I Blog What I Bake

I have definitely been on a fruit kick. Summertime makes me abandon heavy desserts. When it’s 95 degrees and humid outside the last thing I want to be eating is some kind of cream based concoction. Although, that’s a lie. The shortbread base of these lemon bars is pure butter. I don’t know what’s heavier than that. ANYWAY.

Lemons go with with just about any berry. I chose blackberries because I have already used strawberries and raspberries in recent posts. These would be amazing with strawberry. I’ll try that sometime soon. Back to the recipe at hand.  The aforementioned shortbread base is phenomenal. You can repurpose this for just about any bar recipe; brownies, blondies you name it. It is super simple to prepare, just so long as you have a food processor.  My advice is to make the blackberry sauce first and leave it to the side until its time to add it to the lemon portion. This recipe comes together very quickly once the shortbread is done.  I have also included some images of plain lemon bars that I made, just in case there are those of you that have no interest in the blackberries.

Blackberry Lemon Bars with Hot Shortbread Base
Shortbread base from www.epicurous.com

Hot Shortbread Base

1 1/2 sticks (3/4 cup) unsalted butter
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup packed light brown sugar1/2 teaspoon salt

Cut butter into 1/2 inch pieces. In a food processor process all the ingredients until the mixture begins to form small lumps. Sprinkle mixture in a 13×9x2-inch baking pan and with a metal spatula press evenly onto bottom. Bake the shortbread until golden, about 20 minutes. Prepare the filling while this is in the oven.

Blackberry Lemon Filling

3/4 cups fresh lemon juice
Zest of one lemon
1 cup white granulated sugar
4 Large eggs
1/3 cups flour
1 pint fresh blackberries

Pulse blackberries and 1/2 cup of sugar in a food processor until blended. Heat blackberry mixture in a small saucepan over medium heat for about 5 minutes. Press heated mixture through a wire-mesh strainer. Discard the solids and reserve the liquids. Set aside.
In a medium bowl, whisk together the eggs and sugar until well combined. Stir in the lemon juice, zest and flour. Pour immediately over the hot shortbread. Take the blackberry liquid and drizzle it over the lemon mixture. Reduce oven to 300 degrees  and bake for about 30 minutes. Allow to cool completely in pan. Once cool, dust with confectioners sugar if you would like.

If you don’t want to use the blackberries, just negate the entire step from the recipe and will have delicious traditional lemon bars. Enjoy!

Printable Recipe:Lemon-Blackberry Bars

I feel like it has ben FOREVER since I have posted anything. Sorry about that, but this recipe is worth the wait.  This one comes directly from My Baking Addiction and the second I saw these I knew I would have to give them a try. I am so happy I did! They are perfect delicious chewy sugar cookies with just a little punch of tart. LOVE.

I did run into a minor situation while making these cookies. The recipe calls for shredded unsweetened coconut. I went to three stores and only found sweetened coconut. So I improvised and bought an actual coconut (only after the fact did I realize I should have gone to Whole Foods for unsweetened shredded coconut). I have never cracked a coconut. The result? My husband in the basement with Google and some power tools. Needless to say the coconut never saw what hit it and I got my shredded unsweetened coconut.  It was a lot of effort for a cookie, but it was worth watching Brian so determined with that coconut. Love you babe.

RECIPE

2 3/4 cups of unbleached all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
1 1/2 cups white sugar
1 egg
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
Zest of one large lime
3 tablespoon fresh squeezed lime juice
1/2 cup unsweetened coconut
1/2 cup sugar for rolling cookies

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

Printable Recipe: Lime Coconut Cookies

First things first, toast the shredded coconut. Place in a 350 degree oven for 10-15 minutes until the coconut starts to turn a little brown. Cool before adding to cookie batter.  My husband also shredded the coconut for me. I was losing patience.

In medium bowl combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Set aside.

Using a hand held mixer beat the sugar and butter together until very light an fluffy.

Beat in egg, vanilla, lime zest and lime juice.  Stir in the toasted coconut. Slowly stir in the flour mixture until everything is well incorporated.

Next, roll rounded teaspoonfuls of dough into balls and gently roll them in sugar. Place about 1 1/2 inches apart on a cookies sheet lined with either parchment paper or a Silpat.

Bake in 350 degree oven for 8-10 minutes. They needed the whole 10 minutes in my oven.

Allow the cookies to cool for a few minutes on the sheet and then move them to a cooling rack.

Enjoy!!!

Sugar and spice and everything nice. That is what I think of when I think of this cake.  It was so sweet and comforting and just plain good!  This recipe has already been on two food blogs that I know of, but I just couldn’t resist making it. The original recipe comes from Smitten Kitchen and Hot Polka Dot featured the cake just over a week ago. I made a couple of super minor adjustments and added the drizzle.  My first attempt at the cake didn’t quite go as planned. I ignored one of my own baking rules. DON’T RUSH. Every time I rush I make mistakes and this was no exception. Let’s just say a tablespoon and a teaspoon of baking powder produce very different results indeed.  So don’t bake rushed, don’t bake distracted and don’t drink and bake. Bad things happen.  Anyway, the second go around worked out perfectly and produced very delicious cakes!

Apple Cake
Adapted from Smitten Kitchen, “Mom’s Apple Cake”, www. smittenkitchen.com

6 macintosh apples – peeled, cored and cut thin
1 tablespoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon nutmeg
5 tablespoons of sugar

2 3/4 cups flour, sifted
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon of nutmeg
1 teaspoon of cinnamon
1 teaspoon of salt
1 cup vegetable oil
2 cups sugar
1/4 cup fresh squeezed orange juice
1 tablespoon fresh orange zest
4 eggs

Cream Cheese Drizzle
Courtesy of My Baking Addiction, www.mybakingaddiction.com

4 oz. of cream cheese, softened
1 tablespoon unsalted butter, softened
2 cups confectioners sugar
1/2 teaspoon of pure vanilla extract

The original recipe called for a tube pan. I don’t have one, so I used two 9 inch cake pans instead. Having two cakes is never a bad thing. Line the bottom of the pans with parchment paper and butter and flour the pan.

Peel, core and chop up six macintosh apples and place in a mixing bowl.  Stir cinnamon, sugar and nutmeg into the apples and set aside.

Sift together flour, salt, baking powder, cinnamon and nutmeg together in a large mixing bowl. In a separate bowl whisk together oil, vanilla, orange juice and zest.  Mix the wet ingredients into the dry ones.  Next, add eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition.  Scrape down the sides of the bowl to make sure all the ingredients are incorporated. Note: this dough is thick and sticky!!  (At first I thought I did something wrong.)

Pour half the batter into the pans. Because it’s so sticky you will have to work it to the sides with spatula.  Layer half of the apples on top of the batter. Pour the remaining batter on top and then finish with another layer of apples. Be patient with it.

Bake in a 350 oven for approximately 50 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cakes comes out clean.  Allow to cool in pans for 10 minutes. Turn out of the pan, remove the parchment paper and allow to cool completely on baking racks.

Now for the cream cheese drizzle.

In a medium sized bowl, cream together the cream cheese and the butter. Add the confectioners sugar, alternating with the milk and vanilla and beat until it reaches desired consistency. If it’s too think to drizzle, add more milk. If it’s too watery add more sugar.  I used a squeezy bottle to apply  the drizzle. You can also pipe it with a pastry bag.

Slice it up and enjoy with good cup of coffee!

A few weeks ago I go it in my head to make Key Lime Pie. A friend of mine was searching Manhattan for the pie, so I decided to just go ahead and make one. Simple, right? Um, no. Little did I know that Key Limes are not so easy to come by in Northern New Jersey. But, after a prolonged search and some mild cursing I finally found Mexican Key Limes at Corrado’s Market in Clifton. Thank you Corrado’s for carrying ingredients no one else has. I got really irrationally excited when I found them and bought 3 bags. That’s a lot of limes. SO… I decided to make 3 pies using three different recipes. I’m beginning to think I just like to make things harder on myself than they should be. One is from a native Floridan, one is from Ina Garten (Food Network) and the other is from Epicurious.com. The ingredients are almost exactly the same for each pie, just arranged differently to produce 3 very unique pies. I finally went into pie making mode a couple of weekends ago and here are the results in all their tangy zesty sugary glory.

A lime juicer about to be put through it’s paces. If you don’t own one of these little contraptions, run out and get yourself one. It will save you lots of aggravation. Key Limes are tiny (which I did not know) and I wouldn’t recommend trying to juice these little suckers by hand. The juicer also comes in handy for margaritas. Just sayin’.

Juiced Key Lime graveyard.

These are basically the only ingredients you will ever need to make any Key Lime pie. Sweetened condensed milk, key limes, key lime juice and eggs.

Key Lime zest. The best part.

And now for the 3 recipes….

I used the same graham cracker crust recipe for each pie since they didn’t vary enough to make 3 differnent ones.

Graham Cracker Crust

10 graham crackers

3/4 stick of melted butter

1/4 cup of sugar

In a food processor, process the crackers until the are fine. Add sugar and pulse. Slowly add melted butter. Process until well combined. Press evenly into either glass pie plate or springform pan (see recipes).  Bake in a 350 degree oven for 10 minutes. Allow to cool completely before adding filling.

Mr. K’s Key Lime Pie

1 Graham Cracker Crust in glass or foil pie plate

4 egg yolks

3 oz. fresh squeezed key lime juice

1 14 oz. can of sweetened condensed milk

3 heaping spoonfuls of Cool Whip

Combine egg yolks and sweetened condensed milk. Mix well using hand held beaters. Slowly add lime juice. Mix well. Add Cool Whip. Mix well. Pour filling into prepared pie crust. Bake for 10 minutes. Allow pie to cool on the counter for an additional 20 minutes. Place pie in fridge for 4-8 hours to cool completely. Can be made a day in advance.

Epicurious.com Key Lime Pie (slightly altered from their original recipe)

1 prepared graham cracker crust in pie plate

1 14 ounce can of sweetened condensed milk

4 egg yolks

1/2 cup fresh key lime juice

1 tablespoon fresh key lime zest

Whisk together condensed milk and yolks in a bowl until well combined. Add juice and whisk until well combined (mixture will thicken slightly). Pour filling into crust and bake in oven for 15 minutes. Cool pie on rack (filling will cool as it sets), then chill, covered, for a least 8 hours.

Topping: Beat cold heavy cream with 1 tablespoon of confectioners sugar and 1/2 teaspoon of pure vanilla extract.

Ina Garten Frozen Key Lime Pie

6 extra large egg yolks

1/4 cup of sugar

1 14 oz. can of sweetened condensed sugar

2 tablespoons fresh grated lime zest

3/4 cup of freshly squeezed key lime juice

For decoration:

1 cup cold heavy cream

1/4 cup sugar

1/4 teaspoon of pure vanilla extract

Beat egg yolks and sugar on high speed with electric mixer for 5 minutes until thick. On medium speek, beat in the condensed milk, lime zest and lime juice. Pour into prepared crust, in a SPRINGFORM pan and freeze for about 8 hours.

For decoration, beat the heavy cream on high speed of electric mixer until soft peaks form. Add sugar and vanilla and beat until firm. Spoon, spread or pipe onto the pie. Garnish with lime wedges.

And there you have it. Three Key Lime Pie recipes for the testing. Slice up and enjoy!

Oh… and this happened on my way to deliver some of these pies. They are now fondly known as the Pies of Mass Destruction.