Easter dinner at my apartment in Boston included whole stuffed artichokes, green beans, honey glazed ham, prosciutto with melon, deviled eggs with capers and tarragon, and potato, leek, gruyere, and mushroom gratin.
Lemon meringue pie with toasted coconut for dessert.
I was asked to bring a green cake to a green potluck party that was being held in the MIT Provost's staff office on St. Patrick's Day. This is just a simple white cake with a whole lotta green food coloring, frosted with a white chocolate cream cheese icing, and pressed with coconut on the sides.
This four layer chocolate cake with chocolate raspberry frosting and cookie crumb coating was prepared for my wonderful boss Amanda's birthday.
Rachel and I made these cupcakes for a dinner party with coworkers. On top are chocolate almond cupcakes with fluffy coconut frosting, and below are lemon raspberry cupcakes (with raspberry jam hidden in the middle!) They are sitting pretty on the fabulous cupcake rack that Rachel bought me for Christmas last year (along with the wrappers and silicone bears which don't happen to appear in this picture). Next order of business: full on cupcake party with at least twice as many kinds of cupcakes!
This is a simple waffle recipe that involves separating the eggs and beating the whites and folding them in last, so the waffles come out really soft and fluffy. Here, they are topped with whipped cream and fresh blueberries. And then maple syrup, of course!
Real vanilla beans are what really do the trick when making creme brulee and ice cream. The flavor is so much deeper and it's great to be able to see those little black seeds in each spoonful.
Here's my prep work for a chicken soup I made one Sunday night not too long ago. This recipe included all KINDS of vegetables. From left to right, there's brussels sprouts, pearl onions, mushrooms, carrots, celery, and cauliflower. Also some sage and butter for some additional flavor, and flour and milk to make it creamy. SO good!
Here is an asparagus mushroom risotto that I am particularly proud of because I merged two separate recipes together to make this from ingredients I had around my kitchen.
This is one of my least favorite kinds of pie (I'm more of a fruit pie fan), but it's what my Dad requested for his birthday dessert. So, voila!
This year, I made vanilla and almond flavored pizzelles. Usually I flavor half with anise and half with chocolate, and make a batch with a little of both. This time I accidentally threw in almond extract, thinking I had reached for the anise (those little bottles look the same! of course, I realized the swap as soon as I poured the extract in and smelled the almond) Luckily, these little cookies taste great with any kind of flavoring. Maybe next year I'll do orange and lemon, to mix it up a bit!
I was hired to make this cake by the daughter of one of the women who works at MIT's CopyTech (Bug). It's an Oreo cookies and cream cake. Two layers of chocolate cake with fluffy white frosting and cookie crumbs between the layers and pressed around the bottom.
Two layers of pumpkin cake, flavored with the best of the season's spices, draped with a caramel cream cheese frosting and hugged by a coat of chopped walnuts.
Breads are so much fun to make. The way the dough doubles in volume as it sits, the softness and elasticity of it as it is kneeded, and of course, the final product. These were made for the October MITEI staff meeting. (I made scones for the September meeting.) It's so nice to have regular monthly events to bake for again. And an opportunity to work on breakfast instead of dessert for a change!
Chocolate and vanilla cupcakes with buttercream frosting and festive sprinkles, made at Kristen's for the 4th of July party we're going to in Westchester today!
A graham cracker crust baked with shredded coconut mixed in, filled with coconut flavored custard (flavored with coconut milk and more shredded coconut, and if I had coconut extract, that would have been in there, too), and topped with lightly sweetened whipped cream and (even more!) toasted shredded coconut. Oh so tasty. We didn't let this chill for long enough before eating it (couldn't wait a whole night to pass!), so we more or less had coconut cream soup, but eating it with a spoon didn't make it any less delicious.
Made from blueberries picked from my parents' garden last fall, frozen and then thawed, this pie was a terrific balance of tart and sweet. Glad they put up a new trellis around the blueberry trees this year so they'll have an even bigger yield in the fall!
I made this strawberry rhubarb pie for no apparent reason on a Sunday afternoon in early May, to start what became a month of many pies. Making the lattice crust is one of my favorite parts, though I didn't seem to have done a very good job weaving this one...
Sweet, sweet pound cake, not quite done in the center (oops!), with a strawberry compote. Made to share with family on Easter.
This was a fairly dry cake-- perfect for the brunch party I brought it to. The icing and dried banana chips on top added the right amount of sweetness, and the lime flavor added a nice tart zing.
I am on a cupcake tirade this year!! These mini cupcakes were prepared for a St. Patty's day party. I later topped some of them with green tinted cream cheese frosting, which was flavored with a little bit of melted white chocolate and lemon zest. Zing!
