The only chance I made to the recipe was to use natural peanut butter despite the recipe specifically saying not to. I couldn’t see any reason that it would hurt the cookies, and have you ever read the ingredient list of unnatural peanut butter? It’s like a mile long! While I don’t have anything to compare them to, I think the natural peanut butter worked just fine.

The highlight of the cake was the rum, mainly because I was able to purchase it myself! I turned 21 last week, so I was pretty excited to be able to go into the liquor store myself. Up until now, I’ve been sending John to the liquor store for me every time I need alcohol for cooking, which is just plain annoying. Even now that I’m of legal age, I half expected the clerk to come running after me as I left the store to take back my rum! Buying alcohol still feels like breaking the rules.

I was also pretty excited to marble the cake, which isn’t something I’ve ever done before. It didn’t look nearly as nice as Dorie’s, but I think I accidentally added too much of the batter to the chocolate. Oh well, I supposed that means I’ll have to practice my marbling! Although this cake couldn’t hold a candle to my favorite black-bottom banana cake, it was really good as long as I tried not to compare the two!

This week’s pick was from Ashlee of A Year in the Kitchen, and you can find the recipe on her blog.

Obviously, this pudding was fantastic. Unlike Dorie, I was raised on homemade chocolate pudding, and I’m still wowed by this recipe! It was so very chocolatey and delicious. And the texture was fantastic. My mom’s pudding, prepared sans food processor, was never ever lumpy, but it also didn’t have the texture that this one did. Dorie says it best when she calls it velvety. With that said, the mess I made in the kitchen, between transferring the pudding to and from the food processor, was intense. By the end, I think I got more pudding on the counter, stove, food processor and myself than I did in the bowl! I may try using my stick blender next time to see if I can get the same texture with a little less mess.

Dorie suggests serving the pudding chilled, and while it was delicious that way, I also happen to be a big fan of a hot bowl of chocolate pudding. Preferably in a wide bowl to maximize the skin, since I am one of those people who thinks the best part of pudding is the skin. When I was little I used to take a small spoonful from the middle of the bowl and then scrape out all the pudding from underneath the skin, in order to save the skin for last! Since it’s been so hot out, I froze most of the pudding in popsicle molds. They are way tastier than anything we could get chasing after the ice cream truck!

Thanks, Melissa, for chosing such a great recipe! You can find the recipe here at her blog.

This banana bread was so good that I think I’ve found my go to recipe. Everything was balanced: it was moist, perfectly sweet, and had great banana flavor. It was like the banana bread my mom used to pack in my lunch, but better. This makes for a great, only slightly indulgent breakfast, or a positively saintly dessert!

I really can’t believe it took me this long to actually make something from this book (technically, my favorite buttermilk pancakes come from here, but John made them)! It’s a very well designed baking book, pretty much exactly what you would expect from Alton Brown. The chapters are based on technique, and you use the master technique for every recipe in each chapter. There’s also lots of science-y explanations of ingredients and how baking works. Not only is it a great recipe book, it’s also a very useful baking reference book.

Banana Bread

I’m Just Here For More Food by Alton Brown

Ingredients

Preparation

Place an oven rack in position C (that would be the center) and preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Grease a 9x5x2.5 inch loaf pan and set aside.

Place the bananas and sugar in a large mixing bowl and mash them together with a potato masher until smooth (obviously this is impossible with all but the most overripe of bananas).

Proceed with the muffin method. Combine the Wet Works 1 (the bananas and sugar) and the Wet Works 2 (the butter, eggs, and almond extract) in separate bowls, then combine together before add the Wet Works to the Dry Goods (both flours, the baking soda, and the salt).

Fold in the nuts, if using, then pour the batter into the prepared loaf pan and bake for 50 minutes to 1 hour, until the temperature measures 210 degrees, or a toothpick inserted in the center comes out more or less clean, but banana bread should come out of the oven a little moister than most.

Allow the bread to cool in the pan for 15 minutes, then remove it from the pan and place on a rack to cool completely before slicing.

Tightly wrapped, this bread will keep at room temperature for 5 days.

My favorite fall snack, during the peak of apple season, is apple slices with smoked gouda melted over them. To die for! So I had no doubt the apple cheddar combination would be fantastic in scones. But I was pleasantly surprised at how good the dough encompassing the apple and cheddar was. The cornmeal gave it both flavor and texture, and the scone was ever so fluffy and moist. As Dorie said, they were at their very best straight from the oven, but even the single solitary one that survived until the next morning was still yummy. These will definitely be going into our regular breakfast rotation!

Apple Cheddar Scones

Baking: From My Home to Yours

Ingredients:

Preparation

Getting reading: Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Line a baking sheet with parchment or a silicone mat.

Stir the egg, buttermilk and apple cider together

Whisk the flour, cornmeal, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt together in a large bowl. Drop in the butter and, using your fingers, toss to coat the pieces of butter with flour. Quickly, working with your fingertips or a pastry blender, cut and rub the butter into the dry ingredients until the mixture is pebbly. You’ll have pea-size pieces, pieces the size of oatmeal flakes and pieces the size of everything in between – and that’s just right.

Pour the liquid ingredients over the dry ingredients and stir with a fork just until the dough, which will be very wet and sticky, comes together. If there are still some dry ingredients in the bottom of the bowl, stir them in, but try not to overdo the mixing. Stir in the grated cheese and dried apple.

Still in the bowl, gently knead the dough by hand, or turn it with a rubber spatula 8 to 10 times. Then, because the dough is very sticky, the easiest thing to do is to turn it out onto a lightly floured work surface, pat it into a rectangle about 1/2 inch thick and, using a dough scraper or a chef’s knife, cut it into 12 roughly equal pieces; place on the baking sheet. Alternatively, you can just spoon out 12 equal mounds onto the baking sheet. (At this point, the scones can be frozen on the backing sheet, then wrapped airtight. Don’t defrost before baking – just add about 2 minutes to the baking time.)

Bake the scones for 20 to 22 minutes, or until their tops are golden and firmish. Transfer them to a rack and cool for 10 minutes before serving, or wait for the scones to cool to room temperature.

The problem is, I really wanted this one to be a star. My freezer is constantly full of half empty bags of frozen berries, and this recipe is a great way to use them before they get freezer burned beyond recognition. It’s also a great summery dessert that can be made in the dead of winter, and goodness knows I need that. So even though this one was a bit of a disappointment, I’ll probably keep making variations of it until I get it right. I’m envisioning blueberries and raspberries with vanilla sugar in the crust and the filling for next time.

You can find the recipe posted by Beth of Our Sweet Life or in Baking: From My Home to Yours, which is currently on a sweet sale at Amazon.

John’s dad is not a man who cooks a great deal. But there are two dishes that he just plain rocks: baked beans and drunken pork. I very much hope that his drunken pork recipe will eventually grace the pages of this blog, because it truly needs to be shared with the world. But today we’re talking baked beans, my second favorite thing George makes. I had never had baked beans before I joined John’s family. There are some classic American foods my family just never did get on board with, and that was one of them. So I was amazed when I tried George’s baked beans and found out what I’d been missing.

This time, I didn’t use George’s recipe, as I’ve got The Way We Cook out of the library, and the baked bean recipe in it allowed me to take the easy way out and just order some ham cut quite thick at the deli counter. (If someone would like to explain in the comments what exactly salt pork is and precisely where I can find it in my grocery store, that would be great. Bonus if you can tell me exactly what it looks like. As a former vegetarian I have a very hard time buying even the most common meats for the first time, due to sheer ignorance and my fear of embarassing myself at the grocery store.) And since this book is written by the women behind one of the Boston Globe’s food columns, I sort of expected that they should know Boston baked beans.

And they did. I think. Mind you, I don’t know baked beans at all. But John liked them, although they weren’t quite like his dad’s. So I can’t tell you if this recipe will help you replicate your great-grandmother’s award winning baked beans, or even if it will be better than the beans your dad made, because I have a limited knowledge of what Boston baked beans should taste like. But I can tell you these tasted very good. They were sweet and thick, perfectly accompanied by the cornbread I made to go with them. As you can see, they weren’t exactly gorgeous, but when are baked beans ever pretty?

Boston Baked Beans

The Way We Cook, by Sheryl Julian and Julie Riven

Serves 10

Ingredients

Preparation:

Place the beans in a bowl and cover them with cold water. Set them aside to soak overnight, or for at least 8 hours.

Se the oven to 300 degrees.

Heat the oil in a flameproof casserole (I made due with a regular pot) and cook the onions over medium heat, stirring often, for 10 minutes, or until they soften.

Drain the beans and add them to the onions. Add the ham, brown sugar, molasses, maple syrup, tomato paste, mustard, ginger, and 6 cups of water. Bring to a boil and cover the pan.

Bake for 4 hours, checking the beans every hour, stirring, and adding more water to the pan, 1/4 cup at a time, if they seem dry. Add the salt and pepper. Let the beans settle for 15 minutes before serving, or let them cool to room temperature and refrigerate until ready to use.

To store and reheat the beans: Cover the pan and regrigerate the beans for up to 5 days. Set the pan over medium heat and stir the beans. If they have absorbed all their liquid, add water, 1/4 cup at a time, until the beans are a consistency you like. Reduce the heat to low and let simmer for 10 minutes, stirring often, until they are very hot.

So I wasn’t completely thrilled with this week’s Tuesdays with Dorie recipe, La Palette’s Strawberry Tart (chosen by Marie of A Year From Oak Cottage), knowing that I would have to make it with disappointing strawberries. Not only that, but I had to throw away more of the berries than I was able to use! But once I took a bite of this tart, it was worth the headache. I will DEFINITELY be making this tart again once we reach the peak of NH strawberry season. It was so good! And I think the crust and the jam must have rubbed off on the berries, because they somehow transformed from bland to amazing!

I have to gush a little about the crust in particular. It was the easiest crust I’ve ever made. Seriously, I was baking this crust on the hottest day of this very hot week that we are experiencing. My kitchen was easily 95 degrees while I was making it, and it didn’t give me the slightest bit of trouble. It came together perfectly, and you press this crust into the pan instead of rolling it out, so there was no headache there either. Plus, it tastes so good (both baked and raw) that I may never use another recipe again. All morning I’ve been making excuses to go into the kitchen just to cut off a sliver to eat plain.

We will no longer be posting the recipes for TWD treats, but this recipe is on page 374 of Baking. If you don’t already own a copy, use this as an excuse to go buy the book!

This week’s Tuesdays with Dorie recipe is French Chocolate Brownies, chosen by Di of Di’s Kitchen Notebook. That would be brownies with raisins in them. Now, I have to say that when I first saw the recipe, I cringed a little. I have a difficult enough time coming to terms with common additions like nuts, and now Dorie wants me to put raisins in my brownies? I probably would have skipped them, but I was starting to feel bad about swapping out the raisins in every Baking recipe I’ve made so far. So I decided to trust Dorie about the raisins this time.

As usual, I had nothing to worry about. These brownies rocked. I underbaked them just a little bit, and they were amazing. So very chocolatey, and the raisins were actually a great addition. They added a juicy bite and a natural sweetness that took these brownies over the top. That doesn’t mean I’m not schemeing up substitutions for next time (dried cherries? Yes, please!) but it does mean I might start trusting Dorie’s raisin judgement in the future.

French Chocolate Brownies

Baking: From My Home to Yours

Yield: 16 brownies

Ingredients

Preparation:

Getting Ready:

Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 300°F. Line an 8-inch square baking pan with foil, butter the foil, place the pan on a baking sheet, and set aside.

Whisk together the flour, salt and cinnamon, if you’re using it.

Put the raisins in a small saucepan with the water, bring to a boil over medium heat and cook until the water almost evaporates. Add the rum, let it warm for about 30 seconds, turn off the heat, stand back and ignite the rum. Allow the flames to die down, and set the raisins aside until needed.

Put the chocolate in a heatproof bowl and set the bowl over a saucepan of simmering water. Slowly and gently melt the chocolate, stirring occasionally. Remove the bowl from the saucepan and add the butter, stirring so that it melts. It’s important that the chocolate and butter not get very hot. However, if the butter is not melting, you can put the bowl back over the still-hot water for a minute. If you’ve got a couple of little bits of unmelted butter, leave them—it’s better to have a few bits than to overheat the whole. Set the chocolate aside for the moment.

Working with a stand mixer with the whisk attachment, or with a hand mixer in a large bowl, beat the eggs and sugar until they are thick and pale, about 2 minutes. Lower the mixer speed and pour in the chocolate-butter, mixing only until it is incorporated—you’ll have a thick, creamy batter. Add the dry ingredients and mix at low speed for about 30 seconds—the dry ingredients won’t be completely incorporated and that’s fine. Finish folding in the dry ingredients by hand with a rubber spatula, then fold in the raisins along with any liquid remaining in the pan.

Scrape the batter into the pan and bake 50 to 60 minutes, or until the top is dry and crackled and a knife inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. Transfer the pan to a rack and allow the brownies to cool to warm or room temperature.

Carefully lift the brownies out of the pan, using the foil edges as handles, and transfer to a cutting board. With a long-bladed knife, cut the brownies into 16 squares, each roughly 2 inches on a side, taking care not to cut through the foil.

I ended up holding off a few days and making the Florida Pie for my future sister-in-law’s graduation party. As it turns out, John’s whole family loves key lime pie, so it was a big hit. Even John, who is usually completely disinterested in dessert, ate a huge slice. I was slightly less enamored with the pie. It was tasty, but I had some problems with the coconut. I felt like the flavor was too weak and the texture was a little overbearing. Perhaps better coconut would help with the flavor problems; I was just using Hannaford brand coconut. The key lime part of this pie, however, was really good. I can’t remember ever having key lime pie before, and I can see what all the hype is about. I might make this again as a plain key lime pie, or I might try it again with better quality coconut. Either way, this pie was really good!

Florida Pie

Baking: From My Home to Yours

Ingredients

Preparation

Getting Ready:

Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Put the pie plate on a baking sheet lined with parchment of a silicone mat.

Put the cream and 1 cup of the coconut in a small saucepan and bring it to a boil over medium-low heat, stirring almost constantly. Continue to cook and stir until the cream is reduced by half and the mixture is slightly thickened. Scrape the coconut cream into a bowl and set it aside while you prepare the lime filling.

Working with a stand mixer, preferably fitted with a paddle attachment, or with a hand mixer in a large bowl beat the egg yolks at high speed until thick and pale. Reduce the mixer speed to low and beat in the condensed milk. Still on low, add half of the lime juice. When it is incorporated, add the reaming juice, again mixing until it is blended. Spread the coconut cream in the bottom of the graham cracker crust, and pour over the lime filling.

Bake the pie for 12 minutes. Transfer the pie to a cooling rack and cool for 15 minutes, then freeze the pie for at least 1 hour.

To Finish the Pie with Meringue:

Put the 4 egg whites and the sugar in a medium heavy-bottomed saucepan and heat over medium-low heat, whisking all the while, until the whites are hot to the touch. Transfer the whites to a stand mixer, fitted with the whisk attachment, or use a hand mixer in a large bowl, and beat the whites at high speed until they reach room temperature and hold firm peaks. Using a rubber spatula, fold the remaining 1/2 cup coconut into the meringue.

Spread the meringue over the top of the pie, and run the pie under the broiler until the top of the meringue is golden brown. (Or, if you’ve got a blowtorch, you can use it to brown the meringue.) Return the pie to the freezer for another 30 minutes or for up to 3 hours before serving.