I recently finished reading “A Homemade Life: Stories and Recipes from My Kitchen Table” by Molly Wizenberg, with my book club. It’s a memoir of a woman’s life as she progresses through the passing of her father, a move to Paris and the eventual finding of the man she will marry. It’s a quaint story to which many can relate, but what I liked most of all is that at the end of every chapter she lists a recipe pertaining to the story.

For example, for her wedding she made 25 (I think it was 25) decadent chocolate cakes. She claims they are so easy to make and freeze well. How can making 25 cakes be easy? I had to try it. Well, not making 25, but I made one successfully.

First, I melted chocolate and butter over a double boiler.

Stir until creamy.

Lookin’ good.

Mix in sugar.

Bake. It comes out a little crusty on top. Then you have to flip it onto a plate, then flip it again to get it right side up.

Here it is in all its beauty. This ancient plate doesn’t to this cake justice. It needs to be sitting on a fine piece of china or a pretty little cake stand, dusted with powdered sugar.

Here’s the side view. It’s a rich, dense cake with tons of chocolate flavor.

Everyone at book club made a recipe from the book and we had quite the feast that night (see links to recipes below). I wish my camera were working properly that night so I could show you the food. You’ll have to click the links below to see them on Wizenber’s Web site, Orangette.

Related:

• A Homemade Life on Amazon.com
• Orangette the blog 
• Recipes that the ladies from book club made — all are super delicious:
  
  • Gâteau au chocolat fondant de Nathalie (aka Chocolate Wedding Cake)
  • Banana Bread With Chocolate and Cinnamon
  • Chocolate Covered Macaroons
  • Caramel Corn
  • Slow Roasted Tomatoes
  • Sugar Cookies with icing (ours were made in the shape of hearts )
  • Pickled grapes and pickled carrots (I can’t find the recipes online for these, but they were good)

It’s finally starting to feel like fall here in Florida. Friends and relatives are already dealing with snow and sleet, but we’re just getting into jacket weather (and not even that yet!). It’s put me in the spirit to be outside doing fall things. Here’s a list of things you can do to get into the spirit of the season:

• Make some pumpkin bread. Here’s All Recipes’ highest ranked pumpkin bread recipe.
• Pick apples and drink apple cider.
• Take a hay ride.
• Pick out a new book for Thanksgiving. Review this list of the best children’s books about Thanksgiving.

From the Balancing Motherhood archives:

• Preserving Fall in Wax Paper.
• Get an awesome apple pie recipe, learn about the turkey phone hot line for all your turkey problems.
• Fill a shoebox with toys for kids who don’t get Christmas presents. Operation Christmas Child delivers gifts to children around the world. National collection week is coming up, November 16-23, but it doesn’t take long, or take much to fill a box.

Photo courtesy Memotions via flickr.

A few weeks ago I was at a family gathering where my sister-in-law made a decadent dessert: panna cotta. Coconut panna cotta. It was creamy, flavorful, fresh and beautiful. But, I don’t think anyone except my brother was excited about this dessert while she was making it. I think most of the family was planning on taking a small bite just to be polite.

What is Panna Cotta?

Panna cotta is an Italian custard-like dessert that has many variations. My sister used a recipe that called for coconut and tropical fruit like kiwi and strawberries.

It’s All About Presentation

When it was time to plate the desserts we each got a separate plate decorated with the panna cotta, sprinkled with toasted coconut and colorful fruit. It was simply beautiful.

How can you deny yourself a bite of this?

Take a closer look. Don’t you want a bite?

Everyone took his/her polite bite — then proceeded to eat the entire dessert. My husband, who claims to hate coconut even ate his entire piece.

Make It

It’s easy to make with only six ingredients.  Find the recipe here: Coconut Panna Cotta with Tropical Fruit.

I’ve had a copy of Jessica Seinfeld’s “Deceptively Delicious” cookbook for months now and haven’t made anything from it so I decided it was finally time to try something out. What better way to start than with dessert — here come the brownies.

Seinfeld’s book is based on adding vegetable and fruit purees into regular recipes to add nutrition to every meal. The brownie recipe calls for carrot and spinach purees. Stay with me here, folks.

It all starts with the raw food. I chopped the carrots into 3-inch pieces then zapped them in the microwave.

Put these suckers in your processor of choice. I tried them all (as seen below).

This is what my kitchen looked like after I did the pureeing.

The bullet-like machine I have didn’t quite give me the consistency and it was waking up the baby, so I switched to the food processor (pictured on right.) That only chopped the carrots, no puree, so I moved on to the third kitchen appliance — the blender. It didn’t quite do it either, but I’d run out of machines to try so I added more water and blended the heck out of those carrots. I wonder if I had microwaved them longer if that would’ve helped.

They finally became smooth enough that I stopped blending and measured out a 1/2 cup.

I pureed way too many carrots so I put a 1/2 cup each in separate plastic zip top bags to freeze and use in future reciopes — and I gave some to the baby. Man, did I feel like super mom after that. Nothing like the feeling of giving your baby true homemade baby food. Gotta do that again.

Next came the spinach. I used frozen spinach and the blender. It was still a bit stringy, but I don’t think I could have blended it anymore so I stopped when it looked like this.

Here they are together: spinach and carrots. Don’t they look beautiful together? I love the colors.

Next came the butter, cocoa powder and melted chocolate. I also had to add flour, baking powder and salt to this.

Once it was all mixed together you can kind of see the spinach, but honestly I didn’t notice it until I looked at this photo. This went into the oven and I said a little cooking prayer.

OK, these look decent. They look like brownies. I cut them up and let them cool. In her book, Seinfeld says to not eat them until they are totally cooled otherwise you’ll be able to taste the spinach. So, what do I do? I cut a small, warm piece and taste it. Yep, you can taste the spinach.

Wait until they cool and they taste fine. The chocolate overwhelms the other flavors. My only complaint is the texture isn’t the best for a brownie. The best way to describe it is heavy. But not too much.

It looks delicious. It tastes good.

My son loved it. He had one of these everyday until they were gone. Granted, if they had been a traditional brownie they wouldn’t have lasted in our house as long as these did, but I have to say that when my son asked for a brownie I actually felt OK about him having one of these. After physically putting the veggies in there I know that he is getting something healthy while, at the same time, getting a treat. It’s a win-win.

I think next time I’ll try the Sneaky Chef’s version of brownies with blueberries, spinach and applesauce.

Related:

• Get the “Deceptively Delicious” brownie recipe.
• Get more recipes from the book.
• Sneaky Chef’s brownie recipe.

Like a lot of new moms, I had the brilliant idea to bake a cake for my son’s first birthday.

I started out by looking up a cake decorating class. I headed to the nearest craft store and found a series of Wilton classes offered. For one month I made one cake a week at my weekly cake decorating 101 class.

That a lot of work. You have to bake a cake every week and frost it, then in class you decorate it in a new style each week. I took the class about four months before I wanted to make an official birthday cake. Glad I did too.

In the class I learned how to properly use the icing tip bags, how to make the frosting (you make it thin or thick based on what you are decorating) and other useful tips.

Once I completed the class, I started practicing on my first cake: a duck cake for my son’s first birthday.

It all starts with the duck pan.

Tips I Learned Along The Way

• I tried my favorite cake recipe in the pan for the first go round, but it didn’t hold its shape so I used a pound cake from the box. I find it’s the best for these molded cakes that need to hold a shape.
• I made the base of the cake out of a sheet pan (two layers). Looking back, I wish I had used more blue frosting and made waves in the icing.
• I just placed the duck on top, no dowels.
• When icing a cake with star tip, you must first have a base of smooth icing on the cake (in the same color.) If you neglect this step, you’ll definitely see the bare cake under your frosting.
• I used a white life saver candy with a blue MnM on top for the eyes. They really make the cake. Just glue them on with some of the icing underneath each piece of candy,.

He’s not perfect, but he is cute.

Those eyes. They make the cake.

The pan is versatile enough that you could make this cake for a baby shower too.

Related:

• Wilton classes
• Wilton buttercream icing
• The pan — you can’t do it without THE PAN
• Wilton’s Sweet Duck Cake directions
• Duck cake pictures — these are better than mine!
  
• My Mickey Mouse Clubhouse cake (with photos)
• My car cake (with photos)