What are your foodie resolutions for 2010? Cook dinner at home more? Bake the perfect batch of brownies? Eat out at that one restaurant you’ve always dreamed of visiting? Open your own restaurant?

It’s a lot easier to make New Year’s resolutions than it is to keep them. I’ve heard statistics that say anywhere from 50 to 92% of all resolutions are not kept. They say that the trick to keeping a resolution is to break them down into smaller, more manageable goals. So, if you want to cook at home more, you might star out by cooking a big dinner once a week so that there will be plenty of leftovers for another dinner and a lunch or two. Gradually work up to more mights, or encourage yourself further by saying you’ll try a new dish or two fro a favorite cookbook.

Last year, one of my goals was to finish a cookbook, which I did! This year, I’m just not quite sure what my big resolution is going to be, but traveling more, taking an international cooking class and baking more bread (something I’ve put on the back burner a bit) are definite goals of mine. I’d also like to hold a few more contests on Baking Bites with giveaways for all of you readers. Beyond that, I’ll have to make them up as I go through 2010!

It’s become an unofficial tradition for me to make tiramisu for New Year’s Eve. I’m not sure how it came about, but it’s definitely not a bad thing. Tiramisu has always struck me as a kind of elegant dessert, with its layers of ladyfingers and mascarpone cream. That said, it is also very easy to put together and can be made well in advance - huge plusses for just about every dessert. It also uses a bit of alcohol, which makes it fit in nicely with the usual festivities of a New Year’s Eve gathering (or even just a nice dinner), and a bit of coffee, which might give you an edge in staying up until midnight.

It’s pretty easy to vary the flavors of a tiramisu by using different liquors. Rum and marsala wine are often featured in it. For this version, I used Baileys Irish Cream with coffee to dip the ladyfingers and I infused a vanilla bean into the cream I used to make the mascarpone cream layers. Because it is easier, I included instructions for using both vanilla extract and vanilla-infused cream with this recipe. It is also worth noting the the size of ladyfingers varies by brand, so don’t be concerned if you need more or less than I’ve called for here, as long as your dish is fully covered as you construct the dessert.

The finished dish is delicious. It is ultra creamy and very light. I really liked the hint of Baileys in with the coffee, too. It’s easy to eat a big piece, but since it is rich it is best served in slightly smaller portions.

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• You know what they say about the hair of the dog - especially if you’re planning to head to a New Year’s party in a couple of days. Cookie Madness baked up some Hair of the Dog Bourbon Chocolate Muffins. These muffins are very chocolaty, but still more like muffins than cupcakes, and have a generous amount of chocolate chips added to them to make them a little more indulgent. They also have a splash of bourbon just big enough that you can get a hint of it in every bite.
• I’m a sucker for s’mores, so the S’mores Creme Brulee at Sugar Plum is right up my alley. The base of the creme brulee is a chocolate custard. It is topped with a sprinkling of graham cracker crumbs and a layer of mini marshmallows, which are toasted to create both the crisp top you might expect on a creme brulee and the toasted marshmallow flavor of a s’more. This is such a fun dessert, both to make and to eat!
• A simple but delicious bread to make at home is Indian naan. Since it can be cooked in a skillet, there is no down time between cooking and eating. Guilty Kitchen made some Garlic Naan. That garlic in this naan is in the dough, so there is a nice light flavor of it throughout the bread. The dough comes together very easily and is just rolled out and pan fried to finish it off. It’s so much quicker than most breads that it’s easy to find time to make it. Serve it with main dishes or pair it with a garlicky dip, tear it into pieces and enjoy as an appetizer.
• Crackers and dip make for an easy, tasty appetizer when entertaining, but it’s possible to impress even with this simple setup - especially if you make your own crackers. Smitten Kitchen’s Parmesan Cream Crackers are a little more substantial looking than your average boxed cracker at just about 3/8-inch thick, but they’re a lot more flavorful, too. These crackers are light and crisp, and thanks to some parmesan cheese in the dough, have a subtle cheesy flavor to them that will help the crackers pair with any dip you can come up with. They’re basically at their best on the day they’re made, so keep that in mind if you want to try a batch for a party.
• As an oatmeal cookie fan, Home Cooking in Montana’s version of Starbucks Outrageous Oatmeal Cookies sounds pretty amazing. I don’t think that the Starbucks in my area carry these particular cookies, but it doesn’t matter much because the coffee company gave out the recipe earlier this summer on recipe cards. This adaptation of the recipe includes cranberries, raisins and macadamia nuts, and the cookies are both dipped (on the bottom) and drizzled (on the top) with melted chocolate. Use you favorite kind of chocolate - milk, dark or white - and I don’t think you’ll go wrong with a batch of these.

The last time I tried biscuits from Trader Joe’s, it was a disaster. Not only were the baking directions on the package terrible, the biscuits looked and tasted bad no matter what you did. Often, TJ’s stocks very good ready-make products, but perhaps bake-from-frozen biscuits were not the way to go. I was willing to give them the benefit of the doubt where biscuits were concerned and picked up a tube of their new Buttermilk Biscuits.

Unlike their predecessors, these were in the refrigerated section of the market and come out of the tube round and ready-to-bake, just like other brands of refrigerated biscuits. They baked up well with the directions given on the packaging, though I had a slight preference for the slightly darker color of the batch I baked at a higher temperature. They were tender and rose well, but were not particularly light or flaky. This lack of flakiness can be partly attributed to the fact that they’re made with shortening (great for tenderizing) and not butter (better for flakiness). The lack of butter also hurts these biscuits in the flavor department: they’re pleasant, but not buttery at all on their own.

Huge improvement over the last attempt, but I still prefer my homemade biscuits - especially since they don’t take long to make. Still, these aren’t bad and make a great addition to a bowl of soup, chili or gravy in a pinch. But a little more butter flavor (which I added by slathering them with butter myself) and they’re even better.

My favorite thing about the Baking Bites Holiday Cupcake Contest is seeing how creative everyone is with their cupcakes and their photography. Every single entry is just mouthwatering - and all of the designs and decorations can easily be recreated in your own kitchen, so I’m sure I’m not alone when I say that they really inspire me to start preparing for next year’s contest! Getting down to business, I’d like to announce the two winners (as selected by an anonymous panel of judges).

The grand prize goes to Bittersweet’s cupcakes topped with Mini Gingerbread Houses. There is great attention to detail in these cupcakes, including a teeny tiny snowman made from dragees and some stepping stones made from chopped walnuts. The second prize goes to Tracyecakes Snowglobe Coca-cola Cupcakes. The cupcakes are actually turned upside down to serve as the base of the snowglobe. The fondant polar bears and gummy cola bottles are very cute (and will remind everyone who’s seen them of those cute polar bear holiday commercials that Coke used to put out annually. You can find a detailed how-to recreate the snowglobe effect here.

A big thanks to everyone who participated, and a big thanks to my judges (you know who you are!) for sorting through all those cupcakes. If you haven’t already, don’t forget take a peek at the rest of the entries and see what great work everyone who participated did, and get some ideas for next year’s contest!

Pears don’t always get the appreciation they deserve when it comes to baking. A ripe pear is juicy and tender, and no matter how tasty, it can be difficult to imagine a ripe pear holding up as well as an apple in a pie or cobbler or other fruit-heavy dish. But pears can really shine in baked goods, with their sweet and delicate flavor. The trick is usually just to save the very ripest pears for eating and take those that are still a little bit firm (i.e. will not squish under light pressure) and bake with those.

I used a mixture of fresh pears and whole cranberries in this cobbler. Both fresh and frozen cranberries can be used. The combination of winter fruits in a dessert that is served hot is the perfect dish for a cold evening by the fire. The fruit mixture is lightly sweetened with brown sugar and even more lightly spiced with ground cinnamon. I didn’t want to overdo the spices to allow the great flavors of the sweet pear and tart cranberries to come through clearly. A little cornstarch helps ensure that the juices from the pears thicken up just a little during baking.

The topping for this cobbler is similar in consistency to a cookie dough. This means that it is difficult to spread onto the fruit, unlike more cake-like batters. Instead, break the dough up into chunks with your fingers and distribute them evenly over the fruit. You should have enough to just about cover the entire cobbler and the topping will spread as it bakes, giving the dessert a “cobbled-together” appearance.
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