Ingredient: butter

Roasted Tomato Mac & Cheese

Print Recipe
 Roasted Tomato Mac & Cheese
Cheesy, comforting mac and cheese with roasted tomatoes, bacon and fresh herbs. Serves two as a main dish or three as a side dish.
Course Dinner, Main Dish
Keyword mac & cheese, pasta
Servings
Servings
Ingredients
Course Dinner, Main Dish
Keyword mac & cheese, pasta
Servings
Servings
Ingredients
Instructions
  1. Preheat oven to 400ºF. Place tomatoes on a baking sheet. Gently toss with a drizzle of olive oil. Season with salt and pepper.
  2. Roast until tomatoes are blistered, about 15-25 minutes, depending on the size of your tomatoes.
  3. Turn oven down to 350ºF. Cook and drain pasta according to package directions.
  4. Set aside 1/4 cup of each of the cheeses for the top.
  5. In a small bowl, whisk milk and heavy cream together.
  6. In a 2-quart oven safe pot, melt butter over medium heat. Stir in flour and cook for 1 minute.
  7. Slowly whisk in milk and cream. Heat until thickened, whisking out any lumps. Season with salt and pepper to taste. (I used 1/2 teaspoon salt and 1/4 teaspoon pepper.)
  8. Remove from heat. Gradually stir in 3/4 cup each cheddar and Gruyere cheeses. Taste sauce and season with more salt or pepper if necessary.
  9. Fold in cooked pasta, roasted tomatoes, bacon, 1 teaspoon parsley and 1 teaspoon chives. Top with remaining cheese.
  10. Bake in top third of the oven, just until cheese is melted, about 7-10 minutes. Sprinkle with remaining parsley and chives.

Grandma’s Apple Crumb Cake

Grandma's Apple Crumb Cake

I remember my grandma making coffee cakes and sweet muffins for breakfast, along with eggs, sausages, hot coffee and a big pitcher of milk on the table. The older generation really loved their coffee cakes. I’ve noticed that many Millennials and Gen Z’s think coffee cake contains coffee. Maybe some coffee cake does contain coffee, but in general, coffee cake is called that because it’s typically eaten with coffee. A classic coffee cake is usually a subtly sweet cake with cinnamon, crumb topping and maybe some icing. The Apple Crumb Cake recipe I’m sharing with you has the elements of a classic coffee cake, but so much better! The cake is fluffy and soft, the crumb topping is chunky and plentiful, and the apples are perfectly tender. And don’t get me started about the icing!

Why do most of our grandmothers cook and bake so well? Because they’ve had decades of trial and error to perfect their recipes, tweaking them here and there until they’re approved and loved by their families, neighbors and friends. This cake has had its share of trial and error. She has earned her place as a well-loved, delicious, beautiful queen of coffee cakes.

Print Recipe
 Grandma's Apple Crumb Cake
Course Breakfast, Brunch, Dessert
Keyword apple, cake
Servings
servings
Ingredients
Apples
Crumb Topping
Cake
Icing
Course Breakfast, Brunch, Dessert
Keyword apple, cake
Servings
servings
Ingredients
Apples
Crumb Topping
Cake
Icing
Instructions
Apples
  1. In a large skillet, melt butter over medium heat. Add apples, sugar and cinnamon.
  2. Cook, stirring occasionally, until apples are tender, about 10 minutes. Transfer apples to a bowl and let cool to room temperature.
Crumb Topping
  1. In a medium bowl, mix flour, brown sugar, sugar, cinnamon and salt.
  2. Work in butter with your fingertips until mixture looks like wet sand. Press together to make 1/2-inch chunks.
Cake
  1. Preheat oven to 325ºF. Line a 9-inch cake pan with a removable bottom*, or a 9-inch springform pan, with parchment paper. Wrap the bottom of cake pan with aluminum foil and place pan on a baking sheet.
  2. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder and salt.
  3. In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar, with an electric mixer on medium speed, until light and fluffy.
  4. Beat eggs and vanilla into butter mixture in three separate addition, making sure each addition is incorporated before adding the next.
  5. In a small bowl, whisk milk and sour cream together.
  6. On low speed, mix flour mixture into batter in three separate additions, alternating with milk mixture. Beat just until combined.
  7. Transfer batter to prepared baking pan. Smooth top with a spatula.
  8. Drain any excess liquid from apples. Top cake batter evenly with apples, then topping mixture.
  9. Bake until toothpick inserted into center of cake comes out clean, about 50-60 minutes. Cool cake in pan for 10 minutes. Remove cake from pan and continue cooling.
Icing
  1. In a medium bowl, whisk together powdered sugar, melted butter, vanilla, salt and 2 tablespoons of cream. Add additional cream until desired consistency is reached. Drizzle over cooled cake.
Recipe Notes

*To find the cake pan I used, click here.

Spinach Bacon Soufflés

If you’ve ever gotten up early enough to grab one of those delicious breakfast soufflés at that bakery that starts with a P, then you might just love this recipe. There are plenty of copycat versions online, mostly using refrigerated crescent rolls. I love crescent rolls and you can make a pretty close copy of the originals with them, but why not take them up a notch? In my humble opinion, using puff pastry makes them so much better! These pretty little soufflés will puff up and get golden brown and crispy. You can also personalize each one. Try swapping out the spinach and bacon for your favorite omelet ingredients, such as chopped ham, chives, jalapeños or whatever you like.

Print Recipe
 Spinach Bacon Soufflés
Course Breakfast, Brunch
Servings
Ingredients
Course Breakfast, Brunch
Servings
Ingredients
Instructions
  1. Preheat oven to 425ºF. Grease four 8-ounce mini pie dishes* or ramekins.
  2. On a lightly floured surface, roll puff pastry sheet to a 10-inch square. Cut into four 5-inch squares. Place one square in each prepared dish. Dock the bottom of each one by poking holes with a fork.
  3. In a small saucepan, melt butter over medium heat. Add onions and red peppers and cook until softened, about 1 minute. Sprinkle with flour and cook 1-2 minutes more.
  4. Slowly stir in milk. Use a whisk if sauce seems lumpy. Cook until edges start to bubble and sauce thickens. Stir in salt. Remove from heat.
  5. In a medium bowl, beat eggs. Set aside 1 tablespoon of beaten eggs in a small bowl. Add about a third of the sauce mixture into the medium bowl of eggs and whisk until combined. Add the egg mixture back into the saucepan and whisk until smooth.
  6. Stir in Colby-Jack cheese, half of the parmesan cheese and spinach.
  7. Ladle egg mixture evenly into the prepared dishes. Top with bacon and remaining parmesan cheese.
  8. Fold pointed ends toward the center. Brush folded pastry edges gently with reserved beaten egg.
  9. Bake until golden brown and puffy, about 25-30 minutes.
  10. You can serve the soufflés warm in the pie dishes or remove them from the dishes and transfer to a cooling rack.
Recipe Notes

To find the mini pie dishes I used click here.

Apple Spice Cookies with Brown Butter Icing

Apple Spice Cookies with Brown Butter Icing

These Apple Spice Cookies were one of my most popular cookies last fall so I decided to bring them back a little early this year. I’m definitely not the type of person who drinks pumpkin spice lattes in 90º weather in the middle of August, but these are my favorite fall cookies ever so I wanted to give them a proper head start. The combination of cinnamon, nutmeg and vanilla in this cookie dough will remind you of cinnamon rolls and apple pie and inspire you look forward to fall.

The apples in this recipe are cooked briefly on the stovetop to bring out the flavor and create the perfect texture. Dropping raw apple chunks into cookie dough or cake batter is usually not a good idea. If you’ve ever baked an apple pie, you know that apples release liquid as they cook and that liquid will end up in your baked cookies, creating soggy spots. So definitely don’t skip this step!

These gorgeous, golden brown cookies are perfectly delicious on their own, but extra credit goes to the Brown Butter Icing for taking them over the top!

apple spice cookies with brown butter icing

Make sure to head over to TikTok to watch the video of these Apple Spice Cookies being created.

Print Recipe
 Apple Spice Cookies with Brown Butter Icing
Course Dessert
Keyword cookies, holiday, thanksgiving
Servings
cookies
Ingredients
Cooked Apples
Apple Spice Cookie Dough
Brown Butter Icing
Course Dessert
Keyword cookies, holiday, thanksgiving
Servings
cookies
Ingredients
Cooked Apples
Apple Spice Cookie Dough
Brown Butter Icing
Instructions
Cooked Apples
  1. Melt butter in a small skillet over medium heat. Add apples, sugar and cinnamon to skillet.
  2. Cook, stirring occasionally, until apples are tender, about 4-5 minutes.
  3. Remove from heat and let cool completely. Drain any excess liquid from cooled apples.
Apple Spice Cookies
  1. Preheat oven to 375ºF. Line two large baking sheets with parchment paper.
  2. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg. Set aside.
  3. In a large bowl, beat butter and brown sugar with an electric mixer at medium speed until light and fluffy.
  4. Beat in egg, egg yolk and vanilla extract, one at a time, until well combined
  5. Stir in flour mixture, just until combined.
  6. Fold cooled apples into cookie dough.
  7. Divide dough into 12 equal golf ball size portions and place three inches apart on prepared baking sheets.
  8. Bake until golden brown, about 12-13 minutes. Let cool 1 minute on baking sheet, then transfer to cooling rack to cool completely.
Brown Butter Icing
  1. In a small saucepan, cook butter over medium heat until golden brown and fragrant. When brown specks start to form in the bottom of the pan, remove from heat.
  2. Immediately transfer browned butter to a small bowl. Whisk in powdered sugar, vanilla extract, salt and 1 tablespoon milk. Add more milk as needed to reach desired consistency.
  3. Drizzle icing over cooled cookies.
Recipe Notes

NOTE:  If your cookies spread too much when baking, refrigerate dough for 30 minutes, then bake as directed.