Chocolate Walnut Brownies
Aug. 03, 2010 06:11 PM Filed in: Brownies
I’d probably never turn down a chance to make brownies. No matter how many recipes I've tried, I'm always willing to try a new one. Even the not-so-great recipes seem to disappear quickly in this house.
Recently I received a kitchen item in the mail from CSN stores, so that is why I decided to make these brownies in cupcake form (more on that product review soon). The full recipe yielded 16 cupcakes filled about half way, and baked for about 30 minutes.
The brownies turned out great, but baking them in the cupcake liners made them a little bit crisper around the edges than if they were sliced from a 9 x 9 square pan. Someone who loves the brownie edge pieces would love these. But they were still fudgey and soft in the center, and sturdy enough to stand on their own without falling apart (a problem with very soft brownies). We did have a tiny bit of a sticking-to-the-paper problem when trying to remove them from the liners... but this got much easier the day after these were baked.
I asked the fiance how these ranked compared to other brownies we've made, and he said, "Well these are different. They have nuts. But brownies with nuts are good. They were good, I could eat a whole bunch of them." (He may sound distracted because he gave his review racing a car around Rome on Playstation).
Chocolate Mint Cookies
Aug. 03, 2010 06:09 PM Filed in: Cookies
I have always hated mint and chocolate together. I've just never understood the combination. After Eight mints disgusted me and York Peppermint patties had no appeal. Don't even get me started on Mint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream, blegh. I didn't even like anything that had been close to mint. If my cookies were in a cookie jar that had previously held a mint cookie without being thoroughly disinfected, I wanted no part of it. It had already absorbed some of the aroma of that sneaky infectious mint.
Yes, very strong feelings for an herb. So it was very surprising to me when I recently started craving Thin Mints. I don't even know if I've ever had one, but suddenly I wanted one. Strange. So I went out and bought a fresh Mint plant and put it in our small little herb garden next to our beloved sage and basil. When it got big enough, I made these. They're like soft Chocolate Chocolate Chip cookies with the added flavor of fresh Mint. Apparently, I like Chocolate and Mint together now. If you try these cookies, you just might, too.
Chocolate Mint Cookies with Fresh Mint Leaves
1 2/3 C all-purpose flour
1/3 C unsweetened cocoa powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp fine sea salt
2 sticks butter, room temperature, softened
1/4 C granulated sugar
1/2 C packed light brown sugar
1 egg, room temperature
2 1/2 packed tablespoons Fresh Mint, chopped fine
1/2 C semisweet chocolate chips
1/2 C dark chocolate chunks or chips
Preheat the oven to 375 F and line cookie sheet with parchment paper.
Sift together the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt.
In a separate bowl, cream the butter and both sugars together until light and fluffy. Add in the egg and mix until smooth.
Stir in the finely chopped mint leaves.
Add the dry ingredients in two steps, scraping down the bowl after each addition. Mix until just combined, don't over mix.
Stir in the chocolate chips by hand.
Scoop by the rounded tablespoon onto parchment lined cookie sheets. Leave a good amount of space, at least 2 inches between cookie dough balls because these may spread a bit.
Bake about 8-9 minutes, removing from the oven when the cookies appear just set. For a soft cookie, make sure to not over-bake.
Sour Cherry and Almond Biscotti
Do you love breakfast? I do. I rarely begin my day without some sort of breakfast. No matter how busy I am or what kind of a rush I'm in, it always involves coffee. When I'm running behind I grab my to-go mug of coffee and whatever is on the counter which is usually just a banana or apple. On those rushy-rush days I'd love to be able to grab one of these freshly baked biscotti on my way out the door. They were just the right thing first thing in the morning... or any time of day for that matter.
hough I couldn't find Dried Sour Cherries anywhere, I picked up some regular Dried Cherries, and instead of simmering them in Orange Juice, I used Lemon Juice to try to add some of that Sour-Tartness I'd be missing. Other than that and scaling it down by half, I made this recipe exactly as is. Which I'm glad about because they came out perfect.
Dan doesn't love super crunchy things, so I made some of them as "Biscotti" - twice baked, and the others I only baked once, so I call them "Unscotti". These ones weren't dried out entirely, so they still had a little bit of chew left in them.
After I simmered my Dried Cherries in Lemon Juice, I saw how much Cherriness had seeped into the Lemon Juice. I decided it would be a tragedy to throw this away, so I stuck it in a measuring cup (it was about 2 ounces total) and stuck it in the frig. I grabbed 2 ounces water and 1/4 cup granulated sugar and made a simple syrup with it, and then let that cool to room temperature. After it's all cooled, add 6 ounces ice cold water, and a bunch of ice cubes and what do you get?
Only the most delicious Cherry-Lemonade EVER!!
Cherry Lemonade - I didn't include measurements because this can be scaled to make your desired amount. Mine above yielded two glasses.
Ingredients:
Dried Cherries
Lemons, juiced
Sugar
Cold Water
Ice Cubes
*Combine equal parts Dried Cherries and lemon juice (Example: 1/2 cup of Cherries and 1/2 cup of lemon juice).
*Simmer over medium heat until the color of the lemon juice is murky and brownish-red. Remove from heat and strain out the Cherries (now would be a good time to make some Sour Cherry Almond Biscotti!). Pour into a measuring glass and allow to cool. Note the amount of Lemon-Cherry juice mixture after simmering. Chill in the frig 30-40 minutes.
*Measure out equal parts water and sugar (each equal to what the Lemon-Cherry Juice mixture was after simmering. So if you yielded 1/2 C Lemon-Cherry Juice after simmering before, take 1/2 C water and 1/2 C sugar). Boil together until the sugar dissolves and you have a simple syrup. Set aside and allow to cool.
*Add all ingredients together and stir. Add cold water (the amount of ice water is your Lemon-Cherry Juice mixture amount x 3. So if you had yielded 1/2 C Lemon-Cherry Juice earlier, add 1 1/2 C cold water now).
*Serve over ice cubes and ENJOY!
Peanut Butter Cookie Dough Brownies
Jul. 12, 2010 12:13 PM Filed in: Brownies
Occasionally I'll spent a lot of time preparing something, getting creative, making it fancy, and it just doesn't go over well. Usually, though, the classic treats are home-runs. When you want to make a dessert the family will surely go nuts for, stick to time-tested flavor combinations and family favorites. These Peanut Butter Cookie Dough Brownies were one of those home-run desserts that was actually pretty easy to make, too. If you're still searching for a recipe to make for the Fourth of July festivities you'll be attending, keep these in mind. Moist, chocolately brownie layer on the bottom, Peanut Butter Cookie Dough-ish frosting in the middle, Rich chocolate ganache on top... You'll definitely hit one out of the park with these.
Peanut Butter Cookie Dough Brownies, adapted from FoodNetwork.com
Ingredients for Brownie Layer:
1/2 cup unsalted butter
2 ounces unsweetened chocolate, chopped
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup sugar
2 large eggs
1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup semisweet chocolate chunks
Ingredients for Peanut Butter Cookie Dough Frosting:
1/4 cup unsalted butter, soft
1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
2 tablespoons milk
1/2 cup creamy peanut butter
1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
Ingredients for Ganache:
3/4 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
1/4 cup heavy whipping cream
1/4 cup Peanut butter chips
Preheat to 350 F. Line an 8 x 8 square pan with a parchment paper sling.
To prepare the brownie layer:
In a small saucepan, melt the butter and unsweetened chocolate together and stir until combined. Mix in the vanilla extract and allow to cool slightly. Beat the sugar and eggs in a large bowl and add in the chocolate mixture. In a small bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, salt. Stir into the chocolate mixture. Add chocolate chunks and stir to combine. Spread the brownie batter evenly into the prepared pan. Bake about 22 to 28 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into center comes out clean. Remove from the oven and let cool in the pan.
To prepare the peanut butter cookie dough:
Beat the butter and brown sugar together until creamy. Mix in the milk and the peanut butter. Stir in flour and salt. Spread the peanut butter cookie dough evenly over the cooled brownies.
To prepare the ganache:
In a small saucepan, melt the semisweet chocolate chips with the heavy whipping cream. When the chips are melted and the mixture is smooth, remove from the heat. Spread the ganache over the peanut butter layer and sprinkle with the peanut butter chips. Refrigerate until the dough and ganache are set, about 1 hour. Remove the brownies from the square pan by lifting the parchment sling, and cut into squares.
Ice Cream Sandwiches: Gingersnap Cookie and Lemon Ice Cream
I've always wanted to make my own ice cream sandwiches, but was intimidated. They're so cute! Plus, with homemade cookies of your choice and homemade ice cream in the wildest flavor you can think of, they'd be so much more delicious than the store bought ones. And so cute! Did I mention I think they're just adorable? The process of making them seems fairly easy, but is it one of those things that looks easy but turns out to be anything but? Well, I finally decided to give it a go and find out. Turns out it actually is quite easy.
I used the Gingersnap cookie recipe from the Sweet Melissa Baking Book, and the Super Lemon Ice Cream recipe from David Lebovitz's book, The Perfect Scoop.
2. Using the parchment, lift the cookie out of the pan. Use cookie cutter on still-hot dough. Allow to cool on wire rack. Enjoy the scraps! When completely cool, put cookies in the freezer.
3. Prepare ice cream flavor of your choice in your ice cream maker. After churning, pour into parchment lined pan so that the thickness of the ice cream is no thicker than the cookie cutter you used on your cookies. Place pan in freezer and allow to freeze completely - until hard.
4. When ice cream is frozen solid, remove from the freezer and using the parchment sling, lift the ice cream out of the pan. Use the cookie cutter to cut out the ice cream.
5. Sandwich the ice cream between two cookies. Wrap in plastic wrap and keep in the freezer until you're ready to enjoy them. Allow to thaw for a few minutes before eating.
Loading up the cooler bag to deliver our ice cream sandwiches
and what if they weren't home? well we let ourselves in (it's family, were not criminals) and left them a note:
Anyways, these were delicious. The Super Lemon Ice Cream was indeed that - superly lemony.. but in a good way. At first, you get the tangy, tart lemon taste, and then you get the sweet, spicy cookie taste. The two flavors went very well together - Yum yum. And the ice cream sandwich making process? Very easy... I suspect you'll be seeing more variations on here in the near future
Ice Cream Cookie Cups
Jun. 15, 2010 10:03 AM Filed in: Cookies | Ice Cream Cup
Have you ever prepared a chocolate chip cookie recipe that came out as flat as a pancake? I'm talking so thin, when you hold it up you can see patches of light coming through. I have recently and I was quite disappointed because I thought they were going to be nice and soft and chewy. Instead, they came out wafer thin. I didn't even bother taking pictures of them. We ate about 3 or 4 of them before throwing away the whole lot of them. The problem was, when I prepared the recipe, I only baked half of it. The rest I stuffed into a freezer bag and popped in the freezer for another night when we had the craving for fresh, warm chocolate chip cookies. Since the cookies weren't that great, the bag just sat there in the freezer taking up room for a few weeks. Until I had an idea...
What if I baked them in a cupcake tin? Maybe the shape of the cupcake tin would stop them from spreading out all over the cookie sheet. It would retain its shape and stay a little thicker. Right?
Right. It turned out to be quite a nice little dessert creation.
As they cooled, they sank a little in the middle - making a perfect cookie cup for a scoop of ice cream!
For the cookie recipe, I used Vanilla Pudding Chocolate Chip Cookies from the Toronto Star (via The Canadian Baker). The reviews of the recipe were great, so I was expecting a really good cookie. Maybe I did something wrong, because mine were not so. I'll have to give this recipe another shot, but I have another Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe using Vanilla Pudding that I want to try too!
Vanilla Pudding Chocolate Chip Cookies from The Canadian Baker
Ingredients:
1 cup unsalted butter, melted & cooled
1 cup lightly packed light brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
102 g box instant vanilla pudding mix (or if you have a larger box, weigh it out on a scale)
2 tbsp cold
2 large eggs, room temperature
2 tsp pure vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp each: baking powder, baking soda
2 cups milk chocolate chips (I went crazy with my Chips and used Chocolate Rocks, Hershey's Special Dark Chips & Toffee Bits)
Preheat to 350. In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat the butter and sugars until creamy. Stir in pudding mix and milk. Add eggs and vanilla. Next, add the flour, baking powder and soda. Stir until batter is smooth. Stir in your choice of chips.
Drop heaping tablespoons of dough on non-stick cookie sheets. Bake about 12 minutes or until edges are lightly browned. Cool 10 minutes on cookie sheet. Transfer cookies to wire rack to cool completely.
Kiwi Strawberry Shortcake Ice Cream Cupcakes
So, Ice Cream Cupcakes are the perfect thing to cool you down on these hot days... while satisfying your sweet tooth, too! And what better way to welcome summer with a delicious fruity flavor combination. For my second attempt at making Ice Cream Cupcakes, me and the fiance came up with an AMAZINGLY fresh and fruity concoction: Fresh Strawberry Ice Cream on top of Strawberries-and-Cream Cake, topped with Kiwi Sauce and Vanilla Whipped Cream It tasted like the frozen ice creamy version of Strawberry Shortcake, with a little extra something from the homemade Kiwi Sauce. This recipe was a total winner. Absolutely FULL of flavor, refreshing, and decadent all at the same time. And this is my entry for CupcakeProject's 2010 Ice Cream Cupcake Roundup! Please see details for this contest here at Cupcake Project and here at Scoopalicious
Strawberries and Cream Cake, adapted from The Hungry Mouse
Ingredients:
3/8 cup sugar
2 Tbls butter, soft
1/2 an egg (whisk entire egg, discard half of it)
3/8 cup heavy cream
1 cups flour
1 tsp. baking powder
heaping 1/4 tsp. sea salt
1 cups strawberries, sliced
Put 12 - 16 foil cupcake liners (depending on how much cake you want per ice cream cupcake) on a cookie sheet. Preheat to 375. Beat the sugar, egg and butter together to combine. When slightly cream, pour in the cream and mix to combine.
In a separate small bowl, whisk the flour, baking powder, and salt together. Add to the wet mixture. Beat on low to combine and then turn it up to high for a short while to make the consistency thick and creamy - but do not overbeat.
Add in the strawberries and stir by hand with a spatula to incorporate. Divide between the liners and spread slightly with a spoon. Liners will only be about 1/2 as full as if you were making full sized cupcakes.
Bake for 16-22 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Remove to a wire rack to cool. When completely cool, move to the freezer to freeze the cakes. Then, make your ice cream...
Fresh Strawberry Ice Cream adapted from epicurious.com
Ingredients
1 3/4 cups heavy cream
Strips of lemon zest, from about 1/2 a lemon
1/8 teaspoon sea salt
2 large eggs, room temperature
3/4 cup sugar
1 lb strawberries (by weight), hulled and halved
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
Combine heavy cream, zest, and sea salt in a heavy saucepan and bring to a boil. Remove from heat.
Whisk the eggs with 1/2 cup sugar in a bowl. Put a strainer on top of this bowl, and slowly pour the cream/zest mixture through the strainer/sieve. Discard the zest. Pour back into the saucepan and cook over moderately low heat, stirring constantly, until slightly thickened and an instant-read thermometer registers 170°F (do not let boil).
Immediately pour custard through a sieve into a metal bowl, then cool to room temperature by putting this metal bowl into a larger bowl full of ice water, stirring occasionally to quickly cool. Chill, covered, at least until cold, about 2 hours, and up to 1 day.
While custard is chilling, purée strawberries with remaining 1/4 cup sugar and lemon juice in a blender until smooth, then force through fine sieve (to remove seeds) into chilled custard. Stir purée into custard.
Freeze in ice-cream maker, then transfer to an airtight container and put in freezer a bit more, so it is soft enough to pipe through a piping bag. Pipe on to frozen cupcakes and freeze to harden.
Kiwi Sauce:
Ingredients:
4 kiwis
1/8 C sugar + additional, if desired
Peel the brown skin off of the kiwis. Place kiwis in a food processor and blend until completely pureed. Add to a saucepan set on medium to high heat with 2 tablespoons of sugar. Stir over the heat until it thickens slightly. Remove to a small metal bowl and, set the small bowl within a larger one filled with ice water. Stir the kiwi sauce constantly to quickly cool the sauce. Add sugar until the sauce reaches your desired sweetness. Force through a strainer to remove (most of) the seeds. Serve, cold, on top of ice cream cupcakes.
Vanilla Whipped Cream:
Ingredients:
1 cup cold heavy whipping cream
2 tsp mexican vanilla
1/8 C granulated sugar + additional, if desired
Beat all ingredients together, on high, until mixture reaches light and fluffy consistency. Add more sugar if desired to reach desired sweetness. Serve on top of ice cream cupcakes.
Crumb Cake Brownies
Jun. 15, 2010 09:59 AM Filed in: Brownies
I have really been enjoying this small break between classes. There's only a few weeks from the time Spring semester ends and Summer A semester begins, but I have tried to get the most out of this short time. I've been reading (leisure reading, not required class reading-imagine that!), lots of wedding planning, laying in the Florida sun, kayaking, wave runnering, and baking... Sadly, Summer A begins on Monday (already????? ARG) but I just keep telling myself - its only 8 weeks long! And then I'll be DONE WITH CLASSES for my masters degree. All I will have left after that is a full-time, one semester long internship and I will graduate fully certified to teach art.
So during this brief break from school work, I've actually been able to bake more often than just once a week which is something that is nearly impossible during the semester. Any break time I get during the semester, I either get a head start on upcoming assignments, or I take a moment to relax. But since I've been able to bake more, I keep getting Baker's Block. Is that a thing, baker's block? It's when I want to bake, but can't think of what to make! I find that I often fall back on a few different desserts. Blondies and Brownies are near the top of that list. Sure, I'll try out new recipes, but its usually a new recipe for a brownie or blondie. I think this is for a few reasons. 1.) Everyone loves them 2.) They pair oh-so-well with ice cream and 3.) They're adaptable - use a different recipe, change up the mix-ins, and you can have a new take on a familiar, old-favorite. But while searching the other day through my oodles and oodles of Bookmarked "Make This!" links, I found something that sounded a little different than just using peanut butter chips instead of chocolate chips. Imagine what would happen if a Fudgy Brownie (so fudgy its on the border of being fudge and not a brownie at all) and Crumb Cake. What do you get? A crazy delicious hybrid: Crumb Cake Brownies. I got the idea from Donna of My Tasty Treasures, who got the recipe from Womans Day Magazine Holiday Cookies Jan 2009. Thanks for sharing another great recipe, Donna! I took the idea for this recipe - a bottom brownie layer topped with Crumb Cake or Coffee Cake topping. In the original from Womans Day, it was a Brownie Cake, but I subbed in a regular ol' brownie base to make it even fudgier and indulgent-er. YU-UMS.
For my brownie base, I chose Max Brenner's Brownie recipe, via Anna at Cookie Madness (who did all the work for me and scaled it down!) For the topping, I chose my favorite Crumb Cake topping from Epicurious. For me, it yielded 16 super rich Crumb Cake Brownies.
Small Batch of Max Brenner Brownies, adapted from Cookie Madness
Ingredients:
1/3 cup unsalted butter
1/3 cup heavy cream
10 ½ ounces dark chocolate (approx. 70%), roughly chopped
1 1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 large eggs, room temperature
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/4 generous teaspoon sea salt
1/3 cup all-purpose flour
1 batch of Crumb Topping
Preheat to 350° and line a 8" square pan with parchment. Put the chopped chocolate in a medium glass mixing bowl.
Set the butter and cream over medium heat and bring to a boil. When it has reached a boil, pour on to the chocolate and let it sit to allow the chocolate to soften and melt. After a minute or two, stir until chocolate is completely melted and mixture is smooth. Set aside to cool for about 10 minutes (now is a good time to prepare your crumb topping!).
Add vanilla to the slightly cooled chocolate mixture. Whisk in eggs, one at a time. Whisk in sugar and salt.
Add the flour to the chocolate mixture. Stir gently until just combined, don't overmix! Crumble the crumb topping evenly over the brownie batter.
Crumb Topping, adapted from Epicurious's Jam Crumb Cake recipe
Ingredients:
6 TBL unsalted butter, melted and allowed to cool slightly
1/4 cup packed light brown sugar
1/4 cup granulated sugar
3/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon sea salt
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
Whisk together melted butter, both sugars, cinnamon, and salt until smooth. Stir in flour, then blend and poke with a fork until it becomes crumbs. Sprinkle crumbs over top of brownie batter. Bake 25-30 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out almost clean. Cool in the pan on a cooling rack. Remove from pan before cutting.
These came out really, really good. The brownie base is SUPER rich, and SO fudgy that it is on the verge of being called fudge. It is very soft - one of the comments I got from tasters was that it has a consistency totally different from a regular brownie. In fact, I think the crumbliness of the Crumb Cake Topping was a necessary addition to balance out the texture of the brownies. A definite would-make-again!
Peanut Butter Truffles
May. 03, 2010 11:21 AM Filed in: Truffles
If you ask ME, sweet is almost always made better by the addition of Salty, and these truffles do just that. The truffle base is made with heavy cream, chocolate, butter, and peanut butter, and it is rolled in a coating of chopped, salted nuts. Yu-um.
Based on reactions in the SMS forum, this was a.) light on the peanut butteriness and b.) a very messy procedure. Knowing this ahead of time, I upped the amount of peanut butter in the recipe and decreased the butter a tiny bit. I made a half batch of these bad boys, and halved all of the ingredients. But instead of halving the Peanut Butter, I actually increased it from 1/4 C to 1/3 C. I'm glad I upped the PB because, even with my more than doubled ratio of PB to chocolate, the chocolate flavor was still more prominent (though you could taste the PB). I decreased the butter to 2 TBL, used high quality belgium dark chocolate (its 71% was the closest I could find at the grocery store to the 64-68% Melissa calls for in the recipe), and used sea salted, dry roasted, chopped peanuts. Also, from the kind warning of the other SMS-ers about how MESSY this was, I was prepared and took off my rings before starting. And just how messy did I get? Well...
UUUHH, very.
Overall these were very good. Definitely needed to up the Peanut Butter in order to call these "Peanut Butter Truffles". I'm glad I read and learned from the other SMS'ers before preparing these, because the more-than-doubled amount of peanut butter was totally necessary.
Chewy & Chunky Blondies
Apr. 30, 2010 01:32 PM Filed in: Blondies
Though I do not own this book yet (YET), I have heard soooo many great things about Dorie Greenspan's Baking: From My Home to Yours. This past weekend, I got around to making her Chewy, Chunky Blondies (page 109) since we are real big blondie fans in this family. I prepared the recipe with only minor changes (I omitted the coconut and walnuts, and instead of her 6 ounces bittersweet chocolate chopped into chips, or 1 cup chocolate chips & 1 cup Heath Toffee Bits I did 3/4 C chocolate chips (mostly bittersweet with a handful of Hersheys Special Dark thrown in) and 1/2 C Peanut Butter Chips. Other than that, I stuck to her recipe so I won't post it here (But you can find it HERE and HERE).
These blondies came out very good. Good enough that I want to go out and buy the book now for the rest of the recipes. Though they were nothing extra-spectacular that makes them stand out from other blondie recipes I've prepared, I'd definitely make them again. They were a cinch to throw together, nice and sturdy and moist, and with some rich caramelly tones.
I want to take a poll... I'm considering making cupcakes for my wedding this October. I have about 75 - 90 guests, so I'd make around that many cupcakes, and I' get a mall 6 inch cake made professionally to use as the "cake cutting cake" that I put my cute little cake topper on. I'm not doing anything super fancy, just piping some frosting on and maybe throwing a gum paste flower on it (that I would purchase, not make). Does anyone have any thoughts on this? Some people say I can do it, others say I'm totally insane. Fellow bakers - what are your thoughts??? I'd love some insightful input and wisdom.
Thanks!Strawberry Cobbler Pie
Apr. 26, 2010 01:13 PM Filed in: Pies
Our host for the week, the lovely Tracey of Tracey's Culinary Adventures chose Strawberry (Rhubarb) Cobbler Pie... I left the Rhubarb out, so mine is just a Strawberry Cobbler Pie. Though I was tempted to try out Rhubarb (like many other SMS-ers, I've never tried it before!) but I'm bringing it to family dinner on Sunday night and I wasn't sure how the fam would feel about it.
I made the cobbler pie exactly as the recipe from the Sweet Melissa Baking book states, except I subbed the 2 cups of Rhubarb for an additional two cups of strawberries. Also, I prepared my biscuit dough in the food processor since I don't own a pastry cutter, and it came together just fine. I may have used a tad bit more lemon zest than Melissa calls for because I'm never sure... when a recipe calls for a teaspoon of zest, is it one teaspoon packed? But... I admit... I cheated and used a pre-bought frozen pie crust. I'm sorry! I really wanted to give the pie crust recipe a try, I was a little short on time.
slicing the strawberries with an egg slicer... time saver!
Daniel cutting me some star shaped biscuits
Very liquidy.
Cute! This is the pre-baked pie. The star shape totally worked!
I told you mine was wet!!!! Was anyone's oozey and wet like this?
It came out looking very good! I can't wait to try it tonight with the family. I wish we could just dig in now!!!
Besides the SEA of STRAWBERRY OOZE GOO that flooded out of my pie, everything when perfectly smoothly. I thought Melissa's sweet biscuit recipe was great. I wound up with a few small stars that wouldn't fit on the pie, so I brushed them with milk, sprinkled with sugar, and baked them up. Served warm with a little jam... excellenttttt. If this is any indication of the taste of the whole pie, it should be quite delicious indeed! With the remaining heavy cream left over from the biscuit dough, I plan to whip up from whipped cream to serve with the pie... and maybe even some vanilla ice cream... mmm, perfection.
Sweet Potato Bread with Cinnamon Glaze
Apr. 19, 2010 09:26 AM Filed in: Loaf
Besides terrible, terrible (terrrrrrrrrible) allergies, this time of year is pretty great. The semester is rapidly coming to a close, its bathing suit weather again, and today is my wonderful fiance's birthday! The one thing that isn't so great about this time of year (besides the horrendous mind-bogglingly debilitating seasonal allergies. Spite you, tree pollen.) is the un-availability of yummy fallish ingredients. I searched and searched for canned sweet potato! But it was nowhere to be found. I thought of Pumpkin as a yummy substitute but that is out of season and nowhere here in Florida at the moment either. Not really having enough time to think about how to buy sweet potatoes and make them on my own, I bought a can of Bruce's Yams in Syrup, and opted to drain all the syrup from the can. Not really thinking about it, I bought a 15 ounce can (since I planned to halve the recipe and prepare it in a loaf pan).... but straining the syrup from the can left me with less than 15 ounces. Oh well, I had to make due on my tight schedule. I just decreased the amount of all the other ingredients I put in as well. This was kind of a winging-it kind of recipe for me. The only real change, besides messing around with the amounts of ingredients, was to use only cinnamon in the batter instead of all of the spices Melissa called for.
Also, I chose to do a cinnamon confectioner's sugar glaze instead of the Cinnamon-Rum-Orange Glaze the original recipe called for. We aren't big fans of orange and we don't have any rum. My glaze went something like this:
Cinnamon Glaze
3/4 C confectioners sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tblspn butter, room temperature
2-4 tsp hot water
1/2 - 1 tsp vanilla, to taste
Beat all ingredients together until smooth. Pour half of the glaze over the still-warm loaf (I allowed it to cool for 20 minutes before topping with the glaze). Wait about 10 minutes, allowing the glaze to harden slightly, and then pour the remaining glaze over the loaf. This way you get a nice thick layer of the glaze. I used a pastry brush and painted the glaze on to the sides of the loaf as well.
The result was quite good, considering all the estimating I did with the ingredients. The bread was very moist and not too sweet. The spicy cinnamony glaze's sweetness complementing the bread nicely. I bet this would be good with whole wheat flour too.
Breakfast for the birthday boy... he got his tradition b-day breakfast, cinnamon buns, yesterday
...have you thought about Mother's Day yet? We are offering my devoted blog readers twenty-five percent off your purchase. 25% Off! That's the highest discount we've done so far, but its for a limited time only (offer good until Wednesday, May 5th, 2010). Just type in MD2010 during check-out in the "Coupon Code" spot. and now you can get a Measurement conversion kitchen towel to go along with it and complete the gift! Your mother will definitely appreciate it
(offer excludes custom orders).New Classic Brownies aka Ice Bath Brownies
Apr. 16, 2010 06:52 PM Filed in: Brownies
One of the hardest things to do with brownies is to defend them from hungry brownie lovers before they cool. Its even harder to try to convince those people (Dan) that it'll taste better tomorrow. But, I have just found a recipe to change that! This interesting brownie recipe from Scharffen Berger requires you to remove the brownie pan from the oven when they are done baking, and immediately move them to an ice bath. It cools really quickly in the ice bath (ours were completely cool within about a half an hour) and Alice Medrich (author of the book "Cookies and Brownies" where this recipe is from) says this quick cooling process is key to achieving delicious, fudgy results. I have to say I believe her, because ours were fudgy and perfect after that first 30 minutes. No need to wait until tomorrow to eat these at their best! Plus, this recipe is super quick to put together - it's all made in one bowl (easy clean-up, too!). This is now probably in my top favorite brownie recipes.
I prepared Alice Medrich's "New Classic Brownies" exactly as seen HERE on Scharffen Berger's website, but I left out the optional nuts. Definitely put this one on your to-do list.
Ladybug Cupcake Pull-Apart Cake (Baby Cupcakes!)
I love trying new things in baking! I especially like trying new things when they work out in the end. This weekend, I made a Cupcake Pull-Apart Cake for the first time, for my adorable niece's ladybug themed FIRST BIRTHDAY PARTY! If you don't know what a Cupcake Pull-Apart Cake is (which I didn't either until recently) - the concept is to make a cake out of cupcakes, so that they're still easy to serve (no knives to cut the cake needed) but decorate it as one big cake so you still get the look of a real cake. So when it comes time to serve, all you have to do is walk up and take a cupcake. Clever!
While looking at others' cupcake pull-apart cakes to figure out how to do this, I found a bunch of different ways to make them. Some people arranged cupcake liners reallllll close together in a cake pan and filled the liners much higher than you would with usual cupcakes. When they bake, the batter puffs up and touches. So, it is still individual cupcakes but they are connected at the top. Its frosted and decorated together as one cake. This technique made me nervous for a few reasons. What if you fill the liners TOO much and instead of just gently connecting at the top, it oozes all the way down the sides and you have a cupcake cake blog mess. Orrr, even if done correctly, if they're connected at the top, I thought it would make easy pull-apart a little bit less easy.
Another technique is to just make cupcakes as you normally would, then arrange them close together on a pan, and frost all together as one big cake. I found this video at Betty Crocker, and thought it looked do-able!
For the recipe, I chose a 1-year-old friendly no sugar added cupcake from Amy Berman, Executive Pastry Chef & Co-Owner of Vanilla Bake Shop. The only sweetness in these cupcakes comes from the addition of bananas and apple juice concentrate. Perfect for the little ones who aren't used to the Sugar-Loadedness of regular cupcakes! They were nice and moist due to the bananas and sturdy because of the rolled oats. Tasted like banana bread! I also used Amy's Cream Cheese frosting recipe (not quite no-sugar-added). You can see both recipes here at Holidash or here at Celebrations.com. So, Low Sugar 1st Birthday Banana & Apple Juice Cupcakes with Cream Cheese frosting it was!
I made the full batch of cupcakes, which made about 18-20 cupcakes, but I only used 17 in the arrangement.
After they were fully cooled, I arranged them like so. I did it like this rather than a regular rectangular cake shape so that the lines of cupcakes could kind of interlock, reducing the amount of space in between them.
After arranging them on the pan, I filled a piping bag with frosting and put an enormously generous amount on each cupcake. I repeat you NEED to use A LOT of frosting to get this to work. In order for it to not fall down in to the cracks, there needs a real thick layer of frosting (you can always scrape some off before baby gets it). So I piped a giant dollop on top of each one. Then, I went in with my offset spatula and gently coaxed the dollops to touch each other. Then we smoothed it all out and decorated.
The lady bug and letters were made with fondant, and the dot border is M&Ms. What do you think?
While looking at others' cupcake pull-apart cakes to figure out how to do this, I found a bunch of different ways to make them. Some people arranged cupcake liners reallllll close together in a cake pan and filled the liners much higher than you would with usual cupcakes. When they bake, the batter puffs up and touches. So, it is still individual cupcakes but they are connected at the top. Its frosted and decorated together as one cake. This technique made me nervous for a few reasons. What if you fill the liners TOO much and instead of just gently connecting at the top, it oozes all the way down the sides and you have a cupcake cake blog mess. Orrr, even if done correctly, if they're connected at the top, I thought it would make easy pull-apart a little bit less easy.
Another technique is to just make cupcakes as you normally would, then arrange them close together on a pan, and frost all together as one big cake. I found this video at Betty Crocker, and thought it looked do-able!
For the recipe, I chose a 1-year-old friendly no sugar added cupcake from Amy Berman, Executive Pastry Chef & Co-Owner of Vanilla Bake Shop. The only sweetness in these cupcakes comes from the addition of bananas and apple juice concentrate. Perfect for the little ones who aren't used to the Sugar-Loadedness of regular cupcakes! They were nice and moist due to the bananas and sturdy because of the rolled oats. Tasted like banana bread! I also used Amy's Cream Cheese frosting recipe (not quite no-sugar-added). You can see both recipes here at Holidash or here at Celebrations.com. So, Low Sugar 1st Birthday Banana & Apple Juice Cupcakes with Cream Cheese frosting it was!
I made the full batch of cupcakes, which made about 18-20 cupcakes, but I only used 17 in the arrangement.
After they were fully cooled, I arranged them like so. I did it like this rather than a regular rectangular cake shape so that the lines of cupcakes could kind of interlock, reducing the amount of space in between them.
After arranging them on the pan, I filled a piping bag with frosting and put an enormously generous amount on each cupcake. I repeat you NEED to use A LOT of frosting to get this to work. In order for it to not fall down in to the cracks, there needs a real thick layer of frosting (you can always scrape some off before baby gets it). So I piped a giant dollop on top of each one. Then, I went in with my offset spatula and gently coaxed the dollops to touch each other. Then we smoothed it all out and decorated.
The lady bug and letters were made with fondant, and the dot border is M&Ms. What do you think?
Pecan Shortbread Crust and Key Lime Filling
Apr. 13, 2010 04:04 PM Filed in: Bar Cookies | Cookies
Mmm cookies. I will never turn down an opportunity to make (or eat) a cookie. We aren’t much fans of dry, crumbly shortbreadish cookies, so I took this idea and ran with it - use it as a crust for a bar cookie!
I prepared the recipe for Pecan Shortbread cookies, spread it into the bottom of a prepared, greased and parchment-lined 8x8 pan and baked it for about 20, 25 minutes until lightly golden. Then I let it cool completely while I prepared the filling.
We are big key lime fans in this house. And I've seen many recipes for Lemon and Lime bars and loved the idea but never got around to make them. So, I thought this was my opportunity! I used THIS recipe from Pat and Gina Neely for the lime filling. The Neelys' recipe was fo a 9 x 13 pan (which holds 12 ounces) and I was using a 8x8 (which holds 8 ounces) so I scaled down the recipe to use about 3/4 of the original recipe. Let me just tell you this was a bit of a disaster from the very beginning.
First, I make an ENORMOUS mistake. After I added all the ingredients, I saw the recipe said, "Pour the lime topping over the cooled crust." Well... my dough was SO THICK that it was practically busting my kitchenaid mixer open... definitely NOT pourable. It turns outttttttt, I had added 4.5 CUPS of flour, when the recipe really called for TABLESPOONS. Haha, OOPSSS. So I set aside my disaster dough for a while and re-zested limes, re-juiced limes, and re-made the filling. I poured it into the cooled pan and let it bake for 25 minutes. I removed it when the filling looked set.
I let it cool, like the recipe said, and then tried to cut it. It seems my filling never set up right... maybe I didn't bake it long enough? Or maybe I did something wrong? I'm not sure, but it OOZED out when I tried to cut it.
I wound up saving the dessert by transforming it into a refrigerated treat... it cut much easier and didn't ooze when it was chilled. And it still tasted quite good cold!
With the little bit of remaining Pecan Shortbread crust I had left over from making the bar cookie base, I made some regular ol' cookies ... only problem is it was wayyyy too crumbly. After baked and cooled, I could barely pick them up without them crumbling into a million pieces. Maybe this just wasn't my day in the kitchen.
So whatever happened to all the OOPS key lime dough? The one where I added CUPS instead of TABLESPOONS of flour? I had to at least try baking it before throwing it away! The result?
Little cookie-balls. They maintained their exact shape while baking. I rolled the balllies in confectioners sugar and let em finish cooling. They turned out kinda soft, kinda chewy and have just the right amount of tangy lime-ness. Not THE best cookies in the world, but not the worst either.
Today was just one of those days I needed to put the towel down and get out of the kitchen. Maybe its all the allergy medicine.
I prepared the recipe for Pecan Shortbread cookies, spread it into the bottom of a prepared, greased and parchment-lined 8x8 pan and baked it for about 20, 25 minutes until lightly golden. Then I let it cool completely while I prepared the filling.
We are big key lime fans in this house. And I've seen many recipes for Lemon and Lime bars and loved the idea but never got around to make them. So, I thought this was my opportunity! I used THIS recipe from Pat and Gina Neely for the lime filling. The Neelys' recipe was fo a 9 x 13 pan (which holds 12 ounces) and I was using a 8x8 (which holds 8 ounces) so I scaled down the recipe to use about 3/4 of the original recipe. Let me just tell you this was a bit of a disaster from the very beginning.
First, I make an ENORMOUS mistake. After I added all the ingredients, I saw the recipe said, "Pour the lime topping over the cooled crust." Well... my dough was SO THICK that it was practically busting my kitchenaid mixer open... definitely NOT pourable. It turns outttttttt, I had added 4.5 CUPS of flour, when the recipe really called for TABLESPOONS. Haha, OOPSSS. So I set aside my disaster dough for a while and re-zested limes, re-juiced limes, and re-made the filling.
I poured it into the cooled pan and let it bake for 25 minutes. I removed it when the filling looked set.I let it cool, like the recipe said, and then tried to cut it. It seems my filling never set up right... maybe I didn't bake it long enough? Or maybe I did something wrong? I'm not sure, but it OOZED out when I tried to cut it.
I wound up saving the dessert by transforming it into a refrigerated treat... it cut much easier and didn't ooze when it was chilled. And it still tasted quite good cold!
With the little bit of remaining Pecan Shortbread crust I had left over from making the bar cookie base, I made some regular ol' cookies ... only problem is it was wayyyy too crumbly. After baked and cooled, I could barely pick them up without them crumbling into a million pieces. Maybe this just wasn't my day in the kitchen.
So whatever happened to all the OOPS key lime dough? The one where I added CUPS instead of TABLESPOONS of flour? I had to at least try baking it before throwing it away! The result?
Little cookie-balls. They maintained their exact shape while baking. I rolled the balllies in confectioners sugar and let em finish cooling. They turned out kinda soft, kinda chewy and have just the right amount of tangy lime-ness. Not THE best cookies in the world, but not the worst either.
Today was just one of those days I needed to put the towel down and get out of the kitchen. Maybe its all the allergy medicine.
Caramel Apple Pie Pastry
I really wanted to make the Caramel Apple Pie, but with a twist. I used Spike's idea and made a sort of pastry instead of an entire pie. Thanks for the idea, Spike!
I also wanted to scale it down, so I used only 2 apples. I prepped the apples as the recipe stated, but added cinnamon to the mix and did a quicky version for the caramel sauce. Instead of making it from scratch, I used store bought caramel sauce. And since I was making it in puff pastry instead of pie form, it would require a lot less baking time, so I had to pre-bake my apple filling. I put the apple slices and caramel sauce in a glass dish, covered it in tin foil. I did 350 degrees for 30 minutes.
As that was baking, I was prepping the puff pastry:
I cut four sheets of puff pastry to about 4.5 inches by 8 inches, and cut slits on either side.
Then, I spooned some of the filling into the center of each sheet:
Then, you close up the pastries. Either lay them on top of each other, or sort of braid them:
Brush them with egg wash and sprinkle with cinnamon sugar.
After about 25 - 35 minutes in the oven at 350, VOILA:
Very, very good. Delicious warm, fresh from the oven, and I'd say, they're even better the next day warmed in the microwave for a few seconds.
Click here for the SMS post on Double Crusted Caramel Apple Pie.
Carrot Cake (Carrot Loaf?)
This recipe came out really quite delicious, and it was a cinch to make. The most time consuming part was shredding the carrots, and with a food processor that took all of 2 minutes.
My only changes to the recipe as it was written in the Sweet Melissa Baking Book was that I halved the recipe and made it in a loaf pan, instead of making the full two layer cake. It came out to be a short little loaf cake... I probably could have fit the entire recipe in the 9 x 5 loaf pan, but the halved version is a lot more appropriate for a two person household.
I also omitted the walnuts, and opted for a vanilla buttercream instead of the orange cream cheese frosting she recommends (Call me crazy but I'm not a big fan of cream cheese frosting).
This recipe went over well in this house. We've given pieces out to several people and it got rave reviews. It came out very moist and flavorful, and not at all too dense. There was a lot of cinnamon in the recipe, but I thought it created a great flavor - not overwhelming at all! And I was glad I changed it out for the Vanilla Buttercream - it turned out to be a great combination.
My only changes to the recipe as it was written in the Sweet Melissa Baking Book was that I halved the recipe and made it in a loaf pan, instead of making the full two layer cake. It came out to be a short little loaf cake... I probably could have fit the entire recipe in the 9 x 5 loaf pan, but the halved version is a lot more appropriate for a two person household.
I also omitted the walnuts, and opted for a vanilla buttercream instead of the orange cream cheese frosting she recommends (Call me crazy but I'm not a big fan of cream cheese frosting).
This recipe went over well in this house. We've given pieces out to several people and it got rave reviews. It came out very moist and flavorful, and not at all too dense. There was a lot of cinnamon in the recipe, but I thought it created a great flavor - not overwhelming at all! And I was glad I changed it out for the Vanilla Buttercream - it turned out to be a great combination.
Olive Oil Chocolate Chip Cookies
Mar. 23, 2010 04:30 PM Filed in: Cookies
I'm always up for trying a new chocolate chip cookie recipe. So when our craving for cookies came the other night, I went in search of a recipe that sounded quick and easy. That's where these cookies from Cookie Madness. They're made with Olive Oil instead of butter (perfect, no waiting for butter to soften!) and can be done in one-bowl (easy clean-up!). Anna of Cookie Madness called the "Thick dense and hearty" cookies, "No-brainers" that Sounds perfect to me! I prepared the recipe entirely in the food processor because I was feeling particularly lazy and wanted to get as few things dirty as possible.
I only slightly changed the recipe, but I will post my changes below... Be sure to check out Anna's original post of the cookies HERE.
Olive Oil Chocolate Chip Cookies Makes about 14 - 17 cookies.
Ingredients:
*2/3 cup packed light brown sugar
*1/3 cup Olive oil
*1 tsp vanilla
*1 large egg
*1 teaspoon baking powder
*a heading 1/4 teaspoon sea salt
*1 cup AP flour
*1/2 cup oats (old fashioned or quick) – ground in the food processor
*2 heaping tblspns jumbo bittersweet chocolate chips
*2 heading tblspns hershey's special dark chocolate chunks Anna's recipe called for: "2-3 oz (56-85 grams) dark chocolate, cut into chunks" but I always like to cut back on the chocolate in chocolate chip cookies because Dan isn't a big fan... plus I wanted to use a mix of dark chocolate (my fave) and bittersweet (Dan's fave) so thanks to my super-handy-dandy APRON I converted 1 oz to Two Tablespoons... and used: Two heaping tablespoons of each type of chocolate in my recipe... a little over one ounce of each.
*2 heaping tablespoons pecans (I scaled this back a bit too as we're not huge nut people)
Preheat to 350 degrees F. Line a cookie sheet with parchment or a silicone mat.
Grind the oats up in the food processor using the steel chopping blade. When chopped to the desired fine-ness (is that a word?) put in a small bowl. Add the flour, salt, and baking powder to the oats and mix to combine. Set aside.
Mix together the brown sugar, oil, vanilla and egg in the food processor using the dough blade. Add in the flour/oats mixture and blend until combined. Add the chocolate chips and nuts and stir with a spoon.
Using a 1 tablespoons cookie scoop, place dough onto cookie sheets, about 2 inches apart. When baked on the silicone mats, these didn't spread or flatten very much - they spread a little bit more so on the parchment but not considerably. Bake for 11-14 minutes. Cookies are done when edges are slightly golden.
The results? A super duper fast and easy recipe that yielded really great results (I mean, they were all gone in 3). A great recipe when you're really craving homemade cookies, you want 'em FAST, and you're feeling lazy.
Cocoa Village Craft Fair March 6 - 7, 2010
Mar. 07, 2010 09:23 AM
Come visit the Smart Bakers at the Cocoa Village Craft Fair in Cocoa Village, Florida. If you happen to live in or be visiting the Central Florida area, be sure to stop by and check out our booth. We’ll be monogramming our aprons on the spot - so you can walk away with your personalized aprons within minutes! There are over a hundred other booths set up selling all different kinds of homemade items. Definitely worth a visit! The event goes until 5PM today, March 7th. Don’t miss it!
And some of our custom aprons:
And some of our custom aprons:
Banana Muffins with Gingersnap Crumble, and Brown Sugar Cinnamon Filling
Mar. 04, 2010 07:54 PM Filed in: Muffins
I really don't like throwing away over-ripe bananas. I try to avoid it whenever possible. Usually, that means Banana Bread from my Grammy's trusted recipe. But this time when faced with two nearly black bananas sitting on the counter top, I made something a little more creative. How do Banana Muffins, with a Brown Sugar Cinnamon Filling, and a Gingersnap Cookie Crumble sound?? Yeah, sounds pretty good to me too.
First, I made Grammy's Banana Bread recipe, typed out just the way she explained it to me when I asked her for the recipe:
Ingredients:
2 very ripe bananas, really mashed & set aside
1 stick of butter, melt in small sauce pan & set aside
1 1/2 C all purpose flour
3/4 C Sugar
2 eggs
1/4 C milk
2 tsp lemon juice
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
G's directions:
In a shaker container with cover, shake eggs, milk & lemon juice. Use largw mixing bowl. Add flour, sugar, salt & baking soda. Mix lightly. Add milk, egg, lemon juice mixture. Stir with wooden spoon. Then add mashed bananas and stir. Lastly add melted butter and mix completely (not too much).
I used this batter to fill a cupcake pan up about 1/2 way, like so:
Then, I topped it with a generous portion of Brown Sugar Cinnamon Filling:
1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon mixed together with 4 tablespoons brown sugar
Like-a this:
Then, I topped them off with a bit more batter, and as much Gingersnap Cookie Crumble I could fit on there (See THIS post and the Sweet Melissa Baking book for the crumble recipe).
And voila:
(note the jealous pup in the background).
The muffins came out great. Very moist and delicious like banana bread, with the added taste of gingersnaps and brown-sugary-cinnamony filling. All reviewers agreed: Yum. I definitely recommend you try these out.
First, I made Grammy's Banana Bread recipe, typed out just the way she explained it to me when I asked her for the recipe:
Ingredients:
2 very ripe bananas, really mashed & set aside
1 stick of butter, melt in small sauce pan & set aside
1 1/2 C all purpose flour
3/4 C Sugar
2 eggs
1/4 C milk
2 tsp lemon juice
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
G's directions:
In a shaker container with cover, shake eggs, milk & lemon juice. Use largw mixing bowl. Add flour, sugar, salt & baking soda. Mix lightly. Add milk, egg, lemon juice mixture. Stir with wooden spoon. Then add mashed bananas and stir. Lastly add melted butter and mix completely (not too much).
I used this batter to fill a cupcake pan up about 1/2 way, like so:
Then, I topped it with a generous portion of Brown Sugar Cinnamon Filling:
1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon mixed together with 4 tablespoons brown sugar
Like-a this:
Then, I topped them off with a bit more batter, and as much Gingersnap Cookie Crumble I could fit on there (See THIS post and the Sweet Melissa Baking book for the crumble recipe).
And voila:
(note the jealous pup in the background).
The muffins came out great. Very moist and delicious like banana bread, with the added taste of gingersnaps and brown-sugary-cinnamony filling. All reviewers agreed: Yum. I definitely recommend you try these out.
Sugar Cookies
Mar. 02, 2010 04:22 PM Filed in: Cookies
I do love cookies. But cookie doughs that require rolling out with a rolling pin and cutting with cookie cutters have never treated me well. Usually I find it hard to not have it stick to the rolling pin (despite my well-floured silicone rolling pin), and hard to get out of the cookie cutter, and hard to pick up and move to the cookie sheet for baking. So when I first saw that this recipe I was excited (yey cookies!) but then I remembered (uh ohhh... time to get out the rolling pin). I thought of using it as a crust for a tart as the recipe says, but I decided to go the tricky route... and face my cookie cutter fears!
And it went well! At first I tried to roll it out too quick out of the fridge and it cracked. Then we rolled it out too thin. But once we rolled it out thick enough, and let it soften up a little bit more, it went very smoothly. I baked my 1/4 inch cookies for about 7 minutes in a 350 oven. And they came out perfectly.
Other bakers said theirs were too bland, so I heeded Michelle's advice and upped the sugar to 3/4 C (from the recipe's 1/2 C), and added 1 tsp of fresh lemon juice. I also put 1/8 tsp of almond extract in, too. They came out very tasty and soft.
Thennnnn I used colored sugars and Betty Crocker Cookie Icing (ok, kind of cheating, but eliminated some frustration) to decorate them:
Andddddddddd maybe I went a little overboard...
I was having fun!
Strawberry Lemonade & Strawberry Lemonade with Truvia
It is nice to put my kitchen to use for things other than brownies, cupcakes, blondies and cookies sometimes. Those are definitely the most common things to come out of my oven. Sweet, chocolately, caramelly, peanut buttery goodies. And while they are always appreciated and devoured, sometimes making something completely different is a nice, welcomed change.
In comes Strawberry Lemonade. It's not served warm straight from the oven and smothered in vanilla ice cream like many of our other favorites, but I knew it would be warmly received in my house. The entire one and a half quarts of it was gone in about two days. Perfectly sweet and tart and very refreshing.
I've made one full recipe, but divided it in half and prepared it two ways: One - standard (see the Sweet Melissa Baking Book page 85 or visit Jessica of My Baking Heart for the recipe), and Two - with Truvia Natural Sweetener substituted for sugar. I even conducted a blind taste test with the two recipes.
How do I know how much Truvia I need to replace the Sugar called for in my recipe?
1 tsp of sugar = 1/2 packet of truvia (or 3/8 tsp truvia)
2 tsp sugar = 1 packet of truvia (3/4 tsp)
1 tblspn sugar = 1 1/2 packets truvia (1 1/4 tsp)
1/2 c sugar = 12 packets (3 tblspn + 3/4 tsp)
For a full conversion chart for Truvia to Sugar, see Truvia's website HERE.
Sugar-Free Strawberry Lemonade made with Truvia
makes about 3/4 of a quart, adapted from Sweet Melissa Baking Book
Ingredients for truvia strawberry sauce
1/2 a pint of fresh strawberries, rinsed and hulled
1 1/2 packets of truvia (or 1 1/4 tsp of Truvia)
1/2 tsp fresh lemon juice
1 tablespoon cold water
In a food processor, blend the berries, truvia, lemon juice and water until smooth. Strain it into a bowl, cover it and refrigerate.
Ingredients for Truvia strawberry lemonade
12 packets truvia
1/2 cup very hot water
1/2 up freshly squeezed lemon juice
2 1/4 cup cold water
1 recipe of truvia strawberry sauce (above)
Combine 9 packets of truvia and the very hot water and stir until the truvia has dissolved. Stir in the lemon juice and cold water.
Add the truvia strawberry sauce and stir to combine. Add additional truvia to taste (I added 3 more packets at this point).
So, on to the TASTE TEST... you're really curious right?
I poured Daniel two glasses and made him guess which was which. He said he could tell which was the Truvia, but that he actually liked it BETTER. Then I made him pour me two glasses and I had to guess which was which. And I guessed wrong every time. So... its a success!
The Wall Street Journal talks CUPCAKES
Feb. 18, 2010 01:27 PM Filed in: Cupcakes
I have heard of freezing cupcakes before. You take fresh-baked mini-cake beauties, let them cool, wrap 'em in plastic wrap or foil, throw 'em in a zippy bag, or fill up some plastic storage containers with them and pop 'em in the freezer. If you're baking for a big event and need a million cupcakes, this can save considerable amounts of time and the possibility of many gray hairs. There are even some HOW-TO's available on the subject. Notably, Cupcakes Take the Cake did a cupcake freezing experiment to decide the best method. The result? Any method of storage will do, but make sure you unwrap or un-package them before letting them thaw (or else they'll get gummy) and only plain UNFROSTED cupcakes should be frozen. I emphasize this last part because I've heard it several hundred times. According to the Cupcakes Take the Cake girls, "When freezing baked cupcakes, we wanted to prevent the common problems of freezer burn, dryness, and gummy tops... the texture and consistency of frostings and icings can change drastically in the freezer..." so... save the decorating and frosting for AFTER they've thawed. Right?? Right.
But after reading this Wall Street Journal article by Abigail Pesta, I became intrigued. In it, Pesta recounts her taste-test of several different mail-order cupcakes from big shops like Georgetown Cupcake in Washington, D.C., Dean & DeLuca, Godiva and Crumbs. The thing that surprised me was that the mail-order cupcakes arrived to the customer FROZEN! Both Georgetown and Godiva shipped out there baked-goods, PRE-FROSTED, already decorated, and FROZEN. Now, I've shipped cupcakes before but used different methods. I've baked the cupcake in jars and shipped it with a separate baggy of buttercream frosting, ready for piping on by the recipient once it arrives (like THIS). I've even shipped it in the jar already frosted (like THIS and like THIS). But never like this! These actually still look like cupcakes! And Abigail reports that not only were they still pretty, but that the cupcakes were GOOD. Hmm! Has anyone frozen a frosted cupcake?? Now I'm curious. I sense an experiment of my own coming on....
Rocky Ledge Bars
Feb. 14, 2010 04:00 PM Filed in: Bar Cookies
I have a quick and easy recipe for you today, so, if you forgot to get your Valentine something there's still time to whip up a batch, throw a bow on it, and pretend like you've been slaving away in the kitchen for them all morning.
What do you get when you combine a blondie, a s'more, peanut butter and nilla wafers?? Well... these Rocky Ledge Bars, based off of a Martha Stewart recipe. I scaled it back, made some substitutions, added some yummy things and left others out and ended up with this. These are a great use-whatever-you-have-on-hand kind of recipe...very substitution friendly.
Rocky Ledge Bars adapted from Martha Stewart
Ingredients:
1/2 stick unsalted butter, room temperature
1 cup + 2 Tblspn all-purpose flour
1 1/8 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon coarse sea salt
3/4 cup packed light brown sugar
1.5 large eggs
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/2 cup miniature marshmallows
1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips
1/2 cup peanut butter chips
1/4 cup crushed nilla wafer crumbs, and extra for dusting
cinnamon sugar
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Lightly grease an 8x8 square baking pan and line with parchment.
Whisk together flour, nilla crumbs, baking powder, and salt in a medium bowl. In the bowl of an electric mixer, mix butter and brown sugar until fluffy, about 2 minutes. Add eggs and vanilla, and mix until combined. Add the flour mixture and stir until combined. Fold in 1/4 cup each of the marshmallows, chocolates, and peanut butter chips.
Spread batter in prepared pan. Sprinkle the remaining marshmallows, chocolates, peanut butter chips, and nilla crumbs on top. Sprinkle with powdered sugar to taste. Bake until golden brown and a cake tester comes out clean, about 30-35 minutes. Let cool on a wire rack.
Happy Valentine's Day... or Happy Anna Howard Shaw day!
GIANT Cupcake
Feb. 13, 2010 11:15 AM Filed in: Cupcakes
I recently got a fabulous giant cupcake pan as a gift, but haven't got around to using it yet. I rarely make cakes because there are only two of us here, and cupcakes, cookies, brownies and other single-serve goodies are easier to give away. But I wanted to use my new pan so badly! Finally, I had an opportunity. Plus, I need practice... I plan on making my own cupcake tower for my wedding in October, and topping it with one of these giant cupcakes (as the cake we can cut together).
The Recipe for Red Velvet Cake was a rather simple one to put together. The only changes I made were to reduce the cinnamon to 1 tsp (only because I ran out!!) and to use apple cider vinegar instead of red wine. I also used food coloring gel, so I had to guesstimate how much of it equalled 2 tsp of the liquid stuff. In my jumbo cupcake pan, I lowered the oven temperature to 330, and it baked for about 70 - 75 minutes.
I used all the batter in the giant cupcake pan and it rose quite a bit... (which was totally fine with me because it meant I got to taste the scraps).
But it leveled out nicely.
I omitted the Classic Cream Cheese Filling & Frosting, and instead, used my favorite Vanilla Buttercream to frost it, and a Marshmallow Fluff Cream for the filling... mmm [see recipe below]. I took about 1.5 or 2 inch layer out of the middle to make room for a nice amount of filling.
With its hat on!
Now to frost it.. I was a little anxious about this. I googled pictures of giant cupcakes to see different ways of frosting it. Piping didn't seem like a good option, it looked a little silly to me. And frosting it smooth looked bizarro. I knew I had to use an offset spatula to make it look natural and billowy... and I also knew I'd get really frustrated with this. So... In comes Daniel! He's really very good to me when I get frustrated frosting things. He took over the frosting job and within 5 minutes it was done, and I love it! Good job Daniel!!
For scaling purposes, I put a normal sized cupcake liner next to it... Woah.
I will have to put up a picture of the cross section later after we cut into it!
Marshmallow Fluff Cream Filling adapted from Please Pass the Pie
Ingredients:
4 oz. Marshmallow Fluff (I recommend Non-Stick Spraying your measuring cup first... it'll plop out nice and easy!)
6 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
3/4 cup confectioners sugar
1/2 t. of vanilla
Combine all ingredients in the bowl of an electric stand mixer. Cream together ingredients. When all are combined, turn the mixer up to medium-high and beat for about 5 minutes until nice and fluffy. Spoon onto cake and spread with a rubber spatula.
This filling was deliciously sweet and complimented the moist red velvet cake very nicely! I used this entire recipe to fill the cavity I made in the cake. It came out nice and sticky so it kept the hat on the cupcake perfectly.
Judging from the cake scraps, this cake came out very moist and had great flavor. I like the addition of cinnamon - not something I've done in a Red Velvet cake before, but I think it adds a nice touch. I can't wait to try it later all put together with the fluff filling layer and the buttercream frosting
Danish Butter Cookie Copy Cats
Feb. 02, 2010 07:55 PM Filed in: Cookies
You know those Danish Butter cookies that come in a blue tin? You knowww, the ones with those pretzel shaped cookies covered in giant crunchy sugar crystals. Yes, those. There is something soo good about those seemingly nothing-special cookies that makes me and the fiance eat through an entire tin of them every time we go to Grammy's house. (Grammy always has a these on hand). So, since Daniel is just getting over a nasty cold, and I woke up extra early (why oh why did I wake up at 5:50??) I decided to try and make a Danish Butter Cookie copy cat recipe for him as a welcome-back-to-the-world surprise.
The result? Good! Well, I guess I mean very good considering that by the time Dan called me to thank me he had eaten his way through 90% of them. According to him, the expert, he said, "They're pretty close... maybe even better" than the beloved Blue tin cookies. They definitely are more buttery and soft than the original, and there is more of a melt in your mouth crumbliness. But maybe thats a good thing. I think the key here is the egg wash and turbinado sugar topping - definitely don't skip this step! The only thing I'd do differently next time is try to make them a little bit thicker when extruding them out with the cookie press.
Danish Butter Cookie Copy Cats
1 stick unsalted butter, softened
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1/8 tsp fine sea salt
3/4 tsp vanilla
1 large egg yolk, room temp
1 scant cup all purpose flour
1 egg white beat with 2 tsp water
turbinado sugar
Preheat to 350°F. Beat butter with granulated sugar until light and fluffy. Add egg yolk, salt, and vanilla and mix until incorporated. Add the flour and beat the dough until just mixed - Don't over beat it! Spoon dough into a cookie press fitted a disk and press cookies about 1 inch apart onto ungreased baking sheets - not even parchment! Brush cookies lightly with egg wash and sprinkle generously with the turbinado sugar. Bake for 10 to 14 minutes, or until the edges are just starting to turn golden. Transfer cookies to racks immediately when taken out of oven and let cool on racks.
The result? Good! Well, I guess I mean very good considering that by the time Dan called me to thank me he had eaten his way through 90% of them. According to him, the expert, he said, "They're pretty close... maybe even better" than the beloved Blue tin cookies. They definitely are more buttery and soft than the original, and there is more of a melt in your mouth crumbliness. But maybe thats a good thing. I think the key here is the egg wash and turbinado sugar topping - definitely don't skip this step! The only thing I'd do differently next time is try to make them a little bit thicker when extruding them out with the cookie press.
Danish Butter Cookie Copy Cats
1 stick unsalted butter, softened
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1/8 tsp fine sea salt
3/4 tsp vanilla
1 large egg yolk, room temp
1 scant cup all purpose flour
1 egg white beat with 2 tsp water
turbinado sugar
Preheat to 350°F. Beat butter with granulated sugar until light and fluffy. Add egg yolk, salt, and vanilla and mix until incorporated. Add the flour and beat the dough until just mixed - Don't over beat it! Spoon dough into a cookie press fitted a disk and press cookies about 1 inch apart onto ungreased baking sheets - not even parchment! Brush cookies lightly with egg wash and sprinkle generously with the turbinado sugar. Bake for 10 to 14 minutes, or until the edges are just starting to turn golden. Transfer cookies to racks immediately when taken out of oven and let cool on racks.
Butterscotch Pudding
Feb. 02, 2010 07:53 PM Filed in: Pudding
There are many things I have learned to make from scratch since starting this blog. I began as a novice baker, and now, I've baked all kinds of cakes, cookies, brownies, blondies, frostings, fillings, ice creams, truffles, and more. One thing, however, I had not tried until yesterday, was pudding. The instant kind is so easy, I just never saw the need to make my own.
The one thing that made me nervous was boiling the granulated sugar and water down to an amber colored syrup. I have tried in the past and wound up with clumpy, burnt, sticky messes far too many times. This time, though, everything went smoothly. I watched it like a hawk and stirred it constantly (even though the recipe didn't say to... but I was afraid of it sticking!). When it started to turn the color of clover honey, I immediately took it off the heat and it was fine.
I made the recipe according to the book with two minor changes. One, I used fine sea salt instead of table salt (much yummier). Second, I used all half-and-half instead of heavy cream and milk.
I'd say my first pudding-making was a success! It is very sweet, but very good. Perfectly smooth consistency and mild butterscotchy-caramelly flavor.
Check out the Sweet Melissa Baking Book for the complete recipe!
Cupcake Pictures
Feb. 02, 2010 07:53 PM Filed in: Cupcakes
No new recipes yet. Just some cute little cupcake pictures to share!
Black Bottom Brownies
Jan. 25, 2010 12:40 PM Filed in: Brownies | Cheesecake
I have seen Black Bottom Brownies in so many blogs and magazines. Brownies with Cheesecake on top? Sounds delicious! But for some reason I've never got around to making them. For me, cheesecake is one of those things I'll eat and enjoy if it's on the holiday dessert table, but other than that it's not something I crave. Maybe that's why I've never made them.
I baked just as the recipe stated. I was trying to think of a fun way to flavor the cheesecake (coffee? caramel?), but I couldn't come up with anything that really struck me so I made the basic cheesecake recipe. Just pour the cheesecake mixture on top and sprinkle with chocolate chips, but I decided to swirl it together a little bit. By the way - What did your chocolate chips do? When I put them on top they just sank! I used less than half of the chips she called for in the recipe (12 ounces!) and it was more than enough.
Fortunately I had read the P&Q and saw that some people baked for only an hour. I'm glad I saw this because mine were ready to go after 60 minutes rather than the 75 stated in the book.
The result was great. The brownies are very dense (maybe because I swirled it a bit) and the chips add a nice occasional crunch. If I try these again, I might do what I originally intended and flavor the cheesecake... mmm maybe bailey's???
Check out Cynthia's blog, Bakingtherapist, and the Sweet Melissa Baking Book for the complete recipe!
Less Than an Hour Cinnamon Bun Bliss
Jan. 19, 2010 11:30 AM Filed in: Buns
When family is visiting and you have a bit of time to kill in the morning before everyone is awake, what do you do? Prepare this recipe for Quick, Delicious Yeast-Free Cinnamon Buns, of course! My First Kitchen's Buttermilk Cinnamon Rolls is a fast, easy way (no yeast required, yey!) to get warm, homemade cinnamon buns on to the table and ready to eat in under an hour. They don't puff up like yeast cinnamon buns and they aren't as flaky as the more time intensive, laborious variety, but they do get you that ooey-gooey doughy, cinnamon-sugary, cream cheese frosted goodness you look for in a good cinnamon bun recipe. I'd go as far as to say that this might be my new go-to recipe for cinnamon buns for a while. All without having to wait for yeast to make the dough rise and get frustrated when it doesn't. Sweet indeed.
Less-Than-An-Hour Cinnamon Bun Bliss, adapted from My First Kitchen
makes anywhere from 7 - 12 depending on how you roll out your dough and how thick you slice your rolls!
Ingredients:
dough:
2 3/4 cup all purpose flour, plus extra for dusting
2 tbsp sugar
1 1/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp. fine sea salt
5 tablespoons refrigerated buttermilk powder
6 tbsp melted butter
3/4 cup water, room temp
filling:
4 tbsp. melted butter
3 tbsp. sugar
2 tbsp. cinnamon
pinch of salt
my favorite cream cheese cinnamon bun frosting recipe:
2 ounces cream cheese, room temperature
4 tblspn unsalted butter, softened
1.5 c confectioner's sugar
1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract
Preheat to 425°F. Butter a small baking dish (a pie plate, or loaf pan would probably be sufficient). In a bowl, whisk together flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, buttermilk powder and sea salt.
Stir in the butter and water.
The dough will be very sticky, so put a very generous amount of flour on to your counter or work space. Plop your sticky dough on to this surface and give it another generous dusting of flour on top.
With floured hands, gently knead the flour into the dough (adding more flour if necessary) until the dough is fairly smooth and without cracks
Using a rolling pin, roll dough out into a .5 inch thick rectangle.
In a small sauce pan, melt the butter for the filling. When it is completely melted, add the sugar and whisk. Finally add the cinnamon and stir. Using a pastry brush, spread on to the dough doing as close to the edges as you can, but leaving a small border on one of the long ends of the dough rectangle.
Roll the dough from the longer side, keeping it as tight as possible as you roll it up. Cut the dough in to sections about 2 inches thick.
Place the rolls in a lightly greased pan, and bake for about 17-20 mins, or until the edges have just begun to turn golden.
While it is baking/cooling on the rack, make your cream cheese frosting. Beat cream cheese and butter together until mixed and fluffy. Add sugar, mix until incorporated. Add vanilla and stir to combine. Spread on still-warm-from-the-oven buns.
Chocolate Pie Crust + Brownie Pie
This week, the recipe of choice was Chocolate Pie Crust. That being said, I was totally scared to do this. I have never made a pie crust, and judging by the amount of tutorials and advice on how to make a pie crust that flood the internet, I assumed it was a difficult and delicate process. So, I normally just avoided it all together. That, coupled with the fact that the fiance likes his fruit cold and crunchy, not cooked, soft and squishy, I never had the reason to make my first pie crust. Before attempting my pie crust, I tried to read up all about it. I watched this and this. I looked at this step by step (with a different recipe) and a few others to see how the dough is supposed to look as it is coming together. Some said not to use a food processor, but I don't have the pastry cutter thingy (yet) and in the video, Alton made his in the same food processor I have! So I gave it a go with the Cuisinart. And it came out very nicely! I took about a gajillion pics of this one... of the process and the final product.
I did the squeeze test, and it stuck together perfectly. Time for making into a bally and chilling!
It rolled out perfectly! (with Dan's help, of course. There are certain things I am not good at and Daniel always help me when I get frustrated... rolling out dough, kneading, and crumb coating to name a few! <3 He's the best)
Going into the pie plate
So impressed with ourselves!
So for the FILLING... what to do! We could choose any filling we like. Since Daniel doesn't like cooked, soft, squishy fruit, Cherry, Apple. etc. were out. So I went searching for inspiration on Food Network. When I came across Paula Deen's "Corrie's Kentucky Pie", I knew I found THE ONE! The user comments and reviews on this one were very positive, and many described it as, a "Brownie Pie". Mmm, since the New Year's Brownies were such a big hit, and Daniel was still craving brownies, I chose Paula's "Corrie's Kentucky Pie" as my filling. Since her recipe made 2 pies, I just halved the recipe. I just made a few small changes to the filling, which I listed below. But also make sure to click here and check out the original recipe, and the multitude of positive reviews of this pie!
BUT.... before I made the batter.... I added a small secret layer to my already decadent Brownie Pie with Chocolate Pie Crust....
Because isn't every chocolate recipe a little better with a bit of peanut butter???
Brownie Pie with Chocolate Pie Crust, adapted from Paula Deen's "Corrie's Kentucky Pie"
enough to fill one 9.5" pie plate
Ingredients
2 large eggs, room temperature
1 cup sugar
4 oz semisweet chocolate. chopped
2 oz bittersweet chocolate, chopped
1/2 cup all purpose flour
3/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp fine sea salt
1 stick unsalted butter, melted and allow to cool slightly
1 Chocolate Pie Crust, from the Sweet Melissa Baking Book
handful of peanut butter chips.
Preheat to 350 F. In a large bowl, combine eggs and sugar and beat. Add melted chocolate and stir. In a separate small bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder and salt. Add to chocolate mixture, mixing just until incorporated. Stirring in remaining ingredients except for pie shell and peanut butter chips.
Lay your prepared pie crust into an ungreased 9.5 inch pie plate. Sprinkle with peanut butter chips. Add brownie pie batter. Bake 50 -55 minutes. Use toothpick to test for doneness.
The end product was fantastic. The crust was a breeze to put together - So happy! And I thought it had a great taste. Not very sweet, but I think that mixes well with the sweetness of the filling. And the filling.... amazing. Nice gooey inside with a slight crust to the top. And after it has been allowed to cool and sit, it slices very nicely and cleanly. Perfect served warm with some ice cream.
Crust shots!!!!
Check out the Sweet Melissa Baking Book for the complete recipe!
Oreo Cookie Cookies, Snickerdoodles & Soft Sugar Cookies
Jan. 08, 2010 04:46 PM Filed in: Cookies
If I didn't keep this blog, there would be no way I'd remember which recipes I've made. I wouldn't be able to re-make anything if it were a big hit because I wouldn't be able to find the recipe I made it from. I have about a gajillion bookmarked on the computer, and I'd never be able to remember which one it was. That was the original reason I started this blog - to keep track of all the things I've made - along with pictures to remind me, and a short little commentary about how it came out. Of course I have a few tried and true recipes that I have written on recipe cards, but even then, those sometimes get lost or dirty and the bloggy is a great fall back. In fact, I think I have temporarily misplaced my handwritten recipe card from a hundred years ago for one of my absolute favorite recipes, and if it weren't for me having posted it on the blog it might have been lost forever... which in this recipe's case would have been a great tragedy. Does anyone else out there rely on their blog in this way? That is one of my favorite things about having this little hobby. It's like a baking diary. It makes me feel a little bit organized, even though when it comes to making things in the kitchen, that really couldn't be farther from the truth
I made these cookies quite a few weeks ago (well before Christmas) so I am impressed with myself for not having lost the recipe by now! All of them were made from recipes by fellow bloggers. With each recipe, I put links to the lovely blog from which I borrowed the recipe. The first is Giant Oreo Cookie Cookies - using chopped up, ground oreo's as an ingredients. I found it on Sugar Cooking, and knew immediately I'd have to make it for us oreo lovers. One response to this cookie was, "Now this is a cookie!" These were a big hit... the oreo is a subtle but delicious addition to a great chocolate chip cookie recipe. The only real changes I made were the crush the cookies more finely than just rough chunks, reduce the amount of oreos, and lessen amount of chocolate chips.
Giant Oreo Cookie Cookies adapted from Sugar Cooking
the recipe states it makes about 20-30 cookies, but using 1/4 of dough, i only got about 12 - 14 of them!
Ingredients
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup unsalted butter, melted, and set aside to cool slightly
1 cup packed light brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
1 egg
1 egg yolk
1 cups semisweet chocolate chips
15 oreos, ground
Preheat to 325. Line cookie sheets with parchment.
Sift flour, baking soda and salt together and set aside.
In a medium bowl, cream together the melted butter, brown sugar and granulated sugar until well blended. Beat in the vanilla, egg, and egg yolk until light and creamy. Mix in the sifted ingredients until just blended.
Add in the crushed oreos. Beat on low to incorporate.
Stir in the chocolate chips. Drop cookie dough 1/4 cup at a time onto the prepared cookie sheets. Cookies should be about 3 inches apart.
Bake for 14 to 17 minutes in the preheated oven, or until the edges are lightly toasted. Cool on baking sheets for a few minutes before transferring to wire racks to cool completely.
Close up! You can see the dark flecks of oreo - Yum...
The second cookie recipe is based on Snickerdoodle Blossoms from 3 B's, adapted from Keeper Worthy Recipes & Lick the Bowl Good.
I made them as cookies, on a cookie sheet instead of doing them in the muffin tins... but I wish I had done the muffin idea! This recipe was so good I will definitely try them again and make them into a cute mini muffin shape next time. I swapped out the hershey kisses and opted instead for Chocolate Covered Brownie Dough Bites...yummm. I used the brownie bites in some and made others just as plain ol' snickerdoodles. Mine baked out kind of flat... they spread a lot and flattened out. But they were still incredibly SOFT and delish. A definite would-make-again.
Snickerdoodle Not-So-Blossoms from Snickerdoodle Blossoms of 3 B's, adapted from Keeper Worthy Recipes & Lick the Bowl Good.
makes about 4 dozen
Ingredients:
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
2 sticks unsalted butter, soft
1 egg, room temp
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
48 chocolate candies of your choice (chocolate kisses, chocolate covered brownie dough, etc)
For the cinnamon sugar:
1/4 cup sugar
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
Preheat 375 F.
Combine 1/2 cup sugar, brown sugar and butter in large mixer bowl. Beat on medium until creamy. Add egg, vanilla and salt and beat until mixed. Reduce speed to low; add flour and baking soda. Beat until well mixed.
Refrigerate about 1 hour, or until firm enough to shape into 1 inch balls. Work fast before they get soft! Combine the 1/4 cup sugar and cinnamon in a small bowl. Roll dough balls in cinnamon sugar.
Place 2 inches apart onto parchment lined cookie sheets. Bake for 8 to 10 minutes or until very lightly golden brown. Immediately press 1 chocolate kiss in center of each cookie. (OOPS - I added my chocolate candy to the center of the cookie BEFORE baking. But I think either way they would have spread out flat.) Remove from cookie sheets; cool completely on a wire rack.
And FINALLY, the last cookie recipe is for Soft Sugar Cookies. These were by far the softest sugar cookies I have ever made. And possibly even my favorite sugar cookie I've ever prepared. They maintained their height nicely without spreading too much. My only beef is that the dough is thin and even after a little chilling (which the recipe doesn't call for) is hard to roll into a ball to roll in the sugar. But non-stick spraying a cookie scooper helped a lot with this process. I saw these on Delish Blog, which they adapted from America’s Test Kitchen Family Cookbook, 2006. The only change I made was to add some turbinado sugar to the granulated sugar used for rolling the dough balls in for some extra crunch. They came out perfectly SUPER-SOFT on the inside, with a sugary crust on the outside. Definitely would make these again!!
Softest Sugar Cookies from Delish Blog, adapted from America’s Test Kitchen Family Cookbook, 2006.
makes about 2 dozen cookies
Ingredients:
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups granulated sugar
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 3/4 sticks unsalted butter, softened
1 Tbsp pure vanilla extract
2 large eggs, room temp
extra granulated sugar mixed with some turbinado sugar for rolling
Preheat to 350 F. Mixed 1/2 cup of the sugar with some turbinado sugar in a small bowl for coating. Set aside. In a separate bowl, whisk flour, baking powder, and salt together. Set aside. Beat butter and rest of the sugar (1 1/2 cups) together in a large bowl using an electric mixer on medium speed until light and fluffy. Beat in the vanilla, then the eggs one at a time, until combined, only about 30 seconds. Reduce the speed to low and mix in the flour mixture until just combined. Chill the dough for about 30 minutes. Line cookie sheets with parchment. Using wet hands, roll 2 Tablespoons of dough into balls, then roll in sugar to coat. Place balls on sheets, spaced about 2 inches apart. Very slightly flatten cookies with a flat surface (the bottom of a glass, measuring cup, spatula, etc).
Bake cookies until edges are set and just barely beginning to brown but the centers are still soft and puffy, about 10-12 minutes. To keep these soft, you DON'T want to overbake them! Leave cookies on baking sheet after removing from oven for 10 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack and let cool completely.
I made these cookies quite a few weeks ago (well before Christmas) so I am impressed with myself for not having lost the recipe by now! All of them were made from recipes by fellow bloggers. With each recipe, I put links to the lovely blog from which I borrowed the recipe. The first is Giant Oreo Cookie Cookies - using chopped up, ground oreo's as an ingredients. I found it on Sugar Cooking, and knew immediately I'd have to make it for us oreo lovers. One response to this cookie was, "Now this is a cookie!" These were a big hit... the oreo is a subtle but delicious addition to a great chocolate chip cookie recipe. The only real changes I made were the crush the cookies more finely than just rough chunks, reduce the amount of oreos, and lessen amount of chocolate chips.
Giant Oreo Cookie Cookies adapted from Sugar Cooking
the recipe states it makes about 20-30 cookies, but using 1/4 of dough, i only got about 12 - 14 of them!
Ingredients
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup unsalted butter, melted, and set aside to cool slightly
1 cup packed light brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
1 egg
1 egg yolk
1 cups semisweet chocolate chips
15 oreos, ground
Preheat to 325. Line cookie sheets with parchment.
Sift flour, baking soda and salt together and set aside.
In a medium bowl, cream together the melted butter, brown sugar and granulated sugar until well blended. Beat in the vanilla, egg, and egg yolk until light and creamy. Mix in the sifted ingredients until just blended.
Add in the crushed oreos. Beat on low to incorporate.
Stir in the chocolate chips. Drop cookie dough 1/4 cup at a time onto the prepared cookie sheets. Cookies should be about 3 inches apart.
Bake for 14 to 17 minutes in the preheated oven, or until the edges are lightly toasted. Cool on baking sheets for a few minutes before transferring to wire racks to cool completely.
Close up! You can see the dark flecks of oreo - Yum...
The second cookie recipe is based on Snickerdoodle Blossoms from 3 B's, adapted from Keeper Worthy Recipes & Lick the Bowl Good.
I made them as cookies, on a cookie sheet instead of doing them in the muffin tins... but I wish I had done the muffin idea! This recipe was so good I will definitely try them again and make them into a cute mini muffin shape next time. I swapped out the hershey kisses and opted instead for Chocolate Covered Brownie Dough Bites...yummm. I used the brownie bites in some and made others just as plain ol' snickerdoodles. Mine baked out kind of flat... they spread a lot and flattened out. But they were still incredibly SOFT and delish. A definite would-make-again.
Snickerdoodle Not-So-Blossoms from Snickerdoodle Blossoms of 3 B's, adapted from Keeper Worthy Recipes & Lick the Bowl Good.
makes about 4 dozen
Ingredients:
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
2 sticks unsalted butter, soft
1 egg, room temp
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
48 chocolate candies of your choice (chocolate kisses, chocolate covered brownie dough, etc)
For the cinnamon sugar:
1/4 cup sugar
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
Preheat 375 F.
Combine 1/2 cup sugar, brown sugar and butter in large mixer bowl. Beat on medium until creamy. Add egg, vanilla and salt and beat until mixed. Reduce speed to low; add flour and baking soda. Beat until well mixed.
Refrigerate about 1 hour, or until firm enough to shape into 1 inch balls. Work fast before they get soft! Combine the 1/4 cup sugar and cinnamon in a small bowl. Roll dough balls in cinnamon sugar.
Place 2 inches apart onto parchment lined cookie sheets. Bake for 8 to 10 minutes or until very lightly golden brown. Immediately press 1 chocolate kiss in center of each cookie. (OOPS - I added my chocolate candy to the center of the cookie BEFORE baking. But I think either way they would have spread out flat.) Remove from cookie sheets; cool completely on a wire rack.
And FINALLY, the last cookie recipe is for Soft Sugar Cookies. These were by far the softest sugar cookies I have ever made. And possibly even my favorite sugar cookie I've ever prepared. They maintained their height nicely without spreading too much. My only beef is that the dough is thin and even after a little chilling (which the recipe doesn't call for) is hard to roll into a ball to roll in the sugar. But non-stick spraying a cookie scooper helped a lot with this process. I saw these on Delish Blog, which they adapted from America’s Test Kitchen Family Cookbook, 2006. The only change I made was to add some turbinado sugar to the granulated sugar used for rolling the dough balls in for some extra crunch. They came out perfectly SUPER-SOFT on the inside, with a sugary crust on the outside. Definitely would make these again!!
Softest Sugar Cookies from Delish Blog, adapted from America’s Test Kitchen Family Cookbook, 2006.
makes about 2 dozen cookies
Ingredients:
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups granulated sugar
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 3/4 sticks unsalted butter, softened
1 Tbsp pure vanilla extract
2 large eggs, room temp
extra granulated sugar mixed with some turbinado sugar for rolling
Preheat to 350 F. Mixed 1/2 cup of the sugar with some turbinado sugar in a small bowl for coating. Set aside. In a separate bowl, whisk flour, baking powder, and salt together. Set aside. Beat butter and rest of the sugar (1 1/2 cups) together in a large bowl using an electric mixer on medium speed until light and fluffy. Beat in the vanilla, then the eggs one at a time, until combined, only about 30 seconds. Reduce the speed to low and mix in the flour mixture until just combined. Chill the dough for about 30 minutes. Line cookie sheets with parchment. Using wet hands, roll 2 Tablespoons of dough into balls, then roll in sugar to coat. Place balls on sheets, spaced about 2 inches apart. Very slightly flatten cookies with a flat surface (the bottom of a glass, measuring cup, spatula, etc).
Bake cookies until edges are set and just barely beginning to brown but the centers are still soft and puffy, about 10-12 minutes. To keep these soft, you DON'T want to overbake them! Leave cookies on baking sheet after removing from oven for 10 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack and let cool completely.
Nearly Perfect Brownies
Jan. 02, 2010 09:25 AM Filed in: Brownies
No matter how many delicious brownie recipes I find, for some reason I'm always more than willing to try out new ones. Rather than stick with the tried and true, taste test approved brownies I've made in the past, I often find myself looking for new ones to experiment with. Sometimes the results are disappointing and I wish that I'd stuck with a personal favorite. But other times, such as this one, the new recipes produces some terrific results. I recently came across, "Better than Ultimate Brownies" on Gourmeted.com. What struck me was the photos - super fudgey, moist looking inside, while they still had those crisp tops - YUM. These "Better than Ultimate" brownies were adapted from the original recipe found here for "Ultimate Brownies" on about.com. I made a few more substitutions and changes to the recipe from Gourmeted, and have posted my changes below.
They came out great - exactly like they appeared in the picture. That perfect thin crust top, with a perfectly moist, fudgey center.
They were enjoyed by all at the New Year's Party.
Nearly Perfect Brownies! adapted from "Better than Ultimate Brownies" on Gourmeted.com
Ingredients:
4 (1) oz squares of unsweetened chocolate
3 oz of semi-sweet chocolate chips
3 tablespoons natural unsweetened cocoa powder
1 cup unsalted butter
5 eggs
2 3/4 cups sugar
1 tbsp vanilla
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp sea salt
Grease one 9 x 13 pan. Line the bottom with parchment and lightly grease the parchment.
In a small saucepan over low heat, melt chocolate squares, chips, cocoa powder, and butter. Set aside after it has melted and combined.
Beat eggs, sugar and vanilla at high speed for 10 minutes. Put the guard on your stand mixer bowl - this gets splashy! Add the melted chocolate mixture, salt and flour and mix until just blended. Let the batter sit on the counter for 20 minutes before pouring into the greased pan (half way through this would be a good time to preheat the oven to 375). Let air bubbles escape by dropping the pan on to a counter a few times.
4.Bake for 30 minutes and test with a toothpick. If it comes out clean with only a few crumbs, remove to a cooling rack. Let cool completely before cutting.
Hot Chocolate Cakes
Dec. 29, 2009 09:22 AM Filed in: Cake
I hope everyone had a great holiday, and I hope you are preparing for a great New Years! It has been a while since I've updated the blog. We travelled to NY for Christmas where we did lots of family-visiting and holiday celebrating, so I didn't get a chance to post! But I did take pictures of the things I baked while I was there.
I apologize for my bad pictures, they were taken with my phoney!For Christmas, I made the Hot Chocolate Cake from Fine Cooking, the December 2009/January 2010 issue. The cake came out great. It was a nice and easy recipe to prepare, with delicious results. Very very rich, but very good. It really tasted like hot chocolate. This one was a crowd pleaser. I originally spotted it on The Bitten Word, but it is also available on Fine Cooking's site here. I made quite a few changes to the recipe, so I will post my version below, but be sure to check out the two sites I mentioned above for some great pictures and comments!
I made the same amount of cake batter that the recipe called for, but instead of dividing it into three 9x2 round cake pans, I baked it in FOUR 9x2 round cake pans. Rather than one tall 3 layer cake, I got 2 good sized two layer cakes to bring to two different houses for Christmas dessert. The cakes still came out a very good size. Plus, it is so rich that a less super-tall slice was more than sufficient. Since I was making 2 cakes instead of one, I made a batch and a half of the frosting (which I probably didn't really need to do because I had a significant amount left over, but for frosting lovers, I suggest making the 1.5 batch like I did). I also didn't make my own marshmallows like the recipe stated. I didn't have a candy thermometer where I was, so I just used store bought mini-mallows. Here's what I did!:
Hot Chocolate Cake, adapted from Fine Cooking and The Bitten Word.
For the cake
6 oz. (3/4 cup) unsalted butter + some extra for greasing the pans
3 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
3/4 cup canola oil
2 oz. bittersweet chocolate chips
2 ounces 70% dark chocolate
3 cups granulated sugar
1 cup natural unsweetened cocoa powder
3 large eggs, room temperature
1/2 cup heavy cream
1/4 cup half and half
2 Tbs. pure vanilla extract
2-1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. fine sea salt
For the frosting
3 3/4 cups heavy cream
9 Tbs. unsalted butter
2 tsp vanilla
9 oz. bittersweet chocolate chips
3 cups granulated sugar
9 oz. natural unsweetened cocoa powder; more for decorating
3/4 cup corn syrup
1/2 tsp. fine sea salt
Frosting:
In a 4-quart saucepan over low heat, combine the cream, butter, and vanilla extract. Stir until the butter is melted and everything is combined. Stir in the chocolate chips until melted. Whisk in the sugar, cocoa powder, syrup, and salt until smooth...make sure the cocoa powder is fully incorporated. Pour into a 9x13-inch pan and freeze until firm, about 2 hours, or refrigerate overnight. I freezed it for 2 hours and then moved it to the refrigerator.
Cakes:
Preheat the oven to 350°F. Butter four 9x2-inch round cake pans and line the bottom of each with parchment. Butter the parchment. Dust with flour and knock out the extra.
In a 3-quart saucepan, combine butter, oil, chopped chocolate, and 1 cup water. Heat over medium heat until melted.
In a large bowl, whisk the flour, sugar, and cocoa powder. Pour the hot chocolate mixture into the sugar mixture and whisk until combined. Whisk in the eggs, one at a time, then whisk in the half-and-half and heavy cream, vanilla, baking soda, and salt. Divide the batter evenly among the four prepared pans.
Set two pans on the middle rack, slightly spaced so they don't touch. Bake until a toothpick inserted in the center of each cake comes out clean, 35 to 40 minutes. When finished, repeat with last two cakes. Cool on racks for 10 minutes, using a knife to slide around the cake to release the sides from the pan. Invert the cakes onto the racks, remove the parchment from two of the cakes (leaving parchment on the bottom of two of the cakes) and cool completely.
Assembly:
Remove the frosting from the freezer or refrigerator, let sit for about 10 - 15 minutes. Transfer to the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment and beat on medium speed for 2 minutes to soften, or use a hand mixer. Change to a whisk attachment and beat at medium-high speed until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes.
Use a sharp knife to level out the cakes. Put the cake layer still lined with parchment onto a parchment lined cardboard cake round, this will be your bottom layer. But about 1 1/2 C of frosting on top to be your filling, and spread with an offset spatula. Top with the other layer and frosting with offset spatula. If you are careful, you might not need a crumb coat (we didn't need to do one).
Decorate the cake with mini marshmallows, leaving about a 1 inch border around the edges of the cake. Sprinkle some extra cocoa powder for decoration.
Pumpkin Toffee Roll
Dec. 13, 2009 10:55 AM Filed in: Cake
Last weekend was the Cocoa Village craft fair here in Central Florida.
It was tremendous fun! The first day was quite rainy (ok, torrential and cold and windy is a more accurate description), but the second day was gorgeous. We had a great time meeting all the people who came to our booth. It was a success! I look forward to doing more of these types of events.
And now to the baking. Here is a long overdue dessert I made it for Thanksgiving!
Pumpkin Toffee Roll Cake, from Paula Deen.
I made some changes to the recipe, and posted them below. But be sure to check out Paula's original recipe HERE, and even watch a video of how she made it HERE.
Ingredients for Cake Roll:
3/4 C cake flour
1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 1/4 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp nutmeg
6 large eggs, room temperature. Separated.
1/3 C granulated sugar
1/3 C packed light brown sugar
2/3 C canned pumpkin
1/3 tsp coarse sea salt
Powdered Sugar
Ingredients for Toffee Cream Filling:
1 tsp unflavored gelatin
2 tablespoons grand marnier
1 C heavy cream chilled
1/4 C powdered sugar, sifted
1/3 C Heath bar pieces, and additional 1/2 C for garnishing
Powdered Sugar
Dulce de leche, made from sweetened condensed milk (notes below)
Small amount of store bought caramel sauce
Directions:
Preheat the oven to 375. Grease a jelly roll pan, line with parchment paper, and lightly grease the parchment.
Sift flour and spices together in a small bowl. In a separate bowl, beat egg YOLKS together with the two sugars until it thickens. Add the 2/3 C pumpkin to this yolk mixture. Beat on low until mixed. Add dry ingredients, and continue to beat on low until mixed. In a separate CLEAN bowl, beat the egg whites with the salt until stiff peaks form. Fold whites into the cake batter.
Use an offset spatula to spread the batter into the prepared jelly roll pan. Drop the pan on the counter a few times to release air bubbles. Bake about 15 minutes, or until toothpick comes out clean.
Remove from oven and while it is still hot, dust it GENEROUSLY with powdered sugar. Turn the cake out on to a kitchen towel, and fold one edge of the towel over 1 of the long edges of the cake. Immediately roll up and place edge down in the refrigerator for one hour. After one hour it should be cooled completely - Do not leave it in there much longer or it will crack when you attempt to unroll it!
For Filling:
Pour grand marnier into a small saucepan, and add the gelatin. Let it soften for about 5 minutes. Then stir over low heat until the gelatin dissolves. While this is cooling, beat the chilled cream with the powdered sugar until peaks form. Fold in the gelatin and 1/3 C of Heath Bar chunks.
Unroll the jelly roll cake slowly and gently. Sprinkle toffee pieces on the unrolled cake to taste, and then spread the cream-toffee filling over, using an offset spatula to smooth.
Beginning at the long edge of the cake, roll up the cake using the towel to help you. Place the cake onto a platter with the seam down. Cut small pieces off the ends of the cake to make straight edges. Dust generously with powdered sugar. Pour a small amount of the store bought caramel on top of the roll - just enough to make something sticky for additional toffee pieces to stick to. Sprinkle toffee on top to taste.
For Dulce De Leche:
Pour a can of sweetened condensed milk into a baking pan. Sprinkle sea salt on top and cover with tin foil. Place this baking pan within a larger baking pan filled with warm water. Put in a 425 degree oven and bake for about an hour - or until it turns a nice brownish caramel color. Let cool. If small chunks appear in it, add milk as needed, and use electric mixer to beat until smooth. To serve, warm in the microwave and pour over slices of cake. I didn't get any pictures of the cake with the dulce
The cake was a hit at Thanksgiving. It is impressive looking and really isn't that difficult to make at all! Would definitely make this again!
It was tremendous fun! The first day was quite rainy (ok, torrential and cold and windy is a more accurate description), but the second day was gorgeous. We had a great time meeting all the people who came to our booth. It was a success! I look forward to doing more of these types of events.
And now to the baking. Here is a long overdue dessert I made it for Thanksgiving!
Pumpkin Toffee Roll Cake, from Paula Deen.
I made some changes to the recipe, and posted them below. But be sure to check out Paula's original recipe HERE, and even watch a video of how she made it HERE.
Ingredients for Cake Roll:
3/4 C cake flour
1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 1/4 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp nutmeg
6 large eggs, room temperature. Separated.
1/3 C granulated sugar
1/3 C packed light brown sugar
2/3 C canned pumpkin
1/3 tsp coarse sea salt
Powdered Sugar
Ingredients for Toffee Cream Filling:
1 tsp unflavored gelatin
2 tablespoons grand marnier
1 C heavy cream chilled
1/4 C powdered sugar, sifted
1/3 C Heath bar pieces, and additional 1/2 C for garnishing
Powdered Sugar
Dulce de leche, made from sweetened condensed milk (notes below)
Small amount of store bought caramel sauce
Directions:
Preheat the oven to 375. Grease a jelly roll pan, line with parchment paper, and lightly grease the parchment.
Sift flour and spices together in a small bowl. In a separate bowl, beat egg YOLKS together with the two sugars until it thickens. Add the 2/3 C pumpkin to this yolk mixture. Beat on low until mixed. Add dry ingredients, and continue to beat on low until mixed. In a separate CLEAN bowl, beat the egg whites with the salt until stiff peaks form. Fold whites into the cake batter.
Use an offset spatula to spread the batter into the prepared jelly roll pan. Drop the pan on the counter a few times to release air bubbles. Bake about 15 minutes, or until toothpick comes out clean.
Remove from oven and while it is still hot, dust it GENEROUSLY with powdered sugar. Turn the cake out on to a kitchen towel, and fold one edge of the towel over 1 of the long edges of the cake. Immediately roll up and place edge down in the refrigerator for one hour. After one hour it should be cooled completely - Do not leave it in there much longer or it will crack when you attempt to unroll it!
For Filling:
Pour grand marnier into a small saucepan, and add the gelatin. Let it soften for about 5 minutes. Then stir over low heat until the gelatin dissolves. While this is cooling, beat the chilled cream with the powdered sugar until peaks form. Fold in the gelatin and 1/3 C of Heath Bar chunks.
Unroll the jelly roll cake slowly and gently. Sprinkle toffee pieces on the unrolled cake to taste, and then spread the cream-toffee filling over, using an offset spatula to smooth.
Beginning at the long edge of the cake, roll up the cake using the towel to help you. Place the cake onto a platter with the seam down. Cut small pieces off the ends of the cake to make straight edges. Dust generously with powdered sugar. Pour a small amount of the store bought caramel on top of the roll - just enough to make something sticky for additional toffee pieces to stick to. Sprinkle toffee on top to taste.
For Dulce De Leche:
Pour a can of sweetened condensed milk into a baking pan. Sprinkle sea salt on top and cover with tin foil. Place this baking pan within a larger baking pan filled with warm water. Put in a 425 degree oven and bake for about an hour - or until it turns a nice brownish caramel color. Let cool. If small chunks appear in it, add milk as needed, and use electric mixer to beat until smooth. To serve, warm in the microwave and pour over slices of cake. I didn't get any pictures of the cake with the dulce
The cake was a hit at Thanksgiving. It is impressive looking and really isn't that difficult to make at all! Would definitely make this again!
Raised Waffles
Nov. 22, 2009 10:30 PM Filed in: Waffles
Even when life gets really busy, you should make time for breakfast! This morning, we made time for a delicious one. This recipe is for Raised Waffles from the Sweet Melissa Baking book. It’s a cinch to throw together the night before and plop on to the waffle maker in the morning to get some fresh, warm, nutmegy Sunday morning waffles.
I made the recipe as is - the only difference is that I added a bit of cinnamon to the batter to go along with the nutmeg.
The waffles were delicious. Of the waffle recipes I’ve tried in the past, we agreed these were, “one of the best so far”. Even though I don’t think this recipe is intended for a belgian waffle maker, thats all I had... and they came out just fine. Perfectly fluffy and soft on the inside with a crispy outside. And when topped with powdered sugar, syrup and whipped cream - even better!!!!
Perfect end of the weekend breakfast. (We even have several left over for freezing, re-toasting, and topping with ice cream!)
The recipe can be found in the Sweet Melissa Baking Book. Still baking my way through her book!Pumpkin roll coming soon (not a Sweet Melissa recipe). And if you're bored, take a look at www.Salt101.com. It's fun!
Rice Krispies Chocolate Chip Cookies
Nov. 13, 2009 11:26 AM Filed in: Cookies
Recently while shopping we saw one of those enormous more-than-family-sized boxes of Rice Krispies cereal and decided that we should get it... with only two people and a shih tzu at home, we must have thought it was a good idea at the time to buy 700 LBS of the same kind of cereal for some reason. I think Daniel said this would force me to make his favorite rice krispy treats more often (the mexican vanilla ones... though if we made them often enough to get rid of the box, Daniel's love for the treats would quickly fade into totally-over-it-ness). So when I saw this recipe for cookies with rice krispies in it, I bookmarked it immediately knowing I'd be able to use up some of our supply of the cereal. The original recipe is from Imperial Sugar's website, and it was adapted on Cookie Madness here. I made some more changes to the recipe.
Rice Krispy Chocolate Chip Cookies, adapted from Imperial Sugar and Cookie Madness
makes about 24 cookies
Ingredients:
1 stick unsalted butter, softened
1/2 cup light brown sugar, packed
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 large egg, room temperature
1 1/4 cups all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 heaping cup Rice Krispies cereal
Preheat to 350 degrees F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or a silicone mat.
Using an electric mixer, cream the butter and sugars together. Add the vanilla and egg, mixing just until incorporated.
In a separate bowl, whisk the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt together to mix. Add flour mixture to sugar mixture and stir until almost blended. Add the chips and cereal and stir until mixed.
Drop by tablespoons, spacing 2 ½ inches apart, onto cookies sheets. Bake for 10-15 minutes or until slightly golden brown around edges.
The cookies came out great. The crunchy from the cereal mixes really well with the chocolate chips. And it really was a cinch to put together - very quick! Would definitely make these again! (Maybe a good Christmas cookie?)
Pear Muffins with Gingersnap Crumble
Nov. 08, 2009 04:25 PM Filed in: Muffins
Typical Sunday morning... when it first started. I woke up far too early and was unable to go back to sleep, Daniel and the dog were still sound asleep and cuddling, so I came downstairs to start baking. After my dry ingredients were mixed together and set aside, and the pears were diced.... we got the phone call that we had to leave. Why? Because we went to the hospital to go welcome our new nephew into the world!!!!!! Baby boy is beautiful and healthy and mommy is doing well. It is a very exciting day here in this family!!!!!!!!!!!!
So muffins seem a little boring in comparison! But I'll post them anyway.
I used the pear cranberry muffins with gingersnap crumble recipe from the Sweet Melissa Baking Book. I made the muffins exactly as the recipe says, minus the cranberries (we just were not feeling it). I cheated and bought pre-made old-fashioned gingersnap cookies at the store. The only change I made to the crumble was to omit the extra ground ginger - my gingersnap cookies were gingery enough. 
The muffins are excellent. And the crumble is extra excellent. In fact, I think it is now currently my favorite crumble recipe. It's going to be my go-to recipe for crumble for a while (maybe with a little bit of cinnamon mixed in).
Check out the Sweet Melissa Baking Book for the complete recipe!
Sweet Almond Bread Pudding
Nov. 01, 2009 12:31 PM Filed in: Pudding
"Stale? Really? Why do you need stale bread?"
"I don't know, its what the recipe says. I need stale bread to make it custardy, not soggy"
"Gross"
That was me & Daniel's conversation. Can you tell we've never done bread pudding before? Never made it, never even tasted it. So this was an entirely new one for us. I love that about SMS - it encourages me to try making things I've never really thought of doing before.
Sweet Melissa's recipe for Sweet Almond Bread Pudding called for a 1LB loaf of brioche. I just assumed that the bakery at the supermarket would have one. At one supermarket, the woman stocking the freshly baked bread looked at me after I asked her if they carried brioche and said,
".....what?"
"Brioche?"
"How do you spell that?"
"Bee--Arr--iiii--Ohhh-Ceee--Aychh--Eee?"
"...I've never heard of that before."
What?!!! A fluke, I thought, I'll go to another supermarket. NOPE. No luck. And no challah either - or else I'd have subbed that. What! So I bought a French sourdough loaf because I had no choice! It was either that or potato rolls. So I took my not-the-right-loaf, my heavy cream, my bag of frozen raspberries, and I headed home.
Since my bread was not stale yet, I cut it into chunks and let it sit out overnight. By morning, it reached a perfect state of stale-ness.
The recipe says to toast them a little bit, so while they were drying in the oven, I prepared my custard. This recipe was super simple and quick! By the time the bread cubes were done toasting, my custard was just starting to form little bubbles along the edges - perfect timing!
I followed the recipe exactly as the book says, except I halved it, (used the wrong bread - but its not my fault!), and topped the bread pudding before baking with almonds and cinnamon-sugar instead of just regular sugar because everything is better sprinkled with cinnamon sugar. I popped the bread pudding pan into a larger pan filled with water, and 1 hour and fifteen minutes later, out it came, smelling great.
For some reason, I completely forgot to prepare the Raspberry Sauce, even though I bought the necessary ingredients for it. Oops! I should have realized when Daniel said, "It needs something" but instead of triggering something in my head, I said, "whipped cream?" I have a lot of assignments due really soon in school, so my brain is a little preoccupied.
As Dan was adding some whipped cream to his, I looked away from a second, and looked back to see:
Doesn't it look like she's saying, "What? No, Mom. I didn't eat any whipped cream." And yes, she's wearing a little bit of a costume... the part she didn't shake off.
Anyway, it came out really really good. I think the addition of cinnamon-sugar was perfecto. And this would have probably come out even better if I had a) Had the right bread and b) Remembered to make the raspberry sauce. Hope everyone enjoyed their halloween!
Devil's Food Cupcakes w/ PB Frosting
Oct. 25, 2009 03:17 PM Filed in: Cupcakes
Chocolate. And Peanut Butter. A combination that will never ever ever get old. Devil's Food Cake with Peanut Butter Frosting. Yesssss!!! I decided to make cupcakes instead of a full cake and let me just tell you, this new addition to our kitchen REVOLUTIONIZED the cupcake making process. Ok maybe not revolutionized but it made it considerably more efficient.
I made the recipe for the devil's food cake exactly as is, except that I used water instead of coffee. I'm a coffee-addict, but some of these cupcakes were piped with pink buttercream and were donated to Making Strides Against Breast Cancer so I didn't want to assume everyone would like or want coffee in their treat. For the other cupcakes, I made the Peanut Butter Frosting, but I chose to use chunky peanut butter.
Check out the Sweet Melissa Baking Book for the complete recipe!
Peanut Butter Frosting ...this made enough to frost 8 cupcakes
1 stick of butter, softened
2 cups of powdered sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup natural super chunky peanut butter
Combine the first three ingredients in a mixer with the whisk attachment, mix until smooth. Add the peanut butter.
Check out the Sweet Melissa Baking Book for the complete recipe!
The cupcakes and the frosting came out delicious.
Sea Salt Blondies
Oct. 10, 2009 01:13 PM Filed in: Blondies
A little while back, I saw this post for Salted Blondies on one of my very favorite blogs, 3 B'S .... Baseball, Baking, & Books. I bookmarked it and KNEW I'd have to come back to it when I had time. Her inspiration came from The Delicious Life which was a Heath Bar version. I chose to make Ingrid of 3 B's Version: White Chocolate Chip and Macadamia Nut Blondies. Yummm.
Just as both bloggers claimed, this recipe was super easy. And it came out Super, Super Delicious. Mmm. On my way home from a meeting with my professor yesterday, Daniel called and said, "I think I may need my stomach pumped... I had too many blondies". Yes, they're that good. Dan and I agree that they're cookie-er tasting than other blondies I've made...if that makes any sense.
Sea Salted Blondies, with Macadamia Nuts and White Chocolate Chips from 3 B's & The Delicious Life
Ingredients:
1 C A.P. Flour
1/2 tsp Baking Powder
1/8 tsp Baking soda
A heaping 1/2 tsp of Coarse Sea Salt
1 C brown Sugar
1 stick butter, melted & slightly cooled
1 large egg, room temoerature
1/2 tsp Vanilla
3/4 C white chocolate chips
~1/4 C Chopped Macadamia nuts
Preheat oven to 350. Lightly grease an 8×8 baking pan, line it with parchment, and lightly grease the parchment.
In a large mixing bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.
In a separate bowl, beat together the brown sugar and the melted butter. Add the egg and vanilla. Beat to combine.
Stir the flour mixture into the butter mixture. Before completely combined, add the white chocolate chips and the nuts (reserving about a Tblspn of the nuts to sprinkle on top). Pour batter into pan and sprinkle with remaining nuts. Also sprinkle the batter with more coarse sea salt.
Bake for 20 to 25 minutes. Let cool for 10 minute and then remove the blondies using the parchment sling to allow to cool completely on a wire rack. Enjoy as is or warmed up with ice cream on top!
Apple Orchard Crumble
Oct. 10, 2009 01:04 PM Filed in: Apple Crumble
Yes, I'm finally back! I'm really glad I was able to get back in the swing of things for this recipe - Um, warm apples coated in cinnamon and sugar topped with brown sugary crumblies, Helloo?? Delicious!
This was a really easy recipe to throw together. The thing that took the longest was coring, peeling and slicing the apples (If only I had one of those little tools, it would have been a lot easier!). The rest came together very very quickly. When I first read through the recipe, I did so quickly, and I thought this would be made in a 10 inch pie plate. So I thought, "Yeahhh, I'll make the whole thing". Then when I had a ginormous bowl full of sugary apple slices, I re-read the recipe and found out it was a 10 inch DEEP DISH.... Ohhhh!!! Since I don't have one of those, I made it in a 9x13 pan, and it fit perfectly.
The only changes I made were to use only Golden Delicious and Mcintosh apples (couldn't find any of the others), and to omit the all-spice and sub in a little more cinnamon in its place. It came out really good! I love those easy, quick ones that taste great! (And it tasted even better with some vanilla bean ice cream and caramel sauce!!!)
Check out the Sweet Melissa Baking Book for the complete recipe!
This was a really easy recipe to throw together. The thing that took the longest was coring, peeling and slicing the apples (If only I had one of those little tools, it would have been a lot easier!). The rest came together very very quickly. When I first read through the recipe, I did so quickly, and I thought this would be made in a 10 inch pie plate. So I thought, "Yeahhh, I'll make the whole thing". Then when I had a ginormous bowl full of sugary apple slices, I re-read the recipe and found out it was a 10 inch DEEP DISH.... Ohhhh!!! Since I don't have one of those, I made it in a 9x13 pan, and it fit perfectly.
The only changes I made were to use only Golden Delicious and Mcintosh apples (couldn't find any of the others), and to omit the all-spice and sub in a little more cinnamon in its place. It came out really good! I love those easy, quick ones that taste great! (And it tasted even better with some vanilla bean ice cream and caramel sauce!!!)
Check out the Sweet Melissa Baking Book for the complete recipe!
Fallen Souffle Cake
Sep. 06, 2009 02:25 PM Filed in: Cake
This week, we chose the recipe: Fallen Chocolate Souffle Cake from the Sweet Melissa Baking Book. Half way through making it, I realized how crazy it is that this cake doesn't need any flour at all! Ahh, the power of egg whites.
Overall, this was very easy to put together. It went very quickly and was rather painless. I halved the recipe and baked up the batter in 2 mini-bundts + 2 mini springform pans. I made only slight variations to change this Chocolate Fallen Souffle Cake into a Chocolate-PEANUT BUTTER Fallen Souffle Cake:
Adaptations:
I Halved the recipe and made some changes:
5 ounces ghirardelli semi-sweet chocolate
+ Approx 1 - 1.5 ounces Reese's Peanut Butter Chips
*Omitted Orange Zest
*Reduce the amount of Grand Marnier by a smidge. (Used about 1 teaspoon)
The result was quite nice. The peanut butter flavor was a nice addition. The cake came out almost like a rich, chocolate sponge brownie... if that makes any sense. It has the rich chocolately moist-ness of a brownie, but was light like sponge cake. Yum! Can't wait to try this with ice cream later.
Be sure to see how the other SMS bakers' Souffle Cakes baked up!! Happy Labor Day!!Check out the Sweet Melissa Baking Book for the complete recipe!
Key Lime Meltaways
Sep. 05, 2009 06:25 PM Filed in: Cookies
Last week, I had a few moments to kill. The week's homework was done already, so I thought I would whip up a batch of cookie's I've had bookmarked for about 989 years. We had some key limes sitting around on the counter, so I figured I'd put em to good use in this Martha Stewart recipe (which ALL user comments raved about, by the way...always a good indicator for me). I made some slight adaptations because I wanted to use Key Limes instead of regular ol' lime, and I really them wanted to pack a limey punch.
These came out really really good. We tried one about a half hour after they came out of the oven, and they were totally disgusting. Totally. I think the combo of sweet, lime, and WARM but a Baddd, Badd combo. It was too tart, and honestly was just really weird. I feared I'd have to toss the whole batch. But a second taste test the next day fixed all that - it seems they just needed some time to relax before they'd become yummy. These are perfectly sweet, limey, and crumbly. I can't imagine any lime lover not enjoying these. here is the original,
The only adaptions I made were to use the zest of 4 key limes and increased the freshly squeezed juice to 3-4 tablespoons of key lime juice.
Key Lime Meltaways, adapted from Martha Stewart's Lime Meltaways
The Smart Baker : Day 1
Sep. 02, 2009 08:27 PM
Today we launched out preliminary site for The Smart Baker. Check back soon for some exciting upcoming news!