My people call it Flan

Scones and biscuits

Scones and biscuits are among my favorite bready items. A scone with a giant cup of coffee is such a special treat. I have yet to make them as wonderful (and dry) as the ones at Pannikin, but I will keep trying. These are dried cherry scones. The biscuits are rosemary and sage biscuits, best served with something hot and savory.

Quickbreads

Thank goodness for quickbreads. They are delish and quick! No need for proofing, resting, and all that other time consuming stuff. Just lightly mix and pop 'em in the oven.

Banana bread and pumpkin chocolate swirl muffins

Freedom Cake

Last year I saw a photo of a flag cake that I could not get out of my head. It appealed to me as a baker and a graphic designer (and an American darnit!). I patiently waited until Independence Day to give it a try. The results were pretty good. Visually, I could not have been more pleased. But if I make it again, I will be sure to make a cake I really like, with frosting that compliments it perfectly. The white cake I made was pretty good, thanks to the addition of almond extract. But the confectioner's sugar vanilla frosting was wayyyyy too sweet for anyone but a child.

Notes for the future: I might want to make red velvet for the red layers, and try and figure out what other flavor would go well with that.
I wanted to make buttercream frosting but could not find cream of tartar in time. I now have it in the pantry, I must make a batch to see if it would work. Another idea is cream cheese frosting.
Freezing the cake layers; I made the cake 10 days in advance, wrapped them individually in plastic, then tin foil and froze them. I moved them from freezer to refrigerator the night before assembly. Night of assembly, I set them on the counter for a little bit, made frosting, cut all the layers and assembled and frosted the cake. I kept the finished cake in the refrigerator overnight. The cake itself was very moist, and quite dense.
One more thing - I need to be sure that the cake pan fits into the cooler or vehicle that I will use to get the cake to its final destination. In this case, the goal was to bring it along on our annual camping trip to Bishop, a 4.5 hour drive away and 20 degrees warmer. Near snaffu when I attempted to shove the cake box into one of the coolers to find it was about one-half of an inch too long. Thankfully, I had a soft cooler I was able to strong-arm the cake into. Just lucky we had enough room in the car for the additional cooler!

¡Sangria Blanca!

¡Oralé! I finally got the White Sangria recipe I have been desiring for years! I made it last weekend and brought it to a friend's house to enjoy with pulled pork tacos. I'm not sure I even drank any with the tacos, as I was already two hefty glasses in by the time we ate, and I needed to switch to a non-alcoholic beverage at that point. Anyway - it was perfect for a light and cool summer drink, to enjoy during the day and not feel like too much of a boozer.

It was easy to make, throw the booze and chopped fruit into a jar, and bring along fresh mint, and seltzer to top off on a per glass basis. I will post the recipe later this summer, as I believe a couple of personalized tweaks will make it even better. More research (of course) is necessary. Oh, and I will need to take a stab at that Pulled Pork recipe too. So many dishes to make this summer! And off to a great start.

Brioche

2014 Summer Cocktail

The other day I threw together a beverage with ingredients I happened to have on hand, and combining them sounded befitting. And it was. Delicious, refreshing and light! I will need to work tirelessly in the coming weeks, so that I can get the portions right, but the cliff notes version is this:
gin, ginger beer, decent squeeze of lemon, bubbly water, dash of angostora bitters, all over ice

Freakin' yum. While diligently perfecting and recording the quantities, I must also brainstorm an appropriate name for this magnificent summer beverage.

p.s. Forgive me if a) this cocktail already exists and I completely stole it, thinking I brilliantly came up with it on my own. Because if I did that, it was undoubtedly so good, I likely guzzled 5 of them, promptly forgetting where/what/when plus my own name. Or b) I already wrote about just such a cocktail, and forgot

Más pan

Sage Focaccia

Pizza

Baking breads

I made three kinds of bread last week. Challah, rustic country bread, and rosemary sea salt loaf. If I keep this up, I will have super buff triceps by Labor Day!

Newport Beach, near the Wedge