lemon ginger madelines

black and white packaging design here and here
floral packaging parts one
two
some more black and white packaging design from graphic designer, ashley r. tipton
a coffee shop website
one last designer a series of black and white business cards
black and white branding with a pop of color.

lemon ginger madelines
1 1/2 sticks clarified butter
3 lemon ginger teabags
2 eggs
1 cup sugar
1 cup flour
1 tablespoon brandy
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 3/4 teaspoon fresh lemon peel
3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
You will need a madeline pan for this recipe. I prefer not to use the non-stick type, as this is more authentic, but do what you can.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees farenheit. Melt butter in a small saucepan. Once melted, place teabags in butter and steep for 20 minutes and allow butter to cool. Heat eggs and sugar atop a double broiler until lukewarm; stir constantly. Remove from heat and beat until thick but light and creamy. When cool, sift and gradually add the flour, melted butter, brandy, vanilla, lemon peel, then juice.
Grease and flour a madeline pan, bake for about 8-10 minutes. Cool on a rack, shell side up.



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Three Cookies

Hi everyone! It's been a while since I've done a post. Unfortunately, this won't be a full post. Life is just a little crazy right now, but I hope to be able to do some full posts for you in the not-so-distant future. Today, I have some pictures of ginger cookies, rosemary butter cookies, and chai tea shortbread. Have a nice weekend.







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Vanilla Chai Cookies

I've just returned from the east coast to look at colleges. I'm on my spring break right now, which happens to be two weeks long (woo hoo!). Of course the first thing I did when I got back was to start baking. I've always been a fan of little cookies (here, here, here, & here). I think it's nice to be able to have a small treat when you want something sugary, but you don't want to eat an entire cheesecake.





These cookies taste just like a sweet chai latte. These would be great for a little tea time snack. Or any snack time for that matter.


Also, on another note, you may have noticed that Pâtisserie Natalie looks a little different. I've updated the layout for spring 2010. As you probably know, I design and code all my own layouts, and I'm pretty happy with how this one turned out. Being on spring break gave me some time to work on this new layout, which took a while to get right. I hope everyone has a great weekend!

Vanilla Chai Sable Cookie

1 stick unsalted butter, softened
1/2 cup sugar
1 large egg
1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1 3/4 cups flour
3/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon fresh ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon fresh ground black pepper
1/2 tsp salt

Combine butter and sugar in stand mixer until creamy. Add the egg and vanilla. In a medium bowl, sift together the dry ingredients and mix well. Add to the wet ingredients and mix just until barely combined. Using your hands, use a kneading motion inside the bowl so that the dough starts to come together. Flour your hands if the dough is sticking to you. Divide into two parts, flatten into disks, and wrap in plastic wrap. Refrigerate for at least 2 hours.

Preheat oven to 350 F. Take out one of the disks and roll out to 1/4" thick on a flour surface. Using a scalloped cookie cutter (see link at the bottom) about 1 3/4" in diameter. Cut out cookies (I also cut out a little shape in the middle of half the cookies) and bake for 8 minutes, until edges are just slightly golden brown.

Cardamom Cream
1 stick unsalted butter, softened
1/2 cup powdered sugar, sifted
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon cardamom
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt

Combine ingredients in a stand mixer with the paddle attachment until soft and smooth. Transfer to a piping bag with plain tip about 1/2" in diameter. Sandwich cream in between two cookies.

What I used:


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Peanut Butter Sandwiches

As you may have noticed, Girl Scout Cookie season has arrived. For most people, that is great news. For me, not so much. I find them pretty gross and artificial-tasting. The only thing I think Girl Scout cookies are good for is reinvention. I think the cookies sometimes have good flavor combinations and can be used in other desserts. This idea got me thinking about taking other commercial baked goods with bad quality ingredients and remaking them using good recipes and ingredients. I would be lying if I said I didn't like Nutter Butters. They're good. But they could taste so much better. The filling in a Nutter Butter tastes kind of like an Oreo's: bleck. Using natural peanut butter that has only two ingredients (peanuts and salt) makes for a healthier and tastier filling.




I want to apologize for how few posts I've been doing. Believe me, I would do more if I could. I expect the next several weeks (months) to be equally as busy, so there won't be an abundance of posting in the near future. I will do posts whenever I can.

Peanut Butter Shortbread

2 sticks unsalted butter, softened
3/4 cup natural peanut butter
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup light brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp salt
2 cups all-purpose flour

Preheat oven to 300 F. Beat butter and peanut butter together until thoroughly combined. Add the sugars and beat until fluffy and smooth. Add vanilla extract and salt, then flour. Beat until a dough comes together. Wrap in plastic wrap and chill overnight.

Once chilled, roll on a floured surface until the dough is 1/4 inch thick. Using a cookie cutter, cut out shapes and place on a sheet pan lined with parchment paper. Bake for 16-18 minutes, until the cookies are firm to the touch. Let cool for 2 hours before filling.

Peanut Butter Filling
1.5 sticks unsalted butter, softened
1/2 cup cream peanut butter
1 cup powdered sugar, sifted
1/2 teaspoon salt

Combine butter and peanut butter well. Add the rest of the ingredients and mix thoroughly. Transfer to a piping bag fitted with a large circular tip, about 1/2 inch in diameter. Sandwich two cookies together, with filling in between.

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Earl Grey Honey Madelines

It's hard to believe the summer went by so fast. I still have a couple weeks left until school, but I start soccer next week, and from there, the hours of free time begin to shrink. The summer always goes by in a flash, but it still takes me by surprise. I got to work on this blog a lot, which has been a gift. I'm glad I could continue to develop and understand my interests. I think that's really important. Once you figure out that you love to do something, it will only continue to become more fun, and the product will be better. However, I am still a teenager, and enjoy things like seeing friends and..Getting my license! I've been putting it off for a while. I'm not that into driving, and I could have gotten it a while ago if I'd really cared about it, but I just didn't get around to it. But now I'm seeing the perks of not having to take the bus everywhere. Driving is pretty scary when you think about it. It's a big responsibility to keep yourself and other people safe. But that's part of getting older, as is figuring out who you are and what you like. This year of school is pretty big in terms of really starting to make decisions about the future. This blog has really helped me figure out what I want to do, so thanks to everyone who encouraged me along the way. These madelines weren't really inspired by anything in particular, other than trying to get a recipe right. I've been working on tea-infused madelines and was having some issues with texture, and getting "the lump". I once read on David Lebovitz's blog that true Parisian madelines have a little "hump." I finally got that down, and success after many fails is always nice.



Earl Grey Honey Madelines

5 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 tablespoons loose Earl Grey tea
3/4 cup all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 large eggs
1/3 cup +2 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons honey
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

In a small saucepan, melt butter completely. Add tea leafs and cover with tin foil for 20 minutes.

Meanwhile, sift flour, baking powder, and salt into a bowl and mix thoroughly.

Using a stand mixer, beat eggs and sugar until thick and slightly lighter in color. Do not over-whip. Add honey and vanilla, and beat for 1 additional minute.

Gently fold the dry ingredients into the mixture.

Strain the butter through a fine sieve to clarify the butter and remove tea leafs. Then fold in the the butter. Drop a teaspoon of the tea leafs that were in the butter into the batter and mix.

Cover the batter with saran wrap and chill in refrigerator for at least 2 hours.

After chilled, preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Brush a madeline tin with butter and lightly flour. Drop about 1 tablespoon of the batter into each mold. It will spread in the oven. Bake madelines about 7-9 minutes, depending on your oven. They should be golden brown around the edges and a large lump should form in the middle of the cake.

Remove from tin shortly after they are out of the oven. Cool for at least 1 hour before serving.
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Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

When I first started blogging, I didn't realize how much I'd love it. I'm doing an intensive art program right now for 5 weeks, 8 hours a day. Do I have a lot of extra time to bake? No, not really. It's a very hard balance trying to get exercise, enjoy the summer, have fun, stay sharp, and do the things you love. And I really do love baking, food styling, and photography. I've been wanting to make something, anything. I don't have the time or energy to make the things I want to during the week, and I've been enjoying the great outdoors on the weekends. But this weekend I am staying home, and I have an order for cupcakes, so expect a new post Sunday or Monday.

I thought I would throw in a picture I took on the beautiful Olympic Peninsula, in the good ol' Pacific Northwest.



My little cousins are coming to visit soon, and my aunt wanted some cookies to have for them. Oatmeal raisin? NO! Raisins are gross, kids don't like them. :) I went with chocolate chips instead. I've tried at least 6 different variations of recipes to find the perfect oatmeal raisin/chocolate chip/whatever cookie, and this time I found it. Crunchy on the outside, a little soft and chewy with the oatmeal. Mmm...



Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

A teensy bit less than 2 cups AP flour [will replace this with weight in g soon]
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1 teaspoon salt
2 sticks butter; softened
3/4 cup sugar
3/4 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
2 cups rolled oats
2 cups dark chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 F. Sift together dry ingredients in a bowl and mix thoroughly. Combine butter and sugars in stand mixer until smooth. Beat in eggs one at time, beating well in after each one. Scrape down the paddle attachment and remove bowl from mixer. Hand mix the oats and chocolate chips into the batter [this prevents the oats and chips from getting broken into small pieces]. Line 2 sheetpans with parchment. Using a batter-scoop, scoop even size cookies into the tray, getting about 12 on each sheet with a 1.5" scoop. Bake for about 12 minutes, rotating the pan after 6 minutes. Once golden brown on the tops, remove from oven and let cool.
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Lemon Sandwich Cookies

Well, I'm back from my camping trip with my class. It was pouring rain the first night, and my tent was on the small side, but by the end it was sunny and warm. I had a good time, regardless of the little things that were unpleasant. Lemon seems like one of those spring+summer flavors. I don't really know why, since they're available all year long, but eating lemon desserts in December seems a little funny to me (although, you'd be hard pressed to find someone to turn down a dessert simply because it was lemon). It's been really warm these past couple days, so I decided to start using a bag of lemons I had in the fridge. I made some lemon pound cakes, but I haven't had the light to photograph them yet, so they're coming soon.
I'm having a bake sale at my school next week for the Susan G. Komen breast cancer foundation, so I've been testing out a lot of cookies. These were ones that I've been wanting to try for a while, with the interesting method of piping the dough. Apparently they were very tasty, so they might be in the running for the bake sale.



Cookie Dough
Adapted from Modern Classics 2 by Donna Hay

6 oz butter; softened
1/4 confectioner's sugar
1 teaspoon lemon oil
1 cup AP flour
1/4 cup cornstarch

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Place the butter, confectioner's sugar, and lemon oil in the bowl of a mixer and beat until light and fluffy. Sift the flour and cornstrach into the bowl and mix until combined. Place the mixture in a piping bag with a fluted nozzle. Pipe 1" rounds onto a baking tray lined with parchment. Cook for 12 minutes (depending on your oven), or until golden.

Lemon Buttercream

2 sticks unsalted butter; softened
1 cup confectioner's sugar
1 teaspoon lemon oil
1/2 teaspoon orange oil

Combine the ingredients in your mixer until smooth and creamy. Transfer to a piping bag fitted with a 1/4 plain tip. Pipe onto smooth side of cookie and sandwich together. Tada!
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Meyer Lemon Sorbet on Rosemary Lavender Butter Cookies

Welcome to Pâtisserie Natalie. This is my very first post, so to anyone reading, I hope you enjoy. This will be a baking blog where I post pictures and recipes of all the stuff I make. I am a student, so I won't be posting every day, but I pretty much bake in all my free time, so I'll be posting often enough. While it is in fact still snowing a little here and there, I felt like I needed to hurry spring in with summer fruit. While winter is my favorite season, this slushy "transition" season is madness, so here's my first post:

Meyer Lemon Sorbet on Rosemary Lavender Cookies with Fresh Strawberries

For the butter cookies:

adapted from Martha Stewart

2 sticks unsalted butter

3/4 cup granulated sugar

1 large egg

1.5 teaspoons lavender extract

2 1/2 + 2 tablespoons AP flour; sifted

1 teaspoon salt

1 sprig fresh rosemary

In the bowl of your electric mixer with paddle attachment, beat butter and sugar on medium speed until light and fluffy. Add the egg and lavender extract, beat to combine, Add the flour and salt, mixing on low speed until combined. Pull off rosemary leaves and chop finely. Add to batter and combine by turning mixer on low for 20 seconds. Turn dough out onto saran-wrap and cover. Form into a disc and place dough in refrigerator for around 2 hours. 

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. After dough is refrigerated, place on clean work-surface that is floured. Using a rolling pin, roll the dough 1/4 inch thick. Use cutters of your choice for cookie shape. Place on sheetpans lined with parchment and cook for about 12-15 minutes, depending on your oven, or until edges turn golden brown. Cool before use.

For the meyer lemon sorbet:

450 grams of simple syrup

395 grams meyer lemon juice

Combine two ingredients in a bowl and chill in refrigerator for an hour. Place in ice cream maker and use manufacturers instructions. Put in an air-tight container and place in freezer overnight.

For the strawberries:

Thinly slice as many strawberries as you like and toss in 2 teaspoons of sugar and 1/2 teaspoon of corn starch. Place on top of sorbet.

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