Last week I had some extra time to experiment in the kitchen. Of the 4 experiments I did only one is still not perfected yet, those darn Lemon Coolers. I made a batch and had the texture and size I wanted but when we tried them out with our guinea pigs, I mean our taste-testers, the same comment was made. They needed more lemon.
So I decided to add more lemon. This turned out to be one of the moments you just have to call it quits, walk away, and come back another day for another try. My husband suggested adding double the amount of lemon. Of course he meant lemon zest and I took it for double lemon juice and zest! Needless to say the cookies were awful.
Well back to the drawing boards. Haven't had a chance to work on them again this week but will try them this weekend. Who knows, maybe with all that is going on with these cookies, they'll turn out to be amazing. One could hope! Stay tuned.
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Friday, April 23, 2010
A Chocolate dessert even non-chocolate lovers can enjoy!
So this week has been one of experimenting. I already posted two new breads to the website and let you know about it in a previous blog. If you didn't have a chance to read it, let me introduce them again to you. We've added a Lemon Poppy Seed bread and a Coconut-Banana Bread to our list of tasty items for you to try.
Wednesday, I was being lazy and decided to give the pound cake idea a try. We offer a cream cheese pound cake already. You can purchase it as a loaf form or as a bundt form. The recipe came into the family by way of Kentucky. My grandmother remarried after the lost of my grandfather to a gentleman from Kentucky. Man, did Preston have the thickest drawl out there. Living in Louisiana, I have heard my share of thick southern drawls but his sure beat all. He would make this pound cake and people would rave about it. My mom asked him for the recipe and then I asked her for it. A while ago we were talking about it and my mom mentioned that when my grandmother found out we had it, she stated that not even his daughters have it. So thank you Preston for giving us a little of your family recipes to share. So anyway, I decided to added a heaping amount of cocoa to the recipe to see what it would taste like. The kitchen sure smelled good while it was baking and it looked delicious while it was cooling on the rack. Since I was now running late to church, I cut it up to give out to tasters for their feedback. All who had it said it was unbelievable but it was the comment of a friend that stood out.
Joanne is like me in all her candy choices. She doesn't like chocolate hardly ever and would rather have something sugary instead of something chocolaty. She's even been known to order a birthday cake for someone else in vanilla because she doesn't like chocolate cake. So when she called me and stated, "That was amazing. Oh my goodness. A++" I knew I had a winner. For someone who doesn't eat chocolate much to fall in love with a chocolate dessert, what more feedback could I want? So now you can purchase the Chocolate Cream Cheese Pound Cake from the website. It is only in the bundt version but will be a dessert that you would want more of after you have had a slice.
Wednesday, I was being lazy and decided to give the pound cake idea a try. We offer a cream cheese pound cake already. You can purchase it as a loaf form or as a bundt form. The recipe came into the family by way of Kentucky. My grandmother remarried after the lost of my grandfather to a gentleman from Kentucky. Man, did Preston have the thickest drawl out there. Living in Louisiana, I have heard my share of thick southern drawls but his sure beat all. He would make this pound cake and people would rave about it. My mom asked him for the recipe and then I asked her for it. A while ago we were talking about it and my mom mentioned that when my grandmother found out we had it, she stated that not even his daughters have it. So thank you Preston for giving us a little of your family recipes to share. So anyway, I decided to added a heaping amount of cocoa to the recipe to see what it would taste like. The kitchen sure smelled good while it was baking and it looked delicious while it was cooling on the rack. Since I was now running late to church, I cut it up to give out to tasters for their feedback. All who had it said it was unbelievable but it was the comment of a friend that stood out.
Joanne is like me in all her candy choices. She doesn't like chocolate hardly ever and would rather have something sugary instead of something chocolaty. She's even been known to order a birthday cake for someone else in vanilla because she doesn't like chocolate cake. So when she called me and stated, "That was amazing. Oh my goodness. A++" I knew I had a winner. For someone who doesn't eat chocolate much to fall in love with a chocolate dessert, what more feedback could I want? So now you can purchase the Chocolate Cream Cheese Pound Cake from the website. It is only in the bundt version but will be a dessert that you would want more of after you have had a slice.
Sunday, April 18, 2010
Introducing...
Well, I've decided to let you know now versus waiting until next week about the experiments I worked on yesterday. After playing around with two bread recipes, we have added two new types of breads to the website.
You can now purchase a lemon poppy seed loaf or a coconut banana loaf. Both recipes are amazing but don't take my word for it. Order one or both and find out for yourself. The lemon poppy seed recipe was a recipe I had but had overlooked it when picking out breads to feature on the website. I love lemon poppy seed so as soon as a loaf came out of the oven, I cut into it and enjoyed a very moist, lemon rich slice of goodness. I took my grandmother's banana nut bread recipe and added a little bit of coconut and a splash of dark rum. The bread is delicious and for someone who really doesn't like bananas that is saying a lot.
I'll post later how the lemon coolers come out along with the chocolate pound cake.
Stay tuned.
You can now purchase a lemon poppy seed loaf or a coconut banana loaf. Both recipes are amazing but don't take my word for it. Order one or both and find out for yourself. The lemon poppy seed recipe was a recipe I had but had overlooked it when picking out breads to feature on the website. I love lemon poppy seed so as soon as a loaf came out of the oven, I cut into it and enjoyed a very moist, lemon rich slice of goodness. I took my grandmother's banana nut bread recipe and added a little bit of coconut and a splash of dark rum. The bread is delicious and for someone who really doesn't like bananas that is saying a lot.
I'll post later how the lemon coolers come out along with the chocolate pound cake.
Stay tuned.
Saturday, April 17, 2010
Under Construction
As most of you know, Bob and I both hold down regular day jobs and have Family Secrets Bakery as a side job. This upcoming week is Spring Break for most school system here in Massachusetts and since I'm not traveling with a group of students outside the country or going to some nice tropical place myself, I'm going to spend some time in the kitchen creating new products.
One of the products we've been working on in our spare time are Lemon Coolers. Over 10 years ago I spend some time in Savannah, Georgia on a National Marine Sanctuaries workshop. While touring the city, I picked up some Key Lime Coolers for my husband. They were amazing. Small circular cookies with an overwhelming flavor of Key Lime dusted off with powdered sugar. Recently a customer asked if we made Lemon Coolers. At the time we were concentrating on the Oatmeal cookies but we've always talked about adding more than just the oatmeal based cookies to our product line. I started combing through recipes from my side of the family. These recipes were either passed down or given to my mom at one time or another. For 13 years of my life, my family called Louisiana home. I might not have been born in the southern state, but this is were I grew up and is what I consider home. It was here that I found a recipe for a powdered sugar cookie. Bob first tried a version and the cookie wasn't what we were looking for. He even added a very lemony frosting to add to the top of the cookies. Though good they weren't perfect. I tried another version. This was a comical adventure. I misread a certain ingredient and ended up adding instead of a tablespoon of lemon juice, I added a cup. This made the dough very watery so I tried to thicken it up by adding more of the dry ingredients. Needless to say I knew defeat when I saw it and tried again with a new batch. The third trial came out better than the first trial but still didn't have that citrus kick we were looking for. So this week, I'm going to re-work the recipe and see if I can get a cookie that is light but full of lemon flavor.
Another recipe I'm going to experiment with will be making a Chocolate Pound Cake. I have two recipes for a pound cake. One of the recipes comes from a family member who lived in Kentucky. As far as I know, my mom and I are the only ones to have this recipe. It is a Cream Cheese Pound Cake recipe. Not as heavy as you would think and is very addicting. It is good by itself or with a little bit of apricot preserves on top. I'm going to play around with this recipe and see what would happen if I add either melted chocolate to the mix or some cocoa powder to the mix. My husband is a chocoholic and will eat any chocolate in the house. His behavior has been a joke in our house. I'm not real big on chocolate. I'm more of the sugary candy kind of person but I do enjoy a piece of dark or white chocolate every once in a while. Every time I'm in the mood for a piece of chocolate, there isn't any because he's eaten it all. I've had to hide it in order to have it when I want it. Just another chocolate item for those who love chocolate.
Two more recipes I'll try to get to this week will be bread recipes. I love lemon poppy seed muffins so I'll try a lemon poppy seed bread from a recipe I've filed away and kind of forgot about until now. My grandmother has always made a killer banana nut bread. It's very moist and though I have never loved bananas, I love this recipe. I also love coconut so I'm going to try making a tropical bread with both banana and coconut and see what will happen.
So as you can read, this week will be a week of experimenting with flavors and ingredients. Not sure how it will turn out but since I love baking and it is relaxing and I'm on break, why not try! I'll let you know later how this week turns out.
One of the products we've been working on in our spare time are Lemon Coolers. Over 10 years ago I spend some time in Savannah, Georgia on a National Marine Sanctuaries workshop. While touring the city, I picked up some Key Lime Coolers for my husband. They were amazing. Small circular cookies with an overwhelming flavor of Key Lime dusted off with powdered sugar. Recently a customer asked if we made Lemon Coolers. At the time we were concentrating on the Oatmeal cookies but we've always talked about adding more than just the oatmeal based cookies to our product line. I started combing through recipes from my side of the family. These recipes were either passed down or given to my mom at one time or another. For 13 years of my life, my family called Louisiana home. I might not have been born in the southern state, but this is were I grew up and is what I consider home. It was here that I found a recipe for a powdered sugar cookie. Bob first tried a version and the cookie wasn't what we were looking for. He even added a very lemony frosting to add to the top of the cookies. Though good they weren't perfect. I tried another version. This was a comical adventure. I misread a certain ingredient and ended up adding instead of a tablespoon of lemon juice, I added a cup. This made the dough very watery so I tried to thicken it up by adding more of the dry ingredients. Needless to say I knew defeat when I saw it and tried again with a new batch. The third trial came out better than the first trial but still didn't have that citrus kick we were looking for. So this week, I'm going to re-work the recipe and see if I can get a cookie that is light but full of lemon flavor.
Another recipe I'm going to experiment with will be making a Chocolate Pound Cake. I have two recipes for a pound cake. One of the recipes comes from a family member who lived in Kentucky. As far as I know, my mom and I are the only ones to have this recipe. It is a Cream Cheese Pound Cake recipe. Not as heavy as you would think and is very addicting. It is good by itself or with a little bit of apricot preserves on top. I'm going to play around with this recipe and see what would happen if I add either melted chocolate to the mix or some cocoa powder to the mix. My husband is a chocoholic and will eat any chocolate in the house. His behavior has been a joke in our house. I'm not real big on chocolate. I'm more of the sugary candy kind of person but I do enjoy a piece of dark or white chocolate every once in a while. Every time I'm in the mood for a piece of chocolate, there isn't any because he's eaten it all. I've had to hide it in order to have it when I want it. Just another chocolate item for those who love chocolate.
Two more recipes I'll try to get to this week will be bread recipes. I love lemon poppy seed muffins so I'll try a lemon poppy seed bread from a recipe I've filed away and kind of forgot about until now. My grandmother has always made a killer banana nut bread. It's very moist and though I have never loved bananas, I love this recipe. I also love coconut so I'm going to try making a tropical bread with both banana and coconut and see what will happen.
So as you can read, this week will be a week of experimenting with flavors and ingredients. Not sure how it will turn out but since I love baking and it is relaxing and I'm on break, why not try! I'll let you know later how this week turns out.
Monday, April 12, 2010
What's going on...
It's been a busy few weeks.
First, we found out that we were awarded the 2010 Local Hero Award for Food Artisan by Edible South Shore. You can look for information on these awards in their spring issue and can also read about all the winners in their blog, which will focus on one winner every Friday. Thanks for voting for us. We appreciate it and are humbled.
Second, we survived our first fundraiser drive. Our cookies, along with coffee and other deserts, were the focus of a spring fundraiser drive in some local schools. The week before Easter has us baking over 5,500 cookies. After working our day jobs, we would come home and bake for several hour each night. All total, it took us 48 hours to fill the orders. Since we survived, we're looking forward to doing another fundraiser drive in the fall. If you're interested, give us call.
Third, we just updated the design to the website. Tell us what you think. We're also experimenting in the kitchen with new recipes. Look for them in the future.
First, we found out that we were awarded the 2010 Local Hero Award for Food Artisan by Edible South Shore. You can look for information on these awards in their spring issue and can also read about all the winners in their blog, which will focus on one winner every Friday. Thanks for voting for us. We appreciate it and are humbled.
Second, we survived our first fundraiser drive. Our cookies, along with coffee and other deserts, were the focus of a spring fundraiser drive in some local schools. The week before Easter has us baking over 5,500 cookies. After working our day jobs, we would come home and bake for several hour each night. All total, it took us 48 hours to fill the orders. Since we survived, we're looking forward to doing another fundraiser drive in the fall. If you're interested, give us call.
Third, we just updated the design to the website. Tell us what you think. We're also experimenting in the kitchen with new recipes. Look for them in the future.
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