my first gingerbread house

homemade croutons

homemade croutons from leftover rosemary bread.

blackberry picking and blackberry cobbler

lovely brownies

i made the brownies from this recipe.

pumpkin scones

Starbucks Pumpkin Scones with Spiced Icing
(i made half of this recipe... which made 8 scones)

4 cups flour
3/4 cup sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1 tsp cinamon
1 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp cloves
1/2 tsp ginger
3/4 cup cold butter, cut in small pieces
1 cup pureed pumpkin
6 tbsp milk
2 eggs
milk for brushing tops
sugar for sprinkling

Preheat oven to 400. Combine flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, and spices. Cut in butter using 2 knives or your fingers, until it resembles small peas.

In a seperate bowl, whisk together eggs, pumpkin, and milk. Fold together with the dry ingredients until just mixed.

Pat dough into a 1 inch thick rectangle. Slice in half. Slice each half into 3 squares. Slice each square into a triangle.

Place on a parchment lined baking sheet. Brush with a little milk, and sprinkle with sugar.

Bake 14-16 minutes. Your house will smell heavenly! When cool, drizzle with spiced icing.


Spiced Icing

1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
1/4 tsp cinamon
1/8 tsp nutmeg
1 pinch ginger
1 pinch cloves
2 tbsp milk

Mix powdered sugar and spices. Add milk and stir until smooth. Using the tines of a fork, drizzle over cooled scones.

brown butter chocolate chip cookies

“Take-Jacques-Torres-Out-Back” Chocolate Chip Cookie
Cook’s Illustrated 2009 Cookbook (May and June 2009 issue)

Ingredients

* 1 3/4 cps unbleached ap flour (8 1/4 ounces or 250 grams)
* 1/2 tsp baking soda
* 14 tbsps unsalted butter (1 3/4 sticks or 200 grams)
* 1/2 cup white sugar (3 1/2 ounces or 100 grams)
* 3/4 cup dark brown sugar (5 1/4 ounces or 150 grams)
* 1 tsp table salt
* 2 tsp vanilla extract
* 1 large egg
* 1 large egg yolk
* 1 1/4 cps good quality chocolate chips
* 3/4 cp chopped pecans (optional)

Directions

1. Adjust oven rack to the middle and pre-heat oven to 375F degrees (191C)

2. Whisk flour and baking soda in a medium bowl and set aside

3. Heat 10 tbsps (140 grams) butter in a 10-inch skillet over medium-high heat until melted. Continue cooking, swirling constantly until butter is dark brown and has nutty aroma.

4. Remove butter from heat and place in a heat proof bowl.

5. Add remaining butter (60 grams or 4 tbsps).

6. Once butter has melted completely, add sugars, sat and vanilla to bowl.

7. Stir everything together. You’ll notice it’s rather grainy and the butter wants little to do with its new friends.

8. That’s okay, now add the egg and egg yolk. It will help them all get along. Stir together to ensure there aren’t any sugar lumps.

9. Allow mixture to sit for 3 minutes. Come back, stir again. Starting to get along now, right?

10. Allow to sit again for another 3 minutes. Come back, stir again. You should now have a lovely, relatively smooth mixture.

11. Using a wooden spoon, stir in the flour mixture.

12. Add chocolate chips.

13. Bake for 10 minutes.

another baked cheesecake

baked cheesecake

homemade chocolate almond biscotti

i love biscotti. it was really easy to make too!

sweet & light little soufflé

i used low-fat greek yogurt to make these sweet little soufflé so they're really light and fluffy.