain old Caprese salad. Or if I'm going the exotic egg roll route, I'll make a batch of Italian egg rolls.

Okay, enough about my failures.  

I finally put an end to my losing streak when I was trying to find a way to use up two very ripe pears.  I immediately thought of adding them into a coffeecake, but I have never added pears into a coffeecake so I decided to check foodnetwork.com for a recipe.

Of course I couldn't find what I was hoping to find.

But I did find a recipe for Apple Coffeecake!  And along the way I found a recipe for Raspberry coffeecake with Vermont Maple Frosting.  So the alchemist in me decided that switching out the apples for pears and combining it with the maple frosting would be a great combination--and it was!

Banana Cake with Brown Butter Frosting

This summer sure is flying by, isn't it?

Caitie finished up her internship in NYC earlier this month.  Sean finished his internship as well.  Monday was Erin's last shift as a hospital volunteer.  Which reminds me that I never did post these pictures:

About a month ago, when I dropped her off for her shift, as we pulled around the drop-off area we noticed that the sidewalks were lined with people.  Dozens of people.  And each and every one of them was looking skyward, holding up their cell phone.........

Spiderman does windows!!  

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Today's recipe came about because I had a few overripe bananas, but I didn't want to go the usual banana bread route , or even make chocolate banana bread because I didn't want to put the oven on for the hour+ that it takes to bake it.

I figured that spreading the batter out in a jelly roll pan would shorten the baking time and then I thought frosting would be a nice touch and then it all disappeared so quickly that I had to make another batch!

Gnocchi With Sage & Garlic Butter Sauce

Oh, what a day.

Today is Caitie's birthday!  How on earth did the last TWENTY-ONE YEARS fly by so fast?!!

My baby.......

.........is all grown up, in little more than the blink of an eye.

Erin and I spent the better part of today making a birthday cake.

My first attempt at making fondant.  Nothing I've ever made has even come close to frustrating me as much as making this fondant.  At this moment, I can politely say I am not fond of fondant.

Yesterday, when I made the fondant (or Saturday, when I made my first batch of fondant that was so cement-like all I could do was chuck it into the trash), I had nothing polite to say about fondant.

It even gave me second thoughts about the dinner I was planning on making tonight.  Another attempt at something I had never made before.  Gnocchi!

Last summer, my son went on a trip to Italy and came home raving about gnocchi.  It was sort of surprising to me, because other than potato chips and french fries, he just doesn't like potatoes.

So here we are, 8 months later, I finally decide that today is the day I'm going to make gnocchi.  After the frustration of making the fondant, I can't believe that I still wanted to take on a recipe that by all accounts, takes lots of practice to perfect.  And a recipe that is hard to use exact measurements for ingredients because it all depends upon the starchiness of the potatoes and the level of humidity and--for all I know--which side of your head your hair is parted and whether or not you listen to music while you cook.

I'm just kidding about that last part.  Sort of.

Oh, what the heck.  I told Sean that today was gnocchi day and I wasn't going to wimp out on him.

I had researched gnocchi recipes on the Internet, and sort of morphed all the recipes together and came up with this one.   The only thing the recipes agreed on was potatoes, eggs and flour.  All of the measurements were different.  All of the methods were different.  In a nutshell, this is how I came up with the recipe:

1.  Out of the six recipes I looked at, five boiled the potatoes and one baked them.  Yet they all agreed that moisture is not your friend--so I went with the lone rebel and decided that baking was best.  (I mean, the water that you would use for boiling is moisture, right?  And moisture is not good?  So why would I boil?  Am I not a logical thinker?  Should I continue to ponder this?  Why ponder, when baking makes sense?)

AND

2.  Though all of the recipes were made with at least one egg, four of the recipes said that authentic gnocchi should not have eggs.  However, since it is very hard to get the dough to bind without eggs, it's best to use eggs, just use as little as possible.  The recipe that used one egg used two potatoes.  Since I'm so competitive, I decided that I was going to try to see if I could manage four potatoes with one egg.

AND

3.  Three of the recipes only suggested an amount of flour, and said to add it a little at a time, until the dough "felt right."  Too much flour makes the dough heavy.  The recipe that used the least amount of flour suggested 3/4 cup for 2 lbs. of potatoes.  My four potatoes weighed almost three pounds, so I decided I would try to use about a cup of flour.