Gingerbread

Ginger-Bran & Linds

This Christmas was ginger-filled! Family friends came over with their three young boys so I made some gingerbread men to decorate. It is only fair since they can't drink wine. Anyway, it was my first time rolling and baking them because, although I had done plenty of the fun part, my mom had always done all of the hard work. It took me a bit to figure out the best way to get these guys cut out (two at a time, directly on the sil-pat) but it was worth it. They looked great and tasted wonderful. Thank you, Mr. Bittman for your wonderful recipe!

GingerHaus

We also assembled this gingerbread house my sister also picked up. It is a pretty cool kit from Sur La Table. It was still a bit of work but definitely was great for a first solo gingerbread house. And as novice gingerbread makers we still experienced some frustration, and as a licensed architect my sister may have a couple of concerns with its structural intergrity, all said and done it was great fun and I highly recommend it.

I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday and has a very happy new year!

Pizza Pie and Pie!

Pizza Pie

We had yet another installment of Pizza Club tonight and I thought an excellent addition to our pizza pies would be, well, more pie. This Chocolate Chess pie is really something special! It tastes just like my grandmother's Bangor Brownies, which earns it a place amongst my all-time favorite desserts.

Chocolate Chess Pie

Another successful pizza club meeting has concluded on a very sweet note.

Be the Meatwave!

There once was a man named Josh
Who claimed his BBQ "Boss"
"My sauces, the sweetest,
My meats are the meat-est,
Just who will help with the cost?"

Now I am hungry.

Pie, pie, me oh my!

After one month at the pie shop I felt confident enough to take on Thanksgiving pies. So here they are, from start to finish all from scratch! 

This is a pretty standard pate brisee, with a twist that I learned at the shop... secret, of course. 

For the pumpkin filling I went with Paula Dean's recipe. I thought the addition of cream cheese sounded good.I won't know until tomorrow if that risk paid off. 

For my apple pie I decided to get a little creative. I learned there was going to be apple crisp served as well I thought a pre-cooked apple with orange juice, a little zest, vanilla bean and clove would be nice.

And here they are!

Happy Thanksgiving

Baby... it is cold outside.

Chicago weather has turned gray and rainy. A sure sign of the end of summer and a small taste of the long winter to come. While I am not looking forward to the snow and ice, it is ideal weather for bread baking. This Oatmeal Wheat Bread is sweet and hearty. If I made this again, I would either push it over to the sweet side by kneading in raisins and nuts of some sort or go the other way by reducing the amount of honey in half. Either way, this is one loaf (or two) definitely worth making. 

Pizza Club

It has been a long standing tradition for my family to make homemade pizza every Saturday. Well it isn't Saturday but it is Pizza Club night tonight! So in order to rally the troops and work up an appetite check out this super sweet video  that my wonderful and talented husband made. Now who is hungry?

Edited to add: You can check out the high resolution video here!

Challah!

Challah! indeed! I have started my internship at the Hoosier Mama Pie Co. and can't be more excited about working in such a laid back environment with a bunch of really cool people. Honestly, what bread could possibly more appropriately capture my jubilation?

Happy Halloween! Almost.

It is Terror-misu! Get it! 

Cupcakes for Kim!

Last Saturday was my cousin Kim's surprise 45th birthday party. I owed Vanessa big time for helping out with our wedding so I was more than excited when she asked me to help by decorating cupcakes. After an open house visit to Kendall College, I hauled my tupperware of the pâte à bombe buttercream I learned at the I.C.E. over to Vanessa's house and got to work. Here is the result! 

Happy Birthday, Kimmy! I had such an awesome time!

Let's talk about bagels.

Dear Bagels,  Baby... I am sorry, I have taken you for granted. You were everywhere in New York, you were always there when I needed you, when I wanted you. Now that I am in South Chicagoland... bagels, eh... not so much. The problem is, when you need a bagel, you need a bagel. So, thank you Jewishrecipes.org, you really helped me out. I am proud of these bagels. They are just right and so good straight out of the oven, perfectly chewy and warm. It is a little taste of home. I will be making this recipe often.

Hoosier Mama!

Last Thursday I donned a chef's jacket for the first time in my life. It was my first day in a professional kitchen. I am trying out for a coveted internship spot at the Hoosier Mama Pie Co. My first day was how I imagined starting out in a kitchen would be, prep, prep and more prep. Hour one, snipping cranberries in half, the next 5 hours peeling, coring and chopping pears, then I made three Hoosier Pies had lunch and finished off the day peeling and puréeing the sweet potatoes. It was a wonderful experience, full of very nice and helpful people. Keep your fingers crossed for me that I get a spot. I would but my hands are tired!

Whole Wheat Shortbread Cookies

Shortbread has always been one of my favorites, so I was excited to try this variation from the most recent Bon Appétit. You can find the recipe here. 

Sweetwave! A tribute to Josh and Kris.

This is a post going out to all the Meatwavers! It needs to mentioned early on my site that Josh is a blogger-hero of mine, a damn good cook and he and his lovely wife Kristin are two of the coolest and kindest people I have ever met. Every other week, every summer they open up their home and cook tons of awesome food. Those are my fondest memories of New York. I went to Meatwave the first day I moved to Astoria and seven years later that is how we said goodbye. So here! here! to another successful season. Here's to Josh! to Kris! and to Meatwave!

Made with love...

That is Brandon on the left and me on the right and we are slicing into the first layer cake I ever made. Finished with a couple of hours to spare, it was the first time that day I was made the happiest woman on earth.

Esterloos

Now that I have successfully cleared the hurdle of my first post we can get to the business of why we are here... We are here for the food. Like many young entrepreneurs, I got my start at the bottom of the driveway selling cookies for ten cents a pop with my best friend and neighbor Ali. Twenty-something years later I figured out that my first job was my favorite job. So what I intend to do is to become a happy baker. And since my favorite part of food is sharing, I created this blog.

I think that it is fitting that the first thing I share is one of the first recipes I ever learned to make:

(Photo courtesy of my mom)

Success.

The greatest over-under dog of all time. 

With that said, my first post has been posted! Hooray!