Mir - Just About Baked

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Toffee Bars (Passover)

April 18, 2014
Mir
Bars n' Brownies, C is for COOKIE!, Passover Edition!
4 Comments

One of the reasons that I love to bake is that people find homemade goods to be really special. Though my mother didn’t bake super frequently when I was growing up, I loved everything she baked. My favorite recipe was her toffee bars, and I always associate those cookies with feeling happy and nurtured.

So as part of my Passover quest to bake desserts that taste as though they contain flour, I make these toffee bars annually as a tribute to my mother and as an excuse to eat one of my favorite cookies. They’re classic and the base is mainly ground almonds. Yay protein!

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Passover Chocolate Chip Cookies

Welcome back to Passover Week on Just About Baked! Here today is yet another one of my favorites. I’ve never gone a week without eating chocolate chip cookies, and I don’t see why Passover should be any exception. Thus, this cookie!

A few years back, Martha Stewart put out a few gorgeous dessert cookbooks. One was just for cupcakes, another for pie, and then she also did a whole book devoted to cookies. I bought the whole series, of course. I mean, her stuff is amazing and makes me feel like a grubby little kid who can’t figure out how to make something as fabulous. But when I do make a Martha recipe successfully, I feel proud and happy with life. Go figure.

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Chocolate Coconut Macaroon Tart

April 14, 2014
Mir
Elegant Desserts, Passover Edition!, Pie Day
0 Comments

It’s Passover Week on Just About Baked! I’m sharing my go-to Passover dessert recipes this week because, well, I’m on a mission. For years I ate substandard desserts because I thought there was nothing else out there. But a few years back, I did some research and then I did some baking. Well, a lot of baking. The recipes you’ll see this week are all crowd-pleasers and they’re also easy. What could be better?

Onward! A year ago, I was reading my Good Housekeeping magazine (which is kind of ironic because I’m not that good at housekeeping) when I saw this three-ingredient recipe, just in time for Passover. It looked so fancy and elegant, but it turned out to be the easiest thing in the world to make.

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Almond Moon Cookies

There are very few non-chocolate desserts that I’ll go for. I’ve been working on establishing my love for anything with a crumb topping, so we’re clear on that! And I do have a special fondness for cheesecake, as do most breathing human beings. But along with these exceptions to my rule, I love anything with marzipan or almonds. My German grandparents pretty much made sure of that by passing down their love of almond through my mother and straight to me.

I’m a total sucker for chewy almond cookies, the kind you get at good, old-school bakeries. Sometimes they’re plain, sometimes dipped in chocolate. They come in all different shapes. I don’t really care what they look like, as long as they’re soft. Once they age and get harder, I lose interest. When I was a kid, our local fishmonger used to sell them (no idea why), and his name was Mr. Moon. So, I’ve always called almond cookies Moon Cookies.

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Crumb Cake

April 11, 2014
Mir
Cakes, Dessert for Breakfast, Let Them Eat Cake
0 Comments

A few months back, I was Netflix bingeing episodes of Cake Boss when Buddy and his crew had yet another challenge. A woman came to the bakery from somewhere far away just to pick up her pre-ordered crumb cake, and (gasp!) it wasn’t there. In an exciting and conflict-ridden turn of events, Buddy’s sister sold it by accident.

So Buddy, ever the obliging baker, set about making another crumb cake as fast as he could, promising to be done within the hour. And I watched. Fascinated. Enthralled. I’d kind of forgotten, until that episode, how much I love crumb cake.

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Strawberry Crumb Bars

Okay, people. I’m posting two recipes this week that involve a crumb topping, and how can I not? Crumb topping is one of the great joys of life. Any baker knows that when crumbs are involved, the ratio of crumbs to cake has to be disproportionate. As in, tons of crumbs. TONS. And just a bit of yummy cake.

Well, these aren’t cake. They’re bars. But really, who cares? It’s all about the crumbs, baby! And this simple recipe has crumbs upon crumbs to the point that they’re spilling out of the pan and straight into your mouth, where they melt as you sigh in ecstasy.

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Chocolate Pake

April 7, 2014
Mir
Cakes, Let Them Eat Cake, Pakes and Pookies
10 Comments

Any Drop Dead Diva fans out there? Please? Pretty please?

Because if you’ve seen the show, you know what a pake is. No, that’s not a typo. I’m talking serious pake, kids. As in, a pie-cake hybrid. That’s right! In an episode of the show, a character accidentally invents the pake when two pages of a cookbook get stuck together without her realizing it. The result is rather marvelous. I mean, it’s a cake inside a pie crust. What could be better?

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Soft-Baked Peanut Butter Cookies

There are few snacks quite so satisfying as a pile of soft, chewy peanut butter cookies with a glass of milk (or Ovaltine, in my case). Peanut butter cookies can be made so many different ways, and I’ll be showacasing all of those different methods over the coming months. Sometimes I like the cookies a bit crispier or crumblier. It really depends on my day. But this time, I wanted that melt-in-your-mouth softness that comes with making a thick, gorgeous cookie.

This recipe was featured just a few days ago as part of my Reese’s peanut butter egg cookies, and it works great if you want to stuff anything into the middle. But luckily, this baby is versatile. It’s a great cookie on its own, too!

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Chocolate Crumb Babka

April 4, 2014
Mir
Bread Basket, Cakes, Dessert for Breakfast, Let Them Eat Cake
2 Comments

It’s Friday, y’all! In my house, the weekend means babka for breakfast. Allow me to explain.

When I was a little girl, my grandmother used to send a big box of baked goods to us a few times a year. The box was full of her goodies: cookies and cakes, most of them traditional Eastern European specialties. Nestled in the box were always two babkas. For those of you who aren’t familiar, a babka is cake that is actually made from a yeast dough and then swirled with various fillings. The traditional filling is cinnamon sugar, but more modern babkas have chocolate as well

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Peanut Butter Egg Cookies

‘Tis the season. No, not spring! It’s unusually cold for this time of year. Nope, even better! Reese’s Eggs are out! Praise the peanut butter and chocolate gods!

Of all their products, these eggs are my favorite. The ratio of peanut butter to chocolate is a bit different than with their ordinary cups. Translation: there is more of that amazing peanut butter filling in a Reese’s egg, and that equals happiness. Extreme, sweet, peanut buttery happiness.

When I was a kid, my mom would buy us these eggs as a treat, and it was always such a holy moment. I’d unrap the egg slowly and eat it, perfect bite by perfect bite, always sorry when it was over. Actually, not much has changed. I still feel that one egg is just not enough to satisfy my Reese’s-fueled lust for peanut butter.