When Ingredients Ask for Recipes

Have you ever wondered down the aisle at your nearest grocery store of choice and noticed an item on the shelf you had to have? I'm not talking about junk food, though an impulse buy of Con Queso (or as my friends call it "cheesy crack") is not unheard of I'm talking about something that can't be consumed straight from the box in front of the TV. On my last trip, a small tub of ricotta called to me. I haven't actually used ricotta in a while and I didn't really have any plans on making lasagna, but I just had to have it, I'd figure out why later.

The answer came two days later when I ran across this recipe and it clicked. Cheese and Chocolate, and not a cheesecake, worthy of not just a fling, but a "relationship". I knew I had to try it. I happened to have everything on hand and it flew together really fast. Now I just need to figure out who to share it with.



Double Chocolate Cupcakes with Ricotta, Rum, and Orange Zest
Adapted from Gourmet via Orangette

Ricotta mixture:
1 cup fresh whole-milk ricotta
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 large egg
1 Tbs dark rum
1 tsp finely grated clementine zest
1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips
A pinch of salt

Cupcake batter:
1 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1/3 cup unsweetened Dutch-process cocoa powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup canola oil
1/2 cup milk
1 large egg, lightly beaten
1 Tbs distilled white vinegar (surprising, but it works)
1 Tbs pure vanilla extract
1/4 tsp orange-flower water

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Line two 12-well muffin tins with 18 paper liners. You may not need them all, you may need more. I got 19 cupcakes, but the original said 12, so use your own judgment.

In a medium bowl, whisk together all ricotta mixture ingredients. Place the mixture in the refrigerator to chill.

Place a good-sized sieve over a large bowl, and put the flour, cocoa, baking soda, salt, and sugar into the sieve. Shake the sieve to filter the dry ingredients through into the bowl. Whisk to combine them thoroughly.

In a separate small bowl, whisk together the oil, milk, egg, vinegar, vanilla, and orange-flower water; then add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients in the large bowl, stirring to just combine. Do not overmix.

Spoon a generous heaping tablespoon of the chocolate batter into each muffin cup. Top the chocolate batter with a rounded tablespoon of the ricotta mixture, followed by another rounded tablespoon of the chocolate batter. The instructions say that there will be enough for 12 cupcakes and too much ricotta, but I ended up with 19 cupcakes and just barely enough ricotta. Swirl each cupcake with a toothpick to marble the batter.

Bake the cupcakes in the middle of the oven until a toothpick or thin knife inserted in the center of a cupcake comes out clean, about 25-30 minutes. Cool them in the pan on a rack; then gently unmold and serve. Or pick the cupcakes out while they're still piping hot like I did and eat with a hot cup of tea. Or if you like your fingers, you can wait till they're cool.

Winner and an Apple Butternut Squash Soup

It's been so wonderful to hear from all of you and there were so many wonderful ideas and suggestions, I got hungry just reading your comments. There were lots and lots of different cheesecakes, red velvet cakes, pies, cobblers, a few others that I've never heard of before (Pretzel Jello?) and lots and lots of strawberries and apples. Lindsey, your mom's orange crunch cake sounds fabulous! I also learned that the berries I used to climb trees for as a child, the ones that stained all my dresses and got me into so much trouble, those sweet childhood memory berries, do have an American counterpart: huckleberries! Thank you ikkinlala, I'll be keeping an eye out for them this summer.

While I wish I could give something to each of you for stopping by and sharing your favorites with me there is just one gift, and according to Random.org the prize goes to comment #69:

Bev, I'll be sending you an email to get your mailing info and for the rest of you, thank you for participating. I appreciate all of you stopping by and sharing your favorites with me. It has been fun and I do hope that you guys come by and visit me again some time. As a consolation prize, I give you my latest recipe find.

As I've been trying to figure out the direction of this little blog, I've been doing a lot of research. I've been going through all my favorite blogs, trying to figure out what it is that keeps me coming back and I found myself thinking that I was out of my league. But then, I thought, no one starts out fabulous, right? So I picked a few of my favorites and I started going through their first posts, hoping I'd learn from their experiences. Right now, I'm looking through Orangette's blog. I loved her book A Homemade Life: Stories and Recipes from My Kitchen Table, which I purchased a few months ago and her blog has been much of the same. She talks as if to old friends and really draws you in with her stories. And what's more, she offers countless simple and delicious recipes that are so simple and straight forward that I find myself thinking of my pantry and wondering why I haven't tried making this stuff yet. That's just how I felt when I read her post about this soup. I didn't have everything, but I did have enough to give it a go anyways, and it came out awesome! This soup is easy, healthy, yummy, comforting, filling and you should go make some right now.


Apple and Butternut Squash Soup
adapted from Orangette

2 Tbsp olive oil
1 2-lb butternut squash, peeled, seeded, and cut into 2-inch pieces (about 4 cups)
2 flavorful apples, I used Pink Lady, peeled, cored, and cut into 2-inch pieces (about 2 cups)
1 large onion, peeled and coarsely chopped (about 1 cup)
1/2 tsp chili powder
1/2 tsp cayenne red pepper
3/4 tsp ground mace
1/2 tsp ground cardamom
1 cup good-quality apple cider
1 quart chicken stock (vegetable works fine as well)
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 freshly ground pepper, preferably white

- Heat oil in a large stockpot over medium-low heat. Add the squash, apples, and onion, and stir to coat with oil.
- Sauté uncovered, stirring occasionally, for ten to fifteen minutes, or until onion is transparent.
- Stir in the mace, chili, cayenne, and cardamom, and continue cooking until the onion begins to brown.
- Add the cider. Bring the mixture to a boil over medium-high heat, and cook for three minutes. Add the stock, lower the heat to medium-low, and simmer the mixture, partially covered, for another 35 minutes, or until squash is tender.
- If you have an immersion blender you can just use that to puree everything in the pot. If not, you can blend the mixture in a food processor or blender until smooth, working in batches being careful to not overfill, as hot liquid could expand when machine is switched on, making a huge, burning-hot mess. Return soup to the stockpot and reduce the soup, mostly uncovered, stirring over medium-low heat until the consistency looks right to you or until you're tired of ducking from the tiny specks of boiling hot soup that will bubble up and fly all over. Stir in salt and pepper, and serve hot with or without a small dollop of sour cream.

Cauliflower Love

I was told that my post about boiling an egg was lame, and I admit that it wasn't very special. I loved how the picture of the egg came out and I formed the post around it, but I'm hoping at least one of you will do the same the next time you see fresh farm eggs. You see, I've been trying to cook more recently. More importantly, I've been trying to cook healthier and I'm finding that in cooking, simple is best. I still love super complicated, many layered, dozen-dirty-bowls-minimum type cake recipes and I am still not intimidated by baking recipes that span 3 or more pages, but I know that I'd never be able to keep it up if it wasn't quick and easy, and while there's a great sense of achievement when the huge monster is complete, I'm usually wiped for at least the day or two. So I've been trying to keep things simple in the hopes that I could do this, well, forever. I was perfectly happy with the soft boiled egg, a small salad, and the gussied up Greek yogurt for dinner last night. Yummy, quick, and easily repeatable, so why not keep this up?

Mark Twain was quoted when he said that a cauliflower is just a cabbage with a college education. This quote has nothing to do with anything else that I'm going to say, but it's an awesome quote, don't you think? Okay, I'm weird, just keep going...nothing to see here.


I never gave cauliflower much thought and it was never really in my repertoire until I read and old post from the fabulous Orangette and I don't know...it just looked perfect. I picked one up at the grocery store and whipped it up for dinner tonight. The recipe couldn't have been simpler, and I only tweaked it a tiny bit. I definitely recommend you pick some up the next time you see one and give it a try. And don't be afraid of the colorful ones either. I already had mine in the fridge when I saw beautiful green and vivid purple ones at the French market today.


Caramelized Cauliflower
Adapted from Orangette

1 head of cauliflower, white or green or purple
Olive oil
Fine sea salt
garlic powder (everything is better with garlic)

Preheat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Place the head of cauliflower on a cutting board, and slice it top-down into ¼-inch slices, some of which will crumble. Toss cauliflower in a large bowl with plenty of olive oil and a bit of salt and a few good shakes of the garlic powder, spread it in a single layer on a heavy sheet pan (or two, if one looks crowded), and roast until golden brown and caramelized, turning bits and slices once or twice, about 25 minutes. Pile onto a plate and don't forget to share...or not :D

Oh, and don't forget, there's still the Giveaway going on, so go go go and enter. There are some wonderful desserts people are coming up with :)

How to Boil an Egg - 101

I am a little bit ashamed to admit this, but despite the fact that I love them, I don't think I've ever actually made soft boiled eggs. I know it's considered Cooking 101 (notice my casual reference to this being my 101st post), but I've never really had to do it. I think I've ever only made hard boiled eggs once, and that was almost two years ago. My mom used to make them whenever she was making deviled eggs. She'd just fish one out early, clean half of it off and wait until one of us came by, sniffing out possible treats. You know the saying about the early bird and the worm? For us it was the soft boiled egg. Still warm, and oozy inside. Yum. And its the simplest thing to make too. Just put an egg into a pot, cover with water and put on the stove. Once the water gets to a boil, wait 4 minutes (7 min if you want hard boiled), drain and run cold water over it to stop the cooking. It doesn't even warrant a recipe, it's that easy. Plus, I had these gorgeous eggs in the fridge and the cute egg cups...the time was right to boil an egg. But you know what? Even though it was delicious, it wasn't as good as the one I used to pilfer from my mom. I can't quite put my finger on it, but it's different. I'll just have to wake up really early, pop in and hope that I'm the first.

And since today was the day for laziness, dessert was almost as simple as that egg, but much more satisfying. I bought a small tub of Greek yogurt last week and it's been waiting for me to pay it some attention. Greek yogurt is not as tangy as the plain kind and is much thicker, so it was the perfect treat, topped with a sprinkle of Trader Joe's Pecan Granola, a handful of blueberries, and a drizzle of honey. Try some, it's delicious!



Oh, and don't forget to enter the Giveaway! The competition is light, you just might win :D

Milestone, Carrots and a Giveaway

It was slow going at first. Awkward, not terribly inviting, but willing to try, explore, and bake bake bake. That was what this blog was like in the beginning and while it's no where near where it could be, I think it has grown quite a bit since the first post over a year ago and I'm always trying to improve. But today, I'm marking a milestone for Blondie's Cakes: the 100th post! Whew! It truly has been a learning experience, I've learned a ton about myself, about food, and about those of you that visited me every once in a while and left encouraging comments, thank you. I'd like to celebrate this milestone, and maybe lure some of you silent lurkers out, by having a little giveaway, but business first and treats later.

I am not a morning person and there are very few things that will get me out of bed before 10am on a weekend, but this past Saturday I had errands to run and so I got up at a very reasonable 7:30. What this meant was that I'd finally make it to the Green City Market at the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum, which is awesome! A ton of farmers and vendors set up booths every Saturday morning and you can get anything from fresh apple cider to these lovely French Cannelles, which made for a lovely breakfast:



to fresh farm raised eggs with rich orange yolks:



to these cool looking purple carrots and beautiful shallots:



I have to admit, I've never seen purple carrots and I was drawn to them purely because of their color, but if they were even half as yummy as I thought they'd be I knew they'd make a yummy carrot salad.

My mom has been making this salad on a pretty regular basis for as far back as I can remember and I have often found myself in the kitchen next to her shredding the carrots and chatting about what's going on in my life, discussing various family news or just listening to her tell stories of her past. Sometimes I'm sad that so many eloquent phrases that come up in our conversations cannot be translated from Russian to English. The poetic qualities get lost and fall flat. But the salad needs no translations, it's quick and it's the simplest thing in the world to make:

5-6 good sized carrots
1/2 cup sour cream
2 tsp sugar
1/4 cup raisins

Wash and shred the carrots to smithereens, sprinkle with sugar and fold in the sour cream. Once everything is evenly distributed, fold in the raisins and dig in. See? I told you it was easy.

I was a little sad that the carrots weren't purple on the inside, but the salad was yummy so who cares?


Now back to the giveaway. It's my first one, and I don't have fancy shmancy kitchen gadgets to give out, but I do have a pair of these cute sundae dishes which I promise to fill with all sorts of goodies, so trust me, you will want them.



There will be candy, cookies, tea, and jam and anything else that I'm inspired to add. I might even throw in a bottle of my limoncello if you live in a place where I'm allowed to ship it and if you are old enough.

How to win: In order to be entered into this giveaway you must leave a comment telling me what your favorite dessert is and why. It's that easy, just remember to either include a link to your site or an email address, so that I have a way to contact you if you win. I'm going to take all the comments on Friday night and pick the winner using some sort of random generation method. I might throw bones, ask strangers to pick numbers or maybe even use darts, but you can be sure that it will be totally random. Good luck, I can't wait to hear what you guys come up with!