Irish Car Bomb Celebration Cake

An Irish Car Bomb is fairly simple: 

1) Fill a shot glass half way with Jameson Irish Whiskey.
2) Top the shot with Bailey's Irish Cream.
3) Fill a pint glass with Guinness.
4) Drop the full shot into the pint, shot glass and all.
5) Drink with vigorous fervor until you see the bottom of the glass.
6) Bombs away.

This past weekend was full of surprises and excitement for my family.  What better way to celebrate? With Irish Car Bombs was the obvious answer (a newly growing tradition in my family) but I needed to up the ante.  Irish Car Bombs in cake form?  Why yes, of course.  Because if you can combine booze + sugar + pastry in the same package for a party, you're going to have success.  

I spent the afternoon in the kitchen recreating every part of an Irish Car Bomb into a sultry, sweet treat.  Guinness was going into both chocolate cake and chocolate sauce.  Whiskey found a new friend in salted caramel.  Bailey's saluted to it's best performance yet in the perfected whipped cream topping.  The Dream Team was forming. If you are ever looking for a fun challenge - start thinking of ways you can turn booze into desserts.  You'll be entertained for the whole afternoon.

Treat your family this holiday season with this amazing creation.  If you serve it with a real Irish Car Bomb on the side, the Irish Gods will smile upon you and you will be my hero.  Cheers to that!

Irish Car Bomb Celebration Cake

Guinness Stout Chocolate Cake:

Ingredients

1 cup Guinness stout

1 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature

¾ cup Dutch-process cocoa powder

2 cups all-purpose flour

2 cups granulated sugar

1½ teaspoons baking soda

¾ teaspoons salt

2 eggs

2/3 cup sour cream

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease a 9x13 pan with nonstick spray.

Bring the Guinness and butter to a simmer in a heavy, medium saucepan over medium heat. Add the cocoa powder and whisk until the mixture is smooth. Cool slightly.

Whisk the flour, sugar, baking soda and salt in a large bowl to combine.

Using an electric mixer, beat the eggs and sour cream on medium speed until combined. Add the Guinness-chocolate mixture to the egg mixture and beat just to combine.

Reduce the speed to low, add the flour mixture and beat briefly. Using a rubber spatula, fold the batter until completely combined. Pour batter in cake pan.

Bake until a thin knife inserted into the center comes out clean, about 30 minutes.

Cool the cake in the pan.

Guinness Chocolate Sauce:

Ingredients

1 cup Guinness 

1 1/2 cups sugar

1 cup cocoa powder

1/8 teaspoon salt

Directions

Bring everything to a boil, reduce the heat and simmer to thicken, about 5 minutes.

Let cool and enjoy!

Salted Whiskey Caramel Sauce:

Ingredients

1 1/2 cup Brown Sugar

3/4 stick Butter (6 Tablespoons)

3/4 cup heavy cream

2-4 Tablespoons Irish whiskey (to taste)

Generous pinch of salt

Directions

Mix all ingredients in a medium saucepan over medium-low to medium heat. Cook while whisking gently for 5 to 7 minutes, until thicker. Turn off heat. Serve warm or refrigerate until cold.

If sauce is thin, just continue cooking for a few more minutes.

Bailey’s Whipped Cream:

Ingredients

1 cup cold heavy whipping cream

¼ cup powdered sugar

1-3 Tablespoons Bailey’s Irish cream

Directions

In a medium bowl, whisk heavy cream until cream just starts to thicken.  Add sugar and Bailey’s (to taste) and whisk until soft peaks form.

Serve chilled.

To Serve:

Cut squares of cake and place on a plate.  Generously drizzle both sauces over the cake and top with a dollop of whipped cream.  

Serve, swoon, celebrate.  

No-Bake Chocolate Peanut Butter Pretzel Bars

They're chocolate.  They're peanut butter.  They're pretzels.

They're salty.  They're sweet.  They're crunchy.

They're No-Bake.  They're easy.  They're....perfect.



My Gramma turns 88 today and I made these as the dessert for my birthday lunch for her.  To sit there, sharing stories and enjoying seconds and thirds with her, you realize that you're never too old to have chocolate, peanut butter and pretzels in your dessert.


Cheers to you Gramma, and to the joys of sharing every simple & sweet morsel in life with those you love.

No-Bake Chocolate Peanut Butter Pretzel Bars

Ingredients
Nonstick cooking spray
2 cups creamy or crunchy peanut butter, divided
3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
2 cups powdered sugar, divided
4 cups (roughly ½-inch pieces), broken small pretzel twists or sticks, divided
2 cups (12-oz. pkg.) semi-sweet chocolate chips, divided

Directions
LINE 13 x 9-inch baking pan with foil leaving an overhang on two sides. Lightly spray foil with nonstick cooking spray.

BEAT 1 1/4 cups peanut butter and butter in large mixer bowl until creamy. Gradually beat in 1 cuppowdered sugar. Stir in remaining 1 cup powdered sugar, 3 cups pretzel pieces and 1/2 cup morsels. Press evenly into prepared baking pan. Smooth top with spatula.

MICROWAVE remaining 1 1/2 cups morsels and 3/4 cup peanut butter in medium, uncovered, microwave-safe bowl on MEDIUM-HIGH (70%) power for 45 seconds; STIR. If necessary, microwave at additional 10- to 15-second intervals, stirring just until morsels are melted. Spread chocolate layer evenly over powdered sugar mixture. Sprinkle with the remaining pretzel pieces, pressing down lightly. Refrigerate for at least 3 hours or until firm. Lift from pan; peel off foil. Cut into 60 pieces. Store in covered container in refrigerator.
Or...put them in the freezer when you're done.  You wont be sorry.

Kentucky Bourbon Cake with Blueberry Bourbon Basil Glaze

What's better than drinking delicious Bourbon?  Baking with it.  And drinking it.  At the same time.

Let's get Frisky with Whiskey.

This recipe was inspired by a conversation my friend and I were having about the glories of the great state of Oregon. Vineyards, forest, ocean, crater lakes, beer, all the hipster material you could ask for.  What's not to love?
We started an in-depth discussion about doughnuts (that's normal) and in particular the creative flavors of Blue Star Donuts in downtown Portland.  He mentioned their iconic doughnut that is enrobed in a Blueberry Bourbon Basil glaze and I'm pretty sure I stopped listening all together. The mere imagining of tasting all of these flavors together took over my mind.  I decided right there that I must create a version of this earth-shattering flavor vortex.

How could I up the ante?  Well why not put the glaze on top of a whole cake instead of a doughnut.  And why not bake it in a tube pan so it looks like an enormous doughnut anyway (zing!).  And if there's Bourbon in the glaze, there's no reason why it shouldn't be in the cake too.  It's fairness like this that should be more prevalent in this world.

It's not that I doubted Blue Star, but you really don't know the magic of how these flavors meld together until you taste it yourself.  Sweet and tart blueberry, herbal-lemon-slight anise basil, the spicy vanilla Bourbon.  And then there's the cake!  Oh, the cake.  The buttery vanilla and Bourbon pillow upon which the glaze happily rests.
There's one Blue Star reviewer online who states: "Blueberry Basil Bourbon - sounds weird, TASTE LIKE RAINBOWS"

I concur, my friend. I concur.

So celebrate Rainbows and America and crack open a bottle of Kentucky Bourbon.  It makes measuring flour and butter that much more fun.
And, in the end, you can have your cake and drink it too.

Kentucky Bourbon Cake with Blueberry Bourbon Basil Glaze

Ingredients:

Cake:
3 cups (12 ounces) sifted cake flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. fine sea salt
1 cup (8 ounces) unsalted butter
1 1/2 cups (10 1/2 ounces) sugar
1/2 cup (3 3/4 ounces) firmly packed brown sugar
4 eggs, at room temperature
1/2 tsp vanilla
1/4 cup bourbon
1 cup buttermilk, at room temperature

Glaze:

1 cup fresh blueberries, rinsed and dried
1 tablespoon fresh basil, chopped
2-3 tablespoons bourbon
3 cups sifted powdered sugar

Directions:
Grease a 10-cup metal tube or bundt pan. Center an oven rack and preheat the oven to 350°F.

To make the cake, sift together the flour, baking powder, soda, and salt in a bowl, then whisk the mixture by hand to ensure that the ingredients are well mixed.

In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream the butter and sugars together on medium-high speed until fluffy, about 5 minutes. As you make the batter, stop the mixer frequently and scrape the paddle and the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula. Blend in the eggs one at a time and add the vanilla. Combine the bourbon and buttermilk in a small bowl. With the mixer on low speed, add the flour mixture in three parts, alternating with the buttermilk-bourbon mixture in two parts, beginning and ending with the flour. After each addition, mix until just barely blended and stop and scrape the bowl. Stop the mixer before the last of the flour has been incorporated and complete the blending by hand with a rubber spatula.

Pour the batter into the prepared pan and spread it out evenly. Place the pan in the oven and bake until the cake is golden and springs back when touched, 40 to 45 minutes.  Let the cake cool completely and remove from the pan.

To make the glaze start by pulsing the blueberries, basil and 2 tablespoons bourbon in a food processor or blender until smooth.  

In a large bowl, measure out the powdered sugar and gradually stir in the blueberry mixture a few spoonfuls at a time until your desired consistency is reached (I used it all).  Taste and add the last tablespoon of bourbon if desired.  Drizzle over cooled cake.

Cheers to baking with libations.  ...Libaking?

I wont quit my day job.

Bacon Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

 Woah.  There are a lot of things going on here to absorb.  Let's list them:

1) I'm posting a recipe on OUAP.  It's been a while.  Too long, I say.  WithTwoForks has been at the forefront for a long time, and rightfully so, but it's time to give some love to Once Upon a Plate.  After all this is where it all began, you know.

2) I'm back, in the US, in my kitchen.  Reunited with all of my kitchen tools.  My knife, Spartacus, and I have been dicing onions and slicing carrots just because we can.  Dont even get me started on being with my food processor again.  It's like a family reunion, but I'm the only one talking, and the food is always delicious.

3) Can we talk about the title of this recipe alone?  There are a lot of words.  Loaded words.  Bacon. Peanut Butter.  Chocolate Chips. Cookies.  Individually, each word pings a certain part of your brain that makes it scream "Holy crap YES!"  But now, strung all together, in one cohesive title?  Describing one recipe in which they are all involved?  The world may explode.  "Exceeded Limit of Awesomeness" will read on the headlines.

But, before any armageddon, let's eat these cookies together.

It's not like I have to sell the ingredients in this cookie.  If you don't like bacon, peanut butter, chocolate chips, or cookies, I'm not sure if we should be friends anyway.  All together, these culinary mavens create a decadent sweet/salty/savory/crunch/chew symphony in your mouth that no one should shy away from.

And did I mention that the recipe is silly-easy and is in fact gluten free?  Not that that matters.  All cautions should be checked at the door anyway when taking on these cookies.

Ride that edge of should-this-be-breakfast-or-dessert.  Do not be afraid to eat bacon from a cookie vehicle.  Pour a glass of milk, strap on your seatbelt, and embrace the journey.


Now I'll leave you with the recipe and a nice shot of the Boston Skyline and the Bacon Cookies simultaneously admiring each other.



Bacon Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies
Note: I also sprinkled some chili powder and cracked black pepper onto my bacon strips to add some smokey/peppery sass to the cookies.  Next time I may try some cayenne/maple action.  The explorations are endless...
There's bacon in your cookies people! Go wild! The sky's the limit!

Adapted from Joy the Baker.

Ingredients 

1 cup all-natural chunky or smooth peanut butter
1/2 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1 egg
1 teaspoon baking soda
about 6 slices of bacon, cooked, cooled and diced

1/3 cup chocolate chips

In a skillet over medium high heat, fry up bacon until cooked through and let cool on paper towels until cool enough to dice. Dice up and set aside. (See Note above for additional flavor ideas)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Line two baking sheets with parchment paper and set aside. In a mixer combine peanut butter and sugars until well combined, about 2 minutes. Add egg and baking soda and mix for another 2 minutes. Fold in cooked bacon and chocolate chips.

Roll dough into large walnut sized balls and create a cris-cross pattern with a fork. If you’d like, roll the dough balls in granulated sugar before making the cris-cross pattern (I recommend the sugar roll). Bake for 10 minutes, until lightly browned. Cool on a baking sheet for five minutes.  Consume with mind-blown friends. 

Chocolate Loaf Cake

I really enjoy baking things in loaf form.  A loaf is compact, sliceable, unpretentious.  It can be given free of any dish or serving platter and does not need anything more than two hands to consume it.  Almost any delicious batter can be put in a loaf pan and baked off.  A humble presentation that can still be full of divine flavor...    It's the perfect package.   

I made this chocolate loaf recipe for the first time this past weekend to give to a dear friend for her birthday.  The preparation of the batter is simple and the end result is a moist, chocolatey bread (...cake) that is fantastically pleasing.  There are no bells and whistles, no frostings or decoration.  You can slice away and enjoy it with a cup of tea, or dress it up with whipped cream or ice cream and take it to the elegant level that it can still stand up to.

It's like that perfect dress (or, I guess suit or shirt if you're a guy?) that you can dress up or down, and that always seems appropriate for any occasion that comes your way.  But in this case you can eat it instead of wear it.  Your taste buds will like that part.  And so will your friends.

Happy Simple Baking!

Chocolate Loaf Cake

from one of my favorites; Smitten Kitchen

An important note from SK: Although I was thrilled with the result when I used Dutch cocoa and 1 teaspoon baking soda (in the original published recipe, 8/4/10), the cake rose and sank slightly in the baking process, a sign that the leavener was off. I retested this the next day with different levels of leavener and two different types of cocoa, in hopes to keep the cake aloft. I’ve updated the recipe below with the suggestion of Dutch cocoa, a reduced amount baking soda and the addition of baking powder. I found that the version with Dutch cocoa was darker with a more appealing chocolate flavor. But fear not: If you only have a natural or non-Dutched cocoa, you can still use it, but you’ll want to use 1/2 teaspoon baking soda and no baking powder. Here’s a photo of both versions side-by-side. Both were gleefully received.


Ingredients

1/2 cup (1 stick or 4 ounces) unsalted butter, softened
1 cup (6 7/8 ounces) firmly packed light brown sugar
1/2 cup (4 ounces) granulated sugar
1 large egg, at room temperature
1 cup buttermilk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups (6 3/4 ounces) all-purpose flour
3/4 cup (2 5/8 ounces) Dutch cocoa powder (see above for a natural cocoa adjustment)
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt

Method

Preheat the oven to 325°F. Butter and lightly flour a 9×5x3-inch loaf pan, or spray it with a butter-flour spray. In a large bowl, on the medium speed of an electric mixer, cream the butter until smooth. Add the sugars and beat until fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add the egg and beat well, then the buttermilk and vanilla. Don’t worry if the batter looks a little uneven. Sift the flour, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder and salt together right into your wet ingredients. Stir together with a spoon until well-blended but do not overmix. Scrape down the batter in the bowl, making sure the ingredients are well blended.

Pour the batter into the prepared loaf pan. Bake for 60 to 70 minutes, or until a cake tester inserted into the center of the loaf comes out clean. Cool in pan on a rack for about 10 to 15 minutes, at which point you can cool it the rest of the way out of the pan. Serve with whipped cream and fresh berries, if you’re feeling fancy.

Keep-Beet-A-Secret Chocolate Brownies

Wait...before we go any further, let me tell you what you're thinking;  Why? Why would you ever try to completely ruin something as decadently delicious as a chocolate brownie by putting something healthy like beets in it?  Are you mad?  If you're going to have a brownie, have a brownie.  Save the beets for your salad, you crazy, crazy woman.

I know, and I hear you.  Believe me, I had very similar thoughts when I came upon a recipe like this as to why someone would introduce something like beets to a brownie mix.  What's the point?  But then, I started thinking...

These beets are added into the brownie mix after you grate them raw.  And if you think about it, that's exactly what we do when we make, say, a carrot cake or zucchini bread.  You take a healthy vegetable, grate it up, and add it to a cake/muffin/quick bread batter to add moisture, sweetness, and texture.  So, if that's the case for carrots and zucchini (and even fruits like apple and pineapple), why can't we do the same for beets?

Determined to find out, I went to my kitchen to test it myself.  This specific recipe I tried was unique in particular because it has no refined sugar, and with two heaping cups of grated raw beets, I honestly had no idea what kind of monster was going to come out of my oven.  But, lo and behold, I tasted the first bite and it was....delicious...?

Yes!  Yes it was!  I kept chewing and tasting and confirmed that what I was eating was in fact enjoyable, flavorful, and with a tender crumb to boot!  "There are beets in my brownie," I said kept saying out loud, to remind myself of the level of discovery I had stumbled upon.

With a true - not muted - chocolate flavor coming from both the melted chocolate and cocoa powder, it paired beautifully with the earthiness and natural sweetness of the beets.  It was moist but not dense, and did not feel weighed down by either too much sugar or oil.  It was practically begging to be paired with a big scoop of vanilla ice cream to be enjoyed outside on a summer evening.

It is indeed a dessert you should at least try out during these summer months - particularly because it brings the added X-factor of a secret ingredient that you can quiz your friends about when they taste it for the first time.  You can ultimately decide if you want to tell them or not, though, since they may be too busy enjoying their decadent brownies to care anyway.

To keep-beet-a-secret or to not keep-beet-a-secret, that decision is up to you.



Keep-Beet-A-Secret Chocolate Brownies
This recipe was inspired by the Decadent Beet & Chocolate Cake recipe found on the fantastic blog Green Kitchen Stories.  Although the original recipe is for a cake, and these brownies are very cake-like, you can make these more dense by using less egg if that's your desired style of brownie.  

Ingredients

2/3 cup (100 g) sunflower oil (coconut oil or olive oil)
1/2 cup (125 ml) either maple syrup or honey or a combination
50 g dark chocolate (70%), broken into pieces
2 full cups (250g) raw beetroots, grated
3 eggs
1 ½ cup (375 ml) spelt flour, (I used a combo of rye and whole wheat pastry flour since that was in my cupboard)
2 teaspoons baking powder
5 tablespoons cacao powder
Big pinch of salt

Method

Preheat the oven to 350F. Warm the oil in a medium size sauce pan on very low heat. Add maple syrup and/or honey and chocolate and stir until the chocolate is melted. Remove from heat. Pour into a mixing bowl and add the grated beets.

Whisk the eggs in a small bowl and then add them to the mixing bowl. Sift flour, baking powder, cacao powder and salt together and stir into the beet mixture. 

Grease a 9"x13" cake pan, bundt pan,  or12" circular casserole dish with oil or nonstick cooking spray. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until the brownies are slightly dark and are slightly pulling away from the side of the pan.  An inserted toothpick should come out with some crumbs to ensure the brownies will be moist. 

Rock the beet!

Lemon-Coconut Cupcakes with Vanilla Frosting and Raspberry Filling

The Cupcake is a fascinating being.  Essentially, it's a slice of what would have been a large cake.  Though, instead of baking the cake as a whole and cutting a slice, these 'slices' are baked separately, forming their own little cakes.  They're cute, they're individual, and people just can't seem to get enough of them.  Perhaps it's the intimacy of unwrapping the cupcake before tasting, or the rebellious satisfaction of eating cake with your hands and tossing a fork and plate to the wind.  The cupcake trend that started long ago you would think would have died out by now, but there still seems to be a new cupcake shop popping up everywhere you turn.  And now, there's even a supposed Cupcake ATM?  Good grief.  

But I digress.  I still love the darn things, and this recipe is one to be reckoned with.  It's a conglomerate of a few different recipes and brainstorming ideas that my cousins and I thought up while contemplating what Ultimate Cupcake we could create for a recent party with our aunts.  Vanilla or Chocolate?  Vanilla we decided.  Or wait...what about Lemon?  Or coconut?  Heck, let's combine them.  And we wanted a filling...Raspberry?  A done deal match with Lemon.  Vanilla frosting was the perfect backdrop, and with a toasted coconut dusting to finish?  Outta the pahk. 

Moist, tender, a perfect marriage of flavors...  Regardless if you're on the cupcake trend train or not, I recommend introducing these cupcakes into your life.  You will make friends, and have very happy taste buds.  And you didn't even have to go to the ATM.

Lemon-Coconut Cupcakes with Vanilla Frosting and Raspberry Filling

Adapted from Martha Stewart

Ingredients

3 cups all-purpose flour

1 cup unsweetened shredded coconut, divided
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
2 cups sugar
4 large eggs, room temperature
Finely grated zest of 3 lemons (about 3 tablespoons), plus 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 cup buttermilk

1/2 cup raspberry jam

1/3 cup unsweetened coconut, toasted

Method

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Line standard muffin tins with paper liners. Whisk together flour, 1 cup coconut, baking powder, and salt.

With an electric mixer on medium-high speed, cream butter and sugar until pale and fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating until each is until incorporated, scraping down sides of bowl as needed. Beat in zest and vanilla. Add flour mixture in three batches, alternating with two additions of buttermilk and lemon juice, and beating until just combined after each.

Divide batter evenly among lined cups, filling each three-quarters full. Bake, rotating tins halfway through, until golden brown and a cake tester inserted in centers comes out clean, about 25 minutes. Transfer tins to wire racks to cool completely before removing cupcakes. Cupcakes can be stored overnight at room temperature, or frozen up to 2 months, in airtight containers.

To finish, either inject a scant teaspoon of the raspberry jam into the center of each cupcake with an injecting tool, or cut out a small of the top of each cupcake with a paring knife and spoon a scant tablespoon of the jam into the made divot. Frost each cupcake as desired, and sprinkle each cupcake with toasted coconut to finish.

Vanilla Frosting
Good 'ol Domino's Confectioner's Sugar side-of-the-box recipe.

3 3/4 cups  (1 lb. box) confectioners sugar
1/2 cup - butter (1 stick), softened
3 to 4 tablespoons milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

In a large bowl with electric mixer at low speed, combine sugar, butter, milk and vanilla. Beat at medium speed 1 to 2 minutes until creamy. If desired, add more milk until frosting is spreading consistency.

Rice Hippie Treats

I confess, I have an inner hippie.  I mean, I lived in Vermont for four years, what can you expect?  She loves to frolic around in nature, talk to plants, and, such as in this case, likes to put a twist on certain recipes to make them a little more mind/body/soul friendly.


She surfaced recently when I wanted to make Rice Crispie Treats for a potluck dinner.  I knew I had everything to make a batch at home minus the marshmallows; a pivotal ingredient in this childhood treat.  But in both an effort to avoid the store and to improvise, I started thinking about how I could recreate this treat without including the highly processed white puff of an ingredient.  Don't get me wrong, I love a good toasted marshmallow, s'more, or old-fashioned Crispie Treat.  But if we can avoid ingesting things like, say, tetrasodium pyrophosphate when we don't have to, why not see if something else could do the trick as well?


I had been planning to make a peanut butter version of the treats anyway, so I started with that as a base of the binding ingredients to hold these bars together.  To keep with the theme, I used natural peanut butter which contains only ground up peanuts and salt.  Honey came in next, and some butter to pull all of the ingredients together.  For the dry ingredients, I substituted part of the rice crispies with rolled oats, and added dried cranberries for a contrasting tart/sweet taste, and chocolate chips too because, well, who doesn't like the combo of chocolate and peanut butter?  


I had created an almost granola-ish cousin of the Rice Crispie Treat, with all honest ingredients that we can all pronounce and recognize.  My inner hippie was proud.  And you will be too regardless if you have your own inner hippie or not, since at the end of it all these bars are just plain simple, delicious, and worth making no matter what.




Rice Hippie Treats  
My favorite way to eat these is a little cold right from the fridge. Mmmm


Ingredients

4 cups rice crispie cereal

1 cup old-fashioned rolled oats

1/2 cup dried cranberries 

1/2 cup chocolate chips

3/4 cup peanut butter
1/2 cup honey
3 tablespoons unsalted butter


Method
Butter a 9x13 baking dish or spray with nonstick cooking spray.  Combine rice cripsies, oats, cranberries, and chocolate chips in a medium bowl.  Set aside.  


Combine the peanut butter, honey, and butter in a sauce pan over medium heat.  Stir until all is melted and combined.


Pour peanut butter mixture over rice crispie mixture and stir to evenly coat the dry ingredients.  Pour mixture into the prepared pan and pat down evenly with a buttered or non-stick sprayed spatula (or else the treats will stick and the spreading will not be fun).  


Store bars in the fridge to set.  Cut into squares and enjoy.  In your Birkenstocks.  

Gingerbread Apple Upside-Down Cake

I am in love with what happens to apples when they're baked.  In it's natural state, an apple is firm, true to it's shape, solid and crisp throughout.  Once baked, however, this persona slowly surrenders to a more mellow and tender self.  It gives away easily under your bite, soft and sweet, instead of fighting back with a crisp crunch.  Its sugars condense and an intense apple flavor remains, that is eager to pair with warm fall flavors like cinnamon, ginger, and molasses.

Still in the spirit of fall, I wanted to use my orchard-picked apples in a different way than in a crisp or in the muffins that I had just written about.  I wanted something more festive, more complex in flavor.  Gingerbread has always been a favorite of mine because of these reasons, and to pair it with baked-in apples made it a dish that I could not pass by.  

It's an easy cake.  It bodes a festive look, yes, but that only equates to its greatness of the flavor, not the level of difficulty to make it.  And, with all gingerbreads, especially this one, whipped cream (homemade, please!) is an absolute must.  It's practically begging to be on your Holiday Table, so go make one and share it with your loved ones who deserve it most.  

Happy Festive Fall!

Gingerbread Apple Upside-Down Cake
Adapted from Karen Bates at the Philo Apple Farm via the New York Times
Also on smittenkitchen.com

Serves 12

Topping
4 tablespoons butter, plus extra for greasing pan
1/2 cup dark brown sugar
Pinch of salt
4 apples (about 1 3/4 pounds), peeled, cored and cut into 1/4-inch wedges

Batter
1/2 cup (1 stick or 4 ounces) butter, at room temperature
1/2 cup sugar
1 large egg
1/3 cup dark molasses
1/3 cup honey
1 cup buttermilk
2 1/4 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon cinnamon

Very softly whipped cream

Make the topping: Preheat the oven to 325°F. Grease a 10-inch cake pan. Melt butter in a small saucepan. Add brown sugar and simmer over moderate heat, stirring, four minutes, then swirl in salt. Remove from heat and pour into the bottom of your cake pan. Make circles of overlapping apple slices on top of the caramel. Chop any remaining slices and place them in the gaps.

Make the batter: Using a mixer, blend 1/2 cup butter and the sugar on medium-low speed. Increase the speed to high and cream until light and fluffy.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the egg, molasses, honey and buttermilk. In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, baking soda, salt, ginger and cinnamon. Alternate mixing the flour and molasses mixtures into the butter mixture, adding the next once the last has been incorporated.

Pour the batter into the pan. Bake at least 45 to 50 minutes (thanks to commenter klp for reminding me this took a bit longer) or until a wooden tester inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. Let cool on a rack for 10 to 15 minutes, then turn out onto a platter (one that will catch spills, unlike what you see in the pictures above).

Serve warm or cool with very softly whipped cream.

Ms. Meg's Mint-Chocolate Cupcakes

Once Upon a Plate is pleased to announce it's first guest author; my cousin Meg!  She is a 15 year old spitfire who is not only a talented student, athlete, and kind-hearted lady, but man can she make an incredible cupcake!  Her story and recipe are below...and dont wait too long to make these, they will soon become your staple dessert-  Enjoy!

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I love cupcakes. They are definitely the most adorable and delicious kind of cake! So, when Aunt Jane invited us over for dinner in Maine, I decided to make some to bring. After thinking about lots of different flavors, I chose mint and dark chocolate because they would look pretty and taste really good together! So off to Hannaford’s we went to get cupcake materials for some minty Maine madness. 

The night before, I made the cake part of the cupcakes and left them covered overnight. They were really moist and yummy and it was interesting to use dark chocolate instead of regular chocolate. The next day was frosting day, the best part. The peppermint extract smelled bad by itself but when it got mixed in with everything else it tasted really good…so we ate tons of it while frosting the cupcakes! 

Lizzy appeared on her kayak just in time to help out with piping the frosting and making chocolate curls with a dark chocolate bar. In the end, they were a success! The frosting and the cake went really well together, and of course there is no better time to eat a cupcake than after a delicious lobster dinner on a beautiful summer night in Maine!

Mint-Chocolate Cupcakes

Dark Chocolate Cupcakes

2 cups sugar

1 ¾  cups all-purpose flour

¾ cup Hershey’s dark chocolate cocoa

1 ½ teaspoons baking powder

1 ½ teaspoons baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

2 eggs

1 cup milk

½ cup vegetable oil

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 cup boiling water

Line muffin cups with paper baking cups. Heat oven to 350º.

Stir together sugar, flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a large bowl. Add eggs, milk, oil, and vanilla. Beat on medium speed for 2 minutes. Stir in boiling water (batter will be thin). Fill cups 2/3 full with batter.

Bake 22-25 minutes.

Makes 30.

Mint Buttercream Frosting

2 sticks butter

4-5 cups powdered sugar, sifted

¼ cup milk

1/8 teaspoon all natural peppermint extract

Beat butter until creamy, scrape bowl.

Add 4 cups of powdered sugar, the milk, and the peppermint extract. Beat until combined. 

Strawberry Pie with Rosemary-Orange Crust

Do you know one of the main reasons I love food?

Flavors.

I know.... it sounds stupidly simple. But, here's the thing;

Flavors are why we eat (well, besides the whole maintaining life thing). Flavors entertain us, they please us, they add variety to our lives. Without flavors, why would we love food?

Let's say you have a base flavor that you love. Say...strawberries.

You love the flavor of strawberries. It is a unique taste only owned by a strawberry, and it is delicious and pure in its natural, untouched form.

Then, one day you have an experience where your familiar strawberry flavor meets another, and transforms into an experience.

Say, you were in Spain. An Ecuadorian woman, who is married to a Frenchman, just served you a dessert of the finest french cheeses paired with a strawberry and rosemary salad on the side.

Let's just say.

At that moment, two separate but familiar flavors come together and completely transform each other into more than the sum of their parts. A new flavor is born.

Because of flavor experiences like this (combining familiar yet uncommonly paired tastes together like rosemary and strawberry), you find yourself in a constant search to discover more of them. Not only that, but once these combinations are discovered, it also becomes an on-going challenge to apply them in even more unexpected places.

Like in a pie.

In a series of fortunate events, I found myself at the doorstep of creating this recipe. First, it started in Spain (okay, maybe the hypothetical Ecuadorian woman story a was a true, personal story); A flavor combination was born. Then, a friend moved into a new house; A pie had to be made. After, a conversation was held with a dear friend, coworker, and Baking Empress; Creative genius was piqued. Then, multiple flavor combinations formed into one big harmonious new flavor, in a completely foreign dessert setting; A recipe was born.

Strawberries and rosemary...rosemary and orange...orange and fig balsamic vinegar...fig balsamic vinegar and strawberries...

Yes, it had to be done. And yes, it is good. A homerun, high-fivin', 'no way!', 'what the...', 'this is cool', head back, eyes closed, rockin' good pie. And a one-way ticket to Flavor Town.

Strawberry Pie with Rosemary-Orange Crust

Crust:

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 cup whole wheat pastry flour (you can use all AP flour)

3 tablespoons sugar

1 teaspoon salt

1 ½ teaspoons orange zest

1 ½ teaspoons minced fresh rosemary

1 cup unsalted butter (2 sticks), cut up into ½” cubes and thoroughly chilled

½ cup ice cold water

Filling:

2 pounds strawberries, hulled and quartered

2/3 cup sugar (or less depending on sweetness of strawberries)

4 tablespoons cornstarch

1 1/2 tablespoons flour

2 tablespoons fig balsamic vinegar (you can use regular balsamic, but the fig is just that much more sweet and unique)

1 tablespoon freshly squeezed orange juice

Finish:

1 egg, slightly beaten with a splash of water or milk

Coarse sugar

To make the crust:

Pulse flours, sugar, salt, orange zest, and rosemary in a food processor until combined. Add cold cubed butter and pulse until the mixture resembles coarse sand. Add the ice water, 1-2 tablespoons at a time, until the dough just comes together and you can squeeze it in your hand to form a mold without it falling apart. The amount of water needed will depend on the day.

Turn the dough out onto the counter and press down with your palm, smearing the dough out in a few different directions before bringing it together and forming a loose ball.

Divide the ball in two and form each piece into a flattened dish about 1” thick. Wrap each in plastic wrap and chill in the refrigerator for at least one hour.

To make the pie:

Preheat your oven to 425 degrees 10 minutes before taking out your first dough disk. Once chilled, take one dough disk out of the fridge and roll it out with a rolling pin - …or, if you’re me…a wine bottle… - to 1” beyond the edge of your pie pan. Press the dough into the pie pan, making sure it is an even thickness and height all around the pan. Trim any excess dough, leaving a bit on the rim for the top crust to eventually adhere to.

Place a piece of tinfoil over the crust and fill with pie weights, uncooked beans,

- or…if you’re me…rocks that you’ve gathered (and washed and dried) from the patio outside. This is to prevent your crust from puffing up too much and to maintain its shape.

Blind bake (that is what it’s called when you bake your bottom crust before adding a filling) your bottom crust for 20 minutes. Remove from oven and reduce temperature to 375 degrees.

Meanwhile, combine all of the ingredients for the filling and roll out your second pie disk, making sure to keep it cold if there is a time gap. Pour filling into the bottom crust and brush exposed edge with egg wash. Cover with the top rolled out crust. Crimp edges to form crust rim.

Brush egg wash all over top crust and sprinkle with coarse sugar. Cut small slits in middle of pie with a sharp paring knife.

Place the pie back in the oven at reduced temperature of 375 degrees. Bake until golden brown and bubbly, about 40 minutes longer. If the outer crust gets too brown in the middle of baking, cover just the edge with thin strips of foil and continue baking.

Let cool almost completely before diving in. This is the most difficult part of the recipe.