i love rhubarb

so, if you are a member of my family, you have to like rhubarb (sorry, courtney) and it's a good season for that now. so, i've made rhubarb pie and rhubarb bread lately. for the rhubarb pie, this is the right size of rhubarb chunk. it's about a quarter inch thick. for the rhubarb bread, it's about 1/16th inch thick.

now, i can't give you the actual pie recipe, cause that is forbidden by my mother. but, this one is pretty close.


so, for this bread, i basically added rhubarb to a coffee cake recipe and split it between two bread pans. the crumb topping from that bread i showed in the last post inspired the idea for turning this coffee cake into a rhubarb bread. this recipe is almost exactly like my mom's recipe. although, i don't use nuts at all. but if i did, i'd use pecans instead of walnuts. i hope you guys love rhubarb as much as i do and make some treats. if you have any other rhubarb recipes, please share them!

bake shop blueprint

so, when i was home for julia's wedding, i met up with my good friend tim, for lunch in oakland.

we had lunch and i told him about my bakery master plan so he told me about a bakery around the corner that was cool and of course, i wanted to check it out. you guys, it's my dream bakery! it's called bakesale betty.

it's in a great location, on telegraph, right by macarthur bart. it's close to some cool shops and it was pretty packed the whole time we were there. not to mention the super cute tables outside that are old re-painted ironing boards. my friend tonya said that they can be snooty sometimes, which is a downer, but other than that, it seems pretty much perfect.

we got some ginger cookies so i could compare them to the ones that i love and have made. we went outside and sat at one of the cute tables and the next thing i know, they bring us out this amazing lemon slush drink, for free.

then shortly after that, they bring us out what i thought was coffee cake, but turned out to be amazing banana bread. soooooo good! i am going to try to combine a few recipes to come up with something similar.

so, this is what i want my bakery to be like. just as yummy, just as fun. and, i might be trying out some banana bread recipes on willing taste testers.

c is for cookie

these are the cookies i made for julia and jan's wedding. a double batch of snickerdoodles and a single batch of lime melt-aways.



my advice for the snickerdoodles is that you keep them in small balls like this and only cook them for 8 minutes. they will not go flat, if you do that. also, the best ratio for cinnamon/sugar is 2 tablespoons sugar and 2 teaspoons cinnamon. i think it's just right that way.

and for these lime cookies, only cook them for 10 minutes, and i've made these three times and have never gotten close to getting more than about 50ish cookies out of the recipe. although it claims to make 10 dozen. i liked putting them in these paper cups, two at a time. cuts down the mess and it looks cuter. i couldn't find really small paper cups, but muffin sized ones worked well.

pioneer breakfast

so, to celebrate our pioneer heritage and the day off that utahns get, we decided to have a pot-luck breakfast. i made blueberry muffins with a lemon glaze/sugar topping, nicole made super good crepes, chris made yummy potatoes, michelle made delicious eggs, and alish brought juice to round it all out. this is a plate kyle put together to showcase/partake of the goods.


here's to our pioneer ancestors who came to utah and in turn, unwittingly gave us a day of from work so we could eat wonderful carbs.

ginger + chocolate = even better?

so, i didn't have time to make the gingerbread, but with that on the brain i made these delicious little guys. always a hit.


the recipe is posted here. i used chips instead of chunks, cause i'm lazy. and if you bake them longer than 10 minutes, they are not soft enough. which my old roommate, julia and i both learned on different occasions when we first made them. so, 10 minutes, and they are perfect.

ginger + bread = love

ok, so my weekend plans to go away aren't going to work out, so while working on websites for some of my lovely friends, i will try to get back on the baking wagon. i've been wanting to make this for a while.



it's this gingerbread recipe from the tartine bakery in SF. juliann and kathryn gave me this recipe book and i've been dying to make so many recipes from it. that place is heaven. i can't wait to visit home again in two weeks!

if the recipe turns out, i'll post the recipe and give you my results. if not, i never posted this.

j + c

i haven't posted this week because it's been wedding/family week 2007. my brother, justin, and my delightful friend, caroline may got married on 07.07.07 and it's been a whirlwind week. i thought i'd post pictures of the insanely good cake natasha made for the bride and groom. it was chocolate with blueberries in the middle. so incredible. everyone was loving it.

fast food nation

just cause i bake a lot, doesn't mean i don't like sorta ghetto food.

this post is my ode to del taco...


i always get either the bean and cheese burrito with green sauce, or this little number up here. fish tacos. SO GOOD.


oh yeah, and i REALLY love their straws.

cake on a platter

i haven't baked in a while due to my out of townness and subsequent tiredness. so, i will post these pictures of what i intend to put my next cake in to display.




this lovely cake platter was a birthday gift from my good friend, broek. i've been wanting one of these for forever and she didn't even know it! anyway, shout out to my homegirl who blesses me with her great taste in gifts.

quiche your heart out

ok, so here is the quiche i made last week for a potluck in the park.


i altered the recipe to fit with the ingredients i had. i got the main recipe from baking illustrated and here it is:

8 ounces bacon (about 8 slices) cut into 1/2-inch pieces
2 large eggs
2 large egg yolks
1 cup whole milk
1 cup heavy cream
1/2 teaspoon table salt
1/2 teaspoon ground white pepper
pinch fresh grated nutmeg
4 ounces Gruyère cheese , grated (1/2 cup)
1 9- inch partially baked pie shell (warm), baked until light golden brown, 5 to 6 minutes

1. Adjust oven rack to center position and heat oven to 375 degrees. Fry bacon in skillet over medium heat until crisp and brown, about 5 minutes. Transfer with slotted spoon to paper towel–lined plate. Meanwhile, whisk all remaining ingredients except cheese in medium bowl.

2. Spread cheese and bacon evenly over bottom of warm pie shell and set shell on oven rack. Pour in custard mixture to 1/2-inch below crust rim. Bake until lightly golden brown and a knife blade inserted about one inch from the edge comes out clean, and center feels set but soft like gelatin, 32 to 35 minutes. Transfer quiche to rack to cool. Serve warm or at room temperature.

(so, instead of bacon, i browned some red and yellow peppers with red pepper flakes, salt, pepper and some ham. also, i didn't have any cream, so i just used regular 1% milk. and my friend sara who was in town picked up some brie, so i sliced that up and put that on the bottom.)

and i used a pie crust recipe that had butter in it, which i never do for normal pies, but thought it would work perfect for the crust. so, just basically insert your favorite pie crust here...

so, that's the quiche. my first one ever. it's a lot easier than i thought it would be.

let me know if anyone has any other ingredients they like using in a quiche, i'd love to try some other fillers.