Chocolate & Peanut Butter Love

March 25, 2014 by Tara

Yesterday felt like a cookie day.

A chocolate cookie day.

A chocolate sandwich cookie day.

With the fluffiest of the fluffy peanut butter frosting in the middle.

So I made them.

The level of salt in these things, and the soft chewiness and fluffy as hell filling is just so on point. Everything about these is perfect. Everything. I would not change a damn thing, except maybe I would like to be able to eat more than one and not feel like I’m dying. Know what I’m sayin?

Hnnnggg *heart attack*

I think I’ve stated before that I’m not usually a fan of chocolate + peanut butter, but these are one exception. Because they are the embodiment of love. LOVE, YOU GUYS, LOVE! That’s how good they are.

Want the recipe? Yeah you do.

Chocolate Cookies

1 cup of softened butter
1 cup of dark brown sugar
1 cup of granulated sugar
3 eggs
2/3 cup cocoa
2 cups flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda

Preheat your lovely oven to a balmy 350F. Prepare some pans with silpats or parchment paper on them. Set aside. Whip the butter and sugars with the paddle attachment for a good 5 minutes. Add the eggs, and beat some more until it’s all combined. Add the cocoa first, carefully so you don’t make a giant cocoa explosion, then add the flour, salt, and baking soda. Mix on low speed just until it all comes together. I scooped the dough using a small scoop, but you can just eyeball it if you want. Bake them for 8 minutes, rotate, and bake 2 minutes more. They will seem underbaked, but trust me when I tell you to take them out. Allow them cool while you make the filling!

Peanut Butter Frosting

1 cup butter, softened
3 cups icing sugar
1/4 cup milk
1 cup of smooth peanut butter
1 tsp vanilla paste

Whip the butter and sugar until fluffy, adding the milk slowly. Mix in the peanut butter and whip whip whip until it’s the fluffiest thing you’ve ever seen. So good!

I used a piping bag to pipe big blobs onto the cookies before sandwiching them, but you can just use a spoon if you want.

Try not to eat too many, because you will feel deathly ill if you do. They are so good though!

A 30th Birthday Cake

March 24, 2014 by Tara

Damnit, I almost made it to the one month mark of since I last posted haha.

Well my brother’s birthday was yesterday, the 23rd of March, and he turned 30!

He’s the oldest in our family, my sister is the middle child (27) and I’m the baby, turning 25 in August.

He is really obsessed with this chocolate chip cake for some reason. It’s just a simple white cake studded with mini chocolate chips, brushed with a birthday cake vodka soak, filled with pastry cream, and frosted with a standard Canadian buttercream also studded with chocolate chips!

Look how smooth the batter is. Mmmmm, dat battah.

I threw some birthday cake vodka into the pastry cream as well because, well, why the hell not? It’s a birthday cake. And it’s vodka. And they are friends.

The silkiest, yummiest pastry cream. I suggest throwing flavoured vodkas into all of your pastry creams. Or rum. Or any other liquor. Yep. Also, this bowl. I know your mom has this bowl.

I’ve literally never been to a friend’s house where this bowl is not present. The ever classic Mom bowl.

Anyway, back to the cake.

Yes, this cake. I just used the classic white velvet cake recipe and threw in some mini chocolate chips, like I stated earlier.

Then I accidentally went crazy with some sprinkles. I figured, hey, it’s his 30th birthday so his cake should be playful and fun so he doesn’t feel too old. SPRINKLES! SPRINKLES FOR DAYS! I fucking love sprinkles!

Gratuitous top shot of my sprinkle-covered cake.

It went over well, everyone loved it, and the whole thing was gone when I woke up the next day. Boo yah!

The cake recipe can be found here, just omit the hazelnut oil if you want.

and here is the pastry cream recipe I used!

Birthday Cake Pastry Cream (adapted from Tartine)

2 cups whole milk
1 tsp vanilla paste
1/4 tsp salt
4 tablespoons cornstarch
1/2 cup sugar
2 eggs
4 tablespoons of butter
1/4 cup Birthday Cake flavoured vodka

Heat the milk, vanilla, and salt just to a boil. Meanwhile, whisk the cornstarch into the sugar, and then add the eggs. Whisk until all smooth and whatnot. Temper the egg mixture into the hot milk, and whisk constantly until it thickens and boils for about 45 seconds. Remove from the heat, and stir in the butter and vodka. It may seem runny but will thicken up to a perfect consistency for filling the cake! Pour into a bowl and cover directly with saran wrap so it doesn’t form a skin, and allow it to cool fully. Yum!

For the buttercream, all I did was whip up a pound of butter, and slowly beat in 4 cups of icing sugar. I added about 4 tablespoons of buttermilk, and whipped the ever loving shit out of it until it was very fluffy. I added about 2 tablespoons of cake vodka, and folded in 2 cups of chocolate chips. Makes it a little hard to frost the cake, but it’s all worth it. It’s a rustic cake!

I’ll end this with a picture of this handsome fellow. His name is Kain, and he likes italian meringue and prosciutto. We are best friends.

Sprinkles on Cupcakes are Pretty

February 23, 2014 by Tara

It has been brought to my attention that I have neglected this blog again. Hahaha story of my life though, right?

I made some cupcakes to satisfy you hungry vultures.

Some cute little vanilla cupcakes with a super creamy delish vanilla frosting and of course sprinkles. You know me and my sprinkles.

Look at these cute little things. LOOK AT THEM.

Oh yah this is also the tastiest vanilla cupcake recipe, the only one you will ever need again. It also transforms into a lovely cake should you bake it in a cake pan. It absorbs syrups so delightfully, but don’t use it for stacking with heavy buttercreams because it is super light and fluffy and can’t really handle being more than 3 layers unless you plan on eating cold cake. Mmmm, fridge temperature buttercream….

The batter tastes like cake mix! So full of delicious sugar and vanilla and buttermilk. My favourite things of course.

Vanilla Cupcakes

1 1/4 cups sifted cake flour
1 1/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 cup sugar
2 eggs
1/2 cup oil
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup buttermilk

Alright now friends, preheat that oven of yours to a lovely 350F. Then line some muffin pans (lol accidentally wrote pants at first, but changed it because I didn’t think you would find that nearly as funny as I do) with some liners. You’ll need about 15 large sized ones. Now set that aside.

In a mixing bowl, whip the sugar and eggs together until they are light and fluffy and thick. With the mixer still on, slowly drizzle in the oil and the vanilla until it’s all incorporated. Yes that’s right my child! We are making an emulsion. A delicious sugary emulsion. Sometimes I pretend I’m making a sweet mayonnaise and then I get grossed out but also intrigued at the same time.

Now sift all your dry ingredients together, and dump them in the bowl. Then turn on the mixer on low and pour in the buttermilk rather quickly while mixing. It’s a pretty thin batter, so don’t be alarmed.

Now taste your batter. ISN’T IT DELICIOUS?! Okay try not to eat too much of it, you have to scoop the batter into your prepared pans now. Pop those babies into your oven for about 15-18 minutes, until they’re lightly golden brown and spring back when gently pressed in the centre. Let those puppies cool until your buttercream of choice is ready!

Okay. Let’s talk frosting here. Buttercream. Icing. Fluffy shit to top your cupcakes with and smooth the sides of your layer cakes. For these cupcakes I used a cooked flour frosting style buttercream. Keep in mind there isn’t really too much difference between the technical-wechnical terms frosting and buttercream, although I tend to call american/canadian buttercream (butter or shortening and icing sugar) frostings, and meringue buttercreams, well, buttercream. Icing I generally use for a thinner, more loose style thing. Thicker than glaze, but not thick enough to hold its shape. Get it?

This particular frosting has so many names. Some people call it a mousseline, which technically it really isn’t, but the method is fairly similar as long as we’re talking about a real mousseline cream and not RLB’s shitty name for meringue buttercreams. A true mousseline being pastry cream with butter whipped into it, so rich and delicious and part of my favourite cake of all time, the Fraisier. God I love the French. I need to go back to France and eat everything. Some call this a german buttercream, some call it flour frosting, some call it cooked frosting. Whatever the hell you want to call it, it’s pretty yummy. Fluffier and less heavy feeling than your typical meringue buttercreams. Almost like whipped cream, but with more body and richness. OOoooohhh, aahhhhh, yummy.

Cooked Flour Buttercream

5 tablespoons flour
1 cup of whole milk
1 cup of sugar
1 cup of butter, room temp
1/2 tsp vanilla
pinch of salt

In a pot, combine the sugar and flour and whisk in the milk until lump free. Cook this mixture over medium-high heat until thickened and boiling. Transfer to a stand mixer and whip the the whisk on medium-high until it’s cooled down. Then throw in your butter and vanilla and salt and whip whip whip until that shit all comes together in a delicious thick and fluffy buttercream of sorts.

Now you can pipe onto your little lovely cupcakes. And cover with sprinkles. Then eat.

Voila, the fastest and most delicious cupcake. Instant gratification, my favourite kind of gratification.

Here’s my dog, doing the thousand yard stare into cupcake bliss. What a beast.

Happy baking ❤

Maple Bacon Caramel Macarons

January 1, 2014 by Tara

I seemed to have a large abundance of egg whites hanging out in my fridge, and just the right amount of almond flour hiding in my cupboard. I knew it was time. Time to tackle macarons again. But what kind shall I make?!?! I still had two little bottles of yuzu juice, and thought to myself “sweet christ, yuzu and strawberry macarons!”. It all sounded so perfect. I had everything I needed, and I was suddenly craving that citrusy yuzu taste somethin’ fierce.

…Until I opened the bottles and realized they had gone bad. I WAS SO SAD!

So I pondered what kind to make. Boring old strawberry? Lemon? Caramel? Bacon? Bacon. Always bacon.

Ended up making vanilla shells using Pierre Herme’s recipe, which a quick google search will bring you to, and filling them with a maple bacon caramel. Christ on a cracker are they ever good.

That, my friends, is a bowl full of sticky artery-clogging goodness. Heavy on the cream, heavy on the bacon, heavy on the maple. You might as well just skip a step and go straight to the hospital before you eat this shit, cause it’ll kill you. In the best possible way of course. All I did was throw some cooked chopped bacon in a pan with maple syrup until it was super reduced and bubbley, then mixed that in to a thick caramel that can be piped so that it holds its shape. Nomeriffic.

I couldn’t exactly pipe the bacon caramel onto these babies due to the bomb-ass bacon chunks, so I had to sort of spoon it and hope for the best. It all worked out fine.

So good.

I won’t show you my tray of under-baked macaron shells, so sad. Good for snacking, but just a right mess to get off of the silpat. I think my diet today has consisted of the following: macaron batter, caramel, bacon, assembled macarons, and a turkey bacon swiss sandwich….that’s all good for me, right? Right?! I feel a headache happening. I need some greens, stat!

Once Upon a Peanut Butter Brownie: A Love Story

November 26, 2013 by Tara

Let’s talk brownies for a second. How do you like your brownies? Cakey? Gooey? Dense? Fudgey? With frosting? How about nuts, do you like nuts in your brownies? There’s just so many options…how does one choose?

One chooses peanut butter, that’s what one does.

I’m not always a big fan of the chocolate+peanut butter love affair, but it’s pretty damn good sometimes. This is one of those times.

It was the Grey Cup this weekend! And so naturally we had a house full of people. My lovely motherdear made date squares and buttertart squares (so good) but I felt like baking too! I opted for brownies, but I wanted something special about them. I wanted to throw peanut butter into the idea somehow but I didn’t want to do those brownies where you just swirl peanut butter through the batter before baking because honestly when have you had a brownie like that that really blew you away? Probably never. So I thought about just making a peanut butter frosting for the tops. Not good enough. I wanted cream cheese in there too! Solution? A peanut butter “mousse” of sorts that sits so lovely atop the dense fudgey brownies.

The brownie recipe I used is my usual one found here, and here’s how to make the peanut butter mousse that goes on top!

Peanut Butter Mousse

1 8oz pkg of cream cheese
1 cup of creamy peanut butter
3/4 cup of icing sugar
1 cup of whipping cream
1 tsp vanilla

In a bowl, whip together the cream and vanilla until stiff peaks form, and then set aside. In a separate bowl, beat the cream cheese with the peanut butter and icing sugar until smooth. Using a spatula, stir in about a quarter of the whipped cream to lighten the mixture, then gently fold in the rest until homogeneous but not over mixed. Once the brownies are fully cooled, spread this on top and place in the fridge or freezer (or outside in the snow like I did! wee! I love winter!) until they are firm enough to cut cleanly. Use a clean warm knife for each cut to get beautiful edges 🙂

This cake stand is so pretty but makes everything taste like it was smoked….WHAT THE HELL CHAPTERS!? WHY WOULD YOU SELL ME A CAKE STAND THAT IS GOING TO MAKE MY CAKES TASTE SMOKEY? Now all I can put on it for more than 5 minutes is a caramel cake and try to pass it off as a smoked caramel cake. Jerks.

Toasted Walnut & Vanilla Fudge

November 19, 2013 by Tara

Okay. So. I’ve actually never made just straight up fudge in my life before today. I used to love going to St. Jacobs and getting fudge there, and watching the people make the fudge in that one wicked shop but I don’t remember what the name of it was. There was also a really cool lego store and HUGE things made out of lego. Like mummies and sarcophagi and shit. It was amazing!

But today it happened. Today there was some fudge made. Just regular old fashioned fudge. I don’t even want to get started on how I feel about fudge that has marshmallows or marshmallow fluff or marshmallow creme in it. Let’s just say that if you call your fudge “old fashioned” and then I see the recipe and it has marshmallows of any sort in it, I don’t want to talk to you. Marshmallow fluff was not invented until the 1920’s and fudge originated around the 1880’s, so there’s a good 40 year difference there. Oops I got carried away. I should get back on track…

This fudge, delightfully creamy and rich yet somehow not too sweet, is just a swirled delicious concoction of sugar, cream, butter, and corn syrup. And yes, corn syrup was invented in the 1880’s as well, so this still counts as old fashioned. I also added some wonderfully toasty walnuts and some vanilla.

I’m pretty happy with the results and everyone else at work seemed to be in agreement.

When I first cut it up and tried it I felt the vanilla was almost too overwhelming, I wanted it to have more of a creamy taste and less vanilla. But I tried it again a few hours later and it actually tastes much better after sitting. The walnuts add such a good toasty nutty flavour, and the texture of this fudge is really good in my opinion. Not too soft but not too grainy either. I’m no fudge expert though. And somehow it doesn’t seem overwhelmingly sweet like some tend to. I can eat more than a tiny piece without feeling like I’m developing diabetes, which is great for everyone! Not diabetes, that’s not great for everyone…I meant the sweetness level…I’ll stop now.

Omnomnom. This would be a good thing to add to your list of holiday baking! Do it! I’m going to be experimenting with some more recipes and I’ll most likely post about them, so look out for those too.

Toasted Walnut and Vanilla Fudge

3 cups sugar
1/4 cup corn syrup
1 1/4 cups 10% cream
2T salted butter (or unsalted butter and 1/4 tsp salt)
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup of toasted walnut pieces

Grease a 10″ loaf pan and line with parchment paper, set that bitch aside.

Add everything to a medium sized pot except for the vanilla and walnuts, and cook over medium-high heat to 238F without stirring. You can swirl the pot, but don’t stir it. Then remove from the heat and let the temperature drop to 120F. At this point add the vanilla and the walnuts and beat the mixture with a wooden spoon until it loses its sheen and starts to thicken up. Quickly get the mixture into your prepared pan, and use plastic wrap to smooth everything down and make it all even and stuff. At this point you could top the fudge with more walnut bits if you wanted. Allow to cool to room temperature before cutting into desired pieces 😀

Coconut Cake

November 18, 2013 by Tara

This is what happens when you make a cake and your family gets to it before you can take any pretty pictures of it.

It was my Dad’s birthday on Saturday, and he requested a “rich decadent light coconut vanilla triple layer dooins”. Those were his exact words. He wanted it to be rich/decadent/light all at the same time. I supposed I succeeded at that. Everyone apparently loved it, so I guess that’s a thumbs up on my part right?

I didn’t have any coconut extract, so I had to rely solely on actual real coconut things to make this cake taste like coconut. I used the usual white velvet cake recipe I usually do, but in place of the butter and milk I used coconut oil and coconut milk. I also added about a cup of large flake coconut into the batter. Omnomnom! It definitely changed the texture of the cake a little bit, it wasn’t as light and airy and the crumb wasn’t as tender as normal, but it did taste like coconut and was still really good. Aww yeaaah.

I filled it with a regular old vanilla pastry cream, which I made with coconut milk instead of regular milk, and lightened it with a ginger whipped cream I had left-over from a dessert I made on Saturday night (sorry, no blog post on that since it was A TOTAL FAIL haha oh man you should’ve seen it. I was terrible. I managed to salvage it somehow and we still ate it and it was kind of tasty). It felt like the ginger in the cream really enhanced the coconut flavour overall. Tasty! I just used a regular old french buttercream to mask the cake, and covered the whole thing in unsweetened macaroon coconut. The cake layers I soaked with a simple syrup that I added some coconut rum to. That really helped the delicious coconut taste.

Oops you can see the cake layers..haha. My bad! But look at how pretty that stand is. I have a thing for cake stands. I love this one in particular right now. B-e-a-utiful!

Coconut Cake

300g cake flour
300g sugar
19 grams baking powder
5 grams salt
170g cold-ish room-temp coconut oil
242g coconut milk
135g egg whites
9 grams vanilla
20 grams coconut rum
1 cup flaked coconut

Preheat oven to 350F and grease and set aside two 8″ cake pans. Mix together the milk, whites, vanilla, and rum. Set aside. Combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt and coconut oil in a mixing bowl until the oil has been broken up into tiny bits. Add about 3/4 cup of the liquid and mix until combined. Whip on medium speed until light and fluffy, for about 2 minutes. Scrape down the sides of the bowl and then slowly pour in the liquid until all combined. Scrape down the sides of the bowl, and beat for a few more seconds until beautifully homogeneous. Fold in the flaked coconut. Divide the cake batter between the pans and bake for 30-35 minutes until it springs back when lightly touched and a toothpick inserted in the centre comes out clean. Allow to cool fully!

Coconut Soaking Syrup

1 cup of sugar
3/4 cup water
1/4 cup coconut rum

Boil everything together just until the sugar is dissolved. Cool before brushing onto split cake layers.

Peanut Butter Sandwich Cookies

November 4, 2013 by Tara

I sat down to write this post and then 2 hours later realized I was purchasing some sweet patterned leggings and had watched various clips of documentaries of monkeys with unfortunate gas.

Oops.

I guess I’ll actually do this now.

These are cookies. They’re peanut butter sandwich cookies. Because I like cookies, and I like sandwiches, and so a cookie that’s also a sandwich is pretty rad to me. These didn’t really turn out exactly how I had hoped they would, considering all the reviews and whatnot. They’re still really good though. I guess I was just looking for something a little different to satisfy my very specific sandwich cookie craving. I wanted something crunchier/crispier. Next time.

I put just the tiniest sprinkle of fleur de sel on top before baking them. Salty sweet crunchy peanut butter chewy cookie goodness. All in one tasty little package ready to be delivered straight to your mouth and then thighs.

Look look! I made a gif of a disappearing cookie. I wonder where it went? Lol jokes, it went straight into my mouth. Right into it. I barely chewed and chased it with a glass of milk. That’s my life.

Peanut Butter Sandwich Cookies (aka the “Nora Ephron” from the Dahlia bakery)
this made 20 sandwich cookies for me, with a 1″ scoop

1 1/2 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 2/3 cups old-fashioned rolled oats
1/2 tsp kosher salt
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons of butter
1/3 cup crunchy natural peanut butter
3/4 cup granulated sugar
2/3 cup brown sugar
2 eggies
1 tsp vanilla extract or paste

In a bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.
Whip together the butter and sugars with the paddle attachment of your mixer until light and fluffy. Add the peanut butter and mix some more. Then add the eggs and vanilla one at a time and mix on medium high until it’s all light and fluffy and happy looking.
Add the dry ingredients and mix on low until all combined.
Scoop the cookie dough with whatever sized scoop you want, I used a small 1″ one, and place in the fridge to chill for about 2 hours before baking.
When you’re ready to bake, preheat the oven to 375F and place parchment or a silicone liner on a pan, then double pan that pan (put another pan underneath it). Bake them for about 10 minutes, give them a rotate, and bake for about 3 minutes more until they’re golden brown and tasty looking. Allow the cookies to cool completely before filling or you’re gonna have a bad time.

Peanut Butter Filling

1 1/2 cups of natural peanut butter (crunchy or smooth, it don’t matta)
6 T of butter
1 cup of icing sugar
pinch of salt
2 T buttermilk

Whip the butter, peanut butter, icing sugar and salt until fluffy. Add however much buttermilk you need to make it the perfect consistency for you. I used about 2 tablespoons. I also used buttermilk because it was in front of the milk and I was too lazy to move it out of the way. Typical Tara.

❤❤Happy baking friends!

p.s. oh my gaahhhddd it’s my 100th post! Is this some sort of blogging thing that I should be excited about? Here’s a weird picture of me with my new tattoo I got.

Chocolate Banana Loaf of Sorts

November 4, 2013 by Tara

I remember a few weeks ago trying to describe to someone this vegan chocolate cake from some bakery in Toronto that I had a few years ago. It was so good, but extra good when you put it in the microwave for just a few seconds before eating it.

It. Was. SO GOOD!

I barely remember what it actually was like but I had this idea in my head and wanted to make something that would be sort of similar. I remembered it having some banana taste. Makes sense, since bananas are a suitable replacement for eggs in some things.

So I just gizoogled chocolate banana cake, but wasn’t thrilled with any results. I chose something at random and made it. It was good. It’s super rich and soft and yummy and chocolatey and banana-y and omnomnom good.

I made a ganache to go on top, but I realized I actually didn’t have any almond milk left so I made my ganache out of chocolate, milk, and butter. Tasty.

Vegan Chocolate Banana Loaf

2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp salt
2/3 cup cocoa powder
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 cup canola oil
1 1/2 cups hot coffee
1 tsp vanilla
1 1/3 cups sugar
1 cup mashed bananas (like, 2 medium bananas)
1 cup dark chocolate chunks (optional)
1 cup roughly chopped walnuts (optional)

Preheat your lovely oven to 350F and line a 9×5″ greased loaf pan with parchment.

Whisk together the flour, cocoa powder, salt, and baking soda in a bowl. Whip the sugar and banana until thick and creamy. Drizzle in the oil until all incorporated. Dump in all the dry ingredients, and mix on low speed while pouring in the coffee. Mix in the optional things and pour into the prepared pan. Bake that beast for about 45-50 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the middle comes out clean.

Ohhh yeah, look at that ganache. Yum.

I just made a random ganache of 1 cup of dark chocolate, 1/4 cup of milk and a 1/4 cup of butter. I heated it all together in a pot and whisked it until it was smooth and delicious. Then I poured it over the loaf after I took it out of the pan. Yumnoms

The Curious Case of Comfortless Baking

October 28, 2013 by Tara

Normally when I bake and my little white cat is in the house, he’ll be in the kitchen with me. Hanging around by my feet, waiting for crumbs. He was like a dog. Yesterday I was baking a cranberry loaf cake. No sign of the little white cat. Today I baked a vegan chocolate cake. Still no sign of little white cat. Who knows what I will bake tomorrow, or the day after, or the week after that, but there will be no little white cat anymore. No one walking all over the counters, circling between my feet waiting for crumbs, or pawing at my leg for some icing.

I made this cranberry loaf yesterday because I was sad and I had fresh organic cranberries and when I’m sad and have ingredients, I bake.

Drizzled it with a bunch of glaze, because little white cat loved vanilla glaze.

This super easy and tasty quick-bread is studded with lemon zest, fresh cranberries, and pecans and topped with a cinnamony crumble of sorts. You can whip it up in under an hour if you’re really speedy. But if you feel like taking your time and being pensive then it might take a little longer. That’s okay too. It’s really moist and flavourful, not too sweet, not too sour from the cranberries. Perfect for whenever the hell you want to eat it. Breakfast? Snack? Second breakfast? Dinner? Midnight snack? Don’t let the man control you, you eat that loaf whenever you want.

This loaf reminds me of Christmas. The word loaf makes me feel weird. It’s an odd word, isn’t it? Loaf.

Here, go make some loaf of your own.

Cranberry Pecan Coffee Cake Loaf

4 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups of sugar
1 T baking powder
1 t baking soda
1 t salt
1/2 cup butter, cut into little cubes or something
2 eggs
1 1/2 cups apple cider (original recipe uses fresh squeezed orange juice, but I didn’t have any oranges. Using apple cider worked pretty damn well)
zest of two lemons
1 T vanilla
2 cups coarsely chopped fresh cranberries
1 cup coarsely chopped pecans

for topping:

4 T butter, cold
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
3 T sugar
1/2 t cinnamon
1/4 t salt
1/2 cup chopped pecans

Preheat your oven to 350F and grease and line 2 9×5″ loaf pans with parchment.

In a big ass bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Add the butter pieces and crumble together until it’s a coarse meal.

In a separate bowl, whisk the eggs with the juice, zest, and vanilla. Add this to the dry ingredients all at once, and mix to combine. Add the cranberries and pecans and fold in gently. Divide the batter between your pans.

To make the crumble topping, work the topping ingredients together with your finger tips until crumbly. Sprinkle evenly over the batter and pop those suckers in the oven for 45-50 minutes. Mine were done perfectly at 50.

Let them sit on the counter for about 15 minutes before removing them from the pans and placing them on a cooling rack to cool completely.

For the glaze, whip together 1 cup of icing sugar with a few tablespoons of heavy cream and some vanilla until it’s the consistency you want. Drizzle it over the pretty loaves.

♥ happy baking