The Nifty Foodie

Am I the only person who is shocked that Christmas just passed? I can’t believe it. Neighbors are taking down lights, and our tree looks SO empty without gifts under it. My favorite holiday is over, and crazy enough, it’s time for a new year. 2012.

Time to take the shrink wrap off of the new planner and get used to writing “2012″ on papers/emails/etc. This is just crazy.

Also crazy…sometime in 2012, my 4 year blogiversary is happening and my 3 year wedding anniversary is happening too. WHAT?

It’s a lot to look forward to, but before everyone rings in the new year, I just wanted to share with y’all the top 10 posts of 2011.

10. Strawberry Swiss Meringue Buttercream – This was my first time making SMBC, and I swear, if you haven’t tried SMBC before, just do it. Please?

9. Pecan Pie Macarons – Gotta love macarons. These were really a huge favorite for Thanksgiving, and the star shape (which was a happy accident) made them super cute and festive!

8. Restaurant Style Queso Blanco – This is it. The ultimate queso blanco. If you’re as addicted to queso as me, you’d understand how wonderful it is to FINALLY have a recipe for this!

7. Strawberry Cream Cake – I’m actually glad I compiled this top 10, because I sort of forgot about this cake. Since it’s currently strawberry season in Louisiana, I think I MUST make this cake again. Yum!

6. Peppermint Bark Cheesecake Truffles – This is the recipe that made my year, basically. I still can’t believe I won that recipe contest, and I’ve been told by a few friends who made this that these little truffles were a hit at their holiday parties! So happy to hear that!

5. Banana Nutella “Ice Cream” – Two ingredient “ice cream”. It’s basically awesome and couldn’t be any easier. Your food processor does all the work!

4. Grilled Corn Grits – I can’t be from the South, and not have a post about grits. I promise you if you make this, your hips may never be the same again, but your taste buds will tell you it’s completely worth it!

3. Easy Pasta Salad – My first (and so far, only) vlog. I might get the courage to make one again, since you guys seemed to like it so much!

2. Cooking For Kids – The infamous post. Yup, who’da thought that a soda cupcake would get so much response from you guys (both good and bad)…yikes!

1. S’mores for a Shower – Nutella S’mores. I can see why you guys loved this one so much. I’m sort of craving s’mores right now, actually.

I hope you have a wonderful New Year with your family and friends, and thank you so much for reading The Nifty Foodie! See y’all in 2012!

One of the last things you think about in December is citrus. To me, citrus screams bright colors and summery flavors, but in Louisiana, the end of the Fall/beginning of Winter is our citrus season. Satsumas and Louisiana Navels and Meyer Lemons…oh my! I’m crazy about the local citrus, for sure!

A couple of years ago, my husband bought a Meyer Lemon tree for our little backyard, and I couldn’t have been more thrilled! Meyer Lemons are a special lemon…they are a lot sweeter and way juicier than your average lemon. They just scream, “Make me into a dessert, woman!” When our tree made 10 lemons this year, I was more than happy to make these into a dessert!

When I think about lemon desserts, I think about lemon bars. Since I’m personally not a fan of lemon desserts (I know, I’m a weirdo!), I made a batch of these for my husband and his coworkers. My husband told me that his coworkers absolutely loved them, and I need to send desserts more often! (In case they’re reading this, that’s definitely not the last of the desserts that I’m sending him with!)

Meyer Lemon Bars
Source: Ina Garten

Ingredients:

For the crust:

• 2 sticks unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 2 cups flour
• 1/8 teaspoon kosher salt

For the lemon filling:

• 6 large eggs, at room temperature
• 3 cups granulated sugar
• 2 tablespoons grated meyer lemon zest
• 1 cup freshly squeezed meyer lemon juice
• 1 cup flour
• Confectioners’ sugar, for dusting

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

2. To make the crust: Cream the butter and sugar in your mixer for about 2 minutes, until fluffy. In another bowl, whisk together the flour and salt. Turn the mixer to low and slowly add the flour mixture to the butter mixture until the crust is just mixed. Take the dough out of the mixer and roll into a ball on a well-floured surface. Pat some flour on your hands and flatten the dough. Then, press it into a 9×13 cake pan and make sure there’s about a 1/2 inch edge of crust along the edges of the pan. Chill the dough in the fridge for about 30 minutes.

3. Bake the crust in the oven for 15-20 minutes, until it just starts to brown. Allow the pan to cool on a wire rack, and keep the oven preheated.

4. To make the filling: whisk the eggs, sugar, lemon zest/juice and flour in a bowl until well combined. Pour the mixture over the crust once it has cooled, and bake for 30-35 minutes, until the filling has set. Place the cake pan on a wire rack and allow to cool. Before serving, lightly dust the bars with confectioners’ sugar.

When I started my food blog almost 4 years ago, I never expected that I would make so many friends through this. While I’ve only met a handful of bloggers in real life, I consider so many of them to be dear friends of mine. When my friend, Amy of Sing For Your Supper announced that she was pregnant, I smiled and felt like I needed to run to Texas and give her a huge congratulatory hug. I know that sounds absolutely crazy, but I just feel like my friendships online are just as real as the ones I have face-to-face. I was absolutely flattered when Kelsey of Apple A Day asked me to contribute to Amy’s (all sweets) virtual baby shower! I knew that my contribution had to be pink, since Amy is expecting a little girl, so I decided to make cupcakes with a (super pink) strawberry swiss meringue buttercream!

I was actually slightly intimidated here, because this was my first official swiss meringue buttercream. I was armed with online pointers about what to do if everything goes wrong, since sadly, if something can go wrong with a recipe, it usually goes wrong for me.

Much to my surprise, though, the buttercream came together perfectly. I was waiting for the separation, the curdling, the “Oh dangit, I did it again!”, but no. It whipped up beautifully and tasted so so good! As in, I want to make all of my birthday cakes with swiss meringue buttercream from now on. Seriously. If you’ve never made a swiss meringue buttercream (also fondly known as SMBC) before, just try it. If you’re like me, and you’re scared of all of the things that can go wrong, read this awesome blog post by Confessions of a Foodie Bride to be a little more prepared.

As for the cake, this was actually a recipe I’ve made before, which is absolutely fabulous. I think it’s my favorite from-scratch cake recipe to date. The whipped egg whites just make the batter so light and perfect. It’s a good standard cake recipe to try.

If you want to check out what everyone else made for Amy’s baby shower, check out the round-up posts at Kelsey’s blog (the hostess for the baby shower) and Amy’s blog (go congratulate the momma-to-be)!

Strawberry Swiss Meringue Buttercream
Source: Martha Stewart

Ingredients:

• 4 large egg whites
• 1 1/4 cups sugar
• 1 1/2 cups (3 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature, cut into tablespoons
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 1 cup of fresh strawberries, pureed in a food processor (using part of the adaptation mentioned on Martha’s website)

Directions:

1. In the heatproof bowl set over a saucepan of simmering water, combine the egg whites and sugar. Cook, whisking constantly, until sugar has dissolved and mixture is warm to the touch (about 160 degrees).
2. Pour the mixture into your stand mixer bowl fitted with the whisk attachment. Beat the egg-white mixture on high speed until it holds stiff (but not dry) peaks. Once it reaches that point and the mixture isn’t cool yet (just feel the sides of the bowl to find out), continue beating on low until the mixture is fluffy and cooled, about 6 minutes.
3. Switch to the paddle attachment. With mixer on medium-low speed, add butter several tablespoons at a time, beating a minute or so after each addition of butter. (If frosting appears to separate after all the butter has been added, beat on medium-high speed until smooth again, 3 to 5 minutes more.) Add in vanilla. Beat on lowest speed to eliminate any air bubbles, about 2 minutes. Stir in strawberry puree with a rubber spatula until frosting is smooth. If your frosting isn’t pink enough to your liking, add a touch of pink food coloring.

Strawberry shortcake is one of my favorite desserts. You can’t go wrong with pound cake, whipped cream and fresh, juicy berries. Sadly, this dessert has to be assembled right before serving, because the juices from the berries usually makes the cake soggy and the whipped cream deflates fairly quickly.

However, leave it to Cooks Illustrated to come up with a way to solve the common problems that strawberry shortcake presents. This whipped cream contains cream cheese, which keeps the whipped cream from deflating, and after macerating the berries, the recipe calls for you to reduce the juice to a syrup to avoid the standard soggy shortcake.

The results? This dessert ended up tasting fantastic. I brought it to a BBQ, and it wasn’t served until a few hours later, and it still tasted just like freshly assembled shortcake. Perfection. I wish I made this back when it was strawberry season out here. As you can see in the picture, the strawberries definitely were not local.

Strawberry Cream Cake
Source: Cooks Illustrated

Ingredients:

Cake:

• 1 1/4 cups cake flour (5 ounces)
• 1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• 1 cup sugar (7 ounces)
• 5 large eggs (2 whole and 3 separated), room temperature
• 6 tbsp. unsalted butter , melted and cooled slightly
• 2 tbsp. water
• 2 tsp. vanilla extract

Strawberry Filling:

• 2 lbs. fresh strawberries (medium or large, about 2 quarts), washed, dried, and stemmed
• 4 – 6 tbsp. sugar
• 2 tbsp. Kirsch (Note: I didn’t use this ingredient and the cake came out fine)
• pinch salt

Whipped Cream

• 8 oz. cream cheese , room temperature
• 1/2 cup sugar (3 1/2 ounces)
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract
• 1/8 tsp. salt
• 2 cups heavy cream

Directions:

1. For the cake, move the oven rack to lower-middle position and preheat oven to 325 degrees. Grease and flour a round 9 by 2-inch cake pan or a 9-inch springform pan and line with parchment paper.
2. Whisk flour, baking powder, salt, and all but 3 tablespoons sugar in a mixing bowl. Whisk in 2 whole eggs and 3 yolks (reserving whites for later), butter, water, and vanilla; whisk until smooth.
3. In clean bowl of stand mixer fitted with whisk attachment, beat remaining 3 egg whites at medium-low speed until frothy, 1 to 2 minutes. With machine running, gradually add remaining 3 tablespoons sugar, increase speed to medium-high, and beat until soft peaks form, 60 to 90 seconds. Stir one-third of whites into batter to lighten. Then, add remaining whites and gently fold into batter until no white streaks remain.
4. Pour batter into prepared pan and bake until toothpick or wooden skewer inserted into center of cake comes out clean, 30 to 40 minutes. Cool in pan 10 minutes, then invert cake onto greased wire rack; peel off and discard parchment. Invert cake again; cool completely, about 2 hours.
5. For the strawberry filling, halve 24 of best-looking berries and reserve for later. Quarter remaining berries; toss with 4 to 6 tablespoons sugar (depending on sweetness of berries) in medium bowl and let sit 1 hour, stirring occasionally.
6. Strain juices from berries and reserve (you should have about 1/2 cup). In a food processor fitted with metal blade, give macerated berries five 1-second pulses (you should have about 1 1/2 cups). In small saucepan over medium-high heat, simmer reserved juices and Kirsch until syrupy and reduced to about 3 tablespoons, 3 to 5 minutes. Pour reduced syrup over macerated berries, add pinch of salt, and toss to combine. Set aside until cake is cooled.
7. For the whipped cream, when the cake has fully cooled, place the cream cheese, sugar, vanilla, and salt in bowl of a stand mixer fitted with whisk attachment. Whisk the mixture at medium-high speed until light and fluffy, 1 to 2 minutes, scraping down bowl with rubber spatula as needed. Reduce speed to low and slowly add in the heavy cream. When almost fully combined, increase speed to medium-high and beat until mixture holds stiff peaks, 2 to 2 1/2 minutes more, scraping bowl as needed (you should have about 4 1/2 cups).
8. To assemble the cake, using large serrated knife, carefully slice cake into three even layers.
9. Place bottom layer of cake on a cardboard round or cake plate and arrange ring of 20 strawberry halves, cut sides down and stem ends facing out, around perimeter of cake layer. Pour one half of pureed berry mixture (about 3/4 cup) in center, then spread to cover any exposed cake. Gently spread about one-third of whipped cream (about 1 1/2 cups) over berry layer, leaving 1/2-inch border from edge. Place middle cake layer on top and press down gently (whipped cream layer should become flush with cake edge). Repeat with 20 additional strawberry halves, remaining berry mixture, and half of remaining whipped cream; gently press last cake layer on top. Spread remaining whipped cream over top; decorate with remaining cut strawberries. Serve, or chill for up to 4 hours.

I absolutely love the flavor of mangoes. I actually didn’t have fresh mango up until about 3 years ago, but it was totally love at first bite! I’ve been eating them every summer ever since!

So, when I saw a case of mangoes on sale at the store, I knew I had to give mango sorbet a try.

As much as I love strawberry and watermelon sorbet, I was very surprised to find that this mango sorbet had a very silky, rich texture. It was absolutely delicious, and I think this fruit sorbet is my favorite so far. Another hit from the infamous ice cream book, The Perfect Scoop. (I highly recommend this book if you own an ice cream maker, by the way!) My family absolutely loved this sorbet too…it was such a refreshing dessert to serve in this crazy heat that we’re experiencing lately!

Mango Sorbet
Source: mildly adapted from The Perfect Scoop

Ingredients:

• 2 large, ripe mangoes (about 2 lbs.), peeled and pitted
• 2/3 cup sugar
• 2/3 cup water
• 4 tsp. freshly squeezed lime juice
• 1 tbsp. light rum
• Pinch of salt

Directions:

1. Cut the fruit of the mango into chunks and place them in a blender or food processor with the sugar, water, lime juice, rum and salt.
2. Puree the sorbet mixture until completely smooth.
3. Add rum/lime juice to taste, after tasting the pureed mixture. Chill in the refrigerator for about an hour.
4. Freeze in an ice cream maker according to the manufacturer’s instructions.  Store in an airtight container in the freezer.