Weekend Brunch

Tags

almond, berries, berry, breakfast, brunch, crêpes, food, foodie, nutella, pancake, postaday2011, recipe, strawberry, vegetarian

Strawberry Almond Pancakes with Nutella
Hubster loves loves loves breakfast food… (but only in the morning) so I was pushing it with brunch yesterday. Strawberries are extremely plentiful currently… so of course I had to incorporate them. Paired with strawberries, Nutella is always an obvious choice. With my, almond extract is always my go to ingredient, so whole almonds had to be incorporated.  I usually make this recipe with sweet crêpes, but the batter needs to rest before making them. I thought about making a puff pancake, but it’s been too hot to turn the oven on. So, traditional pancakes it was!

Strawberry Almond Pancakes with Nutella Drizzle

How To:
I made pancakes using my favorite pancake batter, adding a few Tbsp. almond extract and brown sugar. Then I layered with almonds, strawberries and drizzled with Nutella.

Hubster was in Brunch Heaven…

What’s for breakfast/brunch today?

Advertisement

Strawberry Pizza

Tags

berry, brunch, cheese cheese frosting, cookie, cookie pizza, cream cheese, dessert, food, foodie, fruit pizza, pizza, postaday2011, recipe, strawberry, sugar cookie, summer desserts, summer recipe, vegetarian

This weekend we had picnics on Saturday, Sunday and Monday… and yesterday was the picnic for my classes! What did I plan it the day after a full 3 day weekend? Each marking period I have a competition between my three classes, and one section has won every single marking period this year! Their final prize? They wanted me to make them some of my fruit pizza. I’m not sure how the word of mouth reached my students, but I willingly agreed. So yesterday, they gobbled down this delicious Strawberry Pizza.  I used my trusted fruit pizza recipe, appropriate since I was harassed this weekend for not bringing this dessert to our family & friends’ picnics.

Strawberry Fruit Pizza

What is your go to summer dessert recipe?

Blackberry Cream Cheese Pie

Tags

almond cream cheese pie, berry, berry dessert, blackberry, blackberry dessert, blackberry drizzle, blackberry sauce, cream cheese pie

Hubster’s family does Thanksgiving dinner buffet style, both sides of the family spread out in several different rooms. Just like any Thanksgiving, there’s always the traditional pumpkin pie and apple pie with vanilla ice cream. My MIL has everything covered, so only thing left for me to bring is another dessert. Last year I made chocolate gingerbread baby bundts and mini white chocolate raspberry cakes. This year, I made a variation on my raspberry cream cheese pie. It was a daring move since his one aunt usually makes a cheesecake, but it was still well perceived.

Blackberry Cream Cheese Pie

I whipping up a batch of brownie batter, pouring half of it into a large spring form pan. I baked it for about 15 minutes and allowed it to cool. I removed the brownie crust from the pan and placed on a dish. I then whipped up a batch of the cream cheese filling and spread it on top of the brownie. Instead of making a raspberry drizzle, I pulled blackberries out of the freezer to make a blackberry sauce. I made my blackberry sauce a little differently than I normally do, using what ingredients I had on hand. After the sauce was cooled, I poured it over my cream cheese pie.

Blackberry Sauce Ingredients:
2 1/2 c. black berries, 1 Tbs. lemon zest, 1/2 c. blackberry wine, 1/2 c. sugar, 1/4 c. flour

Blackberry Sauce Directions:
Place blackberries, lemon zest and wine in small sauce pan and simmer over low heat. Add sugar and mash berries until only small pieces remain. Slowly stir in flour and remove from heat. Allow sauce to cool before pouring over filling.

*If you don’t have almond extract on hand for the filling, use the same amount of Amaretto.

I realized after the fact that this recipe is a hybrid of my brown bites recipe and my raspberry cream cheese pie recipe. My one nephew even said, “This is like the winter version of your fruit pizza.” Another said, “Aunt R, This is really good, you have to make this for my birthday.”

Fruit Pizza

Tags

berry, berry dessert, berry pizza, blackberry, blackberry dessert, cookie pie, cream cheese, dessert, dessert pizza, dessert recipe, fruit pizza, lemon, lemon dessert, strawberry, strawberry dessert, sugar cookie

Happy Memorial Day! This post goes out to Uncle Tony who paid the ultimate price for our country.

Yesterday, I made fruit pizza for our family get together at Uncle Tony’s memorial pavilion. Hubster’s aunt pointed out that I am always designated to bring the dessert. Hmm. Either they don’t like my food, or they really like my desserts. I’m going with the latter of the two. As his aunt told her friends, “She makes those things in cookbooks that you look at and think ‘Wow, who would ever make that?’ She would, that’s who.” Before we were even there an hour, three people already asked for the recipe, one even wrote it down. Maybe they were just being nice, but I didn’t mind the flattery. So here it is…

Fruit pizza is a yummy dessert that your kids can help make.

Fruit Pizza

Crust Directions:
Use your favorite sugar cookie recipe or a package of ready to use sugar cookie dough. Spread out on a large round or rectangle baking tray and bake until set. Cool before adding frosting.

Frosting Ingredients:
1 – 8 oz. pkg. cream cheese, 3/4 c. sugar, zest of 2 lemons, 2 tsp. almond extract

Frosting Directions:
Soften cream cheese, mix ingredients until smooth. Spread on cooled sugar cookie.

Topping Ingredients:
Today I chose strawberries and blackberries. Choose any combination of you favorite fruits, Strawberries, kiwis, blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, chocolate syrup or melted chocolate.

Topping Directions:
Layer fruit on the frosting. Drizzle with chocolate syrup or melted chocolate and garnish with chocolate curls.

*Double up the batch of sugar cookie dough, make it twice as thick and have a “Sicilian” Fruit Pizza.

Berry Pizza Close-Up

What are your Memorial Day plans? Who are you honoring?

My Gallery Shots: