German Chocolate Macaroons

This was a Facebook find, via Pinterest, that my husband insisted I make for Christmas. He's a hard core macaroon fan (not to be confused with macaron). These are sweet, chewy, nutty, and pretty much the perfect coconut macaroon. They aren't difficult to make, but they are very time-consuming. So time consuming that I was way too tired to haul out the real camera and take fussy photos. This is my iPhone. Sorry. :)

The source recipe is from Chef in Training.

Ingredients

5⅓ cups shredded sweetened coconut (two of the smaller size bags)
¾ cup sugar
6 Tablespoons flour
½ teaspoon salt
5 egg whites
1 cup finely chopped pecans (Calls for toasted, but they were fine untoasted)

Chocolate topping

Melt 4 ounces sweet chocolate (The Baker's kind)
1 tablespoon shortening

Sweetened condensed milk topping

6 ounces sweetened condensed milk (I just did the whole 14 oz can because I had no use for a partial can.)

Recipe: Orange Cardamom Loaves

Guess what time it is?! It's Fall Baking Time. Yes, those vanity capitals are on purpose. I love it when the chill in the air "forces" me to start baking. It's too warm for a fire in the wood stove, but too cold to not want it warmed up just a little bit.

Plus the plethora of fall baking ingredients: fresh pears, pumpkin and all of the other "fall" stand-bys. I picked up a baking magazine the other day, an overpriced one that cost about the same as a trade paperback book *winces*, because I wanted to make just about every recipe in it.

The first recipe I attempted was Orange Cardamom Bread for a bake sale fundraiser. The recipe makes 2 loaves: one for me, one for the sale ;) While I liked it a lot, I could not taste the cardamom. So I fiddled with the levels a bit and found a balance between spicy and orange-y. The real sneaky part about this bread is that because cardamom enhances the orange flavor, you really aren't going to get much straight flavor except as an end note. 

Recipe: Pineapple Pound Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

Pineapple Pound Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

This is an awesome, dense, bakery-style cake. It's super rich, too. And the secret to that is that you apparently must use nearly a whole carton of eggs. I wish the rum flavor was more pronounced, but this was a hit here. Because it is so heavy, you will get quite a few servings out this!

Cookbook Review: Butter: Baked Goods

Format: Hardcover
Pub Date: October 2013
Publisher: Random House
Length: 264 pages
FTC: Purchased myself
List Price: $35 ($22.14 on Amazon as of today)

I ordered this recently as an early Christmas present for myself. I'm not familiar with the author or her bakery, but I LOVE to bake. And this one looked cute. Little did I know I would be receiving a gorgeous hardbound baking book that I would be proud to show off.

There is a wide variety of recipes in this book. Everything from scones and muffins to pies and cookies is here. There aren't a ton of any one type of recipe, but what is here is definitely appealing.  Most of the recipes are easily accessible for the average home cook. Only a few are the least bit fussy. And I only found one ingredient that I could not source locally: pistachio paste. Which isn't a problem for me, because I'm really not all that fond of pistachio.

Butter's claim to fame is the homemade flavored marshmallows. I've seen homemade marshmallow recipes before (Ina Garten has one) but I haven't seen flavored ones. The main recipe for marshmallows also features several variations including raspberry, coffee, mint, and coconut. Given the techniques, you can easily swap other flavors in where you want to as long as they're added in the right part of the recipe.

Despicable Me Minion Twinkie Cupcakes

So...I've been promising to make  Despicable Me Minion cupcakes with the boys for the last month. School starts on Wednesday (yeah, don't ask) and it's rainy today. I finally made time for these little cuties.

 I didn't come up with this design...there's a few versions floating around the internet. Most used chocolate sprinkles, which I was inexplicably out of, so I used licorice for the hair instead. The rest is Twinkies, Smarties, black gel icing, frosting, and cupcakes.

I did this the laziest way possible. The cupcakes are made with a mix, the frosting is from a can. The only technique I would pass on is to decorate the Twinkie halves *before* adding them to the cupcakes. Seems obvious, but it took me a cupcake to figure that out. Draw the circles for the eyes with gel, draw the goggle straps, then add the Smarties. Easy!

Looking for more recipes and ideas? Check out my recipes page.

Texas Brownies aka Texas Sheet Cake (Recipe)

This is more traditionally known as Texas Sheet Cake, but the recipe I've always used calls them brownies. It's from a 1988 recipe card from Great American Recipes, one of those companies that used to send you free cards to entice you to subscribe to monthly recipe deliveries. (Which, of course, I never did).

What makes this weird is that most of the prep is done on the stove. There's no creaming of butter for either the cake or the frosting. It has a unique flavor and texture as a result. This is not a gourmet, chocolate aficionado's type of cake. It's a family potluck type of dessert. It's a cake-like brownie (or a brownie-like cake). Very sweet, slightly chocolate-y, and makes a huge pan!  I don't own a 17x11 pan. Mine was 15 x 11 and worked fine. Just adjust the baking time to your pan and test the center with a toothpick. I got 36 brownies from my smaller pan.

Make sure you pour the frosting on while the cake is warm and resist cutting into it while it's still warm. It cuts much more cleanly after it cools.

Recipe: Pineapple Upside Down Cupcakes

My husband loves Pineapple Upside Down Cake. It's his favorite cake in the world. I don't make it very often, though. This year, he told me he didn't need a cake for his birthday, and made me promise not to make him one. I, being the stubborn person that I am, nodded in agreement, while deciding that cupcakes were not "a cake" and therefore I was still honoring my promise.

My Google search for a cupcake-sized Pineapple Upside Down Cake resulted in quite a few recipes, surprisingly. The best one I found was from Allrecipes.com 
I made a few minor adjustments*, but was very pleased that they not only turned out well the very first time, but they kept well (refrigerated) through the next day.

Pineapple Upside Down Cupcakes

 

cooking spray

1/2 cup butter, melted

1 1/2 cups brown sugar

24 maraschino cherries

1 to 2 cans pineapple rings

1 (18.25 ounce) package yellow cake mix (if you can find pineapple mix, that will work, too)

3 eggs

1 1/3 cups pineapple juice

1/3 cup vegetable oil

Move an oven rack into the middle of the oven. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray 24 muffin cups with cooking spray. Line a work surface with waxed paper. Spoon 1 teaspoon melted butter into the bottom of each sprayed muffin cup. Spoon 1 tablespoon brown sugar in each muffin cup. Press a maraschino cherry into the center of the brown sugar in each muffin cup. Trim pineapple rings to fit around cherry. It's okay if it covers the cherry slightly.

Mix  cake mix, eggs, pineapple juice, and vegetable oil in a large bowl with electric mixer on low speed until moistened, about 30 seconds. Turn mixer speed to medium and mix for 2 minutes. Pour pineapple cake batter into the muffin cups, filling them to the top; do not overfill.

Bake in the preheated oven until a toothpick inserted into the center of a cupcake comes out clean, about 20 minutes. Allow cupcakes to cool at least 5 minutes before inverting muffin cups onto the waxed paper to release. Serve with pineapple and cherry sides up.

*Adjustments: The original recipe called for a pineapple cake mix, which neither of my grocery stores carried. The pineapple juice adds plenty of flavor, though, so I think the yellow cake mix worked fine. You can, of course, make the batter from scratch if you prefer. The recipe also called for crushed pineapple, pressed into the top, but I prefer the chew of the rings. And finally, I've omitted the dusting of powdered sugar called for because these are quite sweet all on their own. If the rings or cherries stick, it's easy to pop them out with a plastic fork/knife and rearrange while the cakes are warm. They'll stay put once they've cooled.

Recipe: Fresh Apple Walnut Cake

Here is a recipe that's older than I am. It's one of the three cakes my mom has made pretty regularly over the last 30+ years. (The other two are her Black Joe cake and a scrumptious carrot cake.) If you don't look at the ingredients too closely, you might be able to fool yourself into believing this cake is good for you.

It has apples. It has walnuts. And best of all, You Don't Have to Grease and Flour the Pan!!!

*Snoopy Dance*

The ungreased angel food cake pan (You should have the kind with the removable center!) allows the batter to climb.  Yes, that's a lot of vegetable oil. But this is a big cake. And, while I haven't tried it, you could probably sub in a bit of applesauce for some of it. I also use this gizmo to peel, slice and core the apples. I hate to peel anything, but this gadget cuts down the prep time tremendously!

Fresh Apple Walnut Cake

Ingredients


1 1/2 cup vegetable oil (you could probably sub in some applesauce)
2 cups sugar
3 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
3 cups flour
3 cups fresh apples, chopped (I use Granny Smiths)
1 cup nuts, chopped

Combine oil, sugar and eggs; beat well. Add vanilla, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, and soda; stir on low. Gradually add flour. Stir in nuts and apples.

Pour batter into an UNGREASED angel food cake/tube pan (preferably one with a removable bottom). Bake at 350 for 50-60 minutes or until butter knife inserted in the center comes out clean.

Cool completely on wire rack. Gently remove from pan. Store covered.

This is a moist,  yummy cake that is perfect with coffee. I admit it. I've eaten a slice for breakfast before. It's actually better if you let it cool completely, wrap it up tightly in plastic wrap or foil, and let it sit overnight. But if you can't wait that long, it's good hot out of the oven, too.

Recipe: Mini Pumpkin Walnut Cupcakes with Spiced Cream Cheese Frosting

I was given a huge bag of walnuts recently. HUGE. And with my baking funk for the last few months, they're still hanging around the kitchen. My husband—selfless person that he is—suggested that pumpkin walnut cupcakes or cookies would be a great use for them. And if he had to help eat them, well...sacrifices must be made.

I found these cupcakes at a cute blog called The Comfort of Cooking. The original recipe had a yield of 24 cupcakes, which I can only assume was for full-sized ones, despite the post being about minis. I ended up with nearly 60 mini cupcakes! Good thing these are destined for a school PTO meeting.  The frosting is a little on the tart, soft side. Make sure to store these refrigerated, if frosted!

Cupcakes
Makes 50-60 mini cupcakes
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 cup butter, softened
1 1/3 cups sugar
2 eggs, beaten until frothy
1 cup pumpkin puree
3/4 cup milk
3/4 cup chopped walnuts
 

Recipe: Tri-Cornered Cream Cheese Cookies with Jam Filling

I'm sure it comes as no surprise that I have approximately a billion cookie cookbooks. This recipe is a variation found in the September 1994 Cookies Galore Pillsbury magazine. These are far more fussy than most of my usual cookies, since I'm more of a  drop cookie/bar cookie fan. But for Christmas, I make these for my husband who adores them. The dough can also be used for a sugar cookie dough that you can cut with cookie cutters. Baking times should be adjusted based on the size of the cookies.

Cream Cheese Cutout Cookies
1 cup sugar
1 cup butter, softened
1 (3oz) package cream cheese, softened
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 egg
2 1/2 cups flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
jam in various flavors: I use blackberry, seedless raspberry, and apricot
powdered sugar

In a large bowl, beat sugar, butter, and cream cheese until light and fluffy. Add vanilla and egg; blend well. Lightly spoon flour into measuring cup; level off. Stir in flour and salt; mix well. Cover with plastic wrap; refrigerate 1 to 2 hours for easier handling. I refrigerate mine overnight. I also put any scraps BACK in the fridge before re-rolling, because this dough gets soft really quickly.

Heat oven to 375F. On lightly floured surface, roll half of dough at a time to 1/8" thickness; refrigerate remaining dough. Cut into 2 1/2" circles with cookie cutter. Place 1 inch apart on ungreased sheets. Spoon 1 teaspoon jam onto center of each round. Shape into triangles, folding 3 sides in without covering jam; pinch corners to seal.


Bake at 375 for 7-10 minutes or until edges are lightly browned. Cool 1 minute; remove from cookie sheets. Dust with powdered sugar, if desired.


To make cutouts, follow the recipe above, omitting the jam and powdered sugar.  Cut with floured cutters. Bake similar sized cookies together, carefully watching the time. They tend to over bake quickly.  If your cookies have detailed designs, you might consider chilling the cutouts before baking.

Recipe: Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies

I discovered this recipe via the lovely food blog, Full Fork Ahead. They have adapted it from a Kitchen Aid recipe. My only change is to use a combination of milk chocolate chips and Nestlé semi sweet chunks. These cookies are soft, chewy, don't spread everywhere, and you can't bite into one without getting some chocolate! Imagine kick-ass Keebler Soft Batch without that chemical preservative taste. Mmmm...

You really need a sturdy stand mixer to make these. If you don't have one, you'll have to do these as you normally would,  adding the last of the flour by hand.

1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup (2 sticks) butter or margarine, softened
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoon salt (I use 1 teaspoon to cut down on saltiness)
4 cups all-purpose flour
6 ounces semi-sweet chocolate chunks (about 1 cup)
6 ounces milk chocolate chips (about 1 cup)


Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Place sugars, butter, eggs and vanilla in mixer bowl. Attach flat beater to mixer. Turn to Speed 2 (just above "stir") and mix about 30 seconds. Stop and scrape bowl with spatula. Turn to speed four (about medium) and beat about 30 seconds more. Stop and scrape bowl with spatula.

Turn to Stir (low) Speed. Gradually add in baking soda, salt and flour to sugar mixture and mix about 2 minutes. Turn to Speed 2 and mix about 30 seconds more. Stop mixer, scrape bowl again. Add in chocolate chips and mix on Stir Speed for 15 seconds.

Drop by rounded spoonfuls onto parchment-lined baking sheets, or roll into balls and place on parchment-lined baking sheets, about 2 inches apart. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes, until the edges of the cookie have just started to turn golden brown. Leave on baking sheet for about a minute after removing from oven, then put them on wire cooling racks.

Keep an eagle eye on the cookies because they'll lose their chewy, soft texture if you overbake them.

Recipe: Lemon Yogurt Cake

This is my favorite pick-me-up recipe that doesn't involve chocolate. It has a bright, strong lemon flavor, a spongy, firm texture, and slices beautifully.  This cake received a Best of Division at the county fair least week (I'm totally bragging).  It is that good.

Recipe by Ina Garten. My commentary and adjustments are in italics. Photo is my own.

Lemon Yogurt Cake by Ina Garten

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1 cup plain whole-milk yogurt
1 1/3 cups sugar, divided
3 extra-large eggs
2 teaspoons grated lemon zest (2 lemons) (Microplanes are a godsend!)
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/3 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice

Recipe: Cream Cheese Pound Cake

I've only made one previous pound cake, the Blackberry Swirl Poundcake from Martha Stewart. This one is a more traditional one, and I must say makes THE BEST strawberry shortcake ever. But...the ingredients are fat, fat, and more fat, so save this one for when you want to distribute most of it to the neighbors, family, friends...anything to get most of this cake out of the house because it is addicting and way too easy to make.

1 1/2 cups butter, softened
1 (8 oz) pkg cream cheese, softened
3 cups sugar
6 eggs
3 cups flour
dash of salt
1 tablespoon vanilla

Heat over to 300 degrees F. Grease and flour bottom, side and tube of a 10 x 4 inch angel food cake pan or a 12 cup fluted tube cake pan (Bundt®--this is what I used.)

In large bowl, beat butter and cream cheese with electrix mixer on medium speed until creamy; gradually add sugar, beating well. Add eggs, one at a time, beating until blended.

Mix flour and salt; gradually add to butter mixture, beating on low speed just until blended after each addition. Stir in vanilla. Pour batter into pan.

Bake 1 hr 40 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool in pan on cooling rack 10-15 minutes. Remove from pan to wire rack*; cook completely, about 1 hr.

*This is a crucial step that I messed up on. I set mine out to cool on a regular pan and the bottom got a little soggy. There is a lot of residual moisture in the cake, so a wire rack is important!

Recipe: Rum-Coconut Key Lime Pie

I've never made key lime pie before. I rarely make pies at all. Partly because they're difficult to share with the neighbors, and partly because I hate making pie crust. But I saw this recipe in a recent Pillsbury Casseroles and Potluck cookbook, and it sounded divine. Also? It doesn't use a traditional pie crust, but an incredibly yummy mix of coconut and crushed cookies.

Recipe: Blueberry Coffee Cake Muffins

This week is Staff Appreciation week at our school. (It's also Teacher Appreciation Week nationwide.) In addition to a luncheon that our parent group organizes for Friday, we bring in goodies all week long. Today, I brought in two types of homemade muffins: Blueberry Coffee Cake Muffins (recipe by Ina Garten)  and Banana-Pecan Muffins (recipe by Tyler Florence).  The banana muffins will require some tweaking for my altitude since they turned out a little on the dry side for my taste, but the blueberry ones? Perfect!

I have been on a quest for the perfect blueberry muffin for a while now. Most of the muffins I've made have been tough, dry, and just kind of meh. Even when I am very careful not to overmix and watch my oven like a creepy stalker. But these are moist, tender, and not overly sweet.  They kept fine overnight, although the tops got a little sticky, so be careful how you cover them.

Frog Cupcakes! From Cupcakes, Cookies & Pie, Oh My! by Karen Tack and Alan Richardson

In my cookbook review last week, I promised an update after I'd attempted one of the projects. Here are the results!

I think they turned out pretty darn cute. Not exactly like the photo (which you can see behind them) but with a special quirkiness all their own.

Even with a boxed mix and premade frosting, these are time consuming! Not counting the constant interruptions, I'd guess I probably spent close to 4 hrs making these guys. A lot of that time is spent waiting, though. Freeze, wait. Freeze, wait.  That's also counting the time I took to sort out the colors of M&Ms I needed.

Recipe: Soft Pumpkin Cookies

These are my favorite cookie to feed the kids. Yes, they're full of sugar and fat, but they also have pumpkin. It's sort of a vegetable, right? And anytime I can sneak veggies into something and have the kids not complain, I consider it a WIN!

Originally from a Libby's recipe, I've only changed one thing: I use a rounded teaspoon instead of an exact teaspoon of cinnamon because I like my cookies on the spicy side. If you want less spice, you can always reduce it to the exact teaspoon. Also, my cookies never look like theirs do (as you can tell by the photo), and I use the criss-cross method of icing drizzle. (Basically, gently swinging the icing-coated whisk back and forth over the cookies instead of very precisely drizzling with a spoon.)


Soft Pumpkin Cookies
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 (rounded) teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
1/2 cup butter (1 stick), softened
1 cup canned pumpkin (NOT pumpkin pie mix)
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Glaze (recipe follows)

Preheat oven to 350° F. Grease baking sheets (I just use parchment paper).

Combine flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt in medium bowl. Beat sugar and butter in large mixer bowl until well blended. Beat in pumpkin, egg and vanilla extract until smooth. Gradually beat in flour mixture. Drop by rounded tablespoon onto prepared baking sheets.

Bake for 15 to 18 minutes or until edges are firm. Cool on baking sheets for 2 minutes; remove to wire racks to cool completely. Drizzle glaze over cookies.

You can leave these unglazed, but they really are better with the icing.

FOR GLAZE:
Combine 2 cups sifted powdered sugar, 3 tablespoons milk, 1 tablespoon melted butter and 1 teaspoon vanilla extract in small bowl until smooth.

Recipe: Streusel Blueberry Coffee Cake

Streusel Blueberry Coffee Cake


I'm not sure why, but streusel is one of those words I can't spell without looking it up. Spell check wants to change it to strenuous, which it's really not. It's quite easy to make.  

This recipe originally came from Land O Lakes and uses their brand of fat free half and half. I haven't tried it with regular half and half, but I imagine it'll probably work just fine. The cake is a little on the dry side, but if you bake it the day before and wrap it tightly, the blueberries will moisten the cake right up. Or you can just make sure to have a big glass of milk or coffee to go with its nutmeg-y goodness.

Recipe: Caramel Pecan Brownies

Caramel Pecan Brownies
These were originally from a Pillsbury pamphlet cookbook. I have no idea what issue. I've been making these for years, usually when I run out of baking chocolate and only have cocoa on hand.






1 cup sugar
1/2 cup butter
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 eggs
2/3 cup flour
1/2 cup baking cocoa
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup coarsely chopped pecans
12 caramels
1 tablespoon milk

Heat oven to 350°F. Grease bottom and sides of 8 x 8 inch square pan. Mix sugar, butter, vanilla and eggs in a large bowl. Stir in flour, cocoa, baking powder and salt. Spread in the pan as evenly as possible. Sprinkle with pecans.

Bake 20-25 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.

Heat caramels and milk in saucepan over low heat, stirring frequently, until caramels are melted.* drizzle over warm brownies. Cool completely, about 1 hr. Cut into 4 rows by 4 rows. 16 brownies.

*You can also pop the caramels and milk in the microwave and cook on high for 30 seconds. Stir and heat in 15 second intervals until drizzling consistency.

Recipe: Caramel Pecan Shortbread Cookies

This is the most-requested cookie on my holiday cookie tray. The recipe is from Land o Lakes.


Cookie
1/2 cup butter, softened
1/4 cup powdered sugar
2 tablespoons firmly packed brown sugar
1 cup all-purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt



Topping
30 unwrapped caramels
1 tablespoon half and half
1/2 cup chopped pecans

Heat oven to 325°F. Combine butter, powdered sugar and brown sugar in large bowl. Beat at medium speed, scraping bowl often, until creamy. Reduce speed to low; add flour, baking powder and salt. Beat until well mixed.

Press dough evenly into 8-inch square baking pan lined with aluminum foil; prick with tines of fork every 1/2 inch. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes or until golden brown. Lift cookies from pan using aluminum foil. Immediately cut into 20 (approximately 4x1/2 inch) sticks. Cool completely.

Place caramels and half & half in microwave-safe bowl. Microwave on HIGH, stirring twice, until caramels are melted (1 to 2 minutes). Dip ends of shortbread sticks into melted caramel mixture; roll in pecans. Place onto waxed paper; let stand until set.