Lemon Bread

I was just flipping through my Better Homes and Gardens book one night and thought this would make a fun side for dinner sometime. I really enjoyed it, but I chose not to make the optional sugar glaze for on top although I'm sure it would have been fantastic. I wasn't sure if I had enough lemon juice and figured it wouldn't hurt us to leave out the additional sugar.



I was also excited that the recipe called for walnuts because I have a huge bag of fabulous walnuts from my grandparent's tree. I've been putting them in everything and really loving them!

Lemon Bread

1 3/4 C flour
3/4 C sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 egg, beaten
1 C milk
1/4 C cooking oil
2 tsp finely shredded lemon peel
1 Tbsp lemon juice
1/2 C chopped walnuts
2 Tbsp lemon juice (optional)
1 Tbsp sugar (optional)

1. Preheat oven to 350. Grease bottom and sides of pan; set aside. In a medium bowl combine flour, sugar baking powder, and salt. Make a well in center of mixture; set aside.

2. In another medium bowl combine the egg, milk, oil, lemon peel, and lemon juice. Add egg mixture to flour mixture all at once. Stir just until moistened, batter should be lumpy. Fold in nuts and spoon batter into prepared pan.

3. Bake for 50-55 minutes or until toothpick inserted comes out clean. If desired, in a small bowl stir together the 2 Tbsp lemon juice with 1 Tbsp sugar. While bread is still in the pan, brush lemon sugar over the top of the loaf. Allow to cool.
Wrap and store overnight before serving.

Hot Chocolate Shortbread

I think I was in the new apartment less than 24 hours before I got the urge to bake. I held off for a few days and now I’m ready to go!

I came across this recipe a while back in a magazine, using hot chocolate in a recipe got my attention. I tore it out and have been dying to try it for a while. I’m glad I finally got to it because it was a fun way to use my peanut butter hot chocolate. And now that we live where it is hot, hot chocolate doesn’t seem quite so exciting. But baking with the hot oven still does!






Hot Chocolate Shortbread
Nonstick cooking spray
2 C flour
1/3 C instant hot cocoa powder
¼ tsp salt
12 Tbsp softened butter
½ C sugar
1 egg
Frosting
1. Preheat oven to 350. Line a 9x13 inch pan with foil and spray with cooking spray.
2. Combine flour, hot cocoa, and salt in a medium bowl. Beat the butter and sugar in a medium bowl with an electric mixer on high until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add egg and beat well. Gradually add the flour mixture until just combined, scraping sides.
3. Spread the dough evenly in the prepared pan. Bake until firm to the touch, 30-35 minutes. Lift foil and shortbread cookie from pan and allow to cool. Once cooled, frost.

Chocolate Powdered Sugar Icing
1 C powdered sugar
2 Tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
¼ tsp vanilla
Milk
1. In a small bowl combine powdered sugar with cocoa powder. Add vanilla and 1 Tbsp of milk. Stir in additional milk one tsp at a time until it has reached drizzling consistency.
I really enjoyed this dessert. The shortbread was just kind of fun and different. And the frosting seriously just melts in your mouth; I could eat this stuff all day! If you don’t feel like baking anything, you could so make this frosting and use it as a dip for fruit or store bough cookies or grahams. Heck, you could even eat it by the spoonfuls. Well, I could!

The post where Cherie takes over!

While Amber is relocating she trusted me to update the baking blog! So when my family asked for "something chocolate" for dessert I knew I had to deliver, you know, for the blog. So I flipped open my Paula Deen Chocolate magazine. I knew I had found a winner when I finally found a recipe that I already had the ingredients for (yes, lots of butter!). Well mostly, I was missing the Snickers bars but we didn't notice.

So do you remember some time ago Amber told us not every recipe was going to turn out? Well sometimes mine turn out looking like this:

Thankfully, it still tasted like this (minus the candy bar):

What I think happened is that when the time was up and the cake was still not done I gave it 5 more minutes, then a few more. I was so worried about over cooking the cake that I took it out and poured the frosting on. Then after consulting with my sous chef (otherwise known as the guy on the couch watching baseball but has an opinion on eating) I put the whole frosted cake back into the oven. Hey, I'm not proud. But this cake is so worth it!

Ingredients:

• 1 cup butter, softened
• 1 cup sugar
• 4 large eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• Chocolate Frosting, recipe follows

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line 9-inch baking pan with heavy-duty aluminum foil.

In a large bowl, combine butter and sugar. Beat at medium speed with an electric mixer until fluffy. Add eggs, 1 at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in vanilla extract.

In a small bowl, combine flour, cocoa, baking powder, and salt. Gradually add to butter mixture, beating until combined. Spoon batter into prepared pan.

Bake for 22 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Spread chocolate frosting over hot cake. Let cool completely. Cut into squares and serve with whipped cream, if desired.

Chocolate Frosting:

• 1/4 cup butter
• 2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
• 3 tablespoons buttermilk
• 2 cups confectioners' sugar
• 3 (2.07-ounce) candy bars cut into 1/2-inch pieces (recommended: Snickers)

In a medium saucepan, melt butter over medium-low heat. Add cocoa, buttermilk and 1 cup confectioners' sugar. Stir in candy bars and allow to melt. Stir in remaining confectioners' sugar and immediately spread over hot cake.

Orange Sorbet

I actually had no intentions on making anything for a while since I ate about a million desserts on my trip (many of them awesome!) I figured I should take it easy for a while. And then there is the fact that we're in the middle of a move and won't be settled in to our new place for over a week.
But anyway, I came across this simple recipe and since we had the stuff and we need to use it up anyway, I went ahead and made it. I loved the consistency and it was really sweet and rich-just how I like it!



Orange Sorbet

1 can frozen orange juice concentrate
1 can drained mandarin oranges (11 oz)
1 cup water
1 Tbsp lemon juice
1/4 C powdered sugar

Blend all ingredients in blender for about 20 seconds. Put into a container and freeze for 3-4 hours. Blend again until smooth and freeze for 5-6 hours. Serve and enjoy!

And while I was doing this, Dillon was chasing his binkie around the kitchen. And as I blog this right now, he is pulling on my shirt and yanking my hair. It is a wonder I can get anything done! But he's so cute!

Easter Sugar Cookies

Who's ready for Easter treats?!

I love this recipe out of my Better Homes and Gardens cookbook, and they recommend a frosting that is okay, but I think it is too thin and runny for what I wanted. But it had been a long time since I'd made them and I couldn't remember what frosting I had used before that I loved, so I paired it with one out of my new Hershey's book (great idea by the way!). Later of course I remembered the recipe I used before, they just call it by a weird name and put it in the sauce section instead of the frosting section so I wasted a lot of time looking for it.
As I've been going through recipes lately I've realized there are a lot of things I would like to go in a change about my recipe books, just to make them more user friendly. But, since I can't do that, I tend to write little notes on the pages, so next time, I'll remember what frosting recipe to use!

Alrighty, cookie time!

I swear I must have looked at sprinkles every time I was at the store this month, but in the end I decided not to buy sprinkles, but to make my own colored sugar. I am so happy I did! It was fun, easy, pretty, and yummy too. I actually watched a tutorial on you tube and I was glad I did before I got started because I picked up a few tips I would have never known.

For the sugar, I started them Saturday morning(and used them Sunday) because it needs time to dry before you use it. I added a few drops of color to 1/4 cup sugar and shook it up, then set out to dry.




Sugar Cookies

2/3 C butter
3/4 C sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 egg
1 Tbsp milk
1 tsp vanilla
2 C flour

1. In a large mixing bowl beat butter on medium to high speed for 30 seconds. Add sugar, baking powder and salt. Beat until combined, scraping sides of bowl. Beat in egg, milk, and vanilla. Beat in flour, you may have to stir in the last of it by hand. Divide dough in half, cover and chill dough about 30 minutes or until easy to handle.

2. Preheat oven to 375. On a lightly floured surface, roll half the dough at a time. Cut with cookie cutters and place 1 inch apart on an ungreased cookie sheet.

3. Bake 7-8 minutes or until edges are firm and bottoms barely brown.




Once the cookies had cooled I frosted them...And I actually cut this recipe in half because I didn't have that much powdered sugar and it turned out to be the perfect amount for my cookies.

Vanilla Butter Cream Frosting

1/3 C butter
4 C powdered sugar
3-4 Tbsp milk
1 1/2 tsp vanilla

Beat butter with mixer until creamy. Slowly add half the powdered sugar, beating until well blended. Slowly beat in milk and vanilla. Gradually add remaining sugar and beat until smooth. Add additional milk, if necessary, until frosting is desired consistency.



And a quick look at my helper...

To top the cookies with my colored sugar, I just plopped them face down and gently patted them down.

Ta-Da! Beautiful! Magnificent! So perfect for an Easter party!


I loved how these turned out! Perfectly soft. And I was really happy with the frosting/sugar effect. It was like biting into a thin layer of a sugar crust before sinking your teeth into soft frosting. These cookies disappeared fast!

Fun with Apples

I wanted to try something fun and "healthy" this time. So even though I once again did not bake these, I figured they were fun enough to share!


White Chocolate and Cookie Apple (I used Girl Scout's Dulce Du Leche Cookies)

White Chocolate and Twix Apple

Scrump-diddly-umptious!

I decided I needed to make one more round of bread since I probably won't be able to bake anything for a while with my trip and the big move coming up. So I chose to do the white bread recipe out of my Better Homes and Gardens cookbook. It is different from the other bread I posted about, I think I like this one a little better but it takes a bit longer to make and uses up the milk so sometimes I don't want to do it.






White Bread

5 3/4 to 6 1/4 C flour
1 package active dry yeast
2 1/4 C milk or buttermilk
2 Tbsp sugar
1 Tbsp butter
1 1/2 tsp salt

1. In a large mixing bowl combine 2 1/2 C flour and the yeast, set aside. In a medium saucepan heat and stir milk, sugar, butter, and salt just until warm and butter almost melts. Add milk mixture to flour mixture. Beat with an electric mixer on low speed for 30 seconds, scraping sides of bowl. Beat on high speed for 3 minutes. Using a wooden spoon, stir in as much of the remaining flour as you can.

2. Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface. Knead in enough of the remaining flour to make a moderately stiff dough that is smooth and elastic (about 6-8 minutes). Shape dough into a ball. Place in a lightly greased bowl, turning once to grease the surface of the dough. Cover; let rise in a warm place until double in size (45-60 minutes).

3. Punch dough down. Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface; divide in half. Cover; let rest for 10 minutes. Meanwhile, grease bread pans or cookies sheets.

4. Shape each half by patting or rolling.

5. Place the shaped dough halves in the prepared pans, seams side down. Cover and let rise in a warm place until nearly double (about 30 minutes).

6. Preheat oven to 375. Bake for 35-40 minutes or until bread sounds hallow when lightly tapped (however, I find that 20 minutes is perfect for me).



Our favorite way of enjoying homemade bread is to toast it in the broiler with a chicken filling. To make the filling I mix boiled/shredded chicken, grated cheese, garlic salt, bell pepper, and mayo.



Oh yes, and a big thank you to Dill who played happily so I could bake!