ShopForCooking

Celebrate the 4th of July So Sweetly With These Treats

Every party needs dessert. This summer, keep your guests engaged long after the grill is cooled off with some choice sweets. Transform a cupcake into a 4th of July tribute with Martha Stewart's Flag Cupcakes. Start with some patriotic cupcake wrappers to bake your treats in. Choose chocolate or vanilla cakes and top them off with some Swiss Meringue Buttercream frosting. This frosting is absolutely delicious and very simple, calling for sugar, egg whites, butter and vanilla extract. Top your cupcakes (you can have the kids help) and then turn them into flags with fun decorations. I like to use blueberries for stars, while Martha uses blue buttercream. Red licorice sticks are perfect for the stripes. This is a simple, fun, kid-friendly recipe that you can even freeze if you want to make ahead of time. If you want to make your dessert table stand out, set the cupcakes up in one of these fancy dessert stands. 

For the adults, strawberry shortcake trifle is a cool summer favorite. I like to make mine with strawberries and blueberries for that Memorial Day touch. Paula Deen's recipe on Food Network is my favorite - the custard is made with cream cheese, condensed milk and whipped topping - delicious! The glaze calls for sugar, strawberry Jell-O, water, fresh strawberries (and blueberries, if you choose). 

To assemble, start with a layer of angel food cake, followed by a layer of glaze, then a layer of custard. Layer this way until your bowl is full, and watch your guests enjoy. I guarantee you won't have any leftovers from this part of the meal!

Hungarian Delight - Cream Puffs

After exhausting the Greek and Italian dessert options, I remembered another sweet treat that I'd always loved as a kid - cream puffs. What I didn't know was their ethnicity - Italians often tried to adopt the recipe, but their Hungarian background is the real thing.  Touted as similar to French profiteroles, cream puffs are light enough to enjoy without feeling like you ate something too decadent.

What I like about them is the option to fill with either traditional whipped cream filling, or vanilla ice cream. The ice cream is a unique option but you have to eat them faster than if they were just filled with cream, so keep that in mind. 

To make, you need water, butter, salt, flour, eggs, heavy cream, and semi sweet chocolate. It's a fairly easy recipe to make. The trick is to get them out of the oven at the right moment, when they're just starting to brown and they're puffy overall. 

A pastry bag is the easiest way to fill a mini, but if you're creating a regular size puff, simply cut the top off and insert the filling, then cap it. Drizzle chocolate over and serve!

Who said only Italians can make the best desserts?

Italian Delight - Tiramisu

All this talk about Greek sweets got me thinking about my own Italian background, and I have to admit - we have the best desserts. I know French desserts are lovely too, but you can't beat Italian sweets. From gelato to biscotti to tiramisu, an Italian finish to a meal is guaranteed to satisfy your worst sweet cravings. 

For a different recipe, I tried this tiramisu courtesy of FoodNetwork.com. You need: 6 egg yolks, sugar, mascarpone cheese, espresso, dark rum, ladyfngers, and bittersweet chocolate shavings. 

With your electric mixer, beat your egg yolks and sugar, adding in the cheese and finally a tablespoon of espresso (I'm usually pretty generous with the espresso, but that's your choice). Dip your ladyfingers into a mix of the remaining espresso and rum (quick dips or they'll fall apart) and place them at the bottom of your baking dish. Layer the mascarpone mixture, then another layer of ladyfingers and a final layer of mascarpone. Garnish with shavings, cover and chill. Bellissimo!

My Big Fat Greek Baklava

A friend of mine attended a Greek wedding recently and returned with some great stories about the culture. Growing up Italian, I love learning about other traditions - and I love learning about the food that other cultures enjoy. And of course, being a Greek wedding, she told me about the delicious baklava. Of course, my mouth watered. I've always loved this treat but never tried to make it before, so I set out to remedy that.

I went to Emeril for advice, and ended up using his recipe. It's really a very simple dish, calling for a pound of phyllo, walnuts, cinnamon, salt and butter for the dough and filling. The syrup is a combination of sugar, honey, water, lemon juice, cinnamon sticks, lemon zest, cloves and cardamom. When you lay out the first layer of phyllo, make sure they fit your baking dish. I had to trim mine to make them fit. Make sure if you leave them out you cover with plastic wrap and a damp towel while you're getting everything else ready. 

Once your filling is mixed (nuts, cinnamon and salt, and you can use your food processor to chop the nuts), brush your phyllo with melted butter and begin layering the nut mixture on the sheets, continuing until you've used all your sheets. Bake for about 40 minutes, then drizzle your syrup over the finished product. Perfection!

Don't Let the Grill Cool Off! Grilling Desserts

For a healthy dessert after a marathon grilling session, skip the ice cream stand and try putting some fruit on the grill. From bananas to plums to pineapples, you can make some really cool desserts with those really hot coals.

 

I have to admit, I never would have thought to try grilling fruit until I started watching cooking shows. The Food Network has some great tips on this phenomenon, one of the best being, put the fruit on, turn it once, take it off. Once you get the hang of it, it’s simple, it tastes great, and it’s healthy! 

 

Melons are a good choice, because you can cut larger pieces. A slight brushing of Canola oil will help the fruit not stick. And make sure you pick the side of the grill you didn’t cook burgers on.

 

Bobby Flay’s video below offers a yogurt topping for the fruit, but you can do a Chai syrup, melt chocolate and peanut butter in a skilleton the grill for a sweeter topping, or simply eat the fruit as is. Ice cream on the side is always a good choice. 

 

It’s one stop cooking for your summer meal - just wheel the grill onto the deck and cook your appetizer, your main course, side dishes and desserts all in one place. How can it get any better? 

Mom's Apple Pie

I debated about making a fancy dessert to go with Mother’s Day dinner, but when I really thought about it, my earliest and happiest memories with my mom were all about baking apples pies. We would clean off the kitchen table, line all the ingredients up, and I would watch my mom chop all the apples. She would wear her apron, and I would wear my little matching one, and wait anxiously for when I would get to toss the apples with all the ingredients and pat them gently into the pie crust. We would snack on the extra apples she would always cut as we worked. 

 

Once the pie was safely in the oven, the house would smell like cinnamon and vanilla and everything home. And that first piece? Amazing, with ice cream or whipped cream.

 

So I think I’ll make Mom an apple pie. Nothing fancy, just the way I remember it, with Cortland apples from my favorite orchard. The only difference is I’ll use organic sugar so it’s healthier for both of us.

Click on the video to see a chef from www.foodwishes.com demonstrate the best way to do apple pie filling. 

What’s your favorite memory with your mom? Give it back to her on Mother’s Day. She’ll be thrilled that you remembered. 

Good Luck Baked Right In - Traditional New Orleans King Cake

Since I’m a born and raised New Englander, I’m fascinated with the traditions surrounding New Orleans food, because they are so different from the ones I’m used to.

 

The King Cake especially struck my fancy. Technically, it’s a frosted cinnamon cake, sometimes with filling. But the novelty of it is delightful. The cake contains a plastic baby, and the person who finds the baby receives good luck and also brings the King Cake to the next King Cake party. Some cakes have a coin or some other trinket, but my friends always had the plastic baby, so that’s what I’m putting in mine. 

 

There’s a whole story behind the tradition, which dates back to 12th century France. Read more about it here.

Die-hard New Orleaners only have the cake leading up to Mardi Gras, but since I’m going to make one myself for a New Orleans-themed party I’m planning, I can justify making one out of season. 

The recipe is straightforward, but leave some time for the dough to rise. You might get an arm workout kneading the dough until it’s smooth, but it’s worth it. The traditional shape is an oval, but I’ve seen them shaped into a straight rope; whatever your preference. Emeril Lagasse offers another variation here. 

If you want to add a cream cheese filling, check this recipe out. Most importantly, be generous with the sugar crystals, and don’t forget to put the baby in before baking! 

It's Not Coffee Break Without Coffee Cake

 

There’s nothing like a coffee cake to top off coffee week, especially right before the weekend. Our featured biscotti this week is great for a quick snack, but lingering over a moist piece of sour cream banana coffee cake with a nice cup of joe and the Sunday Times is taking perfect to a new level. 

 

The Real Simple recipe uses 1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips, 1/2 cup chopped walnuts, 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon, 1 3/4 cups sugar, 1/2 cup softened butter, 3 eggs, 2 ripe bananas, 1 (8-ounce) container sour cream, 3 cups all-purpose flour, 2 teaspoons baking powder and 1 teaspoon baking soda. All ingredients you probably have on hand, so no need to head out in your pajamas.

Get your Bundt pan and electric mixer out for this one.

If sour cream and bananas aren’t your style, Paula Deen has a great Ultimate Coffee Cake made with dinner rolls, butterscotch pudding mix, pecans, butter and brown sugar -- it’s a dangerously delicious weekend treat, a bit like a southern Monkey Bread. This recipe needs to rise overnight, so plan accordingly.

 

If you’re just looking for a regular cinnamon flavored coffee cake, check out this traditional recipe, which has a low fat alternative. 

Dessert, Irish Style

I love being pseudo-Irish! If I didn’t love pasta so much I would consider making the jump from Italian to full-time Irish. In any event, I’m having fun with the St. Patrick’s Day food planning, especially when I can try new desserts. I found two:

Irish Bananas (hey, when and how did bananas become Irish?) and -- get this -- Guinness and Chocolate Cheesecake.

The bananas are a quick, simple recipe and looked so good I couldn’t resist. It requires

1/2 cup butter

1/2 cup packed light brown sugar

1/2 cup Irish whiskey

4 large bananas, peeled and halved lengthwise

A skillet

Melt butter in the skillet, add brown sugar and whiskey, add bananas and coat with sauce. Serve with ice cream - they recommend vanilla, but wouldn’t Ben and Jerry’s Dublin Mudslide be divine?

If you have a little more time, the cheesecake recipe looked so interesting so I had to try.

It’s a basic cheesecake with, of course, the exception of the Guinness, as well as 1 cup of sour cream. The chocolate flavor is achieved with semisweet chocolate chips and heavy cream. The result is a moist, unique flavored cheesecake perfect to top off a corned beef and cabbage dinner (tune in Friday for recipes).

It’s not green, but it’ll still pass the Irish test!

Fashionably new Strawberries.

Technically, a fashion designer didn’t come up with this recipe (that I know of), but they sound like something straight off a runway: Green Tea Latte Strawberries.

I had the inkling to look up some variations on the chocolate covered strawberries because a friend made some traditional milk chocolate ones today and shared them with me. They were delicious, but I wanted to see if there was anything fancy, new or different out there, and these babies seem to be exactly what I’m looking for. I plan on making them this weekend, so if anyone makes them first, be sure to let me know how they turn out!

The recipe calls for white chocolate, strawberries and a teaspoon of matcha powder (green tea powder - Tazo makes a good one). Shortening is optional, but I don’t think I’ll use it. Smooth chocolate matters less to me than good chocolate.

Simply melt the chocolate in your double boiler, blend in the powder, dip the strawberries, and refrigerate after cooling. Quick, easy and I bet they are absolutely delicious. Of course, if you don’t care for white chocolate or green tea, simply substitute for your favorite milk or dark chocolate. Either way, chocolate covered strawberries are a delicacy I could deal with any day.