Strawberry Cupcakes

In case you haven’t guessed, I am a huge follower of the locavore movement. A locavore is someone who tries to base their diet on food raised or grown within a certain distance of their home. This means eating what is in season. While I have explained the concept to Kayla on many occasions, her twelve year old brain refuses to accept the idea that strawberries should not be eaten year round, for every meal.
In an attempt to stave the strawberry crisis, I purchased some frozen strawberries (shame on me!) and tried to come up with a strawberry dessert for her.
I adapted the Cream Cake recipe from Sky High: Irresistible Three Layer Cakes and added strawberry puree in place of some of the cream it called for. Additionally, I replaced the rest of the cream with nonfat milk and whipped the egg whites to add the needed fluff to the batter. “Fluff” is my own non-culinary term for air.
I made a frosting out of cream cheese, strawberry puree, lemon juice and powdered sugar. The frosting was way too runny, and ended up more like a glaze. Despite the issues with consistency, the frosting tasted just like fresh strawberries and the whole house smelled like summertime.
Overall, they turned out pretty good for an improvisation.

Hazelnuts, hazelnuts, hazelnuts..and chocolate

Have I ever mentioned I love nuts? Cashews, almonds, walnuts, etc. It probably stems from my childhood home which was surrounded by walnut orchards. During the Fall, if we needed a snack while we were out playing, we ate walnuts from the ground.
One nut I have never been a huge fan of; the hazelnut. However, I am determined to bake my way through the Sky High Triple Layer Cake book I just bought on Amazon which features several hazelnut cakes.
The hazelnut cake which caught my eye was the “Chocolate-Hazelnut Gianduja Cake”. Gianduja, as explained in the cookbook, is a “Nutella” type sweet chocolate featuring hazelnut paste.
I was unsure of how powerful the hazelnuts would be in the cake, so I added some hazelnut extract just to be certain the flavors would come through. Boy, was that a mistake! This cake was so rich; I couldn’t even finish one slice. Both David and Kayla loved it because it features chocolate whipped cream frosting that is to die for.
The cake texture was good and the frosting was yummy. I would probably make it again upon special request.
As always, if any of these recipes interest you, just email me and I will gladly provide it. nicolerene @ peoplepc . com.

Sky High: Maybe I've lost my mind...

So David's father's birthday is coming up and it got out that I have been experimenting with cake recipes, so David's stepmother asked me to bake a cake. I hear his favorite flavor is lemon.
Unfortunately, this gave me the perfect excuse to try out every lemon cake recipe I could find. I tried a recipe on epicurious, but the cake turned out really dense. Then I tried a cake recipe from SmittenKitchen.Com and it turned out well, but I was looking for something a little lighter.
I finally got it right on my fourth try. I had ordered the book "Sky High: Irresistable Three Layer Cakes" a few weeks ago when I read the raves about it on several of my favorite food blogs. It arrived yesterday and has some gorgeous pictures of mouthwatering cakes of every possible flavor. And in it there was a recipe for "Triple Lemon Chiffon Cake with Lemon Curd".
I was wonderfully light and fluffy. It was also very easy to frost and was not very crumby at all. I highly recommend it.
I actually modified the recipe to be a two layer cake because I only own 2 9" cake pans. However, with the addition of this book to my collection, that is going to have to change real quick.
I used the remaining batter to make taste-testing cupcakes and sent the entire cake with David to work. He reports that it was gone by 9am the next day. Let me know how it turns out for you.