Hello January, we meet again. I used to try to make resolutions, the usual ones about going on a diet, exercising more, etc. but after years of pretty much not ever following through I’m officially giving up resolutions. I know it’s the New Year and that seems like a great time to “start over” but January just never works for me. The cold weather makes it hard for to get motivated to go walking (the only form of exercise I enjoy) and I crave lots of warm and hearty foods that are rarely low-calorie. And even if I do make some progress in January, February comes along and there’s Valentine’s Day and my birthday and I lose all my motivation.

So I’m not going to bother going on a diet this year or maybe ever again. I’m just going to keep doing what I’ve been working on since I started this blog: eat more real food like fruits and vegetables and a little less carbs, sugar and processed crap. That’s why I was really happy to get this new cookbook for Christmas, Green Market Baking Book which is a beautiful cookbook filled with recipes that use natural sweeteners like maple syrup and honey instead of processed sugar.

This butternut squash cake was the first thing that popped out at me because I had two butternut squash waiting for me to do something with them. Honestly, I wasn’t expecting this cake to be that good, but I figured it was worth a try just to use up some squash. Besides being made only with maple syrup, this recipe uses oil instead of butter and I figured without butter or sugar that it would wind up being dense and flat. But it’s always nice to be surprised, so I was glad to find out that all my preconceptions about this cake were totally wrong.

This is called a cake, but it actually reminds me more of a quick bread like my mom’s Applesauce Bread, it’s filled with spices like cinnamon, ginger and nutmeg, which are really what give it flavor, while the pureed butternut squash adds moisture. Butternut squash is pretty much interchangeable with pumpkin so you can easily substitute pumpkin puree instead if you still have tons of canned pumpkin in your pantry. I’ve made this recipe twice, first as cupcakes and now in mini loaf pans; both times they have come out fluffier and more moist than just about any cake or muffin I’ve ever made.

Using maple syrup as a sweetener gives the cakes a subtle sweetness that’s nice but not cloying. I added a maple-cream cheese glaze on top since it seemed kind of plain on it’s own. The glaze does contain powdered sugar, but I couldn’t really find an alternative. I originally tried a cream cheese frosting that was sweetened with only maple syrup, but it just didn’t taste good. The cream cheese was too overpowering and it wasn’t sweet like a frosting should be. This glaze has maple syrup and sugar, so it wound up being much more successful. And that nice sharp cream cheese flavor contrasts well with the spices in the cake. You don’t even need very much glaze, just a little bit drizzled on top is perfect.

Click here to get the recipe for Butternut Squash Cakes with Maple-Cream Cheese Glaze »

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If you couldn’t tell from many of the recipes on this blog, I love to bake and I struggle throughout the year trying to balance the sweet treats with savory and/or healthier recipes. But from Thanksgiving to New Years Day all that falls away and I embrace what I like to call “baking season”. I don’t put restrictions on myself, I don’t worry about calories, I just let loose and make whatever I want and I don’t feel the least bit guilty about anything I eat. It’s my yearly Christmas present to myself.

Cookies are my favorite thing to make during the holiday season and I think I’ve been mentally saving up because I haven’t posted any cookie recipes here since May. So when I heard about the Food Blogger Cookie Swap I immediately signed up. I’d be making cookies anyway so why not share some of them with others?

The thing I didn’t factor in was how difficult it would be to find a good cookie recipe! The main issue was finding cookies that could travel well and that would keep for at least a week. Maybe others didn’t have any trouble with this and I was just being crazy but it took me weeks to find a recipe that worked. The upside is that my boyfriend’s coworkers love me now since I sent all those trial cookies into work with him.

These molasses spice cookies were actually a last minute find. I had pretty much decided on a whole different recipe but a couple days before they needed to be shipped I found a recipe for cookies with Orange Sugar. That sounded so good that I just had to try it immediately. And honestly, the first time I tried the orange sugar it was like one of those the-skies-open-up-and-angels-are-singing type moments. Have you ever had those chewy orange slice-shaped candies that are covered in sugar? That’s exactly what this sugar tastes like. That’s probably my favorite candy so now that I’ve discovered how easy it is to make it’s hard not to sprinkle orange sugar on everything. I’ve already made cranberry muffins with it on top. Yum!

Unfortunately, the actual cookies that the orange sugar was sprinkled on wound up being temperamental and actually tasted worse the next day. But there was no going back, I had to make cookies with this orange sugar now! Thanks to Martha Stewart I found a cookie recipe that I was able to adapt to complement the delicious sugar topping. I minimized some of the spices (mostly ginger) so that the molasses flavor would shine through. Orange and molasses may just be my favorite new flavor combination. I have another recipe for molasses spice cookies that I posted years back, but these are quite different since they’re rolled out. They’re slightly crispy around the edges but soft and chewy in the middle. The sugar adds a nice crispy topping to bite into, like little orange flavor crystals that explode in your mouth. These cookies keep their shape well, too. I hate going to the trouble of rolling and cutting cookies only to have them turn into blobs in the oven.

I adore these cookies and the feedback I got from Brandon’s coworkers and one of my cookie swap recipients has been very positive which makes me very happy after weeks of worrying. But the best part about a cookie swap is that I also got three dozen cookies from three very awesome ladies. Brandon and I have been gleefully stuffing them in our faces this past week. Amber from Amber’s Confections sent chocolate cookies covered in powdered sugar. Beth from Eat.Drink.Smile sent Chunky Chocolate Gobs, which are chocolate cookies filled with chocolate chips and chunks of Mounds candy bars. And Leslie from My Kitchen is Open sent Dark Chocolate Cafenela Cookies which are a variation of chocolate chip cookies with cinnamon, coffee and pecans. Check them out! Trust me, you’ll want to try those cookies!

I’d also like to give a shout out to the ladies I sent my cookies to: Deanna from Silly Goose Farm, Tanvi at The Hathi Cooks
 and Annalise at Completely Delicious. I don’t know what kind of cookies they made yet, but I will definitely be checking out their Cookie Swap posts to see!

Finally, if the Food Blogger Cookie Swap sounds like fun to you and you didn’t get a chance to sign up this year, I encourage you to subscribe to their announcement list now so that you’ll be notified when you can sign up for the cookie swap next year! Even though it was a bit stressful trying to find the best cookie recipe (and then worrying how it would be received) I had a lot of fun and I can’t wait to do it again next year.

Click here to get the recipe for Molasses Spice Cookies with Orange Sugar »

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It’s finally December! Not only is it my favorite month with my favorite holiday, but it’s my favorite time of the year to bake since there are always so many fun recipes to try. I love gingerbread so this recipe has been on my “To Make” list for while and it finally seemed like the perfect time for it. I already have a gingerbread muffin recipe that I love, but this gingerbread cake turned out to be quite different and I love the twist of making it an upside-down cake, too.

The big difference from most gingerbread recipes I’ve made is that this recipe uses fresh ginger instead of ground. I was a little weary about this because I haven’t always been a huge fan of fresh ginger. It’s ok in small doses, but in a lot of recipes I find it really overpowering. Luckily, it turned out to be pretty great in this cake. My guess is that the molasses and all the other spices help to tone down the ginger just enough so it’s not overpowering. Despite that, you can clearly taste a difference between gingerbread made with ground ginger and gingerbread made with fresh ginger. It just tastes well…fresher. Every bite has this nice little zing to it that you don’t get with ground ginger. Plus, fresh ginger and pears complement each other especially nicely.

If you’ve never bought fresh ginger before, you should be able to find it in the produce section of your grocery store. It’s an ugly brown root (but a pretty yellow color when you peel it), so it’s usually around the onions, shallots or potatoes. Ginger can be kind of a pain to grate but I’ve found it’s easiest with a microplane grater or with one of these special ginger graters.

This cake has several other things going for it: it’s really simple to make and since the recipe is from Cooking Light it’s not horrible for you either. Some of these low-fat cakes can turn out dry, but this gingerbread cake has a light, airy texture and the pears on top keep it very moist. My only nitpick is that I found the gingerbread to be a bit thin, so next time I’ll try making it in a 8 inch pan instead of a 9 inch.

If you’re looking for a lighter, but still satisfying dessert to serve during the holidays, this cake is a great choice!

Click here to get the recipe for Pear Upside-Down Gingerbread Cake »

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I hope all my American readers had a nice Thanksgiving. The past couple of years Brandon and I have had a guest to help us eat all that food, but this year was a simple Thanksgiving with just the two of us. Unfortunately, my brain kinda went on autopilot as I was preparing all my traditional dishes and I wound up making enough food for probably 5 or 6 people! Suffice it to say we had lots of leftovers.

The biggest culprit turned out to be cranberry sauce. I found a new recipe to try this year and went a little gung ho with it, making enough to feed about 12 people. Thankfully, the cranberry sauce turned out to be as good as its name: Cranberry Sauce Extraordinaire. It will definitely be my go-to cranberry sauce recipe from now on. The best thing is that it’s not just cranberries: it has apples, pears, pureed orange and other berries. You can even mix in some pecans if you want. I love cranberries, but cranberry sauce can sometimes be a bit too tart for me, so I like how all the added fruit really balances the flavor.

It was only after I made all that sauce that I remembered Brandon doesn’t even like cranberry sauce. 5 days later, after most of the leftovers were gone I still had a huge bowl of cranberry sauce taking up space in my fridge. So I decided to make it into a dessert since I knew I was more likely to actually finish it that way.

I seen other recipes for pandowdies around the internet and have been wanting to make one, so this turned to be a perfect opportunity. If you’ve never heard of a pandowdy before, it’s basically a cross between a pie and cobbler. Instead of putting a filling inside of a pie crust, you put the filling in a baking dish and just top it with pie crust. The point is to cut some holes/slices in it, so that all that filling will bubble up and become gooey and delicious. Unlike a pie where the filling usually gels together when cooked, a pandowdy filling is supposed to be juicy, more like a cobbler or a crisp. That’s why using the leftover cranberry sauce turned out to be a perfect fit for this recipe.

I’ve included the recipe for my cranberry sauce if you want to start with that or you can use whatever sauce you have leftover and add some extra apples, pears and whatever else you want to it. This pandowdy recipe is really flexible, you can make it in any size pan you want. I think it would be great in ramekins if want to make a more individual-sized dessert. You don’t even really need to bother with putting the pie crust on top in one piece, it can be cut up into smaller squares and assembled on top of your filling. I rolled it out in one piece because I think it looks nicer that way (and I’m a weird perfectionist), but it’s called a pandowdy because it generally looks kinda “dowdy” so you really don’t need to put effort into making it look nice.

Also, I should say that I’m generally scared of making pie crusts because they can be so temperamental, but this was seriously the easiest pie crust I’ve ever made. According to Bon Appetit you shouldn’t use your food processor or even bother cutting in the butter by hand, you can let your mixer do all the work! Using the paddle attachment on your mixer to cut in the butter prevents the dough from becoming overworked like it can be in a processor. It took me less than 5 minutes to mix up the dough and it rolled out easily without having to be chilled. And it tasted great; slightly sweet and perfectly flaky…my favorite kind of crust! It helps that you brush it with melted butter and sprinkle cinnamon-sugar on top.

The sweet, flaky topping and the warm, bubbly cranberry sauce and tender fruit all taste great together. Especially with a scoop of melting vanilla ice cream. I gobbled it up right after I finished taking pictures. Then I filled up the bowl all over again…

Click here to get the recipe for Cranberry Pandowdy (and my favorite Cranberry Sauce) »

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Looking back through my archives I realized I’ve posted at least one chocolate-pumpkin dessert before Halloween for the past few years, so I figured it was past time to post a recipe like this, especially after all the apple recipes I’ve posted lately. Fruit is great, but for me at least, chocolate will always be better.

I’ve actually been working on this recipe for a while. I made some pumpkin swirl brownies last Halloween and even photographed them, but I kept deciding against posting them because they weren’t quite good enough. Something was missing. But then earlier this year I discovered Supernatural Brownies. These are hands down my favorite brownies. Ever. And I have tried lots and lots AND LOTS of brownie recipes. I’m not into cakey brownies (if I wanted cake, I’d make that instead!), I like fudgey brownies and these are moist and fudgey beyond belief.

Fast forward to this month and I decided to retry the dessert but with the Supernatural brownies as the base. I also decided that chocolate and pumpkin weren’t quite enough. I’ve done that. I wanted to make it better. So what goes good with both chocolate and pumpkin? Caramel! The result are brownies with two layers of pumpkin-cream cheese swirled into them and then drizzled with caramel on top. When you’re ready to serve, you can warm up the rest of the caramel sauce and pour on even more.

I have no qualms about posting this recipe. The perfect, fudgey brownies and caramel topping definitely fill what was missing from earlier incarnations I tried. I love everything about these brownies. Well, except that they take a little bit of patience. You’re supposed to wait until the next day before you even cut into these things. But honestly? I’ve only ever made it about 3 hours. However, I agree that the brownies taste better the next day. The flavors meld together and intensify. I felt that was definitely the case for the pumpkin, which was much more prominent on the second day than the first.

The ingredients you use are also important for making these brownies as good as possible. This recipe is very dependent on using good quality chocolate so buy the best kind you can afford. I splurged on some Scharffen Berger 70% Cacao chocolate this time, but I usually use Ghirardelli bittersweet chocolate. Also, use Muscovado sugar if you can find it. It’s a more intense dark brown sugar and will add more depth of flavor to your brownies.

You can cheat and buy caramel sauce at the store, but homemade caramel is going to have much better flavor. I’m not going to tell you that caramel is easy. It only takes about 15 minutes to make, but you have to watch it very carefully. In fact, due to my old lopsided stove it took me four tries to make this caramel without burning it. Four! But honestly, that just makes it much more satisfying to eat. (And yes, it’s totally normal if you just want to eat it by the spoonful) Plus I learned some stuff about making caramel which I tried to pass on to you guys in the recipe so I think it was worth all the effort (and sugar) in the end.

This recipe is very versatile. Like I already mentioned, the brownies are great on their own. It’s my go-to recipe now. The other components are made separately, so you could just make the pumpkin OR caramel if you want to make things a bit easier. But if you really want to satisfy your brownie cravings, I don’t think the chocolate-pumpkin-caramel combo can be beat!

Click here to get the recipe for Caramel-Pumpkin Swirl Brownies »

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I’ve been learning to cook for several years now and I finally feel like I’m getting a handle on adapting recipes and improvising to suit my needs, but since I never went to culinary school or anything like that some of the science behind making food still eludes me. Baking can be especially tricky since I’ve been trying to use more whole grain flours and they don’t have quite the same properties as white flour. Today’s recipe comes from what I originally thought of as a baking failure, but through some quick thinking I was able to turn it into something pretty awesome.

This started out as a recipe for apple scones because I needed to use up some of the apples I’ve been getting in my CSA box the past few weeks. I like scones but have always had trouble making them on my own. I can’t think of any scones I’ve made that didn’t turn out dry and crispy. Blech. That is until these apple scones. It turns out the secret to soft and moist scones is using cream. And here I’ve been trying to make low fat scones for years not knowing that you just shouldn’t bother. Seriously. Some things just aren’t meant to be low fat and that’s ok. I’d rather treat myself to a couple of absolutely delicious scones and give the rest away than have to eat a bunch of rock hard cardboard scones that are low fat.

Even though I made my peace with using cream and butter I decided to try to offset that stuff a little bit by replacing some of the white flour with oats and whole wheat flour. Unfortunately, I didn’t realize that this would keep the scones from rising at all. I was all set to be angry and declare them a failure until I tasted one. It was the best scone I’ve ever tasted. Despite its flatness it was soft and moist and slightly sweet with just enough apple pie spice in it. Just perfect. I had been worried that the grated apple and oats would wind up making the scones kind of chunky but both ingredients basically disintegrated in the oven so the crumb turned out very smooth and fluffy.

I looked at my flat apple scones and realized that they looked like halves of a whole scone and that I just needed to put something in the middle. That’s when I got the idea for a fall version of strawberry shortcakes with apples and pears instead. The scones hold together great and can support the weight of a filling, but are soft enough that a fork can cut right through all the layers. I made the filling by simmering apples and pears together with brown sugar and spices until they were soft and syrupy. Then I whipped up some cinnamon whipped cream to put on top of the fruit. Finally after covering everything with another scone I drizzled on some of the leftover spiced syrup from the fruit filling.

The best part of this recipe is that you can get so many different meals out of it. Besides making shortcakes you can eat most of the components by themselves. The apple scones are great on their own for breakfast. They’re even better slathered with spiced maple butter. I’ve had honey butter before, but I think I like maple butter even better. I can’t wait to try it on some waffles or pancakes!

The spiced apples and pears double as a side dish with dinner or as a dessert that you can top with ice cream or the cinnamon whipped cream. Either way, your kitchen will smell wonderful afterward.

In the end, I think this has to be my favorite fall dessert I’ve ever made and I hadn’t even planned on making it. I can only hope that my future baking mistakes will turn out as well as this one did.

Click here to get the recipe for Spiced Apple and Pear Shortcakes (and Apple Scones) »

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I love graham crackers, so I’ve been wanting to make these for a long time. Graham crackers are just about the only packaged “cookie” that I buy because they’re the only ones that I don’t totally lose control around. I can eat a couple of graham crackers and be totally satisfied, unlike Oreos where I want to eat about 20 of them at a time. Graham crackers are in that perfect spot between healthy and indulgent and you can do so much with them like make smores or dress them up by slathering on something delicious. These days, I’m very partial to a graham cracker sandwich with nutella on one side and marshmallow cream on the other. So simple, so good!

But laziness has always stopped me from making graham crackers at home. It’s just easier to pick up a box at the grocery store. But when I saw this recipe in my favorite cookbook all my excuses went out the window because you can’t buy these graham crackers in the grocery store. They’re made with whole grain flours so they’re healthier and more flavorful that any store bought version. In the past, I’ve posted several recipes for snacks that are “just like” the store bought version but these are definitely not “just like” any kind of graham cracker you can buy. These graham crackers stand on their own.

If I had to name a cookie that these are similar to, I’d say gingersnaps. It’s weird, because this recipe has no ginger in it at all, but it does have molasses and honey and cinnamon and a few other spices so the taste is similar. I always find the ginger in gingersnaps to be a bit overpowering so these grahams are the perfect alternative for me. They’re not overly sweet either, which I like because it lets the earthiness of the whole grain flours really shine through.

This recipe isn’t difficult to make, it’s like any other rolled cookie dough. The only thing that’s a little finicky is having to cut the dough into rectangles and make all the holes. This is a fun thing to do the first time so everyone will be impressed by how much they look like the store bought version, but it’s really not necessary. In fact, next time I will definitely be using a simple cookie cutter instead of bothering with all that.

The recipe calls for two kinds of whole grain flour: Teff Flour and Graham Flour. I hadn’t heard of teff until I made these, but it’s easy enough to get from Bob’s Red Mill or Whole Foods or some other organic specialty food shops. Teff is key for the crispness of the graham crackers and it also gives them that lovely mahogany color.

If you’re worried about buying flour that you won’t use up, the Bob’s Red Mill website is a great resource because they list related recipes with all of their flours. And of course, I highly recommend that you buy the cookbook this recipe is from, Good to the Grain by Kim Boyce, because it has lots of other great recipes with graham and teff flour. (I especially love her Apple Graham Coffee Cake.) I promise I am not being paid to keep linking to this cookbook (see also my previous posts for Whole Grain Blueberry Buckle and Blueberry-Rhubarb Tarts), I just seriously love it and think everyone should have a copy.

And because of that, I’ve decided to put my money where my mouth is and do a giveaway! I’ll buy the winner a copy of Good to the Grain, 1 (24 oz.) bag of Teff Flour and 1 (24 oz.) bag of Graham Flour so that you can make your own graham crackers! (Note: If you happen to already own the cookbook, I’ll send a Amazon gift certificate for the same amount.)

Update: the giveaway is now closed. The winner, chosen at random, is G.g. Cesternino Baird:

I love graham crackers with creamy peanut butter. I ate it in the hospital after the birth of my 4th child and have loved it ever since!!

Thanks to everyone who commented!

All you have to do to enter is leave a comment on this post. For instance, I’d love to know your favorite way to eat a graham cracker. By itself? With peanut butter or nutella? I need new snacking ideas! Next Tuesday, September 20th, I will pick a winner at random and announce it on this post as well as on the Back to the Cutting Board Facebook page.

To get extra entries for the giveaway:

1. “Like” Back to the Cutting Board on Facebook (it counts if you’re already a fan, too).
2. Tweet a link to this post about the giveaway or the recipe in this post.

Just come back here and add a new comment after you’ve “liked” Back to the Cutting Board to get another entry. If you tweet a link to this post, it should appear here as a comment within the hour, but if not, then add a comment with a link to your tweet. Good Luck!

Click here to get the recipe for Whole Grain Graham Crackers (A Giveaway!) »

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I know what you’re thinking. Seriously. Because I thought it, too. Cantaloupe pie?? That sounds weird and kinda gross. But you’re just going to have to trust me on this one. I would never share something gross and honestly? This recipe…it’s kind of amazing.

But let’s start at the beginning. You see, I got two big cantaloupes in my CSA box a few weeks ago. I knew Brandon and I wouldn’t be able to eat both within a week, especially since one of them was already well past ripe when I got it. So I set out searching for cantaloupe recipes. Something, anything to use these babies up. Unfortunately, unless I wanted some kind of fruit salad, granita or sorbet (I already had watermelon sorbet in my freezer) there just isn’t a whole lot out there. But I kept looking and finally this recipe for cantaloupe pie popped up. Like I said, my first reaction was that it was the weirdest pie I’d ever heard of but I looked at the recipe and the (all 4 or 5 star) reviews for it and when someone said it works best with a very overripe (to the point of being almost rotten) melon, well that totally sold me. I figured it was worth a try and at the very least I got to use up a whole melon.

This is a very simple pie. The cantaloupe is pureed and cooked with some sugar and eggs and a few other things until it’s thick and creamy like a custard or pudding. And in fact, if you don’t want to deal with the actual pie part, you can just eat the custard all by itself. The taste is sweet and fresh and you probably wouldn’t know at first that it was cantaloupe unless you were told. You might assume it was banana, actually. The custard is poured into a crust and topped with meringue and then baked until lightly browned. Please note that I misread the directions and cooked my pie for far too long, yours should NOT be as brown on top.

The only big change I made was the crust. The original recipe calls for a store bought pie crust and that’s not really my style. But I didn’t feel like making my own because my track record with pie crust is uneven. Sometimes it’s great, other times it’s awful. I didn’t want to risk it, so I decided to make a shortbread cookie crust instead. I made a cheesecake with shortbread cookie crust last year and have been wanting to use it in a pie ever since. The buttery-ness of the crust goes surprisingly well with the creamy cantaloupe custard.

I like this pie a lot. It’s not heavy and it’s not overly sweet. It’s a really nice pie. But the real test was my boyfriend. I had planned to hide what kind of pie it was and have him try to guess. But that was ruined when he came down to the kitchen and saw the print out of the recipe. Of course, his first reaction was “Yuck!” Uh oh. But then I made him try a piece. He hesitantly took the first bite. I asked if it was the worst thing ever and he shook his head and continued to scarf down the rest. After dinner that night, he casually asked for another piece and scarfed it down again. Success! Brandon is very picky about desserts and doesn’t like most of them so his eating two pieces in one day should tell you something. Yes, this pie sounds very strange, but give it a try anyway. You’ll be glad you did!

Click here to get the recipe for Cantaloupe Meringue Pie »

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I am officially putting summer on notice. Seriously. Start packing up. Time to go. There’s only a week and half left in August and then it’ll finally be September. Even though fall doesn’t technically start for a full month, I consider September 1st the first unofficial day of fall. It’s like how they start putting out all the Christmas stuff right after Halloween. I am ready for fall and I don’t care what the calendar (or the weather) says. Here’s what you can expect in the coming months: lots of soup and pumpkin and cinnamon and apples. If you were with me right now, you would see I am laughing like an evil villain. Can you tell I love fall?

But anyway. Back to summer. Because it is still summer for a little while and I need to take advantage of all the awesome summer produce while I still can. My CSA informed me that it was the last week we would be getting peaches, so I wanted to do something fun with them. A semifreddo is something that I’ve been wanting to attempt for awhile. It’s similar to ice cream but you don’t need a machine. You just pour it in a pan and freeze. Then you can scoop it out like ice cream or cut it into slices like ice cream cake! The problem is that it’s typically made with lots of whipped cream to give it a fluffy, light texture. After a summer of eating delicious but high calorie treats like peach dumplings and blueberry donut muffins, I’m trying to take a break from overindulging for a while. Luckily I found this recipe for a lightened up semifreddo. It uses whipped egg whites, low-fat milk and sour cream to give it that creamy texture without all the extra calories.

Even the ripest peaches seem to have a pretty subtle flavor when you puree them, so I love the addition of the blackberries in this recipe. For one thing, I think it looks cool to have whole blackberries frozen in the middle (even if they accidentally got jostled around and didn’t freeze symmetrically) and the blackberry glaze on top gives a nice burst of tartness to contrast with the earthy peach flavor of the semifreddo.

The only thing about this recipe is that it’s best to eat it the same day you make it. “Semifreddo” means semi-frozen and once you cross over into totally frozen it’s just not as good. I think that’s the downside of not using whipped cream. On the second day, after it had been sitting in the freezer overnight it had gotten quite crystallized and lost a lot of the creaminess. But that’s ok because I found a solution! Cut off a chunk and pulse it in a food processor or blender for a minute until smooth. It makes a really delicious peach-blackberry soft serve ice cream. If you add a little milk and blend for a little longer you’ll have a smoothie. So basically you can have this for dessert one night and then have it for breakfast for the next couple of days. I like that kind of versatility in a recipe!

Click here to get the recipe for Peach Semifreddo with Blackberry Glaze »

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Are you tired of hearing people complain about the heat yet? Well, sorry, but I live in Virginia and it’s hot here. I am literally counting down the days until Fall because I HATE this heat with a passion. No wonder I was so miserable when I lived in Florida! Fortunately, the fact that I have a real Fall and Winter to look forward to makes Virginia much more bearable, even when it’s 100 degrees outside. I had a whole different recipe prepared to post, but it involved chile powder and a 400 degree oven and I just couldn’t post it. It’s too damn hot outside to even think about turning on the oven that high.

Instead, I decide to make the complete opposite. It involves no cooking (well…unless you count boiling a cup of water) and it’s frozen. And it has my new obsession: watermelon. I’ve always loved watermelon, but at the grocery store earlier this month I realized that I hadn’t bought one in years. I have no idea how that happened, so I’ve been trying to make up for it by eating as much watermelon as possible. I didn’t even know they had seedless watermelons now, that is how behind I am!

Watermelon is one of things that comes right to my mind when I think about summer. I have so many memories of summer camps and picnics when I was kid and there was always watermelon there. The other thing that comes to mind when I think of summer? Lemonade. So it made perfect sense to combine the two things into a watermelon lemonade sorbet. This stuff is magical: it’s so easy to make and it doesn’t contain any dairy at all, yet when it’s churned it turns smooth and creamy like a soft serve ice cream. But unlike ice cream, it’s completely fat free so you don’t have to feel guilty about eating it. And you don’t need an ice cream maker either. If you have one, you can use it for faster results but otherwise you just need to freeze the watermelon lemonade mixture and churn it in a food processor or blender until smooth, that’s what I did!

If sorbet isn’t your thing, you can take an even easier route and turn this into popsicles. The recipe is no different, just pour it into the popsicle molds and freeze. The magical ingredient is unflavored gelatin (look for it by the Jello) which I assume is what makes the mixture creamy when you churn it and it also keeps the popsicles from being rock hard.

I’m really excited to find this recipe because it’s so incredibly simple to make and it’ll be easy to adapt it to use with other fruits and fruit juices. In fact I’m already planning a strawberry-orange version for later this week. I love ice cream, but rarely let myself buy it, so this is the perfect substitute for me. I imagine I’ll be having it a lot since we have at least another month of this horrible heat to get through.

Click here to get the recipe for Watermelon Lemonade Sorbet and Popsicles »

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