Tiramisu

One hot afternoon, the same afternoon God gave the beer pong table, I was looking for something to make because I was in a baking mood. Stacey was the only one home and since she does not like fruit, lemon, cinnamon, or nuts in her baked goods, I was limited. I found a recipe in my Food and Wine Magazine Cookbook for Tiramisu, she wanted some!

I've made it twice now, once in a 8 x 11 pan, single layer and again in a 8 x 8 pan double layer. This first batch came out a lot better with more flavoring and it was less runny.

In the microwave (I put all in a 2 cup pyrex measuring cup) boil 1 cup of water. Add 3 Tablespoons of instant coffee. Stir in 1 Tablespoon of rum. Allow to cool while you mix up the remainder of ingredients.

In a large bowl beat 5 large egg whites with a pinch of salt with a hand mixer until they have stiff peaks.

In another large bowl, beat 4 large egg yolks with 1/3 cup white sugar with a hand mixer until it is light yellow and fluffy. Mix in one container of mascarpone (8 oz) in with the egg yolks, When incorporated, mix a second 8 oz container of mascarpone cheese into the egg yolks. Gently fold together the egg whites with the cheese mixture until well incorporated.

Take 1/2 the cheese mixture (a 1/3 if doing 2 layers) and spread on the bottom an 8 x 11 pan (9x9 for double). Pour some of the coffee mixture is a shallow bowl and dunk 2 lady fingers at a time in the liquid, flipping them to absorb plenty of the coffee mixture. Place the lady fingers in the pan so they are touching with a little cheese oozing through. Continue until the bottom of the pan is covered. Spread the remaining 1/2 (or another 1/3 and then repeat with the lady fingers) of the cheese mixture over top. Lightly dust about 1/4-1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder over the top.

Place covered in the fridge overnight. Before serving, grate dark chocolate (I like Lindt's 80%) over the top. Cut and serve up the deliciousness!

Best brownies ever!!

These are seriously the best brownies I've ever made or eaten, they're phenomenal! I forgot to take a picture and by the time I remembered we'd eaten them all. I don't mean to toot my own horn, but beep, beep!

Original recipe, my adaptation:

In a medium saucepan boil together
2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons water
1/2 cup sugar
1 tablespoon instant coffee

Remove from heat and stir in 3/4 of a 12 oz bag of semi-sweet chocolate chips or chunks.

Beat 2 eggs, add some chocolate mix into the eggs to temper them, add warmed eggs to chocolate mixture and mix well. Stir in 1 teaspoon vanilla extract.

Gently stir in 2/3 cup flour, 1/4 tea baking soda, and 1/4 tea salt. Mix to combine, do NOT over stir.

Pour into a greased and cocoa-ed 8 x 8 pan. Bake at 325 for 25 minutes, checking last 10 minutes for done-ness. Let cool on the counter in pan for a couple of hours before cutting.

These brownies are very rich and fudgey! I was able to get 20 small pieces.

Strawberry Chocolate Mousse Cake

This dessert looks awesome and very impressive, BUT it was almost impossible to get out of the pan. For next time, I will use wax paper in the bottom to make it easier to get out as well as crush the Oreo a lot more!

2 cups crushed Oreos and 6 tablespoon melted butter mixed together and spread across the bottom of a 9 inch tart pan.

Cut up 1 1/4 pint of fresh strawberries into quarters after de-steaming and arrange with tips point up on Oreo crust.

Boil a 1/2 cup of water with 2 tablespoons of light corn syrup. Place entire 12 oz bag of semi-sweet chocolate chips in a blender, pour the water/corn syrup mixture over top and let set for a minute. Blend until smooth and let cool to room temperature.

Beat 3/4 of a pint of heavy whipping cream into stiff peaks. Fold in chocolate mixtures and spread over strawberries. It's alright if tips of strawberries are poking through. Refrigerate for a couple of hours or overnight.

Before serving, whip remaining cream with 1 tablespoon of sugar. Pipe flowers or blobs on top of mouse and place remaining 1/4 of pint of quartered strawberries neatly on top. Cut and serve carefully!

Banana Muffins

I'm always on a quest for a great banana muffin/bread recipe, this is my latest attempt. It could and hopefully will be replaced by something better and more delicious later! Whenever we have extra bananas that are about to go bad, we throw the in the freezer for a rainy day, these are perfect for banana bread!! Take 3 or 4 out of the freezer and let thaw, and you don't even need to mash b/c they are already at the perfect consistency.

Mix together dry ingredients in a small bowl and whisk together:
1 1/2 c flour
1 1/2 tea baking powder
1/4 tea baking soda
1/8 tea salt
1/2 tea cinnamon
1/2 quick cooking oats

Mix together wet ingredients:
2 egg whites
1 1/2 c mashed bananas (I use 3 large bananas)
3/4 c sugar
3 tablespoon canola oil
1 tea lemon zest
1 tea vanilla

Mix together dry ingredients into the wet without over stirring. Makes 16 muffins and don't forget to spray the muffin papers with a little Pam to prevent sticking. I mix together cinnamon and sugar to sprinkle on top. Because Stacey doesn't like nuts, I did not put walnuts in the mix, I placed some pieces on top. Walnuts inside would be an excellent addition!!!

Bake at 325° for 20 minutes, checking for done-ness. These muffins are quite pale and taste pretty light because they are not made with any egg yolks. You could easily make this as a loaf too. Here is the original recipe, I made several changes.

My specialty!

Pumpkin Bread (or muffins)

This is my recipe for my signature dish.

Mix together with a whisk in a small bowl (I use heaping amounts of all spices):
1 1/2 c flour
1 1/2 tea cinnamon
1 tea ginger
1/2 tea nutmeg
1/2 tea cloves
1 tea baking powder
1 tea baking soda
1/2 tea salt

Cream together sugar and pumpkin, mix in applesauce and oil (measure oil first and applesauce slides right out!), mix in one egg at a time:
1 c white sugar
15 oz can Libby's pumpkin
1/4 c natural applesauce
1/4 c canola or vegetable oil 2 eggs

Mix dry ingredients into wet with minamil stirrings. Pour in regular loaf pan or muffin tins. Line muffin tins with paper cups and squirt a little Pam inside for easy removal. If using a loaf pan, grease and flour well.

Mix together 1/3 cup white sugar and 1 tablespoon cinnamon, sprinkle on top of loaf or muffins. This makes for a crispy delicious top!

Bake at 325° for 50 minutes (loaf), 20 minutes (muffins); but make sure to check 5 minutes early for a clean knife, ovens very. Let cool, will be very moist!!

Sangria!

It's summer and what is more important than a great sangria recipe! I made this one for my mom, aunts, and grandma so it's base is white wine. I used the original recipe, but made quite a few changes as I went along. Here is my version, I obviously go for quantity!!

• 1.5 L bottle Chardonnay (added another regular size bottle the next day to the rest of the ingredients, still great, just stretching it out!!)
• 1 1/3 cup orange flavored vodka
• ½ can frozen lemonade concentrate
• ½ cup white sugar
• 5 peaches
• 1 ½ cup red grapes
• 1 ½ cup green grapes
• 1 cup orange-peach-mango juice

Serve over ice and it's delicious, a little on the strong side, but I like it that way! You can always add more juice to cut the alcohol or add less alcohol.

Lemon Meringue Delicious

It's summertime (in temperature although not in season) and during summer I actually prefer refreshing desserts to rich chocolate ones. Astonishing I know! To kick off the summer season I made one of my favorites, a lemon meringue pie. I love making pies because I feel there is so much technique invovled and its a skill not a lot of people can master!

Making crust is one of my favorite parts. I found this great pie crust recipe that makes 2 crusts (or one double) and is SO easy to roll out. I follow the recipe, but I add an equal amount of sugar to salt and add only enough ice cold water to moisten the dough. I only refrigerate for about an hour and everything turns out ok. I froze the other half for later.

I really like the recipe I used for the filling and meringue part too. I used to use my mom's Betty Crocker cookbook, but since I no longer have access, I need to look up recipes online and hope for the best! Since we don't have a zester, I used a vegetable peeler to skin the lemon and used the food processor to grind up the peel. I added about a tablespoon of sugar while pulsing to loosen everything up. - Lemon Meringue Pie Recipe

I added a teaspoon of cream of tarter to the meringue mixture and next time I would make 1 1/2 times as much meringue, I like there to be a full amount of meringue! Overall the pie turned out great! A little runny, but I think I will let everything cool for a bit longer before placing it in the pie crust and re-baking.

Ruth's B-day Cake

For Ruth's birthday Stacey and I took her computer to look at all of her bookmarks from allrecipes.com. This is a dark chocolate cake from the recipe below. I was running out of vanilla so I added chocolate chips for flavoring. The FIRST time I made the cake, I accidentally hit the stove dial, so the cake cooked at 500 degrees before I smelt the burning-ness. Luckily the second round was much better! For the frosting, I followed the recipe, but I doubled it and melted more chocolate and stirred it in, I figured you only turn 24 once, so why limit your chocolate intake! The decorations were made by mixing about 1 1/2 tablespoons of butter with melted chocolate chips. I used our new cake decorating kit to write and then make flowers. I put about 10 flours (or stars) directly on the cake and put chocolate chips in the middle. For the rest of the stars, I made them on parchment paper, froze, and then later added to the cake. The chocolate decorations had a great consistency.

The cake was delicious, very rich! We were smart girls and Ruth took about half of the remaining cake to work with her so we didn't end eating ourselves!

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Dark-Chocolate-Cream-Cheese-Cake/Detail.aspx

Welcome to Tracy's Bakery

Tracy's Bakery wouldn't be my first name for my establishment, but it's the one Lynn put on my apron, so I'm going with it!

I've been thinking about starting to keep a binder for awhile with recipes and notes about them, but that really isn't my style, this is. I'm going to post links to recipes I've used online, note my results and changes, post pictures of my creations, and hopefully start to develop my own recipes. Some day, I am going to have my own cafe, but first I need to practice, a lot!