Easy Three Ingredient Berry Ice Cream

I know super easy “ice creams” made with frozen fruit, especially bananas has been done many times and I’ve made it many times myself.  I usually make it with only bananas and sometimes add peanut butter and/or chocolate to it, which IS probably my favorite.  But last night I had a hankering for a sweet treat and saw how much frozen fruit I have in my freezer right now so I threw some in the food processor and made this heavenly version.

 

SO easy!  Perfect.  Healthy.  I even was so kind to share some with Parker, who is trying out veganism right now.  Going crazy trying to keep him fed!  This is my kid whose favorite foods were bacon and A1 Steak Sauce and steak.  I’m going crazy and hope this doesn’t last too long for him.  To each his own, but I think someone shouldn’t go all certain-diet crazy unless they can buy their own food and feed themselves!  Back to the delicious treat!

 

I went a little crazy (ha!) and drizzled some melted Enjoy Life chocolate chips on mine.  It was just like Magic Shell, but way, way healthier!  Love!

 

Easy Three Ingredient Berry Ice Cream, by Katrina, Baking and Boys!

 

1 cup frozen bananas

1 cup frozen strawberries and blueberries (there were probably more strawberries)

2 tablespoons Enjoy Life (or any of your choice) chocolate chips, optional

 

You can easily do 2-3 cups of any fruit of your choosing.

Add the frozen fruit to a food processor.  Blend for 3-5 minutes until smooth, scraping down the sides of the bowl every minute or so.

While it is blending, melt the chocolate in a small microwaveable dish in 20-30 second intervals until melted.  Drizzle over ice cream. Yum!

 

I know this probably isn’t a very exciting post and something you’ve seen before but I decided to document it on my blog, which has been suffering from neglect lately. I’m going to try to get back into sharing……and making more goodies!  I miss it!

 

Berry Shortcakes Franco American Style—Tuesdays With Dorie—Baking Chez Moi

Today’s post for Tuesdays With Dorie--Baking Chez Moi are Strawberry Shortcakes Franco-Amercian Style (pages 338-340 and 424-425).  They are basically a ladyfinger dough, piped onto a baking sheet.  Two cookies/cakes are sandwiched with fresh whipped cream and berries.  Dorie’s recipes has a great filling with a strawberry compote as well as another option for roasted strawberries.  My family likes fresh berries, so I made the cakes, whipped some fresh cream and washed some berries—raspberries, blackberries and strawberries and let everyone choose what they wanted.

It was fun to make the ladyfinger batter, which I hadn’t done before.  The simple dough is made with whipped egg whites added to minimal ingredients of the yolks, a little flour and sugar and some cornstarch.  So easy and I liked doing something new.  The dough is put in a piping bag and piped into three inch circles and baked for a short time.  The cookies are tender and cake-like.  I tasted a little piece of one.  They could easily be made with a gluten free flour and organic sugar.  I will try that next time. 

If I have learned anything from all my years baking from Dorie’s cookbooks with TWD, it is mise en place—everything in its place.  I love getting everything ready to go before I begin assembling a recipe.  The parchment is ready to go and the piping bag.

Quite the simple batter and piping is easy—don’t be afraid of it.  Yes, filling the bag gets just a little messy, but that’s what baking is all about, right?

Baked to a perfect golden color, the shortcakes are ready to go with whipped creamy goodness and fresh berries!

 

I set up a quick dessert station and let my family have at it.

Glad I participated in this one.  Check out the other bloggers’ posts for their shortcakes here.  Who knew that ladyfingers dough/cookies were so easy?  

Chocolate Strawberry Dessert Bars

After making these Raspberry Streusel Dessert Bars back in April and then making them at least 3-4 times since, I kept thinking about chocolate (surprise!).  After making some homemade strawberry jam a few weeks ago, it came to me that these bars would be so good made with chocolate and strawberry jam—like a chocolate covered strawberry in dessert bar form.  So I set out to see what I could come up with.  And I love it when something turns out great on the first try!

I just made these yesterday after taking a Facebook friends poll over which kind of chocolate people prefer on chocolate covered strawberries.  Dark, semi-sweet or milk?  Then I started having some say their favorite is white chocolate on strawberries—okay, I’ll have to try another bar, but for now, for these bars, I went with semi-sweet.  They are sure easy to make and certainly taste like chocolate and strawberries.  I call it a win!

Chocolate Strawberry Dessert Bars, by Katrina, Baking and Boys!

2 cups (240 grams) all purpose flour

1/2 cup (40 grams) natural cocoa powder

2/3 cup (133 grams) granulated sugar

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, cold, cut into pieces

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 cup strawberry jam (homemade is best!)

1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

Ganache:

3 ounces semi-sweet chocolate chips

2 tablespoons strawberry jam

3 tablespoons heavy cream

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Line a 9 inch baking pan with non-stick foil.  Spray lightly with cooking spray.  In the bowl of a food processor, add the flour, cocoa, sugar, and salt.  Pulse to combine.  Add the vanilla and pieces of butter.  Pulse until it is all combined and resembles coarse, wet sand.  Put about 2/3 of the mixture into the baking pan and spread evenly, pressing down slightly.  Spread the strawberry jam over the bottom crust.  Then sprinkle the chocolate chips over the jam.  Finish with sprinkling the remaining crumb mixture over the top and press down slightly.  Bake for 40 minutes.  Remove from oven and let sit until cool.

Remove the bars from the pan using the overhanging edges of the foil.  Cut into 16 bars.

Make the ganache.  Put the chocolate in a medium sized heatproof bowl.  Put the jam and cream in a glass measuring cup or bowl and microwave on high for 30 seconds, just as it begins to bubble up (watch that it doesn’t bubble over, could do in 15 second intervals if you’re worried).  Pour the cream mixture over the chocolate chips and let sit for a minute.  Stir the now melted chocolate and strawberry cream together until smooth.  Let the ganache sit for 20-30 minutes so it thickens slightly.  Put the ganache into a zip top plastic bag, then snip the corner off and drizzle over the bars.  Let sit until somewhat hardened on the bars.

These would be good and pretty with a fresh slice of strawberry on the tops of each, but I didn’t have any fresh strawberries at the time. 

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!

Lucky Leaf Giveaway and Blueberry Pie, Strawberry Cookie Pie, Peach Cinnacake and Frozen Strawberry Pie Pops

Brace yourself for a delicious post full of all kinds desserts and treats made with Lucky Leaf premium pie filling—and a giveaway! Lucky Leaf contacted me and asked if I wanted to try some of their pie fillings and some fun ice pop molds.  I thought it would be fun to try them.  After receiving the package, I went to town making all the recipes they sent along with the products.

First, I made some  frozen strawberry pie pops.  I love the spiral shape of them and the boys enjoyed eating them.

I know, this is where you think it would be fun to see some cute pictures of my boys eating the pops.  And this is where I tell you that my camera is broken and on its way to the fix-it place.  Needless to say, I’m not thrilled with any of the pictures that will be in this post since I took them with my phone and due mostly to user-error, they aren’t that great.  So I did take some pictures of the boys, and they are blurry.  sigh  Anyway, for this post, I’ve picked out the best of the worst to share with you, because there are some great treats here. ;)

After making the pops, which I made using only half the strawberry pie filling, I made some miniature strawberry cream peanut butter cookie pies.  In the recipes given to me by Lucky Leaf, they suggested using refrigerated store-bought cookie dough.  But since I don’t do that, I made my own and decided on a peanut butter cookie dough for the crust.  They also suggested mixing the pie filling with thawed frozen whipped dessert topping, but I used real whipped cream.  One of the things I like about Lucky Leaf pie fillings is that they are made with no high fructose corn syrup---so I didn’t want to add any other pre-packaged ingredients and have other high fructose or hydrogenated oils, etc. in these desserts. 

These were good.  The peanut butter cookie crust was perfect for the fluffy strawberries and cream filling.  I took half of these to Kevin’s sister’s house and I think Scott ate the rest of them.  He really liked them!

I then used the peach pie filling to make my version of Lucky Leaf’s Perfectly Peach Cinnacake.   Their suggestion was to use a boxed cake mix, but I made my own dry cake mix and was happy with how it turned out.  Kevin, who as we all know, doesn’t like cake and especially frosting, actually really liked this cake (because it didn’t have frosting).  The boys all enjoyed topping their pieces of cake with some whipped cream.

The recipe said to fold the pie filling into the cake mix, but I didn’t want chunks of peach throughout the cake, so I actually pulsed the filling in the food processor before adding it to the cake.  It was good!

And finally, and probably my favorite of all these desserts I made a simple pie crust and made some mini blueberry pies.  Some perfectly two-bite mini pie pockets that were delicious (I love pie crust!).

Blueberry pie filling goodness hiding inside of these!

Even more fun, was this little three inch lattice pie I made.

I love how perfectly the pie sliced! And it tasted great!  And for the record, I did not make all of these in one day!  I will share the recipes I used for making homemade cake/cookie crust and pie crust in later posts, so stay tuned for those!

Meanwhile, Lucky Leaf is willing to send some of their premium pie fillings, ice pop molds and recipes cards to one of my readers!  Wanna win?  Leave me a comment letting me know what is you favorite flavor of pie.  That’s one entry.  For another entry, like the Baking and Boys! Facebook page and come back and leave me a separate comment that you did (or if you already do).  The deadline to enter for this giveaway is Monday, June 18, noon MST.  (U.S. Residents only please.)

Banana Split Granola

 

Banana Split Granola, by Katrina, Baking and Boys!

I think this is right up there as one of my favorite granola creations.  And yes, I know, I think I say that with all of them.   This one is so good just as a snack by the handfuls.  It’s almost gone and I’ve yet to put it on yogurt or have it with milk.  But I’m sure it would be fantastic like that, too.

Have you seen all the freeze dried fruit that is out there?  I like freeze dried much more than just dried fruit.  Love the crunchier, lighter texture.  I’ve made a dark chocolate raspberry granola with freeze dried raspberries.  I’ve also put them in Raspberry Chocolate Chip Cookies.  I have a few family members who LOVE those chocolate chip cookies with the raspberries added.  I think they are great, too.  And while Kevin doesn’t like fruit with chocolate things, he’ll snitch a cookie or two when I make them with the raspberries and I’m pretty sure he secretly likes them. ;)

You can get small bags of freeze dried apples, pears, and a combo of bananas and strawberries.  The boys like all of those, too.  They prefer the apples and pears though, so when I recently bought a big box of the individual bags at Costco, a number of the banana/strawberry ones sat in the pantry not getting eaten.  It hit me one day recently to put them in granola.  I then decided just bananas and strawberries weren’t enough, so I also added some dried pineapple, some cocoa almonds (love those, too and just recently tried them for the first time), and some chopped dark chocolate.  All of a sudden this Banana Split Granola came to life!

Banana Split Granola, by Katrina, Baking and Boys!

4 cups old fashioned oats

1/4 cup wheat germ

1/4 cup ground flax seeds (meal)

1/2 cup unsweetened grated coconut

1/2 cup light brown sugar

1 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

1/3 cup canola oil

1/4 cup agave nectar (or honey)

1/2 cup freeze dried bananas and strawberries

1/3 cup chopped dried pineapple

1/4 cup cocoa-covered almonds, or just plain almonds

1/4 cup chopped dark chocolate (or chocolate chips)

Preheat oven to 300 degrees.  Line a baking sheet with Silpat or parchment paper.  In a large bowl, combine the oats, wheat germ, flax, coconut, brown sugar and salt.  Stir to combine.  In a medium sized, microwaveable bowl, combine the oil and agave.  Microwave for 30 seconds.  Add the vanilla and whisk until well combined.  Pour over the oat mixture and stir with a wooden spoon until it is all moist.  Spread the mixture evenly onto the baking sheet and bake for 22 minutes.  Let sit on the baking sheet on a cooling rack until completely cooled.  Break into pieces into a bowl.  Add the dried fruit, almonds and chocolate and mix to combine.  Store in an airtight container after trying not to eat too much of it at once. ;)

Get a bite of it with a banana, a strawberry, a piece of pineapple, an almond, a piece of chocolate and some granola—YUM!  I will be making this again very soon!

TWD—Baking With Julia—Strawberry Rhubarb Hungarian Shortbread

For Baking With Julia today we made Hungarian Shortbread (pages 327-328).  First things first was to make a rhubarb jam.  I really need to get a rhubarb plant (or two) so I can readily have my own on hand.  It is hard to find in stores around here, even when it is in season.  A couple weeks ago I saw it at a grocery store I don’t normally go to and I knew it wasn’t at the ones I do usually go to.  So I went back to that store to get the half pound of rhubarb that I needed.  When I’d seen the store’s supply before, it was plentiful.  The trip where I actually needed to buy some there was three little stalks left that weren’t that pretty.  sigh

I bought what was there and had to cut off quite a bit of it that wasn’t usable.  After all was said and done, I only had five ounces of rhubarb and I needed eight.  (I decided to halve the shortbread recipe when I saw that it took one pounds of butter and four egg yolks!)  It was a good thing when I saw the lame rhubarb that I also grabbed two pounds of strawberries.  So for this jam I used rhubarb and strawberries and it made a lovely jam. 

The shortbread was easy to make and fun to grate after it was frozen for a short time.  Kevin saw me doing it and couldn’t figure out what in the world I was grating—he thought it was cheese.

The first layer of shortbread is grated into the pan and pressed down slightly.  Then the jam is spread on it and the second layer is grated over that. 

As soon as the baked shortbread came out of the oven, you are instructed to heavily dust it with powdered sugar.  I kind of think just a light dusting would have been fine. 

Okay, so just for the heck of it while I was spreading on the jam, I decided to only do half of it with the strawberry rhubarb jam and a opened a jar of fig preserves that I have had in the cupboard and spread that on the other half. 

I have to say, the shortbread is super sweet.  Maybe it was just because I tasted it after serving everyone some homemade ice cream on Monday, which was also super sweet.  I actually only tasted it and no one else has had a chance to taste it yet.  I’m going to have to take the rest of the week off from baking or something—or give some of the stuff away that we have around here right now!

If you want to make this shortbread, check out our hosts’ posts (ha—a rhyme!) for the week.

Lynette of 1 Small Kitchen and Cher of The not so exciting adventures of a dabbler... are the hosts.  You can check out all the other Hungarian Shortbreads here at the Tuesdays With Dorie website, too.

Homemade Strawberry Cream Cheese Ice Cream Recipe—Cookie Carnival

The “star of the show” today, even though it’s a Cookie Carnival post is this perfectly creamy Homemade Strawberry Cream Cheese Ice Cream I made to go with the Ice Cream Cookie Sandwiches. 

I’ve made it just under the gun for the May Cookie Carnival.  We had two recipes to choose from this month.  One was some strawberry rhubarb bars, which I know would have been good, but I just haven’t been able to get my hands on some rhubarb yet, so I made the Easy Ice Cream Sandwiches from Better Homes & Gardens.  The cookies are made with a pretty simple chocolate sugar cookie dough.

I’ve started getting into my homemade ice cream making mood lately, even though we’ve barely seen just a touch of spring around here.  I’m ready for some nice warm springtime weather.  I’m just sure if I keep making ice cream, summer will be here, right.

  

The recipe from Better Homes & Gardens is on the link above.  I made it exactly as written.  The cookies are okay and the recipe says to just use some store bought ice cream or yogurt.  I had some strawberries that needed to get used and after realizing I had three bricks of cream cheese in the fridge, I decided that I’d use one to make ice cream.  I Googled “strawberry cream cheese ice cream” and looked over many different recipes, then came up with this of which none that I’d found were like this.  Just like my recent Cherry Chocolate Chip Ice Cream, I pureed the fruit and strained it over a fine mesh sieve to make sure there were no pieces of fruit and to remove the strawberry seeds. 

Strawberry Cream Cheese Ice Cream, by Katrina, Baking and Boys!

2 cups strawberries, washed and hulled (about 3/4 cup strawberry puree)

8 ounces 1/3 less fat cream cheese, softened

1 cup skim milk

1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice

3/4 cup granulated sugar

1/8 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup heavy cream

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Put the strawberries in a food processor or blender and puree until no chunks remain, about one minute.  Place a strainer over a medium sized bowl and pour the puree into the strainer.  Press it through with a spatula or spoon until all the remains in the strainer is seeds and any other pieces that may not have blended up enough.  Set aside.

In the bowl of a food processor, blend the cream cheese until smooth.  Add the sugar, lemon juice, salt and blend.  Scrape the sides of the bowl.  Slowly add the milk while the food processor is going.  Scrape the sides of the bowl again.  Pour the mixture into a medium sized bowl and fold in the cream, vanilla and strawberry puree. 

The mixture is already cold enough to immediately churn it in the ice cream maker, do so according to the manufacturer’s instructions.  This took about 25 minutes.  Remove the ice cream and put it in an airtight container to firm up in the freezer for a few hours.  (Though I love soft serve, so that’s acceptable, too.)

  This ice cream has a perfect amount of kick from the cream cheese and a great balance of strawberry flavor.  Give it a try!

This month’s Cookie Carnival is being hosted by Krista from Meet the Swans.  She’ll be posting a round up for all the participants’ cookies soon!

TWD—Strawberry-(Apple) Double Crisp

This week it was chosen for Tuesdays With Dorie for us to make the Strawberry-Rhubarb Double Crisp (pages 420-421).  Sarah at Teapots and Cake Stands chose the recipe.  Although I do like rhubarb and wish I could have found some, it is not quite in season and available here yet.  The nice thing is that crisps are very versatile, so t was easy to decide on another fruit and make this anyway.

I had just seen on Deeba’s fantastic blog, Passionate About Baking that she had made a crumble/crisp with strawberries and apples, so I decided to make life easy and use some of the apples we had.

The crisp was easy to prepare.  Of course, I made a few substitutions, just for my health’s sake.  Instead of all purpose flour, I used whole wheat pastry flour (can’t even tell).  I did not have any crystallized ginger, so I used an extra 1/2 teaspoon of ground ginger in the crisp mix.  And instead of butter, I used I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter Baking Sticks (1/2 cup as written).  The more crisp the merrier, so I liked that this recipe has a layer on the bottom and plenty on top of the fruit filling as well.

I followed the recipe for the strawberry filling (jam) almost—the recipe called for one cup of sugar for the 3 cups of strawberries and that was just too much.  I only used 1/2 cup of sugar and it tasted great!  In place of the rhubarb, I used about a pound of apples, which was two large Granny Smith apples and two small Gala apples. 

Everything went off without a hitch.  Since I made this a little healthier, I topped the crisp with some fat free frozen vanilla yogurt.

Sarah will have the recipe for the Strawberry-Rhubarb Double Crisp on her blog and you can check out the other crisp creations (some found rhubarb, some didn’t) over at the TWD site.  

Melon and Berries Salad with Fresh Mint

I have a silly little confession to make.  I workout on the treadmill every day (early morning) for an hour.  While briskly walking and jogging, I read food magazines and look at recipes and pictures of decadent, tempting food.  Why would I subject myself to that?  Really, because I don’t have any other time of the day where I could just sit and read magazines.  And because sometimes I find recipes I must try.  This salad (which is actually healthy!) is one of them.

I love fresh fruit.  Sometimes I think I could just live eating fruits and vegetables alone.  But then I am quickly brought back to reality—chocolate! ;)  I saw this salad in a supplement to Better Homes and Gardens magazine (April 2011 edition).  We were having dinner with some friends a couple days ago an I had volunteered to bring salad.  I brought this salad and a vegetable salad that I will share soon that I also found in the same BH&G supplement.   You can find the exact Better Homes & Gardens Melon and Berries Salad recipe online.  But here’s how simple I made it.

Melon and Berries Salad with Fresh Mint, adapted by Katrina, Baking and Boys! from Better Homes & Gardens

1 cantaloupe, seeded and cut into cubes or made into balls

1 honeydew melon, seede and cut into cutes or made into balls

1 pint blueberries

1/2-1 cup strawberries, cut into small chunks (raspberries would be fantastic, too, but were not on sale at the time I made this)

1 tablespoon honey

juice of 1 lime (about 1 tablespoon)

1-2 tablespoons fresh mint, chopped

Combine the cantaloupe, honeydew, strawberries and blueberries in a large bowl.  In a small bowl, combine the honey and lime juice.  Whisk together to combine well.  Drizzle over the fruit and carefully stir it with a big spoon.  Sprinkle with chopped mint and stir again to distribute evenly. 

Besides the strawberries being a little “sad”, this salad is really much better the next day as the lime and mint flavors develop even more.  You can chill the salad the day before serving and just add the berries before serving.  But I’ve eaten some leftovers the last few days and it is still good, though I’ve picked out the strawberries.  I love the honeydew melon and cantaloupe after it has been in the lime juice for a few days.  The blueberries are great, too.  This would also be great with watermelon added. 

I may not ever have “plain” fruit salad again!  I will be planting some mint soon, too.  I found a nice bundle of it at the grocery store, but I know once planted it can take over and grow like weeds.  Nice thing is out where we are with an acre of land, we have the room for that to be okay.

Speaking of our land, we woke up to this this morning—after it was in the mid-70’s yesterday, then by evening was VERY windy and rainy.

Happy Spring, Ya’ll!  Apparently some other areas of Salt Lake and Utah County got well over 6 inches.  Last night the wind knocked over our free standing basketball standard and it hit the deck stairs railing and knocked out a big part of it.  That will be fun to get fixed.

TWD—Devilish Shortcakes and Last Week’s Rewind—Blueberry Pie

Last week I mentioned that I planned to make Dorie’s Blueberry Pie for Thanksgiving, but didn’t post it yet because I was making it for Thanksgiving.  Dorie’s recipe is specifically for a double-crusted pie, but I put streusel on top. 

The pie was fantastic and a big hit with our 25+ pies and desserts with our crowd of 60 for Thanksgiving.  This is the only picture I was able to snap of it.

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I made the Devilish Shortcakes on Monday, just in time to also snap a few photos so I could share in my participation with TWD this week.  The shortcakes were chosen by Tania of Love BIG Bake Often.  I started putting the ingredients together without thinking about how big the recipe is, so I went ahead and made all the scones, but only baked six and froze the other 13 for making another time.

Easy enough, but I did cheat and use the food processor to cut in the butter to the dry ingredients.  I sprinkled the tops of the shortcakes with some turbinado sugar before they baked. 

 

To the freezer.

For dessert.

I could only envision these one way.  Nutella slathered on both sides, sliced bananas, whipped cream with a drizzle of chocolate syrup.  Oh, yes I did.

We also had sliced, macerated strawberries to put in the cakes.  Scott had one, Taylor had one, I ate some and made one for Kevin when he got home from work late.  And he ate it and said he liked it!  (He doesn’t really love traditional shortcake or strawberries.  Here’s his.

We’ll be happy to pull a few more of these out of the freezer sometime and bake them up!  Thanks for the fun, different pick, Tania.  She’ll have the recipe on her blog.  Check out other TWD Bloggers shortcakes, too.

Oh so much more to share with you coming up soon, including another CSN Stores giveaway and lots of holiday baking ideas.