Best Friends Baking

Chai Pots de Creme - by Summer

2012-02-10T13:12:00.001-06:00

I'm not going to lie, I was not excited about making these. I don't even know why . . . I think the name just scared me off or something. And I usually like some crust/cake/carbs in my desserts, so I wasn't too sure about this custard stuff. And I am not a tea drinker, much less a Chai tea drinker, so that was another thing. But when I was reading over the recipe, Beth said you could substitute another kind of tea or even espresso powder for the Chai. And just like that it suddenly sounded a bit better!

This only required a few ingredients - some half-n-half, egg yolks, sugar, espresso powder and a hint of salt. They were super easy to prepare - heat the half-n-half, whisk into egg yolks and sugar, bake in a water bath, then chill. One step that I should have eliminated was straining the mixture before baking. It didn't occur to me the point of the step until I was doing it (to strain out the tea - hey - I'm sleep deprived - give me a break!) But it didn't harm anything - it just ended up being an unnecessary step. Mine baked for about 31 minutes and quite honestly they could have baked a little bit longer even.

My husband tried one first and he really liked it a lot. In fact he ate it up quickly, so I was eager to try some too. When I finally got around to tasty it, I was in love! I would say it's almost my favorite thing we have made so far - it was that good! I loved the flavor and it was so smooth and creamy. We each had ours with some whipped cream, but I could eat it plain too! I will DEFINITELY be making this again and again!

Chai Pots de Creme - by Lisa

2012-02-10T12:33:00.000-06:00

This was one of the recipes I'd put off picking for a long time because of the ingredient calling for chai. But finally when I gave the recipe a closer look, I noticed Beth suggested you could substitute another tea, like jasmine. Since chai and I don't get along so well anymore, I jumped on the chance to swap out for the jasmine as that also happens to be one of my favorite teas!This recipe was really quite simple to assemble and had a surprisingly small list of ingredients. The only extra item I needed was the half 'n' half. While the half 'n' half and tea infused on the stove, I whisked together the egg yolks, sugar and salt. Everything got mixed together, and then strained to remove the foam. I didn't have much luck removing the foam this way, so I pulled out my slotted spoon and that did the trick.

Then I poured the mixture into their ramekins, poured in the water for the water bath and carefully moved it into the oven.

And here is where things went kinda wrong. I started the timer at 23 min since my oven tends to good things a little faster. They definitely were not ready that soon. I set another 5 on the timer and no dice. This process went on until the one hour mark. The recipe says they should be done at around 25-30 min. I triple checked my oven temps, and it was all correct. I have no idea what the problem was and was getting frustrated by being held hostage in the kitchen. I was relived to finally pull them out and let them cool.

After letting them chill overnight in the fridge, I tried one out this afternoon. The texture was nice and creamy (tho mine had a little skin on it since I didn't press the plastic wrap all the way down), tho I was disappointed that I couldn't really detect the jasmine flavor. It was still a nice flavor - I could definitely appreciate the sugar and half 'n' half, but it wasn't anything to get me terribly excited. Between the cooking time and lack of extra flavor, I don't think I'll try making these again.

Great Big Coconut Cake - by Summer

2012-02-06T13:22:00.001-06:00

We were having some good friends over for dinner this weekend and I thought this cake would be the perfect thing to make. It's an impressive yet casual cake and pretty easy to make. I was worried that the coconut flavor would be over powering, but it's not. The only thing extra I had to buy to make this was the coconut milk and coconut flakes - both were ingredients for the cake and glaze.

This was a pretty typical cake recipe and it came together really fast. My cake baked for just over 50 minutes. I was rushing around when making the glaze, so I completely forgot to sprinkle the top with coconut flakes!

Everyone loved the cake. The toddlers (my little guy and our friends' daughter) both thought it was tasty. When asked for a quote for the blog, toddler girl said "it tastes like strawberry ice cream". LOL! You never know what kids are going to say! I can't remember what my little guy said - it may have been nothing as he was too busy shoveling the cake into his mouth. As I mentioned above, I was worried it would taste too much like coconut, but I loved the flavor. I was eating a piece after lunch today and decided that next time I make it, I might try making a chocolate glaze to go with the cake!

Drunken Pears Stuffed with Cookie Crumble - by Lisa

2012-01-31T22:22:00.000-06:00

I confess, this is the recipe I was putting off all month. Well, I guess that's obvious given it is the final day of January. I had two reasons for the delay: 1) I don't enjoy pears in most cases. Yes, it's a texture thing. 2) I was having a problem finding the Bosc pears at my regular grocer. I did finally find them at another grocery store.

Alas, I could delay no longer, so off to the kitchen I went. And promptly forgot that I needed the gingersnap cookies. It's a good thing I reviewed the recipe early in the day! So I had Caiden help me make the cookies which he thoroughly enjoyed. I've made those so much these last couple of months they're becoming old hat! :)

I used the serrated peeler that Beth has raved about, and I have to say she's absolutely right! I love that thing! As I was peeling, I determined that the pears probably weren't quite as ripe as they could have been, but oh well. Too late to worry about that now. See? Procrastination = bad!

Once I had everything together, assembly went fairly quickly. Like Summer, my wine bath didn't thicken up very much in the first 15 min, tho it did reduce by the very end of the baking. But the pears were taking on a nice color.

I thought the contrast of the hollowed out centers against the red was quite pretty

I let them bake for about 10 minutes after adding the cookie crumble mixture.

I didn't really care for the pears themselves, but as a carrier for the cookie crumble, you can't go wrong! That part was delicious! I was pleased with how they looked in the final product, but the pears themselves were meh. I suspect that if they were riper from the start, they would have softened up quite a bit more. These certainly would make for an elegant dinner party dessert tho!

Drunken Pears Stuffed with Cookie Crumble - by Summer

2012-01-31T20:11:00.000-06:00

I purposely saved some homemade gingersnaps for this recipe. I've never had baked pears, but my husband had, so I was interested to see how this would turn out. I didn't have any red wine on hand - I really need to keep a bottle of white and a bottle of red handy at all times! I finally picked up a bottle and I had everything else for this recipe.

It was really easy, although the wine and sugar never really thickened to a syrup . . . Not sure if I did something wrong or should have let it baked longer.

I liked the taste of the filling - gingersnaps, walnuts, butter and honey. I had a little bit of whipped cream with the first half, but the second half I just ate plain. I liked this dessert - very warm and comforting - perfect for a cold winter night. Unfortunately my pictures didn't turn out very well, so I really just have one.

Classic Rice Pudding - by Summer

2012-01-25T13:30:00.000-06:00

I was really excited to try this since I liked the coconut version. Unfortunately, it just didn't turn out quite how I was expecting it. The main issue was the fact that it didn't thicken. I see that Lisa had a similar problem, but after cooking it for over 40 minutes(!!!) I gave up. So we called it rice soup instead of pudding! I also added too much vanilla. I think I must have been distracted. I did make this recipe at my parents house, so I was using an electric stove instead of gas.

I liked the flavor of the pudding, but I am really disappointed that it wasn't more pudding-like!

Classic Rice Pudding - by Lisa

2012-01-25T13:08:00.000-06:00

Sigh. I just can't get into it. It must be a nostalgia thing for many people, because I have never had rice pudding until these last couple of years. And I just don't understand the appeal. I can tell you that the flavors of both this rice pudding and the coconut rice pudding are quite enjoyable. But I can't get away from the texture issue. :(

As for making the rice pudding itself, it was quite easy. I was even smart about having ingredients at the ready! I made stir fry for dinner, so I used the extra rice we had left over (Basmati this time) for this recipe. And then I still had the half 'n' half left over from one of the other recipes this month. As for everything else, it was normal pantry stock - hooray!

I even employed the help of my 3 year old. He stirred the pot while I prepped the egg mixture. I did have one little hiccup towards the end. I noticed after I pulled it off the heat and added the butter that it wasn't very thick. Thankfully we've made plenty of puddings by this point for me to recognize this was a problem. I plopped it back into the pot, heated it up to a boil and stirred for another minute or two. It thickened up quickly after that, so I was quite pleased. I did omit the raisins, so I wonder how it might have changed the flavor otherwise.

I'm sure my boys will enjoy this dish, so it certainly will get eaten up!

Honeyed Fudge - by Lisa

2012-01-20T13:38:00.000-06:00

OMG - I never thought these words would come out of my mouth, but here they are: I chopped chocolate and didn't hate it! All 16oz of it! And I think I even know why! Normally I use one of two chef's knives that are in our regular rotation. However, both were dirty (with chicken juice - in my mind the only way to get those clean is for them to go thru the dishwasher!), so I had to go digging in the knife drawer for another knife. I pulled out the gem below and the chocolate practically chopped itself! Ok, maybe that is a little exaggerated, but seriously, chopping the chocolate was SO much easier this time around that it was almost enjoyable. I think it must be the way the knife is designed - the whole thing as tiny serrated edges along with a few groupings of deep serrated edges on it while the other two knives I use do not. This knife will heretofore be designated The Official Chocolate Chopping Knife.

Since I get routinely confused over what bittersweet is vs semi-sweet vs dark and the like, I consulted the index of the cookbook for direction. Beth mentioned that one can generally swap out bittersweet and semi-sweet, so after reading Summer's entry, I opted to make my fudge with all semi-sweet (specifically half of my remaining gigantic bar of Trader Joe's Dark Chocolate and half with Baker's semi-sweet). I also opted to use up our leftover candy canes in place of the walnuts. A little too late I realized I should have tried substituting peppermint extract for the vanilla. Oh well, maybe next time!

This was really simple to throw together - especially since it took less time to chop that chocolate. ;)

It uses a mixture of condensed milk and honey which Beth describes as a "cheat" for making fudge. That gets boiled on the stove top, then transferred off the stove to add the chocolate. After that I stirred in the crushed candy canes, poured it in the pan and let it set up.

I took it out the next morning and cut myself a sample. It honestly took me a few days and several bites here and there to really render an opinion. Generally, I liked how it came out. The texture was real nice and smooth and it had the right "fudgy-ness" about it. I definitely liked having the candy canes in it too. I think I made the right move by using all semi-sweet chocolate, but it just seemed to be missing something. No matter how many times I tried it, I just couldn't place what that something was. I can say that I definitely enjoyed it, but I think if I were to make it again (with the candy canes), I would try it with peppermint extract and see how that changes the flavors.

Orange Dream Cupcakes - by Summer

2012-01-15T19:46:00.003-06:00

Just as I was sitting down to write up my post, I saw Lisa's post for these cupcakes. When I saw her picture, I immediately groaned - I should have made the chocolate frosting! But then I realized that I don't really like the orange chocolate combination, so I am glad that I stuck with the cream cheese frosting. But, I shouldn't get too ahead of myself - let's talk about baking them first!

I was flying solo with the kiddos this weekend, but I had all the ingredients, so I was determined to make these. As Lisa mentioned, there were kind of a lot of steps, but fortunately the kids were sort of on a same nap schedule this afternoon (and baby girl was happy playing by herself for awhile), so I was able to make them during that time. I don't like orange marmalade and gave mine away from the last time we made something with it. Instead of buying more, I looked up substitutions and went with apricot preserves with some extra orange zest in it.

It didn't even occur to me until Lisa said something in her post, but there must have been a misprint in the recipe with the vanilla. I was confused and just added the zest to the butter and sugar to cream. Then I looked and saw I was suppose to add the zest to the vanilla. But instead, I just added the vanilla to the half-and-half mixture. I think either way it turned out ok.

I got 14 cupcakes out of the recipe. I decided to try the cream cheese frosting, but I left the two extra cupcakes plain. I tried one of each and yum! I really liked it with the frosting. Toddler boy gobbled his up and claimed it was a "yummy cupcake!" I wasn't too excited about making these at first, but I will definitely make them again. They were a nice change of pace.

Orange Cream Cupcakes - by Lisa

2012-01-15T10:17:00.000-06:00

Happy Anniversary to us! We started this blog on Jan 13, 2010! Hard to believe it's been 2 years already, and now we only have a few months left to go!

I decided to start with this one since it sounded plenty yummy and gave me a good excuse to try out the chocolate frosting recipe also in this cookbook. :) (I totally would've tried for the creamsicle approach using the cream cheese frosting, but I'd already made that with the carrot cupcakes, and quite frankly, we're starting to run out of recipes!)

This recipe had a few extra steps compared to other regular cupcake recipes due to the zesting and juicing of the oranges (and of course making the frosting), so I settled in for an evening of baking. I also decided to bust out my new 8 cup monster sifter which I LOVE! I was inspired by the style of sifter Summer has and when I found this one at the store, I knew it would work brilliantly for also handling mounds of powered sugar. It has not disappointed me yet!

This recipe actually tripped me up a little bit. It calls for vanilla in two separate places - added to the zest (which combined, gets added to the butter/sugar creaming) and also added to the half 'n' half/OJ/marmalade mixture. Since I couldn't quite sort it out, I just left it all with the zest and didn't add any to the half 'n' half mixture. Everything seemed to turn out just fine. :)

The cupcakes baked up really nicely after 18 minutes and while they cooled I got started on the chocolate frosting. I was excited to try out this frosting to see how it compared to the frosting I usually make. It was pretty easy to put together and I didn't need to do any extra thinning or thickening. I took a few samples and found it to be pretty darn yummy! I got it prepped in my icing tube and let it sit while the cupcakes finished completely cooling.

I came back about 30 minutes later and was surprised to find the frosting had gotten pretty solid! Enough that I had to stick the tube in the microwave for a few seconds to soften it up. It wasn't long before I had them frosted and ready to eat. Hubby and I each thoroughly enjoyed our treats. It reminded him of a chocolate orange spice cake, and it reminded me of the orange chocolate candy - just in cake form. These were a nice alternative to regular flavored cupcakes, and since I love creamsicles, I am curious how they would taste with the cream cheese frosting!

Honeyed Fudge - by Summer

2012-01-09T13:08:00.000-06:00

I have never actually made fudge. My mom has a great recipe and I recall helping her make it, but I have never actually done it by myself. I was interested in making this one and it seemed really easy. In fact, I was going to head down to the basement to run on my treadmill, but my husband thought me making fudge would be a better idea. I have no willpower, so I gladly obliged him!


My helper and I whisking

Lots of Chocolate!

This recipe starts with chopping up a lot of chocolate. I was a little surprised to see the amount of bittersweet (8 oz) this recipe calls for.

The rest of the recipe involved stirring the rest of the ingredients in a pot until boiling and then let simmer for 2 minutes. Some how I think I did this part wrong. When I poured the mixture over the chocolate, it started getting hard really quickly. I put it in a pan and popped it in the fridge. It was hard long before the six hours suggested in the recipe.

I was surprised by the taste - it was more bitter than I like my fudge. I am used to it being sweeter. I can't really see making this recipe again, but I am eager to try making my own fudge again. The great thing about fudge is that it makes a perfect gift, so I packaged it up for our neighbor as a thank you!

Double Chocolate Croissant Bread Pudding - by Lisa

2012-01-04T14:23:00.001-06:00

Yes, I confess I was putting off making this one. However, I did not mean to put it off thru the end of the month! Whoops! I wish I had re-read Summer's entry before making this because I would have done half the recipe. Oh well, live and learn. :)

Anyway, I will be the first to admit that I am not a fan of bread pudding which is the main reason why I wasn't excited about making this. However, I was VERY pleasantly surprised over how tasty this was! The croissants added a delightful crisp that took away the usual weird texture issues I have with bread pudding.

Mmmm....chocolate. Need I say more?

And the chocolate, oh my the chocolate decadence! Yes, I was cursing the chocolate during the whole chopping process, but boy oh boy was it worth it! I did use the chocolate croissants as well.

The whole house smelled divine while this was baking.

Pre-bake resting time

The dish did puff up quite a bit - enough to truly surprise me. But as Beth indicated, it fell gently as it cooled.

Oh the puff!

Seriously! Check out the puffiness of this monster!

The one downside to making this dish was the prep time. I started working on it a little after 8, and we didn't get to sample it until close to 11pm. I think I lost quite a bit of time to the chocolate chopping which really shouldn't surprise me. The milk chocolate was easy to chop, but the semi-sweet was harder and just a lot more time intensive. We enjoyed it thoroughly on its own without feeling the need to add any ice cream or whipped cream. Now I wished I'd made it sooner to share over the holidays!

Pistachio-Cranberry Bars - by Lisa

2012-01-04T14:13:00.003-06:00

I did actually get these made in December. It just took me a ridiculously long time to put the actual post up for it! These were really easy to make. Like Summer mentioned, the hardest part was shelling and chopping the pistachios. One other tough thing was keeping myself from devouring all of the pistachios before getting them into the recipe! :D

I never have luck with a pastry cutter, so I did use the food processor for the crust. This was super easy to put together and also very tasty! I made them a couple days ahead of Christmas and brought them to my sister's house to share with the family. I liked them a lot and a few family members said the same. I could certainly see myself making these again.

Chocolate Rum Balls - by Summer

2011-12-31T12:55:00.000-06:00

I put off making these so long, that I actually went through one package of Oreos . . . they are dangerous to keep in the house! At first I wasn't going to use my food processor to make these. We are making progress with the kids being less scared of it, but it isn't very big, so I wasn't sure if it would all fit. Plus, I thought it would be a great activity for my little guy to help me out when I was pounding the Oreos.

After pounding out the cookies, I decided that they weren't crushed enough, so I put them into the food processor with the rest of the dry ingredients and pulsed them together. It just barely fit, so I mixed the rum and honey by hand and let it rest in the fridge for a few hours.

He liked to flatten them

While I was rolling them into balls, my son wanted to help make the "cookies" as he called them. My mom helped him roll out a few.

These were easier to roll into balls than the truffles. I just used black sprinkles, since I had a huge supply of them. Like Lisa, I agree that they tasted a little strong with the rum. But they were easy and make a great gift or hostess present.

Currant-Cranberry Spice Cake - by Summer

2011-12-22T11:49:00.000-06:00

I have seen dried currants (at least the same ones that Lisa used) many times at my regular grocery store, but when I went to pick some up for this recipe - I couldn't find any. I found regular currants, but the recipe specifically called for dried ones, so off I went to different stores in search of currents. I finally found some.

It didn't occur to me until I was making the cake that I wonder what type of canned cranberry I should be using - jellied or whole berry sauce? I picked up some of the jellied and crossed my fingers that it was the right stuff to use.

This cake came together quickly and smelled pretty yummy. I should mention that the recipe said to spray the pan with cooking spray and then flour it. I had disastrous results with this - too much cooking spray, so I just washed the pan and then used butter and flour. I did add the walnuts to the batter since I had them on hand. My cake baked for about 48 minutes and it was done. It didn't rise a whole lot, so I was a little worried.

After it came out of the oven, I was inspired by my leftover jellied cranberry sauce. I decided to make a cranberry glaze with it. I warmed it over the oven and added powdered sugar and whisked away. It was a nice pretty color pink.

I enjoyed the cake. A friend of mine commented that it reminded him of carrot cake - I think it was the combination of currants and walnuts. I agree. It's a nice simple cake. I can see substituting raisins instead of the currants in the future since they are way easier to find and I usually have them on hand.

Pistachio-Cranberry Bars - by Summer

2011-12-13T19:07:00.002-06:00

These bars are perfect for this time of year. I love making cookies for the holidays and I am always looking for new recipes. What could be more festive than green pistachios and red cranberries? This recipe is easy, although there were a few tedious steps. Shelling the pistachios wasn't so fun and then chopping them took up the most time. Since I have a love/hate relationship with my food processor, I once again opted to make the crust using a pastry blender.

When purchasing ingredients for this recipe, I accidentally bought evaporated milk. In my head sweetened condensed milk and evaporated milk are the same thing. Don't be fooled - they are very, very different!

One of my favorite things about this recipe was the fact that there were so few ingredients. They tasted very different than I was expecting (my husband said the same thing too). They were much sweeter - even with the tart cranberries. I like them and found them quite addicting. However, I was surprised that the nuts weren't very crunchy. I am curious to see what would happen if you use a different type of nut, like pecans. I will definitely making this cookie again!

Double Chocolate Croissant Bread Pudding - by Summer

2011-12-13T18:53:00.000-06:00

I was excited to try this recipe when my parents were in town. My dad likes bread pudding and hadn't had any in years. I found a French bakery that sells chocolate croissants, so we were in business. This was quite easy to make - tear up croissants, whip some eggs and cream and melt some chocolate.

Pour the liquid over the croissants, let sit and bake. I was excited because this was suppose to be rich with chocolate.

The reviews were mixed on this. I felt there was too much bread and it wasn't chocolately enough. My mom thought it was too chocolately. My dad didn't think there was enough "pudding" and it just wasn't my husbands cup of tea.

In hindsight, I probably should have made half of a recipe. Even sharing with my parents - it was way too much. I actually wouldn't mind try making it again, but I would use less croissants. And I think I would skip the chocolate ones (they are more expensive) and just add chocolate chips like the recipe suggested.

Chocolate Rum Balls - by Lisa

2011-12-11T21:13:00.001-06:00

Let's get ready to rummmmmmballlllll! LOL! We received an invite several weeks ago to our neighbors' annual Christmas party so I knew instantly when I'd make these treats. :)

These were really really easy to make. The only extra items I needed to pick up were the cookies (I used Trader Joe's Joe Joes) and sprinkles. Since it is the holiday season, I decided to roll them in Christmas themed sprinkles to make them a little more festive. :)

Initially, I didn't think everything would fit in my food processor, but I need not have worried - it worked out beautifully!

The dry ingredients came together smoothly, and then I added the rum and honey. Since I had a busy weekend coming up, I made up the mixture 2 days ahead of time stuck it in the fridge until I was ready to roll out the balls. As it is, the recipe suggest allowing a day or so for the flavors to develop.

When it was time to roll, I let the mixture warm up for 20 min or so, and this wasn't nearly as messy as the truffles. However, I did need to go out and get more sprinkles for the last 10 or so rum balls. I wound up using about 2 1/2 bottles total.

Before heading out to the party, I sampled one so I would know how they tasted. Unfortunately, these didn't really grab me. The rum was pretty overpowering in my opinion. I guess I prefer my rum in mixed drink form! However, those who did try them really liked them, so I guess I just have a sensitive palette! :)

Current-Cranberry Spice Cake - by Lisa

2011-12-11T20:47:00.001-06:00

Mmmm...spice cake. Can't really go wrong with spice cake and this recipe did not disappoint! :) I swear, the whole house smelled delicious while this was baking. I had most of the ingredients I needed for this except for the currants. To be honest, I didn't know exactly what currants are; just that they are some sort of dried fruit something. I knew my regular grocer had a decently stocked aisle for dried fruits, but I was surprised to find only one brand for these! After I got home, I looked up the actual definition of currants and learned that what I got ("zante" currants) are actually not real currants. Doh!

So my next trial was locating my bundt pan. Since I have about 1/3 of the cabinet space I used to, I have to store some of my baking pans I don't use as much. I've been meaning to inventory those items, so I don't have to do what I did that night. Off to the closets and basement I went digging thru bins until I finally unearthed it!

Everything came together pretty well, and I got it all poured in the pan and ready for the oven.

The cake was done after a little over 50 minutes. I didn't get any decent photos of it out of the pan, but let me tell you it was very yummy! My whole family devoured it in a matter of days! :)

Maple Walnut Pie - by Summer

2011-11-28T20:28:00.001-06:00

I was pretty excited to make this pie. I love pecan pie, but have never made it before and this seemed like a variation of that pie. I figured if I could make this one, then I can make a pecan one! I had trouble finding Grade B maple syrup and I have a sick toddler. I didn't feel like dragging him to every store, so we settle for some Grade A.

This recipe calls for a frozen pie crust. I, however, do not like the taste of frozen pie crusts (yes, I can tell the difference), so I opted to make my own. This recipe was so easy - I managed to pull it all together right before dinner and then get that ready while the pie was baking in the oven.

I think that the frozen pie crusts must be a little smaller, because even though I used my small pie plate, I felt as though there wasn't enough filling and too many walnuts. But I loved this pie and my husband liked it too! In fact, I even had to have seconds. I would definitely make this again, but maybe use slightly less walnuts.

Chocolate Pumpkin Truffles - by Lisa

2011-11-28T14:33:00.001-06:00

My sister hosted Thanksgiving for our side of the family this year, and I jumped on the chance to bring along some dessert! I figured these would be a nice little treat, and they seemed to go over real well! Summer and I were on nearly the same wavelength while making these. I also re-made the gingersnaps from earlier in the month, and she clued me in on the need to chill the mixture for longer than the recipe suggests. Since I had my little one underfoot all afternoon, I got the mix put together and then shoved it in the fridge for a few hours.

As for the ingredients for this recipe, I was doing some shopping at Trader Joe's and decided to see if I could get everything I needed there. I am pleased to report that I could! :) Of course, you really can't go wrong with this much chocolate. :)

I think I chilled the mixture for a little too long, because it was sort of hard to scoop out, and I had to pause for a couple of hand-washings in between since my hands were becoming too much of a sticky mess to be able to make the balls. (I remembered much later that last time I made truffles, I used plastic gloves!) I wound up with 24 truffles.

I thought these were pretty yummy too. I loved the ginger bite that they had. I'm not sure I'd go to the trouble of making them again, but I did enjoy eating them!

Also thought I'd mention that I turned the Pumpkin Mousse into a pie with crumbled gingersnaps on top. It turned out great!! It just might have to become an annual tradition. :)

Chocolate Pumpkin Truffles - by Summer

2011-11-28T13:17:00.001-06:00

I was excited to make these because it was an excuse to make the gingersnap cookies again! Other than that ingredient, I had everything else on hand to make these. The kids and I were invited to a friend's house for Thanksgiving (husband had to go out of town), so these seemed like the perfect thing to bring to Thanksgiving dinner.

Since my little guy is obsessed with all things in the kitchen lately, I thought maybe his fear of the food processor would be behind him. Unfortunately that is a big no! The minute I pulled it out, big tears ensued, so I had to wait until he was done eating and in another room to grind up the gingersnaps. I used 20 cookies and had more than enough crumbs - way more than the recipe called for, actually. I was a bit bummed because that meant less cookies for us to eat!

Making these was super easy. I discovered that the chilling time (10 minutes) way not nearly enough time. I ended up having the mixture in the fridge for about 25 minutes and then in the freezer for another 6 or so before I could finally roll them into balls. I got 23 truffles out of the recipe. I wasn't in love with these which is sort of funny since I love chocolate, pumpkin and gingersnaps. I guess just not a combination of all three. However, they were a big hit at Thanksgiving, so I could see making them again for a party or to give away.

I also want to note that the recipe only calls for 1/4 cup of pumpkin. I didn't know what to do with the rest, so I put it in the fridge and a couple of days later, I found this recipe for pumpkin muffins which was super easy and very yummy!

Pumpkin Mousse - by Lisa

2011-11-22T19:59:00.001-06:00

While we were living in WA, I didn't get many opportunities to share my baked goods aside from sending in stuff with Hubby to his work. Now that we're back in IL, along with many more social opportunities, I have been thoroughly enjoying spreading the baked goods love. :) This past weekend, our neighborhood got together for an early Thanksgiving meal. I thought this was such a cool idea, and man was there some amazing food there! I also jumped on the opportunity to make something from our recipe list to share. I had already decided to bring the truffles to Thanksgiving at my sister's house, so I opted to make the mousse.

Since I knew there would be a lot of people at our pre-Thanksgiving dinner, I decided to double the recipe and then divide evenly among clear plastic cups. This was super easy to make although it did require a little bit of babysitting while it cooled. Since I can't tolerate nutmeg, I made my own pumpkin pie spice substituting a little more cinnamon in the absence of nutmeg.

Next time, I might try using allspice as a stand in for the nutmeg. I cooked it in a much larger pan (4qt) and cooked it for closer to 7-8 minutes since the volume was much larger. I did have a bit of a challenge folding in the whipped cream since there was just so much.

After it cooled, I spooned it into the aforementioned plastic cups and set them loosely covered in the refrigerator for about two hours. My finishing touch was sticking a fresh baked gingersnap cookie in each cup. (That recipe is seeing A LOT of action this month!)

Walking in, they generated some buzz among the crowd. :) After a fantastic dinner, I served up the cups. They were devoured! Everyone seemed to really enjoy them, and there wasn't much left over! I also found it to be super yummy, and I am generally not a fan of pumpkin! I am looking forward to doing something a little bit different with this recipe this weekend for our final Thanksgiving dinner at my in-laws. :)

Gingersnaps - by Lisa

2011-11-15T12:21:00.001-06:00

Oh man, this recipe started out looking so simple, but yet I wound up with a couple of missteps that made for a frustrating morning! Of course, I was too distracted and a bit hurried which is what lead to me to my mistakes, but luckily, neither issue seemed to affect the final product! Hooray!

I actually had everything I needed for this recipe, well after some hunting I did anyway. My house tends to eat things and spit them back out in unexpected locations. This time it was the ground clove! Luckily I was able to find it without making an emergency run to the store.

So my first error was completely overlooking the part of the recipe that says to mix 1 cup of sugar in with the butter. I dumped in the full 1.5 cups noted in the ingredients totally forgetting I was supposed to reserve the remaining half cup for rolling. By the time I figured that out, it was way too late. Error number two came when I went to dump the flour mixture into the bowl. I usually sift onto a sheet of waxed paper and use that to transfer the flour mixture over. Well, somehow one side of the waxed paper slipped out of my fingers, and I suddenly had a mess all over my counter top.

If it were just flour I would have remeasured the remainder and added what I needed. But this had a bunch of spices, salt and the leavener mixed in, so....I dug out my silicon scraper and put it to work! That sucker did an amazing job of gathering and scooping up the mess!

After getting the flour mix into the bowl, I took a note from Summer, and used the mixer to stir it all together. Next I rolled the dough into balls and debated over rolling them in more sugar since I'd already inadvertently amped up the sugar content. I quickly realized the dough would stick to the glass when flattening them, so I went ahead with the extra sugar.

These baked up super nice and were ready to come out after about 8 min (convection). I ended up with about 4 1/2 dozen cookies. I took some over to a chili party, and they were devoured pretty quickly! I also really like how they taste, and I was relieved to find that the extra sugar didn't cancel out any of the flavor of the ginger and clove. Whew! I will definitely add these into my regular cookie rotation!

Pumpkin Mousse - by Summer

2011-11-14T13:39:00.001-06:00

I really love all things pumpkin. I was intrigued by this recipe and I actually made this last week, but haven't been able to get around to posting about it until now. It's a pretty easy recipe - I just needed to buy the whipping cream, but I had everything else on had. First you cook up the pumpkin mix and then whip cream, fold together and chill!

I did serve with anything but a little bit of extra whipping cream on top. I personally needed a little crunch or something with it. Beth suggests serving with gingersnaps, but sadly we ate all of ours before I made this one. My husband thought it might be good as a pie with a graham cracker crust. I think it would be good as a pie with a gingersnap crust! It was really like a pumpkin pie that was whipped up. Very tasty!

Gingersnaps - by Summer

2011-11-07T20:48:00.000-06:00

I picked this recipe because it seemed like a good fall recipe. I am so glad I picked it. It's one of those cookies that seemed like it would be hard to make. But that couldn't be further than the truth. The only special ingredient that I needed to pick up was the molasses. I had some blackstrap molasses, but I didn't know if that would work, so I just picked up some regular molasses.

This dough came together very quickly. The recipe said to mix the flour with the butter/sugar/molasses mixture by hand. In hindsight, I would have used the mixer on the stir setting. The dough was pretty stiff.

Next up is forming the dough into balls, rolling in sugar, and then flattening into discs. A funny note - my little guy (who now must ALWAYS help me bake) said they looked like donuts (donut holes more precisely) when I rolled them into balls.

I popped them in the oven and they baked for 11 or 10 minutes depending on the pan I used. I have 2 air-bake cookie sheets and the cookies baked for 11 minutes on those, but they turned out better. Next time I will only use those pans. And believe me, there will be a next time. I loved this cookie. We all did in my family. I baked them on Saturday and by today (Monday), they are all gone! I definitely will add this cookie to my regular cookie making list!

Maple Walnut Pie - by Lisa

2011-11-04T18:12:00.001-05:00

Can I just say how much I love that Beth advocates the use of pre-made pie crusts? It takes so much stress off my shoulders! :) I had to pick up a few extra things for the recipe - the heavy cream, pie crust, and maple syrup. She recommended the grade B maple syrup for its sweeter flavor. I lucked out that my favorite grocer carries quite the variety of maple syrup, and I was actually able to find a bottle of the grade B variety. Before the recipe, I never knew such a thing existed! I had plenty of walnuts hanging out in the freezer from a prior recipe, so I didn't need to worry about picking up any more of those.

Putting this together was fairly straightforward. I had no problems toasting the walnuts, and the filling was easy to assemble.

I was even able to make use of Hubby's bourbon for this recipe. As suggested, I checked the pie every 10 min, and in the final 10 minutes, I added a pie crust ring to prevent the edges from burning. My pie seemed ready at about 38 minutes so I pulled it out to let it cool.

We were too hungry to let it completely cool, so after about 30 min we dug in. I found the texture to be good, but the flavor just didn't grab me. However, Hubby practically devoured his slice and went back for seconds. There isn't much left today! I probably wouldn't make this one again, but I'm glad I got to try it!

Pineapple Upside Down Cake - by Lisa

2011-10-31T20:55:00.000-05:00

I've never been a huge fan of pineapple upside down cake, but my husband has a fondness for it, so I was looking forward to seeing how he liked it. It was pretty easy to make. I think the longest part was cutting the pineapple (which Hubby helped with) and laying it out over the caramel. I also noticed that the batter was really thick and was a little concerned it wouldn't spread easily over the pineapple and caramel. I needn't have worried tho! I had no problem spreading it.

Since I am still working on learning my oven, I set the timer 10 min shorter that the minimum recommended baking time. Well, about 27 min in, it started smelling really good. I did the toothpick test and it came out clean, so I gave it a couple more minutes and then pulled it out of the oven. I let it rest 5 min before inverting it on the plate. Once I did that I noticed the top of the cake was awfully gooey. So like a fool I dumped it back into the pan and popped it back into the oven for another 10 min!!! When I pulled it out the second time, it seemed a little more cooked, but not by much, so I figured maybe that's just how it is supposed to be.

We got to share this cake with my niece Katie (who was babysitting for us that night) and then again with Hubby's mom and his sister the following day. Finally! Sharing these baking projects with lots of people! :) Anywho, everyone thoroughly enjoyed this treat, including me! I loved the little bit of kick the ginger added, and the caramel was just divine. I was very happy with how it turned out and how much I liked it! :)

Pineapple Upside Down Cake - by Summer

2011-10-27T21:11:00.004-05:00

Lately I haven't been very deliberate about making the desserts, especially this month. But this was the one exception. My Grandma is turning 90 on Monday and this weekend we are headed to Wisconsin to celebrate her birthday with lots of family. Her favorite cake is pineapple upside down cake. There is going to be cake at her party, but I thought I would make this before we left, and bring her a slice.

My little guy - ready to help

It seems like this would be a hard cake to make, but really, it was super easy. I bought pineapple that was already cored from the store to help save a step. The caramel was easy - just brown sugar and butter. I thought maybe I could have let it cook longer, because it still seemed pretty grainy.

The batter for the actual cake was simple - but was pretty stiff. I was surprised at the amount of ginger the recipe has - 2 teaspoons. I chose to omit the rum that was listed as an optional ingredient. The batter spread nicely over the pineapple and into the oven it went. The cake baked for 40 minutes and it was ready to come out. I thought for sure while it was baking that I had completely messed this up. I could smell caramel burning, but it was simply because it was bubbling up and over the pan. Next time I would place foil underneath to catch any caramel.

I was pretty excited to dig in after waiting about 10 minutes (5 to remove cake from pan and another 5 that Beth says to wait before serving.) It turned out way better than I expected. I thought the ginger flavor was a bit strong, but I really like this cake. I had some later at night, but decided that I like the taste of it best when it was warm - just out of the oven. I sure hope my Grandma likes it too!

Baked - just out of the oven

Just out of the pan!

Baked Apples - by Lisa

2011-10-26T21:23:00.000-05:00

Why I kept putting this one off is beyond me. It was so easy to make and tasted oh so good! Hubby said he was trying hard to eat it slowly so that he could savor each bite! I pretty much had everything I needed on hand, and both the cider and (Jonagold) apples were fresh from a recent visit to the local orchard! I had to make sure to get these baked before we polished off all the cider!

Like Summer mentioned, I was a little apprehensive about using a melon baller to remove the cores, but I was pleasantly surprised by how well it worked! It really made a nice size well in the apple for the filling.

The apples softened pretty nicely although one lost most of its peel during the last 15 min. Again, the whole house smelled delicious. I just love baking fall themed items when the weather turns! These will definitely be something I make again. :)

Pumpkin Bread - by Lisa

2011-10-24T18:59:00.000-05:00

I know I had every intention of spreading out my baking throughout the month. However, Hubby was out of town for two weeks, so that made baking a bit of a challenge! Besides, it's not as much fun when he isn't here to sample the goods. :)

Oh my - this bread made the whole house smell amazing! Pumpkin flavored items are hit or miss for me, but this one was for sure a winner (of "full of win" as some would say). I included everything listed in the recipe save for the nutmeg and walnuts. The only thing I needed to purchase for this recipe was the canned pumpkin which is no problem to find this time of year! :) I also didn't have quite enough mini-chocolate chips on hand, so I added in about a quarter cup of regular cc's.

This recipe was super easy to whip up this afternoon. The bread cooked for about 50 min on the convection setting. I let it cool for about an hour before I could no longer resist trying a bite. The bread was perfectly moist and the chips were evenly distributed. The pumpkin flavoring was just right, and the whole thing was simply delicious! I will definitely be adding this to my list of quick bread recipes!

Cherry Clafouti - by Summer

2011-10-24T13:09:00.002-05:00

After reading Lisa's post on this one, I decided to make this on Sunday morning for a late breakfast. I had my little guy help stir the flour and powdered sugar (truth be told - he asked a fork once I had put the two of them in a bowl - he knows his task when I bake something!) Like Lisa - the only two things I had to pick up were the half and half and cherries.

I was expecting this to be similar to an apple pancake that is baked in the oven, but it was definitely more custard-like. I also let mine bake for almost 60 minutes. It might have even cooked for longer.

It had an interesting taste. Because it was more custard than cake - I wasn't a huge fan. Of course you know who did like this? My son . . . his response was "yummy! More?!"

Baked Apples - by Summer

2011-10-21T10:03:00.000-05:00

We finally have some nice cool fall weather, so I couldn't wait to try making these apples. The only thing that I needed to pick up extra was the apple cider for this recipe. And then I had to keep my husband from drinking all of it before I made this recipe.

It was actually fun to put together. I wasn't too sure about using a melon baller to get the core out of the apple, but it worked really well. I managed to get these in the oven just before we sat down to eat dinner. I had to get up a few times to baste the apples with the apple cider, but it was super easy to make.

I really liked the taste of the apples and the filling. I thought they could have baked a little bit longer. They weren't quite as mushy as I would have wanted them to be. I don't know why it always seemed like making baked apples would be a lot harder. My son thought these were really tasty too.

Pumpkin Bread - by Summer

2011-10-15T21:35:00.001-05:00

One of my favorite things about fall is pumpkin! I love pumpkin-stuff and only discovered it as an adult. I'm always searching for new recipes that include pumpkin - cakes, cookies, pies . . . so I was thrilled to make this pumpkin bread recipe. October is the perfect time for pumpkins!

Stirring the flour mixture

This recipe was really easy to make. I have canned pumpkin on hand, so I didn't have to make any additional purchases for this recipe. My little guy loves baking, so he helped me make the bread! It's super easy to pull everything together. The recipe called for mini-chocolate chips, which I didn't have. I thought about putting in regular chocolate chips, but my husband likes his quick breads (banana/zucchini) plain, so I omitted them.

Mine baked for about 60 minutes. My pan was slightly larger than 9x5, so I think it could have been pulled out a couple of minutes sooner. I really like the flavor of this bread. I think the ground cloves is what made the difference. I will definitely be making this bread again and again. As my son would say - "Yummy!"

Cherry Clafouti - by Lisa

2011-10-09T19:32:00.000-05:00

In an effort to get a better start on the baking for this month, I have completed recipe number one before the last week of the month! Woo hoo! I decided to start with the Cherry Clafouti (pronounced clah-foo-TEE in case you were wondering). I wish I had started it earlier in the day because this would have made for a really yummy brunch treat!

This came together really easily. So easy in fact that I was able to simultaneously feed my one year old his lunch while working on this dish without messing anything up. :) The ingredient list was clean and simple. The only things I didn't have on hand were the frozen cherries and half 'n' half. I also got a chuckle out of a couple of Beth's parenthetical comments in this recipe. (Use the egg whites for breakfast tomorrow! Use the whole egg, but not the egg shells, of course!) I like recipes that liven things up a little. :)

I baked this for a little over 40 minutes in my smaller convection oven. The finished product came out looking very similar to the photo in the cook book, so it was easier to know when it was done. After letting it cool for about 10 minutes, Hubby and I each had our slice. We both agreed that it was very reminiscent of pancakes. I mentioned to him that it was meant to be like a cross between a pancake and a custard. I was a little weirded out by the texture, but I got over it fairly quickly. It will be neat to try this again with different kinds of fruits.

Before

After

Cool Blueberry Soup - by Summer

2011-10-01T08:00:00.000-05:00

I guess I should have held off on this pick since blueberry season is over with this year. But like Lisa, I went the frozen blueberry route and I think it turned out fine. I was intrigued by this recipe because I have never heard of blueberry soup before and I have never had Greek yogurt either.

As Lisa mentioned, this was very easy - you throw into a pot and let it cook. I do not have any sort of wine collection, so I just picked a pretty cheap white wine out. I also decided to cut the recipe in half so we wouldn't have a ton of leftovers. I decided to forgo the food processor and just used my hand masher to mash the blueberry mixture. It worked great and there were still a few lumps.

I really liked this soup a lot. While I was eating it, I thought about how it sort of tasted like a sauce and then had a brilliant idea. I took some leftover pound cake and had that with the soup - very, very tasty! I would definitely make this again!

Strawberry Ice Cream Cupcakes - by Lisa

2011-09-29T19:57:00.000-05:00

Man am I lucky these were easy recipes this month! I was a damn fool for saving them all for the end of the month, especially after our summer break! Next month I will be doing a much better job of managing my time!

This one was so simple to put together, I decided in the middle of dinner that it would be dessert tonight. I even used it as leverage to get my 3 year old to eat all his dinner! :)

There isn't much to analyze in this recipe, except to point out that I still can't make a decent scoop of ice cream to save my life! LOL! And yes, even though I *did* spend a couple of years working at Swensen's Ice Cream parlor, I was never a conehead! LOL! Anywho, this treat was a big hit with with my husband and older son. They loved it, and I thought it was pretty tasty too!

Coconut Rice Pudding - by Lisa

2011-09-29T19:50:00.000-05:00

So this was one of my "get it out of the way" picks as I am not a fan of rice pudding. I do however, like coconut, so I thought maybe this one would win me over in the taste department.

I bought all the ingredients a couple weeks ago, but didn't have the chance to actually make it until last night. As I was getting thru all the steps, I thought I ran into a snag. I noticed one of the cans of coconut milk wasn't shaking up too well. When I opened the can, I saw this:

I don't do to well when I expect food items to look one way and then they look like something else. I was a little panicked and also annoyed at the prospect of having to go back to the store on an emergency run. But Hubby came to the rescue when he discovered that all the liquid was trapped on the bottom. After stirring up the can a little, it looked totally fine. Whew!

The "hardest" part of this recipe was essentially babysitting the pudding as it cooked. Otherwise, it was a really easy one to put together. I also got to toast coconut for the very first time. Never knew it was so easy!

I honestly wasn't looking forward to tasting this one. I have a very strong reaction to certain textures in food. Unfortunately, this was one of them. I thought the flavor was awesome, but the rice in the pudding just did not sit well with me. Maybe I could try it again one day and strain out the rice at the end? :) Hubby however, really enjoyed it! So at least he and they boys can enjoy it this weekend while I'm visiting Summer! :)

Strawberry Ice Cream Cupcakes - by Summer

2011-09-27T20:54:00.004-05:00

I have to admit up front that I did no baking for this dessert. I was running out of time this month and this recipe actually doesn't say that you have to bake the pound cake for these cupcakes, so I didn't. In fact, I didn't even whip my own cream.

That said - I loved these! I would totally make these for a birthday party or just when having a bunch of people over. It's quick, fun and tasty!

Here are my ingredients assembled. I actually decided since I had some homemade raspberry jam from my mother-in-law, I would make them with a raspberry flavor. When I was at the store, I bought some raspberry gelato instead of ice cream. I think the next time I would do the same thing but use chocolate cake - yum! I loved these! So easy and oh so good!!!

Cool Blueberry Soup - by Lisa

2011-09-27T13:01:00.000-05:00

Lucky for me, the recipes this month are pretty straight forward. This one requires little more than placing all the ingredients in a sauce pan, cooking it down, pureeing, and then chilling. I did have to go on a hunt thru our wine collection for a dry white. I settled on one from the Whidbey Island Winery which is just north of Seattle; not far from where we used to live. :)

Since blueberry season is pretty well over, I opted to go with the frozen berries. I also included the cinnamon stick. The only thing I needed to pick up from the store were the blueberries themselves! This was really easy to make and simply required some time committed to stirring and watching the stove top. I opted to let it sit overnight and we enjoyed some today for an early afternoon treat.

I wasn't sure what to expect at all, but as I was stirring in the yogurt, I realized it looked an awful lot like a smoothie. And since I pureed it in the Vitamix, it turned out with a pretty smooth consistency. I decided to pour it into a glass and drink it thru a straw. :)

My husband tried it first, and found he really liked it! I tried mine next and found it to be delightfully tart yet sweet at the same time. This would be a neat appetizer to serve for a dinner party, tho I would probably opt to leave it a little chunkier to give it more of a "soupy" quality. It would also be fun to try it with different kinds of wine to see how the flavor changes.

Almond-Raspberry Cake - by Lisa

2011-09-27T12:57:00.000-05:00

Uh, wow where did this month disappear to? Nothing like waiting until the end of the month to START baking the first of four recipes! I opted to start with this one since I bought the raspberries for it knowing we were quickly heading out of season.

I didn't think I'd like this one so much since I didn't think I was a big fan of almonds. But I decided to snack on a couple of leftover almond slices and found that I really liked them! Who knew? :) The only things I really needed for this recipe were the almond paste and raspberries. I lucked out and found the 7oz tube of almond paste (something I've never bought nor heard of before!) at my regular grocery store.

Everything came together pretty easily, although the butter/almond paste/sugar mixture didn't get quite as fluffy as I expected. I don't think it negatively affected anything tho. I also opted to go with the almond extract over the vanilla extract, altho I briefly considered doing half of each.

Since moving into our new place, I've been a little hesitant with the new oven. On one hand I am absolutely in LOVE with it. It is an AGA Legacy - a dream stove/oven! But on the other hand, it is a bit temperamental and I've had some challenges in learning how to bake with it. I've burned a few things already, so I was super extra cautious in watching this cake. I used the convection setting, set the temp about 20 degrees lower, set the timer for 10 min less than the minimum suggested bake time, and watched the cake like a hawk! I'm glad I set the bake time for what I did, because it was ready to come out at 25 min!

After letting it cool for about 20 min, my husband and I dug in. It definitely had a nice spongy texture and very pleasant taste. The raspberries give it a nice pop of flavor as well. I am quite happy with how it turned out and tasted and would certainly consider serving this at a brunch type event. (PS - Sorry about some of these photos. I'm also learning how to work with a new lens on my camera!)

Coconut Rice Pudding - by Summer

2011-09-20T19:40:00.000-05:00

I can't remember if I have ever had rice pudding before. I have to say, I wasn't overly excited to make this recipe. I do like coconut and I have liked the pudding recipes that we have made so far, so I figured I probably would like this one too. I do like making pudding, because it's tasty and so easy to make. And since it's easy, I was all about trying to make this one this week. The little ones haven't been sleeping the greatest, so I am a little behind myself in that area.

This dish has relatively few ingredients and the only thing that I had to purchase was the rice and coconut milk. It took a total of about 30 minutes to make. I think I could have let it cook for a couple of minutes longer. Basically you put everything in the sauce pan and let it cook for 25 minutes. While it was cooking, I toasted coconut in my toaster oven.

After it cooled for 15 minutes, I spooned some into a bowl and topped with the toasted coconut. I wanted to taste it warm. I really liked the taste and the texture. My son tried some, after a little convincing, and at first he said "mmmm . . ." and then he said "yummy!" I tried it again tonight after dinner and it still tasted good chilled. I honestly can't decide which way I like it better. I am now really excited to try the regular rice pudding, perhaps next month :-)

Almond-Raspberry Cake - by Summer

2011-09-04T11:38:00.000-05:00

We're back! It was so nice to have the summer off, but I have been itching to get back to baking! It was super hot here in MN, so I was glad that I didn't have to turn on the oven for a few weeks, but now it's September and that means fall, right?

To kick off Labor Day weekend, I decided to try the Almond-Raspberry Cake. It's the end of berry season, but I thought we could sneak one recipe in! This is a very easy little cake to make. The only ingredients that I needed to pick up were the almond paste and raspberries. The recipe calls for 7 oz tube of the almond paste, but my grocery store only had cans that were 8 oz. No problem - I just used my kitchen scale and scooped out 1 oz and then used the rest of the can.

We also had a choice of vanilla or almond extract, and I opted to go with almond. I have it on hand and vary rarely use it, so I thought this would be perfect. The smell of the batter is unmistakeably almond, that's for sure.

It baked up in 35 minutes, although the edges looked a little dark. I am worried it baked too long and I probably should have checked it about 2-3 minutes sooner. The middle looked light, but it was most definitely done.

We all loved this cake. It actually seemed to taste better after letting it sit wrapped in plastic overnight. Even though I thought I might have over-baked it, wasn't dry at all. My mom thought it tasted like a shortbread cake. I would definitely make this again. It was easy and very tasty. Although next time I might try adding a glaze over the top (my dad's suggestion).

Sweetie Pie

2011-07-02T19:00:00.001-05:00

Just a quick post to announce the birth of my daughter, Edith Ann. She was born on Thursday, June 30th at 10:09 pm. She is 9 lbs, 10 oz and 22 inches long.

Sesame-Oat-Pecan Cookies - by Summer

2011-06-24T20:54:00.000-05:00

Finally - I am finishing up the last recipe for May. I know I have been so slow to finish up these last few. I don't have any reason other than the fact that I haven't felt like baking and am so tired.

I got everything ready this morning and pulled out the food processor. Immediately my son started panicking and crying. Apparently he will still traumatized from the last time I used it. So, I actually had to wait until he went down for his nap before making the cookies. The dough was very, very sticky.

I remembered Lisa's post about having issues with the cookies spreading, so I took Beth's advice and chilled the dough. I was only going to chill it for about 30 minutes, but it ended up being more like a few hours. I was worried the dough would be really hard, but it wasn't. It scooped up just fine.

The cookies baked for 11 minutes and fortunately they didn't spread too much. They are rather chewy and definitely have a unique flavor. I can't say that I love them, but I have never had another cookie like them before. My husband also thought they tasted interesting and commented on the after taste. My son, who saw my husband eating the cookies, wanted a bite and he seemed to enjoy them quite a bit!

Lisa and I will be taking a hiatus this summer. I am due (overdue to be exact) to have my second child any day now and Lisa is getting ready to move back to the Midwest (HURRAY!!) We'll be back in September after things have settled down for both of us. Have a great summer!

Caramelized Banana Bread Pudding - By Summer

2011-06-10T16:02:00.000-05:00

Oh dear - I am so behind in making the rest of the May recipes. My only excuse is that I am 9 1/2 months pregnant and desperately trying to get ready for baby number 2. I think we are finally ready, so now I can get back to the baking. Unfortunately at the beginning of this week, the weather was in the 90's and 100's!! Craziness! I could not justify turning on the oven during those temps. But it's nice and cool now, ad nI am hoping to finish up in the next couple of days!

I was really excited that Lisa picked this recipe. I was very close to picking it for this month myself. I haven't ever had bread pudding, but the caramelized and banana part sound really good to me! The recipe calls for a 9 x 13 pan, which I know is far more than we could ever go through, so I decided to cut the recipe in half and made it in an 8 x 8 pan instead.

It's actually quite easy to make this, so I don't know why I was putting it off. I didn't have any trouble finding the Challah bread. My only problem is that the loaf was really big (24 oz) and the recipe calls for 12 oz. But never fear - I would not let that bread go to waste. I figure it would be perfect for French toast and it was! I also realize as I am typing up this post - I did a great job of halving everything in the recipe, but the amount of bread! I used the full 12 oz, so it may not have as much pudding . . .

Mine didn't cook for quite 60 minutes, which probably isn't surprising given the fact that I had way more bread than needed and the pan was smaller. I liked the taste of the bread, but I wasn't a fan of the bananas in it. They were way too sweet for me (I know - shocking - too sweet!). I am definitely interested in trying this again, but with the right proportions and maybe minus the bananas.

Carrot Cupcakes - by Lisa

2011-05-27T21:43:00.000-05:00

I have been a baking fool this week! One early in the week, and then a recipe a day these last 3 days! Whew! I have to say, these tasty little cupcakes were by far my favorite of this month's choices. It's been awhile since I had carrot cake, and I've always enjoyed it. These cupcakes took it to a whole new level, and I loved the spicy kick that the ginger brought to them. I also made the cream cheese frosting to go on top, but I took a cue from Summer and made just half a batch of the frosting. It seems like that was the perfect amount!

These were really easy to throw together. I got to use the carrots from our local CSA, and the only special ingredients I needed to purchase were the crushed pineapple and orange marmalade. Like Summer, my batter also yielded 14 cupcakes, so I had two extra little guys to bake off at the end.

I got to share these with friends of ours and they were an instant win! And of course, Caiden's eyes lit up when he saw them lined up on the counter. He got to have one as a special treat, and he loved it! I look forward to making these again!

Sesame-Oat-Pecan Cookies - by Lisa

2011-05-26T22:14:00.000-05:00

Oh man. I knew this would have to happen at some point. Baking FAIL. I do not know what on earth I did wrong here. Judging by the pictures in the cookbook, these cookies were supposed to look sort of like almond cookies. Mine? Well...a picture will do it far more justice than any attempt to explain.

That was batch #1 after baking for 10 min. I figured maybe the scoops were supposed to be bigger and did round two with less cookies and bigger dollops. And this time, I baked them for only 7-8 min. sigh

Yes, those are 6 cookies on a single sheet. Six enormous deflated sprawling cookies. I have no idea what went wrong. The oven was (supposedly) the correct temperature. I used the same pan I always use. I followed the directions to the letter. I've been baking with the same baking soda in other recipes without any problems. I have only 2 guesses as to what could have gone wrong:

1) The oven was actually hotter than it said it was. I had roasted some veggies for my little guy before starting this recipe, and I thought I gave the oven enough time to cool down. I even double checked it with an oven thermometer.

2) I had to heat my jug of honey in the microwave because it was crystallized. Maybe that affected how the batter behaved in the oven? I know melted butter can wreak havoc on cookies. Ug. So frustrating!

As for the actual recipe part, it was nice and easy. The one unusual item I needed was tahini. But luckily I already had it in the pantry for a future hummus making date. (Altho, thanks to the Vitamix, I can just use sesame seeds for making my hummus! But I digress...) I processed the pecans, oats and other dry ingredients.

Then with the mixer, I beat the egg, honey, tahini, sugar and vanilla. It made quite the sticky batter!

Finally I scooped the batter onto my pan. They didn't hold their ball shape for long before spreading into little discs. I thought for sure these would puff up, but alas...

From what I can tell, they had an interesting flavor. I generally liked it well enough to keep snacking on it, but after awhile I noticed I didn't really care for the aftertaste. I really wonder what these would have tasted like if I could have gotten them to turn out like they were supposed to. I hope Summer's turn out well!

Geraldine's Chocolate-Date Cake - by Lisa

2011-05-26T16:39:00.000-05:00

I don't think I've ever actually eaten a date before, and I actually looked online to see what the difference was between a date and a fig! Learn something new everyday, I tell ya! Anywho, I had no idea what to expect from this recipe, although the picture certainly made the cake look yummy! While this recipe actually had a fair number of steps to go through, it was still pretty simple to pull together. I did make one major change, and that was substituting water for the coffee. I wanted to be able to enjoy a whole piece of this cake, and if I added the coffee, I'd probably only be able to manage one small bite. The dates I picked up from Trader Joe's were not pitted, so I had to spend sometime cutting them open and removing the pits.

It didn't take long, but those suckers are sticky! After soaking them in hot water, I opted to puree them in my new favorite kitchen machine, the Vitamix. And anytime I get to put my Vitamix to the test is a happy time for me! :D These were pureed in about 30 seconds flat, if not sooner!

The batter came together easily, and sifting in the dry ingredients then stirring in the date puree came next. I poured it into the prepared cake pan and sprinkled the half cup of chocolate chips over the top. I let it bake for 60 min even, and I think it was pretty nicely done at that point.

We actually had to wait until much later that evening to sample it as Wednesday nights are our newly minted official date nights! So after Hubby and I got home, he served us up a slice each and we dug in. I thought from the little sample I took of the batter that the finished product would be more chocolaty than anything else. I guess the composition changed a bit while baking, because it had a distinctly unusual aftertaste that I didn't quite care for. Hubby thought it was ok, and I think he enjoyed it a little more than I did, but neither of us were terribly thrilled with it. I'm sure it would have been better with the coffee in it, if only I liked the taste of coffee. I had no idea what else I could have substituted tho, so I just stuck with the water. Oh well, can't win 'em all! :)

Caramelized Banana Bread Pudding - by Lisa

2011-05-24T17:11:00.000-05:00

So I confess that this was one started out as of my "let's get it out of the way" choices, as I've never been quite sure what bread pudding was all about, and I always thought it sounded a little unappetizing. But I have to say, after actually making it and then tasting the final result, I was pleasantly surprised!

The only thing that gave me a little bit of trouble was actually tracking down a loaf of Challah bread. After calling 3 or 4 local grocery stores, I started thinking I might have to make my own from scratch. But then I suddenly remembered having seen a loaf or two at my local Trader Joe's. I called them up and sure enough, I was in luck! I so love TJ's!!

After chopping up the bread, I moved on to making the banana/caramel filling. That part was super easy and smelled a little like bananas foster while it was cooking.

Making the caramel

Cooking the bananas in the caramel

Bread and banana/caramel mixture

Next was whipping up the "heart attack" portion. ;) There is A LOT of half 'n' half and eggs in this dish! As I was assembling this part, I realized it was a lot like making the mixture for dipping French toast! I carefully poured the liquid mixture over the bread/caramel/banana mixture and made sure the bread was fully saturated. It sat on the counter for about 30 minutes before moving over to the oven.

I let it bake for 65 minutes, but I suspect it probably could have gone a little bit longer. When I cut into it, the middle pieces seemed to be a bit on the soggy side, but having never made bread pudding before I wasn't sure if this was normal or not.

Fresh out of the oven!

The flavor was really yummy, even if I was a little weirded out by the spongy texture. Hubby really enjoyed it and even had it for breakfast the next morning. I shared it with some friends the following night, and it was well received by them too! If I make this again, I would probably let it cook a little longer. But I am happy to have finally tried bread pudding, and even happier to find that it is pretty tasty!

Carrot Cupcakes - by Summer

2011-05-16T10:27:00.000-05:00

I originally wanted to make these Mother's Day weekend, but I ended up not feeling too great on that Sunday, so I held off. One of the things that I like about this recipe is that it didn't make a lot of cupcakes. It can be a challenge to eat everything up that we make and currently I don't have the time or effort to try and figure out how to half a recipe right now (and in some cases, I wouldn't have the right pans).

I have made carrot cake from scratch a few times. It's one of my mom's favorites, although usually the recipes I have used, don't call for crushed pineapple or orange marmalade. I ended up using about 4 small-med carrots for this recipe. I also realized that I while I was pulling the ingredients together that I was out of ground ginger. Since the recipe also called for ground nutmeg and ground cloves, I ended up using some pumpkin pie spice. I don't really think it change the taste of the cupcakes too much if at all.

This recipe says that it yields 12 cupcakes. I know from previous experience that my muffin/cupcake pans tend to be a little bit smaller, so I ended up with 14. I have also learned from experience that overfilling the pans to get the correct amount isn't really the way to go for "pretty" looking cupcakes.

I decided that this recipe would be good to be paired with the cream cheese frosting recipe as suggested in the cookbook. In hindsight, I would have definitely only made half of the frosting recipe. I have a bunch left over and am trying to figure out what to do with the leftovers.

I really like the taste of this cupcake, especially with the cream cheese frosting. They were moist and I liked the added taste of the pineapple. I can definitely see making these again.

Geraldine's Chocolate-Date Cake - by Summer

2011-05-08T21:02:00.000-05:00

I purposely picked this cake to make this weekend for when my parents came to visit. It's a chocolate cake, which I knew would be right up my dad's alley. And my husband's mom also makes a date cake, so my husband was excited for this cake as well.

I know Lisa won't be overly excited about the coffee that the dates need to soak in before you puree them for this recipe. In hindsight, I am not overly excited about this step because of my love/hate relationship with my food processor. Not only did it leak and spray out everywhere when I turned on the food processor, but it also scared my son who was sitting nearby in his high chair watching me make the cake! Other than that issue, this was an easy cake to put together.

It baked for about 55 minutes, but it was hard for me to initially tell if the cake was done. The recipe says it's done when it pulls back from the edges. It didn't really do that, but the edges definitely looked done. The recipe also said when you touch the cake and it springs back lightly it's done. Well - I tried that and burned my finger since you sprinkle chocolate chips on top (Lisa - do not try this method!!!) I ended up sticking a toothpick into the center and it came out clean, so I deemed it done.

I was worried it would be too dry, but it stayed nice and moist. It was a big hit with my dad and my husband. I explained that the cake would keep for 4 days at room temperature (per the cookbook) to which they both started laughing. They couldn't understand how this cake would be around for that long!!! I would definitely make this cake again, but next time, I'll probably use the blender instead of my food processor!!!

Pear-Tart Cherry Crisp - by Lisa

2011-05-01T00:49:00.000-05:00

Man! Talk about coming in right under the wire this month! I don't know where the last couple weeks of April disappeared to, but here we are on the eve of May already. Thankfully, this was a really easy recipe to put together and I already had all the ingredients ready to go from my grocery trip last week!

For some reason, I just have better luck using the food processor when it comes to cutting butter into recipes. So I was relieved it was the suggested method for this recipe! :) Consequently, it was super easy work making the topping for this dish.

The rest of the prep consisted of cutting up the canned pears and then mixing them with the dried cherries and other dry ingredients. Like Summer mentioned, I really like how this can be made at any time of year without needing to rely on seasonal fruit! One thing that jumped out at me was adding a healthy amount of ground ginger to the topping. I love ginger and was curious about how it would come out with this recipe.

Making the filling

Adding the topping

Before going in the oven

The crisp took just under an hour to bake, and man did it make the house smell good! I let it cool for about 30 minutes before digging in. I didn't add any toppings to it, and it certainly didn't need any! I thought it was delicious! I had also promptly forgotten about the ginger, and it wasn't until I was nearly done with my piece that I noticed the delightful flavor and aftertaste that the ginger added. It was a really nice surprise and just the right amount of kick to an already tasty dish. I definitely see myself making this one again!

Fresh out of the oven!

Tipsy Key Lime Pie - by Summer

2011-04-29T11:28:00.000-05:00

Once again my book club were my guinea pigs for this recipe. I actually gave the host this month the choice of this recipe or the crisp. She loves Key Lime pie, so she quickly picked this one. I was a little nervous because she was super excited for it because it's her favorite type of pie and I had never made this kind before.

Following Lisa's advice, I also used a bit more butter for the crust. I definitely think it was a wise move because it was definitely less crumbly. The filling was really easy to put together. I was able to find the bottle of key lime juice in my grocery store - thank goodness! I also decided after reading Lisa's post to slightly cut down on the amount of rum and up the amount of the key lime juice.

I cooked my pie for about 20 minutes. It probably should have cooked a couple minutes longer. While the center firmed up some, when it was served, I felt that it was still pretty runny.

This was a huge hit with the gals at book club. They all devoured their pieces. I bought canned whipping cream (hey, it was a long day and I was tired) to serve with the pie. I was the only one that thought it was just ok. I'm not really a key lime sort of gal and I think the fact that the filling was slightly runny was a bit of a turn off for me - I was expecting it to be firmer. I couldn't really taste the rum and it was definitely tart, so I am glad I made some minor adjustments. I would definitely make this pie again because it's easy and if I know that Key Lime is someone's favorite pie!

Pear-Tart Cherry Crisp - by Summer

2011-04-29T11:14:00.000-05:00

I'm a little behind with my posting this month. I made this dessert for Easter Sunday. Our friend invited us over for dinner and I was instructed to bring dessert. I loved making this dish. It's quick, tasty, and looks great.

You use can pears and dried cherries, which is great because you can make this any season! Our son has been really enjoying dried cherries lately for snacks, so we had plenty on hand. Instead of using the food processor to make the topping, I opted to use my pastry cutter.

I ended up patting down the topping like the recipe called for, but I think I patted it too much. I normally like a more crumbly topping, but it didn't impact the outcome. I served this with whipped cream and it was wonderful. The dried cherries became slightly plump - yum. Oh - I did add a bit more flour to the fruit because when draining the pears, I realized that there was a bit extra juice and I wanted to make sure it thickened up nicely, which it did. I would definitely make this again!

Pre-baking

I forgot my camera at home, so I don't have any pictures of the crisp cut, with the whipping cream - oops!

Tipsy Key Lime Pie - by Lisa

2011-04-25T22:10:00.000-05:00

I've never made a proper key lime pie before, so I was looking forward to trying this recipe out. I decided to make it for dessert with our Easter dinner. Our friend Rob joined us for dinner, and I think it is always much more fun to share these recipes with many people. :)

I remembered that this pie needs some time in the refrigerator, so I got started on it in the morning. I also got the chance to dig into our liquor cabinet and pulled out one of the bottles of rum we got in the Caribbean. Woo hoo! I behaved and restrained myself from sampling the goods before adding it to the pie filling. I had no problem acquiring all the ingredients for the pie, and was rather pleased that the suggested key lime juice was exactly what my grocery store carries.

When I made the graham cracker crust, I decided to add about 2 Tbsp more butter since the last crust I made was a little more crumbly than I like. I think this worked, because the crust seemed to hold together pretty well.

Getting ready to go into the oven

About half way thru the baking time, I realized I forgot to put the pie on a cookie sheet. I pulled it out, set it on the sheet and let it finish. I don't think it hurt the pie any, so whew! The pie baked for about one minute longer than the minimum suggested back time, and I let it cool on the counter for about an hour before placing it in the fridge. Once we recovered from our food coma that was dinner, I whipped up some cream and decorated the pie before serving it.

The finished product

Both guys really enjoyed it, but I wasn't quite sure about it. I definitely noticed the bite that the rum added to the flavor, but the tartness I expected wasn't quite there. It turned out more yellow than green, but I've seen varying colors in key lime pies before, so I wasn't too surprised by that. I'll be having another slice tonight for dessert so we'll see how it does on night number two.

Currant Scones - by Lisa

2011-04-19T17:22:00.000-05:00

Oh my oh my oh my. These scones were AMAZING. For as long as I've lived in WA, I have been absolutely in love with Fischer scones. These scones kick the crap out of those! :D I actually made these over the weekend, and they barely lasted the day. I let them cool for about 20 minutes, and they were just perfect. Like Summer, I actually didn't use currants. But I had plenty of dried cranberries on hand, so I tossed in a little over 1/2 cup of those instead.
I had similar concerns as Summer when the dough wasn't coming together in the bowl quite as I expected. But once I dumped it out and started kneading it, it finally started sticking together. I also opted to cut it into triangles, but for some reason I wasn't thinking when I started slicing, so I wound up with a bunch of odd sizes.

These seemed to be done after about 18-19 minutes. I could have let them go a minute or two longer as well, but I was also afraid of drying them out and possibly burning them. They were incredibly flaky but still slightly moist which I think is the perfect combination. I am already planning on making them again this week!

Orange-Scented Chocolate Chip Cookies - by Summer

2011-04-13T20:35:00.000-05:00

Great minds must think alike! I had been planning on making these cookies this week too!! A funny little side note about this recipe. Originally we had talked about making these cookies just over a year ago when I was coming to the end of my pregnancy with my son. We had talked about doing one more additional recipe if I ended up going late. But ultimately I decided that I was too crabby and uncomfortable to even think about baking :-)

So here we are a year later baking these cookies! Like Lisa, my go-to chocolate chip cookie recipe is Tollhouse. And also like Lisa, I was considering refrigerating these for a few hours before baking. I read Lisa's post and decided to just bake them right away. Personally, I would probably refrigerate them before baking in the future. Mine spread out a lot when they baked and I was hoping for a more dense cookie.

I also yielded between 4 and 5 dozen cookies (more than enough for my dad to sample some this weekend when he comes to visit) and they took about 11-12 minutes in my oven. I can't say that I overly enjoyed the orange flavor in these. I think I just love plain chocolate chip cookies too much. My husband agreed that the orange took away from them. I am interested in making this recipe, minus the orange zest in the future.

Orange-Scented Chocolate Chip Cookies

2011-04-13T13:57:00.000-05:00

For some reason, I haven't felt very motivated to bake this month, but the home baked cookie supply had bottomed out weeks ago. So, I decided to cut a deal with my husband. I offered to make cookies if he would clean up the kitchen. And voila! We have (temporarily) replenished our cookie stock. :)

I was very intrigued by this recipe. I'd had orange flavored chocolate before (like those holiday balls that come out each year), and I used to love my mom's orange peel cookies (I've gotta make those again!), so I was very interested to see how these cookies would turn out.

The cookie recipe is very simple and direct, and the only extra thing I needed was the orange zest. It is somewhat similar to the traditional Tollhouse cookie recipe, which is typically my cookie of choice. I was tempted to treat this recipe like I do with the Tollhouse cookies which meant chilling the dough for at least 12 hours. But I decided to go with what the recipe instructed and skipped the chilling. I'm glad I did because these cookies turned out beautifully! They were ready to come out at about 12-13 minutes and yielded about 5 dozen cookies.

Of course I also tasted tested the batter and the hint of orange was a neat twist. The fresh out of the oven cookies weren't quite as "orange-y" as I'd expected, but by the next day the orange flavor intensified very nicely. It definitely wasn't overpowering by any means, but it added a really nice touch to the chocolate chip cookie base. I look forward to making these again!

Current Scones - by Summer

2011-04-10T15:19:00.000-05:00

I have to admit that up till a few years ago, I had never had a scone. And the first time I ate one, it wasn't very good, so I didn't try another one for quite some time. Then I had one that was amazing and decided that I loved scones! They seem like they would be a lot of work, but surprisingly, they are actually very simple to make.

I picked this recipe knowing that I was going to replace the currents with something else. Originally I had planned for dried cherries, but my son ate most of those this week. I had some dried apricots on hand (he doesn't like those), so I cut them into quarters to use for this recipe.

My dough was very crumbly after I added the cream and vanilla. I was tempted to add more cream, but instead just worked it into a disk. I wouldn't really call my technique kneading, but it did come together. The recipe calls for using a small cookie cutter, but I opted to just make triangles with a knife. I figure there would be no waste and that is the typical shape you see scones.

Before baking

After baking!

These baked in about 17 minutes, but I think I could have left them in a minute or two longer. My husband disagrees because he thought they would have been too dry. It really didn't matter because we both thought they tasted wonderful! They were flaky and a little sweet - so yummy! And I really liked the apricots. I envision myself making these again and again, just changing up the fruit. Or adding chocolate chips instead. Or doing dried cherries and white chocolate chips. The possibilities are endless!!!!

Double Apple Struessel Coffee Cake - by Lisa

2011-04-02T13:16:00.000-05:00

I did actually make this cake in March! Things have just been kind of hectic around here with family coming in to visit and preparations for my son's 3rd birthday party! Anywho, I had the perfect opportunity to make and share this dish earlier this week. I invited some friends and their kids over for a play date and chose this recipe to serve for brunch. I am quite happy to report that it was a success for both kids and adults! I shared it with Hubby later that evening, and we agreed that this was a very tasty cake! I liked the little bit of spiciness mixed in with the apple flavor and chunks of apple that this cake offered. I thought it was a perfect brunch cake, and also held up well for after dinner dessert.

As far as making the cake went, it was pretty easy. I actually made it the night before so I wouldn't have to run around at the last minute the following morning trying to get it done. I did end up using quite a few bowls, but this was another recipe that didn't require the use of a stand mixer which was kind of nice.

I also finally got myself a proper pastry cutter and actually used it for the struessel instead of running it thru the food processor. It took a little longer, but I was happy to finally learn how to cut in butter this way. :) I look forward to making this again for a future brunch!

Chocolate Peant Butter Pie - by Summer

2011-03-31T19:34:00.000-05:00

I was excited to make this pie because I love the combination of peanut butter and chocolate. Once again I used my book club as guinea pigs for this recipe, so I didn't make it until the last day of the month which is when book club met. The crust was an easy graham cracker crust.

One thing I discovered while making this recipe is that as much as I love my stand mixer, I don't think it holds up to mixing small amounts of ingredients. The peanut butter filling called for 1/3 cup of cream to be whipped. I put it in the stand mixer and it took forever to whip! Fortunately I have a hand-held mixer, so I used that to finish up the rest of the peanut butter filling. It was so easy and I need to remember that as much as I love my Kitchen Aid, sometimes the hand mixer is actually better. Anyone else have this experience?

I will agree with Lisa that chopping up chocolate stinks! I wish Karla came to visit me to help too :-) I also realized that I was one oz. short of semi-sweet chocolate, so I used an ounce of bittersweet. Anyhow - the topping was super easy to make. Actually, the whole pie was pretty simple. There are a few steps, but they are all really easy.

This was another hit at book club. I really enjoyed the chocolate/peanut butter combination. I wasn't in love with the crust, although I don't really know what type of crust would be better. Maybe a chocolate graham cracker?

Double Apple Struesel Coffee Cake - by Summer

2011-03-24T15:49:00.000-05:00

I actually made this recipe a week ago, but due to storage issues on my computer, I wasn't able to download the picture until today! It's sort of hard to recall this recipe because I made it so long ago and inbetween that time, I threw a party for my son's 1st birthday!

I made this because we were having a bunch of people in town and I thought it would make a good breakfast one day. It's very easy to pull together, although it's one of those recipes with certain ingredients needing to be room temperature.

The double apple from the title comes from applesauce and an actual apple. I used a golden delicious because I like baking with those. You don't need a mixer, so that was nice. It puffed up quite a bit while baking, and I was worried the pan was too small, but it didn't overflow.

I thought this was super sweet. Almost too sweet for a breakfast, but not really something I would want for dessert either. Perhaps making it for brunch to go along with something not sweet would be the way to go.

Lime-Glazed Citrus Tea Cakes - by Lisa

2011-03-22T16:52:00.000-05:00

I was very pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed these cakes! This was one of the recipes I chose for this month, and I'm really pleased with how they turned out! (As were all my house guests!) I totally agree with Summer about how these seem like a perfect for Spring kind of cake. I could totally see enjoying these as part of an Easter brunch.

They were pretty easy to make, despite the mildly time consuming portion of adding in fresh grated lemon peel, fresh squeezed orange juice and fresh squeezed lime juice. BUT it is obvious that adding in all these super fresh ingredients makes a huge difference in how the cake tastes.

The cakes themselves were incredibly moist and even a touch spongy. I was afraid it would be a drier cake, but I should've realized the sour cream would give these cakes a more tender crumb. I also really liked the zippy tartness of the lime glaze. I never would have thought to make a glaze with lime juice but it was the perfect accent for this citrus cake. I am looking forward to making these again!!

Chocolate-Peanut Butter Pie - by Lisa

2011-03-22T16:39:00.000-05:00

I have to say, you really can't go wrong with a salty sweet treat AND one that includes both chocolate and peanut butter! I purposely saved this pie for when my sister, Karla, and my niece, Katie, were visiting. Glad I did because it was a hit! :)

I cheated a little bit and had Karla and Katie help me make this. Karla is an exceptional baker, and I was excited to do a little bit of baking with her while she was here! The best part was that she rescued me from the step that I always complain about - chopping the chocolate. Woo hoo! :)

This was a pretty easy pie to put together, although it did require a few more bowls/dishes than I expected. I originally had aspirations of enjoying this pie an hour or so after dinner, but time got away from us during the day. The combined 4 hour chill time meant that we got to enjoy this treat as a bedtime snack. :) I also inadvertently delayed the process as I had misjudged how much peanut butter I had left. I had to make an emergency phone call to Hubby who fortunately had no problem swinging by the store on his way home to replenish our stock.

This was a super rich pie! The peanut butter portion was creamy and light, and the chocolate topping was a bit firmer than I expected, but it all came together quite nicely. My only problem was with the crust. For some reason it didn't hold up too well and was particularly crumbly. It will be interesting to see if it changed at all after 24 hours of refrigeration. Nevertheless, it was enjoyed by all and there was hardly a crumb left on anyone's plate! :)

Coffee-Chocolate Chip Blondies - by Lisa

2011-03-13T22:13:00.000-05:00

Really, the title of this entry should read ~~Coffee~~ Chocolate Chip Blondies - by Lisa because I made these without the espresso powder since I wanted to enjoy eating them. :) As I've mentioned in other posts, I don't drink coffee, and consequently I don't like anything coffee flavored. The beauty of baking at home is that you can control things like this to give you a flavor you enjoy! :) I am so glad that I did omit the espresso powder because I LOVED THIS DESSERT! I don't think I've ever really had blondies before, but to me these were like the most perfect chocolate chip bar cookies. They were soft, a little chewy, wonderfully flavored and simply hit the spot. These are for sure on my favorite list.

So I was going to make these last weekend, but I've been fighting a cold that has been kicking my butt all week. I'm relieved that they were indeed easy to pull together. I chose to do this one because I happened to have all the ingredients already on hand. (I forgot to mention that I also skipped out on the walnuts because I don't really enjoy nuts in baked goods.)

I made it earlier in the day, so it had plenty of time to cool by the time we were ready to cut into it. I don't really have any details to report aside from finding it a pleasant change to not have to use my stand mixer (as Summer also noted). As you can probably guess, I will definitely be making these again! (And again and again and again.)

Lime-Glazed Citrus Tea Cakes - by Summer

2011-03-13T20:11:00.000-05:00

Usually when I set about making a recipe for this project, I typically try to plan out the best time for it. Maybe we'll be having company for dinner or it's book club or something special is coming up. For the remaining two recipes this month, I have very specific plans, but for these little cakes, I really didn't have anything coming up. So this afternoon as my son was tearing apart my kitchen cabinets, I decided to make these little cakes.

I pretty much had everything on hand to make them except lime juice for the glaze and a lemon for the zest. Fortunately I do my grocery shopping on Sundays, so I picked some up earlier in the day and I was good to go! I also don't have 8 x 4 pans. This recipe makes enough for two of those. I have slightly smaller pans, so I used three of them instead. I adjusted the baking time, so instead of 40 minutes, I checked them after 30. They bake about 5 minutes longer and were perfect.

This is a tasty little cake. I think it's perfect for this time of year as it seems "springy" to me and spring is right around the corner (right?!) I really liked the lime glaze on top too. I would definitely make these cakes to bring as a hostess gift. I also think they would work well for a brunch in the spring or summer time. I will definitely make these again!

Coffee-Chocolate Chip Blondies - by Summer

2011-03-09T19:25:00.000-06:00

I have never made blondies before. I am a chocolate gal, so I usually turn to brownies when I want something quick and easy to make. I was curious about these because they include espresso powder. I actually went to the store and bought some for the first time. It's sort of hard to find, but now I have it!

These bars come together really quick. You melt the butter and brown sugar, which means you don't need to have the butter at room temperature! Although, I did actually have it set out for awhile, so mine was. Anyhow - there's no need for a mixer with this recipe, which was a nice change of pace. I also used toasted pecans instead of walnuts for the recipe.

I checked my blondies after about 20 minutes, but they ended up baking for the full 25 minutes. Once their cooled, the recipe stated that the easiest way to cut them was to put them in the fridge for 20 minutes. After dinner tonight I just took a knife and started cutting. I didn't have any problems.

I really like the taste of these a lot. They were different, but I really liked the taste of the coffee in them. I definitely can see making these again. My husband wasn't crazy about them, but I wasn't overly surprised since he likes sweet things less then I do. If you don't like coffee, then these bars probably aren't for you (sorry Lisa!)

Rosemary Biscotti - by Lisa

2011-03-01T11:56:00.000-06:00

Wow, the end of February really kind of snuck up on me! I did manage to get this recipe completed by the end of the month tho. Like Summer, I was baking on the last day of the month! Sadly, this recipe is not one I was eager to make nor was I won over by the outcome. At the end of the day, I am just not a fan of biscotti. The only time I have enjoyed it was when an old friend made some which he purposely left untoasted, and I enjoyed the texture and cakey-ness much more.

Anyway, I did appreciate how easy it was ingredients-wise, and I do agree that the rosemary gave it a very enjoyable flavor. At first Hubby thought it tasted a little like marshmallow, which I could totally taste too. But I also must confess that I got rather frustrated with the dough and how sticky it was! I had a hard time getting it into logs because it wouldn't let go of the counter, and then it also would spread within minutes of shaping it.

I had one to taste, and then bagged up the rest to send to work with Hubby.* Hopefully he and his colleagues will get a chance to enjoy them!

*I totally forgot to take a finished product picture. Doh!

Banana Snack Cake - by Summer

2011-03-01T10:10:00.000-06:00

I was cutting it pretty close with this cake since I made it on the last day of this month. I wanted to make it sooner, but I just didn't have the time. I almost always have bananas on hand in the freezer that are overripe, but I was actually able to use bananas that I had bought earlier last week. As Lisa mentioned, the cake is really easy to put together. Pretty similar to banana bread that I make all the time. I did use a dark pan to bake the cake and as a result, even though I set my timer for the shorter amount of baking time, with 4 minutes left, I could tell from the smell that it was done. I checked it and sure enough it was. I should have baked it in a glass pan or reduced the baking time by 5 minutes.

Like Lisa, I planned on making the caramel frosting for this. I have made caramel sauce a lot in the past, so I wasn't too worried about it. But I had major issues with the frosting. To begin with, I don't think I let it boil long enough. The directions said 1-2 minutes, but I really think I should have let it go a bit longer. The frosting is very grainy - like the sugar didn't dissolve. Then went I went to put it in my stand mixer, I wasn't sure which attachment to use. I picked the paddle and that was a huge mistake! I ended up calling Lisa because it basically became the consistency of cookie dough! I switched to the whisk attachment and added more cream to smooth it out, which worked.

My husband and I tried the cake after dinner and I can't say that either one of us was particularly impressed. It was ok. The frosting was really grainy (as mentioned above) and I think I would actually try making a cream cheese frosting for this cake. To be honest, I can't really see making this one again. We love banana bread in our family and I would rather use my bananas for that. I would like to make the frosting again to see what it tastes like when made correctly.

I took a couple of pictures of the cake last night and this morning as I was typing up this blog post, I realized that they were horrible. So this morning, using good daylight, I cut another piece of cake to take a better picture. I, of course, had to eat the piece of cake and I really think it tastes better after sitting over night, which is pretty typical with banana bread.

Rosemary Biscotti - by Summer

2011-02-27T19:25:00.000-06:00

I purposely picked this recipe for this month because Saturday I hosted a baby shower for one of my close friends. I thought that as some of the prizes for the games, I would bake this biscotti, and put them in mugs with some tea. I was a little nervous, since I had never made biscotti before, but as it turns out, it's really quite easy.

The dough was pretty to pull together. The recipe said that the dough would be sticky, but it was really sticky and super hard to use the whisk once I added the liquid.

Then you need to shape into 2 logs and bake. Then you slice the logs into pieces - I didn't get quite 40 out of them, but that's ok. Then you need to toast them on each side. It's not really difficult, but a little time consuming towards the end.

I wasn't sure what to expect on the taste, but I really liked them. They were sweeter than I expected and I really enjoyed the rosemary flavor. Below is a picture of the gifts (I don't know how to flip the picture in Blogger). Everyone thought they were great. I am really looking forward to making the other biscotti recipe in this cookbook!

Cookies-And-Cream Cheesecake Bars - by Lisa

2011-02-25T18:15:00.000-06:00

Man, I am getting in a bad habit of baking and then taking days to post about it! I actually made this on Monday, but didn't get the chance to write about it until now. I can tell you that the advantage to doing so allowed me to figure out that this dessert seems to get even better after a day or two in the fridge! :)

This was my first time making a full cheesecake. Last year we made the cheesecake cupcakes, so I had something of an idea for what to expect. I was again pleasantly surprised at how easy it is to make a cheesecake! I don't know why I have it in my head that it is a complicated affair. Because it's not! Anywho, thanks to Summer's notes, I was diligent about setting out the ingredients that needed to be at room temperature, so I didn't have to worry about that. The rest was real easy to pull together - Oreo cookie base, filling, more Oreos in the filling. Then cool, bake, chill and eat!

Oreo filling - yum!

Fresh out of the oven

At first I wasn't sure if I liked them that much, but then by day two, I was certain that this recipe was a winner! However, since it makes so much, I opted to send half the pan to Hubby's work where they were promptly devoured. Woo hoo! :) I look forward to making this again and maybe even experimenting with my own cheesecake flavors. :)

Cookies-and-Cream Cheesecake Bars - by Summer

2011-02-16T20:52:00.001-06:00

My husband said to me before he took a bite of these bars "Before you started this baking thing, I didn't realize that Oreos were an ingredient." I just had to laugh. Personally, I think it's a wonderful ingredient! I was really excited to make these since Oreos has been one of my cravings during this pregnancy. The catch is, this makes a lot. Fortunately I timed it with my book club this month (again), so I will be bringing them to share tomorrow night. Since it's a cheesecake base, I knew that it would have to be in the fridge for awhile, so I decided to make it a day ahead of time. Plus, this gave me a chance to taste it first :-)

These bars are really easy to make. I read through the recipe the day before, so I knew that the cream cheese, eggs and sour cream needed to be room temperature. The crust is made with crushed up Oreos and then the base is cream cheese (and lots of it) and more Oreos. It bakes, cools and then chills. And then they are ready to eat! Yum! I thought they tasted great. I can't wait to share with the gals at book club tomorrow night.

Salty-Sweet Caramel Nut Bars - by Summer

2011-02-15T10:11:00.000-06:00

I am way behind in making February desserts. I have three words for you Girl Scout Cookies! It's a total weakness for both my husband and I and last week Monday he came home with 5 boxes! Needless to say we didn't need any more sweet stuff in the house for a while! But on Sunday I decided that I should finally get started on some baking - especially since Feb is a short month!

I was excited to try these. I planned to make them Sunday afternoon, but it ended up that I couldn't get to them until the evening. After reading through the recipe when I was starting to make them, I realized that they would have to sit out for 2 hours and then chill for 2 more hours! The chilling time mentioned at the top of the recipe was a little misleading (it says 2 hours for chilling time). But I still decided to make them.

I bought the same kind of nuts as Lisa, but mine had the regular amount of salt. The dough for the crust was rather crumbly and dry, so I was a little worried that I didn't do something right, but it didn't seem to impact the end result. I have never made caramel sauce with honey before, but it seemed to cook just fine.

My husband was disappointed that we couldn't cut into them right after they came out of the oven. I ended up letting them cool for about an hour and stuck them in the fridge for about 30 minutes, and then we cut into them. They tasted pretty good. I think I could actually taste the honey in the filling (I'm not a big honey fan). I stuck the bars back in the fridge over night and then yesterday chopped them up and sent them to work with my husband (hey - we still have Girl Scout Cookies). I would definitely try making this recipe again. It's pretty easy, but I think I would try it with regular brown sugar, not the dark and maybe without the honey.

Banana Snack Cake - by Lisa

2011-02-13T22:38:00.000-06:00

So I had every intention of making this cake later in the month, but then I noticed on grocery day that I had 4 bananas quickly approaching the perfect ripeness that this recipe calls for. So I decided that this would be the weekend to make it after all!
It's a good thing this was a pretty quick and easy recipe to put together because I had to kind of rush through it. I had some plans today and wanted to get the cake part done early. So I got it all mixed together, tossed it in the oven and asked Hubby to pull it out of the oven when it was ready. It was really similar to making regular banana bread with the exception of adding in some sour cream and using brown sugar. However, what makes this cake extra special is the addition of the caramel frosting.

After the cake had some time to cool, I made the frosting and spread it on the cake. I've never made a frosting like that before and was intrigued by the texture. At first I was worried it might pull the top of the cake up, but despite it's thickness, it spread real nice and smooth.

And in honor of Valentine's Day, I pulled out my heart shaped mold and cut out a pretty piece. :)

I liked how moist and dense the cake turned out. The caramel frosting definitely elevated it to dessert status! It almost reminded me of a sweet cake I'd find in a bakery or coffee shop. I would certainly make this again, and next time maybe try just the dusting of powdered sugar over the top. Or maybe turn it into muffins. And I'd definitely like to experiment with trying the caramel frosting on other baked goodies!

Salty-Sweet Carmel Nut Bars - by Lisa

2011-02-06T13:10:00.000-06:00

Man, I am just having a hard time baking this week. Fortunately my goof up in last week's recipe didn't do any noticeable harm. Sadly, I wasn't so lucky this time around. This recipe was one of my picks and I was really excited to try it out! I love caramel, and I LOVE salted caramel and I figured this one was a sure thing for my sweet tooth. Due to my own inattention to detail (which really is particularly unusual for me most of the time) and hustle through the grocery store, I picked up a can of LIGHTLY salted mixed nuts which also apparently contain "50% less peanuts." *sigh* To add insult to injury, I made a double batch as I am planning to take these to a Super Bowl party today. I didn't notice the labeling on the can until it was far too late. When I took my first bite of the finished product, I found the texture to be lovely, but the flavor was quite bland. :( But Hubby had the brilliant suggestion to dust some coarse sea salt over the top, and when I did that the flavor was noticeably improved! Hurray!

All right, kvetching aside, this recipe was super easy to make. I was nervous about the caramel part as I've never had good luck with making caramel, but that part was really easy. I also finally busted out my new digital kitchen scale and used that for measuring the flour. Fun!

As for the nuts, I wound up using my easy chopper but probably should have stuck with the recommendation of using a chef's knife. Some pieces got smaller than needed and others didn't chop up at all (I'm looking at you, Almonds.).

I also timed the whole process fairly well which meant I didn't run into any issues during the 4 hour cooling process. I definitely want to give this recipe another shot, and next time I will make sure I am using the right kind of salted mixed nuts!!!!

Mocha Cream Pie - by Lisa

2011-02-05T22:27:00.000-06:00

So, uh, would you believe me if I told you that this entry is so late because I needed the whole week to fully taste test this pie? No? Ok, it's true, the pie only lasted in this house for about 3 or 4 days. I have no excuse for taking so long to get this entry written up. :)

So this pie really was easy to make, but I still accidentally screwed it up. More on that in a moment. The crust is an Oreo cookie crust, but I decided to use Trader Joe's Joe-Joe's instead. Normally they have a regular Oreo version, but my store was sold out. So I made do with the chocolate creme and chocolate cookie variety instead. Cuz really, can you have too much chocolate? I think not. :)

The Cookie Crust

The pudding came along pretty nicely. I got a little bit concerned when it got sort of lumpy after everything was put together, but it all seemed to turn out fine in the end. I also intentionally kept it as a chocolate cream pie buy omitting the espresso powder since I am not a coffee person.

Melting down the chocolate

You can see the lumpiness here

Now, I have made puddings plenty of times, and I am pretty darn familiar with adding the butter and vanilla flavoring at the very end. I was clearly distracted in the kitchen as I was trying to do too much at once - baby, dinner, dessert, etc., and somehow misread the recipe. I thought it said to add the butter and vanilla after it cooled. Why I thought this was correct is beyond me. Fast forward to a couple hours later, and I'm still distracted while pouring the cooled pudding into the pie shell. It wasn't until after I stuck the pie in the fridge that I noticed the butter and vanilla sitting on the counter patiently waiting for me to add them to the pudding. DOH! I half contemplated dumping the pudding back into the bowl, but decided that ultimately it wasn't worth it. I had a taste of the pudding and thought it tasted pretty good as it was.

I opted to let it set up overnight, and the next night I whipped up the cream, topped the pie and after another 30 minute chill, we dug in. Let me just tell you, this pie is seriously in my top 10 favorites from this cookbook so far. It is that good. Hubby and I each took our first bites and nearly swooned with chocolate induced happiness.YUM!!

Didn't have chocolate for shavings, so I put a Joe-Joe on top

The first slice

Mocha Cream Pie - by Summer

2011-02-01T10:58:00.000-06:00

Lisa and I both saved this recipe for the last one this month. I spoke with her last night and she hadn't tasted it, but I had! I decided to leave out the espresso, so really this is just a chocolate cream pie. There were a few steps, but it wasn't difficult, especially since we have made a few pudding recipes already.

The hardest part probably was to keep enough Oreos around for the crust! I bought a package of Oreos a week ago and since you only need 1/3 of the package for this recipe, I proceeded to eat the rest of them over the course of the week!

The pudding was easy to make, although mine seemed very grainy, right up until it finally thickened. I wondered if I didn't have the melted chocolate and cream mixture hot enough before I whisked it with the sugar, corn starch and egg yokes. Fortunately after it thickened, it appeared smooth.

The final piece is the topping of whipping cream, which is super easy. My husband and I both had a piece after dinner. It was really rich, but very good. I do think next time I will trying making it with the espresso powder to get the mocha flavor, but I was definitely pleased with the end result!

"Kitchen Sink" Oatmeal Cookies - by Lisa

2011-01-28T21:54:00.000-06:00

Well, we were doing well with alternating recipes until the end of the month here. Whoops. :) Summer gave me the great idea to make these with my 2 year old, so that's just what we did! It was a fun and easy recipe, and Caiden loves being involved. I don't often randomly add ingredients to recipes, but this recipe practically begs you to do so! It was fun going thru the pantry and deciding on what to add. I was also very curious to try these cookies out and see how they compare to the recipe I grew up on - my mom's oatmeal raisin cookies.

Baker in Training

He already knows how to turn on the mixer!

In addition to the oats, chocolate chips and raisins, I also added craisins and chopped pecans. I was going to add coconut as well, but decided that the bowl was already getting pretty full. I wound up with a lot more cookies than I expected which is always awesome. :) They also didn't spread out as much as I thought they might since the recipe suggests spacing them 2 inches apart on the baking sheet. I also forwent the parchment paper and just baked them directly on the cookie sheets. They seemed to do just fine on them. :)

Initially I thought they tasted just ok. But by day 2, I found I liked them a lot better. Maybe I am just super used to my mom's recipe, but these definitely are a nice alternative. Next time I'll try adding in some butterscotch chips and see how they turn out. :)

"Kitchen Sink" Oatmeal Cookies - by Summer

2011-01-23T19:20:00.000-06:00

Lisa and I have been doing a great job (unintentionally) of making recipes on opposite weeks this month. It's been super cold here in MN this week. I mean really cold - like below zero at night and in the single digits during the day with negative wind chills. On Friday morning I decided to turn the oven on right after breakfast to make these cookies and to warm up the house! Plus, I was heading over to a friend's house later and thought these would be the perfect treat to share.

I had every intention of adding a little bit of whole wheat flour to this recipe, but I was in such a hurry to mix up the ingredients, I completely forgot. I was also worried that even though I had left the butter out overnight soften, it would still be too hard because of the cold weather. But the dough came together nicely. My husband isn't a big fan of raisins in anything but Raisin Bran, so I decided to leave them out. I also left out nuts because some people don't care for nuts and this meant my little guy could maybe sample some of the cookie. But I did include some chocolate chunks.

I really liked this recipe. I made sure to not over-bake them, so they stayed a little chewy after cooling. I think next time I would like to add some pecans and I do hope to substitute some of the all-purpose flour for whole wheat flour. Everyone who has tried these cookies has quite enjoyed them - even my little guy (but too bad for him, he doesn't get any chocolate chunk pieces!) The only other comment is that the recipe called for room temperature eggs, but I didn't realize this until I was pulling out the ingredients to make the cookies. I went ahead and made them anyways with cold eggs. If it was another type of recipe I probably would have been more cautious, but I make cookies all the time with cold eggs, so I figured it probably wouldn't impact the recipe too much. I don't think it did because the cookies were really good!

Brownie Ice Cream Torte - by Lisa

2011-01-21T18:38:00.000-06:00

This recipe made one fantastically yummy dessert! When we were making our picks for the month, I chose this one and decided it would also serve as my birthday cake! And I sure am happy with how well it turned out! I'm glad Summer did this one before me, because I picked up a few great tips from her such as keeping a close eye on the timer in between layers and being extra diligent about finding a brownie recipe suited for a 9in pan. Luckily, I didn't have any problems finding a good box mix (I used the one that adds Hershey's liquid chocolate - yum!), but I did learn another thing or two about patience. :)

Brownie Layer Complete

Apparently I was a little to eager to add the vanilla ice cream layer (which I ended up using a full pint's worth), and 30 minutes wasn't quite long enough to allow the brownie to cool. I didn't notice this until I checked the freezer progress where I discovered the vanilla ice cream had turned to soup on top of the brownie! Oops! No big deal tho, I made this the night before my birthday, so I just left it to freeze a couple hours longer. When it was ready, I added the raspberry sorbet (again, used the entire pint here) and left it to do its thing overnight.

The next morning I pulled it out to decorate! I thought about the ice cream cakes I've had in the past, and decided to pipe on birthday greetings with fudge in a pastry bag. I used the store bought variety, and discovered that it actually worked best after being left out to warm up for about 30-45 min. And I was worried that the fudge wouldn't be firm enough! LOL! I ended up changing how I decorated it because when I initially started, the fudge wouldn't stick to the sorbet. But after it had warmed up a little more in my hands, it started coming out of the pastry bag and behaving quite nicely. Unfortunately, I was halfway thru the message by this point. I also figured out as I was piping the border, that maybe I should do that after it is out of the pan. Sure enough, once we popped it out, all that fudge slipped right off! Oops. But now I know for next time how to better manage the decorating! And this gives me confidence to try making other kinds of ice cream cakes/pies in the future!

Birthday Torte!

Hubby, Son #1 and I all agreed that this was by far an awesome treat! Hubby particularly loved the combo of sweet and tart as did I. I am looking forward to keeping this one in my recipe go to list!

I think he might have liked it. Just a little. ;)

Peanut Butter Cookies - by Summer

2011-01-16T19:59:00.000-06:00

I sure don't seem to have a problem trying to bake these days, but trying to post a blog is a different story! I made these on Wednesday and I am finally now getting around to the blog. I will note that I did take these pictures on Thursday - we do not have that many cookies left!!!

As Lisa mentioned, the hardest part, wasn't really so hard, just time consuming - rolling the cookies into balls and in sugar and pressing the fork to flatten them. Of course I decided to do all this while feeding the baby lunch. But no problem - I just brought the high chair into the kitchen, so he could watch. I look forward to when he is older and can help with the baking since he currently is intrigued by everything that I do in the kitchen these days.

This is a very good recipe. My husband really enjoyed these and he isn't a huge peanut butter cookie fan. I look forward to making these again and again!

Brownie Ice Cream Torte - by Summer

2011-01-08T14:48:00.000-06:00

This is one of Lisa's picks this month and it had been one I have been avoiding. Even though Beth states that it's easy to make, it just seemed hard to me. That's what happens a lot when I read recipes. I think they seem hard and so I don't even want to bother. This is a great reason why I have loved doing this project. It has really pushed me to do things that I would normally skip. And it would have been a huge shame to skip this dessert!

It really is an easy recipe, but looks impressive. I made this one for my book club gals this week, since I was host. I actually made this a day in advance, so I made sure to have enough time with the freezing in-between layers. The recipes calls for a brownie mix. In the future, I think I would probably make my own, but these days, a mix was perfect. The challenge was trying to find one for an 8x8 pan and not 9x13.

Then it's a layer of vanilla ice. We had vanilla ice cream on hand, but unfortunately my husband the night before decided he wanted a bowl and I ended up being short. No problem. When the baby awoke from his afternoon nap, we ran to the store to buy some more. Since it was chilling in the freezer, it really didn't matter that this was broken up into a couple of different phases.

The final layer is raspberry sorbet! Yum! I made sure to set a timer in between each layer, so I didn't get distracted and forget about the ice or sorbet in the fridge to soften. If you look closely at the lower right hand bottom of this picture, you will see a little hand. That is my little assistant wanting to help me out with this recipe. Unfortunately this was one where I could not hold him and spread the ice cream or sorbet in the pan. So he was not too happy. Check out the picture below.

My other big worry about this recipe was how to separate the sides of the springform pan. For some reason I thought it was going to be difficult and spent way too much time worrying about it. When I went to serve it, the sides just popped right off! Everyone at my book club loved it! I did too. I would totally make this again - I'm thinking it would be a great summer time treat. And I could definitely see using other flavors of sorbet. Or if I made this for my dad - I would probably use chocolate ice cream. I love this recipe! So simple, but it definitely impresses!!!

Peanut Butter Cookies - by Lisa

2011-01-07T17:07:00.000-06:00

Oh man, I absolutely love desserts that have a sweet and salty combination! And these cookies certainly did not disappoint! They came out so lovely - slightly crunchy on the outside and soft and chewy in the middle. Paired with a tall glass of milk, these make for an excellent treat!

Rolling in the sugar

Time to crisscross!

These cookies were also very easy to make. The part that took the longest was rolling them in sugar and making the crisscross patterns with a fork. But really, that didn't take terribly long to do. I also followed Beth's instruction to bake two pans at once, swapping them after 3 min. I was nervous about how my oven would handle this, but it worked like a dream! To get 36 cookies in 7 minutes is pretty awesome if you ask me. :) I think the only thing I would do differently next time is make a double batch because these are getting gobbled up quickly!

Mint Chocolate Truffles - by Lisa

2010-12-31T23:43:00.000-06:00

Happy New Year! So, nothing like waiting until the last moment, eh? I kept putting this one off even tho I was excited to sample these treats. It finally dawned on me this afternoon that today was the last day of the month, and I *had* to get them done tonight! Fortunately, I had all the ingredients already purchased. Unfortunately, I totally forgot that this recipe is a multi-step one in that there are chilling requirements at two separate stages. So here it is at 8:30pm, and I am waiting for one more hour to get my first taste!

For some reason, this recipe just didn't want to go smoothly for me. I should've recognized signs of impending doom when I had to go to 3 grocery stores just to find the peppermint extract. However, I just chalked that up to typical lame Seattle area ingredient availability. Then of course there was the whole starting it late and realizing there was a lot of downtime in between steps. Then I forgot to transfer butter from the freezer to the fridge never mind letting it get to room temp, so I had to gently microwave the 6 tablespoons needed. THEN as I was going to snap a picture of the melted chocolate, my whisk flipped out of the pan and splattered chocolate all over the stove and floor. *sigh*

But on the upside, Hubby graciously helped me with the chopping of the chocolate. Yes, I admit it. I am a wimp about chopping chocolate. I just don't have good luck with it, and staring down a pound of the stuff was rather daunting. Once I got all the mishaps out of the way, the actual making of the truffles was fairly easy. I melted down the chocolate into the cream and added the butter, peppermint and salt and happily got to break in my new saucier pan. Then the chocolate was transferred to the fridge. After chilling for 4 hours, I pulled it back out to roll into balls. I was a little nervous about this part given Summer's experience, but found it wasn't as difficult as I'd feared. Most of the chocolate had firmed up pretty nicely, and it was just the middle that needed some extra chill time. So I made about half the batch and put the rest of the bowl back in the fridge to make tomorrow.

Melting the chocolate into the cream in my new saucier pan

Oo - it's 9:30 now! Time for a taste! Oh wow oh wow oh wow. These are goooood. The middle is cool and smooth with a delicious rich chocolate mint flavor. The crushed cookie coating adds a nice texture and crunch. There is no way we'll be able to eat them all, so Hubby's coworkers will be getting a treat on Monday morning!! :)

Like Summer said in her last entry, this has been a great year for learning and baking things I wouldn't have ever tried otherwise! I also love sharing this experience with Summer. We may be a couple thousand miles apart, but doing this project together helps narrow the gap a bit. I have also learned a lot of great new tips and tricks and grown ever more passionate about baking as my hobby. I am definitely looking forward to seeing what 2011 brings in the baking realm!

Cranberry Cornmeal Cookies - by Summer

2010-12-31T21:10:00.000-06:00

I hope everyone had very happy holidays. It's always a busy time of year. I actually made these cookies a few days ago, but haven't had time (nearly forgot) to post until now.

I was having some friends over for lunch this week and post-Christmas, I wanted to make things simple. But of course I can't host without having some sort of dessert. It was the perfect time to make this recipe.

I would never in a million years think to put cornmeal into a cookie recipe. The rest of the ingredients are very common - flour, sugar, butter, vanilla, egg, dried cranberries, white chocolate chips and sliced almonds. This cookie comes together very quickly and they baked for about 15 minutes. The result is a very tasty cookie. The cornmeal definitely adds a different texture and I liked the combination of the cranberries and almonds.

The cookie was also a big hit with my friends. They commented that it was a "light" cookie and they couldn't stop eating them! I can definitely see making them again. They are a great change of pace from the traditional chocolate chip cookie.

It's hard to believe that Lisa and I are wrapping up our first year of baking together. It's been a lot of fun and I have made a lot of things that I would never normally have made. I feel as though I have grown a lot not only in with baking, but in the kitchen in general. I look forward to continuing our baking journey in 2011!

Mom's Mexican Wedding Cookies - by Lisa

2010-12-25T16:00:00.000-06:00

Merry Christmas! I have been excited about making these cookies all month as I knew who would be the perfect recipient for a surprise shipment of cookies! A couple of Christmases ago, I learned that these cookies are the absolute favorite of my father-in-law. I actually made these last weekend, but I wanted to make sure the cookies were received before I wrote about them for maximum surprise effect. :) Hope you like them Larry!

In my household, these cookies go by the name Russian Teacakes, and my sister Karla is the real expert when it comes to making them. I was quite surprised to see that when compared side by side, the recipes were rather different. Granulated sugar instead of powdered sugar. Different amounts of flour and vanilla. I was very curious to see just how these would compare to the version I am used to making.

Since I am already accustomed to making this style of cookie, putting it all together was pretty simple. I used my quick chop to crush up all the walnuts and my cookie scooper to make fast (and uniform) work of placing the cookies on the baking sheet. They baked for about 25 minutes and came out nice and golden. When I have made the teacakes in the past, I used a large plastic bag full of powered sugar and gently shook the cookies around in it. But I used the method suggested in the book this time which was rolling them in a bowl of powered sugar. I found this new way was much easier and faster!

After they were cooled and rolled, I packed up half of them for shipping and indulged on the other half. I thought they were quite tasty and noticed they were a little bit crispier than the version I have made before. It was a pleasant change, and I liked seeing how these turned out. I can easily see myself using this recipe again for a nice change of pace from the teacake variety.

Mint Chocolate Truffles - by Summer

2010-12-17T10:00:00.000-06:00

This recipe I had originally picked as one of the ones that Lisa and I were going to bake together when I visited in October. But then she had commented that she wanted to do this one in December because that is the perfect time to make truffles - with the holidays and all. And I agree, so we moved it to this month.

I was very excited to try making these. I have heard that truffles are pretty easy to make. The only ones that I have ever made are the Oreo Truffles which are so easy, it seems like you are cheating when you are making them!

I chose to make them this week because friends of ours are baby-sitting for us on Thursday night while my husband and I have a rare date night (so excited - going to see the musical Billy Elliot!) My friends love the Oreo Truffles, so I thought I would make this for them to snack on while they hang out.

I had some problems assembling the ingredients for this recipe. Even though I read through it a million times, I kept forgetting something (first peppermint extract, then the chocolate, and then I didn't have enough cream!) But fortunately I was trying to plan ahead, so I was still able to get everything together in advance. This recipe calls for a pound a semi-sweet chocolate. I really wish they had pre-chopped baking chocolate. I was seriously tempted to just use chocolate chips, but in the end I sucked it up and chopped up a pound of chocolate.

Messy!!!

After warming the cream and melting the chocolate, it needed to chill in the fridge. That evening I set about actually making them into balls. Here is where things got a little messy. My hands were an absolute mess making these! They didn't shape into balls very nicely either. I think maybe they shouldn't have chilled for as long, so I could just use my scooper instead of rolling them into balls. I was sort of frustrated by it. They did rolls in the cookie crumbs and cocoa easily. But I really hated shaping them into the balls. Anyone else made truffles and knows some tips.

My friends loved the truffles and they do make a great gift this time of year. The taste was pretty amazing and with the exception of rolling into balls, they were really easy to make. I would like to try them without the mint next time. And I also ended up with a lot of cookie crumbs leftover. Next time I would only chopped up half the cookies, so I could eat the rest of the them whole :-)

Mom's Mexican Wedding Cookies - by Summer

2010-12-10T09:15:00.000-06:00

This is truly one of my favorite times of the year. And as a baker, I love baking cookies for the holidays. I have fond memories of baking cookies with my mom and we still try every year to get together and bake cookies. The past couple of years have been tough, but we managed to fit some in this year. In past we have made up to 7 or 8 kinds of cookies in one weekend!

I picked this recipe because I think every family has some variation of this one. In my family the recipe is called Pecan Crescents. The funny thing about that is over the years walnuts replaced the pecans and it was discovered that rolling the cookies into balls was easier than shaping them into crescents! So we started calling them Walnut Balls. I was excited to try this recipe. I am definitely a pecan-gal, so substitutions for me!

This was a great cookie to make. It's super easy, makes about 40 cookies, which fit onto 2 cookie sheets and that way I could bake them at the same time! When cooled, you roll in powdered sugar. They taste similar to the cookies I grew up with, but we didn't roll them in sugar, we would just sprinkle over the tops. I like rolling them better! Of course, you'll notice in the picture below that I did leave the sugar off of a few for my hubby who likes them best plain. I liked this recipe a lot and can definitely see making them again!

Cranberry Cornmeal Cookies - by Lisa

2010-12-06T01:50:00.000-06:00

Every year I host a cookie baking party for the holidays, so of course this presented the perfect opportunity to showcase one of the cookie recipes we selected for this month! :) I chose the Cranberry Cornmeal Cookies as I thought they looked festive with the white chocolate chips and dried cranberries. The unusual thing about this recipe is right there in the name of the cookie - cornmeal. I was excited to see how this would come out in the cookie!

Putting this recipe together was pretty straight forward. I didn't have to pay too much attention which was good because I was pretty distracted (in a good way!) with everything that was going on already in the kitchen! Once I had everything ready to go and the cookies lined up on the sheet, I just had to wait my turn for the oven. :)

These baked up nice and even at the low end of the recommended time. When they first came out they were soft in the center and had a little bit of crunch on the outside. Everyone who tasted them liked them pretty well, but each person commented on the cornmeal part which I found amusing. I had a couple more after they cooled and found I liked them just as well as fresh out of the oven. I like the texture that the cornmeal adds to them, and I also like how the cranberries add a nice extra bit of chewiness to the cookie. Even though I do like the taste of these cookies, I'm not sure they quite grabbed me enough to add them to my favorites list. I will say they make a nice alternative to more traditional chocolate based cookies tho!

Apple Crumble - by Summer

2010-11-30T10:19:00.000-06:00

While I was the one that came up with our flexible scheduling for baking recipes (we pick the recipes for the month and then we decide when we want to make them), and I do believe it's a good idea, it wasn't a good thing for me this month. At the beginning of the month I put off making the Apple Crumble and then it was the middle of Nov - just in time for my hubby's b-day and then Thanksgiving follows immediately. Talk about bad timing on my part! Way too many sweets in the house (although my dad probably would think that no such thing is possible!)

Lisa gave me the brilliant idea of just making half the recipe. That turned out to be the perfect thing! Especially because this recipe is hard to share unless you have people over to help eat it. It's not something that would really travel well to my husband's work like bars, or cookies or cake.

So cutting it close to the end of the month, yesterday afternoon I made just under half of the recipe. The original calls for 5 apples and I did just 2. I had the perfect size dish* and the crumble topping was really easy to cut in half. It baked for about 40 minutes instead of the 55.

I have to say that I really liked this crumble a lot! I am not sure how much sugar I really used when combining with the apples, but it wasn't a lot, so they were nice and tart and the topping was crunchy with a touch of cinnamon. I think this will replace my go-to recipe for apple crisp. The amount was absolutely perfect for me and my husband! I feel bad that I put off making this one for so long! Here's hoping that December's recipes are done sooner!!!

*Anybody recognize that dish that I used? Maybe someone from Lisa's family?!!!

Sweet Potato Pie with Streusel Topping - by Lisa

2010-11-27T19:23:00.000-06:00

Gobble Gobble! Like Summer, I thought this would make an excellent addition to our Thanksgiving menu this year. I had no idea what to expect from this pie, but it turned out great! The recipe calls for canned sweet potatoes, but knowing how the stores can be around here, I opted to buy fresh sweet potatoes instead of trying to hunt down the canned variety. I also decided to make my own pumpkin pie spice since nearly all pre-made spice includes nutmeg. Sadly, nutmeg and I do not get along so I must omit whenever possible!

I was quite pleased to see a pre-made frozen pie shell was suggested here, because I am horrible at making pie crusts. They are my baking kryptonite. I swear they can smell my fear. Someday I am going to spend the entire day working on crusts until I master the dang things. That's right pie crust, I'm looking at you.

This definitely was an easy pie to make, and I'm glad I decided to make it fresh on Thanksgiving day. It baked for about 5-7 min longer than suggested and set up quite nicely. I served it with some fresh whipped cream. Those of us who still had room left after dinner enjoyed it quite a bit! It was sweeter than I expected (in a good way), and I particularly liked the streusel topping. I would definitely consider making this again for next Thanksgiving.

Sweet Potato Pie with Streusel Topping - by Summer

2010-11-25T19:25:00.000-06:00

Happy Thanksgiving! I am sorry for the lack of posting this month. I promise to get back with the program here. I figure there's no better time to get back to baking for Thanksgiving. I purposely chose this recipe this month, as a replacement for the traditional pumpkin pie. My husband was not too pleased to hear the news as he loves some pumpkin pie (I promised to make him one for Christmas!)

I actually made this pie yesterday. I assembled everything as best I could before actually putting it together:

This pie was really easy to make. The recipe called for a pre-made pie crust, but I don't do that in my house, so I made one from scratch. Once everything was set up, I literally made this pie while holding my 8 month old on my hip! I was a little worried because the streusel topping seemed like it was falling into the pie.

Before Oven


Fresh out of the Oven

As I mentioned before my husband was bummed that we weren't having pumpkin pie this year for Thanksgiving. And then I started worrying that this was going to be a really sweet pie. I made some fresh whipped cream for our pie, cut a couple of pies and hoped for the best.

Both my husband and I were surprised by the taste. It wasn't too sweet at all. It was pretty similar to the pumpkin pie, but I think the streusel topping provided the main difference. We both quickly gobbled up our pieces! Yum! I am glad I took a chance on something different for this holiday!

Apple Crumble - by Lisa

2010-11-15T15:39:00.000-06:00

My sister Cathy came to visit us this weekend, so I thought it would be a perfect opportunity to bake one of our picks while she was here! I decided to make the Apple Crumble and save the sweet potato pie for later this month at Thanksgiving. I really am digging our new baking schedule as it allows for lots more baking flexibility!

We have done a really good job this fall of taking advantage of making lots of the apple recipes while they are in season. Once again, I utilized my produce co-op and ordered Granny Smith apples to use specifically for this recipe. This really was an easy one to make! With the exception of the apples, I already had everything I needed on hand to put it together. And of course, any opportunity to use my CPS (heretofore known as the corer/peeler/slicer) makes me one happy girl!

While I worked on the apples, I cheated a little and had Cathy put together the topping. Half the fun of baking is doing it together, right?! Since I just don't have the hang of cutting in butter with a pastry cutter, I opted for my old friend the food processor. This was also a handy lesson for Cathy on utilizing this particular technique.

Once the topping was ready, I sprinkled it all over the apples and got it into the oven.

Fifty minutes later, it was ready to come out of the oven! I let it cool for a little while on a wire rack. While it was cooling, we chatted with friends Rob and Anastasia who came over for a visit. I'm glad we made it this dessert when we did because I love to share these baked goods with friends! I cut a piece for each of them and everyone declared it a delicious hit. I enjoyed it too. I do wish I had some ice cream or whipped cream to go with it tho. It would have also been really yummy with some fresh cranberries thrown in. I have to say, I've really come around to enjoying baked apple dishes thanks to many of the recipes in this book. I never was a big fan of them before, but that has all changed! :)

Plum Galette - by Summer

2010-11-02T20:14:00.000-05:00

Somehow this recipe ended up being a lot harder than it needed to be. For some reason I didn't think it would be any problem to try and find plums this time of year. I guess I just figured it's fall and plums are in season. Little did I remember that it's already the end of October (close to the end of fall) and when I went grocery shopping early last week, there were no plums to be found. I went to a couple of stores and one even told me that they were out for the season. I wasn't quite sure what to do, so I did some googling and decided that I would make a Pear-Apple Galette instead because both of those are easily found in stores right now. I sort of combined recipes and when I went to eat it, discovered that it didn't bake nearly long enough (this was after it made a HUGE mess in my oven). Defeat!

But the same day that I made the galette, I discovered Walmart selling red plums. Initially I was bummed that I hadn't thought to run there before making the Pear-Apple Galette. When I discovered the failure of the PA Galette, I decided that I could actually make the plum one after all. So the next day I went to Walmart to purchase plums and more puff pastry.

By this point I had seen the galette made by Lisa and made one myself, so it actually came together pretty quickly. And my mistake with the PA one was that I didn't make sure the edges were tight and the cookie sheet that I used to bake it didn't have edges all the way around, so that made a mess in the oven as it leaked juices. For the plum galette I made sure that the edges where tight and I used a different cookie sheet.

Before baking

After baking

I tried to make this close to when we were eating dinner, so it might still be a little warm when we tasted it. Unfortunately we ended up doing an impromptu dinner with a friend and ate later than normal, so it wasn't warm. My edges got a little too brown and tried covering loosely with foil, but one side still got slightly burnt. Overall it still tasted good. I think mine was a little tarter than Lisa's and I think it was due to using only red plums. I think if I made this again, I would try using a mix of different plums.

S'Mores Bars - by Summer and Lisa

2010-10-31T20:31:00.000-05:00

Lisa Says: Bonus recipe this month! Since Summer was out here visiting me in Seattle, and we didn't have loads of stuff going on, we decided that we should bake something together! Summer narrowed down the field to three options, and I got to choose which one it would be. The S'Mores Bars just looked too good to pass up, plus I had all the ingredients on hand which made for a nice bonus.

Baking is so much more fun when you can do it together. :) Making this recipe was almost like making chocolate chip cookie bars with some marshmallows and graham cracker crumbs thrown in for good measure. It was really easy to assemble, and I liked that the topping wasn't one solid mass and instead allowed for the marshmallows to puff thru. We tag teamed on making the batter and putting it all together. The hard part was waiting for it to be ready to eat! After it came out of the oven, it had to cool to room temperature and THEN it went into the fridge for awhile!

Making the batter

Summer working the layers

Lisa tags in and adds more layers

Once it was finally ready for consumption, I thought it was pretty tasty. Although, it was a pretty dense bar and the mass of chocolate chips melded together made for some heavy bites of sugar. I do like it tho, and it has been my lunch dessert for most of the week. I think if I were to make it again, I would go a little lighter on the chocolate chips and maybe add a handful more of marshmallows. I might also consider thinning the bottom layer a bit more to even out the whole cake-y experience.

Summer Says:
I was really excited to go visit Lisa and meet her precious new baby and also spend time with my godson (her older child). It was also an added bonus that we had the time to bake together.

Somehow in my head, I was thinking the base of this dessert was more brownie like (i.e. chocolate), but it was really graham cracker. I agree that I wish the bottom layer was a little bit thinner, but I loved the layer of chocolate chips and marshmallows. The hardest part was definitely waiting to dig into them.

I was able to take some home with me and since my hubby doesn't like marshmallows or s'mores, I was able to eat them all myself. They were a little rich, so they lasted me a long while. I loved being able to bake with Lisa in her kitchen. My fondest memory though was when her husband had the great idea to put the bars in the garage to cool off quicker. We moved them back inside and into the fridge while he was off doing something else. When he went looking for them, he convinced that someone broke into their garage and stole them! :-)

Before going in the oven

The finished product

Elegant Apple Tartlets - by Lisa

2010-10-31T00:34:00.000-05:00

Hot diggity these were some tasty little treats! I'm normally not the biggest fan of apple pie, but these were simply delicious! So much so that I helped myself to 3 servings. Thank heaven for the extra calories burned off by nursing! LOL! Anywho, I'm always excited to make use of my specialty kitchen gadgets, and for this one I got to pull out my apple peeler/corer. Incidentally, my cat has an amazing memory and was at my feet begging for the apple ribbon as soon as I pulled the gadget out! But I digress...this tool makes handy work of peeling, coring and slicing the apple, so that step was completed in no time at all! I was also excited to utilize my CSA and ordered Gala apples especially for this recipe.

Once I had the puff pastry rolled out, it was super simple to cut the circles, transfer them to the baking sheet and layer the apple slices on. Next was brushing melted butter and sprinkling cinnamon sugar over these little darlings. The only thing I messed up on was not having any sugar in the raw. I totally forgot that the recipe needed that, so I never picked any up from the store (or swiped packets of 'em from Starbucks for that matter).

Just placed in the oven

Twenty or so minutes later, Hubby and I were busy stuffing them into our mouths. We didn't even need to use forks - they were perfectly sized and just crisp enough to be picked up and ferried to our mouths. I can see how these would pair incredibly well with some vanilla ice cream too. Next time I'll have to do that!

The final product

Rustic Plum Galette - by Lisa

2010-10-27T18:20:00.000-05:00

Making the plum galette was extra fun because Summer was in Seattle for a visit!! Hooray!! :)
I was a little concerned about making this because I suspected we were nearing the end of in season plums. I wasn't sure if my grocery store was going to have any in stock! Fortunately, I lucked out and got my hands on some, and they were all in good shape too. Ripe, but still firm.

I decided I would make this the weekend Summer was here so that we could both sample it. I had spent a busy day in the kitchen working on dinner, so I was glad to find this recipe very easy to make!

And can I just say? Frozen puff pastry is my new favorite thing. It is so easy to work with and tastes so yummy! You may not know this, but me and pie crusts generally don't get along so well. I might start using this on days when I just don't feel like fighting against the pie crust gods. Anywho, the most time consuming part of this recipe was slicing up the plums, but that was fairly easy - more so because they weren't too mushy.

Unlike Summer, I'm not so good about reading ahead in recipes which can sometimes lead to problems. Case in point, the recipe called for rolling the dough between two sheets of parchment paper. For rolling out dough I almost always use waxed paper (cuz I'm cheap), so I figured I'd do the same here. Fortunately Summer noticed that the bottom layer of parchment paper does not get discarded and instead goes into the oven with the galette. Can't do that with the waxed paper! So she swapped that out for me while I was working with some of the ingredients.

Since I had to get this in the oven by a certain time, I didn't have the chance to line up the plum slices in neat circles. I kind of wish I did, because it would have made it look so much prettier!

Before going into the oven

And on the flip side

After dinner, we dug into dessert. I think Hubby put it best when he said: "It's a mouthful of win!" :) Yes, we all thoroughly enjoyed this tasty treat! Summer mentioned that it would be neat to try this with a different variety of plum. I might even try it with pluots next year!

Best Friends Baking - Together in Seattle!

Elegant Apple Tartlets - by Summer

2010-10-14T14:33:00.000-05:00

We're back! We decided to start out a little slow and only pick two recipes for the month. We are changing things up a little bit again. This time, we are each going to have picks for the month and then we can independently decide which week we are going to bake them. Flexibility is something that you learn as a parent, and that's how we are going to roll on here too! After we decided on two picks for this month, Lisa came up with a fabulous idea! Next week I am flying out to Seattle to meet her latest addition and to spend some time with my godson (her firstborn), so we thought it would be fun to bake a recipe together! It might be one of us distracting the kids while the other one bakes, but I am sure we will figure it out!

Anyhow - enough housekeeping - on with the baking! Both recipes we chose this month use puff pastry. For some silly reason - I have always been scared of puff pastry. After making this recipe I have no idea why! It's so easy to work with and you don't have to do a thing but thaw it!

Funny thing about that thawing it piece. Beth is a huge advocate of reading the recipe twice before you start baking anything. She puts this in her book and I have seen her mention it on other places. Usually I study the recipes a couple of days before attempting them. This one was no different, but for some reason, my mind completely ignored the word thaw! During the baby's morning nap, I got everything ready to make these. I sliced the apples (I used an apple peeler/corer thing because I am terrible at pealing by hand), got the butter melted, oven preheated - I mean everything was ready. And then I went to the freezer and took out the puff pastry. Basically I had to turn off the oven and put away some of the stuff until the next naptime rolled around. You simply can't roll out frozen puff pastry. It just won't work! Lesson learned the hard way!

Other than that little issue, I was able to assemble these quickly. My apple slices weren't as thin as the recipe called for and my apples were slightly large as I was trying to use up what I had on hand (a Golden Delicious and a Cortland). Fortunately that wasn't an issue at all in the outcome. The apples baked up soft after 20 minutes and the taste was so amazing! It's like a little apple pie without all the work of a pie crust! I can not wait to make these again!

Bun in the Oven - by Lisa

2010-09-02T15:59:00.000-05:00

Our new little guy - Ezra Paul - made his appearance Sunday, August 22nd at 10:11pm! He weighed 8lbs 15oz and was 21.26in long! I can hardly believe he is 11 days old already. We absolutely adore him and promptly fell head over heels in love with him. Big brother Caiden has been adjusting pretty well and loves to hold his new little brother.

We will likely get back to our baking schedule sometime in late September or early October, so keep an eye out for our return!!