tear-a-me-sue

I feel like this post needs some sort of prologue before it jumps into the actual food part, just because it's been so long since I've personally written about food. More like, more than a year long. Ouch. Of all things I wanted to keep consistent in my life, keeping up with a blog was one of the biggest. This blog. My namesake. Not really, but part of my name is in part of the blog name. Kind of works.

I'll try to keep it updated! I'm becoming more and more encouraged and inspired by the blogs I read daily, as well as the filtered sunlight and warming days reminding me of how sweet it is to be able to share a passion with others.

Without further ado, let me tell you about tiramisu. It's one of my favorite Italian desserts, juuuust behind gelato (But tiramisu gelato brings it up. Way up), and above cannolis. Chocolate, mascarpone, and coffee is a combination that relies on its blending of heavy flavor with the lightness of cream and soaked lady fingers. Amazing, is what it is. And just like it lends its flavor to gelato, it also lends its ingredients and people-pleasing qualities to cupcakes.

Like this:

 

How can you resist those wonderful layers of coffee-marsala-soaked butter cake sitting on an unbelievably fluffy bed of mascarpone? Let me tell you, it's impossible. Not the most delicate of desserts, so even if your lady fingers are as dainty as they come (as in, you wear a size 4 ring which I did not even know existed with my size 7 fingers. And I thought they were dainty), you will need to daintily hold a fork and daintily bring it to your mouth. Daintily chewing and making lady like noises of culinary contentment are optional. 

I am not ashamed to admit I eat these with my hands like a product of an uncultured society where learned table manners do not extend past Do Not Get a Majority of Your Food on You or Do Not Burp Without a Proper Response (i.e. giggling). Good thing I eat these alone. But this is such a fun party dessert that it's warranted to be a cupcake eaten in a fine group of people (you might not want me there) where everyone converses over the fantastic quality of the cupcake and how posh it makes you all feel. 

When in fact it just makes you feel really, really glad you decided to eat it. With lady fingers or not. 

Cinnamon Glazed Nuts

 

I volunteered for a an international children's festival today, and aside from an overcast day and crazy wind swirling from an incoming tornado (getting its storms right now--eep!), it was nice! Though, I didn't get the chance to walk and check out the other booths--well, I did, but only to find the Philippines booth I was scheduled to volunteer for. My classmate and I got food and I had to seriously refrain myself from buying jerk chicken or kettle corn (which I had promised to buy myself before I left, but by the time I did the booth was gone which made me very, very sad) or about five other international foods. The blocked off street just smelled so good. We ended up getting pad thai, which I will never complain about. I love pad thai. 

My classmate also bought cinnamon glazed pecans, and when I tried some I was immediately hooked . . . but I was not about to spend $4 on a small paper wrapped package of nuts. Naturally, when I came home today I looked up a recipe for cinnamon glazed almonds and found one. Then made wayyyyy more than I would have gotten had I paid the $4. This is quadruple the amount for the same price. 

I love sweetened nuts, whether they're baked or roasted. The bad thing is that they're addicting. I'm eating some as I type this post. You bite into the softness of the baked pecans and almonds through the crunchiness of the glaze, and throughout there's a subtle cinnamon-y sweetness. They're especially good served warm. 

 

Chocolate Stout Cake

The week of my twenty-first birthday I excitedly celebrated the legality of my American right to drink by buying my first alcoholic beverage--a case of beer. To put in a cake. Yes, not to drink, but to use.
(I also like being carded. I have a tendency of looking a lot younger than I am (I blame my short stature), a fact that I will appreciate when I'm 30 and still carded.)

I think I had come across this recipe a couple weeks before turning the big two-one and knew that I was going to make it the minute I could buy beer. The recipe calls for stout beer, and luckily Guinness was suggested otherwise I would have been standing in the chill box of the grocery store shivering & staring at cases of beer and would have eventually asked somebody for identification of this so-called 'stout beer.' With the excess beer this has also made me partial to stout beer (not that I've tried much else).

Since then I've made this cake about three times (it's not exactly your everyday chocolate cake . . . the denseness is only for the serious of serious chocoholics) and has declared it be my absolute favorite chocolate cake in the world. 

I wasn't kidding about this being for avid chocolate fans. Three (tall! The cakes rose to the top of each pan!) layers of moist cake separated by an abundant layer of chocolate ganache. This cake is really best after it's been chilled (I chill mine overnight and usually don't eat it until later the next day), because the layers have had time to sit and compact to allow for a density to form. It's not too sweet, and the beer lends for a subtle hint of roasted coffee-like taste. Unless you know the taste of stout beer, the beer is completely overlooked. This beer is definitely not physically stout; I measured it and it assembled to be an impressive 10 inches. Thinly slice the cake or you'll end up sharing more than you'd like.

Heart Tarts

Happy Six-Days-After-Valentine's-Day! 

I actually did make these on Valentine's Day (or maybe the day after) (or maybe two days after. Hm) but they did not make it up here on time. Well, it's better late than never! Don't worry, no Valentine of mine missed out on desserts of love.

I love the crust; the cream cheese and butter mix well to make a tender, buttery, almost shortbread like crust. You can substitute any nuts you like for the walnuts, or you can use a different filling altogether. This filling reminds me of pecan pie without well, pecans. 

What makes this such a cute recipe is that it suggests baking these in heart-shaped muffins, and I have them on hand! It's always such a delight to find usable baking tools in my kitchen; it saves the time and money of going out and buying them. I actually found the heart tins before I found the recipe, so it was especially great when I came across this recipe. I haven't used them for anything else but this recipe. It's like they're meant to be.

This is a sweet gift for your own sweet one. You know how the saying goes: the best way to a person's heart is through his/her stomach. That's always the best way to my heart.

Ultra-Thin Chocolate Chunk Cookies

It's Cookie Week. Well, Cookie Week should occur 52 times a year (every week for those who abhor math just as much as I do), but I've been on a cookie kick this particular week and have already baked two kinds of cookies with two more hitting the counter with the undeniable waft of buttery, chocolaty, green tea-y (yes, I made green tea cookies; green tea sablés, in fact) aromatic perfection.

Saturday actually started Cookie Week. All it took was a visit from about 5 of my cousins with demands of being fed and well, my golden heart and hostess/cousinly duty can't turn them away.

I love baking for others. I love the expectation of having something sweet ready for people when they come to my house and getting enjoyment from fulfilling their expectations. I think that's also why I love my huge family so much--they're so amazingly wonderful and would eat anything I bake and claim it as tasty, even if it wasn't my best batch (but, um, that's not to say I feed them anything bad).