Rhubarb Pie

Now that summer is officially underway I've been trying to be a bit more seasonal.  With berries, peaches, and a dozen other goodies finally ripe and readily available I'm excited to branch out a bit. 

One of my co-workers was recently kind enough to offer me rhubarb from his garden.  I love rhubarb, but I've never attempted to make anything with it myself. I had to do a little research just know what was good to eat and what was not, but the baking the pie itself was relatively trouble-free.

I decided to try a new way to flute my crust, since I've always had issues with the sides pulling in or over-baking.  This time I tried pressing the crusts

together vertically instead of pressing them down into one another as I usually do.  There are a few resources online that suggest this leads to less pulling-in since you're not as likely to stretch the dough. I made this particular pattern by shaping the dough around the knuckle of my bent index finger.

I thought the crust turned out great.  The edges weren't overdone and nothing pulled in.

I also washed the top crust in a milk, followed by a sprinkling of sugar.  I think the wash really helped achieve a nice golden crust.  

I personally thought the pie turned out pretty tart, but most of the people I talked to at work thought it was fine.  Knowing that, I probably wouldn't add any more than the 1.5 cups of sugar called for, although some of the recipes I saw called for up to 3 cups of sugar.  It's all a matter of personal taste I guess.

One person mentioned that it was weird to have rhubarb pie without strawberries.  I can't say that I've ever had it that way, but it sounds good!

-Beth

White Chocolate Raspberry Muffins

I had both white chocolate chips and raspberries left over from making the latest cheesecake, and so I decided to put them to good use when I found myself wanting muffins one morning.  Basically I used a blueberry muffin recipe, substituted the berries, and added the chips.

These muffins tasted great!  We tried them both fresh out of the oven and cold over the following few days.  Not the healthiest breakfast choice, but definitely delicious.

The only thing that slightly turned me off about them was the color the raspberries took on while baking- a deep purple-green bruised hue.  I'm not sure if it was because I used frozen berries or if it was simply because they weren't loaded with preservatives, but either way it's not going to stop me from trying these again.

White Chocolate Raspberry Cheesecake

A friend of mine recommended this recipe from allrecipes.com (http://allrecipes.com/recipe/white-chocolate-raspberry-cheesecake/detail.aspx) and I have to say it was hands down the best cheesecake I've ever made, and very possibly the best I've ever tasted.

 The cheesecake was smooth and creamy and the raspberries added just a touch of tartness.  I followed the suggestions in the comments section for letting it cool and it turned out great- no cracks to cover up, no dried-out edges.

I used a standard graham crust and that held up nicely as well.  Something I found interesting about the process was that the white chocolate gets melted and mixed in with the other filling ingredients.  I was skeptical at first because I wasn't sure how it would affect the baking process, but it turned out great!

Baby Shower Cake

I recently had the opportunity to make a baby-shower cake for a co-worker to bring to a family party.  And by recently I mean back in March since I've been truly terrible at publishing updates in a timely manner (in my defense my husband and I have been busy house-hunting and preparing for our baby!).  I'm finding more and more that I do actually like decorating cakes.  I used to think that if I ever owned a bakery, it would be the one thing I had someone else do exclusively, but I may be changing my mind on that.

The theme for this cake was supposed to be "Jungle" for a baby-boy.

There were a couple of things that I really enjoyed about this cake and somethings I will never do again.

First, I loved using fondant and cookie cutters!  All of the animals are fondant cut-outs with details added with more fondant and/or edible markers.  It was super easy to do and all by animals turned out super cute.

Next, I really enjoyed making the waterfall/pond with icing gel. It had a really cool effect that stood out from the rest of the cake.  I'm sure those few slices were pretty goopy with frosting though.

Another thing I enjoyed were the tropical trees and vines.  For me, it was a way to add fun things to what would usually be considered the "back" of the cake.  Nothing extravagant- the trees were very quick and easy- but it kept with the theme of the cake.  I also liked the off-center stacking.  I felt like it gave me a platform to build a scene on.

There are two things I've learned from this that I will avoid in the future.  First, I will never again try to make my own black fondant.  It was a mess.  No matter how much black gel I added, the fondant remained a pearly purplish-gray.  My hands were black and remained filthy looking for a few days.  I ended up using Wilton's pre-colored fondant and it worked great. 

The second thing I will be avoiding in the future is a little marvel called a "sugar sheet". I have heard tons of people just rave about them, but I had a horrible experience.  I bought a zebra print sheet (they are literally sheets about the weight of paper made out of sugar) to cut out the "Congratulations" on top of the cake.  Despite trying several different methods, the letter cut-outs I had would not cleanly cut through the sheet.  I ended up going around each stamp with a paring knife and I still ended up with jagged edges on some letters. I'll admit it was a pretty cool effect, but not worth the time and frustration involved.

-Beth