the ultimate peanut butter cookie

There really is nothing quite like a good, I mean a good, peanut butter cookie. I've noticed, there are so many varieties of peanut butter cookies out there; the list keeps growing on the diversity out here in food-bloggerland. There are raw, flourless, all natural, no bake, no peanut-peanut butter cookies, I mean I could go on and on here. My latest batch of peanut butter cookies comes inspired from the idea of making a flourless peanut butter cookie as Joy the Baker did. But I used flour, just not that much; I needed a little bit in my pb cookie to make it just a bit heartier, denser, chewier--you with me?
Thank you also to Alexis Stewart (yes that one) who saw my cookies and made them her own way. I was honored beyond belief. Thank you. (the link is up top under the Press Links).

'almost flourless' peanut butter cookies
(sort of adapted by The Gourmet Cookbook & Joy the Baker)
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1 cup smooth-type peanut butter* (no oily peanut butters!)
¾ cup dark brown sugar
¼ granulated sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 TB flour
1 ts sea salt
Bittersweet chocolate chips, about ½ cup, optional
Sea salt for sprinkling, optional In a small bowl add the flour, baking soda and salt and mix, set aside.
In a mixer or by hand, combine peanut butter and sugars until well combined. Crack egg open in a small bowl and beat. Add egg to the cookie mixture; add in the flour mixture but by sprinkling it over the cookie dough, not just depositing it in one large dump. Mix till combined. Cover bowl and let it sit in fridge for about two hours or more (mine did fine overnight). When ready to bake, preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Roll into tablespoon sized balls and place on non-stick cookie sheets or greased cookie sheets. With a fork gently make a criss-cross pattern with a fork. Bake for 10 minutes, until lightly browned. As soon as they come out of the oven sprinkle with just a bit of sea salt—this adds a nice peanut depth; this is optional. (If you want to add in a chocolate topping like I did, don’t make a cross-cross pattern, but rather make a small well. Bake those half way (about 5 minutes) then add in about 4 chocolate chips and bake remaining 5 minutes or so. The chocolate part is optional, but luscious.) Cool on a baking sheet for a while. Should make about 23 – 25 cookies.
*please use a creamy, not oily peanut butter. I used whole foods 365 organic creamy peanut butter, it has the perfect texture for these cookies.

white chocolate, pineapple & coconut bark

I'm not the biggest fan of white chocolate, but I did change my mind on this creation. This was good, really good. I had a small bite and then made sure to send it away to friends as I knew I would eat all of it. It's that type of candy that you have a piece, vow to have one more piece, then seal it up, then end up going back for a third, fourth and so on.



Are there a lot of people out there that like white chocolate? I know my hubby loves it. I love my high cacao chocolate--give me my fix! For the longest time I had been craving a pineapple & coconut type bark, every since spring came about actually. But mixing the pineapple and coconut with the dark or even milk chocolate was ok, not my thing really. I gave the white chocolate a try. But trust me, I was hesitant because melting white chocolate is a pain in the ciuco! You really have to watch the chocolate because it goes from melted directly to dry and crusty. But if you have all your ingredients lined up and work fast it comes out okay.



So, was this good? Yes, it was really good. I love the sweetness of the pineapple and coconut mixed with the almost salty-like white chocolate. And I used a dried coconut to give the bark texture (not a sweetened coconut, but dried). Plus the salty macadamia nuts were crazy good with this. Did I forget to mention the salty macadamia nuts? My bad--yes there are macadamia nuts in here and they are salty gooooood.



white chocolate tropical bark
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about 16 oz of white chocolate melted (about one bag and a half bag)
1/2 cup more or less dried pineapple, chopped
1/2 cup more or less dried coconut (not the sweetened kind but the dried)
1/2 cup more or less rough chopped salted macadamia nuts

You can use as much or as little of the ingredients above as you like. Have all your ingredients (in separate bowls) at the ready because as soon as the white chocolate is melted you need to pour it onto a sheet pan and add your mix in's. Get a small jellyroll pan ready; either use a non-stick one or cover it with parchment paper. Melt white chocolate over double boiler. (I don't microwave my white chocolate, it's never ever melted right for me). Keep stirring until it's melted, then pour onto jellyroll pan, spread with nonstick spatula, then sprinkle on the pineapple and then the nuts, push them down a bit to make sure they sink in a bit to the melted chocolate, then top with the coconut. Put in freezer to harden, about 30 minutes. After it's hardened, then let it sit at room temp for a bit before breaking into pieces.

sweet potato & vanilla bean cupcakes

The wonders of creating new baked goods with sweet potatoes always excite me. I am a sweet potato-holic, can't get enough of them. I found this recipe over here, and decided it was perfect, nothing else was needed (although I did change the frosting a bit) and I wanted to create it in mini cupcake form. I love mini cupcakes, so easy to eat so many in a sitting! I just wish I could decorate them better to make them cuter. But I am absolutely horrible at decorating them (as you'll notice in the photo). Plus I really should get one of those turning cake stands--they do help, yes? Do you know that I have on my list to take cake decorating classes? Anyone else out there doing this or have done this? I can't wait. Now I have to hope for a class close to cape cod to appear! I really don't want to have to drive into Boston for this. For those of you that do decorate and are fairly good at it, what did you buy for decorating tools and where? I would love to know, since if I can't find classes, then maybe I can buy them and just practice, practice, practice.



My changes: for the cake no nutmeg, and I used mini cupcake pans. Made about 12 mini's, not much batter. For the frosting I did 1/2 - 3/4 cup of confectioners sugar, 2TB fresh OJ, half stick of room temp butter (unsalted), tiny pinch of salt, whipped up very well and then chilled for a bit before frosting.

sweet potato cupcakes
adapted from blog.serialcooking.com
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Cook notes: this does not make much batter. I was only able to get 12 mini muffins from this. You can try using a loaf pan, but use a small one.

Cake:
225g mashed cooked sweet potatoes (1 small sweet potato)
150g plain flour
110g butter
100g dark brown sugar
50ml yogurt
1 egg
1 vanilla pod (alternatively you can use vanilla extract but the taste won’t be quite the same)
½ tsp ground nutmeg (I did NOT use this)
1tsp baking powder
1 pinch of salt

For the icing:
½ - ¾ cup confectioners sugar
2 TB freshly made orange juice
Half stick of unsalted butter (4 ounces), room temp
Pinch of salt

Preheat the oven to 180°C (350 degrees). Spray a mini cupcake pan with non stick spray.
Cream the softened butter with the vanilla seeds scraped out of the pod, sugar, ground nutmeg and salt.
Add in the egg, slightly beaten.
Mix well until well blended.
Add the mashed sweet potatoes and yogurt.
Combine the baking powder and flour and add to the mixture. Mix well.
Pour the mixture into the pan.
Bake for 30 to 35 minutes.
Leave to cool.
To make the icing, mix the icing sugar, butter whip then add in the orange juice. Chill a bit before frosting.
When the cake is cool, spread the icing on top.

the best veggie calzone, ever

Get out a pen and paper, I'll wait.... Go ahead, go get them because you're going to need to write this down. The next time you go to Whole Foods, do not leave the store without picking up a couple batches of their multi-grain pizza dough. This is the best pizza dough I've ever had the pleasure of working with. I am not one of those people who likes to make their own pizza dough. Why? Well, I have a 55 sq. ft. kitchen and an oven that "sometimes" works. So, until we move into a better kitchen I'm not chancing all that hard work of bread & pizza dough making and then baking it, sitting by my untrusty oven with crossed fingers. I had this same problem when I attempted cheesecake :::shudder:::
But, let's go back to this multi-grain pizza dough from Whole Foods. The texture, the taste, the ease of forming it was a breeeeeeze people. You know how some pizza doughs you buy from the store are just awful; there is no stretching those dry puffs of dough or if you do they just rip. And don't get me started on the taste. This multi-grain pizza dough had such an incredible taste and texture (plus it did very well when freezing for later). Let's not forget that it's multi-grain and that means it's good for you. I had been craving one of my calzones for some time now and wanted to try a veggie version.

All I did was saute one red, orange, and green bell pepper, one small onion with olive oil and salt & pepper. When it was just about done sauteeing I added in a couple splashes of Worcheshire sauce. Then added in a few marinated mushrooms from a jar, toss well, set to the side. Roll out pizza dough into a circle, cut in half. Fill with sauteed veggies, top with a bit of mozzarella cheese or whatever you fancy. Seal up dough very well. Poke a couple holes on top of calzones for steam to escape, rub some olive oil on top of the calzone (make sure you get the olive oil all over the crust too! that's the best part!) and top with some sharp cheddar. Bake in 450 degree oven for 10-15 minutes, depending on your oven. Let them cool a bit before biting into them because these babies are HOT! I loved these so much I ate my leftover half cold for lunch, oh yeah, I could not wait to heat it up, I was that impatient--it was delish cold.

Look at the crust! Is that not perfection? And this is multi-grain dough people! You have to try this, you will love it, trust me.


I could not pass the chance to introduce you all to the newest part of my friends' family. This is Anderson. Yes, he is a King Cavalier. And he is the most precious puppy I've come across in ages. I'm the lucky one that gets to watch him from time to time. Look at that face! Do you know how hard it is to kiss that face when all he wants to do is play? Impossible, but I'm still working on it!

This recipe and photographs are copyrighted and are the property of Dawn Finicane.

pineapple & bacon pound cake

Yes, I know a lot of us are on diets, myself included. I've been doing the "clean eat" semi-diet for a while now. So I did not really eat this, only a small sample to make sure it came out great. And yes it truly came out decadent, divine, heavenly, pineappley & baconley. I have wanted for some time now to make something with pineapple and bacon. I mean they go so well together on a pizza (if done right), so I wanted to try it else where. I came up with the idea of putting pineapple and bacon in a butter rich pound cake. Why not? Let's just kick that fattening pound cake up a few more fattening notches shall we? Allllrighty then!

pineapple & bacon poundcake
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3 – 4 pieces of bacon, cooked crisp
1 can (20 ounces) crushed pineapple, undrained, divided (might need a bit more, so have a small can of crushed pineapple set aside in case you need it)
½ cup vegetable shortening
1 cup butter (2 sticks), room temp.
2 cups granulated sugar
6 large eggs
3 cups sifted all-purpose flour
1 ts baking powder
¼ cup half & half
1 ts pure vanilla extract

Cook about 3 – 4 slices of bacon till just about crisp. Drain on paper towels, set aside.
Take a few pieces of pineapple and chop up about 2 ts (or more) for the glaze, set aside in fridge to keep cool.
Put 3/4 cup or so, of undrained pineapple with its juice in a small bowl; set aside.
Drain remaining pineapple and measure 1 cup of drained crushed pineapple; set aside.
Cream shortening, butter, and sugar. Add eggs, one at a time, beating thoroughly after each addition.
Sift flour and baking powder together; add to creamed mixture, 1 large scoopful at a time, alternating with half & half. Now stirring by hand, add vanilla; then fold in 3/4 cup undrained pineapple with juice and blend well.
Pour batter into a well greased and floured 10-inch tube pan. Place in cold oven.
Turn oven to 325° and bake for 1 ½ hours, or until top springs back when touched lightly with finger.
Let pineapple pound cake stand for few minutes in pan. Run knife around edges to loosen and remove pineapple cake carefully to a rack.

Pineapple & Bacon Glaze

1 cup confectioners sugar
3 tablespoons reserved pineapple syrup
About 2 ts of minced pineapple (or more if you like it, I did)
3-4 ts +/- of cooked bacon, finely chopped.

Mix the sugar and pineapple syrup until desired consistency (I like mine fairly thick), then add in minced pineapple and bacon, pour over pound cake.