Hi guys, I have something really sweet to introduce to you today,  it’s going to be pouring sugar and butter from all corners. My passion for cocking made me look into baking with a fresh approach. I always thought that baking was really difficult and complicated. But since I started Chefwanabe I have learned few things about baking. And now I just got to a place where I want to learn more and more. So I decide to create and run another site. Yes…I’ll run 2 sites ( am I crazy?) ….Bakerwanabe will be a dessert site where I will learn and experiment with all sorts of sugary things. I’m sure I will pull my hair from time to time but that’s how you learn right? I loaded some of my desserts to the site and this cake is my first new post there. I have also a bakerwanabe page at foodbuzz and just a few friends (pouting). If you guys could be a darling and befriend me there I would be soooooo thankful.

For the lemon Pistachios Cake click Here

Today is my wedding anniversary so I decided to make a pesto risotto, but for dessert I didn’t want anything complicated. So I decided to improvise and Oh boy! I got lucky; I had frozen Puffy Pastry and peaches. So I sliced the peaches and cooked them with 2 tablespoons of caster sugar and 1 vanilla bean. Just to caramelize the peaches a bit, then I Cut the Puffy Pastry into squares and brushed with melted butter and placed the peach slices on top. Brushed with the rest of the sugar and vanilla syrup and baked at 350F…And voilaa!! If I only knew that it would be that easy. Frozen Puffy Pastry will be a regular in my freezer from now on. Right now my mind is racing at a thousand rounds per second thinking about all the variations I can make. If your’s too? Then feel free to share all your ideas with me. My tummy will be grateful. LOL

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Peach and Vanilla Tart

• 1 sheet of  Puffy Pastry
• 1 Vanilla bean open in half
• 2 tablespoons caster sugar
• Butter to brush

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350F. Defrost the  Puffy pastry to room temperature, cut small squares and brush it with melted butter. In a saucepan heat the sugar, Vanilla bean, and the peach slices to caramelize it a bit.  Spread the slices on the dough and brush the rest of the sugar/ Vanilla syrup on top and bake until golden.  Enjoy

Revising my Filo dough/ Puffy Pastry snafu.

Apparently when you are running like a chicken without a head you fail to recognize what type of dough you are using. See… it was the first time I used frozen dough and when I bought It I had the bright idea of throwing all the boxes in the garbage to maximize the space in my freezer. Not such a bright idea in retrospect, I see. But regardless we had a wonderful time; my hubby loved it and told me I was in his top 9, Hummmm…. I just wonder who is the other top 8. LOL

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Oh! I missed this corner; I was fighting a vicious virus that thought it could control me. It did for few days but I managed to kick its sore ass at the end. It was a funky week on which my body was composed of 50% blood 50% Tylenol. Sunday I had tickets to an Erykah Badu show and I almost gave up, because I felt horrible. But my hubby convinced me to take extra Tylenol and go. I’m glad I did. Because it was an amazing night started with the Greek theater at Griffith Park, Los Feliz. It’s the most beautiful theater I have ever seen.  The show started with Janelle Monae who has some amazing vocal cords. She could get by on style alone, but the fact that she’s an incredibly versatile and skilled singer puts her on a different level. Then we had Lupe Fiasco (which is my favorite) and then Erykah, wow… she was dressed with something that looked like a yellow pajama pants but she is so ridiculously sexy that even pajama pants looked good on her. It was a great night. She is all sorts of awesomeness. Now back here, I have to say I’m a bit lost, I haven’t cooked much… besides soups. But today I forced myself to bake something to try to get my grove back. This is a recipe from the Williams Sonoma Baking book. For some reason I decided to bake it in a muffin tray and I strongly recommend you don’t. Because it ruined the texture. It tasted delicious but could be better, next time I’ll just follow the instructions. Enjoy.

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White Chocolate Apricot and Macadamia Nut Blondies

• 8 Tbs. (1 stick) unsalted butter, at room
 temperature
• 1 1/4 cups firmly packed light brown sugar
• 2 tsp. instant espresso powder
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract
• 2 eggs
• 1-cup all-purpose flour
• 3/4 cup macadamia nuts, coarsely chopped
• 3 to 4 oz. white chocolate, coarsely chopped
• 4 or 5 fresh apricots

Directions:

Preheat an oven to 350°F. Butter an 8-inch square baking pan. In a large bowl, combine the butter, brown sugar, espresso powder and vanilla. Using an electric mixer set on high speed beat until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs one at a time, then continue beating until very fluffy, about 2 minutes. Reduce the speed to low, add the flour and mix in. Continuing to mix on low speed, fold in the nuts and white chocolate just until blended. Spread the batter in the prepared pan. Put the fresh apricot slices on top. Bake until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, about 40 minutes. Transfer the pan to a wire rack and let cool. Cut into 24 bars. Wrap individually in plastic wrap and store at room temperature for up to 3 days.

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Sweet, sweet Friday! But we have to be thankful for annoying Mondays, because if it wasn’t for Mondays we wouldn’t appreciate Friday as much. Things I love about my Fridays; love to go for props hunt, antique stores, and places you wouldn’t expect to find anything, but at the end… voila! The biggest prop place ever. “Home goods” awwwww, its props-land. Who knew? Tones of cutie plates and adorable bowls for peanuts. You all knew about that place? If you didn’t… go, go right now! If you did, then why nobody told me about it? Don’t keep these hidden gems all to yourself please. Of course there are cheesy things beyond believe too, but also cute little things. You have to have a good eye for it. So to sweeten up this Friday even more I baked this honey spiced upside down cake. It is a sweet, sweet treat.

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Honey Spiced Pear Upside Down Cake

• 1¼ cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp. baking powder
• ½ tsp. salt
• 8 Tbs. (1 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 1-cup sugar
• 2 eggs
• ½ cup milk

For the caramel:

• 1cup honey
• ¼ teaspoon cardamom
• ¼ teaspoon nutmeg
• ¼ teaspoon cinnamon
• ¼ teaspoon lemon zest

Preheat an oven to 350°F. Grease and flour a round cake pan. In a bowl, stir and toss together the flour, baking powder and salt. Set aside. In a saucepan mix the honey, the spices and the lemon zest let it melt a bit. Cut the pears in 1 inch slices fit the slices in the bottom of your tray and pour the honey mixture.

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the flat beater, beat the butter and sugar on medium speed until blended, 2 to 3 minutes. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.

Reduce the speed to low and add the flour mixture along with the milk. Beat until blended and smooth, stopping the mixer occasionally to scrape down the sides of the bowl. Spoon the batter into the prepared pan and bake until a toothpick inserted into the center of the loaf comes out clean, 50 to 60 minutes. Enjoy, have a sweet weekend.

Let’s ask “Eagle Spirit”

You know, when the Indians didn’t know what to do with some predicaments they would go to their elders for answers. They would go to “Eagle Spirit” teepee and smoke the peace pipe and ask about their problems, how to solve them. I have my own “Eagle Spirit”… Google. I use Google at least a hundred times a day, for every type of question, or doubts. To find an address, to locate the best hairdresser, to translate words, to find an image reference, to convert measurements, to find out what kind of evil bug is killing my lemon tree. And yes…Eagle Spirit will give me the answer and I don’t even need to smoke the peace pipe. If I had a tribal name it would probably be “ Sitting with a keyboard” or “ Whisking the cake”. Why I decided to talk about Google? Well it’s only fair; I have been all over the web looking for the best, most moist and delicious, olive oil cake. And I have tried a few recipes but nothing can even compare to this. This recipe is from the book “Pastries from the La Brea Bakery”. I absolutely love it, it smells delicious and taste even better. Enjoy.

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Rosemary Olive Oil Cake

• 1 tablespoon of rosemary finally chopped and few springs for decoration.
• 1 ½ cups granulated sugar
• 2 cups + 2 tbsp unbleached pastry flour
• 1 tsp kosher salt
• ½ tsp baking soda
• ½ tsp baking powder
• 1 ½ cups extra-virgin olive oil (the better the olive oil, the better the cake)
• 1 ½ cups whole milk
• 3 large eggs

Preparation:

Center an oven rack and preheat the oven to 350F. Lightly coat the tart or tartlet pans with olive oil. Set aside.

In a large bowl, rub together the Rosemary and sugar until the sugar is moist and fragrant. In a sieve, combine the flour, salt, baking soda, and baking powder. Sift over the sugar. Whisk to combine the dry ingredients, then make a well in the center. In a large liquid measuring cup, combine the oil, milk, and eggs, whisk to combine, then pour into the well in the dry ingredients and slowly draw in the flour mixture, whisking until incorporated. The mixture should be fairly smooth before you draw in more flour. Mix well. Pour the batter into the prepared molds using ½-cup measuring cup as a ladle. The molds should be three-quarters full. Place the molds on a large baking sheet, half an inch apart. Bake for 35-40 minutes until nicely browned and firm to the touch.