ABC - Caramel Custard Pumpkin Seed Pie

This is the last recipe of the year which means this is the last recipe from Scientifically Sweet for the ABC bakers, or at least for the bake along. Feel free to bake from Christina's blog anytime as she adds new recipes almost weekly (these rugelach and these biscotti look really yummy but that's for another time). It was a delicious ride. I hope you enjoyed it just as much.

For this monthly challenge, the ABC bakers baked the Caramel Custard Pumpkin Seed Pie, or in my case, Caramel Custard Bars with Almond and Pumpkin Seeds. I needed a dessert to feed a lot of people at a work potluck, so I made some tweaks :)

Caramel Custard Bar with Almonds and Pumpkin Seeds

If you'd like to join the ABC bakers in their monthly baking adventures, please go to the ABC blog for more information.

***ANNOUNCEMENT***

In 2016 we will be baking from a new online recipe source that I'm very excited about: "Weekend Bakery" (http://www.weekendbakery.com/). They offer a variety of recipes: breads, rolls, cakes, cookies, you name it. Happy baking!

TBB - Woody's Black and White Brownies

This week's challenge for Rose's Alpha Bakers was Woody's Black and White Brownies (recipe can be found in The Baking Bible). I started out thinking I'd make the brownie portion only since it closely resembles the awesome Barcelona Brownies which I've blogged about here. However, these brownies are super chocolatey (a plus for me, not so much for hubby), so I decided to top them with something sweet, that would compliment the brownies well and be super quick and easy. That's when the bag of Kraft caramel bits whispered in my ear, "use me" (don't judge!). I had some leftover chocolate glaze in the freezer for a little drizzle, and voila!

It made sense at the time when I decided to make only half the recipe. As I ate another piece just now, this time it was a cold one from the fridge with a deliciously dense and fudge-like texture, I'm left wondering what I was thinking.

I pushed the nuts into half of the pan and swirled them around the batter using my magic little finger (it was clean) :o)

The Magic Finger

The nutty one is for hubby

The nut-less one is mine.

The candy I used to decorate my piece is actually called a chocolate covered powerberry. It's a fruity jelly-like center covered in dark chocolate from Trader Joe's.

TBB - Chocolate Cuddle Cake

Rose's Alpha Bakers embarked on a wonderful chocolate chiffon cake this week with caramel whipped cream and chocolate ganache. Also known as Chocolate Cuddle Cake. I was a bit in a hurry so I ended up taking some shortcuts: I skipped the ganache and I used my own recipe for the caramel whipped cream. The cake itself I didn't make any changes to, except I baked it in a 2-piece tube pan.

The cake was served at a dinner party at our house. It was a huge hit. Everybody had seconds and left my house happy :o) I even got a birthday cake request for this cake!

(Half naked) Chocolate Cuddle Cake

HCB - Mud Turtle Cupcakes

The Heavenly Cake Bakers baked Mud Turtle Cupcakes this week. I tried to do the same. Yes, "tried"... After what happened tonight, I think every recipe should start with "don't bake this if you're in a hurry" :o) I guess those books wouldn't sell very well because we all bake in a hurry every once in a while. Right? But when you forget one of the most essential ingredients in the recipe, it's hard to "fix" the problem after you find out. Care to guess what I forgot? No, not the eggs, or the butter, or the leavening. Nope. Just the sugar!!! Yikes! Now these cupcakes really ARE going to taste liked mud :o(

I should have known something was wrong when I made half the recipe and only had 6.75 cupcakes instead of 8. I shrugged it off and baked them anyway. After 17 minutes in the oven, the cake tester came out clean so I figured they were done and took them out of the oven. I noticed they looked "different". The top was cracked (like those chocolate crinkle cookies). Hmmm... I go through the ingredients list in the book and that's when it hit me. The sugar! The superfine sugar! I remember thinking, let's skip the sugar for now (it's not like I'm going to forget the sugar, duh!), because I have to put some granulated sugar in the food processor to make "superfine sugar". That never happened and now here we are. After giving it some thought, I realized what I really baked today is something similar to biscuits. Chocolate biscuits! I tasted a crumb... ewww! But I wasn't ready to give up (yet).

HCB - Karmel Cake

I had the privilege to bake this week's Heavenly Cake Bakers cake with Marie and Woody. Last Saturday was Rose's birthday so we dedicated this cake to her. Marie did such a great job describing this week's Karmel Cake on her blog, that I don't have much to add, other than a few pictures of Woody using his Tai Chi sword to cut and serve the cake :o)

Happy birthday to Rose!

On a different note... as you might have read in Marie's post, I brought a portion of the Devil's Food Cake to share and everyone loved it. I asked Marie and Woody if my version of the cake was a good "in-between" cake and they both agreed; this cake was moist, tender and not crumbly. Marie said it best: "It's definitely not crumbly, otherwise you wouldn't have been able to cut such thin slices". I say, "mission accomplished" :o)

HCB - Sticky Toffee "Pudding"

The Sticky Toffee "Pudding" that the Heavenly Cake Bakers are baking this week, is not a pudding at all. It's a cake that originates in the UK where in many cases what we call a "cake" here, is called a "pudding" over there. But let's forget about semantics. I loved this cake. It has (Medjool) dates, lots of warm spices and caramel sauce on top. What's not to like?



A simple cake packed with flavor!



ABC - Caramel Chocolate Cream Pie

What's not to like about this month's Avid Baker's Challenge recipe? It has chocolate pudding, a layer of caramel and whipped cream encased in a buttery pie crust. I had high hopes for the Caramel Chocolate Cream Pie and once again, Flo Braker did not disappoint. My only (minor) complaint was that this recipe was time consuming. My husband called it the "all day pie", although I tried to convince him otherwise, since I didn't start working on it until 5:30pm, so technically it's not an "all day pie" :o) Anyhoo, it consists of 3 components that I found a little hard to time just right without lots of idle (waiting) time. Having said that, I found the end result well worth the effort. What do you think?

Caramel Chocolate Cream Pie - bon appetit!

HCB - Chocolate Layer Cake with (Whipped) Caramel Ganache & Plum-Blueberry Upside Down Torte

Earlier this month, the Heavenly Cake Bakers made the Plum-Blueberry Upside Down Torte. Although I baked it at the time, I didn't get a chance to post it, so here it is today. This week's HCB recipe is the Chocolate Layer Cake with Caramel Ganache. I was very excited about this cake, especially the ganache. My fellow blogger, Leslie of Lethally Delicious, has given it rave reviews and this lady knows her chocolate!!! :o)

Chocolate Layer Cake with Whipped Caramel Ganache

Plum-Blueberry Upside Down Torte

How did we like these cakes? Please continue reading. I also have step-by-step pictures.

SMS - Brown Sugar Vanilla Ice Cream (sans fudge sauce)

This week's SMS recipe was chosen by Karen from Karen's Cookies Cakes & More. She chose Brown Sugar Vanilla Ice Cream with Hot Fudge Sauce. I believe it's the only ice cream recipe in The Sweet Melissa Baking Book. I was very much looking forward to this recipe as I've never made ice cream before, although I have to admit, I'm not much of an ice cream person, which is why I cut the recipe in half. The ice cream making process seemed like a lot of fun and it was. I used my KitchenAid ice cream maker attachment for this.

Right after churning the ice cream; ready for the freezer

Because of the brown sugar in the recipe, I thought the ice cream would pair well with the honey caramel glaze we made for the Bee Stings a while back. Then I decided to make ice cream sandwiches. I still had a log of Chocolate Chip Cookie dough with Toasted Almonds in the freezer. So the idea came to add toasted almonds to the ice cream as well. And since I was going to take these sandwiches with us to a friend's house, I figured let's mix things up and make some sandwiches with Chocolate Chip cookies and some with Double Chocolate Cherry cookies.

Two scoops of Brown Sugar Vanilla Ice Cream w/Toasted Almonds & Honey Caramel Glaze

Final thoughts/tips:

• Hubby and I loved the ice cream. Although I didn't eat much of it (not a big ice cream person), I did like it a lot. Hubby enjoyed it a lot and said "I wish you hadn't made just half the recipe". His rating: 8 out of 10. Will definitely make this again.
  
• I skipped the vanilla bean because I cut the recipe in half.
• Instead of skim milk, I used half & half (aka, light cream).
  
• I didn't follow the instructions exactly. Instead of using the double boiler method, I made the ice cream batter using the "pastry cream" method. Meaning, boil the cream mixture, combine the egg yolks and sugar and slowly add the hot cream mixture to the egg yolk mixture, to temper the egg yolks. Then return the mixture to the pan and heat until it reaches 180 degrees.
• You can find the recipe here. A big thanks to Karen for choosing this recipe. I had fun making it and even more fun sharing it with my hubby and friends.
  
• Don't forget to check out other SMS bakers to see how they liked this recipe.

Ice cream sandwich #1

Ice cream sandwich #2