Seems like I haven't been on here in AGES. Now, it really hasn't been THAT long, however, it seems like I haven't shared my home-baking experiences in a loooooong time.
I've baked at least a few things since I've been gone. Cherry Apple pie and Double Chocolate Raspberry brownies. MMMMMM you say......
The last Sunday in June my sister, Mike, Dom, and my dad (and of course, Shawn) decided to go out cherry picking! Unfortunately, sweet cherries weren't in season anymore. But sour cherries were. I knew that sour cherries were probably more useful to bake with so I was still excited to go. Sour cherries were soooo plentiful that day at Baugher's Farm and it was only $25 a bucket! And let me tell ya, that bucket was more than enough. We still have half the bucket left! Which we should probably throw out at this point...however, we got a whole pie out of it and like 6 or 7 jars of cherry apple jam.
The pie was great! It was funny, my sister decided to bake the same recipe that I chose that night! Epicurious is one of the best websites to grab desserts from. The awesome thing is that there are usually SO many reviews from people who use their recipes so you can get opinions super quick.
I pretty much followed the recipe but I added a tad bit more corn starch to ensure that the filling was thick enough and I added sliced up gala apples in the filling. We now have about 3/4 of the pie still in the fridge which is most likely not going to last another day. Makes me sad to waste my home made baked goods.... :( But I was super proud of my crust making abilities as well as my ability to weave the top!
The pie was a tad tart from the cherries but the apple sweetened it up and this would be GREAT paired with some vanilla ice cream or some home made whipped cream. Yum!
Dom made some cherry apple jam...cherry sangria for 4th of July...and now we still have cherries...he's making wine next! (As long as we can throw them in the freezer)
Onto the next dessert...
DOUBLE CHOCOLATE RASPBERRY BROWNIES!
I had girls night last Saturday and needed to make the dessert (of course!). After working 13.5 hours on Friday, I came home to begin baking some snickerdoodle cookies. That is, after eating pizza rolls and curly fries for dinner (Dom wasn't here to make me dinner!). Look, I bake not cook! Ha
So I started getting the dry ingredients ready for the cookies. Then I thought about the scrumptious brownies we made at work and since I hadn't made homemade brownies in SUCH a long time (my mom used to make them ALL the time when we were younger and they were awesome) I thought I'd scratch the cookies and find a fantastic brownie recipe!
I used Epicurious this time too. I LOVE nice, chewy, soft brownies so that was my goal this round. I didn't even know if I had all the ingredients at home for these.
It turned out I had ALMOST everything except for one, single egg. I decided to use 3 tablespoons of mayo to substitute. **TIP: the fat in the mayo makes up for the fat in the yolk. Eggs are used as a moistening product in baked goods!**
And boy were these brownies moist.
I recommend using a smaller dish than what this recipe says though. I didn't even have the right size dish and they were still thin and only got 20 brownies out of it.
I went out to buy some raspberries the next morning, threw three containers of them onto the stove with a few tablespoons of sugar AND honey and VOILA you have a nice, tart raspberry puree/glaze to add to your brownies!
They were sooooo yum!
Cheers!
