All Betz Off

Gingerbread Waffles

2012-01-31T01:17:00.000-08:00

Even though this recipe looks a little intense with the long ingredient list the end product is definitely worth it. Not only was it nice to have something different from the traditional waffle, but it was fun to inject a bit of holiday flavor into a routine breakfast item. Enjoy!

Gingerbread Waffles

Source: Taste of Home

1 cup all-purpose flour

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon ground ginger

3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/8 teaspoon cloves

1/3 cup packed brown sugar

1 egg, separated

3/4 cup buttermilk

1/4 cup molasses

3 tablespoons butter, melted

1/8 teaspoon cream of tartar

confectioner's sugar, optional

In a large bowl, combine the first seven ingredients. In a small bowl, beat the brown sugar and egg yolk until fluffy. Add the buttermilk, molasses, and butter. Stir into dry ingredients just until combined.

In another small bowl, beat the egg white and cream of tartar until stiff peaks form. Gently fold into batter. Quickly spoon onto a preheated waffle iron. Bake according to manufacturer's directions until golden brown. Sprinkle with confectioner's sugar if desired.

Makes 8 waffles

Daring Bakers - Scones (aka Biscuits)

2012-01-27T00:00:00.000-08:00

Audax Artifex was our January 2012 Daring Bakers’ host. Aud worked tirelessly to master light and fluffy scones (aka biscuits) to help us create delicious and perfect batches in our own kitchens!

Great challenge this month! Scones (otherwise known as biscuits in my house, unless you are my 5 year old son and you call anything in this basic shape a muffin no matter how many times mom tells you it is not a muffin) are very versatile. You can pair these up with breakfast, lunch, dinner, or an afternoon snack. They can be savory or sweet. Imagine just about anything and a biscuit can accompany it. See what I mean about versatile!

I was able to make two different batches this month. For my first, I used the recipe that Audax provided and planned to have them as breakfast sandwiches. They were easy to make and you can see that they rose well and had great layering. Delicious with bacon, egg, and cheese and equally delicious slathered in raspberry jam!

For the second batch I used a different recipe. One out of a cookbook that I received as a Christmas gift. I figured that the same basic principles were used and there couldn't be that much difference between the two recipes. Boy, was I wrong. The second batch barely rose at all. I had planned to make a buttermilk variety but someone forgot to pick up buttermilk from the store so I made a cheddar version instead. While they didn't rise well they sure did taste good. Cheese makes everything taste better! Enjoy!

Quiche

2012-01-22T20:46:00.000-08:00

There are so many different varieties of quiche out there. This one is full of fat and calories and is VERY tasty. We don't eat quiche very often, it's more like a special breakfast for us, so I don't mind making the full fat version. This particular quiche was consumed on Christmas Eve so it was a very special breakfast for us indeed.

Quiche is pretty easy to make, but can be a little unnerving to bake. You have to make sure that the center is set and a knife comes out clean. Even after the quiche has cooled it can seem a bit wobbly and wet, but that is the texture of quiche (at least this one). Enjoy!

Quiche Lorraine

pastry for a 9-inch one-crust pie
8 slices crispy bacon, crumbled
1 cup shredded swiss cheese
1/3 cup finely chopped onion
4 eggs
2 cups heavy whipping cream
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1/8 teaspoon ground red pepper

Heat oven to 425 degrees F. Prepare pastry crust and place into a 9-inch quiche or pie plate. Sprinkle bacon, cheese, and onion in pastry-lined dish.

Beat eggs slightly; beat in remaining ingredients. Pour into pastry dish. Bake 15 minutes.

Reduce oven temperature to 300 degrees F. Bake about 30 minutes longer or until knife inserted in center comes out clean. Let stand 10 minutes before cutting.

Blueberry Muffins

2012-01-18T06:50:00.000-08:00

Wow, way back at the beginning of December is when I baked these muffins and I am just getting to them in the posting schedule. I guess a bit of time has gone by with all the yummy foods that I've been baking up for the holidays. I would say these are definitely worth the wait though.

I have made a few other blueberry muffin recipes but decided to try out a new one as our breakfast the morning after my son's birthday. I wanted something that I could bake up ahead of time and take to the hotel with us. I was pleasantly surprised by how dense and moist these muffins were. My husband commented on the fact that they were heavy for a muffin, and everyone thought they tasted great. I believe I will be making these again. Enjoy!

Blueberry Muffins
Source: Brown Eyed Baker

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 egg
1 cup granulated sugar
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and cooled slightly
1 1/4 cups sour cream
1 1/2 cups frozen or fresh blueberries

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Grease a standard 12-cup muffin tin (or line with paper liners) and set aside.

Whisk the flour, baking powder and salt in a medium bowl until combined. Whisk the egg in a separate medium bowl until well-combined and light-colored, about 20 seconds. Add the sugar and whisk vigorously until thick, about 30 seconds. Add the melted butter in 2 or 3 additions, whisking to combine after each addition. Add the sour cream in 2 additions, whisking just to combine.

Add the berries to the dry ingredients and gently toss just to combine. Add the sour cream mixture and fold with a rubber spatula until the batter comes together and the berries are evenly distributed, 25 to 30 seconds. Small spots of flour may remain and the batter will be very thick. Do not overmix.

Using a large spoon or a cookie scoop sprayed with nonstick cooking spray, divide the batter amount the muffin cups. Bake until the muffins are light golden brown and a toothpick or thin knife inserted into the center of a muffin comes out clean, 25 to 30 minutes, rotating the pan from front to back halfway through the baking time. Immediately remove muffins to a wire rack and cool for at least 5 minutes. Serve immediately or at room temperature. Store leftovers in an airtight container at room temperature.

Chocolate Almond Upside Down Cake

2012-01-14T23:58:00.000-08:00

Christmas Eve dessert! I have had this cake bookmarked in my recipes for a few years now so when I was searching for our Christmas dinner dessert I gave my son the choice between this and a chocolate-praline torte that I made many years ago before he ever joined our family. At first he chose the torte, but then he quickly switched over to this and wouldn't be swayed. The two recipes were very similar, one was more of a two layer cake with whipping cream in between the layers (I bet you can tell that was the other one). I was surprised by his choice because I thought he would go for the whipping cream layers, but I think he was drawn to the almonds. Granted, both cakes have almonds but he couldn't see them in the other cake under the layers of white.

What I love about this cake, and the other, is the taste and texture of the moist cake with the chewy praline topping and crunch of the almonds. It is the perfect combination of soft, chewy, and crunchy in one satisfying bite. I am definitely glad I made this and can finally get it off my bookmarked "to do" recipes. Enjoy!

Chocolate Almond Upside Down Cake
Source: Martha Stewart

Caramel Topping:
6 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted, plus more for pan
3/4 cup packed light brown sugar
1/4 cup honey
1 1/4 cups sliced or slivered almonds, lightly toasted

Cake:
1 1/4 cups cake flour (not self rising) 1/2 cup cocoa powder, preferably Dutch-processed
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
1 1/2 cups sugar
3 large eggs
1 cup buttermilk
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Prepare the topping:
Generously butter a 10-inch round nonstick cake pan. Pour 6 tablespoons melted butter into the cake pan and swirl to coat the bottom; sprinkle in brown sugar. Drizzle honey over sugar and sprinkle evenly with almonds.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Prepare the cake:
Sift flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt together three times to make the cake extra light. Place butter in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the whisk attachment and beat until smooth and fluffy. Add sugar and continue mixing. Add eggs, one at a time, beating after each addition. Continue beating until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes. With the mixer running on low speed, add a third of the dry ingredients and mix to combine. Add half the buttermilk and continue mixing. Add another third of the dry ingredients, mix, and add remaining buttermilk and vanilla. Add remaining dry ingredients and mix until smooth. Pour the batter into the pan.

Bake until set in the center and springy, 45 to 55 minutes. Run a knife around the edge of the pan and immediately invert the pan onto a serving platter. Let it sit with the pan still on top for 5 minutes so the caramel can soak into the cake a bit, before removing the pan. If the topping is sticking to the pan, warm the pan surface over a low burner to loosen the caramel and then pour it over the cake. Let cool completely. Cut into wedges with a serrated knife.

Lasagna Soup

2012-01-10T08:05:00.000-08:00

I would have to say that this doesn't hold a candle to the real thing. You just can't beat a bubbly, cheesy pan of noodles and Italian sausage. The one thing this recipe does have going for it is that it is quick. I think the next time I make this (if I do) I would add more veggies to it. It really is a soup more than a lasagna (obviously) and I think the veggies would help with that concept. Enjoy!

Lasagna Soup
Source: Joy in my Kitchen

1 lb ground beef
1/4 tsp. garlic powder
2 cans beef broth (with onion); or add 1/2 C onion in plain broth
1 can diced tomatoes
1/4 tsp. Italian seasonings
1 1/2 C pasta
1/4 C Parmesan cheese

Cook beef; drain fat (cook onions with this too, if broth is not onion flavored). Stir broth, tomatoes and Italian seasoning together in a stockpot. Heat to a boil. Add pasta, cook for 10 minutes. Stir in cheese. Serve warm, topped with additional cheese, if desired.

Seasoned Dinner Rolls

2012-01-07T06:45:00.000-08:00

I found this recipe in a food magazine and decided to make them for Thanksgiving. I thought about passing it off and buying store bought or refrigerated rolls since there are so many other things to make, but I have this thing for fresh yeast dinner rolls for big holiday meals. When I came across the article the title caught me eye. It said "Best Dinner Rolls", so I figured that since those are some pretty big shoes to fill it might be worth the effort.

What's great about this recipe is that you make a basic dinner roll and then you add whatever toppings you want to make it fit your taste. For Thanksgiving, I made plain, Parmesan-Garlic, and Almond-Herb. I made in the traditional style where you just set the dough balls in the 9x13 pan to double. My favorite were the Parmesan-garlic, followed by the almond-herb. I would have to say that the plain dinner rolls really didn't do anything for me.

Since I wasn't happy with this original batch I decided to make them again for our Christmas dinner. This time I made about 2/3 Parmesan-Garlic and about 1/3 with coarse sea salt. I also experimented with the shapes and made three different varieties: rosettes, cloverleafs, and twists. I really liked how the rosettes turned out with the twists coming in second. The cloverleafs really really didn't work for me because it seemed like they burned easily. That was most likely because you use muffin tins instead of flat sheets, but still, I wasn't as pleased with them.

I would have to say that the Parmesan-garlic are still my favorite, but I think I like the coarse sea salt over the almond-herb. It was difficult for the almond-herb mixture to stay on the roll and once that falls off you just have a very plain roll to eat. I will definitely be making these again. Enjoy!

Seasoned Dinner Rolls
Makes 2 dozen rolls

4 1/2 to 5 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 cup sugar
1 pkg (1/4 oz) active dry yeast
1 1/4 teaspoons salt
1 cup whole milk
1/2 cup water
2 teaspoons butter
2 eggs
1 egg, slightly beaten
toppings (see below)

In a large bowl, combine 2 cups flour, sugar, yeast, and salt. In a small saucepan, heat the milk, water, and butter to 115 degrees F. Add to dry ingredients; beat on medium speed for 3 minutes. Add 2 eggs; beat on high speed for 2 minutes. Stir in enough remaining flour to form a soft dough (dough will be sticky).

Turn onto a floured surface; knead until smooth and elastic, about 6-8 minutes. Place in a greased bowl, turning once to grease the top. Cover with plastic wrap and let rise in a warm place until doubled, about 1 hour.

Punch dough down. Turn onto a lightly floured surface; divide into 24 portions. Shape into balls (or other shapes). Divide the balls between two greased 13x9 inch baking pans (or 11x17 pans if doing other shapes).

Cover with a clean, lightweight towel and let rise until doubled, about 30 minutes. Brush with lightly beaten egg. Sprinkle rolls with toppings of your choice.

Bake at 375 degrees F for 10-15 minutes or until golden brown. Remove from pans to wire racks.

Toppings
Parmesan-Garlic: 2 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese and 1/2 teaspoon dried minced garlic
Almond-Herb: 2 tablespoons chopped sliced almonds and 1/2 teaspoon each kosher salt, dried basil and dried oregano

Pumpkin Scones

2012-01-03T06:44:00.000-08:00

Warm pumpkin scones with a hint of ginger and cinnamon filled with plump raisins, what is not to love? Yum! These were perfect for a relaxing Thanksgiving weekend. Really, they would be perfect for any relaxing winter weekend. My family devoured these for breakfast and came back again for a late morning snack. I think all 8 scones were eaten before we even hit noon. Yep, that good. I will definitely be making these again. Enjoy!

Pumpkin Scones
Source: Joy of Baking

2 cups all-purpose flour
1/3 cup light or dark brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup cold unsalted butter, cut into pieces
1/3 cup raisins
1/4 cup toasted and chopped pecans or walnuts (optional)
1/3 - 1/2 cup buttermilk
1/2 cup fresh or canned pure pumpkin (if using canned make sure there are no spices or sugar added)
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
egg wash (1 large egg + 1 tablespoon milk or cream)

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F and place rack in the center of the oven. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, spices, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Cut the butter into small pieces and blend into the flour mixture with a pastry blender or two knives. The mixture should look like coarse crumbs. Stir in the raisins and pecans. In a separate bowl, mix together the buttermilk, pumpkin puree, and vanilla. Then add the buttermilk mixture to the flour mixture. Mix just until the dough comes together. Do not over mix.

Transfer to a lightly floured surface and knead dough gently four or five times and then pat the dough into a circle that is about 7 inches round and about 1 1/2 inches thick. Cut this circle in half, then cut each half into 4 pie-shaped wedges (triangles). Place the scones on the baking sheet. Brush the tops of the scones with the egg wash.

Place the baking sheet inside another baking sheet to prevent the bottoms of the scones from over browning. Bake for about 20 minutes or until golden brown and a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean. Transfer to a wire rack to cool.

Makes 8 scones

Better Than Sex Cake - Chocolate Version

2012-01-01T00:00:00.000-08:00

My husband looked at me sideways when I told him what I was going to make for our New Year's ring in dessert. I am a pretty conservative person so I think he thought it was pretty scandalous of me that I even thought about making a cake that had the letters s-e-x in the title. Okay, I'm not that bad, but I guarantee you he won't be telling anyone what the name of this cake is if we offer it to other people.

Baking a Better Than Sex Cake has been on my top 100 list since I formed my list soon after starting my blog. I think the name was more intriguing than the actual cake. I mean really, who came up with this title and why, I would really like to know.

While looking for the perfect recipe I actually came across quite a few. I mistakenly thought that this cake always used a chocolate base, but it turns out that it can be made with just about any flavor base. Next week I'll be taking a yellow cake version to our running club's after Christmas party and I'll let you know how it stacks up. (My husband told me I could take it as long as I didn't tell anyone what the name was.)

I typically like to bake cakes from scratch whenever possible, but for this one I stuck with a box cake mix. Too much work at this point in my holiday break to mess with finding the perfect cake recipe on top of finding the perfect recipe to put all the pieces together. You have to pick your battles and this wasn't one I wanted to fight on a New Year's Eve Saturday night. I have to say, for a box cake it sure was tasty.

And while I am not the type of girl to kiss and tell, I can tell you that the alternative is definitely better. It is just cake, after all. A yummy, gooey, crunchy cake, but still a cake. Enjoy!

Better Than Sex Cake - Chocolate Version

Source: Adapted from All Recipes

1 box Devil's Food cake mix + ingredients to make box mix

7 oz. sweetened condensed milk

6 oz. caramel sauce

1 fun size Heath bar per cake, crushed

whipping cream

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease cake pans. Bake cake according to directions on package.

Cool cake on a wire rack for 5 minutes. Poke various holes in cake with fork. While cake is cooling, heat condensed milk and caramel over low heat; stir until combined. Pour over cake and generously sprinkle with crushed candy bar.

After cake is completely cooled, garnish with a dollop of whipped cream, a drizzle of caramel, and a few pieces of crushed candy bar.

Makes 8 - 10 oz. cakes

Real Italian Calzones

2011-12-31T06:45:00.000-08:00

I do love a good calzone! Chicken with black olives, pepperoni with mushrooms, whole wheat . . . I've always used the same base calzone recipe out of one of my cookbooks and I've experimented with fillings. This time though I decided to look for a new recipe altogether. I came across this one that sounded a bit different from my other with the biggest difference being that there is no sauce.

This recipe tops my other one by far! I love the mix of the cheeses that compliment the pepperoni and mushrooms. The only disappointment was that they turned out so flat. That could have had something to do with too much flour, or not enough rise time, or . . . who knows. What I do know is that these are tasty and I will have plenty of chances to figure out the problem with the rising dough. Enjoy!

Real Italian Calzones
Source: All Recipes

2 1/4 teaspoons (1 package) active dry yeast
1 cup warm water
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 teaspoon white sugar
1 teaspoon salt
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, divided
1/2 cup ricotta cheese
1 1/2 cups shredded cheddar cheese
1/2 cup diced pepperoni
1/2 cup sliced fresh mushrooms
1 tablespoon dried basil leaves
1 egg, beaten

To Make Dough: In a small bowl, dissolve yeast in water. Add the oil, sugar and salt; mix in 1 cup of the flour until smooth. Gradually stir in the rest of the flour, until dough is smooth and workable. Knead dough on a lightly floured surface for about 5 minutes, or until it is elastic. Place dough in a greased bowl, cover and let rise for 40 minutes, or until almost doubled.

To Make Filling: While dough is rising, combine the ricotta cheese, cheddar cheese, pepperoni, mushrooms and basil leaves in a large bowl. Mix well, cover bowl and refrigerate to chill.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.

When dough is ready, punch it down and separate it into 2 equal parts. Roll parts out into thin circles on a lightly floured surface. Fill each circle with 1/2 of the cheese/meat filling and fold over, securing edges by folding in and pressing with a fork. Brush the top of each calzone with egg and place on a lightly greased cookie sheet.

Bake for 30 minutes. Serve hot.

Makes 8 servings

Monkey Bread

2011-12-27T00:00:00.001-08:00

I made a batch of monkey bread (or pull apart bread as some call it) many years ago, but since I used refrigerated dough I decided that I couldn't count it on my top 100 list. I have been itching for a chance to make monkey bread from scratch for quite a while and I decided that Christmas Eve was the perfect time. Cream cheese cinnamon rolls Christmas morning, monkey bread Christmas Eve; pretty perfect for a holiday weekend if you ask me. And yes, I did run two days in a row just to make up for the calories obtained making these items! Yep, you read that right, making them not even eating them.

This monkey bread is AMAZING! It smells so good while baking, and it looks absolutely perfect as soon as you plate it. I think it looks beautiful without the glaze, but I went ahead and drizzled a half of a batch over the top. It sure doesn't need the sweetness as it already has plenty of that, but I thought it would add some contrast. I was also torn because I wanted to make the monkey bread with the traditional cinnamon and sugar, but I also wanted to add finely chopped apples. I decided to get the best of both worlds and make half of the loaf traditional and half with apples. Both halves are tasty and I couldn't recommend one over the other! Enjoy!

**I've submitted this to Sweet As Sugar Cookies Sweet Treat Link**

Monkey Bread
Source: Slightly modified from Brown Eyed Baker

Dough:
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, divided, 2 tablespoons softened and 2 tablespoons melted
1 cup milk, warm (about 110 degrees F)
1/3 cup water, warm (about 110 degrees F)
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 package instant yeast
3 1/4 cups all-purpose flour, plus extra for work surface
2 teaspoons salt

Brown Sugar Coating: 1 cup light brown sugar
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
8 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
4 slices of apple, finely chopped (optional)

Glaze:1/2 cup confectioners’ sugar
1 tablespoon milk

In a large measuring cup, mix together milk, water, melted butter, sugar and yeast. Mix flour and salt in standing mixer fitted with dough hook. Turn machine to low and slowly add milk mixture. After dough comes together, increase speed to medium and mix until dough is shiny and smooth, 6 to 7 minutes. Turn dough onto lightly floured counter and knead briefly to form smooth, round ball. Coat large bowl with nonstick cooking spray. Place dough in bowl and coat surface of dough with cooking spray. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and place in a draft-free area until dough doubles in size, 50 to 60 minutes.

For the sugar coating: While the dough is rising, mix brown sugar and cinnamon together in a bowl. Place melted butter in second bowl. Set aside.

Use 2 tablespoons softened butter to thoroughly coat Bundt pan. Set aside.

Gently remove the dough from the bowl, and pat into a rough 8-inch square. Using a bench scraper or knife, cut dough into 64 pieces.

Roll each dough piece into a ball. Working one at a time, dip the balls into the melted butter, allowing excess butter to drip back into the bowl. Roll in the brown sugar mixture, then layer balls in the Bundt pan, staggering seams where dough balls meet as you build layers. Sprinkle chopped apple on alternating layers if using.

Cover the Bundt pan tightly with plastic wrap and place in draft-free area until dough balls are puffy and have risen 1 to 2 inches from top of pan, 50 to 70 minutes.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Unwrap the pan and bake until the top is deep brown and caramel begins to bubble around the edges, 30 to 35 minutes. Cool in the pan for 5 minutes, then turn out onto a platter and allow to cool slightly, about 10 minutes.

For the glaze: While the bread cools, whisk the confectioners’ sugar and milk in a small bowl until the lumps are gone. Using a whisk, drizzle the glaze over the monkey bread, letting it run over top and down the sides of the bread. Serve warm.

Makes 6 to 8 servings

Gingerbread Snowmen

2011-12-24T23:07:00.000-08:00

Sigh. Cheer. This is the last Christmas cookie post. I am torn because while it was fun to bake over the holidays it was also difficult to find ways to give these things away so we weren't eating dozens and dozens of cookies! Our neighbors, friends, and co-workers can only eat so many Christmas cookies. We know because we pawned them off on all these unsuspecting people.

Amazingly, in all my years of baking I had yet to make gingerbread cookies. In fact, as you can see from the title of this post, I don't even own a gingerbread man cookie cutter (hopefully that will be remedied sometime soon).

I was just about cookied out but really wanted to make gingerbread boys with my little boy this year. I decided to use a recipe posted by a friend since I was pretty sure that pure gingerbread made with molasses would be a bit strong for my little guy's picky palate. This recipe uses butterscotch pudding instead so it makes a gingerbread cookie that tastes like gingerbread without the overly sticky dough that isn't fun for a 5 year old (or his mom) to work with.

We had a very enjoyable time mixing the dough, rolling it out, cutting the snowmen, and baking. The 5 year old's attention span fell apart the next day when it came to decorating, but he was perfectly willing to enjoy the fruits of our labors while driving around after dark dressed in jammies, sipping hot chocolate, nibbling on gingerbread snowmen while looking at brilliantly glowing Christmas lights. Enjoy!

Gingerbread Men
Source: All Recipes

1 (3.5 oz.) package of cook and serve butterscotch pudding mix
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 egg
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoons ground ginger
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

In a medium bowl, cream together the dry butterscotch pudding mix, butter, and brown sugar until smooth. Stir in the egg. Combine the flour, baking soda, ginger, and cinnamon; stir into the pudding mixture. Cover, and chill dough until firm, about 1 hour.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Grease baking sheets or use parchment paper.

On a floured board, roll dough out to about 1/8 inch thickness, and cut into shapes using a cookie cutter. Place cookies 2 inches apart on the prepared baking sheets.

Bake for 10 to 12 minutes or until cookies are golden at the edges. Cool on wire racks.

Christmas Tree Sugar Cookies

2011-12-20T00:35:00.000-08:00

These were not cookies for just any old occasion, these particular cookies had a special destination. No, it was not my stomach! They helped disadvantaged kids have a great morning celebrating the Christmas season at a community event. I almost didn't get them iced in time, seeing as how I read the message and knew I needed to ice them Thursday night and then somehow transferred it in my brain to needing to ice them Friday night. Thank goodness I run by where the event was being held so I was able to stop in on my way back home to make sure there was still enough time to bring the 3 dozen cookies I had promised. Who can turn away a sugar cookie, after all? No one that I know. Enjoy!

You can find the cookie and icing recipe here.

Snowflake Sugar Cookies

2011-12-18T22:18:00.000-08:00

The saying goes "no two snowflakes are alike". Do you know how hard it is to stick to that saying when you are decorating cookies? These snowflakes became a bit tedious, as you can probably imagine. The blue and white base went fairly quick, but the snowflake design took a bit of time. You may have noticed that there are three white ones underneath the decorated flakes that are completely white. Yep. I made the executive decision to throw in the towel. That is the great thing about doing this for fun. You don't have to keep decorating if you don't want to! Enjoy!

You can find the recipe for these sugar cookies and icing here.

Mitten Sugar Cookies

2011-12-16T22:17:00.000-08:00

I love cute little mittens! In the form of sugar cookies they are even better! I can't rave enough about this sugar cookie and icing recipe. It makes cookie baking and decorating so much fun. Enjoy!

You can find the recipe for the cookies and icing here.

Pumpkin Cookies with Brown Butter Icing

2011-12-13T16:43:00.000-08:00

I know that people think pumpkins are usually for October or Thanksgiving, but really pumpkins are great any time of the year, right. I did actually make these cookies in the middle of November and I've had them sitting in my folder waiting to get posted since then. I thought about doing a 12 days of Cookies theme, but I only have 7 cookies planned for the Christmas break and between a lack of time and a husband who balked at even these 7 different cookies I thought I wouldn't push my luck.

These cookies were a bit of a challenge for me. They didn't seem to puff up as much as I thought they would. A bit flat, but very tasty. The icing had a great browned butter flavor but also seemed a bit thin to me. It worked for the event that my husband took them to, but I think if I make them again there will need to be some changes. What, I'm not sure about yet. Enjoy!

Pumpkin Cookies with Brown Butter Icing

Source: Brown Eyed Baker

2¾ cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1¼ teaspoons kosher salt
1½ teaspoons ground cinnamon
1¼ teaspoons ground ginger
¾ teaspoon ground nutmeg
¾ cup unsalted butter, room temperature
2¼ cups light brown sugar
2 eggs, room temperature
1½ cups pureed pumpkin (or canned)
¾ cup half-and-half
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Icing:
4 cups powdered sugar
10 tablespoons unsalted butter
¼ cup plus 1 tablespoon half-and-half
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, ginger and nutmeg; set aside.

In the bowl of an electric mixer, cream together the butter and brown sugar on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Beat in the eggs until combined. Reduce the mixer speed to low and add the pumpkin, half-and-half and vanilla. Beat until very well blended, about 2 minutes (the batter may look grainy at this point, but don’t worry, it will come together). Keep the mixer on low and gradually add the dry ingredients, mixing until just combined. Use a rubber spatula to give it a final mix, incorporating any flour on the sides and scraping the bottom of the bowl.

Use a large cookie scoop to scoop balls of the batter onto the prepared baking sheets, leaving about 1½ inches between them. Bake for 12 to 15 minutes, or until the tops of the cookies spring back when lightly pressed. Transfer the baking sheet to a wire rack and let the cookies cool for 5 minutes then remove them to the rack to cool completely. Repeat with the remaining batter.

To make the icing: Add the powdered sugar to a heatproof bowl. Put the butter in a small saucepan over medium heet and let it start melting. Continue cooking, swirling occasionally, until the butter becomes golden brown and smells nutty (be paitent and watch carefully, it can go from brown to burnt quickly). Remove it from the heat and pour it over the powdered sugar, scraping the browned bits from the bottom of the pan. Add the half-and-half and vanilla and stir until the icing is smooth. Using a small offset spatula, spread icing on each cookie. (If the icing stiffens before you get them all frosted, stir vigorously to lighten it up.)

Note #1: You can substitute evaporated milk for the half-and-half in both the cookies and the icing.

Note #2: If you don’t have a cookie scoop, transfer the batter to a pastry bag fitting with a plain tip (or use a ziploc bag with the corner snipped off) and pipe 1½-inch rounds onto the prepared baking sheet.

Makes about 3 dozen

Salted Caramel Pumpkin Cheesecake

2011-12-09T00:44:00.000-08:00

Yum, yum, yum! My mom sent me the link for this cheesecake and asked if it could be included in our Thanksgiving menu. I thought it would be a great idea since, one, I hadn't made cheesecake for a while, and two, I would be required to make it the night before and therefore not a slave to making dessert on Thanksgiving day.

We made a special trip down to Seattle to get the salted caramel sauce since they only sell it at a few locations. The cheesecake came together really well. I roasted a few different types of pumpkins, some sugar pie pumpkins and others just small sized pumpkins. It was interesting to see the difference in the pulps and seeds between the two.

My only problem with this dessert was that the spring on my springform pan was not as tight as it used to be. I guess after 15 years or so it's reasonable to think that the spring would finally be sprung! I should have gone with my initial reaction to the fact that I could easily pop the base piece out while the spring was tight. Like, three times I popped it out. Finally on the fourth time it stayed in and I thought maybe I had just put it a little off kilter for the first three times. Nope, not it.

After a few minutes I started smelling burning. I opened my oven and black smoke poured out. I managed to get a pan (I knew I should have stuck a pan in originally but I just overlooked it) in for the dripping. I turned off the oven and took out the bottom rack. I scrubbed the bottom of the oven as best as I could at 400 degrees F. I thought for sure my cheesecake was toast since I had to turn the oven off and then preheat it again 10 minutes into baking. The oven continued smoking throughout the baking time, often enough that we had to pop out the battery on our smoke detector. Miraculously the cheesecake turned out and it didn't take too much longer than the projected baking time. It was definitely worth the hassle. Enjoy!

Salted Caramel Pumpkin Cheesecake
Source: King 5

Crust:
2 cups gingersnap crumbs
1/2 cup butter
1/4 cup brown sugar

Filling:
1 medium sugar pie pumpkin
24 ounces cream cheese, softened
3 eggs plus 1 egg yolk
1 1/4 cups unrefined sugar
1/3 cup sour cream
2 tablespoons unbleached white flour
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1/4 cup Hot Cakes salted caramel sauce, plus extra for drizzling (or use your favorite caramel sauce)

To make the crust
Combine all of the ingredients and press into a 9-inch springform pan.

To make the filling
Preheat oven to 400° F.

Cut the pumpkin in half crosswise and roast, cut side down, for about 30 minutes or until fork tender. Cool slightly and scrape out the seeds. Scoop out the flesh and puree in a food processor until smooth. You will need 2 cups for the filling.

In a mixing bowl, beat the cream cheese until smooth then beat in the eggs and egg yolk until incorporated. Beat in 2 cups of the pumpkin puree, the sugar, sour cream, flour, spices, vanilla and caramel sauce. Pour the filling into the prepared crust. Heat a little of the extra caramel sauce and drizzle a pattern over the top.

Bake at 350° F for about 1 hour or until the center is set. Let rest for 20 minutes and then refrigerate for at least 3 hours or up to overnight.

UPS Delivers Birthday Cake

2011-12-03T00:15:00.000-08:00

Wow, it's been just over a week since my last post! I don't think I've had that much time between recipes for quite a while. It never fails that this time of year is busy for us, and especially so for the past 5 years. Our little guy celebrated his 5th birthday this weekend and it seems to be a whirlwind of activity from one celebration to the next.

While I didn't do anything fancy with his cake I thought I would post it anyway just in case there are any others out there who want to venture into theme cakes while their kids are still young enough. I don't know how many more years I'll be able to pull these off, but I'll take it while I can get it!

His request for his cake this year started out a bit like last year with wanting roads and such. When he mentioned trailers again I decided I would surprise him with something similar yet different. He and his dad had been looking for a brown UPS truck pulling a trailer. While I couldn't find a brown truck pulling a trailer I was able to find a brown truck and a semi truck and trailer.

I borrowed a commercial size cookie sheet from a friend (13x18, I believe) and whipped up a box of devil's food cake mix. I used store bought vanilla frosting and just tinted it brown and green. Crushed up chocolate animal crackers made up the road and assorted candy from a bridge mix made up the rocks. I was able to find silver taper candles that worked perfect for the streetlights.

My plan was to make boxes and a UPS drop box out of rice krispy treats and then cover them in marshmallow fondant. I used cocoa krispies just in case the fondant didn't turn out (at least they would have been brown) and then made up my very first batch of fondant. I have never worked with fondant before, and probably won't use it a lot. I would have to say that this was actually edible, unlike those that you buy from the store pre-made. How could it not be; the ingredients are marshmallows, powdered sugar, and water. Sweet, sweet, sweet!

I tinted it brown, rolled it out, cut it to fit my little rice krispy boxes and molded it to shape. They turned out pretty good and I was very happy with them. Tasty too! The drop box was another matter though. No matter how I cut and molded it just didn't look right. In the end, I left it out. Designers prerogative, I guess.

In the end, one 5 year old was very pleased and that's all that matters in the end! Enjoy!

Marshmallow Fondant

Daring Bakers - Sans Rival

2011-11-27T00:00:00.000-08:00

Catherine of Munchie Musings was our November Daring Bakers’ host and she challenged us to make a traditional Filipino dessert – the delicious Sans Rival cake! And for those of us who wanted to try an additional Filipino dessert, Catherine also gave us a bonus recipe for Bibingka which comes from her friend Jun of Jun-blog.

Once again, I am feeling like I barely squeaked out the challenge. The month didn't start out that way. I had every good intention that first weekend of November of tackling the Sans Rival dessert. Even when that weekend came and went with no dessert made I still knew I had three weekends left before the challenge deadline and surely I could use one of them to get it finished.

The next weekend was completely gone when we decided to use the long holiday weekend to take a last hurrah camping trip before winterizing our trailer. Still though, one more weekend before Thanksgiving, of course I still had time.

Saturday of that weekend we went down to Seattle to visit some friends and get a few ingredients for our Thanksgiving feast and Sunday was spent in my classroom. Alas, here I was the night before Thanksgiving contemplating whether to skip the challenge and just focus on Thanksgiving or try at the last minute to do both.

What convinced me to give it a shot is that my husband purchased a few pounds of pistachios for this dessert. Yes, you heard me right, a few pounds. I asked for a few cups, he bought a few pounds. Pretty big difference. And while we managed to eat the pistachios that weren't necessary for the dessert I didn't want to just frivolously eat pistachios that were purchased with a purpose.

So . . . I managed to go back and forth between making a dinner of lasagna soup, a pumpkin and salted caramel cheesecake for one of our Thanksgiving desserts, and the Sans Rival. It really was a bit challenging to keep things straight when I was working on vanilla buttercream and meringue but I could smell pumpkin roasting in the oven. It was a bit unsettling to say the least.

The fact that I was majorly multi-tasking did not lend to me giving my full attention to the Sans Rival. I felt as though I was just slapping it out to get it checked off a list instead of trying to make it a masterpiece. In the end I probably should have waited until another time to make it. The pistachios probably would have been better served being eaten plain.

I did figure out though that there may be something wrong with my oven. The meringue baked so unevenly I couldn't hardly believe it. I had three pans in the oven and the two on the top rack were barely cooked while the two on the bottom rack were brown and burnt. I also made smaller meringues and tried to use the toaster oven to bake those. That oven cooked just as unevenly but this time it was opposite; the top ones were blackened to a crisp, and the bottom ones were fine. Very strange and a little unnerving the night before a day where I was going to be using my oven for most of the day. That wasn't even the end of it. You'll have to read my post about my pumpkin and salted caramel cheesecake to hear about the other oven mishap (which actually worked out fine in the end).

So . . . will I make this again? Probably not. I'm not a big fan of light, airy desserts, and while it tasted pretty good (and grew on you as you stole little bites off the plate) I am much more into dense cakes, cupcakes, and cookies with just a bit of frosting on the side. This dessert was pretty much the equivalent of just eating the frosting and forgetting the cake. It was an interesting experience and reminded me a lot of the pavlovas that we made a while back so hopefully it will continue to hone my technique in using meringue. Enjoy!

Caramel Apple Pie

2011-11-23T09:09:00.000-08:00

A few weeks ago I posted the apple pie recipe I have been using since I was 12 years old. I think that this caramel apple pie has caused me to modify the recipe that has been my tried and true for the past 24 years! (And yes, if you are capable of adding you can figure out my age.)

This pie was technically a hybrid pie. The crust is from my original pie recipe. I couldn't bring myself to add vinegar and refrigerate when I didn't have to, and I figured why change a good thing. The filling though, this will definitely be included in my apple pies from now on. Cooking the apples definitely softened them, and the spices, vanilla, and cream work together beautifully. The small bits of toffee don't hurt either.

The next time I make an apple pie I will be using my original recipe to make a top and bottom crust, and I will be using this filling recipe with the toffee bits. I don't think I will be using the full struesel topping because it is unnecessary, but I won't know that for sure until I make this recipe again. I think I can handle that challenge. Enjoy!

Caramel Apple Pie

Source: Food Network

Crust:
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
2/3 cup shortening
5-7 tablespoons water

Filling:
6 cups Granny Smith apples
1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla
4 tablespoons heavy cream
4 tablespoons butter

Struesel Topping:
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
3 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon butter
3 ounces toffee chips

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.

Crust:
Mix flour and salt together with fork. Cut shortening into mixture with pastry cutter until dough forms balls. Add water 1 tablespoon at a time; mix with fork until flaky. Pack into a ball, divide in half, and roll out. Put into pan, cut dough slightly larger than the pan, fold edges under and flute.

Filling:
Peel and slice apples. Combine dry ingredients in large bowl and add apples. Toss to mix. Add vanilla and cream. Melt butter in heavy skillet. Add apple mixture and cook approximately 8 minutes to soften apples. Turn into pie shell.

Struesel Topping:
Combine the flour and sugar. Mix in butter with fork until coarse crumbs. stir in the toffee chips. Sprinkle over pie.

Bake on 400 degrees F for 15 minutes. Reduce heat to 350 degrees F and bake 45 minutes longer.

Makes one 9-inch pie

Cheesy Ham Cups

2011-11-20T21:13:00.000-08:00

As you have probably read in earlier posts, my preschool age son can be a picky eater. He usually does not try something that is new to him even if it is something that the bearer swears he will enjoy. He will even turn down sweets because he doesn't want to risk something not agreeing with his picky palate. Oh, the frustrations of an independent will in a small person.

Imagine my surprise when he ventured to try these cheesy ham cups and decided that not only did he tolerate them but he actually liked them. Amazingly, a few days later he showed extreme excitement at the prospect of dinner which was scheduled to be cheesy ham and potato soup. The excitement was short lived when he realized that he had made an error and he was not getting cheesy ham cups for dinner but instead one of the worst possible meals, soup. That being said, his glowing praise should be enough of a recommendation for you to try these one day for breakfast, or even lunch or dinner, without me every expressing how delicious they taste.

Cheesy Ham Cups
6 slices deli ham
1/2 cup chopped green onions
2 cups (8 ounces) shredded cheddar cheese, divided
6 eggs
8 ounces plain yogurt
2 tablespoons minced fresh parsley

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Thoroughly grease 6 -10 ounce ramekin or custard cups. Place cups on a cookie sheet for ease of baking.

Place a ham slice in each cup. Sprinkle with onions and 1 cup cheese.

In a bowl, beat eggs and yogurt until well blended; pour into cups. Sprinkle with parsley and the remaining cheese.

Bake, uncovered, for 25-30 minutes or until a knife inserted near the center comes out clean. Serve immediately.

Makes 6 servings

Apple Pie a la Mode

2011-11-16T21:03:00.000-08:00

Did you ever have to take a home economics class in junior or senior high? I did. In both. And while I excelled at baking and managing my checkbook (go figure), I seriously failed at sewing. Tank top too small, shorts way too big. But I digress. Apple pie is what we are focusing on here, not the not so great junior high flashbacks.

One of the great things to come out of 7th grade was getting this apple pie recipe. Yes, when I was 12 years old I learned this recipe and have used it for all of my apple pies since. (Although you'll be reading in a few posts that I am going to be sprucing it up from here on out.) It has a flaky crust and a not overly sweet apple filling, a winning combination! Enjoy!

Apple Pie

Crust:
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
2/3 cup shortening
5-7 tablespoons water

Filling:
1 cup sugar
1/3 cup flour
1 teaspoon cinnamon
8-9 Granny Smith apples

Core, peel, and slice apples. Mix in a large bowl with sugar, flour, and cinnamon. Set aside.

In a large bowl, mix flour and salt together with a fork. Add shortening and mix with a pastry cutter until dough forms balls. Add water 1 tablespoon at at time and mix with a fork until flaky. Pack into a ball, divide in half; roll out. Cut bottom crust and set in pan. Fill with apple filling. Roll out other half of dough.

If making a one piece top crust: Cut top crust and lay over pie. Fold crust under and pinch together with bottom crust. Flute edge and cut slits in top crust.

If making a lattice top crust: Cut rolled out crust into strips. Lay strips over pie in alternating pattern. Pinch lattice strips together with bottom crust. Flute edges.

Bake on 400 degrees F for 15 minutes, then 350 degrees F for 30-40 minutes.

Makes one two-crust 9-inch pie

Three Cheese Pasta Bake

2011-11-12T21:06:00.000-08:00

Three cheese pasta bake is just a fancier way of saying baked macaroni and cheese. I thought for sure this would be a hit with my little man who loves macaroni and cheese. Boy was I wrong. I guess I should have known I would be. Anything that is different from the norm is cause for his nose to turn up just the slightest degree. Upon tasting it (which I thought tasted just fine) I knew we were going to have issues because of the bold flavor of the Swiss cheese. At that moment I just figured it was all the more for me! Enjoy!

Three Cheese Pasta Bake
Source: Adapted from My Recipes taken from Southern Living January 2008

1 8-oz.) package penne pasta
2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons flour
1 1/2 cups milk
1/2 cup half-and-half
1/2 cup (4 oz.) shredded Cheddar cheese
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1 cup (8 oz.) shredded Swiss cheese, divided*
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
Pinch of ground nutmeg

Preheat oven to 350°. Prepare pasta according to package directions, boiling to al dente.

Meanwhile, melt butter in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Whisk in flour; cook, whisking constantly, 1 minute. Gradually whisk in milk and half-and-half; cook, whisking constantly, 3 to 5 minutes or until thickened. Stir in Cheddar cheese, Parmesan cheese, 1/2 cup Swiss cheese, and salt, pepper, and nutmeg until smooth.

Stir together pasta and cheese mixture, and pour into 4 lightly greased 8-oz. baking dishes or 1 lightly greased 11- x 7-inch baking dish. (If using 8-oz. baking dishes, place in a jelly-roll pan for easy baking, and proceed as directed.) Top with remaining 1/2 cup Swiss cheese.

Bake for 15 minutes or until golden and bubbly.

Makes 4 servings

Dirt Checkerboard Cake

2011-11-08T19:55:00.000-08:00

Cake! I love cake! Especially yellow cake with chocolate frosting! Is that enough exclamation points for you? This wasn't actually a yellow cake but it had plenty of chocolate frosting to fit the bill!

I wanted to make a checkerboard cake for our staff for Halloween. I knew I wanted to make a brown and orange cake (I just can't bring myself to do black food coloring for some reason, at least not in large quantities). The last time I made a checkerboard cake it was from scratch and it took a bit of time which I didn't feel like I had this time around. I decided to read all I could about making a checkerboard cake from box mixes.

Here are a few tips and tricks I found out while doing my research: Use two boxes of mix which will give you leftover batter but it's better to have more than less; when you use two types of cake mix (ie. chocolate and white) they will be different densities so pick one set of directions and use the same amount of water, oil, and eggs for both mixes; I read you can add 1/4 cup of flour to both mixes to make the batter more dense but I didn't do this. And as I posted in my raspberry checkerboard cake, always use a well greased pan insert and clean completely in between filling pans. Also, pull insert straight up and out so there is no bleeding between layers.

I was pretty happy with the way it turned out. One of the cake layers did beautifully, the second had a bit of trouble with sticking to the pan, and the final one had a lot of trouble with sticking and the rings started to separate. The thick chocolate frosting did help with getting the layers and rings together but I think in the future I will just plan to make the batter from scratch and divide it in half. I guess practice makes perfect so I'm just going to have to resign myself to making more checkerboard cakes so I can get better. It's a sacrifice, but I think I will be able to manage it.

Oh, and by the way, the photo above of the individual slice was taken at work after slicing the cake. It's not the best photo I could have taken, but it's not too bad considering that it is a point and click camera, it's a very thin slice because I didn't want too big of a piece of cake for myself, and I felt a bit self-conscious about cutting into the cake so that I could snap a picture. Not many people at work know that I have a food blog and I think people might think it is a bit weird to take pictures of food. Maybe not, but still, a bit self-conscious. Then you have the fact that my students were going to be walking in the door any minute and I wasn't sure if a staff member would innocently open my door to ask me a question and wonder why I was hunched down snapping a picture of a piece of a cake on a plate sitting on a piece of white construction paper sitting on my classroom floor. Okay, enough of the explaining since I think this paragraph may be longer than my actual write-up. Do you think I may have some issues? Don't answer that. Enjoy!

Cowboy Stew

2011-11-04T21:25:00.000-07:00

Who doesn't think of beef stew as a comforting meal on a cold, crisp evening? I was really looking forward to coming home from a long day of work and sitting down to a steaming bowl of stew with a big hunk of french bread slathered in butter. To say I was disappointed was an understatement. One look at my face and the lack of chewing anything more than a couple of bites told my husband all he needed to know; his lunch for the next three days would be beef stew leftovers as he was the only one who was going to be eating it.

I'm not sure if it was because the beef was very sweet on account of the baked beans, or if the lack of carrots which are typically a part of my stew had me out of sorts. Or maybe it was the fact that my husband forgot that I can't stand big hunks of meat in my stew, or really anything for that matter, and didn't cut them small enough. The fact that you could make it in a crockpot was a plus, and if you enjoy your stew on the sweet side then I would suggest you try this recipe out. I think I'll be sticking with my traditional beef stew recipe for now. Enjoy!

Cowboy Stew
Source: What's For Dinner?

1 pound lean beef stew meat
4 potatoes, unpeeled, cut into 4" pieces
1/2 cup onion, chopped
salt to taste
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1 (28 oz.) can Bush's Vegetarian Baked Beans

Mix beef, potatoes, onion, salt and pepper in a slow cooker. Spread beans over beef mixture. Cover and cook on low 8-10 hours or until beef is tender.

Makes 6 servings

Pumpkin Sugar Cookies

2011-10-31T01:13:00.000-07:00

These pumpkins were so much fun to make! Way better than carving a real pumpkin and having to grab out ooey, gooey pumpkin guts. Wait, I still get to do that too so I guess I get the best of both worlds.

I actually worked on these cookies over about a week's time which was a nice experience. I'm usually of the mind frame of waiting until the last minute because I want them to be the freshest possible. However with these particular cookies that just wasn't going to work. Well, I shouldn't say that. It worked for about half of them.

I made two batches, one for my son's preschool class treats on his "star" day and one for my class at school a week later. His cookies for preschool were baked on Sunday, iced on Monday, and eaten on Tuesday. It was a long night on Monday after working a full day, coming home and making dinner, putting him to bed and then getting started on decorating. Let's just say the picture I had in my mind wasn't what came out on the cookies. The only saving grace I had that night was the reassuring thought that they were going to be eaten by preschoolers who hopefully had not yet developed into sugar cookie snobs.

Looking back on it they really didn't turn out too bad. The other batch was also baked on Sunday night, a few were iced on Monday. Most were then put into the fridge where I took them out every few days to add the icing. One day I iced all the stems. Another day I got almost all of the orange finished. The last day I finished the orange and did the green leaves and curling stems. It was so much fun on that last day to be able to add detail and not feel rushed.

I'm really happy with how they turned out. My husband ended up buying me a decorating tip and smaller disposable bag because the squirt bottles I typically use were just not small enough to get the leaf and curly stem detail. More practice needed, but not too bad at the end of the day. Enjoy!

You can find my favorite recipe for sugar cookies and royal icing here.

Daring Bakers - Povitica

2011-10-27T00:00:00.000-07:00

The Daring Baker’s October 2011 challenge was Povitica, hosted by Jenni of The Gingered Whisk. Povitica is a traditional Eastern European Dessert Bread that is as lovely to look at as it is to eat!

I have seen Povitica in mail-order specialty food catalogs and have always been intrigued by it. I love specialty foods, especially if they come in the form of sweet breads! I rarely purchase any of these foods, a little too rich for my wallet, but I definitely drool over the photos. You can imagine then that I really looked forward to baking this months challenge.

Povitica (pronounced poh-vee-teet-sa) is also called potica depending on what Eastern European country you come from. It is always fun completing challenges that are based in cultures different from mine.

I thought that the best part of this challenge was cutting into the bread! It was almost like opening a present on Christmas morning and not knowing what you were going to get. The outside packaging was so unassuming so I was on pins and needles waiting to see how the swirls turned out. You can see from the photos at the top that the two loaves of bread turned out quite different. But even within the same loaf the swirling was varied. The photo on the top left is the same loaf as the photo below, but one cut was made in the middle where the two ends met and there was less filling and the other cut was toward the end of the bread in the heart of the filling.

I did have some issues with the dough which I guess can be expected when you have to roll it out until it is almost transparent. Let's just say I didn't get it quite that thin. I know I complained last month about having to roll dough out to a certain size or shape but this month it was almost the other extreme. I wasn't sure how big I was supposed to roll it out nor what shape it was supposed to be in. At one point the directions said a 10-12 inch diameter which suggests a circle, but the rolling up process suggests a rectangle. I'm still not 100% sure and I think I got a cross between the two shapes. Mine looked a bit more like a wrinkly elephant ear.

I also ran into trouble with trying to figure out what type of filling to use. I decided to bake only two loaves instead of a full batch of 4 and I knew I wanted to use the traditional walnut for one of the fillings. At first I thought I would use a sweet pecan filling for the other but then I realized it would be too close to the walnut. Then I thought I'd use a cream cheese chocolate chip filling but I realized I didn't have cream cheese and I forgot to stop by the store twice when I had the opportunity so that was a no go. I finally scrounged in my fridge and realized I had a jar of apple butter which I could top with raisins and a few chopped walnuts. I think I liked the walnut filling better since it was a bit more mild when paired with the bread, but there were sometimes that I did like the tartness of the apple butter.

I enjoyed making this bread and now that I know a few tricks on how to and not to roll it out I think I will be making this around the holidays for some special gifts.

Povitica
Makes 4 loaves

Activate Yeast:
2 teaspoons sugar
1 teaspoon all-purpose flour
1/2 cup warm water
2 tablespoons dry yeast

Dough:
2 cups whole milk
3/4 cup sugar
3 teaspoons table salt
4 large eggs
1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted
8 cups all-purpose flour, sifted then divided

Walnut Filling:
7 cups ground walnuts
1 cup whole milk
1 cup unsalted butter
2 whole eggs, beaten
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
2 cups sugar
1 teaspoon unsweetened cocoa powder
1 teaspoon cinnamon

Topping:
1/2 cup cold strong coffee
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
melted butter

To Make the Dough and Activate Yeast:
In a medium saucepan, heat the milk up to just below boiling (about 180 degrees F), stirring constantly so that a film does not form on the top of the milk. Allow to cool slightly until it is about 110 degrees F.

In a small bowl, stir 2 teaspoons sugar, 1 teaspoon flour, and the yeast into 1/2 cup warm water and cover with plastic wrap. Allow to stand 5 minutes.

Once milk is cooled to 110 degrees F, mix the scalded milk, 3/4 cup sugar, and the salt until combined. Add the beaten eggs, yeast mixture, melted butter, and 2 cups of flour. Blend thoroughly; slowly add remaining flour, mixing well until the dough starts to clean the bowl.

Turn dough out onto floured surface and knead, gradually adding flour a little at a time, until smooth and does not stick. (You may not use all your flour.) Divide the dough into 4 equal pieces (they will weigh about 1.25 pounds each). Place dough in 4 lightly oiled bowls, cover loosely with a layer of plastic wrap and then a kitchen towel and let rise an hour and a half in a warm place.

To Make the Filling:
In a large bowl, mix together the ground walnuts, sugar, cinnamon and cocoa. Heat the milk and butter to boiling. Pour the liquid over the nut/sugar mixture. Add the eggs and vanilla and mix thoroughly. Allow to stand at room temperature until ready to be spread on the dough. (If the mixture thickens, add a small amount of warm milk.)

To Roll and Assemble the Dough:
Spread a clean sheet or cloth over your entire table so that it is covered. (I had to clip mine down so the cloth didn't move.) Sprinkle with a couple of tablespoons to a handful of flour (use flour sparingly).

Place the dough on the sheet and roll the dough out with a rolling pin, starting in the middle and working your way out, until it measures roughly 10-12 inches in diameter. Spoon 1 to 1.5 teaspoons for melted butter on top and work into dough. (This part made my edges stick to my sheet.)

Continue to roll out your dough until it is thin enough to see the print of the sheet through it. Spoon filling evenly over dough until covered. Lift the edge of the dough and gently roll it jelly roll style. (You can also roll both edges in toward center until they meet - it will look like to long rolls sitting next to each other.)

Once the dough is rolled up into a rope, gently lift the end and fold it back to the halfway point. Then lift the other end and fold it back to the halfway point. Flip it upside down (seam side down) and set in greased loaf pan.

Brush the top with the coffee topping mixture or if you prefer, you can also used egg whites in place of coffee mixture. Cover pans lightly with plastic wrap and allow to rest for approximately 15 minutes.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Remove plastic wrap from dough and place in preheated oven and bake for approximately 15 minutes. Turn the oven temperature down to 300 degrees F and bake for an additional 45 minutes. (Check bread every 30 minutes - if it is browning too fast cover loosely with aluminum foil.)

Remove bread from oven and brush with melted butter. Allow to cool in loaf pan until completely cool. It is recommended to slice it by turning it upside dough and slicing with a serrated knife.

Half Batch Ingredients:
Makes 2 loaves

Activate Yeast:
1 teaspoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon all-purpose flour
1/4 cup warm water
1 tablespoon dry yeast

Dough:
1 cup whole milk
6 tablespoons sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons table salt
2 large eggs
1/4 cup unsalted butter, melted
4 cups all-purpose flour, sifted then divided

Walnut Topping:
3 1/2 cups ground walnuts
1/2 cup whole milk
1/2 cup unsalted butter
1 whole egg, beaten
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

Topping:
1/4 cup cold strong coffee
1 tablespoon granulated sugar
melted butter

Quarter Batch Ingredients:
Makes 1 loaf

Activate Yeast:
1/2 teaspoon sugar
1/4 teaspoon all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons warm water
1 1/2 teaspoons dry yeast

Dough:
1/2 cup whole milk
3 tablespoons sugar
3/4 teaspoons table salt
1 large egg
1 tablespoon unsalted butter, melted
2 cups all-purpose flour, sifted then divided

Walnut Topping:
1 3/4 cups ground walnuts
1/4 cup whole milk
1/4 cup unsalted butter
1 egg yolk from a large egg, beaten
1/4 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 teaspoon unsweetened cocoa powder
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

Topping:
2 tablespoons cold strong coffee
1 1/2 teaspoons granulated sugar
melted butter

Almond Joy Banana Bread

2011-10-20T14:06:00.000-07:00

Highlights magazine . . . who would have thought that a kids magazine could lead to a batch of banana bread. My son was reading his magazine with dad and they came across a story of some kids baking up a batch of banana bread. He, of course, immediately wanted to bake up a batch but instead of it being a traditional banana bread he wanted it to have almonds. We ended up making one loaf with just almonds and the other loaf with coconut, almonds, and chocolate chips. Yummy! Enjoy!

Almond Joy Banana Bread
1 1/4 cups sugar
1/2 cup margarine or butter, softened
2 eggs
1 1/2 cups mashed ripe bananas (3 to 4 medium)
1/2 cup buttermilk
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup shredded coconut
1/2 cup almonds, chopped
1/2 cup chocolate chips

Place oven rack in lowest position. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease bottoms only of loaf pans.

Mix sugar and margarine in large bowl. Stir in eggs until well blended. Add bananas, buttermilk, and vanilla. Beat until smooth. Stir in flour, baking soda, and salt just until moistened. Stir in coconut, almonds, and chocolate chips.

Pour into pans. Bake about 60 to 75 minutes (about 25 minutes for mini loaves) or until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean.

Cool 5 minutes. Loosen sides of loaves from pans; remove from pans. Cool completely before slicing.

Makes 2 loaves

Cranberry Zucchini Muffins

2011-10-17T20:46:00.000-07:00

More zucchini bread experimentation as we harvest the plethora of plants that are taking over our garden. Dense would be a great adjective to describe this muffin. Heavy and chock full of cranberries and chopped walnuts. Filling the tin to the top is definitely the way to go. I love how the muffin tops are like large crowns popping up over where the muffin would normally end. I would recommend these as a great hearty muffin. Enjoy!

Cranberry Zucchini Muffins
Source: Simply Recipes

1-1/3 cup sugar
2 eggs, beaten
2 teaspoons vanilla

3 cups zucchini, grated
2/3 cup unsalted butter, melted
2 teaspoons baking soda
pinch of salt
3 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1 cup walnuts, coarsely chopped
1 cup dried cranberries

Preheat the oven to 350°F. In a large bowl combine the sugar, eggs, and vanilla. Stir in the grated zucchini and then the melted butter. Sprinkle the baking soda and salt over the zucchini mixture and mix in. In a separate bowl, mix together the flour, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Stir these dry ingredients into the zucchini mixture. Stir in walnuts and dried cranberries.

Coat each muffin cup in your muffin pan with a little butter or vegetable oil spray. Use a spoon to distribute the muffin batter equally among the cups, filling the cups up completely. Bake on the middle rack until muffins are golden brown, and the top of the muffins bounce back when you press on them, about 25 to 30 minutes. Test with a long toothpick or a thin bamboo skewer to make sure the center of the muffins are done. Set on wire rack to cool for 5 minutes. Remove muffins from the pan, let cool another 20 minutes.

Makes 12 to 14 muffins

Raspberry Cheesecake

2011-10-13T20:45:00.000-07:00

Chocolate crust, creamy cheesecake, sweet yet tangy raspberry sauce . . . yum! These flavors and textures match together perfectly. This cheesecake recipe holds a special place in my life because it was the very first cheesecake that I ever made 15 years ago. Holy cow, 15 years ago! Has it really been that long? My very first Taste of Home magazine (mailed to me 15 years ago) introduced me to this delicious dessert and while I have made other cheesecakes since then it is definitely one of my favorites. Enjoy!

Raspberry Cheesecake
Crust:
2 cups chocolate wafer crumbs, crushed
1/3 cup butter, melted
3 tablespoons sugar

Raspberry Sauce:
1-1/2 cups fresh or frozen unsweetened raspberries, thawed
2/3 cup sugar
2 tablespoons cornstarch
2 teaspoons lemon juice

Filling/Topping:
3 packages (8 oz. each) cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup sugar
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 egg whites
1 cup whipping cream
2 to 3 tablespoons orange juice
1-1/2 cups fresh or frozen unsweetened raspberries, thawed

Combine the three ingredients for the crust; press into bottom and 1-1/2 inches up sides of a greased 9-inch springform pan. Chill one hour or until firm.

Puree raspberries in blender. Press through a sieve; discard seeds. Add water if necessary to measure 1 cup. In a saucepan, combine sugar and cornstarch. Stir in raspberry juice; bring to a boil. Boil 2 minutes, stirring constantly. Remove from heat; stir in lemon juice and set aside.

In a mixing bowl, beat cream cheese, sugar, flour, and vanilla until fluffy. Add egg whites; beat on low just until fluffy. Add egg whites; beat on low just until blended. Stir in cream. Pour half of filling into crust. Top with 3/4 cup raspberry sauce (cover and refrigerate remaining sauce). Carefully spoon remaining filling over sauce.

Bake at 375 degrees for 35-40 minutes or until center is nearly set. Remove from oven; immediately run a knife around pan to loosen crust. Cool on wire rack 1 hour. Refrigerate overnight. Add orange juice to chilled raspberry sauce; gently fold in raspberries. Spoon over cheesecake.

Makes 12-16 servings

Apple Pie Bread

2011-10-09T22:20:00.000-07:00

Another recipe I found while flipping through a magazine at the pediatrician's office. I think I saw 4 or 5 recipes in that particular magazine that interested me enough to come home and look their recipes up online. As I said before, I must have been hungry because it seemed like I wanted to make just about every food item I saw!

This bread comes together pretty easily and is super moist. There are two downfalls however; one is that the streusel-nut topping doesn't get baked in. It just sits on top of the bread so that when you take it out of the loaf pan half of the topping falls off the bread and onto the counter. You can still eat it with a spoon and it is yummy but the point is to have it on the bread. The other downfall is that it falls apart super easy when you cut it. Again, you can use a fork or spoon to eat it but it is frustrating to have it fall into a bunch of little pieces when slicing it. I thought maybe after sitting in the fridge it would slice easier, but not so much. It was tasty, but good luck with getting it to not fall apart on you. Enjoy!

Apple Pie Bread
Source: Better Homes and Gardens

1/2 cup butter, softened
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup buttermilk
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 cups peeled apple, shredded (about 4 medium)
1 cup walnuts or pecans, chopped
1/2 cup raisins

Streusel-Nut Topping:
1/4 cup packed brown sugar
3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons butter, melted
1/3 cup walnuts or pecans, chopped

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease the bottom and 1/2 inch up the sides of a 9x5x3-inch loaf pan; set aside.

In a large bowl, beat butter with an electric mixer on medium to high speed for 30 seconds. Beat in sugar until combined. Add buttermilk and baking powder; beat until combined. Add eggs and vanilla; beat until combined. Add flour and salt; beat until combined. Stir in apple, nuts, and raisins.

Spoon batter into prepared pan; spread evenly. Make Streusel-Nut Topping; sprinkle over batter. Bake for 60 to 65 minutes or until a wooden toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean.

Cool in pan on a wire rack for 10 minutes. Remove from pan. Cool completely on wire rack. Wrap and store overnight before slicing.

Makes 1 loaf

Chicken Meatloaf

2011-10-07T16:42:00.000-07:00

My original menu plan and recipe called for a turkey meatloaf. I thought, "Great, now I can use that ground turkey meat that has been in my freezer for months." Not until I pulled it out to thaw did I realize that it was actually ground chicken and not ground turkey. Oops.

I don't think the taste (what there was of it) was altered much. It wasn't a great recipe, in fact I will probably use a different meatloaf recipe I have for future meatloaf meals, but at least I branched out and tried something new. I guess that's all I have to say about it which is pretty sad in and of itself. Enjoy, should you decide to try it!

Chicken Meatloaf
1 pound ground chicken
1 egg
1/2 cup Italian-style bread crumbs
1/2 cup old fashioned oats
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 small onion, chopped
1/2 cup ketchup
1/4 cup mustard

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray loaf pan with non-stick spray.

Combine all ingredients mixing by hand. Press into prepared loaf pan and cook for 45 minutes or until cooked through.

Leaf Sugar Cookies

2011-10-05T08:50:00.000-07:00

All last year I wanted to make leaf shaped sugar cookies but I couldn't find any leaf cookie cutters locally. I didn't want to buy online, and I couldn't get down to the big city to check out the cookie cutter store. A whole year has gone by and I finally made not one, but two trips to the big city just to get a leaf shaped cookie cutter!

I guess technically it was three times that I made the trip. The first time we were just passing through and we got there about an hour after the store closed. No big deal, we'll just stop by on way back through tomorrow. Um, nope. Didn't happen to notice the sign on the door when stopping by the first time that stated that the business would be closed on the next business day. Oops, a bit out of the way so hubby was not a happy camper. A week later, a special trip, and voila, leaf shaped cookie cutter in my possession! (I'll also have you know that I purchased a few Christmas ones and another apple because who knows when I will be getting down there again.)

Was it worth it? Absolutely! One happy boy who got to take cookies for his preschool star day, one happy mama who now has a leaf cookie cutter, and one happy hubby who gets to eat the spoils.

I used my tried and true sugar cookie recipe that you can find here.

Pineapple Zucchini Muffins

2011-10-01T13:00:00.000-07:00

My neighbor gave me this recipe a few years ago when we had an overabundance of zucchini from our garden. I tried many different zucchini recipes but for some reason I never got around to this one. Well . . . I guess I can't say "for some reason" because I know the reason. She titled her recipe Spicy Pineapple Zucchini Muffins and when I think of spicy I think of chilis and jalapenos and spicy things like that which just don't go with zucchini bread in my mind. Once I actually looked at the ingredients and realized that the spicy was just cinnamon and nutmeg I realized that it wasn't much different from any other zucchini bread recipe. You might be saying, why didn't you just look at the ingredients two years ago when you got the recipe to see that there weren't jalapenos or anything like that in it. That's because my neighbor wrote the ingredients and amounts within the recipe and I guess I was in too big of a hurry to decipher her cursive handwriting.

What's funny is that when I mentioned to her a few weeks ago that I finally used the recipe to make some zucchini pineapple muffins she couldn't even remember having the recipe at all. She had no idea what I was talking about. Go figure. Enjoy!

Pineapple Zucchini Muffins
3 eggs
1 cup oil
2 cups sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 cups shredded zucchini
8 oz. can of crushed pineapple, drained
3 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1-1/2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1 cup walnuts, chopped
1 cup raisins

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease 2 loaf pans.

Beat eggs, oil, sugar, and vanilla until thick and foamy. Stir in zucchini and pineapple.

Combine flour, baking soda, salt, baking powder, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Stir into mixture. Stir in walnuts and raisins.

Divide batter evenly between 2 loaf pans. Bake for 1 hour or until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool in pans 10 minutes; turn onto a wire rack to cool thoroughly.

Makes 2 loaves

Daring Bakers - Croissants

2011-09-27T00:00:00.000-07:00

The Daring Bakers go retro this month! Thanks to one of our very talented non-blogging members, Sarah, the Daring Bakers were challenged to make Croissants using a recipe from the Queen of French Cooking, none other than Julia Child!

Another Daring Bakers challenge where I am coming in just under the wire! It seems to be a busy time of year for me and I ended up putting my challenge off until the last weekend of the month, not knowing that I would be attending my grandfather's funeral this weekend nor that my son would be hosting preschool snacks on Monday and would want to take homemade sugar cookies. Baking did end up being a bit cathartic for me, but it also meant that it didn't get all of my attention.

Here I am, two and a half hours before the challenge deadline starting my write up while my croissants are in their last few minutes of proofing as the oven preheats to it's scorching temperature of 475 degrees F. I will admit right up front that I did get a bit frustrated with this experience toward the end. I have no idea what my croissants are going to look like in 7 minutes when they come out of the oven. There is definitely a smell of cooked egg wafting through the air right now as the countdown continues on.

I would consider myself an experienced bread and pastry maker, but I really bristle when a recipe tells me to roll an item out to a certain shape or size. Really, how many people can get it to the size the recipe calls for let alone the shape? I don't know about you, but my dough seems to have a mind of its own when it is sitting on my counter resisting my methods of carefully shaping and measuring. That being said, a few of my croissants are less like croissants and more like little puff pastry footballs and crescent moons and dolphins jumping out of the water.

Can I get a drumroll, please, as these come out of the oven? The bottoms smell a bit toasty. Burned or is it just the egg wash around the edges and on the pan? They are a little dark but the burnt taste is not there so that's a sigh of relief. And to the most important question: how do they taste? Great! They are light and flaky with just a hint of buttery flavor. I think I can count this challenge as a success, even though the dough rolling had me glaring at my rulers and uncooperative dough. Enjoy!

Croissants
Source: Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Volume Two by Julia Child and Simone Beck

1¼ teaspoon dry-active yeast
3 tablespoons warm water (less than 100°F)
1 teaspoon sugar
½ cup milk
1½ teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons sugar
1 3/4 cups bread flour
2 tablespoons tasteless oil
½ cup chilled, unsalted butter
1 egg, for egg wash

Mix the yeast, warm water, and one teaspoon of sugar in a small bowl. Set aside for the yeast and sugar to dissolve and the yeast to foam up a little.

Heat the milk until tepid (either in the microwave or a saucepan), and dissolve in the salt and 2 teaspoons sugar.

Place the flour in a large bowl. Add the oil, yeast mixture, and milk mixture to the flour. Mix all the ingredients together using the rubber spatula, just until all the flour is incorporated

Turn the dough out onto a floured surface and let it rest a minute. Knead the dough eight to ten times only by smacking the dough on the counter and removing it from the counter using the pastry scraper. Place the dough back in the bowl, cover with plastic wrap and a towl. Leave the bowl at approximately 75°F for three hours, or until the dough has tripled in size.

After the dough has tripled in size, remove it gently from the bowl, pulling it away from the sides of the bowl with your fingertips. Place the dough on a lightly floured board or countertop and use your hands to press it out into a rectangle about 8 by 12 inches. Fold the dough rectangle in thirds, like a letter (fold the top third down, and then the bottom third up). Place the dough letter back in the bowl, cover with the plastic wrap and towel. Leave the dough to rise for another 1.5 hours, or until it has doubled in size. (This second rise can be done overnight in the fridge.)

Place the double-risen dough onto a plate and cover tightly with plastic wrap. Place the plate in the fridge while you prepare the butter. Place the block of chilled butter on a chopping board. Using the rolling pin, beat the butter down a little until it is quite flat. Use the heel of your hand to continue to spread the butter until it is smooth. You want the butter to stay cool, but spread easily.

Remove the dough from the fridge and place it on a lightly floured board or counter. Let it rest for a minute or two. Spread the dough using your hands into a rectangle about 14 by 8 inches. Remove the butter from the board and place it on the dough rectangle, spreading the butter across two-thirds of the rectangle but keeping it a ¼ inch from all the edges.

Fold the top third of the dough down, and the bottom third of the dough up. Turn the dough 90 degrees so that the top flap is to your right (like a book). Roll out the dough (gently, so you don’t push the butter out of the dough) until it is again about 14 by 8 inches. Again, fold the top third down and the bottom third up. Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and place it in the fridge for 2 hours.

After two hours have passed, take the dough out of the fridge, unwrap it, and place it again on the lightly floured board or counter. Tap the dough with the rolling pin to deflate it a little. Let the dough rest for 8 to 10 minutes. Roll the dough out until it is 14 by 8 inches. Fold in three, as before. Turn 90 degrees and roll out again to 14 by 8 inches. Fold in three for the last time, wrap in plastic, and return the dough to the fridge for two more hours (or overnight, with something heavy on top to stop it from rising).

Lightly butter your baking sheet so that it is ready. Take the dough out of the fridge and let it rest for ten minutes on a lightly floured board or counter. Roll the dough out to a 20 by 5 inch rectangle. Cut the dough into half which will yield two rectangles (each 10 by 5 inches ). Place one of the rectangles in the fridge to keep the butter cold.

Roll the rectangle to a 15 by 5 inch rectangle. Cut the dough into three squares (each 5 by 5 inches). Place two of the squares in the fridge. The remaining square may have shrunk up a little bit in the meantime so roll it out again until it is nearly square. Cut the square diagonally into two triangles. Stretch the triangle out a little, so it is not a right-angle triangle, but more of an isosceles. Starting at the wide end, roll the triangle up towards the point, and curve into a crescent shape. Place on the baking sheet. Repeat the process with the remaining squares of dough, creating 12 croissants in all. Leave the tray of croissants on the counter, covered lightly with plastic wrap, to rise for 2 hours.

Preheat the oven to 475°F. Mix the egg with a teaspoon of water. Spread the egg wash across the tops of the croissants. Put the croissants in the oven for 12 to 15 minutes or until the tops are browned nicely. Take the croissants out of the oven and place them on a rack to cool for 10 minutes before serving.

Chocolate Walnut Pie Bars

2011-09-23T09:24:00.000-07:00

Super sweet! That is an appropriate description for this tasty treat.We started out with bars cut to the size you see, but after our first round of dessert we cut them in fourths. Yep, they were that sweet. They sure were yummy though. Enjoy!

Chocolate Walnut Pie Bars
Crust:
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup packed brown sugar

Filling:
3 eggs
3/4 cup light corn syrup
3/4 cup granulated sugar
2 tablespoons butter, melted
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 1/2 cups coarsely chopped walnut

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 9x13 inch baking pan.

Beat flour, butter, and brown sugar in small mixer bowl until crumbly. Press onto bottom of prepared pan. Bake for 12 to 15 minutes or until lightly browned.

Beat together eggs, corn syrup, granulated sugar, butter and vanilla in large mixer bowl. Stir in morsels and walnuts; pour over hot crust.

Bake for 25 to 30 minutes or until center is set. Cool completely in pan on wire rack. Cut into bars.

Makes 3 dozen bars

Zucchini Bread Galore

2011-09-20T13:58:00.000-07:00

Doesn't this picture look great! This is one day's worth of baking, minus a dozen muffins that were eaten before this photo was taken. Not only that but all of those delectable baked goods came from one squash and one zucchini (similar in size to the two in the picture). I love monster squash and zucchini from my garden!

I used my basic zucchini bread recipe and just added different extras to the mix. Some of the batches have just raisins, some just nuts, some raisins and nuts. All but the dozen muffins went into the freezer so we are ready to go with zucchini bread for the next few months! So much easier to freeze the baked bread than to freeze the shredded zucchini.

Zucchini Bread 3 cups shredded zucchini (about 3 medium)
1 2/3 cups sugar
2/3 cup vegetable oil
2 teaspoons vanilla
4 eggs
3 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 cup coarsely chopped nuts
1/2 cup raisins

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Grease bottoms only of loaf pans. Mix zucchini, sugar, oil, vanilla, and eggs in large bowl. Stir in remaining ingredients. Pour into pans. Bake 50-60 minutes (25-30 minutes for mini loaves, 20-25 minutes for muffins) or until wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes. Loosen sides of loaves; remove from pans. Cool completely before slicing. Wrap tightly and store at room temperature up to 4 days or refrigerate up to 10 days.

Makes 2 loaves

Bacon Cheddar Potato Soup

2011-09-17T21:23:00.000-07:00

Besides baking the potato this soup was a pretty quick fix. Somewhat bland, but it works for a quick meal. Not a whole lot to say about it. Enjoy!

Bacon Cheddar Potato Soup
2 cups skim milk
2 medium Yukon Gold potatoes, baked
1/3 cup cheddar cheese, shredded + some for garnish
1/4 small onion, sliced, sauteed
1/2 teaspoon dried dill weed
1/2 teaspoon dried rosemary
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 ounces turkey bacon, cooked, crumbled

Place milk, potatoes, cheese, onion, dill, rosemary, and salt in a stockpot. Heat thoroughly and break up potatoes. Add crumbled turkey bacon. Serve with shredded cheese garnish.

Birthday Bones

2011-09-15T16:50:00.000-07:00

Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday dear Najia, happy birthday to you! Our beloved puppy dog turned 7 years old today. In her honor I baked my very first batch of dog bones. Call me lazy because these were some of the easiest things out there and I have been putting it off for years.

I can't really give you a thumbs up or down because, well, my dog doesn't have thumbs and she also doesn't have a very discerning palate. While she doesn't eat "people food" she does hoover up anything she can find on the ground when we are camping, out walking, or just about anywhere. I think she is pretty willing to eat just about anything.

These bones are great in that they only require 4 ingredients and there is a lot of flexibility even within that. If you go to the source website you can see that there are many variations that people have made and they have all turned out well. Again, what dog is going to turn up their nose at food being offered to them, definitely not mine.

I used whole wheat pastry flour (because that's what I had in the cupboard), crunchy peanut butter (maybe you can see the peanuts in the bone), and almond milk (because that's all the milk I had in my fridge). At first I was a bit worried as I was scooping the peanut butter into the measuring cup. As my peanut butter jar became more empty I started to wonder if this really was a cheaper way of doing things. I finally convinced myself that our dog would take the place of our son as the fourth peanut butter consumer in our family since our son does not like peanut butter and it would work itself out. After cutting out 84 little dog bones and one bigger bone I decided that the one cup of peanut butter is definitely worth the sacrifice.

From our dog to yours, enjoy!

Birthday Bones
Source: All Recipes

2 cups whole wheat flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 cup unsalted natural peanut butter
1 cup skim milk

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Grease cookie sheets or line with parchment paper.

Stir together the flour and baking powder; set aside. In a medium bowl, mix together the peanut butter and milk. Stir in the flour mixture until well blended.

Turn out dough onto a lightly floured surface and knead until smooth. Roll out to 1/4 inch thickness and cut into shapes using cookie cutters. Place 2 inches apart onto the prepared cookie sheets.

Bake for 8 minutes in the preheated oven, or until lightly brown. Remove from cookie sheets to cool on wire racks.

Note: Baking time is dependent on size and thickness of dog bones.

Bushels of Apples Sugar Cookies

2011-09-10T15:55:00.000-07:00

What better way to mark the start of the school year than with a bushel of apples. Or maybe I should say a batch of apples . . . sugar cookies that is. These cookies were made in honor of me going back into the classroom after an almost 5 year break and my son starting preschool.

All but one was either green or yellow, with just one red apple to complete the trio. I had planned to divide the cookies evenly into red, green, and yellow but after adding too much red food coloring for my taste and conscience I decided that all but one would be green or yellow. They turned out quite nicely, beautiful thick icing evenly coating the apple and a bit of glitter dust to finish it off. They were a hit at work and already have me thinking about what other cookies I am going to be baking this school year. Enjoy!

Note: This is the same recipe I have used for all but one of my sugar cookies. It is the best ever. Not overly sweet and the royal icing is a great compliment for decorating but doesn't add to the taste.

Sugar Cookies
Source: Treats

1 cup butter, room temperature
1 cup granulated sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Beat butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add egg and vanilla extract and mix until egg is completely incorporated. Add flour, baking powder, and salt; mix until no trace of dry ingredients remain.

Roll out dough on a lightly floured surface to about 1/4" thickness and cut shapes using cookie cutters.

Bake for about 10 minutes or until bottoms are golden brown.

Royal Icing
4 cups powdered sugar
1/4 cup meringue powder
slightly less than a 1/4 cup of water
food coloring

Mix powdered sugar and meringue powder until well blended. Add water and mix until you get the consistency that you want. Add food coloring to achieve your desired color. Use pastry bags with #1 and #3 tips or plastic squeeze bottles to decorate.

For outlining: consistency should be like glue paste
For flooding: add enough water so that when you lift a spoonful of icing it runs back into the bowl and blends into the other icing in about 2 to 3 seconds

Cherry Chocolate Chip Cookies

2011-09-07T22:15:00.000-07:00

I have to admit that when I was flipping through the Better Home and Garden magazine while waiting for my son's appointment at the pediatrician I was either really hungry or these cookies looked way better than they came out in my kitchen. Not that they were bad, but I wouldn't say that they were stellar either. Pretty much your average run of the mill chocolate chip cookie with some dried cherries thrown in. (You can see I added a few white chocolate chips as well as semi-sweet but that didn't do much for it.) I do have to say that one of the positives is that they seem to freeze well. We had a few fresh out of the oven and then threw the rest in a bag in the freezer where they still sit today waiting for us to get in the mood for chocolate chip cookies once again. Enjoy!

Cherry Chocolate Chip Cookies
Source: Better Homes and Gardens

1 cup butter, softened
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup packed brown sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 12 oz package semisweet chocolate chips
1 cup snipped dried cherries

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

In a large mixing bowl, beat butter with an electric mixer on medium to high speed for 30 seconds. Add sugars, baking soda, and salt. Beat until combined, scraping sides of bowl occasionally. Beat in eggs and vanilla until combined. Beat in as much of the flour as you can with the mixer. Stir in any remaining flour. Stir in chocolate chips and cherries.

Drop dough by tablespoons 2 inches apart onto an ungreased cookie sheet. Bake 9 minutes. Transfer to racks. Cool.

Makes 6 dozen

Cinnamon-Pecan Bread

2011-09-03T10:06:00.000-07:00

I really didn't intend to make another loaf of swirl bread. In fact, until I started making it I didn't even realize that it would be a swirl bread. For some reason I thought when I saw this recipe in a magazine (without the picture, I guess) I was thinking it was going to be a quick bread. Never mind that yeast is listed as an ingredient. I guess I just wasn't paying close attention.

I made three different batches of swirl bread within a pretty short timeframe and this was the one that we liked least. It ended up being pretty dry. The powdered sugar glaze added to the bread but it still couldn't make up for the dryness and lack of flavor. I will pick one of the other two recipes when I make swirl bread again, but if you decide to try it, enjoy!

Cinnamon-Pecan Bread
Source: Better Homes and Gardens

2 cups all-purpose flour or bread flour
1 teaspoon active dry yeast
1/2 cup milk
1/4 cup butter, cut up
2 tablespoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 egg
2 tablespoons butter, melted
3 tablespoons sugar
1-1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/2 cup chopped pecans
-----
3/4 cup powdered sugar
2 to 3 teaspoons milk

In a mixing bowl, combine 1 cup of the flour and the yeast. In a saucepan, heat and stir milk, the 1/4 cup butter, the 2 tablespoons sugar and the salt until warm (120 degree F to 130 degree F) and butter almost melts. Add to flour mixture. Then, add the egg. Beat with an electric mixer on low speed for 30 seconds, scraping the sides of the bowl constantly. Beat on high speed for 3 minutes.

Using a wooden spoon, stir in as much of the remaining flour as you can. Turn out onto a lightly floured surface and knead in enough remaining flour to make a moderately soft dough that's smooth and elastic (3 to 5 minutes total). Shape into a smooth ball.

Place dough in a lightly greased bowl, turning once to grease surface. Cover and let rise in a warm place until doubled (1 to 1-1/4 hours). Punch dough down.

On a well-floured surface, roll out the dough to form a 12-inch square. Brush the dough with 2 tablespoons melted butter. Combine the 3 tablespoons sugar and the cinnamon; sprinkle over the butter. Sprinkle with pecans.

Roll up, jelly-roll style. Pinch the seams and the ends to seal. Place, seam side down, on a greased baking sheet. Let rise in a warm place until almost doubled (about 30 to 45 minutes).

Bake at 350 degrees for about 20 to 25 minutes or until done. Remove to wire rack to cool. Prepare Powdered Sugar Glaze in a bowl to drizzling consistency. Drizzle over bread. Makes 1 loaf.

Cauliflower Sauteed with Anchovies

2011-08-31T18:54:00.000-07:00

I wasn't sure about this recipe when I came across it. I am not a big fan of cauliflower or anchovies, so to say that I was a bit skeptical was an understatement. I'm still a bit skeptical even after eating it. Let's just say that I managed to eat my portion but didn't have seconds. My husband did though so just like with anything it really depends on what your taste buds tell you.

Granted it is probably not the most appealing dish to look at. It almost looks like a mystery food, doesn't it? Hmmm, I can't tell if that is hashbrowns, rubbery scrambled eggs, pieces of browned chicken . . . I was reminded of the fact that you can mash steamed cauliflower as a substitute for mashed potatoes. Maybe the consistency is a bit more like the hashbrowns mentioned above. Either way it was an okay dish. I may make it again as a side dish but definitely not as the main course. Enjoy, if you dare!

Cauliflower Sauteed with Anchovies
1 medium head cauliflower
3 tablespoons olive oil
4 to 6 anchovy fillets, drained
pepper to taste
water, if needed

Wash the cauliflower and break it into small floret; chop the stems. Heat a large skillet over medium high heat. Saute the oil and anchovies in a skillet, just until you see the anchovies have broken down. Add the cauliflower. Stir to coat and season with pepper.

Cook on high heat for about 20 minutes, adding a little water if needed so it doesn't brown too fast. Turn the heat down to low and cover for about 5 minutes or until cauliflower is tender.

Makes 4 servings

Daring Bakers - Candylicious!

2011-08-27T00:00:00.000-07:00

The August 2011 Daring Bakers’ Challenge was hosted by Lisa of Parsley, Sage, Desserts and Line Drive and Mandy of What the Fruitcake?!. These two sugar mavens challenged us to make sinfully delicious candies! This was a special challenge for the Daring Bakers because the good folks at http://www.chocoley.com offered an amazing prize for the winner of the most creative and delicious candy!

I think this might be the latest that I have ever completed a challenge and blogged about it. It is just under an hour away from the deadline for the reveal (although I guess I do really have tomorrow too to be considered on time on the 27th) and I am just now typing it up. The good thing is that the experience is fresh in my mind, the bad thing is that if there are any typing or grammar errors please chalk it up to the fact that I feel like I need to keep my eyelids open with toothpicks.

While I enjoy making candy, and have some experience with making it, it is not something that I do very often. I think of making candy as being something more for the holidays to give away as little gifts. Add to that the fact that I am going back to work after taking a break for the last 4 1/2 years to stay at home with my son and you can imagine that I am pretty busy right now. However, that being said I did manage to squeak out this month's challenge.

I started with Almond Roca. This is something that I have made with my mom since I was a little kid. It is a persnickety candy in that you are dealing with heating sugar and butter to the hard crack stage and as I was reminded tonight, it can go from hard crack stage to ruined in the matter of a few seconds. My first batch was going along beautifully. I hadn't made it in a few years so I was trying to recollect if the recipe was correct in telling me to cook it to 350 degrees F since that seemed a bit high. While debating this I decided to go ahead and see where it took me. At about 275 to 280 degrees F the butter and sugar started to separate. I thought that since I hadn't made it in a while and couldn't remember what it transformed into next that maybe this was just a stage it was going through (like one of the many others in this process) and it would eventually get back to where it needed to be. I just needed to be patient and wait. Ummm, no. I was definitely wrong to continue past this point and should have trusted my initial instincts. I was a bit miffed that I wasted an entire pound of butter and two cups of sugar in the process, ending up with burnt sugar sitting underneath a layer of brown, burnt butter. Thankfully I had not tried to pour it on my chocolate and almonds so those were still salvageable.

I decided to give it one more go. After all, the chocolate and almonds needed something to go along with them and now that I knew what the butter and sugar looked like right before it turned I would be able to stop it at the right time. Yes and no. Right about 275 to 280 degrees F the mixture looked like it was starting to separate into two different entities again. So this time I just decided to stop it there before it quite reached the hard crack of 300 degrees F and pour it on the chocolate. I figured that even if it was a bit soft at least it wouldn't be burned. The verdict . . . yes it is softer than it should be (more of a dissolving sugar/butter than a hard toffee) but it still tastes like it should. However, I would still consider this a fail since it didn't turn out how it was supposed to.

Let's move on now to the chocolates. I had a really hard time deciding what type of chocolate to make. I really wanted to make a chocolate that was filled with a raspberry cream but it was so difficult to find a recipe to use. I should probably clarify that statement. There were many recipes out there but because I had never made a cream filled chocolate before I wasn't sure which ones would work and which ones wouldn't. Many of them also called for fondant which seemed a bit strange to me so I shied away from making a cream filled chocolate like I wanted to. Instead I decided to base my chocolate on a turtle with the addition of pretzel pieces.

Tempering the chocolate was an interesting experience. Personally I don't know if I even needed to do this process. I didn't have time to buy couverture chocolate so I went with Lindt chocolate already in bars. As you know, this chocolate is already tempered since they want their product to have a crisp sound and feel when breaking it into pieces and a shine upon unwrapping. I went ahead and chopped it into little pieces, melted it over my double boiler, but then struggled to get it down to the temperature that it needed to be. I kept adding chocolate pieces and chocolate pieces and chocolate pieces. Finally I got it down to a good temperature but not all the pieces melted and weren't going to. I heated it back up just for a second and it skyrocketed up 15 to 20 degrees F. Ugh. Now the process again of waiting for it to cool down. Finally it got down to about 90 degrees and I decided to take a leap of faith in getting the chocolates finished. I used a ladle to spoon the chocolate into the molds, stuck it in the fridge for 5 minutes, put in the caramel, pretzel pieces, and pecans, covered with more chocolate and let it sit in the fridge a bit longer.

Out popped beautiful chocolates! I cracked my cheapy little mold in the process but I was impressed by the shiny look of these guys, even to the point where you could see the reflections of the lights. If only they tasted as good as they looked. I know, I know, another fail, how could that be? The chocolate was way too dark and overpowering. I ended up using 85% cocoa and it was just so, so strong that you couldn't even taste the caramel, pretzel or pecan pieces. I was super disappointed. Did I say super, because I was SUPER disappointed. I hate spending money from our food budget on things that don't quite turn out. It is so disappointing. Did I already mention that I made two candy's tonight and both of them were disappointing. Yep, I thought so.

So, anyway . . . the Almond Roca really is a tasty candy if you can get it to the hard crack stage without burning it. I may try the chocolates again with milk chocolate (or a lower percentage dark chocolate) but right now I am candied out. Enjoy!

Note: Even though my Almond Roca didn't reach hard crack stage it actually stayed hard in the freezer.

Almond Roca
7 ounces milk chocolate bar (freeze ahead)
1 cup chopped almonds
2 cups sugar
1 pound butter

Grate frozen chocolate bar. Chop almonds. Cover a 9x13 cake pan with 1/2 cup almonds. Sprinkle 1/2 grated chocolate bar on top of almonds.

Melt butter over medium heat. Add sugar, stirring constantly until it is 300 degrees F or hard crack stage.

Pour immediately over grated chocolate and almonds. Spread evenly. Cover immediately with other half of chocolate bar and sprinkle with rest of almonds. Let stand to cool. Once cool, turn it out of the pan and break it up.

Basic Potato Salad

2011-08-24T22:04:00.000-07:00

Summer isn't summer without at least one helping of potato salad. This batch was made to accompany us on one of our summer camping trips. We wanted something to go along with our brats roasted over the campfire and were tired of a side dish of flavored potato chips. This was definitely a welcome change. This recipe is great because you can add in so many other ingredients depending on which direction you want to go with it. Enjoy!

Basic Potato Salad
Source: Martha Stewart

3 pounds waxy potatoes (such as Yukon gold or new), scrubbed and cut into 3/4-inch cubes
1/3 cup white-wine vinegar
4 scallions, white part minced, green part thinly sliced
1 teaspoon coarse salt
1/4 teaspoon ground pepper
3/4 cup light mayonnaise
cooked bacon, crumbled

Set a steamer basket in a Dutch oven (or large pot with a lid), and add enough salted water to come just below basket; bring to a boil.

Place potatoes in basket, cover pot, and reduce heat to a gentle simmer. Steam potatoes, gently tossing occasionally, until tender, 15 to 25 minutes.

Meanwhile, in a large bowl, combine vinegar, scallion whites, 1 teaspoon coarse salt, and 1/4 teaspoon pepper.

Add hot potatoes to vinegar mixture; toss to combine. Cool to room temperature, tossing occasionally, about 1 hour.

Add mayonnaise, scallion greens, and bacon to cooled potatoes; mix gently to combine. Serve, or cover and refrigerate up to 2 days.

Makes 8 servings

Cinnamon Swirl Bread

2011-08-20T14:29:00.000-07:00

Don't these swirls look incredible? The smell and taste are just as incredible as the neat swirlies throughout the dough! This recipe was chosen on the same day that I chose the recipe for the Cinnamon Raisin Nut Bread. I wanted to compare two cinnamon swirl breads to see if a slight change to ingredients and method would make a big difference in the outcome. I was actually surprised at how different they tasted.

Both recipes have yummy qualities to them. I like the fact that with the other swirl bread I added the raisins and nuts to give it a bit more texture. But while you could smell the cinnamon in the dough while kneading it the finished product didn't have an overly cinnamony (is that even a word?) taste. However this cinnamon swirl bread definitely has a sweeter, cinnamon taste. It is delicious all on it's own merits. It also makes a monster loaf of bread! This thing definitely doubled in size while it was rising at both rise times. I wasn't sure if it was going to take over the oven like the blob but it managed to bake up just fine. The top was a bit lopsided (not sure if you can see it in the picture) and looked a bit like an alien head from the back once you started cutting down the loaf.

Between the two recipes I would say that this is definitely the tastier of the two. I think the extra cinnamon and sweeter flavor make it just a bit more delicious. Not sure if in the future I will try adding raisins and nuts to this recipe or not but that definitely would make it a straight across comparison. We'll just have to wait and see what the next baking kick brings along. Enjoy!

Cinnamon Swirl Bread
Source: Pioneer Woman

6 tablespoons butter
1 cup milk
2-1/2 teaspoons active dry yeast
3-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup sugar
2 whole eggs

2 tablespoons butter, softened + some for greasing pan
1/3 cup sugar
2 tablespoons cinnamon
egg wash (1 egg + splash of milk beaten together)

Melt 6 tablespoons butter with milk. Heat until very warm, but don't boil. Allow to cool until temperature reaches between 105-115 degrees F. Sprinkle yeast over the top, stir gently, and allow to sit for 10 minutes.

Combine flour and salt.

In the bowl of an electric mixer, mix sugar and eggs with the paddle attachment until combined. Pour in milk/butter/yeast mixture and stir to combine. Add half the flour and beat on medium speed until combined. Add the other half and beat until combined.

Switch to the dough hook attachment and knead dough on medium speed for ten minutes. If dough is overly sticky, add 1/4 cup flour and knead again for 5 minutes.

Grease a large bowl. Throw dough in and toss to coat. Cover bowl in plastic wrap and set it in a warm, hospitable place for at least 2 hours.

Turn dough out onto the work surface. Roll into a neat rectangle no wider than the loaf pan you are going to use, and about 18 to 24 inches long. Smear with 2 tablespoons softened butter. Mix sugar and cinnamon together, then sprinkle evenly over the butter-smeared dough. Starting at the far end, roll dough toward you, keeping it tight and contained. Pinch seam to seal.

Smear loaf pan with softened butter. Place dough, seam down, in the pan. Cover with plastic wrap and allow to rise for 2 hours.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Mix egg with a splash of milk for egg wash and brush over the top. Bake for 40 minutes on a middle/lower rack in the oven. Remove from the pan and allow bread to cool.

Makes one loaf

Orange Chicken Fajitas

2011-08-16T16:41:00.000-07:00

Super easy recipe and pretty tasty too! There isn't a lot to this main dish as you can see in the ingredient list. It was pretty quick work to get the veggies and chicken chopped up and once they were cooked through and simmered for a few minutes in the juice it was time to dish up. Enjoy!

Orange Chicken Fajitas
2 yellow bell peppers
2 orange bell peppers
1 large white onion
1 1/2 to 2 pounds chicken breast tenders
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/4 cup orange juice

10-12 tortillas
shredded lettuce (optional)
sour cream (optional)
Mexican cheese (optional)

Wash and cut the peppers and onions into thin strips. Wash chicken tenders and cut them into strips.

Heat olive oil in a skillet and add chicken, peppers, and onions. Cook until chicken is cooked through and vegetables are tender.

Add orange juice and let simmer for 5 minutes. Serve on flour or multigrain tortillas. Top with shredded lettuce, sour cream, and Mexican cheese if desired.

Makes 10-12 fajitas

Mini Lemon Chiffon Cake

2011-08-12T17:30:00.000-07:00

Doesn't this cake just scream summer? To me it definitely looks like a dessert that should be eaten in the heat of a July evening. Red, white, and blue . . . fresh, summer fruits . . . light, airy cake . . . fluffy, slightly sweet whipping cream. Yum, yum, yum.

I made a lemon chiffon cake in a mini bundt size for individual portions. Strawberries, blueberries, and raspberries were our fruit of choice this time, but you could easily do another summer fruit and have it taste as equally delicious. The homemade whipped cream is just heavy whipping cream whipped to medium stiff peaks with a bit of powdered sugar and vanilla added in for flavor. Enjoy!

Mini Lemon Chiffon Bundt Cakes
Makes 4 mini bundt cakes

1/2 cup + 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 + 1/8 cups sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt, preferably kosher
1/8 cup vegetable oil
2 medium egg yolks
1/8 cup water
1/8 cup lemon juice
3/4 teaspoon lemon zest, grated
3 medium egg whites
1/8 teaspoon cream of tartar

Preheat the oven to 325°F. Spray bundt pans with non-stick cooking spray.

In a large mixing bowl, stir together the flour and baking powder. Add in all but 3 tablespoons of sugar, and all of the salt. Stir to combine.

In a small bowl combine the oil, egg yolks, water, lemon juice, and lemon zest. Whisk thoroughly. Combine with the dry ingredients and mix thoroughly for about one minute, or until very smooth.

Put the egg whites into a stand mixer, and beat on medium speed using a whisk attachment, until frothy. Add cream of tartar and beat on a medium speed until the whites hold soft peaks. Slowly add the remaining sugar and beat on a medium-high speed until the whites hold firm and form shiny peaks.

Using a grease free rubber spatula, scoop about ⅓ of the whites into the yolk mixture and fold in gently. Gently fold in the remaining whites just until combined.

Pour the batter into the prepared pans. Bake for about 15-20 minutes or until toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Remove the cakes from the oven and allow to cool in the pan on a wire rack.

To unmold, run a knife around the sides to loosen the cake from the pan. Invert the cake on the wire rack and cool completely.

Can be refrigerated for up to 4 days. Serve with whatever accompaniments you wish.

Black Bean Pineapple Enchiladas

2011-08-08T16:42:00.000-07:00

I'm not usually one to experiment with new recipes for foods that I've found that work for my family and we have a great chicken enchilada recipe already. However, I did come across this recipe in a book I was reading, the same as the pork chop recipe, so I was thinking that I would give it a try and see if it knocked my socks off like the pork chops.

While it didn't knock my socks of it is a good enchilada recipe. The enchiladas are very filling and have a nice combination of textures and tastes with the chicken, black beans, and pineapple. I'm sure you could spice it up a bit more because it did seem like it was a little on the bland side. It was nice to get a large amount of enchiladas so that we could freeze some for lunches at a later date. Overall, I think we'll keep it in the books as one to use for variety but it in no way takes over as top dog for my other chicken enchilada recipe.Enjoy!

Note: I went ahead and used a rotisserie chicken, but you could just as easily bake or grill up some chicken breasts and shred them once they've cooled to the touch.

Black Bean Pineapple Enchiladas
1 red bell pepper
1/2 medium white or yellow onion, chopped
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 15 oz. can of black beans, drained
1 20 oz. can of crushed pineapple in pineapple juice
1 rotisserie chicken
1 cup Mexican shredded cheese
1 large can enchilada sauce
10 to 12 medium-size multigrain flour tortillas

Dice the red bell pepper and onion and saute in olive oil over medium heat or until tender. Add drained black beans and pineapple including juice into the skillet. Stir and heat.

Pull apart white meat chicken and shred. Add chicken to the skillet and cook until hot.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Prepare two 9x13 glass or casserole dishes. (I used a 9x13 and a 9x9.)

Lay one tortilla in the dish and scoop approximately 1/2 cup filling into tortilla, place filling in the center from end to end. Roll up tortilla, completely enclosing the filling. Place seam side down in dish. Stuff and roll the rest of the tortillas the same way until the dish is full. Pour the enchilada sauce over the top and sprinkle cheese on top.

Bake for 15 minutes or until bubbly hot.

Makes 10 to 12 enchiladas

Popovers

2011-08-04T17:27:00.000-07:00

Ahhh, breakfast pastries, muffins, rolls . . . what fun to dig through recipes looking for something fun to bake on a lazy, rainy Saturday morning. And I was definitely in a baking mood today. I wanted to bake every bread recipe I looked at. After two loaves of bread and a batch of popovers I called it good otherwise I could have gone on and on with no end in sight.

I think technically these should be called popunders instead of popovers. I'm betting that they didn't "pop" up as much as they should have because I used custard cups instead of popover cups. I just can't see spending that much money on a pan for one purpose, especially a purpose that I don't have very often. They still tasted good, a bit more dense than they were supposed to be, but yummy none the less. You can see in the photo above that one ended up sinking in the middle and the other is upside down so that you can see the popped portion. Slather it with jam and no one will know any better. Oh, and don't mention they are supposed to be popovers either. Enjoy!

Popovers
2 eggs
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup milk
1/2 teaspoon salt

Heat over to 450 degrees. Grease 6-cup popover pan or six 6-ounce custard cups generously. Beat eggs slightly in medium bowl. Beat in remaining ingredients just until smooth (do not overbeat). Fill cups about one-half full. Bake 20 minutes. Decrease oven temperature to 350 degrees. Bake 20 minutes longer or until deep golden brown. Immediately remove from cups and serve hot.

Makes 6 popovers

Slow Cooker BBQ Pork Sandwiches

2011-07-31T15:09:00.000-07:00

Oh, how I love a pulled pork sandwich! I don't know what it is about shredded pork slathered in barbecue sauce nestled in a chewy roll, but I fall for it every time. My husband can attest to the fact that I am not a big fan of hunks of meat especially on a sandwich, so I think that the fact that these are thinly shredded pieces that are perfectly bite-sized adds to the allure.

Before this meal I had never attempted to make these at home. They were saved for the few times we ventured out to a great barbecue restaurant where I would ponder over and worry about whether their idea of a pulled pork sandwich was the same as mine. Some were and some weren't. Well now I don't have to have all that anxiety added to my life. I can make them at home as often as I want and know that I am getting exactly what I want!

These are so easy to make. Put the meat and sauce in the crockpot and go about the rest of your day. Pull it out about dinner time to shred and re-coat with barbecue sauce and you are set. Just thinking about it while
typing this up is making me hungry for one. Enjoy!

Slow Cooker BBQ Pork Sandwiches
Source: Adapted from Kraft

2 pound boneless pork shoulder

3 onions, sliced, separated into rings

1/2 cup barbecue sauce

8 kaiser rolls, split
thinly sliced cheddar cheese, optional

Place meat in slow cooker; top with onions and barbecue sauce. Cover with lid. Cook on LOW 8 to 10 hours (or on HIGH 4 to 5 hours).

Remove meat from slow cooker; cut off and discard excess fat. Chop meat into small pieces or shred with fork. Return to slow cooker; stir until evenly coated with sauce.

Fill rolls with meat mixture just before serving. If desired, add a thin slice of cheese before covering meat with top bun.

Makes 8 servings

Daring Bakers - Fancy Fraisiers

2011-07-27T00:00:00.000-07:00

Jana of Cherry Tea Cakes was our July Daring Bakers’ host and she challenges us to make Fresh Frasiers inspired by recipes written by Elisabeth M. Prueitt and Chad Robertson in the beautiful cookbook Tartine.

Fresh strawberries, light airy chiffon cake, fluffy pastry cream . . . who could resist this month's Daring Bakers challenge! When I saw the challenge at the beginning of the month I knew that this would work perfectly for my two 5-inch springform pans. These would yield two small desserts, one for book group and one for my family. Little did I know that one 5-inch springform pan would yield more than enough for both groups combined. Oops, the hazards of trying to make something smaller.

I followed the recipe exactly and it was very straight forward. I baked the cakes the day before I needed the dessert and had them cooling on wire racks while I whipped up the pastry cream. I knew from past experience that this could sit in the fridge overnight along with the simple syrup. Making these ahead of time made for a bit less work on preparation day but there were still a lot of steps to do to get the whole thing together.

I'll spare you all the photos of making the cake, pastry cream, and simple syrup and just show you a quick assembly of the cake. For one of the cakes I did use the almond paste but for the other cake I did not. I liked the taste and look of the one without the almond paste a little better. I didn't think the almond paste added anything extraordinary and was really not a necessary item. The steps look involved but it really is a straight forward, simple recipe. Enjoy!

Fraisier

Chiffon Cake

1 cup + 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
3/4 cups sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt, preferably kosher
1/4 cup vegetable oil
3 large egg yolks

1/3 cup + 1 tablespoon water
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
3/4 teaspoon lemon zest, grated
5 large egg whites

1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar

Preheat the oven to moderate 325°F. Line the bottom of an 8-inch spring-form pan with parchment paper. Do not grease the sides of the pan.

In a large mixing bowl, stir together the flour and baking powder. Add in all but 3 tablespoons of sugar, and all of the salt. Stir to combine.

In a small bowl combine the oil, egg yolks, water, vanilla and lemon zest. Whisk thoroughly. Combine with the dry ingredients and mix thoroughly for about one minute, or until very smooth.

Put the egg whites into a stand mixer, and beat on medium speed using a whisk attachment, until frothy. Add cream of tartar and beat on a medium speed until the whites hold soft peaks. Slowly add the remaining 3 tablespoons sugar and beat on a medium-high speed until the whites hold firm and form shiny peaks.

Using a grease free rubber spatula, scoop about ⅓ of the whites into the yolk mixture and fold in gently. Gently fold in the remaining whites just until combined.

Pour the batter into the prepared pan. Bake for 45 to 55 minutes or until toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.Remove the cake from the oven and allow to cool in the pan on a wire rack. To unmold, run a knife around the sides to loosen the cake from the pan and remove the spring form sides. Invert the cake and peel off the parchment paper. Refrigerate for up to four days.

Pastry Cream

1 cup whole milk
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/8 teaspoon salt, preferably kosher
2 tablespoons cornstarch
1/4 cup sugar
1 large egg
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
3/4 teaspoon gelatin
1/2 tablespoon water
1 cup heavy cream

Pour the milk, vanilla, and salt into a heavy sauce pan. Place over medium-high heat and scald, bringing it to a near boiling point. Stir occasionally.

Meanwhile, in a stand mixer add the cornstarch and sugar. Whisk to combine. Add the eggs to the sugar and cornstarch and whisk until smooth.

When the milk is ready, gently and slowly while the stand mixer is whisking, pour the heated milk down the side of the bowl into the egg mixture. Pour the mixture back into the warm pot and continue to cook over a medium heat until the custard is thick, just about to boil and coats the back of a spoon.

Remove from heat and pass through a fine mesh sieve into a large mixing bowl. Allow to cool for ten minutes stirring occasionally.

Cut the butter into four pieces and whisk into the pastry cream a piece at a time until smooth.

Cover the cream with plastic wrap, pressing the plastic wrap onto the top of the cream to prevent a skin from forming. Chill in the refrigerator until cool throughout. (Can be refrigerated for up to five days.)

In a small dish, sprinkle the gelatin over the water and let stand for a few minutes to soften.

Put two inches of water into a small sauce pan and bring to a simmer over a medium heat.

Measure 1/4 cup of the chilled pastry cream into a small stainless steel/glass bowl that will sit across the sauce pan with the simmering water, without touching the water.

Heat the cream until it is 120 F. Add the gelatin and whisk until smooth. Remove from the water bath, and whisk the remaining cold pastry cream in to incorporate in two batches.

In a stand mixer, fitted with the whisk attachment, whip the cream until it holds medium-stiff peaks. Immediately fold the whipped cream into the pastry cream with a rubber spatula.

Vanilla Simple Syrup

1/3 cup sugar
1/3 cup water

1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract

Combine the water, sugar, and vanilla in a medium saucepan. Bring the mixture to a boil and let the sugar dissolve. Stirring is not necessary, but will not harm the syrup. Remove the syrup from the heat and cool slightly. Transfer syrup to a lidded container or jar that can be stored in the refrigerator. Simple syrup can be stored for up to one month.

Fraisier Assembly

1 baked 8-inch chiffon cake
1 recipe pastry cream filling

1/3 cup simple syrup
2 lbs strawberries
confectioners’ sugar for dusting

1/2 cup almond paste, optional

Line the sides of an 8-inch spring-form pan with plastic wrap. Do not line the bottom of the pan.

Cut the cake in half horizontally to form two layers. Fit the bottom layer into the prepared spring-form pan. Moisten the layer evenly with the simple syrup. When the cake has absorbed enough syrup to resemble a squishy sponge, you have enough.

Hull and slice in half enough strawberries to arrange around the sides of the cake pan. Place the cut side of the strawberry against the sides of the pan, point side up forming a ring.

Pipe cream in-between strawberries and a thin layer across the top of the cake.

Hull and quarter your remaining strawberries and place them in the middle of the cake. Cover the strawberries and entirely with the all but 1 tablespoon of the pastry cream.

Place the second cake layer on top and moisten with the simple syrup.

Lightly dust a work surface with confectioners' sugar and roll out the almond paste to an 8-inch round 1/16 inch thick. Spread the remaining 1 tablespoon of pastry cream on the top of the cake and cover with the round of almond paste.

Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 4 hours.

To serve release the sides of the spring form pan and peel away the plastic wrap Serve immediately or store in the refrigerator for up to 3 days.

Grain-Mustard Pork Chops

2011-07-24T16:40:00.000-07:00

I am not a big fan of pork chops. In fact, both my mom and my husband were surprised to hear that pork chops were on the menu at my house. I don't know if it was a bad experience with a dry, shake and bake pork chop or what, but I have steered clear of them for years. Don't get me wrong, I will eat pork. Every now and then we have ham, pork bacon (although now it is usually turkey bacon), and pork loin, but I can probably count it on two hands how often we eat pork throughout the year.

I believe these pork chops may have changed all that. I came across this recipe in a book that I was reading and thought it sounded easy and fairly tasty. I was still a little nervous when I pulled the pork chops out of their package to marinade, just the thought of it being pork chop made me rethink my dinner plans. I held steady though, finished mixing the rub, and got the pork chops marinading in the fridge for the day.

The grilled pork chops looked beautiful. The leftover rub smelled delicious. We were so hungry that we dished up and dug in. Even me. I was about halfway through my pork chop when I realized that I had not taken a picture. Thank goodness there was a piece left from the kids' pork chop. The slices in the photo were the only part left of mine.

This was definitely a tasty dish! I enjoyed the flavor and moistness of the pork chop, and it was definitely enhanced by dipping it in the leftover rub. Enjoy!

Grain-Mustard Pork Chops

1/2 cup grain Dijon mustard
2 teaspoons herb garden seasoning
1 teaspoon crushed garlic
1 teaspoon honey
2 tablespoons freshly chopped parsley leaves
1 pound thick cut boneless pork loin chops

In a small bowl, combine the mustard, herb garden seasoning, garlic, honey, and chopped parsley. Reserve 1/4 cup of the rub for serving.

Transfer mustard mixture to a resealable plastic bag. Add the pork chops and thoroughly coat with the mustard mixture.Let the pork chops sit for at least 5 minutes or as long as overnight, in the refrigerator, before grilling.

Heat grill to medium heat. Grill the chops for 6 to 7 minutes per side. Transfer to a serving platter and serve sprinkled with the reserved rub.

Makes 4 servings

Cinnamon Raisin Nut Bread

2011-07-20T14:17:00.000-07:00

Cinnamon Raisin Nut Bread courtesy of another baking kick! I managed to go over a month without baking up a sweet bread of any kind so it shouldn't come as a surprise that the day that I get into a baking mood I end up making a few different varieties of sweet breads (the others will be coming at a later date).

Glancing over my top 100 list gave me several ideas of things I could make during this baking marathon. I thought about baking monkey bread but decided to go an easier route with cinnamon swirl bread. After choosing two different cinnamon swirl bread recipes I decided to add raisins and nuts to this loaf to make it into Cinnamon Raisin Nut Bread.

It was really pretty easy to make. There is a bit of patience involved with the rising time of any yeast bread but since I was pretty much just hanging around the house all day it worked out fine. I was somewhat surprised that this recipe didn't use any eggs. I was glad it didn't because my other recipe required two eggs which is the exact number I had in the fridge. One pleasant surprise was the sweet smell of cinnamon when I started kneading it. This cinnamon bread recipe adds cinnamon right into the dough so when you knead it both before and after rising the smell is heavenly. Enjoy!

Cinnamon Raisin Nut Bread
Source: Adapted from Recipe Girl

Bread
1 tablespoon butter
1/2 cup milk
2 tablespoons granulated white sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 1/4 teaspoons active dry yeast
3/4 cup warm water (105 to 115 degrees F)
3 cups all-purpose flour + more for surface work

Filling
2 tablespoons butter, softened
2 tablespoons granulated white sugar
1 tablespoon brown sugar
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
1/2 cup raisins
1/4 cup chopped pecans

In a microwavable cup, heat butter and warm milk in short bursts; stir together until butter is melted. In a large bowl, stir sugar, salt and cinnamon until combined. Pour warm butter/milk mixture into the bowl; stir.

In a glass measuring cup or small bowl, mix yeast and warm water until yeast is dissolved; pour into the bowl and stir. Mix in 2 1/2 cups flour.

Turn out dough onto a floured board (dough will be sticky). Sprinkle remaining 1/2 cup of flour onto the dough and knead until the dough is soft and smooth (4 to 5 minutes). Add additional sprinkles of flour, if needed.

Put dough into a greased bowl; turn the dough over so the top of the dough is greased too. Cover with a clean dish towel and let rise in a warm place for about 60 minutes, or until doubled in size.

Punch down the dough in the bowl with your fist. Turn dough onto a floured surface and knead for about 1 minute. Roll dough out into a basic rectangular shape. Use a butter knife or your clean fingers to spread 2 tablespoons softened butter on the surface of the rolled out dough.

In a small bowl, mix white sugar, brown sugar and cinnamon. Sprinkle this mixture on top of the butter. Roll up dough and form into a loaf. Place into a buttered 5x9-inch bread pan, seam side down. Cover with a clean dish towel and let rise in a warm place until doubled in size, about 30 minutes.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.

Score risen dough in the pan by cutting 3 slashes diagonally across the top of the loaf with a sharp knife. Bake bread for 35 to 45 minutes, or until golden brown. Fully baked bread should sound hollow when tapped. Turn out bread and let cool on a wire rack.

Makes one loaf

Chicken and Dumplings

2011-07-16T16:40:00.000-07:00

Surprised to see a hearty, warm you to the tips of your toes soup in July? It isn't very strange when you consider that we have had a fairly cold summer and I've had it on my menu since late spring and have just now gotten around to making it. Bite-sized chunks of chicken, doughy dumplings, and thick, salty gravy. Yum!

I thought this was going to be a lot harder than it was and easier is always a nice surprise. While the chicken and veggies were simmering, it was quick enough to mix up the dough for the dumplings. Add the soup to make a gravy base, drop the dumplings in, let cook for a few minutes, and then dish up and eat. It really can't get much easier than that. Enjoy!

Chicken and Dumplings
Source: Slightly adapted from Food Network - Paula Deen

Chicken Stew:
2 pounds boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into 8 pieces
3 ribs celery, chopped
1 large onion, chopped
2 bay leaves
2 chicken bouillon cubes
1 teaspoon House Seasoning, recipe follows
1 (10 3/4-ounce) can cream of chicken soup

Dumplings:
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
Ice water

Prepare House Seasoning in a small bowl. Place the chicken, celery, onion, bay leaves, bouillon, and House Seasoning in a large pot. Add 2 quarts of water and bring to a simmer over medium heat. Simmer the chicken until it is tender and the juices run clear. Remove the chicken from the pot, cool slightly, and tear/cut into bite size pieces. Return the chicken meat to the pot. Keep warm over low heat.

Mix the flour with the salt and mound together in a mixing bowl. Beginning at the center of the mound, drizzle a small amount of ice water over the flour. Using your fingers, and moving from the center to the sides of the bowl, gradually incorporate about 3/4 cup of ice water. Knead the dough and form it into ball.
Dust a good amount of flour onto a clean work surface. Roll out the dough (it will be firm), working from center to 1/8-inch thick. Let the dough relax for several minutes.

Add the cream of chicken soup to the pot with the chicken and simmer gently over medium-low heat.
Cut the dough into 1-inch pieces. Pull a piece in half and drop the halves into the simmering soup. Repeat. Do not stir the chicken once the dumplings have been added. Gently move the pot in a circular motion so the dumplings become submerged and cook evenly. Cook until the dumplings float and are no longer doughy, 3 to 4 minutes.

To serve, ladle chicken, gravy, and dumplings into warm bowls.

Note: If the chicken stew is too thin it can be thickened before the dumplings are added. Simply mix together 2 tablespoons cornstarch and 1/4 cup of water then whisk this mixture into the stew.

House Seasoning:
1 cup salt
1/4 cup black pepper
1/4 cup garlic powder

Mix ingredients together and store in an airtight container for up to 6 months.

Whole Wheat Flour Tortillas and Breakfast Burritos

2011-07-12T14:58:00.000-07:00

Homemade tortillas have been on my to do list for a while. In fact, over the past month they have been on our menu 3 different times. Two of those I never took the time to make them and just ended up doing an egg dish for breakfast, but I finally decided to take the time and make them to pair with our breakfast burritos. I made these the same day that I made the homemade phyllo dough for baklava so I definitely got some practice with rolling out dough until it was thin.

While these were fun to make and tasted fine as a part of our burrito I don't know that I'll be rushing to make them again. I felt like the time spent on them wasn't necessarily worth the finished product. I know that it's better for you to not have pre-packaged foods but the few times we eat tortillas I can't see it being a problem by buying ones already prepared. They also didn't store well for me. We didn't end up using all of the 8 to 10 that I made and when I stuck them in a ziploc bag they weren't great as leftovers the next day. It still was a fun process though. Enjoy!

Whole Wheat Flour Tortillas
Source: Hallee the Homemaker

2 cups whole wheat flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
2 tablespoons shortening
1/2 cup warm water

In a medium bowl, combine the flour, salt, and baking powder. Cut the shortening into the flour mixture and thoroughly combine. Add the warm water and mix with a fork until the dough forms a ball. If you need more water, add it a tablespoon at a time.

Place dough on a lightly floured surface and knead about 20 times. Put back into the bowl, cover with towel, and let rest for about 15 minutes.

For 8-inch tortillas, divide dough into 12 equal portions. For 10-inch tortillas, divide dough into 8 equal portions. Roll each piece of dough into a ball. On a lightly floured surface, use a rolling pin to flatten each ball into an 8-inch or 10-inch circle. The tortilla will be very thin. Stack between sheets of wax paper.

Place a tortilla on a medium-hot ungreased skillet or griddle. Cook about 30 seconds or until the dough starts to puff and bubble up. Turn and cook another 30 seconds. Remove from pan. Place in a tortilla heater, in foil, or use immediately.

For Breakfast Burritos:
Use the tortilla as a wrap around your favorite breakfast items. Suggestions include: eggs, bacon, sausage, ham, tomatoes, peppers, cheese, olives, salsa, sour cream, guacamole . . .

Cheese and Bacon Muffins

2011-07-08T14:50:00.000-07:00

A savory variation of the raspberry muffins that I posted a bit ago. I would have to say that they kind of grew on me. First impression was that they were a bit bland even with the addition of cheese and bacon. Beyond the first one, and even into the second day, my opinion of them improved. Even with the improvement, my preference is definitely to use this batter with a fruit and venture onto the sweet side. When and if I use this recipe for a savory muffin again, I might decide to add some diced green chiles or something with a bit of pep.
I did use whole wheat pastry flour instead of all-purpose flour like I used with the raspberry muffins so that might have made a difference. Also, I reduced the amount of sugar and added in shredded cheddar cheese and bacon. Enjoy!

Cheese and Bacon Muffins
Makes a dozen muffins

2 cups whole wheat pastry flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons sugar
2 eggs
1 cup milk
1/4 cup butter, melted
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
1 cup cooked bacon, crumbled

Preheat oven to 425 degrees F. Prepare muffin pan.

Stir flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, and sugar together. Make a well in the center.

Beat eggs with a fork. Stir in milk and melted butter. Pour into well in flour mixture. Mix quickly and lightly with a fork until moist. Gently stir in the cheese and bacon.

Divide batter evenly between the prepared muffin cups. Turn oven down to 400 degrees F before baking.

Bake for 25 minutes or until golden.

4th of July

2011-07-04T12:29:00.000-07:00

Happy birthday, America!!!

Something light, fun, and festive for celebrating Independence Day. Strawberries, raspberries, and blueberries layered with homemade whipped cream. Red, white, and blue! Enjoy!

White Chocolate Cranberry Scones

2011-07-01T20:29:00.000-07:00

I love scones, in case you couldn't tell! Any chance I get to make a baked good for breakfast my mind usually heads to scones first. Don't get me wrong, I love a good muffin or some sweet bread or even a coffee cake but there is something about a scone.

For this past weekend, which happened to be Father's Day, we were camping. I still wanted to have a special breakfast and since it is somewhat difficult to whip up a gourmet meal with just a few pans and a limited amount of space I decided that I would instead find a scone recipe to prepare ahead of time that we could just take along with us to enjoy with a side of fruit.

The original recipe for this was for white chocolate cherry scones but I didn't happen to have any dried cherries in my cupboard. I did have dried cranberries though (a staple in our household) so I checked with hubby to see if he would be agreeable to that substitution. As you can see from this post, he was.

I whipped up a quick batch while finishing packing for our camping trip. I stuck them in the freezer to cool them a bit faster so I could store them in a bag before putting them with our other non-refrigerated foods. And that is where they stayed our entire camping trip. Yep, that's right. I left them in the freezer right next to the chicken breasts, chicken nuggets, and chicken and apple sausages I was also supposed to bring. Good plan, poor execution. He did get to enjoy one the day we came back into town, and since it was only one day after Father's Day it wasn't too long of a wait. Enjoy!

White Chocolate Cranberry Scones
Source: Adapted from My Baking Addiction

2 cups all-purpose flour
1/3 cup sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
8 tablespoons unsalted butter, frozen
1/2 cup dried cranberries
1/2 cup white chocolate chips
1/2 cup sour cream
1 large egg
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Adjust oven rack to lower-middle position and preheat oven to 400 degrees.

In a medium bowl, mix flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Grate butter into flour mixture on the large holes of a box grater; use your fingers to work in butter (mixture should resemble coarse meal), then stir in dried cranberries and white chocolate.

In a small bowl, whisk sour cream and egg until smooth; stir in vanilla.

Using a fork, stir sour cream mixture into flour mixture until large dough clumps form. Use your hands to press the dough against the bowl into a ball. (The dough will be sticky in places, and there may not seem to be enough liquid at first, but as you press, the dough will come together.)

Place on a lightly floured surface and pat into a 7- to 8-inch circle about 3/4-inch thick. Use a sharp knife to cut into 8 triangles (or other desired shape); place on a cookie sheet (preferably lined with parchment paper), about 1 inch apart. Bake until golden, about 15 to 17 minutes. Cool for 5 minutes and serve warm or at room temperature.

If desired, drizzle with melted white chocolate after the scones have cooled.

Optional:
Add a light egg wash to the top of the scones and a sprinkle of coarse sugar before placing in the oven.
Add in a variety of ingredients to make your signature scone, think chocolate chips, nuts, espresso powder…endless possibilities!

Daring Bakers - Baklava

2011-06-27T00:00:00.000-07:00

Erica of Erica’s Edibles was our host for the Daring Baker’s June challenge. Erica challenged us to be truly DARING by making homemade phyllo dough and then to use that homemade dough to make Baklava.

Baklava. Not a dessert that I usually raise my hand for. At least not until I saw that I could change up the ingredients so that instead of being drenched in honey and over the top sweet I could substitute chocolate, a variety of nuts, and a less sweet syrup. Now my hand might just be raising.

I believe this was my first go round of making baklava, but for some reason I am not 100% sure. I know that probably sounds a bit strange, not remembering if I have ever made something before, but I can't remember if I made this in a high school home economics class or when I was younger. I seem to have some vague recollections of making baklava. Either way, I know that I had never made homemade phyllo dough. That was definitely going to be a challenge.

I think I gave myself some practice with patience and rolling dough when I made homemade whole wheat tortillas for our breakfast burritos that morning. When it came time to roll out my phyllo dough I felt like I was very calm, cool, and collected which is exactly what I needed to be in order to have a successful experience. What I didn't realize was that it was going to take me over an hour and a half to roll out 18 sheets of very thin dough. Over 90 minutes! Yikes! I was somewhat surprised that the time actually went by pretty quickly.

I decided to break my dough into 18 small balls ahead of time to make sure that I had enough dough to do all the layers I wanted. I am sure I didn't get them as transparent as some people were able to but I was very pleased with how they turned out. My one big mistake was not layering them with wax paper between the layers. I thought that because I generously floured them they wouldn't stick together. I even checked between layers every now and then to make sure that I could get them apart easily. And still . . .

. . . they managed to stick together. It wasn't really apparent until I got to the stage of cutting the sheets to fit the size of the pan. I used a pizza cutter thinking that would be the best way to go but I was sorely mistaken. Between the warm kitchen and the blade of the cutter and the weight of the sheets on top of each other the edges adheared together. The center of the sheets were still separate but the edges became one.

The first few came apart fine. In fact, I was a bit giddy with how smoothly it was seeming to go. After the first layer of 6 sheets my joy was quickly overshadowed by frustration. By the time I came to the last few sets of layers I was literally peeling off strips and piecing them together. It felt a bit like I was wrapping a mummy. I had to use the scraps which I was going to save to make into another pieced together dessert but that's okay. At least I didn't have to re-roll any sheets or start from scratch.

Next step, toasting the nuts and getting together the ingredients for the filling. I chose to use nutella and a combination of toasted hazelnuts, toasted walnuts, toasted almonds, and roasted pistachios. I was also a bit surprised by how long it took me to do the layering. Then there was the cutting. All together another 30-60 minutes before getting it into the oven for baking. After the baking was done the syrup was poured on and it was allowed to sit and sit and sit. As the syrup sits it oozes down into the lower layers until everything has been coated. You can see below the baklava before baking, after baking, and after syrup.

Even though the baklava is supposed to sit overnight in order to absorb the syrup you can imagine that it wasn't very long before we felt the desire to do an informal taste test. Just consider it part of research, you know, the need to check the taste and texture right after baking, after sitting for a few hours, and after sitting overnight.

Overall I was happy with how this baklava turned out. It was a lot of work to roll out all the sheets of phyllo dough but I'm glad I did it. Will I do it again? Not sure. If I do, I will probably use refrigerated dough since it is faster and I don't know that people would be able to tell the difference. And as I said before, I am not a big baklava fan in the first place so I will probably use my other opportunities to expand my repertoire.

Baklava

Phyllo Dough
Makes 18 sheets for 9x9 pan

1 1/3 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup less 1 tablespoon water, plus more if needed
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1/2 teaspoon cider vinegar

In the bowl of your stand mixer combine the flour and salt. Mix with paddle attachment.

Combine water, oil, and vinegar in a small bowl. Add water and oil mixture to flour with mixer on low speed. Mix until you get a soft dough. (If it appears dry, add a little more water.)

Change to the dough hook and let knead approximately 10 minutes. (20 minutes if you are kneading by hand)

Remove the dough from the mixer and continue to knead for 2 more minutes. Pick up the dough and throw it down hard on the counter a few times during the kneading process.

Shape the dough into a ball and lightly cover it with oil. Wrap tightly in plastic wrap and let sit 30-90 minutes (longer is best).

Unwrap your dough and divide into chunks slightly larger than a golf ball. Keep the rest of the dough covered so it doesn't dry out.

On a heavily floured surface, roll out each chunk of dough until it is as thin as you can get it. Continue adding flour (you can't over flour), and it's okay if you get rips in the dough since you just need the top piece to be perfect.

When you get the dough as thin as you can, pick it up and place it on a well floured surface. I would suggest putting wax paper between layers if you don't want the edges to stick when you cut to size.

Trim phyllo sheets to fit in your pan. Set aside.

****
Filling
1 cup hazelnut-chocolate spread (such as Nutella) 1/2 cup toasted hazelnuts, coarsely chopped
1/2 cup roasted pistachios, coarsely chopped
1/3 cup blanched toasted almonds, coarsely chopped
1/3 cup toasted walnuts, coarsely chopped
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup melted butter

Preheat oven to 350°.

Place hazelnut-chocolate spread in a microwave-safe bowl; microwave at HIGH for 30 seconds or until melted. Combine hazelnuts and next 5 ingredients (through salt).

Brush 9x9 baking pan with melted butter. Repeat procedure with 5 phyllo sheets and butter. Drizzle about 1/3 cup melted hazelnut-chocolate spread over phyllo. Sprinkle evenly with one-third of nut mixture (about 1/2 cup). Repeat procedure twice with 4 sheets of phyllo, butter, hazelnut-chocolate spread, and nut mixture. Top last layer of nut mixture with remaining 5 sheets phyllo, each lightly brushed with butter. Press gently into pan. Tuck in all the edges to give it a nice appearance.

With a sharp knife cut baklava into desired shapes and number of pieces. (If you can't cut all the way through you will be able to cut it later.) A 9x9 cuts into 30 pieces nicely. Brush top layer generously with butter making sure to cover the entire area and every edge.

**Make syrup while baklava is baking**

Bake at 350° for about 30 minutes; remove from oven and cut again all the way through. Continue baking until golden brown (for me it was about 5 more minutes, for some about 30 minutes). Remove from oven.
Drizzle honey mixture over baklava. Cool in pan on a wire rack. Cover; store at room temperature.

****
Syrup
3/4 cup honey
1/2 cup water
1 (3-inch) cinnamon stick

Combine the first 3 ingredients in a medium saucepan over low heat; stir until honey dissolves. Increase heat to medium; cook, without stirring, until a candy thermometer registers 230° (about 10 minutes). Remove from heat; keep warm. Discard cinnamon stick.

Macaroni Salad

2011-06-23T08:28:00.000-07:00

Summertime and sunny days always makes me long for a picnic. And who doesn't like macaroni salad at a picnic? This particular recipe has been with me for a long, long time. I have tried a few others over the years but this is always the one I come back to because it reminds me of all those years of enjoying macaroni salad as a kid. It has a subtle taste and I love the combination of the eggs, mayonnaise, and olives and the crunch of the pickles. Enjoy!

Macaroni Salad
Makes about 10-12 servings

12 ounces elbow macaroni
4 eggs
4 medium-sized dill pickles, diced
black olives, chopped
mayonnaise

Cook and drain macaroni according to package directions. Rinse with cool water.

Cook eggs until hard-boiled. Cool, peel, and chop.

Stir cooked macaroni, hard-boiled eggs, pickles, and black olives in a large bowl. Add enough mayonnaise to make the noodles moist. Refrigerate until ready to serve.

Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins

2011-06-19T13:05:00.000-07:00

Who would have ever thought that a slight change in baking and the addition of a crumb topping could make the same muffin batter look so completely different. I was so surprised when the second batch of muffins came out looking so golden brown with a crunchy top. I began to think of the pale ones as representing the great Pacific Northwest where most are a pasty white, and the darker ones as representing Southern California where many are golden brown and crispy.

This recipe is actually similar to a banana bread recipe and it makes muffins that are very dense. You could weigh these puppies on a scale and they would definitely register. For the first batch of muffins, I baked them in cupcake liners and I chose to bake them naked with no crumb topping. They tasted great, like a slice of chocolate chip banana bread in muffin form. For the second batch I ran out of cupcake liners so I just baked them right in the muffin pan and I added the crumb topping. Holy cow! These were incredible. The naked ones make a great healthier muffin but if you want something with pizazz then the crumb topping is the way to go. Enjoy!

Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins
Makes about one dozen muffins

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2/3 cups sugar
1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup mashed ripe bananas (about 2 large)
1 large egg
1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted
1/4 cup milk
3/4 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

Crumb Topping (optional):
4 tablespoons flour
1 tablespoon butter, melted
1/4 cup packed brown sugar

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Prepare your muffin pan (either line with liners or spray with oil).

Mix flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt in a large bowl.

Mix mashed bananas, egg, melted butter, and milk in a medium bowl. Stir banana mixture into dry ingredients just until blended (do not over mix). Stir in chocolate chips.

Optional Topping:
Mix ingredients together and crumble on top of muffins before cooking. Just a little bit does it. Use judgment as to how wet or dry you want the crumbly top. More wet, less flour; drier crumbs, more flour.

Divide batter evenly among prepared muffin cups, filling each about 3/4 full. Bake 25-30 minutes or until tops are golden brown and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Brownie Trifle

2011-06-16T13:04:00.000-07:00

Doesn't this dessert look amazing! I mean, if you are into brownies and chocolate pudding and whipped topping and strawberries and more chocolate that is. It tastes every bit as good as it looks! Not only that but it is so easy to make and yet it looks like you fussed and fretted for hours. Okay, maybe not hours, but it really is an easy dessert to throw together. Enjoy!

Brownie Trifle
Source: Wilton Brownie Fun!

1 box of brownie mix
eggs, water, and oil to prepare mix
1 package (5.1 oz) chocolate instant pudding mix
2 cups cold milk
6 cups thawed frozen whipped topping, divided
4 cups sliced fresh strawberries
1/2 cup chopped chocolate candy bars

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray pan with vegetable spray. (Use an 8" or 9" square pan unless your mix is for a 9x13 pan size.)

In large bowl, prepare brownie mix following package instructions. Spread into bottom of prepared pan. Bake 20-25 minutes; set aside to cool completely. Cut into bite-size pieces.

In large bowl, prepare pudding mix according to package instructions using only 2 cups of milk. Chill 5-10 minutes or until slightly thickened. Gently fold in 2 cups of whipped topping.

In 3-quart trifle or other clear bowl, place 1/2 the brownie pieces. Top with 1/2 of the pudding mixture, 1/2 of the remaining whipped topping, and 1/2 of the sliced strawberries. Repeat layers with remaining ingredients. Sprinkle with chopped chocolate pieces.

Refrigerate at least 1 hour before serving.

Makes about 12 servings

Southern-Style Baked Beans

2011-06-13T13:04:00.000-07:00

We had a few friends over and come dinner time we ended up grilling burgers. Since burgers, salad, and dessert were already covered I thought I would rustle up a traditional grilling side dish. After reading various reviews for these particular beans I figured I should probably give them a shot. I mean, they are found on a post titled "Best Baked Beans Ever" so I kind of figured I couldn't go wrong. Mind you, I really have nothing to compare them with. I usually just use a can opener to open my baked beans and then I heat them over the stove or if in a hurry zap them in the microwave.

The only downfall is that I really was looking for something that was a bit more homemade (ie. doesn't use canned pork and beans as the base), but after checking out quite a few recipes it sounds like that is what gives you the best southern-style baked beans. So, I guess I'll go with it and leave the details to the experts (ie. those who live in the south). Enjoy!

*Side Note - I cut this recipe in half to feed 6 adults and 4 young kids with a serving leftover. I used my 8x8 pan and it worked fine.*

Southern-Style Baked Beans
Source: The Pioneer Woman using the recipe by Pam Anderson

8 slices bacon, halved
1 medium onion, diced fine
1/2 medium green pepper, diced fine
3 large cans (28 ounces each) pork and beans
3/4 cup barbecue sauce
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup distilled or cider vinegar
2 teaspoons dry mustard or 2 tablespoons Dijon

Adjust oven rack to lower-middle position and heat oven to 325 degrees.

Fry bacon in large, deep sauté pan skillet until bacon has partially cooked and released about 1/4 cup drippings. (Don't cook all the way, you want it to still have some room to get crisp in the oven.) Remove bacon from pan and drain on paper towels. Add onions and peppers to drippings in pan and sauté until tender, about 5 minutes. Add beans and remaining ingredients bring to a simmer. (If skillet is not large enough, add beans and heat to a simmer then transfer to a large bowl and stir in remaining ingredients).

Pour flavored beans into a greased 13-by 9-inch (or similar size) ovenproof pan. Top with bacon, then bake until beans are bubbly and sauce is the consistency of pancake syrup, about 2 hours. Let stand to thicken slightly and serve.

Serves up to 18 people

Raspberry Muffins

2011-06-10T08:40:00.000-07:00

My little family of three had an early morning trip home from visiting my mom so in order to get out the door sooner I decided to make muffins that we could snack on in the car. I wanted to try a new muffin recipe and since I wasn't at home I knew it would need to be pretty simple, not requiring a bunch of special tools or ingredients.

I typed "best muffin recipe ever" into goog.le and this was the first one that came up. Just looking at the ingredients and directions it seemed easy enough. I read through many of the reviews and made a few adaptations to the recipe based on the comments. My husband chose the fruit for our muffins when he stopped by the store for me on the way back to my mom's from running errands and I was pleased that he chose to pick up raspberries (it was between blueberries, strawberries, or raspberries).

Yum! These muffins were so delicious! I really enjoyed the flavor of the raspberries and the moistness and lightness of the muffins. I will definitely be making these again, most likely trying out a different type of fruit the next time. Our 4 year old was very disappointed when I told him he couldn't have anymore as he was stuffing his third muffin in his mouth! Enjoy!

Raspberry Muffins
Source: Adapted from All Recipes

2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 cup milk
1/4 cup butter, melted
1 cup raspberries, individual raspberries cut in half

Preheat oven to 425 degrees F. Prepare muffin pan.

Stir flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, and sugar together. Make a well in the center.

Beat eggs with a fork. Stir in milk and melted butter. Pour into well in flour mixture. Mix quickly and lightly with a fork until moist. Gently stir in the raspberries so you don't smash them.

Divide batter evenly between the prepared muffin cups. Turn oven down to 400 degrees F before baking.

Bake for 25 minutes or until golden.

Mini Chocolate Chip Cheesecake

2011-06-06T13:01:00.000-07:00

We don't typically celebrate half birthdays around here but on June 3rd we decided we would make an exception to the rule. You see, that was the day our little guy turned 4 1/2 years old and in the week before this momentous occasion we received our first foster care placement. While this has been a good thing it has also come with some adjusting. And since he has done such a great job with learning how to share his toys as well as his mom and dad we decided that we wanted to mark the date with something special just for him.

He was pretty excited! While you might not think a 4 year old palate would be refined enough for cheesecake you would be mistaken. This boy knows his cheesecake. I think this may be the first one I've actually baked since he was old enough to eat it, but he has eaten it elsewhere and it is a dessert that has stuck in his mind like glue!

While this is not my favorite cheesecake recipe, I like this particular one because it goes with our mini cheesecake pans and it is so easy to cut it in half and make only one little mini that is perfect (maybe still a bit much) for our little family. It is a bit on the sweet side for me, if you can imagine that, but I manage to muscle some down every time. Enjoy!

Mini Chocolate Chip Cheesecake
Makes one mini (5.5"/2 cup) cheesecake

Crust:
1/2 cup graham crackers, crushed
1 1/2 tablespoons sugar
1 1/2 tablespoons butter, melted

Filling:
12 ounces cream cheese, softened
1/4 cup + 1/8 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
2 medium eggs
4 tablespoons chocolate chips (optional)

Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Brush bottom and sides of mini springform pan with a bit of melted butter. Chill in the freezer until ready to use.

In a small bowl using a fork, mix crushed graham cracker, 1 1/2 tablespoons of sugar, and butter. Press onto the bottom of springform pan. Bake at 300 degrees for 5 minutes. Set aside.

Using a mixer, mix cream cheese, sugar, and vanilla. Add eggs one at a time on low speed until blended. Add chocolate chips or any other mix-in at this time. Pour batter over the crust. Place pan on cookie sheet.

Bake at 300 degrees for 40-45 minutes or until centers are almost set. Cool before removing from ring of pan. Refrigerate for 4 hours or overnight.

**You can add any topping you would like. We chose to add fresh raspberries and a bit of chocolate syrup to this one.**

Chocolate Fondue

2011-06-02T08:39:00.000-07:00

A post on a food blog that doesn't have much cooking or baking involved. Hmmmmm . . . sounds pretty good if you ask me.We love fondue for dessert! We like fondue for dinner as well, but we haven't ventured to make that at home yet and it's a bit too spendy to eat it out very often. The place where we typically have our dessert brings out a plate with pieces of pineapple, strawberry, banana, pound cake, brownie, marshmallow, and cheesecake on it. I know, over the top, right. You chose milk, dark, or white chocolate (if you eat dinner there you can pick from many more flavors) and you get to dipping. It is soooo good!

Well, one night a few weeks ago my husband and I were hanging out after our son went to bed and I suddenly got the brilliant idea of using the chocolate bar in our cupboard for a little impromptu fondue. We happened to have some pineapple (although it was pretty ripe by then), strawberries, a banana, and some pretzels. No cheesecake, pound cake, or brownie but who would have all three of those sitting around their house at the same time anyway. Not me, otherwise I'd be in some serious trouble.

There really isn't a recipe per say. I just melted the chocolate in my fondue pot, cut up some fruits and grabbed some pretzels and got to dipping. I will say that I added in a bit (and I mean a tiny bit) of a chocolate bar with chili and that was a mistake for me. Oh my goodness, the fact that it was heated it made it so much hotter and the taste of the chili totally overran the chocolate. I'm all about the chocolate. I would not do that again. I guess you live and learn. Enjoy!

Don't you love the 1970's electric fondue pot! My friend picked this up for me

at a garage sale for less than $2 when she heard how much I liked dessert fondue.

Glorious, glorious chocolate!

Split Pea Soup with Ham

2011-05-30T20:39:00.000-07:00

Upon preparing to photograph this glorious bowl of soup I asked my husband what he thought would make it look its best. His reply, "There's nothing you can do. No matter what it is going to look like baby poop." All right. Thanks for that piece of insight.

I know that's just what you wanted to read at the beginning of a post on a food blog, but you know that's probably what you are thinking or will be thinking the more you study the picture. It really was a good bowl of soup. A bit bland, as all split pea soups are, but very hearty. And just so you know, my husband had two bowls of this soup that he referred to in the above manner, so there. Enjoy!

Split Pea Soup
2 quarts of water
2 cups of green split peas
1 stalk celery, chopped
1 large carrot, chopped
1 small onion, chopped
1/4 teaspoon ground thyme
1 pinch cayenne pepper
1 bay leaf
1/2 pound of ham (shaved or cubed)
salt and pepper

Fill stock pot with 2 quarts of water; add green split peas, celery, carrot, onion, thyme, cayenne pepper, bay leaf, and ham. Over high heat, bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium (or a simmer) and boil slowly until peas are tender (at least 20 minutes). Strain through a fine sieve or puree in your blender.

White Chocolate Cupcakes with Strawberry Cream Cheese Frosting

2011-05-26T08:38:00.000-07:00

Along with the raspberry checkerboard cake I made for our MOPS meeting, I also whipped up a batch of these beauties for the thank you luncheon for our MOPPETS helpers. Yes, I know, they really aren't beauties, at least not when you compare them to the ones I saw that sparked my desire to bake them. But you win some and you lose some, right?

What I loved about these cupcakes was that they don't use a box mix (not that I'm against box mixes, I just wanted something that said I put a little more effort into their thank you) but they are super simple to make. The white chocolate cupcakes went off without a hitch. The frosting. however, is another story.

I made an entire batch of strawberry cream cheese frosting and an entire batch of white chocolate cream cheese frosting. You can see from the title of the post which one dominated the cupcakes and which one I will be making again. Don't get me wrong, the white chocolate frosting was heavenly but it couldn't stand up to the strawberry cream cheese. I even followed the suggestion of putting both frosting flavors in separate baggies and then putting both bags into a pastry bag so that they squeezed out simultaneously without mingling in the bag. Totally did not work for me. The strawberry, probably because it was a bit wetter and therefore not so dense, squeezed out easily while the white chocolate didn't make its appearance (no matter how much I squeezed) until the last few cupcakes.

Whichever frosting you chose, both will compliment the white chocolate cupcakes well. Enjoy!

Side Note: I had A LOT of leftover frosting. I was disappointed that I added 7 cups of powdered sugar and I still didn't have a stiff frosting that could stand up during piping. I would definitely only make half of a batch of frosting next time and not worry about the piping consistency so much.

White Chocolate Cupcakes with Strawberry Cream Cheese Frosting
Sources: Fake Ginger from Baking Bites

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup butter, softened
3/4 cup sugar
2 large eggs
4 ounces white chocolate, chopped
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup plus 1 tablespoon milk

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Line muffin pans with cupcake liners.

In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder and salt. Set aside.

In a small, microwave-safe bowl, melt the chopped white chocolate by heating it in 30 second intervals in the microwave. Stir well with a fork between each interval and cook only until the chocolate is smooth when stirred.

In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugar until light. Beat in eggs one at a time, followed by melted white chocolate and vanilla extract. Working in two or three additions, alternate adding in some of the milk and some of the flour mixture, ending with a final addition of flour. Mix until just incorporated and no streaks of flour remain.

Divide batter evenly into prepared muffin cups. Bake for 20-23 minutes until a tester comes out clean and the tops spring back when lightly pressed with a fingertip. Cool completely before frosting.

Strawberry Cream Cheese Frosting
4 ounces cream cheese, softened
1/4 cup butter, softened
3/4 cup strawberries, food processed or blended
1/4 teaspoon vanilla
7 cups powdered sugar

Using a stand mixer, combine cream cheese and butter until fluffy. Add mashed strawberries and vanilla and mix until combined. Add powdered sugar 1 cup at a time until it reaches piping consistency.

Dipped Shortbread

2011-05-22T08:36:00.000-07:00

Another item crossed off my top 100 list! Sugar cookies are usually my thing but I decided to branch out and try a dipped shortbread. I'm so glad I did!

I chose a recipe from the Barefoot Contessa. Her thick, rectangular shortbread cookies drizzled with chocolate looked so appealing that I knew it was the one I wanted to try for my first shortbread recipe.

I made very few changes to the recipe. The ingredient list is the same except for the addition of 3 ounces of white chocolate along with the semi-sweet chocolate. The only change I made in the process of making them was to roll the shortbread dough to a sugar cookie thickness and to cut with a cookie cutter. Personally, I think that they could be cut even smaller and drizzled lightly with chocolate over the entire surface. Small, rich, chocolatey, good. Enjoy!

Dipped Shortbread
Source: Slightly modified from the Food Network

3/4 pound unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 cup sugar, plus extra for sprinkling
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
3 ounces semi-sweet chocolate, finely chopped
3 ounces white chocolate, finely chopped

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, mix together the butter and 1 cup of sugar until they are just combined. Add the vanilla.

In a medium bowl, sift together the flour and salt, then add them to the butter and sugar mixture. Mix on low speed until the dough starts to come together. Dump onto a surface dusted with flour and shape into a flat disk. Wrap in plastic and chill for 30 minutes.

Roll the dough and cut with a cookie cutter. Place the cookies on an ungreased baking sheet and sprinkle with sugar. Bake for about 10 minutes, until the edges begin to brown. Allow to cool to room temperature.

When the cookies are cool, place them on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Put 3 ounces of the semi-sweet chocolate in a glass bowl and microwave on high power for 30 seconds. Stir with a wooden spoon. Continue to heat and stir in 30-second increments until the chocolate is just melted. Repeat the steps with the white chocolate. Allow them to sit at room temperature, stirring often, until completely smooth. Stir vigorously until the chocolate is smooth and slightly cooled; stirring makes it glossier.

Drizzle 1/2 of each cookie with just enough chocolate to coat it.

Checkerboard Cake

2011-05-18T20:34:00.000-07:00

The beauty of this cake is that it looks simple and unassuming, yet it is not until you slice into the layers that you get a peek into the incredible design that is awaiting you. I really had a hard time deciding on the particular recipe to use for my first checkerboard cake. So many of the recipes out there (even the one that came with my pan set) are for a chocolate and yellow checkerboard cake. While I am perfectly okay with chocolate and yellow cake together (it is one of my favorite flavor combos for cake and frosting) I wanted something a bit different and a bit more summery. This particular checkerboard cake was going to our end of the year MOPS bash and I wanted it to reflect the summer theme we had chosen.

What a challenge finding a recipe though and feeling confident with it. I read so many reviews of checkerboard cake recipes that had some touting it as the best thing on earth and then others saying it was beautiful but the driest cake they had ever eaten. Couldn't there be a happy medium? Couldn't there be a cake that tastes great, is moist, and looks beautiful? Sometimes you just don't know until it comes to show time.

I had my doubts that this cake was going to turn out right from the beginning. The very first step is to cook down the frozen raspberries and raspberry syrup into a thick-ish syrup. I always doubt myself when it comes to the thickness of syrup necessary for my recipes. That and I really have little patience for waiting for raspberries (or any fruit) to break down and thicken up over the stove top. I guess it would help it I didn't wait until late in the evening before starting the recipe. I had good intentions of doing this step well before I needed to mix and bake the cake but as usual I let time get away from me. So, back to the syrup. It took a while for the raspberries to break down. Once I had enough of waiting I ran the sauce through a sieve to separate out the sauce and the seeds. It was supposed to yield me one cup of syrup. The fact that I had two cups of syrup meant that I hadn't broken it down near enough. So back on the stove top it went. This time I boiled and boiled and boiled the syrup until it looked like it was close to 1 cup. Voila! It measured at exactly one cup. However, it was now after 10 o'clock at night and there was no way I wanted to mix a cake I had never made before that required some technical components and bake it before bed. Instead I set my alarm for EARLY in the morning to finish.

Early the next morning I set out to mixing up the batters. It was a surprisingly easy process. The basic batter was the same, it was then divided in half (which I used my scale to do). To one half I added milk and 2 cups of the flour, to the other half I added the raspberry syrup and the other 2 cups of flour. I could tell that the batters were very different as far as texture was concerned. When I got them in the pan they were insanely different. This was the second time that I thought this cake was doomed. You can see the variations in texture between the pink and white circles even after the cake was done baking.

Since I was short on time I stuck them in the freezer to cool completely. After they were cool I added a thin layer of raspberry jam to one of the pink layers and then the white layer. I decided not to shave the tops to even the layers so I ended up stacking the bottom two layers top to top. Meanwhile I whipped up the white chocolate frosting. This was the third time that I thought this cake was doomed. It seemed as though the frosting was going to be way too thin but it ended up holding its form nicely.

And now, for the verdict. This was an awesome cake! It met all the criteria for a checkerboard cake. It was beautiful on the outside and had perfect layers on the inside. It was moist and each taste was distinct, yet they went together perfectly. Enjoy!

(Side Note: I followed the recipe exactly, minus the red food coloring. I had a lot of leftover frosting so I think next time I might only make a half of a batch of frosting.)

(This thin slice was all that was left after our MOPS meeting!

I'm glad I had it so I could snap a picture of it, but it isn't the most appealing piece.)

Raspberry Checkerboard Cake with White Chocolate Frosting
Source: Chefs Catalog

Cake:
2 - 12 ounce packages of sweetened frozen raspberries
1 cup raspberry syrup, such as Torani
4 cups cake flour
3 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
2 cups sugar
4 eggs
1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
1 cup whole milk

Frosting:
1/2 cup seedless raspberry jam
1 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
2 - 8 ounce packages cream cheese, at room temperature
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
12 ounces white chocolate, melted and cooled to room temperature
1 cup powdered sugar
a few fresh raspberries for garnish

Tips: Spread the jam between layers very lightly to preserve the checkerboard effect. Adding about 5 drops of red gel food coloring to the raspberry syrup will deepen the red hue. (I didn't add any coloring.)

Preheat oven to 325 F.

Lightly coat the cake pans with cooking spray and dust with flour. Set aside.In a medium saucepan over moderate heat, combine frozen raspberries and raspberry syrup. Bring to a simmer, reduce heat to low and continue cooking until liquid reduces by two-thirds.

Remove from heat and strain, pressing on the raspberries to release all the juices. There should be approximately 1 cup. Dispose of the raspberry pulp or reserve for another use. Add the food coloring, if using.

If there is more than 1 cup of juice, put in a small saucepan over medium heat and reduce to 1 cup; cool to room temperature. If there is less than 1 cup, add enough water to equal 1 cup.

In a medium bowl, sift together cake flour, baking powder and salt; set aside.

In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in the vanilla extract.

Divide the batter in half. To one half of the batter, beat in the 2 cups of the flour mixture alternately with the milk to the batter, beating after each addition until smooth. To the remaining batter, beat in the remaining flour mixture alternately with the raspberry syrup to the batter until smooth.

Place checkerboard divider into one prepared pan. Then spoon in the two batters (red and plain) as described in "How to use your Checkerboard Cake Set."

Place all 3 pans in oven at same time. Rotate pans halfway through baking. Bake approximately 20 to 25 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Let the cakes rest in the pans, set on a rack, for 10 minutes. Place a cooling rack on top of each cake, invert the cake and remove the pan. Cool completely.

Using no more than 1/4 cup of jam, frost a very thin layer on top of one of the white cakes and on the raspberry cake.

In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream the butter and cream cheese on high speed until light and fluffy, approximately 5 minutes. Beat in the almond extract. Reduce the speed to low and carefully drizzle the chocolate into the cream cheese. Increase the speed to high and beat until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Add powdered sugar and beat until well incorporated.

Spread a thin layer of frosting on the jam-covered white cake. Place the raspberry cake on top of this cake and spread a thin layer of frosting on top. Place the last white cake on top. Frost the sides and top of the checkerboard cake. Refrigerate until ready to serve.

Strawberry Scones

2011-05-15T18:06:00.000-07:00

Strawberries don't seem to last long, do they? I had about 3 cups of diced up strawberries that I knew I couldn't use before they went bad so I started searching for a scone recipe. I came across a few but settled on this one in the end.

I ended up making two batches, one for my mom and one for my family. I baked half of my mom's batch and froze the other half. My family's I just put right into the freezer and didn't pull them out until a few months later. I initially took them out for breakfast the next morning but I was craving some fresh baked goods and it was too late in the evening so I didn't want to start from scratch. Of the six I baked for breakfast the next morning we ended up eating three that night. The next morning I decided to spruce them up with a bit of icing.

Strawberry Scones
Source: Confessions of a Tart

1 cup strawberries (cut into bite-sized pieces)
3 tablespoons granulated sugar + extra for sprinkling
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
6 tablespoons butter, in cubes, slightly softened
2/3 cup half-and-half or cream or cold buttermilk

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Lightly grease a cookie sheet.

Sprinkle strawberries with 1/2 tablespoon sugar; set aside. Combine remaining sugar with flour, baking powder and salt. Cut in butter using a pastry cutter (you may want to use your fingers to be sure butter is evenly mixed into flour). Stir in strawberries; then add cream/half-and-half/buttermilk all at once. Use spatula to gently stir dough until it holds together.

Turn onto a lightly floured surface and knead a few times to incorporate dry ingredients. Be gentle so you don't break up the berries and don't overwork the dough. Sprinkle dough with flour if it gets sticky.

Form the dough into a circle 3/4 inch thick. If any berries peek out, push them into dough. Cut circle into 6-8 wedges, then transfer wedges to the cookie sheet, leaving at least 1/2 inch of space between them. Bake 15 minutes.

Sprinkle with sugar and bake 5-10 more minutes or until the tops are beginning to brown and spring back when you push them (keep checking on them - you do not want dry scones!).

* You can add icing by mixing powdered sugar and water to the desired thickness.

Makes about 8 scones

Granola Bars (Fig, Date, and Almond)

2011-05-03T17:23:00.000-07:00

Homemade granola bars! Doesn’t the idea sound great? I love a good granola bar but I find that I am no longer into the ones that I used to enjoy as a kid. Now I want something a bit hearty, and while I like a bit of sweet added to it I don’t crave something that is over the top sugar.

When I came across a post on homemade granola bars I was very excited! Not only did she give a recipe for the particular granola bars that she made, but she also gave the necessary components for a granola bar so that you could mix and match any number of ingredients and still have a granola bar for the finished product.

For my first foray into the homemade granola bar arena I chose to use her basic recipe but I am really looking forward to experimenting with other flavor combinations. My husband and son devoured them but I have to admit that my first bite was a little disappointing. I was anticipating these granola bars to be like the ones I had always eaten that were pre-packaged, but once you get past the fact that they are not dry, but are moist and chewy and fresh you really won’t mind that you didn’t take it out of a package. Add to that the fact that you can make just about any flavor you want and that you have endless possibilities waiting for you. Enjoy!

Granola Bars (Fig, Date, and Almond)

Source: Brown-Eyed Baker

1 cup unsweetened applesauce
1/3 + ¼ cup honey
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
¾ teaspoon vanilla extract
2½ cups rolled oats
1 cup chopped almonds
1/3 cup chopped dried figs
1/3 cup chopped dried dates
1/3 cup raisins

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Line an 8×8-inch baking pan with parchment paper.
In a large bowl, whisk together the honey, applesauce, cinnamon and vanilla extract. Stir in the oats, making sure that it is evenly mixed and all of the oats are moistened. Mix in the almonds, figs, dates and raisins.

Turn the mixture out into the baking pan and press into the pan, making sure it is evenly distributed and tightly packed.

Bake for 25 minutes. Remove from the oven and cool in the freezer until the bars are firm, at least 1 hour. Remove from the pan and cut into bars. Store in an airtight container for up to 1 week.

Peeps S'Mores

2011-04-30T09:36:00.000-07:00

Yes, that is a photo of the finished product! If you’ve ever had a S’more you know that they traditionally consist of graham crackers, a piece of a chocolate bar, and a toasted marshmallow or two. I have heard of others who change up an ingredient or two but not me. I am a traditionalist when it comes to S’mores. It has to be one whole graham cracker, ¼ of a Hershey chocolate bar, and two toasted marshmallows. That has always been my recipe for S’mores. That is until now.

My friend (thanks, Sheila!) linked to a posting of someone who made S’mores using a Peeps chick in place of the marshmallows. Since we happen to be out camping while the Peeps are available I thought this would be a great opportunity to try it out.

Doesn’t it look like the chick is staring at me begging me not to put him in my S’more?

He wasn’t so lucky, as you can see. After his toasting he almost looks a bit more like a rubber ducky, huh. I guess the caramelizing of his sugar gave him that look. And the poor guys’ eyes are gone and his beak is a toasty brown.

Have I become a convert of Peeps S’mores? Nope, not a chance. I found that while they were certainly the same sugary sweet as a traditional S’more, the marshmallow peep either didn’t get hot enough or wasn’t big enough to even start melting the chocolate bar. And I have to say I love my chocolate bar oozing out of the graham cracker along with the toasted marshmallow. So, it was fun for a change of pace but we’ll be sticking with the traditional S’more around this campsite. Enjoy!

Daring Bakers - Maple Mousse in an Edible Container

2011-04-27T00:00:00.000-07:00

The April 2011 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Evelyne of the blog Cheap Ethnic Eatz. Evelyne chose to challenge everyone to make a maple mousse in an edible container. Prizes are being awarded to the most creative edible container and filling, so vote on your favorite from April 27th to May 27th at http://thedaringkitchen.com!

I was excited to take on the Daring Bakers challenge this month. For a very, very long time I have wanted to make an edible cookie bowl. In fact, I had it on my list of my top 100 things to bake and have looked longingly at a certain recipe card in my notebook for many years. I never really had a reason to make one up to this point so it was great to have an excuse.

The first one I made went together beautifully and then as I was transferring it from the pan to the cooling rack, perched precariously on two cookie spatulas, it totally fell apart on my counter. I had an inkling of what was coming but my poor husband, who I had just asked to help, was totally bewildered and thought I might blame him for the mishap. What can a girl do except get right to work on another one with the leftover dough.

While forming the second cookie bowl, I nibbled on the pieces from the first. I only wish it had tasted as good as all my good thoughts about it over those many years that I had looked longingly at the recipe. It was pretty blah. My only hope was that it would improve once the mousse was in the bowl.

Other Daring Baker challenges have given me the opportunity to make mousse and while I don’t make it often I wasn’t nervous about making it. I was curious as to the taste, though. I love a good maple bar (a doughnut with maple frosting) and I enjoy a bit of pure maple syrup on my pancakes and waffles, but the thought of a whole serving of maple mousse had me a bit perplexed as to how it was going to taste.

The mousse went together nicely. There were no mishaps with the preparation of this item and I was really looking forward to tasting the finished product. And oh my goodness was it rich! One spoonful was enough for me. Of course, with that first tasting I admit to eating more than one spoonful but it was only because I wanted to get all the crispy pieces of ham eaten up. After that though, I was able to leave the mousse in the fridge and just take a spoonful every now and then and feel content.

One thing that was a bit off for me was the temperature. When tasting my first serving I hadn’t left it in the fridge very long so it was set up but it wasn’t really cool. I expected then that when I had subsequent servings, after sitting in the fridge even a few days later, the mousse would be cold. However, every bite I took seemed like it was the same temperature as when I first put it in. Strange, not sure what that was all about. But it did make me think that maybe I will look for some maple ice cream flavors to try since I really enjoyed the maple flavor but was looking for something cool.

By the way, some Daring Bakers added bacon into the mix. I thought I would also cook up some bacon to sprinkle on the top, but wouldn’t you know that the day I completed the challenge I had no bacon in my fridge. I did have a few pieces of shaved ham so I decided to crisp those up and crumble them on top. It probably was not as enjoyable as bacon would have been, but it did give it some nice crunch in every bite. Enjoy!

Edible Cookie Bowl Recipe

1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/4 cup blanched, slivered almonds, finely ground
1/2 teaspoon salt
4 tablespoons butter, softened
2/3 cup sugar
1 egg
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Cover the outside of a loaf pan with foil. Spray with vegetable cooking spray.

In a medium bowl, combine flour, cocoa powder, almonds, and salt. In a large bowl, using an electric mixer set on medium, beat butter, sugar, egg, and vanilla until light and fluffy. Add flour mixture; beat until a dough forms, about 2 minutes.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Roll dough out to 1/8-inch thickness. Using a 1 1/2-inch cookie cutter with scalloped edges, cut out shapes.

Cover pan with cutouts, overlapping and pressing them slightly.

Bake cookie bowl until edges are firm, about 15 minutes. Transfer pan to a wire rack and cool completely.

To remove the cookie bowl, carefully lift it off the foil-lined pan. Remove foil.

Maple Mousse
1 cup pure maple syrup (not maple-flavoured syrup)
4 large egg yolks
1 tablespoon unflavored gelatin
1 1/2 cups whipping cream (35% fat content)

Bring maple syrup to a boil then remove from heat.

In a large bowl, whisk egg yolks and pour a little bit of the maple syrup in while whisking (this is to temper your egg yolks so they don’t curdle). Add warmed egg yolks to hot maple syrup until well mixed.

Measure 1/4 cup of whipping cream in a bowl and sprinkle it with the gelatin. Let it rest for 5 minutes. Place the bowl in a microwave for 45 seconds (microwave for 10 seconds at a time and check it in between) or place the bowl in a pan of barely simmering water, stir to ensure the gelatin has completely dissolved.

Whisk the gelatin/whipping cream mixture into the maple syrup mixture and set aside.

Whisk occasionally for approximately an hour or until the mixture has the consistency of an unbeaten raw egg white.

Whip the remaining cream. Stir 1/4 of the whipped cream into the maple syrup mixture. Fold in the remaining cream and refrigerate for at least an hour. Remove from the fridge and divide equally among your edible containers.

Chicken Tortellini Soup

2011-04-23T14:06:00.000-07:00

I have had this soup recipe in my recipe notebook for years and yet this is the first time I have ever made it. At my first job I participated in a Friday lunch bunch which entailed signing up for one Friday during the school year and preparing soup for the 25 to 30 people in the group. That one day was a bit of work, but not having to bring my lunch every Friday for the rest of the year made it all worthwhile!

One year someone had a brilliant idea to make a cookbook of all the soup recipes that we brought in for lunch. This recipe was one of those submitted and I have to say that I don’t know why I waited for so long to make it. My only excuse is that I don’t make soup all that often and when I find a recipe I usually make it exclusively. This soup will now be added to that repertoire because it tastes really great and is easy to make. Enjoy!

Chicken Tortellini Soup
1 pound chicken, cut into 1-inch cubes
46 ounces chicken broth
1 cup carrots, sliced
1/2 cup onion, chopped
1/2 cup celery, sliced
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
1/4 teaspoon pepper

1 cup dried cheese-filled tortellini, uncooked
1 bay leaf
2 tablespoons snipped parsley

Cook chicken over medium heat 5-7 minutes until no longer pink. Add remaining ingredients, except parsley. Bring to a boil over medium heat. Cover; reduce heat.

Simmer over medium-low heat 20 minutes or until pasta is tender. Sprinkle with parsley before serving.

Makes 6 servings

Scotcharoos

2011-04-18T11:25:00.000-07:00

“How many ways can you make rice krispy treats?” I remember thinking this when I put rice krispy treats on my top 100 things list. My reply to myself, “There can’t be that many.” Apparently I was wrong.

I have made rice krispy treats many times over the years that I have been cooking and baking. These always used to be a staple in our food items when we went camping, and I now prepare them at the beginning of the month for our youth group’s birthday celebration. However, in all those preparations I have rarely varied the ingredients. Really, why try to improve on an already good thing? I have added a few ingredients here and there, like chocolate chips and chopped up chocolate candies. But this batch of scotcharoos was definitely a variant of rice krispy treats.

I originally thought you just added butterscotch chips to the mix, but I was mistaken. Not only do you add butterscotch chips, but you also add peanut butter and there are none of the traditional marshmallows. The original recipe that I found I thought used way too much sugar so I actually didn’t add any to the batch. I guess if you like your scotcharoos super sweet you may want to track down the original recipe. I thought it was perfect. Enjoy!

Scotcharoos

Source: Adapted from RiceKrispies.com

1 cup light corn syrup

1 cup peanut butter

6 cups crispy rice cereal

1 cup semi-sweet chocolate morsels

1 cup butterscotch chips

Place corn syrup into a 3-quart saucepan. Cook over medium heat, stirring frequently, until it begins to boil. Remove from heat. Stir in peanut butter. Mix well. Add crispy rice cereal. Stir until well coated. Press mixture into 13 x 9 x 2-inch pan coated with cooking spray. Set aside.

Melt chocolate and butterscotch chips together in 1-quart saucepan over low heat, stirring constantly. Spread evenly over cereal mixture. Let stand until firm. Cut into 2 x 1-inch bars when cool.

Irish Soda Bread

2011-04-14T11:47:00.000-07:00

I know it's a bit past St. Patrick's Day, but it's never too late to post a yummy recipe, right? I actually made this a few days past March 17th since I couldn't seem to get my act together before then. I had this great plan to make corned beef and cabbage and found a stellar recipe, only to read it the morning of and find out that it was supposed to brine for 10 days. Ummm, I guess I didn't read far enough ahead when I found that one. I ended up using a substitution corned beef and cabbage recipe along with this soda bread recipe and we had a late Irish celebration. Enjoy!

Irish Soda Bread
Source: Simply Recipes

4 to 4 1/2 cups flour
2 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
4 tablespoon butter
1/2 cup craisins
1/2 cup raisins
1 large egg, lightly beaten
1 3/4 cups buttermilk

Preheat oven to 425°. Whisk together 4 cups of flour, the sugar, salt, and baking soda into a large mixing bowl.

Using a pastry cutter, work the butter into the flour mixture until it resembles coarse meal, then add in the raisins and craisins.

Make a well in the center of the flour mixture. Add beaten egg and buttermilk to well and mix in with a wooden spoon until dough is too stiff to stir. Dust hands with a little flour, then gently knead dough in the bowl just long enough to form a rough ball. If the dough is too sticky to work with, add in a little more flour. Do not over-knead! Transfer dough to a lightly floured surface and shape into a round loaf.

Transfer dough to a large, lightly greased cast-iron skillet or a baking sheet. Using a serrated knife, score top of dough about an inch and a half deep in an "X" shape. (The purpose of the scoring is to help heat get into the center of the dough while it cooks.)

Transfer to oven and bake until bread is golden and bottom sounds hollow when tapped, about 35-45 minutes. Check for doneness also by inserting a long, thin skewer into the center. If it comes out clean, it's done.

Sausage Cheese Muffins

2011-04-09T22:03:00.000-07:00

These little muffins were a tasty treat! I really had a hard time not continuously popping these things in my mouth. I made them for our "tea party" MOPS meeting where we bring dainty little finger foods, but I also ended up eating some on the way home from the meeting and for lunch that day. I'm not sure why they had an addictive quality for me, but all I know is that they did. Enjoy!

Sausage Cheese Muffins
Source: Quick Cooking Magazine

1 pound Italian sausage
1 can (10 3/4 ounces) condensed cheddar cheese soup, undiluted
1/2 cup milk
2 to 3 teaspoons rubbed sage
3 cups biscuit/baking mix

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Grease muffin tin.

In a skillet over medium heat, cook sausage until no longer pink; drain. In a bowl, combine soup, milk, sage, and sausage. Stir in the biscuit mix just until moistened. Fill miniature or regular muffin cups two-thirds full. Bake for 15-20 minutes or until muffins test done (less time for miniature).

Makes 4 dozen mini muffins or 2 dozen regular muffins

Chicken Caesar Wraps

2011-04-05T22:02:00.000-07:00

A short and sweet write up. Great wraps! Yummy salad! Either way you eat it, it tastes great!

Chicken Caesar Wraps
Source: Taste of Home

3/4 cup fat-free creamy Caesar salad dressing
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1/4 teaspoon pepper
3 cups cubed cooked chicken breast
2 cups torn romaine
3/4 cup Caesar salad croutons, coarsely chopped
6 whole wheat tortillas (8 inches)

In a large bowl, combine the dressing, cheese, garlic powder and pepper. Add the chicken, romaine and croutons. Spoon 2/3 cup chicken mixture down the center of each tortilla; roll up.

Yields: 6 servings.

April Fool's Dinner

2011-04-01T22:20:00.000-07:00

I usually don't post twice on the same day, but today I did. When I scheduled to post my Twice Baked Potatoes recipe I wasn't going to be doing an April Fool's dinner this year. At least that's what I thought.

I'm not really a prankster. I'm very literal and while I have a sense of humor I can't tell a joke to save my life. Jokes have always been my husband's department. In fact, when I tell a joke a lot of times people don't pick up on it because they don't expect it from me. There have been a few times that I have told a great joke and only my husband picks up on it. I've been know to tell him often for a few hours afterward about how it really was a great joke. He will usually agree with me throughout my multiple pleas for acknowledgment.

So, back to our April Fool's dinner. Last year I was able to really pull a prank on my husband with the Chicken Not-Pie. I knew I probably wouldn't be so lucky this year seeing as how he is at home during the day now, and because I've done a few food pranks over the last few years. Instead I decided to go a more subtle route and introduce our son to the joys of prank food on April Fool's. Technically this wasn't a prank, no ketchup in the doughnut here, just a fun meal to enjoy at dinner as a family.

I introduced our son to the joys of a TV dinner. I don't know that we've ever eaten one since we had him 4 years ago. Of course, he thought that because it was a TV dinner it was supposed to be eaten in front of the TV. That is the idea, right. Right away he decided that he would eat the chocolate cake. Well, that's for dessert, you need to eat some fried chicken, mashed potatoes, or peas and carrots first. Okay then, I'll take the peas and carrots. Okay. He was a little stupefied when I popped the "peas and carrots" out of the pan and he took a bite only to realize it was a cupcake. Prank #1 done, cupcake off to the side to be saved for the real dessert. Now, do you want a cupcake with white or pink frosting? Meatloaf cupcakes with mashed potato frosting just isn't as exciting.

What's funny is that even though he knew the "peas and carrots" were really a cupcake when we started divvying out the other TV dinner components he decided that he did not want the fried chicken because he didn't like chicken. He was adamant about not having the fried chicken. It took me taking one out and cutting it in half on my plate before he realized that this too was a cupcake and not the real thing.

It was kind of fun seeing April Fool's day through his eyes this year. The silly statements he made followed by "April Fool's" were priceless.

TV Dinner Cupcakes from Hello Cupcake

Meatloaf Cupcakes with Mashed Potato Frosting
Source: Bake at 350

Meatloaf:
3/4 cup Italian-style breadcrumbs
1/3 cup milk
1 small carrot, chopped
1/2 large onion, diced
2 stalks celery, diced
1 or 2 tablespoons of olive oil
1/2 lb. ground chuck
1/2 lb. ground pork
1/4 cup chopped parsley
1/4 cup shredded Parmesan
2 eggs
Salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 350F. Grease 12 regular size muffin tins.

Soak the breadcrumbs in the milk and set aside.

Saute the vegetables in olive oil until softened. Transfer to a food processor and process until very finely minced.

Mix the meat, eggs, breadcrumbs, parmesan, parsley, salt & pepper and vegetable puree in a large bowl with your fingers.

Place meat mixture into the muffin tins and bake until brown and pulling away from the sides, about 20-25 minutes. Remove from tin and cool on rack.

Mashed Potatoes:
2- 3.3oz. packages instant mashed potatoes (I used butter flavored to stay away from any "bits" in the mix)

Follow the instruction on the packages. Once finished, divide potatoes in half. Add a small amount of beet juice to one half and whip together (for pink frosting).

Let cool slightly, transfer to a piping bag fitted with a star tip and pipe the frosting on the cakes.

Twice Baked Potatoes

2011-04-01T10:01:00.000-07:00

I love potatoes! Mashed, baked, fried . . . you name it, I like it. I don't do twice baked potatoes often just because it's a bit of extra work and I enjoy a good baked potato just as much as a twice baked. But for my husband's birthday dinner I wanted something a bit more than just a plain old baked potato.

These photos don't really do justice to this recipe though. Inside the potato is the mashed goodness with all the fixings. You just can't seem to see that through the top layer of cheese. Believe me though, they are in there. Yum! Enjoy!

Twice Baked Potatoes
Source: Great American Recipes card

4 baking potatoes
3 green onions, thinly sliced
2 tablespoons butter
1/2 cup milk or half-and-half, hot
1/2 teaspoon salt
dash black pepper
dash nutmeg
dash paprika
4 slices bacon, cooked crisp and crumbled
2 tablespoons grated parmesan cheese
2 tablespoons grated sharp cheddar cheese

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Wash the potatoes, pat dry. Prick each potato with a fork in a few places. Oil the skins with butter or olive oil. Bake potatoes on a rack for about 1 hour or until potatoes are done.

Cut a thin slice from the top of each potato. Scoop out the pulp into a bowl. Mash the potato pulp with hot milk until fluffy. Beat in the butter and the green onion. Add the seasonings. Add the bacon crumbles. Spoon potato mixture back into shells. Sprinkle with both cheeses.

Place potatoes on a baking sheet. Bake at 375 until potatoes are piping hot and cheese is melted, about 15 minutes. Serve immediately.

Serves 4

Daring Bakers - Meringue Filled Coffee Cake

2011-03-27T00:00:00.000-07:00

The March 2011 Daring Baker’s Challenge was hosted by Ria of Ria’s Collection and Jamie of Life’s a Feast. Ria and Jamie challenged The Daring Bakers to bake a yeasted Meringue Coffee Cake.

I am not one to jump right into the challenge recipe at the beginning of the month. I usually like to read the challenge over a few times, let it ruminate in my brain, pondering technique and flavors. However, since our family is trying to limit our sugar intake I thought that I would combine the challenge with another special date this month . . . my husband’s birthday which happens to fall early in the month.

Since Christmas, he has been asking for me to make the cinnamon rolls I made Christmas morning. I had planned to make them for his birthday breakfast so I begged and pleaded with him to let me make this coffee cake instead since they sounded fairly similar. He reluctantly agreed, offering to make a deal that if they were not as good I would still make the cinnamon rolls sometime this month. In my counter offer I asked who was to be the judge of whether they were equal. He stated he would try to be as unbiased as possible. Yah right, unbiased, my foot!

There were a few steps to this challenge but not any more so than a cinnamon roll or another sweet yeast bread recipe. It involved making the dough, letting it rise, kneading the dough, spreading it with meringue and adding filling, rolling it up, letting it rise again, and then baking it. Of course, there is a bit more to it than that but those are the steps in a nutshell.

The dough recipe made two braided wreath coffee cakes and while I seriously debated just doing one I decided that I would make two because in the end I wanted one that had the same cinnamon roll filling (for equal comparison) and then one that had chocolate in it.

Of the many times I’ve made yeast breads this was the first time of ever melting the butter mixture, adding the yeast to the dry flour and then adding a somewhat cooled butter mixture to the dry flour and yeast.

Have I ever mentioned before how much I love kneading dough? I love it! Nothing makes me feel like a baker more than kneading soft dough after it is warm and has risen a first time! This particular dough didn’t require a lot of work to get it to the smooth, elastic stage so it was really nice to work with.

I don’t work with meringue often. I have really only made it a handful of times so I was a little more anxious to have this turn out correctly. It seemed to turn out fine. Nice stiff peaks and easy to spread on the dough.

Besides the coffee cakes looking like molten lava when they came out of the oven they tasted great! I thought the cinnamon/sugar filling was going to be way too sweet but it wasn’t too over the top. I think I did prefer the chocolate filling though but that might be because I really like chocolate. The one thing I forgot to do on both, and I’m not sure why, was to brush the egg wash on after baking. It didn’t really matter in the end because I sprinkled powdered sugar or cocoa powder over the finished product.

As for the unbiased ruling from the judge, it really wasn’t unbiased. He enthusiastically enjoyed both coffee cakes and then pronounced that I would have to make the cinnamon rolls in the end so that he could make an accurate comparison. Hmmm, kind of thought that was going to happen.

Meringue Filled Coffee Cake

Yeast Coffee Cake:
4 cups flour
¼ cup sugar
¾ teaspoon salt
1 package active dried yeast
¾ cup whole milk
¼ cup water
½ cup unsalted butter, room temperature
2 large eggs, room temperature

Meringue:
3 large egg whites, room temperature
¼ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon vanilla
½ cup sugar

Filling:
1 cup chopped pecans or walnuts
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips or coarsely chopped chocolate

Egg wash: 1 beaten egg
Cocoa powder (optional) and confectioner’s sugar (powdered/icing sugar) for dusting cakes

Prepare the dough:
In a large mixing bowl, combine 1 ½ cups of the flour, the sugar, salt and yeast.

In a saucepan, combine the milk, water and butter and heat over medium heat until warm and the butter is just melted.

With an electric mixer on low speed, gradually add the warm liquid to the flour/yeast mixture, beating until well blended. Increase mixer speed to medium and beat 2 minutes. Add the eggs and 1 cup flour and beat for 2 more minutes.

Using a wooden spoon, stir in enough of the remaining flour to make a dough that holds together. Turn out onto a floured surface (use any of the 1 ½ cups of flour remaining) and knead the dough for 8 to 10 minutes until the dough is soft, smooth and elastic, keeping the work surface floured and adding extra flour as needed.

Place the dough in a lightly greased bowl, turning to coat all sides. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and a kitchen towel and let rise until double in bulk, 45 – 60 minutes.

Prepare your filling:
In a small bowl, combine the cinnamon and sugar for the filling. You can add the chopped nuts to this if you like, but I find it easier to sprinkle on both the nuts and the chocolate separately.

Once the dough has doubled, make the meringue:
In a clean mixing bowl – ideally a plastic or metal bowl so the egg whites adhere to the side (they slip on glass) and you don’t end up with liquid remaining in the bottom – beat the egg whites with the salt, first on low speed for 30 seconds, then increase to high and continue beating until foamy and opaque. Add the vanilla then start adding the ½ cup sugar, a tablespoon at a time as you beat, until very stiff, glossy peaks form.

Assemble the Coffee Cakes:
Line 2 baking/cookie sheets with parchment paper.

Punch down the dough and divide in half. On a lightly floured surface, working one piece of the dough at a time (keep the other half of the dough wrapped in plastic), roll out the dough into a 20 x 10-inch rectangle. Spread half of the meringue evenly over the rectangle up to about 1/2-inch from the edges. Sprinkle half of your filling of choice evenly over the meringue.

Now, roll up the dough jellyroll style, from the long side. Pinch the seam closed to seal. Very carefully transfer the filled log to one of the lined cookie sheets, seam side down. Bring the ends of the log around and seal the ends together, forming a ring, tucking one end into the other and pinching to seal.

Using kitchen scissors or a sharp knife, make cuts along the outside edge at 1-inch intervals. Make them as shallow or as deep as desired but don’t be afraid to cut deep into the ring.

Repeat with the remaining dough, meringue and fillings.

Cover the 2 coffee cakes with plastic wrap and allow them to rise again for 45 to 60 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 350°F.

Brush the tops of the coffee cakes with the egg wash. Bake in the preheated oven for 25 to 30 minutes until risen and golden brown. The dough should sound hollow when tapped.

Remove from the oven and slide the parchment paper off the cookie sheets onto the table. Very gently loosen the coffee cakes from the paper with a large spatula and carefully slide the cakes off onto cooling racks.

Allow to cool. Just before serving, dust the tops of the coffee cakes with confectioner’s sugar as well as cocoa powder if using chocolate in the filling. These are best eaten fresh, the same day or the next day.

Makes 2 round coffee cakes, each approximately 10 inches in diameter. The recipe can easily be halved to make one round coffee cake.

Pepperoni Bread

2011-03-22T22:02:00.000-07:00

I saw this recipe and thought since it looked so easy it might be a nice, quick dinner. I guess quick is a relative term, especially since it takes about 5 hours or so to thaw the frozen bread dough. Once the dough was thawed it was relatively simple to put together. Just three easy ingredients: frozen bread dough, pepperoni, and mozzarella cheese.

I have to admit though, I was a bit disappointed. After having made stromboli a few months ago this was a bit boring in comparison. Easier, but not quite the variety. I think next time I would add some marinara and some other toppings with the pepperoni.

Pepperoni Bread
Source: Brown Eyed Baker

1 loaf frozen bread dough
Sliced pepperoni
Shredded mozzarella cheese

Thaw the frozen bread dough and allow to rise.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

Cut the dough in half and roll out two rectangles. Layer the pepperoni on the dough, and then cover with mozzarella cheese. Roll up lengthwise and seal the ends and seam and place seam-side down on the baking sheet.

Bake for 30-40 minutes or until golden brown and the cheese is bubbling.

Breakfast Pizza

2011-03-18T08:10:00.000-07:00

My son requested breakfast pizza on a whim (mostly on a whim because he has never even had it nor seen one before) and it reminded me of a recipe that I happened to have in my cupboard. I would imagine that you know by now that I have a picky eater, so even though said son requested the breakfast pizza that didn't mean that he took more than a few cursory bites. Sigh. When will he become an adventurous eater?

This was delicious, a great change to plain old eggs and hashbrowns, and it was even great warmed up for lunch the next day. Enjoy!

*Note: This recipe does call for microwaving the eggs and I think you could get by with just scrambling them and cooking them in a pan like you normally would. If you shy away from microwaving food, this would definitely be an option. The only difference might be that the pieces are not quite as moist as if you microwaved them, but I think the difference would be pretty insignificant.

Breakfast Pizza
Source: Adapted from The Pampered Chef Stoneware Sensations

Crust
1 package (24 ounces) frozen shredded hash browns, thawed
1 egg, beaten
salt and ground black pepper to taste

Egg Topping
7 eggs
1/2 cup milk
salt and ground black pepper to taste
1 cup chopped ham (could use bacon or sausage)
1/2 cup sliced fresh mushroons
1/4 cup chopped bell pepper
1 1/2 cups (6 ounces) shredded cheddar cheese

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Cover 15" round baking stone with parchment paper.

For crust, combine potatoes, egg, salt and pepper in a medium bowl; mix well. Spread potato mixture into a 14" circle on prepared stone; pat down with back of spoon. Bake 20 minutes; remove from oven.

For egg topping, whisk eggs and milk in bowl. Season with salt and black pepper. Microwave on high 3 minutes; stir. Microwave an additional 3 minutes; stir. Spread cooked egg mixture evenly over potato crust; top with ham, mushrooms, and bell pepper. Sprinkle with cheese. Return to oven. Bake 10 minutes.

To serve, cut into wedges. Makes 10 servings.

Chocolate Chip & Prezel Cookie Bars

2011-03-14T21:26:00.000-07:00

Another good one from the Brown Eyed Baker! When looking for a sweet and salty treat for our Superbowl festivities I thought this one would fit the bill nicely. I love warm chocolate chip cookies, and having crushed pretzels drizzled with peanut butter and chocolate sounded like a yummy combination. I was actually going to make just half of this recipe, but then a friend was unexpectedly put on bed rest and I figured it wouldn't hurt to make the whole thing and take them half. Yah, I totally could have made the half batch and taken them a fourth and still had plenty. They are pretty rich so we found it was best to cut them into little squares. Enjoy!

Chocolate Chip & Pretzel Cookie Bars
Source: Brown Eyed Baker

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
3/4 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 cup light brown sugar
½ cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
12-ounce bag bittersweet (or semisweet, if you prefer) chocolate chips
1½ cups mini pretzel twists, coarsely chopped
¼ cup chocolate chips, for drizzling (optional)
¼ cup peanut butter, for drizzling (optional)
¼ cup pretzels, crumbled, for topping (optional)

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Spray a 9×13 pan with cooking spray.

In a bowl, whisk the flour, baking soda and salt. Using a mixer, beat the butter and both sugars at medium speed until light and fluffy, about 1 minute. Beat in the eggs and the vanilla extract. On low speed, beat in the dry ingredients just until incorporated. Stir in the chocolate chips and pretzel pieces.

Spread the batter evenly in the pan and press it down evenly with a spatula. Bake for 30 minutes, until golden brown. Transfer the pan to a rack and cool completely.

In separate sandwich size baggies, melt the chocolate chips and peanut butter. Cut off a small corner on each bag and drizzle the chocolate and peanut butter over the top of the bars. Sprinkle the extra crushed pretzels on top. Let set and then cut into squares.

Soft Prezels

2011-03-11T21:26:00.000-08:00

I think this is a bit of an "ugly duckling" as far as soft pretzels are concerned, but what it lacks in looks it totally makes up for in taste! Soft pretzels have been on my top 100 list since the beginning and I can't believe I finally just got around to making them. They are awesome and so easy! Really, the recipe may look complicated but it really isn't. Whip up a batch of dough, let it rise, while the oven is preheating and the water is warming to a boil get the dough rolled out into 8 pretzels shapes, dunk in the baking soda bath, lay on tray, brush on egg wash, bake, and eat. It's that simple.

The baking soda bath is a must by they way. It's what gives the pretzel its chewy, boiled outside while the inside is soft and doughy. Yum, just thinking about them makes me want to make more. Enjoy!

Soft Pretzels
Source: FoodNetwork.com

1 1/2 cups warm (110 to 115 degrees F) water
1 tablespoon sugar
2 teaspoons kosher salt
1 package active dry yeast
22 ounces all-purpose flour, approximately 4 1/2 cups
2 ounces unsalted butter, melted
Vegetable oil, for pan (I used olive oil)
10 cups water
2/3 cup baking soda
1 large egg yolk beaten with 1 tablespoon water
pretzel salt

Combine the water, sugar and kosher salt in the bowl of a stand mixer and sprinkle the yeast on top. Allow to sit for 5 minutes or until the mixture begins to foam. Add the flour and butter and, using the dough hook attachment, mix on low speed until well combined. Change to medium speed and knead until the dough is smooth and pulls away from the side of the bowl, approximately 4 to 5 minutes. Remove the dough from the bowl, clean the bowl and then oil it well with vegetable oil. Return the dough to the bowl, cover with plastic wrap and sit in a warm place for approximately 50 to 55 minutes or until the dough has doubled in size.

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F. Line 2 half-sheet pans with parchment paper and lightly brush with the vegetable oil. Set aside.

Bring the 10 cups of water and the baking soda to a rolling boil in an 8-quart saucepan or roasting pan.

In the meantime, turn the dough out onto a slightly oiled work surface and divide into 8 equal pieces. Roll out each piece of dough into a 24-inch rope. Make a U-shape with the rope, holding the ends of the rope, cross them over each other and press onto the bottom of the U in order to form the shape of a pretzel. Place onto the parchment-lined half sheet pan.

Place the pretzels into the boiling water, 1 by 1, for 30 seconds. Remove them from the water using a large flat spatula. Return to the half sheet pan, brush the top of each pretzel with the beaten egg yolk and water mixture and sprinkle with the pretzel salt. Bake until dark golden brown in color, approximately 12 to 14 minutes. Transfer to a cooling rack for at least 5 minutes before serving.

Baked Macaroni and Cheese

2011-03-08T21:26:00.000-08:00

Macaroni and cheese . . . who doesn't love stringy, melted, ooey, gooey cheese? How about stringy, melted cheese with some crunchy bread crumbs sprinkled on top? This is the second baked macaroni and cheese recipe I've made and I think I like it better than the first. I decided to use fairly mild cheeses this time (I think the pepper jack in the last one threw our son for a loop) and I loved the bread crumb topping that coated the entire dish. Of course, our son still barely touched this until the next day when it was heated up as leftovers. I have to agree with him though, macaroni and cheese just may be better the next day rather than the first. Enjoy!

Baked Macaroni and Cheese
Source: Brown Eyed Baker

8 oz. elbow macaroni
4 tablespoons butter, divided
2 tablespoons flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon dry mustard
2 cups milk
1/2 cup cheddar cheese, divided
1/2 cup mozzarella cheese, divided
1/2 cup swiss cheese, divided
1/2 cup seasoned bread crumbs

Cook macaroni according to package directions; drain.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Melt 2 tablespoons of butter in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add flour and salt and stir until mixture is smooth. Stir in dry mustard. Add milk gradually, stirring constantly. Cook over low heat, stirring constantly, until thickened, about 5 minutes.

Stir in 1/4 cup of the cheddar, 1/4 cup of the mozzarella, and 1/4 cup of the swiss. Mix cheese sauce and macaroni in a large bowl. Spoon into a 9 x 7 inch baking dish. Sprinkle with remaining cheddar, mozzarella and swiss.

Melt remaining butter in saucepan over medium heat. Combine bread crumbs and melted butter in a small bowl and mix well. Sprinkle on top of the cheese. Bake until hot and bubbly, about 15 minutes.

100th Post!! Hubby's Birthday!! Chocolate Cherry Coke Cake!!

2011-03-05T21:31:00.000-08:00

Well, what do you know, 100 posts! While I know that I cook and bake a lot, sometimes more than 3 meals a day, I am somewhat surprised that I have tried and written about 100 new recipes in just 13 months. And while not all of the recipes were new, I am happy to have shared all 100 of them with you!

While looking at my recipes that I have completed but have yet to post, I realized that I would be coming up on my 100th post right around the same time as my husband's birthday. I knew that I wanted something that looked super yummy and I've had this cake recipe sitting in my saved bookmarks for a little while. I happened to weasel an agreeable answer out of him when I asked him if I could have free reign over his birthday dessert, even if it was chocolate which he is not the biggest fan of. Ahhhh, everything is lining up right in my world.

It was a fun cake to make, and it tastes just as good as it looks! Enjoy!

**Side Note: My recipe makes 4 mini bundt cakes. Double my recipe to bake a full size cake.**

Chocolate Cherry Coke Cake
Source: Adapted from Maison Cupcake

Cake:
100g plain flour
125g superfine sugar
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 medium egg
62.5ml buttermilk
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
62.5g unsalted butter, room temperature
1 tablespoon cocoa powder
87.5ml Cherry Coca-Cola

Icing:
15g unsalted butter
1 1/2 tablespoons Cherry Coca-Cola
1/2 tablespoon cocoa powder
100g powdered sugar, sifted

Decoration:
chocolate “writing” icing
pitted cherries

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Prepare cake pans, baking tins, or molds by greasing with butter and then a light layer of flour.

In a large bowl, mix the flour, sugar, baking soda, and salt; set aside. In another bowl, beat the egg, buttermilk and vanilla extract.

In a heavy based saucepan over medium-low heat, melt the butter, cocoa powder and Cherry Coca-Cola. Pour the butter/cola mixture into the dry ingredients and stir with a wooden spoon. Add the egg/buttermilk mixture and beat well until blended.

Pour into prepared baking tins or molds. Place cake pans on a baking sheet and bake in the oven, 40 minutes for one large cake and 20-25 minutes if you are doing smaller ones. A toothpick inserted into the center should come out clean. Leave the cake in the pans to cool for 15 minutes, then turn out onto wire cooling rack. Cool completely.

While cakes are cooling, make the icing. In a heavy based saucepan over medium-low heat, melt the butter, Cherry Coca-Cola and cocoa powder until liquid. (Do not overheat as it burns easily.) Remove from heat and spoon in the powdered sugar a little at a time. Beat well until you have a runny glace style icing.

Spoon the icing over the cake (or cakes). If you are using mini cake molds, attempt to drizzle artfully down the sides and whilst also coating, but not entirely filling the center. Allow to set for a couple of minutes then zig zag your little tube of chocolate writing icing backwards and forwards from the centre to the outside of the cake going all the way around. Pour the pitted cherries over the cake (or in the center for a mini bundt cake style. Four cherries will be about right for a mini cake.)