Winter Desserts

Apologies for going AWOL this week, but Mr. AT and I finally moved into our adorable new house, and we just got the internet up and running today.

Holiday time is the perfect excuse to indulge your sweet tooth, right? So I'm eager to try my hand at baking something wintery now that my kitchen is cleared out.

So what to bake?

Pumpkin Cheesecake with Marshmallow-Sour Cream Topping and Gingersnap Crust
I just love pumpkin flavored desserts, and marshmallow topping sounds pretty incredible!

Winter-Spiced Molten Chocolate Cakes with Rum-Ginger Ice Cream
Molten Chocolate Cakes are my specialty, and this recipe puts a nice wintery twist to it. Although I'm not sure where on earth I'd get crystallized ginger???

Pumpkin Cheesecake with Pecan Praline Topping
Ah more pumpkin. I made a pumpkin cheesecake previously and it was delectable.

Italian Trifle with Marsala Syrup
For my Italian hubby, perhaps?

Pere Roux's Cake
Sounds delectable but I don't have time to let bananas ripen. Another time for sure!

Chocolate ganache bread pudding
Any excuse to drink port is AOK by me.

Recipe: Double Chocolate Mint Cookies

When I saw Hershey's mint chocolate chips at the grocery store, I knew they had to be mine. Then I promptly forgot about them. Until last weekend, when I went in search of a way to use them. I didn't have to go far - Hershey's own website offered up a recipe for Double Chocolate Mint Cookies.

I always assume the time to prepare a recipe is way off, but these little babies really did take only about 15 minutes to pull together, and we were tucking into glorious gooey cookies in under 30 minutes start to finish including a clean kitchen! The only thing I tweaked was using white wheat flour instead of all purpose flour. So they're totally healthy, right?

They are so simple, but they really were the business. I loved that the center of the cookies remained gooey even days later. And they were delightfully minty and chocolaty. Best of all, if you make them as small as the recipe recommends, they are a measly 2 weight watchers points. At that rate, I could live on an all cookie diet. In fact, I kind of did eating up to three of these bad boys a day. Oh so good!

If I'd had vanilla ice cream around I would have made little ice cream sandwiches. I'm dying just thinking about it.

Double Chocolate Mint Cookies

Recipe: Peanut Butter Banana Cream Pie from Baked Explorations

I volunteered to bring dessert to our friends' New Year's dinner party. I opted for a maple bourbon cheesecake, but alas, the drawback of finding recipes on random blogs via pinterest is that sometimes the instructions stink. This led to a, shall we say, less than beautiful cheesecake.

We had little time and an ugly as all get out cake, so after I stomped about and had a bit of a hissy fit, my darling hubby stepped in to save the day by heading back to the grocery store to get me ingredients for something else.

The guys behind Baked know how to make a gorgeous and delicious dessert, so I eschewed Pinterest and went old school with an actual cookbook - Baked Explorations: Classic American Desserts Reinvented.

Banana cream pie is surely one of the most delicious and comforting desserts out there, and peanut butter is such a divine combo with bananas, so I knew this recipe was certain to blow the maple bourbon cheesecake out of the water. And sure enough it did. It was easy to prepare, appealing to look at and just as heavenly as it sounds!

The crust was simple to make and a classic accompaniment for banana cream pie. The vanilla pudding is very subtle and would also be good on its own. The peanut butter icing is pure bliss and may have compelled me and the Mr. to lick the bowl and beaters clean. It would make a great icing for other desserts as well, such as chocolate cupcakes.

Turns out my cheesecake actually tasted pretty good, too, despite its uggo appearance, but this was the clear star of dessert. Yum!

Full recipe

A Healthier Chocolate Chip Banana Bread

I thought I'd come up with my official favorite banana bread recipe with my previous healthy banana bread, but by an accident of ingredients on hand, I have found one I like even more.

I was going for something healthier but still a little decadent, so this time it was a chocolate chip banana bread. I didn't have the applesauce I used last time on hand, so I used fat free Greek yogurt instead. Turns out this version was even more delicious! The yogurt made it really rich and moist and provides a great alternative to recipes that use tons of butter or oil. Given this recipe doesn't include oil, butter, white sugar or white flour, even with the chocolate chips, it's pretty darn healthy.

Now I must admit, I ate this served warm with a little butter, so it wasn't exactly diet food, but good Lord, it was incredible!

A Healthier Chocolate Chip Banana Bread

Ingredients

2 cups white wheat flour

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

3 very ripe bananas 

Pinch of cinnamon

1/2 cup Greek yogurt

1 egg

1 tsp vanilla

1/4 cup agave nectar

Handful of chocolate chips (I used semi-sweet but use your favorites)

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350. Spray/grease bottom of a 9x5x3 inch loaf pan and set aside (I used a baking spray with flour).
2. Whisk together all dry ingredients except for chocolate chips in a large bowl.
3. Smash bananas and mix with wet ingredients and chocolate chips in a separate bowl. 
4. Fold banana mix into dry ingredients until just combined.
5. Pour batter into loaf pan. Sprinkle a few more chocolate chips on top if you like it extra chocolatey!
6. Bake for 45-60 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean. Check after 45 minutes to avoid over-baking.
7. Let sit for 20 minutes and enjoy!

Recipe: The Best Muffin You've Ever Eaten

I am obsessed with Pinterest. My Sweet Tooth board alone has 85 pins. And yet, ask me how many of those recipes I've actually made? Apparently, I like thinking about food more than actually making it sometimes.

But when the Mr. was off watching football the other night (sigh, is it Fall already?!), I was finally feeling bored enough motivated to try something from Pinterest. I'd had my eye on these French Muffins for ages, and they only required ingredients I had on hand. Bingo!

These little babies were ridiculous! So easy to make and imminently scarfable. Muffins all too often nearly choke you with their cakey dryness. But when warm, the insides of these muffins are oh so soft, and the buttery cinnamon sugar exterior is just as wonderful as you'd imagine.

I found some tips on properly storing muffins here, and opted to leave two out under a clean towel for the following day's breakfast, and stored the rest in a sealed container lined with paper towels. Worked like a charm and taste just as good when nuked for 10 seconds as they did fresh baked!

French Muffins

Devour and silently thank me.

Ali's Cookies

When you get an invitation to visit a cookie shop to pick out any six to try, you say yes, even if said cookie shop is not especially near your office or home. Cookies are totally worth driving for, right? So with that in mind, I headed over to Ali's new(ish) location by Perimeter Mall. Ali's has had a location near my childhood home in Marietta for thirty years, although it wasn't always called Ali's. I can't say that I ever go to cookie shops, but I think I may be missing out!

With more than 20 flavors to choose from, I had my work cut out for me! My dessert default is always chocolate, so I skipped past the tasty looking snickerdoodles and the "healthy" Skinnie Minnie in favor of such delights as Chocolate Salted Caramel (chocolate filling with creamy salted caramel topping), the Turtle with pecans and caramel, and George Washington’s Revenge (dried cherries, toffee bits, semi-sweet chocolate chunks and oatmeal). 

Ali's makes everything from scratch with high end ingredients like Madagascar vanilla and Callebaut and Guittard chocolates. The cookies are even kosher, so you've got that going for you, which is nice.

Let me tell you how hard it is to have 6 delectable looking fresh cookies sitting next to you all afternoon - torture! I allowed myself just a nibble of each of them that afternoon, but surprise surprise, 2 days later, the Mr. and I had made short work of all 6 cookies.

Let me say for the record, that I would like to marry the salted caramel cookie. It's so rich and gooey and every good thing a cookie should be. I tried a fruity peach cookie for good measure, and although good, I was all about chocolatey ones. George Washington's Revenge was the best of both worlds with it's combination of cherry and chocolate. Yum, I'm getting hungry just thinking of them!

I didn't try them but the cookie cakes look rather epic. Cookie cake is always good, but these have rather elaborate decorations (imagine your face on a cookie cake), so they'd make for a great special occasion treat.

Want to try them for yourself? Head to either location on Opening Ceremonies Day - Friday, July 27, and celebrate the start of the Olympics by selecting a free cookie among five Olympic ring inspired flavors.  Choose from apple pie, George Washington’s revenge, M&M, toffee crunch and sugar. M&M, toffee crunch and sugar flavors will be specially decorated in red, white and blue. Customers are encouraged to stop by early as cookies may go quickly and are limited to one per person while supplies last.

The Ali’s Cookies Dunwoody shop is located at 4511 Olde Perimeter Way, Suite 300, Dunwoody, Ga., 30346 (770.350.2547). Regular store hours are Monday through Thursday 10 a.m. to 9 p.m., Friday 10 a.m. to 7:30 p.m., and Sunday 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. and closed on Saturdays. 

Ali’s Cookies Marietta is located at 1255-34 Johnson Ferry Rd., Marietta, GA 30068 (770.971.8566) and is open Monday through Thursday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., on Friday from 10 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. and closed on Saturdays.

Brownies To-Die-For

For my brother-in-law's birthday party, I was charged with baking something that would feed 30 people. Easier said than done! I didn't think you could cut a cake into that many slices without resorting to a boring sheet cake, and cookies wouldn't allow for the whole blow-out-the-candle thing. So at the last second I went with brownies.

I chose this recipe on Food Network's website based on the rave reviews. Some suggested leaving out the coffee, but I thought that sounded like a delicious way to vary from the standard issue brownie. I wasn't disappointed! These brownies were oh so rich and delicious. I'm not a huge fan of nuts in brownies, but they worked here, and provided a good counterpoint to the otherwise densely rich chocolate.

I accidentally left out 4 ozs of chocolate, but good lord, these have so much chocolate in them, that I cannot imagine why they'd need to be any more chocolaty!

Someone else (dared!) to bring brownies to the party, and perhaps it was my rather aggressive cajoling that enticed people to prefer mine, but I'd like to think it was just the face that these were divine!

The boyfriend and I literally turned the tupperware up over our faces to make sure we got every last crumb once the last brownie was gone a few days later.


Barefoot Contessa's Outrageous Brownies

Pies, Pies, Pies!

I've volunteered for dessert making duty on Thanksgiving. I love baking, mostly because it's an excuse to eat something ridiculous when all is said and done. But the wealth of holiday appropriate pies is overwhelming. What to pick?

Mr. AT has requested pumpkin, but even that is fraught with options...

Traditional - Pumpkin Pie with Spiced Whipped Cream or Spiced Pumpkin Pie
Chocolate - Triple Chocolate Pumpkin Pie
Salted - Salted Caramel Pumpkin Pie
Caramel - Double-Decker Pumpkin Caramel Pie

Current front runner is one of the more traditional ones with a scoop of homemade cream cheese ice cream. Yum!

A Mexican Themed Dinner Party

The Adventurous Tastes family birthday has come and past. I was over-ambitious this year, and decided that since our bday was on a weekend, we should have a dinner party. Sounded good in theory, but turns out my first large scale, multi-course dinner party was a lot to handle, and we spent most of our birthdays cleaning and cooking. Oh well, lesson learned, next time I'll let someone throw a dinner for me!

I was determined to cook something I was familiar with since I simply don't have the nerve to try something for the first time for a crowd. I had visions of a cozy Italian winter meal, with hearty fare and lots of great red wine. So I did a test run of baked ziti with spicy pork and sausage ragu. Sounds totally scrumptious, right?

Alas my test run was unimpressive. Not bad, but not blow your mind good either. At this point the big day was getting close, and I didn't have much time to work something new out. So I tried one more test run on a dish I'd pulled off successfully once before ages ago - Tacos de Carnitas. I have to admit that once again I wasn't blown away, but time was short, and I thought it was pretty good party fare, so I decided to go with it. A Mexican themed birthday dinner seemed like a reasonable stand in for my original Italian concept.

My birthday menu:
First course: Queso Fundido with chorizo, guacamole (thanks to little sis and her hubby for contributing!)
Main course: Pork carnitas
Side: Grilled corn salad with cotija,
Dessert: Spiced molten chocolate cakes - I added cinnamon and a pinch of chile pepper to make it more like Mexican chocolate.
Cocktails: Mr. AT whipped up some incredible margartias with fresh squeeze orange juice and what seemed like gallons of Patron and Grand Marnier.

Being the bschool dork that I am, I made a spreadsheet to keep my timing for the night straight. There were a lot of moving parts! Of course, next thing I knew, people were showing up, I still had no makeup on, and the food was definitely not done. Thanks a lot Excel!

Despite the fact that none of my dishes were knock your socks off good, except for maybe the fondue, it was all still pretty darn good, especially for a first major dinner party effort. Biggest failure of the night was oddly enough the dish I've made the most times, the molten cakes, which typically wow everyone. This was the first time I made them in my new oven though, so perhaps that's to blame for why they were not so molten despite cooking for the same amount of time as always. The cinnamon and chile gave the cakes a pleasant kick, but they were way too dense and dry. Blurg! I was pretty bummed by those, but fortunately after a couple margaritas, some great wine, and even port brought back from our honeymoon, I'm not sure anyone's taste buds were in top form by that point!

The remnants of of an enjoyable evening

So what did I get right? Keeping the drinks flowing is key - it makes everything taste better! And be thoughtful - I had a pregnant guest so we got blood orange Italian soda for her so she wouldn't feel left out while we guzzled margaritas, and my chocolate-hating guest got creme caramel ice cream for dessert.

What did I get wrong? The main thing was that next time I will definitely seek out some dishes that can be made in advance. I had wayyyyy too much to do at the last minute, and I'd prefer to be hanging with my guests rather than slaving in the kitchen. I'm looking forward to summer cook outs because I know we can make some damn fine burgers without hours of slaving, and the onus isn't all on me since Mr. AT is the resident grill master! And never again will I do so much work on my birthday!

That said, I had a great time, and hope my guests did too. In the end, dinner parties are mostly about a comfortable atmosphere and great conversation, and on that front, I think we did alright. Practice makes perfect, so even though I am somewhat daunted after this venture, I'll definitely have to try again soon if I have any hope of becoming the confident, glamorous hostess I long to be!

Is Whoopie Pie the new cupcake?

The NY Times has an article this week about the sudden national prominence of the previously regional Whoopie Pie. Check it out here.

I made whoopie pies back in fall, and I admit I'm a convert. These fluffy cake like cookies sandwich a thick layer of decadent frosting. Why should people in Maine have all the fun?

The classic version is often chocolate with vanilla icing, but I made Martha Stewart's pumpkin version with cream cheese icing. They were completely addictive and gone in a flash! Granted pumpkin is seasonal, but even the professional baker in the NY Times article says that people seek her version out year round. Yum!

Pumpkin Whoopie Pie

Recipe: Seven Layer Bars

The boyfriend's parents swung through town last weekend on their annual winter journey down to Florida. Like any good Italian family, they know good food and wine. So what's a girl to do to impress? Well first off, take them out to eat! A girl can't take too much kitchen induced stress. That being said, I wanted to flex my culinary muscles a bit, so I decided to bake a simple but impressive recipe for dessert.

The recipe suggested the importance of splurging on ingredients, so I got the best I could find for each of the main ingredients. This recipe is about as easy as it gets. For the most part you just throw a bunch of delicious things, one on top of another, and then bake. Hard to screw up!

Fortunately they were just as good as I'd hoped. Layers of sweetness and texture with just a bit of crunch and chew...yum! They were a hit with coffee after dinner, and an equally big hit when eaten by my coworkers the following day. I have some frozen for a rainy day, too. You really can't get easier than this, and they are decadent and delicious, so I highly recommend trying them out next time you've got a sweet craving. Not much to look at, I admit, but who cares when there's chocolate, white chocolate, butterscotch, coconut, and nuts involved?


Seven Layer Bars

Baking for company: Cinnamon cupcakes with chile-chocolate buttercream

As I mentioned before, the boyfriend and I had dinner guests on Friday night. I'm still getting the hang of entertaining, so I wanted to make as much in advance as I could. So Thursday I set aside the afternoon to tackle this intriguing sounding cake recipe from Food and Wine (natch).

As per usual I couldn't find everything I needed at one grocery store. Why is that always the case? Whole Foods didn't have ancho chile pepper, and I couldn't bring myself to schlep to Kroger, so I did some research and decided that my valle de sol chile pepper could substitute for ancho. Once I got home I realized the recipe called for 5 whopping sticks of butter in the icing. Great googly moogly, that's a lot of butter! So instead I made a last minute switch to making cupcakes so I could get away with making half the icing. 

For some reason all of my baking makes an unholy mess, but this was my messiest experience yet. The recipe called for mixing the cake's dry ingredients in with the wet ones at medium speed. I learned the hard way that you should start much lower and work up to medium. Going directly to medium speed results in a mushroom cloud of flour which effectively covered parts of my kitchen that had nothing to do with the baking process. I had to wipe down my olive oil and balsamic bottles, my frying pans, you name it - anything in a 5 foot radius was covered in white powder. I even managed to track flour footprints onto our kitchen rug, which the boyfriend found hilarious and snapped a shot of. 

 It didn't occur to me until almost too late that cupcakes would take less baking time so I got the first batch of 16 out just in time at around 20 minutes. The second batch of just four cupcakes using the remaining batter were checked starting at 15 minutes. We had to dash out to dinner before finishing icing the last couple cupcakes so the icing went in the fridge. This icing gets really hard in the fridge, so you have to let the icing sit out for at least 15 minutes before you can spread it. Same goes for the refrigerated finished cupcakes. 

We've been letting them sit out for at least half an hour before being served, and they are much moister that way. The resulting cupcakes were pretty damn good. Cinnamon cake isn't as eyes-roll-to-the-back-of- my-head delicious as something more chocolaty would be, but it was a nice change and paired wonderfully with the spicy icing. I love Mexican spicy chocolate, which is what attracted me to this recipe, and this recipe definitely lives up to that standard. 

You could definitely add even more chili pepper/cayenne to kick this up even more. As it was, this was just mildly spicy adding a layer of flavor to an otherwise traditional buttercream. Delicious! Alas the mess was so egregious that the boyfriend has requested that I take a baking break for a bit, so my baking exploits will be on hold until I entertain again. Fortunately the cupcakes were a hit with the boyfriend's office-mates and my guests. My friend helped himself to 2.5 cupcakes, so I must have done something right!