Easter Coconut Macaroon Nests

I saw this recipe in Martha Stewart Living, and it was so simple and cute that I knew I had to make them. My aunt, uncle, and cousins are visiting me in Pittsburgh this weekend for Easter, so I made this for dessert tonight after dinner. These are literally FOUR ingredients:

• 14 oz. sweetened coconut flakes
• 1/2 tsp. coarse salt
• 4 egg whites
• Chocolate eggs

Just spray a mini muffin tin with cooking spray and preheat the oven to 300^. Whisk the egg whites and salt with a fork for a few minutes, then mix in the coconut, coating completely. Lightly press the mixture into the bottoms and sides of the cups (about 2 tbsp. in each). Cook for 28-30 minutes until the tops are golden brown. Let cool for about 10 minutes before gently removing from tin with a mini spatula (mine slid right out). After cooling, just add your favorite candy into these adorable nests!

Happy Easter everyone!

  

Samoa Girl Scout Bundt Cake

I don’t want to brag, but I was a Girl Scout of America for a whopping one year. To be fair, I was a Brownie before this for a few years. My mom was our troop leader, and she used this brutal chart to keep track of attendance and behavior. You would get one sticker next to your name to show that you attended the meeting, and one additional sticker at the end if you showed good behavior during the meeting. Now, I feel like my mom was really lenient with the behavior stickers, except for me, because I guess she had to make an example of HER ONLY DAUGHTER and show she wasn’t playing favorites–I don’t make the rules, but these were the hard and fast politics of Girl Scouts in the 1990s. I’m going to share something I thought I would surely take to the grave: On a few occasions, I would sneak down to the basement before meetings and add a good behavior sticker to my name if I didn’t receive one during the previous meeting for being too talkative and maybe trying to lead a coup against my mom. There was always such a rush when I did this: “Would my mom notice something was off with the sticker chart?” “Would she catch me in the act?” Unsurprisingly, my mom never said anything because, in hindsight, IT WAS A STICKER, and I was apparently a sociopath.

Anyway, selling Girl Scout cookies was always a big deal, and I mainly relied on family and a few of my stepdad’s coworkers to earn me that coveted success patch. There was always that one girl whose parents had crazy connections and sold like 1,000 boxes–I mean, whatever I’m over it. This was during my absurdly picky phase, and the only cookies I ate were the Trefoils AKA the plain, boring shortbread cookies. I remember my older brother always loved the Thin Mints.

I feel like everything is just TOO MUCH with GS cookies today. There are candles, coffee creamers, alcohol, etc etc. with the flavors of the cookies, and now you can order online, which totally takes away from the whole experience. So, for the record I picked this recipe because it’s really called “Brown Sugar Coconut Bundt Cake with Chocolate Ganache.” However, it does in fact look and taste like like a Samoa Cookie.

This cake has the potential to be better than mine was. I made this with my best friend, Bianca, and we knew something was off right away. Apparently, my boyfriend, who prefers to do all of his grocery shopping at the local Mexican grocery store like a normal person, bought corn flour instead of normal white flour. So MY version of the cake has a strong aftertaste of tortilla. The chocolate ganache and coconut are amazing, and the cake still tastes good, but it would be much better if I had the right flour and it didn’t taste like a corn tamale after.

http://brooklynhomemaker.com/2015/03/19/brown-sugar-coconut-bundt-cake-with-dark-chocolate-ganache-bundtbakers/comment-page-1/#comment-4418

Monkey-Bread Danish

But first, a quick history of the Danish….Although it took me until the time I studied in DENMARK to learn about the DANISH, I feel its rich and savory history is something the average pastry-lover should be aware of. Danishes are known as wienerbrod in Europe, which translates to “Viennese Bread.” During a bakers’ strike in the 1800s in Denmark (which I probably don’t need to tell you—common knowledge amiright??), the Danes were forced to hire Austrian bakers who brought with the wienerbrod–ta-da! And was thus taken in by the Danes as their own. Now literally the single most fantastic thing about Copenhagen was the pastries, so making these just felt right to me.

I love this American spin on the typical Danish. The actual pastry I made from puff pastry sheets cut cut up into small squares, coated in melted better and cinnamon sugar–this is the monkey bread part of the recipe, and by itself was delicious. Even better was the cheese pastry filling and cinnamon streusel topping. These were absolutely delicious, and one of those great recipes where you probably have the majority of the ingredients in your pantry already.

SIDENOTE: Although I am begrudgingly doing Weight Watchers, I feel that making “healthy” or “low fat” desserts is just against the natural order of the world. I would rather eat no dessert, than a no sugar dessert. Dessert should be a treat to be enjoyed sparingly, and pastries are worth the calories.

FURTHER SIDENOTE: If you are doing WW, I calculated these bad boys to be 9 points each. Worth every point.

http://www.purewow.com/entry_detail/national/13454/A-sweet-take-on-monkey-bread.htm?utm_medium=email&utm_source=national&utm_campaign=Sunday_Best_2015_03_01&utm_content=Food_editorial

Meyer Lemon Pound Cake with Vanilla Glaze

 

Okay, so this post is technically cheating because I (gasp!) made a box mix for this week’s creation, but it was so yummy I just wanted to share! I got the Williams and Sonoma Meyer Lemon Pound Cake Mix with their Vanilla Baker’s Glaze (which is basically just Confectioner’s sugar and vanilla powder, but it comes in a cute container.). I learned something new because I didn’t know what a Meyer Lemon was. According to Wikipedia, it’s a cross between a lemon and an orange/tangerine and is native to China. Martha Stewart made it really popular in cooking and baking in the 90s. I also found this insane article by someone at the LA Times with a serious Meyer Lemon fetish (20 MILLION WAYS TO USE A MEYER LEMON!!!!):

http://www.latimes.com/style/la-fo-meyerlemons16jan16-story.html#page=1

Apparently Meyer Lemons are in season in the winter, so get them while they’re freshest! Also, in case you were wondering what the puzzle pieces were about, I like to spend my free time like any self-respecting grad student…doing Thomas Kincaide Puzzles (this is one was Sleeping Beauty, duh). -____-

Apple Cider Doughnut Holes

I don’t know when the world became obsessed with Fall, but I’d like to go on the record as saying this has always been my favorite season (kind of like the hipster of all seasons). My boyfriend is the best (Hi Dave!) and took me to Seven Springs for the weekend for Autumn Fest. The leaves were all the perfect blend of colors and we had a view of the mountain from our room. They had a lot of local people selling homemade food and crafts, and I was able to get a lot of the ingredients for my doughnuts made locally, including apple butter and amazing wildflower honey. We also stopped at a Farmer’s Market on the way home to get the apple cider. SUCH A MORALLY SUPERIOR DECISION even though I will buy everything at Aldi’s or Giant Eagle 9/10 times…I can pretend to be a better person for today…

You can’t go wrong with anything covered in cinnamon sugar, but these doughnut holes were seriously amazing! And they were baked and not fried, which totally made all of the other calories moot! I usually don’t have the patience to separate the wet and dry ingredients, but I did today and definitely think it helped everything blend together better. The recipe is below (I pinned it on Pinterest two years ago…I now believe anything is possible), and I highly encourage everyone to make this because they are heavenly. Also no pumpkin–in case you were already sick of that for the season like most people!

http://www.feastie.com/blog/baked-apple-cider-donut-holes

Taste of Bethesda

This post is a little late, but last weekend I was reunited with two of my best friends from high school, Megan (Mayhan) and Maggie! Maggie recently moved to Bethesda for an architecture job, and I am so jealous because the area is beautiful with so many restaurants everywhere–such a cute town. Megan and I happened to be visiting at the best time ever because we got to experience the Taste of Bethesda food festival! All of the local restaurants had tents where we could sample their food using our precious tickets we purchased. Megan was very stressed in making sure that she had enough tickets left to buy a soda (spoiler: she did). Anywho, here are some of the delicious foods I sampled!

Indian food is one of those things my former picky-eater self has been unwilling to try–I’m terrified of anything spicy, so I figured I should steer clear of these foods–so not true! I had a samosa, a fried vegetable pastry. This one had (I believe) spiced potatoes, onions, lentils, and some other things I’m not sure about. It reminded me of a vegetable egg roll, and I liked it a lot more than I though I would. I also tried a Tandoori chicken taco, which was a liiiiitle bit on the spicy side, but it was still pretty good. I had no idea what Tandoori was, so after a quick Google search I learned it’s a style of marinade using yogurt and spices.

And what tasting would be complete without dessert? These are a pumpkin space and a salted caramel cupcake from the famous Georgetown cupcakes (white girl autumn dream come true). I also sampled some macaroons and a few bites of my friends’ glazed doughnuts. I had such a great weekend with my SHfriends and happy I got to try some new foods in the process!

Salted Caramel Pumpkin Cake

No, those are not pumpkins I bought just for this picture. I literally keep decorative pumpkins in my apartment Sep-Nov.

My friend Kristen sent me this recipe, knowing anything Salted Caramel would immediately make me go into manic autumn-loving convulsions. The cake was way more difficult than I thought it would be to make, and I had to make a trip to the Strip District to go to the spice store on a Saturday, essentially making me feel like an 83-year-old woman baking for her cats while all of the hooligans were at some football game hooting and hollering and drinking their beer cans.

So basically the cake is a pumpkin spice cake with a layer of salted caramel in the middle, and a salted caramel glaze on top. I conveniently had a pumpkin-shaped cake pan on store, like your average white girl. The pan was definitely a little too small, but I was DETERMINED TO MAKE THE PUMPKIN CAKE FIT IN THE PERFECT PUMPKIN PAN. The glaze on top could be smoother, but it smells absolutely delicious, and I can’t wait to try it tomorrow.

Anywho, the link to the website where the recipe is can be found below. Thanks Kristen 🙂

http://www.a-kitchen-addiction.com/?s=salted+caramel+pumpkin+cake