Pumpkin Swirl Brownies

My most excellent place of employment recently went through an exercise to upgrade all of its employee workstations. I had forgotten about this until I noticed an appointment in my calendar for somebody from our IT department to come and take my old computer away and install a new one. What ensued was a mad scramble to rid my existing hard drive of anything and everything incriminating personal. I had a LOT of junk on there. But some of it wasn't junk, like this picture that I found of these Pumpkin Swirl Brownies that I made back in the fall and then completely forgot about.

So then I transfered the picture on to one of those little USB thingers, and forgot about THAT instead.

But yesterday, I was sitting in a meeting, and I remembered it! Can't remember the meeting very well though...

So here is the recipe. It was truly fabulous. These brownies were moist and rich and melt in your mouth (see no memory problems there!). I even remember where I got the recipe from: LCBO Food and Drink

One thing I really CANNOT remember, though, is how many of these little suckers I ate. So it must have been only one. Yeah. I'm sure it was only one!

Pumpking Swirl Brownies

Pumpkin Swirl
1 oz cream cheese, room temperature
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup mashed pumpkin
1 large egg
2 tbsp flour
1/4 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 tsp cinnamon

Brownie
6 oz bittersweet chocolate, chopped
3 tbsp butter
1/2 cup sugar
2 tsp vanilla extract
2 large eggs
1/2 cup pastry flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt

1. Preheat oven to 350F and grease an 8x8 inch square baking dish.

2. For pumpkin swirl, stir together the cream cheese and sugar. Add pumpkin and beat well. Blend in egg, pastry flour, vanilla and cinnamon. Set aside.

3. For brownies, place chocolate and butter in double boiler and stir until melted.

4. Remove from heat and stir in sugar, then vanilla, and then the eggs one at a time. Stir in flour, baking powder and salt.

5. Scrape half of batter into baking dish and spread evenly. Drop spoonfuls of pumpkin filling onto brownie batter and then drop remaining brownie batter around pumpkin. Swirl filling with tip of a knife and bake for about 30 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the center of the brownie comes out clean.

6. Cool at room temperature before slicing (makes 16 square or 20 smaller rectangular brownies).

Camping Chocolate Orange Cakes

This is not a great picture, because it was taken in the dark, but I just really wanted to share this recipe. It was great.

We were camping last weekend, and my daughter's 10th birthday fell on the Saturday so I made these campfire cakes for everyone. The cake was cooked inside an orange peel and it just gave such a yummy refreshing orange flavour to the cake. I served the cake with a little bit of whipped cream. It was also fun to scoop your cake out of the orange peel with a spoon. You could also make this in the oven at home, and I intend to try that sometime (it was too good to save only for camping).

Campfire Chocolate Orange Cakes

1 package Devil's Food Chocolate Cake mix (enough for a one layer cake)
egg, oil and water etc (whatever is needed to prepare the cake according to the directions
8 medium size navel oranges (thick skinned are best)
Tin Foil
Whipped Cream

1. Slice the top off of each orange and scoop out all the flesh (a grapefruit knife and grapefruit spoon worked well). Keep the lids matched up with their respective orange peels. Don't throw all that great orange flesh out. I saved it in a ziploc bag and made orange creamsicles for the kids when we got home.

2. Prepare the cake mix according to the package and spoon it into the orange peels. Don't fill them more than about 2/3 full. (Hint: Set the oranges in plastic cups so they stand up while you fill them, muffin tins would work too).

3. Replace the lid and wrap the orange in tinfoil.

4. Place on the barbeque for 25 minutes. You could also put the foil wrapped orange right in the coals of the campfire. This gives off a fabulous orange aroma.

5. Wait a few minutes for the cakes to become less scorching hot and top with whipped cream.

Hot Cross Bun Pudding

This is the dessert that I made for dinner at Easter. I know this is almost cruel, since it calls for Hot Cross Buns and you probably won't be able to find those in the grocery store to make this recipe until next spring. Yet, it is worth the wait, and I decided that I should post this now, before it gets buried in my alarmingly sizeable photo archive of unposted recipes.

I usually buy Hot Cross Buns for the kids as soon as I see them in the store each spring. They love to eat them split and toasted with a little butter for breakfast. Well at least LAST year, they loved them. Children, however, can be fickle (especially mine) and a favorite treat last year, can turn into one step up from fried liver this year.

So, I took my regular everyday Bread Pudding recipe with a few tweaks and made this delicious bread pudding with the surplus buns. We loved it so much (even the kids), that I ran back out to the grocery store and bought three more packages of Hot Cross Buns, so I will be able to make this six more times before next Easter!

Hot Cross Bun Pudding

4 Hot Cross Buns
2 eggs slightly beaten
⅓ cup sugar
¼ tsp salt
3 cups unsweetened almond milk

1. Cut buns into 1" cubes. Spray an 8" round cake pan with cooking spray and dump the cubes in.

2. Mix together the eggs, sugar, salt and almond milk (you can certainly use regular milk instead, I've discovered that I like almond milk in bread puddings because it adds nice flavour and it is thick like using whole milk without as many calories).

3. Pour the milk/egg mixture over the cubed buns and let it sit for about 30 minutes. Preheat your oven to 325F.

4. Bake for 1 hour. Serve warm with vanilla ice cream.

Old Fashioned Cake Doughnuts

Nothing beats homemade doughnuts. Well, that is nothing except for Muskoka Cookies, Peach Squares, Peanut Butter Chocolate Cake, Butter Tart Squares, Fresno Pudding, and Chocolate Banana Cake. Not my Haupia though, joking aside, please don't ever make my Haupia, make somebody else's Haupia.

(Note: I hope everyone CLICKED on all those links! That's why I put them there people! And I can check, you know - well I think I can, anyway, well maybe not... I mean I'm sure I could if I was at all technology savvy, but I should probably just stick to cooking.... and rambling, I'm good at that - the rambling that is.)

OK, so where was I? Doughnuts. Right.


So the doughnuts are yummy.

You can either douse them in cinnamon sugar or icing sugar. I always keep a spice bottle in my cupboard filled with cinnamon sugar that I make with 3 parts sugar to 1 part cinnamon (for anybody who might be fractionally challenged that means I would add 1 tablespoon of cinnamon to 3 tablespoons of sugar). This is great to have on hand to sprinkle on toast. I used the whole bottle on these doughnuts.

These are best served still warm.

Old-Fashioned Cake Doughnuts

1 cup sugar
4 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp nutmeg
2 eggs
1/4 cup butter, melted
1 cup milk
4 cups flour (plus a little more if dough is sticky)
oil for frying (lots)
Cinnamon Sugar (tons)

1. In a large bowl mix the sugar, baking powder, salt and nutmeg.

2. Add eggs, milk and melted butter. Beat well.

3. Add 3 cups of the flour, beating until blended. Add one more cup of flour and beat well. The dough should be soft and sticky but firm enough to handle. If you feel its necessary, add up to 1/2 cup more flour.

4. Cover with plastic wrap and chill for one hour (I once got a question from a reader as to whether when I said "chill" I meant in the refrigerator... um yes that's what I meant, but I can see how this could be confusing, I could have meant "Like OK, cover with plastic wrap, and then um like chill, ya know on the couch, for like an hour... like OK?")

5. After you're done chilling on the couch, remove your dough from the fridge and begin heating about 1" of oil to 360F in a large metal skillet. I actually don't have one of those fancy schmancy candy thermometres (hello Santa are you reading?)... somebody remember to ask me after Christmas how many candy thermometres I get...

6. Working half the dough at a time, roll it out on a floured surface to about 1/2" thickness. Cut out circles using a doughnut cutter. If you don't have a doughnut cutter (Santa?) then use a regular cookie cutter and cut out the hole with the screw cap off a 40oz bottle of Newfoundland Screech.

7. Decide that you are too cool for school and take a big swig of the Screech for no good reason. Once the burning subsides and you stop crying and sputtering, push the scraps of dough back together, re-roll and repeat steps 6 through 7 over and over until (a) all the dough is used up or (b) you pass out.*

8. Gently drop the doughnuts in batches into the hot oil. Flip them over as they puff and turn them a couple more times as they cook. They will take 3-4 minutes in total and they will be lovely and golden brown all over.

9. Remove from the oil and set them on paper towels (that removes all the fat, you know). Sprinkle generously with cinnamon sugar. Enjoy them hot, and eat at least four, you need some carbs in your belly to soak up all that Screech.


*Janet is Hungry will not be responsible for any mishap (foreseeable or unforeseeable) that may arise as a result of drinking alcohol in close proximity to a pan of hot oil.

Peanut Butter Chocolate Cake

This year for Claire's 9th birthday, I told her that I would bake her ANY kind of cake she could dream up... Claire is lucky she didn't ask for anything too complicated, it could have been a major flop.... but baking an "invented cake" was fun.

Claire was quite precise, she wanted a chocolate cake with peanut butter in the middle and chocolate on top and then crushed Oreo cookies on top of that.

I thought I could improve slightly on Claire's inspiration. I made a four layer cake with peanut butter cream cheese icing with a chocolate-peanut butter ganache and crushed Pirate cookies on top. (Note: Pirate cookies are a peanut butter cream filled cookie made by Christie... you can probably find an equivalent, if you can't find Pirate's).

This cake was "oh-my-god-good".


This post is really more about the filling and icings, than the cake itself... because I cheated and used a Duncan Hines Devil's Food chocolate cake mix as the base and concentrated on making the icing really good. You know icing is good when you purposefully decide the cake has enough when there's still a half cup in the bowl (which you cannot let go to waste). So you sneak out of the kitchen with the bowl and a rubber scraper and come back three minutes later and yell to the kids, "who wants to lick the bowl?". They come running over, and peer hopefully into the bowl in which you've managed to leave one or two small streaks of icing!!

I knew that for a family of four, we'd be eating this cake for a week if I made a whole one, so I cooked the cake mix in two 9x9 inch square pans. I froze one for later. That way I was able to make a four layer rectangular shaped cake that I could slice like a loaf of bread. The cake made 8 slices (4 each for two nights) and the pieces were frankly WAY too big (although strangely that didn't stop me from cutting the exact same size pieces the second night). The cake was so rich, I probably should have sliced it into 10 or even 12 pieces.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Cake

1 package chocolate cake mix (prepared according to package directions)
8 pirate cookies, (6 to crush in food processor for decorating, and 2 to eat)

Peanut Butter Cream Cheese Icing
10oz cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup butter, softened
5 cups icing sugar
1 cup smooth peanut butter

Chocolate Peanut Butter Ganache
4oz semi sweet chocolate, roughly chopped
2 tbsp smooth peanut butter
1 tbsp corn syrup
1/4 cup heavy cream

1. Make cake according to package directions in two 9x9 inch loaf pans. Let cool completely. Wrap and freeze one cake (otherwise, double the icing and ganache and make a whole cake - square or round).

2. Slice the remaining cake in half. And then slice each of the two rectangles into two layers, so that you have four rectangular shaped layers.

3. To make the icing, in a mixing bowl beat together the cream cheese and the butter until creamy. Add the icing sugar about 1 cup at a time, beating between each addition. Stir in the peanut butter. Taste. Sigh.

4. Place the first cake layer down on your chosen cake plate. Spread a layer of icing (Sorry, didn't measure how much I put between each layer), but make it about 1/4 inch thick, there's lots of icing, so you don't need to worry about running out. Repeat with the next layer, and then again with the third layer. Place the last layer on top and then frost the entire cake with the remaining icing. (Note: if you are lucky, you will have about 1/2 cup of icing left over - tee hee)

5. Chill the cake while you are making the ganache. Melt the semi-sweet chocolate in a double boiler and stir in the cream, peanut butter and corn syrup. Let cool a few minutes, but not too much, it should still be pourable.

6. Pour the ganache over the cake and spread slightly with an icing knife to encourage it to drip down over the sides a bit.

7. While the ganache is still wet, sprinkle the cake with crushed Pirate Cookies.

8. Chill until ready to serve.

Apple Ginger and Hazelnut Coffee Cake

This coffee cake was delicious. I was a little wary when I first read the recipe, there is so much ginger, I thought it might be overpowering. But it wasn't, it was perfect. I also found that this cake got better the next day. The first night, I served it warm with vanilla ice cream. The next day, it was still delicious and even more moist. (moist? moist? moister? that's a strange word anyway, if you ask me)...

I didn't think the kids would like this cake. There is just a little too much going on in terms of healthy stuff and alcohol, and not nearly enough going on in terms of candy or chocolate. But as usual I was wrong, and they really liked it. I brought the leftovers in to work, and they disappeared pretty quick.

Apple Ginger Hazelnut Coffee Cake
from LCBO Food and Drink

1/3 cup dried cherries (I used cherry flavoured dried cranberries)
1/3 cup dark rum
1/4 cup butter, softened
1 1/2 cups brown sugar, packed
1 egg
1 tbsp freshly grated ginger
2 1/3 cups flour
2 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
3 cups peeled and diced apples (2 large)
1 cup sour cream

Topping:
1/3 cup brown sugar
1 tsp ground ginger
1/2 cup toasted hazelnuts, coarsley chopped

1. Soak dried cherries in rum for at least 20 minutes.

2. Beat butter and brown sugar. Add egg and fresh ginger and blend until mixed.

3. Sift together the flour, 2 tsp ground ginger, baking soda, and salt. Stir into butter mixture. Stir in diced apple, cherries and rum, and sour cream. Mix until well incorporated.

4. Spread batter in a greased 9" x 13" pan.

5. Stir together topping ingredients and sprinkle over batter.

6. Bake for 40 minutes at 350F, or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean. Cool and cut into squares.

Almond Caramel Clusters

Yesterday was one of those lazy Sundays, and I was in a compulsive, "I have to bake something fattening, so I can torture myself by not eating any" sort of moods. I remembered seeing Giada make these a few weeks back on her show and they really appealed to me.

So, I whipped up a batch of Caramel Almond Clusters and they were easy to make. I think I will make more as part of my Christmas baking this year. I scaled the recipe slightly because I had enough mini-muffin tins to make 36 of them. I had a little extra chocolate left, so to use it up (without eating it all with a spoon) I just threw some almonds and dried cranberries into it, spread it on a plate and chilled it. Then I broke it into pieces and gave it to the kids.

Mario tried one of these Almond Caramel Clusters and he said they were delicious. Normally, when I make something "bad" like this, I bring it to work, but one of these days, I'm going to get fired for trying to sabotage everyone's health. So, I think I will bring them to my Dodgeball game tonight, and get my team-mates fat instead.


Almond Caramel Clusters
makes 36 caramels

1 cup toasted slivered almonds
36 Kraft caramels
10 oz semi-sweet chocolate
1/4 cup whipping cream

1. Spray mini-muffin tins with cooking spray.

2. Divide almonds between the muffin tins (about a tsp each).

3. Using a pair of sharp, clean scissors, snip each caramel square into four little squares (for easier melting). Place 4 little squares (1 caramel) in each muffin tin on top of the almonds.

4. Bake at 350F for 8 minutes until the caramel starts to melt.

5. Place in fridge to cool for several minutes. Remove caramels from muffin tins. You might have to use the edge of a knife to help pop them out.

6. In a double boiler over simmering water, melt chocolate. Whisk in the cream.

7. Dip each caramel into chocolate until coated. Place on parchment lined cookie sheet and chill until set (about 30 minutes). Store in airtight containter.

Apple Cheesecake Squares

It's that time of year when I start buying tons of apples, thinking I am going to make all kinds of goodies.... apple pie, apple crumble, apple dumplings... and I almost never do. But then I was watching Paula Deen on the Food Network ("Hey y'all") and I saw her make this recipe. I had everything in the house, so I literally jumped up from the couch and started baking.

Wow. Was this good. I decided to serve it with a maple cream sauce that I saw over on The Pioneerwoman Cooks. The sauce is wicked! I have a ton of sauce leftover, and I am planning on serving it on the weekend with French Toast. I think that will be heavenly.

The kids aren't huge fans of cheesecake, they find it "sour". So, after Mario and I sampled our piece, or two (or four) I brought the rest into work. I cut them smaller like cheesecake bars for work.


Apple Cheesecake Squares with Maple Cream Sauce

2 cups flour
1/2 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1 cup butter, softened
2 (8 oz) packages cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup sugar
2 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla
4 Granny Smith apples, peeled, cored and diced
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
2 tbsp sugar

Streusel Topping:
1 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1 cup flour
1/2 cup quick-cooking oats
1/2 cup butter, softened

Maple Cream Sauce:
1 1/2 cups heavy cream
5 tbsp maple syrup
3 tbsp light corn syrup

1. Make Maple Cream Sauce: Combine all ingredients in a heavy sauce pan. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly until thickened and reduced by about 1/3. (about 15 minutes). Chill.

2. For Cheesecake squares: In a medium bowl, combine flour and brown sugar. Cut in butter with a pastry blender until mixture is crumbly. Press evenly into a 13x9-inch baking pan.

3. Bake 15 minutes, or until lightly browned.

4. In a large bowl, beat cream cheese with an electric mixer at medium speed until smooth. Beat in 1/2 cup sugar, eggs, and vanilla until smooth. Pour over warm crust.

5. In a small bowl, stir together chopped apples, 2 tablespoons sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Spoon evenly over cream cheese mixture.

6. To make Streusel Topping, cut together the flour, brown sugar and butter, stir in oats until all crumbly. Sprinkle evenly over apples. Bake 30 minutes at 350F or until filling is set.

5. Drizzle with Maple Cream Sauce.

Fresno Pudding

I was flipping through my recipe file at home on the weekend looking for an old favorite that I could make. This is not my "to try" file, this is the file that contains all my tried and true family favorites. A recipe has to be REALLY good to find its way into my recipe file. I discovered that there aren't too many of them left that I haven't already made and posted about.

Then I saw my recipe for Fresno Pudding. I was a little startled to realize that I haven't posted this yet. This is a recipe that I got from my Mom. My entire family loves this. The cake bakes in the sauce and it comes out juicy and delicious. It is tasty enough to serve for guests, but simple enough that you will always have the ingredients on hand.


Fresno Pudding

1 cup flour
2/3 cup sugar
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 cup raisins
1/2 cup milk
2 cups water
1 cup brown sugar, packed
2 tbsp butter

1. Mix flour, white sugar, baking powder, salt and raisins.

2. Stir in 1/2 cup milk, just until batter is moistened. Spread batter in a greased 9" x 9" square baking dish.

3. In microwave, heat 2 cups water, 1 cup brown sugar and 2 tbsp butter. Stir and pour gently over batter.

4. Bake at 350F for 35 to 40 minutes. When it comes out of the oven, the cake is floating on the sauce. Cut and serve the cake then spoon some sauce over top. Serve warm.

Stuffed Peaches with Mascarpone Cream

I was watching the Food Network the other evening and Giada DeLaurentiis made a recipe eerily similar to this one (with a few differences). I watched slack-jawed as she made this recipe.... OH (gasp) MA (trying to breath) GAWD (feeling lightheaded).... Giada has been READING MY BLOG!!!

Tears of joy are streaming down my face, I've done it! I've hit the BIG TIME!! There's violin music inside my head...I'm picturing guest spots on "Everyday Italian"... me and Giada, arm and arm enjoying our "Weekend Getaways", laughing and giving each other "air kisses"..... then Mario says "oh, I didn't think you'd posted that recipe yet".

And I came crashing back down to earth. This post was still sitting in my draft folder, unpublished and definitely NOT providing inspiration to Giada.

But I still do just want to say, for the record... honest... I promise, I made this recipe BEFORE I saw it on "Everyday Italian". I swear.


Stuffed Peaches with Mascarpone Cream
from Mediterranean Food of the Sun, Jacqueline Clark and Joanna Farrow

4 large peaches
1.5oz amaretti biscuits, crumbled
2 tbsp ground almonds
3 tbsp sugar
1 tsp cocoa powder
2/3 cup sweet white wine
2 tbsp butter

For Mascarpone Cream:
2 tbsp sugar
3 egg yolks
1 tbsp sweet white wine
1 cup mascarpone cheese
2/3 cup heavy cream

1. Wash peaches and cut in half. Remove pits and some of the flesh to make a space for stuffing (leave about 1/2" thick shell). Roughly chop the peach flesh that was removed.

2. Mix together the amaretti biscuits, almonds, sugar, cocoa and chopped peach flesh. Add enough wine to make the mixture into a thick paste.

3. Place peach halves in a greased casserole dish and fill with the stuffing. Dot with butter and pour the remaining wine into the baking dish.

4. Bake for 35 minutes at 400F.

5. Meanwhile, make mascarpone cream. Beat the sugar and egg yolks until thick and pale. Stir in the wine and fold in the mascarpone.

6. Whip the cream until soft peaks form and fold cream into the mascarpone mixture.

7. Remove peaches from oven and allow to cool slightly. Serve with mascarpone cream.

Chocolate Sheet Cake

First of all, I just wanted to say... if you look closely at the picture you can see a fuzzy little hair on top of the icing on the right hand side of the cake. Well, we did NOT serve cake with fuzz on it, that is dust on your computer monitor... so go ahead and brush it off.... (right now as you are reading this, my Mom is sitting in her kitchen reading this post on her laptop, and she's trying to brush the dust off her monitor. Aren't you Mom?)

This cake was Mario's contribution to the dinner party that we had a few weekends ago. It is taking me a while to get all the posts together, but in my defense, as the evening wore on and the wine was flowing more freely, my pictures started to get a little blurry. At the time I thought it was just my eyes that had lost focus not the camera. But unfortunately most of my pictures look exactly like they were taken by a slightly off-kilter tipsy person....so I need to 're-make' a few of the recipes to get better pictures.

Mario spent forever choosing his recipe for the party, at which all the men did the cooking. I think he wanted to impress everyone... you know show everyone that I am not the only one in our family who can cook. And he's right, he is a good cook, and he likes to cook. If I wasn't around, I am very confident that our children would continue to eat well. Perhaps a lot of the same things over and over, but they would be home cooked and healthy.

First Mario was going to try Crepes Suzette because he really wanted to "Flambee" something. Eventually I vetoed that, because I was having nightmares involving 18 drunk people and open flames...

So what I did was point Mario in the direction of one of my favorite food blogs. I sat him down in front of the computer and pulled up the blog. I told him he could make anything from that blog and it would be guaranteed to turn out good. The blog was....The Pioneer Woman Cooks. I love this blog for two reasons. First, it is piss your pants funny; second, the recipes are wicked; and third, (OK 3 reasons) the photography is impressive. I have tried several recipes from this site - check out the Olive Cheese Bread, and I've never been disappointed. I also thought it was good for Mario since there aren't hundreds of recipes on there, so it wouldn't be overwhelming for him to choose.

Mario picked the Chocolate Sheet Cake. It was a perfect choice, and it made enough to give a generous slice to all 18 guests with a few pieces leftover (we cut the cake into 20 pieces). The cake was delicious, it was moist and perfect (with all that butter, it better be!)

Chocolate Sheet Cake
from The Pioneer Woman Cooks

2 cups flour
2 cups sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 sticks (1 cup) butter
4 heaping tbsp cocoa
1 cup boiling water
1/2 cup buttermilk
2 eggs, beaten
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp vanilla

Icing:
1/2 cup finely chopped pecans
1 3/4 sticks butter (1 cup minus 2 tbsp)
4 heaping tbsp cocoa
6 tbsp milk
1 tsp vanilla
1 lb minus 1/2 cup powdered sugar

1. In a mixing bowl, combine the flour, sugar and salt.


2. In a saucepan melt, 1 cup of butter, add cocoa, and water. Let mixture boil for 30 seconds, then turn off heat.

3. Pour chocolate mixture over flour mixture and stir lightly.

4. In a measuring cup, mix buttermilk, baking soda, eggs and vanilla. Stir buttermilk mixture into cake batter. Pour into sheet pan (use a large cookie sheet with a rim or a jelly roll pan. Mario used a cookie sheet that is about 11" x 17").

5. Bake at 350F for about 20 minutes.

6. While cake is baking, make icing. Melt 1 3/4 sticks of butter (equals 1 cup less 2 tbsp) in a saucepan. Add cocoa and stir to combine. Turn off heat.

7. Add milk, vanilla, and icing sugar. Add pecans and stir together. Pour over warm cake. Use a spatula to spread out to the edges, if necessary.

8. Cut into squares and serve.

Apple Caramel Dip

The best part of having a party and getting everyone to bring food, is the potential to discover great new recipes. Our friend, Al made this dessert for our potluck dinner, and it is a recipe that I can't wait to make again. It was so simple, yet just delicious. My Mom would call this one "more-ish" because you can't eat just one apple slice and stop.

We had quite a bit leftover after the dinner party, and Claire and Marco went crazy for it. I had trouble getting them to stop eating (I guess they thought it was "more-ish" too). I was trying to keep an eye on them to make sure they didn't make themselves sick. They could obviously sense that any second I was going to cut them off and take it away, so they were cramming the apples slices in as fast as they could (see how I encourage healthy eating habits?).


Apple Caramel Dip

1 pkg (8oz) cream cheese
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 container caramel (usually found in the produce section)
1 pkg skor bits
Granny Smith apples, sliced

1. Beat the cream cheese with brown sugar until smooth. Spread thinly onto large serving plate.

2. Heat the caramel slightly (about 15 second in microwave) to make spreadable. Spread on top of cream cheese.

3. Sprinkle the package of Skor bits all over the top. Serve with sliced Granny Smith apples for dipping.

Milk Chocolate and Caramel Tart

I think I should have titled this post "initiation by fire". I recently joined the Daring Bakers. Many of you have heard of them, but for those who haven't, it is a group of food bloggers (about 60 strong) who each month prepare the exact same recipe and post about it on their blogs, all on the same day. Here is the Daring Baker Blogroll.

I have always enjoyed the day the Daring Bakers posts went up. I would read all those blogs and marvel over how the exact same recipe could produce such varying results. Admitedly, I would sometimes snicker to myself in a very smug and superior way when I saw a result that turned out far less favorably than some of the other stellar creations. Well, I humbly beg the forgiveness of each and every Daring Baker that I ever snickered at.

This tart kicked my ass! To make it worse, most of the other Daring Bakers seemed to consider this one of the easier challenges. I have to say, I'm already nervous about next month's challenge.

I had quite a bit of trouble with this tart. First, the crust. It was crumbly and very hard to roll out. I had to patchwork it together in the pan. Then, the caramel. I caremelized my sugar just fine, then "la-da-da-da, I'm doing great, I rock, this is so easy..." I pour the cream in.... "holy.... what the....?!?!". Everything seized up instantly. Took me forever to get it all melted again. Then it didn't set properly.

Then there was the mousse, and this layer was my own fault, I should have known better. I whipped the cream to perfection, and melted my chocolate. Then added it to the cream... and the cream all deflated. I should have cooled the chocolate first. I knew that, but the recipe DIDN'T SAY SO, and I was just so determined to follow the recipe to the letter.

I served this tart to guests. The good news is, it tasted really good. The bad news, I had to kind of slop it onto peoples plates and it looked nothing like a piece of a pie. Note: I froze the leftovers and cut a frozen slice, just to get a decent picture, but most of the caramel had already run out.

I am honestly dreading all the other Daring Baker posts today, I'm sure everyone else's challenge turned out perfectly.


Milk Chocolate and Caramel Tart

Preparation time: 40 minutes
Baking Time: 30 minutes
Refrigeration time: 1 hour
One 9-inch(24-cm) square pan; 1 10-inch (26-cm) round baking pan

Ingredients:
½ lb (250 g) chocolate shortbread pastry (see recipe below)
1 ½ cups (300 g) granulated sugar
1 cup (250 g) heavy cream (30-40 percent butterfat) or crème fraiche
¼ cup (50 g) butter
2 whole eggs
1 egg yolk
2 ½ tablespoons (15 g) flour
1 ¼ cups (300 g) whipping cream
½ lb (250 g) milk chocolate

1. Preheat oven to 325 °F (160 °C).

2. Line the baking pan with the chocolate shortbread pastry and bake blind for 15 minutes.

3. In a saucepan, caramelize 1 cup (200 g) granulated sugar using the dry method until it turns a golden caramel color. Incorporate the heavy cream or crème fraiche and then add butter. Mix thoroughly. Set aside to cool.

4. In a mixing bowl, beat the whole eggs with the extra egg yolk, then incorporate the flour.

5. Pour this into the cream-caramel mixture and mix thoroughly.

6. Spread it out in the tart shell and bake for 15 minutes. Remove from oven and allow to cool.

7. Prepare the milk chocolate mousse: beat the whipping cream until stiff. Melt the milk chocolate in the microwave or in a bain-marie, and fold it gently into the whipped cream.

8. Pour the chocolate mousse over the cooled caramel mixture, smoothing it with a spatula. Chill for one hour in the refrigerator.

To decorate: melt ½ cup (100g) granulated sugar in a saucepan until it reaches an amber color. Pour it onto waxed paper laid out on a flat surface. Leave to cool. Break it into small fragments and stick them lightly into the top of the tart.

Chocolate Shortbread Pastry

Preparation time: 10 minutes
Refrigeration :overnight
To make 3 tarts, 9 ½ inches (24 cm) square
or 10 inches (26 cm round)

Ingredients:
1 cup (250g ) unsalted butter, softened
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons (150 g) confectioners’ sugar
½ cup (50 g) ground hazelnuts
2 level teaspoons (5 g) ground cinnamon
2 eggs
4 ½ cups (400 g) cake flour
2 ½ teaspoons (10 g) baking powder
1 ½ tablespoons (10 g) cocoa powder

A day ahead:

1. In a mixing bowl of a food processor, cream the butter.

2. Add the confectioners’ sugar, the ground hazelnuts, and the cinnamon, and mix together

3. Add the eggs, one by one, mixing constantly

4. Sift in the flour, the baking powder, and the cocoa powder, and mix well.

5. Form a ball with the dough, cover in plastic wrap, and chill overnight.

Chocolate Mocha Mousse Filled Cupcakes

As promised yesterday, here are the cupcakes that I made for myself for my birthday. Believe it or not, I didn't try one. Yeah, I know, I am a bit neurotic... Mario goes out and I dive into the peanut butter with a spoon (because if no ones sees you eat it, the calories don't count, right? Sort of like, if a tree falls down in the forest and there was no one there to hear it, was it fattening?). But then I deprive myself of a cupcake on my birthday. Go figure. I'm blaming it on my Mom, because she's skinnier than me.

It's OK though, all is not lost. Mario and the kids are going out without me tonight, and there are still two left!! (he he he)

Anyway, according to all my many cupcake tasters, these ones were VERY VERY good. So why don't you whip yourself up a batch, and then go hide in the closet and eat them all!


I got this recipe from Chef Jules over at Gourmet a Go Go.

Chocolate Mocha Mousse Filled Cupcakes

1 1/2 cups flour
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
2 eggs
1 3/4 cups sugar
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 tsp vanilla
1 1/4 cups strong brewed coffee, cooled

Filling:
1/3 cup semisweet chocolate chips
1 tbsp strong brewed coffee
3/4 cup heavy cream
1 tbsp icing sugar

Glaze:
2/3 cup heavy cream
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

1. Preheat oven to 350F and line or grease two 12 cup muffin tins.

2. Sift together the flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt. In another bowl beat together the eggs, sugar, oil and vanilla until creamy. Add flour mixture to wet ingredients beating just until incorporated. Mix in coffee until smooth (don't overmix).

3. Fill 18 of the muffin tins with batter. Bake at 350F for 22-24 minutes, until tester comes out clean. Let cupcakes cool completely on racks.

4. For filling: combine chocolate chips and coffee in a double boiler. Stir until melted. Let cool slightly.

5. In a large bowl, whip the cream until soft peaks form. Beat in the melted chocolate just until incorporated.

6. Cut a 3/4" cone out of the bottom of a cupcake. (note: I did this for the first few, and then for the rest, I cut the cone from the top. It will be covered with icing anyway). Cut the tip off the cone and discard (i.e. make you husband eat them all).

7. Fill each cupcake with filling and replace the reserved cones. Chill.

8. Make Glaze: In a double boiler heat cream until just starting to simmer. Add chocolate chips and stir until melted. Dip each cupcake into the chocolate. Chill until ready to serve.

Walnut and Ricotta Cake

Well I am back from camping and my week away from the computer (it was hell), I think I may be obsessed with checking my comments and my blog traffic. So, I'm back, and I'm never leaving again, I promise!!

As today is my birthday, I thought I would post a cake recipe. This isn't a traditional birthday cake, but it is a favorite of mine. It is light and moist and just yummy perfection. I actually made this cake a week or so ago for our wedding anniversary. I will make some other sort of cake today, for my birthday.

We are on holidays this week and I was looking forward to sleeping in this morning, but Marco woke me up at 6am to tell me it is my birthday, he was beside himself with excitement. I think it is because of the present he picked out for me.

Mario took the kids shopping yesterday and let them each pick out presents for me (translation, I am getting some gaudy unwearable piece of costume jewelry that I will have to pretend to love and wear everyday for the next month). I will let you all know tomorrow what my presents were.


Walnut and Ricotta Cake
from "Mediterranean Food of the Sun" by Jacqueline Clark and Joanna Farrow

1 cup walnut pieces
2/3 cup unsalted butter, softened
2/3 cup sugar
5 eggs, separated
finely grated rind of 1 orange
2/3 cup ricotta cheese
6 tbsp flour

To finish:
4 tbsp apricot jam
2 tbsp brandy
2oz bitter or semi-sweet chocolate, grated.

1. Preheat the oven to 375F. Grease and line the bottom of a 9" springform pan.

2. Roughly chop and toast the walnuts (I toast in a dry frying pan over medium heat for just a few minuted until the nuts start to brown slightly).

3. Cream together the butter and 1/2 cup of the sugar until light and fluffy. Add the egg yolks, orange rind, ricotta cheese, flour and walnuts. Mix together.

4. Whisk the egg whites in a large bowl until stiff. Gradually whisk in the remaining sugar. Using a large metal spoon, fold a quarter of the egg whites into the ricotta mixture, then fold in the rest.

5. Turn the mixture into the prepared springform pan and bake for about 30 minutes until risen and firm. Leave the cake to cool in the pan.

6. Transfer the cake to a serving plate and heat the apricot jam in a small saucepan with 1 tbsp water. Press through a sieve and stir in the brandy. Coat the top and sides of the cake with the brandy mixture. Decorate generously with chocolate shavings.

Fruit Skewers

Here is another great little recipe that is not really a recipe. This is a nice alternative to fruit salad, especially if you are bringing this to a party and you don't want to have to supply everyone with a bowl and spoon. I also like to serve this alongside a regular dessert when I am having a dinner party for people who might prefer a healthier option. Claire and Marco also enjoy the novelty of eating the fruit off of the skewers.

I had a dinner party here a few weekends ago and I made two types of brownies, and I meant to make a tray of these fruit skewers, but I completely forgot. I do this often when I have dinner parties, there is just too much going on all at once. One time I had people over and I was serving Prime Rib and Yorkshire pudding. We were all done dinner and doing the dishes, when I found the yorkshire pudding still in the oven. Another time, I left the carrots sitting in the steamer. I am also pretty famous for leaving burners on and forgeting to turn the stove off.

Fresh Fruit Skewers

8 inch bamboo skewers
Fresh fruit (whatever is in season)
1 lemon

1. Cut fruit into bite size chunks and thread onto skewers.

2. Drizzle fruit skewers with fresh lemon juice to prevent fruit from turning brown.