She Bakes

My first recipe to tackle in the Milk Bar cookbook was their famous Crack Pie. I used the recipe out the the cookbook, but here is an adapted version from Bon Appetit:

Ingredients

Oat Cookie Crust

• Nonstick vegetable oil spray
• 9 tablespoons (1 stick plus 1 tablespoon) unsalted butter, room temperature, divided
• 5 1/2 tablespoons (packed) golden brown sugar, divided
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 1 large egg
• 3/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons old-fashioned oats
• 1/2 cup all purpose flour
• 1/8 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/8 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon (generous) salt

Filling

• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup (packed) golden brown sugar
• 1 tablespoon nonfat dry milk powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted, cooled slightly
• 6 1/2 tablespoons heavy whipping cream
• 4 large egg yolks
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• Powdered sugar (for dusting)

Preparation

Oat Cookie Crust

Preheat oven to 350°F. Line 13x9x2-inch metal baking pan with parchment paper; coat with nonstick spray. Combine 6 tablespoons butter, 4 tablespoons brown sugar, and 2 tablespoons sugar in medium bowl. Using electric mixer, beat mixture until light and fluffy, occasionally scraping down sides of bowl, about 2 minutes. Add egg; beat until pale and fluffy. Add oats, flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt and beat until well blended, about 1 minute. Turn oat mixture out onto prepared baking pan; press out evenly to edges of pan. Bake until light golden on top, 17 to 18 minutes. Transfer baking pan to rack and cool cookie completely.

Using hands, crumble oat cookie into large bowl; add 3 tablespoons butter and 1 1/2 tablespoons brown sugar. Rub in with fingertips until mixture is moist enough to stick together. Transfer cookie crust mixture to 9-inch-diameter glass pie dish. Using fingers, press mixture evenly onto bottom and up sides of pie dish. Place pie dish with crust on rimmed baking sheet.

Position rack in center of oven and preheat to 350°F. Whisk both sugars, milk powder, and salt in medium bowl to blend. Add melted butter and whisk until blended. Add cream, then egg yolks and vanilla and whisk until well blended. Pour filling into crust. Bake pie 30 minutes (filling may begin to bubble). Reduce oven temperature to 325°F. Continue to bake pie until filling is brown in spots and set around edges but center still moves slightly when pie dish is gently shaken, about 20 minutes longer. Cool pie 2 hours in pie dish on rack. Chill uncovered overnight. DO AHEAD Can be made 2 days ahead. Cover; keep chilled.

Sift powdered sugar lightly over top of pie. Cut pie into wedges and serve cold.

While this pie did not come out perfect, it was pretty dang awesome. It's J's new favorite thing. On the docket for this weekend? Milk Bar's Corn Cookies. 

She Bakes

As I mentioned Sunday was a baking day for me, 

and this is the cake that came out of it. 

Honestly, it was not that much of a success. 

It was fine, but I will never use a recipe from 

that book again.I will leave out which book it was, 

but really I should have known better. 

On Saturday Joe & I made our first trip (together) to the library,

and I got Momfuku's Milk Bar & Bouchon Bakery. 

I can't wait to share my adventures while I make my way through those books. 

Happy Tuesday!

He's and She's

He's the photographer. 

& 

She's the baker.

Recipes here & here. 

What I've Been Baking

{Lemon Cake with Sweet Tea Meringue Icing}

I made this darling cake a couple of weeks ago. I mentioned it here. If you would like the recipe, go here. It was like summer in a cake. I highly suggest it! 


Praise the Lord almighty this is the last week of school. Five days from now it will be SUMMER!! On Friday we are heading to Dallas to see my cousins play in their last t-ball game, and then on to Gainesville to Joe's aunt and uncle's lake house. I can hardly wait! I also can't wait to decide what I'm going to bake... I'm thinking Caramel filled cupcakes with Salted Caramel buttercream. We shall see.

The Next Level

{Lemon chiffon cake, with a sweet tea meringue icing}

I'm sure I've mentioned this before on the blog, but when Joe and I got married I decided I would be the baker. He already had the chef hat, and honestly he's really awesome at it. But so I still felt a bit domestic- I began a long journey of learning to bake. There have been ups and downs, but last night I was a totally different baker. Believe me it has been a long time coming. I tried an off the wall recipe, held myself with total confidence, and (in my not so humble opinion apparently) totally succeeded. It's a beautiful thing. All day I felt like I could conquer the world- the world of baking that is.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Pie Oh Pie!

I actually posted on my other blog The Semi-Domestic Goddess . Check it out!

Baking Breakthrough

As most of you know I started a foodie blog in October. Well, that is where it has stayed... in October. I haven't posted something in all 22 days we have been in November. Whoops. I have just been sooooo busy. Well life is finally slowing down, and I'm hoping that this means I will be able to start making/baking fun things in the kitchen again. This past week I needed to get two books at the local library for class. I decided to try out the larger library downtown. They did have my books, but they were arranged in the old system and it took me forever to find them. While I was looking I stumbled upon the cookbook section. WHAT! There is a cookbook section?Well of course there is, I just never thought about it. Needless to say my quick visit turned into about two hours; but, I left a happier girl than when I arrived. It was very hard, but I limited myself to 4 cookbooks. Joe was just as surprised as I was by the prospect of a cookbook section and went the next day to get some more. We have so many new recipes to try. Friday we were planning to decorate our apartment for Christmas and enjoy our favorite french onion soup (a weinberger staple). I was really in the mood to try a recipe from the baking book I got- so, I decided to bake sugar cookies with almond royal icing. Yum! They turned out fantastic. Joe said it was the best thing I have ever baked. This week we are full on thanksgiving!! My parents are coming in today. I am going to Houston tomorrow night, and Joe is meeting me there on wednesday. I love thanksgiving, and we are so looking forward to sharing our first together and with all of our wonderful family. This weekend was quite exciting here in Aggieland, and I will blog about that later.

The Semi-Domestic Goddess

The Semi-Domestic Goddess

I couldn't be more excited to present my new blog: The Semi-Domestic Goddess. I have been dying to start a foodie blog- so I did! Please check it out & tell your friends! Click the link above or to the side.

My Journey to Becoming a Domestic Goddess

Isn't this the quest of all women? No... oh, well it's a journey of mine. When I entered college in the fall of 2007 I could make spaghetti... not very well. My boyfriend on the other hand had developed a strong desire to become a little gourmet chef. Great! He can do the cooking, fine with me. Wrong. Another desire of Joe's was to "domesticate" me. It took some pushing and pulling, and there were many tears shed; but, I think I am finally there. Joe came home quite a bit later in the month of September for various reasons, and it was up to me to make dinner completely on my own. Joe is a bit of a security blanket, but I had to "make it work" to quote Tim Gunn. I am so comfortable now that I even have the desire to tell people how to cook in a foodie blog. If I did, the focus would be baking, but still. Who am I? I'll tell you who I am... a Domestic Goddess. Ha- ok maybe not quite, but I sure am loving this journey a whole lot more than I was 3 years ago. Maybe I will start my foodie blog when I'm done with this whole college thing... only two months left might I add. Be on the lookout: A Semi-Domestic Goddes. BTW there are lots of Domestic Goddes blogs. Check them out.

First Foodie Blog Post

Lately I have had the urge to enter the foodie blog world, oh my. I've decided that these foodie bloggers have lots of time, or more than I possess anyway. So, I'm sure these entries will be few and far between, but I'm really excited about getting started. My first new and experimental recipe for the weekend was Summer Citrus Pancakes.

Summer Citrus Pancakes

1 Large Egg

1 Cup of Unbleached Flour

3/4 Cup of Low-Fat Milk

1 TB of Sugar

3 tsp of Baking Powder

1/4 tsp of Salt

1/2 tsp of Vanilla Extract

2 TB of Canola Oil

Zest from 1 Lemon (or citrus fruit of choice)

1.Whisk the egg until fluffy. Add all ingredients through Lemon zest, and whisk until smooth.

2.Heat a highly oiled griddle, nonstick pan, or skillet on medium-medium high heat. Pour 1/2 cup of mixture and brown on both sides.

These were really tasty, not too high in calories, and SUPER easy.

Later that day, I made my first trek to Specs. It was really fun, actually. I loved looking at all the wines and specialty foods. I had a gift card and was hell bent on buying something. So after much deliberation, I thought a Pina Colada sounded pretty dang good. Joe looked up a quick recipe, we picked a middle of the line rum and got the extras. Well, lets just say the first swing was a miss. Bleh. My genius husband made some alterations, I added my two cents and the end result was amazing. It was creamy, with the perfect amount of froth and not too strong. Even Joe, single malt scotch on the rocks Joe, really liked it. I'm excited to call this recipe wholly ours.

Jose's Perfect Pina Colada

Blend:

2 cups of Ice

5.5 oz of Pineapple Juice

3-4 oz of dark Rum (to taste)

4 TB of Lite Coconut Milk

2.5 TB of Granulated Sugar

Blend for 30s & garnish with a cherry and pineapple slice.

I hope you enjoy these recipes, and look forward to sharing many more newlywed dining adventures. Happy Cooking!

Mother's Day Extravaganza

Well...almost. On Mother's Day my mom, and Joe's family came up for lunch. I had a lot of fun planning the meal, dessert, presents, decorations et cetera. One thing I did was print old, and recent pictures of us with our moms, and put them all throughout the apartment. Unfortunately, Mother's Day fell right in-between finals, papers, and just the week from you know where; however, it was really great to just forget the world for a few hours and enjoy my family. Joe and I hadn't seen Maren since March, so it was way fun to catch up. Of course, the most important aspect of the afternoon was loving on our mammas. We are so blessed by two Godly, loving women. They are absolutely one of the biggest reasons why we are, who we are. We couldn't be more grateful for you both. Again, I am so thankful that Joe loves his M-I-L, and tells her often. I couldn't imagine a better M-I-L. Terry is absolutely my second mom, and I'm so thankful for our relationship.