Holiday Eggnog Bread

 My godmother is a good cook, when it comes to savory items. I’ve never really known her to do sweets. Partly because she and my godfather were not big fans of sugary treats and she rarely had time to put into baking.

One sweet treat she has been making for years—decades probably—is a delicious eggnog bread. It’s an easy semi-homemade loaf that is moist and full of flavor. The simple recipe is easily doubled (each batch makes two loaves), so that you can freeze some to have on hand for guests or to give away to friends and family. (It will be much more welcomed than the traditional fruit cake.) 

 

You can find the recipe for the eggnog after the jump and in my second cookbook, aptly named Eating Suburbia, available here.

 

NOTE: Last week I shared a cherished recipe for eggnog that was generously shared with me. It’s the perfect ingredient for this holiday eggnog bread, but if you don’t have the time or the inclination to make it, you can head to the store—COVID willing—and pick up some premade eggnog to use. 

 

Holiday Eggnog Bread

1 box yellow cake mix    

1/4 cup butter, softened

2 large eggs    

2 tablespoons rum

1 1/2 cups eggnog

 

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease two loaf pans.

 

Beat eggs first then add the rest of the ingredients and mix well. Pour into prepared loaf pans.

 

Bake for 45 minutes. Allow to cool, then remove from pans.

 

Yield: 2 loaves

 

 

#FAIL

Yep, that’s what it’s been like at my house. I’ve attempted two desserts—one for Christmas Eve and one for New Year’s Day—and both have been failures in one way or another.

Desserts are my forte and I usually attack them with gusto and typically produce great results. But recipe errors, missteps, and my inability to make a presentable layer cake all contributed to these epic fails. Well, maybe not epic. Both desserts were tasty, but not without some wasted time, ingredients and consternation.

Let’s start with the Christmas Eve dessert. I actually found this dessert back on November 28^th and excitedly sent the recipe to my brother, who we would be spending the holidays with. We love to collaborate in the kitchen, so I wanted his approval for the Four-Layer Salted Chocolate Caramel Tart. He wholeheartedly agreed, so I made sure I packed all the requisite ingredients before making the trek down to SoCal.

Now, I had read the recipe, but had failed to notice that it required a 13 ¾ x 4 ¼-inch tart pan. This is not a standard item in any kitchen I know of and on Christmas Eve it was going to be hard to find. Actually, make that impossible. We made a beeline to Jane’s Cakes in La Canada, who have everything under the sun for baking, but no tart pan in that size. (Note: subsequent searches have found that a 13 ¾ x 4 1/4 pan doesn’t seem to exist. 14 x 4 or 14 x 4.5 is available however.) So we had to make do with an 8-inch round tart pan, which is roughly the same size, just different in shape.

This recipe takes hours to make, as each layer has to be made and then chilled or baked and cooled. My brother and I should have made the tart shell dough the night before, but were having too good a time with friends, and wine was involved, and well…you know. So we began on Christmas Eve morning. We made the dough with no problem. Then chilled it for 2 hours. Then we kneaded and rolled and got it into the pan and chilled the dough again for 30 minutes. Finally, after 3 hours of the clock ticking by, we were able to bake the first layer. Gonna be a long day…

We let the crust cool, and moved on to the fudge cookie layer. I thought that the ingredient list felt like it was missing something. The only liquid was egg and there was no baking soda or powder. But we persevered, made the dough, and popped it into the crust and then the oven. We waited 25 minutes and no crack in the layer, as the recipe indicated. Another 5 and still no crack. We finally had to take it out of the oven before the requisite crack appeared as it was pulling away from the sides and looked to be overdone.

Again, we let the two layers cool to room temp and then set about to make the caramel layer. Four hours off the clock….

NOTE: Now you might think that making this tart was all we had to do for dinner, given the amount of time we have thus far spent on it, but that was not the case. We also had to grate 2 pounds of fresh horseradish for our beef tenderloin, prepare 6 pounds of potatoes, clean and trim brussels sprouts and broccoli, set the table, prep hors d’oeuvres. Arghh…I was definitely second guessing my decision to make this dessert!

Staving off My Sweet Tooth: Healthy(er) Peanut Butter Cups

You may have noticed that a significant number of recipes on this blog are of the sugar variety. I definitely have a sweet tooth. I like my muffins, coffeecakes, cookies, tortes, cupcakes…even candied bacon!

I’ve never been a junk food addict. I don’t down Coke every day, rarely eat at a fast food restaurant, don’t decimate a bag of chips in one sitting (like Mr. B), and rarely buy packaged or prepared cookies, candy, cakes or ice cream.

But I do bake. A lot. Unfortunately, as the years creep up on me, I just can’t have those temptations around. I still bake for Sunday dinners when the family is here, for special occasions, for friends. It’s just not enough to satisfy my sweet tooth.

So what’s a girl to do???

I’ve been hunting around for something that is small in size, easy to prepare and that has less guilt attached to it (healthier), while at the same time able to provide me a satisfying sweet treat.

I found a recipe online for a paleo Reese’s Cup. It’s basically a nut butter cup with dark chocolate on top. I’ve been experimenting with the base recipe for a few weeks now, adding and subtracting unsweetened shredded coconut, using all almond butter, using a mix of almond and peanut butters, trying different chocolates, even using different pans.

I’ve finally hit upon the right combination of ingredients—and the right vessel to put them in—and it’s time to share the recipe with you.

I have to say that I really love these. I keep them in the freezer and take one out when I am in need of a sugar fix, usually at 2 or 3 in the afternoon and around 8 or 9 at night. They weigh in at under 100 calories a piece but also have some protein, given the quantity of nut butters. They are good for a paleo diet, low-carb diet, Atkins, etc. They are also gluten free and, if you use the right chocolate, dairy free.

I particularly like this combination of ingredients and have adjusted the amounts so that when frozen, the nut base doesn’t get all soft and gooey while the chocolate is harder than a rock. I found the best peanut/almond butter combo to be Trader Joe’s Creamy Almond Butter and Jif Extra Chunky Peanut Butter. For the top, I just use a thin layer of chocolate—Nestle Dark Chocolate Morsels are great—but you can go thicker if you want. You can also omit the coconut, as it acts more as a sweetener and to add some bulk to the candy.

Note: I originally used mini muffin pans for these. No grease necessary, just fill and freeze and then pop them out as needed. Now I use silicone mini muffin cup molds. I place them on a tray, fill and freeze. Once frozen, I put them in a Ziploc in the freezer. They pop out really easy and I get about 2 dozen this way. They are slightly smaller than the muffin pan I was using, and the perfect size for me.

Nut Butter and Chocolate Treats

½ cup smooth almond butter

½ cup peanut butter, smooth or chunky

1 tablespoon coconut oil

1 tablespoon honey

½ cup unsweetened shredded coconut, minced

2/3 cup dark chocolate chips (you can also chop up bar chocolate)

1 teaspoon coconut oil

Put your nut butters, coconut oil and honey in a glass bowl or measuring cup and microwave until mixable, about 30-45 seconds. Stir or whisk until the mixture is creamy. Add minced coconut and stir to incorporate.

Using a small ice cream scoop, ladle or tablespoon, fill your mini muffin cups about 2/3 full. Gently bang your muffin pan or tray on the counter to level the ingredients.

Place the chocolate and teaspoon of coconut oil in a glass measuring cup and microwave for 30 seconds. Stir and microwave

a second time for about 20-30 seconds. Stir until the mixture is creamy.

Pour the mixture on top of the nut cups, starting at the outside edge and moving in. When done, gently bang the pan or tray again to even out the chocolate.

Yield: 2 dozen

Not Your Grandmother’s Brownies

Sunday dinner required something a bit different this week.  I was making some nice carnitas for tacos and wanted something to complement the flavors of the Mexican food I was making. I remembered a recipe I had saved earlier this year from Better Homes & Gardens for Sweet & Spicy Brownie Bites. I remembered chocolate and chilis—a good pairing in my estimation. (And a bit of vanilla ice cream would be a welcome addition in the heat we are having here today.) These are definitely something my grandmother never would have thought of, and probably wouldn’t have even tried. Sweet and spicy combined was not her cup of tea.

Digging the recipe out of my file of “Desserts To Try” I found I didn’t have all the ingredients and it was for a 13x9  pan, which is definitely too large for us this Sunday, as there will be only four of us. So I got creative and modified the recipe based on what I had on hand and used a standard 8x8 pan. I ‘ve provided a link to the original recipe above, in case you want to compare. And should you want to make a large batch in a 13x9 pan, you can double all the ingredients below, with the exception of the eggs (of which you should only use 5).

Rather than tell the family what I had made, I asked them to try the brownies and describe them in 4 words:

Mr. B: sweet, spicy, chocolately, and not overly dense

Brilliant Daughter: chocolate, ginger, cake, brownie

Butcher Son: moist, rich, decadent, brownie

Obviously Mr. B came the closest to the original name, even if chocolately is not a word, and “not overly dense” is a phrase and not a singular word. Brilliant Daughter was the only one who got the ginger, but she loves ginger and the flavor was more pronounced than in the original recipe due to the addition of ginger chips. Surprisingly, no one got the chili flavor. They all thought the spicy component was the ginger. I found that after chewing a bite and swallowing that the chili sat in the back of my throat and gave a slight burn. Not in a bad way, just different.

Overall these were a hit. Not something they would want me to make on a regular basis, only because espresso brownies, chocolate chip brownies, and salted caramel brownies are much higher on their wish list.

Susan’s Sweet & Spicy Brownie Bites

5/8 cup all-purpose flour

1 tablespoon unsweetened cocoa powder

1 teaspoon chili powder

½ teaspoon chipotle chili powder

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon salt

teaspoon kosher salt

¼ cup ginger chips

4.5 ounces dark or bittersweet chocolate (60-72%), coarsely chopped

ounces quality dark chocolate (60-72%), coarsely chopped

1 2 cup unsalted butter, cut into 1-inch pieces

5/8 cup granulates sugar

¼ cup packed brown sugar

3 eggs, room temperature

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Butter the sides and bottom of an 8x8 baking pan.

In a small bowl whisk together the flour, cocoa powder, chile powders, cinnamon, salt, and ginger chips; set aside.

Place the chocolate and butter in the top of a double boiler or a large heat-proof bowl. Set over a pan of barely simmering water (the bottom of the pan should not touch the water). Heat and stir occasionally until the chocolate and butter are completely melted and combined. Remove from heat, keeping pan or bowl over water. Add both sugars; whisk until completely combined. Remove from water. Let mixture come to room temperature.

Add two eggs to the chocolate mixture and whisk until just combined. Add the remaining egg and whisk until combined. Do not overbeat the batter or your brownies will be cakey.

Sprinkle the flour mixture over the chocolate mixture. Using a spatula (not a whisk), fold until there is just a trace amount of flour mixture visible.

Pour the mixture into the prepared dish or pan and smooth the top with your spatula. Bake for 25 minutes, rotating the pan halfway through baking. Cool completely on wire rack.

When cool, cut into 16 squares and dust lightly with cocoa powder.

Makes 16 squares

Week 15: Molten Dulce de Leche Cakes

Sunday dinner with the family always involves some good wine, food, and conversation. We always end the night with dessert, which is a perfect time to test out new recipes. My family doesn’t mind being guinea pigs and I get more feedback than during the week when Mr. B is the only one around. Bless his heart, he rarely complains about anything I cook, probably as much out of fear that I will stop feeding him as the fact that he really likes everything. I mean, the guy ate brains and eggs, raw lamb kibbe, baby goat, and a myriad of other things as a kid that I wasn’t introduced to until adulthood.

This week for dessert I tested out a recipe from Bon Appetit. It was originally from Florencia Courreges, the pastry chef at La Huella restaurant in Uruguay. It is her south-of-the-border take on the traditional chocolate lava cake. The simplicity of it boggles the mind, as it only takes 3 ingredients, 3 simple steps, and 20 minutes from start to finish. And you don’t even start it until after dinner is over! (That’s one way to get everyone else to do the dishes…)

The basis for the cake is dulce de leche, a sweet thick caramel that is nothing more than sweetened

condensed milk cooked slowly. There are ways to make your own in a crock pot or even from scratch if you are so inclined. I use the Nestle brand, which makes a 13.4 ounce can (which turns out to be the right amount for this recipe). These can be found in the Hispanic food aisle or with sweetened condensed milk in your baking aisle

The result is a sweet, light cake with a warm molten center, served right out of the oven. The directions recommend that you unmold the cake before serving. This will, of course, give you a more dramatic first bite, with the caramel-colored goodness oozing out onto the plate, but I think it would be perfectly fine served within its ramekin. I should warn you that due to the one-dimensional note of the dessert, I found it wise to serve with a small scoop of ice cream. I recommend vanilla, Florencia recommends banana as well. (I tried whipped cream, but it melted too soon and didn’t cut the sweetness properly like the vanilla bean ice cream did.)

I should also note that the original recipe said it made 6 servings, but the cakes were a bit small, and cook so quickly that unless you check them every 30 seconds once you hit about 9 minutes, they overcook. Making a second batch (and doubling it for the whole family) made 8 good-sized cakes and took about 12 minutes. The center should be jiggly – and when I say center, it should measure the size of a quarter or more, because while you get them out, move them off the pan and unmold them, they have continued to cook a bit and the centers start to firm up. You definitely should serve them right away, although Mr. B did have a second one the next day, chilled, and said it was delicious. (Good man!)

Recipe after the jump....

 

Week 13: Going Old School with Grasshopper Pie

Okay, this is not strictly adhering to my goal of trying a new recipe every week. In fact, this recipe is one that I have been making since I was a teen. Grasshopper Pie was one of only three desserts my mother made (the other two being a Sherry Pound Cake and a Harvey Wallbanger Cake). March 25th would have been her 75th birthday, so to celebrate that we had a Grandma Diane dinner. That meant a London Broil, baked potato with sour cream, salad and…Grasshopper Pie.

Grasshopper Pie is one of those things that I secretly love. (Deep-fried Twinkies are also one of those culinary delights I generally keep hidden.)  It not only evokes memories of my mother and childhood, but it is a perfect after-dinner dessert. Minty, with a soft, cloud-like texture and a crunchy hit of chocolate from the crust. It’s like having a postprandial Andes mint. Only cold. And fluffy.

This is also one of those typical 1970s recipes. It’s what I call a shortcut dessert. Shortcuts were a working woman’s saving grace back then. Working full-time but still expected to put dinner on the table every night like their own mothers, many women got very creative. Crockpots became a big hit. Fill it, set it, forget it, serve it. Packaged mixes like Lawry’s Spaghetti Sauce Mix or Hamburger Helper could take a pound of ground meat and turn it into a meal in 30 minutes. Casseroles became popular, combining a type of meat, pasta or rice, and Campbell’s soup that you mixed up to throw into the oven. And who had time for baking layer cakes, even with a box mix? Nope, you did slice and bake cookies (or just bought packaged cookies like my mother did) or made shortcut desserts like Grasshopper Pie or the aforementioned alcohol-laced pound cakes (which required a box mix, one pan and no icing).

This recipe is pretty easy to put together and you can even buy a premade chocolate cookie crust to further cut down on the preparation time. Not everyone keeps crème de menthe and crème de cacao in the house, but you can try and search out airplane-sized bottles at your local BevMo, borrow some from a friend, or just bite the bullet and buy them. (Crème de menthe is delicious served over vanilla ice cream or you can whip up an adult hot chocolate with a bit of both of these liqueurs…topped with whipped cream, of course.)

Grasshopper Pie

Crust:

1 1/4 cups crushed chocolate wafers

1/3 cup melted butter

Filling:

2/3 cup scalded milk

24 large marshmallows

2 ounces green crème de menthe

1 ounce white crème de cacao

1/2 pint whip cream, whipped

For crust, mix wafers with butter and pat into 9-inch pie pan. Chill.

Add marshmallows to scalded milk in double boiler, stirring often until blended into smooth mixture. Cool to room temperature and add liqueurs. Fold in whipped cream and stir gently until completely mixed. Pour into chilled crust. Freeze for at least 2 hours. If frozen overnight, thaw before serving. Shave chocolate onto the top for decoration.

Serves 8

Week 10: Lemondoodles

Snickerdoodles were one of my children’s favorite cookies growing up. The soft eggy cookie dusted in cinnamon sugar was a real treat for the mouth and a nice departure from the standard chocolate chip that often filled our cookie jar. Eight years ago Brilliant Daughter and I came up with our own riff on the classic snickerdoodle, developing a chaidoodle that incorporated typical chai spices. Looking back I realized that chaidoodles were one of the early posts in the first year I began this blog (2006).  Eight years later, combing through my mountains of saved recipes, I came across this recipe for lemondoodles, which I believe came from Melissa and No. 2 Pencil blog.  And because we are notorious lemon lovers and I still have Meyer lemons on the tree, it made perfect sense to test it out.

Start to finish, these cookies took about an hour, with ingredients that are found in a typical pantry and refrigerator. The only tricky part is browning the butter, but as long as you stand over the stove and watch and stir carefully, it only takes a few minutes. That means you can’t answer the phone, change a diaper, or run outside to turn off the sprinklers. It is wise to be patient and appreciate that solid butter turning into a golden nutty liquid. Other than that, it is a simple recipe that mixes up easily in either a stand mixer or your everyday handheld mixer.

I’ve made a few adjustments to the recipe. First, in the topping, I chose to use a microplane instead of a zester. A microplane allows for small, delicate curls of lemon peel, which I felt would integrate better with the sugar, infuse more flavor into the topping, and would react better when baking. A zester would create long strands  that would either require straining before using or would not attach well to the cookie and possibly burn or turn bitter in the baking process. And because I was using Meyer lemons, which have considerably more flavor in the peel than your standard Eureka lemon, I only needed to use the zest from 2 lemons, rather than 3.

I also tried to different baking times and temperatures. The original recipe called for 7 minutes at 425 degrees, but my other “doodle” recipes call for 10 minutes at 400 degrees. I found that there is not a huge difference, but the 7 minute/425 degrees version was a bit lighter in color and softer on the outside. The insides of both were similar. So make your life easier and go with the 7 minute version.

I should point out that these are large cookies and spread out, so do not crowd on your baking pan. I cooked only 8 to a pan, which was perfect. It takes a bit longer, but with 2 pans in the oven at a time, you only need to do the process twice.

Pair these with a nice cup of oolong, English Breakfast, or Earl Gray and enjoy yourself!