Baking Botanical Birthday Bash

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One of my friends had a dream of a Cake Party for her birthday, so me and several others made the trek to a beautiful botanical garden where we had a picnic under a blue sky with a slight breeze to exchange cake slices from different cakes we all made. I busted out a Baking Yesteryear recipe (pictured) that seemed to be a hit.

The Cake was in fact not a lie.

Cakes that were made: Orange Creamsicle Cupcakes, Lemon Pound Cake, Tres Leches, Lemon Herb, Dubai Chocolate, Oreo Chocolate, Midnight MallowMalt, and Apple Honey.

After the cake was exchanged and gifts were opened we cleaned up and hiked through all of the gardens. I’m planning on making another trip there sometime…really meander around when the weather is a little cooler but before the flowers all die.

I’ve recently purchased a film camera and I am eager to go back once I’ve cleaned the camera and actually made sure that it works. It has a macro setting that I think would be amazing for the flower.

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Gotham Knight Snickerdoodle Cookies

I was playing the Gotham Knights video game and was checking Jason Todd’s email and Dick Grayson sent him a recipe for Snickerdoodle Cookies. It looked like a legit recipe so I decided to try it out!

These were the softest and fluffiest snickerdoodles I’ve ever put in my face and they are going to become a regular staple in this house.

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Mix together shortening, sugar, and eggs.

Sift flour, cream of tartar, baking soda, salt and stir in.

Roll into balls the size of small walnuts. Roll into mixture of sugar and cinnamon.

Place 2 inches apart on ungreased cooking heet.

Bake at 400 degrees for 8-10 minutes.

Snickerdoodles

1 cup soft shortening (or unsalted butter)

1.5 cups of sugar

2 eggs

2 3/4 cup flour

2 tsp cream of tartar

The Finished Products

1 tsp baking soda

1.5 tsp Salt

2 TBS Sugar

2 TBS cinnamon

I used unsalted (and dairy free!) butter as the base and ended up getting 30 servings from the batch and they were 122 calories per cookie.

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Ham and Spinach Puffs with Tomato, Feta and White Bean Salad, A Recipe Review

I got lazy with cooking for a bit.

I think it happens to everyone. You have to eat everyday. FOREVER.

I love food and cooking but every once in awhile the mundanity of life gets to me.

I went to my parents house for my Dad’s birthday/Easter lunch and came home with half a Honey Baked Ham (as my parents are wont to do) and after eating a couple days of some Ham and Eggs, I decided to make it fancy. Fun Fact: Pepperidge Farms ready made puff pastry is dairy free!

Recipe is from HERE. This was very delicious and it reheated well for leftovers. The only change I would make is probably not use honey ham, I think a normal smoked ham taste would have even been better.

The Tomato, Feta, and White Bean Salad is perfect. No changes except for the Violife Dairy-Free Feta which I think is pretty close tasting to actual feta but have been told I’m wrong but it’s good that I think that, haha. Recipe is HERE.

Basil Herb Bread, A Recipe Review

I have a fancy Zojirushi bread machine that I’ve been wanting to use more. It came with a cookbook of recipes specifically for the machine and for some reason I rarely used it but I dusted it off and have been making lots of bread!

Mostly I’ve been making a whole wheat bread (I somehow had two bags of whole wheat flour, I needed to use that up) but I’ve switched over to the French Bread section and one of the recipes was for this herb bread with basil. I actually doubled the basil in the recipe and it is still a VERY subtle flavor in the bread. When I make this one again I’m going to add a bit more basil and throw some garlic in it too.

The biggest changes I’ve had to make to many of these Zujiroshi recipes is just the dairy. I can’t consume milk or milk products and that can make baking difficult at times but there are some very good butter replacements (shout out to Earth Balance Butter) and I’ve also found a wonderful coconut milk powder for the dry milk needs for these breads that does not make the bread taste like coconut at all. So thumbs up!