The iconic S’more.  That memory-provoking piece of gooey, melty childhood – summer camp, the Fourth of July, beach bonfires.  I am not the first to re-imagine the s’more in a slightly less drippy, sticky and potentially hazardous form, but perhaps I am the laziest.  The portable, storable S’more cookies need only six ingredients, one bowl to mix and a few minutes to bake.  But they are a little bite of all that is good about summer.  Kids can absolutely help make these, and have no doubt they will help devouring them!

S’More Cookies

These cookies will keep in an airtight container for several days, but good luck keeping them that long.

12 ounces milk chocolate chips

5 Tablespoons butter

1 cup flour

½ cup light brown sugar, tightly packed

1 egg

3 graham cracker sheets

½ cup mini marshmallows

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  Line 2 baking sheets with silicone liners or parchment paper.  The melty marshmallows make these sticky.

Place 6 ounces of the chocolate chips and the butter in a large microwave-safe bowl.  Microwave on high for 2 minutes, then remove and stir the chocolate until smooth and melted.  Add the flour and sugar and stir with a fork, then add the egg and continue stirring until smooth. The mixture will be very thick, but will loosen when the egg is added.

Place the graham cracker sheets in a bag and pop them with your fingers to break them into pieces.  You want small pieces here, not crumbs. Stir the remaining chocolate chips, the graham cracker pieces and the marshmallows into the batter, stirring to combine.

Using a tablespoon and your clean finger, scoop the dough onto cookie sheets, making sure the ingredients are evenly distributed.  Flatten the mounds slightly and bake for 7-9 minutes, until the edges have set but the centers are slightly undercooked.

Leave to cool completely on the baking sheets.  If the cookies have spread and lost their shape in some places, you can use the back of a flat knife to push in the overflow while still hot.

Makes 18 cookies

I believe that my mother’s favorite dish may well be stuffed eggs.  That’s what we always call them, not deviled eggs, because deviled somehow implies spicy and my mother does not do spicy. Stuffed eggs have always been an essential part of a family gathering, particularly Sunday after-church lunch at my grandparents’, with tomato sandwiches and fried chicken. We never had a real stuffed egg plate that I am aware of, but it is considered by most a Southern essential, and features on many a wedding gift registry.  I bought my own recently; it’s very modernist, but it’s the only one I’ve ever seen that holds 24 stuffed eggs, and if you are going to make stuffed eggs, use the whole dozen box!

But in my family, the real key to stuffed eggs is paprika.  Stuffed eggs without a generous sprinkling of paprika would have been considered inedible.  Stuffed eggs without paprika look nekkid.  Sweet paprika I should specify.  This tradition originated in the days before the variety of paprika now on the market was available; no pimenton, no smoked paprika, no ten degrees of Hungarian hot or sweet.  Just Paprika, in the McCormick jar with the green screw-top.  The folks at McCormick once wisely put out a series of ads in magazines charting the history of their spice packaging so you could figure out how old your spice collection was, and throw out those over two-decade old bottles.  That paprika jar at my grandmother’s house didn’t even make the chart.

I never thought paprika had any flavor until I went to Hungary and got a little punch-drunk ordering paprikas.  Now my pantry is stocked with imported Hungarian sweet and hot, smoked Spanish in a variety of depths, and they all figure regularly in my cooking.  But there is also still a simple jar of just plain Paprika in case some relative should stop by to inspect my full family credentials.  And of course, to sprinkle over stuffed eggs.

Stuffed Eggs Béarnaise

Classic stuffed eggs are usual made with jarred pickle relish, but I can’t stand the stuff, so I came up with the flavored with the tastes of classic Béarnaise sauce, and I have to say this is now the family standard.

1 dozen eggs*

2 -3 Tablespoons vermouth or white wine

1 small shallot

4- 5 sprigs fresh tarragon

3 sprigs parsley

2 Tablespoons Dijon mustard

1/2 cup mayonnaise

salt and pepper to taste

paprika

parsley

Place the eggs in one layer in a large saucepan.  Cover with water by about 2 inches.  Bring to a boil over medium high heat and boil for 7 minutes.  Remove from the heat and leave to cool until you can comfortably reach into the water and take them out.

Peel the eggs and rinse away any extra shell bits.  Pat dry.  Cut the eggs in half and gently scoop the yolks into a bowl.  Place the white halves on a platter (if not serving immediately, line the platter with paper towel).

Break the yolks up with a fork and sprinkle with the vermouth.  The yolks should absorb the vermouth with no liquid left in the bowl.

Chop the shallot very finely.  Chop the tarragon and parsley.  Toss into the bowl with the yolks and mash with a fork.  Add the mustard and continue to mash. Add the mayonnaise by spoonfuls, mashing after each addition until you have a thick but smooth filling.  You may use more or less mayonnaise than called for.  Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Spoon the yolk mixture into the white halves, pressing gently to fill.  Sprinkle with paprika.

These are best made shortly before serving.  You can boil the eggs as much as a day before, and several hours ahead separate the eggs and make the filling.   Store both in the fridge, the whites covered in paper towels to prevent condensation. Stuff just before serving.

*If you store the eggs in the carton on its side until you boil them, the yolks will come out perfectly centered every time. And eggs that are a bit older peel easier, so buy the eggs days before you want to stuff them.

Makes 24 stuffed eggs

Most of my time is spent thinking about food.  Or eating it.  Or cooking it.  And since I have been blogging about food, I follow a lot of other food lovers. On Facebook and Twitter and other sites.  I learn all about food trends and food foibles.  And right now, bacon is hot.  In my opinion, bacon has always been hot – but it keeps showing up on all sorts of in-the-know food sites.  In cupcakes, in chocolate, in ice cream.  Everywhere.  And I am a believer that there is no such thing as too much bacon.  So I thought I would pull out and oldie but a goodie and add my voice to the bacon gospels currently being preached.

This is really more of a guide than a recipe – I worked out some measurements, but I think we all know you want more than a dozen pieces of bacon. Certainly great for breakfast, but this sweet, tangy bacon also takes a BLT to a new level.  Or go with my favorite way to serve – broken into pieces and served with cocktails.

Mustard and Brown Sugar Glazed Bacon

12 slices thick cut bacon

¼ cup Dijon mustard

½ cup light brown sugar

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.  Line a rimmed baking sheet with several layers of foil for easy clean-up.  Place a wire rack on the sheet and spray lightly with cooking spray.

Separate the bacon slices and pat them dry with a paper towel.  Sprinkle the brown sugar onto a wide, flat plate or dish. Using a palate knife, spread a thin layer of mustard on one side of each bacon strip. Press the mustard covered side into the brown sugar.  Shake off any excess, or sweep it off with your fingers.  You want a nice coating of sugar, but no big clumps.  Lay each strip on the wire rack.  Close together is fine, but not overlapping.  You can sprinkle a little extra sugar on any bald spots.

Place the baking sheet in the oven and cook for 20 – 30 minutes until the bacon is crispy and shiny and glazed.  A quick word of warning: some of the sugary glaze will melt off onto the baking sheet and burn, so don’t be worried if you smell burning.  Also, that burned glaze will smoke, so turn on the extractor fan and/or open a door or window when you open the oven to check on the bacon. This is all just part of the very worthwhile process.

Serve warm or at room temperature.

Makes 12 slices of bacon

Ready to go in the oven

These tangy nuts are a great nibble with a glass of wine or to snack on during the day.  Wrap attractively for great little happy gifts.  Look for whole raw cashews in the bulk section of whole food stores or upscale markets.  Already roasted nuts won’t soak up the lemon juice.

Lemon Garlic Cashews

Zest of 1 large lemon

Juice of one large lemon (about 3 Tablespoons)

2 cloves of garlic

2 cups whole raw cashews (unsalted and unroasted)

2 Tablespoons kosher salt (or more to taste)

In a medium bowl, zest the lemon and squeeze in the juice, making sure there are no seeds from the lemons in the bowl.  Finely chop the garlic and stir into the juice and zest.  Drop in the cashews and toss to fully coat, making sure the zest and garlic are distributed, as they have a tendency to stick to the sides of the bowl.  Leave to soak for 30 minutes, stirring a couple of times.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  Line a rimmed baking sheet with foil (preferably nonstick) or parchment paper. 

Toss the salt into the nuts and stir well.  (You can taste a nut at this point to test for saltiness and add more if you like).  Spread the nuts on the prepared baking sheet in one layer.  Bake on the oven for 15 minutes, checking and stirring every five minutes, until toasted and golden.  Watch the last few minutes carefully as these can go from toasty to burned quickly.  The nuts will be quite dark brown. Remove from the oven and cool for a few minutes on the pan, then remove to a plate to finish cooling off the heat of the pan. The cashews will crisp up as they cool. 

Makes 2 cups

Every time I buy rhubarb at the grocery, at any store, the cashier has to ask me what it is and then struggles to find it on the produce code chart.  Is it a vegetable or a fruit (technically a vegetable, by the way)? Once a cashier suggested I memorize the code to make it easier on everyone.  Inevitably, this leads to the question “What do you do with it?”  And on the occasions I have prepared a dish with rhubarb for people, I generally get a somewhat skeptical look.

I love rhubarb, but it is a relatively new introduction into my life.  I have friends who grew up eating their grandmother’s strawberry and rhubarb pie, but it never much figured in my life.  I first remember tasting rhubarb in England, in a fool.  A fool is basically simple dessert of whipped cream and fruit and rhubarb seems to be a favorite British incarnation.  It was many years later that I even noticed that rhubarb was available in the grocery store here, though I imagine it was there all the time.  I don’t know much about rhubarb’s natural growing climate, but I have never seen it at a farmer’s market or produce stand here in Memphis.  I do think it must be growing in popularity though, because I now find a regular supply of lovely, red stalks at groceries here, both winter forced and spring-fresh.

So over the years, I have expanded my rhubarb repertoire – though I still have a long way to go.  I frequently buy it, chop into chunks, sprinkle it with sugar, bake it until it’s soft and mash it into a stringy puree.  I keep this in the fridge and stir into yogurt drizzled with honey for a breakfast treat.  I also make a lovely Rhubarb and Vanilla Jam.  If asked nicely, I might even share that recipe with you.  But my favorite incarnation so far is this classic crumb cake with tangy pieces of pink rhubarb studding the sweet, cinnamon-y cake.  It’s great for breakfast, with a good English cup of tea or as dessert.  So please, give rhubarb a chance.

Rhubarb Crumb Cake

For the Crumb Topping:

1 cup all-purpose flour

½ cup packed light brown sugar

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

½ cup cold butter

 For the cake:

12 ounces fresh rhubarb (to produce 4 cups chopped)

2 cups all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon baking soda

½ teaspoon ground nutmeg

½ cup butter, softened

1 ½ cups sugar

2 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 cup buttermilk

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  Grease and flour a 10-inch round cake pan.

Cut off the dried ends of the rhubarb and cut the stalks into chunks about a ½ inch thick.  If the rhubarb is fat, cut them in half lengthwise first.  A quick note: rhubarb will turn what it touches pink, so use a washable cutting board and wash your hands immediately.  Wear gloves if you have just had a manicure so you don’t ruin your polish.

For the crumb topping: In the bowl of a stand mixer, beat together the flour, brown sugar, cinnamon and butter until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs.  Transfer to another bowl and set aside.  Wipe out the mixer bowl.

For the cake: Combine the flour, cinnamon, nutmeg and baking powder in a small bowl.  In the bowl of the mixer, cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.  Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.  Beat in the vanilla.   Add the dry ingredients alternately with the buttermilk and mix until combined.  Stir in the chopped rhubarb.  Spread the batter in the prepared pan.

Sprinkle the reserved crumb over the cake batter and spread out to an even layer.  It may look like an awful lot of topping, but that’s what makes this so good.  Bake the cake for 40 – 45 minutes, or until a tester inserted in the middle come out clean.  Cool in the pan on a wire rack.

Serves 8 – 10

If you are like me, you always offer to bring something when invited to someone’s house.  I mean the offer, I always love an opportunity to cook for people, but sometimes it’s hard to come up with a quick idea on the fly. And when it’s one of those roaming parties – not a seated affair – choosing a dish that doesn’t have to be kept hot or cold or require and special equipment adds to the challenge.  I tend to fall back on the same recipes, but I recently wanted to add one to my repertoire – after all, it gets to be the same people at parties, right?  These little Fig and Blue Cheese bites are easy but very elegant, and the surprising tart and tangy with sweet combination is a real treat.

Blue Cheese and Fig Savories

You’ll find fig preserves at the grocery – it may be shelved with the “fancy” jams and jellies. You can make these a day ahead and keep them in two layers separated by waxed paper in an airtight container.

1 cup all-purpose flour

½ cup (1 stick) butter, room temperature

4 ounces blue cheese, crumbled

Ground black pepper

Fig preserves (about 3 Tablespoons)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

Place the flour, butter, blue cheese and a few grinds of black pepper in the bowl of a food processor.  Process until the dough just comes together and starts to form a ball.

Dump the dough onto a lightly floured surface and knead a few times to pull the dough together. Roll out to 1/8 inch thick with a floured rolling pin.  Cut rounds out of the dough with a floured 1-inch cutter and transfer the rounds to the parchment-lined baking sheet.

Using the back or a round half-teaspoon measure or your knuckle, make an indention in the top of each dough round.  Spoon about ¼ teaspoon of fig preserves into each indention, using your finger to push the preserves as best as possible into the indentions.

Bake the savories for 10 – 14 minutes, until the preserves are bubbling and the pastry is light golden on the bottom.

Let cool on the baking sheet for at least 10 minutes, the remove to a wire rack to cool.

Makes about 3 dozen

Heaven is a Biscuit

I love biscuits.  Love them.  I could eat a whole batch at one sitting, even without butter or jam or gravy.  I say I could, because believe it or not I do possess the restraint not to.

And I should probably clarify, I love good buttermilk biscuits.  Sure, I have been known to eat a fast food sausage biscuit or a chain restaurant puck covered with gravy.  If a menu has a biscuit on it, I find it hard to resist.  But my true passion is for good, down home, fresh made buttermilk biscuits.  Some people have grandmothers who make these, or live near a mom-and-pop country restaurant that produce hundreds of from-scratch, by-hand biscuits.  Someone forwarded a newspaper article to me recently about the wide variety of frozen biscuits available that are good enough that many Southern cooks have given up biscuit making altogether.  And I’ll admit, they are not all bad.

Here’s the thing though.   I make biscuits.  And I love doing it.  I think it may be because I have an image of myself as some one who can do things.  The truth is – not so much.  I can’t make fluffy white bread, or my own puff pastry, or good old-fashioned dinner rolls.  But I can make biscuits.  I like being someone who can do something that most people don’t bother with anymore.

Learning to make a good biscuit takes practice, and trial and error. Even the most experienced biscuit cook has a batch that just doesn’t work.  Maybe the weather was wrong, or the flour just wasn’t in the mood, or the cook didn’t have the right love to put into that batch.  So today I made a big batch of biscuits and carefully made notes about every step.  The recipe below may look long, but don’t be intimidated. I have tried to put in as much detail as I can to get the dough rolling.

So here are some starting tips:  I do truly recommend using soft Southern wheat flour, like White Lily (my choice) or Martha White.  I am sure you can order it online if you can’t track it down.  I use White Lily as my flour always, so I don’t have two types of all-purpose flour in the pantry. If you use regular all-purpose, you’ll still get biscuits, but if they don’t taste exactly right, that’s why.  I used to be a little afraid of shortening and made biscuits with all butter, but now I know that the shortening is really a must.  I use a combination because the boost in flavor the butter adds.  Both must be cold – right out of the fridge before you use it.  Same with the buttermilk.  I prefer cold whole buttermilk, but low-fat works as well.   Make sure you shake the bottle very well before measuring.

Buttermilk Biscuits

4 cups flour (all-purpose White Lily)

2 Tablespoons baking powder

¼ teaspoon baking soda

2 teaspoons salt

¼ cup cold vegetable shortening

¼ cup cold unsalted butter

1 to 1 ½ cups cold well-shaken buttermilk

Preheat the oven to 475 degrees. Line a baking pan (about 13” by 9” with 1-inch sides) with parchment paper or grease it well with shortening.

Measure out the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt into a large bowl that gives you lots of room to work.  Mix gently with a fork to combine and aerate the flour.

Cut the shortening and the butter into small cubes.  I cut the butter from the stick three times down the length, turn it over once, cut it three times down the length again, then across the short way.  I buy Crisco shortening in sticks as well and do the same. 

Separate the shortening and butter into cubes and sprinkle over the top of the flour mixture.  Use the fork to toss the cubes lightly in the flour to coat.  Then dip your clean fingers into some flour and mix everything together, squishing and rubbing the mixture together to combine the fats and the flour.  Don’t spend too long doing this, gentle handling is the key to a tender biscuit.  It’s okay if there are some lumps of butter or shortening left.  Many recipes describe the result of this process as looking like breadcrumbs or fine meal, and that’s okay.  I think it looks like lumpy flour.  When you pinch a bit of flour between your fingers, from anywhere in the bowl, it should stick together.

Measure out the shaken buttermilk, then pour about ¾ cup of it over the mixture.  Use the fork to fold the buttermilk into the dough, carefully incorporating the liquid.  Keep adding the buttermilk a bit at a time until you have a cohesive dough.  You may not need all the buttermilk.  Again, you don’t want to work the dough too much, but don’t leave much loose, dry flour in the bottom of the bowl.  You can use your hands to get that last bit of dry flour into the dough.

Lightly flour a work surface.  I find the counter top to be best; a board tends to slip around.  You do want to use a light hand to flour the surface, because too much will leave an unpleasant floury coating on the biscuits.  Sprinkling flour through a wire sieve is a great way to do this.

Turn the dough out onto the surface, and turn it over on itself once or twice to bring the dough together.  I do not say knead, because you don’t want to work the dough that hard.  Press the dough into a rectangle about ½ inch thick.  Just press it out lightly with your hands to an even thickness.  This method makes the top of the biscuits slightly textured, which looks very homemade, but if it bothers you, roll a lightly floured rolling pin lightly over the top.

Cut the biscuits with a round cutter or a thin rimmed glass, always cutting as close to the edge of the dough and as close together as possible to get as many biscuits as possible.  I get a good dozen in the first batch using a 2 ½ inch cutter from this recipe.  Just press the cutter down and pull back up; don’t twist or the sides won’t rise up as nice.

Place the biscuits very close together on the prepared pan, just touching each other. This helps them rise while cooking.

Now the big debate: to re-roll or not re-roll.  There will be some leftover dough.  Some people say that this dough is not worth using again, but I disagree.  Gently press the remaining dough together and press out into a ½ inch thickness and cut – you’ll get maybe three more.  Place them on the pan with the rest of the biscuits.  The first-roll dozen are the company biscuits, the last ones just for you, so remember which are which.  Any leftover scraps can be cooked separately, or rolled in cinnamon-sugar and baked off, or frankly just eaten raw.

Bake the biscuits in the hot oven for 8 – 9 minutes, rotating the pan about 6 minutes through.  Watch the biscuits carefully so they do not over-brown. These may not get too brown on top, but will be nice and soft inside.  If you want a brown top, turn the broiler on a few minutes, watching all the time with the door open until lightly golden. Take the biscuits out of the oven, then brush the tops with melted butter (about 2 Tablespoons should do it). 

Leave the biscuits to cool slightly and then eat ‘em up.  They will keep a day or so tightly wrapped, but are better toasted when not eaten fresh.

Makes 12 – 15 biscuits

Serve your fresh, hot biscuits with Tomato Gravy or Sausage Gravy.

I love clementines.  They are the perfect, bright refreshing little sunshine snack.  They are so portable, you can just carry one around all day until you need a pick-me-up.  But I also find clementines annoying, largely because around here they are sold almost exclusively in five to seven pound bags.  I cannot eat five pounds of clementines before they start to shrivel and loose their juice.  So I am sometimes reluctant to buy them, because I know I will end up with uneaten fruit sitting forlornly on my counter.

This lovely bread is one of my excess clementine solutions.  It’s incredibly easy to whip up in the food processor and results in a sweet, citrus-y treat perfect for breakfast, tea or a great snack.  This recipe started its life as away to use tangerines, but I have found this clementine incarnation the most practical.

Sticky Clementine Quick Bread

This moist sticky bread will stay delicious for three days wrapped tightly in plastic wrap.  It can also be frozen for up to a month.  Try making it in smaller loaf pans, even individual sizes, and share with your friends.

For the Quick Bread:

½ cup unsalted butter (1 stick), room temperature

½ cup sugar

2 large eggs

1 Tablespoon clementine zest, from two to four clementines, depending on size

1 cup plus 2 Tablespoons self-rising flour

Pinch of salt

4 Tablespoons milk

For the Glaze:

4 Tablespoons clementine juice, from two to four clementines, depending on size

½ cup confectioners sugar

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Spray a standard 9″ x 5″ loaf pan with non-stick spray.

Place all the ingredients in the bowl of a food processor fitted with the metal blade.  The butter must be soft and at room temperature.  If needed, microwave on half power in 15 second intervals until soft. Blend until the ingredients are just combined and smooth, about 1 – 2 minutes.  Do not over process.

Spoon the batter into the prepared pan, then tap the pans on the counter to spread out the batter.  Bake until golden and cooked through, about 15 – 20 minutes.  A tester inserted in each loaf should come out clean.

While the loaves are cooking, whisk together the juice from the clementines and the confectioner’s sugar until smooth.

When the loaf is cooked, run a knife around the edges of the loaf to loosen from the pan. Poke the top of the loaf several times with the skewer.  Drizzle the glaze over the loaf.  Do this slowly so the glaze absorbs into the loaves.  When the glaze is absorbed remove the loaf to a rack or a piece of waxed paper to finish cooling.

Let the loaf cool completely before serving.

Makes one loaf

I am a born and raised Memphis girl, so I could not let this day pass without a mention.  January 8 is Elvis’s birthday, and this year he would have been 75. And when you grow up in Memphis, Elvis sort of permeates the atmosphere.

Here in Memphis, Elvis is generally commemorated more on the anniversary of his death, on August 16, than on his birthday. I am not sure why this is the case, but every year in August, Elvis fans from around the world converge on Memphis for Elvis Week, the culmination of which is the Candlelight Vigil. Fans of Elvis and fans of Elvis fans stand outside the gates of Graceland on Elvis Presley Boulevard for the Vigil, waiting their turn to file pass the gravesite.  My friends and I marked this for many years, either by attending the Vigil itself, a true sight to behold, or having our own party.  The location of the tribute party rotated around various backyards, and one memorable year it was held on a used car lot. 

I had my 25^th birthday party at Graceland, the party in the admission plaza across the street, with tours of the mansion.  In a perfect piece of timing, mine was the first party right before the kitchen was opened to the public, so we had a very early tour.  It is straight out of its day, pure 1970’s, with an early version of a microwave oven. When Elvis lived there, it ran all day and all night, with shifts of cooks.  Elvis was a night owl, but anytime he was awake, he wanted food available – and lots of it.

Elvis was an eater.  True, he may not have had the most adventurous palate, but he liked his food.  He preferred good, classic Southern dishes, like meatloaf, pork chops or country fried steak.  Hamburgers were his favorite food, and he was particularly fond of a Memphis classic, the hamburger with pimento cheese. He was not much of a one for vegetables, and he liked his food delivered to the table already cut up for him.  And he had a TV in the dining room, so he never had to miss his shows.   Graceland now has audio guides, but in the wonderful days of live people leading tours of the house, much time was spent pointing out the unobstructed view of the TV and the Noritake china Priscilla picked out in the blue, gold and smoked mirror lined dining room.

Perhaps the most enduring Elvis food legend is the peanut butter and banana sandwich, a treat created by his mother, always his favorite cook. He could eat these butter-fried gutbusters day or night, any number of them at one sitting.  Today, in the Graceland gift shops, you can buy refrigerator magnets, potholders and recipe cards printed with a fried peanut butter and banana sandwich recipe.  A few years ago, the fine folks at Reese’s created a limited Elvis addition banana and peanut butter cup, a surprisingly good invention.

Elvis clearly pre-dates the cupcake craze, and frankly I don’t imagine he’d think much of these.  Food in miniature was certainly not his style.  He could eat a whole cake by himself, not just a slice or two.  But I think it’s worth celebrating the birthday of the King by, in Elvis’s own words, “taking care of business” with a nostalgic twist.

The King’s Cupcakes

Banana Cupcakes with Peanut Butter Frosting

Cupcakes:

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, softened

1 1/2 cups sugar

2 eggs

1 cup (8 ounces) sour cream

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 cups flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

2 medium ripe bananas

Frosting:

1/2 cup creamy peanut butter

4 1/2 cups powdered sugar

1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

5 to 6 Tablespoons milk (you may need a bit more)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line 18 muffin cups with paper liners.

In the bowl of an electric mixer, cream the butter and sugar until pale and creamy. Add the eggs, sour cream and vanilla and mix to combine thoroughly.

Combine the flour, baking soda and salt in a bowl.  With the mixer on low, slowly add the dry ingredients into the creamed mixture.

Using a fork, mash the bananas until smooth, then add to the batter, stirring to combine.

Scoop the batter into muffin cups, filling three-quarters full.  Bake for 15 – 20 minutes until a tester inserted in the center comes out clean.  Cool in the pan for 6 minutes, then remove to a rack to cool completely.

For the frosting, cream the peanut butter in an electric mixer until pale and fluffy.  Beat in the sugar and vanilla.  Add enough milk during mixing to create a smooth, spreadable consistency,

When the cupcakes are cool, frost and enjoy!

Makes 18 cupcakes

This cake can also be made as a cake in a 13 x 9 inch pan. With no frosting, this makes an excellent breakfast treat.

I have always liked the idea of making homemade hot chocolate.  I have tried many recipes; I have made hot chocolate with expensive, imported chocolates, cocoa powder and all sorts of permutations.  Butafter all the experimentation, I finally put together this recipe – using plain ol’ Hershey bars.  And it is some kind of good.

This is not hot chocolate for the faint of heart.  It is rich – really rich.  The kind of treat you make only for the holidays, or maybe when you’ve had a very bad day.  But I highly recommend you do make it.  Maybe on a cold morning when you can sip while still in your pajamas.  You don’t even have to share.

Decadent Hot Chocolate

If you want more than the two servings this makes, do it in separate batches, as most blenders won’t hold that much liquid without the top popping off. 

1 1/2 cups heavy cream

1/2 cup milk

2 (1.5 ounce) milk chocolate candy bars (such as Hershey’s)

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 Tablespoon light brown sugar

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

dash of cayenne pepper

dash of salt

In a saucepan, preferably with a pouring spout, heat the cream and milk over medium heat until just beginning to bubble.  Break the chocolate bar into small pieces and place in the carafe of a blender with the sugar, cinnamon, vanilla, cayenne and salt.

When the cream mixture is heated through, pour it over the chocolate mixture in the blender.  Securely place the top on the blender, and holding it in place with a towel, blend the hot chocolate mixture until smooth and frothy.  Always exercise caution when blending hot liquids.  Pour the hot chocolate back into the pan and gently warm through.  Serve in mugs

 Serves two