This post has been sitting in my inbox for a few weeks now because I simply couldn’t find the right words to explain the significance of this recipe to my family. I’ve finally decided that the more is less approach is the best way to tell this story.

This is my grandmother’s pecan pie bar recipe. I remember watching her make them standing on a stool pulled up to the kitchen counter. My daughter has been making it with my mom since she was tall enough to stand on that same stool to reach a kitchen counter. Back in September my daughter and I made batches of these bars for a local bake sale to benefit those ravaged by the Texas wildfires. She’s too tall now to need that stool.

The circle is complete. And sometimes a recipe for pecan pie bars is so much more than a recipe. It’s a tradition. A connection.

I look forward to the day that I get to make these same bars with my grandchildren.

Back in July Whole Foods had a mega one-day sale on fresh cherries. The local Twitterverse was all, well, a-twitter, about the sale and we plotted what we were going to make for days. It so happens I was interviewing for the job that I now have on the day of the sale, so I acquired five pounds of those oh-so-sweet little red fruits before I left. (I also forgot my iPad at the store but that was all about the nerves and has nothing to do with the cherries.)

I made all sorts of goodies with my cherries including Bittman’s pancakes stuffed with cherries and sprinkled with almonds, a pork tenderloin with a rosemary-cherry sauce, and cherry scones. My main motivation for buying the cherries though, beyond just sitting and eating them right from the bag with sweet cherry juice streaming down my chin, was to make the Cherry Hand Pies I’d spied in the July issue of Bon Appetite.

This recipe caught my eye for several reasons:

• It is pie made easy. There’s no crust to make, just puff pastry to roll out and after you pit the cherries the filling is a breeze to make. And because they are hand pies, they are even easy to serve and eat.
• The pies are portable making them potluck, tailgate, and overall party friendly.
• You can prep the pies ahead of time and freeze them. We all know how much a prep-ahead recipe warms my little heart. While it’s not specifically mentioned in the recipe, I’ve worked with puff pastry and pie filling enough to know you can make this recipe through the pie assembly step then freeze the pies for 6-12 weeks to cook later. You don’t have to thaw them, just pop them on a sheet pan, brush them with egg wash, sprinkle them with raw sugar, and bake for about five minutes longer than the recipe calls for.

The recipe was as easy as it looked to be and the pastries were exceptionally tasty. The only change I made was related to the puff pastry crust. I used Pepperidge Farm puffy pastry instead of the Dufour listed in the recipe because Pepperidge Farm is easy to find at any of the grocery stores I frequent and it’s a great, consistent product. The Pepperidge Farm pastry comes in a 17 oz. box and in two sheets, so I had to tweak my pie making just a bit. I rolled each sheet of pastry into an 18 x 10 inch rectangle and cut six 6 x 5 inch small rectangles of dough for a total of 12 instead of the nine listed in the recipe. Each pie had a smidgen less filling than they would have if I’d only made nine, but I didn’t think they pies were light on filling at all. I had three extra pies to boot – a win all around I’d say.

I’m pretty sure this recipe would double or triple easily if you need to feed a crowd and you could do all sorts of interesting things to spice up the filling. For an adult-only version, add a splash or brandy or even cherry liqueur to the mix. Some finely chopped almonds or pecans would add a little extra crunch. Drizzle the finished pies with a little bit of melted chocolate if you want to be really decadent or sprinkle a few mini chocolate chips in with the cherry filling for a hint of chocolate baked right in the pie.

As I look forward to the holiday entertaining season, I’m thinking these would be really great on a dessert buffet because they hold well at room temperature and I can make smaller versions of them for 2-bite desserts. I’m also planning to take a double batch to a tailgate this football season. They are the perfect dessert for holding in one had while you hold your favorite game-day beverage in the other. Go pie!

For the food blogging community August was all about pie. Pie and love.

Food bloggers from around the world gathered together to support fellow food blogger Jennie Perillo when she lost her husband to a sudden heart attack. First, everyone made peanut butter pies in honor her husband Mikey. I spent an entire friday wiping tears from my eyes at my desk as I watched the #pieformikey Twitter feed. Then I watched this amazing video tribute for Jennie from White on Rice Couple and just outright bawled.

After this amazing group of bloggers gathered around Jennie and her family in the biggest virtual embrace I’ve ever witness, they quickly turned to the practical side of things. Bloggers Without Borders created the Fund for Jennie and bloggers from this same amazing community are offering baked goods, special art, and more in an auction to benefit Jennie and her family. My friend and photography goddess Penny De Los Santos is generously offering a full day of photography in New York City as part of the auction and let me tell you, I’d give my eye teeth to be able to bid on that amazing adventure. As of today the auction has raised $30k for this blogging family in need and it’s not over yet. Simply amazing.

In the mean time, here in Austin we’ve been having our own celebration of community and love through pie. The Austin Food Blogger Alliance partnered with the Alamo Drafhouse to host a special showing of Waitress with proceeds benefiting SafePlace, an organization that supports abused women and children in their greatest hours of need. Along with the proceeds from the movie ticket sales Alamo’s Executive Chef John Bullington made 20 pecan pies with local blogger Michael Chu after he won our pie contest earlier in the month. Proceeds from sales of slices of pie also went to SafePlace. And finally, local pie makers donated a table full of pies that we sold after the movie to further benefit SafePlace. When all was said and done we raised $2k for this important local charity. As I stood in front of a packed house before the Waitress screening and shared the story of A Pie for Mikey I was struck by how honored I feel to be part of such a passionate, loving, and supportive blogging community both here in Austin and around the virtual world. In the end this is why we blog: to create connections, build community, and share our love for food.

I didn’t quite manage to get a peanut butter pie made in honor of Mikey, but this weekend I did create what I’m calling inspired pie because it was inspired by two of my fellow food bloggers. At the food blogger pie contest Addie Broyles from the Austin American Statesman made a cherry galette with one of the best crusts I’ve ever tasted. It was flaky and just salty enough to balance out the sweet cherry filling. I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised to learn that the crust was made by Martha Stewart’s trusty pate brisee recipe. Addie said it was easy to make and work with which are great characteristics for any recipes to have, particularly a dessert recipe. Since I had Addie’s galette I’d been thinking about making one myself but hadn’t settled on what kind. Then just this last weekend Lisa Fain posted a recipe on Homesick Texan for Hatch Chile Apple Cobbler and I knew I had found my gallette.

My daughter turned 12 last weekend and my family was in town to celebrate. As I put together her birthday dinner the inspired galette was the first item on the menu. There was something particularly special about making pie for my family in a month when pie has meant so much to my extended blogging family. The touch of Hatch chile in the recipe tied the whole dish back to my roots in the Southwest. This particular pie meant more to me than any pie I’ve made before.

Recipe: Apple and Hatch Chile Galettes

Ingredients

• 1 recipe of Martha Stewart’s pate brisee
• 1 recipe of Homesick Texan’s Hach Chile Apple Cobbler filling
• 2 Tbsp. sugar in the raw

Directions

1. Make the pate brisee according to the recipe directions and refrigerate for at least an hour.
2. Make the cobbler filling according to the recipe directions and let cool.
3. Spray two cookie sheets with non-stick spray or line with parchment paper.
4. Divide the pate brisee dough into 8 equal portions. Roll each portion into a 7-8 inch circle.
5. Place a dough circle onto a corner of the cookie sheet. Fill with a heaping 1/2 c. of the cobbler filling, leaving about a 1 inch border of dough free of the filling.
6. Bring the free edges of the dough up around the filling. The crust will be uneven and the center of the filling won’t be covered by the dough. That’s okay, that’s sort of the point of the galette. It’s supposed to be rustic. It’s also a pass for you so the crust doesn’t have to look perfect. Everyone wins.
7. Repeat with the remaining dough and filling. Refrigerate the galettes for an hour.
8. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.
9. Brush the crust of each galette lightly with water and sprinkle with the sugar.
10. Place the baking sheets into the oven and cook for 30 minutes, swapping the position of the sheets on the racks after 15 minutes.
11. After 30 minutes reduce the oven temperature to 375 and cook for another 15 minutes or until the edges of the galettes are nicely browned.
12. Let cool slightly and serve with something cool and creamy like vanilla ice cream or whipped cream.

When I saw the Margarita Ice-Cream Sandwiches in the June 2011 Cooking Light I knew I had to make them before the summer was over. Ice cream sandwiches are a great way to end a summer party because they are easy to serve, easy to make ahead, and oh so cool in the hands and on the tongue. They are also whimsical and a bit reminiscent of our childhood, a theme that goes right along with summer. I was particularly inspired by these cookies because I had two jars of lime curd in my refrigerator and I was just sure the curd would be a great compliment to the cookies in place of the sherbet because I’m just not a big fan of sherbet. Happily I was right.

After making this recipe I can say I absolutely adore resulting ice cream sandwich, but it’s important to share that they take a little bit of planning and a little more time to make than the recipe indicates. You have to schedule time to make the recipe in three stages over the course of at least one day, and two or even three would be would be better:

Cooking Time

• Hands On Time:
  • Stated in the recipe: 27 minutes
  • My experience: About 60 minutes
• Total Time:
  • Stated in the recipe: 8 hours
  • My experience: 9 hours

My Modifications

• I substituted local lime curd from confituras for the lime sherbet. The result was a creamier, subtler, and much less bright green filling. You can use store-bought lime or lemon curd, or make your own.
• Most of the reduced fat ice creams at my grocery store include ingredients I don’t recognize or don’t like to ingest (like corn syrup), so I substituted fat-free frozen yogurt for the reduced fat ice cream.
• I wanted to make slightly smaller sandwiches so I formed the dough into 2 cylinders that were about 1 1/2 inches in diameter and 9-10 inches long. I ended up with 48 cookies to make 24 sandwiches. Because I had more cookies I had to double the lime zest, sugar, and coarse salt mixture to 8 tsp. lime zest, 2 tsp. turbinado sugar, and 1 tsp. sea salt.

Tips and Tricks

• My cookies took 13-14 minutes to bake instead of the 10 listed in the recipe. This isn’t surprising given variability in oven temperatures, baking sheets, and the like. Just be sure you don’t pull them out until they are starting to get lightly brown around the edges.
• To keep the cylinders of cookie dough round, slide them into paper towel tubes. If your cylinders are larger in diameter than the paper towel tubes, simply cut the tubes lengthwise and wrap them around the dough logs. You’ll have a gap at the top but you’ll still get the same support for keeping the cylinders round as the cookies set.
• To help the sandwich assembly move right along use a round disher (scoop) to dole out the ice cream. For my smaller cookies I used a #40 scoop.
• The lime curd is softer than sherbet would be, so when you combine it with softened ice cream (or yogurt in my case) the mixture will be a little too runny to scoop onto the cookies immediately without running every which way. To solve this issue simply put the mixture back into the freezer for up to an hour or until it’s hard enough to hold the scoop shape. I’d recommend making the yogurt/curd mixture as soon as the cookies come out of the oven, even if you’re making them the day before, so when you’re ready to assemble the cookies all of the pieces and parts are ready to go.

Possible Variations

• As you might imagine you could swap lemon zest and juice for the lime in this recipe for a bright, summery dessert. You might mix a little fresh thyme into the zest, sugar, salt topping for a bit of an herbal note in the cookies. Strawberry ice cream would be a great partner to the lemon flavors. Orange would also work as the citrus component and would be fantastic with a chocolate ice cream filling.
• You can have a field day with ice cream flavors here. Coconut ice cream or sherbet would be great with the lime cookies and still keep the tropical inspiration going. It would be fun to start in the freezer section of our grocery store or even favorite ice cream shop and build the cookie flavors around whatever fun ice cream you find.
• The cookies from this dish are great on their own. If you don’t have the time to make the ice cream sandwiches, just make the cookies and serve them with scoops of your favorite ice cream.

A while back I wrote about how I’ve been trying to extend my personal cookie season beyond the winter holidays. My initial experiments with easy chocolate chip cookies were enough of a success that I’ve been motivated to keep baking. This is however not necessarily great for my waistline. The solution to that niggling problem is to simply package the cookies up – after sampling two or three (or four or five) – and whisk them away to our various office kitchens. This makes me popular in two workplaces in downtown Austin which is a nice bonus.

I’m a big believer in recipe serendipity. Sometimes just when I need a recipe for a party or even, have a hankering for a particular dish, or simply need to use up ingredients I have on hand, a recipe will appear as if by magic in my RSS reader, my in box, in a Tweet, or in my Facebook stream. It’s as if the recipe knows I need it and finds its way too me.

Okay, so I’ve been watching a bit of Harry Potter this long holiday weekend and it’s impacting my perspective. What of it?

The recipe for Lemon Ricotta Cookies came to me via a Facebook post from the Food Network about an hour or so after I’d looked in my fridge and realized I had a carton of ricotta cheese I really needed to use. Given that the temperatures here in Austin are heating up faster than a flame under a Texas BBQ, a light citrus cookie seemed just perfect for our warm weather.

See, I told you it was fate. Or magic. Or maybe coincidence but how boring would that be?

Beyond ricotta, this recipe uses ingredients you’ll most likely have on hand, and it’s crazy easy too. I got a wild hair to make the cookies and they were done and cooling on my kitchen counter a little over an hour later. I’m definitely filing this recipe away as great for entertaining because they:

• Pack a great flavor punch in a small bite.
• Are simple
• Can be made a couple of days in advance.
• Are pretty without having to do hard work (or have artistic skill) to make them so.
• Are just a little bit unexpected. They may look a little plain Jane, but they are far from it when you take a bite.

These cookies are more like madelines or little tea cakes than crisp cookies, which is great as far as I’m concerned because they add some variety to a cookie plate and would great with afternoon tea or for a bridal or baby show. They have a lovely light crumb and balance sweet and sour nicely, especially if you kick up the sour just a bit (see the modifications section). Here’s the rundown on my experience with the recipe:

• Cooking time:
  Plan about an hour to an hour and a half total hands-on time to prep the dough, bake the different batches of cookies, let them cool, and glaze them before you leave them to set.
  
  • Prep time
    • Stated in the recipe: 15 minutes
    • My experience: 30 minutes (probably because I used a smaller scoop and added a step to chill the dough)
  • Inactive time
    • Stated in the recipe: 2 hours, 20 min
    • My experience: 2 hours, 20 min
  • Cook time
    • Stated in the recipe: 15 minutes
    • My experience: 12-13 minutes (because I had smaller cookies)
  • Finish time
    • Stated in the recipe: none
    • My experience: 20 minutes (to make the glaze and apply it)
  • Total time
    • Stated in the recipe: 2 hours, 50 minutes
    • My experience: 3 hours, 30 minutes
• My modifications
  
  • After reading the comments on the recipe I made three changes:
    
    • I used a 1 Tbsp. scoop to make smaller cookies. They were the perfect size for a light, 2-bite cookie. Because of the smaller cookie size, I ended up with 8 dozen cookies instead of the 44 the recipe says it yields, making this a perfect recipe for when you need a lot of cookies quickly.
      
    • I added a Tbsp. of lemon juice to both the cookie dough and the glaze, for a total of 4 Tbsp. in each. This made the glaze thinner than what’s shown in the recipe and I was okay with that. I didn’t end up with a super-thick glaze coating on top of the cookies, but rather a thin seal that permeated the top of each cookie.
      
    • I zested three lemons total and split the zest between the dough and the glaze to amp up the lemon flavor. Both the dough and the glaze ended up with the zest of about 1 and a half medium lemons.
      
  • Instead of spooning the glaze onto the cookies, I simply dipped the top of each cookie into the glaze and put it back on the rack to dry. This approach was faster and wasted less glaze.
    
• Tips and tricks
  
  • After reading through the comments I noticed a common theme: the cookies spread a lot and were too thin. This makes sense because the ricotta is soft to begin with as is the butter, so there’s not a lot in the cookies to keep them from spreading. To combat the spread, I placed each sheet of cookies in the freezer for about 10 minutes so they could firm up. This helped prevent spreading and didn’t impact the texture at all.
  • For nicely rounded cookies, use a scoop instead of two spoons to dish out the dough. Be sure to scrape the filled scoop against the mixing bowl post-scoop and pre-drop to create a nicely rounded mound of cookie dough that will cook evenly.
  • Some of the recipe comments said that the cookies turned mushy after a couple of days. I stored mine in the refrigerator just to be on the safe side, but did leave three out on the counter covered with wax paper to test over the space of three days. I didn’t have a hard time with the cookies turning soft(er) after even three days on the counter, but still, I’d recommend only making these 1-2 days in advance and storing them in an air-tight container in the fridge. Give them about an hour to come to room temperature before serving.
• Possible variations
  • Maria from Two Peas and their Pod made an orange and chocolate version of these cookies that looks fantastic for the holiday season.
  • I also think they would be great with lime zest and juice in the place of the lemon and a little bit of toasted coconut sprinkled on top for a bit of a tropical taste.

I love summer entertaining! Maybe it’s just me, but everything about summer parties is more relaxed and casual. Guests show up in t-shirts and sandals, we chat and nosh on the porch at our leisure, and thanks to the longer days, we can linger much later into the evening enjoying each other’s company. The easiest way I know of to harsh the mellow of a summer party is to spend the entire day leading up to it in a complete frenzy of preparation and cooking. Okay, I feel that way generally about any party but in summer it seems almost a crime to ruin a great party with a crazy day.

To help keep all our summer parties just a little (or a lot) on the laid-back side, I put together this dinner party menu that comes together largely the evening and morning before. You’ll do a bit here and there in preparation but you’ll have most of the day of the party to yourself to relax at will. You’ll be refreshed and relaxed when your guests arrive which will set just the right tone for this party.

The Menu

This menu serves four guests but every recipe on it can easily be doubled or tripled for a larger party.

Apple-Glazed Barbecued Baby Back Ribs

Grilled Summer Vegetable and Bulgur Salad

Grilled Corn with Chipotle Cilantro Compound Butter

Quick and Easy Strawberry Shortcake

To Drink

Peachy Canyon Incredible Red Zinfandel or Mulderbosch Cabernet Sauvignon Rosé

The Plan

In total you’ll spend about four hours preparing for this dinner, including setting the table and cleaning up, but most of it happens the evening and morning before your guests arrive. You’ll have most of the day before your party to yourself to relax or, if completely necessary, run errands or get things done around the house. Personally I vote for relaxing so you can be well-rested when your guests arrive.

The detailed minute-by-minute, blow-by-blow for this menu is also available in PDF form with specific times for a 6:30 pm dinner.

The Week Before

Review all of the recipes carefully and make your grocery list. If you’re comfortable with what’s involved with each recipe preparation and cooking will be much easier.

The Night Before

You’ll need about an hour for these preparation activities. You can also do all of this prep work the morning of the party, just quick cool the bulgur and vegetables in the freezer for about 15 minutes before you chop and mix them.

• Cook the bulgur
• Grill the vegetables (but do not chop)
• Make the puff pastry stars

The Morning before Dinner

You’ll need about two hours for all of these activities, but then you are largely off the hook until about 90 minutes before the party. You’ll need to put the ribs in to cook mid-day but that’s a quick and easy bit of work.

• Set the butter out to soften
• Chop the grilled vegetables and mix them with the bulgur; remember to reserve 1 Tbsp. of dressing
• Pull the husks down but not completely off of the corn; remove the silk, and pull the husks back up; tie the top of the husks with some kitchen twine refrigerate the corn
• Make the compound butter
• Whip the cream and store it in the refrigerator
• Set the table and set out your serving dishes

4.5 Hours before Dinner

Take a quick break from your afternoon of relaxation to put the ribs into the oven. They’ll fill your house with a great smell as the slowly cook.

• Preheat the oven to 250 degrees; prep the rib spice mix, rub the ribs and place them in the oven
• Make the cider, jelly, and rub mixture; set aside for later

90 Minutes before Dinner

This last hour and half is when you’ll be busy finishing the menu and getting everything served and plated. How early into this last 90 minutes your guests arrive is totally up to you. If they arrive earlier you can chat with them in the kitchen and even enlist their help. You may be more comfortable without an audience though and if that’s the case I’d suggest asking them to arrive 15-20 minutes before you plan to serve dinner. They’ll see you pull the ribs and corn from the grill which will only whet their appetite.

• Pour the cider mixture over ribs, cover with foil, and continue cooking as per the recipe instructions
• Make any last minute touches to your table and prepare drinks
• Slice the strawberries and mix them with the sugar and vanilla
• Preheat the grill
• Remove the ribs from the oven, brush them with the sauce, and transfer them to grill
• Place the corn on the grill
• Remove the ribs from grill and transfer to a serving platter and to rest; tent with foil
• Add the reserved 1 Tbsp of dressing to the bulgur salad and plate
• Remove the corn from the grill and plate; serve with the chipotle butter

After Dinner

Don’t assemble dessert until you’re ready to serve it or the puff pastry stars will be soggy. It comes together quickly though so you won’t be away from your guests for long.

Easy. Beautiful. Fast. Make-ahead. Light. Tasty.What more could you possibly want in a spring entertaining dish?

Seriously. If I’m missing something let me know in the comments and I’ll be on the case to find a dish that fits.

In the mean time, I offer up for your consideration this lovely panna cotta made from healthy non-fat Greek yogurt. It has a light, lovely, creamy texture that doesn’t require any whipping of egg whites, whisking of egg yolks over a pan of simmering water until just so, or the other cheffy techniques that often accompany light and creamy desserts. A bit of unflavored gelatin and a creamy yogurt base are the keys here, so even the youngest kitchen helpers can get in on the act of making this simple dish. And because every step in this recipe before “plate and garnish” happens the night before you want to serve it, there’s absolutely no crazy pressure the morning of the brunch (with this dish anyway).

It’s the perfect addition to a menu for brunch,  providing an ever so slightly sweet partner for savory egg dishes, sausage and bacon, or even smoked salmon. I’d recommend a pomegranate mimosa as a drink pairing, but coffee or a simple glass of juice will do in a pinch.

And you know, Mother’s Day is coming up quickly. What mom wouldn’t love a creamy yet not-really-bad-for-you dish garnished with sprinkles of granola and some fresh berries. Not this mom. Not that that’s a hint or anything.

Upon further consideration, I also think I avoid cookies most of the rest of the year because they are just a bit of a production. It’s not that making cookies is a particularly hard, but it’s a multi-step process that involves mixing bowls, cookie sheets, cutters, scoops, and more. And while I set aside plenty of time to truly relish in the cookie baking process from October to December, any other time it seems like another to-do I just don’t quite have time for.

Recently I decided that the nine month cookie dearth had to go. After all, people love cookies. A good cookie can brighten your afternoon or turn a plain bowl of ice cream into something just a little more special. Cookies can be the sweet bow on a casual dinner party, a handmade gift that outstrips any gift card, and a valuable tool for bribing coworkers (or to show them how much you appreciate them I suppose).

Given all the redeeming values of cookies, I simply must make more of them.

I have not however found a way to add more hours to my day to accommodate regular cookie baking sessions, so I’ve been on the search for cookies that are easy as pie (which by the way isn’t necessarily easy but that’s fodder for another post). In what I can only consider a cosmic push in the cookie direction, I came across not one but two quick chocolate chip cookies recipes in the space of two weeks that were just begging me to try them. Clearly the universe is demanding I make some cookies!

My two new recipes have three things in common:

• Both eschew the traditional drop approach to cookie formation, opting instead for bar cookies made in a baking pan and skillet respectively. You simply pat the dough in the pan and go. There is no scooping and dropping of dough by the tablespoon, no waiting for baking sheets to cool, and no endless lines of cookies on racks the counter.
• Each incorporates whole wheat flour instead of traditional white flour. While whole wheat flour as an ingredient wasn’t even on my mind when I started hunting easy cookie recipes, I consider it a bonus and I feel just a tad better as I’m sneaking cookies in the middle of the night. Of course both recipes are loaded with butter and sugar so I’m probably just delusional. I can live with that.
• They travel well so it’s easy to make them someone else’s temptation problem instead of my own. You don’t even have to cut and plate them – simply cover the dish or skillet, pack a table knife for cutting and spatula for serving, and go. Leave the dish or skillet behind as a gift for the recipient along with a copy of the recipe and you’ve created the perfect gift that keeps on giving.

As you might imagine, both recipes can also be easily modified with different flavor chips, different types of nuts, and even the addition of dried fruit to create different flavor combinations. What’s not to love really?

Chocolate-Chip-Pecan Cookie Bars

I happened across the recipe for Chocolate-Chip-Pecan Cookie Bars an article on lightening up recipes from nationally known bakers in the March 2011 Food and Wine. They use whole wheat pastry flour which is easy to find in most grocery stores these days. The fat and sugar content is quite reasonable (6 Tbsp of butter and oil combined along with less than a cup of sugar total), so while I wouldn’t call them light, they are on the lighter side as chocolate chip cookies go.

Tip: Because there isn’t a ton of fat in the dough it doesn’t spread much as it bakes. To get smooth, even cookies spend a little extra time pressing the dough into the pan in an even layer.

Baking the cookies in a parchment-lined pan makes it easy to move them to a cutting board when cool and cut them into any size bar you’d like. Cut smaller rectangles to serve at the end of a tea party or larger squares (or even circles cut with a round biscuit cutter) to create an ice cream sandwich.

Whole Wheat Chocolate Chip Skillet Cookies

One of my favorite things about food blogging is being introduced to new recipes by food bloggers who have tested and tweak a recipe they found. It’s like finding a pot of gold at the end of a blogger rainbow. This cookie in a skillet recipe is a pass along from not one but two bloggers: Austin blogger and pastry chef extraordinaire Shelley of Franish Nonspeaker adapted this recipe for Whole Wheat Chocolate Chip Skillet Cookies from 101 Cookbook’s interpretation of Kim Bayce’s Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe Good to the Grain. Think of it as the “it takes a village” approach to a skillet chocolate chip cookie.

Other than making my cookie in a 9 inch pan instead of a 12 inch, I made it exactly as Shelley wrote it. The result is a dead-simple cookie that’s nutty from whole wheat flour, chock full of chocolate chunks, and perfect for slicing and topping with ice cream as if it were the aforementioned pie. In fact, this recipe is much easier than pie. It took me 20 minutes to make the dough, get it into the pan and into the oven, and get my kitchen cleaned up. Because I happened to have whole wheat flour and Scharffen Berger baking chocolate on hand, so I didn’t even have to go to the store. It was a win all around. The other recipe ingredients are all common pantry and refrigerator items, so if you keep some whole wheat flour and chocolate about, you’ll always be ready to throw together a quick dessert that anyone will enjoy.

No More Excuses!

So friends, if you are like me and avoid cookies as an quick fix treat because they take too much time or create too many dirty dishes, I’m sorry to say (or not really) that those excuses won’t hold water, or chocolate, any longer. With recipes like these we can fill our kitchens with homemade cookies on a moment’s notice. As for choosing between devouring the cookies all by your lonesome right from the pan or sharing them with friends and family, well, I think that’s a situational dilemma best left to your good judgment.

Sometimes I make a dish and I know from the second it comes out of the oven it’s going to be a keeper. This is one of those recipes. It’s the kind of recipe you become known for and that everyone asks you to bring to every party. We all need more recipes like this one.

I wasn’t even planning to make a cake…

I work really hard not to be an impulse buyer at the grocery store. I make plans and lists, eat before I go to the store, and avoid the sample givers like the plague – I’m onto their shtick. Occasionally though I give in to temptation and am the better for it. Recently, a nice lady in the produce department of my local grocery store was handing out samples of newly arrived honey crisp apples (the best apples ever, for what it’s worth) and she had along with her an apple cake recipe she’d clipped from papers that morning to help overcome the “but I don’t know what I’ll make” objection. All of a sudden I found myself compelled to make a dessert of for a party I was attending that evening for which I’d already made a salad and purchased bread. I decided it was fate. The tasty apples and a cake recipe in-hand were the universe’s way of telling me I should make an apple cake.

But I’m really glad I did…

The apple cake recipe clipped from the paper was created by Susan Smith –Caballero of the Texas Apple Valley Orchard and it won an award at the Mason County apple baking contest. Of course I couldn’t leave even an award winning recipe alone, so I modified it to use both brown and granulated sugar and to incorporate some whole wheat flour. I also added in a bit of nutmeg it’s such a great partner for apples. The result is an amazingly moist cake that is crazy easy to make. The hardest part of the preparation is peeling and chopping the apples. A simple glaze makes finishing the cake a thirty second activity. And as an added bonus, this cake will fill your kitchen with the perfect fall smell as it cooks. It’s perfect to take to a potluck or to serve as dessert for fall dinner party. It would also be a great addition to a brunch menu or holiday breakfast buffet.

Recipe: Easy Apple Cake

Details

• Difficulty: Easy
  
• Serves: 18-36
  
• Prep Time: 45 minutes
  
• Cook Time: 40 minutes
  

Ingredients

• Cooking spray
• 2 c. all purpose flour
• 1 c. whole wheat flour
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• ¼ tsp. salt
• 1 Tbsp. cinnamon
• ½ tsp. nutmeg
• 2 c. brown sugar, divided
• 1 c. granulate sugar
• 3 eggs
• ½ c. canola oil
• 1 c. applesauce
• ½ c. apple juice, divided
• 1 Tbsp. vanilla
• 4 c. peeled and chopped apples (firm varieties like honey crisp, braeburn, and granny smith)
• 1 c. walnuts, toasted and coarsely chopped
• ½ c. butter
• ¼ c. evaporated milk

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
2. Spray an 8 x 13 ½ inch glass pan with cooking spray.
3. Combine the flours, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg in a medium bowl and whisk until well mixed.
4. Combine 1 c. brown sugar, the granulated sugar, eggs, oil, apple sauce, and apple juice in the bowl of a stand mixer and mix until well combined. Add the vanilla and mix until incorporated.
5. Add the flour mixture to the mixer in 4 batches, mixing after each addition until just combined. Be careful not to over-mix.
6. Gently fold the apples and walnuts into the batter with a spatula.
7. Pour the mixture into the prepared pan and bake until a tester comes out clean, about 40 minutes.
8. About 10 minutes before the cake is done, melt the butter in a small sauce pan.
9. Add the evaporated milk along with the remaining ¼ c. apple juice and 1 c. brown sugar to the pan. Bring the mixture to a boil and boil gently for two minutes.
10. When the cake is done, pour the hot mixture on to the warm cake and set the pan on a rack to cool completely.
11. Serve with a side of vanilla ice cream, a dollop of whipped cream, or with a bit of powdered sugar.

Recipe for Success

• I can’t get apple cider in quantities less than a gallon, so I used apple juice in this recipe but cider would work just as well.
• The cake keeps beautifully covered in the refrigerator for several days. A few seconds in the microwave will bring a piece it to room temperature – keep some on hand for easy breakfasts during the holidays.

I’m sharing this recipe on Miz Helen’s Country Cottage Full Plate Thursday.

Sometimes there is no substitute for simple and easy. Recipes with a few ingredients that work well together and that are almost no-fail simply can’t be beat. My mom’s pound cake recipe is exactly that. It has a short list of ingredients – six to be exact – and with the help of a stand mixer it comes together in a matter of minutes. It does take a while to cook, about an hour, during which time it fills the house with all sorts of wonderful and homey aromas. And it’s a wonderful vehicle for whatever fruits are in season: strawberries, peaches, and blackberries to name a few. It’s also great toasted and topped with grilled pineapple and some fresh whipped cream. Or, cut it into pieces and dip it in chocolate for a fondue. Really – the options are endless. Pound cake is one of the best gifting and potluck foods because it travels well, holds up for several days on the counter, and is a classic favorite that so many people truly enjoy.

In our family cookbook my mom notes that she has used this pound cake recipe for years and even though she’s tried a variety of other recipes, she always comes back to this one as the best and I have to agree. I’ve tried pound cake recipes that incorporate sour cream, whipped egg whites, and all manner of other ingredients.

The bottom line is this cake is easy as pie to make, even if you don’t make desserts. All you need is a mixer (hand or stand) and a bundt pan. You could even make this in one of those fancy new shaped bundt pans from Nordicware for an interesting visual, but it’s not really necessary because the cake’s taste will outshine any trappings of shape or presentation as soon as folks dive in.

Recipe: Pound Cake

Details

• Difficulty: Easy
  
• Serves: 16
  
• Prep Time: 25 minutes
  
• Cook Time: 60 minutes
  

Ingredients

• Cooking spray
  
• 1 c. (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
  
• 2 c. sugar
  
• 5 eggs, room temperature
  
• 1 tsp. vanilla
  
• 2 c. flour
  
• ¼ tsp. kosher salt
  

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Spray a bundt or tube pan well with cooking spray.
2. Cream the butter and sugar together in a stand mixer or with a hand mixer until light and fluffy, about 3-4 minutes.
3. Add the eggs one at a time to the butter and sugar mixture, mixing well to incorporate each egg before adding the next.
4. Add the vanilla to the bowl and mix well to combine.
5. Sift or whisk the flour and salt together. Add the flour/salt mixture to the bowl slowly, mixing well to combine. The batter will be thick.
6. Spoon the batter evenly into the prepared pan.
7. Bake the cake at 350 degrees for one hour or until a cake tester inserted into the center comes out clean.
8. Remove from the oven and set the pan on a cooling rack for 5 minutes.
9. Ease the cake out of the pan and onto the rack. Let cool completely before serving. The cake will stay fresh for 3-5 days if covered by a cake dome or wrapped in plastic wrap.

Tips, Tricks, and Tweaks

• This recipe has such few ingredients that it pays to use the best ones you can lay your hands on. I typically use King Arthur flour, organic European-style butter, cage-free local eggs, and high-quality vanilla extract. That said, it’s hard to screw up these flavors and my mom made this recipe with margarine for years before we all knew better, so don’t let a lack of high-end ingredients stop you from making this recipe.
  
• You can use loaf pans instead of a bundt pan for this recipe. Divide the batter evenly between the pans and rotate them in your oven once during cooking. These cakes will need less time in the oven, but exactly how long depends on the size of your loaf pans. I’d start checking them at 40 minutes or so. You could also use the baby bundt pans for this recipe but I’d still plan to serve two people with each mini-cake. Watch the cooking time carefully with these smaller pans – start checking at about 30 minutes.
  
• Instead of preparing the pan with cooking spray, you can butter and flour the pan instead. I like to use Baker’s Joy that combines a spray with flour.
  
• It’s really hard to over-mix this cake, particularly when you’re creaming the butter and salt. It’s a great starter recipe for kids who want to make their own cake with minimal adult interference, and if they want to frost it, you can glaze it with a little milk and powdered sugar mixed together.
  
• And while the basic recipe uses only vanilla for extra flavor beyond the sugar and butter, you could easily play around with the basic flavor profile without much concern for mucking up the recipe. I think almond extract and the zest of an orange would be lovely in the cake, while a little cinnamon and nutmeg along with some rum extract would give it a hint of fall flavor. I also think you could nix the vanilla extract and substitute vanilla sugar for the regular sugar for a richer vanilla taste.