Avocado Ice Pops

So living in a 1912 house (read: no a/c) this last week forced us to look for less-than-contemporary ways to cool down, and I was thrilled to find all sorts of fun recipes for ice pops! And as a reaction to all the artificial coloring loaded, high fructose corn syrup sweetened pops the kids had already eaten, I started with Fany Gerson's Avocado Ice Pops. I used a hand-me-down mold from my mom, but for some reason when I last put them away, I didn't pack the handles with the mold. Anyway, popsicle sticks and some handi-wrap to keep them in place worked great!

The popsicles took about 7 hours to freeze, and I was so excited to see they kept their color! They're nice and light with the lime, and the avocado is creamy and rich, and a little herbal. The whole family loved these, and with the prep only taking 5 min, I'm seeing these will be a new favorite!

Creamy Dark Chocolate Sorbet

I've been looking forward to this week's TWD! I've only made "chocolate" sorbet with cocoa powder, so I guess I've really only made cocoa sorbet before. For this week, I used El Rey Bucare 58.5% for my chocolate, which I think was a good balance. The sorbet is pretty sweet, but not too sweet. I also subbed rice milk for the milk. It's what we have on hand, and David Lebovitz's recommendation for rice milk in his strawberry vegan ice cream was good enough for me.

This was a nice sorbet. It was very rich. It ended up a little grainy, but that may have been my choice of chocolate. It was still pretty tasty, and I love desserts like this that make me feel like I'm being a little healthier :)

Thanks to Steph of A Whisk and a Spoon for this week's pick!

Strawberry Salsa

The strawberries are just now starting to ripen here in Wi, and we had the perfect day to go picking. It was warm and breezy, and the strawberries are amazing! The perfect size, just ripe, firm, not watery.

We tried a new farm this year for picking, Polzin farm in Cedarburg. The kids always beg for their popcorn at the farmers market, but I didn't even realize they grew strawberries til this year. It's a great farm, just roadside signs, not a commercialized/wagon-riding/playscape/petting zoo farm. I loved it!





















So with our perfect strawberries, one of our favorite recipes is this strawberry salsa from Gourmet magazine. Gourmet says to use store strawberries since they're firmer, but we've liked it with our local ones, too. We just use store-bought chips, and for easier eating, I just cube the avocado. To keep it prettier, it's nice to make up the salsa, and then add the avocado cubes either in the center or around the salsa. We usually end up just mixing it up and making it a meal :)

More Birthday Cakes :)

So still not getting the baking in....but we had the family party for both kids. Even though we combine the party, I feel like I need to at least give them each their own cake! This year, the girl wanted hello kitty in purple, and the boy wanted spiderman. We scaled back quite a bit from other years, thankfully, as cleaning took a little longer the day before, so all the food (including baking the cakes) was the day of. So the cakes are a little rough, but still happily homemade :)














I have to say that I love Toba Garrett. The girl's was Toba's chocolate cake, and the boy's was her yellow. Both are favorites of mine. But then a rushed new discovery was her meringue powder royal, which was so simple to whip up with a fork, took the black color perfectly and dried quickly. Apparently some people think royal with egg whites tastes better than that with meringue powder - I've never compared, but I'd be surprised if anyone could tell the difference on a cake.

Even when it's all rushed, and the cakes are rough, I really enjoy making them. I'm hoping to start setting aside time to indulge in this hobby more often :)

Dinosaur Birthday Cake

I've not had much time to bake lately, but my youngest turned four this week, so we had to have a cake. He wanted a t.rex cake, and as we browsed flickr, this was his favorite. He loved the baby t.rex :)





















So we didn't need quite that much cake, so our version's only one tier, but we had to have the baby, and I thought the idea of the t.rex eating the cake was pretty cute, too. Mine isn't so much t.rexy as general reptile-y. And my adult t.rex is especially rough as I did everything at once and just used fondant (no gumpaste). But the kid liked it :)

Maple Cornmeal Biscuits

I know Dorie warned about this, but my biscuits turned out really flat! I made them to go with chili, and that was nice, but we really liked these just with jam.

Thanks to Lindsay of A Little Something....Sweet for this week's pick!

TWD Basic Marble Loaf Cake

For this week's TWD, I used the chocolate-orange combination. It was really nice! It was so easy to throw together, and a nice afternoon snack for the kids. For the grown-ups sometime, I'm hoping to try the coffee-cardamom!

Thanks to Carol of The Bake More for this week's pick!