Lick Your Lips Lemon Curd!

This is a great recipe to give as a gift for the holidays or just to have on hand for snacking. I absolutely LOVE lemon curd - it is basically like a chocolate sauce, but lemon. Ha! I use it on toast, cookies, mixed with yogurt, ice-cream, as a cheesecake topping, fold into whipcream,  - basically anything you would put a topping on, I use it on. It is really, really easy to make - so easy in fact, Loni made this batch below. Enjoy!


Lick Your Lips Lemon Curd


2 cups sugar
1 1/4 cup fresh lemon juice (we used about 4 lemons and had plenty)
4 large eggs plus 4 large yolks
1/4 cup finely grated lemon peel (about 4 lemons)
1 1/2 sticks (6 ounces) unsalted butter, cut into chunks

First optional step: Enlist a handsome husband who is actually interested in learning how to make curd. <3!

Whisk sugar and lemon juice together in a medium sauce pan over medium heat. Beat eggs and yolks together prior to adding to pan. Add eggs and lemon peel to sauce mixture in pan. Stir together. Add the butter (cut into chunks) to the mixture, still stirring/whisking constantly.  

Lower heat to simmer, unitl mixture reaches 160 degrees on a candy thermometer. Immediately remove from heat, strain through a fine mesh strainer into a clean bowl. This is important because there are flakes of lemon peel which you will need to remove. Immediately cover with saran wrap and let cool to room temperature. Once cooled, transfer to airtight container and refrigerate. Curd is good for up to one month in the fridge. Package and hand out as gifts. I kept mine simple - the jars were already cute. 

Tip: to make it more lemon-y, add more lemon juice.

 Yes - he is grating the lemon peels...and I love him for that!

*Peach* Reduction Sauce

In case you are wondering, this IS a sauce which can accompany the Southern Peach Pound Cake (detailed here). I created this sauce on Sunday for my FIL's 76th(!) birthday party to go along with the pound cake I made. It ended up being a DELICIOUS addition and was so easy to make I will probably make it again and again. Sadly I didn't take a picture of anything, but you will have to TRUST me that it was delicious.

Peach Reduction Sauce

about 4 cups fruit (frozen or fresh)[I used 4 large peaches],
1 cup sugar
1 cup orange juice
1 tbsp cornstarch (to thicken)
Add 1/4 cup orange zest

Slice and peel fruit if neccessary. Place all ingredients in a sauce pan and mix thouroughly. Heat over medium heat, bring to a rolling boil. Continue boiling for about 5 minutes, stirring constantly. Reduce heat to low and continue heating until fruit is tender. Transfer to a bowl and serve immediately (or seal in airtight container to serve later). Makes a delicious addition to cakes, ice cream, pancakes....basically anything you want to!

Happy Baking!
Kristy

The BEST Oatmeal Raisin Cookies...EVER

I swear my post title is not lying to you; these are absolutely THE BEST oatmeal raisin cookies I have ever tasted. Here are some fact to prove my title is not lying:


1. My husband is against anything oatmeal cookie related. He, however, could not stop eating these cookies.
2. I am on a diet and I broke my diet for one day specifically to eat these after I made them bc I couldn't stop with just a taste test.
3. I invited my parents over to try them and they ate 5 each, then took 7 more each to take to the movie with them. Then they asked me to get back the remaining cookies I had given to my inlaws and give to them. Haha.


I promise you won't be able to have just one. If you don't like them - I will personally make some and send them to you to try again (maybe). Ha-Ha.**

Oatmeal Raisin Cookies
1 cup shortening
1 cup sugar
1 cup light brown sugar, firmly packed
2 eggs (i prefer mine at room temp)
2 tbsp milk (i used whole, though buttermilk would work as well)
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 cup flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
4 cups old fashioned oats (i used slightly over four cups)
2 cups raisins* (i didn't measure mine out - just dumped in until I liked how it looked)
*chocolate chips or nuts can be substituted/added as desired

 Heat oven to 375F. In bowl, blend shortening with the white and brown sugars, adding the sugars gradually. Add eggs, blending between each, milk and vanilla; beat well until mixed throughly. Add flour, salt and baking soda, mixing well. Stir in oats and raisins (or other additions). Drop by rounded tablespoonfuls onto greased cookie sheet. I fit 12 cookies onto each sheet. Bake for 13 - 15 minutes or until golden brown. I baked mine for 12 and let them sit on sheet for a couple minutes after I pulled them out to cook for a little bit longer. Remove from tray and let cool on wire rack. Makes about 46 cookies. Enjoy with a nice glass of milk!   

HAPPY BAKING!

Kristy

**Please note this step before you begin: Employ a hearty group of anxious children who want to help, but more so want a chance to lick the beaters. According to my eldest daughter, "Look Mom, we're chefs!"

Southern Peach Pound Cake and Chasing the Moon

My other passion besides baking, is reading. I L.O.V.E. to read - anything and everything fiction. Christy actually suggested this author to me (Sarah Addison Allen), specifically the The Girl Who Chased the Moon - and I fell head over heels for it. It was so charming, magical and well written that I can easily say it is one of my top 10 favorite books. In it, one of the main characters is a baker and she bakes all of these fancy cakes. At the back of the book there are some recipes of three of the cakes she bakes, so I decided to try one of the recipes (and will try the others soon as well - so look for those posts). This cake was absolutely delicious, was gone within an hour of fininshing and will definitely be a staple dessert in my house for years to come. I am actually making another one this week, but substituting raspberries for the peaches to see what happens.

Southern Peach Pound Cake (as taken from The Girl Who Chased the Moon)

1 cup butter or margarine, softened
2 cups white sugar
4 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
2 cups fresh peaches (pitted, peeled and chopped)

Cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, beating with each addition, then stir in the vanilla

Reserve 1/4 cup flour for later, and sift together the remaining flour, salt and baking powder. Gradually stir into the creamed mixture. Use the reserved flour to coat the chopped peaches, then fold the floured peaches into the batter.

Spread evenly into a 10-in tube pan (I substituted a bundt cake pan), that has been buttered and coated with white sugar (I made sure to coat with plenty of sugar).

Bake for 60 - 70 minutes in a 325-degree oven, or until a toothpick inserted into the cake comes out clean.

 Allow the cake to cool on the pan for 10 minutes before inverting onto a wire rack to cool completely (I let the cake cool completely in the bundt pan before trying to remove it). Voila! Southern Peach Pound Cake. (Please excuse my christmas-themed plate. We just moved into our house and I am desparate need of a cake stand or platters).



Disclaimer: This is not my recipe - I take no credit for creating this cake, I simply tried it out and loved it!

Happy Baking!

Kristy

Meet the Bakers

Hello! We are Christy Snavely and Kristy Weaver. We have been friends for about three years now and not only share a fantastic first name, but also a love of baking and trying new things. We initially started baking together and I believe our first attempt was a pastry from the Rachel Ray magazine (picture below). We had so much fun doing that, that we decided we would get together as often as we can to try new recipes, make old recipes better and just have fun along the way. We have done piroshkis, jam, lemon curd and quiches to name a just a few of the items we have baked. We hope you enjoy the ride with us and always remember "At least you can tell its homemade". :)

Christy Snavely

I'm the "C" of the C&K bakery team. My name is Christy and I didn't grow up baking nor do I come from a family of bakers. In fact, the chocolate chip cookies I grew up on were Nestles Slice-n-Bake cookies. My mom worked a full time job so she did not have the time nor the money to make homemade chocolate anything! That is Until Rachel Ray's debut on the food network. Now she is a cooking fool, collecting subscriptions of Everyday with Rachel Ray. A couple of years ago for Christmas my mom even gave me a year free subscription to her magazine. Go figure...Oh we had thirty minute meals alright, that consisted of ground beef tacos or spaghetti with iceberg salad ranch dressing. Dessert if we had anything consisted of packaged cookies and vanilla ice cream with Hershey's Chocolate syrup. After growing up on Sizzler for the all you can eat salad bar, ground beef tacos and spaghetti, I'm not sure how at age thirty-something i've become an obsessed "Foodie", working a catering job and taking professional baking classes. Where and how this all came about is beyond me.


Kristy Weaver
I started baking when I was seven years old with Chocolate Chip Cookies which I would send to my uncle and grandparents in Arizona. The kitchen has always fascinated me - how you can have these random ingredients in your cuboard but then by mixing them together, it creates something fantastic (well most of the time). I am by no means a professional, but I will try pretty much any recipe I find. I enjoy the challenge of baking something new- finding out if I can do it and make it taste good. I hope this blog helps you be inspired to try something. Happy Baking!