Tag: baking

Magnolia Bakery Recipe 5: Peanut Butter Icebox Bars

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Wow!

I didn’t realize how long it had been since I’ve made a recipe out of the Magnolia Bakery cookbook. Almost two months! Where has the time gone?

A few weeks ago, my family hosted some family members for a little get-together. It was the first one since the pandemic started and since we all had become fully vaccinated, and it was held outdoors, we felt safe enough.

I was asked to provide dessert for the occasion, which of course, I jumped on! I made two desserts. The first one was Ina Garten’s Boston Cream Pie and the second was these Peanut Butter Icebox Bars. I really liked this one since this was a no-bake recipe so it made my life a bit easier.

This recipe was one of the easiest ones I’ve ever made and the result? Decadent peanut butter clouds that were a huge hit!

While they were tasty and well-received, I did taste a little too much cream cheese for my liking. If I made them again, I will probably use more peanut butter or a little less cream cheese — or maybe both! Also, I ended up using way more caramel sauce than called for. I probably needed double the amount in the recipe to “thinly coat” my 9×13 pan.

The only other downside to these was the fact that they would “melt” quickly. There is no gelatin in these bars, so in order to stay firm, it relies solely on the cream cheese consistency. Once they are held in your hands, from either just handling them or eating them, they do warm up a bit and start to lose their shape. Leaving them out on a hot day? Forget about it, they will start to spread.

But have no fear! I’ve found a solution — well actually, my mom did. She froze some of the pieces. When we tried them a few days later, they tasted even better and stayed firm which I think improved the taste a bit. Thanks, Mom!

Cut these on the smaller side since they are quite rich. The crust alone was a treat!

My counter while the crust was cooling. I was anxiously waiting to do the next step of the process!

I tried to take a close-up shot and be artsy. I only realized when I went to upload it to the blog that this photo has the tray in focus and not the topping, which is what I was going for. *sigh*

And finally…..!

Completed and chilled! Nom…nom…nom! It’s going to be a bit warm today. I wish I had one of these frozen to snack on later.

My Birthday and the Cake!

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My birthday was earlier this week, and as hinted at in last week’s post, I decided to bake my own cake!

After many recipe page views and checking a handful of different food blogs, I finally settled on one! I ended up going back to a tried and true baking blog, Sally’s Baking Addiction. This website features so many options to chose from, that it took a while to narrow it all down. I eventually decided on German Chocolate Cake!

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It’s June!

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Wow!

I can’t believe it! What happened to May? It appears that, to date, May was my least active month on the blog. There was a reason for that: things started to open up, activities began again, and my time became more constrained. However, some of the things I had lined up for this summer have fell through, which is too bad for me, but it’s great for the blog!

I have a personal goal for June: 6 recipes made during the month.

To be honest, doing two will be easy since my birthday is just around the corner. I will, obviously, be making my own cake. I’m also making cupcakes for a work thing next week, as well.

I am going to try to include at least one savory recipe in the mix, but, as you may have noticed, my focus on been on baking.

What Cake Am I Making For My Birthday?

It actually took me quite a while to find one that appealed to me. I knew I wanted to branch out a bit and make something outside of the Barefoot Contessa and Magnolia Bakery canon (even though the latter has some amazing cake recipes). After some searching online, I decided to stick to a tried and true baking blog: Sally’s Baking Addiction.

After paging through recipe after recipe, and one mouth-watering photo after another, I finally made my decision!

What cake is it?

It’s a surprise. You’ll have to wait until next week to find out!

Barefoot Contessa Recipe 49 Boston Cream Pie

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This recipe can be found in Comfort Food.

Over the weekend, some members of my family got together for the first time since the beginning of the pandemic. It was nice to see some of these people after many months of not being able to do so.

With my new interest in baking, it was requested that I make dessert. Of course, I obliged. In fact, I made not only one, but two different desserts for the soiree.

The first dessert is one that caught my eye immediately upon thumbing through Ina’s latest cookbook. I’m not sure if it was the stellar food photography, the head notes, or the dessert itself. But Ina’s Boston Cream Pie was one I knew I had to make — and soon!

In the cookbook, Ina states that it took her almost 9 years to develop and perfect this recipe! And let me tell you: it is amazing! It was also well-received by the party guests. Ina is famous for creating simple recipes and enhancing classic dishes. Her Boston Cream Pie is definitely unlike anything you have tasted before. The additions of brandy and Grand Mariner allow the orange flavors to come alive and throw your taste buds a dance party!

This recipe was a multi-step process, but nothing was too overwhelming. It also allowed me to work on many different skills such as making pastry cream, chocolate ganache, and a sponge cake.

Here’s some photos of the various parts in the whole

The pastry cream which was flavored with brandy and Grand Mariner.
Melting chocolate for the ganache! This recipe combined bittersweet with semi-sweet chocolate to make a ganache that wasn’t too sweet.

And finally….

The finished cake! If you ask me, it looks like an over-sized Boston Cream Pie donut. But I guess that’s the point, right?

Happy baking!

Weekend Baking May 8, 2021

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For a few months now, I have been OBSESSED with a baking blog I stumbled across one afternoon. Sally’s Baking Addiction, is my go-to place to find wonderful recipes that are well-tested and taste just as good as they look!

So far, I’ve made a few of her recipes and they’ve always turned out great. Shortly after signing up to receive her blog’s emails, I learned that she offers a monthly baking challenge. Which I thought would be a great thing for me to do. Usually, the recipes she chooses for the monthly challenge are complex and have special skills or non-standard ingredients. Other times they are just technically involved. Such as macaroons or hand pies.

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Cookbook Haul!

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Over the weekend, I was in the need for some retail therapy. Naturally, I went to one of my favorite stores: Barnes & Noble. Even though I work in Library, there is nothing like going to a bookstore — for me, at least.

Image found on http://www.askthefoodgeek.com

I decided that I would buy a book upon getting there, but the question remained: which one? There are thousands to choose from. But I figured a new cookbook couldn’t hurt and specifically, I wanted one that focused on baking. Sure a regular cookbook would most likely have some baking recipes, but I wanted some all baking.

After doing some browsing I stumbled upon The King Arthur All Purpose Baker’s Companion. This is a book that I have heard only good things about for some time. Plus, I really like King Arthur’s flour, so I knew that this book would be worth the purchase.

Upon getting home, I began to thumb through it and so far I’m very impressed. I can’t wait to start baking from it!

Once I have a few recipes baked from it, I’ll do a proper cookbook review. Be sure to check back often for that!

Barefoot Contessa Recipe 47 Chocolate Dipped Brown Sugar Shortbread

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This recipe can be found in Modern Comfort Food.

In addition to the Herb-Marinated Pork that I made last week, I was in the mood to bake. But I wanted a simple recipe that wouldn’t have me spending hours in the kitchen measuring, mixing, baking, and cleaning. After a few minutes of flipping through the Barefoot Contessa Index, I stumbled upon the Chocolate Dipped Brown Sugar Shortbread recipe from Comfort Food.

This seemed to be a somewhat straight-forward shortbread recipe. But it was the first time I made short bread before. In the head notes to this recipe, Ina said that these cookies taste just like Milanos. I mean, anything that tastes or resembles a Milano cookie has to be good, right?

While this recipe is easy and doesn’t cause an over abundance of dishes (which seems to be common with many baking recipes), this recipe does require you to get a little messy. But as Gesine Prado says, “…you have to get messy to get delicious.” After combining the dough, you need to shape pieces of the dough into logs.

I got about halfway through the shaping process when I realized that my logs probably had too much dough and would puff up a bit more than they should have during baking. It also meant I would get less cookies, but I think that was actually better for my family since it would help with controlling the amount we eat.

After baking, my prediction came true. The cookies ended up being a bit fatter than the ones in the photo. But since it wouldn’t impact the taste, I didn’t mind so much. I used a cookie scoop to ensure even sized cookies. I just used the wrong one. I should have used the smaller one, not the medium one. Oh, well. Now I know for next time!

The cookies looked and smelled so good after removing them from the oven that I had to try one even before I was able to dip them in chocolate! But as you can see in the picture above, some of the cookies lost their shape as well. Again, I think this has to do with the amount of dough used or how tightly I shaped them. Some may have been shaped a little more loosely than others, causing them to spread out more.

Once the cookies were cooled, I melted the chocolate and mixed in the melted butter. The addition of melted butter seemed odd to be at first but I did it anyway! It caused the chocolate to become a little thicker and helped it not to spread out too much.

After dipping them all in the chocolate, as directed in the recipe: only the top of the front of the cookies, I let them sit for about 45 minutes before eating one. I opted not to add the chopped nuts as called for in the original BC recipe.

Far from perfect, but still fancy-looking and definitely yummy!

These cookies actually taste better cool! At least for me. Allowing the cookie to cool gives all the flavors time to marry together and taste better. There is a LOT of sugar in these cookies, so if you eat one while still warm you won’t get the right effect since the sugar is still hot from baking.

While the cookies I made came out looking far from perfect, everyone liked them. In fact, some people recommended that they be made around the holiday season. And I think with them dipped in white chocolate and then decorated with chopped up peppermint pieces, they would look festive and taste great!

Friday Cooking 4/16/21

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I know this post is a little earlier than usual. But I’ve been having some busy days and I have to write when I have the time to write. So here it is!

This Friday, even though Spring has been here for almost a month, the meteorologists are predicting a chance of snow for my area. Yes, you heard me correctly. Snow!

To be fair, it is not entirely unheard of for Connecticut to see snow in April. It just hasn’t happened recently. Plus, we’ve gone WEEKS without true “winter weather.” So snow in the forecast has most people feeling a little bummed.

In an attempt to perk myself and my family up a little with the possibility of snow, I decided to make dinner for us and maybe even dessert. I’m not quite sure what I will be making, but it will be a main dish and at least one side dish. I will also try to whip something up quickly for dessert.

Photo by Ksenia Chernaya on Pexels.com

Come back next week to see I ended up making.

For those of you who are long-time readers of this blog, you may have noticed that the posts have been fewer and far between more recently. For that, I apologize. I hope that soon I can get back to my regularly scheduled program, meaning a more consistent, albeit not as often posting schedule.

Posting every day started to feel like “work” to me. I don’t want this blog to feel like work. In fact, one of the reasons why I started this blog was to have an outlet and something to look forward to when I wasn’t working.

That said, April will be a transition month for me and the blog. I’ll be cooking a bit less often and the blog will only get two to three posts per week. It will mainly be the recipes I made earlier or the week prior. An occasional herbal update will be included as well.

My New Favorite TV Show

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For some reason, I never seem to be able to hop onto the latest “trend” at the time in which it is a “trend.” For example, I started watching Downtown Abbey after it ended. I recently purchased HBO Max to finally start watching Game of Thrones. See what I mean?

Well, my latest favorite TV binge-watch is no different. Granted, I’m not as late to the party as I could have been. As you may have noticed, I started to complete more baking-related recipes over traditional “cooking” ones. Recently, I’ve fallen in love with the idea of baking. So it was only a natural progression for me to begin watching The Great British Baking Show on Netflix.

And let me tell you: I LOVE it! I don’t know what took me so long to watch, but I’m happy that I finally allowed this show to enter my life. I love that the contestants are amateurs instead of seasoned professionals. Unlike American culinary competition shows, the judges are more polite, everyone is more polite actually.

I can’t wait to watch more!

Magnolia Bakery Handbook #2 Chocolate Chip Cookies

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Friday I woke up and decided I felt like baking. I know, I know. What a surprise. I was planning to get lunch with a friend who I haven’t seen in a while, so I thought it would be nice to make cookies and give her some. I’ve learned that if I want to keep baking the way I have been, it’s best to give the treats away. That way, they’re not in the house very long and tempting me to eat them all!

Naturally, I decided on the most common and most popular cookie there is: chocolate chip. And naturally, I knew it would be the recipe from Bobbie Lord’s Magnolia Bakery Handbook. Thanks to my well-stocked pantry with baking supplies, I only needed to run to the store to get some chocolate chips.

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