august break

well I haven't blogged much lately, mostly because I have a break from school for most of August, so I haven't been doing nearly as much baking.  Oh, and add the 100 degree Florida temperatures to that and it is just hard to get motivated to turn on my oven.  But I have made a few things in the past couple of weeks, and I also have some pictures to post from my Wilton classes (better than late than never, right?).  Oh yeah, and good news - I got all A's for the summer semester!! 

So here is a little catch up on what I made in the second and third classes of the Wilton Course #2 I was taking.  I may have skipped the fourth class, because all we were going to do was bake another cake and then ruin it with gross Wilton buttercream, learn how to do a basketweave, and then use all of our flowers from the first few classes to decorate it.  Well, I am embarrassed to even give a cake away with that icing, and I definitely wasn't going to eat it, so that would just be wasteful.  Plus, I know how to do a basketweave from work, and I personally think it is kind of ugly and out-dated (sorry to anyone who loves it!).  Lastly, I decided I would much rather save all of my flowers to use on future cakes.  So, completely out of character, I skipped class and sat on the couch drinking wine and watching bad reality tv (ok, the second part is completely in character).

Anyways, in the second and third classes we used royal icing to make flowers.  I really like this technique because you make the flowers ahead of time and then save them for months.  They also hold their shape better than buttercream. 

Class 2 - clockwise from top left - roses, primroses, apple blossoms, and rosebuds

Class 3 - clockwise from top left - lilies, more roses, violets (yes, I know that violets aren't pink), and daffodils

Like I said, between the heat, and getting some home improvement projects done during my break, I haven't been doing much baking at home.  But my mom came to visit last week, and I got to try out a coffee cake recipe I had been saving for a while (Trevor doesn't like breakfast or raspberries, and I couldn't really justify eating an entire coffee cake by myself). 

It was great, but I loved the raspberry and cream cheese layers way more than the cake layer.  If I were to make it again, I would make the cake layer thinner or perhaps replace it with a different cake. 

Raspberry cream cheese coffee cake

I also made some rosemary parmesan foccaccia one night for dinner while she was here because of a deal I struck recently with Trevor.  Not really sure how it came up, but he made a pork loin on the grill about a month ago and it has pretty much become my new favorite food.  I told him that if he would make it once a week for supper, I would make fresh bread to go with it.  You can't really see the rosemary in the picture, but I used some from my garden so it was so delicious and fragrant.

And then this week I was off work on Thursday, so I made treats for Trev's work meeting again.  It is just too hot for rich desserts, including chocolate.  Well, at least during the day.  So I wanted to make something a little more summery and refreshing, so I modified a recipe I found on Pinterest - Key Lime Swirl Cheesecake Bars.  I changed some of the proportions a little (namely adding more lime curd than it called for, and I am so glad - I even wish I had added more.)  I thought they were great and Trevor said his co-workers did too. 

Lost a little bit of the marble effect by adding so much curd, but still pretty, no?

I had way too much lime curd left over and I love a good curd, so I gather up some other ingredients that needed to be used and made a mini tart.  I made a crust out of pretzels, butter, and condensed milk.  I found a recipe online that just called for pretzels and butter, but when I made it, it was not sticking together at all.  So I used the only thing I could find in the fridge - half a can of condensed milk.  Not the best experiment I ever tried, but not bad either.  The crust had good flavor, but it came out too thick - its quite a trick not to go to thick in a mini tart pan unless you are using a rolled dough.  I also expected it to be a little saltier because of the pretzels - I think next time I will add a little more salt. 

Crushed pretzel crusts

Then I candied some jalapenos from my garden - another recipe that didn't quite turn out how I expected, but I would make this mistake again.  I made a brown sugar caramel that is intended for candied nuts and tossed the jalapenos in it.  The caramel didn't stick to them like I had hoped, but it gave them a great sweetness that went great with the lime curd. All in all, a great taco-night dessert, even if it needs a few tweaks!

Finished Product - Lime Curd Tartlette with Pretzel Crust and Candied Jalapenos