Baked Alaska Pie

This recipe comes from the same cookbook that I found the pie recipe for the Pieathalon exchange--the Lion House Cookbook. I found this vintage 1980 cookbook in the Deseret Industries so I feel all local pride to make this dish. Though I have to admit I only have one memory of going to the Lion House and not any of eating there, though I must have. Certainly if I did eat there, I never had this dish--I would remember something as distinctive as this pie! I followed this more in spirit than the letter.

Ingredients:
Prepared graham cracker crust
ice cream
dessert sauce
egg whites
1/3 c sugar
cream of tartar
vanilla
salt

Put ice cream into crust, top with sauce (I used blueberry), and return to freezer. I did this a week or so ago, and then today I pulled it out and topped it with egg whites beaten into meringue, with the sugar, vanilla, cream of tartar, and salt. That went into a 500 degree oven for 5 minutes. It got a little burnt on top and didn't really cooked through.

It was pretty hard to cut, and while it tasted good, it was a less than impressive presentation on the plate. It was fun to do the meringue though, so I might have to do a lemon meringue pie soon!

Blueberry Cream Pie

When I was younger, my mom used to make a no-bake cheesecake that she served with cherry pie topping. It was so rich that you could only have a small slice. I believe it had sweetened condensed milk along with the cream cheese, but I don't recall exactly. This pie is something like it, though less rich. I found this recipe in a Farmer's Market cookbook from my time living in Ohio. It has everything one could hope to find in a cookbook put together by neighbors--convenience foods that can be tossed together at the last minute to make a dessert for any church supper or potluck. I did find it somewhat ironic that a cookbook celebrating the bounty of the Farmer's Market had so many recipes calling for not fresh ingredients. To celebrate the spirit, if not the letter of this cookbook, I made the blue berry topping from scratch with fresh berries!

Ingredients:

1 pkg softened cream cheese (I used Greek yogurt cheese)

1 c powdered sugar (I used abt 3/4 of a cup and might use less if I made this again)

1 tsp vanilla

lemon zest, lemon juice

1 container cool whip

1 prepared pie crust

blueberry pie filling

Mix cream cheese, sugar, vanilla, lemon zest, and a squeeze of the juice, until smooth. Fold in one cup of cool whip. Spoon into prepared pie crust. Spoon pie filling on top and add more cool whip to cover pie. Chill.

Feeling Blue--A Blueberry Galette

For my first week of pie month, have mostly galettes. My second attempt at almost pie, I made a blueberry galette. I didn't really have a recipe--which is typical for me. I've been making blueberry sauce and thought I'd use some of that and some frozen blueberries with a crust made with a light butter. I added some Greek yogurt cream cheese, sweetened and thickened with some egg to the bottom. The blueberries released a lot more liquid than I anticipated, and it was sort of a soggy mess. It tasted good--particularly with a good amount of ice cream and blueberry sauce.

I hope I have better success with my upcoming fruit pies!

Healthy Yogurt Muffins

So after playing around with a cake mix, I wanted to play around with some recipes. People always say that cake mixes aren't the time savers they claim to be, that from scratch can be just as fast. So I thought I'd see--plus I wanted to try using the mini donut pan I bought! I have two cookbooks with lemon yogurt muffin recipes--very different approaches, though both claim to be healthy and low calorie. At first I'd planned on a half batch of each, but ended up accidentally adding too much at one point of yogurt, so ended up with full batches.

Lime-Pomegranate Yogurt Muffins

Ingredients:

1 c whole wheat bread flour
1 c all purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
`1/4 c granulated sugar
3 tbs light butter
1/3 c egg subsitiute
1 c fat free pomegranate Greek style yogurt
2 limes juiced and zested

Glaze

1 lime juice and zest
confectioners sugar

 The butter and sugar are creamed together, then the egg, yogurt, lime juice, apple sauce, and lime zest are added. In another bowl, the dry ingredients are sifted together and then quickly added to the moist ingredients. This makes a pretty thick batter--more like a dough. Which was pretty hard to get into the donut tin.These bake at 350 for 18-20 minutes. Since they aren't very sweet, I dipped them in a little lime juice and powdered sugar.

Verdict: In making this, I used up the leftovers of the substitutions I'd used in the cake mix experimentation, so it was a little off from the original. I did think it was a little doughy and heavy--the wheat made it taste "healthy" not in a good way. It is very muffiny--heavy not light, and didn't work well in the donut mold.

Lemon Cornmeal Muffins

Ingredients:

3/4 c granulated sugar
1/4 c light butter
1/4 c egg substitute
lemon juice and zest from one lemon
1/4 c lite coconut milk
1 c all purpose flour
1/4 c cornmeal
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/8 tsp salt
1/2 c non-fate light lemon yogurt
1/2 c mixed berries
leftover blueberry lemon compote

Beat the wet ingredients together in a large bowl. In a different bowl mix the dry ingredients--I followed the recipe exactly, except I added the salt--it seems baking needs some salt. Then quickly combine the two, being careful not to overbeat. This is a much looser batter--and I poured it in a bag so I could better distribute it into the donut pan. It is important not to overfill the pan, so I put a bit in each and baked them for 12 minutes.


They cook fast, so keep an eye on it. The donuts are really small, so this made 46 mini donuts--some of which I added fruit to, some I added sauce, and some I did plain. I also topped some with leftover blueberry lemon compote after cooking.

The Verdict: These worked perfectly in the pan, turned out light and airy, with just a bit of a crunch from the cornmeal. Whether plain or with berries, they are tart and delicious. There is only one downside to these, they are small so it is easy to turn around and discover you've eaten 10. The good thing is that is still fewer calories than a large bakery muffin. This is a recipe I'd make again and again--the very best baked good I've made all weekend long!

Blueberry Lemon Compote

So I decided to make more cheesecake cupcakes to use up the last of my yogurt, and because the first batch was so good I wanted more! This time I wanted to amp up the fruit flavor, so rather than just putting frozen blueberries in, like I did last time, I wanted to make a sauce or compote to go in and on top. This is pretty simple, but the flavors pop a lot more than simple frozen blueberries.This is my first time making something like this--though it is similar to making cranberry sauce, just less sugar and less cooking time.

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cup frozen blueberries
1/4 c sugar or 2 tablespoons stevia baking blend
2 teas cornstarch 
juice and zest from one lemon


I put the frozen blueberries in a small sauce pan, zested and juiced the lemon over them, and sprinkled on the sugar substitute.

This cooks over medium heat until the berries defrost and some of juice from the berries comes out. I drained the juice and whisked in the cornstarch and re-added it to the berries. This cooks for a while to thicken the sauce and for the berries to soften more. Once it has cooked down for a few minutes, I used the immersion blender to puree it

The Verdict: The lemon really brightens up the blueberries and makes it tart and delicious. Since I used meyer lemons it is particularly sweet, without too much sour. I put some in the cheesecakes before cooking them and then topped each one with a generous dollop before eating it. I also used it in my breakfast bowls for flavor. It didn't make enough in my opinion, because I just keep eating it in different things. I think it would be good with yogurt, on ice cream, or as a topping for pound cake. I will be making this again!

Cheesecake Cupcakes

So I promised to help with the food for a bridal shower, and I wanted to try some new dishes. Before I decide what I'll bring, I wanted to do a test run of some recipes that might be good. I found this recipe on SkinnyTaste--one of my favorite blogs, and I actually had almost all of the ingredients. The only thing I had to pick up was cupcake liners!

I did make a few substitutions: my lemon was not good, so I used two limes, used blueberries instead of blackberries, and used some gingersnaps and some vanilla cookies.

Ingredients:
6 reduced fat vanilla wafers/ 6 gingersnaps
8 oz 1/3 less fat cream cheese,
1/4 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla
6 oz fat-free vanilla Greek yogurt
2 large egg whites
3 tbsp lime juice
1 tbsp lemon and lime zest
1 tbsp all purpose flour
blueberries

The first step was getting the cream cheese softened--I am impatient so I put it in a bag in hot tap water, so while that happened, I prepared the rest of the ingredients. I put liners in a cupcake pan and put the cookies at the bottom of each. I zested the lemon, but when I cut it open it was gross, so I zested a lime and got juice from it and another lime to make the 3 tablespoons. I also got out the blueberries to defrost.

 This is only the second time I've made cheesecake, so the process is probably pretty typical of any cheesecake. The softened cream cheese is mixed with the sugar and vanilla, and then the yogurt, egg, lime juice, zest, and flour are slowly added. I tried hard not to overbeat it, and the cream cheese was not lumpy. The lime zest did add a strange green spotty appearance, but the batter did taste good.


Once the batter is mixed, it is divided between the prepared cupcake liners. I put a blueberry at the bottom of a few and some blue berries at the top of a few before they went in the oven at 350 for 25 minutes. They were overbaked and the tops cracked so next time I'll check them earlier.

I took them out of the pan right away so they wouldn't keep cooking, and stuck them in the fridge to cool for a while.

The Verdict: When I first made these, I didn't think they turned out too great. But they actually got better with time and when I got over my cold so I could taste them. Apparently, the original recipe called for vanilla yogurt, not plain, so that made them less sweet, but they were still really good. The gingersnap crust improved the second day, because it softened enough to be easily bitten through. Honestly, these are SO good, and at around 100 calories a cupcake, they are relatively healthy, so I eat them like a snack. In fact, I've since made a second batch with meyer lemons and a blueberry sauce that is even better. Stay tuned for the sauce recipe, SO good!