Cinnamon Ice Cream

I mentioned cinnamon ice cream would be a great pairing for the apple pie I just made. Oh, and it was! I have posted this cinnamon ice cream recipe before, but I did not include pictures=( And to be completely honest, I didn't take any better ones this time around either. I can't figure out how to photograph ice cream! If anyone has any pointers, It'd be greatly appreciated! I'm not very good at food photography as it is. I'm not patient enough to get a good photo of my food because I'm too excited to try it!


I've always wanted to make ice cream sandwiches! This incidentally did not make that good of an ice cream sandwich, if I'm being honest. The cookie was way too hard and the ice cream spilled all out the sides. Also, it was hard to detect the gingerbread flavor once it got cold=/

But... add this to a slice of apple pie or have it on it's own! I love how quick this recipe is and how little involvement it has. It's a good solid recipe.

Cinnamon Ice Cream
2 cups heavy cream
1 cup milk
1 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla
3 teaspoons cinnamon (I put more in hehe)

Combine heavy cream and sugar then stir in milk. Add in vanilla and cinnamon. Pour mixture into you ice cream maker.

SIMPLE!

(The Big) Apple Crumble Pie

I guess I should get this started! I have a lot of recipes to post from Thanksgiving, and as usual, not a lot of time to post about them=( It is Thanksgiving break for me, but.....

I'M GOING TO NEW YORK ON MONDAY!

You may have remembered me mentioning this in previous posts, and now it's finally time!

To refresh your memory, here's the basic need-to-know's of the trip:

My school's Honors Chorus was asked to participate in composer Tim Janis's American Christmas Carol concert on December 2nd at Carnegie Hall in New York. It is a live concert composed by Tim Janis featuring many soloists and a 200 person student choir (that's where we fit in!) Since we learned about our trip back in March, we've had to memorize a ton of music. 10 pieces in all. All are Christmas inspired and I can honestly say I like them all.

Here we all are at PBS filming Tim Janis's Celebrate America in Pittsburgh, where we first got to meet him. (I'm on the right side, second row, second one in!)

Some Highlights of the Trip:
-Ferry over to Liberty Island and Ellis Island
-See Carmen at the Metropolitan Opera
-Visit the Empire State Building
-Time Square, Macy's shop windows, and St. Patrick's Cathedral
-See West Side Story
-Guggenheim Museum and Planet Hollywood
-See Marry Poppins
- And... a SURPRISE??

We leave the 29th, and return the 4th. It's going to be amazing. The best part is I get to share it with some of my closest friends=) Oh, and I'll do my best to take some food pics. If the food is worthy enough!


Okay, now on to the recipe at hand. The Pioneer Woman and Joy the Baker. Two of the most amazing food bloggers out there? Quite possibly. And what happens when you team them together in a recipe? You, my friends, are about to find out.



As I thought of the desserts I would choose for Thanksgiving this year, my family gave me the general consensus that there MUST be pie. There ended up being 3, but we'll get there. First up, was an apple pie. I chose a "dreamy" version that I saw on the Pioneer Woman's blog. I liked how there was a bit more to the pie than just throwing you apples in. In this recipe, you also make a creamy filling to pour in as well. That intrigued me so I knew I definitely wanted to try this one out.


Where does Joy come in? Well... the Pioneer Woman's pie dough recipe involves crisco, which is a no-go for me. I have already tried Joy's pie crust recipe and I knew I loved it, so I went with it instead. It NEVER fails. I might be getting ahead of myself, but it is the flakiest butteriest pie crust ever. It's pretty fool proof as well. I do believe that for this being my second time around it was a bit easier to make as well, naturally. I love this pie crust recipe, and you should too.
Note: You will have to half her pie crust recipe since you only need 1 crust as there is a crumble topping.


This was not too hard to put together. I did it over three days just because I felt like it. I made the apple filling one day, the crust another, and then put it together on the third day.
NOTE: I made one boo-boo. For some reason I cooked my apples in the cinnamon sugar mixture beforehand on the stove. To remedy this, I reduced the cooking time a tad, but otherwise I don't think it affected the outcome.


Served up with some cinnamon ice cream or whipped cream, this was luscious. It had more to it than your average apple pie thanks to the creamy filling. Secret time: We ended up finishing this pie before it was even Thanksgiving Day. Whoops!


Dreamy Apple Pie
from The Pioneer Woman

Ingredients
1 whole Unbaked Pie Crust

Filling:
3 whole Large (4 Or 5 Small) Granny Smith Apples, Peeled, Cored, And Sliced Thin
1/2 cup Brown Sugar
1/2 cup Sugar
1 Tablespoon All-purpose Flour
1 cup Heavy Cream
2 teaspoons Vanilla Extract
1/8 teaspoons Cinnamon

Topping:
7 Tablespoons Butter
3/4 cups All-purpose Flour
1/2 cups Brown Sugar
1/4 cups Pecans (more To Taste)
Dash Of Salt

Preparation Instructions:
Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Roll out pie dough and place it in a pie pan. Decorate the edges as desired.

Add apple slices to a large bowl. In a separate bowl, mix together cream, 1/2 cup brown sugar, 1/2 cup sugar, 1 tablespoon flour, vanilla, and cinnamon. Pour over apples. Pour apples into pie shell.

In the bowl of a food processor (or you can mix by hand) combine butter, flour, sugar, pecans (chop if you’re not using a food processor), and salt. Mix until everything comes together in clumps. Pour topping over apples.

Attach foil to the edges and lay a piece of flat foil loosely over the top of the pie. Place pie pan on top of a rimmed cookie sheet and bake for one hour. At the end, remove foil and allow to finish baking and browning. Can bake for up to 15 or 20 minutes more if necessary.

Remove from oven when pie is bubbly and golden brown. Serve warm with hard sauce, whipped cream, or ice cream.

Joy's Pie Crust
from Joy the Baker
makes a double crusted 9-inch pie crust

2 sticks (8 ounces) cold unsalted butter
2 1/2 (12 ounces) cups all purpose flour
1 Tablespoon sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup (5 to 6 ounces) buttermilk

1. Cut the butter into 1-inch pieces and place in the freezer to chill for 15 minutes. Measure out the buttermilk and store in the refrigerator to keep it cold (you could even put it in the freezer for a few minutes too).

2. Sift together the flour, sugar and salt in a large bowl. Take the cold butter from the freezer and toss it with the flour mixture.

3. Dump the cold butter cubes and flour mixture onto a large work area for rolling. With a rolling pin, roll the mixture, flattening the butter cubes with the flour into long, thin, floured butter sheets. Work quickly to ensure that the butter stays cold. Below is what the rolled butter and flour look like after I’ve gathered them together on the work surface a bit.

4. Place the flour and flattened butter back in the large bowl and chill for 10 minutes. When the butter is cold, remove the bowl from the refrigerator, make a small well in the center of the flour and butter mixture. Add the cold buttermilk to the bowl all at once. Begin to bring the dough together with one hand ( keep the other hand free to answer the phone). Moisten all of the flour with the milk, using your hand to break up large clumps of milk and flour. The dough will be rather shaggy, but you can add another tablespoon of buttermilk, if you see that all your flour isn’t moistened. Form the dough into two disks. The disks will be rough, and hard to shape together, but once they rest in the fridge for an hour, they’ll be easier to roll out.

5. Chill the dough for at least an hour in the refrigerator. At this point, the dough will keep in the fridge for up to three days, or in the freezer for up to three weeks. For freezing, roll the dough out into sheets and wrap them in plastic film.

6. Roll out the top crust large enough to cut a 12-inch circle.

Transfer the pie filling mixture to the pie shell. Moisten the border of the bottom crust by brushing it lightly with water and place the top crust over the filling. Trim the overhang of the top crust so that there is only 1/2-inch of overhand. Tuck the overhand under the bottom crust boarder and press down all around to seal it. Crimp the border using a fork or your fingers and make about 5 evenly spaced 2-inch slashes starting about 1 inch from the center of the pie and radiating toward the edge. Cover the pie loosely with plastic wrap and refrigerate it for 1 hour before baking. This will chill and relax the pastry, preventing shrinking.

Carrot Spice Bundt with Lemon Cream Cheese Frosting

I know it's almost after after National Bundt Day, but I still got bundt fever! The Food Librarian has so many good bundt recipes that it's hard not to want to make then all. Slowly but surely I'd like to pick away at her list, but I definitely don't have the will power like her to tackle them all in such a short amount of time!

This carrot spice bundt seemed look a good one to tackle and I was really interested in trying a lemon cream cheese frosting to pair with it. I made this four a bingo at my school as well. In all honesty, I'm not very good at picking items for bake sales. I do believe most people enjoy a good slice of carrot cake (or at least I'd like to think so), but it's not always the best seller at a bake sale. People want fun cookies, brownies, dirt cups (ohh yeah), pumpkin logs, etc. But a large slice of brown cake isn't the belle of the ball amongst the others. Which is sad=( 'Cause let me tell you, this cake was good.


(Confession: I treated myself to a certain amount of this batter before placing it in the oven. It was the best cake batter I have ever had. So nutty and sweet. LOVE.)

I made this while babysitting one evening, and it was super easy. Only one mistake happened... The recipe says to butter the pan, but it does not say to flour it. I made a bundt not too long ago and remembered flouring it, so I was slightly put off upon reading that (or lack thereof). I went ahead with only buttering it, but then it led to this problem whenever I returned home with my bundt to invert it:


Hmmm. It was the night before my bake sale. Yikes! But I am not easily defeated. I fought for this cake! So careful maneuvering allowed me to lift out the stuck part and place right on top. With a little frosting, no one would ever know;)


Carrot Walnut Cake
found at The Food Librarian

Ingredients

1 1/4 cups all purpose flour

4 teaspoons ground cinnamon

1 1/4 teaspoons baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 1/4 cups sugar

3/4 cup olive oil

3 large eggs

1 1/2 cups grated carrots (about 3 large)

3/4 cup chopped toasted walnuts
Preparation

Place rack in center of oven and preheat to 350°F. Butter 12-cup nonstick Bundt pan. Whisk flour, cinnamon, baking soda and salt in medium bowl until well blended. Using electric mixer, beat sugar, oil and eggs in large bowl on medium speed until pale and fluffy, about 5 minutes. Add flour mixture, beating just until blended. Fold in carrots and walnuts.

Pour batter into prepared pan. Bake cake until toothpick inserted near center comes out clean, about 50 minutes. Cool cake in pan on rack 1 hour.

Invert cake onto plate. Cool completely. Drizzle icing over top of cake, allowing icing to flow down sides. (Can be made 1 day ahead. Cover and chill.)

Cinnamon Chocolate Bundt (Yes, that is the word chocolate)

So for those of you new to my blog, I must confess I am not a chocoholic by any means. For those of you who have been with me a while, you already knew this. You may notice I don't really have any chocolate-y items on my blog. Though there are rare instances. But sometimes you really need to go out of your comfort zone, right? Often (always) members of my family complain to me about never making chocolate items. (*cough my dad and sister cough*) So, I decided to appease them.


I just love browsing through The Food Librarian's countless numbers of bundts. If you haven't already heard about her obsession with them, go check it out asap! She's so crazy (about them) that she's, for the second time, making 30 straight days of bundts leading up to National Bundt Day. How cool! I think it's super amazing and so I've realized I haven't made a bundt in quite a while. In honor of her, I am making 2 bundts for National Bundt Day this Monday. The first I chose was of the chocolate variety and one she called her absolute favorite. If I was going to pick a chocolate cake to make, why not the best?


I guess my dislike/fear of chocolate, among many other aspects, is the fact that it will be too dry and crumbly. Eww. This cake, however, was so far in the other direction. With the aspect of cinnamon involved, I knew it couldn't be too bad! And let me tell you, this cake was delicious. Yes, I just called a chocolate something delicious and I swear I'm in my right state of mind. I loved how the cinnamon worked with the chocolate and the glaze I made was a perfect pair. I honestly must have glazes or frostings with most of the cake type things I make.


This cake was gone in 24 hours, no lie. I think it turned out beautifully and held up well. I was really pleased with the taste and... I may be a slight chocolate convert. I can't say I've fallen in love with chocolate, but I definitely may be willing to give it a chance more often. This means you may be seeing more chocolate items popping up, but let's not get too eager;)


Ps-This recipe is SOOO easy. One pan and one bowl. It's real fast too.


Cinnamon Chocolate Bundt
found on The Food Librarian

Ingredients:
1 cup water
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 stick (1/2 cup) butter
1/4 c plus 1 T (or 5 T) cocoa
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups sugar
1/2 t salt
1 1/2 t cinnamon
1/2 c buttermilk
1 t baking soda
2 eggs
1 t vanilla

Instructions:
1. Bring to a boil in a pot: Water, oil, butter and cocoa
2. In a large bowl, combine together with a whisk: flour, sugar, salt, cinnamon
3. Add the chocolate mixture to the flour and mix until combined.
4. Add the buttermilk and baking soda and mix.
5. In a small bowl, combine the eggs and vanilla. Add to the batter and combine.
6. Pour batter into greased 10 or 12-cup Bundt pan (I prefer to use Pam with Flour or Bakers Joy) and bake in a preheated 375 degree oven for 30-35 minutes (the original recipe says 25 minutes, so start checking then).
7. Cool in pan.
8. Top with a dusting of powdered sugar or a simple glaze of powdered sugar and milk or water.

Okay, so for this lush glaze I was mentioning... I didn't have any powdered sugar in the house, so I had to look up a very strange recipe for a type of glaze that didn't use any. This is what I ended up doing:

Ingredients:
6 tbsp butter
3 tbsp corn syrup
1/4 c brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp or so cinnamon

Melt butter, corn syrup, and brown sugar until sugar is dissolved. Add vanilla and cinnamon. (I had a minuscule amount of powdered sugar left that I threw in as well.)

Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins

I made these super fast one day to use up the obnoxious amount of bananas we had. I didn't try too many of them as I was making them for a friend, but I liked this recipe. I'm not too sure, but I don't think I'm a huge banana fan. I don't bake with them too often, but when I do, the items aren't always amazing to me compared to other things. I really wish I baked with apple more, but the task of chopping and slicing apples always seems so time consuming or difficult. I really need to get over that and do it anyways.


A side note: I'm reading Pride and Prejudice for the first time. Anyone out there read it? Love it or hate it? I actually surprised myself. I really like it. I started reading with a mindset that I wasn't going to like it, but surprisingly I really do!

Also, For the past week or so I have been having a really hard time with applying to colleges and it has been very frustrating for me. With all the other activities I am involved in I have very little time to do much else and unfortunately college apps are pushed to the back. But I did managed to finish one application to the University of Pittsburgh. And I just got my letter from them today and.................. I GOT IN!!! It is really such a relief after the unbelievably emotionally stressful week I have been having. Pitt is my almost number 1 choice. It's slightly behind the University of Dayton, at the moment. SO, I can't rejoice just yet, as I still need to send some apps to a few more places. But, YAY!!!!


Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins
found at Sugarcrafter

Ingredients

• 1 3/4 cup flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp nutmeg
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp cardamom
• 3/4 cup packed brown sugar
• 1 egg
• 1/2 cup mashed bananas
• 1/2 cup milk
• 2 Tbsp vegetable oil
• 2 ounces chocolate chips

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and grease a muffin pan.
2. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, salt, spices, and sugar.
3. In another medium bowl, combine the oil, egg, and milk.
4. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients gradually until combined.
5. Stir in the chocolate chips.
6. Spoon the batter into the muffin tin, filling each one about 3/4 of the way full.
7. Bake 20-25 minutes or until a knife inserted in the center comes out clean .

Go-to Sugar Cookies & Pics

Sometimes you just need something sweet. Simple and sweet and takes no time to come together. I didn't have a go-to sugar cookie recipe before, but I sure do now! When it comes to the perfect sugar cookie for me, I don't want it cakey. Also, I cannot cannot cannot stand eat n' park sugar cookies, or any hard sugar cookies for that matter.


Obviously there needs to be a common ground here. I want a chewy cookie with a soft middle and a ever so gently browned edge that I can still chew without hurting my teeth. And that my folks is the very definition of a sugar cookie. Now technically, sugar cookies should be sprinkled or rolled in sugar before put in the oven... well I didn't even do that. I told you I wanted simple! But I think the addition of more sugar would be superb as well.


In addition to this post, I'm posting some pictures from my school's Homecoming. I didn't take too many pictures because I wanted to enjoy the evening itself, rather than try to take pictures of everyone and everything.


Soft and Chewy Sugar Cookies
found at Bunny's Warm Oven

Ingredients

* 2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
* 1 teaspoon baking soda
* 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
* 1/2 teaspoon salt
* 1 cup butter, softened
* 1 1/2 cups white sugar
* 1 egg
* 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
* 1/2 cup sugar for rolling cookies

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line cookie sheets with parchment paper.
2. In a small bowl, stir together flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Set aside.
3. Using a mixer, beat together the butter and sugar until smooth and very fluffy.
4. Beat in egg, vanilla extract, lemon extract and lemon peel.
5. Gradually blend in the dry ingredients.
6. Roll rounded teaspoonfuls of dough into balls, and roll in sugar. Place on lined cookie sheets about 1 1/2 inches apart.
7. Bake 8 to 10 minutes in the preheated oven, or until lightly browned.
8. Let stand on cookie sheet two minutes before removing to cool on wire racks.

Now for some schmancy dancey pics: