Category: home cooking

Cakespy’s Cranberry Bliss Bars

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this is a riff on the starbucks cranberry bliss bar and I found it on the website of cakespy. I have claimed I cannot bake for a long time. My co-worker Claire says this proves I am lying. That either means it is a great recipe, or I can, in fact, bake.

Ingredients for cake base

2 sticks (1 cup) unsalted butter, softened
1 1/4 cups brown sugar, firmly packed
3 large eggs
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg (optional)
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups flour
1/4 cup dried cranberries
1/4 cup white chocolate, coarsely chopped (I used Ghiradelli)
1/4 cup candied ginger, finely chopped (I left this out)

Ingredients for frosting

4 ounces cream cheese, softened
1 1/2 cups confectioners’ sugar
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 teaspoon lemon zest (optional)
dash of salt

Ingredients for garnish

1/3 cup white chocolate (either chips, or coarsely chopped bar chocolate)
1/2 cup dried cranberries

Procedure

1. Preheat oven to 350°F and lightly grease a 9×13 pan.

2. Make the cake. Beat butter and sugar together until fluffy; add the vanilla and eggs, one at a time, stirring well after each addition. Sift together flour, ground ginger, nutmeg, and salt and then add to the butter and sugar mixture, beating until fully incorporated. This will be a very thick batter. Fold in the cranberries, chocolate and ginger. Spread the batter in the pan and bake for about 30 minutes or until light golden. Let the cake cool before adding the frosting.

3. Make the frosting. Using the paddle attachment on an electric mixer, beat the butter and cream cheese together until fluffy; add the lemon zest, vanilla, and salt; add the confectioners’ sugar bit by bit until the frosting has reached your desired consistency (you may need less than the suggested amount). Spread the frosting evenly over the cake, and scatter the cranberries on top of the frosting immediately.

4. Make the drizzle. In a double boiler, melt white chocolate; once it is smooth, use a spoon and drizzle across the top of the frosted and cranberry-festooned cake.

5. Slice the bars immediately after applying the white chocolate drizzle. Slice in half lengthwise, and then slice into four equal parts horizontally. Slice each rectangle in half diagonally, and you will end up with 16 triangle-shaped bars.

pesto

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there is a crêpe place called crêpes & crêpes in the Cherry Creek neighborhood in Denver that I would urge you to try. I used to go there fairly often with my friends. Their crêpes were just wonderful-tender and filled with lovely things. The owner is a thickly accented Frenchman. They always served two sides of sauce with the savory crêpes (a red and a green, like Christmas.) But the one I truly miss is the pesto which is a beautiful green heavily flavored with garlic. Truly wonderful.
We recently had a nice dinner with a family from Campus Crusade and they served us grilled steak which is sorely missed in our grill-less apartment and sauced it with pesto. I asked Nick for the recipe and I hope he doesn’t mind my passing it along. I finally remembered to prowl Brian’s email for it as I am searching for something to eat this week. It is fresh, unusual and really good.

1/2 cup fresh flat-leaf parsley
1/4 roasted shelled pistachios
1 small clove garlic
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1/4 cup olive oil

finely chop the parsley, pistachios, and garlic. Mix into the oil,
salt and pepper. I found that it worked best if I chopped the garlic
and pistachios in a food processor, then chopped the parsley
separately before mixing it all together.

for Denverites and world travelers

Crepes & Crepes
2816 E 3rd Ave
Denver, CO 80206

pickled cherries

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an early look at pickling. Do pickles always have salt? Is that part of it? I made these pickled cherries and didn’t think much of the recipe as it unfolded but the end result is strangely salty. I think I will try this again after researching a bit more. They look gorgeous though, so I get the 4-H prize for that.

january

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so, I am interested to see if my grocery couponing is worthwhile overall and decided I would keep track of my savings versus spending in 2010. I didn’t have my best month for various reasons but overall here is how January shook out. February should be less taxing and budget blowing.

Spent: 385.28

Saved: 168.27

spicy sriracha tomato soup

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according to bon appetit, sriracha is the ingrediant of 2010. I purchased a copy of Michael Symon’s new cookbook, Live to Cook a month or two ago and was finally able to take time to pick out a couple of new recipes to cook. One of them is a recipe for Spicy Sriracha Tomato Soup, a reasonably healthy and fairly spicy soup fairly easily made on a weeknight and served with a cheddar panini.