Tuesdays with Dorie: Creme Brulee

Mari of Mevrouw Cupcake selected this week’s recipe: Crème Brulee. I can’t really remember what my first thought about this was. I love crème brulee, but to actually make it? I had received a crème brulee set a couple of years ago as a gift, so I had no excuse not to try it. I looked through the recipe and it didn’t look too bad.

This is definitely a recipe that is easier for two to create. My husband helped with the simultaneous whisking/pouring, which would have been a challenge to do by myself. It came together really easily and as my husband said “smells just like custard.” He’s quite the fan of custard, so I trust him on this. (He’s actually suggesting I try making it with Bird’s Instant Custard, just so I could make it quicker.)

Torching the sugar was quite fun! It maybe wasn’t as even as the crème brulees that I have ordered in a restaurant, but it was pretty close. My custard was a little runnier than I was used to, but I thought it turned out really well for my first try.

1-1/4 cups heavy cream

½ cup whole milk

3 large egg yolks

1/3 cup sugar

2 teaspoons vanilla

Additional sugar

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees. Put 6 small baking dishes on a cookie sheet lined with a silpat.

Mix the cream and milk in a saucepan and bring just to a boil.

In a 2 quart glass measuring bowl, whisk the yolks sugar and vanilla. While still whisking, stir in about one quarter of the hot cream/milk mixture, to temper the eggs. (You don’t want scrambled eggs.) Continue whisking, adding the rest of the cream/milk mixture. Rap the bowl against the counter to remove any bubbles. Strain the custard into the baking dishes.

Bake for 50 to 60 minutes until the centers are set. Let them cool to room temperature and then cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least three hours. (I forgot to wrap them in plastic and they turned out ok.)

To caramelize, sprinkle the tops of the custards with about one tablespoon sugar. Using a kitchen blowtorch, brown the sugar until it bubbles.

Recipe from Baking from My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan

Chocolate Hazelnut Tart

My favorite combination is chocolate and hazelnuts. When we visit my husband’s family in England, I am able to find all sorts of candy with this combination. Not so in the United States, where it is fairly rare to find anything using hazelnuts. I think this is strange since hazelnuts are commonly grown here in the Pacific Northwest. I can get hazelnuts (filberts) at the local farmer’s market.

I’m always on the lookout for recipes that combine the two. This recipe has been kicking around my email for over two years. I have made the tart before; it’s simple and doesn’t require any exotic ingredients. It’s basically a chocolate pecan pie with hazelnuts. I’ve got some other chocolate hazelnut creations in mind to make, plus I found a cookbook that contains many recipes. I’m hoping that Santa will bring that cookbook soon!

The original recipe calls for store made pie crust, but I made my own. I use the basic pie crust recipe from Martha Stewart’s Pies and Tarts, which comes together quickly in the food processor. The first time I tried it I thought that it was strange, but making it in the food processor makes you handle it a lot less. Pie crust can be finicky; if you’re having a bad day, it never seems to work! Feel free to use store made pie crust or use your own favorite recipe.

1/2 cup sugar

2 tablespoons flour

3 eggs, beaten

1 1/2 cups peeled, chopped, and toasted hazelnuts

8 ounces bittersweet chocolate chips (about 1 cup)

1 cup corn syrup

2 tablespoons butter, melted

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/4 teaspoon salt

Pastry

1-1/4 cups flour

½ teaspoon salt

½ teaspoon sugar

½ cup butter, cut in small pieces

1/8-1/4 cup ice water

First, make the pastry. Combine the flour, salt, and sugar in the bowl of a food processor. Process for a couple of seconds to combine. Add the pieces of butter. Process in 10 2-second pulses until the mixture comes together and looks like course meal. Add the ice water, ½ teaspoon at a time, while the food processor is running. Don’t process too much or the dough will be tough. Gather dough in a ball and refrigerate for 30 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. Roll out the dough to fit your pan. I used a 10-inch tart pan, but a regular 9-inch pie pan would also work.

In a large bowl, mix together the sugar and the flour. Add the eggs, hazelnuts, chocolate chips, corn syrup, butter, vanilla, and salt. Stir well. Pour the mixture into the pie crust. Bake for 1 hour.

Cool the tart completely before serving.

Pie crust recipe from Martha Stewart’s Pies and Tarts. Tart recipe from Giada De Laurentiis, courtesy of the Food Network site, www.foodnetwork.com

Cookies on Friday: Triple Ginger Cookies

This is my favorite thing to make in the fall. They are the perfect cookie. I’ve been making these for years (the recipe is from a magazine from 1998) and I’ve always been happy with them. I can’t recall when I first started using the orange sanding sugar, but it makes a big difference. I ran out of the orange sugar one time when I was making them and they just looked so blah, so boring! While the orange sanding sugar is expensive, it gives the cookies their festive look.

So I had been baking these all along and had been happy with the recipe. My husband and I often shop at Trader Joe’s and we picked up some of their miniature triple ginger cookies. They’re very good, but my husband said that my ginger cookies were better. He suggested that I alter my recipe and make it a triple ginger cookie. So I took the recipe and added candied ginger and gingerroot. It was a success. I took them to work and my coworker said that they were better than the ones from Trader Joe’s. What a compliment!

This recipe makes a lot of cookies (6 dozen or so) but you could either half the recipe or make really big cookies. The original recipe called for 3 tablespoons of dough for each cookie, with the recipe making only 25 cookies. I think that’s too big for a cookie, others would disagree. Also, for this recipe you MUST use shortening or they won’t be soft and chewy. I’m usually a butter girl all the way, this is one of the few places where I don’t even think of making a substitution.

4-1/2 cups flour

4 teaspoons ground ginger

2 teaspoons baking soda

1-1/2 teaspoons cinnamon

1 teaspoon ground cloves

¼ teaspoon salt

1-1/2 cups shortening

2 cups sugar

½ cup molasses

¼ cup candied ginger, finely diced

1 teaspoon gingerroot, grated on a microplane

¾ cup orange sanding sugar

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a large bowl, mix flour, ginger, baking soda, cinnamon, cloves and salt.
In the bowl of a mixer, mix the shortening until smooth. Add the sugar and beat until fluffy. Add the eggs and the molasses, mixing until combined.

Stir in about half of the flour mixture and then mix in the candied ginger and the gingerroot. Add the rest of the flour mixture. You will probably need to mix in the last bit of flour by hand, as the dough is too much for most mixers (even my Kitchenaid!).

From the dough into 1 inch balls. Roll in the orange sanding sugar. Bake for 11-12 minutes. Cookies will be puffy and perhaps look slightly undone. Cool 2 minutes on the baking sheet before removing to a wire rack to cool.

Adapted from Sunset Magazine’s Giant Ginger Cookies (November 1998)

Plum Cobbler

Another plum creation…

I had a lot of extra plums, since the Dimply Plum Cake only used 2. My plums were on the ripe side so I really needed to use them up quickly. I did a quick search on the web and came across the Fresh Fruit Cobbler on allrecipes.com. It called for a mixture of fruits, but I figured that it would work with just plums.

I have to say that I’m more familiar with cobblers with biscuit-like topping. I’d call this more of a kuchen, where it bakes together into a cake, but whatever you call it, it was great. I took this to work the day after it was baked (ignoring the serve warm instructions) and it was very popular. I had the empty (and cleaned) baking dish back on my desk by about 3 o’clock. I guess everyone liked it!

This was the easiest think ever to make and it turned out so well. I had all of the ingredients on hand (even if you don’t have a really well-stocked kitchen) and took just minutes to put together.

4 cups sliced plums

1 egg

3/4 cup sugar

1/4 cup milk

1 cup flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

2 tablespoons butter, melted

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 2 quart baking dish (I used a gratin pan).

Slice the plums and place in the bottom of the baking dish. In a mixer bowl, mix the egg, sugar, and milk until smooth. In a separate bowl mix flour, baking powder and salt. Add this to the egg mixture and stir until just combined. Stir in the vanilla and melted butter. Pour the batter over the fruit.

Bake for 40-45 minutes until bubbly and lightly browned. Serve warm. (Or serve the next day, just heat up the pieces as you go.)

Adapted from allrecipes.com (Fresh Fruit Cobbler)

Tuesdays with Dorie: Dimply Plum Cake

Note to self, don’t buy fruit at Costco if you are looking for “petite” fruit. I read through this recipe and couldn’t figure out how I could fit 8 plums in an 8-inch square pan, but I figured I would see how it would work. The plums I got were huge and I ended up only using 2 plums, which I quartered.

I had cardamom in the cupboard, so I decided to include it. The last time I had used cardamom, quite some time ago, I really disliked whatever I had made. It’s been so long that I don’t even remember what I had made! I’m glad I gave it another try, because it was a nice addition.

The cake had a great flavor and the plums, despite being huge, were sweet and very ripe. I didn’t bake the cake nearly long enough, and when I took the cake out of the pan it was really undercooked in the center. We ate the edges of the cake, and really enjoyed it. Next time I will make I make it with much smaller plums and bake it longer.

1-1/2 cups flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

¼ teaspoon salt

¼ teaspoon cardamom

5 tablespoons butter

¾ cup packed brown sugar

2 eggs

1/3 cup canola oil

Zest of 1 orange

1-1/2 teaspoons vanilla

8 plums, halved (I had huge plums and only needed 2, which I quartered)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour an 8-inch square baking pan.

Mix together the flour, baking powder, salt and cardamom. Set aside.

In a large mixing bowl, beat the butter until soft and creamy. Add the brown sugar and beat for 2 minutes. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating for a minute after each addition. Beat in the oil, orange zest, and vanilla. Batter will be smooth.

Scrape the batter into the prepared pan. Top the batter with the plums, cut side up. Press the plums into the batter a bit.

Bake for 40 minutes (or longer if you have huge plums like I did) until the top is browned and a knife inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool for 15 minutes before removing from the pan.

Recipe from Baking from My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan

Kitties Love Baking Too!

Even our cats enjoy or baking adventures. This is Maddie, who was caught hanging out with The Best of Baking. (Actually, she was upset that there was a book on her chair, but snuggled up to it anyway.) I owned a copy of The Best of Baking before I was married, this is my husband's copy. I guess that happens when you marry someone who loves to bake!

Chocolate Cherry Brownies

I’m a sucker for new baking pans, kitchen gadgets and so on. I spotted this baking pan at the department store the other day and I just had to get it. I tried to tell myself that it would be fairly versatile, as I could use it to make bar cookies, brownies, small cakes, etc.

I thought I would start with a brownie recipe, since brownie recipes are fairly foolproof and forgiving. I was originally going to make a filled brownie, but there wasn’t enough brownie batter to cover the filling. I did make some filled ones, so if that sounds good to you, you’ll need to make more batter. I think these would be good with a cream cheese icing, but I decided to keep it simple and just go with the chocolate cherry combination.

4 oz. semisweet chocolate

½ cup butter

1 cup brown sugar

I teaspoon vanilla

2 eggs

¾ cup + 2 tablespoons flour

¼ teaspoon baking powder

½ teaspoon salt

Cherry pie filling

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. I used a baking pan that has 12 2-inch square openings. I greased the pan, but I think it would have been fine ungreased.

Melt chocolate and butter in a saucepan over low heat. Stir until melted. Remove from heat and allow to cool to room temperature.

Put the melted chocolate mixture into a large mixing bowl. Add the brown sugar and vanilla and mix well. Add the eggs until all the ingredients are combined.

In a separate bowl, mix flour, baking powder and salt. On low, fold in the flour mixture until just combined. Fill the individual squares about half full. Top with a teaspoon of cherry pie filling. Bake for about 25 minutes or until tester comes out clean. (Alternatively, you could bake the brownies in an 8 inch square pan. Top with cherry pie filling and swirl. Bake 25 to 30 minutes.)

Recipe adapted from Ghirardelli Classic Brownies

Cookies on Friday: Ranger Cookies

As I mentioned in another post, I own quite a few copies of the Betty Crocker Cookbook. My favorite is the 1969 version, which actually belongs to my parents but “lives” with me. This is the cookbook that I grew up using and it’s the one that I return to with fond memories.

I own over 10 different editions of the Betty Crocker Cookbook, and they have changed a lot over the years. When I was an undergrad, I wrote a paper for an American culture class that discussed how the cookbook had changed over the years to reflect American society. During the 1950s, Americans looked to movie stars as idols and you’ll find recipes in cookbooks from those years that are listed as so-and-so’s favorite. As women started entering the workforce, recipes started using more processed ingredients to save time. More healthful recipes were introduced in the 1980s when that became popular. I had a fun time researching that paper, as you can imagine. I got to read cookbooks!

Over the years it is also interesting to see which recipes persist and which disappear over time. This recipe for Ranger Cookies isn’t found in too many editions of the cookbook. I’m not sure why as I think it is a great classic cookie. The original recipe calls for Wheaties or Total instead of the crispy rice cereal (let us not forget that Betty Crocker was created to help sell General Mills products), but I like the lightness that the crispy rice cereal adds. This is a fairly simple cookie with great flavor; you could certainly add chocolate chips, raisins, or any other sort of addition that you can come up with.

½ cup shortening
½ cup sugar
½ cup brown sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup flour
½ teaspoon baking soda
¼ teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
1 cup oats
1 cup crispy rice cereal
½ cup shredded coconut

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Cream together the shortening, sugar, brown sugar, egg and vanilla. Stir in the remaining ingredients.

Drop by teaspoonfuls on to an ungreased baking sheet. Bake for 10 minutes until golden. Immediately remove from the cookie sheet to cool on a wire rack.
From the Betty Crocker Cookbook (1969 edition)

Tuesdays with Dorie: Chocolate Chunkers

This is an intensely chocolate cookie! I’m not usually that fond of dark chocolate, but in this cookie I think that all of the flavors are really well balanced. I substituted dried cranberries for the raisins, which I often do in recipes. Maybe it makes it a little more “northwest.” On vacation one summer my husband and I visited a cranberry farm on the Washington coast. Cranberries are grown so differently than many really know, so low to the ground and then the field is flooded when it is time for harvest.

Every Christmas my husband makes his Christmas cake (English fruitcake) and he’s started substituting more local ingredients instead of the candied fruits in the original recipe. The recipe comes from this old cookbook that belonged to his mother. This poor cookbook is falling apart, but it has great recipes. He does quite a few modifications, such as hazelnuts for the nuts, dried cranberries and cherries instead of candied fruit. It’s quite an involved cake when it’s all together (and also burned out the motor of his big mixer!) but I look forward to it each year. Of course, it’s bathed in brandy after it is baked, so it’s good on that account if nothing else!

Back to this recipe, I really liked the combination of dark chocolate with the cranberries and the salted peanuts. I don’t know why salty works so well with chocolate, but I just love it together here. I used roasted salted peanuts, which are quite salty on their own, but add a great flavor here.

1/3 cup flour

¼ cup cocoa

½ teaspoon salt

¼ teaspoon baking powder

3 tablespoons butter, cut in pieces

6 oz. bittersweet chocolate, chopped

1 oz. unsweetened chocolate, chopped

2 large eggs, room temperature

2/3 cup sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 cup dark chocolate chunks

1 cup white chocolate chips

1-1/2 cup coarsely chopped nuts (I used roasted, salted peanuts)

1 cup raisins (I used dried cranberries)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line two baking sheets with silicone mats.

Mix together flour, cocoa, salt and baking powder. In a double boiler melt the butter, bittersweet chocolate and unsweetened chocolate. The mixture will be smooth and shiny but make sure it doesn’t get too hot. Remove from the heat and let cool a bit.

Beat the eggs and sugar together in a large mixing bowl. (I use a stand mixer.) Mix together on medium speed for 2 minutes, until pale and foamy. Add in the vanilla and scrape down the sides of the bowl. Add the

butter/chocolate mixture, mixing until incorporated. Add the flour mixture and combine on low just until combined.

Stir in the chocolate chunks, white chips, nuts and cranberries. The dough is mainly chips and nuts, since there isn’t a lot of batter. Drop by tablespoons onto the prepared baking sheets. The cookies don’t spread very much so you can place them fairly close together. I flatted the cookies down a bit so they wouldn’t be quite so round. Bake for 10-12 minutes. The cookies will look dry on top but are still soft in the center. Remove from the baking sheet to cool completely on wire racks.

From Baking from My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan

Cookies on Friday: Rocky Road Fudge Bars

This is another one of my favorite Pillsbury BakeOff recipes. It also uses up the extra miniature marshmallows that I have left over from last week’s Salted Peanut Chews. I guess we just don’t drink enough hot chocolate in my household to use them up before they get stale! The Pacific Northwest is finally getting some summer-like weather; too bad we had to wait until September for the sun to come out. It’s not exactly been hot chocolate weather.

This is a great fudgy bar cookie; very substantial. You’ll use up many mixing bowls and saucepans in the preparation for this recipe, but I think it is worth it. Be careful when melting the chocolate (in the base and for the frosting) that you don’t leave it on the heat too long and scorch the chocolate. I’m a little more carefully usually but I guess I was trying to do too make things at once when I was making these! Oh well, there’s always another saucepan and some more chocolate that I can use.

Since these cookies contain cream cheese, they do best stored in the refrigerator. They’re a little too soft otherwise. When I’ve taken these to work and other places, they never really last long enough for them to get soft, so maybe you won’t need to worry about that!

Base
½ cup butter
1 oz. unsweetened chocolate
1 cup flour
1 cup sugar
¾ cup chopped nuts (I used pecans)
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 eggs

Filling
8 oz. cream cheese, reserve 2 oz. for frosting
¼ cup butter, softened
½ cup sugar
2 tablespoons flour
½ teaspoon vanilla
1 egg
¼ cup chopped nuts (pecans)
1 cup chocolate chips

Frosting
2 cups miniature marshmallows
Reserved 2 oz. cream cheese
¼ cup butter
¼ cup milk
1 oz. unsweetened chocolate
3 cups powdered sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 9” x 13” pan.
In a small saucepan, combine ½ cup butter and 1 oz. unsweetened chocolate, stir until melted. Transfer this mixture to a large mixing bowl and add the remaining base ingredients. Spread into prepared pan.

In another mixing bowl, combine 6 oz. cream cheese, ¼ cup butter sugar, vanilla and egg. Mix until smooth. Stir in the nuts and spread this mixture over the base. Sprinkle with chocolate chips and bake for 30 minutes until toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
Immediately sprinkle the marshmallows on top of the base and filling; bake an additional 2 minutes.

To make the frosting, combine the reserved cream cheese, butter, milk and unsweetened chocolate in a large saucepan. Stir over medium low heat until melted together and smooth. Remove from the heat and wisk in the powdered sugar and vanilla until you have a smooth frosting. Spoon the warm frosting over the marshmallows.

Cool completely in the refrigerator before cutting. Store in the refrigerator.

Recipe originally from Mary Wilson, 1972 Pillsbury BakeOff. The Pillsbury BakeOff Cookbook.

Tuesdays with Dorie: Chocolate Malted Whopper Drops

This is my first Tuesday with Dorie! I received Baking from My Home to Yours for Christmas one year and I’ve made a number of the recipes since I got the book. It’s the first place I look for a recipe when I need to make something special. I often volunteer to make birthday cakes when someone at work is celebrating a birthday.

I’ve never really had malted milk before or ice cream malts. I’d had Whoppers before, what kid hadn’t gotten Whoppers in their bag at Halloween? I have to say that I much preferred Milk Duds, but I never really turn down candy! (Hmm, I wonder what cookie I can make with Milk Duds?)

This cookie came together easily. Chopping the Whoppers was a little tricky, and I had a few roll away from the cutting board to win their freedom. I think the chopped the chocolate to small, as the cookies we’re chunky like I had hoped. They are still very tasty. Maybe now I’ll go out and try a malt one of these days!

1-3/4 cup flour

1 cup malted milk powder (I used vanilla)

¼ cup cocoa

1-1/2 teaspoon baking powder

¼ teaspoon salt

1 stick + 3 tablespoons butter, softened

2/3 cup sugar

2 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla

¼ cup milk

2 cups Whoppers, chopped

6 oz. bittersweet chocolate, chopped

Line 2 baking sheets with silicone baking sheets or parchment. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Mix together flour, malted milk powder, cocoa, baking powder, and salt. In a mixer bowl, beat the butter and sugar together until smooth, 3 minutes. Add eggs, one at a time, then the vanilla. The mixture looked curdled, but it was ok once I added the other ingredients.

Add half of the flour mixture and mix, on low, until just combined. Add the milk and mix on low. Add the rest of the flour mixture and mix to combine. Stir in the Whoppers and the bittersweet chocolate. The dough will be really soft and sticky.

Drop by tablespoons on the prepared baking sheets. Bake for 11 minutes. If you bake two sheets at once (I didn’t), rotate the sheets half way through the baking time. The cookies will still be soft when you take them out of the oven. Let cool on the baking sheets for a few minutes before removing to completely cool on wire racks.

Recipe from Baking from My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan

Chocolate Orange Filled Cupcakes

I will often email recipes to myself that seem interesting, that one of these days I will try to make. I discovered this recipe in my email folder, who knows how long it has been there. The original recipe is from allrecipes.com. I ended up using the original idea of the recipe, but used my own recipes to replicate it. The recipes are basic: a chocolate cupcake, butter frosting used as filling, and a chocolate butter frosting made with cocoa powder.

While chocolate and vanilla are a great combination, I thought I would try a chocolate orange variation. A very good friend of mine loves this combination and I’m always on the lookout for things that use these flavors together. This was an easy adaptation. I would normally use orange zest for much of the orange flavor, but I used orange oil instead since I had that on hand.

The results are wonderful, as long as I don’t think about how much sugar these contain!


Cupcakes
2 cups flour
1-1/2 cups sugar
2/ cup cocoa
2 teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
2/3 cup shortening
2 eggs
2/3 cup milk
½ cup hot water
1-1/2 teaspoons vanilla

Filling
1/3 cup butter, softened
3 cups powdered sugar
2 teaspoons orange oil
2-3 tablespoons milk

Frosting
½ cup butter
½ cup cocoa
3-2/3 cups powdered sugar
2 teaspoons orange oil
Salt (dash)
1/3 cup water

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix flour, sugar, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda, and salt together. Add the shortening, eggs, milk, hot water, and vanilla. Mix on low speed for 1 minute. Increase to medium speed and beat for 3 minutes.

Spoon batter into paper-lined cupcake pan. Fill each cup about 2/3 full. Bake for 16-20 minutes, until center of cupcake springs back when lightly touched. Remove from the pan and cool on wire rack.

Make the filling:
Combine the butter and the powdered sugar. Add the orange oil and then add the milk, one tablespoon at a time, until the filling is smooth. Transfer the filling into a piping bag. I used a star tip. Poke the top into the top of the cupcake and squeeze to fill. It’s a little hard to know when the cupcake is filled, so I did a 5 second count and that seemed to be about right.

Frosting:
Melt the butter and then mix with the cocoa. Add the powdered sugar, orange oil, and salt alternately with the water. If the frosting is too thin, add more powdered sugar. If too thick, add more water (slowly, maybe ½ a teaspoon at a time). This should make more than enough frosting for the cupcakes.

Cupcake and frosting recipe adapted from Hershey’s Chocolate Lover’s Cookbook. Filling recipe from the Betty Crocker Cookbook (1991 edition)

Cookies on Friday: Salted Peanut Chews

When I started baking, it was about the same time as one of the Pillsbury Bake-Off Contests. I started making a couple of those recipes because they were just a little different and the recipes usually turned out well. One thing I don’t like is that many of the recipes use premade products, which I usually like to make my own from scratch. (I have been known to use a cake mix from time to time; they can be a great time saver and can be a great base for bar cookies.) I know Pillsbury is just trying to sell their product, and I’m ok with that.

The “older” recipes don’t use as many premade products, so I stick with those. These are one of my favorites (and my husband’s favorite, too). They are a substantial cookie, almost like a candy bar. They are a mix of peanuts, peanut butter chips and crispy rice cereal. Of course, you’ll be left with extra ingredients that you have to use up in other recipes, but that’s part of the fun, right? You’ll be seeing those recipes in the upcoming days…

1-1/2 cups flour

2/ cup brown sugar

½ teaspoon baking powder

½ teaspoon salt

¼ teaspoon baking soda

½ cup butter, softened

1 teaspoon vanilla

2 egg yolks

3 cups mini marshmallows

Topping

2/3 cup corn syrup

¼ cup butter

2 teaspoons vanilla

10 oz. package peanut butter chips

2 cup crisp rice cereal

2 cups salted dry roasted peanuts

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine all crust ingredients except marshmallows in a large bowl. Mixture will be crumbly. Press into the bottom of an ungreased 9” x 13” pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 12-15 minutes. Remove pan from the oven and sprinkle with mini marshmallows. Bake for an additional 2 minutes, until the marshmallows are slightly puffy.

While the crust is baking, make the topping. Mix the corn syrup, butter, vanilla, and peanut butter chips in a saucepan. Heat this mixture until the peanut butter chips melt, stirring constantly. Stir in the crisp rice cereal and peanuts. Spoon the warm topping over the marshmallows. Spread carefully. This is quite tricky, as it’s difficult to spread over puffy marshmallows! It’s easiest if you drop small amounts of the topping over the marshmallows and then you won’t have to spread as much.

Cool the bars in the refrigerator and then cut into squares.

Recipe from Gertrude Schweitzerhof, 1980 Pillsbury Bake-Off Contest. The Best of the Pillsbury Bake-Off Cookbook

Arabian Honey Cake

This is a cake that I turn to time and time again when I want something that is easy but looks great when it is served. I'm not sure what exactly makes it "Arabian" but it's a great cake. Watch the topping when it is baking because it can brown much more quickly than expected.



6 tablespoons butter
3 eggs
½ cup + 1 tablespoon sugar
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
3 tablespoons heavy whipping cream

Topping:
8 tablespoons butter
¼ cup + 2 tablespoons sugar
¼ cup honey
3 tablespoons heavy whipping cream
1-1/4 cup sliced almonds
½ teaspoon cinnamon

Grease a 10-inch springform pan. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Melt 6 tablespoons butter and set aside to cool. Beat eggs, sugar and vanilla with a mixer on medium for 5-10 minutes, until the mixture is pale and creamy. Sift flour and baking powder into mixture and fold in thoroughly. Stir in the melted butter and heavy cream. Pour batter into prepared pan. Smooth the top. Bake for 15 minutes. Make topping while the cake is baking. (Don’t turn the oven off after you bake the cake for 15 minutes.)

Melt butter in a small saucepan. Add sugar, honey, heavy cream, almonds, and cinnamon. Stir all ingredients together and bring to a boil. Spread topping over partially baked cake. Return the cake to the oven and bake 15 minutes longer or until almonds are browned. Cook the cake in the pan for a short while, allowing the topping to set. Remove from the pan and cool completely.

Adapted from Best of Baking by Annette Wolter and Christian Teubner.