You may recall a few months back when Vicky of Things I Made Today, Bowen of Bowen Appetit and I got together to make you this lovely dinner menu and announce that we had some exciting collaborative efforts in the works. As fellow food bloggers, we’d been getting together every few weeks to discuss the exciting world of food bloggery. We found our little get togethers to be such a good experience, we figured that creating this same sort of opportunity for the entire local food blog community would be even better. Not to mention, it would be really fun.

And so, after several more of our little get togethers, and a whole lot of planning, we’re excited to officially announce the formation of Wisconsin Whisk! Whisk is a culinary collective of food bloggers based here in Madison. Our goal is to build up a local food blogging community and introduce fellow bloggers to each other, as well as help to bridge connections between bloggers, local Wisconsin food producers, sponsors, and advertisers who are interested pursuing collaborative efforts. This means lots of fun opportunities to network with other local bloggers, and meet with local producers and sponsors to pursue potential collaboration. Sound exciting? Check out our website to learn more!

We’ve had a lot of fun planning Whisk and are so excited to be in our initial launch stage at last! We decided to celebrate, and we figured there was no better way to celebrate this time of year than with a backyard picnic. Vicky, Bowen, our intern Alice, and I got together with a picnic blanket, our trusty cameras, and our best picnic recipes; the result was one terrifically tasty al fresco dining situation. Here’s what was on the menu:

Summer picnics are the best, but on a hot day you’re definitely going to need a cool refreshing beverage. Luckily, Bowen had us covered with this delightfully refreshing cucumber and mint agua fresca. Click the photo below for the full recipe on Bowen Appetit.

For the main dish, Vicky packed some perfect fava bean falafel with a yogurt mint sauce and all the fixins. Click the photo below for the full recipe on Things I Made Today.

And finally, for dessert, we dined on these adorable mini peach almond cakes. Because honestly, what’s better than your own personal cake? From the light brown butter almond cake, to the almond paste center, to the tart-sweet peach and toasty almond topping, these mini cakes were the perfect finale to our delightful little picnic.

Mini Peach Almond Cakes

makes 12 mini cakes

½ c butter (1 stick)
1 ¾ cups flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
½ cup sugar
½ cup brown sugar
2 eggs
1 cup plain yogurt
1 tsp almond extract
4 oz almond paste
2 ripe peaches, thinly sliced
¼ cup sliced almonds

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Grease and flour a standard 12 cup muffin pan.

2. Brown butter: Heat butter gently in a pot over low heat until completely melted. Increase heat to medium, and continue to cook, stirring frequently to prevent burning. The butter is ready when it has a nutty/toasty smell and a deep brown color; about 7-8 minutes of cooking. More in-depth info on browning butter here. Remove browned butter from heat and set aside to cool slightly.

3. In a medium bowl, stir together the flour, baking powder, and salt.

4. In a larger bowl, mix the brown butter, sugar, and brown sugar together until smooth. Stir in the eggs, followed by the yogurt and almond extract until everything is well combined. Fold in the flour mixture until fully incorporated.

5. Divide batter evenly between the 12 muffin wells.

6. Slice the almond paste into 12 equal pieces, shaping each into a small disk about ¾” in diameter. Press one almond paste disk into the center of each batter-filled muffin well (this will form a delicious almond-y core for each cake).

7. Top each cake with a couple of peach slices and about 1 tsp sliced almonds. Bake cakes until golden almonds on top are beginning to brown and cakes are puffed and golden, about 25 minutes.

8. Let cakes rest for about 5 minutes, then run a knife around each cake and pop out of the muffin pan. Cool cakes on a wire rack.