BAKED Sunday Mornings (afternoon?): Rosemary Apricot Squares

Sorry these were so late.  We have been doing a lot of traveling and I lost track of the schedule.  However, when I saw both dried apricots and pecans in the farmer's market this morning, I knew I had to whip them up this afternoon.


These delicious bars were one of the first things I was interested in making when I picked up Baked Explorations.  Something about the combination of apricot and rosemary sounded both intriguing and delicious.  And I am always looking for non-chocolate desserts that I think my husband will like.  Well it is too bad he is away, because he would have loved these.  The flavor combination is really original and they have a great combination of a little sweet, a little tart and a little savory.  The rosemary is not overpowering in any way, and it contributes more to the smell of the bars than the taste.


I am glad that I didn't read the whole recipe before I made these, because I might have been scared off by all the steps.  Although there are a lot of dirty dishes in my sink at the moment, it was worth it.  There are a lot of steps, so you have to give yourself some time (read the recipe first!) but you can walk away and do something else while the filling is simmering and while the crust is chilling and baking, so it is not so bad.  If you are looking for something a little different to serve for dessert (or breakfast) look no further than these bars! 


You can find the recipe here, along with all the other bakers of Baked Sunday Mornings.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Goodness

Given my great love of chocolate and peanut butter, I can't believe it took me so long to post these.  I think I made these back when I was living in Texas, although I have made them a few times since.  Usually, I like to try new things when baking, but these were so good, I just kept coming back to them.  Think of these as a big, soft peanut butter cookie with just the right amount of milk chocolate frosting to cut the richness of the bars.  Delicious.  These are great fresh (you have to wait for them to cool before frosting -- don't be tempted to try these without the frosting) and frozen.  I took to eating them right out of the freezer.  Divine!

You can find the recipe here, on Joy the Baker.

Operation Baking GALS: Cookies to Soldiers

    

Before I lived in Texas, I never really had any connection to the military.  I knew that we were fighting a war, and I theoretically knew that the people fighting it were people's parents, children and siblings, but I never really knew anyone who was actually fighting.  However, I now live in a large military town, and many of the people that I interact with on a daily basis, including a few of the children in my child's class, are either military themselves or someone in their family is.  One of my close friends here (who writes this great blog) has had her emotions yanked all over the place, thinking her husband was being deployed and then learning he wasn't but will be at some point in the future.  This has really brought the need to support the troops home for me.  Whether you agree with the war or not, that is someone's parent, child, friend out there fighting, so we can sit at home and we should all do what we can to make them feel comfortable from afar.

All that is why I decided to join the group Operation Baking GALS.  This great group of people bake for soldiers each month.  You join a team and then everyone sends their goodies on the same day, so that the soldier (and his or her unit) is bombarded with love.  Also, it is win-win because I love to bake, but its not great for me to eat everything I bake, so I feel great about being able to send it away.

I chose to make two different kinds of cookies for my group, whose solider is in Iraq.  The first (the cookies on the left) are some of my favorites, because they combine cinnamon and chocolate.  I have made them numerous times and they have never failed.  The recipe makes 2 9x13 pans, but I always half it without any problems.  Bake them for about 20 minutes.

You can find the recipe here, on the blog Dozen Flours.

The second cookie, the one on the right, is Buttery Jam Cookies from our favorite book, Dorie Greenspan's Baking From My Home to Yours.  The recipe calls for apricot jam, but all I had was black raspberry, which accounts for the interesting purple color of the cookies.  These are very soft and not two sweet and I could really taste the jam.  I also used buttermilk (instead of regular milk) because I had exactly 2 tablespoons left and it just seemed too good to be true.

You can find the recipe here, from when it was chosen as  Tuesdays with Dorie recipe.

I hope by solider enjoys them.  Just my way of showing some support for the troops.  I hope you find your own way to support them as well.

An Autumn Treat

"Friday evenings, people get together,
Hiding from the weather.
Tea and toasted, buttered currant buns
Can't compensate for lack of sun,
Because the summer's all gone."

It's fall in Rhode Island. That means the leaves are turning, the weather is brisk, the sun goes in and out all day, and it's time for some crisp New England apples. I love fall so much. It's my favorite season, except all the other ones. No, really, I couldn't pick a favorite season because I love them all! That's why I could never live in a place that has no seasons, like California. To me, there's nothing better than sitting underneath a big oak tree on the Main Green with a book while the leaves fall all around you- unless it's catching snowflakes with your tongue in winter, or watching the cherry blossoms come out in spring, or having a picnic on a warm summer evening. But each time a new season rolls around, I get convinced that it's the best season, and it's been the same this fall. It's the kind of weather that makes you want to wear some wine-colored corduroys and brown boots and walk around listening to "Autumn Almanac" while staring up at the foliage (all of which I did today, thank you!).

Yesterday was the weekly Brown Farmers' Market. After buying my customary baguette from the Seven Stars Bakery stand and my customary brownie from...that lady who makes really delicious fudgy brownies (gotta get my hands on that recipe), I espied some applesauce at the Hill Orchard stand, and I immediately thought of this recipe.

I had always wanted to make Dorie's Applesauce Spice Bars from page 117 of Baking from My Home to Yours, because the picture just looked incredibly enticing.

The picture

But the number of ingredients in the recipe always threw me. Now that I've made it, I realize it's not that many ingredients, but said ingredients included applesauce, which is not my favorite and is not something that I usually have around (especially now that I'm back at school and back to ghetto baking. I'll take a picture of my "pantry" one day and you'll laugh.) Yet I obtained applesauce, and I had some heavy cream left over from my friend Warren's birthday cake, so I was all set.

These were easy-peasy to make. Though peeling, coring and chopping the Cortland apple was as annoying as such tasks always are, the dough came together beautifully. I left out the optional alcohol (since I'm not 21) and the raisins (since they just didn't seem necessary), but everything was fine with just the apples and pecans.

Better than fine, in fact. These were the reactions the bars inspired:

"Mmm. Mmmm! MMMMM!" -My suitemate Devon

"Rebecca, I just found a recipe that we NEED to make when you come home." -Me, on the phone with Rebecca

And perhaps most indicative of all: I cut fifteen bars. Before I left at 4:00, Devon ate one and I ate one. When I came back, there were four left. Now, there are three girls in my suite besides me. They are all very thin. They think that cauliflower makes the perfect dessert. They're in Running Club. This is not to make them out as anorexics — in fact, they dutifully eat everything I bake. But this is definitely a record.

Everything about these bars makes them perfect for fall. They're cake-like in texture, very moist (although that may just be the dorm oven's chronic tendency to undercook things.) I used Cortland apples, which held up extremely well in the baking- they're practically still juicy, and I love the way they taste with the pecans. Originally, I was going to make another batch of glaze because I thought it was spread too thin, but I was out of brown sugar, and now I'm glad. The glaze is delicious, but its sweetness might have overwhelmed the subtlety of the flavor. If you love baking, apples, fall or all things sweet and good in this world, make these applesauce spice bars!