(me singing badly-cover ears)
“Every blog, has it ups and downs,
Sometimes ups, out number the downs,
but not so much today.”

I had envisoined a great back to school post about peanut butter and jelly. I ran across a picture of ice cream sandwiches where they used a peanut butter cookie and made grape jelly ice cream. I LOVEDthat idea and set off to duplicate it. I used my peanut butter cookie recipe that is tried and true. No problems there. Then I made the ice cream. I let it set up for 5 hours and checked on it. It was still very soft and so I let it sit over night. It was harder and I scooped some out and put it between two cookies and before I could even stick it back in the freezer…melted. AHHHH. So I got mad and stuck it at the back of the freezer and turned the freezer up a notch. Checked back 8 hours later. Tried the process again with the same melty results. This was WAR. So I turned the freezer up as cold as it would go and left it for yet another night to set. I came out this morning and I’m sure you all know that I lost both the battle and the war. I said screw it and decided to take a picture anyway. I am not posting recipe since it did not work out. If I had not been in such a defeated mood I would have been clear in mind to think. If I was thinking calmly I would have crushed my peanut butter cookies up and added some butter to bake a peanut butter cookie crust and then poured the grape jelly ice cream into it to make a pie. But alas, I was too annoyed and had already thrown out the ice cream. cursing loudly as I ran it down the garbage disposal.

So why would I post my failure. Because I want my friends that read this(my non-food blogger friends) to realize that not everything works out with food. So if you “screw up” it probably wasn’t your fault. Keep trying, keep cooking.

So most of my readers know how I pretty much hate summer and most(not all) things associated with it. I was very upset today as it was suppose to be cooling down and low and behold between the time I went to bed and woke up they had come up with a new forecast…and it is hot. So when I was invited to participate in La Festa al Fresco even though I am not a fan of Summer I had to do it since it was sponsored by both the Cream Puff and La Mia Cucina and I love their blogs so very much. So I made a list of the foods of Summer I am not allergic to….it fit on a Post-It note. I had seen some raspberries at my favorite market and they looked quite good so I figured I would make something with that.

I am a fan of skillet jam when fruit is fresh and available, but admittedly had only made the blackberry kind that comes from a recipe in Gormet. Mine is adapted from that just using raspberries.

But what to go with my skillet jam? Since I am so longing for the crisp days of Fall I paired the jam with some cinnamon-sugar donuts just like my mom used to make when we kids would come home from our first day of school. I prefer donut holes to actual donuts because I feel less guilty eating them. Even though 3 donut holes makes one donut(just my guess, nothing scientific) some how eating 12 of them seems justified. So what better to bring to our cyber-party than donuts…I’ve never met a soul that didn’t love donuts….especially fresh ones with fresh raspberry jam.

Raspberry Skillet Jam

1 lb raspberries
3/4 cup sugar
2 tablespoons powdered fruit pectin
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice

Mash raspberries with a potato masher or a fork in a large bowl.
Stir together berries, sugar, pectin, and lemon juice in a 12-inch nonstick skillet, then boil, stirring occasionally, until slightly thickened, about 7 minutes. Transfer jam to a large shallow bowl and chill, its surface covered with wax paper, until softly set, at least 30 minutes. (Jam will set further if chilled longer.)

Makes about 1 1/2 cups

Plain Cake Doughnuts
2 cups flour
1/2 cup sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon nutmeg
2 tablespoons melted butter
1/2 cup milk
1 egg, beaten
1 quart oil for frying
optional – powdered sugar or cinnamon sugar mixture

For draining doughnuts, prepare a place with either newspapers or a brown paper bag. Top those with paper towels. Either flour clean kitchen counter or bread board for kneading doughnuts. Prepare a shallow bowl or plate with an inch of flour.
Heat oil in deep fryer to 375 degrees F.
Sift flour, sugar, salt, baking powder, cinnamon and nutmeg. Mix in butter until crumbly. Stir in milk and egg. With floured hands, lightly knead the smooth dough. Turn onto area prepared with flour. Pat dough into 1/4 inch thickness. Dip either doughnut cutter or two biscuit cutters (one 1-inch and one 3 or 4-inch) in flour. Use to cut-out doughnuts. Carefully drop doughnuts into hot oil, only a few at a time. Fry, turning once, for about 3 minutes or until golden brown. Drain on prepared paper towels. Sprinkle with powdered sugar or cinnamon-sugar mixture.

So in keeping with both the bite size food and caramel theme, I present to you, Frozen Banana Mousse On Top of Brownie Torte with Duo Sauces. This was basically a way to use up brownies. I originally was just going to pipe the mousse but it never really set up how I wanted it to, so that gave me the idea to freeze it, which turned out better than I could have hoped. I chose to put the chocolate sauce between the brownie and the mousse to sort of work as a glue in a way and to better seperate the flavors. This reminded me of a grown up version of a frozen chocolate banana but only much better. Banana and chocolate are a classic combination and this combonation serves as quite an adventure in texture as well. The moist chewy brownie, warm from the chocolate sauce…meets the cold and creamy texture of the frozen mousse is quite the treat for your taste buds. I hope this recipe inspires you to look at your plain old brownie and see what you can do to spruce it up.

Ghirardelli Brownies
Yield: 16 Servings

Ingredients:

2 Eggs
2/3 cup Unsifted all-purpose flour
3/4 cup Sugar
1 tsp Vanilla
1/4 tsp Baking powder
1/2 cup Unsalted Butter, melted
1/4 tsp Salt
3/4 cup Ghiradelli ground chocolate
1/2 cup Ghiradelli semi-sweet chocolate chips

Instructions:

Heat oven to 350F degrees. Using a spoon stir eggs with sugar and vanilla; add butter. Sift ground chocolate with flour baking powder, and salt. Stir into egg mixture; add chocolate chips. Spread into greased 8- or 9-inch square pan. Bake at 350F for 20 to 30 minutes. For extra chewy brownies use 8-inch pan and less baking time. For cake- like brownies use 9-inch pan and longer baking. Cut into squares.
 

Banana Mousse

 Ingredients:
1 large ripe banana
1 tablespoon sugar
1 cup heavy cream, whipped to stiff peaks
Directions:

In food processor combine banana and sugar and puree. Scrape puree into a bowl and gently fold in whipped cream. Pour mousse into biscuit cutter, size of your choice and freeze for at least 4 hours. Depending on how many biscuit cutters you have, this may take longer than four hours.

Chocolate Sauce

1 cup Whipping cream
2 tablespoons Sugar
4 ounces Bittersweet chocolate, chopped
1 tablespoon Unsalted butter

Combine the cream and sugar in a small saucepan and heat to a boil. Pour the hot mixture over the chocolate and butter in a medium bowl. Stir until completely melted and smooth.

Strain through a fine wire mesh strainer into a serving bowl. Serve warm.

Caramel Sauce

See Chocolate Cakes with Caramel Sauce and Walnuts for recipe.

To assemble: Using a biscuit cutter(the same size you used for the mousse), cut out the  brownie. Place brownie on a serving plate. Then take the chocolate sauce and drizzle over brownie. Next place the frozen mousse and top with a slice of banana. Drizzle the caramel sauce over that and serve immediately.

It must be the weather slowly changing into the best season of them all that has made me crave caramel for the past week. So I had made a good old fashion Philly Cheesecake the other day and decided that I wanted to have a little fun with it. Keeping in the spirit of doing bite size things(may be my theme for awhile…who knows) I decided to do something with the left over cheesecake. I didn’t want the graham cracker crust so I whacked it off and decided that I would enjoy a cookie bottom much better to go with the caramel….after all this week, it is all about the caramel. It originally had a third layer, a frozen banana mousse and it just wasn’t working for me(already too tall), I’m considering doing something else with that later on this week. The shortbread cookie was the way to go. It’s buttery flakiness made a nice contrast to the creamy cheesecake. I think that caramel will make one last apperance this week before it goes on a little hiatus. For now, however, I will enjoy all it has to offer. 

Shortbread Cookies

INGREDIENTS:
8 ounces butter (2 sticks), room temperature
1/2 cup confectioners’ sugar
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
PREPARATION:
Combine all ingredients; use hands to knead until ingredients are blended. Press into ungreased pans (or chill and roll out to about 1/2-inch on a floured board and cut into shapes). Bake at 325° for about 20 minutes, or until lightly browned.
Set aside.
 

Ingredients
1-1/2 cups HONEY MAID Graham Cracker Crumbs

3 Tbsp. sugar

1/3 cup butter or margarine, melted

4 pkg. (8 oz. each) PHILADELPHIA Cream Cheese, softened

1 cup sugar

1 tsp. vanilla

4 eggs

Preparation
MIX crumbs, 3 Tbsp. sugar and butter; press firmly onto bottom of 9-inch springform pan.

BEAT cream cheese, 1 cup sugar and vanilla with electric mixer on medium speed until well blended. Add eggs, 1 at a time, mixing on low speed after each addition just until blended. Pour over crust.

BAKE at 325°F for 55 minutes or until center is almost set if using a silver springform pan. (Or, bake at 300°F if using a dark nonstick springform pan.) Loosen cake from side of pan; cool before removing side of pan. Refrigerate 4 hours or overnight. Store leftover cheesecake in refrigerator.

Caramel Sauce
I used the caramel sauce from the chocolate cake and with caramel sauce.

To Assemble: Use a biscuit cutter to cut out the shortbread. Set on plate. Take the cheesecake and cut off the graham craker crust. Then use the same biscuit cutter to cut out the cheesecake. Place the cheesecake on top of the shortbread. Thinly slice a banana and place however many slices you would like on top(I chose 3). Drizzle the caramel sauce over the entire thing and enjoy.