Pee-Aie-Eee: Whats that spell? Pie! (Or awesome...)

This has been a month of pies.
So many tasty pastries with crusts and fruits have been happening.
Let us take an instagram adventure in the world of PIE.

First pie that happened was a really ugly lemon blueberry concoction that happened in the evening after a long day of work. Boy was it hideous. And absolutely delicious! I probably ate 3/4 of it on my own...within a two-ish day time period? Yeah....once I figure out how to make this pretty and tasty there will be an awfully exciting pie recipe up here.

Blueberry Lemon Ugly Pie = Blueberry Lemon TASTEE.

 

 

Thennn...Thursday happened! Thursdays are Farmer's Market days. It's unavoidable. There is all this delicious produce sitting in the sun and there are happy kids drawing with chalk and dogs on leashes straining at all the lovely smells coming from the stalls, someone is playing guitar and singing folksy acoustic songs. One thing leads to another and Candice finds herself buying way too much fruit and making a rustic pie tart thing that tastes phenomenal.

Peppers and Pie Ingredients! Peaches, two kinds of cherries, and blueberries. 

But now this is when it gets crazy fun. Hold on to your hats, kids, because our instagram adventure of pie is leaving the Purple Door Kitchen and heading to New Jersey! Enter Pie Master 2.0. Now, sometimes a girl just plain lucks out and finds out that her staggering good looking, incredibly smart, hilariously funny, and perfectly sweet boyfriend also likes to bake pies. (I know, RIGHT?) Tada! Pumpkin Pie was made in Jersey and Candice thanked Jesus for pie making men. ;)

A few days after the ridiculously successful pumpkin pie was eaten, David called me while he was in the grocery store hunting for apple pie ingredients. (Oh, look the Candice-O-Happy Meter went off the charts...) and a couple of hours later pie flavored skype date! Gosh darn it, we're cute.

And David was thoughtful enough to document our pie adventure, of course. (look! There I am being really happy to watch David make pie for three hours or so) He's always thinking of genius things like that. :) The only bad thing about this arrangement is that I couldn't actually taste the amazing apple pie he made, but watching him bake/eat it made up for it.

Good news about July being the month of pie? Tomorrow I am completely free all afternoon and I think I'm going to make more! Flavors up for debate.

Weddings and a Carrot Cake

It's wedding season, guys.
Seriously...when I was at Target the other day they were selling bride themed bikinis in the swimsuit section. (Don't ask me why I was at Target. Or in the swimsuit section. Who needs to go shopping? Who needs a new swimsuit? NO one, that's who.)
But yes, I digress. Weddings. Summer is in full swing and here in the Pacific Northwest when the weather gets sunnier everyone goes a little twitterpated and wants to get hitched. It's cute.
And really, everyone likes to go to a good wedding. It's perfected fun, right? We've been carefully crafting the art of wedding celebrations since the beginning of time and boy has it paid off. And there is almost always cake.

Cake!
I got to make a wedding cake this past weekend for a friend of mine. The first time I made a carrot cake and brought it to a get together at Kyle's house years ago he found me and said, "Candice, when I get married I want you to make this carrot cake." I laughed and replied with an "Ok!" thinking that he would forget all about it.

He didn't. Three years later he met his lovely wife, Velina. They did their cute falling in love thing, got engaged, and started planning a wedding. And who did they ask to make their cake? Me!! I was so excited and a little humbled.
Oh.
And really nervous.
But it turned out to be really fun and rewarding. Everyone loved it, the bride and groom were super thankful and it was a happy wedding.

My sister actually was the photographer and my mom helped with the garden preparations so it was a regular family gig! Laura and I were pretty excited because we have always wanted to retire and start a wedding planning/photo/cake business after we grow old and grouchy from being in the education system for years.
(Yeahhhhh we haven't even started teaching and we already are planning for retirement. It's pretty sad.)
ANYWAY!

It was a blast, Laura took beautiful pictures, I brought a decent looking (and great tasting) cake, everyone had the time of their lives and swore it was the nicest wedding they had ever attended.
Or at least, until the next wedding...which was about 24 hours later. ;)

Fun Times and Peaches n' Cream Cupcakes

Heyyyy there.
Remember that super fun time I was ambitious and said I was going to bake 52 new cupcakes recipes in one year?
Those were fun times. Fun fun times...it is good to reminisce, isn't it?
I thought (after skipping 6, um 12? weeks of cupcake recipes) that maybe I was too ambitious. Too crazy. Too obsessed with cupcakes.

Well, okay. I thought right. Because I am most certainly too crazy/ambitious/cupcake obsessed. Which is why I didn't give up!! HAHAHAH...behold me and my evil adorable cupcake laughter! Well, I probably won't meet my 52 recipe goal, but I'm still going to make as many dang cupcakes that I can. I'm also a bit stubborn maybe?

Here we are dedicated cupcake friends:
Peaches n' Cream Cupcakes
I do apologize for the not so impressive photos. I was left with a dead battery after the recent Adventure in Brazil and so the only camera available was on my phone. Believe me, these cupcakes are much much much tastier than theses pictures make them look. Like, I actually ate three of these. Um. Within a half hour.

OKAY. That's enough confession time! Heheh. Recipe!

Peaches n' Cream Cupcakes                                                                                          Yield 8
1 1/4 cup flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon
1/3 cup milk
1 tsp almond extract
6 TB room temperature butter
3/4 cup sugar
2 eggs
3 peaches, halved, pitted, and sliced
Leaving 10 slices for topping the cupcakes, finely chop the remaining peaches and set aside.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Sift together flour, baking powder, and cinnamon in a small mixing bowl. In another large mixing bowl beat the sugar and butter until light and fluffy. Add the almond extract and one egg, beat well. Add the other egg and beat well. Beat in flour mixture in 3 additions alternating twice with milk.
Line a muffin tin with liners and fill each with about two tablespoons of batter. Fill each with a heaping tablespoon of peaches and then fill with the remaining batter. Bake about twenty minutes or until the edges turn golden. 
Let cool completely. 
Top with sweetened whipped cream and grilled peaches. Add a honey balsamic sauce for extra yum factor. :)
Honey Balsamic Drizzle
1/4 cup honey
1 Tablespoon Balsamic Vinegar
Whisk together and drizzle over cupcakes...

How the Amazon taught me to bake cupcakes

Wow.
Welcome back to the interwebs, Candice.
Now, while I really like you all and I really like blogging...I have to confess. I really didn't miss the internet at all this past month. Like, none.
Zip, Zero, Nada, Negative.
It could be because I was hanging out with these gorgeous people the whole time...maybe.

 

 

 

 

 

 

(Sorry for the overload of pictures, but I really like these people, okay? Okay. Moving on...)

 

I think I checked facebook once and even then as I was scrolling through my news feed, I got bored. And so the fact was reached that the world wide web was completely unnecessary for survival (or even happiness). This, and the realization that my life is going to get topsy turvy pretty soon, caused me to set aside a lengthy period of time to consider giving Purple Door Bakery a break. (and by "lengthy period" I mean 3 whole hours. That's a lot of hours for me to think about one thing, guys. Seriously.) I made nice pros and cons lists, and then I crossed them out and made different ones. In the end, I decided to keep it going as long as I can. I mean, I already took a mini hiatus for the month of June anyway. So for now, PDB is still chugging along.

That being said...let's talk cupcakes!
Yeahhhh. Cupcakes are pretty much always going down around these parts. It's a thing.
So yes. Show of hands, please. How many of you lovelies have been to the Amazon?
Nope, not the website. The jungle.

Right. If you haven't, you should. It's incredible. (This is connected to cupcakes eventually, I promise.)
Incredible people, incredible rivers, incredible lightning storms.
Incredible starry skies, incredible hearts, incredible opportunities for God to pick you gently up and thrust you into a story you never thought you would tell, much less live right out.

You know, it's pretty unfathomable that the person who imagined, designed, and put together every detail of the universe can still somehow know you perfectly.
God knows my favorite song and why it makes me cry (even though, to this day, I still don't know why myself.) He knows that when I was a girl I wanted to be a red-winged blackbird.
Confession: sometimes I still have days that I want to be a red-winged blackbird. This, along with why my favorite song makes me cry, is a mystery.
And He knows that when I am very happy (or unhappy) or very relaxed (or stressed) I like to bake. And He knows (yes, the all powerful, jaw dropping, magnificent God knows) that I like cupcakes.
The reason I know that He knows this is because of the Brazilian Amazon.

Ha! I love it!

On Sunday, June 23, 2013, in the small town of Caqueta, I woke up at 6 am to a tiny kitchen with no electricity. I hand beat enough butter cream frosting to decorate the five dozen cupcakes I had made during an impromptu prayer meeting the night before.

It was hands down the best baking experience of my entire life.
Better than any of the wedding cakes I've done, better than the time I sold my first cake, better even than the satisfying "pop" of the lid on my first can of successful jar of jam. It was just amazing.

I managed to make 5 dozen Bolinhos de Acerola e Morango without measuring cups, spoons, an electric mixer or American ingredients. The oven didn't even have degrees of temperature. It was a stick-your-hand-in-and-see-if-it's-hot-enough oven.

And to be doing something I really enjoyed for children I had never met (and yet somehow already loved) while praying with a group of women in two languages. Asking for grace and truth and Christ given power to cover ourselves and the men with us?

Yeah. You guys all need to visit the Amazon.
And make cupcakes there.
And if you do, I promise that it will only be the tip of the iceberg...there are so many things that happened in Brazil. Making cupcakes there just happens to be something that pertains to my frivolous baking blog.
That in and of itself is just SO DARN COOL. :D

May's Favorites

My dear friends. It is June.
Holy mother of pancakes...it's June! Maybe the rest of you already came to the realization that summer is here. But my poor addled brain just beheld, processed, and accepted my surroundings. I'm a little late to the party, I understand. But I'm here now...so let get this sunny, hot, beach-going, bare-footed party started! Oh wait...let's recap the delicious month of May first. Then we can start pumping the beats for June.

My sister visited me THREE times in May. Three times! That's three times the long deep conversations in the driveway, three times the laughs at inside jokes, three times the amount of coffee in my system, and of course...three times the fun! My sister is so awesome. Sometimes I forget this because she lives two hours away, but she really is the bestest. (HI, BEST FRIEND.)

Oh yeah...you wish you had a sister this awesome...

Alsoooo....Mother's Day! My mom deserves everything beautiful and sparkly and expensive beyond belief. Usually she just gets handmade cards or homemade food. It's so unfair. But it's probably a good thing because if she was beautiful and smart and funny and had all the prettiest things in the world...well. She would probably get mobbed or something because the whole population would be overcome with jealousy.

I mean, look at this lovely lady!

Memorial Day came and went. We were most unpatriotic and threw a thoroughly British tea party at 4 o'clock. (cheerio!) There wasn't an American dish in sight. We had so much fun...it was like Downton Abbey! Except no one died and we didn't say as many witty things at the Dowager and Mary. Because they are the queens of witty and we wouldn't dream of competing with their womanly genius. But we had fun pretending. :)

And here are the Pinterest Finds! Did I tell you I like pinterest? I like pinterest.
Something about baking illustrations makes me giddy. They are just perfect...like this cake would be if it were in fact edible.

Aren't these macarons the cutest thing you've ever seen? Even if you don't like tomatoes you'll agree with me...these must be eaten. Or just looked at, because they are adorable. And the photography stylizing is perfect for those little sugar tomatoes.

Oh yeah...cute food? It's a thing. I love it.

Your May Favorites:

-Facebook-

Mint Citrus Shortbread

-Pinterest-

Sausage Mushroom Angel Hair Pasta

Have a Happy June everybody!! It's going to be a crazy busy month for me, I have a lot planned. I'm really excited for it. :)

Nutcase Confessions and Peanut Butter Mocha Brownies

I'm one of those weirdos that enjoys bizarre flavor combinations. And I'm not talking about french fries and Wendy's Frostys, I like some pretty strange things. But I try rEEEEally hard not to let my bonkers food preferences cross over into the food I make for other people. Because you know, its hard not to scare people off in matters of my personal appearance, personal sense of humor, personal dance moves. You know, personal anything. So I proactively avoid scaring them with the fact that I sometimes eat potato chips with strawberry jam.

Oh my gosh. I just admitted that I eat potato chips with strawberry jam on the internet. My secrets are out; I'm a complete nutcase. And now that I've let that smidgen of information slip out I'm tempted to make a comprehensive list of all the odd things I eat in secret. Lift the burden of guilty indulgence I've been living with ever since my first glazed doughnut with cheddar cheese fiasco at age 12. Oh my word I need to shut the clap trap before something truly horrid escapes.

But at least I don't make Peanut Butter and Jelly cupcakes with Frito corn chip topping. (Wouldn't that be awesome? I'm just sayin', I think it would.) I have compassion on the boring people of the world who balk at the idea of culinary freedom and stick to pretty acceptable flavor combos. So when the idea of Peanut Butter Mocha Brownies arrived in my brain I was super excited. An unusual mix of tastes, but one that most people will be on board with? Ho yes. So much yes.

Peanut butter isn't really a popular flavor for coffee drinks, but I know for a fact that they have peanut butter syrup for them. It is one of many at my local Cash n' Carry. (If you have a slight obsession for flavored syrups go to Cash n' Carry. You will have a heart attack of happy. It's like an entire aisle of absolute joy.)
And if it is enjoyed by enough people that they would make a syrup for peanut butter coffee drinks, then I am putting it in dessert form. It's undeniable.
An thick fudgey chocolate-laden peanut butter swirled dessert of awesome. (I have realized that I use the word "awesome" in every. single. post. I have no regrets.)

Peanut Butter Mocha Brownies
4 large eggs
1 1/4 cups of unsweetened cocoa powder
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
1 tablespoon instant coffee granules
1 tablespoon vanilla
1 cup butter
3/4 cup light brown sugar
1 1/2 cups white sugar
1 1/2 cups All purpose flour
3 oz of chopped semi sweet chocolate
1/2 cup smooth peanut butter
Preheat the oven to 350 F. lightly grease a 9x13 glass baking dish. Crack the eggs into a large bowl and whisk them together with the cocoa, salt, baking powder, instant coffee, and vanilla until smooth. On the stove top melt the butter over low heat. When completely melted add the sugars. I don't particularly care about the shininess on the top of brownies, but if you are a sucker for the shiny crackly crust on top, heat the sugar and butter until about 110 F. (A couple minutes more) This will dissolve more of the sugar which gives you that nice "boxed brownie mix" look. Add the hot butter/sugar mixture to the egg/cocoa mixture and stir until smooth. Add the flour and shaved chocolate and stir. Spoon the batter into your greased dish. Dollop the peanut butter intermittently and swirl it until it looks pretty. :) Bake for 30 minutes or until a cake tester runs clean of batter when stuck in the middle.

Tea Parties and Mint Citrus Shortbread

About a week ago I was texting my sister about her return home for the Memorial Day weekend...it went like this:

Me: I'm feeling in the mood for a tea party this weekend...you down for some radical pinky up shenanigans? I need to christen my trendy tea pot and I'll make cucumber sammies!

Laura: YES

Me: And scones? We also need a third sister if it's truly to be Downtown Abbey enough, but we will make due. 

Laura: Eh, we'll stick a bonnet on Ginger and call it good. 

Me: Yes. She can be the spinster one who can't get married, obviously.

And Ginger? That's our dog. She doesn't like bonnets so we just let her eat the cookies sans head gear. Anyway, sometimes we do weird things and and plan really British tea parties for Memorial Day weekend. It's a thing, this weirdness. But it's a good thing. It brings tea! Four different kinds of tea, cucumber sandwiches, cracker and cheese...it's a good good thing.

Tea parties can be awfully inspiring. I had a bajillion and one ideas running through my head as soon as I started planning for a tea party. Petit fours, mini pound cakes, cream puffs, homemade english muffins...the options were endless. But I wanted two things for this particular tea escapade:
1. Light and tasty, matches perfectly with a warm cup of tea...
2. Had a "spring time" flavor...
3. Preferably made with herbs from our garden...
and
4. I wanted it to be pretty. I mean, it was a tea party, it's not too much to ask that it be cute, right?

So I took a shortbread recipe, tinkered with it, (I never can leave any recipe alone. Even when I swear I'm going to leave it completely alone and execute it as is...I end up altering something. I think it's a disease or syndrome, it's that bad.) and then decorated them nearly to death.

Also, can we take a moment and appreciate the fact that I own not one, but two types of tea pot cookie cutters? I mean, that's only two less cutters than actual tea pots. (I kinda have a need to have as many tea pots/cups/items as physically possible.) Yes. Mhm.
Okay, moment is over, cookies are now taking over this blog.

Cookies...

Cookies...

And more cookies?

Yes. 

Cookies. 

This dough is uh-may-zing. It rolls like a dream, doesn't need to be chilled, and mixes up in one fell swoop. If you ever feel like a tea party that is low on the drama (No one dying or financial situations going awry like at the Downton Abbey's resident's tea parties) these are a must.







Mint Citrus Shortbread Cookies
3/4 pound (pounds, not cups!) butter
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
3 1/2 cups flour
1 egg
2 Tablespoons of fresh chopped lemon verbena
2 Tablespoons of fresh chopped mint
zest and juice of one lime
Stick all the ingredients in the bowl of an electric mixer and stir until it combines into a beautiful dough. Turn it out onto a cold counter dusted lightly with (if your kitchen is warm, you may need to chill for 20 minutes. But this step is unnecessary most of the time.) Roll the dough to 1/4 inch thickness and cut with shaped cutters. Bake at 350 for 9 to 
13 minutes or until lightly golden on the edges. Watch them carefully so they do not over bake. Frost and decorate with royal icing or leave them plain. (They are delicious either way, but without the icing you can really taste the fresh herbs and citrus...)