Pineapple Oat Bars

My parents came to visit this last week…and Ryan and I went to ACL on Sunday. Both reminded me that I am no longer sixteen. As I grew up, I was lucky to have a mother and father who transitioned their parenting far more smoothly than most. They struck the ideal balance between support and distance, between nurture and discipline. It was a good thing, this past week, to have them come into my adult home, join me in my adult life, and recognize what Ryan and I have built for ourselves here in Austin.

That being said, I didn’t mind when my mom offered to pay for the four lunches we shared at Whole Foods. Or buy me a vintage rooster from Mockingbird Domestics. No, not at all.

On Sunday, Ryan and I went to ACL to watch our dear friends, Alaina and Patrick from Tennis, play an awe-worthy set. There is something wonderfully odd about watching an old friend (who I used to drink red wine with as a skinny nineteen year old) rock out in front of thousands. But the mud. And the crowds. And the smoke. And the crowds. And the dehydration. And the crowds. Well, I realized that I moved past the outdoor music festival phase a few years ago.

It didn’t help that I misplaced my sunglasses half-way through the afternoon. And if you were in Austin this Sunday, you know sunglasses were a must. I saw all the young kids sporting Ray Ban sunglasses (which are classic, right?) but these Ralph Lauren Keyholes are the ones I want to buy. Adult, right?

To recover from ACL and from my parent’s visit, I’m sitting down now with one of my pineapple oat bars. These bars are composed of a crunchy shortbread topped with a sweet pineapple cake. Dusted, ever so slightly, with powdered sugar, these pineapples bars are the perfect antidote to a long day. I decided to make these bars because I found a can of pineapple in my pantry that needed to see the sunlight, but happily, they turned out even better than expected, and will now be joining the cookie rotation. I hope you had a weekend full of young and old, salty and sweet. And I hope you make and enjoy these bars. I’ve been hearing from so many of you lately and your words bring me joy. Thank you for reading!

Pineapple Oat Bars

Shortbread Layer:
2 cups flour
1/2 cup rolled oats
1/2 cup diced macademia nuts
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
12 TBSP unsalted butter, cut into 12 pieces and chilled

Cake Layer:
8 TBSP unsalted butter, room temperature
3/4 cup sugar
2 eggs
3/4 cup flour
1 cup crushed pineapple

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F and line a 9 x 9 inch square pan with parchment paper. Grease pan and paper well.

2. Make shortbread: in a medium bowl, or food processor, stir flour, sugar, oats, nuts, and baking soda until combined. Cut in chilled butter until the mixture begins to come together into a dry dough. Press dough into bottom of prepared pan and bake in preheated oven for 12 minutes.

3. Meanwhile, cream butter and sugar in a medium bowl. Add eggs, beating well after each addition. Stir in flour and then fold in pineapple. Pour cake mixture over hot shortbread. Return to oven for an additional 30-35 minutes, or until the top begins to turn golden brown.

4. Remove from oven and allow to cool for at least 15 minutes before serving.

Monet

Anecdotes and Apple Cores

Pumpkin Bundt Cake

Here we are again, with another recipe and another post. I think many who don’t blog often wonder how we do it. Or why. This endless parade of dishes, photographed and styled with care, and the words, post after post with words describing how sweet something tastes or how smoothly it glides across the tongue. And there are days when even I wonder how and why I continue to do this. To share my story through pictures and words.

But then I remember the simplicity of standing in a kitchen with a counter of ingredients. Bags of sugar and flour. Aluminum cartons of baking powder. Freshly ground spices. And fruit browning in a bowl. I remember the pleasure of watching those ingredients come together. The art in taking things that are disparate and making them whole. To share those creations is a way of saying that beauty and pleasure still matter. That food is much more than what you put on your plate. Food can be the root of conversation, the root of love, the root of family. And by sharing it with all of you, I affirm that the gift of food has measurable worth.

This pumpkin bundt cake came together on a crisp fall afternoon. I pulled it from oven, let it rest, and it fell (beautifully and painlessly) from its pan onto a cooling rack. If bundt cakes have taught me anything, it’s the value of patience. Turn a bundt cake out too soon, and you end up with a puzzle you have to try to put back together again. Once upright, I slathered my cake cake with a mixture of melted butter and maple syrup, and then generously coated it with cinnamon and sugar until it glistened and smelled like my grandmother’s house on Christmas morning. And when I took pictures of the cake an hour or two later, I felt that familiar rush of joy that comes from a job well done.

Pumpkin Bundt Cake

2-1/2 cups sugar
1 cup canola oil
3 eggs
3 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1 can (15 ounces) solid-pack pumpkin
Confectioners’ sugar

1/4 cup melted butter

1/4 cup maple syrup

Cinnamon Sugar (about 1/2 cup)

1. In a large bowl, combine sugar and oil until blended. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Combine the flour, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, salt and cloves in a separate bowl; fold into egg mixture alternately with pumpkin, beating well after each addition.

2. Transfer to a well-greased and floured 10-in. fluted tube pan. Bake at 350 degrees F for 60-65 minutes or until toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean. Cool for 20 minutes before inverting onto a wire rack. While cooling, whisk together melted butter and maple syrup in a small bowl. Coat sides and top of cake with mixture and dust generously with cinnamon sugar mixture.

Monet

Anecdotes and Apple Cores

Lemon Poppyseed Cookies

Noelle is four years younger than me (and about five years wiser). She and her husband live in West Virginia, where they’re obtaining advanced degrees in medicine, while also owning a house and raising an adorable 14-week old puppy. But despite the levels of responsibility she seems to exponentially reach, Noelle will always be my little sister. Forever, she’ll remain the doe-eyed girl with evenly cut bangs, who could make me laugh so hard I thought I’d never see straight again.

Noelle would agree that we can mark our childhood development by the different foods we ate and loved.

Ages 0-3: sweet potato purees, goldfish crackers, and mashed bananas, eggo waffles

Ages 3-7: french bread pizzas (always while watching Scooby Doo) flour tortillas

Ages 8-12: big domed bakery muffins (Noelle liked lemon poppyseed and I liked banana walnut)

Many of you are familiar with those jumbo muffins. The ones sold at grocery stores and cafes. The muffins which would never come from your grandmother’s 12-cup pan. Moist and hefty. Significantly sweet. Noelle and I loved them.

After school, we’d grab our respective favorite from the kitchen, wrap it in a paper towel, and carry our “snack” into the basement. There, we’d watch a movie, and our fingers would pinch off chunks of muffin, pulling away cake from its grease-stained wrapper. Occasionally, we’d grow tired of our selection, and we’d reach to grab the other’s.

Because Noelle and I were not ordinary sisters, we wouldn’t slap each other or sprout mean names. We shared the belief that we were connected in ways obvious and mysterious, and that this connection was worth honoring. So we shared our muffins readily.

Now, neither Noelle nor I indulge in jumbo muffins. We do, however, make and consume loaves of banana bread. Eat ice cream at odd hours of the day. And justify an extra slice of pie by promising our dogs we’ll take them on a long walk. I taught Noelle how to make our favorite sweet wheat rolls over the phone, and I felt like a proud parent when she texted me a picture. Our connection is still alive and strong…despite the fact one of us lives in Texas while the other lives in West Virginia.

And I think if we made a list of our current food obsessions, they’d be just as similar as they always have been.

Noelle and I talk about traveling together. Since we live so far apart, we don’t see each other nearly as much as we should, but hopefully this next summer we’ll take a trip abroad and stay in one of these gorgeous hand-picked hotels. Take a moment to visit that site and plot your next trip. I sure have! Noelle and I have our share of hotel memories. Most involve singing at odd hours of the night. But we’d love to visit England, eat cookies, and drink tea. I promise we’d be more responsible now.

These Lemon Poppyseed Cookies are in honor of Noelle (and her once-loved jumbo muffins). The shortbread is sweet and crunchy while the lemon curd toppy adds the perfect amount of tangy smoothness. I served these at a Cake Stand event on Thursday, and they the star of the evening.

Lemon Poppyseed Cookies

1 cup powdered sugar
1 cup butter
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons poppy seeds

1 large lemon
3/4 cups sugar
1/2 stick unsalted butter pound
2 large eggs
1/4 cup lemon juice (1-2 lemons)
1/8 teaspoon kosher salt

1. Cream together powdered sugar and butter together until smooth. Add egg and vanilla. Mix well. Add flour, salt, and poppy seeds to butter mixture. With a large spoon, stir until all dry ingredients are incorporated into the butter mixture. Allow to chill for 30 minutes in refrigerator.

2. Meanwhile, make lemon curd: remove the zest of one lemon. Put the zest in a food processor fitted with a steel blade. Add the sugar and pulse until the zest is very finely minced into the sugar. Cream the butter and beat in the sugar and lemon mixture. Add the eggs, 1 at a time, and then add the lemon juice and salt. Mix until combined. Pour the mixture into a saucepan and cook over low heat until thickened (about 10 minutes), stirring constantly. The curd will thicken at about 170 degrees F, or just below simmer. Remove from the heat and refrigerate while baking cookies.

3. Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Form balls of dough (about 2 teaspoons per ball). Place balls on parchment-lined baking sheets. Make a thumbprint in each ball. Bake cookies on parchment-lined baking sheet for about 20 minutes, or until edges of cookies just begin to turn golden brown. Transfer baked cookies to wire rack to cool.

Pistachio Shortbread Brownies

Did you grow up traveling? Did you learn what it meant to be a human in places both near and far? My niece and nephews leave for the Dominican Republic tomorrow…only one of the many international trips they’ve embarked upon. A few years ago, I went to Egypt and Jordan with their family, and the pleasure of riding a camel through Petra was only magnified as I watched the delight and wonder in my then 6-year-old niece’s eyes.

When Ryan and I have children, I hope we continue to travel like my sister’s family. This past year, we visited Maine, Colorado, and France. We’re hoping to visit Australia and Canada in 2013. Now this doesn’t mean that Ryan and I have ample amounts of money (because I assure you, we don’t) but it does mean that we prioritize travel. Because at least for me, the new and unfamiliar sparks creativity. And as a writer and a baker, I need all the creativity I can get.

Growing up, my grandmother would always make a batch of her famous brownies when we came to visit her or when she came to visit us. For that reason, chewy and moist brownies remind me of hitting the road (or flying through the air). I think a bite of chocolate does wonders to soothe those unavoidable stresses and anxieties that sprout when you leave home behind. And because travel always brings about a level of discovery and change, I think that these brownies reflect the very best part of travel–the melding of what is familiar with that which is new.

If I could book a trip tomorrow, I’d like to explore Canada on rail. I would make a batch of these pistachios shortbread brownies, wrap them in parchment paper, and buy a few good books. As the train barreled across the largely virgin landscape, I’d savor the stimulation of all five senses. The sight and smell of nature left untouched. The sound of my husband sharing little known facts about Canadian history. The feel of movement–the wind moving through my hair. And the taste of these pistachio shortbread brownies. The nutty crunch of the green crust and the intense coat of moist and decadent chocolate. No doubt, it would be a trip worth remembering.

Pistachio Shortbread Brownies

*adapted from King Arthur Flour’s Pistachio Shortbread Recipe

1 cup unsalted butter, at cool room temperature
1 box (3.4 ounces) instant pistachio pudding mix, Jell-O preferred for best color
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 cups all-purpose flour
2/3 cup shelled, finely chopped pistachio nuts, optional

1-1/3 cups granulated sugar3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder 1/2 teaspoon salt 3 eggs
1/3 cup butter, melted
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup dark chocolate chips

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line a 9 x 9 inch baking pan with parchment paper (ideally, allow the paper to overhang on two opposing sides to facilitate removal).

2. In a a medium-sized bowl, beat together the butter, pistachio pudding mix, sugar, salt, and pistachio flavor, then beat in the flour. The mixture may seem a little dry at first; keep beating till it comes together. This is a stiff dough.

3. Press the dough into the prepared pan, smoothing the surface with your fingers, or with a mini rolling pin.

4. Use a fork to prick the dough all over; this allows any steam to escape, and prevents the shortbread from bubbling as it bakes. Spread the chopped pistachios over the crust and press in lightly with your fingers. Bake in preheated oven for 12 minutes.

5. Meanwhile, in a large mixing bowl stir together granulated sugar, 3/4 cup flour, the cocoa powder, baking powder, and salt. Add eggs, melted butter, and vanilla; beat by hand until smooth. Stir in the 1/2 cup chocolate pieces. Carefully spread over warm shortbread crust in pan.

6. Return pan to oven and bake for an additional 40 minutes. Cool brownies in pan on a wire rack. Lift brownies out of pan by lifting up on parchment paper. Cut into bars. Makes 24 pistachio shortbread brownies.

Monet

Anecdotes and Apple Cores

Pepita Caramels

Caramels. And not your ordinary variety. These caramels are made with pumpkin, maple syrup, and toasted pepitas. These caramels are a sweet bite of fall.

With Halloween approaching, these caramels would make the perfect addition to a table brimming with cooler-weather fare. One batch makes 64 little caramels (and believe me, one bite is sure to satisfy the sweet tooth in us all!)

This week is full of baking and writing for me. I have a few events lined up this weekend, and I’m plugging away on my thesis. Day by day. Night by night.

Ryan and I are in the market for a new bedroom set, and I can’t wait until we can move our cheap Ikea bedframe and mattress to the curb. Perhaps I could tempt someone to buy me this lovely walnut set from Interior Addict with a few of these caramels? I think a sleek, clean walnut frame calls for ample quilts and pillows, right? It’s all about balance.

And perhaps that is what I like most about these caramels. The balance of sweet and salty. The balance of chewy and crunchy. Not only are the flavors complex, but the textures are too.

So if you’re afraid of making caramel (yes, I know we all are to a certain extent), take a leap of faith and give this recipe a try. All you really need is a good candy thermometer and a bit of patience.

Pepita Caramels

2/3 cup unsalted pepitas
1 1/2 cups heavy cream
2/3 cup pumpkin puree
1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
2 cups white sugar
1/2 cups light corn syrup
1/3 cup good maple syrup
1/4 cup of water
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut in chunks
1 teaspoon lemon juice
3/4 teaspoon fleur de sel
1. Dry toast the pepitas in a skillet until they start to pop.

2. Line the bottom and the sides of an 8-in square glass pan with parchment. Butter the parchment on the sides of the pan. Evenly spread out the toasted pepitas on the bottom of the pan, on top of the parchment.

3. In a saucepan, combine heavy cream, pumpkin puree and spices. Get this mixture quite warm, but not boiling. Set aside.
In a second heavy bottomed pan, with sides at least 4 inches high, combine the sugar, both syrups and water. Stir until the sugars are melted, Then let it boil until it reaches 244 degrees (the soft ball point on a candy thermometer). Then very carefully add the cream and pumpkin mixture, and slowly bring this mixture to 240 degrees as registered on a on a candy thermometer. This can take awhile — like 30 minutes — but don’t leave the kitchen, watch it carefully and stir it more frequently once it hits 230 degrees to keep it from burning at the bottom of the pan.

4. As soon as it reaches the 240, pull it off the heat and stir in the butter and lemon juice. Stir vigorously so that butter is fully incorporated.
Pour the mixture into the prepared pan. Let cool 30 minutes and sprinkle the salt over the top. Let the caramels fully set (at least 2 hours) before using a hot knife to cut them into 1-inch squares and wrapping them individually in waxed paper.