use real butter

Recipe: sugar plums

As a child, I only knew of sugar plums through The Nutcracker and Twas the Night Before Christmas. Several years ago when I had a subscription to Saveur, I jotted down a recipe for sugar plums, mostly because I had never tasted one before. These sugar plums are confections, not the fruits that you can read about on Wikipedia. They are quite easy to make and tend to be a huge hit with people who either don’t care for chocolate or just enjoy the autumny spices and dried fruits. It’s a heady aroma that wafts through your house when you make a batch: orange peel, nutmeg, cinnamon, toasted almonds, honey.

almonds, dried dates, dried apricots

**Jump for more butter**

Recipe: bostini cream pie

This month, I joined the Daring Bakers which has exploded as far as membership goes. The Daring Bakers is an online community of people who bake a recipe selected by a host each month, and then post about the experience and the outcome on the same day. Our host was Mary of alpineberry who chose Bostini Cream Pie for this month’s DB challenge, and today is the day everyone is posting. Go to the blogroll to see everyone’s fine creations!

The Bostini is a variation on an old favorite, the Boston cream pie. The main components are: pastry cream, orange chiffon cake, and chocolate glaze. So I began with the pastry cream, because I looooove pastry cream. Love to eat it, love to make it.

crème patisserie: mixing in the yolks

**Jump for more butter**

Recipe: strawberry mousse cake stata

I’m not a fan of pink. In fact, Beth and I were discussing this just yesterday – how we both dislike pink. I like pink that occurs naturally, but I don’t seek it out and I certainly don’t wear it. I think it’s an unfortunate result of my rebellion against society’s expectation that girls should dress in pink. Growing up a tomboy, I shunned pink at every opportunity. I like black and blue.

But pink has its place for a good cause – and everyone (I hope) knows what that is: fighting breast cancer. Susan G. Komen for the Cure has mobilized action and awareness for over a quarter century. I’ve run some of the 5K races and raised money for the organization in the past. It’s a good thing to do.

When I was in graduate school, my sister called up one day to tell me that my mom was having two lumps from her breast biopsied. Mom told Kris not to tell me because she didn’t want to disrupt my studies. This is typical of my mom. It was also typical of Kris to tell me immediately. We did not keep secrets from one another and Kris was scared – she wanted to talk to me about it. Sure, we both rolled our eyes when Mom nagged us about this, that, and the other thing, but our family is really tight. It changes your perspective to think you might lose someone you have taken for granted all of your life. Kris and I decided we’d surprise Mom by driving/flying out to visit the day she got her results from the lab. We would be there to celebrate or to comfort. Either way, we’d be there.

**Jump for more butter**