Scones

I would probably be the first to admit that I'm not a huge fan of scones. When I want to bake something and try to come up with ideas, scones would generally not be anywhere on the list. That said, I recently found myself with an enormous container of plain fat free yogurt whose expiration date was quickly approaching. I definitely didn't want to throw it away so I started looking for recipe ideas. I figured I could sub the yogurt for sour cream in a lot of baked goods, so I looked for recipes with either yogurt or sour cream as an ingredient. Nothing was really appealing to me until I found these scones on Allrecipes.com. The thing that caught my eye was that the scones had close to 900 reviews and a 5 star rating! That just seemed too good to be true but I figured if 900 people loved this recipe maybe I would too!



I threw these together as we were making dinner so I was definitely somewhat distracted but the recipe was still pretty easy. I will say to make sure you use an enormous bowl when you start with the dry ingredients. I used one of the largest bowls we have, but once I added 4 cups of flour and the rest of the ingredients, the bowl was overflowing. It made cutting in the butter quite difficult. I also always struggle with knowing how much to knead the dough. The recipe says "briefly" but that's just not clear enough for me. So, in an effort to avoid over-handling the dough, I only kneaded this for about a minute. Then I wound up cutting the dough into only 8 giant sized scones. The recipe says it makes 12 so mine were quite large. As a result, I had to bake these forever...definitely longer than the 12-15 minutes called for. I added some icing when they came out of the oven and had cooled a bit (just a combination of confectioners sugar and milk) and cut a small piece off of one to taste....and they were delicious! I'm guessing the 2 sticks of butter in the recipe has a lot to do with that. I gave the rest to my mom to bring to work today and her coworkers really seemed to enjoy them. Even people who don't typically enjoy scones thought they were great. General consensus was that these scones weren't dry like a lot of others. Maybe the yogurt had something to do with that. Who knows. I do know I will definitely be making these again. Next time I'll add the raisins or maybe something else...



Scones
from Allrecipes.com

1 cup sour cream
1 teaspoon baking soda
4 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup white sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup butter
1 egg
1 cup raisins (optional) (I omitted these)

In a small bowl, blend the sour cream and baking soda, and set aside.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Lightly grease a large baking sheet.

In a large bowl, mix the flour, sugar, baking powder, cream of tartar, and salt. Cut in the butter. Stir the sour cream mixture and egg into the flour mixture until just moistened. Mix in the raisins.

Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface, and knead briefly. Roll or pat dough into a 3/4 inch thick round. Cut into 12 wedges, and place them 2 inches apart on the prepared baking sheet.

Bake 12 to 15 minutes in the preheated oven, until golden brown on the bottom.

TWD: Chocolate-Banded Ice Cream Torte!

This week's TWD was chosen by Amy of Food, Family and Fun: chocolate-banded ice cream torte! Not all of the recipes in Dorie's cookbook have pictures but this is one of the recipes that does, and it looks gorgeous! There are alternating bands of chocolate ganache and ice cream that just looked so perfect. I was excited to give this torte a try as I suspected it might be sort of like ice cream cake and we love ice cream cake at my house!

I decided to make two smaller tortes in my 4-inch springform pans because I knew those were more likely to be eaten than one large torte. Also, Dorie uses raspberry ice cream in her torte and while I think chocolate and raspberry would be a delicious combination, I knew Shane wouldn't touch raspberry ice cream and I didn't want to be stuck eating both tortes myself! So, I decided on french vanilla ice cream for our tortes. Originally I planned to make homemade ice cream to use in the torte but it just didn't happen this time. I also used semisweet chocolate instead of bittersweet for the ganache.

The recipe comes together fairly easily. The hardest part is having the patience to wait for each layer to freeze before adding the next layer on top. I found it a bit difficult to spread the layers and make sure they were perfectly level in my small pans but in the end, they didn't look half bad. I think this is the type of dessert that would impress guests as the end product looks so fancy and is so unique. As for taste, I thought it was ok. As much as I love chocolate, I often feel desserts with a lot of chocolate are too rich and this was one of those times. The ratio of chocolate to ice cream in my tortes was too high so the dominant flavor was definitely the ganache. Shane did like it though so not everyone felt the way I did. I think I'll try to make this again sometime with a different ice cream flavor and see what happens.



Thanks to Amy for the pick this week! Check out her blog for the recipe and head over to TWD to see the other tortes!

Blueberry Galette

A few weeks ago this recipe for blueberry galette was popping up left and right on my google reader. Really, it was everywhere. Given my love of blueberry treats, I starred it multiple times. Finally, I set out to make it on a lazy morning last weekend. I was a bit worried since the last galette I attempted to make gave me a decent amount of trouble. Luckily, that was not the case this time! The dough proved fairly easy to work with and the galette was absolutely delicious! I loved the cornmeal crust - the texture was wonderful and a welcome change from the typical pie crust. This was also the first blueberry recipe I made that didn't turn out soupy or runny - the filling held together beautifully on this one! I did leave out the blackberries (not a fan) and the egg wash and turbinado sugar (laziness) but maybe next time I make this I will add some raspberries and add the egg wash!





Blueberry Galette
from Meet Me in the Kitchen, originally from Cooking Light

Pastry
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup cornmeal
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup cold butter, cut into small pieces
1/3 cup fat-free buttermilk

Filling
4 cups blueberries
2 cups blackberries (I omitted these)
1/2 cup granulated sugar
3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons lemon juice
2 tablespoons fat-free milk
1 large egg white
1 1/2 tablespoons turbinado sugar



To prepare pastry, lightly spoon flour into dry measuring cups, and level with a knife. Combine flour and next 3 ingredients (through salt) in a food processor; pulse two times. Add butter to flour mixture; pulse 4 to 5 times or until mixture resembles coarse meal. With processor on, slowly add buttermilk through food chute; process just until dough forms a ball. Gently press dough into a 4-inch circle on plastic wrap; cover. Chill 30 minutes.

Preheat oven to 350 F.

Unwrap and place dough on a sheet of parchment paper. Roll dough into a 15-inch circle. Place dough and parchment on a baking sheet.

To prepare filling, combine berries and next 3 ingredients (through juice) in a medium bowl; toss gently to coat. Arrange berry mixture in center of dough, leaving a 2-inch border. Fold edges of dough toward center, pressing gently to seal (dough will only partially cover berry mixture).

Combine fat-free milk and egg white in a small bowl, stirring well with a whisk. Brush dough with milk mixture; sprinkle turbinado sugar evenly over dough. Bake at 350 F for 1 hour or until pastry is golden brown. Let stand 30 minutes; cut into wedges.

Cheesecake Thumbprints

I've fallen so far behind in my posts that I'm going back over a week now since I made these cookies. Generally I post the same (or the next) day I make something to give some perspective. No big deal except I didn't make any notes on my impression of these cookies and my memory isn't the best, so I won't have a ton to say...

I whipped these up one afternoon because I wanted to make cookies and hadn't baked anything from my Martha Stewart cookbook in a while and as I flipped through these caught my eye. I had some cream cheese sitting in the fridge that I needed to use up so they were a great choice. They came together easily though they are a little bit more time consuming than your typical cookie since you need to roll the dough into balls, make an indentation, bake for a bit, make the indentations again, let them cool and then finally add the cheesecake filling. As usual, I was impatient and didn't refrigerate for the suggested 4 hours before trying the cookies. As soon as they were cool enough to eat, I tried one. Despite the simplicity of the ingredients I really enjoyed the cookies. They're a basic shortbread with good flavor and texture and the cheesecake filling pairs well with them!



Cheesecake Thumbprints
from Martha Stewart's Baking Handbook

4 ounces cream cheese, room temperature
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt, plus a pinch
2 large egg yolks
1 1/2 teaspoons sour cream
1/8 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
2 sticks (1 cup) unsalted butter, room temperature
2 cups all-purpose flour

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat cream cheese on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes, scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed. Add 1/4 cup sugar and a pinch of salt, and beat until smooth, about 3 minutes. Add 1 egg yolk, sour cream, and vanilla; beat until smooth. Transfer to a small bowl, and refrigerate for about 30 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 350 F with racks in the upper and lower thirds. Line two large baking sheets with parchment paper; set aside.

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter and remaining 1/4 cup sugar on medium speed until well combined, 1 to 2 minutes, scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed. Add remaining 1/4 teaspoon salt and egg yolk; beat to combine. With mixer on low speed, gradually add flour, mixing until just combined.

Shape level tablespoons of dough into balls, and place on prepared baking sheets about 1 inch apart. Using the lightly floured end of a thick wooden spoon handle (or your thumb), make an indentation in the center of each ball.





Bake 10 minutes; remove from oven and make indentations again. Rotate sheets, return to oven, and bake until edges of cookies begin to turn golden, 7 to 9 minutes more. Transfer cookies to a wire rack to cool completely.

Using a small teaspoon, fill the center of each cookie with about 1 teaspoon cream cheese filling, mounding it slightly. Return cookies to the oven, and bake until the filling is firm, 7 to 8 minutes. Transfer cookies to a wire rack to cool completely. Refrigerate in an airtight container at least 4 hours before serving.

I'm Back

After a rough week, we headed out to Connecticut for the weekend. Our friends Jay and Kerri were married in a beautiful park setting and could not have had better weather! We had a great time and I think it was just what we needed. Hopefully I'll get caught up with the blog later today or tomorrow at the latest but for now a few pics from our weekend!

TWD: Granola Grabbers!

This week's TWD almost didn't happen. It's been a rough few days for me and I haven't felt terribly motivated to update the blog. I've actually got a backlog of tasty treats I've made that need to be posted but those will have to wait for another, better, day. So, it'll be a short entry this week but hopefully I'll be back to blogging as usual in a few days.

Michelle of Bad Girl Baking chose this week's TWD recipe: granola grabbers! It's been a while since TWD made cookies so I was pleased with this week's selection. That said, when I looked down the ingredient list I became a little skeptical. I don't care for peanuts and I didn't have any wheat germ and honestly, these cookies just seemed a little too healthy :-) I soldiered on though because Dorie rarely disappoints.



I made a half batch because there aren't enough people in my house to eat 40 cookies. The wheat germ was replaced by whole wheat flour and I left out the peanuts and doubled the almonds instead. After reading some of the other TWD posts I wished I'd added some chocolate chips too but maybe next time!



The cookies were quick and easy to make and surprisingly, really delicious! I enjoyed them a lot more than I expected to and will definitely make them again.

Head over to Michelle's blog for the recipe and if you're curious, check out the other bakers at TWD as there was a lot of variety in the cookies this week!

French Vanilla Cookie Dough Ice Cream

After we finished off the peanut butter chocolate chip ice cream, I asked Shane what he wanted me to make next. He requested french vanilla ice cream with cookie dough pieces. Sounded good to me so I grabbed my recipe book, found recipes for both components and set out to give it a shot! It was my first try making a custard based ice cream but it turned out to be pretty easy. I think the worst part was the big stack of dishes in the sink afterward! As for the taste, I have to say that this is some of the most delicious ice cream either Shane or I have ever had! It was so rich but so yummy! The texture was great and the vanilla flavor was even better using the vanilla beans in addition to the vanilla extract. I was glad the ice cream maker only makes about a quart of ice cream as I definitely could have seen us eating WAY more of this one!



French Vanilla Ice Cream
from The Perfect Scoop, by David Lebovitz

1 cup whole milk
3/4 cup sugar
2 cups heavy cream
pinch of salt
1 vanilla bean, split in half lengthwise
6 large egg yolks
3/4 teaspoon vanilla extract



Warm the milk, sugar, 1 cup of the cream, and salt in a medium saucepan. Scrape the seeds from the vanilla bean into the warm milk and add the bean as well. Cover, remove from the heat, and let steep at room temperature for 30 minutes.

Pour the remaining 1 cup cream into a large bowl and set a mesh strainer on top. In a separate medium bowl, whisk together the egg yolks. Slowly pour the warm mixture into the egg yolks, whisking constantly, then scrape the warmed egg yolks back into the saucepan.

Stir the mixture constantly over medium heat with a heatproof spatula, scraping the bottom as you stir, until the mixture thickens and coats the spatula. Pour the custard through the strainer and stir it into the cream. Put the vanilla bean into the custard, add the vanilla extract, and stir until cool over an ice bath.

Chill the mixture thoroughly in the refrigerator. When ready to churn, remove the vanilla bean, rinsing and reserving it for another use, and then freeze the mixture in your ice cream maker according to the manufacturer's instructions.

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough
from The Perfect Scoop, by David Lebovitz

5 tablespoons salted butter, melted
1/3 cup packed light brown sugar
1/4 cup flour
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup walnuts, pecans, or hazelnuts, toasted and coarsely chopped (I omitted these)
3/4 cup semisweet or bittersweet chocolate chips

In a medium bowl, stir together the butter and sugar until smooth. Whisk in the flour, then the vanilla, nuts and chocolate chips.

Form the dough into a disk about 1/2 inch thick, wrap it in plastic wrap, and refrigerate until firm. Once chilled, unwrap the disk and chop into bite-sized pieces, then store the pieces in the freezer until ready to mix in.

Mixing in the pieces: Fold pieces of cookie dough into 1 quart of ice cream as you remove it from the machine.

Storage: The dough can be stored for up to 5 days in the refrigerator or up to 2 months in the freezer, well wrapped.

Macaroni and Cheese

I love macaroni and cheese. Particularly, the really unhealthy stuff....the one with the packet of powdered cheese in the box (this is my favorite). I pretty much lived on it during law school. I've cut way back since then and I can't even remember the last time I had macaroni and cheese from a box. So, when I saw this recipe in an issue of Cook's Illustrated containing "lighter" recipes I was excited to try it. I thought it might be the perfect solution to my desire to eat macaroni and cheese while still trying to maintain somewhat healthy eating habits.

I procrastinated in making this recipe for a quite a while because I thought it was going to be time consuming. In reality, it actually came together very quickly and I didn't run into any issues! It smelled delicious and I found myself really looking forward to eating it for lunch. Unfortunately, it just didn't live up to my expectations. I can't even quite put my finger on why I wasn't a huge fan, but I wasn't. The texture was creamy and it was definitely cheesy (maybe too much so for me) but I think I'll stick with the stuff from the box :-)



Macaroni and Cheese
from Cook's Illustrated

1/2 pound elbow macaroni (about 2 cups)
table salt
1 (12 oz) can reduced fat evaporated milk
3/4 cup 2 percent milk
1/4 teaspoon dry mustard
1/8 teaspoon garlic powder or celery salt (optional)
pinch cayenne pepper
2 teaspoons cornstarch
8 oz reduced fat cheddar cheese, shredded (about 2 cups)

Bring 2 1/2 quarts of water to boil in large saucepan. Stir in 2 teaspoons salt and macaroni and cook until pasta is tender, about 5 minutes. Drain pasta and leave in colander; set aside.

Add evaporated milk, 1/2 cup 2 percent milk, mustard, garlic powder (if using), cayenne and 1/2 teaspoon salt to now-empty saucepan. Bring mixture to boil, then reduce to simmer. Whisk cornstarch and remaining 1/4 cup milk together in small bowl, then whisk into simmering mixture. Continue to simmer, whisking constantly, until sauce has thickened and is smooth, about 2 minutes.

Off heat, gradually whisk in cheddar until melted and smooth. Stir in macaroni, then let macaroni and cheese sit off heat until sauce has thickened slightly, 2 to 5 minutes, before serving.

TWD: Blueberry Sour Cream Ice Cream

This week's TWD was chosen by Dolores of Chronicles in Culinary Curiosity: blueberry sour cream ice cream! I was glad I'd recently purchased an ice cream maker so I could participate in this week's TWD without having to resort to making ice cream without an ice cream maker (which, truthfully, probably wouldn't have happened). I was eager to try this ice cream as I'm a big blueberry fan and plus, ice cream with blueberries has to be healthier than ice cream without blueberries, right? Just looking for a way that I can justify eating more ice cream. Sadly, it wasn't to be. I won't lie. This ice cream did not work for me. The sour cream was just much too strong. It dominated the ice cream for me....and not in a good way. I may try making this again in the future and change up the proportions to cut back on the sour cream flavor. A number of the other TWD folks seemed to enjoy it so check out their posts over at TWD!

Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Ice Cream

This is the first of two ice cream posts for tonight so apologies in advance. The new ice cream maker is proving to be a lot of fun! I made this peanut butter ice cream last Friday night while Shane was out because I thought it would be a fun treat for him for the weekend. I decided to add some mini chocolate chips to the ice cream as it churned because I was worried that just peanut butter ice cream would be a bit much. I think that was a good decision as the peanut butter flavor in the ice cream is quite strong. We wound up adding a few extra chocolate chips on top of the ice cream as well as some chocolate sauce and that really balanced the intense peanut butter flavor. We both really enjoyed this ice cream and I know we'll make it again after we've worked our way through some other flavors first!



Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Ice Cream
adapted from The Perfect Scoop, by David Lebovitz

1/4 cup smooth peanut butter
3/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar
2 2/3 cups half and half
pinch of salt
1/8 teaspoon vanilla extract
mini chocolate chips (optional)

Puree the peanut butter, sugar, half and half, salt and vanilla in a blender or food processor until smooth. Chill the mixture thoroughly in the refrigerator, then freeze it in your ice cream maker according to the manufacturer's instructions. If desired, add mini chocolate chips to the ice cream maker per the manufacturer's instructions (in my ice cream maker, that means adding the chocolate chips during the last few minutes of churning).

What's in a Name?

So, this dessert is called blueberry boy bait.... It's a recipe I saw on America's Test Kitchen a few weeks ago. If I was a good little blogger I would have paid attention to the story behind this name so I could retell it here for your amusement. Alas, I did not. It's a bad habit of mine to fast forward through the show and watch only the parts where they are actually making the recipe. I did catch them saying that this recipe is quite old and has been refined over the years, taking the basic concept and improving on it. Beyond that, you'll have to catch the episode to learn the history...

Anyway, I needed to use up some blueberries before they went bad and I turned to this recipe because I love a good breakfast cake. And this cake is good! I loved the simplicity of the topping and the way it baked into little shards of cinnamon sugar that topped the cake. Also, there were just enough blueberries to keep me happy. One cup of blueberries didn't seem like much to me and I briefly contemplated adding a few more, but I'm glad I didn't. I wouldn't change anything about this cake!

Blueberry Boy Bait
from America's Test Kitchen

Note: If using frozen blueberries, do not let them thaw, as they will turn the batter a blue-green color (I can certainly attest to this fact based on my experience with blue-ish blueberry muffins...).

2 cups all-purpose flour plus 1 teaspoon
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon table salt
16 tablespoons unsalted butter (2 sticks), softened
3/4 cup packed light brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
3 large eggs
1 cup whole milk
1/2 cup blueberries, fresh or frozen, (see note above)

1/2 cup blueberries, fresh or frozen (see note above)
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon



For the cake: Adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 350 F. Grease and flour 13 by 9-inch baking pan.

Whisk 2 cups flour, baking powder, and salt together in medium bowl. With electric mixer, beat butter and sugars on medium-high speed until fluffy, about 2 minutes. Add eggs, one at a time, beating until just incorporated. Reduce speed to medium and beat in one-third of flour mixture until incorporated; beat in half of milk. Beat in half of remaining flour mixture, then remaining milk, and finally remaining flour mixture. Toss blueberries with remaining 1 teaspoon flour. Using rubber spatula, gently fold in blueberries. Spread batter into prepared pan.

For the topping: Scatter blue-berries over top of batter. Stir sugar and cinnamon together in small bowl and sprinkle over batter. Bake until toothpick inserted in center of cake comes out clean, 45 to 50 minutes. Cool in pan 20 minutes, then turn out and place on serving platter (topping side up). Serve warm or at room temperature. (Cake can be stored in airtight container at room temperature up to 3 days.)

Vanilla Ice Cream

This weekend we got a new toy at our house! I've wanted an ice cream maker for a while now but haven't really been able to justify it. I always thought I'd never use it enough to make it a worthwhile purchase. I've been spending enough time in the kitchen in the past 6 months, however, that I figured I could finally make the leap and pick up my ice cream machine. I went with the Cuisinart because it was reasonably priced and got rave reviews everywhere I looked. Last night I set out to make my first batch of ice cream. I only had the machine's instruction book and the internet at my disposal for recipes (I've since picked up this book). I decided to go with the simplest possible recipe in the hopes that I wouldn't screw it up and get discouraged immediately. This vanilla ice cream recipe came from the instruction booklet and contains only 4 ingredients. It was fantastic! The texture was wonderful and the vanilla flavor was just right. I wound up using closer to 2 teaspoons of vanilla extract than 1 and found that was just right for us. I'm looking forward to using this recipe as a base for mix-ins and additions!



Vanilla Ice Cream
from Cuisinart

1 cup whole milk, well chilled
3/4 cup granulated sugar
2 cups heavy cream, well chilled
1-2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract, to taste

In a medium bowl, use a hand mixer or a whisk to combine the milk and granulated sugar until the sugar is dissolved, about 1-2 minutes on low speed. Stir in the heavy cream and vanilla to taste. Pour into an ice cream maker and freeze according to manufacturer’s instructions.

Makes 10 1/2 cup servings.

TWD: Black and White Banana Loaf

This week's TWD was chosen by Ashlee of A Year in the Kitchen: black and white banana loaf! On the one hand I was pretty excited that this recipe wasn't terribly complicated. Since summer has started I've definitely been less motivated to spend hours and hours in the kitchen baking so this recipe fit the bill. On the other hand, I'm not a huge fan of banana bread so I didn't expect that this would be a recipe I'd love.

This bread varies from traditional banana bread I've made in the past in that it is marbled with bittersweet chocolate and also contains rum! My bread came together without a problem (or so I thought) and was done cooking around an hour and twenty minutes. I didn't wait for it to cool completely before I cut a piece to try as it did smell really good! Well, as soon as I cut into it, I saw that my marbling was not as successful as I'd hoped. I don't have much experience with marbling but it's definitely something I need to work on. My bread looked mostly black with small traces of white but no definitive marbling. Ok, so it didn't look too pretty, but how did it taste? Well, much to my surprise, I really liked it! The chocolate added variety and toned down the strong banana flavor that I'm generally not a fan of. The cake was also incredibly moist!



Thanks to Ashlee for choosing this recipe! I learned that I need to practice marbling and also found another use for ripe bananas! The recipe for the black and white loaf can be found on Ashlee's blog and as usual, check out the other blogs over at TWD (especially if you care to see loaves marbled properly!).

Weekend Munchies

Shane had some friends over this weekend and I knew that when it got late they would get hungry! I decided to bake them something in an attempt to keep them out of our cabinets at midnight :-) After looking through my pantry at what I needed to use up, I decided on this super simple recipe from Hersheys (you'll notice the recipe is heavy on suggested Hershey's ingredients...). It definitely doesn't get easier than this one and I figured no one would complain about the combination of chocolate and peanut butter. The hardest part about these bars was waiting for them to cool so I could dig in and give them a try! I ended up having mine when they were still a bit warm because I was so impatient. I liked them but thought the chocolate overwhelmed the peanut butter flavor a bit too much. For that reason, I skipped the chocolate drizzle. That said, Shane had a few today (2 days after I baked them) and didn't think the chocolate was overwhelming at all. In fact, I believe he said, "If I had known these were so good, I would have had some the other night!" Apparently he hadn't tried them when I put them out for the guys on Saturday, but I don't think he'll have any problem finishing off the rest of them now :-)

Double Delicious Cookie Bars
from Hersheys.com

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter or margarine
1-1/2 cups graham cracker crumbs
1 can (14 oz.) sweetened condensed milk
2 cups (12-oz. pkg.) HERSHEY'S SPECIAL DARK Chocolate Chips or HERSHEY'S Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips
1 cup REESE'S Peanut Butter Chips
1 cup HERSHEY'S SPECIAL DARK Chocolate Chips or HERSHEY'S Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips
1-1/2 teaspoons shortening(do not use butter, margarine, spread or oil)

Heat oven to 350°F. (325°F. for glass dish).

Melt butter in oven in 13x9x2-inch baking pan. Sprinkle graham cracker crumbs over butter; pour sweetened condensed milk evenly over crumbs. Top with 2 cups chocolate chips and peanut butter chips; press down firmly.

Bake 25 to 30 minutes or until lightly browned. Cool completely in pan on wire rack. Place 1 cup chocolate chips and shortening in small microwave-safe bowl. Microwave at MEDIUM (50%) 1 to 1-1/2 minutes or until smooth when stirred. Drizzle over top of bars. When drizzle is firm, cut into bars. Store loosely covered at room temperature. 24 to 36 bars.

Pepperoni Pan Pizza

I love pan pizza. It is, without a doubt, my favorite type of pizza. While we've made some pretty good pizzas at home before, we've never had a recipe for a great pan pizza.....until now. I have to credit America's Test Kitchen for this recipe. I watched this episode and they said their goal was to create a pan pizza recipe that would be just as good as take out and wouldn't take too long to make. I'd say it took me about an hour and a half from when I started making the dough until we had pizza on the table. It's maybe a bit more time than I'd spend on a weeknight, but no problem for a weekend night. The recipe below makes enough dough for 2 pizzas so if you made the entire recipe and stuck half the dough in the freezer for another time that would significantly cut down on the time it would take to make this pizza.

This pizza was definitely a hit at our house! The dough was easy to make and easy to work with. I had no problem rolling it out and stretching it to fit in the pan. One of my biggest complaints about pepperoni pizza is all the grease that usually pools on the surface of the pizza. Yuck! They've solved that problem in this recipe by pre-cooking the pepperoni in the microwave. The pizza looked so much more appetizing when it came out of the oven without all that grease! Best thing about this pizza though is the crust! It is delicious - golden and crunchy and just perfect! I have a feeling that second half of the dough will be coming out of our freezer before too long...



Pepperoni Pan Pizza
from America's Test Kitchen

Dough
1/2 cup olive oil
3/4 cup skim milk plus 2 additional tablespoons, warmed to 110 degrees
2 teaspoons sugar
2 1/3 cups all-purpose flour
1 package instant yeast
1/2 teaspoon salt

Topping
1 (3.5 ounce) package sliced pepperoni
1 1/3 cups tomato sauce (see recipe below)
3 cups shredded part-skim mozzarella cheese

Tomato Sauce (makes 2 2/3 cups)
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 28 oz can crushed tomatoes
salt and pepper

To Make the Sauce
Cook oil and garlic in medium saucepan over low heat until fragrant, about 2 minutes. Add tomatoes, increase heat to medium, and cook until slightly thickened, 10 to 15 minutes. Season with salt and pepper.

To Make the Dough
Adjust oven rack to lowest position and heat oven to 200 degrees. When oven reaches 200 degrees, turn it off. Lightly grease large bowl with cooking spray. Coat each of two 9-inch cake pans with 3 tablespoons oil.

Mix milk, sugar, and remaining 2 tablespoons oil in measuring cup. Mix flour, yeast, and salt in standing mixer fitted with dough hook. Turn machine to low and slowly add milk mixture. After dough comes together, increase speed to medium-low and mix until dough is shiny and smooth, about 5 minutes. Turn dough onto lightly floured counter, gently shape into ball, and place in greased bowl. Cover with plastic wrap and place in warm oven until doubled in size, about 30 minutes.

To Shape and Top the Dough
Transfer dough to lightly floured counter, divide in half, and lightly roll each half into ball. Working with 1 dough ball at a time, roll and shape dough into 9 1/2-inch round and press into oiled pan. Cover with plastic wrap and set in warm spot (not in oven) until puffy and slightly risen, about 20 minutes. Meanwhile, heat oven to 400 degrees.

While dough rises, put half of pepperoni in single layer on microwave-safe plate lined with 2 paper towels. Cover with 2 more paper towels and microwave on high for 30 seconds. Discard towels and set pepperoni aside; repeat with new paper towels and remaining pepperoni.

Remove plastic wrap from dough. Ladle 2/3 cup sauce on each round, leaving 1/2-inch border around edges. Sprinkle each with 1 1/2 cups cheese and top with pepperoni. Bake until cheese is melted and pepperoni is browning around edges, about 20 minutes. Remove from oven; let pizzas rest in pans for 1 minute. Using spatula, transfer pizzas to cutting board and cut each into 8 wedges.

Makes two 9-inch pizzas serving 4 to 6.