SMS: Lemon Walnut Buttermilk Pound Cake

This week's SMS selection is one that I was quite excited about. As I mentioned a couple of days ago, I love any excuse to make a quick bread!

I was slightly disappointed in this one, however.

It wasn't bad, it just wasn't as fantastic as I wanted it to be. The main problem was that it wasn't lemon-y enough, even though I used a considerably more lemon juice and zest than the recipe called for. Other changes I made were to use palm sugar in place of cane sugar and buttermilk instead of sour cream.

I will say that it was unbelievably moist, which was fantastic, and it had that wonderful caramelized crust around the edges that is always a delicious foil to the soft center of a pound cake or quick bread.

I'm not likely to make this one again, though it was tasty (and disappeared rather quickly). I just think there are probably better lemon pound cakes out there. Stay tuned over the next couple of weeks, because I'm planning on making this one sometime soon.

Thanks to Raeann of Basically, Baby Boots for hosting this week. You can find the recipe on her blog.

SMS: Chocolate Cream Caramels

Sweet Melissa Sundays took a bit of a break around the holidays, and I got so used to not making the SMS treats, I completely forgot that we had resumed our schedule! Oops! My apologies to Jeanette of The Whimsical Cupcake for being tardy on this post.

Jeanette's selection was Chocolate Cream Caramels. Caramel-making has never scared me, so I was quite excited about this recipe!

This is definitely the simplest method I've ever used to make caramel - combine all ingredients (except chocolate and vanilla), bring up to 248 degrees, stir in chopped chocolate and vanilla, pour into pan to set! Simple!

I used agave in place of both the corn syrup in this recipe, and it worked fantastically well! These caramels are very tasty, and have a great texture - soft enough to eat right out of the fridge, and they don't stick to your teeth! I would like them to be creamier in flavor - I think there should be more heavy cream and less corn syrup (or agave) in the recipe. Other than that, they are very good!

You can find the recipe on Jeanette's blog.

SMS: Chocolate Espresso Cheesecake with Blackberry Glaze

Every time I make a cheesecake, I wonder why I don't do so more often. Then I eat half of it within the first day, and I remember why. I really love cheesecake. If offered a choice of flavor, I would normally have picked the unadulterated plain old cheesecake. However, this version has changed all of that.

It really is divine, this cheesecake. One of my favorite things we've made from The Sweet Melissa Baking Book so far. I mean, what's not to love? Two of my favorite flavors (coffee & chocolate) together in one creamy, decadent creation, complete with a chocolate crust that has a thin layer of melted chocolate on it. I'll say it again: chocolate crust, topped with melted chocolate, filled with chocolate espresso cheesecake. Oh my. And let's not leave out the blackberry glaze that you see on top. While there isn't a lot of it, it adds a wonderful light and tangy element to the dessert that really puts it over the top. Chocolate and blackberry are a match made in heaven.

Changes I made to the recipe are as follows: I made a 1/2 recipe in a 6" spring form - the crust was the perfect amount, but I had extra filling (which I made these with, forgetting that I had already made them, only to remember when I took a bite and recalled that I had eaten all of the cheesecake layer off of the brownie layer, because it wasn't terribly good. Same thing happened this time.); I used whole wheat flour in the crust; I didn't have any hazelnuts (nor am I particularly fond of them) but I had some almond meal, so I used that instead of chopped nuts in the crust. As a result, my crust was probably smoother than intended, and it is actually remarkably similar in texture and taste to my Chocolate No-Roll Crust. For the topping, I cooked down and strained frozen blackberries and apple juice - sorry, I didn't measure them.

Everyone who tasted this dessert flipped out over it. Many thanks to Shandy of Pastry Heaven for this wonderful pick. If you're interested in the recipe - and you should be - head on over to her blog. Also, this will be the last SMS post for the year. We're taking a baking break as a group, and will be back in the swing of things in January. Don't worry, I'll still be baking and posting plenty of other goodies in the mean time.

SMS: Raised Waffles with Warm Palm Sugar Bananas

I have not been a good SMSer lately, and I apologize to my fellow bakers! I skipped last week, and then I went and skipped this week's recipe, plus I've been a terrible commenter. At least a new year is coming up and I can resolve to be better...

In the meantime, I have some fantastic waffles for you. (Which were actually the pick for last week, so I am making an attempt to catch up.)

I received a wonderful cast iron waffle maker for Mother's Day this year, though had yet to make any waffles with it, because it required seasoning, and I hadn't gotten around to it. I was so excited to finally pull it out and put in the work to make it useable, because it made the best waffles I have ever eaten. I'm not sure how much of that can be attributed to the waffle iron and how much to the recipe, but let me tell you, these were fantastic.

The texture was amazing. I have never had a waffle that was so crispy on the outside, and so tender on the inside. No sogginess here, even when drenched in maple syrup and warm bananas. We folded ours over to eat them like a sandwich, with all of the bananas and maple syrup on the inside. Oh my. I was so glad I only made a half recipe, so that 2 waffles was my limit...

I made a lot of changes in the recipe: I used instant yeast, I doubled the amount of nutmeg and added 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon (remember, this was a half recipe), added 1 teaspoon vanilla extract, used 3 teaspoons of palm sugar, and I was out of eggs so I used 2 tablespoons of tapioca powder as an egg substitute.

The banana topping was divine. I used palm sugar in place of brown sugar, and added about 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract. I didn't put the maple syrup in the topping, but poured it on my waffles separately, and it was wonderful.

This was the first raised waffle I have ever had, and I can certainly say it won't be the last.

This recipe was chosen by Lauren of Fried Pickles and Ice Cream. Sorry I was a little late with these, Lauren! You can find the recipe on her blog.

SMS: Butter Toffee Crunch

I was raised by a single mom. It was just the two of us, and I was fine with that. My parents divorced when I was very young, so I really have no memories of all of us being together.

When I was 10 my dad remarried. We lived in different states, so I didn't see my dad too often, but I loved going to visit him in Wisconsin. He would drive to Iowa (where I grew up) to pick me up and drive me back to Wisconsin. Sometimes on our drive I would sing entire musicals from start to finish - we had several hours to kill.

Once in Wisconsin, I actually spent a lot of time by myself. I was fine with that, too. I could always find a way to keep myself busy; drawing, making jewelry, hand-sewing a quilt, designing clothes, and making toffee.

I didn't use a recipe, I just tossed a lot of butter and sugar in a pan and cooked it for a long time. I didn't use a candy thermometer, and I didn't really know what I was doing - I was only 12 though, so cut me some slack - so sometimes it was crunchy, sometimes chewy with unmelted sugar crystals. I poured it into a buttered pan and when it cooled a bit, I slathered it in melted chocolate.

It has been at least 15 years since the last time I made my toffee, so imagine my delight when I read through this week's SMS pick, and found that it was very similar to my childhood concoction!

This version uses brown sugar and vanilla for depth of flavor and baking soda, which gives the toffee an airy texture.

Thankfully, I only made 1/4 of the recipe. Even 1/4 was a lot, and it is quite a tasty thing to nibble on every time I walk through the kitchen.

I used pecans instead of almonds, as that is what I had, but that was the only change I made.

The recipe calls for taking the butter, brown sugar and a little water up to 290 degrees, but had I done so, it would have been completely burned. Even at 280 it had slightly bitter burned flavor. Maybe my thermometer isn't accurate, I don't know... Other than that, this was a really easy recipe to throw together, and a great treat to have on hand around the holidays.

Thanks to Kaitlin of Kait's Plate for this week's selection, please visit her blog for the recipe. Check out all the other SMSers toffee here.

SMS: Pear Cranberry Muffins with Ginger-Molasses Crumble

So, I know that I just posted a cranberry bread yesterday, but here is another one! I'm quite happy to be baking it, too, because I have about 8 pounds of cranberries that need to be used! You'll be seeing many cranberry recipes in the coming days and weeks.

While I loved the cranberry bread I posted yesterday, my son and husband weren't crazy for it. Unlike me, they don't love overly sour things. Or at least they don't love cranberries - my son will eat pickles by the jar, and frequently requests sauerkraut juice to drink. So, since the cranberries weren't a huge hit, I used half of the batter to bake pear muffins and the other half to make a loaf of pear-cranberry bread.

The Sweet Melissa Baking Book has a basic sweet muffin recipe that we have used once before, when we made Fresh Peach Muffins back in August. Or in my case, Raspberry-Peach muffins. The main complaint from most people about those muffins was that they were very dense. I didn't find mine terribly dense, but they were on the dry side. So this time around, I made a few changes to try to avoid either problem.

I used 1/4 cup less flour than the recipe calls for, and I used part whole wheat - 1 cup to be exact. I also used all milk instead of part milk and part cream, and used an extra 1/4 cup for a total of 1 cup. I used about twice as much diced pear as the recipe calls for, about 1 1/2 cups, and used about 1/2 cup cranberries for the half of the batter I put them in, doubling the cranberries called for. I had some molasses cookie dough in the fridge, so I baked that off to use in the crumble, and added extra ginger to the mixture. So, I didn't really follow the recipe much at all, did I? Oh, and I also used palm sugar in place of the granulated and brown sugars in the recipe.

All of my changes worked beautifully, because my muffins and bread were incredibly fluffy and moist. I'll definitely stick to my version the next time I want a sweet muffin.

Of the two versions I made, I preferred the muffins (which did not contain cranberries). I thought the bread was really tasty, too, but the cranberries really overpowered the subtle pear flavor. In the muffins, the pear really popped. I could take or leave the crumble. Actually, I'll probably leave it, because it made an enormous mess that I will probably be cleaning up for days...

Both cranberry breads were good but I prefer the one I posted yesterday. I can't believe I'm saying this, but I think the crumble actually detracted from it for me. It was yummy on its own, but paired with the bread, it just didn't work. Also, the Sweet Melissa recipe includes nutmeg, which normally I love in just about everything, but I'm not sure it really did anything for this bread. The Everyday Food version has no spices, which I was skeptical about at first, but I loved the result. So that will remain my go-to cranberry bread!

This week's recipe was chosen by Jennifer of Maple N' Cornbread, where you can find the recipe.

SMS: Devil's Food Cake with Peanut Butter Frosting

I haven't had the best luck with Devil's Food Cakes (or other chocolate cakes). Though I LOVE chocolate, I don't often think chocolate cake is very tasty. I was curious to see how this chocolate cake would measure up.

I was planning on making cupcakes, though once I started pulling out ingredients, I realized - I thought - that I was out of cupcake liners. I later remembered I had bought some last week, but by that time it was too late. I decided to bake my cake in a bundt pan instead of 2 9" pans, and thought I could do a variation on the frosting to pour over the top of the cake.

I didn't have any sour cream, so I used 1/2 cup buttermilk in its place, which seemed to work just fine. Also, instead of brewing coffee, I used 1 tablespoon instant espresso in 1 1/3 cup boiling water.

The batter just about filled my bundt pan up, and I had high hopes as I closed the oven door. After baking for 43 minutes, I pulled out my cake and let it cool on a rack. When it was basically cool, I tried to unmold it, and half of the cake got stuck in the pan! Ack! I've only used my bundt pan one other time, and the cake came out perfectly, so I don't know what the problem was. It is a silicone pan, so you're not supposed to have to grease it, but perhaps I should have done so anyway... I ended up carving the misshapen cake with my bread knife into a uniform rounded bundt-like cake that was much smaller than the original.

For the frosting, I put 3/4 cup peanut butter, 1/2 cup powdered sugar, 1/2 cup heavy cream, 1/4 cup water, 1 teaspoon vanilla and 2 tablespoons cream cheese in my mixer and blended on med until it was smooth. I poured it over my cake, and though it wasn't attractive, it was quite tasty.

The cake was nice and moist, rich and chocolatey. The peanut butter frosting was heavenly. Overall, I was very pleased with this cake, and I'll definitely keep it in mind for the next time I need a chocolate cake recipe.

Thanks to Holly of PheMomEnon for this week's pick. You can find the recipe on her blog. Be sure to check out all of the other SMSers cakes here.

Also, there are a few days left to sign up for Secret Baker, click here for details.

SMS: Apple Sticky Buns with Toasted Pecans

This is one of the recipes that I was considering when it was my turn to choose something for everyone to bake for Sweet Melissa Sundays. Given the disappointing result of my choice, I should have gone with the sticky buns... So, needless to say, I was excited when they popped up on our October calendar!

I really love sticky buns, though this was the first time I ever made them. Every time there is a choice in a recipe between cinnamon rolls and sticky buns, I choose the former. Frankly, my only reason is laziness, which is not a very good reason at all, so this time I decided to put in the extra effort in hopes that the result would be extra good! And it was.

I made a few changes to the recipe: I cut it in half and baked (most of) my rolls in an 8x8 baking dish. I got 13 altogether, and only 9 fit in the 8x8, so I put the others in a separate dish. I was glad that it turned out this way, because the 4 in the smaller dish were not baked as sticky buns, so I had a chance to compare the two. More on this later. I added an apple to my batter, because it is apple season, and what isn't made better by the addition of the sweet, tart fruit! Wherever there was sugar in the recipe, I used palm sugar. I used toasted pecans instead of almonds, because that's what I had.

The dough required A LOT of extra flour, but other than that, I had no issues with it. My house is not terribly warm - I haven't turned my heat on yet this Fall - so for each rise, I pre-heated the oven to about 150, then turned it off and popped my dough in.

My baking time was drastically different from the time in the recipe - my rolls were done in 25 minutes as opposed to 45-50 minutes.

The sauce for the sticky buns was so delicious, I actually ate a few spoonfuls of it by itself... The sticky buns were so wonderfully moist, not terribly sweet and just plain fantastic! However, after tasting the ones without the sticky sauce, I realized that it was only due to the sauce that they were so amazing. The plain ones were very dry and bland, even with the addition of the apples.

So, while the sauce and the sticky buns themselves were incredible, and I will certainly be baking them again, this is not a recipe that I would use if I wanted a cinnamon roll. If you want to see a delicious cinnamon roll here is one from Peter Reinhart, and here is a super quick version that you can make in an hour.

Thanks so much to Jen of Not Microwave Safe for hosting this week! If you'd like the recipe for these sticky buns, visit Jen's blog or pick up a copy of The Sweet Melissa Baking Book.

SMS: Orchard Apple Pecan Crumble

Every year, we take our kids (at least a few times) to Hickory Nut Gap Farm, a local farm that has been in the same family for many generations, and a great place to spend the day. There are animals to see, a barn that is piled to the ceiling with hay for kids to play in and ropes to swing on, you can ride a pony, get your face painted, go through a corn maze, and go home with all the apples you could ever eat. We went last weekend for the first time this fall, and came home with a whole bushel. I set to work immediately making apple treats, including this apple crumble. Which was so delicious, it was gobbled up before I could get photos of it! Let me tell you how upset I was that I had to make it again.

I used a combination of apples from the farm, including Mutsu, Fuji, Rome and Granny Smiths. The recipe calls for a cup of sugar - a cup!!! - in the filling. Excessive, no? I will never understand why there is always so much sugar in fruit desserts. Anyway, I cut that sugar out entirely. I never put any in my apple pies and they're always delicious, and they don't even have any sweetener in the crust. This crumble has a full 3/4 cup sugar - palm sugar for me - in the topping, so I knew it would be plenty sweet.

The flavor of the palm sugar was so incredible in the topping - it tastes almost molasses-y, and was such a wonderful complement to the apples and spices. It is a wonder any of the topping actually got baked, because I kept nibbling on it before it went into the oven.

Unfortunately, it is not the most attractive dessert, but it sure is delicious, and easy to make. I'm sure we haven't seen the last of it in our house.

Please visit Cristine Cooks for the recipe. Thank you, Cristine for hosting this week and for picking such a fantastic recipe!

SMS: Caramelized Onion, Sage and Cheese Muffins

I will admit, I wasn't terribly excited about these muffins. Especially after reading about others slightly blah results. After making a few changes, though, these are the best savory muffins I have ever eaten. They were unbelievable!

I made a 1/2 recipe because my sage plant has been so picked over, all I could get off of it was 1 tablespoon and I didn't want them to be sage-poor like these cornbread muffins were. Tracey told me not to skimp on the spices, but the spices were cayenne and black pepper - too spicy for my little one. I knew I had to compensate somehow to add some flavor to these muffins. The first thing I did was to brown the butter. I know, I know, do I ever make anything without brown butter? I'm obsessed with it, and it really adds another dimension to baked goods, so I just couldn't help myself. I also added 1/2 teaspoon ground coriander (remember, this was for 1/2 recipe), and took the sugar out entirely. The recipe calls for sharp cheddar, which we usually keep around, but we were out so I used what we did have: jack and parmesan.

I absolutely loved these muffins. They smelled divine while baking, and tasted divine once they were out. The coriander was a perfect complement to the caramelized onions, sage and cheese. These are a wonderful beginning-of-fall treat, and I'm sure they'll be making several appearances throughout the chilly seasons to come.

Thanks to Hanaa of Hanaa's Kitchen for choosing these muffins for all of us to bake. They were a wonderfully delicious surprise! Visit Hanaa's blog for the original recipe, and take a look here to see what the other SMS ladies came up with this week.

SMS: Orange Scented Scones

I love scones, so I was really happy that these beauties were the SMS pick for this week.

Everyone I gave them to agreed that they are the best scones I've ever made, and I have to agree!

I love citrus zest, so I used the zest of a whole orange as opposed to 1 tsp as the recipe calls for. They were perfectly orangey. I also subbed agave for the cane sugar in the recipe, and I upped it to 2 tablespoons. The only criticism I have of these is that they could actually be a hint sweeter. Oh, also, the recipe calls for making these in a food processor, but I made them by hand. I really enjoy using my pastry cutter. And I just remembered that I used oat bran in place of the oat flour.

These scones have the perfect texture. They are wonderfully flaky and buttery and have a very light crumb. I can think of many possible variations of these, and I plan on trying them all!

Thanks to Robin of Lady Craddock's Bakery for picking this recipe which can be found on her blog.

On a different note, I'm having a GIVEAWAY for a wonderful 8x8 stone baking dish! Details are here. Be sure to enter!!!

As always, be sure to make the SMS rounds to see everyone else's scones.

SMS: Perfect Pound Cake with Maple Caramel Sauce

Goodness, I'm late in posting this! I didn't wait until the last minute to make something for a baking group - for once - but there were other problems in getting this post up. Namely that a few days ago my wallet, phone and camera were all stolen. Luckily, everything is replaceable, and I now have an excuse to buy a dSLR! Until that happens, I'm borrowing my mom's camera which I didn't get up and running until late this afternoon.

As usual, I made some adjustments so that there was no refined sugar in the recipe. I used 1/2 cup agave in place of the sugar, used 2 cups AP flour and 2 eggs. I baked my batter in 3 mini loaf pans.

I really love a good pound cake, and while I did really like this one, it wasn't spectacular to me. It could have been due to the substitutions I made, though. It had a pretty good flavor, and a pretty good crumb, just not spectacular. Enter: maple caramel sauce.

A few days ago I made these cinnamon roll biscuits. They were unbelievable and so easy and quick to make. I may never make a yeasted cinnamon roll again. Unfortunately, I didn't get to post them, due to the lack of camera. Don't worry, I'll make them again. Soon. Anyway, I made the cinnamon rolls refined sugar free too, and when trying to figure out what to top them with that didn't have sugar I came up with this sauce. It is ridiculous. I think I ate more with a spoon than on my cinnamon rolls. It was so good that I had to remake it when I felt the pound cake needed a little punch. It did the trick.

Maple Caramel Sauce

1/3 cup maple syrup

1/6 cup heavy cream

2 tsp butter, cut into small pieces

pinch of salt

Bring maple syrup to a boil. Let it boil for 5 minutes, until thickened and frothy looking. Pour in heavy cream and stir until it settles down - it will spit and rise when the cream is added. Add the butter a couple pieces at a time, stir until melted. Stir in salt. Serve. I haven't tried yet, but I think this would make fabulous caramels given more time to thicken.

Thanks to Michele of Veggie Num Nums for picking this yummy recipe, which can be found on her blog.

SMS: Fallen Chocolate Souffle Cake + Bonus Flourless Chocolate Cake

This week it was finally my turn to pick a recipe for Sweet Melissa Sundays! It was no easy task, let me tell you...

I finally settled on the fallen chocolate souffle cake for a few reasons: I love chocolate, I had never made a souffle and wanted to try something new, I wanted practice at making meringue, it looked really yummy from the photo - it's the picture on the cover of The Sweet Melissa Baking Book. The fact that I don't like the taste of eggs was the only reservation I had about this recipe - admittedly, a rather large one, considering there are 8 of them in this cake - but I decided to go ahead with it, and challenge my skills and tastebuds.

Unfortunately, when I made my pick, I hadn't yet looked at the September recipes for Tuesdays with Dorie. Had I done so, I would have seen that the recipe for September 8th is a chocolate souffle. Oh well...

I made the fallen chocolate souffle cake twice in the last week. The first time, I made 1/4 of the recipe and baked it in two 4" springforms for 18 minutes. I was nervou taking my first bite, no one wants to be the person who picked the dud recipe. My reaction? It didn't wow me. It was tasty, but the texture left something to be desired. It was smooth and fluffy and melted in my mouth, which was all well and good, but there was no contrast to that. There was no crunchy crust to counter the soft insides. I was disappointed. So I baked it again.

The second time, I made a full recipe in a 10" pan, as the recipe is written. I was hoping that the problem with the minis was that they weren't in the oven long enough to develop a tasty crust, seeing as how they took only 18 minutes, as opposed to the hour recommended for the 10". Unfortunately, I don't have anything better to report from the 10" version. It baked in 42 minutes, was denser in texture than the minis, but there was still no crust. Maybe this recipe isn't meant to have one, I don't know. It does look like there is one on the cover of the book, and other recipes I've seen for similar recipes have very prominent ones. I'll be very interested to see the results from my fellow SMS bakers, and to read their reactions to the recipe. I hope someone out there loved it.

Fallen Chocolate Souffle Cake

The Sweet Melissa Baking Book

This is a souffle batter that is baked for a while, until it becomes a cake, and it's one of the most popular cakes at Sweet Melissa Patisserie. It is very rustic, but it looks beautiful when the "fallen" center is filled with fresh berries. Makes 1 10-inch cake

10 1/2 ounces best-quality semisweet (58%) chocolate

7 tablespoons unsalted butter

8 large eggs, separated

1/2 cup sugar divided into 2 equal parts

1 teaspoon freshly grated orange zest

1 tablespoon Grand Marnier

Confectioner's sugar, for sprinkling

Before you start:

Postition a rack in the center of your oven. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees farenheit. Grease a 10-inch springform pan with nonstick vegetable cooking spray or butter. Line the bottom with a parchment paper round.

1. In the top of a double boiler set over simmering, not boiling, water, melt the chocolate with the butter, stirring until smooth.

2. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the whip attachment, whip the egg yolks with half of the sugar until doubled in volume. Add the melted chocolate and mix until combined. Transfer the chocolate batter to a large bowl. (Wash the mixer bowl and whip attachment very well, and dry thoroughly.)

3. In the clean bowl of the electric mixer, fitted with the clean whip attachment, make a meringue by whipping the egg whites until foamy. In a slow steady stream, add the remaining sugar. Whip until the whites hold stiff but not dry peaks.

4. Briskly fold one-third of the meringue into the chocolate mixture to lighten the batter. Gently fold the remaining two-thirds of the meringue into the batter until it is just incorporated.

5. Pour the batter into the prepared springform pan. Spin the pan to level the batter. Bake for 65 minutes, or until a wooden skewer inserted into the center comes out clean. The cake will fall as it cools.

6. When the cake is cool, release the springform ring and remove it. To release the bottom, invert the cake onto a flat plate an d remove the bottom and the parchment round. Turn right side up onto a serving plate and dust with confectioner's sugar.

Serve with vanilla ice cream or warm hot fudge sauce and garnish with fresh berries, if you'd like to make the dessert a little fancy. The cake keeps tightly wrapped in plastic wrap at room temperature for up to 3 days. For longer storage, refrigerate wrapped in plastic wrap for up to 1 week. (Leave the cake in the pan for storing, it is delicate.)

Though this was a fairly tasty cake, it is certainly not one I'll be making again. I wasn't even excited to take photos of it, since it was less than exciting to eat. Very disappointing indeed.

* * * * *

As a consolation to myself, I searched for a different flourless chocolate cake recipe to try my hand at. I wanted one that used a different mixing method, and I found this one at allrecipes.com. It is heavenly.

It is made like a brownie - minus the flour, of course - it is deeply chocolatey, fudgey, and has a lovely delicate top crust. It is ridiculously easy to make, too. This one is a keeper. It is everything I wanted the souffle cake to be, but wasn't.

Thanks so much to all of the lovely ladies who baked along with me this week! It is such a pleasure to be a part of such a wonderful group, and I so love visiting your creative, beautiful, entertaining blogs every week.

SMS: Fresh Raspberry-Peach Muffins

This week for Sweet Melissa Sundays, JoVonn of The Givens Chronicles chose Fresh Peach Muffins for all of us to make. I actually managed to buy peaches in advance so that they would have a chance to ripen, so I thought I was really ahead of the game this week.

Of the 5 peaches I bought, 4 of them molded overnight on my countertop. I have had terrible luck with peaches this summer - with stone fruits in general, actually. When it came time to make the muffins, I had about 3/4 cup of diced peaches. Luckily had some raspberries in the fridge, so I tossed those in. All in all, I probably had about 1 1/3 cups of fruit.

I used palm sugar in these, as has become my habit - it works perfectly in place of cane sugar and has a glycemic index of only 35.

The batter was very thick. The instructions said that depending on how juicy your fruit was, you may not need all of the milk - 1/2 cup. Since I had extra fruit and very juicy raspberries, I thought I may only need half of the milk, but such was not the case. In it all went.

Other SMSers had problems with their muffins being dense and heavy. Mine were slightly dense, though not unpleasantly so. They were a bit dry, however. I think they could be improved on by using peach puree in place of the milk. I did wish for more peach flavor, though when I got a bite with peach in it, it was so delicious. Of course, having the appropriate amount of peaches would have solved this problem... Using a puree would also enhance the peach flavor.

Thanks to JoVonn for picking this recipe. You can find it here on her blog, or buy the book The Sweet Melissa Baking Book. Take a look here to see what the other SMSers baked up this week.

SMS: Mom's Banana Apple Bread

Yet another recipe that I was none too excited about at first glance, but happy to have made in the end. I love banana bread, but we just made banana cake for TWD a couple of weeks ago, and last week's TWD was an apple recipe. Banana apple bread seemed a little repetitive to me. However, all of the SMS bakers who made this earlier than this morning, ahem, raved about it so much I had to give it a shot.

When I started making it, I realized that this is no regular banana bread: the first step is to saute cubed, peeled apples - I used pink lady instead of granny smith - in butter, sugar - palm sugar in my case, with a little vanilla extract stirred in at the end. Well, if those apples were any indication of the final result, I knew I was in for a treat. They were a dessert unto themselves.

Other than the apples, the only non-traditional ingredient was the addition of orange juice. I was hoping to taste it in the bread when it was baked, but I couldn't. There was only 1/4 cup, though.

The bread smelled great as it was baking, though it took a bit longer to bake than the recipe stated - mine was in the oven for an hour and 8 minutes.

I used palm sugar in the bread itself as well as the topping, and it gave my bread a dark golden color that I loved.

My husband said this was the best banana bread he has ever had, though I don't agree. I thought it was delicious, but couldn't really taste the banana - which is what he liked about it. To me it was more of an apple spice bread. I think it would be delicious to replace the banana with pumpkin and add some ginger. I'll certainly do this later in the fall.

This bread is incredibly moist, and has a wonderful crust that was slightly crispy. Though it won't become my go-to recipe, I gobbled up two thick slices minutes after it came out of the oven. I'm just a bit of a banana bread purist, I suppose...

Thanks to Joy of Hot Oven, Warm Heart for choosing this recipe. Visit the SMS blogroll to see what all of the other bakers came up with.

SMS: Vanilla Rose Pecan Truffles

This week we were actually supposed to make hazelnut truffles, but I just don't like them. I love just about every other truffle I've ever had.

I made a few changes to the recipe, needless to say. I steeped a vanilla bean and 1/2 cup dried rose petals in the cream before pouring it over my chopped chocolate (while straining it). After all of the chocolate was melted, I stirred in 2 tablespoons rose water and 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract. When the ganache was firm, I formed balls and rolled them in finely chopped toasted pecans.

These were delicious. I would have liked the rose and vanilla flavors to be a bit more pronounced, but they were detectable, and everything worked really well together.

Now I need to find some people to give these away to, because it is mighty dangerous to have so many truffles in the house!

These truffles were selected by Annie of Living Life Foodcariously, where you can find the recipe for the hazelnut version.

SMS: Snickerdoodles

Snickerdoodles. Such a strange name for the simple little cookie with the telltale cinnamon-sugar topping. I haven't eaten many snickerdoodles in my life, though I do enjoy them, so I was looking forward to making them for SMS this week. I'm rather sleep-deprived and a little loopy, so I'll be keeping this short and sweet.

I'm in Florida right now visiting my husband's family, so I had a lot more taste-tasters than usual. These cookies were a huge hit.

They taste exactly as I remember a snickerdoodle tasting, and the texture is perfect: soft, chewy, and very addictive. Luckily, there were more taste-testers than usual...

This week was hosted by Spike of Spike Bakes, where you can find the recipe for these cookies.

SMS: Chewy Peanut Butter Cookies

I was never a child who liked PB&Js - I'd take stir fried veggies and basmati rice any day. The only way I've ever enjoyed peanut butter is in cookies, and I really love them. The first peanut butter cookies I ever made were from Baked a few weeks ago, and they were unbelievable, so I was excited to see this recipe pop up on the schedule.

These seem to me to be pretty classic peanut butter cookies, and they were very yummy - nice and soft on the inside, chewy, firm around the edges. Delicious. The Baked cookies still rank as my favorite, but these are right up there.

The were easy as could be, though they did take longer to bake than the recipe instructed. It calls for 10 minutes, but even at 12, mine were so soft they fell apart even when cool. They needed more like 14 minutes, and then they were perfect.

Check out Stephanie's blog Ice Cream Before Dinner for the recipe for these yummy cookies.

SMS: Strawberry-Ruby Grapefruit Preserves + Dorie's Cream Biscuits

The task this week for Sweet Melissa Sundays was to make preserves. I've never made preserves, but it seemed simple enough when reading through the recipe. Though they didn't turn out quite as I expected them to...

I decided to make these without refined sugar, so that my 2 1/2 year old could partake. I was pretty much out of agave, so I used what I had left, along with some maple syrup for the sweetener. I sweetened to taste, but there was no more than 4 tablespoons in all.

Things seemed to be going well at the outset, everything was bubbling along nicely, her it started thickening but the apples were still rather firm, and the strawberries weren't breaking down much. I mashed everything as best as I could, and kept on cooking. Pretty soon, there was hardly any liquid left, so I added some water and put a lid on it to cook it more. I stirred it every couple of minutes, but it started to scorch a but, so I decided it was done enough, and I put it in a jar. I think this is probably a result of not using sugar, as it brings out the juices in fruits, and mine was not nearly as liquidy as other peoples'. Also, it didn't make much. Everyone said this recipe made a ton of preserves, so I cut it in half, but I didn't even get a pint...

It was delicious, however! We ate it this morning on some biscuits (which I'll get to in a second) and my son couldn't get enough. He said "I love your home-made jam, mommy", and gobbled up 2 biscuits.

These biscuits are amazing. They are the sweet cream biscuits from Baking From My Home to Yours, by Dorie Greenspan, and they don't have any butter in them! I'll admit, I was a skeptic - what is a biscuit without butter! - but I decided to have faith in Dorie and give them a shot. I am so glad I did, because they take about 3 minutes to put together: mix flour, baking soda and salt, stir in heavy cream, roll, cut and bake, and they are delicious. So delicious! They are light and fluffy and melt in your mouth. The only change I made was to omit the sugar. I will certainly be making these over and over - I've already made them twice in 3 days...

Thanks to Margot of Effort to Deliciousness for picking the preserves recipe, which you can find here. Take a look at the SMS blogroll for more sweet strawberry goodness!

SMS: Agave Sweetened Ricotta Cheesecake with Blueberry Compote

This week's SMS recipe was for a lemon blueberry cheesecake with cornmeal crumble crust. That is not what I made. I had been wanting to make a ricotta cheesecake for some time, so this seemed like a good opportunity to try one out. I also wanted to sweeten it with agave so that my son could eat it. I researched ricotta cheesecake recipes online, and drawing from several different recipes I sort of made it up as I went along. The result was amazing. Amazing. Smooth, creamy, light, oh my. I will be making this again and again and again and again and again... Oh, and it was fast, too. About 10 minutes of prep tops! 

I'd like to try Melissa's cheesecake recipe one day soon, but for now, here's mine:

32 oz ricotta

3 large eggs

1 1/2 tsp vanilla 

zest of 1 lemon

3/4 c agave nectar

3 c walnuts

1/4 cup agave

1/2 tsp salt

Preheat oven to 350. Butter a 9 inch spring-form pan.

Crust:

Place walnuts, agave and salt in food processor. Pulse until crumbly in texture. Press into buttered 9 inch springform pan.

Filling:

Blend ricotta in food processor until silky smooth - about 2 min. Transfer to the bowl of a stand mixer. On low, add agave 1/4 cup at a time, blending well with each addition. Add eggs 1 at a time, blending well with each addition. Stir in zest and vanilla. Pour into pan. Bake for 60-70 minutes (I baked for 70), covering with a foil tent at around 35-40 min. Bake until deep golden brown, and still slightly jiggly. 

Blueberry Compote:

1 1/2 cups fresh or frozen blueberries

3 tablespoons maple syrup or agave nectar

1/8 - 1/4 tsp salt

Place all ingredients in a small saucepan and cook on med low heat for about 20 min or until blueberries break down and mixture thickens.

Thanks to Eliana of A Chica Bakes for choosing this week's recipe. You can find the cheesecake recipe on her blog.