South in Your Mouth

TWD: Chocolate Madeleines

2011-01-11T12:02:00.000-06:00

So, we got snow! A whopping 3 inches! Aside from the fact that it really messes up my marathon training routines and despite the fact that I HATE being cold... I actually really enjoy the snow. I love watching it fall, I love anticipating the actual amount that will fall (which I'm always disappointed in... wherever I live never ends up getting the amount suggested by the local weather news team), and I love seeing it pile up on the trees and the sidewalks.

And as of yesterday, I have a new favorite thing about snow... I love walking in it! Yesterday was really the first time I've ever walked to work when there was actual snow piled up on the sidewalks. I wore my trail running shoes to work and was digging the sound of my shoes crunching through the snow. Sometimes its the simpliest things in life that can put a smile on your face.

In other news, I finally checked out the Birth of Impressionism exhibit at the Frist Center this past weekend. Admittedly, Impressionism is one of my least favorite art movements, but that almost makes impressionist exhibits that much more exhiliarating! Because, I'm going into it expecting to be wowed by the brushstrokes and the artist's eye to method and detail... but inevitably there's always that moment where I lock eyes on a piece and am moved like I never expected. There were a couple of pieces in the exhibit that did that to me.

One was Wrestlers by Alexandre Falguière. I am a sculpture lover. Sculpture is by far my favorite medium and as soon as I laid eyes on that painting, it immediately made me think of a sculpture. The attention to the muscles and the human body in this painting were as moving to me as they are in sculpture. Which is saying a lot. And of course, it was no surprise to find out that the artist was not only a painter, but a sculpter, as well.

The whole exhibit was amazing (Whistlers Mother! The Birth of Venus!) and I was thrilled by the amount of people that were at the museum. Sure, it makes viewing a little more difficult, but I get great satisfaction moving around shoulder to shoulder with the people of my city enjoying something so remarkable and beautiful.

I found this week's Tuesdays with Dorie recipe to be in the spirit of my weekend visit to the museum. What better treat after milling around amongst Monets, Manets, Degas', Cezannes and Renoirs than a delicate madeline?

These came together so easily, but I must admit.. I've made madeleine's once before (for another TWD a couple years ago) and I'm still regretting the purchase of a mini madeleine pan. It's damn near impossible to not fill that tin up too much with batter. So, my madeleines end up being less than visually appealing blobs instead of cute, dainty shells.

I guess it doesn't really matter though, because they get gobbled up before anyone has a chance to look at them for too long.

Fluff Filled Chocolate Madeleines
Recipe by Dorie Greenspan

First of all, if you're a batter lover... then whoa nelly, this is the batter for you. Seriously, I probably ate about half the batter from the bowl. It was delicious. Light and frothy and chocolate-y. So very good.

I definitely overfilled my mini madeleine pan... but with a regular sized pan I dont think it would be a problem. To be honest, my favorite part of the madelines, were the crispy-ish edges that resulted from overfilling the tins.

The only issue I had was a lot of my madeleines came out with a gross white dusting (from the flour dusting of the pan), so next time I would definitely use cocoa instead of flour to dust the pans. (Of course you were technically supposed to fill these little cakes with marshmallow fluff and dunk in a chocolate glaze. Both of which I skipped. So, if that were the case, the flour coating on the outside wouldn't have mattered).

I do see myself making these again sometime. Or at least making the batter. ;)

Visit Margo of Effort to Deliciousness's blog for the complete recipe.

Banana Cupcakes with Vanilla Pastry Cream

2010-12-31T09:48:00.001-06:00

Happy New Year!

I've had the most amazing 2010. I've traveled all over the country this year with trips to:
Raleigh, NC- New Years trip for 2010
New Orleans, LA- 30th Birthday Drunkfest
San Francisco, Monterrey, Big Sur and Wine Country: For Big Sur Marathon and Wine Tasting!
Utah- To pace a best friend in his first 50 mile race!
NYC- For 4th of July weekend!
North Carolina Mountains- For college friends 8th annual drinkfest!
Lexington, KY- Bourbon Chase Relay Race
Chicago, IL- Fun weekend trip with friend!
Playa Del Carmen, Mexico- Amazing Yoga Retreat!
Richmond and Charlottesville, VA- For NYE 2011.

Now, I’m one of those annoying shits that is “too cool” to do whatever everyone else does. Example A: I don’t have a facebook account. Example B: I don’t do New Years Resolutions until my birthday on February 1.

But incidentally… if I were to do New Years resolutions when everyone else does… one of my new years resolutions would be to stop being such an independent/individuality obsessed asshole.

I do have a fairly good argument against the whole idea of Resolutions anyway… I mean, why wait till some arbitrary day?? Jan 1 is just like Jan 4 or December 18. What the hell does it matter? When I wait till my birthday… it seems to mean a little more… like… with turning this XX age, I will become more mature in the following ways… (although, admittedly… some of my yearly resolutions are things that others surely think are LESS mature… like… date less! Drink more! Et al.).

Anyway… if I were to have new years resolutions (which, these aren't! I swear!) these would be them:

1. Drive less. Sure, I drive a lot less than the average person. I walk to work a lot, I walk to yoga when the weather's nice, etc… but… I have this annoying habit of driving to the grocery store 3-4 times a week. For whatever reason, I can’t buy 12 pounds of apples at one go, so I go every other day and buy enough to last me two days. THIS HAS TO STOP. So… my goal is cut this down to twice a week. ALSO… a new grocery store/health food store just opened up and the route there doesn’t require me to cross through any major intersections… so…

2. I’m going to buy a bike! Not a fancy lance Armstrong bike with shimano somethings and hydraulic something elses…. No, just a roam about town bike that I can ride to the grocery store and to the farmers markets this summer. And possibly the bar, or friends houses, etc.

3. Keep in touch with friends better.

4. Get up to date with the music scene. Seriously this is a big one… I used to be a music fanatic. And then I kinda fell off the wagon. Last week I made a new cd to listen to on itunes and I kid you not, half of the songs were like from 2008 or 2009. Ugh. I’m so behind!

5. Read more! I cancelled my cable subscription when college football season was over in the hopes of reading more. I really think that watching episode after episode of The Real Housewives of New York was hindering my ability to carry on a half-way intelligent conversation. A few years ago, I made a goal of reading 50 books for the year… and I got to around 30, which was still awesome. So, this year, I’m going to revive it. 50 books for 2011! (Now, I need to stock up mountaineering, sailing, and city history books!).

6. Set a new PR in the following distances: 5k, Half Marathon, and Marathon!

7. Drink less beer and less shots. It’s a problem when people know that you love tequila shots.

8. Get out of North America for 2011! Shouldn’t be a problem since I’m going to Scotland and Ireland with the family this spring… but… also trying to plan a trip to Israel for this year. Fingers crossed on that one. Jesus Trail or bust!!!! Or maybe I’ll just go to Peru.

9. Blog more often!

2010 was the best year of my life.. and I see no reason why anything has to change as we roll forward into 2011! And I'm hoping for all the best for your 2011s, as well!

And to start things off with a bang... here's a recipe that I made for my brother's birthday (back in June).

Banana Cupcakes with Vanilla Pastry Cream

from Baked: New Frontiers in Baking by Matt Lewis and Renato Poliafito

This recipe was super easy and the cupcakes turned out very moist! But... I have to say, pastry cream, as it turns out, isn't my favorite topping for a cupcake (a filling, perhaps). So, next time I make banana cupcakes, I will frost with a proper frosting... cream cheese, vanilla, chocolate... not too picky.
For the Cupcakes:
2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/4 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
1/4 cup vegetable shortening at room temperature
1 3/4 cups sugar
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
2 large eggs
1 1/2 cups mashed very ripe bananas (about 4)
1/2 cup buttermilk

For the Vanilla Pastry Cream
3 cups half-and-half
6 large egg yolks
1/2 cup sugar
3 tablespoons cornstarch
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Make the pastry cream:

In a medium saucepan, bring the half-and-half to a simmer and keep warm. In a medium bowl, whisk the egg yolks, sugar, cornstarch, and salt together until the mixture is pale, about one minute. Whisk half of the half-and-half into the egg yolk mixture, then pour the egg mixture back into the pot with the remaining half-and-half. Cook over medium heat, whisking constantly until thickened and boiling, about 6-10 minutes. Remove from the heat and whisk in the vanilla. Strain the pastry cream through a fine-mesh sieve into a container. Press a piece of plastic wrap directly onto the surface of the pastry cream to prevent a skin from forming.

Chill at least one hour, overnight is better.

Make the cupcakes:

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. Line two 12-cup cupcake pans with paper liners.

Sift the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt together into a large bowl and set aside.

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter and shortening together on medium speed until creamy, 3 to 4 minutes. Add the sugar and vanilla and beat until fluffy, about 3 minutes. Scrape down the bowl, add the eggs, and beat until just combined. Scrape down the bowl again and add the bananas, beating until just combined. Turn the mixer to low. Add the flour mixture, alternating with the buttermilk, in three additions, beginning and ending with the flour mixture. Remove the bowl from the mixer and scrape down the sides with a rubber spatula, giving the mixture a final stir to ensure it's combined.

Fill the cupcake liners about 3/4 full. Bake for 20-25 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool in pans on a wire rack for 20 minutes. Remove them from the pans and cool completely.

Assemble the cupcakes:

Place the vanilla pastry cream in a plastic disposable piping bag or a zip top gallon sized bag. Cut the end of the bag so that the opening is about a half inch in diameter. Pipe a dollop onto the cupcake (alternatively spoon a dollop onto the cupcake) and garnish with a dried banana slice.

TWD Rewind: All American Apple Pie.

2010-12-28T10:00:00.001-06:00

Last night I got to spend the evening with one of my best friends. She was only in town for a few days and between making time to see her family, Monday evening was the only spare time she had to squeeze me in. I was grateful to have the whole evening with her!

It's funny. You go through life having someone live down the road from you for several years... you go to dinner or lunch, you go to the museum, you go shopping... but you also go through some months where you don't really get together. You're busy, she's busy. It happens. But you still know what's going on in each others lives.

Last night I realized... I really had no idea what had been going on with her for MONTHS. And it made me very sad. Just because she's moved to the other side of the country, and just because I feel guilty that I've made trips to Montana, San Francisco, Mexico, etc and have yet to make it out to visit her in the Pacific Northwest is no excuse for allowing months to go by with little or no communication.

Luckily, things with her are great! She's enjoying her new town, making friends, and she absolutely loves her job. But, it definitely put things into perspective for me. I've slacked. I just assume that we'll always be great friends and we'll always pick up right where we left off when we do talk or get together... and while that's true. It's not fair. To either one of us.

Friendships are relationships, too. And just like anything in life... you have to give it attention for it to grow and bloom. And this year in particular, I've not kept my end of the friendship up very well.

I've taken our friendship for granted. We never fight or have arguments, so I know that we'll always be friends. But, that's not enough. This year I was the type of friend that called her maybe twice (once on her birthday), I was the type of friend who made plans to visit her and then bailed, I was the type of friend who only emailed or texted her a handful of times. I was, in a word: SHITTY.

So, as of today (or last night, really) I'm determined to be a better friend to her. Just because she's on the other end of the country, is no excuse. I miss her! I miss knowing whats going on in her life, I miss talking to her, I miss telling her whats going on in mine. And even if I can't go and see her as much as I'd like.. I can certainly call or email her!

In some ways... this recipe reminds me of my friend and I's friendship and how I've treated it this year. It's a recipe where you know what it's going to taste like. Who hasn't had apple pie, right? So, I never made it. In fact, I've never made any apple pie! There are so many other glamorous dessert recipes to be made, no?

But, I finally decided to make this pie for Thanksgiving. And oh my god... I had no idea an apple pie could be so good. I was reminded that the uncomplicated, familiar things in life are sometimes best. There's nothing flashy or unusual here. It's just good basic ingredients thrown together to make a most excellent pie.

All-American Apple Pie

Recipe by Dorie Greenspan

Chosen by Emily of Sandmuffin

Dead simple, folks. The hardest part is cutting up the apples, which I initially bought an apple corer/slicer for, but once I realized that it was still getting some of the core in the slices, I shoved the task off onto my mom to cut up (I highly suggest this step!)... so yeah... for me, this pie was a breeze!

Dorie's pie crust has definitely become my go to pie crust recipe. It's easy and so delicious. This coming from a girl who used to despise pie crust (and still despises all shortening based pre-packaged crusts).

If you have an apple pie lover in your life... this is the recipe to yes. This pie recipe might have just trumped my other favorite pies: pecan and cherry. It's that good.

Recipe found on Emily's Blog, HERE.

Vanilla Cupcakes

2010-11-22T15:48:00.000-06:00

A perfect weekend is...

Dinner and drinks with one of your favorite people, at your favorite restaurant and

then out for your favorite drink: Clapless Belle. Yum.

Shopping with your favorite shopping partner and actually finding some cute things at your favorite stores, followed by lunch at your favorite Indian restaurant.

Completing your favorite household task: cleaning and organizing your closet.

Baking your favorite cupcake recipe and decorating them like little monkeys.

Putting on a bib for one of your favorite marathons and lining up at the start line.

Finishing a marathon with some of your favorite running partners

(and indulging in your favorite local brew afterwards).

Eating at your favorite restaurant AGAIN with some of your fellow marathoners

and recounting the race with pizza and more beer.

Finishing the weekend with a cup of fro-yo with your favorite toppings: granola and coconut.

In my mind... a weekend doesn't get any better than this past weekend.

Vanilla Cupcakes

Recipe adapted from one I found somewhere online.

One recipe makes 27-31 cupcakes

I'm not a huge cupcake fan. But how can you not be a sucker for a moist, buttery cupcake? Which is how I found myself on a mission to find the perfect vanilla cupcake recipe... after tasting a delicious one at a bakery in Chicago.

To be honest, I hate the cupcakes at Nashville's local bakeries. Too dry, too big, too much frosting, too many whacked out flavors.

This is the kind of cupcake I like... plain and simple.

To decorate as monkeys for the Harpeth Hill Flying Monkey Marathon that I ran this weekend, I used chocolate frosting, nutter butter peanut butter snack cookies, a vanilla wafer with the top quarter cut off with a serated knife, and icing (white, black, and red). They look a lot like bears, but hopefully most people realized they were monkeys!

This cupcake recipe is awesome. My favorite, for sure.

1/4 cup softened unsalted butter

2 cups sugar

4 eggs

1 cup vegetable oil

1 cup buttermilk

2 tsps vanilla extract

2 1/2 cups flour

2 1/4 tsps baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In a large mixing bowl, cream butter and sugar and add eggs. Beat with an electric mixer until light in color and fluffy in texture. Gradually whisk in the oil, buttermilk, and extract and combine well.

Add your flour, baking powder, and salt and slowly stir to combine (add a little bit of the flour at a time to make the stirring easier).

Transfer to muffin pans that have been lined with paper muffin cups. Fill the cups up about 2/3 of the way up. Bake for 15-20 minutes or until springy in the center. Cool completely before frosting.

Especially Dark Chocolate Frosting

(from the back of the Special Dark Hershey's cocoa box)

1/2 cup butter
2/3 cup Special Dark Cocoa
3 cups powdered sugar
1/3 cup milk (might need more)
1 tsp vanilla extract

Melt butter. Stir in cocoa. Alternately add powdered sugar and milk, beating to a spreading consistency. Add small amount of additional milk, if needed. Stir in vanilla. About 2 cups of frosting.

Peanut Butter Cookies, Healthi-fied.

2010-11-12T08:00:00.002-06:00

Back in July, I went to NYC to visit a friend. It had been about 8 years since I had last been there and in a few short days, I quickly fell in love with the city.

The thing that had always kinda bugged me about NYC previously was the overstimulation. Everywhere you look there are people, cars, bikes, shops, pigeons, hot dog stands. It's so alive and in the past I unfairly held that against it. Back then, I didn't know how to quieten the outside world within my own head, so I would find myself drowning in the everything else-ness that NYC was.

But, 8 years later, I'm a much different person. I can easily silence the noise around me and enjoy things at my own pace, instead of allowing the bustling city to force its hustle upon me.

It was incredible. Central Park! The Ballet! The Bus rides! The Subway rides! The East River Greenway for running! The Brooklyn Bridge! Brooklyn! The Whitney (my first real Edward Hopper painting experience!!!)! The tree-lined streets! The people! The Clearance FLOOR (oh my god an entire floor!!) at Anthropologie! I have a serious, serious crush on NYC right now. Granted, in general... I'm pretty city-crazy right now. NYC isn't my only city crush.. I'm still reeling from a San Francisco courtship earlier this year and just last weekend Chicago spun me around like a top. So, I'm definitely not a one-city loving woman.

My favorite times in NYC were spent just wandering around. Seeing the storefronts and the homes. Changing course at the drop of a hat, to avoid a no-walk crossing sign. Sitting on numerous park benches in Central Park, and various other parks, to watch the people buzzing by.

When I left to come home, I felt a sense of jealousy. How fair is it that some people get to live and work in that city??? I was merely a visitor, living out of a too small suitcase. Damn you New Yorkers and your fabulous city!

Oh well, the good news is that it's an easy city to get to for visiting (easier than San Francisco, that's for sure) and until then, I can try to be inspired by things that I experienced there. Like vegan baked goods!

For lunch one day I ate at Angelica Kitchen. I had a delicious salad, but what really stuck with me was some of their baked goods! I can't really remember what all that was ordered, but it was all really tasty. I do remember the homemade vegan fig newton!! Yum!!! And there was also some sort of deliciously homey tasting oatmeal cookie and a maple tofu whip!

These peanut butter cookies came out of an attempt to try and find a way to make a simple, healthy, vegan sweet snack. And... they didn't turn out perfect (not quite up to Angelica's standards), but they were damn tasty and I had no problem eating them. A base to build upon and perfect, if you will.

Healthy-ish Peanut Butter Cookies

Adapted from a flourless peanut butter cookie recipe like this one.

Again, this isn't going to be an actual recipe (because I havent perfected it yet), but more of an instruction of what I did.

I started with a flourless peanut butter cookie recipe and instead of egg, I used flax meal with a little bit of water. And instead of sugar, I used date pieces. Originally, I wanted to puree my dates into a paste and incorporate into the dough to sweeten it, but I had the date pieces that were hard and cut up. You know what I'm talking about?? Anyway, they wouldn't pulverize in the food processor, so I just threw them in whole. Thinking of them kind of like a chocolate chip, except a stud of sweetness in the salty peanut butter.

I completely forgot to add any kind of leavener. So, next time, I'll definitely add some baking powder or soda or both.

Overall, these tasted like baked, kinda sweet, intensely flavored peanut butter. A bit crumbly, but satisfying in a weird way.

Hostess Cupcakes

2010-11-10T13:36:00.002-06:00

I know you know what I'm talking about... even though it's something that you love and are passionate about... sometimes it falls by the wayside. You can't predict it and sometimes you can't fix it. I go through this with all my hobbies. It's the ebb and flow of life, I suppose.

And with this blog, I feel like I've lost my writing mojo. I've always loved to write. I've always written terrible short stories and poems. I've got notebook after notebook filled with characters, plots, pieces of dialogues and intros. But for the last year or so, it's been a struggle for me to even bang out a simple, entertaining blog post about some damn cupcakes.

What is wrong with me???

The one thing I do know about writing is.. the worst thing you can do is stop altogether. I've always read and learned that one must power through the block and even if you get pages and pages of worthless drivel... eventually... you'll find the otherside.

So, this is my attempt. I'm just going to ease back in and see what happens.

Such is my writer's block that I made these cupcakes back in JULY. That's right folks. Back when it was still flaming outside, back when I was in the midst of my 30 day vegan/macrobiotic/just eat fruits and vegetables diet. That was a long time ago.

I've become good friends with some running partners. And these cupcakes were made for one of those friends. It was his birthday, he was having a party at his new house and instead of being the lovable party-goer that brings booze (like I normally am), I was the lovable party-goer that had shunned alcohol for the month, so I brought the next best thing... cupcakes (because, let's be honest.. I can say no to a cupcake wayyy easier than I can say no to booze).

It was a fun night. My favorite kind of night, actually... I didn't really know if I'd know anyone at the party besides my friend who was the man of honor for the shindig... so it forced me out of my comfort zone a bit. And as those nights usually turn out.. it was a total blast. I met new people, I got to meet my friend's girlfriend and see their awesome new house.

It was a great time. And these were the cupcakes that I made. I know nothing about what my friend likes in baked goods. So, I figured a crowd pleaser would be chocolate cupcakes. And to make them a little more festive. I mimicked that of a hostess cupcake... with a thin layer of icing, with a white squiggle and a gooey white center.

Per my diet that month, I didn't taste these cupcakes, but... I was told that one of the kids that was there was asked what her favorite part of the party was... and she replied... the cupcakes! A good sign, no? (Nevermind the fact that of course at a party full of grown-ups, the cupcakes are going to be the star for the kid!).

Hostess Cupcakes

I did a bunch of different things for this recipe. First off, I made Rose Levy Beranbaum's recipe for Baby Grands Cupcakes that I found in her delicious and amazing cookbook, Rose's Heavenly Cakes. Which, I incidentally won on Hilary's awesome website, Nosh With Me awhile back and am just now getting around to thanking her on the blog! (I'm an awful blogger, I swear).

After the cupcakes were baked, I scooped out part of the center of the cupcake and filled with a mixture of marshmallow fluff that had been diluted with a little bit of water so that it was runny (next time, I dont think I'll dilute it). I put the marshmallow mixture into a ziploc bag and piped it into the center of each cupcake. After that, I covered all the cupcakes with a layer of chocolate ganache. And put squiggles on the top to mimic the snack cakes with pre-bought white cookie icing in a tube.

I thought they turned on beautiful! But, they also turned out very, very messy. The marshmallow center kinda of oozed into the whole cupcake and instead of being a filling it made it into a gooey center (no complaints on the flavor!). So next time, I would pipe the fluff straight into the center (maybe even make it a little stiffer by mixing it with some confectioners sugar!).

Easily adaptable to your favorite recipes for the components. Definitely a fun way party cupcake!

Ingredients:
Chocolate Cupcakes
Marshmallow Fluff
Chocolate Ganache
White Icing

Follow assembly instructions above!

TWD: Fold Over Cherry Torte

2010-10-12T08:00:00.001-05:00

When I was very small, one of my most very favorite toys was a Fisher-Price kitchen. I didn't have all the accessories that went along with it, but I didn't really need them. I was happy to pretend with some of my mom's cooking utensils or with nothing at all.

I don't really remember what all I cranked out of that little kitchen. But, I do remember baking a bunch of cherry pies. You see, Cherry Pie was my dad's absolute favorite dessert. My mom made him cherry pies all the time, so of course... I had to make him cherry pies as well! (I'm talking imaginary cherry pies, obviously).

The relationship between my dad and I has changed a lot through the years. When I was small, the highlight of my day (and I'm sure my mom's too) was hearing his key in the front door. I remember my brothers and I scrambling to the foyer to greet him with hugs and kisses when he got home from work.

As I got a little older, I always enjoyed whatever time I could get to spend with him. He's not the type of guy that you would imagine upon meeting him that he's warm, loving, and affectionate. And with anyone else besides our immediate family, he's not really. But with my mom, my brothers and me he has never been afraid to show his love for us. Which, I know isn't always an easy emotion to express openly with those around you. But, there were times when I don't really remember much about him. He worked long and hard hours to provide for our family, and to ensure that my mom was able to stay home with my brothers and I. And even at a young age, I never resented it. Somehow, I understood and it made sense.

By the time I was in high school and went off to college, to be honest, I didn't feel like I related to either of my parents. I was at that age: the teenage-y, angst-y age and I thought my parents had no clue what was going on. And I really didnt make any attempts to get close to them.

During and after college, I started to become friends with my parents. Especially my mom. Our relationship got better and closer and my relationship with my dad definitely grew stronger, but it wasn't until I started working for him/with him 6 years ago that our relationship really changed.

At first, it was kind of hard. I was used to a different dad. Not the work environment dad, but the at home dad. So, it was interesting for me to see him in a different role. Also, I took everything way too personal. There were a couple of moments that I had to excuse myself to the bathroom to bawl my eyes out, because he'd yelled at me or gotten upset with me over something. But, eventually, I evolved. I grew a backbone and instead of being a little apprehensive about speaking my mind around my dad (which I never did before), I started doing it all the time. (I'm sure he thinks I've copped a little bit of an attitude, but whatev).

People ask me all the time.. isn't it hard to work for your dad? And I always have the same response: It's not hard at all, it's great! My dad and have become so close. I can definitely tell him anything and everything now and I feel like I know him more on a personal level, rather just on a parent/child level. I also tell people that it's nice, because as a kid, he wasn't around as much as he would have liked, and so now, I get to spend everyday with him!

One of the best things about working with him and spending so much time with him, is I get to see how good of a person he really is. I'm not longer only exposed to him in the "dad" role, but I get to see him as others see him. I get to see how hard of a worker he truly is. How well respected he is by his colleagues and clients. If I had a nickel for every time a client expressed to me in private how much they respected my dad as a professional as well as a person, I'd have a much better shoe collection.

It warms my heart to see him do what he loves and I'm thankful that I've had the opportunity to be apart of his daily work. His knowledge about his profession seems limitless and he's always willing to teach me new things and always pushes me out of my comfort zone to try more difficult things, and while sometimes I'm cussing him under my breath, because it's scary to learn new things, I'm always grateful in the end that he had the faith in me to give me such opportunities to grow and learn.

Aside from work, I've also grown an appreciation for my dad's generosity and his commitment to family. He's always willing to listen without judgement and offer up any advice or help he can give. He's not just a great father, he's a great man.

His birthday was Friday and I wanted to make him something Cherry related. Something that I might have whipped up in that imaginary kitchen of mine years ago. So, instead of trying to make two desserts one for Tuesdays with Dorie and one for my dad's birthday. I did a little substituting in the Tuesdays with Dorie recipe to make it more appealing to dad.

Honestly, it didn't really work for me. I'm not sure if it was the recipe, the execution or the cherries, but I suspect it was a combination of all three. Not a hit... I'll stick with my favorite cherry pie recipe for sure (actually, eating this cherry dessert made me crave my cherry pie, so I'm pretty sure I'll be making one of those for Thanksgiving this year)! But, it was an interesting idea and I had really high hopes for it.

My dad didn't complain. I'm pretty sure he's just happy to spend time with his family on his birthday. But, I was kinda disappointed that I didn't deliver with an excellent dessert to knock his socks off.

Happy Birthday Dad! I love you and appreciate you!

Fold Over ~~Pear~~ Cherry Torte

Recipe by Dorie Greenspan
Chosen for Tuesdays with Dorie by Cakelaw of Laws of the Kitchen

First off, the absolute best part of this recipe was the pie crust. I used to hate the taste of pie crust, but now that I'm getting better at making it myself, Dorie's pie crust is out of this world! YUM!

Second off, I used frozen cherries in a baked good for the first time. BIG mistake. Just not tart enough for a pie. The cherries were so bland and blah.

I substituted frozen cherries (thawed and drained) for the pears and dried cherries for the raisins.

I was afraid of overfilling the pie with custardy filling, so I think I didn't fill it enough, because there just wasn't much custard or cream to the pie.

Not the worst thing I've ever made, but not the best either. Probably better with pears. Or with tarter cherries.

Recipe can be found by clicking this link.

TWD: Peanut Butter Crisscrosses

2010-09-07T09:09:00.000-05:00

Well, I guess that's it, folks. Summer is officially over. Labor Day is behind us, college football has started and there are no more long holiday weekends until Thanksgiving. Every year I find myself saying... where did the summer go? But this year.. while it did go fast... June and July somehow seem like eons ago.

Usually, I'm ready for summer to get the hell out of town. I mean... summers in Tennessee can be brutal. And this year was no exception... days after days of 90+ degree weather, some 100+ degree days. It was a sweat-fest out there. And I'm always looking forward to the cool, brisk days of fall with their bright blue skies and low humidity. (and football!!).

The only bad thing about fall? The clothes. I hate wearing jeans (because I can't find any that fit my body well) and I hate wearing closed toe shoes. Blah. Sure, I love looking at fall catalogs with their plaids and flannels and their tweeds and boots. But, unfortunately... it's not a look that I can very succesfully pull off. Oh well. Maybe this will be the year I find the one. The one pair of jeans that I can fall in love with. Fingers crossed.

I'm really looking forward to this fall, though. I've got lots of things planned:

Sept 24-26: Heading down to Auburn for the South Carolina vs. Auburn football game with friends
October 2: Stumpjump 50k
October 22-23: Bourbon Chase Relay
Nov 6-8: Chicago trip

Speaking of the Auburn/South Carolina football game... I made these peanut butter cookies and froze almost all the dough, to save for tailgating!

I can clearly remember the first time I ever made peanut butter cookies. You see... peanut butter cookies weren't really a standby in my house growing up. We had mostly chocolate chip cookies (in bar form), magic cookie bars, and grandma cookies (aka no bake cookies). I can't recall my mom ever making peanut butter cookies.

But one day when I was probably 13/14 I pulled down a little camel colored cookbook from the shelf and flipped through it. It was called something like... "recipes from the back of labels, jars, and cans." or something like that. I found a peanut butter cookie recipe and got to work.

The resulting cookies were crumbly and peanut buttery. They weren't chewy or moist, but they were full of peanut flavor and required a huge glass of milk to swallow. I made those cookies a few more times and now that I think about it, I need to copy that recipe from the book the next time I'm over at my parents house.

Since then, my favorite peanut butter cookie recipe is the one that is flourless. YUM. But, I'm an equal opportunity peanut butter cookie lover... I recently tried one of the Baked Peanut Butter Cookies and they were delicious!!! It seems just like chocolate chip cookies, there's no decisive peanut butter cookie recipe.. they're all good.

And these are good, too! Although, I do think I baked them a little long. With all the butter in the recipe, they stay pretty light in color and I kept expecting them to darken up a bit, so they got a little overcooked. But they were still pretty damn tasty. With all the other peanut butter cookie recipes out there, I'm not sure I'll be making these again... but it was fun to try a new recipe. And I'm sure once I pull these bad boys out in a couple of weeks and bake up a whole batch for some South Carolina Tailgating, I'll be shoveling them into my mouth and swallowing them down with loads of beer and thinking... DAMN these are some good cookies.

So, with that... bring on the fall! Bring on the weather, the changing leaves, the football, the tailgating and yes... the jeans. Ugh.

Peanut Butter Crisscrosses
Recipe by Dorie Greenspan
From her book: Baking from my Home to Yours
Chosen for Tuesdays with Dorie by: Jasmine of Jasmine Cuisine

These cookies were easy to make. No weird ingredients, no chill time before baking. Just whip up a batch and bake them off.

I did add vanilla (because I'm a vanilla whore and add it to everything) and I left out the peanuts. A good simple, classic peanut butter cookie recipe. The flavor of peanut butter could be a bit more intense for my liking, but still a yummy recipe.

Of course, I never could get my crisscrosses to do right on the cookies. Ugh.

Find the recipe here, scroll down for the english recipe.

TWD: Oatmeal Breakfast Bread... Veganized.

2010-08-17T09:51:00.000-05:00

Yes, these muffins are vegan.

I know. I know I told you that I didn't see myself trying to veganize my baking. It's just not something that generally interests me, particularly with certain substitutions (like margarine or soy-processed products). But, I have a good excuse for this one.

I made this bread (actually, I made muffins) vegan, because I made it for a friend of mine who has recently gone vegan. Like for reals vegan. None of this wimpy 30 day challenge stuff. No sirree, she's gone truly vegan. Since I'm all about sharing my baked goods, I knew that I needed to try and make these vegan, if I could, so that I could share them with her. And I lucked out when I read over the recipe.

The recipe lends itself to veganizing. For one... it's a quick bread recipe, which in my experience, I've found quick bread recipes to be forgiving as heck to modifications... you can make it healthier, you can make it lighter, you can make it more fattening... whatever you do, it usually still turns out delicious. But, can you make it vegan?

The recipe already used applesauce and a tiny bit of oil as it's fat. So, I didn't have to worry about subbing out butter. The problem laid in two ingredients: Eggs and Buttermilk or Whole Milk.

What to do? Well, I subbed a smashed up banana to replace the eggs and I used unsweetened almond milk to replace the milk (I didn't even worry about trying to make the milk buttermilk, though I could have with a little vinegar in the milk).

The batter came together nicely and quickly and I had these bad boys in the oven within about 5 minutes of starting the process.

To be completely honest, I didn't have high hopes. I've had delicious vegan baked goods before, but I just assumed that my first foray into the genre would be lackluster. I figured that my banana and almond milk substitutions weren't good enough. That there were some other fancy dancy baking products that cost an arm and a leg that I should have bought and used instead.

But I'll be damned if these weren't some of the BEST muffins I've ever had. Not even one of the best vegan muffins, but one of the best muffins, period. Delicious. Sweet (I think, I probably should have accounted for the additional sweetness of the banana, and cut back on the sugar, but D-A-M-N I loved them being so freaking sweet), spicy, moist without being wet, and a tender crumb.

I mean, really... this is a kick-ass recipe. I will be making these again and again. And I've already got more ideas for more modifications... maybe I could make it a slightly healthier vegan muffin. But, I shouldn't get too far ahead of myself and just enjoy the muffins as they are now... delicious and animal friendly.

Oatmeal Breakfast Bread

Brilliant Recipe by Dorie Greenspan

Chosen for Tuesdays with Dorie baking group, by Natalie of Oven Love.

I know, right? Who knew you could take the taste of an oatmeal cookie and put it into the form of a moist, tender bread or muffin??? It's truly genious. The cinnamon is fragrant and alluring and the pop of the dried fruit (I used raisins) is like a little firework in your mouth amongst the sturdy, yet soft oatmeal.

Yes, I'm getting poetical on your ass, but this is truly a delicious recipe. It really is like an oatmeal raisin cookie in a softer, gentler form.

The substitutions I made: I made a half recipe and got exactly 12 muffins (although my vegan recipe didn't rise at all, so I might could have gotten 10 really full muffins). I used white whole wheat flour, I subbed one small banana smashed for the 1 egg, and unsweetened almond milk for the milk. I also used raisins and didn't have any walnuts or pecans, so I left those out of the topping.

Do yourself a favor.... make this recipe and make it vegan! I guarantee you won't be disappointed.

You can find the full recipe here on Natalie of Oven Love's Blog.

Big, Fat, Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies

2010-08-12T13:00:00.002-05:00

I made these cookies back in May. Which turned out to be the month of Birthdays for me. Four friends and one brother all had birthdays in the month of May. What the heck? I didn't realize I knew so many May babies.

It was actually a good thing, because if it hadn't been for these birthdays, I likely wouldn't have seen a bunch of these friends during the course of that month. And am kind of wishing that I'd had lots of friends with birthdays in June and July, too! I have been insanely busy the past 3 months or so. But, I'm not complaining. Not at all actually... the things I've been doing have been awesome: I've been to California, Cincinnati, Utah, and New York. I've gotten to spend a lot of time with friends that I don't get to see very often on all these trips and I've ran in some really cool races and places. Aside from traveling, my workload has also increased greatly in the last few months. But, you know what? I'm really enjoying that, too. I'm learning new things and am just grateful that in this economy, my job and company is doing so incredibly well. I'm really blessed. And, I know it's easy to get stressed out when you're so busy, but I make a conscious effort to just enjoy it all and take it in. Being busy can be a really great thing, if you let it be.

So, even though I had all this stuff going on, I was still thrilled to get to celebrate my friends birthdays with them.

Normally, I would have made my favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe, but it requires a little extra time to chill out in the fridge, etc. So, I turned to one of my favorite bloggers, Deb at Smitten Kitchen and perused her recipe index for a suitable cookie recipe.

I found a recipe that sounded perfect, Crispy Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies. How could I go wrong, right? And I was right, these cookies were delicious. They weren't all that crispy (which was fine by me), but they were chewy and baked up really well. Nice and sturdy, but not too thick and delicious. The recipe is exactly how a chocolate chip cookie recipe should be: straight forward, easy to follow, with easily accessible ingredients. The perfect birthday cookie recipe.

Crispy Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies
Found on the Smitten Kitchen Website.

These cookies turned out sturdy and tasty. They definitely had a good chew to them which is of utmost importance to me. Don't be turned off by the "crispy" in the title, if you're a chewy fan. The crisp is subtle and they aren't greasy at all like some crispy cookies can be.

The only substitute I made was to use almond extract instead of vanilla. But, that's only because I was out of vanilla. Good even without the vanilla, but next time, I'll go to the store and buy some vanilla.

Recipe can be found here.

TWD: Gingered Carrot Cookies

2010-08-03T10:30:00.002-05:00

Admit it, you didn't believe me when I told you that I'd be posting fairly regularly again, did you?

Haha. Fooled you.

Admittedly, one of the reasons for my lack of posting lately is I have a pretty severe case of writers block. Like, I am just having a really hard time coming up with some kind of story or anecdote to include along with blog posts. But, I've decided to just throw caution into the wind and attempt to blog anyway. Maybe I'll work my way through it, eh?

It sucks when you feel like you no longer have anything creative coming out of you. And I'm not really sure what the cause is. Maybe it's work... maybe I've been so overwhelmed at work, that work-related thoughts have now invaded the space in my brain that was reserved for creativity. Maybe, it's the fact that I'm not going out and getting drunk very often. Therefore, I don't really have any good stories. Or maybe it has something to do with the fact that my life basically consists of running, work, hot yoga, and sleep these days and there's just not much time for me to sit around and stew up some good bits. (Probably because any spare time that I have, I'm usually reading (educational, at least!) or catching up some television (hey, it's kinda educational).

I did get around to participating in Tuesdays with Dorie this week, though! So, I squeezed that in. I even put these together before work. When I woke up, I set the butter and egg out to come to room temperature, then I went out for my morning run and after I came back and showered, I whipped a 1/4 batch of these cookies up.

That's how easy they came together... And once they were cooled and photographed, I promptly packed them away and put them in my freezer, after nary a bite. (I've come this far with the vegan macrobiotic 30 day challenge, some carrot cookie isn't going to make me fail. Day 28, today! holla!). So, I can't tell you how they taste just yet, but they did look good and smell good.

Gingered Carrot Cookies

Recipe by Dorie Greenspan

Chosen for TWD by: Natalia of Gatti Fili E Farina

So, yeah, there's carrot and ginger in the cookie. So, immediately by the title, I'm thinking... yippee! A healthy cookie! And, while on it's own, it is fairly healthy. There isn't a lot of sugar or butter... but, I did do some substitutions with the sugar, just because I felt a good hearty carrot cookie could stand up to some healthifying.

I swapped the white sugar out and used honey instead and in place of brown sugar, I used molasses mixed with maple syrup. I was also out of coconut (the horror) and for extra texure, I added oatmeal instead. I was really, really tempted to swap out the butter for applesauce, but I decided to leave it in. Usually, I go too far making a cookie slightly healthier (yes, debatable whether or not subbing maple syrup, molasses, and honey to a cookie in place of white sugar and brown sugar. but whatev. it seems healthier in my head) and the cookies comes out tasting like crap.

In this case, I'm assuming it didn't, although I haven't, actually tried the cookies. I will though! And you should, too!

Recipe here at Natalia's Blog.

Milk Chocolate Chip Peanut Butter Cookies

2010-07-28T14:51:00.001-05:00

*tap tap* Is this thing on, y'all?

Pardon me for my absence from the baking/blogging world. It's not you, it's me, I assure you.

I could ramble on and on with excuses that range from a very high workload to traveling a lot in the last few months to some serious writers block I've had lately. I've just been busy, overall. But, honestly, that's not the main reason I haven't been blogging 'round these parts much. Truthfully dear readers, I've started to cross over into the dark side...

It started innocently enough... I've been lollygagging around and hap-heartedly going about trying to lose the 20 extra pounds that I carry around on my belly for the last 2 years or so. I'd lose a few pounds from other parts of my body, but those stubborn pounds around my midsection would not budge. I'd tried everything... low carb, low cal, vegetarian, strength training, ab exercises, extra cardio (because apparently my body is completely oblivious to the fact that I run a shit-ton every week). And trust me... I know a thing or two about how to lose weight. Nutrition and exercise isn't a new thing to me.

Finally, I decided that I'd had enough and it was time to try something else. I amped up the vegetarianism... cutting out meat, but also cutting out most grains and loading up on fresh fruit and veggies. And then I started taking Hot Yoga classes everyday that I was in town. And I'll be damned if that wasn't the right combination for me. Slowly, the belly fat started shrinking. My body fat percentage started to decrease and instead of being miserable that I couldn't eat any sweets or pizza, I felt great. I didn't even want sweets or pizza. It was easy.

Aside from the physical aspects, I've come to realize that this way of eating is helping me break my food addiction. Finally, I'm not sitting around while I'm eating lunch, thinking about what I'm going to eat for dinner. I'm starting to feel like for once, I'm in control of my appetite, instead of my appetite being in control of me. It is wonderfully liberating.

Now, what does this mean? What happens when a girl who has a baking blog drastically changes her lifestyle and starts eliminating things like baked goods from her diet? Does she turn it into some kind of healthy lifestyle food blog? Does she blog about raw food or vegan goodies? Does she give up the blog?

To be completely honest, I have no idea what it means at this point. I love blogging and writing, so I cant imagine giving it up entirely. And there will still be plenty of occassions where I bake goodies (non vegan, I dont anticipate really getting into vegan baking) for other people to enjoy and I'd love to still have an outlet to share those. At this point, I'm in the middle of a 30 day vegan challenge (that also includes no alcohol or sugar). And once that's over, I anticipate that I'll occasionally eat cheese, butter, sugar, etc.. I just won't be consuming as much of it as I once did (hopefully).

All I know is that for now... things are going to be a little different around here. I'm not sure exactly what's going to happen, but I'm pretty sure I'll be around this little blog world and hopefully more frequently, since I've finally 'fessed up about what's going on.

I can't ever imagine giving up blogging in it's entirety. It's really fun and fulfilling for me to carve out a little piece of myself into the world wide web. Hell, I've even met some great people through blogging that have become good friends in real life. Two of which, I made these cookies for.

After the Rocket City Marathon in December

(from left to right: Me, Melanie, and Matt)

I met Matt and Melanie through my other blog, Twenty Six Point Two. We started out as being running acquaintances, then into running partners, and now into friends! Even with as much running in Nashville as I do, it's still hard sometimes to meet other runners.

They both had birthdays back in May, and so I decided to whip them up a little something special to celebrate. It didn't take me long to figure out what to make them, either. When I think runners and baked goods for some reason I alway think peanut butter. But, aside from runners, who doesn't love peanut butter? Especially when there's some chocolate thrown in there, too? It didn't hurt that this was a recipe that I'd been wanting to make for a long time...

So, stick with me, South in Your Mouth might go through some changes in the next little bit... And, I'm not sure what's in store, but we can find out together. (I will tell you that I have a back-log of old recipes to get to, so there will still be plenty of yummy desserts to feature soon).

Peanut Butter Cookies with Milk Chocolate Chunks

Recipe from: “Baked” by Matt Lewis and Renato Poliafito

I hate to admit to you, that I didn't actually taste these cookies, at all. However they were a dream to make. They come together easily and don't require any weird ingredients or methodology. Do take note, though, that they do require some fridge time before they're baked off.

Once baked they come out perfectly round, with a not-to-thin, not-to-thick consistency. I can only imagine that they taste as good as they look.

Ingredients:

1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour

2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened, cut into 1-inch pieces
1 cup granulated sugar, plus more for sprinkling
1 cup dark brown sugar, firmly packed
2 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup creamy peanut butter
6 ounces good milk chocolate, coarsely chopped

Directions:
Sift the flour, baking soda, and salt into a medium bowl and set aside.

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter and sugars together until fluffy. Scrape down the bowl and add the eggs, one at a time, beating until each is incorporated. The mixture will look light and fluffy. Add the vanilla and peanut butter and beat until just incorporated.

Add half of the flour mixture and mix for 15 seconds. Add the remaining flour mixture and mix until just incorporated.

Using a spatula or wooden spoon, fold in the chocolate. Cover the bowl tightly and refrigerate for at least three hours. (I kept mine chilled overnight).

Preheat the oven to 375℉. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.

Drop the dough by rounded tablespoons onto the prepared baking sheets, at least two inches apart. With the palm of your hand, very gently press each cookie down so it forms a very tall disk shape. Do not press too hard and do not press it flat.

Sprinkle the tops of the cookies with granulated sugar and bake for 10 to 12 minutes, rotating the pan halfway through the baking time, until the tops of the cookies just begin to brown.

Remove the pan from the oven and cool on a wire rack for 5 minutes. Serve warm or use a spatula to transfer the individual cookies to the rack to cool completely.

Store the cookies in an airtight container for up to 3 days.

Yield: 24 cookies.

TWD: Banana Coconut Ice Cream Pie

2010-05-25T09:30:00.000-05:00

This pie could be a metaphor for my life right now: A hot mess.

I mean, the components are all awesome... coconut crust, bananas, ice cream??? I mean.. you can't go wrong, right? Just like my life... work is busy, awesome vacations and busy weekends... it's all good, don't get me wrong! But it's kind of nice to get those things in small doses on their own, rather than all together at the same time.

But, when you have opportunities to do things in both your personal life and professional life you grab a hold of them and see how long you can hold on to it all (even if everything's happening simultaneously)... so far, I've been holding on tight and I have avoided the crash and burn, but I've still got a couple of weeks to go... so, we'll see what happens.

That's not the case with this pie. Things kept getting thrown into the dish until it was just too much to enjoy, for me.

First of all, I didn't really understand the concept of the pie. It felt like I was eating coconut cookies with chocolate ice cream and sliced bananas. I didn't feel like the flavors really melded all that well together. It was like instead of putting together a Dorie recipe, I was putting together a Rachael Ray dessert. It always annoys me when she makes desserts on her show. Like... seriously.. you don't need to show people how to make an ice cream sundae. Nobody is watching your show (at least the food network one, I never get to see her other show) for dessert recipes, trust me.

I made this for mother's day and was pretty disappointed in the end result. It wasn't that it was awful, cause it certainly wasn't. It just felt like so thrown together and separated. It didn't feel like a homemade dessert to me. Maybe it's partially my fault... I wasn't able to give the recipe the full time in the freezer to really freeze up. But, I kinda feel like that probably wouldn't have helped the issue I had with it. Which is that throwing sliced bananas into some chocolate ice cream and dishing it up in a delicious coconut crust does not a "dessert" make.

You win some, you lose some, I guess. In theory sometimes the idea of putting a whole bunch of things that you love together into one pot is a great idea. But in execution... it doesn's always work out that way, I guess. I'm hoping that's where the similiarities of my life and this recipe end.

Banana Coconut Ice Cream Pie
Recipe by Dorie Greenspan for Tuesdays with Dorie
Chosen by: Spike of Spike Bakes

The recipe called for chocolate ice cream, which I used, despite my better judgement. Dorie mentions that using vanilla ice cream is delicious, it's just the that bananas turn the ice cream a kinda of brownish-gross color. Which... on my own, I wouldn't have cared about. But for Mother's Day... not the best look.

I also skipped the lemon juice.. because... lemon juice and chocolate?? No thanks. But, I'm weird like that.

The real winner in this recipe is the crust!!!! Which I will use again and again.

Recipe Here.

TWD: Chockablock Cookies

2010-04-27T10:00:00.003-05:00

I am currently gallavanting through Northern California's Wine Country, but please enjoy this post I prepared before I went on vacation. The recipe link at the end of the post will be updated once I get back to show the exact link for the recipe, instead of just the blog that the recipe is listed on. I realize the post is rather boring, but don't take that out on the cookie... it's delicious, I'm just in a rush. Thanks.

One of my favorite things to eat are chewy oatmeal cookies. They are like comfort food in a portable form. And you'd be surprised how hard it is to find oatmeal cookies that turn out chewy and moist instead of dry and brittle.

This recipe was chosen for Tuesdays with Dorie by Mary of Popsicles and Sandy Feet. And as I read through the recipe the first time, I immediately thought... Oh no, Dorie... dried fruit and chocolate in the same recipe... careful, now, careful. And then... then I saw molasses in the recipe, too! What the????

But, I started thinking about what combination of fruits, nuts, and chocolate I wanted to use that would all complement each other to my own picky palate (that hates chocolate and dried fruit) and go with the molasses as well. And I came up with the perfect combo: dried apricots, dried cranberries, pecans, and white chocolate.

Ding, ding, ding! We have a winner.

These cookies were DELICIOUS. I made them one morning before my mom came over to do some shopping. I made a full recipe, stocked the cookie dough in the freezer for easy baking later and baked up 4 immediately to photograph and take with us for a little snack while shopping. They were awesome!!!! All the flavors really blended well together!

Chockablock Cookies

Recipe by Dorie Greenspan

So easy to make. As I said before, I used white chocolate, dried apricots and dried cranberries and pecans. Wonderful combination.

I've found that I dont like cookie dough that has molasses in it, but I do love the flavor that the molasses imparts once the cookie is baked.

Homey and delicious. A real winner.

Recipe can be found here.

TWD: Sweet Cream Biscuits

2010-04-20T09:30:00.003-05:00

I know. Biscuits again, right? But this time... there's no buttermilk involved. Not only that, there's also no lard or even butter! Bring out the smelling salts... someone's Aunt Sue Ellen from Montgomery, Alabama just fainted or rolled over in her grave or whatever. Can't call it a biscuit if it doesn't have all of those things or !gasp! none of them! That's just not right. Or not southern, at least.

Well, screw it. These biscuits were the easiest biscuits I've ever made AND they tasted great AND had a great texture. Bring on the cream biscuits!

Now, it's kinda fitting that I'd be making these biscuits. You see, Nashville's own Biscuit Lady, Carol Fay Ellison passed away a couple of weeks ago. Her biscuits were the best biscuits I'd ever had outside of a southern lady's kitchen. They were light and tasty without being too tangy and they were rich without feeling heavy. They were delicious and luckily the recipe lives on at Loveless Cafe. But, I did eat there about a month ago and even though I was on a diet, I couldn't say no to having one biscuit with some honey drizzled on it. YUM.

I'm pretty sure that these sweet cream biscuits will now become my go-to biscuit recipe. Just because they are easy, they require few ingredients and they have a very mild flavor and a fluffy texture that fits perfect with jams, honey, or meats.

The night before I made these biscuits, I cut up some strawberries with some sugar and let it sit in the fridge over night to juice up. Having biscuits with strawberries is a childhood memory from my maternal grandmother. She always served her biscuits piping hot with strawberries that had been picked and stored in the freezer with a little sugar (okay, a LOT of sugar). Delicious.

Of course... when I tasted these biscuits and realized how delicious they were, I had to try them with a little bit of honey drizzled over, as well (my favorite way to eat a biscuit).

These may not seem like traditional biscuits to you when you read the ingredient list... but they sure taste like it.

Sweet Cream Biscuits

Recipe by Dorie Greenspan

So, I always use White Lily flour. It's readily available in every store here and I find it to be the best flour. I love the soft, light texture of the flour. According to Dorie, it's so soft that you should add 2 tbsps for every 1 cup of all purpose that you use White Lily for.

I also did something different this time. I used a ton of flour when I rolled out the dough. I'd always been scared of using too much flour ("lightly dusting" it a relative phrase, I think). But, after watching an episode of Throwdown in which Carol Fay makes her famously delicious biscuits I noticed she used a ton of flour to roll her dough out... And let me tell you... it makes the process SO MUCH EASIER. (Incidentally, she lost on her episode of throwdown, which reminds me... I need to make Bobby's recipe to see how they compare!).

I also still don't have a biscuit cutter, so I just rolled into a square, cut the biscuits into squares with a sharp knife and placed them in a square baking pan that housed all the biscuits to where they were just barely touching each other.

They turned out perfect. Thanks to Melissa of Love at First Bite for choosing this week's Tuesdays with Dorie recipe. It was a real winner, in my book!

Find the recipe here.

TWD: Swedish Visiting Cake

2010-04-13T09:00:00.001-05:00

Well, it's finally happened.

After years of working on my baking, trying new recipes, having massive disappointments and failures, mingled in with some mediocrity and a few really great recipes sprinkled in, it's finally time to pack away the apron.

It's been fun. I love mixing and measuring, nothing soothes me more after a long day than getting lost in a recipe. And even though things don't always turn out utterly yummy... sometimes they do and even when they dont, my friends and family still gush and coo as only friends and family can do.

But this weekend, all that changed.

It all started with Nancy of The Dogs Eat The Crumbs (who, by the way, I just LOVE. She always posts all the crazy 1/4 recipe, 1/2 recipe , 8 inch pan, 10 inch pan, etc measurements (metric, even!!!) that keep math-idiots like myself from pulling my hair out when I don't want to bake an entire recipe to take a bite of and throw away. Stupid diets). She chose a recipe for Tuesdays with Dorie that I have been DYING to try.

The name is simple: Swedish Visiting Cake. And there is a picture accompanying the recipe... that shows a very dry looking cake baked in a skillet with sliced almonds on top. Now, honestly... the picture doesn't make the recipe look all that appealing. But the story that goes along with the recipe, about how it's so quick and easy that it's said you could whip it up in no time for unexpected guests who show up on your doorstep intrigued me. Not that I ever have guests like that... (but I might now).

So, I was very excited to be finally attempting this recipe. The fact that the timing of the recipe coincides with my busiest time of year (tax season) and also my trying to eat healthy (marathon training season) did not bode well. But I was determined to make this recipe.

Saturday, I did it. And of course... it started off bad. I was halving the recipe, and making it in two mini loaf pans. I managed to halve the recipe easily, except... I totally forget to only use HALF the zest of a lemon (I actually used an orange) and I used the whole thing. I feared a citrus overload, but I kept on plugging. Initially, when I realized my mistake, I considered just making a whole recipe... but decided that that much orange can't be a bad thing.

The moment I took the mini loaves out of the oven, I realized it. I could already tell, just by looking at the cakes that I was done with baking. For years I've been searching for the one thing.. the one baked good that knocks my socks off and with the crunchy, yet moist crust settling on the counter as they cooled, I started to think... could this be the one? This could be the one!!! It could really, finally be the one!!

I waited for them to cool for 5 minutes and then cut into one of them.

Oh.My.God.

Seriously. This is/was hands down the absolute best thing I've ever put into my mouth. It was sweet and slightly gummy and chewy and lightly crispy on top. The texture was amazing. The flavor was amazing. And the effort was amazingly easy.

Hands down, bar none, the best thing I've ever baked. And I honestly can't imagine ever making anything else so satisfying. It's comfort dessert at it's best. It's like the macaroni and cheese of desserts. It's the one, I tell you!!!! THE FREAKING ONE.

I had fantasies that night of adjusting the recipe... maybe adding cocoa for some of the flour to make a chocolate cake. Maybe throwing in some chocolate chips. The opportunities are endless and I feel like there's no reason to bake any more. I've found my baking soul-mate.

Other recipes need not apply.

Swedish Visiting Cake
Recipe by Dorie Greenspan

The easiest cake you'll ever make. I don't even know what else to say except I know that this is a recipe I'll know by heart very soon. I see myself making this many, many times throughout the year. It's simply delicious. The flavor profile is very basic... just sugary (and citrus-y if you added a shit ton of orange zest like I did), but it's the texture of the cake that sets it a part. It's light, but rich. It's moist, but chewy.

I didn't sprinkle the top with almonds, because I didn't have any, but I did use all almond extract in the recipe (simply because I'm out of vanilla extract). It seems like the type of recipe you can easily sub things in and out and still wind up with a delicious treat.
It's amazing.

Find the Recipe here on Nancy's blog, The Dogs Eat The Crumbs.

TWD: Coconut Tea Cake

2010-04-06T09:27:00.000-05:00

The older I get, the more I appreciate spring. I never really thought much about spring as a kid. My focus was always on getting to summer and more importantly, summer break. But, now that I don't have a summer break, I realize what a beautiful time of year spring really is.

After a cold, wet winter, we're finally getting warm, bright days and the trees and flowers are starting to bud out. The landscape is changing from brown to green and you can almost feel the excitement in everyone around you that it's finally spring. We deserve it. It's been a long winter.

This weekend, I spent all of Saturday and Sunday outdoors for the first time all season. And it was spectacular. A Saturday full of running and hiking and a Sunday with running and golf. It doesn't get any better than that.

Well, actually... it does... it gets better when you know you have a Coconut Tea Cake waiting for you at home to be sliced up and devoured. And there is something spring-like about a Coconut Tea Cake, as well. The light fruitiness of the coconut, the tenderness of the crumb. A perfectly dainty, but decadent (especially if you douse your cake in a coconut glaze like I did) cake to serve on a perfect, spring-time day.

Coconut Tea Cake

Recipe by Dorie Greenspan

Chosen for Tuesdays with Dorie by Carmen of Carmen Cooks

I halved the recipe and cooked it in a regular sized bundt pan. This would have worked out fine, I think, except I let the cake cook just a tad too long, so it was a bit on the dry side, even with dousing with a coconut syrup and the powdered sugar glaze. Great flavor though. I was out of vanilla extract so I used almond extract and a touch of coconut extract. The coconut extract really enhanced the coconut scent of the cake, but I'm not sure if it enhanced the flavor.

Click here for the recipe

Sausage Pancakes

2010-03-26T08:00:00.003-05:00

When I was a kid, I hated breakfast foods. I can recall a few mornings during my teenage years where I cracked open a can of Dinty Moore Beef Stew and had it for breakfast. Can you even imagine? Yuck. As I've grown up, though, I've started to appreciate biscuits and sausage gravy, omelettes, bacon and oatmeal.

But there is one thing that I have always loved as a kid and as an adult and that is my mom's pancakes. (Well, to be honest I've always loved any and all pancakes). I went through a phase when I was in middle school where my mom made me pancakes for breakfast 2-3 times during the week and I LOVED it. Sometimes I would even get lucky and they would contain the secret ingredient that makes her pancakes 100x more special and delicious. Her simple addition of one secret ingredient is something that I've still never seen anyone else do (although, I'm sure other people do, it's such a simple and damn tasty idea).

Here it is folks... brace yourself... Cooked, crumbled breakfast sausage.

Think about it... don't you LOVE the flavor of sweet maple syrup with the salty, sometimes spicy flavor of pork sausage? YUM. How brilliant is it to put it all inside the pancake? It's the perfect blend of sweet, salty, fluffy and tangy (if you use sour cream or buttermilk in your pancakes).

And it's so easy to do. All you do, is take your favorite pancake recipe (or, boxed mix!) and add cooked, slightly cooled, crumbled sausage to the batter (and you get even more flavor if you pour in the little bit of grease that the sausage rendered during cooking) and voila: Sausage Pancakes, or as I like to call them... the best pancakes ever!

And... another favorite pancake tip (from my aunt) is when you finish cooking your pancakes, turn the stove off or on low and pour your maple syrup into the pan that you just cooked your pancakes in (a griddle obviously wont work here) to heat it up before you pour it all over your pancakes. YUM.

Sausage Pancakes

Recipe: From my mom.

So, yeah, I basically described the method above. But will list it as an actual recipe. Mom always used boxed mixes, so you can do that or just use your favorite pancake recipe and add the sausages. I used a Nigella Lawson recipe as my base, which I will list below.

Seriously, these are the perfect mix of savory and sweet for breakfast. I realize that bacon is getting all the credit these days in the food world... but breakfast sausage has it's place, too.

Ingredients:

Breakfast Sausage (my mom is partial to Tennessee Pride, but I used All Natural Jimmy Dean. And you could use links if you wanted, but it's much better if you use the bulk sasauge that comes in the tube for slicing or crumbling or whatever).

Pancake batter

Crumble whatever amount of sausage that you want in your pancakes (personal preference) into a skillet and cook until light brown. Set onto a paper towel and let cool for a minute while you prepare your pancake batter.

Add the cool-ish sausage to your batter and proceed with your pancakes.

Nigella's American Breakfast Pancakes

Recipe adapted from Nigella Lawson from her book How to be a Domestic Goddess

I'll print the original recipe with my changes in italics.

With my changes the pancakes were good, but also not quite as tender as I'd like. Probably my fault and not the original recipe's fault. But really... is there such a thing as a bad pancake?

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour (I used White Lily AP flour)

1 tbsp baking powder

pinch of salt

1 tsp sugar (I used Splenda Brown Sugar)

2 large eggs (I separated them from the yolks and beat the egg whites till they were stiff peaks and then folded them into the batter at the end)

2 tbsp butter, melted and cooled

1 1/3 cups of milk (I used half light sour cream and half unsweetened almond milk)

1 tsp vanilla

butter for frying (I used butter flavored cooking spray)

Nigellas Directions for her ingredients:

The easiest way to make these is to put all the ingredients into a blender and blitz. But if you do mix up the batter by hand in a bowl, make a well in the flour, baking powder, salt and sugar, beat in the eggs, melted butter and milk, and transfer to a pitcher; it's much easier to pour the batter into the pan than spoon it. I like to leave the batter for 20 minutes before using it; and then you might want to add more milk to the mixture if your frying in the blini pan, so that it runs right to the edges.

When you cook the pancakes, all you need to remember is that when the upper side of the pancake is blistering and bubbling it's time to cook the second side, and this needs only about 1 minute, if that.

I get 11 blini pan sized pancakes out of this, maybe 16 silver dollar sized ones on the griddle.

Amy's directions for her ingredients.

Mix all the dry ingredients together in a large bowl or large spouted measuring cup. In a separate bowl, add your egg yolks, butter, milk, sour cream, and vanilla and mix them together, in another bowl, beat your egg whites till you get stiff peaks.

Next make a well in the center of your flour mixture and add the wet ingredients and carefully stir together. careful not to over stir. Then fold in your egg whites. Add your cooked sausage and cook in a skillet or on a griddle.

TWD: Toasted Coconut Custard Tart

2010-03-02T12:50:00.000-06:00

I love coconut. Always have, hopefully always will. I agree it has a different type of texture... but, what doesnt? It's not like I sit around and eat coconut out of the bag or anything... but I LOVE it in things, on top of things, whatever.

But, it's one of those foods that divides people. You're either into the coconut, or you hate it. There's no "meh." As much as I love coconut, I've never really been one to eat a lot of coconut cream pie. I'm not sure why... probably because anything with a huge plume of whipped cream or meringue on top generally makes me suspicious. It's like someone's trying to hide something underneath a veil of white fluff. I'm onto you meringues. I know your game.

So, I generally get my coconut in the form of cookies, candy bars (almond joys? swoon), cakes, breads, etc.

So when Beryl of Cinemon Girl chose the Toasted Coconut Custard Tart for this week's Tuesdays with Dorie recipe, I was stoked. I'd never made a coconut custard tart and was excited to try something new. (Plus, coconut recipes are kind of low-man on the totem pole in a big group of bakers).

I made a small batch and of course, despite sitting down with the recipe and trying to quarter it properly... I botched it and came out with glop instead of custard. But, the beauty of this recipe is that it was STILL delicious. Like... one taste and I was in coconut heaven. It was unlike anything I'd ever had before. Creamy, sweet and packed with coconut flavor.

I cannot wait to make this again as a full recipe and see how good an accurately measured version is. If you're a coconut fan, this will seriously blow your socks off.

Toasted Coconut Custard Tart
Recipe by Dorie Greenspan

Besides trying to quarter this recipe (which I don't suggest you do), I also made a few other changes. First of all, since I was making a mini-recipe, I made a graham cracker crust instead of a standart tart crust. Easy and delicious!

Next, I skipped the whipped cream topping. To me, meringue and whipped cream just get in the way. But, if you're sucker for toppings, by all means make the one Dorie puts with the recipes... rum in the whipped cream sounds delicious!

Also, I added vanilla to the recipe in addition to the dark rum, I thought it added a nice subtle flavor.

The bad news? I used WAYYY too much cornstarch and so my custard turned into a thick, thick, goopy mess. But... the flavor was still delicious.

Entire Recipe Here

TWD: Honey Wheat Cookies

2010-02-23T09:15:00.001-06:00

I've talked on here before how in the early 1980s, my mom was a bit of a health food nut. I was young enough to not really be bothered by it, (although, I do recall during that time that we stopped hitting up Krystal's or Hardee's on our way home from the gym). But to this day I still hear about the experiments in the kitchen that my family didn't care for... particularly the Buckwheat Biscuits (apparently they turned out like hockey pucks).

It's funny though... I understand. I mean, you hit your late 20s and you start thinking about how you feel. When you were 18 you could eat fast food for every meal and still be able to party hard all night, get up the next morning and feel totally fine. But, as you get older, it seems like your body gets more sensitive to what you're putting in it and at some point, it just begs for healthy, whole foods. Luckily, I've gotten to the point where a couple of weeks ago, I had a burger and french fries for lunch and I literally felt like shit the rest of the day. And now... when I go to a restaurant, instead of thinking.. yum.. a burger and fries sounds good, I'm thinking... god, I don't want to feel like that again. No burgers and no fries. It's taken me a long time to get to this point, but thankfully, I'm finally there. (This is not to say that I wont ever eat a burger and fries again... because obviously, I will. It's always my post marathon meal and even some other times, you just want it, despite how it's going to make you feel).

When you read the ingredient list for these cookies, you think... hmmm.. wheat germ and honey. It must be healthy! And while, sure... wheat germ is healthier than chocolate chips and yes, honey might be slightly less toxic on your body than an equal amount of sugar (the recipe does contain sugar, as well, though). But, it still has white flour, butter, and sugar. Not entirely health food. Not even close.

That fact didn't keep me from putting away about 6 of these cookies when I got home Saturday night after going out with my friends. In my drunken stupor, I stood in my kitchen and seriously chowed down on these cookies. All the while telling myself.. it's okay. There's wheat germ in it. Out loud, even.

But that's the dangerous thing. These cookies are delicious. I dont know what it is, they are different than any other cookie you'll ever have. They are sweet from the honey and tangy from the citrus and so addictive that they should come with a warning label. And since there is wheat germ in it, you TRY to convince yourself that they're healthy. But, that's dangerous. That's just like those commercials out there for Chef Boyardee, that proclaims there's a full serving of vegetables in every can. WTF? Seriously? We are telling our kids (and ourselves) that it's okay to count one of our daily servings of veggies in the form of canned beef lasagna. ARE YOU KIDDING ME?

I mean, if you want to eat Chef Boyardee. Fine, eat it! But, don't eat it and think that it's healthy. Don't think that just because it's got tomato sauce, that you don't need to eat some broccoli or spinach or something. That really pisses me off.

So, yes... make these. Enjoy them as a different kind of cookie, that probably is slightly healthier than your average other cookie, but be sure to hide them somewhere where your drunk self can't find them. That drunk self can talk you into anything... ~~the least of which you should be worried about is food.~~

Honey Wheat Cookies

Recipe by Dorie Greenspan

Chosen for TWD by Michelle of Flourchild

This recipe is so good. Really. They are light and delicate in flavor. You can taste the subtle honey sweetness and the citrus zest really brightens the cookie up. The crumb is tender and kind of cake-like, which usually I don't like, but there's something about the flavor that pairs so well with the texture. Any other cookie texture wouldn't do it justice, I dont think.

I subbed orange zest for the lemon zest (what I had on hand) and think it worked out perfect, I can imagine the lemon zest would be good, too.

I might actually try to make this recipe legitimately healthy. Subbing some whole wheat flour for the white flour, some applesauce for the butter and possibly swapping the white sugar for half that amount of brown sugar. I'll let you know how they turn out.

Recipe found here.

TWD: Dorie's Best Chocolate Chip Cookies

2010-02-16T08:15:00.000-06:00

I have given lots of second chances in my life. Second chances to friends, boys, restaurants, television shows, books, even rock bands. To me... second chances come natural. I'm not one to hold grudges and always try to remember that shit happens. And it happens to everyone once in awhile. People make mistakes, we're all human and if you can reconcile things from your past without too much effort or heartbreak... it's almost always worth the effort. Even when the second chance doesn't work out... I rarely find myself kicking myself for giving it another go. Hell, sometimes I've even given 3rd chances!

So, yeah... I'm one of those... I like to refer to it as an open-mindness, a feeling that things and people can change, but other people refer to it as a sort of naivete or stupidity. Sure, I get burned sometimes. But what's a little burn every once in awhile, right? If it's not one thing, it's something else.

One thing I just realized this week, though, is that I NEVER give recipes a second chance if they wrong me the first time. I guess it's because with the number of recipes readily available out there through cookbooks and the internet, why would you ever try the same recipe twice, if it didn't work out the first time (and if you had a multitude of other similiar recipes to try)?

Well, up until this weekend... I hadn't. Ever. You see, the first recipe I made out of Dorie Greenspan's Baking: From My Home To Yours cookbook was this recipe, Dorie's Best Chocolate Chip Cookies. And while it certainly wasn't awful, it wasn't my favorite either. The cookies came out flat and greasy. Not my Chocolate Chip Cookie ideal (I prefer crispy edges, chewy center). So what, right? There are literally a zillion Chocolate Chip Cookie recipes out there to try. And eventually I found the perfect ones for me (I have a couple of favorites... David Lebovitz's if I'm looking to whip up a batch today and eat it and The Jacques Torres New York Times Cookie if I have bread flour on hand and time to prepare and wait on the chilled dough).

No need to revisit Dorie's Chocolate Chip Recipe again, right?

Until Kait from Kait's Plate chose the recipe for her Tuesdays with Dorie selection. I debated for awhile... Like I said, I'd never tried a recipe that I didn't like twice. But I read through the recipe again and decided that I'd go for one of the "playing around" options this time.

I added toasted pecans and toasted coconut to the recipe. I hoped that this would bulk up the recipe a bit, since I found them a bit too thin the first time around. And HOT DAMN. If these weren't delicious! They were bulky and chewy and the toasted pecans added such a depth of toasty, nutty flavor to the cookies! Success!

So, while I didn't follow the exact same recipe this time... it was still basically the same recipe and the second time around was awesome! I now have the perfect coconut pecan chocolate chip cookie recipe for my arsenal.

Just goes to show... maybe I should give more recipes a second chance...

Dorie's Best Chocolate Chip Cookies

Recipe from Dorie Greenspan

So, yeah, I added 1 1/2 cups of toasted coconut and followed the regular recipe per the pecans (I didn't add any nuts the first time around). A word about the coconut... you can't really detect it in the cookie, I mean... maybe you can get a hint of toasted coconut flavor, but my oldest brother who won't go near anything that has coconut in it with a 12 ft pole happily ate these and declared them very tasty. (Haha. Of course I didn't tell him there was coconut in it). I definitely suggest you toast both the coconut and the pecans though, it brings out such an intense flavor in the ingredients.

These are delicious cookies and super easy and straightforward to make. I couldn't keep from eating the dough or the cookies!

Recipe can be found here, on Kait's Blog.

New Orleans King Cake (The easy way)

2010-02-12T10:31:00.000-06:00

I understand. Everyone's all wrapped up in thoughts of Valentines Day. But... don't get so wrapped up in Valentines Day that you forget what happens 2 days later. (After President's Day, that is. Jeez. Mardi Gras just can't catch a break this year. It's gotta compete with Valentines Day AND President's Day). Anyway, Fat Tuesday.

Awwww hells yes. Fat Tuesday is on Feb 16th this year. And since you'll be looking for something sweet and delicious to load up on before Lent starts the next day (I wonder how many people give up sugar/sweets/chocolate, etc for Lent?), I present you with the easiest King Cake Recipe ever. And delicious!

I actually made this King Cake for the Super Bowl. And it was declared very authentic despite the lazy woman method I employed to make it. Before we get into the recipe, let's talk a little about King Cakes.

For me, the single best thing about a King Cake is the plastic baby inside. I stopped at a cake decorating store here in town and found a package of 8 little naked plastic babies for $1.89. Awesome, right? When I got home and started to prepare the King Cake, I started thinking about whether or not these little naked plastic babies were 1. heatproof and 2. non-toxic. Now, to me... as much as I love the idea of biting into a piece of cake that is studded with a little naked plastic baby, the idea of that little naked baby melting and creating a pool of toxic chemicals that will eventually give me cancer one day was not something I was excited about.

In the end, I opted to prop the little naked plastic baby up on the top of the cake. Which, honestly... looked a little funny. But, also made me happy to look over and see the little baby hovering over the edge of the cake. Plus, this way.. the baby stayed nice and clean and fresh.

Top the cake off with some icing, some green, purple, and yellow colored sugars and some mini mardi gras beads and you've got yourself the perfect (and easy!) King Cake.

Laissez le Bon temp rouler!!

Easy Mini King Cake (for kids)

Found on Anna's Blog, Cookie Madness

So, basically you take a tube of canned biscuits, roll them out and together and then douse it with melted butter and sprinkle with cinnamon, and sugar. Roll into a tube and shape into a circle. Easy, right?

And it is easy, but my biscuits were not attaching to each other to make a complete piece of dough and once it started cooking, they kind of broke apart and formed huge gashes and crevices in the ring. At first, I freaked out, but I let it keep baking and in the end, it turned out just fine. Sure, it kinda ended up being 4 pieces shaped into a squareish circle, but once you slapped some icing and sugar on it, it looked fine. So, don't despair if your biscuits go a little rogue on you in the baking process. It'll all turn out.

Next year, I might make this in a Monkey Bread type of way, using a bundt pan. I think that would work great!

To see Anna's exact recipe, click on her blog link above. I'm giving the recipe the way I made it (just a few minor adjustments).

1 (16 oz) can of biscuits

1/4 cup melted butter
1/4 cup brown sugar
2 tbsp sugar
1 tablespoon cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg
pinch of salt
Yellow, Purple, Green Sugars
1 plastic baby

Icing:
1/2 cup confectioners sugar
Milk or Heavy Cream

Preheat your oven to 325.

Lay the biscuits out 4x2 on a piece of parchment paper and press and roll them out to form one piece of dough. (I didnt use water, but I think some water might have helped the dough stick together better). With a pastry brush or a big spoon, spread the melted butter over the dough.

In a small bowl, mix your white and brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt. Then spread this mixture evenly over the buttered dough.

Roll the dough into a log and shape the log into a circle, careful to make sure the ends are pinched together well on a sheet pan that has been lined with a silpat or a piece of parchment paper.

Bake in the oven till the biscuits are puffed up and done (about 30 minutes or so).

Once cooled a little bit, mix your confectioners sugar with just enough milk to make an icing consistency. And spread over the top of the cake. Then add your decorative sugars.

TWD: Rick Katz's Brownies for Julia

2010-02-09T09:30:00.001-06:00

How do you fancy your brownie? Generally, I'm a chewy girl. I'll a cut a bitch if anyone gets near the corner pieces. So, I have a trick up my sleeve. You see, when I make a batch of brownies, I cut all along the perimeter of the brownies, about 1/2 in from the edges. And then I cut my slices from the remaining inside. I tell people it's so that all the brownies have that pretty "just cut" edges, instead of some edge or corner pieces thrown in. But in reality, it's so that I can then proceed to eat all those edges and corners myself.

Sneaky, eh? It works though. I have good looking brownies and I have an excuse to eat my favorite pieces. It's a win-win.

Tanya of Chocolate Chic chose this week's Tuesdays with Dorie Recipe and after being an avid reader of her blog for awhile now (I almost feel like I know her, Superman, and the Chips because of all the cool photos and witty captions that she posts regularly), I knew that this recipe would be right up my alley: just pure blissful chocolate... no crazy Dorie add-ins. And boy, was I right.

So, this week is Valentine's Day week, right? What better week to bake up a batch of these fudgy, decadent brownies to share with the ones you love? Ummm... none. Sure, the recipe is a little weird in method and sure you have to pop these bad boys in the fridge for awhile before you can even think about cutting them, and sure they leave a sticky, thick chocolate residue all over your fingers. But they are sinful. Sinful, messy, sweet and delicious... and isn't that how all love should be?

Rick Katz's Brownies for Julia (Julia Child, that is).

Recipe from Dorie Greenspan's Cookbook, Baking: From My Home To Yours

Be warned, these are not dainty, tea-time brownies. These are heavy, sturdy, dense, chocolate-y squares of goodness. These are not the brownies that you take to a party. These are the brownies that you make with the intention of taking a fork to the entire pan and just going after it. They are messy. But, damn are they good. Rich and almost creamy. They're similiar to a truffle in consistency.

The preparation method is a little different than your standard brownie making, so be sure to read through the directions carefully before you start and then as you're working. There some weirdness going on with the eggs and some whipping, etc.

When they come out of the oven, let them cool (or, I suppose these would be heavenly scooped out messy and warm with a bowl of ice cream) and then pop them in the fridge or freezer to firm up for cutting. They even taste good cool and frozen!

Recipe here

Pralines

2010-02-05T15:28:00.001-06:00

I spent last weekend celebrating my 30th birthday in one of America's greatest cities: New Orleans. (Here's a hint... if you want to entice your friends from all over the country to come in for your birthday celebration... pick a kick-ass party city like New Orleans. You'll have no problem, no problem at all). Now, sure... New Orleans isn't the most glamorous and it isn't really all that tourist-friendly (can we just talk for a minute how weird it is that they don't get on the "accepting credit cards" bandwagon? I mean, credit cards have been around for about 30+ years now... I think they're here to stay. Also.. splitting checks. I mean, I understand not splitting checks for like 4+ people. But, 2? or 3? WEIRD. And slightly annoying when we're living in a very non-cash society) but you forget these things when you're surrounded by all the greatness that New Orleans represents.

First of all... the booze. I mean, hands down the coolest thing New Orleans has going for it, is that you can carry your booze around with you wherever you go. You may not think that this is a big deal... but just picture this for a moment... we all have that friend who nurses their drink like it's being rationed. Everyone else is finished, someone in your party attempts to stand up to leave and this "drink nurser" says... "WAIT! Let me finish my drink, first." And the rest of your party groans, because if that had been any of the rest of you, you'd stood up and pounded the drink and walked out. But not drink nurser, drink nurser can't pound. (incidentally, this is the same person who "sips" shots. ~~Yes, Mom, I'm talking about you~~) This way.... everyone can be happy! Drink nurser can take their drink with them!

Secondly, the food. Holy shit. Every morsel of food I had there (with the exception of the pizza by the slice, which honestly wasn't terrible, but let's be honest... it's drunk food) was delicious! From the amazing Muffaletta sandwich at Cafe Maspero's to the Turtle Soup at Palace Cafe to the Cochon De Lait (which, I think is french for... "the most amazing freaking sandwich you will ever have in your entire life.") at Pierre Maspero's Restaurant to the Burger and Baked Potato at Port of Call everywhere you turn is an authentic, non-chain, delicious restaurant. And... did I mention the drinks? The bloody marys? And the triple crown of NOLA? The Monsoon, the hurricane, and the hand grenade? Mmmmm. Oh, right... I'm talking about food now, don't forget bananas foster and pralines! YUM.

Thirdly, it's just a cool ass city. I guarantee you, it's the one place in America where I can walk around hungover as shit with a green and white feather boa wrapped around my neck holding a bloody mary and yelling out 'Who Dat?" at 10 am on a Sunday morning and no one even casts a second glance your way. Why? Because everyone else is doing the exact same thing.

I came home from NOLA with the flu, pralines I bought at the airport (that were GROSS and that I threw away as soon as I got home), about 10 extra pounds, and new found appreciation for the New Orleans Saints. (It doesn't hurt that I spent about 4 hours on Sunday crammed in a crowd of crazy ass Saints fans during a parade of dudes wearing dresses (don't ask, just read about it)).

I mean, here in Nashville we LOVE our Titans. We do. We talk about them, we root for them, it's our small-talk banter... "did you see the game yesterday? etc..." we love our team. We really do. I mean football is king here. But... it's not the same. And I just realized it this past weekend being submersed in Saints Country. I used to always think... ohhhh all fans are passionate about their team. And they are. But, it's almost like the Saints ARE New Orleans. It's so easy to get wrapped up in the excitement that's all over the city. My friends and I even spent a good bit of time on Sunday morning looking for Saints Merchandise to wear. I became a Saints fan last weekend (well... The Titans are of course still my team... but as far as the NFC goes... Saints all the way, baby!) and even though I wouldnt' have rooted for the Colts anyway (Booooo division rivals! boooo!), I will be rooting my ass off for the Saints. 'Who dat??' (god, I love that phrase and song.... Titans... take note.. we need a phrase and song! STAT!).

I'd like to take something NOLA-esque to watch the big game with and these pralines would be awesome. They are actually better than the pralines I bought at praline connection (yes, at the airport, I know). A little gritty, very nutty, and definitely sweet (exactly like New Orleans, itself, eh?).

If you're a new Saints fan like me and headed to a party this weekend... do yourself a favor... whip up a batch of these, they'll be no denying who you're rooting for.

Go Saints! Who Dat!!!!

Pralines

Recipe by Gourmet Magazine 1991

So, here's what I did. I cheated. Instead of dipping out the pralines one by one, I poured them into a 13x9 inch pan that I had put a big piece of parchment paper in. That way, after they cooled, I lifted them out of the pan, by the parchment paper and cut/broke them into bite-size pieces. You'll get thicker pralines, but it's so much easier this way.

I am not a candy-maker, by any means, so as long as you have a candy thermometer you should be able to make this recipe.

Buttery and firm but with a soft give these pralines are delicious.

Ingredients:

flavorless vegetable oil for oiling the baking sheets

2 cups firmly packed light brown sugar
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup heavy cream
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar
1/2 stick (1/4 cup) unsalted butter, cut into bits
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
2 1/2 cups pecan halves

Have ready 4 oiled large baking sheets. In a heavy 2-quart saucepan combine the sugars, the cream, the salt, and the cream of tartar, cook the mixture over moderate heat, stirring and washing down any sugar crystals clinging to the side with a brush dipped in cold water, until the sugar is dissolved, and boil it over moderately high heat, undisturbed, until a candy thermometer registers 238°F. Remove the pan from the heat, let the mixture cool until the candy thermometer registers 220°F., and stir in the butter and the vanilla. Beat the mixture until it is creamy and stir in the pecan halves. Working quickly, drop the mixture by tablespoon onto the baking sheets and let the pralines cool. Remove the pralines carefully and store them, wrapped individually in wax paper, in airtight container in a cool place. The pralines keep for 2 weeks.

yield: Makes about 36 pralines, weighing approximately 2 pounds.

TWD: Cocoa Nana Bread

2010-01-26T08:30:00.000-06:00

I haven't been baking that much lately. And ya know what? I miss it. Hopefully I can sneak a few more goodies in a little more often.

So, this recipe is the latest Tuesdays with Dorie recipe. And it's a bread with loads of chocolate and bananas thrown in. Ya know... so you can eat it for breakfast or call it "kinda" healthy. Neither of which accurately pertain to this recipe.

I halved the recipe and made it in a disposable loaf pan. The cook time didn't really work for me, though. First of all... the bread oozed out of the top of the middle of the pan. And I never really felt like the center got cooked enough.

In the end I ended up with ends that were too dry and a center that was slightly over-cooked, but edible. The bread was definitely delicious though, and I think if maybe I cooked it in a regular loaf pan it would have cooked more evenly. Because of the dry crumb, I found myself digging the chocolate chips out of the bread and just eating them. The banana flavor was very subtle. I kept thinking that it would be delicious with a smear of peanut butter. Ya know... just to make it even "healthier."

Click HERE for the recipe, thank's to Steph of Obsessed with Baking's for choosing this week's recipe. I've had my eye on it for awhile and was happy to finally make it!

Gourmet No Bake Cookies

2010-01-14T15:31:00.000-06:00

Ina Garten. Who doesn't love her? I mean, for chrissakes she goes by the nickname: Barefoot Contessa. How cool and classy is that? She's one of the few people on the Food Network that I can assure you, I'd eat whatever she cooked. She cooks delicious-looking, simple food that I always find myself saying... if I ever have a classy dinner party... I'm serving THAT.

The truth of the matter is that I have made quite a few of her baking recipes: cakes, brownies, etc and they've turned out wonderful. Off the top of my head, I know her spinach gratin dish is to die for and I remember a corn chowder recipe and the chicken with 40 cloves of garlic recipe being awesome, also.

She makes throwing a dinner party look so easy, effortless, and fun.

Lately on her show... she's been doing something called "Back to Basics" where she tweaks an old recipe with something new and amps up the flavor. It seems ridiculously boring and dumb, but I'm continually amazed how often I say... ohhhh shit. I never thought of that. I tip my hat to you, Ina.

The of idea of "Back to Basics" is how I came up with the idea for a "Gourmet" No Bake Cookie. I mean, honestly folks.. how much more basic can you get than a No Bake cookie?

I knew I wanted to make my best friend, Stephanie a plate full of No Bake Cookies (aka Grandma Cookies) when she was visiting over Thanksgiving, but instead of just whipping up a batch... I went Ina Garten all over this recipe and tweaked it a bit.

Now, it's nothing crazy or out of the ordinary... I just added chocolate chips to the recipe (melted into the recipe), I used Dark Cocoa Powder instead of regular cocoa powder and used whole milk. And they turned out delicious. Definitely more chocolatey and decadent than your average No Bake Cookie. I made sure to pull them from the stove a little early because I like mine thin and tender (or even gooey, if I get lucky) instead of thick and chunky, but that's entirely up to you...

This is definitely how I'll be making them from now on... And Ina (Barefoot Contessa) you have my permission (the Barefoot Hillbilly) to use this recipe in your next show or book if you ever decide to go redneck and low-brow on us.

Gourmet No Bake Cookies (or, as I'll call them.. Fancy Dancy Grandma Cookies)
Recipe: written in one of my Aunt's 12 year old handwriting. Adapted by me.

The consistency of the no bake cookie that I enjoy is more like that of a praline. To achieve this texture, I gamble and just try to pull the pan from the stove before the full 2 minute boil. I'm sure if I were to use a candy thermometer I could get a much more accurate product everytime. But... I grew up with them turning out different every time, anyway. So... I'm used to that.

In my opinion, these are definitely superior to the original No Bake Cookie Recipe. So much richer and more satisfying. And dare I say? Classy enough for a dinner party?

1 stick of Butter
2 cups of sugar
1/2 cup whole milk (or cream would work, too)
3 tbsp Hershey's Special Dark Unsweetened Cocoa
2/3 cup Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips
Pinch of Salt
2 1/2 cups of Old Fashioned or Rolled Oats
1/2 cup Peanut Butter
2 tsps Vanilla

Melt butter in a saucepan over medium heat and add sugar, milk, cocoa, chocolate chips, and salt. Bring to a boil and allow to boil for 2 minutes.

Remove from heat and immediately add oats, peanut butter, and vanilla.

Drop by spoonfuls onto a piece of aluminum foil, parchment paper, or wax paper.

Let cool and enjoy.

TWD: Mrs. Vogel's Scherben

2010-01-12T09:30:00.001-06:00

aka... fried dough shards with cinnamon sugar and powdered sugar.

I've never been a fan of the "fried dough" foods. Never really liked doughnuts (although I will eat Krispy Kreme doughnuts sometimes), can't stand funnel cakes or elephant ears. It's just personal preference. I prefer my sweet baked goods to be more sweet and less doughy.

But, I gotta admit... the picture of these in Dorie's Book, Baking: from My Home to Yours looked interesting to me. They looked less "doughy" and more fried and crispy. I've been waiting for someone to choose these and finally, Teanna of Spork or Foon did just that (and please check out her blog, she's hilarious and one helluva cook and baker!).

But, the timing, Teanna... ohhh the timing. The timing just happens to be whilst I'm in the middle of a furious diet/exercise regime where I'm trying to get down to my ultimate weight (still have like 20 pounds to go and less than 3 weeks to make it. Oy vey) before my 30th birthday rolls around on February 1. So while the actual ingredients are very reasonable (1 tablespoon of butter? thats it!), the actual frying of the dough is where the diet train stops and rears it's no fun head. Wah Wah.

Luckily, Caitlin (who recently got engaged! Congrats!) had the brilliant idea to try and bake these shards of dough. So... bake them is what I did!

Unfortunately... my diet-mindedness crept even further into the recipe by coming up with the not-so-brilliant idea of using half white whole wheat flour and half all purpose flour.

What I ended up with... were essentially Wheat Thins heavily dusted with powdered sugar. Seriously, the texture and the flavor of the baked dough was exactly that of Wheat Thins! Which.. honestly, I was kind of stoked about... I mean.. normally when I try to healthify a recipe and it doesn't turn out right, it just turns into absolute rubbish! But this is actually something I might could tinker with and make my own Wheat Thins! Just add some savory herbs and spices and bam!

I do think that these would be really tasty if you made them per the recipe and fried them in a vat of oil. So, if you're into the fried dough, you should give them a try, because they were surprisingly easy!

Mrs. Vogel's Scherben

recipe by Dorie Greenspan

So, yeah, I tinkered. A little too much. I used half white whole wheat flour and half all purpose flour. Then... instead of brushing with oil before baking (like Caitlin suggested), I just spritzed with cooking spray. Honestly.. the texture (though not the intentional texture for the actual recipe) turned out really well and would make a GREAT cracker. Luckily, I only baked up half the dough, and am freezing the rest to make my own savory cracker out of it sometime soon!

Check out Teanna's Blog for the recipe.

TWD: Tarte Tatin

2010-01-06T16:55:00.000-06:00

This recipe was one of two chosen for the Tuesdays with Dorie's 2nd Anniversary Posting. And you know with my current leaning to all things fruit, I eagerly chose this one over the chocolate cake option (I know, who have I become?).

This is basically an apple tart with caramelized cooked apples and a crunchy butter crust of puff pasty. I mean, seriously... what could be better, right? Those French. God bless them and their desserts.

I made this for Christmas Dinner Dessert and since it's such a simple recipe and I was making it for my family on Christmas, I was determined to take Dorie's advice in the book and seek out an all butter puff pastry. Which basically means... Pepperidge Farm brand was out.

Now, finding an all butter puff pastry in a town like Nashville around the holidays in the area I live in, is not an easy feat. Why? Because it means I have to go somewhere other than my beloved Harris Teeter and venture into the traffic jammed, christmas shopper infested suburb of Green Hills. F#*@!

First stop? Trader Joes. I waltzed in expecting to find some holiday version of an all butter puff pastry tucked away in the frozen foods section for a reasonable price. What I found... were pie crusts. I left and ventured into the strip-malled location of my local Whole Foods. Surely... whole foods would have an all butter puff pastry.

To my glee, there it was! Dufour's Puff Pastry. Tucked neatly on the bottom shelf. The only offering of puff pastry that Whole Foods had. I picked it up and then I saw the price.. $11.99. F#*@!

Initially, I just said... fine. It's Christmas. It's for Family Dinner. There's not a lot of other ingredients... it's worth it. I walked over to another part of the store to pick something else up and then I started thinking... It might be Christmas and it might be my family, but maybe that's all the more reason to buy Pepperidge Farm. I mean... it's Christmas, so there will be OTHER desserts. And it's my family and I can guarantee you that they wouldn't know the difference between Pepperidge Farm Puff Pastry and Dufour's. So, in the end, I returned the Dufours back to the frozen foods section and drove directly to Harris Teeter to pick up the Pepperidge Farm. And I never regretted the decision.

My tarte tatin isn't shiny and golden (with all those apples in there, how in the world can you see if your sugar and butter are getting golden? I just guessed and as you can see, I guessed wrong), to doesn't look like something you'd get from a fancy dancy French Pastry chef, but hot damn if it isn't absolutely delicious! And I even liked it better the next day!

Butter, sugar, apples and puff pastry. Who knew that that's all it took for such a divine tasting dessert? Sweet, soft, slightly crispy, full of apple flavor. It might have looked like a drab plate of grey blobs, but it was so much more.

Tarte Tatin
recipe by Dorie Greenspan

So, I used a big iron skillet for this recipe and it was dark in the kitchen and I had so many apples in the skillet, I couldn't really tell when the sugar and butter got to the right consistently. Otherwise, this would have looked better. So, I definitely should have cooked all that longer.

Despite that, the apples were still entirely cooked all the way through and were nice and soft. I'd like to get some mini iron skillets and try individual sizes of these tarts. I think it would be way easier to make and manage this way.

Recipe here (and pictures of what it's supposed to look like!)

**Special thanks to all those who make Tuesdays with Dorie happen, particularly Laurie! And a huge thank you to Dorie Greenspan herself for inspiring so many of us bakers every week!

Butterscotch Sauce

2009-12-31T09:00:00.003-06:00

Here's the deal. My family is one of those "weird" families. Weird as in... we celebrate Christmas on a different day than most people celebrate. We celebrate Christmas a day early. So, here's the schedule:

December 23 Evening: Our Christmas Eve (Big Family Dinner)
December 24 Morning: Open Presents (Big Family Breakfast).
December 24 Day: Exchange, return gifts.
December 25 Morning: Spend Christmas with Extended Family.

A little unconventional, but very practical. At least, it used to be... You see this whole thing started back when my brothers and I were little kids. We'd wake up on Christmas morning, unwrap all our toys, be super excited and dying to play with them and then be upset that we had to leave all our new toys to go and spend the day with extended family.

One year, my mom came up with a brilliant idea! She told us to write Santa a letter and see if he could come early that year, so that we didn't have to pack up and/or leave our toys on Christmas morning. We could leisurely spend the morning together instead of rushing out the door. Luckily, Santa got the letter and we've been celebrating Christmas the same way ever since.

Now, initially... we would go out to dinner for our Christmas Dinner to some exotic restaurant that we'd never been to before. But somewhere along the way, we nixed that idea and started having Christmas Dinner at home.

When we first started, my mom always bought this one cheesecake at Sam's Club every year. It was called a Turtle Cheesecake, it was $10 and it was heavenly. We thought it was so fancy. It came frozen and had parchment paper between all the slices and I loved pulling all the parchment from between the slices and licking the paper clean.

At some point, we stopped buying the Cheesecake and my mom and I would make homemade desserts instead. This year, I wanted to bring back the nostalgia of the Christmas Cheesecake, so I made my favorite plain cheesecake recipe and I decided to finally try something that I've had my eye on for awhile: Butterscotch.

I came across a recipe awhile back that talked about the wonders of homemade butterscotch. How it was infinitely better than store bought butterscotch (and lord knows I love me some store bought butterscotch). But, when Deb of Smitten Kitchen posted a recipe for an Easy Butterscotch Sauce recipe, I was sold.

And you know what? This butterscotch sauce is indeed infinitely better than store bought. And you know what else? It is super freaking easy. What I liked about it, is that I could make it as salty and rich as I wanted it. Yum. Perfect for a slice of cheesecake or a huge bowl of vanilla ice cream (Butterscotch milkshake, anyone?).

Easy Butterscotch Sauce
Recipe from Deb at Smitten Kitchen

I don't really have anything to offer up here, except to note that I used light brown sugar. The recipe is dead simple.

Recipe from Smitten Kitchen: Here or for your convenience, cut and pasted:

Yield: About 2/3 to 3/4 cup sauce

1/4 cup (4 tablespoons, 2 ounces or 1/2 stick) unsalted butter
1/2 cup packed dark or light brown sugar (I used dark)
1/2 cup heavy cream
1/2 teaspoon flaky sea salt (or 1/4 teaspoon regular salt), plus more to taste
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract, plus more to taste

Melt butter in a medium heavy-bottomed saucepan over medium heat. Add the sugar, cream and salt and whisk until well blended. [A flat whisk works great here.] Bring to a very gentle boil and cook for about five minutes, whisking occasionally.

Remove from heat and add one teaspoon of the vanilla extract, stirring to combine and this is where, despite the simplicity of the recipe, you get to feel all “chef-y”. Dip a spoon in the sauce and carefully taste the sauce (without burning your tongue!) to see if you want to add additional pinches or salt or splashes of vanilla. Tweak it to your taste, whisking well after each addition. I ended up using a full teaspoon of flaky salt and the listed amount of vanilla to get a butterscotch sauce with a very loud, impressive butterscotch flavor but the strength of your vanilla and intensity of your salt may vary.

Serve cold or warm over vanilla ice cream, roasted pears or pound cake. The sauce will thicken as it cools. It can be refrigerated in an airtight container and reheated in a microwave or small saucepan.

To do ahead: This sauce will keep at least two weeks in an airtight container in the fridge.

TWD: Low and Lush Chocolate Cheesecake

2009-12-29T10:13:00.003-06:00

First of all, let's have a little heart-to-heart, m'kay?

It's winter here in Middle Tennessee. Which, in a word, sucks. That's not to say that it's worse than Buffalo, NY or Wisconsin or whatever, but, it's cold, it's dark and it's wet a lot more than it's not, it seems. And that SUCKS.

You know what else sucks this time of year? Natural Light (No, not that Natural Light, the lack of real natural light). I mean... sure if I didn't have day job and I was just baking away all day instead of rushing around like a banshee trying to finish things before Christmas maybe I could get better pictures of my baked goodies than this atrocity:

I know. I'm embarrassed. It's awful. But let me set the scene for you...

It's christmas morning. My family loads up the car and heads to my uncles house. I secretly hope that when we get there no one else (well, besides my uncle) is there. But of course... we pull up and we're not the first ones. Drats! So, I have to figure out a way to get a picture of my cheesecake without my entire family thinking I'm a nutjob (they dont know I have a blog and honestly... I think they'd be a little embarrassed of me to find out how I cuss like a sailor when I'm not around them, so I keep the blog on the d/l.).

This is not an easy feat. So, I take to the laundry room and sneak 2 photos of the cheesecake while it sits on the washing machine. Seriously. 2 photos. And this is the least offensive. I'm sorry. Picture a lightly shaded chocolate sliver on a crisp white plate.

Don't let my awful photo scare you away. People loved this cheesecake. As in... there was only a small slice left at the end of the day. Now, I'm going to be honest with you... I am a plain cheesecake fan. I'm not usually crazy about the flavor of chocolate and cheesecake together. But, I did actually like this cheesecake a lot more than I thought I would. And a few members of my family thought this cheesecake was better than the plain cheesecake I made a couple days earlier. (More on that in another post).

Basically... if you love chocolate cheesecake, you will die when you have this particular cheesecake. And if you like regular cheesecake, I think you'll enjoy it, too.

Low & Lush Chocolate Cheesecake
Recipe by Dorie Greenspan
Chosen for Tuesdays with Dorie by The Tea Lady of Tea and Scones

Easy. Delicious. Of course I omitted the cinnamon in the crust. But otherwise followed the recipe to the letter. It comes out rich and creamy with just enough chocolate to flavor but not overpower the cream cheese.

It's not a pretty cheesecake. The chocolate color is an unappetizing light brown, but I thought, if I'd had the time that it would have looked pretty with some whipped cream piped along the edges or something.

Recipe Here.

TWD: Dorie's Favorite Pecan Pie

2009-12-22T09:54:00.001-06:00

First off, I feel like I need to address the shittiness of these photos, lest you think I'm unaware of the shittiness. Trust me, I'm aware. FULLY AWARE and a wee bit embarrassed. But, ehhh.. what the hell, right? Everyone knows what a pecan pie is supposed to look like.

So, Pecan Pie is my absolute favorite dessert. I love the crunchy hard top, the flavor of the pecans, and the sweet jelly type of filling and I absolutely love the way that the jelly-like filling softens the buttery crust. I have been known to inhale an entire pie in one sitting. No joke.

It's because of this undying love for this baked good that I never, ever make pecan pie. Because I can't trust myself around them. One minute there's an entire pie coming out of the oven, 5 minutes later I've got my face buried in the pie plate licking every last crumb out of there. It's sick.

So, when Beth of Someone's in the Kitchen with Brina picked this week's Tuesdays with Dorie recipe and it was pecan pie I became excited. One, because I had a REASON to bake a pecan pie and two, because I had a Christmas party coming up that I could take the pie to.

Now, this posed a wee bit of a problem. Taking a pie to a cocktail party is... not the greatest idea. I mean, sure, it can be done and sure, in hindsight, I should have done just that... but, my idea of a perfect cocktail party dessert is a finger food. Something you can casually pick up a piece of as you head over to the bar to pour yourself another glass of wine or what have you. So, my brilliant idea was to make pecan pie squares out of the recipe! I'd just prepare the entire pie in a 9x13 inch pan and cut them into little bite size bars! Brilliant!

Except, somehow in the baking process the crust kind of completely disintegrated into the pie itself so instead of becoming easy to pick up and transport bars, they became gobs of stickiness. Delicious gobs, but messy ones.

I was horrified at how these things looked. And even more horrified that I was cutting them up about 20 minutes before I needed to leave to get to the party, so no time to whip something else up. Fortunately, these things tasted absolutely amazing. Granted, I love pecan pie, but wow. Probably the best pecan pie I've ever tasted (and folks... I've had a boatload of pecan pie). It's a shame that the bar treatment didn't work out, because I'm sure most people shied away from them at the party because well... who wants to dive into a mess of sticking gobs at a cocktail party (besides me)?

I will be making this recipe again, except the traditional way: a real pie. If you like Pecan Pie, you should do yourself a favor and try this recipe sometime. It might just become your favorite, too.

Dorie's Favorite Pecan Pie
recipe by Dorie Greenspan

First of all, I omitted the espresso powder, cinnamon, and chocolate and opted for the traditional version of pecan pie. Which means I also opted for her "sweeter" and more traditional route and upped the corn syrup to 1 cup and I may have added a little bit extra brown sugar than called for. Pecan pie, to me, is supposed to be cavity-inducing sweet.

Second of all, for the crust, I substituted 2 tbsp of water with 2 tbsp of Woodford Reserve Bourbon. And while you couldn't really taste the actual bourbon, you could certainly smell it and I do think it offered a bit of something extra to the flavor of the pie without actually overwhelming it. I'll try this again when I make an actual pie and not bars.

Recipe found here

St. Louis Gooey Butter Cake

2009-12-16T11:15:00.001-06:00

It's been a good year. If I could, I would bottle it up and store it in the bottom of my coat closet to open in the middle of a future year that isn't so awesome. Maybe then I'd have the time to actually savor and really enjoy the year. I know that sounds cheesy, but it's hard not to think about all the wonderful things I've experienced this year.

I've made new friends, gone to new places, accomplished new goals. What more could you ask for?

One of the most memorable things I've done this year was run a 200 mile relay across Kentucky with 11 other runners. Some people I knew beforehand, but the majority of the team were complete and utter strangers to me up until a few months before the relay. I happened upon the role of Team Captain and throughout the planning process I worried about such a large group of random people in tight quarters, under extreme conditions (running in the middle of the night, living in a van) getting along together.

But you know what? We all did. Everyone was awesome. I was so happy and impressed with how team-oriented everyone was. It was a great experience (despite the shitty weather) and I cannot wait to Captain the team again next year.

To celebrate how awesome we were as a team (we had an amazing finish time), I hosted a post-relay party at my place. It was a good chance for the team to reassemble and hang out together. I made a big pot of chili, had a bunch of beer, set out some chips and salsa and a couple of different types of cookies.

In case you don't know any runners, let me let you into a secret about us: 1. we love food and 2. we love booze. Seriously... runners run to eat and drink (or at least all the ones I know do). I came across this recipe linked on Serious Eats and immediately bookmarked it. Gooey and Butter are two words that make me swoon. And so when this party rolled around, I decided it was the perfect opportunity to give them a try.

As always, I read through the entire recipe and was undeterred by the fact that it calls for a stand mixer and yeast. I've got a hand mixer. That's good enough, right?

Well, as I was mixing the yeast mixture (for 10 godforsaken minutes) I started to realize that this method just might not work. My dough never pulled away from the sides of the bowl. Never really formed a "dough" like I thought it should. But, I proceeded anyway. And when it never really rose or doubled in size. I thought.. what the hell? I've already invested a lot of time into this, I'm just going to bake it off anyway and hope for the best.

I baked it for a little longer than it needed, just because I was nervous that the dough was going to be.. gooey gross instead of gooey good.

And you know what happened? I was thrilled with the results! The bars were chewy and oh so sweet. Simple and yet deliciously decadent. Ironic that these bars turned out much the same way as the relay team that they were intended for did. High expectations, nervous and anxious while preparing, but a stellar outcome.

I can't wait to make them again.

St. Louis Gooey Butter Cake
recipe from NY Times

This recipe was supposed to turn out awful. I didn't use a stand mixer, my dough didn't rise. But in the end... it turned out awesome! I'm not sure if thats the way it's supposed to be, but I was happy with the results and so were my guests.

It's not a difficult recipe, but it is time consuming, because of the yeast dough. So make sure you have the time to commit.

3 tablespoons milk at room temperature
1 3/4 teaspoons active dry yeast
6 tablespoons unsalted butter at room temperature
3 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 large egg
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour

For the topping:
3 tablespoons plus 1 teaspoon light corn syrup
2 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
12 tablespoons (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 1/2 cups sugar
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1 large egg
1 cup plus 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour

Confectioners’ sugar, for sprinkling.

1. In a small bowl, mix milk with 2 tablespoons warm water. Add yeast and whisk gently until it dissolves. Mixture should foam slightly.

2. Using an electric mixer with paddle attachment, cream butter, sugar and salt. Scrape down sides of bowl and beat in the egg. Alternately add flour and the milk mixture, scraping down sides of bowl between each addition. Beat dough on medium speed until it forms a smooth mass and pulls away from sides of bowl, 7 to 10 minutes.

3. Press dough into an ungreased 9-by 13-inch baking dish at least 2 inches deep. Cover dish with plastic wrap or clean tea towel, put in a warm place, and allow to rise until doubled, 2 1/2 to 3 hours.

4. Heat oven to 350 degrees. To prepare topping, in a small bowl, mix corn syrup with 2 tablespoons water and the vanilla. Using an electric mixer with paddle attachment, cream butter, sugar and salt until light and fluffy, 5 to 7 minutes. Scrape down sides of bowl and beat in the egg. Alternately add flour and corn syrup mixture, scraping down sides of bowl between each addition.

5. Spoon topping in large dollops over risen cake and use a spatula to gently spread it in an even layer. Bake for 40 to 45 minutes; cake will rise and fall in waves and have a golden brown top, but will still be liquid in center when done. Allow to cool in pan before sprinkling with confectioners’ sugar for serving.

Yield: 16 to 20 servings.

TWD: Sables

2009-12-08T07:59:00.000-06:00

You know who I hate? Those people who make things that turn out exactly the way they're supposed to. You know who I'm talking about... those punks in your 2nd grade class who had perfect penmanship. Then in middle school they were your classmates who's science projects always looked like they were manufactured in China and purchased at Wal-Mart or something.

I have never been one of those people. My house is always a little cluttered. My fridge always has something old and growing mold on it. My handwriting is always illegible. Despite that, I always hope for change. I always hope that my extreme jealously of those people will translate into magically turning into one of them.

This recipe sadly wasn't the magical switch into perfection that I was hoping for.

It started off awesome. I laid out my egg yolks and butter in advance, I strapped on my apron and got all ready to prepare some perfectly round and beautiful sables. I followed the recipe to the letter and when it was time to dump all the contents of the bowl out onto a surface to roll into a log, my hopes for perfection crumbled.

Literally. What I dumped onto my counter was a mess of dry crumbles. What the hell? Like, there seriously wasn't anywhere near enough moisture in my dough for the dough to stick together. Did that stop me from trying? Hells no. I wrapped that saran wrap tightly around that dough, willing it to come together in some sort of semblance of a log. And by damn if I didn't get it all mashed up together. Pleased with myself and otherwise in denial about the fact that putting the log into the fridge all mashed together into a log, didn't actually make my dough moist enough to actually be a log, I went about my business for the rest of the day.

The next day, I donned my apron again, preheated my oven and pulled the log out of the fridge. I carefully unrolled it and immediately one end cracked off. Trying to stay positive I just said to myself... Perfect! That's the perfect amount to bake up today! (I wanted to save the rest of the dough for later in the month). I brushed the sides with egg yolk and rolled it in bright pink sugar. And then it was time to cut the dough into perfect little slices. And this is where all hell broke loose.

Instead of slices I ended up with little piles of crumbles. My cookie sheet looked like a sable massacre. I tried to mold the crumbles into round slices, but it just wasn't happening. The dough was just too dry.

I baked those cookies off anyway... again.. thinking that magically they'd go in the oven looking like blue cheese crumbles but come out as perfect thick slices. And again... I was wrong.

The only solution I could think of... was to add some water to the dough, reshape it into a log and let it chill again. So, I did that. I added probably 2 tbsp of water before it finally came together, rolled it into another perfect log and let it chill for a couple of hours.

This second time around I was convinced I was going to succeed. Nothing stopping me now, right? I sliced the cookies and they sliced okay... a little crumbly, but significantly better. Popped them in the oven and then spent the next 10 minutes trying to think of a cute ways to display them for a pretty picture for my blog.

And then I pulled them out of the oven and screamed. They looked awful. Spread out, too brown on the edges, it was like this recipe was just not meant to be for me. Oh well.

They still tasted good, but too bad I can't serve them to anyone except family. Ugh. So, if you're one of those people who's cookies always turn out perfect then have at it, this recipe is right up your alley. But, if you're like me... don't make these cookies expecting to take them somewhere. (Even though they are delicious!!!!!).

Sables

Recipe by Dorie Greenspan

Chosen for Tuesdays with Dorie by Barbara of Bungalow Barbara

So, yeah, I had a bit of a time with these. Despite the fact that they come together super easy, require little ingredients and little fuss, mine still didn't turn out. I do plan on trying again at some point though, because they are just delicious to shy away from... but next time, I'll make sure my dough is moist enough to mold into a log the first time around and I might actually cut the cookies and then freeze them individually cut (sans the egg yolk and sugar) and bake them off straight from the freezer. Maybe they'll hold their shape better that way?

Don't let my problems with the recipe scare you off. They may not turn out aesthetically pleasing, but they are palate pleasing (and isn't that what really matters?). Besides, sugar cookies and slice and bake cookies generally give me trouble.

Recipe found here

TWD: All-In-One Holiday Bundt Cake

2009-12-03T12:16:00.001-06:00

I like to think that my intelligence goes through cycles. There's the time in my life (during elementary and middle school) where I was book-smart (ahhhh the easy years). Then I moved into the fake-smart phase (high school) where I thought I was all that and a bag of chips smart, just because I was reading books about buddhism and soliloquizing T.S. Eliot poems. That transitioned well into my creative-smart phase (college years) where I was all about music and literature. Then there was the current-events smart period of my life (post college) where I knew everything that was going on in the world and loved to debate and sneer at people who didn't have the same beliefs as me.

And somewhere along the way... I landed here... not book smart, not fake smart, not creative smart and sure as hell not current event smart. I dont know what intelligence cycle I'm in now, I have a feeling it's... my dumb phase. I'm young, single, selfish... I dont give a shit about talking about politics or music (mainly because I'm no longer "hip" to the music scene these days). What do I like? Running, Sports, Alcohol, Clothes, Sweets, Accessories, Faulkner, and Kings of Leon. Those are the things I can talk about.

Normally, this wouldn't bother me. Who cares? Well, I'll tell you... The Tennessee State Board of Accountancy cares. And why do I care that they care? Because... I'm enrolled in classes this semester in an effort to make some headway in the mound of classes that I have to take in order to have the privilege to sit for the CPA exam (which, at the rate I'm going at now, will be when I'm 42).

And now I realize why I was so much smarter in other things when I was younger... it was because I would get into anything to distract myself from doing any type of homework or focusing on my studies. Because you know what? School stinks. Wait. Let me phrase that... School is awful.

The thorn in my side this semester? Pre-Calculus. Which I like to call... 3 hours of hell in a classroom. This class makes me love my alma mater even more (Thank you, University of South Carolina for allowing me to graduate with a 3.00+ gpa without having to take any math classes. Your Liberal Arts curriculum is awesome). I'm not exaggerating. Like, at first.... I was all gung-ho about it. I thought... hey! I'm an adult now. I can take this whole math thing seriously. Maybe... I'll even get an A and enter into the ever elusive math-smart phase.

Heh. Heh.

It was clear in the first week that I was going be LUCKY to pass. I don't know what it is. But, I just don't get it. I can study. Do my homework. Take copious notes during class and still... I have no idea what I'm doing. The text seems to be written in Greek, which doesn't help. I took a test a couple of weeks ago... studied my ass off for it and felt great about it after I took it! I was actually excited to go back to class and get my test result. I got a 71. BARELY a C. And I studied my ass off.

So, now, I'm just like frustrated as hell and totally hate it. It's like... if I can study my ass off and think the material is a breeze... yet, I barely get a C on it? What's the point?

I just don't get the material. I don't. And I honestly think that I'm incapable of learning it. After class on Tuesday night I drove directly to my local bar and ordered a jack and diet coke. IT WAS THAT BAD.

The worst part? I don't just have to pass this course... ohhhhh no, I have to actually get a C in it. Because, technically pre-cal is just a pre-requisite... I just have to take pre-cal before I can get into business calculus which will allow me to take the business courses I need.

I'm just so disgusted, so disappointed, so frustrated right now. All because of this one measly little subject matter that my brain just can't comprehend. I swear... all my friends are making fun of me, because it's like a high school level class. But it might as well be advanced rocket science or some shit.

The lucky thing in this whole scenario is that I didn't have this cake waiting for me when I got home from class and the bar... otherwise I would have inhaled the entire thing. It's become clear to me that school is why I gained weight in college. It wasn't the late night chicken wing deliveries or the alcohol. (Well, yes the calories from those things caused me to gain weight). It was the hatred of class and schoolwork that drove me to drink, which drove me to order late night chicken wings (or, inhale an entire bundt cake if it were lying around). So, I gotta be careful if I'm going to continue on with this school thing. Ugh.

Last weeks Tuesdays with Dorie recipe was this All-in-One Holiday Bundt Cake. It was chosen by Britin of The Nitty Britty. I baked it last week and took it to my family's thanksgiving gathering. I thought it was delicious, but it didn't fare too well amongst the bazillion chocolate pies and the chocolate brownies and some amazing coconut pound cake (that I have to find the recipe for). It's very rustic looking and unassuming. But don't let looks fool you. It's packed with flavor.

All-In-One Holiday Bundt Cake

recipe by Dorie Greenspan

Easy and delicious. The hardest part? Cutting up all the cranberies to go in (but it's worth the time. I quartered my cranberries and thought they were the perfect little size in the cake). I also made sure that I cut the apple up into a really fine dice. I'd say except for the moisture, you don't even realize that it's in the cake. But that's better than having weird chunks of it (in my opinion).

Nuts, pumpkin, cranberries, apples, cinnamon. I mean what more could you ask for? I skipped the glaze, because it didn't need it. It was yummy enough on it's own.

The only suggestion I'd make is to up the spices a little. Next time I'll probably double all the spices. Especially with no glaze, I wanted a little more of a spice punch.

The recipe is here: All-In-One Holiday Bundt Cake

TWD: Cran-Apple Crisps

2009-11-24T10:58:00.000-06:00

I admit it. I'm one of those people who totally judge a book by it's cover. If you were to look through my bookshelves, you'd find no less than 50 books that I've purchased over the course of my lifetime SOLELY because the cover art looked cool. I'm a super visual person... I can't help it.

Now, of those 50 or so books on my bookshelves that I bought solely because of their cool/weird/neat/different cover layout/artwork/title, I'd say approximately 10% of those I've actually read all the way through. Sure. I've attempted to read them all at some point or another. You'd pick one up and thumb through it and see my random bookmark around page 14 or maybe I'd make it as far as 62 (some probably a measly 6).

But, it doesn't stop at books. Oh, if only it did. I judge movies by their movie posters. Wine? Oh lord. Let's not even get into the wine and liquor discussion. I definitely have a certain aesthetic I look for in wine labels, which is why blind wine tastings are so important for me to discover good wines without the snazzy looking labels.

I don't really look at this sickness as a level of pretension, because we all do it to a certain extent. But, it's always interesting when you're surprised by something that doesn't look or sound that great to you, but then when you try it, it's amazing!

Enter this Cran-Apple Crisp. My Tuesdays with Dorie entry for today. On the one hand, I love apples. Love, love, love apples. Cranberries? Ehhh... I'll eat them, but they're not really my favorite. So, I was less than thrilled about this choice by Em The Repressed Pastry Chef. I thought. Okay, it will be good. but nothing noteworthy.

Holy crap, was I wrong! This was like one of the most amazing things I've put in my mouth (that's what she said). And I know... I know you're thinking I'm exaggerating, but I'm totally not. It's like an explosion of flavors. You get the tartness from the cranberries, the firm and sweetness from the apples, the syrupy-gooeyness from the dried cranberries and raisins, the homey-ness from the oatmeal, an unexpected exoticness from the coconut and a warm, fuzzy feeling inside from the cinnamon and spices.

Delicious. Even though it's not some 12 layer masterpiece with a zillion steps and it's not especially visually stunning, it is a deliciously simple dessert. Who knew that such simple components could yield such delicious results?

Dorie Greenspan, in my eyes, is the queen of the fruit desserts. I bow down.

Cran-Apple Crisps

recipe by Dorie Greenspan

Extremely easy. The recipe calls for either dried cranberries or raisins, but since I love raisins in cooked things, I added both.

I also upped the cranberries by a lot. I figure it couldn't hurt. And it didn't. And I used a lot more coconut than called for. If you're one of those who don't like the texture of coconut, I'd sub in some extra oatmeal to make up for the lack of coconut. But, you'd be missing out on the unexpected interest that the coconut lends to the dessert.

Recipe here on Em's blog, The Repressed Pastry Chef

Cranberry Scones

2009-11-19T08:15:00.000-06:00

Call me many things... obsessive, selfish, crazy, alcoholic, self-obsessed even. Whatev. I'll admit it.. I'm a little bit of all those things. Am I working on correcting any of that about myself? Ehhh.. not really. It's all at healthy levels, I swear. But the one thing for me, that I hope that I am NEVER described as... is uppity or snobby. That is the one thing in people that really drives me crazy. I mean, who am I to judge other people and think I'm better than them? Exactly.

As such, I try to avoid all possibly snobby-inducing situations. What are snobby-inducing situations you ask? Well.. sipping tea whilst my pinky is thrust out. Wearing hats to weddings. Having a dinner party with 14 different forks set out at each place setting. You know.. those everyday occurances for snobs. I'm never above heating the water for my tea in the microwave or getting drunk at weddings by doing shots at the bar next door everytime a slow song comes on (with the toast always... "here's to never getting married!") or breaking out the stryofoam bowls and plastic spoons for my chili at a get together... That's how I roll, baby. Class-less all the way.

So, it's only natural that I generally stay away from the scone. For me, scones fall into the pretensive food category amongst the likes of caviar, escargot, and petit fours. They were foreign to me. Until Starbucks bursted onto the scene, I'd never heard of a scone, I don't think. But as soon as I did... I immediately imagined them being eaten at high tea with some crumpets or some shit. Soooo not up my alley. I'll take biscuits and sausage gravy, please.

Back in 2008, I took a trip to Oregon with my mom. We ended up staying one night in Newport, Oregon (only because I wanted to check out the Rogue Brewery while I was there... YUM!) at this really nice hotel right on the beach, the Elizabeth Street Inn. We were on the elevator at the hotel, just after we had checked in and some other ladies were telling us about how in the afternoon they have warm chocolate chip cookies in the lobby and then one lady remarked rather emphatically about the scones at the free breakfast in the morning. "Oh the scones!" she said. "The scones are delicious!"

Scones, huh? A delicious scone? I couldn't fathom why she was so enthusasiatic about something as plain and boring as a scone.

So, of course, the next morning... I had to try a scone. And I'll be DAMNED if she wasn't right. I had a lemon poppyseed one and it was crumbly and sweet and unlike anything I'd ever had before. I've been searching for the right recipe that would give me the same texture as that scone. Some scone recipes are basically just biscuits. But, this scone... this was more cookie like. Harder, crumblier, and sweet.

Serendiptiously last week, I received an email from C&H Sugar. The email said that they wanted me to make something from their website's recipes and blog about it and in exchange they'd send me a $20 giftcard to help me with the expenses. How cool is that?

I eagerly hopped onto their recipe website and perused their recipes, trying to decide what to make. This proved to be a difficult task. I mean... it's a sugar manufacturer's website... all the recipes are going to sound amazing (doh!). But as soon as I saw this recipe for Cranberry Scones, I knew I had to try it. They turned out delicious! Crunchy and crumbly on the outside with a tender crumb on the inside. Delicious as is, with a sprinkling of powdered sugar on top or with a smear of jam. Not pretentious at all. In fact... dare I say... homey, even?

Thanks C&H!

Cranberry Scones

recipe by C&H Sugar

This recipe is easy. Usually biscuit recipes intimidate me, but the ingredients came together easily and turned out wonderfully!

Remember, these aren't supposed to be super sweet. They have just the right amount of sweetness that lingers on the tongue and makes you want to go back for one more little bit. Which turns into another bite, etc.

I think these would be just as good with raisins and maybe a little cinnamon thrown in. I'm including the butter-vanilla glaze recipe which sounds delicious, but I opted out of.

2 cups all purpose flour

1/4 cup C&H Pure Cane Granulated Sugar

2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1/3 cup butter, sweet chilled

1 egg

2/3 cup buttermilk

1/2 cup cranberries, dried

1 tsp orange rind, finely grated (optional)

Butter vanilla glaze (optional, recipe below)

Preheat oven to 400F. In a large mixing bowl sift together flour, sugar, baking powder, soda, and salt. Using a pastry blender or the paddle on an electric mixer, cut in butter until mixture is the size of course crumbs. Add dried cranberries (and orange rind, if using) and toss to coat. Make a well in the center and set aside.

In a small bowl blend egg and buttermilk; add all at once to flour mixture. Mix until moistened. Turn dough out onto a floured work surface and knead 10-12 times. Place dough onto a lined cookie sheet. Flatten dough into an 8" circle. Frequently dipping knife into flour, cut dough into 8 wedges. Separate wedges by 1". Bake 20-25 minutes. Place baked scones on a cooling rack. Let cool 5 minutes. Brush scones with glaze if desired.

Butter-Vanilla Glaze

1 1/2 cup C&H Pure Cane Powdered Sugar, sifted

2 tbsp butter, melted

2 tbsp milk

1 tsp vanilla

Mix all glaze ingredients in small bowl.

Makes 8 scones.

Best Yellow Cake

2009-11-12T15:10:00.002-06:00

There are few words in the English language that intimidate me, but in the baking world there are two: Yellow Cake. As soon as I hear the words yellow cake, I scoff. Not because I don't like yellow cake. In fact, I love yellow cake! But because yellow cake is my kryptonite.

I mean yellow cake, it seems simple, right? Yeah, I thought so, too. And then last summer, my brother Mike, chose a yellow cake with chocolate frosting as his Birthday cake. My first initial thought was to previous yellow/vanilla cakes I'd made in the past up to that point, Italian Cream Cake and Caramel Cake. Both delicious, but both made even more delicious by their fancypants icings. The "cake" wasn't the star in either of those recipes. I soldiered on and ended up presenting him with an awful cake for his birthday.

Since that day, I've stayed as far away as possible from the yellow cake.

Until a few weeks ago.

Here's the backstory. So, back in September I went to brunch with a couple friends. I may have partaken in a screwdriver (I mean, I am supposed to drink orange juice with my high blood pressure medicine) and the bartender might have mixed us up a couple of complimentary shots (and doh! It's rude to say no to complimentary shots. Everyone knows that!). By the time I left the restaurant, I was approaching the perfect buzz. But, it was only 2pm! Which meant one of two things: I could either walk home and go to bed and wake up with a wicked hangover at 7pm... OR I could call every friend I have in town and see if they wanted to meet up at a bar for a beer or two.

I think you know which option I chose.

So, I convinced (pretty easily, I gotta say) a friend to imbibe with me and we hit up a local brewery in town. I'm sucking down the Dos Perros and we're having a good time and one of his friends shows up to the brewery as well.

The night continues... we switch venues and apparently at some point in the night, the friend of my friend starts talking about his birthday... to which I (allegedly) (in my happy, drunken state) slur ever so eloquently... "oooo a birthday! I'll plan your birthday! hiccup!" (to which I'm told a week later when my friend reminds me that I emphatically insisted on planning his birthday that night). Which, brings up a good point... who in their right mind believes a drunk chick??? I mean... what universe are we in?

Anyway, as a staunch believer in the Hemingway code of "always do sober what you said you'd do drunk" (don't even ask about the other things I've had to do), I offer up to make this dude a cake as a surprise. (Incidentally, the guy is super nice, so I didn't mind).

What cake do you make when you have no idea what the recipient likes and you can't ask him cause it's a surprise? You make a yellow cake with chocolate icing, my friend.

So, my arch nemesis and I come face to face again in the kitchen. This time, I came equipped with what appeared to be a surefire bet... a recipe from Deb of Smitten Kitchen. A recipe that she in fact named as the BEST Yellow cake.

I entered into the recipe with extreme trepidation. I almost went out and bought a yellow cake mix as a back up. But, I instead decided to just go with it. And thank God I did, because this cake is THE BEST YELLOW CAKE ever! It's moist and flavorful! It's super easy to make! I was thrilled! Hell, it was so good, I felt like it was my birthday instead! And so, I say thank you... Thank You Hemingway, for making me make good on my drunken promises (when I probably normally wouldnt have) and thank you Deb, for sharing this great recipe! You've saved my ass and I'll no longer cringe when someone utters "yellow cake" to me again.

Best Birthday Cake

by: Deb of Smitten Kitchen

This cake comes together easily and is really moist and tasty. I went ahead and made the cake exactly as Deb has it on the website, the chocolate sour cream frosting and all, and I have to say, I was not a fan of the frosting at all. Next time, I'll stick with my regular chocolate buttercream favorite: Hershey's. (If you DO use the Hershey's frosting DOUBLE the recipe to frost this 2 layer cake).

Yield: 2 layer 9 inch cake or a single 9x13 inch single layer cake.

4 cups plus 2 tbsp cake flour (not self rising)

2 tsps baking powder

1 1/2 tsps baking soda

1 tsp salt

2 sticks (1 cup) unsalted butter, softened

2 cups sugar

2 tsps vanilla

4 large eggs, at room temperature

2 cups buttermilk, well shaken

Preheat oven to 350. Butter and flour two 9 inch cake pans.

Sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a medium bowl. In a large mixing bowl, beat butter and sugar with an electric mixer at medium speed until pale and fluffy, then beat in vanilla. Add eggs one at at time, beating well and scraping down the bowl after each addition. At low speed, beat in buttermilk until just combined (mixture will look curdled). Add flour mixture in three batches, mixing until each addition is incorporated.

Spread batter evenly in cake pan, then rap pan on counter several times to eliminate air bubbles. Bake until golden and a wooden pick inserted in center of cake comes out clean, 35 to 40 minutes. Cool in pan on a rack 10 minutes, then run a knife around edge of pan. Invert onto rack let cool completely (about an hour).

Hershey's Chocolate Buttercream

Like I said, double this recipe.

6 tbsps of butter, softened
2 2/3 cups powdered sugar
1/2 cup Hershey's Cocoa (I used Hershey's Special Dark)
1/3 cup milk
1 tsp vanilla extract

Beat butter in medium bowl. Add powdered sugar and cocoa alternately with milk; beat to spreading consistency (additional milk may be needed). Stir in vanilla.

About 2 cups frosting.

TWD: Sugar Topped Molasses Spice Cookies

2009-11-10T09:00:00.007-06:00

Molasses. We have a love/hate relationship for sure. Let me try to explain it for you... One of my most favorite meals in the whole entire world is pancakes. When I was a kid, my mom would make us pancakes basically whenever we wanted. But, like so many food duos in our house (chips and salsa, bread and sandwich meat) we often had one but not the other. Sometimes we had pancake mix and no syrup and this wouldn't be noticed until the pancakes were sitting on a plate in front of you. Begging to be drowned in some Aunt Jemima.

My favorite subsitition is jelly/jam and if the pancakes had been cooked in enough butter, then I could eat them plain. But, a few times... my mom would try to pull out some kind of funky Bob White Syrup. It was kind of like a white molasses and I hated it. It WAS not pancake syrup. And to this day I have no idea what it really is (corn syrup, maybe? nasty hair product passed off as syrup? possibly). In any case, I was not a fan.

Honey? Yes! But Bob White Syrup? Molasses? Neither was I a fan of. Molasses has a bitter whang to it that I just can't get into. I LOVE brown sugar, so you'd think I like molasses. But... I cant get passed the bite. And blackstrap molasses? Holy Crap. Don't even talk to me about blackstrap molasses. I don't care how nutritional it is for you, there is no way I'm eating something that tastes, smells, and looks like tar. (Although, my mom does make granola with blackstrap molasses, and it's not so bad).

So, I kept remembering these as spice cookies, instead of molasses cookies. And then I'd read the title again... DRATS! Molasses. I persevered and bought my first ever bottle of molasses. I wanted to be wooed. I wanted to like the molasses, despite the funky-ass smell that it imparted to the whole batch of dough. I cautiously licked one of the beaters before throwing it in the sink. Ehhh... not as bad as it smelled, but I didn't go after the other beater (and that should tell you something about the dough, I prefer dough to cookies most of the time).

I baked a couple up (the rest I'm saving in the freezer for a special occasion or something) and loved the way they turned out. Flat with cracks all over the top. The taste? Spicy and yet, not too spicy. The molasses flavor is practically gone (thank goodness) and all that's left is a chewy on the inside, crispy on the outside spicy kick to your tastebuds. They are really good! And, dangerous, because since they aren't overwhelmingly sweet, you could easily get carried away and eat a bunch of these at at time. Yikes! Be careful.

Sugar Topped Molasses Spice Cookies

Recipe by Dorie Greenspan

Chosen for Tuesdays with Dorie by Pamela of Cookies with Boys.

These cookies are simple to make. I omitted the pepper (I'm not a black pepper fan in general), and added vanilla (I can't bake something without it having vanilla or almond extract. It's a thing with me). The dough is quite sticky (dang molasses), but if you refrigerate it as instructed, you should be okay.

I didn't want crispy cookies, so I didn't flatten my dough balls out at all and they ended up flat and chewy. Cookie Texture Perfection in my book.

Recipe found here.

Chocolate Cake with Vanilla Filling and Chocolate Buttercream Frosting

2009-11-06T09:15:00.007-06:00

Sure, being witty and intelligent are important attributes. It's also nice if you're kind-hearted and dependable. All good things. But you know what the number one most valuable personality trait or characteristic is? Go ahead... think about it... I'll entertain you with a story while you formulate your guess.

Earlier this week... my office had a new copier installed. This was one of the happiest days of my professional life. Seriously, if you've never had a shitty copier, then you have no idea how lucky you are. The next time you walk by the copier... give it a little love tap and a thank you. Because, the copier may seem to be the meek and unforgettable piece of office equipment... but, don't you test it, because it can and will go postal on your office at any given moment and render your entire office into a frustrating, unproductive hell-hole in which you think you will never see the light of day again.

So, yeah, I was pretty psyched about the new copier installation.

The IT dude that did the install was kinda cute. Not like Eric Bana/Mike Fisher smoking hot-cute. But, more like a Jim Halpert cute. Which... I'll take. So, anyway... he's in the office for awhile and I'm helping him figure out something about our network and I'm not even really paying attention to him. All I can think about is how freaking excited I am at the prospect of having a copier that might not give me nightmares and wake me up in a cold sweat in the middle of the night. And then... at some point, I look at him and I think... "huh. This guy looks familiar." So, I stare for awhile.. trying to place him...

Is he a regular at my local bar? Ehhh... doesn't seem like it would be his scene.
Is he a friend of a friend of a friend? Possibly.

And as I'm staring at him and trying to place his face, I start thinking... "huh. this guy is pretty cute." And then he looked up at me and caught me staring at him with a studied look and I blurted out the next possibility...

"You look familiar... did you do our last copier install?"

And as soon as he smiled and said yes... I realized what a dumbass I am.

You see... our last copier install was like 2 years ago. Oh wait, actually, he corrected me... it was 2.5 years ago. So, the fact that I remembered him from 2 years ago (my bad, make that 2.5 years ago) is like male-speak for... "crazy-stalker-desperate bitch" type. (Which... let's be honest... suits me to a tee).

So, I tried to downplay it... Tried to engage him in copier talk and I really, ultimately just crashed and burned.

Which brings me to the initial question I posed... the most valuable characteristic or personality trait... is being able to flirt effectively.

The past couple of years, it's been brought to my attention that my flirting skills are quite shitty. Like... if someone else gets the ball rolling first, I can usually hop on for the ride and get a little flirty back. But, when I'm trying to initiate the flirting? HA! Forget about it. It turns into an awkward mess of mispronounced words, mumbling, and broken eye contact. It's not pretty, folks. Not pretty at all. And I'm sad to say that it's actually something I've been working on and yet... I'm still operating at the speed of a 45 year old virgin. I mean, at this point, I'm thinking she could probably out-flirt me. It's THAT BAD.

So, what's a girl to do? I've tried practicing. I've tried advice. I just can't get the hang of it and the more I think about it, the worse the flirting becomes.

If only I could let my oven do the flirting for me. You see, if, in the cute copier dude story above, I had had a piece of this cake lying around and instead of mumbling on about stack bypass trays and paper jams I just said, here... have a bite. I'm sure I could have sealed the deal. Because, really... how could you resist a girl holding a piece of cake? Until I can figure out a way to carry around various baked goodies without A. jacking up the lining of my purse and B. coming off as some crazy baker chick who carries around baked goodies that, rumor has it, is laced with a sedative so that she can drag you off to her condo and when you wake up you've got a paint brush in your hand and she's thanking you for "volunteering" to help her paint her kitchen. I think I'm going to have to continue to work on the flirting. Because, all I need is to become *that* girl as well. Dammit!

The good news? Is this cake will hopefully make you forget how god-awful you are at flirting and make you realize that a good slice of cake can make you feel better about almost anything. I made this cake a couple of months ago (eek! I know! I've been in a blogging slump lately, but I'm coming back, I promise) for my friend Ash's birthday. He had a party at his house and I of course baked a cake and brought it along.

The week prior to the party, I was hanging out with Ash and I sneakily asked him (while he was drunk) what kind of cake he likes... he said chocolate. Actually, he went off on some diatribe about weird cake flavors and frostings, but all I remembered the next day (well, of course, I was drunk, too) was chocolate.

The cake was a hit. People are always impressed when they find out that you made a layer cake, and then even more impressed when they find out that it's entirely homemade. And, while, I agree... boxed mixes have their place in the culinary world, when it's a friend or family member, someone you care about... take the extra effort and bake them a cake from scratch. It might not turn out as moist as a boxed mix, but it's definitely full of more love and the recipient will be touched that you went out of your way for them. Sure, it's messy and takes time, but it's worth it, because your friend/family member is worth it.

Chocolate Velvet Cake with Vanilla Filling and Chocolate Buttercream Frosting

Adapted from recipes from: Southern Living and Hershey's

This cake is easy, moist, and delicious. Actually, it's almost too moist. I made a 2 layer cake and then attempted to slice the cakes in half to make a 4 layer cake. My layers came out in pieces, so I had try and smush everything back together. Not pretty. And it made for an equally ugly slice. So,I suggest you just leave it at 2 layers. The cake itself is light but flavorful. I love that it uses only brown sugar, which I think lends itself to a moister, richer flavored cake.

I wanted to lighten up the chocolate in the cake so I decided to whip up a basic vanilla filling to go between the layers instead of chocolate frosting. I think it worked. But feel free to fill the cake with whatever frosting you desire.

The outside of the cake I frosted with my all-time favorite chocolate icing. Hershey's One Bowl Chocolate Buttercream. Easy and delicious. It's like a bowl of chocolate bliss. I topped the cake off with a few chopped pecans and called it day.

Chocolate Velvet Cake

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups semisweet chocolate morsels

1/2 cup butter, softened

1 16 oz package of light brown sugar

3 eggs

2 cups all purpose flour

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1 8 oz container of sour cream

1 cup hot water

2 tsps vanilla extract

<>Grease and flour 3 8 inch cake pans (I used 2 9 inch pans) and preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Melt semisweet chocolate morsels in a microwave safe bowl at high for 30 second intervals until melted. Stir until smooth.

Beat butter and brown sugar at medium speed with an electric mixer, beating about 5 minutes or until well blended. Add eggs, one at a time, beating just until blended after each addition. Add melted chocolate, beating just until blended.

Sift together flour, baking soda, and salt. Gradually add to chocolate mixture alternately with sour cream, beginning and ending with the flour mixture. Beat at low speed just until blended after each addition. Gradually add 1 cup hot water in a slow, steady stream, beating at low speed just until blended. Stir in vanilla. (Makes about 8 1/2 cups of batter).

Spoon cake batter evenly amongst greased pans and bake for 25-30 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Cool in pans on a wire rack for 10 minutes; remove from pans and let cool completely on wire rack.

Vanilla Frosting

Ingredients

1/2 cup butter, softened

1/4 cup (maybe more) of milk (I used heavy cream)

2 to 2 1/2 cups of confectioners sugar

Splash of vanilla

pinch of salt

Mix butter with a hand mixer until smooth, slowly add in milk and sugar while mixing. Add more confectioners sugar or more milk to get the desired consistency. Finish with vanilla and salt.

Yield: Enough to fill 3 layers of a 9 inch cake.

Hershey's One Bowl Chocolate Buttercream

Ingredients

This is a half recipe. Since I used a different frosting for the filling, I only needed enough frosting for the outside of the cake. This recipe yields one cup. If using this recipe for your filling, I'd double recipe, at the least.

3 tablespoons of butter, softened

1 1/3 cup of confectioners sugar

1/4 cup Hershey's cocoa

1/4 cup of milk (I used cream), maybe more

1 tsp of vanilla

Beat butter in a medium bowl. Add confectioners sugar and cocoa alternately with the milk, beat to spreading consistency (additional milk may be needed). Stir in vanilla.

Healthy-ish Oatmeal Cookies

2009-10-22T13:00:00.001-05:00

I love oatmeal. Always have. Always will. When I was growing up, oatmeal was a regular at the breakfast table. And I get it. Some of you hate oatmeal and I totally understand why. Particularly every time I order it at a restaurant or plop out some into a bowl at a hotel's continental breakfast buffet. Plainly and simply: Other people's oatmeal SUCKS.

I mean, no wonder people hate oatmeal. Other people make it and its gloopy and pasty and flavorless. It's gross. When you make it at home... the way my mom always made it, with brown sugar, salt (FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, DON'T FORGET A HEALTHY PINCH OF SALT) and two slices of buttered whole wheat toast, it's heavenly. It's like a warm hug for your insides. I used to break up my buttered toast and toss it into the oatmeal and swirl it around, until it became soft, buttery bits in my oatmeal (I know, I have this gross obsession with things that are supposed to be crunchy being soggy. Don't even talk to me about my favorite part of a platter of nachos). Or, if I didn't do that, I'd slather the oatmeal onto my toast and eat it like a sandwich. Yum. Oatmeal sandwich.

Okay, so before I totally lose you oatmeal haters out there (if I haven't already), let's talk about other uses of oatmeal. Like... cookies. Oatmeal cookies. Yum. A cookie with oatmeal is hearty and filling... almost as much of a hug as the bowl of oatmeal is. There's something homey about an oatmeal cookie. And... bonus: Oatmeal is fairly good for you. It's got loads of fiber (which is supposed to make you feel fuller, but, dude... nothing makes this stomach of mine feel full) and probably some other good stuff in it that I'm too lazy to look up right now.

Sometimes, I'm just in the mood for a healthy treat. I mean, not MOST of the time. Most of the time I'm in the mood for something loaded down with butter and sugar, but SOMETIMES I want something a little healthier and when I think of a healthy baked good, I usually think: Oatmeal.

I found a recipe at David Lebovitz's site (although, generally... don't go there if you're looking for something healthy. Cause he'll easily distract you with ice cream recipes) that I decided to tweak a bit and attempt to make even healthier. I tried to used a ripened banana for most of the sugar. Good idea, right? Yeah, I thought so, too. Until I tasted the batter. And immediately pulled the sugar out of the cupboard and added some (just for good measure, ya know).

Chewy-Almost-Healthy-Oatmeal Cookies
original recipe from Nick Malgieri, adapted from David Lebovitz's adaptation.

This is the recipe I used, with the addition of the sugar that I originally tried to leave out. The cookies turn out very chewy and cakey. Very delicious. Normally, I'm not a cakey cookie kind of girl, but I find that when I'm eating something that I know has things in it that are good for me, I tend to ease my texture demands.

I will definitely make these again. And I might even experiment further to try and make these actually healthier.

1 cup of white whole wheat all purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
4 tbsp of unsalted butter, at room temperature
3/4 cup packed, light brown sugar
1 ripe banana
1 large egg
1/4 cup unsweetened applesauce
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/3 cups rolled oats (not instant!)
3/4 cup dark raisins (I used chocolate chips, can use any dried fruit)

Preheat oven to 375 degrees and grease a baking sheet with non-stick spray.

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

In a large mixing bowl, beat the butter, brown sugar, and banana until smooth-ish. Mix in the egg, applesauce and vanilla.

Stir in the dry ingredients, then the oats, then the raisins (or whatever you're using).

Drop the batter by the rounded teaspoons 2 inches apart on a greased baking sheet. Use a fork to gently flatten the dough.

Bake the cookies for 10-12 minutes.

Flaky Apple Turnovers

2009-10-01T08:30:00.001-05:00

There are two ways to look at this post.

You can look it as a being a rewind Tuesdays with Dorie post. Or you can just look at it as being a very late entry (as it was chosen by Jules of Someone's in the Kitchen and supposed to be posted back on September 8). Either way, I was determined to get around to this recipe soon.

You see. I always fancied myself a chocolate lover. But, as I've gotten older and started baking more, I realize... that I actually prefer fruit desserts over chocolate ones. I know. The horror! And while it's true that when presented with the choice of say a slice of apple pie or a brownie, I will almost always assuredly choose the brownie. And then immediately regret the decision when I dive into the overly indulgent chocolate brownie.

It's the same with men. I think I'm into one type of dude... you know the type: tall, athletic, outdoorsy, and dumb. (Yes, I said 'dumb.' What can I say? I like to know that my man is never going to ask me how I feel about the healthcare situation. Cause you know what? I.dont.give.a.shit). And then it turns out, the guys I fall for are average height. Athletic and outdoorsy? What luck! All the guys I'm into love getting their exercise and outdoors fix by sitting around on their asses at a football game tailgate party. And last by not least, they're total douche bags who think they know everything and must spend 100% of their time educating me, this poor, dumb bitch that they are doing a favor for by dating. It's true. I'm one of those girls, it seems. I fall for the douche bags. You know the type. The guy who's biggest concern is himself. Yup, that's the dude I fall for. Everysinglegodforsakentime.

So the question is. What the hell is in my brain to make me think I like one thing and then when the choice is upon me, I choose the opposite of what I really want? Is this what men are referring to when they call us bitches crazy?

Sadly, I think so. I think I'm one of those bitches that is riding the crazytrain into town. I want one thing, but choose the other. Who does that?

I'm sure there's some easy psychological mumbo jumbo that explains this phenomenon (despite the fact that it sounds wayyyy technical: "hitching a ride aboard the crazytrain" is not a scientific phrase). But, honestly... does it even matter why? The real point is, that I'm going to make a conscience effort to seek out the things that I REALLY want in life and not the things that I think I want, that I'm supposed to want, or that I think I probably deserve.

Life's short. Just because a dessert has the word "chocolate" in it doesn't mean it's the superior choice. And just because a dude is interested in bestowing his awesomeness on me... it's only awesome if I think it's awesome, too. (And, it never is).
Flaky Apple Turnovers
recipe by: Dorie Greenspan

As with all turnovers, the focus is on the crust and not the filling. The good news? This crust is freaking awesome! It's flaky and crumbly and has a good flavor to it. As always, there's not enough room to fit a bunch of a filling inside, but the cinnamon does help to amp the flavor up a bit.

The crust, like the men in my life, can be quite ornery. It gets soft really fast (okay, so yes, there's an easy pun there, but I'm not touching that with a 10 foot pole. Yikes. ANOTHER pun. I'm stopping now). So, at the first sign of gooeyness, pop that crust back into the fridge to firm up (lord, I'm killing myself today, who knew a crust recipe could be so risque?). Also, like Dorie says, the longer you keep the crust dough in the fridge, the puffier it will be.

For the dough:
1 cup sour cream
1/2 cup sugar
4 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
3 sticks (12 ounces) cold unsalted butter, cut into small
pieces

For the filling:
1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
4 Fuji or Granny Smith apples, peeled, cored, and cut into small chunks
3 tablespoons cold, unsalted butter, cut into small bits

1 large egg, beaten with 1 teaspoon water, for egg wash
sugar, for dusting

To make the dough:
Stir the sour cream and sugar together; set aside.

Whisk the flour and salt together in a large bowl, then toss the butter bits over the flour. Working with a pastry blender, two knives or your fingers, cut the butter into the ingredients until the mixture resembles coarse meal. Don't worry about being thorough - it's better to have an uneven mix than an overworked dough. Switch to a fork and, using a lifting and tossing motion, gently stir in the sour cream. The dough will be very soft.

Divide the dough in half. Put each half in a piece of plastic wrap and use the plastic to shape each piece into a rectangle (don't worry about size or precision). Wrap the dough and refrigerate it for at least 1 hour, or for up to 2 days.

Remove one piece of dough from the fridge and roll it into a rectangle about 9 x 18 inches. The dough is easiest to work with if you roll it between sheets of wax paper or plastic wrap - if you want to roll it traditionally, make sure to flour the rolling surface. Fold the dough in thirds, like a business letter, wrap it and refrigerate it. Repeat with the second piece of dough, and refrigerate the dough for at least 2 hours or up to 1 day.

To make the filling:
Whisk the flour, sugar, and cinnamon together in a large bowl. Add the apples and toss to coat.

Getting ready to bake:
Position the racks to divide the oven into thirds, and preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Line two baking sheets with parchment or silicon mats.

Roll out one piece of dough to a thickness of about 1/8 inch, and cut out 4 1/2 inch rounds with a large cutter or the edge of a tartlet pan. Repeat with the second piece of dough. If you'd like, you can gather the scraps together, chill them, and make additional turnovers. (The turnovers made from scraps will taste good, but they won't be as pretty and light as the first rounders.) You'll get 7 or 8 rounds from each piece of dough.

Place 1 to 2 tablespoons apples in the center of each round and dot with the butter. Moisten the edges of each round with a little water and fold the turnovers in half, sealing the edges by pressing them together with the tines of a for. Use the fork to poke steam holes in each turnover, and transfer the turnovers to the baking sheets. (At this point, the turnovers can be frozen; wrap them airtight when they are firm and store them for up to 2 months. Bake them without defrosting, adding a few minutes to their time in the oven)

Brush the tops of the turnovers with a little of the egg wash and sprinkle each one with a pinch of sugar. Bake for about 20 minutes, rotating the baking sheets from top to bottom and front to back after 10 minutes. When done, the turnovers will be puffed, firm to the touch, and golden. Gently transfer them to racks and cool to room temperature.

TWD: Chocolate Crunched Caramel Tart

2009-09-29T09:15:00.000-05:00

Allow me to introduce you to few new things going on in my life these days.

For one, I've become incredibly busy at work. Busier than I ever have been. Which is great! But, also a little wearing. I'm not the type that stresses out easily and I can definitely leave my work at work when I go home in the afternoons, but for the 8 hours that I'm there: I'm swamped.

Two, I've started taking some classes. Yes, I have my bachelors degree, but it's time to start working toward the classes I need to sit for the CPA exam. That means, this semester, I'm taking 3 classes. 2 economics classes online and a pre-calculus class every Tuesday night for 3 hours (yes, I said pre-calculus for 3 hours. and yes, it's just as awful as you're imagining).

Three, I'm the captain for a relay team for the Bourbon Chase. Initially, you think... oh, how much trouble can being a captain be? And then you get into the thick of it and you realize: holy shit. I'm crafting an average of 3-4 emails a week on this. There is a lot of organizing and logisitics to figure out. And then you've got roster changes from injuries and people dropping out. It's just been a lot to deal with. It's fun and I'm happy to do it, but it gets a little frustrating when other people want things done on their time schedule.

It's good though. In general, I enjoy being busy. It makes me feel more alive. I am still trying to squeeze some baking in here and there, though. Which brings us to this recipe. This week's Tuesdays with Dorie recipe was chosen by Carla of Chocolate Moosey . It came together fairly easily and uses Dorie's Tart dough recipe (which I adore). My caramel turned into toffee, which isn't a bad thing, but I actually think it made it richer than just the caramel would have been. The combination of the flaky, shortbread-y crust with the crunchy, buttery toffee and the sharp, thick, gooey chocolate layer on top is almost too much. Almost.

This isn't the type of recipe that I'd make for myself again, but I can see myself making it for a group. Plus, I'd like to give the caramel another try. I guess I just cooked it too long.

Chocolate Crunched Caramel Tart -- Click the title for the recipe.

The recipe is fairly easily. I subbed pecans for the peanuts, just because that's what I had on hand. It is a super rich, decadent recipe though, and I think my layer of chocolate ganache was a little too thick. Next time I'd just smear a thin layer on top.

Root Beer Float Cake

2009-09-18T15:30:00.000-05:00

The football game might just be the perfect American activity.

Thankfully, I was introduced to tailgating at a young age. My family had season tickets to Vanderbilt Football games when I was a kid. We would pack up our van with lots of food, head down to Nashville on Saturday afternoons and spend the day in the park across the street from the Stadium (oh yes, back in the 80's you could park in Centennial Park on gameday. Ahhh... the good ole days). I only have a vague recollection of those years, but what I do remember, is enjoying my family and enjoying the outdoors. I didn't know anything about football and could care less at the time, but there is something about that time of my childhood that I always wistfully reminisce about in the fall.

As I grew up... and went off to college (go cocks!), tailgating and football became more and more socially oriented. It was the one time on the weekends that you actually got up early, iced down a case of shitty beer, bought a ton of chips, cookies, etc and hung out with your surrogate family. Sometimes you'd toss around a football. You'd meet new people on the way to the porta-potty. And it grew into a love of the sport as well. Not just a love of the tailgate.

No where else in the world, have I ever felt the sense of community as I do in football tailgates. There's an electricity in the air. People are gathered together for common goals: To enjoy the company others, to eat delicious food and drink alcoholic beverages, and to come together in the support of a team that bonds you together (even with the opposing team. Oops. Except at LSU. Those bastards are not interested in being nice to the opposition until AFTER the game and they've kicked your ass).

So you can imagine my excitement when I was invited to a friends Vandy Tailgate a few weeks ago. It was the kickoff tailgate for the season. And if my mom taught me anything about tailgating... it's that you never show up empty-handed. (Plus bringing a baked good,greatly increases your chances at getting a shot at breaking into the cornhole inner sanctum and getting to play a game).

And if bringing a baked good isn't enough, go ahead and decorate it in your team's colors. Black and gold, baby. All the way. And dont worry about how it tastes. Even if it's not very good... and... even if, after schlepping it in a cake carrier for 2 miles it shows up at the tailgate a smeared mess, everyone will be too impressed and too drunk to notice. Bonus!

Here's to the start of a new football season! Hope to see you out there.
Root Beer Float Cake
From the guys who wrote Baked: New Frontiers in Baking
However, I stole the recipe from Joy the Baker

Okay, so, here's the deal. You can't taste the root beer. Like, at all. Now, that could be because I used Mug Root Beer from a 2 liter bottle. But, if you're expecting a huge BANG from the root beer, look elsewhere.

Also, I thought the consistency of the cake was a little... off. It seemed kind of grainy, to me. Now, it's entirely possible that this is a baker's issue and not a recipe issue (as I'm not known for my awesome cake baking skills, sadly).

Overall, it's a good cake. But I wouldn't make it again. Maybe I overbaked mine. Maybe I have funky cake mojo. Either way, you should give the recipe a try for yourself... yours might just be a touchdown! (couldn't resist, sorry).

2 cups root beer (don’t use diet)
1 cup dark unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 cup unsalted butter, cut into 1/2 inch cubes
1 1/4 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup dark brown sugar
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/4 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 large eggs

Preheat even to 325 degrees F. Spray the inside of a 10-inch Bundt pan with nonstick cooking spray, or butter generously and dust with flour, knocking out the excess.

In a small saucepan, heat the root beer, cocoa powder and butter over medium heat until butter is melted. Add sugars and whisk until dissolved. Remove from heat and let cool.
In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda and salt.

In a small bowl whisk the eggs until just beaten. Then whisk into the cocoa mixture until combined. Gently fold the flour mixture into the cocoa mixture. The batter will be slightly lumpy. You can give it a quick whisk if you like, but don’t over beat the batter or it could cause the cake to be tough. Don’t worry, the batter is very loose.

Pour the batter into prepared pan and cook for 35-45 minutes, rotating the pan halfway through baking until a sharp knife inserted in the center comes out clean. Transfer to a wire rack to cool completely then loosen edges with a butter knife and turn out onto a cake plate.

Chocolate Root Beer Frosting

2 ounces 60% cocoa, melted
1 stick unsalted butter, softened
1 teaspoon salt (you may want to use less… maybe just 1/2 teaspoon)
1/4 cup root beer
2/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
2 1/2 cups powdered sugar

In the bowl of a stand mixer, or using an electric hand mixer, beat softened butter and cocoa powder. Once combined add the melted chocolate, salt, powdered sugar and root beer. Beat together until smooth. Spread on top of cooled cake. Slice and serve with vanilla ice cream.

TWD: Chocolate Souffle

2009-09-08T09:30:00.000-05:00

See that? The title up there... "Chocolate Souffle." Yeah. That's why I love Tuesdays with Dorie. Because there is no way in hell I would have EVER attempted to make a souffle otherwise. I mean, I didn't even really know what a freaking souffle was, but I was excited to try it at home.

So, let's go over the basics. It's true. I'd never had a souffle, never seen one in real life. I wasn't even entirely sure exactly what it was. Turns out, it's a custard-y, puffy cake that can either be sweet or savory. You make it by whipping egg whites until they're fluffy and then you fold in whatever flavor souffle you are going to make. Pop it in the oven, let it rise and then devour immediately.

Now, in theory, this is the perfect dessert for me. It's got a crispy outer edge (I love crispy) and then deep inside, it's ooey and gooey and hot (I always love underbaked goodies). I mean, it's a match made in heaven as far as I'm concerned. How could I have gone 29 years without having a souffle? I have lived a sheltered life, indeed.

Unfortunately, I overcooked mine a bit, I think. Because mine wasn't quite as gooey as I would have liked, but the idea excited me and I'm definitely going to be trying this dessert again soon and hopefully I can master the technique. I mean it was SUPER easy to put together. Well, except for the temporary carpal tunnel syndrome that you get from all that folding. Oh my god, is there anything more tedious in the baking world than folding? Seriously. Can't we come up with some kind of folding attachment for the handheld mixer? Is someone working on this? Please? But aside from that, it was easy. And... my favorite part... I had all the ingredients on hand! No running out to the store to buy a can of instant espresso or a mini bottle of cognac or any of that bullshit. Just eggs, chocolate, sugar, and milk. I can see myself whipping myself up a little souffle instead of a batch of brownies when I get that oooey gooey chocolate craving. And, how incredibly awesome is that? Whipping up souffles on a whim and whatnot? Awesome indeed.

Thank you, Tuesdays with Dorie and specifically Susan of She's Becoming Doughmesstic (who, by the way, has a great blog that you should be checking out regularly anyway) who chose this week's recipe and introduced me to something that might just become one of my favorite desserts.

Chocolate Souffle -- Click title for recipe

So, I was really unsure of how this recipe was going to turn out for me. I quartered the recipe (always scary when there are eggs in the recipe) and completely omitted the milk (since the amount would have been negligible anyway) and it still rose perfectly and tasted wonderful. The only warning? Don't overbake and apparently you can't make these ahead cause they'll fall. But, I doubt I'll ever know that from experience because I think I'll have a spoon in it as soon as I pull it out of the oven anyway (and the burnt tongue for days after).

TWD: Cheesecake Brownies

2009-09-01T08:30:00.000-05:00

It occurred to me while I stood in my kitchen tasting these brownies... that i am a simple, boring girl. Well, at least culinarily speaking. (If you had been out with me on Saturday afternoon/night I think boring probably would have been the last word on your mind. But that's a whole other story for another blog... the drunken amy shenanigans blog*). I mean. Don't get me wrong. I LOVE cheesecake. But, my favorite cheesecake? Regular. Plain. Unadorned. I also love brownies. But, the only time I get wild and crazy with them is when I throw some nuts in the batter. Yum. So, if I love both parts of something... it only makes sense that I'd love them put together. Right?

Well, I didn't. At all. And here's the thing, folks... In my opinion, a really good cheesecake doesn't need a brownie base to make it better. And a really good brownie doesn't need a cheesecake topper to make it better. And the two together sure as hell don't need some weird sour cream icing on top.

This recipe was not my favorite. The brownie? Blech. Dry. Overcooked. Boring. The cheesecake? Flavorless (I skipped the Espresso and used Bailey's Liquor) and overshadowed by the huge amount of sour cream icing. And for me, the sour cream icing just threw the whole thing off. Mine was goopy and so sour cream-y. Like... almost buttermilk flavored. The flavors and textures just didn't do it for me.

Next time I'm craving cheesecake and brownies... I'll eat a slice of really good cheesecake, like this one... and a really good brownie... like this.

Dorie and I don't seem to have similar palates when it comes to chocolate goods. Her fruit recipes, however? I die for. Like...

Russian Grandmother's Apple Pie Cake
Summer Fruit Galette
French Pear Tart
Fresh Mango Bread
Florida Pie

Sorry... I got off on a little tangent there, didn't I? Oh well. Live and learn. If you like decadence and like to have cheesecake with your brownie, then give this recipe a try. Plenty of people were raving about them over at Tuesdays with Dorie. They just weren't my cup of tea. But, I'm boring. Remember?

Espresso Cheesecake Brownies-- click the title for recipe from Melissa of Life in a Peanut Shell.
by Dorie Greenspan

I found these brownies really easy to make. I did skip the espresso and added an equal amount of baileys to the cheesecake batter, but I couldn't taste it (probably because all I could taste was sour cream from the topping).

* I don't have a drunken amy shenanigans blog. yet.

Rewind TWD: Classic Banana Bundt Cake

2009-08-28T08:00:00.002-05:00

Every summer for the past seven years, some friends from college and I have gotten together for a little mini-reunion. Five of those years, we've gathered in the ~~obnoxiously touristy and overcrowded~~ town of Gatlinburg, TN which is nestled in the Smoky Mountains. It's perfect. We rent ourselves a big ass cabin that is usually equipped with a hot tub, a pool table, walls and walls of pine and all the bear-themed accessories that you can handle.

We spend the majority of the weekend catching up, laughing, hiking, drinking, eating, and engaging in some ~~ferociously~~ competitive games such as badminton, beer pong, poker, and there was that one year (that we no longer speak of) where the game of Risk was bought. It's a fun time. It's the one guaranteed time every year that I know I'm going to laugh so hard that I almost pee myself, multiple times throughout the weekend. These guys are an absolute riot.

This year was no different. The first night is always the same. We always go to dinner at a steakhouse (usually Texas Roadhouse or Outback) and then we always go to the grocery store to load up on essentials like... beer (which we always buy too much of) and snacks (which, again, we buy too much of). I decided to act as Betty Homemaker this year, though, and I baked up some goodies to take, so that we'd have homemade snacks. Excellent idea.

I made this bundt cake with the idea that it would be a good thing to nibble on for breakfast (or... while we wait for a certain someone to wake up in time to go out for breakfast). Turns out, it was perfect for that. It was also perfect for nibbling on throughout the day and even as soon as we got home from eating dinner. I couldn't tear myself away from it. Particularly from the bottom of the cake: where the glaze had pooled and left the cake slightly soaked and yet lightly crunchy from the drying of the glaze. Oh. My. God. I'm drooling just thinking about those pieces.

I missed this recipe when it was chosen for Tuesdays with Dorie by Mary, The Food Librarian, but after hearing everyone rave about how delicious it was, I couldn't hold out for very long before I made the cake myself.

If you're looking for a good recipe for a banana snack cake, look no further. This is easy and delicious. Just make sure you've got a crowd to help you with it, otherwise you'll wind up eating the whole damn thing yourself.

Classic Banana Bundt Cake -- Click link for recipe
A recipe by Dorie Greenspan

This cake is easy. Super easy. Like, the only thing to worry about is to make sure you butter the hell out of your bundt pan. Luckily, I did and mine slid right out.

I didn't like the idea of lemon and banana, so I opted out of Dorie's glaze suggestion and just whipped up my own milk glaze: confectioners sugar with enough milk (actually, I used cream!) to make the consistency you want. Delicious.

TWD: Creamiest Lime Cream Meringue Pie

2009-08-25T08:37:00.006-05:00

How serendipitous that this recipe chosen for this week's installment of Tuesdays with Dorie is something that I know my best friend, Stephanie would love. Why is that serendipitous? Well, because her birthday was Saturday and while I was making it (on Saturday, even), I couldn't help but be reminded of her and be saddened because I couldn't share it with her on her birthday.

So, here I am a few days later, sharing it with her and the rest of the Internet and telling all y'all... this pie is damn good.

Steph moved to Portland, Oregon a little over a year ago. And while I'm ecstatic for her and her awesome new life out West, it's a hard adjustment to make. Admittedly, neither of us are phone people. We've never really had to be. I mean, we both went to different colleges, but we still came home pretty much the same weekends, etc, so it wasn't really an issue. And after college, if I wanted to talk to her... we would just meet up for dinner or shopping or whatever. But... that's kind of hard to do when we're 1000s of miles apart.

So, basically, I've dropped the ball. I get kind of wrapped up in my own stuff... and I have kind of an unusual routine for someone my age: I go to bed around 9pm and wake up around 5am. I'm not a phone person, so the idea just doesn't pop into my head very often... "oh! I should call so-and-so." And while I think of her everyday, it just doesn't dawn on me to actually pick up the phone and call. And then... after, oh say, 3 months of not calling... when I realize it's been 3 months... then I feel guilty for being such a shitty friend. 3 months! who doesn't call their best friend in 3 months? (This girl, apparently).

I view my life as a work-in-progress and as such, I have this really long self-help to do list for myself that I am constantly working on. Here's a snippet of the list:

32. Say YES to every 2 out of 3 things you're invited to.
33. Be a better friend. Call your friends who live far away, more often.
34. Say NO to 1 out of every 5 tequila shots ordered.
35. Don't engage in flirty texts with douche bag dudes who wronged you in the past.

So, you see... keeping in touch better with friends is something that I know I need to work on and I'm going to make a conscience effort to do so from now. So, all you friends of mine out there... I'm sorry. I know, I suck, but I'm going to get better.

So, Steph, even though I couldn't share this pie with you... it has your name written all over it. You would FREAK over it. It's so creamy and lime-y. It's like a key lime pie, except without the chemically aftertaste that sweetened condensed milk can sometimes leave. I didn't really give it enough time to firm up before I dove into it, but no matter... it was still creamy and silky and tangy. Lime perfection.

Happy Birthday, Steph! I love you and miss you! If I could have wrapped this pie up and shipped it to you, I would have.
Creamiest Lime Cream Meringue Pie (click the title for the recipe)
Chosen by Linda of Tender Crumb

Ok, so of course... I couldn't make this pie directly as written because 1. I dislike ~~calf slobber~~ meringue and 2. I'm a little leery of ginger and didn't want to buy any. I made this pie with a graham cracker crust, although, I think I will try it sometime with a regular crust. My graham cracker crust just never really set up properly. I also added a touch of ground ginger, instead of fresh ginger and I couldn't even notice it in the flavor of the pie (hooray!). The recipe calls for a crapload of butter, but I only added in one stick and didn't even notice the missing calories (though, my love handles thanked me). It's very much like a key lime pie, but, it's a touch silkier, I think. Definitely a keeper and I will definitely make it again... and maybe top it with some fresh whipped cream. Yum.

TWD: Applesauce Spice Bars

2009-08-18T10:00:00.001-05:00

Nothing says Fall like apples and cinnamon. Unfortunately, though, it's kind of disheartening to bite into one of these bars and think about football and sweaters and then step outside to the reality of Nashville's hottest month of the year, August, and all you can think about is deodorant and air conditioning.

Don't get me wrong, I love the summer months. I love going out on the lake, wearing cute tank tops and shorts. Who doesn't? But, the Fall? The Fall is WHERE IT IS AT. October is by far the most beautiful month here in Nashville (May is a close second). The leaves are changing, the air is crisp and dry. The sky is the most amazing shade of blue you've ever seen. I get to sleep in a little for my long runs, because it's not a bazillion degrees outside. And then there's football all day on Saturday and Sunday to keep me occupied. Sometimes that means you're camped out on the couch all weekend, sometimes you're camped out on a friend's couch or at the local bar all day watching games, and if you're really lucky... sometimes you're tailgating and then going to the game. It's bliss.

And you know what? These bars would be perfect for that tailgate. Spicy and sweet. They'd be perfect to nibble on while heckling the opposing team's fans who parked their big ass RV in such a way that disrupts your cornhole game.

Let the countdown to fall begin...

Applesauce Spice Bars
recipe by Dorie Greenspan.

Find the recipe at Something Sweet by Karen, our host for this week's Tuesdays with Dorie.

I would definitely double the spice in this recipe, I found them to be too subtle for my taste. Also, make sure you let the cake cool completely before you ice it and also make sure you cook the icing till its caramel-y in thickness. The next time I make the recipe, I'll also double the amount of icing. You can never have too much icing.

Carrot Pineapple Muffins

2009-08-13T14:30:00.000-05:00

Invite me to a brunch or a morning potluck and guess what I'm bringing? Muffins, apparently. I can't help it, though. They bake up quick, are portable, and I usually have some type of fruit lying around that I can use for a batch, without having to make a grocery store run.

This batch was for a pot-luck breakfast/brunch picnic that my local running group had a few weeks ago. Everyone was asked to bring something and it was seriously the biggest spread I've ever seen in my entire life. Seriously. I mean... I know that runners like to eat. But holy cannoli, these Nashville Runners like to feast. So needless to say, I basically came home with like 8 of the 12 muffins I took (a muffin just cannot compete with doughnuts, chocolate chip cookies, brownies, etc. Completely understandable).

Anyway, I thought these were good. They contain fruit and I used whole wheat flour, so they aren't entirely unhealthy. Plus... canola oil... that's a good oil, right? They came out moist and sweet. Just the way a muffin should be. (Not better than a doughnut, of course).

Carrot Pineapple Muffins
adapted from Recipezaar user MaeEast

These muffins are a breeze and are delicious. Moist, hearty and sweet. Exactly what you want in a muffin. I used all white whole wheat flour to make them a bit healthier and instead of using crushed pineapple, I used pineapple rings that I finely chopped. I liked having bits of pineapple accompanying the bits of carrots. A great muffin recipe. It makes about 12 muffins.

1 cup sugar
2/3 cup canola oil
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp salt
1 cup grated carrot
1 cup drained crushed pineapple

Preheat your oven to 375 and grease a muffin tin or line with paper liners.

Stir together sugar and oil. Add the eggs until well combined. Stir in the vanilla.

In a separate bowl, combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt. Stir the dry ingredients into the wet until just combined. Add carrots and pineapple and stir just until combined.

Spoon into muffin tins, filling to the top.

Bake for 20 minutes or until done. Cool in pan for 5-10 minutes, then remove to a rack to finish cooling.

TWD: Brownie Buttons

2009-08-11T06:00:00.003-05:00

I'm back, bitches.

Yes, I realize it's been like weeks and weeks since I've participated in a Tuesdays with Dorie. I have some good excuses though... among them: 10 day vacation in Montana, Preparing to run back-to-back marathons, cutting sugar out of my diet. None of these things are particularly conducive to belonging to a baking club.

But, vacation is over, marathons are completed, and while I'm back on the no-sugar train. I've got some occasions where I can bake for other people. Hooray!

This week Jayma of Two Scientists Experimenting in the Kitchen chose Brownie Buttons. Essentially, these are brownies baked in mini-muffin cups... I like this idea in theory... small portions= fewer calories. Except... when you eat 9 of them, you're getting the same calories as you would in eating 1-2 regular size brownies. Oh well.

My family really liked these. We served them with some vanilla ice cream. But, I had a bite of them (normally, I could have easily said no because they kind of looked gross (a master decorator, I am not) but, I was intrigued by the fact that there's orange zest in the brownies and I wanted to see how that tasted). I didn't like them, though. For whatever reason, I just cannot get my palate sophisticated enough to like fruit and chocolate together (except cherries. but then again, I can practically eat cherries with anything). I took a bite of these brownies and though they didn't taste "orange-y" they tasted... floral-y. Fragrantly floral. Like... someone had sprayed perfume on the brownies or something. Ehhh... not my cup of tea. Maybe if I didn't know there was orange zest in them, I might have enjoyed them more... but since I could easily identify that "floral whang" in them, I was like.. blech. Orange and chocolate! No thanks.

Oh well, I tried.

Even without the orange zest, the texture of the brownies weren't really my favorite either. Too cake-y... not fudge-y enough. Que Sera Sera.

Check out Jayma's blog if you like floral brownies, or if you just wanna try something different. (And by the way... the orange zest is optional in the recipe, but without it... they're just regular ole cake-y brownies).

White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Cheesecake

2009-08-06T11:00:00.005-05:00

I've been extremely lucky my whole life. I was born into an amazingly supportive and loving family. I was raised with good values and morals, but was also allowed to spread my wings, be independent and find things out on my own. And aside from my family and the environment I've grown up in, I've also been extremely lucky to find friends that I don't deserve.

Not to toot my own horn anything... but my friends are seriously some of the best people around. Not only are they loving and supportive like my family... but they're dependable and stable, they put up with my fickle and moody nature. I mean, I gotta be honest with you folks... I am a hard person to love. I'm stubborn and fiercely independent, at times. I am a complete contrarian and will assuredly change my mind just when you think you've gotten me figured out. I can be extremely private, which I'm sure makes people feel isolated from me. I try to keep my true feelings to myself as much as possible. I mean, damn. I wouldn't be friends with me.

But, despite these things... I still have some really kick ass friends (I guess having a baking blog doesn't hurt).

My friend Sara had a birthday back in June. Sara is one of those friends that you wish you could freelance out. Like... I feel fairly confident in saying that if a lot of bad people in the world had a friend like Sara, they wouldn't be so bad. All my friends are great in their own ways... but Sara is definitely the friend that I can depend on. If it were 2am and I was stuck on the side of the road in Alaska and I could only make one phone call... I would call Sara. Because it wouldn't matter that she was 1000s of miles away. Regardless of the fact that I might not have talked to her in 2 months, I could rest assured that she would do whatever it was that I needed and THEN SOME.

She is also loyal beyond belief. I know without a doubt, that we could have had the biggest argument of our lives.... but if someone else tried to badmouth me. She'd be standing up for me. Now, that, is loyalty, my friends.

But, I don't want it to sound like I'm just using her for her dependability and her loyalty. Oh no... I also use her for comic relief. She is hysterically funny and she's up for anything. She'll go and do practically anything you want. She's always up for a shopping trip, a car ride, a dinner, a drink, a walk. As long as her schedule is clear... she's good to go.

So, for her birthday, I wanted to make her whatever she wanted. And what she wanted... was White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Cheesecake. This request immediately reminded me of one of our favorite past times in college: watching Golden Girls. Sara and I always say that when we're old and gray we're going to move down to Florida and live together. We're going to smoke cigarettes and drink whiskey all day, eat cheesecake and walk around in moo-moos and flip flops. Cheesecake was the perfect choice for her birthday.

I didn't have a specific recipe for that variation of cheesecake, so I set off to adjust the Dorie Greenspan Cheesecake recipe that I adore. Hopefully she enjoyed it at least half as much as I've enjoyed her friendship.

Happy Birthday, Sara!

Thank you for being a friend
Traveled down the road and back again
Your heart is true, you're a pal and a confidant.

And if you threw a party
Invited everyone you knew
You would see the biggest gift would be from me
And the card attached would say thank you for being a friend.

White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Cheesecake
adapted from Dorie Greenspan

This is adapted from my favorite cheesecake recipe. It's creamy, rich and dense.

Ingredients
For the crust:
2 1/2 cups vanilla wafer crumbs
1/2 cup chopped macadamia nuts
3 tablespoons sugar
Pinch of salt
6 tbsp unsalted butter, melted

For the cheesecake:
2 pounds (four 8-ounce boxes) cream cheese, at room temperature
1 1/3 cups sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
4 large eggs, at room temperature
1 1/3 cups heavy cream
4 ozs of white chocolate melted and cooled.
chopped macadamia nuts for garnish

Procedure
To make the crust:

Butter a 9-inch springform pan—choose one that has sides that are 2 3/4 inches high (if the sides are lower, you will have cheesecake batter leftover)—and wrap the bottom of the pan in a double layer of aluminum foil; put the pan on a baking sheet.

Stir the crumbs, nuts, sugar and salt together in a medium bowl. Pour over the melted butter and stir until all of the dry ingredients are uniformly moist. (I do this with my fingers.) Turn the ingredients into the buttered springform pan and use your fingers to pat an even layer of crumbs along the bottom of the pan and about halfway up the sides. Don't worry if the sides are not perfectly even or if the crumbs reach above or below the midway mark on the sides—this doesn't have to be a precision job. Put the pan in the freezer while you preheat the oven.

Center a rack in the oven, preheat the oven to 350°F and place the springform on a baking sheet. Bake for 10 minutes. Set the crust aside to cool on a rack while you make the cheesecake.

Reduce the oven temperature to 325°F.

To make the cheesecake:
Put a kettle of water on to boil.

Working in a stand mixer, preferably fitted with a paddle attachment, or with a hand mixer in a large bowl, beat the cream cheese at medium speed until it is soft and lives up to the creamy part of its name, about 4 minutes. With the mixer running, add the sugar and salt and continue to beat another 4 minutes or so, until the cream cheese is light. Beat in the vanilla. Add the eggs one by one, beating for a full minute after each addition—you want a well-aerated batter. Reduce the mixer speed to low and stir in the heavy cream. Turn off your mixer and pour in the cooled melted white chocolate. Stir into the batter with a rubber spatula.

Put the foil-wrapped springform pan in the roaster pan.

Give the batter a few stirs with a rubber spatula, just to make sure that nothing has been left unmixed at the bottom of the bowl, and scrape the batter into the springform pan. The batter will reach the brim of the pan. (If you have a pan with lower sides and have leftover batter, you can bake the batter in a buttered ramekin or small soufflé mold.) Put the roasting pan in the oven and pour enough boiling water into the roaster to come halfway up the sides of the springform pan.

Bake the cheesecake for 1 hour and 30 minutes, at which point the top will be browned (and perhaps cracked) and may have risen just a little above the rim of the pan. Turn off the oven's heat and prop the oven door open with a wooden spoon. Allow the cheesecake to luxuriate in its water bath for another hour.

After 1 hour, carefully pull the setup out of the oven, lift the springform pan out of the roaster—be careful, there may be some hot water in the aluminum foil—remove the foil. Let the cheesecake come to room temperature on a cooling rack.

When the cake is cool, cover the top lightly and chill the cake for at least 4 hours, although overnight would be better.

Serving:
Remove the sides of the springform pan— I use a hairdryer to do this (use the dryer to warm the sides of the pan and ever so slightly melt the edges of the cake)—and set the cake, still on the pan's base, on a serving platter. Adorn the top of the cheesecake with the chopped macadamia nuts. The easiest way to cut cheesecake is to use a long, thin knife that has been run under hot water and lightly wiped. Keep warming the knife as you cut slices of the cake.

Storing:
Wrapped well, the cake will keep for up to 1 week in the refrigerator or for up to 2 months in the freezer. It's best to defrost the still-wrapped cheesecake overnight in the refrigerator.

Peach Cobbler

2009-08-03T06:00:00.000-05:00

Some friends of mine just welcomed a new baby into the world at the end of June. I was thrilled.

Now, here is some information for you. I have no experience with newborns. None. I'm the youngest of 3. I have no nieces or nephews, none of my other friends have had any babies. Sure, some of my cousins have had babies, but I've never had the opportunity to see the babies until they're a few months old.

I spent a good bit of my teenage years babysitting, and even had my cousin and her 1 year old live with us for awhile when I was about 8 years old, but there is a HUGE difference between a newborn and a one year old (or even a 3 month old!). I couldn't wait meet this tiny new little person.

I got my chance a couple weekends ago. My friends invited me over for a lunch cookout. They were grilling hamburgers and hanging out on a Saturday and I joined up with them to hang out, play with their incredibly adorable 2 year old daughter and meet the newest addition to the family.

Holy crap! I couldn't believe how so very tiny she was. She is a beautiful baby and since she was born a few weeks early, she mostly just slept the entire time I was there. When my friend picked her up and put her in her lap for a feeding, I couldn't help but think about how much she looked like a little doll baby. So precious and fragile that I was too terrified to ask to hold her. (It's probably a good thing. My ovaries already ache with want everytime I see and play with their 2 year old daughter, I'm not sure they'd be able to handle holding a newborn, too).

It was a great way to spend an afternoon.

I wanted to take a dessert for the cookout and I had some delicious fresh, Tennessee peaches that I'd picked up at the farmers market earlier in the week. This recipe was perfect. I was able to whip it together fast the morning of, and by the time we cut into it, it had time to set up, but still tasted fresh and it was ALMOST still warm. Served with vanilla ice cream, of course. The perfect summer dessert.

Peach Cobbler

This is a sweet peach cobbler. Very sweet. It's how we southerners like our cobblers. You could easily cut back on the sugar in the recipe, if you like your desserts a little more sophisticated. But, I don't work like that. I like my desserts trashy and filled with loads of sugar. Yum.

Batter Ingredients:
12 tbsp of butter
1 cup flour
1 cup sugar
2 tsps baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
2/3 cup heavy cream
1 room temperature egg

Filling:
6 peaches sliced (I left the peel on)
3/4 cup sugar
1 tsp of cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp of vanilla

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and place butter in a 9x13 inch pan and place in the oven to melt.

Mix together the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt.

Stir in the cream and the egg.

When the butter is melted, pull the pan out of the oven and pour the batter directly into the melted butter.

In a bowl, combine the peaches, sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, and vanilla. Then pour the peach mixture directly onto the batter. DO NOT STIR the peaches into the batter. Just pour it on top.

Bake for 35-45 minutes until batter rises up over the peaches and is golden brown.

Allow to cool and set until just warm.

The BAKED Brownie

2009-07-31T06:00:00.001-05:00

If you're like me and you're really into food porn, then you've seen these brownies in the blogosphere a zillion times. And if you're not a food porn addict, then you might have either heard Oprah talking about them or writing about them in her magazine. These are her favorite brownies, apparently.

Even though I have about a trillion recipes bookmarked, printed out, post-it flagged, I knew it was only a matter of time that this recipe cut line. I made these over Father's Day weekend.

These brownies are good. My favorite? Nah. These are very similiar to my favorite though. They are thin and chocolatey and fudgy and borderline gooey. But, at least now I can cross this off my list. Now, I have about a 15 other recipes from the Baked cookbook that I want to try.

My favorite Brownie Recipe:
1st: Rich and Dark Brownies
Runner up: Dorie Greenspan's Tribute to Katharine Hepburn Brownies

The Baked Brownie
Yield: 24 brownies

"The Baked brownie is a beautiful thing. It has won the hearts and minds of many people, been featured on the pages of O Magazine as a favorite thing, and won best brownie by the folks at America’s Test Kitchen and the Today Show. Our brownie really owes many kudos to our friend and superstar pastry chef Lesli Heffler-Flick. She created the original ultimate brownie for us. It is dense, chocolatey, and slightly fudgy, and we are forever grateful to her for letting us adapt her recipe.

Baked Note: A great brownie is easy to make, but you have to be aware of several factors. 1. Use a dark cocoa powder, like Valrhona. A pale, light-colored cocoa does not have enough depth. 2. Make sure your eggs are room temperature and do not overbeat them into the batter, and 3. Make sure you check your brownies often while baking. Once the brownies have been overbaked slightly, they have reached the point of no return."

Ok, now my commentary...
These are easy brownies to make and they are really good. But don't be like me and take their words too literally. You want to make sure that the eggs are mixed into the batter. Otherwise, you'll end up with cooked egg whites on top of your brownies. Not attractive or tasty, but luckily easily removable.

1 1/4 cups flour
1 teaspoon salt
2 Tablespoons dark cocoa powder
11 ounces quality dark chocolate (60-72%), chopped coarsely
8 ounces butter (2 sticks), cut into 1 inch cubes
1 tsp instant espresso powder
1 ½ cups sugar
½ cup light brown sugar
5 large eggs, room temperature
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Butter the sides and bottom of a glass or light colored metal pan 9x13x2 pan.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, the salt, and cocoa powder.

Configure a large sized double boiler. Place the chocolate, the butter, and the instant espresso powder in the bowl of the double boiler and stir occasionally until the chocolate and butter are completely melted and combined. Turn off the heat, but keep the bowl over the water of the double boiler and add both sugars. Whisk the sugars until completely combined and remove the bowl from the pan. Mixture should be room temperature.

Add three eggs to the chocolate/butter mixture and whisk until just combined. Add the remaining eggs and whisk until just combined. Add the vanilla and stir until combined. Do not over beat the batter at this stage or your brownies will be cakey.

Sprinkle the flour/cocoa/salt mix over the chocolate. Using a spatula (DO NOT USE A WHISK) fold the dry into the wet until there is just a trace amount of the flour/cocoa mix visible.

Pour the mixture into the pan and smooth the top with your spatula. Bake the brownies for 30 minutes (rotate the pan half-way through baking) and check to make sure the brownies are completely done by sticking a toothpick into the center of the pan. The brownies are done when the toothpick comes out with a few moist crumbs.

Cool the brownies completely before cutting and serving.

Golden Peanut Butter Bars

2009-07-26T08:00:00.000-05:00

As an adult... my love for peanut butter has grown. It's more than just a love... it's actually turned into something like an addiction. In the past I've always enjoyed peanut butter flavored things... or things with peanut butter and chocolate. But, I'd never been one to really enjoy peanut butter on it's on.

Until now. I sometimes find myself sitting on the couch with a spoon and the jar of peanut butter in my hand. After mindlessly shoveling 800 calories worth of peanut butter into my mouth... I realize... ummm... I don't remember going into the kitchen and getting the jar of peanut butter. But that's what peanut butter does to me, now. It's so salty and creamy and it just puts me into this trance-like state. It's dangerous. But, it's damn good.

I've had this recipe for awhile now. But, I've been choosing to eat the peanut butter in it's purest state to feed my addiction. I didn't want to compromise it's goodness by putting into a recipe with other inferior ingredients. But... I needed something to take to a pot luck with a bunch of runners and I knew that they would likely share my love of peanut butter, too.

The thing that drew me to this specific recipe... (besides the peanut butter) is the fact that it has sweetened condensed milk. I mean, let's be honest here, friends: have you ever made something that has sweetened condensed milk in it that has turned out bad? I think not. Sweetened Condensed Milk is the savior of all things baked. It can turn anything into delicious-ness.

Ever cracked open a can of Sweetened Condensed Milk and ate the whole thing by dipping graham crackers into it... and then eventually you run out of graham crackers and just go for it with your finger? Oh. No? Well, me either... but I've heard of other people doing that.

This is a good recipe. It's chewy and peanut buttery and delicious. I hate to say it, but... I actually think it would be made better with some chocolate chips sprinkled underneath the crumb topping (or... wait for it... white chocolate chips. Yum!). There is just something about baked peanut butter and sweetened condensed milk that screams out for melty chocolatey goodness.

Golden Peanut Butter Bars
recipe from Jif

This recipe is super easy and quick. The only change I made to the recipe is that I used all white whole wheat flour. This made for a more nutty (almost bitter) flavor in the aftertaste and next time I think I'd use one cup of white whole wheat flour and one cup of regular flour. I Also skipped the peanuts (just because I didn't have any).

Ingredients:
2 cups of AP flour
3/4 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
1 egg, beaten
1/2 cup cold butter, cut into small pieces
1 cup chopped peanuts
1 (14 oz) can of sweetened condensed milk
1/2 cup creamy peanut butter
1 tsp vanilla extract

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine flour, brown sugar and egg; cut in butter until crumbly. Stir in peanuts. Reserving 2 cups of crumb mixture for the topping, press remaining mixture on bottom of 13x9 inch pan. Bake 15 minutes or until lightly browned.

In large bowl, with mixer, beat sweetened condensed milk with peanut butter and vanilla. Spread over the prepared crust; top with reserved crumb mixture.

Bake 25 minutes longer or until lightly browned. Cool. Cut into bars. Store leftovers covered at room temperature.

Peach Hand Pies

2009-07-16T12:00:00.001-05:00

Something happened to me when I signed the 30 year mortgage on my condo at the end of 2007. I kept hearing the words "30 years" over and over in my head. When I moved in, and looked around, I thought to myself... I'm going to be a 57 year old-old maid rumbling around this place one day. I closed my eyes and pictured myself as that weird lonely old lady who lives down the hall, smells like cat piss, and lingers too long at the elevator hoping you'll talk to her. To put it mildly: I freaked the freak out. I realized: holy shit! I'm single! And 27! And I want 4 kids someday! And I have zero prospects! What's a girl to do?

I'm not really sure what other girls do if they find themselves in that predicament, but what I did was thrust myself into the dating world full steam ahead. I was on Match and E-Harmony like it was my job. I went out on literally a BAZILLION dates. I e-mailed, texted, chatted on the phone with a BAZILLION more guys.

It was exhausting.

Some weeks I went out 3-4 times with 3 different guys. What? You think that sounds fun? HELLS NO. It sucks. Imagine your worst 1st dates. Now imagine having 2-3 of those a week. For a year and a half! Right. Finally, after dating a ton of non-compatible guys, a handful of guys that I considered compatible, but didn't feel the same way about me, and then another handful of guys that were just the most inappropriate scum of the earth (and yes... I have so!many!stories!) I decided that it was time for a sabbatical. Initially, it was just going to be a month break. No dating for a month.

Then that month turned into 2 months. And I was loving having MY life back. My independent, fly by the seat of my pants, do-whatever-the-hell-I-want-without-having-to-plan-around-douche-bags-lives life. One night a friend and I went out and ended up having a "sad drunk." The night started off well, but eventually it turned into a drunken woe is me and while we're at it, let's order another shot of something night. I bitched about dating and about being rejected by all the guys that I was into, he bitched about his own love/dating issues. And we got shitfaced and depressed. Not a good combination.

The next morning, I woke up with a massive hangover and a flat tire. I shook my fists at the universe in disgust. Why me? Why haven't I met someone? Why did I get so freaking drunk and sad last night? Why do I have to have a flat tire and a hangover on the same blessed day? I spent the first half of the morning sitting at my desk at work (oh yes... it was a workday, no weekend sad drunk hangover nursing for me) willing the tears in my eyes and the booze remnants in my stomach to stay put. It was bleak.

At lunch, my brother helped me with my tire, removed it (in like 20 degree weather with no coat) and took it to a local gas station to have it plugged and then he put it back on for me. I made it through the work day. I got home and chugged a gallon of gatorade which finally seemed to do the trick. And it was then... at the end of this awful, no good, piece of shit day that I realized: despite feeling defeated and sick all day... I'm happy. The happiest I've been in my adult life, in fact. Why did I spend so much time and effort torturing myself with seeking out something to fill a void that I didn't have in the first place? Who cares that I was 28? I'm 29 now, in six months? I'll be 30... I mean that's what happens... time progresses, and FAST. Nothing in life is guaranteed. So, as long as I'm happy right now, that's all that matters.

My 29th birthday was one of the best I've had. And it's because I had let go of all these preconceived ideas of where I should be at certain points in my life. I'm 29, I'm single and you know what? I'm loving every minute of it.

I know what you're thinking... what does this have to do with Peach Hand Pies? Well, if you'll allow me to really stretch a metaphor here... these hand pies are a lot life my life these past couple of years.

I had been wanting to make a peach pie for a long time now. I love pies. I picked up a ton of peaches at the farmers market awhile back and decided I was going to tackle a peach pie. And then... I got the opportunity to bake something for a poolside cookout that my mom was going to. I decided that a pie isn't really poolside type of dessert, so I thought... that's okay, I can just make these hand pies. Mini peach pies, if you will.

These handpies were a freaking mess. The dough was ornery as all get out, my filling was super wet. I spent a crapload of time on them and when I test baked one... it tasted like like a niblet of peach wrapped inside a toilet paper roll. The dough was so tough and you barely tasted the filling. I was sad. I decided to let them hang out in the fridge overnight and hoped that the rest would help before I baked them all.

The next morning, I baked them, the dough was still a little cardboardy, but not as bad. And, as they sat around all day, they started to get better. Softer, flakey-ier. And by the time I delivered them to my mom for the cookout... they were pretty good.

We all have expectations. Big expectations of how our life is going to turn out or small ones like how a recipe is going to turn out. And sometimes... you think you've failed when things don't go exactly the way you've planned. But just because things turn in a different direction and cause some awfulness, doesn't mean all hope is lost.

Peach Hand Pies
from Smitten Kitchen

This recipe took a lot of time. I had issues with the dough and I think I eventually overworked it. It was a little tough, but as the day went on, it softened up a bit.

The thing about hand pies is that you're going to get a lot more dough flavor than you would if you were to just make a peach pie (obviously, but i wasn't really thinking about that when I made them). I think maybe the hand pies are better suited to a fruit that is more tart and robust in flavor than a sweet, ripe peach. My peaches got flavor-bullied by the dough. Maybe blackberries? Or tart cherries?

I wanted these to be more like fried pies. The fried pies that I was offered so much as a child and didn't have the palate for yet. They aren't like fried pies. But they are pretty good. And, regardless, you end up looking like a freaking master pastry chef when you show up with a basket full of these.

Makes 14 to 24 (depending on cutter size)

For the pastry:
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp. salt
16 tablespoons (2 sticks, 8 ounces) unsalted butter, cut into
pieces
1/2 cup sour cream
4 teaspoons fresh lemon juice
1/2 cup ice water

For the filling:
2 pounds of peaches
1/4 cup flour
1/4 cup sugar
Pinch of salt
1 teaspoon bourbon (I used rum)
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

One egg yolk beaten with 2 tablespoons water (for egg wash)
Coarse sanding sugar, for decoration

1. To make the pastry, in a bowl, combine the flour and salt. Place the butter in another bowl. Place both bowls in the freezer for 1 hour. Remove the bowls from the freezer and make a well in the center of the flour. Add the butter to the well and, using a pastry blender, cut it in until the mixture resembles coarse meal. Make another well in the center. In a small bowl, whisk together the sour cream, lemon juice and water and add half of this mixture to the well. With your fingertips, mix in the liquid until large lumps form. Remove the large lumps and repeat with the remaining liquid and flour-butter mixture. Pat the lumps into a ball; do not overwork the dough. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 1 hour. If preparing ahead of time, the dough can be stored at this point for up to one month in the freezer.

2. Divide the refrigerated dough in half. On a lightly floured work surface, roll out one half of the dough to 1/8-inch thickness. Using a 4 1/2-inch-round biscuit cutter, cut seven circles out of the rolled dough. Transfer the circles to a parchment-lined baking sheet, and place in the refrigerator to chill for about 30 minutes. Repeat the rolling, cutting, and chilling process with the remaining half of dough. (I used a 4-inch cutter–if you can call a “cutter” the tin edge of the container that holds my smaller round cutters–and managed to get 12 from each dough half, after rerolling the scraps.)

3. Make the filling: Peel and chop the peaches into small bits (approx. 1/2-inch dice), much smaller than you’d use for a regular-sized pie. Mix them with the flour, sugar and pinch of salt, and add the bourbon and vanilla, if you wish.

4. Remove the chilled dough from the refrigerator, and let stand at room temperature until just pliable, 2 to 3 minutes. Spoon about 1 to 2 tablespoons filling (use the smaller amount for a 4-inch circle) onto one half of each circle of dough. Quickly brush a little cold water around the circumference of the dough, and fold it in half so the other side comes down over the filling, creating a semicircle. Seal the hand pie, and make a decorative edge by pressing the edges of the dough together with the back of a fork. Repeat process with remaining dough. Place the hand pies back on the parchment-lined baking sheet, and return to the refrigerator to chill for another 30 minutes.

5. Heat oven to 375 degrees. Remove the chilled hand pies from the refrigerator, cut a small slit in each and lightly brush with the egg yolk wash. Sprinkle sanding sugar generously over the pies, and place pies in the oven to bake. Bake until the hand pies are golden brown and just slightly cracked, about 20 minutes. Remove the pies from the oven, and let stand to cool slightly before serving.

TWD: KathArine Hepburn Tribute Brownies

2009-07-07T06:00:00.003-05:00

I am sorry. I haven't exactly been burning up the blogosphere here lately, now, have I? And, unfortunately I don't have any awesome excuses like... I've been traveling (because I haven't) or I've been super busy (not really been that, either). No... my reason is basically the baking blogs worst nightmare: I've been trying to lose weight.

The latest weight loss plan for me? Eliminating sugar and alcohol. Which, if you know me... know that these two things are the reason I exist. Sugar and alcohol are what I live for, what I wake up for, why I exercise, etc. Sugar and alcohol are also the reasons that I carry around about 25 extra pounds mostly in my mid-section. But, I'm shunning them both for a few weeks. We'll see how it works out.

Meanwhile, it will be fairly quiet around these parts. Luckily, all us bakers have been given a hall pass on the summer recipes for Tuesdays with Dorie . The requirements have been relaxed for the summer and we have been encouraged to do as many as we can, but to not worry about being kicked out of the group. And for that, my waist-line thanks the admin peeps at TWD. I do have a couple of recipes already saved up to post, so it's not going to be entirely silent. And at some point, I might try to soothe my sugar deprived, cranky bastard soul with some sort of splenda-ed up recipe. But, who knows. For now and the next few weeks, I'm just going to be a real bitch that no one will want to hang around. Awesome.

Anyway... now that we have that out of the way... let me drool all over myself for a minute while I tell you about these awesome brownies I made a couple weeks ago. These brownies are excellent. They are fudgy and chocolate-y. I eliminated the cinnamon, the instant coffee and the walnuts that the recipe called for and I think I even overbaked them a little and they still turned out delicious. Sadly, they don't look that great, though, because I used dark cocoa in the recipe and black brownies just don't look as appetizing as brown brownies. Whatev. They still tasted awesome.

I'll see ya when I see ya.

Check out Lisa's blog Surviving Oz for the recipe for these brownies.

Fruit Cocktail Cake

2009-06-26T09:00:00.000-05:00

Close your eyes. (Ummm... I just realized this whole exercise doesn't work if you close your eyes, so don't literally close your eyes)

Imagine a table. With a plate on it. And on that plate is a square of cake. The cake is thick with a moist crumb. There are specks of yellow, red, and white in it. Hinting at the peach, cherries, and pear that is inside the cake. Now imagine that cake with a glistening frosting that is loaded with sweet coconut.

Looks delicious in your head, right? (Well, unless I killed it for you with the coconut. You crazy coconut haters, you).

Well, now that you've got that mental image in your head... now I suppose I'll show you a picture of what my version of the cake looked like. But, brace yourself folks. It ain't purty.

See? Gross, blahness on a plate. But, hear me out. It's delicious and SUPER easy. It's a super moist cake... made with fruit cocktail from a can (and no fat added to the cake. Bonus!) And the icing on top is made of butter, evaporated milk and coconut. YUM.

Sometimes, you gotta look past an ugly exterior, to get to the goodness inside. A lesson we all need reminded of sometimes.

Fruit Cocktail Cake
from the kitchen of: My Aunt Peggy

This cake is moist and gooey. It's not a showstopper visually, but it's delicious. I even over-cooked the cake and it turned out a little rubbery, but it still tasted good! I made mine the day ahead to let the juices soak into the cake.

Ingredients
2 cups flour (I think they mean self-rising flour, which I didn't have. AP will work)
2 cups sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp vanilla
1 regular size can (14 ozs or so?) Fruit Cocktail

Icing:
1 stick butter
3/4 cup sugar
3/4 cup evaporated milk
coconut (depends on how much coconut you want. Probably a medium sized bag worth)

Preheat oven for 350. Spray a 9x13 inch baking dish with cooking spray. Set aside.

In a large bowl, combine all ingredients for the cake. Bake until golden brown and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out fairly clean. Start checking around 25-30 minutes. Take the cake out, but don't let it cool for too long before you put the icing on. You want the cake to still be warm when you put the icing on.

To make the icing: Cook the butter, sugar, and milk in a saucepan until they come to a boil, then turn down heat and add coconut.

Poke holes with a fork into the cooked cake and then spread the icing onto the cake while still warm.

Banana Pudding

2009-06-18T13:18:00.004-05:00

Okay, confession time. As much as I like to moan and groan about it to as many people as will listen, I have to admit... having two older brothers is an awesome experience. And even though I had my doubts when we were growing up of what kind of men they'd turn into... I mean, who wouldn't wonder that about a kid who sits on his little sister's head and farts on her when he's babysitting? Right? Or what about making their little sister hold a G.I. Joe up on a fence post so that they can shoot BBs at it? You gotta admit, that's a wee bit demented. I'm happy to report (thanks in large part to my parents, I suppose) they both grew into good men who I am proud to call my brothers.

Sure, we had our moments growing up... we fought, I cried, I tattled, we fought, I got them grounded, etc and that just describes one afternoon of my life growing up.

My oldest brother had his birthday a few weeks ago. And my mom pulled the "mom trump card" on that birthday and made his birthday cake for him. Now it's my other brother's turn and since my parents were out of town on his birthday, I took it upon myself to make him something that I knew he'd love.

Banana Pudding.

Now, honestly... banana pudding has never been my favorite. It's mushy. It's pudding-y. Blech. Not my cup of tea. But it is something that is very traditional in southern cuisine, so I was anxious to try my hand at a recipe.

I ended up adapting a couple of recipes into my own. It came together really easy and when I gave it to him... I went ahead and helped myself to a little piece... I mean... I couldn't let him eat a piece of it by himself, for heaven's sake. What kind of sister would I be?

I gotta say... homemade banana pudding is 15,000 times better then the jello banana pudding I've had so many times. Holy Crikies is this stuff good. Like... so good that I kept going back to sneak more. It is so sweet, so creamy, so banana-y. Soooo delicious.

Jackpot! Maybe next year, I'll make this banana pudding for my birthday!

Happy Birthday, Bro!

Banana Pudding
10 servings

This banana pudding is rich and super sweet. I'm obsessed with peanut butter and banana, so I used peanut butter sandwich cookies to line the entire bottom and to alternate on the top. If you like your banana pudding straight up traditional, just go for vanilla wafers all the way.

Also, I had some pudding left over... but, it's delicious with cookies dipped in it, etc.

1/3 cup all purpose flour
2/3 cup sugar
Dash salt
2 ½ cups whole milk
1 14 oz can of sweetened condensed milk
4 egg yolks, lightly beaten
2 tsps vanilla extract
8 oz cream cheese, softened
12 oz of Cool Whip, thawed
3 cups sliced ripe bananas (5-6)
45 vanilla wafers
Package of Nutter Butters

Combine flour, sugar, and salt in medium saucepan. Gradually stir in milk and condensed milk and yolks, and cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, for 8 minutes or until thickened.

Remove from heat; stir in vanilla and set aside with a piece of saran wrap pressed down onto the pudding till it cools. After it comes to room temperature, beat in cream cheese. Gently fold in cool whip. Set aside.

Place a layer of Nutter Butters in the bottom of 2 quart baking dish and arrange 1 cup of bananas on top. Then spoon 1/3 pudding mixture over bananas; top with a layer of vanilla wafers. Repeat layers once; top with remaining bananas and pudding. Arrange Nutter Butters around the inside edge of dish and push gently into the pudding. Cover the top with vanilla wafers, if you wish. Refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.

TWD: Honey Peach Ice Cream

2009-06-16T06:00:00.002-05:00

Yes. More Peach. Get over it.

So, let's chat for a minute about kitchen gadgets/appliances. I am a low tech gal. I don't even own a computer at home. And while initially, it was because I'm cheap and didn't want to buy a computer and pay for monthly internet. Now, I kind of enjoy it. Luckily, I can access the internet on my phone if something is urgent (because, sometimes checking the lyrics for the song Delicate by Damien Rice is super urgent), but I can't imagine how many hours I'd get sucked into the internet.

I don't own two of the major components of this recipe: An ice cream maker or a food processor. It sucks. I wish I had the space to have every imaginable kitchen appliance and utensil imaginable, but I don't. So, I have to make do.

It's not a big deal, really. I actually get a weird pleasure out of preparing things without fancy dancy equipment. Like... "Ha! I don't need no stinking food processor! That's what hands are for." But, it doesn't make for the prettiest of dishes, that's for sure.

As usual with ice creams... this was easy to make. Even without the food processor or the ice cream maker. And as much as I love peaches, I, surprisingly, wasn't all that crazy about this recipe. There was kind of weird wang to it and I'm not sure if it has something to do with the honey or if maybe I cooked the custard incorrectly. It wasn't bad... it just wasn't something that made me want to curl up on the couch and eat the whole tub (which, honestly... is probably a good thing).

If you like peaches and honey and ice cream (and who doesn't?) then you should give this recipe a try. Maybe you'll love it! At the very least, check out the other Tuesdays with Dorie peeps and be sure to get the recipe from Tommi of Brown Interior.

Brown Butter Peach Bars

2009-06-08T08:45:00.005-05:00

Summer must be here. It's not the 90 degree days or the kids being out of school for vacation that tells me so. Nor is it the fact that I can't get enough of sauvignon blanc right now (eventually, I'm just going to have to attach an IV drip, I think). You know how I know? Peaches. Glorious, juice dripping, soft fuzzy peaches.

My dad stopped by the farmer's market last week and bought his standard amount of peaches: a whole bushel. He always graciously shares the peaches and I ended up with just about 2 pounds of peaches. Hot damn. It's almost as good as winning the lottery.

Immediately I thought I would make a peach pie. So, I decided to give a new pie crust recipe a whirl, but when I opened up my recipe folder to find a new crust recipe, I came across this little gem. The words "brown butter" immediately grabbed my attention. Remember how I fell in love with browned butter? Sadly, my affair with browned butter was merely a fling. But after seeing this recipe, I knew we were destined for a little re-do action. (The fact that my relationship with browned butter is similiar to my other people's relationships with past boyfriends/flings is merely a coincidence, I assure you).

This recipe is everything you want in a fruit bar. It's tangy and sweet. It's soft with a crumbly, yet firm crust. And it absolutely must be made the day before... It needs time to sit and soften up. Again there's a similiarity there with old flames, eh? But, that's where the similiarities end. While you want the reignition of the old flame to be quick and easy... these bars certainly are not. Proceed with this recipe, just like you do with your old flames, my friends... with extreme caution. Cause trust me, you'll wind up out of 3 hours of your life and 3 pounds heavier .

But... sometimes, it's worth it.

Brown Butter Peach Bars
Recipe from New York Times, adapted from Big Sur Bakery in Big Sur, CA

Seriously, this recipe is excellent, but it is a time consumer. It's not something you can whip up in an hour, or two, or three. There are multiple parts involved, so read through the recipe and be prepared. Also, like I said before, make these bars the day before you're going to serve them. They definitely need time to sit and soften.

I would make a change to the recipe for next time. The entire recipe calls for a crapload of orange zest. I would scale back. I'd use the orange zest and juice of 1 orange for the jam and the zest of one orange for the filling. Cutting the amount of oranges you need in half. I liked the citrus-y zip you get in the recipe, but I felt like it masked the fresh peach flavor a bit too much.

For the jam:
1 cup sugar
Zest and juice of 2 oranges
½ vanilla bean, halved and seeds scraped
4 cups ½ inch diced, peel-on, peaches (about 2 pounds whole)

For the crust:
1 cup unsalted butter
½ cup confectioner's sugar, sifted
1 ½ cups flour

For the filling:
3 large eggs
1 cup sugar
Zest of 2 oranges
¾ cup plus 2 tablespoons flour
½ vanilla bean, halved and seeds scraped
10 tablespoons unsalted butter.

1. Make the jam: in a 3 quart pot and using a wooden spoon, mix together the sugar, orange zest and juice, and vanilla bean and seeds. Place a candy thermometer in the pot and set over medium heat. Bring to a boil and cook for a few minutes, until it reaches 220 degrees. Add the peaches and boil, stirring occasionally, until the peaches turn into a thick jam and the thermometer returns to 220 degrees, 35 to 45 minutes. Wear long oven mitts as the jam can splatter. (When the jam begins to stick to the bottom of the pan, it's nearly there). Transfer the jam to a wide pan to cool. Remove the vanilla bean.

2. Prepare the crust by melting the butter in a saucepan over medium-high heat, stirring frequently. Cook until the white milk solids start to brown and smell nutty, 5 to 10 minutes. Strain through a fine sieve set over a heatproof container. Freeze until solid.

3. In a large bowl, mix together the confectioner's sugar and flour. Scoop the chilled brown butter into the flour mixture and, using a pastry cutter, blend until crumbly. Transfer the crumb mixture to a 9-by-13-inch baking pan and firmly pat it evenly across the bottom of the pan. Refrigerate for 30 minutes. Meanwhile, adjust the oven rack to the middle position and preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Bake the crust until golden, 18 to 20 minutes. Let cool.

4. Make the filling: whisk together the eggs, sugar, zest and flour in a large bowl. Place the vanilla bean and seeds and the butter in a small saucepan over medium-high heat. Cook until the white milk solids start to brown and smell nutty, and then strain through a fine sieve. Carefully add the brown butter to the egg and flour mixture, whisking until the butter is incorporated. Remove the vanilla bean.

5. To assemble the bars, spread half of the filling over the baked crust. Spoon large dollops of the peach jam over the filling, reserving a quarter of the jam. Pour the remaining brown butter filling over the peach jam, and finish by spooning smaller dollops of the reserved jam over the top. Bake until the filling is golden brown, 25 to 30 minutes. Cool completely.

Makes 24 bars.