Peach Champagne Sorbet

There's been a spare bottle of champagne kicking around my fridge for a while now. That's probably not a problem that most people have, but my fridge is not most people's. Instead of waiting for a celebratory occasion to pop the cork [although I don't really need an excuse], I thought I'd use it to whip up a batch of refreshing summery sorbet.

I thought just using the champagne would be a little too much, and I didn't want to water down the flavor, so I decided to mix it with peaches. It was light and delicious and perfect for the hot summer barbeque I brought it to.

Invite a friend over when you make this, as you'll have about 2 glasses of extra champagne left over if you open a new bottle. Or just drink them both yourself.

Peach Champagne Sorbet

3 medium sized ripe peaches (the ripest you can find!)

1/2 cup cooled 1:1 simple syrup (recipe follows)

1 cup peach juice

2 cups champagne (I used Barefoot Bubbly)

1. Peel and pit peaches and slice into chunks. Puree in a blender or food processor until smooth.

2. Whisk puree, syrup, juice, and champagne together in a bowl. Pour into ice cream maker and process according to manufacturer's instructions.

3. Pour into container, cover and freeze for a few hours or overnight.

4. Serve alone or put a scoop in a glass and top with more champagne.

1:1 Simple Syrup

This is great to use for sweetening cold drinks because the sugar is already dissolved. Put it out on your drink mix table at your next party! You can make it in any quantity, just use the same amount of sugar and water.

1 cup sugar

1 cup water

1. Combine sugar and water in a saucepan. Heat on medium heat until liquid is clear.

2. Remove from heat. Cool. Cover and store in the refrigerator until ready to use. Keeps for about two months.

Marshmallow Fondant Recipe

Sometimes I like to vicariously eat through television. Since I am a dessert person and cake decorating shows are really popular right now [Ace of Cakes or Cake Boss??], I am usually vicariously very full.

All the professionals use fondant to give their cakes a smooth finish. Fondant is, at its most basic, a white sugar dough with no flavor. I remember trying fondant for the first time on a wedding cake and thinking it was disgusting. It can be pretty gross when it has no added flavor. But it does look beautiful when it's rolled smooth or stamped with a texture and brushed with an edible powder. You can paint it, dye it, mold it, roll it. It's very versatile.

I know that you can buy premade fondant at Michaels or specialty baking stores, but there's something very unappealing to me about buying a shelf-stable fondant with ingredients I can't pronounce. So I had always wanted to try making it, but every recipe I found involved boiling sugar on the stove and candy thermometers. Although I do like making candy, for fondant it didn't seem worth it. Then I found this recipe for marshmallow fondant.

It's an amazingly simple recipe that produces a fondant that looks exactly like the real deal. Best of all, you can put vanilla in it and it tastes like a chewy vanilla marshmallow candy. That way it can actually be an enjoyable part of the cake instead of just a decoration. It does get messy, but it isn't hard to make at all. I used it to make the buttons and needles on these sewing-themed cupcakes.

The recipe below is essentially a repeat of the linked one above, but I wanted to detail it here too with my own findings from my experience of making it. In a post very soon I'll go through actually using it for decoration.

The only special thing you need is gel food coloring if you want to dye it. You can get that in the baking aisle at Michaels. I supposed you could try liquid food colors, but you will only be able to achieve pastel colors because the liquid colors aren't as concentrated as the gels.

Marshmallow Fondant

16 oz bag mini marshmallows

2 lb bag powdered sugar

2 tbsp water

2 tsp vanilla extract or other desired flavor

[haven't tried it but almond or lemon would probably be good, depending on the cake flavor]

Crisco

1. In large bowl, combine marshmallows and water. Microwave in 30 second intervals, stirring after each, until marshmallows are just melted. I only needed 3 intervals before they were melted.

2. Add vanilla and stir. Add 3/4 of powdered sugar. Crisco a large spoon and stir the powdered sugar into the marshmallows as best as you can.

3. WARNING: The next part gets a little messy. Liberally rub Crisco on your hands and a large cutting board or your counter. [I prefer a cutting board because it's much easier to wash.] Turn the marshmallow mixture out onto the cutting board and start kneading it together. Your hands will be covered in epic stickiness, but just keep kneading.

4. Continue to add the rest of the powdered sugar as you knead. After the dough has come together a bit, scrape off your fingers, wash your hands and re-Crisco them. Continue kneading the rest of the sugar in, or until you have a large ball of stiff dough.

5. At this point you can split the fondant up if you want and dye individual pieces with the food coloring. To do this, glob a little gel color into the fondant with a toothpick and knead it until the color is distributed.

6. If you're not going to use the fondant right away, rub it with Crisco, wrap it in plastic wrap, put it in a ziplock bag and stick it in the fridge. It's best to use it for decoration within a few days.

Garden Babies Update

The days have flown since I planted all those seeds in the ground, and my garden babies are babies no more.

Take a look at the size of the baby cornstalks in this picture. Now take a look at them today:

Right now the corn stalks are all releasing their pollen from the top of the stalks:

It's a fine golden powder that must drift down and hit the cornsilk peeking out below:

Each strand of the cornsilk [I recently learned] must receive its own individual grain of pollen. The strand then connects to a potential corn kernel that will only form if its silk is properly pollenated.

Right now all the zinnias are flowering:

And gorgeous morning glories open and close every morning, hiding from the hot sun behind protective leaves:

And here's one more gratuitous picture.

Flourless Chocolate Cake

Let me start this post by saying that I have nothing against flour.

In fact, I've already decided that if I ever had to choose only one category of food to eat for the rest of my life, it would be breads. Breakfast pastries, dinner rolls, croissants, crusty loaves, baguettes...oh my. I could eat those things all day, every day, forever.

So if I'm going to make a cake that's flourless, it's not going to be just for sake of being flourless. It has to be a recipe that says, You know what? I don't need flour. Put that flour away. I will be amazing and incredible without it. I will be dense, fudgy, chocolate perfection without even needing your gluten.

That is what this recipe is. It's chocolaty and delicious and just happens to be gluten free. If you have friends that are allergic to wheat, as I do, this is a great thing to bring to events where there will be both wheaties and non-wheaties alike because everyone will love it. I've had gluten free desserts before that either dissolve alarmingly fast once you take a bite or turn to a weird paste that sticks to the roof of your mouth. No one should be subjected to that. This isn't a dessert that has a bunch of flour substitutes in it. It just doesn't ever need flour to begin with.

To keep it completely flour free, make sure to dust the pan with cocoa powder instead of flour. And if you want a design on top, simply cut it out of paper and put it on the cake before you dust the powdered sugar, then carefully lift it off after dusting. Happy baking!

Recipe after the jump...

Easy Peasy Pillow Cover

I like pillows. A lot. I like to pile them on my bed and my couch and anything else that sort of fits the bill and plop down into their mountain of softness.

So I was happy to learn how to make this very easy pillow cover. I'm a fan of changing decor often, and this lets you do that very inexpensively. While the rising price of pillows is not necessarily an issue of national concern, pillows these days are pretty overpriced. A single throw pillow at a lower end store will set you back a good $30, and for what? A pocket of cheap fiberfill. Something you can make at home.

This pillow case is as simple as it gets. One piece of fabric. Four seams. No zipper. No buttons. No closures of any kind. They're easily removable so you can take them off and wash them. You can follow these directions for any size square pillow form because they're based on whatever size you're using. So get ready...your couch is getting a makeover.

Easy Peasy Pillow Cover

Materials:

1 square pillow form (Ikea is a really good place to get inexpensive ones,

or just recover one you already have!)

1/2 yard woven fabric for pillows less than 17"

OR

3/4 yard woven fabric for pillows 18"-26"

*Note: cotton or cotton blends work the best. If your pillow form is larger than 18", you'll need to get fabric that is wider than the standard quilting weight 45" bolt.*

Directions:

1. Measure the width of your pillow form along one side. Make sure to stretch it out to get the full measurement.

2. Cut a rectangular piece of fabric that is as wide as your pillow and 2.5 times longer.

3. One one short end, fold the raw edge towards the wrong side of the fabric 1/4" and press. Fold it 1/4" towards the wrong side again and press. Sew a seam along the fold. Repeat with the other short end.

4. Lay out your fabric horizontally with the right side facing up. Fold the left hemmed edge in to the center of the fabric. Then fold the right hemmed edge on top of it so that the distance from the two folds measures 1" smaller than your pillow. Pin fabric securely.

5. Sew a seam down each raw edge with a 1/2" seam allowance,

backstitching at beginning and end AND when you pass over the hems.

6. Turn your pillow inside out and CAREFULLY poke out the corners with a pencil eraser. Put your pillow form inside, plump it up, place on your couch, and enjoy!

Maple Candied Bacon Ice Cream

That's right.

Bacon. And ice cream. Together.

Some of you just let out an unbridled squeal of joy. Others shuddered.

Just hear me out for a second. How many times have you dipped your breakfast bacon in the leftover maple syrup on your pancake plate? If even only once then you have tasted one of the most delicious, delightful, delectable food combinations on the planet - the salty crunch of heaven-sent bacon dripping in the amber, smoky sweetness of maple syrup.

This is that deliciousness in ice cream form.

And if you're going to make ice cream from scratch, if you're going to go through all that trouble [although it really is quite easy], you should probably make something that you can't just go the store and buy, right?

Ok, done with the justification.

When I brought this concoction along with me to a 4th of July barbeque this weekend, even the most skeptical were soon shoveling it into their mouths with reckless abandon, all the while questioning how they were eating meat-filled ice cream and enjoying it so immensely.

If you don't have an ice cream maker, you could still make the candied bacon and put it on some regular vanilla ice cream with a drizzling of maple syrup [bacon sundae anyone?]. Or just devour it on its own. The brown sugar melts and hardens around the bacon, giving it a crunchy sweet shell that you can just snap in half. Seriously, heaven. Recipe after the jump...