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Recently I made my first venture into the world of puff pastry. It was a lovely journey that lasted into the wee hours of the evening, included more butter than I’d like to think about, and provided lots of quality time with my dear sous chef, Kelly.
Much like macarons, puff pastry intimidates me. Or shall I say, intimidatED me. Until I did some real research and dissected what all the fuss was about. Puff pastry is very simple to make. Essentially just layers of flour and butter folded over on themselves over and over with refrigeration in between (which is why it takes so long to make). There are many variations; variations for croissants, variations with more sugar, and simplified ‘rough’ variations like the version I decided to use for my first try. After some poking around on-line I settled on a ‘rough puff’ recipe I found on Martha Stewart’s site that included a corresponding instructional video. (Thank you, God, for the internet.) I then found a simple recipe for peach tarts (it’s Peach-O-Rama, y’all) and below is Ta Da!:
It was somewhat magical to watch these little guys puff up in the oven. They start to bubble up as the water in the dough begins to heat up and evaporate leaving beautiful layers. It’s amazing. This rough puff recipe provides a bit… well.. rougher pastry. It’s denser than traditional puff pastry and reminded me a lot of a really great pie crust. Delish!
Another great video is Ashley Rodriguez’ video from Not Without Salt. I actually recently saw Ashley at a documentary premier we were both at, and we talked briefly about this video (I know, I know, I’m a big deal). I plan on trying her method next, now that I have a little puff pastry experience under my belt.
xoxo,
M
Last Wednesday was maybe one of my favorite days ever. Rachel came down from Bellingham, we went to happy hour after I got off work, and then we were off to our CAKE CLASS with Ashley Rodriguez from Not Without Salt. Here are some highlights:
{pudding-filled chocolate cupcake w/ salted caramel buttercream- WOAH}
{Genoise cake w/vanilla bean buttercream}
{Molton chocolate truffel cake}
{Two happy friends}
This was such a fun class! I highly recommend taking a class through Not Without Salt if you are ever able to. We learned so many little tricks that make such a big difference in your baking. For example- creating a crumb layer of frosting on your cake- to catch the crumbs, putting it in the fridge to harden, and THEN frosting the cake. Or heating your egg whites and sugar over a burner while you whip to melt the sugar into the egg whites. Or just exactly how long you are suppose to cream the butter and sugar before you add the dry ingredients (it’s a LOT longer than I thought!)?
You can find out more about the classes Not Without Salt is offering this summer on the blog site, here.
Happy Friday,
xo,
M
…will you eat some?! Seriously. I’ve been dreaming about making this cake for weeks and have no upcoming occasions to make it for, so might just make it anyway. It’s an orange chocolate chunk cake featured on Smitten Kitchen a while back and I can’t stop thinking about it!
If you are local, don’t be alarmed if you find a few pieces on your doorstep.
xo,
Meg
In case you don’t know, my job at SPU happens to include managing 6 of the most incredible student workers you could ever find. I am constantly floored at how fortunate I am to have such an incredible staff of students and am ridiculously blessed by their presence in my life, every single day. Ok, enough mushy stuff.
Last Saturday I had the girls over for a baking day! How fun is that, right?! On the menu were peanut butter surprise cookies, minty/melty chocolate cookies (unofficial name that I made up), sugar cookies, and APPLE PIE (my first ever pie from scratch)! Thanks to a few Martha recipes, it was a fabulous day.
{prep work}
{Rachel and Marie making the pie dough}
{leaves & hearts}
{before}
{after}
{Christine unwrapping the ‘surprises’}
{Madeline mixing the dry ingredients}
{Ta Da!}
{Minty Melty Awesome-ness}
{Sugar cookie madness!}
Ah, Fall… thank you for your many blessings, including baking days like these.
xo,
M
Fall is obviously here and as the weather has finally changed here in Seattle, I have been keeping busy with lots of indoor activities:
{Macaroons for Dad’s birthday present (Happy Birthday, Dad! Love you!)}
{Yellow cupcakes with milk chocolate frosting (Dad’s fave- also for the birthday celebration).}
{Finished my first ever crocheted blanket and sent it off to Nat and Jules as a housewarming gift.}
{And finally hung this lantern in my room that I bought several months ago.}
Productive or what? And it’s only October! So many more project ideas…
I hope you are enjoying fall as much as I am!
xo,
Meg
It happened:
As of last Monday, I am the proud owner of a Kitchen Aid mixer. I feel like this is the beginning of a new chapter in my life or something?! It’s pretty hilarious how excited I am and how excited other people in my life are for me… people have been congratulating me! The night I brought it home was quite celebratory… as you may be able to tell from the pictures.
Maybe I should name it? Any suggestions? Gladys comes to mind… let me know what you think.
Whatever the name, I am confident that my Kitchen Aid and I will be spending a lot of time together, and with our powers combined tasty treats will flourish from my kitchen for years to come.
Ok, that was cheesy. But seriously, I’m excited. 
{inaugural treats were chocolate chip cookies from Cooking Light. This is actually my favorite CC cookie recipe, cooking light or not}
xoxo,
M
It’s time for another installment of… THIS IS WHAT MEGAN MADE FOR ONE OF HER FRIEND OR FAMILY MEMBER’S BIRTHDAY!
I guess there has only been one other installment thus far, but there have been other instances, I just haven’t blogged about them. 
Today is my step-mother, Julie’s, birthday! Julie loves the outdoors, swimming, gardening, granola, secret stashes of chocolate, her church, her family, her heritage (Scandinavia), and above all… berries. Ok, maybe not above allll, but she loves them a lot.
As I have become the official “Baker-of-all-Celebratory-Treats” among my family, friends, and collegues ( to my delight, not distain!), the birthday treat was up to me.
My dad suggested something warm-weather-friendly, with berries, so I was off to consult Martha for some ideas. Low and behold, on Martha’s main page, right there in front of me was a link to, ”60 Berry Desserts” – perfecto! How did she know?! It did not take long for me to decide on the Raspberry Ice Cream Cake.
Soooo good, and seemingly so simple and easy. Unless you can’t find pound cake at either of the two grocery stores you look, and then the pound cake is up to you. So, last night was one of those, “why-am-I-baking?-it’s-way-too-hot-for-this” nights as I baked my first pound cakes ever. Pound cake itself is pretty simple though (1 lb of each ingredient- flour, sugar, butter, eggs). I used this recipe from Epicurious.com.
After you’ve tackled the pound cake, all you have to do is cut the cake(s) into three layers, layer on ice cream and berries, reassemble, wrap in foil and freeze for at least 4 hours – up to overnight.
Take it out of the freezer 1/2 hour before serving and dust with powdered sugar.
xoxo,
Megan
I’m finding it increasingly difficult to live without the following items:
5 months ’til Christmas! 6 ’til my birthday!
A few weeks ago former rommate/current friend Allison and I went up to Bellingham to visit and celebrate our dear dear friend Rachel’s birthday. It was the best day! We rummaged around Fairhaven and downtown Bellingham picking up a few treasures along the way- but mostly just enjoyed each other’s company – it was SO good to be together.
The highlight of the trip was no doubt dessert. Someone- don’t remember who exactly- had the genious idea to make baked alaska. GENIOUS. All of us LOVE to bake and none of us had ever made it or maybe even tried it before. To be honest I didn’t actually know what baked alaska was… just that it was a swanky dessert that looked like a mountain… maybe?? Anyway- it turned out SO well and was SO good and SO easy. I wish I would have thought to take more pictures along the way, but here is the process.
- Make brownies – we used a box of Barefoot Contessa’s Outrageous Brownies that I had actually gotten Rach as a shower gift last year. These brownies were in fact outrageously delicious. They are expensive at around $11 a box, but worth every penny. I’m telling you. However, I think you could use a less swanky brownie for this dessert- being that the final product is so delicious anyway.
- After the brownies are cool, cut them and place them individually on a cookie sheet. Top each brownie with a generous serving of your favorite ice cream. We used chocolate chip cookie dough, but I believe strawberry is the traditional choice.
- Place the brownies with ice cream in the freezer until frozen all the way (2 hours maybe?).
- In the meantime make the meringue (egg whites, sugar, and vanilla) and preheat oven to 500 degrees (!). I had never turned an oven that high before. When the brownies are all the way frozen take them out of the freezer and “frost” each one with meringue. You will want to fully cover each brownie “mountain” all the way to the base of the brownie.
- Bake at 500 degrees for about 2-3 minutes- just until the meringue is golden brown.
- Remove and EAT.
AMAZING!
Rachel, Allison, and I were so inspired by our culinary success! Rachel even threw out the idea of opening up a baked alaska shop. Different types of ice cream, different types of bases- brownies, blondies, cakes, the possibilities are endless! The public needs to know about baked alaska!
All in all- I would highly encourage you to try these! They are so much easier than I thought they’d be, yet are so impressive! You can do most of the prep work ahead of time and would be perfect for guests. All they really are are brownies and ice cream with a little bit of swank.
