My Favourite Cookbook

*Before I start you should know the bakery has no part in me talking about their book. I just love this cook book so much I want everyone to be able to make these beautiful baked goods.**

miette: recipes from san francisco's most charming pastry shop

All I can say is "Buy this cookbook you will not be sorry!!!" I had never heard of Miette but I just loved the pictures! The first thing I will say is that these are time consuming recipes but every step is worth it and you can taste it. The first recipe I tried was the Tomboy Cake and I made a vanilla cinnamon buttercream. It was amazing!!!

 Amazing Tomboy Cake.

The second recipe I tried was the lemon shortbread cookies. Once again blown away!! I had never been able to successfully make shortbread and these direction were so wonderfully laid out that it was perfection. I can't wait to try different variations!

  Everything delightful in one tiny square.

I am hoping this winter to be able to go to Miette on a roadtrip to visit family. I will take pictures and you'll all see :)

For Mother's Day I am going to make their Coconut Mousse Cake (my mother-in-law, and myself, love coconut) and I might make the Strawberry Charlotte, because let's be honest two cakes are always better than one.

(come back later this week for peanut butter jelly cupcakes :) I am pretty excited about this one)  

S'mores Hand Pies

mmmhhmm....those are dark chocolate peanutbutter cups....

I have been wanting to try and make s'mores hand pies for a little while now. So I have been doing my research and this was my first go around and it was delightful. They exploded a little but they tasted really good. My favourite part was probably the graham pastry crust. Next time I want to put more marshmallow inside and more chocolate and maybe a thinner crust. So here is my first attempt I expect to try more and I am excited to give a go. 

S'mores Hand Pies

Crust Ingredients

1 1/3 cups whole wheat pastry flour

1/4 cup granulated sugar

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 cup cold unsalted butter, cubed

1 1/2 tablespoons cold water

1 tablespoon honey

1 tablespoon molasses

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

Mix together the dry ingredients in a medium size bowl. Blend in the cold cubed butter with either a pastry blender or your finger tips until the butter is pea sized. In a small bowl combine wet ingredients and then pour over the dry. Using your hands combine the dough until it resembles a ball. You are going to want to us some force to get the butter to work through and help everything combine. Once it resembles a ball cover it with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 2 hours. 

 

After 2 hours preheat over to 350F and put parchment paper on a cookie sheet. Begin rolling out the dough to about a 1/4 inch thick; re-rolling as necessary until all the dough is used. I used a heart shaped cookie cutter but you could use any shape. Once you have cut out the dough lay it on a parchment lined cookie sheet and put back in the fridge until you've completed the filling.

For the Filling

Marshmallows or Marshmallow fluff

Dark chocolate peanut butter cups (I got mine at Trader Joe's)

I melted 1 tablespoon of butter and melted down the marshmallows but this is not necessary step. I chopped up the peanut butter cups.


Assembly
On a cookie sheet with parchment paper lay down half of the crusts. In the middle of each crust place marshmallow and peanut butter cups. The more you put in the harder it will be to close and it may leak (which mine did, I got a little too excited) so be aware :)

Once all the filling is in put the tops of the pies on and seal the sides using a fork. Cut an adorable design on top and then brush with an egg wash.

Start with baking for 10 mins and go from there. 15 mins should be plenty check the bottoms of the pies the insides will melt easily.

Let cool and enjoy!

**not super good the next day, best right out of the oven (not that you'll have any left over)**

 The leaked a little but they are so adorable! Just something to fix next time!

 

They didn't last long.

Something For Your Ears.

So I don't have a recipe for you (yet). I am dreaming up something delicious for this week maybe a cupcake or my favourite shortbread, or perhaps almondbutter snickerdoodles.

Instead today I bring you to musician I am obsessed with. I can't bake without music and here are some of my recent favourites:


Jenny Owens Young
One of her more recent projects is called exhibit and it is amazing and beautiful.  She wrote the songs based of inspiration from the New York City museum. Love it.

Noah Gundersen
So good! A friend recommended him and I have not been sorry. It is hauntingly beautiful. It is the kind of music that radiates through your soul as you listen to it.


Something to listen to while you bake :) enjoy!

Scone Sunday

About once a month I bake pastries for the church I go to. I love to bake and this gives me a chance to try a few recipes and a lot of people and get some good feedback. Last month I baked some amazing donuts (I love donuts....they will most likely make a lot of appearances here at Honey Bee).

Today I made 4 different kinds of scones, but I only like 3 so those are the ones I am going to post here :) 2 are gluten and dairy free and 1 is full of gluten and dairy!

Meyer Lemon and Cranberry Scone

(adapted from Smitten Kitchen yeah I like her)

1 1/2 tablespoons freshly grated lemon zest (a little less than 2 lemons)

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 cup sugar

1 tablespoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

3/4 stick (6 tablespoons) cold unsalted butter, but into bits

1 1/4 cups dried cranberries

1 large egg

1 large egg yolk

1 cup heavy cream

Preheat oven to 400f and ling a baking sheet with parchment paper.

With a vegetable peeler remove the zest from the lemons and chop fine (this gives the most wonderful lemony goodness).

In a food processor pule flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, butter and zest until mixture resembles coarse meal and transfer to a large bowl. Add the cranberries to the flour mixture.

In a small bowl lightly beat egg and yolk and stir in cream. Add egg mixture to flour mixture and stir until just combined.

On a well-floured surface with floured hands pat dough into a 1-inch-thick round and with 2-inch round cutter or the rim of a glass dipped in flour (like me) and cut out as many as possible, rerolling scraps as necessary. Arrange about 1 inch apart and bake 15 to 20 minutes, or until pale gold mine only took about 12.

Cool on a cooling rack and enjoy

----------------------------

For the two gluten free recipes I am going to send you to my favourite gluten free site, Elana's Pantry.

 This delicious wonderfulness is a chocolate chip scone made with coconut flour.

These little yummies are cranberry orange scones made with almond flour. The only things I changed was I took out the white chocolate chips, I use honey instead of agave nectar, and I did dollops of dough to bake so they took less time. 

Enjoy with some coffee :)

Peanut Butter Cookies

And by peanut butter cookies, I mean the greatest peanut butter cookies I have made/eaten.  I would like to say that I am a connoisseur of all things peanut butter, but I admit that lately I have been cheating with my friend almond butter. I decided this last week that we (my husband and I) needed some simple and delightful peanut butter cookies.

My search ended with a modified version of a recipe I found on Smitten Kitchen one of my favourite food blogs. Here you go they are a little crisp and a lot chewy and perfect and thin. Enjoy!

Peanut Butter Awesomeness (or Cookies if you insist)

1 1/4 cups of all-purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup of unsalted butter, softened
1 cup of peanut butter at room temperature (you could heap this a little for a stronger PBtaste)
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup firmly pack light brown sugar
1 large egg, room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Some extra sugar to roll the little dough balls in.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In a large bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.

In a large bowl, beat the butter and peanut butter together until fluffy (I let mine continue to mix while I was getting everything ready. This resulted in them spreading and being flatter, but that is what I was looking for. To keep them thicker don't over mix at this stage) Add the sugars and beat until smooth. Add the egg and mix well. Add the milk and vanilla extract. And the flour mixture and beat thoroughly. Stir in the peanut butter. Drop round spoonfuls onto a the sprinkling sugar and roll them in it. Then place on a cookie sheet with parchment paper, leaving a few inches for spreading.  Using a fork, lightly indent with a criss-cross pattern (mine spread so much you couldn't see it but, that's ok)

Bake for 10 to 12 minutes (11 was prefect in my oven). They will look a little underdone but you want that chewiness so don't over bake.

Transfer the cookies to a cooling rack and try to wait until they are cooled down to dig in.



Enjoy with some coffee :)