outta mind outta site

weekend recap: michael jackson, korea, and bourbon

alright, alright. if there was ever a weekend that was worthy of a recap, this was it.

catherine bakes stuff: strawberry custard pie

gah, i know, i promised you a non-baking pie post. but, it will have to wait. because sunday, two things happened: i had a pie party to attend. and i walked out to the farmers market, saw caitlin, who promptly told me i had to try a batch of strawberries. they'd just been picked last night, she said, and they were the best strawberries i would ever taste.

when it comes to fruit, i've learned one thing: caitlin doesn't mess around. her family's orchard, reid's orchard (which sells at both the saturday mt. pleasant market and the sunday bloomingdale one) consistently puts out some of the best fruit to ever be shoved by myself down into my gullet. so i popped a strawberry in my mouth, was amazed, and decided i'd have to do something with them.

(my original plan had been this: get up at 7 AM, run 6 miles, make pie dough, buy cherries, make amazing cherry pie. but, uh, i got up at noon due to an insane big bear dance party the night before. so none of that was happening.)

a few days earlier i'd bookmarked a martha stewart recipe for raspberry custard pie and figured i could adapt it for this. it basically looked like the easiest thing ever; i already had a pre-made pie tart in the freezer (i do really want to try to make my own pie crust, soon, but TIME WAS OF THE ESSENCE HERE, PEOPLE); so i just hulled the strawberries, threw all the ingredients together, baked it for a bit, refrigerated it for a few hours, the promptly...didn't go to the pie party because i was so exhausted. instead, i dragged myself to a speakeasy at the warehouse where we drank several amazing cocktails. i was exhausted, people! i could only pick one: pie, or booze. and, well, you know me. anyways, i'll be eating strawberry custard pie for breakfast for the next week. there are worse fates.

recipe here; i'm pretty sure you could substitute any fruit you liked for the raspberries. super tasty and beyond easy.

previous catherine bakes stuff:
blueberry crumble bars
giant chocolate cake
not-so-red velvet cupcakes
cherry cobbler
triple citrus cupcakes
pecan bread pudding
rhubarb coffee cake
blueberry mascarpone gingersnap tart / lemon bars
ginger-chocolate brownies
pecan squares
pine-nut cookies with rosemary
chewy chocolate gingerbread cookies

catherine bakes stuff: blueberry crumble bars

these are blueberry crumble bars! i made them for a cookout. the were tasty. the only thing stopping them from being a gold star recipe? i used frozen blueberries, and i they ended up slightly mushy and flavorless. lesson learned. recipe from smitten kitchen.

coming up: a strawberry custard pie (made with fresh market berries); hopefully, adventures in ice cream; and even more hopefully, a non-baking post!

previous catherine bakes stuff:
giant chocolate cake
not-so-red velvet cupcakes
cherry cobbler
triple citrus cupcakes
pecan bread pudding
rhubarb coffee cake
blueberry mascarpone gingersnap tart / lemon bars
ginger-chocolate brownies
pecan squares
pine-nut cookies with rosemary
chewy chocolate gingerbread cookies

catherine bakes stuff: giant chocolate cake

well, this recipe delivers on its rather hilarious name. it  is giant, it is chocolate, and it is a cake. i also was a fan because it didn't involve baking multiple cake layers.

i made this for my mom's birthday, and the entire family raved over it—and took most of it home, thankfully. so it gets a gold star recipe rating!

this recipe calls for a 12" cake pan, which i didn't have, so instead i just used a 9" springform, which worked well when i didn't end up pouring all the batter into it; i think that would have been too much. i also skipped the edible flowers.

make a day ahead if possible! make the ganache the day of, and let it set for at least two hours.

previous catherine bakes stuff:
not-so-red velvet cupcakes
cherry cobbler
triple citrus cupcakes
pecan bread pudding
rhubarb coffee cake
blueberry mascarpone gingersnap tart / lemon bars
ginger-chocolate brownies
pecan squares
pine-nut cookies with rosemary
chewy chocolate gingerbread cookies

catherine bakes stuff: not-so-red velvet cupcakes

ever since i've made my inclination to bake cupcakes at a drop of a hat more widely known, i've had more requests for red velvet cupcakes than anything else. not sure why; is it a sort-of-southern thing here in dc? are they just irresistibly tasty? did people eat a lot of them in their childhood? who knows. at least four friends asked me to make them, and up until last week, i just never did. but one night i realized a) i had all the ingredients in my house and b) i have several friends' birthdays coming up, so it seemed as good a time as any.

the one thing i didn't have in my house, though: red food coloring. and i couldn't find any at whole foods. and if i could have it probably would have cost me like $15. so i decided to forgo it. i hope that's not too sacrilegious. i think they are just as tasty without the red hue.

i took the base recipe from allrecipes.com, and halved this icing recipe from paula dean (i like to jokingly call myself heart attack catherine due to all the fatty, fatty recipes i make, but she's really the heart attack queen).

enjoy!

previous catherine bakes stuff:
cherry cobbler
triple citrus cupcakes
pecan bread pudding
rhubarb coffee cake
blueberry mascarpone gingersnap tart / lemon bars
ginger-chocolate brownies
pecan squares
pine-nut cookies with rosemary
chewy chocolate gingerbread cookies