fruit pies and one giant oreo

My first weekend back in the kitchen was pie-smashingly wonderful. We made several fruit pies and the crusts were divine. In my opinion, the crust is the most important (and delicious) part of the pie AND the best way to tell if you're eating a homemade dessert or not. There are many ways to make a pie crust and everyone has a reason why they use a certain fat. Butter adds flavor, shortening adds flakiness and structure, but at the end of the day a 50/50 blend of butter and shortening is the way to go for a flavorful yet flaky crust. It's the best of both worlds. Check it out.

This was our peach pie. There were a few other fruits poured into this crust first, as it took a several minutes to figure out which of the fruit pies should have "blind baked" crusts and which ones could bake straight in the raw dough. The answer: the precooked berry fillings can be poured into pre-baked crusts and the apple and peach ones should be placed into raw crusts to be baked. I made the apple filling.

We added a top crust and pinched the edges for this pie. When I say we, I mean the JR Mint group, as noted in our pie crust.

Here are two of the finished products. I ate a good amount of crust before I left the classroom, but still managed to bring a few pieces home for Greg.

Next week we're making several types of cream pies. As long as there's crust involved, I'll be one happy baker.

I also made a dessert at home last week that I'm calling the Inside Out Oreo Cake. It is a chocolate cake with a sour cream icing and it was very tasty and rather easy to make.

Dry ingredients.

Fast forward to post bake, pop these babies out of the pans and it's time for frosting.

I finally had the exact right amount of frosting for something and not a ton extra. Voila!

Slice it up, I'll take it.

Not quite getting the full Oreo effect? Dip this in a tall glass of milk.

just roll with it

One more week until I'm back in the kitchen on Saturdays and back here with weekly pictures and stories from class. On my last weekend of freedom from school until August, I decided to finally bake up the one thing I intended on making during my break from the school kitchen. Cinnamon rolls. There are more recipes online for cinnamon rolls than I had ever imagined, however, I was most intrigued by a recipe that was sans yeast. Could a cinnamon roll without yeast really taste as good? I was determined to find out.

The dough mixed up easily like a quick bread and there was a fair amount of baking soda and powder involved to help the bread rise. After a bit of kneading, I rolled the dough out and added a delicious cinnamon mixture to the top.

And promptly rolled it back up.

My favorite part is cutting the dough into the separate rolls. Just look at that cinnamon delight inside!

And into a well-greased pan they go. A thick coat of butter goes on top to add some shine (and extra fattening flavor).

This recipe called for a cream cheese frosting, which turned out good, but I'll admit that cream cheese isn't my favorite frosting ingredient. The leftovers did make a nice fruit dip though.

Time to eat! While Greg and I easily inhaled all of these rolls over the past few mornings, I still don't know if they're really better than a recipe with yeast. I'll just have to bake a comparison batch soon and find out.

There was another baked treat in my house this weekend, but it didn't come out of my oven. Two of my best friends (and bridesmaids) came down for a visit with their husbands on Sunday and one of them brought an exotic dessert along. I feel a little shameful admitting that I asked her to bring dessert, but it's only because I made the main course: salad, spaghetti and garlic bread. Plus, Ashley always makes a mean dessert and I knew she'd come up with something fabulous. Here's the proof - 

What's under all that fruit you ask? A Tres Leches cake of course. Tres Leches means "three milks." This Latin America inspired cake is baked like a normal cake and then a ton of milk is poured into it while it cools. Top it with real whipping cream and a variety of fruit and you've got a refreshing dessert to counteract a meal of garlic. It's sort of like pound cake with a glass of milk already included.

Variety pies, specialty cakes and French pastries are in my future for the next ten weeks. Je ne peux pas attendre!

busy but baking

I can't believe it's the middle of May already. What have I been up to while I've been ignoring my blog you ask? A lot. But I still managed to bake a little and capture the results on film to share with you.

Last weekend, Greg's parents were in town for a visit and we celebrated Mother's Day with a homemade brunch for both of our moms. Obviously I had to make scrumptious baked goods, so I decided on orange scones with chocolate chips and orange glaze.

The orange glaze made a bit of a mess, but it was totally worth it.

A lovely presentation of scones to accompany our egg casserole with sausage, onion and green pepper, a bowl of mixed fruit and bacon made for a delicious brunch. Mimosas made the card game played after brunch even more fun.

Still in a mini-chocolate chip mood this week, I decided to make my infamous banana cupcakes with peanut butter frosting. These are the most requested items that I make - even people who don't like bananas enjoy them. I added chocolate chips to half of the batch and it gave them an extra kick of sweetness.

The peanut butter frosting is what really makes them to die for though.

Lastly, here is a shot of our dinner last night. We decided to have breakfast for dinner and I used my omelet-making skills from culinary class last term to whip up some fluffy omelets. English muffins and hashbrowns (not pictured) made for a well-rounded dinner. Better than the chocolate fudge Poptarts we had for breakfast at least...