Hilary makes dessert

An on-the-fly dinner for guests: fresh asparagus pasta with sun dried tomatoes and mini lime cheesecakes

~ Hilary ~ 6 Comments

I enjoy stressing myself out.

Last Wednesday night I invited my former roommate Alex over for a “lets catch up on each others lives and gossip shamelessly” sesh.  Obviously dinner was to be included.  I don’t have guests over any other way.

In hindsight, I probably should have realized that weekday evening dinners are a little chaotic.  Throw in a guest, an after work grocery shop via bike and backpack and my great need to make an extravagant, three-course meal, and you have a potential meltdown on your hands.

But not tonight.

I hope you are partially impressed by the fact that this meal was completely prepared within an under-two-hour time span.  FYI: that includes the grocery store trip and a painful, construction filled bike commute.

#awesome

For the main course,  a spaghetti dish I found on tastespotting, made with fresh pasta (ever since I was a child I’ve had a unparalleled love of uncooked, fresh pasta… much pre-dinner snacking occurred), peas, asparagus and sun-dried tomatoes.  For someone who had never tried the latter two ingredients before, this was a make-it-or-break-it meal for me.  The chopped asparagus tasted like the stalks of broccoli and the sun-dried tomatoes were like slabs of dried ketchup.  This may sound gross, but I actually enjoyed it profusely.

Leftover goat cheese also made an appearance.  Happiness ensued.

If anything, the dessert was the most chaotic part of this meal.

Time was of the ultimate importance, which is why I chose to make these no-bake cheesecakes.  The recipe, which I adapted ever so slightly from Canadian Living, suggested I refrigerate everything for long periods of time.

Translation: if you are short on time, just pop everything in the freezer for an hour.  Voila, a dessert prepared and set in the blink of an eye.  Add some poorly cut lime slices and peel, and you have the cutest little cheesecakes you’ve ever seen.

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Chipotle chocolate brownies

~ Hilary ~ 5 Comments

ALSO technically known as Cinco de Mayo pt. 3, but it is really too late in the month for me to include that in the title. Shame on me.  SHAME.

My half-week blog neglect came as a result of this kid visiting Ottawa for the past few days.  With Matt having left last night, I declare today to be my day of refocus.  I intend to clean my bedroom (which is a complete hole), do piles and piles of laundry, and clear out the grocery store in a haul that is worthy of a king (on my bicycle of course).  I start my summer job at University Affairs magazine tomorrow, and am hoping to quickly get into a routine that sees me working, biking, and food-ing out in a hardcore way.

But first, I must tell you about these brownies.

Yum, yum, yum.

In the spirit of Cinco de Mayo, I decided to do a spiced chocolate/Mexican chocolate brownie adaption.  My choice of dessert was also swayed by sheer laziness, and a lack of desire to create the complicated (but traditional) deep fried banana/ice cream combinations that Cinco de Mayo websites were suggesting.  And so, the chipotle chocolate brownie was created.

I half made up the recipe, combining a variety of ingredients and instructions from a few different websites.  The result was a gigantic 9×13 pan of brownies.  Please note, there are currently two people living in my house.  Much brownie was eaten for breakfast, lunch, supper and the occasional midnight snack.  Half was given to my landlord’s wife as a “thank you for fixing our dryer/thanks for letting us live in this awesome house” gift.

I bake for people, that’s just what I do.

Turns out my spontaneous purchasing of a $6 bottle of chipotle chili pepper was totally worth it.  The brownies had a divine spicy kick and were moist and slightly undercooked on the inside (just the way I like them).  On top, a generous spoonful of dulce de leche ice cream to cool off the spiced hotness of the brownie.  Delicious on so many different levels.

And with that, my friends, I bid an “adios” to Mexican cuisine for another few months!

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Mother’s Day and dad’s birthday, served up in one family feast

~ Hilary ~ 4 Comments

My mom and dad sure have a talent for celebration co-ordination.

Mom (don't mind the beached whale of a pitbull in the background)
Dad (sorry - I had nicer pictures but Garrett insisted I use this one)

Huh?  Let me explain…

As you know (if you are good little sons and daughters), yesterday was mother’s day, the holiday where you are meant to wine, dine and brunch your dear ol’ mum to her heart’s content.  Also accompanying the Sunday festivities, however, was my dad’s Friday birthday.  See, celebration co-ordination, requiring a double whammy of gifts and cards galore.

The other peak of festivity in my household falls in early September, thanks to my parents having decided to get married on my mom’s birthday.  A few years ago her 50th birthday corresponded with their 20th wedding anniversary.  Guess who played grade 10 party planner?

But anyways, NBD.  It’s fun, and it means that I can hit up two holidays with one hometown return.

It also gives me a shameless excuse to make food for my family.

What was on the menu? Check it out below.

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Godzilla Peep Cupcakes

~ Hilary ~ 4 Comments

Yeah, yeah, it’s been awhile since I last blogged… I’ll resume my regular obsessive blogging back in Ottawa next week!

Okay:

I don’t think I need to explain my love of holiday-themed baking to anyone.

Past festivities have witnessed me creating a wide variety of awesome baked goods and desserts, be it homemade maple leaf chocolates, painfully difficult-to-decorate Christmas tree cake pops, or fuchsia Valentine’s Day cookies coloured with pureed beets.

This was my blog’s first Easter.

After scrapping my original idea to bake the nirvana of all Easter chocolate – Cadbury Creme Eggs (see example here) – into my cupcakes (my excuse: those things cost like, $1.25 a piece, and I’m kind of broke…), I settled on a more low key plan.

I’m staying with my aunt in Toronto right now, and since she doesn’t really bake, I had to buy a lot of the dessert-making necessities.  This purchasing saw a small bag of cake flour explode on my black jacket last Wednesday and several declarations of frustration silently aimed at the convenience store clerk, after his shop failed to sell mini eggs.

The end result was these Godzilla Peep Cupcakes.

My co-worker Ron instagram-ed the hell out of these cupcakes.

In case you can’t tell, the chocolate icing (which was piped out using a freezer-sized Ziploc bag, go improvisation!) is supposed to resemble a nest.

I initially failed to realize how huge the peeps were, and so the cute marshmallow candies ended up looking like giants.  They were so awkward looking that they needed a mention in the title of this post.

The cupcakes were infused with lemon zest, and were perfectly baked in my aunt’s normal person oven (which preheats at an Olympic speed, I was very impressed).  Our student home oven would have created golden brown welts and a crispy bottom.  God I love real person kitchen appliances.

I brought these into the National Post newsroom last Thursday – thus marking the restart of my “baking for colleagues tradition” just in time for the summer months.

http://twitter.com/#!/nationalpost/status/61089927357673472

I officially declare the dessert-carrying-on-bicycle season open!

PS: These cupcakes endured an hour-long TTC communte.  I only dropped them once.
PPS: I made a mini cake for my aunt and uncle, since it would be unfair to take everything into the newsroom.  The peep-to-cake ratio was a little less ridiculous on their dessert.

The mini cake I left for my aunt and uncle at home

Psychedelicakes

~ Hilary ~ 14 Comments

PSYCHEDELIC CAKES.

There, do you get the clever title now?  I have Brittany to thank for that one, it’s genius!

I think my entire life has led up to me making these cupcakes.  Ever since I started baking I’ve wanted to make a rainbow cake.  I was initially inspired by my favourite blog, Color Me Katie (check it out, she’s AWESOME!).  Here is a post about cute cupcake sandwiches she made.  Throughout my cooking adventures I’ve also stumbled on some other amazing rainbow-themed baked goods.  Ogle over them here, here, here, and here.

So I guess you get that I like colour, huh?

After a successful first venture into the world of colourful food with Christine’s American-themed birthday cake, I figured I could take a bit of a risk with this one.  Britt had a load of gel colours leftover from making cookies for one of her class projects, so I had all the materials on hand to make some legendary cupcakes.  I used Martha Stewart’s cake batter recipe and divided it into six bowls.  I excitedly dropped a small amount of dye into each bowl, and watched the batter transform before my eyes into multi-coloured hues.  The colours were so bright that the cake almost looked inedible.  Almost.  Kindergarten in a bowl.

Since I had no class to feed, my roommates were gifted with these.  Twenty cupcakes, six roommates, 24 hours eating time.  We’re averaging about four cupcakes per person… Healthy habits FTW.

Finally, I’m so happy that I got a new header out of these cupcake photos.  I had intended to revamp my blog, and these cupcakes were the perfect subject for my new site.  I figured it was about time I got a food related header photo…

I wasn’t sure how I wanted my header to look, so I took some 100 pictures of these cupcakes out on our patio.  At one point I made Amanda and Ariel hold up white paper to create a neutral background.  They were extremely (un)enthusiastic about this…

Fun fact: Amanda said she looked dirty and requested to be cropped out

In the end, I settled on a picture I took on top of our television.  Simple, clean, effective (I hope).

I topped my cupcakes with cream cheese icing.  My roommate Alex said that they were the best ones yet, and that they were even better than some of the cupcakes we’ve sampled as part of my Ottawa Cupcake Challenge.  I’m beyond flattered.

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