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!

Recipe: Butter's Famous Marshmallows

Finished marshmallows

I recently purchased a baking cookbook called Butter Baked Goods. It's written by the owner of a small bakery, but what intrigued me most were the marshmallow recipes. The recipes I've seen before were all a little intimidating, but this was super easy to do, and they turned out great. It's one of the few that does not have you sitting over a candy thermometer waiting for a specific temperature. And I've made two batches without a hitch. (Please excuse the horrid photo. The lighting in my kitchen is the worst).

Butter's Famous Marshmallows
1 cup water
3 envelopes unflavored gelatin
2 cups granulated sugar
1/2 cup light corn syrup
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons vanilla
Lots of powdered/confectioner's sugar (about 2 cups)

1. In a stand mixer with the whisk attachment, pour 1/2 cup of water into the bowl. Sprinkle in the gelatin. Set aside to let the gelatin soak.

2. In a saucepan over high heat, add sugar, corn syrup, salt, and remaining 1/2 cup of water. Bring to a rolling boil and continue to boil for 1 minute. Remove from heat.

3. Turn mixer to low and mix gelatin a few times. Slowly add the hot sugar mixture, pouring it gently down the side of the bowl, and continue to mix on low. (Make sure everything is mixed before cranking the speed up or you will end up splattered with scalding sugar!!)

4. Turn the mixer to high and continue to whip for 10-12 minutes until the batter just about triples in size and becomes very thick. It will look like glossy marshmallow cream, but thicker. Stop the mixer, add the vanilla, and whip briefly to combine.

5. Transfer mixture to a buttered 9 x 9 pan and use a spatula to scrape the bowl and smooth.

6. Cover with a greased sheet of plastic wrap.

7. Leave the marshmallow to set at room temperature for at least 3 hours or overnight. The marshmallow will be too soft and sticky to cut otherwise! I let batch one set overnight and batch two for five hours. Overnight is better.

8. Sprinkle a work surface with powdered sugar (I used a rimmed baking sheet to corral the mess). Run a knife along the edge to loosen the slab.

9. Use a large knife to cut the slab into 1 inch squares. Coat the freshly cut marshmallows in sugar until completely covered.

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.

Rice Pudding with Cardamom and Pistachios (Recipe)

Our favorite Indian restaurant used to serve a delicious rice pudding at their lunch buffet, but no longer does. Craving it something fiercely in the epic heat wave we experienced last week, I went on a quest through recipe after recipe online before discovering this very easy preparation at Honeyandjam.com !

No weird ingredients, no fussy preparation. The worst part is waiting for this to chill, although in all honesty...it was delicious warm, too. Next time, I might try stirring in some lemon zest right before serving.

 Rice Pudding with Cardamom and Pistachios
1/2 tablespoon butter
1/2 teaspoon ground cardamom
1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon sugar
1/2 cup basmati rice, rinsed and drained
2 cups milk
1 cup cream
1/4 cup pistachios, shelled and chopped, plus extra for garnish, if desired

1. In a medium saucepan, melt the butter over low heat. Stir in the cardamom, cinnamon, nutmeg and sugar and cook for 1 minute, stirring constantly.
2. Stir in the rice, milk and cream. Bring the mixture to a simmer over high heat, then reduce the heat to maintain a simmer. Cook the rice, uncovered, until very tender, stirring occasionally, 20 to 25 minutes.
3. Remove from the heat and set the pan aside, uncovered, until the rice cools to room temperature, about 30 minutes to 1 hour. (The pudding will be very soupy at first, but will thicken as the rice continues to absorb the liquid as it cools in the pan.)
4. Stir in the pistachios, then cover and refrigerate the pudding until well chilled. Garnish with extra pistachios if desired. This makes about 3 cups rice pudding.

Cookbook Review: Junior's Dessert Cookbook by Alan Rosen, Beth Allen

Junior's Dessert Cookbook: 75 Recipes for Cheesecakes, Pies, Cookies, Cakes, and More

Format: Hardcover
Publisher: Taunton
Pub Date: October 2011
Length: 192 pages
FTC: Digital review galley from the publisher

I was looking forward to reviewing this cookbook, since I loved the original Junior's cookbook. But unfortunately, the recipes were not to my taste. I love baking, as followers of the blog know very well, but not when every recipe calls for dozens of ingredients and the instructions take up two full pages.

The few easy recipes in the book are so overly simplistic, they feel like filler.

Bottom line is that I wasn't even tempted to try the recipes. I was turned off by their complexity. This might work for someone with pastry chef-like dedication or someone who really wants to stretch their abilities. But for the average, everyday chef, it's a small book filled with yummy looking, but intimidating recipes. I'd far rather buy most of these desserts than make them. And maybe that's the point?

Also, this is a hardcover with a list price of $25 for a grand total of 75 recipes and 192 pages. No. Just no. 

My Grade: C-

Lemon Curd Bars with coconut and pecans

This recipe, from the 2010 Better Homes and Gardens Christmas Cookie magazine, was the surprise star of my cookie trays. My husband, who is not all that fond of lemon desserts, had to admit he was WRONG about these being "gross." Something he declared after finding out that not only were these lemon, they had coconut and nuts as well. I ended up having to hide them from him to save enough for the trays!

The coconut makes these chewy. I haven't tried making these with almonds, but they're delicious with pecans. I use Trader Joe's lemon curd. Because I'm lazy. You could probably make your own if you're an overachiever ambitious.

Lemon Curd Bars
1 cup butter, softened
1 cup sugar
2 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 10-12 oz jar lemon curd
2/3 cup flaked coconut (I used sweetened)
1/2 cup sliced or slivered almonds or coarsely chopped pecans

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees Line a 13 x 9 x 2 inch baking pan with foil, extending foil over edges of pan. Grease foil, set pan aside.

2. Beat butter with an electric mixer on medium to high speed for 30 seconds. Add sugar. Beat until combined, scraping bowl occasionally. Beat in flour and baking powder until combined. (Mixture will be crumbly). Remove 2/3 cup of crumb mixture; set aside. Press remaining crumb mixture evenly onto the bottom of prepared baking pan.

3. Bake crust in oven for 5-8 minutes or until top is golden (that's about 10-11 minutes for me up here in the mountains). Remove from oven. Spread lemon curd over hot crust to within 1/2 inch of edge. (Try to avoid having lemon curd touch the edges of the pan, because it can scorch). In a medium bowl, stir together reserved crumb mixture, coconut and nuts. Sprinkle coconut mixture over lemon curd.

4. Bake for 18-20 minutes or  until edges are golden and topping is lightly browned. Cool in pan on a wire rack. Using edges of foil, lift uncut bars out of pan. Cut into 32 bars.

Store in a single layer in covered, airtight container for up to 3 days in the refrigerator.