Makin' Whoopie

Yes, today we went retro and finally made the NY Times whoopie pie recipe from a couple of weeks back. In truth, these can hardly be placed in the pie category, but hey that's the name, so I'm sticking with it and making it the pie of the month for crying out loud. These suckers are tasty let me tell you and easy breezy too.

The kids had fun. Finn was much more interested in the raw batter as you can see. Mom and Dad both like to eat raw cookie dough and cake batter so no surprise there. Both their faces were covered with chocolate by the end of our baking lesson - that's the way it should be, right?

Hopefully, ya'll can read this. The only change I made is that I added chopped semisweet chocolate to the batter because it just didn't seem chocolaty enough for me, which turned out great I think. Oh, and I didn't have a full cup of buttermilk so I added a little plain yogurt and heavy cream to top it off and that seemed to be a suitable substitute.

Basically, the cake part tastes like a chocolate muffin top - but once you add the buttercream frosting it rises to a whole other level of goodness. You just kinda sink into it's soft cloud-like texture. I don't know, maybe I'm swayed by the cooky, inexplicable name, but I loved it.

Also, these babies turned out "ginormous" as Finn would say. It makes much more than six and I would actually make the scoops of batter smaller next time. I also wanted to use a piping bag and a star tip to make the frosting a little more attractive, but I oddly don't have any piping bags at home.

The preparation time says 1 hour, but I don't think it even took us that long so this is a great last minute treat if you already have all the ingredients. You can always make time for whoopie I suppose.

Big Chill

Well, stash those flip flops back in the closet because Winter has returned to Santa Fe and is laughing ha ha ha. Yes, what a fool I was to think I could store away the coats, hat, and mittens. But however much I hate the cold, it was a beautiful sight to wake up to yesterday morning and the kids loved to be out playing in it.

I think all the plants must be confused.

We desperately need the moisture so I'll keep my mouth shut from here on out and just be grateful . . . mmmmm . . . grrrrrr . . . mmmmmm.

It's been a busy week, working and kid stuff and me trying to fit in my sewing whenever possible. Cousin Steph came over to stay with the boys the other night so I could skip over to the quilting classroom fro a quick tutorial in spray basting and straight line "stitch in the ditch" machine quilting. I've made major progress on Gram's quilt and it actually looks like a quilt now minus the binding and some more quilting on the border that I'm waiting until my class tomorrow to learn some free motion quilting. I know, it's all a blur to me too. I can't seem to get enough! I'll show some photos when it's actually complete.

I've also made some headway on Finn's quilt and just purchased some border and backing material for it. I'm still using up Aunt Ginny's scraps - and lo and behold another huge box of fabric landed on my porch yesterday! Thank you Ginny!!!These triangles Ginny had already cut - so really this was a quick one to put together. It has a few more rows now and a couple of borders . . . to be continued.

And speaking of scraps, the boys and I had some fun the other day with some pie scraps I brought home from work. It's a great way to use up the leftovers that are too overworked to be anything else. They just rolled them out, cut the pie circles, poked them all over with a fork and brushed them with egg wash (they liked this part alot), and finally sprinkled them with cinnamon sugar. They were pretty darned tough after being abused by my chefs in training, but hey they didn't give a hoot.


Only a few more days to make a pie for March so momma better get her bootay back in the kitchen!

Ya don't have to be a hillbilly to like Mountain Dew Dumplings

This experiment is in response to some of you who may have thought my Navajo Apple Dumplings were little too involved. Although my mother in law Karen asked me not to credit her for this recipe, I am anyway - hope that's okay Karen!

This is a great one to do with your kids . . . Karen suggested I call these Apple Dumplings al la Finn and Graham. We're not sure who originated this recipe so I guess now it's all ours. And now it can be yours. I do, however, have some suggestions for changes to this recipe (I can't help myself; I always do this). But first here's the original which I've taken the liberty to name:

Apple - achian Dumplings (aka Mountain Dew Apple Dumplings)

*the first advertising theme song for Mountain Dew was an old Appalachian folk song; cheeky eh? - for more fascinating facts on Mountain dew go to http://enwikipedia.org/wiki/Mountain_Dew

yield: 8 dumplings

1 can of original Pillsbury Crescent rolls

1 medium apple

1 stick of butter

3/4 cups sugar

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 can of Mountain Dew soda

Preheat your oven to 350. Peel (or don't peel - Karen doesn't peel) and core your apple and cut it into 8ths. Melt butter in a small sauce pan and brush a little in the bottom of your pan. I used a Pyrex casserole dish. Add the sugar to the melted buttter and simmer to dissolve the sugar. Add the cinnamon and mix together. Meanwhile, pop open the can of crescent rolls (kids like this part) and lay out the 8 triangles of dough. Wrap each slice of apple in the dough. Pour the butter/sugar mixture into the casserole and spread over the bottom of the pan. Place the dumplings on top and pour the Mountain Dew over the whole thing. Place in the over and bake for 30- 45 minutes until golden brown. After removing them from the oven I glazed the tops by just spooning some of the syrup over them. Serve hot.

So here are my thoughts. Good and gooey and great with ice cream. Karen suggests the Haagen Daaz Dulce de Leche - I had vanilla in the freezer so that's what I served. My apple was still a little too firm. I don't know if it was the variety I used or that I didn't cut the slice small enough. So make sure your apple slice is smallish or I think next time I might chop up the apple or grate it on a box grater to make sure it cooks through. If you do this you can also mix the apple bits with some extra cinnamon - I'm a big fan of cinnamon so I would definately double or triple the amount in the recipe.

It was also a tad too sweet for me. Finn had no complaints, but I usually like things a little less sweet and add salt to it - yes, salt in every dessert I make. It makes a huge difference I promise. So let's make it 1/2 cup sugar ( or maybe 1/4 cup sugar and 1/4 cup brown sugar) and 1/4 tsp salt and 2 tsp cinnamon with the stick of butter.

This was super easy to make and a great activity for the boys - no spilled fluids or blizzard of flour. Please give it a try and tell me what you think. Hey, and if you're really into the Mountain Dew thing I found a recipe for Mountain Dew Cake, actually several - just a quick Google should get you there.