Chocolate Pecan Bourbon Pie

Last Thursday I got a craving for Kentucky Derby/Chocolate Pecan Bourbon Pie, which is strange because I’m not particular fond of pecans or bourbon.  Regardless, I want to practice my pie dough rolling and crimping, so I gave in, and:

 

1. 

3 C’s.

Week 46. Cherry Chocolate Cookies.

Alton Brown’s The Chewy recipe is my favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe, and also my favorite cookie recipe to mess with. I think it’s because it is such a well formulated recipe it lends itself well to substitutions and additions.  Every fall I get the urge to fall-ify all my recipes, and this year is no different.  This year I went in a cherry-cinnamon direction, it was a good direction to take.

I made the recipe mostly as directed, but made the following changes:

+ 1 tsp cinnamon (I’ll add another 1/2 tsp next time)
+ 3/4 c old fashioned oats
+ 6 oz of dried, tart cherries
– 4 oz of chocolate chips (normally I use dark chocolate, but I went with semi-sweet this time, and I think I prefer semi-sweet with the cherries)

I didn’t decrease the flour, but I should have. Probably  by 1/4 – 1/2 a cup.  I’m also considering adding 1-2 tsp orange zest the next time I make these.  Also of note: these freeze especially well.  I froze the batch and took them out a couple weeks later while I friend was in town – she declared them delicious and took the leftovers to her coworkers at the end of her trip.

Banana Chip

Week 13. 

Banana Chip Cookies. 

Flour, Sugar and 10W40

Week 8.

There is good reason that this blog is called MotoBaker. For me, those two activities can turn around the worst of days.

Work this week was trying. Long days of hurdle after hurdle, seeming to never make progress.  By mid-week, I had turned to my two favorite stress relieving activities: motorcycles and baking.

After work on Wednesday, I jumped on the bike and went for a ride, aimless except keeping my course somewhat directed towards the stores I needed to stop at to shop for ingredients. An hour or so later, I returned home much more relaxed and with a bag full of groceries.

I was in the mood for something cake-like but quicker, and not as involved. I stumbled across a crumb cake recipe that had three of my favorite flavors (banana, espresso, cinnamon) and is based on a Baked recipe (Banana Espresso Muffins which I’ve made and loved), but it was a crumb cake. I hate crumb cake. Hate it. I think it’s a waste of calories, ingredients and time. HOWEVER.  The flavor combination and Baked inspiration swayed me to try it. Despite it’s crumb/coffee cake nature, I was hoping these attributes would win me over.

I am officially a crumb cake convert.

Motorcycling, baking, both clear my head and take away any and all frustrations.  It’s a good day when I can end it with both of those things.

Banana Espresso Chocolate Chip Crumb Cake. — This isn’t the most photogenic cake, but it is super delicious.

L’orange

Week 6.

Dark Chocolate & Orange Scones.

Recipe courtesy of my friend Dan.

Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

Week 2.

Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies.

 

 

pumpkin chocolate chip cookies

As much as I dread the end of summer, I love fall.  I love everything about fall: the colors, smells, flavors and holidays (Halloween!).  Somewhere around the end of September and beginning of October, the urge To Bake gets unconquerable and I start buying pumpkin in bulk.

I’ve made these cookies twice in the last week, both times with great success.  These are more cake-like than cookie-like and come together in a snap.  They go great with coffee or tea (or beer), I’ve even served them alongside this ice cream.  I made this as the recipe is written the first time; the second time I made a couple of changes.

Recipe Notes:

The second time I made these I made two notable alterations.  Instead of chocolate chips I chopped up a couple of dark-chocolate bars, I’m partial to dark chocolate and liked this better than the semisweet chips.  I also like that you get different sizes of chocolate interspersed throughout the cookie.  The other difference was using generic canned pumpkin in place of Libby’s (which is what I used the first time).  I don’t have a predisposition to using Libby’s, but the second time the cookies didn’t have as-strong a pumpkin flavor, and weren’t quite as moist.  The next time I make them, I think I’ll stick with Libby’s.

Recipe is originally from All Recipes. The recipe includes nuts, which I didn’t use either time.