sweet inspiration & fun baking ideas

I want to show you this new book from Williams-Sonoma.

It’s filled with delicious photographs and tons of recipes including …

Pretzels.

Pop Tarts.

And pies to name a few.

Are your taste buds warming up yet? Mine sure are. I could hardly stand to flip through the pages of this book without wanting to make everything in it.

Home. Baked. Comfort. Yes, please.

And guess what, else.

This book also includes recipes from several bakeries and bloggers across the country.

Like Smitten Kitchen, Tartine, Cannelle et Vanille, Flour, Baked…

And more.

Maybe even one from someone you know.

With all this yumminess, it was really hard to decide what to bake first. I flipped through the book several times before I finally decided.

When I saw that one of the featured bakeries was from Minneapolis, I knew right away that was the one to try since I’ll be in Minnesota and at Williams-Sonoma in about two weeks for a book signing. (Details here.)

And now, I may just have to stop by this bakery, too.

Salty Tart. Cute name.

And her recipe for Chewy Chocolate Meringues is delish.

And easy.

And better yet, only needs four ingredients.

Finely chopped bittersweet chocolate.

Five tablespoons cocoa powder.

Sugar and egg whites.

This photo kinda makes them look like egg yellows though.

Whisk together the egg whites and sugar over – but not touching – simmering water until dissolved.

Remove from heat and beat the egg whites until stiff and glossy.

Then fold in the chocolate and cocoa.

Scoop out the batter on parchment lined baking sheets and bake away.

You want to see cracks. That’s part of what I love about this recipe. No need to try and make anything look perfect. These are already perfectly imperfect.

And oh so good.

They are highly addictive, too. I don’t want to tell you how many I ate before I even finished taking photos…

…but let’s just say that this photo is missing quite a few.

I’m so glad I tried this recipe. I’ve never made meringues before because they never really looked all that appealing to me. But wow! These chocolate ones will be made again. And again.

Thanks Salty Tart.

Chewy Chocolate Meringues (adapted from Home Baked Comfort)

1 cup (8 fl oz / 250 ml) large egg whites – about 7
2 cups (1 lb / 500 g) sugar
5 tbsp (1 oz / 30 g) natural cocoa powder
4 oz (125 g) bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped
4 oz (125 g) cocoa nibs*

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
• Line baking sheets with parchment paper.
• In a clean, dry heatproof bowl, whisk together egg whites and sugar. Set over, but not touching, simmering water in a saucepan.
• Whisk constantly until the sugar is completely dissolved and remove from heat. (I tested to make sure I didn’t feel any sugar granules.)
• Beat the eggs on high using your mixer fitted with the whisk attachment. Beat until stiff and glossy.
• Sift cocoa over the meringue. Sprinkle chopped chocolate (and cocoa nibs if you’re using) on top.
• Then, fold together gently with a spatula until combined.
• Use a scoop to drop even amounts of batter onto prepared baking sheets about two inches apart.
• Bake for about 8-9 minutes. Rotate the pans and bake for another 8-9 minutes until the cookies are fluffy and full of cracks.
• Transfer the cookies, leaving them on the parchment paper, to wire racks to cool.

* I omitted the cocoa nibs because I didn’t have any on hand and the cookies still came out beautifully.

The recipe says it makes about 2 dozen meringues, but I ended up with about 60 using a 1.5 inch scoop.
I also used a scale to measure my ingredients exactly.

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Home Baked Comfort by Kim Laidlaw
Photographed by Eric Wolfinger

Featured Bakeries
Baked, Brooklyn, NY
Floriole Cafe & Bakery, Chicago, IL
Flour Bakery + Cafe, Boston, MA
Huckleberry Cafe & Bakery, Santa Monica, CA
Pearl Bakery, Portland, OR
Salty Tart Bakery, Minneapolis, MN
Sugar Mama’s Bakeshop, Austin, TX
Tartine Bakery, San Francisco, CA

Featured Bloggers
Cannelle et Vanille
La Tartine Gourmande
Smitten Kitchen
and me : )

The book is available at Williams-Sonoma until February 2012. Then you’ll also be able to find it on Amazon.

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Until then, want to win a copy?

You do. I promise.

Leave a comment on this post answering the following random question.

• What is your favorite Halloween candy?
• Deadline to enter is Tuesday evening, September 27th at 6:00 pm ET. SORRY, TIME’S UP!
• One winner will be picked at random and announced sometime Tuesday evening.

Good Luck!

Disclosure: Giveaway sponsored by me. : )

And the winner is……

Myra – You’re gonna love this book.

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I loved reading all your cake pop guesses from yesterday. And I’m happy to say that someone guessed correctly. Actually, several of you did. But the first one to guess correctly did so in the first twenty comments. I’ll announce the winner in just a sec.

First, I want to show you the cake pop I made.

It came out really cute.

Here are the candy coatings and candies that I used to decorate them.

So, everyone that guessed Smurfs … and there were a bunch of you… I’m sorry. Maybe next time.

I cut the tops off of candy corn to use for the ears.

That’s right. This cartoon character cake pop is an animal.

Any guesses now?

These light pink coated sunflower seeds were perfect for the nose.

They come in a long tube.You can find them in different color combinations especially during holiday seasons. I think I found these at a store called World Market.

Just keep your eyes open. I grab them whenever I see them, because the colors come in handy.

White m&ms. I found these sold by color at Wal-Mart a while back.

These were spot on for the eyes.

Okay, the next picture should give it away if you don’t know already.

Almost finished eyes. With orange eyelids.

I know you know now.

That’s right.

Garfield.

Everyone’s favorite sarcastic cat.

I’ve made Garfield sweets before. Take a look at these fondant covered cupcakes if you want to see.

But this time, I wanted to see if I could turn him into a cake pop. A little tougher than working with fondant.

When I’m trying to recreate a recognizable character, I start with finding candies that have a similar size, shape and color if possible.

I’ll shape the cake balls to match the shape of the character and then place the candies right on the uncoated cake ball to see if I’m going in the right direction.

This way I can adjust the size of the ball to be proportional to the candies if necessary. Remember to make the ball slightly smaller than what looks accurate, because once they are dipped the shape will increase in size a bit due to the coating.

To make the basic shape, attach the ears (pointing slightly forward) using candy coating and let dry before dipping the entire cake pop in more melted candy coating.

Remember to dip completely and remove without stirring.

Let dry completely.

When dry, attach your eyes. Don’t forget to leave some without eyelids for Garfield’s wide-eyed look.

Then carefully pipe on yellow candy coating right underneath his eyes. It will work better if the coating isn’t too fluid. Just let it set for a few minutes after heating to thicken a bit. Keep a picture of him nearby for reference.

Before the yellow sets, attach a light pink coated sunflower seed for the nose.

Let dry completely and then use a black edible ink pen to draw on all of Garfield’s iconic details.

I like to use the Americolor Gourmet Writing Pens.

If you want to have fun making these at home, you’ll need:

The basic how-to for making cake pops
Orange candy coating
Yellow candy coating
White m&m’s
Candy corn
Pink coated sunflower seeds
Black Americolor Gourmet Writing Pen
Small squeeze bottle

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Now for the winners. Yep, plural.

Commenter #20 – Nicol was the first one to guess Garfield correctly. Yay! Great guess.

But, I’m also going to give one away at random… And that winner is…

Congratulations Elizabeth. You win a book, too. I hope you still come to the signing though. I’d love to meet ya.

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P.S. – A bunch of you made guesses of character cake pops that I’ve already made.

Like these.

You can check them all out under the Cake Pops category if you want to take a look.

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Earlier this year I did a post announcing two more book signings for February.

One in San Francisco that I made it to and one in Minneapolis that I didn’t.

I got sick and had to cancel at the last minute. I wasn’t doing well as you know.

My transplanted kidney was failing and I had to unexpectedly start dialysis in March.

By June I was off dialysis because I received another kidney transplant thanks to the wonderful gift of life from my mom.

Now, it’s September. Several months later and I am doing great. Mom, too. Feeling worlds better and I’m so grateful.

Your kindness during those tough months still means so much to me. Thank you.

It’s been a crazy year, but next month on October 8th, I’ll be in Minnesota for the book signing I missed in February. Yay!

If you had planned on coming last time, I hope you can make it again. I would love to meet you guys, share cake pop stories and give you a big hug.

Coincidentally, I’m also going to be in San Francisco again later in October. My mom and I will be attending a charity event with my publisher benefitting the National Kidney Foundation that serves Northern California. Chronicle was kind enough to make a donation. I love those guys.

While I’m there, I’ll be doing a book signing at the Chronicle Headquarters store. Hope you can come by and say hi. There will be more hugs.

Here are the details for both.

MINNEAPOLIS
Saturday, October 8, 2011
12 p.m. – 2 p.m.

Williams-Sonoma – Edina Galleria Mall
3512 Galleria Williams-Sonoma #717
Edina, MN, 55435

SAN FRANCISCO
Friday, October 21, 2011
12 p.m. – 2 p.m.

Chronicle Books Corporate Headquarters
680 Second Street
San Francisco, CA 94107

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I just wanted to let you know.

I also want to let you know that I made some really cute cake pops this weekend. I just need to finish the photos and pull the post together.

Want to take a guess what I made?
The first person to guess correctly will win a signed Cake Pops book.
One guess per comment please.

Here’s a hint: It’s a cartoon character.

If no one guesses correctly, I’ll do a random draw.

Deadline to leave your guess on this post is Monday, September 12 at 9 pm ET. Time’s Up. Cake Pop and Winner announced here.

Good Luck!

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I ventured into crackers this weekend. Golden brown graham crackers.

Small ones of course. These are only about 2 inches square.

Combine flour, dark brown sugar, baking soda and salt and you’re on your way. Then, cut in the butter. Add honey, milk and vanilla and mix on low just until dough starts to come together. Chill.

Okay that was the overview version. Visit Smitten Kitchen for the full Graham Cracker recipe. When I first saw her post back in 2009, I was mesmerized by the cuteness of her crackers and color of the dough. I knew I would make them one day and I’m glad I finally did.

It’s fun to make homemade versions of things I would typically only think of buying. Like the gumdrops I made the other day. Or marshmallows. I need to try to make those soon. Or pop-tarts maybe? Nutter Butters… hmmmm.

After the dough was chilled and rolled, I roughly measured out 2-inch square cracker shapes, leaving a space between each square.

You’ll want to remove the extra dough (and reuse the scraps) to make sure the crackers don’t bake into each other.

That would be ugly.

You can use a wooden skewer to press along the center of each cracker and also to poke decorative holes.

Sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar, too before baking.

Then, when baked and cooled, you can snap them in half just like the larger version you’re used to.

Too cute.

But, I took these a step farther.

Yeah, I broke out the fondant.

Weird, right?

I mean fondant doesn’t go with graham crackers at all. But, I threw reasoning out the window and got a little silly.

Or a lot silly. Silly is good … and good for you.

Anyone see where I’m going yet?

What about now?

If you use Twitter regularly, you’ve probably guessed already.

Instagram.

Better yet, Instagrahams!

Instagram is a fun, free photo sharing app for your iPhone. I’ve recently become fascinated.

It lets you use filters with your photos and share them with your friends. It lets you see what they see. In an instant.

Try it.

Camera Crackers.

Graham crackers.

Homemade fun.

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How about some yummy muffins to get your Monday started off right. These aren’t just morning muffins though – filled with lots of melty, chocolatey goodness – they’re great any time of the day.

I’ve been going through my pantry the last few weeks trying to use up some supplies that didn’t get any attention while I wasn’t feeling well earlier this year. Oreos for cupcakes, three whole bags of chips for these cookies and now some chunks for muffins. For chunky muffins. And I still have several more bars and blocks of chocolate to go through before they expire much more than they are right now.

Not that it would really stop me from using them, but I want to use them before my stash gets out of control. Because I always seem to pick up more thinking I don’t have enough at home. Then they stack up. Although I don’t keep track, I usually have every type of morsel except the kind I want that day. If I need peanut butter, I have butterscotch. If I need dark, I have milk, but luckily today I had chunky.

Good, because I wanted some muffins filled with chunks of chocolate.

These are so simple to throw together. Stir flour, sugar, baking powder and salt together.

In another bowl, add sour cream, milk, eggs and vanilla.

Then melted butter. Stir that all together…

Pour into your flour mixture and stir together until combined.

Chunks. Check.

You can fill regular size baking cups about 3/4 full or…

Make your muffins feel special with these fancier tulip baking cups.

These are taller so you’ll want to fill each cup with more batter.
1/3 cup or more of batter so they won’t be too short inside the wrappers.

Lovely.

Let me tell you how I like my muffins. Especially chocolate chip and blueberry muffins… I like to eat them warm just out of the oven and with a little added butter tucked inside…

… so that it melts away making the muffins even more moist and yummy.

I love chocolate chunk muffins. I love muffins period. Well, except ones with raisins. Yuck.
What’s your fave muffin? Poppyseed, bran, cranberry, banana, savory, sweet? Do tell.

Chocolate Chunk Muffins

1 1/2 cup all purpose flour
1/2 cup sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup sour cream
1/4 cup milk
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla
1/4 cup melted butter, cooled slightly
6 oz. semisweet chocolate chunks

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
• Line muffin tray with 12 regular size baking cups.
• In a medium bowl, stir flour, sugar, baking powder and salt together with a wire whisk until combined.
• In another bowl, stir sour cream, milk, eggs, vanilla and melted butter. Stir until combined.
• Stir in chocolate chunks and divide batter into baking cups.
• Bake for about 18-20 minutes or until done.
• Makes 12 regular or 9 larger muffins. Bake a couple minutes longer for taller muffins.

Eat them warm and enjoy every last bite.

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