A Break from Baking

Over the weekend, there was not much baking going on. In fact, I didn’t bake anything. However, on Sunday evening I decided to use up the egg yolks I had leftover from the failed Caramel Meringue Buttercream recipe to make lemon curd. I haven’t done anything with the curd yet. To be honest, I didn’t even taste it after it chilled.

This weekend, I will be visiting NYC with my partner. We’re stopping Brooklyn to visit some of his friends before we make the trek up to the Bronx to see the Botanical Gardens’ train show. We will be having brunch and I’ve been asked to bring some cookies for us to share. So, I’m combing through recipes on Sally’s Baking Addiction to decide what I’ll bring.

Stay tuned next week for how the weekend turned out and what cookies I decided to make!

Magnolia Bakery 16: The Thanksgiving Cake

I did a lot of baking for Thanksgiving this year. My celebrated twice, one day with one side of the family, another day with the other side of the family. I decided to make two different cakes, one for each day. Both are out of the Magnolia Bakery Cookbook. This post is about the cake I made for Thanksgiving proper. The cake I made for Thanksgiving Round 2 will come out later in the week.

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What I’m Making for Thanksgiving

This year, my family is doing two separate Thanksgiving dinners. Thursday is with my mom’s side of the family. Saturday, is with my father’s side. Normally, I don’t make anything for Thanksgiving dinner. But, this year, that changes.

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Barefoot Contessa 53 – Crinkled Chocolate Chip Cookies

Well look at this! A Barefoot Contessa recipe! The first since sometime in May…I think?

I was in the mood to bake, but didn’t really want to have to go out and purchase any additional ingredients. Which basically means that I had the necessary items to whip up chocolate chip cookies. Then came the decision to make this version from Ina.

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Friday Night Cooking Plans

To be honest, I can’t even remember the last time I cooked for my family on a Friday night and blogged about it. During the colder months, I was doing it pretty consistently. There was good reason: I was (slowly) making my way through Ina Garten’s recipes. As life started to return to “normal” when the warm weather came, I started doing more and was spending less time at home, thus I was cooking less.

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Magnolia Bakery Handbook Recipe #10 – Chocolate Banana Pudding

Over the Labor Day holiday, we had some people over the house. It was mainly just family, but, as you could have guessed, I had to make the dessert. I was really in the mood for banana pudding but I also wanted to make something beyond the traditional vanilla –especially since most of the people who came to the little get-together are chocolate-lovers.

It took me almost no time at all to realize that the Magnolia Bakery Handbook had a recipe for chocolate banana pudding and I was sold! Simple and delicious, but also something a little different than the regular banana pudding.

In the recipe, it asks you to use the chocolate Nilla wafers, but I wasn’t able to find them, so I used the regular vanilla and it worked just fine. Plus I find that store-bought, chocolate cookies are not really chocolate-tasting. So, for me, personally, the vanilla Nilla wafers probably were for the best. Since the chocolate Nilla wafers would have added a bit more chocolate flavor, I did use extra mini chocolate chips.

Also to bring out the flavor of the chocolate, I took a page out of Ina Garten’s cookbook and added about a half teaspoon of espresso powder to the whipped cream. This provided a subtle hint of coffee-flavor, but not too much to overwhelm the flavor of the chocolate. And better still, the caffeine didn’t keep anyone awake past their bedtime!

Since I’ve made banana puddings a couple of times before, Ina’s recipe and one from the Magnolia Bakery Handbook, I didn’t take too many pictures. But, I do highly recommend this dessert. It’s the perfect twist on the classic, but without changing too much or making you go crazy. As usual though, banana pudding won’t keep in the fridge for more than 2 days. After that the wafer cookies become too soggy — but, to be honest, I’ve never had my puddings last longer than a day after being served!

Ryan Cooks PW Recipe 3

  • Name of Recipe: Buttered Parsley Noodles
  • Cookbook: Dinnertime
  • TV Episode: N/A
  • Rating: 3.0 out of 5

Late last week I shared with you my second recipe from Pioneer Woman: Beef Stroganoff.

Traditionally, stroganoff is served over a bed of egg noodles or other pasta which helps to make it a “complete meal.” (I say “complete meal” because I doubt the amount of vegetables in a single serving of stroganoff counts as a full serving, but I digress…) So I was a little surprised to find that PW’s recipe for stroganoff didn’t include any pasta. In fact, she recommends serving it with her Buttered Parsley Noodles.

At first, I was a little hesitant. Regular pasta is thicker than egg noodles and with beef as the main ingredient, I didn’t want the bite to be too hearty. But, I figured I’d give it a go anyway. Plus, when you are cooking-through someone’s recipe backlog, anytime you can sneak in an extra recipe or two is extremely beneficial.

This is a simple side dish that is very low fuss. It’s basically buttered noddles, but with a heightened flavor profile. This recipe calls for pappardelle noodles, which is a pasta shape I have not used before in my cooking. Much thicker than linguine, pappardelle is great when you want to substitute out something like egg noddles. Unlike egg noodles, though, pappardelle is a long pasta, similar to spaghetti or fettuccine so just be prepared for that.

Combining garlic, lemon zest and juice, salt, pepper, and of course, butter and parsley, these noodles a quick side dish that comes together before you know it. I only gave it a 3 out of 5 because it didn’t really add to the beef stroganoff recipe I made. I think I would have preferred traditional egg noddles in that instances. But, on it’s own, this side dish is great!

See the picture above for how it turned out!

Magnolia Bakery #9 – Billionaire Brownies

It’s been a minute since I baked something out of the Magnolia Bakery Handbook, no?

The last recipe I made was the fabulous Blueberry Jamboree which I still have dreams about!

This time, I was in the mood for brownies but I wanted something a little bit fancier than your usual brownies. So, I decided to make the brownies fit for the rich: Billionaire Brownies. A shortbread crust drizzled with some caramel then topped with a lush fudge brownie sounds like heaven, right?

Well, it didn’t turn out exactly the way I thought it would. Here’s what happened.

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Weekend Recipes 7/16/2021

After a much longer than anticipated hiatus from baking and cooking for the blog, I am excited that this weekend I am planning to make no less than 5 (yes, 5!!) recipes. All of which are Barefoot Contessa recipes.

Today I am going to make one of the two cookie recipes that I’ve been eyeing for sometime. I plan to use the duck eggs that I talked about in an earlier post. I’m really excited to work with them!

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The Easiest (and Tastiest!) Sausage and Peppers

Summer is officially here! If you’re anything like me, then you are probably excited to do all those things that we couldn’t do last year. And you’re probably looking for a quick and easy dinner than can be thrown together in no time at all.

If so, then I have the perfect dish for you: Sausage and Peppers!

This recipe is great because it’s a one pan meal and it can be thrown together ahead of time, kept in the fridge until needed, and clean up is a breeze! Plus, it can easily be adapted to your own tastes and the ingredients you already have on hand. I used chicken sausage that comes pre-cooked, so you’re basically just reheating it. It’s a bit of a time saver and usually these types of sausages have more flavor combinations that regular sausage.

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