Key Lime Pie Fudge

I absolutely love key lime pie, so when I saw a recipe for key lime pie fudge it took me all of .25 seconds to start writing down the ingredients on my grocery list. I had high hopes for this, and it did not disappoint. It's insanely easy to make. The only hard thing about this is keeping yourself from eating it all, because this stuff is addictive!

I thought this was really good the way it is, but when I make it again I think I'll increase the lime juice a little more. That's just a personal preference though. I like my citrus desserts to be really tart! I also added a pinch of salt to the fudge, which I think is necessary to cut the sweetness from all the white chocolate. With summer bbq's right around the corner, I have a feeling this will be making its way into my kitchen a lot!

Key Lime Pie Fudge
Recipe: Slightly adapted from Dozen Flours

Ingredients:

• 1/3 cup unsalted butter
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1-1/4 cups finely crushed graham crackers
• 3 cups or 4, 4-oz bars of good quality white chocolate, finely chopped
  
• 14-ounce can sweetened condensed milk
• 1 tablespoon finely grated Key lime zest, about 5-6 Key limes
  
• 1/4 cup key lime juice – freshly squeezed is better

Directions:

1. Line a square 8"x8 baking pan with foil or parchment paper, extending it up and over pan (this helps you get it out of the pan later). Butter sides and bottom of the pan, especially the corners. Set aside.
2. To make the crust: Preheat oven to 375. In a medium sized bowl, melt butter in them microwave. Stir in sugar with a fork, braking up any lumps. Add crushed graham crackers and toss to mix well. Spread evenly into the baking pan and bake for 4 to 5 minutes or until edge is lightly browned. Remove from the oven and let cool on a wire rack.
   
3. Stir white chocolate and sweetened condensed milk in a large heavy saucepan over low heat just until chocolate is melted and all the lumps are gone. Remove from heat and stir in zest and juice. Spread mixture evenly into the prepared pan.
4. Cover and chill for two hours or overnight. Lift the fudge from pan using edges of foil. Peel off foil and use a heavy non-serrated knife to cut the fudge into one-inch pieces. (Tip: Keep a damp kitchen towel handy to clean off the knife after each cut. This will keep give your fudge a cleaner appearance.) Store in an airtight container at room temperature for up to one week.

Meyer Lemon Bars

I've been on the search for meyer lemons for such a long time. For years I kept hearing about them, reading about them, seeing them on tv, but I just couldn't find them! For a lemon lover, this was torture. I had just about given up when I saw a box at Wegman's a few weeks ago. I knew exactly what I wanted to do with them!

(Ross is such a good hand model, isn't he?)

Lemon bars are kind of like chocolate chip cookies for me. I am always looking for that perfect recipe. The crust needs to be buttery and firm, not too soggy and not too crisp. The filling needs to be tart and not too sweet. I want a lemon bar that will make my mouth pucker. It should have plenty of lemon juice and lemon zest! And most important, the filling needs to be plentiful. I like a lemon bar with a high filling to crust ratio. This recipe definitely fits the bill! The ratio of sweet to tart is perfect. The only thing I may change next time is to increase the filling recipe by 50% to get a taller bar. Whether I'm using meyer lemons or regular lemons, this is officially my go to lemon bar recipe!

Recipe: Meyer Lemon Bars
The Crust From: My Baking Addiction
Ingredients

• 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 2/3 cup confectioners’ sugar
  
• 1/4 cup cornstarch
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 12 tablespoons unsalted butter -- (1 1/2 sticks) at
• very cool room temperature, cut into
• 1-inch pieces, plus extra for greasing pan

The Filling
Ingredients:

• 4 extra-large eggs at room temperature
• 1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
• 2 tablespoons grated lemon zest
  
• 3/4 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice
• 1/3 cup flour
• Confectioners' sugar, for dusting

Directions:

1. For the crust: Adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 350 degrees. Lightly butter a 13-by-9-inch baking dish and line with one sheet parchment or wax paper. Dot paper with butter, then lay second sheet crosswise over it.
2. Pulse flour, confectioners’ sugar, cornstarch, and salt in food processor workbowl fitted with steel blade. Add butter and process to blend, 8 to 10 seconds, then pulse until mixture is pale yellow and resembles coarse meal, about three 1-second bursts. (To do this by hand, mix flour, confectioners’ sugar, cornstarch, and salt in medium bowl. Freeze butter and grate it on large holes of box grater into flour mixture. Toss butter pieces to coat. Rub pieces between your fingers for a minute, until flour turns pale yellow and coarse.) Sprinkle mixture into lined pan and press firmly with fingers into even, 1/4-inch layer over entire pan bottom and about 1/2 inch up sides. Refrigerate for 30 minutes, then bake until golden brown, about 20 minutes.
3. For the filling, whisk together the eggs, sugar, lemon zest, lemon juice, and flour. Pour over the crust and bake for 30 to 35 minutes, until the filling is set. Let cool to room temperature.
4. Dust with Confectioners’ sugar and cut into squares.

Chocolate Chip Banana Walnut Bread

...and I'm back. After taking a longer than expected break from blogging, I'm back, with the only banana bread recipe that you will ever need. The last few months have been pretty busy for me so blogging and baking have taken a back seat, but the other day I saw some overripe bananas on my counter and I knew what needed to be done.

I set out to find the best banana bread recipe and narrowed my search down to 2 recipes: This highly rated recipe from AllRecipes.com and a recipe from Baking Illustrated. As luck would have it, I found an awesome blog that made and compared to two recipes and the Baking Illustrated bread was the clear winner. After doing a bunch of reading about banana bread I learned a few important tips:

1. Use very, very, very ripe bananas. The ugly brown spotty ones.
2. If you're using walnuts, toast them before putting them into the bread. It gives them a great flavor.
3. Use yogurt over buttermilk or sour cream.
4. Melt the butter as opposed to creaming it with the sugar.

Overall, I was very impressed with this bread. It had great banana flavor, a perfect crumb, and lasted for days without getting too dry or soggy.

Chocolate Chip Banana Walnut Bread
Recipe: Adapted from Baking Illustrated, seen here
Ingredients:

• 2 cups all purpose flour
• 3/4 cup of sugar
• 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/2 cups very ripe, soft, darkly speckled large bananas, mashed well (~3 bananas)
• 1/3 cup plain yogurt
• 2 large eggs, beaten lightly
• 6 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and cooled (3/4 stick)
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup walnuts, chopped coarse (optional)
• 1/2 cup chocolate chips

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F and grease the bottom/sides of a 9 by 5 loaf pan. If your walnuts aren’t toasted, spread them on a baking sheet and toast them until fragrant for 5-10 minutes. Set aside to cool.
2. Whisk the flour, sugar, baking soda, and salt together in a large bowl. Set aside
3. Mix the mashed bananas, yogurt, eggs, butter, and vanilla with a wooden spoon in a medium bowl. Lightly fold the banana mixture into the dry ingredients with a rubber spatula until just combined. Fold in the nuts and chocolate. The batter should look thick and chunky. Scrape into the loaf pan.
4. Bake for about60 minutes or until you can insert a toothpick and it comes out clean. Cool for a few minutes then eat! You can keep this bread for up to 3 days if properly wrapped in plastic wrap.

Pumpkin Cookies with Cream Cheese Icing

More pumpkin stuff and cream cheese stuff? Yup, more pumpkin and cream cheese stuff! And I have a small confession to make about these cookies. I made them a year ago for a Halloween party I went to last year. By the time I got around to uploading the pictures Halloween was long gone, so I figured I'd wait to this year to post them. I'm actually very impressed with myself for remembering about them!

These cookies were a huge hit at the party I brought them too. But then again, would you expect anything less when you top a pumpkin cookie with cream cheese icing? I didn't think so. The cookies are light and cakey and frosting adds the perfect finishing touch.

The recipe makes a huge amount of cookies so feel free to scale it down, or just do what I did and make huge cookies! I ended up using about 1/4 cup of dough for each cookie.

Pumpkin Cookies with Cream Cheese Icing
Recipe: Adapted from www.allrecipes.com, Seen at My Baking Addiction

Ingredients

• 2 cups unsalted butter; softened
• 2 cups white sugar
• 2 cups canned pumpkin (solid; not pie mix)
• 2 eggs
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 3 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice
• 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 4 cups all-purpose flour

Directions
1. Cream butter, white sugar and pumpkin. Add eggs and mix well.
2. Sift together the baking soda, ground cinnamon, pumpkin pie spice, nutmeg, salt and flour. Add to pumpkin mixture and mix well.
3. Drop from spoon to cookie sheet. Bake 13-15 minutes at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).

Cream Cheese Icing

Ingredients

• 1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese, softened
• 2 tablespoons butter, softened
• 3-4 cups confectioners’ sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  
• 2 tablespoons milk

Directions
Mix the cream cheese with the butter, confectioners’ sugar, vanilla extract, and milk in a bowl. Heat in a microwave for 15 seconds. Drizzle spoonfuls over the cooled cookies and smooth with the back of a spoon or a spatula.

Pumpkin Cheesecake Muffins

Hello, my new favorite pumpkin treat! Nice to meet you. Where have you been all my life?

Oh... are you expecting me say more about these? Are the pictures not enough to make you want to go bake them RIGHT NOW. Ok fine, I don't think words will do them justice, but I'll try. This muffin is a cross between a cupcake, pumpkin pie, and cheesecake. It's Fall in a bite. They're easy to make and even easier to look at. The only hard thing about these is watching them leave as your husband takes them to work.

I got the idea from these muffins over at Annies Eats. I used the same base, but instead of molding the cream cheese into log, freezing it, slicing it, and hiding it in the middle of muffin I decided to alter the filling a little bit and go black bottom cupcake style with these. I like the idea of the cream cheese showing so you know exactly what's in store. And the cinnamon sugar topping? That's just a nice little bonus that adds the perfect finishing touch!

Pumpkin Cheesecake Muffins
Muffin and Topping adapted from: Annies Eats
Makes: About 45 mini muffins (12 regular)

For the filling:

• 8 oz. cream cheese, softened
• 1 large egg
• 1 tbls flour
  
• 1 cup confectioners’ sugar

For the muffins:

• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp. ground nutmeg
• 1/2 tsp. ground cloves
• 1/2 tbsp. plus 1/2 tsp. pumpkin pie spice
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 1/2 tsp. baking soda
• 2 large eggs
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 cup pumpkin puree
• 1/2 cup + 2 tbls vegetable oil

For the topping:

• 1/4 cup sugar
• 2 1/2 tbsp. flour
• 3/4 tsp. ground cinnamon
• 2tbsp. cold unsalted butter, cut into pieces

Directions:

1. To prepare the filling, combine the cream cheese, egg, flour and confectioners’ sugar in a medium bowl and mix well until blended and smooth. Set aside.
2. To make the muffins, preheat the oven to 350˚ F. Line muffin pans with paper liners. In a medium bowl, combine the flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, pumpkin pie spice, salt and baking soda; whisk to blend. In the bowl of an electric mixer combine the eggs, sugar, pumpkin puree and oil. Mix on medium-low speed until blended. With the mixer on low speed, add in the dry ingredients, mixing just until incorporated.
3. To make the topping, combine the sugar, flour and cinnamon in a small bowl; whisk to blend. Add in the butter pieces and cut into the dry ingredients with a pastry blender or two forks until the mixture is coarse and crumbly. Transfer to the refrigerator until ready to use.
4. To assemble the muffins, fill each muffin about 2/3 full with batter. Add a dollop of filling on top. (I would say I used about a tablespoon of batter and a heaping teaspoon of filling. They were pretty full going into the oven.) Sprinkle with topping. Bake or 14 minutes. Cool. Eat. Smile.
   

Caramel Corn

This post is going out with a disclaimer: This stuff is seriously addicting! I didn't even think I liked caramel corn that much, but I (along with 10 other people) could not stop eating this!

I took a giant batch of this to my friends place for Canadian Thanksgiving and even after we ate dinner and dessert, and everyone was as full as could be, hands were still reaching into the bowl of caramel corn because they just couldn't get enough. It's easy to make this festive and colorful by adding in seasonal candy. I added in candy corn to half of the batch and some fall colored m&m's to the other half.

Make this soon, but make sure you have plenty of friends to share with, because trust me if it's just you and the caramel corn, the caramel corn will win.

Caramel Corn
Adapted from www.allrecipes.com
Ingredients:

• 7 quarts plain popped popcorn
• 2 cups dry roasted peanuts (optional)
• 2 cups brown sugar
• 1/2 cup light corn syrup
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup butter
  
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions:

1. Line 2 large baking sheets with parchment paper. Preheat the oven to 250 degrees F (120 degrees C).
   
2. Make popcorn and place in a large bowl (or 2 large bowls). I actually used a double bagged brown bag from the grocery store. It worked great and cleanup was easy!
   
3. Combine the brown sugar, corn syrup, butter and salt in a saucepan. Bring to a boil over medium heat, stirring enough to blend. Once the mixture begins to boil, boil for 5 minutes while stirring constantly.
4. Remove from the heat, and stir in the baking soda and vanilla. The mixture will be light and foamy. Immediately pour over the popcorn in the bowls or bag. Stir to coat.
   
5. Bake for 1 hour, removing the pans, and giving them each a good stir every 15 minutes. After it has baked separate into pieces if need. Allow to cool completely, then store in airtight containers or resealable bags

Chocolate Peanut Butter Cake

I do a lot of stupid things, but this one takes the cake (pun intended). I had this recipe bookmarked for 2 years before I got around to making it. Two whole years! Why oh why did I wait this long to make it? It is hands down the best cake I've ever made.

I don't make cakes all that often because I prefer cookies, brownies, and cupcakes (things that are easy to send to work with Ross), but when the occasion presents itself I love making layer cakes.

Last week was Ross' 29th birthday. When I was giving him a few options for a cake to choose from, I'm pretty sure he didn't hear anything after I said "Chocolate Peanut Butter." I read off the list to him, but I could tell he was just waiting for me finish talking so he could blurt out "I want the chocolate peanut butter one!"

This cake did not disappoint. The cake itself was light and moist. It wasn't too too chocolaty, which was good when you paired it with the peanut butter frosting. And the peanut butter frosting... there are no words. Just go make it. I know it sounds weird because it has peanut butter and cream cheese, but trust me on this one, it's amazing. And the chocolate peanut butter ganache is the perfect finishing touch (not to mention it does a great job hiding all the frosting imperfections)!

A few notes about the recipe:

1. I'm leaving the original instructions for the cake, which produces a 8 inch cake. I ended up halving the recipe and making a 6 inch cake. I did not halve the recipe for the frosting or the ganache. I had leftover, but don't worry, I put them to good use. :)
   
2. The original ganache recipe calls for 8 ounces of chocolate, but I read comments on the original post from people who had trouble with the ganache spreading so I reduced the chocolate down to 6 ounces.
3. This cake is rich and intense, serve it in the thinnest slices possible!
   

Chocolate Peanut Butter Cake Recipe: Adapted from Smitten Kitchen Makes an 8-inch triple-layer cake

2 cups all-purpose flour
2 1/2 cups sugar
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder, preferably Dutch process
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup neutral vegetable oil, such as canola, soybean or vegetable blend
1 cup sour cream
1 1/2 cups water
2 tablespoons distilled white vinegar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 eggs
1/2 cup chopped peanuts (I used honey roasted), optional

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Butter the bottoms and sides of three 8-inch round cakepans. Line the bottom of each pan with a round of parchment or waxed paper and butter the paper.

2. Sift the flour, sugar, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt into a large bowl. Whisk to combine them well. Add the oil and sour cream and whisk to blend. Gradually beat in the water. Blend in the vinegar and vanilla. Whisk in the eggs and beat until well blended. Scrape down the sides of the bowl and be sure the batter is well mixed. Divide among the 3 prepared cake pans.

3. Bake for 30 to 35 minutes, or until a cake tester or wooden toothpick inserted in the center comes out almost clean. Let cool in the pans for about 20 minutes. Invert onto wire racks, carefully peel off the paper liners, and let cool completely. (Deb note: These cakes are very, very soft. I found them a lot easier to work with after firming them up in the freezer for 30 minutes. They’ll defrost quickly once assembled. You’ll be glad you did this, trust me.)

4. To frost the cake, place one layer, flat side up, on a cake stand or large serving plate. Spread 2/3 cup cup of the Peanut Butter Frosting evenly over the top. Repeat with the next layer. Place the last layer on top and frost the top and sides of the cake with the remaining frosting. Once the cake is fully frosted, it helps to chill it again and let it firm up. The cooler and more set the peanut butter frosting is, the better drip effect you’ll get from the Chocolate-Peanut Butter Glaze.

5. To decorate with the Chocolate–Peanut Butter Glaze, put the cake plate on a large baking sheet to catch any drips. Simply pour the glaze over the top of the cake, and using an offset spatula, spread it evenly over the top just to the edges so that it runs down the sides of the cake in long drips. Decorate the top with chopped peanuts. Refrigerate, uncovered, for at least 30 minutes to allow the glaze and frosting to set completely. Remove about 1 hour before serving.

Peanut Butter Frosting
Makes about 5 cups

10 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature
1 stick (4 ounces) unsalted butter, at room temperature
5 cups confectioners’ sugar, sifted
2/3 cup smooth peanut butter, preferably a commercial brand (because oil doesn’t separate out)

1. In a large bowl with an electric mixer, beat the cream cheese and butter until light and fluffy. Gradually add the confectioners’ sugar 1 cup at a time, mixing thoroughly after each addition and scraping down the sides of the bowl often. Continue to beat on medium speed until light and fluffy, 3 to 4 minutes.

2. Add the peanut butter and beat until thoroughly blended.

Chocolate-Peanut Butter Glaze
Makes about 1 1/2 cups

6 ounces seimsweet chocolate, coarsely chopped
3 tablespoons smooth peanut butter
2 tablespoons light corn syrup
1/2 cup half-and-half

1. In the top of d double boiler or in a bowl set over simmering water, combine the chocolate, peanut butter, and corn syrup. Cook, whisking often, until the chocolate is melted and the mixture is smooth.

2. Remove from the heat and whisk in the half-and-half, beating until smooth. Use while still warm.