Blogspot - Recipe Scratch Rusia

Each year I volunteer to donate the desserts for the annual celebration dinner at The Sheffield Place , a facility that serves homeless mothers and their children.  ( You can read about the past posts and desserts here .)  This year, since Emma has taken such an interest in baking, I decided to let her take the reins on this project.  We selected the menu together (I had to rein in some of her ambitions a bit... ) but I put her in charge of the baking, decorating and display.    Robin's Egg Blue Enamelware Trays, $22 There were to be 40 guests at the dinner, so we decided to make 26 Lemon Tartlets and 26 Strawberry Macaron.  I'll save the Macaron recipe for another post - stay tuned for that. For the tarts, we used store bought pie crust.  Emma would've preferred that we make "scratch" dough, but I wanted to make as little mess as possible in the kitchen since we were also tackling macaron in the same day. All we did was roll it out a bit thinner than ...

I'm not a huge walnut fan... except when they are coated in caramelized goodness or in banana bread.  I am a firm believer in not limiting yourself to the norm- so, I once made this bread with peanuts.  On Mike's morning drive to work he called me (having left the house with a slice to have on the way to work...) : Mike, 'are there peanuts in this?' Me, 'Yes.' Mike, 'In banana bread?  Peanuts in banana bread?' Me, 'Yes.  I don't like walnuts, I didn't have any pecans, so I used peanuts.' Mike, 'um... ok.  it's good.  i guess.  just strange to have peanuts in banana bread.  right?' Here's the recipe with 'nuts' as an ingredient... go ahead, use whatever kind you want! Loaf Pan & Parchment Paper (and my favorite baking supplies) available here > Banana Nut Bread with whipped honey butter 4 overripe bananas 1 cup sugar 3/4 cup unsalted butter, melted 2 large eggs 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract 2 cups flour 1 1...

  What is it about back to school time that makes me want to stock the cookie jar?  Mike and Emma only like regular chocolate chip cookies.  Ugh.  I need a little variety!  Snickerdoodles, Peanut Butter, Sugar...   They could eat chocolate chip cookies, boxes of brownies and plain chocolate cake their entire life and be fulfilled.  It makes it hard for me to want to come up with new  recipes when they always ask for the classics.   However, when Emma was at school this week, I took it upon myself to experiment.  I started with their favorite chocolate chip recipe (tollhouse, but I use a little extra brown sugar and a little less white to make chewier) and added lots of yummy things - PB Chips, Chocolate Chips, Pretzels and Flaked Sea Salt. They loved them!  Yay for a new  favorite! After school bliss after a long day in 1st Grade.    Sometimes I miss the lazy days of summer, but I also love a ...

We were recently at a bakery and they had these big flakes of sea salt on their chocolate chip cookies.  For a household where I'm not really encouraged to make anything but Chocolate Chip when it comes to cookies - this was a  delightful new spin for me.  Especially because I can load ours up with flaked sea salt and leave Emma's normal without great effort. Of course, you can use any chocolate chip cookie recipe that you like, but I did include my notes & tips below.  I started with the original Tollhouse recipe. I feel like I'm probably behind the bandwagon here.  I know salted everything has been around for a while.  I mean, I posted a Salted Caramel recipe about 7 years ago...  But, for some reason, I've just now gotten around to buying real flaked sea salt.   It is probably the smallest investment you can make in the kitchen for a "fancy" ingredient.  I think it was $6 at our grocery store?   I think you can find it at Ta...