Now that it’s been over a two weeks since i’ve tempted you with the sticky toffee butterscotch sauce, it’s time for the rest of the recipe!

This has become a definite favorite of mine since I tried it for the first time last year! I didn’t really know what it was, but after trying it at a restaurant a couple time I just had to try it!

It’s the perfect holiday cake to serve this year. It’s warm, gooey-sticky sweet and tastes even better with whipped cream. I made it for Christmas last year and I’m debating on whether or not making it again this year. I made it last week for a family dinner we went to, but this time instead of using a regular cake pan I used a bundt pan and I added a little spice to it! Otherwise, it doesn’t call for any spices and it was just missing that hint of flavor.

If you’ve never eaten sticky toffee pudding, or have been meaning to bake it, do it now. Now! It is so so so so good. I serve it warm with whipped cream on top. Mmm… I wish it were last week all over again!

I’ve also finally found a place to live in Victoria while I’m at school, and lucky me! I even basically get my own little kitchen on the bottom of the house, as most of the roommates don’t use it. I’m just happy I can bring over my baking dishes!! (more…)

Tir-A-Mi-Su. Tiramisu. It means ‘pick me up’ in Italian and is a classic Italian dessert. Being Italian, I grew up with delicious Italian cooking from my dad and Nonna. Though I didn’t acquire a taste for Tiramisu until I was older. I remember having tried it at family dinners when I was younger, but I didn’t care much for the strong espresso taste, and if often had alcohol in it. I usually opted for a big piece of French bread with lots of Nutella for my dessert.

But over the years I have learned to Love Tiramisu! It’s a really simple dessert to make that has that wow factor of tasting like it’s difficult! I have never particularly liked marscapone cheese, and don’t use it when I make the cheese layers for the dessert. It’s the yummiest no-bake dessert!

Definitely a great Italian dessert to try!

Ingredients:

• 1-2 Packages Lady Finger Cookies
• 1 Tub Light Cool Whip - thawed
• 1 Package Light Cream Cheese – room temperature
• 1 Cup Strong Brewed Coffee or Espresso, cold or room temperature
• Cocoa For Dusting
• Chocolate Shavings
• 1 Tsp. Sugar
• 1 Tbsp. Vanilla
• 1/4 Cup Baileys (or other Coffee Liquor)

Directions:

1. Place a single layer of lady fingers in a shallow square/rectangular glass baking dish. The size of the dish will depend on how much you want to make, and how many packages of lady fingers you have.
2. Mix Coffee with Baileys (you can opt-out of the liquor if you don’t like the taste)
3. Using a stand mixer, beat the cream cheese until soft. Add in vanilla. Using a spoon, gradually add the cool whip to the mixture. Continue on low until it is all combined. It will be slightly thick, but you want to be able to run a spoon through it. Stir in the sugar.
4. Put the cream cheese mixture to the side.
5. Pour, using a ladle or spoon a small amount at a time the coffee or espresso over top of the lady fingers. You don’t want them to be soaking in coffee, but enough to dampen them, as they will expand. Alternatively, you can quickly dip them into a small bowl of coffee. Either way, you don’t want them to be soggy and falling apart.
6. Using a spatula, place a large amount of cream cheese mixture on top of the lady fingers. You want enough to evenly cover the tops of the cookies. Using a spatula or back of a spoon, smooth the top of the cream cheese.
7. Next, using a mesh sieve dust top of the cream cheese layer with the cocoa. Sprinkle with a small amount of chocolate shavings.
8. Continue the layers, again beginning with a layer of lady finers, then cream cheese and cocoa until you run out of ingredients. You want the last layer on top to be cream cheese.
9. Dust the final layer with more cocoa and chocolate shavings.
10. Place, covered, in the fridge for at least 2 hours for the ingredients to set. You can make it a day before and refrigerate it overnight as well.

Serve small pieces cold, with extra cocoa sifted onto the plate.

Mmmm.. look at all those delicious layers!

Enjoy!

Or..something like that. Maybe not in Greece, but resembling Greece! So my old neighbor asked me to decorate a cake for a friends 50th birthday, and the birthday theme was Greece! So I decided to come up with a Santorini inspired cake! I used fondant for the top and cut it out to look like the skyline, with the famous blue doors and roof. I used graham cracker crumbs for the sand and made a vanilla cake with vanilla buttercream =) I like the way it turned out, and the birthday girl loved it!

I was asked by a friend if I could make a cake for a wedding shower/house warming party. She had looked online and gotten a few ideas, and I told her to e-mail me what she would like. I was so happy to see which cake she had chosen! I had always wanted a Tiffany & Co little blue box cake! And as a plus, the bride to be was named Tiffany! So it was perfect. I decided to make a large blue box for the bridal shower cake, and two matching little cakes for the houswarming. The shower was pink themed as well, so I wanted to tie it in with the cake. I also made tiffany colored cupcakes to go with it, with little mini white fondant bows to match. Now, I had used fondant before to decorate cakes and cupcakes, but never for an entire cake covering! It was really easy and fun. If you have’t decorated one before with it, I would definitely try it out!

Needless to say the bride to be loved the cakes! She saved one of the smaller pink boxes to bring home to her fiance! Here are some pictures of the finished cake, and a couple of the bride to be and myself!

Val, The Bride to be Tiffany & Me

First off Happy Mother’s Day to all the yummy mummies out there!

This mother’s day I wanted to bake something a little more special than just a cake, and seeing as how I had just made my mom a Carrot Cake for her birthday a couple weeks ago, I thought I would hold off on another cakey creation, that we would eat for about a week… So I thought about what my mother might like instead, and then it came to me. A Cheesecake!

A couple reasons for this is because a. my mom had actually came home from work one day a while back with a brand new springform pan for me, cause she knew I didn’t have one, and b. because every time my mom has gone on a cruise ship (and believe me, she’s been on a million) she always says she loves having the NY Cheesecake.  I remember she would go to High Tea every day on the ship just for the cheesecake, and was rather dissapointed once when they didn’t have any! Shocking, a cruise ship with no Cheesecake! So I thought it would be nice to bake her one from scratch, non of this no-bake, pre-bought cardboard tasting cheesecake. Nope, it would be straight fom the oven! And, even though It was hard, I waited the agonizing million hours for it to bake, and cool completely, and store in the fridge over night. Luckily she wasn’t home at the time so I could do all this without her knowledge, and have it ready for the reveal on mothers day morning. Along with pancakes for breakfast and of course home made strawberry coulis! I also found the cutest mothers day card, which I thought was quite fitting! (see below)

Now, I think I had only ever made a cheesecake once before for thanksgiving, a pumpkin one, and it didn’t turn out so great. But! this one is definitely a winner and a great basic like Dorie says. You can add many variations to it or have it just plain. I stuck with plain, and made some strawberry coulis to go with it. The recipe is super easy to follow, and I highly recommend the water bath, and hair dryer technique!.. you’ll see.  Enjoy! Love you mom! (more…)

First off I’d like to wish my mom a Happy Birthday!! As I mentioned earlier, my mom has been away at the Dominican Republic for a week! And today is her Birthday! But she isn’t home til tomorrow, friday, missing her birthday! So I thought I would bake her a cake so she could have it when she gets home! A birthday isn’t a birthday without cake! Also, I’ve gotten my final grades back and was super happy to receive a B in Biology! So all that stressing, and even lack of baking paid off! So, I think I deserve a piece of cake too!

Ever since I made the Zucchini cake I’ve been wanting to make a carrot cake, mostly so I could use my shredder attachment again! But also, my mom loves carrot cake as well! I was originally going to make another one from the Joy of Cooking, but then compared the two and liked the additions of coconut to the cake, also it seemed to make more. So, from the book I got for my birthday last year, Dorie Greenspan’s Baking: From my home to yours, I decided to try out her Bill’s Big Carrot Cake. So far I’ve loved everyting I’ve baked from it, including the white out devils food cake, which I made for my brother’s birthday in March, which was de-licious!! So here’s the recipe for the carrot cake! It’s definitely a winner.

Bill’s Big Carrot Cake

From Baking: from my home to yours by Dorie Greenspan
Yields 10 servings

Ingredients:

For the cake:

• 2 cups all purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• ¾ teaspoon salt
• 3 cups grated carrots (about 9 carrots, you can grate them in food processor fitted with a shredding a blade or use a box grater, i used my KitchenAid with the shredding blade and baby carrots)
• 1 cup coarsely chopped walnuts or pecans
• 1 cup shredded coconut (sweetened or unsweetened)
• ½ cup moist, plump raisins
• 2 cups sugar
• 1 cup canola oil
• 4 large eggs
• *I also added about a cup of crushed & drained pineapple

Getting ready:

Position the racks to divide the oven into thirds and preheat the oven to 325 degrees Fahrenheit. Butter three 9-x-2-inch round cake pans, flour the insides, and tap out the excess. Put the two pans on one baking sheet and one on another.

To make the cake:

1. Whisk the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon and salt. In another bowl, stir together the carrots, chopped nuts, coconut, and raisins.
2. Working with a stand mixer, preferably fitted with a paddle attachment, or with a hand mixer in a large bowl, beat the sugar and oil together on a medium speed until smooth. Add the eggs one by one and continue to beat until the batter is even smoother. It will resemble custard or Jell-o at this point.
3. Reduce the speed to low and add the flour mixture, mixing only until the dry ingredients disappear. Gently mix the chunky ingredients. Divide the batter among the baking pans.
4. Bake for 40-50 minutes, rotating the pans from top to bottom and front to back at the midway point, until a thin knife inserted into the centers comes out clean. The cakes will have just started to come away from the sides of the pans. Transfer the cakes to cooling racks and cool for about 5 minutes, then run a knife around the sides of the cakes and unmold them. Invert and cool to room temperature right side up.
5. The cakes can be wrapped airtight and kept at room temperature overnight or frozen for up to 2 months.

To make the frosting:
Working with a stand mixer, preferably fitted with a paddle attachment or with a hand mixer in a large bowl, beat the cream cheese and butter together until smooth and creamy. Gradually add the sugar and continue to beat until the frosting is velvety smooth. Beat in the lemon juice or extract. If you’d like coconut in the filling, scoop about half of the frosting and stir the coconut in.

*I toasted some coconut beforehand, and sprinkled it on top of the first layer in the middle of the cake.

To assemble the cake:
Put one layer top side up on a cardboard cake round or a cake plate protected by strips of wax or parchment paper. If you added the coconut to the frosting, use half of the coconut frosting to generously cover the first layer (or generously cover with plain frosting). Use an offset spatula or a spoon to smooth the frosting all the way to the edges of the layer. Top with the second layer, this time placing the cake stop side down, and frost with the remainder of the coconut frosting or plain frosting. Top with the last layer, right side up, and frost the top- and the sides- of the cake. Finish the top with swirls of frosting. If you want to top the cake with toasted nuts or coconut, sprinkle them on now while the frosting is soft. Refrigerate the cake for 30 minutes, just to set the frosting before serving.

Serving:
This cake can be served as soon as the frosting is set. It can also wait, at room temperature and covered with a cake keeper overnight. The cake is best served in thick slices at room temperature and while it’s good plain, it’s even better with vanilla ice cream or some lemon curd.

Happy Birthday Mom! xox From Me & The animals