A friend that I haven’t seen in years recently came back into my life. Many Years ago we worked together at a restaurant and when we would have those deadly 8am staff meetings after working until 2am, I would bring this coffee cake. I hadn’t made it quite a few years but, was determined when she reminded me of it. At first I couldn’t find the recipe, a tragedy all by itself as I hate to lose anything. After much searching it surfaced. So, I not only had to make the coffee cake for our visit today, but I had to record it here so it would never be lost again. I had forgotten how much I love this cake. Not for one on a diet but, tried and true comfort food.
Without further delay, I want to share with you one of my favourite recipes. I hope you try it and enjoy. It can be halved if you wish.
Chocolate-Chip Coffee Cake
Serves: 12 (large pieces, more if you cut them smaller)
½ c. packed brown sugar
½ c. walnuts, chopped
1 c. semi-sweet mini chocolate chips
3 c. cake flour
1 ¾ c. sugar
1 ¼ c. milk
½ c. shortening
2 ½ tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
1 ½ tsp. vanilla extract
2 eggs
1. prepare topping: In a small bowl, mix brown sugar, walnuts and ½ cup chocolate chips; set aside. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour 13”x9” baking pan.
2. Into large bowl, measure flour and all remaining ingredients, except remaining chocolate chips. With mixer on low speed, beat until mixed, constantly scraping bowl. Increase speed to high; beat 2 minutes occaisionally scraping bowl. Stir in remaining chocolate chips. Pour into pan.
3. Spread toping over batter. Bake 40 to 45 minutes, until toothpick inserted in center of cake comes out clean. Cool in pan on rack.
Enjoy!
It seemed only fitting that I make my Sister’s Black Bean and Sausage soup as the comfort food I craved and needed after she left. They have only been gone a day, but we miss them terribly. J & J2 just did not want to understand why the rest of the cousins weren’t joining us today. It will surely take some time to get things back to normal around here. Until then, a little comfort food. A lot of chocolate. And many trips to Starbucks will possibly keep us going.
Black Bean and Sausage Soup
Serves 4 to 6
1 tbsp vegetable oil
1 medium onion, chopped
1 large carrot, peeled or scrubbed and chopped
1 stalk of celery, sliced
2 large cloves of garlic, minced
1/2 tsp of dried oregano
1 medium potato, peeled, diced
2 cups beef or chicken broth
1 28oz tin diced tomatoes, with juice
4 to 6 oz of kielbasa, cubed
1 19oz tin black beans, or your favorite canned beans
1. Heat oil in large dutch oven (in other words large heavy pot). Add onion, carrot and celery; cook and stir over medium heat until vegetables begin to soften.
2. Stir in garlic, oregano, potato, broth and tomoatoes; heat to boiling. Stir in keilbasa. Cover and simmer gently for at least 1/2 to blend flavours.
3. Drain and rinse beans. Add to soup. Heat until hot. Add salt and pepper to tast. Serve with crusty bread.
Enjoy!
It’s even better the next day!
When it came time to fill the boxes with cookies for Hubby, it became apparent that ten cookies per box, just wasn’t going to cut it. I had a new plan in place in fifteen minutes. I would feverishly bake another four hundred cookies, while Hubby went to the store to pick up chocolates and candy canes to fill the top of the box. The recipe I used is ccalled Merry Cookies. The photo above is just one way to do them. They are a basic sugar cookie that can be rolled, coloured, added to and frozen. All this is good because it means that you can whip them up pretty quick and they can look and taste very different with little effort. The garnishes used for the batches I made were food colouring (as in above photo), candied cherries (red ones and green ones chopped finely), sprinkles, drageés, and christmas sprinkles. You make the dough, split it in half and roll it between waxed or parchment paper. The cherries or food colouring you would add in before rolling the rest of it gets rolled around the outside of the cookie.
Merry Cookies (Holiday Baking 1996)
1 cup butter
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
2 2/3 cups flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1. beat butter and sugar until fluffy.
2. add egg and vanilla, beat.
3. in a separate bowl mix flour, baking powder and salt, add in two stages and beat until combined.
4. roll cookies in waxed paper, chill in refrigerator (or freezer) until firm enough to slice.
5. place slices cookies on cookie sheet.
6. bake at 350 for 8 – 12 minutes. (Watch this carefully, as ovens differ it may only take 5 or 6 minutes or it may take 12. If you use silpat on your cookie sheet it usually takes 12, non-silpat is half the time. Cookies should not be browning at all.
Enjoy the Merry Cookies. Thankfully the recipients today enjoyed the cookies or at least they appreciated them enough to not tell Hubby the truth ;).
