Pumpkin Coffee and Pumpkin Spice Milanos

Yessss more pumpkin! I warned you it's this time of year again so there will be heaps of pumpkin stuff on this blog. I purchased pumpkin spice milanos a couple of weeks ago because I was super curious. Unfortunately, they didn't live up to my expectations, they were dry and the pumpkin chocolate flavor didn't mesh as well as I wanted. Also I think I'm completely spoiled for biscuits (packaged cookies) now because of Tim Tams. 

Anyway, I had also fought this pumpkin spice coffee from World Market. THIS MIGHT BE MY FAVORITE THING FROM WM TO DATE. This coffee is fantastic, and is now my new favorite blend. I basically have gotten used to drinking coffee black, though I still prefer it with a splash of skim milk. So when I want coffee in the morning brewed at the apartment, I'll just suck it up and have it black. But this coffee is different. It has just the slightest hint of pumpkin flavor at the beginning of the sip, as well as in the after taste. This makes it go down very easily and cuts the bitterness of the beans. I LOVE THIS COFFEE SO SO MUCH, I'm actually considering stocking up on it so I have it for the off season (It's only sold from September to November). 

So I have my amazing coffee, and I had all of these pumpkin milanos… and I thought to myself that the milanos could be vastly improved by dipping them in my coffee. I was spot on. The coffee stopped them from being dry (duh) and the pumpkin in the coffee brought out the pumpkin flavor in the cookies better. A good solution in how to use my milanos, and an excellent pumpkiny breakfast!

Pumpkin Pie Mini Cakes

So guess what!? It's autumn in the states and that means it's finally pumpkin season again!!!!!!! This means I can go wild with pumpkin flavored things and make some great pumpkin recipes. To start the season off right I made these neat pumpkin pie cakes. I used this Pinterest recipe, and basically followed it to the letter (minus the whipped cream topping), so feel free to refer to it there. The thing that was so tasty and intriguing about these cupcakes is that the inside had the spongy moist consistency of pie. And it tasted like pie too! It was really strange and i've never had anything like it before, but they were strangely addictive. I made mini ones since we only have mini cupcake tins, but I think this recipe would be better with a full size cupcake pan. Also I would put Cool Whip on top of them next time (though we did have some leftover chocolate frosting and I put that on some of them, and it was AMAZING). This was a fun and easy recipe to do, nice if you are craving cupcakes. However, I tend to like pumpkin pie better, so next time with all of these ingredients available I'd just make a pie instead. 

Amaretto Tiramisu

 So I decided to make some Tiramisu. I've never made this dessert before, and the fact that it is no bake, combined with it being boozy made me want to try it out. It took me awhile to find the ladyfingers, but I finally found them at United Provisions on the Loop. I make this I ended up basically following the instructions on the package of said lady fingers. I mixed egg yolks with sugar, and combined that with whipped egg whites and marscapone cheese. That made the creamy stuff. Then I dipped the lady fingers in a mixture of brewed coffee, Amaretto, and Bailey's. I dipped each side for about a second. My roommate cautioned me not to dip them too long or the dessert would be overpowered by alcohol and get super soggy. It was really good advice. I layered the ladyfingers, lining the pan with them. Then I sprinkled coco powder on top then layered on the cream filling. Then more coco, then more lady fingers, then coco, then filling, you get the idea. I did this until the pan was filled. Then I stuck it in the fridge to settle. The recipe said that it would need 3 hours to settle, but realistically it needs about 24 to harden to the right consistency. Also I noticed that it tastes better the second and third days, because the flavors have time to permeate the cookies and really blend extremely well.

Thoughts on this Dessert:

• For a first try I was really happy with this. I'd love to make it in a larger portion so that it is easier to share with lots of people.
• Construction doesn't take very long, but waiting for it to settle obviously does.
• The longer it sits the better, I'm glad that I now know this. I felt bad because I had friends waiting to eat it the night I made it and they had to come back to taste it the next day.
• The combination of coffee, and liquors was great! I'm particularly partial to both Bailey's and Amaretto so I loved it, but my friends agreed that the flavors meshed extremely well.
• I'd love to try this with different flavor profiles! Matcha Tiramisu anyone haha? Also though I could see myself doing this in an orange chocolate variety. I would put orange zest in the filling and use Grand Mariner as the alcohol to soak the cookies in. 

A fun first time dessert. I'm glad it turned out so well!

Baked Cinnamon Apple Cider Donuts

This is a very delayed post about my Donut adventures with my mom and sister. My mom bought donut pans about a year ago and had yet to try them. So one afternoon the three of us decided to make donuts together. We agreed on apple cinnamon donuts, since we loved the homemade ones from our local apple orchard. We used spiced apple cider to give the donuts the apple flavor. Also my sister came up with the awesome idea to shake the donuts in a paper bag of cinnamon sugar to coat them. These donuts ended up tasting good… but not like what we expected them to. They were less cakey and less sweet. We still aren't really sure why. They did taste amazing dipped in coffee though. And them not meeting our expectations didn't stop them from disappearing from the house in a couple of days, as they were devoured for breakfast and late night treats. Goes to show that while you can be disappointed in something, doesn't mean that you don't also like it. Regardless, it was really fun to bake with my mom and sister, they are 100% the experts so I usually just do what they tell me to, and everything works out fine. 

Homemade High Tea

One of the fun food things in Australia is that like England, they have a tea time/afternoon snack culture. Now, this isn't really as prevalent as it is in Britain, but it made me start thinking about High Tea. And this lead me to he idea of making a fancy high tea once I got home. And naturally, this sort of genius had to be shared with my baker of a sister. So we resolved to make ourselves a fancy homemade high tea when I got back to Chicago. For those of you that don't know, High Tea is a multi-course afternoon meal, usually consisting of finger sandwiches, pastries, and scones. My sister and I carefully planned out our tea, bought the ingredients, and spent an entire day preparing this meal. It was an ambitious endeavor, but really it turned out wonderfully. We even had menus (below). 

We had this wonderful fancy chocolate rose tea that my sister had gotten in London. We tried to make some fun tea treats to go along with it. We basically divided and conquered the cooking, but I had a couple of minor difficulties so my sister ended up helping me out some, especially with making things look nice. Our first course was a platter of fruit salads, which we decided to call the amuse bouche. I rolled cantaloupe balls in procuitto (yes it's a meat, but it's the only part of this meal that is), the saltiness of the procuitto and the sweetness of the melon go amazingly together. I also this crazy watermelon/feta salad. I constructed a cube of rectangular pieces and then garnished it with mint. It didn't turn out quite was pretty as I hoped for, but it tasted amazing. The winner of this salad was the mint, it brought out the freshness of both the fruit and the cheese. Can't wait to make this one again (though maybe not in cube form).

Our second course was the savory finger sandwiches and deviled eggs! This was fun to make because we got to choose what flavors we wanted to use. I ended up making 4 types of sandwich, and 2 kinds of deviled eggs. For the sandwiches we ended up making all vegetarian ones. I used two types of bread: light rye and honey wheat. I cut off the crusts and then cut the bread into the fun shapes of triangles and rectangles. I did 3 sandwiches on the rye and one on the honey wheat. The honey wheat one was pears and goat cheese. The first of the rye sandwiches were cream cheese and cucumber (classic tea sandwich). Next I made some eggs salad and made egg salad sandwiches. I tried not to use too much mayonnaise, but then didn't use enough and the egg salad didn't stay together all that well. We garnished those sandwiches with fresh chives (see below). The last sandwich was a pickle cheddar, and dill butter sandwich. This one was probably my favorite. The pickle and cheddar went together amazingly, but the dill butter really made this one. I actually infused the butter with dill and salt. This made it really dill tasting and fresh and it added another dimension to the sandwich.

Okay the deviled eggs. My mom gave me this wonderful book full of deviled egg recipes for a present. My sister and I decided to try two kinds of deviled eggs from the book. The first was Sunrise eggs (below left) and the second was Boursin Garlic eggs (below right). The Boursin ones were the winners! The sunrise eggs were infused with orange juice and sundried tomato pesto. I really wanted to like these eggs, but they just tasted a little too weird. The boursin ones on the other hand were out of this world. We added roasted garlic and herbed boursin cheese. We then garnished them with fresh chives. The creaminess of the boursin and the flavoring of the garlic and herbs made these eggs taste gourmet. We loved them, I will definitely make them again.

                         

Our next course was a tea time classic. Scones! I while I would have preferred Australian/British scones we instead used the awesome scone mix from World Market. We got the plain flavor, and I have to say these were absolutely amazing. While at World Market we found mini jams and clotted cream! So we got that to eat with the scones in the traditional manner. They were delicious and really fun.

After scones we got to the pastries, specifically cookies and cakes. We had Earl Grey Lavender Cupcakes (below left), made by my wonderful sister. She infused the cake with earl grey tea and the frosting with lavender extract. These were the perfect thing to go with tea, tea cupcakes! Next we had Petit Fours! Okay, these are my absolute favorite thing that my sister makes. They are her own invention of cake, call blush cake. This is almond cake with rose and orange extracts. And it's brilliant. For these petit fours she makes strawberry buttercream frosting for the middle layer and then dips them in orange glaze. They. Are. The. Best. And they take her a long time to make because they have so many components. She doesn't make them often, but did them for me as a back from Australia treat. Also they were a perfect addition to high tea. The last dessert in this course was Raspberry frosting sugar cookie sandwiches. These were also outstanding. We found this wonderful soft sugar cookie recipe, and used that for the cookies. My sister then made this wonderful raspberry buttercream that was  heavenly. Lastly she sugared the cookies with raspberry sugar. Is your mouth watering yet?

Our last course was Midgardises, little ending sweets. For this we made Lemon shortbread dark chocolate truffles… and we also bought some meringues from Trader Joes (below). The Truffles were made in a very similar fashion to my Tim Tam Truffles. We used shortbread cookies, lemon curd, and cream cheese frosting to make these. Also we used food coloring to make sure that the filling had a nice lemon yellow color. This time we stuck them in the fridge to harden for a hour or so before they were dipped in the chocolate. Also my sister did the dipping so they turned out pretty!

This tea was such a fun and exciting thing to do with a summer day!! Almost everything (looking at you sunrise eggs!) turned out excellently! It was also really fun to spend the day cooking and baking with my sister. She's the master dessert baker and watching her work reminds me that I have a ton to learn when it comes to baking and cooking, thankfully I have access to a wonderful teacher :D

Pavlova

So Pavlova is a traditional Australian dessert. It's basically a gigantic meringue with fruit and cream. I have been wanting to try one since before I came to Australia, but unfortunately I really had a hard time finding them anywhere. I think that is because they are something that is more accessible and nicer restaurants, instead of the places that I was usually frequenting. Fortunately, when I was with my family we were eating at really nice restaurants. So our last night in Sydney, on our way back from New Zealand, Pavlova was on the dessert menu. So naturally, I had to order it! It was pavlova with passionfruit. Now, I can take or leave passionfruit, but it was the meringue that I really wanted to taste. It came out in an enormous slice, and we all had some. It. Was. Fantastic!!!! The meringue had a different consistency throughout, light and fluffy in the middle, cake like and then chewy on the outside. I loved it! I was also really happy that I could end my time in Australia by tasting a dessert that I had wanted to try for so long. I was the perfect treat to end my journey. 

Kiwiana: New Zealand Snack Food

So because I loved tasting Aussie candy and snack food so much, I really wanted to try some Kiwi snack food when I was in New Zealand. Specifically, CookieTime cookies, which a couple friends and told me about. When one of our tour guides asked it we wanted to do anything else before we went to our hotel, I asked if we could stop at a convenience store for some cookies! Our guide loved this idea and was nice enough to help us pick out some other classic kiwi snacks. My mom and sister got really into it, but no so much my dad, haha. We ended up with some CookieTime cookies (above), which were yummy. I tend to like my cookies a little softer, but they tasted really good. My favorite thing was the BumperBar, which is also made by CookieTime, but has fruit and chocolate in it. I liked these better because they were chewy and had fresh fruit in them!! The banana ones were amazing!!!

My sister's favorite thing was the Pineapple Lumps. I had totally forgotten that I tried these in Australia. I didn't love them because I had been expecting something else when I tried them. My sister pointed out that they were like pineapple Charleston Chews, and she love love loved them. I like them just fine now that I think of them that way. Also apparently they are much bigger in NZ than Oz, so it was nice to try them there. 

We didn't get to try Hokey Pokey Ice Cream, which is also supposed to be huge in New Zealand, but hopefully we'll be back someday and can try it then :) Eating gourmet abroad is fun, but trying classic junk food also gives you a unique taste of the culture, and is a super fun way to explore a country. It is now on my list of things to make sure I do whenever I'm somewhere new!

Tasting my way around Fitzroy

Fitzroy is a funky neighborhood in Melbourne. It's filled with Coffee Shops and boutiques. It is somewhat of the hipster area. It was also one of my friend's favorite part of Melbourne so I wanted to check it out! I walked there from the Queen Victoria markets, and that's where I spent most of my afternoon. The architecture makes the area look bohemian, and the funky names of the stores give in personality. I bought this mini strawberry cupcake (above), as a walked around. It wasn't amazing, but it was $1 and cute. It started randomly pouring on my when I was there (below left), so I ducked into a coffee shop and got a chai (below right). They give you a pot of milky tea, and you have to strain it yourself. It was really good and the chai hit the spot on a rainy afternoon. I drank it and read my book!

I continued to walk around and made a few small on sale purchases. I got a map of Australia poster for $4 and a scarf for $2.50! When I got hungry I stopped at Lord of the Fries, a Melbourne fast food chain known for their amazing chips, a bunch of friends had recommended it to me. I got their Sweet Potato fries with sour cream and sweet chili (below), they were amazing!!!!! Just the right thing for lunch!

I had such a nice time enjoying an afternoon of walking around and exploring. I've realized it's a nice and leisurely way to get the feel of different areas of a city!

Brekkie at the Queen Victoria Markets

So I was in Melbourne for about 36 hours. On the morning of my second day I decided to check out the Queen Victoria markets for breakfast and browsing. I ended up going with a girl that I met at my hostel who had also finished her semester abroad at UQ, such a small world. It was about a 5 block walk to the markets. They are indoor and take up an entire block. Exploring them took me a solid couple of hours. It was incredible! There are aisles and aisles of fresh fruit, deli stall, and souvenir stalls. My favorite was the deli section (above), there were so many wonderful and unique aussie and cultural foods. I ended up buying breakfast at some of the stalls here. First I got a dessert pastry, because why not :P ? It was a pistachio almond twist (below), and it was amazing!!! It was filled with almond and pistachio flavored spread and was a great way to start the morning. 

As I wandered around more I saw Russian Pastry shop. They and these wonderful savory pastries, which I cannot remember what they are called for the life of me (this is why you don't wait 2 weeks to blog about things). I bought a pumpkin one, and it was extremely tasty. It was perfect for a chilly morning, the filling was warm and creamy and the dough was soft and chewy. 

After breakfast I walked around all of the stalls browsing. It is truly incredible how large the place is. Also the fruit was so fresh and cheap!!! I got a mandarin and ate it one the spot from the organic produce stalls. I also looked (but didn't buy) around the souvenir section. Many of the stalls sold similar things, but it was since to walk around and browse. A great start to my exploring day in Melbourne!

Green Tea Lamingtons

Lamingtons are Australian tea cakes. They are generally vanilla sponge cake squares, covered in a frosting glaze and dipped in desiccated coconut. They are usually double layered and the filling is usually either chocolate or jam. I really wanted to make a traditional Aussie dessert before I left Australia. Originally I wanted to make Pavlova, which is a meringue with creme and fruit, but without an electric blender that was out. So I decided to do Lamingtons, but with a twist! And that twist is matcha! I made green tea lamingtons, and they were amazing. No seriously, they lasted about a day and a half before my housemates and I devoured them. The baking part of this recipe was easy, it was the assembly that was difficult.

I baked the cake using a box mix and added matcha powder, I didn't have as much as I wanted so the cake ended up with this cake that had a slight matcha taste, it was nice but I would use more next time. For this recipe it requires that I cut the cake into easily dippable squares. Due to this I had to be strategic with what pan I baked the cake in. I decided on the bread pan, rather than our round cake pan. This ended up being a good idea. The first step to the squares was to trim off them rounded top of the cake (above), I think next time I'll trim the sides to make it more even as well, the reason I didn't this time is because I was worried about not having enough cake.

The next step was to do the layering. I sliced the cake into two layers, which was harder than expected to cut evenly, so the top layer was a bit thicker than the bottom (above left). Next I melted dark chocolate in the microwave and spread it on the bottom layer of the cake (above right). I tried to do this quickly before it hardened up again. Then I stuck the top layer back onto the cake. Next I cut the cake into 15 squares (below left). The next move was to arrange them for the dipping. So I covered a baking sheet in baking parchment and then arranged them on the tray. 

The next step was to dip them in frosting and then cover them in desiccated coconut. Now desiccated is a fancy word for dryed and dehydrated. This is a special type of shredded coconut and in order to really make this treat work you need to buy this kind, it prevents the cakes from getting soggy. What I did was buy some store bought vanilla frosting, I then microwaved it for about 20 seconds (below left) and dipped each individual square in the frosting. I tried to make sure that it was completely covered. Next I quickly moved the cake to a bowl with the coconut in it and covered the frosted cake in the coconut, once again trying to cover it completely. Then I set it on the baking sheet to harden. While my fingers got really messy during this process, it actually worked out so much easier than I expected. First of all, the heated frosting turned into this glaze that sticked really well, and the coconut adhered to it amazingly. And then when it was covered in coconut, I could move it around and set it down without it sticking (below right). Also, as one of my housemates pointed out, I got better at it as I went along so the later squares were easier and prettier.

These cakes tasted amazing. The matcha, vanilla, coconut, and chocolate each added their own texture and flavor to the dessert, and meshed really well together. These are perfect with a cup of tea (or matcha haha) after dinner. Or with a cup of coffee for breakfast! Lamingtons are classic Australia and it makes me happy that I will be able to make these anytime I want at home and bring Australia with me!

Thoughts on this Dessert:

• Like I said, next time more matcha is going into this recipe.
• I would like to try different flavors for these. My sister makes this awesome cake called 'Blush Cake' and I think that it would be great with this recipe, but with rose jam filling. Also I'd try them with taro cloud cake for sure!
• I think that next time I'd use chocolate frosting instead of vanilla.
• When doing the dipping step, its important to reheat the frosting for 5-10 seconds or so after each cake to make sure the consistency stays right. Also to add more frosting to the bowl when it starts to get low so that you don't have to scrape the cake on the bowl. 

Really happy that my last dessert here is a really cool Australian one, and one that I could make my own. I found it really fulfilling to be able to make a recipe that was complicated but turned out well. 

Sweet Apple Sangria

So for my Birthday I was given a bottle of Savigon Blanc. Since we are getting down to the wire and I needed to drink it, and a couple of ciders that I still had, before we all leave I decided to use it to make sangria! Basically, this is an extremely simple, but very tasty Sangria that you can make in a matter of minutes. I sliced up 4 small apples, 1 pear, and 2 mandarin oranges. Then I poured the bottle of wine, as well as 2 bottles of cider over them. I mixed the entire thing with 3 shot glasses worth of orange juice. Mix this carefully because the cider will fizz up. Then I stuck it in the fridge or 5 hours or so. We enjoyed our tasty drink/dessert while watching the Disney movie Frozen :P An excellent way to end a day! We all agreed that the ranking of the fruit was the pear, then oranges, then apples. Really the pears stole the show here, they sucked up the wine in a perfect way and were really wonderful. I think that I should have mixed this a little better because a bunch of the alcohol sunk to the bottom. However, even with that it really didn't taste alcoholic despite it mostly being wine and cider. A dangerous drink indeed :) I really enjoy sangria, and I look forward to making it more now that I can legally buy alcohol in the states!!

Dark Chocolate Tim Tam Truffles

Volia! I give you the ultimate Tim Tam dessert, Tim Tam Truffles! One of my friends in the Pathfinder Program at Wash U makes these AMAZING oreo truffles, so I was inspired by her to do the same thing, but with Tim Tams. This recipe is actually really simple, but seems sophisticated. It's only 3 ingredients. Tim Tams, cream cheese, and melted chocolate. The result is a truffle that looks (if you roll it correctly) and tastes like something you would buy at a gourmet candy store (below). 

I used 1.5 packs of dark chocolate Tim Tams for this recipe, but in retrospect I would have used 2 whole packs instead. I blended the cookies (entire thing) until it was crumbs (below right). Then I added the cream cheese and blended that as well. This took awhile because I was using a magic bullet blender, which is rather small and really isn't made for this kind of mixing. When it was completely mixed to the desired consistence (bottom below), I stuck some dark chocolate into the microwave, for 4 30 second intervals, stirring in between. Then I rolled the Tim Tam mixture into balls and dipped it into the chocolate. This worked really well at first and I got about 3 completely covered truffles, but then the chocolate started to harden again, and it got a lot more difficult. 

I did eventually manage to roll them all. There were 15 truffles in total. After they were rolled I placed the cookie tray they were on in the fridge for about 3 hours. Then consolidated them in tupperware (below) and placed them back in the fridge. The refrigerator keeps the chocolate from melting and keeps the truffles together, so make sure you store them this way. My housemates and I agreed these were absolutely amazing. Yet another of my favorite desserts that I've made here, and it's so fun to bake with Tim Tams!

Thoughts on this Dessert:

• What a winner! Super easy and unique
• I would love to try these with other Tim Tam flavors. Mainly the Mint Slices, Caramel Tim Tams or the Orange ones. Unfortunately, I think that once I get back to the states I'm not going to want to waste my precious Tim Tams on baking… so while I might not get a chance to try these ideas, readers with access to Tim Tams should! Wish I had tried this earlier in the semester
• Next time I think I'm going to roll the truffles and stick them in the fridge before rolling them in the melted chocolate. This will help them stay together better and hopefully cut down on the time between rolling, so the chocolate won't solidify as quickly.

This were so fun to make and even more fun to eat. And a great twist on an Aussie favorite during SWOTVAC here at UQ. 

Maxibon Honeycomb Ice Cream Bar

Sooooo, I may have been craving ice cream earlier tonight. And I may have indulged in that craving, by going to the grocery store a block from our house to get an ice cream bar. But, I'm justifying it because I get to share some more Aussie food culture with you guys! So when we were at the zoo a couple of weeks ago we got ice cream bars (it's really common for snack bars/convience stores/resturants to stock ice cream bars all around Australia). I've been trying a bunch of kinds since I've been here, and besides the Milo Cups, which are actually kinda rare, I hadn't found one that I loved. That was, until the zoo. I got a Maxibon, and it changed everything! Maxibons are basically half ice cream sandwich half chocolate covered ice cream bar… so you don't have to choose! Whoever invented this was a legit genius. At the zoo I got a caramel flavored one, which I loved. But I wanted to try the other flavors as well. And today I finally got to! I tried the honeycomb one, and it was AMAZING. 

So first I should explain honeycomb. The same way that there are certain flavors that people LOVE in America and they have lots of sweet products with them (i.e. peanut butter and Red Velvet) Australia has flavors like that too. Two of the most prevalent are Turkish Delight, and honeycomb. They have honeycomb chocolate bars, and of course, honeycomb ice cream (I also saw online they have honeycomb tim tams but haven't come across any here :( ). Honeycomb is great and is sometimes mixed with chocolate crunchies or caramel. In the case of the Maxibon, there were chocolate chunchies in the honeycomb flavored ice cream (see below). It was so good. I loved the combination of the chocolate crust and crunchy ice cream of the bar part (see pic below on the left), but I have to say nothing beats the cakey cookies of an ice cream sandwich, so I think I may actually have liked the sandwich part better (pics below on right), but really the best part of this ice cream is that you get both and don't have to choose a favorite! 

Kinda sad I didn't get around to tasting these until the last month I was here, but at least I got to it before I left. Seriously, the inventor of this kind of ice cream bar should get a medal. Why don't we have these back in the states?!