holiday party

Well, it's been a while. To anyone who still checks the blog or to new visitors, I have some good news. I will be updating more frequently. However, the blog will be taking a different direction. Since I am at school and baking/styling is really pretty difficult, I will be doing more of an east coast/west coast food and travel blog that shows some delicious places to hit up if you're on either side of the country. Whether you're just looking for the best cup of coffee or some pictures of tasty looking cupcakes, then this is the blog for you. There might be the occasional natalie-baked item up here with a recipe, so keep on the lookout for that also.

Here are some pictures from my holiday party when i was back home in seattle. it was a really great time with family and friends. i made vanilla-cinnamon apple and cranberry-apple galettes with whipped cream. i also went a little crazy with the decorating, much of which was inspired by the creative geniuses over at Kinfolk Magazine. Seriously, check them out. Hope everyone had a great holiday season and is getting to all their new years resolutions―psych! Resolutions are dumb: always push yourselves to be your best, y'all.

Apple Cranberry Galettes
-makes about 4 8-inch Galettes -
Dough ingredients:

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
2 tablespoons sugar
3/4 teaspoon salt
12 tablespoons (1 1/4 sticks) chilled unsalted butter + 2 tablespoons
2 tablespoons (or more) ice water
1 egg
1/2 tablespoon heavy cream
sanding sugar

Filling Ingredients
4 large granny smith apples
2/3 cup fresh cranberries
5 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1/2 cup sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ginger
note: for vanilla-cinnamon, use 1 teaspoon cinnamon and 1 scraped vanilla bean.

Procedure
Mix flour, sugar, and salt in food processor.
Add 12 tablespoons of butter; pulse until coarse meal forms. Add 2 tablespoons ice water; pulse until moist clumps form, adding more water by teaspoonfuls if dry. Gather dough into ball; flatten into disk and wrap in plastic. Chill 2 hours.
While you're chilling the dough, you might want to prepare the filling (procedure below).
Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Roll out dough on a floured work surface 1/2" thick. Cut into 8" diameter circles and place on a sheet pan lined with parchment paper.
Place about 1/3 of a cup of the filling in the center of the circle and fold up edges of the dough in one direction. Place a 1/2 tablespoon of butter on the filling.
Beat the egg in a small bowl and add cream. Using a pastry brush, paint the sides of the galette with an eggwash and sprinkle with sanding sugar. Place on the parchment-lined sheet pan and bake for 15 minutes depending on your oven.

Filling Procedure:
Peel and cut apples into very thin slices, about 1/4" thick, then set aside.
In a large saucepan, turn on medium heat and melt butter. While the butter is melting, combine lemon juice, sugar, and spices in a small bowl. Pour into the saucepan.
Cook the cranberries in the pan first, without the apples. Wait until they start to make "popping" sounds, then remove from the pan, leaving the juice in the pan.
Cook apples just until they are easily sliced with a little pressure from a wooden spoon. Remove from heat and toss the cranberries in. Stir the fruits in with the sauce until everything is nice and covered.

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Happy Mother's Day!

Happy mother's day to all the moms out there. My mom gets a lot of baking gifts, as you might have guessed, and today was no exception. I made some lemon scones which were spread with homemade (not by me) blackberry jam. I also put together a fruit salad of mango, blackberry, and bananas, and a split-shot latte. If you are a mom, have a nice, relaxing day and if you have a mom in your life, be extra nice.



I have an obsession with packaging and so if I have any excuse to wrap gifts, I go to town. The wrapping in this picture is just done with some purple tissue paper, brown kraft paper, a kraft takeout box, and some striped bands that I made really quickly. I also made a little square card for my mom.


Also, this last Thursday, was the Seattle THAW 2010. It's a charity event that benefits the hdsa (huntington's disease society of america). If you don't know much about the disease or organization, check it out because it's a really great cause. I was sponsor of the event and provided 600 mini cupcakes, the flavors being bailey, lemon blackberry, and spiced carrot cake. I will create a post all about the event, so that is coming soon.

Anyways, happy mother's day!
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Holidays and Cookies

As Christmas is around the corner, i've been sending out our holiday cookies to family and friends. I decided to make our tags this year with some new software I got. I have a font-downloading addiction.

In our holiday cookie bags/boxes there were: vanilla-chocolate swirls, white chocolate cranberry walnut cookies, vanilla sugar cookies, orange pecan shortbread, & chocolate chip shortbread.

When i did a holiday crafts fair (i sold holiday cookie bags) earlier this month, i also did a lemon shortbread & white chocolate-dipped chocolate peppermint cookies.

I hope everyone has a wonderful holiday, whether you celebrate Christmas, or not.
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Orange, Vanilla, Blackberries, & Raspberries

I hope everyone had a nice fourth of july. it's gotten really hot the past couple of days, so my friends and I went onto my roof in hopes of seeing the fireworks, but there were too many trees blocking our view, so we decided to go walk down and see them. it was a fun, low-key, little celebration. But to me, what defines a holiday, is that there might be other people at our house who I can make something for. i hadn't made a cake in a while, and with four other teenagers in the house, I knew a substantial amount would get eaten. I used blackberries and raspberries since those are in season right now, and you gotta use them while you can. Our neighbors have raspberry plants, and brought some fresh berries by. They were so fragrant, so i knew they were good. They saved me from having to buy some and I'm sure the quality of the home-grown berries far exceeds the quality of store berries.

I start my art program this week, so baking will be something I can only do in free time here and there. It has school-like hours, so by the time I get home, it's rather late. I'm hoping I can fit smaller projects in [i always find a way].


Orange Buttercake

2 sticks butter
6 oz cream cheese
1 1/3 cup sugar
Zest of 1 orange
4 eggs
1 cup AP flour
2/3 cup self-rising flour

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line 2- 7" springform pans with parchment.Butter and flour the pan sides and the parchment. Cream together butter, cream cheese, and sugar until thoroughly combined. Add in orange zest and eggs. Sift the flours together and add them to batter until just combined. Pour into pans, diving the mixture in half, using an offset spatula to spread. Make for 40 minutes (depending on oven), spinning the pans around every 10 minutes or so. Remove from pan and let cool for at least 2 hours before cutting.



Vanilla Bean Cream Cheese Frosting

2 sticks unsalted butter; softened
8 oz cream cheese
1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
1/2 vanilla bean; scraped

Combine butter and cream cheese in stand mixer and add powdered sugar until smooth. Add the vanilla bean seeds until they speckle the mixture.

Assembly

Once the cake is cool, use a serated knife to remove to domes formed on both cakes. Split both of the cakes into 2 even layers. Clean one of the pans you use to make the cake in, and set the bottom of the springform pan inside. Using a 4" strip of acetate, line the cake pan's rims. Place a bottom layer of cake inside the pan. Using a piping bag, pipe a rim around the outermost edge of the cake, making sure to be piping along the acetate sheet. Fill in the rest with frosting and spread evenly. Lay another layer of cake on top, and repeats steps until your last layer of cake. Frost the top layer, too. Refrigerate for 1 hour. Remove the cake from the refrigerator and remove from the springfrom pan and remove the acetate. Frost a crumb-coat [very lightly] on the cake and refrigerate for another 30 minutes. Remove from refrigerator. Frost another thick layer of frosting onto the cake, so that none of it shows through. Place macerated berries on top just before serving, and mint leafs for decoration.
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