Strawberry Cream Cheese Cookies

Don't these look good?  They tasted good, too!  I found I had a store-load of cream cheese to be used before the date expired and started researching recipes that would use lots of it.  This cookie recipe did not disappoint.  It comes from Julia's Album and proved to be a delicious cookie.  The only challenge in putting it together was chopping up enough strawberries for a recipe that multiplied four times!  If you're making only a single recipe, I promise you, it's worth that effort! I did method 2 from her recipe and honestly thought the cookies looked wonderful.  Using her direction to make small cookies was great for about 2/3 of the huge amount of dough I was working, but I also made some larger cookies because I know some folks want just a taste, but some people want a hand filling COOKIE.  These baked a little longer, but worked just as well.

I did take Julia's advice and make the cookies the day before they had to be delivered, covered them tightly and refrigerated them overnight.  There were a lot of people telling me how much they enjoyed these, so I know it worked. (And I was glad to not be up at 5:00 AM baking a 9:00AM delivery!)

Happy Spring!

Momma's Carrot Cake

My wonderful husband loves carrot cake.  I had never even MADE a carrot cake before I knew him.  We got married in February many, many years ago and I called his mother when I was a newlywed to get her recipe because he thought it was awesome.  Well, all these years later it's still his favorite cake and after several years of not making it for a birthday dinner (because we usually go out to celebrate birthdays these days) I made it for him as a Valentine's Day gift.  It is still delicious.  In fact, I decided to make a triple recipe and bake it in loaves for my baking order a couple of weeks ago and then, I froze a couple so Hubby can have a little bit anytime he likes.  Enjoy!

Now, Miz Evelyn had this recipe written in exactly the terms I used here, because I mix her recipe exactly as she did.  Makes dear hubby happy every time.  BTW, he specifically told me I have to list this as my recipe, but I promise you it isn't one of mine.  I will simply call it "Momma's Carrot Cake" which covers both my mother-in-law and me.

Momma's Carrot Cake

1st Set

1 3/4 sugar

1 1/4 oil

4 eggs

1 t. vanilla

2nd Set

2 t. cinnamon

2 c. flour

2 t. baking powder

1 t. baking soda

1 t. salt

3 c. grated carrots

1 c. pecans chopped

Grease and a flour tube pan.  

Combine 1st set of ingredients

Combine 2nd set 

Mix the two together.  Add the carrots and nuts stir just until combined.

Bake at 350 F 45 mins.

Glaze or Frosting:

1 stick butter

8 oz cream cheese

1 box confectioners sugar (1 lb or 3 3/4 c)

1 small can crushed pineapple, drained (juice reserved)

1 t. vanilla

Depending on whether you want something you can pour or something your can apply with a knife you can add as much juice as you like to the frosting.  Add more juice and get a glaze which is what I used for the loaves.  

Linzer Hearts which turned into Shortbread Cookies

I have travelled so much since New Year's week I have done very little weekend baking, and when I have been in town to do it I have done my fallback scones.  This year for Valentine's Day I made my husband his favorite carrot cake and I will be posting that recipe later, I'm sure.

Chocolate Hazelnut Linzer Hearts from smittenkitchen.com

This weekend is my first normal weekend in a long time and I made two different baked goods.  This first recipe I'm sharing is actually a leftover from last year's Valentine's Day Project.  (Really, I wouldn't lie to you, I promise!)  Last year I made a double recipe of Deb Perelman's Chocolate Hazelnut Linzer Hearts because I thought I needed them for a couple of different events.  The unused dough was wrapped tight and put in the freezer for a couple of days later.  I never ended up having to use it and it got (ahem) lost.  

Why didn't I take a picture of the pretty cookies?
These were the corner pieces that weren't cut even.

After the sort of recent holidays I was doing a major re-organization of my downstairs freezer and found it.  Hmmm.  Was the dough still tasty?  How many cookies could I make with it?  Well, yesterday I defrosted the dough and cut off a tiny piece and "baked" it on tin foil in my toaster oven.  (Go ahead, call me crazy.)  It was still delicious!  Okay, we were off to the races but what to do with this dough.  Deb's original recipe made 50 sandwiched cookies but this was just a portion of a recipe.  Also, I remember that when I tried to make the  last year I didn't have cookie cutters of the right size to be able to make the heart shape windows for the tops.  Having been frozen for a year, this dough was a little less flexible that I wanted to be able to roll it thin enough for sandwich style so instead, I rolled it out to 1/4" thickness and used my zig zag pastry cutter to make cookies that were 2" by 1.5" and then before separating them onto the cookie sheet I pierced them three times each with a fork.  These lovely Hazelnut Linzer Cookies were about to be reborn as Hazelnut Shortbread!

They are delicious, although a little sweeter than I would expect from shortbread.  Having served them to a fairly large crowd today I can tell you they were popular!  I'll be adding these to my list of regular cookie offerings.

Peanut Butter Fruit Dip

Today I decided to make a dish that was not a baked good.  Too many of the people who eat my food on Sundays mentioned the challenge my food would create on the first week of 2015, resolutions being what they are.  Let me confess, after a crazy month of baking I rather enjoyed doing something as simple as this!

I thought about several things I could make, including hummus but I got caught up with a recipe for fruit dip that included yogurt and peanut butter.  Now, I'm not a big fruit dip lover, but this one captured something in my mind, I liked the idea of salt from peanut butter along with tang from real yogurt.  

Picture from Jacyln at Cooking Classy

I saw several recipes including one at Cooking Classy which is derived from one at Family Fresh Meals and played with the possibilities of yogurt type and what might be added for flavoring.  In the end I liked the first of these best but used a different yogurt and flavored it myself, largely because it was in my fridge and played well.  I like Cabot's Greek Yogurt for most things but in this case I was using a regular yogurt made with whole milk which made a very silky dip.  

PEANUT BUTTER FRUIT DIP

INGREDIENTS:

1 generous cup of plain whole milk yogurt

1/2 c. smooth peanut butter (I have a real fondness for Smuckers Natural)

1 Tbsp honey

1 tsp vanilla

Mix it all together, you may want to add a tiny pinch of salt if your yogurt is on the sweet side.  

This recipe is very generous.  I served it along with a mix of Granny Smith and Fuji apples, pears and handfuls of blackberries which were somehow very good even in January and I still had leftover dip.  I'm thinking the leftovers will be VERY nice with pretzels.

Happy NEW YEAR!!!

Hot Ham and Cheese Roll-Ups

I have been following Kevin and Amanda for years, in fact, theirs was one of the first blogs written by strangers that I began to follow.  This recipe looked like a lot of fun and the group I usually bake for on Sundays was going to be less than half it's usual number because of the holidays so I didn't have to worry about making four dozen of them.  

My husband pointed out that this was transportable protein.  Of course he is correct.  My weekend baking is almost always sweets and it was great to make something that had a little more heart to it for this weekend.  If you have a Superbowl party, a school party (or a school lunch to be packed) or a meeting that needs snacks that aren't sugar laden (do those exist?) this would be an easy and well congratulated choice.

The only thing I didn't like about the recipe was that it called for a pre-packaged pizza dough.  Even making just 24 pieces seemed easier if I made dough from scratch.  I've made lots of pizza dough but in my online research this week I found a fabulous recipe and demonstration pictures that made it easy even for folks who have never combined flour, yeast, salt and water.  This dough was so easy to roll out I don't just like it, I HIGHLY recommend it!  

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There are 36 pictures on this page at Crunchy Creamy Sweet as well as the recipe.  Really, go check it out and let me know if you don't feel empowered to make it.  I'll invite you come to the house where you can watch me make it, or I'll come to you and help you make it.   :)  

Scones from the Empress of Daily Baking

This article was published in my other blog back in 2008.  I still make scones using this recipe on a regular basis and thank Wendy from the bottom of my heart every single time.  In my current experiences as a baker I am often using recipes that I've never tried before, but this one I make over and over again, just in much larger quantities.   

Wendy J is a briner friend of mine from the Good Eats Fan Page. She bakes every day. Every. Day. Whenever I need a recipe for something baked, she's the first one I call on. It saves me not only a lot of research, but a lot of so-so recipe results. Recently I asked her for a scone recipe. Not the leaden rocks I've been finding at coffee shops all over town. She did not disappoint.  

This easy recipe went together in just a few minutes and cleaned up even faster, a serious consideration for me. But the best part is that it produced scones that were everything they should be, and served warm, they are AMAZING. Wendy says you can use half and half rather than heavy cream with similar results, I've made these with a handful of golden raisins or cinnamon chips as well as plain. Today's variety were orange scented chocolate chip (at Katie Blue's request) and they are good indeed. Enjoy!

Basic Scones Adapted from The Bread Bible 

2 cups flour 
1/2 cup butter cut into cubes frozen 
1 cup very cold heavy whipping cream 
1/8 tsp salt 
1/4 cup sugar 
1 tsp baking powder 
1/4 tsp baking soda 

Place all dry ingredients in bowl of food processor. Pulse to mix. Add butter cubes, pulse 20 or so times until butter is the size of petite peas. Dump the mixture into a mixing bowl and add the cream. Toss lightly to combine (I used a rubber spatula). Gather dough into a ball (it will be a bit ragged) pat into a circle on a cookie sheet lined with silpat or parchment paper.  Cut into 8 wedges and separate them out.  Bake at 400 degrees for about 20 minutes. 

Make tea, get a book and enjoy!

Snickerdoodle Blondie Bars

Don't these look delicious?  They are!  These wonderful blondies are the reason I started this blog.  More people have wanted this particular recipe than anything else I've done in the past year and I wanted an easy way for people to find it.  So here you go folks, by all means I encourage you to check out the recipe on Rachel's blog.  If you've never looked at her site, let me tell you I have made many of her recipes and every one of them has been successful.  I used a half sheet (large cookie sheet pan) for one recipe.  That means if you try this, you can many LOTS of blondies.  Enjoy!