These chocolate dipped coconut macaroons are from The Great Minnesota Cookie Book by Rick Nelson and Lee Svitak Dean. I often bake from books written by other bakers I admire, but sometimes inspiration comes, not from the professionals, but from our neighbors. The recipes they grew up baking, from their family traditions, have been time tested and in this case, have won first prize in the Star Tribune Holiday Cookie Contest.
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Pumpkin season is here, which is the only reason I can send this short summer off with a smile. It is nature’s way of creating balance. We give up the sunny days, and get bright orange pumpkins to cheer us up. Much like zucchini, there is an endless bounty to be made from these winter gourds. Here is a spiced pumpkin cake that is absolutely delicious and needs no adornments to be appreciated. But, decorate it like a pumpkin and it becomes a centerpiece for any fall holiday table. The recipe makes two pumpkin cakes, so you can have one for home and bring one to a party.
Every year at this time, I try to find some new ghoulish and creepy way to terrify my sweet young boys (in a motherly-love kind of way). Nothing like a coffin shaped cake, with a mummy laying on top to make them squeamish and thrilled to go at it with a fork. The vanilla cake, raspberry filling and chocolate ganache on a bed of oreo crumbs, may be spine tingling enough for kids on Halloween, but tasty enough for the parents as well. Read More
Halloween is one of my favorite holidays. I love the theatre and creativity it inspires in people. Once I had kids it took on a whole new level of special. The boys love to get in costume, and it is a great excuse for me to dress up too. They’ve gone from being little toddler dinosaurs, to anything scary and repulsive as pre-teens. I hate to miss any of it, because pretty soon they will be “too old” to dress up. So it is bittersweet this year that I will be on the road for Halloween. Off I go to Portland tonight to bake pizzas for our Artisan Pizza and Flatbread in Five Minutes a Day
Book Tour. I hope I will see you as I travel from Portland, to Seattle and on to San Francisco to attend Foodbuzz 2011. To find out where we will be this coming week, please visit the events page.
This is a revisit of a spider cake I did a couple of years ago. I recreated it for a post on Cooking Channel and thought I would share it again with you. Here is a link to the original post, have a very happy Halloween.
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