Blueberry Nectarine Pie

This week’s Tuesday with Dorie selection is Blueberry Nectarine Pie. So nice to have such a seasonable recipe! The hosts this week are Hilary of Manchego's Kitchen and Liz of That Skinny Chick can Bake. You can get the full recipe for this pie on their blogs. Now this recipe is very seasonable for me here in the Pacific Northwest , but there are Tuesdays with Dorie bakers all over the world and some places it isn’t summer. So check out the Tuesdays with Dorie blog to see all the variations of this recipe.

This pie is actually quite simple: double crust, with a filling of the fruit, some sugar, and lemon zest. You cook down half of the fruit and then stir in the rest so it is a mix of the whole pieces of fruit and a softer filling. I have to say that I don’t have much experience with double crust pies, but this went together ok. I just used a regular pie pan rather than the cake pan that the recipe called for. Who has ever heard of baking a pie in a cake pan? So strange!

I really liked the combination of nectarines and blueberries. It made the filling more interesting having the different flavors. You get a bit of the tartness of the blueberries and the sweetness of the nectarines. This isn’t a super-thick, deep dish pie, that that’s ok. I thought it was the perfect ratio of crust to filling. It was especially good with vanilla ice cream! 

Recipe from Baking with Julia by Dorie Greenspan, page 384 

Cherry-Chocolate Studded Snickerdoodles

I asked my husband to pick cookies for this week. The only stipulation was that I had to be able to make them before work. I wasn’t working until noon so that left me plenty of time to bake! He send me two different recipes, one that I made right away and the other looked really interesting too. I was missing one ingredient for that one so I made these: Cherry-Chocolate Studded Snickerdoodles.

The picture for this cookie on the website looked suspiciously like a chocolate chip cookies, which I guess isn’t too odd since that is my husband’s favorite. I’m sometimes skeptical about so many things being labeled as snickerdoodles, but this one is more accurate as it contains cream of tartar. I think that is what makes snickerdoodles distinct. Add in some dried cherries and some chocolate chips and you’re set. The original recipe called for white and chocolate swirled chips, but I didn’t have those so I just used half white chocolate chips and half semi-sweet chips. 

This recipe makes over 4 dozen cookies, which is quite a few! On one batch I didn’t add the extra chips to the top of the cookie and they didn’t look as good, so take the extra minute and add those to the top before baking. With the cinnamon sugar, it’s a little hard to tell when these are done, but I always lean towards a cookie being less done than overdone. They looked ok after 12 minutes and once they had cooled I could tell that was the right timing. These take the familiar flavor of snickerdoodles and amp it up with chocolate and cherries. Very tasty!

Cherry-Chocolate Studded Snickerdoodles

2 1/2 cups flour

1 teaspoon cream of tartar

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

3/4 cup butter, softened

1 1/2 cups sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla

2 eggs

1-1/4 cups white and semi-sweet chocolate chips

1 cup dried cherries, coarsely chopped

Cinnamon sugar

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

In a medium bowl, combine the flour, cream of tartar, baking soda and salt.

In a large mixer bowl, cream the butter, sugar, and vanilla. Add eggs, 1 at a time, beating well after each addition. Gradually beat in flour mixture. Stir in the chocolate chips and cherries. 

Shape dough into 1-1/2 inch balls and roll in cinnamon sugar. Place on the prepared baking sheets.  Top cookies with additional white and semi-sweet chocolate chips. 

Bake about 12 minutes, just until centers are set. Cool on baking sheets for several minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool completely.

Recipe from Nestle

Gnocchi Mac and Cheese

For this round of the recipe swap, I was given Christina’s blog Tales from the Mad Men Kitchen. This this is a blogger’s choice swap, I got to select the recipe to make. There are a lot of great looking recipes on her blog so it took me quite a while to make a selection. Although she had some baked things on her blog, for the recipe swaps I like to make something different. So I picked probably the most unseasonable recipe I could find: Gnocchi Mac and Cheese.

So this is the perfect comfort food for winter: potato gnocchi with a creamy cheese sauce. Of course I chose to make it on a bright, sunny 80 degree day. Now most of you are laughing, as I know the weather has been extreme in the country. But 80 in Seattle is hot. We don’t have air conditioning. If it is 80 degrees outside, it’s at least that warm inside. Not exactly the time I want to be standing over the stove making cheese sauce, but this was pretty great so I think it was worth it.

I did change the types of cheese this uses, based on what I had already. I think you could use almost any cheese you want and it would likely turn out. I used a spicy brown mustard and that was the strongest flavor in this dish. I like mustard so I was ok with this, but if that’s not a flavor you like use milder mustard. I added more milk than the original recipe as the sauce was so thick. I could have added even more if you had wanted a saucier sauce. This did come together fairly fast, so it wasn’t too bad to make on a hot day. It was really excellent and my husband and I ate it right up! Thanks for the recipe Christina!

Gnocchi Mac and Cheese

1 pound purchased or homemade gnocchi

2 2ablespoons butter

2 teaspoons minced garlic

3 tablespoons flour

1 cup milk

3 teaspoon Dijon mustard

1/4 cup shredded white Cheddar

1/4 cup shredded mozzarella

Salt and pepper to taste

1/3 cup shredded Parmesan 

Preheat oven to 375.

Prepare gnocchi according to package directions. Drain and place gnocchi in a 1-1/2 quart shallow baking dish that has been sprayed with nonstick spray.

Melt butter in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Stir in garlic and cook until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Whisk in flour until it thickens and bubbles, then whisk in milk and Dijon. Continue to whisk mixture and cook until slightly thickened, about 3-5 minutes. (This happened almost instantly for me.)

Combine the Cheddar and mozzarella, and then add by the handful to milk mixture, stirring until melted before adding the next handful. Once all of the cheese is incorporated, season with salt and pepper.

Pour sauce over gnocchi and sprinkle the Parmesan over the top. Bake until the cheese is golden and bubbly, about 25 minutes. Let gnocchi rest for 5 minutes before serving.

Recipe from Tales from the Mad Men Kitchen

Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Muffins

Ah, chocolate and peanut butter, it’s such a winning combination even when it is in a little bit of an unexpected form. I knew I wanted to put something together quickly, and I got the idea of peanut butter muffins. Years ago I had made peanut butter loaf bread, which was really unusual. Peanut butter muffins, maybe with some chocolate, sounded great so I did a quick search and came up with this recipe.

I like muffin recipes because you mix the dry, mix the wet ingredients, stir them together and you’re done. I will warn you to use a big enough bowl for the butter/peanut butter/brown sugar mixture, because it takes a little effort to get everything whisked together fully. My bowl was a little small and I ended up with a bit of a mess on the counter. Not too bad though! 

The recipe said to fill the muffin cups all the way full, which I didn’t usually do with muffins but I did this time and I got big, beautiful muffins. The chocolate chips and peanut butter chips add a nice sweetness to these muffins. I think I could have added a bit more salt, but otherwise they were great. They were especially good warm from the oven.

Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Muffins

2 1/4 cups flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

6 tablespoons butter, melted and cooled

2/3 cup packed brown sugar

1/2 cup peanut butter

2 eggs

1 cup milk

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

1/2 cup milk chocolate chips

1/2 cup peanut butter chips

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.  Line a 12-cup muffin pan with paper liners.

In a large bowl, stir together the flour, baking powder, and salt.  In a separate medium bowl, whisk together the butter, brown sugar, peanut butter, eggs, milk, and vanilla until smooth.  Pour the wet ingredients into the dry and stir just until combined; fold in the chocolate and peanut butter chips.  

Fill each prepared muffin cup to the top. Bake for 18-20 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean and the top of the muffin springs back when lightly pressed. Cool in the pan for 5 minutes and then remove the muffins from the pan to cool on a wire rack.  

Recipe from The Galley Gourmet

Strawberry Cream Cheese Coffee Cake

It seems like the world is full of different coffee cakes, and many of them have some sort of fruit filling paired with cream cheese. This one is no different, but I really like how the fruit is used in this one. I will buy fresh fruit and I’m not always so good about using it up right away. If you do that too, this cake is for you.

For this recipe, you make a jam with the fruit. That accomplishes a couple of things. You can use very ripe fruit in the jam with no worries. No one will ever know if your berries were a little on the soft side. Also, you can make the jam in advance so I ended up making the jam one day, when I just had a couple of minutes. I then assembled and baked the cake the next day when I had more time. It worked out wonderfully.

The batter for this cake is super stiff, so it was pretty easy to spread it up the sides of the pan. You need that well in the center so that the strawberry jam and the cream cheese filling have somewhere to go. It’s a little tricky knowing exactly when the cake is done, but I baked mine until the cream cheese filling was just a tiny bit jiggly. I took this to work and it was very well received.

3 teaspoons water

1-1/2 teaspoons cornstarch

1 1/2 cup fresh strawberries, cut into pieces

3 tablespoons sugar

2 cups flour

3/4 cup sugar

1/2 cup butter, cold and cut into chunks

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

3/4 cup sour cream

1 egg

1 teaspoon vanilla

8 ounces cream cheese, room temperature

1/4 cup sugar

1 egg

Prepare the strawberry jam: combine the cornstarch and water to make a slurry in a bowl. Mix the strawberries and sugar in a medium saucepan. Cook over low heat until the strawberries release their juices, about 5 minutes, and then add the cornstarch and stir until well combined. Stir for another minute or two until it has thickened. Remove from heat. Let cool to room temperature or chill if making in advance.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line an 8 inch spring form pan with parchment paper.

Combine the flour and sugar together in a bowl. Using a pastry cutter or in the food process, cut in the butter until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Measure 3/4 cup of the mixture and set aside. Add the baking soda, baking powder and salt and mix well.

In another bowl, beat the sour cream, egg and vanilla extract until well blended. Using a spatula, stir the wet ingredients gently into the flour mixture until just incorporated. Batter may be a bit lumpy. Spread the batter in the bottom and ½ inch up the sides of the prepared pan. Spread the strawberry jam on the bottom of the pan.

Make the cream cheese filling: beat the cream cheese on medium speed for about 30 seconds until smooth. Add in the sugar and egg and beat until well combined.  Spread on top of the strawberry jam and top the cake with the reserved ¾ cup of crumbs.

Bake for 50-55 minutes, until the cream cheese filling is set. Allow the cake to cool for at least 30 minutes before removing from the cake pan.

Recipe from Food Wanderings in Asia

Biscoff Oatmeal Cookies

I have some recipes that I see and bookmark them and eventually make them. Others I see right away and make them that day. I had a free afternoon this week and ended up baking a couple of different things. Some things were a success others weren’t! I was looking at a recipe that I had bookmarked and noticed that this one was linked at the bottom of it. It looked so good and so classic that I made it right away.

I really love Biscoff spread, and I love that now I can readily get it at the grocery store. When I first used it in a recipe, I had to search high and low to find it. It really shows how quickly that grocery stores respond to customer demand for new products. If you’ve not yet become familiar with Biscoff spread, it’s based on the spice cookie Biscoff. They take the flavors of the cookie and make it into a peanut butter-like spread. It’s really incredible.

This is a classic oatmeal cookie with the added Biscoff flavors, and it works so well. I always measure peanut butter-like ingredients by weight, since that is so much easier, but I miscalculated and ended up adding more like ¾ of a cup of Biscoff spread, so my cookies were extra Biscoff-y. Surprisingly, that didn’t mess up the cookies. They might look a little plain, but these are absolutely great tasting cookies and when I took them to work, they were gone in no time!

Biscoff Oatmeal Cookies

1 1/2 cups oats

1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons flour

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/8 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup butter, at room temperature

1/2 cup Biscoff Spread

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 cup brown sugar

1 egg

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

In a medium bowl, stir together the oats, flour, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt. Set aside.

In a large mixer bowl add the butter, Biscoff spread, sugar, and brown sugar and beat on medium speed until smooth and creamy. Add the egg and vanilla and beat until smooth. Reduce the mixer speed to low and add the dry ingredients, beating only until blended. Chill the dough for 30 minutes.

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

Shape the dough into rounded tablespoons and place them on the baking sheet. Bake for 8-10 minutes, until the cookies are golden and just firm around the edges. Let the cookies cool on the baking sheet for 5 minutes and then remove with a spatula onto a cooling rack.

Recipe from Two Peas and their Pod

Pineapple Pound Cake

This time of year it seems like all I want to bake are fresh, fruity things such as this. Chocolate? Not so much when it is warmer out. While I know that the Seattle area is not nearly as hot as the rest of the country has been, we’ve finally had some summer around here. My house gets warm on even the mildest of days, but baking things like this aren’t too bad.

I’ve had this recipe selected for a long time, but I buy a can of crushed pineapple and then I end up using it for something else. This time, the can of crushed pineapple I bought ended up going in the recipe I had intended! Otherwise, this calls for ingredients that you likely have on hand.

I’d call this loaf bread; the recipe calls it a pound cake. I’m sure there is some technical difference but I don’t know what it is. I had heard about recipes that bake starting in a cold oven, but this is the first time I had ever tried it. My new oven heats in 10 minutes, but my old one used to take much longer. So if your oven takes a while to get to temperature, then you might need to add on to the baking time. The batter looked quite curdled while I was mixing it up, but it baked up fine so don’t worry of that happens to you. This is a great little loaf/cake for summer.

Pineapple Pound Cake

6 ounces flour

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

12 tablespoons butter, softened

3/4 cup sugar

1/4 cup brown sugar

3 eggs

2 tablespoons milk

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/3 cup undrained crushed pineapple

   

1 tablespoon melted butter

1 cup powdered sugar

1-2 tablespoons pineapple juice

1/4 teaspoon vanilla

Butter and flour an 8” x 4” loaf pan. Do not preheat the oven.

In a small bowl, combine the flour, salt and baking powder; set aside. In a large mixer bowl, beat the butter and both types of sugar until light and creamy. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating one minute after each addition. Stir in the milk and vanilla, and then add the pineapple. Fold in the flour mixture by hand, using a large spatula.

Pour the batter into the prepared pan and place in a cold oven. Turn the oven on to 325 degrees and bake for 50-60 minutes or until top is browned and a toothpick inserted comes out with moist crumbs. Let cool for 10 minutes in the pan and then remove from the pan and cool completely on a wire rack.

Make the icing: mix together the butter and sugar. Add 1 tablespoon of pineapple juice and stir until smooth. Stir in the vanilla. If icing is still thick, add more pineapple juice. Drizzle the icing over the cooled loaf.

Recipe from Cookie Madness

Strawberry Lemon Muffins

 

When you buy strawberries at the farmer’s market, you really need to use them up right away. My problem is that I usually have a recipe in mind that I want to make, but I can never remember what quantity of fruit I need for the recipe. So I end up buy half a flat of strawberries rather than a couple of pints, so in the end I have a lot of berries to use up. Yes, I could just eat them but I like to use them in baked things!

I wanted to make muffins as I had time one morning and could take them to be enjoyed right away. I liked the idea of combining lemon and strawberry, just to give the muffins a little more flavor. The original recipe called these “lemonade” muffins, but I’m not sure that I would go that far. The lemon flavor is certainly there, but it isn’t the strongest.

I cut the strawberries up fairly small, and I think that I would cut them even smaller next time. These turned out well, but I noticed that where the strawberries touched the metal muffin pan, they burned a little. Next time I think I would bake them in paper liners, which would help from the sugar in the strawberries from getting too hot. These are very nice muffins, perfect for using up the bountiful strawberries that are on the market each summer.

2 1/2 cups flour

2-1/4 teaspoons baking powder

½ teaspoon baking soda

½ teaspoon salt

1 cup sugar

8 ounces sour cream

1/2 cup butter, melted and cooled

1 tablespoon lemon zest

1/4 cup fresh lemon juice

2 eggs, lightly beaten

1-1/2 cups diced fresh strawberries

Additional sugar

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Spray 20 muffin cups with nonstick spray.

In a large bowl, combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and sugar; make a well in center of mixture.

In a separate small bowl, stir together the sour cream, melted butter, lemon zest, lemon juice and eggs. Add to flour mixture, stirring just until dry ingredients are moistened. Gently fold strawberries into batter.

Spoon batter into prepared muffin cups, filling three-fourths full. Sprinkle with additional sugar.

Bake for 16 to 18 minutes or until golden brown and a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool he muffins in the pan for 10 minutes before removing them to cool completely on a wire rack.

Recipe from Southern Living

Puffy Vanilla Cookies with Chocolate Chips

A couple of weeks ago my husband went to get his hair cut. It was a Saturday afternoon so he figured that he might have to wait a bit. I got to wander around and visit my favorite consignment shop, which was very nice. What I didn’t realize was that the first place he went didn’t work out, and despite waiting there for a bit, he had to get his hair cut elsewhere. Not all was a loss, because these cookies came about because of him having to wait. 

While he was waiting, he came across information in a magazine about the Sonoma Syrup Company. The magazine described the vanilla that they sell that is a combination of Madagascar and Tahitian vanilla. He figured I could use it in baking (isn’t he sweet) and ordered some. It was a great surprise when the order came (and I’m looking forward to using the Sea Salt Caramel and Bittersweet Chocolate Syrup that he also bought).

To test out the flavor of this syrup, I wanted to make a fairly basic cookie and make one batch with regular (Madagascar) vanilla and one with the new, fancy vanilla. I made these cookies as they contained a lot of vanilla, but was otherwise a simple chocolate chip cookie. The difference is subtle, but you can certainly tell the difference. It’s a bit hard to describe, but the new vanilla is much more complex. Kind of like wine that has different complexities, but is a little hard to describe. I’m looking forward to using this new vanilla in different recipes.

1/2 cup vegetable shortening

1/2 cup sugar

1/4 cup light brown sugar, packed

1 egg

1 tablespoon water

2 teaspoons vanilla

pinch salt

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1 1/2 cups flour

3/4 cup chocolate (or other) chips

In a large mixing bowl, beat together shortening, sugars, egg, water, and vanilla, until batter is creamy. Add the salt, baking soda, flour and mix until just combined. Stir in the chips by hand. Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate dough for 30 minutes.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.  Line two baking sheets with silicone baking mats.

Shape the dough into 1 inch balls and place on prepared cookie sheets. Bake for 8-10 minutes. The cookies will look under baked and will just be beginning to brown around the edges. Allow to cool for 5 minutes on the baking sheets before removing to a wire rack to cool completely.

Recipe from Averie Cooks

Veggie Enchilada Bake

For this round of the recipe swap, the theme was vegetarian dishes. Now I figure that most of the things on my blog are actually vegetarian, but I don’t think that was really the idea! I like to participate in the recipe swaps because I get new recipes that I can make. Sometimes we get stuck in the same rut with dinner dishes and it’s good to have someone else pick for me. (Ok, we get stuck in a rut all the time, not just “sometimes.”)

I got this recipe from Nicole at Prevention RD, which is a blog that I adore. I’ve made a couple of things from her blog and they are always great. When I got this recipe, I actually made it right away since I was so excited. I hadn’t made enchiladas in a long time and I loved the idea of the veggie filling. 

You’ll notice that I made a layered enchilada bake rather than traditional enchiladas. The tortillas that I bought were thicker and there was no way that they were going to roll up without breaking to pieces. I even tried warming them a bit but that didn’t help. They layered bake was easier anyway! I also made sauce with an entire 15 ounce can of tomato sauce. I liked having the extra sauce. This was a big hit for dinner and we’ll certainly be making this again. Thanks, Nicole!

1 teaspoon canola oil

1/2 small onion, finely chopped

2 cloves garlic, minced

2 teaspoons chili powder

1-1/2 teaspoons ground cumin

1 teaspoon sugar

15 ounce can tomato sauce

1/4 cup water

black pepper, to taste

2 teaspoon olive oil

1/2 small onion, chopped

1 red or yellow bell pepper, seeded and chopped fine

1 small zucchini, halved lengthwise and chopped

2 cloves garlic, minced

15 ounce can black beans, drained and rinsed

1/4 cup chopped cilantro

12 (6-inch) corn tortillas

1 cup 2% shredded Mexican blend cheese

Make the sauce: heat the oil in a saucepan over medium-high heat. Add the onion and cook until softened and lightly browned, approximately 5 minutes. Add the garlic, chili powder, cumin, and sugar; cook just until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Whisk in the tomato sauce and water, bring to a simmer and cook until slightly thickened, about 5 minutes.

Make the filling: add oil to a large skillet and heat over medium-high heat until shimmering. Add the onion and cook until slightly softened, 3-5 minutes. Add the bell pepper; cook until softened, approximately for 2-3 minutes. Add the zucchini and cook just until tender, 3-5 minutes more. Add in the garlic and black beans and cook until warmed through, about 2 minutes.

Transfer the veggie mixture to a large bowl and stir in 1/2 cup of the enchilada sauce and the cilantro.

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees. Spread about 1/4 cup enchilada sauce around the bottom of a 9 x 13-inch baking dish that has been sprayed with non-stick cooking spray.

Place 1/3 cup of the filling mixture down the center of each tortilla. Tightly roll up the tortilla and place in baking dish, seam side down. Repeat with the remaining filling and tortillas. Evenly pour the remaining sauce over the enchiladas. Sprinkle the shredded cheese over the top of the sauce.

Alternatively, place a layer of tortillas in the pan and then top with ½ of the veggie filling and 1/3 of the remaining sauce. Repeat with another layer of tortillas, the rest of the veggie filling and another 1/3 of the sauce. Top with one more layer of tortillas and the rest of the sauce. Sprinkle the shredded cheese over the top.

Cover with foil and bake until heated through, about 10 minutes. Remove the foil and continue to bake until the cheese is melted, 3-5 minutes more. Allow to set for 5 minutes before serving.

Recipe from Prevention RD

Strawberry Tartlets

I invited my friend over the other day to help me bake and I asked her what she wanted to make. I had recently purchased a half flat of strawberries at the farmer’s market and wanted to use them in a couple of different things. She suggested small strawberry tarts and I looked for something that fit the bill. I found these tartlets and knew they were just the right thing.

This is a fairly straight-forward recipe, but it has a couple of elements so the tartlets take a little bit of time to put together. The dough is a sweet pastry, which I always make in the food processor so I don’t handle it too much. You could make it by cutting in the butter by hand, but to me, that’s 100 times more difficult. Make sure that you chill the dough enough or you’ll never be able to roll it out.

This recipe originally made 4 larger tarts, but I have 3-1/2” tart pans so I ended up making 6. I could have probably made another one, but I only have 6 pans! I loved the cream cheese filling; it was just perfect to pair the slightly sour filling with the sweet strawberries. I don’t know exactly how many strawberries I used, as I just kept cutting them as I decorated the tartlets. These are a great little dessert. I sent two home with my friend for her to share with her husband, and I think they were greatly enjoyed!

7 ounces flour

1 ounce sugar

½ teaspoon salt

3.5 ounces cold butter, cut in pieces

1 egg mixed with 1 teaspoon water

Ice water

 

4 ounces cream cheese, room temperature

1/4 cup packed brown sugar

1/2 cup sour cream

2 teaspoons lemon juice

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

Strawberries

Make the crust: combine the flour, sugar and salt in the bowl of a food processor fitted with the blade attachment. Add the butter and pulse until the dough has a sandy texture, with no large lumps of butter. Add the egg and water mixture and pulse until the dough begins to form a ball. If needed, add ice water by the teaspoonful, pulsing after each addition, until the dough comes together. 

Gather the dough together and divide into 4 pieces. Shape each piece into a disc and wrap with plastic wrap. Refrigerate for 30 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Have several small tart pans ready and a baking sheet to place them on. I used six 3-1/2 inch tart pans.   

Roll out the dough discs one by one on a lightly floured surface. Trim the circle to slightly larger than the tart pan and carefully press each circle into a tart pan. Reroll the pastry scraps to make the last two shells. Place the pans on a baking sheet and refrigerate for 15 minutes. 

Then prick the bottoms of the tart shells all over with a fork, line with parchment or foil, and fill with pie weights. Bake for 10 minutes. Remove the parchment and weights, lower the oven to 350 degrees, and bake until cooked through and golden brown, about 20 minutes more. Cool completely.

Make the filling and assemble the tarts: in a large mixer bowl, beat together the cream cheese and brown sugar for 3 minutes. Beat in the sour cream, lemon juice, and vanilla. Divide the filling between the tart shells. Slice and/or halve strawberries and place on top of the tarts in a decorative pattern. Keep tarts refrigerated.

Recipe from Umami Girl

Custard and White Chocolate Biscuits

My husband got an iPad for Christmas last year, and one of the best features of him having that is that he can electronically subscribe to a number of British cooking magazines. We would sometimes pick those up at the store, but they can be hard to find. We looked into getting a print subscription and that was so expensive it was unreal. The electronic subscription is great because we can get the issues right when they come out and they aren’t too expensive.

I find that cookies (biscuits) in British publications to be a lot simpler and less sweet. That doesn’t mean that the cookies aren’t fantastic. Because these biscuits are simply wonderful. They use custard powder, which isn’t too hard to find at the store, and white chocolate chips. I wouldn’t think that would be such an interesting combination, but it’s great.

Custard powder is light pink, but the cookies aren’t pink (although that would be kind of fun for afternoon tea). These cookies have a creamy texture and I love the sweetness of the white chocolate. This recipe was supposed to make about 2 dozen, but I made closer to 3 so I guess mine were on the small side. I didn’t have anywhere to take these (darn!) so we had them around the house. They kept fresh for quite a long time. I really enjoyed these cookies; they were just a little bit different!

5 ounces butter, room temperature

6 ounces sugar

1 egg

½ teaspoon vanilla

8 ounces self-rising flour*

3 ounces Bird’s custard powder

3 ounces white chocolate, chopped (or chips)

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

In a large mixer bowl, combine the butter and sugar and beat until light and fluffy. Stir in the egg and vanilla, until combined.

In a small bowl combine the flour and the custard powder. Add the flour mixture to the butter mixture and stir until combined. The mixture will be somewhat crumbly. Add the chopped white chocolate and stir to incorporate.

Shape the dough into 1-inch balls and place on the prepared baking sheet. Bake for 12-15 minutes, until just barely browned. Allow to cool on the baking sheets for several minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool completely.

Recipe from BBC Good Food

*I make my own self-rising flour by combining 2 cups of flour, 2 teaspoons baking powder, ½ teaspoon baking soda, and ½ teaspoon salt

Cinnamon Swirl Coffee Cake

I’ve been really enjoying being able to bake in the morning and take a cake to work that s fresh from the oven! I don’t think that there is anything better than cinnamon rolls hot from the oven, and this cake replicates those flavors, but in a less time-consuming coffee cake.

This cake doesn’t use the mixer at all, which is nice, but still makes a fair number of dishes to wash up.  I’m not exactly sure why you don’t add the butter in with the rest of the wet ingredients. This is fairly standard procedure for this method of baking, so if you want to add all the wet ingredients together and mix it with the flour at once, I imagine that you’d be ok. The brown sugar/cinnamon mixture that you use to create the swirl is fairly thick, so just do the nest you can to swirl it and I promise that it will look just fine.

The only thing that I would change next time is to make sure you peel off the parchment paper before glazing the cake. I left it with the paper and then glazed it and then…how do I get it off without messing up the glaze? Not so smart on my part! It was warm still, too, so fairly delicate but I got it off without clobbering it too much. I took it to work nice and warm it seemed to be very popular.

Cinnamon Swirl Coffee Cake

1-1/2 cups flour

1/2 cup sugar

2 teaspoon baking powder

1/8 teaspoon salt

1 egg

3/4 cup milk

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/4 cup butter, melted

3/4 cup butter, softened

3/4 cup brown sugar, packed

1-1/2 tablespoons flour

2 teaspoons cinnamon

1 cup powdered sugar

2-3 tablespoons milk

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line a 9x9 inch pan with parchment paper.

In a large bowl, combine the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. In a separate small bowl whisk together the egg, milk, and vanilla. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix gently with a spatula until combined. Slowly add the melted butter and mix until just combined. Spread the batter into the prepared pan.

Make the cinnamon filling: mix the butter, brown sugar, flour and cinnamon in a small bowl. Drop by spoonfuls onto the cake batter. Using a knife, swirl the cinnamon filling around the cake batter to get a marbled effect.

Bake for 30-35 minutes or until a knife inserted in the center comes out clean. Allow to cool for 10 minutes before removing from the pan.

Make the glaze: mix the powdered sugar, milk and vanilla in a small bowl. Drizzle the glaze over the warm cake.

Recipe from Food Wanderings in Asia

Hazelnut Biscotti

This week’s Tuesdays with Dorie recipe is for hazelnut biscotti and the recipe is hosted by Jodi of Homemade and Wholesome and Katrina of Baking and Boys. Check out their blogs to get the recipe! I love hazelnuts so I was really excited for this one. I was amazed that some of the other Tuesdays with Dorie bloggers said that they didn’t like hazelnuts, since I like them so much. But usually you really like hazelnuts or you really don’t. So don’t forget to check out the Tuesdays with Dorie site to see all the variations of this recipe.

I like making biscotti, since they usually turn out looking so perfectly, but they aren’t my favorite cookies. I like chewier cookies, but biscotti are good with coffee or tea. When I first read the recipe, I was shocked, SHOCKED, that these cookies do not contain any butter. I think the other recipes I have made in the past do contain butter, so I was interested in how these would turn out. Well, they turned out just fine so I shouldn’t have been skeptical.

I had hazelnuts on hand that were already peeled and lightly toasted, so I didn’t have to peel mine. I was glad since I’ve had really bad luck peeling hazelnuts in the past. And the skins are super bitter so you don’t want that in your cookies. I liked the combination of hazelnuts and hazelnut liqueur in these, the flavor is loud and clear. They are also quick to put together, which is also nice. Sometimes, especially in the summer, I just don’t want to spend so much time in the kitchen. While not my favorite cookie, I liked the hazelnut in these and I’m really glad I gave them a try.

Recipe from Baking with Julia by Dorie Greenspan, page 315