Brownie Pudding

My oldest turned ten yesterday.

I officially have a "Tween".

We listen to a lot of Hannah Montana, Aly and AJ, Jonas Brothers, and (much to her father's dismay) her new discovery: Michael Jackson. She is my mini-me (but goofier) and I love to have her around.
She picked this for her birthday dessert. It is mouth-watering. Rich, fudgy, perfect with ice cream. And so simple to make. It's like a brownie, but crack through the top crust and you will find warm, gooey, molten chocolate.

Brownie Pudding
adapted slightly from barefoot contessa back to basics

Ingredients
1/2 pound (2 sticks) unsalted butter, plus extra for buttering the dish
4 extra-large eggs, at room temperature (if you forget to get them out, put them in a bowl of warm water for about 10 minutes)
2 cups sugar
3/4 cup good cocoa powder (I use Hershey's...Ina would probably frown on that)
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
Seeds scraped from 1 vanilla bean (I get mine at Costco...the best deal I've found so far)
Vanilla ice cream, for serving (As I learned from Luke, a dessert is not a dessert without a scoop)

Directions
Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. Lightly butter a 2-quart (9 by 12 by 2-inch) oval baking dish. Melt the 1/2 pound of butter and set aside to cool.

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the eggs and sugar on medium-high speed for 5 to 10 minutes, until very thick and light yellow. Meanwhile, sift the cocoa powder and flour together and set aside.

When the egg and sugar mixture is ready, reduce the speed to low and add the vanilla seeds and the cocoa powder and flour mixture. Mix only until combined. With mixer still on low, slowly pour in the cooled butter and mix again just until combined.

Pour the brownie mixture into the prepared dish and place it in a larger baking pan. (I used a rimmed cookie sheet.) Add enough of the hottest tap water to the pan to come halfway up the side of the dish (I think it is easiest to put the brownie in the oven and then add the water to the cookie sheet with a teapot) and bake for exactly 1 hour. A cake tester inserted 2 inches from the side will come out 3/4 clean. The center will appear very under-baked; this dessert is between a brownie and a pudding.

Allow to cool to room temperature and serve with vanilla ice cream.

Post Bathing Suit Cookies

You may have noticed that there has been a bit of a baking embargo in my kitchen. Something about me trying to squeeze my body into a swimming suit (the cyclist parades around in spandex most of the time, so he is very much at home in a Speed-o).

Well, we just returned from Paradise. No more bathing suits until summer.

Get out your mixers and preheat your ovens!

White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Cookies

2 1/4 cups flour
1 t baking soda
1 t salt
1 cup unsalted butter, softened
3/4 c granulated sugar
3/4 c brown sugar
1 t vanilla
2 eggs
2 c white chocolate chips
2 c lightly salted, roasted macadamia nuts (coarsely chopped)

Combine flour, soda and salt in a small bowl. In bowl of electric mixer, beat butter, sugars and vanilla until creamy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Gradually beat in the flour mixture. Stir in chocolate and nuts. Chill dough thoroughly (about 4 hours). Preheat oven to 375. Drop dough by rounded tablespoonfuls onto ungreased baking sheets. Bake for 9-11 minutes, or until light golden brown. Cool on baking sheets for 2 minutes. Remove to wire rack to cool completely.

While in Hawaii, Luke and Bunny introduced us to the "eat a large dessert every night" lifestyle. We ate all sorts of tasty treats. Chocolate lava cake, macadamia nut tarts, caramelized pineapple upside down cake, bananas foster bread pudding, mango cheesecake, shave ice with macadamia nut ice cream...

This recipe is for you, Luke, to help you use up the two suitcases worth of macadamia nuts that you brought home.

Apple Spice Cake

This cake is SO good....

Come on guys, you've heard this type of joke...Now you're supposed to ask: "How good is it?"

This cake is SO good. Let's say you were on day two of a (so far very successful) seven day cleansing diet...

You'd break it for this cake.

I applaud you, Zach and Brenda. You made it further than I ever will.

Apple Spice Cake
adapted slightly from marthastewart.com

Cake
3 cups flour
1 T cinnamon
1 t baking soda
1 t salt
1 1/3 c vegetable oil
2 cups sugar
3 eggs
3-4 (I used four) Granny Smith apples, cored and cut into 1/2-inch pieces (I had about 3 1/2 cups)
1 cup chopped nuts, such as pecans or walnuts (OPTIONAL...and if you're like me, you'll just leave them out.)
1 t vanilla

Preheat oven to 350. Spray a 12-cup Bundt pan with cooking spray. Flour the pan. (Or use the nonstick cooking spray with flour). In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, cinnamon, soda and salt. Set aside. In bowl of electric mixer fitted with paddle attachment, combine oil, sugar and eggs. Mix on high speed until lemon yellow. Gradually add dry ingredients and mix until just incorporated. Add apples (and nuts, if you're into that) and mix to combine. Add vanilla. Mix until incorporated. Pour batter into prepared pan. Bake until a cake tester inserted in the center comes out clean, 60-90 minutes (mine took about an hour and ten minutes). Remove from oven and cool in the pan on a wire rack 10 minutes. Invert cake onto rack and let cool completely (actually, it might be good warm). Serve with caramel sauce and vanilla ice cream.

Caramel Sauce
this is the simplest caramel sauce I've ever made
1 cup light brown sugar
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter
1/4 cup evaporated milk
1 t vanilla
pinch of salt

Combine ingredients in a small saucepan over medium heat. Cook, stirring, until thickened to desired consistency.

We made this Friday night for my Mother-in-Law's birthday. There was some leftover (I don't know how). We wrapped the cake up airtight and left it on the counter and put the rest of the caramel in the fridge. Let me tell you, it was still just as moist and tasty when we ate it for our Sunday snack two days later!

...man shall not live by bread alone...

...but if you had to live on bread/muffins alone, you could happily live on these.

Stuck on a deserted island? Take these muffins (and a raft).

If I weren't already HAPPILY married, I'd marry these muffins.

If these muffins were one of my kids, I could EASILY pick a favorite.

On death row and requesting your last meal? I hate to sound repetitive, but ask for THESE muffins.

If you haven't got the picture yet, these are quite possibly the best conference muffins I have ever made.

Mini Butter Puffs
loosely based on a recipe from Joy of Cooking
Makes 2 dozen standard size muffins, or 4-5 dozen mini muffins (I like the mini...you can eat them like popcorn.)

Muffins
4 cups flour
2 T baking powder
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp nutmeg
4 large eggs
2 cup sour cream
1 cup white sugar
1/3 cup brown sugar
1 cup (2 sticks) warm melted butter

Coating
1-2 sticks butter
1 cup sugar
1 tsp cinnamon


Muffins
Preheat oven to 375. Coat muffin cups with baking spray.
In a large bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, salt and nutmeg. In another bowl, whisk together the eggs, sour cream, sugar and butter. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and stir just until the dry ingredients are moistened. Do not over-mix. The batter should not be smooth. Divide the batter among the muffin cups. Bake until a toothpick inserted into one or two muffins comes out clean (about 10 minutes for mini muffins, 12 minutes for standard size muffins.)

Coating
Melt butter in a small bowl. Combine sugar and cinnamon in shallow bowl. While muffins are still quite warm, remove from muffin pan. Dip the entire muffin (one at a time) in melted butter and roll in the cinnamon sugar. Set on a wire rack to cool.

Almond Cake

School is back in and we are almost back on a schedule.
There's a chill in the air, and I am excited to turn the oven on and start baking again.

Here is another delicious recipe from the cyclist's mother. She made this often while the cyclist was courting me. Ha, ha. That makes him sound so smooth.

I love to make it because it is a snap to whip up. I have all of the ingredients on hand. And--most importantly--it tastes great. It has a dense, moist crumb, and a rich almond flavor. You'd think it was made of marzipan.

Give this one a try. You'll be impressed.

Almond Cake

3/4 cup sugar
3/4 cup flour
1/2 cup butter, melted
1 tsp. almond extract
2 eggs
slivered almonds

Mix sugar, flour, butter, almond extract, and eggs on high for 3 minutes. Pour into greased pie pan. Sprinkle with slivered almonds. Bake at 350 for 25 minutes.

See. Isn't that simple!

Peanut Butter No Bake Cookies

This weekend, we made our annual trip to Jackson.

Can I just say I love this trip.

For me, it entails a nine to ten hour drive in an air conditioned Suburban with some great girl friends.

Sure there are some mad dashes to the feed zones, several frenzied hand-offs of musette bags, lots of yelling (and whistling) out the window at men in tight shorts...Who's complaining?! But the drive was also spent enjoying excellent company.

When we arrived in Jackson, we met up with our husbands, who treated us to a nice dinner and then took us to a fancy hotel (props to Jenn, the hotels are a lot nicer now that she is booking them).

The cyclist, however, has a different idea of fun when it comes to road trips. You see, he spent those same nine and a half hours ON A BIKE.

206 miles.

Over a lot of hills.

Just for fun.

On a bike. Did I say that already?

The kind you pedal.

handsome, huh?

Oh well, I guess it doesn't matter how he gets there. Just as long as he meets me at the finish line. Jackson's no fun without him.

This year, he found these tasty little cookies in his feed bags.

Peanut Butter No Bake Cookies

2 cups sugar

1/2 cup milk

1/2 cup butter

pinch of salt

1 tsp vanilla

1 cup creamy peanut butter

3 cups quick one minute oats

Combine sugar, milk, butter and salt in a medium saucepan. Bring to a boil, stirring occasionally. Let boil 1 minute. Remove from heat. Stir in vanilla, peanut butter until peanut butter melts. Add oats. Stir until mixture begins to stiffen a little (a minute or two). Drop by rounded clusters onto foil or waxed paper. Let set.

Orange Sherbet with Sugar Cookie Spoons

You know that refreshing, tart-sweet flavor of store bought orange sherbet?

Mmmmm...sherbet.

Make it yourself and you get refreshing and tart-sweet times ten plus an incredibly fresh flavor.

I found the little cookie spoons in Martha Stewart Living. They are so cute. The kids will love them (as will the adults). Make a few per person. You will probably break one or two.

After all, you'll be eating this sherbet with gusto.

Sally's Orange Sherbet
6 cups FRESH SQUEEZED* orange juice, strained (I bought a box of oranges from Costco and used about 3/4 of the box...sorry, I should have counted the oranges)
1 1/2 cups FRESH SQUEEZED* lemon juice, strained
4 to 4 1/2 cups sugar (depending on the sweetness of your oranges)
3 cups whipping cream
6 cups whole milk

Mix all together and freeze in a six quart ice cream freezer. (I have a four quart maker, so I split it into two batches.)

*Some of you may be asking "Can I use store bought orange juice if it's 'not from concentrate'?"

Sorry. No.

All I have is a little hand held juicer, but I juiced and I juiced (and I juiced). It probably took me thirty minutes or so. But believe me, the sacrifice is well worth it.
Sugar Cookie Spoons
adapted from Martha Stewart Living
Makes about 30 cookies
2 cups sifted all-purpose flour, plus more for surface
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
4 ounces (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
1 cup sugar
1 large egg
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 T cream or milk (my addition...see below)

Whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt. In separate bowl, cream butter and sugar until pale and fluffy. Mix in egg and vanilla. Gradually add flour mixture, and mix until dough comes together. (I made two batches. The first batch I made as written and my dough was quite dry and crumbly and rather difficult to work with. The second batch, I added a tablespoon of cream and it made a world of difference. The dough was soft and rolled out beautifully. You can play it by ear. The taste and texture of both batches was the same.) Shape dough into 2 disks, wrap each in plastic, and refrigerate at least 1 hour (or up to 2 days).
Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Roll out 1 disk of dough to just less than an inch thick on a lightly floured surface. Using a paring knife, cut out spoon shapes, each about 3 inches long. (I looked around for a spoon shaped cookie cutter, but couldn't find one. Go to your baking supply store and see what they have. A tennis racket would work perfectly. I found a guitar shaped cutter and manipulated it into a spoon shape.)
Transfer to baking sheets. Roll out scraps, and repeat once. (I took a cookie baking class from an expert cookie baker once and she gave the same advice. Roll your dough out more than twice and your cookies will be tough.)
Bake until cookies are golden around the edges, about 12 minutes. Transfer sheets to wire racks to cool. Repeat with remaining dough.