I’m playing a bit with the Homemade Curry Spice Powder I created. I really like the heat it adds when used in moderation. Went hunting for a baked spiced apples recipe, found one to play with, and added the curry. I ended up over cooking it a little (so no pictures until the next time), but even overcooked, this was REALLY good. The Granny Smiths were the perfect tart for this!

Curry & Spice Baked Apples
2 Granny Smith apples, cut in half, cored, with a small section cut off the uncut side (creates a stand & allows the apple to soak up juices from the bottom)
Apple Cider
Honey
1/2 c. Pecans, chopped*
1/2 tsp. ea, Cinnamon, Nutmeg, Allspice, and Ginger
1 TBL. Brown Sugar
Butter
Homemade Curry Spice Powder

Set apples in baking dish, cored side up, drizzle with honey and pour cider into dish to about 1/4-1/2″. Combine nuts and spices (except curry), sprinkle over the apples, allowing some to fall into the cider. Top each apple half with a teaspoon or so of butter. Sprinkle desired amount of curry over the top. Bake 20-25 minutes in a 375 oven until apples are soft and topping is browned.

Loved, loved this. It was sweet and tart and had just a touch of heat. Kids loved it as well. No idea about Chef—he’s not big on apples. Regardless, I’ll be making this again. It’s delish!

We used it as a side dish, but it would also make a great savory-sweet dessert.

* Can also use walnuts or almonds, but I really liked the flavor of the pecans in this.

I had my first Sweet Potato Pie when I went to a holiday party held for teachers and substitute teachers by the school I was long-term subbing for at the time, and I fell in love. I lucked out that the first recipe I tried was fantasbulous and easy peasy. Not sure where I got this, but it has become the Sweet Potato Pie we serve every Thanksgiving.

Sweet Potato Pie
2 med (or 3 small) Sweet Potatoes, peeled, boiled, and mashed
1 c. firmly packed Dark Brown Sugar
1/2 c. Sweetened Condensed Milk
1/4 c. Butter, melted
2 TBL. Flour
1 tsp. Cinnamon
1/2 tsp. Nutmeg
2 Eggs, slightly beaten
1 – 9″ Unbaked Pastry Shell (I cheat and use the Pillsbury shells in the box)

Preheat oven to 400*. Combine all ingredients except pastry shell in a large bowl until well blended. Place shell in nonstick sprayed pie plate (if using the Pillsbury, unroll and follow directions for placing in pie plate) and flute/crimp edge. Pour sweet potato mixture into shell—it will be full but shouldn’t overflow. Bake 30-35 minutes or until top is puffed and browned; filling will be soft but will set as pie cools. Cool on wire rack at least 2 hours.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Yea, I need a decent camera. Moving on…..

I was given this recipe by a friend, and I usually do it in the recommended sheet cake size, but for today, we went with squares.

This is the most lemony cake I’ve ever had, and I LOVES it. Hope you will too!

Triple Lemon Cake

Cake:
1 Lemon Cake Mix
1 sm. box Lemon Jello Gelatin mix
4 Eggs
2/3 c. Vegetable Oil
3/4 c. Water

Lemon Glaze
2 c. Powdered Sugar
Zest of 2 Lemons
Juice from 2 Lemons

Spray inside of 9×13 cake pan with nonstick spray.

Combine cake ingredients util well blended; pour into pan. Bake 45-50 minutes or until toothpick come out of center clean. If doing smaller cakes, the time will be closer to 35-4 minutes. Allow to cool slightly, but not completely.

While the cake is cooling, combine glaze ingredients and stir util sugar is dissolved. Use a log tined fork and poke holes across the top of the entire cake. Pour ALL of the glaze over the cake, covering the entire surface. Allow glaze to soak in before eating.

Keeps in the fridge.

Recipe via Christine Cunningham, with credit to her mom, Rosie Cunningham.

Have a good holiday!

First, my apologies: this picture is just awful. lol

I basically wanted a quick and easy dessert to go with dinner last night. Something not too expensive, something we had most the ingredients for. I blame Dinner Impossible. Skipping through channels and I saw a cherry pie and went. “Oh, yum, want some!”

Once I want something, most of the time we’re doomed. lol This doom gave us this dessert:

I found this on Cooking.com and did some very minor adjustments. With my little ramekins, it serves 10-12 rather than 8. I’m adjusting again in the recipe below just a little because the original amount of butter overflowed. heh

Mini Cherry Cobblers

Butter
1 c. All-Purpose Flour
1 c. Sugar
1 tsp. Baking Powder
1/2 tsp. Salt
1 c. Milk
2 – 20 ounce cans Cherry Pie Filling

Set ramekins out on a cooking sheet, place about 1 1/2-2 tsp of butter in each. Place in oven while preheating it to 350 degrees to melt the butter. In medium bowl, combine dry ingredients and milk. Spoon equal amounts of batter into each ramekin (I used a small ladle). Open cans of filling and using a tablespoon to put 2 or 3 spoonfuls of filling into each ramekin. Bake 45 minutes to an hour.

Now, here’s the surprising thing: the Chef? He’s not into cherries much. But this dessert? He liked enough to have me pick up more cans of filling to make it again. lol

Now THAT’s something.

I was rummaging in my cupboards today and found a can of pumpkin filling and sweetened condensed milk. We’re not big pumpkin pie eaters, but I thought a pumpkin something might be a good thing to use for playing with our new ramekins, which we have yet to use for anything and don’t have ingredients for much of anything. So I looked at the recipe on the can, then I looked online, and then I combined 2 recipes to come up with this one.

1 15 oz can Pumpkin filling
1 14 oz can Sweetened Condensed Milk
1/2 c. Bisquik
2 TBL. oil
2 eggs
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. ginger
1/2 tsp. nutmeg
1/4 tsp. allspice
dash ground cloves

Preheat oven to 350. Spray ramekins with non-stick spray. I believe my ramekins are 4 oz.

Combine all ingredients and beat until smooth. You can adjust spices to your preference. Ladle filling into prepared ramekins and set them on a cookie sheet. Bake for 40-45 minutes or until a knife comes out clean.

Makes 7.

We added a little home made whipped cream, and they were pretty good. The texture is somewhere between pie and cake, but not quite either. So I’m calling them pumpkin cups for now. I’m not too sure I have the spices 100% right, but some may want more spice and some less, and since they only really affect flavor, I figure anyone else making it will play around with them anyway.

We’re not big on pumpkin in my house (never even get it for Thanksgiving), so I don’t know if we’ll make these again, but they really were pretty good.

Chef is working with cakes in his baking and pastry classes, so we decided to play a little bit with them at home. The result? Faux petite fours made with a luscious sour cream pound cake, frosted in royal icing and decorated with chocolate ganache:

And today in class, they made 2-layer pound cakes for their sweeties. Here’s the cake he made for me:

In addition to these cakes, we now have a ton of pound cake and pound cake scraps in our refrigerator. He’ll use them to practice more of that wonderful piping and decorating. He may not be aiming to be a pastry chef, but he wants to do everything he learns well.

A few years ago we started getting Vanilla Bean Cheesecake for our Christmas dinner dessert. That thing is a pile of heaven on a plate, and I rarely shared any leftovers. This year, however, we can’t afford the $35-55 price tag, so I decided to make a cheesecake.

I have never made a cheesecake before.

First I searched around the net for cheesecake recipes. There must be a billion. I brought my choices down to three: one found at TasteSpotting, one with sour cream in it, and a Cheesecake Factory Vanilla Bean clone. After some hemming and hawing, and buying the ingredients for the sour cream cheesecake, I ended up deciding on the clone. What can I say: I love the vanilla bean. I also wanted to do the chocolate mousse topping for it and located a recipe for chocolate mousse. My decoration: crushed candy canes.

The cheesecake wasn’t too bad. I actually managed to pick up a springform pan for $10 (got a $5 discount with my Kroger card). I think I overcooked it a little: the sides are a bit dark. The top cracked and it sank when it cooled. It ended up being…ummm…a little unattractive. But it’s my first and I figured my mousse would cover at least the sunk in, cracked top.

Shouldn’t have counted on that. The mouse most definitely did not work: the chocolate got too hard in the fridge and then nothing set up when everything was finally combined. I ended up dumping it all, putting the Cheesecake int he fridge and going to bed (it WAS 3 A.M.).

This morning, on twitter, someone suggested putting sour cream on it and letting it soak in. I figured it wouldn’t soak in since the cheesecake was pretty chilled by then. But she did spark an idea, and I located a Sour Cream Cream Cheese Frosting. It whipped up nicely, filled the indention, and was the perfect canvass for my topping. Because my mousse failed and I still had some white chocolate chips, we crushed some of those up and added that to the crushed candy. It’s still not the prettiest cheesecake on the block, but it looks much better, and it is my first cheesecake.

And it tasted pretty good. Not heaven on a plate, but good enough.

I do think I want something different for the crust. It came out a bit dry. And I might want to try some sour cream or lemon or something in the cheesecake. I’ll have to think about that. The Cheesecake Factory vanilla Bean doesn’t have that tiny zing of tartness and I love it, but I also love that tiny zing of tartness you can find in some cheesecakes. lol

“Cheesecake Factory” Vanilla Bean Cheesecake (clone)
crust:
1 1/2 c. graham cracker crumbs
1/4 c. sugar
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
6 TBL melted, unsalted butter
filling:
1 1/2 lb. cream cheese, softened (3 – 8 oz tubs/blocks)
1 c. sugar
2 TBL flour
1 tsp. vanilla extract
2 vanilla beans
4 eggs
2 TBL heavy cream
Procedure:
Heat oven to 350*. In bowl, combine crumbs, sugar, cinnamon. Add butter, mix well. Press evenly into bottom and 1/2″ up sides of 9″ springform pan. Bake about 8 minutes or until golden brown; let cool. In large bowl, beat cream cheese until smooth and creamy. Add sugar a few tablespoons at a time, then flour and vanilla. Add eggs and cream, beating on low speed until combined. Split open vanilla beans and scrape seeds and insides into batter (you can reserve pods for garnish), combine. Pour batter into springform pan and bake in the middle of oven until set—about 55-70 minutes (I did mine for 60, and I think it came out too dark). Center should be slightly soft. Remove from oven, loosen ring, and let cool in pan. Refrigerate 6 hours or overnight. Remove outer ring.

Sour Cream Cream Cheese Frosting
1/2 c. sour cream
2/3 c. powdered sugar
8 oz. cream cheese
Combine ingredients in large bowl and mix until well blended.

White Chocolate Mousse
1 c. white chocolate chips
1/4 c. water
2/3 c. sugar
1 c. whipping cream
1 tsp. vanilla extract
Heat water in saucepan with sugar until sugar is dissolved. Add chocolate chips and melt until smooth. Set pan in cold water to cool then place in refrigerator until thoroughly chilled. Whisk smooth. Beat cream and vanilla until stiff peaks form; fold into cold chocolate.

I’ve included the mousse recipe even though it was a disaster and I’m not sure it will set up the way I need it to for a cheesecake. I plan to try again. Since the Chef would eventually like me to bake for his restaurant, I need to work on these things until I get them right, right?