Category: Baked Goods

pumpkin spice bundt cake with buttermilk icing

Lauren5 Comments

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With Thanksgiving less than one week away, I hope everyone has their Thanksgiving menus planned and their stretchy pants ready! I am not hosting this year, and after hosting last year’s Thanksgiving, I doubt anyone will complain! Last year was Justin and my first attempt at making a turkey. Before the big day arrived, I asked all the cooks in my life how I should cook the bird, and much to my chagrin, everyone had a different strategy, many of which even conflicted!

You should baste the bird.

Oh, don’t baste the bird. It’ll dry the bird out. 

Cook the bird in a bag. It will be so moist. 

Never cook the bird in a bag. The bag will melt. 

Don’t truss the turkey. Just roast it.

Put it in the crockpot. 

Really the only thing that everyone could agree on is that some kind of stock (whether it be beef or chicken) is needed, as well as some kind of vegetable. We ended up using chicken stock and adding onions, carrots, and celery to the middle of our turkey, who we named Bertha incidentally. Justin was in charge of the bird. and well, being rather intimidated of the bird myself (and being not at all helpful in this instance), I was delegated to the side dishes (thankfully). Our cooking session started off so well—after a few hours, the thermometer said that the turkey was done, and all the side dishes weren’t far behind. But when we sliced up the turkey, the middle was bright red. Argh! So we put the turkey back in the oven, and as it has become our custom, we served our guests the holiday meal a couple hours late. Needless to say, we have not mastered the turkey yet. But I can say with great confidence, we have mastered this pumpkin dessert.

This pumpkin spice bundt cake has that delightful cinnamon allspice goodness paired with the sweet slightly crunchy buttermilk icing.  And if you’re not a fan of  Starbuck’s pumpkin spice latte, have no fear; this cake doesn’t taste like that at all. As one of my co-workers put it, the cake tastes “more authentic.” You can make this ahead of time as it keeps for three days. And it will be a great addition to your Thanksgiving feast.

As for the bundt pan, the pan itself was easy to use. My brother bought me this bundt pan for my birthday this year, and this was my first attempt using it, to great success.  With bundt pans, they recommend you wipe them down generously with butter and flour instead of spraying them with oil as it’s hard to evenly coat all the nooks and crannies of a decorative bundt pan.

Regardless how you make your turkey this year or which desserts you choose to serve, I hope you all have a safe and wonderful Thanksgiving! Gobble Gobble!

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pumpkin cheesecake bars with streusel

Lauren1 Comment

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Justin and I went to our good friends’ wedding this weekend in Lawrence, Kansas. Our friends are Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones fans so they decided to have elements from both series in their wedding much to our delight! For example, when it was time to exchange wedding bands, the groom relinquished The Ring to Rule Them All he was wearing by tossing it into a mini fuming paper mache-looking volcano two groomsmen brought out just for the occasion. And as is the wedding tradition in Game of Thrones, the groom draped his bride in a necklace and a fur cloth bringing her under his protection.  Instead of a unity candle, the couple mixed two different types of wine they had made themselves, and at the end of the ceremony, the couple got on horses and rode off into the sunset, or perhaps in this case, the parking lot. Later on in the evening, they had a wooden catapult robot made to launch the bride’s garter for the garter toss. Needless to say it was a cool wedding. The wedding was also a mini college reunion for me, as many of my college friends and their spouses and members of the fraternity house I used to frequent were there.

It was a little surreal being back in my college town after eleven years. I was astounded to see what had changed since I’d been there. Restaurants that were new when I had lived there had since gone out of business. Old staples of the town had been replaced by new trendy stores and coffee houses. Sometimes I wish I could bottle up places and people in a time capsule so that I could revisit them periodically for nostalgia’s sake. But I recognize that most of the change is for the better. Other places around Lawrence looked completely unchanged like much of the campus itself. And downtown, I saw many familiar faces of people from my past—one girl had lived on my floor in the dorms, and I ran into the man who was the assistant orchestra conductor in the short stent that I was a music major.

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Well, you can’t turn back time, but you can make this delicious multi-layered cheesecake. I took it to work, and within an hour, it was gone. The bottom layer is homemade graham crack crust, the middle layers are made up of the regular and pumpkin cheesecake, and the top is the crunchy cinnamon streusel. It’s an impressive dessert, and if you are inclined to share it with others, it travels well. I feel like you can’t go wrong with cheesecake, ever, but this version is especially good. Before you begin to combine the ingredients, keep in mind the cream cheese needs to be at room temperature and that takes a full hour. And then once out of the oven, the cheesecake needs a couple hours to set. Enjoy!

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cheddar and cornmeal biscuits

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Is there some miraculous law of physics that explains how dirty dishes in kitchens seem to constantly multiply? It’s like in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows Part II when Harry, Ron, and Hermione are in the vault at Gringotts, and the cups spontaneously start multiplying, growing until the trio nearly becomes buried in them. I have been cooking up a storm the last few days, and consequently, Justin and I have loaded and unloaded the dishwasher multiple times, but somehow it’s barely made a dent. And now I feel the dishes and I are having a standoff. So far, I’m winning. Though every time I walk into the kitchen, I feel them staring me down. I just want to section off the room with yellow tape, but the kitchen is one room that’s hard to avoid. So I suggested to Justin the only logical solution: the kitchen is uninhabitable and we need to move. He didn’t seem keen on the idea. Maybe cleaning is a small price to pay for awesome deliciousness.

These biscuits certainly fit that description. This recipe came from a cookbook my best friend gave me last year when I got married called, The Newlywed Cookbook. Everything I’ve made out of it has been excellent. These biscuits are reminiscent of the delicious cheesy biscuits served at Red Lobster.  To cut the biscuits, you can use a biscuit cutter or the rim of a drinking glass. You could add ham or bacon to these to make a scrumptious breakfast sandwich. These biscuits also pair well with savory spreads like butter and tomato jam. I would not, however, recommend combining these with fruit jams (as I did in the photo) as the sweet jam tends to overwhelm the cheese, and nothing should ever overwhelm cheese. Happy baking!

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homemade brownie bowls and butterscotch for ice cream

Lauren2 Comments

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On Saturday, I threw a baby sprinkle for my good friend, Kristine, for her second baby. She chose an ice cream social theme. So cute!

For the occasion, I made brownie bowls. I also bought waffle bowls as a backup in case the brownie bowls didn’t turn out. (It was a new recipe. You never know!) When my guests saw the waffle and brownie bowls, they asked, “Can we have both?” I thought, “Genius! Why hadn’t I thought of that?” This is why we’re friends. They take a good idea and make it great. So we added the brownie bowl inside the waffle bowl, and we had no regrets.

For ice cream, we served vanilla and chocolate flavors. The toppings included mini M&Ms, sprinkles, chopped mixed nuts, maraschino cherries, crumbled Oreos, Reece’s Pieces, strawberries, bananas, Torani’s dark chocolate sauce, whipped cream, and last but not least, the homemade butterscotch. The butterscotch was rich, and you could taste the butter and brown sugar in it. It was SO good!

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I mean, ice cream by itself is good, but then you add the homemade butterscotch, all the toppings, and voila, it’s ambrosia-of-the-Gods good. The butterscotch is really easy to make; it only contains 4 ingredients, and it lasts up to two weeks in the fridge. Also, it’s great to put over bananas for breakfast. Yum!

For the brownie bowls, you can use any brownie recipe (including brownie mixes). Follow the directions to make the brownies, and then, while they are still warm, take a tablespoon, carefully press down the middle, and allow them to cool. That’s basically it, though I do recommend spraying the bottoms of the muffin pan with oil but not the sides because you want the batter to stick to the sides to help create the bowl shape. Happy baking!

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For the punch, I combined Hawaiian punch, Sprite, and a splash of orange juice. Then added lemon slices and rubber duckies on top.

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key lime pie

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I prefer making things from scratch, but sometimes you just run out of time.  For the key lime pie, I bought a 10-ounce ready-made graham cracker crust instead of making my own. I feel a little guilty because I remember how delicious the homemade version is.  This key lime pie is one of my dad’s all-time favorite desserts. My mom has made this recipe on several occasions, and she agrees the crust is just as good as the filling, so even though I didn’t make my own crust, I included the graham cracker crust recipe. You won’t regret making it!

The key lime filling is super easy, and only takes about ten minutes to assemble. When baked, the filling has the consistency of a custard and has a nice balance of tartness and sweetness. And contrary to popular belief, key lime pie is actually yellow, not green. I should note that you don’t necessarily have to use key limes for this recipe; I used large conventional limes from the grocery store, and it turned out great! Enjoy!

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blueberry pecan scones

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There’s nothing like the smell of blueberry scones in the morning! These scones are good but not overly sweet. The lemon zest adds a nice touch to them.  Oh, and don’t be a dingy like I was and add the dry mixture to the wet mixture before putting in the berries. Anyway, enjoy! Continue reading “blueberry pecan scones” →