Sunshine and Coconut

Posted on February 28, 2016

What a lovely day it has been! After a dreary, rainy, cold week of crap, today the sun was shining and a hopeful spring breeze was in the air. I’m nursing a migraine but still enjoying my time in my hometown. Who knew my mother would be the perfect photo assistant? I should have come to that conclusion on my own as she’s half the reason I’m a great cook AND she also knows what I mean when I ask her to ‘separate an egg.’ I guess it’s also a bit easier photographing with someone who’s right handed (my hubby is left handed and proves to add a level of difficulty when photographing with him).

Today we’re making a grandma staple. Gram’s loved coconut. Every year for her birthday she asked mom to make her favorite coconut cake. It always consisted of a citrus center with whipped icing covered in coconut. Coconut was her jam. She’d always have these little chocolate coconut clusters in the house hidden in her cupboard. Not to mention, macaroons. Grams has a plethora of macaroon recipes, so much that you could probably make a book just on those lol. I know her favs involved almond extract but I have yet to find that in her piles. I just grabbed one of the first ones I found, but who knows? Maybe in the future I’ll make some others and you can compare and contrast.

A perk about being home (other than of course getting to spend time with the fam and new puppy) is getting some farm fresh eggs from my dad’s chickens. They even have some lovely blue green eggs from their pair of Americanas. I also have a huge back porch to photograph on. Hence the lovely sunshine lit photos from today’s post. So without further ado, I give you one of gram’s MANY coconut macaroon recipes.

Coconut Macaroons:

Preheat oven to 325°.

1 1/3 cups flaked coconut (I used unsweetened shredded coconut. You could also use the sweetened stuff, just know it will make them very sweet.)
1/3 cup of white sugar
1/8 tsp salt
2 T all purpose flour
2 egg whites
1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Mix together in a bowl until combined coconut, sugar, flour and salt. Stir in egg whites and vanilla. Mix well. Drop rounded teaspoons onto baking sheet (either grease or use parchment paper). Bake at 325° for 18-20 minutes or until golden brown. Cool on wire rack. Yields about 1 1/2 dozen macaroons. **Also, just a note these aren’t super sweet like a lot of macaroons since you’re using unsweetened coconut. Enjoy!

Seriously, how lovely are these eggs? I can’t get enough of them. Those orange yolks are definitely something you can’t get at the grocery store!

As mom says, “This is separating eggs the ‘old school’ way.”

Isn’t mom the best food model? Even has great hands for it. I jokingly said I’d come up every weekend just to get shots with her but now I’m half thinking that might happen.

You see this wonderfully aged and old looking cooking rack? That’s grams… or great grams. At this point it could be both but I know that at one point, gram’s used it regularly.

Aren’t these just adorable? The blues and golden browns make me want to plan a party. I certainly have gram’s party planning running through my veins. So until next week, cheers! – Alysha

Alysha Yoder Photography (b) www.alyshayoderphotoblog.com

www.alyshayoderphoto.com (e) alyshayoderphoto@yahoo.com (p) 610.762.7810

Category: food photography, Party, recipe Tagged: alysha yoder, alysha yoder photography, bake, baking, baking blog, coconut, coconut macaroons, cookies, cooking, cooking blog, cooking rack, cooking sheets, eggs, family favorites, farm fresh, food, food photography, foodie, fresh, fresh eggs, grandma, happy, macaroons, outside, photography, recipe, recipes, spatula, sunshine, towel, www.alyshayoderphoto.com

Rain with A Craving for Peanut Butter

Posted on February 22, 2016

What a beautiful Saturday, but terribly gloomy Sunday. As I sat on my couch sorting through the piles of gram’s recipes, I came across two matching cards. One for Peanut Butter Cake and one for Peanut Butter Icing. What delicious pairing for this gloomy day!

Now grams was a BIG cake person. She always had some lying around the house for ‘just in case anyone dropped by.’ My uncle Dave also has a mild obsession with angel cake with homemade sugar icing (heaven forbid it’s anything but homemade sugar icing, you’d never hear the end of it). I’m actually fairly certain that gram’s thought everything was better with icing. I’ll never be able to prove this of course, but it was her thing. Cake too dry.. add icing.. brownies too plain.. why not a good batch of icing? Almost every cake recipe in all her cookbooks and recipe cards include icing.

I have so many fond memories of grams pulling out the beaters and whipping up fresh icing for all her baked goods. Dave would always just ‘happen to wonder into the kitchen’ and be on hand to lick the beaters. Now I will ALSO admit my hubs had a little say in this selection, as he has a mild obsession with everything peanut butter based. As payment, he helped model for a few of my shots AND I made him homemade mac and cheese tonight, so double bonus for him.

So without further ado, I give you gram’s Peanut Butter Cake with Peanut Butter Icing.

Peanut Butter Cake:

Preheat oven to 350°.

Sift into mixing bowl:

2 1/4 cups Softasilk Flour (I seriously thought I wouldn’t be able to find this at the store but VOILA there is was. This is just fancy cake flour so if you can’t find Softasilk feel free to use other cake flour)
1 1/2 cups white sugar
3 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt

Add to bowl:

1/3 cup shortening (I didn’t have any on hand so I used butter)
1/3 cup crunchy peanut butter (feel free to use creamy too!)
2/3 cup milk

Mix all ingredients for 2 minutes until light and fluffy.

Now add to bowl and mix till smooth:

1/3 cup milk
2 eggs

Spray or butter a 9×13 pan and evenly pour batter into. Place in oven for 30-40 minutes until toothpick or knife comes out clean. Once done, remove from oven and allow to cool completely.