Lavish cinnamon brunch cake

Now that the fear of emptying the pantry with crumb cake recipes is long gone I can gladly present you this cake: delicious, full of cinnamon flavor – and I do love cinnamon, you know that – and super tender, to the point of being difficult to slice. The streusel is tasty, crunchy and smells so good you’ll be glad that there’s a very generous layer of it.

Bake the cake today and thank me

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Chicken pad thai with lime and peanuts

I pulled an Oliver Stone the other day while making lunch: much like he completely ruined "Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps" in the end I almost did the same to my pad thai by adding chilli to it – it was hot as hell and sort of difficult to eat. But we managed. So I’m keeping the chilli out of the recipe below, for your own safety. ;)

I just hope that using udon instead of rice noodles is not

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Honey and dark chocolate truffles - a great gift

Cookies are my favorite things to give as gifts – they’re super tasty, easy to package and everyone likes them. But facing a lack of butter – I know, what kind of baker forgets to buy butter? – I turned to truffles. And it ended up being a smart choice – my friend was delighted to receive a box of these and told me they were absolutely delicious. And to make things even better I got to use a

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Spiced Apple Cider Caramels

Hope everyone had a good week.

For my part, I spent the week tinkering in the kitchen with batches of caramel and I have a wonderful new recipe to share with everyone. A caramel that tastes of freshly mulled apple cider. Oh yes, it's good.

Those of you going "Ppbbth, Caramels! I waited all week! Me want prizes!" I'll post the winner from last weeks giveaway of the big McCormick Halloween Goodie box too. Just zip down to the bottom of today's post.

For us candy makers, how about we get started on these apple cider caramels.

Now, just to be clear, "apple cider" around here is basically apple juice. I know it was wrong of us North Americans to adopt the term cider for a non-alcholic beverage, but we did it anyway. We just wanted to confuse everyone and I apologize. So just to be completely clear, we won't be using the fermented drink made from apples, no. Today we're working with a jug of fresh apple cider, which is essentially unfiltered apple juice. If you cannot get the fresh, cold pressed unfiltered stuff, go ahead and substitute the best quality/tasting apple juice you can find.

These caramels are a variation of my popular fleur de sel caramels, with a reduction of mulled apple cider. If you haven't tried them, you'll find that they're rich, smooth and far superior to those waxy squares you find in the supermarket.

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Nutella swirl pound cake

So apparently many of you have been making croûtons using a frying pan and I was the last one to jump on the bandwagon... OK, no problem. :) Now tell me: what about a marble cake made with Nutella? Have you guys tried it? Because I’d never seen it before buying this book and now I want to bake it every weekend. :D



Nutella swirl pound cake
slightly adapted from Cake Keeper Cakes: 100 Simple

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Meatballs – Jamie’s and mine

I’ve been making these meatballs for so long I cannot remember when the first time was – they’re one of my husband’s favorites (and he doesn’t have that many favorite dishes). They’re delicious with both pasta and rice, but lately Joao’s been eating them in sandwich form – very Joey Tribbiani. :)

Adapted from one of Jamie’s recipes, found on this blog.

Meatballs – Jamie’s and mine
adapted

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Spice muffins

It’s wonderful to see my little sister become an adult but being around her certainly reminds me that time really flies. I don’t have a problem with that – at least not yet – and the age gap between us sometimes delivers funny moments: when we watched “The Social Network” together last year I had to explain to her what Napster was. :D

Another sign I’m getting old: there are days that the

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Pumpkin Old Fashioned Donuts

It's Sunday and I'm back with pumpkin treats! Talk about deja vu, right?

When treats are good though, one can excuse repetitive use of ingredients. Besides, I've got pumpkin on the brain. Halloween is fast approaching and they're popping up everywhere--along with those 'fun sized' candy bars that will be my undoing.

So lets just get right down to how today's post came about. One of the added perks of being a blogger is you get lots of very friendly folks emailing you, offering to send you things to try. I tend pass on about 99% of these just because I'm a busy lady and I've got enough stuff to eat and store in my home without people sending me more and trying to finagle a blog post--and because no one has offered to send me an Audi TT (Audi, what gives?).

I do however like the opportunity to give things away to my readers. So today, thanks to the lovely folks at McCormick, I have a box of goodies for one lucky reader in the U.S. of A packed with goodies like McCormick vanilla extract & food colorings, and a few other little treats from Le Creuset, Mui, Wilton and Palderno World Cuisine to assist with your baking fun.

For my part, I'm whipping up a Halloween themed post. I had several ideas, all utilizing the standard company of Halloween players. Some very cute, some scary and some complicated. In the end though, I settled on tasty. Tasty and pumpkin-y.

Besides, my last pumpkin recipe didn't use exactly one can of pumpkin and that made those with the small cans of pumpkin, like commenter Katie, go all sad-emoticon.

That makes me :( too.

I also had leftover pumpkin, so today we're using it and we're making a batch of festive fall donuts.

: ) @

See what I did there?

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Butter rum cake for those who like to bake with booze

I had my first caipirinha on my honeymoon: influenced by my husband, I enjoyed the drink with him in a super hot day, by the sea. What a delicious day that was. After that, I became a caipirinha fan (but you know that already). :D I’ll admit it: I like a little bit of alcohol every now and then.

Therefore, once I started baking with rum there was no turning back – for that reason, one of the

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Feta, ricotta and lemon pasta with olive breadcrumbs

This recipe combines two types of cheese, black and green olives, lemon, a touch of thyme + a delicious topping in only one pasta dish, which turned out fantastic; I guess I should rename it and call it “Steven Soderbergh pasta” – after all, who besides him can gather so many stars in one single movie? I can only think of the late Altman.



Feta, ricotta and lemon pasta with olive breadcrumbs

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Pumpkin Spice Cake with Whipped Cream Cheese Frosting

Hello, Cake.

I have a wonderful pumpkin cake to share today!


About this time last year I had gone on a pumpkin cake baking spree. It never resulted in a blog post as I was disappointed with nearly every recipe that I tried. Some cakes were good, but not so good that I felt they warranted an endorsement. I had some rather particular ideas of what a pumpkin cake should be like: moist, tender and with just enough spice to provide those fall warm and fuzzy feelings.

Unfortunately though, I wasn't feeling so warm and fuzzy after baking and tasting all those cakes. You see, the more recipes I tried, the worse the cakes seemed to get. Some were heavy with spices, which I thought I would enjoy, but often found they gave the cakes a harsh edge. Other cakes I found a bit soapy, which I attributed to the citrus or too much cardamom or ginger in the base. One particular horror to emerge from my ovens was a cake that managed to taste of baking soda and metal. In all, it was a disappointing run.

So I gave up and moved onto other baking projects to populate the blog. I figured I would pick up the quest again when my desire to eat pumpkin cake returned. Well, along with the damp fall Seattle weather, that desire has returned and this time I found the cake. When I tasted it, I knew no tweaking on my part would improve upon it. It was just right. Delightfully moist and echoing the flavors of a pumpkin pie.

It was the perfect base for my whipped cream cheese frosting. I guarantee a generous slice will provide those warm and fuzzy feelings.

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Caramel crumb bars and recipes perfect for sharing

Every time I want to bake something for my coworkers I look for recipes that yield a lot – I want them to eat and have seconds if they feel like it (the sweet tooth in me finds that kind of thing important). :D
Therefore cakes, bars and brownies baked in a 13x9in pan are perfect – like these delicious caramel bars that so far have been the quickest baked goods to disappear at the office (

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Coconut, lime and macadamia cake - a surprising cake

I bought a bag of limes especially to make this cake – the idea of mixing them with coconut and macadamias sounded really good. Like many Saturdays, I removed the butter from the fridge very early in the morning so it would become soft for my baking section. Then, reading the recipe and placing all the ingredients on the sink I stopped, read it again and then again – there’s no butter in the

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Vanilla bean and candied kumquat financiers + a movie everyone should watch

I watched "Trust" last Saturday and liked it a lot: well directed with great performances, which to me is imperative when such a delicate subject is being portrayed. I took my sister with me because I thought it would be important for her to watch that movie and I think that parents, teenagers and even young adults should watch it, too.

One thing about the movie that surprised me was the

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