Blueberry Daze

Time is truly flying by these days. School starts this Friday and oh, my, it seems we didn't get enough summer. That's why the Chocolate Banded Ice Cream Torte chosen by Amy of Food, Family and Fun for this week's Tuesdays with Dorie won't be making an appearance on my blog today. It just didn't fit into my schedule but I'll be baking with Dorie next week, I promise!

I couldn't go another day without giving you guys a recipe though. I made this bread pudding a few weeks ago and I never got around to posting it, due to the aforementioned time flying by! But it is truly worth a post as it is full of blueberry, cinnamony and mapley goodness.

Since we did get a lot of cold and rainy days this summer, we took advantage of them by going shopping for school supplies and clothes for the kids. I know, how boring. Not for me though, as I kinda like shopping for school supplies, but shhh, don't tell the kids! So anyways, when we go shopping we often stop by this coffee shop where they sell cinnamon rolls. Towards the end of the day, they pack bits and pieces of day old cinnamon rolls into plastic bags. They are absolutely perfect for making bread pudding so I always grab a few. And as I had seen this post from Aimée just days before, I knew I had to add blueberries to my usual recipe.


The blueberries add such a nice touch to this, they get all juicy and pop in your mouth and they marry beautifully with the maple and the cinnamon. Of course, I know that there are those (Hi Grace!) who would add even more cinnamon to the pudding and I'm sure it would be fantastic but I find just the hint of spice from the cinnamon rolls to be perfect.


Blueberry Cinnamon Roll Bread Pudding

About 6 cups of day old cinnamon rolls, cut into cubes
6 eggs
2 cups milk
4 tbsp maple syrup
1 cup of fresh blueberries
Coarse sugar
Maple syrup for serving

The night before you want to serve your bread pudding, mix the eggs, milk and maple syrup in a large bowl. Arrange the cinnamon roll pieces in a buttered 9 x 13 inch baking dish. Sprinkle your blueberries over the cinnamon rolls. Pour the egg mixture over the cinnamon rolls and blueberries. Press lightly with your hands, making sure the rolls are mostly covered with the custard. Cover the dish with plastic wrap and let it rest in the refrigerator overnight.

The next morning, when you're ready to bake, preheat your oven to 375F. Sprinkle your bread pudding with some coarse sugar and bake for 50 to 60 minutes, or until it is golden and the custard is set. Serve warm with maple syrup.

Tuesdays With Dorie - Granola Grabbers

Another first for me this week with Dorie's Granola Grabbers, courtesy of Michelle of Bad Girls Baking. I'm not much of a store-bought granola person but I've always been fascinated by the customizable factor in homemade granola. You can pretty much add or omit any ingredient you want and as long as you use what you like, you end up with a winning product every time.

So I embarked on my first granola-making experience. Which, by the way, wasn't bad at all. Pretty easy actually! Mix everything together, bake for a little while and voilà! Homemade granola. Now that I had my base ingredient for the cookies, all I needed to decide were my add-ins. I omitted the peanuts as I'm not much of a peanut-in-cookies kind of gal and replaced them with chocolate chips. Of course. Then I decided to use half dried cranberries and half dried blueberries in place of the raisins. Oh, yeah. I soaked them a bit first in some hot water so the cookies wouldn't be dry. I kept the rest pretty much the same: slivered almonds, sweetened coconut, wheat germ (horrible name but delicious all the same). What did I end up with after all the granola making and ingredient switching and mixing and rolling and baking?

The sexiest oatmeal cookies ever! Oh, yes, that's what these are, sexy, upscale, oatmeal cookies. And addictive too. Sexy and addictive. That'd be a good warning label right there! Check out the Tuesdays with Dorie blogroll to see all the other marvelous granola concoctions the other bakers came up with. If you'd like the recipe for the (Sexy and Addictive) Granola Grabbers, check out Michelle's Blog. And here's the granola recipe, which you can adapt to your liking, as I did.


Granola
adapted from The Kitchen Sink

3 1/2 cups rolled oats
3 tablespoons flax seeds
3 tablespoons sesame seeds
1/4 cup sunflower
1/4 cup pumpkin seeds
1/2 cup toasted mixed nuts, chopped (I used almonds and pecans)
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 teaspoon sea salt
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup canola oil
4 tablespoon pure maple syrup
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 375. Line a rimmed baking sheet with aluminum foil. Combine all the ingredients in a large bowl. Mix well.

Spread the mixture in an even layer on your prepared baking sheet. Bake for 30 to 40 minutes, stirring every 10 minutes. I like my granola a nice golden brown so I bake it a bit more but check it often if you like it lighter.

Remove from the oven and leave to cool completely, in its pan, on a wire wrack. Once the granola is cool, you can mix in up to 2 cups of dried fruit. Omit the fruit if you want to make the Granola Grabbers though as Dorie's recipe calls for fruitless granola.

Tuesdays With Dorie - Blueberry Sour Cream Ice Cream

This week, Dolores of Chronicles in Culinary Curiosity must have known I'd have a ton of fresh local blueberries to use up because she chose the perfect recipe. Blueberry Sour Cream Ice Cream. It's so simple and delicious, I'm sure it'd be perfect with other fruit as well.

I didn't change a thing to the recipe, except maybe using a little more lemon zest and juice, I love lemon and blueberries together. I'm telling you, this ice cream tastes like blueberry cheesecake, it's just fabulous.

For the recipe, click here. To check out the other Tuesdays with Dorie members, click here. Now, how do you guys feel about ice cream for breakfast? I think I like the sound of that...

No Heat to Beat!

Like the title says, there is no heat to beat. It's been cold and rainy here for the most part of the last 3 weeks. Perfect Fall weather. And I love Fall but not in the Summer!

I'm really not a fan of warm and humid weather, it's just that we'd have at least liked to do some outdoors stuff. Picnics in the park? Too wet. Swimming? Not in this cold weather! Car trips? Well, we've had a few of those, but driving in the rain isn't that fun. At least the lack of warm weather didn't stop me from making refreshing desserts. It's technically still Summer and gosh darn it, I'm making the most of it!

So for Grace's Beat the Heat event I made this Lemon-Lime Frozen Yogurt. To me, nothing says refreshing like lemon or lime and the two together are a perfect match. I found this recipe on Dessert First, via Food Blog Search, and adapted it a little to get what I wanted.

I hope you like lemon-lime Grace! Eating this, it felt a lot more like Summer time, I think I even saw the sun peaking through the clouds for a little while... Just a little while though.


Don't forget to check out the Beat the Heat round-up at A Southern Grace!

Lemon-Lime Frozen Yogurt
Adapted from Dessert First

3 cups plain whole milk yogurt
1 1/2 cups sugar
1/2 cup fresh lemon juice
1/2 cup fresh lime juice
1/2 tbsp lemon zest
1/2 tbsp lime zest

In a large bowl, combine all ingredients together. Chill for at least 2 hours.

Using your ice cream maker of choice, freeze into pure bliss. Enjoy!

Tuesdays With Dorie - Black and White Banana Loaf

Bare with me folks. I'm starting to think I should rename my blog "Blogging with Dorie" as it seems that's all I'm able to do these days! If it weren't for Tuesdays with Dorie, I'd have a blank page and nothing to put onto it. But I'm not giving up, summer holidays won't be the death of my blog!

Moving on to this week's recipe which is Dorie's Black and White Banana Loaf. I was so happy with Ashlee's choice. This was the first recipe I wanted to try when I got Baking from my Home to Yours, but I resisted since I wanted to try it at the same time as all the other Dorie addicts worshipers fans. So this week, I got my chance.

As I looked at the ingredient list and compared it to my usual banana loaf, I thought it looked like there was a lot of liquid. Many of the other members confirmed this in the "P & Q" so I decided to omit the milk completely. Which turned out to be a great choice, the batter was just thick enough and the marbling effect came through beautifully.

This was one gorgeous and delicious loaf of banana bread. The nutmeg wasn't overpowering, the chocolate complimented the bananas perfectly and the rum added a surprisingly pleasant after taste. As for the lemon, I couldn't taste it at all. The only thing negative I could say about the loaf, at the risk of sounding like a certain Iron Chef America judge, is that it was "a little bit oily". But I think that's because that first slice I had was still a bit warm, it got better the day after.

So there you have it folks, a beautiful, marbled, chocolatey, rummy (booze and baking mix so well) and delicious banana loaf. Go on over to Ashlee's blog, A year in the Kitchen, for the recipe. To see the other members' marbled beauties, check out the Tuesdays with Dorie blogroll.