The last three months....

So, I don't know if anyone still subscribes to this... but here goes...

So sorry about falling off the grid like that. December got crazy with moving. And then there's that working retail during the holidays bit. Oy. However, Christmas was good to this boy's kitchen and so I've been able to tackle more adventurous baking hurdles. Most were not photographed,  but a couple of the highlights are here for your ocular pleasure:

 First, here is my new beauty. She is pistachio green, and has a motor that goes all the way up...  I love her.

Caramel Apple Cookies

Nothing says "fall" like a caramel apple. But those aren't very fun to eat, nor do they store well in your cabinet. These cookies fix both of those problems. Using some diced granny smith apple and caramel bits from the baking aisle, these cookies taste just like a caramel apple. They also bake very well, soft in the middle, a little crisp on the edges. I think the recipe called for far too much apple and caramel for the amount of dough, and could have used a little more moisture (I added about a tablespoon of water and a couple teaspoons of spiced rum), but they were great otherwise.

The Pumpkin Chronicles

I went a little crazy with the pumpkin the past couple of weeks. This is what you get when Walmart insists on selling only the giant sized cans of pumpkin...

Baking Interregnum / Lemon Buttermilk Pound Cake

Sorry, I got busy/lazy these past couple of weeks. Not with the baking so much, mostly with the posting. Work made me nocturnal and I also had to deal with an unscheduled apartment hunt. But fear not, I bring order back to my kitchen. I missed photographing a couple baking episodes, like the balsamic cherry chocolate cookies and the whole wheat chocolate chip cookies, but I'm going to start getting through the backlog now before I completely freak out over holiday baking. Get ready for holiday cookies people. They are coming...

Honey Pecan Cookies

I like these cookies because they don't require softened butter, but that also means they are very dense. Luckily, I like dense cookies. I also didn't have honey (I know, it's in the title) but I did have agave nectar and some real maple syrup. I used about a 80/20 proportion of those two to replace the honey. I think it was pretty much the same as honey, right...? In any event, the maple syrup smelled fantastic when the cookies were baking. I also used some course ground sea salt instead of regular table salt to give it a bit of texture. 

Chocolate Apricot Sandwich Cookies

These cookies were for another overnight at work. The cookie dough has a very deep chocolate flavor but isn't too sweet. The apricot preserves filling adds the extra little bit of sugar to make these delicious. I also splurged on some quality melting chocolate (68% cocoa, thanks Central Market). The dipping chocolate was so good I scooped the rest of it out of the bowl with a piece of bread...

Pumpkin Sage Bundt Cake

Mmm, more pumpkin. My fellow chino folders were getting punchy about more baked goods, so here was something easily transported with a descent shelf life. This cake is a pretty basic bundt cake with the addition of sage. The sage is steeped with the butter for a few minutes to infuse the flavor...

Avocado Pound Cake

I don't know why avocado hasn't made it's way into pastry more. It's fatty, it's colorful, it has a creamy and delicate flavor. I think avocado is the next pumpkin. Expect an avocado latte from Starbucks in the next couple of years. It's happening...

Watermelon Pie

Even though I've already delved into autumn flavors with all the pumpkin lately, it still feels like summer here in Texas, so here's a recipe from The Runaway Spoon appropriate for the temperatures outside. I meant to make this a couple weeks ago, but was being lazy about juicing the watermelon. So in the intervening time between me buying the watermelon and actually cutting into it, it's been terrorizing Bailey (my dog) while it sat in the corner of my kitchen. Why do I get the "special" dogs? Maybe it's appropriate that on her first birthday I vanquished the evil melon with my chef's knife...

Muffin explosion!

I have to work an overnight shift at work, so I thought muffins would make the hard labor less agonizing. That and lots of coffee. Lootss of coffee. I decided to make a couple recipes I found at Baking Bites: Espresso Spice Pumpkin Muffins and Browned Butter Brown Sugar Muffins.

Pumpkin Spice Scones

I told you I was going to make more scones. Also, this brief sting of sub triple digit heat has made it seem like fall is here, and thus pumpkin is going to start making its way into everything I bake. Mmmm pumpkin. When organizing my recipes yesterday I almost made a tab just for pumpkin.

Salted Chocolate Chip Cookies

I know what you're thinking: "You already created the perfect chocolate chip cookie Tanner, why would you bother with a new recipe." Well, you see, curious blog reader, I've been intrigued with salt lately, as it is all the rage with the foodie types...

Basic Brownies

Basic brownies? How boring. But, after the anything-but-boring bacon brownies, I wanted to get a better understanding of some brownie basics, so here they are...

Orange Poppy Seed Scones

I've always enjoyed me some scones, but felt they were more effort than they were worth to make myself. And thus I suffered through years of sugar saturated coffee shop scones. Damn you Starbucks, damn you. But lo, behold these awesome scones made with these two hands of mine. Messy? yes. Hard? no...

Lemon Olive Oil Cookies

This is a quick post. These cookies weren't very complicated and came together pretty easily. I wanted to see how olive oil played in cookies. From what my brief research session showed, olive oil leaves the cookies a little crusty and cakey. These cookies supported that bit of info to a T. They tasted much like the olive oil bundt cakes I baked a few weeks ago and were the cakiest cookies I've ever made. They might be for some people, but not for me...

Salted Caramel Squares

Warning: Do not attempt at home. This recipe should only be attempted by those with professional grade kitchens.

So, yeah, these were probably my biggest failure to date. Having been burned by hot sugar before, I was pretty gunshy about this one, which is why I think this failure was due to undercooking...

Key Lime Cookies

I love lime. (Do you really love lime, or are you just saying it because you saw it? (yep, that's an Anchorman spoof, live with it)).

Petit Fours: Round One

My kitchen looks like a tornado ripped through Candyland and I think I just gave myself diabetes. Round one will be chalked up as a "learning experience." Mes petits gâteaux are actually little packages from Satan. Ok, maybe they weren't that much trouble, but I just spent an entire hour mixing icing. The icing was really the only terrible part. Icing *shudder*...

Let them eat Petit Four

I've taken it upon myself, with some gentle urging from an expecting friend, to learn how to make petit fours. Don't know what petit fours are? Don't worry, only the Cox twins would have that knowledge and craving. Petit fours are cakes or other pastries small enough to eat in one bite. Usually they are sponge cakes with a cream or jam filling and iced to look like a tiny present or with a tiny flower. So, Stephanie and Katherine, I'm making petit fours for the next couple of weeks, I hope you're hungry. I'll be going through several genoise and Bicuit De Savoie recipes from The Cake Bible and playing around with soaking syrups and creams until I've satisfied myself with the results. Good thing the ingredients are cheap. Any suggestions on flavors? I'm trying out a classic almond and maybe a lavender cream to begin with. Chocolate might make an appearance. I'm open to ideas.

Chocolate Bourbon Bundt Cake

I'm back! I know, it's been a while since I baked something. While my body is probably thanking me for a respite from sugar deluge, I've gotten back to it. I started a new (hopefully temporary) job, and I haven't had the motivation to jump into a hot kitchen, but I had today off, so here we are...