If I were to meet them in person, I would give Girl Scouts Rhiannon Tomtishen and Madison Vorva each a big batch of my homemade Girl Scout cookies because they are trying to change the way that the Girl Scout organization bakes their iconic Girl Scout cookies. These two girls set to work on a project to raise awareness of endangered orangutans and how their habitats are being destroyed. They discovered that much of that land was being cleared to make way for palm oil plantations. Palm oil is used in many different foods as a non-hydrogenated fat, but the one that stood out the most to these two girls is that palm oil was used to make Girl Scout cookies. It was a surprising realization and they decided to shift their campaign away from simply raising awareness and towards removing palm oil (or getting it from only sustainably grown sources) from Girl Scout cookies. Already, members of more than a few scout troops are saying that they no longer want to sell Girl Scout cookies.
Girl Scouts spokespeople say that there is no viable alternative to using palm oil in their cookies because they need them to be “sturdy” and have a long shelf life. Sustainably grown palm oil is simply too expensive and there isn’t enough of it to meet their demand. The bakeries began to make the switch to using palm oil from partially hydrogenated oils in 2006, after coming under fire for having trans fats in their baked goods.
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The fun shapes of Nordic Ware’s Hungry Animals Cake and Ice Cream Pan are what initially caught my eye when I saw it. The heavy duty cast aluminum pan bakes five adorable mini cakes in the shape of an elephant, a monkey, a lion, a hippopotamus and a crocodile. The animals aren’t “the big five” that most safari-goers hope to see, but I did see all of these animals on my recent trip to Kenya and it really reminded me of that experience. Being able to capture the spirit of a safari by baking a few cakes is a pretty impressive feat and definitely made this pan appeal to me even more than most shaped pans would!
The other thing that makes this pan unusual is that all of the animals are shown with their mouths wide open (although the crocodile is simply coiled up into a round shape). This design was intended to allow you to use the cakes as edible ice cream bowls, as each one will hold a generous size scoop of your favorite ice cream flavor – and the design gives you an excuse not to worry about going out of your way to decorate the detailed shapes. The animal-shaped cakes would also make a nice base for a strawberry shortcake if you opt to fill their mouths with fresh berries and whipped cream instead of ice cream.
The combination of toasted marshmallows, crispy graham crackers and melting chocolate is what makes s’mores a beloved summertime treat of so many. Classic s’mores are made over a campfire, but you can capture the flavor of a s’more in different types of baked goods and desserts by using the same building blocks in a different way. A S’mores Layer Cake is a great example of this. This S’mores Ice Cream Terrine, which is another type of layer cake, is another.
A terrine is usually a savory dish, a molded pate that often has layers of vegetables, meats or other ingredients in it. My S’mores Ice Cream Terrine is much sweeter than your typical terrine, but is is molded in a very similar way and has layers of many different ingredients. The dessert is something that is very easy to assemble and can be made well ahead of time and stored in the freezer until you’re ready to serve. It makes a great no-bake icebox cake for summertime parties when you don’t want to heat up the kitchen by turning on the oven.
The terrine is made in a loaf pan by putting together layers of graham crackers, vanilla ice cream, chocolate fudge sauce and mini marshmallows. More mini marshmallows are added top the top of the terrine just before serving and bruleed with a kitchen torch (or under the broiler, if you’re quick about it!) to add that toasted marshmallow flavor. The amounts I’ve given below are more of an estimate and are not exact, because even fairly “standard” loaf pans vary a bit in size and you might want to make your layers thicker or thinner than I did. No matter how you stack things up, though, you’ll get a delicious s’mores dessert when you finally pull this out of the freezer.
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Reading Southern Living’s Off the Eaten Path: Favorite Southern Dives and 150 Recipes that Made Them Famous is like taking the road trip that you always wanted to take, crossing through big and small towns looking for Americana and good eats. The book features descriptions of favorite Southern diners and dives that are well known in their local communities for having great food, and the book contains the recipes for some of their most popular dishes so you can recreate them at home.
When I say that reading the book is like taking a road trip, I’m not kidding. The book is literally packed with colorful photos of dining rooms, small towns, retro signs, happy people and – of course – great food. They’re vibrant and very well arranged, and give you a strong sense of place that you otherwise wouldn’t get just from reading about these places in a book. A typical diner description will tell you what items the diner is famous for and what has made them a favorite with customers. The address is included, but so are the GPS coordinates which will definitely come in handy if you decide to use this book as a guide when you really are taking a road trip! In addition to the info on the diners, there are plenty of asides that tell you about different roadside attractions and curiosities.
The recipes run from breakfast foods to main courses to desserts, giving you a sampling of many different types of diner classics. Some, like a Chocolate Banana Milkshake, are treats that you could find at one of your own local haunts. Others, such as the Snapper Patrick (snapper rolls stuffed with crab meat) from Pat’s Fisherman’s Wharf in Henderson, Louisiana, are local specialties that are made with local ingredients. After taking a virtual road trip with the book’s photos, the recipes start to sound even more tempting than they would on their own. Fortunately, the recipes are easy to make and will leave you with lots of delicious diner-inspired meal options to make without leaving your kitchen.
A pat of butter and a generous drizzle of maple syrup is probably my favorite way to finish off a plate full of hot-off-the-griddle pancakes, but it isn’t the only option out there. Fresh fruit is another great way to top off pancakes, but as tasty as fresh fruit is, you don’t get the consistency with a handful of sliced berries and I like to have some sauce for my pancakes to soak up as I eat them.
This Strawberry Guava Syrup is a quick syrup I made in the microwave using fresh strawberries and some guava jelly (jelly or preserves available in most markets). It is one of those things that I realized I should share even though it isn’t particularly “fancy” because it is so good I’ve whipped some up at least a half dozen times since berry season started! The syrup has a lovely fresh and tropical flavor to it and, while it isn’t particularly thick, you end up with big chunks of strawberries in the finished syrup that add a nice look and texture to plates full of pancakes and waffles.
I use fresh strawberries for this recipe, but frozen berries will also work. The frozen berries will break down much more quickly than fresh strawberries will, so with frozen berries you might want to cook the syrup a little bit longer to break them down even further, creating a thicker syrup with fewer large chunks of berries. Frozen strawberries might also require a little extra sweetener that fresh berries at the height of the season will not need, so stir in an extra tablespoonful of sugar or so as necessary.
You can serve this syrup on anything, but since I’ve showcased it on top of a pile of fluffy buttermilk pancakes, I’m including the recipe for those as well as the syrup. The syrup is best the day it is made because that is when you can really taste the strawberry and guava separately. As you store it, the flavors will meld together a bit. Fortunately, the syrup takes less than a minute to make (and less than 5 minutes if you have to chop up the berries) so making it just before serving is even easier than making the pancakes to go with it.
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