I’m a little more than half way between 30 and 31, which means I should be half way through my 30 While 30 list.  Not quite.  Documenting this recipe gives me a 25% completion rate.  While I haven’t gotten very far, I’ve enjoyed trying new things… who knew that homemade hummus and pita would be so easy and delicious?

Of course, there have been some misses that haven’t been documented on Domestic Pursuits.  I made fudge two days before Christmas, following a very precise recipe by Alton Brown.  Something went wrong and I ended up with a grainy mess that didn’t set properly.  Oh well.  I’ll get there some day… besides, who says fudge is just for the holidays?  I also fully intended to decorate some of my Christmas sugar cookies with royal icing – I even bought the supplies.  With visions of snowmen, decorated trees and sparkling stars dancing in my head, I made the same sugar cookies that I’ve made my whole life…and left out the SUGAR.  Yum.  That was a bit of a setback that cut into my already tight timeline.  Look for some hearts or Easter eggs in the coming months.  Finally, there was the herbed asiago foccaccia that didn’t rise, but it sure made for some tasty breadsticks.  Take two will be attempted soon.

Getting back to the recipe at hand: this pita came together quickly and easily with very little attended preparation.  For the longest time, I was intimidated by yeast.  I can’t articulate why, but it just seemed so complicated.   I’m so glad I overcame my issues, because homemade bread products, including this pita, have a much fresher and more pronounced flavor then their store-bought counterparts.  Paired with homemade hummus, this pita is a fabulous snack.

Pita Bread

3 1/2 cups all purpose flour, plus more as needed
2 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp instant yeast
1 tbsp olive oil, plus more for greasing bowl
1 cup water, plus more as needed

1. Add flour, salt and yeast to the work bowl of a food processor fitted with the steel blade and process for 5 seconds.
2. Add the tablespoon of oil and water through the feed tube while the processor is running. Process for about 30 seconds, then turn off and remove the cover. At this point, the dough should be a well-defined ball that’s easy to handle and barely sticky. If it’s too dry, add more later 1 tablespoon at a time, processing for 5-10 seconds after each addition. If it’s too wet, add 1-2 tablespoons of flour, processing briefly after each addition.
3. Transfer the dough to a lightly floured surface and knead for about 1 minute.
4. Lightly oil a large bowl. Place the dough in the oiled bowl and cover, letting it rise until it has doubled in bulk (about 2 hours).
5. Deflate the dough ball and divide into 6-12 even pieces. Make sure you keep all pieces lightly floured and covered.
6. Preheat the oven to 500 degrees F. Place a baking stone in the oven as it preheats. If you do not have a stone, use a cookie sheet.
7. On a lightly floured surface, flatten each piece of dough into a disk and roll out into a 6-8 inch circle. Keep each completed circle lightly floured (on both sides) and covered. Do not stack the disks.
8. When the oven is preheated, place a few pitas on the stone (I could fit 4 on my pizza stone). In 2-3 minutes the dough will puff up. Remove from the oven and repeat the process until all of the dough has been baked.

I don’t know about you, but I am getting a little tired of winter.  We easily have 2.5 feet of snow on our lawn, and it seems the stream of various manners of frozezn precipitation and shovelling has been endless.  When picking out a recipe to bring to Beth’s for dessert this week then, I wanted to find one that made me think of 80 degree days, flowers and trees in bloom, and fresh fruit to get me through the next few months until we’re nearing the spring.  This recipe combines two of my favorite flavors – sweet raspberries and tart lemons into a tasty little sandwich.  This was my first attempt at a sandwich cookie, and I think it went quite well!  I had picked up this linzer cookie cutter set during the holidays and though I never got to using it in my Christmas baking, I was dying to give it a whirl, and this was the perfect opportunity.  I just love all the little fruit cut-outs – and a fruity recipe is surely needed to use it!  Certainly if you do not happen to have a linzer cookie cutter, you can just use a round cookie cutter with a smaller cookie cutter to create the little window in the top of the cookie.

All in all, these were very easy to make – the dough is very easy to work with compared to some other cut-out cookies I have made.  (I may in fact use this as my go-to sugar cookie recipe from now on!)  I doubled the lemon zest in the original recipe to give this recipe even more summery taste – I think I could probably have gone even higher, as the lemon came through but was on the subtle side.  In addition, I somehow found myself out of powdered sugar for dusting – so I opted for a chocolate drizzle, which worked quite nicely.  

The cookies were a big hit on our relaxing evening with a nice spot of tea.  Even though the snow continued to fall on that chilly January evening, it made me feel like summer was right around the corner. 

Raspberry Lemonade Sandwich Cookies

Source: Better Homes & Gardens

Ingredients:

Directions:

Using your stand mixer, cream together the butter and shortening on high speed.  Add in sugar, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon, and mix on medium speed for 2 minutes.  Scrape down sides of bowl and mix for an additional 1-2 minutes.  Add in egg, milk, vanilla and lemon zest on low speed for about 1 minute.  Stop to scrape down the sides of the bowl and mix for an additional 1 minute or until smooth.  Gradually add flour to the bowl while mixing on low speed.  The mixture will form a somewhat dry dough.  Divide into two portions, and form the dough into 2 discs.  Wrap these in plastic wrap and chill for at least 1 hr in the refrigerator.  When ready to bake, remove dough from the refrigerator and roll dough on a lightly floured surface to 1/4-1/8 inch thickness.  Use your cookie cutters to cut out the cookie halves.  The top halves should have a center window cut in them so the jam filling can peak through later.  Preheat your oven to 375 degrees.  Bake on an ungreased cookie sheet for 8-10 minutes – the edges should be just faintly browned when they are fully baked.  Cool completely on a wire rack. 

To assemble – spread a small amount of jam onto the base of the cookie, then press the cut-out top half of the cookie onto the base. 

To make the chocolate drizzle – place chocolate chips into a small bowl and add canola oil, stirring to coat the chocolate chips.  Microwave on high at 10 second intervals, stirring between each, until the chocolate chips are melted and smooth.  Drizzle over the assembled cookies.  Enjoy!

It may be the end of January, but that doesn’t mean that I’m giving up on all of the fun flavors associated with Christmas.  Sure, the holidays have come and gone, but it’s still winter.  It’s still cold, and who doesn’t need some cheer in the form of a delectable dessert at the end of a frigid January day?

I added gingerbread to my 30 While 30 list fully expecting to make it during the Christmas season.  Life (and 28 dozen cookies) got in the way, but an impromptu dinner with my mother-in-law presented the perfect opportunity to give this recipe a whirl.

This cake is just perfect.  The crumb is moist and dense – leaning more towards the consistency of a quick bread than a standard cake.   It has all of the hallmark gingerbread flavors – rich molasses, warm cinnamon and spicy ginger and cloves.  Serve it with a dollop of whipped cream and a sprinkling of cinnamon alongside your favorite hot beverage for the perfect winter day finale.

Gingerbread

1/2 cup shortening
1/2 cup white sugar
1 egg
1/2 cup light molasses
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 tsp salt
3/4 tsp baking soda
heaping 1/2 tsp ground ginger
heaping 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
scant 2/4 tsp ground cloves
1/2 cup boiling water

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and lightly flour one 8 inch square baking pan. (I prefer to line a pan with foil and use cooking spray…easier clean-up!)
2. Cream shortening and sugar until light and fluffy.
3. Add the egg and molasses, beating until well-combined.
4. In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, salt, baking soda, ground ginger, ground cinnamon and ground cloves.
5. Once water has come to a boil, alternately add the water and flour mixture to the creamed mixture. Beat well after each addition.
6. Pour batter into prepared pan and bake for 35-40 minutes.

Recently, after a long day of furniture shopping, my husband and I were meandering through the grocery store pondering what we would be having for dinner.  As we were picking up some fresh produce to make dinner, my husband strayed over towards the bakery case and took a very long look at the desserts.  It’s been a while since I’ve baked, as we’re currently between houses and staying with my parents and hence most of my kitchen is packed up and awaiting transplant to our new place…which we sadly don’t close on for another 31 days…not that anyone’s counting.  The poor guy really wanted a Boston Cream Pie.  Well, I figured after a long day of patiently deciding exactly which sofa arms were just the right shape (instead of watching Sunday afternoon football) he deserved a treat.  I had put Boston Cream Pie on my list of things to make while I’m 30 (after all, it is the official dessert of Massachusetts, partly thanks to my esteemed friend and co-blogger Beth) so figured I would give it a go tonight.  I was thinking about making the ‘real deal’ full sized pie here, but there is something that psychologically makes me feel better when I eat a cupcake rather than eating a slice of cake, so I opted to go the cupcake route with this one.

The recipe I located sounded fairly accessible for a recipe that requires homemade custard and ganache, and as Martha can do little wrong when it comes to cupcake recipes in my book, I figured they would be great.  Indeed, these little treats are absolutely delicious - although we were so excited for a bite as the vanilla cake smell filled the house, I just couldn’t wait long enough to get through the 40 minutes recommended to let my custard fully set, and as a result mine were a little bit wobbly.  Also, I had about twice as much ganache as I needed – unless you plan to REALLY REALLY cover your cupcakes in glaze, or you want to eat half a cup of ganache on its own, you can probably get by with about half a batch.  This recipe made a perfect 18 cupcakes for me otherwise.  It was rather odd not using paper liners for my cupcake pans, but because you slice the cakes in two in order to put the filling inside liners really aren’t practical.  I think this would also come out well if the cupcakes were hollowed out and filled with the vanilla cream, which would allow for liners and more stability – but would make them look less like real Boston Cream Pies.

Boston Cream Pie Cupcakes – from Martha Stewart Recipes

For the Cupcakes:

Now that soup season is upon us, I find it imperative to have a hearty bread to enjoy on the side.  I enjoy bakery bread as much as the next person, but it just makes me feel so self-sufficient and accomplished if I can take a few raw ingredients and mix them all together and *poof* out comes a nice loaf of warm, toasty bread.  This recipe took me about 10 minutes to put together (aside from the time it took to rise) and had the absolute best texture of any bread I’ve ever made – crusty on the oustide, light and fluffy inside, yet hearty enough for any soup or stew that could come its way.  Look like a Domestic Goddess and bake homemade bread for dinner tonight!

Whole Wheat Flaxseed Bread

From Arrowhead Mills

• 1 and 3/4 cups luke warm water
• 1 tablespoon dry yeast
• 1 tablespoon honey
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 tablespoons canola oil
• 2 cups whole wheat flour
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/4 cup whole flaxseed

Dissolve the yeast into the warm water in the bowl of your stand mixer, equipped with the dough hook.  Mix the honey, salt, and canola oil into the bowl.  Stir in the 2 cups of whole wheat flour and mix on low speed until well combined.  Add the all-purpose flour and flaxseed.  Mix on medium speed for 3-5 more minutes, or until well combined into a dough.  Cover with a towel and let rise in a warm place until doubled (this took me about 45 minutes).  Place a baking stone into your oven and preheat to 350 degrees.  (This would probably work out just fine on a regular baking sheet as well, but I prefer the crispness of stone-baked breads.)  After the dough has risen, knead on a lightly floured surface.  Divide into two balls.  Shape each ball of dough into an oval, tucking under the ends to create a smooth surface on the top.  Place onto a lightly floured edge-less cookie sheet, or a pizza peel if you have one, and let rise for another 15-20 minutes.  Using a serrated knife and very light pressure, lightly run the knife over the top of the bread 4 or 5 times.  Place your loaves into the preheated oven onto the baking stone and bake for 45 minutes, or until the surface is golden brown and the bread sounds hollow when you tap it.  Enjoy!

Another gem from Annie’s Eats!  This raspberry buttercream frosting is sweet, tangy and smooth.  It has just the right intensityof raspberry flavor and pairs beautifully with my favorite chocolate cupcakes.  Add a touch of pink food coloring to brighten things up, and you have a picture-perfect and oh-so-delicious chocolate raspberry treat!

Raspberry Buttercream

16 tbsp. unsalted butter, at room temperature
6 cups powdered sugar
1/2 cup seedless raspberry jam
Pink icing color (optional)

1.  Place the butter and jam in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Cream on medium-high speed until well incorporated, about 2 minutes.
2. Sift in the powdered sugar and mix until smooth. Tint with icing color as desired.

* A half batch of the recipe listed above yielded enough frosting for 16 cupcakes.

I love scones.  I love the crunchy tops, the soft fluffy middles, and the fact that they taste good in practically any flavor, from savory to sweet.  The one thing I don’t particularly like, however, is the fat and calorie content of most commercially available scones (Now that I’m 30 I find I need to pay more attention to these things, or else buy a new wardrobe when my clothes won’t fit anymore!)  So rather than give into my recent scone craving by munching on a premium pastry from my local coffee shop, in the interests of my wallet and waistline, I decided to set off making my own. 

Given that we’re in prime blueberry season around here, I decided my healthy scone would contain some tasty ripe blueberries.  From past healthy scone baking attempts, I’ve found that if you decrease scone fat very much you also decrease the moisture, and need to drink an extra cup of coffee or 3 to wash it down.  I based my scones around this recipe I found during my search, which incorporated low-fat ingredients like yogurt; from past experiences, I find this tends to keep baked goods moist without the fat.  These scones truly came out GREAT – toasty brown and crisp on the top, moist and fluffy on the inside.  The tart lemon glaze was a fantastic complement to the sweet blueberries: they taste like summer, even now as the sun starts setting earlier and the nights are getting cooler…

Low-Fat Blueberry Scones with Lemon Glaze – adapted from Anneliese, via What Matters Most

Instructions

Preheat oven to 400 degrees, and coat a cookie sheet with cooking spray.  Sift together flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, baking soda, and lemon zest in a large bowl.  Cut butter into small pieces.  Using a pastry cutter (or a fork) cut the butter into the dry ingredients until mixture appears uniformly crumbly.  In a stand mixer, beat together the yogurt, egg, and vanilla until well combined.  Slowly mix in the dry ingredients, mixing until incorporated.  Gently fold in the blueberries to the mixture.  Form 2 inch balls of dough and flatten each to about 1 inch thickness on the cookie sheet.  Bake for 18 minutes, or until tops appear golden brown.  Cool on the cookie sheet for 5 minutes, then cool completely on a wire rack.  To make the glaze, mix the juice of your lemon with the confectioners’ sugar – you may need to add more sugar depending on exactly how much juice your lemon yields, and how thick you want your glaze.  When scones are completely cooled, drizzle with glaze.  Enjoy!

For my husband’s birthday, I decided to go off the beaten path a little bit – rather than making cake, I baked whoopie pies!  I’ve been meaning to give them a try for a while now…and as my husband loves all things peanut butter and chocolate related, I figured this recipe would be a winner!  I’ve got to give Martha props here – I didn’t change much about the cookie recipe, except that I did not have shortening on hand and substituted all butter.  The chocolate cookie part of the pie was absolutely perfect - moist, cake-y and rich, yet held up well to the sandwich-forming process critical to the whoopie pie construction.  I did make several modifications to the filling – I simply love the marshmallow-y taste of a classic whoopie pie – so rather than use a straight peanut butter frosting as Martha did, I substituted some peanut butter into a recipe for the classic marshmallow frosting.  It came out fantastic – reminded us of the inside of a Reese’s peanut butter cup.  I highly recommend using parchment as directed with this recipe.  Warning – this is most definitely NOT a health food…but good for the soul!  (As an aside – if you prefer plain whoopie pies – just increase the butter to 1/2 cup and leave out the peanut butter.)

Peanut Butter Whoopie Pies – Adapted from Martha Stewart, marshmallowfluff.com

Ingredients – for the Cookies:

Preheat oven to 375.  Sift together the flour, cocoa, baking soda, and salt in a bowl.  In a separate bowl (or a stand mixer if you have one) combine the butter and sugars.  Beat until smooth and fluffy – which for me was about 2-3 minutes.  Make sure to scrape down the bowl intermittently to ensure good mixing!  Then add the egg, mixing for an additional 2 minutes until well combined and light.  Next add about half of the dry ingredients, stirring to incorporate the dry ingredients into the wet.  Scrape down the sides of the bowl as needed.  Add the milk and vanilla, mixing to combine ingredients evenly.  Finally mix in the remaining half of the dry ingredients.  Drop the batter by rounded tablespoons onto a cookie sheet, covered in parchment, and bake in a preheated oven for 12 minutes or until the center springs back when lightly pressed.  Cool completely on a wire rack before proceeding to filling.

Ingredients – for the Frosting

Beat together butter, peanut butter, confectioners’ sugar, and vanilla until the mixture is smooth.  Spread frosting onto the flat side of a cookie, and press another cookie on top to form the completed pie.  Enjoy!

Regular readers of this blog will probably recognize the recipe below – it’s the chocolate cake that I’ve used as the base for all of my chocolate cupcakes.   It deserves its own post – it’s just that amazing.

First of all, it’s really easy to make.  There’s no melted butter or chopped chocolate, just vegetable oil and cocoa.  It’s a breeze to throw all the ingredients together.    The resulting cake has a rich, warm chocolate flavor with a soft, but not overly spongy crumb.

My husband made and decorated this cake for my birthday.  It was so pretty and absolutely delicious!  The cookies and cream frosting (simply halve the recipe from Oreo Cupcakes) added a nice touch.  I have to admit, it was difficult to get a good picture of the cake because it was after dark and we didn’t want to interrupt the celebration.

If you’re looking for a delicious, easy chocolate cake recipe, give the Hershey’s “Perfectly Chocolate” Chocolate Cake a try… you won’t regret it!

Hershey’s “Perfectly Chocolate” Chocolate Cake

2 cups sugar
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup HERSHEY’S Cocoa
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
2 eggs
1 cup milk
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup boiling water

1. Heat oven to 350. Grease 2 9-inch cake pans.
2. Stir together flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt in medium bowl.
3. In a large bowl, combine sugar, eggs, milk, oil and vanilla. Stir until well blended.
4. Add flour mixture to large bowl and beat on medium speed of mixer 2 minutes.
5. Stir in boiling water (batter will be thin). Pour batter into prepared pans.
6. Bake for 30-35 minutes, until a wooden pick inserted in the center comes out clean.
7. Cool for 10 minutes before removing to wire racks. Allow cakes to cool completely before frosting.

I love cherry season!  Every summer I buy enough cherries to feed a small army – this summer perhaps more than most as I’m currently between jobs and spending lots of time at home relaxing and trying to keep the snacks as healthy as possible!  Though I can certainly munch fresh cherries all day long, there are few pastries I enjoy more than cherry pie.  This weekend, we were going to visit friends and I decided to whip one up for dessert. 

Most people advocate using sour cherries for a pie, hence most recipes are directed towards sour cherries and have a large amount of sugar to compensate for the tart cherry taste.  I personally happened to have bing cherries on hand, so I went searching and turned up a fairly straight-forward Martha Stewart recipe that I modified slightly.  I cut back on the sugar content by another 50%, and instead of plain sugar I used vanilla sugar to round out the flavors in this recipe nicely.  (If you don’t have vanilla sugar, you can always add a tsp of vanilla to the filling and I’m sure it would come out great.) I also didn’t have quite the 2 lbs of cherries called for, but figured I would just give it a try and see how it went.  Turns out, it’s much easier to make than I ever thought it would be – the gooey, perfectly sweet, crimson filling came out just right.  As the great philosopher/80′s band Poison once said, “She’s my cherry pie, tastes so good, makes a grown man cry.”

Vanilla Bing Cherry Pie Filling

• 1.5 lbs fresh bing cherries, pitted and halved
• 1/4 cup vanilla sugar ** may substitute 1 tsp vanilla extract and 1/4 cup plain sugar
• 1 tbsp cornstarch
• 1 tbsp lemon juice
• Your favorite pie crust recipe – enough to make 2 crusts(or in a pinch, just use frozen/refrigerated pre-prepared pie crusts!)

Preheat oven to 450 degrees.  Roll out pie crust to 1/4 inch thickness and press into pie plate of your choice, reserving top crust for later. Place cherries in a large bowl and sprinkle with the vanilla sugar, cornstarch, and lemon juice.  Mix ingredients well.  Place pie filling into prepared crust.  If you wish to make a decorative lattice with your top crust (as I did) – roll your top crust to 1/4 inch thickness, then cut your pie crust into 3/4 inch strips.  Taking alternating strips from the top crust, lay them all parallel to each other on top of your pie – do not press into the bottom crust yet!.  Then, fold back every other strip on top of the pie.  Take the longest remaining pie crust strip, and place across the middle of your pie over the strips that did not get folded back.  Unfold the strips over the newly laid pie crust strip.  Then, fold back the alternating strips, laying another new pie crust strip on top.  Continue folding alternating strips, laying new pie crust strips, and unfolding until you have covered the top of the pie.  (As you started in the middle, when you have finished one side of the pie - fold back the other side of the pie crust strips and repeat the process going towards the opposite side!)  When lattice is formed, trim the stips to fit the curve of your pie plate, and crimp down the lattice strips to the bottom crust.  Place pie in oven on center rack.  Bake for 10 minutes at 450 degrees, then reduce heat to 350 degrees and bake for 45-50 minutes longer, or until crust is golden brown.  Enjoy!