It’s Pie Day here in the US. March 14. 3.14 Of course, the rest of the world dates differently (i.e. dd/mm/yyyy or YYYY/dd/mm) but playing into the game, I decided to make this Pie for Pi day. Delicious and pretty, though be careful with overdoing it on the orange zest.
Pie comes with a hidden message. Doesn’t everyone need an emotional support pie plate?
Yep, it’s blowing a gale outside but inside, it’s warm, cozy and smells like the most decadent chocolate and tropical coconut ever. I’m happy that the small lingers because I actually made these Toasted Coconut Double Chocolate Brownies before work this morning because frankly, I thought we’d lose power and internet this afternoon, but so far, we’re doing ok. There is a LOT (a lot, a lot) of snow falling, but that is ok. Digging out my car tomorrow won’t be much fun, but that’s what living in New England is all about.
Today is a milestone, one that I likely didn’t think would ever happen. Today is the 15th anniversary to this here little website. Who knew that I had it in me to keep a hobby (and some days, a salvation) going for this long. I sure didn’t, and I don’t think that a lot of people did, and that is ok. But here I am, nearly 3800 recipes later — some abject failures on the first go. Maybe there is another 15 years to go. There are some plans for this year (like I am finally going to write that cookbook; stay tuned!) but no, no one is going to convince me to audition for the Great British Baking Show.
So I made a cake to celebrate. It’s a Browned Butter Walnut Laurel Wreath Bundt Cake and it is quite yummy.
Let’s talk about this “Cobbler” for a sec. First of all, it’s delicious. It’s modified from an America’s Test Kitchen / Cooks Country recipe, which described it as a “cobbler”. So, in my mind cobblers have the fruit on the bottom, no bottom crust and then a top crust of crumble, biscuit dough or a batter. So, it’s not really a cobbler. It’s also not really a pie, which would have at minimum a bottom crust and this has a bottom batter. I don’t really know what to call it, except yummy.
I also don’t really know when to eat it. It would be a great afternoon tea or coffee thing. It would be a great dessert thing with some ice cream and it would even make a fantastic breakfast casserole with maple syrup. So, I guess that is up to you. It comes together in a flash with mostly pantry ingredients: sweetened condensed milk, milk, butter, flour, baking power, salt and a touch of vanilla for the base. I used mixed berries, but you could also use just one berry type, or cherries or even chopped up peaches. Frozen berries / fruit work great here (bake 10 minutes or so longer) and best of all, it isn’t overly sweet.
Perhaps one of the easiest and quickest recipes I have done in a long time. I had it ready to go before the oven had even preheated.
Snowy and cold (and will soon be colder!) weekend in Maine visiting my mom, so I decided to raid the pantry to see what type of combination that I would bake with and as usual, I ended up with a crumble bar combo. As you know, they are my “go to” treat. This time with hazelnuts and apricot jam… a little bit of sunshine with the golden color and tartness of the apricots.