What do you get when you combine a brownie and a cookie? Well, you get this cool love-child of a thing called a Brookie. If you make them as bars (vs in cookie shape), you get Brookie Bars. And what happens if you happen to throw in a bag of cinnamon chips? Well, you get these absolutely delicious Cinnamon Chip Brookie Bars! As you can see, the “January Health Kick” didn’t last very long. LOL
I have mentioned this in the past: If I were to ever open a bakery (which I am never going to, so this is one of those things that I just say), I’d name it The Cheeky Little Tart. Yup, lots of multiple meanings in that name and I think it is cute. When I was trying to think of a name for this little, rustic, unadorned, plain, simple little apple pie, my brain named it The Naked Little Tart … which of course has even more meaning. 🙂 So whenever I think about it, my brain still thinks about that name, even though I guess I am going to officially call it Rustic Browned Butter Apple Tart. Either way, it is the simplest and yet most delicious pie you’ll have anytime soon. Enjoy.
Happy Obligatory Cake Day! Yes, here we are again at that one day out of the year that I really feel that I should bake a cake. This year, we have a Salted Caramel Chocolate Torte. Though I haven’t tried it all put together (clearly it hasn’t been cut yet), all the components separately were delicious, though not surprisingly, a little on the sweet side. And if I were to spend my days critiquing myself, I would say that I am still not great at frosting / decorating, but meh, it’s ok.
Every year for Christmas, I try to make a torte — aka a fancy cake. It’s really the only time of the year that I make a true cake as I am more of a pie or cupcake kind of person. So this year, I went with a little fancy and a little rustic with this Gingerbread Cake with Maple-Mascarpone Whipped Cream and Rosemary, decorated with gingerbread snowmen. The flavor was terrific though the cake ended up a bit dense. The Maple-Mascarpone Whipped Cream was fantastic … I’m going to have to find some excuse to make it for something else!
So what do you get when you cross pumpkin pie, pecan pie and crumble bars? Well…these things! And I threw in some maple syrup just for good measure! I had found pumpkin butter at Trader Joes, and without any idea what to do with it, I bought a jar. While it has the unfortunate consistency of baby food, it tastes amazing (and *nothing* like baby food!) so I decided to make these Maple Pumpkin Butter and Pecan Crumble Bars. They are simply fab! Perfect thing to add to your Thanksgiving dessert and can be made in advance.