Upside down

After the last two weekends of family parties, I am taking it easy this weekend. I have an easy catering event to work on Saturday during the day. Small picnic. Last weekend my youngest sister graduated with her MBA. Wow, she worked very hard and completed her program in one year. It was an enormous amount of work for her, but she did it. She is very smart person. Sometimes when I think about my sister, I remember her doing headstands in the velvet chair. We always got a kick out her being upside down

Why my Mother let us do gymnastics in the LIVING Room really surprises me now. The Velvet Chair was a very comphy chair. And the arm sleeves always need to be pulled up.

So for my sister's party, we had it at my Mom's house on her patio. An absolutely gorgeous evening with some great friends. Beautiful flowers.(another Sister did a Knock Off Decor for the Flower Containers-Will Post Pics Later)  Tasty appetizers, Mexican pork and make your own tacos for dinner. (Fun party food) Delicious Tiramisu and Cannolis for dessert. And I made three types of cookies. There was more than one cookie monster their that night. Chunky Chocolate Chips with Sea Salt, Peanut Butter with Peanuts and Cinnadoodles (prior post). There are no pictures of the cookies. Not even the trays. Sometimes, things just happen that way.

I will post the Peanut Butter Cookies with Peanuts another day. This was a new recipe and very delicious. I forgot how much I like Peanut Butter Cookies. So when life turns you upside down, grab a cookie, take a moment and enjoy life.

Salted Caramel and Chocolate Chunk Bars

As I was getting things made for my stepson's birthday party, I decided that Cake and Ice Cream were just not enough for this party. I had found another FABulous Bar recipe that just needed to be made. These are absolutely delicious.

Heaven. Chocolate, caramel, sea salt and a blondie. What more could a Cookie Monster ask for. But with name calling, he did not get any to take home.

These bars are not hard to make. I had homemade caramel sauce from one of my sisters, in the fridge. So that is how I cut some time on this recipe. I would not recommend some sub par caramel sauce just to save time. It would not do your Bars any favors. Make the sauce. I will next time.

The recipe stated that once the bars had cooled, to refrigerate them before cutting. It was SO Easy to cut these bars. I plated them and keep them at room temperature.

Salty Caramel and Chocolate Chunk Bars
adapted from unegaminedanslacuisine.com

for the Caramel Sauce
1/2 cup heavy cream
3 Tablespoons unsalted butter, cut in six pieces
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup white sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon lemon juice
1/4 cup water

directions
In a heavy 2 quart saucepan, combine the sugar, salt, lemon juice and water. Pat the sugar into the water as much as possible. Without stirring, bring the mixture to a boil over medium heat. Occasionally, use the hanlde of the pan to gently swirl everything together and prevent caramel from cooking too fast in one spot. Cook until the caramel turns medium amber (about 8-10 minutes). Keep a close watch on the caramel as soon as the bubbles begin to change colour. When it turns medium amber, remove pan from heat, and slowly and carefully add the heavy cream. (it will sputter and hiss, step back) Keep stirring until the caramel smooths out. Gradually add the pieces of butter, about 2 bits at a time. Once the butter is added and melted into the caramel, whisk in vanilla extract.

Immediately pour the hot caramel into a medium heat proof bowl and set aside.


for the Bars
2 1/8 cup all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
12 Tablespoons (1 1/2 sticks) melted & cooled unsalted butter
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
12 ounces chopped dark chocolate (or roughly 2 cups dark chocolate chips)
Caramel Sauce (see recipe above)

directions
Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Lightly spray or butter an 11x7 Pyrex dish
In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, salt and baking soda. Set aside
In the bowl of a stand mixer, fitted with paddle attachment, beat together the melted butter, and both sugars until well combined. About 5 minutes at medium speed. At this point, the mixture will look a bit greasy. Add one egg at a time, beating after each addition for one minute. Add vanilla and beat for one more minute.
Slowly add the dry ingredients and mix on low speed until all flour is incorporated. Using a large wooden spoon, stir in chocolate chunks until they are throughout the batter.
Press half of the batter into the pan. Try to make smooth as possible.  Pour the caramel sauce over the dough. Try to have a smooth layer of caramel sauce.
Drop chunks of remaining dough over the caramel sauce. Flatten with your hands, resembling little shingles. It will not look perfect, but they will bake up fabulous.
Bake the bars for 30-40 minutes, or until edges start to pull away from the pan. You want the bars a light golden brown. Remove pan from the oven and cool completely on a rack. Once the bars are room temperature, stick pan in the fridge for a few hours. This made the cutting process easy.


Heaven in a bar. OMG. Delicious.

These would also be great with a scoop of ice cream.

Chocolate Cake and Banana Ice Cream

My youngest stepson is now 20. No longer a teenager. When he first came into my life, he was only 7. Just a young boy with glasses. His palate was quite basic, and I had to learn to adapt to that. But this little boy has grown into a twenty year old. I cannot believe it. So, for his birthday cake, he asked for a chocolate cake with banana filling. It was not quite what I had in mind. He was open to Banana Cream Pie. The problem with that, was that we were celebrating his birthday at the beach. Pie would not hold up. Way to HOT. So I thought, how about a Chocolate cake, Chocolate ganache frosting and Banana Ice Cream. He thought that sounded great.

So I went to my favorite recipe source Foodgawker.com, I found at least 20 different recipes for Banana Ice Cream. I settled on two and went to work. I combined two recipes for this ice cream. I truly believe what sends banana ice cream over the top is carmelizing the bananas. Holy Crap. I could have eaten them out of the pan.

What makes ice cream so easy is the few ingredients. Bananas, sugars, cream, milk and vanilla extract. Life is SO good.

Banana Ice Cream
Ingredients
6 ripe bananas peeled and sliced
4 Tablespoons (1/4 Cup) butter
1/2 Cup packed brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 Cup white sugar
2 Cups heavy whipping cream
1/2 Cup of milk
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Directions
Preheat oven for 400 degrees. In a small fry pan, melt butter over meduim heat on the stove. Continue to cook until the butter begins to foam. Swirl the pan around. The butter will start to have this nutty aroma. Heavenly. Brown bits will form and the color of the butter will change from yellow to brown. Remove from heat. Add the brown sugar and let dissolve. When there are no visable lumps, add the chopped bananas. Gently cover the bananas with butter and brown sugar mixture. Place pan in to oven for 20-25 minutes. Your bananas will begin to caramelize. Remove from oven and allow to cool completely. Move into a bowl and refrigerate for a least one hour or overnight.

In a seperate bowl, add white sugar, heavy cream and vanilla extract and mix until sugar dissolves. In a blender, slowly start pouring in banana mixture and heavy cream/sugar mixture.

This will be Very thick. Add the milk to liquify it. Pour into ice cream maker and process according to directions.

I could have started eating here. I  made this Thursday night so that it could freeze completely.

For the Chocolate Cake. I have found the most wonderful recipe that comes together so perfectly. It is from Cooks Illustrated magazine. All Time Best Recipes for 2009. I have made this cake several times. The frosting that comes with this book is also very good. I will provide that another day. I appreciated the people at Cooks for testing out so many recipes. If you follow the recipe, it will be perfect everytime.

Old Fashioned Chocolate Layer Cake
Ingredients
12 Tablespoons (1 1/2 sticks) soft unsalted butter
1 3/4 Cups all purpose flour
4 ounces of unsweetened chocolate - chopped
1/4 Cup dutch processed cocoa
1/2 Cup hot water
1 3/4 Cup sugar
1 Cup buttermilk
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
5 large eggs

Direction
Adjust oven rack to middle position and heat to 350 degrees. Grease and flour two 9 inch round pans or one 9x13 cake pan. Combine chocolate, cocoa powder and hot water in a meduim heatproof bowl; set over saucepan containing 1 inch of simmering water and stir with a rubber spatula until the chocolate is melted, about 2 minutes. Add 1/2  cup of sugar to chocolate and stir until glossy, 1 to 2 minutes. Remove bowl from heat and set aside to cool.

Whisk flour, baking soda, and salt in a medium bowl. Combine buttermilk and vanilla in a small bowl. In bowl with a stand mixer fitted with the  WHISK attachment whisk eggs on medium low speed until combined for 10 seconds. Add remaining 1 1/4 cup of sugar, increase speed to high and whisk until fluffy and lightened in color for 2 or 3 minutes. Replace whisk with paddle attachment. Add cooled chocolate mixture to egg/sugar mixture and mix on medium speed until thoroughly incorporated 30 to 45 seconds. Scrape down sides of bowl with spatula as needed. Add softened butter 1 Tablespoon at a time mixing 10 seconds after each addition. Add 1/3 of four mixture followed by half of the buttermilk mixture. Repeat adding flour and buttermilk until thoroughly combined. Pour batter into pan or pans.

Bake cakes until toothpick inserted into center come out with few crumbs. 25 to 30 minutes. Cool cakes in pans and then invert onto wire rack.

Chocolate Ganache Frosting
for a 9 x 13 cake
Ingredients
8 ounces bittersweet chocolate
1 Cup heavy cream

Directions
Place chocolate and cream in a microwave bowl. Place in microwave and heat in 30 second burst and then stir. Repeat 2 or 3 times. Once the chocolate starts to melt, continue stirring until it becomes glossy. Place in refrigerator for 5 to 10 minutes. To cool completely. Stir and notice how smooth and glossy the frosting is. Pour over cake and spread with an offset spatula. You will see how shiny and perfect it looks.

I am not posting the picture of the decorated cake. My skills definitely need work, but it was very good.

Pretzel Scotch Cookies

Yesterday was my Dad's birthday. If he was alive, he would have been 68 years old. He blessed me with so many wisdoms and good traits. Maybe a few crazy ideas once in a while. My Dad ALWAYS loved a good dessert. And when it was his birthday, that meant he could have doubles. What was his Favorite??? Chocolate Cake with Peanut Butter frosting, Butter Pecan ice cream, Peach Pie, Sour Cream Raisin Pie (Thanksgiving only), cookies and anything else. Some of my family got together last night for a wonderful summer dinner on the patio at my Moms. It was a good evening. My Dad would have smiled, but we had no dessert...

My Dad would have loved these cookies. Actually we all love them. My second sister, her children and my Mom are going out of town this weekend to see some extended family. I decided that they needed travel cookies. My sister was all over my idea. I am still on the pretzel kick, but these are a completely different spin on cookies. I love the whole brown butter concept for Chocolate Cookies. I made the Cooks Illustrated recipe so many times, I knew it by heart.

This recipe is a combination of nutty butter melded with sugars. Chocolate Chips. Butterscotch Chips and Pretzels.  It is a montage in your mouth. So very good.  These cookies are the best if they have been refrigerated for at least 8 hours. This is why you really need to READ through a whole recipe before you start. I chilled them for an hour. They still spread out, and that is why my cook time was only 9 minutes per batch.

Pretzel Scotch Cookies
Slightly adapted from Unegaminedanslacuisine.com
Ingredients:
1 cup (2 sticks) butter
2 1/4 cups all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 cup sugar
1 1/4 cups brown sugar
2 eggs
2 tablespoons milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup broken or crushed pretzels
1/2 cup butterscotch chips
1/2 cup chocolate chips

Direction:
Place butter in a medium heavy bottom sauce pan over medium heat . The butter will melt and start to foam. As it foams, a wonderful nutty aroma will develop. Continue swirling the pan as the butter continues to cook. The butter will start to turn brown. When it has turned brown, but not burnt, remove from heat. Pour buter into your bowl for your stand mixer. Add both sugars and mix by hand thoroughly.  As the butter cools, the melding of the sugars with the butter is amazing. Somewhat caramel like.

In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, salt and baking soda. Set aside.

Once your butter has cooled, attach to the stand mixer and beat the butter and sugars at medium speed of  2 minutes. Add the eggs and continue to beat. Add milk and vanilla and beat at medium until well mixed. Slowly add the flour mixture, beating on low speed until combined. Using a rubber spatula or wooden spoon, stir in pretzels, butterscotch chips and chocolate chips until combined.

Cover bowl for a least eight hours. Really very important

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line baking sheet with a Silpat or parchment paper.
Remove the chilled dough from the fridge. Scoop out a rounded tablespoon size piece of dough. Place on lined sheet. Leaving about one inch space between cookies. Chilled cookies will not spread out very much. Leave more room if not chilled long enough. Bake between 9-11 minutes or until barely brown. Remove from over and allow the cookies to cool on the sheet for 2-3 minutes and transfer to cooling rack.

This dough was chilled for only one hour. Still soft

Happy Birthday Dad. Safe travels to my Mom and Sister. Enjoy these yummy cookies.

These cookies would be very good with Ice Cream... Vanilla or Chocolate

Peanut Butter, Chocolate Chip & Pretzel Cookies

Last week as I want hunting around Foodgawker.com, looking for something for dinner, I can across this wonderful cookie recipe. All of my favorites, Chocolate chips, peanut butter and pretzels. Ohhh what a heavenly combination of chocolate, sweet and salty. And my love for good cookie dough.  OMG, I could just sit and eat the whole bowl. Just a few nibbles. You have to taste what you make.

Today is my youngest sister's boyfriends Birthday. He is a Cookie Monster to the MAX. He could eat a whole batch of cookies and NOT gain an ounce. He is so wonderful to my sister, so I made him cookies. I know he likes Chocolate Chips, I was not sure about Peanut Butter, but I think all will be good.  My oven had been out of working order for over a week. But it was finally fixed on Saturday. It is still so freaking HOT here, almost to Hot for a batch of cookies. I do not believe it will ever rain again. (YES, we still watering and have green grass)

I love cookies. My Mom always made cookies for us when we were kids. She would make batches of cookies and freeze them. I believe are favorites were always Chocolate Chip and Peanut Butter Cookies. AND, that is what I made these and added a Cup of Pretzels.

These cookies came together easily. I really like the texture of these cookies. They were not heavy like a regular Peanut Butter cookie. They had a bit shortbread crumble to them.

Peanut Butter, Chocolate Chip and Pretzel Cookies
followed from Stoplookingetcookin.com

Ingredients:
1 1/4 cups all purpose Flour
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
1/2 cup softened butter (1 stick)
1 cup creamy peanut butter
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup light brown sugar
1 large egg
1 tablespoon milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3/4 cup semi sweet chocolate chips
3/4 cup peanut butter chips
1 cup chopped pretzels

Directions:
Preheat over to 350 degrees F.
Line a large baking sheet with a Silpat baking mat or parchment paper. Set aside.
In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, baking powder, and sea salt. Set aside.
In the bowl of a stand mixer, beat the butter and peanut butter together until fluffy. Add both sugars and beat until smooth.  Add the egg and mix until just combined. Add the milk and the vanilla extract and mix again.
Add the flour mixture and beat until flour disappears. Stir in chocolate chips, peanut butter chips and pretzels.
Drop cookie dough onto prepared baking sheet.
Bake for 10 minutes, or until cookies are barely brown on the bottem edges.
Cool cookies on the baking sheets for 2-3 minutes. Then move to a wire rack to cool completely

I love using my cookie scoop. My Mom bought it for me for Christmas one year AFTER I had made several batches of Christmas cookies. Your cookies again look the same, and cook the same. I also love my Silpats. A great investment. Your cookies never stick.

These are such a great cookie. They would be great warm with a bowl of Homemade Vanilla Ice Cream. Why do I give my cookies away??

My Husband gave me the Seal of Appoval. Fabulous as always. Another cookie to add to the List.

Vanilla Ice Cream and Cherries

I realized that it had been over a week since my last post, and what had I made. NOTHING. Well, I have been cooking, but just Summer stuff. Burgers and Dogs. Nothing special. Though it is only the middle of July, we have had a very HOT summer. So I decided we needed an ice cream break. I purchased an ice cream maker about four years ago. It probably took three years prior to actually decide to buy one. My family loves ice cream, I love ice cream, but my diet does not. I have made so many different flavors of ice cream throughout the years. I cannot tell you my favorite.  I also like the different styles of ice cream. Cooked or Philadelpia style. It usually depends on how much time I want to spend and what I have a taste for. Usually though when it come down to it, I like to make Vanilla Ice Cream. I have tried many different variations, really you just need your cream, milk, sugar and good vanilla.

Making ice cream is very easy. The cherries were the work. As I pitted my cherries, I always remember why I do not buy cherries. These were very good tasting, but what a pain in the butt.

The ice is only four ingredients. Whipping Cream. milk, white sugar and vanilla. Your texture of ice cream will vary if you alter the cream and milk. Heavy Cream and Whole milk make a thicker ice cream. Mix the ingredients together, make sure the sugar is dissolved.

Pour into the ice cream maker. I always keep my bowl in the freezer. You NEVER want to fill the ice cream maker to the top. As the ice cream churned it freezes and grows. Believe me, the mess you get then, a lesson learned.

I could really just start eating here, but there was dinner to be made first....

Can you taste delicious..... I can.....

When you are short on time, place ice cream into a pie plate, it will freeze faster. The ice cream should freeze for a least 4 -6 hours, or even overnight. That is the beauty of having ice cream for dessert. It can be made in advanced and it is EASY.

Pitting cherries is not a hard job, just very mind numbing. I understand why people buy frozen cherries. I had over two cups of cherries for my topping.

I added a cup of water and 1 1/2 tablespoons of white sugar. Depending on the tartness of the cherries, please vary the sugar. Bring to a boil and let cook down. I added my tablespoon of corn starch, mixed in and reduced the heat to low. And let cook until thickened.

Vanilla Ice Cream with Cherry Sauce
ingredients
Ice Cream - Adapted from The Ultimate Ice Cream Book Bruce Weinstein
2 cups Whipping Cream
3/4 cup of Sugar
1 cup of Milk
2 teaspoons Vanilla

Mix whipping cream and sugar. The sugar needs to dissolve. Add milk and vanilla. Pour into frozen bowl and mix according to the manufacturers instructions. When done, place in a freezer safe bowl and chill.

Cherry Sauce
2 cups of pitted Cherries
1 cup of water
1 1/2 - 2 tablespoons of white sugar
1 tablespoon of corn starch

Pitt cherries. Place cherries in a pan, add water and sugar. Bring to a boil and reduce heat. Sauce will form and cherries will cook down. After about 5 - 10 minutes, add corn starch and mix until no lumps are seen. Cook on low until thicken. Remove from heat and let cool.

Scoop ice cream and spoon cherries over top. Easy, delicious and a great part of summer.

                                                                          or you can eat  Snap Peas all summer...

Malted Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars

Happy 4th of July, well one day late. My Husband and some of my neighbors like to put flags in our front yards. We put out 230 flags this year. It is very cool to drive down our street and see the patriotism.  It is also STILL very HOT here. We are still experiencing record heat. It is truely amazing that we have had so many hot days.  We are experiencing drought like conditions. (A side note: My husband likes having green grass)

On Tuesday while I was checking out Foodgawker.com, I came across this Fantastic Bar Recipe. I love making bars. They are easy to make and take so much less time than cookies. I really like making cookies, but there are millions of bar recipes. I love to look through old church cookbooks for something a little different.

This recipe jumped out at me, screaming MAKE ME!!! And I had all the ingredients.

I made these early in the morning on the 4th. My family picniced out at the beach that day. We were lucky and found shade. Burgers, Brats, Dogs, Chips, some fruit and these fabulous bars. The plate was almost gone when we left. Actually, I probably could have eaten the whole pan by myself. There is a lot of chocolate chips in these bars, but is there ever TOO much chocolate. This recipe is quick to throw together. The recipe called for a 9x9 pan. I do not have one, so I started with an 8x8. Pulled the parchment paper and batter out and placed into a 10x10 pan. Worked perfectly. Since I used the 10x10 pan, I started at 22 minutes cooking time. I added two more minutes. I feel that the edges were slightly dark. These bars were very moist 23 or 24 minutes. The cooking time would matter depending on the thickness.

Malted Chocolate Chip Bars
Perfectly made from bunsinmyoven.com

1 cup of room temperature butter
1 1/4 cups packed brown sugar
1/2 cup malted milk powder
2 Tablespoons chocolate syrup
1 Tablespoon vanilla extract
1 egg
2 cups all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups semisweet chocolate chips
1 cup milk chocolate chips

1. In the bowl of a stand mixer, beat together the butter, brown sugar, malted milk powder, chocolate syrup and vanilla for two minutes. Beat in egg until well combined.
2. In a small bowl, combine flour, baking soda, and salt. Stir together
3. Gradually add the flour mixture to the wet mixture and mix well
4. Stir in all the chocolate chips
5. Line a 9x9 or 10x10 baking dish with parchment paper. Press the dough into the pan.
6. Bake at 375 degrees for 22 -30 minutes. (DEPENDING on the size of pan)
7. Cool the pan on a cooling rack.

The batter is a smooth and stiff.

I really fit into my pan nicely. The 8x8 pan was just to full. You could use a 9x13 pan and probably only cook for 18 to 20 minutes

My kitchen just smelled amazing when these come out of the oven

Bars ~~ got to LOVE them