Vanilla Cream Blondies

So we're T-minus like 3½ days until vacation, and I feel like all I'm doing is rushing around. Granted, some of it is my own doing, because somehow that always happens that way.

Back in March - maybe? - I decided that I needed to read fifty books BEFORE vacation. That way, ya know, I wouldn't fall behind and what not. Yesterday I finished A Homemade Life by the lovely Molly of Orangette, and that was number forty-eight. So I have between now and Thursday night to read two more books. I think I can do it.

Also on my "Kristen put too much on her plate" list is my own little tradition with friends. For their birthday, they get their own request of a baked good. Whatever they want (within some reason, however; something that's easily portable is a must), and they don't have to share it with anyone if they don't want to. Pretty good deal, right? Except here, all of a sudden, I have three friends with birthdays between May 1st and May 9th. Thank goodness Rachel (the May 1st birthday) said that she'll take hers after my vacation. (Seriously. Thank you lol) So that leaves me with Marcos (tomorrow) and Tasha (Saturday).

Marcos' first request was something with bananas. Um, nope, sorry. LOL I don't like bananas. At all. Taste, texture - ugh. Yuck. So after much deliberation and harassment, he went with something with vanilla. Works.

I had the idea of cream cheese blondies, but could never find anything that really clicked. The recipe I did eventually find (after two days of searching) was over at Group Recipes. I played around with the quantity of vanilla, pretty much adding a bit at a time, until I felt there was enough vanilla-ness. :)

The result? A blondie that's dense yet almost cake-like at the same time, with a vanilla flavor that really makes me question whether I really want to bring these to work tomorrow or not. Just kidding. I promise I'll bring them in. Really. ;)

(They're already packed in a box, thus no picture. But I really wish I had a chance - and better lighting - since the swirls came out so nicely this time!)

Edited to add: So the blondies? They were all gone before 3pm. And supposedly Marcos shared them. ;) I think that has to be a new record. LOL


Ingredients:
9 Tbsp. butter, softened
1 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
2½ tsp. vanilla
1-2/3 cups flour
1 tsp. baking powder
3/4 tsp. salt

6 oz. cream cheese, softened
2 Tbsp. butter, softened
2 Tbsp. flour
1 egg
3-4 tsp. vanilla

Directions:
Preheat oven to 325F. Grease an 8-inch baking pan.

Whisk flour, baking powder, and salt; set aside.

Beat butter and brown sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs and vanilla, beating until well combined. Gradually add dry ingredients. Spread half of the batter onto the bottom of prepared pan.

Beat cream cheese, sugar, butter, flour, egg, and vanilla until smooth. Spoon 2/3's of cream cheese mixture on top of blondie batter and spread evenly. Gently top with remaining blondie batter. Drop small dollops of cream cheese on top and gently swirl.

Bake at 325F for 40-45 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted near center comes out nearly clean. Let cool completely before cutting into bars.

Vanilla Marble Blondies

As many people will attest, the Kitchen Aid mixer is like the Ultimate of the Kitchen Appliances. Mine answers to the name of HG (short for Holy Grail; we don't want to be uppity, after all). I discovered something this weekend, however.

HG has a sidekick. Yep. The KA Handmixer. A birthday present, the as yet unnamed buddy, proved his/her worth with this recipe. Any suggestions on a name? HG, Jr seems a little... simplistic. I think the handmixer needs its own identity. A superhero cape would be pushing it, though. HG gets that first. ;)

Anyways, this is my other weekend baked good. I can't remember how long ago I found this at the Domestic Goddess blog. And I kept putting it off and putting it off, and I could just hit myself over the head for doing that.

Oh my god. The batters by themselves were awesome, but together? What a marriage made in heaven. I really need too work through that list a bit faster. :)



Ingredients:
Blondie Base:
1/3 cup unsalted butter, cut into pieces
6 oz white chocolate, chopped
2 eggs
1 cup sugar
2 tsp. vanilla
1 cup all purpose flour
½ tsp. baking powder
¼ tsp. salt

Cheesecake Top:
8 oz. cream cheese, well softened
1/3 cup sugar
1 large egg yolk
¼ teaspoon vanilla

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350F. Butter and line a 9-inch square baking pan with parchment and set aside.

Over a pot of simmering water start to melt butter. Add white chocolate and stir until melted. Allow to cool to room temperature.

In a mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, whip eggs until creamy. Add sugar and vanilla and continue to whip until pale and thick. Reduce speed to medium and add cooled, melted white chocolate.

In a separate bowl, sift together flour, baking powder and salt and stir into egg mixture, by hand. Set aside.

Whisk together cheesecake batter ingredients in a small bowl until smooth. Dollop into pan along with blondie batter, then swirl together with a knife or spatula.

Bake at 350F for 40-45 minutes, or until edges are slightly puffed and center is just set. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Cherry Vanilla Cupcakes

Alright, before I start talking about these cupcakes, I have to ask this: Has anyone else heard of Kraft's new Mallow Bites? They're chocolate-covered mini marshmallows. We found them at Target today, and they're quite yummy. Here, I took a picture. :)



(don't mind Stitch; he guards my computer) ;)

I poked around a bit online, but never found anything. *shrug*

Onto the cupcakes! After drinking Inko's Cherry Vanilla White Tea, I asked myself, "I wonder if I could make a cherry vanilla cupcake?" The tea is very smooth and has almost a subtle cherry taste, and I really wish I could find it nearby. Fast-forward to two (or three?) weeks later, and here it is. There are little to no cherry vanilla cupcake recipes on the web. Chockylit had one, but I knew I didn't want a cherry filling. So I went with the basic vanilla cupcake, but used some vanilla sugar I had made, instead of regular sugar. Then went with maraschino cherry juice in the frosting.

Maybe it's because I know it's there, but I taste the vanilla when eating the cupcake. Dave and my dad said no, that the cherry frosting overwhelms, but my mom said she picked up SOME vanilla flavor. Maybe using vanilla bean as well? This one is going to the "needs tweaking" mental file, because I'm not ready to give this up. I want that smooth cherry-vanilla flavor, goshdarnit! ;) But, despite my 'misgivings', Dave ate three and both my parents have plans for the remaining ones.



Ingredients:
1-1/3 cups flour
3/4 tsp. baking powder
1/16 tsp. salt
½ cup butter, softened
1 cup vanilla sugar
2 eggs
½ cup milk
1 tsp. vanilla

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350F. Line 10-12 muffin cups with paper liners.

Sift together the flour, baking powder, and salt; set aside.

Beat butter and sugar until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add eggs, one at a time. Gradually add dry ingredients. Then add milk and vanilla. Fill cupcake liners half- to 2/3's full.

Bake at 350F for 22-25 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted near center comes out clean. Let cool completely on wire rack. Frost with cherry frosting.

Cherry Frosting:
8 ounces cream cheese, softened
2 Tbsp. butter, softened
1 Tbsp. milk
¼ to ½ maraschino cherry juice (adjust to taste)
2-3 cups confectioners' sugar

Beat cream cheese and butter until smooth. Add milk and cherry juice. Gradually add confectioners' sugar, beating until desired consistancy is reached. Refrigerate for at least an hour in order to firm up.

Vanilla Berry-Swirl Cheesecake Bars

For this MB event, the main ingredient was vanilla. Which leaves a HUGE amount of options. After some talk, I settled on the idea of a vanilla bean cheesecake with some kind of berry swirl.

But of course that changed.

I knew I wanted something cheesecake-y. And I wanted to finally use the vanilla beans that Dave bought for me. Then the berry flavor... I didn't want to use jam or jelly. After some searching, I decided to use the same strawberry puree that I made last week for the Lemon Berry Bars. (I'm all about the swirling lately, aren't I?) Then... "Do I really want to make a whole cheesecake?", to which I started playing around, mentally, with different shapes. Heart-shaped cookie cutter? Nah, didn't have one big enough. Eventually, I combined a few different recipes, and came up with this.

It was my first time using vanilla beans, and I was nervous. But I think I did well. Despite how in some bites, the berry flavor overtakes everything, the vanilla bean flavor is both subtle and smooth. If that makes sense. :) My only complaint is that the strawberry swirl isn't as bold of a color as I was hoping for.



Ingredients:
Strawberry Puree
2 cups strawberries, cut into small pieces
1-2 Tbsp. sugar

Crust:
1/3 cup sugar
½ cup butter, softened
1½ cups all purpose flour
¼ tsp. salt

Filling
½ cup sugar
½ cup half & half
2 pkg. cream cheese, room temperature
3 large eggs
½ vanilla bean (or 2 tsp. vanilla)
1 Tbsp. all purpose flour

Directions:
For strawberry puree: Blend the strawberries in a food processor (for a few seconds) or mash with a fork until there are no large chunks. Cook over medium heat for about 5-10 minutes until thickened. Set aside to cool.

Preheat oven to 350F. Grease a 13x9-inch pan.

For crust: Beat sugar and butter until smooth. Gradually add flour, followed by the salt, until mixture is crumbly in texture. Press onto bottom of prepared pan. Bake for 15 minutes.

For filling: Beat sugar, cream cheese, and half & half until smooth. Add eggs, one at a time. Scrape in vanilla (or add extract), then add flour. Pour onto hot crust. Drop spoonfuls of strawberry puree over filling, then swirl through with a knife or spatula.

Bake at 350F for 20-23 minutes, or until filling is set. Let cool completely before cutting and serving.

Sexy Low-Fat Vanilla Cupcakes

I think every blog and its mother has posted a cupcake recipe from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World. With that, I simply had to get my hands on the book and give it a try. The library finally got in stock yesterday.

I tried this one first because I didn't really have to get any ingredients that I didn't already have. That, and hey, when a cupcake intro says "there's no way in freakin' hell you're putting down those cupcakes", how can a girl possibly resist?

And the taste? Oh my goodness. This is my official vanilla cupcake recipe. Hands down. I used the icing/decorating suggestion that they made, for the most part. I did half raspberries, half plums, but the plum pics didn't work out. They had to be quickly refrigerated so that they wouldn't fall off. Probably should've patted them dry a bit after chopping, hmm? Oh well. I had one and 'twas yummy. :)



Ingredients:
Cupcakes:
½ cup vanilla soy yogurt
2/3 cup vanilla or plain soy milk
¼ cup applesauce
3 Tbsp. canola oil
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1½ tsp. vanilla
1¼ cups all-purpose flour
2 Tbsp. cornstarch
3/4 tsp. baking powder
½ tsp. baking soda
¼ tsp. salt

Skinny Confectioners' Icing:
1 cup confectioners' sugar, sifted
2 to 4 tsp. of soy milk or 1 Tbsp. flavored syrup (like the Torani brand)
½ cup seedless, smooth spreadable fruit or other preserves
1 cup fresh fruit or berries, washed, patted dry and thinly sliced, if necessary

Directions:
Cupcakes:
Preheat oven to 350F. Line 12 muffin cups with paper liners.

In a large bowl, whisk together yogurt, soy milk, applesauce, oil, sugar, and vanilla. Sift in flour, cornstarch, baking powder, baking soda, and salt, and mix well. Fill cupcake liners three-quarters full.

Bake at 350F for 22-24 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Transfer to a cooling rack to cool completely.

Icing:
Whisk together confectioners' sugar with soy milk or syrup, until desired consistancy is reached. If too thick, add more milk, one teaspoon at a time; if too watery, add in more sugar by the tablespoon.

Assembly:
Spread top of cupcake with a few thin layers of spreadable fruit. Spoon a small circle of icing on top of jam, then decorate with fresh fruit. If desired, drizzle tops of fruit with icing as well.

Vanilla Cheesecake with Mixed Berry Sauce

Last week, we acquired about ten pounds of plums. Which made me start thinking, of course, of what I could make with them. I mentioned the idea of cheesecake, and Dave said he could make a sauce to go over it. Alright, sounds like a plan.

But then he didn't feel like cutting them up, so we used a bag of frozen mixed berries that have been needing to get some use. *shrug* Still yummy, but I've still got a ton of plums!

I wanted to do a white cheesecake, but without the white chocolate. Sometimes the white chocolate is just too sweet, and I didn't want to risk not eating any of the cheesecake! As an added surprise, after pressing in the crust, I added some crushed Daim chocolates. (For those who haven't been enlightened yet, Daim is a Swedish chocolate... toffee enrobed in milk chocolate. Very yummy. Ikea sells them) :)

Oh, and I'll give proper credit: Dave took the picture. He also found the 'close up' option on the camera, for use on things less than a certain amount away. Hmm. I never knew that existed. At least that means there's hope for my photography skills! ;)



Ingredients:
Crust:
1½cups graham cracker crumbs
1/3 cup butter or margarine, melted
¼ cup granulated sugar

Filling:
1 vanilla bean, split, or 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
4 packages (8 oz. each) cream cheese, softened
1½ cups sugar
4 large eggs, at room temperature
1/3 cup sour cream

Sauce:
1 bag frozen berries (mixed or of choice)
¼ cup water
3-4 Tbsp. sugar (to taste)
1½ tsp. cornstarch, mixed with 1 Tbsp water


Directions:
Preheat oven to 350F.

Crust:
Combine graham-cracker crumbs, sugar, almonds and butter in bowl until crumbs are evenly moistened. Press mixture into bottom of a 9-inch springform pan. Bake until golden brown, 10 minutes. Cool on wire rack. Wrap bottom and side of pan with heavy-duty foil. Set aside.

Filling:
Reduce oven temperature to 325F. Remove seeds from vanilla bean with tip of small paring knife or spoon; set aside. Beat cream cheese in mixer bowl on medium-high speed, 3 minutes. Scrape side of bowl with rubber spatula. Beat in vanilla seeds. Gradually beat in sugar, scraping sides of mixer bowl with rubber spatula. Add eggs, one at a time, beating just until blended and mixture is completely smooth. Stir in sour cream and vanilla extract, if using. Pour filling into prepared pan.

Bake at 325F for about 1 hour, or until center is nearly set. Let cool on wire rack before transferring to the refrigerator.

Sauce:
In a medium saucepan, combine berries, water and sugar. Bring to a boil and cook for about 10-15 minutes, until most of the berries have popped. Stir in the cornstarch mixture and cook for an addition minute, until the syrup thickens slightly. Turn heat to a low simmer and cover for about 10 minutes.

Cooking to Combat Cancer : Mixed Berry Tarts

When I read about the above over at Mele Cotte, I knew I had to take part. Between three of four grandparents dying of cancer, my dad is currently going through his third round of chemo.

I went through the Mayo Clinic's recipe webpage, and finally decided upon their Mixed Berry Pie. Which are really mini tarts, but, hey. I won't be picky. ;)




(At least we know with this blog, my close-up-photography skills are bound to improve!) :D

Ingredients:
12 to 15 medium strawberries, sliced
3/4 cup raspberries
1/2 cup fat-free, sugar-free instant vanilla pudding made with fat-free milk
6 single-serve (tart-size) graham cracker pie crusts
6 Tbsp light whipped topping (optional)

Directions:
In a small bowl, mix together the strawberries and raspberries.

Spoon 4 teaspoons of the pudding into each pie crust. Add about 2 tablespoons of the strawberry-raspberry mix to each pie. Top the fruit with 1 tablespoon whipped topping.

Serve immediately or refrigerate until ready to serve.


So, I altered it a bit, because I wanted to make pretty designs. :) I also chose to do both chocolate and vanilla, for some variety. I ate one already - very yummy. Good for summertime, too, for a quick dessert. :)