Samoa Blondies

I recently received a copy of The Newlywed Kitchen, a charming cookbook by Lorna Yee of The Cookbook Chronicles and Ali Basye. Though I’m not a newlywed, I was so excited when it showed up my mail box, with it’s lovely blue cover and adorable category titles like "Carry Me Over the Threshold" starters and snacks. Of course I headed right to the last one - "Happily Ever After” desserts and sweets.

There are so many recipes I wanted to try - and I will try most at one point or another, I’m sure. The one that really jumped out at me was this recipe for samoa blondies. I’m a huge fan of both the samoa cookie AND blondies, so this recipe sounded perfect.

And ohhhh, it is. These blondies are chewy and amazing. They are full of two of my favorite things - brown butter and coconut. Try them out this weekend! And be sure to pick up a copy of The Newlywed Cookbook, it would be perfect wedding gift, but don’t let the title stop you - this is fantastic even if you aren’t a newlywed!



Samoa Blondies
From The Newlywed Kitchen Cookbook


10 tbsp unsalted butter
1 cup dark brown sugar, packed
¼ cup granulated sugar
1 large egg
2 tsp vanilla extract
¼ tsp kosher salt
1 ¼ cup flour
1 ¼ cup sweetened flaked coconut
1 ¼ cup bittersweet or semisweet chocolate chips


Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line and grease an 8×8 baking dish.
In a pan over high heat, heat the butter until it browns and smells nutty. (Keep an eye on it, so it doesn’t burn.) Let the butter cool for a few moments, until just barely warm.
In a large mixing bowl, mix together the browned butter, brown sugar, and granulated sugar. With a wooden spoon, mix in the egg, vanilla, and salt. Slowly mix in the flour, coconut, and chocolate chips until blended. Try not to eat too much of the batter.
Pour the batter into the greased baking dish, and smooth the top with a rubber spatula. Bake for 25-30 minutes—do not overbake! The center should still be soft. Let the blondies cool before turning them out onto a cutting board and slicing into squares.

Baked Kale Chips and other things.

You know how I’ve been pretty bad about updating this here blog lately? Yeah. Sorry about that. I have lots of excuses, but the truth is, I hit a bit of a creative wall a week or so ago and needed some time to step back, refocus on what I’ve been doing, and really thinking about how I want to move forward. I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about everything, this blog, my passions and everything that goes along with that.



The conclusion I’ve come to is that I love this, this space here, and most of all I love taking pictures of food. There’s few things I love to spend my time on more. I’m know that this is what I want to do for a living. Not immediately, of course, I don’t have the experience, skill level or the technical knowledge yet. I’m not sure what to do to move forward, but I’m working on it. I don’t know if the answer is art school, an apprenticeship, or something else entirely. All I know right now is that I do want to move forward. I have to believe I was given this passion for a reason.

It’s both scary and exciting to finally say it out loud, to tell all of you like this, definitively. I’ve struggled with feeling legitimate, like this photography thing was just a hobby that I’d one day move on from. I haven’t though. It’s this thing that both frustrates me and invigorates me, I figure that’s probably a good place to be. If you have any tips or words of wisdom for me, please leave them in the comments!

I didn’t think all of that was going to come out when I sat down at the keyboard, and I’m so tempted to delete it all, but since it did, I guess it’s time to hit the publish button!

Oh, this recipe? Just something I made this evening to munch on. After seeing recipes for kale chips here and here, I knew I had to try them. Delicious! Try them out for yourself!



Baked Kale Chips

1 bunch of kale
olive oil
coarse salt

Tear kale into small, bite sized pieces.
toss with olive oil, and salt.
Spread onto lined baking sheet and bake at 350° for 12 minutes, or until crisp.

Wordless Wednesday

Lemon Buttermilk Rhubarb Bundt Cake

When a friend gives you free, heirloom rhubarb, you get into the kitchen and make something delicious with it as soon as possible. The moment I got it home, I was flipping through my copy of Rustic Fruit Desserts to find the perfect recipe. There were many to choose from, crumbles to pies, but it was this recipe that caught my eye.



This cake, with it’s deep lemon flavor coming from zest, extract and lemon glaze, has pieces of yummy tart rhubarb through out. Strawberry may be rhubarbs perfect mate, but lemon is a close second. I’d never had the two together before, but they work so, so well.




The cake it’s self is almost too fantastic for words, rich and moist, my new favorite, for sure. It would work wonderfully with whatever fresh fruit you have on hand, as soon as there are fresh blueberries at the farmers market I’m putting them in this batter!

If you have any fresh spring rhubarb in your kitchen, this is a fantastic way to make use of it!



Lemon Buttermilk Rhubarb Bundt Cake
from Rustic Fruit Desserts

Cake

2 1/2 cups plus 2 tablespoons all purpose flour
1 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon fine sea salt
1 cup unsalted butter
1 3/4 cups granulated sugar
zest of 1 lemon
3 eggs
1/2 teaspoon lemon oil (i used lemon extract)
3/4 cup buttermilk
1 pound rhubarb, trimmed and very thinly sliced (3 cups prepped)

Lemon Glaze

2 cups confectioners sugar, more as needed
Juice of 1 lemon
1 tablespoon nearly melted butter

Preheat oven to 350. Butter a 10-cup bundt pan.

To make the cake, sift the 2 1/2 cups flour, the baking powder and salt together in a bowl. Using a handheld mixer with beaters or a stand mixer with the paddle attachment, cream the butter, sugar and lemon zest together on medium-high speed for 3 to 5 minutes, until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, scraping down the sides of the bowl after each addition, then stir in the lemon oil. Stir in the flour mixture in three additions alternating with the buttermilk in two additions, beginning and ending with the flour mixture and scraping down the sides of the bowl occasionally. The batter will be very thick.

Toss the rhubarb with the 2 tablespoons of flour and fold half into the batter. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and sprinkle the remaining rhubarb on top.

Bake for 30 minutes, then rotate the pan and cook for an additional 30 minutes, or until the center springs back when lightly touched. Cool the cake in its pan on the wire rack for 30 minutes before inverting and removing the pan.

To make the lemon glaze, whisk the confectioners sugar, lemon juice and butter together. The mixture should be thick. If it’s not, whisk in another tablespoon or two of the sugar. Spread the glaze over the cake as soon as you remove it from the pan.

Things I'm loving...

Gorgeous cows who walk right up to me and let me snap their picture.


Beautiful new to me blogs, Jasmine Tea and Summer Harms.



Warm days and blue skies.


The photography of Mikkel Vang and Rick Poon. So good it makes me swoon.



Tara Austen Weavers book all about her adventure into the world of meat.

My current favorite song, from She & Him.


Golden hour.

So tell me, what have you been loving lately?