Martha Stewart Coconut Balls

Another Martha Stewart recipe :) These were super good although a bit messy to make!

Martha Stewart Coconut Balls

Ingredients

Makes 36.

2 sticks unsalted butter, softened
1/4 cup confectioner's sugar, plus more for dusting
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 cups sweetened flaked coconut

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In the bowl of an electric mixer, cream butter with 1/4 cup confectioners' sugar until fluffy. Mix in flour and salt until they're just combined. Stir in coconut.
2.Roll dough into 1-inch balls; place 2 inches apart on a baking sheet. Bake until just starting to brown, 15 to 20 minutes. Roll the warm cookies in confectioners' sugar; let cool completely.

These are the adjustments I made:

1. I thought 1 inch balls were too big so I made them about 1/2 inch. The recipe made about 60 cookies instead of the suggested 36.
2. I only baked them for 15 minutes.
3. I let them cool for 5 minutes then rolled them in powdered sugar. I let them rest another 5-10 then rolled them again. If you just "dust" them the sugar gets moist and doesn't look all nice and pretty! I ended up using at least 1 cup of powdered sugar for the outside.

Banana Rum Cream Pie

From my DZ sis Julie Miller. This was our November baking challenge. Some notes:
-Graham crackers. See above post about subs.
-Crust. This recipe was written for a US 9" pie dish. I needed more for the slightly larger one I had. I ended up using about 2 cups of cookie crumbs.
-Rum. Use real rum if at all possible. Rum flavor will work but it loses some of the ooomph.


Ingredients
- 1 1/4 cups graham cracker crumbs (9 large graham crackers)
- 5 tbsp. unsalted butter, melted
- 1 tsp. curry powder
- 1/4 tsp. cinnamon
- 1/2 cup dark brown sugar
- 8 oz. cream cheese, softened
- 1 tsp. lemon zest
- 1 cup chilled heavy cream
- 4 tsp. dark rum
- 2 or 3 ripe bananas

Put oven rack in middle position and preheat to 350. Stir together crumbs, butter, curry powder, cinnamon, and 2 tbsp. brown sugar with fork until combined well. Reserve 1 tbsp. of this mixture to sprinkle over top of pie. Press remaining mixture evenly onto bottom and up the sides of the pie plate. Bake crust for 10 minutes and cool completely on wire rack for 20 minutes. In large bowl, beat together cream cheese, zest, and remaining 6 tbsp. of dark brown sugar with electric mixer until light and fluffy, about 1 minute. In another bowl, beat cream with rum with cleaned beaters until it holds soft peaks. Gently fold 1/3 of whipped cream into the cream cheese mixture to lighten, then fold in remaining whipped cream gently but thoroughly. Thinly slice the bananas and arrange evenly over the bottom of the crust. Spread filling over bananas and sprinkle remaining crumb mixture over pie. Chill pie, loosely covered, for at least 20 minutes.

Double Chocolate Muffins

This recipe is amazing if you love chocolate! They have a true muffin texture and are not cupcakey. These are seriously some of the best muffins I have made in a loooong time.

I slightly modified this recipe from the one I found here Diana's Desserts

Double Chocolate Muffins

3 ounces 70-80% dark chocolate (for melting)
1 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
2 eggs
1/2 cup sour cream (9 or 18% creme fraiche)
1/2 cup milk
2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 100g (standard size) bar of 70-80% dark chocolate broken into small pieces to add to muffin mixture

Instructions:
Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 C). Line muffin cups with muffin or cupcake liners. You can either use the jumbo or the standard size muffin pans. I prefer the standard size.

In a microwave-safe bowl, melt chocolate in the microwave on medium-high heat for 25 second intervals, stirring in between, until smooth. Set aside.

In a large bowl of an electric mixer, cream sugar and butter. Beat in eggs, then add sour cream and milk. In a small bowl, stir together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Pour flour mixture into butter mixture and stir together by hand. Stir in melted chocolate, then chocolate pieces.

Fill each muffin cup just to the edge of the baking cup. This will give you that nice muffin top look. Bake for about 20 minutes for standard-sized muffins or 25 minutes for giant muffins, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Transfer muffins to wire rack to cool completely. Muffins are best eaten fresh.

Makes 6 giant or 12 standard muffins.

Blue Ribbon Apple Pie

I have started a monthly cooking and baking challenge with my girls at http://surfingsisters.com/ For the first baking challenge, I picked an apple pie recipe from Cooking Light magazine. We all follow the same recipe (allowing for a few substitutions of course) and share pictures and talk about how our pies turned out on our forum.

I really liked this recipe especially the filling. It was basic and no frills and the flavor of the apples really came through. I also thought the pie crust was good for a "lightened up" version. This was my first attempt at making any type of fruit pie so my crust shaping skills need a little work. My substitution was various apples from my garden. I used a mix of green, red and pink ones. 6 cups of apples may seem like a lot but it really worked well.

My tip for crust making...freeze the shortening and the butter then use a cheese grater to grate them into the flour. It makes it so much easier to work by hand. I don't have or use a pastry cutter and with this method I don't see that I need one.




Blue Ribbon Apple Pie

Yield 10 servings (serving size: 1 wedge)


Ingredients

• Crust:
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 cup chilled butter or stick margarine, cut into small pieces
• 1/4 cup vegetable shortening
• 1/2 teaspoon cider vinegar
• 5 to 7 tablespoons ice water
• 
  Filling:
• 2 cups thinly sliced peeled Granny Smith or other tart apple such as Newtown, Pippin, or Crispin (about 1 pound)
• 2 cups thinly sliced peeled Braeburn or other all-purpose apple such as Empire (about 1 pound)
• 1 cup thinly sliced peeled Rome or other firm baking apple such as Baldwin or Winesap (about 1/2 pound)
• 1 cup thinly sliced peeled McIntosh or other tender apple such as Gravenstein or Jonathan (about 1/2 pound)
• 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 1/4 cup packed brown sugar
• 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• Cooking spray
• 2 teaspoons fat-free milk
• 1 tablespoon granulated sugar

Preparation
To prepare crust, lightly spoon 2 cups flour into dry measuring cups; level with a knife. Combine with 1/2 teaspoon salt in a bowl; cut in butter and shortening with a pastry blender or 2 knives until mixture resembles coarse meal. Add vinegar and enough ice water, 1 tablespoon at a time, tossing with a fork until dough is moist. Divide dough in half. Gently press each dough half into a 4-inch circle on heavy-duty plastic wrap, and cover with additional plastic wrap. Roll one half of dough, still covered, into a 12-inch circle; chill. Roll other half of dough, still covered, into an 11-inch circle; chill.

Preheat oven to 450°.

To prepare filling, combine apples and lemon juice in a large bowl. Combine 1/2 cup granulated sugar, brown sugar, 3 tablespoons flour, cinnamon, and 1/4 teaspoon salt. Sprinkle over apple mixture, tossing well to combine.

Remove 1 sheet of plastic wrap from the 12-inch circle; fit dough, plastic-wrap side up, into a 9-inch pie plate coated with cooking spray, allowing dough to extend over edge of plate. Remove top sheet of plastic wrap. Spoon apple mixture into crust. Remove 1 sheet of plastic wrap from the 11-inch circle, and place dough, plastic-wrap side up, on top of apple mixture. Remove top sheet of plastic wrap. Press edges of dough together; fold edges under, and flute. Cut 6 (1-inch) slits into top of pastry using a sharp knife. Brush top and edges of pie with milk; sprinkle with 1 tablespoon granulated sugar. Place pie on a baking sheet; bake at 450° for 15 minutes. Reduce oven temperature to 375° (do not remove pie from oven). Bake an additional 45 minutes or until golden (shield crust with aluminum foil if it gets too brown). Cool on a wire rack.

Chocolate Cupcakes

I decided to make some cupcakes to celebrate Patrick's birthday at dagpleje (daycare). I used this recipe, Chocolate cupcakes from the Joy of Baking website. They were good, but I think they should have been a little bit sweeter. I think next time I will try Magnolia's Chocolate Cupcakes since the Magnolia Bakery is famous for their cupcakes.

I topped them with....

Buttercream Icing

130g room temp butter
3 1/2 cups powdered sugar
2 tsp. pure vanilla extract
3 Tbs. milk

Cream the butter with an electric mixer until fluffy. Slowly add the sugar, then the vanilla. Add the milk until desired consistency. May need more or less depending on how thick you want the icing. Refrigerate and can be stored up to 2 weeks. To use after storage, allow to warm at room temp for about 10 minutes then rewhip with mixer.