Lemon Almond Quick Bread

I don't bake much. That seems to require a little more precision than normal cooking, where you mix flavors together. With baking everything has to be just right or things come out too dense or too dry and crumbly.

But after my second successful attempt at making almond milk I was left with a quantity of byproduct -- almond meal, which I dried in the oven and stored in a plastic container.

So I decided to venture into the baking world. I looked up various recipes using almond meal and came across one with so few ingredients I didn't think I could screw it up.  It was for a quick bread. I like the word quick. It makes me think "less effort."

I actually wanted a little more zing in my bread, so I added some lemon zest. Also, I didn't have enough almond meal so I subbed white flour for the remaining I needed. When I mixed everything together it was really thick and pasty, so I decided to add some of my own almond milk to make it more dough-like. For the yogurt I used my very own concoction of honey yogurt I made earlier in the week. I also wanted some sweetness, so I put in some honey.

Success! This dessert bread came out moist and flavorful. I think I'll make it every time I make almond milk.

To make the almond meal yourself, just follow this recipe for almond milk and save the almond grounds. Spread the grounds on a cookie sheet and bake in a 275-degree oven for 45 minutes, or until the grounds are dried out.

Almond meal after straining out the almond milk

Place the dried meal in a food processor and process till it's as fine as you can get it, sort of like corn meal.

Otherwise, just buy almond meal or flour!

Lemon Almond Quick Bread

Ingredients:
2 cups almond meal or flour
1.5 cups white flour
1/4 tsp. salt
1 tsp. baking soda
3 eggs
1 cup greek yogurt
1/4 cup melted butter
zest of one lemon
2/3 cups almond milk
1-2 Tbs. honey

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a bread loaf pan. Combine the dry ingredients in a large mixing bowl. Combine the wet ingredients in a medium bowl then add to the dry ingredients. Pour batter into the bread pan and bake for 40-50 minutes or until a knife comes out clean. Let cool on a drying rack then slice up and serve with butter and jam.

Guest Blogger -- Li'l Sis' Unsweetened Chocolate Chip Cookies

My little sister, Alex, made some delectable chocolate chip cookies for my baby shower last Sunday. I'm going to let her take over from here.

Hey there. This is my first post ever, and I'm honored to make my first step on my big sister's blog.  Now let me talk about cookies. Much like Tasha, I prefer cooking to baking, but chocolate chip cookies has always been an exception. During the winter,  I would make cookies nearly on a weekly basis with my best friend who lived down the street. As a result, I have the Tollhouse chocolate chip cookie recipe memorized. The point is, I love chocolate chip cookies. Have I made that clear?

Last summer,  I found a cafe in my neighborhood in San Francisco. It served the best chocolate cookies I've ever tasted. I couldn't identify what particular element in them made them so remarkable. Then, after my third cookie (I only got one cookie per visit, I do have some self control), I figured out that the bakers used unsweetened baking chocolate. The sweet cookie dough contrasted with the sharpness of unsweetened cocoa makes for a pretty profound cookie experience. Since then, I've only made chocolate chip cookies à la SF cafe.  Here's what I did for Tasha's shower.

Makes about 36 cookies

Ingredients:
2 1/4 c. all purpose white flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
3/4 c white sugar
3/4 brown sugar
2 sticks of butter (substitute coconut oil if you feel adventurous.  Tastes yummy)
2 eggs
1tsp. vanilla
2 c chopped up unsweetened baking chocolate
Pinch of cinnamon (optional)

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. In one bowl, mix the flour, baking soda and salt. In another bowl, mix the softened butter with the brown sugar, eggs, white sugar, and vanilla in that order (to avoid a clumpy mess). Slowly add in the flour/salt mixture until you have a soft, gooey, golden mixture. Finally, mix in your chocolate. I chop up the chocolate into small pieces. You'll inevitably end up with some chocolate powder, which is totally awesome. When you mix the in chocolate, you'll see that your cookies look speckled rather than just "chipped."

With a spoon, scoop out your cookie dough and place on lightly greased cookie sheets.  Let bake for 10 minutes.

Eat more than you expected.

Healthy Pumpkin Muffins

I'm not much of a baker, but when I saw a recipe on my BabyCenter.com app for pumpkin muffins, I thought I should try it out. Pumpkin is high in vitamin A and I tweaked the recipe to make it even a little bit healthier.

My muffins turned out moist and flavorful. I decided against the orange cream cheese frosting, but it was mainly that I lacked the ingredients and I was too lazy to go to the store.

Pumpkin muffins

Makes about 14 muffins

Ingredients:
1 TBS butter (I might try cooking oil next time)
1 egg
3/4 cup + 2 TBS canned pumpkin
3/4 cup milk
2/3 cup brown sugar
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 cup white flour
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp baking power
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp freshly grated nutmeg
1/4 tsp ground ginger
1/2 cup golden raisins (optional)

Directions:
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. In a large bowl, mix together the butter, egg, milk, sugar and pumpkin. In another bowl, mix together the dry ingredients. Slowly mix the dry ingredients in with the wet till everything is combined. Add the raisins if you desire.

Spray a muffin tin with Pam. Pour batter into the pan, almost to the top of each.

Bake about 20 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Let cool on a rack.

Muffiny goodness!

Pink Champagne Cake -- Again!

Last month I made a cake for a coworker's wedding. Instead of having centerpieces at the reception the couple had friends make cakes for each table. It was a brilliant idea. And it got a lot of my coworkers craving more of my pink champagne cake.

It seems we have a lot of August birthdays around the office, so I decided to make another champagne cake. Instead of using brut style I opted for spumante. It's sweeter and it gave the cake a slightly different flavor.

I also opted for a different kind of icing. I had been making a butter cream cheese frosting, but I decided it was a little heavy so I made a whipped cream/cream cheese frosting. It was fantastic and it used less sugar.

Oh, also I crafted my own cake stand out of a thrift store plate and a porcelain cup.  A glue gun did the trick!

Ingredients:

3 cups all-purpose flour
3 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 sticks of butter, softened
2 cups sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
6 egg whites
four drops red food coloring
2 cups Champagne

For the frosting:
1, 8 oz. block of cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup sugar
one pint of heavy whipping cream
fresh strawberries

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour two cake pans. Line the bottoms with parchment paper.
For the cake, mix together the flour, baking powder and salt in a medium bowl. Set aside. In a large mixing bowl, beat the butter and sugar for several minutes till fluffy. Mix in the vanilla. Add the egg whites one at a time then mix in the food coloring. Incorporate the flour and champagne in alternating batches of three, starting and ending the flour. This way the champagne won't curdle. Pour into the cake pans and bake for 35 minutes or till a knife runs clean when stuck in the cake.
Let cake cool completely before removing from pans.

For the frosting, whip together the sugar and cream cheese. When fully combined, add the whipping cream and beat till you get stiff peaks. Slice up fresh strawberries for garnish.

Hubby Cooks Beeramisu

My husband's favorite dessert is tiramisu. I would win this quiz hands down in a newlyweds game. Ever since he had it in Italy on a school trip in 2001 he's been hooked -- especially if it's in gelato form. He decided to get adventurous and make his own tiramisu using a recipe that called for beer -- not liquor.

It was fantastic.

The recipe he used can be found here.

Is there anything you can't make with beer?

Pink Champagne Cake

By far my most successful cake to date. Modified from a recipe in Booze Cakes, a cookbook Rosey gave us for Christmas. Since I was making cake for two, I made a single layer round cake in a 10-inch pan. I bought a four-pack of inexpensive Californian Champagne, the tiny bottles, so I didn't have to waste a whole bottle. The other bottles I saved for dinner.
The cake turned out really short, but I loved the look of it after I added the frosting. Since my frosting skills are terrible, I called up my sister-in-law and asked her to give me a frosting lesson. Lesson learned!

Ingredients:

Cake:
1.5 cups all-purpose flour
1.5 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoons salt
1 stick of butter, room temp
1 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
3 egg whites
2 drops red food coloring
1 cup Champagne

Frosting:
12 oz. cream cheese (like a brick and a half)
1/2 stick of butter
About a cup of powdered sugar
Fresh strawberries for decoration

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and butter cake pan and place parchment paper in the bottom. In a bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, and salt. Set aside. In a large mixing bowl, beat the sugar and butter till light and fluffy, about four minutes. Add the egg whites one at a time. Mix in the food coloring.

Now add the flour in four parts and the champagne in three, alternating starting and ending with flour. This will prevent the batter from curdling. Pour batter into pan and bake for 35 minutes or until a knife pulls out clean when inserted into the center.

Let cool for about 30 minutes and remove cake from pan. Let cool completely before frosting.

For the frosting, beat the cream cheese and butter till fluffy. Start adding the sugar and taste it once and a while till it's to your liking.

Frost the cake Slice the strawberries and place them around the sides of the cake. Add a pretty strawberry design on top.

Mint Basil Granita

A refreshing, icy dessert. Perfect for a hot day in Mexico.

Ingredients:
1/2 cup fresh mint leaves
1/2 cup fresh basil
juice of 1/2 lime or lemon
3 cups of water, divided
1 cup sugar

Directions:
In a small saucepan, bring the sugar and one cup of water to a boil. Simmer, stirring constantly, for five minutes. Let this simple syrup cool in the fridge. Meanwhile, in a blender combine the mint, basil, lime/lemon and one cup water till well blended. Add another cup of water, blend well, then chill in the fridge. When both the simple syrup and basil/mint combo are cold, combine in a 6-quart Tupperware with a lid. Place in the freezer. Every couple of hours, stir the mixture and scrape the sides until it's a yummy, crystallized dessert. Expect this process to take all day, but it's totally worth it!