Another Chocolate Chip Recipe

The following post may sound like a paid advertisement for all

things Martha Stewart, but I assure you, as much as I love Martha,

I'm not on her payroll (sadly).

Sara and I met on our 3rd or 4th day as freshman at the University of South Carolina. My roommate and I were at the Student Union checking our mail and noticed a girl having some problems with her mailbox lock. I went over and offered my help to her, turns out, she had been mailed the wrong combination. Anyway, my roommate and I left and went back to our room. Turns out, the girl that I helped lived right next door to me. Literally. Of all the places to meet, not in the hallway, not in the bathroom, but in the student union. We became fast friends and ended up being roommates the next semester when my roommate transferred to UT. We lived together that spring semester and all of our sophomore and senior years.

She’s a great friend. Always there when you need her and she’s one of those friends that you can talk to once in 3 months and neither of you holds a grudge for not being in contact sooner. You just pick back up where you left off.

Sara and I exchanged some emails last week and I decided that she needs a little pick-me-up. So, I made her some cookies.

I wanted to make chocolate chip cookies for her, because when we were in college, anytime that we went to the mall, she ALWAYS went to the cookie store and got one of those huge chocolate chip cookies. You know, the one that is kind of like a cookie pie. And then she would proceed to eat on the cookie for the rest of the week. So, I knew I wanted to make a chocolate chip cookie.

I decided to try a new cookie recipe and flipped through my printed out recipes and decided on this one from Martha Stewart.

I made large cookies (they fit in the cute boxes much better) and they came out soft on the inside and crispy on the outside. Good cookies. Probably my second favorite chocolate chip recipe.

Martha Stewart Cookies for a Martha Stewart Cookie Box.

Perfection.

Cherry Pie

So, while I inherited my dads dark eyes and hair, it was from my mom that I inherited my sweet tooth. Generally, while I would try to save some room for a sweet dessert, my dad would just prefer another helping of dinner to a decadent dessert. He’ll eat desserts, yes, but he doesn’t crave sweets like I do.

But, his favorite dessert is well known in my family and that’s a cherry pie. Growing up we had a cherry tree and my mom would make my dad fresh cherry pies, a lot. She would freeze the fresh cherries to make pies when the cherries weren’t in season. Sadly, the cherry tree died after about 10 years, I think it was too close to the house and just didn’t have enough room to continue to grow, but what do I know? I may have been president of my FFA chapter, but I was never much of a gardener.

Okay, back to the pie. So, my dads birthday is today and I decided to tackle a cherry pie recipe. I perused some pie recipes online and found this recipe at Epicurious. I went off to Wild Oats to see if I could find the ingredients that I needed. They didn’t have any! So, I went to Harris Teeter… and they didn’t have exactly what I needed, but they did have a selection of canned cherries that I thought I could work with.

So, I studied the epicurious recipe and then I looked at the recipe that my mom always used to make her cherry pie and I came up with my own recipe. And this pie turned out delicious! My crust was a little on the dry side, but still tasty. I will definitely keep and use this recipe again! Tart and sweet all at the same time!

Cherry Pie

2 cans of Sweet Pitted Bing Cherries (14.5 oz cans)
1 can of Tart Cherries
3 tbsp cornstarch
½ cup Dried Sweet & Tart Cherries (about 3 ozs)
¼ cup Granulated Sugar
1 tbsp Butter
½ tsp Almond Extract
Red Food Coloring
Cream or milk
Pie crust for a double crust pie

Strain syrup from bing cherries and reserve juice. Strain tart cherries and reserve it’s juice separately. Combine the bing cherries and the tart cherries in a bowl with ¼ cup of the sweet juice (save the leftover juice), 2 tbsps of the tart juice, and the cornstarch; stir to blend and set aside.

Combine 1 cup of the sweet juice along with 1 tbsp of the tart juice with the dried cherries in a large saucepan. Cover and let simmer for 10 minutes on medium low heat to allow the dried cherries to plump up. Uncover and increase the heat to medium and simmer until mixture bubbles thickly and it has reduced to about ¾ cup, stirring occasionally (about another 10 minutes). Add your other cherry mixture to the saucepan mixture along with the butter and heat thoroughly over medium heat until mixture bubbles and thickens (about 3-5 minutes). After mixture has thickened, pull off heat and add almond extract and a few drops of red food coloring. Transfer pie filling to a medium bowl and let it cool completely.

After it has completely cooled, position a rack in the second to the bottom row in your oven and preheat oven to 400 F. Roll our pie disk on a floured surface to 12 inch round. Transfer to a 9 inch diameter pie dish. Trim dough overhang to 1 inch. Put pie plate into the fridge while you roll out your top. Roll the top crust to 12 inch diameter. Spoon pie filling into bottom crust and then cover with top crust. Crimp edges decoratively and lightly brush the top and edges of the pie with whipping cream lightly. (I also sprinkled sugar on top the crust). Make four slits in the top of the crust to allow the steam to escape.

Place aluminum foil strips around the edges of the pie to keep them from browning too quickly. Put pie on a baking sheet with a rim and place into the preheated oven.

After 25-30 minutes, remove the aluminum foil and continue to cook.

Cook for about 50-55 minutes, until crust is golden.

Transfer pie to rack and allow to cool for 2 hours. Serve pie lukewarm or room temperature.
Tip: When transferring rolled pie dough to pie dish fold crust in half or in quarters and then place the dough in position in the pie dish and then unfold it to fit the dish.

Butter Pecan Turtle Bars

So, this is the last of the recipes from the baking date! And it is yummy!! And fairly simple, actually.

I kept calling these cookies, toffee cookies. And I think that would actually be a better name for them, because they are crunchy like toffee... not caramel-y gooey like turtles are.

I found this recipe here and was pleasantly surprised when my bars came out looking almost exactly like theirs! Woo Hoo. Usually my creations turn out looking like the poor, forgotten step child of the originals.

I will definitely be making these again. They hit the sweet tooth trifecta... chocolatey, crunchy yet soft crust, and buttery nut goodness.

Guest Blogger: Steph's Key Lime Cookies

First of all, I must admit that I am a virgin blogger... this will be the first blog I've ever written my entire life. Intimidating? Yes, a little... but I will not be discouraged. I accept the challenge wholeheartedly!

Here is my recipe from what Amy has referred to as our Baking Date, or what I like to call "The Big Bake".

I love key lime. And when I say "love", I mean LOVE it. I love key limes all by themselves (they're so cute!), key lime soda, key lime truffles (thank you, Godiva), and of course, key lime pie. So, when I was browsing for my Big Bake recipe, I saw a recipe for key lime cookies and couldn't resist. There are a lot of key lime cookie recipes out there, actually, but don't be fooled. I chose this one from Cookie Madness because it specifically said they were "chewy" which is an absolute MUST in my cookie book. These may be a little tart for some folks, so watch out!

The recipe was very straightforward and easy. Because Amy and I are such baking fiends, we decided to double the recipe (of course, there is no such thing as too many key lime cookies!) After baking about half the dough, we added some green food coloring just for giggles. No, they didn't taste more limey that way, but it was still fun.

The recipe below is the DOUBLED recipe, which makes about 6 dozen cookies.

1 cup butter — softened

2 cups sugar

2 large eggs

2 large egg yolks

3 cups flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup key lime juice

1 tablespoon lime zest (which I didn't use, because my hand started cramping)

1 1/2 cups white chocolate chips

Cream butter, sugar, egg, egg yolk in a large bowl — blend in flour,baking powder, salt, lime juice and lime zest.

Fold in white chocolate chips.

Roll dough into walnut sized balls. Actually I used a spoon because the dough was pretty wet, and there was no way I could roll them without making a big mess.

Place on ungreased sheet. These spread out quite a bit, so give them plenty of room.

Bake at 350 degrees F for 10-12 minutes.

--Stephanie, Guest Blogger.

Sour Cream Pound Cake

So, what’s better than spending an afternoon baking all day?

Doing it with your best friend!

Saturday, My friend Steph (formerly known as SQB… hey, I try to be careful with people’s online identities and make sure it’s okay with them before I use their name… so, back off) and I decided to have a baking party! Well, it was more like a baking date. I think the rule is you must have at least 3 people for a party… two and it’s just a date. So, Baking Date!

We decided on making a Pound Cake recipe that she had and then we each picked a cookie recipe to make, too!!

3 recipes in one day!!! Were we crazy?? Maybe, but it was really fun!

So, I’m going to go ahead and post the Pound Cake recipe now... and then she is going to type up an entry for her cookies and then I’ll post my cookies later, too!

So, this is a Sour Cream Pound Cake Recipe from Steph’s friend Julie’s Mom. (Say it out loud and you’ll get it). We decided to break the recipe into 4 mini loaves and use almond extract for 2 and vanilla extract for the other 2.

Things started off well, if by well you mean, having your handheld mixer die on you when you start to cream the butter and the sugar!

RIP........... GE Electric Handheld Mixer

The handheld mixer had a good run. It’s been around for 35+ years. Strangely enough, it was my fault and not old age that led to its ultimate demise. You see, the cord fell out of the base and instead of looking and gingerly placing it back in, I just picked it up and jammed it in back in there. My lack of attention to detail caused one of the prongs to give up and die. After attempting with tweezers to rectify the situation, we bailed and pulled out the cuisinart.

Anyway, the recipe was pretty easy. This was only the 2nd pound cake recipe, I’ve ever made (the other being a cream cheese pound cake) and it easy and straightforward.

The mini loaves made things a little interesting, because we had a hard time making sure they were done. They puffed up a lot and the outside edges got really browned, but the center stayed uncooked. Eventually, they cooked all the way through and I think we pulled them out maybe 3-4 minutes too late. But, regardless, they are delicious!

Sour Cream Pound Cake
1 cup butter
3 cups sugar
6 eggs
1 ½ tsp extract (vanilla, almond, etc.. whatever you want)
3 cups flour
¼ tsp salt
¼ tsp baking soda
½ pint sour cream

Mix flour, salt, and baking soda together and set aside.

Cream butter and sugar with a mixer (or, in our case, a food processor). Add eggs one at a time, beating well. Add extract.

Add dry ingredients alternating with the sour cream.

Bake in a 350 degree preheated oven in 2 loaf pans for 1 hour. (Our mini loaves took about 40 minutes).

Doesn't it look so pretty???

Oatmeal Pie

When I was a kid, one of my absolute favorite toys was the Fisher Price Kitchenette. I got it for Christmas one year, and I loved to play pretend House with it. It wasn't as sophisticated as the kitchenettes are these days, I had to use my imagination a lot (which wasn't a problem, I had an imaginery friend, so using my imagination was not a foreign thing to me). I distinctly remember always asking my dad what he wanted me to make him and he always had one answer:

Cherry Pie.

I've never actually made a cherry pie. I've made a few other pies, but I've always been intimidated to make a cherry pie, because it's my dad's favorite pie. I want it to be perfect. Well, his birthday is a week from today and I've decided this is the year. I'm going to make him a cherry pie.

Now, it's been awhile since I've made pie crust. So, I wanted to have a dry run this weekend, just to make sure my skills are up to par.

I recently flipped through our family cookbook and came across a recipe that sounded... really weird. Oatmeal Pie. It was my Grandma Young's recipe (although I never remember having it), and I asked my mom about it and she said that it was very, very good.

I already had all the ingredients and thought... what the heck, I'll give it a try.

I actually only made half a pie. I halved the pie crust recipe and halved the pie recipe and used a smaller dish to bake it and it turned out perfectly! The pie crust was perfect. Flaky, but tender. And the pie... well, it's a little hard to describe, but I kind of think of it as a poor man's pecan pie. It has the texture and flavor of a pecan pie (which is my favorite pie), but, it has a thicker, heartier feel to it. It's delicious and I think next time, I'll add some cinnamon to the pie and maybe use brown sugar instead of granulated sugar and see how it turns it. Delicious.

I now think I'm ready to tackle the cherry pie this weekend!

mmmmm.... see that flaky crust and the thick, creamy filling?
Yum!

Pie Crust

Courtesy of Emeril

Yield: 1 crust

1 1/2 cups plus 2 tbsp of all purpose flour

1 tbsp of sugar

1/2 tsp salt

1 stick cold unsalted butter, cut in 1/4 inch pieces

2 tbsp solid vegetable shortening, cold, cut into pieces

3 tbsps of ice water

Sift the flour, sugar, and salt into a large bowl. Using your fingers or a pastry cutter, work in the butter and shortening till the mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Add 2 tbsps of ice water and work with your fingers until the water is incorporated and the dough comes together. Add more water as needed to make a smooth dough, being careful not to over mix. Form the dough into a disk, wrap tightly in plastic wrap and place in the fridge for at least 30 minutes before using.

Oatmeal Pie

Recipe courtesy of Veachel Young

2 eggs, slightly beaten

1 stick of butter, melted

2/3 cup corn syrup

2/3 cup uncooked Oats (I used quick, but I think regular would be better)

1/4 tsp salt

1 tsp vanilla

2/3 cup nuts

2/3 cup sugar

1 unbaked pie shell

Mix all ingredients well and pour into pie shell.

Bake for one hour at 350 degrees.

Wedding Cookies, again.

I was in New Orleans this weekend and there were three things that I wanted while I was there:

1. Gumbo
2. Hurricane
3. Pralines

I accomplished the first two (at the same meal, coincidentally), but I didn't get my pralines. So, I got home early on Sunday morning still craving them. I thought about making them, but I'm not sure if I have a candy thermometer and didn't really feel like I had the patience to make candy. So, instead, I decided to make something comforting and sugary.

I chose wedding cookies. This is the third wedding cookie recipe I've tried and it's right on the money. They turned out slightly crunchy (just like the ones in the pink box) and the perfect texture.

I halved and tweaked this recipe, just a little by:

adding 1/2 cup of finely chopped mini chips (although, next time I might just use 1/3 cup)
adding 1/2 cup of shredded coconut, also chopped finely.

The dough is super difficult to deal with. Very dry. But, if you put it in the fridge for awhile, makes it easier to form balls.

Just the comfort I was looking for!