Archive for the ‘Desserts’ Category

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Saturday, February 20th, 2010

I chatted with a coworker who follows a strict gluten free diet about what kind of cookies to make for my brother’s birthday, and he recommended flourless peanut butter cookies. The idea intrigued me.  After all, the best gluten free recipes are those that are naturally so, not those that have all sorts of gluten substitutes in them. Food Blog Search helped me find this recipe, which not only matched the ingredients I had on hand, but also addressed the many doubts I had about making cookies without flour.

Mad props to Joy the Baker. The cookies were AMAZING! Don’t believe me? See the text my I got from my brother just a couple days later:

Do you even need to read the rest of it?

Do you even need to read the rest of it?

I must confess that I did get lazy. On two counts. So my recipe is a little different than the original, though I cannot claim that mine were better.

Ingredients:

  • 1 cup peanut butter
  • 1 cup sugar (I skimped on the brown sugar; it’s true)
  • 1 egg
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda

Procedures:

Cream all ingredients together.  Place by rounded teaspoons onto greased baking sheet.  Use your thumb to press the cookie down a bit in the middle.  (I just wasn’t going to worry about dirty-ing forks for a silly little criss-cross pattern.)  Bake for 10-ish minutes.  Let cool on baking sheet for a bit, then transfer to wire racks.

Photo by Nathan Clendenin

Photo by Nathan Clendenin

Do you really miss the criss-cross pattern?

Posted in Cookies, Desserts, Gluten Free, Recipes | 1 Comment »

Pink Peppermint Pie – A story of unrequited love

Saturday, February 13th, 2010

I made a beautiful pie for Valentine’s Day. In order to make it, I scraped the cream off half a box of Oreos, whipped up cream by hand (this took a loooong time), and invented my own recipe for chocolate drizzle. It turned out splendidly – a work of art that made me proud. I’m sorry to say it didn’t receive the love I hoped it would.

See, I made this pie for a party. And this party had a ton of sweets. Everyone was handed a little molten chocolate cake (which tasted awesome, by the way) at the beginning of the party. After molten chocolate cake, how could anyone have room for peppermint pie? Sadly, only two or three pieces of my pie got eaten. It was disappointing to see my beautiful pie cut up and melting (it needs to be refrigerated) and not even being eaten.  This may seem silly, but it really was an unfortunate situation.

Pink Peppermint Pie

Pink Peppermint Pie

Anyway, the recipe is awesome, and I hope your experience with this pie will be better fated than mine. I found this recipe in Betty Crocker (the copy from the 70’s that my parents gave me for my 15th birthday). Here it is:

  • Oreo crust (I made my own)
  • 24 large marshmallows
  • 1/2 c milk
  • 1 t vanilla
  • 1/8 t salt
  • 6 drops peppermint extract
  • 6 drops red food color
  • 1 c chilled whipping cream
  • 2 T crushed peppermint candy

Bake pie crust.  Heat marshmallows and milk in saucepan over low heat, stirring constantly, just until marshmallows are melted.  Remove from heat; stir in vanilla, salt, peppermint extract, and food color.  Refrigerate, stirring occasionally, until mixture mounds slightly when dropped from a spoon.

Beat whipping cream in chilled bowl until stiff.  Stir marshmallow mixture until blended; fold into whipping cream.  Pour into crust.  Refrigerate at least 12 hours.

In order to decorate this, I melted chocolate chips (about 1/3 cup) with shortening (about a tablespoon) in a saucepan. I dipped a heart-shaped cookie cutter in the melted chocolate, then made heart-shaped impressions on the pie. Then I used the cookie cutter again to sprinkle peppermint candy inside the hearts. I had so much melted chocolate left over, I covered the whole edge of the crust too.

Posted in Desserts, Recipes | 1 Comment »

Fancy Pies

Monday, January 11th, 2010

Hi, I’m Valerie, and this is my first post here.  Jenny gave me an account here, so I thought I’d take advantage of it.

This year I made pies for our family’s Thanksgiving dinner.  I love making pastry, so I was super excited!  I decided to make two pecan pies, an apple pie, and a pumpkin pie.  The pumpkin pie was the classic recipe from Libby’s.  I love that recipe – it really doesn’t need any improvements.

I’ve never been a big fan of pecan pie, because it’s usually overwhelmingly sweet.  That’s why I was so glad to find this recipe, which uses less sugar.  Instead of drowning the flavor in syrupy sweetness, it uses molasses to give a rich, warm taste to compliment the pecans.  All of my aunts and uncles loved it.

I gave these pies a twisted fluting pattern.

The apple pie was also a fancier variation called Grandma Ople’s Apple Pie.  First I put the pie together, covering it with a woven lattice crust on top.  The exciting part was this caramel topping that I cooked over the stove, then poured over the whole top of the crust so it soaked down into the apples.  The pie ended up with this wonderful crispy top.

Beautiful lattice top crust with a caramel layer.

Posted in Desserts | 1 Comment »

Not your grandma’s pumpkin pie

Tuesday, November 24th, 2009

I like cutting corners, but only to the degree that I can get away with it. Trust me when I say that these mini pumpkin pies are *so* worth the extra effort.

not your grandma's pumpkin pie

Photo by Nathan Clendenin

Crust:

2 1/2 c. flour
1/2 c. brown sugar
1 T. molasses
2 t. ground ginger
1 t. cinnamon
1 c. salted butter (cut into 1 cm cubes, very cold)
1/4 c. water (more, if necessary)

Mix first five ingredients together. I like to use a pastry cutter to really work in the molasses. Then, cut the butter into the flour mixture until shaggy. (I never understood that term until I started working on this recipe. Trust me when I say that you will too.) Slowly add the water and work the dough until moist and doughy throughout. Refrigerate dough for at least 3 hours.

Filling:

1 pkg. cream cheese
2/3 c. brown sugar
1/2 c. sweetened condensed milk
2 eggs
1 can pureed pumpkin
1 t. ground cinnamon
1/2 t. ground ginger
dash of ground cloves

With electric mixer, mix thoroughly cream cheese and brown sugar. Stir in condensed milk, eggs, and pureed pumpkin. Finally, mix in cinnamon, ginger, and cloves.

Putting it together:

Adding flour if necessary, push a tablespoon of dough into each muffin cup and up the sides. It’s important to make sure there are no holes in the mini pie crust. Spoon filling into crusts until full. Bake in a preheated oven at 350 degrees for approximately 40 minutes. You want the filling to be nice and puffy and the crust to be golden brown.

Posted in Comfort Food, Desserts, Recipes | No Comments »