STICKY TOFFEE PUDDING

This fall I had a mandatory education weekend in far, far away Nova Scotia and took the opportunity to make a pit stop in Halifax to visit my friend E! (Side note: the friends I made during my science degree are some of my lifelong best friends and I just love them.) E semi-recently moved back to the east coast after a stint in Saskatchewan and I'm so happy to have her back even though I still don't see her as much as I'd like!

During our visit she took me to a place I had heard a lot about but never been to - The Middle Spoon. For some reason the name always reminds me of Middle Earth and I kind of picture it being overrun with hobbits. :) That is fortunately not the case. As you probably know, it's a dessert place!

I had the most delicious toffee pudding (and apple cider)! It was the richest, most delicious, warm, comforting dessert ever and totally inspired me to make something similar at home!! I found this recipe and it turned out sooooo good!!! It was just like what I experienced at The Middle Spoon. I made it for friends and we all loved it (as far as I know)! It's something that is perfect for winter time since it's warm, sweet, and full of cream, sugar, and dates! But fair warning, the amount of cream used is somewhat alarming. Enjoy!

BIRTHDAY CHEESECAKE

Hello all! It has been a long time. This winter has been a long one for everyone but it has been especially difficult for our family in more ways than one. Hence the absence lately.

We celebrated hubby's birthday in early March with my dad, brother, and mother in law. I had been wanting to make a cheesecake (something I rarely make) and after reading hubs the cheesecakes on my Pinterest board he decided on an Amaretto Cheesecake. (My cheesecake board is called "Let them eat (cheese)cake" if you want to click my Pinterest link on the left.) My aunt is famous for her cheesecakes and hubby absolutely loves them so I thought it would be a good birthday treat.


The recipe is from Spicy Southern Kitchen here and it was a hit. My brother in particular thought it was awesome and he's not even much of a dessert eater, usually! The only changes I made to the recipe were I omitted the amaretto from the cake itself because I was baking it post call and we weren't able to pick it up beforehand. We would totally recommend this recipe for your next cheesecake-worthy event.

Fingers crossed it won't be long before my next post but you never know!

JEREMIAH 29:11 ALSO KNOWN AS I WANT YOU TO BE HAPPY ON MY BIRTHDAY

You may already know from facebook we had some unpleasant news last week. March 5 was "Match Day", or the day Canadian medical students find out the results from CaRMS - the Canadian Residency Match Service - or something along those lines.  To give you some background, after we interview for residency programs we "rank" these programs, or submit a list in order of where we would like to do residency.  All the schools across Canada also submit a rank list, theirs of the students (in order) they would like to have in their program.  The magical (flawed? frustrating?) computer program then matches you with your top available choice based on the spots that are already filled with applicants who ranked above you.

We had hoped to stay exactly where we are.  We have lived here for four years now, have a home, a church, volunteer weekly at youth group, and I feel like after four years I finally made a couple of friends here...things are good.  It's the first time in our relationship we've actually been able to live together, even.  (We spent all our dating relationship and first two years of marriage apart - count 'em - that's four years long distance already.  We put in our time.)  I guess we felt rewarded for our time apart in being able to live together for the past four years.  Heaven forbid married people actually be able to spend time together.

So, needless to say, we were disappointed (understatement of the year) to find out I will be moving (alone) an hour and a half away for two more years of long distance marriage.  Modern marriage?  (Not to mention doubling our cost of living.)  Just call me Amy Two Two.  And for the love of Canadian authors, I hope you got that reference.

This is less than ideal.  Far less.  I threw myself a little pity party for a few days and thankfully have climbed out of the hole I was living in at the end of last week.  (And as a little side note, I might do a post at another time of why I hate "silver linings" sentiments when I'm upset.  Just part of my weirdness, perhaps.) 

"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "Plans to help you and not to harm you.  Plans to give you hope and a future."  Jeremiah 29:11

I believe this verse with my whole heart.  It has always been one of my favourites and there have been other times in my life when I have relied on it.  And after a few days of feeling sorry for myself, I knew it was time to put on my "big girl panties" and lean on God.  This is His plan for me.  I don't understand it, but I don't have to.  I have faith it is a plan to help me and not to harm me.  If you want to hear God laugh tell him your plans, right?

The photo I'll share with you today is from Match Day, which unluckily also happened to be hubby's birthday.  Ironic?  I made him a carrot cake as per his request and covered it with ombre shortbread cookies.  (He loved it because it was two desserts in one.)

To all of my classmates who have residency placements they are happy with - congratulations, I am very pleased for you.  And to those who are not happy with residency placements - I get it, and just know that somehow, for some reason, it's part of God's plan for you for hope and a future.  Someday hopefully it will all be clear!

VALENTINE'S DAY 2014

Happy almost Valentine's Day!

This isn't necessarily my favourite holiday, but I do love celebrating things in general, so I'm on board with even Hallmark created holidays.  And I love love.  So, let's just leave well enough alone. :)

One of us was a little more successful in their present giving this year and surprisingly it wasn't me!

I came home to this lovely spread this evening.  We won't be spending Valentine's Day together tomorrow due to some scheduling problems (a regular occurrence around here) so hubby surprised me with flowers, a table set with our fancy china, a little present/card, and take out sushi!  My fave!

Sushi AND a card with dogs on the front?  Someone clearly knows the way to my heart.  And on the other hand, I "surprised" hubby with this disgusting blob of a dessert.

This was my attempt at a molten chocolate cake.  I swear I made it two years ago on Valentine's Day and it turned out perfectly.  This time I quartered the recipe and I think therein lied the problem.  I was told it tasted the same but it just didn't set right and the top started to get a bit dark before the cake was really solid enough to take out of the pan...  I also kind of thought this photo was hilarious.  I used the self timer and (not on purpose) cut off my entire face except for my pout.  Ha!

Sorry, hubby!  I tried to make you a special treat!  Dinner was followed by some Olympics highlights (I ate one of those Cream Eggs) and a bubble bath is in my near future.  Make sure to love someone tomorrow!

MOM'S RASPBERRY CREAM CHEESECAKE

One of my favourite desserts my mom makes is her Raspberry Cream Cheese Cake.  Now, this isn't your typical cheescake.  It's really more cake than cheese.  One of my best friends doesn't like cheesecake, so if you're reading this, A, you still won't like this cake.  Sorry.  It still has cream cheese in it but the base is more cakey than you might expect.  This week I halved the recipe and made a mini cake for hubby for a treat (because I have been avoiding cooking lately and he doesn't like that).  Here's the recipe!

Cake
2 1/2 cups of flour
3/4 cup white sugar
3/4 cup of hard margarine
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
3/4 cup sour cream
1 egg
1 tsp almond flavouring

Filling
1 package softened cream cheese
1/2 cup raspberry jam
1/4 cup sugar
1 egg
 
1. Combine the flour and sugar and cut in the margarine until the mixture is crumbly.
2. Set aside 1 cup of this for the top of the cake.
3.  To the rest, add the baking powder, baking soda, salt, sour cream, egg, and almond flavouring and blend well.
4. Use a spring-form cake pan and spread the cake over the bottom and part way up the sides.  Make sure the sides are nice and thin.
5. Beat the cream cheese, add sugar and egg and pour in the cake pan over the batter.
6. Spoon jam over the filling.
7. I ground a good sized handful of almonds in the food processor and added this to the cake topping you set aside earlier.  Sprinkle on top of the cake.
8. Bake at 350 for 1 to 1 1/2 hours or until middle is set and not sloppy.

Enjoy!  It's delish!

CAMOUFLAGE BIRTHDAY CAKE

I was away for a rotation when hubby had his birthday so two weeks ago I decided to make it up to him and bake a cake.  I have a delicious chocolate cake recipe that I've made a lot recently, so I went with carrot cake.  (I don't use nuts or raisins in mine.)  Carrot is actually the only kind of cake I like so obviously our wedding cake was carrot. :)

I thought it would be cool to do a camouflage cake so a quick Pinterest search came up with a fab option.  Hers is much more professional than mine, but mine wasn't a disaster either, which is why I'm posting.  For my first try it turned out ok and I came away with a couple of tips.  I found this tutorial if you ever want to try to make a "petal cake" yourself.

The things I learned making my first petal cake:

1. The icing has to be really thick.  If it's gooey at all it will just run all over the place.  You can tell in this photo the darker brown frosting was closer to the correct consistency while the beige is getting a little droopy down near the bottom because it's too soft.

2. You can use cocoa powder to make different colours!  Genius!  I'm not sure why this never occurred to me before, but adding cocoa to my bright green frosting made olive green.  Adding cocoa powder to my white frosting made beige and adding more made brown!  Simple, I know.  I just never thought of it before.

3. Have a piece of paper towel or clean dish rag nearby because I had to clean the spatula after every swipe.  Maybe if the frosting had been thicker that wouldn't have been a problem; I'm not sure.

Hope this inspires you to try a new cake technique!  Or ask me to do one for you.  It only took me a gazillion hours.

POTLUCKY

Potluck or potlucky??  Potlucky because you get to eat my delicious cake. :)

Last night I slaved away on this cake (not really) for our Halloween party tonight at school.  I cheated and used a cake mix but I don't feel guilty at all.  I just didn't have time to produce anything from scratch.  I did, however, make the frosting using this recipe:

1/2 cup butter (I used margarine)

1/2 tsp vanilla

3 cups icing sugar

4 tbsp milk (divided)

10 drops of neon green food colouring

1 drop blue food colouring

Mix together with an electric mixer and add the milk as needed for the correct consistency.

My first cake tip is: using parchment paper!!  Line the bottom of your pan with it and your cake won't stick.  Once it's out of the oven, flip the pan over and peel the paper off your baked goods.

I trace the bottom of the pan and then use scissors to cut the parchment paper.

My next tip is to crumb coat the cake before you start spreading the icing on thickly.  This keeps the crumbs at bay.  This is easiest if the icing is a relatively soft consistency.


A crumb coat is a very thin layer of frosting over the whole cake.

Then you spread the rest of the frosting over your layers (I personally like a lot of it)!  Stack your cakes if you are using more than one tier.  Roll out the fondant (I use store bought after one particularly horrible incident of trying to make my own) and use icing sugar so it doesn't stick to the counter or rolling pin.  I realized after I started making the cake I left my decorating kit at my parents' house on Thanksgiving, so I used a sandwich baggie with a tiny hole in order to pipe on the spider web.  A little more frosting around the bottom of the cake and then I stuck on the candies.  Halloween spider rings on top and you're done!


These candies are from Bulk Barn.

Ta Da!  (The boa is part of Leroy's costume.)

CAKE MANIA

I'm home sick today which is quite boring.  I have things I need to do but I don't feel well enough to do them.  Mostly I've sat on the couch with a box of kleenex and bottle of advil nearby.  Leroy has been pretty helpful.  He lays beside me and checks to make sure I'm still breathing.

In the midst of my boredom I started internet browsing and came across some fun cakes on the Apartment Therapy site called ohdeedo.  I haven't quite figured out how Apartment Therapy works but it seems like a combination of many blogs.  Who knows?  Regardless, you can find some great things there, including these cakes!  http://www.ohdeedoh.com/

And just for fun I'm including a photo of the first (and thus far, only) cake I have made.  It's an ultimate frisbee cake I made this summer.

Doodle Cake.  How fun would it be for a kid to write on their own birthday cake?!

The Hungry Caterpillar (Eric Carle) cake.  We used to read this book when I was a kid.

A forest cake.  What a cute little deer.

My first cake.  An ultimate frisbee cake for my hubby.