BAKE 52: Week 22

RUSTIC CARAMELIZED ONION TART WITH BLUE CHEESE AND WALNUTS.

I'm not quite sure when I switched from hating onions to tolerating them to liking them to cooking with them, but I did.  And this recipe had me at caramelized--love them caramelized onions!  Still, I would have never picked this recipe since nuts belong to the trees that grew them, but once again, that's the genius of this baking group; trying things you would have never before. 

This may be the first recipe I cried over and still liked--man, there were a lot of onions to cut!  But once everything was assembled and baked it was really good!  The toasted blue cheese--who knew? Yum!  The caramelized onions--yum!  The walnuts, ehh.  At least it added to the rustication (I thought spell check would call me on that one) of the tart.  I think this would be great as an appetizer in small amounts; I tried it for dinner and my stomach paid for it later.  

The ever awesome Michelle was our host this week and you can get the recipe HERE at her blog.

BAKE 52: Week 21

Multigrain Bread 

Finally, A bread recipe that I didn't screw up!  As far as bread goes, this was fairly easy and the Utah weather must be just right for making bread right now because it rose really fast.  Hooray!  I'm not usually a huge fan of multigrain because the grains like to find their way deep into my teeth, but this was made in a way that kept everything really soft.  My whole family loved it with butter and honey.  Jennifer was our host this week and you can go to her blog HERE for some good wholesome bread - or at least the recipe:)

BAKE 52: WEEK 20

French Macaroon Sandwich Cookies

Where to start?  I love French toast, I love French fries, I love French accents.  I love cookies here, I love cookies there, I love cookies everywhere.  Which is why I'm still a little baffled at how much I disliked this French Macaroon Sandwich Cookie recipe.  It might have been the very sticky, gloppy (their word, not mine) batter that I made a huge mess with and ended up washing half the batter off my hands.  Or maybe it was my generic Ziploc bags that kept tearing holes through the side and oozing out big gloppy amounts of batter as I tried to pipe.  Perhaps it was the chewiness that took a piece of my tooth, or possible the butter-cream frosting that tasted exactly like creamy butter (don't get me wrong, who doesn't like creamy butter, but everything has its place).  What ever it was, these little French cookies gave me some big attitude and I pretty much loathed them by the end.  I even had to put watermelon in the background so I would want to take their picture - looking all pretty and innocent, as if!  But, you may have a better relationship with them; there's someone (or thing) for everyone.  Betsy was our host this week and you can go to her blog HERE for the recipe, or just to read some fun stuff about her.:)

BAKE 52: WEEK 19

New York-Style Crumb Cake

The only complaint about this recipe is that the batch was too small (8x8 inch pan).  I absolutely loved this cake!  It was like a great big pan-sized breakfast muffin to me.  I will definitely make it again with blueberries and serve with orange juice.  We used cake flour in the crumb topping and cake and I think that was key for moisture and texture.  I usually favor chocolate over any other flavor of cake, but this really is a must-try.  You can get the recipe from out host this week, Jenn, at her blog HERE.

BAKE 52: WEEK 18

Classic Pancakes and Flavored Syrup

Is there anything better than breakfast for dinner?  Not in my family, so these pancakes were a big hit.  I didn't flavor the syrup though, we just went for classic pancakes and classic maple syrup.  I think it was a great pancake recipe and I learned that oiling the griddle after each pancake is a must for the right texture and to produce that pretty, golden color.  Jesse was our host this week and you can visit her blog for the recipe HERE.