Saxophone Cookies

You remember the peanut butter cake, right? Well, these saxophone cookies were for the same party. As I mentioned, my favorite baritone saxophone player had a birthday and in addition to the cake, I wanted to treat him to saxophone cookies, he’s kinda hard-core about music.

A moody saxophone cookie

I have to confess that I am an impatient baker so rolling and cutting out cookies isn’t exactly my preferred baking technique but these cookies were too irresistible. I ordered the cookie cutters from the States and I was pleased that they arrived in time for the birthday extravaganza. With little experience in sugar cookie making I headed out to my favorite blogs and settled on Peabody’s sugar cookie recipe. I used a lemon icing which of course we tinted yellow, brass coloured was a bit too much to hope for;)

Saxophones for Shirantha

A special thanks to my mom, my niece, Kristin and Teresa for helping out with the cookies. They were truly a collaborative endeavor.

TWD – Cran-Apple Crisps

It seems like forever since I have posted a Tuesdays with Dorie recipe but I’m glad to be back! To be honest, some weeks it is hard to bring myself to make something I know will go to waste because my friend/family base here in Ottawa is just a bit too small! Plus, there have been the weeks where I am lacking a tool required to make the treat!

So even though I have yet to get the food processor (well actually, it is at home waiting for me open it up on Christmas day, Thanks mum!), I sucked it up and whipped up 1/2 a batch of this festive fall dessert for me and the bf. Oddly enough, I have never made a crisp before but I loved this and was happy to find out how easy crisps are! I loved the coconut in the topping and I think I will experiment with other fruit in combo with the apples. Maybe some raspberries? Or some caramels like Anne Strawberry!

You can head on over to The Repressed Pastry Chef for this weeks recipe. I omitted the dried cranberries but I’m sure that would taste yummy too!  Thanks to Em for choosing this recipe. My apologies for the sub-par aesthetics:)

Pumpkin Apple Bundt

Did you know that today is National Bundt Day (at least in the United States anyways)? I know because Mary The Food Librarian has just finished 30 days of Bundts, affectionately named I Like Big Bundts. Mary’s blog is awesome and she is a bundt aficionado and thus, we were treated to 30 days of bundts. I couldn’t let the day pass without getting in on the action so I made the Pumpkin Apple Bundt from day three. I was tempted by many of them and I am sure that I will refer back to them when the bundt urge hits again. Thanks Mary for such a great event!

Post photo taking I added a Maple glaze to the cake. I mixed icing sugar, maple syrup and a bit of water (you could use milk but I didn’t have any). I think this added a little something special, a good improvisation if you will.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Cake

OK, so I know we have been slacking here at Bake with Us. We have missed the last two TWD posts and we haven’t been posting much else. My only excuse is that I have been so busy baking (and partying with friends), that I haven’t had time to blog. Lame I know, but on the bright side I am having tons of fun and sharing the baking love. Sorry to our virtual friends, I will try and it make up to you over the coming weeks with lots of posts.

So this past weekend was my favorite baritone saxophonist’s 30th birthday. He has this thing for peanut butter and so I wanted to hook him up with a peanut butter cake. Peanut butter isn’t my favourite so I was worried about finding a good recipe. I went straight to some of my favorite blogs and found success over at Smitten Kitchen.

Deb’s recipe is great. I decided to omit the chocolate glaze and the extent of my artistic license was the addition of chopped peanut butter cups. I added finely chopped pieces to the middle layer and then coarsely chopped ones on top. Confession: I didn’t actually eat a piece but it looked fabulous. I ate some saxophone cookies, which will soon be appearing here. Stay tuned for more 30th birthday party recipes.

Image Credit: Shirantha Beddage

Brown Sugar Toffee Snack Cake

I take full responsibility for the lack of TWD post this week but if you care to know, I blame it on the flu shot. I got mine on Monday (yay for being a health care worker and not having to line up for hours) and had a crappy night sleep due to a very sore arm! Plus I woke up with a headache and so the day was just not looking so hot. However, at the last minute I whipped up these little morsels to make up for my lack of TWD posting. They are quite brown-sugary but I quite enjoyed them! The cake was moist and light and I love Skor:)

I have had this recipe saved in my delicious for a while now and figured I might as well give it a try since I had some sour cream in the fridge. I have a similar recipe that I love but it uses a 9×13 so I figured I would give it a try since an 8×8 is not as dangerous! This is my first recipe from Culinary Concoctions by Peabody but I must say I drool over most of her recipes! If you don’t check out her blog on a regular basis, I advise you give it a browse:)

I made a few changes to the recipe to avoid having to buy extra things! I didn’t have any self-raising flour so I followed Baking Bites suggestion on how to make your own. I also didn’t have Skor bars and so instead I used Skor bits and milk chocolate chips. I probably put 1/3 cup of milk chocolate chips and 1/4 cup of Skor bits into the cake and then sprinkled the top with an additional 1/2 cup or so of bits. My only issue was the baking time, I probably added 6 minutes.

Peanut Butter Hide-Aways

One year during exams, Caroline made me a batch of these cookies and I must confess that I probably ate most of them without sharing. Thankfully stress increases metabolism and it seemed to have no ill-effects on my body at the time!

This past weekend, my mum, Caroline and I made a trip to the States and stocked up on a few kitchen essentials (ie. butter, mini peanut butter cups) that are much cheaper.  So I decided to put my purchases to good use and made these for the bf but also took some into work yesterday. I like to take things to work that are easy to eat while taking a mini break from the busy-ness that is our pharmacy.

Treats for my co-workers!

Peanut Butter Hide-Aways
From Company’s Coming Most Loved Treats by Jean Pare

1/2 cup Hard marg (or butter), softened
1/2 cup smooth peanut butter
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1/3 cup packed brown sugar
1 large egg

1 1/3 cups flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt (I always use less salt than they call for)

36 mini peanut butter cups (Note: it is best to remove the wrappers once you know how many cookies you will be making so that they are ready to go when the dough comes out of the oven)

Beat first 4 ingredients in large bowl until light and creamy. Add egg and beat well. Combine next 4 ingredients in small bowl. Add to marg mixture. Stir until just moistened. Dough will be stiff (note: my dough was not stiff but the cookies turned out just right anyways). Roll into 36 balls, using 1 tbsp for each. Place 1 ball in each mini-muffin cup. Bake at 375F for about 10 minutes until puffy and golden.     Remove and discard foil cup from peanut butter cups (see note above regarding doing this earlier so as not to panic like I did!). Press 1 peanut buttter cup into each hot cookie. Loosen edges of cookies with tip of knife. Chill for 20 minutes before removing from pan. Makes approximately 36 cookies (I never get the quantity of cookies they tell me it will make.. does that happen to other people?).

I must say, there is nothing better than a good Jean Pare recipe to make me a happy girl. I bought a mini-muffin pan just to make these (I’m sure at some point I will make mini muffins, or whatever else one might make in such a pan). If you don’t have the pan, I suggest going out right away to buy one!

Pumpkin-Chocolate-Chip Squares

Our mum doesn’t like pumpkin and therefore it wasn’t until about 3 or 4 years ago that I discovered pumpkin. It all started with Starbucks of all places, at Christmas of all times. Caroline and I were in the middle of some boxing day shopping and we stopped for a drink and decided to try the pumpkin scone. It was delicious and so began my appreciation for pumpkin (though I’m still not a big fan of the pie).

Caroline mentioned in the last post that she had some more yummy recipes to bring you from the can of pumpkin she opened. Last weekend when we were home for Thanksgiving I enjoyed the squares she made and had planned on bringing some home with me. But of course, I forgot the box of goodies. So I decided to whip some up with some pumpkin I had in the freezer. I brought them to work and they were a hit. Even one of the pharmacists who seems to have an “allergy” to many foods asked for the recipe!

I have made these squares a couple of times now and have requests for more. I only ever make them in the fall but I think I might start baking them other times too! Poor pumpkin, it gets forgotten for too much of the year.

The recipe can be found here. Thanks to Martha Stewart and I would suggest you make these in the coming week or two as a Halloween treat!  I didn’t make any changes other than a few less chocolate chips but when Caroline made them she used mini chips and that worked well too!

Pumpkin Biscuits TWD

OK, so I know that this week’s recipe was supposed to be sweet potato biscuits, but I have a thing for pumpkin so I changed it up a little. This recipe was chosen by Erin of Prudence Pennywise. I notice that her biscuits are light and fluffy looking, unlike mine which are neither, light nor fluffy. That being said mine were super tasty. I used a cup of canned pumpkin and I added an extra tablespoon of brown sugar (’cause I like sweetness!).

Hmmm, pumpkin scones

Obviously, I need to work these to get to the light and fluffy place but all in all there were super tasty. Hmm, pumpkin.

Pumpkin Muffins

Once you open a can of pumpkin you are committed. The ones I end up buying have over three cups in them, which means three different pumpkin treats. I usually pick one thing that I want to make and then scrounge around finding recipes to finish off the can with. Last week though, I had two recipes that I needed to make so I only had to scrounge for one. This is it. Don’t get me wrong, I love muffins, but I sure wouldn’t open a can for them. But for a third choice, these are pretty good. Hopefully there will be posts coming on choices one and two;)

The best part about making these was that I got to try out my new square muffin tin. I got it in the summer (such as it was here in Ontario) but never got around to using it. Square is the new round in my books.

Pumpkin Muffins adapted from Company’s Coming Muffins & More (nothing wrong with Jean!)

1.5 cups flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
Pinch of salt
1.5 tsp pumpkin pie spice
1/2 cup chocolate chips (The “real” recipe called for raisins but seriously chocolate is better)
1 egg
1/2 cup sugar
1/3 cup melted butter or margarine
1 cup cooked pumpkin
1/2 cup milk

Combine first 8 ingredients. Mix together and then make a well in the middle. Then in another bowl, whisk egg. Add in sugar, butter, pumpkin and milk and mix well. Pour into the flour. Mix until blended, don’t over-stir. Bake at 400 for 15-20 minutes. Let stand for five minutes then remove from pan. Serve warm or not.

Allspice Crumb Muffins TWD

Remember when I made those September resolutions? I was supposed to be done my baking before Tuesday. Well, I have to confess to a September Resolution fail. This past weekend was Thanksgiving and I fully intended to bake these at my parent’s house, with Claire. But not all good intentions come to fruition and this was one of them. So then I decided I was going to bake them yesterday. However, Toronto grocery stores are not open on Thanksgiving and my local Shoppers Drug Mart didn’t quite have all the ingredients I needed. Thus, I hastily made these tonight. Please forgive the crappy photo.

Thanks to Katye of Grandma’s Kitchen Table for picking this week’s recipe. It was great to have a recipe that didn’t require special indgredients and I have to say I love muffins. Katye must be extra excited because Dorie posted about TWD today too! Since I was a little late on the baking I haven’t actually tried the muffins, I am being very obedient as Dorie recommends that you wait until they cool but they look great and the strusel is delish!