Oatmeal Pie with Cinnamon Whipped Cream

This is one of my new favorites! I’ve made 3 of these in the past week and everyone I’ve shared it with has really liked it (“Definitely Blog-worthy!” seems to be the consensus).Very easy to make, this pie is reminiscent of pecan pie, but with walnuts, coconut, and oatmeal and with a subtle maple flavor (I used real maple syrup in the recipe, but I think that the cheaper stuff would be just fine). Serve it warm or cold topped with Cinnamon Whipped Cream (recipe follows).

The recipe was passed to my wife from a friend at work (it was originally published in Midwest Living). For all of my Iowa City friends who are looking for a clone of the Oatmeal Pie served at Mondo’s (the best dessert in Iowa City) this is not it. I need to go to Mondo’s again in the near future to refresh my taste memory, but I’m pretty sure that their Oatmeal Pie doesn’t have coconut and I don’t remember it being quite as gooey. Although this pie is a bit different, I’ll be bold enough to say that it is equally as good. Give it a try and see if you agree!

Preheat oven to 375°F.

• One 9-inch pie crust pressed into pie pan

Beat together the following ingredients:

• 2 egg
• 3/4 cup maple syrup
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1/2 cup melted butter (but not so hot that it cooks the eggs)
• 1 tsp. vanilla

Stir in the following dry ingredients:

• 1 cup flaked coconut
• 3/4 cup rolled oats
• 1/2 cup chopped walnuts

Pour into pie crust and bake at 375°F for 35-40 minutes or until a knife inserted near the center comes out clean (a total baking time of 45 minutes seemed to be just right in my oven). Remove from oven and allow to cool. Serve with Cinnamon Whipped Cream (see below). The pie stores well in the refrigerator and can be reheated in microwave or served cold.

Cinnamon Whipped Cream:

Beat the following together in a bowl until whipped to desired consistency:

• 1 cup whipping cream
• 2 T. powdered sugar
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• 1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
• Dash of ground nutmeg

Serve with pie and store leftovers in refrigerator.

Pecan Crumb-Top Blueberry Pie

Fresh blueberries were on sale at the local grocery store last week and so we bought several cartons. On the 4th of July I decided to use them for a pie. I merged two recipes from the fantastic cookbook Pie by Ken Haedrich (contains 300 different pie recipes). The result? One of the best pies I’ve ever had. I would put this up against any blueberry pie I’ve ever had. A few days ago we went and hand-picked blueberries with some friends. So now I have more blueberries and I definitely think it’s time to make this pie again…

A note about pie crust: If you are able to make a delicious pie crust you have my admiration. I’ve found that the pre-made, refrigerated pie crusts (from Pillsbury, for example) that you simply unroll and place in your pie pan are as good as any crust I’ve ever made myself AND SO MUCH EASIER. With a pre-made crust, this pie can be assembled in less than 15 minutes.

• One pie crust

Preheat oven to 400°F.

Filling

• 5 cups blueberries, fresh or frozen (but thawed) or canned (but drained)
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 2 T. cornstarch
• 1 T. flour
• 1/8 tsp. ground cinnamon
• 1/8 tsp. salt
• 1 T. lemon juice

Place blueberries in large bowl. Add all other ingredients and mix well, trying not to smash the blueberries. Allow to sit for 5-10 minutes while you press pie crust into pie pan.

Pour filling into pie pan and place in 400°F oven for 30 minutes.

Pecan Crumb Topping

• 6 T. butter, cold and cut into pieces
• 3/4 cup flour
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• 3/4 cup pecans, chopped
• 1 T. milk

While pie is baking, prepare topping by placing butter, flour, sugar, and salt in a bowl. Combine well with pastry cutter (a food processor can also do the job). Add pecans and milk. Continue to mix with pastry cutter (or fork) until damp and crumbly. Store in refrigerator until ready to use.

After 30 minutes in oven, remove pie and reduce oven heat to 375°F. Spread crumb topping onto the pie and lightly pat them down. Return pie to oven and bake for 30-40 more minutes at 375°F until juices bubble thickly. (It is helpful to place foil under the pie to catch dripping juices. Also, if crust starts getting too dark, you can place foil loosely over top of pie for last 10-15 minutes of baking.)

Transfer hot pie to cooling rack and allow to sit for a couple of hours before serving. Enjoy with ice cream or by itself, cold or warm.

Oatmeal-Blueberry Muffins

I love blueberry muffins, but had never made them from scratch. We had some blueberries left over and I found this recipe on the Better Homes & Gardens website. Very quick and simple to make, very moist and delicious to eat.

Preheat oven to 400°F. Grease standard muffin pan or line with muffin bake cups.

Combine the following dry ingredients in a bowl.

• 1 1/2 cups flour
• 3/4 cup rolled oats
• 2 tsp. baking powder
• 1/2 tsp. baking soda
• 1/4 tsp. salt

Mix the following ingredients together in a separate bowl (you can mix with a fork or whisk, an electric mixer is not necessary):

• 1 egg, beaten
• 3/4 cup milk
• 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
• 1/4 cup vegetable oil
• 1/2 tsp. vanilla

Pour liquid ingredient mixture into dry ingredient mixture and stir just until moistened (batter should be slightly lumpy).

• 1 cup blueberries

Fold the blueberries into the batter. Spoon the batter into the prepared muffin pan, filling each ~3/4 full. (Should make 12 regular or 36 small muffins. I made 9-10 because I was fairly generous with my filling.)

Bake at 400°F for 16-18 minutes (or 10-12 minutes for small muffins), or until done (toothpick in center will come out with just a couple of crumbs on it).

Red Velvet Cake

Erin requested a red velvet cake for her birthday. I had never made one before, but I decided it would be fun to try. I found this recipe for “Southern Red Velvet Cake” on FoodNetwork.com. It is from the show Sarah’s Secrets and the recipe is presented by Cakeman Raven. It was fun to make and turned out really well. I am posting the cream cheese frosting recipe separately because it was excellent and would also be delicious for use on a carrot cake or cinnamon rolls.

Video from Sara’s Secrets on Food Network:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour two 9-inch round cake pans (3 may be used, but I only have two—and two worked just fine).

Mix the following dry ingredients in a bowl and set aside:

• 2 1/2 cups flour
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• 1 tsp. salt
• 1 tsp. cocoa powder

In stand mixer bowl, combine the following on low speed:

• 1 1/2 cups vegetable oil
• 1 cup buttermilk (preferably room temp.)
• 2 large eggs (preferably room temp.)
• 2 tablespoons red food coloring (1 ounce—this ended up being the entire bottle)
• 1 tsp. white distilled vinegar
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract

Gradually add the dry ingredients to the liquid ingredients and beat on medium to medium-high speed until well combined.

Pour batter into prepared pans and bake in oven for 30 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out with just a few crumbs on it. Allow cakes to cool and then remove from pans. (At this point you can either proceed to frosting or store in the refrigerator until later. Cakes stored in refrigerator are much easier to frost.)

When ready to assemble cake, prepare Cream Cheese Frosting Recipe. Frost generously and then garnish with chopped pecans.

  

Happy Birthday, Erin!

Cream Cheese Frosting

This is the recipe for cream cheese frosting to go along with the Red Velvet Cake. It’s very simple and very good and would be an excellent choice for all of your cream cheese frosting needs (carrot cake, cinnamon rolls, etc.).

In a stand mixer (using paddle attachment) or a in a large bowl with a handheld mixer, combine the following on low speed:

• 1 pound cream cheese, softened
• 1 cup butter, softened
• 4 cups powdered sugar

Beat on high speed until light and fluffy (~5 minutes), then add:

• 1 tsp. (or more) vanilla extract

Beat on high a little bit longer. You can now use it to frost your cake. Note: You can store it in the refrigerator for later use (the recipe says 3 days, but I bet it can go longer). If you want to do decorative frosting, it may be slightly more workable after being chilled for a bit.

Raspberry Bread Pudding

Erin's sister made this for us when we were in Utah last year and I thought it was the best bread pudding I've ever had. I've always liked bread pudding, but I've never been a big fan of the raisins that always seem to get put into it. This recipe uses raspberries and then it has a very sweet caramel sauce that can be served with it. I made it for dessert on Christmas day and it was a hit with my family! I used homemade bread that was a couple of days old, but not totally dried out. I doubled the recipe and baked it in a 9x13 pan. I made it in the morning and let the ingredients sit in the refrigerator until baking it in the evening. My father-in-law says that this is delicious with mixed berries. I wonder if chocolate chips would be good too?

Bread Pudding
Bake in 8x8” pan or double this recipe and bake in 9x13" pan

• 4 cups cubed white bread (dense, good quality)
• 2 1/4 cups fresh or frozen raspberries
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 1 3/4 cup milk or half and half
• 1/4 cup butter
• 1/2 tsp. vanilla
• 2 beaten eggs

Combine brown sugar, milk, and butter in a sauce pan and cook until melts. Cool it. Stir in eggs and vanilla with whisk. Pour into bowl. Fold into bread till well coated. Pour into greased glass baking dish. Add raspberries on top. Cover tightly with foil and let stand at least 20 minutes (or overnight). Bake at 350 degrees covered until set 40-50 minutes (longer if recipe is doubled) or until knife comes out clean.

Caramel Sauce
Double this if you doubled the bread pudding

• 1 cup dark brown sugar
• 1/2 cup butter
• 1/2 cup whipping cream

Whisk brown sugar and butter over medium heat until butter melts. Whisk in cream and stir until sugar dissolved--about 3 minutes.

Serve warm bread pudding with warm caramel sauce and fresh whipped cream or ice cream.

Old-Fashioned Caramel Cake

I found this recipe on Martha Stewart's website and it is a recipe from Dr. Maya Angelou's cookbook, "Hallelujah." I believe it is her grandmother's recipe. There is a video of Dr. Angelou making this cake with Martha. It's kind of fun to watch. The interesting thing about this caramel cake is that it doesn't contain any brown sugar. The caramel flavor comes from the burnt sugar caramel syrup and from the browned butter frosting. This cake was a big hit when I made it for a dinner party.

Caramel Syrup

• 1 cup sugar
• 1 cup water

Heat sugar (by itself--no water) in a sauce pan over medium heat and cook, stirring occasionally, until the sugar liquifies and comes to a boil. Continue cooking, with light stirring, until sugar turns a golden amber color. Immediately remove from heat and add 1 cup of water. BE CAREFUL, it is really hot and some water may splatter. The caramelized sugar will harden when it is cooled by the water. Return to medium heat and continue stirring until the sugar redissolves. Remove from heat and allow to cool completely before using.

Cake

• 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter
• 1 1/4 cups sugar, separated
• 1/4 cup Caramel Syrup (from above)
• 2 cups flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 cup milk
• 2 large eggs

Preheat oven to 375°F. Grease and flour two 8-inch round cake pans.

With mixer on low, beat butter and sugar together for several minutes until light and fluffy. Beat in Caramel Syrup.

In a medium bowl, mix together flour, baking powder and salt.

With mixer on low, gradually add the flour mixture and the milk, alternating with flour mixture being added first and last.

In a separate bowl, beat eggs until foamy (whisk attachment or normal beaters will work for this). Add remaining 1/4 cup sugar to the eggs and continue beating until thickened, about 5 minutes. Stir into the cake batter until well combined.

Pour batter into the two round cake pans and bake for 25-35 minutes, until cake springs back when gently touched in the center. Cool cakes for ~15 minutes and then invert to remove from pan and continue cooling on wire cooling rack. When completely cooled, frost the two-layer cake with Browned Butter Caramel Frosting (see below) and serve drizzled with remaining Caramel Syrup.

(If you baked the cake ahead of time, you can wrap the cake in plastic wrap and store in refrigerator until you are ready to frost it. I find that keeping cake overnight in the refrigerator makes frosting it much easier.)

Browned Butter Caramel Syrup

• 3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter
• 16 oz. (1 package) powdered sugar
• 1/2 cup heavy cream, plus more if needed
• 1 T. pure vanilla extract
• Pinch of salt

Add butter to saucepan and cook over medium-high heat until nut-brown in color, ~8 minutes. You'll want to watch it closely and continue stirring it to prevent burning it. Once it begins to turn brown, it goes fast! Remove pan from heat and pour browned butter into a heat-proof mixing bowl. Allow to cool.

Once cooled, add powdered sugar, vanilla, and salt to the browned butter. Mix on low (with paddle attachment or standard beaters). Continue to mix on low while adding the cream. Beat until smooth. If frosting appears too thick, add more cream until the correct consistency. Generously frost the cake with this delicious frosting.