Well It’s been one year. One whole year since I started my little baking blog! I actually have to wish it a Happy Belated Birthday, as the official first post ever was oct. 15. It was also for a pie, and it was for thanksgiving. A whole year of baking yummy things!! First I started this blog as something to do for fun, and of course I loved to bake and baked often enough that I could update it. But as I got further into the baking blogging world I became obsessed with everything to do with cooking and baking. I am actually addicted to baking blogs, I read them everyday and always look up recipes and visit tastespotting more than I’d like to admit. Which is deadly, because whenever I see the yummy baked goods it makes you very hungry!!

I haven’t been able to post a whole lot in the past little bit, back to school is always a busy time and now I’ve got a cold. But I have probably about 10 or so posts that I’ve taken pictures of but haven’t uploaded them yet. I dunno why, no time and sometimes just don’t really feel like it. I have lots of drafts for posts, and sometimes don’t even get to take pictures or what I bake.  But when I do I try to post it asap!

But over the past year I’ve loved being able to have something of my own to contribute to, to share with my friends and family and something to keep me busy when I have some free time! Thanks for everyone who reads this little blog and leaves comments and feedback =) I try to post as often as I can so thanks to those fellow bakers our there in blog world who follow my here and there posts!

Here’s another pie recipe, for chocolate pecan pie! It’s another one from the Dorie Greenspan collection and one of my favorite

pies!

Happy Birthday Blog Chocolate Pecan Pie!

Pecan Pie – Recipe adapted from Dorie Greenspans – Baking from My Home to Yours

I used the same pie crust I made for the Pumpkin Pie – Buttermilk Pie Crust which you can find here

Ingredients

• ½ cup light corn syrup
• ½ cup packed brown sugar
• 3 tablespoons butter, melted and cooled
• 3 large eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• 2 cups pecan pieces/halves
• chocolate shavings, or coaresly chopped, or chocolate chips

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 425F/ 220C.
2. In a large bowl, whisk the corn syrup and brown sugar until smooth, then add the melted butter. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating each egg into the mixture before adding the next.
3. Whisk everything until you get a smooth foamy mixture, then add vanilla, cinnamon and salt and beat everything in. Rap the bowl against the counter a few times to remove any bubbles from the batter, then stir in the pecans and chocolate. Pour the filling into the crust.
4. Place the baking pan on a baking sheet lined with parchment or a silicon mat. Bake the pie for 15 minutes. When the 15 minutes are over, lower the heat to 325F/ 170C, place pieces of aluminum foil over the edges of the crust and bake for another 15 to 20 minutes, or until the pie has puffed, is brown and doesn’t jiggle when tapped.

I love fall – automatically means pie season! Enjoy!

Im in a loaf mood right now. After my brother said I need to make another Grapefruit and Yogurt Cake for him to bring to work ( he’s an electrition and said his co-workers didn’t believe I made it.. I guess that’s a compliment) although he said he wasn’t sure I made it either. I asked him if he really questioned my baking skills..haha. So now what to do with all those rotting bananas?.. Rather than throw them away put them to good use in a yummy banana bread! This one is filled with bananas, chocolates and pecans. A grown up version of the regular old Banana bread.

This recipe comes from one of my favorite books, Joy Of Cooking 75th Anniversary Edition.

Banana Bread Recipe

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and grease a loaf pan.

Ingredients:

• 1 1/3 cups all-purpose flour
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
• 2/3 cup sugar
• 5 1/3 tablespoons unsalted butter
•  2 large eggs
• 1 cup mashed very ripe bananas (about 2-3)
• 1/2 cup chopped walnuts or pecans
• 1/2 cup ( or more! ) chocolate chunks or chocolate chips 

Sift together flour, salt baking powder and baking soda in large bowl. Whisk Thoroughly. 

In a mixer, preferrably with paddle attachment, beat on high speed until butter and sugar lightened in color and texture, 2 to 3 minutes. ( If you don’t have a KitchenAid or other stand mixer, a bowl and handheld beater will do the job!)

Beat in the flour mixture until blended and the consistency of brown sugar. Gradually beat in eggs one at a time.

Fold in bananas, chocolate, and chopped walnuts or pecans until combined.

Scrape the batter into the pan and spread evenly. Bake until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, 50 to 60 minutes. Let cool in the pan on a rack for 5 to 10 minutes before unmolding to cool completely on the rack.

Everytime I bake a loaf or Banana Bread, I always check it at the 45 minute mark, and then turn off the oven and allow it to continue baking for another 10 minutes or so. That way it doesn’t dry out and it slowly cooks all the way through. 

Enjoy!

**The picture came out really well, I just used four pieces of yellow construction paper and then in photoshop blurred out the lines/shadows. This is an easy way to do it if you don’t have different colored background, and are using a light box. That way you can change the color and edit it to look like one piece for different pictrures, and thus a yellow background for, well, Banana Bread of course!

It’s a rainy Remembrance day here in Vancouver, and after a day of shopping at the GUESS Factory Store where I bought 3 yes THREE trench coats..in red, black and cream {i told you i was a shopaholic.} But they were on sale for $35 from $94! So mathematically I had to buy them. I came home with an urge to bake, and I’ve been craving something really chocolaty like a brownie!  I found this excellent recipe called Tribute-To-Katherine-Hepburn Brownies in Baking: From My House to Yours by Dorie Greenspan.  (It was only after I read ‘What Would Audrey Do?‘ that I actually learned that Audrey and Katherine Hepburn were not related at all, as Im sure many people pondered once before. And as you know, I love Tiffany’s and Audrey very much!)

Tribute-To-Katherine-Hepburn Brownies ( Baking: From My House to Yours. Dorie Greenspan)

After Katharine Hepburn died, eulogies came from every quarter, many including stories about her brownies. In an article sent to me by my friend Bon Appetit editor in chief Barbara Fairchild, Heather Henderson of St. Paul, Minnesota, recalled wanting to quit her studies at Bryn Mawr. Her father managed to get Miss Hepburn, a Bryn Mawr alum and a neighbor, to intervene. The famous Kate invited both the young woman and her father to her home one afternoon. At tea, Ms. Henderson got a taste of the legendary brownies as well as of the actress’s views on education.

In her tribute to the actress, Ms. Henderson wrote, “I’ll always be grateful to Miss Hepburn for making me stick it out at Bryn Mawr and for giving me these rules to live by: 1. Never quit; 2. Be yourself and 3. Don’t put too much flour in your brownies.”

This recipe is a play on the one Miss Hepburn is reported to have used. Since a quick search through my cookbooks uncovered two other brownie recipes credited to Kate, and each was different, I decided it would be fine to add my own little touches. I’ve kept the essence of Miss Hepburn’s recipe — these are thin, soft, very chocolaty brownies made without much flour — but I’ve added a little cinnamon, some coffee and a quarter-pound of chopped fine-quality chocolate. Since the chocolate doesn’t firm up much in baking, it makes a soft, gooey brownie even softer and gooier and, to my way of thinking, even yummier. I think Miss Hepburn would approve.

Makes 16  2 inch x 2 inch brownies

Ingredients

• 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon (optional)
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 stick (8 tablespoons) unsalted butter, cut into 8 pieces
• 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 2 teaspoons finely ground instant coffee
• 2 large eggs, preferably at room temperature
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 1 cup broken or chopped walnuts or pecans
• 4 ounces bittersweet chocolate, coarsely chopped

GETTING READY: Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 325 degrees F.

Butter an 8-inch square baking pan and line the bottom with parchment or wax paper. Butter the paper, dust the inside of the pan with flour and tap out the excess. Place the pan on a baking sheet.

Whisk the flour, cinnamon, if you’re using it, and salt together.

Put the butter in a medium heavy-bottomed saucepan and place the pan over low heat. When the butter starts to melt, sift the cocoa over it and add the instant coffee. Continue to cook, stirring, until the butter is melted and the cocoa and coffee are blended into it. Remove from the heat and cool for about 3 minutes.

Using a whisk or a rubber spatula, beat the eggs into the saucepan one at a time. Next, stir in the sugar and vanilla (don’t beat anything too vigorously — you don’t want to add air to the batter), followed by the dry ingredients, nuts and chopped chocolate. Scrape the batter into the pan.

Bake for 30 minutes, at which point the brownies will still be gooey but the top will have a dry papery crust. Transfer the pan to a rack and let the brownies cool for at least 30 minutes. (You can wait longer, if you’d like.) Turn the brownies out onto a rack, peel away the paper and invert onto a cutting board. Cool completely before cutting into 16 squares, each roughly 2 inches on a side.

*I used a pizza cutter to cut them, it works really well!

SERVING: These are happy being served in all the typical ways — with whipped cream, ice cream or Hot Fudge Sauce or paired with a glass of milk to allow for dunking. I think they are best at room temperature, when they are at their moistest, but they are also very good chilled.

STORING: Wrapped well, the brownies will keep for 3 days at room temperature or frozen for up to 2 months.

Enjoy!

I know, only my second post and it’s more tarts? Well here’s why. My moms friend was going to Costco one day, and asked if she needed anything for thanksgiving. My mom then called me and asked what I thought we should get from Costco. I told her I planned on making pumpkin tarts and that they were cheaper at Costco than at Thrifty Foods or Safeway. So she told her to get some for us.
…Well, she came back with more than just some tarts, she had a box of 180! Seeing as how I had never made any kind of tarts before, 180 was more than enough! So my mom and I joked that I guess we would be eating a lot of tarts/quiches in the next little while! So it’s a rainy Friday, and we needed something to take to a party tomorrow night so I decided what the heck, why not tart it up again.

After searching and searching for a recipe for pecan tarts (harder than it sounds!) I found one and made it my own with a few changes.

I didn’t put any measurements for the pecans and chocolate ..because you can never have too many of either. So use as many as your heart desires!…as long as there’s still room for the filling.

Chocolate Chunk Mini Pecan Tarts
Ingredients:
20-24 Tart Shells – If frozen, take out of the freezer before you begin for about 5-10 mins
chopped pecans
pecan halves – one for each tart
Semi Sweet Chocolate – broken up into small chunks (Bakers secret or any other rich chocolate)
3 eggs
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1/3 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup dark corn syrup

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 325º F.
2. Place tart shells on baking sheet – about 20-24 on a large baking sheet
3. In the bottom of each tart, add 1 tablespoon (or more) chocolate chunks and 1 tablespoon + chopped pecans, then place a pecan half on top of each.
4. In a mixing bowl:
   -whisk together eggs, granulated sugar, brown sugar, corn syrup, and vanilla. Pour the filling over the pecans, just until it almost reaches the top of the sides of the tarts.
5. Bake for about 40-45 minutes, until the crust is golden, and the middle is set. Remove from the oven and transfer with a lifter to wire racks to cool

I always love pecan pie/tarts served with ice cream, or whip cream. I like them when they’ve been out of the oven for about 30 mins, while they’re still soft and puddingish, but I also love them when their hard and candy like.
Pecan Tarts are always good for a rainy afternoon..especially when you live in Vancouver! Betcha can’t eat just one.. I know I couldn’t!

Enjoy!