Chocolate Truffle Cookies

I've never really been much of a cookie baker.  Cookies have always seemed more time consuming because you have to scoop each one out onto a cookie sheet and you can only bake a few sheets at a time.  Sometimes they spread out too much and are too thin.  Then there's always the problem with such a short baking time that my cookies are always either overdone and too crispy or not done enough.  So I don't make cookies very often, even though I really like to eat them.  Every once in a while, I get a hankering for cookies and quite often my hankering includes chocolate too.  Luckily, I found this recipe for Chocolate Truffle Cookies that soothes my inner cookie monster and turn out beautifully too.

Pumpkin Scones

Pumpkin is one of my favorite flavors.  I consider it a flavor because I'm not much of a fan of it as a food by itself, but used in baked goods it is so very yummy... pumpkin bread, pumpkin pie, pumpkin cookies and pumpkin scones.  Although it's a Fall food, you don't have to wait until the leaves start to turn to pick up a can of pumpkin puree and make these Harvest Pumpkin Scones from King Arthur Flour.

Love and Cheesecake

Happy Valentine's Day!  Instead of making reservations to go out to eat somewhere, we decided to stay home and make a tasty meal ourselves.  For our Valentine's dinner we had ribeye steaks, baked potatoes, green beans, cheesy flatbread, and cheesecake for dessert.

I haven't made a cheesecake in a long while, so I searched online for a recipe to use and found one for Sour Cream Cheesecake from Cooking Light that I adapted.

Snow Day

It's a snow day!  Yesterday the University closed early due to the snow and remained closed today, which was a very nice break in the work week.  Here's the view from my house yesterday afternoon.  We ended up with about 4 inches, pretty impressive for Memphis.

Today the sun is shining and everything is glistening and white.  Jonathan and I went for a walk around the neighborhood and I noticed that there were no snowmen.  After the last snowfall there were lots of snowmen in our neighborhood.  Just about every other house displayed signs of playing in the snow.  I guess this is a one-snow-a-year-kind-of-town.  

 

 

What to do on a snowy day home from work?  Bake!  Today's recipe is Sweet Potato Bread with Flaxseed and Honey from Cooking Light. 

No-Knead Garlic Cheese Flatbread

One of my favorite sites for bread recipes is King Arthur Four.  The recipes on this site are very reliable and so far everything I've attempted from there has turned out well.  Their No-Knead Garlic Cheese Flatbread is wonderful.  I've made it several times and it has become one of my husband's favorites.  It's a good thing it's so easy! 

No-Knead Bread

My sister, Kelli, suggested that I try this recipe from the blog, Steamy Kitchen.  It was pretty easy and the end result was quite tasty.  To start out, I pulled together the ingredients.  It always surprises me that you can make something as substantial, enjoyable and comforting with so few ingredients.

Eclairs for Mom

Last week when I made cream cheese danishes, Mom said she was hungry for eclairs.  Since this is Mother's Day and she made the request, I decided to try my hand at making some.  I chose this Eclair Recipe from allrecipes.com.  The only changes I made were to double the pastry dough - 2 c water, 2 sticks butter, 2 c flour.

First, you mix the water and butter in a saucepan and bring it to a boil.  Then reduce the heat and dump in all the flour.  The recipe said to stir vigorously until the mixture becomes a stiff ball....I stirred and stirred, but it didn't become a ball.  By the time I got a blister, I decided I should stop.  Later, I glanced at a few other eclair recipes and found I really only needed to stir for a few minutes (not long enough to get a blister).

Then, transfer it to a stand mixer and mix it for a minute or two so it can cool a bit before adding the eggs.  It changes into a pretty yellow color from all the egg yolks.

Next, I used a gallon zip top bag as a makeshift pastry bag to pipe the eclairs onto parchment paper.

Then into the oven they go.  The instructions said not to open the oven during baking.  I didn't open it once, but some of my eclairs still fell flat by the end of the baking time.  I'll have to figure that one out the next time I make these.

After they were cool, I made the filling. I whipped heavy cream and folded it into vanilla pudding. (It was instant pudding, shhh, don't tell anyone.)

I decided to just spoon the filling into the eclairs.  I cut the eclairs open on the side, like a hot dog bun, filled them with the pudding and closed them back up.

Then they went into the fridge to chill.  To make the chocolate glaze, heat heavy cream just until boiling and then add the chocolate.  Spoon the chocolate over the top of the eclairs and then put back into the refrigerator until ready to eat.  That is, of course, after you have the obligatory first eclair.  Hey, someone has to try them out. 

Cream Cheese Danish

Stormy Saturdays are great days for baking, and this Saturday was VERY stormy.  We were fortunate not to have any damage from the storms.  And, we didn't lose power, so I was able to make these yummy Cream Cheese Snails from thefreshloaf.com.

Actually, I was anticipating the storms and Jonathan was working security at Music Fest on Friday and Saturday, so I planned to spend my time doing a little baking.

I recently remembered that I have a stand mixer and should probably use it every once in a while, so I pulled it out and whipped up the dough the night before and then popped it into the oven to rise slowly until the morning.

The next day I rolled out the dough.

And rolled up the snails.

The snails got a coat of egg wash before the cream cheese mixture.

 A quick look at the weather while the snails puff up a bit before going into the oven.  Looks messy out there. 

Back to the snails.  I also made some with blueberry jelly.  Yum.

Here are the snails baking up nicely.

Mmmm, my favorites.

Now it's time to sit down and listen to the rain while enjoying a danish and a good cup of coffee.  Ah...