Desserts, Recipes & Baking Blog

Archive for May, 2012

Lemon Cornmeal Shortbread Tart
May 31st, 2012
Don’t you just love love love the idea of baking something for someone that will make them really happy? (Or at least you hope it will make them happy, provided that you don’t screw it up.) There’s something to be said for the joy of making what you know someone loves to eat, of making their “favorite thing”, as a really special way of topping off a dinner.

The Occasion: The Husband’s birthday.
The Key Ingredient: Lemon. (Sausage was the theme for the dinner, but I couldn’t find an unrevolting way to incorporate sauage into a dessert, so lemon it was.)
The Masterpiece: Lemon Cornmeal Shortbread Tart.
The Feedback: Not bad indeed (although a sloshing amount of Chateauneuf du Pape wine might have altered The Husband’s perception of pretty much everything by the time dessert rolled around, let’s be honest).
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Lemon… Slurry.
May 31st, 2012
All I have to say to Martha Stewart is this:

Damn you.

(It’s kind of hard to serve a Lemon Cornmeal Shortbread Tart for The Husband’s birthday dessert when the candles won’t stand upright into the lemon filling. That’s right- candles don’t stand upright into things that are the consistency of soup. Martha’s recipe, the one I used for inspiration, had the wrong proportion of gelatin going on. I know it’s blasphemous to damn the queen of all things baking, but really. Lemon Birthday Tart Soup just wasn’t what I had in mind.)
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Morning Glory Muffins
May 27th, 2012
Rise and shine!

Why not wake up to a muffin full of flavor and just the right amount of sweetness to get you going? Plus, it’s so exciting to bite into something with so many ingredients. It’s like a party for your taste buds… so many textures, so many tastes, and yes, you can bet that they all play nicely together. (Who knew that fruits and veggies could join in unison and create a hit?)

Like with any muffin, these are pretty easy to make- the only annoyance comes from having to measure out so many ingredients. Oh, and from grating the carrots- but since I started using the grater thingy on my food processor (you know- this disc that you attach to the blade in the middle), life has gotten so very very much easier. Less time grating carrots means more time baking.
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Milk Chocolate & Toasted Almond Toffee
May 26th, 2012
This stuff melts in your mouth, and that’s wonderful but also sad- because who wants a wonderful thing to melt away?

The reality is that some ingredients are just meant to be combined- and it’s undeniable that toffee covered with a slathering layer of milk chocolate and then sprinkled with toasted chopped almonds is a match made in sinful dessert heaven.

Toffee is easier to make than you might think, even though it involves a candy thermometer (if you don’t have one, well, get one- even a $20 model will do the trick). When people eat it they think you’re some kind of baking superstar, even though it’s not that complex… but don’t tell them that. Just wipe your brow and thank them for their undying admiration.
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Sweet (& Easy!) Wontons
May 23rd, 2012
Okay, so you buy wontons for a dinner recipe, and you use 6 out of the 950 that come in the package. Wondering what to do with the other 944? The same thing you do with any other leftover… freeze them until you can figure out how to turn them into a dessert.

Wontons come in little squares or rectangles, and for this particular recipe I used the squares. The idea is to put a little bit of something yummy in the middle of the wonton, and fold the edges together (using egg white to seal- again, totally easy and foolproof) to make a cute little triangle. The most challenging part of this dessert (other than getting over the fact that they are fried in a little puddle of oil- yes, I know, I’m sorry about that) is the decision of what to stuff them with. The burden of choice in a baker’s pantry is a serious problem. A few ideas to get you going…
* Chocolate chips with a slice of banana
* Peanut butter with banana
* Chopped up chocolate bar of your choice (I used Ferrero Rocher this time around because The Husband made the grave mistake of leaving a few behind)
* Toasted chopped pecans with cinnamon chips (pictured here)
* Chopped apple with cinnamon and a dab of butter
* Graham cracker crumbs with a few blueberries and sugar
* Toasted sliced or slivered almonds with caramel sauce
* Cream cheese, sugar and raspberries
* I can’t stop, seriously…
* Chopped cookies (any kind will do)
* Help…
* Toasted chopped walnuts with honey
* Stopping now.
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Chocolate on Chocolate on Chocolate Bars
May 19th, 2012
If you haven’t figured it out, these bars have three layers of chocolate. Some might think it’s excessive to have three layers of cocoa goodness going on in one meager bar, but these are the people that we don’t want to associate with anyways. Bring on the layers, I say, and make them thick… so thick that a fork is helpful (but not necessary- you can be a pig and use your chocolate-covered fingers).

Why three layers? I feel like I have been remiss in the chocolate department as of late, making sweets & treats for others that for some reason haven’t involved chocolate. I did attempt to use chocolate in the Mayan Brownies for May 5th, but they were aptly re-named Mistake-o do Mayo Brownies for good reason. So I was due for a successful chocolate spell.

This is a true recipe for Chocoholics. Go for it. Indulge. Give in to the call of the chocolate on chocolate on chocolate. And good luck.
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Creamy Rice Pudding
May 15th, 2012
When your Dad comes into town, and one of his favorite desserts ever (besides a Classic Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting) is rice pudding, you wipe aside the memory of a horrible version you made in 2004 and try again. (The memory is blurred around the edges, but it involves something like a tasteless block of rice- kind of like a bar. A barfy rice bar.)
But that was then and this is now, and this recipe was a hit… especially with a little bit of cream poured over the top right before serving (Dad’s way of doing it).
(Note- I think rice pudding is gross, but when it comes to dessert, it’s not all about me.)
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Good Old Fashioned Raisin Pie
May 12th, 2012
It’s just as it sounds. It’s a pie, filled with raisins, and it’s old-fashioned (meaning that it doesn’t have any fancy newfangled trendy fillings). And it really is good, in a classic “I don’t need to be dressed up with caramel or chocolate or ganache” kind of way. (Although those do sound like really good additions for next time.)

Of all the decadent desserts out there, why make a humble raisin pie (or mini little pies, as pictured)? Well, Fil (the name I affectionately call my father in law… get it? Father In Law?) is having a birthday, and as the story goes, he used to polish off the 99¢ raisin pies from the A&P grocery store that no one else would touch. (Or maybe no one else in the family ate them because Fil hoovered them down all to himself- hard to say. All I know is that the family has laughed at this for years.) So I wanted to make something that I knew he’d like, since he’d never be so bold as to request anything special.

Fil was happy with the pie, although he’s so nice that he’d say he liked it even if it tasted like crap. Served with heavenly hash ice cream (totally his idea), it made for a nice birthday evening. And it’s fun to stick really big candles in a really small pie.
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Molasses Spice Cookies
May 9th, 2012
Oh dear.

Sometimes a new cookie comes into your life when you’re just not expecting it. And it changes everything. It changes the whole cookie rotation (you know what I mean- the unconscious order you have when baking your tried & true recipes that you make no matter what new & fancy cookie recipe pops up- like how I know it’s time to make my chocolate chip & pecan cookies soon, just because.)

So why have these cookies have inserted themselves into my cookie repertoire, just like that? Excellent question.
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Fluffy Yellow Cake with Not-Too-Sweet Chocolate Frosting
May 5th, 2012
Frosting is a funny thing- some people eat it on its own (and could care less about the cake), and some people find it too intense (I can’t identify with those people but I know they are out there). Some people prefer it sweet (a.k.a. spreadable sugar), while others just want a touch of sweetness.
In my goal to make everyone happy, one recipe at a time, this one is for the freakazoids who don’t like their frosting too sweet.
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Mistake-o de Mayo.
May 4th, 2012
These brownies don’t look that horrific in this picture, do they? Trust me, they are. “The are quite possibly the worst brownies you’ve ever made”, said The Husband after trying my new Cinco de Mayo Brownie, fresh from the oven. (I don’t know why he had to specify ‘brownies’, as though there’s a “Worst of” list […]
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Buttery Soft Pretzels- Sweet or Salty
May 2nd, 2012
How do you prefer your pretzels- salty (with chunks of salt scattered across the top), or sweet (with cinnamon sugar sprinkled over the well-buttered surface of the still-warm dough)?
It doesn’t matter, my friend, because you have both options catered to in this recipe. As long as you like them soft and chewy, you’ll be just fine.

I know I have complained about yeast recipes before, and I will absolutely complain again (although less so in this recipe, because you’re not letting the dough rise twice)- but I was inspired to make pretzels for three reasons:
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Flaky Vodka Pie Crust (Yes, Vodka)
May 1st, 2012
Trust me.

(The deal behind the whole vodka thing is that you get the benefit of the liquid which helps to roll it out, but it burns off/evaporates in the oven, leaving your flaky crusty crust behind. Without even a hint of vodka- honest.)

In my quest to find the bestest crust of all, this one will stay in my rotation for sure.
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