Almond=Heaven

Hello!
I have been very very busy lately! I have been baking, I just haven't had much time to blog about it! Currently i work two jobs, go to school, and have marching band on Saturdays. So that leaves about no time for baking. I have been using a lot of my quick and easy fall back recipes. One of my personal favorites are almond bars.

A while back I moved into a dutch community. Before living I had never eaten anything with almond in it. My first almond patty changed my life. It opened my up to a whole new flavor. Almond bars, almond patties, and almond cake have all made my favorite food list.

One super easy and extremely delicious recipe is almond bars. I love this recipe for many different reason. First like I said, it is super easy. Second, the taste is beyond this world. And third, the texture is the best. So with out further ado here is the best almond bar recipe!

Almond Bars
From Allrecipes.com
Ingredients
4 eggs
2 cups of sugar
1 cup butter (no subsitutes), melted
2 cups flour
2 1/2 teaspoons almond extract
Steps
In a mixing bowl, beat the eggs and sugar until lemon-colored. Add the butter, flour and extract; mix well. spread into a greased 13-in. x 9-in. x 2-in. baking pan. Bake at 325 degrees F for 30-35 minutes or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean. Cool on a wire rack.

If you are in search of a really good but really fast bar recipe try this out!!!
Nancy

Birthday Biscuits

Hello!

Today is my birthday! I have had the best birthday ever! My uncle gave me a knife and a cutting board. From my friend I received the book All My Friends Are Dead. It is the funniest and saddest book I have ever read. Everyone should read it!

Another reason this is the best birthday ever is because instead of having a traditional birthday party, I had a tea party. Of course for this party I made all of the food. I baked and cooked all weekend to get ready for the party. On the menu was cucumber sandwiches, vegetable cream cheese, lemon cookies, chocolate strawberries, chocolate truffles, biscuits with jam, mini cakes, and of course tea. All of the food was very simple to make. The biscuits recipe is the best biscuits recipe I have ever made so I think I will share that on with you today! It is very very simple, so it doesn’t take very much to make them.

This recipe is from the Pillsbury Kitchen Cookbook.

Old-Fashion Baking Powder Biscuits

2 cups all-purpose flour

3 teaspoons baking powder

½ teaspoon salt

½ butter flavored Crisco

2/3 to ¾ cup milk

Heat oven to 450 degrees F. In a large bowl combine flour, baking powder, and salt. Using a pastry blender  or fork, cut in Crisco until consistency of course meal. Add milk, stir just until a soft dough forms.  Turn dough onto a floured surface, sprinkle lightly with flour. Knead 10 to 12 times until no longer sticky. Roll or press dough to ½-inch thickness; cut with 2-inch floured cutter. Place biscuits ½ inch apart for soft sides and 1 inch for crusty sides on an ungreased cookie sheet. Bake at 450 for 8 to 12 minutes or until golden brown. Serve immediately.

Makes 12 to 15 biscuits.

Sorry my picture of these didn’t turn out the best, but I believe that you can use your imagination for how biscuits look. I hope you enjoy these!

Nacny

  

Picture

I forgot to put pictures with my post! So here are a few of my pie!

CHOCOLATE!!!

One word: Chocolate!

Chocolate is a woman’s best friend. No matter how many people tell you that diamonds are a girls best friends, don’t believe them. What makes you feel better when you are sad/ Chocolate. What makes an amazing day better? Chocolate! What helps you recover from a horrible fight with a dementor? Chocolate! What makes a hot day feel less hot? Chocolate Ice Cream! What can make an extremely wonderful meal even more fantastic? Some sort of CHOCOLATE dessert!

As you can see I am a very strong believer in chocolate being the answer to every question. If there was one thing that I could eat for the rest of my life it would be chocolate. It is my favorite and will always be my favorite food. Many of my favorite recipes contain chocolate. Chocolate chip cookies, Chocolate cake, and French Silk Chocolate pie!

Recently after seeing the movie The Help I was inspired to make chocolate pie. For those of you that have read the book or seen the movie, no I did not make like Minnie did. My pie was free of nastiness and also very tasty. I found this recipe on allrecipes.com. That website always has what I need. So here is the recipe for French Silk Chocolate pie. And if you would like to make the version from The Help be my guest but just don’t share any with me.

French Silk Pie

• 1 refrigerated pie crust, softened as directed on box  (or homemade crust)
• 3 (1 ounce) squares unsweetened chocolate, cut into pieces
• 1 cup butter, softened (do not use margarine)
• 1 cup sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
• 4 pasteurized eggs or equivalent fat-free cholesterol-free egg product
• 1/2 cup sweetened whipped cream
• Chocolate curls or chocolate chips  

Heat oven to 450 degrees F. Make pie crust as directed on box for One-Crust Baked Shell using 9-inch glass pie pan. Bake 9 to 11 minutes or until light golden brown. Cool completely, about 30 minutes.

In 1-quart saucepan, melt chocolate over low heat; cool. In small bowl with electric mixer, beat butter on medium speed until fluffy. Gradually beat in sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in cooled chocolate and vanilla until well blended.

Add eggs 1 at a time, beating on high speed 2 minutes after each addition; beat until mixture is smooth and fluffy. Pour into cooled baked shell. Refrigerate at least 2 hours before serving. Garnish with whipped cream and chocolate curls or chips. Store in refrigerator.

I hope you enjoy your pie!

Nancy

Frosting

Hello,

I have been baking all weekend! Yesterday I made a Caramel-Walnut Upside-Down Banana Cake and 6 dozen cookies. Today I made two chocolate silk pies and 22 cupcakes! I will surely give you the recipes for all of those tasty treats but today I would like to talk about the frosting.

Frosting is a strange thing. There are many different types and many different ways to make it. Everyone has their own frosting recipe that they swear by. They claim it is the best frosting the world has ever tasted. I am here to tell everyone else that they are wrong. I have discovered a formula for frosting that can make a grown man weep. This frosting recipe is actually based off of one I found in the Better Home and Gardens cookbook (which is an amazing cookbook by the way, and everyone should own a copy!). It is a really simple recipe that requires on four common ingredients. This recipe can also be used for everything. You can frost a cake or cupcakes with it, spread it on graham crackers, or just eat it plain. It is AMAZING!!! Try it out!

Frosting

1 cup of butter flavored Crisco (or other type of shortening)

1 ½ teaspoons vanilla

 About 4 cups of powdered sugar (which is equivalent to 1 lb. or half a bag)

And 2 to 3 tablespoons of milk

Mix the Crisco and vanilla together. The slowly add about half the powered sugar. Add the milk. The slowly add the rest of the powdered sugar until it reaches spreading consistency.

What is important about this recipe is that you beat the heck out of the frosting. If you have a wonderful stand mixer turn it up to the highest speed at the end and let it get really fluffy.

It is a really really simply recipe so try it out the next time you some frosting.

Nancy

Baking With a Gimp

Hello,

So one of super cool friends is in 4-H. She wanted me to help her make something for the fair. So I thought of this great recipe from Molly Wizenberg's A Homemade Life. We made this cake today. The funny thing was she recently hurt her shoulder. And is now wearing a sling. All I can say about it is that softball is stupid! We found out that baking with a sling on is really hard. She could bearly do anything. It was rather funny to watch her try and crack eggs. :) Gimps are not useless though, she was really good at... well.... um... okay so let me restate that. Gimps are not completely useless. While she couldnt help with dishes she was really good at coating the blueberries and flour and making me laugh! She couldn't gently fold things, but thats okay cause i was there to help! So over all watching a gimp try to cook is hilarious! I hope you enjoy the recipe! 

Fancy Nancy and Super Cool (Gimpy) Friend   

Blueberry Pound Cake

From; A Homemade Life by Molly Wizenberg

2 cups plus 8 tablespoons cake flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

½ teaspoon salt

1 2/3 cup sugar

2 ½ sticks (10 ounces) unsalted butter, diced at room temperature

2 cups blueberries

      5 eggs

Set oven rack to middle position, and preheat the oven to 300 degrees Fahrenheit.

Butter a standard-sized 9 cups Bundt pan and dust it with flour shaking out the excess.

In a medium bowl, whisk together 2 cups plus 6 tablespoons flour, the baking powder, and salt.

In the bowl of a food processor, bled the eggs and sugar until thick and pale yellow, about 1 minute. Add the butter, and blend well until the mixture is fluffy, about 1 minute, stopping once to scarp down the sides of the bowl. If the mixture looks curdled, don’t worry. Add the dry ingredients and process to just combine. Do not overmix. The batter should be thick and very smooth.

In a large bowl, toss the berries with remaining 2 tablespoons flour. Pour the batter over the berries, and, using a rubber spatula, gently fold to combine, taking care that all flour is absorbed. Pour the batter into the prepared pan, spreading it evenly across the top. Bake until a toothpick inserted in the cake’s center comes out clean, 1 hour to 1 ¼ hours.

Transfer the cake to rack, and cool in the pan for 5 minutes. Carefully invert the cake out of the pan onto the rack, and cool for at least 20 minutes before slicing. Serve slightly warm or at room temperature.

Yield: 10 to 12 servings

Tips!

Hello,

Today on Fancy Nancy’s Kitchen I don’t have a new recipe to share with you. I have not been able to bake recently because currently I have three jobs and am very busy. J But instead of a recipe today I will share some tips with you!

• First tip! Read the recipe! I actually made some cupcake last week and the recipe said to make 18 cupcakes but I tired to make 24. It totally didn’t work out! So read the recipe very carefully!
• Tip two! Baking soda and baking powder are very different! I have made this mistake before, and it kind of screw up and entire recipe so I would recommend knowing what kind you need.
• Tip three! When things go wrong stay clam. I have problems with freaking out, so take it from my experience and stay clam when you are in the kitchen. J

I know that this is an unusual short blog post. Sorry I just wanted to tell you I am still alive, but just super busy. I will have new recipes soon!

Fancy Nancy