Yes, I have been a little on the MIA or in my case MIB(logging) side of life. My parents visit was good but hectic and there was little time for much of anything. I didn’t even get one ounce of baking done, which I HAD planned on doing, while they were here. Time flew by quickly and before I knew it, Monday afternoon was here and my parents had left.
While growing up, my parents would pick a sport(I use that term loosely) each year that we would play together every Saturday, you know to keep us active and to do something together as a family. One year it was bowling. Every Saturday morning we would head out to the local lanes, slide our feet into used shoes(yuck) and attempt to not look stupid. My dad did great. My mom and I was a whole other story. See my dad bowled all his life. I bowled like 4 times up to that point. And my mom, well, my mom quit bowling when she was a teenager. Why you ask? Because my mother had a slightly traumatic experience bowling…though I am quite sure the man she hit with the bowling ball thought it was more traumatic for him. One night at the lanes as my mother strolled up to take her turn, she lifted her ball, went to throw it, and throw it she did. Backwards. See when she was throwing and the ball was behind her, it slipped out of her fingers and struck a man behind her. Oops.
So why bring this up? See, while my parents were here, we introduced them to the world of Nintendo Wii. Wii Bowling to be exact. Quite amusing to watch them try to figure out how to move their body and push the right buttons. “Well crap” became my mother’s anthem while she played those first few games. But as time passed, they both got the hang of it. My father was more than impressed with the fact that all the tendencies and problems he had at real bowling were the exact same on Wii bowling. And they are, though I must admit, I am a far better fake bowler than a real one.
My mother loved it so much that we played it through out the weekend. And then it happened. My mother swung back and hit the virtual people behind her at the bowling alley. The little animated people jumped up and waved their arms in protest. And the family, we laughed and laughed until we cried. And my mother wonders why we INSISTED every time it was her time to bowl that she wear the safety strap. I am quite certain if it wasn’t on her she would have struck the dog who was in the chair behind her.
I was smart enough to realize that I would most likely not have time while my family was here to bake, and so I made the Tuesdays with Dorie baked good last Tuesday(ironic, eh?). This was a very unusual recipe that I fell in love with. Not really a pie. Not really cake. Not really a cookie. A combo really of all of them. The filling is pie like. It bakes similar to a cake when it is finished but tastes more like cookie dough. All very odd. All very good.
I made mini ones using a 4 ½ inch diameter spring form pan. The baking time was cut down to 40 minutes, which was needed to bake all the way through but really browned the top. Next time I will tent the crust with tin foil the last 15 minutes of baking.
A special thanks to Natalie of Burned Bits for picking this recipe. What a fun find that I passed up before because I assumed it was just an apple pie. To see what others did, visit the Tuesdays with Dorie website.

Russian Grandmothers’ Apple Pie-Cake
 
For The Dough
2 sticks (8 ounces) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 cup sugar
2 large eggs
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
Juice of 1 lemon
3 1/4 – 3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
 
For The Apples
10 medium apples, all one kind or a mix (I used Pacific Rose and Pink Lady)
Squirt of fresh lemon juice
1 cup moist, plump raisins (I used golden)
1/4 cup sugar
1 1/4 teaspoons ground cinnamon
 
Sugar, preferably decorating (coarse) sugar, for dusting
 
To Make The Dough: Working with a stand mixer, preferably fitted with a paddle attachment, or with a hand mixer in a large bowl, beat the butter and sugar together on medium speed until smooth, about 2 minutes.  Add the eggs and continue to beat until the mixture is light and fluffy, about 3 minutes more.  Reduce the mixer speed to low, add the baking powder and salt and mix just to combine.  Add the lemon juice – the dough will probably curdle, but don’t worry about it.  Still working on low speed, slowly but steadily add 3 1/4 cups of the flour, mixing to incorporate it and scraping down the bowl as needed.  The dough is meant to be soft, but if you think it looks more like a batter than a dough at this point, add the extra 1/4 cup flour.  (The dough usually needs the extra flour.)  When properly combined, the dough should almost clean the sides of the bowl.
 
Turn the dough out onto a work surface, gather it into a ball and divide it in half.  Shape each half into a rectangle.  Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 2 hours, or for up to 3 days.  (The dough can be wrapped airtight and frozen for up to 2 months; defrost overnight in the refrigerator.)
 
To Make The Apples:  Peel and core the apples and cut into slices about 1/4 inch thick; cut the slices in half crosswise if you want.  Toss the slices in a bowl with a little lemon juice – even with the juice, the apples may turn brown, but that’s fine – and add the raisins.  Mix the sugar and cinnamon together, sprinkle over the apples and stir to coat evenly.  Taste an apple and add more sugar, cinnamon, and/or lemon juice if you like.
 
Getting Ready to Bake: Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.  Generously butter a 9×12-inch baking pan (Pyrex is good) and place it on a baking sheet lined with parchment or a silicone mat.
 
Remove the dough from the fridge.  If it is too hard to roll and it cracks, either let it sit at room temperature for about 15 minutes or give it a few bashes with your rolling pin to get it moving.  Once it’s a little more malleable, you’ve got a few choices.  You can roll it on a well-floured work surface or roll it between sheets of plastic wrap or wax paper.  You can even press or roll out pieces of the dough and patch them together in the pan – because of the baking powder in the dough, it will puff and self-heal under the oven’s heat.  Roll the dough out until it is just a little larger all around than your pan and about 1/4 inch thick – you don’t want the dough to be too thin, because you really want to taste it.  Transfer the dough to the pan.  If the dough comes up the sides of the pan, that’s fine; if it doesn’t that’s fine too.
 
Give the apples another toss in the bowl, then turn them into the pan and, using your hands, spread them evenly across the bottom.
 
Roll out the second piece of dough and position it over the apples.  Cut the dough so you’ve got a 1/4 to 1/2 inch overhang and tuck the excess into the sides of the pan, as though you were making a bed.  (If you don’t have that much overhang, just press what you’ve got against the sides of the pan.)
 
Brush the top of the dough lightly with water and sprinkle sugar over the dough.  Using a small sharp knife, cut 6 to 8 evenly spaced slits in the dough.
 
Bake for 65 to 80 minutes, or until the dough is a nice golden brown and the juices from the apples are bubbling up through the slits.  Transfer the baking pan to a cooling rack and cool to just warm or to room temperature.  You’ll be tempted to taste it sooner, but I think the dough needs a little time to rest.

Source: Adapted from Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan

Well, I said last week that I would be embarrassing my mother, and well, I’ll be true to my word. I would hate to be a liar after all….my mom didn’t raise me to be one.
My parents come this week, today if you want to be more exact. And though I am thrilled that they are coming there is part of me that is always in a panic. You see, my mom, is well…kind of a cleaning Nazi. Growing up, I can not remember ONE single time when our home was messy. My mother was a cleaning fool. And we had to be too.
When we were done playing with a toy, we had to return it to it’s proper place before getting out a new toy(this is not unreasonable). Oh and did I mention that each toy had it’s own tape outline in the shape of that toy and you had to put it back in the outline or else you were beat(HA! Just kidding about the beating part…wanted to give my mom a little heart palpitation ). Yes, just like chalk outlines you find on the crime scene of a murder, our toys had their exact place to be. Organize a bit much?
Almost daily my mother would clean the mini blinds with Q-tips as to make sure to remove the dust from each and every blind.
I never did laundry until I went to college. It’s not like I didn’t try. But when I would do my laundry, my mother would come along and re-do it and then fold it the way she likes to fold it. After a chat with my dad, we came to the conclusion to just let her do the laundry as it was a waste of resources for me to do it and then for her to come along and “fix it”. In my mother’s defense, I suck at laundry to this day.
About every 3 months I would come home from school and find my room completely rearranged. I used to love it and think it was so neat. My mom would lie to me and say that it was to keep my room fresh and interesting to me. Only years later to learn it was because she did not want indentations in the carpet from the furniture.
My mother still keeps pretty much the cleanest home I know. And amazingly she has calmed down a ton. When she got cancer I think the world came into a little more perspective for her and she realized that a little dust really isn’t that bad…especially on mini blinds.
I on the other hand being raised in that environment rebelled(me a rebel…shush you say!) just a tad. Now, I don’t live in a pig sty by any means but my spices are not alphabetized and the white socks are mixed in with the color socks. My motto for organization is simply, “organized people are just too lazy to get up and look for things!” So though my mother would not ever really say anything, I can always tell by her little looks and eyebrow raises when something is not quite up to par.
This being my first home ever, I am more nervous than ever. I have been a cleaning fool myself that last couple of days. I know it will be good enough, but still I stress. But they will come and we will eat, and chat and love and do all that families do and it will be a great time. And when they leave, I will as usual, cry. I am a crying fool.
So if you are reading this, give a shout out to my mom. She still thinks this whole “Internet food stuff” is a little weird(keep in mind she doesn’t even email) so show her a little love and say “hi”.

Since our Daring Baker Challenge was a bit more daunting than what the average food blogger is up for, I thought I would make a bread that was darn close to fool proof. The rise does take a little time but the actual preparation for this bread is nothing…I mean look how long my instructions are in comparison to the French bread recipe. It’s a sticky dough, so don’t think you did anything wrong when you have a little bit of the dough left on your hand.
It’s cottage cheese and dill but you could use whatever herb you wanted to really. So if you were inspired to bake bread by the DB Challenge but have no desire to spend that much time baking bread, this is the bread for you!

Cottage Cheese and Dill Bread

2 TBSP active dry yeast
½ cup warm water(110F)
1 cup cottage cheese(can be full-fat or reduced), at room temperature
2 TBSP granulated sugar
1 heaping TBSP fresh onion, minced
1 ½  TBSP fresh dill, minced
1 TBSP salt
¼ tsp baking soda
1 whole egg
1 egg yolk
2 tsp olive oil
5-6 ½ cups Better for Bread Flour(or all-purpose)

Dissolve yeast in the warm water at the bottom of the mixing bowl. Let sit for about 5 minutes until it becomes creamy in color.
Add all the ingredients except the flour and mix well.
Attach the dough hook to the mixer. Add flour 1 cup at a time until you have a soft dough…it’s pretty sticky too. Knead bread for 5 minutes. If you are doing it by hand, knead for about 8 minutes.
Place dough in a lightly oiled bowl, cover with plastic wrap and place in a warm place. Let rise until dough has doubled, about 1 ½ hours.
When dough has doubled, punch it down and shape into a log shape the size of your loaf pan. Place into a greased 9-inch loaf pan.
Cover loaf with plastic wrap and again place in a warm place. Let rise again for about an hour.
When loaf has risen, preheat oven to 350F.
Bake loaf for 30 minutes, then cover with aluminum foil to prevent over browning and bake another 15-20 minutes longer. Let cool for 5 minutes and then remove from pan and continue to cool on a rack.

I will admit that next to pies, cookies are my least favorite thing to bake. They didn’t used to be until I married mister no variety. In the beginning, I would make him all types of different cookies and would he appreciate it?…no. He would simply ask why didn’t I make chocolate chip cookies. Grrr. And so my cookie making for the most part has been dwindled down to three types: chocolate chip, peanut butter and sugar. Oh sure if I am going somewhere I will make a different variety, but sadly if I am just making for him, that is what I bake.
So when I was presented with the opportunity to review 101 Easy Peasy Cookie Recipes, I thought, yes, I am going to put the variety back into my husbands unexciting cookie life. Not wanting to send his body into total shock, I eased into one that I thought he would enjoy, Colossal Double Chocolate White Chip Cookies. And enjoy he did. The only thing I changed from the recipe was the nuts. It asked for walnuts. I measured out walnut. I sat them by the bowl. They never made it to the bowl. I noticed this after the cookies were baked.
There is definitely variety of cookies in this book. Next on my list are the Pineapple Bars with Caramel Drizzle. Oh the man wont eat them, but I will! For him I will be nice and make the Peanutty Milk Chocolate Bars. Others on the list to make include: Key West Cookies(you know my love of key lime), Toffee Drop Cookies, Chocolate Marshmallow Melts and Sweet Graham Scotchies.
If you are a novice baker this book is great for you because the recipes are, as the name implies, easy peasy. But if you are an experienced baker, don’t be turned away, as the shear variety of the cookies is the reason to add this book to your cookbook collection. All the ingredients are readily available at pretty much every grocery store out there, no looking for odd ingredients. Clear and quick instructions. The only thing I would have liked is photos. I always like to see what the end product is looking like.
Oh and before you ask, because I know you will, that cup is 13 years old, so I don’t know where you can get it.

Colossal Double Chocolate White Chip Cookies

4 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 ½ cups unsalted butter, softened
1 ¼ cups granulated sugar
1 ¼ cups packed brown sugar
2 eggs
1 TBSP vanilla extract
1 cup milk chocolate chips
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
½ cup white chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350F.
In a medium bowl, stir together flour, baking powder, and baking soda.
In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugars. Beat in eggs, one at a time, followed by the vanilla extract.
Gradually stir in flour mixture,
Stir in milk, semi-sweet and white chocolate chips.
Drop by level ¼ cupfuls, about 2 inches apart, onto ungreased cookie sheets. Bake for 12 to 14 minutes or until golden brown. Allow cookies to cool for 2 minutes on cookie sheet and then transfer to a wire rack.

Adapted From: 101 Easy Peasy Cookie Recipes by Lucinda Wallace and Heather Wallace

Erin of Dinner and Dessert picked this weeks ode to Dorie and I could be happier since I didn’t have to make it. This weeks Tuesday’s With Dorie choice was Snickery Squares. These are good, I know, for I made them back in March 2007. If you would like to see mine go HERE. If you would like to see a list of all the bakers who participate in Tuesday’s With Dorie, go here.