The Gift of Zucchini Spice Bread

My neighbor recently gifted me a massively large zucchini. I mean, baseball bat huge. Like, was this a science experiment or did you just let this grow until it took over your garden...and then gave it to me? I forgot to photograph it...but I swear it was [extending arms] t h i s big.

Here is a simple recipe from Everyday Food for Zucchini Spice Bread. It adds a nice assortment of nutmeg, cloves, cinnamon, and ground ginger. It uses oil and eggs, and no butter so I can make it for my non-dairy friends! The recipe doesn't call for nuts, but I'm sure a handful of walnuts would be a nice addition.

Mine didn't rise very much, but that's okay. It was still yummy. When your neighbor comes by with the zucchini from the "Honey I Shrunk the Kids" movie set, don't run and hide...make this bread!

Can you see the little green flecks of zucchini? Therefore, this moist bread is ruled a vegetable!

French Chocolate Brownies - Tuesdays with Dorie

In the library, we have chairs with open backs and just a wooded bar for back support. Sometimes, when I walk by the internet computers, I can see way too much. And I'm not talking about what's on the screen.

Often, I'll walk back to my office and shout, "Call the DEA! It's a crack den out there."

My brownie top was a little like that.

Although blurry, can you see the flame in the left hand corner? My first flambe! This brownie recipe has a handful of raisins, a tiny bit of rum, and a bunch of bittersweet chocolate.

This week's recipe for French Chocolate Brownies (page 92) was selected by Di's Kitchen Notebook. My co-workers liked them (cracked top and all), and I ate so many throughout a long meeting that I gave myself a headache (not the brownie's fault!)

Be sure to check out the other Tuesdays with Dorie bakers! And thanks J for the booze!

Some roads in Los Angeles are just like this brownie top!

My Haul at the Farmers Market

Today, the last day of May 2008, I went to my local farmers market and went crazy. Everything was so beautiful that I couldn't help myself. Hopefully, I'll be able to bake some of these yummies this week...or just eat everything raw. Either way: sweetness.

Cherry Sheet Cake (Everyday Food)

Cherry Sheet Cake from Everyday Food (Martha Stewart's empire)

This is a very easy and versatile recipe. I'm sure I could substitute other fruit such as blueberries and raspberries...oh the possibilities!

I used frozen Dark Sweet Cherries (pitted) from Trader Joe's (thawed and drained).

(On a side note, have you tried the Chili Spiced Mango slices from Trader Joe's? Dried unsulfured mangos with salt, cayenne pepper and other spices. Delicious. I'm so addicted.)

This is a super-duper easy recipe to make. In fact, I made it while half-asleep and it worked out! :)

A simple sprinkling of powdered sugar is just enough for this moist cake

The Fat Lady Sings...on my opera cake

You are supposed to see a post of a Spring-inspired Opera Cake for Daring Bakers challenge today. However, after three failures in three days, I gave up last night (and ran out of eggs). (And, yes, I can hear my mother saying I should have started earlier...but I don't know where a whole month went!)

First, made my own blanched almond meal in the food processor. I don't think I processed it enough and somehow the layers came out completely thin. Like flour tortilla thin. Mr. Trashcan, here we come.

Second, I picked up some Bob's Red Mill Almond Flour/Meal and this batch was strangely sticky and too flat as well. (Yes, I carefully folded in the egg whites)

Third, last night I tried again and used a smaller pan so I can get some lift. I planned to finish it tonight. After I finished the buttercream (using a swiss meringue recipe from Martha) and syrup, I started to assemble the baby. But the parchment paper I used to store the cake (top and bottom) ended up getting stuck to the cake...and pulled the whole thing apart.

I give up. I feel defeated and completely exhausted (stayed up too late last night). All I have to show for all these efforts is a sink full of dishes, enough egg shell compost to fill, well, a compost bin, and Mr. Trashcan is stuffed to the gills.

I bought strawberries at the Farmer's Market this weekend for this recipe. At least I'll end with a happy photo! (I'll try this recipe again after going shopping for more ingredients - need lots more eggs!) Be sure to check out the other Daring Bakers who didn't have a total collapse of baking and completed the challenge!

Pecan Honey Sticky Buns - Tuesdays with Dorie

Pecan Sticky Buns (page 51) of Dorie Greenspan's Baking from my Home to Yours book.
(By the way, holy smokes! This is a bargain book on Amazon right now! Only $12.99!!!)

Today's Tuesdays with Dorie selection is from Madam Chow!

This recipe uses 1/2 a brioche dough. Because a batch uses three sticks of butter...Brioche is simply a butter-delivery device! The butter took forever to mix in and I felt my dough wasn't as smooth or satiny as it should be. I've never used the dough hook before on the KitchenAid and was lucky to find it!

This recipe was a labor. Not necessarily a labor of love, but a labor. It was my fault because I didn't start earlier in the weekend...I was up til close to midnight with the dough, and then up at 4:00 am so I can shape the dough and let it rise before baking. Bad timing on my part...

About to go into the oven...

...fresh from the oven

As soon as it comes out, invert onto a plate.

Be sure to check out the other creations of the Tuesdays with Dorie bakers!!

Chewy Chocolate Gingerbread Cookies

Martha Stewart's Chewy Chocolate Gingerbread Cookies

No time to write much - the Ugly Betty season finale is tonight! :)

I'm using my new Martha Stewart Cookie book again...and made these Chewy Chocolate Gingerbread Cookies. Luckily, there are at least 5 recipes that contain ginger in this book.


Containing molasses, dark brown sugar, fresh and ground ginger, cloves, cinnamon and nutmeg...this dough is refrigerated before rolling into balls. Also, it doesn't contain any eggs!


Fresh from the oven...let cool for 5 minutes then transfer to trays. They deflate a bit, but are super yummy.


I didn't have 7 ounces of semi-sweet chunks, so I used an equal amount of semi-sweet chocolate chips instead.


These were a hit at the library! They were gone pretty quickly!

Nielsen Massey Vanilla Bean Paste

FYI... I used the absolutely lovely Nielsen Massey Vanilla Bean PASTE in the madeleines for the Tuesdays with Dorie recipe. Some people wanted to know where you can get it...

If you are in Los Angeles, Surfas carries it for $8.76 (Culver City's greatest kitchen supply store) as well as Hipcooks (they have excellent cooking classes)

Online...I've found it here.

From the Nielsen-Massey website, you can search for stores near you - I would call ahead because not everyone carries the paste (although many stores carry their very popular and tasty extracts). They say a lot of their products are carried by Williams-Sonoma (online $11.00) and Sur la Table (didn't see it online)

Amazon $10.95

King Arthur $12.95

Lemon Bundt Cake

Lemon Bundt Cake
Recipe from America's Test Kitchen (the cool guys and gals behind Cook's Illustrated)

This cake's texture is half-pound cake and half-regular cake. Very light and delicious.

Straight from the oven...I ended up cutting off a little of the edge crust because it was a bit hard.

10 minutes after removal from the oven, you spread 1/2 the glaze mixture over the cake. This allows the warm cake to absorb some of the glaze, but not letting the whole thing melt away. The second 1/2 of the glaze is added an hour later.

Thanks Cook's Illustrated and America's Test Kitchen! You rock!
You can get it the recipe by registering with ATK (free).

Traditional Madeleines - Tuesdays with Dorie

Thanks to Smells Like Home, this week's Tuesdays with Dorie selection is Traditional Madeleines on pages 166-168 of Dorie Greenspan's Baking from my Home to Yours.

I've made them before, but it is always nice to revisit a recipe. Next time, I want to try her Earl Grey madeleines.

You can see little flecks of vanilla bean! (if you look very, very closely...)

I love Dorie Greenspan's technique of rubbing zest with sugar til moist. The sugar smells heavenly. (I included the second photo of my unmanicured fingers to show off my new camera. If you enlarge it, you can get a fingerprint image...the new macro lens is completely amazing!!)

Seriously in love with Nielsen-Massey's Vanilla Bean PASTE. No, not just extract, but paste. It is filled with little vanilla bean goodness. Drizzle this over ice cream and you could literally die.

I learned this technique from Cook's Illustrated: Make a slurry of flour and melted butter, and brush it onto a pan. I don't know it is their technique, but one of the thousand recipes I've tried says to freeze the pan after butter/flouring.

I didn't get my lovely hump that I'm constantly looking for...but I did get a little training-bra type hump.

P.S. Although not baking related, I went to Disneyland this weekend (one of the hottest and most crowded days of the year!) and had a great time. We hit all the mountains...Splash, Space, Big Thunder and the Matterhorn. Anyway, I recently got the coolest pedometer through my work's wellness program. I've had a zillion other pedometers, but this one uploads data to your computer, graphs out your steps, and I'm sure does your calculus homework or something. It is a Virgin Healthmiles pedometer...although I doubt Richard Branson uses one. On Saturday, I had over 9,000 steps and went to use the facilities....and the automatic flusher (industrial strength at Disneyland!) startled me, I turned and in a Tinkerbell moment, the pedometer was sailing down the toilet. Darn it.