Gingersnaps!

GINGERSNAPS!

Recipe

       3/4 cups butter

  1 cup sugar

          1/3 cup molasses

1 egg

               2 cups plus 2 T. flour

1/2 t. salt

2 t. soda

                                   1/2 t. cinnamon, cloves, and ginger

Mix the above ingredients together. Chill in the refrigerator 2-3 hours.

3 T sugar- make small balls of cookies and dip into sugar. Place cookies on greased cookie sheets.  

Bake at 350 degrees for 18-20 minutes. Makes about 3 dozen medium delicious cookies.

Chocolate pie - FAIL

I had pie crust I needed to use and chocolate I wanted to use. I found this recipe, grandmas chocolate pie, not my g-ma, her g-ma. I thought it would be easy to make. A no brainer. Well apparently, I have no brain. 


My pie was a failure. A complete failure. I shouldn't even show you this but even thought the pie looked terrible and was a little lumpy, it still tasted pretty darn good. 


I've been using this crust. I rolled it out, no problems there. I preheated the oven, no problem. I put the pie crust in the pie dish, no problem. Then I put it in the oven and thats where things started to go wrong. 


The oven ruined my pie. Lets take a look at a crappy picture that just emphasizes my failure. 

Please note the giant air bubble in the center of the crust, even though I pricked it many times with a fork. Also note the edges of the pie crust, which have decided they do not want to stand tall and proud and have folded over and sunken into the air bubble center. 

Oh what's that? You want a closer look at failure crust? Well here ya go!

I call this one Fail of Life. 


After this failure, I thought well its not too bad, I can just finish making the filling and pour it over the crust and make a sort of chocolate tart. 


Yes! A Chocolate Tart is the solution to my failure. I have found the answer!


Then I began making my filling. I melted my chocolate, added the milk and sugar, some flour and a few egg yolks, I added everything I was supposed to and began to cook the filling. I made sure the temperature was just right and whisked my little heart out, trying to make sure that no lumps would form but guess what? Failure pie decided it wanted lumps despite my attempts to keep lumps out.


I then decided I didn't care anymore and just poured the lumpy disaster into the crust that gave up on life and called it a day. I didn't even bother making the meringue that the recipe called for. I couldn't bear anymore impending failure. 


Lets take a look at the completed pie now. 

See the lumps?  They are there, mocking me. 

Here is a large, complete view of my failure. Feel free to gawk and point and giggle a little. 

Here is the recipe if you so choose to try and make this pie. Don't let the ugly appearance of mine keep you from making this pie. It still tasted great. Hope it works out better for you than it did for me.  

Grandma’s chocolate pie
1 pie 8 inch crust, pre-made or homemade

Filling ingredients:
4 tablespoons of cocoa or 1 1/2 squares of baking chocolate
3/4 cups of sugar
5 tablespoons of flour
1/4 teaspoon of salt
1 1/2 cups of milk
1/2 teaspoon of vanilla
2 egg yolks, beaten slightly
1 tablespoon of butter

Meringue ingredients:
2 egg whites
1/8 teaspoon of salt
4 tablespoons of sugar

Method:


Mix your sugar, flour, salt, cocoa, eggs and milk (all except vanilla and butter) with a whisk.
Cook while stirring on medium until it bubbles and thickens, about five to 10 minutes. If it becomes lumpy, just beat out the lumps.

Remove from heat and stir in your vanilla and butter. Meanwhile, poke holes in your pie crust with a fork and bake it at 350 until it’s brown, about 20 minutes.

Beat your egg whites with salt and when they start to get fluffy add the sugar. Pour the chocolate custard into the baked pie shell and top with the beaten egg whites. Bake it until it the peaks on the meringue are lightly browned, about 10 minute.  

Cinnamon sugar Almonds

Love Almonds? Love almonds covered in cinnamon and sugar?  I love them. Even thought I am mildly allergic to tree nuts, I love them. A few asthma attacks and some benadryl later, I'm still eating these by the handful. Health risk, sure, but totally worth it. 
Here is a very simple recipe that takes under an hour to make!


I used a 3lb bag (or approx. 9 cups) of almonds. Feel free to use less or more depending on how many people will be eating them. Also this recipe isn't like the cinnamon sugar almonds you get from the fair, these ones are not really sweet, its more like a large hint of sweet. Feel free to add more sugar than I did if you want!


Ingredients:
1 - 3lb bag of Almonds, or about 9 cups
1 egg white + 1 tablespoon of water, lightly beaten
1 cup of sugar (feel free to add more if desired)
2 1/2 tsp of cinnamon (add more if desired)
1 tsp Chinese 5 spice (completely optional but I highly recommend it!)

I begin by spreading the almonds in an even layer on two baking sheets (the ones with a lip) and roasting them in the oven 350ºF for 30 minutes. Watch your nuts and stir them after 15 minutes so they roast evenly. Don't forget your nuts! Once I did and I burnt all my nuts. I was sad. Don't let burnt nuts ruin your day. Ok sorry enough saying nuts.

Pull the roasted almonds out of the oven (don't turn it off just yet thought!) Dump them into a very large bowl and pour over the cinnamon, sugar and optional chinese 5 spice. Then very quickly add the beaten egg white and start stirring! If you work fast, the egg won't scramble and you will get fantastically coated almonds.

Once everything is combined, here you can add more sugar or cinnamon if you want.  If you do, do it fast. The egg yolk works as the glue for the cinnamon and sugar so if it dries, the extra sugar won't stick as well.


From here, I cover one baking sheet with parchment paper and pour all the almonds onto the cookie sheet and cook for an extra 10 minutes, stirring after 5 minutes. Let cool completely and store however you like!

Sugar Cream Pie

Ever had sugar cream pie? It goes by many names. Old Fashioned Sugar cream pie, Hoosier sugar cream pie, Indiana cream pie, Indiana farm pie, and finger pie. Weird huh?  

P.S. I have no idea what the heck a Hoosier is. I know it is referring to a person from Indiana, but other than that, no clue. I know what a Buckeye is. A tree nut AND a person from Ohio. 

I had never heard of it until I moved to Indiana. Another weird mid-west thing I guess. 


Basically sugar cream pie is sugar and cream. Wonder of wonders. Who'd a thunk? 


I looked at a few recipes and found they are all. exactly. the same. They all used the same ingredients, heavy cream, sugar, vanilla, flour. The only difference is some add milk, some corn syrup, some cook the filling before they fill the pie.


I eventually ended up using the one below. I think it turned out well. 


I used the recipe for pie crust from this post that I originally got from this blog. This recipe makes two balls of  pie dough, I made three mini 5 inch pies from one dough ball. 

For the pie you will need:

• 1 1/2 cups white sugar
• 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 cup heavy whipping cream
• 3/4 cup whole milk
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1/4 cup butter, chilled and diced

1. Preheat oven to 450ºF.
2. In a medium bowl, mix together sugar, flour, and cream. Add milk and vanilla, and stir until mixture is smooth. Pour into pastry shell. Sprinkle top with nutmeg and dot evenly with small chunks of butter.
3. Bake at 450º for 15 minutes. Reduce heat to 350ºF and bake an additional 45 minutes.

original recipe found here.

Let it cool completely before you slice. It tastes amazing if you pop it in the microwave for a few seconds before eating it. 

Hamburger Cookie. WHAT?!?!

Ever eat a hamburger cookie? What? You don't know what a hamburger cookie is? WHELLLLLL let me tell ya! 


Are you ready for this? They are cookies, that look like hamburgers. Mind blown. 

There should be sesame seeds on the top but I didn't feel like doing a scavenger hunt at the store, so I went without it. 

My dad used to make these for us when we were little. I loved them! These are a great thing to make if you have kids, are babysitting kids, know some kids,  or are yourself a kid at heart. 

All you need  to make these are:

• Vanilla Wafers 
• Keebler grasshopper cookies or any other chocolate cookie
• Vanilla frosting
• Shredded coconut
• Green and red food coloring 
• Sesame seeds 
• Honey or maple syrup

The quantities just depend on how many of these little guys you want to make. You need two vanilla waffers for every chocolate cookie. 

First you need to turn that Coconut green! And please don't leave it in a warm place for months to turn it a moldy green, we are not making penicillin here. 

Add a few drops of green food coloring to the coconut and stir it around until its green. A little goes a long way, so start with a few drops of food coloring and then add more to get the color you want. 

Then, pretend it's Christmas and you are coloring frosting for christmas cookies.

Place some white frosting in a bowl and add a few drops of yellow, and in a seperate bowl do the same with the red. Again, start with a few drops then add more to get the color you want. I had to add a lot of red and it still wasn't a red as I wanted but oh well my stomach doesn't care. 

Volla! Ketchup and Mustard!

There is some white in with the "ketchup" and "mustard" because it is going to be used to hold the bottom of the cookie to the "bottom bun".

See! Anchor that cookie to those buns! Wait......that felt a little too personal. It sort of felt like I just called myself fat....

Ok nevermind that self inflicted fat joke.

Put some of the red and yellow colored frosting on the top cookie "bun". I smeared them a little over the edge so you could see it when it was all put together.

Then all you have to do is sprinkle the coconut on top of the chocolate cookie and place both halves together. 

This is where you would brush a little bit of warm honey or syrup on the top cookie and then sprinkle on sesame seeds. But once again, I was a lazy shopper today and didn't want to go on an epic search for them that would result in me going down the same isle 50 times. Ever been to Wal-mart? Thats a lot of isles to go down that many times. 

COOKIE! HAMBURGER! COOKIE! 

I got a little bit of yellow food coloring on my finger. Please don't judge me. 

Fall is here! Eat some pie! Or cheese cake!

I made pumpkin pie from scratch. Completely from scratch. I even made the pie crust and the whip cream. First I bought pie pumpkins. I couldn't find them at our Wal-mart or Meijer so I went to an Amish Farmers market thats down the highway. I wanted to say "down the road" but it like a 20 minute drive and down the road is um, down the road, like 5ish minutes right?  Anyway, I love them. I don't want them to close for the winter. 

I baked the pumpkin and scooped out the pumpkin meat and pureed it. Is it called pumpkin meat? The meat of the pumpkin? What is it called. Is it just called 'the pumpkin stuff'?

The empty pumpkin shells look a little sad. Like, well an empty shell. Ever have days where you feel like an empty shell? It's ok, we all have those days. Just eat some pie, it will help. Promise. Just don't look at the scale for a while after if you eat a lot of the pie. That won't help anything and a vicious cycle will ensue. Empty shell> pie> scale> empty shell> pie> scale....

Look what I did! I made cute little pumpkin cheesecakes and little pumpkin pies, inspired by Bakerella, except hers look way cuter then mine do. Everything she makes looks way cuter them my stuff does and I am jealous. 

Look at the cute little pile of whip cream on the cute little pumpkin pie! I was so excited that my pictures came out a little blurry. Sorry. I am not a photographer. That would be Nicoles area of expertise. 

SO for some recipes:

First if you want to made a pie from pie pumpkins instead of canned all you need to do is split the pie pumpkin in half and place it in a large baking dish with 1 cup of water and bake at 350°F for about an hour or until fork tender. Let it cool a little then scoop it out and puree it until smooth. 

Or just get a can of pumpkin pie filling and crack it open. It's way easier but not as good :/

Second for pie crust, either buy pre-made crust or I recommend using this recipe from Food Wishes. (check out his other recipes, they all look fantastic)

Ingredients: (makes enough dough for one 9 or 10 inch double crust pie)
12 ounces flour (about 2 1/2 cups)
2 sticks (1 cup) ice cold butter, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
1/2 teaspoon salt
7 tablespoon ice water
1 tablespoon cider vinegar

Add the flour, salt and frozen butter to a food processor and pulse just until crumbly. 

Next add half the ice water and cider vinegar and pulse a few times then add the rest of the water and vinegar. 

Pulse just until combined. turn dough out onto working surface and form into a ball and divide in two. 

Wrap in Plastic and place in fridge for at least 30 minutes. When ready to use, roll out onto a floured surface and knock yourself out! 

Watch his video, he explains it much better than I could. It's really easy to make and makes really really good dough. I'm definitely going to be using this again. Except I won't be rolling it out so close to the hot oven...

For the Pumpkin Pie: 

INGREDIENTS:

   2 cups of pumpkin puree, from a can or pie pumpkin.

   1 1/2 cup heavy cream 

   1/2 cup packed dark brown sugar

   1/3 cup white sugar

   1/2 tsp salt

   2 eggs plus 1 yolk

   1 1/2 tsp of cinnamon

   1 tsp ground ginger

   1/4 tsp ground nutmeg

    1/4 tsp Chinese 5 spice (optional, I love this stuff!)

          

Mix sugar, salt, and spices in large bowl. Beat the eggs and add sugar mixture. Stir in the pumpkin puree, then the cream. Stir until all the ingredients are well combined.

Pour into pie crust and bake at 425°F for 15 minutes. Then reduce the temp to 350°F and bake 50 minutes.  The pie is done when a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool for at least 2 hours, overnight is better. 

This pie is soooooo good. Best pie ever.  

You can make your own whipped cream or buy it. But by making it you can control how sweet you want it. All that you need is heavy whipping cream and powered sugar. Just throw them into a mixed and whip on high. One cup of cream makes a LOT of whipped cream so start out with a little and add more based on how much you need. The same goes for the sugar, start out with about a table spoon of powered sugar, taste and add from there. 

I don't have a recipe for the mini pumpkin cheesecakes.

I just put the following into a mixer and blended well. 

1 cup of pumpkin puree

about 3/4 of a cup of sugar

8 ounces of softened cream cheese

1/4 of a cup of sour cream

about 1 tsp Pumpkin spice

about 1/2 Chinese 5 spice

I may have also added 1 egg but I can't remember..... I think it would be fine without it. 

I've made pumpkin cheese cake before and didn't add egg and it came out perfectly fine. 

It could have used more pumpkin flavor but I didn't really care. I just wanted little cheese cakes! 

Mix finely crushed graham cracker with butter for the crust and press into a mini muffin pan.  

I threw this in a 350° oven for about 5 minutes to set the crust a bit then I poured in the cheese cake mixture and baked for 30 minutes I think... 

They are for sure done when they are a nice golden color and a tooth pick inserted into the center comes out clean.  

Hey I told you I didn't have a recipe. I just sort of winged it. As long as it's cooked and tasted fine, who cares!