TWD::Date-Nut Loaf

 

 

This week's Tuesdays with Dorie recipe was chosen by Mary of Popsicles and Sandy Feet.  I've never cooked with dates before so this was a real treat for me.  I've had those Christmas candies in the box that are dates, and LOVE them.  I've even had a fresh date to nibble on before and was in a sugar-loving coma!  So, needless to say, I was pretty anxious to make this one. 

 Thankfully, it didn't disappoint.  Despite my baking mishap...notice the sunken center.  I checked it, at a diagonal, even, to make sure it was 100% baked.  Guess my toothpick technique failed me this time.  Sad, but we all have those baking mishaps, so why not document them, too.  In any case, I LOVED this loaf cake.  It was dense, yet light. Tasted extremely well balanced between the buttery brown sugar batter, and the nutty sweetness of the dates and pecans.  I haven't tried it yet, but Dorie says this one gets even better over time, and toasted, with more butter to boot.  I mean, really, what is better than MORE butter, right!? 

Take a minute and see how the other TWD Bakers did with their loaf cakes by going to the TWD Blogroll.  You can also get a copy of this recipe by buying Dorie's book, "Baking: From My Home to Yours".

{date-nut loaf recipe}

TWD::Nutty Chocolatey Swirly Sour Cream Bundt Cake

This week's Tuesdays with Dorie recipe selection comes from  Jennifer with Cooking for Comfort.  A bundt cake.  I {HEART} bundt cakes!  Bittersweet chocolate mixed with nuts and sugar all swirled and folded into a buttery orange batter.  What's not to like, right?  Well, this wasn't my favorite.  Not even close, I'm sorry to say.

I thought the orange peel batter was INCREDIBLE!  So incredible, I'm tempted to make up a batch of just that yummy orangey batter and stir in some cranberries, bake them as muffins and top them with more orange glaze.  THAT combination makes my mouth water!  I'll have to bake that up this week and tell you all about it!  That is if I can get the batter into the molds and into the oven.  It was THAT good!  We {HEART} batter at our house!

{recipe for nutty chocolatey swirly sour cream bundt cake} 

To see how the other Tuesdays with Dorie bakers fared this week, check out the TWD Blogroll.  You never know, maybe they liked it WAY more than I did.

TWD::Chockablock Cookies

This week, our Tuesdays with Dorie recipe for Chockablock Cookies was chosen by Mary at Popsicles and Sandy Feet.

The description "everything but the kitchen sink"-would be quite appropriate for this one. Dorie's recipe calls for a variety of dried fruits, chocolate, coconut, nuts, raisins, molasses, oatmeal, etc. I've never really liked Molasses but was pleasantly surprised at how subtle the flavor was and in no way overpowering.

I'm not a big fan of dried fruit, especially in my cookies, but I decided to take Dorie on with these cookies. I used raisins. Probably not the best choice. I should have left them out. I'm sure I would have enjoyed these cookies so much more without the raisins or any dried fruit for that matter.

Oh, lets not forget the bittersweet chocolate chips. I know! I've made friends with the bittersweet chocolate, I think. Or maybe I'm just really getting old and my taste buds just aren't what they used to be...or maybe they're much more refined now. Yes. That's what we'll go with. Refined. In any case. These cookies are good...not great, just good. Their flavor is best when first out of the oven and all the flavors are so ooey gooey together. After they cool completely, the raisins are more pronounced, so not quite as good leftover.

My kids LOVED these cookies. I added a small scoop of ground flax to the mix, hoping to get them to "pass" as a healthy treat. Hm, there I go rationalizing again!

If you'd like to snag this recipe for yourself, grab yourself a copy of Dorie's book, "Baking: From My Home to Yours" or you can head on over to Mary's blog, too. To see how other TWD bloggers fared this week, check out the TWD Blogroll.

Banana Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

This is not your typical cake. It's leaps and bounds better. It's a delicious cross between banana bread and the most deliciously moist cake. You'll definitely want to make this yourself. Especially if you have any bananas turning a shade or two darker than yellow. Yes. This is one of those incredible ways to use them up...that is IF you have bananas going bad. We don't very often, so when I get to use them in something, I prefer making this cake instead of bread.

BANANA CAKE

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Sift the following together:
2 1/2 c. flour
1 1/4 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
1 2/3 c. sugar
1 1/4 tsp. soda

Then Add:
2/3 c. butter, at room temperature
4 mashed bananas, large

Beat thoroughly, then add:
2 large eggs
2/3 c. buttermilk or plain yogurt
2/3 c. chopped nuts (optional)
1 tsp. vanilla

Mix until well combined. Pour into a greased & floured 9x13 pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 40 minutes. When cooled, top with Cream Cheese frosting. Recipe below.

CREAM CHEESE FROSTING

8oz. cream cheese, at room temperature
2 c. powdered sugar
2 tsp. vanilla
1/2 c. butter

Combine all ingredients until smooth.

TWD::German Chocolate Bundt Cake

This week for Tuesdays with Dorie, our host Kristin from I'm Right About Everything, chose Milk Chocolate Mini Bundt Cakes from my new favorite book, "Baking From My Home to Yours" by Dorie Greenspan.  I cannot express to you how much I {HEART} this book!  I digress, sorry.  This cake was definitely good and not super super chocolatey which I prefer, too.

Instead of sticking with the written recipe I decided to play with it a bit and make it into a German Chocolate Bundt Cake.  I doubled the batter to fit my bundt pan, and filled the pan with half of the batter.  Then layered caramel (I used the apple dipping caramel since that's what I had lying around), a lot of roughly chopped pecans and coconut (which ended up not being quite enough of).  Then poured the remaining batter over the top and baked for 1 hour.  Once it had cooled, I topped it with a chocolate ganache and more of the caramel, pecans and coconut. 

It was a big BIG hit!  The cake was just a bit chocolatey, but once you bite into the center "treasures" oh!  The yummy gooey caramel coconut pecan taste comes out beautifully.  I definitely recommend trying this twist on Dorie's delicious recipe!

You can get a copy of this recipe by buying Dorie's book, Baking from My Home to Yours or by going to Kristin's blog HERE.  Since I didn't stick with the written recipe, you may want to check out what other TWD bakers whipped up by peeking at the TWD Blogroll.

TWD::Chocolate Oatmeal Almost-Candy Bars

Well, for this week's Tuesdays With Dorie recipe I think it's the first one I actually made twice before posting!  It is so incredibly good but that's not the reason why.  I've lost my camera.  My new camera. I'm completely devistated.  Granted, it's not a super-dee-duper fancy camera, but we had figured each other out enough so that I could manipulate the settings enough to hopefully make it look like it was.  I've been in mourning for my camera.  Especially since I finally found my charger for my old piece-of-junk camera and just can't get the old one to do what I need it to.  I sincerely apologize for not posting anything sooner, but I hope you understand. 

So, my missing camera is the reason I made this recipe twice in two weeks.  The first time, I was so excited to be prepared and creating a recipe for TWD so early, and that's when I discovered my camera was missing.  And since I couldn't find it or the old camera's charger in time, we ate every last bite. 

It was Uh-MAz-ing!!  I didn't add raisins to either batch, gross!  The first batch was exactly as the recipe called for but without raisins.  The second time, and what these photos are reflecting, I added coconut.  COCONUT!  Only one of the YUMMIEST flavors out there!  I added 1/2 c. to the chocolate gooey goodness, then another 1/2 c. to the top crumbles.  The top pieces were incredible since it ended up toasting a lot of the coconut and what's better than plain coconut!?  TOASTED coconut!  Ah yes! 

I also started a biggest loser contest with a big group of friends and so I only kept about 5 squares for my family and me and the rest I took to work and to another co-BL participant...teeeheee.  It pains me to do that sometimes, like with this recipe.  BUT it is so much more rewarding hearing the praises and compliments and overall joy seen on the faces of those enjoying my concoctions.  THAT is what makes baking so rewarding for me.

If you'd like to make this delicious treat too, head on over to Lillian's blog Confectiona's Realm for a copy of the recipe.  You can also check out what other Tuesdays with Dorie Bloggers baked up by going to the TWD Blogroll.

TWD::All-In-One Holiday Bundt Cake

Health Update: Mostly better except for the bronchitis. It just won't leave me alone. I'm very reliant on my inhaler and asthma medication like never before. BUT that's okay. Everything else is gone so I can deal with my incessent coughing and breathing problems. At least I'm not contagious! Hooray!

Well, lets get on with this cake post! I'm not a HUGE pumpkin fan. I know, so un-American of me. I don't even like pumpkin pie, so I don't make it for any holiday. So when this recipe called for so much pumpkin in it, I was worried it would taste of pumpkin with a hint of spices and nuts. But it didn't. It tastes only slightly of pumpkin. Good news for me! While it's not my all-time favorite bundt cake, it's definitely not on my least favorite list. If you're a fan of spice cake, you'll like this one. The cake base itself is quite delicious with just the right balance of spices, crunchiness and moistness to make anyone happy.

The one way I DO love to eat pumpkin is along with chocolate chips. Oh yes! Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies...say HELLO to Mommy! So, as I'm eating each bite of my slice of this spice bundt cake, I'm imagining how absolutely INCREDIBLE it would taste as a pumpkin chocolate chip bundt instead. Yes, I will most asuredly make this cake again with those changes so I can add the necessary chocolate to it. Oh, and lets not forget the frosting! As much as I LOVE bundts plain, I love them even more with a good frosting glaze. Mmmm...



If you'd like to snag this recipe to make it yourself, either buy the book or head over to our host, Britin's blog The Nitty Britty. You'll be glad you did!

Perfect Apple Crisp

Recently, we moved into a new home and with this move, we were lucky enough to inherrit a couple of fruit trees.  One apple and one plum.  The bad news is that we don't understand enough about fruit tree maintenance just yet, so we only resuced ONE plum oNe, but that plum was the best I've ever eaten (the rest were either devoured by birds or fell off with a big windstorm onto our roof then into the gutter...dumb, I know!)!  With our apple tree, we just let it do its thing...grow apples.  Well, these apples LOOK like they're probably golden delicious, but they taste so much better! 

This apple tree has produced SO many apples and they're not ity bity small ones either.  They're pretty BIG, baseball-sized apples and so crispy and good!  Well, minus the WoRmS!  Yup, we didn't spray it, so probably 50% of the apples have worms.  Arugh!  *No worms made it into this apple crisp.*  So, with our new apple tree that we completely {HEART}, we've resigned to make sure we spray and do everything necessary to ensure we get that percentage of worms DOWN next year! 

In any case, I've been making a lot of recipes that include APPLES lately.  One of my All-time favorites is my apple crisp.  I have no idea where I got this recipe, but I've used it for YEARS and years and every time I make it for someone, I get oodles and oodles of praises and requests for this recipe. It's sweet, cinnamony and nutty and above all DELICIOUS! 


Apple Crisp
from the kitchen of Lisa Jensen, Gourmified

Apple mixture:
8c. Apples (any kind), GRATED
2 Tbsp. flour
1c. sugar
2 tsp. cinnamon

Topping:
1 1/2 c. brown sugar
1 1/2 c. flour
1 c. old fashioned oats
1/2 tsp. soda
1 tsp. salt
1c. salted, melted butter
1/2 c. chopped pecans, optional

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In a Large bowl, combine apple mixture ingredients.  Mix well & put into greased 9x13 pan.  Combine topping ingredients and mix well.  Sprinkle evenly over apples.

Bake for 30 minutes or until golden and sides are bubbly.

Serve warm with whipping cream or vanilla ice cream.

Applesauce Cookies with Chocolate Chips & mixed Nuts

I've been wanting to make these for quite a while now and finally got around to it and I'm excited to share this amazing recipe with you, too!

These cookies are more of a cake-like texture because of the applesauce but when you throw in the chocolate chips and nuts, well, wahoo! This is one I can eat over and over again! Honestly, at first bite they're good, but not fabulous. If you let them cool, and remember to store in the fridge, then they turn into WOWZA!

I know it sounds crazy, but that cooling time in the fridge makes the chocolate chips harden so you not only have the soft gooey cake-like cookie but also the crunch of the nuts and the chocolate chips! Mmmmm!! Usually, I only put chopped pecans in, but this time, I put chopped almonds in, too. Both nuts have fantastic flavors so combining them just made this recipe that much better! The only thing that would make this even better, make them into little mini cupcakes and add some cream cheese frosting!!! Oh la la! I may just have to try that next time, that is unless YOU beat me to it! If you do, you MUST share!

APPLESAUCE COOKIES W/ CHOCOLATE CHIPS & NUTS

2 c. Sugar
1 c. unsalted butter, softened
2 eggs, beaten
2 c. applesauce, natural
1 tsp. cloves
1 tsp. nutmeg
1 tsp. cinnamon
4 c. flour (sometimes I splurge and use 1/2 whole wheat 1/2 white)
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. soda, dissolved in small amount of hot water
2 c. chopped nuts (pecans, almonds, walnuts - OPTIONAL)
2 c. chocolate chips (I prefer milk, but if you like richer chocolate flavors you may opt for semi-sweet)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In large bowl, cream shortening & sugar. In separate bowl combine dry ingredients, minus nuts and chips. Add beaten eggs. Dissolve baking soda in small amount of hot water. Add applesauce. Add baking soda alternately with dry ingredients. Fold in the chocolate chips & nuts. Drop tablespoonfuls onto greased cookiesheet (I used parchment paper). Bake 10-12 minutes or until centers of cookie spring back like a cake would.

Makes 3 doz.