ham and egg cups

I get emails requesting more recipes on making easy, fast, yet tasty meals and desserts. Good idea, right? Here is one such very easy and very versatile meal that can be served for breakfast, lunch or dinner. Why is this versatile? Well if you deconstruct it, you will see that you can add in, and/or replace new ingredients each and every time you make this.
For example, you can add in hash browns (precooked of course), you could use crumbled sausage, you could use brie cheese, you could add in sliced apples with the brie cheese with the ham (with or without the egg). See? The list is endless and fun. So your kids could get involved too. I'm sure your kids would love to have the opportunity to make their own ham & cheese cup? Might also be a great way to get them to eat their fruits and veggies?

ham & egg cups
Print Recipe

Notes: I used giant muffin tins. I’m sure regular size would work too, just reduce cooking time. You can’t see in the photo, but there is a bottom layer of sourdough bread. It might be fun to use pre-cooked hash browns as the bottom too. Just make sure the pre-cooked hash browns are at room temp or warmed up before placing in muffin tins.
Best advice: play with the ingredients; this is a very versatile dish that can easily be used to swap in new ideas.
Yummy Ideas: brie, ham & apples; salsa, egg & cheese; sweet potato hash, sausage, & egg; pizza style eggs; french toast & bacon; mini omelets inside the ham...oh the endless possibilities.

Toasted sourdough bread, cut into circles to fit into bottom of muffin tins
10-15 medium sliced, slices of ham (don’t use really thin, they will burn)
6 large eggs, room temp (they cook faster if room temp)
Salt & pepper
freshly chopped parsley or tarragon, for garnish (optional)

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Spray muffin tins with nonstick spray. Place the ham in the muffin tins and flute out the edges, then place the cut out sourdough toasted circles in each muffin tin. (if you want to add in precooked hash brown chunks this is where you add them in in place of the bread).
Carefully crack each egg into the muffin egg, making sure not to break the yolk. Immediately bake for about 15 – 20 minutes or until the egg is done to your likeness. (Remember I used giant muffin tins; if using regular size muffin tins reduce cooking time a bit).

homemade pumpkin pop tarts w/ buttermilk glaze

"crack tarts" that's really what these should be called as they are hard to put down and walk away from. These were just lovely to make. They lasted a mere day in the house--record breaking. I will admit they were time consuming, but oh so worth the effort. In reality what perfect tasting pastry isn't very time consuming? The expressions on people's faces when they bit into them for the first time--oh how I wish I could just bottle that up. My favorite part? Those crispy, buttery, sugary edges! Whoa Nelly those are addicting. One could easily just make "edges", sell them and make millions. You know?



I have to say I am not good at measuring out the dough into rectangles. You need a ruler and stuff for that. Did I follow it? Of course not! I had to go my own dysfunctional way. But they still came out mighty fine. Other notes: of course I did some changes, you'll see them in colored parenthesis. The original recipe comes from King Arthur, I think. Always keep that dough nice and cold.






Pumpkin pie pop tarts with buttermilk glaze
Adapted from joy the baker & king arthur flour
print recipe

For the Crust:
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon granulated sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, cold, cut into cubes (I used a cheese grater)
1 large egg
2 tablespoons milk
1 large egg, beaten (for brushing the dough)

For the Filling:
3/4 cup pureed pumpkin
1 large egg (plus 1 large egg yolk)
(1 ts cornstarch)
1/8 ts ground cloves (I omitted)
1/4 ts ground ginger (I omitted)
1/2 ts cinnamon (I used 1 full teaspoon)
(Dash or 2 of pumpkin pie seasoning)
1/4 ts salt
1/3 cup granulated sugar

Buttermilk Glaze:
2 cups powdered sugar
1/8 (plus or minus depending on thick or thin you want glaze) cup buttermilk
Dash or 3 of cinnamon
Dash or 2 of sea salt

For the crust:
I like to use a cheese grater on my butter, keep it in the freezer until ready to use. In a small bowl, beat the egg and milk together. In a food processor, whisk together flour, sugar and salt. Add in the cold butter, pulse until you have nice crumbles. Pulse in the beaten egg with milk until just mixed—no overmixing! Lightly dust a clean counter with flour and knead the dough on the floured counter for a few turns until it really starts to come together. Divide the dough in two, wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for about 30 minutes.

While the dough is chilling, prepare the filling:
In a bowl mix all of the ingredients, well. Store in fridge till ready to use.

Assembly:
This next part is where you need to pay attention; I was horrible at this. Get your baking pans ready (2 – 3 pans) by lining with parchment paper, set aside. On a well floured work surface, press dough into a 3x5-inch rectangle, roll the dough out to about 1/8-inch thickness. The dough should be slightly larger than 9x12-inches. Trim dough with a pizza cutter, creating a rectangle that is 9-inches tall and 12-inches long. Using the pizza cutter, cut each side into thirds, creating 9 squares. Place dough squares in the fridge while you roll out the second piece of dough in the same way.

Brush one set of 9 squares with beaten egg. This will act as the glue for the top layer of dough. Spoon about one tablespoon of pie filling into the center of each brushed dough square. Top with a piece of dough and use a floured fork to crimp the sides closed. Use the tines of the fork to create vent holes in each tart. Recipe from dawn finicane of vanillakitchen.blogspot.com Place the pan in the fridge to let it get firm again; you don’t want to bake these with warm dough, they won’t crisp up. Keep in fridge at least 30 minutes. When ready to bake preheat oven to 350 degrees. Bake for about 20 – 25 minutes or until the tops and edges are nice and golden brown. Cool tarts on wire racks. You can let them cool before glazing or not, I didn’t wait. But if you glaze them straight away, you do need to let the glaze harden before serving.

For the buttermilk glaze:
Make sure to sift the powdered sugar, you don’t want any lumps in the glaze. Mix all the glaze ingredients really well and apply with a spoon over the racks. Let glaze dry on the tarts before devouring.

halloween candy bundt cake

This isn't the fanciest of posts, but the photo was kind of wild and funky--the colors and all. I had crazy amounts of halloween candy leftover! Not knowing how much to get this year because we are living in a new area, I, of course over-bought AND OVER ATE. I tweeted that I was finished polishing off the peanut M&M's and was going to move onto the Twix.
I did not have dinner Halloween night but am certain I ate a few cups of candy. I had to take probiotics yogurt an hour after. LOL
As of today, the halloween candy, just like Elvis has left the building.

A good friend of mine Scary Mommy said on twitter yesterday: "&#$%@ Halloween Candy!" I couldn't agree more, and I am so glad it's all gone. Now we have to deal with the eating festivities of thanksgiving and christmas. One down, two to go....

If you have leftover candy and want to make a fun bundt cake then head over to Cathy of Noble Pig for the recipe.
I added on a white chocolate ganache to the top of mine.

white chocolate-pumpkin pound cake

The winner of the Baked Explorations: Classic American Desserts Reinvented is Liz of Little Bitty Bakes. Congrats Liz, this is a stellar cookbook!! I wish I had more to give away, I really do. I had so many comments, and I could tell you all wanted to win this. Let's do more giveaways....I will make this happen. Promise.
As for this pound cake, well it's interesting.

As I've stated before I am not a huge pumpkin fan. So if you like the taste of pumpkin this maybe be the loaf for you--it's very pumpkin-ey if that's a word. The white chocolate middle is very delicate, not overly sweet at all; overall loaf is very mild, hence the reason I put the nutella-cream cheese frosting on there. Lately I've been really drawn to nutella.....have you seen those super sized jars of it they sell in the grocery stores? I got one! Seriously. What have you baked with Nutella? Possibilities are endless aren't they? Sorry the photo isn't that bright...we've had nothing but rain and dark gloomy days here on cape cod.

white chocolate-pumpkin pound cake
by dawn finicane
print recipe

3 large eggs and 2 egg yolks, room temp
2 ¼ cup all purpose flour
¾ cup high quality white chocolate (like Valrhona)
1 stick of salted butter, melted
¾ cup white sugar
1 huge pinch of sea salt
A couple dashes of cinnamon
½ can of pumpkin puree (pure pumpkin not flavored)
2 TB canola oil
1 tsp baking powder

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Oil or butter and dust with flour a rectangular pound cake pan.
Melt the butter, let it cool slightly.
In a bowl, mix the flour, baking powder, salt and cinnamon; then sift and set aside.
Mix the sugar, canola oil and eggs with stand mixer until well combined.
Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients in batches (of three) until just combined. Don’t over mix.
Separate the batter in 2/3 and 1/3. We are going to add the pumpkin puree to the 2/3 batter by just folding it in; we don’t want to over mix at this point.

Place the white chocolate in a bowl over a pot of simmering water and let simmer until the chocolate is melted. Add this melted chocolate to the 1/3 batter. You have to work quickly as the white chocolate does not stay melted for long.
Pour half the pumpkin batter into the pan, then pour in the white chocolate batter making sure to keep this batter in the middle, not to let it go to the sides so the nice swirl stays even in the middle. Recipe by dawn Finicane of vanillakitchen.blogspot.com Pour the remaining pumpkin batter on the top. You may have to use your fingers to push the batter down, as the batter is quite thick.
Bake for about 40-50 minutes or until toothpick inserted comes out clean. (mine was done at the 40 minute mark). Remove from the oven. Let cool before frosting.
If you wish to frost this (some say it was good without the frosting) all I did was add a block of 8 ounces of room temp cream cheese to about ½ (or more) of Nutella. Mix really well and frost.

pumpkin cheesecake w/ nutella ganache

When you go to bed at night, as soon as you hit the pillow, do you get all these pop up bubbles of thoughts of the day of what you didn't do or what you should have done? I hate that. Well, most nights I hate that. But last night I didn't hate. The perfect pop up bubble on how to make this cheesecake (2 tries) become better.
When I first made this cheesecake days ago I just wasn't happy with the ganache--it wasn't nutella-ly enough. And after days of trying to figure out what to do to change it before I posted it, it finally hit me in a pop up bubble last night (just after watching Top Chef Desserts too). I realized the chocolate I used was too strong; I should have used a milk chocolate instead of a bittersweet chocolate. So keep that in mind should you want to make this. A couple notes on this cheesecake. I am not a big fan of pumpkin cake or pie. So this cheesecake has a very mild pumpkin flavor; I used very little pumpkin spice flavoring and more cinnamon. But feel free to adjust however you like it--for some it might be too mild for you.



I am back to kind of loving Top Chef Desserts. Well, I was really happy that Yigit won last night. I just love him--he's so cute, so adorable, not to mention super talented. Did you also see that a Top Chef All Stars is coming? I wish Bravo would think about doing a "common Joe" type Top Chef for amateurs with mad skills. It would fly, I know it would. I should pitch that shouldn't I? They they'd listen? Eh.

pumpkin cheesecake w/ nutella ganache
recipe by dawn finicane
print recipe

crust
1- 10 oz box of Lorna Doone shortbread cookies, crushed fine (I used all 2 sleeves)
1 stick salted butter, melted
Tiny pinch of sea salt
1 ts vietnamese cinnamon

cheesecake filling
4 - 8 oz. packages of cream cheese, room temp
¾ cup granulated sugar
¼ cup heavy cream (maybe a little less)
3 large eggs and 2 large egg yolks
1 cup plus 3 TB pumpkin puree
1 ts of pure vanilla extract
1 ts cinnamon
Couple dashes of pumpkin pie spice mix (use as much as you like; I’m not fond of it, so I used very little)

Nutella ganache
½ cup (maybe a little more) of milk chocolate chips
4 TB nutella spread
A couple of splashes of heavy cream
2 TB room temp salted butter

cook notes:
as I said above I should have used the milk chocolate chips instead of the bittersweet chips. I truly think the milk chocolate will meld better with the nutella. Depending on how thick or thin you like your Ganache use more or less of the heavy cream. This makes a lot of crust for the 10-inch pan, but I like to have it thick, so if you don’t like it thick you could probably halve it. But with the remaining leftover crust I just put it in a bag and freeze or make a mini cheesecake. There will also be leftover cheesecake batter—haven’t figured out how to scale it down yet. But with the leftover crust and batter you can easily make 2 mini cheesecakes if you have the mini springform pans. Also, I do not have a mixer, I know, everyone always ask how I do it, but I do, been that way for decades. So I just use a food processer, works perfectly. But use what you feel comfortable with.

Preheat your oven to 350°F.
In a measuring cup, crack open the eggs and egg yolks, set aside until ready to use.
Spray a 10-inch springform pan with non stick spray. In a food processor grind up the cookies into a fine crumb. In a bowl, combine the cookies, a pinch of salt, and the melted butter. Mix, then press into the bottom and partially up the sides of the springform pan. (I use a flat bottomed glass to press it in evenly). Note: there will be some crumbs leftover; I normally use more crumbs than the average cheesecake because I love a thick crumb.
Bake for 10-15 minutes or until crust is just lightly brown around the edges, set aside and let cool. Reduce the oven heat to 300°F.
In a bowl combine the pumpkin puree, cinnamon, pumpkin spice, and vanilla extract until mixed well, set aside. I used my food processor to make the cheesecake batter—I suppose you could use a mixer, but I don’t have one. With the food processor, mix the cream cheese and sugar until smooth and lump free. Add in the sugar, scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed. Add in the eggs one at a time until all is mixed well; add in the heavy cream. Then add in the pumpkin puree mix slowly. Process until all is well mixed.

baking:
Most people like to do a water bath for their cheesecake. I never do, I find all too annoying. But if you want to do this please feel free; it’s best to bake your cheesecake how ever you feel most comfortable.
I baked this cheesecake at 300°F for one hour and a half; turned off oven and left it alone for a couple hours. By then your middle should be nice and set. Recipe & photos by Dawn Finicane of vanillakitchen.blogspot.com Remove from the oven and allow to cool completely, then refrigerate for at least 6 hours or overnight.
Just before you’re ready to serve this, add on the Ganache. The cheesecake tastes best when the Ganache is nice and warm.

to make ganache:
Over low heat, melt the milk chocolate chips with the nutella, and a few splashes of heavy cream. To get it nice and glossy, just keep stirring being careful not let chocolate burn. Once it’s all melted and combined add in the 2 TB of salted butter to get it nice and glossy. Pour Ganache over the top of cheesecake or over individual slices.