Apple fritter cake. Photo by Lindsey Nair.

Lately, it feels as if I’ve had hardly any time to cook. So this past weekend, I decided to invite over some friends and try three new recipes for one dinner. The menu was chicken Saltimbocca, baked potatoes (but not your typical baked potatoes – I’ll explain that in a future blog post), salad and apple fritter cake.

I got the recipes for the potatoes and the cake from Pinterest. As delicious as everything was (if I do say so myself), the cake was the real winner of the evening. But as my sister said, how could anything called “apple fritter cake” be bad?

This cake starts with a layer of thick batter, which is topped with apple filling and sprinkled with a combination of brown sugar and cinnamon. Next comes another layer of the batter and another sprinkling of sugar and cinnamon. When the cake comes out of the oven, you immediately pour a glaze over it.

The only thing I’d change if I make this cake again is that I’d poke a bunch of holes in it with a chopstick before pouring over the glaze. If you make this cake, choose a flavorful apple such as a Granny Smith. And don’t be alarmed if it’s hard to spread the second layer of batter over the cake – just use a flexible rubber spatula and do the best you can. It’ll turn out just fine.

I have mixed feelings about the fact that this cake is almost gone. That means it won’t be around to tempt me anymore, but it also means I ate too much of it already!

Read more to see the recipe. Does this look like something you’d like to try?

Read more »

Cupcakes from last year’s bake-off. Photo courtesy The Advancement Foundation.

In this blog post you’ll find details about the Cupcakes at the Cottage Bake-Off in Vinton, the 2013 Earth Day Celebration in Grandin Village, local seedlings for sale, a custom tea blending workshop and a schedule of food demonstrations at Blacksburg Fork and Cork.

* It’s time for the Second Annual Cupcakes at the Cottage Bake-Off, which takes place at the Charity Cottage Thrift Store in Vinton on April 27 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., the same day as the Vinton Dogwood Festival Parade.

The thrift store is operated by The Advancement Foundation, a non-profit aid organization that works to eliminate poverty. Proceeds from the bake-off will go to various charities. In addition to cupcakes, the event will offer refreshments and special deals at the store.

Interested parties should register to bring at least one dozen cupcakes to the bake-off. The cupcakes will be judged at 2 p.m., just before the parade begins at 2:30 p.m. The cupcakes not tasted by the judges will be for sale to the general public at a cost of a $1 donation for each cupcake. The buyer gets to choose the charity to which he or she wants to donate the dollar.

Read more »

This is the pic I texted to my hubby so he’d see what was waiting at home. Photo by Lindsey Nair.

I’ve been hitting the gym a lot lately, perhaps because I can’t seem to stop baking sweet treats and keeping them around the house.

The weekend before last, it was chocolate chip cookies from “The Joy of Cooking.” This past Sunday, I decided to surprise my husband with a chocolate cake, which is his favorite. He’d gone to Charlottesville with a friend to see Graham Parker in concert and I had the whole evening to myself, so I started Googling.

The recipe I chose called for Ghirardelli cocoa powder and chocolate chips, but I’ll be honest with you: I didn’t use either. I used Hershey’s cocoa powder and some store-brand chocolate chips I had stashed in the cabinet, and if the quality of ingredients had an impact on the flavor of the cake, then I don’t know if I want to taste the Ghirardelli version because I might die of ecstasy.

What I’m trying to say is that this was a Darn. Good. Cake. Even with a basic white glaze instead of the recommended chocolate glaze, the chocolate flavor was through the roof. I’ve decided that throwing a handful of chocolate chips into any chocolate cake can really never be a bad idea. And I also think this is the best ever basic white glaze. Just don’t forget to sift the powdered sugar or you’ll have tiny lumps like mine. Still tasted great.

If you’re craving a easy, tasty dessert, this would be a great option. Perfect for a potluck, too. Use a Bundt cake pan or a tube pan. You’ll find the recipe below. Have a great weekend!

Read more »

ThinkStock photo.

When I lived in Leadville, Colo., as a child, my parents were practically kids themselves. Thousands of miles from their own parents, they gravitated toward a warm, loving couple named Lee and Viola Rhodus.

I remember that my surrogate grandparents’ back yard butted up against my elementary school playground, and that Mrs. Rhodus’ flower garden burst with the tiny blue stars of forget-me-nots. I recall that we were invited to their house for Thanksgiving, and that Mr. Rhodus was the first person we called after our truck got stuck in the mud during a surprise gully-washer.

But besides my memories, I have only one other reminder of the couple, with whom we gradually lost touch after moving back east in the early 1980s. It is Mrs. Rhodus’ recipe for rhubarb cake.

To continue reading this column, click here.

At that link, you will also find recipes for Viola Rhodus’ rhubarb cake, strawberry-rhubarb pie, and a spiced rhubarb chutney to serve with grilled pork or sausages.

Do you fall in the hate rhubarb category or do you love it like I do?

Photo courtesy cheeseslave/Flickr.

Is there anything more comforting than the smell of baking bread? Anything more delicious than hot yeast rolls spread with melted butter? Well, probably. But these are still a few of my favorite things.

Unfortunately, I’m a dunce when it comes to baking bread. That is the one big culinary category that I have yet to tackle in my life. But two recent occurrences have given me the idea that it’s time to try. First, my lovely neighbor Carol brought me some yeast because she got an absurdly good deal on a bunch of it. Second, someone emailed me the recipe for schoolhouse yeast rolls.

This recipe was originally used at the old Clifton Forge Middle School. That old school was still in use when I attended middle school, and it was a high school when my grandfather attended it. It’s long been closed as a school, but this recipe was apparently still floating around.

Read more »

Pretty pastries coming to new Roanoke bakery. The Roanoke Times | File photo.

Happy Valentine’s Day, my lovely blog readers. May this day bring you bunches of roses, chocolate, champagne and stuffed bears — if you’re into that sort of thing. If you’re not, well, I hope you have a blissfully simple day devoid of sappy romantic gestures.

This being Valentine’s Day, however, it did seem appropriate to share some news about a new bakery coming to Franklin Road near Tanglewood Mall. It will be called Edible Arts, and the owner said he is going to specialize in French-style pastries that are both delectable and gorgeous to behold.

Calvert LaFollette, 46, told me he is originally from West Virginia and was an artist in Florida for more than 20 years before he fell in love with cooking. He said he attended culinary school down there and worked at hotels while still doing his art on the side. He is particularly fond of creating chocolate and sugar art.

Read more »

I know a gal named Bethanye Dickens who is an excellent baker. She’s blown me away in the past with her cheesecake. I think it was about this time last year when she made some cookies and I went nutso for them, so I asked for the recipe. I’m not even a big chocolate fan, but the ancho chili gave them an intriguing tingle of heat.

The only reason it has taken me this long to share the recipe is because I was too lazy to type it up. But since baking season is upon us (as well as eating season!) I thought this would be a perfect time to pass it along. I’m going to guess that if you don’t have roasted Saigon cinnamon, regular old cinnamon would work almost as well.

This recipe originally came from a McCormick spice advertisement. Thanks for the recipe, Bethanye!

Read more »

The random winner of “The Daily Cookie” by Anna Ginsberg ($16.13 on Amazon) is blog reader Patrick. Congratulations, Patrick! Now you’ll have all sorts of recipes for cookie bars that you can make and sneak slivers of whenever you are lurking in the kitchen.

Thank you to everybody who entered this contest. If you’re bummed that you didn’t win, remember that I always do a countdown to the New Year in cookbooks! So in the week between Christmas and New Year’s Day, I’ll be giving away a different cookbook every single day.

As usual, I will share a couple more recipes from the book for all of us to enjoy.

Click “Read More” to see recipes for Mississippi Mud Cups and Pumpkin Pie Bars. Enjoy!

Read more »

What if we baked and ate a different cookie every day for the entire year of 2013? Well, we’d probably all have to join a weight-loss program and spend the following two years getting back to our original size.

I don’t think that’s the point of Anna Ginsberg’s “The Daily Cookie,” a cookbook that includes 365 different cookie recipes “for the sweetest year of your life.” But this time of year, when a lot of us are going to cookie exchanges, baking with the kids or looking for something different to try out on the guinea pigs in the family, this cookbook could be a lot of fun.

Recipes include Key Lime Cheesecake Bars, One-Bowl German Chocolate Chunk Cookies, Raisin and Spice Bars, Chocolate Almond Oat Bars, Easy Baklava Cups and, well, 360 others!

I’m giving this book away to a lucky winner. To be entered to win, I’d like for you to leave a comment on this blog entry and tell me what cookies you and your family always make to have around during the winter holiday season. In our family, there are usually molasses cookies, lemon bars, and decorated sugar cookies. I also like to make tropical fruit cookies and stuffed date cookies.

Tell me about your cookie traditions anytime before 9 a.m. on Tuesday morning. I’ll pick a random winner and send out the book as a Thanksgiving gift. Meanwhile, I’ll share a couple of recipes from the book that made my mouth water.

Read more »

Photo submitted by Shaye Thomas of Troutville.

We’re still running our autumn cupcake contest with a chance to win tickets to see the Cake Boss, Buddy Valastro, at the Salem Civic Center on Dec. 9. We’ve already received some wonderful entries, including these fall leaf cupcakes made by Shaye Thomas of Troutville.

A photo of Shaye’s cupcakes and the others submitted for the contest will be sent to Valastro, who will choose the winner. Here are the rules and the deadline for the contest. You still have this week and this coming weekend to do the baking.

>> Bake and decorate the cupcake yourself or with friends and family members. Use an autumn theme (this could include leaves, Halloween, Thanksgiving, football season, etc. Feel free to be creative.)

>> Take a photo of the cupcake that shows all the elements of your design.

>> Write a brief description about how you decorated your cupcake, including any special or unusual steps you took.

>> Email the picture and description, along with your name, hometown and daytime telephone number (for verification purposes), to lindsey.nair@roanoke.com or mail the materials to The Roanoke Times, c/o Lindsey Nair, P.O. Box 2491, Roanoke, VA, 24010.

>> The deadline to enter is 5 p.m. on Monday, Nov. 12. The winner will be notified by the week of Nov. 26. Even if your cupcake does not win, we may publish your picture in The Roanoke Times.

Frankenstein heads. Photo by Rebecca Barnett l The Roanoke Times.

I’m a fan of Pinterest.

For someone who likes cooking, gardening, crafts, fashion, art, traveling and more, it’s easy to find gorgeous pictures and Internet articles I can “pin” to my “boards.” Better yet, because I save too many magazine clippings, recipes and cookbooks, Pinterest offers me the liberating ability to hoard online to my heart’s content.

But the content on Pinterest is sometimes annoyingly perfect. The wedding dresses, gowns and jewelry can be beyond the average person’s means; gardens and craft projects that look so easy are often anything but.

This is particularly true in the realm of recipes, which are typically accompanied on Pinterest by professionally styled images. At home, the finished product might be delicious but the appearance probably won’t be up to Pinterest standards.

For Halloween, I decided to test some of the cutest recipes I discovered through Pinterest to determine if they were more like tricks than treats. With the help of two coworkers, we tested six recipes – a pumpkin-shaped cake made by stacking two Bundt cakes, Frankenstein heads made from crispy rice treats, white chocolate ghosts, witch hat cookies, witch brooms and white chocolate “bones.”

Some of the results made us cackle like a witch over her cauldron, but others made us scream like a vampire in the sun.

To read more, click here.

Click the links to see these recipes:
Pumpkin Spice Cake
Monster Toes
Spider Web Pumpkin Cheesecake

(The rest of the recipes from the column, including the Frankenstein heads, are in the body of the column, so just click the link to read more, above)

Does your family have a favorite recipe you always prepare around Halloween?

Today’s Front Burner column is about Buddy Valastro, star of the TLC reality shows “Cake Boss” and “The Next Great Baker.” On Dec. 9, Valastro is coming to the Salem Civic Center to share stories and cake decorating tips with the audience. A few lucky audience members will go home with a Cake Boss cake.

Tickets are $35.75, $45.75 and $85, but you could win a pair of tickets by entering our fall cupcake contest! Decorate a cupcake with an autumn theme, then send us a picture. We’ll show the images to Valastro, who will pick the final winner. I know some very talented bakers read the Fridge Magnet blog and I hope you will enter to win. If nothing else, this could be a fun weekend activity for you and your children or grandchildren.

To enter to win, you must:

>> Bake and decorate the cupcake yourself or with friends and family members.

>> Take a photo of the cupcake that shows all the elements of your design.

>> Write a brief description about how you decorated your cupcake, including any special or unusual steps you took.

>> Email the picture and description, along with your name, hometown and daytime telephone number (for verification purposes), to lindsey.nair@roanoke.com or mail the materials to The Roanoke Times, c/o Lindsey Nair, P.O. Box 2491, Roanoke, VA, 24010.

To keep reading rules and tips, click “Read more.”

Read more »

I knew yesterday was going to be a pretty good day when a colleague offered me a cookie as soon as I stepped out of my truck in the newspaper parking lot.

She had baked a bunch of these pumpkin-chocolate chip cookies for the office and thought I’d like to try one. She promised they were really easy to make, but when I saw the recipe I was floored. It only calls for three ingredients: a boxed spice cake mix, a can of pumpkin and half of a bag of chocolate chips — no eggs and no fat (outside the chocolate chips).

The texture of the cookie was super-moist, almost like a tiny cake rather than a cookie. So if you like soft cookies, this recipe is for you. These would be fantastic with a cup of hot coffee or tea.

The next time you have to make something for a party, bake sale or just a treat, whip up a batch of these!

Read more »

I’ll be the first to admit that I’m no expert when it comes to baking. I know the difference between all-purpose flour and self-rising flour and I can follow a recipe, then pray that it turns out well. But when it comes to expert-level baking questions? Well, I defer to the experts.

Just such a question came from one of my colleagues the other day. Here’s what she wrote:

“Hey, could you ask your  blog readers where to find fresh yeast? I have a friend whose mom just moved here. She makes this incredible Polish sweet bread around the holidays but says she can only make it using fresh yeast. She’s called around the grocery stores and nobody seems to carry it. When I checked online I saw some suggestions for inquiring at a local pizza shop or bakery that might sell her some. But maybe a blog reader might point me to one they know does this or have another option.”

Situations such as this are perfect examples of why I love being a journalist. I often get an opportunity to learn right along with my readers. First, let’s begin with the basics (thanks to help from the trusty Food Lover’s Companion, otherwise known to me as the Food Bible).

What IS yeast? Yeast is a tiny living single-cell organism. As these organisms multiply and grow, they convert food into alcohol and – in the case of breads – carbon dioxide. This fermentation is what causes doughs to rise. The two commercially available kinds of yeast are baker’s yeast and brewer’s yeast.

Read more »

Photo by Lindsey Nair l The Roanoke Times

My sister lives in South Carolina, so every summer (if I’m lucky) I get the absolute best peaches I’ve ever tasted. Yes, we have great peaches around here but the ones my sister gave me this weekend were the size of softballs, so sweet and so juicy.

Unfortunately, I have a stone fruit allergy so I cannot eat peaches raw. I had to cook them, but I didn’t want to adulterate them with a bunch of sugar and fat. My regular fruit cobbler recipe is delicious, but it calls for a stick of butter and more than a cup of sugar – it is by NO means “light.”

I found a recipe for a lighter cobbler on Food.com and decided to try it. It was plenty sweet enough because the fruit was naturally sweet. I rather liked the bit of tang that remained, too. The topping is kind of like light biscuits and only includes one tablespoon of sugar, which you could increase if you wanted a sweeter topping. But with a little light whipped cream or vanilla ice cream, it was just about perfect. If using really tart fruit, you’ll probably need to add more sugar to the fruit. I’ll share the recipe and its nutritional information below.

Another great discovery for me this weekend is one that a lot of people probably have already found. In case you have not, you might want to try this method that removes the need to shuck the corn the standard way:

1. Remove any brown or bedraggled bits of husk or silk from the corn with a pair of kitchen shears.

2. Place the corn, unshucked and uncovered, in the microwave. Microwave on high power for 4 minutes per ear.

3. Wearing oven mitts (it’ll be hot!) and using a sharp knife, slice off the butt end of each ear of corn about one row of kernels up from the stem. Squeeze the corn from the tip end out and the cob will slide right out of the husk without a single strand of silk. It’s quite amazing. Here is a link to the YouTube video my mom first saw (she’s the one who showed me this trick). Try it and see what you think.
Read more »

Photo by Lindsey Nair l The Roanoke Times

This past weekend, I braved the inferno of my great aunt and uncle’s attic to stash a few items. While I was up there, I got sucked into an Antiques Roadshowesque vortex and started poking around in musty old boxes that have been sitting around since Uncle Bill and Little Billie passed away back in the 1990s.

Inside an old shoe box I found a stack of papers, and I was fascinated to find that some of them were recipes and cooking-related pamphlets. Why, my aunt, who was the teeniest person I ever knew and who never seemed to cook much more than canned green beans, had a recipe collection of her very own! I always thought she’d rather smoke cigarettes than eat anything (she used to request a piece of pie or cake “so thin you could read through it”).

She seemed to be particularly attracted to dessert recipes. As I looked through the newspaper and magazine clippings and tried to decipher some of the instructions written by hand in pencil on yellowing paper, I discovered some pretty interesting things.

The coolest is probably a 1930 Rumford Baking Powder recipe card that contains instructions for 25 different baked goods, from Rumford biscuits to date muffins.

It’s actually a card within a card, and in order to see what quantity of ingredients you need for each recipe, you simply slide out the inner card until the recipe title and quantities line up with the open space in the outer card (see pictures below; it’s rather difficult to explain in words).

I also found recipes for:

Read more »

"Cake Boss" Buddy Valastro is coming to Salem in December. Maybe this photo, courtesy of the Salem Civic Center, will cool you down.

It’s time for the latest roundup of food-related event information. Check out these ideas:

* Member One Federal Credit Union will be hosting a hot dog eating contest today at noon on the Roanoke City Market. The contest will raise money for the Wounded Warriors Program and donations will be exchanged for a raffle ticket with a chance to win New England Patriots memorabilia signed by Danny Aiken. The winner of the contest will be awarded with a $150 gift card. I don’t know if I could choke down one hot dog in 100-degree heat, so more power to the contestants.

* Also hot will be the Great Downtown Grill Out tomorrow (Saturday) on the Roanoke City Market. For Haley Toyota’s City Market Saturday, six downtown restaurants will serve a variety of grilled food, from seafood to barbeque to burgers. All food will be available for purchase at each restaurant’s tent either in Market Square or along Market Street, and some restaurateurs will be grilling up local meats from vendors on the market. Take advantage of the fact that YOU don’t have to stand over the grill yourself! In related news, Downtown Roanoke, Inc. has decided to extent the Market at the Y through July.

* The Chef’s Circle at the Salem Farmers Market kicked off on June 23 and continues this Saturday with chef John McCrady of the Salem Civic Center. Check out the entire summer line-up by clicking here. It runs through August 18.

* Star City Motor Madness is largely about classic cars, but if you saw the special insert in today’s Roanoke Times you may have noticed there are almost a dozen food vendors involved in the two-day event, as well. These vendors will be set up along “the strip” of Williamson Road where the cruise night will take place tomorrow evening from 6 to 10 p.m. If you don’t have anything to do tomorrow evening and you can get to the strip without too much hassle, I recommend it. It’s quite the interesting scene.

Vendors include:
Angel and Teresa’s Shaved Ice
Big Squeeze Concessions (lemonade and kettle corn)
Blue Nile Halal Food’s Italian ice
Buffalo Mountain Concessions (lemonade and funnel cakes)
Grandma’s Lemonade (more lemonade and funnel cakes)
Homestead Creamery ice cream
Lunch Box, Inc. (variety)
Mark’s Very Good Candy Apples
Mom’s Fine Foods (chicken and BBQ)
Primo Wood Fired Pizza
Zach Swift Pizza and Calzones

Read more »

The Roanoke Times l File photo

Macaroni Kid Roanoke, a web-based newsletter for parents, will donate 100 percent of the proceeds from a bake sale to Cookies for Kids’ Cancer.

Cookies for Kids’ Cancer is a non-profit organization that raises money for the research of new and better therapies for pediatric cancer patients. Money for the group is raised largely through bake sales, so Macaroni Kid Roanoke is hosting one from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturday, June 23.

The bake sale will take place outside Glazed Bisque-It at Promenade Park, 3534 Electric Road, Roanoke. Lots of local citizens and businesses will donate homemade baked goods for the sale, but local MKR publisher Jamie Clark said she is still looking for volunteers who can help with those baking efforts.

If you can help, you can contact Clark at (540) 494-3445 or jamiec@macaronikid.com. Click here for more information about Cookies for Kids’ Cancer. Click here to read more about Macaroni Kid Roanoke.

Here’s some additional background on Cookies for Kids’ Cancer written and sent to me by Clark:
Read more »

Lindsey Nair l The Roanoke Times

Knowing there will soon be fresh local peaches to replace them, I dragged out my last bag of frozen peaches from 2011 over the weekend. For some reason, I kept wondering what a peach cake would taste like. And you know as well as I do that when you think of a recipe concept, you can always Google it and someone else has already perfected the idea.

As per usual, however, I altered the recipe. I didn’t exactly mean to do it this time. It started as an accident. For some unknown reason, I cracked four eggs into the bowl instead of three. I had already started to stir them in when I realized it, panicked for a moment, then decided to just toss in a bit more flour and hope that made all the difference. I also added walnuts instead of pecans.

When I thawed my peaches, they were in quite a bit of juice. I drained off as much as I could. I think canned peaches would work just fine in this recipe, or thawed frozen peaches. Fresh peaches would be divine, as well.

When the cake came out of the oven, Howard got all worried because I wasn’t planning to slather it with a bunch of frosting. He is very suspicious of frosting-less cakes, even though there are tons of tasty cake recipes that do not call for frosting. I was feeling in the mood for compromise, though, so I took some of the peach juice I’d poured off my peaches and stirred it into a cup of confectioner’s sugar to make a glaze.

I poked some holes in the cake and spread on the glaze while the cake was still warm. When the glaze set, I swear it looked just like a glazed doughnut on top. And holy moly, the flavor was just peachy.

If you want to use fresh peaches but also want to make the peach juice glaze, then peel and pit and slice your peaches and place them in a bowl ahead of time. If you let them sit a while, even overnight, they’ll release some juices that you can strain off for the glaze.

Read more »

GranniesKitchen/Flickr

As Mother’s Day approaches, I wonder how many folks out there have kitchen utensils, gadgets, appliances, what-have-you that is a family heirloom? Do you? If so, what is it and do you use it or just store it as a keepsake?

Happy foggy Monday to you all. At least we had a gorgeous day on Sunday to get outside and tinker in the garden. I cleaned up my herb garden and now have three trash bags full of rosemary from my monstrous rosemary bush. I’m going to donate a bunch of it to the RAM house – did you know they’d take donations of fresh herbs? Kitchen manager Linda Cannon said she’ll dry them and store them for future use. I can’t think of a better use for my monstrous rosemary bush.

I got a neat cookbook the other day called “Sweet Home” by Rebecca Miller Ffrench. It includes a chapter about preserving family recipes. Here are her tips:

1. “Get your hands dirty and get digging.” she advises going into basements, attics and other storage spaces to look for recipe boxes, books, cookbooks and letters that might contain recipes.

2. “Keep your eyes out for baking accoutrements.” Look in cupboards, closets and storage spaces for forgotten accoutrements. Some examples she lists are shortbread molds, pudding molds, cookie cutters, cake stands, cookie jars, pizzelle irons, krumkaker presses, rosette irons, bundt pans and silver spoons. Even though most of these items are  not worth much money (at least, that’s what I heard on Antiques Roadshow), they are priceless when it comes to family meaning.

3. Take pictures of food, relatives cooking, their gardens, kitchens, holiday spreads, etc.

4. Do not fight over things. Be generous about sharing equipment and recipes. I’ll bet we’ve all seen the worst that can happen when elderly relatives pass away and their descendants get into a snatching and fighting match over the stuff they want. The author advises that if one everyone wants the pizzelle iron, for example, the family designate one person as the keeper of the iron but plan an annual get-together to make pizzelles. And copy and share recipes, for goodness sake. Don’t steal the recipe box when nobody is looking and then claim you don’t know what happened to it.
Read more »

A note from Mary Renwick, event planning and marketing coordinator for The Advancement Foundation:

The Cinco De Mayo Cupcakes at the Cottage Bake-Off will be held at The Charity Cottage Thrift Store at 301 S. Pollard Street in Vinton on Saturday, May 5th, 2012 from 12:00 p.m. – 3:00 p.m.  This event will include live entertainment, face painting, crafts, cupcakes for sale, cupcake judging, and discount shopping opportunities in the Charity Cottage Thrift Store!

If you think you can win the title of Cupcake Master, please register a dozen of your cupcakes in our Bake-Off! Cupcakes entered in contest need to have Cinco de Mayo theme (margarita, jalapeno, cinnamon, hot Mexican chocolate, etc.). To enter, you must register by April 23, 2012. Contact us at charitycottage@gmail.com or (540) 345-1292 for more information.

All proceeds benefit The Charity Cottage Thrift Store. The Charity Cottage Thrift Store was established by the local non-profit aid organization, The Advancement Foundation, to benefit the communities of the Roanoke Valley. The Advancement Foundation works to eliminate poverty through strategic support, and so has developed The Charity Cottage Thrift Store to provide “earned income” funding for multiple local health and human services nonprofits, while also providing skills training and community service opportunities for the underprivileged and disabled. The Charity Cottage Thrift Store also works to actively engage community leaders, civic organizations, local schools and churches in various ways in order to involve the entire community in the social change movement.

For further questions please do not hesitate to call 540-345-1292 or send an email to charitycottage@gmail.com.

We have friends coming to town this weekend to enjoy Roanoke’s St. Patrick’s Day festivities. Last night, on a whim, I decided to bake a quick cake for their visit. I had a chocolate boxed cake mix on hand, so I cheated and used that to bake a two-layer cake.

But I wanted to do something special for the icing, so I decided to do homemade buttercream icing with a little peppermint extract. And since I baked all of those naturally green things last week for this week’s column, I threw caution to the wind and used Wilton’s food coloring in leaf green. I like Wilton’s coloring because it’s a gel/paste consistency and won’t throw off any recipes with extra liquid.

What I turned out was a grasshopper cake with a very pale green, minty, buttery icing. Howard said the icing tasted like butter mints to him, which was a perfect comparison. The main question I always have when I make homemade icing is: How much am I going to need for this cake? I hate it when I don’t have quite enough frosting, but I don’t want a bunch left over, either.

Unless a recipe calls specifically for a Bundt pan or a 9×13 or something, I usually like to make layer cakes. I think they look beautiful in my glass cake stand and look so nice when you slice into them and see that layer of frosting in the center. I went looking for advice on how much icing I would need and I found this interesting chart posted on a Yahoo forum:
Read more »

Chocolate cake from Bread Craft, Roanoke. File photo.

Happy Valentine’s Day, my lovely blog readers.

Hopefully you’ve already figured out what you’re doing to mark the occasion, if anything. But if you are still trying to decide, Downtown Roanoke, Inc. has several restaurant specials listed on their website. The following places all have something different going on:

202 Market
Blue 5
Bread Craft
Horizon Bar and Grill
Martin’s Downtown
METRO!
The Regency Room
Table 50

The specials include tasting dinners, chocolate fondue for two, champagne cocktails or a sweet box of desserts. Click here to see all of the details.

Want to make something extra delicious for dessert tonight? I recommend Inside-Out Chocolate Strawberries, Chocolate Creme Brulee, Chocolate Souffle, Mint Chocolate Pots de Creme (for diabetics – 16 g total carbs, 11 g total sugars), or the Chocolate Waffle with Hot Fudge Sauce.

Not a big fan of chocolate? How about some apple dumplings for your dumplin’? Here’s the easy version.

If your sweetie could make or bring you ONE DISH that would win your heart, without any doubt, what would it be?

Photo courtesy Pierre Guinoiseau/Flickr

I got an email from a reader in Baltimore yesterday who wondered if I had a recipe for Ukrop’s chocolate pie. Even though I have a Ukrop’s 65th anniversary cookbook, I didn’t really expect to find the recipe in the book. It’s such a popular one, after all, and they’re still selling pies in the Kroger stores.

But lo and behold, I found it! This is the recipe for Ukrop’s Chocolate Chess Pie, and it’s so incredibly easy. You just throw a bunch of ingredients in a blender and then pour the mixture into frozen pie crusts and bake. I thought I’d share this in case anybody is looking for some last-minute treat ideas for the holidays.

I’ll have one more blog entry tomorrow, and then for next week I’ll be doing the traditional countdown to the new year in cookbook giveaways. So try to check in on your home computer sometime next week for a chance to win a cookbook. Readership is low during the holidays so your chances to win will be even greater!

Photo by Stephanie Klein-Davis l The Roanoke Times

A bowl of unshelled nuts is not an uncommon sight during the holidays, but a lot of folks may view them as mere ornamentation — or a test to see if that decorative nutcracker is really as strong-jawed as he looks (he isn’t).

But if you succeed in cracking open one of those hard exterior shells, you have just opened one of nature’s most amazing little packages.

In culinary terms, nuts are nutritional champions that pack a powerful punch of protein and healthy fats. They work in so many dishes — from salad to dessert — that they almost deserve their own food group.

It’s a good thing most of us only have to understand nuts in culinary terms, because a botanist will tell you not all nuts are “true” nuts. A true nut is a fruit with the plant seed fused inside, and the seed does not naturally separate itself from the fruit (until you wield that nutcracker). Hazelnuts and chestnuts are examples of true nuts.

Many other “nuts,” as we know them, are actually drupes. Drupes are fruits with a pit in the middle, and the seed is protected inside the pit. Peaches and plums are drupes, and so are walnuts and pecans — humans just do not eat the flesh surrounding the protective shell of a walnut or pecan.

And peanuts don’t fit snugly into either group; they are members of the legume family.

Trying to keep it all straight is enough to make a person — well, nuts! So I say those of us who love nuts and are not allergic to them should simply agree that whether “true” or not, they’re an important inhabitant of any pantry.

Let’s take a look at some facts about common culinary nuts, as well as tasty ways to make the most of them this holiday season.

To continue reading this column, click here.

Click these links to see recipes for:

Candied nuts

Roasted Chicken with Pecan-Cranberry Butter

Out of this World Rum Cake

Photo courtesy Zigazou76/Flickr

Seeing as how it’s Halloween, I figured it would be appropriate to skim through the comments for No. 13. Usually considered an unlucky number, yes, but today it is the LUCKY No. 13! The winner of “The Cupcake Diaries” by Katherine Kallinis and Sophie Kallinis LaMontagne is reader Renee Richardson, who wrote:

“We love cupcakes and my 6 year old daughter wants to bake so badly. Thanks for the incredible giveaway.”

Well, Renee, I hope you and your daughter will enjoy this book. Please email me at Lindsey.nair@roanoke.com with your shipping address and I’ll get this in the mail.

Now, for the benefit of those who did not win, I will share a couple of recipes from the book. The Bacon Blueberry Pancake Cupcakes seemed to interest some of you, so click the link for that recipe. I’ll also hit you with their recipe for Gingerbread Cupcakes with Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting, which sounds perfect for the holidays. Enjoy!

CONTEST CLOSED.

Every once in a while, readers send me recipes they think my readers or I would like to try. I’d like to pass along a couple of those recipes now.

First, a shout out to reader Angell Pasley for sharing her recipe for dark chocolate bark with coconut and walnuts. This recipe is easy, great for winter holiday gifts and adaptable. Don’t like nuts or coconut? Omit them and add your favorite dried fruit, such as cherries or apricots.

Next up, a recipe for banana bread from reader Karen Moffitt, who was inspired by this week’s column on quick breads. Karen offered up a great tip: If you have bananas that are overripe and ready for making bread but don’t have the time to make the bread, put them in the freezer. Thaw before using. It’s a simple tip but one that reminds us to never assume other cooks know all of the simple tips!

Alright, here’s the moment you’ve all been waiting for: this week’s Cookbook Giveaway. The sweet-stuff cookbooks continue to roll in, probably in anticipation of the giant sugar binge that is to come this holiday season. This one is “The Cupcake Diaries” by Katherine Kallinis and Sophie Kallinis LaMontagne, stars of the TLC series “DC Cupcakes.” These ladies are the owners of the popular bakery Georgetown Cupcakes in… well, Georgetown.

The book is filled with tips, stories and seasonally-organized recipes for treats such as caramel apple cupcakes, lemon-blueberry cupcakes with citrus glaze, bacon blueberry pancake cupcakes, and berry-infused purple buttercream frosting.

If this sounds good to you, get thee to the comment box and leave me a message on this entry. I’ll pick a random winner on Monday.

Happy Halloween!

Photo by Sam Dean l The Roanoke Times

Warm, freshly baked bread is a wonderful accompaniment to almost any meal, but mine is probably not the only home where this goal is seldom, if ever, realized.

It would be lovely if I could channel my grandma and serve buttery, yeasty Alabama biscuits with dinner or thick slabs of toasted salt-rising bread for breakfast, but I’m a working woman and that just isn’t happening unless it’s Thanksgiving or Christmas.

Many of us settle for old standbys such as biscuits or cornbread, and while there’s certainly nothing wrong with either of those classics, I recently went looking for savory breads without yeast that could be whipped up for dinner, even on a weeknight.

What I found were three very easy, tasty options for serving alongside winter soups and stews, bowls of beans, meat-and-three dinners, or even a nice salad. Before I describe these breads, allow me to offer a couple of pointers.

To continue reading this column, and to see recipes for olive bread, savory onion bread and Irish soda bread, click here.

What is your go-to bread when you want to whip up something fast to go with supper? Or do you only make bread when you’ve got the time to use yeast?

Day of the Dead cookies. Photo by Sam Dean/The Roanoke Times

When I was a kid, my idea of Halloween food consisted of a bucketful of candy and whatever quick dinner my mom threw together for us to eat before we headed out on the streets for trick-or-treating.

The more Americans become obsessed with food and cooking, the more Halloween-themed recipes I see. There have always been decorated cupcakes and cookies, such as these spider cupcakes, but recently I’ve seen cute little mummified hot dogs wrapped in crescent roll strips, deviled eggs that look like little Lucifers, and a cheese ball covered in bright orange chips and decorated with a Jack-O-Lantern face.

If you love Mexican food, you can also use the holiday as an excuse to get your hot ‘n’ spicy fix. That’s because Halloween falls just before the Mexican holiday el Dia de los Muertos, or the Day of the Dead. In case you missed it, I wrote an article about this holiday for Sunday’s paper, and the story included a lengthy recipe for homemade tamales. Whether you make your own authentic Mexican cuisine or get some from your favorite restaurant, there’s an idea.

Amanda Cockrell, who was featured in the Sunday story, has purchased cookie cutters, candy molds and other stuff from a website called Reign Trading. They are an especially good source for sugar skull molds.

I’m very interested to hear whether your family has any Halloween food traditions besides candy. Is there a special recipe you prepare every year for a Halloween party or for the enjoyment of your family at home?

Molasses cookies. Lindsey Nair/The Roanoke Times

Thanks for hanging in there until I could get some of these recipes typed up today. I know you are also eager to find out who won Good Housekeeping’s “The Cookie Jar Cookbook” and Sur la Table’s “So Sweet!”

The winners are:
* Jeff, who left comment #36, won the Good Housekeeping book.
* Sharon, who left comment #28, has won “So Sweet!”

Jeff and Sharon, please email me at lindsey.nair@roanoke.com to claim your books. Congratulations and thanks for playing!

Everyone else, please click these links to find these recipes:

Red Velvet Whoopie Pies

Toffee Bars

White Chocolate-Peppermint Chippers

Oh, and if you are wondering about the molasses cookies in the picture above, well, I cheated. Betty Crocker has a fairly new packaged mix for molasses cookies, and I recommend it. They’re soft-chewy and really good. But not as good as my sister’s MIL’s recipe, which you can find here.

When my friend was over the other day, I said, “Look, I have a kitchen scale!” And she joked, “Why would you want a scale in your kitchen?”

Well, I agree that having a bathroom scale in the kitchen would be pretty depressing because if I stepped on the scale before I cooked, I’d never want to use any butter. But having a kitchen scale for weighing ingredients is a whole different matter.

I’m not an expert at using the kitchen scale. In fact, there was a point in time when I never even thought to have one, and if someone gave me one I would have probably shoved it in a cabinet or in the basement and considered it yet another object for which I did not have enough storage space.

But as those of us who have been cooking for years have figured out, there’s definitely good reason to sometimes have an accurate weight of your ingredients. A lot of chefs cook largely by weight, not measurement. Case in point: I have a recipe for espagnole sauce that was given to me by a chef. And instead of cup measurements, it uses weight. But it also makes a gallon of sauce, so I really needed to halve everything. As a result, instead of a pound of mirepoix, I needed to chop about enough carrots, onions and celery for a half-pound.

Enter this kitchen scale, which was a birthday gift from some friends. It is a digital scale as opposed to a balance or a mechanical scale. All three have their place in the kitchen, but digital scales were rated highest by the Cooking for Engineers website, and I trust them on an issue like this. The only problem with small, flat digital scales like this is you sometimes have to weigh the bowl or container you’re using, then subtract that from the total weight to figure out how much your ingredients weigh.

Read more »

I know a few people who cannot make it through a Monday — particularly a dark, dreary Monday such as this — without a little chocolate pick-me-up. Whether it’s a chocolate muffin for breakfast, a mid-morning mug of hot cocoa, a chocolate chip cookie after lunch or a mini-Snickers in the afternoon, it just seems to help a little bit.

The other day, I discovered a great cookie bar recipe, and it was so ridiculously easy I’m almost embarrassed to make something of it. But “ridiculously easy” is sometimes quite welcome in the kitchen, particularly if you’re making something for a school party or you’ve been tasked with bringing a treat to a weeknight gathering.

First, get thee to the grocery store and pick up a box of Pillsbury Oatmeal Chocolate Chunk cookie mix and a bag of dried cherries. Then, follow the recipe on the back of the box for Oatmeal-Chocolate-Craisin bars, but instead of the Craisins use chopped, dried cherries.

I did this on a whim the other day because I didn’t have dried cranberries, and I daresay the dried cherries were probably better. They earned raves. Just realize that when you are spreading the mix into the bottom of the 9×13-inch pan, it’s going to seem as if you don’t have enough dough to cover the bottom of the pan. I oiled the palms of my hands well and just used them to press all of the dough out in an even layer. These treats would be even better with a little melted chocolate drizzled over the top.

Since dried cherries are kind of expensive, you may want to get double-duty out of that bag. Use the leftovers for Herbed Cherry Chicken Salad or revisit last year’s winning PlateUp Winter Recipe Contest winner, Cherry-Chocolate Bread Pudding.

Has anybody else discovered a new product lately that is a big time saver?

Photo by Sam Dean l The Roanoke Times

By the time I came along, my grandmother had made so many pies that she barely measured ingredients, deftly cut in the shortening and knew by touch when just enough ice water had been dribbled into the bowl to make the dough come together.

As a result, she could whip up a homemade pie in a flash with goodies such as rhubarb cut from the yard or wild blueberries plucked from bushes across the road.

I wish I could say I sat with her and watched, listening, as she passed along tips collected over time. I wish I could say I inherited the pie pastry gene and have been carrying on her traditions since we lost her in 2006.

I haven’t.

I’ve been buying pre-made, boxed pie crusts for years, and the only pie-making tip I can remember from my grandma is how to perfectly crimp the edges of the crust using just a thumb and two index fingers. So boy, I can crimp a beautiful pre-made crust.

Maybe I was intimidated by the thought of trying to measure up to grandma. But guilt, shame and feelings of inadequacy recently prodded me to do what she would’ve told me to do: At least try.

To continue reading this column, click here.

To see the recipe for all-butter pie crust I cobbled together from two good ones (and I consider this a keeper now), click here.

To see Botetourt pie maker Lisa Helmick’s recipe for pie crust, which calls for a little vinegar, click here.

It seems I’ve had pie on my mind a lot lately, which is probably a sign that I need to bake one. But there’s also been pie all around me – the Harrison Museum of African American Culture is having a Sweet Potato Pie Bake-Off, and now I have news about a Rockbridge County fundraiser called the Rockbridge Pie Festival.

Proceeds from the festival benefit the Community Pool. The Sept. 17th event includes a pie contest; the “Mincemeat Mile Swim”, a lot of homemade food such as BBQ, baked chicken, sides and, of course, PIE; a kids’ baking class; a pie-eating contest; a trebuchet demonstration; and an aucti0n of the winning pies.

Check out how many different kinds of pies will be available for purchase by the slice or whole: Coconut Cream, Blueberry-Peach with a Pecan Crumb Topping, Lemon Chess, Irene’s Apple Pie, Deep Dish Blackberry Pie, Banana Cream Pie, Five Fruit Pie, Strawberry Rhubarb, Pecan Caramel Apple, Deb’s Chocolate Pie, and Frozen Key Lime. Wow!

For all of the information about the festival, click here.

I’d love for this to be the entree into a discussion about pies, because I’ve long wanted to perfect a homemade pie crust. Lately, I’ve been going around asking a lot of people questions about their pie-making methods in the hopes of fashioning a column around the awesome dessert. Questions I have asked them are: Do you prefer butter, lard or shortening? Do you like to have your fat at room temperature or cold? What other tips do you have?

Folks from the Harrison Museum of African American Culture sent along a couple of pictures from Saturday evening’s Sweet Potato Pie Bake-Off at the Claude Moore Educational Complex. This was round one of the competition, where local chefs judged and narrowed down the pool of contestants from 15 bakers to six. The six finalists will compete at the 22nd Annual Henry Street Heritage Festival on Saturday, Sept. 17.

Here are the judges and a couple of committee members:

Judges, left to right. Front Row: Sonny Pendleton (La'Cove Restaurant), Gloria Manns (committee), Penny Ahuero (Viva La Cupcake), Alex Eliades (Bread Craft), Charles Hooper (Crock 'n' Roll); Second row: Jerome Bonds Jr. (Norah's Cafe), Charles Price (committee)

And here are the lucky finalists:

Order in photo (left to right): Front row, Petunia Barlow, Shirley M. Buchanan; Second Row: Gloria Manns (Committee), Dr. Nancy W. Wilson, Barbara N. James, Jen King (represented by Ben Westin), Brenda McClay-Shifflett; Third row, Charles A. Price (Committee)