The Art Of Baking

My $150 D'Italiano Prize Pack giveaway is officially over and the winner of this great prize is Jennifer Martin ,  Congratulations!I will be e-mailing you shortly for your information and be sure to mail be back before 48 hours is up.Check your spam folder just in case! Anyways, I also like to send a reminder to everyone that their are some great recipes on D'Italiano's website that people have sent in for the cook off challenge.There are some really creative ideas and definitely a large recipe turn out.You can even vote for your favorites and try the recipes out for yourself.My favorite is a recipe for mini apple pies made with D'Italiano bread as the pastry.I really want to make that.Also I like to say good luck to everyone that has entered a recipe and I'm very excited to see what d ishes are in the final five. Everyone be sure to tune in on May 10th when the five finalist compete against each other with their creative recipe.It should be a fun night!

I've been on a baking craze since I got free baking ingredients with my gift card.This time I made a large batch of these lemon bars and they were super easy to make. I only made a couple changes in the recipe so it would work for me.All I did was use hard margarine instead of butter for the crust and eliminated lemon zest for the filling. It was a pretty basic bar with a thick, flaky crunchy sugar crust.The flavor was sweet and slightly buttery.The filling was smooth and light at room temp and overtime in the fridge the layer became thicker.However I noticed that if it sits out for a few minutes the layer begins to become moist again.The flavor wasn't that strong of lemon;however If I were of added the lemon zest it would of been more prominent.It also had a good balance of sweetness against the crust.Its basically a preference if you want really strong or a simple balance of flavors. These bars were super delicious and I have to warn people that they are su

Just yesterday, I received a Love with Food sample box for all the confusion that happened with a free subscription I won.What simply happen was ,the blog owner thought Canadian viewers were allow to enter her giveaway.But when I won we both found out the website only ships within the states. So after contacting the site and figuring out what was going on.We found out that the blog owner made a mistake.However the CEO and co founder was very generous and sent me this box to make up for the confusion.So thank you very much  Love with food and I'm very excited to try out all these samples,may even review. In other good news,I finally stepped up my game in making muffins.This time I achieved round, bumpy tops and hardly any tunnels.I think my new baking powder is what really helped with the rising factor and keeping my bowl titled while folding at least 12 strokes.I even did this quite slow,nothing to fast.Also, when these were in the oven I kind of cheered when I

 Recently,I was given a really generous gift from Argyle Communications for helping them share about D'Italiano's Cook-Off Challenge and help set up a D'Italiano Prize Pack Giveaway , which is still going on till March 30th. If your not a friend of mine on my personal Facebook then you wouldn't of heard about this gift.Well to fill everyone in, I received a President Choice $25 gift card as a thank you gift for helping share about D'Italiano's Challenge.I was notified I would received a little something.But I never would of thought a gift card for twenty-five dollars.I was super surprised and grateful. So guess what I used that money towards? If you guessed baking, then your right.So what did I get myself? Well I was actually able to squeeze in six items with 2 dollars to spare. I chose first to purchase a must needed baking item,baking powder.Because mine was getting very old and started to chunk up.Worthless to use.Then I bought my favorite ing

Recently, I received a Buy One Get One Free coupon for VH Steamers and It was actually the same day I got the deal for Kashi Crackers. For this deal,I first checked out the price for one steamer and it was about $3.50 for one.However I noticed in a Thrifty foods flyer they had them on for $2.99.So I kept that flyer and I price matched the product.I chose to get the Shanghai Ginger Beef and Teriyaki Chicken. I ended up with a lower price for one and the second free with the coupon.It was a pretty good deal since  most convenient products are pretty expensive and I was there just when the steamers were on for a good price.   When I got home, me and my sister tried out the VH Steamers.I had the Shanghai Ginger Beef and she had the Teriyaki Chicken .They were a frozen meal so all we had to do was remove the container from the box and microwave them about 3 1/2- 4 minutes.Now these bowl structures have two layers.One is a streamer that has the food substance and the second l

Just recently I received a $2.00 off coupon for Kashi Pita Crisps or Crackers in the mail.On that day I went to Wal-mart and to my surprise these products were on sale for about $2.90.So they only cost a little over 90 cents with the coupon.Now these were definitely on sale and were coming off the shelves quickly.So the regular price is probably a little steep, but if with a $2.00 off coupon its a pretty good find, especially on sale.I got lucky with my coupon coming at the right time! Now at the time there were only 3 flavors, Regular Pita crisps,whole grain crackers and Fire Roasted Vegetables crackers. I chose the third one because I like some flavor on my crackers and it was a bigger box for the same price. The Fire Roasted Vegetables Crackers were crunchy and not to thick.They had a really strong scent to them and were savory,salty and quite peppery.Kashi did a great job of infusing the roasted veggie flavor into these crackers.There was lots of flavors for your

Beginning of this week, I was craving moist banana bread and carrot cake.So guess what? I found a 5 1/2 star recipe for Carrot Banana Bread on All Recipes. I struck some luck in finding this combo of ingredients and easy direction recipe. There wasn't much to even change about this recipe. Beside doubling the recipe to make more delicious bread and eliminating the pecans.It was super easy to double everything and you can very well add any extra textures you want such as the pecans.It had easy to follow directions such as mixing the oil,egg and sugar in a large bowl and then mixing all the dry ingredients in a medium bowl.Then from their I had to slowly add the dry mix into the creamed mixture alternately with the mashed banana.Then stirring in the grated carrot.Pretty easy concept to follow and I can make a pretty awesome banana bread compare to muffins. It an excellent recipe and you will see that many say the same thing on the recipe comments.This is a sligh

There is an awesome contest going on right now at Dragon Technology & Entertainment for all the gamers out there.This great Technology Blog is hosting a Video Game Giveaway where you will have the opportunity to win your pick of video game that's $59.99 or less.What's also great about this giveaway is its open for any platform such as PC,Wii,Xbox, PS3,PS Vita etc.Isn't this a great giveaway, especially when games are pretty expensive to come by. So you better get your entries in before the end of this month,March 31, 2012.The giveaway is open for U.S.A and International viewers.So if you win from the U.S the owner will purchase the game you want and ship it to you.International winners will have the money value sent to their Paypal.So make sure you have an account to enter. Anyways,go visit the link and get your entries in.

Making pies has never been a strong suit of mine.This is because I always have issues with pastry or fillings;however I know there are people just like me struggling with some baking aspect.So recently I said to myself,  I must start practicing on my pie making skills and not be embarrassed by my mistakes.So from all that confidence, I made this very apple pie you see above.Now it wasn't the best that it could be and I had some troubles along the way.But I'm getting closer to my goal. For this apple pie,I had a easy time preparing the apple filling.There was only four ingredients needed in the recipe and I even adapted it by using frozen apples that were thawed instead of fresh. I do recommend fresh apples to be used, but frozen is your second best choice.Now I knew from  using thawed apples I would run into a filling that's more watery. So I made the choice to bake the pie for 5-10 minutes prior to adding the filling to avoid a under baked crust.This helped quite

I made muffins yet again and they will be the death of me.I can never make the perfect muffin.I can hit the flavor and texture right, but never the appearance. I do have to say though that a few in this batch had better shape then others,but I still need to work on it. However this time was better then the last ones I made, I would think.Because I made sure to sift all the dry ingredients together to evenly distribute the baking powder and prevent it from clumping.This definitely helped with not over mixing and created almost no tunnels when baking;however my muffins still made peaks and some had tunnels.They even came out pretty small in size. The flavor and texture came out quite well though.The cake part of the muffin was crumbly,moist and not to sweet.You could tell it needed something to compliment it like chocolate chips and cranberries.The chips gave a smooth dark sweetness while the berries gave a chewy sweet tang.Both go well together in almost anything, includin

 I am so excited to share with all of you, especially my fellow Canadians about D'Italiano's Cook-Off Challenge .If your someone that hasn't heard about it.Well your in for a treat because between now and March 21,D'Italiano wants Canadians just like yourself to share an original recipe using their products and to submit it on their Facebook Page . Why you ask? Well this challenge is all about celebrating food,family and home cooks.So, they want you to have the opportunity to share your creativity and have the chance to be one of the five finalists to receive an all covered trip to Toronto.Where you will have the chance to compete against others with your great recipe to win the grand prize of $25,000.Now this sounds like a pretty fun challenge and a lot of Moo-la to show off your cooking skills.   This challenge will be also televised with a live audience and hosted by the all talented Comedian Colin Mochrie.If you don't remember him you

Recently,I was craving a cookie that had lots of chocolate chips and that's exactly what I got in this recipe.A delicious cookie with a golden crispy edge and a crunchy chewy middle.The best part of all was having moist semisweet chocolate chips in every bite.I could of added even more delicious chocolate chips,why didn't I?,Ummm, I'll never know? Now how did I make these golden, chocolate filled treats? Well, I used a simple recipe from Robin Hood .They are a great website to find simple creative ideas for baking. I definitely recommend it. Anyways, for these cookies I had to do some replacements for a couple items,which were butter and brown sugar. Now its not a big deal to change these ingredients.But you must know that it will effect the texture and flavor.For my changes, I used soft margarine and granulated sugar.These two items helped create a thinner and crunchier cookie.If you love those textures then use this recipe.If you love thick,chewy cookies th

The day I always seem to bake on is Monday.This is probably because I spend most of my time with Dave on Tuesday's and I love to share bake goods. It also seems to push me to do more recipes, which is always good.So this time I chose to make a baked good using dried cranberries. A treat that I love snacking on and using in baking.It brings great color,sweetness and tartness to everything.   On Monday night, I remembered I had homemade pastry in the freezer and my luck they were leftover tart rounds.So right then and there I had to make cranberry butter tarts.However there was only six rounds left and I needed more.Everyone loves butter tarts here and six wouldn't even last a day.So I needed to make some more pastry and then to my surprise my mother started making a whole batch of pastry to make a pot pie and to freeze the rest.So I use some of her pastry and this save so much time.It was great timing. So then I started to make the tart filling, while the leftovers t

When I received my giveaway prize package it was such a treat to get three free mixes to try out.It was even greater that I was able to get a cake mix, because I love to bake and of course I love review. So when I made this cake mix I made sure to get my camera ready and help share the recipe experience.  Now the mix that I received was the Namaste Gluten Free Spice Cake Mix .A mix that gives you the choice to make 2 round cakes, a 9x13 inch cake or 12 cupcakes.They also included four recipe options to give you lots of room to be creative. For me I chose to make their carrot cake variation recipe as a 9x 13 inch length. For the recipe all I had to do was follow their basic instructions.It was pretty simple as most mixes.You will see how quick and easy it is by following the recipe below. The Recipe I preheated the oven at 350 F and then greased a 9 x 13 inch pan with PAM baking spray.Pam is a great product to use for a quick grease and I grante