It's almost a rainbow of sprinkles...

A few months ago this brand new, orphaned spice carousel came my way and I knew I could find a use for it sooner or later.  After Christmas, I tend to go a bit nuts around the house, tossing and purging cupboards and closets.  It's also when I came up with this idea for the carousel:

I have a lot - and I mean a LOT - of different sprinkles for desserts.  Apart from simple sprinkles in solid colours, I've also got them in different shapes for different holidays.  Because of the size of the two jar openings, either to sprinkle or spoon out, I knew not all of them would work.  I got out all my miscellaneous containers and jars, realized I had 12 that would fit and started to fill them.

I'm very happy with the results.  The carousel sits beside my microwave, on the opposite side of the kitchen from my usual photo spot and it's adorable to look at.  While it's not a true rainbow of colours, I think it's still pretty cute. :)

Apart from saving cupboard space, the other bonus is that when I look at them, they inspire me with future baking ideas. :)

Two-Tiered Red Cakestand - I couldn't resist!

I love the colour red and I'm a sucker for a good deal, especially when it's an item like this!

My daughters like to tease me about how many cake stands I own.  I know my fascination with them started with the first, simplest one that I inherited from my paternal grandmother.  During the 50's in Toronto, there was a chain of bakeries called the "Women's Bakery" and for a time my grandmother worked in one very close to our house.  When the location closed, the staff were allowed to keep some of the store items and my grandmother kept an absolutely simple, heavy glass cake stand.  When my mother was downsizing years ago, I inherited the cake stand and my collection began!

Although I'm on a very tight budget right now (see "Expired Union Contract", "Pig Headed Mayor", "Future Income Uncertainty" etc.), I couldn't resist a trip through my local Winner's store yesterday to see if anything was left in the deep discounted Christmas section.  This stack caught my eye, especially because I knew the pieces would create the stand above.  I'm guessing that more than one person picked them up and put them back again because they weren't in a box with a photo:

The plates didn't have the lovely red sale sticker, but after one of the staff checked the price for me, I knew I wasn't going to leave it there!

At my house, red isn't a Christmas colour.  It's the colour of my favourite appliance, it wraps around the lower half of my kitchen walls and it just makes me happy to be surrounded by it.  And hey, Valentine's Day is just a few weeks away!

A new year, new cookbook inspirations

Another holiday season is over, along with all the rushing, baking and angsting that you didn't make everything you planned to!  Ah well, Valentine's Day is coming up and there will be lots of opportunities to try new things this year.

For me, it will include the "The Complete Magnolia Bakery Cookbook" -

I had been eyeing this cookbook on Amazon for a while and with the "Look Inside" feature, really liked the variety of recipes included and how the book is laid out.  I had it on my "Wish List" and my lovely daughter surprised me with it for Christmas.  This doesn't ever mean that another cookbook will replace my Ina favourites (I shudder at the thought!), but I do enjoy other cookbooks that are equally well made in terms of how they describe a recipe.  For me, a good cookbook doesn't mean overly long ingredient lists or complicated instructions.  I'm much happier and more successful using a cookbook that focuses on the best ingredients you can possibly find and has recipes that have obviously been tested so many times that it's hard to fail.

The other reason I was interested in this cookbook is that my daughters and I visited one of the Magnolia Bakery locations in NYC the last time we were in the city.  If you're a fan of Sex and the City as the three of us are, you'll probably remember the episode when Carrie and the girls visit the original Magnolia location in the West Village and sit outside enjoying their cupcakes.  We were only one block from the 49th Street and 6th Avenue location, so there was no way we were going to miss these cupcakes on our visit.  Here's what we bought to share - clockwise from the top left, they were Red Velvet, Lemon Curd, the Classic Carrie (vanilla) and S'mores:

And, five minutes later, this is the after - thanks to Megan for recording this massacre ;) :

We all agree that the Carrie was "meh" (vanilla cake and frosting), but the S'mores was our all around favourite.  I also love the fact that you can go a bakery in NYC that stays open until midnight!

Chunky Toblerone Shortbread and Reliable Favourites

If you're a Canadian and it's Christmastime, it's almost sacrilege to admit that you don't like shortbread.  Really, it is - if you don't live in a country with a very Anglo history, you wouldn't understand why this would be true.  Until I tried this particular recipe, I was convinced my reaction to eating shortbread would never change.  Why bother with these really bars or rounds that were more dry than anything else?  Well, I'm happy to not only eat my words, but these cookies now. ;)

There are a lot of versions of Toblerone shortbread.  I tried an Anna Olsen recipe two years ago that my co-workers enjoyed but I didn't.  Since both Meg and Duncan, along with my co-workers, are fans of shortbread I thought I'd try another recipe version.  I found this on Kraftcanada.com and it couldn't be any simpler than this!  The Toblerone works so well because it's a nougat and will not turn into a runny chocolate mess when baked.  Don't be horrified at the amount of butter in the recipe - it yields four dozen cookies, so it's not like you're eating an entire stick in each cookie. ;)

Ingredients:
2 cups butter (that's four sticks), softened
1 cup sugar
3-1/2 cups flour
1/2 cup cornstarch
2 bars Toblerone Swiss Milk Chocolate, chopped (that's two 100 gram bars if you're in Canada)
icing sugar to decorate

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Prepare cookie sheets by lining with parchment paper.  I prepped four at once and was able to fit one dozen on each pan.

Beat butter and sugar in mixing bowl  until fluffy.  If possible use a stand mixer since it's easier with this quantity of flour.  In a separate bowl combine flour and cornstarch.  Add gradually to the butter mixture, beating well after each addition.

Using either a tablespoon or a 1 inch scoop, drop on baking sheet at least one inch apart.  I used a scoop because I like getting evenly sized cooiked.

The recipe suggested baking them for 20 minutes, which I did for the first batch, but they browned a teenie bit too much for liking.  For the second batch, I only gave them 18 minutes and they were perfect.

Remove to wire racks, allow to cool completely and dust with icing sugar.

I also made four dozen Triple Chocolate Cookies and five dozen Raspberry Walnut Thumbprints -

Gotta do some more baking though...

Some of my favourite things...

Well, they're not "bright copper kettles", but copper cookie cutters *are* some of my favourite things!

Which brings me to my amazing luck on Thursday.  I wasn't working at my usual office, which meant I got to visit Mecca, aka Williams Sonoma, at lunchtime.  As I stated before, when they have sales, they are fantastic sales and I couldn't believe what I found at the back of the store.  Of course most of the products right now are Christmas themed, but what I bought won't be used until next year and that's perfectly alright with me!

These are my pretties:

Copper utensils, bowls and cookie cutter are normally quite expensive - especially when the cutters are as large as these.  We're talking 5-6 inches across for the maple leaf!  I'm quite happy because I got them for this price:

After paying just $6.75 for three (that includes the tax), I can wait for next fall to roll around again. :)

Time to get to work...

It's December 1st and time to seriously think about baking for the holidays.  I have five pounds of butter in my freezer - cut into sticks and individually wrapped - lots of sugar, flour, parchment paper and more jars of jam than I can possibly use, so I better get baking!

I know what I'll be making for sure - Chocolate Marshmallow Bars, Raspberry Thumbprint Cookies, Sugar Cookies decorated with Royal Icing (going to give them the old college try again!), Toblerone Chunk Shortbreads (for Megan and Duncan), Dark and Delicious Triple Chocolate Cookies and at least one more type of cookie...or maybe a chocolate bundt cake?  Sounds like a lot, and like I'm crazy, but I bake so much because I enjoy giving these treats as gifts.

The pretty tins are just waiting to be filled...

Triple Almond Chocolate Cake

This recipe is an old reliable - the results are always great and whoever I make it for just loves it.  I've even had co-workers fighting over the last slice at previous functions.  It's also a really old recipe - so old that it's actually typed, as in on a typewriter and my copy has dried tape holding it to a lined sheet of paper.  I'm sure it's over 30 years old because I no longer have the recipe book it used to fit into and can't remember how I even got it.  It's also from the days when I rarely baked anything from scratch and this cake would quite often fool the tasters by thinking I'd made it all by myself!

I made it most recently for the Hallowe'en United Way fundraiser bake sale that I organize in my office.  I was very happy that after the sale only one slice was left to bring home.

Ingredients:
1 package dark chocolate cake mix
1 package, four serving instant chocolate pudding mix
1 cup sour cream - I use the light version
1/3 cup vegetable oil
3 eggs
3 tbsp almond liqueur - a great reason to keep Amaretto around the house :)
1 tsp pure almond extract - don't use the fake stuff, it's not as good!
1/2 cup slivered almonds
3/4 cup dark chocolate chips

For topping:
container of prepared chocolate frosting
1/2-3/4 cup slivered almonds

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Prepare a bundt pan using lots of non-stick spray, to ensure you cake comes out cleanly.  In large mixing bowl, combine cake mix, pudding mix, sour cream, oil, eggs, liqueur and almond extract.  Blend until combined and then beat at medium speed for two minutes either with a stand or hand held mixer.  Slowly add in slivered almonds and chocolate chips.  The batter will be so heavy that you'll need to "scoop" it out with your spatula and smooth the top until it's even.

Bake for 50-60 minutes, until a tester comes out cleanly.  Cool in pan for 15 minutes before attempting to remove.

Once the cake has cooled completely, slowly heat approximately 1/2 a container of icing in the microwave.  Then drizzle the icing around the cake, until there is a nice pattern around the entire cake.  While the icing is still warm, sprinkle with the almonds and lightly press them into place.

The cake should yield up to 20 portions, depending on how thinly you slice it.  Here's how it looked at the bake sale, before the hungry shoppers arrived:

Even better was that in two hours, we raised $217 from baked goods for the United Way!