ABC - Croûte d’abricots with Lavender & Honey

The August recipe for the ABC club was the Croûte d’abricots with Lavender & Honey. Although I left out the lavender, it still tasted awesome. So awesome in fact, that I baked this recipe twice: one time with apricots and one time with raspberries.

First time: made half the recipe in a 6" round pan

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

ABC - Homemade Rondo's

Happy belated New Year! I hope you had a good holiday season with lots of oven trips :)

We're starting 2016 with a new recipe source: WeekendBakery.com. I couldn't be more excited about that. I've baked recipes from this blog before with great results and I'm certain you will too.

The first ABC recipe of the year is: Homemade Rondo's. This is a traditional Dutch pastry consisting of a buttery crust with a sweet almond filling that gets its slight tang from the citrus zest. I love how Rondo's are decorated with a whole almond on top. I grew up on these cookies. I usually got them from the grocery store. Sometimes I'd splurge and buy them from a fancy bakery, eating them slightly warm. Yum! I have to admit that these homemade Rondo's are another step above that.

Homemade Dutch almond pastries called Rondo's

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

ABC - Mile-High Vanilla Sponge Cake

I haven't posted anything in a while, I'm surprised I could even log in :o) This post is incredibly late, but I just couldn't get myself to skip it all together. The September recipe for the Avid Bakers was the Mile-High Vanilla Sponge Cake from The Weekend Baker. I love orange so I decided to make the orange-flavored version. Instead of 2 tsp of orange zest though, I used the zest of 2 whole oranges. I didn't measure it but it was probably close to 3 Tbsp. I was planning on adding finely grated semisweet chocolate as well but then forgot as I was in a hurry to get this cake in the oven. The plan was to take it with me to a friends house.

Luckily, it's Fall here now so it's a bit cooler outside where I cooled my cake upside down. In about 1 hour it was fully cooled. Yay! If you would like to join the ABC baking club, please visit the ABC blog to find out more details about how to join.

If you would like to join the ABC baking club, please visit the ABC blog to find out more details about how to join.

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.

Birthday Cake

White Cake with Whipped Cream and Raspberry Gelee

I can't possibly be the only one who bakes their own birthday cake, and yet, when I tell people, they act surprised. How about you? Do you bake your own birthday cake? If you visit my blog (often), you are probably a (home) baker. And you probably don't enjoy store bought cakes that much. Partially hydrogenated frosting anyone? Okay, okay, I can be a bit of a cake snob :o)

While browsing Sandie's blog, Crumbs of Love, I was very impressed with the white cake she made for her daughter's birthday. What I liked the most was the wonderful crumb of the cake and the fact that it had sour cream in it. When my birthday came around, I had the perfect excuse to try out this recipe! One could argue that a birthday is not a time to experiment with new recipes but I had a good feeling about the recipe :o)

A slice of birthday cake heaven :o)