Pear and Walnut Lattice Pie

Dear all,

Another little surprise for my parents was the Pear and Walnut Lattice Pie I made. Autumn is upon us so I thought I would use some seasonal fruits. Apple is overrated, so I went for pear! I found a lovely recipe for this pear and walnut pie, and here it is!

This pie actually used walnut pastry, meaning the pie crust contained walnuts, as you can see once it's rolled out. The pie filling was a mix of pear, chopped walnuts and some raisins, mixed up with a bit of sugar, cinnamon and flour.



Despite the walnuts the dough was actually quite easy to roll out, and scooping the filling in also wasn't very hard work! It looked so yummy, even before going in the oven.



Of course it looke -even- better when it was all finished!! I have never been very good at making the lattice part of these kinds of pies, and trust me, I've tried! I have made many an apple pie with the same topping, I think I just always get left with just not enough dough so I have to roll them out too thin. I will keep practicing of course.


I can tell you this Pear and Walnut Lattice Pie was definitely a success!! I personally would prefer a different pie crust, this one was a little too brittle for me, but that didn't take away from the fact it was delicious.


Here's a nice big picture - don't drewl!



See you next week for a pear and chocolate pie! Oww yeahhhh.

xoxo

Jennifer

Sticky Swirlies

Dear all,

So the other week I was at my parents' house, all alone... perfect time to do some baking! Nice big kitchen, nice big oven... wow the luxury! I couldn't pass that up! So I decided to make two things for them for when they returned from their vacation: Sticky Swirls and a pear pie (will be posted next week).

So first up sticky swirls for breakfast. These sticky swirls were a kind of sweet walnut bread with chocolate chips. So first I made the bread, which is where I made a couple of mistakes. There was no plain flour left so I used whole-wheat flour. Unfortunately the flavour of this whole-wheat flour was a little overpowering in the end. Next 'mistake' was the yeast. I didn't know that the yeast in my mother's cupboard was old, which meant the bread didn't rise as much as it should have! No worries however, I'll take you through the steps anyway:

So first I rolled out the bread dough and "sprinkled" it with chocolate chunks and chopped up walnuts. Then I rolled the whole thing up.



I then cut the roll into 12 semi-even parts. I then placed them face up in a round baking tin, making the 'swirl' visible. Unfortunately the bread didn't rise the way it should have (yeast problem) and so I let it sit extra long and in fact then put it in the fridge overnight because it was too late to still bake them. So I baked them the next morning so they would be fresh for breakfast with the parents. They looked niced, tasted less nice.




My disapproval absolutely didn't stop my father from munching on them, so I'm glad someone liked them! Rather than sticky they were rather crunchy, crunchy being an understatement. The idea was really nice however so I will definitely try to make them again sometimes, with the right flour, and fresh yeast.


See you next week for the Pear Walnut Lattice Pie!!!

xoxo

Jennifer

Easy Decorating

Dear all,

Here is a quick get-you-through-the-weekend post! Just to show that making a cake look pretty doesn't have to be time consuming, I present my (in)famous chocolate kahlua mud cake!

This is a cake I've been several times now and it's always a big success. Also one of the few cakes I can't get enough of myself! This time I was invited to dinner at a friend's and I had promised to make chocolate cake. This was to prove that whatever rubbish cake they had in Belgium can't compare to my -awesome- mud cake! It came out of the oven beautifully, unfortunately only an hour before I was expected at my friend's house...

The downside (?) of this blog and of my many baking adventures is that people start expecting a certain standard. Can I show up with an undecorated cake? I don't know, and I wasn't planning on finding out (yet). So I did some quick thinking and remembered the cake stencils I got for my birthday. I brought the cake, the stencils and the icing sugar along seperately and finished the cake off right before serving.



Quick, easy, effective! The cake was very much appreciated and I believe it just as good as if not better than the Belgian chocolate cake!

xoxo

Jennifer

Boob Pie

Dear all,

Another Wednesday, another pie!

This time a friend and I got real creative for another friend's birthday. My friend suggested making a cake in the shape of boobs, for the birthday girl who god has been so generous to. Of course I had to take this challenge!

First off, we decided to use carrot cake, just because it's soo yummy! So off I went grating carrots and chopping walnuts. In retrospect maybe the walnuts were not the best idea because they are annoying when sculpting cake, but as you shall see, it all worked out.



After making a massive amount of carrot cake, baked in one square and one rectangular baking tin, it was time to sculpt. We cut the square cake in half to create the shoulders, by placing the two halves next to eachother, and the rectangular cake was sculpted into the full bosom.



A good idea of my partner in crime was to use marsipan to cover the cake. So after covering the fully sculpted cake with butter cream icing, my friend rolled out the marsipan and covered the cake, giving it its 'skin'. So here you see a block of marsipan, and how it turns a simple carrot cake into a creation. It's starting to look good!



The birthday girl also happens to keep pet rats, and so my creative partner used food colouring to colour some more marsipan, and made 2 rather cute yet devilish red-eyed rats to go with the cake!



After turning the cake into pasty boobs, it was time to transport the cake to the birthday girl's building, where my friend also lives, to finish off the decoration. After (barely?) surviving the cycle ride over, it was time for some cream cheese icing. Fuchsia coloured, cream cheese icing. Oh yeah baby!



So off I went covering the cake in cream cheese icing to make it look like a very bright pink shirt. We finished the cake off with the 2 cute rats and a boob pie was made!
















Look, it's actually life-size!!! ;)



Of course the cake looked just as good on the inside as it did on the outside, and it was generally de-licious!



One more happy customer! Here's the birthday girl and my creative partner in crime enjoying the fruits of our labour (what an icky experession).



Until next week!

xoxo Jennifer

Housewarming Pie

Dear all,

It's another Wednesday with another post. Today I would like to tell you about these housewarming pies I made. A friend of mine had requested a Key Lime Pie and a Mississippi Mud Pie a while a go, and of course, her wish is my command!

The Key Lime Pie first of all is a egg yolk-rich lime, creamy kind of pie. The version I mad had a lovely, buttery digestive biscuit base with a zesty lime filling.



I then topped the whole thing off with some freshly grated lime zest. Tadaa!



The Hummingbird bakery recipe says their version doesn't need any food colouring because the lime itself makes it go that colour. I think mine was still more yellow-ish than lime green, but as the flavours were balanced I think we'll leave it like this. No need for funny artificial colouring.



Next item on the menu: the Mississippi Mud Pie, a creamy mud cake type pie on a drier shortcrust type of base. I have no found several recipes, including a pear pie that will feature later on in this blog, which use this kind of pastry. I myself find it too dry so I think next time I will use my own shortcrust pastry recipe to make this pie even better. Because it sure was good!




After pre-baking the pie crust I baked the chocolate pie until it was just firm to the touch. It leaves a crispy topping but the inside was as creamy as the key lime pie. Topped with whipped cream as well and some hand-grated chocolate as well as some sugar decorations this pie looked like a dream as well!



And of course, it tasted great too! Happy friend Roxy was happy!



xoxo Jennifer