Goodbye Halloween and a Pie Recipe
Good Morning.
I’m feeling the usual post-holiday let-down, so excuse me if I’m not so chipper. Putting away decorations is kind of depressing. Unlike Christmas decorations, which you can clean up leisurely, Halloween parapanalia must get boxed up quickly. The one thing that remains is this.
Notice the popcorn? That was given to use by our across-the-street neighbor, Donnie. I think he popped it over the stove in canola oil. I love the fact that no matter how many times people are told to hand out storebought candy, money, and/or toys, some people still put homemade goodies in kids bags. Maybe next year I’ll put cookies in a little zipper bag and give them out. I’ll include a copy of my driver’s license for good measure.
Eh, nah.
Anyway.
Over the next few weeks, I’ll be incorporating candy into my baking. Not the Dots and Nerds (premium loot these days) but rather the Butterfingers, Reese’s and Snickers.
One recipe that comes to mind is Chocolate Butterfinger Pie which I concocted last year. The ingredients are rather unusual, but the pie was a hit around here.
Another candy-filled baked goodie from last year was this Butterfinger Cookie. Note how brown my cookie is? The cookie tasted good, but my oven was running hot and things were browning too quickly. If you are having issues with browning, you might want to get your oven’s thermostat calibrated or set up a separate thermometer in the oven to see what the true temp is.
For the record, Fuzzy managed to get six pounds of candy this year. That’s a 50% increase over last year!
did/does she have a fave candy item amongst the loot?
(is that a DARK-choc twix? am on the hunt for those)
i appreciate the butterfinger cookie recipe. i made the “classic” choc chip cookie from king arthur’s cookie companion and the recipe made me testy. it’s the 2nd recipe from that book whose instrux seemed off the mark. i’m not as enchanted w/ that book as i hoped to be
Todd weighs the candy every year. I guess we have a quota to fill every year, based on last year’s haul.
T, Fuzz seems to like Dots the best. I wonder at what age kids get tired of the sugar candy and start to want chocolate. Also, the only Twix I saw was a milk chocolate. I’ll look through the bag again, but the Twix I’m seeing the photo is in a gold wrapper.
I am really surprised that you aren’t happy with the KA Cookie Companion. Has anyone else had any failures from this one? So far, I’ve had good luck with it. I’m going to go back and look at the “classic” ccc recipe and see if I can guess what instructions you think are off the mark.
oh it’s pretty minor – but it screwed up my preparation!
the other recipe i have an issue with is their glaze (p. 458); i’ve used this very-basic formula previously but in other (BETTER) recipes, they recommend heating it; otherwise it doesn’t set as well. but i forgot this and made the glaze without heating, and it kept smearing off the cookie
Anna,
Have you got the KA Whole Grain Baking Book? I got it last week and the one thing I’ve made from it so far, Coconut Scones, turned out great. I love the fact that they are “healthy”, well at least healthier than if they had been made with white flour, yet my whole family loved them and were fighting over the last one. I also substituted some Splenda for some of the sugar and they didn’t realize. This way I can do Weight Watchers and still eat my home baking once in a while. I can’t wait to try some more of the recipes. I am on a whole grain kick at the moment. I bought oat flour, spelt flour and a few other similar things at the store the other day so that whenever I find a recipe I want to try I’ll have the ingredients.
I’m curious about people’s experiences with the KA whole-wheat book too. The Washington Post’s reviewer (a former pastry chef and high school classmate of mine) had very mixed results with it.
T, I am stumped. I looked at the Classic Crunchy Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe, but couldn’t guess what might have led you down the wrong path.
Jackie, I don’t have the whole grain book.
Is the Classic Crunchy one the one with vingegar? I’ve attempted this twice and they have spread all over the place. Tasted good but very, very unattractive. I even tried chilling the dough to no avail.
ha! thank you jen! for also having a problem with that recipe! altho that wasn’t my problem. but the only reason mine didn’t spread, i suspect, becuz i ignored their instrux of “dropping a teaspoonful” and instead used one of those small ice cream scoops which made them stand up a little more.
ok this is gonna take forever and it’s insanely trivial but: in the assembly, they say to cream butter blah, then add eggs. then they say “beat in vanilla, salt, baking powder, and baking soda”. why add that dry stuff w/ the vanilla? i always premix the dry stuff and toss on the flour.
but this dumb recipe has you add it with the VANILLA. which i didn’t wanna do cuz, since i pre-mix, and since the amounts are so small, it would’ve meant scraping vanilla-salt goo out of a bowl.
so i added the vanilla… and forgot the rising ingreds. i continued on, adding flour & choc chips. got the whole thing done, stuck it in the fridge, and 2 hrs later spotted the salt-baking-powder-soda mix still in a measuring cup on the counter. blending that tiny portion into a pre-made chilled dough was GRRRR.
and in the end, i don’t see any benefit to mixing those rising ingredients w/ the vanilla. why not just “sift together dry” AS USUAL? jeez!
Hmmmmm. I wish I knew KA’s reason for not pre-mixing their leaveners and dry ingredients all the time. They do the same thing in their “Elegant White Cake” recipe….a very good cake, I might add. In this one, you cream the leaveners in with the fat and sugar.
KA Flour’s Elegant White Cake
8 tablespoons butter, softened
1/2 cup (3-1/4 oz.) vegetable shortening
1 tablespoon baking powder
1-3/4 cups (12-1/4 ounces) superfine or granulated sugar
3/4 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 teaspoon almond extract
– Cream together until light. 5 min. or more.
5 large egg whites (6 to 7 oz.)
– Add egg whites one at a time and beat well after each addition.
2-3/4 cups (11 oz.) cake flour
1 cup (8 oz.) milk
– Stir in flour and milk, alternating between the two, starting and ending with the flour. (i.e. 1/3 flour, 1/2 milk, 1/3 flour, 1/2 milk, 1/3 flour)
– Pour into pans (2 9-in. round or one 9×13-in) and bake at 350. 25-35 minutes or until done.
Recipe from “The King Arthur Flour Baker’s Companion”