Bake 2019 - July



My first bake of July was Firecracker Cookies.  They are sugar cookies rolled in red and blue sugar.  I thought about adding pop rocks but that just seemed wrong.  I'm glad I didn't because these were a huge hit at our July 3rd party.  Sometimes the easy classics are the best.


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I did a little experiment for this next bake.  I wanted to make a strawberry pie.  I wanted to make that strawberry pretzel side dish.   So I combined the two.  

I made a pretzel graham cracker crust.  After I baked it, I spread cream cheese over it.  I made the strawberry pie from my Better Homes cookbook.  It was delicious!  But the crust got too soggy.  I knew the strawberry layer would do that, but it happened pretty quickly.  I should have made a thicker layer of the cream cheese, maybe.  Maybe a higher pretzel to graham cracker ratio.  

This picture doesn't make it look that great. It was yummy!


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I saw this recipe and couldn't resist!  This is a drumstick pie.  For the crust, you take sugar cones and crush them in the food processor add melted butter.  Put that in a pie plate and freeze.  Brilliant!  Then you make a chocolate ganache, which is heated heavy cream poured over chopped chocolate (or chocolate chips).  Wait a minute then start stirring.  Pour that into the crust and back into the freezer.  Take some vanilla ice cream and let it sit out on the counter.  Once it's soft spread it into the pie and put it back in the freezer.  The last step is to make/buy magic shell.  You can pour it over the whole pie and sprinkle with nuts or pour it over each slice.  We did it by slice to make it easier to cut.

I took a bite before I grabbed a photo.  It was really good!


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Next is a savory bake.  After last month's bread fail I wanted to test out my yeast.  I knew either the yeast is not good or I had the liquid too warm.  I used my candy thermometer to make sure the liquid was just right.  I made a tasty cheddar bread and it turned out great!



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I wanted to practice my piping skills again.  I made two chocolate cupcakes and some vanilla buttercream.  I used a closed star tip and tried to pipe a mound on the left.  It was okay.  Not so great.  The one on the right was supposed to be a flower.  It looked pretty good except that I dropped a blob of icing on top of it.  LOL!


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I made these marble chocolate chip cookies from Sally's Baking Addiction and they are tasty!  


You make a chocolate chip cookie dough and a chocolate cookie dough with white chocolate chips.  It almost didn't work.  I made the first dough and it used the last of my brown sugar.  When I started the chocolate dough, I didn't even have half the amount of cocoa powder needed.  Thankfully, Sally always puts the weight measurements so I pulled out my scale and made sure I had enough sugar by weight and enough cocoa and flour by weight.  It worked!

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I bought a pound of cherries and made a cherry compote.  Not as thick as jam, not as thin as a sauce.  It's pitted cherries, sugar, water, corn starch, and lemon juice cooked on the stove top.  I used Stevia to make it low carb and added lime zest and juice.  Served it over a pound cake with some whipped cream.  It's great over some plain greek yogurt with chia seeds for breakfast.





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