Shortbread

Buttery, tender, rich, melt in your mouth, that's a shortbread worthy of a gold star.   I have a collection of shortbread recipes given to me and I thought it was time to put them up against one another, to find that gold star.  The three recipes each use different sugars and oven temperature varies.

THE CONTESTANTS

 Irish Shortbread

This is my mom's recipe that she has used for 40 odd years, perhaps more.  She would always press it into a pie plate score it and dock with a fork.  I opted to roll it out and make cutouts from it.  I wanted to see how each recipe would hold up to cutouts.

This is the only recipe that uses an additional flour other than all-purpose flour, that being rice flour.  The rice flour add a tenderness and slight crumbliness to the cookie since the flour is gluten-free.  There is just the right amount so that you do not get the graininess typical of baked good made with all rice flour.

Best Ever Chocolate Cake - Part 2 Icing the Cake

 In the last entry we baked the best ever chocolate cake, now it's time to make it look beautiful. Before you begin make sure your cakes are completely cooled. Have you ever tried to ice a warm cake......did you create the great slide? Icing will melt on warm cakes and you will never want to try again! If you are tight on time just go ahead and remove the cakes from the pans and put them in the freezer for a faster cool down.

Best Ever Moist Chocolate Cake - Part 1 Baking

In three words, TO DIE FOR. That sums it up. The best ever, moistest, chocolatiest (I doubted that that really is a word but I'm still gonna use it) tastiest, I want more chocolate cake you've got it here. None other than Hershey's Chocolate Cake takes the gold. Go save or copy the recipe and come back.

I think I've been using this recipe for the past 15 plus years both at work and at home. Besides being the best chocolate cake it is also the EASIEST and QUICKEST to make. You don't need to worry about having soft butter or pulling out the mixer or your arm to cream the mixture because there is none of that. The mixing method here is simple, two bowls, one dry and one wet, combine the two and pop in the oven.

TOOL TUESDAY - Silicone Spatula

My mother taught me well, always scrap the bowl Joan! That message has been ingrained into my head ever since I was a youngster and what a good one it is. You'd be surprised, you just might get another muffin out of a batch or another cookie if you clean the bowl well.

What better tool than the silicone spatula to do it.

TOOL TUESDAY - The Juice Reamer

Every Tuesday I highlight a useful tool in my kitchen. A useful tool to me is, efficient, easy to use, and easy to clean-up!!

Today the simple but effective tool, the juice reamer, takes the spotlight.

Now you will find plenty of these out on the market, everything from stainless steel to ergonomic handles will try and entice you. These often come with a hefty price tags too, upwards of $30. WAIT, don't fall prey to these clever marketing tags.

Decorated Valentine's Cookies

Happy Valentine's Day to all. Hope you spread some love around!
I decided to make some shortbread cookies and decorate them for Valentine's.

I have probably made a few thousand decorated cookies and I can't wait to share with you my favourite secret on how to decorate them. I can understand if you look at the finished product and think, but I don't have all that time! No more folks! No need to piped the outline of the cookie and then fill that in and then finally decorate. I shall share with you here.

Valentine Wedding Cake

I was searching through my pictures and came across this wedding cake that I had made 2 years ago for a summer wedding. This could be the perfect cake for a Valentine wedding, at least the ladies would love it!

I don't like to use fondant much simply because I find the taste way to sweet. You might be able to see that my bottom layer looks like it has a little muffin top in the middle!!! I ended up putting to much filling in that layer.

TIP for you all when filling cakes, don't fill right to the edge of the cake layer, leave about a 3/8 border. That way when you put the top layer over the filling it will push it slightly to the edge and not over!