Adventures in Thyme

Our adventures in food

Archives for December 2013

I’m Dreaming Of A…

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Dream Bars

Dream Bars

 

Forget about a white Christmas – From our home to yours, a Merry Christmas!

Our gift to you is another look into the old family recipe box – Dream Bars! We have no idea how old this recipe is or what its origin was, but it’s older than either of us. It’s a nice bar cookie with a crust that is almost a brown sugar shortbread.  So yummy, it’s more than worth your time in the kitchen.  Roll up your sleeves, it’s time to start Dream-ing.

Dream Bars

1/2 Cup Butter cut into small pieces
1/2 Cup Brown Sugar
1 Cup Flour

Mix until crumbly (A pastry blender works well or you can pulse the mixture in our food processor)

Pat into a greased and floured 9 x 13 inch baking pan. Bake at 350 degrees F for 10 minutes.

While the above bakes make the topping.

2 Eggs, beaten
1 Cup Brown Sugar
1 Teaspoon Vanilla
2 Tablespoons Flour
1/2 Teaspoon Baking Powder
1 1/2 Cup Coconut Flakes
1 Cup chopped nuts (Pecans work well)

Mix these together in the order given. Gently spread onto the baked crust.

Bake another 20 minutes at 350 degrees F. Let cool before attempting to cut these out of the pan.

Stroopwafel – One cookie to rule them all!

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Stroopwafels

Stroopwafels

What’s not to love about a cinnamon-cookie sandwich with sweet creamy caramel inside?  These delicious treats are a bit time consuming, and yes, there’s that pesky Pizelle iron that you need – but it’s worth it.  Let me say that again – IT’S WORTH IT!  This is “crack” for cookie aficionados.

You see, you take these little delicacies and place them over your hot cup o’joe, or maybe your mug of Earl Grey tea, and remember that caramel I mentioned?  It warms up and gets even more delicious and this becomes your favorite Breakfast food ever!  And of course then there’s Second Breakfast, and who can forget about Elevensies?!  If your family has not absconded with them, you will find you’ve eaten the whole batch yourself and frankly can’t remember how you did it!  They were there, and then they weren’t, all that’s left are the crumbs upon on your shirt…

But what’s the recipe you ask?  Stroopwafel recipes are heavily guarded secrets, passed down generationally.  Do a Google search and find an ingredient list that looks appealing (I’d personally steer clear of the ones that include Yeast, but that’s me), and you’ll know when the recipe is successful – you’ll start hearing the raspy moans from friends and family “I want’s it…my precious…”

 

The Fudge Factor

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Chocolate Fudge

Chocolate Fudge

 

Familiar with the old saying, “Families are like fudge, a little sweet with a few nuts”?  This is also true about our fudge (and our family BTW, okay TMI, back to the fudge…).

This is an old family recipe, going back at least 50 years, and each Christmas the faded index card comes out and fudge is made, and handed out to friends and family.

So our gift to you, the super secret family recipe.  Happy Holidays!

2 Cups Sugar
12-14 Large Marshmallows
2/3 cup evaporated milk (1 small can, not sweetened condensed milk)
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips (you can substitute butter scotch, mint chocolate, etc., it takes longer to set up though)
1 cup chopped pecans (you can substitute walnuts)
1/4 pound butter (1 stick)
1 teaspoon Vanilla

Combine sugar, marshmallows and canned milk in a large cast iron or stainless steel skillet.  (Do not use non-stick, you will scratch it.)  Bring mixture to a boil over medium to medium high heat, stirring constantly with a wire spring whisk.  (The spring whisk will stir to the bottom of the pan and keep the mixture from sticking and burning.)_  Boil for 2 minutes.

Remove from heat and pour over the chocolate chips, nuts and butter.  Add the vanilla.  Beat by hand with a wooden spoon until it is of a spreading consistency (it will be relatively cool by that point, butter scotch and some other flavors won’t get as think and may need to be refrigerated to set up completely.)  DO NOT use an electric mixer, you will get a very good chocolate sauce but it will never set up.

Pour the fudge into a greased 8×8 or 9×9 inch square pan.  Let set over night.  Cut into 3/4 to 1 inch squares and remove from pan.

Pumpkin Goat-Cheesecake

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Pumpkin Cheesecake

Pumpkin Cheesecake

For those willing to broaden their culinary horizon, we present to you a cheesecake made from goat cheese.    Indeed, some turn up their noses at the thought of goat cheese, but that earthy tang so often found in goat milk products is not so pronounced when blended into this delicious cheesecake.  Oh, and we have gingersnaps, did we mention that?

Here is the recipe we served at Thanksgiving.

Crust

10 oz. gingersnap cookies (I like the ones from World Market)
2-4 T softened butter
2 or 3 T sugar for pan

Filling

3/4 cup sugar
12 ounces mild, soft, white goat cheese (10 oz logs from Costco, 4 oz from the grocery store.)
1 t Vanilla extract
1/2 T cinnamon
1/2 T nutmeg
1/2 t ginger
3 tablespoons all purpose flour
1 1/2 cups pumpkin
4 egg yolks
6 egg whites

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F.

Butter a 9-10 inch spingform pan and dust with sugar (like you normally would flour a pan for baking).

Process the gingersnaps in a food processor until they are a course powder.  Add in the butter and process until well blended.  Press the mixture into the bottom of your springform pan and bake for 10 to 15 minutes.  Remove from oven and let cool while you finish your filling.

Combine the sugar, cheese, vanilla, flour, pumpkin, spices and egg yolks in a large mixing bowl and blend together until smooth.  Set aside.

In a clean mixing bowl, beat egg whites until they form soft peaks.  Be sure the bowl and beater are clean and dry or the eggs won’t beat properly.

Gently fold 1/4 to 1/3 of the beaten egg whites into your filling mixture, by hand with a rubber spatula.  Add another 1/4 to 1/3 and fold in, then fold in the remaining egg whites.  This should make a relatively light batter.  Be sure to fold in the egg whites, do not beat or mix.

Pour your filling into your springform pan and place on the center rack of your oven.  Bake for approximately an hour or until the batter is mostly set.  It will still be a little jiggly in the middle.  Remove from the oven and gently run a butter knife around the edge of the cheesecake to loosen it from the edge of the pan.

Cool and serve with whipped cream.

Try it out and let us know how you did, or better yet, if you were able to trick your family into trying something new.