Last weekend, Carol went strawberry picking and suggested I turn most of the strawberries into preserves. I am still pretty inexperienced in making preserves, and this turned into more of a learning experience than I had expected. In any event, the final product was good, and I will incorporate in this post what I learned. Read More …
This Armenian cake is a bit like a large Linzer cookie, since it has a base layer, a jam layer, and a lattice top. This version is adapted from thekitchn.com. The next time I make it, I will need to work some more flour into the lattice layer, since the pastry strands were fragile and Read More …
This easy cheesecake is based on a recipe from Andrea’s Kitchen which I spotted in a Hanover County publication. It makes 8 servings Cheesecake 6 oz. cream cheese (at room temperature) 1 egg 1 tsp. vanilla 14 oz. can sweetened condensed milk 1 cup mini semi-sweet chocolate chips 1 tsp. flour 6 oz. ready-made chocolate Read More …
We had half of a Tres Leches Cake base in the freezer and I had a brainstorm about soaking the cake in Egg Nog instead of with the usual three milks which gives the cake its name. I put the cake on a sheet of aluminum foil inside a baking pan, and folded up the Read More …
This recipe makes enough egg nog to soak half a 9 x 13 inch cake. It is adapted from Texas Home Cooking. Egg Nog (with cooked eggs) is essentially a thin custard, and the key issue with all custards is not to get the mixture too hot since you do not want to create sweet Read More …
I was assigned to bake two piece for this year’s Thanksgiving dinner. For one I made Cane Sugar Pecan Pie . For the other, I decided to make a cherry pie and to follow a recipe in Bernard Clayton’s The Complete Book of Pastry: Sweet & Savory. It turned out well. Pie dough for a Read More …
This cake from the Fannie Farmer Baking Book has become Carol’s go-to chocolate cake. It is rather complex with a separate pudding-like filling and a buttercream frosting. She most recently made it for Vivie’s birthday.
This is a rather unconventional pie with a filling of graham cracker crumbs, coconut, and pecans bound together with egg whites, and which looks rather like coarse sawdust. It is apparently of Amish origin. I spotted a recipe for it on Epicurious.com, and it looked intriguing. It was not until I was actually making it Read More …
This is a very pretty dessert I which there are swirls of cheese cake within a brownie. This is adapted from Esteban Casillo’s cookbook Chicano Eats. The original recipe called for cajeta which I could not find, so I used the similar and easier to find dulce de leche. Abuelita chocolate is a brand of Read More …
I was looking for a good dessert for a canoe trip and I spotted this cake in Sheila Mills’ The Outdoor Dutch Oven Cookbook. It is from a class of cakes developed during World War II to make do without scarce ingredients, like eggs, butter, and milk. This also means that it was made with Read More …