Category Archives: Fruit Desserts

Dried Strawberries

Posted on April 6, 2010 by Geek Baker| 3 Comments

You may have noticed that strawberries are ridiculously cheap right now.  My understanding is that Florida is having a huge crop this year and the supply far outweighs the demand.  Yay for us! Pints were going for $1.37 at my local grocery store so I purchased 4 of them.  But I can only eat about 2 before they start to go bad.  The answer?  Dried Strawberries. You can easily dry strawberries in the oven and keep them for later use in all sort of baked goods, as topping for cereal or yogurts, or as a fruity addition to a savory dinner.

Dried Strawberries

1. Reheat your oven to 250F and position a rack in the center.

2. Thinly slice desired amount of strawberries and place on parchment paper-lined baking sheets.

3. Place in oven and let dry.  This could take anywhere from 1-2 hours depending on the thickness of your strawberries.

4. Let them cool completely.

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Posted in Fruit Desserts

Aunt Penny’s Cranberry Applesauce

Posted on December 25, 2009 by Geek Baker| Leave a comment

Now, we all get recipes from someone else.  And no doubt my aunt Penny got this recipe from someone else.  But how far back in the recipe chain should one go in order to give food creators their proper due?  I’ve decided one person back is suitable when no other information about a previous creator is given.  ;)

Thus, I give you Aunt Penny’s Cranberry Applesauce :)

I first had this applesauce at Penny’s house….it was sweet and tart and I could have eaten a gallon of it.  She generously shared the recipe with me and my mother and I made it yesterday.  (A blizzard is just beginning to hit….we’re due for 15 inches of snow….I’m guessing there’s going to be a lot of baking being done over the next couple of days out of sheer boredom and cabin fever.)

Applesauce wasn’t nearly as tricky as I thought it would be.  In fact, it was…dare I say it….rather easy to make!  One has to peel the apples initially and mash them up after cooking, but you pretty much just put it on the stove for 20-30 minutes and forget about it.  yay for pretty much having no chance of burning something!

Aunt Penny’s Cranberry Applesauce

Ingredients –

  • 3-4 pounds of peeled, cored, roughly chopped Granny Smith apples (or other good cooking apples such as Golden Delicious, Fuji, Jonathan or McIntosh) (Per the suggestion of Penny, we used three different kinds of apples…3 Granny Smith, 2 Golden Delicious, and 2 Jonathon.  She said it would make for more flavor and a more complex texture…and she was correct!)
  • 1½ to 2 cups fresh or frozen cranberries  (I just use the 12oz bag available this time of year)
  • 2 Tbsp lemon juice
  • ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
  • ¼ cup brown sugar
  • 1/3 cup white sugar (you may want to play with this amount a bit depending on how tart your apples are)
  • 1 cup water
  • ½ teaspoon salt

Directions -

1 - Place all ingredients in a large (5-quart) pot. Bring to a boil, lower heat to a simmer and cover. Cook 20-30 minutes or until apples can easily be mashed. Remove from heat.

2 - Mash apples and cranberries with a potato masher to desired consistency. (We used an old school potato masher, but I know Penny just uses a spoon.  Used whatever you find easier and whatever gives you the results you’re after…potato masher will make for a smoother sauce and a spoon will leave you larger chunks and therefore, more texture.)

3 – Serve hot as a side to pork or turkey, or serve hot or cold as a dessert with some vanilla ice cream. Store in refrigerator for a couple of weeks or freeze for up to a year. Makes 1½ to 2 quarts. (Penny has frozen the mixture with success…..I’m sure ours won’t last more than a few days in the fridge…its just too good!)

The beautiful apple, cranberry, sugar mixture.

The finished product -  It doesn’t look quite this flourescent in *real life*, but it still adds a lot of nice color to any meal/dish!

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Posted in Fruit Desserts, Vegetarian Cuisine

Pumpkin-Cranberry Muffins (w/ an optional streusel topping)

Posted on November 15, 2009 by Geek Baker| 1 Comment

So, what’s a girl to do on the weekend?  Bake muffins, of course.  (She also cooks lunches and dinners for the next week, reads books and newspapers, writes – which she needs to do more often, and goes for blissful runs on lovely Autumn mornings….)

I grabbed a can of pumpkin (which was on special at the grocery store – its all about being thrifty this holiday season) and looked for a good recipe.  I decided to go with pumpkin-cranberry muffins (since I’ve had a bag of frozen cranberries in my freezer for ages) and added a streusel topping to some of the muffins just to see what kind of craziness would happen.

I ended up combining a few different recipes and here’s what I came up with for a recipe.

Cranberry-Pumpkin Muffins w/ Optional Streusel Topping

Ingredients:

Muffins:

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 -15 oz can of pumpkin
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 cup fresh or frozen cranberries

Streusel Topping:

2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1/4 cup white sugar
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
4 teaspoons butter
(I also topped my muffins with a sprinkling of Swedish Pearl Sugar)

Directions:

1. In a bowl, combine the first four ingredients. In a mixing bowl, beat the eggs and sugar; add the pumpkin and oil and mix well. Stir into the dry ingredients just until moistened. Fold in the cranberries.  Fill foil-or paper-lined muffin cups three-fourths full.
2. In a small bowl, mix together 2 tablespoons flour, 1/4 cup sugar and 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon. Cut in butter until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Sprinkle topping evenly over muffin batter.

3. Bake at 375 degrees F for 24-28 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

pumpkin cranberry muffins

Verdict?

A pretty darn tasty muffin.  I would certainly make these again.  Since I was messing around with a couple of different recipes I ended up burning my first batch.  (Are we surprised?  No.)  But the second batch (of which I took the picture of) turned out really well.  Next time I would skip the streusel topping (its a sweet enough muffin without it) and add finely chopped walnuts to the batter (I think the flavor and texture would really add something).  I should also note that if you don’t like that big burst of cranberry flavor (which I really adore), you can chop up the cranberries prior to folding them into the batter.  This is make for a more mellow berry flavor throughout the entire muffin.

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Posted in Fruit Desserts, Quick Breads and Muffins, Swedish Pearl Sugar

Long Time, No Bake (Chocolate Covered Straberries)

Posted on November 12, 2009 by Geek Baker| 3 Comments

Well, I’ve been out and about the past couple of nights and this has meant I’ve had no time for baking.  And due to some semi-sickness, there hasn’t even been proper cooking.  (Since only one of us felt well enough to eat, I had trail mix for dinner last night.  *sigh*)

I did, however, have some particularly lovely chocolate-covered strawberries at a work function recently.  Here is a picture (poor quality from my palm pre) of the lovelies.

chocolate strawberries

There was actually a lot of really beautiful looking  hor’devours at the event…  But one can only take so many pictures of food in front of those she works with before she looks like a complete nutter.

Here’s an easy recipe for Chocolate Covered Strawberries from the fine people at the Food Network’s, How to Boil Water.

Chocolate Covered Strawberries

Recipe courtesy Food Network Kitchens

Ingredients

  • 6 ounces semisweet chocolate, chopped
  • 3 ounces white chocolate, chopped
  • 1 pound strawberries with stems (about 20), washed and dried very well

Directions

Put the semisweet and white chocolates into 2 separate heatproof medium bowls. Fill 2 medium saucepans with a couple inches of water and bring to a simmer over medium heat. Turn off the heat; set the bowls of chocolate over the water to melt. Stir until smooth. (Alternatively, melt the chocolates in a microwave at half power, for 1 minute, stir and then heat for another minute or until melted.)

Once the chocolates are melted and smooth, remove from the heat. Line a sheet pan with parchment or waxed paper. Holding the strawberry by the stem, dip the fruit into the dark chocolate, lift and twist slightly, letting any excess chocolate fall back into the bowl. Set strawberries on the parchment paper. Repeat with the rest of the strawberries. Dip a fork in the white chocolate and drizzle the white chocolate over the dipped strawberries.

Set the strawberries aside until the chocolate sets, about 30 minutes.

Copyright 2003 Television Food Network, G.P. All rights reserved

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Posted in Fruit Desserts