Lucky Leaf Pie Fillings—Delicious Treats and a Giveaway!

Blueberry Meyer Lemon Cream Meringue Cups

So many treats, so little time to tell you about them.  But you must know, so here it is. 

The folks at Lucky Leaf were nice enough to send me more canned pie filling—and a couple other things, too.  I had fun playing around with different recipes to use the fillings.  One of my favorite things about their pie fillings is that they are not made with high fructose corn syrup.  So they are kind of like me making a similar thing from scratch at home.  Sometimes we just need a little less fuss in life and sometimes I want to make a really yummy treat to share, but don’t have the time to turn fresh fruit in to pie filling.  Another thing I love about the Lucky Leaf premium pie fillings is that you can use them for SO much more than pie!

In fact, with the fillings they sent me to try out, I didn’t make pie with any of them.  As you can see in the first picture, I used the blueberry filling to top some fancy, but super easy meringue cups filled with Meyer lemon whipped cream.  The meringue cups are so simple and are fat free and gluten free.  So besides the dollop of real whipped cream, flavored with Meyer lemon, they are a great, indulgent treat without too much alarm for ruining your new year’s diet resolution.  Loved these!  I love their recipe for Baby Blueberry Pies, which are similar to the mini blueberry pies I made last time they sent me some fillings.

Applesauce Spice Muffin with Apple Pie Filling and Whipped Cream

Next up I made some simple homemade muffins with applesauce and spices, perfect for cold weather!  These were topped with some whipped cream, Lucky Leaf apple pie filling (which I really like and was filled to the brim with apples) and a drizzle of caramel sauce.  Lucky Leaf sent me some recipes for ideas to use with their fillings, like this one, I got the idea from their Apple Spice Babycakes which are cupcakes made with a boxed spice cake and topped with vanilla ice cream and the apple pie filling.  While I’m not against boxed mixes and have used them plenty of times in my life, I wanted to try to make things that were from scratch.   The boys ate these up!

Finally with some strawberry pie filling, I also made something similar to a recipe they suggested for some Strawberries & Cream Chocolate Muffins.  Instead of making these with a chocolate cake mix, I made my favorite healthy, whole grain, no egg banana muffins, then I swirled in some strawberry pie filling and some Nutella to kick them up a bit!

Strawberry Nutella Banana Muffins

Check out all the recipes at Lucky Leaf!  I got the recipe for the meringue cups from Holly at Phemomenon.  She made them with a Meyer lemon custard, I just stirred some Meyer lemon juice into some whipped cream.   The muffins were my own recipe.

If you want any of the recipes I have made, let me know and I’d be happy to send them to you.  I need to finish up this post and offer a giveaway to you from Lucky Leaf!  They sent me along with some pie filling a bunch of other things for giving away treats to loved ones and they want to send a reader of my blog some, too.   There’s recipe cards and bags and cupcake holders and all kinds of things for you to be able to give away some goodies.  I love the Lucky Leaf slogan—Good Things Come to Those Who Bake.

If you’d like a chance to win, leave me a comment telling me what you favorite kind of fruit pie is.  For a second chance to win, leave me a separate comment after visiting the Lucky Leaf Recipes Page telling me which recipe you’d make first.  This giveaway is only for U.S. residents (or with a U.S. mailing address) and will end on Wednesday, February 13 at 6 p.m.  A winner will be chosen at random from the entries and notified that evening, so make sure you have a way to be reached in your comments.

Check out their Twitter page and all the yummy things at #LuckyLeafLuckyMe.  You can also like them on Facebook and for even more deliciousness, follow them on Pinterest.  Hey, you can follow me on Pinterest, too, at Baking and Boys!

Candy Cane Oreo Meringue Cookie—12 Weeks of Christmas Cookies

We’re in the home stretch, Friends.  Today is Week 10 of the 12 Weeks of Christmas Cookies!  After Thanksgiving, I ended up with eleven egg whites to use for something.  I almost made an angel food cake, but ended up doing other things with the whites.  Someday I’m going to make an angel food cake since I never have made one from scratch and bought a pan a few months back to do so.  But I ended up doing one thing or another with a couple of the egg whites and then decided to make meringue cookies with some.  These Candy Cane Oreo Meringue Cookies turned out great!

After finding and loving the new, limited edition Candy Cane Oreos, I decided it would be fun to crush some up and put them in the meringue cookies.  They turned out great!

While they tasted fine as is, I dressed them up a little with a dip in some melted chocolate and a little more sprinkling of the crushed cookies.

I love meringue cookies.  The boys do, too.  And these were a hit at book group I made them for the other night.

Light and crispy, airy but flavorful, love these!  They are so easy to make and pretty low fat.  Win, win!

Candy Cane Oreo Meringue Cookies, by Katrina, Baking and Boys!

2 large egg whites (66 grams), room temperature

1/2 cup granulated sugar (100 grams)

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

4 tablespoons crushed or ground Candy Cane Oreo Cookies, and extra for sprinkling on the tops (about 5 cookies)

4 ounces dark chocolate (good dark chips or chopped chocolate)

1 teaspoon coconut oil (or butter/shortening)

Preheat oven to 300 degrees.  Line baking sheet with parchment paper.  Beat egg whites on high in an electric mixer fitted with a wire whisk attachment.  As they are beginning to whip, add the granulated sugar a little at a time.  Add the vanilla extract.  Beat until stiff peaks form.  Remove bowl from mixer and fold in the ground Oreo cookies.  Put the mixture in a large piping bag fitted with a large tip (I use a star tip, but round works just fine).  Pipe dough in to about 1  1/2 inch mounds spaced an inch apart.  Bake for 30 minutes.  Let cool.

Melt chocolate in a microwave safe bowl in 20-30 second intervals with the microwave a half power.  (Should only take a couple minutes, stirring in between intervals.)  Dip half of each cookie into chocolate and set on parchment to harden.  Sprinkle with the ground cookies.  Let sit at room temperature until chocolate has hardened.  Makes about 20 cookies.

The 12 Weeks of Christmas Treats is brought to you by Brenda from Meal Planning Magic and all the blog hoppers you see below!

 

 

   

TWD—Cocoa Almond Meringues

I need you to sit down for a minute.  Are you sitting?  Okay.

Brace yourself.

I made today’s Tuesdays With Dorie recipe EXACTLY as written.  I know—I know….it’s hard to believe, but it really wasn’t that hard to do since it’s a chocolate based recipe. ;)

I love meringue cookies.  I was interested in these since they had some almond flour in them which in my mind made them similar to the macarons I made for the first time recently.  Although they don’t bake quite the same, these were/are good, but the macarons I made, which were also cocoa with almond flour, were better.  And the other meringue cookies I made a couple months ago, I kind of liked them better, too.  I think these would be even better with some almond extract to bump up the almond flavor.

These TWD cookies turned out just a little crunchier and I was wishing for a bit more chewiness.  But I will say who knows, it could be the weather or the oven temperature or cooking method and not so much the recipe.  Meringues are finicky like that.  Mine look more smooth than the ones in the photo of Dorie’s book, but that’s because I put the meringue in a piping bag and piped it out into mounds.  I like the look of them better that way. 

Glad I got these cookies made Monday afternoon.  We have had lots of company over the last couple weeks and my parents just left Monday morning and I really didn’t think I would get to these.  But I’m happy I did.  Mike at Ugly Food for an Ugly Dude has the recipe on his blog.

  

Ah, bummer, know what I just realized?   I didn’t follow the recipe exactly after all—I didn’t dust the meringues with powdered sugar.  Aw, I’m still calling it exact. ;)

Tuesdays With Dorie

Dark Chocolate Meringue Cookies

I am in love with a healthy treat and can’t wait any longer to share them with you.  Okay, I’m guessing you’ve heard of and probably tasted meringue cookies.  I made these recently when I had one little egg white that I didn’t want to waste.  I did a quick ingredient search on Allrecipes and found these cookies.

These are a perfect little touch of chocolate, sweet and protein as I’m trying to be careful with the things I eat right now.  There is no fat (okay, a little tiny bit in the chocolate coating—but it’s good, dark bittersweet chocolate, so it’s not bad!).  These have just a little sugar and protein from egg whites.  That’s it.  But they make for the perfect bite of crunch with a little chew and CHOCOLATE!  I would make these for any other occasion, not just because they are healthy.  They are great plain and/or dipped in chocolate.  I used Hershey’s Special Dark cocoa, which I also think added to the extra chocolaty goodness.

Dark Chocolate Meringue Cookies, by Katrina, Baking and Boys! (adapted from Allrecipes)

1 egg white

1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/4 cup granulated sugar

1 tablespoon dark cocoa

1 ounce dark chocolate, chopped

1 teaspoon shortening

Preheat the oven to 300 degrees.  Sift the cocoa in a small fine mesh sieve so it has no lumps.  Set aside.  Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.  Set aside.

With an electric hand mixer, beat egg white and vanilla until soft peaks form (1 egg is not enough for a stand mixer to work—but this recipe can easily be doubled or tripled and then a stand mixer would be great!).  Gradually add the sugar while beating the egg white until stiff peaks form.   Fold in the cocoa until thoroughly combined.  Put the mixture in a piping bag (or even just drop spoonfuls of the batter onto the baking sheet), and pipe onto the baking sheet, using the star tip.  Make the cookies only about 1 inch in diameter.  They can be spaced pretty close together as they don’t spread. 

Bake for 30 minutes.  Remove from oven and leave cookies on sheet to cool.  Melt the dark chocolate in a microwave safe dish in 15 second intervals.  When melted, stir in the shortening.  Dip half of each cookie in the chocolate and set on a wax paper lined plate.  Chill until chocolate is hardened.  Try not to eat them all in one sitting. ;) This small batch makes about 18.

  

Plain—good!  I plan to even make some that are just vanilla, and maybe even with other flavorings and colors.  How fun would a plateful be with some pink, blue, green, white, chocolate, etc.  I am in love with these.  Just making sure I got that point across. ;)