Filed under Foodies and Chefs, Baking by Nicole | 5 comments
- The first lemons on my tree are starting to ripen and Jules Food’s Lemon Almond Bundt Cake is a great way to use up just a little bit of lemon. The bundt is has a tight, moist crumb and has a combination of almond and lemon flavor in it. The almond flour, or ground almonds, used to make the cake give it a little bit of denseness, like a pound cake, but do not make it too heavy. I suspect that this is a cake that would keep well for a couple of days in the kitchen.
- A very easy, but extremely festive, recipe for the holiday season is the Salted Gingersnap and Hazelnut Bark at Bitchin’ Camero. I tried some chocolate covered gingersnaps last year that were ok, and this combination of ingredients sounds so much better. Store bought gingersnaps - the crisp kind - are combined with melted chocolate, spread into a thin layer and topped with chopped hazlenuts and sea salt. It’s easy and makes a great gift or holiday snack.
- My Recession Kitchen made some Pear and Chocolate Scones, using a basic scone dough with a filling of fresh pears and chocolate chips. This is a great idea for incorporating fresh fruit into a scone, especially something juicy like a pear, to get a good texture from the dough without introducing too much extra liquid during baking. The post also has some good tips that make the process of rubbing butter into the flour mixture incredibly easy.
- Aside from banana bread, one of my favorite things to do with bananas is to make honey-sweetened Crunchy Banana Pops. A great variation on this is Bell’alimento’s Banana Nutella Pops Dipped in Coconut. For these, bananas are spread with Nutella and rolled in coconut, then they are frozen. The bananas take on an ice cream-like texture when frozen, but the whole pop is more flavorful (and a bit healthier!) than your average ice cream bar. You can use chopped nuts or sprinkles on these pops in place of coconut for a little variety.
- I thought that I had made rice krispy treats a little more fun by using bright-red Franken Berries cereal to make them for Halloween. Smitten Kitchen made the popular cereal treat a little more gourmet with a batch of Salted Brown Butter Crispy Treats. These marshmallow treats aren’t any more difficult to make than regular treats. The secret is taking a few minutes to make browned butter - melted butter that has been cooked to intensify its flavor - to give the bars a rich, buttery, nutty flavor that both kids and adults can enjoy!
Filed under Foodies and Chefs, Baking by Nicole | 4 comments
- Pumpkin and maple are two classic fall flavors and Erin’s Food Files uses both of them together in Maple Ice Cream with Pumpkin Pie Fudge. This dessert came together a bit unintentionally, mostly as a way to use up some leftover fudge, but the flavors of pumpkin and maple go so well together that it sounded like a hit as soon as the idea came up. This could also be a good way to use up any fudge received as a holiday gift, adding chocolate to chocolate, coffee or vanilla ice cream for another treat.
- The Pumpkin Pie Spiced Chocolate Truffles at Megan’s Cooking are another seasonal candy recipe. Easy to make, these truffles are made with a simple dark chocolate ganache that is kicked up with pumpkin pie spice. I can’t help but think that milk chocolate might go well with the pumpkin pie spice, too. The decorative transfers that were used to finish off the truffles really make them look professional, and they’re easy to find at many online chocolate/baking suppliers.
- Shortbread is usually a very simple cookie, made primarily with butter, sugar and flour. They are light and crisp. 101 Cookbooks‘ Apple and Carrot Shortbread doesn’t quite fit the standard mold, for although they are light and buttery, they are sweet from the addition of grated apples and carrots. They are also slightly less crisp because of it. That said, while they may not be the most traditional, they certainly are a good flavor combination and a great twist on a classic recipe.
- Annie’s Eats made some Banana Caramel Cupcakes that sound like they would be an even better use for some ripe bananas than a batch of banana bread. The cupcakes are moist and tender, made with mashed banana, buttermilk and lots of butter. They are frosted with a caramel buttercream and drizzled with extra caramel sauce before serving.
- Finishing off with a Halloween recipe, Almost Bourdain’s Macaroni and Cheese Bake in Coffin Toast is a really fun one to serve the kids. A classic macaroni and cheese is spooned into a small, square loaf of bread that has had the center carved out to resemble a coffin. The mac and cheese is finished off under the broiler, melting some extra cheese and toasting the coffin before serving. A decorative skull (ceramic, hard plastic or something that won’t melt) reallly finishes off the dish and makes it fun to eat.
Filed under Foodies and Chefs, Baking by Nicole | 3 comments
- Donuts are one type of food that is not that difficult to make at home, especially if you’re going to try cake donuts, which don’t require that you wait around for a yeast batter to rise. I’ve tried Pumpkin Donuts before with good success, and if you like nuts, you might like the Pumpkin and Hazelnut Donuts from Cannelle et Vanilla even better. These donuts have hazelnut meal/flour incorporated into the dough and are also rolled in a hazelnut-sugar mixture after frying. You could make full sized donuts, but donut holes cook more quickly and are a bit more fun to eat by the bunch.
- Hearty and packed full of nuts, Food o’ Del Mundo’s Harvest Pancakes are a good way to get a cold wintery morning started. These pancakes are made with whole wheat flour, oatmeal, flax seed and up to three types of nuts! Even though they sound as though they’d be heavy, the pancakes are actually very light, almost delicate, in texture and even though they’ll fill you up, they won’t sit there heavily in your stomach all morning, either. Maple syrup would be good with these, but butter pecan syrup might be even better if you can get ahold of some.
- It’s always nice to have a cookie that dips well if you like to have a nibble with your afternoon coffee or tea. Ezra Pound Cake specifically baked these Chai Butter Cookies to pair with a chai latte. The buttery shortbread-like cookies are tender, but won’t dissolve into crumbs when dunked into a mug of hot liquid. The cookies have actual tea in them too, giving them a more floral overall flavor than using ground chai spices - like cinnamon, cardamom, etc. - would.
- Sometimes, it’s nice to have a healthier version of a favorite recipe available so you can feel good about snacking on yet another baked good. The Cooking Route’s Lower Fat Banana Bread only has two eggs in it and uses no added fat, making it a much lower fat recipe than your average banana bread batch. The bread, thanks to a lot of bananas and a little bit of honey, is still very moist and satisfying, and you’re not going to feel like you’re skimping when cutting a big slice. This recipe is spiced up with some orange zest, fresh ginger, cinnamon and cardamom, but nuts and other spices would also make for some nice variations.
- I tend to think of apples being paired with cinnamon, pie crust or nuts when it comes to baking them, not chocolate, but the Toffee Apple Chocolate Cake from Culinary Travels of a Kitchen Goddess looks and sounds like a delicious and decadent combination. The cake can be made entirely in a food processor, where nuts and dark chocolate are ground up finely to be incorporated into every bite. The cake is served warm with some cream poured over the top - or garnished with a dollop of whipped cream - for a light, rich, satisfying autumn dish.
Filed under Foodies and Chefs, Baking by Nicole | 2 comments
- Although I frequently make orange juice (and other citrus juices) at home, there are many juices that it simply doesn’t occur to me to make because they’re so easy to buy. Like orange juice, however, homemade can often be better than store bought and doesn’t need to be difficult. Kitchen Simplicity made a batch of Cranberry Juice at home starting with a bag of frozen cranberries. The best thing about this - aside from the fact that it’s not too difficult to do - is that you can really control the juice and add as much or as little sugar as you like to the finished product.
- Life’s A Feast baked up a batch of Light-as-Air Dark Chocolate Bundtlets that sound like a bit of a paradox. Light and chocolaty? The lightness in these mini bundts refers to the texture, which is made light by adding some zucchini that actually helps to create a soft and moist crumb, and quite a bit of butter, which makes the cake very tender. The chocolate comes from a lot of cocoa powder, giving the cakes a nice deep chocolate flavor and a great dark color.
- Chiffon pies are light and airy, almost like a mousse contained within a pie shell. Mostly, they’re stabilized with some gelatin to ensure that they hold their texture long enough to be served. How to Eat a Cupcake’s Pumpkin Chiffon Pie is a much fluffier version of traditional pumpkin pie that has all the same warm pumpkin spices. Topped with a pillowy layer of whipped cream, this pie is a great finish to a hearty holiday meal because it’s not too heavy but still very satisfying.
- Financiers are small, moist cakes that usually have a high proportion of ground nuts in the batter that give them a dense, yet tender texture. The Strawberry Honey Financiers at Amateur Foodie are extra moist because they use fresh, juicy berries and include a good amount of honey, which holds moisture into the financiers and keeps them fresh tasting even after a few days of storage. The cakes use ground walnuts, but you could experiment with pecans or almonds in these, too.
- The Bourbon Caramel Apple Pie Cookies from Evil Shenanigans are basically little apple pies, baked in mini muffin pans and made with a cookie dough crust that makes them easy to handle while you eat the bite-sized treats. The apple filling is baked into the cookie dough crust, and once they come out of the oven, the cookies are topped off with a bourbon caramel sauce that adds a decadent sweetness and butteriness to the treats.
Filed under Foodies and Chefs, Baking by Nicole | 5 comments
- You don’t need to start breakfast off with muffins, scones or leftover apple pie - or any of these “traditional” breakfast items. Thinking outside the box a little, you can have brownies for breakfast. Specifically, you might want to try Gluten-Free Goddess’s Quinoa Breakfast Brownies. These brownies aren’t chocolate, but do have chocolate chips mixed in alongside some raisins, and a chewy texture that will definitely remind you of a fudgy brownie. The bars are made with a blend of wheat-free flours, brown sugar, maple syrup and olive oil.
- Whoever thought of adding chocolate chip cookie dough to ice cream had a great idea. Culinary Concoctions by Peabody took the ice cream out of the equation but kept the cookie dough in Chocolate-Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Cookies. These cookies have chunks of soft cookie dough “truffles” in them. They’re not really truffles, but egg-less chocolate chip cookie dough that is very soft and stays soft to give you that cookie dough effect even after baking. Actually - adding ice cream back to these as ice cream sandwiches might not be a bad idea!
- Pears and ginger are a great combination of sweet and spicy. Purple Foodie’s Pear and Ginger Cake with Walnuts has both in it. The cake here is a simple butter cake with some ground ginger added to it to give it some depth. Sliced pears add a juicy topping to the cake, while the nuts add in a little bit of texture to the fruit. If you have some, candied ginger might make a good addition to this cake, especially if you like your ginger a little on the spicy side.
- If you’re looking for something a little different than the usual chocolate cake for an upcoming birthday, a Raspberry Chiffon Cake might just do the trick. Dodol & Mochi’s cake is brightly colored and fruity. A chiffon cake is a light cake, similar to angel food cake, that gets a lot of its height from beaten egg whites. This means that the cake is not heavy at all, but still delivers a lot of flavor. The cake has some raspberry puree folded into it before baking to give it color and flavor, and the layers of this cake are spread with raspberry jam.
- The Fruity Apple Spiced Swirls that Passionate Baker made are a great dish for fall, warm and spicy, filled with a mixture of apples, raisins, nuts. The swirls look a lot like cinnamon buns, only turned on their sides. The dough is a bit like a pie or tart dough, so unlike actual cinnamon buns, there is no yeast involved and the finished dough is sturdy enough to hold up to the hearty filling. The added bonus here is that these don’t take that long to whip up and can be ready for an pretty easy winter breakfast on a lazy weekend.
Filed under Foodies and Chefs, Baking by Nicole | 1 comment
- Carrot cake is one of those dishes that can either be very good or very bad. The bad ones tens to go overboard with ingredients
- Noodle kugel is basically a casserole type of dish with noodles baked in a sweet or savory sauce. It’s a traditional dish - with many families I know - around the Jewish holidays, and it tastes better than it sounds. The sweet kugels are often made with cream cheese and have a very cheesecake-like texture. The Food Librarian’s Apple Raisin Noodle Kugel is a fairly typical example of the surprisingly simple and tasty dish.
- Baking Obsession’s Cornmeal Walnut Focaccia with Concord Grapes and Gorgonzola has a great mix of textures and flavors. The cornmeal gives it a slightly more rustic feel than similar breads, and the grapes and strong cheese give it a nice balance of sweet and savory. This type of focaccia can go well with a variety of dishes, but it hearty enough to be served with a salad and turn it into a really satisfying meal. You can also cut it up into smaller pieces and serve it as an appetizer.
- If you’re a fan of lemon desserts, the Lemon Cream Cake that What’s Cooking, Chicago? baked recently is rich, creamy and has loads of lemon flavor. The cake starts with a lemon-flavored chiffon cake, which is split in half is both filled and topped with a mixture of whipped cream and lemon curd. The cake is fluffy and moist, and will have the same general flavor of a lemon meringue pie with a completely different set of textures to accompany it.
- German Chocolate Cake is a layer cake made with German’s Sweet Chocolate (an actual type of chocolate produced by Baker’s that is similar to semisweet chocolate) and filled with a mixture of sweetened condensed milk, coconut and pecans. It’s decadent and has a great flavor profile, not to mention that the stick caramel filling has a nice chew from the coconut and crunch from the pecans. Wallflower Wonderland made some German Chocolate Cake Ice Cream recently. This version doesn’t use the sweetened condensed milk that is usually featured in the filling, but the smooth chocolate ice cream provides a nice base in the frozen variant. Now, if you serve this with a brownie or a slice of chocolate cake, you’ll really take it over the top.
