TWD:.Coconut Tea Cake

I made it...I made it...I just can't find the pictures at the moment. As I write, I'm taking all the photographs off my desktop so that I can load them onto the laptop. Hopefully I will find the one of this beautiful little cake.

Thanks to Carmen of Carmen Cooks...we TWD bakers got to bake up the Coconut Tea Cake. I made this cake a while ago using the playing around version by adding lemon zest to the sugar and the juice of half a lemon to the coconut milk and butter.

YUM!

I'll update as soon as I find the photos......

Stop by here to see what the others have created.

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Hmmmm....what have we here....

Wow! Look at this:
My friend Michele, she of the persimmon, lemon and fig trees, went to Las Vegas for her Uncle Bobby's birthday.

I knew she was getting the custom cake from Retro Bakery...because she got one last year at the same time. Remember this post?

Well....she brought me back a little something.

RETRO FREAKIN' CUPCAKES!!!

They made it through airport security all lovingly wrapped in plastic by Kari. :) (I know this because she said she loves me!)

Here's what I got...

A Peanut Butter and Jelly.

A Coffee and Donuts.

A Hopscotch.

And....a Maple Bacon. Can you see that huge piece of bacon in the cupcake?

Michele said Hopscotch would change my life...but I'm here to tell you that it was
MAPLE BACON that did it.

They were all super moist and yummy and lots of buttercream...but I really liked the contrasting flavors of the sweet maple and salty bacon.

The PB&J tasted just like a pb&j.

The coffee buttercream on the the Coffee and Donuts was to die for.

The Hopscotch was super sweet and a friend of mine who really likes butterscotch inhaled most of it. It was really good but maybe a little too sweet for me.

If you are in Vegas anytime soon.....get your arse to Retro Bakery.

One day I'll be Kari...tattoos and all. :)

Oh yeah...I got a free t-shirt too! wOOt!

Thanks for stopping by.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Irish Soda Bread....warm with butter.

So easy and so yummy.

Find the recipe here.

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TWD: Thumbprints For Us Big Guys....and catch-up.

THUMBPRINTS!!!

I thought they were only for Christmas...well not really...but that seemed to be the only time I made them.

Thanks to Mike from Ugly Food Dude for this week's TWD pick, I will be making them more often.

Needless to say, my kids really enjoyed the fact that these babies are their lunchbox cookies for the week.
I substituted ground walnuts for the hazlenuts because my parents have about 5 walnut trees on their property and I always have a bag of freshly shelled walnuts somewhere in my freezer.

I used my thumb for the indention because....they're THUMBPRINTS!!!!
I also used apricot jam...because that's what I had.

I just ate three of them typing this post. Nice.

Check out what the others baked up over here.

AND.....

Last week's TWD: Toasted Coconut Custard Tart chosen by Beryl of Cinemon Girl fame.

Certainly better late than never.....I loved this tart!

I omitted the rum...substituted unsweetened toasted coconut in the custard....and made a bunch (4) of little tart shells in my mini brioche pans. Go figure.

I also used 2 larger ramekins for the remainder of the crust.

A little lightly sweetened whipped cream and a perfect mini dessert.

Like I said...better late than never.

Thanks for stopping by.

TWD: My Best Chocolate Chip (Chunk) Cookies

Yep they're flat....but I expected it.

After reading all of the comments I knew going in that the final result would more than likely be a flat cookie. Flat is not my favorite kind of chocolate chip cookie. I prefer fat and cakey...but I'm always up for something new.

Kait of Kait's Plate chose these chocolate chip (chunk) cookies for TWD this week.

I chopped the chocolate instead of using chocolate chips. This may be my new preferred way to add chocolate to a cookie. I used part of a big bar of bittersweet chocolate from Trader Joe's and that was a lot of chocolate to add to the batter. The good thing about chopping your own...the big chunks that were just a little too big for the cookie...got eaten with raw cookie dough attached...Yum.

I did add 1/4 extra flour to the dry stuff and also added 1 1/2 TBSP. of espresso powder with the vanilla. After scooping the dough onto the silpat, I froze the sheet for about 30 minutes before baking. I think that might have helped a little with the spreading.

These cookies are really good....but I still prefer this one. Simply because it's fat and cakey. My preference.

Check out the others to see their results.

Thanks for stopping by.

TWD: Rick Katz's Brownies for Julia

This week's TWD was chosen by none other than Tanya of Chocolatechic. Of course she would choose something gooey, chocolately, fudgey and all together yum!

After reading the reviews I was very very careful to cover page 90 so that I wouldn't follow those instructions by mistake. :)

The one thing I did forget was to include the chopped bittersweet chocolate in the melting step along with the unsweetened chocolate. I was getting ready to add the beaten eggs and sugar to the chocolate mixture when I saw the bittersweet chocolate staring at me from the scale.

I melted it separately and added it to the already melted chocolate....I don't think it made a difference.

I poured all of the batter into a foil lined 9 x 13 pan and baked the pan for 15 more minutes than Dorie recommended.

After the brownies cooled I chucked them in the refrigerator for a couple of hours. They were super easy to lift out of the pan and cut while cold.

These might be the best brownies I have ever made. I think this is the first time I have made them when the edges weren't burnt and the middle left gooey. They were so good. I even tasted a hint of salty chocolate.

Definitely a keeper.

Don't forget to check here for the other variations....some bakers preferred to leave them gooey...not that there's anything wrong with that. :)

Thanks for stopping by.

TWD: (Dark) Chocolate Mini Bundt Cakes

Eating mini's of anything makes the world seem right.

This week's TWD was chosen by Kristin of I'm Right About Everything. She chose the Milk Chocolate Mini Bundt Cakes which is listed on pages 188 and 189 of Dorie's fabulous book.

I switched it up a bit by using 70% dark chocolate bars in place of the milk chocolate. If I'm going to have chocolate...I'd better be able to taste it! I'd read that these were subtle with the milk chocolate and I just couldn't have subtle. I also used buttermilk in place of regular milk as suggested in the "playing around" section of the recipe.

I didn't have a mini bundt pan but I did have a Cupcake Bundt Pan from Nordic Ware. This had 12 wells and the amount of batter in this recipe was perfect.

I also switched up my swirl....half had mini chocolate chips and the other half had toasted coconut in the middle.

After reading about all of the problems with the glaze...I was clenching my teeth as I was stirring the corn syrup into the melted chocolate. I only used half the amount of corn syrup and the glaze turned out perfectly smooth.

Dusted with powdered sugar...these are the perfect nighttime snack. Not super chocolatey...just enough to get your fix.

And they're minis....so go ahead and have two.

Don't forget to stop by here to check out the other bakers.

Thanks for stopping by.