Pumpkin Cheesecake with Brown Sugar Bourbon Cream

Ahh, the perils of hosting Thanksgiving dinner. This year, my family hosted 10 people at my parents’ house and my mom magically figured out how to fit all of us around the dining room table. We had the usual slight conflict in the kitchen (sorry for yelling at you, Ariel; you’re a great tater-tot shaper) and last-minute menu changes (the aforementioned tots, sweet potato style!).

But pretty much no matter the circumstances--who hosts, how many guests, so on and so forth--the dessert table is top notch at our family & friends Thanksgiving celebrations. The lower photo on the right? That's the Thanksgiving dessert table, 2009 edition.

This year, my mom graciously asked me early on what I’d like to make for dessert so I’d have “dibs” on whatever it was. The brown sugar cheesecake with bourbon caramel sauce from two years ago still sticks in my mind as extraordinarily tasty, but I wasn’t going to settle for a repeat dessert. Luckily, America’s Test Kitchen came to the rescue, as they often do, with a timely e-mail containing a video for spiced pumpkin cheesecake with brown sugar bourbon cream. (I had to lift my chin off the floor, too.)

As you know if you’ve read any of my previous posts, I trust America’s Test Kitchen & Cook’s Illustrated to provide perfect recipes that don’t need any adaptation. This holds true here with one exception--I swapped the graham cracker crust for a gingersnap crust. Let it be known that Trader Joe’s triple ginger cookies are INSANE. They have little bits of crystallized ginger in them which magically stayed nearly whole even after I decimated the cookies in the food processor. It also doesn’t hurt to save a few of the cookies and crumble them on top of the decadent whipped topping. DO NOT skip the step where you remove excess liquid from the pumpkin puree; it’s essential to maintaining a fluffly, not dense, cheesecake filling.

Now, what to do with the leftover brown sugar bourbon cream...

Adventures in Wood-Fired-Pizza-Making

A couple weeks ago we had some stellar weather here in Southwest Michigan. To celebrate that and to thank the many people at Big C Lumber who provided the materials for building my parents' new house, my dad and I collaborated on an afternoon of making pizzas in the wood-fired oven out on the new screen porch. All in all, we made 8 pizzas using combinations of the following laundry list of toppings: Roma tomatoes, pineapple chunks, Canadian bacon, Italian sausage, shredded chicken, purple and yellow fingerling potatoes, basil, sauteed yellow peppers and onions, asparagus, eggs, fresh mozzarella, shredded mozzarella, blue cheese and a 4-cheese blend.

No recipe and little talk here--the photos speak for themselves.

Pizza Master Karl creating a Pizza Margherita

Fine ingredients

Hot, hot, hot!

Fingerling potatoes, asparagus, Canadian bacon

Italian sausage, shredded chicken, sauteed yellow peppers and onions

My creation: fingerling potatoes, blue cheese, fresh greens

The spot!

Jacques Torres's Chocolate Chip Cookies

Please note, straight from the beginning, you’ll need to let this dough rest for AT LEAST 24 hours before baking. Your patience will pay off!

Everyone seems to have a set of characteristics that embody their perfect chocolate chip cookie – whether they like them chewy or crispy or with or without nuts. Well, I say throw all your preconceived notions of what a chocolate chip cookie should be and go ahead and make this recipe. The secrets? I think it boils down to: lots of butter, brown and granulated sugar, salt and resting time. Salt is now the “secret” of most baked goods that come out of my kitchen.

The recipe calls for both cake (or pastry) flour and bread flour, but all-purpose flour splits the difference on protein content between the two of them, so I’m certain these would still turn out terrific with what you are most likely to have on hand. I was unaware of the bread flour in the pantry, so the recipe I made was a mix of cake flour and all-purpose flour and they turned out excellent. And if you have it or can get your hands on it, these cookies do well with high-quality bittersweet or semi-sweet chocolate. I won’t lie – used 16 ounces of grocery store semi-sweet chocolate chips and 4 ounces of chopped unsweetened chocolate to the complaint of no one. All in all, the recipe is written as I made it, but check out the source for Jacque’s “perfect” way to make ‘em.

I made these with a small cookie scoop – #50, about the size of a good, rounded tablespoon – and it made about 70 cookies (!). If you decide to make them a little bigger, keep the oven at the same temperature, but increase the time by a couple minutes. As always, just keep an eye on them and when in doubt, trust your nose. Once the smell overwhelms your kitchen, they’re done.

Peanut Butter Banana Cream Pie

Yes, you may be noticing a trend. Banana bread (which I spread with peanut butter) and now this. Full disclosure, my go-to quick breakfast happens to be a slice of whole-wheat toast, smothered with cruncy peanut butter then topped with banana slices and acacia flower honey (THAT stuff is amazing, thanks sister). I’d almost go so far as to say that peanut butter and banana ranks up there with the combination of peanut butter and chocolate. I said almost.

Banana cream pie was never on my radar prior to a couple years ago. I signed up to be a recipe tester for Cook’s Country magazine (part of the Cook’s Illustrated portfolio) and their ultimate banana pudding was the first “assignment” I received. I’d never even made pudding before. The result was one of the most decadent, comforting desserts I’ve ever tasted. Fat free, to boot! (Where’s the sarcasm formatting button, again?)

Soon after making that, I figured it’d be an excellent starting point for banana cream pie. So, instead of layers of banana pudding and vanilla wafers topped with whipped cream, I made a pie with a vanilla wafer crust, thickened banana pudding filling and whipped cream on top. The problem in the couple times I made it was figuring out the best way to get the pudding to a consistency that it could actually come out of the pie plate as a slice, not a blob. This time, I nailed it--just the right amount of cornstarch.

Cook’s Country gets all the credit for the incredible deliciousness of the banana pudding filling, but I’m gonna go ahead and claim the bonus points for execution on the pie as a whole. Helloooooo, peanut butter whipped cream on top? Jackpot! For what it’s worth, one change I made to the original pudding recipe was switching up the milk product, adjusting from all half-and-half (10-18% butterfat) to part half-and-half, part whole milk (3.25% butterfat). Now wasn’t that kind of me?

Do yourself a favor and set aside a couple hours to make this pie. I promise you won’t regret it (and neither will the friends and family you share it with... you will share, right?).

Ultimate Banana Bread

I had the pleasure of joining a bunch of lovely ladies for my close friend Ashley's bachelorette party this weekend. We trekked up to Traverse City, Michigan to enjoy a day of wine tasting and fun. The weather was perfect, the wine was excellent and the company was impossible to beat. I did not make the banana bread for this occasion... no, instead, I created something juuuust a bit more risque--something I'm afraid will not make the blog at this time ;-)

Equal parts distraction from my other dessert endeavor and the need to use up a whole lot of overripe bananas,  I set to the kitchen to whip up America's Test Kitchen's Ultimate Banana Bread before leaving town for the weekend. Little to my surprise, I returned and it's almost gone. Because it's from the current season of America's Test Kitchen, this recipe is available for free on the ATK website for a limited time. The only change I made was to substitute some whole-wheat flour for a small amount of the all-purpose flour for a little added nutritional value. The banana liquid didn't reduce quite as dramatically as described for me, but the results were still great. This banana bread is moist, delightfully banana-y and damn good looking, if I do say so myself. Enjoy!

Ode to Chubby Hubby Cupcakes

When I saw that this week's America's Test Kitchen "Dish it Your Way" blogger challenge was cupcakes, the wheels in my head immediately began turning. I took to Facebook, proclaiming my plan of days and days of brainstorming. I jotted down ideas that incorporated lemon curd--a bright flavor perfect for the end of summer. But as it happens, fate intervened and my friend Brad came up with the best idea ever. All it took was the simple comment, "Make some that taste like Chubby Hubby, salty and sweet."

For those of you who've been here before, you know my affinity for all things salty and sweet. Ice cream is no exception. Even with a simple scoop of vanilla from the freezer, I'll jazz it up with toffee bits, crushed pretzels and chocolate syrup. But of course, no one does it better than my friends Ben and Jerry. I like to think that I've introduced countless friends to what becomes their favorite ice cream (or close to it): Chubby Hubby. Chubby Hubby ice cream is precisely this: fudge covered, peanut butter filled pretzels in vanilla malt ice cream with fudge and peanut butter swirls.

The idea of Chubby Hubby cupcakes was planted, and there would be no going back. My biggest worry was the vanilla malt cake base. I've made Baked's malted milk ball cake in cupcake form a number of times and the cake always turns out oddly sticky, though delicious. I asked @brooklynbaker himself (Matt Lewis, one of the masters at Baked) for his input on my issue, but we couldn't figured it out. So I made a couple adjustments to the recipe--slightly different cake flour/AP flour ratio and reducing the baking soda, malted milk powder and egg whites--and crossed my fingers. Well, IT WORKED! Maybe it was something as simple as over-whipping the egg whites previously, but this time the cake turned out just as I hoped.

So, without further ado, I give you Ode to Chubby Hubby Cupcakes.

Oatmeal Butterscotch Bars

Looking back, I e-mailed this recipe to my sister a few months ago and all the message said was, "Make these. They are phenom." It couldn't be more true. I've always been a butterscotch lover and these absolutely fulfilled my butterscotch desires. The bars are chewy, salty and sweet and super easy to make. Feel free to use either old fashioned or quick cooking oats--the first time I made them I used old fashioned oats, which made them even chewier (which means better, if memory serves me right).

With layer upon layer of butterscotch in the bars and the glaze, I couldn't help adding some chocolate chips and a sprinkle of sea salt at the end--an element of surprise that brought raves from anyone who tried them. I imagine these also go well a scoop of vanilla ice cream...

Recipe after the jump.

Blueberry Muffins

Blueberries are easily one of the most revered foods in my house (along with tomatoes, avocados and chocolate chips). Thanks to my "connections" in the Michigan blueberry industry, it's not unusual to find a 10 lb. box of blueberries in our refrigerator... and it lasts a week, TOPS. The only thing that bad about blueberry season is that it's a fleeting bliss. Though they are great candidates for freezing, nothing starts or ends my day better than a big handful of fresh blueberries in a bowl of cereal or ice cream (either of them any time of day in my world).

This recipe originates from Cooks Illustrated magazine. Not only are their recipes usually spot on, they offer tons of tips, great and small, to lock up in your brain for future cooking. The key in this recipe is the flavor of both fresh and cooked blueberries. The crunchy lemon-sugar topping sure doesn't hurt either. You can't argue with these results--the muffins are tender, flavorful and, well, they end up looking pretty awesome, too. As usual, I modified this one just a bit to include some whole-wheat flour. One of those Cooks Illustrated tips is to add 2 tablespoons of liquid for every 1 cup of whole-wheat flour substituted.

With all that in mind... enjoy Cooks Illustrated's "Best Blueberry Muffins."

Bean and Veggie Burgers

I’ve picked up a new habit of watching The Martha Stewart Show and Mad Hungry on weekday mornings when I can. Martha because she makes ridiculous stuff like coffee cream pie and ice cream cake with Jimmy Fallons’ Late Night Snack ice cream, and, well, she’s Martha. Mad Hungry is creeping up into being one of my favorite cooking shows. The host, Lucinda Scala Quinn, has no pretense and her cooking and meals are accessible.

So this, my first foray into veggie burgers, is an LSQ recipe. Chock full of vegetables, they definitely taste healthy. But now that I give more thought to how I could improve or augment the flavor, I realize that these veggie burgers are the perfect candidate for topping with a fried egg. I am a true believer that almost anything can be improved with the addition of an egg. If that’s not your thing, or even if it is, make sure to check out LSQ’s chili mayonnaise recipe as another topping for these burgers.

Cold-Brewed Iced Coffee

I distinctly remember visiting my dentist three-ish years ago and telling him, "No, I don't drink much coffee, my teeth will totally stay this white!" Well, within a few months at my job I picked up the habit. But I haven't gone off the deep end; I'm good with one or two cups a day, maybe more on a leisurely Sunday morning (that's a little backwards, eh?).

Come summertime, I start enjoying coffee my favorite way: cold-brewed. Give it a google for all the good science of it but the bottom line is, cold-brewed iced coffee isn't bitter like hot coffee + ice. Five minutes of work tops and you can have the means for a week's worth of the best iced coffee. I dig it with a teaspoon of sweetened condensed milk stirred in, a la thai iced coffee.

Birthday Peach Pie

Last year for my dad’s birthday, we made him the world’s best carrot cake (thanks to Emily Mueller for that recipe!). This year’s endeavor crept up on the family just a wee bit after having been in Sacramento, CA for almost a week watching my sister in the NCAA women’s rowing championships. BUT, my mom, sister and I pulled it together and made a pretty excellent peach pie.

We divvied up the responsibilities; Ariel peeled the peaches, I made the crust and mom made the filling. The new go-to traditional piecrust in my family is from Cooks Illustrated’s best blueberry pie recipe. Vodka (!) is the secret ingredient. It allows for even more flakiness and tenderness because some of the alcohol burns off during baking. We were also just short on peaches for the filling, so we added one grated apple, which didn’t change the taste but served as an additional thickener to supplement the tapioca.

Sweet and Salty Cake

Photo courtesy the fabulous Chrissy Cobb

This is one serious cake. In effort, yes, but even more so in taste. Is there a more perfect dessert combination than salty and sweet? Take, for example, the world’s greatest ice cream in Ben & Jerry’s Chubby Hubby: fudge covered peanut butter filled pretzels in vanilla malt ice cream with fudge and peanut butter. Uhhhhh…

Right, back to the cake. This recipe comes from my favorite dudes Matt Lewis and Renato Poliafito of Baked in Brooklyn, NY. I made a pilgrimage of sorts to Baked NYC in April, and though they weren’t offering any sweet and salty cake that day, it was a trip well worth making. (I still remember you, s'more peanut butter banana nut bar.)

Without further ado, I give you chocolate cake + salted caramel sauce + whipped caramel chocolate ganache frosting. Serve this baby up with vanilla ice cream for proper indulgence.

"Spicy" Turkey Burgers with Guacamole

Now's the time to proclaim my absolute love for Mexican food and flavors. If pressed to choose my favorite food, it'd probably be tacos. Maybe because the flavor combination possibilities are endless, or maybe just because they often combine some of my favorite tastes: corn tortillas, fresh chopped vegetables, chihuahua cheese or queso fresco and perfectly cooked and marinated meat (carnitas, please!). But the icing on the proverbial cake? Guacamole.

I have to admit, my love affair with guacamole only began a few years ago, when I tried some that my friend Brittney's mom made one night. I didn't like avocados, or at least I didn't think I did Boy, was I wrong. Since then, I've enjoyed probably gallons of guacamole over time. This is just my basic, go-to guacamole recipe. Just about any of it can be adjusted to your preferences, but the core parts are there for you to shape into your own mix. You could even keep is extremely simple with just avocados, lime juice and salt. I love it as a dip and on burgers or other sandwiches. Or both. Just sayin'.

My experience with turkey burgers is fairly limited – I've tried them once or twice at restaurants and made them once, to pretty underwhelming results. Generally, my reservation with cooking with ground turkey is that it's pretty easy to overcook to supreme dryness. But, I decided to give another turkey burger recipe a try as another step in my foray into cooking healthier (which is going alright so far... healthy "macaroni and cheese" was pretty tasty!). But something about this recipe just worked – I'll give credit for the moisture of the burgers to the salsa, oil and bread crumbs. Feel free to up the spicy ante in this recipe, as I didn't really notice much heat.

That icing on the cake has now become the guacamole on the burger. If you have a favorite way to make or combination for guacamole, let me know in the comments!

Strawberry (Banana) Muffins

I wasn’t going to write about these. I just wrote about muffins! But then I had them for breakfast… toasted… with peanut butter. And that changed things.

So, with strawberries popping up and going on sale at supermarkets across the country, I searched for a strawberry muffin recipe, though I’ve probably never had a strawberry muffin before. This recipe, from Food & Wine, looked like a solid one, and I generally trust the source to put forth good recipes. Taking inspiration from the Cook’s Illustrated recipe for the best blueberry muffins, I cooked down half of the strawberries in some of the sugar for a more concentrated flavor.

 

I made a few other changes to add some nutritional value to these breakfast bites – using almost half whole-wheat flour, adding a banana and reducing the oil. You could probably reduce the oil to as little as 1/4 cup and still have good results. The muffins are anything but dry, not at all too sweet and full of delectable strawberry bits.

Check out the recipe rundown after the jump.

21 Digits of (S’mores) Pi(e)

Does anyone out there not like s’mores? I love them, especially at a small fire on the beach on a cool summer night. I’m a bit of a stickler when it comes to my marshmallows, though. I prefer to roast them just above the flame, so that the entire mallow gets warm and gooey. No burned edges for me! Aside from campfire s’mores, I’ve made s’mores cheesecake,  s’mores brownies AND s'mores cookies. Having done all of that, I had to tackle s’mores pie for the 2011 Serious Eats Pi Day Contest.

The filling was the hardest part to figure out. After searching through a ton of recipes, I came up with one that ended up most like a brownie, but very moist and not too dense. I think it turned out great! You could possibly cook it for a little shorter time… who doesn’t like slightly undercooked brownies? Yuuuummm.

The topping, while beautiful and fluffy, was a work of love thanks to my lack of an electric mixer to whip it up. But I persevered, after whipping for 10+ minutes, and ended up with a glossy, marshmallowy finish for the pie.

Now… the Pi factor. I could’ve easily gotten away with a simple approach to incorporating Pi into my pie, which I kind of did just by swirling the symbol into the marshmallow topping.  But, my dad gave me a suggestion that allowed me to take it a step further. I converted the entire list of ingredients so that when you read down it, it’s the first 21 digits of Pi! If you don’t mind doing a little math, this is a great recipe for a super sweet and chocolately pie.

Pi Day 2011

Happy Pi Day!

Today, I'm going to get started on my entry for the 2011 Serious Eats Pi Day Contest. Last week, I decided it would be pretty awesome to make a s'mores pie and since then I've had almost nothing but pie on the brain.

Here's what I gotta do: I need to pull together my own recipe, which I'm going to base on a couple recipes I've used before as well as a new one for the pie filling. I'd like to have a filling with more structure than a cream pie but one that isn't as dense and cakey as a brownie. I stumbled upon what I think will work... but that's what today's for! It's pie testing time :)

Now, as far as how to make it unique for Pi Day? Well, you'll have to hang around to find out...

Banana Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Muffins

Three overripe bananas in the kitchen had been staring at me for days. But with so many uses to choose from – banana bread (but no loaf pan at the time), banana muffins, banana cupcakes – it took me a couple days to settle on a recipe. Even though someone wasn’t thrilled with any of the ideas, those bananas had to go, and not in the trash.

I made a few adjustments to the original recipe, using whole-wheat flour for 1/3 of the total flour, mixing brown and white sugar and replacing some of the butter with chunky peanut butter. True to form, I almost forgot the chocolate chips after I had spent a few painstaking minutes chopping them with a steak knife, but managed to stir them directly into the muffin cups at the last second.

The muffins weren’t quite as light and crumbly as those you’d get at a bakery. I’ll have to do more investigating into baking powder vs. baking soda – perhaps these could’ve used some of the latter. But the flavors? Oh, they were spot on. My super palate claims that you first taste the bananas, then a healthy hint of peanut butter before you’re wooed by the gooey sweetness of the chocolate chips. If you don’t eat these right away, I definitely recommend throwing them in the toaster oven or microwave oven before eating.

As for that someone? He definitely enjoyed his fair share.

Well, Hello There

First off, be sure to like my page on Facebook and follow me on Twitter for updates and commentary in between posts! Now that we’ve gotten the hummus-as-icebreaker out of the way, I thought maybe I could entertain (hopefully not bore) you with a little about myself.

I’m Jennifer – a twentysomething who recently left a relatively comfortable full-time job as a copywriter to explore other avenues. One of the catalysts for making this jump was my desire to conquer – I mean, travel – the world. I didn’t waste any time and jetted off to South America in January to spend three weeks in Peru with a Gap Adventures tour group. What an adventure it was! One thing I ate there that I HAVE to find a recipe for is this chili sauce they served at almost every meal. It was incredibly flavorful and packed a fiery punch – just a few dashes was enough for me. Also, did you know that Peru has over 3,000 varieties of potatoes? Well, now you do.

Since then, I’ve been spending a good amount of time in the kitchen earning my nickname, Spill. I tend to move a little too fast and often find myself knocking things around; for example, an entire container of kosher salt on the floor. Oooops J  I love to bake, but do everything I can to force my creations on other people so I don’t have to go to the gym as often as I really should. I may not be anywhere near a great cook or baker, but I feel a certain strength come over me when I’m in the kitchen. It’s an addicting feeling.

I hope you return often to read about my kitchen successes and disasters – of which I hope there are few. I will say, I am not a professional photographer, but think it’s important to visually document the goings-on in addition to writing about them. Plus, then you can see stuff like before and after I originally forgot to mix chocolate chips into my muffins.

Now, I’m heading out tomorrow for a quick jaunt on a boat down to the Turks & Caicos for a few days. Catch ya on the flip side!

Chipotle Hummus

There are three things that make hummus truly great to me – first, it’s relatively healthy on its own and with the certain accoutrements, second, it’s a “one-pot” dish and third, it’s almost infinitely adaptable.

Rather than forking over $4+ for a small batch of hummus (albeit, good hummus) at the grocery store, I’ve decided to try to stick to making my own most of the time. Once you’ve purchased tahini and maybe chickpeas, you’re pretty much set with kitchen staples. Not only is it simple to make hummus in a variety of flavors, you can also adjust a recipe based on what ingredients you have.

 

The first time I made this chipotle hummus, I did it without tahini and with the addition of sesame oil. The chipotle peppers give it enough kick that you don’t miss the traditional tahini taste at all. The second time I made this recipe, as written below, it was fantastic. I used a blender rather than a food processor – throwing in all the ingredients at once, blending and adding dashes more of lemon juice, sesame oil, tahini and cumin to taste. It’s essential to constantly taste the hummus to make sure all of the ingredient amounts come together for a final product that’s to your liking.