Cabin in the City

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Easy Wins: Chocolate Ganache Tart

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The Great American Baking Resolution continues! And thank goodness because without it, I’d never post here. I have some stitching projects underway – more on those later! – and they’ve been eating up a lot of my laying around time.

This month, invigorated by new seasons (!!!) of The Great British Baking Show on Netflix, I decided to make a chocolate ganache tart. For some reason, I was under the impression that a) ganache was difficult to make and b) I had never made it before. I was wrong on both counts, but that’s OK! An easy win is still a win.

To make this tart, you’ll need the following for the crust:

  • 1½ cups shortbread cookie crumbs (you could also use graham crackers, gingersnaps, Nilla wafers, etc.)
  • 6 tbsp. butter, melted
  • ¼ cup sugar
  • Dash of salt

And the ganache:

  • 8  oz. heavy whipping cream
  • 12 oz. dark or semi-sweet chocolate
  • 4 tbsp. butter, softened
  • ¼ tsp. vanilla extract

Begin by making the crust. This is your standard crumb crust that you’d use for ice box pies, cheesecakes and the like. You’ll start by grinding up your cookies until they’re relatively fine – by fine I mean more like sand and less like powder. If you have a food processor, now’s the time to bust it out! If not, some elbow grease works too. Once you have finely crushed cookies, mix in the melted butter, sugar and salt. Press this into a 9″ tart pan. I used the bottom of a measuring cup to press the crumbs in firmly and evenly. Bake at 350°F for 8-10 minutes. Let it cool.

To prepare the ganache, start by chopping the chocolate and butter into small pieces – I’d say about the size of a chocolate chip. Put aside while you heat the cream. Heat the cream in a saucepan on medium-low heat until hot (almost simmering). Then pour over the chocolate and butter. Let this sit for a couple minutes, then whisk together. The chocolate and butter should melt pretty easily and you’ll end up with a rich, chocolate mix. Pour this into the cool tart shell. You can let this firm up by letting it set overnight at room temperature or pop it it in the fridge for 2-3 hours. I like the latter. And when I say 2-3 hours, I mean it. You’ll see in these photos that the ganache is a touch soft – that’s what an hour and 45 minutes gets you.

To finish it all off, I sprinkled with some sea salt and drizzled with a little caramel sauce. But some fresh whipped cream and berries would be nice too. You do you!

Overall, this is a simple dessert – a good recipe for home bakers like myself – but it sounds impressive as hell. It’s the sort of dessert that sounds like it can win friends and influence people. So I recommend whipping one up for your next dinner party, visit to your in-laws or charity bake sale. 🙂

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Darn Good Almond Poppy Seed Cake

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Best dessert of your life – go! For a sweet-lover like myself, you might think it’d be hard to choose between the tiramisus, the French silk pies and the eclairs of the world. But you’re wrong here. My heart belongs to one dessert and one alone: Delicately Delicious’s almond poppy seed cake. I don’t know how this bakery does it, but they make the lightest, fluffiest whisper of a cake, and I can’t get enough.

I also literally cannot get it enough. I never get to the bakery on time for a slice. What’s a girl to do? Turns out a girl just makes it her damn self.

And that turned out to be quite the task, but one totally suited for my Great American Baking Resolution. It seems the world doesn’t really make this kind of cake. The internet let out an exasperated did you mean lemon poppy seed cake? every time I searched. Or Pinterest would cough up some halfhearted pound cake recipe. Not what I was looking for.

So I decided that not only would I have to make the cake myself, I’d have to create a recipe too. So I returned to Pinterest, pinned the recipe that looked most like what I wanted and went from there. What did I start with? A very pretty looking lemon poppy seed cake recipe that inconveniently used the metric system – horror of horrors to an American that’s not in the mood to use math.

What I ended up with was risky: inexact conversions, subtracting ingredients, substituting others, a higher baking temperature. Would it ever turn out?!

YES!

This wonderful, sweet cake turned out beautifully. Not quite as good as its professionally produced sister, but so, so, so close, especially for just winging it. And close enough that I consider this a real success 9/10 for sure. The cake is light and moist, just they way I wanted it. And it’s all topped off with Swiss meringue buttercream and some toasted almonds.

Now let’s get baking. Here’s what you’ll need for the cake:

  • 3 cups flour
  • 1½ cups sugar
  • 15 tbsp. butter, softened
  • 1 cup + 2 tbsp. buttermilk
  • 5 egg whites
  • 4½ tsp. baking powder
  • ½ tsp. salt
  • 1 tbsp. almond extract
  • 3 tbsp. poppy seeds

Start by mixing the flour, baking powder, salt and poppy seeds in a bowl and set aside. In another bowl mix your buttermilk and egg whites together. Set these aside for the moment.

In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat the butter and sugar together until creamy and pale. Add your almond extract. Now alternate adding your dry ingredients and your wet until you have a nice, creamy batter. Don’t forget to scrape down the sides of your bowl as you alternate to make sure every bit gets blended in.

Divide the batter between 3 8″-cake pans. Be sure that your pans are greased and lined with parchment or waxed paper on the bottom. Pop into a 325°F oven for 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Let cool briefly in the pans and then remove and cool on a wire rack.

And for the frosting:

  • 8 egg whites
  • 2½ cups sugar
  • 3 cups butter
  • 2 tsp. vanilla extract

To make the frosting, place a heatproof bowl over a pan of simmering water on the stove making sure the bottom of the bowl doesn’t touch the water. Whisk the egg whites and sugar together until the sugar has dissolved and the mixture is about 160°F.

When that mixture has hit temperature, pour it into the bowl of your mixer and beat until room temperature using the whisk attachment.  The mix should form soft peaks (this will take about 6-10 minutes). Then switch to your paddle attachment and gradually add in tablespoons of butter until the mix is creamy and frosting-y. Finally add your vanilla extract and you’re done!

I let my cakes cool overnight before frosting. I definitely recommend letting these cakes cool for a few hours. A touch of heat on that Swiss meringue frosting and it’s as good as butter. As for the actual frosting of the cake – I’m no professional. Just swipe it on there and smooth it out, though you could definitely use this frosting with a piping bag for some nice swirls and what-have-you.

She’s a beaut of a cake, and it’s a real shame that I didn’t take a picture of it sliced like a good blogger, but you live and you learn. Now I’ve gotta run and think about what my March baking challenge will be. I was thinking ganache in some way, shape or form. What do you think?

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My Strange Tradition: Groundhog Day Cupcakes

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Happy Groundhog Day, all! We might be getting six more weeks of winter, but that’s OK because I brought treats: my signature groundhog cupcakes.

I know what you’re thinking.  No one celebrates Groundhog Day, idiot. Yeah, well that’s sort of the point. It’s an underrated and goofy holiday, why not give it a little love? That’s what I thought when I started making these silly things ten years ago. TEN. That is an absurdly long time for something so wonderfully stupid.

Thing is, I almost didn’t make these cupcakes this year. Well, I wasn’t planning on it until I got a super sweet text from one of my oldest friends reminiscing about their cute little faces. I can’t resist nostalgia, so I decided I had to whip up a batch (sorry you can’t enjoy them, Molly!).

Here’s the lowdown on the recipe. It’s from Cupcakes! from the Cake Doctor, a book I picked up at a church book fair back in high school. This book spurned my then-not-yet-passé interest in cupcakes. And the cute themes sparked a short-lived interest in cake decorating. Although I’ve only made probably four recipes out of this whole book, it somehow developed into some sort of totem for me. It’s my Midwest mom cupcake book, my silly high school baking cookbook, a book I used in college for my demonstrative speech in COMM 101 and a book that started my favorite absurd tradition. And it makes cupcakes super simple because every recipe starts with a cake mix (that’s what the Cake Doctor does – it’s her thing).

Here’s what you’ll need for the cake:

  • 1 package German chocolate cake mix
  • 1¼ cups buttermilk
  • 1/3 cup oil
  • 4 eggs
  • 2 tsp. vanilla extract

And the frosting:

  • 4 cups powdered sugar
  • ½ cup butter, softened
  • 1 tsp. vanilla extract
  • 1 tbsp. cocoa powder
  • 3-4 tbsp. milk

And the decorations:

  • Chocolate jimmies
  • Shaved almonds
  • Chocolate chips – mini brown M&M’s work too
  • Mini chocolate chips

Making the cake is easy breezy. Just mix together all the ingredients with an electric mixer or stand mixer for about three minutes – stopping halfway to scrap down the bowl. Then fill your cupcake liners ¾-full. I like to use a disher or ice cream scoop to make portioning easy, but a spoon does just fine too. Bake at 350°F for 22-24 minutes, until toothpick comes out clean. Remove from the pans and let cool.

The frosting is just as easy. Simply beat your softened butter with an electric mixer until it gets nice and soft. Then add in your powdered sugar, cocoa powder, vanilla and about three tablespoons of milk. Beat this together until combined. If the frosting looks too stiff and powdery, add in more milk a little at a time until it gets that nice frosting consistency. If you find the frosting is too runny, just add in a little powder sugar at a time until it firms up.

Then comes the best part: the decorating. To start, just frost the cupcakes as usual with an offset spatula. This does not need to be too finicky – I wouldn’t even bust out a pastry bag for this. Roll the frosted cupcake in the chocolate jimmies. Word to the wise: don’t frost all your cupcakes first. This frosting has a tendency to dry a bit as it sits, so if you wait too long you’ll lose all that sticking power.

Once you’ve got that done, I’d recommend grabbing a pastry bag with a wide, round tip. A zip-top bag with the corner snipped off works just as good – no need to get too futzy if you don’t have to. Fill this with the rest of your frosting and pipe a round dollop of frosting on each cupcake for the groundhog head. I’d say the head should be somewhere between the size of a quarter and a poker chip. Once the heads are finished, insert two almond ears into each along with a chocolate chip or M&M nose and little chocolate eyes. With that – you’re all done and you have a little repetition of groundhogs (which is what the internet tells me is the name for a group of them – that or coterie).

I realize writing this on Groundhog Day doesn’t give you much time to whip these up for your Groundhog Day movie night, but I’ll say that this recipe is good any day of the year.

Happy Groundhog Day and big thanks to my friend Molly!

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Life in Plastic [Canvas] is Fantastic

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I briefly mentioned in my holiday tradition post that I picked up a new holiday hobby: making little plastic canvas do-dads.

I fully realize that unlike other crafts of yore – macramé, cross stitching and the like – plastic canvas is not cool. I’m drawn to it nonetheless – maybe it’s my inner grandma, maybe it’s my 90s nostalgia.

Whatever the case may be, I’m digging it. Making these little houses from the Needlecraft classic “Hometown Villages” is sort of a weird hybrid of needlepoint and putz house making. So when you think about it that way, it makes 100% sense why I can’t stop working away at these.

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O Pioneers [Molasses Cookies]!

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When it comes to Christmas cookies, I don’t mess around. In fact, every year I take a whole day off from work just to get some baking done. It’s just so much more enjoyable when you have the whole day to make eight batches of award-winning cream cheese pillows.

This year, I started my Christmas bake-athon with the old timiest recipe I have and one of my family’s most loved cookies: pioneer molasses cookies. These cookies are simple – no fanciness or flourish here – just a good, hard working cookie that makes the holidays complete.

Now, why are these the old timiest? Well, the original recipe – a favorite of my grandma’s – calls for melted lard. Lard. So that tells you something about the era. But this 1930s original also just isn’t really like recipes of today, mostly because the original calls for a whopping six cups of flour, and also because it has no sugar (outside of the molasses). None. But it’s still a good cookie and a solid option for when you want to make something simple and not too sweet – and also something that makes you feel homesick for another time.

Here’s what you’ll need to make these old fashioned faves:

  • 3 cups flour
  • 10 tbsp. butter, softened
  • ½ cup molasses
  • ½ cup boiling water
  • ½ tsp. baking soda
  • ½ tsp. salt

And for the frosting:

  • 2⅔ cups powdered sugar
  • 3-4 tbsp. water
  • 1½ tsp. vanilla extract
  • Red and green food color

To make these, start by creaming the butter and molasses. Then alternate adding dry ingredients with the hot water. This should form a good, albeit sticky, dough pretty readily. Once it’s mixed, chill for at least an hour.

When you’re ready, flour your chilled dough lightly and roll out to ¼” thick. You can use cookie cutters here, though I prefer just to slice these into rectangles with a pizza cutter. Like I said, these cookies are pretty simple and rustic, so I think a simple shape works well. Bake for 12 minutes at 375°F. Cool on a wire rack or brown paper.

To complete these, I recommend a simple frosting. Simply mix the ingredients above – bear in mind you may have to add a little more water or sugar to get the right spreading consistency. Once you’re satisfied with this basic frosting, split the batch in two and color with red and green. Then frost your cooled cookies.

They aren’t the most Pinterest-ready cookies out there, but the sight of these red and green squares always brings me a lot of joy this time of year.

Merry Christmas and happy holidays!

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Merry + Bright Christmas Ornament Wreath

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Are you all ready to hit it with Christmas crafts? I 100% am. This past weekend alone, I made headway on three different Christmas-y DIYs. I got so excited I couldn’t choose just one. Sure, that means I couldn’t finish all three, but I made decent headway on two and completed a sort of spur-of-the-moment DIY: a very sparkly and festive ornament wreath.

I ended up loving the result! How often does that happen? In the ven diagram of crafting, easy, fun, quick and affordable rarely intersect, but this wreath ends up in that impossibly small area.

Here’s what you’ll need:

  • Straw or styrofoam wreath – mine was 12″
  • Garland – I had 12′ and it was just enough for my wreath (I recommend about a foot of garland for every inch of wreath)
  • Shatter-proof ornaments –  I used about 40 2″-diameter ornaments (various sizes work but I’d try not to go larger than 2″ for a wreath this size)
  • Miscellaneous filler – I found bags of small glittery balls and jingle bells that you might use to fill a vase or something (they were perfect)
  • Hot glue
  • Wire or ribbon for hanging

This is so easy and satisfying and I think it looks like a million bucks. Here’s how it goes:

  1. Wrap the garland around your wreath, making sure it’s evenly spaced and that you can’t see the wreath. Then glue in place every few inches or so on the back side. Make sure the ends are secure and the garland is fairly taught.
  2. Start to glue your ornaments! Start with your larger ones and fill in with smaller ornaments. Don’t be afraid of using a good amount of glue. You really want those suckers to stick good to the wreath (and not just the garland).
  3. Fill in with your smaller do-dads. Jingle bells, random glitter balls, tiny ornaments, etc. are the perfect finishing touch. Once I got these fitted in place, the wreath looked complete.
  4. Glue or tie a ribbon (or wire) to the back and hang!

I seriously love this so so much. Like I said, it was easy, pretty affordable (I think it all cost me about $20) and it packs a serious punch! What I also like about this project is that it’s so customizable. You can easily change up the colors, the types of ornaments or even add lights or a bow.

Happy holidays and happy crafting!

 

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Berry Pickin’

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This summer, I planted a raspberry bush in our yard and, man, was I excited. I envisioned going out in the morning and picking handfuls of berries and making jams, sauces, desserts, the whole bit. My vision was lacking in the reality department, though. Turns out that a single, year-old raspberry bush isn’t going to produce more than a couple berries a day.

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This weekend, though I did get to fulfill my dreams of picking all the berries I could ever need. Michael and I headed up to his family’s place near the Wisconsin Dells for a quick getaway. While hiking the trails on their property, we came across bramble after bramble of wild blackberry bushes – a tremendous treat. We spent the afternoon loading up a box of these tiny, sweet berries to take home where I had a plan in store.

The grand plan: muffins. It’s nothing fancy, but these berries were small and sweet – just about the size of blueberries – that they seemed destined to end up in a muffin tin. So I took these berries to share with my mom and we whipped up a quick batch.

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Here’s what you’ll need:

  • 2 cups flour
  • 1/2 cup sugar + extra for dusting
  • 1/3 cup melted butter
  • 1 cup milk
  • 1 egg
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • Zest of one lime
  • 1 1/2 cups blackberries

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I love a good muffin recipe because they are easy-peasy. I just mixed all the ingredients (with the exception of the berries) together until just combined. Then I gently stirred in the berries and the lime zest and called it a day. The lime zest I think makes these pop a bit, but if you don’t have lime on hand, no biggie! You can toss in a little vanilla and cinnamon (about a teaspoon of each) to add a nice, comforting flavor.

TIP: If you have larger berries, especially the storebought variety, yout might want to give them a quick dusting with flour. This will prevent them from sinking to the bottom of your muffins.

When you’re all set with the muffins, dish them into muffin tins and sprinkle the top with a little coarse or granulated sugar. It gives it a little bit of a crunch. Toss these in the oven at 400°F for 18-20 minutes.

Berry_4And that’s all she wrote for this one, folks! Now get out there while the wild blackberry picking is still good! If you’re in southern or central Wisconsin, you might be able to nab a few. Lucky northerners might have another week or two.

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Dresses for Dayyys

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The past few weeks, I’ve been staying busy with some wedding embroidery projects. It felt like every spare moment I was stitching away. But now that my next wedding isn’t for a few weeks, I have a bit of room in my creative calendar – a lot actually. So with that in mind and the long holiday weekend ahead, I decided to ditch the stitches and grab some fabric.

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I’ve been sitting on a few good summer patterns for a while now, and I realized when it comes to these beauties, there’s no time like the present. It is July after all, so these springy dresses are already way overdue. Here’s what I got lined up for this weekend and beyond.

Butterick 6318

I can’t say no to an incredibly simple vintage reissue. It’s the perfect thing to whip up on a lazy Saturday afternoon. I had a hard time deciding on the fabric, since the black and white stripe looked so charming on the envelope, but decided not to risk those Beetlejuice vibes. I chose a pretty floral – can’t get enough florals lately.

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Butterick 4790

I’ve been seeing this pattern for ages and ages, but never pulled the trigger. As much as I dug it, it always read “apron” to me. Until I saw Madison Steward on Instagram with this dress and saw the light. Turns out it’s not apron-y or housedress-y at all. It’s got some sort of elegant tea party vibe. I might have picked the old ladiest fabric out there, but I dig it.

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Butterick 6354

I haven’t followed Gertie’s Blog for Better Sewing for long, but when I saw her pattern release post this spring, I knew I had to try one out. I picked up this sweet matching sarong separates pattern and her lemon sateen. This pattern is a bit more complicated than most things I sew, but I figured I’m up for the challenge. I’ve been sewing a long time – since I was 10 – so I think it’s time to add some more complex techniques to my repertoire. I’m most excited to start this pattern, but I think I’ll be warming up with the others first.

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I hope you all have a safe and relaxing holiday weekend! While most of you will be heading up north or hitting the beach, I’ll be knee deep in pins and pattern pieces – and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

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Busting Creative Ruts

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Ever been in a creative rut? I’ve been there lately, and it is no fun at all. But being stuck is all a part of the cycle, so you may as well try to work through it.

Not sure if you’re there? Well, let me know if any of these scenarios sound like you. Projects that typically go quickly or are easy-breezy and ultra-fun seem to take for-ev-er. Starting a new project sounds about as appealing as deep cleaning the basement. Works in progress are going super wrong and you’re getting frustrated rethreading that bobbin for the tenth time. Or, quite simply, you just feel like you’re all out of ideas (and Netflix isn’t helping the case). It’s totally OK. We’ve all been there. Here are my tips to get the ball moving again.

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1. Start fresh

I find that when I’m in a rut, it’s sometimes best to scrap (or just put aside) all those WIPs. Maybe you’ve found yourself stuck because you’ve been looking at the same pattern for too long or trying to perfect the same recipe. Start new. That might just give you the clean slate you need.

2. Go easy

I recently tried to start fresh with a new project and I found that pressuring myself to create an original embroidery design was sinking me further into a rut. Instead of forcing myself to sketch out a handful of new designs, I decided to go for something simpler: a counted cross stitch that I didn’t have to create myself. Trying a simpler and smaller version of your favorite craft sometimes gives you that satisfaction of completing a project and the confidence to move onto something new.

3. Try something totally different

Maybe your go-to craft isn’t doing it for you right now. That’s totally normal! Set aside whatever it is you do for a while and pick up a new project. Take a stroll through your favorite craft store and see what peaks your interest. This new project just might get your creative juices flowing again or become a new favorite hobby. Win-win!

4. Pick up something old

Similarly, you could pick up an old project. Whether it’s an old WIP that’s this close to done  or a long-forgotten DIY, these old loves might inspire you to get working. I recently picked up an old dress pattern to get me moving again. It’s a simple one – which is perfect for getting me out of a slump – and just the right piece to push me into spring.

5. Take a break

Sometimes the solution is just time. Maybe what you love is putting you in a sticky spot because you overdid it. Don’t force it. Give yourself permission to take a break. Sometimes after a marathon sew or days of baking the solution is just catching up on a favorite show or a walk outside. No shame in that game. You’re still a maker and you’re still awesome!

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I hope these tips are helpful to all you makers out there that might be struggling. I’m working my way out of a rut right now with a few patterns from Plastic Little Covers and regular Malcolm in the Middle marathons. It’s definitely helping!

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First Snow Pompom Wreath

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Not so long ago, we had our first snow here in Milwaukee. It was totally dreamy and gorgeous and perfect for getting me into the Christmas spirit. It was the kind of weather that makes you want to hole up inside with an easy afternoon craft, so I did just that.

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A few weeks ago when I was at JoAnn, I saw a wonderfully tacky pom pom wreath. Huge, puffy and gorgeous, it also cost upwards of $50. Since I’m a crafty gal, I decided I’d make my own version only much smaller and more affordable. I figured it would be relatively simple, making it the perfect snowy afternoon-in make.

For this project you’ll need:

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  • 12″ styrofoam or straw wreath
  • 2 skeins of yarn
  • Coordinating embroidery floss or string (just something finer than your yarn)
  • Pompom maker (mine was for 2.5″ pom poms)
  • Fine gauge wire
  • Wire cutter

I bet you can guess where the first steps of this DIY are going. You’re going to want to start by making a mountain of pompoms. For my 12″ wreath, I used two whole skeins of fluffy yarn. You can pick any kind you like – mine was extra fluffy with a little bit of metallic fiber running through it, but plain old yarn would be equally cute. My only word of advice is to grab an extra skein – you’ll end up needed more yarn than you think.

I’ve never used a pompom maker before, but I know from the interwebs that they make perfectly round product every time, so I popped for the $5 tool, and it was well worth it. I found that the package instructions weren’t quite clear enough, so if you’ve never used one before, you can follow my steps below or watch this video. Making all this puff balls will take some time, but that’s what Netflix and The Great British Baking Show are for. 🙂

So just a quick explanation on the pompom maker – it has two sets of jaws that wrap around the center (which is held together by a pin). To start, open up both sets of jaws and wrap the yarn around and around until it is roughly even with the high ends of the U shape.

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Then you’ll clip through the yarn all the way around the circle. I truly thought it was all going to hell in a hand basket at this point, but it’s not. When the yarn is clipped take a length of embroidery floss, pull it through the crevice in the middle of the pompom maker and tie a good knot or two. Be sure to tie it tight! This is going to hold it all together.

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After you’ve tied that knot good and tight (that’s where the embroidery floss comes in– I couldn’t get this fluffy yarn to hold well enough), just open up the jaws, pull the two sides apart and there’s your pompom. They come out looking practically perfect – you might have to trim a few stray hairs, but nothing major.

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Once you’ve made your batch of pompoms, it’s time to start wiring them to the wreath. To do that, I just cut a length of wire, threaded it through the middle of the pompom and then wrapped it around the wreath, twisting the ends together on the back side. I did this over and over and over again until I had filled the whole circle.

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I had envisioned the puffs being a little more randomly placed, but on such a small wreath with only one size pom pom, they formed two rings instead. I don’t mind the look at all, but if you want more of a staggered finish, I’d advise using multiple pompom sizes (probably smaller than my 2.5″ ones) and perhaps a larger wreath.

Once you have all your pompoms wired and spaced how you see fit, you can finish up the back. I simple took those pointy ends of wire and stuffed them into the styrofoam so they wouldn’t poke anyone or scratch the wood paneling. If you plan on hanging this on a more delicate surface, you could simple hot glue a ring of felt over the turned-in wires to prevent any potential scratches.

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To finish, I simply took a loop of ribbon and pinned it to the back side with a T-pin. It’s as simple as that!

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I have to say, I’m pretty pleased with the way this turned out. It is a tad muted (the shimmery fibers don’t come through on camera so well), but it has that plush look I was aiming for. Plus, it was a breeze and could be easily duplicated in all sorts of color combinations for different occasions. I’m thinking of grabbing a small pom pom maker and some super bright yarn to make an everyday version. Now if only there was a second season of that baking show…