|
|
 Chocolate Cinnamon Bread Pudding Total time: Approximately 50 minutes.
It’s imitation bread pudding at its finest. Don’t ever try to pass this off as a real bread pudding, especially to southern grandmas. Adapted from Kraft Food & Family’s Rustic Chocolate-Cinnamon Bread Pudding.
6-8 slices of bread, cubed (or in my case, 6 hot dog buns!!)
1 3/4 cup milk*
1/2 cup cream cheese*
1/2 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
2 large eggs*
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
pinch of nutmeg
Preheat oven to 350°F.
 Slice of warm tasty goodness. In a large mixing bowl, cream together cheese and sugar until well blended. Add eggs, cinnamon, and nutmeg; mix well. Gradually add milk, stirring constantly and mix well.
Place bread in 8-inch square baking dish; top with cream cheese mixture and chocolate chips.
Bake 30 to 35 min. or until set in center. Cool slightly.
* I prefer everything to be room temperature when I’m baking. Lesson I learned from popovers… Does it make a difference here? I’m not sure, but I’m not willing to find out. Let me know if you do. 😉
For next time, I’m going to layer the chocolate in between half the bread. Something just seemed odd about having the chocolate on top (other than clinging to my spatula while trying to serve).
 Pampered Chef Pastry Blender Total time: Approximately 10 minutes.
I’ve been finding more and more recipes call for Bisquick. What?! Who buys that stuff anymore?! Not me. Instead, I’ve decided to make my own. The only catch is: You always add milk instead of water.
4 cups all purpose flour
3 Tbsp sugar
1 cup butter flavored shortening (or plain shortening)
1 Tbsp + 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon of salt (omit if using butter flavored shortening)
Mix together dry ingredients in a large bowl.
Cut in shortening with pastry blender, or the double-knife trick that no one I have ever met has been able to master, until the mixture is similar to cornmeal.
Store in an air-tight container in the refrigerator for up to 6 weeks. I really wouldn’t go longer than that, but it’s your health, not mine.
 Bread Bible "popovers" that turned into dutch babies. Total time: 45 minutes, plus time to make everything room temperature before beginning (about 1 hour at my house)
I normally leave the breads and baking to JB, but one day, I was making beef stew, and I decided to make bread to go with it. I had no idea that bread took so long… so I revised my search for “something faster”. I found this super awesome looking recipe for popovers in JB’s copy of The Bread Bible, and I thought: HAH! I can do that! I followed her detailed instructions to a T, because I wanted so desperately to show off. The result is shown to the right.
Completely disheartened, I turned to Alton Brown for help.
* 1 tablespoon unsalted butter, melted and cooled, plus 1 teaspoon room temperature for pan
* 4 3/4 ounces all-purpose flour, approximately 1 cup
* 1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt (we used normal table salt)
* 2 large eggs, room temperature
* 1 cup whole milk, room temperature
Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.
Grease a 6-cup popover or 8-cup cupcake pan with the 1 teaspoon of butter. ( I used a 6-cup cupcake pan, and I had to do 2 popovers by themselves in a second round… not smart. I now own a 12 cup cupcake pan, and I fill the 4 extra cups with water.)
 Alton Brown's Popovers at the 30 minute mark. Place all of the ingredients into a food processor or blender and process for 30 seconds. (I whisked it for 3 minutes.)
Divide the batter evenly between the cups of the popover pan, each should be about 1/3 to 1/2 full. Bake on the middle rack of the oven for 40 minutes. Remove the popovers to a cooling rack and pierce each in the top with a knife to allow steam to escape. Serve warm.
The biggest key to this recipe is to make ALL of your ingredients be ROOM TEMPERATURE!! I cannot stress that enough! Cold eggs and milk will yield cute little dutch babies, which were dense little yummy treats, but not at all what I wanted. 😉
The second thing to remember is – as much as your heart desires to open the oven door to check on your popovers, DO NOT OPEN THE DOOR. Just put them in there, set the timer, and walk away.
 Peanut Butter Cookies Total time: Approximately 1 hour.
1 cup peanut butter
1 cup to 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 egg, room temperature
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking soda
Sugar for rolling
Preheat oven to 375.
In a large mixing bowl, combine butter and both types of sugar until smooth. Add vanilla and egg, mix until smooth. Add peanut butter, mix until smooth.
In a small bowl, combine salt, baking soda and one cup of flour. Gradually mix into peanut butter mixture.
Continue to add remaining flour until the cookie dough is no longer sticky. If your dough starts to become “dry” before that, stop with the flour and move on. If your dough still feels sticky, you may need to refrigerate the dough before trying to shape into balls. Do not add extra flour until after you’ve baked one round and only then if your cookies come out super flat. Whenever I add too much, I get crumbly cookies!!
Roll the dough into small balls and dip them in sugar. With sugar side up, place on cookie sheet and gently create a criss-cross pattern with a fork or prongs on top.
Bake 10-12 minutes.
Since my step-dad has missed the visits this year, I went ahead and made these without him. I messed up on something, I really don’t know what. I think it’s time for a new peanut butter cookie recipe. They had a great flavor, the perfect height, softness, chewiness and feel I wanted, but they fell apart!! I think my butter was too warm (melty), but I’m not sure.
 Soft Gingerbread Cookies Total time: 2-3 hours.
Molasses cookies! Crazy, I know! But they make the best ginger cookies.
Straight from the back of the jar.
http://www.bgfoods.com/recipes/detail.asp?RecipeID=122388&BrandSiteID=176
Ingredients
* 8 tbls. (1 stick) butter, or shortening
* 1/2 cup sugar
* 1/2 cup Grandmas Original or Robust Molasses
* 1 egg
* 2 cups all purpose flour
* 1 teaspoon baking soda
* 1/4 teaspoon salt
* 1 teaspoon ginger
* 1 teaspoon cinnamon
* 1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
Directions
Beat butter with sugar and molasses. Mix in egg. Sift dry ingredients and add to wet mixture. Mix well. Chill in freezer 1 hour or in refrigerator 2 hours. Heat oven to 350ºF. Roll out a portion of the dough 1/4-in. thick on lightly floured board. Chill remaining dough. Cut with cookie cutter, place on greased baking sheets. If decorating with raisins, add them at this time. Bake 8-10 minutes. Cool. Pipe on royal icing and add candy pieces, if desired.
 Gingerbread cookies from AllRecipes.com Total time: Approximately 2 hours.
http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Big-Soft-Ginger-Cookies/Detail.aspx
* 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
* 2 teaspoons ground ginger
* 1 teaspoon baking soda
* 3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
* 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
* 1/4 teaspoon salt
* 3/4 cup margarine, softened
* 1 cup white sugar
* 1 egg
* 1 tablespoon water
* 1/4 cup molasses
* 2 tablespoons white sugar
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Sift together the flour, ginger, baking soda, cinnamon, cloves, and salt. Set aside.
2. In a large bowl, cream together the margarine and 1 cup sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the egg, then stir in the water and molasses. Gradually stir the sifted ingredients into the molasses mixture.
3. Refrigerate dough for at least 40 minutes.
4. Shape dough into walnut sized balls, and roll them in the remaining 2 tablespoons of sugar. Place the cookies 2 inches apart onto an ungreased cookie sheet, and flatten generously.
5. Bake for 8 to 10 minutes in the preheated oven. Allow cookies to cool on baking sheet for 5 minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool completely. Store in an airtight container.
 Yummy!! Total time: Approximately 35 minutes.
I’m pretty sure he got it off a box somewhere…
dry ingredients:
1 cup cornmeal
1 cup all purpose flour
4 tsp baking power
1 tsp salt
1/4 cup sugar
wet:
1 cup milk, 1/2 stick melted butter, 2 eggs lightly beaten.
Preheat oven to 425F.
Mix dry ingredients thoroughly. (I like to add another 1-2 tsp sugar over the recipe to make it a little sweet, if you like cornbread like that.)
Pour in milk, melted butter and lightly beaten eggs.
Mix quickly but not till totally smooth, should be little lumps.
Pour in any pan or muffin tin that leaves a little room for them to expand.
Bake for 20-25 min or until slightly brown and crispy on top.
Cornbread with black bean soup shown here.
Here’s a recipe for you: always a holiday hit around our houses.
These are technically Mexican Wedding Cakes or Russian Teacakes, but we call them snowballs or melt-in-the-mouths! Original recipe makes 5-dozen (30 servings).
Total time: Approximately 2 hours.
From the recipe exchange.
Recipe has been scaled to make 60 servings. (They go quickly!)
2 cups butter
1 cup confectioners’ sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
4-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups chopped pecans
2/3 cup confectioners’ sugar for decoration
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
Cream the butter with 1/2 cup of the confectioners’ sugar and the vanilla. Mix in the flour, nuts and salt. Roll about 1 tablespoon or so of dough into balls and place on an ungreased cookie sheet.
Bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for 15 minutes. Do not allow these cookies to get too brown. It’s better to undercook them than to overcook them. While cookies are still hot roll them in confectioners’ sugar. Once they have cooled roll them in confectioners’ sugar once more.
 Cake Impossible! Total time: Approximately 45 minutes, plus optional overnight chill.
They should really call it Cake Impossible! I got this through a recipe exchange, and I’m pretty sure it’s from this website here.
http://www.bakespace.com/recipes/detail/Chocolate-Wafer-Icebox-Cake/13002/
3 cups heavy cream
4 Tablespoons sugar
1 Tablespoon vanilla extract
2 (9-ounce) packages chocolate wafer cookies
1 sprig fresh mint
2 Tablespoons scraped milk chocolate
In a large bowl, beat cream, sugar and vanilla with an electric mixer on high speed until soft peaks form.
On a flat serving plate, arrange 7 cookies side by side in a circle, keeping 1 cookie in the center.
Spread with 1/2 cup whipped cream, making a 7-inch circle.
Repeat with remaining cookies and cream, making 11 layers of cookies and ending with a layer of cream.
Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight.
Before serving, scrape milk chocolate on top and garnish with fresh mint.
Cut cake into wedges and serve.
Adapted from Magnolia’s famous Chocolate Wafer Icebox Cake – otherwise known as the cake on the box of Nabisco Famous Chocolate Wafers. My version (shown in the picture) used 4 cups of heavy whipping cream instead of 3 cups, which threw off the balance of the chocolate and cream. If I were to do it again, I would stick to 3 cups as below… VARIATIONS: Add flavorings (peppermint, orange, almond, etc.) to the whipped cream. Dust top with cocoa powder, crumbled oreos or crumbled left-over chocolate wafers.
Total time: Approximately 1 hour.
* 3c Flour
* 1 1/2c Sugar
* 2 Sticks Hand Butter
* 2 tsp Baking Powder
* 1 tsp Vanilla
* 2 Eggs
* 1 Can Fruit Filling
Combine all ingredients except filling. Place half in the bottom of a 13×9 — packing down with a spoon — place in filling and then crumble the rest of the dough mixture on top. Bake at 375 for 30-35 minutes.
|
|
Leave a comment