Pecan Muffins

I was cruising the intertubes looking for inspiration and found this recipe at The Girl Who Ate Everything.  It is a great blog with lots of cool recipes.  I needed an appetizer or dessert in short order so I decided to try out the Pecan Pie Muffins. I ended up making some significant changes in the recipe. 

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.  Put paper liners in muffin trays.

Mix together:
1/2 cup flour
2 cups chopped pecans

Set aside.

Combine in mixer bowl:
1 Cup packed brown Sugar
2/3 c butter softened.

Mix together until sugar it is completely blended and a bit fluffy.  (Just like creaming butter and sugar for cookies.)

Mix in:

2 Eggs
1 tsp vanilla
dash salt

Gently stir in the flour and pecan mixture just until blended.  Scoop into paper liners in mini muffin tins.  Do NOT over fill.  My batch made 36 mini muffins.  Bake at 350 for12 -14 minutes.  Check at 12 minutes.  Cool on a rack. 

*** The original recipe warns you that you need to grease the muffin tins so that these don't stick.  That is why I used the paper cup liners.  When I dropped them out of the pans, the muffin cups were soaked in grease.  Really soaked in grease.  I ended up peeling off the papers before I plated them to serve.  The muffins themselves were not that greasy.   I would do it that way again.  I may play with the amount of butter a second time but these were really yummy.  They taste just like pecan pie without all of the hassle. 

*** The original recipe tells you to mix the butter and eggs together.  The butter has to be almost molten for this to work in any reasonable way. Perhaps little lumps of butter are needed to enhance the pie like effect of these muffins, but I changed to procedure to cream the butter and sugar together.

*** I added vanilla and a wee bit of salt to the original ingredients.  I felt they were necessary to enhance the flavor of the pecans.

*** Next time I will lightly press some chopped pecans to the top of the muffins before baking or consider toasting the pecans before mixing them in.  These are tasty muffins (not a one left to take a picture) but they don't have the toasted nut flavor you get from the browned nuts on the top of a pecan pie. 

Leave a comment if you try these and tell me how they worked for you. 

The Mystery of the MIssing Stitches

I was working on an a batch of patches for a customer.  I finished the first tray.   They were beautiful.  I love her little bird design.  Then I had to shut down for a day.  I set up my machine to finish the order.  Awful.  I hadn't changed a thing on the machine, the design, the thread, the fabric, Nothing.  So out came the trouble shooting.  New needle.  Clean everything.  New bobbin case.  New design.  Re-thread.  Re-load.   Twenty, count them, TWENTY test patches later and nothing worked.  It kept dropping the same stitches.  The same stitches that came out perfectly the day before.  UGH.  I was ready to haul the machine off to the shop. 

And then I noticed something.  There were ripples in the fabric between the patches.  In the perfect batch, the ripples were vertical.  In the crazy skipping batch they were horizontal.  The fabric has a light stretch too it.  (It was the only white pair of jeans I could find.)  By rotating the design on the fabric so that the direction of the stretch was 90 degrees off it came out perfectly. 

Crazy.  But lesson learned. 

This is NOT a Recipe: Strawberries and Cream Dip

This is NOT a recipe.  It can't be a recipe because I have no real idea what I did to make it.  But I am going to write down what I think I did before I forget so that I can try to make it again and tell you what it really is.

I needed to take a snack to a committee meeting this evening.  I didn't have time, only 10 minutes.  I had a bag of brownie crisps from Costco.  They are crispy brownie-like crackers with chocolate chips in them.  All by themselves they are pretty much sugar chocolate overload.  I really am pretty much constitutionally incapable of showing up with a purchased snack.  So I had to make something to go with them. 

A quick look in the fridge turned up a jar of lingonberries and a block of cream cheese.  OK.  Good. I'll whip of the cheese, stir in the lingonberries and be set to go.  Except that the cream cheese wasn't soft and I now had 8 minutes to departure.  

Back to the fridge...  Sour cream.  OK.  Super.  Dump in some sour cream.  Probably about a 1/2 cup.  Ooops.  Too much.  Now it is runny and lumpy and sour creamy.   Hmmm.  To the pantry.  Brown Sugar.  What the heck.  Dump some in...  probably about 1/4 cup.  Mixer going full blast.  Lumps getting smaller.  Great cheesecake base.  Eggs won't cook in the remaining 5 minutes.  Hmmmm...  back to fridge.  Strawberries.  Mixer still going.  Chop strawberries.  Probably about 1/3 cup.  Need to make it a LOT more next time.  Stop mixer.  Mix in berries.  Spoon into dish.  Cover and head for door.  

The dip itself is a bit much.  Not too sweet, tasty but needs something.  The amazing thing is that dipping the brownies into the dip with a chunk of strawberry is sublime.  I can't recall a time when I've made a dip that worked so perfectly with the dipper that I never want to eat either alone or with anything else again.  Very interesting.

So, this isn't a recipe. It is a reminder.  Something I need to deconstruct, reconstruct and measure so that I can share it with you.  But if you do try it, let me know how it goes.  And be sure to share your suggestions in the comments.  

***  As a special note, do not add the strawberries in if you are not going to us it right away or if you plan to store the leftovers.  Between the fresh berries and the sour cream, something decided to ferment after a day in the fridge.  To be perfectly honest, it tasted great, but a bubbling, foaming, fermenting dip is probably not what you really want to serve your typical guests. 

12th Night Prep: Nanaimo Bars

Ooops.  Put these in the freezer before I took a picture.  These are the one cookie I can't resist.  I first had them at my great aunt's house at the holiday party.  Of course.  They were actually brought to her attention by a cousin who had traveled through Canada and brought the recipe back as her vacation souvenir.  All of the recipes are essentially the same.  I looked at this one this time. 

These bars freeze well.  Cut them VERY small.  They are extremely rich and you really can't eat more than about two bites at a time. 

Mini Trifle

 I found these adorable little cordial or stemmed shot glasses at the charity shop.  There were only 7 of them so they were a bargain.  I took one look at them and immediately thought Trifle Bowl!  OK maybe I thought of my sour cherry liqueur first.. but then it was all trifle. 

I made a cheater version for a meeting last night.

I started with a tiny angel food cake.  The one I bought was cream filled which was not my intention.  I was able to cut the cake from around the outside.  I brushed the cubed pieces with some orange liqueur.  

I put a small amount of pudding (true confessions... it was pre-made lunch pack vanilla pudding.  I wasn't going to make an entire batch of pudding for 7 shot glasses!)  The cake was layered on top.  Finish up with more pudding and a raspberry. 

After the first one, I started cutting the cake into smaller cubes.  The tiny cubes of cake fit into the glasses better and were easier to consume with the tiny spoons.  I also put a half a raspberry in the middle to give it some more flavor. 

For future reference.  I'd use a quality pudding.  The cake and liqueur worked well.  Raspberries are the perfect size for these little trifles.  Chopped strawberries would be tasty, but maybe not a pretty.  These trifles would work well in shot glasses. 

Now for the question.  Does anyone have any idea what the pattern is for these little glasses?  They are 2 1/4 inches tall and just over 1 1/2 inch in diameter.  They are similar to the Karin pattern produced by Dansk.  However, I can't find any image of this specific size and shape.  Leave your leads in the comments. 

My Favorite Cake

My mom has been visiting. We have been having all sorts of fun making things and cooking. Today we worked on a brick shirt for Spud 3 and she baked a cake. Not just any cake, my favorite oatmeal cake. It is a recipe she clipped from a magazine years ago. I have no idea what the source is. *

1 1/4 cup boiling water
1 cup oats
1/2 cup butter or margarine
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1 tsp vanill
2 eggs
1 1/2 cups sifted all purpose flour
1 tsp soda
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg

Lazy Daisy Frosting
1/4 melted butter or margarine
1/2 cup firmly packed brown sugar
3 Tbsp milk
1/3 cup chopped nuts
3/4 cup flaked or shredded coconut

For cake, pour boiling water over oats; cover and let stand 20 minutes. Beat butter until creamy; gradually add sugars and beat until fluffy. Blend in vanilla and eggs. Add oats mixture; mix well. Sift together flour, soda, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg. Add to creamed mixture. Mix well.
Pour batter into well greased and floured 9 inch square pan. Bake in preheated moderate oven (350 degrees F) for 50 to 55 minutes. Do not remove from pan.

For frosting. Combine all ingredients. Spread evenly over cake. Broil until frosting becomes bubbly. Cake may be served warm or cold.

Note, the recipe calls for half and half, Mom uses milk. The recipe makes a very tall cake in the 9x9 pan. Mom prefers to put it in a 9 x 13 pan. I will probably double the frosting recipe in a pan that size.


*As always if you know tell me and I will give proper credit.

Intensely Flavored Raspberry Cookies

These cookies are a last minute addition to the menu. The original recipe was on the Smuckers site. Of course I didn't follow the directions....

1 package angel food cake mix
3/4 cup raspberry fruit preserves
1/3 cup mini chocolate chips

Mix the preserves and the cake mix until it is well blended. This takes a while and seems like it won't work, but it does eventually. Beat for a couple more minutes. The dough is very shiny and sticky. Fold in the chocolate chips. (I was going to use regular sized chips, but I didn't. The big ones would overwhelm the cookies. The minis are perfect.)

Spoon on to cookies sheets sprayed with cooking spray. Well sprayed. Bake at 325 degrees F for 12 minutes.

Next time I will probably add a bit of red food coloring. These are incredibly tasty but the pale pink color is a little bit to subtle to hold up to the lightly browned surface. They are very sticky. We will see if they store for a day. I'll let you know.

Inspiration! Fondant Filled Apricots and other stuff.

I'm getting ready for a big party this weekend. I've finally gotten over my do it all attitude and have been asking some friends to come over and keep me company while I cook. Yesterday it was the lovely K who ended up making the mini quiche and the lemon feta tarts. Today it was the fabulous D who dropped everything to pop over in the middle of the day and keep me on task. She helped bake up the backlog of cookie dough and chopped onions. We had time to make some fondant filled apricots. While I love the recipe it makes a boatload of fondant. Once the tray was filled with lovely apricots, there was still a huge bowl of fondant left. Miss D kept looking at it and bemoaning the fact that it would likely all go to waste. Until inspiration struck! She suggested putting it between two cookies. Looking around I realized I had a whole tin of thin sharp ginger cookies. We tried one. YUM! So we made a whole bunch of fondant filled ginger sandwiches. What a great invention.

Fondant.

1 can sweetened condensed milk
powdered sugar

Beat powdered sugar into the condensed milk until you make a very stiff dough. It takes quite a bit of sugar but the exact amount depends upon a lot of things including how well you scraped out the milk can and how humid it is. This behaves a little bit like a slurry of corn starch. It can be kind of liquid but as soon as you push on it it stiffens up. You want it to be thick enough to mostly hold its shape when you roll it in to a ball. It can relax a little but too much and it slide right off the fruit.

Fondant Filled Fruit

Fondant
Dried Fruit
Nuts

Roll the fondant into a little ball and place it in a dried fruit. Top with a nut.

I used to use all sorts of dried fruits including figs and dates. But I don't really like figs and dates. So I only use dried apricots. I only get the real California style dried apricots. The plump Mediterranean style ones are too artificial, don't have as much flavor and are full of stuff I don't like to eat. I only use pecans for these. But any nut you like will do. Try a variety and see what you like.

Gingersnap Fondant-filled cookies.

Put a ball of fondant between two cookies. Press gently together. Yum.

See easy peasy and no waste. Thanks Miss D.

Chocolate Fondue

Recipe re-post! This is one that we used to have at our annual holiday party without fail. We haven't had it for a number of years. It may be time to bring it out again.

Start with a good chocolate. You can use semisweet chocolate chips but a good quality milk chocolate from your local cake and candy shop is good. You can go upscale with fancy Swiss or Belgium versions but it isn’t necessary. Melt the chocolate over hot water or VERY Carefully in your microwave. Melt a bit. Stir a lot. Once the chocolate is smooth add a small amount of Grand Marnier or other orange flavored liqueurs. (Perhaps a tablespoon to a cup of melted chocolate.) Stir. Add in a few tablespoons of heavy cream. Stir. You may need to warm it a bit more. You may need to add more cream. If it separates out just keep stirring and adding more warm cream. It will come together eventually. Put in a fondue pot and keep warm. Serve with marshmallows, pineapple, pound cake, angel food cake, apples, and fingers… (Oops not fingers!)

For a large crowd I provide wooden skewers instead of the 3 remaining fancy forks that came with my fondue pot. That way there isn’t any confusion about which belongs to who and everyone can enjoy the chocolate.

If you don’t have good temperature regulation on your fondue pot, i.e. a candle or sterno pot, you will need to keep track of this heat it when it gets cool and blow it out the rest of the time as the candle can scorch the bottom.

Enjoy.

Donuts

Another Re-post! Tis the season to be too busy to keep up with the internet. I am working on collecting all my recipes in one place. This is part of that effort. And these donuts would make a great snack for a lazy holiday morning!

tasty donuts

About a bajillion years ago I was in charge of a donut making fundraiser. We ended up spending about 20 hours straight making over 800 dozen cake donuts. I still can’t stand cake donuts although I can be persuaded to eat the good yeasty kind you get at the bakery.

The spuds have occasionally asked me to make donuts and I have refused until I was sucked in by this post at the Pioneer Woman Cooks. Today I made donuts.

They were not the lovely perfection displayed on the web. But I did manage to get a pretty good sample by the time I was finished. I do have a few corrections/changes to the recipe so I am posting them here where I will be able to find them.

1. The recipe calls for adding the flour mixture to the wet ingredients without actually describing a flour mixture. I assumed it meant to mix the flour and salt together.

2. Roll out the dough to be THICK. I did the quarter inch described in the recipe. Some were thicker. In the future I will roll it out to a half inch. The thicker donuts were MUCH better.

3. Flour the cookie sheet means flour the cookie sheet. More than a dusting. I deformed a bunch of donuts prying them off of the sheet.

4. Get the cast iron kettle re-seasoned. Even the heavy aluminum kettle doesn’t hold the heat properly.

5. Better yet, research a real fryer system. Any suggestions?

6. Use lots of paper towels and do not forget the turn and blot step.

7. Make the glaze different. I didn’t like the vanilla in it. I probably should have listened and added the salt. I think thicker might be better. Although once the glaze actually set up on the thicker donuts it was pretty good.

I may have to try this again, but it probably won’t be for a while. There is just something about the lingering smell of donuts frying…

Pecan Pumpkin Cake Pie

Hope that you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving. Since it was just us this year, we missed traveling and bowling with frozen turkeys and two meals in one day and a table full of desserts. I had to make something, but deciding between pumpkin pie and pecan pie and spice cake and all the other choices was too hard so we settled on the pecan pumpkin cake pie. Variations on this theme can be found all over the internet. The version I used is from Betty Crocker herself. It is a great compromise to make one Thanksgiving dessert that covers all the bases!

1 can (15 oz) pumpkin (not pumpkin pie mix)
1 can (12 oz) evaporated milk
3 eggs
1 cup sugar
4 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice
1 box yellow cake mix or spice cake mix
1 1/2 cups chopped pecans or walnuts
3/4 cup butter or margarine, melted
Whipped cream, if desired
Additional pumpkin pie spice, if desired

Start by melting the butter. (I forgot to do that!) Oil, grease, spray or just melt your butter in a 9 x 13 baking dish*.
Mix the pumpkin, milk, eggs, sugar and spice mix in the mixer. You could probably do this by hand but watch for lumps. Pour into the baking dish. It will be runny.
Sprinkle the cake mix on top. Put the pecans on top of that. Slowly pour the butter over all of that. Make sure you distribute the butter and don't just pour it in a pool in the middle. Sprinkle some more spice on top of that. Bake at 350 degrees F for 50 - 60 minutes.

*I am baking mine in my microwave using the convection function. I put it into an 8 x 12 inch baking dish. It was full but not quite overflowing. Both the cake and the pie were thicker than would be expected in a larger pan but it was yummy never the less.

I have no idea what the additional pumpkin pie spice is for or why you would desire it. If I were to use it again, I would probably add it to the cake mix. I would also be likely to try for a caramel or spice cake rather than the yellow cake.

Toffee Grahams

The following recipe is from Cooks.com. It is one of the easiest cookie/candy/confections you can make. I've pasted it verbatim below so that I can keep track of the recipe. As usual, my notes follow.

24 graham cracker sqs.
3/4 c. packed brown sugar
Dash of salt
3/4 c. butter
3/4 c. chopped pecans

Line a 15 x 10 x 1 inch baking pan with foil. Arrange graham crackers close together in a single layer. Combine butter, brown sugar, and salt in small saucepan; cook until mixture is blended, stirring, for about 1 to 2 minutes. Add pecans; spread mixture over graham crackers. Bake in 350 degree oven 10 minutes or until bubbly; cool 10 minutes. Cut each graham cracker in half and remove to a cooling rack. Serve cold.


Do not skip lining the pan with foil. Use easy release foil or oil your foil. This is STICKY and it won't come out of the pan if you don't line it. Set the graham cracker squares on the foil before you start the rest. Have the pecans measured and ready to go.

I made sure that I brought the sugar and butter to a boil. That eliminates some of the liquid from the butter and blends both of them together better. Boiling it does make it a little harder to spread over the crackers. I use a silicon spatula and move it around.

The next time I make this, I may add cinnamon to the sugar/butter mixture. Another option might be to sprinkle chocolate chips on the warm cookies and spread them out after they melt. I think that there are a lot of possibilities for changing this up. Leave a comment below if you have a favorite version.


I'm showing my age today. As I was typing Toffee Graham, I kept imagining that very old Saturday Night Live skit with the Candy Graham delivering land shark. I think these bars might just be as lethal.

Grandma's Recipes: Caramel Corn

My dad always made what we called candy corn when we were kids. It was nothing more than hard candy poured over popped corn. I'll share his recipe another day. This recipe is from Grandma's collection. It is different from Dad's in a couple ways.

As written:

1/2 cup syrup
1 cup white sugar
1 t vinegar
1/4 t salt
1 t butter
1 t soda

Mix sugar, vinegar, syrup, salt, butter and bring to boil. Stir constantly. Boil gently to hard cook in water (290o) Add soda mix well. Pour over popped corn and stir to mix well.

Notes. The syrup would be a Karo or corn syrup. Since this is called caramel corn and since the sugar is not 'burnt' I am guessing she would have used dark corn syrup.

I am a bit puzzled by the vinegar/soda part of this recipe. That is a standard technique for making the candy foam and is used in things like peanut brittle. It may be used here to expand the sugar so it coats the corn better. It may be worth some experimentation.

One more note... It is a good idea to sift or scoop out as many unpopped kernels as you can before you add the syrup.

As an aside... This recipe is written on a small piece of paper that is torn off a perforated pad. I remember playing with paper like this and being fascinated by the perforations.

And some comments from my sister when I asked her about the vinegar and baking soda.

Peanut brittle has the baking soda but not the vinegar. When it is hot, the baking soda bubbles up and I think it makes the candy lighter. That is probably the case with the vinegar and soda in the caramel corn recipe. You don't want to break a tooth and since the temperature control was iffy on a wood stove, that may have been a solution. Dad did not do it that way. He didn't even take it up to caramel temp., probably because it could get too hard - that's why we had pink or whatever color "caramel" corn!

There could be another reason: for nutrition, it might be the vinegar was a source of vit C or something necessary to prevent disease and they added it to everything - especially the Germans!

Grandma's Recipes: Crunchy Fudge Sandwiches

Today's recipe is a newspaper clipping. It was published in The Blade Sunday Magazine on March 8, 1970. There is a copyright date of 1969 for the Kellogg Company. It is clearly part of an advertisement for Nestle morsels and Rice Krispies.

1 6-oz. pkg. (1 cup) Nestle's Butterscotch Morsels
1/2 cup peanut butter
4 cups Kellogg's Rice Krispies cereal
1 tablespoon water
1 6-oz. pkg. (1 cup) Nestle's Semi-sweet Morsels
1/2 cup sifted confectioners' sugar
2 tablespoons soft butter or margarine

1. Met butterscotch Morsels with peanut butter in heavy saucepan over very low heat, stirring until well blended. Remove from heat.
2. Add rice Krispies cereal; stir until well coated with butterscotch mixture. Press half of cereal mixture into a buttered 8x8x2 inch pan. Chill in refrigerator while preparing fudge mixture. Set remaining cereal mixture aside.
3. Combine chocolate Morsels, sugar, butter and water in top of double boiler; place over hot water and stir until chocolate melts and mixture is well blended. Spread over chilled cereal mixture. Spread remaining cereal mixture evenly over top. Press in gently. Chill. remove from refrigerator for about 10 minutes before cutting into squares.

Yield: about 25 1 1/2 inch squares.

Translation: Nothing to change here. I would make them as written. I do remember Grandma making these for almost every potluck and occasion. She always packed them in a round tupperware dish. I rescued that dish and gave it to my cousin for Christmas one year. I put in a bag of marshmallows because I also had the handwritten Rice Krispies treats recipe. My cousin let me know that no marshmallows ever entered Grandma's Rice Krispies cookies. Now is know what she meant. I will have to send her this one.

Grandmas's Recipes: Frisch Strawberry Pie

It looks like Grandma was into the whole copy cat recipe thing. I am basically posting the recipes as I pull them out of the box. The last few have all been restaurant favorites. This one is no different. Frisch is Frisch's Big Boy restaurant, the local Big Boy franchise. I believe she got the recipe from my sister who worked there in the seventies.

As written:

Frisch Strawberry Pie

1 1/2 cups sugar
1/4 cornstarch
1 1/2 cup water
pinch salt
1 sm package strawberry jello
1 1/4 qt strawberries

Mix sugar, cornstarch, salt and water. Cook til thick and clear. Add jello and dissolve. Cool til thick. Pour over berries in crust.

I am pretty sure you can use this one as written. I don't know of any change in the size of the gelatin packages and I'm not sure it would be critical if there were slight variations. The 1.25 quarts of berries is an odd number, but I am sure that is what made a heaping pile in grandma's pie plate. The berries were washed and hulled but not cut into pieces.

This pie used to be one of my favorites. We would only get it in the early summer when the berries were ripe. This is a good pie because the berries are fresh and whole and not cooked. It does need to be eaten in a day or two as the crust will get soggy.

Grandma's Recipes: County Fair Pie Crust

As written.

From the back of the card.

"This is the fair contest recipe and delicious. Very easy to work with -- almost like a cookie dough -- Thought you might like to try it.

Pie Crust

3 cups flour 1 egg
1 1/2 t salt 5 T water
1 cup lard 1 t vinegar

Mix flour and salt -- Cut lard into flour. Mix eggs with fork, add water and then vinegar. Add liquid to flour mixture all at one time. Mix -- let stand a few minutes -- Chill before rolling (I don't)

Translation.

This one is pretty straight forward. It would have been printed in the newspaper with the rest of the entry classes for the county fair. In this case, entrants would all have to use this recipe. I have no information about the rest of the pie contest, whether they were to make the same type or just use the same crust. These 'use the same recipe' contests really were to test the technical skill of the baker. The competition was usually pretty stiff.

As for ingredients the only things to note are the use of lard, size of the egg and the vinegar. Lard is still available if you look for it. It is commonly substituted with vegetable shortening. I know that some people have success with crust making using the heart healthy spreads, but those folks are superior bakers so I wouldn't try that on a pie for company tonight. Egg sizes have varied over the year. Most of the bakers in this competition would have been using farm eggs. We were just given a lovely box of brown eggs in size really small. Cute, but they would wreak havoc on the wet to dry ingredient ratio. I would start with a large or extra large egg. The vinegar would likely be cider vinegar but they might have used the small bottle of white vinegar for this.

It is hard to say whether the original recipe would have been as sketchy as this one. I know the competition at the local fair was fierce. I would not put it past some one to leave out a few ingredients or short cut a few steps to keep from helping the competition.

The secret to making great crust is getting the right distribution of fat into the flour. The cutting in instructions usually suggest something like pea-sized chunks or coarse crumb or something similar.

There are two things that bother me about these instructions. The first is the instruction to add all of the liquid at once. We all know that everything from the weather to the way you measure flour affect the dry to liquid ratio in baking. Every one who has ever tried to teach me to make pie crust (and some experts have tried) says to add some portion of the liquids, mix gently and add more. Usually they say something like add it by the tablespoon. The trick here is that the more you work the dough the tougher it becomes. Adding lots of little amounts of liquid would require working the dough more. I think that some of the food processor recipes add the liquid all at once. Hmmm. (If anyone has thoughts about this leave a note in the comments. I am not a crust maker so I don't really know.) The other thing is the resting/chilling time. It is harder to work cold dough, but the fats 'melt' into the dough as it warms up so you lose flakiness. Perhaps the author of this recipe left larger lumps of fat. I don't really know.

The last thing to note is that filling and baking are omitted from the recipe. Fillings would most likely have been a mixture of fresh fruit, flour, sugar and spices dotted with butter. The exact amounts depend greatly on the fruit used. The crust could be pre-baked or baked with the fruit. In the later case it takes longer to bake the crust than it might seem.

I'll upload the photo when I take my next round of pictures.

Here is a link to a tutorial on pie crust from the folks at BHG.

Summer

I am going to have to try some of the popsicle recipes collected by Beth Sweet over at Lark Crafts. I am still working on what do do for my ultimate summer craft project. Wish I had planted sweet corn and tomatoes earlier in the year. That would make for a great summer project.

Handy Pecan Pie

Re-posted here as part of my ongoing effort to wrassle my recipes into one convenient spot.

In a more compact, less messy and no crust to roll form. The recipe is from Pioneer Woman’s Tasty Kitchen. These are pretty tasty.

* 1 cup Packed Light Brown Sugar
* ½ cups All-purpose Flour
* 1 cup Chopped Pecans
* ⅔ cups Softened Butter
* 2 whole Eggs Beaten

A few changes for the next batch. Make sure to use salted butter or add a dash of salt. Add a splash of vanilla. While they were good and simple and come in under the 5 ingredient rule, they need something to brighten or intensify the flavor.

The recipe calls for mixing the dry ingredients and the wet ingredients separately and then gently mix them together. The tricky bit is to make sure that the butter is not too hot or to temper the eggs. If you pull the melted butter directly out of the microwave and dump in the eggs you will get scrambled eggs and not in a good way. Melt the butter first and then allow it too cool. If you are impatient you will need to temper the eggs, but mixing small amounts of hot butter into the eggs SLOWLY. It will be easier to wait.

Do NOT skimp on greasing the muffin cups. Like pecan pie, these can be sticky. The amount of butter in them helps but…

Another thing, you need to keep mixing the batter slightly as you put it into the muffin cups. Just like in a pecan pie, the pecans float to the top and if you aren’t aware of how you are distributing them you will end up with lots of nuts in the first muffins and few in the last.

I used 350 degrees for 22 minutes with normal sized muffins in silicone pans. it made 12 good sized muffins rather than the 8 described in the recipe. I will try them in the mini pans at some point in the future.

Definitely worth a second bake!

Art Fare

Re-posted here as part of my effort to collect my recipes scattered hither and yon across the interwebs into one place.

A lovely friend hosted an after the Art Fair party and asked allowed us to bring dessert. What could be more fitting than a session of playing with your food?

Calder Cookies

one recipe sugar cookie dough. Use your favorite. I usually use the Betty Crocker version with vanilla instead of almond flavoring.

Divide into thirds before chilling. Color one third red, one third yellow, and one third blue. Use a professional grade color such as this kit from Ateco. The liquid stuff you buy in the store will produce pastel colors and you are going for as dark as you can get. Chill each color separately. Roll chilled dough. Cut with a sharp knife into random geometric shapes ala Alexander Calder. Use a straw to punch out a hole in each cookie. Bake as instructed.

Provide guests with a tray of cookies, string and assorted skewers and toothpicks. Have them string them together into a mobile. You can use shoestring licorice and pretzel rods but you will need bigger holes in the cookies.

Admire your creations and then eat them. You can always try to eat the hanging cookies but you probably want to put down a washable rug or go outside.

Jackson Pollock Cake

1 pound cake (purchased or your own recipe)
Assorted toppings and sauces in squeeze bottles

Slice cake and arrange on a clean new paint pallet. Have guests take a slice and put on a plain plate. Guests then squeeze ‘paint’ syrup over the cake canvas ala Jackson Pollock. admire your artistic creation then eat it.

Raspberry Sauce

1 package unsweetened frozen raspberries (While fresh raspberries would probably taste better I find they are too expensive to mash up and prefer t o eat them whole.)
Sugar to taste

Thaw berries and put in blender. Blend until smooth. Pour through a fine sieve pressing on the solids to force as much through while leaving the seeds behind. Add sugar to taste. You want it to be slightly sweet. I usually end up with around a 1/4 cup but you need to add about a tablespoon at a time. Give it whirl and taste. It will be a terrible trial to taste I am sure but taste it you must. Just be sure to leave some for the dessert.

While I will claim credit for thinking up the Calder Cookies I read about the Jackson Pollock cake in a magazine years ago. I have no idea what it was. I will keep looking for it. If you know, let me know and I will gladly attribute it properly.

* Variations with frosting seem to be all over the internet these days. This version was most likely found in an old issue of Bon Apetit.

Z's Favorite Cookie

Z has a few recipes that are uniquely his own. His cookie recipe is Sierra Nugget cookies. He starts with this version found on Cooks.com. I've listed it below but have added his modifications.

1 c. butter, softened
1 c. brown sugar
1 1/2 c. sugar
1 tbsp. milk
1 1/2 tsp. vanilla
2 eggs *add one more egg
1 c. crumbled crushed corn flakes
3 c. oatmeal
1 1/2 c. flour
1 1/4 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. mace
1 1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 tsp. nutmeg
1/8 tsp. cloves
4 oz. coconut If you must.
2 c. semi-sweet chocolate white Chocolate chips
1 c. walnuts, peanuts or pine nuts, chopped Skip the nuts and add another cup of white chocolate chips.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cream together until smooth the butter, brown and white sugar. Add milk and vanilla. Beat and add in eggs. Stir in corn flakes and oatmeal.

Sift together and add flour, baking soda, salt, mace, cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves.

Stir in coconut, chocolate chips and nuts.

Drop batter by well rounded teaspoons onto greased cookie sheet. Bake 10 minutes at 350 degrees.

As you can see it is pretty much the same recipe he has modified around the edges. I'll post a picture when they start to come out of the oven.

* Z made them today. He decided that he needs to add at least one more egg next time.