We are in Thanksgiving production mode at my house. Lots of #latenightbaking.
I baked three loaves of bread for the stuffing. Aaron commented several times - we should have fresh baked bread other times of the year too... for eating!
It does seem a shame to bake that bread only to chop it up for stuffing. It's so worth it though, it makes the best stuffing.
The cranberry sauce is homemade too, from my grandmother's recipe. Can't wait to eat!
I swapped out cherries for blueberries for this pudding. The same recipe for Blueberry Pudding but with cherries instead.
How classic is this vintage cake pan? It's a Mirro 8x8 aluminum cake pan in mint condition! I have the typical rectangular version and was excited to find this square version. It's perfect for brownies... and cherry pudding!
It seemed like every baked good at family reunions when I was a kid arrived in a Mirro cake pan. They were made by Mirro Aluminum Company from 1909 to 2003 in Wisconsin. Mirro made everything from canteens to Sno-Coaster saucer sleds. Great. I feel a new collectable item coming on.
I had some bananas teetering on the brink of a brown smooshy death so it was time to bake some banana bread. To shake it up a bit, I used this Nutella Banana Bread recipe.
The recipe was pretty good. I thought the loaves were a smidge dry but both were gobbled up before you could blink, so they must not have been too bad. I think next time I'll mix in some walnuts.
I knew Aaron was starting to feel better after the flu when he made a request for some baking. He asked for my mom's Yum Yum Cake. Why is it called Yum Yum Cake? Well, isn't that obvious?
It's pretty easy to make... I was able to make one for Aaron and one for my boss' birthday in the office.
Here is how to make Yum Yum Cake:
Bake a yellow cake in a cookie sheet so it is very thin. Bake it for 15 minutes instead of the usual time.
Top it with this frosting:
Mix a large box of instant vanilla puddin with 1 cup of milk.
Mix in room temperature 8 oz of cream cheese
Mix in 9oz of cool whip.
Sprinkle with crushed walnuts.
I spotted this issue of Better Homes and Garden: Breakfast and Brunch when I was Christmas shopping and had to pick it up. An entire magazine about breakfast food! Brilliant!
I was reading it in PA over the holidays when I mentioned out loud there were breakfast cookies. Both my dad and Aaron started hinting pretty heavily that a batch of those would be most appreciated.
I love the idea of breakfast foods that A. you can make a big batch of for the week and B. you can grab and take with you. So I was more than happy to bake a batch of these breakfast cookies. They turned out great. They aren't as sweet as a typical cookie but very satisfying for breakfast.
Here is the BHG online recipe for Banana Oat Breakfast Cookies.
Note that I didn't have any dried cherries on hand so I actually used chopped up marachino cherries. I didn't hear anyone complain.
I would like to make these Double Oat Breakfast Cookies next!
We were going to go out for dessert but couldn't think of a spot that had exactly what we wanted so I made a batch of chocolate chip cookie dough and baked in a cast iron skillet. I especially like this little one baked in a wee number three skillet.
Warm out of the oven with a scoop of salted caramel ice cream!
Last week's CSA had zucchini included and it has finally cooled off enough for me to venture to turn on the oven. That means two loaves of zucchini bread with my tried and true recipe.
I like how this recipe makes two loaves. One for home and one to take to the office to share. It looks especially appetizing when wrapped in parchment paper and baker's twine!
We got another basket of strawberries in our CSA share this week. What goes great with strawberries? Rhubarb. Aaron LOVES rhubarb and has two big rhubarb plants in the backyard. I "borrowed" a couple stalks to make this homemade strawberry rhubarb soda.
It's pretty easy. You just make a strawberry rhubarb simple syrup and mix it with sparkling water.
Strawberry Rhubarb Simple Syrup
1 cup water
1 cup sugar
2 cups cup strawberries
1 cup chopped rhubarb
Boil it all together and let it simmer for 10 to 15 minutes. Mix it with sparkling water to taste.
The soda only used half the strawberries, so I raided Aaron's rhubarb again and made filling for strawberry rhubarb pocket pies.
Add a nice tall glass of cold milk and he didn't complain about his depleted rhubarb supply too much.
My parents came up for the weekend and when you put my dad together with Aaron that means cookies. My special Lumberjack cookies.
They are basically oatmeal cookies with everything but the kitchen sink thrown in... chocolate chips, raisins, nuts, coconut, pretzels or whatever else I have in the cupboard. They make moustaches curl and children cry.
I decided to make a batch of homemade english muffins to have for breakfast for the week. It's a little strange how you make them. The dough is pretty basic, but then you don't bake them in the oven. You grill them in a skillet sprinkled with corn meal on each side which "bakes" them through. This is the recipe I used.
I had the dough sitting on a heat vent to rise and it got huge! It was like The Blob. I had to put a laundry basket over dough blob to keep the curious pugs away from it.
They turned out so nice. Look at those nooks and crannies. I slathered mine with sweet potato butter.
This recipe made a lot of english muffins too. I think we will have tuna melts and little english muffin pizzas for supper later this week.
A lot of people asked for the sweet potato butter recipe, but I didn't make it. I got it at Cuba Cheese Shoppe. I think this recipe looks close though.
I think I feel a muffin trend coming on. I wanted to make a batch of muffins for breakfast this coming week. I had planned on making some healthy muffins, but the first ones I found were these doughnut muffins. They look more like doughnuts than muffins and they tasted like them too!
I have been hoarding a few apples in my fridge from September for apple pie. Since I didn't get to do any baking for Thanksgivnig as we were traveling, it was time for some #latenightbaking
I used the handmade crust recipe from Martha Stewart Living. It involved a LOT of butter and lot of moving the dough in and out of the fridge. It was totally worth it though. The crust was almost TOO flakey and delicous!
Any excuse to get out the apple-peeler-corer-slicer! I love this uni-tasker!