Raspberry-Lemon Soda Floats

With the unofficial start of summer here, it's time to celebrate all things ice cream! All this week we will be enjoying ice cream-based recipes to help keep you cool all summer.

Today we start with a classic summertime recipe - the ice cream float. I remember drinking many floats during my summer vacations. I think they consisted of cherry Crush poured over vanilla Perry's Ice Cream. For ice cream week 2016, I decided to amp up my ice cream float with a homemade soda and a new Perry's flavor.

The ice cream featured in my raspberry-lemon soda floats is called Lemon Chillo. It's a lemon ice cream with cookie swirls. If you don't have access to Perry's Ice Cream (i.e. you live outside of the WNY area) you can go ahead and use a lemon ice cream or sorbet.

The raspberry soda comes together really quickly too. The only ingredients you need are raspberries and sugar! I carbonated my soda with a siphon, but you can use bottled, plain seltzer water if you haven't bought a siphon yet!

What are you waiting for? Stop making boring ice cream floats. Mix up your flavors and toss chocolate ice cream into cream soda. Pour coconut seltzer over pineapple ice cream. Don't limit yourself to just plain vanilla! (And let me know what unique flavor combinations you come up with!)

Disclaimer - As a member of Perry's Ice Cream Inside Scoopers team, I received the new summer ice cream flavors to test out. I've been enjoying Perry's Ice Cream since I was a kid and I'm so happy to be able to support a locally owned and produced (and delicious) product. Other than free ice cream, I have not received any compensation for this post. All opinions are my own and I totally ate all of the ice cream they sent me. All by myself.

One Year Ago: French Toast Ice Cream Crepes
Two Years Ago: Quiche with Sweet Peppers & Sausage
Three Years ago: Funfetti Mallomars
Four Years Ago: Tarragon Chicken & Pesto Potatoes
Five Years Ago: French Baguettes

Raspberry-Lemonade Jellies

I was working with this recipe a few weeks ago when I was trying to make jelly beans. While the jelly beans didn't work out very well (total fail actually), this recipe was a complete winner!

The original recipe was a plain lemonade recipe, but I've been meaning to try out more of the candy oils that I bought from LorAnn Oils. If you want to go more natural, you can leave out the raspberry candy oil and use just the lemon juice to flavor the candies.

This is actually the second batch of gummies that I made. I tried coloring the first batch with two different kinds of food coloring. Rather than resulting in a pretty pink color, the food coloring pooled up and streaked through the liquid candy mixture. Both liquid and powdered food coloring did absolutely nothing. The moral of the first batch? Don't try to color these candies, it just won't work.

The flavor of these gummies is out of this world! The raspberry candy oil adds the right amount of sweetness to a very tart lemon base. This recipe would probably also work really well with a bunch of different fruit juices. I'm thinking that a watermelon candy would be amazing for the summer!

What kind of gummy candy would you like to see on WITK? This recipe was so quick and easy, I can see making it time and time again.

One Year Ago: I didn't blog at all in May or June last year! Insane!
Two Years Ago: Roquefort Potatoes
Three Years Ago: Thai Chicken Salad
Four Years Ago: 3 Musketeers Bars

Raspberry & Cheesecake Mousse Entremet

Recently, we had a "Bake Off" at work. In reality, it was just a day where everyone brought in homemade goodies and ate way too much sugar. There were no winners and no losers, just a whole lot of sugar. Well, maybe the diets were the losers of the day. I'm pretty sure that I didn't have lunch that day.

Rather than baking a cake or a batch of cookies, I decided to go big and prepare an entremet. I was dreaming of a light and bright dessert that tasted like spring. The joconde sponge cake came together quickly and holds a citrusy layer of lemon cheesecake mousse and the lightest raspberry mousse ever.

A small serving of this dessert was enough to satisfy my sweet tooth. It only lasts in the fridge for a day, as the cake absorbs the moisture from the mousse. I reccommend making this cake over the course of two days.  Day 1 - prepare the sponge cake, cover with plastic wrap and set in the fridge for the second day. Day 2 - Cut sponge cake, make cheesecake mousse, make raspberry mousse, fill cake.

I know it looks like a lot of work, but it's totally worth the effort! It's got great wow factor for a dinner with friends, or trying to win a bake off!

One Year Ago: Whole Wheat Pasta with Cabbage & Leeks
Two Years Ago: Chicken Florentine with Pasta
Three Years Ago: Honey roasted Root Vegetables
Four Years Ago: Gorgonzola Risotto

CTB 2014 - The Sono Baking Company Cookbook

What is the best thing about summer? Is it the lazy days spent at the beach? Maybe the long nights huddled around a campfire? Is it the picnics spent with family or brunches spent with friends?

Nope, it's not any of those things. It's fruit.

Plain and simple, summer is all about the fruit to me. I can do most of those other things at any time of the year. There are always beaches and brunches, but fresh and local produce is something that you can only get now. I've been stocking my counter with all sorts of stone fruits and berries since I saw the first white peaches at Trader Joes.

I like to make simple desserts during the summer with fresh flavors. I made this peach and raspberry crumble into single serve portions so that I could grab one from the fridge, pop it in the microwave and have a personal dessert. The boyfriend tells me that fruit doesn't belong in dessert, so I had this entire recipe to myself! He doesn't know what he's missing out on.

PB&J Baked French Toast

Welcome to the last day of WITK's pre-holiday festivities!  Hopefully you've finished all of your shopping, decorating and menu planning.  This weekend should be all about relaxing, wearing something comfy and watching movies.

Peach Melba Linzer Bars

I am totally in love with these bars.  

I've never made a Linzer bar before, but I will definitely be making them again.  They are so stinkin' good!  The reason why they are so delicious?  Toasted hazelnuts.  Amazing.

These bars were a lot of work to make.  Between roasting and skinning the hazelnuts, preparing the dough and rolling out and filling the pastry, it probably took half the day to complete this dessert.  It was so worth it.  I refused to share any of these bars with anyone else.  So. Good.

The major delicious part of this dessert is the hazelnut dough.  You can totally fill the pastry with your favorite jam.  I went with a combination of raspberry and peach, a little take on the peach melba.  Since this treat is filled with jam, rather than fresh fruit, you can make it at any time of the year.  I plan on making it again in the winter, with jam made from this summers farmers market fruits.

Restaurant Wars 2013 - Cheesecake Factory

I wonder why I don't make cheesecake very often.

No wait, I know exactly why I don't make cheesecake very often.  It's because I would weigh nine hundred pounds.  Cheesecake is delicious and I have no self control around it.  This is why I was so excited about having the Cheesecake factory next on my list.  I was looking forward to that cheesecake menu.

For the most part, I have never been that impressed with the Cheesecake Factory's food menu.  I think it's because they have way too many options.  I want a menu with ten to fifteen great options, not seven pages of  sandwiches, burgers, pasta and entrees.  The power that Cheesecake Factory holds over me is in their two page cheesecake menu.

Boyfriend and I enjoyed a pretty basic lunch.  Apparently Cheesecake Factory realized that most of their menu items were super high in calories and has introduced a Skillylicious menu.  I ordered a salad and BF got a lunch-sized portion of pasta carbonara.  (He really likes carbonara and will order it off of just about any menu)  Since it was lunchtime, there was no way I was going to be able to eat my salad and a slice of cheesecake.  Luckily, they have these great to go boxes!

I asked the waitress which two cheesecakes were their most popular.  She suggested their white chocolate-raspberry cheesecake and their limited edition Oreo cheesecake.  I took a slice of each home and found out that I would be eating all of this cheesecake myself.  Boyfriend apparently doesn't like cheese in his dessert.  And he was the whole reason I got the Oreo cheesecake!  I guess I'm still learning new things about the guy I've been with for over ten years!

And you would all be so proud of me!  I had total self control with these two slices of cheesecake.  I had a bite of each once we got home from our day out and promptly put them in the fridge.  It took me until the end of the week to finish eating them!  I think it took me so long, because they weren't mindblowingly delicious.  The limited edition Oreo cheesecake was uber rich and had four layers of mousse, cheesecake, ganache and crumb.  It was just too much, you can see how it was falling over after a short ride in the car.  The white chocolate-raspberry cheesecake was half and half.  The top layer was amazing, but the raspberry-less bottom layer was just meh.

I decided to neglect the entire food menu of Cheesecake factory and try to recreate their white chocolate-raspberry cheesecake, in miniature form.  There was no way that I was going to have an entire 10-inch cheesecake sitting in my house, so my recipe makes six cupcake sized cakes!  I can handle having that many cute little cheesecakes in the house (especially since I'm the only one living in this apartment who likes cheesecake!).

Make these mini cheesecakes at home and enjoy the best part of going out to dinner at the Factory.

Cute, Colorful and French

I know, I know.  Macarons are so 2012.

I should move on to whatever this years big dessert treat is!  (actually, I have no idea what is supposed to be "IN" in 2013.  The internet says it's fancy popcorn, figs and push-pops.)  But you know what?  I love macs.  I think that they are cute and colorful and French, so I will go on making macarons until I run out of flavors to make!  Especially now that I've found my method for macs that works consistently without all the fuss.

First, I got these handy egg tools from OXO (through their blogger outreach program).  OXO suggested I make myself a nice omelet, but quite frankly, I don't really go for omelets.  I'm much more of a cinnamon bun for breakfast kind of girl.  If I'm going to eat eggs, they are going to be scrambled and it is going to be after six pm.  Worry not OXO, these egg tools fit perfectly for my other egg related plan - macarons!

I received an egg separator - perfect for separating those whites from yolks.  I also got a person powered hand mixer - just what my tired arms need for whisking sugar into egg whites over a simmering pot of water.  Finally I got a fancy spatula.  The tag said it was an omelet turner.  I put mine to use in the oh so important macaronage step of macaron making.  These tools should be remarketed to the macaron maker.  They worked perfectly!

The other reason I decided to make macs?  I found these freeze-dried raspberries at a gourmet grocery store in South Orange, NJ.  I knew they would make an amazing ingredient to a macaron, since the best way to flavor the cookie itself is with dry ingredients.  If you find freeze-dried mangos, let me know.  I totally want a mango-flavored mac.  How the French would sneer at a mango macaron!

With the tools and the cookies taken care of, there was just one thing left to deal with.  The filling.  Searching my cabinets I happened upon a block of Callebaut white chocolate.  Raspberry macarons filled with white chocolate buttercream?  That sounds just delicious enough to work.  (Would I rather have filled them with white chocolate ganache?  Yes, but I was out of heavy cream and I wanted to eat the cookies ASAP.)

So now we have raspberry and white chocolate macarons, OXO has a new marketing campaign for their egg tools and my pantry is cleared of two of the more eccentric items.  All in all, a good day!

See, so cute.  So colorful.  Bonjour macarons.

Pear-Raspberry Soda

I'm not quite sure if I still have legs right now.  I mean, I see them and they did carry me home from the gym last night, but they don't really seem to be attached to my body.  I blame Crossfit.

Yep, that's right, I joined the Crossfit cult.  Although I'm not really sure if I'm ready to drink the Kool-aid.  I spent four years participating in and teaching BodyPump  - a totally different type of weight lifting class.  BodyPump is all about repetition until you reach muscle failure.  Crossfit is an Olympic style lifting class that seems to try and make your legs fall off with excessive rowing.

So much rowing!  My poor shins are tired!

There are a few reasons I decided to give Crossfit a try...

1. I have been doing BodyPump for five years and was looking for something a little different.
2. Many of my friends have been going to Crossfit and RAVE about, constantly.
3. The Crossfit gym is literally a block away from my apartment and they have 8pm classes.

Sold.  I'm signed up to go twice a week and I'm ready to burn!  First, I had to spend two weeks taking a Fundamentals class - learning the bar moves so I won't hurt myself during class.  I've been to three classes in the past week and I'm enjoying it, though my legs are wishing we'd cut it with the rowing.

You're wondering what an average Crossfit workout looks like?  Here's what we did yesterday...

Strength work
Bench Press - warm-up & 2x5reps at max weight, 3rd set - go until muscle failure

Conditioning Work
225 jump ropes (or 75 double-unders... which I haven't mastered yet)
50 Ball squats (you first do a squat, then you toss a heavy ball in the air)
25 Knees to elbows (hanging from a pull-up bar, you lift your knees as high as you can!)
Row 1500 meters (So much rowing)

I came home and ate a whole bunch of Girl Scout cookies.  Yum.

I'll keep you posted with the workouts and whether I see myself getting stronger and leaner.  Leaner probably won't happen if I continue finishing my workouts with a row of Peanut Butter patties...

Yogurt with Raspberry & Mint

You may have read yesterday that Boyfriend is trying to land an interview for a great job at Chobani.  As a part of his "research," we have dedicated the week to exploring the wide world of Greek yogurt.  Today we take a trip to the Chobani SoHo shop in New York City.

That's right!  In the summer of 2012, Chobani opened up its first shop in Manhattan.  Located right in the center of SoHo, their storefront offers up a healthy option for someone looking for a quick breakfast, afternoon snack, or late night treat.  It's also one of the only things I can usually afford in this fancy section of town.

With gourmet flavors like Fig & Walnut, Chocolate & Pistachio and their new Bagel & Lox, and some not-so-gourmet ones like PB&J, I had a hard time deciding which one to get.  You'll notice I went with my kid side and ordered PB&J.  You might also see that it came in this fancy Chobani container!  I want to head back time and time again so I can get a full set.

Since boyfriend and I don't live right next door to the CHO shop, I decided to make my own gourmet creation, in my CHO bowl!  Raspberries, fresh mint and a touch of sweet agave, I was in 3:00 snack heaven! 

And our tweet of the day - I'm loving @WildeKitchen 's "research" recipes!  Keep @PitCHObani in the job hunt so we can enjoy @Chobani 24/7/365 #InterviewOverYogurt.  Let's help boyfriend make friends with Chobani, so we can move to Brooklyn and I can have a commute that is only 1 hour instead of 2!  (Such an added bonus, because Brooklyn is pretty awesome all on it's own)

Fudgy Waffles

Normally my cooking is driven by a story or experience, this week I am letting my cooking create an experience.  Here's the background...

For those of you who don't know, there exists a complex network of people whose job it is to get the right products on the shelf of your favorite grocery store.  One of those people is Boyfriend.  To explain to you what he does would probably take a whole post to itself.  Simply put - He works with the brands to get their product on the store shelves and make sure they sell to people like us.

As we enter a new phase in our lives, buying a house and setting roots, Boyfriend is looking for a new job.  He found a job at Chobani Greek Yogurt that he thinks would be the perfect fit (and seriously, I'm all for more CHO in the house!).

Never content to go the traditional route, he asked me to help out (with my cooking talents) to help get him an interview.  Over the next few days, I will be posting some delicious meals we prepared (yes, we!) using Chobani.  Let's all band together and help Boyfriend and Chobani get together!

Then make some waffles, they are delicious.  I'd recommend eating them for breakfast AND dessert.  Afraid of baking?  You can totally do this, Boyfriend made these waffles!  I just gave him the recipe and told him to excessively spray down the waffle iron with cooking oil.

If you feel so inclined, head over to twitter and help boyfriend out!  Just copy and paste this tweet and hopefully he'll be on his way to his dream job and we'll be buying our dream co-op in Brooklyn!

If backing @PitCHObani for Category Mgr-SoHo means more @WildeKitchen @Chobani recipes - I'm In! #InterviewOverYogurt http://bit.ly/WdcW52

Why Bother? 2012 - Homemade Sodas

Sometimes serendipity strikes in your favor. Last weekend was one of those weeks.

Boyfriend loves to go to the flea market. Mostly he goes looking for toys. Old toys, new toys. Toys that remind him of his childhood. Toys that his dad sent to Goodwill before he was done playing with them. G.I. Joes, Batman figures, robotic toys from the 1980's, video game systems that are long past their prime. It's all on his radar. It's rare that I find something that I want while perusing the aisles of junk, until last Saturday.

We headed to the Meadowlands flea market bright and early Saturday morning. (You have to go early, otherwise all the good junk is gone.). Wandering through the sea of pre-owned merchandise, I spotted something that looked familiar. Stainless steel with a black cap, I first thought it was a whipped cream canister, until I got closer.

Wouldn't you know, it was a brand new soda siphon. The very one that I held back from buying because of its $70 price tag. When I asked how much the vendor wanted, he said "$10!" Color me happy, sold! What was so great about this find? Homemade sodas was on the list for the Why Bother challenge this week! Serendipity.

After a quick trip to the store to locate some CO2 cartridges, I was ready to carbonate everything! My friends told me to stop short of carbonating my milk. I was apt to agree.

I switched to drinking seltzer a few months ago and have never been much of a cola drinker, so I wanted to make something not too sweet and special for my homemade sodas. I settled on two flavorful options - a Raspberry-lime rickey and a strawberry cream soda.

I decided to carbonate the Rickey with the soda siphon and make the cream soda with seltzer water. You can make your own sodas without use of a siphon, just go out and buy some seltzer water and you'll be making your own homemade drinks in no time too!

The best thing about making your own sodas is that you control the sugar. Store bought sodas contain a ridiculous amount of sugar per serving (a 12-ounce can of soda typically has 10 and a 1/2 teaspoons of sugar). If you want a fun and fancy flavor, you're going to be paying at least $2.00 per beverage. Making your own at home, you save calories and money. Happy waistline and wallet!

Stop by here on Saturday (sorry, Sunday!  Saturday got away from me!) for the Strawberry cream soda!

PB&J Mallomars

Welcome to Summer.  I'm very excited for this coming summer because it is my first real summer in eight years!  It's not a summer vacation like we had all those years ago in elementary school, filled with nothing but bike riding and ice cream truck chasing.  Yet, it's also not a graduate school summer vacation, which is actually non-existant.  Summer this year is all mine.  Well, mine and boyfriends.

Last summer was kind of a lost cause in terms of fun and relaxing.  It was also a very exciting time in the Wilde household.  In June I accepted a job offer and a start date only four weeks away.  In those four weeks I had to finish my current project, pack up my studio apartment and move to New Jersey!  According to my posts last year, I spent so much time in the lab that I subsisted on cereal as my main food source.

Not this year!  Boyfriend and I have plans!  A weekend touring our nations history in Washington, DC.  A long Saturday at the New Jersey state fair, eating as much fried food as we can find.  Late nights in New York, trying as many new restaurants as we can.  As well as many nights spent walking around our town and weekends sitting by the pool.  We're going to see blockbuster movies and go for long bike rides around town.  Am I too old to chase the ice cream man down the street?  Because that's what kind of summer this feels like.

What are you planning for this summer?  Have your kids got you scheduled to the max already?  Or are you sitting pretty with nothing but empty weekends ahead?

With school out and a long summer ahead, I thought that it was time to share with you my PB&J mallomars.  A fluffy, raspberry marshmallow sits atop a moist peanut butter cookie.  I chose to coat the marshmallow in sprinkles, rather than chocolate, to keep the flavors classic.  Now is the time to get those freshly picked raspberries, so try to get the freshest and most flavorful berries.  These cookies are super moist due to the fact that I went with shortening as my fat.  If you want a crisper cookie, swap out some or all of the shortening for butter!