Tag Archives: baking

Fudgy Mint Cookies

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This is the 200th post on my blog! In less than a year I’ve added 200 recipes!
I stewed about what to write for this special day. I knew I needed to have a cookie for the 200th – since baking cookies are my favorite things to make. My challenge was to find someone to bake for because the hubby and I can have only a few cookies now and then.

story, milk and cookies


I have five wonderful grandchildren, but they all live far away, so I rarely get to bake for them. I also have a friend in town whose three grandkids live only a block away. But she can’t bake for them because she’s undergoing chemo for cancer. So I baked cookies for her kitchen so that when the grandkids visit they’ll have a treat waiting for them. It’s difficult letting our grandkids see us when we’re not well, but it’s a part of life. It does our spirits good to see them and hopefully it is reassuring to children when they get to see grandparents, even when they’re not at their best.

chips of many colors


I’ve also found a resource I want to share with all of you – Take Them a Meal. It’s a website where you can set up a schedule and folks can sign up to bring a meal to someone in need. Once you set it up, the website sends reminders and suggestions. They also allow you to see what meals have been served in the previous days so you don’t duplicate. Genius.

Here’s the website for Take Them a Meal: http://www.takethemameal.com/index.php
It looks as if it’s quite simple to set it up. I hope this helps some of you who have friends who could use a little help.

One more note: the picture book shown is Stanza by Jill Esbaum, who is a wonderful Iowa writer I happen to know. I went to a weekend retreat for children’s writers led by Jill and it was delightful. My own grandkids adore this book, so it seemed a good one to tell you about.

a stiff batter

a fudgy bite

So where was I? Oh yes, cookies – my favorite thing to bake. These were fudgy little wonders.
I had several half bags of mint chips that I tossed together for these. Some mint chips are green and others look like regular chocolate chips, but because these have a chocolate batter, the chips didn’t show up much. However the flavor really came through. If you want even more mint flavor, add a capful of peppermint extract. Let’s get baking!
This recipe was adapted from the recipe on the back of the package of Nestle Dark Chocolate and Mint Chips. I also used Hershey’s mint chocolate chips.

Ingredients
1 cup butter, softened (2 sticks)
2/3 cup white sugar
2/3 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
2 cups flour
2/3 cup unsweetened baking cocoa
1 tsp baking soda
½ tsp salt
1 2/3 cup mint chips
1 tsp peppermint extract – optional

Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Cream butter and sugars.
Add eggs and vanilla and beat until well blended.
Add cocoa powder and continue beating.
Add soda and salt.
Add flour and mix just until blended.
Stir in chips.
Batter will be heavy.
Drop by teaspoonfuls onto an ungreased cookie sheet.
Bake 11 – 13 minutes.
After two minutes move to a wire rack to finish cooling.

Pour a glass of milk, find your favorite bedtime story and read to the little ones in your life.
These fudgy mint cookies will send you off to sweet dreamland.

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Ugliest Cake Ever

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I keep dreaming that I’ll make a beautiful cake, worthy of a site like Foodgawker. But I seemed destined to make cakes decorated with gummies – fish, bears, worms – all gummies.

Clare blows out cake #1


My grandkids, and my kids and their spouses were all home last week so we decided to celebrate little Clare’s birthday early. (By calling the soon-to-be-six year old “little” does this resign me to being “big Clare?”)
Clare and I actually have birthdays that are only a few days apart and because they live in Florida we have to take our cake occasions where we can find them.

Clare and her cake


So I whipped up a chocolate cake from scratch and the other grandchildren frosted and decorated it with gummy fish, and other candies. The cake was nothing to blog about, even tho I got the recipe from a reputable magazine. But Clare still enjoyed the attention and the candle-lit fun.

Sophia and Clare

A few days later Clare and I decided we needed to invite three neighbor children for cake to continue our birthday month. After we visited a very large garden in 90 degree heat, Sophia (7), Clare and I headed to a grocery store to pick up items for dinner. While I picked out some salmon, Clare wandered to the bakery counter next to us. She fell in love with a “rainbow” cake.
I rarely purchase cakes, for a whole host of reasons, but this time I thought, “It’s going to be nearly 100 degrees this afternoon and we’re trying to get to a movie.” So I gave in.

Of course, we couldn’t leave the cake a plain rainbow. Sophia and I put a bowl in the middle of the cake and then crushed Oreo cookies and put them around the edges of the bowl. Next we took the gummy worms that I had in my pantry (doesn’t every grandmother have gummy worms on hand?). And the girls adorned the rainbow cake with worms.

The “garden” needed an edge so M & M’s provided that. And when they weren’t looking, I stuck a clown head in the middle.

ugliest cake ever

Kara and Oliver in back, Sophia and Clare in front


When we finished, the girls and I headed off to see the Lorax in 3D in a nice cool movie theater. As we wore our dorky glasses and giggled at all the antics, and hummed with the music, I realized I was happy I wasn’t baking in my hot kitchen.

And there you have it – a really ugly cake that brought smiles as we again lit candles and enjoyed the moment together.
I love having a birthday month so that you have several chances to get it right. We’ll see if I do…

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Walnut Bars with Butter Rum Frosting

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Sneaking nuts and seeds into baking and other dishes adds texture and interest, in addition to nutrition. Even a sticky dessert has more redeeming characteristics when you add nuts. You know, pecans or almonds on top of a sundae or walnuts in a chocolate chip cookie. Makes it more of a grown up dessert, to be taken seriously.

walnut bars


Walnut Squares are serious dessert contenders – even tho there is no chocolate in them. (Although that could easily be remedied!) They are made in two short layers with a delicious frosting added to sweeten the deal. The crunch of the walnuts against the buttery shortbread bottom will have your tastebuds doing a tango.

a walnut bar


This is an offering adapted from Esther Brody’s cookbook, “500 Best Cookies, Bars and Squares.” Wouldn’t you love to part of her taste testers? http://www.cookstr.com/users/esther-brody/profile. Ester has written or contributed to nine cookbooks! Yikes. Now there’s a serious baker.

base is crumbly


Note about flours: Many of us are trying to add more whole grain flours to our baking. I’ve tried the white whole wheat and it’s not as fine a texture as the whole wheat pastry flour. For that reason I prefer the ww pastry flour for desserts and the white whole wheat for a country bread.

Ingredients for the Shortbread base
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour – or whole wheat pastry flour
1 TBS packed brown sugar
1/8 tsp baking powder
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter

Ingredients for Topping
1 1/4 cups chopped walnuts, divided
2 eggs
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
2 TBS all purpose flour
1/8 tsp baking powder
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp rum flavoring

press evenly into pan


Directions for Base
Preheat oven to 325 F
Use a 9″ x 13″ cake pan, ungreased
In a bowl, (or food processor) mix together the flour, sugar and baking powder.
Cut in the butter until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs.
Press evenly into the pan.
Bake for 15 – 20 minutes until golden brown.
Remove from oven and cool slightly.

top layer baked to golden


Directions for the Topping
Set aside 1/2 cup of the chopped walnuts.
In a bowl, beat the eggs and brown sugar until blended.
Beat in flour, baking powder, vanilla and rum flavoring just until well mixed.
Stir in remaining 3/4 cup walnuts.
Spread evenly over warm base.
Return to oven and bake another 15 – 20 minutes until top is golden brown.
Place pan on a wire rack to cool completely.
When cool, frost with Butter Rum Frosting (Recipe below.)
Sprinkle the remaining walnuts on top and cut into squares or diamonds.
Makes 30 squares…or 24 if you like them bigger.

frost cooled bars

press walnuts into frosting

a delicious bar

Butter Rum Frosting
Ingredients
1/3 cup butter, softened
4 cups confectioner’s sugar, sifted
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp rum flavoring
2 TBS cream or milk
dash of salt

Directions
In a large bowl, cream the butter.
Slowly add the sugar in stages, blending well.
Add the flavorings and the cream and the remaining sugar.
Spread onto the cooled bars.

Walnut Bars are a great dessert to serve your family or company. The blend of flavors and textures will dance on your tongue.

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Chocolate Custard Cheesecake – crustless

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I’ve been in Nana heaven for more than a week, traveling with my entire family.

Liam, Maddy in back. Sophia, Oliver and Clare with Nana Clare


We finished the week with a frenetic weekend traveling back to our home in Ames. Our little family now has 13 humans and three dogs. With temps reaching into the upper 90′s and children and dogs dashing in and out, it was challenging to keep the house comfy. But we are now a family that lives in four different states and time together is precious – even when it’s hot.
When the week started, we wanted to celebrate one of our son’s birthdays with his favorite dessert – Cowboy Cake.

http://www.nanaclareskitchen.com/2011/12/27/cowboy-cake/

chocolate custard cheesecake


This is an old fashioned “dump” cake with a few flavorful additions.
But over the past year, our other son has become gluten intolerant. I had planned to make an almond torte for him, but I couldn’t find my recipe. Then I decided just to swap out the regular flour for the almond flour in the Cowboy Cake recipe. Brilliant right? I thought so too until smoke started pouring out of the oven after 25 minutes. I opened the door and pulled out this gelatinous mess!

smokey mess


potential?


I set it on the counter and quickly whipped up another cake with the correct flour this time, feeling very frustrated that I had wasted about $10.00 worth of almond flour. I say quickly, because I was trying NOT to heat up the kitchen too much.

My ten year old granddaughter, Maddy had helped me make the first cake and as the burned goopey mess was cooling she got a spoon and tasted the result.
“Nana, this tastes like hot fudge sauce,” she said.
“I’m just going to throw it all out,” I pouted.
In her quiet way, she kept encouraging me. “With all these cookbooks, why don’t you look in one to see if there’s anything you can do?”

eggs, ricotta cheese and sour cream


“You’re right,” I said and grabbed my gluten free cookbook. There I found a recipe for an almond cake that used only almond flour – and four eggs. It hit me then. My cowboy cake uses no eggs, so the cake had no binders because almond flour is really just ground up almonds and not a flour.
I grabbed my mixer and cracked in four eggs and added ricotta cheese and sour cream. Then I poured the syrupy mess back into the mixer. Turns out, only the sides of the pan were burned – along with the bottom of the oven.
After pouring it all into a clean cake pan, I baked it for another 30 minutes.
Result? A rich chocolatey dessert that looked like a brownie, but was soft like a cheesecake or custard. No crust, but it was delicious. After it got the thumbs up from Maddy – and a few others, we took it to a family party where it was devoured – by those who need gluten free and those who don’t.
Here are the steps – without the smoke in the middle.

nice creamy batter

baked results

taste test

she likes it

second bite

Ingredients
4 eggs
8 oz ricotta cheese
1/4 cup sour cream
2 1/2 cups almond flour
2 cups sugar
1/2 cup unsweetened baking chocolate
2 tsp soda
1 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla
2 tsp vinegar
¾ cup canola oil
2 cups cold coffee
1 cup dark chocolate chips

Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F
Grease a 9 x 13″ cake pan
Beat the eggs, ricotta cheese and sour cream until smooth.
Whisk the dry ingredients together.
Add the oil, vinegar and vanilla to the egg mixture.
Add the flour mixture in three batches alternating with the cold coffee.
Stir in the chocolate chips.
Bake 35 – 45 minutes or until done.
This will be soft like a cheesecake, but should be set and firm.