I love fall treats, but I can’t really justify making a whole apple pie for just my boyfriend and I; we would be eating it for days! So I love that this month’s Cooking Light had a recipe for mini spiced apple two bite tarts that I can also share with friends. I adapted the recipe slightly, adding some more fall spices. I also didn’t have any 1% milk on hand so I substituted heavy cream. I also topped mine with mascarpone instead of crème fraîche because I thought it would taste great with these tarts.
These are really easy to make; the most difficult part (a.k.a. most time consuming) is dicing the apples. But you definitely want to cut them nice and small so that they fit in the tarts. You also need a mini cupcake tin for this, but you can adapt it to make normal cupcake sized ones if you wanted, just increase the baking time.
Ingredients:
CRUST
1/3 cup sugar
1/4 cup unsalted butter
2 tablespoons canola oil
1 tablespoon heavy cream
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon salt
4.5 ounces all-purpose flour (about 1 cup)
1/3 cup very finely chopped toasted pecans
Baking spray with flour
FILLING
2 cups finely diced peeled Granny Smith apple (~4 apples)
This month, Walkers Shortbread sent us a little surprise with our monthly shipment for the Walkers Ambassador Program: Fig and Golden Plum Mirabelle preserves from Bonne Maman! I was so excited to use them in a recipe and immediately wanted to make mini preserves tarts. I incorporated some of the shortbread into the crust for a boost of flavor. (I used Martha Stewart’s recipe as a base and made some changes)
These mini preserves tarts would be great to set out as little bites for guests while waiting for Thanksgiving dinner to be prepared, or would be a wonderful addition to the dessert table! You could make it with any type of preserves or jams you wanted: Bonne Maman has almost 20 different options that would all make for a yummy dessert.
In addition to these yummy tarts, I have two other recipes that would be great Thanksgiving desserts that use Walkers Shortbread:
Walkers Shortbread is offering I Can Cook That readers an exclusive promotion, running from Monday, October 28 through Monday, November 4: 20% off your entire purchase at www.walkersus.com (excluding sales items) with the code ICCTFALL. So stock up for all your Thanksgiving needs!
12 tablespoons (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
1 large egg yolk
1 teaspoon almond extract
2 tablespoons Bonne Maman preserves (I used 1 tablespoon fig and 1 tablespoon golden plum)
1 tablespoon heavy cream
To make the mini preserves tarts, preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Using a food processor, blend the shortbreads until they resemble a fine crumb.
Add the flour, sugar, salt and cinnamon and process for 10 seconds.
Add butter and process until mixture resembles coarse meal, 15 to 20 seconds.
Combine 1 egg yolk with 3 tablespoons ice water and 1 teaspoon almond extract.
Add to flour mixture and process until the dough comes together, about 10 seconds. Wrap in plastic wrap and chill for 30 minutes.
Lightly dust a work surface with flour; roll out dough to just thinner than 1/4 inch (6 mm). Using a round cookie cutter, cut out shapes and press into a mini cupcake tin. (I used a 2 1/2″ round biscuit cutter)
Use a fork to press down the dough around the edges of each mini cupcake tin. Fill each with 1 teaspoon preserves.
Lightly brush exposed dough with heavy cream. Bake until golden brown, 20 to 25 minutes. Transfer tarts from tins to a wire rack to cool. Let cool completely before serving.
These are perfect little bites! The crust is light and fluffy and help highlight the delicious sweetness of the preserves.
You get a hint of the almond extract which is a great complement to fig and plum. If you don’t have almond extract you can sub in some vanilla extract.
Mini Preserves Tarts
Recipe Type: Dessert, Make Ahead
Author: I Can Cook That
Prep time:
Cook time:
Total time:
Serves: 12
Ingredients
1 cup all-purpose flour
3/4 cup Walkers Shortbread Rounds crumbs (~7 cookies)
2 tablespoons sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 teaspoon cinnamon
12 tablespoons (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
1 large egg yolk
1 teaspoon almond extract
2 tablespoons Bonne Maman preserves (I used 1 tablespoon fig and 1 tablespoon golden plum)
1 tablespoon heavy cream
Instructions
Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.
Using a food processor, blend the shortbreads until they resemble a fine crumb.
Add the flour, sugar, salt and cinnamon and process for 10 seconds.
Add butter and process until mixture resembles coarse meal, 15 to 20 seconds.
Combine 1 egg yolk with 3 tablespoons ice water and 1 teaspoon almond extract.
Add to flour mixture and process until the dough comes together, about 10 seconds. Wrap in plastic wrap and chill for 30 minutes.
Lightly dust a work surface with flour; roll out dough to just thinner than 1/4 inch (6 mm). Using a round cookie cutter, cut out shapes and press into a mini cupcake tin. (I used a 2 1/2″ round biscuit cutter)
Use a fork to press down the dough around the edges of each mini cupcake tin. Fill each with 1 teaspoon preserves.
Lightly brush exposed dough with heavy cream. Bake until golden brown, 20 to 25 minutes. Transfer tarts from tins to a wire rack to cool. Let cool completely before serving.
It’s no secret that I love pumpkin everything. Sweet or savory, it’s a safe assumption that I will enjoy whatever pumpkin treat comes my way. So when I was contacted about restaurants under the Darden Restaurant umbrella featuring pumpkin desserts for the month of October, I was happy to taste test!
I was sent a $30 gift card so that I could go to Red Lobster, Olive Garden, and Longhorn Steakhouse to try their pumpkin desserts. Here are the yummy offerings:
Red Lobster: Pumpkin Pie in a Jar – layered pumpkin and cream cheese mousse with a graham-cracker crust, topped with sugared pecans
Photo courtesy of Red Lobster
LongHorn Steakhouse: Pumpkin Spice Lava Cake – warm pumpkin spice cake filled with a cream cheese icing and drizzled with Maker’s Mark® bourbon-caramel sauce and candied pecans
Photo courtesy of LongHorn Steakhouse
Olive Garden: Pumpkin Cheesecake – pumpkin cheesecake topped with whipped cream, caramel sauce and ginger cookie crumbles
Photo courtesy of Olive Garden
They are as delicious as they look! I unapologetically scarfed down each and every one. They are super rich so I’m sure you should probably share them. But hey, I’m not going to judge.
I was given a second $30 gift card to GIVE AWAY so that one reader can go try one (or all) of these desserts for themselves! More on that after the recipe! {THIS GIVEAWAY IS NOW CLOSED}
I made my own pumpkin dessert inspired by a mixture of the three above: Bourbon Pumpkin Flan with Graham Cracker Crumbs. This recipe incorporates the Bourbon in the Pumpkin Spice Lava Cake, the creaminess of the Pumpkin Cheesecake, and the graham cracker “crust” of the Pie in a Jar. I adapted this recipe from a Bon Appetit Pumpkin Flan recipe.
Ingredients:
6 large eggs
6 large egg yolks
1 3/4 cups sugar, divided (I used Sugar In The Raw for a deeper caramel flavorMi)
1 tablespoon bourbon
2 1/3 cups heavy cream, divided
1 cup milk
5 whole cloves
3 whole star anise
1 cardamom pod, cracked
2 cinnamon sticks
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon vanilla extract (I used vanilla bean paste)
Melt Buttery Spread is made of virgin coconut oil, flax seed oil, palm fruit oil, and canola oil — all healthy cooking oils and “good fats.” The coconut oil doesn’t make Melt taste like coconut butter though, the flavor is more mild. Typical buttery spreads are made of hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated oils, which have been liked to obesity, heart disease, etc. Melt is also organic, gluten free, soy free, kosher, and has 50% of the saturated fat and fewer calories than butter, so it is a healthy butter alternative. The melting point of the buttery spread is also close to butter’s (unlike most buttery spreads) so it is easy to use as a butter substitute in baking.
Melt has recently developed two new spreads: Honey Melt and Chocolate Melt. I was sent coupons so that I could try these new spreads so I picked up some of the Honey Melt. The spread would be great on its own, just on waffles or on a dinner roll, but I wanted to highlight how great Melt is when baking.
.Pizzas are a great weeknight meal option; it’s easy to make it out of products in your pantry and can be customized for whatever you’re in the mood to eat that night (or what you need to clean out of the fridge!) There is a pizza place near me in Philly called Nomad Pizza that has one of my favorite pizzas: their Truffle Pecorino pizza. The pizza is topped with cheese, garlic, shiitake mushrooms, truffle oil, and a runny egg.
I wanted to try out a version of this pizza for myself. I used a mixture of baby bella, maitake, and shiitake mushroom caps and made a quick garlic truffle oil to drizzle on for extra flavor to make this recipe for Wild Mushroom Truffled Pizza Topped with Runny Eggs.
Ingredients:
1 store bought pizza dough
1/4 cup olive oil, plus 1 tablespoon, divided
2 garlic cloves crushed
a drizzle of white truffle oil
1 package of sliced shiitake mushroom caps
1 package of sliced baby bella mushrooms
1/4 cup maitake mushrooms (or any wild mushroom you prefer)
salt and pepper, to taste
4 oz ricotta
2 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese
4 oz shredded mozzarella cheese
4-6 oz brie (I used Champignon German Brie with mushrooms)
2-4 oz Boschetto al Tartufo (Boschetto with Truffles) – you can also just use any mild cow cheese you’d like
The inspiration for this post is a bit convoluted. I was originally looking for some way to incorporate wet walnuts into a recipe for my dad. My dad is a huge fan of wet walnuts and he just had surgery so I wanted to make him a little pick-me-up treat. Wet walnuts are usually a topping on ice cream so I thought it would be fun to make a spin on a banana split in cupcake form. Later, I found out that Banana Splits do not traditionally even have wet walnuts as a topping. Oh well!
I used a banana cupcake recipe from Martha Stewart and filled each cupcake with homemade whipped cream. I then topped 1/3 of the cupcakes with vanilla frosting, 1/3 with strawberry frosting, and 1/3 with chocolate frosting. I topped them all off with sprinkles, wet walnuts, and maraschino cherries!
These are sugar overload so despite the photos showing all 3 types, stick to one cupcake at a time 🙂
I personally am not vegan. But as more of my friends dabble in veganism, I have been getting more requests to do some vegan friendly recipes. I’m honestly finding vegan baking to be relatively easy; most of the substitute ingredients are already in my pantry!
I received a bag of One Degree Organics Sprouted Spelt Flour along with some vegan baking recipes that sounded really tasty! I have never made a vegan cookie before so I appreciated the nudge towards trying and decided to make some Vegan Chocolate Chip Walnut Cookies.
Sprouted Spelt Flour works generally like normal flour, you just need to adjust your dry-to-wet ingredient ratio (less dry ingredients or more wet ingredients). Sprouted Spelt Flour contains more fiber, vitamins, and essential fatty acids than regular flour so it seems like a generally good switch to make. (I’m not giving up eating cookies, but hey, at least I’ve increased my fiber!) 🙂
One Degree Organics prides itself on using only organic foods grown using natural veganic methods for its grains used in its cereal, bread, and flours. The company also does not add any synthetic ingredients and practices sustainable growing methods. One Degree Organics actually includes a QR code and alphanumeric code on each package so that you can learn about where that specific product came from and the family of farmers behind it. Pretty cool right?
So I was really excited to use their Sprouted Spelt Flour in this recipe! Because this is my first time baking vegan cookies, I kept the recipe mostly intact. I did add some walnuts for a bit of crunch which resulted in these Vegan Chocolate Chip Walnut Cookies!
Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, began last night at sundown. Honey plays a significant role in Rosh Hashanah celebrations, signifying hopes for a sweet new year. Apples or challah dipped in honey is popular, as is honey cake. Because of the time of year, honey cake typically includes flavors associated with fall. My mom had given me a Pumpkin Blossom Honey recently and I thought this would be the perfect way to use it.
I adapted my recipe from one found on Epicurious and gave it my own pumpkin-y spin. Pumpkin Blossom Honey is created by bees that solely pollinate pumpkins and pumpkin blossoms. It has a darker amber color and has a really nice spice flavor at the end. I thought it would work great with some traditional fall spices thrown in!
It’s the most wonderful time of the year, pumpkin season! My love of pumpkin flavored, well, anything, is well known among my group of friends. September means I am actually allowed to dive into my pumpkin obsession but it is still a bit warm so we will begin with a chilled version of my favorite gourd – Pumpkin Pie Milkshakes!
I had a Pumpkin Pie Milkshake post on here from 2011, but when I switched my blog over to WordPress, the post got a little funky. So I decided to make the milkshake again with a few changes.
Ingredients (makes 2 servings, multiply as needed):
2 cups vanilla ice cream
1 cup vanilla almond milk
1 cup pumpkin puree (not pumpkin pie filling)
1/4 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ginger
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground cardamom
1 graham cracker (I used cinnamon graham crackers), crumbled
This recipe for Plum Swirled Cheesecake Bars is a result of me going a little off the grocery list last time I went food shopping. Have you ever seen an ingredient in the supermarket and decided you just have to make something with it? This happens to me quite a bit.
Unfortunately, I normally do not have a recipe lined up to take advantage of my new purchase. I wanted to take a break from some peach recipes I’ve been making recently (Brown Sugar Cinnamon Peach Pie, Peach Cobbler, and Bourbon-Peach Lemonade to name a few) and focus on a relative of peaches: the plum. I haven’t worked with plums much in the past (I actually only have once recipe: Plum Sweet and Spicy Chicken) but I just could not resist how great they looked!
I decided to take a Martha Stewart recipe for Apricot Cheesecake Bars and instead make my own Plum Compote as a substitute for the Apricots, resulting in these Plum Swirled Cheesecake Bars.
Ingredients:
Plum Compote:
½ cup port wine
½ cup sugar
1 cinnamon stick
1 vanilla bean, cut lengthwise
The zest of one orange
6 plums, stones removed and sliced
Cheesecake:
18 graham crackers (I used cinnamon graham crackers)
August is National Peach month! My boyfriend is a big fan of peaches so I’ve been buying them a lot lately. We were going to visit friends this weekend and I wanted to bring something down so I decided to try to make a peach pie.
This recipe is from Southern Living and sounded oh so good; I had all of the ingredients on hand so I figured I could at least try! My pie experience is a bit limited but this one turned out great. I even made the pie crust from scratch which was a lot more simple than I expected.
My boyfriend really likes peaches. But, strangely enough, he’s allergic to the skin of peaches so he really only eats them in desserts. I owe him a peach cobbler at some point, but when I saw this recipe from The Pioneer Woman I thought he’d love it. (Plus, it’s a bit easier than a cobbler… baby steps.)
I didn’t have real maple syrup, so I had to use the stuff you use on pancakes. Because of that, the recipe is slightly altered from the original to account for the sweetness.
Ravioli is a favorite of mine for weeknight meals when you just don’t have the energy to cook. You just throw them in the pasta pot and then toss them in a sauce. This recipe involves a bit more than just reheating sauce from the freezer, but it’s still really simple. I love ravioli in a traditional tomato sauce so this recipe for Cheese Ravioli with Roasted Tomatoes sounded great!
Roasting tomatoes brings out flavor you never even knew tomatoes had. When paired with balsamic vinegar to balance out their sweetness, roasted tomatoes are truly delicious.
Cooking Light’s August issue had a recipe for Pickapeppa Chicken and Mango Kebabs (that I plan on making soon) that required me to buy a bottle of Pickapeppa sauce. I had never heard of this sauce before and I was intrigued. It’s a Caribbean condiment referred to as “Jamaican ketchup” that is basically a sweeter A1 sauce, made with tomatoes, onions, mangoes, peppers, and other spices.
I thought this sauce sounded like it would be great on shrimp, so I decided to incorporate it into another Cooking Light recipe from the same issue: Gazpacho with Shrimp.
Ingredients:
1 (10-ounce) container grape tomatoes, divided
1 1/2 cups sliced English cucumber, divided
1 cup diced red bell pepper, divided (about 2 peppers)
3/4 cup diced Vidalia or other sweet onion, divided
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, divided
2 tablespoons sherry vinegar
5/8 teaspoon kosher salt, divided
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper, divided
3 garlic cloves
1 (28-ounce) can San Marzano tomatoes, drained
The juice of one lemon
1 garlic clove, minced
¼ cup pickapeppa sauce
20 medium shrimp, peeled and deveined (about 8 ounces)
I am on a bit of a peach kick at the moment. They have looked oh so amazing at the store recently, and my boyfriend is a huge fan, so why not? Expect a couple more peach recipes to show up on here in the coming weeks. (I’ll try to space them out a bit.)
A friend of mine made this absolutely delicious Honey-Ginger Sparkling Bourbon Lemonade a few months back that I haven’t stopped thinking about. It was SO good! So when I spotted Cooking Light’s recipe for a Peachy Bourbon Lemonade, I had to make it immediately, hoping it would be similarly delicious.
This lemonade is such a treat during this uncomfortably hot weather we are having. It would be just as yummy and refreshing without the bourbon (either as a non-alcoholic drink or with another spirit of choice).
Ingredients (Serves 4):
1/3 cup fresh lemon juice
3 cups water
2 cups chopped, peeled peaches (I used white peaches)
¼ cup lightly packed mint leaves
6 tablespoons sugar
¾ cup bourbon
Ice
Note: Bourbon does include grains that contain gluten. However, distilled alcohol is considered gluten-free because the process of distillation removes the harmful gluten protein, which is why I have this recipe listed as gluten free. If you are highly sensitive to gluten, bourbon may be off limits for you.
