Winter Berry Streusel Pie

It's freezing outside, which means it's a perfect time for baking. I made this pie from a blueberry pie recipe in The Seasonal Baker by John Barricelli. It works great with frozen mixed berries and the streusel topping is ridiculously thick and delicious. It's really nice to be able to have berry desserts in the winter and be reminded of warmer times.

Apple Walnut Muffins

I made these apple walnut muffins from a cookbook called The Seasonal Baker by John Barricelli, and I thought they were delicious. The recipe here is for 12 muffins.  I doubled the recipe when I made them, but somehow the doubled recipe actually made 36 muffins. I used red and green decorating sugar for Christmas, but they hold up better for storage without sugar. If I make them again, I would skip pre-cooking the apples; I'm not sure if it was worth the trouble.

Cinnamon Sugar & Buttermilk Baked Donut-Muffins

      I had a lot of extra buttermilk to use, so I decided to make buttermilk baked donuts. Unfortunately, my donut pan has gone missing, so I made donut-muffins instead. This recipe made 12 mini muffins and 12 standard size muffins.

      I got this recipe from a blog called Clara Persis.  I’ve never bought a vanilla bean in my life, so I skipped that part. I also cheated and used salted butter and omitted the extra salt, which seemed to work fine.  As an experiment, I mixed some cocoa powder in the last bit of batter, which didn’t make a huge difference but was pretty good.

Old Fashioned Cake-Like Sugar Cookies

Christmas and sugar cookies are a natural combination, but these cookies aren't quite like normal sugar cookies. I got this recipe from allrecipes, where it was called Old Time Soft Sugar Cookies, while searching for a something similar to the cookies my mother remembers from her childhood.  These cookies are very soft, more like tiny sponge cakes than cookies. We topped them with red and green sugar for Christmas, and also mixed some red and green sugar into the batter to try to up the sweetness and color. They aren't the sweetest cookies in the world and may benefit from some frosting or added flavoring.

Old Fashioned Cake-Like Sugar Cookies

1/2 cup shortening
1 cup sugar
1 large egg
3/4 cup buttermilk
1 tsp vanilla
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
Sugar for topping

Cream together shortening and sugar. Stir in egg, buttermilk, and vanilla.

Combine flour, baking soda, and salt. Add the flour mixture to the creamed mixture and stir to combine. Chill dough in the refrigerator for 1 hour. Drop mixture by rounded teaspoons 2 inches apart on a lightly greased baking sheet. Sprinkle tops of cookies with sugar before baking.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Bake at 400 degrees for 7 to 9 minutes or until set.

Apple Oatmeal Crisp

My beloved Vancouver Canucks had a rough night against the Dallas Stars tonight. Watching my favorite team lose is never fun, but luckily I had some delicious Apple Oatmeal Crisp to console me. The original version of this recipe came from allrecipes, which was a more reasonable 8 inch square version. The real secret is using the best apples in the world, Washington apples.

APPLE OATMEAL CRISP

2 cups brown sugar

2 cups rolled oats

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 cup butter, melted

6 cups apples - peeled, cored, and chopped

1 cup white sugar

1 tablespoon + 1 teaspoon cinnamon

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Lightly grease an 9x13-inch  pan.

In a large bowl, combine brown sugar, oats, flour, and melted butter. Mix until crumbly. Pat down half of crumb mixture in pan. Spread the apples evenly over crumb mixture. Sprinkle with white sugar and cinnamon and top with remaining crumb mixture. 

Bake for 45 to 55 minutes or until golden brown.

Leftover Egg Whites? Meringue Cookies

After making my Chocolate Cream Pie, I needed something to do with my leftover egg whites. This meringue cookie recipe looked good, although it requires one extra egg white. I was worried that making meringues would be difficult, but this was amazingly easy and they tasted great. My mom loves the Trader Joe's Vanilla Meringues, and she thought these were an excellent substitute.  

Vanilla Meringues
 
4 large egg whites
1/4 tsp cream of tartar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2/3 cup powdered sugar
1/2 Tbsp vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 225º.  Cover 2 large baking sheets with parchment paper.

Place egg whites and cream of tartar in a large bowl; beat with a mixer at medium speed until soft peaks form. Increase speed to high, and gradually add granulated sugar and then powdered sugar, beating until stiff peaks form. Add vanilla extract; beat until just blended.

You can spoon batter into a pastry bag fitted with a large star tip and pipe 60 mounds onto prepared baking sheets. Or, take the easy route and just plop batter onto the baking sheets with a spoon.  I also tried mixing a little food coloring in some of the batter, which worked well.

Bake at 225º for 1 1/2 hours. Turn oven off; cool meringues in closed oven 1 1/2 hours or until dry. Carefully remove the meringues from paper.

Chocolate Cream Pie

Going home to visit my parents for the holidays always puts me in a baking mood. This year for Thanksgiving, we decided to try a chocolate cream pie. I’m definitely not an expert baker and I rarely make the same thing twice, so I consider everything I make an ‘experiment’. This experiment was absolutely a success, however, resulting in a rich, powerfully chocolaty pie that went too fast to even get a picture. 

Chocolate Cream Pie

1 9-inch pie crust, pre-baked
2 cups milk (whole milk preferred )
3/4 cup sugar
3 large egg yolks
1/4 cup cocoa powder
1/4 cup cornstarch
1/4 tsp salt
2 Tbsp butter, room temperature and cut into 4-5 pieces
1 tsp vanilla extract
4 oz semisweet chocolate, finely chopped
Whipped cream for topping (optional)


My family prefers Pillsbury refrigerated pie crusts over any recipe I’ve made myself, so that’s what I used.  I used dried beans on parchment paper to weight down the pie crust for the first half of baking, then removed them to finish baking the bottom.

Get the butter and chocolate chopped and ready to go and set aside. Then, in a large bowl, whisk together milk, sugar, egg yolks, cocoa powder, cornstarch and salt until all of the ingredients have been very well combined and the mixture is smooth.  I only had 1% milk, so I mixed it with half & half to make it richer.

Transfer to a large saucepan and cook over medium heat, stirring continuously and scraping the bottom of the pan, until the mixture begins to thicken and comes to a boil.  Boil for 30 to 60 seconds, still stirring constantly, then remove the pan from the heat. Whisk in butter, vanilla and chocolate until everything comes together and chocolate has been completely incorporated. Pour into prepared pie crust.

Cover filling with a sheet of plastic wrap to prevent a skin from forming. Refrigerate until well-chilled, about 4-6 hours. I put my pie in the freezer for 30 minutes so we could dig in faster, but everyone agreed it tasted better the next day after the flavors melded more. Serve with whipped cream.