Merry Christmas!

This Christmas, Grant and I were able to make it back to Ohio for about a week and a half. We both took time off from work and left North Carolina on Wednesday, the 23rd, after Grant was done with work. Since we left late, we only drove half way and stopped in Virginia for the night. We finished driving the next morning and made it home in time to finish up some Christmas shopping, have dinner at Grant's parents house, and go to 10:00pm Christmas Eve church service with my mom and grandma. Here are some photos after we got back that night. Don't you love Wizzo's elf outfit?!

This morning we woke up and celebrated our own little Christmas. We exchanged gifts and then let Wizzo open up one of his gifts. He needed a little help getting the paper started, but he did a good job getting the rest off!

We had lunch with the Saum Family and opened gifts with everyone who could make it to the house. It's always an entertaining time at the Saum house! :) Later, we headed over to my dad's and Sheryl's house to visit with them. My step-sisters and step-brother were there with some of their kids. It's always funny to see if they remember me or not. I'm always amazed at how big they are getting, since I remember them as babies! Anyway, we had some food over there too, and opened up our gifts. Wizzo also went along, but we had to put him in his crate for a bit. Some of the kids were a little nervous around him, but I think he was nervous too! He hasn't been around too many kids. I guess I didn't take any pictures while we were there either. :(

This evening, we headed over to my mom's house and had dinner. Rick and my grandma also came over. Wizzo got his second gift and did a much better job opening this time! He also destroyed the toy in about 2 minutes. Good thing it was free!!

Overall, we had a nice Christmas. We've got plans to meet up with some friends in the next few days and try to fit in as much as we can in such a short amount of time while we're here. We have to head back to North Carolina on Saturday January 2nd. Hope you all have/had a wonderful holiday season! :)

Oh and I almost forgot! Here are some pictures of cut-out cookies I made for the Cookie Drive on base. The first picture is of the cookies that I finished and gave to the Airmen. I didn't actually decorate those in the second picture for the drive because I ran out of time, so I finished them a little later that week. I loved them! And they were yummy!

Classic Banana Bundt Cake

A few weeks ago, we had some bananas that were getting too ripe, so I decided to make something with them. I found the recipe for this cake in my copy of Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorrie Greenspan. This book is awesome...it's FULL of great recipes for baking. Although I baked it a little too long, the cake was delicious! It was moist and very flavorful, yet the bananas weren't overpowering. The lemon icing was a nice touch too!

Classic Banana Bundt Cake

(Source: Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorrie Greenspan)

Ingredients:

3 c. all-purpose flour

2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

2 sticks (8 oz) unsalted butter, at room temperature

2 c. sugar

2 tsp pure vanilla extract

2 large eggs, preferably at room temperature

About 4 very ripe bananas, mashed (you should have 1 1/2 - 1 3/4 cups)

1 c. sour cream or plain yogurt

Directions:

Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Generously butter a 9-10 inch (12 c.) Bundt pan. Don't place the pan on a baking sheet--you want the oven's heat to circulate through the Bundt's inner tube.

Whisk the flour, baking soda, and salt together.

Working with a stand mixer, preferably fitted with a paddle attachment, or with a hand mixer in a large bowl, beat the butter until creamy. Add the sugar and beat at medium speed until pale and fluffy. Beat in the vanilla, then add the eggs one at a time, beating for about 1 minute after each egg goes in. Reduce the mixer speed to low and mix in the bananas. Finally, mix in half the dry ingredients (don't be disturbed when the batter curdles), all the sour cream, and then the rest of the flour mixture. Scrape the batter into the pan, rap the pan on the counter to de-bubble the batter and smooth the top.

Bake for 65 to 75 minutes, or until a think knife inserted deep into the center of the cake comes out clean. Check the cake after about 30 minutes--if it is browning too quickly, cover it loosely with a foil tent. Transfer the cake to a rack and cool for 10 minutes before unmolding onto the rack to cool at room temperature.

If you've got the time, wrap the cooled cake in plastic and allow it to sit on the counter overnight before serving--it's better the next day.

Lemony White Icing

Sift 3/4 cup confectioners' sugar into a bowl and squeeze in enough fresh lemon juice (start with 2 teaspoons and add more by drops) to make an icing thin enough to drizzle down the Bundt's curves. (I just used bottled lemon juice and it tasted fine!)

Sunday Night's Dessert: Apple Crunch

This was so yummy, especially with vanilla ice cream! I found this over at Good Things Catered, another one of my favorite food blogs. I didn't have an 8x8 casserole dish like the recipe said to use, so I just used my oval 2 1/2 qt dish. It still turned out great, but since the dish was longer, there was more space to cover with the topping, making it thin. The topping is the best part, in my opinion, so it would have been nice to have a thicker layer.

This was pretty easy to make...peeling and chopping the apples took me the longest. I also didn't have a pasty blender, so I used our Mix 'N Chop from Pampered Chef and then finished with a fork. Might have taken a little bit longer, but it worked.

(sorry for the flash picture..it was too late for good lighting!)

Apple Crunch

(Source: Good Things Catered)

4 large apples

1/2 c. oats

1/2 c. packed brown sugar

1/4 c. whole wheat flour

4 Tbsp butter, cold

1 tsp cinnamon

1/4 tsp nutmeg

1/4 tsp vanilla

Preheat oven to 375 degrees and spray an 8x8 baking dish with baking spray.

Peel, core, and dice apples into 1/2-inch pieces. Spread apples evenly in baking dish.

In medium bowl, combine oats, brown sugar, flour, cinnamon and nutmeg.

Cut butter into small pieces and add to dry ingredients along with the vanilla. With pastry blender, cut butter into dry ingredients until all butter is about the size of a small pea. Sprinkle this mixture evenly over apples.

Place baking dish in oven and bake for 55-60 minutes or until apples have cooked down and begun to caramelize. Remove from oven and let cool for 10 minutes before serving.

Creme Brulee

I'm finally getting around to posting recipes I've made lately, and here is the one I made for Valentine's Day. I'm not 100% sure how I came across this blog or this recipe, but I'm glad I did. Ever since we first tried creme brûlée at a friend's restaurant back in September, I have wanted to try making it myself.

Crème Brûlée
(Source: Mevrouw Cupcake originally from Dorie Greenspan's book, "Baking: From My Home To Yours")

(Taken from the Mevrouw Cupcake blog):
The most efficient way to caramelize the sugar topping is to use a blowtorch (see page 475 of Baking: From My Home to Yours). If you don’t have a torch, you can chill the custards very, very well, then set them in an ice-cube-filled roasting pan and run them under the broiler. You won’t get as even a coating with the broiler as you would with the torch, but you’ll still get the flavor and the pleasure of a crackly sugar crust over cream custard.

Note: The best baking dishes for crème brûlée are shallow, ideally just an inch (2.5 cm) high, about 4 inches (10 cm) in diameter and holding about ¾ cup of liquid. Porcelain, pottery or glass gratin or baking dishes are perfect, but if you don’t have them, you can use ramekins or even disposable aluminum foil pans, an unglamorous but effective solution.

1 ¼ cups (296ml) heavy cream
½ cup (119ml) whole milk
3 large egg yolks
1 / 3 cup (67g) sugar
2 tsp pure vanilla extract
About 6 tablespoons (75g) sugar or sifted light brown sugar, for topping (I used a combination of both, but the brown sugar tended to burn...several internet sources have said to use sugar in the raw instead.)

Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 200ºF/ 93ºC.
Put the six baking dishes (see Note above) on a baking sheet lined with parchment or a silicone mat. (I didn't have ramekins, so I used 2 larger dishes that were still shallow.)
Bring the cream and milk just to a boil.
In a 1 or 2-quart (approx. 1-2 liters) glass measuring cup or in a medium bowl, whisk the egg yolks, sugar and vanilla together until well blended but not airy.
Still whisking, drizzle in about one quarter of the hot liquid---this will temper, or warm, the yolks so they won’t curdle.
Whisking all the while, slowly pour in the remainder of the cream and milk. Give the bowl a good rap against the counter to de-bubble the custard, then strain it into the baking dishes.
Bake the custards for 50 to 60 minutes (I had to bake them for nearly 90 minutes because my dishes were bigger.), or until the centers are set---tap the sides of the dishes, and the custards should hold firm. Lift the dishes onto a cooling rack and let the custards cool until they reach room temperature.
Cover each custard with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 3 hours, preferably longer. (The custards can be kept covered in the refrigerator for up to 2 days.) For the sugar to be successfully caramelized, the custards need to be thoroughly chilled.

Makes 6 servings.

Serving:
Serve the crème brûlée when the crème is really cold and the brûlée is still warm. You can serve the whole dessert chilled, but the sugar topping won’t have its characteristic crackle. And while I think crème brûlée should be served with nothing more then a spoon, you could offer berries and cookies as accompaniments.

Storing:
The custard for crème brûlée must be made ahead so it has plenty of time to chill, but once you’ve caramelized the sugar on top, your storage time is over if your want the sugar to have crunch. (I actually thought it was better after we had re-refrigerated it...the sugar "melted" and was not as crunchy.)

Now...a little about the torch. We picked up a propane torch so that we could use it for other purposes, as well. Most people just use a small butane torch for the kitchen, but I've also read that propane will work better. Ours might have worked great, had we used different sugar, but like I said, the brown sugar burnt (and tasted burnt...yuck). Overall, good...maybe I'll try it again someday!