Sugar and Spice...

Butterfly Cupcakes

2011-03-01T13:17:00.004-05:00

It has been a very long time since I have posted anything. Life got super busy when our third little one came along, and though I have been baking, I have not had much time to post anything.

We had our annual spaghetti dinner this Sunday at our church, and I always sign up to bring in a baked good. I like to make something special for the kids as I know how excited my girls get about kid friendly treats. I saw these cupcakes on the Martha Stewart website and knew they would come together relatively easily, so I decided to give them a try. The original "recipe" used plain pretzels, but I found these yogurt pretzels at our farmer's market and thought they were adorable.

I used a plain vanilla cupcake and frosted with a sour cream vanilla icing I found in the Better Homes and Gardens magazine. I loved the frosting, but something a little thicker would probably work better in the future. The Martha Stewart website recommended a swiss meringue buttercream.

I was thrilled with how the cupcakes turned out, and my daughters loved them. They must have been a hit because they were gone by the time we got to the dinner later in the day. I will definitely be making these again!

SMS- Golden Almond Fruitcake

2009-11-29T04:58:00.006-05:00

After what seems like a very long wait, it is finally my turn to host Sweet Melissa Sundays! For months now, I have flipped through the book trying to decide which recipe I wanted to choose, and like many others, I always seemed to come back to one recipe- the Golden Almond Fruitcake. Despite the fruitcake's reputation, it holds a very dear place in my heart. My grandmother used to make many fruitcakes every year at Christmas and would give them to all my aunts and uncles. My dad in particular loved it and savored every last slice. He used to slice it up, wrap each slice in plastic wrap, and freeze the slices. I think he could make two bundt cakes last until March! My grams died two years ago this spring and our world has been fruitcakeless ever since. We looked everywhere for her fruitcake recipe after she died, but could not find it. So you see, my purpose for picking this recipe is two fold. First, it is to honor my grandmother who is very near and dear to my heart. The second is so my dad can finally have his fruitcake again.

Despite a long ingredient list, the recipe is relatively simple and straightforward. To start I chose my fruits- apricots, cherries, and golden raisins which the recipe suggests and I had on hand. To soak them, I ended up going with the brandy. After searching high and low for almond flour with no success, I did have to make my own. I'm not sure my almonds were ground quite fine enough because I forgot about having to add a portion of the sugar to the almonds when processing in the food processor. I let my mini prep run for a minute or two and figured it wasn't going to get much better than what I was left with. Though I tried to adhere to the original recipe as much as possible, I did have to make one small change. In true Melissa Murphy fashion, the stars of the recipe are almonds and citrus zest. I only had one lemon left in my refrigerator and it was definitely not zest worthy, so I ended up omitting the zest.

Now I have never been very good at reading directions. I tend to read what I think are the important parts of each step and skip the rest of the wording. Case and point- making the almond flour (without the sugar). So when I came to the last step before baking, I saw fold in prepared fruit and nuts. Done. I mixed in my brandy scented fruit and chopped almonds and poured the batter into the prepared loaf pan. I had about ten more degrees before my oven was preheated so I set the loaf pan on the counter and started to clean up. As I was putting the pan in the oven, the phrase "omitting the marzipan would be a sin" popped into my head. I totally missed the marzipan! I quick pulled it out of the freezer and folded it in as best I could.

I must admit, this recipe is nothing like my grandmother's, but it smelled wonderful baking in the oven. It has a very strong almond flavor (with almond flour, almond extract, and marzipan) whose aroma warmed the entire house. The loaf baked pretty close to the entire time specified in the recipe, though I did reduce the temperature a little early because the edges started to brown around twenty minutes into the first baking cycle. I glazed the cake with orange juice because I ran out of brandy when I soaked the fruit. Though now I won't feel like I have to say no when my three year old asks me if she can try it!

The verdict? Well, its definitely not my grandmother's fruitcake so I will have to do a little more searching before I settle on a recipe to make for my dad (ugh! fruitcake isn't something you want to experiment with considering how hard it is to give away). However, this recipe is definitely a keeper. In the preface to the recipe, Melissa Murphy states they have to give a lot of samples away at the holidays to get people to buy the fruitcakes. I can see why she says once they try it they walk away with more than one. My suggestion is if you are going to make it for someone else, don't tell them its a fruitcake! Without the red and green candied cherries, they will never know the difference!

Be sure to see what all the other SMS bakers thought of my choice for this week's recipe. Hopefully, people were not too scared by the choice and exahusted from their Thanksgiving baking!

Golden Almond Fruitcake (p. 18)

For the Cake

1 cup chopped dried fruit (1/4 to 1/2 inch pieces)
1/4 cup brandy, apple juice, or orange juice
8 T (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/3 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1 t freshly grated lemon zest
3 large eggs
1/2 t almond extract
1 t pure vanilla extract
1/3 cup almond flour or 1/2 cup sliced blanched almonds
1 cup all purpose flour
1/2 t baking soda
1/2 t cardamom
1/4 t freshly ground nutmeg
1/4 t kosher salt
1/2 cup whole natural almonds coarsely chopped
1/4 cup (2.5 ounces) marzipan, cut into 1/4 to 1/2 inch pieces and frozen

For the Glaze

1/4 cup brandy, apple juice, or orange juice
3 T sugar

Pro Tip: To make your own almond flour for this recipe, in a food processor, pulse 1/2 cup sliced blanched almonds with 1/4 cup of the granulated sugar called for in the recipe until it becomes a coarse texture. The remaining 1/4 cup sugar should be added to the butter for creaming.

Before you Start:

Position a rack in the center of your oven. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Lightly butter and flour a 1 1/2 quart loaf pan.

1. In a medium saucepan over very low heat, heat the dried fruit and brandy, stirring occasionally. When the mixture comes to a simmer, remove from the heat and cover (allowing the fruit to absorb the brandy), stirring occasionally.

2. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitten with the paddle attachment, cream the butter, sugars, and zest until light and fluffy, 3 to 5 minutes. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Scrape down the sides of the bowl. Add the almond extract and vanilla. Mix until combined (At this stage, the mixture will appear slightly broken).

3. If using the sliced blanched almonds, in a food processor fittes with the metal blade, pulse grind the almonds until a very fine flour (as fine as you can get). In a medium bowl, whisk together the almond flour, all purpose flour, baking soda, cardamom, nutmeg, and salt.

4. On low speed, add the flour mixture to the butter mixture in two batches, mixing until just combined after each addition. Scrape down the sides of the bowl. Using a rubber spatula, fold in the dried fruits along with their soaking liquid. Fold in two thirds of the chopped almonds and the frozen marzipan (it's easy to forget this because its in the freezer).

5. Pour the batter into the prepared load pan and sprinkle the remaining chopped almonds on top. Bake for 25 minutes, then rotate the pan and reduce the oven temperature to 325 degrees F. Bake for an additional 25-35 minutes, or until a wooden skewer inserted into the center comes out clean (Be careful when testing with the wooden skewer. You could poke into a piece of marzipan which will look like raw cake batter on the skewer, so test the loaf in a few different spots). Remove to a wire rack to cool for 20 minutes before unmolding the cake onto the rack for glazing.

6. For the glaze, warm the brandy with the sugar until the sugar dissolves (its easiest to do this in the microwave, 30 seconds at a time).

7. Using a patry brush, brush the glaze over the fruitcake while it is still warm. You will not need all of the glaze, but use as much as you like. Glaze the cake at least once, but if you want more, simply wait for each layer to soak in before you glaze again. The more you glaze, the boozier your fruitcake will be. Let cool to room temperature.

This cake keeps very well tightly wrapped in plastic wrap at room temperature for 2 days. For longer storage, wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 5 days. Or freeze well wrapped in plastic wrap and then aluminum fool for up to 3 weeks. Defrost still wrapped at room temperature.

No Sweet Melissa Sundays

2009-11-23T12:48:00.002-05:00

My apologies to Lauren who was hosting this week's Sweet Melissa Sundays recipe. The teflon started to peel off my waffle maker a while back and I had to chuck it. With Christmas right aroud the corner, I couldn't really justify spending the money on a new waffle maker... I'll definitely give the recipe a try once I get one!

Be sure to check out Lauren's blog and see what the other SMS bakers thought! I'll have last week's recipe up shortly. Even though I actually had the recipe done EARLY last week, life has gotten a little crazy so I haven't had time to post it yet.

Sweet Potato and Cranberry Hash

2009-11-12T14:36:00.007-05:00

I was on the Williams Sonoma site looking for a waffle maker (I think I will pick one up at Macy's instead!) and took a look at some of the fall inspired recipes they had posted. Under the cranberry section, they had this recipe for a sweet potato and cranberry hash. Even though I knew no one else in my family would eat this but me, I decided to try it anyway. I love sweet potatoes and the thought of them paired with apples and cranberries sounded incredible.

Before I went to work yesterday, I baked the sweet potatoes and chopped up the remaining ingredients. The recipe said to cool the potatoes before peeling and cubing for the hash, so I ended up doing that part when I came home. The recipe itself could not be more easy to throw together. You saute the apples in some butter, toss in the cranberries and green onions, add the spice, and add the sweet potatoes at the last minute. The only tricky part is stirring everything once you add the sweet potatoes so they don't turn to mush. I kind of had to toss everything in the pan instead of stirring it.

I have to say, I was very impressed with this recipe. I was a little skeptical about the green onions at first, but they definitely add a little something to the dish. The picture does not do the hash justice, but it was dark outside and my husband was in no mood to wait for me to get a good picture! After being called in to work in the middle of the night, he hadn't eaten since dinnertime the night before. I served the hash with a honey soy gingered chicken which was delicious as well. And as I predicted, I couldn't even get my husband to try it and my one year old poo-pooed it as well. She is not a fan of sweet potatoes to begin with but she did end up picking out the apples and eating them. My three year old and fellow sweet potato lover was at grammy's house last night, but I'm betting it would be too many flavors mixed together for her. I should have halved the recipe because I will probably be eating sweet potato hash for the rest of the week now!

SMS- Pear Cranberry Muffins with Gingersnap Crumble

2009-11-09T09:50:00.003-05:00

This week's recipe for Sweet Melissa Sundays is pear cranberry muffins with gingersnap crumble by Jennifer of Maple and Cornbread. What a great pick! I absolutely love pears and gingersnaps together! A couple years ago I had a pear cheesecake with a gingersnap crust and it was incredible. Ever since then, I have been in love with the flavor combination so I was really looking forward to this one.

The muffins are super easy to make- we have made two other varieties already- but I wince every time I read the recipe and see that it calls for a stick of butter, cream, and whole milk. On several occasions, I have subbed buttermilk for the cream with great success. This time, I had some half and half to use up in the fridge so I ended up using that instead of the cream and subbed the buttermilk for the whole milk. Even though I always have whole milk on hand for my daughter, I thought the buttermilk may help lighten up the density of the muffins. And after much deliberation, I decided to make the gingersnaps for the cumble. Since I was going to be baking for Joy's Operation Baking Gals team this month, I figured an extra batch of cookies couldn't hurt!

The muffins puffed up beautifully in the oven and the smell of the gingersnap crumble was wonderful. I brought them to my in-laws for dinner last night and everyone loved them. The combination of the sweet pears, tart cranberries, and spicy crumble was delicious! I would highly recommend using buttermilk instead of the whole milk since it seemed to lighten the density tremendously. I ended up bringing the leftovers to work today. We'll see how long they last!
I will post my "pictures" of the muffins a little later. As luck would have it, BOTH of my cameras had dead batteries. I thought I could take pictures with our video camera but couldn't figure out how to do it. Out of desperation and frustration I just decided to take a video. I just have to find the cables and figure out how to get the video on to my computer! Hopefully, its not too complicated- it says YouTube compatible right on the camera so I'm keeping my fingers crossed!!

Jennifer- what a great pick for this week! I think the pear is often an overlooked fruit for the fall that PAIRS quite nicely with our favorite fall spices (sorry for the bad pun). Be sure to head over to Jennifer's blog for the recipe and check out what all the other Sweet Melissa Bakers thought.

Halloween Treats (a little late)

2009-11-05T21:49:00.004-05:00

So I know its a little late, but these were too cute not to post. I was hoping to do it earlier in the week, but lets just say my body has never adjusted well to daylight savings time!

Ever since my daughter's birthday party this past year, she has been asking to have some of her friends over again. Since we love Halloween so much in our house, I thought it would be a perfect time to have another little get together. And what fun we had! To see her running around screaming with her little friends- so great. Its what I signed up for... I didn't want to go with the traditional candy bags for party favors so I went to marthastewart.com to see if I could find any cute ideas. I found a template to make witch hats you could attach to the top of popcorn balls wrapped in green celophane. I wasn't sure about the popcorn but thought I could easily sub out the popcorn for caramel apples. The caramel was pretty wasy to make but took a LOT longer than I anticipated to get to the correct temperature. The one thing that amazes me about candy making is how the temperature will stay in one spot forever and then all of a sudden, it goes up thirty degrees in a minute! Good thing I kept a watchful eye! The recipe said it yielded six apples and there were going to be seven kids, so I also made six chocolate peanut butter apples (before the caramel). Turns out, I could have made a dozen apples easily, so I now have a little pint jar of caramel sitting in the fridge. The witch hats were made out of construction paper and I used ribbon I had left from my sister-in-law's baby shower. All in all, I think they turned out adorable!

For a snack I set out the traditional fruit and goldfish, but wanted to make some sort of cupcakes as well. I saw this recipe for pumpkin cupcakes on Tracey's Culinary Adventures when I was in search of cupcake recipes for my other daughter's birthday and thought this would be a perfect time to make them. The spiderweb design on top was so cute for Halloween! I made them the morning of the party and after reading the recipe I realized the icing was cream cheese icing. Experience has taught me pre-schoolers are not big fans of cream cheese icing and after realizing they would be getting enough sugar on Halloween, I decided it would be better not to ice their cupcakes. I did ice what was left after the party because the cupcakes on Tracey's site were so cute, I had to try it. It was surprisingly easy- you just drag out the icing from the center of three concentric circles. The cupcakes were delicious on their own and no one missed the icing, but the cream cheese icing was great as well. And the cinnamon icing used to pipe the design on top gave a little something extra to the finished product.

Everything was a lot of work, but so worth it! My daughter was very excited about the caramel apples- it was everything I could do to stop her from eating one until after the party- and everyone loved the cupcakes. I'll definitely be making the cupcakes again! The recipe for the caramel apples can be found here and the instructions for the witch hats can be found here. The recipe for the cupcakes can be found on Tracey's blog here.

SMS Sweet Almond Bread Pudding with Raspberry Sauce

2009-11-01T20:14:00.004-05:00

This week's recipe was chosen by Candace of Candy Girl- Sweet Almond Bread Pudding with Raspberry Sauce. I was super excited about this recipe because I love bread pudding! No one else in my house is, so I planned to make about half of the recipe and freeze some of it. I picked up a half loaf of brioche on my way to work on Friday hoping it would be stale by Sunday when I planned to make it.

After reading through the whole recipe earlier in the week, I became less and less excited about the raspberry sauce. It just didn't scream fall to me. And I only had whole raw almonds on hand so I knew I was going to have to make some alterations to the recipe this week. I also had a hard time with the thought of using an entire quart (or half quart in my case) of heavy cream, so I opted for half and half instead. So lets just say I used the recipe as a guide and kind of did my own thing.

The basic recipe is super easy to follow. Heat the cream and sugar, temper the eggs, and soak the bread in the custard mixture. My only snafu was I had just opened a new bottle of vanilla that had a flip cap on it. Not even looking, I squeezed the bottle assuming it had a squeeze top not realizing it had a pour spout on it. I think I ended up with three times the amount of vanilla I should have used! I just crossed my fingers and moved on. Instead of using the almonds, I ended up topping the mixture with sugar and pecans because pecans have become my favorite nut to bake with. I baked the whole mixture for about 45 minutes since it was only a half recipe and it came out perfect.

I tasted a tiny sliver of the bread pudding after it cooled slightly, and oh my goodness was it good. Flavorful (with triple the amount of vanilla) and creamy. It would have been perfect with a nice scoop of vanilla ice cream! I did end up skipping the raspberry sauce and settled on a butter rum sauce instead. My aunt used to make something similar with her apple cake and it was delicious! There were a ton of recipes online, so I picked the most fattening and sugary one and went with it (only because I skimped on calories with the pudding). Knowing no one else would want a piece, I waited until my girls went to bed, sliced a piece of the pudding, topped with a nice helping of rum sauce, and enjoyed! Just one word- awesome! I didn't feel like struggling with lighting and my camera so I will post pics tomorrow.

I know bread pudding is probably one of those desserts most people either love or hate, so if you're one of the lovers, definitely give this recipe a go. You can find the original recipe on Candace's blog. And be sure to see what all the other SMS bakers thought of this week's recipe!

Here are my alterations to the original recipe...

-Used half and half instead of heavy cream
-Used pecans in place of almonds
-Omitted the almond extract and doubled the vanilla

And here is the recipe I used for the rum sauce which I found on Cooks.com

1/2 Cup Heavy Cream
1/2 Cup Sugar
1/4 Cup Butter
2 T Rum (I used Capt. Morgan Spiced Rum)

Combine all ingredients but rum in a saucepan and bring to boil over medium heat. Continue to boil for another five minutes. Add the rum and combine.

It's a Boy!

2009-10-27T09:54:00.010-04:00

Not for me... My sister-in-law is having a little boy in December. I really can't express how excited I am for her because it has truly been a long and difficult road for her and her husband along the way. I won't go into too many details to respect her privacy, but I can't think of any more deserving parents. So, with a lot of help from fellow family, we threw her a surprise baby shower on Friday. Now I love, love, love to cook, but luckily the only thing I ended up being in charge of was hosting the shower at my house and making favors. With two little ones, it can be really difficult to cook for a crowd, and my dad and trusty co-conspirator in the kitchen was away on a fishing trip so I didn't have a whole lot of help to fall back on. So I was kind of relieved to know I wouldn't be in charge of food.

I thought long and hard about what to make for shower favors and decided an edible treat was my best bet. Lets be honest ladies, where do shower favors go- in the trash. So instead of pouring my heart and soul into something destined for the landfill, I went the cookie route. I remembered Lorelei of Mermaid Sweets had made sugar cookie cut-outs with a onesie cookie cutter a couple months back and took my inspiration from her. She was even kind enough to provide me with a recipe for the cookie dough and icing (I really like my sugar cookie recipe but they tend to rise a little which can make decorating them tricky). I hit the internet in search of a onesie cookie cutter and found this really cute site called Karen's Cookies. Not only did they have the onesie cookie cutter, but also ones in the shape of a baby carriage and bib. Best yet, they had a set shaped like feet. My brother-in-law is a podiatrist so these were perfect! And what is cuter than little baby feet?

I baked the cookies early in the week and set out to decorate them Thursday night after my girls went to bed. Just a note, probably not the best idea to start decorating cookies at nine o'clock at night. By the time I made the icing and colored it, it was pushing ten o'clock and I ended up staying up a little past midnight decorating them! But it was well worth it... I had never decorated with flood icing before and was amazed at how easy it was. The icing looks just like what you would find in a bakery. Even though they weren't perfect, I was very pleased with the end result. The only thing I would do different next time is do all the flood icing early in the day, let them dry, and then pipe on the details. Some of the piped icing was kind of absorbed into the flood icing because the flood icing was still wet, but I really didn't have much a choice considering the time!

Everybody loved these cookies. They loved the taste, they loved the icing (I flavored with lemon juice), and the loved how they were decorated. And I was satisfied knowing all my hard work would be enjoyed instead of tossed aside... And my sister-in-law loved them which was the most important part! Unfortunately, I didn't get a chance to decorate the feet because I ran out of pastry bags and didn't have any ziploc bags, but the kids at the shower loved them!

I thought I would also share some of our pumpkin creations my daughter and I made as well. Not food, but food related! If you're looking for a safe alternative to carved pumpkins, I love this idea I saw to make candy pumpkins. My daughter picked out which candy to use and I glued the pieces onto the pumpkin using a hot glue gun. Obviously, you have to pick candy that won't melt when the glue hits it and will stay relatively intact once exposed for any length of time (candy corn, M&M's, tootsie rolls, life savers, etc.). We had a really fun time decorating these and I thought they turned out super cute.

Then I decided to get ambitious and wanted to carve the baby's name into a pumpkin for a center piece on the dining room table. I printed out his name on computer paper and then copied the design onto the pumpkin. I had picked up one of those pumpkin carving kits at Michael's and used the little saw to carve the pumpkin. About an hour later and after much deliberation as to how I was going to carve the a's, I finished. Not perfect but still very cute. Later in the day I couln't quite figure out why my hands where aching so bad when it dawned on me that it was from carving the pumpkin! Oh well, small price to pay, right?! At least everything looked nice and everyone had a great time!

Devil's Food Cake with Peanut Butter Frosting

2009-10-22T14:03:00.007-04:00

This week's recipe for Sweet Melissa Sundays was chosen by Holly of Phe/mom/enon- devil's food cake with peanut butter frosting. What an appropriate Halloween recipe! Any other week and I would be jumping up and down to try this recipe because I love me some peanut butter, but I threw a baby shower for my sister-in-law on Friday evening, went to a surprise birthday party Saturday night, and to a 1st birthday party this afternoon. I am CAKED-OUT!

I whipped up the batter this morning. Very easy except I am not a coffee drinker. Don't laugh at me, but I wouldn't even know how to make a pot of it. So I subbed in hot water for coffee and added a tablespoon of espresso powder. I also decided to make cupcakes instead of a layer cake because I knew we wouldn't be eating any of them. Cupcakes are much easier to give away! And a word about the icing... the recipe calls for a LOT of butter. One of our fellow bakes suggested cutting back on the butter and increasing the peanut butter. I ended up using six tablespoons of butter (its what I had left of a stick), a half cup of peanut butter, and about two cups powdered sugar. It was a little stiff so I ended up thinning it a little with some milk. The resulting icing was perfect, IF you like peanut butter.

I have to be honest, I'm not really sure how the cupcakes turned out. The batter was delicious, but I haven't had a chance to taste the finished product. I am not a big cake person to start with and after the three parties, I couldn't really stomach another bite of cake. But my cupcake carrier is loaded up and ready to go so my husband can take them in to work tomorrow. I'll take them into my work if he forgets! I'll keep you updated and let you know what they think.

Thanks Holly for picking such a yummy sounding recipe! Maybe I'll hold one of the cupcakes back so I can try them tomorrow. Be sure to see what Holly and all of the other Sweet Melissa Bakers thought of this recipe.

KA Cinnamon Swirl Pumpkin Rolls

2009-10-19T10:28:00.007-04:00

I hear a lot about KA flours when reading everyone else's blogs, and I always knew they were a source for a vast array of flours. For years, my dad had a hard time getting his hands on graham flour to use in an old family recipe until he finally stumbled upon it on the KA website. But I buy flour in the store and don't really venture too far beyond AP and whole wheat flour, so I never had much of a reason to visit their website. Then I was reading a post by Jessica of A Singleton in the Kitchen for a soup recipe which she served with Garlic Knots. They looked so yummy in the picture and I knew I would be making soup this weekend with the impending Nor'easter, so I followed the link to the KA website. And boy was I surprised- so many different baking products, baking utensils, gadgets, cookbooks... They have EVERYTHING there!

While I was perusing the website, I saw this pan that looked really neat. It was a stoneware dish that was made especially for cinnamon buns and below it they had a link to their recipe for cinnamon swirl pumpkin rolls. Oh my gosh- seriously?! They sounded amazing. So I quickly printed out the recipe and decided to make them for our Saturday breakfast.

The dough could not be any easier. You literally dump everything into a bowl and turn on the mixer with the dough hook. The only thing that makes me a little nervous about recipes like this is you don't proof the yeast. To me there is nothing worse that putting forth all the effort to make bread only to find out it won't rise. But it slowly began to puff up in my oven- phew! The dough was incredibly easy to work and rolled out without sticking to the counter or the rolling pin. I did not have the cinnamon mix it called for so I just brushed melted butter on the dough and sprinkled with a generous portion of cinnamon sugar. I cut into 11 rolls which was much more than the eight the recipe said it yielded (these would be some seriously huge rolls) and refrigerated overnight. I took them out in the morning for the final rise which took about an hour and then popped them in the oven. Oh boy did these smell wonderful when they were baking! The smell of the pumpkin and spices were just what we needed to warm us up on a cold and blustery day. I mixed up the cream cheese icing from the Sweet Melissa Baking Book we used for last week's sticky buns and waited for the buns to finish up.

I was so excited to taste these and had been building them up in my mind all week! Unfortunately, I was a little disappointed with the end result. I probably shouldn't have made these on the heels of last week's sticky bun recipe because I think I had really high expectations for them. The rolls seemed a little too dry, which could have been a result of the whole wheat flour the recipe calls for. I was also expecting a much more pronounced pumpkin flavor. To be honest, if it weren't for the orange hue of the buns, I would not have known there was pumpkin in them. In all fairness, they were still pretty decent cinnamon buns, just not what I expected. In my opinion, if I am going to go through the effort of making a recipe like this, I want it to knock my socks off.

I still like the idea of pumpkin cinnamon rolls and have not given up on them yet! I think I may try to play around with one of my other favorite cinnamon roll recipes or try to tweak this one. You can find the recipe on the KA website here. Oh! And sorry about the picture... its very dark at 6:30 in the morning...

Spiced Pumpkin Cookie Cakes

2009-10-18T20:41:00.005-04:00

So I have to admit I was kind of lukewarm about the recipe this week. Debbie of Everyday Blessings of the Five Dees chose Pumpkin Spiced Cookie Cakes for this week's Sweet Melissa Sundays. Now I love, love, love pumpkin desserts but am not a big fan of cake like cookies. I like chocolate chip cookies, oatmeal raisin cookies, peanut butter cookies. Cookies that have a slight crunch when you bite into them with a soft chewy center. I knew these cookies would not fall into that category. They seemed more like tea cakes to me, of which I am not a big fan. But Melissa Murphy gave them such an amazing write-up in the preface to the recipe, I had to try them anyway.

I was a little concerned when I checked the P&Q section of the SMS blog and saw that some people were having a hard time getting their hands on pumpkin. Rumor had it there was a pumpkin shortage this year. I thought this a little coincedental because I was buying mums last weekend and the woman at the nursery said almost everyone she talked to about pumpkins said they had a failed crop this year (my dad included). I wasted no time getting to the grocery store to see if I could stock up for the holidays- I think I would break down in tears if there was no pumpkin pie on Thanksgiving- and sure enough, a sign below the pumpkin said there would be a limited supply due to a crop shortage this year. I felt kind of selfish doing this, but I bought ten cans. Yes, ten cans. I spent twenty dollars on pumpkin. My excuse is, I will be the pumpkin fairy come the holidays when they run out and my mom, sister, and aunts all need it. Can't you see me in a pumpkin costume with glittery wings and a sparkling wand? Probably not because you most likely have no idea what I look like, but its a nice thought, right (can you tell we like fairies and princesses in our house?)!

In any case, on to the recipe... The cookie batter comes together very easily. The recipe calls to pipe the batter onto the cookie sheet using a pastry bag, which I did do, but I think you could drop by teaspoonfuls just as easily. After piping out the first sheet of cookies I popped them in the oven. Boy did these smell wonderful baking in the oven! Exactly what I think a cool fall day should smell like. While the cookies were finishing baking, I mixed up the icing. At first I considered leaving the orange zest out because I wasn't sure how it would taste with the pumpkin, but decided to leave it in. When we were growing up my mom used to simmer fresh orange peel with cinnamon sticks and whole cloves on the stove to make the house smell good and thought if the orange worked well with those spices, it would probably taste great with these cookies. And boy am I glad I did! The flavor combination was incredible!

After I finished assembling the cookies, I plated about 3/4 of them and brought them to the fire house in town where my husband was volunteering at an open house. Everbody loved them. When I came home, I gave one to my mom and sister who came for a visit and they loved them. I brought a couple to my in-laws for dessert and everybody loved them. Do you notice a trend here? These cookies are awesome! They are just like pumpkin whoopie pies and who doesn't like whoopie pies? I would highly recommed this recipe. Even though it is a little time consuming due to the assembly process, they are well worth the effort!

Thank you Debbie for picking such a wonderful recipe! It has been very cold and rainy here on the east coast, and this was a great recipe to warm up the weekend a little. Be sure to check out Debbie's blog and to see what all the other Sweet Melissa Sunday bakers thought.

Cinnamon Chocolate Chip Coffee Cake

2009-10-13T09:53:00.000-04:00

So I wanted to make something special for our neighbor up the street because they were there when our dog was hit two weeks ago and held her while she was passing. I really wasn't sure what to make. I mean what can you make for a person that says thank you for loving my dog in her last moments when I couldn't be there? It killed me to think of our little Lola lying on the side of the road by herself after she was hit, so I was incredibly relieved to learn they were there with her. Honestly, there aren't any words kind enough or a baked good scrumptious enough to show them how appreciative I am, but after much deliberation, I decided to make a coffee cake I had seen on The Food Librarian several weeks back.

The recipe was very easy to put together. The only reason you couldn't throw it together in less than ten minutes is you have to separate the eggs and whip the egg whites to fold into the batter. But not to do so would be a shame because the resulting cake is substantial like a coffee cake should be, but it has a delicate touch to it. The recipe calls to layer the batter with cinnamon sugar and chocolate chips, which may I add is an outstanding flavor combination! The only mistake I made was using a store bought aluminum cake pan. I deliberated between the deeper pan and the "cake pan", and went with the shallower cake pan. LUCKILY, the batter didn't pour over the sides when baking, but trust me, it was touch and go for a while there. It did puff up enough that I couldn't put the plastic lid on top which was actually a good thing, because I brought the cake up to the neighbor while it was still warm and used the plastic lid to insulate the heat from my hands.

I did make two small mini coffee cakes in a ramekin so I could have a taste before bringing it up to them (I just can't make a new recipe and not taste it before I give it away!). Just one word- DELICIOUS! Like I said, substantial but light and I loved the chocolate and cinnamon flavors. Next time, I may throw a little cinnamon into the batter as well. I would highly recommend this recipe next time you need to bring something to a brunch or get together.

And the one good thing that has come from this heartbreak is I got to meet two wonderful people whom I hope to have a longstanding relationship. Because they were several doors up, we had never met their family, but what warm and caring people. I feel blessed that they have come into our lives.

Here is the original recipe Mary got from The Smitten Kitchen.

Birthday Cake

2009-10-12T13:55:00.007-04:00

So I'm finally getting around to posting about my daughter's first birthday cake. I wanted it to be something special, and after making the zebra cake earlier in the week and seeing a post for a rainbow cake on Cookies with Boys, I thought it could be fun to make the rainbow cake. In hindsight, I probably should have gone with flavor for Little H's first birthday, but if anything my three year old and my four year old niece would appreciate it.

I used the basic yellow cake recipe I made for the vanilla oreo cupcakes I baked for her classroom and used food dye to make the colored layers. Warning... making a rainbow cake is messy and uses a LOT of bowls (but well worth it). After carefully mixing all the colors, my daughter and I were ready to assemble. I was very careful in pouring the different layers so one layer of batter didn't mix in with the one beneath it. Instead of pouring the batter into the pan, I kind of drizzled it in. After about fifteen minutes of carefully drizzling, I realized this cake was going to be more of a rainbow swirl than a cake with perfectly layered colors because the rising agent kicked in and the batter was starting to bubble. I hoped for the best and threw the cake into the oven.

The cake rose beautifully, but the one was a little lop-sided so I sliced the domes off each layer. I just used a basic white icing for the frosting. I would have loved to get a little more creative, but time was not on my side. Our errands ran a little longer than expected before the company came and I was left icing the cake at the last minute. So what do you do when you're short on time and you're trying to please kids? Sprinkles of course! On they went...

Like I said, the whole appearance thing is kind of lost on a one year old, but she did manage to get a hand in the icing after we sang happy birthday. I was anxious as I cut into the cake to see what it turned out to look like, and even though it wasn't perfectly layered, it was still cute. Next time, I may use a little more food color to make the colors more intense, but the pastel effect was nice for a baby. I have also come to the conclusion that if you want a layered rainbow cake, the only way to make one is to bake seven different layers. You just can't fight chemistry and physics! Overall, a cute recipe but a lot of work. But my babies are worth it!!!

Sticky Buns with Toasted Almonds

2009-10-11T07:00:00.001-04:00

This week's Sweet Melissa Sundays' recipe was chosen by Jen of Not Microwave Safe, Sticky Buns with Toasted Almonds. Now let me first begin by saying that sticky buns are HUGE in my husband's family and my mother-in-law makes awesome sticky buns. Over the past several years, she has been gracious enough to bestow her sticky bun making skills on me and I have always used her recipe. So I was a little nervous about this one... the recipe has a lot to live up to in our house.

I was hoping to make this for breakfast on Saturday morning, so I threw the dough together on Friday after I came home from work. My first and only issue with the recipe came with kneading the dough. It seemed very sticky to me, but I didn't want to add too much flour otherwise the buns can turn out super tough. Luckily, I remembered the group ran into the same issue when they made Bee Stings a couple months ago and I believe it was Wendy of Pink Stripes who suggested continuing to knead the dough to release the gluten in the flour. So I decided to let the mixer do its magic and walked away. About fifteen minutes later I came back to perfect dough. Yeah!

The dough rose beautifully. I had just pulled dinner out of the oven as the dough was finishing so I left the door open for a few minutes and then popped the dough in to rise. About two hours later, it had started to rise above the bowl, so I tightly wrapped it with plastic wrap until I had my girls in bed and I could assemble the buns. When I did get around to putting them together, they assembled very easily. My big alteration to the recipe was I covered the bottom of the casserole dish with chopped pecans and raisins before I put the buns in. I guess this is the more traditional approach to making sticky buns (at least in every bakery around here). I would have loved to try the almonds, but knew my husband would not be a big fan.

I woke up Saturday morning and started the second rise for the buns. After about an hour in the oven with the hot water bath, they were ready to bake. And did they ever smell wonderful in the oven! They baked much faster than the suggested baking time- mine were finished in a little under twenty-five minutes (this is my one criticism of the Sweet Melissa Baking Book- the cooking time always seems to be overstated)- so if you decide to try this recipe, be sure to keep a careful eye on them after the twenty minute mark.

So I know I said I was nervous about this recipe because of how wonderful my mother-in-law's recipe is, but oh were these good! They were different, very tender, but oh so delicious. Full of butter and cinnamon, and I loved the flavor the maple syrup gave to the sauce. I will definitely be making this recipe again! In fact, and don't tell anyone in my husband's family, I think I like this recipe a littler better than the one I had been using.

Great pick Jen- this recipe was a huge hit in our house! If you would like the recipe, be sure to wander on over to Jen's blog. And be sure to check out what all the other Sweet Melissa Sunday bakers thought!

Apple Orchard Pecan Crumble

2009-10-06T09:31:00.003-04:00

I always seem to be late these days. I never used to be late! I was the one who was always a half hour early for work in the morning... I would get there just as the doors to the party were opening... I would have to wait ten minutes at the bar for a friend to arrive at a restaurant... And then I had kids. Don't get me wrong, I love my two little girls more than anything in this world, but I am always late now! And very late posting Sweet Melissa Sundays this week.

The recipe for this week was chosen by Christine of Christine Cooks, Apple Orchard Pecan Crumble! There is nothing like a good apple dessert in the fall and I have been looking forward to making this ever since I saw it posted on the Sweet Melissa page. I never got around to making it earlier in the week because I didn't have the apples, and then I was making cupcakes for my daughter's birthday party at school, then the cake for her birthday party with our family, and then we had cake for my niece's birthday party on Sunday... I'm sure you get the idea! But this recipe was not going to escape me! So I stopped at the produce stand on the way to dinner at my parents' house last night and picked up some apples so I could throw it together there.

I would say this recipe is super easy to throw together at the last minute, but it took me about an hour to prep everything before I could get it into the oven. My littlest one was entertained with the tupperware cabinet just long enough for me to peel the apples and then I had to stop what I was doing every couple minutes to chase her away from the steps going upstairs. And then my older one had an accident and I had to give her a bath... And then my niece tripped and took a header into the doorframe...

I only made half the recipe for the filling and used a Stayman Winesap, a Jonagold, and a Macoun apple. Per the suggestion of the other bakers, I made the entire recipe for the crumble. I am so glad I did because the crumb to filling ratio was perfect! I also cut the sugar in half and agree with Sarah of Blue Ridge Baker that you could eliminate the sugar all together if you wanted. I baked the entire thing for a little over an hour or just until the filling started to bubble up around the edges. I didn't want to bake for too long because I like the apples to still be intact after baking.

This crumble was a huge hit in my parents' house. My mom, dad, and I all split a small casserole dish and I sent a medium sized dish into my husband's work. If anyone read my last post, you would know that although my husband loves my cooking, he isn't overly expressive when complementing me. But even he gave it rave reviews last night- twice! This recipe will definitely be a repeat in my house.

Thanks Christine for picking such a wonderful recipe to welcome the fall season! Be sure to check out her page if you would like the recipe. And don't forget to check out what all the other Sweet Melissa Sunday bakers thought.

Mongolian Beef

2009-10-03T12:00:00.001-04:00

I had starred this in Google Reader several weeks ago after Christine of Cooking with Christine posted it. We are huge fans of Asian food in our house, but we don't normally eat it because A) Making it at home normally requires a lot of prep work, B) Take-out Chinese is incredibly bad for you, and C) there is a severe shortage of Asian food in our area outside of your standard Chinese. I am a huge fan of Thai, Vietnamese, and Japanese, but we just don't have it around here. So when I saw this recipe, I had to make it. Its very simple, has only a few ingredients, and uses flank steak which I just recently discovered and love. Granted, its a PF Chang recipe which probably isn't overly authentic Asian food, but like I said, its easy to prepare.

The recipe comes together fairly ease. The sauce was very simple to make and the beef cooks very quickly because it is sliced pretty thin. I served it with rice and broccoli. Normally, I would cook brown rice, but I completely forgot about a starchy side until I was ready to cook the meat. Brown rice normally takes around 40 minutes, so there was no way I was going to have time to make it.

I really liked the flavor of the dish- it has a lot of sugar in it, but it was very tasty. The only thing I would change next time it to use fresh ginger instead of powder. But I forgot to pick it up at the store and the meat had already been defrosted for two days, so I really couldn't wait for another trip to the store. I think my husband liked it. He's kind of hard to get any sort of reaction out of except for going back for seconds. Here is how it normally goes down at the table.

"What do you think?"

"It's good."

"Should I make it again sometime?"

"Yeah- I would"

Sometimes he will say "This is a definite repeat" and then he'll go back for seconds. But he didn't go back for seconds last night which makes me suspicious. Don't get me wrong, I love my husband dearly, he's just not expressive about food. That is unless its about his mom's baked rigatoni recipe. Everytime I make that he says "I love this dinner. And you do such a great job with it!" And then my heart melts...

Here is the recipe if you would like to give it a try...

P. F. Chang's® Mongolian Beef

Recipe from Meemo's Kitchen

Sauce

2 teaspoons vegetable oil
1/2 teaspoon minced ginger
1 tablespoon chopped garlic
1/2 cup soy sauce
1/2 cup water
3/4 cup dark brown sugar

1 cup vegetable oil
1 pound flank steak (to make slicing easier, put the beef in the freezer for 30-45 minutes to freeze slightly)
1/4 cup cornstarch
4-6 large green onions

For the sauce:

Heat 2 teaspoons of vegetable oil in a saucepan over medium-low heat. Add ginger and garlic to the pan. Quickly add the soy sauce and water before the garlic scorches. If your oil is too hot, this may splatter, so be careful. Dissolve the brown sugar in the sauce, then bring the heat up to medium heat and allow the sauce to boil for 2-3 minutes or until the sauce thickens. Remove from heat.

Slice the slightly frozen flank steak against the grain into 1/4-inch thick slices. Tilt the blade of your knife at about a forty five degree angle to the top of the steak so that you get wider cuts.Coat the steak pieces with a very thin coating of the cornstarch on both sides of each piece of beef. Let the beef sit for about 10 minutes so that the cornstarch sticks.

Heat one cup of oil in a wok or skillet over medium heat until it's hot, but not smoking. Add the beef to the oil and sauté for two minutes, or until the beef just begins to darken on the edges. Stir the meat so that it cooks evenly. After a couple minutes, use a large slotted spoon or a spider to take the meat out and onto paper towels.

Pour the oil out of the wok or skillet. Put the pan back over the heat, add the meat back into the wok or skillet and simmer for one minute. Add the sauce, cook for one minute while stirring. Add the green onions. Cook for one more minute, then remove the beef and onions with tongs or a slotted spoon to a serving plate. Leave the excess sauce behind in the pan.

*NOTE I used much less oil for frying the beef. It was probably about 1/4 cup and I used a nonstick frying pan.

Birthday Cupcakes!

2009-10-02T09:44:00.005-04:00

So yesterday was my daughter's first birthday. We're celebrating with our family this weekend, but I wanted to do something special for her at daycare. I remembered Tracey of Tracey's Culinary Adventures had posted a recipe for Martha Stewart's one bowl chocolate cupcakes and thought they would be perfect- less bowls to clean after baking! As I was looking for the recipe on her site, I also came across these adorable oreo cupcakes and thought they would be perfect for kids!

Now, we're talking about one year olds, so these were definitely going to have to get scaled down a bit. I thought I remembered seeing the 100 calorie snack packs of oreos in the store, so I figured I could make mini cupcakes and top them with the snack size cookies. When I went to the store, I found out they make whole bags of the bite size cookies which was great because the snack packs tend to be a little expensive. Even better, they now have golden oreo bite size cookies too, so I picked up a bag of those and bag of the chocolate figuring I could make a chocolate and vanilla version. You never know what kids are going to want!

After sorting through all the cupcake recipes on Tracey's site and reading that she wasn't thrilled with the cake in the oreo cupcakes, I settled on the MS chocolate cupcakes and a yellow cupcake recipe while using the theory behind the oreo cupcakes. Both recipes were one bowl cupcakes and I have to say I LOVED them. They were so easy to throw together and there was not a lot of clean-up. The only problem was I had 72 mini cupcakes in the oven and a ton of cake batter leftover! More on this later...

The cupcakes smelled sooooo good in the oven- since they were minis, they only took about 12-15 minutes. After they had cooled and the kids went to bed, I whipped the cream for the topping and piped away. And if I may say so, I think they turned out super cute! My only suggestion here is wait to put the cookies on until the last minute. Obviously, I wasn't too keen on finishing the cupcakes in the morning (I am at least 15 minutes late for work everyday), so I went ahead and assembled everything the night before. When I checked on them this morning, the cookies were a little soft as they must have absorbed some of the moisture from the whipped cream. I don't think the little ones will mind though! I ended up sending in two dozen to the one year old classroom and two dozen to my other daughter's three year old classroom. Certainly too many for both, but figured the staff could have a nice treat this afternoon!

So now for the leftover batter... I remembered seeing a recipe for a zebra cake on The Food Librarian's site and thought what better way to use up the rest of the batter! This way we would have some sort of dessert for my daughter's actual birthday. The zebra cake is assembled by making concentric circles with vanilla and chocolate cake batter. I double checked the baking times on each cake and they were very similar, so I decided to give it a try. Defeinitely check out Mary's post about this because she has detailed photographs about how to pour the batter I didn't have time to take.

When I poured the batter, it kind of favored one side of the pan, but I thought the final pre-baked product looked pretty good anyway. Unfortunately, I didn't preheat the bottom oven, so I had to put the cake on the bottom rack until the cupcakes were done. I think because the heat was uneven at the bottom, the chocolate and vanilla layers on the edge of the cake kind of melted togother. I also should have poured smaller amounts of the batter each time (the original recipe states to pour 1/4 cup at at time but I think I grabbed the 1/2 cup instead). Regardless, the cake was awesome. We served the zebra cake with vanilla ice cream and our kids loved it! I would highly recommend both recipes.

Stay tuned for my daughter's real birthday cake. Hopefully it will turn out the way I envision it! And be sure to check out Tracey's and Mary's sites if you would like the recipes from above.

No Sweet Melissa Sundays... again!

2009-09-28T10:06:00.003-04:00

I apologize to the group for not posting again this week and I have fallen terribly behind in my comments to everyone. We went on vacation last week, which was absolutely wonderful. My husband and I took our two girls to Disney World for the first time and we had a blast! Its so fun to see everything through the eyes of little kids. The trip was utterly exhausting but worth every second and every dollar spent.

Unfortunately, our fun came to and end when we came home Friday night and found out our one dogs was hit by a car literally hours before we came home. Evidently the dog sitter dropped both our dogs off at our house a couple hours before we came back and somehow, they managed to pop a screen on our sun porch and squeeze under the gate in our back yard. The neighbors had seen her running around a few hours before, and we found her at the top of our street about an hour after we came home. Fortuntaly, my husband said it was quick and she didn't suffer. But it was agonizing having to tell my three year old because she absolutely loved our little Lola.

You go through so many things in your mind like why didn't we just leave her at the pet sitter for one more night since we were getting back late. Why didn't the neighbor grab her when he saw her. Why didn't we take an earlier flight back. But life is what it is and we can't change what has happened. We had her for seven wonderful years and I'll cherish every moment I had with her. She was such a sweet and loving dog and was always ready to for a good snuggle at the end of the day. She will truly be missed...

This has been a heartbreaking weekend, but I promise to have something yummy up by the end of the week because my daughter's first birthday is Thursday!

Orange Scented Scones

2009-09-20T12:00:00.000-04:00

This week's Sweet Melissa Sundays recipe was chosen by Robin of Lady Craddock's Bakery. I have to admit, I was a bit surprised by her selection this week. You see, she is a personal trainer and this recipe has to be the most fattening one in the entire book. I am not kidding when I say this recipe has no redeeming qualities (unless you add some chopped up fruit to them). These scones are literally fat and flour mixed together to create something called breakfast, or tea depending on where you live.

I absolutely love scones. There used to be this little British tea shop near us that sold scones, and I absolutely loved them. Every couple months, I would stop by and pick up a half dozen of them and a package of fruit pastilles (my roommate in college was from South Africa and she turned me on to them). Delicious! Unfortunately, they have since closed. And talk about timing on their part- I went to buy scones the last weekend they were open only to find a burned out building when I turn into the parking lot. Evidently the restaurant next to them caught fire the night before and it literally burned down to the ground. So they only really lost one day of business and I'm sure there was not that much left in the shop at that point. Lucky for them, not so lucky for me!

Since the tea shop has closed, I have been on a quest to find scones that could match up. There is a little shop in our town called Talula's Table that has pretty decent ones, but they aren't quite as good. Maybe I'm just biased because scones seem to taste a little different when you buy them from someone with a British accent. Then I made this recipe... and I can report with great satisfaction that I think I have finally found something to fill the dark sconeless void I had been previously left with.

I first made the recipe a couple months back when I initially bought the book. I had a brunch after my brother-in-law's wedding and made all these different kinds of scones based on the recipe. I was so anxious the first time I made them, hoping they might possibly hold up to their British counterparts. Thankfully, they did. Everyone at the brunch loved them, including me. Though I felt a little guilty when my mother-in-law's best friend started raving over them as she was telling me how she had just been to the doctor and he told her her cholesterol was too high. But it was a little late at that point!

As for the recipe itself, it is super easy to throw together. I only have one of those mini prep food processors so I had to cut the butter in to half of the flour and then mix in the rest. This time around, I opted to use lemon zest in the first batch instead of orange since lemon scones are my absolute favorite. Some other flavor combinations I have made in the past are lemon-blueberry (my daughter's favorite), orange-cranberry-pistachio (one of my favorites), and apple cinnamon with a cinnamon glaze.

For the second batch, I tried experimenting a little. Remember how I said the recipe is fattening? If you make it as written, there is over a tablespoon of butter in each scone AND it uses cream instead of milk. When I was taking yoga before, someone had told me you can sub-in flax meal for butter at a one to one ratio so I decided to give it a try. I also subbed buttermilk, my wonder ingredient, for the cream. My "healthy" scones rose beautifully in the oven and smelled great, but I was a little dismayed when at first glance, they looked a little dry. I grabbed one off the tray and anxiously broke off a piece to try. I was really hoping they would taste incredibly good, but I am sad to report, I prefer the full fat version much better. However, the flax meal version still passes as a decent weekday breakfast. I had one this morning toasted with honey and enjoyed it. Next time, maybe I will do half butter and half flax meal to see if their turn out any better. I am determined to make them better for me!

Thank you so much Robin for picking this recipe! Hands down, it is one of my favorite recipes from the Sweet Melissa Baking book so far. If you would like to try the recipe for yourself, check our Robin's page or buy the book for yourself. It will not disappoint you.

Graham Cracker Chewy Bars

2009-09-18T13:15:00.005-04:00

Last weekend, my husband was getting together with a couple of his friends from college for a tailgate. I wasn't quite sure what to bring along because food was being supplied, but I felt guilty not bringing anything. So what better to bring than dessert? I was going through my reader when I came across a post from Eliana of A Chica Bakes. She was talking about how so many wonderful recipes come out of the newspaper and one of the papers she referenced was the LA Times. So I popped over to their site and came across what they call Culinary SOS where they publish recipes people request from area restaurants and bakeries. You should definitely check it out because it looks like they have some really great recipes.

As I was going through the site, I found this recipe for graham cracker chewy bars and they were described as being similar to a pecan pie. I thought these would be great for a tailgate and, more important, I had all the ingredients on hand, so I decided to make them. The base of the bars is a graham cracker crust and you top the crust with a pecan graham cracker mixture and bake. As I was making the "batter" for the top layer, I was kind of surprised by the lack of nuts in it. Since the recipe is supposed to be reminiscent of a pecan pie, I thought it would be chock full of pecans. But I thought someone else knew something I didn't. Turns out, I should have trusted my instinct and added more pecans. The flavor of the bars was really great, but I definitely would have liked more nuts in them.

I will definitely make these again, but I think I will almost double the amount of nuts in them. I also forgot to mention that the original recipe calls for dusting the bars with powdered sugar when they have cooled. This seemed a little bland (and messy) to me, so I drizzled with melted chocolate instead. If you topped with mini marshmallows, it would be look a big nutty s'more. Be sure to check out the recipe on the LA Times site as well as the many other yummy recipes! I am eyeing up the Boudin Bakery's Brownies next... with 5 eggs and 3 cups of sugar, they HAVE to be good.

No Sweet Melissa Sundays

2009-09-13T20:16:00.003-04:00

My sincerest apologies to Michelle of Vegie Num Nums who chose this week's recipe for Sweet Melissa Sundays, but there was no perfect pound cake in my house this weekend. We went to University of Maryland's first home football game yesterday, so I didn't have much time to bake this weekend. I considered giving it a shot this morning, but after reading a couple posts, it sounded like the cake turned out a little dry. Plus, it was the last day of the annual Mushroom Festival in town, and that ate up a big part of my day.
Mushroom Festival you say? You got it! Now, before you start jumping to conclusions, mushrooms (the legal kind) have a long standing history around here, and we celebrate them in all their glory every year the weekend after labor day. We proudly proclaim Kennett Square, PA to be the Mushroom Capital of the World. And rightfully so... According to the brochure from the festival this year, mushrooms are the highest ranking cash crop in the state of Pennsylvania and account for 61% of all mushrooms produced in the United States. Not too shabby... And they have grown them around here for years. My husband's father helps run one of the farms here and his grandfather owned a mushroom farm before that. I'll have to see if I can dig it up, but I have this really neat b&w picture of his grandfather loading mushrooms into the back of a truck. So as you can see, mushrooms play a pretty significant role in their family!
In any case, be sure to check out what the other Sweet Melissa bakers thought about the recipe this week!

Fallen Chocolate Souffle Cake

2009-09-09T10:50:00.003-04:00

First, my apologies to JoVonn for not baking along last week. I did actually make the muffins but brought them to my sister-in-laws for dinner so I did not get a chance to photograph them. And so so sorry to everyone that I am posting late this week. If its not one thing, its another, right? We went to the beach for the holiday weekend and I did actually make the cake on Monday, but then I could not find my camera cord, and we are having work done on our house... well, you get the idea!

This week's recipe for Sweet Melissa Sundays was chosen by Sarah of Blue Ridge Baker. Sarah has a wonderful blog filled with tasty sweets and creative alternatives for baking with refined sugar. I admire the fact that she does not give her children any refined sugar and would love to do the same with mine, but it would never work in my house. I know my husband would sneak my three year old a doughnut or my mother-in-law would buy her a candy necklace when they were out shopping. Sigh...

Now on to the recipe! I was curious about this week's recipe because I have never had a souffle before and did not know what to expect. I always get nervous baking things like this because you never know how they are going to turn out. The one advantage to this recipe is the souffle is supposed to fall. I had to laugh at myself because I always heard you are supposed to be careful not to stomp around the kitchen when making a souffle so it puffs nicely. I was gingerly walking around the oven with my eleven month old when I suddenly realized the cake was supposed to fall so it didn't really matter! Silly me...

The cake was pretty easy to put together aside from the number of bowls I had to wash after I was done. The cake itself is not labor intensive, but the clean-up certainly was! The only change I made to the recipe was to use raspberry liqueur instead of orange, and I omitted the orange zest. I am not a huge fan of orange and chocolate and I was planning on serving it with raspberries anyway. I popped it in the oven and kept watching it grow higher and higher. I was kind of afraid it may overflow, but luckily it did not. The only thing I found was the cooking time was way off. It said to bake for 65 minutes. I set the timer to 60 and took it out with 13 minutes left on the clock. To my dismay, the one side of the cake had a darkened edge to it and I was really afraid the cake was going to taste burnt. Despite the fact that it was only my family coming over for dinner, I decided to make a cherry pie as well just in case it was overcooked (did anyone read Joy's post this week?). Before you think I am totally crazy, I had leftover pie dough from chicken pot pie I made earlier in the week, so it was not too much extra work.

So what did everyone think? Well, I think the consensus of my family was it was good, but not their favorite recipe (again, did anyone read Joy's post!). Actually, I believe my mom said "the cake is ok, but it's not fair to make a judgement with cherry pie sitting next to it." Interestingly enough, I brought the cake to work the next day and received rave reviews. One woman I work with even went so far as to stop by my office to let me know she thought it was the best dessert I have ever brought in, and that was at ten in the morning! When I tried a smidgen later on, I did find the flavor and texture to be a little better the second day. I am not surprised by this, as in general, I tend to enjoy chocolate desserts more the second day.

While not on my favorites list, I would make the recipe again. And judging from what the other bakers have said, I will stick to the raspberry flavoring instead of orange and maybe even try a hazelnut liqueur. Be sure to check out what the other Sweet Melissa bakers thought, though you probably already have at this point! If you would like the recipe, you can find it on Sarah's blog.

Mom's Banana Apple Bread

2009-08-23T17:27:00.007-04:00

This week's Sweet Melissa Sundays recipe was chosen by Joy of Hot Oven, Warm Heart. If you haven't already checked out her site, you should definitely make a point of doing so. Not only does she have a wonderful way with words, but she has intersting anecdotes about the history of her various recipes.

Joy chose Mom's Banana Apple Bread and I must start by saying I absolutely love banana bread. Its one of those foods that reminds me of a warm blanket on a cold day, a mother's hug, a good snuggle... comfort food! It was fitting that Joy would pick a recipe like this as she seems to be such a warm and caring person. I have to admit though, I went into this recipe a little biased. My dad makes banana bread all the time and I typically use his recipe. I tried a couple other recipes, but always come back to the one he makes. However, the apples seemed like a nice twist and I was intrigued by the choice of spices. I have had cinnamon in bananas foster and nutmeg in banana smoothies, but never together.

The bread is super easy to throw together. It calls for sauteeing the apples before adding them to the banana bread batter which seemed interesting to me. Anytime I have added apples to baked goods, I just throw them in, but I think you sautee them to carmelize them. When I finished mixing the ingredients, I was a little thrown off by how much batter seemed to be in the bowl. The recipe says to use a 1 1/2 quart loaf pan- I have no concept of how big a loaf pan of this size is supposed to be, but obviously the ones I have are much smaller. I doubled the recipe because I had quite a few bananas to use up and I ended up with two nine inch loaves and a bundt cake. This was fine because we had a baptism to go to on Sunday and I thought I could bring the cake to the party after.

As banana bread, I still like my dad's recipe better. I think I was anticipating more of a banana flavor, but once this bread sits for a bit, the banana and apple flavors morph into something totally but wonderfully new. I would definitely make this recipe again, but not when I am in the mood for good old fashioned banana bread. Everyone at the baptism seemed to enjoy it- it was gone before we left! My only complaint about the recipe is I think the apple slices were a little too large for the recipe. They kind of pulled the bread down if they were near the top of the batter, so my loaves looked a little lumpy. The slices also pulled away from the cake in some places. Next time I will cut the slices again in half or thirds. And again, I felt the flavor was much better the second day when the banana and apple had some time to blend. I would also like to try to make the recipe with applesauce instead of bananas for a nice fall treat when apples are in season.

Thanks for picking such a delicious recipe Joy! Another winner from from the Sweet Melissa Baking book... If you would like the recipe, you can find it on Joy's blog. And be sure to check out what the other Sweet Melissa Sundays bakers thought!

Camera Question...

2009-08-19T09:58:00.004-04:00

If anyone is totally in love with their camera, would you mind letting me know what kind you are using? I used to love my old one but it fell out of our diaper bag in the garage and I ran over it with our car. Needless to say, it didn't survive. I got another one, same brand but different model, and I just haven't been very happy with it. Everything looks either blue or yellow to me. As an added bonus, one of my dogs hairs made its way into the camera lens and I think its throwing off the auto focus. Beagle hair can find its way into ANYTHING! He's so sweet though...

In any case, your thoughts would be greatly appreciated! I don't have as much time to sift through product reviews on Amazon anymore.

SMS Hazelnut Truffles

2009-08-18T20:00:00.001-04:00

This week's Sweet Melissa Sunday's recipe was chosen by Annie of Living Life Foodcariously. Hazelnut Truffles... one of my favorite food combinations! I think the first time I fell in love with chocolate and hazelnuts was when my college roommate and I went to France for Spring Break our senior year (I know- France and not Cancun?!). I bought one of the Ritter Sport bars from the grocery store that was just around the corner from the hotel we were staying in and was completely enamoured by it! How excited was I when I found the bars a couple years later when a Trader Joes opened near my parents' house. It seems like they are available everywhere now- one of the benefits of globalization!

The only reason I gave hesitation to this recipe was working with chocolate in the middle of a heat wave. It has been ninety and humid for the past week on the East Coast- not exactly ideal conditions for rolling truffles! But I could not pass up on the recipe. For once I actually had all the ingredients I needed at one time. A lot of people seemed to have a difficult time finding hazelnuts in the grocery store, so I made a point of stopping at the nut shop at the farmer's market. They have a great selection of nuts at very reasonable prices- I found blanched hazelnuts in two pound bags for around five dollars. A steal from what I have read!

I threw everything together during nap time on Saturday and rolled them out on Sunday morning. They were a breeze to make and the rolling went pretty fast using my cookie dough scoop. Since it was so hot, I decided to roll them using rubber gloves. I am not sure why I thought this would make a difference, but it made clean-up a lot easier if anything else. I would definitely consider it for next time! I really dislike having sticky hands...

I am a little short on taste-testers this week since my husband has the stomach flu and my daughter does not like dark chocolate, but my mom and I absolutely loved the truffles! I dropped off the rest of them to my daughters' day care this morning so we'll see what the teachers thought this afternoon. Overall, I thought it was a great recipe, especially considering how easy they were to make, and I will definitely keep this recipe in mind for the holidays. Truffles make a wonderful hostess gift when you are doing the holiday circuit. The only change I may make is to use milk chocolate instead of dark next time. I had also wanted to dip them in white chocolate after rolling them out, but the white chocolate I had on hand looked a little old so I ended up throing it out.

Thanks Annie for picking such a delicious recipe! I would have kept them all for myself if I weren't trying to recover from having the stomach flu! You can check out the recipe on Annie's blog. And be sure to see what all the other Sweet Melissa Sundays bakers thought.

Zuchinni Cake

2009-08-18T19:50:00.000-04:00

We have an overabundance of zuchinni in our garden right now and I have been looking for creative ways to use it all. I cubed some of it to make zuchinni pickles (to be posted shortly) and wanted to make zuchinni bread with the rest of it. I wanted to try something different than what I have made in the past and I remembered the Tuesday's With Dorie group had posted a banana bundt cake recipe a few weeks ago. I figured zuchinni could easily sub-in for the banana so I decided to give it a go.

My youngest daughter was up at quarter after six on Saturday morning, and realizing any opportunity to sleep in was lost, I decided to bake! What else would I want to do on an early Saturday morning! I creamed the butter and sugar, walked over to the refrigerator to grab the eggs, opened the door, AND... no eggs! Of course! Why would I ever have flour, sugar, and eggs in my house all at one time. So I packed up my daughter in her car seat and decided to go grocery shopping while the rest of the house was sleeping. Our grocery store is open twenty-four hours a day and I actually find shopping at seven in the morning is one of the best times to go. The only drawback is they don't have all the lights on in the regierated and frozen food isles. I picked up the eggs and everything else I needed for the week and made my way home.

When I got back, my husband and three year old were awake and my daughter was elated to learn we were going to be making a cake at eight in the morning. I think mostly because she knew she would be able to lick the beater before breakfast. After getting everything together, I came to the step to add the yogurt. I was actually prepared for this because I had picked the yogurt up earlier in the week knowing I was going to be making this cake. I pulled the safety foil back from the container to a smell I was not quite expecting and was quite alarmed when I saw purple instead of creamy white yogurt. I looked at the front of the container- Stonyfield Organic Low Fat BLUEBERRY yogurt. I almost cried when I read it. Since when did they start selling blueberry yogurt in big containers! I entertained the thought of making blueberry zuchinni bread but the idea just didn't float with me. I was not about to go back to the store so after a quick scan of my refrigerator, I decided on buttermilk. It is my wonder ingredient and I find it can be used as a substitute for almost any dairy product. So I poured it in and crossed my fingers.

Let me tell you, this cake was really, really good! A far cry from the banana bundt cake recipe I started with, but a new favorite for me. The cake was so incredibly moist and the lemon icing really complemented the cake well. You can barely even see the zuchinni let alone taste it, so you do not have to worry about the cake having any hint of a veggie flavor. I will definitely be making this recipe again! Here is the recipe, adapted from Dorie's original:

Zuchinni Bundt Cake

3 cups all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 sticks (8 ounces) unsalted butter, at room temperature

2 cups sugar

2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

2 large eggs, preferably at room temperature

2 Cups Shredded Zuchinni

1 Cup Buttermilk

2 t Lemon Zest

1 Cup Chopped Walnuts (Optional)

Center a rack in the oven and preheat to 350 degrees F. Generously butter a 9- to 10-inch (12 cup) Bundt pan.

Whisk the flour, baking soda and salt together.

Working with a stand mixer, preferably fitted with a paddle attachment, or with a hand mixer in a large bowl, beat the butter until creamy. Add the sugar and beat at medium speed until pale and fluffy.

Beat in the vanilla, then add the eggs one at a time, beating for about 1 minute after each egg goes in. Reduce the mixer speed to low and mix in the zuchinni. Finally, mix in half the dry ingredients, all the buttermilk and then the rest of the flour mixture.

Scrape the batter into the pan, rap the pan on the counter to debubble the batter and smooth the top. Bake for 65 to 75 minutes, or until a thin knife inserted deep into the center of the cake comes out clean. Check the cake after about 30 minutes - if it is browning too quickly, cover it loosely with a foil tent.

Transfer the cake to a rack and cool for 10 minutes before unmolding onto the rack to cool to room temperature.

Optional Lemony White Icing: Sift 3/4 cup confectioners' sugar into a bowl and squeeze in enough fresh lemon juice (start with 2 teaspoons and add more by drops) to make an icing thin enough to drizzle down the Bundt's curves.

Notes:

It was suggested to let the cake sit, wrapped in plastic, overnight to achieve a better flavor. I definitely found this to be true.

I had to tent the cake after about 30 minutes.

I'm certain plain yogurt or sour cream can be used in place of buttermilk.

As a variation, sub in 1 teaspoon cinnamon for lemon zest and top with cinnamon icing instead of lemon icing.

Snickerdoodles!

2009-08-10T09:45:00.004-04:00

Snickerdoodles! I feel like its one of those words you can't write without an exclamation point after it. These tasty little cookies were the recipe of the week for Sweet Melissa Sundays chosen by Spike of Spike Bakes.

I haven't had snikerdoodles in ages so I was kind of excited to try this recipe. I am not sure why, but these were never a popular cookie in my house growing up. I think I have only made them myself once or twice. Maybe because they don't have chocolate in them... or because you are supposed to roll them and I am too lazy to do it!

The recipe was incredibly easy to make which was a huge bonus because we were super busy this week. These days, I rate how easy a recipe is to make based on whether I can make it while holding a baby. My daughter, who is ten months old now, was tired of playing with the spices in the cabinet by the time I was able to make these so I only had one hand free the whole time. But they came together in a breeze and I was able to roll them out with the assistance of my other daughter the next day while the baby was down for her nap.

The cookies turned out a little flatter that what I remembered from the last time I made snickerdoodles, but I am not one hundred percent sure how they are supposed to look. And while I did like the recipe, I would not rank snikerdoodles in general as one of my favorite cookies. My daughter loved them and we both had a blast saying snickerdoodle and coming up with different variations of the name- like snickerpoodle or snickertoodles (does anyone else have kids that watch Mickey Mouse Clubhouse??). If anything, a three year old will help you get in touch with your inner silliness!

Thanks Spike for picking a recipe that was fun to make more than anything else! Be sure to check out the recipe on her blog and check in to see what all the other SMS bakers thought.

So I just went to upload my pictures and realized I picked up my mother-in-laws camera last night instead of mine, so I'll have pictures coming soon!

Blackberry Cobbler

2009-08-06T10:07:00.000-04:00

We celebrated my dad's 65th birthday this weekend and I was in charge of making dessert for his birthday dinner. My family is definitely more of a pie family than a cake one. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that my mom hardly ever made cakes when were growing up. For whatever reason, her cakes never rose- and I mean never! One time she and my aunt were making a cake using the exact same recipe at the same time and my aunt's came out perfect and my mother's was perfectly flat. But she is one amazing pie baker!

Ironically, a few weeks ago my mom and I were flipping through a Southern Living cookbook looking for a chocolate cake recipe to send my aunt when we came across this recipe. The picture in the book looked amazing and blackberries are in season, so I decided to go for it.

Armed with $16 worth of blackberries, I set all the ingredients out and began to read through the directions. It kind of struck me as odd, but you are supposed to make the crust and then roll out and bake half of it, crumble it, and mix it in with the berries. I wasn't too sure about this, but went out on a limb and followed the directions. I really liked the crimped edges of the crust in the cookbook's picture, but I don't have pastry wheel to make the pretty little edges. So I got creative and used a vegetable slicer my mom picked up for me a few years back. Its supposed to cut raw veggies with a little wave pattern, similar to waffle fries. It worked like a charm and now I have a multi-use kitchen tool!

Although it probably would have been a little prettier in a nicer baking dish (I don't have a great picture of it either), the cobbler was delicious, crumbled crust and all. My dad loved it which is what really mattered! Despite the fact that its a little expensive to make, its a wonderful recipe and one I will definitely make again in the future. Oh, and one more thing... the recipe calls for 2 1/4 cups sugar which seemed a little excessive to me. I guess it is supposed to cut the tartness of the berries. I used 1 1/2 cups and I think the flavor was perfect.

Blackberry Cobbler

Southern Living Annual Recipes 1999

Filling:

8 Cups Fresh Blackberries
2 1/4 Cups Sugar
1/3 Cup Flour
1 t Lemon Juice
4 T Butter (optional)

Pastry:

2 1/2 Cups Flour
1 3/4 t Baking Powder
3/4 t Salt
1/2 Cup Shortening
2/3 Cup Milk

Stir together the filling ingredients and let stand for 10 minutes or until the sugar dissolves.

Begin to make the pastry by combining the first three ingredients in a medium bowl. Cut in shortening with a pastry blender until the mixture is crumbly (I used two butter knives). Add milk, stirring with a fork until dry ingredients are moistened and mixture forms a soft ball.

Turn dough onto a floured surface a knead 6-8 times. Roll out half of pastry to 1/4 inch thickness and cut into 1 1/2 inch wide strips. Place on a lightly greased baking sheet (I used parchment paper).

Bake at 425 degrees for 10 minutes or until lightly browned. Remove to a wire rack and cool. Break strips into pieces.

Spoon half of blackberry mixture into a lightly greased 9x13 inch baking dish. Top with pastry pieces. Spoon remaining blackberry mixture over pastry. Dot with butter (optional).

Roll remaining pastry to 1/4 inch thickness. Cut into 1 inch strips and arrange in a lattice design over filling. Sprinkle with sugar, if desired. Place cobbler on a baking sheet.

Bake at 350 degrees for 50 minutes or until golden. Serve with vanilla ice cream and blackberry syrup if desired.

A couple notes...

I found it easiest to make the pastry first. While the first part is baking, mix together the blackberries. Roll out the second part of the pastry while everything is cooling/combining.
I reduced the sugar to 1 1/2 cups.
I added about 1 t lemon zest in addition to the lemon juice.

Strawberry Ruby Red Preserves

2009-08-04T14:27:00.003-04:00

My apologies to Margo who selected this wonderful recipe as I'm sooooo very late posting... I almost skipped this recipe because we had gone to the beach the weekend we were supposed to make it, but the flavor combination sounded so intriguing I had to give it a go. I've made a lot of jelly/jam/preserves in the past. My dad always made them during the summer and my sister and I loved to help. The best part was eating the foam he skimmed off before canning the jam (if you've made jam or jelly with Sure-Jell or liquid pectin before, you know what I'm talking about). I do normally use the Sure-Jell when making jam, so I was especially interested to see how this recipe would turn out since it uses apples as a source of pectin.

Aside from having all the ingredients on hand at one time, this recipe was really easy to make. I bought strawberries and grapefruit before reading the recipe all the way through and when I went to make it the first time, I realized I had no apples. By the time I was able to get the apples, I had to break down and let my daughter eat the strawberries I bought. You just can't say no to a kid when they ask for fruit as a snack! One more trip to the store did the trick...

I absolutely loved the flavor of the preserves- strawberry preserves can be a little too sweet sometimes, but the grapefruit counteracted the sweetness quite nicely. I really wanted to make lemon scones so I could try the preserves on something, but I have been so busy lately. That is the one nice thing about preserves- they keep for a long time! I did give a small jar to my mom and dad and my mom said she really enjoyed them. I may have to add this to my list of preserves to make every year!

You can check out the recipe on Margo's blog. Be sure to check out the latest pictures of her adorable dog as well!

Chewy Peanut Butter Cookies

2009-08-02T20:38:00.005-04:00

This week's SMS recipe was chosen by Stephanie of Ice Cream before dinner. Peanut butter cookies... they hold a special place in my heart. For one, I LOVE peanut butter. I grew up on peanut butter and jelly sandwiches- I literally had one almost every day from kindergatden through high school. And it was a saving grace when I was pregnant with my first daughter- I had gestational diabetes and it was one of the few things I really enjoy that I was able to eat without too much concern (even fruit was a no-no). Peanut butter cookies are a staple Christmas cookie in my house as well, so they always remind me of the holidays.

This recipe is very similar to the one I grew up with except we always rolled them in sugar and topped with Hershey's kisses. Funny enough, I always used to pick off the chocolate kiss and eat the cookie when I was little! I didn't develop an appreciation for chocolate until I was older. They are super easy to make, especially considering you skip the sugar rolling step. The only change I made to the recipe was the kind of flour I used. Believe it or not, I had run out of white flour and I had already run the to the store about three times this week and it was raining all day so I decided I had to make due with what I had on hand. After debating between whole wheat flour, graham flour, and oat flour, I went with the graham flour. I figured I love peanut butter and graham crackers so it couldn't be that bad!

I think the cookies turned out well, except they were a little flatter than what I anticipated and I kind of lost the cross-hatch effect in baking. I wonder if this had to do with the graham flour- the texture was definitely a little heavier than regular flour. But the flavor was great and they had a nice chewy texture. My husband loves soft cookies so I think he really appreciated them! The recipe is a definite do-over. I really liked the flavor of the cookie with the graham flour, but I'm curious to see if they would bake differently using a different flour.

Be sure to check out the recipe on Stephanie's blog and to see what the other SMS bakers thought of this week's recipe.

NYT Chocolate Chip Cookies

2009-07-27T10:26:00.002-04:00

I've read a lot about the NYT chocolate chip cookie since I started Sweet Melissa Sundays, so I had to see what all the buzz was about. I fell in love with Melissa Murphy's recipe when we made it a few weeks back, and decided it was going to be pretty hard to beat. Since we were going to the beach this past weekend, I thought it was the perfect time to make them as they would be a nice treat after lunch on the beach.

The recipe is a little more complicated than the cookie recipes I have made in the past. It calls for two different kinds of flours and you are supposed to sift all the dry ingredients together. Honestly, I normally skip sifting together dry ingredients unless its for a cake, but I wanted to follow the recipe exactly as written to see what all the hub-bub was about. The only thing I changed was I used Ghiradelli chocolate chips instead of the favres that the recipe calls for. I had never even heard of them until I read the recipe and I knew our grocery store wouldn't have them. When I read about the recipe on Eliana's (of A Chica Bakes) blog, she mentioned it was definitely worth it to splurge on the chocolate. When we were out last weekend, I saw a bag of Guittard chips, but much to my dismay they were butterscotch chips, not chocolate. So I picked up the Ghiradelli instead.

It wasn't until the last step before baking that I realized why these cookies are so good. You are supposed to sprinkle the tops with sea salt. Brilliant- its like crack to any woman that is in the least bit hormonal. Sweet, salty, and chocolate all in one cookie! Its like eating potato chips and M&M's... The sea salt is a flavor explosion in your mouth that lingers after the cookie is gone.

This recipe really is a great one, but I still like the Melissa Murphy one as well. I asked my husband which he liked better and he said he would have to taste them both at the same time, so maybe there will be a bake-off sometime in the near future! You can find the recipe from the New York Times here.

Anadama Bread

2009-07-27T10:23:00.001-04:00

There is another baking group out there following the Bread Baker's Apprentice by Peter Reinhart and the recipes looked really interesting, so I decided to buy the book last week. I'm really quite behind where everyone else is, but I would still like to make my way through the book. And let me tell you, if you are interested in baking breads, this book is way more than just a cookbook. There are so many interesting things in it about the science of baking bread- it was definitely worth the money.

The first receipe in the book is for Anadama bread. Evidently, this is a classic New England bread that came to fruition after a man's wife walked out on him and left him with nothing to eat. He threw the cornmeal mush that was left together with some molasses and flour and said "Anna damn her", hense the name. When I read about the bread on Tracey's Culinary Adventures, she mentioned she had lived in New England her entire life and had never heard of this bread. So I called my friend who has lived in Boston her whole life and she said the same thing. Interesting...

The bread starts with a cornmeal soaker. I had never made a bread that involved a soaker so this step was entirely new to me. The rest of the recipe comes together fairly simply. It suggested using golden molasses for a milder flavor, but all I had was blackstrap molasses- the complete opposite of what I was supposed to use! I had picked it up last weekend because its very hard to find around here and the recipe we use at Christmas to make molasses cookies calls for it. Oh well...

The dough rose beautifully and baked to a nice brown color unlike the golden loaf in the picture- probably because of the darker molasses. It smelled wonderful when it was in the oven. There is nothing like the smell of yeast bread baking! And I loved the texture of this bread. There was a nice crust on the outside and it was soft but kind of dense on the inside. I NEVER had white bread when I was growing up (I kid you not- I don't think I had white bread until I was in college) so I like a denser bread. It was very tasty and I think it will make a wonderful sandwich, but you could definitely taste the molasses. Next time I make it, I am going to try to find the golden molasses so there is a more subtle molasses flavor.

Even though the recipe is a little time intensive, it is definitely worth the effort! Per the request of the group, the recipes for the breads in the BBA book won't be posted on my blog, but you can check out the book on Amazon. Like I said, it is well worth the money and there are some really interesting recipes!

Skirt Steak Tostadas

2009-07-20T20:45:00.005-04:00

My dad made this recipe a few weeks ago and I absolutely loved it! I am not a huge steak person- if I am going to eat a steak it has to be a really good one. But this recipe is really flavorful and I love the salsa that is served with it.

The recipe was featured in USA Weekend a couple weeks ago. Evidently they sponsored an episode of The Next Food Network star and this was the winning recipe. Skirt steak (or flank steak as it was labeled when I bought it) is one of those things I have seen in the grocery store but I never know what to do with it. Its really a shame people don't buy this cut more often as its very tender and less expensive than something like a strip steak. The recipe calls to marinate it in a soy and honey based marinade and to serve it with a mango salsa. It suggests serving it with a tostada and black beans, but we've been trying to lighten things up a little around here so I bypassed the tostada and served with salad greens. The juice from the salsa made a wonderful dressing.

This recipe is great for a weeknight dinner. You can make the marinade the night before, throw the meat in a plastic bag with the marinade in the morning, and throw it on the grill that night. And leftovers make a great salad topper for lunch (mmm... I can't wait until lunch tomorrow). We will definitely be making this one again!

Skirt Steak Tostadas

from USA Weekend July 3-5, 2009

Marinade:

1/2 Cup Soy Sauce

1/2 Cup Olive Oil

Juice of 3 Lemons

1/2 Cup Honey

1 Cup Finely Chopped Onion

1 Habanero Chili Seeded and Finely Chopped

Salt and Freshly Ground Black Pepper

2 Pound Skirt Steak

Mango Salsa:

1 Red Onion Finely Chopped

1 Mango Finely Chopped

1/4 Cup Cilantro Leaves Chopped

1 Poblano Chile Seeded and Minced

1/4 Cup Honey

Juice of 3 Limes

Salt and Freshly Ground Black Pepper

In large shallow bowl, whisk together the marinade ingredients. Add the meat, cover and refrigerate at least one hour (I just threw everything in a ziploc). It is best to marinate for several hours.

Combine all salsa ingredients in a bowl and set aside.

Preheat a grill pan to medium high heat. Remove meat from dish and discard marinade. Place steak on grill for about 4 to 6 minutes for medium rare to medium, turning once. Remove from the grill and let the meat rest for five minutes. Thinly slice on the diagonal into strips.

You can serve as is or as suggested by the recipe... Place tostada on individual plate. Spoon black beans (see below) over tostada and then top with steak and salsa. Garnish with sour cream and cheese if desired.

Black Beans:

1 16 oz can Black Beans

1/2 Cup Olive Oil

1/2 Cup Red Wine

1 Jalepeno Seeded and Chopped

Simmer ingredients in a saucepan for 20 minutes.

Whole Orange Poppy Seed Cake

2009-07-19T19:49:00.005-04:00

This week's Sweet Melissa Sunday's recipe was chosen by Melissa of Lulu the Baker- a whole orange poppy seed cake. I almost sat this week out- I had a really busy week at work and my littlest one has the start of a chest cold, but I really enjoy Melissa's blog and wanted to bake along in support. When I saw how easy the recipe was, I decided to give it a go.

I have one other recipe in my collection that uses the entire orange- orange flax muffins. My mom found the recipe when we were running a "health week" at work. She came across it on a breast cancer awareness website. It was amazing how the bitterness of the orange peel dissipate d after baking the muffins. This recipe was super easy to throw together. I didn't even have to pull out my stand mixer this week! I decided to bake them in my mini bundt cake pan my sister gave me for Christmas a few years ago. I haven't had much luck using it in the past as it is a really dark nonstick pan and everything has a tendency to come out burnt. But I decreased the baking temperature to 325 degrees and kept a very close eye on it.

I ended up pulling the cakes out after about 25 minutes. The texture of the tops looked a little funny- not smooth like I'm used to with recipes like these. But they weren't burnt so I was happy. But then I went to take them out of the pan and evidently I didn't grease them enough. The first one broke when I took it out and I had to ease the rest of them out with a spoon. You can see from the picture that the cakes definitely stuck to the pan.

So the verdict... I really wanted to like these little cakes and I'm not sure if I was discouraged by yet another disappointing experience with my mini bundt pan, but I have to admit, this isn't amongst my favorites from the book. I found the texture to be a little off which I suspect may be due to lowering the baking temperature. I also did not have time to make the glaze for it as we were out all day so I would like to try the recipe one more time before I make a final decision.

Be sure to check out what the other Sweet Melissa Bakers thought of the recipe. You can find the recipe on Melissa's blog.

And here are some pictures from the gardens we visited this afternoon. They are a little more pleasing to the eye than my cake!

I love this orange lilly- the flower was so interesting!

And some beautiful yellow daisies- my favorite color!

Eggplant Rolatini

2009-07-16T21:11:00.001-04:00

Did you ever have one of those recipes that you really, really wanted to try, but you weren't sure if it was ever going to happen? My husband and I used to like to get take-out from this Italian restaurant we lived close to. They had a dish called eggplant rollatini that I absolutely loved and its the only place I have ever seen it. It is basically eggplant that has been sliced lengthwise, breaded and fried, and then rolled up with a ricotta and spinach filling. We moved two years ago, and although we are still relatively close, not close enough to go back for take-out. So I decided to try to make the dish myself.

I had made the creamy pesto that Tracey of Tracey's Culinary Adventure had posted on her blog a couple weeks ago and I had quite a bit of leftover ricotta so I thought it was the perfect time to try the recipe out. I bought an eggplant at the store on Sunday and as I was putting it away I noticed two small holes in it. I thought I could just cut around it, but to my dismay, when I began to slice it on Monday evening, the entire thing was wormed through and there was a very hungry caterpillar inside (I kid you not- it looked exactly like the very hungry caterpillar). So Tuesday afternoon after I left work and picked up my girls from daycare, I made my way over to the local produce shop figuring it was easier to go there than the grocery store. No eggplant. So I headed over to the butcher shop next door because they have a produce section as well. No eggplant. There was no way I was driving all the way to the grocery store, and navigating the parking lot and store aisles in four inch heels and two kids in tow so I resigned myself to the fact I was going to have to wait ONE more day.

The next day at work, my mom said she was running out to the store and asked me if I needed anything (yes, I work with my mom- how lucky am I!). I jumped at the chance and she picked up a beautiful eggplant for me. When I got home, I quickly sliced it down and threw it on the grill. The original dish has breaded eggplant, but I was trying to make a healthier version and the idea of grilled eggplant sounded appealing anyway. I had already mixed up the filling so once the eggplant finished cooking, I filled them, popped them in the oven with a little sauce, and about 45 minutes later I had my eggplant rollatini!

They were delicious. I loved the filling and I think I actually liked the dish better with the grilled eggplant. This recipe was super easy to make and tastes wonderful. I'll definitely be making it again!

Eggplant Rollatini

1 Medium Eggplant Sliced Lengthwise (about 1/4 inch thick)

15 oz. Ricotta Cheese (I used part skim)

8 oz. Fresh Mozzarella

1/4 Cup Grated Parmesan Cheese

1 Egg

1/2 Package Frozen Spinach

Salt and Pepper to Taste

Sauce

Slice the eggplant lengthwise and baste with olive oil before grilling. Grill on each side for about five minutes. The eggplant should be tender and easily rolled but not falling apart.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Grate half of the fresh mozerrella and combine with the ricotta, egg, spinach, parmesan, salt, and pepper. Slice the rest of the mozerrella (about ten slices)

Take the first slice of eggplant and spoon about 1/4 cup of the filling onto the center of the slice. Roll the slice up. Repeat with the remaining slices.

Spoon a small amount of the sauce into a 9x13 baking dish and put rolled up eggplant pieces into the dish. Spoon a little more sauce over the top of the eggplant. Bake for about 30 minutes or until you notice the sauce beginning to bubble along the edges. Place the mozerrella slices over the eggplant and bake for another ten minutes. Remove from the oven and let rest for about five minutes before serving.

A medium eggplant yielded about ten eggplant slices. The total recipe yielded about five servings with two rolls per serving.

Brown Sugar Vanilla Ice Cream

2009-07-13T22:10:00.000-04:00

My family and I went to the beach last weekend so I missed out on the brown sugar vanilla ice cream that was chosen by Karen of Karen's Cookies Cakes & More. I was kind of hoping to fit it in before we left but laundry and packing got in the way... I was kind of bummed I missed out on making it because I rarely use my ice cream maker and I love vanilla ice cream, so I am doing double duty for SMS this week.

The last time I made a custard ice cream, I was not quite sure how thick the custard was supposed to be. I was also using an electronic meat thermometer my husband got for the grill so I wasn't confident in the temperature reading I was getting. I wound up overheating the mixture and ended up with a curdled mess. I tried throwing it in the blender to see if it would come back together, but it just wasn't as creamy as it should have been. So I was much more cautious this time around.

The custard was super easy to make. I love recipes like this because they don't require you to temper the eggs. With my trusty meat thermometer in hand, I successfully heated the custard to 182 degrees (I should really get an instant read thermometer). After chilling overnight, I churned the ice cream Sunday morning and was it ever delicious. Super creamy and a nice vanilla flavor... I even got my three year old to eat a piece of chicken by bribing her with an ice cream cone!

Thanks Karen for picking such a great recipe! I was happy for an excuse to use my ice cream maker. You can check out the recipe on her blog.

Lemon Blueberry Cheesecake with Cornmeal Crumble Crust

2009-07-12T07:45:00.001-04:00

This week's recipe for Sweet Melissa Sundays was chosen by Eliana of A Chica Bakes. I have to admit there are several recipes in the book that I am a little wary of, but I always end up loving them. While I love cheesecake, the idea of a cornmeal crust didn't sound very appealing.

Aside from being a little time consuming, the recipe is relatively easy to make. I really like the addition of the lemon zest/juice. I am generally not a huge fan of flavored cheesecakes, but the lemon was very subtle. I knew I was going to at least like the cheesecake part when I tasted the batter- so creamy!

I brought the cheesecake over to my parents' house last night and everyone loved it. Very creamy and not dry or gummy as some recipes can turn out to be. My dad kind of had a funny look on his face when he took the first bite and then he asked what the crust was made of. Oh no... I told him it was cornmeal and he said that was what he thought. But surprise, surprise, he loved it! He thought the traditional graham cracker crust would have overpowered the lemon, which I tend to agree with. My husband on the other hand, said he really liked it, but prefers the traditional crust. The only thing I had an issue with was the blueberry sauce. It was a little runnier than what I expected but still delicious.

Thanks Eliana for picking an awesome recipe this week! If you would like the recipe, you can find it on her blog.

Seafood Chowder

2009-07-09T13:13:00.012-04:00

We went to the beach this past weekend and my husband, father-in-law, and brother-in-law caught a few crabs. I guess no one felt like picking at the crabs when there were three pounds of shrimp and a hundred steamers to munch on so I needed to find a recipe to use them up. There were a few shrimp left as well, so I decided to make a seafood chowder (despite the warm weather).

This recipe, or rather the inspiration for this recipe, came to me from my mother-in-law who owns a daycare center. They had put together a cookbook one year and one of the mother's submitted this delicious soup. The original recipe was a little too rich for me so I have dumbed it down quite a bit. I am all for splurging once in a while, but a quart of cream, a quart of half and half, and a stick of butter was more than even I could take! The recipe comes together very easily. My mother-in-law likes to serve it in bread bowls when she has the time to make them. I prefer to just get a crusty loaf of bread as I am not a huge fan of the bread bowl...

This may be a little runnier than most people make their chowder (the original recipe does use flour as a thickener), but I prefer it this way. If I have it on hand, I will add a fresh firm white fish as well.

2 T Butter

2 T Olive Oil

1 Medium Onion Chopped

2 Stalks Celery Chopped

2 Cups Heavy Cream

2 Cups Whole Milk

2 Cups Chicken Broth

1/2 Cup Dry White Wine

1 lb Crab Meat

1 lb Cooked Shrimp

2 Cups Corn

1/2 t White Pepper

Salt to Taste

2 t Old Bay Seasoning (optional)

In a large stock pot, sautee the onion and celery in the butter and olive oil until tender. Add the remaining ingredients and slowly cook over very low heat until it just comes to a simmer (do not boil).

Lemony Ice Cream Pie

2009-07-01T12:55:00.007-04:00

My mom had pointed out this recipe when we were thumbing through a Southern Living cookbook looking for a chocolate cake recipe. It looked really good and seemed like a simple dessert to throw together. Since we were having family over for dinner on Sunday, I decided to give it a go.

First of all, I have to say I think this is the easiest dessert recipe I have ever made. You litterally mix a can of frozen lemonade (I used yellow lemonade) into a quart of softened vanilla ice cream, pour it over a graham cracker crust, and you are done. I was not quite sure the best way to mix the lemonade with the ice cream, so I tired using my blender. While it worked out fine, I think next time I will either use the whisk attachment on my stand mixer or use a hand blender. I think the ice cream was a little thick for the blender and I kept having to push it down with a spoon. Of course, I dropped the spoon into the blender while it was on, but luckily no damage was done!

I ended up serving the pie with fresh blueberries we had picked over the weekend and a blueberry sauce I threw together real quick. It was really delicious and very refreshing. This recipe is a definite repeat for the summer months. I also like the versatility of the recipe- you could serve on its own or pair it the blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, etc.

I hope you enjoy the recipe as much as my family did!

Lemony Ice Cream Pie

Southern Living Annual Recipes 2006

1 Quart Vanilla Ice Cream

4 oz. Frozen Lemonade Concentrate

1 Graham Cracker Crust

Mix softened frozen lemonade concentrate into softened vanilla ice cream. Pour into prepared graham cracker crust. Freeze until firm.

A couple notes...

I used 1 1/2 quarts vanilla ice cream and 6 oz. frozen lemonade concentrate for a nine inch pie.

While a blender can be used, it is probably easiest to mix using a stand mixer or hand blender.

For the graham cracker crust, I used 1 1/2 cups graham cracker crumbs, 6 T butter, and 1/2 cup sugar, and poured into a 9 inch springform pan. Press down on the crumbs to set.

Double Dark Chocolate Cherry Cookies

2009-07-01T12:37:00.006-04:00

So I'm a little late posting for Sweet Melissa Sundays this week. We had a very busy weekend and then I had to go out of town for business on Monday and Tuesday. I did actually make the cookies over the weekend, but had to give up the memory card in my camera to my three year old. My husband snagged the memory card in her V-Tech camera my mom gave her for Christmas and she really wanted to use it over the weekend, so I gave her mine. How different things are these days- my three year old has her very own digital camera!

In any case... This week's recipe was chosen by Megan of My Baking Adventures. I was somewhat skeptical about the recipe this week because I don't generally like cookies made from a chocolate dough. But I knew the people at my work would eat them if my family and I did not. I was pleasantly surprised by them. I only had regular cocoa powder, so I am not sure how much that affected the flavor. To me, they seemed to have just the right amount of chocolate flavor (not too bitter) and I loved the chunks of cherry in them. Per the suggestion of other SMS bakers, I did cut the cherries in half and doubled the amount I put in the dough. 1/3 Cup just didn't seem like enough.

They got really good reviews at dinner on Sunday evening. My sister-in-law, who is four months pregnant, seemed really excited by them when I set them out on the table after dinner. But who isn't excited by chocolate when you are hormonal!

One last comment about these cookies and similar recipes in the book. The recipe calls for the dough to be chilled twice. First you chill in the bowl, then scrape out of the bowl, shape into a log, wrap in plastic, and then chill again. I have found it a little easier to just shape into a log immediately and chill. I divide the dough in half, kind of squish it on the plastic into something that resembles a log, roll the plastic wrap around it, and then shape into a uniform log shape with my hands when it is wrapped in the plastic. I found it kind of difficult to get the dough out of the bowl after it was chilled the first time and this method also cuts down on the amount of time it needs to be chilled.

Thanks Megan for picking such a wonderful recipe! You can check out the recipe on her blog.

Ratatouille

2009-06-25T21:42:00.002-04:00

Finally, proof that I can do something other than bake! I find it challenging to post meals because of the time it takes to get a nice picture. And since I have had kids, I insist on my food being really hot when I go to eat it. Probably because I have eaten so many cold meals after trying to make everyone else happy!

This recipe, really more of a throw together for me, is one of my summer favorites. It is especially helpful when you have more squash than you know what to do with in your garden. We don't have any ready in our garden yet, but I picked some up at the grocery store last weekend and had an extra tomato that needed to be used up. Its incredible easy to throw together and really packed with flavor if you are using fresh vegetables. I normally chop up about two zuchini, two yellow squash, two tomatoes, an onion, and a couple of cloves of garlic. I sautee everything in a little olive oil and then season it with a little salt, some fresh ground pepper, and a handful of chopped basil. I know the traditional version is supposed to have peppers in it as well, but I prefer to leave them out.

The "stew" is great as is, but sometimes I will heat up a chicken sausage to eat with it. I absolutely love the sausages from Trader Joe's- one of my favorites is the sun dried tomato variety. Then all you need is a nice piece of crusty bread and you are ready to go!

Sometimes I think ratatouille is a bit underrated- it is really delicious, healthy, and super easy to prepare. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

Pecan Crescents

2009-06-24T21:40:00.000-04:00

A couple weeks ago, my husband's aunt asked me to make what I think are pecan puffs or Mexican wedding cookies in a crescent shape for her daughter's baby shower. At first I thought she was talking about miniature pecan tarts (I've heard them called tassies before), but then she kept talking about how they are in the shape of a crescent. A light bulb went on and my suspicions were confirmed when she said they were covered in powdered sugar.

I had made them before a long time ago- I think I was actually in middle school or high school at the time. We had a Mexican cookbook and I was curious what Mexican wedding cookies were, so I made them for Christmas.

I wanted to make them over the weekend and knew I wasn't going to see my parents, so I found another recipe in a cookie cookbook I have barely used (I really have to start using more of my cookbooks!). It called for hazelnuts but I thought pecans could easily be substituted. It said to grind them so they could fit through a strainer, which is making them a little finer then I recall having done before, but it suited me fine because I have yet to purchase a food processor and my only option was to use my Magic Bullet. It saved me quite a bit of chopping!

The recipe is super simple and turned out great. The cookies are really delicate tasting and almost melt in your mouth. I kind of like them for the fact that they are not super sweet and have a nice buttery flavor. My three year old loved them without the powdered sugar on top, but her eyes got really big when I started to sprinkle the powdered sugar over them. She had split the first cookie with me, and she ate all her lunch, so I let her taste some of the finished product too...

I hope you enjoy the recipe!

1/2 Cups Flour
1 Cup Butter
1/4 Cup Sugar
1 T Water
1 t Vanilla Extract
1/2 Cup Finely Ground Pecans
Confectioners Sugar for Dusting

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F and line two baking sheets with parchment paper. Sift the flour and salt into a small bowl.

Using an electric mixer, cream the butter. Add the sugar and beat until fluffy. Beat in the water and vanilla. Gently stir in the flour until just combined and then mix in the ground nuts.

Shape about a tablespoonful of dough into a crescent and place on the prepared baking sheet. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until a light golden brown.

Remove from the baking sheet and let cool completely. Dust with confectioners sugar.

Butterscotch Cashew Bars

2009-06-20T21:11:00.006-04:00

This week's Sweet Melissa Sundays recipe was chosen by Pamela of Cookies with Boys. I think I gained about three pounds just reading the recipe let alone eating it- two sticks of butter, a bag of butterscotch chips, 3/4 cup of corn syrup... but are they ever delicious.

The recipe is pretty straightforward and easy to make. Just a shortbread crust made with brown sugar that is topped off with butterscotch caramel and cashews. Of course, when I was making them, I was simultaneously making ice cream and helping my three year old pour the ingredients into the mixer, so my first batch I ended up with 1 1/4 cups of flour in the crust instead of 2 1/2. It was pretty much ice cream topping in a baking dish so off to the trash it went. In hindsight, maybe I should have saved it for the ice cream!

The second batch turned out great. I sprinkled chocolate chips on half of the bars before throwing them into the oven for the last five minutes. I also cut the bars while they were still warm instead of waiting until they had cooled. I think it actually ended up being a little easier that way and I didn't have to struggle to get them out of the pan. My husband loved them and told me they were a definite do over but couldn't decide whether he liked the chocolate or the plain better. Of course my daughter loved them...

Thanks Pamela for picking such an awesome recipe- I haven't seen my husband that excited about something I baked for a while, so I know its something to hold onto! If you would like the recipe, check it out on Pamela's blog.

Banana Bread

2009-06-19T15:48:00.004-04:00

I had a couple of ripe bananas that had to be used in the next day or two, and I think my eight month old was getting a little tired of eating them, so I decided to make banana bread last night. This recipe is an old family favorite. I'm not really sure where it came from- I think it is from one of my mom's friends. I don't normally make it because my dad seems to bake up a batch once or twice a month and always gives a small loaf to my sister and me. But its fishing season for him, so he's not around as much right now.

I pretty much follow the recipe as is, except I normally reduce the sugar by about 1/4 cup. I also like to throw a handful of nuts into one of the loaves since I like nuts in my baked goods, but no one else in my house does.

Banana Bread

1/2 Cup Butter or Margarine
1 1/2 Cups Sugar (I use 1 1/4 Cups)
2 Eggs
2 Cups Flour
1/4 t Baking Powder
3/4 t Baking Soda
1 t Salt
1 Cup Mashed Bananas
1/4 Cup Buttermilk

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and grease and flour two loaf pans.

Combine the dry ingredients in a small bowl and set aside.

Cream the butter and sugar. Add the eggs one at a time blending well after each egg. Add the dry ingredients, then the banana and buttermilk (I add about a third of the dry ingredients, then the bananas, the next third of the dry ingredients, the buttermilk, and finally the last third of the dry ingredients). Add chopped nuts if desired.

Pour into prepared loaf pans and bake for approximately 35-45 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Chocolate Chip Cookies with Toasted Almonds

2009-06-14T23:03:00.000-04:00

This week's recipe for Sweet Melissa Sunday's was actually chosen by the entire group. After a vote, it was decided we were going to make the chocolate chip cookies with toasted almonds. This may sound a little odd, but I was actually kind of glad everyone chose to go with this recipe because I still had chocolate bunnies from Easter I did not know what to do with. I was busy studying for an exam around Easter and my mom was trying to help me out so she went out for me to pick up candy for my daughter. She wasn't quite sure what I wanted to get, so she took the safe route and bought three different chocolate bunnies and a chocolate duck so I could choose which one I wanted. I guess she figured grandmas get to go home at the end of the night so she wouldn't be the one to have to send a three year old on a sugar high to bed! Joking aside, she really helped me out a lot, but I had a ton of leftover chocolate. It was really good homemade candy so off to the chopping block the bunny went...

I have to tell you how much I love this recipe. There is a reason why my sister is the cookie baker and I am the pie baker in my family- for some reason, my cookies just don't turn out right. My perrenial problem with chocolate chip cookies is they are always flat. I have tried experimenting with butter versus margerine, white sugar versus brown sugar, and refrigerating the cookie dough. All I end up with is flat cookies that fall apart. But they came out perfect this time! Finally! It will definitely be my go to recipe in the future.

I really liked the toasted almonds in the cookies as well. I am a huge fan of almonds, but if I were making for a big crowd, I may substitute in walnuts or pecans as they seem to have a more universal appeal. I also worry about almonds being more of a choking hazard for my older daughter.

The recipe does call to chill the dough twice before baking it, so bear that in mind if you want need to make the recipe quickly. The first time, you chill the dough in a bowl and the second time you shape the chilled dough into a log, wrap in plastic, and then chill again. The dough can be a little difficult to scrape out of the bowl when chilled, but Melissa of Lulu the Baker suggested scooping the dough out of the bowl and wrapping in plastic before the first chill which I will definitely be doing next time. I wasn't sure if we were going to eat all two dozen of the cookies this week, and freshly baked cookies definitely taste beter, so I froze one of the "logs" of cookie dough. That way next time we want cookies, all I have to do is defrost it for a few minutes, slice, and bake.

Thanks to all who voted for the chocolate chip cookies! It was getting harder and harder to come up with excuses for my daughter why she couldn't start another chocolate bunny! You can check out the recipe on the Sweet Melissa Sundays page.

Strawberry Rhubarb Jam

2009-06-12T09:18:00.004-04:00

I think rhubarb is one of those things that you love or hate. I happen to be one of the few people I know other than my dad that loves it. My husband's parents have a couple rhubarb plants at the back of their property and every year my father-in-law asks me if I want to take some. In the past, I have not had the time to make anything with it. But now that things have settled down here a bit, I made a point of cutting some stems the other evening and found a recipe for strawberry rhubarb jam in my new Ball Canning book.

I think the thought of making any kind of preserves can be a little overwhelming for some people, but its actually fairly easy. I think the most important things are accurate measurements and timing. Its also important to make sure everything is sterilized, but with dishwashers, its much easier. My dad said they used to have to boil the jars when he was growing up, but now we just throw them in the dishwasher on the sani rinse cycle.

I wasn't sure how this recipe was going to turn out since it was the first time I made it. The flavor is primarily strawberry. In fact, you probably wouldn't even know there was rhubard in it unless someone told you. It just has a little extra zip to it (which could be from the lemon juice as well). My dad really liked it as did my mom, who is among those that don't generally like rhubarb. I chopped everything pretty well, so most of it cooked down without lending the stringy/slimy texture that is common to cooked rhubarb. I think this helped my mom out as I much of her dislike of it is related to the texture.

Here is the recipe if you would like to try it!

Strawberry Rhubarb Jam

from the Ball Canning Book

2 Cups Mashed Strawberries

2 Cups Choppen Rhubarb

1 Package Sure Jell Powder

4 T Lemon Juice

5 1/2 Cups Sugar

In a large stock pot, stir together all the ingredients except the sugar and bring to a boil over high heat. Once at a boil add all the sugar at once (you will need to measure out the sugar before you begin). Bring the mixture back to a full boil stirring constantly. Once at a full boil, continue to cook for one minute stirring constantly. Remove from heat.

Skim off any foam from the jam and ladle into prepared jars leaving one quarter inch head space. Wipe the rim of the jelly jar clean, top with lid, and screw on ring. Process filled jars in a hot water bath for ten minutes (make sure water is at a boil and the water covers the jars an inch beyond the top of the jar). Let cool. As they cool, you should hear the lids pop as the seal is created.

A couple notes...

Jars should be sterilized before they are filled.

Canning lids should be sterilized in a pot of simmering water before they are used.

The canning lid will make a popping sound when the seal has been created. In addition, you can check to see if the seal has been created by pressing on the canning lid after it has cooled. If the center of the lid clicks when you press down on it, it has not sealed (its similar to jarred food you would buy in the store. If the safety seal has been broken, it won't make the popping sound when you open it).

It is important to bring the jam to a full rolling boil once you add the sugar. You should not be able to stir down the bubbles.

Use a larger pot than what you think you will need. The mixture boils up a lot in the pot and there is nothing worse than having to clean up jelly/jam from your stove if it boils over!

You can find more detailed information about canning at http://www.freshpreserving.com/.

Things to Come...

2009-06-10T22:12:00.003-04:00

Among my favorite things to do in life are cooking, gardening, and taking pictures. So naturally, this is one of my favorite times of year. Everything is in bloom and gardens begin to show the first sign of things to come as the weather grows warmer. As I walked around my yard this afternoon, I was taken by the true beauty of everything around me.

A Pea Blossom

When I was growing up, my dad had a huge garden in our back yard with every kind of vegetable you can grow in New Jersey soil. We also had peaches, apples, pears, cherries, strawberries, and raspberries. I can remember sitting in the middle of a cucumber patch, picking a cucumber, and eating it right there on the spot (I still love cucumbers to this day). I find that having kids of your own makes you a little nostalgic of your childhood. So now that we have two little ones of our own, my husband and I set off to create our own garden this year.

Our First Snow Peas!

Its not quite the same magnitude of the garden I grew up with, but I think it will suit our family of four quite fine. We began planting our tomato and pepper seeds back in February, so to finally see the blossoms emerge on the plants brings a real sense of satisfaction. We're also watching the broccoli, lettuce, beans, cucumbers, peas, and corn grow bigger every day. I think its a great opportunity for our children to actually see where our food comes from to gain a better appreciation for it.

The First Sign of Tomatoes

Lettuce Ready to Be Picked

We also planted quite a few strawberry plants this year as well as some blueberry bushes, two apple trees and a peach tree. I think there are about 50 strawberry plants. I did not realize how much each plant yields until my father-in-law told me a well tended plant produces a quart of strawberries every year. That's a lot of strawberry shortcake!

One of Our First Strawberries

There is nothing like cooking with fresh ingredients and I am really looking forward to sharing our experience with everyone over the summer. Now I'm just going to have to find a cookbook with 101 different ways to use tomatoes!

Blueberries Ready to Ripen

Bear's Peach Cobbler (well almost)...

2009-06-08T09:32:00.004-04:00

So I was really looking forward to the recipe for Sweet Melissa Sunday's this week. Bear's Peach Cobbler was chosen by Andrea of the Nummy Kitchen. To me, there is nothing that says summer more than peaches, and with the recent turn in weather here, I was really looking forward to a peach dessert. However, there were a couple things I failed to take into consideration when preparing for the recipe this week. Mainly, its not quite peach season and the peaches from California we are getting in our grocery stores on the east coast are not quite ripe when we buy them. The peaches were not going to ripen overnight, so I decided to make a cherry cobbler instead.
Unlike most of the Sweet Melissa bakers, I have an overabundance of pie cherries in my freezer right now. I picked a ton of them last year and did not have many opportunities to use them as I had my second daughter in October of last year. Much of my baking was put on hold for a while and I never got around to making the cherry jam I had planned on making.
I basically followed the recipe exactly as written with the exception of adding a little almond extract to the cherry mixture. The only problem I had was the dough for the cobbler topping was a little sticky which made it somewhat challenging to cut out. I had originally intended on using a heart shaped cookie cutter, but after half the hearts sticking and stretching, I just decided to pat the dough down to a half inch and spread it evenly over the entire fruit mixture. I think next time I make the recipe I will chill the dough a little before trying to cut it out. Time was not on my side when I was making it as I squeezed it in between a baby shower and dinner at my parents, so I had to make the best of what I had.
Though not as cute as it would have been with the heart shaped cut outs, the cobbler was really delicious. I brought it to my parent's house for dinner and served it with vanilla ice cream. I forgot my camera at home and my dad really, really liked it so I left the last serving for him, so I do not have any pictures to post this week... Maybe next time when I have a little more time and some fresh peaches to work with! Of course, as I am leaving my parent's house, I was telling my sister what happened with the recipe and she told me she has ripe peaches at her house and was not sure if she was going to be able to eat all of them! I guess that is just how it works out sometimes!
Thanks Andrea for the wonderful recipe! When the peaches are ready to pick in a month or so, I will definitely give the recipe another go. You can find the recipe for Bear's Peach Cobbler at Nummy Kitchen.

After the Wedding...

2009-06-01T10:20:00.005-04:00

Well, after months of planning, my brother-in-law finally got married this weekend and everything was really beautiful! As his fiance's family is from Brazil, her parents came in early in the week, so there was an entire week of festivities to attend. A lot of fun, but it takes a lot out of you. We kind of wound things down on Saturday morning with a brunch at our house. I am not quite sure what I was thinking having brunch at our house after being up so late the night before, but I was able to make most everything ahead of time so the last minute prep was not too bad.

I have pretty much been baking a little every day for the past two weeks in preparation and wound up making four different kinds of scones (blueberry, lemon, orange cranberry pistachio, and cinnamon apple), a blueberry crumb cake, caramel apple turnovers with sweet ricotta filling, and the cherry almond granola used in granola breakfast cookies (the latter two being recipes I missed from SMS earlier on). I was a little nervous about the brunch as my brother-in-law and his one groomsmen are the sous chef and head chef at a resort in Breckenridge, CO. But everything turned out really great and I got rave reviews of everything (I later found out his fiance's parents own a bakery back in Brazil as well- yikes!).

It was a lot of fun baking for the brunch and I am glad I had an opportunity to catch up on some of the recipes I missed from Sweet Melissa Sunday's. Now if only I could catch up on some sleep! I will definitely be making the turnovers again as everyone really seemed to enjoy them. I made the apple as the recipe called for, but made a few with cherries as well. I still have about two gallon bags of sour cherries I picked last summer, so I am looking for interesting ways to use them. I think I may make some cherry jam if they are not gone before the new crop comes in...

Hopefully, I will get to make the bee stings I missed this week sometime in the near future. I was flipping through the Sweet Melissa Baking Book and my three year old saw the picture and was really excited about them. She pointed and said "I think I will really like those." They look like a good Sunday breakfast...

Sour Cherry Pie with Pistachio Crumble

2009-05-25T14:05:00.005-04:00

This week's recipe for Sweet Melissa Sundays was chosen by Michelle of Flourchild. I was really excited about this recipe because I absolutely love cherry pie. If I had to pick a favorite pie, I think cherry would be it. And its a perfect dessert for Memorial Day weekend.

We love to make pies in my family! There are always pies at the holidays- pumpkin and mincemeat at Thanksgiving and Christmas, lemon meringue and coconut cream at Easter, and cherry and blueberry pies for any patriotic holiday. And of course my husbands favorites, apple and banana cream, can go any time of the year.

I am a bit of a traditionalist when it comes to making the crust. My mom and I have used my grandmother's recipe for years with the same flaky result every time, so I chose to stick with my own recipe for the crust. It uses shortening instead of butter and my mom taught me to cut it in using two butter knives. It is a bit of a chore, but it works! I promised my mom I wouldn't divulge the recipe, but one of our secrets is to roll out the dough between two sheets of plastic wrap so you do not have to worry about it sticking to the rolling pin or the counter. It also makes it really easy to transfer the dough into the pie plate.

The filling was simple enough. I added a little cinnamon and a dash of almond extract. Unfortunately, I have not been able to try the pie yet because I am bringing it to a party this evening. However, it smelled wonderful in the oven! I am anxious to try the crumb topping, and even though I think the pistachios will taste wonderful, I would like to try making the recipe with almonds or walnuts next time.

Thanks Michelle for picking this recipe. It seems like a great spin on a favorite classic. If you would like the recipe, you can find it on Michelle's site.

Princess Cookies

2009-05-18T10:15:00.015-04:00

Now that my grandmother has passed, one thing I will always treasure is our experience in the kitchen. My grandfather owned his own business and his office was in the basement of their house. Everyday, my grandmother would make a full lunch for all the employees including dessert. I will always remember her standing at the counter icing the cake before everyone came up for lunch. I loved it that she would let my sister and me help.

Now that I have my own kids, I try to involve them as much as possible whenever I cook. I love the fact that my three year old will stop playing whenever I have the mixer on and ask if she can pull a chair over and help. There are certain things I quickly learned while baking with her, namely patience and not caring about a mess!

This past Christmas, my mom gave my daughter a set of princess cookie cutters from Williams Sonoma. To me, they are quite possibly the greatest gift she could have gotten as we have spent many an afternoon together since cutting out cookies and decorating them together. I always make sure I have an ample supply of sprinkles and parchment paper on hand as the more sprinkles the better (not so easy to clean up without the parchment paper). The first time my husband saw the cookies she decorated, he kind of looked at me wondering whether I was expecting him to eat them (see the picture below and you will understand). But he saw how excited she was about her cookies so he did, and with a smile on his face.

Whether you have kids to make these cookies with or not, I hope you enjoy this recipe as much as I do. They have a nice buttery flavor and are crisp without being crumbly. And don't worry, only so many of the sprinkles can actually stick to the cookie when they are done baking, so just let the kids have fun!

Sugar Cookie Dough

from Williams Sonoma

1 Cup Unsalted Butter
3/4 Cup Sugar

3 Egg Yolks*

1 1/2 t Vanilla

2 1/2 Cups Flour

1 t Baking Powder

1/2 t Salt

In a small bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, and salt.

Cream the butter and sugar until fluffy. Add the egg yolks one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add the vanilla and mix well.

Add the flour mixture and continue mixing until well combined.

Divide the dough into four equal sections and form into a ball. Flatten each ball of dough into a disc and wrap in plastic. Refrigerate for at least two hours (best overnight).

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F and line a cookie sheet with parchment paper (otherwise butter the cookie sheet).

Roll out each disc to 1/4 inch thickness. Use your cookie cutters to cut out your cookies. Place on the tray. When I decorate with sprinkles, I normally brush the cookie with a little egg white to help them stick. Bake for 8-10 minutes or until golden brown.

*Save the egg whites to brush on the cookies before decorating with sprinkles or to make royal icing.

Guiness Gingerbread

2009-05-17T16:20:00.010-04:00

This is my first week with Sweet Melissa Sundays and I'm very excited to be baking with the group. This week's recipe was chosen by Katie of Katie's Cakes. I have to admit that I was somewhat skeptical about a dessert that called for Guiness and white pepper, but this experience is all about trying things I may not normally choose myself. The recipe pleasantly surprised me. The flavor is somewhat different than any gingerbread I have made in the past, but I guess that is part of what makes it so good.

The recipe was easy enough once I finally got started. I don't normally buy the beer in the house so imagine my surprise when I found out the store my husband sent me to only sells beer by the case. I had my seven month old in tow and she was getting hungry, so I didn't really have time to shop around. We don't drink Guiness, but luckily my dad does. Otherwise I would be making a lot of gingerbread! As it is I doubled the recipe so I could use up the rest of the bottle.

The gingerbread is definitely best served warm as the recipe suggests. However, instead of serving it with plain whipped cream, I tried a recipe my mom had for an orange whipped cream. She had made it to serve with her own gingerbread recipe a couple months ago and it was really delicious. Again, its not something I would have thought to pair together, but the flavors work really well with each other.

Thanks Katie for encouranging me to try something I probably would have passed up! You can find the recipe on her website. You can get the recipe for the orange whipped cream here.

Orange Whipped Cream

1 Egg
1/2 Cup Sugar
1 t Orange Peel
1 t Lemon Peel
2 T Lemon Juice
1 Cup Heavy Cream

In a small saucepan combine the egg, sugar, orange peel, lemon peel, and lemon juice. Whisk until combined. Place the saucepan over medium low heat and stir constantly until the mixture has thickened (about 5-10 minutes). I cooked mine until it just started to bubble. Set the mixture aside and let it cool.

Once the citrus mixture has cooled, whip the heavy cream. Once the cream is whipped to form soft peaks, fold in the citrus mixture.

Molten Chocolate Cakes

2009-04-30T21:55:00.001-04:00

Since this is my first post, I wanted it to be about something I really love.

My family is coming over this evening to celebrate my mom’s birthday. When I talked to her the other day about dinner, she said she really wanted molten chocolate cakes. Perfect for my first post… one of my all time favorite chocolate desserts.

I found this recipe a couple years back, and everyone I make it for absolutely loves it. There are a ton of recipes out there for molten chocolate cakes, but I like the fact that this one has espresso powder in it. I’m not a coffee drinker- I actually don’t like anything coffee flavored- but the espresso adds extra depth to the chocolate.

There are two tricks to making these cakes. First, you have to have patience when making the batter. It is really important to beat the batter long enough to incorporate enough air into the eggs and sugar. It is better to err on the side of caution with this recipe since there is no leavening agent in it. Second, as many know, the timing of the baking is crucial. Not enough time and the cakes will collapse into a gooey pile of hot fudge. Too much time and you will be eating brownie sundaes.

You may need to make the recipe once or twice before you figure out the correct timing with your oven. I have generally found they are done when the cakes have risen above the rim of the ramekin and appear dry on the top with a slightly sunken middle.

The original recipe serves the cakes with a black cherry sauce, however, I prefer to serve with ice cream. I hope you enjoy this recipe as much as I do!

Molten Chocolate Cakes

4 oz. Bittersweet Chocolate
4 oz. Semisweet Chocolate
3/4 Cup Unsalted Butter
4 Eggs
1/2 Cup Sugar
1/4 Cup Flour
1 T Cocoa Powder
2 t Vanilla Extract
1 t Instant Espresso Powder
1/2 t Salt

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Generously grease six ramekins.

In a saucepan over low heat, melt the butter and chocolate. Once melted, remove from the heat and let cool to room temperature.

In a large mixing bowl, beat the eggs and sugar until at the ribbon stage (about seven minutes). Add the flour, cocoa powder, vanilla, and salt and mix until blended. Add the cooled chocolate mixture and beat for another five minutes.

Scoop the batter into the ramekins (approximately 3/4 cup). Place on a baking sheet and bake in the oven for 15-17 minutes or until puffed and mostly dry on top. Remove cakes from the oven and let sit for 3 minutes. Unmold and invert onto a plate.