Citrus Chocolate Pear Pavlova

Honey cooked pears, drizzled with a dark chocolate and orange glaze, crunchy almonds, and slightly tangy cream all in a marshmellow-y meringue nest. While DH's birthday cake was rich and delicious, I wanted something a little more complex for my quarter-century birthday.My favorite part was the meringue but then one cookie that I loved growing was what we called "Norwegian Kisses" (according to the internet, properly called "Pikekyss") so that's really not surprising. 

I have no idea how to make this vegan. The filling can be used as a light cake topping or even on pancakes or oatmeal for a vegan dessert. Might be nice on an angel cake. We ended up eating a 1/4 of this the night I made it and then crumbled the rest up for icebox cake. I think quartering it would be an excellent non-traditional Valentine's Day dessert (add some raspberries if you really want red in there.) The cream, keeping with the rest of the pile, is not your traditional lightly sweetened whipped cream. We took a lightly sweetened cream and cut it with Greek yogurt for some tang. DH was a little skeptical but he came around. I suppose you could just stick with the lightly sweetened cream if you really don't want the yogurt.

Note, this is not a quick dessert. But you can let it cool in the oven overnight/during the day if you are planning a party. The toppings keep in the fridge so you can prepare this the night before, clean up the dishes and just let them warm up to room temp while eating dinner. 

Breakfast Carrot Cake with Cinnamon Yogurt Icing

I have a soft spot for carrot cake. Growing up I worked at my lesson barn and on Saturdays we would have a pot luck and the barn owner would make her carrot cake. At the time I didn't like pineapple or raisins but like many other things, my preferences changed (up until a year ago I hated pineapple, so another vote for taste buds changing as we age.)

I wanted a smaller snack so made this thin cake. For a more substantial cake, just double the cake ingredients and add five minutes to the bake time. We made this for church along with Oh She Glows' Banana Oat Cake and both were very well received. We simply cut each in half to make two layers each. and served them on one cake carrier.

Breakfast Cake:
1 C whole wheat flour
1 t baking powder
1/4 t ginger
1 t cinnamon
1/8 t all spice
1/4 salt
2 T water
2 T oil
2 T yogurt, unflavored, unsweetened
1/4 C brown sugar, or equivalent
1.5 T ground flax in 4 T lukewarm water
1 heaping C carrots, shredded (we used 2 carrots)
1/4 C walnuts, toasted and chopped
1/4 C golden raisin
1/4 C pineapple, chopped

1. Preheat oven to 350 and grease/flour a round cake pan, preferably one with a removable bottom. Serving it as a pie would work as well
2. Beat together the yogurt, oil, water, and sugar until smooth
3. Add in the spices, powder, salt, flax egg, and flour and beat until smooth
4. Fold in the remaining ingredients and pour into the prepared pan
5. Bake for 30 minutes, until a tester in the center comes out in.
6. Cool in the pan until the pan is warm but not hot to the touch and carefully remove the cake. Serve hot or cold, but definitely top with the icing

For the Icing:
1 C yogurt
1.5 T maple syrup
1 T cinnamon
pinch ginger

Beat together until smooth, adjust to taste. I wanted it mildly sweet but you might want it sweeter.

To store: Cover tightly with cling wrap. It can sit in the fridge up to two days but it's best fresh. 

Christmas Explosion Parfait: Flourless Chocolate Cake with White Chocolate Candy Cane Buttercream

DH asked for that offshoot trail and called it "the road less traveled". He then said I couldn't repeat it at the party, so I'm doing so here, sorry hun. The trees look less awkward in real life, I promise.

I'm sorry, this is not what people want to see at the beginning of a new year with new diets and everything but oh well.

Because of the craziness around Christmas at our church, our Sunday School had an After-Christmas Christmas Party. Because it was after the new year, I balanced out this nonsense with a salad I'll post later. This is ovo-vegetarian, gluten intolerant, and gluten-free friendly. If you use egg beaters instead of the yolks in the cake, it could be low cholesterol too but I can't guarantee how it'll work. I'm not entirely clear on the chemistry there. I'm not sure if there is a vegan alternative that could work, sorry.

This was supposed to be a yule log but the cake cracked horrible. So instead I layered it in a parfait and decorated it with squat little meringue trees and chocolate bark field stone pathway. Not as pretty but still tastes good. You can try to roll the cake up to cool then unroll, ice, and reroll but no guarantee that it will work. Instead crumble or slice to layer with icing in a serving bowl. I may actually use it with a lighter frosting for my mom's birthday.

Overnight Oatmeal Pancakes (with a dark chocolate orange variation)

My aunt and uncle gave DH and I a new griddle for Christmas, for which I am very appreciative. Our old was a wedding gift for DH's parents... 30 years ago. It smelled, the coating was coming off, it took up valuable real estate in our kitchen, it just needed to go. My aunt got us a stove-top version that takes up just one burner, the right size for two people.

To break it in, I wanted oatmeal pancakes. But not just any oatmeal pancakes, I had a craving for one of the chocolate oranges but with less of a calorie load and more orange. DH wasn't sure of the orange with the syrup, I would try honey if you're the kind who think that orange and maple don't go together.

Sweet and Spicy Candied Pecans

I included recipe in my Christmas cookie boxes. I made a test batch for us of course. I upped the heat because I wanted to actually taste it. Maybe I should have changed the name to something more Texan-y. Pecans and peppers are very Texan. Bluebonnet? Mighty Bears? Remember the Alamo? I think Sweet and Spicy is a perfectly descriptive name for a really delicious treat.

Christmas Chip Oatmeal Cookies

I promise I've been eating reasonably healthy* but most of our dinners lately have been repeats or duds. But I've also been baking. This is the first in a series for my Christmas cookie trays and may be my favorite. DH really likes these and I think I might make an extra batch to bring down to my in-laws since it seems right up their alley too.

We debated cranberries versus cherries and I'm glad we went with cherries, they give a brighter, sweeter pop to the cookies. You could leave them whole if you went with a bigger cookie of course, but at the same time, chopped gives them a more consistent flavor.

This recipe opens up to a lot of variations - I've provided alterations for a vegan version as well as a non-vegan version (what most people expect from a cookie.) It's the mix-ins that make it. It's really just a variation on my Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies but adapted to make it Christmas-y ... and to use up the several cups of mint I have frozen in the freezer (I underestimated the yield of one bunch and so bought extra.) You'll notice a halved amount of fat. I left 1/4 cup out by accident and it worked so I went with it.

Chocolate Chunk Banana Bread Baked Oatmeal

I have a special place for quick breads like banana bread. Rarely has a recipe let me know and they're always well received by others. This combines my usual breakfast with one of my favorite quick breads.

I lightly topped each square with peanut butter

I wanted to switch up our routine and make baked oatmeal instead of my usual big pot of oats. I had made a batch of sweet potato pecan baked oatmeal but it turned out a little too savory for what I wanted. DH voted on this variation next. I won't be making this on a regular basis (there's something comforting about only really needing oats and liquid, although I add chia, cinnamon, and ginger.) This is a middle ground between healthy and dessert.

Baby Brother's Baked Birthday Box

My "baby" brother turned 22 right around the time I had a really bad need to bake, or at least to accomplish something productive (in college this mood hit right around the time of finals when I was slogging through term papers.) So I came up with a list of things I could make with mostly pantry staples (for us.) The results were delicious (we kept a few of each) and very unhealthy. I felt sort of bad sending it since BB has always been concerned with health. I figure he can share them at his weekly yoga/drum/slack line circle (when I wasn't looking he turned into a 6'+ hipster.)

Fruity Oaty Bars (Almond Butter and Jelly Bars)

DH insists on calling these Fruity Oaty Bars after the commercial in Serenity. I introduced them at church as simply Almond Butter and Jelly Bars. I don't think we have many Browncoats in our class...

 

Based off of Oh She Glows's Raspberry Chia Seed Jam Oat Crumble Squares

This was a slightly panicked creation when a Honey Nut Apple Cake was a spectacular fail. Lesson learned, only make one fundamental change in a recipe at a time, not 5. I made a couple changes here but they were much smaller (premade jam, added a dash of honey, used almond butter and vegan butter instead of brown rice syrup and coconut oil, a few measurements were slightly changed.) I needed something to go right that day - my Bears lost, recipe failed, didn't make either of the Howl-o-ween events we planned on going to, my sinuses starting draining the middle of my run making it impossible to breathe, and my previous go-to trouser pattern has completely the wrong curve for my now-much-fitter body. These bars made the day much better.

Turtle Cake

I try to make a cake for DH's birthday every year. Past few years it's usually been the Chocolate Peanut Butter Cake that has become the go-to for my family. However that is very much not new diet-friendly. But DH loves pecans... and he loves chocolate, so why not a turtle cake? Caramel is traditionally made with cream which is never a goo idea for me. So it took a little creativity and internet searching.

Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies

This was influenced by The Food Lab's Science of the Chocolate Chip Cookie and Half Baked Harvest's Mom's Simple Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies. The only other chocolate chip cookie recipe I liked used pudding mix and I needed to use only what we had in the pantry- and allow for experimentation with the Food Lab article I had read that afternoon. This is the result. Poor Olive was going crazy hearing "cookie" mentioned over and over. Note, these are definitely on the cake-y side of the cookie world, if you prefer a gooier, flatter cookie, melt the butter substitute and use baking soda instead of baking powder.

Super Rich Double Chocolate Zucchini Bread

This is another not-quite-healthy quick breads. The texture is akin to a very soft cake really. I made this for church the same week I made the Stained Glass Cake-Bread. No one thought it had zucchini bread, in fact one person who said she hated zucchini bread said she loved it, even after hearing there was zucchini in it! (might have something to do with all of the chocolate- just a thought) It's a really simple bread to throw together. If it were a bit more substantial I would suggest it as a bake sale item, I think with almond meal instead of flour it could go gluten free, and it's already vegan (if you use a vegan brown sugar.) I wonder how it would go in a muffin pan instead...

Stained Glass Cake-Bread

I don't think it's a surprise that the Library is one the
most popular place on campus for weddings, when it's full of
windows like these

I call it the Stained Glass Cake-Bread for two reasons:

1. I agree with Big Bear's Wife that it does look a bit like stained glass and I think of three places with stained glass- the chapel where DH and I had our ceremony, our current church, and the Armstrong-Browning Library at Baylor. I was going to call this the Armstrong-Browning Cake-Bread but somehow that seemed like more of a mouthful.
2. The batter isn't quite a straight quick bread. It reminds me a lot of a shortcake. But I baked in a loaf pan and it was originally labeled bread, so I'll call it a Cake-Bread.

Pecan Pie Muffins and Apple Pie Bars

These will probably some of the last normal recipes I'll be posting/reviewing for the next few months. I have to go essentially vegan until at least mid-February for my cholesterol (yes, at 23, I won the genetic lottery) so that means a lot creative food planning.

Anyway, these two recipes are not so healthy, but they are delicious. We brought snacks in for church and I wanted two different types of treats (plus fruit). They even got rave reviews from the self-proclaimed foodie in the class.

This is what was left after class.

Furlough Monday Peach Dumplings (plus an apple dumpling)

 

My summer internship is now furloughed on Mondays, and while that normally wouldn't affect me, I needed to make up some hours so Mondays felt especially empty. So after finishing up at my volunteer position, I went home and made peach dumplings. I pretty much based them off of this recipe . She called them Individual Whole Peach Pies but I always called the apple version Apple Dumplings so I applied the same nomenclature to peaches. Regardless of what you call them, they're delicious. I just had a couple of tweaks to her recipe (but they are fine as written as well.)

Cheesecake Mint Oreo Brownies

Blech, ugly picture.

Adapted from this recipe (pinterest labeled this a spamy so continue at your own risk)

It's basically an easy cheesecake recipe (you can google your own) on top of mint oreos squished into brownie batter with mint chips on top.The result is great but it could use some tweaking. I wanted to bake and so read off my baking pin board to DH. He got excited with this one, so I sent him out with a very short grocery list (hated driving in Waco, I did not and still do not trust Texan drivers, though I'm learning Virginians can be just as scary). This recipe produces a lot, so either be okay with several thousand calories sitting in your kitchen or take some to work/church/class and make friends. I made DH take plenty to his work, I told him not to come home with any.

What I changed:

-          The brownie mix DH picked up (a Ghirardelli one if memory serves) made a scant amount so it barely gave a ½” layer on the bottom, so I wedged oreos on top and slightly into it. I used 2 cookies short of a whole pack. I ate the leftover cookies.

-          HEB (even the nicer ones in town) didn’t have mint and dark chocolate chips. I had DH pick up a pack (the last one in the store) of Andes mints and chop them up. They were fine.

Other Thoughts:

-          Next time, I want to use my own homemade brownie recipe (more intensive but worth it) and control the output a bit more. Joy the Baker, Pioneer Woman, and Smitten Kitchen all have brownie recipes (multiples even).

-          If you use a brownie mix, apparently you can no long find just brownie mixes, they all have mix ins to make them sound better. Get the kind with the syrup not the nuts/chips. The chips mean it is hard to get the cookies to lay right. Also, probably buy an oversized box or two boxes to get a nicer base layer.

-          DH wanted to use the chocolate coated mint oreos. I thought it was overkill. .

-          Instead of sprinkling the chips on top, I would mix them into the cheesecake layer

-          Let them cool in the pan (I used a glass one) before cutting, and cut with a plastic cutter like you would normal brownies

-          These will not win you any pretty dessert awards. They're kind of messy. And oh so heavy.

"Brookies"

More or less adapted from Bakerella

Every so often (usually around the time I have finals or something similar) I get the urge to bake so I’ll send DH to the store with a short and very unhealthy shopping list. This was one of those times. DH doesn’t complain.

Pink Lady Cake- or the Disaster that Sat in a Fridge Until Thrown Out

This is one of those recipes I really can't recommend in good faith. I bet it worked for a lot of people but this disaster was so bad I didn't want to try it again. And I have honestly no idea where the cream cheese recipe came from, mostly likely I dumped powdered sugar and cream cheese in the mixer and called it a day. But it was supposedly based off of this Smitten Kitchen Recipe

Friend R and I started a writing project together in spring 2006*. It’s been a pet project of ours, that hasn't got much attention these last few years as we were finishing college and R is now working and I'm writing papers that vaguely relate to sustainable collections practices.** To see how the script was received by people who weren’t us and how well it read in general, we gathered just under two dozen (I think, it seemed like it anyway, we took up R's living room) of our hometown friends together for food (translation: bribes) and a reading in the summer of 2009. It was hilarious and rather well received, people did say it was very “us” (I’m taking that as a compliment, I think we can be quite hilarious).

That's a crown... with a sad middle point-jewel-thing.
Hurray for R's facebook albums or there would be no record of this cake***

Cinnamon Rolls

 Pioneer Woman’s much celebrated recipe

There’s not much to say about this one. Everyone who has had one loves them. Pioneer Woman gives awesome directions. Yeast isn’t that scary. The recipe makes close to 8-9 tin pans worth. That's about it. 

Chocolate Peanut Butter Chocolate Cake

(I promise the Serenity tie-in post is coming!)

A SK recipe

So, my dad had three of these cakes in a week. A big landmark birthday coincided with my graduation from undergrad so my mom said they could either pick up a cake from our wedding bakers (they’re awesome but over an hour drive away in unseemingly hot weather) or I could make one. I had a little over a week between my last final and everyone coming in, and we had already scrubbed the apartment so I had plenty of time for a cake. Well, I sent the recipe to my mom for approval. What she didn’t tell me until the evening they got into town is that she made two of them for the parties they had in my hometown. So my dad had three of these. I then made another for DH's birthday a couple weeks ago (it did not turn out as pretty).

Replaced the ugly old picture with one of DH's birthday in 2014. Much much better.