Nate loves whoopie pies. As a New Englander, it’s in his blood. I’ll be honest…the only “real” whoopie pie I had until about a year ago was in Amish country. And it was kind of gooey and not-so-great. Well, I could see other people maybe liking it, but it just wasn’t my thing. But Nate, he’s always talking about how good whoopie pies are, so I felt it was time to embrace the whoopie pie.

For his birthday last week, I decided to make whoopie pies. He was happy about that and said I had to get his mom’s recipe. I called Pat and her very words were, “This recipe isn’t very good. I think you need to tweak it.” When I told her that Nate gushes about her whoopie pies, she just laughed. I was beginning to think that it really was just the nostalgia talking and that Nate was crazy…

Holy cow people, these whoopie pies were GOOD. So good that I think I might make another batch. Tonight. Because they’re gone. And I’m sad about that. So is Nate. He keeps asking where they all went.

New Englander or not, nostalgia or not, these whoopie pies are fab. Enjoy!

Whoopie Pies!

 

Print

Perfect dessert for a party!

Author: Jane Maynard

Recipe type: Dessert, Cookies

Ingredients

• For the cookie part of the whoopie:
• 1 cup butter, softened at room temp (original recipe calls for shortening, fyi)
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 2 eggs
• 2 teaspoons vanilla
• 4 teaspoons baking powder
• 2 cup sugar
• 2 cup milk
• 4 cup flour
• 1 cup cocoa powder
• ½ teaspoon salt
• Cream Filling:
• ⅓ cup evaporated milk
• ½ cup butter, softened at room temp
• 4 ounces cream cheese, softened at room temp
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• ½ cup sugar
• 6-7 cups or so of powdered sugar

Instructions

1. Cream sugar and butter together. Add milk and eggs – mix well. Don’t be scared”¦the batter is going to look all lumpy and weird and you’re going to think you did something wrong. You didn’t.
2. Add everything else and beat well. See, told you the batter would look normal eventually.
3. Drop from teaspoon onto ungreased cookie sheet. I used my medium scoop, which was about 2 tablespoons – so my whoopie pies were medium sized. Pat does mini cute tiny little whoopie pies. Choose your own adventure!
4. I baked mine on a silpat. I also smoothed the dough balls out and pressed them down slightly before baking (with wet fingers to minimize sticking, but make sure you don’t drip water on the dough). I definitely recommend pressing them down a bit so they aren’t totally round after baking, they’ll sit on your serving plate easier.
5. Bake at 425 degrees for 7-9 minutes, until they are firm to touch and toothpick comes out clean.
6. So the ORIGINAL cream recipe is a shortening-based filling. I think shortening-based frostings taste nasty, so I evolved the original recipe using butter, cream cheese (to lend creaminess) and powdered sugar. Cream all of the ingredients together in a mixer with about 5 cups of the powdered sugar. Then, keep adding powdered sugar until the frosting is sturdy enough to hold up to being placed between two cookies but still relatively soft”¦I know, super helpful. You just don’t want the filling to be too soft or fluid or it will squeeze out of the sides of the cookie, but you also don’t want super duper crazy stiff filling.
7. Place frosting in a large ziploc bag with the very tip of the corner trimmed off and pipe frosting onto a whoopie pie cookie, topping with a second cookie. You should have plenty of filling to fill all the whoopie pies.
8. When making the medium-sized whoopie pies with the 2 tablespoon scoop, this recipe yielded 26 whoopie pies.
9. (Original cream filling recipe, in case you want to go that route: ⅓ cup evaporated milk, ¾ cup white sugar, 1 teaspoon vanilla, ⅔ cup crisco, pinch salt – mix, let sit 15 minutes, beat until creamy.)

3.2.2265

It’s time, my friends. Time for homemade chocolate ice cream!

I still can’t decide which I like better, the vanilla or the chocolate. They are seriously both amazing. I am a chocoholic, so that’s saying something about the vanilla. But, I don’t know, this chocolate ice cream is just soooo good. Creamy and chocolatey, it’s almost like eating chocolate mousse or pot de creme in frozen form. The ice cream is super rich and packs a chocolatey punch – don’t be fooled by that light brown color!

When I wrote about the vanilla ice cream, I mentioned that I didn’t follow the Cook’s Illustrated instructions for freezing the ice cream after it’s churned and that everything still turned out fine. WELLL…when I made ice cream for a third time, I discovered why they have you do what they do and now I am going to do what they sway from now on! They have you freeze a metal pan and then pour the churned ice cream into the metal pan. You let it freeze in that pan for about an hour and then transfer to an air-tight container. Just seemed like extra steps to me…but…now I know better.

The first time I made the ice cream, I put it directly into one of my glass bowls with a lid. Nothing went awry and I didn’t think much about the process. The second time I did in fact freeze a metal pan. I put the churned ice cream in that pan and then ended up just storing it in that pan with foil on top. We ate it so quickly we didn’t really need an air-tight container! 😉

Well, the third time I made the ice cream, when the ice cream was done churning, I put it in one of my casserole dishes because all my glass containers with lids were dirty and I hadn’t frozen a metal pan. As soon as the ice cream hit the casserole dish, it started melting!!! Not good. I left the remainder of my ice cream in the ice cream maker and put the casserole dish in the freezer for 5 or 10 minutes, then transferred the remainder of the ice cream to the dish and that seemed to help. ANYWAY…I don’t know why I questioned their technique! It all makes sense to me now! I will never qustion Cook’s Illustrated again. 😉

Without further ado, the recipe!

Homemade Chocolate Ice Cream

 

Print

From the Cook’s Illustrated Cookbook

Author: Jane Maynard

Recipe type: Dessert

Serves: 1 quart

Ingredients

• 8 ounces bittersweet chocolate, coarsely chopped (I used semisweet the second time – it was still rich but a bit less rich, which some people might like. Cook’s Illustrated recommends using high-quality chocolate, which I also recommend. We used Scharffen Berger.)
• 1½ cups whole milk
• 1½ cups heavy cream
• ¼ teaspoon salt (Jane addition, not part of original recipe)
• ¾ cup sugar
• 4 large egg yolks
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Instructions

1. Place an 8 or 9 inch square metal pan in the freezer.
2. Microwave chocolate at 50 percent power, stirring every minute, until melted completely. Set aside to cool.
3. Place a fine-mesh strainer over a medium bowl set over a larger bowl of ice water.
4. Combine milk, cream, salt, and ½ cup of the sugar in a medium saucepan. Heat over medium-high heat, stirring occasionally, until mixture is steaming steadily and registers 175 degrees, 5 to 10 minutes. Remove from heat. (Jane note: mine wasn’t steaming all that much, I just took it off when it hit 175 degrees)
5. While cream mixture heats, whisk egg yolks and remaining ¼ cup sugar in bowl until smooth, about 30 seconds. Add melted chocolate and whisk until fully incorporated.
6. Slowly whisk half of heated cream mixture into egg yolks mixture, ½ cup at a time. Return mixture to saucepan and cook over medium-low heat, stirring constantly, until mixture thickens and registers 180 degrees, 7 to 14 miutes. Immediately strain custard through fine-mesh strainer and let cool over bowl of ice water to room temperature, stirring occasionally. Stir in vanilla, then cover and refrigerate until custard registers 40 degrees, at least 3 hours or up to 24 hours.
7. Transfer custard to ice cream machine and churn until mixture resembles thick soft serve ice cream, 25-30 minutes. Transfer to frozen pan and press plastic wrap on surface. Return to freezer until firm around edges, about 1 hour. Transfer to an airtight container, press firmly and freeze until firm, at least 2 hours. Can be frozen up to 2 days. (Jane note: is also delicious even before it’s totally frozen!)

3.4.3177

Back when I first got my ice cream maker, I was addicted to making frozen yogurt. It’s just so easy and fast to throw together…and it is sooooo yummy. But I wasn’t all that convinced that making homemade ice cream was worth the trouble. I made it a few times, but the recipe I was using (which came from a reputable ice cream source, by the way) left something to be desired…there was a bit of a greasy after-feel and, I don’t know, it was just good, not great.

I decided last week to give homemade ice cream another try. I searched for recipes on the Internet, didn’t really find one that pulled me in, and then I remembered my Cook’s Illustrated cookbook sitting on the shelf. I felt confident that they would have a good ice cream recipe and decided I would use it, even before reviewing it.

Up until the moment we ate the stuff I was still wondering if it was worth the work. Making the ice cream takes time and planning. As I stood at the stove stirring and stirring and stirring, I just wasn’t so sure it would be worth it.

And then. THEN. We ate the ice cream. It was totally worth it. This recipe kicks you-know-what. Flavor? Fantastic. Texture? Creamy and dreamy. Even after sitting in the freezer a few days, the ice cream never got icy. It was miraculous. I’m making it again for sure…I even bought more cream and whole milk today to make more!

Tomorrow I will share the chocolate ice cream recipe I tried, which was equally as delicious. Mmmmmmmmm…

Homemade Vanilla Ice Cream

 

Print

From the Cook’s Illustrated cookbook

Author: Jane Maynard

Recipe type: Dessert

Serves: 1 quart

Ingredients

• 1 vanilla bean or 2 tsp vanilla extract (I used Penzey’s vanilla extract)
• 1¾ cups heavy cream
• 1¼ cups whole milk
• ½ plus 2 tablespoons (4½ ounces) sugar
• ⅓ cup light corn syrup
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• 6 large egg yolks

Instructions

1. Place an 8 or 9 inch metal baking pan in the freezer.
2. If using vanilla bean, cut in half lengthwise. Using tip of paring knife, scrape out vanilla seeds. Combine vanilla bean, seeds, cream, milk, 6 tablespoons sugar, corn syrup, and salt in medium saucepan. Heat over medium high heat, stirring occasionally, until mixture is steaming steadily and registers 175 degrees, 5 to 10 minutes. Remove saucepan from heat. (Jane note: mine wasn’t steaming all that steadily, just a bit, but I took it off the heat once it hit 175 degrees. PS”¦if you don’t have an instant read electronic thermometer, you should get that along with your Cook’s Illustrated cookbook.)
3. While cream mixture heats, whisk egg yolks and remaining ¼ cup sugar in bowl until smooth, about 30 seconds. Slowly whisk 1 cup heated cream mixture into egg yolks mixture. Return mixture to saucepan and cook over medium-low heat, stirring constantly, until mixture thickens and registers 180 degrees, 7 to 14 minutes. (Jane note: I think I only went to about 178 degrees”¦it seems like mine got stuck there, so I got impatient and called it a day at that point.) Immediately pour custard into large bowl and let cool until no longer steaming, 10-20 minutes. Transfer 1 cup custard to small bowl. Cover both bowls with plastic wrap. Place large bowl in refrigerator and small bowl in freezer and let cool completely, at least 4 hours or up to 24 hours. (Small bowl of custard will freeze solid.) (Jane note: I don’t think my small bowl was frozen completely solid, but it was frozen for sure.)
4. Remove custards from fridge and freezer. Scrape frozen custard from small bowl into large bowl of custard. Stir occasionally until frozen custard has fully dissolved. (Jane note: I just realized I didn’t even read this step”¦I just mixed them together until it was pretty evenly mixed, but not dissolved, and then tossed it in the ice cream machine”¦no waiting arround.) Strain custard through fine-mesh strainer and transfer to ice cream machine. (Jane note: again, I totally didn’t read this part of the directions”¦didn’t do the strainer! Everything was fine, but it’s probably best to strain in case you get some lumps while cooking the custard.) Churn until mixture resembles thick soft-serve ice cream and registers about 21 degrees, 15-25 minutes. Transfer to metal pan, and press plastic wrap on surface. Freeze for 1 hour until edges are firm, then pack into a storage container with tight fitting lid and store in freezer up to 5 days. (Jane note: Cook’s Illustrated recommends freezing an additional 2 hours at this point”¦of course it’s delicious when it’s totally frozen, but it is also delicious ever step of the way! We totally ate it right when it was done churning”¦and we also ate it later after freezing. It was awesome both ways!) Can be frozen up to 5 days.

3.4.3177

My Grandma Wallin was a wonderful cook. A reluctant American, she never stopped eating and cooking like a Swede, despite living in the United States for the last 45+ years of her life. Many of my memories of her are centered around food. Amazing ham for Christmas Eve dinner, rice pudding with a hidden almond for dessert. Swedish meatballs for Sunday dinners. Cheese and hard bread every single day of her life. Despite all these food memories, my strongest by far is of cardamom bread. Officially called vetebröd, our family calls Swedish cardamom bread “bulle,” which means “roll” or “bun” in Swedish. Every time I taste cardamom, no matter what dish it is in, I immediately think of my grandma and her bulle.

Grandma Wallin served bulle pretty much every time we saw her. My memories of Grandma’s bulle involve buns that looked like cinnamon rolls, but flavored with cardamom rather than cinnamon. I remember one time when I was around 9 years old she came to visit and baked a batch, specifically making a cinnamon version for me. I laugh when I think that I would have asked for cinnamon bulle since I always liked the cardamom version anyway. Crazy 9-year-old Jane.

My mom has continued the tradition of making bulle, especially at Christmastime. While the little rolled buns remind me of my grandmother, the beautiful braided version of the bread reminds me of my mom and Christmas. Since I’ve been married and have started a family of my own, I always make bulle on Christmas Eve so we can have it Christmas morning. Like my mother, I braid the dough.

I was thinking about my grandmother’s version of the bread the other day, so I gave my mom a call to find out how Grandma Wallin made her bulle. My mom started to describe the process for making the braid. I stopped her and said, “Yeah, I know how to do that. That’s how I’ve always done it. How did she make the buns?” My mom laughed and said, “She switched to the buns when she was older. My memories of her bulle are of the braids!” While we both had the same Grandma Wallin bulle memories, it was funny to us that the shape of her bread was so different in our minds.

I was talking to my sister about these memories the other day. She’s nearly nine years younger than I am, so her memories are not always the same as mine. When I was telling her about how my recollections of Grandma Wallin’s bread were similar but different from our mom’s, she laughed and said, “I always thought that Grandma made cinnamon rolls…but now that I think about it, I’m certain it was bulle. I never even realized those buns were the same as the braided bread Mom makes.” I love that one type of food in the same family can have such different associations for the different family members.

As I write this, I have a batch of bulle baking, the familiar scent filling our home. I am delighted that my daughters love bulle as much as I do. I look forward to teaching them how to make the bread and then watching them one day make it for their own children. It remains to be seen what shape of bulle they will associate with me and ultimately make themselves!

Please share your own family food memories! Would love to hear them!

Note: I’ve shared the vetebröd recipe previously, but I’ve only ever made the bread into a braid. This was the first time I made bulle into buns like my grandma did and they turned out deliciously. I’ve tweaked the recipe a bit here to tailor to the bun shape. If you want to try your hand at the braid, click here!

Grandma Wallin's Bulle

 

Print

Makes 48 buns”¦I promise you can eat them all.

Author: Jane Maynard

Recipe type: Dessert

Ingredients

• 2½ cups milk
• 2 cakes compressed yeast OR 2 packets active dry yeast OR 4½ tsp. active dry yeast
• 1 cup sugar
• 8 cups sifted flour
• 1 cup melted butter
• ½ teaspoon salt
• ~3 teaspoons ground cardamom
• ½ cup or so of butter, melted
• Sugar
• Powdered sugar
• Milk

Instructions

1. Scald milk and cool to luke warm. Crumble yeast in bowl: add ½ cup luke warm milk and stir until yeast is dissolved. Add remaining milk and ¼ c sugar. Beat in 3 C flour and continue beating until smooth. Cover and set aside to rise until double in bulk, ¾ – 1 hour.
2. Add remaining sugar, 1 cup melted, cooled butter and salt. Add about 1½ teaspoons of the cardamom and 4½ C flour to yeast mixture. Place remaining ½ C flour on board or pastry cloth for kneading. (I let the KitchenAid do the kneading, so add 5 cups of flour at this point if you are going to do the same.)
3. Turn out dough and knead until smooth and elastic. (If you are using the KitchenAid to knead, use the dough hook and knead for 10 minutes or so on low.) Place dough in greased bowl. Cover with cloth and let rise until double in bulk, ¾ – 1 hour.
4. Divide dough into four even pieces. Roll each piece out into a rectangle, about 15”³ x 20”³. Brush rectangle with butter, then sprinkle evenly with sugar and cardamom (dividing the remaining 1½ teaspoons of cardamom between the four rectangles”¦it may be more than that). Roll the dough up so you end up with a 20”³ long roll. Slice off pieces so you end up with 12 pieces per rolled rectangle. Place rolls in buttered muffin tins. Let rise until double in bulk, 30-40 mins. Brush with egg. Bake in moderately hot oven (400 degrees F) 12-15 minutes, until tops and bottoms are golden.
5. Drizzle rolls with glaze (see below).

3.2.2708

Vanilla Glaze

 

Print

Author: Jane Maynard

Recipe type: Dessert

Ingredients

• 1¼ cups sifted powdered sugar
• ½ teaspoon vanilla
• Milk or half-and-half or light cream

Instructions

1. Whisk sugar and vanilla together. Stir in enough milk/half-and-half/light cream to make drizzling consistency (a little goes a long way!).

3.2.2708

This giveaway is now closed, but you really should keep reading because this cake is DELISH.

It’s no secret I love Ree Drummond, The Pioneer Woman. I am very grateful to know her. She is lovely. And she deserves every bit of success she is having. I like it when good karma just works like that. Plus, her food is yummy.

I am delighted to share Ree’s latest cookbook with you! The Pioneer Woman Cooks: Food From My Frontier just came out and it is every bit as scrumptious as her last cookbook and her delicious website. This book is also brimming with cream. LOTS of cream, people. Like, you might need to buy a cow or at least some stock in your local dairy.

I needed a dessert the other night because, well, I just needed one, okay? I flipped open Ree’s book and discovered Tres Leches Cake, which I am tempted to rename Patience Cake. Seriously, you need some patience for this recipe. There is a lot of waiting. But it is worth the wait. Believe me.

Tres Leches Cake is my daughter Anna’s dream dessert. She’s not big on dessert or chocolate. (I am still wondering if she’s really my child.) But she loves milk. And she loves whipped cream even more than milk. She ate THE ENTIRE PIECE OF CAKE. I don’t think she’s ever eaten all of her dessert.

Before we get to the recipe, how about a giveaway? I love giving away great cookbooks!

THREE of you lucky, randomly-selected people will each win a copy of Ree’s new book The Pioneer Woman Cooks: Food From My Frontier. Simply leave a comment on this post by Midnight PT on Monday, March 26. The winners will be announced on Tuesday, March 27. Good luck!

And, to help quench any whipped cream and/or milk and/or cake cravings you may be having, here is the Tres Leches Cake recipe, with my notes. Enjoy!

Tres Leches Cake from The Pioneer Woman

 

Print

From The Pioneer Woman

Author: Jane Maynard

Ingredients

• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1½ teaspoon baking powder
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• 5 large eggs, separated
• 1 cup sugar plus 3 Tbsp, divided
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• ⅓ cup whole milk (Jane note: I used 2%, everything came out fine)
• 1 pint plus ¼ cup heavy cream, divided
• 1 12-oz can evaporated milk
• 1 14-oz can sweetened condensed milk

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease and flour a 9”³ x 13”³ pan.
2. Combine flour, baking powder and salt in a large bowl and set aside.
3. Mix egg yolks and ¾ cup of sugar in a mixing bowl. Beat until very light in color (Jane note: I used my hand mixer, you can also use a stand mixer). Add milk and vanilla and beat until just combined. Pour this over the flour mixture and stir gently to combine.
4. In a separate mixing bowl beat the egg whites on high speed until soft peaks form. Add ¼ cup of sugar and continue beating until the whites are stiff but not dry.
5. Gently fold the egg whites into the other ingredients. Don’t over mix, stop stirring just before everything is mixed together.
6. Spread the batter in the pan and bake for 35-45 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean. (Jane note: Mine was definitely done by 30 minutes, so keep an eye on it!)
7. Let cake cool completely. (Jane note: Here is the first part requiring waiting and patience”¦) When the cake is cool, invert onto a platter and poke holes in the surface with a fork. (Jane note: I just left it in the pan because we weren’t serving it to guests and didn’t need it fancy on a platter. Also, I used a steak knife to poke the holes – my fork was sticking to the cake too much, the sharp, thin knife worked better.)
8. Combine the sweetened condensed milk, evaporated milk and ¼ cup cream. Slowly pour milk mixture over the cake, getting it all around the edges and evenly coating the surface. It will puddle, which is fine. Let cake sit for at least 30 minutes to absorb the milk. (Jane note: more waiting!)
9. Whip 1 pint of cream with 3 tablespoons sugar (Jane note: I use powdered sugar here because that’s what I like in whipped cream) until thick. Spread over top and sides of cake (Jane note: or just the top if you left the cake in the pan).
10. Jane note: Here’s the last bit of waiting”¦the cake was good at this point, but it was REALLY good the next day after being refrigerated. I highly recommend eating after it is cold! Totally worth all the waiting and your patience skills will be well-honed! Regardless of when you eat the cake, leftovers need to be refrigerated.

3.2.2925

Last week I was craving donuts for some inexplicable reason…because, I mean, donuts are disgusting and who would ever want to eat them, right? So, I posted about my craving on Facebook, hoping someone reading would magically deliver donuts to me. That didn’t happen. I know, shocking. But Courtney from Misadventures in Cooking (who regularly posts her weekly menu – yay, Courtney!) did share a quick, fun recipe to help quench the donut craving.

Courtney got the recipe originally from Maris of In Good Taste (she’s one of my food blogging buddies and she is lovely). Maris actually has a donut pan for making her donuts, but she suggests using a muffin tin if you don’t have a donut pan. Courtney gave that a whirl and cleverly dubbed her creation ‘donuffins.’ I love the name. It makes me smile.

I whipped up a batch of donuffins the other night to share at book club. Everyone loved them and a few people went back for seconds. My girls and Nate had them the next morning, at which point I received RAVE reviews. Anna told me they were very good and I believe Cate said something like, “Oh, Mommy! These are AWESOME.”

I’ve made two batches this week, tweaking them a bit. This is a great, quick treat for when you need a baked good pronto. You know, like those times that you’re craving donuts and wish that Facebook had a delivery service.

Donuffins

 

Print

Adapted from here and here

Author: Jane Maynard

Recipe type: Dessert

Serves: 12 muffins

Ingredients

• 1 cup flour
• ½ cup sugar
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• 1 egg
• ½ cup milk
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 3 tablespoons canola oil
• 4 tablespoons melted butter (separated into 1 T and 3 T), plus butter to grease muffin tins
• 2 tablespoons sugar and 1 t cinnamon combined in a bowl

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Whisk together dry ingredients. Add egg, vanilla, and milk and whisk together until blended. Add 1 Tablespoon of butter and all the canola oil. Whisk until well combined.
2. Grease muffin tin liberally with butter. Fill muffin tin with 2 tablespoons of batter per cup, dividing batter evenly. Bake for 7-10 minutes (mine were done around 9.5 minutes, took them out when a toothpick came out clean). Brush each donuffin liberally with the remaining 3 tablespoons of melted butter, immediately sprinkling with the cinnamon sugar mixture.
3. The first time I made these there was no salt in the batter, which I though it needed. So that first time I also sprinkled a bit of salt on top of the donuffins – everyone really liked that. Yet another genius use for salgar! Anyway, when I had added salt to the batter, I didn’t put salt on top. Just play around with it to your taste!

3.2.2708

My sister Anne has moved to our town! We haven’t been closer than 800 miles to family since we moved to California, so having a family member just one mile away is soooo exciting for us. My girls are especially ecstatic and are planning their first sleepover at Auntie Anne’s apartment on Friday!

Anne’s Twitter and Blogger profiles state the following: “I’m night blind but I make the best pumpkin squares you’ve ever had.” Well, after years of reading this every time I visited her blog, I decided it was time to have Anne prove herself. First, we made her drive around at night without her glasses on. Then, we made her throw together some pumpkin squares. Okay, scratch that first part, but I did beg her to make pumpkin squares last night and she happily obliged.

And I think they might have been the best pumpkin squares I’ve ever had. Especially hot out of the oven…be still my chocolate-loving heart. And yeah, yeah, they’re pumpkin. I stand by the fact that pumpkin can be enjoyed at all times of the year, even if the leaves on the trees aren’t turning orange and falling to the ground.

Anne, we’re so happy you’re a Californian now. (And, don’t worry, it’s not just because of the pumpkin squares…although those certainly don’t hurt!)

Anne's Pumpkin Squares

 

Print

From Anne Wallin, adapted from a Martha Stewart recipe

Author: Jane Maynard

Recipe type: Dessert

Ingredients

• 2 cups all purpose flour
• 1 tablespoon cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• ½ teaspoon salt (if using un-salted butter, ¾ tsp)
• 1 cup butter
• 1¼ cups sugar
• 1 large egg
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1½ cup pumpkin puree (sometimes Anne adds more, but no more than 2 cups)
• Bittersweet chocolate chips (about 1 or 2 cups, depending on how much you like chocolate)

Instructions

1. Whisk flour, cinnamon, soda and salt together and set aside. Cream butter and sugar in mixer until well-mixed. Beat in egg. Add vanilla, mix. Beat in pumpkin puree so it looks lumpy and sort of curdled. Mix in dry ingredients until just combined. Fold in chocolate chips.
2. Spread in 9×13 pan and bake at 350 degrees for 35-40 minutes – the edges will pull away from the side and the toothpick should come out clean (with maybe a crumb or too on the toothpick).

3.2.2807

Despite my busy day yesterday (p.s. Owen does not have an ear infection, which is good…but he is still grumpy!), did you really think I would let Valentine’s Day pass without whipping up some sort of chocolate decadence?

Last night, after the kids were in bed, dinner was done and Nate and I had another Breaking Bad episode under our belts (romantic, eh?), I ventured to the kitchen to make pots de crème au chocolat. Our friends Ana and Tom made these a few weeks ago when they had us over for dinner. (p.s. Ana and Tom are not only fabulous cooks, they are both hilarious. I wish I could eat dinner at their house every night. Hint, hint, Ana.) The dessert was pretty much divine and, after Ana assured me it was easy to make, I decided to give the recipe a go.

Ana was right. They were in fact easy to throw together and required only a few ingredients. My kind of cooking.

If you’ve had pots de crème au chocolat before, you know what they’re like. {Delicious.} If you haven’t, it’s sort of like the custard in crème brûlée, only chocolate flavored. This chocolate dessert is rich yet still kind of light. And, if you’re not feeling up to the task of using and washing 20 bowls to make Julia Child’s mousse au chocolat, this is a great alternative – not quite so thick and rich as the mousse, but still delicious. I mean really – can you go wrong with cream, chocolate and eggs? Nope, you can’t.

Pots de Crème au Chocolat

 

Print

A mish mosh of two Williams Sonoma recipes and comments from Ana Haymore

Author: Jane Maynard

Recipe type: Dessert

Ingredients

• 1 cup heavy cream
• 3 ounces semi-sweet (or bittersweet) chocolate, chopped
• 3 egg yolks
• ¼ cup sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 4 pinches of salt (I’m sure I could give you an actual measurement, but I did four pinches, so there you go)

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.
2. Heat cream in a saucepan over medium heat until small bubbles appear around the edges, stirring occasionally. Remove from the stove and stir in the chocolate until melted. Let cool while you do this other stuff”¦
3. Whisk together egg yolks and sugar in a bowl for about 5 minutes. You want the eggs to be pale yellow. Just keep whisking. The more the merrier. (I had Nate do this last night”¦what a whiner, by the way. Oh wait, I mean, he was such a sweetie to do this for me and didn’t complain once! I suppose you could get out a hand blender”¦but a little wrist exercise never hurt anyone, right?)
4. Slowly stir the chocolate cream into the egg mixture. Stir in the vanilla and the salt.
5. Pour the chocolate mixture through a fine sieve into 6 ramekins, dividing evenly. Place ramekins in a 9×13 baking dish or pan. Pour boiling water around the ramekins in the 9×13 pan, 1 inch deep. Cover the ramekins and dish with foil.
6. Bake for around 20 minutes, until the edges are set but the chocolate still trembles a bit (I cooked mine a minute or two too long and they still came out fine).
7. Let cool on a wire rack. The Williams Sonoma recipes say to refrigerate for at least four hours and up to 2 days before serving”¦but we also have eaten them right after they’ve cooled but still sort of warm and they were delicious.

3.2.2807

These salted caramel thumbprint cookies were my favorite cookie find this past holiday season. My friend Elisa made them for her holiday cookie plates (among many other amazing treats) and I immediately fell in love. I don’t know if it was the salt or the fact that the cookies themselves are shortbread, but I got sucked in and stole them right out from under my family when they weren’t looking.

Elisa originally found the recipe on the lovely food blog A Cozy Kitchen. I decided to give the recipe a go. I even made the caramel from scratch, which I highly recommend. I promise it was easy and it didn’t take much time at all. I just followed Adrianna’s instructions, to great success. Elisa had used store-bought caramel to save some time. Her cookies were still wonderful, but I must admit I preferred the homemade caramel – the texture was softer and easier to chew.

I am retyping the recipe here so I can throw in a few notes from what I learned. Enjoy!

Salted Caramel Thumbprints

 

Print

From A Cozy Kitchen. Shortbread Cookie recipe adapted from Barefoot Contessa. Caramel recipe taken from Salted Caramel Mousse by Trish Desseine.

Author: Jane Maynard

Ingredients

• Cookies:
• 1½ stick of unsalted butter, room temperature
• ½ cup of granulated sugar
• ½ teaspoon of pure vanilla extract
• 1¾ cup of all-purpose flour
• ⅛ teaspoon kosher salt
• Caramel:
• ½ cup of granulated sugar
• 2 ½ tablespoons unsalted butter, room temperature
• ¼ cup heavy whipping cream

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
2. Cream together the butter and sugar until they are just combined and then add the vanilla (if you have a stand mixer, use paddle attachment). In a separate bowl, sift together the flour and salt. With the mixer on low speed, add the flour mixture to the creamed butter and sugar. Mix until the dough starts to come together. Dump on a floured board and roll together into a flat square. Wrap in plastic and chill for 30 minutes. After 30 minutes, take out the fridge and cut into 1¼-inch squares.
3. Jane notes: the dough was super duper crumbly. I really had to work it on the floured board to get it to come together. Also, it was difficult to roll it out into a square, so I pressed and rolled it out into a circle. After removing the dough from the refrigerator, I evenly cut the circle into 16 pie slices, if that makes sense, and form those triangles I rolled the dough into 1¼-inch balls. By doing it this way, I knew that the cookie balls were all the same size and it was just all around easier for me.
4. Roll the dough into 1¼-inch balls. (If you have a scale they should each weigh 1 ounce.) Place the balls on an ungreased cookie sheet. Hold the cookie steady with one hand and press a light indentation into the top of each with your finger. Jane note: again, the dough was pretty crumbly, even when I had them shaped into balls. I had to sort of press each cookie down and shape it into a circle, then press the indentations in. A note on the indentations – I thought the cracked edges would be pretty, but the caramel oozed out of the cracks, so try not to have too many of cracks. Bake for 10 to 15 minutes, until they’re just a little golden brown on the sides. Jane note: I had to bake them longer than 15 minutes, my oven runs cool. Let cookies cool. While they’re cooling, make the caramel.
5. Combine the sugar and 2 tablespoons water in a medium saucepan. Do not stir. Cook over medium-high heat to a dark caramel, swirling as it begins to brown to distribute the sugar. While the sugar and water are going at it, heat up the cream in a saucepan or microwave just until warm.
6. Take off the heat and add your room temperature butter. Whisk the butter in, being sure it’s totally combined. Add your warmed cream and whisk vigorously. Jane note: HOLY STEAM! Be careful when you add the cream”¦a pretty decent amount of HOT steam shot out of the pot when I poured it in and sort of surprised my face. No damage done, but can’t hurt to warn you!
7. Spoon a teaspoon of warm caramel into the indentations of your cookies and top with sea salt. You can eat right away or let sit for 2 hours so the caramel sets. Jane note: I sprinkled my coarse sea salt about 5-10 minutes after I filled the cookies with caramel, so that I knew it would stick. The salt sort of disappeared into the caramel, so you couldn’t see it, which was sad because the salt is pretty, but it still tasted divine.
8. Makes 16 cookies

3.2.2807

Ahhhh, Pinterest. How we love thee!

This recipe is yet another wonderful thing I discovered on Pinterest. I was able to quickly whip these up today with ingredients that I always have on hand. Gotta love non-complicated, fast and easy recipes!

Cate took a bite and said, “Wow! These taste even better than they look!” I’ll take that! They basically taste like no-bake cookies, but I like that they are in bar form – it’s much easier to make them look pretty!

Chocolate Peanut Butter Oat Bars (No-Bake)

 

Print

From Love Veggies and Yoga (I rewrote the recipe so it’s shorter and reflects exactly what I did”¦click through for a more thorough description some options for making the recipe vegan)

Author: Jane Maynard

Recipe type: Dessert

Ingredients

• 1 stick butter (4 ounces)
• 2 cups white sugar
• ¼ cup brown sugar
• 6 tablespoons cocoa powder
• ½ cup milk
• ½ cup peanut butter
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 3½ cups oats (I used Quaker rolled instant oats)
• chocolate chips to sprinkle on top (butterscotch or peanut butter chips would be good, too)

Instructions

1. Line an 8×8 pan with foil and spray with cooking oil.
2. Combine and melt butter, white sugar, brown sugar, cocoa powder and milk in a medium sauce pan. Heat over medium-high heat – bring to boil, let boil for 90 seconds, stirring continuously, then remove from heat.
3. Add peanut butter and vanilla (vanilla can bubble up on you, so add carefully). Mix until smooth. Stir in the oats.
4. Pour into pan, spreading evenly. The mixture will be very hot so be careful! Give it a few minutes to cool, then press a handful of chocolate chips into the top.
5. The original recipe says to put them in the freezer for an hour. I did this and they were very hard to cut. I had also used waxed paper instead of foil with spray. I could not for the life of me get the bars to pop out of the pan – it was crazy town. I think if I had just refrigerated for 20 minutes or so they would have been set and much easier to work with.

3.2.2708