Tangerine Tarragon Panna Cotta with Raspberry Sauce

Citrus is my favorite.  I cannot get enough of everything right now what with the blood oranges, meyer lemons, fun orange hybrids, and all of the rest.  I had a packet of gelatin leftover from the marshmallow experiment, so I decided to try my hand at a panna cotta with the beautiful tangerines I had.

Panna cotta means cooked cream.  Sorry, literalists, I did not cook my cream.  This being my first time with the dessert, I went to Bon Appetit for guidance and adapted a blood orange panna cotta.  The gelatin is bloomed in the tangerine juice, dissolved over low heat, cooled, and then the cream and some greek yogurt is added.  Oops.  Still tasted amazing!

So how did tarragon get into the mix?  To be honest, I was looking at the leaves attached to some of the tangerines and thought they looked like tarragon leaves.  No real burst of genius, just my weird brain being weird.  But can I just say, it was an amazing combination!  I love putting unexpected things in dessert and this was no exception.

To add a burst of color, I made a quick raspberry sauce to top the panna cotta.  More tangerine juice was combined with fresh raspberries, a little sugar, and more tarragon sprigs.  I strained the sauce to keep out the seeds and match the silky texture of the panna cotta.

For as impressive the final product is, there is very little active time in this recipe.  Just refrigerate for about 6 hours before serving and use a warm water bath (and a maybe a knife) to help ease the panna cotta out of the personal sized bowls.  Enjoy!

Funfetti Cheesecake Bites - (Secretly) Two Years Old!

Two years ago, I was at the end of the first year of grad school while also ending a long term relationship.  I had so much nervous energy without an outlet and knew I needed to throw myself into projects.  I joined a kickball league and a bocce team.  I started spending every weekend night on my girlfriends' couch to stay busy and not sit at home overanalyzing everything.  And most pertinent to this particular post, I started to write this blog.

For the first few months, I wrote in secret.  I was confident in my passion for food and could talk about it for hours, but I hadn't written anything other than design reports and immunology exams since high school.  I didn't feel proficient enough to add to the conversation, neither as an amateur cook nor a photographer.  I wanted to find myself and my style of cooking before I shared anything.

It was just me and my dinky point and shoot camera, terrible rental half-galley kitchen with no dishwasher, and low popcorn ceilings that let in absolutely no natural light.  I would write everything down in this little green notebook while I let every utensil, bowl, plate, and pan I owned soak in the sink.  The pictures were horrible and I had no idea what I was doing, but god I loved it!  Eventually, I saved up enough money to buy a "big girl camera" and decided to take myself public.  I am so happy that I did.  It was so fun to pour myself into this project, to really research food and try new things.  I love having a creative outlet and sharing my food and couldn't imagine a better way to de-stress at the end of the day!

So in celebration, yet another Toasty cheesecake!  I decided to go full-on birthday and rock the funfetti.  I couldn't use the box mix (on principle) so I turned to Christina Tosi of Momofuku Milk Bar for tips on how to recreate the flavor.  The secret to box cake fake out is cake flour, imitation vanilla extract (still not happy about it, but it does the trick!), and a whole bunch of rainbow sprinkles.  I used Tosi's recipe for funfetti cake crumbs, buzzed them up in the food processor, and approximated a funfetti version of the graham cracker crust!  I will definitely be using this trick for future cheesecake adaptations, it was so easy and a great way to impart more flavor!  A little bit of sour cream, a heaping half cup of sprinkles, and a healthy dose of imitation vanilla brought the birthday flavor to the cheesecake base.  When cooled, I topped the baby cheesecakes with a few more cake crumbs for a fun and festive finish!

One move, three broken bones, and two years later I think I'm finally getting the hang of this!  Thanks to my friends, family, and readers for supporting me in this ridiculous endeavor.  (And of course for eating my leftovers so I don't get fat... Most appreciated!)

Mocha Baby Cheesecakes

For the first time in a long time, I feel excited to be in the kitchen.  It was something I regarded with dread because I knew I would need an aspirin and 2 bags of peas by the time I was done.  But you know what, screw it.  Instead of focusing on what I can't do, I need to just do.  I need to create things.  I need to have projects.  I need to make messes!

I decided to step back into the kitchen full force by creating one of my signature baby cheesecakes.  This was an idea born from my coworkers during a fat kid discussion, probably one of my favorite things to talk about.  I brought in some pumpkin baby cheesecake leftover from Little Toasty's birthday that went over pretty well and was getting requests to bring in more.  So, I thought I would play to my audience and ask what they wanted in a baby cheesecake.  What we brainstormed was an indulgent coffee and chocolate fantasy that needed to become reality!

I feel pretty confident with what works and doesn't work in a cheesecake at this point, so I thought I would just wing it.  Instead of normal graham crackers, I used some chocolate teddy grahams and toned down the sugar in my normal crust to accommodate for the slightly sweeter product.  I overloaded my french press with fresh ground coffee beans to create a super concentrated coffee base to add to the cheesecake batter.  Brown sugar instead of regular sugar echoed the richness of the coffee and unsweetened cocoa powder.  I used only one egg to create a denser final product.  I made a whipped cream with a dash of the concentrated coffee and then finished with a shaving of chocolate.

Rich and decadent, these little cheesecakes are sure to please any coffee lover.  Hope I did my fellow fat kids proud!  (And yes, I wrote this with my ankle sandwiched between two bags of frozen peas!)

Pretzel and Salted Caramel Brownies - March Secret Recipe Club

March Secret Recipe Club Post!  I'm so excited to share these salty sweet brownie with you, but first a quick update.  I'm mostly independent with a bit of cast thrown in here and there when I've really over done it.  I am SO HAPPY to be back on my bike, but the rain slash snow has thrown in a bit of complication.  Lost a fight with a curb last week when unlocking the bike, but I think I need one more boot day and I'm back to fighting shape.  Most importantly, I have been able to wear my rainbow of flats again!  Now back to the food...

Just last week, I was sitting at my desk and proclaimed aloud: "I really want something with chocolate and caramel... and pretzel!"  Which naturally led into a conversation about how yogurt covered pretzels are terribly inferior to chocolate covered pretzels.  I mean who would pick chobani over chocolate?  I'm not really a chocolate girl (I know, gah I'm the worst) and I always pick out the pretzels in chex mix but the combo is heavenly for me.  Add salted caramel in the mix?  Perfection.

So when I was digging through the many many recipes over on Colleen's blog Secrets from The Cookie Princess, her pretzel brownies and her salted caramel pretzel bark sounded so great that I thought I would combine them!  Colleen was the first person to ever get me for Secret Recipe Club, which premiered while I was waiting for surgery on my ankle.  It was a lovely post where she put cookie butter into one of my all time faves Nutella Buttermilk Bars.  Not only was it an ingenious swap, but her kind words about my blog and my food put a smile on my face during one of the hardest days of my life.  And to the ladies who were able to shuffle my post around the few days before for the September SRC, thank you again for accommodating this cripple.

Back to the brownies!  I used my new favorite toy, the brownie bite pan.  Those pretzels that look like a checker board fit perfectly into the molds so that you get a salty crunch in every bite.  I really loved Colleen's technique of using semi-sweet chocolate chips instead of cocoa powder or bakers chocolate, will definitely be keeping this in brownie rotation!  A quick caramel with himalayan pink sea salt (Trader Joe's, 3 bucks, just do it!) was adapted from the recent Smitten Kitchen salted caramel brownie.  I sprayed the pan with baking pam, added enough batter to fill the molds halfway, topped with a generous chunk of caramel, and finished with a pretzel on top to keep it crispy.  I'm a texture girl, I needed the crunch!

The resulting brownies are fudgy, chewy from the caramel, and salty-sweet with the crunch of pretzel.  All in all, one of my favorite desserts I have ever made.  Sorry, Nigella, your bacon brownies have been beat!  Thanks, Colleen, for the inspiration!

And for a little more inspiration, here are the rest of the B group recipes!  Happy SRC Monday!

Strawberry Nutella Semifreddo

As a native Baltimoron, you think I would be used to ridiculously humid almost triple digit temperature mid-Atlantic summer days.  Nope, not so much.  Even though I love summer weather there is always that week where you can't even move it is so sticky hot.  All you need is a snowball and a beach chair.  Because I cannot get my beloved tastee tops or trek to Bethany yet, I decided I would make myself a frozen treat!

Semifreddo is an Italian frozen dessert that means "half cold."  Basically, you make a mousse and then freeze it!  No extra equipment is required, just a hand mixer for the whipped cream and a double boiler to cook the eggs.  Plus, it really makes an impression when it is flipped out of its mold.  I decided to stick with the Italian theme and went to my go to: NUTELLA.  I love dipping strawberries in nutella, so I decided to make a fast strawberry sauce to incorporate into one of the bases.

I sloppily layered the strawberry and nutella layers, but if you want even layers I would recommend freezing after each addition.  After about 4 hours of freezing, you'll be able to unturn the mold and present your beautiful semifreddo.  Decorate with some of the leftover strawberry sauce and nutella, maybe some fresh strawberries or toasted hazelnuts as well.  An easy ice cream fake out without the effort or extra equipment, the perfect project for a muggy summer day!

Roasted Balsamic Strawberry Buttermilk Cake

Recently, I have wanted to put buttermilk in everything but have been limited by availability.  Well fear not, dear readers, because I have finally found a source in my neighborhood!  Expect many more posts including buttermilk in the near future, on the heels of my pinterest-popular Nutella Buttermilk Bars.  Today, I'm using the buttermilk in a too-easy-it's-crazy buttermilk cake from Gourmet.

Instead of fresh berries, I used my roasted balsamic strawberries.  Buttermilk is notoriously tangy so I thought that it would pair well with the tangy-sweet roasted berries.  Light and fluffy cake with a little crunch from extra sugar sprinkled on top, it is the perfect pick-me-up bite at the end of the day.

So, what are your favorite ways to use buttermilk?

Strawberry Cupcakes with Goat Cheese Frosting and Balsamic Syrup

For some unexplainable reason I've had the combo of fresh strawberries, balsamic vinegar, and goat cheese stuck in my head for the past few weeks.  I see the bounty of (on sale!) strawberries at the grocery store and I just want to make a "Sarah salad": spinach leaves with goat cheese and a balsamic vinaigrette with fruit thrown in for good measure.  And balsamic macerated strawberries over tangy goat cheese.  I think it's just a beautiful combination that everyone needs to experiment with, including myself.  And my latest experiment?  Strawberry cupcakes with goat cheese frosting and a balsamic syrup to drizzle over the top.

Still here?  Okay good, I thought I might scare some of you away.  I am a big believer in mixing savory with sweet for desserts.  It adds an unexpected twist and makes me feel like I'm on Chopped or Iron Chef.  I'll admit, as a resident of a city who loves cupcakes I rarely make my own.  I've got Georgetown Cupcake (original store patron, I used to get free cupcakes and champagne on Thursdays from the boutique next store!), newly added Sprinkles, Hello Cupcake, a food truck devoted to cupcakes, my favorite Baked and Wired, and so many more!  But I couldn't get this idea out of my head, cupcake shops be damned!  I needed to make it!

And you know what?  Worth it.  I should really listen to myself more often!  In the spirit of DC cupcakes, I added lemon zest to a Sprinkles recipe.  The egg white heavy batter ends up giving you an impossibly light yet moist cupcake that I don't think I've ever really noticed at the store (bad food kid!).  I topped with my goat cheese frosting and a strawberry balsamic syrup.  The syrup is much easier to manage if you let it simmer instead of bubbling at the beginning of cooking; boiling balsamic is like culinary napalm to the nostrils but a slow simmer controls the release of the smell and protects your stove from sticky splatter.

The binding factor in all of the parts?  Food processor buzzed up strawberry puree!  Some in the cake, some in the frosting for color and flavor, and to temper the acidity in the balsamic syrup.  The finished product is a gorgeous cupcake that would rival any of the cupcake bakeries, even in my town!

Strawberry Meringue Cookies

I'm starting to get fancy!  In name only, I promise, these cookies were a snap to make!  Meringue is made from stiffly whipped egg whites, sugar, cream of tartar to stabilize, and flavorings.  I have never made a meringue before whether pie or otherwise so I tried out a traditional sugar and vanilla extract version on Sunday.  Too sweet, too vanilla-y, and just not right for my taste.  I made a tangy yogurt dip with some macerated strawberries to make the puffy cookies more palatable and ended up dreaming of a more understated strawberry version.  Hence, strawberry meringue cookies were born!

Macerated strawberries are super simple, just hull and slice up some strawberries and add a little sugar.  Not only does this help the berries last longer in the fridge but they create a delicious strawberry syrup.  I reduced the amount of vanilla extract then added the strawberry syrup to the egg whites.  I used a hand mixer with regular beater attachment to whip up the eggs until soft peaks were formed, adding the sugar a tablespoon at a time during the process.

As the egg whites were almost ready, I added a pinch of salt.  Adding the salt any earlier will make beating the eggs more difficult.  Once the egg are shiny and have stiff peaks (you should be able to hold the bowl over your head), spoon carefully into a piping bag or large zip top bag.  Squeeze out as much air as you can for even piping of silver dollar sized cookies.  Baking low and slow ensures an impossibly light and airy texture with the taste of strawberries.  Delicious!

Orange Saffron Olive Oil Cake with Whipped Marscapone

Yesterday was one of those days.  My body still hasn't caught up from midterms and my schedule is certainly not letting me forget it.  After a stressful TA session until 10, I needed to do something fun just for me.  Since I made my baking resolution, I'm starting to love watching my doughs rise to success.  So I thought I would try out the ridiculous cheap saffron I found at Trader Joe's.  I love a punch of something savory and unexpected in desserts, so I thought it would be perfect in something like an olive oil cake.  Having never made one but salivating every time I see one on food network, so I wanted to find a recipe that I didn't need to mess with too much.  Hence, this little gem of a recipe from Melissa d'Arabian, who I totally rooted for on Next Food Network Star.

Olive oil cake is a rich cake that ends up with great crispy edge.  Orange brightens the cake while saffron echos the savory, earthy flavor of the olive oil.  In order to incorporate the saffron flavor, I steeped the orange juice with a good pinch of saffron by nuking it for 30 seconds in the microwave and letting it stand for 5 minutes.  I topped the cooled cake with a whipped marscapone topping flavored with orange zest and juice, delicious!

Blueberry Sour Cream Cake with Cream Cheese Ribbon

I know blueberries aren't technically in season yet, but seeing them on sale right as I walked into the grocery store was too tempting.  So, I decided to take a Barefoot Contessa classic (Lemon Yogurt Cake) and tweak it to display the blueberries.  Previously, I had played with this recipe (Blood Orange Yogurt Cake) so I had more confidence to change it up with sour cream instead of vegetable oil and added a ribbon of cream cheese throughout.

I love the combination of lemon, blueberry, and cream cheese.  All three are tangy in their own unique way and pair so perfectly together.  Because the cake is sweet, I chose to keep the cream cheese a little more muted to accent the flavors in the cake.  Instead of Ina's soak or glaze, I made a quick blueberry sauce with lemon juice to pour over the cake slices.  The lemon makes it springy and the blueberries make me think of summer!

Plus the cake ended up looking like it was smiling, always a good sign . . .

Orange Carrot Bread

My apartment smells amazing right now.  I've just pulled my orange carrot quick bread from the oven, scented with orange zest, cinammon, and vanilla.  It was born out of a bag of baby carrots, a sale on oranges during a trip to get garam masala, and a desire to experiment with baking.  This is the first time that I have taken a baking recipe and completely changed it based on what I know about baking and not reading a million recipes on the internet.  BIG step, guys!  It is a play on my family's Zucchini Bread, replacing the oil with yogurt, the zucchini with carrot, and some of the cinnamon with orange zest.  I topped it with an orange and sour cream drizzle to echo the flavors of the bread.

Special thanks goes to my upstairs neighbors, who loaned me a cup of flour.  Yet another example of how I am not a baker, I forgot to check that I had everything before I started!  Luckily, I got my flour and found someone to give my extra bread.  That's what I call a keep Sarah skinny win!

This would be a perfect weekend breakfast, either with the sour cream drizzle or a smear of cream cheese!

Baby Nutella Cheesecakes

In my family, cheesecake means celebration.  Thanksgiving, birthdays, crab feasts, you name it and it was on the table with a can of whipped cream.  Even though I've never really been a chocolate person, I've never been able to resist my Dad's chocolate cheesecake.  When one of my close friends turned 21, I took his recipe and shrunk it to mini-muffin size to bring to the birthday party.  They were a hit!  I made plain ones for my 21st, pumpkin spice for my housewarming last year, and won a bake off at my old job with another batch of the classic chocolate.  Today, I'm going to a jewelry party with a bunch of my girlfriends and I thought I would try something new.  Enter baby Nutella cheesecakes!

I finally joined pinterest a couple of weeks ago and all of the delicious looking Nutella recipes inspired me to experiment with my baby cheesecake technique.  I basically replaced the semi-sweet chocolate chips in my Dad's recipe for the same amount of Nutella.  

The other surprise is the tang and texture that comes from the addition of mayonaise to the cream cheese base, one that you wouldn't think would work but now I can't imagine it any other way.  A dollop of vanilla flavored sour cream replaces the traditional whipped cream (and I think makes them look even more adorable).  A drizzle of Nutella finishes the baby cheesecakes, utilizing a plastic zip top bag snipped in the corner as a makeshift pastry bag.

Baby Nutella Cheesecakes

Crust:

1 package (about 8 full squares) of graham crackers

1/4 cup sugar

1/2 a stick of butter, melted

1/2 teaspoon salt

Preheat the oven to 350 F.  Using the food processor, grind up the graham crackers into crumbs.  Add the sugar and salt, pulse 3 times, then add the melted butter.  Pulse a few more times and transfer to a small bowl, being sure to scrape any butter trapped under the blade.

Add 1 teaspoon of graham cracker crumbs to each well of the 24-mini muffin pan.

From trial and error, I figured out the best way to make a perfect crust for the baby cheesecakes.  Using a second pan, I press down on the first pan to create a compact and even crust.  Bonus points if some of the crumbs come up the sides.  Repeat with the second pan.

Bake for 5 minutes at 350 F.  Let cool while you prepare the cheesecake.

Cheesecake:

1 8oz package of cream cheese

1/2 cup of mayonaise (Hellman's preferred, if only for nostalgia's sake)

1/2 cup of sugar

2 eggs

1/2 tsp of vanilla extract

6 oz of Nutella

Let the cream cheese, mayonaise, eggs, and nutella come to room temperature.  For best results, let cream cheese sit overnight and the mayo and eggs brought out 1 hour before you want to bake, just to come to room temperature.  Combine the cream cheese and mayonaise with a hand mixer.  Add the sugar then add the eggs one at a time.  Add the vanilla extract and 6 oz of nutella.

Pour the cheesecake mixture into a large zip top bag in order to even distribute the batter.

Cut a small hole in the corner of the bag.  Fill the wells almost to the top.  Lightly tap the pans to get rid of any bubbles.

Bake for 12 minutes at 350 F.  The tops will be puffed.  Let cool while you prepare the sour cream topper.

Sour Cream Topper:

1 cup of sour cream

2 tablespoons sugar

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

pinch of salt

Combine all ingredients and spoon into a sandwich sized zip top bag

Cut a small hole in the bag and fill the divets in the cheesecakes created from cooling.  Bake for 2 more minutes, let come to room temperature, then refrigerate for 2 hours.  To remove, use a butter knife slightly warmed with hot water to most cleanly retrieve your baby cheesecakes

Serve chilled to your party guests.  I added a little drizzle of nutella to the top to echo the flavor in the cheesecake (okay, because it was cute).  These are adorable, festive, and delicious!

Valentine's Day Blood Orange Yogurt Cake

If you haven't already noticed, I'm not really a baker.  I like the freedom of adding as I go along and not having to worry about the chemistry of the dish, just the flavor.  But tonight, I was inspired by the cheap bag of blood oranges in the front of my Trader Joe's.  I waited a half hour in a line wrapped around the store (ohhh foggy bottom) and thought I deserved a treat!  Plus, this cake is a twinge pink and Valentine's Day perfect!

My love affair with blood oranges began when i was 9 in Belgium.  I was visiting my aunt and I pulled what I thought was an orange out of her fruit basket.  To my surprise, there wasn't the typical sunny interior but a deep red color with a taste that was a mixture of orange and berry.  Years later, I remember the first bites and always look for them in the winter when they're in season.

I tried to stay a little healthy with this dish, which is why I chose to adapt Ina Garten's Lemon Yogurt Cake.  Greek yogurt acts as the fat along with vegetable oil.  Blood orange and lemon zest scent the whole cake with a blood orange juice simple syrup soaked into the cake.  A simple glaze punched up with blood orange sorbet (told you I was obsessed) and/or berries macerated in lemon and pomegranate juice are a great accompaniment.

Lemon Basil Tart

Today was a gorgeous sunny (summer?) day, so I went out for a bike ride and gander at the farmers markets in my area. Strawberries, rhubarb, spring greens, and asparagus were all tempting but I had one mission: finally start growing my own herbs! After a quick trip to target for all of my backyard gardening needs here is the result:

Julep Mint, Genovese Basil, and Thyme

I settled on thyme, mint, and genovese basil. Genovese basil has a softer leaf than normal basil and is preferred for pesto. I thought that the softer leaf would be best for combining into fruity summer desserts like lemon tart, one of my favorite unexpected twists.

When it comes to baking I trust Ina Garten and Alton Brown implicitly, so I took an Ina crust and tweaked an Alton Brown lemon curd recipe.

With the curd, I ended up doubling the recipe because there never seems to be enough in typical curd recipes for an 11" tart. On this end, it was impossible to melt two sticks of butter into the egg, sugar, and lemon after the double broiler. I ended up pouring the thickened mixture into a sauce pan on EXTREMELY LOW HEAT and whisked in the butter that way.  It was quite an indulgence, watching two sticks of butter melt into the curd.  I think I avoided any curdled eggs, but to be safe I could have strained the mixture through a sieve.

I finely chopped three large leaves of my lovely new basil plant and added at the end off the heat to avoid any wilted bitter herb taste.  The result is a light basil flavor with pretty green flecks throughout the tart.

Lemon Basil Tart

Gorgeous day produced a gorgeous and delicious tart!  Now to deal with ten leftover egg whites . . .