Hello hello!  It’s been a while hasn’t it?
Where have I been?  Well, that’s a bit of a long story and it has to do with Cancer.
I’ll save you all the gory details to say that after surgery and several weeks of radiation follow-ups… I’m happy to report that it looks like we beat the sucker in to submission.

The whole ordeal sort of took the wind out of my sails and caused me to, once again, shift focus in my life.  One of the things I try to focus on more each day is appreciating the beauty in life.  Because even when the times are tough there is beauty to be found, be it a bittersweet lesson, a smile from a passerby, hearing a child’s laugh bubbling up from the bottom of their tummy, the sweet sound of birdsong, the teeny peeks of neon green buds on the ends of Winter bare branches, the smell of coffee, the purr of a cat nestled in your lap, hugs, the kindness and love from those who love you.
The simple fact that every single day that we are “here” is in and of itself one of the most beautiful and underrated things on Earth.

So today I wanted to share with you a little trick, it’s not a recipe, it’s a technique.  And it will bring beauty to something ordinary.

I’m speaking about Pie Crusts.
I love a pretty pie, in fact my love of pretty pies goes way way way back to when my Mom used to make her Pumpkin or Apple pies and she would hand cut pie dough ornaments in the shapes of an Apple or a Turkey or a Pumpkin or even Fall Leaves.  She would use a little paring knife with a fine tip while we watched her deftly cut the dough, then she would wet the backside of the cut out with a little water and ask us kids where on the pie she should put it.  We always settled on the center – that way everyone who had a piece of pie would get a little piece of the special cut out.

I followed my Mom’s method when I made my Vineyard Pie several years ago, by hand cutting the dough, forming small balls to make clusters and rolling out thin ropes to make vines, like you see here:

Anyone can do this.  It works the best with any pie that requires a Lattice style top crust.
You can even do this with your kids.
You can make the shapes on your pie crust any shapes you want.  Polka Dots, Hexagons, Triangles, Flowers, Hearts, Leaves, Dog Bones… literally whatever tickles your fancy.

What you will need:
– Cookie Cutters, in the desired shapes you want (or a paring knife if you are the artistic type)
-Parchment Paper (this helps keep the dough from sticking to your work surface)
-1 Cup of Water
-1 rolled out Pie Crust, just use your favorite shortcut recipe (flour & butter base or flour & butter/shortening base  OR you can totally use store bought if you want to and no one is going to judge you)
-Patience
-Egg Wash (optional)

What you do:
Get your pie dough rolled out on your parchment paper, then start cutting out your shapes with your knife or cookie cutter.  Once you have enough cut outs to cover your pie top, you will dip them one by one very quickly in to the water.  Just a quick dip and right back out.
Then you will start to place the cut outs on the pie filling, starting with the outside rim first closest to the crust.
Work your way in, overlapping as you go.
Use any extra cut outs to layer on top for more dimension if you want.
Bake it as you normally would.

Please note:  Juices will bubble up through the cracks, which is OK.  The juices will add a fruity lacquer to your cutout shapes, which just adds to the beauty of the pie.

The pie in the header image is the pie that I made last night to take to my Mother’s house.  She is recovering from surgery right now, and she was craving peaches.  So I made a Cinnamon Peach Pie for her adorned with flowers to lift her spirits.  I transported it unbaked and baked it at her house so that she could enjoy the wonderful smells in her house.
Here is a little cellphone snap of how it looked after it was finished baking:

She’s still talking about the pie today :)

Ever since I started doing these pies, they have generated a lot of Oohs & Ahhs!
I even got some love from Food & Wine Magazine on Instagram & Facebook!

So I thought I would show you some of the other Pretty Pies I have done recently.

For Halloween I did a Pumpkin Pie from scratch, I scattered leaf shapes with tinted egg wash on top to create this pretty little Fall bite, kinda makes you want to dive right in to that pile of leaves:

Then we come to my personal favorite – this pretty little Summer Blackberry Pie, festooned with little flowers.  I love how the juices seeped up on the dough because after the bake it really makes them POP!

And here is that Blackberry Pie after the bake!  A field of deliciousness just waiting for you!

That chill air of Fall creeping in and edging out the warmth of Summer was a call to my inner baker to get in the kitchen and fire up the oven.  One thing I love to make is scones.  They are quick, easy and there is nothing more delicious than a piping hot scone fresh from the oven.

Over the years there are a few lessons I have learned when making scones.  The first one is to never overwork the dough.  Overworking the dough gets rid of the all important pockets of fat that are essential for creating that fluffy texture, if you mix the ingredients too much you end up with edible doorstops.

The next lesson of importance is to not over-bake your scones.  This leads to the scone drying out, because as it sits on the breakfast or brunch table cooling off… it is still baking.   I tend to pull my scones out of the oven 2 or 3 minutes before the actual time stated, keeping an eye on the browning on the top and bottom.  Once it get a light brown color it is time to pull them out.  I also remove the scones from the baking sheet while they are warm.  Keeping them on the baking sheet to cool will cause them to continue baking and you will end up with tough bottoms to your scones.

Batter should be mixed with your hands and a wooden spoon for the perfect texture.  Using a food processor or electric mixer will overwork your ingredients.  If you think you can manage a light hand with the electric gadgets then go for it, otherwise get old fashioned and work with those hands.

So with all these scone tips, I’m going to pass along my favorite recipe for making scones that has the addition of hazelnuts and currants, they give a nice little crunch and fruity chew to your scone.  If you don’t have them, this recipe works beautifully without for a classic scone that is perfect with a little clotted cream and jam.

Hazelnut Currant Scones

• 2 cups Flour
• 1/4 cup White Sugar
• 2 teaspoons Baking Powder
• 1/2 teaspoon Salt
• 1/3 cup Cold Butter (cut into chunks)
• 1 large Egg, lightly beaten
• 1/2 cup Whole Milk
• 1/4 cup dried Zante Currants
• 1/4 cup crushed Hazelnuts

Preheat your oven to 425 degrees F.  Line a baking sheet with parchment paper, or lightly grease it if you do not have parchment paper handy.
Combine the dry ingredients into one bowl.  Add in the butter and with your hands sort of “pinch” the butter into the flour mix.  You are not looking to fully incorporate the butter into the flour and you will want small to medium size chunks of butter between the size of a pea and shelled almond.

Combine the milk and egg in a small bowl and whisk it together.  Drizzle it over the flour and butter mixture.  Using a wooden spoon, stir the milk and egg into the flour mixtures.  Do not over mix, the dough will be lumpy and it will be sticky, you are mixing just enough for the flour mixture to get moist.

Divide the dough into 3 equal portion.  Take one portion out and put it onto a well floured board.  You are going to knead it about 5 or 6 times.  The trick is when you press your dough flat, flip it over then fold, then press flat again.  Repeat that procedure 4 or 5 times.  What you are doing is folding the floured side together, this along with those butter chunks is what makes those lovely flakey layers you are after.

Now make that kneaded dough into a little mound about 5 inches in diameter.  The center of your little mound should be slightly higher than the outside rim, so it’s kind of like a dome.  Now take a big knife and cut it into half and then half again so you have 4 equal pieces.

I like to  brush the tops of my scones with milk then sprinkle a pinch of turbinado sugar onto them. You don’t have to do this, you can leave them plain if you want.

Stick them on your cookie sheet and bake them for about 10-12 minutes until they are golden brown.  Top them with butter, clotted cream or marscapone cheese with fruit preserves.  NOM!

Full disclosure: I have received no compensation from any business or organization mentioned in this article.

Images by Kelly Cline ©2010 All Rights Reserved
All content, text and images are  ©2010 All Rights Reserved and may not be used or reposted without express written consent.

Warning: Sprinkles, Edible Glitter, Pink Frosting and Cupcakes ahead! Every Summer my Niece comes out to hang out with me for a couple weeks.  We always have a blast together.  Along with the fun I’m always looking for ways to teach her new things, while trying to keep it a good time.

We have many things in common, one of them being a love for the almighty Cupcake.  Usually, we make it a point to head up to our neighborhood Cupcake Royale or another little cafe across the street called Coffee to a Tea, which also houses the Sugar Rush Bakery, to have ourselves a cup of Joe and a couple tastings of the mini Cupcakes.  Since we didn’t get around to our usual trip, I had an idea while watching Cupcake Wars on Food Network.  Why not have a friendly “Cupcake-Off” right here at home?

So I ran the idea past her and it turns out that one of her favorite things to make is Cupcakes.  We decided on a single basic batch of Yellow Cake and Cream Cheese Frosting as our base.  We divided the Yellow Cake batter in half, then each of us took a half and divided that into thirds.  We did the same thing with the Cream Cheese Frosting.  Our end goal – to each create 2 Cupcakes in 3 flavors  with a tasty frosting to go with it, for a total of 6 Cupcakes each.

We ransacked my pantry for cupcake decorations, dried fruits, food coloring and flavorings and came up with quite an impressive selection of possibilities.  We then set to work creating our masterpieces.

The great thing about this little project was not just the fun of it, but that I was able to teach her a little bit about the science of baking.  As we worked at our stations side by side, we talked about the limits of adding too much liquid or dry ingredients to the base batter and that the outcome could mean a crumbly dry Cupcake or a soggy Cupcake.  We talked about flavor combinations, what tastes good with what and what doesn’t.  I  let her just discover the flavors and make her own choices about how she wanted her Cupcakes to taste, it was a really fun experience for the both of us.  Creativity never tasted so good!

Some of the flavors we came up with were: Lime, Honey & Ginger – Lemon & Saffron – Cinnamon Maple Rum – Dark Chocolate Nutella – Cinnamon, Coffee & Chocolate – Coconut, Lime & Rum

This is a really great activity to do as a couple, with friends and especially with the kids.  It doesn’t take that long to put together.  You can use store bought boxed cake mix and frosting if you want to and the prep will go even faster.   Here’s a partial list of things to get you started:

Cupcake Decoration Ideas

• Dried Fruits (whole or sliced into slivers) – mango, pineapple, papaya, raisins, dried cranberries, banana chips, etc
• Candy Pieces – chocolate chips or  the hard candy shell kind with centers of chocolate, peanut butter or mint
• Color Sugar – available at most grocery stores in a rainbow of colors
• Edible Glitter – available at specialty shops and online
• Dragees/Edible Pearls – available at some grocery stores, specialty shops and online
• Nonpareils, Jimmies, Sprinkles & Hundreds-and-Thousands – little sugar based decorations that come in all shapes
• Savory – herb sprigs, sea salt and chili
• Citrus – Zest or lemon, lime or orange peels

Cupcake & Frosting Flavorings

• Spices – cinnamon, nutmeg, clove, pepper, chili, ginger, etc.
• Flavorings – vanilla, rum, almond, lemon, etc.
• Fresh Citrus – Juice and/or zest of lemons, limes, and oranges
• Nuts – pistachio, coconut, peanut, almond, pecan, walnut, etc.

Useful Things

• Spatula or knife to spread frosting
• Piping Bag with decorating tip (you can find these in most grocery stores near the cake decorating supplies)
• Apron
• Cupcake papers

It is best to set everything out that is “up for grabs” within reach and view.  It makes coming up with creative flavors much more inspiring.

Basic Yellow Cake Base

• 2 cups Flour, all purpose
• 2 1/4 teaspoons Baking Powder
• 1/2 teaspoons Baking Soda
• 1/2 teaspoon Salt
• 2/3 cup Butter, unsalted, softened to room temperature
• 1 1/4 cup sugar
• 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
• 4 large eggs
• 2/3 cup milk

Preheat oven to 325º.  Mix together the dry ingredients: flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt.  Set aside
Cream the butter, sugar and vanilla together in a large mixing bowl until light creamy and fluffy.  Add in your eggs one at a time, beating between each one until well combined.  Slowly add in the dry ingredients, alternating with a little bit of the milk at a time (this alternating method helps create a smooth batter).

In a muffin pan, line it with paper baking cups or lightly grease and flour them.  Fill baking cups to 2/3 full.

325º degrees for 14-17 minutes, let them cool completely before frosting.  Yield should be about 12-14 Cupcakes
Cream Cheese Frosting
1 8oz brick of Cream Cheese
4 Tablespoons Butter
1 teaspoon Vanilla
Pinch of Salt
2 1/4 cups Powdered Sugar, sifted

Combine cream cheese, butter, vanilla and salt and mix until creamy.  Add in Powdered Sugar 1/2 cup at a time until it reaches a consistency you like.

Tips for making your own flavors for cupcakes & frosting:

• Divide the batter or frosting into small batches.
• Add flavors, colors and additional ingredients a little at a time.  It’s easier to add more flavor in than to take flavor out.
• When adding in flavored dry ingredients to the batter, you may need to add in an egg yolk or a little splash of water to keep the consistency right.
• When adding in flavored wet ingredients to the batter, you may need to add in an extra teaspoon of flour so the batter is not runny.
• When adding in flavored dry ingredients to the frosting, you may need to add a splash of milk/water/coconut milk/soy milk to loosen it up to be spreadable.
• When adding in flavored wet ingredients to the frosting, you may need to add back in a little more powdered sugar to firm it back up.
• Don’t be afraid to experiment, have fun and encourage each others creativity!

Bow down & be humble before the overall taste winner (Cinnamon Maple Rum with Vanilla Bean Frosting) – The Almighty Princess Cupcake by my niece TC.

Full Disclosure: I have received NO compensation from Coffee to a Tea, Cupcake Royale or Food Network for the mentions in this article.
Images by Kelly Cline ©2010 All Rights Reserved
All content, text and images are  ©2010 All Rights Reserved and may not be used or reposted without express written consent.