Browsing Tag

sweets

Breakfast/Brunch, Desserts, Sweet Snacks

Easy “Fruit on Top” Mixed Berry Cobbler

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.

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Cookies, Desserts, Sweet Snacks

Apricot Hazelnut Shortbread Crumble Bars

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.

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Desserts, Sweet Snacks

Sea Salt Caramel Apple Pie

I’ve got an event or two coming up this week where dessert may be called for so I started off by baking this Sea Salt Caramel Apple Pie. Went a little overboard with the lattice work, but that’s ok I have a tendency to do that with pie. It’s sweet, it’s salty and I can’t wit to try it with some cinnamon or vanilla bean ice cream. Fun fact, I used Ludacrisp apples, which I had never used before, much less even hear of before. The Ludacrisp apple is a new variety and is described as “sweet, juicy, tropical-flavored hybrid (Honeycrisp/Fuji hybrid) known for its crisp texture, bold scarlet color, and unique taste reminiscent of pineapple and Juicy Fruit gum”. Really? It’s apparently a good all-around apple, great for snacking, salads, and baking, and named playfully after the rapper Ludacris, because who wouldn’t want an apple sort named after them. I wonder if there is a Katja apple.

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Breads, Breakfast/Brunch, Sweet Snacks

Raspberry Chocolate Chip Muffins with Cocoa Crumble

These Raspberry Chocolate Chip Muffins with Cocoa Crumble turned out to be really, really yummy, with one caveat. They are great within a few hours coming out of the oven. The tangy raspberries play well with the chocolate chips and the crumble is a nice addition. But in a rare time that I say “eat them right away or make a half batch” they didn’t hold up well after a few hours. Mainly because the crumble got really hard, surprisingly quickly. So that was a disappointment. I suppose that you could also make them with regular (non-cocoa) crumble that doesn’t get rock hard, or just eat them very expeditiously.

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Desserts, Sweet Snacks

Mince Tartlets with Candied Pecan Crust

I didn’t think that I would be a mincemeat person. I mean, I like raisins and dried fruit on the whole — and my recipe has raisins, sultanas, dates, apples and even a bit of dried apricot in addition to the candied lemon and orange — but I didn’t think that I would like it as much as I do. The reasons are two fold: I added candied pecans (crushed to powder in the MagiMix) to add a amazing nutty note to the crust, but 2. most importantly, serving it was gingerbread ice cream. That definitely cut the sweetness and made this the perfect Christmas dessert.

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