Holiday

Olive Oil Orange Cake with Poached Plums

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Posted December 9th, 2011 in Desserts, Holiday, Recipe

Cake

1 ½ cups all-purpose flour

1 tsp baking powder

½ tsp baking soda

½ tsp salt

1 cup sugar

3 eggs

½ cup orange juice

Zest of one orange

¾ cup light olive oil

Poached Plums

1 can Oregon Fruit Purple Plums, drained, reserve ¼ cup syrup

2 Tbs orange juice

Preheat oven to 350degrees. Grease and flour a 9-inch round pan. To prepare cake, whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Combine sugar and eggs and beat with a mixer at medium speed until fluffy about 3 minutes. Mix in orange juice and zest. Reduce speed to low and add olive oil in a slow stream. Add flour mixture and stir just until combined. Pour into prepared pan. Bake about 35 minutes until golden and a knife inserted in the center comes out clean.

Meanwhile heat the plum syrup and orange juice over medium heat until reduced by half and thickened. Pit and chop the drained plums. When the syrup is ready, stir in the plums coating with syrup.

Cool the cake for 5 minutes and then invert on a cake plate. Top with poached plums and serve warm.

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Chocolate Yule Log Cake with Raspberry Filling

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Posted December 9th, 2011 in Desserts, Holiday, Recipe

Cake ingredients:

3 eggs

1 cup sugar

1/3 cup milk

1 tsp vanilla

¾ cup flour

1/3 cup cocoa

¾ tsp baking powder

¼ tsp salt

Filling Ingredients:

1 can Oregon Fruit Raspberries, drained (reserve syrup for cocktails!)

1 stick unsalted butter

1 tsp lemon zest

3 cups powdered sugar

3 tbs whipping cream

2 tbs raspberry syrup

pinch salt

Frosting Ingredients:

1 stick unsalted butter, softened

1 3/4 cups confectioners sugar

1/4 cup cocoa powder

1/4 tsp salt

1 tsp vanilla

2 tbs whipping cream

Cake:

With electric mixer, beat eggs at high speed until very thick. Gradually add sugar; beat until smooth. On low speed beat in milk and vanilla. Whisk together in a separate bowl flour, cocoa, baking powder and salt; fold into egg mixture just until smooth. Line a greased 15 ½ x 10 ½ x ¾ inch pan with wax paper and grease. Pour batter into pan. Bake at 375 degrees 12-15 minutes unitl cake springs back when lightly touched. Invert cake onto a tea towel sprinkled with powdered sugar. Remove wax paper; roll up cake with tea towel from the narrow end. Let cool for 30 minutes on a wire rack. Unroll cake and spread filling evenly over cake, re-roll using the towel to move the cake along carefully separating the cake from the towel as you go. Let cool completely while you make the frosting.

Filling:

Cream butter with lemon zest at medium speed using paddle attachment for 3 minutes. Slowly add sugar, mixing on low speed for about 2 minutes. Add whipping cream and raspberry syrup and beat on med-high for 3-4 minutes until very fluffy. Remove about ½ cup and set aside to use for decorating. Fold in the drained raspberries very gently.

Frosting:

Cream butter at medium speed using the paddle attachment for 3 minutes. Turn off mixer and sift 1 ¾ cups of powdered sugar and cocoa powder into the mixing bowl. Turn on the mixer at the lowest speed just until combined. Increase mixer speed to medium and add the vanilla, salt and cream and beat for 3-4 minutes.

Cut the log end diagonally and use the cut edges to attach like branches. Use some frosting for attaching. Frost the Yule log cake with the chocolate frosting. Finish by dragging a fork along the log to create the look of bark. Drag the fork around the cut ends to look like rings. Make a little red and green icing from the reserved ½ cup. You can use this to pipe holly leaves and berries on the log to decorate. Finish with a dusting of powdered sugar for snow.

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Second Annual Sacramento Taste of Home Cooking School

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Posted November 25th, 2011 in Holiday, Posts, Tips and Tricks

Last year Kaitlin and I had so much fun sampling Oregon Fruit for the attendees of the Sacramento stop on the “Taste of Home Cooking School” tour that I decided to do it again. My good friend Lori Luke graciously agreed to help me with the event and I most certainly could not have done it without her.

It was fun to see alot of folks that we met last year come back to try something new and our sample idea was a pretty big hit. I thought it was the perfect thing to share this time of year. We made a dessert “amuse bouche” or perfect bite. Each little cherry tart was just 25 calories and from all accounts, delicious!

This is an extremely easy dessert to make from items you just have around (if your smart, that is). We used Athens Mini Phyllo Shells. The package is in the freezer of most grocery stores. I bought these at Wal-Mart Supercenter for $1.65 per package of 15. One can of Oregon Fruit Dark Sweet Cherries, drained has about 30 cherries in it. They are on sale everywhere this time of year for under $3.00. I intended to put two cherries in each mini tart but they were so big and beautiful that only one cherry fit. Then we drizzled with Hershey’s syrup. They would have been prettier with melted chocolate chips or bulk dark chocolate that hardens after drizzling. You could even use white and dark chocolate. But we made a thousand so we took the shortcut.

You could get fancier, Lori thought she might whip some cream cheese with powdered sugar to put in the bottom of the tart before putting in a cherry. That would create a cherry cheesecake bite.

Around the holidays we are always going to potluck celebrations that require we bring an item to share. This one is a winner-elegant, delicious, inexpensive and made from items you can keep on hand. What could be better.

This is a tip that will help you keep your sanity during this extremely busy time. You can whip this dessert up in minutes, guilt free, pretty, delicious and you still have some money left for the mountains of gifts you still need to buy.

The “Taste of Home Cooking School” provided lots of great tips and recipes as well. I picked up a great idea for Christmas Dinner at my mom’s. It’s a pork roast glazed and crusted with whole grain mustard and raspberries. I will definitely be posting this one before Christmas so stay tuned. I am also going to make a red/green chex mix with m&m’s to put in festive jars for my friends and neighbors this year. It is a gluten free treat, that is colorful, delicious and super easy.

Are you starting to sense a theme here? I am looking to simplify the holidays this year and planning to find my “zen” in the simplicity. I will keep you posted on how I do with that.

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Hey Pie Fans, are you part of the 20%?

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Posted November 18th, 2011 in Holiday, Posts

It’s the week before Thanksgiving so we just have to pay tribute to pie. Pie is officially back in vogue. Even the cupcake shops are starting to pay attention and introduce individual pies, hand pies, mini pies and pie pops. I have read dozens of articles recently highlighting this “return to pie” trend and it is obvious that some of us never left. One statistic I read said that 1 out of 5 of us have secretly eaten a whole pie!! Thankfully I am not one of them, unless you count these cute little mini’s but no one is about to count that. 7% of Americans have passed off a store bought pie as homemade. I have never done that but one of my friends passed off a pie I made as her own. That was pretty nervy. She was busted before the night was over. You couldn’t possibly try to take credit for the infamous Costco pie. It is too enormous to be baked in a regular oven and it takes two people to carry it out to the car.

I wanted to kind of kick up the whole Thanksgiving groaning board theme with my desserts this year so I made an assortment of individual desserts. As I considered my options I thought about the ubiquitous sweet potato side dish with the marshmallows. That should not be a side dish, it should be dessert. If it was dessert it would be beloved. So I decided to make Mini Sweet Potato Pies with a toasted marshmallow topping. I will become one of the 20% with this pie. I also made a Mini Cherry Pie and a Mini Blueberry Streusal Pie. Because everyone loves cherry AND apple I made a truly delicious Ozark Apple Cherry Pudding which is really a cake and I baked it in little pumpkin ramekins. TOO CUTE!

This Thanksgiving PERSONAL PIE FOR EVERYONE. That’s my motto. Then tell everyone at the table why you are grateful to have them in your life.

Happy Thanksgiving!

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Mini Fruit Pies

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Posted November 18th, 2011 in Desserts, Holiday, Recipe

Mini Fruit Pies

Crust: Makes 3 of each pie using fillings below

2 1/2 cup flour

1 tsp salt

2 tBS sugar

1 1/2 cup unsalted butter, very cold cut into small cubes

7 Tbs shortening

3-4 TBS ice water

Pulse the dry ingredients in the food processor a couple of times. Add the butter and pulse until the size of small peas. Add the shortening and pulse until the mixture resembles coarse cornmeal. Add the water gradually and pulse until the dough just holds together. Form into a disk, wrap in wax paper and let rest in refrigerator for 30 minutes. Roll out dough on a floured board.

For cherry: Cut 6 disks about ¾ inch larger all the way around than your mini tart pans. Line the pans with one disk, fill with cherry filling and top with the top crust. Flute the edges and cut slits for steam. Brush the top with a beaten egg.

For Blueberry: Cut 3 disks about ¾ inch larger all the ay around than your mini tart pans. Line the pans with one disk, fill with blueberry filling and top with streusel topping.

Cherry Filling:

1 can red tart cherries, drained reserve ½ cup juice 3 Tbs sugar 1 ½ TBS cornstarch

Directions

Mix cornstarch, sugar and cherry juice in a small saucepan. Whisk over medium heat until thickened and clear. Add cherries, extract and food coloring if desired. Stir gently to combine.

Mini Blueberry Streusal Pie (makes 3)

Filling:

1 can Oregon Blueberries drained reserve ½ cup syrup

3 Tbs sugar

1 ½ TBS cornstarch

1 Tbs lemon juice

Mix cornstarch, ½ the sugar and blueberry syrup in a small saucepan. Whisk over medium heat until thickened and clear. Add blueberries, the rest of the sugar and lemon juice and stir gently.

Topping:

¼ cup all purpose flour

1/6 cup firmly packed brown sugar

1 ½ TBS white sugar

½ tsp salt

½ tsp cinnamon

½ stick unsalted butter

1/8 cup rolled oats

In a bowl combine the dry ingredients. Cut in the butter with a pastry blender or pulse a few times in the food processor. Toss the oats into the mixture with a fork