What are your foodie resolutions for 2010? Cook dinner at home more? Bake the perfect batch of brownies? Eat out at that one restaurant you’ve always dreamed of visiting? Open your own restaurant?
It’s a lot easier to make New Year’s resolutions than it is to keep them. I’ve heard statistics that say anywhere from 50 to 92% of all resolutions are not kept. They say that the trick to keeping a resolution is to break them down into smaller, more manageable goals. So, if you want to cook at home more, you might star out by cooking a big dinner once a week so that there will be plenty of leftovers for another dinner and a lunch or two. Gradually work up to more mights, or encourage yourself further by saying you’ll try a new dish or two fro a favorite cookbook.
Last year, one of my goals was to finish a cookbook, which I did! This year, I’m just not quite sure what my big resolution is going to be, but traveling more, taking an international cooking class and baking more bread (something I’ve put on the back burner a bit) are definite goals of mine. I’d also like to hold a few more contests on Baking Bites with giveaways for all of you readers. Beyond that, I’ll have to make them up as I go through 2010!
It’s become an unofficial tradition for me to make tiramisu for New Year’s Eve. I’m not sure how it came about, but it’s definitely not a bad thing. Tiramisu has always struck me as a kind of elegant dessert, with its layers of ladyfingers and mascarpone cream. That said, it is also very easy to put together and can be made well in advance – huge plusses for just about every dessert. It also uses a bit of alcohol, which makes it fit in nicely with the usual festivities of a New Year’s Eve gathering (or even just a nice dinner), and a bit of coffee, which might give you an edge in staying up until midnight.
It’s pretty easy to vary the flavors of a tiramisu by using different liquors. Rum and marsala wine are often featured in it. For this version, I used Baileys Irish Cream with coffee to dip the ladyfingers and I infused a vanilla bean into the cream I used to make the mascarpone cream layers. Because it is easier, I included instructions for using both vanilla extract and vanilla-infused cream with this recipe. It is also worth noting the the size of ladyfingers varies by brand, so don’t be concerned if you need more or less than I’ve called for here, as long as your dish is fully covered as you construct the dessert.
The finished dish is delicious. It is ultra creamy and very light. I really liked the hint of Baileys in with the coffee, too. It’s easy to eat a big piece, but since it is rich it is best served in slightly smaller portions.
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The last time I tried biscuits from Trader Joe’s, it was a disaster. Not only were the baking directions on the package terrible, the biscuits looked and tasted bad no matter what you did. Often, TJ’s stocks very good ready-make products, but perhaps bake-from-frozen biscuits were not the way to go. I was willing to give them the benefit of the doubt where biscuits were concerned and picked up a tube of their new Buttermilk Biscuits.
Unlike their predecessors, these were in the refrigerated section of the market and come out of the tube round and ready-to-bake, just like other brands of refrigerated biscuits. They baked up well with the directions given on the packaging, though I had a slight preference for the slightly darker color of the batch I baked at a higher temperature. They were tender and rose well, but were not particularly light or flaky. This lack of flakiness can be partly attributed to the fact that they’re made with shortening (great for tenderizing) and not butter (better for flakiness). The lack of butter also hurts these biscuits in the flavor department: they’re pleasant, but not buttery at all on their own.
Huge improvement over the last attempt, but I still prefer my homemade biscuits – especially since they don’t take long to make. Still, these aren’t bad and make a great addition to a bowl of soup, chili or gravy in a pinch. But a little more butter flavor (which I added by slathering them with butter myself) and they’re even better.
My favorite thing about the Baking Bites Holiday Cupcake Contest is seeing how creative everyone is with their cupcakes and their photography. Every single entry is just mouthwatering – and all of the designs and decorations can easily be recreated in your own kitchen, so I’m sure I’m not alone when I say that they really inspire me to start preparing for next year’s contest! Getting down to business, I’d like to announce the two winners (as selected by an anonymous panel of judges).
The grand prize goes to Bittersweet‘s cupcakes topped with Mini Gingerbread Houses. There is great attention to detail in these cupcakes, including a teeny tiny snowman made from dragees and some stepping stones made from chopped walnuts. The second prize goes to Tracyecakes Snowglobe Coca-cola Cupcakes. The cupcakes are actually turned upside down to serve as the base of the snowglobe. The fondant polar bears and gummy cola bottles are very cute (and will remind everyone who’s seen them of those cute polar bear holiday commercials that Coke used to put out annually. You can find a detailed how-to recreate the snowglobe effect here.
A big thanks to everyone who participated, and a big thanks to my judges (you know who you are!) for sorting through all those cupcakes. If you haven’t already, don’t forget take a peek at the rest of the entries and see what great work everyone who participated did, and get some ideas for next year’s contest!
