Tag Archives: baking

Overnight French Toast with Blueberries

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Blueberry French toast made from leftover challah bread makes for a gourmet breakfast. Thick slices of apple-smoked bacon and freshly brewed cups of espresso roast coffee rounded out this Spring Break breakfast.

Overnight French Toast with Blueberries

Ingredients

  • 6 slices day-old (or older) challah, cut into 1 inch cubes (other brioche-style breads can be substituted)
  • 1/2 (8 ounce) package cream cheese
  • 1/2 cup fresh blueberries (or dried blueberries soaked in hot water for five minutes)
  • 4 eggs, beaten
  • 1/2 cup milk (I used soy milk)
  • 1/2 cup heavy cream
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 1/3 cup maple syrup
Directions
  1. Lightly grease a baking dish approximately 8 x 8 inches. (My dish was 7 x 10.)
  2. Spread cream cheese on top of bread slices. Cut slices into 1-inch cubes. Arrange the bread cubes in the dish. Sprinkle with 1 cup blueberries.
  3. In a large bowl, mix the eggs, milk, cream, vanilla extract, and syrup. Pour over the bread cubes. Cover, and refrigerate overnight.
  4. Remove the bread cube mixture from the refrigerator about 30 minutes before baking. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
  5. Cover, and bake 30 minutes. Uncover, and continue baking 25 to 30 minutes, until center is firm and surface is lightly browned.

I opted to sprinkle chopped pecans onto the French toast during the last 10 minutes of baking. The French toast is not overly sweet, which is what I was going for. You could mix in confectioner’s sugar with the cream cheese for a sweeter version. Cinnamon would also be a nice addition.

Crustless Cranberry Cake

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Tart cranberries and almonds make for an irresistible combination. This cake is delicious served with vanilla bean ice cream or covered with hot vanilla custard.

With eight weeks to go in our school year, it’s time to get creative with items remaining in our pantry and freezers. Our pecan upside-down pumpkin cake was a delicious way to use up a cup of frozen pumpkin puree that survived the holiday season. Our next challenge was two cups of cranberries from the freezer door. I found a promising recipe for a crustless cranberry “pie.” We are fans of tart and sweet flavor combinations, and this recipe was a terrific way to use those residual cranberries. I decided to pulverize the almonds so they would provide more flavor than texture.
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Crustless Cranberry Cake
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Ingredients
  • 1 cup all-purpose flour
  • 1 cup white sugar
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 2 cups cranberries
  • 1/2 cup whole almonds pulverized to the consistency of coarse flour
  • 1/2 cup applesauce (used instead of butter)
  • 3 eggs, well beaten
  • 2 tablespoons almond syrup (the kind used to flavor drinks in coffee shops)
  • (optional) zest from 1 orange or 1 tablespoon Grand Marnier
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Directions
  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease one deep 9-inch pie pan.
  2. Combine the flour, sugar, and salt. Stir in the cranberries and the almonds, and toss to coat. Stir in the applesauce, beaten eggs, and almond extract. The mixture will be very thick. Spread the batter into the greased pan.
  3. Bake at 350 degrees F for 40 minutes, or until a wooden pick inserted near the center comes out clean.
  4. Serve warm with whipped cream, ice cream, or warm vanilla custard.

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Recipe adapted from http://allrecipes.com/recipe/crustless-cranberry-pie/Detail.aspx

Upside-Down Pecan Pumpkin Cake

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Moist, packed with flavor and topped with crunchy nutty deliciousness, this upside-down will have your guests glad they saved room for dessert. 

I baked this cake in a 9-inch springform pan because that was the best pan for the job in my cupboard. Set on a baking sheet it worked well, and unmolding the cake was a cinch.

Upside Down Pecan Pumpkin Cake

Ingredients

  • 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, evenly divided and melted
  • 3/4 cup of brown sugar
  • 3/4 cup pecan halves
  • 1 2/3 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
  • 1/2 teaspoon mace
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1 cup granulated sugar
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 2 large eggs
  • 1 cup pumpkin puree, canned or fresh
  • 1/2 cup warm (110 degrees) milk

Directions

  1. Heat the oven to 350 degrees F. Spread pecan halves on a baking sheet and toast for 5 minutes or until aromatic.  Remove from the oven and let cool. Coarsely chop the pecans and set aside. Leave the oven set to 350 degrees F.
  2. Melt one stick of butter in a small sauce pan. Add pecans and brown sugar, mix thoroughly. Spread this mixture evenly at the bottom of a 9 inch cake pan.
  3. In a large bowl, sift together flour, sugar, cinnamon, mace, salt, baking powder, and baking soda. Set aside.
  4. Melt second stick of butter.
  5. Add melted butter, eggs, milk, vanilla extract and pumpkin puree into a mixing bowl. Beat together with mixer until well combined, about 2 minutes.  Add flour mixture and stir with spoon until just combined.
  6. Pour batter on top of pecan mixture in the baking pan. Bake until a cake tester inserted into the middle comes out clean, about 50 minutes. Transfer the cake to a wire rack to cool, approximately 5 minutes.
  7. Place a plate over the cake and invert to unmold cake and let cool completely.

We served the cake with homemade vanilla bean ice cream and cups of freshly steeped almond roobios tea.

This recipe was adapted from http://thenoshery.com/2011/03/28/praline-upside-down-pumpkin-cake/.

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Molten Chocolate Lava Cake

Florentines – Chocolate or Plain?

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These crispy yet chewy cookies can be made as a sandwich with a layer of chocolate to hold them together, chocolate dipped, or with a drizzle of chocolate. And they are wonderful without any chocolate at all.

When I was young my family sometimes went to a deli in San Francisco where, out of an assortment of scrumptious confections, I was allowed to pick out a cookie after our meal. Often, I chose a chocolate dipped florentine, a delicious almond cookie flavored with the essence of orange zest, one of my favorite combinations.

We are trying to keep our kitchen as simple as possible in order to ready ourselves for life on a boat with only a relatively small galley kitchen. So it was only after serious contemplation that we recently added a new gadget to our galley – a Miallegro stick blender. Our manual nut chopper has worked well for most duties, but would have been tough to chop almonds fine and consistent enough to meet the needs of this recipe. The stick blender is much smaller than our counter top blender and much more versatile. With 550 watts of power and a dedicated nut chopper attachment, I had finely ground, perfectly uniform coarse almond flour in less than one minute!

Even with the help of the chopper, this recipe was time consuming, but our cookie taste testers all agreed: the result was fabulous. The first step was blanching and skinning the almonds. After some trial and error, I figured out that the easiest way to skin the almonds was to boil them for two minutes and then pinch them out of their skins while they were soaking in cold water. After this step, the almonds had to dry. I let them sit out on a cookie sheet overnight. After the dough is made, it needs to sit for about a half an hour in order to cool enough to handle. I could only bake six cookies at a time, which also added to the time. Lastly, if you dip the cookies or drizzle them in chocolate, this has to be done after the cookies have cooled. Wait! You still can’t serve them until the chocolate sets up. This investment in time results in cookies that end up disappearing quickly! I don’t know which I like better… the chewy yet crunchy texture, or the combination of the orange, almond, and chocolate flavors.

Florentine Cookies

Yields 24 six-inch cookies

  • 1 3/4 cups blanched almonds, sliced (about 5 ounces)
  • 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
  • Finely grated zest of 1 orange (about 2 tablespoons)
  • 1/4 teaspoon fine salt
  • 3/4 cup sugar
  • 2 tablespoons heavy cream
  • 2 tablespoons light corn syrup
  • 5 tablespoons unsalted butter
  • 1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
Chocolate topping (optional):
  • 2 to 4 ounces semisweet chocolate, chopped
Directions
  1. Position a rack in the center of the oven and preheat to 350 degrees F. Line a baking sheet with a silicone baking mat or parchment paper.
  2. Pulse the almonds in a food processor until finely chopped, but not pasty. Stir together the nuts, flour, zest and salt in a large bowl.
  3. Put the sugar, cream, corn syrup and butter in a small saucepan. Cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until mixture comes to a rolling boil and sugar is completely dissolved. Continue to boil for 1 minute. Remove from heat and stir in the vanilla, then pour this mixture into almond mixture and stir just to combine. Set aside until cool enough to handle, about 30 minutes.
  4. Scoop rounded teaspoons (for 3-inch cookies) or rounded tablespoons (for 6-inch cookies) of batter and roll into balls. Place on prepared baking sheet, leaving about 3 to 4 inches between each cookie since they spread as they bake.
  5. Bake 1 pan at a time, until the cookies are thin and an evenly golden brown in color, rotating pans halfway through baking time, about 10 to 11 minutes. Cool on baking sheet for 5 minutes, then transfer to cooling racks. Repeat with remaining batter.
Optional chocolate topping
  1. Put the chocolate in a medium sized, heatproof bowl. Bring a saucepan filled with 1 inch of water to a very low simmer; set the bowl over the water, but not touching the water. Stir the chocolate occasionally until melted and smooth.
  • For sandwiches, drop about 1/2 teaspoon chocolate onto the flat side of half of the cookies and press remaining halves onto the chocolate covered halves. Return to rack and let chocolate set.
  • For chocolate decor, drizzle melted chocolate over florentines as desired. Set aside at room temperature until chocolate has set.
Recipe courtesy of http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/food-network-kitchens/florentines-italy-recipe/index.html

Banana Bread with Crunchy Walnut Streusel

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We brought these beautiful loaves of banana bread to a staff potluck, supplying cream cheese for a spread. They were an instant hit.

I have a tried and true banana bread recipe. It’s actually a fruit bread recipe in which I swap out the fruit and the spices. The recipe results in bread that is moist and flavorful. With an impending potluck, I wanted to amp up the recipe and my thoughts turned to coffee shop offerings where muffins and slices of sweet bread covered with streusel topping are always among the favorites. We love to slather a thick slice of this bread with cream cheese and then press the cream cheese into whatever crunchy walnuts may have fallen off. This makes for one decadent slice of bread!

Banana Bread with Crunchy Walnut Streusel

Makes two loaves

Ingredients

  • 3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1 tsp baking powder
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1 tbsp ground cinnamon
  • 1/2 tsp baking soda
  • 1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
  • 1/2 cup applesauce
  • 1/2 cup melted unsalted butter
  • 4 eggs
  • 2 tsp vanilla extract
  • 2 cups mashed bananas – the older the better

Topping

  • 1 cup walnuts
  • 1/2 cup brown sugar
  • 1/2 cup all purpose flour
  • 4 tbsp butter, room temperature

Directions

  1. In a large bowl, combine flour, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, and baking soda. Set aside.
  2. In a mixing bowl, beat granulated sugar, applesauce and 1/2 cup of melted butter together. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Stir in vanilla.
  3. Stir wet ingredients into dry ingredients until just moistened. Stir in bananas.
  4. Prepare streusel topping. Mix 1/2 cup flour, nuts, brown sugar and 4 tbsp butter until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Set aside.
  5. Pour banana bread batter into two greased 8 in. x 4 in. x 2 in. loaf pans. Bake at 350 degrees F for 30 minutes.
  6. Pull loaf pans out of oven and pack streusel nut mixture on top of loaves. Bake for an additional 30 – 35 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool for at least 10 minutes before removing from pans to wire cooling racks.

Pour yourself a big cup of coffee. Cut a thick slice of this bread and smear a generous amount of cream cheese onto it. Sprinkle any crumbs that have fallen off your slice back onto the cream cheese. Put on some coffee shop music. Close your eyes, take a bite, and imagine yourself in coffee shop in one of the world’s great cities… or in a hometown bakery.

Way-Better-Than-Pecan-Pie Bars

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When I was first introduced to pecan pie, I didn’t like it. I love sweets, but pecan pie was too gloppy. I was disappointed that it had more “goo” than pecans. The idea of pecan pie is a good one, but I’ve always thought it could be improved. Jack says I’ve just never had good pecan pie. I bet he’s right. 😉

Today, I found a blog that had a recipe which seem to do the trick. Amy at Elephant Eats took all the flavors of pecan pie (plus chocolate) and converted it to a cookie bar.

I did make a few changes. First of all, I halved the recipe. Although we have visitors to help us eat our confections, there is no need to have too many sweets around…they are too tempting. I also increased the pecans to avoid the disappointment of “too much goo and not enough pecans.” They came out terrific. And they are way better than pecan pie!

One last piece of advice – no matter how much your husband begs you, don’t cut into these bars until they are cool. They will fall apart!

Ingredients

  • 1 1/2 cups flour
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 1/2 cup softened unsalted butter
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 3/4 cup dark Caro syrup
  • 1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
  • 2 eggs
  • 3/4 teaspoon vanilla
  • 2 cups chopped pecans

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 F.

2. Grease bottom and sides of a 7 1/2″ x 11″ pyrex glass pan.

3. In bowl, mix flour, 1/4 cup of sugar, butter, and salt until it resembles coarse crumbs. Press into bottom of pan. Bake for 20 minutes.

4. In a pot, using low heat, stir corn syrup and chocolate until it’s melted and well blended. Remove from heat. Stir in the rest of the sugar, eggs, and vanilla until blended. Stir in pecans.

5. Pour filling over hot crust. Bake for 30 minutes or until firm around edges, but slightly soft in center. Cool on wire rack. Cut into bars.

Mailanderli (Swiss Butter Cookies)

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Growing up, my favorite Christmas cookie was Mailanderli. This Swiss recipe yields buttery, crunchy golden cookies with a citrus essence. As a kid, I loved making the dough and cutting shapes with shiny metal cutters. After the cookies were baked, we kept them in a brightly colored Christmas tin. I remember eating them by the dozen. Christmas is here again and this year I was inspired to bring this tradition back into my own home.

Mailanderli

Ingredients

  • 4 eggs
  • 1 1/4 cups white sugar
  • 1 1/8 cups butter, melted and cooled to lukewarm
  • 1 pinch salt
  • 4 cups all purpose flour
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons grated orange (or lemon) zest
  • 2 egg yolks, beaten

Directions

  1. Beat the two egg yolks and set aside. These will be used to brush to the tops of the cookies later.
  2. Whisk eggs in a large bowl. Blend in sugar and beat until mixture is thick and pale, about 10 minutes. Mix in the melted butter and salt. Gradually fold in the flour and orange zest. Cover and refrigerate for at least one hour or, preferably, overnight.
  3. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F (165 degrees C). Lightly grease cookie sheet.
  4. On a floured surface, roll out dough to 1/4 inch thickness. Cut into desired shapes using cookie cutters. Place cookies on greased cookie sheet and brush with beaten egg yolks.
  5. Bake in preheated oven until golden at the edges, 15 to 20 minutes. Cool cookies on racks.
Yields about 50 cookies

This recipe was slightly modified from Cindy’s. See original recipe at: http://allrecipes.com/recipe/mailaenderli/detail.aspx

An Anniversary Gift

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Today’s the day we are celebrating our anniversary. Jack made us an amazing breakfast of savory grits topped with buttered pecans, sour cream and maple syrup. He’s planning a feast for us tonight – I saw filet mignon, scallops, halibut cheeks, and shrimp defrosting on the counter. Mmmmm…

Hundreds of miles from everywhere, our gifts to each other are in kindnesses. It’s not that we are not kind on other days. Today is about extra kindness and extra effort. I really appreciate Jack. He is an amazing person. He is kind and generous and funny, of course. But what I appreciate most about him is how he always tries to leave a place better than he found it. The word “place” is literal and figurative. If we rent a cabin, it will be a little cleaner than we found it. If it is a relationship, it’s always better after Jack has been involved.

My gift to him is biscotti. I thought of biscotti today because it takes extra time and effort. I wanted a complex blend of flavors and thought of cranberry, orange and almond. A carefully zested orange was juiced. The zest was cut into tiny pieces. The almonds were toasted in a pan with butter.

Biscotti is labor intensive. It has to be baked in a loaf. Then cooled. Then baked again after it is cut into slices. Then baked once more to crisp the opposite side. My last touch is to drizzle it with a hint of white chocolate – just for looks. Every time the biscotti is baked or turned or drizzled, I think of the kindness I am doing for my best friend. Happy Anniversary, Jack!

Cranberry Orange Almond Biscotti

Ingredients:

2 1/2 cups all purpose flour

1 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. salt

1/2 cup light brown sugar

1/2 cup white sugar

1 stick unsalted butter

2 eggs

1 tsp. almond syrup

1 tbsp. orange zest

juice of a small orange

1 cup dried cranberries

3/4 cup chopped almonds

optional white chocolate drizzle

Process:

Preheat oven to 350F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

Combine flour, baking powder and salt in a medium bowl. Stir. Mix together sugar, butter, eggs and almond syrup until well blended in another bowl. Stir in orange zest and orange juice. Mix in flour mixture. Then mix in almonds and cranberries. Divide dough in half. With floured hands, shape dough into two long logs on the parchment papered baking sheet. They should be about 2 1/2 inches wide, 9 1/2 inches long and 1 inch tall.

Bake until golden brown, about 35 minutes. Cool until you can easily handle. Transfer to cutting board and cut logs into 1/2 inch wide slices. Discard parchment. Move slices back onto baking sheet, sliced side down. Bake for 10 minutes. Flip biscotti and bake for an additional 5 minutes. Biscotti should just start to color. Cool completely on cooling rack.

After biscotti is cool, drizzle with chocolate or dip for a finished look.

Buon Appetito!

Stuffed Cookies or What Do I Do With My Leftover Halloween Candy?

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What to do with leftover Halloween candy? We could eat it. We could bring it to work and subject our co-workers to it. Both choices are possible, but not very original.

After searching around for recipes, I came across a blog where the author stuffed cookies with candy pieces. Hmmm… She provided no recipe, so I was on my own. One of the most classic and tested cookies is Nestle’s Tollhouse cookie recipe on the back of the morsel bag. As a matter of fact, I was just talking to a friend who told me her mother was putting together a family recipe book and was going to include the Nestle recipe because it was just the best. So I followed the Tollhouse recipe sans chocolate chips. I flattened one scoop of dough on a cookie sheet, inverted a miniature Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup, flattened another scoop on top and baked as directed.

These cookies came out fabulous! And now I’ve got a more original way of sharing left-over Halloween candy.

White Chocolate Chip Pear Butter Bread

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I impressed myself when this came out of the oven. It had that perfect rich baked brown crust on the top with a beautiful crack that revealed the white chocolate chips. The whole pan of bread disappeared in two days!

I had made pear butter the weekend before with a dozen bruised and ailing pears. I found a recipe that called for pears, orange juice, orange zest and nutmeg. I cooked it in a crock pot over night and finished it with some pectin in the freezer. It turned out wonderfully. It was dark and thick, sweet and spicy with a lovely citrus note.

I thought the pear butter would work really well in a sweet bread. I found a recipe for apple butter bread and altered it to suit my needs. I added chopped pecans and white chocolate chips for a surprise.