my love's birthday dinner

First, we made a culinary stop-off in India for some chicken tikka masala, spiced pulao (rice), potato and pea vadi (vegetable patties), cucumber raita, and naan bread.
My love does not enjoy Indian desserts as I do, so we made a quick detour to France for a crepe cake - 20 crepes layered with vanilla pastry cream and fresh raspberry sauce.

pre-Halloween midnight snack

Organic (Dr. Oetker) chocolate cupcakes with orange-oil spiked frosting and Halloween non-pareils. Tested the idea last night and left a midnight (or 2-3 am) snack out for my guy.

Williams Sonoma pumpkin bread pan!

I love when things come out like they are in the picture! I used the recipe on the back of the label, and it was fantastic.

return of the raw apple cake :: reaparición de la tarta de manzanas "crudas"

One of my favorite easy cakes... Check out the recipe here.
***
Una de mis tartas favoritas y fáciles. Haz clic aquí para ver la receta en inglés.

Stuffed Cupcakes for my Valentine

This year, I made some cupcakes inspired by these, except I made them more Valentine's Day friendly by adding CHOCOLATE!

I stuffed devil's food cupcakes with strawberries, and frosted them with vanilla buttercream.









































A new outlook on chocolate-covered strawberries. =)

raw apple cake

My grandma made this cake for my birthday last month, and it' s been on my mind ever since. I absolutely love apple season and am always looking for new ways to use up apples. This is perfect. I made a few *tweaks* to the recipe, but other than that, it's the original.

Raw Apple Cake
1 handful sliced almonds **
2 cups grated apple
1 cup grated coconut
2/3 cup white sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon **
1 egg
1/3 cup oil
1 cup flour
1 teaspoon baking soda

1. Sprinkle half of the sliced almonds in the bottom of the pie dish (put the other half aside)
2. Mix remaining ingredients together until well-blended
3. Pour batter into dish
4. Sprinkle top of batter with other half of sliced almonds
5. Bake at 350 for 45 mins

The result? A deliciously moist cake with the perfect level of sweetness.

"welcome, baby" cake

French vanilla cake with pink raspberry buttercream and fresh raspberries!