recipe Archives - Page 6 of 10

Orange-Cranberry Pound Cake

December 21, 2014 by Jenna

Orange-cranberry pound cake. In my kitchen. It’s happening.

Or rather, it happened.

Know what also happened? Rain. RAIN! In December. In Minnesota. Just a few short days before Christmas. What.The.Heck. Why is this happening? Where is the snow?

The forecast says 70% of snow for Tuesday. I’ll keep my fingers crossed for a Christmas miracle. I hope you do the same.

While I wait and hope, hope, hope for the snow I will be enjoying this orange-cranberry pound cake.

I haven’t used my bundt pan in what seems like forever and ever and ever, so I decided to take a quick break from the cookie baking and whip up a pound cake.

This pound cake recipe comes from Rose Levy Beranbaum’s The Cake Bible (which is full of some killer recipes and awesome baking tips) and is dubbed the “perfect pound cake”. Traditionally pound cakes are equal parts butter, sugar, flour, and eggs; however, this recipe has just a little extra butter giving the cake more of that delicious buttery flavor and some nice, tender crumbs. This pound cake is so moist (I don’t care if you hate that word) and has just the right level of sweetness.

To add a little festive twist, I threw in some orange zest and cranberries. The orange flavor is just barely there in the background and the cranberries give little bursts of tart juices in each bite, along with some beautiful color.

The only thing that would make this cake more delicious is a drizzle of some glaze, because as I mentioned before, it’s not very sweet. Unfortunately I was fresh out of powdered sugar. I am the worst. So please bake this, stir up some powdered sugar and orange juice, drizzle it all over the pound cake, and tell me how it is. Thank you. You’re the best.

Now I am going to go spend the rest of the evening wrapping presents and eating pound cake and watching Christmas movies and drinking hot chocolate and wishing for snow.

I hope you are all ready for Christmas and are able to spend lots of quality time with friends and family over the next few days!

Orange-Cranberry Pound Cake

Prep time

10 mins

Cook time

40 mins

Total time

50 mins

Perfect moist and tender pound cake with hints of orange and pops of cranberry.

Author: slightly adapted from "The Cake Bible"

Serves: 12 pieces

Ingredients

3 tablespoons milk
3 eggs
1 ½ teaspoons vanilla
1 tablespoon freshly squeezed orange juice
zest for one orange
1 ½ cups cake flour
¾ cups sugar
¾ teaspoons baking powder
¼ teaspoon salt
13 tablespoons unsalted butter, room temperature
1 ½ cups fresh cranberries

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Butter a bundt pan and dust with flour.
In a medium bowl, combine the milk, eggs, vanilla, and orange juice.
In a large bowl, combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt. Mix on low for 30 seconds.
Add the orange zest, butter and half of the egg mixture. Mix on low until all the dry ingredients are moistened. Beat for 1 minute on medium.
Add the remaining egg mixture and beat for 30 seconds.
Stir in the cranberries.
Pour batter into the prepared pan and bake for 40 minutes or until a toothpick is inserted and comes out clean.
Let the cake sit in the pan for about 10 minutes before inverting on a rack to cool completely. This is the time you would ideally add the glaze.

Notes

If you don't have cake flour and don't want to buy any, use all-purpose flour, but take out 1½ tablespoons of the flour and replace it with 1½ tablespoons corn starch.

PS – Remember when I made these awesome cookies and talked about The Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap? Well here are the recipe roundups: part 1 and part 2. Check them out and get baking! So many amazing cookiessss!!!!!

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Christmas Treasure Drop Cookies

December 15, 2014 by Jenna

I need to tell you about these Christmas treasure drop cookies, because I think you need them in your life.

Two years ago my mom and I started entering the Star Tribune’s Holiday Cookie Contest. We brainstorm. We bake. We taste test. By the end of the day the kitchen is covered in flour and we have sugar pulsing through our veins. It is always so much fun.

This year for the contest we made these Christmas treasure drop cookies based off of the classic treasure chest bars, one of my mom’s favorite Christmas treats. When my mom first brought up the idea I was a bit skeptical. Maraschino cherries in cookies? Umm… not sure about that, but I said we could try it as long as we used brown butter in the cookie dough. She agreed to my terms and we tried it out.

OH MY GOODNESS. I am not lying to you when I say that these are some of the best Christmas cookies ever. EVERRRR.

Who knew that maraschino cherries, toasted walnuts, chocolate chips, and brown butter would taste so magical together?!?

Not I.

But now I do and I need to share this with you.

The cookie dough itself isn’t overly sweet, but gets a crazy amount of flavor from the brown butter and is packed full of maraschino cherries, toasted walnuts, and chocolate chips. Oh, and love too. There is a lot of love in these cookies. Let the dough sit in the fridge for at least an hour (but overnight is best) so that all these flavors can meld together. I kid you not, the extra time is totally worth it.

After being baked and cooled these cookies are topped with a brown butter frosting. No Christmas cookie is quite complete without some sort of frosting. Right? Yes. Plus, the frosting helps get these cookies up to that perfect level of sweetness and also amplifies the brown butter taste in the dough.

We didn’t win the contest, but in the process we had a blast and discovered our new favorite Christmas cookie (these ones if that wasn’t obvious). Our first two years we made the honorable mention with these and these. This year we just got mentioned – still fun!

This year I was able to join in on The Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap hosted by Lindsay from Love and Olive Oil and Julie from The Little Kitchen. Hundreds of food bloggers participate each year and help raise money for Cookies For Kid’s Cancer. I was so excited to be a part of it this year!

I instantly knew that these Christmas treasure drop cookies were the ones that I needed to send out. I baked up and bunch and sent out a dozen each to Bree from Baked Bree, Amanda from Fun in the Oven Blog, and Faith from Pixie Dust Kitchen.

I then received some ridiculously amazing cookies in return from Ellen and Aimee (Like Mother Like Daughter), Linda (Food Huntress), and Ashley (Taylors 4 You).

I had such a fun time being a part of this cookie swap! I loved sending out the boxes (I rarely mail things, so it just seemed so exciting). I loved getting all the packages and eating (and sharing) all the cookies. And I loved getting the opportunity to connect with other bloggers. The whole experience was such a treat.

So anyways, these Christmas treasure drop cookies. Please make them! I promise you won’t regret it.

Also, all the other food bloggers that participated in the cookie swap will be posting their cookie recipes today too, so make sure to check out all the links above. A full list of ALL 500+ the cookie submissions will be sent out on Friday. Get excited. But be careful, you may end up drooling all over your keyboard…

Christmas Treasure Drop Cookies

These are my new favorite Christmas cookies! The cookies are packed full of brown butter, maraschino cherries, toasted walnuts, and chocolate chips and topped with a brown butter frosting.

Serves: 4 dozen

Ingredients

For the Cookies:

1 cup walnuts, chopped
15 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 ice cube
2 cups flour
1 ½ teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
½ cup brown sugar
½ cup granulated sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1-10oz jar maraschino cherries, quartered
1 ½ cups chocolate chips

For the Frosting:

¼ cup brown butter (included in butter quantity listed for the cookies)
2 cups powdered sugar
½ teaspoon vanilla
2 tablespoons milk

Instructions

Pre-heat the oven to 350° F. Line baking sheets with parchment paper and set aside.
To toast the nuts: spread nuts on a baking sheet and bake for about 10-15 minutes until golden brown. Stir them around occasionally (every 5 minutes or so) to ensure they are not burning. Once toasted, set aside.
To brown the butter: melt butter in a medium saucepan. Whisk the melted butter until brown specks appear at the bottom, it will froth and foam a bit. Watch closely and be careful not to burn. It should be a light brown color and have a nutty aroma. Place ½ cup of the browned butter into a heatproof bowl and whisk in an ice cube. This will be used for the cookies. Place the remaining ¼ cup aside to use for the frosting.
In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.
In a large bowl, add the ½ cup brown butter and the sugars. Mix on medium speed of an electric mixer until smooth and combined, about 2-3 minutes. Mix in the eggs and vanilla until thoroughly combined. Stir in the dry ingredients until just combined. Fold in the nuts, maraschino cherries, and chocolate chips.
Let the dough sit in the refrigerated for one hour or overnight.
Place scoops of cookie dough onto the prepared pans. Bake for 8-11 minutes. Let cool on the sheet for a few minutes before moving to a cooling rack to cool completely.
Make the frosting while the cookies are cooling. Place the remaining ¼ cup brown butter, 1 ½ cup of powdered sugar, milk, and vanilla into a mixing bowl. Beat on medium until smooth and creamy, about 3 minutes. Add in the remaining sugar ¼ cup at a time until the frosting has reached your desired consistency. It should be thick enough to easily spread.
Once the cookies are completely cooled, spread a nice layer of frosting on each one. Serve and enjoy!

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Peanut Butter Stuffed Jalapeños

November 15, 2014 by Jenna

I’m going to spice things up a bit. It’s Saturday, why not get a little crazy? And what’s crazier than jalapeños?

NOTE: Lots of things are crazier than jalapeños. However, this does not stop me from telling you about these amazing peanut butter stuffed jalapeños. I went to Butcher and the Boar for dinner a couple of weeks ago. This place is soooo good. If you live near Minneapolis, please go. Make reservations right now. They have an awesome floor made of pennies, a huge selection of good meats and sausages, and a lot of bourbon. Check.It.Out.

Besides bourbon and meat and pennies, they also have these amazing stuffed jalapeños. Initially one would think they are stuffed with cream cheese, which is, you know, cool and all. But noooo. No, these are stuffed with a peanut butter cream cheese mixture. PEANUT BUTTER. Then they are baked and sprinkled with feta and golden raisins.

Delicious. They are unlike anything I have ever tried before.

Peanut butter in jalapeños – weird, right? It works. Those people at Butcher and the Boar know what they are doing.

Anyways, I had to recreate them.

I wish I could say that my version was as delicious as the real thing, but I cannot. I am not a master chef and posses very little skill in the kitchen. I just like to experiment, cook, and eat. However, I will say that these are still pretty delicious.

Not only are they delicious, they are also easy to make. We take our jalapeños, cut them in half, and then scrape out the seeds. Next we make the filling by mixing together cream cheese and peanut butter with a little bit of lime juice. The filling is stuffed into the jalapeño halves and placed in the oven for 25 minutes.

Now it’s time to place them on a serving tray, sprinkle them with feta cheese and golden raisins, and then add a drizzle of honey.

If you think about it, these are kind of like a fancier, less healthy, spicier version of ants on a log. The jalapeño replaces the celery (both green). The peanut butter is still there, but cream cheese is added to it. Raisins are placed on top, but are golden and, therefore, more sophisticated.

Do you see it or am I crazy?

Again, it’s Saturday.

I think these stuffed jalapeños would be a great little appetizer to serve at a gathering of friends, like Friendsgiving for example. You can prep the jalapeños ahead of time and place them in the oven right before your guests arrive.

You can also wrap them in bacon, because I think that would be awesome and no one would yell at you for doing this. Unless all your friends are vegetarian. Then that’s just completely rude on your part. But then you can eat all the bacon peanut butter jalapeños yourself. So, do what you want.

You can also make them and eat them for dinner with cauliflower mashed potatoes.

But who does that?

No one.

Ok, me. I did last night.

Peanut Butter Stuffed Jalapeños

Prep time

5 mins

Cook time

25 mins

Total time

30 mins

These are not your typical stuffed jalapeños. The classic cream cheese filling is elevated with the addition of peanut butter and lime juice. They are then baked and topped with feta cheese, golden raisins, and honey. A quick and easy appetizer to pull together for guests!

Serves: 12 servings

Ingredients

4oz cream cheese, softened
½ cup creamy peanut butter
1 tablespoon lime juice
6 jalapeños, halved lengthwise, seeded
Garnishes: feta cheese, golden raisins, honey

Instructions

Heat oven to 375 degrees. Line cookie sheet with foil.
In small bowl, mix cream cheese, peanut butter, and lime juice.
Place the jalapeño halves on the cookie sheet and fill with the peanut butter mixture.
Bake 25 minutes.
Place jalapeños on a serving platter, sprinkle with feta cheese and golden raisins, and drizzle with honey. These are best served warm.

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Brown Butter Pumpkin Bars with Cream Cheese Frosting

November 9, 2014 by Jenna

Are you sick of pumpkin yet? I really, really hope not, because you need to make these pumpkin bars. They are so so so so so so so so sooooooo good.

Trust me.

Brown butter. Cream Cheese. Toasted Walnuts. PUMPKIN. Gaaahhhhh. You just can’t go wrong here.

My mom makes these pumpkin bars every year. They are amazing as is, but let’s just face it, brown butter makes everything better sooooo… I re-created them with brown butter. Then I threw in brown sugar and walnuts too for the heck of it. Hey, why not?! We’re gettin’ cray in the kitchen.

Speaking of cray, don’t freak out, there are five sticks of butter in this recipe. I know, I know, that’s a lot of butter; however, this recipe makes A LOT of bars, so it kind of evens out. Plus, they are just too good to not eat. YOLO. Run an extra few miles this week.

Butter is back anyways, right? It’s ok.

The bars itself are not too sweet and have the perfect amount of pumpkiny-spice flavor. They are soft, moist (sorry if you hate that word), and cakey with just a little bit of crunch from the walnuts.

Then there is the frosting. Ooohhhh, this frosting! Cream cheese frosting is always incredible, but with the addition of brown butter… incredible to the max. I kid you not.

Make these. Eat five. Save six more for yourself. Then bring the remaining to work/bake sale/Friendsgiving/Thanksgiving/wherever people accept baked goods. Since the recipe makes so many bars no one will even know that you hoarded some for yourself.

You should have them for dessert after eating this soup. Pumpkin, pumpkin everywhere.

Make sure to add in a few workouts (like this, this, or this) to sweat out some of that brown butter. Life is a balance.

Brown Butter Pumpkin Bars with Brown Butter Cream Cheese Frosting

These pumpkin bars are so good. They are super soft and have tons of flavor from the brown butter in both the bar and the cream cheese frosting. This recipe makes a lot of bars, so you'll be able to keep some for yourself and share with friends.

Ingredients

For the bars:

2 cups walnuts
1¼ cups butter (2 ½ sticks)
3 eggs
1 cup brown sugar
⅔ cup white sugar
29-ounce can pumpkin puree
2 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon ginger
¼ teaspoon cloves
¼ teaspoon all spice
¼ teaspoon nutmeg

For the frosting:

1¼ cups butter (2 ½ sticks)
8 ounces cream cheese, softened
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2-4 cups powdered sugar

Instructions

Pre-heat the oven to 350° F. Grease an 11x17-inch jelly roll pan.
To toast the nuts: spread walnuts on a baking sheet and bake for about 10-15 minutes until golden brown. Stir them around occasionally (every 5 minutes or so) to ensure they are not burning. Once toasted, chop roughly and set aside.
To brown the butter: melt butter in a medium saucepan. Whisk the melted butter until brown specks appear at the bottom, it will froth and foam a bit. Watch closely and be careful not to burn. It should be a light brown color and have a nutty aroma. Save one cup for the bars and one cup for the frosting.
In a medium bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and spices. Set aside.
In the bowl of an electric mixer, combine 1 cup of brown butter, the eggs, sugars, and pumpkin. Mix on medium until lights and fluffy, about 3 minutes.
Add in the dry ingredients and mix until thoroughly combined. Stir in the walnuts.
Spread the batter in the prepared pan and bake for 27-30 minutes. Let the bars cool completely.
To make the frosting: cream together the cream cheese and butter, about 3 minutes. Stir in vanilla. Add 2 cups of the powdered sugar and beat until smooth. Add the remaining powdered sugar ½ cup at a time until desired consistency is reached.
When the bars have cooled completely, spread the frosting evenly over the bars. Cut into squares and serve! Store leftovers in the refrigerator.

Notes

You can substitute all the spices with 1 teaspoon of cinnamon and 2 teaspoons of pumpkin pie spice.

Slightly adapted from allrecipes.com.

PS- I took a break from knitting and watching Christmas movies on Hallmark to write this. Is that bad? I might be getting too far ahead of myself.

PPS- no, I’m not 80-years old. Knitting is cool.

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Basic Banana Bread

November 7, 2014 by Jenna

Some days just aren’t my days. On these days alliwannado is bake. So bake is what I shall do. And bake is what I did.

I didn’t want anything complicated. Something simple that was comforting and delicious. No tricky concoctions. No big mixer. Just some bowls and spoons and some simple baking magic.

Thus we have here: basic banana bread.

When I say basic, I mean basic. This is banana bread at essentially its purest form: 2 parts flour, 2 parts liquid, 1 part egg, 1 part fat. I also added some toasted walnuts and cinnamon, because walnuts, cinnamon, and bananas are like the three best friends and we needn’t separate best friends.

Baking like this is therapy. It’s a no fuss recipe. All we need here is ten ingredients, two bowls, some measuring equipment, and a whisk.

Mix the dry. Mix the wet. Combine the dry and the wet. Stir in some nuts and pop it in the oven. That’s it. That’s all it takes. The only difficult part is waiting for it to bake while your kitchen fills with the sweet banana bread smell.

Even those who “cannot bake” can successfully make this bread happen. I promise you.

When I say that it is basic, I don’t mean to say that is isn’t delicious. It is. This banana bread is goooooood. I want to curl up inside of it and take a warm, cozy, banana bread nap. But since I am not Miss Frizzle and cannot in fact shrink myself to fit inside the banana bread (remember this episode?!), I will instead settle for enjoying it with a big ole cup of coffee and a brand new day. Like I did this morning and will tomorrow morning too.

Last night I decided that with the whole pain in my hip/leg/knee I am just going to stop running. Not one more running step until I walk up to the start line of the Philadelphia Marathon on November 23 and hear the starting gun… or whistle or announcement or whatever they use to signify the start of the run (plus about 5 minutes, because I’ll be at the back of the pack). Then from there I will try to run/walk/survive 26.2 miles while having as much fun as I possibly can. Who knows, maybe with all the rest I will have some sort of Philly Rocky miracle. Riiiiighttt???

In the meantime I will get an x-ray (eeks!) and do lots of yoga and cross training and foam rolling and, let’s face it, baking.

So there will be other days for fancy banana breads with brown butter or coconut oil or peanut butter or chocolate chips or cocoa nibs or all of the above. Today, however, is just a basic banana bread day.

Basic Banana Bread

Prep time

10 mins

Cook time

50 mins

Total time

1 hour

This basic banana bread is both simple and delicious. Enjoy it with coffee and your favorite spread for breakfast or as a snack!

Serves: 1 loaf

Ingredients

2 scant cups all-purpose flour (see note)
½ cup + 1 tablespoon granulated sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
½ cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted
2 medium overripe bananas, mashed
¼ cup buttermilk
2 large eggs
1 cup walnuts, chopped and toasted

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 9x5 inch loaf pan.
In a small bowl, mix together the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon.
In a medium bowl, combine the melted butter, mashed bananas, buttermilk, and eggs. Whisk until combined. Having some small banana lumps is completely ok.
Add the wet ingredients into the dry and stir until just combined.
Stir in the walnuts, saving some for the top of the loaf.
Pour the batter into the prepared pan and sprinkle with the remaining walnuts.
Bake for 50 minutes or until a toothpick is inserted and comes out clean.
Let the bread cool in the pan for 10-15 minutes before removing and transferring to a cooling rack.
Slice and serve the bread warm with your favorite spread. It will keep well for a few days wrapped in plastic wrap or in the freezer for a few months.

Notes

When measuring the flour spoon the flour into the measuring cup rather than using the cup to scoop out the flour. The first cup can be full, but make the second one just a little bit short.

Toast the walnuts by placing them on a baking pan in the oven for 5-10 minutes or until fragrant. You can go ahead and put them in right when you start the oven, no need to wait until it is fully pre-heated!

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Hearty, Healthy Pumpkin Soup

October 31, 2014 by Jenna

HAPPY HALLOWEEN! I have some orange soup for you to eat.

I know. It’s Friday and I never post on Fridays (not that you pay attention to my posting schedule), but I had the urge (and the time!) to tell you about this pumpkin soup.

So I am. Right now. On Friday. On Halloween. Talking about soup. Pumpkin soup. The soup I mentioned in my post yesterday.

The story: Tuesday night was cold and windy. The temperature had dropped 20 degrees from what it was on Monday. It was the perfect evening for soup, a big ole bowl of hot, comforting soup. So I made this and was super happy with my decision.

This soup has a pinch of spice, a dollop of sweet, and a handful of pumpkin. I will use these adjectives to describe it: simple, smooth, creamy, healthy, satisfying, hearty, filling, delicious.

Originally I tried to craft all of that into one sentence, but it was getting too long and run-on, so I went with the list. Good choice, I’d say.

As you could have inferred from the name of this soup, it is both hearty and healthy. The star of the show here is obviously the pumpkin (again, the name of the soup). This fruit is mega high in vitamins and anti-oxidants and also has loads of fiber. The coconut milk and almond butter offer lots of healthy fats and help make it surprisingly creamy and filling. Finally we get some health boosting benefits from all the spices. Ginger, cinnamon, and cayenne pepper are all great for easing digestion, improving the immune system, and reducing inflammation. As another added benefit, this pumpkin soup is oohhh soooo easy to make.

So you see I was not trying to trick you with the name of this soup. There is heartiness. There is health. There is pumpkin. It is a treat.

Trick or Treat? I choose treat.

Hearty, Healthy Pumpkin Soup

This pumpkin soup is surprisingly filling and is packed full of health benefits! Plus it is delicious, easy to make, and oh so comforting - perfect for a cozy fall evening.

Serves: 6 servings

Ingredients

1 cup yellow onion, diced
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 tablespoons fresh ginger, chopped
29 oz pumpkin puree (or 2-15oz cans)
32 oz low sodium chicken broth
14 oz can coconut milk
½ cup almond butter or smooth peanut butter
1 tablespoon cinnamon
½ teaspoon cayenne pepper
Suggested toppings: Greek yogurt, maple syrup, and pepitas

Instructions

Heat up a large saucepan on medium heat. Add the olive oil and onion. Season with salt and pepper. Sauté for 3-4 minutes until translucent.
Add the remaining ingredients and bring to a simmer.
Take the soup off the heat and use an immersion blender to puree. Alternatively, transfer the soup to a blender and blend until smooth. Use a towel to cover the top to avoid explosions.
Return the soup to the heat and cook for about 10 more minutes. Adjust the seasonings if needed.
Ladle the soup into bowls and serve with a dollop of Greek yogurt, a swirl of maple syrup, and a sprinkle of pepitas.

This was slightly adapted from Country Living.

Make this soup tomorrow after you go crazy on Halloween candy tonight. You will be full and satisfied and not even want any more candy. Except for maybe just that one last tootsie roll. Then on Sunday I’ll post a nice workout for you too.

Have a spooky, safe weekend!

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