A Stone Fruit Soiree

Summer is such a lovely time. Can you believe it's almost over? In honor of balmy nights, good friends, and belly laughs, here's a great recipe using the summers greatest gift- freestone peaches! Whether you get them from your local farmers market (my favorite!), a road side fruit stand, or the grocery look for peaches that are a deep yellow and give a bit when you press their skin. May all your summer adventures turn out, well, peachy!

Sauteed Brown Sugar Peaches (With Ice Cream!)

• 4 peaches: washed, pitted, and cut into slices
• 1/2 lemon
• 1/2 stick of unsalted butter
• 1/4 cup packed brown sugar (I used dark, but light will do!)
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

After prepping your peaches, place them in a bowl and squeeze the juice of half a lemon in and toss them around a bit. Place a large pan on the stove over medium heat and place the butter in the pan. After the butter has melted, pour in the brown sugar and the vanilla and stir until combined with the butter. Then, place the peach slices in the pan and toss them around with the sauce, stirring occasionally for about 5 minutes or until peaches are tender and sauce is a thick, but pourable consistency. Serve warm over vanilla ice cream (Talenti vanilla bean gelato is my favorite!) and enjoy! XO- L

Basic Biscotti

Hello there!

I'm big on biscotti. Its one of my favorite things to make, and its definitely one of those treats that people turn their heads to see when you announce what you're bringing to the holiday table.
Biscotti means "twice baked," but I bake mine 3 times. My biscotti is also a touch softer than the packaged variety you buy at a grocery store or in line at Starbucks. Below is a basic recipe, that I tweak and add to in order to create new flavors.

Basic Ingredients:
1/2 cup butter, softened 
3/4 cup white sugar 
3 eggs 
3 cups all-purpose flour 
2 teaspoons baking powder

Here is how you change this up, and finish off the recipe!

Typically, biscotti has almond extract in it, but I do a combination of extracts, and depending on their strength, add up to about 1-2 teaspoons of extract total. Just two examples:

Peppermint Biscotti: 1/2 tsp peppermint extract, 1 tsp vanilla extract
Birthday Cake Biscotti: 1 tsp almond extract, 1 tsp vanilla extract

And so on, but any combination works, its what you like best. You can also use orange, strawberry, lemon, or any other type of extract at all- just make it fit the combination of ingredients you put in your biscotti. You're simply flavoring the dough.

To change up to a chocolate biscotti, I use 2 1/2 cups flour, 1/2 cup cocoa powder.
Then, the fun part- the goodies inside the biscotti. Use 1 cup worth of extras for this recipe. I use chocolate chips of any variety (minis work well for this), chopped nuts, dried fruit, sprinkles, candy, etc.

Once all of your ingredients are sorted, here is how to actually MAKE the biscotti:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease a large cookie sheet. 
In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until smooth. Beat in the eggs one at a time, then stir in the extract(s). Combine the flour and baking powder; stir into the creamed mixture until just blended. Mix in extras. 
With lightly floured hands, shape dough into two 10 inch long loaves. Place rolls 5 inches apart on the prepared cookie sheet; flatten each to 3 inch width. 
Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, or until set and light golden brown. Cool 5 minutes. Using a serrated knife, cut loaves on a bias into 1/2 inch slices. Arrange slices cut side down.
Bake for 8 to 10 minutes, or until bottoms begin to brown. Turn, and bake an additional 5 to 7 minutes. Cool completely.
I usually melt a little chocolate, drizzle over the top, sprinkle on a topping of sorts, and voila! Delicious biscotti for all to enjoy! Or not, no one says you have to share it ;)

-Rachel

The Gold Standard

There comes a time of year when we have to put away the Scharffen-Berger (bummer, I just bought a bunch and it's amazing) and pull out the pumpkin desserts. It is a wonderful time filled with pumpkin pie, pumpkin cheesecake gelato (it's best from Coolato Gelato!), and pumpkin spice whipped cream (yeah, I know!) However, my favorite thing of all time ever is pumpkin cheesecake. When I go home for Thanksgiving, I try to get some from The Cheesecake Factory (I recently heard we're getting one in Knoxville: score!!), but sometimes I just can't wait. I really don't have the patience or brain capacity to do the whole water bath, springform pan routine that goes into real cheesecake, so I made pumpkin cheesecake bars and, bonus, I got to use my Goldtouch pan that I recieved for my birthday!

These were uber delicious and I can't wait for you to try them. And, for the record, the Goldtouch was totally awesome and lived up to its reputation. My edges and corners came out perfectly brown (not burnty brown like normal) and it was super non-stick. If you're in Williams-Sonoma soon, I would definetely suggest picking one up in every size!

A Chocolate Affair

Hello!

Considering that I'm currently sitting in bed eating Nutella out of the jar with a plastic soon (super classy, I know), I thought I'd share one of my favorite Nutella recipes with you. I love all things made with this chocolate and hazelnut spread, but warm gooey brownies certainly take the cake (pun intended).

You will need:
1 cup Butter
2 cups Sugar
2 tsp Vanilla
4 Eggs
1 cup All-Purpose Flour
3/4 cup Cocoa
1/8 tsp Salt
1/2 tsp Baking Powder
1 cup Nutella
1/4 cup Chocolate Chips

DIRECTIONS:
Preheat oven to 355 degrees.
Mix flour, cocoa, baking powder, and salt.
In a separate bowl (mixer) , melt the butter, then add the sugar and vanilla. Once the mixture is cooled, add the eggs and mix.
Add the flour mixture slowly to the egg mixture, mix completely before adding the nutella and chocolate chips.
Use Crisco in a 13x9in pan, they tend to be really impossible to get out of the pan. Crisco works much better than spray. I usually fold a paper towel, and use it to spread the Crisco around.
Bake for 40 min. They might need to go a tiny bit longer, but no more than 50 min.

Once they're done, cut a large one for yourself and enjoy!

Rachel