Martini Time!

Here is another Pinterest recipe, originally from HERE.

My roommate and I knew we had to get us some of this, and about a month ago, we started. We hadn't intended it to take a month, but stuff happens, schedules change, trips to Seattle happen, and before you know it, you have a jar full of sludge on your hands.

But the sludge started out like this:


And here is the sludge:


And may I present to you the Reese's Peanut Butter Martini:


OMG - this was fecking fantastic! Soooooooo good I can hardly tell you, and certainly worth the wait. We really savoured each sip because it was so delicious. We have 12oz of the "sludge" (which has been strained twice and is way less sludgy now) left so there will be plenty more of these in our future!

Pull-apart Cinnamon Sugar Pumpkin Bread with Rum Butter Glaze

Oh, Pinterest, how do I love thee? Sometimes, way too much. But as I've said before, the food on it is unbelievable, and when I saw the recipe for this treat I knew I had to make it, and last week, I did. I even went and purchased a mini of rum for the glaze!

The original blog post & recipe is here.

So, let's get down to business. After making the dough (I used instant yeast so I didn't have to go through the extra step of activating it) and letting it rise, I went about shaping it. The instructions say to roll the dough out into a 20x12" rectangle, spread with the cinnamon sugar mixture, and cut that into six strips. Then you take those strips and lay them on top of each other, and then cut them into six squares. After that, you stack the squares on their edges in a loaf pan. I greased my loaf pan pretty well.


Then the loaf goes for another rise. This is where I had some issues. The squares were quite tightly packed in the pan, but as the loaf rose, the end ones rose up and out of the pan.


Upon baking, I got quite an odd-looking and lopsided loaf:


The other issue I had was that the bottom of the loaf caramelized to the loaf pan and I couldn't get the loaf out of the pan until it was rather cool and I could get my hands in and kind of tear it out by the roots. I just removed it straight to a platter for serving.


So, it wasn't over attractive. But so what? This was absolutely delicious! The rum & butter glaze was absolutely to die for, and that little recipe is going up my sleeve for some other ideas I have for it, like as a cinnamon roll glaze, for instance.

The only criticism I had was that the pumpkin flavour was quite lost with all the other flavours going on in here. It added a nice colour to the dough, though. But if I do this again, I might use more pumpkin or alter the recipe so that it's more of a brioche dough and just do a more plain pull apart loaf. But look at it! It's gorgeous!


My roommates and I tore into it and dipped the pieces in more glaze until we nearly devoured it. We left just enough for a small snack the next day.

Here it is again, from another angle:


Definitely a keeper of an idea. Go Pinterest! My roommate and I are working on another Pinterest recipe now, but it takes a while so I won't get a post up about it quite yet, but it should be worth the wait, especially if you love Reese's Peanut Butter Cups and vodka. :D

Chocolate Chip Pecan Blondies...With Booze!

The Good Cookie is a book I bought a few years ago and have not used enough. It's not that it doesn't have good recipes in it - it does - but I seem to always go back to my tried & true recipes and I seem to overlook it. But, in an attempt to reassess what cookbooks belong on my dedicated bookshelf and which ones I can do without - because I'm moving - I revisited the book to look for inspiration. And I found this recipe, which turned out to be just killer. The rum is essential, let me tell you! In fact, I doubled the amount to make these extra boozy! Yeah, I'm keeping this book. I gave the blondies, again, to family members because, again, what is a single gal trying to watch her waistline going to do with a big pan of blondies?

Chocolate Chip Pecan Blondies, adapted from The Good Cookie, page 119, by Tish Boyle

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 cup butter
2 cups firmly packed brown sugar
3 large eggs, at room temperature
2 tsp vanilla
1/4 cup amber rum
1 1/2 cups chopped pecans
1 cup chocolate chips

1. Preheat oven to 350F and line a 9x13" baking dish with parchment paper, or grease & flour it very well.

2. In a medium bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients.

3. In a mixer, beat butter & brown sugar until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Scrape down the sides of the bowl. Beat in eggs, one at a time. Beat in vanilla and rum. At low speed, mix in the dry ingredients until just combined. Fold in the pecans & chocolate chips.

4. Scrape batter into prepared pan and smooth the top. Bake for 35 - 40 minutes, or until just golden brown and the centre is set. A toothpick should come out clean but not dry. DO NOT OVERBAKE THESE!

5. Cool completely, portion, and serve!