Irish soda bread is one of my favorite things to make when I want a quick loaf of bread fresh from the oven. Soda bread gets its name from the fact that it is leavened with baking soda, rather than with yeast. This means that very little time passes between starting to mix up bread dough and eating the finished loaf. Irish soda breads are moist, hearty and while there is a traditional way to make them, there is plenty of room for variation, too.

This Irish soda bread has some rolled oats in it and is sweetened with a little bit of honey. I threw in some raisins for good measure, partially because I like their moistness in soda breads in general, but primarily because their natural sweetness is brought out even more with the addition of the honey. This loaf is a little bit dense, but is tender and moist. It is great slathered with some butter while it is still warm from the oven - particularly if you are using Irish butter - and it also makes great toast. Despite the honey and raisins, it isn’t too sweet and pairs well as a side dish with chilis and soups.

Kneading soda bread gives it a better rise in the oven, so I always knead my bread for a minute or two before putting it on a baking sheet. I like to knead this type of bread right in the mixing bowl because there is no need to add additional flour that may toughen up the texture of the bread - and because there is no need to clean up the counter afterward! This recipe doesn’t make a huge loaf, but you could easily double the recipe and make two if you need to serve a crowd. I like big slices of soda bread personally, so I would say that this is a good sized loaf for up to 6 people.
(more…)

I think that holidays like Valentine’s Day always deserve a special breakfast. Why not start off the day on a good note? Of course, I could say the same thing about just about every morning, because I tend to think that every day should start out on just as good a note as the holidays. These pancakes are perfect for surprising your loved one - holiday or not. They’re heart-shaped Red Velvet Pancakes.

I took the inspiration for the pancakes from classic red velvet cake, which is typically flavored with a little bit of cocoa powder and a generous amount of buttermilk. In the cake, the cocoa flavor is noticeable, but there isn’t enough to really give the cake a chocolaty feel. It primarily lends some dark color to the cake (red in theory, as cocoa powder reacts with baking soda and takes a reddish tinge as a result). The real color of these pancakes, however, comes from food coloring just as the red color of a red velvet cake does. The more food coloring you use, the redder your pancakes will be. Take the amount given below as a guideline and color to your own specifications.

The pancakes are not too sweet because they’re meant to be topped with lots of syrup and maybe some whipped cream. You can definitely get the cocoa notes from them, as well as the rich flavor of buttermilk. They’re a nice change - both in taste and appearance - from regular pancakes. You can use a spoon to spread the batter into heart shapes or use a pastry bag to draw them. You can also place a heart-shaped cookie cutter on the hot pan and pour the batter right into it.

Serve with syrup, whipped cream, berries and a big kiss, too.

(more…)

When I saw Wilton’s Tasty Fill Heart Cake Set, I knew that I wanted to try making one of the lovely heart-centered cakes myself. A cake with a heart-shaped center is perfect Valentine’s Day. After I picked up the cake pan set, all I needed to do was decide what flavor cake I wanted to make. I decided to work backwards and, knowing that I wanted a pink heart at the center of the cake, I ended up opting for a very dark-colored chocolate cake for the cake itself.

The cake pans come in a pair and you get the heart center when the two cakes are stacked on top of each other. This cake recipe fits the pans perfectly, and it rose up just to the top of them, easily filling the cavities built-in to the pans which produce the heart shape. This is a recipe that I would ordinarily use to make two thick 8-inch cake layers. There is a whole cup of cocoa powder in the cake, so it has a really delicious chocolate flavor to it. It is very moist and tender, but is not too dense and is very easy to handle the cake (it isn’t too delicate or likely to crumble as you move the pieces around). There is coffee in the cake to emphasize some of the cocoa notes, but there is no coffee flavor to the finished cake - just a lot of chocolate.

While I knew from the start that I wanted a pink filling, the hardest part of making this cake was figuring out what that filling should be. Ice cream is a good option, but not great in the wintertime, and many of the suggestions that came with the pan included Cool Whip - which I didn’t want to use. I ended up making a very light raspberry mousse, held together with a little bit of plain gelatin to give it stability. It has a great raspberry flavor, a beautiful color (black raspberries will give you a more purple color, regular will be lighter pink; I used a mixture of both) and a very light, fluffy texture to it. I used a pasteurized egg white, beaten to soft peaks, to give this mousse a lot of volume. You can actually use meringue powder as a good substitution in this case if you can’t get pasteurized eggs, so I’ve made notes about the substitution below.

The finishing touch for this cake is the cream cheese frosting on top. The creamy frosting has a nice sweetness to it that goes well with the chocolate cake. It also blends nicely with the bright raspberry flavor of the mousse. You can use other berries for the filling - strawberries, blackberries, etc.  - and you can use either fresh berries or frozen, defrosted berries.

This cake should be stored in the fridge to keep the mousse filling firm. That said, the cake must be stored in an airtight container to prevent the cake from becoming dry in the fridge.

This cake didn’t disappoint me in any way. It was delicious, with a great cake, a great combination of flavors and a finished product that looked just like the cake does on the box! This is definitely a great treat for Valentine’s Day, and I like the pan enough that I’m going to have to look for other excuses to have a cake with a heart-shaped center around, too.

(more…)

You don’t need a specialty pan to bake a cake shaped like a heart. All you really need is a sharp knife and a regular cake pan and you can simply trim down a round or square cake to be a little more romantic. This is an easy fix if your kitchen space is limited and you don’t want to clutter it up with pans you don’t use often enough. If you do have room for another pan that would be ideal for Valentine’s Day and other romantic occasions, try picking up the Wilton Heart Tasty Fill Cake Set instead of an ordinary heart-shaped pan.

The Wilton Heart Tasty Fill Cake Set makes a fairly plain looking cake that has a surprise inside: a heart-shaped tunnel that can be filled with ice cream, whipped cream, fruit, frosting or any other filling you can dream up. The pan is designed to bake a round cake in two halves, one with the bottom point of a heart and another with the top domes. When the cake is baked and the pieces stacked together, you will be able to see the heart in every slice. Pretty sweet, isn’t it?

The sweetest gift you can give your loved one is the pleasure of your company, perhaps over a big carafe of coffee, a glass of fresh orange juice and a big breakfast that you enjoy together while reading the paper on a quiet morning. Or a plate of homemade baked goods, since the time that you’ll put into them makes them worth a lot more than a box of even the most expensive chocolates. And, naturally, what could go better with some homemade baked goods than a copy of The Baking Bites Cookbook? It makes a great Valentine’s Day gift for the baker in your life - and I’m not going to tell if you crack open the cookbook yourself to make a batch of Jelly Donut Muffins to go with that Valentine’s Day Coffee. If you have kids, get them to help out with the gift preparation (i.e. baking the treats) too and you’ll get even more Valentine’s Day brownie points, and you’ll definitely have one sweet day.

The book is available directly from me via PayPal (free US shipping included and a discount if you buy two copies!) and can also be found on Amazon.com.

Panettone is a popular cake around Christmas time, but what to do with a leftover loaf when the holidays are over? The easiest answer is slice it up and make french toast. You can do this with the big loaves and the miniature loaves, and it might be worth making a trip to the store to get a post-holiday panettone just to serve it up for breakfast. I would opt for the large loaves if you want to serve a crowd and get a miniature one (which is what I used for the picture above) if you just want to indulge yourself.

Slice the bread to the thickness of regular sandwich bread, the prepare the egg and milk mixture as you would for ordinary french toast. Panettone has a sweet, buttery flavor and is studded with raisins, currants, candied citrus and other dried fruits. I didn’t add any sweetener to the egg and milk mixture in this recipe because the panettone is so flavorful on its own. It’s a bit like using cinnamon-swirl bread, where you want to be able to savor the flavors in the bread because they’re great to start out with.

Serve this with maple syrup or honey and you can enjoy a bit of the holidays long after the holidays have past.

(more…)