After nearly a month of waiting on my Sur la Table cassis french oven to arrive (what a nightmare!) it finally landed in the Financial District around the 12th of February. Our dear friend had entered into a Valentines Day Chili cook-off, and wouldn’t you know… he put out an email alert that he was in need of a large Dutch oven. Mr. D offered up our Le Creuset, and I have not seen it again since! Boo!

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I thought I’d share my favorite recipe for banana bread this week, perhaps one of you will try the recipe and I can live vicariously through you? {winkwink} Without further ado, here is the ‘My-oh-my I am dying to blow off some steam and bake a Banana Bread’ recipe:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees (then lower to 250 for second half hour)
Bake time: 60 minutes 30 minutes at 350, 30 minutes at 250

Ingredients:
1/2 cup butter
2 eggs
1 cup sugar
3 super ripe bananas (the browner, the better!)
1 1/3 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 cup chopped walnuts – totally optional
pinch of salt

Directions:
Cream butter and sugar. Mix in eggs. Add in bananas. Continue to cream together ingredients until everything is incorporated. Slowly add flour, soda, powder, salt. Add optional walnuts last.

Bake in a greased and lightly floured loaf pan.

Enjoy warm with a hot cup of coffee and a smear of butter ~ delish!

This was the first recipe that caught my eye when I bought Martha Stewart’s Cupcakes. I’m a sucker for anything Oreo, anything mini, and lately, anything cheesecake.

If you’re a sucker for these things too, or you want to win the heart of someone who is, these are your new best friend. The recipe is just a simple cheesecake batter poured over a whole Oreo cookie sitting in the well of a cupcake tin. I made these for a party with friends, and they were a huge hit. What’s not to love?

Mini Oreo Cheesecakes
Adapted from Martha Stewart’s Cupcakes
Printable Recipe
Makes 30

42 Oreos (~1 package), 30 left whole, and 12 coarsely chopped
2 pounds cream cheese, room temperature
1 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
4 large eggs, room temperature, lightly beaten
1 cup sour cream
Pinch of salt

1. Preheat oven to 275 degrees Fahrenheit. Line standard muffin tins with paper liners or grease well with non-stick baking spray. Place 1 whole cookie in the bottom of each cup.

2. With an electric mixer on medium high speed, beat cream cheese until smooth, scraping down sides of bowl as needed. Gradually add sugar, and beat until combined. Beat in vanilla.

3. Drizzle in eggs, a bit at a time, beating to combine and scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed. Beat in sour cream and salt. Stir in chopped cookies by hand.

4. Divide batter evenly among cookie-lined cups, filling each almost to the top. Bake, rotating pan halfway through, until filling is set, about 22 minutes. Transfer to wire racks to cool completely. Refrigerate at least 4 hours (or up to overnight). Remove from tins just before serving.

I was perusing my recipe index the other day and decided that the cupcake section was too chocolate-heavy. Not that there’s anything wrong with chocolate, but I’m an equal-opportunity cupcake lover. So off I went to find a non-chocolate, non-fruity cupcake flavor.

Dulce de leche has been on my radar for a long time (plus it’s all the rage right now), but I’ve always been hesitant to go through the high-risk process of making it at home. It involves boiling a can of sweetened condensed milk, bad news for accident-prone little me.

So I decided to spend the extra dollar and buy a can at my local Latino grocery store (I later spotted it in the ethnic foods section at Safeway if you’re not lucky enough to live near a Latino grocer). That dollar was completely worth it. Rich, moist brown-sugary cake, topped with a rich dulce de leche buttercream and drizzled with a bit of straight-up melted dulce de leche. These are equally worthy of a special occasion or a work lunch on a random Tuesday. ¡Buen provecho!

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I obviously love to bake. I’m pretty steadily mastering the art of making delicious-tasting desserts, but have been incredibly slow on the uptake with paying proper attention to delicious-looking food as well.

On a whim, I signed up for the Wilton Cake Decorating Class last month. The Wilton curriculum is a series of 4 4-week courses, and I just completed the first, called Discover Cake Decorating. It’s held at my local Michael’s craft store, and I leave there every Monday night covered in frosting, hand aching, and smiling ear-to-ear.

These classes are held throughout the U.S. and internationally, so I thought I’d give a little rundown of my thoughts in case you’re interested in signing up. Overall, I loved the class, and have actually already started Course 2, Flowers and Borders. Our instructor has been fabulous, and she’s especially great at not making me feel lame when I’m doing something ridiculous (couplers and I don’t really get along), which seems to happen quite often.

My only real issue with the class is the frosting they have us practice with. The main ingredient is vegetable shortening, which makes the frosting incredibly messy and greasy, and I strongly prefer not to eat it. There’s a saving grace there, because I don’t like it at all, I don’t snack while I’m practicing, which my body thanks me for. I also find it difficult to work with, though, even at the different consistencies they teach us how to make. I’m a chronic rule-follower, so I continued to make it and bring it to class instead of trying a different recipe, knowing that I’d have freedom outside of class to practice with more delicious frosting.

Other than that, I loved everything about the class, and it’s been making my Mondays a lot more bearable. I still have a lot to learn, but that’s what makes it fun.

Now, on to the fun stuff… pictures!

Week 1, Lecture: No hands-on, just a demonstration and lots of fun shopping! I bought the biggest kit they sell because I know I’ll use it forever, but you’re free to pick and choose which supplies you buy.

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Ed Note: EADL is signing off for the holidays! We will see you on January 4th; until then indulge yourself with Amy I’s Red Velvet White Chocolate Cheesecake! xoxo

Allow me to introduce you to the richest, most decadent, and most delicious thing I have ever baked. This Red Velvet White Chocolate Cheesecake is actually an entire white chocolate cheesecake, sandwiched between 2 fat layers of red velvet cake, all held together with cream cheese frosting. Ridiculous, right?

I made this for my birthday party last week (I’m one of those baking nerds that insists on making her own cake), but it’s perfect for any holiday special occasion.

Sending big, frosting-coated holiday hugs to all of you! See you next year!

Red Velvet White Chocolate Cheesecake
Adapted from Judy In Her Natural Habitat: The Kitchen
Printable Recipe

Make this the night before you plan to serve it, an overnight rest in the refrigerator does a world of good. Also, if you’re new to cake-baking, I recommend reading up on the merits of applying a crumb coat. You’ll definitely want to do that with this bright red baby.

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Have you heard of the “Baked” Brownie? The chocolatey treat that’s taking America by storm? Baked is a bakery in Brooklyn, New York. The owners of the bakery authored of one of my favorite cookbooks, Baked: New Frontiers in Baking, and in this book, share their infamously superior brownie recipe with the world.

I’d made and loved other recipes from the book (Lemon Lemon Lemon Loaf, Root Beer Bundt Cake, Pumpkin Whoopie Pies), but this is the one that they’re truly famous for, so I had to see for myself. These brownies are so good that they’ve been endorsed by America’s Test Kitchen, the Today Show, and are one of Oprah’s Favorite Things.

Brownies typically aren’t my baked good of choice unless there’s something interesting about them, like cream cheese, oreos, or peanut butter (or all of the above? mmmm….) swirled in. When I first tasted one, I knew they were excellent, but the best brownies in America? I’d had better. After they rested overnight, though, my opinion changed. Best brownies EVER. Most definitely.

The best thing about these brownies is that they’ll please a crowd. They’re just the right balance of cakey and gooey to appeal to everyone on the brownie-texture spectrum. I dusted mine with a bit of powdered sugar, since that’s what my mom always does (hi mom!), but feel free to leave them naked.

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Other than my short stint as a resident of New York City, I’ve never lived in a city with a “signature” food. I’m talking about claim-to-fame level: cheese steaks from Philadelphia, coffee from Seattle, Hatch chiles from New Mexico. These Nanaimo Bars are the ultimate signature food, from beautiful Nanaimo, British Columbia on Vancouver Island in Canada.

Nanaimo bars are a rich, decadent, 3-layer, no-bake treat. The bottom crust layer is chocolate, graham cracker crumbs, almonds, and coconut. I’m not sure if this is heresy (Canadian friends? Thoughts?), but I added 1/2 cup of Heath toffee bits to the bottom layer too. Next time I’d add even more, I’m crazy about the stuff. The middle layer is a creamy vanilla custard, and the top is a thin layer of solid chocolate.

These bars are ubiquitous in Canada. It’s unfathomable that anyone might not have heard of them. Here in the U.S., it’s a completely different story. I had to sheepishly ask how to pronounce the name (Nah-Nye-Moh), and of the dozens of people I served these to, almost none had heard of them either. I’m puzzled by this disparity, and it’s now my official mission to let every American I know in on one of Canada’s best-kept secrets!

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Looking for an easy last-minute crowd-pleaser for your Thanksgiving dessert? Your search is officially over. This Cranberry Upside-Down cake is not only visually stunning, but tastes delicious, is perfectly seasonal, and is appropriate for bakers of all skill levels.

{photo by me}

Cranberry Upside-Down Cake
Adapted from Dorie Greenspan’s Baking: From my Home to Yours
Printable Recipe

1 cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 3/4 sticks (14 tablespoons) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 cup minus 2 tablespoons sugar
1/4 cup chopped walnuts
2 cups of cranberries, fresh or frozen (if frozen, do not thaw)
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/3 cup whole milk
1/3 cup red currant jelly, for glazing the cake

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In my family, we still delight in crowding around my mother’s kitchen for Thanksgiving dinner. I swear, my mom is the best cook in the entire world. (And no, there is not a chance I’m even slightly biased.) Somewhere along the way over the last few years, it became my job to make sure to show up with dessert and a bottle (or three) of good wine. I’m more than happy to oblige. I love baking, but it’s simply not something I take the time to do often enough, so I always look forward to baking around the holidays. I’m the type who doesn’t just show up with a pumpkin pie and call it a day. I like to make at least 3 or 4 things and try at least 2 new recipes every year.

With that in mind, I spent this past weekend researching ideas of this year’s spread of desserts, which proved to be incredibly fun given my massive sweet tooth. I thought I’d share some of my favorite must-try ideas with you in the event you are also working on your ideas for Thanksgiving sweets…

{Cranberry upside down cake on Kitchenography}

{Maple Syrup Scones on 101 Cookbooks}

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Excuse the cheesy post title.  They’re the hardest thing to come up with!

One of my favorite autumn fruits is the apple. I know, I know, they’re around the entire year…but they’re the best in the fall.  Ripe, crisp, sweet, and a bit tart.  I remember one of my favorite childhood books saying that you could taste the starlit nights of summer, the bright sunshine of spring, and the crisp, cool days of autumn in a good apple.  Love.

Cooking with apples in the fall is the greatest: that apple smell filling the house is just so homey.  This is one of my favorite apple recipes for fall: not only is it delicious, it turns out beautifully and makes a stunning presentation with the jewel tones of the rhubarb and cranberries, which also happen to give it the perfect amount of tart/sweet combination.

{Photo by Pete McGregor}
(Please excuse my lack of personal photos lately… my camera is still MIA!)

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