Mini doughnut muffins for the holidays!

Pin It

Happy Holidays!

I'm currently riding out the rain in San Francisco, and doing more tree decorating than baking, but I thought I'd share some pics of the mini doughnut muffins I made before we left London.

They came out pretty adorable, especially in their little Martha Stewart cups.

We gave a bag of them to our porter, and I left a bunch for my friend Magda, who'll be staying in our flat sporadically while we're gone.

They make a great, easy, super-cute holiday gift!

The recipe is here.

Gram's cookies– a major meltdown story

Pin It

 

This is what they're supposed to look like.  Buttery, powdered-sugar-y, fluffy-but-rich little drops of chocolate-chip heaven.  

These are the cookies that made a generation of wary grandchildren smile at the expectation of a visit from a somewhat dour, WASPy (if well-meaning), grandmother.  Gram's cookies.  Usually delivered in a Folgers coffee tin, along with what she called "the healthy cookies"– basically chocolate chip with oats (healthy!), and quite scrummy, but couldn't hold a candle to THE cookies.  Once I got the recipe from my Gram, these immediately became my go-to holiday cookies (especially cute with Martha Stewart packaging):

Continuing the Workplace Takeover: Chocolate Peanut Butter Puffs

Pin It

Now this is a stroke of genius.

Shop-bought puff pastry, peanut butter, and chocolate chips; a pizza cutter (or sharp knife) and a rolling pin; an oven.  Add a half hour's attention and minimal energy (and, more importantly, minimal dishes!), et voila: Chocolate peanut butter puffs!

My family's super-secret Pumpkin Pie recipe, revealed!

Pin It

It's time.

I've decided I finally know you guys well enough to let you in on the big family secret: Great-Grandmother's Pumpkin Pie.

Don't take this lightly, now.  I made this pie every year for my friends at college, and every year the list of pie requests grew; I made no fewer than 10 pies my senior year.  And when we graduated, after much coercion, I agreed to give the recipe to my friend Brittany, but I swore her to secrecy.  And now I'm blowing the whole thing open by posting the recipe on the internet.  I'm taking a big risk for y'all.

Amy's Bread and Cranberry Cookies

Pin It

 

I bought a new cookbook a couple of weeks ago, on a whim.  My sister has it, and she showed it to me when I was last in SF, and I was taken by a photo of an adorably pink layer cake that I haven't been able to get out of my head since.  So I bought the cookbook, The Sweeter Side of Amy's Bread.  And it came.  And I put it on the coffee table, and then I sat down on the sofa and flipped through it.  And I sighed and bookmarked and planned and plotted.  And then I put it down again, and didn't pick it up for two weeks.

 

The thing is, I've got this new job.  And I love this job, and more importantly I love my office-mates.  But... well, I don't have a lot of time for baking anymore.  I know, I know.  The grass is always greener.  In fairness, I have been baking (well I didn't want them to regret hiring me!), but I've been falling back on old favorites like banana bread and pumpkin pie bread.  I haven't really had the time to do the kind of baking that Amy requires: weighing, measuring, sifting, using 6 bowls– this lady's not fooling around.  Her recipes aren't difficult, exactly, but they are certainly exacting. 

BAKED oatmeal? Why does no one tell me these things?!

Pin It

Okay, yes, these photos are bad.  I won't even bother to submit them to Foodgawker (with whom I'm having a bit of a beef right now anyway, since they refuse to make allowances for the fact that I live in England and it's effing DARK here all the time and there's no room for a lightbox / I'm poor)

Forced to bake with buttermilk!

Pin It

Sometimes, at our lovely new(ish) flat, we like to host dinner parties.  And sometimes those dinner parties become a bigger production than is absolutely necessary.