flambé

If you're looking for a hilarious book that reads quickly, then look no further than Dealing with Dragons. Cimorene is not a typical princess--she's not content to learn embroidery and dancing. Her family doesn't understand, and she discovers the only way to get them to listen is to run away and find herself a dragon. 

Not to be rescued, mind you, but to escape a pending marriage. While she lives with Kazul, several events happen that set things up for future books (there are four total), including some shady dealings with wizards, lessons from a good witch and several persistent princes (who have been promised the usual: her hand in marriage). Everything works out well due to Cimorene's atypical behavior as a princess, which goes to show that you should be yourself, no matter what is expected.

One of the reasons Cimorene is able to plead her case to stay with the dragons is she makes a great cherries jubilee, and the dragon who agrees to keep her needs someone who can make dessert for dinner parties. Because it's a relatively easy recipe, I decided to make some ice cream, too. 

Oh, and I should mention, our flaming cherries didn't flame very much, which was a bit disappointing...

Check out all the books folks have done in the past!

Book recommendation: Dealing with Dragons by Patricia C. Wrede
Recipe recommendation: Cherries Jubilee
Wine recommendation: Ménage à Trois

viridity

They're coming!


Psst: Jen's blogged about her baby!
Psst again: The sale is almost over! Shop now to save!

dichotomy

I read a lot of food blogs.

Occasionally, I share certain posts with people who I think will appreciate them.

My sister was excited to try the new line of Starbuck's hot chocolates this past winter, especially the salty caramel flavor, so of course, I figured she would like the concept of a cake in that style.

I was right.

We pooled our resources and decided to make the cake together, as the original blogger said it was a bit daunting (and I just read a review on amazon about the cookbook which contains this recipe, and that guy said the same thing about the cakes in this book). Boy were we glad to be baking in tandem.

And this cake is AMAZING.

But seriously, if you attempt to make this at home, have a friend, sibling, spouse or significant other around to help you. Otherwise, you may just wind up cursing whoever first thought up the idea of this cake.

We pretty much followed the recipe as printed, so I won't reproduce it here--just click on the recommended recipe below, but I will include a few tips.


Our three and a half cakes took longer to bake than 24 minutes--but we had shorter pans... I'm not quite sure how that affected the whole thing, but there you go. Just keep a toothpick or cake tester handy.

Whereas the cakes took longer to make, the caramel didn't take 10 minutes--just watch for browning to occur and then swirl the pan a few times to evenly distribute all the syrup/sugar. My candy thermometer also didn't go up as high as she said the caramel would need to get, but once it hit the top, we kept a close eye on the pan.


There's a heck of a lot of frosting and caramel sauce, so be prepared for this. If you're Gianna, then don't be afraid to halve it.

Don't look at this photo too big--it's blurry and demonstrates why I need a tripod...

The last tip is that we didn't organize well and ended up not finding fleur de sel in time... so we just used sea salt (NOT kosher--that might be too thick--so you could grind it a little, I suppose--but it won't taste like anything except salt, which I guess sea salt is a little more flavorful... okay, I'll stop now). It tasted just fine.

Make sure you have a LOT of people to eat this cake with you.

Book recommendation: The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
Recipe recommendation: Sweet and Salty Cake
YouTube recommendation: Cinnamon Toast Crunch commercial

anticipation

I dream of late spring and summer:

store update

To celebrate being open for one year, Jen and I are excited to announce that Stamp n' Stitch is having an
This sale will be taking place at our Etsy shop, so be sure to pop in and check out the deals.


Please note that Jen just had a baby, so any crochet orders will take a little longer than usual. We always welcome special orders, so don't hesitate to see if we can help you out with something!

starlight rose