Blueberry Pie

This post is all about the filling. I have posted crust recipes a couple of time but we need to focus on filling. I used frozen blueberries that I picked last season. If I had used fresh they would have been a bit less watery and I could have gotten away with less corn starch.
Ingredients:
• 1 and 1/2 quarts blueberries
• juice of half lemon
• 2 tbsp corn starch
• 2 tbsp agave nectar
• pinch of salt
• one pie crust
Directions:
Put berries on low heat add the agave and salt cook for 8 minutes. Then add the lemon juice and corn starch. Use a whisk to incorporate the corn starch. You will have to whisk until there are no more lumps of starch. Then cook for 10 minutes or until berries are thick. Place in crust and cover bake for about an hour on 400.

berries in the crust

pie covered and finished with my signature leaves

finished and ready to eat!

A new cake creation!

This is a new cake creation that I made for my Mother-in-law for her birthday. It was a vanilla almond cake, with buttercream under the fondant. The buttercream was flavored with a slight touch of almond as well. Then it was fondant covered and the flowers were hand made by me as well as the leaves. It turned out very nice and tasty!

Kale Chips

I have a confession, I love kale chips! They are amazing. The kale is bitter like it usually is so they are not for everyone, but kale is cheep so try them out and if you don't like them you are out less than two bucks!
Ingredients:

• 1 bunch of kale

• 2 tbsp olive oil

• 1 tsp balsamic vinegar

• 1 tsp salt (or to taste)

• 1/2 tsp pepper (or to taste)

Directions:

Wash and cut kale to bite size chunks toss with the oil and vinegar then dust with salt and pepper. Cook at 350 for 20 to 25 minutes or until crisp!

the finished chips cooling... yum!

Boneshakers I miss you!

One of the biggest things I miss about Brooklyn is this place Boneshakers @ 134 Kingsland Ave.

Below we see two of our favorite offerings, The Merckx Werkx - tofurky, sham, olive tapenade, chipotle mayo, lettuce, tomato, on a ciabatta hero and The Magnus - veggie patty, tempeh bacon, chipotle mayo, lettuce, tomato, sprouts, on toasted rosemary foccacia. To say the least these sandwiches are brillant! I highly recommend if you are in Brooklyn stop by these are just two of the tasty things they have on the menu! It is fully vegetarian and most offerings are vegan denoted on the menu with a v

And here is a link to the menu!

The Merckx Werkx

The Magnus

Chocolate Peanut Butter Pretzels

I will be the first one to say that these little gems are not really testing my culinary skills but they are quick easy and a great snack! I have been experimenting with adding things to the chocolate, and I am really happy with cinnamon and salt in these!

Ingerdients:
• 2 cups pretzel nibbs or something that has some sort of a divot in it (for the peanut butter)
• 10 oz dark chocolate for melting
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• about 1/2 cup peanut butter
• dash of salt

Directions:
Put a small amount of peanut butter on each pretzel and place on a lined baking sheet after you have peanut buttered all the pretzels place in the freezer for about 30 minutes longer if you like. The reason these are placed in the freezer is so the peanut butter doesn't fall off when dipped in the melted chocolate.
Next melt the chocolate, I prefer a double boiler, but feel free to use whatever method you like, just don't burn it! mix in the cinnamon and salt mix well. Then dip the pretzels in the chocolate mixture and place back on the lined baking sheet to cool. Then enjoy!

The Honey Cake

This is a cake I made for my husband for Valentines day! It turned out pretty nice with the help of Zoe, some of her work can be seen here!
http://redvelvet.shutterfly.com/
This was a pretty complex cake dealing with many layers and sculpting of bees! The cake was chocolate espresso with a butter cream between the layers.

it started with stamping a lot of flowers and all the smaller flowers have stamens put into them this took a very long time, I think it was about 75 flowers that constructed and stemmed!

Next came the bees, they were constructed from a mixture of fondant and gum paste. They were then wired so they could "fly" around the cake!

I also gave them stamens for their antennae

Here is the base, it is in total six layers. Two for the green base and 4 for the hive. There are wooden dowels balancing it down the center and in kind of a star pattern on the base. This is covered in fondant with a thin layer of buttercream under the fondant.

There are also 21 daises on the cake their centers were dipped in corn meal to make them look more real.

In total there were seven bees flying off the cake!

finished!

finished different angle

In total about 100 flowers seven bees and one honey! I would say all in all about ten hours of work!

Calla Lily Cake

I have been taking a wonderful fondant and gum paste class with a great instructor Zoe! Some of her work can been seen here http://redvelvet.shutterfly.com/
This was my final for the class and I think it turned out really well, but you can be the judge of that!

The cake is a white cake with an orange glaze and torted with an orange butter cream. Then I covered it with fondant, and the flowers are made out of a mixture of fondant and gum paste.

my palate!

The start of the side work (I love leaves in fondant or butter cream!)

I decided I needed more of them further up on the cake so it wasn't so empty

This was the start of the spray, I thought the leaves helped the flow

Here it is placed but not finished yet

A little closer view

the finished product!

and again!