Before we got sick over the holidays, I made this banana bread with loads of dark chocolate chips. It looks fantastic, no? It was. It really was. So tasty. Especially with a morning latte.

I have been thinking about that bread a lot lately.

I would make it again, but apparently I can’t figure what recipe, if any, I used. It’s like I pulled it out of thin air because I can’t find any link on any of my computing devices that lists what I recall using to make the batter or even the temperature I used since it wasn’t the usual 350C.

Oh, this is so maddening!!!

GRR.

This is a cobbler (A.K.A.: crumble, Brown Betty or crisp) I made the other night after work when I was especially burned out and in need of a great comforting dessert that I could put together without having to read or follow a cookbook or an online recipes. Basically, I used the formula I always do for my fruit cobblers, and threw in whatever I felt would work that was kicking around at the time.

I used a bag of frozen mixed berries I bought at the grocery store back when they were on sale for this very type of occasion. It was a mix of strawberries, blueberries, raspberries and blackberries. I cut the bag open at the top and down from sternum to tailpipe, and dropped the frozen lump into my baking pan. While that came up in temperature enough that I could break it up with my wooden spoon, I assembled the rest of the filling in a small bowl, and then assembled the topping ingredients in a slightly bigger bowl. When everything was prepped and the fruit was softened up enough, I took the butter out of the fridge and diced it up into half inch cubes, and separated them into two piles – one for the top, one for the bottom of the cobbler.

Here is what I came up with the other night for ingredients. The overall taste was spot on my target, and the husband was really into it. WIN!

Auntie Stacey’s Mixed Fruit Brown Betty:
1 Bag Frozen Mixed Fruit, enough to fill a 6-8 serving medium size baking dish
1 Pinch Salt
1 Tea Ground Cinnamon
1/4 Tea Ground Cardamom (optional – I happen to always have it on hand)
1/4 C Brown Sugar, lightly packed
4 Tbsp Cornstarch
3 Tbsp Cold Butter, cubed
Juice of half a Lime

Mix this into a small bowl and toss it over the fruit. Use a spatula to mix everything enough. None of the ingredients have to be perfectly incorporated, and there’s no need to work the butter cubes into the filling’s dry ingredients. This is a rustic dessert, not a sophisticated Cherries Jubilee.

1 1/2 C Old Fashioned Oats
1/2 C Flour
3 Tbsp Cold Butter, cubed
1/4 Tea Ground Cinnamon

Using a butter cutting gadget, or two knives, or your fingers, cut up the butter and incorporate as much of the finer dry ingredients for the topping into the butter as you want. Again, it doesn’t have to be perfect or even all smooshed up. It’s a rustic dessert, so leave some clumps untouched and unsmooshed.

Top the filling with this crumbled mixture and bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes uncovered. Leaving it uncovered will allow the oats in the topping to crisp up nicely as it deepens in colour.

Let it rest at least 20 minutes before you dig in. At least! I let mine rest up to a full hour sometimes. What the rest period does for the dessert is to allow more time for the mixture of cornstarch and brown sugar in the filling to cook down all liquid coming out of the fruit into a love thickened syrup. That syrup, by the way, is great spooned over some ice cream or whipped cream should you serve that alongside this dessert. (And I highly recommend that you do.)

PS: I was so frazzled from work the other night, we ate it all over two days and never once thought about taking a picture for this blog entry. My apologies. You all know what cobblers look like, right? If not, and you don’t or can’t wait till I make this again to photograph, you can always use Google images to see what these desserts looks like.

Enjoy!

[ Blackberry & Pear Crisp – fresh out of the oven ]

Today a customer gave us our first batch of blackberries off one of the bushes he has in his side yard at home after the husband fixed his computer. (Not as a payment, but as an extra, “Here. This is for you because I remember your wife and you love these from last year when I brought you some at the store,” sort of way.) And we did.

He gave us about one and a half cups, and kindly washed them for us, so all I had to do was peel and cut up the lone pear we had in the fridge to add to the berries for this recipe. I love when a great plan comes together on the fly like this.

So, my challenge wasn’t what kind of crisp I wanted to make, but rather to scale the one recipe I love the most down to something that will use up everything I have onhand and will also fit nicely into two small baking dishes. I adapted the following to make a 2-person serving. Hope you all like it.

Auntie Stacey’s Blackberry & Pear Crisp:
2 C Blackberries + Pears (you can make them even or a bit more of one over the other)
3 Tbsp Brown Sugar
1-2 Tbsp Cornstarch

1/2 C Rolled Oats
1/3 C Flour
3 Tbsp Brown Sugar
1 1/2 – 2 Tbsp Butter (unsalted, cold and cubed)

[ Blackberry & Pear Crisp – ready for the oven ]

In a small bowl, mix the sugar and cornstarch; lightly toss with the fruit, or if they berries are too tender, drop the mixture over the fruit as it sits in the baking dishes.

In the bowl again, mix the oats, flour and sugar. Top each baking dish with half of this mixture. Place the small cubes over top of the topping within half an inch of each other.

No need to go overboard or to crowd. If you leftover cubes, chill them for the next crisp you do or use them for your next corn-on-the-cob dinner.

Bake the crisps at 350 for 35 minutes, or until bubbling hot and most of the topping has crisped up.

Cool till the fruit can be eaten without scaling the mouth, and serve with French Vanilla ice cream or, if you have it, freshly whipped cream topping.

Yields: 2

{ So good. So, so good. ]

It’s Canada Day, and that means hotdogs and hamburgers made on the grill in a backyard or in a park by some water close enough to the fireworks hours later. It’s how we do it north of the 49th, kids. And we like it this way!

What we don’t like – or, what I should say I don’t like – is finding out our hotdog buns are moldy on a day when the stores are closed for a national holiday. It bums me out. But, because I discovered this problem very last night, I had lots of time today to make buns from scratch. Yes, I make bread, too. I make it ALL, baby.

{evil laughter}

I don’t have a stock bun recipe so I was planning to scour the innerweebs when Joy The Baker, bless her generous heart, decided this was the weekend she was going to post about her homemade hotdog buns. It was meant to be. 🙂

From this…

To this.

I halved the ingredient amounts to make a smaller batch than her recipe yields, but if you’re having a crowd over, Joy’s recipe will give you 18 regular 4″-5″ buns per batch. There’s still time to make a whole mess of these buns if you need more than that. They’re fast, straightforward and easy to make. I assure you. If you’ve ever kneaded dough before, you’ll be fine with this recipe. Pay attention to your type of yeast (I learned the hard way a month ago) and how to use it, and you should be fine.

I made half the batch with poppy seeds, fresh cracked pepper and big grains of salt, and the other half only got the coarse salt. I liked the salted one, and my husband loved the all dressed up one. I took care to make these buns a full 7″ so the overgrown Costco sausages the boy loves so much would be evenly matched up bite for bite. He complains a lot about rinky-dink store bought buns not being long enough. So, needless to say, he was happy with these buns in ever respect.

Try these buns. You’ll love them. And they took me less than an hour – start to finish.

OK, we’re off to hit a movie if we can, so enjoy your holiday, everyone.

Happy 146th birthday, Canada!

Auntie Stacey’s Carrot Cookies
1/2 C (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted
1/2 C brown sugar, packed
1/4 C white sugar
1 egg yolk
3/4 C flour (your choice – I use all purpose)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 C teaspoon rolled oats
3/4 C carrots, shredded
1/3 C dried fruit or chocolate chunks (your choice)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

1. Cream your butter and then mix in the sugars; add the yolk and mix till all is moistened.
2. Stir the flour and salt together; spoon into the mixing bowl with the machine running on its lowest setting.
3. Carefully spoon the last three ingredients into the mixing bowl while the machine is running on its lowest setting till everything is blended nicely.
4. Drop and flatten spoonfuls onto parchment lined cookie sheets and bake for 15-20 minutes per batch.

Dip part of cookies into melted chocolate when cooled if PMS’ing.

[ Click picture to embiggen ]

Dessert For Two is a great recipe blog run by the lovely, friendly Christina. She goes by @DessertForTwo on Instagram so if you ever have a question, that’s probably the best place to grab her attention aside from on her website.

Often I will want to cook or bake something out of the blue but I don’t want a million bits of leftover kicking around going stale after we’ve satiated our hankerings. This site fits the bill because Christina has probably already taken the time to figure out the reduced ingredient increments for whatever we want to make into a micro batch.

For example, today I was thinking I would make some scones for breakfast tomorrow, and not just any scones, but bacon infused scones. I went to her site, searched “scone” and a few recipes came up. I really like this one for Buttered Pecan Scones. Yummy. (See her picture above for what they look like.) All I have to do is follow one and sub out the flavour ingredients for the bacon, and I’ll be off to the races.

I will post my results tomorrow if they turn out as well as I think they will. Stay tuned.

Thinking about making butter tarts tonight, but I’m holding myself back because I made some many oatmeal chocolate chip and oatmeal cranberry cookies this morning. I’m sure the husband won’t mind, though. He never does. 🙂

I’m trying to figure out which of these two recipes I want to test drive if you’re at all interested in making your own:

• Kraft Canada’s Chocolate Butter Tarts
• All Recipe’s Mississipi Butter Tarts
• Or this one below, from the makers of Jackson-Triggs wine, complete with Vanilla Bean Chantilly topping. Hmm… Tough decision.

The difference between them is the use of light corn syrup. I’m not a fan but I have been known to use it in my Rice Krispie squares, so I already have some on hand. I’m also a bit puzzled by the comment left on the recipe using the corn syrup that the butter tarts came out runny. I’m not sure how that would happen with a strong binding ingredient like corn syrup. Odd.

I’m using store bought tart shells because my hands are too hot to work with cold butters while forming pastry doughs. Oh, sure I’ve tried the dip-your-hands-in-cold-water-then-quickly-wipe-them-dry trick, but it never works for more than 30 seconds before the dough starts to mush out in my hands. It doesn’t matter how cold I can get my hands, either. Butter + my hands = disaster. I can’t even hold a chocolate bar for long because I can feel it sink into my fingers. I have to get my husband to hold it while we walk from the aisle to the checkout. Pathetic.

Alas, this is the reason I never became a baker. It’s a curse no baker wants to have. (le sigh)

Check out this simple 3-ingredient Peanut Butter Cookies from The One Pot Chef:
1 Egg
1 cup of Sugar
1 cup Peanut Butter

(Ratio: 1:1:1)

Or, you can try Tasty Kitchen’s Oatmeal Peanut Butter Cookie with a few other ingredients thrown in to round out the dough.

Giada’s Nonna’s Lemon Ricotta Muffins recipe. If you haven’t tried or tasted these, you MUST. This one is a favourite of my husband’s. I didn’t toast the slivered almonds on top, but I bet if I had, that would have simply added another dimension of flavour to these babies. And believe me, they’re already bursting with amazing flavours and sport a texture that will think you’re eating part of a cloud.

Why are you still reading this post? Go make these muffins. NOW!