Another Macaron post...though the first for me!

Being Macaron-inspired by Sue at Basically Baked , I found my way to Chez Arnaud's in Maple Grove, MN.  It was one of my first daytime work week adventures after being retired. It is a whole new world to me being able to go shopping when it is not busy! Anyways, it is a small French bakery.  Many of the desserts were expensive, but fortunately for me I was macaron hunting and those were not so expensive.  They had Lavender lemon and salted caramel macarons. I liked both of them, but I think the salted caramel was my favorite flavor. I also purchased pain du chocolat (chocolate bread).  It is basically a chocolate filled croissant.  As Sue said in her post, it was fabulous!  I will not attempt to make macarons because they are simple to buy and they are not my favorite cookie. They are worth purchasing once in a while just to taste something different.

Salted Caramel and Lavender Lemon

The gooey, delicious middle

Musings about Browned Butter

I'm in MN State Fair baking frenzy mode now.  Anna from Cookie Madness turned me on to her browned butter pecan pie a couple of years ago.  I have to say it is the best pecan pie I have ever tasted. Not just me, but everyone who tried it said it was the best pecan pie they ever tasted.  For those of you who don't know what Browned Butter is and how to make it, see this excellent Allrecipes site:  Browned Butter  It adds a nutty, toffee-like flavor to the dough.  I got to thinking about browned butter when thinking about what could be a State Fair chocolate chip cookie ribbon-winning recipe. There are a few browned butter recipes out there that are similar. Seeing as I  just could not help myself, I tinkered around with a few regular and browned butter chocolate chip cookie recipes and came up with what I am going to enter into the state fair this year. For the regular contests the recipe does not need to be your own, but it does need to be made from scratch. I will show you pictures, but I am not going to give out my secret recipe yet! I will tell you it is a combination of white and brown sugar, all-purpose and bread flour, and you guessed it: Browned Butter.    I still can't figure out how to make my cookies come out round each time.  Dana has a good idea on her blog Dana Treat.  I will have to try rolling the dough into logs, refrigerating it, and then slicing it next time.   I do not have a cookie scoop, but I am considering investing in one. If anyone has opinions about good scoops, please, please let me know!
Here is a picture of the browned butter cookies with the dough only refrigerated for 1 hour--2 hours didn't make a difference.  refrigerating overnight produced thicker cookies.

Flag Cake

Just a prepared yellow cake mix (I added a 1/4 teaspoon of almond extract), cool whip, and fruit.  So easy! You can use any type of fruit for a summer dessert.  Pears, nectarines, peaches, raspberries, even grapes and plums would be good!  If you have not tried a yellow cake mix,  you should.   It is my favorite cake to use for whipped cream and fruit. I'm not fond of other boxed mixes, but yellow cake mix is special.  I used Duncan Hines for this cake, but I've used other brands as well.

Blueberry Sour Cream Pound Cake and Happy almost 4th of July

I know there is a cake doctor out there, but I also enjoy doctoring.  I doctored Blueberry Sour Cream Pound Cake, a recipe found on Taste of Home .  It is excellent for the 4th of July desserts lineup.

For the red, white, and blue theme, the only time-consuming part of this recipe is drying the raspberries, but they are easy to use because you don't need to cut them or core them like strawberries.   I line a cookie sheet with paper towels and set them on it.   I used an 8x8 pan for 1/2 the recipe, but I think 9x9 would have been better-the cake was too thick for the 8x8 so the edges were done long before the high center.   

Drying raspberries.

I used an 8x8 pan for this, but I think a 9x9 would have been better.

Finished product (I sampled a corner-can you find it?)



Recipe for 9x13 or 10 inch tube pan:

1 cup salted butter, softened

2 3/4 cups sugar

6 large eggs

1 cup sour cream (I don't skimp on this..I use full fat...it is a pound cake!)

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

3 cups all-purpose flour (I used 2 cups AP flour and 1 cup Whole Wheat PASTRY flour)

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 teaspoon almond extract

2 cups fresh or frozen blueberries-you could probably use 2.5 cups also

Optional:  Extra sugar or cinnamon sugar to sprinkle on top before baking

Topping:

2 regular 8 oz size containers of cool whip or one large container
1 pint fresh blueberries washed and dried
1 pint fresh raspberries washed and dried

Directions

1. In a mixing bowl, cream butter until fluffy; gradually add sugar and mix well. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.  Beat in extracts.  
2. In a separate bowl, combine flour, salt, and baking soda.  Add alternately with the sour cream to  wet ingredients.  Gently fold berries into batter.
3. Spoon into a greased 10-in. tube or 9x13 pan. Bake at 350 degrees F for 50-70 minutes or until cake tests done. (In my 9x13 pan this took about 52 minutes.)
4. Cool cake completely.  Frost with cool whip.  Add fruit in whatever design you like. Refrigerate.

Footnote:  If using frozen blueberries, don't thaw them.  A few minutes before the batter is ready for them, put them in a bowl and sprinkle with flour to coat them.  Mix them gently so all have a flour coating.

Healthy Blueberry Malt

My next-door neighbor Hannah  had her wisdom teeth pulled-all four at one time.  She is brave.  Or a glutton for punishment.  Not sure!  I asked her if she would like to try one of my blueberry malts.  She mumbled yes so I got the dusty blender out.  Blueberries are inexpensive right now so I've been purchasing fresh and then flash freezing them. I think I learned the technique from Alton Brown.   I used to put the fresh blueberries in a bag and throw them in the freezer.  I would end up with a big blue rock of frozen blueberries. Now I wash them, dry them, pick the stems off, throw the mushy and fuzzy blueberries out, put them on a cookie sheet, and throw them in the freezer (It is not as labor intensive as it sounds-really!) When frozen, I measure them and put them into baggies labeled with the date and amount of blueberries inside.  Then they are ready to be blended frozen with low-fat vanilla ice cream or vanilla frozen yogurt, vanilla soy milk or regular milk, and malt powder into a delicious, mostly guilt free, thirst quenching, sweet-tooth satisfying malt.   The picture below was taken after the malt had been sitting out for a while-and then mostly slurped up.  I'm still not in the habit of thinking about taking pictures of everything I make before I eat it!

I love the purple color and bits of blueberry. 

Here is the simple recipe:
1 cup frozen blueberries (or four chunks frozen banana, or five big frozen strawberries)
2 packed cups of frozen low-fat vanilla yogurt or low-fat vanilla ice cream.
1/2 cup malt powder ( I LOVE malt flavor.)
3/4 cup vanilla soy milk or regular milk (you may need a little more if the malt is too thick to blend).

Put it all in the blender in the order listed above and blend until smooth.  Sometimes I need to stir it up a little bit during blending. Remember to turn the blender off when doing this!

Almost one bowl brownies and Brownie cutting tip!

I was searching for an easy brownie to make with cocoa. I've been stuck on banana brownies with melted chocolate for so long, I thought it was time for change.  I contacted Anna at Cookie Madness and she suggested the one-bowl brownies.  I made them, but, as usual, with a few changes because A.: I'm lazy and B.: I've got other ingredients to use up!  I added chocolate chips, but next time I think I would add nuts instead since the chocolate chips seemed like overkill to me-if there is such a thing as chocolate overkill!  Anyways, I would say they came out perfect with the exception that they didn't have the shiny crinkly crust I want :(  That crust is still a mystery to me. There are many theories. Whenever I make banana brownies and use semi sweet chocolate I get the shiny, crackly crust. When I use bittersweet chocolate, I get more of a cake looking crust.   I thought maybe it had something to do with the sugar to fat ratio-the more heavy on the sugar and less heavy on the fat, the better chance for a crackly shiny crust.   Cocoa brownies disproved that theory since there is a lot less fat in them and I didn't get the shiny crust.   Boxed brownies have the "crust".  It can't be the melting theory because I melted the semi-sweet and the bitter sweet the same way. It can't be the stirring theory because I stirred them the same way.  Let me know if you have a theory! 

Brownie cutting tip:  Use a plastic knife. Works every time and brownies avoid sticking to it like it is the plague (not sure what a brownie considers a plague-maybe those fake baking chips?, but you get the idea!) Sometimes the knives break so have a few on hand!

My "flashy" picture.

My not so flashy picture.

Here is my modified version:
Almost One Bowl Brownies
Modified to fit an 8 x 8 baking pan.

8 tablespoons salted butter (1 stick)
1/2 cup +1/3 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2/3 cup all-purpose flour (used 1/3 cup all-purpose and 1/3 cup whole wheat pastry flour to make them a bit more healthy!)
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup +1/8 cup unsweetened cocoa powder (I used Hershey's)
1/2 cup semi sweet chocolate chips (I love Ghirardelli)
1/2 cup lightly toasted nuts of your choice (my favorites are pecans.)

Preheat oven to 350°.  Lightly grease the bottom only of an 8 x 8 metal pan.   I use PAM spray.

In a medium bowl whisk together the flour, baking powder, salt, and cocoa powder. Set-aside.
Melt butter in a microwave safe medium large mixing bowl. Whisk in the sugar, eggs, and vanilla.
When that mixture is smooth, whisk in the dry ingredients. Then stir in chocolate chips and nuts.
Bake on center rack of your oven for approximately 22 to 25 minutes or until a tooth pick inserted in the middle comes out with moist crumbs.    Cool completely before slicing. I use a plastic knife which works perfectly every time! Bon appétit!

Toasted Banana Bread slices!

I was in the mood for toast this morning, but I didn't have any bread.  Then I realized that wasn't completely true-I had delicious banana bread made for my retirement pot luck by a coworker's wife. I wondered what a slice of banana bread would taste like toasted and slathered with butter.   I found out.  I may have discovered banana bread gold!   The edges were crispy from the high sugar content.  The rest of the slice was a little bit crispy on the outside and moist on the inside.  With the butter slathered on, need I say more?
There may be some of you out there who have tried this.  It may be old news to you.  It was a new banana bread frontier to me! If you haven't tried it, I highly recommend it!  Directions:
Slice a piece of banana bread into at least a 1/2 inch thick piece and pop it in the toaster. To remove it, unplug the toaster and take a couple of knives to lift it out.

Better Than Lots of Things - Banana Bread Toast