Raspberry Cream Cheese Coffee Cake

Raspberry Cream Cheese Coffee Cake

Summer here in southern BC is a veritable cornucopia of fresh, ripe berries of all kinds. Blueberries, raspberries, strawberries, and blackberries – all are plump and sweet from the summer sun. This Raspberry Cream Cheese Coffee Cake is easy to whip together and highlights the best of our summer fruit.

Cake: it's what's for breakfast. Yep, you heard me.

Since summer has arrived in full force, I’ve been a busy bee; buzzing from one activity to the next. As a result, my garden has been — shall we say — gently neglected. Oh who am I kidding? It is overgrown on the west side with blackberries. 10-foot tall raspberry canes as thick as a baby’s arm, with razor-sharp thorns just waiting to bleed any unsuspecting passers-by. The up side? The branches are so heavy with giant, glossy berries, they are practically laying on the ground. We love berries of all kinds, and this is my absolutely favourite coffee cake to make with fresh berries. Any berry will do – use whatever you have.

Prepare to inhale several slices of this raspberry goodness.

Click through for the recipe....

Red + White Recipes for Canada Day!

Happy Canada Day! That special day where we celebrate ourselves with fireworks, beer, barbecue, The Tragically Hip, and all thinks red & white.

Here is a round up of some of my red and white recipes. Wishing you have a safe and fun long weekend, from me, Handsome Rob, and Cooper!

Cooper wishes you a Happy Canada Day!

Wine Roasted Rhubarb & Strawberry Shortcake

Wine Roasted Rhubarb & Strawberry Shortcake

Red Velvet Cake

Red Velvet Cake

White Chocolate Cheesecake with Raspberry Vodka Sauce

White Chocolate Cheesecake with Raspberry Vodka Sauce

Strawberry Rhubarb Pie with Mascarpone Whipped Cream

Strawberry Rhubarb Pie with Mascarpone Whipped Cream

Sweet Cherry Tart with Port

Sweet Cherry Tart with Port

Raspberry Almond Thumbprint Cookies

Raspberry Almond Thumbprint Cookies

Red & White Recipes for Canada Day

Cream Cheese Mints

Gifts from the Kitchen

Give the gift that doesn't mints around... get it? See what I did there?

If you're stuck for a gift idea, these Cream Cheese Mints are super easy, quick to whip up and look incredibly pretty! Package them up in little jars, throw on a sparkly ribbon, and you have an almost-instant gift. And who doesn't like getting candy as a gift? (That's a hint, by the way).

Cream Cheese Mints
Based on this recipe from Kraft Canada
Makes 8-12 dozen tiny mints, depending upon the size you make them

Ingredients
1 pkg. (8 oz) Cream Cheese, softened
1 tsp. peppermint extract
5.5 cups icing sugar
Blue food colouring (I used AmeriColor gel)

Tools Required

Piping bag

Rosette piping tip

Method

1. Prepare 3 baking sheets by lining with parchment paper and set aside.
2. Beat cream cheese, peppermint extract, icing sugar and food colouring together until smooth.
3. Spoon mixture into piping bag and pipe little swirls onto the parchment paper. Let mints dry overnight, then package them into pretty jars, decorated with ribbon.

No Bake White Chocolate Cheesecake with Raspberry Vodka Sauce for Father’s Day

I once again volunteered to bring dessert to the family get-together. This time, it was a potluck BBQ for Father’s Day. My Father-in-law’s favourite dessert is cheesecake (psst it’s mine, too), so I knew I would be making one. Since we have been having unseasonable hot weather here, I thought I would whip up a no-bake cheesecake to bring. “I love having the oven on for hours during hot weather,” said no one ever.

This cheesecake is simple and quick to throw together. The sauce is to die for, with intense raspberry flavour. It’s worth the extra elbow grease to strain out the seeds, pressing the mixture through a sieve to get the tasty pulp along with the juice. Why add vodka? You can certainly leave it out, but the alcohol is cooked away. The vodka adds a rich body to the sauce, giving it a buttery mouth feel without adding butter. I wouldn’t use flavoured vodka, as the bright acidity of the raspberries would be lost.

Click through for recipe and instructions...

Blueberry Cream Cheese Quick Bread

What? There's fruit in it.

The holidays are over, and all the Christmas treats have been devoured, mostly by me. The gingerbread, chocolates and shortbread cookies are now a sweet memory. Lately, I have been craving fresh fruit (but not mandarin oranges, haha). When I saw fresh blueberries on sale at the local grocery, I knew I wanted to bake them up into something non-holiday related. Result: Blueberry Cream Cheese Quick Bread!

Sunday Brunch: Belgian Waffles

When in Bruges...

My family recently gathered to celebrate my Dad's 80th birthday with a birthday brunch of Belgian waffles. I had not made waffles in ages, so I was thankful for an excuse to use our waffle iron, which had been languishing unused in a dark corner of the cupboard.

I served the waffles warm, with whipped cream mixed with cream cheese, vanilla and a bit of sugar. Topped with sliced strawberries, freshly picked from a Fraser Valley garden, and fresh blueberries, the waffles made a decadent brunch for a special guy.

Manly Desserts: Guinness Chocolate Cake with Bittersweet Chocolate Ganache and Bailey's Cream Cheese Frosting

Manly Guinness Chocolate Cake for Manly Men

Happy Father's Day! Today, we celebrated dear, old Dad. Many of you spent the day with Dad, as I did, participating in his favourite activities, or Dadtitivies. Golfing, fishing, boating, hunting, NASCAR — all the manly-man things Dad does anyway, but on Father's Day we get to go with him.

My Dad chose his favourite activity — lunch. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree as that's my favourite activity, too. We took him to his favourite lunch spot (Tim Horton's), and then back home for a home-baked treat.

Red Velvet Cake

Luscious Red Velvet Cake, with pretty cream cheese frosting roses

When I was a teenager, my family was transplanted from western Canada to rural Mississippi for a short time. That year brought daily lessons of culture shock, the main one of course was the food. I have many memories of shiver-inducing food, however, I did fall in love with one dessert: Red Velvet Cake. This moist, sweet, beautifully red cake with its tangy white frosting was a wonderful treat; not quite birthday cake, not quite chocolate cake, but something unique and new to me.