BAKED BRIOCHE DOUGHNUTS

Brioche baked doughnuts! What a brilliant idea. We thought we would try to make a doughnut that was a bit healthier than the normal doughnut deep dried in oil. We love to make brioche and have made cinnamon rolls with the dough before. So, we thought, why not try making baked brioche donuts!?!?

By the picture you can tell they came out GREAT! Simply cut out the doughnuts after the first rise, cover and let double in size again. We put a roll of foil in the middle to keep the hole open. Bake at 350F for 10 minutes and cover with your favorite topping/glaze while still warm.

These doughnuts have the texture of a danish and are not sweet at all.

I had mine with my morning coffee - what a treat!

Banana Bread Fingers Anyone???

Was anyone else lucky enough to get a corn dog maker for Christmas?? Well, I was! And, look what I decided to make - banana bread fingers!!

They are the perfect size for a quick breakfast or snack. Just pop them in the microwave for a quick 10 seconds for that fresh out of the oven smell and taste.

And, if you are a "dunker" like me, these are PERFECT!

Aluminum Foil Liner

Have you ever wrestled with foil as you try to line your pan....only to get crumpled and torn aluminum foil? Well, I have also. Every Christmas as I lined my pan with foil to make fudge, I would fight with the foil.

I have now learned how to make this task a lot easier so I thought I would pass it on to you.

Turn the pan over that you want to line and place the foil securely on the OUTSIDE of the pan. Once you have formed it onto the outside of your pan, simply take it off and place on the inside of your pan. The perfect fit! No more crumpled and torn foil.

If you have not tried it, I would recommend Reynolds new No Stick aluminum foil. It works great.

Hope this tip helps some of you and Happy Baking!

Easter Egg Nest Cookies

A perfect combination for the holidays - jelly beans and cookies!

We make these delicious cream cheese cookies with jelly beans in the "nest".

Bake the cookies halfway and then make an indentation in the middle. As soon as they come out of the oven, press the jelly beans into the center.

DO NOT BAKE THE COOKIES WITH THE JELLY BEANS IN THEM!

Let cool and enjoy!

Uses for new Philly Cooking Cream Original

Have you tried the new Philadelphia Cooking Cream Original? We love it and think it tastes a lot like creme fraiche for a fraction of the price (especially if you find a great sale and can match with coupons!).

If you look at all of the recipes associated with this new Cooking Cream you will probably notice, like we have, that most of them are for chicken dishes.

Well, if you use your imagination, you can come up with more great uses. It makes for a GREAT creamy macaroni and cheese and today we subsituted it for the sour cream called for in these yummy apple cupcakes. Needless to say, they came out super moist and DELICIOUS!

Peanut Butter Blossoms

In checking my competition on eBay one day, I noticed that someone had left feedback that "the cookies were good, but all of the kisses had fallen off"! Not my idea of a great peanut butter blossom cookie.

Thought I would share our process for ensuring that the Hershey kisses stay on top of your peanut butter cookies. First and foremost, find yourself a great peanut butter cookie recipe. When the cookies are fresh out of the oven, immediately push a kiss into each cookie (do NOT bake with the kisses in the dough). Wait about 30 seconds (no longer or the chocolate will be too soft!) and go back to each cookie and give the kiss a gentle twist. As you can see by our picture, this forms a ring of chocolate "glue" that will keep your kisses on the cookies.

Give our cookies a try at PB Blossom eBay Listing

A few tricks for a great Cream Cheese Pound Cake

Cream Cheese Pound Cake

It has taken us many, many years to finally perfect our cream cheese pound cakes. I remember once when we had our small coffee shop and were baking 6 pound cakes at one time. ALL of the cakes fell! What a disaster and utter disappointment not to mention the cost of all of those wasted ingredients!

Over the years, we have discovered a few things that make the difference and produce a nice, fine-textured cream cheese poundcake every time (you never want to have a "sad streak" in your cream cheese poundcake!):

~~Use a high quality cream cheese. We usually are not food "snobs" but it makes a world of difference. Do not try to save money by buying cream cheese in a large block.

~~Use unbleached flour for this pound cake and make sure that you sift your flour before adding to the mixture.

~~Bake your pound cakes in tube pans, not bundt pans. Makes it a lot easier to remove the cake after baking.

~~This cake needs to be baked low and slow. We bake ours at 300 degrees for 1 hour and 45 minutes!

Good luck with baking your Cream Cheese Pound Cake! But, if you would rather have us bake for you, visit our eBay listings.