Apple Bread

This recipe is SUPER EASY! I found a recipe for apple bread I wanted to try, but they made it too hard, so I simplified mine. It turned out great. We had it at our Halloween party too! I tried to get a couple of pictures before we ate it all!

1 spice cake mix
1/3 cup vegetable oil
3/4 cup milk
3 eggs
2 cups coarsely shredded, tart apples (2 medium) - Don't bother to peel them

Topping  ( I just used the same cinnamon sugar mix we have in the cupboard for toast)
2 tablespoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Heat oven to 350°F. Grease and flour bottoms only of two 8x4-inch loaf pans.
In large bowl, beat together the cake mix, oil, eggs and milk. Stir in apples. Divide batter evenly between pans.  Mix cinnamon and sugar. Sprinkle cinnamon sugar over batter in pans.
Bake 50 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes. Remove from pans to cooling rack. Cool completely, about 1 hour.

Baked Luncheon Pinwheels

Today we had our Halloween craft party at Olivia's house. Everyone had to bring finger food for lunch/snacks while we painted. I found a recipe on the internet (Where else? -- unless it was out of a mystery novel), and made some changes. Everyone liked it! Jess said they'd be great to serve at a shower. Olivia said Charlotte even liked them. They may not be healthy, but they are yummy!

1 tube crescent dough rolls
Deli sliced turkey (or ham)
Colby Jack Cheese (or Swiss) cut in slices (I used about 8-10 slices)
1/4 cup butter, melted
3/4 Tbsp. poppy seeds
2 Tbsp. yellow mustard (It might have just been 1 and 1/2 - how much do you like mustard?)
1 Tbsp. dried minced onion
½ tsp. Worcestershire sauce


Preheat oven to 350ºF and grease a 9x13 inch baking dish with cooking spray.
Roll out your crescent dough into a large thin rectangle (Overlap the roll edges to make 1 large sheet of dough.) Top with ham and cheese slices.Starting on the long side, roll the dough up tightly. Pinch the ends together and place with the seam facing down. Cut into 12 pieces. Place the rolls in your baking dish, evenly spaced.
In a small bowl, combine the butter, poppy seeds, mustard, onion, and Worcestershire sauce. Spoon the sauce evenly over the rolls.
Bake for 25 to 30 minutes until lightly browned.

Pumpkin Cheesecake Brownies And Pumpkin Pie Bars

Pierce LOVES pumpkin pie for every birthday instead of cake. We are having a party for him today, and we don't have quite enough pie. Both he and Ryan voted for extra dessert in the form of pumpkin brownies. After looking at LOTS of internet recipes, here's what we came up with:

Brownie Mix prepared according to package directions
8 Ounce Softened Cream Cheese
3/4 Cup Pumpkin
1/2 Cup Sugar
1 Tablespoon Brown Sugar
2 Teaspoon Pure Vanilla Extract
1 Large Egg
4 Teaspoons Cinnamon
1/2 heaping Teaspoon Nutmeg
2 Tablespoon Flour

Preheat oven to 350. Make the brownies and put 3/4ths of the batter in a greased 9x13 pan. (or line the pan with tinfoil and spray that to make removal from the pan easier!) I should have put more brownie batter on the bottom of this one!

Mix  cream cheese, pumpkin and sugar until smooth. Mix in vanilla, egg, cinnamon, nutmeg, & flour.
Spread pumpkin evenly over brownie layer. Then put spoonfuls of the remaining brownie mix on top of the pumpkin. Use a knife to swirl the brownie through the pumpkin layer.
Bake at 350 degrees until a toothpick comes out clean, about 1 hour. Cool completely.

Now what to do with all the left over pumpkin from the 29 oz can I just opened.....Another internet search and I discovered lots of similar recipes with varying amounts of pumpkin - I don't think it matters how much you put in! I have around 3 cups left so here is what I did:

1  package spice cake mix
5 Tbps butter, melted
1 egg
3 c pumpkin (or what ever is left in the can)
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 can evaporated milk
3 eggs
2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp cloves
1 tsp ginger
1/2 tsp allspice
3 Tbs butter, chilled
1/4 c brown sugar

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 9x13 inch pan.

Set aside 1 cup of cake mix. Combine remaining cake mix with melted butter and 1 egg and mix until well blended; spread mixture in the bottom of the pan.
Mix together pumpkin, brown sugar, milk, 3 eggs and spices. Pour over cake mix in the pan.
In a small bowl mix the remaining 1 c of cake mix with 1/4 c brown sugar. Cut in the 3 Tbs butter until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Sprinkle over pumpkin mixture.
Bake at 350 degrees for about 1 hour or until a toothpick comes out clean. Allow to cool completely and serve with whipped cream.

Hazelnut, Cranberry and Chocolate Biscotti

Our new favorite TV show is The Great British Baking Show. I love it! Even Ryan has gotten in to it. He made Kouign Amann and Pan au lait last week after watching them make it on the show. Both Yummy! This week, the show featured biscotti - so he made that too! I think I need to buy their cookbook. It's kind of an adventure in baking - you have to translate from British English to American English. Thank goodness we have Google. Fairy cakes are cupcakes, a cocktail stick is a tooth pick. They use castor sugar - somewhere between granulated and powdered on texture. Treacle is molasses. Some of the different kinds of ginger I have no idea where to find here. But it's fun. And EVERYTHING is done by weight - pull our your kitchen scale! Here's a variation of something Ryan found online and we all loved it! I think next time we should use white chocolate chips.

3 large eggs
375 gm granulated sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp allspice
1 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp mace
1/4 tsp cloves
1/4 tsp coriander
1/4 tsp ginger
150 gm chopped hazelnuts
112 gm cried cranberries (we didn't have quite enough so we used some raisins too)
112 gm semi-sweet chocolate chips
375 gm flour (FYI- this is about 3 cups)
Slivered almonds to sprinkle on top

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Beat the eggs and sugar on medium speed for 10 minutes. Fold in the spices. Add hazelnuts, cranberries, and chocolate chips. Mix in flour - the mixture is very thick and sticky. Dust counter top with flour. Turn dough out to coat. Divide into 3 sections. Dust each with flour and roll into a log 25 cm by 5 cm. (Yup, I had to use a ruler!) Place on a baking sheet lined with a nonstick mat. (I think next time we should use parchment paper to make moving them eaiser) Sprinkle with almonds and bake for 30 mins or until a tooth pick comes out clean. Transfer the loaves onto a cutting board and slice on a diagonal into 1cm thick slices. Lay the slices onto baking sheet and bake an additional 7-10 minutes until crisp. Let cool on the baking sheet.

Key Lime Pie

Here's the recipe for you Olivia! Thanks for coming over and eating pie and biscotti with us.

I found a bunch of key limes turning brown in the produce drawer of the refrigerator yesterday and decided it was time to do something with them. Key lime pie sounded great. I found the most highly reviewed recipe on allrecipes.com,but I didn't have the sour cream it called for. I did have Greek yogurt though. So some more internet searching and I found this recipe that was pretty much the same but with Greek yogurt. I combined the two and the pie is fabulous. Olivia suggested adding coconut- I will have to try that next time.  The crust came from Sally's Baking Addiction - another fabulous recipe blog!

Graham Cracker Crust
10 full sheet graham crackers (about 1 and 1/2 cups crumbs)
6 Tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
1/3 cup sugar

Put the cracker in a food processor or blender and blend until fine crumbs. Add the sugar and mix. Add the butter and mix until it resembles course crumbs, Pour into a 9 inch pie plate and press firmly around the edges to make the crust. Bake at 350 degrees for 8 min. Remove from oven and cool while making the filling.

Key Lime Filling
2 cans sweetened condensed milk
1/2 cup Greek yogurt
3/4 cup key lime juice
1 tablespoon grated lime zest

The key limes are PAIN! they are so tiny. I think I used about 15 of them and still had to use a couple of regular limes to get enough juice. I used some of each to get  the zest as well. - Its easier to zest first and then squeeze. That part takes forever. Once you get the juice, the rest is easy. Pour the sweetened condensed milk into a bowl, add the yogurt and mix. Then add the zest and juice and mix well. Pour into the cooled crust and bake at 350 degrees for 8 minutes. (The recipe said not to brown it, but just until tiny pinhole bubbles burst on the surface - I had a few of those - not many.)  Chill the pie completely (We did overnight). Serve with whipped cream. You could add some lime slices or sprinkle with coconut - thanks for the suggestions Olivia!

Peasant Bread

Yesterday we made peasant bread. We were looking for something we could take to a neighbor that just had surgery and Adria remembered we made this awhile ago and suggested it again. It's really easy and the kids all love it. Probably because it's white bread! And we never buy white bread. We ate it warm with butter, honey and cheese. Adria called it "junk food dinner" but it is so yummy! We made 2 loaves and took one to our neighbor (with some peach cobbler).

The original recipe is VERY wordy, so I reposted it, with a few minor changes.

4 cups warm water
1 heaping Tbsp sugar
1 heaping Tbsp yeast
8 cups flour
2 teaspoons salt

In a large bowl, mix the water, sugar and yeast. Let sit for  about 10 mins until foamy and bubbly. Add salt and flour. Mix well. The dough will still be VERY wet and not like typical bread dough.  Cover with plastic wrap sprayed with non-stick spray and let raise in a warm place until double - about an hour.

Use butter to grease two (2 quart or 2.5 liter) Pyrex bowls. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Using 2 forks or spoons, pull the dough away from sides of bowl to punch down. Divide dough in half with a spoon or fork and scoop each half into a bowl. I used a spoon in each hand and tried to pick up half the dough and quickly put it into the bowl. I didn't get it all on the first try. Allow the bread to rise 20 to 30 minutes until it is just over the top of the bowl.

Bake for 15 min at 425 degrees, then turn the oven down to 375 degrees and back for another 15-20 minutes until golden brown. Dump the bread out of bowl onto a cooking rack. If they looks a little pale when they are turned out, you can put them back into the oven without the bowl, bottom side up for another few minutes. I've never done that part - mine always looked ok. Serve warm with your favorite butter, jam, honey or cheese.

Julie's Peach Cobbler

Last Sunday, our friend Julie invited us over for dessert. She made homemade peach cobbler. It was fabulous! Julie is one of the best cooks I know. I asked her for the recipe and this is what she sent me. I tried making it today. Mine seemed to cook much faster. As I recall, I think she sprinkled the cinnamon sugar mix over it during the baking and not before it baked- I wonder if that made a difference?  I didn't double the cinnamon sugar mixture and I still had a lot left over! As I typed this, I realized I put in too much lemon juice. I read "tsp" as "Tbsp," but it was still good.

Here's her notes:
I slice enough peaches to give me a good base (between double and triple the recipe). Because the peaches were so sweet, I kept the sugar the same but doubled the other items, and I doubled the topping recipe. (She cooked it in a large 9x13 dish.)

Here's her recipe, Serves 4:

8 large peaches, peeled and thinly sliced
1/4 c sugar
1/4 c brown sugar
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/8 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp fresh lemon juice
3 tsp cornstarch


1 c flour
1/4 c sugar
1/4 c brown sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
6 Tbsp butter, unsalted, chilled and cut into pieces
1/4 c boiling water

Mix together 3 Tbsp sugar and 1 tsp cinnamon

1. preheat oven to 425 degrees F.
2. Combine peaches, sugars, spices, juice and cornstarch. Toss to coat evenly. Pour into a 2 qt baking dish. Bake for 10 min.
3. Combine flour, other sugars, baking powder and salt. Blend in butter with pastry blender until mixture resembles coarse meal. Stir in water until just combined.
4. Remove peaches from oven, drop spoonfuls of topping over them. Sprinkle entire cobbler with cinnamon and sugar. Bake until topping is golden. About 30 minutes.