Pretty Pictures of a Summer Apricot Tart

The other day, my family went to our awesome local grocery store. My dad likes to bring me with him when he goes because I used to play basketball, and buying produce there requires a lot of the same skills as grabbing a rebound.

"Boxing out"

Just as we were walking through the fruit aisle, a worker came by and unloaded a beautiful, mouth-watering, glowingly fresh batch of apricots on the stand. Chaos ensued.

Considering that several people were shoved out of the way in the name of these apricots, I figured I had better make something extra special out of them!

I didn't take pictures of all the steps that went into making the tart, but it turned out so pretty that I thought I would post some pictures and a link to the recipe I used.

This recipe is for an apricot tart with an almond-flavored custard made with mostly eggs, extracts, and cream. The filling and crust of the tart ended up being pretty sweet, while the apricots added a little sour kick. I followed the recipe pretty much exactly and it turned out beautiful!

Side note: my #1 favorite part about this tart was the crust. The tart slid out of the pan so easily, there was no weakness or sogginess in the bottom, and the crust was delightfully crunchy and even caramel-y.

P.S...I know I haven't posted in forever (shame on me. Life has been crazy lately.) That will (hopefully) be rectified shortly. I'm a few buttons away from finishing a sewing project!

Romantic Raspberry Danish: an Entenmann's Copycat Recipe

It was my parents' anniversary this past week. 20 YEARS!!! That's a really long time!

I wanted to do something nice for them for their anniversary. I decided to make them breakfast, so that they could get up and have a nice meal without having to worry about putting it together themselves (for once!). However, this posed a problem because I actually have to leave for school at 7:00 in the morning, meaning that even if I did find time to make a meal, my parents probably wouldn't be up to eat it!

So I looked for something that I could make ahead and that would still be nice and fresh and tasty in the morning, and that would be special for my parents--that is, though I have several delicious breakfasts in my arsenal, I wanted to surprise them with something new.

Does anyone remember these Entenmann's pastries?

Entenmann's Raspberry Danish

Probably not--but they used to be a breakfast staple in my household when I was little. My dad would pick them up from the grocery store to have as a special treat. Then Entenmann's discontinued them. My family was discussing them wistfully the other day. Lightbulb!

I ended up finding this recipe from Rate. Bake. Create. that looked pretty much exactly like what I was looking for: a pastry dough topped with icing and raspberry jam. I need to give tons of thanks for this recipe because it was the only one I found that had everything I was looking for--it was easy, basic, no cheese impinging upon my raspberry jam, and it was ABSOLUTELY DELICIOUS.

Plus, it was pretty fun to photograph because of how curious this piece of pastry looked.

Look, it's Santa's sleigh!

An edible sundial!

And here it just looks really really yummy.

Here's the recipe and pictures!

DIY Cake Stencil Out of Stuff You Have Sitting around Your House!

Cake stencils are a really intricate, professional-looking way to decorate your confections quickly and simply. This tutorial is going to teach you how to design and make homemade cake stencils out of stuff you have lying around your house! Getting rid of junk AND beautiful dessert? Win-win ;)

What is a cake stencil? 
They're a perforated piece of plastic that you use as a template to paint/sprinkle a design onto your cake. They can get super intricate!

Picture courtesy of Baking Pleasures

I usually put mine on top of the cake and then sprinkle some sort of powder--like sugar or chocolate--over it, leaving a really beautiful design on the cake!

Design in powdered sugar

Design in Cinnamon

Here's how you do it!

Celebration time! Chocolate Hazelnut Torte, here I come!

I took my last final two days ago...I finished my last college app yesterday...it's winter break and I have no more essays to write...

I am now OFFICIALLY a second-semester senior!!!

YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY (and PHEW!!!)

Time to cook and sew to my heart's content!!!

Yesterday I was so intoxicated by my newfound freedom to do whatever I wanted (as opposed to studying and writing essays bleagh) that when Serious Eats emailed me a recipe for a chocolate-chestnut torte, I was like LET'S GO FOR IT!

I actually ended up adapting a hazelnut-chocolate torte recipe instead, because I like hazelnuts better and I didn't have any chestnuts. Unfortunately, I didn't have any eggs either, which I was so excited to get started that I didn't realize until halfway through making the confection, which led to me running down the street in my slippers to borrow eggs from my angelic neighbor. Thank you Edye!!! I also accidentally added double the sugar I was supposed to at the beginning, so I had to make a batch of cookies instead and start the cake over (you can't let butter and sugar go to waste!). Not my smoothest dessert, clearly. Cut me a break. I'm still getting back in the groove ;)

But eventually all the right ingredients ended up in the mixer together. I think the cake came together quite nicely, don't you?

I decorated the top with powdered sugar using a homemade cake stencil. Within a few days I'll post a tutorial about how to make your own reusable cake stencil from stuff you probably have lying around your house! If you're reading this thinking, "Less art, more eating!", a liberal dusting of powdered sugar would, I'm sure, look just as inviting plus have the added advantage of covering in all the bald spots. Or you could just cut to the chase and slather the thing with Nutella ;)

The cake turned out to be pretty good! It was moist and fudgy and tasted like Nutella. Here's the recipe!

Trick or Treat? Well, peanut butter chocolates, to be specific

BOOOO!!!!

It's the day before Halloween, and I am preparing accordingly.

Usually, holidays mean dessert. Halloween is a slight exception; Halloween means candy. Which means, I'm off the hook!

I have never seen a more excited jack-o'-lantern in my life!
picture courtesy of drinks.seriouseats.com

I confess: I am a sucker for Reese's peanut butter cups.

Image courtesy of Wikipedia

But around Halloween, you start seeing a deviation from your traditional round, notched peanut-filled candies. The Reese's marketing team starts doing backflips trying to give you even more reasons to buy candy on Halloween. They start producing things like 

This pumpkin-shaped Reese's! --Or: 

picture courtesy of whatimdoin.wordpress.com

A Reese's with a pumpkin on it! 

My response? 

BRING IT ON!!!!

3 Reasons I Bake Bran Muffins!

Three Reasons Bran Muffins are Healthy

1. Apparently flaxseed is so good for you, that had my muffins existed approximately 600 years ago, it would have been illegal not to eat them!

Haha I'm not even kidding! I found this on like three different sites! And they're not even all flaxseed vendors!

This is like the opposite of banning large drinks in New York...

Apparently, as if by divine inspiration, Frankish emperor Charlemagne predicted the health benefits of flaxseed and required it consumed by all his subjects!. If you don't believe Charlie, WebMD also agrees.

(original) image courtesy of thehistoryprofessor.us

2. They're NOT cookies!

Image courtesy of okmagazine.com

You'll have to decide for yourself if that's a plus or a minus.

3. Bran muffins = sleep. 

Portable bran muffins --> I can eat breakfast in the car or at school instead of at home --> I can wake up later --> MORE SLEEP!

Image courtesy of clipartpal.com

Those reasons sound good enough for me! 

Starbucks Frosted Lemon Cake (without flavedo!)

The other day I was besieged by a raging craving for dense, moist, sugar-gilded lemon cake.

As I saw it, I had two options.

The first was transporting my hungry self to the closest Starbucks (I still can't get over the perks of driving myself!) and passing some money to the person across the table for a pre-cut slice of their own lemon-flavored breakfast cake.

Starbucks' lemon cake

Hm, tempting. I mean, the convenience of the option. Compared to the alternative, which is making it myself...and as a first-semester senior facing the considerable challenge of summarizing my life in an immaculately structured 600-word essay, I barely have time to produce cookies for the nourishment of my poor ailing family, much less indulge every junk food hankering that interrupts my English homework. 

I mean, iced lemon cake is iced lemon cake, right? 

That yellow highlighting means that I don't know what Starbucks is talking about. Therefore that scares me. (Also, I'm sort of concerned that they feel the need to call lemon zest "lemon flavedo" )

Ok, maybe if I bake really fast, making lemon cake won't take that much longer than detouring to Starbucks...

(Besides, we all know that all baked goods are not created equal, right? That's why I have a blog ;) )

Pasta for Days: Eating in Boston's North End

Guess where I went last week???!!!

The State House

I found this by accident outside my hotel...I felt like I was meeting celebrities!!! (Yes, I am an American Revolution nerd.)

(Hint: it’s in the title :D)

Last week my mom and I took a trip to the East Coast to look at colleges, attend a conference, and just generally have a whole lot of fun in Boston!

Picture in transit!

Ice cream and Paul Revere...I was a pretty happy camper ;) 

 …Which necessitates, of course, enjoying some delicious Bostonian food!

Picture courtesy of cleangreenmobile.com

Now if you have ever planned on eating in a foreign location, you probably understand how difficult it is to identify an acceptable restaurant. Before leaving for the East Coast, I spent so much time wading through recommendations, critical synopses, and Google images that I saw red-boxed stars every time I closed my eyes. And yet, several restaurants that my mom and I tried on the trip, accompanied by stellar Yelp reviews, I found pretty unimpressive.


Thankfully,  my mom and I discovered an excellent alternative to browsing Yelp for a good dinner stop...

Taking a stroll around Boston's North End.

The North End is Boston's Italian neighborhood. It's a cozy, old-fashioned area of the city chock-full of little family-owned businesses. Hanover Street, where my mom and I spent most of our time, is so packed with cute little storefronts that you can't even get a good-sized truck through the narrow street. The neighborhood has a charming, happening feel (I mean, it was thronging on a Tuesday night! It was fun just walking around passing people in the street!) .



Most importantly, the North End is a treasure trove of tiny, rustic, absolutely scrumptious Italian restaurants. Supposedly there are over ninety (90...!!!) restaurants within this one easily-navigable-by-foot area. I only actually got around to trying four, but they were all delicious and a really fun experience (...fun ranging in definition from pleasant and romantic to chaotic and decidedly entertaining). But seriously, you could walk down Hanover street and run into half-a-dozen adorable restaurants you want to try tonight. One of my last comments as I was leaving the area was "How did we  miss that restaurant?"...not like there would have been room in my schedule ;) 

So here are my breakdowns of the handful of restaurants I sampled in Boston. Also, go ahead and click on the map below to check out my Google Map with the locations of the restaurants I'm talking about. Enjoy!