peach & almond buttermilk coffee cake

We seem to be on target with the seasonal gods here on the East Coast. September 22nd marked the first day of fall and the gorgeous weather came along right with it. No complaints here because cooler weather means more baking without turning on my A/C!!! Yeah!!!

A few weeks ago I made this coffee cake with some peak summer peaches for my best gal pals. The hubs didn't even get a square of it, so with the last of the summer peaches coming to an end soon I had to make this cake again. 

Peach and Almond Buttermilk Coffee Cake
original recipe adapted from PBS food 
makes one 8 or 9-inch square pan

For the TOPPING
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup brown sugar - packed
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) unsalted butter - softened
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt (or 1/4 teaspoon table salt)
1/4 cup sliced almonds

For the COFFEE CAKE
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter - softened
3/4 cup sugar
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoons almond extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon table salt
1 cup buttermilk
1 large peach - cut into 1/2-inch cubes

2 tablespoons of powdered sugar

Preheat oven to 350°F. Butter or line your pan (bottom and sides) with parchment paper. For a thick coffee cake, use a 8-inch square. A 9-inch pan will also do.

To make the TOPPING:
In a bowl, mix together flour, brown sugar, cinnamon and salt. With a pastry cutter (or 2 forks or fingers tips) mix in softened butter to resemble course crumbs. Toss in sliced almonds. Refrigerate until needed.

To make the COFFEE CAKE:
With a stand or hand held mixer, beat butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Scrape down sides of bowl and add egg and extracts. Mix until thoroughly combined.

In another bowl, whisk your dry ingredients - flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.

Gradually mix in your dry ingredients into your wet ingredients. Alternating with the buttermilk and ending with dry mixture. I like to fold in the last of the dry ingredients so that I do not over mix. Batter will be super thick.

Take half of the batter and spread it out onto your prepared pan.

***If you've lined your pan with parchment paper this is a little difficult to do because the paper slides all over the place. You can clip the edges down with binder clips or have patience and spread the batter out slowly.***

Sprinkle your chopped peaches onto your batter. It's best not to put too much fruit in the middle of the cake because your cake will sink and cook unevenly. 

Dollop the rest of the batter onto the fruit. This will make it easier to spread out the batter without disturbing the fruit layer.

Gently spread out your batter. It's OK if some of your fruit peaks out.

Retrieve your topping from the frig and generously top your cake.

Bake for 50 - 60 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean. ***My cake, baked in an 8-inch square, baked for 55 minutes.***

Delicious warm. Cool on a wire rack for at least 20 minutes before serving. 

If you've cooled your coffee cake completely, it can be dusted with powdered sugar. Or dust each piece individually.

finding nemo & birthday cookies for phoebe & paula

It's Phoebe and Paula's 4th birthday today and I surprised them with Nemo & Dory birthday cookies. I actually don't own a "fish" shaped cookie cutter, so I had to get REALLY creative cutting and piecing out Nemo.....

Dory was also pretty challenging and again not perfect but you get the idea, right???

Nemo and Dory were created out of these cutters.....And can you believe that Nemo was cut and pieced out of a handbag cutter and circles?

The usual cutters were used for Phoebe and Paula's names and I tinted the royal icing in shades of ocean blue.

A batch of birthday cookies always includes a birthday cake. This batch is for a set of twins so of course I sent two cakes.

The Twins are 4 !!!!

Happy Birthday Phoebe & Paula!!!!

circus themed birthday cookie cakes

It's a double early celebration for my honorary niece and nephew today!!! We will all be out of town to actually celebrate their birth days but I don't think they'll mind celebrating a couple of weeks early.....

The two year old asked for cookies for her birthday instead of cake, so I'm giving her a combination - a cookie cake.

I had these plastic animals lying around and I thought they'd be so cute as circus themed decorations so I embellished them with ribbon and mini pom poms.

I've made cookie cakes before here and it's a first time adding some candles.....

To make these adorable circus animals all you need is some plastic animals, ribbon, mini pom poms, needle and thread, and a glue gun.

You're 2 and 4 !!!!!

Happy "Early" Birthday Beah and Cassius!!!

the year of the water dragon & it's a boy cupcakes

Little Jackson will be born this year, 2012, The Year of The Water Dragon.....

I tinted the gum paste in shades of blue to give the feeling of water and used a dragon rubber stamp to imprint the image onto the circles. 

After the gum paste circles were dry, I dusted them with an edible pearly white luster dust

 and framed the dragon with royal icing dots.

It's A Boy!!!

cars themed cupcakes for jasper

These Car themed cupcake toppers were made from royal icing. I blogged about what to do with your leftover royal icing here, and although they're not perfect, I do think they turned out pretty cute.

Lightning McQueen

A little more lightning and some store bought checkered flag action.....

Some supporting characters from Cars 2.....

Sally Carrera

Sherriff

and Ramone

You're 2 !!!!!

Happy Birthday Jasper!!!!!

gluten-free tropical banana bread & cup4cup flour

Gluten-free. 
Words that frightened me when I thought about baking.

My fears for baking gluten-free are over now thanks to CUP4CUP's Gluten Free Flour. I stumbled upon it during my daily food blog stalkings on Joy the Baker . This miracle mixture was developed by Lena Kwak, Thomas Keller's Research & Development Chef at The French Laundry. Need I say more??? 

I was oh-so impressed by all the rave reviews this flour received that I rushed out and bought a bag. Or maybe two. And since this GF flour is a special ingredient in my pantry, I will be treating it like baking gold and experimenting with my favorite recipes with caution. 

I have a couple of go-to banana bread recipes, but my ingredients in my pantry were limited so I borrowed ingredients and made substitutions from a couple of recipes from Smitten Kitchen and Musings from a Housewife and concocted my version, a tropical banana bread.

Tropical Banana Bread

makes 1 loaf 

3 ripe bananas 

1/4 cup pineapple - fresh and finely chopped ***Not needed really, but I think it added flavor and moistness.***

1/3 cup coconut oil ***Don't have coconut oil??? Melt some butter.***

3/4 cup coconut palm sugar ***No coconut palm sugar either? Brown sugar would taste awesome!!!*** 

1 large egg, beaten slightly

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/4 cup dried unsweetened coconut plus 1 tablespoon for sprinkling on top

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon kosher salt 

1 1/2 cup CUP 4 CUP Gluten Free Flour

Preheat your oven to 350°F. Lightly oil a loaf pan and dust with flour. Set aside.

With a potato masher or fork, mash up bananas and pineapple. With a spatula, mix in coconut oil to combine. Add coconut palm sugar, egg and vanilla extract then dried coconut. Mix until smooth.  Sprinkle the baking soda and kosher salt over the mixture and mix in. Add your GF flour last and fold in. Pour into your prepared loaf pan. Sprinkle with the reserved 1 tablespoon of dried coconut.

Bake your loaf on the middle rack of your oven for 50-55 minutes or until a tester/skewer comes out clean. 

Cool on a wire rack for 15 minutes and gently remove it from the pan and cool completely.

mini fig & frangipane tartelettes

Labor Day weekend.

End of summer.

And fig season!!!

It's been years since we've paid for a basket of figs. We are so lucky to live next door to a little old Greek lady who has a fig tree in her front yard. She lets us pick the fruit when they're ripe or sometimes she'll ring our bell to give us a bag full of figs she has picked herself. 

This Sunday morning we were greeted with a bag of these.....



Figs are delicious eaten as they are. 

With a little goat cheese. 

Cooked into a jam/compote.

Or baked into a tart with almond cream.


I just LOVE bite-sized treats and since a half of fig is a perfect bite, I was inspired to turn a fig & frangipane tart mini.....


Mini Fig & Frangipane Tartelettes
inspired by the recipe from ChezPim
Makes 20 - 24 bite sized tarts
INGREDIENTS
12 figs - cut in half
frangipane
pastry crust

For the FRANGIPANE
75 grams almond flour ***I cheated and used Trader Joe's Almond Meal and toasted it in a dry cast iron pan - over medium heat stirring/tossing so that it didn't burn.***
75 grams sugar
75 grams unsalted butter @ room temp
1 large egg
1/2 teaspoon almond extract (optional)
pinch of kosher salt

In a medium bowl cream together butter and sugar. Add egg and almond extract and mix to combine. Add toasted almond flour and salt. Mix into a smooth almond cream. Store the cream in an airtight container and refrigerate until needed. Can be kept in the frig for a couple of days or frozen up to a month.

For the PASTRY CRUST
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons of all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon sugar
pinch of kosher salt
4 tablespoons (half a stick) unsalted butter - cold and cut into small cubes
2 tablespoons vegetable shortening
1/8 cup ice cold water

***There are a few ways to make pastry/pie crust. In a food processor, with a pastry cutter, two forks, your fingers tips. Use whatever technique you feel comfortable with.*** 
This recipe makes such a small disk of dough that I just dumped the flour, sugar and salt onto my cutting board and cut the butter and shortening in with a bench scraper until it resembled course crumbs. I slowly folded in the ice cold water and gently gathered it into a disk, wrapped it in plastic and placed it in the frig to rest for 30 minutes.

After the pastry dough has rested for 30 minutes, roll out the dough (1/8 inch thick) on a lightly floured surface. Using a circle cookie cutter, cut out rounds of dough and gently press them into a mini muffin tin.





Place your tin of mini tart crusts into your freezer while you preheat your oven to 400° or for 15 minutes.

By this time your frangipane is cold and ready to use. Drop a little dollop (roughly a little less than 1 tablespoon) of almond cream in the center of mini pastry crusts.

Place a half a fig, cut side up, onto the almond cream. Bake for 25 - 30 minutes or until golden - both frangipane and pastry crust.

Carefully remove tartelettes from the mini muffin tin and place on a wire rack to cool. These fig & frangipane tartelettes are best eaten warm.