TWD: Perfect Party Cake

The Perfect Party Cake is a pretty bold statement. I mean, it has a whole lot to live up to, don't you think? I had a birthday party to go to last weekend, but I didn't have the cake ready in time to bring it with me. So, this Perfect Party Cake is for the party of one that continually rocks this little corner of DC. Although, who am I kidding, I definitely shared some of this delightful little cake.

I made 1/2 of the recipe, and baked it in a single 8x8" pan. I didn't have lemons, but I did have limes, and more importantly, I like limes, so I went with the lime flavor for this cake. Limes and raspberries are ok, but I think that limes and cherries are better. I had quite a few farmers market cherries in my fridge, and I made a batch of cherry lime preserves to sandwich between the layers. In fact, I've been affectionately thinking of this as my Perfect Cherry Limeade Party Cake. I split the cake in half across the middle and down the middle to make a nice little loaf shape, and I can honestly say that I didn't meet up with many problems while making this cake. Except one. So, can someone please tell me how to get the jam layer to be only red and the frosting layer to be only white? In the book, there are the loveliest, most pristing layer cake layers with red raspberry jam and white buttercream frosting. My buttercream is pink in between my layers. That was the only part that I found frustrating, but in the end, pink buttercream isn't the end of the world.

As far as flavor goes, this was a very delicate cake. The lime and cherry flavors were subtle, perhaps more so because they had to compete with the buttercream and the coconut. Speaking of coconut, in high school I had an English teacher my sophomore year, Dr. Johnson, and he had a beard. He used to tell us that a beard could hide a multitude of sins: acne, scars, wrinkles, you get the point. Well, I think that the coconut plays a similar role to Dr. Johnson's beard on this cake. The buttercream just doesn't make enough to do a thick layer around the cake. You essentially have enough to make a thick crumbcoat, and then you start pressing in the coconut. If you don't like coconut, then I'm guessing that extra frosting is absolutely necessary. My buttercream got hard in the refrigerator, and as a result, it was definitely my least favorite part of the cake. I also felt like it overwhelmed the flavor of the cake itself, so in the future I think I'd probably try to find a way around the buttercream. Thanks to Carol, of Mix, Mix, Stir, Stir for chosing this very fun and pretty cake this week.

BBA SOS: Rich Man's Brioche

I'm musically challenged. I love music of all sorts, but I'm really lazy about my music education. I'm the person that likes to say: "Hey, there's a song that I heard, and I really like it, but I don't know the words or how it goes" and then I'll pathetically try to hum it. This makes my sister, Adrianne, pull her hair out in frustration. I only listen to my iPod if I'm running and I never remember to plug it into the speakers in my house. I think that I just spend my time mixed up in my thoughts rather than rocking out to great songs. Luckily, though, my brother and sister love music and I'm always learning or remembering songs with them. For example, the last time that I visited my brother in New Orleans we were in his car and there was a song that I really liked. It turns out that it was "Rich Girl" by Hall & Oates. Great song, no?
I made the Rich Man's Brioche for the BBA Brioche portion of the challenge. Peter Reinhart begins the recipe by refuting Marie Antoinette's famous "let them eat cake" statement. What she actually said translates to, "let them eat brioche" or "qu'ils mangent de la brioche." Actually, the origin of the statement is unknown and you can read more about it here, if you'd like. Back to the point that I was going to make though. Well, the combination of the title and this little anecdote meant that I hummed "Rich Girl" nearly the whole time that I was making this oh-so rich and delightful bread.

There are three different versions of the brioche: rich man's, middle class, and poor man's. As brioche gets it's lovely flavor and texture from the addition of eggs and butter, you might guess that the richer dough belongs to the richer man, and you'd be right. I wavered on which sort to make. I'd made middle class a couple of times before so I didn't really want to go that direction. Poor man's brioche sounded interesting, and more importantly, easier on my waistline; but, really, in for a penny, in for a pound, right? I decided that as long as I was making brioche I might as well go for the gusto, or in this case, the butter and eggs. This dough is not for the faint of heart as it's nearly 90% butter, but it's worth every single calorie.


The brioche is definitely my favorite bread that I've made in the challenge. The bagels were awesome and I loved eating them. I loved the Anadama bread, but I just love the brioche dough. It's so nice to work with, and it just smells like butter (go figure). The end result is the lightest, most melt in your mouth piece of bread you'll come across. I think that it's sort of like a croissant but I thought it was even better than the best croissant I've ever had. I don't think that I did a very good job shaping the little brioche a tetes, so I'll have to try this again. It will be a real hardship, I assure you. ;)

Sweet Melissa Sundays: Double Dark Chocolate Cherry Cookies

This week Megan, of My Baking Adventures, chose Double Dark Chocolate Cherry Cookies. I love Megan and her blog. She has a great sense of humor and she's always making the most delicious looking creations for her family. I love chocolate but chocolate cookies always seem to fall sort of flat for me. And these cookies seemed like a sort of black forest cookie and I honestly wasn't excited about making them. I thought that I'd make them because they weren't too complicated, and then I'd just give them away.
Well, color me completely and utterly wrong about these chocolate cookies because they're good. Really, amazingly, wonderfully good. Chewy, chocolaty good. So good that I couldn't stop eating them. I love these cookies! I made half of the batch with the dried tart cherries and half without. And, while both of the cookies are delicious, I liked the chocolate with the cherries more than the plain chocolate cookies. So, I was going to give them away, but then I saved some and froze the rest to give away in a batch of assorted baked goods. Well, as I've been demolishing the cookie stash, I find myself pondering whether or not I really want to give these away. I sort of want to hoard them, keep them all to myself. These cookies are delicious. Visit Megan's blog for the recipe and remember one thing: don't over bake these babies. They must be chewy! Thanks to Megan for picking this wonderful recipe. I know that I will make these again and again!

TWD: Coconut-Roasted Pineapple Dacquoise

There are so many recipes in Dorie's book that look just lovely . . . but this is the recipe that I've had my heart set on making. First of all, the picture in the book is just gorgeous. Second of all, I adore pineapple and it's not really used in a lot of desserts. I like to eat broiled or grilled pineapple with sweetened Greek yogurt for dessert. I also just like pineapple plain or in fruit salads. The point really is, though, that I love pineapple and I was so excited that Andrea chose this recipe! You can visit her blog if you'd like to see it.

I didn't think that this was a really hard dessert to put together . . . but it does require a stretch of time. I made the meringue layers Sunday evening. Then Monday morning before work I was in the kitchen, in my PJ's, making the ganache and broiling the pineapple. I wondered, am I the only nut working on my TWD dessert on Monday morning in her jammies? Then I got home from work and whipped up the ganache and put the dacquoise together. All told, it took about 24 hours from start to finish, but that's because I took breaks for sleep and work. In my opinion, it's not necessarily a difficult recipe, but it requires some careful reading and a little bit of meticulous planning. If you read this blog at all, then you know that there was cosmic intervention that allowed this dessert to survive my usual haphazard recipe reading. I'm still not sure if I beat the ganache up enough, but I read tales of separating ganache on the P&Q this week and I figured it was better to err on the runny side of things. At 5 pm on Monday evening I'm not in the mood to redo a ganache!

This dessert lived up to my expectations . . . and then some! I made a half of a recipe so it was really the cutest little thing. I didn't let it sit 6 hours before I dug into it . . . it only made it about 3 or 4 hours and then I just had to try it. If you love coconut and pinapple as I do, then you will absolutely love this dessert! Dudley proclaimed it "awesome" and I absolutely loved every bite of it. Now, I have quite a bit of white chocolate ganache left over; even the halved recipe made way too much. Does anyone have ideas as to how to use it up?

Rhubarb Streusel Tart with Brown Sugar-Sour Cream Ice Cream

Before last night, I'd never tasted rhubarb before. Rhubarb doesn't grow in Texas, and I can't really recall having the opportunity to try it. Well, that's actually a lie. My grandfather, PawPaw, grew up in North Dakota and he loves rhubarb. I can remember spending weekends at my grandparents' house (in Houston) and while we all ate strawberry crepes, he would eat his crepes with frozen rhubarb (not cooked, raw with a little bit of sugar. He likes sour/tart things). But somehow the "red celery" never appealed to me as a filling for crepes.

I had been on the lookout for red celery at the farmers market because I knew that I really wanted to try it. I finally scored a few weeks ago, and then I had to figure out how I wanted to deal with it. Since I've never eaten it before, I was flying blind. There are lots of great recipes out there, but when I stumbled on this recipe in The Farm to Table Cookbook, by Ivy Manning, I was sold. I bought this cookbook last fall and I was taken with the subtitle of the book -- The Art of Eating Locally. It's a wonderful book with wonderful recipes, but this is the first time that I've actually used it. **Note** Ivy Manning actually has a blog, IvysFeast, where you can check out her recipes yourself and learn more about the art of eating locally. How exciting! I know I'm going to follow her . . .

It was actually the ice cream that sold me on the tart. Brown Sugar-Sour Cream? Sign me up! I made 1/2 a recipe of both the ice cream and the tarts because it's just me, and I ended up with three tartlets. Be forewarned, if you make the whole recipe, you'll end up with 10 leftover egg whites. When I was on my homemade ice cream kick last summer I remember having issues with all of the leftover whites. What do you do with your leftover whites? Besides freeze them? Angel food cakes are great . . . for a little while. I need to think of some fabulous way to use egg whites. I digress.
The two components take a bit of planning and preparation to put together, but there isn't one really complicated element of this recipe. And, although there are several different components, there are quite a few steps that can be done ahead of time. Desserts that can be tackled ahead of time always get a gold star from me. I made the ice cream base first, let it chill for a day, and then added the sour cream and froze the ice cream. The pate sucre was really, really fragile so I think that next time I might skip the chilling and rolling steps and just press it right into the tart shells. Other than that, it bakes up beautifully. The rhubarb filling is super simple to put together; and the streusel is delicious!

All in all, I'm completely smitten with this recipe . . . and with rhubarb. This tart is so tasty! And the ice cream is delicious all by itself. I think I might have to wait until next year to get more rhubarb, but when I do, I will surely make this again. It was so seriously delicious and I highly recommend that anyone with some rhubarb give it a shot.

Rhubarb Streusel Tart with Brown Sugar-Sour Cream Ice Cream
from The Farm to Table Cookbook, by Ivy Manning

For the Crust:
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 cup cold unsalted butter, cut into 1/2" pieces
2 egg yolks

For the Streusel:
6 tablespoons cold unsalted butter, cut into 1/2" pieces
2 1/2 tablespoons of almond paste, or marzipan
1/2 cup sugar
2/3 cup all purpose flour
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

For the Filling:
1 1/2 pounds (about 6 cups) rhubarb, thinly sliced
1 cup brown sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 qt Brown Sugar Sour Cream Ice Cream (recipe follows)

1. Crust. Blend together flour, sugar, salt, and butter in a food processor or an electric mixer with the paddle attachment until the butter lumps are no larger than peas. Whisk the egg yolks in a small measuring cup and add just enough water to make 1/4 cup of liquid; add to flour mixture. Mix until the dough just starts to come together. Gather the dough, shape into a disc, and wrap in plastic wrap. Chill for at least 1 hour or up to 3 days.

2. Streusel. Combine butter, almond paste, sugar, flour, and cinnamon in a food processor until the mixture is in fine crumbles (alternatively, blend with a pastry blender). Refrigerate until needed.

3. Allow the dough to stand at room temperature for 5 minutes. Roll on a lightly floured surface into a 1/3" disc, frequently rotating the dough to prevent from sticking. Transfer to a 9" tart pan with removable bottom or into 6 tartlet pans. Ease the dough into the pan, fitting it into the pan's contour with fingertips, leaving some dough hanging over the edges. Trim the pastry edges by rolling the pin over the rim and discard trimmings. Freeze the shell until firm, about 30 minutes.

4. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

5. Make the rhubarb filling by combining the rhubarb, brown sugar, and cinnamon in a large saute pan. Cook over medium heat, stirring frequently, until the rhubarb is fall apart tender, about 10 minutes.

6. Fill the tart shell with the rhubarb mixture to within 1/2" from the top of the crust. Sprinkle the streusel on top and transfer to a baking sheet. Bake until the streusel is golden brown and the filling is bubbly, about 45 minutes for the tart, or 25 to 30 minutes for the tartlets. Transfer the shell to a wire rack and cool completely. Using a small knife, gently loosen the crust from the sides of the pan. Push up on the bottom to release tart. Serve warm with the ice cream.

Brown Sugar-Sour Cream Ice Cream
(note: this ice cream is wonderful but the recipe (in my opinion) assumes that you've made ice cream before and you're familiar with tempering the egg yolks and cooking the custard. I didn't have trouble with it, but if you're new to making ice cream you may want to do a little bit of research on the method)

2 cups half & half
1 1/4 cups brown sugar
8 egg yolks
2 cups sour cream

1. In a small saucepan, scald the half-and-half over medium low heat until hot.

2. Whisk the brown sugar and egg yolks together in a medium bowl. Slowly whisk in the half-and-half.

3. Return the mixture to the saucepan and cook over medium-low heat, stirring constantly with a rubber spatula until the mixture thickens enough to coat it, about 5 minutes.

4. Strain the mixture through a fine-mesh sieve into a metal bowl (I used glass and it was fine). Refrigerate until cold, then whisk the sour cream into the half-and-half mixture and freeze in an ice cream maker according to manufacturer's instructions.

Sweet Melissa Sundays: Twofer

Yup, it's two for one around here this Sunday. You see, I made the Chocolate Chip Cookies with Toasted Almonds in time to post them last Sunday; however, I didn't have time to post them and as I was writing a late post I though, this is silly, I'll just post them next Sunday. You see, my friend Ceci, was visiting last weekend and we were having way too much fun for me to even think about blogging!

Ceci & the Singleton striking a "foxxy" pose at her wedding. You should be hearing Jimi Hendrix in your head . . .

If you read this blog, then you know that I adore chocolate chip cookies. I would have one at my last meal and I think that they're the holy grail of cookies. I'm perpetually on a search to find the "perfect" chocolate chip cookie; that said, I will eat almost any chocolate chip cookie. To date, the New York Times uber chocolate chip is my favorite, but I'm always on the hunt for a better choc chip. In short, I was excited to make the Sweet Melissa Chocolate chip cookie.

Now, the Sweet Melissa Chocolate Chip Cookie is pretty standard, but it includes toasted almonds. This is very interesting . . . I generally abhore nuts in my chocolate chip cookies. BUT, I love almonds. This could be the beginning of a very beautiful friendship. I made the cookie dough, chilled it, rolled it, chilled it, sliced it, baked it, and, finally, ate it! These were so good out of the oven that I really couldn't stop eating them. I think that I ate 5 or 6 before I had to seal them up to make sure that I couldn't eat any more. They don't beat the New York Times recipe but they're available faster and I really liked them. Thanks, Melissa, for hosting and baking last week!

Up next, this week, Pam, of Cookies with Boys, chose Butterscotch Cashew Bars. You can visit her blog if you'd like to check out the recipe. At about this time last year I was doing some Google searches for recipes and I would land on these weird sites that weren't like Epicurious or Allrecipes but they seemed to have all of these wonderful recipes that I'd like to try on them. Turns out that these were food blogs and I got addicted to reading them! Seriously, if I spent half of the time reading food blogs now that I did last summer I don't know what I would be . . . but it would be great. As I started to learn more and more about food blogs and bloggers I started to find food blogs that I really liked. There are a few blogs that really stand out in my mind as some of the first that I got very attached to and Cookies with Boys is one of them. Pam has a wonderful blog, and even better, she's picked a wonderful recipe this week!
Seriously, I dread seeing the 9x13" pan come up in the recipe instructions. I don't have one, and while my kitchen isn't miniscule, it's not huge, and it's certainly full right now! At the present, I am firmly committed to the notion that a singleton such as myself does not need a 9x13" pan (even if I make recipes that call for one!). I pondered splitting the recipe in half, but I decided that I wanted to a) experiment and b) give some away. So, full batch it is -- I made them in two 8x8" pans. This is technically too big for this recipe to work out, but somehow it did. I can't wrap my head around it.

I made one pan of just butterscotch cashew bars. Melissa writes that she created these bars because cashews are underused in baked goods. She's right. But, I don't like cashews very much. So, I made the second pan with a mixture of cashews and peanuts, and I added some semisweet chocolate chips to cut the very sweet butterscotch.

These bars are super rich! I think that the original recipe probably works the best, in my opinion. Something about the cashews and the butterscotch really work together. Don't get me wrong, though. The chocolate and peanuts were a very nice addition. I've been snacking on both of them!

Chicken & Sausage Jambalaya

This past weekend Dudley found this song on one of the CD's in my car:

Jambalaya and a crawfish pie and file' gumbo
'Cause tonight I’m gonna see my ma cher amio
Pick guitar, fill fruit jar and be gay-o
Son of a gun, we’ll have big fun on the bayou.

He's so enthralled that he hasn't wanted to stop listening to it. But, it was a great song to have stuck in my head while making this week's Craving Ellie pick!

That's right, this week the Craving Ellie group is cooking with jazz, thanks to Anonymous New York. Definitely check out her blog, I just recently found it and I'm a huge fan. The recipe is for Shrimp & Ham Jambalaya; however, I am not a big eater of shrimp. Actually, I hate it. A whole lot. I spent most of my childhood receiving any number of dispairing and disparaging comments as to how a person born in New Orleans could turn down Cajun specialties such as crawfish etouffee, red beans and rice, and jambalaya. My parents love Cajun food and for years I ate a grilled chicken breast while everyone else dug into the mudbugs. I like Cajun food more than I used to, but I still hate shrimp. I wish I liked it, and about twice a year I'll try it to see if something's changed, but even this past May I still thought, "blech!" when I put it in my mouth. It's too bad because there are so many delicious looking recipes that feature shrimp, such as jambalaya. BUT, all is not lost on the jambalya because you'll often find chicken and sausage jambalaya in lieu of the seafood variety.

In an effort to keep this healthy, I used smoked turkey sausage rather than regular smoked sausage or andouille. I also like my Cajun food spicy so I double the cayenne pepper and added some Tony Cachere's to the mix. The last change that I made was to add a rib of chopped celery because you can't have onion and bellpepper without the celery to round out the Trinity in Cajun cuisine. Dudley was here for this dinner and he pronounced it very good. I thought it was a very good jambalaya, and I'll make it again, but next time I'm going to play around with the spices even more.

Chicken and Sausage Jambalaya
adapted from Jambalaya with Shrimp & Ham by Ellie Krieger

• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 large onion, diced
• 2 red bell peppers, diced
• 1-2 ribs of celery, diced
  
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1/2 teaspoon salt, plus more, to taste
• 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 1/4 teaspoon white pepper
  
• 1 teaspoon paprika
• 1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
• 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
• 1 bay leaf
• 1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
• 1 tablespoon tomato paste
• 12 ounces diced, smoked turkey sausage
• 6 oz of cooked chicken breasts, diced or shredded
  
• 2 1/2 cups low sodium chicken broth
• 1 (14 1/2-ounce) can no-salt added diced tomatoes
• 1 cup uncooked long-grain white rice
• Hot pepper saucer
  

Heat the oil in a large Dutch oven over a medium heat. Add the onion, peppers and garlic and saute until they begin to soften, about 10 minutes. Mix in the next 11 ingredients, salt through the diced tomatoes. Bring to a boil. Stir in the rice, cover, reduce heat and simmer for about 20 minutes, or until rice is done and most of the liquid is absorbed. Season with salt and pepper, to taste. Serve with hot pepper sauce.

BBA: Bagels and Cranberry Bagels

I was supposed to post these bagels on Monday. I made them last Tuesday and Wednesday so that I'd be ready; however, you know what happens to the best of intentions, right? One of my nearest and dearest friends from college, Ceci, came to visit me this past weekend, and we really had the best time. Blogging was the last thing on my mind as we romped to and fro all over Washington, DC.

The rest of the kids in the slower-paced BBA Challenge group made these bagels the Sunday that I was finishing up the drive from Texas to DC. They tweeted their way through bagels and had a great time doing it. I, however, am Twitter challenged and I still haven't managed to make Twittering while baking a habit so I tend to miss out on some very helpful hints. Side note: Ceci Twittered the whole entire time we were romping about DC on her cell phone. My interest is definitely peaked.

I'll admit, I was only sort of excited about making the bagels. For starters, I checked at least 5 grocery stores for the ever-elusive malt powder to no avail. I ended up ordering some -- it will be here next week. The other issue was that I like bagels, but I don't love bagels. Sacrilege, I know. If I'm going to eat a bagel though, it absolutely must be a tasty one -- no grocery store bagels for me! But, I grew up in Texas so bagels just aren't such a big deal for me. I was pondering toppings and I knew that I didn't want to make only plain bagels, but a cinnamon raisin bagel doesn't flip my skirt up, and then I remembered that I really like the cranberry bagels that Einstein's makes. That settled it, half plain, half cranberry, and I was ready to go.

OK, the first issue that I had was that I knew that I'd be kneading these by hand. Peter Reinhart states clearly that bagel dough needs to be very, very stiff and I knew that my Kitchen Aid was going to have some issues with this dough. So, kneeding by hand . . . hmmmm. I mean, I can do it. Sheesh, I used to help my great grandmother do it when I was a little girl. But, do I want to do it? Not really. This is a really stiff dough and as I was kneeding I recalled that bakers (at least the old fashioned, artisan types) have large forearms. I do not have large forarms. It took me forever to kneed this dough. It actually took me close to an hour to get it to pass the windowpane test and get the cranberries kneaded in. During my hour of intense labor, I remembered that my grandparents' beachhouse neighbor for at least the past 20 years owns a bagel shop in Houston called New York Bagels. We affectionately call him "Ed, the Bagelman" and he is the real deal, Holyfield. He's from NYC (and has the accent to prove it), and he came to Houston forever ago to open his bagel shop. He wholesales the NY Style bagels to different locations all over Houston. Why, why, why?! did I not call him to ask him the secret to making bagels? Why, why, why?! didn't I get some special flour and malt from him while I was in Houston? And then I thought: I can be sure that Ed, the bagelman, is not kneading his bagel dough by hand every morning, but I'll have to check out his forearms the next time I see him, just the same. But, next time I'm in Houston, I'm going to arrange a serious field trip and tutorial from Ed, the bagelman.

I finally got the dough to windowpane and the rest of the bagel making process went off without a hitch. I used the poke method to make the bagels -- I now know that this results in flatter bagels. Peter Reinhart illustrates the two methods, poking and roping, in the book. I honestly thought to myself: why on earth would anyone use the rope method when it's so easy to poke? Well, if you want a nice, fat bagel then the rope method is apparently the trick. The bagels rest overnight and the next morning I was up bright and early to get these babies going so that I could have one for breakfast. I got the water boiling and I put the first batch in, and I looked, and I thought: I'm sure I forgot something here. Yup, baking soda. So, I took my bagels out, added the baking soda to the water, and resumed making bagels. I think that boiling them had to be my favorite part. The bagels boil, and then they go into a very hot, 500 degrees hot, oven to finish cooking.
So, were my bagels worth the effort? Absolutely. I know that I can buy good bagels, but it's pretty darn fun to make them, and they were so insanely good fresh from the oven. I've had mine in the freezer, but each morning I pull one out and toast it and it's absolutely delicious all over again!

To make the cranberry bagels, I simply waited until the dough was almost to the windowpane stage and then I began kneading in the cranberries. I used Craisins, not fresh cranberries, because I thought that the theory would be sort of similar to the cinnamon raisin bagel -- without the cinnamon. It was hard to knead in whole cranberries, so I finely chopped about 3/4 of the Craisins in the food processor before attempting to knead them in. While my cranberry bagels didn't get nearly as swirly pink as the cranberry bagels from Einsteins, they were really tasty. A word of caution, the addition of the Craisins makes the dough stickier. Peter Reinhart states clearly that the dough should not be tacky, so this gave me fits. However, the cranberry bagel dough handled the same way that the plain dough did, and both batches of bagels came out with a similar texture density.

TWD: Honey Peach Ice Cream

At the outset of last summer, I was determined to enjoy summer in the sort of "classic" definition of summertime. I had a job, but it was also what I thought might be my last summer in Houston for awhile, and I wanted to make sure I enjoyed it. This meant lots of time in the pool, bike rides, lemonade, get togethers, and, of course, ice cream. I made ice cream all summer long. Now, I'm not a huge ice cream person. I like it, but I'd much rather have a cake or a cookie. There is something about summertime that seems to demand ice cream, though, so I researched ice cream, made ice cream and waffle cones, and we all ate ice cream and had a great summer.

This summer I'm in Washington and I have a long list of things that I'd like to do and see. I'm not sure how much ice cream I'll make, but I think that this honey peach ice cream was a great way to kick off the summertime ice cream fun. If I'm being honest, I had sort of mixed emotions about making this ice cream. Fruit ice creams are not high on my list of ice creams that I enjoy. I grew up eating homemade peach ice cream all summer long as a child and it's good, but I will take any combination of vanilla and chocolate over peach ice cream -- 6 days a week and twice on Sundays. Also, really fresh good peaches haven't come into season in the mid-Atlantic yet so I was a little concerned about making really "peachy" ice cream. And, my last concern was the honey factor. I like a little bit of honey but I'm not wild about the flavor of honey. I pondered leaving it out but I know that honey is supposed to give ice cream a really creamy texture, and I was sure that Dorie made this peach ice cream with honey for a reason. So, the only honey I have in my house right now is this really great, seriously thick, chestnut honey that my Aunt Jennifer gave me last summer. I've been hoarding it all year as I've used up lesser honey, but this was the only option the day that I made this ice cream. I knew that it has a really "intense" honey flavor because I used it for the Sweet Melissa Honey Beescotti back in April.

The ice cream is super simple to get together. I made 1/2 of a recipe, and (by sheer accident of not paying attention to the recipe) I used all of the peaches in the puree without saving any to add to the ice cream. I brought back a lot of kitchen schwag from Texas; one of the things that I pinched from my mom & dad's kitchen was the ice cream attachment for the Kitchen Aid. So, thankfully, I had an ice cream maker with which to make this ice cream. I know it can be done by hand but I didn't want to go there. I mixed up the custard and, voila!, ice cream.

How did this ice cream turn out? Honestly, exactly how I thought it would. The honey made it very, very smooth, almost like a gelato in terms of texture. Even after it froze overnight it was smooth and easy to scoop. I would have loved it . . . except that there's a reason it's Honey Peach Ice cream, not Peach Honey Ice Cream. The flavor of the honey overwhelemed the flavor of the peaches, and I wasn't crazy about that. I think that honey aficionados would love this ice cream. I loved the texture, it was a perfect and creamy ice cream to kick off the summer. Thanks to Tommi, of Brown Interior, for picking this week's recipe.

TWD: Parisian Apple (and Peach) Tartlet

This week Jessica, of My Baking Heart, chose the Parisian Apple Tartlet for TWD. I didn't get a chance to make mine until tonight; I hate to get behind schedule and I usually like to finish up my TWD picks ahead of time. However, there is one good aspect of getting behind with this group -- you get to see what everyone else did.


I'd originally planned to make my tartlets with peaches rather than apples, but there were rave reviews for the apple tartlets and seeing as I have apples in my fridge, apple and peach tartlets were in my future. I had this big daisy cookie cutter that I decided to use and I kind of like the results. I though that the fruit looked like the center of the flower.

These are seriously easy to put together. I mean, I almost felt like I was cheating. And, I'm definitely filing these away for the next time that I need a super fabulous dessert in a hurry. I'm pretty sure that these are faster than boxed brownies, and the "wow" factor is definitely there! I used the Dufour puff pastry that I had left over from the Sweet Melissa Apple turnovers and it was sensational.

These little tartlets are super scrummy! I tasted both of them and each was completely delicious. My favorite was the peach and I ate the whole tartlet -- I didn't even share a bite! I know that I'll definitely make these again. Thanks, Jessica, for picking such a great recipe!

Baked Oatmeal Cherry Nut Cookies

Recently (as in the past 6 months or so) I've been sort of obsessed with oatmeal cookies. I think it started when I heard that Mother's Cookies were no longer. Mother's makes my favorite oatmeal cookies, can you believe it? I like plain oatmeal cookies, not oatmeal raisin, and I don't really care about the crisp-chewy factor but there's a certain butter-spice-sweet ratio that has to work for me and Mothers oatmeal cookies are my standard for judging an oatmeal cookie's flavor. Of course, Mother's is back in business so I don't really have to worry, but with all of the baking that goes on in the Singleton's kitchen, I never buy cookies at the store. So, I've been on a quest to find the perfect oatmeal cookie. If you read this blog, you're unaware of this pursuit, because as yet I haven't found a cookie worth blogging about. I have had some disasters that were totally blog worthy but my inner Stepford wife prevented me from documenting them. There's just something about scraping cookies off of a silpat (seriously, these cookies stuck to a silpat) into the trashcan that really sours my mood and dulls my usual sense of humor. But, if you fall off your horse, get right back in the saddle and these cookies from Baked: New Frontiers in Baking looked like a great oatmeal cookie to try.

The forward to this recipe states that it's a reinvention of the classic oatmeal cookie with dried cherries in place of the raisins. Well, that's one mark in the plus column for me. Anyone who decides to kill the raisins in favor of cherries receives my respect. I love dried cherries and I had quite a few to use up so my fate with this recipe was sealed. It's a fairly standard recipe but the guys at Baked subscribe to the aging of cookie dough method -- this dough is mixed and then it rests for 6 hours. Hey, if it works for the New York Times cookies I don't know why it wouldn't work for this one. It calls for chopped, toasted walnuts and normally I am not a fan of nuts in my cookies but, in the spirit of being true to the recipe, I added them. They're not bad, but I think I like my cookies more sans nuts. I gave most of these cookies away, but the cookies that I tried, I liked. Now, they're not the oatmeal cookie that I'm looking for, so my quest continues. If you have a great recipe I'd love to try it!! My dad loved these . . . my aunt asked me if they were power bar cookies, not exactly the response that I was looking for. The resting time for the dough does make them chewy on the inside and crisp on the outside, plus the cherries and nuts may make for an energy bar type cookie?


Oatmeal Cherry Nut Cookies
Baked: New Frontiers in Baking

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups AP flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp fresh grated nutmeg
1/4 tsp ground cardamom
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
1 1/4 cups firmly packed dark brown sugar
1/4 cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
2 3/4 cups rolled oats
1 cup (8 oz) dried cherries
1/2 cup toasted walnuts

In a large bowl, whisk the flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, and cardamom together and set aside.

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with paddle attachment, beat the butter and sugars togehter on medium-high speed until smooth and creamy. Scrape down the bowl and add the eggs, on at a time, beating until each one is incorporated. Add the vanilla and beat for 5 seconds.

Add half the flour mixture and mix for 15 seconds. Add the remaining flour mixture and beat just until incorporated. Scrape down the bowl, add the oats, and beat until just combined. Use a spatula or wooden spoon to fold in the cherries and walnuts.

Cover the bowl tightly and refrigerate for 6 hours.

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper.

Drop the dough by rounded tablespoons onto the prepared baking sheets. With the palm of your hand, gently press each cookie down so it forms a tall disk shape. Do not press it flat. Bake for 12-14 minutes, rotating the pans halfway through the baking time, until the cookies begin to brown.

Remove the cookies from the oven and cool on a wire rack for 5 minutes. Use a spatula to transfer the individual cookies to the rack to cool completely (although they're also delicious warm). The cookies can be stored, in an airtight container, for up to 3 days.

Sweet Melissa Sundays: Bear's Peach (and Strawberry) Cobbler

If there is a dessert that I associate with summertime it would most definitely be cobbler. I grew up eating peach and blueberry cobblers all summer long -- to the point that I don't really like them that much anymore. You see, in Texas (the Texas that I know, at least) peach and blueberry seasons are made for cobblers, and they're the standard dessert at any barbecue or backyard dinner. This might explain why cobblers in Texas are batter based, not biscuit topped.

Rather than messing with the pesky biscuit dough, batter cobblers are made by mixing up a batter from the usual list of suspects: flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, cinnamon (if you're my dad then you'll get funky with the spices, not necessarily a good thing), and milk. While the oven is preheating, you put a 9x13" pan in with a stick of butter (maybe more depending on how you feel about butter) and you let the butter melt. Meanwhile, you've mixed your batter together. Pan with melted butter comes out of the oven, batter goes on top of butter, fruit on top of batter, back in the oven to bake. The batter rises up around the fruit and the result is a cobbler. It must be served with Blue Bell Homemade Vanilla ice cream (actually, in my family we go the Vanilla Bean route, always have), any other brand of ice cream would be unthinkable.

As much as I love this cobbler, I do like a little variety in my life, and a few years ago I tried to start introducing a renegade cobbler -- the biscuit crust cobbler -- into the cobbler rotation. People ate it, but it was always sort of the red-headed stepchild of the cobblers. I actually prefer the biscuit top (pretty much treason for a Texan) and I was excited to see this recipe pop up as Andrea's pick for this week's Sweet Melissa Sunday. I had some strawberries that I got at the farmer's market last week that really needed to find a good home so my cobbler is a peach and strawberry cobbler. I didn't have a lemon so there's no lemon in this dessert aaannddd, I forgot the cornstarch so it's a little runny. Oops.


This cobbler is absolutely fantastic, even in its runny, lemonless state. I think that I just love cooked peaches and, for me, the fruit was the best part. The biscuits were very tender and seriously good but the fruit stole the show. I used about 1/3 of a cup of sugar, rather than the 3/4 cup that the recipe called for because my fruit was really sweet to begin with. If you'd like the recipe, check out Nummy Kitchen and see Andrea's fantastic blog.

White Gazpacho with Grapes and Toasted Almonds

My parents, especially my mother, love gazpacho. They eat it all summer long, and they've done this for as long as I can remember. My mom's gazpacho isn't a traditional Spanish recipe so it's really more like cold tomato soup with a ton of pureed veggies in it. They eat it with croutons on top and Tabasco for flavor. I hate it. When I was little I'd have a very small bowl and put as many croutons on top as I could get away with. Now I don't even bother. However, I really do like gazpacho that offers a little more in the flavor department, and I was really excited when I saw that this recipe was picked.

Gazpacho turns out to be another one of those very cool creations, like strata or panzanella, that utilizes leftover bread. We eat panzanella like it's going out of style in the summer, so the soaking of the bread didn't make me too squeamish for this recipe. That said, the first time I saw a panzanella recipe I intentionally skipped the bread soaking part, only to get chastised because it didn't taste right. Other than that, this recipe is pretty straightforward. We had some aged champagne vinegar from a trip to California that I used, and my gazpacho ended up really vinegary and really garlicy. The grapes, however, offer a very nice contrast to the tart vinegar aspect of the gazpacho and I would definitely not advise omitting them. I didn't want to make individual bowls so I put the blended gazpacho mixture in the serving bowl and arranged the garnish on top. We just mixed it all together before serving and it was fine.

The verdict? I loved this and (drumroll please) my parents loved this too! Maybe even more than the original summertime gazpacho. Now, this may seem like a no-brainer but I was a little nervous. In the past, I've devoted some time to making different gazpachos, hoping that we could meet in the middle of the gazpacho road, but it's never worked. They turned up their noses at this lovely grilled vegetable gazpacho from Food and Wine; and, let me tell you, that one was a lot more work! I'd given up hope on finding a recipe that we all liked but this one was an all around hit.

TWD: Cinnamon Squares

This week's TWD pick, Cinnamon Squares, belongs to Tracey, one of my favorite bloggers. She's always posting such yummy creations on her blog, Tracey's Culinary Adventures, and she's a very dedicated commenter. This cake came together really fast and I would definitely file it under my repeat category just because it's so darn simple to put together. I left off the chocolate frosting because that seemed like a little much for me; instead, I dusted it with powdered sugar and cinnamon. The verdict: this is great with a cup of coffee, that's how I sampled it this morning. Now, if you'll excuse me, I just returned to the nation's capital after a road trip from Texas and I can't find anything because everything's a mess!