I was faffing around on Saturday trying to convince myself to get my act together enough to Make The Apple Pie, and mumbled, “Or maybe I could just make a blackberry apple crumble, that’d be easier,” in the vicinity of our guest, who said, “I didn’t know that was an option!!!”, thus indicating I should do that. :) I poked around the internet and couldn’t find a recipe I really liked, so I kind of invented one. It went like this: Kit’s Blackberry-Apple Crumble 1 oz butter 1 oz sugar…
When I was a kid, she said, hunched over with one hand in the small of her back and the other waving an imaginary cane, they made Thin Mint Girl Scout cookies Differently. They had the chocolate cookie base and the thin chocolate layer, but between them they had a thin layer of mint candy, like one might find in a peppermint patty or Junior Mint. The chocolate cookie base had a slight ridge around the outer edge, so the mint candy fit inside that, and one could scrape one’s…
Because nothing says “I love you” like bulbous homemade doughnut monstrosities that look like they’ve risen from the depths of the ocean. I used a buttermilk cake doughnut recipe from my never-fail Meta Given’s cookbook. It said “chill the dough for 2-3 hours.” At the end of 2.5 hours it was clear that the dough was never going to reach any more substantial firmness than it had. “Roll out to 1/4″ inches,” it said. I tried. It stuck to the rolling pin. I grimly added flour, and more flour, and…
I made vanilla fudge, chocolate fudge, German nut tarts, Russian tea cakes, toffee, coconut joys and shortbread cookies for this year’s Christmas tins. Then I went to get the tins, and concluded I might have a Christmas Tin Problem problem: Seriously, I love buying Christmas tins. I’m always like YES MUST HAVE MORE! But to my considerable surprise, I filled all but four, and of those four, the train, although cool, isn’t appropriate for unwrapped treats. So I’ve been going around like the Christmas Fairy, handing out tins of goodies…
We’re doing American Thanksgiving today and although it’s not on my list of usual suspects, I thought I’d try making a pecan pie. Except I have real issues with most pecan pie, which is generally Far Too Sweet (and I have a massive sweet tooth, so if I’m complaining about something being too sweet it’s weird) and doesn’t taste much of pecans. So I went and found a no-corn-syrup recipe, but then I lacked some of the ingredients and anyway, I kind of ended up inventing a pecan pie recipe…