ABC - Strawberry-filled Angel Food Cake

When I searched the King Arthur Flour website for a summery dessert, I came across this Strawberry-filled Angel Food Cake. About five years ago, I baked and tasted my very first Angel Food Cake, and loved it. It was a recipe by the baking queen, Rose Levy Beranbaum. The thought of filling with the cake with a fruit-filled cream filling sounded REALLY good, and so it became our July challenge for ABC.

Orange flavored Angel Food cake with Red/White/Blue filling. Bon appetit!

If you'd like to join the ABC bakers in their monthly baking adventures, please go to the ABC blog for more information.

ABC - Braided Lemon Bread

When I saw how pretty the Braided Lemon Bread was, I knew I had to put it on the list of ABC recipes to bake. Lemon is often associated with summer hence why this recipe became the August challenge for the ABC bakers. I love lemon however lemon curd is not my thing. It's the rich egginess that doesn't work for me. The recipe on the King Arthur Flour site offered plenty of suggestions on alternative fillings so I wasn't too worried.

If you've never made a braided bread before, I encourage you to visit the KAF blog where they have step-by-step pictures on how to do this mock braid.

If you'd like to join the ABC bakers in their monthly baking adventures, please go to the ABC blog for more information.

ABC - Classic Fruit Tart

For this month's ABC, we're baking the Classic Fruit Tart from The Weekend Baker by Abby Dodge. I found some really good raspberries at the store so that's what I used. Although fruit tarts always look so pretty and appetizing, they always seemed so fussy. I learned with this recipe that that's not the case at all. There might be a few components to it but Abby breaks them down into manageable steps that you can do over the course of 2 or more days. I had some leftover ganache to decorate the tart. I mean, who doesn't love raspberries and chocolate? :o)

Raspberry Tart with Pastry Cream and Chocolate Ganache

A slice of yummy fruity goodness! :o)

If you would like to join the ABC baking club, please email me at HanaasKitchen [at] live [dot] com. Please find more details about our baking club on the ABC blog.

ABC - Cupid's Strawberry Cake

Today's ABC recipe, Cupid's Strawberry Cake, was chosen by Alice of My Adventures in Baking. I "met" Alice via a different baking group called Heavenly Cake Bakers. Her posts are always fun to read and her step-by-step pictures are great!

I love strawberries so Alice couldn't have picked a better recipe. I started by making 1/3 of Flo's Signature Yellow Cake in two 6" cake pans. And that's where it ended. When I read there were egg yolks in the frosting, my baking project came to a screeching halt (I read the recipe so many times but somehow missed that aspect). If you have been following my blog for a while, you know that I don't consume raw or barely cooked eggs. So I came up with plan B: make a jam-infused whipped cream frosting instead. Unfortunately that hasn't happened yet (we had 130lbs of concord grapes from our grapevine to attend to) and I still have two sad-looking and unfrosted 6" cakes :o(

Instead, I'll share with you pictures of a tea cake I made a while back, using Flo's Signature Yellow Cake recipe.

The crumb was perfect - moist, tender but sturdy enough to hold any frosting

ABC - Quintessential Cheese Blintzes

Sweet cheese-filled Blintzes on homemade red fruit preserves

For this month's ABC baking project, I asked Toni of Big Smiles and Bigger Hips to select a recipe for us, and she chose the Quintessential Cheese Blintzes. I "met" Toni through the Heavenly Cake Bakers and was very happy when she decided to join ABC. One of the things I like about Toni is her honest feedback on the goodies she bakes as part of the baking group. If she doesn't like a recipe, she'll tell you :o) She also has adorable little helpers.

Blintzes (also called Blinis and a very other names) are similar to crepes with a sweet or savory filling. My (late) Russian friend, Svetlana, made Blinis for me that were filled with ground beef. That was my first (and yummy) encounter with Blinis/Blintzes. So I was very eager to try Flo Braker's sweet filling made with farmer's cheese, sugar, citrus zest, and a little salt. I substituted cream cheese for the farmer's cheese. Other substitutes that work well are ricotta cheese and small curd cottage cheese.

If you're a passionate baker and like to join the Avid Baker's Challenge club, please email me at HanaasKitchen [at] live [dot] com.

SMS - Plum Raspberry Preserves

Margot of Effort to Deliciousness picked Plum Raspberry Preserves for this week's Sweet Melissa Sundays challenge. The master preserves recipe happens to be one of my favorite recipes in the book. I use it throughout the year to make small batches of jam, without having to do any canning. This way you don't have to eat the same thing all the time. At the moment, I have lots of summer fruit in my freezer, so I can make more jam come winter time.

Plum jam, homemade plain yogurt (I love my Salton yogurt maker), and a fresh plum

One of the many things I like about this recipe is that it scales well (you can make as little as a 1/4 batch) in about half an hour, from start to finish. If you're fruit is sweet, just cut down on the sugar, and if it's not sweet enough, just add more sugar. The best part about this recipe is that it uses apples as its natural source of pectin. This helps "gel" the jam.

The plum jam is ready to be swirled into my yogurt

I was able to get a really good deal on plums so I made an all-plum jam. The sweet and sour notes in the plums is what made this jam interesting to me. I enjoyed that aspect a lot (my husband, not so much; he would have preferred it sweeter). The beautiful red color of the jam is striking. And whether it's served on toast, or swirled through some homemade plain yogurt, like I did, this jam will start a party in your mouth, at the very first bite. You can find the recipe on Margot's blog. Thanks again for a great pick!

The perfect breakfast. Bon appetit!

SMS - Strawberry Rhubarb Preserves

This week's SMS recipe was chosen by Margo of Effort to Deliciousness. She chose Strawberry-Ruby Grapefruit Preserves. You can find the recipe here.

This recipe was absolutely delicious. Due to the abundant amount of rhubarb in my garden, I decided to make the Strawberry Rhubarb version of the jam, it was delicious!!! Thanks for choosing such a great recipe, Margot.

Rhubarb from garden + cinnamon sticks + whole cloves

The fruit is ready to jam

Jam on toast, yum!

Strawberry Rhubarb Turnovers

Strawberry Rhubarb Turnover sprinkled with powdered sugar

Final thoughts/tips:

• Hubby and I loved this jam. It had the perfect amount of sweetness and tartness. The color was bright and beautiful. Hubby's rating: 9 out of 10.
• I skipped the orange zest simply because I didn't have any on hand. And I used store-bought orange juice.
• Total amount of sugar used: 3/4 cup.
• Added 1 cinnamon stick and 2 whole cloves to the fruit (and fished them out later) for a little spice (it lingered quietly in the background and wasn't overwhelming).
  
• It took me 40 minutes from start to finish to make 1/4 of the recipe. Will definitely make it again.
• Check out the SMS blogroll to see how other SMS bakers "jammed" this week.