BAKED Sunday Morning: Mom's Olive Oil Orange Bundt

The oranges that we have been getting lately have been so juicy and delicious, so I was happy to see that we had a recipe from BAKED Explorations that I could use them in. This is a delightfully aromatic, light, and moist cake and one that is so easy to make. Gently folding the egg whites into the batter is key to the light consistency. I think this recipe might just become one of my go-to cake recipes.

Since John doesn't like frosting or glazes on his cakes and I do, I decided to divide the batter into three small bundt pans and one larger one to save for later. In Matt's notes he writes that the cake only needs a light dusting of confectioners' sugar, but he also includes a recipe for an orange glaze. So, I left one of the small bundts plain, dusted one with confectioners' sugar, and made a light orange glaze for the third. This gave us an opportunity to taste all three versions and I have to say that although all of them were delicious, our favorite was the one with the orange glaze. Yes, even John liked the one with the glaze! I think largely because the orange flavor in the plain one is so subtle. When I make this again I will probably add a few drops of orange oil to intensify the orange flavor.

Visit BAKED Sunday Mornings to see what the rest of the group thought about this cake. 


Next BAKED Sunday Morning: Grasshopper Bars - August 14

French Friday with Dorie: Citrus-Berry Terrine

Whew! What a day, but at least I am just getting this done before midnight. For this week's French Friday with Dorie recipe we were to make a citrus berry terrine using unflavored gelatin and I thought, how hard could this be, right? I have been making Jell-o desserts since I was a kid, so surely this would be a snap. Boy, was I ever wrong!

I bought a pineapple last weekend that had ripened and I wanted to use it in place of the grapefruit in the recipe, so I not only substituted with pineapple chunks, but also used one cup of pineapple juice for the gelatin mixture. I made my terrine and it looked so beautiful, but it never set! I was upset disappointed, but John ate a bowl of it this morning and thought it tasted really good the way it was, but I wanted to know what went wrong and why it hadn't set. I thought perhaps the fruit I had washed possibly hadn't drained enough of the water from the slices and could be the culprit, but then I remembered about the Ps and Qs and after reading them for this recipe I found out that it was the pineapple that was the problem! Lesson Learned: Read the Ps and Qs [I forget to do this!] before making your FFwDorie recipe because you can benefit from the experience and tips of fellow members. While I have used chunks of fresh pineapple in small quantities in Jell-o before, I had never used canned pineapple juice. Apparently, there is an enzyme in pineapple or possibly in canned pineapple that keeps the gelatin from setting. Thank you for sharing that knowledge, Lizzy!

I decided that I wanted to try making the terrine again, so after work today I stopped by the store and picked up some more unflavored gelatin and orange juice. I used the same fruit I had used in the first terrine, minus the pineapple: blackberries, blueberries, strawberries, bite-size pieces of orange segments, and kiwi slices. After about 6 hours in the refrigerator I finally had mostly a success. The kiwi slices looked pretty, but they were a little heavy and didn't jell because I had put them around the sides and top of the terrine.

And you know what the funny thing is? After all that work and time, all of us agreed that the unjelled terrine tasted the best because of the pineapple. The second terrine tasted good, but it was not as sweet and just tasted so much different from the first one. The pineapple juice and chunks made the first terrine tangy sweet and really had the overall best flavor. But, the best part of this experiment for me was that I finally discovered a way to get my big kids to eat their fruit! 

Head on over to French Fridays with Dorie to see the terrines that other group members made this week. 

Sundae Sunday: Spumoni Anyone?

In celebration of July being National Ice Cream Month, Di from Di's Kitchen Notebook is hosting an old-fashioned ice cream social, Sundae Sunday. The last time I hosted an ice cream social I was in college. My roommates and I decided to have some of our friends over for banana splits only we didn't have enough dishes for everyone so we covered our kitchen table top with saran wrap and put the bananas, ice cream, nuts, syrups, and other toppings in the middle of the table and everyone created their banana splits and ate them right from the table. It was actually so much fun and the clean up was a breeze!

For this ice cream social I decided to make spumoni mostly because heavy cream is so expensive here, but also because it is a little lighter than regular ice cream, so you can eat it almost guilt-free. Spumoni is an Italian ice cream and I always look forward to eating some at the end of our spaghetti meals at The Old Spaghetti Factory. Spumoni is the perfect after dinner dessert. It is smooth and creamy and cleanses your palate.

I made three different flavors from one base: almond, chocolate, and pistachio. You can find the recipe at epicurious.com. I followed the recipe exactly except I added some dark chocolate and mint chips that I had on hand to the chocolate. Each flavor was delicious. Did I have a favorite? Hmm...I think I might need to eat some more to decide. For the rest of my family the first choice was pistachio, followed closely by chocolate, and then the almond. Now that I have an ice cream maker, there is simply no excuse not to have ice cream socials all the time and my family heartily agrees.

Thank you, Di, for hosting Sundae Sunday! She has a great blog, so please stop by and visit. She is also going to have a round up of everyone's Sundae Sunday posts in the next few days, so be sure to check it out. I can't wait to see what the other guests made and collect more ice cream recipes.

French Friday with Dorie: Coconut-Lemongrass Braised Pork

I have been looking forward to making this recipe ever since it came up on the schedule and I was relieved that the temperatures went from the low 100s earlier last week to the low 80s over the weekend. There was no way I was going to turn the oven on if the heat wave had continued!

This is one of those dishes that I really enjoy making because it is basically a one-pot dish. Okay, maybe two because you cook the vegetables separately. When I browned the chunks of pork in olive oil and added the spices, lemon strips, and lemongrass, the aroma was wonderful.

I think I kept it on the stove longer than I needed to just because I loved looking at the yellow-orange color and smelling the fragrance in the kitchen. Turmeric and curry powder gave it that beautiful color. The addition of coconut milk combined with the spices and lemongrass is what makes the sauce in this stew like no other. For my vegetables I used potatoes, carrots, celery root, onions, and peas which I added at the last possible minutes so they wouldn't get mushy.

This was THE best stew. Since it had potatoes, I decided not to serve this over rice or noodles. All it needed was a loaf of crusty bread to make it a complete meal. This was such a big hit that I know I will be making it again and again.

Unfortunately, the French Fridays with Dorie server is down, so you can't view the links from those in the group who made this week's recipe, but I encourage you to check them out when the server is back up on Sunday.

You can find this recipe on pp. 274-275 in Dorie Greenspan's Around My French Table.

Oh, and in case you didn't see Dorie's announcement, she has posted her glossary to her book, Around My French Table, on her Web site. It is a wonderful resource for not just this book, so make sure you check it out!

Can They Ever Dance!

Sasha and Twitch perform the best Hip-Hop routine EVAH!

BAKED Sunday Morning: Peaches and Dream Pie

I love peaches and usually make peach cobbler over any other peach dessert, so this week's recipe gave me an opportunity to make a peach pie. I knew as soon as I read the list of ingredients that this wasn't going to be just a regular peach pie.

And since this wasn't any 'ole peach pie, I decided it called for a different kind of peach. I found these 'Saturn' or 'White Donut' peaches at the store and learned that they are a sweet peach with a little taste of almond. I only had four of these peaches, so I also used one of the yellow peaches which I thought would give the pie more color.

The crust was easy enough to make and surprisingly didn't require pre-baking. The filling was very different with two eggs, sour cream, some honey, dark brown sugar, salt, and two tablespoons of flour. The topping was a normal crumb topping, but I decided to add some toasted pecans and some cinnamon because those just seem to go hand-in-hand with peaches in my book.

The result? Three thumbs up at our house. Although it looked a little eggy when I cut the first slice, the filling was creamy and moist, but not overly sweet.  The topping gave it just the right amount of crunch and sweetness. My son ate half the pie in probably 10 minutes. He thought it was that good.

Visit BAKED Sunday Mornings to see what the rest of the group thought about this pie. You can also find the recipe there, so you can try it for yourself.

Next BAKED Sunday Morning: July 31 - Mom's Olive Oil Orange Bundt