Category: Preparation recipe step by step

BANANA CREAM COOKIES

My husband loves banana cream pies. Since I don’t always have the time to whip up a pie (but I always have time for cookies ha ha) when I heard about this recipe I was excited to try something new. Especially if it would be an easy way to satisfy his craving and my love of cookies – which it totally did! Hope you enjoy them as much as we do!

BANANA CREAM COOKIES
Adapted from The Recipe Critic

1 cup butter, softened
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 banana, smashed
3.4 oz package banana cream instant pudding mix
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 1/4 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 cups white chocolate chips

1. Preheat your oven to 350 and prepare baking sheets by lining with parchment paper.
2. In a large bowl mix together flour, baking soda, salt, and banana cream pudding mix. Set aside.
3. In your mixer cream together butter, sugar and brown sugar. Add eggs and vanilla, mix together. Add in banana and mix. Add your bowl of dry ingredients. Mix together and lastly add the white chocolate chips.
4. Bake for about 10 minutes or until slightly golden. Let cool for about half an hour (to really let the flavor sink in) and enjoy!

Spiced Rum Cake with Caramelized Pears

It was 84 degrees in my house this weekend, but I turned my oven on and baked a cake. Call me crazy (it wouldn’t be the first time), but sometimes you just gotta do what you gotta do!

If the cake came out good, I was planning to recommend bookmarking it for fall or winter or a cooler day when baking a cake is a little more appropriate. Or at least buying an air conditioner first. But you know what? Never mind that. You need to to make this cake right away. Like, tonight. It’s that good.

So, why was I baking a cake on one of the hottest days I can remember in years? Because I made it to the final round of the Saucy Mama Sliced contest, that’s why! And all of the great ideas I had for mustard-y desserts went right out the window when they announced that the secret ingredient was booze. For some reason, nothing was coming to me! (It also didn’t help matters much that I had to use one of the three flavors of mustard they send me, which were dill, garlic, or hatch chili. Yikes!)

After lots of hemming and hawing, I decided to use the hatch chili mustard to make a spicy chocolate rum cake. And I’ll admit it: I was scared. Then I tasted the batter and it was awesome. There was definitely a bold hint of something but it was hard to place. I stuck it in the oven and it smelled SO GOOD while it baked. I cautiously took a bit and well… it was good! And not just “good for a cake with mustard in it” but actually good. Scary good. Make your own because I’m not sharing good!

Its dense and moist with a big punch of booze and a lot of spice. While you’d never be able to guess there was mustard in this if you didn’t already know, it definitely plays a leading role. Its delicious on it’s own, but the top does sink in a little, so if you’re serving it to guests go ahead and spoon on some caramelized pears. The sweetness will also cut down on some of the heat.

Now, if you’ll forgive me, I’m going to go eat another slice.

Spiced Rum Cake with Caramelized Pears

Author: Lauren Keating

Serves: 12

Ingredients

1 stik butter
6 ounces semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 cup spiced black rum
4 eggs
¼ cup Saucy Mama hatch chili mustard
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons Gold Medal flour
½ cup sugar
½ cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
¼ cup spiced black rum (optional)
2 pears, peeled and diced
1 teaspoon sugar

Preparation

Heat oven to 350F. Add the butter and chocolate chips to a saucepan set over medium heat. Cook, stirring frequently, until melted. Stir in the rum and let cool. Beat in eggs one at a time. Stir in mustard.
Add flour, sugar, cinnamon, baking powder, baking soda, and salt to a mixing bowl. Stir well, breaking up any clumps of brown sugar that might have formed. Stir in half the chocolate. Mix well. Stir in remaining chocolate and mix until combined. Pour into a greased loaf pan.
Bake 40-55 minutes, or until the center of the cake is set and a knife inserted into the middle comes out clean. Remove from oven. If using the additional rum, use a knife or skewer to poke several holes throughout the cake; pour remaining ¼ cup of rum over cake. Let cool until rum is completely soaked in. Invert onto a plate and remove the pan.
Add the pears and sugar to a sautee pan. Cook, stirring frequently for 5 minutes or until pears or slightly softened and sugar is golden brown. Spoon pears over cake.

3.2.2089

Disclosure: I was provided with samples of mustard to use in the recipes that I develop for the “Sliced” contest but was not compensated in any other way.

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Curried Lentil Hand Pies

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I am getting really excited, because in 1 week I will have my PharmD! 8 long years in the making… This curried lentil hand pie recipe reminds me of the first time I tried a peasant pie during pharmacy school, which was a little flaky hand pie filled with curried lentils and potatoes. Our school would serve us these hand pies for dinner sometimes when we had to stay late for a meeting, and it was always fun discovering new fillings. The curried lentil hand pie was always my favorite, and I was so excited when I perfected the recipe to taste just like them, and now I can make them at home! The crust is my flaky pie crust recipe modified to include less shortening, although I was scared to completely sub it with butter so I left some in… If you don’t have chicken broth on hand, you can also use water and 1/2 tsp of salt or so… just add more salt if needed. These hand pies are great because you can store them in the freezer and pop them back in the oven for 10 minutes to heat up again when you are hungry for a snack.

Curried Lentil Hand Pies

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Prep time

2 hours

Cook time

30 mins

Total

2 hours 30 mins

Type: Main

Serves: 6

Ingredients

Crust

2 cups all-purpose flour
½ tsp salt
10 tbsp unsalted butter
2 tbsp shortening
6 tbsp cold water (plus a little more if needed…)

Filling

1 cup lentils, rinsed
2¼ cup chicken broth
2 tbsp yellow curry powder
½ tsp turmeric
¼ tsp pepper
2 carrots, peeled and chopped
1 potato, peeled and cubed

Instructions

Bring a pot of the chicken broth to a boil and add lentils (may choose to soak overnight prior to cooking).
Add the curry, turmeric, and pepper.
Cook the lentils covered for 1 hour on a low boil (medium heat should be fine, as long as it slightly boils).
Add the chopped carrots and potatoes and continue to cook for 20 more minutes.
In the meantime, prepare the crust by adding all ingredients to a bowl and using a pastry blender to cut the butter and shortening into the flour until you have a uniform, crumbly mixture.
Add the water 1 tbsp at a time and stir with a fork.
Add just enough water to gather the dough in a ball with your hands without it falling apart too much, then wrap in plastic wrap and chill in the refrigerator for 1 hour.
Roll a fistful of dough out on a floured surface to a circle of about 8 or 9-inches diameter and transfer to a greased baking sheet.
Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F.
Spoon 1-2 tbsp of filling over one half of the pie, about ½ inch away from the edge.
Close the other side over the pie, and wet your finger and use the water to seal the edges.
Then, turn the edges over back onto the pie, and seal by pressing a fork all the way around the edge.
Bake for 25-30 minutes, until golden brown.

Makes 6 hand pies

3.2.2265

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