Earl Grey Tea Cakes

(Shh, they’re vegan!)

I have just realized the tragedy that has occurred. These cakes never got posted. I made them ages ago!

I’d made Casey’s Chai Cake when we had company because I thought it would be more popular than the slightly odder sounding Earl Grey cakes, but we have a fabulously fragrant Earl Grey that I’ve been dying to bake with. After I made the Chai cake, I knew I had to do it, pronto!

I made these in a new (to me) silicone baking pan my mom gave me since she never uses it. I’ve never used silicone pans before, and it was a muffin tin that was very deep. I’ve been very skeptical about silicone before, but they popped right out and looked adorable! I’m very happy to add this to my collection and I’m sure I’ll use it often.

I had some soymilk to use up, so I took the opportunity to make these vegan, and Charlie had no idea until I told him. Be sure that if you’re going to glaze these, you use the Earl Grey infused soymilk as the liquid for the frosting, otherwise, the somewhat subtle taste of the tea will be lost underneath the sweetness of the plain glaze! Be careful about your tea selection – you want an Earl Grey that has a lot of bergamot in it.

Love how the blueberries got the glaze all pink!

Ingredients

Cakes
1/2 cup Earth Balance
2 cups whole wheat pastry flour
2-3 tablespoons natural sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 1/4 cup Earl Grey Soymilk* (I used vanilla soymilk as a base – you may want to add 1 tsp vanilla if you’re using plain milk or plain soymilk)
1 tablespoon commercial egg replacer (or milled flax + 2 tablespoons warm water)
1 teaspoon Earl Grey loose leaf tea leaves, finely ground with mortar & pestle
dash of lemon juice

*To make Earl Grey Soymilk, heat 1 3/4 cups milk in a saucepan on low-medium heat. When bubbles form around the edge of the pot, add about 9 grams of loose leaf tea (about 3 teaspoons) in a filter or 3-4 tea bags. Let steep for 5 minutes. Cool.

Glaze
1/4 cup Earl Grey Soymilk
1/2 teaspoon lemon juice (or to taste)
1 cup confectioners sugar (or to desired consistency)
1/4 cup fresh or frozen blueberries (optional, for decoration)

Directions

Cream the Earth Balance and natural sugar together in a medium or large bowl. Since the ratio wasn’t totally even, it won’t come out perfectly creamed, so just give it a good mix. In a separate small bowl, mix the milled flax and warm water together until it gets gooey, then add that to the sugar mixture. Add the dash of lemon juice.

In a separate bowl, mix the whole wheat pastry flour, the baking powder, and the salt together. Slowly add a bit of this dry mixture to the creamed mixture, stirring constantly or mixing with the paddle attachment of your stand mixer. Alternate from time to time with some of the 1 1/4 cups of Earl Grey soymilk. Add a little of each until they are all mixed in. Stir in the Earl Grey tea leaves.

Pour into the silicone baking pans. You can use prepared cupcake pans with liners or that have been greased if you don’t have silicone pans.

Bake at 375*F for 20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.

Let the cakes cool for several minutes before removing them from the silicone molds.

Meanwhile, make the glaze. Add the remaining Earl Grey soymilk, lemon juice, and confectioner’s sugar until you reach the desired consistency. Making the glaze too thick with confectioner’s sugar may take away from the Earl Grey flavor. If you desire a super thick glaze, you may want to consider using bergamot extract.

Dip the tops of the cakes into the bowl of glaze and garnish with blueberries if desired.

Lemon Blueberry Chiffon Cake with Lavender Glaze

Oh, my, I’m so behind on posting recipes. The good news is, I have been doing some good cooking, though, and my arthritis and fibromyalgia have been not tooo terrible, so I’ve been having a pretty active life, as well (leaving me less time to hang out in front of the computer!).

This post really deserves to get online, though, as it’s from all the way back in July, and I know that a lot of people really enjoyed it. This was the second cake that I made for my own birthday! I usually have a yellow cake with chocolate frosting (this year, it was a lightly flavored Cardamom Lime Cake with Chocolate Cream Cheese Frosting) for my birthday, but I also love, love, love the combination of lemon and lavender together. In fact, my favorite cupcake in probably the entire world is a seasonal cupcake from Sweet Avenue Bake Shop that has lemon filling and lavender icing. Don’t tell, but I’ve got one hoarded away in my freezer now that the season for them has past.

Anyway, lemon and lavender go together in an absolutely gorgeous way. Many people at my party were kind of like, “Huh? Lavender? You can eat that?” and yes, friends, you most certainly can. Bo wanted to put the lavender glaze in his coffee, and Kira wanted to have it made into an ice cream (this is something I am definitely considering). So, the glaze was no problem for me to come up with, but a chiffon cake… that I’d never really worked on before.

I based my recipe for the chiffon cake mostly off of a Betty Crocker recipe, only I (who can guess?) reduced the sugar and bumped up the lemon flavor. Chiffon cake is very light and airy, though, so I didn’t want to reduce the sugar too much for fear of losing the texture, and luckily, it came out just fine. Oh… and feel free to throw some cream of tartar in those egg whites like Betty does – I didn’t have any in the house.

I used little umbrellas to decorate this cake… it seems to have been a day for ridiculous decorations. I bought these at the party store where I also bought an amazingly awesome shark piñata. Mmmhmmm.

Ingredients Cake

2 cups cake flour
1 1/4 cups granulated sugar
3 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup cold water
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 tablespoons lemon zest
juice of 1 lemon
7 egg yolks
8 egg whites
1/3 cup blueberries

Lavender Glaze
1/4 cup dried lavender
3/4 cup milk
drop or two of red food coloring (if desired)
confectioners sugar to desired consistency

Directions

Move oven rack to lowest position. Heat oven to 325°F. In large bowl, mix flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. Beat in cold water, oil, vanilla, lemon zest and egg yolks until smooth.

In large bowl, beat egg whites with electric mixer on high speed until stiff peaks form. (I cannot believe how awesome this works out with my stand mixer!) Gradually pour egg yolk mixture over beaten egg whites, folding with rubber spatula just until blended. Pour into ungreased 10-inch angel food (tube) cake pan (I used a silicone bundt pan). Roll blueberries in flour and drop them into the batter.

Bake about 1 hour 15 minutes or until top springs back when touched lightly. Immediately turn pan upside down onto heatproof funnel or bottle. Let hang until completely cool, about 2 hours. Loosen side of cake with knife or long, metal spatula; remove from pan.

In a small saucepan, simmer milk and lavender until the lavender is infused in the milk. The milk should turn a purple or pink color and be very fragrant. Strain the lavender from the milk. In a small mixing bowl, add confectioners sugar a bit at a time until the glaze thickens to desired consistency. I left the glaze thin so that the lavender really came out and so that it could soak into the cake.

Peach Blueberry Granola Crumb Pie

The second annual “All Over Your Face” Pie Eating Contest is coming up soon. We’ve had some roadblocks with scheduling, and we’re not sure if we’ll be able to get all the pies made in time. But, if we do, we’re going to be sick of pie for a while, so I wanted to make one for us to enjoy before we got into that mindset.

We’re having guests for dinner tonight, our old friend Bo, and his friend Gina, who I’ve never met. Dinner is planned (eggplant parm made with eggplant from the garden and heirloom tomatoes from the CSA), but since we’re having a new person at our house, I thought it would be nice to bake something. I had a whole bunch of Starfire Peaches that we’ve been getting in the CSA, as well as some blueberries that I’d frozen when they were at their peak several weeks ago. I cheated a little today and used a pre-fab pie crust instead of making my own – I’m going to be making plenty of my own pie crust in the upcoming weeks.

Ingredients

pastry for double crust pie
egg wash

Filling
1/4 teaspoon ginger
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
2 teaspoons cinnamon
2 tablespoons dark brown sugar
5-6 large ripe peaches, peeled and sliced
1 cup blueberries

Crumb
1/3 cup butter
2 tablespoons dark brown sugar
1 cup graham crackers
1-2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/2 cup granola (I used acai berry)

Directions

In a medium bowl, combine the peaches, 1/4 teaspoon ginger, 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg, 2 teaspoons cinnamon, and 2 tablespoons dark brown sugar. Stir it up so that the peaches are evenly coated. Add the blueberries and get them coated, too.

Next, in a separate bowl, prepare the crumb topping. With a pastry blender, cut the 1/3 cup butter into the 1 cup graham crackers, 2 tablespoons dark brown sugar, and 1-2 teaspoons cinnamon. Once it’s all the same texture, add the granola and stir it.

Preheat the oven to 375.

Roll out half the dough and place it into the pie pan. Give the peaches and blueberries another good stir, then dump the mixture into the pie crust, mounding them in the middle if possible.

Wash your hands, since we usually do this next part with our hands. Carefully pour the crumb topping into the center of the pie crust. Pack the crumb fairly tightly, again, creating a mound in the center of the pie.

Next, roll out the rest of your pie crust. You can make a lattice, or, to do what I did in the photo, take a small cookie cutter and cut out a ton of shapes as close together as possible. You may need to re-roll the dough to get enough shapes. Arrange them in a lattice, or, as I did, in a spiral. Brush an egg wash (one beaten egg and one tablespoon water) over the top, especially if you used the cutouts, as the egg wash will not only make it a pretty color, but it will help the shapes stick together.

Bake at 375 for about 40 minutes or until the crust is browning and the filling is bubbling. You may need to cover the edges with aluminum foil for the first 20 minutes to prevent excess browning. Depending on how much filling you have or how picky you are about having a clean oven, you may want to set your pie tin on some aluminum foil or on top of a baking sheet covered in parchment to catch any drips of sticky fruit.

One ripe blueberry.

Charlie just went outside to water the blueberry bushes, and there was one giant ripe blueberry on the bushes!

A few weeks ago, they looked like this:

And now, we have this!

Very exciting. It tasted delicious, too.

The blueberry bushes are here!

It all started a while back, maybe a month or six weeks ago, when Charlie was perusing craigslist. Craigslist may not be the same gem everywhere as it is in New York City – for example, when I was in London, a site called Gumtree was much more popular, and if you click on other regions, craigslist just doesn’t get the same traffic as it does here.

Craigslist has helped me find two jobs, several interviews for jobs I did not want, an apartment, a guy to move my couch up six flights of stairs into an apartment since it wouldn’t fit in the elevator, someone to buy stuff that wouldn’t fit into my new apartment, and, of course, hours of amusement reading the best-of-craigslist. So clearly, I could not have survived New York City, and perhaps, even, New York City could not function in its present form, without the ease, beauty, and occasional threat to one’s person that craigslist provides us.

Charlie and I forward each other listings on craigslist that we think each other will like, mostly in jest, sometimes in fantasy, and occasionally relevant to reality. In fantasy, I don’t mean something that came out of the “Casual Encounters” section – I mean, for example, a vintage skateboard for him, or for me, a recent post that said something like, “our hens are laying too many goddamn eggs for us to eat, for our friends to eat, if I see another omelette I’ll puke, please take a chicken for your backyard and you can have eggs too.” I might be exaggerating about the gravity of the situation, but just the thought of this little uncaged hen running around our backyard in the suburbs of NYC and giving us eggs is so wild a thought to me… so most of the emails I get are about chickens, admittedly.

These chicken posts started getting more and more frequent as soon as Charlie started frequenting the farm+garden section on craigslist. What a gem it is. And, this day, a month or six weeks ago, he saw a posting that said

Blueberry Plants for Sale – Grow Your Own Blueberries this Summer – $10

Reading further, the post described the blueberries as heirloom blueberries, and my eyes grew wider. I’d considered a fruit like blueberries or raspberries or something for our backyard farm, but starting that stuff from seed would take ages and tons of care. I judged that it was a bad idea based on the fact that the Kitchen Garden book I’d taken out of the library had approximately five lines about growing broccoli and about five pages on growing strawberries. Besides, those strawberry pots I’d seen confused the hell out of me!

So, these blueberry plants were ready to go! They could just be stuck in the ground! They would give fruit this summer! Was it really that easy?

I tried to call the farm, but got a busy signal. This was a good sign, I supposed. When I finally got through, I got a very grumpy man who gave me minimal information. Charlie and I let the issue drop for a few weeks, leaving the issue of blueberry plants somewhere closer in reality than chickens but much less close than, say, the chances that I won’t kill all my plants and we’ll have some sort of vegetables.

May started approaching. And once May arrives, our weekends are booked. There is no time to go on a day trip to some far off place in New Jersey. There’s weekends of BBQ’s, not to mention fundraising for AIDS Walk NY, and then the weekend of AIDS Walk itself!

Last week I committed. “Let’s get some blueberries this weekend,” I said. I called the farm again, nervous as I got a busy signal, and then rang again. The same grumpy man answered and was reluctant to answer a few more questions I had. Still, I made the appointment, and we roped our friend Bo into coming with us.

Sunday arrived, and we were looking at a two and a half hour drive if we stuck to main roads, three hours if we took the back roads. We all hoped on the way down that it would not be the crotchety man that greeted us, and when we drove up onto the muddy road for DiMeo Farms with miles of blueberry bushes, it was a pleasant lady who was happy to help us.

This is more or less what we got - ours are a bit smaller, pictures when we plant!

We bought five of the ten dollar plants, two for my mom (you need at least two to ensure pollination) and three for us. They’ll probably give some fruit this summer – not much, but enough to make our eyes light up and make us wish that it was next year or the year after. The small plants were healthy and came in three gallon containers full of sandy soil, and I know from the excited research I did before we even got them that they like acidic soil. We haven’t even figured out where we’ll put them yet, but this is a purchase we’ll be happy with for years – the lady at the farm said they could last us 30 years. I can’t wait until they produce enough to make my Blue Ribbon Blueberry Crumb Pie.

If I only had a chicken to keep me company while I waited for that day…

Blue Ribbon Blueberry Crumb Pie

This pie was by far my favorite out of any at the pie-eating contest, and I’m definitely going to try to squeeze in another one before all the blueberries disappear from the supermarket shelves (or the prices rise dramatically as they are shipped in from lands far far away). People were clamoring to get a piece of this pie, be it because they were biased because the winner of the pie-eating contest had blueberry, or because of the rave reviews that traveled fast throughout the backyard.

Most blueberry pie recipes require you to cook the blueberries on the stove before you put it into the pie crust. Frankly, I thought this was crap, as I didn’t see why I needed to boil it down into gush, add more sugar than I ever do, and add more steps and more dishes to do when I was already making approximately two dozen pies. I searched and searched, and I finally found a recipe that didn’t pre-cook the blueberries. The magic ingredient was cornstarch, which would thicken the berries as they baked in the oven. I think our pie turned out way better than pre-cooked glop.

Though this pie hasn’t won any contests (yet!), we’re calling it blue ribbon since it was the blueberry pie that Joseph had when he won All Over Your Face 2009.

To make the exact pie that won the competition, just remove the crumb topping and instead of the lattice, make a double crust like in Mommy™’s Peach Pie.

Ingredients

1 pastry for double-crust pie (I used Charlie’s Consistent Win Pie Crust

1 tablespoon water
1/2 cup white sugar (taste your berries to see how sweet they are – you may need a little more or less)
1/4 cup cornstarch
1 teaspoon lemon zest (I was down to the wire with guests coming when I made this, so I used about 2 teaspoons of lemon juice – next time I’ll probably do 1 tsp juice, 1 tsp zest)
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
I might have put a dash of nutmeg in, too? I can’t remember.
3 cups fresh blueberries

Crumb Topping:
2/3 cup crushed cinnamon graham crackers
1/4 cup packed brown sugar
3 tablespoon all-purpose flour
1/3 cup butter

Directions

In a medium sized bowl, stir the lemon juice and zest into the blueberries. Next, add the vanilla, cinnamon, sugar, and water. Sprinkle the cornstarch around the top, then mix it into the bowl.

Next, in a separate bowl, prepare the crumb topping. Mix graham cracker crumbs, brown sugar and flour. Cut in butter with a pastry blender or a fork until crumbly. Set aside.

Preheat the oven to 375.

Roll out half the dough and place it into the pie pan. Give the blueberries another good stir, then dump the mixture into the pie crust, mounding them in the middle if possible.

Wash your hands, since we usually do this next part with our hands. Carefully pour the crumb topping into the center of the pie crust, leaving about an inch of blueberry showing around the edge in between the crust and the topping. Pack the crumb fairly tightly, again, creating a mound in the center of the pie.

Next, roll out the rest of your pie crust, making strips to form a lattice top crust. If you need detailed directions on how to make the lattice crust, they’re also in Charlie’s Consistent Win Pie Crust recipe.

Bake at 375 for about 45 minutes or until the crust is browning and the blueberry filling is bubbling. Depending on how much filling you have or how picky you are about having a clean oven, you may want to set your pie tin on some aluminum foil or on top of a baking sheet covered in parchment to catch any drips of sticky fruit.

(Tired of Pie) Peach Blueberry Filo Turnovers

It was peaches again in the farm share this week, and although I love summer fruits, it’s been so hot and humid this week that I’ve been more interested in eating the cool cucumbers and lovely tomatoes they’ve sent along instead.

So now, I have some peaches, and no desperate pie making going on. I thought about making another sorbet, this time with peaches, but Charlie’s got a sort of allergy to hand fruits like apples and peaches especially. When he eats them raw, he gets itchy in his mouth, especially when the fruit is very ripe. If I made a peach sorbet, I’d probably end up eating it all myself, and since we’ve already got a hoenydew sorbet, that would be a bit much.

Charlie’s much better if the fruit has been cooked, so, out of kindness and love for him, I’ll take our remaining peaches and conjure up a recipe that cooks them.

Once upon a time, when I was making an awesome veggie filo recipe from the Moosewood Cookbook at my Brooklyn apartment that I had a few summers ago, and we had some extra filo. I quickly threw together everything that I could find in the house that would make a sweet turnover type of thing. I think it ended up being two plums, a peach, some blackberry applesauce, and some instant vanilla oatmeal. They turned out fabulously.

I was going to make a sort of repeat of this tonight, but sadly, the store seemed to not have a single ripe plum. I remembered that I had most of a carton of blueberries leftover from our brunch the other day, and decided to go with that instead. I had an extremely elegant plan laid out for the peaches and plums, too, but I suppose that will have to wait for another day.

Ingredients

1/2 package filo dough, thawed

Filling:

3-4 medium peaches, pitted, peeled, and chopped
about 1 1/2 cups of blueberries
1 teaspoon to 1 tablespoon maple syrup, depending how sweet you like things (I used Trader Joe’s Grade B Organic)
1 teaspoon brown sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon

Butter mixture:

1 tablespoon maple syrup
2 tablespoons salted butter
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

Egg wash:
1 egg, beaten
1 tablespoon water

Directions

Remember that if you’re working with genuine filo dough, you’ll need to work quickly and in a draft-free environment. If you’re afraid of that but want to try this recipe anyway, you can cheat and use puff pastry which is easier and less delicate.

Keep a damp towel nearby to cover your filo with that you’re not working with at the time. Be sure that all of your other materials are prepared in advance before you begin working with the filo. Also, some filo comes frozen, so make sure you read the box when you buy it. You’ll be mighty disappointed if the instructions say to thaw it for 2 hours on the counter or 8 hours in the refrigerator and you were planning to pop these in the oven in a few minutes.

Prepare the filling by stirring together the peaches, blueberries, 1 tablespoon maple syrup, brown sugar, and 1 teaspoon cinnamon.

In a separate bowl, prepare the egg wash by mixing the egg and water thoroughly.

In a separate bowl, melt the butter. Mix in the remaining tablespoon of maple syrup and 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon.

Ready to start with the filo? Are you sure? You’ve got your butter mixture, your egg wash, and your fruit? Good.

Preheat oven to 350.

Take about 5 sheets of filo. Cover the remaining filo with a damp cloth. Fold the 5 sheets of filo so that it forms a square.

Brush a bit of the butter mixture to within about 3/4 inch of the edge. Place a few tablespoons of fruit onto the square. Be sure to fill enough so that the pastry isn’t droopy, but don’t overfill it, either.

Brush the egg wash onto the remaining bare edge. Fold the square over to make a triangle. Press the edges together. Brush the top of the pastry lightly with more egg wash.

Repeat until no filo remains. Place turnovers on parchment on a baking sheet.

Bake at 350 for about 15 minutes or until filo is flaky and golden brown.

Serve for breakfast, or for dessert with vanilla ice cream.

Epic Brunch with Bo and Bendi

Today’s brunch: Cereal Coated French Toast, I-Think-I-Was-Dreaming Sweet Potato Browns, Raspberry Sorbet Bellinis, Vegetarian Bacon.

As I mentioned in my last post, we had Bo and Bendi as visitors last night, and Sunday was to be a day of Epic Brunch and either movies or board games.

Charlie slept very late today, so Bo and I left Bendi to entertain himself and ran around to different stores gathering the ingredients we’d need. Since then, we’ve been cooking and drooling in anticipation of the wonderful creations that are about to happen.

Cereal Coated French Toast

We saw this on a TV program one time on the Food Network. The owner of a cute little restaurant somewhere far away from here made it, and it was far away enough that we would never end up there, so we decided that one day we would have to make it ourselves.

I’m usually not a fan of french toast because most places make it too eggy, and honestly, if I wanted eggs and toast, I would make an omelette with a side of toast. So, if you want your french toast to be eggy, you’ll want to add an extra egg to this recipe.

Ingredients

5 eggs
1 1/4 cups milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 loaf thick sliced soft white bread
4 cups quasi-crushed Honey Graham Oh’s
vegetable oil for cooking

Directions

Beat eggs, milk, and vanilla together. Stir in cinnamon.

Heat a pan to medium before adding the fat. This allows the pores of the pan to open up to accept the oil so that things don’t stick. Once the pan is hot, add a little bit of oil, coating the pan.

Dip a slice of bread in the egg mixture, coating thoroughly. Next, dip the bread in the crushed cereal (you may want to use a separate plate for this so the rest of the cereal doesn’t get soggy in the process). Transfer the slice to the pan and cook on each side until brown, probably about 3 minutes per side.

We’re serving with blueberries on top! You may want to serve with whipped cream.

I-Think-I-Was-Dreaming Sweet Potato Browns

These, I think, actually came to me in a dream. Last night, before bed, we’d talked about making the french toast and vegetarian bacon, and sometime in my sleep I came up with the idea of making hash browns, too. Usually Charlie makes some delicious oven potatoes, but in my dream, I imagined sweet potato hash browns, of the shredded variety. When I awoke and proposed my idea, Bo was all about it, and we modified it a bit to include a variety of white potatoes and sweet potatoes, with rosemary and paprika. Instead of frying them, which is higher in fat and usually turns out very messy, we decided to bake them in the oven.

Ingredients

1 large sweet potato, peeled and shredded
1 large russet potato, peeled and shredded
2 teaspoons olive oil
1 1/2 teaspoons paprika
1 egg, beaten
2 teaspoons rosemary, ground with mortar and pestle
salt and fresh ground pepper to taste

Directions

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Prepare a baking sheet with a sheet of parchment or sprayed lightly with olive oil.

Combine all ingredients in a large bowl, mixing thoroughly so that the potatoes are coated in the oil and egg. Form patties about 1 1/2 inches across,

The patties will be somewhat loose, but the egg will help bind it together. Transfer it back and forth between your hands a few times to smush it together.

Bake until the edges are brown, flipping once in the middle, possibly adding 2-3 minutes of low broil at the end for extra crispiness.

Makes about 24 patties.

Raspberry Sorbet Bellinis

Ingredients

Extra Dry Champagne
Ciao Bella Raspberry Sorbet, or other premium fruit sorbet of your choice

Directions

Bo likes to stir up the puree and then top it with the champagne, but I like to let the sorbet just melt into my glass, in hopes of getting a mouthful of cool, undissolved refreshment. So for my version, pour a glass of champagne, and top with about a tablespoon of sorbet. Let the sorbet melt into the bubbly for a delightful brunch treat. Fancy glasses optional – we served ours in these glass mugs that we got at a garage sale in Virginia for ten cents each.

All Over Your Face 2009

Yesterday, we held the first annual “All Over Your Face” hands-free pie-eating contest and BBQ. I mention this here because, well, it’s ridiculous, and because over the next few days, you’re going to see a lot of recipes related to the contest. The “competition sized pies” were seven inches and each had a double crust. They came in blueberry, strawberry, apple, peach, and lime (for our friend, Jack, who “does not eat of the cooked fruit” – you may remember zir from the Mocha Pillow Cookies recipe). There also obviously had to be plenty of pies just for eating, too.

The thing is, though, that Charlie and I baked all the pies from scratch. We figured it would be cheaper, more delicious, more fun, and so on and so forth. Over the course of seven days, despite my recent back problems (two herniated discs), we managed to make twenty 7″ pies and five full sized pies. We had a little help here and there, but mostly, Charlie made the crusts and I made the fillings. That includes peeling about six pounds of apples, hulling four pounds of strawberries, peeling nine pounds of peaches, and zesting and juicing ten limes.

We also made macaroni salad, gluten-free pasta salad, mini cupcakes, a watermelon keg, and a cucumber tomato salad, so, there will be recipes galore related to this contest.

For now, please enjoy a few pictures of the contest. Charlie’s going to make a video as soon as everyone sends in their footage.

The winning pie.

That’s my partner, Charlie. He almost edged out Mike for third place, but Mike took it.

Fortunato is looking up in awe at Joseph, who won the contest, seated to his left.

Our first, second, and third place winners, after the awards ceremony. Joseph, Micah, and our local Councilman, Mike.

These photos, I believe, were taken by our lovely friend, Gina R Snape.

Summer Pumpkin Muffins (with blueberries, coconut, and cashews)

I love baking with pumpkin, but during the summer months, dense pumpkin breads with deep, spicy tastes like cloves and nutmeg can really weigh you down. Many of my recipes originate from having something in the fridge that was about to go off, and in this case, it was blueberries. I thought about mixing pumpkin and blueberries, and then when I was at work, I was snacking on blueberries and cashews together, and I thought that those were lovely together, too. I often throw coconut in with my pumpkin breads, and that seemed like a good idea too. All of a sudden, a jumble of tastes were together. now how to spice it up?

I did use the traditional cinnamon and nutmeg, but I dropped the cloves. I also reduced the nutmeg from what I usually use in a pumpkin bread recipe and added cardamom, which I usually use with citrus items to bring out a really bright flavor.

This is one of my “healthier” recipes… I used whole wheat flour, light coconut milk, cut back the oil and swapped in applesauce, and it’s vegan, so there’s no eggs.

Ingredients

3 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
1 1/2 cups packed brown sugar
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 tsp cardamom
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1 tablespoon milled flax seed
2 tablespoons warm water
1 15oz can of pumpkin puree
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce
2/3 cup light coconut milk
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup cashews, crushed
1 pint blueberries (make sure all the stems are removed)
flaked coconut to sprinkle on top (optional)

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line two regular sized muffin tins with liners.

In a large bowl, stir together the flour, brown sugar, baking soda, baking powder, nutmeg, cinnamon, and cardamom.

In a separate bowl, mix the flax with the warm water and stir until a goopy mixture is created. Add the pumpkin puree, oil, applesauce, and coconut milk, and stir until all wet ingredients are blended.

Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix until all of the flour is absorbed. Fold in the cashews. Gently fold in the blueberries. Scoop into prepared muffin tins, and, if desired, sprinkle coconut on top.

Bake for 18-20 minutes in the preheated oven or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Remove from oven and cool on racks.

Fluffy Lemon Cookies (with Blueberries or Coconut)

Not the best photo, taken on my slightly working iPhone in our hotel room. We went away for the weekend (to Philadelphia, as I previously mentioned) and I personally took it upon myself to feed everyone I encountered along the way. Once the zucchini bread was in the oven, I started on making a huge batch of lemon cookies. Of course, you can reduce it if you’re feeding a smaller crowd.

Ingredients

1 cup butter
1/4 cups and 1 tablespoon shortening
1 1/4 cups sugar
3 egg
5 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
3 tablespoons honey
3/4 cup confectioner’s sugar
1 cup plain yogurt
2-3 tablespoons zest
Juice of 2-3 lemons (3 stubborn lemons, 2 juicy lemons)

1/2 cup coconut (optional)
1/2 cup blueberries (optional)
sugar crystals (optional)

Directions

In a small mixing bowl, cream butter and sugar. Beat in egg. Combine flour, baking powder and salt. Combine honey, yogurt, lemon zest and lemon juice. Add dry ingredients to creamed mixture alternately with honey mixture.

Portion onto wax paper to press into rolls of cookie dough for slicing later. Place some of the dough onto the center of a sheet of wax paper. Pull half the sheet over so the ends meet. Use the edge of a baking tray to force the dough into the desired roll shape. Tuck the ends in to close.

Refrigerate (or freeze if you’re in a hurry) until firm (about 4 hours).

Remove from fridge and unroll wax paper. Cut into 1/4 inch thick slices. Press blueberries into dough, dunk in sugar crystals, or sprinkle coconut on top, if desired.

Bake at 325 degrees F for 12-14 minutes or until golden brown. Remove to wire racks.