Cherry Nut Muffins

I made these last week for my early morning prayer group. Just the thing to get you awake in the mornings, Cherry Nut Muffins!

2 eggs
1 1/2 cups sugar
6 tbsp butter, softened
2 cups flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup milk
1 1/2 cups cherries (The original recipe calls for canned sweet cherries, but I used some that I froze last year, or you could use fresh ones, also I used close to 2 cups)
1 1/2 cups nuts (I used pecans, you could also use walnuts or something else if you liked)

Preheat oven to 350. Prepare 24 muffin cups. Mix together eggs and sugar. Add in butter. In a separate bowl mix flour, baking powder and salt. Add flour mixture to egg mixture slowly, alternating with milk until all the ingredients are well combined. Stir in cherries and nuts. Spoon batter into muffin cups. Bake at 350 for about 20 minutes.

How NOT to make Cherry Tarts

Step 1: Make your favourite cherry pie filling using this recipe.

Step 2: Make your favourite pie crust dough using this recipe.

Step 3: Attempt to make star shaped cherry pies:
Step 4: Fail miserably

Step 5: Attempt to make apple shaped cherry pies:
Step 6: Fail miserably.

Step 7: Give up, decide to make Cherry Tarts the way your Grandmother used to make them...

With a coffee mug...
And a simple cookie cutter...
And a muffin tray...

Bake at 400 for 10 minutes and then at 350 for another 10 minutes or until pastry is brown-ish...

And now you have some tasty cherry tarts!
Step 8: Eat your tasty new creations and forget all about the fact that the day started with a much different pie-related project!

Almond Sandwich Cookies

I made these with a friend a few weeks ago. They were pretty tasty...

Almond Sandwich Cookies

Cookies
1 cup rolled oats
3/4 cup sugar
2 tbsp flour
1 tsp cardamom
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 egg
1/2 cup butter, melted
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup slivered almonds

Vanilla Cream
1/4 cup butter
1 1/2 cup icing sugar
1 tsp vanilla

Preheat oven to 325. Line cookie sheet with tin foil and then lightly grease (or spray with PAM) the tin foil. Mix together oats, sugar, flour, cardamom, baking powder and salt. In another bowl stir together egg, butter and vanilla. Add the egg mixture to the flour mixture until well combined. Mix in the almonds. Drop by spoonfuls onto cookie sheets (mixture will be very runny so leave lots of room). Bake 10-12 minutes. While cookies are baking make the cream. Beat the butter with 1 cup icing sugar. Mix in vanilla and then the last 1/2 cup icing sugar. Mixture wil be very thick, I think I added a bit more vanilla to make it a little less thick. When cookies come out of the oven wait for them to cool completely and then peel them from the foil. Place cream filling between two cookies, squish together and enjoy!

We all live in a...

So last year for my brother's birthday you may remember that I made him a Homestarrunner Cake.

And this year I figured I had to some how top that. Now, my brother is probably the biggest Beatles fan this side of the 1960s and so I figured I could do something involving that...

I found a promo image for the Yellow Submarine movie and decided to recreate that.
Right down to Ringo's massive nose!

I also had some leftover cake which I used to make a replica of their album 'The Beatles' - more commonly known as 'The White Album'. It was a little difficult though, due to trying to put perfectly white icing on a chocolate cake.

Personal Sized Apple Pies

So today, I made some Apple Pies. And not just any apple pies, personal sized mini-apple pies. And if you'd like I can show you how to make them too...

First, you need one of these...
I got it from Williams-Sonoma (the same place where got the Star Wars Cookie cutters)

Then you make your filling and pastry crust. I used this recipe for the pastry and this recipe for the filling. Although I had to make the pastry recipe twice to use up all the filling. In the future I'd probably half the filling recipe.

Then you roll out the filling and cut out one half of the apple shape

and then the other.
Then you put the piece of pastry with no hole in it in the bottom of the machine. Then fill add some filling, top with the other piece of pastry and squish!

Open it up and, Voila!
A nice apple, shaped personal size apple pie. :)
Sometimes they fail...

But most of the time they work just fine!

Then you bake at 400 F for 15-20 minutes.

And then you have a tasty little apple pie!

Or a dozen of them.

You can also top the pastry with an egg wash and some sugar and that makes them extra tasty!

And if you'd like you can make other types of pies, just to trick people. Because cherry pies that are shaped like apples are always fun! :D

I think I need much more practice, and possible a recipe that stands up to rolling out and being worked with well. But I really like my pocket apple pie maker. And what you could do would be to freeze the unbaked pies and then whenever you want a snack you can pull one out and have your own pie in the same amount of time it takes to cook a mini-pizza!

May the Cookies Be With You

I promised epic and now I will deliver on that promise...

Yes, that's right, a table full of Yoda, Darth Vader, Boba Fett and Stormtrooper Heads!

Here's a more detailed view...
Bakerella posted these a few weeks ago and I just HAD to have them!
They come from a fancy kitchen store in the States called Williams-Sonoma and they're Limited Edition for the 30th Anniversary of the launch of Empire Strikes Back. The store has a branch in Vancouver and so I got my Grandmother to pick me up a set when she was there.
Cutting out some Yoda heads

A Tray full of Stormtroopers
Then we glaze them...And they're tasty and ready for eating!



Of course you probably want the recipe and instructions. These cookies are pretty great and simple to make, although its a little time consuming.

2 cups butter (it must be butter), softened (Naturally softened makes the dough easier to work with)
2 cups sugar
2 eggs
4 cups flour
4 tsp cream of tartar
2 tsp baking soda

Cream butter and sugar. Add eggs and beat until light and fluffy. In another bowl mix the dry ingredients and then add slowly to the creamed mixture. Chill in the fridge for an hour or so. Grease cookie sheets. Preheat oven to 350. For the general cookies you just roll them out and cut them the way you like with whatever cookie cutters you have (my dad and I always make these for Valentines Day and top them with pink icing and cinnamon hearts) Bake 10-12 minutes.

For the Star Wars Cookies:
Divide chilled dough into four parts. Leave one part plain. To each of the other parts add the colouring for the character you like and knead it in like dough. It is best to use gel colouring because it doesn't thin out the dough, I used Wiltons Teal for Boba Fett, Kelly Green for Yoda and Black for Vader. Chill the dough again after you have added the colouring. Roll out, cut into shapes and bake 7-9 minutes depending on which cookie cutter you are using and the thickness of the dough. I then glazed them with the same glaze from this post.

Oreo Cheesecake

So I got this cookbook for my birthday and its really neat. It's called America's Most Wanted Recipes and it has all these recipes in it that are 'clones' of restaurant recipes. Pretty much, the author experimented until he had recipes that taste almost the same as the ones in the recipes. Now, as the title suggests they come from mostly American restaurants, some of which I have never heard of, but overall it seems like a really great recipe book.

The first recipe from it that I tried is 'The Cheesecake Factory"s Oreo Cheesecake. Now, again, being not an American the only reason I've heard of 'The Cheesecake Factory' is because its the place where Penny on Big Bang Theory works. So, I've never had the original of this recipe and so I can't exactly compare it.

"The Cheesecake Factory" Oreo Cheesecake

2 tbsp melted butter (or margarine)
1 1/2 cups Oreo cookie crumbs

3 pkgs cream cheese
1 cup sugar
5 eggs
1/4 tsp salt
2 tsp vanilla
1/4 cup flour
1 cup sour cream
5-10 chopped Oreo Cookies (for filling)
5-10 more chopped Oreo Cookies (for topping)

Allow all ingredients to come to room temperature (I didn't do this, although I did soften the cream cheese in the microwave as instructed on the package) Preheat oven to 325. Mix melted butter and Oreo crumbs and press into the bottom and partially up the sides of a 9-inch springform pan, set aside. Using an electric mixer beat cream cheese until fluffy. Beat in sugar, slowly. Beat in eggs, one at a time until combined. Add the salt, flour and vanilla. Beat until well blended. Add sour cream, beat well. Stir in the filling Oreos by hand. Pour mixture into prepared pan. Top with topping Oreos. Bake for 1 hour and 15 minutes. Use whichever cheesecake crack prevention methods you prefer. I have tried several different methods (water bath, leaving the oven door open for an hour afterwards, running knife around rim, doing nothing special and just letting it do its own thing) and I really haven't found a method I prefer, so whatever you usually do with cheesecakes, just do that. :)

I really liked this recipe, although I overcooked it a bit. It was really tasty and had that nice combination of soft and crunch. It even survived a 6 hour, 500km, road trip to my Grandmother's all nicely wrapped up in Saran and newspaper with an icepack attached. It was pretty great, now I can't compare it to the original, so the jury's still out on that. But I do think I will be trying other recipes from this book soon.

But! Even sooner that that I am going to be sharing a post with you that is so filled with awesome that your win-o-meter will be blown off the charts! I don't want to give any hints if you don't already know what's coming but make sure you tune in next week sometime for the most epic post you have seen on this blog so far. :D