Blackberry Pie Bars

One of my all time favorite desserts to make.  It's simple, easy, perfect any time of year, great for a large gathering, and just plain delicious.  This is a no fail recipe.

The hardest part actually is remembering to take the frozen blackberries out of the freezer in order to thaw them.  Seriously.

In a food processor combine the 3 cups flour, 1 1/2 cups sugar, and 1/4 teaspoon salt.  Pulse a couple of times.

Add the cold butter to the dry ingredients in the food processor.  Process until the mixture is crumbly and the butter pieces all quite small, but not completely pulverized.

 Set aside 1 1/2 cups of the flour mixture to use later.  Press the remaining flour mixture in the bottom of a well-greased 9x13 inch baking pan. Bake in a preheated 350 degree F oven for 12-15 minutes.  Cool for at least 10 minutes.

While the base is baking, whisk together the eggs, 2 cups sugar, sour cream, 3/4 cup flour, pinch of salt, lemon zest, and almond extract till thoroughly combined.

Gently fold in the blackberries.

Spread the filling over the baked crust, then evenly sprinkle on the 1 1/2 cup flour mixture previously set aside.

Bake for 45-55 minutes.

Let's eat!

Cinnamon & Cardamom Palmiers (Elephant Ears)

Such an easy, delicious, and fast recipe! Unless you are making your own puff pastry, of course, which may happen someday.  But not today!

As the base of my recipe I used Ina Garten's recipe for Palmiers (or elephant ears...called such, because they look like elephant ears!)  But added a little twist.

Start with thawed puff pastry sheets (or you can make your own!) on a surface coated with sugar. And sprinkle generously with the sugar/salt mixture.  Cover it as evenly as possible.

Sprinkle on a little cinnamon, and cardamom (neither of which are called for in Ina's original recipe, but I was in the mood for something spicy.)

Start to fold from each side until they meet in the middle. Then fold one side over the other.

 Slice the roll into 1/2 inch slices and place on a parchment lined cookie sheet. Repeat for the second sheet of puff pastry.

Bake in a 450 degree F oven for 6-8 minutes, till starting to caramelize on the bottom. Then turn the cookies over and bake for another 6-8 minutes, till golden and thoroughly cooked through to the middle of the pastry.

Yummy, flaky, buttery, and so fun for a special occasion or just to try something new!

Next time I might try brown sugar with the cinnamon and cardamom!

Let's eat!

Baked Brownies

So fudgy, so chocolaty.  Look how dense and delightful!!  These were gobbled up without hesitation!

I got the recipe from Baked: New Frontiers in Baking by Matt Lewis and Renato Poliafito.  Which I reviewed here.

The recipe can also be found here.  

I changed one thing in the recipe: I am not a coffee drinker, so instead of the 1 teaspoon of instant espresso powder I used a teaspoon of dark ground unsweetened cocoa powder. 

Whisk together the flour salt, and 2 tablespoons cocoa powder in a medium bowl.  Set aside.

We need room temperature eggs for this recipe.  A fast and easy way to bring the eggs to room temperature is to put the eggs in a bowl and cover with warm water.  Allow them to sit for 10 minutes.

While the eggs are warming up, put the dark chocolate pieces, the butter and the 1 teaspoon cocoa powder in a glass bowl over a pot of boiling water.  This slowly warms up and melts the chocolate and butter.

 When the warm chocolate mixture is melted and smooth, turn off the heat.  With the bowl still over the hot water add the sugars.  Whisk until completely combined. Then remove the bowl from the pan.

Add the eggs to the chocolate mixture and whisk until combined.  Add the vanilla stir.

Sift the flour mixture over the chocolate mixture and carefully fold the flour mixture in until there is just a bit of flour still visible. (Don't over mix your batter.)

 Pour the batter into a greased 9x13 inch baking pan and bake in a preheated 350 degree F oven for 30 minutes, rotating the pan halfway through the bake time.

Be sure to cut the brownies with a plastic knife.  The sticky, gooey, fudgy crumbs don't stick as easily.

Let's eat!

Lime Meltaways

Sometimes cookies just need to be petite and delicate and lovely and crisp.  They need to melt on your tongue with buttery goodness and sugary softness.  And they need just a hint of lime to brighten your palate and your day.

These are those cookies.

I found these cookies in one of the many Martha Stewart books I own.  It's necessary to own many of her books.  It's also online in several places, here's a source directly from the woman herself. There's even a video!

Cream the butter and 1/3 cup of the powdered sugar with a standing mixer, until fluffy. Add the lime zest, lime juice, and vanilla.

In a medium bowl whisk the flour, cornstarch and salt.  Add the flour mixture to the butter mixture and beat on a low speed until combined.

Using an 8x12 piece of parchment roll HALF the dough into a long, thin log which measures about 1 1/4 inch in diameter.

Wrap the log in the parchment and fold the ends in.  Chill at least 1 hour.  Can be made a couple of days ahead.  Repeat with the other half of the dough.

Slice the log into 1/8 inch slices with a sharp knife.  And place on a parchment lined cookie sheet.  They don't need a lot of space between the cookies, since they don't rise.

Bake in a preheated 350 degrees F oven for about 15 minutes, till just barely golden around the edges.  This made A LOT of cookies!  I would say over 100!

Cool slightly on a cooling rack.  Put the remaining 2/3 cup powdered sugar into a resealable gallon bag.  While the cookies are still warm put them, a few at a time, into the bag to coat with the powdered sugar.  Do this carefully, they are delicate and can break easily.  Allow to cool completely.

Serve to delighted guests!

Let's eat!

Book Review!; Baked: New Frontiers in Baking

I have to admit that I have a slight problem.  I love to buy books.  And we are quickly running out of room on our bookshelves.  So I've made a deal with myself that I won't buy any books for a whole year.

It's hard, especially when my husband wants to go to a bookstore and I am browsing all the cookbooks and baking books.  Oh, if only...

So I'm making good use of the library this summer!

The library system in the Houston area is rather overwhelming.  31 branches spanning over an area about the size of Connecticut.  I've only been to 1 branch, amazingly enough.

Luckily, I can put anything and everything on hold!  So, despite having already checked out 7 baking books, I haven't even scratched the surface!

This book is one of the first I've checked out.  As a family, we've made a few recipes out of it so far.

The pictures are great!  It is a must for cookbooks to have great pictures.  The overall design of the book is fun and organized; neat while not being boring.

The recipes are fantastic and easy to follow.  The recipes I haven't made continue to make me drool and wish that I could make them all right now.

I think this will be a great investment in a baking book.  Definitely going on my wish list!

Hawaiian Rolls

When I was a kid I loved Hawaiian rolls.  In the bright orange and white packaging from the store, they were unlike other kinds of bread...sweet and perfect with butter. 

Have they changed the recipe, though?  Like most store bought foods I equate with my childhood (green Skittles, Trix cereal...) the flavor just isn't what I remember anymore.

I thought I would try to make them, instead of buying them. And, boy, they turned out perfect!  Better than what I remember as a child!

I did have to try this recipe a couple of time (much to the chagrin of my family, I'm sure).  The directions on the original recipe just didn't work for me.  And while the end result was tasty and yummy, they were a little too dense for my liking and didn't have the softness I wanted.  So I switched some things around a bit and came up with a technique that worked better for me.  (There is just something about yeast that makes it finicky.  I have found certain ways of dealing with it that work well and if I stray from those, even following someone else's directions, it just doesn't get the results I look for in rolls and breads.)

Start with warming your milk to about 110-115 degrees F.  Once warmed pour the milk into the bowl of a standing mixer and sprinkle 2 Tablespoons of the sugar into it, then sprinkle the yeast on top.  You can gently stir the yeast into the milk, but it's not necessary.  Allow to sit for 5-10 minutes until the yeast is nice and foamy.

While the yeast is waking up, melt the butter.  To the melted butter add the pineapple juice, the eggs, and the remaining 1/4 cup of sugar.

 
When the yeast is ready, add the butter mixture to the yeast mixture and gently stir. This was one of the best smells when these mixtures came together!  The sweet pineapple juice against the yeast was just delightful!

Add 2 cups of the flour and the salt to the yeast mixture. Stir until incorporated.

Use a standing mixer fitted with a dough hook and add the remaining flour to the dough, one cup at a time.  Knead the dough with the mixer at medium speed for about 4-5 minutes until the dough is stretching and smooth.
 

Cover the mixing bowl with plastic wrap and allow the dough to rise till double in size, about an hour.  Pick a warm spot to let it rise.

Spray a 13x9 inch glass pan with cooking spray.

 Punch down the risen dough and divide into 15 equal pieces. Shape into balls by smoothing the top and pinching the dough at the bottom together.  Place into the prepared pan.

In a small bowl whisk one egg with 1 Tablespoon water.  Gently brush this mixture over the rolls.  Cover with plastic wrap again, and place in a warm spot to rise again, about 30 minutes.

Near the end of the second rise preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.   Bake the rolls for 20 minutes, until golden on the top and bottom.

Don't they look delicious?

Let's eat!

Individual Chocolate Meringue Cakes

This was a really fun recipe to try!  It involved so new elements (meringue disks!) and familiar elements (ganache!).

I should have read the recipe carefully and thoroughly before I got started.  I wasn't mentally prepared to bake the disks for 2-4 hours (yes, HOURS!!!!) So I got a little frustrated because my timing was off.  But once the disks were out of the oven and cooled (they do cool extremely fast, thank goodness) the fun part really began...assembling those suckers!

Preheat the oven to 300 degrees F.

Start the recipe by making a simple meringue.  I always save egg whites from recipes calling for only egg yolks and then have to find something to do with them.  So this was perfect.  I used about 5 egg whites total for this recipe.  With the egg whites add a pinch of cream of tarter.  Once soft peaks form (after about 2 minutes) slowly add granulated sugar (about 1/2 cup) and beat again till stiff peaks form (about 3-4 minutes).

Because I live in a highly humid climate I also fold powdered sugar (about 1 1/4 cups) into the egg white mixture.  This keeps the meringue firm for longer.  You'll also want to do this in a dry climate if the meringue won't be consumed for a few days.

Draw 3 1/2 inch circles on a piece of parchment paper then turn the paper over onto  a cookie sheet so you can see the circles through the back.  Scoop the meringue into a pastry bag fitted with a 1/4 inch plain circle tip and, starting from the center of the circle, pipe out the meringue disks. With the amount of meringue I had I was able to pipe out 12 disks (to make 6 individual cakes), but there was a lot more meringue.  I ended up making Snowcaps with it (I'll post that recipe another time), but it could make more disks for more cakes!

As soon as you put the disks in the oven reduce the temperature to 225 degrees F.  Then bake for 2-4 hours till they are no longer soft.  2 hours was plenty for me.  They can be handled right away and the paper peels right off the back of the disks.  I put them on a cooking rack and into the fridge to cool quickly and keep dry.

While the meringue disks are baking make a simple chocolate ganache.  It's really just equal parts chocolate (whatever kind you like) and heavy cream.  I used 8oz semi-sweet chocolate chips (weigh it out with a kitchen scale...it makes all the difference!) and 1 cup heavy cream. Pour the chocolate chips into a glass bowl and set aside. Bring the cream just to a simmer in a saucepan (there should be bubbles coming up around the sides but not in the middle of the cream), then pour the hot cream over the chocolate chips.  Let sit for 1 minute then whisk thoroughly till thick and smooth.  Place the ganache in the refrigerator till thickened and completely cooled.

Once completely cooled in the refrigerator put the ganache into the bowl of a standing mixer to make whipped ganache (I am hoping this is what angels eat. This stuff is just unspeakably yummy.)  Using the whisk attachment, whisk air into the ganache making it light, fluffy, and lighter in color.  Careful not to over beat the ganache or you'll make chocolate butter (not that there's anything wrong with chocolate butter!  But you don't want it for this recipe.)

Put the whipped ganache into a pastry bag fitted with a plain 1/4 circle tip and pipe onto the top of half of your meringue disks.  Then place another disk, bottom side up into the ganache.

Using the extra whipped ganache and a little spatula fill in and even out the sides of your cakes. Put the cakes in the refrigerator to keep cool.

Next you get to make more ganache (yes!  MORE ganache!)  This time keep the ganache hot and carefully spoon it over the cakes so it drips down and covers the sides completely (don't try to coat the bottom...that would be messy.) The best way to cover the sides is to spoon the chocolate just over the top (picture on the left) then use circular motions with the back of the spoon to guide the chocolate over the sides (picture on the right).  If you can't tell in the pictures my cakes are on a cooling rack placed onto a cookie with sides to catch all the chocolate that drips off.  You can always scoop that chocolate up and reuse it if necessary.

They should look pretty smooth and even all the way around. Once coated put in the fridge again to let the top ganache set a bit.

Before the ganache gets too firm an option I chose to do was to coat the sides with chopped nuts.  I used a mixture of pecans and walnuts, finely chopped. Use a spatula to help you pick the cake up and, only touching the bottom, gently press the nuts into the ganache.  You can use sprinkles, coconut, cocoa powder...anything you like to eat that you think would be pretty!

I just love how that turned out!

They are so easy to cut and share, or just dig in with a fork!

Let's eat!