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Cranberry Bars Worth the Making!

Okay, this is something that I actually made a couple weeks ago for a cookie exchange. But I think it is well worth the mentioning because they were a hit! It is common knowledge that I frequent Starbucks. But I rarely buy their baked goods, only their coffee. Except in the wintertime, when the Cranberry Bliss Bars pay a visit. Anyone who has taken a bite of one of these knows that it is in fact blissful -- a golden blondie chock full of dried cranberries and white chocolate chunks, topped with a cream cheese frosting, more dried cranberries, and a white chocolate drizzle! Need I say more?

Well this winter, I never got a chance to go around to get one. And when I went to the Starbucks at my local grocery store, the barista informed me that they were gone for the season. Maybe he should've specified that they were only gone at his location and that I could just get it from the Starbucks down the street. But that's okay. No harm done because when it came time for me to decide what to bring to the cookie exchange, I'd found the perfect excuse to make my own cranberry bliss bars. And boy was it worth it! The recipe makes a giant 10x15 sheet of bars. . . enough to share some, eat some, savor some, and allow my 3 year old who apparently loves them as much as me to have them for a snack (and sometimes breakfast) for a week. So here follows the recipe which is a culmination of a couple different recipes I found on the web. Well worth the making!

Homemade Cranberry Bliss Bars

Bars

• 1 c. butter, melted and cooled
• 1 1/3 c. brown sugar
• 3 large eggs
• 2 tsp orange extract (if you don't have any you can use vanilla but the flavor won't be the same.
• 2 c. flour
• 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 3/4 tsp salt
• 1 tsp ground ginger
• 3/4 cup craisins
• 3/4 c. white chocolate chips or chunks

Frosting

• 4 oz cream cheese, softened
• 2 tbsp butter, softened
• 1 tsp orange extract (or vanilla)
• 1 tbsp milk

Topping

• 1/3 c. craisins, chopped
• 1/3 c. white chocolate chips
• 1/2 tsp. canola oil

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cover a 10x15 sheet pan with parchment paper. Spray paper with nonstick spray


2. Beat butter and sugar together for the cake base. Add eggs one at a time and vanilla, beating until fluffy. Sift together the flour, baking powder, ginger and salt. Then add to the butter/sugar mixture, beating well. Fold in the cranberries and white chocolate chips. Batter will be thick. Spread into pan and bake for about 20 - 25 minutes (I baked mine for 23 min) or until light golden.


3. Remove cake from oven and cool. Remove cake from pan. When cake is cool, mix all frosting ingredients and spread a thin layer over the cake. Immediately sprinkle the chopped cranberries on top. In a double boiler or microwave melt the white chocolate with the canola oil. Then place melted chocolate in decorater bag with small tip (or a sandwich bag and cut a little tip off the corner). Drizzle the white chocolate over the cake. Allow 30 minutes for the white chocolate to set before cutting.

Falling deeper. . .

into my cooking abyss. I really should've made a resolution that I could live with. Maybe I should just resolve to continue to cook as desired and just work out more, he he he. Well for starters, today was Robert's birthday so cooking was unavoidable. Right? He originally requested BBQ spaghetti for his birthday dinner, and an angel food cake (at least that is low fat). For those of you wondering, BBQ spaghetti is basically a homemade BBQ sauce mixed with slow cooked pork and put on top of spaghetti noodles. Unfortunately, I did not have the ingredients on hand for those and wouldn't you know it, when we woke up this morning it was snowing. . . again. So change of plans. New plans: Bourbon chicken, chow mein, and a marble cake with raspberry sauce. Boy, when Robert changes his plans he certainly does get more elaborate! But hey at least we had the ingredients for that, even the bourbon :-) And sides it's got to be a special occassion for me to make a marble cake in the first place. And even more special to make a raspberry sauce. I won't mention the amount of umentionable words I mumbled under my breath while straining the seeds from that stupid raspberry sauce. But in the end, it all turned out great. So Happy Birthday Robert!

Happy New Years!

Well I started off this year with a resolution to eat less and become more fit -- completely contradictory to cooking and eating all sorts of randomness. Unfortunately my resolution faltered after a mere few hours. By 12 pm on New Year's Day I was already baking something totally unneccessary and laden with fat and calories. . . and flavor. Lots of flavor! Man is it delicious! Grits pie courtesy of Paula Dean. Now anyone who has ever watched the Paula Dean show on the Food Network knows that all of her recipes are rich and filled with butter. This was no exception. But I figured that since I had just sent Robert out in the morning to get the grits, I might as well get as much as possible out of them right? I really was just very curious as to how grits pie tasted. Well according to everyone in my house, the consensus is that it is very VERY good. For anyone who has ever had chess pie, that is what it reminds me of. Sweet and buttery custard but with a little bit more texture, complimentary of the grits. Also the grits are also not gritty at well, rather smooth and soft. Within 5 hours of having taken the pie out of the oven, half of it was gone. Leila scarfed down her piece and eagerly asked for seconds. We decided to hold out and save the other half for breakfast the next day. . . after all, it's got grits in it :-)

At long last. . .

I've returned to my blog. It's been forever, but I suddenly felt the desire to blog again. So here I am. And while I don't think I am going to cover all the things that have been missed these past few months, I have returned with more goodies! Fried pickles this time! Now that the warm weather has finally arrived in Connecticut, I've kicked up a gear in my cooking. Seems like I can't stay out of the kitchen lately. . . making everything from Smore's eggrolls, potato chips, fried brussel sprouts to orange cream cookies and fried pickles. For something that's so yummy to nosh on, they're really a breeze to make. I hadn't even planned on making them. Robert was grilling burgers for lunch and while preparing the condiments, I got a sudden whim for fried pickles. I decided to give them my own personal spin my breading them in panko bread crumbs seasoned with Cajun seasoning. Personally I thought they were pretty delish! And while this posting is pretty short, I think it may be the beginning of longer ones to come in the future! Stay tuned!

I miss the warm weather :-(

But at least it was semi-warm for a couple days! So we decided to make the most of it and eat some ice cream...outside! Gabrielle is ALWAYS bugging me to eat ice cream cones, so finally I broke down and bought some. Good thing it was warm enough to go outside, because (as you can see from Leila's face) they L<3ved it! Of course it wasn't hot (I'm still in Conneticuit you know), as you can see my girls are still wearing their jackets.

My girls are sooo cute!!!

How It All Came Together

Tonight's little creation came together due to a few different things. For starters, Robert left again today which put me in a sad poopy mood that could only be alleviated by baking something. My initial decision had been orange cupcakes, random I know. But a friend suggested that maybe I should take a cupcake break -- which I thought "Why would I want to do that?" But a little break wouldn't hurt. Then while I was coming home from the airport, I stopped at Starbucks to get a green tea latte. Green tea is like my new thing now. And while I was driving I was thinking about how if I could just get my hands on some matcha powder (that's cheaper than $42) then I could make my own green tea lattes. Then I realized what an idiot I've been! Why the heck did I go to the health food store looking for green tea powder? I buy all of my Asian groceries at the Asian grocery stores, and green tea powder is Asian, so shouldn't I go to the Asian grocery store for it? Duh! So I decided to try the Korean grocery store just down the street and wouldn't you know it, they had TWO different types of green tea powder. And the best part is that they were $6! Can you believe it? Six dollars for an ounce and a half! So anyway, you would think that the first thing I'd make is a green tea latte. But I'd already had one today and I got too sidetracked. Or maybe more cupcakes -- but I just made green tea cupcakes. Instead, I made another recipe that I'd been eyeing - a green tea roll cake! Like a jelly roll (which I've actually never made), except with green tea and whipped cream. It turned out being really strong, like a VERY strong cup of green tea. But the sweetened matcha flavored whipped cream helps to tone the flavor down some. I thought it went perfect with a mug of hot water (is that weird? that I drink plain hot water?) I'm sure it'd be good with a glass of warm milk as well. I think if I make it in the future, I'd use a little less matcha powder and maybe a little more sugar for a bit of a sweeter taste. The roll itself turned out pretty good I think, considering it was my first time. It could've been prettier. Oh well. And as for my green tea latte, I'll be making one tomorrow for sure!

More Chicken!

Well I finally got around to making that prosciutto wrapped chicken yesterday. Robert requested it which somewhat surprised me because we've had so much chicken lately. Then I remembered that he can eat chicken every day of the week. And I suppose that if I can make it a different way each day, maybe I could too. Eh, maybe not. But I was surprised by this recipe. I couldn't quite imagine how all the flavors would come together -- prosciutto, chicken, basil, mozzarella, and sun dried tomatoes. It was kind of like caprese salad stuffed in chicken. In the end, it turned out to be really good served with a side of rice pilaf and some veggies. None of the flavors were super overwhelming. And Robert liked it too -- which was the important thing since he requested it :-P