Recipe #10 Citrus Bars

These wonderfully sweet, tart bars were inspired by traditional lemon bars.  All I did was change the lemon juice to a mixture of citrus juices and, voila!

Ingredients:
1 cup butter, softened to room temperature
1/2 cup white sugar
2 cups all-purpose flour
4 eggs
1 1/2 cups white sugar
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 lemon, juiced
1 lime, juiced
1 small orange, juiced
1 tablespoon grated citrus zest

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.  In a medium bowl, with a fork, blend together softened butter, 2 cups flour and 1/2 cup sugar.  Press into the bottom of an ungreased 9 x 13 inch pan.  Bake for 15-20 minutes or until firm and golden.  In a bowl or measuring cup, juice lemon, lime and orange.  (Note:  to keep seeds out of your juice, squeeze the fruit over your fingers so you can catch the seeds before they go into the bowl) Your fruit should yield between 5-6 tablespoons of juice. If it yields more, only add 6 tablespoons to the recipe. In another bowl, whisk together the remaining 1 1/2 cups sugar, 1/4 cup flour, eggs, 6 tablespoons citrus juice and the mixed citrus zest.  Pour over the baked crust.  Bake for an additional 20 minutes.  The bars will firm up as they cool.  Allow to cool completely and cut into squares or bars.

Recipe #9 Fall Fruit Napoleon

This recipe was inspired by my local grocery store.  Every time I have walked into a store over the last month or so, the first thing I am hit with is huge displays of apples and pears.  Fall fruit is becoming plentiful now, so I decided to do something about it.  I've always loved the elegant and tall Napoleon desserts with their many different layers, so that's what I have created here.

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups apple juice, divided
1 Granny Smith apple, peeled and diced into 1/2 inch cubes
1 Red Delicious apple, peeled and diced into 1/2 inch cubes
1 Bosc pear, peeled and diced into 1/2 inch cubes
1 Bartlett pear, peeled and diced into 1/2 inch cubes
1/2 tsp. apple pie spice or cinnamon
1 cup sugar
1 (14 oz) can whole berry cranberry sauce
4 teaspoons corn starch
whipped topping
1 box (2 sheets) puff pastry

Lay out puff pastry on a cutting board to thaw (takes about 30-40 minutes).  In a 2 quart sauce pan, bring 1 cup apple juice to a boil.  Add apples, apple pie spice (or cinnamon) and sugar.  Boil for about 5 minutes or until apples are tender. Lower heat to medium and add pears and cranberry sauce and simmer until cranberry sauce is completely melted.  In a small bowl combine 1/2 cup apple juice and corn starch and stir until well blended.  Pour cornstarch into simmering apple mixture.  Stir until mixture thickens, about 1-2 minutes.  Allow fruit mixture to cool while preparing other ingredients.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Lightly spray 2 cookie sheets with vegetable spray.  Open puff pastry sheets and roll out slightly to seal any creases.  Cut into 4 inch squares and place about 1 inch apart on cookie sheets.  Bake pastry for 10 minutes.  Pastry will puff up during baking.  With a spatula, press pastry down slightly to flatten.  Turn pastry over at this time.  Bake for 10-15 more minutes or until both sides of pastry are golden brown.  Allow pastry to cool to room temperature.

To assemble Napoleon dessert, lay one square of pastry onto serving plate.  Place a dollop of whipped topping on pastry.  Next, place one spoonful of fruit mixture.  Repeat process.  Place the last piece of pastry on top with a smaller dollop of cream and a smaller amount of fruit sauce. Try to get a piece of apple directly on top of the cream.  The layers should go as follows:  pastry, cream, fruit, pastry, cream, fruit, pastry, small amount of cream, small amount of fruit. Use the picture above as a guide.  This one is a little difficult to put together, but really easy to cook.

What I learned from this recipe:
-When using apples or pears in your desserts, the variety of the fruit is very important.  If you want a firmer apple with a little more tart flavor (like in apple pies), Granny Smith is the apple for you.  If you want something a little sweeter and you don't mind a softer texture, use Red Delicious.  Pears are pretty similar between varieties, but can be firm or very soft at different parts of it's life cycle.  The pears you get at the grocery store are very likely to be firm or even hard.  If you leave them on your cabinet for a few days or even up to a week, you can have a very soft, juicy pear.  For this recipe, you want a softer, riper pear.  However, if you can only find firm pears and don't have time to let them ripen, you can add them into the apple juice at the same time as the apples to let them cook a little longer.

Recipe #8 Doughnut Bread Pudding

Of course this recipe is inspired by traditional bread pudding.  I made one of these in the past with cake doughnuts and was wondering how it would turn out with yeast doughnuts.  It came out so good, my husband almost didn't let me give any of it out to my other taste testers (my in-laws).  I used fresh doughnuts because my local grocery store didn't have any day-old stock.

Ingredients:
18 yeast doughnuts 
4 cups (2 pints or 1 quart) Half & Half cream
6 eggs
2 Tablespoons vanilla
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Lightly spray a 9x13 inch baking pan with vegetable spray.  Tear doughnuts into 4-6 pieces and place pieces into baking pan.  In a large bowl, beat eggs well.  Add cream, vanilla and cinnamon to eggs.  Pour cream mixture over doughnuts.  using a fork, spoon or even your fingers, press doughnuts down into cream.  Allow to soak for about one hour, pressing down a few times during the soaking time so that the cream has time to moisten all of the doughnuts.  Cover pan with aluminum foil and bake for 1 hour.  Remove foil and allow to brown for about 20 minutes or until center is set and the top is golden brown.  The center is set when it no longer jiggles when moved or when a knife inserted into the center comes out clean.  Serve warm with ice cream or with rum sauce.

Rum Sauce:  Melt 1 tablespoon of butter in a small bowl.  Add 1 tablespoon of rum (Captain Morgan spiced rum is my favorite).  Add in 2 cups of powdered sugar and stir.  Add 1 tablespoon of milk at a time until sauce is at desired consistancy.  I like my sauce pretty thin, so I usually have to add about 4 tablespoons of milk to mine. If you don't mind the taste of raw rum, you can always spike it a little more by adding another tablespoon if you dare.

What I learned from this recipe:
- this recipe was sweet enough with all the glaze from the doughnuts, that I didn't have to add any sugar to the custard.  It's so much easier to find glazed doughnuts than it is to find them unglazed.
-Pretty much any yeast doughnut could be used for this recipe, so if you like apples, you might want to try this recipe with apple fritters.  You may only need 5 or 6 fritters depending on their size.  You could always get 10 and then eat whatever doesn't fit in the pan ;-)   (or freeze the leftovers for the next bread pudding).