TBB - Cran-Apple Upside Down Cake

Although I'm super late with this post, I couldn't get myself to not blog about it. It will be a brief post though.

Hubby doesn't like sour things. So I knew he wouldn't like the fresh cranberries in this recipe, so I split up the cake in two: one half with cranberries for yours truly, and one half with thinly sliced Gala apples.

Cranberry-Apple Upside Down Cake. Why choose when you can have both? :o)

TBB - Luxury Oatmeal Cookies

This week, Rose's Alpha Bakers are baking oatmeal cookies. Not just any oatmeal cookies. Luxury Oatmeal Cookies. What could be luxurious about a plain ol' oatmeal cookie, you ask? These are made with homemade granola.

To be honest, I already have a favorite oatmeal cookie recipe that I've tweaked to "perfection" and have been using for many years. Rose's recipe has several steps, including making your own granola which is one of the ingredients in this cookie recipe. Since the oatmeal cookie is hubby's favorite cookie, I wanted to give it a try.

After I tasted the granola, I knew my efforts weren't in vain. Even if the cookie is a dud, I'd still be extremely happy (luckily the cookie wasn't).

Chock full of raisins, toasty almonds, and butterscotch chips! And oats of course :)

TBB - Lemon Posset Shortcakes

I was almost forced to skip this week's challenge. My left wrist had started acting up again, out of nowhere. But then all the Alpha Bakers started saying how wonderful the Lemon Posset Shortcakes were, so I had to come up with something.

Shortcuts, shortcuts.... I had some Super Lemony Muffins in the freezer which I had made for my other baking group, Avid Baker's Challenge. This is the first time that the baked product of one baking group aids in a dessert of another :o)

I need more shortcuts... Hmmm. There is no shortcut for Lemon Posset. Or is there? An idea began to form in my head. I watched some videos on how to make Lemon Posset on YouTube to get a sense for the milky consistency immediately after cooking. It was still fairly runny, and that's when I knew my idea would work. What is my idea? Well, if England and South America got married, and had a baby, it would be named Lemon Posset Leche Cake. Yes, I used the warm Lemon Posset mixture to soak my Super Lemony Muffins, Tres Leches-style. It was awesome!! :o)

Lemon Posset Leche Cake with a chocolate whipped cream shell border. I love lemon + chocolate!

TBB - Gingersnaps

This cookie confused people. It confused my husband. He said, "a gingersnap cookie is supposed to "snap", it's supposed to be crunchy. This is not crunchy!" I asked him to put those prejudices and mental inhibitors aside, and taste and enjoy the cookie for what it is :o)

Today I took the cookies to work. It confused them too. After complementing me on how professional and perfectly round they looked (and me saying, it's not like I weighed them or anything.... and then admitting that I did), someone said, "I thought you were allergic to peanuts!" Obviously, the color threw them off. To not confuse them even further, I referred to them as "Ginger Cookies instead of Gingersnaps" (sorry Rose!!!).

At work, everyone (myself included) is participating in a company-assisted fitness program which is somewhat of a competition. I was afraid nobody would bite (pun intended) and I'd be stuck eating all of the cookies by myself (there's only so much room in the freezer). I had no such problem! I got rave reviews. One person even came back for seconds, while another came by to say how good they were, and that he really shouldn't have seconds, since they just gained two pounds when they're supposed to be losing weight.

As for me, I tried to keep an open mind, which allowed me to enjoy the cookies as-is just fine!! :o)

Beautiful deep cracks and an inviting golden brown color!

TBB - Golden Orange Panettone sans Chocolate Sauce

I was really looking forward to this week's challenge for Rose's Alpha Bakers. The Golden Orange Panettone, our first "bread" recipe of the bake-along. I baked my first Panettone a few years ago with Jenn, blogger behind Knitty Baker and also one of Rose's Alpha Bakers. We baked it together (virtually). It turned out really good. You can find my blog post and recipe here.

A couple weeks ago, Marie, our fearless group leader, referred to me as Miss I-Never-Met-a-Recipe-I-Couldn't-Change Hanaa. And so this week too, I didn't want to disappoint:

• I "Hanaa-tized" the Panettone by applying a Moroccan twist. I added orange blossom water and 1 tsp crushed anise seeds. There's a sweet Moroccan roll called Krachel which has this flavor profile, and I really like it.
• Since my dried fruit was very plump already, I skipped the soaking step, and used 1 Tbsp of orange blossom water to replace the "drained liquid" from the raisins.
• Instead of candied orange peel, I used the zest of 2 oranges and 75 grams of dried cranberries. I also increased the amount of golden raising to 50 grams.
• I also ended up baking the Panettone in a tube pan which reduced the baking time and the risk of the bread sinking after baking. I just could not afford any chances to have this bread fail after working on it for 5 days.
• Some shortcuts were taken where necessary and applicable :o)

Both hubby and I were very pleased with the end result:

Panettone with golden raisins, dried cranberries, orange zest and anise seeds.

Rose's Crescents

Jenn and I both own a copy of Rose's Christmas Cookies. Neither one of us had baked from it much so we decided to pick a couple recipes and bake them together. The first recipe is Rose's Crescents: butter, almonds, and cinnamon sugar. Need I say more? :o)

Rose's Crescents dipped in cinnamon sugar

I don't think I've ever made cookie dough this fast. Everything goes in the food processor and the butter can be used cold. Let the dough firm up in the fridge for a couple hours, or do as I did and put it in the freezer for 15-20 minutes.