De Baking Psychopath

It's Fall! I had a hankering to make something pumpkin-y, so I decided these soft, cakey cookies fit the bill! I sort of messed with the recipe, decreasing the sugar in the recipe by about 1/4 cup and throwing in an extra egg white that was left over from another recipe, as well as throwing in a handful of toasted pecans, so I am not sure if my cookies represented the correct texture, but regardless, they were soft and moist, gently spiced, and not too sweet. Definitely a repeater. Everyone enjoyed them very much! Pumpkin Toffee Cookies (Adapted from Two Peas and their Pod ) Ingredients: 3 cups all-purpose flour 1 teaspoon baking soda 1 teaspoon baking powder 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon 1 teaspoon ground nutmeg 1/4 teaspoon ground allspice 1/2 teaspoon salt 1/2 cup unsalted butter (1 stick), at room temperature 1 & 1/4 cups granulated sugar (original recipe had 1 &1/2 cups) 1 cup canned pure pumpkin puree (unsweetened) 1 large egg + 1 egg white (origina...

This is the best granola I've ever had.  No, this may be the best granola in the world. About a month ago, my program had our annual retreat at the Bedford Springs Resort, a very very nice resort known for its golf course and mineral hot springs. It's almost like stepping back into time when you are there because it looks like a plantation house from the 1800s, and the halls are full of old-timey photographs from hundreds of years of visitors to the Springs. Anyway, I woke up insanely early on Saturday and couldn't go back to sleep, so we were the first ones there at breakfast and had a few one-on-one conversations with the kitchen staff, who were busily putting all the food out for the breakfast buffet. One kind staff member encouraged me to definitely try their granola, "it's house made and really good." Well. I didn't need more encouragement than that. So I got a container of yogurt, and tried this granola. It was crunchy, deeply caramel in...

This year for National Bundt Day and our department's yearly fall luncheon, I made the Double Apple Bundt Cake from Dorie Greenspan's Baking: From my home to yours . The double apple comes from shredded fresh apple and apple butter in the batter. Instead of raisins, I added 1 cup of frozen cranberries. And to frost it, I topped the cake with my favorite caramel frosting . In full disclosure, this bundt was a Frankenstein bundt! I unmolded the cake when the recipe said I could, but it was so steamy and delicate that I totally cracked it into several pieces trying to get it onto my cake carrier! Good thing the frosting covered up all the seams! Luckily no one really noticed or cared, but they did notice the taste. It was sooo good: moist, full of sweet apple and spice flavors, the tart cranberries were a great contrast, and the caramel frosting just reinforced the fall apple flavors. I got a lot of good feedback and requests for the recipe.  Happy Bundt Da...

For the most part, I'm a morning person. This means that on any given weekend day, I am usually wide-awake by 7 or 8 am (with help from my hungry cats, of course) and have to get out of bed due to an inability to return to sleep and a restless mind. Once the cats are fed and my OCD tendencies to clean up around the kitchen are satisfied, I find myself in the mood for making brunch food. And since I can usually count on a couple hours before the hubby drags himself out of bed (can you guess he's a night owl?), I can get a good start on something delectable to surprise him for his (late) breakfast. Usually I go for making a batch of pancakes or French toast, but one recent weekend, I had my mind fixed on cinnamon buns. A soft and fluffy yeasted bun would be ideal in texture, but with this baking powder-dough version on my radar, the compromise in having a non-traditional coffee cake-like texture was perfectly acceptable in exchange for the advantage of savin...