Cherry Bars

I made these for Women's Bible Study last week.  I thought they looked so yummy.  I love shortbread, so I was imagining a shortbread crust with cherry filling.  They were good, but not exactly what I was expecting.  I think the almond flavoring threw it off a bit (for me, anyway...).  This is from the latest issue of Simple & Delicious.  They looked so nice in the pan...when I cut them up to put them on a plate, they lost a bit of their curb appeal...no picture of that though...

Cherry Bars
1 cup butter, softened
2 cups sugar
1 teaspoon salt
4 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon almond extract
3 cups all-purpose flour
2 cans (21 ounces each) cherry pie filling 
GLAZE:
1 cup confectioners' sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
2 to 3 tablespoons milk

Preheat oven to 350°. In a large bowl, cream butter, sugar and salt until light and fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in extracts. Gradually add flour. Spread 3 cups batter into a greased 15x10x1-in. baking pan. Spread with pie filling. Drop remaining batter by teaspoonfuls over filling. Bake 30-35 minutes or until golden brown. Cool completely in pan on a wire rack. In a small bowl, mix confectioners' sugar, extracts and enough milk to reach desired consistency. Drizzle over top. Yield: 5 dozen.

I like to be sneaky like a spy sometimes.  I was sitting with one of my friends on an upper bleacher in the gym, and I saw someone below me on a lower bleacher about to take a bite of one of my bars.  I said to my friend, in a sneaky whisper "she's about to eat the dessert I made.  Let's see if it looks like she likes it."  But the lady heard me and turned around.  So I did not get an honest opinion out of her.  So I had to be even more sneaky.  A few minutes later I saw another friend with cherry residue on her plate.  I said to her, very casually, "oooh did you have that cherry thing?"  And she was like, "yeah it was good did you try it?"  And I said "I made it!"  If she said it was gross, she and I would have both felt very bad.  So I can see that this will not be the best technique going forward.  When I went to get my (empty except one) plate after the study, a girl I don't know at all said "Oh, did you make those?  They were SO good."  So that counts as an unbiased opinion, and might make you think I don't need to be Sneaky Peeky Spying anymore.  But that is, of course, not the conclusion I have drawn.  (Cue Mission Impossible theme song)

Turkey Bundles

This is supposed to be a recipe you can use with turkey leftovers, but I didn't want to wait for that.  This is from the fall issue of Simple & Delicious, and it has a lot of Thanksgiving stuff in it.  I used chicken instead of turkey.  It starts with Pillsbury crescent dough, which I don't usually buy.  But these just sounded so yummy I wanted to try them.

Turkey Bundles
4 ounces cream cheese, softened
2 tablespoons whole milk
1/2 teaspoon dill weed
1/4 teaspoon celery salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
2 cups cubed cooked turkey
1/4 cup chopped water chestnuts (I left these out)
1 green onion, chopped
2 tubes (one 8 ounces, one 4 ounces) refrigerated crescent rolls (I didn't see these in 4 oz cans, so I used two 8 oz cans...after I used up all the filling, I just made the usual crescent rolls with the rest of the dough
2 tablespoons butter, melted
2 tablespoons seasoned bread crumbs

Preheat oven to 375°. In a large bowl, beat the first five ingredients until smooth. Stir in turkey, water chestnuts and green onion.

Unroll both tubes of crescent dough and separate dough into six rectangles; press perforations to seal. Place 1/3 cup turkey mixture in center of each rectangle. Bring four corners of dough together above filling; twist and pinch seams to seal. Place on a baking sheet. Brush tops with butter; sprinkle with bread crumbs. Bake 15-20 minutes or until golden brown. Yield: 6 servings.

These were tasty.  A couple of problems...#1 what to serve with them.  They are not big enough to be a meal on their own. I had some potatoes left from another recipe, so we had mashed potatoes with it.  Seems like too much starch though.  Problem #2...they were browned on top as in the picture after 15 minutes.  The fam doesn't really like things too browned, so I took them out.  Unbeknownst to me, they were still a bit doughy in the middle.  I think if I made these again, I would reduce to heat to 350 and leave them in a bit longer.

Giant Cupcake Pumpkin

This idea came out of the Simple & Delicious magazine that I just got in the mail.  I made it, with a lot of help from my bestie B-Dog, last night for home fellowship.  Autumn/Fall desserts are my fave (I have another bestie named Autumn so I would like to clarify here that I mean the season, and not the person).  This seemed like something the kids would all like and be fun to make, too. 

The original recipe had a Jack-o-Lantern face, but we don't do those, so we tried to make it like a regular pumpkin.  This was, sadly, not obvious to everyone.  Various guesses included, but were not limited to, a fallen leaf, a flower, and a butterfly.  But Barbie & I knew it was a pumpkin, and so did everyone else once we pointed it out...I think it clearly looks like a pumpkin.

Giant Cupcake Pumpkin
1 pkg spice cake mix
1 cup solid-pack pumpkin
1 cup water
2 eggs
1 cup miniature chocolate chips
2 cans (16 oz each) vanilla frosting
1 tsp maple flavoring
Orange food coloring
Reese's pieces candy

Preheat oven to 350.  Line 26 muffin cups with paper liners (we made 28, because of course as quality bakers we knew we would have to taste-test this product before delivery).  In a large bowl, combine cake mix, pumpkin, water, and eggs; beat on low speed for 30 seconds.  Beat on medium speed 2 minutes.  Stir in chocolate chips.  Fill prepared cups 2/3 full.

Bake 16-20 minutes or until a toothpick comes back clean.  Cool in pans 10 minutes before removing to wire racks to cool completely.

In a large bowl, beat frosting and flavoring.  Tint frosting orange.

On a large platter, arrange four cupcakes in a row.  Continue with a row of 5, a row of 6, another row of 5, and ending with a row of 4 cupcakes to form a pumpkin.  Place 2 cupcakes at the top in the shape of a stem.  Spread frosting over cupcakes.  Decorate with Reese's pieces candies as desired.

These were really good.  Really good.  Maple frosting was new to me.  But I liked it.  It let out a nice maple-y aroma while it was on the counter at Lisa's house, too.  Easy and fun.

English Muffins 2.0

I have tried making English muffins before, and it was in January of 2010 according to this trusty blog.  I just reread that entry and saw that I had planned to make them a few more times before I made my final decision about them.  I never made them again, til now.  And using a different recipe.  My sister in law did send me an English muffin recipe, but I lost it.  When I saw this one in the Southern Living cookbook, I decided to try it again.  This one is a bit different, because it does have cornmeal on the bottoms, like Thomas English muffins do.  Still no nooks or crannies, though...

English Muffins
1 pkg (2 1/4 tsp) active dry yeast
1/2 cup warm water (105-115 degrees)
1 1/2 cups milk
3 tbsp shortening
2 tbsp sugar
1 1/4 tsp salt
6-7 cups all-purpose flour (I hate ranges like that...I used 6 cups)
1/4 cup plus 2 tbsp cornmeal

Combine yeast and warm water in a 1 cup liquid measuring cup; let stand 5 minutes.

Combine milk, shortening, sugar, and salt in a small saucepan; heat until shortening melts, stirring occasionally.  Remove from heat and let cool to 105-115 degrees.

Combine yeast mixture, milk mixture, and 3 cups flour in a large mixing bowl; beat at medium speed with an electric mixer until well blended.  Gradually add enough remaining flour to make a stiff dough.

Turn dough out onto floured surface and knead until smooth and elastic (5-10 minutes)(I never knead that long, maybe 1 or 2...).  Place in a well-greased bowl, turning to grease top.  Cover and let rise for 1 hour or until doubled in bulk.

Punch dough down; turn out onto lightly floured surface, and knead 4 or 5 times.  Divide dough in half.  Place half of dough on a smooth surface that has been sprinkled with 1/4 cup cornmeal.  Pat dough into a circle 3/4" thick; cut dough into rounds with 3 1/2" biscuit cutter (cut carefully, as leftover dough should not be reused).  Repeat procedure with remaining dough.

Sprinkle 2 baking sheets (I only did one big one) with remaining cornmeal.  Place rounds, cornmeal side down, 2 inches apart on baking sheets (1 side should remain free of cornmeal).  Cover and let rise for 30 minutes or until doubled in bulk.

Using a wide spatula, transfer rounds to preheated, lightly greased electric skillet (350 degrees)(I used just over medium heat in a regular skillet), cornmeal side down.  Cook 5-7 minutes on each side or until golden (that was too long for almost all of them...).  Cool on wire rack.  Yield: 8 muffins

Yep, all that work for 8 English muffins.  I actually got 9 out of this batch, but still.  They only cost like $1.49 at the bread store.  They tasted good, toasted with some of my homemade (but quite runny) freezer jam that I posted a few weeks ago.  But this was a lot of work for this amount of muffins.  Also, weirdly, while they were in the skillet, it smelled like I was making popcorn, because of the cornmeal. 

Maple Bacon Oven Pancake

We had this for supper last week, and I haven't had a chance to post.  It sounded really good on paper.  It wasn't really what I was expecting, but it was okay.  From Southern Living.

Maple Bacon Oven Pancake
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
1 1/2 cups Bisquick
1 tbsp sugar
3/4 cup milk
1/4 cup maple syrup
1 1/2 cups shredded cheddar cheese, divided
12 slices bacon, cooked and crumbled

Combine first 5 ingredients in a large bowl; beat at medium speed with an electric mixer until smooth (I just used a wire whisk).  Stir in 1/2 cup cheese.  Pour into greased 9x13 baking dish.  Bake at 425 for 12 minutes.  Sprinkle with remaining 1 cup cheese and bacon (as you can see from my picture, there are those here that do not like cheese or bacon, so I sprinkled accordingly); bake 3-5 more minutes or until toothpick comes back clean.  Cut into squares and serve with maple syrup.

We had this with yogurt and fruit.  It was okay.  Not something we'll have again, though.  I like regular pancakes with bacon on the side better, I guess...