NANAIMO BAR, The Daring Baker's Challenge January 2010

The January 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Lauren of Celiac Teen. Lauren chose Gluten-Free Graham Wafers and Nanaimo Bars as the challenge for the month. The sources she based her recipe on are 101 Cookbooks and www.nanaimo.ca.

I did not challenge myself to make gluten free graham crackers, but I did make my own graham using all purpose flour and whole wheat flour. I also made only half of the filling then the original recipe that were given. Since I really love lemon (have plenty of Meyer lemon at the moment), I replace the heavy cream with about 2 tablespoon of Meyer lemon juice. The result were wonderfully fragrant and lemony.

Thank you for the wonderful challenge lauren, I'll try to make the gluten free version one day. Thanks to Lisa and Yvone for creating this wonderful Daring Baker's challenge.

Snow landscape photos was taken by son AD on his recent trip to Milan-Italy.

Chocolate Pear Cake To Enjoy After The Storm.

What could be better then having a slice of chocolate cake and a cup of tea, enjoy with couple of friends who come to visit on a rainy day? I baked pear chocolate cake for us to enjoy, and was so moist, full of chocolate flavor, and delicious that my friend was having three slices. I was so pleased!

Note: I slightly under baked the cake to make it moist, if you like your cake a bit drier, you can adjust the time of cooking. The cake taste a even better the next day. I didn't poach the pears, so the pears were a bit too crunchy which, my husband prefer. If you like, you can poach ( recipe here) them before adding it to the batter.

4 oz unsalted butter (leave at room temperature until soft)

½ cup sugar

4 eggs, room temperature

4 oz dark chocolate (melted-cooled slightly)

½ cup all purpose flour

½ cup almond meal (finely ground almond), or hazelnut meal, or combination of both

4 tablespoon unsweetened cocoa powder, or Dutch process cocoa powder

1¼ tsp baking powder

pinch of salt

3 to 4 Bosc pears

OR, any kind of fruit that is in season

• Preheat oven to 350⁰F.
• Butter a 10 inches cake pan, line the bottom with parchment paper, and butter the paper as well. Coat the cake pan lightly with flour, tap off the excess flour. Set aside.
• Sift flour, almond meal, cocoa powder, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.
• Peal the pear, cut into half, and core.
• Beat butter and sugar on a medium speed until light and fluffy. Add egg, one at a time. Beating well after each addition. Add the melted chocolate, beat on a low speed (speed #2), add the sifted flour mixture, beat for 1 minutes. Turn off the machine.
• Pour the batter into prepared cake pan. Arrange the slice pear in circular. Bake the cake for 30 to 40 minutes. Cool before serving.

We had quite a big stormy weather last night, lightening followed by loud thunder, heavy wind and heavy rain. The thunder was so loud, that my dog was really scared. She was crying through out, that made us awake, and unable to went back to sleep. This morning, I went to my garden, the ground is full of water, my pool is overflow, everything is wet, and it is pretty chilly. But, I love it very much. I've been waiting for weather like this. I want rain so bad, I just wish that I can harvest it. Unfortunately I don't have any barrel to collect it (my wish list), what a shame! I was please that everything is all right. Other then a few paddle of water everywhere, which doesn't really bother me at all. I took couple of photo for this post. Hope you like it..

Butternut Squash BRIOCHE

I discovered this unbelievable delicious brioche recipe from Susan. I must admit, most of my bread come from her recipe. There is a reason for that, I feel comfortable with it. I always feel like the recipe will work for me, and the recipe is uncomplicated and easy to follow.

This brioche was really delicious, lighter then any I've ever tasted, yet still has that soft, lightly sweet and buttery. Speaking of butter, as you may notice, our butter is not as yellow as those you find in Europe, right?. But, that's okay, because in this case, you will definitely can achieve the intense yellow color from butternut squash.

This superb brioche is for Yeast Spotting, and to Jaime BBD's birthday party theme.

p.s this recipe will stay with me for a long time!

What blooming in my garden at the moment is camelia and this Hydrangea macrophylla 'Shooting Star'

Roasted Potato Bread

To keep my family from becoming bored eating the same bread (Norwich bread) everyday , once in a while I like to make something a bit different. This roasted potato bread is one example. Unlike the potato bread that I used to make before I knew wildyeast, this one is much much more flavorful. The potato is roasted instead of steam, and it also has garlic which give the bread even more delicious and wonderful flavor. I can tell you that very single bite is a bliss. So, I think this roasted potato bread will be worth sending it to yeast spotting. The original recipe can be found at Susan website here.

Happy New Year!

Photo courtesy of my son AD

Happy New Year everyone! May year 2010 bring a lot of

joy and happiness to all of us.