Latenight Key Lime Pie

A friend and I had a movie marathon last night, and about 2130 I had a sudden craving for Key Lime Pie. Well, Brigid at Home on the Range posted a blog awhile back that had an old-fashioned Key Lime and the idea stuck in my head. Last night I saw the graham crackers in my cabinet, my mind clicked, and thus a Key Lime Pie was born.

I didn't actually have a glass pie pan, so I had to go to the store, and on a whim also grabbed a couple more cans of milk. (I also ended up being suckered into making apple fritters for an old friend sometime in the next week, but that's another story) My friend made the graham cracker crust, and I went to work on the filling. I followed the Nelly and Joe's recipe, because you don't go screwing around with a good thing.

I ended up having to double the filling. Not sure why, but I put the filling in the shell and went "That looks odd. And really, really.... low". Since I doubled it, I added a couple extra minutes to the cooking time, and it worked out beautifully. I had some heavy cream left over from the vanilla cupcakes, so I made my own shipped cream instead of using cool whip or doing a meringue (not to mention I forgot and dumped the egg whites down the drain).

Open mouth, insert Fritter

I had an insane sweet tooth craving last night. I really wanted donuts, but I don't have a deep fryer and all the recipes I found for baked donuts just sounded... Blah. Thought about beignets, but again no deep fryer. I finally found a recipe for fritters and went a-ha!

I diced up a cameo apple I had in the fridge, whipped together the fritters (I added both cinnamon and a dash of nutmeg). I didn't have any powdered sugar, but I made a light glaze with apple cider and sugar. I had a one (or two) while they were still hot and saved the rest for breakfast this morning. They were amazing both ways!

The names Cake... Chocolate Cake.

A friends birthday was on Sunday, and somehow me making a cake was brought into play. I had a half flat of strawberries left over from Jam-a-Thon, so adding those somehow was for sure in the cards. My first offering was a white cream cake (which I'll still probably make this week sometime), but we settled on a dark chocolate cake with chocolate frosting and strawberry filling.

I found recipes for both the cake and frosting pretty fast, but had a much tougher time finding a good recipe for the filling. I had in my head exactly what I wanted and I just couldn't find it. I wanted a clear glaze to spread over sliced berries, but found this recipe and decided to settle for it (*note, I used the second recipe*).

I ended up baking it at my wonderful sister's place and it went pretty well. I made both the filling and butter cream before hand because I wanted to make sure that both set right. It's a good thing I did, because the filling set like crap (half because the directions are crap and half because I was too impatient to go "wait, that doesn't look right"). If you do finding yourself using this recipe, be sure to cook the mixture AFTER you add the corn starch and sugar. Some people may find that a 'duh' thing. I didn't. And I ended up having to re-heat a fairly cold mixture to try and get it to gel at all. The butter cream turned out perfect (I made a half-portion extra since I wasn't doing a sheet cake). The taste was spot on, although I think I would have liked a richer chocolate color.

The cake was very simple and cooked great. We let it cool, then slice each layer in half (the more filling the better I say). I used a piping bag with a large round tip to ring the edges of each layer so the filling didn't squeeze out. I then added the slice berries and topped it with the jam-like filling (place on next layer and repeat).

The cake turned out beautiful!

World's Best Breadsticks

Ryan the 3L (of TSLRF fame and whom I've known since I was knee high to a duck) came into town to visit family and crashed at my place this weekend. As far as I'm concerned any excuse to cook is a good excuse to cook, and old friends are one of the best excuses. We did a ton of stuff and I'm sure I'll do a couple posts about it, but I think the best of the cooking was a new recipe I found for bread sticks.

The dough was pretty simple (compared to double-rise bread dough anyway) and they only had to rise for 15 minutes (more if you had more time). Even with proofing the yeast, you can make these in 30-35 minutes no problem. Once they came out of the oven, I brushed them with garlic salt and Italian herb mix and they were just awesome.

One trick I have learned is placing a small oven safe pan with water into the oven as soon as you start to preheat, and keeping it in clear through your cooking. This technique is used with baguettes generally, and gives the bread sticks a nice crisp crust without drying out the middle.


1 cup warm water (between 110-115 degrees)
3 tablespoons brown sugar
2.5 teaspoons of yeast
1/4 cup oil
1 teaspoon salt
3 cups of bread flour

Mix brown sugar and warm water until sugar is dissolved, add yeast and allow to proof at least 5 minutes or until foamy (I like to say it should look like the foam on a latte). Add salt and oil and mix in flour, adding 1 cup at a time. Roll out on floured surface until it's about 10x12. Using a sharp knife or pizza cutter, cut into approx. 3/4 inch strips (I like them about 5-6 inches long, but it's personal preference). Give each stick a twist and place on a baking sheet to rise in a warm place for at least 15 minutes.

Preheat oven to 375 while dough is rising, for crispy crust place half-full oven safe pan unto oven rock below or even with where bread sticks will bake.

Once bread sticks have risen (15-25 minutes) place in oven for 10-12 minutes. When done, remove from oven and baste with melted butter. Sprinkle sticks liberally with garlic salt and your choice of Italian herbs. Serve hot with your choice of dipping sauce!

Apple Pie Bread

My mother can bake pies like no other person I know. She doesn't do it nearly so often anymore, mostly just for holidays, but the fact still stands. Not only does she make the pie crust from scratch (which perpetually amazes me), but her pies seem to have a depth of flavor to them that I've just never been able to find anywhere else. Pecan Fudge Pie, Pumpkin Pie, Apple Pie, you name it. Maybe it's just because they're my Mamas but yeah, I'm partial to them.

My (by far) favorite of her pies is her Apple Pie. She makes a Amish-style apple pie, which if you don't know basically means you add a sort of crumble to the top instead of regular pie crust. Until I was about 10 I didn't know most families made pie with a crust on top. I still see crust on an apple pie as a sort of abomination, it just doesn't seem right.

Saturday at the Market I picked up some beautiful Jazz Apples mostly just for the boy to munch on. But turns out he's not a fan, so they've basically been sitting on my counter taking up space. Last night I had the baking bug (and I needed bread so, yeah) but none of the recipes I've had floating around in my head sounded good. I was really craving something savory sweet, but not super rich.

I ended up kicking around the thought of Apple Pie Bread (after all, I had apples) and went for it. I diced the apples, gave them a hot cider bath for a bit so they didn't toughen up in the oven and prepped my Wifey bread. After the first rise, I folded in the apples by doing my fold and flatten method. Next time I think I'm going to also add a sprinkle of cinnamon to each fold. I like swirls, but this recipe is pretty 'rough' and a swirl seemed so... uniform.

After the second rise, I added a chilled crumble mixture (sugar, butter, flour and cinnamon) and tossed them in the oven for the regular 30 mins. The finished result smelled exactly like Apple Pie, the steam wafting off of them was heavenly. This morning, I cut pieces for the Boy and I for breakfast and it was just amazing. Light and moist, with wonderful little pockets of apple happiness. This recipe is sticking around for sure.

Margarita Scones

One of the recipes I'd been bouncing to Lila and Gracie the last few days were scones that we're quickly dubbed "margarita scones". I'm very picky about what I eat for breakfast. I want a full breakfast (bacon, biscuits, gravy, eggs, bacon, pancakes and bacon), or I want something super light like yogurt. If I eat one of those over-sized muffins or something, I feel like I have a brick in my stomach until after lunchtime.

I really love the combo of salt, sweet and citrus that comes from a lime margarita. It just tastes so clean and refreshing. So I decided to duplicate the taste in baked goods form. I made my basic sweet scone recipe, and added finely grated lime zest to the dry mixture. I cut them into biscuit sized rounds instead of wedges, and baked them just like normal. I let them cool completly, then dipped in a lime royal icing and topped with rough sugar to duplicate the margarita texture.


I'm very pleased with how they came out, and they've given me a ton more ideas for scones! I love scones because they are so easy (a little labor intensive compared to say, cereal) and worth every single bite!

(no Tequila was intentionally harmed in the scone making process)

Cooking with food storage

So at our "Survivor" night at church, we learned that you can substitute beans for oil in any baking recipe. You use black beans in chocolate recipes, pinto beans in chocolate chip cookies, white beans for white or yellow cake mixes. Just match the color of the beans to the color of the baked goods you are making. If the SHTF, cooking oil is going to be scarce as it doesn't store well. I bought a case of canned butter that has a 15 yr shelf life, but it is kind of expensive to use in baking. We will save that for special occasions where butter will make the difference in a dish. Beans are a staple in any food storage so they would be plentiful. Who says you can't eat yummy things with food storage? You cannot taste the difference in the cakes or cookies AT ALL. These cookies turned out "cake like" ie: puffy. If you like your cookies more like, well, cookies; use half beans and half oil. Same goes for brownies. Experiment and have fun.

Any Good Recipes?

So, by some insane fluke I managed to get a "tasting" (aka interview) for a local coffee shop to make their pastries and breakfast stuffs. I have some things floating around my head (I've seriously been driving Lila and Gracie insane because I won't shut up about recipes) but I really really want to try out as many things as I can!

Anyone have any tried and true or interesting recipes they'd like to share?

The Wonder of Wifey Bread

I am so thankful for TOR's Wifey. She sent me an amazing bread recipe quite a while back, and it's so easy and amazing I haven't bought any store bread since. I did have one epic bread making fail, but I was on the phone with a friend and spaced and added 1.5 tablespoons of salt instead of teaspoons. It looked alright, but tasted like a salt lick. (That had nothing to do with the recipe, it had to do with my tendency to be easily distracted by things that make noise or have shiny parts. Unfortunately for my bread dough, my phone is both of those things.)

The only issue with the recipe is that it makes two loafs. The Boy and I just can't go through bread that fast. Wifey came up with the ingenious idea to make the second portion into dinner rolls, but I decided Monday night to get a bit tricky. I was making dough anyway, but I had nothing to do with the extra. I called my mom who makes amazing caramel rolls (I'll snag her recipe and post it sooner or later) and asked it I could use the spare dough for those. She said no, but promised to call me with her recipe (she didn't).

So now I'm stuck with extra dough, and a evil craving for caramel rolls. I finally decided to get a bit creative and hopefully fix both problems. Instead of just kneading the bread between the 1st and 2nd rise, I rolled it out a bit (okay I lied, I just mushed it into a rectangle-ish shape) and grabbed my ground cinnamon. I spread a thin layer over the dough, the halved it unto itself. I repeated this a bunch of times (and after the first loaf, I figured out to alternate the direction I folded from to make the pattern more uniform).

I also put a light coating of brown sugar and butter on top of the loaf as it was cooking (I suggest about 1/2 way through, to really satisfy my craving for caramel rolls. If you like a very sweet bread, you can also use a cinnamon/sugar mix for the layers. I love Wifey bread because it's just so darn versatile, so I'm sure I'll have more recipes for you soon.

Oh, and sorry I don't have any pics my camera died. I'll try to update with some later.

The Spatula To End All Spatulas

Anyone who cooks regularly has faced the same dilemma. I like to call this Why-did-I-buy-this-piece-of-crap-itis. Everyone has that one kitchen utensil that they hate. My personal bane is the Spatula. I've had a bazillion of them; some melted (oops) some warped, some cracked and flecked (ew). On the beginning road of my canning adventure, I went to a kitchen store with my sister looking for non-reactive things for my jamming and pickling. I wanted a small spatula for tapping out bubbles, and anything I might need.

My sister shoved me past the regular culprits and tossed one of these in my hand. I don't remember her exact comment, but it was something along the lines of "I know this is kind of expensive, but seriously it's worth it. You won't regret it." I took it home, shoved it in the back of my utensil drawer with the rest of the useless spatulas. A few days ago, I needed to scrap an awkward size bowl and reached in the drawer, fished around blindly and pulled it back out. I'm sure I shrugged (or at least my brain did) and I went to scraping. It works like magic! It got out seriously every last drop. Then when I made the snicker doodles, I used it to mix the dough, and it worked amazing again. The tip is just flexible enough to allow you to scrape everything (Seriously, this thing is like a window squeegee) but it's stiff enough to use as a mixing spoon.

Highly, highly recommended from Maggie. Buy one, it's worth it!

The Wonder that is Cake Pops...

I decided last night to go with Cake Pops for the Good Friday party today. I tend to get a bit fixated on things sometimes (jam, anyone?) and these have been no exception. I saw them recently on Bakerella, and I knew if I didn't try these stupid cake pops I'd wonder and whine until I did. So, better to try it out now and get it out of my system. I ran to Walmart, grabbed some cake mix and a can of butter cream frosting (I know, I know! But sometimes I only have so much time in a day!), some eggs for the cake and dying, and some small craft sticks since I couldn't find any lollipop ones and I didn't have time to shop anywhere else.

I ran home, threw the cake mix together, plopped it in a 13x9 pan and put it in the oven. When it was finished and nice and lemony smelling, I pulled it out out of the oven and let it cool. Honestly this was the hardest part for me. I have no patience, seriously none. You can't start the next step until the cake has totally cooled off, and I'm guessing I checked it 55 times before it was ready.

Once it was done (finally, stupid cake) I broke it into pieces and crumbled it with a fork in a large mixing bowl. You add about a can of frosting, but start with about 3/4 and work your way up. The density of the cake can really vary how much you need, and no one likes a soggy cake pop. Roll them into balls, I found 1.25-1.5 inch balls worked best. Any bigger and they're hard to handle, any smaller and they tend to crack on the sticks. Place the finished ones on a greased or lined cookie sheet, place in lollipop sticks (or sticks of your choice) and place in the freezer.

While in the freezer, melt either chocolate or candy melts in a double broiler (or if you're lazy like me a glass bowl over a saucepan). Pull the cake pops from the freezer and dip into the coating of your choice. I shake off the excess and then place them (stick first of course) into a Styrofoam block. This allows them to dry without the flat spot from setting them back on a sheet.

Here is the finished project! Hooray for Cake Pops!


They were a huge hit, and all the moms wanted to know how to make them. These are so simple (really, if I can do it, you can do it!) and can earn you a lot of points for style and creativity. You can play with a infinite mix of cake and frosting and decorations for the shell.

Cake Pops get a 5 star rating in my book, and I'm sure I will make some more very soon!