Sea Salt Caramels and a cute appetizer

Happy New Year!! Last weekend we had a small party at our house on the 31st. We decided to make dinner be a whole bunch of appetizers instead of having a big sit-down ordeal, and it worked out great. I was in charge of dessert and decided to keep with the theme of bite-sized food and make various little sweets. I made a variety, and these were probably the most popular; sea salt caramels. I had never made caramel before but it was something I always wanted to try, so I was glad to have the chance. The recipe says that it will take about ten minutes for the sugar to turn a dark honey color, but mine took about eight, so I guess it depends on the stove/pan. I cut them just as soon as they were cool and they were EXTREMELY chewy and could pull out a tooth, but once it was time for dessert a few hours later they had softened and were perfectly chewy and delicious. I had no flakes of sea salt so I used regular table sea salt (less than a tablespoon though) and they were a bit too salty - I would stick to the flakes. Either way everyone loved them, and they were a definite hit!
Homemade Sea Salt Caramels (source: Baking Bites)
1/3 cup water
1/4 cup corn syrup
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 cup heavy cream
1/4 cup unsalted butter
1/2 tsp salt
1 – 2 tbsp sea salt (rec. Maldon brand)

Lightly grease a 9×9 -inch glass or pyrex baking dish with butter or a thin coat of vegetable oil.
In a large saucepan, combine water, corn syrup and sugar. Bring to a boil over high heat, then continue to boil until caramel turns a deep honey color (10-14 minutes).
While sugar cooks, combine cream and butter in a microwave-safe bowl and cook for 1-2 minutes on high heat, until butter is melted. Set aside.
When sugar is a deep honey color, pour in cream mixture. Caramel will bubble up vigorously. Stir until bubbles subside slightly, then stir in salt. Attach a candy thermometer to the side of the pan and continue to cook, stirring regularly with a silicone spatula, until caramel reaches 260F (5-10 minutes).
Pour caramel into prepared dish. Allow caramel to cool completely, then sprinkle evenly with sea salt.
Cut caramels into small squares or rectangles with a warm, sharp knife.
Caramels can be served immediately or wrapped in small squares of wax paper. Caramels will keep for a few weeks at room temperature.
Makes about 3-4 dozen, depending on the size of your caramels. <-- i cut mine into 36 and they were pretty large


This was one of our appetizers, and I thought it was such a cute idea. You just put little balls of fresh mozzarella (we couldn't find them so we just cut chunks) and cherry tomatoes on toothpicks, and set them out with a bowl of pesto for dipping. We made it ourselves using this recipe, which was delicious, and we added a little extra oil to make it thinner for dipping. (The little bowl is garlic-free for a friend who's allergic). Yummy!

Enjoy!!

Dorie's Tarte Noir

Sorry I've been gone! Soo busy with school and trying to find time to be with friends. Oh well! A while ago I made Dorie's Tarte Noir, which was AMAZING. I made it gluten-free for my mommy! It was really easy to do - I just substituted the flour in the crust for all-purpose gluten-free flour, and added a little xanthan gum. I couldn't tell that it was different from the original recipe at all.
The ganache is very rich, but so good. My mom was happy with it, and she insisted on being the food stylist and photographer for the picture :)
Enjoy!

Vegan Chocolate Cupcakes

Sometimes the simplest things are the best. Warm blankets, fuzzy sweaters, and chocolate cake of course. My best friend and I were in the same math class last year. One day it was our friend's birthday, and we decided to make cupcakes for the class to celebrate. After having them once, the class became obsessed, and we became the official cupcake bakers. My friend's mom gave us a great recipe that happens to be vegan, but it also happens to be the best chocolate cake recipe I've ever used. The cake is moist and delicious. We always made these with a simple buttercream, leaving it off for our friend who can't have dairy.
Towards the end of the year, we were bringing in cupcakes nearly every week. If it wasn't a friend's birthday, we would find an excuse - some weird holiday, or a celebrity's birthday. It was always the same recipe - the only difference was that we would dye the icing a different color every week. We kept it simple. We once tried bringing in vanilla cupcakes (for my birthday), but they just weren't as good and we decided to stick to these.
I switched schools this fall when we started high school, but my best friend stayed at my old school. I still see her every weekend, but I miss those afternoons baking cupcakes for math class. A few weeks ago, she said she had volunteered to bring in cupcakes for a class, so we decided to make them together. Our old recipe, nice and simple. Yum.

Dairy-Free Chocolate Cake (from The Joy of Cooking)
Whisk together in a large bowl until well blended:
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar
1⁄3 cup plus 1 tablespoon unsweetened cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1⁄2 teaspoon salt
Add:
1 cup cold water
1⁄4 cup vegetable oil
1 tablespoon distilled white vinegar
2 teaspoons vanilla
Whisk until smooth. Scrape the batter into the pan and spread evenly.
Bake about 30 minutes, until a cake tester inserted in the center comes out clean. Let cool in the pan on a rack for 10 minutes. Slide a thin knife around the cake to detach it from the pan. Invert the cake and peel off the paper liner, if using. Let cool right side up on the rack.
*One recipe makes about 12 cupcakes - we always double it. Bake the cupcakes for about 15 minutes - check on them until a skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean.

Quick Buttercream Frosting (from Baking Bites)
1 cup butter, room temerature
2 tsp vanilla extract
4 cups confectioners’ sugar (approx. 1 lb.)
2-4 tablespoons milk

Cream butter with an electric mixer until soft. Add vanilla and gradually add in sugar until most has been incorporated. Mixture will look a bit sandy. Add in milk as necessary (start with 2 tbsp), along with any remaining sugar, until frosting reaches an easy to work with consistency.
*This frosting is so good, we eat it by the spoonful. Our teacher loved it so much, she asked us to bring in whatever was leftover for her. So every week, she got her own little tub of frosting. She says she used it as a dip for pretzels. Yum.

Pão de Queijo

Also known as Brazilian Cheese Rolls. Also known as the most delicious balls of cheesy yumness you will ever eat.
My mom comes from Minas Gerais in Brazil, and if you ever drop by someone's house for a visit, you won't leave without being served warm pão de queijo. These are little puffs made of cheese and manioc (yucca) flour, and they are chewy and delicious! This is one of those dishes where everyone's grandma has their own special way of making them, and this is my grandma's recipe. It's a pretty typical one, and easy to make, so my mom and I decided to make it yesterday and teach you all how to do it too!
This recipe is soo much easier to make with two people, because you are going to stick your hands in the dough and make a mess (and who wants to do something that is that much fun by themselves??) Here we go...

You start with a big bowl. Our flat wooden one is actually special for making these, but any large bowl will do.

Here is the Brazilian yucca flour we use. This is hard to find outside of Brazilian supermarkets, but I've been told that you can substitute tapioca starch just fine. You mix 5 cups of this...

...with just under a tablespoon of salt...

...in the big bowl. Using your hands, make a large well in the center.

Now take a cup of water and a cup of oil. We use vegetable oil, but soy or canola works fine too.

Heat the liquids in a small saucepan until boiling.

Here's where it gets a little tricky. You want to pour about half of the oil in to the well...

... and mix it in using your hands. CAREFUL, the oil is BOILING. You can start the mixing with a wooden spoon if it's just too hot to handle, but try to do as much as possible with your hands. Then mix in the second half of the oil, also using your hands as much as possible. You want to incorporate all of the oil and really kneed the dough - this is what gives the rolls their great texture.

After kneading, the dough should have this texture. It is moist but still grainy.

Then you're going to need 5 eggs. Mix these in one at a time, still using just your hands.

The dough will look like this after all the eggs are added.

Then it's time for the cheese. Usually a special Brazilian cheese is used, but we decided to try using Pecorino Romano, because it's the closest to the one traditionally used. It ended up working out great.

Shred about 5 cups (loosely packed) of it. I think if anything has 5 cups of cheese, you know it's going to be good...

Mix it in with your hands!

Now it's time for the final step. You need 1 1/2 cups of cold milk (I know this only shows one cup, we added more to it later).

Mix it in gradually, still using your hands. Be warned, this dough is EXTREMELY sticky (this is where doing it with someone else comes in handy - one person pours while the other mixes).

It should look like this after all the milk is mixed in. Now it's time for rolling!

You want to oil your hands to keep the dough from sticking to them, and make small even balls. We used a small cookie scoop (1.5 tbsp) to measure it out. This recipe will make about 75, and they freeze really well. We like to flash-freeze the rolled balls (freeze them on a baking sheet and then put them in bags) so we can defrost them whenever we want, but feel free to bake them like this too (but spread them out more than we did - they are close together just for the flash-freezing).
Warm up the oven to 350 F...

...and stick them in there for 30 minutes, or until just starting to brown (the time is about the same for the frozen or room temperature ones). Smelling good...

Yum! They are best eaten when still warm.

This is what they look like in the middle. Don't worry, they are fully cooked - they are supposed to be moist and chewy like this.

The best part of this for my mom is, these are naturally gluten-free!
These are great on their own, or with a cup of coffee, but there are a few things you can do with them too. Brazilians like to make little ham sandwiches. Here at home we like sandwiching them with something sweet - dulce de leche or jam is great. We had some with fig jam, which was delicious.
Please please please go try these if you like anything cheesy... or chewy... or really if you want to try something new that is super delicious! Let me know how it goes :)
Enjoy!!!

Dorie's All-Occasion Sugar Cookies

Just a quick post today! I made these cookies last month when my grandma wasn't feeling well, because we were sending her a care package. This is a quick and easy recipe, and the dough is fairly easy to roll out once you get the hang of it. I haven't made that many cut-out cookies, so I wasn't sure how much flour I needed, and it turns out you need quite a lot. But I was still able to get lots of cookies out of the batch, and they were delicious! I sent some to my grandma, and she loved them, and I also took some with us to Brazil when we went to visit my mom's family. They were eaten up fast! I want to try these again at Christmas and decorate them with royal icing. Yummy... Enjoy!

Dorie's Summer Fruit Galette

Back in March, my mom had some general pain, and couldn't find the source of it. She had had tests for lots of different diseases, all of which had come back negative. After lots of tests, she discovered that she has Celiac disease, which means she can't eat anything containing gluten (wheat, barley, or rye). This really isn't all that difficult to deal with, especially when cooking at home, but the problem is cross-contamination. It turns out that in restaurants, everything has flour! Because of the disease, if her food even touches flour, it is "contaminated" and she can't eat it.
My mom loves sweets, and there are places that make gluten-free desserts, but they are often not that great, and you risk cross-contamination. I had been reading Celiac Teen, another teen food blog I find really interesting, written by Lauren, who is 18, about her dealing with Celiac disease. I saw that it was possible to make something really delicious without any gluten, and not crumbly and bland like the store-bought gluten-free desserts often are. I did a little research and decided to give it a try.
I decided that I wanted to make Dorie's Summer Fruit Galette, because it wasn't a cake or cookies, where the texture is so important, but the only gluten-containing part of it is the crust. Since then, I've used the recipes I always use with certain substitutions, but since it was my first time baking without gluten, I went on to King Arthur flour's website and found this recipe for pie crust. I bought their gluten-free flour mix (I don't trust myself to mix the flours myself yet), and the crust came together easily. I couldn't find "instant clearjel", so I didn't use it. The one difference I noticed in making the crust was how difficult it was to roll out - it was crumbly and dry, making it really hard to shape in to a pretty galette...

Oh, I know it's hideous. But it was so good. I used nectarines as the summer fruit, and their tartness went really well with the sweetness of the custard.
The crust? It was great. I honestly couldn't tell the difference from a regular "gluten-ous" crust, and neither could my happy mommy. So if you know anyone with Celiac disease, or have it yourself, don't be afraid of baking. Just do some research, try out some recipes, and be sure to keep the kitchen free of contamination (the one thing that can be annoying, especially when you do bake with flour as well).
We all loved this, and I'm not afraid to try baking without gluten anymore. Enjoy!

4th of July Cake!

I'M BAAAACK! So sorry I haven't posted in so long, but I'm finally starting to get used to my new school and I have some time to start posting again. This is a cake that I made for the 4th of July. The original idea comes from Elissa over at 17 and Baking, which is one of the food blogs I love and look at all the time for inspiration. I saw this cake there and then all over on various blogs, and was looking for a dessert for the 4th, so I figured I'd give it a try.
I had quite a rough time making this! I made a simple yellow cake batter (supposed to be for 2 9" layers) and split it into 3, dying one part red and one blue. I baked up the 3 layers, let them cool, made a batch of frosting, and started cutting. It's actually pretty easy to assemble, but it was difficult for me because my layers came out quite crumbly. First the red and white layers are cut in half. One red half is stacked on one white half, and those two are set aside. Then comes the tricky part - the other red and white layer halves are stacked on top of the blue layer, and a circle in the center (about 5" in diameter) is cut out. Then the blue outer circle is stacked on the first red and white layers, and the centers of the second red and white layers are put inside of that. Am I making any sense at all??? Elissa explains it much better in this post.
The point is, it was super crumbly and tough to assemble, but in the end it tasted great and I was happy with how it came out. In case you were wondering, I used this recipe (from Allrecipes), which is my favorite yellow cake recipe. The only change I make to it is to use 4 whole eggs instead of 8 yolks. I love it and it comes out moist and flavorful every time.
This is a great idea for a 4th of July dessert (or any patriotic holiday you can come up with), and fun to make. Hey, why not make it for Columbus Day next week?
Enjoy!