dessert

Grandpa Ray’s Grapefruit Pie

~ lk529 ~ 3 Comments

Today marks Grandpa Ray’s 90th year (aka it’s his 89th birthday). Grandpa Ray married Busia in 1999 and fell into place with our family. He learned our card games, and introduced us to new games. He joined Busia in being a “snow bird” and absolutely loved spending time at the Lake. He would spend all day, every day, working in the garden. And he enjoyed Busia’s cooking and accepted our Polish traditions.

This recipe is one of his! It’s the dessert he would bring to any gathering, and might be the only thing he knew how to make. It’s a unique pie that’s become a family favorite – it’s usually the one my brother requests at holidays. Many people are surprised this is a grapefruit pie – they think it is a key lime or similar pie. The “secret ingredient” of grapefruit isn’t often revealed until after they’ve tried it.

Grandpa Ray’s Grapefruit Pie

Ingredients:

  • 2-3 grapefruit
  • ¼ cup lemon juice
  • 1 can condensed milk
  • 1 graham cracker crust
  • 1 tub cool whip

Steps:

  1. Slice grapefruit. Use a strainer with a bowl beneath it and pull the “meat” or pulp from the rind and membranes. You will end up with less than a cup of “meat” – mix gently and break up larger pieces of grapefruit – do not press or you will lose the juice in the pulp. Pieces should be about the size of a corn kernel or smaller. (The juice in the bowl under the strainer is your treat – fresh grapefruit juice!)
  2. In another bowl, mix together the lemon juice and condensed milk.
  3. Pour grapefruit into this mixture dispersing the grapefruit evenly throughout the mixture.
  4. Pour into the graham cracker crust and refrigerate for at least 2 hours.
  5. Top with cool whip before serving.

Grapefruit Pie

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Lemon Marshmallow Pie

~ lk529 ~ Leave a comment

As both a nerd and foodie there’s no day better than a “holiday” that celebrates both – Pi Day! March 14th is Pi Day. Why? Pi is an irrational constant with an infinite number of digits, the value of which is the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter. Rounding to the hundredth’s place, Pi = 3.14. Hence, March 14 (3/14) is Pi Day! (Fun fact, it’s also Albert Einstein’s birthday.)

That being said, pies are not my favorite form of dessert. Well, not the traditional pies. I have a liking issue with warm fruit, so I don’t partake in America’s favorite Apple or Berry.

As I’ve mentioned before, my favorite pie is Key Lime. It’s served chilled and has a perfect balance of tart and sweet. The same can be said for this lemon marshmallow pie. And only three ingredients (four if you count the fresh fruit for garnish) separate you from a bright dessert. A dessert that will make you forget about winter’s extended stay and think you’ve just experienced a perfect spring day. With only five minutes of prep work required there isn’t any excuse to not try this pie. True, you could always make your own pie crust and lemon curd and probably marshmallow creme but I prefer to take the lazy way out. 😉

Lemon Marshmallow Pie

Ingredients:

  • 2 jars (10 oz) lemon curd
  • 1 jar (7 oz) marshmallow creme
  • 1 graham cracker pie crust

Steps:

  1. Using a hand mixer whip lemon curd and marshmallow creme until blended. Pour pie filling into pie crust.
  2. Refrigerate a few hours before serving with fresh berries.

*This recipe is adapted from Deborah at http://www.tasteandtellblog.com/lemon-marshmallow-tart/*

Lemon Marshmallow Pie

Mardi Gras Ice Cream

~ lk529 ~ 7 Comments

As a food blogger I feel obligated to present a dish on Fat Tuesday. I’ve never really celebrated Mardi Gras in all it’s glory and never had a King’s Cake until a few weeks ago when a coworker brought one into the office. As luck would have it I found the plastic baby – which means I’m responsible for bringing in next year’s cake. Unfortunately for them we’ll have moved to Ohio by then. So I thought I’d bake a treat and bring it in this year. And of course blog about it – two birds, one stone.

I was hoping to find something simple and these King’s Cake Bars caught my eye. Unfortunately my execution of said bars was abysmal. I think I over mixed the dough for the base and I managed to forget both the vanilla and cinnamon in the cream cheese filling. I used a smaller casserole dish than recommended so my baking time was considerably longer (2x as long!) and came out domed which caused the glaze to run down to the sides of the casserole dish. But, it did flatten out once it cooled. And even though I sprayed the pan and the dough is almost half butter it would not come up.

After the frustration subsided, I thought it’d be fun to make an ice cream. The cream cheese filling reminded me of cheese cake (cream cheese, egg, sugar) so I decided to try a cheese cake ice cream base with cinnamon. I garnished the ice cream with purple, green, and yellow sprinkles to play up the holiday. (I was too nervous to stir sprinkles into the ice cream machine for fear of resulting in streaky brown coloring.)

I have to admit, I was worried I messed up this recipe too. I used too small of a pot and didn’t temper the eggs enough so my custard had a few lumps. But, I decided to strain it and keep going. I’m glad I did because this ice cream is so delicious – it’s rich and creamy with great flavor from the cinnamon.

Cinnamon Cheese Cake Ice Cream

Ingredients:

  • 2 C half-and-half
  • 1/2 C heavy whipping cream
  • 1 C milk
  • 1 1/4 C sugar
  • 2 eggs
  • 8 oz cream cheese, at room temperature and cubed
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract
  • 1 tsp ground cinnamon

Steps:

  1. Heat the half-and-half, cream, and milk in a large saucepan over medium heat until it reaches 175 degrees F, but do not let boil. Whisk in sugar until dissolved.
  2. In a small bowl whisk eggs. Take about 1/4 C of the hot milk mixture and whisk into eggs to temper them. Constantly whisking, add eggs to milk. Cook over low heat, whisking, until the mixture thickens and reaches 160 degrees F.
  3. Pour custard through a fine strainer (I opted to line mine with a coffee filter, but I don’t think it was necessary) into a glass bowl. Whisk in the cream cheese until melted and smooth.
  4. Place the bowl of custard in a bowl of ice water to cool and stir for two minutes. (Don’t let the water into the custard.) Stir in vanilla and cinnamon. Remove from ice bath, cover, and place in fridge overnight.
  5. Follow ice cream maker instructions and freeze.

This recipe is modified from Taste of Home.

Mardi Gras Ice Cream Mardi Gras Ice Cream 2

Olympic Ring Cupcake Display

~ lk529 ~ Leave a comment

The Opening Ceremony of the XXII Winter Olympics is tonight at 7:30/6:30C. If you are having a watching party I have the perfect display for your dessert table. I know there are many wonderful Olympics-related food ideas on Pinterest – hopefully this post will add me to the party!

I used two different boxes of cake mix for this project – one chocolate and one white. I really did this because that’s what I happened to have in my cupboard, but I firmly recommend following suit. Not only does it offer your guests options, but it makes it much easier to place the cupcakes prior to frosting.

Olympic Rings Cupcake Display (pre-frosting)

Make a double batch of butter cream (single recipe listed below) and divide evenly into four bowls. Color the frosting in red, blue, yellow, and green. Frost the respective rings appropriately. YOU WILL HAVE LEFT OVER FROSTING! Combine the left over red, blue, and green along with 3/8 C of cocoa powder. Now you have chocolate butter cream frosting for the black ring. I opted to not create black frosting because I find it to be unappetizing, additionally black frosting tends to stain mouths, hands, etc.

If you want to avoid dying frosting, you can easily use plain frosting and then use respective sprinkles – in which case I approve of using black! 😉

Olympics Rings Cupcake Display

Butter Cream Frosting

Ingredients:

  • 2 sticks unsalted butter, at room temperature
  • 3 C powdered sugar
  • 1 tbsp milk
  • 1 tsp vanilla

Steps:

  1. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment beat butter. Add in powdered sugar, milk, and vanilla. Beat until combined. (If frosting doesn’t come together, add just a little bit of milk at a time until a smooth texture is reached.)

*This recipe comes from my friend Kate*

Chocolate Cupcakes with Peanut Butter Frosting

~ lk529 ~ 1 Comment

Today is my husband’s birthday! Some of his coworker’s know I’m a food (mostly) blogger and are always complaining that Stuart doesn’t bring in enough leftovers at lunch for everyone. So today I’m sending him to work with cupcakes!

I wanted to make them from scratch instead of using a box. I was trying to decide what flavor profile to do and decided to go with a play on his favorite candy bar: the Almond Joy. The frosting recipe called for coconut extract, but because I have a coconut allergy I didn’t want to buy a bottle to use 1/4 tsp. I looked up how to make my own, but doing so requires a fresh coconut. I decided to substitute vanilla extract, and trust that the coconut milk used to make the frosting will keep the coconut flavor alive. They’re additionally topped with shredded coconut (and an almond).

If you notice, the title of this blog post is Chocolate Cupcakes with Peanut Butter Frosting, not Coconut. That’s because I typed up the post before I made the frosting. The frosting did not turn out well. The texture was all off – it wasn’t smooth and almost looked like glitter.

So I switched it up and decided to go with peanut butter frosting. (It’s a good thing I got the new glass KitchenAid bowl for Christmas so I didn’t have to do dishes in between frostings, thanks parents!) I asked, “Can I just pretend Reese’s are your favorite candy?” “Yes, I like Reese’s!” Also, instead of pretending to be perfect, you get to know my Plan B secret! I followed the frosting recipe I used on my Caramel Filled Chocolate Avocado Cupcakes with Peanut Butter Caramel Frosting, omitting the caramel.

Chocolate Cupcakes Peanut Butter Frosting

Chocolate Cupcakes with Coconut Peanut Butter Frosting

Ingredients for cupcake:

  • 2/3 C cocoa powder
  • 1 tsp baking soda
  • 1/2 C butter, melted
  • 1/3 C vegetable oil
  • 1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
  • 1 1/3 C sugar
  • 3/4 tsp salt
  • 2 eggs
  • 2 egg yolks
  • 1/2 C heavy cream
  • 1 3/4 C flour

Ingredients for frosting:

  • 1 C salted butter, at room temperature
  • 1/4 C canned coconut milk
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract
  • 4 C powdered sugar
  • 1/2 stick unsalted butter, at room temperature
  • 2 C powdered sugar
  • 1/8 C + 1 tsp milk
  • 1/4 C peanut butter

Steps:

  1. Boil 1 C of water in the microwave. Mix together cocoa powder and baking soda. Whisk in the boiling water and whisk until the mixture no longer bubbles and is smooth. Set aside.
  2. In a large mixing bowl, beat melted butter, oil, vanilla, sugar, and salt with a hand mixer. Add in the two eggs and beat until combined. Repeat with the egg yolks. Add the cocoa mixture and heavy cream. Once combined add in the flour in batches, mixing after each addition.
  3. Pour cupcake batter into 2 dozen cupcake tins. Bake at 350 degrees for 18 minutes, or until a toothpick comes clean when inserted. Let cool.
  4. Make the frosting: Using a stand mixer, beat the butter and coconut milk until fluffy. Mix in the extract. Slowly add in the powdered sugar until a frosting is made! In a stand mixer beat together sugar, butter, and milk. When combined fully add in the peanut butter.
  5. Top cooled cupcakes with frosting. Top with shredded coconut and an almond, if desired.

*The cupcake recipe is adapted from Jaclyn at http://www.cookingclassy.com/2013/02/chocolate-cupcakes-with-coconut-frosting-almonds-almond-joy-cupcakes/*

Chocolate Cupcakes Peanut Butter Frosting

Pecan Pie

~ lk529 ~ 1 Comment

I had planned on providing you with a healthy shrimp and avocado pesto recipe to start your new year off right. But unfortunately the avocados at the grocery store weren’t anywhere near ripe and they were completely out of basil. So that recipe will have to wait for another day.

Instead I’m going to switch gears entirely and give you a sweet, rich dessert. Stuart’s holiday favorite. Pecan pie. My mom makes this pie just for him – and it amuses me greatly that the woman married to a man with nut allergies provides the only nutty dish of the holidays.

Pecan Pie Steps

Pecan Pie

Ingredients:

  • 1 C light corn syrup
  • 3 tbsp butter
  • 1/2 C brown sugar
  • 2 tbsp flour
  • 1/4 tsp salt
  • 3 eggs
  • 1 1/2 tsp vanilla
  • 1 1/2 C chopped pecans
  • 1 pie crust

Steps:

  1. Over medium heat combine corn syrup, butter, brown sugar, flour, and salt. Stir until the butter melts. DO NOT BRING TO A BOIL. Remove from heat.
  2. In a small bowl beat the eggs. While constantly stirring the syrup mixture, slowly add in the eggs. Stir until smooth. Add in the vanilla and chopped pecans.
  3. Pour pecan pie filling into a ready-to-bake, thawed pie crust. If desired, place 5 halved pecans in a small circle/star in the center of the pie.
  4. Bake 1 hour at 350 degrees until the filling no longer jiggles.

*This recipe is adapted from http://www.mrfood.com/Pie/Perfect-Pecan-Pie-685/*

Pecan Pie

Update December 2016: I’ve been dying to re-photograph this pecan pie and every Christmas I say I’m going to. It’s taken three years for that to happen, but hey! My parents remodeled their home in 2016 and all of the yellow tones of the kitchen were replaced by modern and timeless whites, greys, and deep cherry. Even with the new open concept I was surprised at how little natural light penetrated the bright space. I had to take mom’s pie out to the lanai to snap the new photo. It’s amazing what natural lighting can do to the beauty of a pie!

Classic Pecan Pie | Sew You Think You Can Cook | http://sewyouthinkyoucancook.com

Busy Day Chocolate Cake

~ lk529 ~ 4 Comments

Today would have been my grandmother’s 81st birthday. In honor of her I made a cake from her recipe box – Busy Day Chocolate Cake. My brother always requested this cake for his birthday.

Busy Day Chocolate Cake, as the name suggests, is a chocolate cake that can be made on a busy day. It only takes 5 minutes to make the batter and 30 minutes in the oven. The longest process is letting the cake cool before frosting it.

Busia must’ve been helping me recreate her recipe because for the first time ever my cake came out of the pan cleanly and easily.

Busy Day Chocolate Cake

Busy Day Chocolate Cake

Ingredients:

  • 2 oz semi-sweet chocolate
  • 1 1/3 C flour
  • 1 C sugar
  • 1 tsp baking soda
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1/4 C vegetable shortening
  • 1 C buttermilk
  • 1 egg

Steps:

  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
  2. Melt chocolate: microwave 30 seconds, stir, microwave another 30 seconds or until melted.
  3. Sift together flour, sugar, baking soda, and salt.
  4. Cut in vegetable shortening, and mix in buttermilk and egg. (I literally used a knife to mix in the shortening.) Add melted chocolate until combined.
  5. Pour batter into a greased and floured 9″ round cake pan.
  6. Bake for 30 minutes, until a knife/toothpick slides through cleanly.

Cream Cheese Frosting

Ingredients:

  • 4 tbsp salted butter
  • 4 tbsp cream cheese
  • 3 C powdered sugar
  • 1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
  • milk, if needed

Steps:

  1. In a stand mixer, cream together butter and cream cheese.
  2. Add 1 C powdered sugar. Mix until combined. Add in 1/2 tsp vanilla. Mix until combined. Repeat until all ingredients are used.
  3. If needed, add a little bit of milk and/or more sugar.
  4. Frost cake and enjoy!

Busy Day Chocolate Cake

Copy Cat: Almond Joy

~ lk529 ~ Leave a comment

After this month’s Crazy Ingredient Challenge, I had a lot of coconut in my house that needed to go! I decided to make Stuart’s favorite candy – Almond Joys. I thought it could be fun for him to take to the office, but this recipe didn’t make as many candy bars as I thought it would! I didn’t have enough coconut to make two batches either.

I ran into another small problem – apparently I’m a little challenged when it comes to dipping the bars into melted chocolate. They were not pretty. And definitely not food photography worthy. I am very pleased with the beautiful bars I did create by simply drizzling the chocolate over top the candy.

Copy Cat: Almond Joy

Ingredients:

  • half of 14oz can sweetened condensed milk (7oz)
  • 2 C powdered sugar
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract
  • pinch of kosher salt
  • 2 1/2 C sweetened shredded coconut
  • whole salted almonds
  • 1 lb chocolate, melted

Steps:

  1. Stir together condensed milk and sugar until smooth – I found this to be best done by adding in the sugar in installments.
  2. Mix in vanilla and salt.
  3. Add in coconut – do this in one batch.
  4. Spread coconut onto a greased foil lined tray. Press into desired candy bar thickness. Gently score the coconut, outlining rectangles, with a knife and place two almonds onto each bar, if desired. Place in refrigerator for at least an hour.
  5. Cut candy bars along your previously suggested lines. Coat candy bars in melted chocolate. (Or give up on that and drizzle them like I did!)

*This recipe is adapted from Elizabeth at http://www.ohnuts.com/blog/almond-coconut-candy-bars-recipe/*

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Key Lime Pie

~ lk529 ~ 6 Comments

As I’ve gotten “older” my sweet tooth has gotten smaller. When a craving hits, it’s usually for something salty – like popcorn. But there is one dessert that I can never say no to. And because today is my 25th birthday, I am going to indulge.

Key Lime Pie is my absolute favorite dessert, and Publix (sorry to anyone not in the South!) makes the best one! …. Or so I thought. I am very proud to declare that I now make the best Key Lime Pie. I’m particularly excited for this because I now know that I can have perfect key lime pie even when we leave the land of Publix.

A couple years ago I made a key lime pie for my brother’s fiancé’s birthday as it’s also one of her favorites. (Her favorite is actually pumpkin pie but my brother hates it, and her birthday is in July anyway.) I had actually squeezed the juice out of actual key limes! That pie was unbelievably tart. I don’t even recall which recipe I used.

This time I found Nellie & Joe Key West Lime Juice and happily used that (no funky ingredients involved). I would love to say that this was only my second attempt at key lime pie. But that’d be a lie. I made two pies for my birthday. The first was a complete disaster. My can of sweetened condensed milk had expired. And I didn’t notice it until I was emptying the contents into the egg yolk mixture. I immediately went to the internet and established that I should still be okay to use it. 

IMG_3072

So I carried on. Key lime pie is not naturally green (but if you want it to be by all means add a drop or two of food

coloring), but it’s definitely not supposed to be marigold. 

It’s not supposed to smell overpoweringly like sweetened condensed milk either. I did still taste it – the texture was a little off and it was still just a little too sour. So I went back to the store and back to square one. 

That failed attempt was actually a blessing in disguise because I found the perfect, better-than-Publix recipe! Third time’s the charm. 😉

Key Lime Pie

Ingredients:

  • 3 egg yolks
  • 1 egg white, beaten until frothy
  • 1 14oz can sweetened condensed milk
  • zest 1 lime
  • 1/2 C key lime juice
  • 9 in graham cracker pie crust
  • 1/2 C heavy whipping cream
  • 1/4 tsp vanilla extract
  • 1 tsp powdered sugar

Steps

  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
  2. Using a hand mixer, beat egg yolks with lime zest and sweetened condensed milk. Add in lime juice. Add the egg white.
  3. Pour pie filling into pie crust. Bake 15 minutes. Allow pie to cool to room temperature for at least an hour before covering and putting in the fridge.
  4. Using a hand mixer, make the whipped cream. Beat the heavy cream until it starts to get thick, then add in the vanilla and sugar. Beat until stiff peaks form. Top pie with whipped cream right before serving. Note: I don’t like my whipped cream to be too sweet, so feel free to add more sugar/vanilla to taste.

*This recipe is adapted from The Big Cheese at http://www.food.com/recipe/traditional-key-lime-pie-109918*
Key Lime Pie 1

Key Lime Pie 2

CIC: Avocado & Caramel

~ lk529 ~ 15 Comments

Last weekend we had a wonderful Korean-style supper at our good friends’ house. Tara is the host of Tara’s Multicultural Table and my blogging mentor. She told me about this new blogging-world challenge. It’s a challenge where you mix two ingredients that wouldn’t normally be paired together and create a recipe that encompasses both of them.  Almost like Chopped! This month’s challenge is Avocado and Caramel.

I was surprised at how quickly an idea came to me! I had just watched a Giada at Home episode where she stuffed peanut butter cupcakes with caramel. That fulfills requirement number 2. But what about requirement number 1? I’ve seen many vegan/vegetarian recipes that substitute avocado for eggs in baking, so here we have it! We stopped at Publix on the way home and the next morning I was making these!

I know my blog isn’t exactly vegan friendly, but here’s a recipe you could (dissect and) serve to your meat-free guests! I substituted cow’s milk, but you could switch it back to soy milk! However, Stuffing these chocolate beauties with caramel and topping them with frosting voids the vegan requirements…

Stuart was not excited about this avocado cupcake idea. But I had him taste the batter (that’s the best part about vegetarian/vegan cupcakes! No eggs means you can lick that spoon clean without any guilt), and he conceded to the avocado cupcake. He was even disappointed that this recipe only made 12 cupcakes!

Avocado is changing the baking world one cupcake at a time. A coworker even told me that this was the best cupcake he’s ever had, and I had a request from another for the recipe because his daughter is allergic to eggs.

Caramel Filling 1 Caramel Filling 2 Caramel Filling 3 Wet Ingredients: Chocolate Avocado Cupcakes Dry Ingredients: Chocolate Avocado Cupcakes Chocolate Avocado Cupcake Batter Peanut Butter Caramel Frosting 1 Peanut Butter Caramel Frosting 2 Peanut Butter Caramel Frosting 3

Caramel Filled Chocolate Avocado Cupcakes with Peanut Butter Caramel Frosting

Ingredients for Cupcakes:

  • 25 caramel squares
  • 1/2 C heavy cream
  • 1 avocado
  • 1 C pure maple syrup
  • 3/4 C milk
  • 1/3 C canola oil
  • 2 tsp vanilla extract
  • 1 1/2 C flour
  • 3/4 C unsweetened cocoa powder
  • 1 tsp baking powder
  • 3/4 tsp baking soda
  • 3/4 tsp salt

Ingredients for Frosting:

  • 1/2 stick unsalted butter, at room temperature
  • 2 C powdered sugar
  • 1/8 C + 1 tsp milk
  • 1/4 C peanut butter
  • 1-2 tbsp caramel

Steps

  1. In a saucepan over low heat melt caramel into the heavy cream. Stir occasionally.
  2. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
  3. In a food processor, puree avocado, syrup, milk, oil, and vanilla until smooth.
  4. Whisk together the remaining dry ingredients. Add wet ingredients to the dry.
  5. Assemble cupcakes: put a spoonful of batter, a spoonful of caramel, and another spoonful of batter into paper lined cupcake tins. Bake for 25 minutes.
  6. Make the frosting: In a stand mixer beat together sugar, butter, and milk. When combined fully add in the peanut butter. Using a spoon, swirl in the caramel. Pipe frosting on top of cupcakes and drizzle with extra caramel sauce if desired.

*The cupcake recipe was adapted from http://www.vegetariantimes.com/recipe/glazed-chocolate-avocado-cupcakes/. The frosting and filling were adapted from Giada deLaurentiis at http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/giada-de-laurentiis/stuffed-peanut-butter-cupcakes-with-swirled-peanut-butter-frosting-recipe/index.html*

Caramel Filled Chocolate Avocado CupcakeI have to admit, I was disappointed when I cut into a cupcake and wasn’t met with lava flowing caramel. The photo of Food Network’s page is very misleading; however, my results mimicked those aired on the “Stuff It” episode. (The last photo is a “cheat” 😉 )Stuart’s advice: If you think you put enough caramel in the cupcake, add a little bit more.

Caramel Filled Chocolate Avocado Cupcakes with Peanut Butter Caramel Frosting 3

Caramel Filled Chocolate Avocado Cupcakes with Peanut Butter Caramel Frosting 1 Caramel Filled Chocolate Avocado Cupcakes with Peanut Butter Caramel Frosting 4 Caramel Filled Chocolate Avocado Cupcakes with Peanut Butter Caramel Frosting 2

Caramel Filled Chocolate Avocado Cupcakes with Peanut Butter Caramel Frosting 5Here are the other blogs that participated in this month’s Crazy Ingredient Challenge.