Category Archives: dessert

Guest Post: Jack’s Lemon Cherry Bread

January 4, 2025 alaskaknitnat Leave a comment

My son is becoming quite the cook. Over the winter break he did some baking, so I asked him to write down the recipe for his most recent quick bread, inspired by a different Natasha cook of Natasha’s Kitchen.

This simple bread has a lovely hint of lemon flavor that pairs perfectly with the dried tart Montmorency cherries we always buy from Costco.

Lemon Cherry Quick Bread

Makes 1 loaf

Ingredients:

¾ cup + 1 teaspoon granulated sugar, divided
1 teaspoon honey
1/4 cup milk
Zest of 1 large lemon
1/4 cup lemon juice, freshly squeezed
1 1/2 cups + 1/2 tablespoon all-purpose flour, divided
1 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
6 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
2 large eggs
1 cup dried cherries

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350F. Butter a glass loaf pan then dust with flour, tapping out the excess flour.

In a measuring cup, combine 1 teaspoon sugar, honey, milk, lemon zest, and lemon juice. Set aside.

In a medium mixing bowl, whisk together the 1 1/2 cups flour, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.

In a large mixing bowl, cream the butter and granulated sugar on medium/high speed, about 3 minutes. Beat in the eggs, mixing until well incorporated.

Add flour mixture in 2 parts, alternating with the milk mixture and mixing on medium/low speed just until incorporated with each addition. Scrape the sides of the bowl with a spatula as needed.

Coat the dried cherries in the 1/2 tablespoon of flour and add to the batter just until incorporated. Spread the batter into your prepared pan and bake for 50-60 minutes until golden on top and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Let cool in the pan for 10-15 minutes then transfer loaf to a cooling rack.

alaska, Cooking, dessert, recipes

Strawberry Rhubarb Curd

May 24, 2020 alaskaknitnat Leave a comment

Our new home has a rhubarb plant – the first one I’ve ever owned. And that means so many possibilities…for crumbles, crisps and pies. I’m not a fan of crumbles, crisps or pies, so I’m on a mission to find other recipes that use this super-tart plant.

I came across this recipe for a curd, which is sort of like a pudding. I tweaked it slightly and accidentally doubled the sugar, which turned out quite nice! Turns out curd is a really forgiving recipe, so it’s ok if you have more or less of an ingredient.

This turned out so perfectly delicious. Tart, sweet, creamy – a wonderful alternative to the typical strawberry rhubarb fare. I enjoy it straight out of the jar, but you could put it in crêpes, on toast, on pancakes, the world is your rhubarb curd!

Strawberry Rhubarb Curd

Makes about 4 servings.

Ingredients:

150 g chopped rhubarb, fresh or thawed
100 g chopped strawberries
zest of 1 lemon
3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
3 eggs
1 egg yolk
1/3 to 1/2 cup sugar (depending on your sweetness preference)
2 tablespoons butter

Directions:

In a small saucepan, combine the rhubarb, strawberries, zest and lemon juice. Heat over medium flame till simmering, cover and simmer on low for about 7 minutes. Mash with a potato masher after a few minutes to break it up as it softens.

Purée the mixture using either a food processor or immersion blender. Set aside.

Using a double boiler or two small saucepans that can stack, fill the bottom pot with 1 inch of water. Bring to a simmer, turn to med/low flame, and add the other pot on top. Whisk together the eggs, yolk and sugar until sugar is well incorporated.

While constantly whisking, slowly add the rhubarb purée. It will thicken as you whisk, turning a lighter color. Whisk until it’s thick enough to coat the back of a spoon.

Stir in the butter till melted. Pour into small jars, add lids, and let cool to room temperature before placing in the fridge. Curd should keep for a couple of weeks, but it may get eaten up before then!

Cooking, dessert, Holiday, recipes

Lowbush Cranberry Tart

October 29, 2017 alaskaknitnat 6 Comments

The holidays are nigh and it’s time to get creative in the kitchen! Last year for Thanksgiving I served a cranberry curd tart offered up by The New York Times. It was tangy and sweet but the recipe was burdensome, from the peeling of the hazelnuts to pressing the cranberries through a sieve. I thought I’d do my own version for this year’s Thanksgiving table using my own handpicked lowbush cranberries.

I opted for a vanilla wafer crust and made a couple of other changes. You can of course use store-bought cranberries and this recipe would turn out just as vividly red and delicious. This is a great alternative to the often-overlooked cranberry sauce.

Cranberry Tart

Inspired by The New York Times recipe

Ingredients for the crust:

60 vanilla wafers
1/4 cup sugar
1/3 cup melted butter

Ingredients for the curd:

12 oz. lowbush cranberries (store bought is fine)
1 cup sugar
1 orange
1 stick of butter
2 eggs plus 2 egg yolks

Directions for the crust:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Place wafers in a food processor and pulse until finely ground. Place in a bowl with sugar and melted butter and stir till combined. Press the crumbs into a pie pan. Bake for 10 minutes and set aside for later.

Directions for the curd:

Peel the orange with a vegetable peeler and juice the orange. It should be about 1/2 cup of juice. Place juice, peels, cranberries and sugar into a saucepan. Bring to a simmer and let cook for about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally, until berries are popped and softened. Press the berries with the back of a wooden spoon now and then.

Remove the peels and place the mixture into a blender. Blend until smooth. You should have about 2 cups. Pour back into the saucepan with the butter and stir until butter is melted.

Whisk the eggs in a small bowl. Add 1/2 cup or so of cranberry mixture to the eggs to temper them, then mix the eggs back into the saucepan.

Heat over medium-low heat, stirring frequently, until mixture is thickened and nearly bubbling, about 10 minutes. Let mixture cool completely. You can place the curd in the fridge overnight, if you’d like.

Spread the cooled cranberry curd into the pie pan and bake at 350 degrees F for 10 minutes. Let cool.

baking, dessert

Unicorn treats

April 30, 2017 alaskaknitnat Leave a comment

If you aren’t aware, unicorns are amazing. Starbucks will tell you so. During an evening with friends the other night we discussed the rainbow frappuccino that is sweeping the social media nation. What other foods could we transform into unicorns? The answer was simple: rice crispy treats. We brainstormed the ideal unicorn treat. Obviously it would need fruity pebbles to make it rainbow.

Then my husband made them. I was stunned as I’m usually the cook in the family. So join in on the unicorn craze and make this deliciously fruity unicorn treat.

Unicorn Treats – A spin on the traditional Rice Krispies treat

Ingredients:

4 cups Rice Krispies cereal
2 cups Fruity Pebbles cereal
3 tablespoons butter
a couple of handfuls of Lucky Charms marshmallows
1 bag mini marshmallows

Directions:

Coat a casserole pan with cooking spray and set aside.

In a large saucepan melt the butter over medium heat. Add the mini marshmallows and stir until melted.

Remove from heat. Stir in the remaining ingredients.

Using a buttered spatula spread the mixture into the pan. Cool and cut into squares. Go grab a unicorn frap and feel the sugar high.

baking, dessert, recipes

Sparkling sake cupcakes

February 26, 2017 alaskaknitnat Leave a comment

Lately my four-year-old son has been interested in science experiments, which consist of his mixing random kitchen ingredients together into a nasty gloop and watching what happens.

Not that I disapprove of his experimenting but I would rather he make a kitchen mess if we were actually preparing something edible.

I suggested cupcakes but we were running low on milk, so I harkened back to my one-and-only successful baking recipe: pink champagne cake. I didn’t have any champagne but I had a delightful little bottle of sparkling sake my husband had bought for me.

Instead of a whole cake I halved the recipe and we made lovely pink cupcakes. You can too! By using effervescent booze the cupcakes turn out airy and not overly sweet.

Pink sparkling sake cupcakes

Makes about 12 cupcakes

Ingredients:

1.5 cups all-purpose flour
1.5 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 stick of butter, softened
1 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 egg whites
3 drops red food coloring
1 cup sparkling sake or champagne

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Mix together the flour, baking powder and salt in a medium bowl. Set aside. With a Kitchen Aid mixer, beat the butter and sugar for several minutes till fluffy. Mix in the vanilla. Add the egg whites one at a time then mix in the food coloring. Beat for a couple of minutes. Incorporate the flour and sake in alternating batches of three, starting and ending with the flour. This way the champagne won’t curdle (but it’s ok if it does).

Add cupcake liners to a cupcake pan. Pour batter into pan and bake for about 20 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Let cool completely before adding icing. If you’re at a loss for icing, here’s my recipe:

4 oz. cream cheese, softened
1/4 cup sugar
1 cup of heavy whipping cream

Whip together the sugar and cream cheese. When fully combined, add the whipping cream and beat till you get stiff peaks. Slice up fresh strawberries for garnish.

alaska, dessert, recipes

Harvesting Anchorage: Fireweed Honey + Wildflower Tea

July 8, 2015 alaskaknitnat 1 Comment

My old friend Ivan Night is a man of many talents; he’s a musician, an educator, a sound technician, a beer brewer, but for the sake of this blog post we’ll stick to just one of his titles: an apiarist.

Ivan has been keeping bees for about eight years. His family has owned and operated Alaska Wild Teas for more than three decades, so honey is a natural side project. Check the bottom of this post for a homemade tea recipe.

Recently I visited Ivan’s home to see how he harvests honey from his busy little bees.

Continue reading Harvesting Anchorage: Fireweed Honey + Wildflower Tea →

breakfast, Cooking, dessert, recipes

Wild Cranberry & Lemon Muffins

September 9, 2014 alaskaknitnat 6 Comments

This is my favorite time of year in Anchorage. The air is crisp and smells of earth and cranberries. Cranberries are my favorite wild berry to pick because they are durable, high in nutritive value and they freeze well. They can also be substituted for any recipe that calls for commercial cranberries.

I only pick low-bush cranberries, also called lingonberries. These short plants can be found in most Anchorage forests. They have round, shiny leaves and if there’s enough sunlight during the summer they bear tart, red berries. High-bush cranberries, which are abundant in Anchorage, have a similar flavor but they have a large seed in each berry, must be strained during processing and aren’t pleasing to eat whole.

One would be inclined to harvest low-bush cranberries when they are at their brightest red color, but it’s best to wait until after the first frost when they’ve turned a deep wine red. I don’t know the science behind it, but the berries become juicier after they’ve endured a frost.

I found buried in my freezer a pint of last year’s cranberries. So to make way for this year’s harvest, I decided on a simple muffin recipe based on this one from Simple Nourished Living.

I’m not much of a bakist, so I was surprised by how thick the batter was. Have no fear, for these muffins were fluffy, tart, sweet and zesty. It’s like a party in my mouth!

Wild Cranberry & Lemon Muffins

Makes 12 muffins

Ingredients:

1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup whole-wheat flour
1 Tbs. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
scant 1/3 cup sugar
zest of one lemon
3/4 cup milk
1 egg
1/2 cup melted coconut oil, cooled
1 cup low-bush cranberries, frozen or thawed

Directions:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

In a large bowl combine the dry ingredients and the lemon zest.

In another bowl combine the milk, egg and oil.

Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and mix until just combined. The batter should be lumpy and wet, but almost the consistency of dough. If it’s too dry add a little more milk. Fold in the cranberries and divide batter into a muffin tin lined with cupcake liners. Bake 20 minutes or until golden brown on top. Let cool for a few minutes before removing muffins from tin and placing on a cooling rack.

baking, Cooking, dessert, recipes

Banana Cupcakes with Dulce de Leche Icing

April 28, 2014 alaskaknitnat Leave a comment

We never seem to consume an entire bunch of bananas. There’s always those sorry two or three sitting in the bottom of the fruit bowl, waiting to be make into banana bread. I don’t even like banana bread all that much, but I hate to waste the darn things.

I decided to spice things up a bit and use my overripe bananas for something a little more decadent than sliced bread.

I basically just made regular banana bread but put it in cupcake liners and topped it with a sweet and salty icing.

My recipe was inspired by this one from Culinary Couture.

Banana bread:

1/2 cup softened coconut oil
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
2 eggs
1.75 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. ground ginger
1/4 tsp. all spice
1/4 tsp. nutmeg
3 overripe bananas, mashed

Icing:

6 oz. softened cream cheese
3 Tbs. softened butter
3 Tbs. Nestle’s La Lechera (sweetened condensed milk)
1/4 tsp. vanilla extract
pinch of salt
coarse sea salt for garnish

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. With an electric mixer, combine the coconut oil and sugar. Add the eggs and mix well. In a small bowl combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, ginger, allspice and nutmeg. Add the flour mixture and mashed bananas in intervals to the wet ingredients.

Pour batter into a muffin tin filled with liners or greased well. Bake for about 20 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Let cool completely.

For the icing:

with an electric mixer, combine the cream cheese, butter, La Lechera, vanilla and salt. Beat until smooth and aerated. Frost the cupcakes with a knife or with a pastry bag. Sprinkle coarse sea salt on top of each cupcake.

baking, dessert, recipes

Lemon Almond Quick Bread

April 16, 2012 alaskaknitnat 3 Comments

I don’t bake much. That seems to require a little more precision than normal cooking, where you mix flavors together. With baking everything has to be just right or things come out too dense or too dry and crumbly.

But after my second successful attempt at making almond milk I was left with a quantity of byproduct — almond meal, which I dried in the oven and stored in a plastic container.

So I decided to venture into the baking world. I looked up various recipes using almond meal and came across one with so few ingredients I didn’t think I could screw it up. It was for a quick bread. I like the word quick. It makes me think “less effort.”

I actually wanted a little more zing in my bread, so I added some lemon zest. Also, I didn’t have enough almond meal so I subbed white flour for the remaining I needed. When I mixed everything together it was really thick and pasty, so I decided to add some of my own almond milk to make it more dough-like. For the yogurt I used my very own concoction of honey yogurt I made earlier in the week. I also wanted some sweetness, so I put in some honey.

Success! This dessert bread came out moist and flavorful. I think I’ll make it every time I make almond milk.

To make the almond meal yourself, just follow this recipe for almond milk and save the almond grounds. Spread the grounds on a cookie sheet and bake in a 275-degree oven for 45 minutes, or until the grounds are dried out.

Almond meal after straining out the almond milk

Place the dried meal in a food processor and process till it’s as fine as you can get it, sort of like corn meal.

Otherwise, just buy almond meal or flour!

Lemon Almond Quick Bread

Ingredients:
2 cups almond meal or flour
1.5 cups white flour
1/4 tsp. salt
1 tsp. baking soda
3 eggs
1 cup greek yogurt
1/4 cup melted butter
zest of one lemon
2/3 cups almond milk
1-2 Tbs. honey

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a bread loaf pan. Combine the dry ingredients in a large mixing bowl. Combine the wet ingredients in a medium bowl then add to the dry ingredients. Pour batter into the bread pan and bake for 40-50 minutes or until a knife comes out clean. Let cool on a drying rack then slice up and serve with butter and jam.

dessert

Guest Blogger — Li’l Sis’ Unsweetened Chocolate Chip Cookies

March 28, 2012 alaskaknitnat 2 Comments

My little sister, Alex, made some delectable chocolate chip cookies for my baby shower last Sunday. I’m going to let her take over from here.

Hey there. This is my first post ever, and I’m honored to make my first step on my big sister’s blog. Now let me talk about cookies. Much like Tasha, I prefer cooking to baking, but chocolate chip cookies has always been an exception. During the winter, I would make cookies nearly on a weekly basis with my best friend who lived down the street. As a result, I have the Tollhouse chocolate chip cookie recipe memorized. The point is, I love chocolate chip cookies. Have I made that clear?

Last summer, I found a cafe in my neighborhood in San Francisco. It served the best chocolate cookies I’ve ever tasted. I couldn’t identify what particular element in them made them so remarkable. Then, after my third cookie (I only got one cookie per visit, I do have some self control), I figured out that the bakers used unsweetened baking chocolate. The sweet cookie dough contrasted with the sharpness of unsweetened cocoa makes for a pretty profound cookie experience. Since then, I’ve only made chocolate chip cookies à la SF cafe. Here’s what I did for Tasha’s shower.

Makes about 36 cookies

Ingredients:
2 1/4 c. all purpose white flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
3/4 c white sugar
3/4 brown sugar
2 sticks of butter (substitute coconut oil if you feel adventurous. Tastes yummy)
2 eggs
1tsp. vanilla
2 c chopped up unsweetened baking chocolate
Pinch of cinnamon (optional)

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. In one bowl, mix the flour, baking soda and salt. In another bowl, mix the softened butter with the brown sugar, eggs, white sugar, and vanilla in that order (to avoid a clumpy mess). Slowly add in the flour/salt mixture until you have a soft, gooey, golden mixture. Finally, mix in your chocolate. I chop up the chocolate into small pieces. You’ll inevitably end up with some chocolate powder, which is totally awesome. When you mix the in chocolate, you’ll see that your cookies look speckled rather than just “chipped.”

With a spoon, scoop out your cookie dough and place on lightly greased cookie sheets. Let bake for 10 minutes.

Eat more than you expected.