Introducing: Fresh Baked Puns

It’s no mystery that I love me a good food pun… if you follow me on Instagram or if you read this blog with any regularity that fact is glaringly obvious.

At this point I have a notebook filled with pages and pages of food puns.

It’s one of those things I’ve always thought I should do more with, and in fact, people have told me on multiple occasions (when I posted a particularly good pun), “you should put that on a t-shirt!”

And, well…

I’m finally doing just that!

Introducing… Fresh Baked Puns, a new line of punderful tees, accessories, and apparel with a flair for flavor and fashion. Featuring original punny illustrations (hand drawn by me!) and screen-printed on soft cotton tees with eco-friendly inks, these shirts are guaranteed to make your outfit the main course.

Our grand flan, er, plan, is to dish out delicious new designs quarterly, and our first design drops… NOW!

Are you ready?

More importantly, are you hungry?

The ultimate shirt for snack-lovers features bold pop-art-inspired cheese crackers, and hot pink lettering reading “Snaccident Prone”. You know, if you’ve ever found yourself accidentally consuming most of the box, bag, or batch without realizing it.

Shirts are screen printed locally in Nashville, TN with eco-friendly inks, providing a high quality design that lasts through numerous washes.

And even better news, we’re offering an exclusive 15% off discount when you preorder. We have both women’s and unisex shirt styles available in the preorder (all soft 100% cotton shirts in a cool vintage white color), but depending on how the preorder goes we may not stock both shirt styles after that, so be sure to preorder now to guarantee you get the size/style you want! (See preorder page for sizing information).

Don’t delay, preorder yours today!

Preorders close on August 14th, and shirts will ship the first week of September.

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Homemade Gummy Peach Rings (made with Real Fruit and Gelatin)

These homemade peach rings are bursting with bright, summery peach flavor—made with real fruit and set with gelatin for that perfect bouncy, stretchy gummy texture.

Any gummy candy lover is surely familiar with peach rings, the bi-colored peach-flavored rings of jellied delight. And now you can make them at home using real fruit for a fresh peach flavor that pops.

Back on my candy-making train… this year the focus is peach, most notably, a homemade version of the classic peach ring.

Unlike my previous strawberry and raspberry gummy recipes, this recipe is gelatin based instead of pectin; my ultimate goal was to achieve the ultra stretchy, bouncy texture of a gummy bear, and you simply can’t do that with pectin alone. (I’m curious what a combo pecin-and-gelatin gummy might be, but that’s another recipe for another day).

The results are well worth the many rounds of tests it took me to get there, with a bright and peachy flavor and a stretchy texture that’s incredibly satisfying.

Do plan to give yourself a solid 2-4 days to complete the whole process, as the gummies need plenty of time to set and then to cure. That said, it’s only about 60 minutes of total active time involved, even if it is spread out over the course of a few days.

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Blackberry Butter Cake

Tender and buttery and bursting with pockets of ripe summer berries, this blackberry butter cake is what I’d call an ideal snack cake—a snackberry cake, if you will—that’s easy to prepare and even easier to eat.

Sometimes simple is best, and this blackberry cake is proof in its perfection, no fancy frostings or fillings needed! It comes together quickly with minimal time and effort (remembering to get your ingredients out ahead of time is probably the hardest part), and the result is a casual yet impressive muffin-like cake that’s a perfect way to use up those summer berries.

The recipe is loosely based on my trusty sour cream coffee cake recipe, with slightly different proportions to accommodate the berries in an 8-inch square pan. And hey, if you want to call it a coffee cake and eat it for breakfast, I’m not going to judge you (it’s basically a muffin masquerading as a cake).

Using sour cream is really my favorite way to get a moist and flavorful butter cake; the fat adds moisture and flavor, and the acidity balances out the sugar. (Psst, sour cream also makes for an awesome chocolate cake too).

The dusting of granulated sugar on top makes for a delightfully crispy finish, without the need for a separate crumb mixture (as much as I love a crumb topping, I don’t love the extra dishes it creates). In fact, this cake can practically be prepared in a single bowl, either the bowl of a stand mixer or a large mixing bowl with an electric mixer.

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Strawberry Elderflower Tiramisu (with Eggless Mascarpone Cream)

A cross between classic tiramisu and a springy strawberry shortcake, this strawberry tiramisu has a dreamy eggless mascarpone cream and a splash of elderflower flavor to bring out the fragrant, floral notes of the berries.

The mascarpone whipped cream is eggless, meaning no concerns about raw eggs nor fussy tempering custards! It’s simply whipped cream stabilized with mascarpone, making for a fluffy, cloud-like cream in between layers of softened ladyfinger cookies and jammy strawberries. (Note that ladyfinger cookies DO contain eggs, so this recipe isn’t completely egg-free, just the cream part is).

The tiramisu renaissance is upon us. Sure there will always be the sticklers that insist that it’s not really tiramisu unless it’s got espresso, mascarpone cream and cocoa powder, but I like to take a looser interpretation. Really, anything that involves ladyfinger cookies layered with mascarpone cream can be called a tiramisu in my opinion.

In the past I’ve made an orange marmalade variation on the classic, swapping the coffee for orange juice, marmalade, and Grand Marnier liqueur (spoiler alert: it’s wonderful).

But here I wanted something a bit more… springy.

And what’s more springy than ripe spring strawberries, picked straight from the field?

This strawberry tiramisu features the layers of ladyfinger cookies and mascarpone cream like the classic version (though this mascarpone is lighter and made without eggs), but that’s where the similarities end.

Instead of espresso, we’re using a loose strawberry jam that’s been spiked with a bit of St. Germain elderflower liqueur, and an extra brush of elderflower syrup for added flavor and moisture.

The classic dusting of cocoa powder? It’s now a vibrant flurry of freeze dried strawberry powder dusting the tops of the mascarpone mountains.

What you get is part tiramisu, part strawberry shortcake: an elegant dessert that’s entirely delectable. It’s impressive but surprisingly easy to throw together, and throw together well ahead of your dinner party to free up your time for other tasks (and in fact, the make-ahead nature of tiramisu is not a can, rather a must—allowing at least 3-4 hours or more for the layers to soften and meld is non-negotiable, overnight is even better).

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Strawberry Passionfruit Jam

Boring strawberry jam? No way! This jammy mashup of strawberry and passionfruit has a bright, tangy, and strawberry-forward flavor and a gorgeous ruby red color.

This recipe is written for water-bath canning methods for shelf-stable storage, however it can also be stored in the fridge for up to 2 weeks or in the freezer for up to 6 months!

Another year, another strawberry season, another day dragging my husband outside to pick berries. He’s a good sport about it though, and, despite the fact the actual picking is not his favorite activity, he certainly appreciates the fruits of our labors (literally).

This year’s strawberry jam (in addition to making a batch of my favorite classic strawberry jam for year-round PB&Js) brings together two fruits that I love individually—strawberry and passionfruit—and love even more together. Case in point: last year’s strawberry passionfruit lemonade which was what inspired this lively flavor combination to begin with.

Unique combo fruit jams are… well, my jam. From mango raspberry to strawberry guava, I say why use one fruit when two would be better (or hey, what about three! Or four! In fact, there’s a fabulous triple berry jam, and a ridiculously named FROG jam—fig, raspberry, orange, and ginger—in my book, and they are definitely some of my favorites).

When it comes to kinds of fruit, the more the merrier I say!

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Grapefruit Olive Oil Bundt Cake (with Greek Yogurt)

How much grapefruit is too much grapefruit? Asking for a friend (hi, it’s me, I’m the friend). Because this flavor-packed bundt uses two entire grapefruits, including the zest and the juice as well as grapefruit extract in the cake itself, which is then soaked with a flavor-packed grapefruit cordial and drizzled with a grapefruit glaze to top it all off.

Made with olive oil and greek yogurt for flavor, moisture and tang, with a plush, pound cake-like texture and subtle notes of extra virgin olive oil that perfectly compliment the bright grapefruit flavor, it’s the perfect springtime bake to mark the transition from winter to spring! And did I mention that since it’s an oil-based cake, you don’t even need an electric mixer to make it? That’s what I call winning.

Let’s pack as much grapefruit flavor as humanly possible into a bundt pan (not an easy undertaking, as grapefruit is a tricky flavor to get to come through in baked goods). To achieve maximum grapefruit flavor, I ended up using grapefruit zest, fresh-squeezed juice, and grapefruit extract in the cake itself, then soaked the warm cake with a bright and tangy grapefruit cordial (which is basically like a sugar syrup, just uncooked so the grapefruit flavor stays super bright), and finally glazed it with an elegant drizzle of pastel pink grapefruit glaze.

That’s two whole grapefruits in there in one form or another.

Even with what seems like an excessive amount of grapefruit, the flavor is actually quite mellow (it’s not going to punch you in the face), but still prominently and pleasantly grapefruit from the very first bite.

By the second bite, you’ll begin tasting the the grassy, peppery notes of the olive oil, which plays beautifully with the almost floral grapefruit, and just the right amount of sugar to offset any bitterness that might result from having so much grapefruit packed in to a single cake.

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Homemade Pistachio Drink Syrup (that actually tastes like pistachios!)

This bright green syrup tastes just like pistachios, with a bright green color and bold, nutty flavor that’s perfect in caffeinated beverages, cocktails and mocktails, or drizzled over ice cream, waffles or pancakes.

Most pistachio syrup recipes out there call for simply steeping pistachios in a sugar syrup, but that just gives you a faintly nutty sugar syrup that barely tastes like pistachio at all. Instead, my recipe calls for blending the nuts with the sugar syrup and then straining it, resulting in a luscious, thick green syrup that actually tastes like real pistachios (no extract needed!)

I know, I know. I’ve gone a little pistachio crazy lately, it’s bordering on obsession (at what point do I need to change the blog name to Love & Pistachios?)

Since we’ve already tackled homemade pistachio butter, I really wanted to figure out a homemade pistachio syrup next. Because, let’s face it, most commercially available brands of pistachio syrup just aren’t very good. I thought finding a good pistachio extract was hard, but pistachio syrup is even more elusive. Most of the ones I’ve tried taste too chemically, even bordering on cherry cough syrup-like flavor more than pistachio. It’s really disappointing if we’re being honest here.

I figured, how hard could it be to make my own?

I tested a number of different versions of this recipe, with the ultimate aim to maximize the natural pistachio flavor as much as possible, and a secondary goal of a gorgeous green color.

When I compared a steeped and blended syrup to a syrup that was just steeped with pistachios, the difference was like night and day. The blended syrup actually tastes like pistachios. The steeped syrup… doesn’t. Like, at all. It tastes like a plain old sugar syrup that briefly dated a pistachio in their teenage years (lol).

Anyway. Blending the syrup is the key here, and you really can’t get away with skipping this step (though see my note at the very bottom for a blender-free version in a pinch).

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