Tuesday with Dorie, Chocolate Chocolate Cupcakes

I Love Food 4 Thought chose Chocolate Chocolate Cupcakes this week. Wow these were good. I did not think that they needed any topping. They also freeze well and defrost in time for lunch. For more spooky cupcakes visit Tuesday with Dorie. Many of the other people went with a Halloween theme.

Bookmarked recipes - Apple Pie Jam

For my Bookmarked recipe this week I made Apple Pie jam. I got the recipe from Clumbusfoodie. I made 2 batches, one with the full amount of sugar and one with half of the sugar and low sugar pectin. For the second batch what I did was double everything but the sugar. This jam really does taste like apple pie. Now I can have some apple pie everyday on toast.

Tuesday with Dorie, Pumpkin Muffins

These came out very good. Thanks Kelly from Sounding My Barbaric Gulp for picking this week's recipe! I love pumpkin muffins and these were one of the best that I have had. I did make a few changes; White Wheat Flour instead of all-purpose flour, 1/4 cup dried cherries and 1/4 cup dried currents instead of golden raisins, and no sunflower seeds. I like the taste of the currents, it is something different. The recipe made 18 muffins. I think that mini chocolate chips would have made them just a little bit better.

For more muffins check out Tuesdays with Dorie.

Garlic

Yaaa! I got my garlic planted for next year. I would take a picture but well there is nothing to see right now.

First frost

Well this morning I had scrape frost off my windshield for the first time this fall. I did make it to work on time though. Now I need to set aside another 5 minutes a morning for this. That and my furnace kicked in for the first time. Winter will be here soon.

oven

To bake it helps if your oven works. Mine just gave up the ghost recently. I got a replacement range but when you use the oven part, even opening the door for the oven light there is a high pitch buzzing sound. I am having the Sear's repair guy come out and take a look at it soon.

Jamming Jelly Exchange

Batter-Splattered hosted a very cool exchange, Jam or Jelly. I go a very tasty jar of Cocoa Fig Jam made by Neena in Georgia. This was very cool. Thanks!!!!

Sweet 100

Cakespy had a sweet 100 that I thought was cool I did add number 5. Most of the ones that I have not had I have not have not heard of.

1) Copy this list into your site, including the instructions!
2) Bold all of the sweets you’ve eaten!
3) Cross out any of them that you’d never ever eat.
4) Consider anything that is not bold or crossed out your “To Do” List.
5) Italic the ones you have made

1. Red Velvet Cake
2. Princess Torte
3. Whoopie Pie
4. Apple Pie either topped or baked with sharp cheddar
5. Beignet
6. Baklava
7. Black and white cookie
8. Seven Layer Bar (also known as the Magic Bar or Hello Dolly bars) and a non dairy version
9. Fried Fruit pie (sometimes called hand pies)
10. Kringle
11. Just-fried (still hot) doughnut
12. Scone with clotted cream
13. Betty, Grunt, Slump, Buckle or Pandowdy
14. Halvah
15. Macarons
16. Banana pudding with nilla wafers
17. Bubble tea (with tapioca “pearls”)
18. Dixie Cup
19. Rice Krispie treats
20. Alfajores
21. Blondies
22. Croquembouche
23. Girl Scout cookies
24. Moon cake
25. Candy Apple
26. Baked Alaska
27. Brooklyn Egg Cream
28. Nanaimo bar
29. Baba au rhum
30. King Cake
31. Sachertorte
32. Pavlova
33. Tres Leches Cake
34. Trifle
35. Shoofly Pie
36. Key Lime Pie (made with real key lime)
37. Panna Cotta
38. New York Cheesecake
39. Napoleon / mille-fueille
40. Russian Tea Cake / Mexican Wedding Cake
41. Anzac biscuits
42. Pizzelle
43. Kolache
44. Buckeyes
45. Malasadas
46. Moon Pie
47. Dutch baby
48. Boston Cream Pie
49. Homemade chocolate chip cookies
50. Pralines
51. Gooey butter cake
52. Rusks
53. Daifuku
54. Green tea cake or cookies
55. Cupcakes from a cupcake shop
56. Crème brûlée
57. Some sort of deep fried fair food (twinkie, candy bar, cupcake)
58. Yellow cake with chocolate frosting
59. Jelly Roll
60. Pop Tarts
61. Charlotte Russe
62. An “upside down” dessert (Pineapple upside down cake or Tarte Tatin)
63. Hummingbird Cake
64. Jell-O from a mold
65. Black forest cake
66. Mock Apple Pie (Ritz Cracker Pie)
67. Kulfi
68. Linzer torte
69. Churro
70. Stollen
71. Angel Food Cake
72. Mincemeat pie
73. Concha
74. Opera Cake
75. Sfogliatelle / Lobster tail
76. Pain au chocolat
77. A piece of Gingerbread House
78. Cassata
79. Cannoli
80. Rainbow cookies
81. Religieuse
82. Petits fours
83. Chocolate Souffle
84. Bienenstich (Bee Sting Cake)
85. Rugelach
86. Hamenstashen
87. Homemade marshmallows
88. Rigo Janci
89. Pie or cake made with candy bar flavors (Snickers pie, Reeses pie, etc)
90. Divinity
91. Coke or Cola cake
92. Gateau Basque
93. S’mores
94. Figgy Pudding
95. Bananas foster or other flaming dessert
96. Joe Froggers
97. Sables
98. Millionaire’s Shortbread
99. Animal crackers
100. Basbousa

Grocery Shopping

I admit I like to go grocery shopping. One reason is I a good at it. I went to Albertsons today and spent $8.57 and got a $5 coupon for my next visit. I got 5 cans of progresso soup, 6 yoplait yogurt, 2 yoplait YO plus 4 packets of yogurt, one 4 packet of activia yogurt, 2 pillsbury bread sticks and 2 green giant steamers corn. This was a good haul. What helped with this was www.coupons.com, the coupons from the Sunday paper, Money Saving Mom and smartsource.

Bookmarked Recipes - dried marinated tomatoes

For Bookmarked Recipes this week I am going to tell you about one that I made a few weeks ago. Big Black Dog called it oven dried tomatoes. I did it in my old dehydrator, this is what killed it. My dehydrators do not tend to last that long, 2-4 years. After this last breakdown I went and bought a dehydrator with a 10 year warranty.

Any way on to the recipe. These tomatoes are so good. The only change that I made was that I dried my tomatoes to a crisp and for some of my later goes I used less oil. It did not need that much I think. I am planing on giving some of these away as part of my Three Kings Day gifts. The tomatoes are good broken up and put on salads or pasta. My favorite right now is powdering the tomatoes and then rehydrating with hot water to make a very tomatoe soup.

How many of you are they?

http://howmanyofme.com/search/

I found this amusing, there is only one of me in the US. My last name is that uncommon. There fewer than 335 people with my last name in the US. Well I aways knew that I am unique.

HowManyOfMe.com

There are 1 or fewer people with my name in the U.S.A. How many have your name?

Quilting Christmas projects

This year I hope to finish 2 quilts and a number of bags. I have the the blocks done for one of them. It is for one of my neices, she like purple and used to like pink, until she had her room painted bright pink.

I also finished my first Bow Tucks Bag. I ended up doing the pattern much different than how the patter was written. I took it as a class, the teacher rewrote the pattern to make it easer and less bulky. It also was fairly quick to make. This was the first time that I have worked with interfacing, this was interesting. I like how the inner pockets came out.

work hours

I get to chose what hours I work and can not decide, 7am to 3:30pm or 7:30- 4pm or maybe 8am to 4:30 pm. Right now I am thinking that I might pick the 7am to 3:30pm. This way I have time for appointments after work and do not have to take time off during work. The question is can I get in at 7am.

Diabetes, I has it.

Well this was not fun, I have known that I was pre-diabetic for 5 years or so. I have been taking metformin and having a fasting lab test every 3 months or so for the past few years. This morning I had a Dr's appointment and my ac1 level (glycated hemoglobin test, this shows the average blood sugar over the past 3 months) was over 6; this was not good. This was the highest it has ever been. The problem is that I am on meds and this should be lower.

So I am on a different med, need to excise more, have to check my blood sugar at least 3 times a day and need to change what I eat. Foods high in carbs are not a good idea. Only in very small amounts will they be allowed. Well Tuesday's with Dorie is out, so in Daring Bakers. I need to get this under control. I do not want to have to take insulin. It does not help that there is diabetes on both sides of my family.

Taste from Home Goodie Swap

This was hosted by Megan of Meganscooking and April of Abbysweets. This was fun on both sides. I got to look around for local items that you will most likely not going to find many other places and I got a really cool box of stuff from Sleeping Bear in the Kitchen.

It took a while to find everything in the box. There is some many things to go Wow about. John sent Ice Wine, I am taking it on a quilt retreat that I am going to next month. Mustard from a microbrewery, Mrs Jones all purpose sauce, a very good conserve ( my brother and I have eaten half of it already), a vinaigrette, bistro sauce, pumpkin butter (I love pumpkin butter.), wine jelly that he made and some candy from his store. I am told that the mint fudge that John made was fabulous. It did not last more than 2 days. Thank you Megan and April for hosting this event and a large thanks to John for send this great box.

Tuesday With Dorie: Black and White Banana Loaf

This week Ashlee of A Year in the Kitchen picked Black and White Banana Loaf. I liked the concept of a marbled banana bread but this will not become my banana bread recipe. Problems is not the right work, I have a few complaints:

How much banana is 1 and a half bananas? (I tend to switch out the bananas with pumpkin or apple depending on who I make it for. At work there are a few people that are allergic to bananas.)

Do we really need that much butter? It came out very most but the top was very brown.

How full should I have filled the loaf pans? I was worried about spill over and did not fill them as much as I could have.

I doubled the recipe, I was using frozen bananas and it was easier to use 3 than 1 1/2. This made 2 loafs and 7 muffins. It was fun playing with the marbling. I even made one of the muffins half and half. I think that I use this technique next time I make banana bread, just with one of my other recipes.

No Daring Baking this month

I just did not have the time. I was out of town for a few weeks and then I had some very busy on call weeks.

Click here for the Daring Bakers blogroll to see how the other the other cakes came out.

Tuesday with Dorie, Summer Fruit Galette

Thank you Laurie of quirky cupcake for setting up Tuesday with Dorie. This has been fun and I have made many delicious things that I have never made before. Anyway this weeks recipe I chose this recipe because I like fruit deserts, this is the height of fruit season and this recipe did not have a picture. I went to the Farmers market a few blocks away and got some Apricots. For color I added some blueberries for color. This was an easy recipe, at the rate things are going I will be keeping extra pie crust in the freezer for this. Just defrost and add what fruit you have on hand.

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Just to note chilled pie crust is not a suggestion, you need to have it cold or a cold area to work with. Otherwise it gets very soft and is hard to move to the cooking service. That is what happened to the large one I made. Leaking and tearing happened, Ohh but is tasted very good and did not last the night. My quilt group ate it all. This was not a dessert for looks but the taste more than makes up for it.

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I added the rest of the custard mixture into some fruit and cooked it right beside the galette. It was good. When cooking the custard with fruit the fruit should be one that is not to juicy. I did this with berries, a little liquidy, and peaches, not bad. Depending on the fruit extra sugar maybe a good idea.

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Dorie Greenspan's Summer Fruit Galette
from Baking From My Home to Yours

Good For Almost Everything Pie Dough for a single crust, chilled
2-3 tablespoons jam or marmalade
about 2 tablespoons graham cracker crumbs
Fresh summer fruit: about 10 apricots, 8-10 nectarines, 8 ripe but firm peaches, 8-10 firm plums or 2 stalks rhubarb
Decorating (coarse) or granulated sugar, for dusting

For the Custard
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and cooled
1/3 cup sugar
1 large egg
¼ teaspoon pure vanilla extract
Confectioners’ sugar, for dusting

Getting Ready
Center rack in the oven and preheat to oven to 425 degrees F. Line a baking sheet with parchment (see below) or a silicone mat.
To make it easier to move the pie dough onto the baking sheet, roll the dough between sheets of parchment paper ( in which case, you can use one of the rolling sheets to line the baking sheet) or wax paper or plastic wrap. Alternatively work on a well-floured surface, taking care to keep the dough moving by turning it and flouring the surface often.
Roll the dough into a large 1/8 inch thick circle. Using a pastry wheel or a paring knife, time the dough to a 13 inch diameter. Using a cake pan or a pot lid as a template and the tip of a bunt kitchen knife as a marker, lightly trace a 9 inch circle in the center of the dough- this is the area for the filling.
With the back of a spoon or a small offset spatula, spread some of the jam over the circle- how much will depend of the jam flavor you want. Sprinkle over the crumbs, adding a little more than 2 tablespoons if you think you’ve got particularly juicy fruit. Put a piece of plastic wrap or wax paper over the dough and refrigerate it while you prepare the fruit.
Wipe the apricots, nectarines or plums clean with a damp towel and cut in half; discard the pits. Blanch peaches for 10 seconds in a pot of boiling water, transfer them to a bowl of ice water to cool, then slip off the skins. Halve and pit the peaches or peel rhubarb to remove the strings, and cut into 1 to 2 inch pieces.
Arrange the fruit on the dough, cut side down if using stone fruits, then gently lift the unfilled border of dough up and onto the filling. As you lift the dough and place it on the filling, it will pleat. If you’re not in a rush, freeze the galette for 15 minutes to give the crust a rest.
Brush the dough very lightly with a little water, then sprinkle it with a teaspoon or two of sugar. Bake galette for 25 minutes, or until the crust is brown and the fruit is soft.

Meanwhile, make the custard
Whisk together the melted butter, sugar, egg and vanilla in a bowl; set aside until needed.
Remove the baking sheet from the oven (leave the oven on), and carefully pour the custard around the fruit. Depending one how much juice has accumulated and how much space you have between the fruit, you may not be able to pour all the custard into the galette, but even 2 tablespoons can give the right effect. Pour in as much custard as you can, then carefully return the pan to the oven.
Bake for another 12 to 15 minutes, or until the custard is set- it shouldn’t jiggle when you gently shake the pan. Cool the galette on the baking sheet on a rack for 10 minutes.
Very carefully slide a small baking sheet or cake lifter under the galette and slip the galette onto a rack to cool. The galette can be served when it is just warm or- my preference- when it has reached room temperature. Dust with confectioners; sugar just before serving.

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Good for Almost Everything Pie Dough

For a 9 inch Single Crust

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour

2 tablespoons sugar

3/4 tsp salt

1 1/4 sticks very cold unsalted butter, cut into tbsp size pieces

2 1/2 tablespoons very cold vegetable shortening, cut into 2 pieces

About 1/4 cup ice water

Put the flour, sugar, and salt in a food processor fitted with a metal blade, pulse just to combine the ingredients. Drop in the butter and shortening and pulse only until the butter and shortening are cut into the flour. Don’t overdo the mixing- what you’re aiming for is to have some pieces the size of fat green peas and others the size of barley. Pulsing the machine on and off, gradually add about 6 tbsps of the water- add a little water and pulse once, add some more water, pulse again and keep going that way. Then use a few long pulses to get the water into the flour. If, after a dozen or so pulses, the dough doesn’t look evenly moistened or form soft curds, pulse in as much of the remaining water as necessary, or even a few drops more, to get a dough that will stick together when pinched. Big pieces of butter are fine. Scrape the dough out of the bowl and onto a work surface. Shape the dough into a disk and wrap it. Refrigerate the dough for at least 1 hour before rolling (if your ingredients were very cold and you worked quickly, though, you might be able to roll the dough immediately: the dough should be as cold as if it had just come out of the fridge).

Tuesday With Dorie - Cherry Rhubarb Cobbler

This week on my adventures with Dorie Amanda from Like Sprinkles on a Cupcake selected Cherry Rhubarb Cobbler. In Many ways this was an interesting cobbler recipe. It is like most cobblers but the mix is different. I would not thought of Cherry and Rhubarb together and putting ginger in the topping would have never occurred to me. I only wish that she had cups of fruit listed instead of pounds. I do not have a kitchen scale so I had to guess on how much fruit to use. I have a feeling that I was off.

This cherry pitter that I got a few years ago at Goodwill was a life saver. It only took 10 minutes to pit 3 cups of cherries. I only use it maybe once a year but for only $2 it was a good buy. Rhubarb season is over for now here but I had dehydrated some when they where in season. I rehydrated around a cups worth.

The cobbler came out a little on the tart side. I like it that way but if I was making it for a potluck I think that I would add just a little more sugar and decease the amount of ginger in the topping. The fruit to topping was a little to much on the topping side. It needed more fruit. I made the biscuits as drop biscuits so after it was all together I just dropped the biscuits onto the fruit by the spoonful. I think that I will use this topping for the next cobbler that I make except I might use cinnamon instead of ginger or maybe cardamon.

For more cherry cobbler goodness visit Tuesday With Dorie. Next week I got to chose and I picked the Summer Fruit Galette on pages 366 - 367. So I will see you then.

Tuesdays with Dorie, Mint Chocolate Pudding non dairy

This week Melissa from Its Melissas Kitchen has picked Chocolate Pudding. Well this was the first pudding that I have ever made from scratch. I have always used instant. It was a good pudding. It does need to set in the fridge for the full 4 hours though. I will most likely make this again but in the winter. It was hot to make and made my kitchen even hotter. The skin forms very fast.

Changes made to recipe : I used vanilla soy milk instead of milk, earth balance instead of butter and a non dairy chocolate. When you heat up the milk I added 20 crushed mint leaves and then strained them out when you add the milk to the egg mixture. It gave the pudding a mild mint flavor.

They soy substitutes worked well, you could not tell the difference between this and a dairy version. What is very important though is to use good chocolate. I used Safeway's Organic chocolate chips. It is the to easiest non dairy chocolate to find and they taste pretty good.

For more takes on chocolate pudding check out Tuesday's with Dorie. Some people made it into Ice Cream and there were also some chocolate pies happening.