November Baker's Challenge: Sans Rival Cake

Bakers Challenge blog checking lines: Catherine of Munchie Musings was our November Daring Bakers’ host and she challenged us to make a traditional Filipino dessert – the delicious Sans Rival cake! And for those of us who wanted to try an additional Filipino dessert, Catherine also gave us a bonus recipe for Bibingka which comes from her friend Jun of Jun-blog.

I opted to make only the cake, but really wish I had the time to do both. The cake was really fun - I especially enjoyed the proper French butter cream icing. It was very good. My meringues were a tad chewy but it really didn't take away from the taste as much as I thought it would. This cake is really good and really rich (probably from the cashews).

Here's the recipe:

Sans Rival:
Servings: 12

Ingredients
10 large egg whites, room temp
1 cup (240 ml) (225 gm) (8 oz) white granulated sugar
1 teaspoon (5 ml) (3 gm) cream of tartar
¼ cup (60 ml) (20 gm) (2/3 oz) Dutch processed cocoa (optional and not traditional)
2 cups (480 ml) (240 gm) (8½ oz) chopped, toasted cashews

Directions:
Note: You will need four layers which will mean that you might have to bake in two batches. Be sure to use fresh parchment paper and cooled pans for each batch.

1. Preheat oven to moderate 325°F/160°C/gas mark 3.
2. Line cake pan bottoms with parchment paper and butter and flour the sides really well.
3. In a large clean, dry glass or metal mixing bowl, beat egg whites on medium until foamy (2 mins.). Sprinkle with cream of tartar. Gradually add sugar, a couple of tablespoons at a time, continuing to beat now at high speed until stiff shiny peaks form. (about 7-10 mins.)

4. Fold in nuts, reserving enough to use for decoration.

(Note the more finely ground for folding into meringue. The coarsely ground for is decoration of finished cake.)

5. Divide meringue into four equal parts. Spread in pans, evenly to edges. If doing batches, use fresh parchment paper and cooled pans for each batch.

6. Bake in preheated oven for 30 minutes, or until golden brown. Remove the meringue from the baking pans while still hot; allow to cool slightly. Peel off the parchment paper while it is still warm, it is difficult to remove sometimes when they have completely cooled.

7. When cool, trim edges so that all 4 meringue layers are uniformly shaped. Set aside.

French Buttercream:

Ingredients
5 large egg yolks, room temperature
1 cup (240 ml) (225 gm) (8 oz) white granulated sugar
1/4 cup (60 ml) water
1¼ cup (300 ml) (2½ sticks) (285 gm) (10 oz) unsalted butter, room temperature
Optional Flavorings: 2 oz (55 gm) unsweetened chocolate, melted, or 1½ teaspoon (7 ½ ml) almond extract, or 1½ teaspoon (7 ½ ml) vanilla extract, or any flavor you like

Directions:

1. Put the egg yolks in a mixing bowl. Beat at high speed until the yolks have doubled in volume and are a lemon yellow.
2. Put the sugar and water in a heavy pan and cook over medium heat, stirring the sides down only until all the sugar is dissolved and the syrup reaches 235°F/112°C (or thread stage).
3. With the mixer on high, very slowly pour the syrup down the sides of the bowl, until all has been added. Be careful as the very hot syrup could burn you if it splashes from the beaters. Continue beating on high until the mixture is ROOM TEMPERATURE (about 15 mins). Still on high, beat in the soft, room temperature butter a tablespoon at a time. Add flavoring after you beat in the butter. Refrigerate the buttercream for at least an hour, and whip it smooth just before you use it.
Assembly:
Set bottom meringue on cake board with a dab of butter cream to hold it in place. Spread a thin layer of buttercream and then place another meringue on top. Repeat with a thin layer of buttercream, meringue, thin layer of buttercream, meringue, and finally buttercream the top and sides. Decorate with reserved nuts.

Daring Bakers October: Povitica

Bakers Challenge blog checking lines: The Daring Baker’s October 2011 challenge was Povitica, hosted by Jenni of The Gingered Whisk. Povitica is a traditional Eastern European Dessert Bread that is as lovely to look at as it is to eat!

Povitica is pronounced 'po-va-teet-sa' and was a lot of fun to make. Next time - and I do think there will be a next time - I want to try a savory version of this. I will likely do an egg wash and fill it with spinach, garlic and cheese. This sweet version was tasty, but a bit too sweet for me (yes, there is such a thing!). Actually, we scarfed down an entire loaf in 1/2 a day, so who am I really kidding??

The big challenge to this dessert is the rolling of the dough, which should be so thin that it's transparent. It's rolled out on a sheet and if you can see the pattern of the sheet through the dough, then you're in business. Povitica masters/show offs can actually use the sheet and a flick of the wrist to roll their dough. I'm not among this group so i rolled mine by hand, just like a jelly roll.

Overall I'd say this was successful, although next time I would spread the filling a bit thinner and cook it a touch longer.

Here's the recipe with instructions:

Ingredients

To activate the Yeast:
2 Teaspoons (10 ml/9 gm) Sugar
1 Teaspoon (5 ml/3 gm) All-Purpose (Plain) Flour
½ Cup (120ml) Warm Water
2 Tablespoons (30ml/14 gm/½ oz/2 sachets) Dry Yeast

Dough:
2 Cups (480ml) Whole Milk
¾ Cup (180 ml/170gm/6 oz) Sugar
3 Teaspoons (15 ml/18 gm/2/3 oz) Table Salt
4 Large Eggs
½ Cup (120ml/115 gm/one stick/4 oz) Unsalted Butter, melted
8 cups (1.92 l/1.12 kg/39½ oz/2½ lb) All-Purpose Flour, measure first then sift, divided

Walnut Filling:
7 Cups (1.68 l/1.12 kg/2.5 lbs) Ground English Walnuts
1 Cup (240ml) Whole Milk
1 Cup (240ml/225 gm/2 sticks/8 oz) Unsalted Butter
2 Whole Eggs, Beaten
1 Teaspoon (5ml) Pure Vanilla Extract
2 Cups (480ml/450 gm/16 oz) Sugar
1 Teaspoon (5 ml/4 gm) Unsweetened Cocoa Powder
1 Teaspoon (5 ml/3 gm) Cinnamon

Topping:
½ Cup (120 ml) Cold STRONG Coffee
2 Tablespoons (30 ml/28 gm/1 oz) Granulated Sugar
Melted Butter

To Activate Yeast:
1. In a small bowl, stir 2 teaspoons sugar, 1 teaspoon flour, and the yeast into ½ cup warm water and cover with plastic wrap.
2. Allow to stand for 5 minutes

To Make the Dough:
3. In a medium saucepan, heat the milk up to just below boiling (about 180°F/82°C), stirring constantly so that a film does not form on the top of the milk. You want it hot enough to scald you, but not boiling. Allow to cool slightly, until it is about 110°F/43°C.
4. In a large bowl, mix the scalded milk, ¾ cup (180 gm/170 gm/6 oz) sugar, and the salt until combined.
5. Add the beaten eggs, yeast mixture, melted butter, and 2 cups (480 ml/280 gm/10 oz) of flour.

6. Blend thoroughly and slowly add remaining flour, mixing well until the dough starts to clean the bowl.
7. Turn dough out onto floured surface and knead, gradually adding flour a little at a time, until smooth and does not stick. Note: I did not use all 8 cups of flour
8. Divide the dough into 4 equal pieces (they will each weight about 1.25 pounds/565 grams)
9. Place dough in 4 lightly oiled bowls, cover loosely with a layer of plastic wrap and then a kitchen towel and let rise an hour and a half in a warm place, until doubled in size.
To Make the Filling
10. In a large bowl mix together the ground walnuts, sugar, cinnamon and cocoa.
11. Heat the milk and butter to boiling.
12. Pour the liquid over the nut/sugar mixture.
13. Add the eggs and vanilla and mix thoroughly.
14. Allow to stand at room temperature until ready to be spread on the dough.
15. If the mixture thickens, add a small amount of warm milk.
To Roll and Assemble the Dough:
16. Spread a clean sheet or cloth over your entire table so that it is covered.
17. Sprinkle with a couple of tablespoons to a handful of flour (use flour sparingly)
18. Place the dough on the sheet and roll the dough out with a rolling pin, starting in the middle and working your way out, until it measures roughly 10-12 inches (25½ cm by 30½ cm) in diameter.
19. Spoon 1 to 1.5 teaspoons (5ml to 7 ½ ml/4 gm to 7 gm) of melted butter on top.
20. Using the tops of your hands, stretch dough out from the center until the dough is thin and uniformly opaque. You can also use your rolling pin, if you prefer.
21. As you work, continually pick up the dough from the table, not only to help in stretching it out, but also to make sure that it isn’t sticking.
22. When you think it the dough is thin enough, try to get it a little thinner. It should be so thin that you can see the color and perhaps the pattern of the sheet underneath.23. Spoon filling (see below for recipe) evenly over dough until covered.24. Lift the edge of the cloth and gently roll the dough like a jelly roll.25. Once the dough is rolled up into a rope, gently lift it up and place it into a greased loaf pan in the shape of a “U”, with the ends meeting in the middle. You want to coil the dough around itself, as this will give the dough its characteristic look when sliced.

26. Repeat with remaining three loaves, coiling each rope of dough in its own loaf pan.

27. Brush the top of each loaf with a mixture of ½ cup (120 ml) of cold STRONG coffee and 2 tablespoons (30ml/28 gm/1 oz) of sugar. If you prefer, you can also use egg whites in place of this.

28. Cover pans lightly will plastic wrap and allow to rest for approximately 15 minutes.
29. Preheat oven to moderate 350°F/180°C/gas mark 4.
30. Remove plastic wrap from dough and place into the preheated oven and bake for approximately 15 minutes.
31. Turn down the oven temperature to slow 300°F/150°C/gas mark 2 and bake for an additional 45 minutes, or until done.
32. Remove bread from oven and brush with melted butter.
33. Check the bread at 30 minutes to ensure that the bread is not getting too brown. You may cover the loaves with a sheet of aluminum foil if you need to.
34. Remove from the oven and allow to cool on a wire rack for 20-30 minutes, still in the bread pan. Remember, the bread weighs about 2.5 and it needs to be able to hold its own weight, which is difficult when still warm and fresh out of the oven. Allowing it to cool in the pan helps the loaf to hold its shape.
35. It is recommended that the best way to cut Povitica loaves into slices is by turning the loaf upside down and slicing with a serrated knife.

Daring Baker's: Candylicious!

I've been waiting for weeks and weeks to post my August Daring Baker's Challenge and here it is: 'Candylicious'

Bakers Challenge blog checking lines: The August 2011 Daring Bakers’ Challenge was hosted by Lisa of Parsley, Sage, Desserts and Line Drive and Mandy of What the Fruitcake?!. These two sugar mavens challenged us to make sinfully delicious candies! This was a special challenge for the Daring Bakers because the good folks at http://www.chocoley.com offered an amazing prize for the winner of the most creative and delicious candy!

I opted to make cut/dipped bon bons, two flavours of truffle and a bark candy. Here's what i did:

1) Dolce and Banana Homemade Marshmallow Dipped Chocolates: I made homemade marshmallows, infused with caramelized banana tea and then sliced the marshmallows in half and filled them with caramel before dipping them in dark tempered chocolate

2) Chamomile Lavender Milk Chocolate Truffles: I infused milk chocolate and cream with a chamomile lavender coconut tea and then dipped in tempered dark chocolate
3) Coconut Curry Milk Chocolate Truffles: I infused milk chocolate and cream with a curry and added toasted coconut before dipping in tempered dark chocolate. Surprisingly yummy!
4) Strawberry lime pistachio and sea salt tea biscuit bark: Say that 20 times! I tempered white chocolate, added a bit of strawberry puree, lime zest, honeyed pistachio's and sea salt. I then took every day tea biscuits and poured boiled butter and white and brown sugar over it before baking for 9 minutes. Once removed from the oven I poured my chocolate over it, spread it and froze it until it could break into bark. Next time I would wait for the cookies to cool completely before pouring the chocolate on top. I think the heat of the cookies took away from my tempered chocolate look. Otherwise delicious!

5 AM Muffins

Is it correct to say '5 AM'? Or, should it be '5am' or '5 am'? This is probably one of those times when Google would come in handy. What did we do before Google? Did we just ask each other (kind of like I'm attempting right now)?

It's 9:21 AM on Thursday, August 11th. I have been up for 4 hours and 21 minutes, after about 6 hours of dream filled, fitful sleep. This is actually not bad for me these days. My belly is really big and my body can't stay comfortable for more than 45 mins, max. As a result, I've built a pillow fortress, which helps, but needs major adjusting each time I shift positions. When i woke up this morning to shift, I was so hungry that I just had to get up.

Getting up so early definitely has it's perks: the house is nice at 5 AM. Plus, there is no real rush to do anything. Time takes on a slower quality, which feels rare these days.

To fill my slow moving time, I decided to make muffins. Spelt hemp apple walnut muffins. They were good and baked sort of quickly, which was nice since I was so hungry.

I woke Charlie up with the promise of a hot muffin if he would come downstairs and hang out with me (it was almost time to get up anyway). He seemed to be fairly game, without much convincing. So downstairs we went and muffins we ate.

Here is the recipe, which i found online and adapted by adding the hemp and oil:

Dry (mix in one bowl):
1 1/2 cups of spelt flour
3/4 brown sugar
1/2 cup hemp protien powder
1/3 cup ground flax
1 tsp soda
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp cinnamon
pinch of nutmeg

Wet (mix in other bowl):
1/2 cup yogurt
1 cup almond milk
1 diced apple
1 beaten egg
1 tbsp oil
1 tsp vanilla
walnuts

Mix until just blended and scoop into muffin papers. Sprinkle with brown sugar and cinnamon. Bake for 25 mins at 325 (or until knife comes out clean).

Make Me Make These

The daring baker's challenge is definitely helping me to go beyond my normal baking scope (which, to be honest, has consisted of about a bizzillion batches of chocolate chip cookies lately - I blame it on the pregnancy!)

There are so many things that i want to try to bake, but...I just never get around to them for one reason or another. No more. Here is a list of items, not in order. Family, friends, any requests??

1. Donuts
2. Chelsea buns
3. Croissants
4. Some kind of semifreddo
5. Something kind of visually challenging. Maybe with fondant, perhaps themed for a holiday
6. Oh, and this:

http://www.epicurious.com/articlesguides/bestof/toprecipes/bestcakerecipes/recipes/food/views/Double-Chocolate-Layer-Cake-101275

My dear sister Katie likes chocolate a bit AND her birthday is coming up in 4 weeks. Seems like the perfect excuse to knock one off my list. If the baby holds off, I will definitely make this one by the end of AUgust. I'll post how it turns out.

Daring Baker's July Challenge: Fresh Fraisiers

This was my very first challenge since joining the Daring Baker's. For those of you that don't know about it, it's an online community of baking enthusiasts who eagerly await a monthly challenge. Once the challenge is assigned, 27 days are given to make the item. Variations are allowed, but certain guidelines must also be followed.
For my Fraisier, I stayed fairly close to tradition but decided to make my own almond paste. Most almond paste recipes use egg whites but there's no cooking involved. Since I'm pregnant, I didn't use the egg whites. Instead I boiled water with corn syrup and sugar and then blended it with ground almonds and icing sugar to make a paste. The paste was a bit intense so i cut it with whipped cream and made the icing you see on the top of the cake.

Overall this was a big success and the pastry cream was divine. While it was a really light and summery cake (and a great use of strawberries), it was, as the challenge promised, very labour intensive and took about 4 hours of active time. So...this may be the only Fraisier that I ever make!

The recipe info is here (I used the basic chiffon cake and it was very, very light and airy - I will definitely use this recipe again): http://thedaringkitchen.com/recipe/fresh-fraisiers

Jana of Cherry Tea Cakes was our July Daring Bakers’ host and she challenged us to make Fresh Frasiers inspired by recipes written by Elisabeth M. Prueitt and Chad Robertson in the beautiful cookbook Tartine.

Pretty Old Things

A while ago we discovered Jadite and we never looked back. Now we are building our Jadite stock, trying to get a complete set of dishware, mugs, and the odd mixing bowl.

Jadite was made by Fire King and is a remarkably resilient. It was probably sold as a low end product, but today it's pretty pricey to get. The trouble is that they don't make it anymore, so there's limited stock and a surprising amount of interest - well, I'm not surprised I guess.

Much to our horror, Martha Stewart further popularized our little addiction when she launched her line of jadite inspired items. Her stuff is nice, but it's just not the same...

I'm also loving the Pyrex mixing bowls. My favourite is the wheat design, but all of them are really cool.

A while back I posted about the silver from my great grandmother. The question was whether or not to start using it every day and run it through the dishwasher. We decided to go for it and it's great. The pieces have some tarnish as a result, but the tarnish is pretty and it feels good to get use out of it.

Updated bathroom

(The picture above is the before picture, but without the ugly shower curtain. It's hard to see, but the original tile was pretty hideous)

Our old bathroom was a bit of an illusion. It had been re-done by the previous owner right before he sold the house. Great, right? We quickly learned that it was not so great. The window in the shower wasn't properly water proofed, so needless to say, a bit of a problem in a shower.

The fixtures were cheap and the vanity much too large for the space. We had to put a shower curtain on both sides of the shower to address the window issue. Ugh. And the thing was, the light through that bathroom window was some of the best light in our house. We needed to do something, and fast!

As usual, I had very specific ideas. The tiles needed to be flat faced, with no 'puff' to them. I didn't want to get subway tiles and I knew I wanted white. Long story short, I searched forever and finally found the over sized laser cut tiles we used. We didn't want to replace the tub, as it was a deep soaker tub and it seemed crazy to get rid of it. The trouble was that it had a distracting wavy thing on the front, which I thought would not look good with the clean line look we wanted. This meant building out and tiling in front of the tub to cover it up. the contractor was skeptical, but he did a great job and it totally works!

Once we gutted it, we breathed a sigh of satisfied relief about deciding to re-do the bathroom. The original owner put the tile right on the dry wall! The sub floor was unsafe! He dropped the ceiling by over a foot just to accommodate the vent pipe! What a lazy trickster!

Once again, i wanted something minimal with clean lines but that still had a vintage vibe. We wanted to maximize the light and scale things according to the somewhat small space. While I was desperate for polished nickel fixtures, they were so pricey and just not the right choice for this house. Instead we focused on 1920's style fixtures and figuring out how to work with the modern over sized tiles so that they would work with the vintage stuff. The solution to that was to brick lay them (much like a traditional subway tile).

We chose a limestone floor in rectangular 'French Linen' (from 'Stone Tile'), as although we loved the classic but now very popular marble and hex options, we didn't want to be trendy.

A glass shower wall completed the look and now the space is very light filled and a pleasure to shower in. And the best part is that everything was done properly, so we don't have to worry about water coming down into the dining room!

Bird Mobile

This mobile is truly one of a kind. It was made by my sister Julia and her partner Emery and was such a labour of love. Hours of hand sewing resulted in this AMAZING mobile. Each bird is a unique combo of fabric and personality and the branches are beautifully lacquered.

I can't wait for our little guy to lay his eyes on this master piece! Julia said she found this modible craft on a blog, so I'll see if I can get the information from her to post.

Living room re-do

When we first moved in, our living dining room was a boring box. It drove me crazy! I knew this house was meant to have character, as it was originally built in the 20's, but it had all been stripped out.

When we added our furniture, it just felt dark and old lady-ish because we had so much wood and antique stuff. I worked on Charlie for AGES to re-do the living room (he doesn't like change) and finally he was on board. We're almost done, but this is it so far:

• Painted walls 'Delaware Putty' and trim 'Dune White' (Benjamin Moore)
• Added wooden shutters to windows
• Removed pre-fab banister and had one custom made, true to the era of the house
• Added a foyer, with a stained glass transom, circa 1890 something
• Found a great vintage fireplace (A Matter of Time on Jones), also from the 20's and then sourced a time appropriate tile surround from an architectural salvage (The Door Store)
• Changed all the lighting
• Replaced all of the furniture, mixing high and low, new and old
• We got the living room chairs from a cool retro store in Dundas, ON (Charlie's find!!)
• The cabinet in the dining area is from an antique fair - it's an old wash stand
• The couch and pillows are Crate and barrel and the dining room table is Ikea
• The dining chairs are from the Queen street antique shop and originated from an old school auditorium in Toronto
• The little bird I got in Stockholm
• The dining room photo was a gift from our friends Sanjay and Nicole (taken by Sanjay)
• We replaced the hideous cut glass front door insert with a simple frosted glass pane

Next we're adding a big piece of art to the dining room wall and a few more odds and ends...all fun and all worth the work!

Oh, and we funded some of it by selling our old furniture on Craigslist!!! Love Craigslist.

The pics are a bit mixed up, but the before ones are the ones with no furniture. It's funny, it looks brighter before, but I think that's due to the time of day...

Cottage Classics

The cottage is all about food for us. We have so much free time that it's easy to cook bigger meals and we like to eat and eat and eat!

I'm a big soup maker and beans are big in our lives. Here are a couple of items we made last week at Kennisis Lake:

Corn Chowder:

• I roasted 4 tomatoes and 6 ears of corn on the bbq
• In the meantime I sauteed onions, garlic , celery and fennel
  
• Then I added thyme, salt and pepper and chopped waxy white potatoes (2)
• Then I added the corn and tomato and a couple of veggie soup cubes and water
• I boiled and simmered for ages then pulsed it in the blender until chunky
• Finally I added fresh basil and salt and pepper to taste

This was delicious!! Next time I'm going to add a bit of chipoltle or maybe even a touch of liquid smoke.

Next we made quesadilla snacks:

Sauteed mushrooms, onions and garlic (in butter)
Spread on soft tortilla with gouda
Add fresh cilantro

Grill on bbq!

Also pictured are adobe beans (no recipe - sorry)

Apricot Basil Shortbread Tart

This is a summertime favourite in our house. We wait for the apricots to come in season and then I whip this little gem together. The crust uses a hard boiled yolk, which is what interested me about this recipe in the first place.

I find this tastes a bit better with a touch of extra salt in the crust and absolutely no more basil than is called for in the recipe. The end result is really pretty - I usually serve it on a dark wooden plate and sprinkle it with a bit of basil for the green colour (I didn't do that in this photo though).

Here's the recipe, which I found online and belongs to Roy Shvartzapel, a pastry chef at Cyrus in Healdsburg, California:

Ingredients

Pastry Cream

• 1 cup whole milk
• 5 tablespoon granulated sugar
• 1/4 cup packed basil leaves with stems
• 2 large egg yolks
• 2 1/2 tablespoons cornstarch
• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter

Pastry

• 1 hard-boiled egg yolk
• 1 stick plus 6 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 1/2 cup confectioners' sugar
• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/4 cup potato starch
• 1 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt

Topping

• 6 apricots (1 1/4 pounds), halved
• 3 tablespoon granulated sugar
• 1/3 cup apricot jam, melted

Directions

Make the Pastry Cream

In a saucepan, combine 3/4 cup of the milk with the sugar and basil; bring to a simmer. Remove the milk from the heat and let stand for 15 minutes. Remove the basil and squeeze any milk back into the pan; discard the basil.

In a small bowl, whisk the remaining 1/4 cup of milk with the yolks and cornstarch until smooth. Slowly whisk the egg yolk mixture into the warm milk; bring to a simmer over moderate heat, whisking constantly until very thick, 2 minutes. Remove from the heat and whisk in the butter until melted. Scrape the cream into a bowl. Press a piece of plastic wrap directly on the surface and refrigerate until chilled, 2 hours.

Make the Pastry

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees . Spray a 14-by-4 1/2-inch rectangular tart pan with a removable bottom with nonstick cooking spray. In the bowl of a standing mixer, beat the hard-boiled egg yolk with the butter and sugar at medium speed until smooth, about 2 minutes. Add the flour, potato starch and salt and beat at low speed until just combined. Using lightly floured hands, press the dough evenly over the bottom and up the side of the tart pan. Refrigerate the crust for 30 minutes, or until chilled.

Bake the crust for about 25 minutes, until golden. Transfer the crust to a rack and let stand until cooled, about 1 hour.

Make the Topping

Increase the oven temperature to 450 degrees . Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Arrange the apricot halves cut side up on the paper and sprinkle all over with the sugar. Roast for about 20 minutes, until the apricots are tender and lightly browned. Let the apricots stand until completely cooled, about 30 minutes.

Unmold the crust and transfer it to a serving plate. Using a small offset spatula, spread the cream evenly in the crust. Arrange the apricots on the cream, cut sides down, and brush with the melted jam. Cut the tart crosswise into strips and serve at once.

Notes

To make a 9-inch round tart, press the dough into a 9-inch round fluted tart pan with a removable bottom. Use 10 apricots and 1/4 cup of sugar for sprinkling. Double the pastry cream. Bake for 40 minutes.

Making Room for Baby!

Designing the baby's room was challenging but a good time. After obsessing over EVERY element I decided to make some stuff from scratch, rather than buy. My overall goal was a really sweet room that was definitely 'baby' but not too matchy or too gendered. It was important to have a really minimalist look that felt tied together and had some of the vintage echoes from the rest of the house.

We got the room painted in good old 'Cloud white' (Benjamin Moore) and bought the crib and dresser from Ikea. The curtains are in 'Milk Pail' and they're Martha Stewart. I made all of the art and floor pillows, with the exception of a velvet grey one that I bought, we re-purposed an old vintage chair, and I bought these cute little grey sheep skin rugs for the floor. My friend Rachel bought us a beautiful blanket for our shower and it fit in beautifully with everything.

The pictures where super easy to make:

Take vintage wall paper or scrapbook paper and cut out any shape you want. Glue it to card stock and frame it. How simple is that?? And not pricey at all.

For the pillows, i used the same shapes as I did for the art, and just used fabric paint in the palette of the nursery. Unfortunately, the fabric paint colours dried a little too bright, as compared with how they looked in the bottle. I wanted something a little more muted, but it wasn't the end of the world. I ended up making some chocolate brown elephant pillows for my sister's nursery too - it was a really unique and easy gift!