Bake To Show Your Appreciation

These bars. Oh, these bars! They are delicious. I first saw these bars in an issue of Everyday Food a few years ago. I just love Everyday Food recipes because they're simple and not fussy, but they're consistently good. When I first made them, I used plum jam and took them to a friends' house for brunch. Then it seems that I lost the recipe. I looked for a long time through my old issues to find it with no such luck. Why it never occurred to me to just google it, is beyond me. Alas, I smartened up and found it on Martha's website. In my experience, not all of her recipes work for me, but this one is a keeper!

This time when I made the recipe, I chose to use Fredericksburg Peach Jam. Plum jam is my absolute favorite, besides homemade strawberry, but I used peach because Mr. H bought a half gallon of it from Costco a few weeks back. Okay, so I exaggerate slightly, but it was a 40 oz. jar...and that's a lot of jam! This batch went to my good friend Lori, who gifted me with my new logo. How do you express gratitude for something without spending a lot of money, yet you want to give something more than just a card? You bake something special and buttery, with quality ingredients and you hand deliver it. It doesn't get much better than that.

These bars really are great. They're crumbly and crunchy, yet sandy and buttery. The sliced almonds add nice crunch and flavor and worked well with the peach jam and they're perfect for dessert or a weekend brunch. I may have had one or three for breakfast too :-) They're just really flavorful. One note of advice though, if your jam is really sweet then cut back on the sugar in the crust by a couple tablespoons. Feel free to substitute any flavor jam or preserve that you like. Make them for yourself or as a gift, just make them!

Almond Jam Bars from Martha Stewart

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• 1/2 cup unsalted butter, room temp, plus more for baking dish
• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 cup packed light-brown sugar
• 1/4 cup granulated sugar
• 1 large egg yolk
• 3/4 cup sliced almonds
• 1/2 cup fruit jam (cherry, plum, peach etc.)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter an 8-inch square baking dish.

In a bowl, whisk together flour, cinnamon, salt, and baking powder.

In a mixing bowl, cream butter and sugars on high speed until light and fluffy; beat in egg yolk. Reduce speed to low; gradually mix in flour mixture. Stir in almonds.

In a small bowl, whisk jam to loosen. (Stirring the jam with a fork or a whisk will enable it to spread smoothly over the dough.)

Gently press half of dough into bottom of prepared dish. With the back of a spoon, gently spread jam over dough, leaving a 1/4-inch border so the jam doesn't stick to the sides of the pan. Sprinkle remaining dough over top all the way to the edges; press gently to form top layer.

Bake until top is golden, 25 to 35 minutes; cool completely in dish. Cut into bars with a serrated knife.

This buttery and gooey bite is just for you. Open Wide!

Just Peachy

Our neighbor has a peach tree in his backyard and he invited us to come over and pick some peaches. Well, no, that's not entirely true. He picked peaches that were ready to be eaten and bagged them up to give us, but we weren't home and they got overly ripe so he said we could come over and pick fresh peaches from his tree. This turned out to be a good thing because I got to pick the ones I wanted AND take pictures of them. They're just so pretty and fuzzy.

Last years we got peaches from Fredericksburg- it's kind of like the peach capitol of Texas. I wondered how I would prepare them when Mr. H informed me not to touch them or I'd "ruin them". Alright then. We ate those peaches, simply sliced in a bowl. And we did the same with most of these peaches from our neighbor's tree. Side note: Have I mentioned before that my neighbor looks like Alton Brown? Because he totally does! Anyway, with a good portion of our fruit I made this wonderful peach ice cream from David Lebovitz- the ice cream guru.

After preparing this ice cream, I realized something. I realized that I've never had peach ice cream- I've only had what I *thought* was peach ice cream. What do I mean by that? Well, what I thought was peach ice cream , was simply vanilla ice cream with peaches in it. THIS ice cream is different and it is definitely peachy. It's icy and creamy at the same time, you can taste the vanilla but it's subtle- almond extract might be nice too. But the peaches take center stage. As it should be. Before Summer ends, pick some peaches from your neighbors tree or get some from a roadside stand and make this ice cream.

Peach Ice Cream from Perfect Scoop

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• 1 1/3 lbs. (600 g) ripe peaches (about 4 large peaches)
• 1/2 cup water
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup sour cream
• 1 cup heavy cream
• 1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
• a few drops freshly squeezed lemon juice

Peel the peaches, slice them in half, and remove the pits. Cut the peaches into chunks and cook them with the water in a medium, nonreactive saucepan over medium heat, covered, stirring once or twice until soft and cooked through, about 10 minutes.

Remove from heat, stir in the sugar, then cool to room temperature.

Puree the cooked peaches and any liquid in a blender or food processor with the sour cream, heavy cream, vanilla and lemon juice until almost smooth but slightly chunky.

Chill the mixture thoroughly in the refrigerator (overnight is best) then freeze it in your ice cream maker according to manufacturer's instructions.

Variation: To make Nectarine Ice Cream, simply substitute nectarines for the peaches. There's no need to peel the nectarines, since their tender skins soften during cooking.

Summer in a bowl.

This post linked to:

When Life Hands You Peaches, Don't Ruin 'Em. Huh?

On our way home from Fredericksburg we stopped by a roadside stand and bought some beautiful peaches and zucchini. We bought about a dozen and a half of the fuzzy blush fruit and on the way home I kept wondering what I was going to bake them into. Would it be a peach pie, a cobbler, a crumble, a crisp, ice cream???

Then I asked Mr. H what his thoughts were and he said I wasn't allowed to bake them because I'd "ruin them"! And he was very adamant about that too so I didn't bake them. Although everytime I sliced one up or walked by them and smelled their sweetness, I was tempted.

Then I remembered I had Fredericksburg Peach Preserves (ding! ding! ding!) so I used that along with the zucchini in these muffins and they were wonderful! The original recipe calls for canola oil and orange marmalade, but I used softened butter and peach preserves. They were still moist, tender, fragrant, and sweet, with little bonus pieces of peach from the preserves. They were really delicious and I liked the chew of the dried cherries. I would like to experiment with apricot jam and dried apricots too. Maria and Debby, I'm talking to you :-)

Zucchini Jam Muffins adapted from W.S.

• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 2 tsp. baking powder
• 1/4 tsp. baking soda
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• 1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
• 2 eggs
• 1/3 cup canola oil
• 1/4 cup peach jam or preserves
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract
• 1 zucchini (4 oz. total) shredded and drained on paper towels
• 1 cup dark raisins or dried sweet cherries
• 1/4 cup pecans or almonds, chopped (optional)

Preheat an oven to 400°F. Grease muffin cups with butter or butter-flavored nonstick cooking spray.

In a bowl, stir together the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt and cinnamon.

In another bowl, whisk together the eggs, oil, jam, vanilla and zucchini until blended. Add the flour mixture in three additions and beat just until evenly moistened and smooth. Stir in the raisins or cherries and nuts (if using) just until evenly distributed. The batter will be stiff.

Spoon the batter into the muffin cups, filling each no more than three-fourths full. Bake until the muffins are golden, dry and springy to the touch, and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, 17 to 20 (mine took 18) minutes. Transfer the pan to a wire rack and let cool for 5 minutes. Unmold the muffins. Serve them warm or at room temperature, with butter and more jam.

Makes 10-12 muffins.

NOTE: I froze these after they were cool in a large Ziploc bag. I defrosted/warmed them in the microwave for 45 seconds and we were able to enjoy them throughout the week and they tasted just as fresh, if not better.

The original recipe calls for canola oil, but I used softened butter and it worked out just fine.