Homemade Gnocchi

I’m pretty sure that in 2 years this is only the second time I’ve posted a non-dessert food on here.  It’s not that I don’t cook, it’s just that I’m not an especially good cook and the the food I make is boring.  This gnocchi dinner on the other hand seemed worthy of sharing.  I’d been wanting to try making gnocchi for awhile, but assumed it would be too difficult.  This weekend I had some extra potatoes around and figured why not? If they didn’t turn out we’d eat frozen pizza.  I was so surprised how easily these came together.  Don’t be intimidated by the recipe, it’s long, but none of the steps are difficult.

Rolling the gnocchi

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Peanut Butter Blondies

This is a recipe that I decided to make at the last minute when I found out I was having lunch with a vegan friend.  I chose it because I had all of the ingredients on hand, it was a bar cookie which is less work than scooping out individual portions, and it was described as appealing to people who like really peanut buttery desserts.  I had no expectations and just hoped they would turn out reasonably good.  I ended up getting such a huge reaction from my friends and actually had several people describe these as one of the best desserts they’ve ever had.

This recipe got me excited about Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar again.  When I first got the book I had really high hopes since I’m such a fan of the authors’ cupcake cookbook.  The first cookie recipe I tried from it was great, but the second really wasn’t very good.  After my success with this recipe I’m going to put the cookbook back in more regular rotation.

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Pineapple Upside Down Cupcakes

When I was up in Vermont for Christmas, my mom and I talked quite a bit about baking.  She’s a great cook, but absolutely hates baking because she thinks there are too many ingredients, too many steps, too many dirty dishes, and she finds the results unreliable.  She recently made these mini cheesecakes from the blog and thought they were way too much work.  I would describe the cheesecakes as pretty simple, but requiring a bit of patience when making the little crusts.  It was a nice reminder that my perspective on the difficulty level for a baking recipe is a bit skewed considering how often I bake and how much I enjoy it.

This recipe is truly easy and since it is just a doctored cake mix is very reliable.  I actually really like yellow cake from a mix, and unlike chocolate cake, think it’s very often better than homemade.

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Gingerbread Cake

This is my first attempt at making gingerbread and I couldn’t be happier.  I’d always been biased against gingerbread thinking it would taste like the very adorable, but often dry and hard gingerbread cookies you see at Christmastime.  Last Christmas I got a silicone cake pan that makes 6 small gingerbread cakes so I decided to give it a shot.  My criteria for choosing a recipe was that I already had all of the ingredients in the house which is how I stumbled on this one from the King Arthur Flour Baker’s Companion.

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Sufganiyot aka Jelly Doughnuts

I was first introduced to sufganiyot (the hebrew word for doughnuts) two years ago when a boyfriend invited me to dinner with his aunt and uncle. He failed to mention his whole family would be there, parents, siblings, cousins and both sets of grandparents. I walked into a room of 20 people I had never met already sitting down to Hanukah dinner. Luckily I had baked some driedal shaped sugar cookies so I wasn’t empty handed, but talk about awkwaaaarrd!

Anyway point of the anecdote is his aunt had made these delicious jelly doughnuts, known traditionally as sufganiyot. Fried foods are traditional for Hanukah because of the miracle of the oil burning for eight nights instead of one, and we celebrate by eating many oil rich foods, the most popular being latkes or potato pancakes. I was invited to a Hanukah latke party tonight in Brooklyn and decided to contribute by bringing my own sweet treats to counter the pounds of latke’s my friend Larry would be preparing.

My boyfriend rigged up a jelly injector with a straw and a ziplock bag which ended up working perfectly and we got these fried, filled and powdered in about 20 minutes. Not bad for a Sunday afternoon.

I think Latke Larry had the best reaction to the sufganiyot. (See exhibit A below).

Exhibit A. doughnut delight

And now.. time to make the doughnuts..

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Snowman Jello Mold

Police are still searching for suspects.

I ate a lot of Jello growing up.  At my grandmother’s house we’d either have Jello or apple sauce as a snack and in elementary school I would take Jello single serving cups in my lunch box.  I still love the stuff, but virtually never eat it.  I got this really cool Snowman cake pan last Christmas and thought it would make the perfect Jello mold. Read the rest of this entry »

White Chocolate Chex Mix

Pat tried this sweet/salty snack mix at a Christmas party a few years ago and wanted to know why I’d never made it.  To be honest it’s not really my style – I love to bake so mixing a bunch of ingredients together in a large bowl and calling it a day isn’t that appealing.  To Pat, on the other hand, that simplicity was what he liked.  This mix is a delivery system for snacks he loves, held together with white chocolate glue.  The ease of making it came in handy, when we recently had some friends over, and I’d already baked two desserts and wanted to make a third option that wouldn’t take a lot of time.   I looked up this recipe, walked to the store, bought the ingredients, and had it made in less than an hour.

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Bite Size Gingerbread Cheesecakes

Bite size cheesecakes have become one of my party staples.  They’re easy to make, adorable, and always a crowd-pleaser.  They can also be easily customized by varying the type of cookie crumb you make the base with (graham cracker, Nilla wafer, gingersnap, or Oreo) and adding different flavors to the batter.

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Grasshopper Brownies

If you like Andes candies you’ll love these brownies.  They capture the flavor of an Andes perfectly, but they’re so much more decadent.  They’re great for a holiday party, not only because they’re appropriately seasonal, but also because the recipe makes over 50 brownies so you’ll have plenty to feed a large group.

This recipe isn’t difficult, but there are three components and each of them need time to chill.  It’s a good idea to make them a day before you plan on serving them.

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Peppermint Patty Cupcakes (vegan)

Last week was Thanksgiving which in my mind marks the end of pumpkin season and the start of peppermint season.  These little cupcakes are the perfect way to kick off a month of holiday baking.  They are adorable, moist, and pack a strong peppermint punch.  Layering chocolate ganache on top of the frosting is a bit more work than a normal cupcake, but this step shouldn’t be skipped.  The chocolate provides the perfect balance to the very sweet and minty frosting.

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