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Walnut Flour Carrot Cake

Posted on 24-04-2011 | By: Shannon

Category : Cake, Desserts

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For family holidays, I’m always the one signed up to bring dessert. And by “signed up” I mean I more or less demand the right to make dessert (my mom is more of a cook than a baker, and with me around I don’t feel there’s a need to follow up her wonderful cooking with a store-bought cake/pie). So for this Easter, I decided to make a carrot cake, because I don’t know if I’ve ever made one, and cream cheese frosting sounded tasty.

I wanted to mix it up a bit, though. I don’t really like nuts in baked goods. It’s not the flavor, it’s the abrupt texture change that bugs me: if I’m biting into a soft, warm, gooey brownie, I don’t want to hit nut (that’s what she said). But I do think that walnuts have a very strong place with carrot cake, so I decided to try using walnuts as a flour instead of an add-in. If you want a normal cake, just substitute the ground walnuts with the flour of your choice, probably all-purpose.

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Amaretti

Posted on 10-12-2010 | By: Shannon

Category : Biscuits & Cookies, Desserts

Tags: , ,

It’s Christmas cookie time!

There’s these little Italian amaretto cookies that a friend of mine fell in love with a couple years back. So this year, I found this recipe that I think is more or less the same cookie, and made them for her…but I got sick and had no means to deliver them, and I was pretty sure she wouldn’t want coughed-on cookies anyway, so we’ve been bravely eating them ourselves. The sacrifices we make for friendship.

The recipe is almost just the same as macarons: meringue-based, add almond flour/ground almonds and powdered sugar. The resulting texture is pretty similar, but you add a considerable amount of almond extract, so the taste doesn’t rely on sandwiching something in between them. And, also, since you aren’t making sandwiches out of them, they don’t all need to be the same size, so I didn’t bother piping them. They aren’t quite as pretty that way, but I am a disaster with a pastry bag, and I’d already made a huge mess, so it seemed safer if I just spooned them on to the baking sheet.

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Apple and Toffee Muffins

Posted on 15-11-2010 | By: Lucy

Category : Desserts

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After my plea for help on Thursday and reading your comments on Friday, I went and fetched a hammer. And then to the amusement of Doug and his sister I placed the extra firm toffee nut balls into a plastic bag, then onto a chopping board and finally onto the floor where I hit them with said hammer until they were broken up into tiny pieces.

And then I needed to find ways to use these many crunchy walnut toffee bits. It was Sara’s suggestion that I started with although I was very close to making the cookies Michelle suggested – and I may still do so as there are quite a few shards left! These are very very good, soft and moist inside because of the apple and the melted toffee bits are a nice surprise, especially when you were worried you would never find a use for them :) Continue Reading


Banana Custard Cream Pie

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Posted on 05-11-2010 | By: Shannon

Category : Desserts, Pie

Tags: ,

If you pay attention to who writes what in this blog, you’ll notice that I’m responsible for a disproportionate number of dessert posts. I really, really try to not make all my posts about dessert, if just so that Lucy can get some sweet stuff in once in a while, but it is only with great effort that I add main dishes or veg recipes. And now I know why:

This is from my grandma’s recipe box. The massive, towering stack of recipe cards? That’s all the desserts. The diminutive stack? That’s everything that isn’t dessert. Clearly dessert madness is hereditary.

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National Cupcake Week

Posted on 19-09-2010 | By: Lucy

Category : Cupcakes, Desserts

Tags: ,

It’s the last day of National Cupcake Week here in the UK. I’ve only just found out about this wonderfully themed week and now I have a desperate need to try a Mojito cupcake. And a Cosmopolitan cupcake. And probably the winning cupcake banana and mango as well…

If you’re suddenly feeling inspired to run off and make a batch of sweet things then why not try some of our favourites? Shannon’s deliciously sinful St Patrick’s Day Cupcakes have three different types of alcohol in them: Bailey’s, Jameson’s and Guinness! There’s also Beer Cupcakes which are beautifully presented in mini glasses or some alcohol free but just as tasty Peanut Butter Cupcakes!

Happy National Cupcake Week everyone!


Crack Pie

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Posted on 29-08-2010 | By: Shannon

Category : Desserts, Pie

Tags: ,

Oh.

My.

God.

I’d heard much about this sugary goodness via the internets. New Yorkers rave about Momofuku Milk Bar, and while they have many, many delicious treats, the most famous, and probably most singular, is Crack Pie. The name is pretty evocative. Sure, it might not tell you if it’s chocolate or berry or what else, but whatever it is, you know it’s got to be pretty addictive. But I don’t live in New York. I’ve never actually been to New York, unless running full-tilt through JFK counts. But now, with surprisingly little effort, you can have this deliciousness no matter where you are!

It’s not chocolate. There’s no fruit. It’s basically sugar, butter, and more sugar and butter. There’s an oatmeal cookie crust, and the filling is somewhere between a toffee/caramel (or the British version of fudge) and a cookie, in pie form. It’s complete heaven. The only thing that’s anything short of amazing about this pie (calories aside): you do need to let it chill overnight. It’s very, very difficult. I almost had it for breakfast, but I decided I didn’t want to start the day with a diabetic coma.

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Peanut Butter Cupcakes

Posted on 11-08-2010 | By: Lucy

Category : Cupcakes, Desserts

Tags: , , ,

When I was preparing to cook a batch of these cupcakes, I found out that my oven was broken. Luckily I found out that the thermostat was kaput and the oven was reaching horrendously high temperatures when I popped in some garlic bread rather than these beauties. I think these might be the first child friendly cupcakes on the blog, as they’re not based on alcohol, and I like to think they look quite appealing to adults and children. Doug was very taken with these and as he’s not a fan of sweets and cakes in general I took that as a huge endorsement. These should be nice and easy to make with small children in tow. In fact I made them while watching television so that should give you an idea as to how little concentration they require.

From Cupcakes from the Primrose Bakery, a thank you present from my lovely friend Sarah for doing nothing at all. More presents like this please! Continue Reading


Nectarine-Raspberry Galette

Posted on 16-07-2010 | By: Shannon

Category : Desserts, Pie

Tags: , ,

Allow me to preface this by saying: I have been watching a lot of Pushing Daisies lately, and the main character is a pie maker. So I’ve been craving pies.

Second preface: Around the time of our last contest, I coincidentally won a cookbook: Deborah Madison’s Seasonal Fruit Desserts. This has caused me to crave fresh fruit desserts.

So combined, what do you get? Me making a desperate trip to the grocery store to horde nectarines. I like them better than peaches, I’m not sure why, but probably because I get creeped out by non-mammalian fuzzy things. Peaches aren’t as bad as moths, but their fuzziness is something I still find creepy. And evil, I’m pretty sure things that shouldn’t be fuzzy but are: probably evil. So, that combined with having a pack of raspberries on hand, I decided to make a Nectarine-Raspberry Galette. Galettes are cooler than normal pies because…just look at them. They look cool. And if you’re handy with parchment paper they require very little clean-up. However, if you disagree that they look cool, or you want to use a pie dish, this can easily be made into a normal pie by taking the crust recipe and putting it into a pie dish instead. It’s like magic.

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Cheesecake Week: Cheesecake Truffles from The Confectional

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Posted on 06-06-2010 | By: Shannon

Category : Desserts, Reviews

Tags: , ,

I confess that I was kind of counting on continued rain to keep the tourists out of Pike Place Market. But nooooo, it just had to be gorgeously sunny today. So know: I braved tourists for you. To bring you a review of a delightful little treat that, even if you don’t live in Seattle and thus don’t have access to The Confectional, it seems like a concept easy enough to turn into reality wherever you are. And they ship their cheesecakes (not truffles though, sorry) anywhere in the States.

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Cheesecake Week: Toblerone and ginger base with vanilla cheesecake

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Posted on 04-06-2010 | By: Lucy

Category : Desserts

Tags: , , , ,

This week we’re having our first ever theme week – Cheesecake Week! We’ll be posting every day while our waistlines expand and our stomachs fill. Let us know how you think we’re getting on in the comments and on twitter and facebook.

Once we’d decided on cheesecake week I started thinking about what type of cheesecake I wanted to make. Using ginger biscuits for the base came to mind pretty quickly but then I wanted to combine that flavour with something else. After a bit of brainstorming at work (thanks Jackie!) I decided that chocolate would be the best bet and toblerone even better than plain chocolate. Of course you can’t use too much chocolate in a base or it will fall apart but a simple swirl of chocolate amongst the base means there’s a chocolate taste in each piece of cheesecake without being overpowering. Yes I know nobody will see the swirl. But I know it’s there and that makes the fussy overblown cook in me very happy.

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