Chocolate Macarons with Rosewater Buttercream

Macarons make me giddy. I love all the bright and beautiful colors, the variety of delicious fillings and, of course, the adorable, petite size. Every time we go to my favorite French bakery in West Seattle, Bakery Nouveau, I always have to buy every flavor they have and then quickly devour them all on the fifteen minute drive home. The question of shelf life of macarons in our household is similar to the question "How many licks does it take to get to the center of a tootsie pop?" We may just never know...

Honey Beer Bread

 

There is nothing better than the smell of fresh, baking bread permeating the house. For this reason, bread is one of my favorite things to bake. Unfortunately, most yeast breads take a least a couple of hours to make, having to let the yeast rise and then actually baking the bread. I have been scouring the internet for a good quick bread to add to my recipe box for occasions where I only have a few minutes  but would love to have some fresh bread to accompany my dinner.

Hot Cross Buns

"Hot cross buns!

Hot cross buns!

One ha' penny, two ha' penny,

Hot cross buns!"

For many years I thought that hot cross buns existed only in a child's nursery rhyme and held some sort of weird, archaic symbolism like "Ring Around the Rosie." It wasn't until a couple years ago at my hubby's (then boyfriend's) parent's house that I learned that, in fact, hot cross buns are a real baked good! My hubby's mom had purchased a dozen of them from a local bakery and had warmed them up to serve along side our Easter dinner. After only one bite, I was extremely taken by these little spiced rolls that were decorated so neatly with frosting crosses. The insides were light and fluffy, the spices were delicate yet present and the currents provided a nice burst of sweetness every few bites. I knew right away that these were going to be an Easter staple from then on out. 

German Chocolate Cake

This week my dad turned the big 5-0! In honor of this monumental celebration, I baked one of his favorite cakes: German Chocolate. German chocolate cake is a chocolate layer cake that is filled with a gooey coconut-pecan frosting. Yummy!

Beet Brownies (Daring Bakers' Challenge)

Whew! It has been a crazy month. My school work finally caught up with me and instead of spending my time experimenting with recipes in the kitchen, I have spent my time working with the same techniques over and over. But spring break is finally here and just in time for this month's Daring Bakers' Challenge.

Ruth from Makey-Cakey was our March 2013 Daring Bakers' Challenge host. She encouraged us all to get experimental in the kitchen and sneak some hidden veggies into our baking, with surprising and delicious results!

Raspberry-Lemon Mini Pies

It must be pie week in the Rainy Baker household! Coincidentally, after baking my Meyer Lemon Pie yesterday afternoon, we learned new pie techniques later that evening in class. This left me with a lot of leftover pie dough. Mini pies are all the rage right now, appearing all over foodgawker and the blogasphere. I have never tackled mini pies before and thought this would be an excellent use for my scraps of pie dough. This is a good reason to always save any extra pie dough you may have! I also had leftover raspberries and Meyer Lemons from previous baking experiments and thought these would be a lovely combination for my pies.

Shaker Lemon Pie

It's that time of year again, everyone! Meyer Lemon season. If you have never had a Meyer Lemon, it is a delicious, sweeter relative of the common lemon. Originally native to China, the Meyer Lemon is a cross between a lemon and a mandarin orange. Due to their temperamental nature, the majority of Meyer Lemon crops are only able to be harvested between November and April. I was lucky enough to stumble across a bag of them at Costco last week and I knew that I had to use them to make a Shaker Lemon Pie!

Easy as Pie Dough

A good pie is made up of two parts: a delicious filling and a flaky pie crust. Too often do people spend hours putting together a delicious pie filling and a beautifully decorated crust, only to eat the filling and throw away the rest. When I ask people why they don't make a fresh crust instead of buying a frozen one, most people respond that it is simply too difficult. Making pie dough is, well, easy as pie and the outcome is delicious!

Sweet Potato Rosemary Crackers (Daring Bakers' Challenge)

A lot of the blogs that I am currently following participate in a monthly challenge called the Daring Bakers' Challenge. At the beginning of every month a new host issues a baking challenge -- anything from pretzels to doughnuts to tortelettes -- and we post our completed challenges on the 27th of the same month.

Sarah from All Our Fingers in the Pie was our February 2013 Daring Bakers' host and she challenges us to use our creativity in making our own Crisp Flatbreads and Crackers! :)

First Day of Baking School and Chocolate Chip-Walnut Cookies

My first day of baking school. Back to the basics. The first technique we learned was the creaming method -- mixing air into fat and sugar to assist in the leavening process during baking. Our first homework assignment to utilize this technique was to bake a classic: Chocolate-Walnut Cookies. 

Raspberry Swirl Cupcakes

A sweet for my sweetie!

A couple days late for this Valentine's Day posting but the DH and I just got back from a quick trip to Sin City for a work convention. However, I think it is never too late to make a sweet treat for your sweetie! 

For this Valentine's Day I was set on making something with raspberries in it. My first attempt was chocolate-raspberry petits fours that ended up more like chocolate-raspberry mush once I coated them with poured fondant. Sigh. 

Second attempt, Vanilla-Raspberry Swirl Cupcakes. From this attempt I learned two things: 1) do not buy cupcake liners at the dollar store no matter how cute and, well, cheap they are; and 2) do not try to bake anything in a four-day-trip-to-Vegas exhausted state. Things will not turn out as expected.  

Peanut Butter-Banana Bread with Chocolate Chips and Walnuts

Banana, chocolate, peanut-butter, oh my!

I always seem to be a little over zealous of my ability to eat an entire bunch of bananas. I usually eat two or three bananas and then completely forget about the rest of the bunch. About a week later, I will find the rest of the bananas on the counter, very ripe, very brown and very inedible. Luckily, very ripe bananas combined with a few spices, some sugar and some flour becomes extremely delicious banana bread!

First Posting: Tequila Shot Cookies

My first ever blog post! I have recently made the decision to follow my life-long passion of baking (all 23-years!) and attend baking school here in Seattle. I have always loved experimenting in the kitchen but have always been a little reticent about making a career out of it. Well I have taken the leap and start school at the end of February -- so excited! Since my friends and family can only listen to me discuss the benefits of using room-temperature ingredients in cakes or the differences between fresh-made versus store bought lemon curd, I have decided to share my experiments, my results and my experiences through baking school here instead. Hopefully, if you have a life-long baking passion (or obsession, like me!) you will find my experiments helpful or at least interesting. And now for something a little sweeter...

One tequila cookie, two tequila cookies, three tequila cookies, floor!

My husband and I were lucky enough last week to escape the weather here in Seattle (28 degrees...ekk!)  and take a quick trip to Todos Santos, Mexico to celebrate our one year anniversary. Yay! About 40 minutes out of Cabo San Lucas -- unless you get lost, have no map and can't read the Mexican road signs -- Todos Santos is a beautiful, little artist town on the Pacific coast that is host to the infamous "Hotel California." Besides enjoying the beaches -- four days of 80 degree weather! -- we loved exploring all the restaurants in town. Tacos, burritos, enchiladas, oh my! Most of all, we loved sampling all the different Mexican tequilas! We loved it so much that by the end of the trip we had purchased three different bottles to bring home with us. Little did we know you are only allowed legally to bring 1-liter per person through U.S. customs... Luckily, the customs agent was in a good mood, a rare occasion, and allowed us to keep all our boozy loot!