Tag: baking

Fig Cookies

Once again, we have had an abundance of figs on our fig tree! I thought that we had a lot last year, but I think that we have even more this summer. I have a bunch in the freezer to use in smoothies; we have dehydrated quite a few pounds; the hubby has been eating them fresh; we have sold some; and we have given some away. And I still have several pounds in the fridge!

A friend shared this recipe on Pinterest the other day, and I thought that it sounded pretty good. I don’t necessarily eat Paleo, but this recipe is very good. I tried making fig cookies several years ago, but I struggled with getting the cookie just right. This recipe is better, but still a little crumbly. Next time I might use some oat flour with the almond flour.The flavor of the fig filling is amazing! I really like it since there is no added sugar!

Mine didn’t turn out looking as pretty as hers did, but I think that it is because I should have used more figs. The recipe calls for 10 ounces of dried figs. I didn’t weigh the figs, so I probably didn’t use enough. All my figs were fresh, so I dried some in my dehydrator for about 2 hours. That process took out most of the moisture without making them too dry.

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Black Bottom Cupcakes

I discovered this morning that I am only 39 views away from the goal I had set for the end of 2015. I’m only 2 months behind…oh, well. I guess I shouldn’t have set such a lofty goal of 20,000 total views! This year I will be a little more realistic! Oh, and this is post #375! I guess that’s not bad for 5 years of blogging.

I also saw this recipe today and thought I would share it here with you. It looks so amazing!! I definitely need to give it a try. I think you all will enjoy it too!

Taryn over at Joy Filled Eats has created this dessert. I am new to following her blog, but if this recipe is any indication of her creativity in the kitchen, I will be making quite a few of her others!

More Traditional Sweet Treats!

Christmas is just around the corner, and if you are like me, you are hurrying here, there, and everywhere trying to get ready for the big day.  Holiday baking is a tradition for most people, and I am no exception!  I have a few items that I have made at Christmas time for nearly 23 years.  The kids and Tim say that it just wouldn’t be Christmas without them.  I have been making these first 2 recipes since I was just out of college.  The last one I created just last year, and have already made it twice this season!  Enjoy!

CHOCOLATE COVERED PEANUT BUTTER BALLS

4 c. powdered sugar

1 c. butter, softened

1 c. peanut butter (can use crunchy)

12 oz. chocolate chips

2 Tbsp. butter

1/2 block paraffin

Mix sugar, butter, and peanut butter with mixer until well-blended.  Shape into balls and chill on foil-covered cookie sheet. Melt chocolate chips, butter, and paraffin in double boiler.  Dip the chilled balls into the chocolate mixture. Return each dipped ball to foil-covered cookie sheet and chill to fully harden the chocolate.  Store in cool place.  Makes about 50, depending on how large you make each one!

CHERRY NUT BREAD

2 c. flour

1 tsp. baking soda

1/2 tsp. salt

3/4 c. sugar

1/2 c. butter

2 eggs

1 tsp. vanilla

1 c. buttermilk

1 c. chopped pecans

1 (10oz) jar maraschino cherries, drained and chopped

Grease standard loaf pan. Stir together dry ingredients in medium bowl.  In a large bowl, cream sugar and margarine. Add eggs and vanilla. Mix well.  Add flour mixture and buttermilk alternately, mixing well after each addition. Bake in prepared pan at 350 degrees for about an hour or until toothpick comes out clean.   This recipe also makes about 6 small loaves which are great to give as gifts.  Reduce baking time to about 30 minutes.  Make sure toothpick comes out clean.

CRANBERRY-WHITE CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES

1 c. granulated sugar

3/4 c. packed brown sugar

1/2 c. butter, softened

1/4 c. milk

2 tbsp. orange juice

1 egg

3 c. flour

1 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. salt

1/4 tsp. baking soda

1-1/2 c. fresh cranberries, chopped (dried cranberries also work)

1 c. white chocolate chips

Mix sugars and butter.  Stir in milk, orange juice, and egg.  Mix dry ingredients together.  Add to sugar mixture. Stir in cranberries and chips.  Drop by spoonfuls on to cookie sheet.  Bake at 375 for 12-13 minutes.  Makes about 60 cookies.

These are great just like this, but also taste great with a thin layer of icing.

Thanksgiving Desserts!

Turkey, dressing, mashed potatoes, sweet potato casserole, cranberries. . .the menu items at our Thanksgiving Day dinner remain the same from year to year.  Yours probably do as well!  We enjoyed Thanksgiving Day this year with Tim’s brother and his family for the first time in 8 years!  With four parents, 8 kids ages 12-21, and one girlfriend, we knew we needed plenty of food. . .and plenty of food we had!  Two turkeys, two types of cranberries, and two types of dressing, plus lots and lots of other side dishes and desserts made for quite a feast.   Here are a few recipes for desserts that we enjoyed this  year.

PECAN PIE  This is my mom’s recipe with just one tweek. . .chocolate chips!

1 c. light corn syrup

3 eggs

2/3 c. sugar

1/3 c. butter, melted

1 tsp. vanilla

1/2 tsp. salt

1 c. chopped pecans

1/2 cup chocolate chips

1 (9-inch) pie shell

Preheat oven to 350. Combine corn syrup, eggs, sugar, butter, vanilla and salt in large bowl; mix well.  Stir in pecans and chocolate chips; pour into pie shell.  Place pie on baking sheet. Bake 50-55 minutes or until filling is set about 3 inches from the edge.  Cool completely on wire rack.  Serve each piece topped with whipped cream.

Apple-Cranberry Crisp

5 large apples, peeled and sliced

2 c. fresh cranberries

1 cup chopped pecans

1/3 c water

3/4 c. flour

1 c. sugar

1/2 tsp. cinnamon

1/4 tsp. salt

1 stick butter, softened

Spray bottom/sides of 13×9 pan.  Layer apple slices, cranberries, and pecans in pan.  Pour water over all.  Combine flour, sugar, cinnamon, and salt in mixing bowl. Cut in the butter until it resembles course crumbs.  Spread over fruits and nuts.  Bake for about 30 minutes or until crust is browned.

Rolled Cold

In case we didn’t mention this earlier, we live in South Carolina. Hot, muggy, humidified, sticky South Carolina. The temp will not fall below 85 until sometime in September, so we have a lot of hotness to look forward to! Living here requires a bit of creativity regarding cold meals and desserts. Any oven-baked dish is just not as appealing when you are already drenched in sweat, but avoiding the oven entirely is pretty much impossible.
“Ice cream” were the first two words off the tip of my tongue when Mom asked if I had thought about this week’s dessert. It’s cold, it’s sweet, and it’s simple. Unfortunately, throwing ice cream in bowls does not make for an interesting recipe. So I dug around a little and found this fantastic idea.

Barbi CANNOT cook without Pandora.
Jan started wondering about the lack of butter or oil.
Warning: not for the weak-wristed!
Make sure the cake is completely cool. We chilled it for 30 mins.

Rolling the cake with the ice cream inside was a fun challenge and the whole thing looked so artistic that I waited a full three seconds before digging in! The guys, of course, had no such inhibitions…

Squished out some at the overlap, but pretty sure no one noticed!

Cute Fruit

For this week’s dessert, Barbi suggested something NOT chocolate (shock of the century!!!). Searching through one of my many cookbooks, I came across this recipe for Strawberry-Lemon Cream Puffs.  After reading through the recipe twice, I realized that it was definitely do-able, even though I didn’t have all the ingredients.  That’s not always a problem since I almost never follow a recipe exactly anyway!  Here is the original recipe, taken from “The Best of Country Cooking 2004”, with my changes at the end. Who knew fruit could go over so well with a chocoholic?

1 cup water

1/4 cup butter

1 cup flour

FILLING:

1/4 cup sugar

1 1/2 tbsp. cornstarch

5 oz evaporated milk

8 oz vanilla yogurt

1 1/2 tsp. lemon extract

1/4 tsp. butter flavoring

1 cup sliced fresh strawberries

1/2 tsp. confectioners’ sugar

In a saucepan, bring water and butter to a boil.  Add flour all at once, stirring until a smooth ball forms.  Remove from the heat; let stand for 5 minutes. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.  Continue beating until mixture is smooth.  Drop by 1/4 cupfuls 3 inches apart on greased baking sheets.  Bake at 400 degrees for 30 minutes or until golden brown.  Remove to wire racks.  Immediately split puffs open and remove tops; discard soft dough from inside. Set puffs and tops aside to cool.

For filling, combine sugar and cornstarch in a saucepan.  Stir in evaporated milk and yogurt until smooth. Bring to a boil; cook and stir for 2 minutes or until thickened.  Remove from the heat. Stir in lemon extract and butter flavoring.  Cool.  Fold in strawberries.  Refrigerate until serving.  Fill cream puffs; replace tops. Dust with powdered sugar.

Changes:  Since I did not have vanilla yogurt, I used a 6-oz cup of blueberry yogurt and added 1/4 cup of light sour cream.  I had no lemon flavoring either, which is really a good thing since the man of the house depsises any hint of lemon!  I used vanilla flavoring instead and used almond flavoring for the butter flavoring.  I also added a handful of frozen blueberries along with the strawberries.

  I used a muffin pan instead of a baking sheet, so I ended up with 12 puffs instead of the called-for 10.

Cute!

Love Thy Mother

Many appologies for the lack of posts! Clearly we are off to a slow start with this project, thanks to exams and graduation for Barbi and a house full of company for Jan. Hopefully life will slow down in the next few weeks if we’re lucky.

In the midst of all the end-of-school-year craziness, Mother’s Day kinda snuck up on me (I know.. world’s worst daughter). I managed to grab a sweet gift (monogramed note cards from Minted.com), but the guys had a little trouble. Noticing the absense of gift-wrapping requests or flower advice, I sent out a text message enquiry around 10:30 Saturday night. Mass panic followed, as I suspected, but a midnight Walmart run successfully solved the near disaster and I earned a renewed big-sister respect.  We’ll see how long THAT lasts.. 

Anyway, this cake was not originally intended to celebrate Mother’s Day, but I added the chocolate chips when she wasn’t looking. Sometimes a sneaky nature comes in handy.   What are your Mother’s Day stories?

Coco-Pecan Cake

1 c. butter or margarine
1 c. water
1/4 c. baking cocoa
2 cups flour
2 cups sugar
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 c. sour cream
2 eggs
1 tsp. baking soda

In a saucepan, bring butter, water, and cocoa to a boil; whisk until smooth.  Cool to room temperature.  In a mixing bowl, combine flour, sugar, and salt.  Add cocoa mixture; beat on low speed just until combined.  Add sour cream, eggs, and baking soda; blend until smooth.  Pour into a greased 13×9 baking pan.  Bake at 350 degrees for 35-40 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean.  Cool on wire rack.

Frost with prepared coconut-pecan frosting (yes, we cheated).

Managed to snap one pic before the hordes descended

Sunday Dinner Dessert

Sunday dinner at our house has been elevated to a ritualistically traditional status. The pot roast is placed in the crockpot at precisely 11pm Saturday night and covered with onion soup mix and (when available) half a can of coke. Said pot roast is not touched until after church Sunday morning when the whole fam troops into the kitchen to begin the rest of the ceremonial preparation. Rice, broccoli, carrots, mashed potatoes, and bread are added to the menu with no. deviations. whatsoever. If so much as one item is missing from (or added to) the Sunday dinner table, the security of the entire universe will be called into question. So when we told everyone not to move after dinner yesterday because we had dessert, the eyebrows went through the roof. Now we do have dessert every so often, but because of the harried nature of Sundays, dessert is NOT part of the traditional meal. Of course once this delicious recipe hit four male mouths, the universe-danger radars went down and (shockingly) the pie was gone in seconds.

The original recipe is from the Best of Country Cooking 2002, but we experimented with blueberries and strawberries instead of the recommended raspberries. Enjoy!

Strawberry-Blueberry Meringue Pie

1 cup flour
1/3 cup sugar
1 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt
2 tbsp. cold butter or margarine
1 egg, beaten
2 tbsp. milk

TOPPING:
2 egg whites
1/2 cup sugar
1 cup strawberries, chopped
1 cup blueberries

In a bowl, combine the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt; cut in butter.  Combine egg and milk; stir into flour mixture (dough will be sticky). Press into the bottom and up the sides of a lightly greased 9-inch pie plate; set aside.

  In a mixing bowl, beat egg whites on medium speed for 5 hours until soft peaks form.

oh this shouldn't take long... 10 minutes later... Gradually beat in sugar, 1 tbsp. at a time until stiff peaks form.20 minutes...seriously?!? I HAVE CARPAL TUNNEL!!

  Combine strawberries and blueberries.  Fold into beaten egg whites.

  Spoon over the crust.  Bake at 350 for 30 minutes or until lightly browned.

  Cool on a wire rack.  Refrigerate.   Yield: 6-8 servings.

 

Dad: hmm. Meringue?  Just eat it Dad. There are no lemons, I promise.

Collective boys: no time to comment between bites. We take this to mean that dessert can safely be added to the Sunday dinner ceremony without harming the universe.