De Baking Psychopath

Close, but no cigar. This past visit to Philly was a fruitful one, as we went to the Metropolitan Bakery to do another taste test of the now-legendary raspberry bars. I decided to be bold and ask the staff whether they knew whether the crust of the raspberry bars was of the same recipe as the lemon bars, or very different. They didn't rightly know, but before we left, the helpful staff member had dug out the ingredient list for all the bakery items and found the raspberry bars. We discovered that in contrast to the simple shortbread crust of the lemon bars, ground and chopped almonds were important components of the raspberry bar crust, and thus I had my next scavenger hunt clue to continue the chase. This recipe, which DOES include almonds in the crust, comes from the cookbook of another famous bakery, Tate's Bake Shop.  The crust is a bit crunchier than the last one I tried, but I think I will need to swap out some of the flour for almond flour to see if I can improve ...

This summer, I had to drive out to a remote animal facility to do a special set of mouse experiments. This was a difficult task for me for a couple of reasons. One, I had not driven the car in over a year, and even when I had, I'd never had to drive by myself nor for the distance I would have to commute to reach this remote facility (about 12 miles each way). Two, because I'd never worked out at that facility before, I had to pack up all my materials (chemicals, tubes, solutions, etc) and have it shipped out there and back, so I had to be really careful I had EVERYTHING I needed, or else I was pretty screwed.  Luckily I survived on both accounts: the experiment went as planned, and I now have a new-found confidence in driving! Hooray! At the end of the month, to thank the wonderful veterinary staff who helped me through the process and made sure I had everything I needed and checked up on my mice, I baked up a couple treats and left them there on my last day. These capp...

Every time we go to Philly to visit Jess, I come back with items from the Metropolitan Bakery that 1) are absolutely delicious, and 2) I want to recreate. You'd think it'd be easy to find the recipes to recreate these items since they have a cookbook published, but alas the bar cookie we were swept away by this time is not in the book. Jess and I went foraging in the day-old bin, and the two of us were like giddy little children in a candy store as we rifled through the unusually large selection of discounted items that early Saturday morning. Croissants! Frosted carrot cake! Muffins of all sorts! Loaves of bread! And fatefully, raspberry crumb bars. We didn't get a chance to eat the raspberry crumb bar whilst in Philly, but upon returning home and finding it packed into our food bag by a sneaky Jess, Michael and I shared the bar and liked it more and more with each passing bite. The shortbread crust was sturdy and crunchy on the base, the jam deep-flavo...

These were "to die for," as one of my co-workers said. They were made for a going away potluck lunch/snack ensemble to go with one last coffee run with the person who was leaving.  The seven layers are: graham cracker crust, walnuts, semi-sweet chocolate chips, white chocolate chips, butterscotch chips, condensed milk, and coconut.  You basically sprinkle everything on sequentially and bake! The condensed milk oozes and bubbles and melds everything together beautifully. I sprinkled a bit of salt on top before baking for good measure, but that's not in the recipe. They're chewy, gooey, sweet, and addictive! You can find the recipe I used here .

I am not quite sure why I made these, other than that I hadn't made any sort of cookies for awhile, and I needed to get rid of old Rolos. That and these popped up on no less than 3 different blogs in quick succession after the original recipe was posted on Two Peas and their Pod. These were intense! I liked the edge pieces the best because the texture of the cookie portion resembled more of a normal cookie, while the middle portions were more akin to eating solidified chocolate chip cookie dough. I probably could have let it bake a little bit longer to get the middle to cook better. I liked using the Rolos for this rather than normal caramels because of the added chocolate component. The salt is very important to balance out all the sweet in this! You can find the recipe here ; the only changes I made were that I used 10 ounces of Rolos instead of caramel candies, and also I ended up using a 9x9 inch square baking pan lined with parchment.

Nothing heralds the beginning of summer like berries, especially blueberries! These hearty, very lightly sweet fruit bars are a perfect breakfast/snack/dessert for your next brunch/picnic/get together!  Think blueberry Nutrigrain bars, but 10 million times better. Blueberry Oat Bars (adapted from The Kitchen Sink Recipes ) Ingredients : 2 cups old-fashioned rolled oats 2 cups whole-wheat flour 1/3-1/2 cup sugar (this is my addition, so add to your taste--the original crust had NO sugar! talk about healthy) 1 teaspoon baking powder 1 teaspoon baking soda 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon 6 tablespoons unsalted butter, frozen, in one big chunk 1 cup milk 1 tablespoon fresh-squeezed lemon juice 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract 1/2 cup sugar 1 tablespoon cornstarch 2 & 1/2 cups frozen blueberries 2 tablespoons brown sugar Instructions : Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Prepare a 9x13 inch pan by lining with parchment paper and spraying with nonstick spray. P...

Spring is upon us, although it is still taking a bit of imagination to believe that it really is Spring because of the erratic weather. I think tomorrow we have a forecast of possible snow showers?! It seems like we're running through all four seasons sometimes, since we've had a couple of 80 degree days already, interspersed with downright chilly days. At a recent department potluck, I decided to find a treat that emanated Spring, and to me one of the fruits that reminds one of the Spring/Summer interface is blueberries. Mmm, I love blueberries, especially in quickbreads and cakes. (You may remember other posts I've had about blueberries: blueberry muffins and blueberry mochi cake , and of course the recent blueberry coffeecake . I have yet to make and post about my favorite blueberry muffin recipe, the one I've been making since early college. That'll have to wait until another time.) And of course one of the classic pairings with blueberry is lemon. These...