My Beach Kitchen
Hello from my beach kitchen! I can’t believe I haven’t written anything since last June. That’s when our move from the mountain town of North Bend, Washington to an even smaller town on the Oregon Coast got intense. My days were spent packing and purging rather than baking and cooking. Our new home build kept getting delayed and the real estate market turned right when we put our house on the market. I’ll spare you the nitty gritty and summarize by telling you that after two weeks in the Silver Sands Hotel in Rockaway, we finally moved into our new home in beautiful Manzanita. And we haven’t looked back.
Join me for a look at my new kitchen!
Homemade Marshmallows in Salted Toasted Rocky Road Ice Cream
My journey to rocky road ice cream began on a (yes another) rainy and dreary spring weekend when I was trying to come up with a new cookie to send to my marshmallow-loving sister for her birthday. I’d recently fell in love with making meringue (and wielding my kitchen torch), plus s’mores cookies seem to be having a moment. In the past I’ve made a copycat version of a local bakery’s s’mores cookie that has a whole graham cracker baked along the bottom of a chocolate chip cookie and topped with a marshmallow, but I wanted something different. I turned to my copy of 100 Cookies (#90 to be exact), to see what Sarah Kieffer would do. Turns out that she rolls balls of chocolate chip cookie dough in crushed graham crackers mixed with sugar and melted butter. Then she suggests turning to page 284 and making homemade marshmallows for the tops – and toasting them. Decision made. I was making these cookies. And left with too many marshmallows, I naturally had to make rocky road ice cream. It’s a bit of a “when you give a mouse a cookie” conundrum. Anyhow, all good paths lead to ice cream. While the jury may be out on the s’mores cookies, the marshmallows were definitely superior to mass-manufactured, and the case is closed when it comes to Salted Toasted Rocky Road Ice Cream.
Bake the Babka
Babka has been on my list to make for months and months but every time I would think about it, I was a bit intimidated. I needed just the right time and mood for this undertaking. So, on a recent dreary day – April showers (with hail) no doubt – I decided why not? Today was a good day to bake babka! A brownie babka no less. I used the recipe from Buttermilk by Sam that consists of a vanilla challah dough and a brownie batter layer. Babka is a sweet yeast bread that’s braided and buttery and swirled with a gooey filling such as chocolate, Nutella or cinnamon. Typically baked in a loaf pan, whether babka is bread or cake is somewhat debatable. Some babkas are topped with a streusel or covered with a simple syrup, furthering said debate. But mostly you’ll recognize babka by its unique shape and pretty swirls. Or maybe because you remember this Seinfeld episode where Elaine “got the babka.” The good news is that although time consuming, it’s really not very difficult to make, and even better to eat.
Lemon Meringue Cookies
Whenever I see a lemon meringue pie, I picture my mom half a century ago opening the oven door and carefully placing her meringue-topped pie in the oven to toast. Sadly, lemon meringue was never my favorite pie and I stayed far away from that wobbly egg white concoction on top. I don’t remember even trying this pie as lemon and rhubarb were not high on my list as a kid. I’m pretty sure that mom’s lemon pie of yesteryear consisted of cook-and-serve lemon Jell-o pudding. Child me always went for the pies topped with whipped cream over meringue. However, I didn’t realize that not all meringue is created equal! The adult me loves lemon desserts. With spring in the air, I decided to make lemon meringue cookies. This sounded perfect since I didn’t need an entire pie. However, I didn’t pay attention to the meringue part of the recipe until I was whisk-deep into making it. Consequently, it took me three tries to make my meringue.
Double Strawberry-Pink Cupcakes
If you live in the PNW, you know that spring typically needs some help when it comes to springing! April showers, and even hail, are real. I attribute the dreary weather with why I’ve been unmotivated in the kitchen and hence haven’t been writing here on my blog. (Well, that and we’re prepping for a big move that has me distracted!) But the promise of spring flowers, and longer days have me excited to start making all the pretty pastel Easter-y dishes and desserts. Cheery shades of yellow and orange, springy green, bright pink and even robin’s-egg blue are giving me inspiration. But for now, I want to share my spring dessert debut: Double Strawberry Cupcakes from Tieghan Gerard of Half Baked Harvest. These are chockful of strawberry goodness in the form of homemade strawberry jam and freeze-dried strawberries. Cupcakes that are sure to make you happy with that little sprig of chamomile smiling up at you.
Coconut-Cardamom Cupcakes
Earlier this week my husband and I were just minding our own business eating dinner, totally oblivious to what was going on outside our windows. When we went upstairs to close the blinds, we were delighted to see snow coming down steadily. The next morning (coincidentally it was “Twosday” 2/22/22) we woke up to glorious sunshine sparkling across a blanket of snow and lighting up a stretch of dark Pacific NW winter days. I’m typically over the snow after Christmas but this time it felt like nature was giving me an opportunity to reset and start the year fresh with new hope. The wintry view also put me in a baking mood and reminded me that I had wanted (back in December) to make the Coconut-Cardamom Cupcakes from Sarah Kieffer’s Baking for the Holidays cookbook. Lucky for me, this recipe is listed in the “Beyond Christmas” section so I had all the permission I needed. Also, I serendipitously had some freshly ground cardamom in my pantry waiting for just the right recipe.
Olive Oil Sugar Cookies with Blood Orange Glaze
I don’t let a Valentine’s Day go by without making at least one special sweet. The first thing I made this year is a fancy schmancy adult take on sugar cookies from one of my favorite cookie queens Sarah Kieffer. I cut her olive oil pistachio sugar cookies into hearts, dunked them in a blood-orange glaze and dusted the corners with pulverized freeze-dried strawberries and pistachios.
Peppermint Chocolate Chunk Ice Cream
I’ve never been a big fan of eating candy canes. And those Starlight mints that you spot in a basket for the taking at the door of family restaurants always disappoint. To me, candy canes fill the role of a Christmas decoration. However, the peppermint stripes themselves bring me a wave of nostalgia. When my kids were very young, I decorated our tree with a Candyland theme. I still remember how cute it was that my left-handed daughter hung the candy canes “backwards” (according to my perspective). Today my signature decorating color is aqua. The color red is only welcome once a year — at Christmas — in my home. I love mixing red and white stripes or red and white polka dots with aqua for that vintage feel. This year I searched out red and white candy-cane striped wrapping paper from the Sugar Paper collection at Target to go under my white tree adorned with mostly aqua ornaments. Just a few days before Christmas I asked my kids to pick up a package of those small individually wrapped candy canes with the main intent of them gracing my Papa Noel aqua and white mug on the coffee table. Those candy canes prompted my daughter to keep asking when we were making peppermint ice cream. It started snowing on Christmas Day and the temperature was in the teens. Seemed like a good time to use up the candy canes and make a frosty dessert.
Pull-apart cinnamon bread
In my world, cinnamon rolls are the perfect indulgent treat to enjoy in front of the fireplace with a cup of coffee while opening gifts on Christmas morning. Or any and every morning between Christmas and New Year’s for that matter. Sadly, most years I find that making cinnamon rolls falls to the bottom of the list in my frenzied holiday prepping. When my kids were young, monkey bread (the easier and way-distant cousin of cinnamon rolls) was often the Christmas morning treat. At least until the year I caught my mom’s oven on fire baking monkey bread in her angel food tube pan. Who knew that the buttery sugar and cinnamon mixture would slowly leak to the bottom of her oven. (Sorry mom) This year in the spirit of Christmases past, I made Cinnamon Pull-Apart Bread from Sarah Kieffer. This is brilliant. It gives you the satisfaction of a cinnamon roll with the fun of monkey bread.
Red (& Green) Velvet Christmas Sugar Cookies
Every year I like to make a new holiday cookie. When I saw the vivid colors of Sarah Kieffer’s take on Red (and Green Velvet) Sugar Cookies, I couldn’t resist. I knew I had to make these bright Christmas-colored beauties. Sarah’s Baking for the Holidays book has a recipe for red velvet cookies, but she takes it a step further in this recipe and bakes the cream cheese into the cookies. And if you prefer your velvet green over red, there’s a mint variety as well. Put these out on Christmas Eve and you’ll be Santa’s favorite.
Baking all the Christmas Cookies
Family and friends aside, Christmas isn’t Christmas without the decorating, gift buying/wrapping and cookie baking. I’m happy to say that my decorating and most of my shopping were done the first week of December. So while I waited for the supply chain to deliver (or “find” in the case of Fed Ex) my goods, I sorted through many a cookie recipe to distill my 2021 baking selection and make my list of ingredients in preparation for the Brandt family cookie party (aka fiasco or chaos depending on your perspective). A houseful of loud, apron-clad women (and a few men) gathered at one of my sister’s houses last weekend. A medley of Christmas carols, holiday movies and KitchenAid mixers competing in the background made for a crazy-fun day in the kitchen. We made and sampled Salted Chocolate Gingerbread Men, Lemon Sables, Peanut Butter Cup Cookies, Salted Chocolate Chunk Shortbread, Glazed Ginger Cookies and the obligatory Frosted Sugar Cookies.
Tom Douglas Peanut Butter Sandwich Cookies aka “the Nora Ephron”
Anyone who is familiar with the food scene in Seattle probably knows of Tom Douglas and his first restaurant The Dahlia Lounge, which opened in 1989 and launched his culinary empire. In March of this year amid the pandemic, sadly Douglas permanently closed The Dahlia Lounge. I had forgotten this until last month when we went downtown to satisfy my craving for the peanut butter sandwich cookies served at the adjacent Dahlia Bakery. My cookbook collection includes several Tom Douglas books including The Dahlia Bakery Cookbook where the recipe for these cookies resides. The story goes that Nora Ephron, director of Sleepless in Seattle, visited the bakery and bought the peanut butter sandwich cookies. She loved them so much that later she asked for the recipe and Douglas dubbed the cookie “the Nora Ephron.” Whatever you call them, they are a peanut-butter lover’s dream. It’s an oatmeal peanut butter cookie with a salty peanut butter and honey filling reminiscent of the Girl Scout Do-si-dos albeit super elevated. The 40-minute drive and $8.00 parking was totally worth my cookie. When I got home, I dug out my cookbook and made the cookies a few days later.
Baked Eggs and Ebelskiver in Hood River
Pretty much my favorite thing about visiting a new town or city is the eating. For vacations (back in the day), I would research where to eat and drink months in advance. The apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree. My daughter recently went to Iceland and she and her friend had dinner reservations booked for every night long before they went. Priorities. Come to think of it, when she was studying abroad in Italy during college, she made a video depicting her food journey. That’s my girl! A couple weeks ago I was lucky enough to enjoy a girls weekend with my three sisters, my daughter and niece. Coming from five different cities in Oregon and Washington, we chose to meet in Hood River. I have only been to Hood River once before, which is hard to believe since I grew up in the Northwest. Anyhow, my favorite meal while I was there was brunch at Broder Øst, a Scandinavian spot adjacent to the historic, hip Hood River Hotel. The egg dishes are served baked in cute individual-sized cast iron skillets. I ordered the “Seasonal Fritters” (which happened to be pear), served with baked eggs, chicken apple sausage, ricotta and maple syrup – perfect solution for someone like me who can never decide between a sweet or savory breakfast.
Peanut-Butter Brownie Cookies from 100 Cookies
Move over pumpkin, the neighborhood kids want peanut butter and chocolate for Halloween. A recent article in USA Today shares data from CandyStore.com that says America’s favorite overall Halloween candy is Reese’s Peanut Buter Cups. What’s not clear is if all the Reese’s variations are included in this count. In case you haven’t noticed, Hershey’s couldn’t stop at peanut butter cups (available in mini, regular and king size). Anyone who’s ever seen the E.T. movie has a soft spot for Reese’s Pieces. Today, you can lure E.T. with peanut butter cups stuffed with Reese’s Pieces, pretzels, potato chips, and even crunchy cookie bits. I was always partial to the Nutrageous bar, which is hard to find in stores. All this to say that I’ve been craving some peanut butter and chocolate and so turned to my 100 Cookies book. There it was on page 45, Sarah Kieffer’s #9 cookie called Brownie-Cookie with the option of dolloping a spoonful of peanut butter on top before baking. I was hooked. All I needed now was some more peanut butter in my chocolate. I added Reese’s Pieces, M&M’s Peanut Butter candies and some googly eyes. And a fine Halloween cookie was born.
Delicious Pumpkin Bread Recipes
Have you ever stopped to think about why banana bread is one of the items that people overwhelmingly chose to bake during the pandemic? Why not pumpkin or some other quick bread? I’d wager to say that banana bread is seasonally agnostic and popular throughout the year. Plus, it makes us feel like we are doing our part when we use up the overripe bananas on the counter. A beautiful thing about quick breads is that they are very approachable. No yeast or proofing times are involved. Typically, these easy breads require one bowl, one stirring utensil and a loaf pan. There must be thousands of banana bread recipes on the internet. A quick Instagram look this morning tells me that #bananabread has over two million posts (2,058,899), while #pumpkinbread has a mere 183,104 posts. Pumpkin, somewhat surprisingly, beat out zucchini bread (85,923 posts). While I’ve tried several banana bread riffs, it’s hard to believe that I’ve made the same pumpkin bread recipe for the past 20 years. So today I’m stepping out. I made a new recipe for pumpkin bread that includes a dusting of cinnamon and sugar before going into the oven. And she’s gourd-geous.
Browned Butter Rice Krispies Mummy Treats
Rice Krispies treats are the quintessential childhood treat. One of my earliest memories is when my four-year-old self proudly took Rice Krispies treats to kindergarten class when it was my turn for snacks. The story of these treats started back in the 1930s when Mildred Day of the Kellogg Co. Home Economics Department created Rice Krispies treats. However, hers were made with molasses and corn syrup instead of marshmallows. The gooey, sticky and buttery crispy treats recipe that we know today appeared on the cereal packages in 1940. Eighty-plus years later and it’s still hard to pass up a Rice Krispies treat. While the original recipe still appears on the box, there are definitely some updates that result in even more delicious treats. Think brown butter and mixing up the ratio of cereal to butter to marshmallows. Read on to choose your recipe and see how to make these Halloween mummy treats.
Baked Donuts: Apple Cider and Pear Crumble
By all means doughnuts should be enjoyed year-round, but I’d argue that National Doughnut Day should be celebrated in October (not June; who came up with that?). After all, donuts are synonymous with fall, pumpkin patches and apple cider. When my son was in high school, he worked at Fall City Farms where their biggest claim to fame was not the pumpkins, but the mini donut machine. (Okay the pumpkin canon had its fans as well.) On October weekends there’d typically be a line waiting to buy bags (that no one wanted to share) of warm melt-in-your-mouth mini donuts rolled in cinnamon and sugar. It was a once-a-year indulgence that I need to revisit. The best tasting donuts are the ones that smell of yeast frying in the air. That’s hard to argue. But there’s also a certain charm in baking donuts at home this time of year. Especially if you’re like me and are afraid to deep fry anything. I came across a Nordic Ware donut pan and in the spirit of fall, I set out to bake a couple varieties of donuts using a mixture of warm spices, apples, pears, a maple glaze and a buttery streusel topping.
Fall baking: Cue the apples and pumpkin
I have slowly and a bit reluctantly let go of summer, inched into the fall season, and started dreaming of fall baking complete with warm spices, apples, pumpkin, pears and maple-flavored everything. I mean, isn’t that what fall is all about? (Okay, maybe some football too.) In my divine order of fall baking, apples come first. After all, apples are equated with teachers and back to school. I also happen to live in the beautiful state of Washington, where apples are aplenty; the state produces over half the Nation's domestically grown apples. Or maybe apples reign first for me because I refuse to give into the societal pressure related to pumpkin spice lattes re-joining the Starbucks menu in late August. Hold on pumpkin, wait your turn. My first little fall baking task was the Zoë François Apple Almond Galette. However, I’m proud to say that I waited until the calendar officially declared it was fall and then the very next day, I baked a pumpkin chocolate snack cake.
Pears and prosciutto pair up in a salad and on a pizza
Pear perks. Yep, I’m lucky enough to have a sister and brother-in-law who giveth pears each year. I previously shared that my sister’s husband’s family has a farm in southern Oregon where my brother-in-law’s dad planted pear trees in the early ‘90s. We look forward every year to getting our hands on pears from the Vaughn family farm. Last month my sister shipped box #1 to my husband for his birthday. Unfortuantely, UPS decided to let them sit around in the heat before delivering (should have taken one day) and we received a box of “sauce” rather than pears on the verge of ripening. I managed to salvage parts of the pears and cooked them up into pear sauce for eating with pork chops and baking. Then, surprise! We received box #2 full of Bartlett, Starkrimson and Comice pears. However … we were out of town when they arrived. Thankfully, my lovely neighbor came over and carefully unpacked and separated them. She’s now my official pear handler. We gobbled up the Bartletts right away as they were the ripest. The Starkrimson pears were destined for greatness in a salad. The Comice still aren’t super ripe, but I decided they’d be perfect for a pear pizza.
Win-the-Day Ice Cream Sandwiches
One evening not too long ago my adult daughter was home for a weekend visit. We were watching TV when she suddenly exclaimed (with great enthusiasm I might add): “I forgot! At this house you get dessert every night!” While that may not be exactly true (what? Dessert at my house? Nah) … I’ll admit that it’s a rare day when there’s no ice cream in my freezer. I inherited my love of ice cream from my dad. Growing up, the regular for our family of seven was rectangular cartons of store-brand ice cream. In later years, my dad stocked his freezer with a minimum of four half-gallon cartons of Dreyer’s or Umpqua, or whatever was on sale, ice cream in the latest crazy mixtures. I’m more of a purist when it comes to my ice cream. I don’t want more than two things going on inside that tub. My top three: Haagen Dazs Vanilla Swiss Almond, Haagen Dazs Chocolate Chocolate Chip and Tillamook Coffee Almond Fudge. I’m also always up for visiting (even standing in the rain) the local ice cream shop. In college it was Prince Puckler's. When in Portland it’s Salt and Straw and here in Seattle it’s Molly Moon’s. After 30-plus years of living with me, my husband has perfected being my ice cream partner-in-crime. This year his birthday fell on college football Saturday. (Did I mention that the Oregon Ducks won the day beating Ohio State for the first time in history?) Extra points for my homemade ice cream sandwiches. Think super rich and scoopable dark chocolate ice cream (inspired by Molly Moon Melted Chocolate) layered with old fashioned vanilla ice cream sandwiched inside made-from-scratch chocolate cookies with just the right texture.