Coconut Pie

I came home the other night thinking I wanted to make a red velvet cake and ended up making this coconut pie instead. I had the one sliver that's cut out in this picture and Allen ate the rest (to his credit he ate on it throughout the week). It's a super easy to make and it always reminds me of spring.



1/2 stick butter (melted)
2 cups sugar
2 tsps flour
2 eggs
3/4 cup whole evaporated milk
1 cup coconut
1 tsp vanilla
1 pinch salt

Combine all ingredients. Pour into an unbaked pie shell. Bake at 325 degrees for one hour.

Key Lime Cupcakes

Cupcakes are (maybe "were" now) the new black. The cupcake craze has gone a little overboard this year with cupcakeries cropping up all and selling the tiny cakes at $3.50 a pop. After spending $7 on two dry cupcakes at Sugarbaby's I decided maybe I don't need to eat cupcakes (I have, however, heard great things about Crave). But, when I saw this Key Lime Cupcake recipe in bon appetit, originally from Buttersweet Bakery in Altanta, I thought it sounded fun and it would give me a reason to buy neon-green food coloring. I also had some amazing Key Lime Cheesecake Cupcakes at a shower recently and so it's been on my mind.

Turns out this recipe is a keeper. The cupcakes are incredibly dense but the lime flavoring isn't too strong and the icing is just perfect. I have always heard that the secret to good Key Lime Cheesecake is using real key limes and I would suspect that would also help out this recipe.

After I had all the batter mixed I had a flashback to the Avocado Soup I made recently. It was almost the identical color and texture. We're taking these to a BBQ today and Allen has already decided we'll tell everyone they're spinach cupcakes. We'll see how that goes over.

Cupcake Ingredients:
1 cup all purpose flour
3/4 cup self-rising flour
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 1/4 cups sugar
2 large eggs
2 1/2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
1 tablespoon finely grated lime peel
1/4 teaspoon neon-green food coloring
3/4 cup buttermilk

Frosting Ingredients:
1 8-oz package cream cheese, room temperature
1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 tablespoon finely grated lime peel
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Instructions:
1.Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line standard cupcake pan with 12 paper liners. Whisk both flours in medium bowl until smooth. Add sugar, beat to blend. Beat in eggs 1 at a time, then next 3 ingredients (batter may look curdled). Beat in flour mixture in 3 additions alternately with buttermilk in 2 additions.



Spoon scant 1/3 cup batter into each liner.



2. Bake cupcakes until tester inserted into center comes out clean, 20 to 25 minutes. Cool 10 minute. Remove from pan; cool.

Frosting:
Beat all ingredients in a medium bowl until smooth. Spread over cupcakes.

perugian-style chocolate hazelnut cheesecake (torta di cioccolata al forno con vaniglia e nocciola)

I got this recipe out of the April issue of Gourmet. It was okay. Not great, just okay. My favorite thing about it was that I had an excuse to buy those Carr's whole wheat crackers. If you're looking for a Christmas present for me think Carr's whole wheat crackers...I love 'em that much. (I like them more than this torta.)

For crust:
1/4 pound wheatmeal crackers finely crushed (about 1 cup)
1 ounce fine-quality bittersweet chocolate (no more than 60% cacao if marked), grated
1/2 stick unsalted butter, melted

For filling:
1/2 pound fine-quality bittersweet chocolate (no more than 60% cacao if marked), chopped
1 stick unsalted butter, cut into pieces
1 pound 2 ounce cream cheese, at room temperature
1/2 cup sour cream
1/4 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
2 large eggs
2/3 cup superfine granulated sugar

1 cup hazelnuts (4 1/2 ounces), toasted loose skins rubbed off in a kitchen towel while still warm, and nuts chopped (this is, sort of, a pain in the butt)




Make crust:Combine all ingredients, then press onto bottom of springform pan.



Make filling and bake cheesecake:Preheat oven to 325°F with rack in middle.

Melt chocolate with butter, then remove from heat and whisk in cream cheese until smooth. Whisk in sour cream and vanilla.



Whisk together eggs and sugar in a large bowl until mixture has a mousse-like consistency, then stir in chocolate mixture and nuts.

Pour filling into crust and bake 1 1/2 hours. (Top will be slightly cracked.)

Cool to room temperature in pan on a rack, about 1 hour, then chill at least 1 hour. (Cake will sink slightly.)

Cooks' notes:

•Wheatmeal biscuits are British-style whole-wheat crackers. Look for Carr's (labeled "Whole Wheat Crackers" and found at most supermarkets) or McVitie's brand (found at some specialty foods shops).


•Chocolate hazelnut cheesecake can be chilled up to 1 day. Bring to room temperature before serving.

Best Cookies on Earth

The ladies of Athens don't lie. These are pretty damn good cookies. (Ooh, maybe the ladies of Athens wouldn't appreciate me saying the word "Damn"?) I got this recipe from a friend who stole it from "Under the Magnolia, A Tasteful Tour of Athens" cookbook. I mix 'em up and Allen bakes 'em -- we've got division of labor worked out in the cookie department. We've also finally learned our lesson and we freeze most of the dough and just pull it out when we need a sweet treat. (Otherwise, Allen eats them all and they're gone in just a couple of days.) We also like baking them when we have friends over for dinner. They're the best cookies on earth when they're pulled out of the oven and paired with some vanilla ice cream.

Ingredients:

2 sticks butter (or margarine)

3/4 cup light brown sugar

3/4 cup granulated sugar

1 egg

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 1/2 cups self-rising flour

1 1/2 cups oatmeal

1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

1 cup dried cranberries

1 (7.5 oz) package of toffee bits

Directions:

Cream butter and sugars, add egg and vanilla mixing well. Blend in flour, oatmeal, chocolate chips, cranberries and toffee bits. Drop by teaspoonfuls onto a greased baking sheet. Bake for 10 minutes. Cool slightly before transferring to cooling rack (or your mouth).

Unfortunately they're not as big as Allen's (unusually small) head.

No-Knead Nutella and Roasted Hazelnut Challah

I took this recipe from Steamy Kitchen who took it from the book Artisian Bread Five Minutes a Day. I've since bought the book because I enjoyed this recipe so much. It's a bit labor intensive (we didn't get to enjoy our bread until about noon on the Saturday morning that I made it despite starting on it around 9:30 a.m. -- but most of the time is waiting and baking), a bit messy, and with buying the honey, hazelnuts (I had some leftover from the Scallops with Hazelnut Brown Butter Recipe) and Nutella it's not necessarily an inexpensive bread. But I love challah (I wonder what would happen if you made french toast with this challah!?!) and it was fun to make.

On to the recipe (taken from Steamy Kitchen):

You start by mixing the master dough first, let that rest overnight in the refrigerator, then the next day, pinch off a grapefruit sized piece of dough (1lb) to use for a loaf of Challah. Return the rest to the refrigerator to use for another day.

1 3/4 cups lukewarm water
1 1/2 tbl instant yeast
1 1/2 tbl kosher salt (1 1/2 tsp table salt)
4 lg eggs, slightly beaten
1/2 cup honey
1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted
7 cups unbleached all-purpose flour

In a large bowl, mix together the eggs, water, honey, melted butter, yeast and salt. Stir well with a wooden spoon. Add in the flour. STIR, BABY STIR!!! Stir until you don't see any more dry bits of flour. Cover (not airtight) and stick it in the refrigerator overnight, or up to 4 days. The longer you let it fart around in the refrigerator (literally!), the better tasting the dough will be.
pssst....if you want, you can let it rise for 2 hours on the counter, pinch off the dough that you need to make your Challah. However, I've found that with only a 2-hour rise, the bread isn't very flavorful. Still good, but definitely not as good as if you had let it sit 1-4 days in the refrigerator.

Nutella and Roasted Hazelnut Challah adaptation of Challah recipe from from Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day

1 lb of Master Challah Dough (above) about a grapefruit sized chunk of dough
4 1/2 tbl Nutellasmall handful of hazelnuts
1 egg + 1 tbl water, whisked to make egg wash

The first thing you need to do is take that master dough out of the refrigerator, grab a grapefruit sized chunk of dough. Return the rest of it to the refrigerator to use another time. Generously flour your hands and the dough. Shape the dough into a ball by stretching the surface of the dough and tucking it to the bottom all around, rotating hte ball a quarter-turn as you go. This creates a taut, smooth surface. Let the dough hang out on counter, covered with a towel to take the chill off while you roast your hazelnuts.

Roast Hazelnuts: Grab a medium sized skillet. Turn heat to medium. When hot, add hazelnuts and roast, continually moving the nuts so that they don't burn. You may want to turn your heat to medium-low if the pan gets too hot. Roast until nuts are golden brown and fragrant. Roughly chop the nuts with a sharp chef's knife and cutting board.

Braid Dough: Now, back to the dough. Use palm of your hands and roll the dough into a thick, even log. Cut the dough into 3 equal pieces with knife or dough scraper. (It's easier to cut even pieces when the dough is not round). Roll each piece with your hands to stretch into a long 1 1/2" thick rope. Try not to just stretch it out by pulling, the dough will break. Easiest way is to place dough on counter and roll back and forth with palms of hands, starting in the middle and hands move out which stretching the dough a bit. Don't worry about getting it to look pretty, just try to get each piece even sized.

Time to add the Nutella. Take one piece of dough. Use side of your hand to press and create an indent in the middle of the strand. Spread about 1 1/2 tbl of Nutella in this indent.

Bring up the sides of the dough, encasing the Nutella and pinch dough closed. Repeat with other strands. It's a bit messy and next time I'll try and make deeper, wider holes so less Nutella squirts out the top.
Pinch it up!



Time to braid. Start in the middle and braid. Pinch ends, tuck under. Now braid the other side, pinch and tuck. Start braid from the middle (instead of top) so that it tapers evenly at both ends.

Cover with towel and let rest for 1-1/2 hours. 20 minutes prior to baking, preheat your oven to 350F. When dough is ready, brush top with egg wash and sprinkle with chopped hazelnuts. Bake for 25 minutes.

It's as good as it looks!

Petite Cherry Cheesecake

"Easy-to-make little cheesecakes are a real treat for party-givers as well as party-goers--"

At some point in high school my Dad bought a Xerox machine for his office. So, after taking pictures of my face and mailing it to friends I moved on to the next brilliant idea: I made copy of my Mom's recipes. Usually they were riped from the pages of Southern Living magazine and taped into her recipe book like the one above.

I'm not sure where my Mom originally got this recipe but she usually made it once a year -- sometimes around Valentine's Day. It's one of those recipes you'd see on that "Semi-Homemade" show on the cooking network -- easy and (sort-of) cheating by using with ingredients like vanilla wafers for the crust and canned cherry filling for the topping. (It's still good though!)

2 8-ounce packages of cream cheese, softened
3/4 cups sugar
2 eggs
1 tablespoons lemon juice
1 teaspoon vanilla
24 vanilla wafers
1 21-ounce can cherry pie filling


1. Beat cream cheese, sugar, eggs, lemon juice, and vanilla until light and fluffy.

2. Line small muffin pans with paper bake cups, and place a vanilla wafer in bottom of each cup. Fill the cups 2/3 full with cream cheese mixture.

3. Bake in 375 degree oven for 15 to 20 munite or until set.
4. Top each with about 1 tablespoon filling; chill.

I wish I had an excuse to make these more often. Allen and I really don't need two dozen petite cherry cheesecakes sitting around the house. Besides, when you have a one-time cheesecake craving isn't that what Sonic's Cheesecake Bites are for?

No-Knead Bread!

For years I've wanted a Kitchen Aid mixer with the idea that I'd finally start making bread, pastas, and many of the baked goodies that are hard or impossible to mix with your average hand mixer. Ironically after finally buying myself a mixer and researching bread recipes online the first recipe that I wanted to try was an recipe that Mark Bittman made popular over a year ago with a New York Times article, a recipe that you don't need any sort of mixer what so ever to make. Apparently everyone and their dog has tried it with much success so this weekend it was my turn, and now I'll add to the many bloggers who have posted pictures and the recipe for the No-Knead Bread.

First off I've got to say that this is an easy recipe, worth making and very delicious, but it's also a recipe that takes up to 15-16 hours to make. So, if you want to have it ready for dinner at 7:00 p.m. on Saturday evening you'll want to start it by at least 3:00 or 4:00 p.m. on Friday.

No-Knead Bread (Yields one 1 1/2 lb loaf)

3 cups all-purpose or bread flower, more for dusting
1/4 tsp instant yeast
1 1/4 tsp salt
cornmeal or wheat bran as needed

1. In a large bowl combine flour, yeast and salt. Add 1 5/8 cups water, and stir until blended; dough will be shaggy and sticky. Cover bowl with plastic wrap. Let dough rest at least 12 hours, preferably about 18, at room temperature, about 70 degrees.

2. Dough is ready when its surface is dotted with bubbles. Lightly flour a work surface and place dough on it; sprinkle with a little more flour and fold it over once or twice. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rest about 15 minutes.

3. Using just enough flour to keep dough from sticking to work surface or to your fingers, gently and quickly shape dough into a ball. Generously coat a cotton towel (not terry cloth) with flour, wheat bran or cornmeal; put dough seam side down on town and dust with more flour, bran or cornmeal. Cover with another cotton towel and let rise for about 2 hours. When it is ready, dough will be more than double in size and will not readily spring back when poked with a finger.



4. At least a half-hour before dough is ready, heat oven to 450 degrees. Put a 6- to 8-quart heavy covered pot (cast iron, enamel, Pyrex or ceramic) in oven as it heats. When dough is ready, carefully remove pot from oven. Slide your hand under towel and turn dough over into pot, seam side up. Shake pan once or twice if dough is unevenly distributed. Cover with lid and bake 30 minutes.

5. Remove lid and bake another 15 to 30 minutes, until loaf is beautifully browned. Cool on a wire rack.

It is a delicious bread -- perfect for soups or buttered up for any meal.

Blackberry Cobbler

My mom has been making this for years. I'm not sure where she got the recipe but it's easy as pie and for some reason people (including Allen) love it. I prefer blackberry and when I've tried peaches I don't think it's turned out as tasty. It doesn't have the cakey topping that you sometimes find (The Salt Lick cobbler has a yellow cake topping) but to me this is the better, more traditional version.


Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Mix together until it crumbly: 1 stick of margarine (at room temperature so it's easy to mix)
3/4 cup of sugar
1 and 1/2 cups of Bisquick

In a pyrex dish add a little bit more than one layer of berries (a bag of frozen berries will usually do it). Sprinkle the berries with 1/4 - 1/2 cup sugar and a bit of water. (If you're using frozen berries forgo the additional water.)

Cover the berries with the margarine/sugar/Bisquick mixture.

Place in the oven (uncovered) for 30 minutes or so, or until it boils and is "good and brown" on top.

Serve with vanilla ice cream.