TWD--Sugar-Topped Molasses Spice Cookies

For Tuesday's With Dorie this week, since we can bake out of order, I chose to make the Sugar-Topped Molasses Spice Cookies that Pamela at Cookies With Boys chose.  (Sometimes, people you "meet" that you may never meet are like kindred spirits--not to name any names--Pamela. ;)  She rocks!  And her boys--doggone CUTE--go see!  Well, okay, finish reading my post, first, then click on over to Cookies With Boys! 

I always like it when a recipe turns out  just like the pictures in Dorie's book, Baking From My Home to Yours.

 

The only small problem is that I don't really like really flat, crispy cookies.  So as they were baking, I decided not to bake them 12-14 minutes and I only baked them between 10-12 minutes.  They were perfectly chewy.  Freshly cooled out of the oven, Kevin and I both thought they were a BIT too strong on the molasses flavor.  But as they "aged", they weren't so bad and seem to have a perfect ginger/spice flavor.  But you know me, I can't just leave well enough alone.  So I baked half the dough as the recipe is written.  Hey, first time ever, I bought and used freshly ground nutmeg.  Boy, that sure makes a difference--love the smell of the fresh nutmeg.  (I left out the pepper.)

But I just didn't want THAT many flat, strong molasses cookies.  So I "played around".  With the other half of the chilled dough, I put it back in the mixer and added 1/3 cup pumpkin puree, a couple shakes more of cinnamon and 2 tablespoons of flour.  I baked the cookies for 10 minutes.  They were nicely spiced, slightly pumpkin-y soft cookies and just a little bit not-as-flat and I was pleased with them.

 

But if you know me (hey, where have I heard that before?), I just couldn't leave them as is.  Don't be disappointed, but, no chocolate.  (I know, I know--it would be good!)  I had some leftover cream cheese frosting in the fridge.  After softening it up a bit, I had to sandwich some in between a couple cookies.

 

NOW we're talkin'. 

Not done yet.  I remembered that I had this jar of Smucker's Pumpkin Spice Ice Cream Topping that I hadn't opened yet.  I stirred some of that into the cream cheese frosting and made some more sandwiches.

But don't you think ice cream topping needs some ice cream?  Wheel's a turnin'.  Ice cream sandwiches.  Uh huh!  Earlier that day, I had whipped up some of David Lebovitz' Philly Style Vanilla Ice Cream, to use up some cream in the fridge.

Good, but eh, needs a little more.

I just can't stop.  Kevin ate this one.  I kind of "forced" him to.  I handed it to him and said, "Eat this." 

Then I decided to do the same thing to a couple of the flat Dorie cookies.  I scraped the ice cream off of it and stuck it in the freezer, and just realized it's still there!

Fun times!  Thanks for the cookie pick, Pamela!  You can get the recipe for the cookies on her blog on November 17, I believe.  Or, you can run right now to your local bookstore and get the book!  What are all the other bakers doing this week?  Well, it's all a mystery until you click on over to the TWD site and check it out!

 

While the cookies were having their photo shoot, guess who wouldn't leave them alone?  Well, doggonit, he's darn-tootin' cute, too!  I told him to turn his head to the side, so he could show Grandma his new haircut.  Here's what I got.

I think Sam ate 2 or 3 cookies just while I was trying to get the pictures done.  I had to crop his hands out of a number of cookie photos. 

Spiced Apple Cider and Banana Muffins

Want a yummy, healthy muffin?  Here you go.

We have some apple cider and I have lots of very ripe bananas, but what really got me with these is that they are pretty healthy and I was able to use some yogurt that I have and need to use.  I changed up quite a bit a recipe that I found at the Eating Well website.  The recipe called for apple butter, but I used banana and I cut a little bit of the oil in the recipe.  You can get the recipe from Eating Well on their link.  But here's my muffins.

Spiced Apple Cider and Banana Muffins, by Katrina Smith, adapted from Eating Well, Winter 2004

Streusel:

2 tablespoons packed light brown sugar

2 tablespoons whole wheat flour

1 tablespoon butter, cut into small pieces

2 tablespoons finely chopped walnuts

Muffins:

1 cup whole wheat flour

1 cup all purpose flour

1  1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon freshly ground nutmeg

1 large egg

1/3 cup packed light brown sugar

1/2 cup very ripe banana, mashed (2 small bananas)

1/3 cup pure maple syrup

1/3 cup spiced apple cider

1/3 cup nonfat Greek Yogurt

2 overflowing tablespoons canola oil

1/2 cup walnuts, toasted and chopped

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.  Line muffin cups with paper liners or spray with cooking spray.  I made 11 regular muffins and 12 mini muffins and lined them with paper liners. 

In a small bowl, combine the streusel ingredients.  Mix the butter in with your fingers until well combined. 

In a large bowl, whisk together the flours, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg.  Set aside.

In a medium bowl, whisk the egg and brown sugar until smooth.  Then whisk in the bananas, syrup, apple cider, yogurt and oil.  Fold the wet ingredients into the dry with a rubber spatula just until combined.  Scoop the batter into the muffin cups.  Sprinkle with the streusel (I only put streusel on the 11 bigger muffins.)

Bake the mini muffins for 10 minutes and the larger ones for 14 minutes.  Cool in muffin pan for a few minutes.  Then remove from pan and let cool on a wire rack.

Have some hot apple cider with one of these!  I made Wassail from this recipe at Allrecipes.  I only made half the recipe.  Love the smell of it brewing on the stove!

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Sam's new favorite pasttime---

Completely dismantling the couch downstairs and then sitting and watching Max and Ruby or Mickey Mouse Clubhouse.  It isn't very fun to put back together, almost like a puzzle, but doggonit, he's CUTE!

He's so proud of his accomplishment!

Then there's Bob.  Our friend, Bob.  He's pretty proud here, too, after all, he's got Hostess Sno Ball BOB Cakes named after him! ;)

TWD--All-In-One Holiday Bundt Cake

For the month of November, as TWD bakers, we are so kindly allowed to post any of the month's four recipes in any order we choose.  It worked out nicely that after I decided to make the All-In-One Holiday Bundt Cake it would be perfect for our friend, Tes' birthday.  I just realized we forgot to take a picture of Tes with a candle in her slice of cake.  We sang to her earlier in the evening, but forgot when it was time for dessert.  Whoops!  Tes' birthday is really on Halloween.  We had the cake Monday night. 

This bundt cake was chosen by Britin of The Nitty Britty.  You can get the recipe for this bundt cake on her blog, or you can just get Dorie's book, Baking From My Home to Yours and have a ton of great recipes at your fingertips! 

I followed the recipe, even using freshly grated nutmeg for the first time.  I used ground ginger instead of fresh.  And in place of the one cup of cranberries, I used 1/2 cup of cranberries and 1/2 cup fresh pomegranate arils (about 1/2 a POM).  Love POMs!  The cake came perfectly out of the bundt pan (some others mentioned sticking problems.).  All I did was spray the pan with cooking spray.  The cake sure left a wonderful smell in the house while it was baking!  Mine only baked for 50 minutes.  Dorie suggests 60-70 minutes.  It passed the knife insertion test,  so out it came.  Perfect!

I love my Chop Wizard, it chopped the apples into the perfect little tiny squares.

 

I recently made some pumpkin cream cheese ribbon bread that wasn't "ribboning" very well, so I swirled it around and made pumpkin cream cheese swirl bread.  The recipe had some orange zest in the cream cheese, and I really liked it.  I have the recipe if anyone wants it.  The bread was great and quite moist and pumpkiny flavorful!  Where was I going with this?  Oh yes, orange zest and pumpkin!

I decided to make an orange icing for the bundt cake.  I had a little butter sitting on the counter, so I threw that in as well as some powdered sugar, pinch of salt, orange zest, some orange juice and cream.  It tasted great!

Orange Icing, by Katrina

2 cups powdered sugar

1 teaspoon orange zest

2 tablespoons orange juice

2 tablespoons butter, softened

pinch salt

6 tablespoons cream (or to desired consistency)

Mix all ingredients together and whisk until smooth and no lumps remain.  Drizzle over cake.

Love the pecans in this cake and on the top.  The cake has many great flavors.  Tes and I loved it!  The rest of the family---pppbbbbttt!  The boys didn't even try it. (They had a little ice cream and MORE Halloween candy!  Is it gone yet?  jk)  Kevin ate a little courtesy piece, then told me he doesn't really like cranberries.  (Never knew that, he loves cranberry juice!)  I loved the juicy POMs with their little crunch.

I gave Tes a big hunk of the cake to take home. 

Great bundt cake!

Thanks for the great pick, Britin!  Hey, speaking of bundts.  Do you like big bundts?  Mary at The Food Librarian does.  She loves (it may now be a love/hate relationship) bundts so much that since October 15th, she has been posting a bundt cake per day on her fabulous blog, in honor of the upcoming National Bundt Cake Day, November 15.  Why is that date important?  Hmm, yes, someone is having a BIG birthday that day.  It's me, it's me.  I just think it's so nice of Mary to make so many cakes in honor of my birthday.  Wow.  (jk)

Lovin' the bundts, Mary!  Check out her blog, if you haven't!

Happy Halloween! (Caramel Pecan Brownies and more Rice Krispies Treats!

Happy Halloween from a couple of nerds!   (No, I don't have a witches hat on, that's a decoration on the door.)  You can't see my lovely white socks with clod-hoppy black shoes, also my nerdy make up job of blue eye shadow and really red, poorly caked on red blush and lipstick .  Classic!

 

There's a "kick me" sign on his back.  Kevin was a perfect nerd.  I just went along with it. ;)

We had Darth Vadar and Obi Wan Kenobi at our house.  And a basketball player.

Then we had a very uncooperative Candy Corn.

This is really how Sam trick-or-treated.  Just wearing regular clothes.  I supposed at least the shirt was orange!

Happy Candy kid!

And the loot.  Their pumpkin buckets were stuffed to the top after trunk-or-treating at our church and then hitting up the neightborhood door to door.  (Sam stayed at home for the door to door stuff with the big nerd!)

Big Bro and Little Bro.  This is a cute picture.

Pictures from the school Halloween Party parade on Friday.  I also hung out in Taylor's classroom for his party and took lots of pictures.

Taylor's teacher, Mrs. Heider, was a KU Jayhawk!

Classroom treats--some gluten free cupcakes (a girl in the class has celiacs) and some really cute mummy cookies.  Oh yeah, I made those.  Cute, easy.  Sugar Cookies cut with gingerbread boy cutter.  White frosting, then piped on white chocolate and red hot eyes.  I saw the idea for these here at Family Corner.  This great website is run by none other than the amazingly talented Amanda of Amanda's Cookin'--a fellow foodie blogger and person I consider a friend I haven't met yet!

Some friends of ours had us over Friday night for a little Halloween shindig.  I brought some treats.

Literally, Halloween Oreo Rice Krispies Treats.  Same recipe as these Halloween Oreo Caramel Rice Krispies Treats, but with no caramel and chocolate on top. 

I also made some most delicious Caramel Pecan Brownies.  (I know, I can't seem to get off the turtle/caramel-pecan kick!

THESE. ARE. BETTER. THAN. GOOD!

I used my favorite brownie recipe---it's the Dorie Greenspan Tribute to Katharine Hepburn Brownies.

Caramel Pecan Brownies, by Katrina adapted from Dorie Greenspan's book, Baking From My Home to Yours

1/2 cup unsalted butter, cut into pieces

1/2 cup cocoa powder

2 large eggs, at room temperature

1 cup granulated sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/4 cup all purpose flour

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 to 3/4 cup pecans,  whole and toasted

24 Kraft caramels (hello--unwrapped!)

4 tablespoons cream

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.  Line an 8x8 inch square baking pan with foil so that edges of foil hand over the sides slightly.  Spray lightly with cooking spray.

Melt butter and cocoa in saucepan over medium heat.  Whisk together, remove from heat when melted and combined.  Let sit 3-5 minutes.  Whisk in eggs, then sugar and vanilla just until combined.  Add flour and salt.  Stir just until combined.  Spread half the batter evenly over bottom of pan. 

Put caramels and cream in a glass microwave safe bowl.  Melt in 30 second intervals, stirring between each.  When melted and stirred together until smooth, pour caramel over bottom brownie layer.  Line the caramel layer with the pecans (line them up like little soldiers in rows).  Add the remaining batter to a plastic sandwich bag.  Snip a little off one corner and pipe the remaining batter evenly over the top (this was so much easier than trying to evenly spread the batter over the sticky caramel!).  Bake for 25-35 minutes (test for brownie crumbs on toothpick.  I think mine baked for 30 minutes, but I always start checking before that!)  Cool completely on wire rack, then for most awesome fudginess, refrigerate for a couple hours before cutting into desired size pieces.

 

These were a huge hit at the Halloween party we brought them to.  Hope ya'll had a wonderful Halloween, too!