TWD: Tall and Creamy Cheesecake and an announcement

Hi everyone, I'm back! Sorry for the unannounced (and unanticipated) blogging vacation. I sure hope all of you had a wonderful Christmas - we sure did. It wasn't exactly peaceful (that's an impossibility with four children) but it certainly was joyful.

I have made my fair share of cheesecakes and even made some to sell this holiday season - and that's what I did with this one. A friend ordered a cheesecake for her family Christmas celebration this past Saturday, which was perfect timing for this week's TWD post. I have a couple of very good recipes from epicurious.com that I most frequently use. In fact, I used the topping from this one to create the cheesecake I made for my friend - Cranberry Orange Cheesecake with a Chocolate Crust.

Dorie's recipe comes together very easily, like most cheesecakes. I'm not sure why people find the prospect of making a cheesecake daunting, because, really it's pretty easy - the trickiest part is the water bath and I'm going to tell you the secret right now. When you're wrapping your springform pan in foil to go into the water bath, you must use the large heavy duty foil (18 inches wide). If you use anything smaller, the water will seep into the pan and turn your crust into mush (I speak from experience here). Wrap the pan at least twice, making sure to mold each foil layer upwards towards the top of the pan (not folding it sideways) - you may have to roll the top of the foil around the top edge.

Another tip: when you fill your roasting pan, make sure to put the pan in first, then fill it with hot water (no more than halfway up the side of the pan).

To make a chocolate crust, I just used 1 3/4 cups of crushed oreos (stuff removed - this is much to the delight of my children who make super stuffed oreos).

You can buy plain chocolate wafer cookies - Meijer doesn't carry them here though and they're usually more expensive than oreos (plus, no stuff). Anyway, I omitted the additional sugar and just stirred in the melted butter.

The only other change I made to the original recipe was to add 2 tsp. grated orange zest to the batter and add the topping. Here's that recipe:

1/2 cup sugar
3 tablespoons water
1 teaspoon cornstarch dissolved in 1 tablespoon water
2 cups fresh cranberries
1/2 teaspoon grated orange peel

Stir sugar and water in medium saucepan over medium-low heat until sugar dissolves. Increase heat to medium; add cornstarch mixture and bring to simmer. Add cranberries; cook until beginning to pop, stirring often, about 3 minutes. Stir in orange peel. Cool completely. Cover and chill overnight. (Cheesecake and cranberry mixture can be made 2 days ahead. Keep refrigerated.)

Run knife around top edge of cheesecake to loosen. Release pan sides. Top cheesecake with cranberry mixture. Chill until set, about 1 hour.

My announcement is sort of a sad one to make - this will be my last Tuesdays with Dorie post. Unfortunately, Dorie's baked goods aren't calorie free and I really want to focus on losing 30 pounds next year. I thought that training for a half marathon would do the trick, but alas, no. At least I didn't gain any weight! I have had such a great time since I joined and I am so thankful for all my new blogging friends I met through TWD.

In 2009 I am going to try to post healthy recipes which will be lower in fat and sugar, but every once in a while, I'm going to have to sneak in something truly decadent (and there's really not many better sources out there than Baking From My Home to Yours by Dorie). Thanks to all my TWD buddies for all your support and I'll be sure to check in with you each Tuesday!

Have a happy and safe New Year!

UPDATE: It's been too long since I last posted a TWD - I completely forgot to link to the wonderful blogger who choose this week's recipe. Please visit Anne of Annestrawberry for the recipe and to check out a truly fantastic blog!

TWD: Arborio Rice Pudding, Black, White (or both)

I chose the "both option" since I knew I was going to have to double the recipe anyway to satisfy my family of sweet-tooths. I was eagerly anticipating this recipe because I haven't ever made rice pudding, and hadn't even eaten it since I was oh, about twelve years old. My Mom made it for us occasionally when we were growing up, but I haven't had the opportunity to have it since. On the surface, this recipe looks extremely easy, with only a handful of ingredients even if you include the chocolate. But, as I'm sure you are aware, looks can be deceiving.

I made one change from the recipe because I wanted to and another change because I had to. For the first, I decided that I would make the "white" part white chocolate as opposed to just a simple vanilla. I was frankly surprised that this wasn't what Dorie had originally in mind when she wrote this recipe (just seemed to make sense in that the "black" part was to be chocolate). As for the necessary change, read on.

When I read over the recipe, the thought of only using a measly 1/4 cup of rice to 3 1/4 cups of milk was unsettling. I wondered if it might be a misprint, but I went ahead and trusted that Dorie knew what she was talking about. I wish I had read the comments over at the Tuesdays with Dorie site first (I will remember to do that from now on as it is always full of great advice). Suffice to say, my pudding didn't quite come out right.

The recipe says to parboil the rice for 10 minutes and then cook it in the milk and sugar mixture for 30 minutes until 80-90% of the milk had been absorbed. After 30 minutes of simmering, it tasted delicious but looked nothing like rice pudding and everything like rice soup. The rice was tender and I just thought there was no way it was going to soak up that much milk. I added white chocolate to half and bittersweet to the other half and covered them with the skin-preventing plastic wrap. By this point, it was getting late so just I threw it in the fridge for an overnight stint and hoped fervently that things would set up. Alas, this was not the case. In the morning I simply had cold rice soup.

By now, you'd think that I would have remembered to go to the TWD site to figure out what was going on, but no, I didn't. My necessary recipe change was to put each batch back into a pot and add some cornstarch (2 tbsp per pot) to thicken them (bring to a boil and cook for an additional minute). This worked like a charm but kind of diluted the flavor. Of course, it was after this additional step that I consulted my fellow TWD bakers and discovered what I did wrong. Although the recipe calls for 30 minutes of simmering, many others found that if allowed to simmer another 15 to 30 minutes more, the pudding thickened nicely.

All in all, I have to say that this rice pudding was pretty tasty, despite my doctoring with the cornstarch. The white chocolate was far and away my favorite of the two and I'll definitely be making it again and next time, I'll try to be more patient. Thanks Isabelle of Les gourmandises d’Isa (a French food blog - oh, la, la tres magnific!) for choosing this delicious recipe. Check out the other TWD bakers here.

Be sure to check in next week for Thanksgiving Twofer Pie!

Creme Brulee Cheesecake - yes, it's as good as it sounds

First, an apology. I don't have very many photos and the ones I do have are pretty crappy. The picture above is one someone else took of the entire table as we were still getting everything ready and I just cropped it - don't you just love that big box of crackers right behind the cake?! And it really was much prettier when you looked at it closer - the caramelized sugar was nice and twinkly.

I made this cheesecake a couple of weeks ago when I threw a surprise party for one of my very best friends. I was so preoccupied with keeping the whole shebang a secret and getting everything else ready, I forgot to snap pictures both as I made it and after it was all done. She's one of those people for whom it's practically impossible to either a) find a day that will work because she's so busy and/or b) genuinely surprise - miraculously, I was able to do both. This is her piece (after I finally remembered to take a picture):

I've only ever had Creme Brulee Cheesecake one time, but from that first forkful, I was smitten. It was a frozen one from Sam's Club, but I thought that someday I must try to duplicate it. After making Creme Brulee for the first time a few weeks ago, I knew that the time to try was at hand. So, thanks to some inspiration from Dorie, here's the recipe (should be prepared the day before you're going to serve it):

Creme Brulee Cheesecake

For the crust:

About 2/3 of a 16 ounce package shortbread cookies

3 Tablespoons melted butter

For the filling:

4 8 ounce packages low-fat cream cheese, room temperature

1 tablespoon flour

1 1/2 cups sugar, divided

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

3 large eggs, room temperature

3 large egg yolks, room temperature

1 cup heavy cream

granulated sugar for topping (I used about 1/3 cup - you don't want too thick a layer of sugar 'cause it would be a real pain to cut through and really mangle the slices)

Preheat oven to 350 °. Wrap the outside of a 10-inch diameter springform pan (you could use a 9 inch pan, just cook it for a while longer, maybe 15-20 minutes) with at least 2 layers of aluminum foil. Make sure this is the large heavy duty foil so that the width of the foil exceeds the diameter and height of your pan - this will help prevent water from leaking into your cheesecake (trust my experience here, watery cheesecake = nasty mess). When you fold the foil over the sides of your pan, try to make sure you press the foil up and not to the sides of the pan.

Prepare the crust. Finely grind shortbread cookies in a food processor. Add melted butter and process until crumbs are moistened. Press into bottom of the prepared pan. Bake crust until golden, about 15 minutes. Cool crust completely on rack. Reduce oven temperature to 325 °.

Prepare the custard. In a medium heat proof bowl, whisk the egg yolks together. Mix together cream and 1/2 cup sugar and heat over low heat until just about to boil. Add about half the cream mixture to the egg yolks, whisking constantly, to temper them. Add the egg mixture back to the pan with the remaining cream and heat on low, continuing to whisk until just starting to thicken (don't overdo this because you'll get scrambled eggs); immediately remove from heat again and stir in the vanilla. Let the mixture cool slightly. (You can strain this mixture if you think any eggs curdled in the process)

Prepare the filling. Using electric mixer, beat cream cheese until very smooth. Add flour and beat until smooth. Gradually add the remaining 1 cup sugar and beat until smooth. Add whole eggs one at a time, beating just until blended. Slowly blend in the custard mixture until smooth.

Pour filling over crust in pan. Place the springform pan in a large roasting pan. Pour enough hot water into the roasting pan to come about halfway up the sides of the springform pan. Bake cheesecake until cake is almost set (the center will still move slightly when pan is gently shaken), about 1 hour and 15 minutes. Cool cake on rack for 1 hour. Refrigerate uncovered overnight.

About 30 minutes prior to serving, remove the cake from fridge and unmold. Sprinkle the top with sugar and use a blow torch to caramelize.

Just a few side notes:

• A lot of folks are turned off by the whole water-bath thing and skip it. Please don't. I've made it both ways and when in the bath, they have never cracked (without it, the cakes always cracked)


• Getting the cheesecake out of the water-bath can be tricky. I finally got some of those silicone oven mitts and those work great because they're water and heat proof!


• To get nice clean cheesecake slices, have a large, tall pitcher full of very hot water and heat a large knife in it for a few minutes before serving. After each slice, wipe the knife clean with a paper towel and reheat in the hot water; wipe dry and make your next cut.

All the party-goers raved over this cheesecake and I thought it was pretty darn tasty, too (if I do say so myself ;-). Next time I make this I may skip the extra steps involved in making the custard and just dump all the ingredients into the mixing bowl and see how it turns out. I hope you get a chance to make this cheesecake and if you do, I'd love to hear what you thought, so please come back and comment or send me an email!

TWD: Caramel-Peanut Topped Brownie Cake

In the book, this cake looks absolutely mouth-watering. I was expecting it to taste a lot like a peanut butter parfait from DQ (especially because I planned on serving it with ice cream) which is my very favorite treat from that place. It didn't, but was still very good. I don't mean to sound like this wasn't delicious, because it was, but I guess Creme Brulee is an extremely tough act to follow.

Overall, the consensus at my house was that the brownie cake was great but the caramel was too chewy.

I think if it had been more saucy rather than chewy, it would have been really outstanding. I recommend adding more cream and butter - maybe 1/2 of cream and another tablespoon or two of butter to the caramel. Also, my cake really sank in the middle and created quite the crater.

Dorie warns against this in her book and says that it's okay, but I still think mine sank more than was supposed to and I'm not sure why. Maybe the dark pan caused the outside edges to cook faster? Anyway, all my caramel and peanuts sat well inside the crater and just didn't look quite as nice.

Speaking of caramel, it's not that difficult to make, especially Dorie's recipe which calls for corn syrup (for some technical chemistry-type reason, the corn syrup helps to prevent the sugar from re-crystallizing after you start to heat it up - I think this is true for almost any time you're cooking sugar to make candy). I would add a couple of notes to this recipe:

• Make sure to wash down the sides of your pan with water (using a pastry brush) before you start cooking the sugar - this also helps to prevent re-crystallization)



• Really keep a close eye on your caramel as soon as it turns amber in color - it'll get dark on you fast and scorch easily (this means do not leave the stove for any reason other than danger to life and limb of one your children - trust me, I've burned a lot of sugar).

So, when I make this again, I'll be making a saucier caramel and I'll probably try roasting some pecans in place of the peanuts. Thanks to Tammy of Wee Treats by Tammy for choosing this week's recipe (which should be posted on her site) and of course, you can check out all the other fabulous Tuesdays with Dorie bakers here.

On deck for next week: Lenox Almond Biscotti!

TWD: Creme Brulee...oh.my.

Let me just start out by saying that this is one of the best desserts I have ever made. Yes, ever.

I was so excited to make this week's Tuesday's With Dorie selection because I have never made Creme Brulee before and it looks absolutely delicious in the book. Why oh why did I never make this before? Who knows - I as sure the heck don't and I'm still asking myself why. Maybe it was the lack of a torch (really, a weak excuse because the husband loves any reason to get a new tool and I could have just asked him to get one a long time ago) or maybe, I was just a wee bit intimidated. I mean this is such a classic and classy dessert. After having finally made Creme Brulee, however, I can say with full authority that this excuse should never hold you back - it's incredibly easy to make. In fact, after I had made the custard and had them in the oven I thought, "that's it? That's all there is to this fancy-schmancy dessert?" Three eggs, some sugar, cream, milk and vanilla. Bake it, sprinkle it with sugar, put a torch to it. That's it.

Simple. Beautiful.

Divine.

I went straight ahead with the recipe as listed in the book, full fat and all. I thought since this was my first attempt at Creme Brulee I'd better start with the basics. There will most definitely be time for experimentation later. Dorie lists several variations to try and I'm sure many of my fellow TWD bakers got creative (check out the blogroll here).

I only have two suggestions:

• The recommended cooking time was 50 to 60 minutes. I had mine in the oven for 75 and they were still a little wobbly, but after their time in the fridge they had set up nicely. Maybe this depends on the dishes you use - I used ramekins which were about 1 1/2 inches high by 3 inches in diameter. For thise recipe, I filled 4 rams plus an extra, larger bowl).


• If you've got a three year old in your house, get her a spoon before you give her the bowl. I had just given her the Creme Brulee and when I turned to give her a spoon, she already had her tongue broken through the sugar.

My 8 year old son, who is already a man of few words said simply, but emphatically "Make this again" (we're still working on the please and thank you thing). My 10 year old daughter actually licked the bowl clean and begged to eat Daddy's (which did not happen). The baby grabbed the spoon from me and demanded to eat it by himself (which also did not happen, as we were sharing). End result, five empty dishes in record time. Delicious!

It was also a lot of fun for the kids to watch the caramelization process (science in the kitchen - such fun!). We didn't even make it back to the table to eat these - just stood around the counter devouring them.

Thank you, thank you Mari of Mevrouw Cupcake for selecting this fabulous recipe! Save some drool for next week though because coming up is Caramel-Peanut-Topped Brownie Cake.

Ahhhhh...the Galette

I saved the best of the meal for last. I am just so pleased at how this dessert turned out and I most definitely will be making it again. A galette is supposedly a rustic, country pie, but it can be lovely just the same, don't you think?

I got the recipe from Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan. Peaches and raspberries were on sale last week, so trying to decide what fruit to use was easy. Before I joined Tuesday's with Dorie, I had read the group's results with this recipe and had seen that combo somewhere but for the life of me couldn't remember. Thanks to a comment in the first post I made on this meal, I now have the answer! Thanks N.O.E. of The Dogs Eat the Crumbs for the inspiration!

My usual pie dough recipe is Martha Stewart's pâte brisée. I love the all butter crust because, besides being delicious, it's both flaky and super tender. Some say that butter doesn't make for a flaky crust, but mine always came out pretty well. The only problem I've ever found with it is that it's a little more difficult to work with than those using shortening - tends to break after rolled and it must be re-chilled after placing it in the pan because the butter melts really fast and, if not really cold, it'll slide down the sides of your pie pan. Of course, the fat of choice that most professionals agree makes for the best all around crust is lard. I personally haven't tried it yet, I guess because I can't get around the whole cow fat thing, but isn't butter essentially the same thing? I will try it one day...one day. Anyway, for this galette, I used Dorie's pie dough recipe in the book. I have to admit, I really liked this crust - it was the best of both worlds (using mostly butter and a little shortening) and therefore was very easy to work with and tasted fabulous.

A few notes:

• As I've said before, my pie crust rolling skills leave something to be desired so I made one and a half recipes and had plenty. In fact, I increased the diameter of the finished galette from 9 inches to 10 and I think it makes for a really nice presentation being a bit bigger.


• The recipe calls for 8 peaches, but I could only get 5 in mine (and that's using the bigger diameter!) and they fit perfectly. Then I just sprinkled about a half cup of raspberries around. Pretty, huh?

• I forgot to buy graham cracker crumbs, so they were omitted from the recipe. These are used to soak up some of the juices from the cooked fruit and my omission became obvious about halfway through cooking - my beautiful galette was swimming in peach juice. I ended up carefully holding the tray and parchment over the sink (said a quick prayer) and tilted it slightly to let some of the liquid drain off. It turned out okay, but I don't recommend skipping this step.


• Also forgot to buy raspberry jam (which, I think, would have made this great dessert sublime, but oh well!) so I used apricot which was just fine and worked well with the peaches.


• I could only fit about half of the custard mix on top of the fruit and even some of that spilled over onto the parchment. Speaking of which - I highly recommend using that under the galette. With all the juices that came off and the custard issue, this probably saved it from destruction as I would have totally mangled it trying to pry it off a Pam-coated tray. I figured at the very least, I could cut around the darn thing and plop it on a serving plate, parchment paper and all, and peel the paper off each slice.


• Serve with vanilla ice cream. Swoon-worthy I'm tellin' ya!

I can't end this post without giving credit to my darling littlest sous chef (who is 13 months old), whose help I found indispensable, who was a constant grounding presence throughout the whole process, and who quite literally held me up by the apron strings...

What you obviously can't hear is the screaming that was going on when I snapped this. Oh, my little baby love...someday, I know I'll look back on these days and smile and wish I could turn back the clock....but not this day.

Long story short, make this - you will not regret it! You can find the recipe here.

Almond Horns, take 1

Last week, a friend of mine introduced me to these sinfully delicious treats, and I can only guess that the chef who came up with them has sold his or her soul to You-Know-Who (no, not Voldemort, but I couldn't resist throwing a H.P. reference in here). This is why I figure they're called horns, because they look more like a boomerang to me. They were kinda crunchy on the outside and filled with chewy almondy goodness on the inside. And they were huge - big enough for two, but if I was all by my lonesome I could've eaten at least two or three of these bad boys without batting an eyelash. It's a veeeerrrrryyyyy good thing the bakery she got them from is pretty inconvenient to get to. (The picture above is just one I found on the internet, but it looks pretty much like the one I had.)

At any rate, I've got a thing for almond flavored baked goods and knew I must find a way to make them. A quick Google search (what would we do without that little internet tool?) came up with about 300,000 hits. I looked through quite a few before settling on trying this recipe first from Recipezarr.com. The recipe says to bake for 12-14 minutes, but I'm here to tell you that mine were in for 16 minutes and still came out on the undercooked side. I was just so scared of over-cooking them that I just went ahead and took them out; they are nice and chewy but, unfortunately, no crunchy outside.

My preliminary taste test results - pretty good, but not even close to the ones I tried a week ago. So, darn, I'm going to have to try another recipe. The downside of trying again is that the almond paste is pretty pricey. The upside, of course, is that I get to keep sampling my efforts (I fear the scale is not going to like me after all this).

Wish me luck as I continue on my quest.

In which I attempt to make an ice cream torte

Sorry, I must take a deep breath and sigh before I write this.

Sigh.......

This was not one of my finer moments in the kitchen. When I first read the recipe it really seemed like it wasn't going to be too difficult, but alas, for me, the amateur, it was. When I made this on Sunday, at every step of the way, something happened to reinforce that fact that I am still, very much, but a learner. Again, sigh.......

It turned out to be surprisingly good in the end, but ugh, what an ordeal. I really think I made this much more difficult by a.)not following the recipe to the letter and (and this pains me to admit, because I know better!) b.)not reading through the recipe carefully beforehand. I read it, but apparently (duh!), I didn't really pay attention. You know how that sometimes happens, you're reading a book and then suddenly your a page farther but have no idea what you just read, right - please tell me this happens to other people too.

Anyhoo, on Saturday morning, (nothing like waiting til the last minute) I was still trying to decide what to mix into the ice cream when my dear friend Christy suggested cherries - great idea, huh, I mean chocolate and cherries, yum! So I decided to macerate said cherries in brandy because the recipe in the book listed liqueur as an option. This part went just fine, started them the night before and they were good to go the next morning. So far, so good.

This, however, was the end of my good fortune.

I don't have much photo-documentation from this point on, because I was to d*mn frustrated too take any pictures and I thought there wasn't any way in h-e-double-hockey-sticks I was going to post this disaster. My second friggin recipe from the book, UGH!

Here's a quick recap of the problems with making the Chocolate Banded Ice Cream Torte (really, it shouldn't have been this difficult and I'm sure there are lots of TWD bakers out there who handled this with nary a problem. The blogroll is here and the recipe is here):

• Realized the recipe called for 8 inch springform pan - don't own one so used a 9" and knew the torte would be thin


• Didn't feel comfortable using raw eggs in the ganache because the kids were going to have some - doubled the chocolate and used a combo of 2 parts butter and one part vegetable oil and substituted corn syrup for the sugar - all in an effort to prevent the ganache from becoming brittle. This only sorta-kinda worked. Actually all melty, it looked awfully pretty in the bowl - nice, shiny, beautiful chocolate brown.

• Tried to put all the ice cream and cherries in my too stinkin small food processor (yes, I know, I should have learned my lesson by now, but no.) and found out, yes it's still too small a bowl for that much liquid. Put in blender - this worked but the color was not very attractive - sort of mauvey gray. Oh yes, and by now my ice cream had become quite the consistency of a milk shake - an ugly, mauvey gray milk shake. On the bright side - ugly as it was, it did taste pretty good.


• Realized after the second layer of ice cream that I had erroneously divided the ice cream into thirds when there were only supposed to be two ice cream layers. Now my already too thin torte was going to be that much thinner. grrrrrrrrr.

We still ate it for dessert and everyone said it was good, but the kids ended up eating all the ice cream and leaving most of the chocolate. I think if I had used semi-sweet chocolate and/or added more sugar or corn-syrup, they would have liked it more. It was also hard to eat. Not completely brittle, but still hard to dig into with a spoon.

Bottom line: don't think I'll make this again, but I'm looking at this as a learning experience. On tap for next week: Chunky Peanut Butter and Oatmeal Chocolate Chipsters. Cookies, I can definitely handle - should be a piece of cake (famous last words?). Stay tuned!

Oh yeah, and I couldn't resist this one:

I wondered where that saying came from and looked it up online - apparently it was a song from the 1930's. I liked it so I thought I'd share:

Life is just a bowl of cherries;

Don't make it serious;

Life's too mysterious.

You work, you save, you worry so,

But you can't take your dough when you go, go, go.

So keep repeating it's the berries;

The strongest oak must fall.

The sweet things in life

To you were just loaned,

So how can you lose what you've never owned?

Life is just a bowl of cherries,

So live and laugh at it all.

"Life is Just a Bowl of Cherries" was the title of a song by Lew Brown and Ray Henderson, sung by Ethel Merman in Scandals (1931).

In the end, it's all good :-)

Another yummy use for all those blackberries

Another friend from church had a baby (another darling little boy - we've had a run on them ;-) and I brought them dinner the other day. I wanted to try something a little different (but not too far out there) so this is what they had for dessert:

I can't actually say how this tasted, because I didn't keep any for us, but I just had to slice it up and get a picture - it looks pretty darn tasty if I do say so myself. And just to guild the lily a little, I also took them some vanilla ice cream to go with it.

You can find the recipe at epicurious.com. I ended up following the advice of some of the reviewers and lowered the temperature to 350 after about 20 minutes (the top was getting pretty brown) and baked it for about 15 more minutes. 400 is awfully hot for a cake, maybe that's a mistake in the recipe. I think if I were to make this again I'd just cook it at 350 for 35 to 40 minutes.

Unfortunately, this put an end to my blackberry stash. Karen, I will be calling you soon for more!

It's Tuesday!

This is my first Tuesday entry with the Tuesdays with Dorie group - yay!

These Granola Grabbers turned out even better than I thought they would. I was afraid that since the granola was such a big portion of the recipe that these might turn out a little dry and hard - boy was I pleasantly surprised. They taste a lot like a soft, chewy oatmeal raisin cookie, but with oomph. I had to forgo the peanuts because of a possible allergy, so I doubled the almonds. Definitely two thumbs up...er, make that, two hands up.



Granola Grabbers

makes about 40 cookies

3 cups granola without fruit
3/4 plump raisins
1/2 cup salted peanuts
1/2 cup slivered almonds
1/2 cup sweetened shredded coconut
1/3 cup wheat germ
1 3/4 sticks (14 Tbsp) unsalted butter, at room temp.
3/4 cup packed lt. brown sugar
1/4 sugar
1 large egg
1/4 tsp salt
1 cup all-purpose flour

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Line baking pans with parchment paper (I didn't do this and they came off my pans fine).

Put granola in a large bowl and break up any clumps with you fingers. Add the raisins, peanuts, almonds, coconut and wheat germ and mix together.

Working with a stand mixer, preferably fitted with paddle attachment, beat the butter at medium speed until smooth, about 2 minutes. Add the sugars and beat for another 3 minutes, or until creamy. Add the egg and salt and beat until well blended. Reduce the mixer speed to low and add the flour, mixing only until it is just incorporated, then steadily add the granola. Stop the mixer when most of the granola mix is blended and finish the job with a sturdy rubber spatula, making sure to get up any bits of dry ingredients left in the bottom of the bowl.

Scoop out rounded tablespoonfuls of dough, pack the scoops between your palms and arrange the mounds on the baking sheets, leaving about 1 1/2 inches between them. Flatten the mounds lightly with your fingertips.

Bake for 10 to 12 minutes, rotating the sheets halfway. The cookies should be golden brown, but not firm (you definitely don't want to over cook these). Allow them to rest on the sheets for 1 to 2 minutes before transferring them to racks to cool to room temp.

There is no way they're going to last until the first day of school on Thursday. Darn, I guess I'll just have to make more :-)


Enjoy - we sure did!

Let's hear it for the berries!

Ah, summer .... did I mention before how much I LOVE summer - the heat, the sun, the fresh berries!? Oh yes, I did. A friend of mine from church has been picking blackberries and had some extra she needed to find a home for. I was quite happy to take them off her hands - I ended up with about a gallon of them. Thank you so much, Karen! They are tart and juicy and delicious!




Today we are going to a pool party and cookout and I said I'd bring the dessert. Obviously, I needed something that was pretty easy to transport and serve - these are perfect because you can just pick em up and eat em on the go:

The recipe is from Martha Stewart's "Baking Handbook", but you can find it on her website here. My only problem with the recipe is the crust - it's delicious, don't get me wrong, there was just not enough of it to cover my pan. I am not talented enough to roll it really thin and still manage to get it in the pan in one piece. I had some help though -

So, this is definitely not the prettiest pie I've ever made, but after some patching in the corners, it turned out ok, I guess. Next time I make this, I will be doubling the crust recipe and using whatever might be left for individual tartlettes at a later time.

As for the taste, well it's fantastic. I hope you try it and be sure to let me know how it turns out!

I've got more blackberries left, so stay tuned for another recipe to come soon!

Tuesdays with Dorie

I am so excited to be a part of this online cooking group! Each week a recipe is selected from the beautiful cookbook "Baking: From My Home to Yours" by Dorie Greenspan for the group to prepare. I got my copy of the book a few days ago and it just looks spectacular. It's loaded with photos - this is a huge plus for me because I really don't like it when cookbooks don't have a lot of pictures to base your results on. The author is quite accomplished, and one of the things that impressed me the most is that her previous book is titled "Baking with Julia" - you know, the Julia, pioneer of cooking shows, educator to millions on the basics of fine cooking and all-around chef extraordinaire.

Anyway, check back each Tuesday as I attempt to keep up with this fabulous group of bakers. Featured for this coming Tuesday is Granola Grabbers. Here's an excerpt from the book:

"It would be hard to find a more after-schoolish cookie than this one. It's chunky, bumpy, both chewy and crunchy and packed with little surprises..."

This sounds perfect, as next Thursday is the first day of school for us. I'm not sure we'll have any left by then, but maybe I can freeze them without the kids knowing (I know, you're thinking - yeah, good luck with that). We'll see.

I Scream, You Scream...

...we all scream for ice cream! My absolute, all-time, most favoritest ice cream is pistachio and, let me tell you, it's pretty hard to find. Somewhere deep down, I realize this is probably a very good thing because if I could get my hands on it more frequently, well my waist to hip ratio would be off the charts.

I was recently talking to one of my dearest friends (who, by the way, is probably the best cook/baker I have ever known and I credit her with getting me started in baking) and mentioned something about wanting to make pistachio ice cream but hadn't found a good recipe (I should clarify, I have found them but they called for pistachio paste which is impossible to get at your local grocery store and pretty expensive to buy online). She pipes up and says "Oh, I have one" - <smacking my forehead with palm>I should have known she'd have a recipe and asked her a recipe couple of years ago when I got my ice cream maker! Anyway, she emailed it to me the other day and of course, I had to make it immediately.

The good news - it's easy. The bad news - she also included the nutritional info...UGH. For a 1/2 cup serving (who only eats a 1/2 cup of homemade ice cream at a time - maybe Paris Hilton, but no real people I know) it's 289 calories and 21 grams of fat, 10 of which are saturated. sigh.

I don't care I am making it anyway!!! But I did lighten it up a bit - my substitutions are in pink.

Pistachio Ice Cream (makes 12 minuscule 1/2 cup servings, about 8 real people servings, or 1 single-serve I'm PMS'ing serving)

2 cups heavy cream (or 2 cups 1/2 and 1/2)

1 cup whole milk (or 1 cup fat-free 1/2 and 1/2)

1 cup pistachio nuts (I used unsalted)

1 cup sugar

1/2 tsp.vanilla

1/4 tsp almond (optional - not to me, but that's what the recipe said)

1 drop green food coloring (optional)

Place all ingredients in blender. Blend until nuts are chopped to the size you want them. Pour into freezer bowl, mix until thickened 20-25 minutes. Transfer to freezer safe container and freeze until firm (about 2 hours).

Thanks to my two sous chefs, the work of opening the pistachios went really fast.

I can hardly wait!

No, it's not super smooth and creamy, but ohmygoodness is it good! I actually like my ice cream a little crystallized but I'm in the minority, I know. The really good news - my version has 188 calories, 9.7 grams of fat, 3.6 grams saturated. So, roughly half of the original - I'll take it!

This one's mine ;-)

Thank you, Beth :-)

Company's coming

We had some guests come to dinner last night - our parish pastor Father Horton and Father Rogers Byambassa, a missionary priest with the Apostles of Jesus from Uganda, Africa. It was such a pleasure to have them over and really interesting. A great experience for the kids, too. Father Rogers was quite entertained by Katherine (who is quite the conversationalist at 3 years old) and he promised to take her to Africa to see all the animals she kept talking about.

Unfortunately, I haven't had the time or energy for much entertaining (oh for the last 3 years or so) but I really enjoy it. There's something about planning and making a nice meal and dessert for people that really makes me happy!

I tried several new recipes this time (although my mother wisely told me once not to experiment on guests, but luckily it worked out this time). My brother-in-law sent me a great marinade recipe for flank steak (thanks, Dave!), and I found a recipe online for 3 cheese and garlic scalloped potatoes (though, I guess this was more like an au gratin); and another recipe online for chocolate pudding which I turned into a chocolate ice box pie. This latter recipe was found through a network called "Tuesdays with Dorie" where some foodie bloggers are working their way through a cookbook called Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan. I am hoping to join them - not sure if I can keep up with that and keep the 4 kids fed and clothed, but I'm going to give it a shot - it sounds like fun! I guess you'll find out soon (check back on Wednesdays :-)

Anyhoo, here's how things went yesterday with the dessert portion of the meal. Of course, nothing goes as planned and of course, I was under a time crunch because I didn't do any prep work the day before (and did I mention I have 4 beautiful, but always-needing-something-when-I'm-really-really-busy, children). First off, I realized I didn't have any whipping cream (and you most certainly can not have chocolate ice box pie without fluffy whipped cream on top!), so now a quick run to the IGA is on my to do list.

I made my crust using Nilla Wafers first thing in the morning and while that was cooling, made the pudding/filling. I had to alter the recipe a little because a) one recipe was not going to fill my deep dish pie pan and b) since it was pie, and presentation value matters when having company over for dinner, I had to make sure it ended up being thick enough to slice.

Here's the recipe (which I made one and half of). It's actually not that difficult (despite my trials) and it did come out very nice - smooth, chocolaty and not too sweet.

Chocolate Pudding
Courtesy of Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan

2 ¼ cups whole milk
6 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
2 tablespoons cornstarch
¼ teaspoon salt
1 large egg
2 large egg yolks
5 ounces bittersweet chocolate, melted and still warm
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into 4 pieces, at room temperature
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract


Have six ramekins or pudding cups, each holding 4 to 6 ounces (½ to ¾ cup), at hand. Bring 2 cups of the milk and 3 tablespoons of the sugar to a boil in a heavy-bottomed saucepan.

While the milk is heating, put the cocoa, cornstarch and salt into a food processor and whir to blend. Turn them out onto a piece of wax paper, put the remaining 3 tablespoons sugar, the egg and egg yolks into the processor and blend for 1 minute. Scrape down the sides of the bowl, add the remaining ¼ cup milk and pulse just to mix, then add the dry ingredients and pulse a few times to blend.

With the machine running, very slowly pour in the hot milk mixture. Process for a few seconds, then put everything back into the saucepan. Whisk without stopping over medium heat – making sure to get into the edges of the pan – until the pudding thickens and a couple of bubbles burble up to the surface and pop (about 2 minutes). You want the pudding to thicken, but you don’t want it to boil, so lower the heat if necessary.

Scrape the pudding back into the processor (if there’s a scorched spot, avoid it as you scrape) and pulse a couple of times. Add the chocolate, butter and vanilla and pulse until everything is evenly blended.Pour the pudding into the ramekins.

If you don’t want a skin to form (some people think the skin is the best part), press a piece of plastic wrap against the surface of each pudding to create an airtight seal.

Refrigerate for at least 4 hours.Makes 6 servings


Soooo, I didn't exactly follow the directions.

Apparently, my food processor isn't large enough to hold one and half times this recipe (and I have my doubts about it holding one, so just a warning - make sure your processor holds at least 7 cups). The evidence:




This was after I tried adding all the hot milk mixture into the eggs/cocoa mixture - not happening, I was only able to add about 2/3rds of the milk. I ended up dumping what I managed to fit in the processor bowl back into the pot with the milk and whisking like crazy. To say the least, I was a little irritated at this point and kicking myself for not doing this the day before and thinking I probably should have heeded my Mom's advice (see above). It definitely didn't look right to me (look at how foamy the mixture is),



but I kept whisking like a maniac anyway and praying (as I looked at the clock which read 11am, knowing this pie will need at least 6 hours to chill and dinner was set for 6:30pm....ack!) that it would come together.




Eventually, thankfully, it did.


Oh, for the pie crust (for a 9 inch deep dish pie pan) I used 3 cups of mini Nilla Wafers and 3 tablespoons melted butter - crush wafers in a food processor until fine crumbs form and then add melted butter, pulsing until mixed well. Press crumbs into the pan and bake at 350 for about 10 minutes, or until just starting to get golden brown. I think this pie would be fabulous with a traditional pie crust, but I just didn't have the time yesterday.

My results...not too bad (and a hit with the dinner guests!)


Let me know if you try this - it's definitely a keeper recipe for me. When I lived in Birmingham, Alabama we frequently ate at a BBQ restaurant called Johnny Rays and they had the best Chocolate Ice Box Pie I have ever had. Each slice was, I swear, 4 or 5 inches high, and it had a light consistency with lots of whipped cream on top. Next time I make this, I think I'll try folding in some whipped cream into the pudding and maybe it'll be more like that. If I can come close, I'll be in foodie-heaven - I'll let you know!

Berry good!

One of the reasons I absolutely LOVE summertime (besides the warm weather and sunny days - I am a southern girl at heart, afterall) is being able to get fresh, deliciously sweet berries at the store.

Check out these beauties


Meijer had quite the sale on blueberries last week (2 pounds for $4.99 - yes pounds!), so I stocked up. Actually, I wish I had bought some more to freeze - but instead we all ate a lot of blueberries!

A friend of mine from church recently had a baby and I was to bring her dinner last night and I always include dessert with it. So, I decided to make this:

Blueberry Crumb Bars - YUM!

This is a slightly modified recipe from Everyday Food (a magazine which I have really come to love, BTW - lots of great recipes that are pretty easy too - my only beef is that they only rarely include nutritional info). Theirs called for fresh blackberries, but since Meijer blueberries were such a deal, well I just had to use those. Here's the recipe:

6 Tbsp unsalted butter, melted
1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour, divided
1/2 cup packed lt brown sugar
1/2 tsp salt, divided
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 cup confectioner's sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla
2 large eggs
2 containers (5 ounces each) blueberries, blackberries, or raspberries (I just thought of something - you could mix them all up for a mixed berry crumb bars - yum, I'll have to try that one!)

1. Preheat oven to 350. Spray an 8x8 baking pan with Pam. Line bottom with parchment paper, leaving an overhang on two sides. Spray paper with Pam.

2. Make topping: In a medium bowl, mix melted butter, brown sugar and 1/4 tsp salt; add 1 cup flour and mix until large moist crumbs form. Set aside (the original recipe says to put this in the fridge so the crumb topping comes out looking "nubbly", but I didn't and it came out fine, but you can if you'd like).

I dare you to not try sampling some of that buttery sweet goodness! No dare, not even the triple-dog dare, could keep me from trying it - the topping, IMHO, is the best part!

3. In bowl of electric mixer, beat softened butter, confectioner's sugar, and vanilla until light and fluffy; add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each. Reduce speed to low and add remaining 1/4 tsp salt and baking powder. Mix in remaining 3/4 cup flour.

Spread batter evenly in pan.

Sprinkle with berries,

then topping.

4. Bake until golden and a toothpick inserted in center comes out with moist crumbs attached, 40-45 minutes. Cool completely in pan.

Using paper overhang, lift cake out onto work surface and cut into squares. Sprinkle with powdered sugar if desired. (Keeps in airtight container for 3 days)

I sure hope my friend and her family enjoyed these last night. Thankfully for my family, I made extra (they hate it when I make something and don't have any left for them - and I can't blame them).

Bon Appetit!