Just a quick note to let you know that my blog has a new home: My Madison Bistro. For an index of recipes, simply click on this link: Recipes
Here is just a sampling of the recipes on the new site – click on any of the links to take you directly to the blog post and recipe.
Weekends with Julia: Brown-Braised Onions
Vanilla Bean Cupcakes with White Chocolate Buttercream, aka the best cupcake I’ve ever had in my life!
Weekends with Julia: Beef Braised in Red Wine
Categories: Breakfast · Dessert · Holiday · Low-Carb · Main Course · Side Dish · Vegetarian
Tagged: Barefoot Contessa, blackberries, blueberries, braised onions, cake, Cheese, chocolate, comfort food, cupcakes, Julia Child, kiwi, lemon, lime, mushrooms, pasta, pastry cream, peanut butter, pot roast, pudding, raspberries, rice, strawberries, tomatoes, Vegetables
Vanilla sugar is great to have on hand to give your baking recipes another layer of vanilla flavoring (if you’re already using vanilla extract), or to give a very subtle vanilla flavor. It’s extremely easy to “make” and it allows you to get your money’s worth out of a vanilla bean. Any time I use a vanilla bean for a recipe, after removing the seeds I just throw the pod into my container of vanilla sugar. The pods still contain a lot of vanilla scent, and that will perfume the sugar in the container. As you use vanilla sugar, simply add more sugar and give the closed container a good shake to distribute.
You can buy vanilla sugar, but I don’t really see the point when making your own is so easy and cost efficient.
I still remember the first time I made lemon bars. I was in college, and I was finishing up my spring finals. My roommates had already left for summer, and the contents of our cupboards and fridge were dwindling. But there still remained a bottle of lemon juice concentrate. And Betty Crocker just happened to have a recipe for lemon bars.
At the time, I didn’t realize that when a recipe called for lemon juice, you were supposed to actually buy some lemons and juice them. Not use concentrate. My mouth still puckers when I think of that first bite.
Since I’ve discovered the actual fruit, my desserts are much tastier. These bars…wow. Just a little bit packs a punch and provides satisfaction so you don’t have to worry about overdoing it. They are perfect to end a meal or enjoy with a mid-afternoon cup of tea.
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Categories: Dessert
Tagged: Barefoot Contessa, lemon
After Christmas, I swore I wouldn’t eat a cookie again for…well, a very long time. I don’t believe I actually quantified this timeline, but frankly, I was cookied out.
I guess I’m healed. I should have known I wouldn’t even be able to last two months before feeling the need to make another batch of cookies. There’s just something about the the chewy texture, the crumble, the chocolate, the…booze?
I’ve spent the past couple of years searching for the perfect blueberry muffin recipe. It couldn’t be too sweet, too dense, too cake-like, not sweet enough, and it had to be interesting. By interesting I mean that there has to be some quality that has you coming back for more. How I missed this recipe before, especially when it comes up on the first page of a google search, is beyond me. But the important thing is that I’ve found it now, and I’m never letting it go.
Categories: Breakfast · Dessert · Vegetarian
Tagged: blueberries, muffins
I became intrigued by Red Velvet Cake after watching an episode of Throwdown (one of Bobby Flay’s shows) a couple of years back. This was right around the time I was plotting to take out Sprinkles with my own cupcakes, so intrigue soon turned into borderline obsession.
I made red velvet cake a few times over the past couple of years, mostly when the color matched the holiday. At the time, I was set on using butter in my cupcakes, and I sought out recipes for red velvet cake that used butter, rather than oil. Over and over again, I was not all that happy with the results (too dense, a little dry).
A couple of things happened over the past two weeks that had me rethinking the butter thing. First, I watched an old episode of Good Eats that talked about chiffon cupcakes, and how the original recipe came from someone looking for a lighter-textured cupcake…which was achieved by using oil, not butter. Second, I decided to test-drive Terri Wahl’s recipe from the Throwdown episode. Finally, I was reminded of my red velvet fascincation when I saw Nicole’s recipe for red velvet cupcakes on Pinch My Salt, and I decided to revisit this dessert. Terri’s recipe reviews were mixed; some thought the cupcakes were overly greasy, others said the cupcake papers absorbed excess oil just fine. I decided to take my chances, and oh my, am I glad that I did!
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Can you remember the last time you had a dessert so good, you wanted to lick the dish? I can, because it happened tonight. I had a fridge full of Meyer lemons, and I knew I needed to do something with them quickly. I’d been thinking about making lemon mousse for awhile now, but I wasn’t sure what exactly I wanted to do with it. And then raspberries popped into my head. If I could just find some nice raspberries, that’s all this dish would need.
As luck would have it, I was able to get both golden raspberries and red raspberries. Could this be fate?
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Categories: Dessert
Tagged: lemon, raspberries
About three years ago, I decided I would come up with a cupcake to rival Candace Nelson’s. There were a couple of problems with this plan. First, I’d never actually had a Sprinkles cupcake. Second, I certainly wasn’t what you would call a cupcake master; up to that point, every cupcake I’d made had come from a mix (shameful, I know).
Nevertheless, I set out on my cupcake journey. I’ve made many, many cupcakes during that time. Some I’ve been happy with, some, not so much. There’s a balance needed between fluffy cake and moistness, and I discovered it’s not always the easiest to achieve.
