It seemed only appropriate to start October off with a Harry Potter inspired recipe. As you may know from previous posts (especially last year's Halloween post), I'm a fan. And that may be putting it lightly. This year I'm rereading the series and making treats to match.

What's surprising is I'm already more than halfway through (finishing Goblet of Fire now). I think I was so worried about not finishing by the end of October that I was speed reading parts. I intend to slow down a little bit now and enjoy. Of course, now I'm on to the longer books... so I guess we shall see.

Annnnnnywho....

TREACLE TARTS!

If you didn't know, Treacle is an actual type of sugar, but it's basically Molasses and Corn Syrup. There was no way I was clever enough to come up with this on my own. I referenced Bakingdom's recipe, bless her for being just as big of a fan and having one ready for me to use.

Ingredients:

Crust

- 3/4 C unblecahed all-purpose flour
- 1/4 C confectioners’ sugar
- 1/8 tsp salt
- 1/4 C (1/2 stick) cold, butter, cut into pieces
- 2 tablespoons water

Filling

- 1/3 C light corn syrup
- 1/4 C molasses
- 1 egg
- 1 tsp lemon juice
- 1/2 tsp ground ginger
- 1 tbsp heavy cream
- 1/2 C bread crumbs

Directions:

For the Crust

- Put all the ingredients in your food processor and pulse/ run on low until a dough ball forms. OR use a pastry cutter and blend in your butter by hand, then kneed the dough until it is well formed. Chill in the freezer for around 30 minutes or in the fridge for up to two hours (at least one).

- Next, roll your dough out on a light floured surface to around 1/8 inch thick (AKA pretty dang thin). If you are using tiny tart pans (I got mine from Amazon), carefully lift your dough and place the (sprayed) pan underneath the dough, then press it into the pan and around the edges. Kind of like a complex cookie cutter. If you're making a large tart/pie, put it in your 9" round pan.


- Put the tart(s) on a baking sheet and chill for 20 to 30 minutes in your freezer.

*Optional*
* Preheat your oven to 350.
* Line your (chilled) tart(s) with parchment/wax paper and pie weights, beans, or rice (like in the Apple Nutella Bars recipe) and bake for 10 to 15 minutes.

Note: I did this with my first batch (which are not pictured) but they got WAY over cooked. However, they were chewier with the final product. If you want them more candy-like and less pie-like, I would definitely recommend doing it this way.

For the Filling

- Mix all your ingredients together in a bowl. Wow, that was easy!

Put it all together!

- Preheat your oven to 350.
- Put around 1/2 to 1 tsp of filling into each mini tart pan (or put it all in your large pie dish).
- Bake the mini-tarts around 20 minutes, or a regular pie-size for around 30 minutes.


DELICIOUS! If you like molasses, you will definitely love these!


I made these to celebrate finishing books one and two! Treacle is mentioned in both of them and really stuck out, so it seemed an obvious choice to make. Can you guess what I'm going to be making once I finish book four (yes, I already finished three)?

Here's a hint:

"He drank deeply. It was the most delicious thing he'd ever tasted and seemed to heat every bit of him from the inside." -Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

Hello friends! Have you ever been at a point of exhaustion where, "I'm exhausted!" just doesn't even seem to describe where you are?

That's kind of how I'm feeling.

I'm not sure why, but this round of Clark being gone has me feeling like I need the caffeine patch, or a week at the spa when next he's home. I'm just walking around like a zombie half of the time. I'm lucky my head is attached, because I truly think I'd forget it if it wasn't.

That's where I am right now.

However, I feel very motivated with the blog. I've been trying to post just about every day. It gives me something to keep myself accountable with. I'm not sure how long it will last, because we are also trying to cut down on Michael's TV time (yeah... I'm awful at turning it on to give mommy a breather). So please enjoy my consistency while it's consistent! HA!


These bars were meant to be "just" apple bars... but that didn't seem right. There are plenty of bars out there (including the recipe these were molded from) that are apple spice and so delicious.

But, just FYI, they are rather time consuming. You can make them throughout the day. If you want to make them in one setting... just make sure you have other things to do while your crust is sitting and the apples are cooking and... yep.



Ingredients:

Crust
- 1.25 C unbleached all purpose flour
- 1 tbsp sugar
- 7 tbsp VERY SOFT butter (almost melted, but still "formed")
- 1 egg yolk
- 1 tbsp water

Apple Filling
- 3 to 4 big apples, sliced thinly (I used granny smith)
- 2 tbsp butter
- 1 tbsp sugar (I'd say this is optional)
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 2 tbsp water

Topping
- 1/2 C all purpose unbleached flour
- 2 tbsp butter (cold/cut into pieces)
- 4 tbsp Nutella
*Make sure to have enough Nutella to also coat your crust with it before adding your apples!*

Directions:

For the Crust
- Line a 11 x 7 pan with parchment (or wax) paper, with some hanging over the edges.
- In the food processor, add all of your crust ingredients. Pulse or place on low until you have a ball of dough. If it's too dry, add a little more water.
- Place the dough in prepared pan and use your hands or a spatula to spread it evenly across the bottom. Cover with foil and chill for 20 to 30 minutes.
- Make the filling and topping during this time. Preheat your oven to 375 so it will be ready at the end of your 20 to 30 minute wait.
- When the crust is chilled cover it with parchment paper, fill it with dry beans/uncooked dry rice/baking beads/pie weights and bake for 15 minutes.
- Remove the paper and the beans and reduce the oven temp to 350. Bake for 5 more minutes.
Cool completely before filling.

For the Filling
- Put your prepared apples (cored and sliced) in a sauce pan along with the *optional* sugar, water, butter, and cinnamon. Cover and cook over low heat for about 12 to 15 minutes (or until the slices soften).
- Remove the lid and cook a little more until the liquid evaporates. You don't HAVE to stir them-- it's your choice!
- Cool completely.

For the Topping
- Place all your ingredients in the food processor (since it's already dirty-- no need to wash it) and pulse several times until all ingredients are well combined and it's rather crumbly.

Put it all Together
- Spread Nutella across your cooled crust.
- Spread your apple filling evenly across the Nutella.
- Add your crumbly topping as evenly as possible.
- Bake on 350 for 20 to 25 minutes.

Time consuming, yes. Worth it? Oooooooh, yeah.

New Year's we had a small celebration. Although you may remember that the little one ended up waking and staying up until almost elevan, we enjoyed the last of 2012 as a family.

We also enjoyed some super yummy food... including these! I'm not sure if they're technically tarts, but I didn't know what else to call them.

Ingredients:

- Follow the dough instructions/ingredients from the pumpkin pasties recipe.
- pears
- honey

Directions:

- Preheat your oven to 350. Spray your muffin tin with cooking spray.
- Roll out your dough or pick of pieces and roll it in your hands. Take sections and line your muffin tins with the dough.
- Cut a pear into small pieces, cubes if you can manage. The pear doesn't have to be extraordinarily ripe, but it should be relatively soft to have the best flavor.
- Fill each muffin tin with somewhere between a teaspoon and tablespoon of pear pieces.

- Drizzle honey over the pear. This part is your preference. I probably used maybe 1/8 tsp of honey for each, but I'm not sure if it was even that much!
- Bake for around 18 to 22 minutes.
- Remove and let sit, giving the melted honey/pear juice time to settle.
- Serve warm and enjoy! Simple and beyond delicious, especially right now when pears are in season!



Linked on:

Here it is. My confession...

I. Love. Harry. Potter.

Perhaps it's because I grew up with Harry. Perhaps it's because I initially wasn't allowed to read the books. Maybe it's because J.K. Rowling is awesome. Who knows. All I know is, I love Harry Potter.

So much that October this year became Harry Potter month. It just hasn't been the same since the movies ended. There's nothing to look forward to with the series. It's truly over. Ended. So sad. Anyway, October became Harry Potter month. I made a schedule of what I was going to cook and when we were going to watch each movie. I spaced it out over the month so we would finish right before Halloween (saving that day for It's The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown!, of course).

My senior year of high school is when the last book came out. Clark likes to tease me because I made him go to the midnight release of the book. He also makes fun of me because I dressed up. He always seems to exaggerate my "costume". Truly all I did was put on some jeans, a button down, and tie. However, with my hair, he always said I was a Hermione. Just to come clean... here's the one piece of evidence.


Now that that's out of the way, let's move on to the recipes, shall we?

How do you celebrate Harry Potter? By making butterbeer and pumpkin pasties, of course! While there are plenty of other sweets that could be made, these two stand out the most to me. So, here you are. Celebrate all the awesomeness that is Harry Potter with your very own butterbeer and pumpkin pasty!

Butterbeer

Ingredients:
This recipe is for four servings of butterbeer.

- 4 12oz bottles of cream soda (or just 48 oz of cream soda, a two liter works just fine)
- 2 tsp of imitation butter PER serving (I actually used "Butter Buds" because I was unable to find legitimate imitation butter, which should be a liquid.)
Optional: 1 shot of gold rum per serving

For the foam:

- 1.5 C heavy whipping cream
- 4 tbsp sugar
- 2 tsp vanilla
- 1 tbsp imitation butter (or butter buds)

Directions:

- Make sure your cream soda is nice and cold! In the bottom of your glass, put your butterbuds/imitation butter and your rum if you're making this adult-butterbeer. Pour your cream soda over it and make sure it mixes well.
- For the foam, whip your heavy cream on medium speed for three to four minutes.
Note: Because Michael was sleeping when I was making this, I just whisked it to death for four minutes. Had I used an electric mixer, my foam probably would have been a bit more "firm".
- Add the sugar and whip for another two minutes or so, until soft peaks begin to form.
- Add your vanilla and butter and mix for another 30 seconds or so, until soft peaks can be seen again.
- Add your foam to the top of your cream soda mix.
To make the foam mix in a little bit, I saved some cream soda and pour it on top of the foam as well so it was foamy throughout rather than just on top.
If you like, sprinkle some raw sugar, sprinkles, or whatever you like on top of your butterbeer!

WARNING: You will have a mustache, especially if you have one already...


And if you don't make enough for seconds, people can get violent.

Now on to the...


Pumpkin Pasties


Ingredients:
(For the dough)
- 1/2 C butter, cold, cut into pieces
- 3/4 tsp sugar
- 1.5 C all purpose, unbleached flour
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 8 oz cream cheese (low or fat free), cut into pieces

Directions:
- Preheat your oven to 350.
- Mix your dry ingredients together in a large bowl.
- Add the butter and use a pastry cutter (like you do for blackberry scones) to blend it in until it looks like you have course crumbs.


- Add the cream cheese and use the pastry cutter until you no longer can, switching over to a spatula or spoon until you get a nice mess.


- Add some flour to a surface or the bowl and knead the dough until you get it nice and round. Divide into two (if you don't want to make the whole recipe) and freeze or refrigerate half (if you want to).
I would suggest putting it in the fridge while you make the filling as well.


Ingredients:
(For the filling)
- 3/4 C pureed pumpkin
*Note: I only used half of the dough recipe, but made the whole filling recipe. Needless to say I had quite a bit left over. If you only intend to make half, make sure to cut the filling recipe in half as well.*
- 1/2 tsp cinnamon
- 1/4 tsp ginger
- 1/8 tsp ground cloves
- 1/8 tsp nutmeg
- 1 egg
- 1/3 C sugar
- 1/8 tsp salt
- 1/4 tsp vanilla

Directions:

- In a small saucepan, heat your pumpkin and spices until warm (over low to medium-low heat).
- Whisk in your egg, vanilla, sugar, and salt. Let cool for a few minutes before proceeding.

BRING IT ALL TOGETHER NOW!

- Roll out your dough and use a biscuit or cookie cutter to cut into circles. I am not blessed with either of these, so I used the fabulous Boogie Wipes container and a knife.

- After you cut them, roll them out to make the dough thinner (note how they're not perfectly round, which is totally fine).
- Use a heaping teaspoon to put filling in them. Make sure you put it closer to an edge, rather than right in the middle.

- Fold them over and roll or pinch the edges with your fingers (or I believe you could use a fork).

Now you need: (optional)
- 1 egg, scrambled
- raw sugar

- Use a basting brush and lightly go over the tops of them with your scrambled egg. Next, sprinkle sugar on top.
A half recipe makes about seven pasties (but may make more if you have a standard biscuit cutter for the dough)!

- Put them in the oven and cook for 20 to 25 minutes, until they're nice and golden on top (or just about to be golden, which is what I prefer).



Enjoy with your butterbeer or all on their own! These things go fast!

Have a Harry-Potter-Filled-Happy Halloween!




Butterbeer recipe inspired by: Bakingdom.com.

Pumpkin Pastie recipe adapted from: BrownieBites.com.