sunday morning scones

I can't believe it's been over a year-sorry!
This morning I wanted to bake something and my husband said to cook whatever I wanted for breakfast and he would eat it. :)

green light! grab the cookbook....off we go.
These are cream scones made with light brown sugar, heavy cream, and butter.

what else do you need, really? 

a hot cup of tea and a bit of jam perhaps...





Happy Sunday  :)

valentines day cookies

I love baking. 
these aren't mini pies but I hope you enjoy them anyway.

P.S. They were delicious!

candy cane cookies are not mini pies

but have become a Christmas tradition in my family....
Because they are a delicious favorite I always make a double batch - this has the added bonus of making the coloring of the red dough much simpler because I don't have to divide a batch in half and then color it.



these little guys are each rolled by hand so you know that there is a lot of love in each and every cookie.
and also crisco - that's the secret to their heavenly texture- powdered sugar, butter, and crisco. seriously.

...here they are heading into the oven:

the finished cookies are topped with a 50/50 mixture of crushed candy canes and granulated sugar...

I'll let you in on a couple of secrets too:

I use my blender to crush the candy canes because it is faster, easier, and better at it than I am with my rolling pin.

I use the mini candy canes because they make for a better peppermint candy cane flavor than the big ones. trust me.

I sprinkle that mixture on when  they are hot out of the oven and still on the baking sheet so more of it sticks to the cookies. 

the cooky book shows them with just a light dusting - HA! 

not my little babies - no way Jose...

I know it's January and I know these aren't mini pies....but you don't mind, do you?

peach pie filling

forgot to snap the finished pies!

not a mini pie

but still made in my mini pie maker! chocolate chip muffins.

recipe from the user manual that came with the pie maker and according to my testers (sister, niece, husband, and brother in law) they were a 10 on the YUM scale.

the recipe called for self-rising flour. i don't have any self rising flour. what to do?

use what you have: internet, all-purpose flour, baking powder, salt

to make my own self-rising flour and it worked wonderfully.

Because there was leftover batter from batch #1 I ended up making 2 batches for a total of 12 muffins....they went fast

lesson 2: room temperature

to celebrate our first snowflakes of the year (very briefly) this afternoon, I wanted to bake some mini pies! did I really need an excuse: no, not really. not one bit. i like to bake and this pie maker makes it so easy and fast.

todays lesson relates to our favorite baking term "room temperature."

how does this affect our pies?

1. store bought pie crusts are rolled into tubes and kept refrigerated. if I were to take the crust out of the fridge and try to unroll it, I would see the crust crack open in spots, making little holes; not what I want in my mini pie crusts. so, i take them out and take the roll out of the plastic wrapping and let it sit out for a while. I don't let the crust get all the way to room temp because then they become soft, sticky and difficult to work with.

2. however, when it comes to the ingredients for the filling, room temperature is better. I made chocolate cheesecakes today and good cheesecake demands that all ingredients be room temp. this allows them to blend together nicely, and faster, making for a smooth filling that doesn't have a lot of air whipped into it, leaving it dense and delicious.

I took this photo after having quickly placed the crusts and spooned out the filling.

also of note, as with my art making, when I bake I like to use what I already have on hand. since I didn't have any bittersweet baking chocolate on hand (I know, what kind of baker doesn't have baking chocolate in their pantry?) I grabbed my cocoa and followed the directions on the package to substitute (1 tablespoon vegetable oil + 3 tablespoons cocoa). it worked perfectly.

but really I should let you be the judge of that ;)

what do you think?

lesson 1: don't overfill the pies

actually, this should be lesson #2 but I didn't take pictures when I made my first mistake so this will be the first mistake I share with you :)

a good scientist baker measures accurately, and I am usually no exception to this rule. however, despite mixing up the apple pie filling exactly to the recipe I didn't bother measuring the amount of filling I put into the pies. the cookbook and the user manual state that no more than 1/3 of a cup of filling should be added to each pie. AND this is the first batch of pies I have baked with lids (top crusts).....so....naturally I just split the filling 4 ways and called it good.

See, there's this pressure you have when the pie maker is all preheated (and it gets HOT) and you've put your crusts in and shaped them with the little shaper tool, the crusts are starting to sizzle away...now you've got to fill and lid the pies quickly....this takes practice. I need to shoot some pics of these stages too...but I haven't had time ;)

and I'm still getting the hang of this food blogging.

here's the puff pastry for the lids rolled out and resting.

here are the delicious apples cooking in butter - nothing better than butter for flavor-let's zoom in on those apples:

yummy spice and sugar mixture for the filling too

here is the apple filling all finished and waiting it's turn.

So, here's the part where i've put the pie crust bottoms in the HOT pie maker machine and I and hurredly filling the crusts with what I perceive to be equal amounts of apple pie filling and of course it looks like it's less than 1/3 cup.

However, evidence emerges that the pies were overfilled:

oops...

the pies were still yummy according to my husband - I thought so too. the fillings that I've made from the Mini Pie Book so far have been delicious!

Next up: why your puff pastry needs to rest.....

So, what do you think? can you smell the sweet, buttery apple filling?

do you like your apple pie a la mode?

-D