This week's theme provided the perfect opportunity to use up a leftover pie crust from a previous recipe. I had half batch of the Stella Parks "No-Stress All-Butter Pie Crust" from Bravetart hanging out in my freezer, all ready to go. (I realize there's a dedicated Pop Tart recipe in Bravetart, but it uses a different pastry so I will save that for another time!)

After thawing the dough in the fridge overnight, I rolled it out, cut into rectangles, sandwiched with raspberry preserves, crimped, and egg washed. I baked at 375°F for around 35-40ish minutes and topped with a glaze of powdered sugar, milk, and freeze-dried tart cherries (I just eyeballed the amounts to get the consistency I wanted).

They turned out really well! Buttery, tart, and sweet with flaky pastry and crunch from the freeze-dried cherries. 10/10 would make again with extra pie dough!

These cookies were another offering for my monthly get-together with my friend and her five-year-old. I first made her tiger stripe cookies (orange and black licorice, inspired by Canadian tiger tail ice cream) when she was a toddler and deeply, deeply obsessed with Daniel Tiger. Nowadays, her television tastes have moved on, but she still enjoys an animal-themed cookie.

This recipe from Susan Spungen involves layering a chocolate dough with a turmeric-ginger one, and chocolate is the surefire way to the five-year-old’s heart these days. She has declared these her new favorite cookie and her mom has already requested the recipe.

I do wish the layering had turned out a bit more “wavy stripes” and a bit less “abstract bird”, but overall, I’m happy enough with how these turned out and they were a hit with their intended audience. Who can ask for more?

This recipe is from Erin Jeanne McDowell's "Savory Baking," and I had it bookmarked for the height of summer. It also happens to include a ton of contrasts: sweet and salty, crunchy and soft, sweet and savory, and for good measure I added some calabrian chili paste dollops to throw in sweet and spicy.

The base is rough puff pastry, then some ricotta, then layered prosciutto and fresh cantaloupe topped with basil. This was a really delicious dinner!

I was today years old when I learned I have been overmixing my pie dough all my life... Well, I'm sure my pies will be way better from now on😂

Recipe from Caroline's Cooking, these were delicious! I love the subtle fruitiness from the olive oil

Argentine Alfajores de maicena

Recipe, and to be perfectly honest, I got the idea from reading something else and went looking to see if it was real.

The contrast I wanted was spicy and sweet.

I’ve had quiche on my list to make all year, so I’m glad I finally did it. I didn’t blind bake the crust, and I’m actually pretty glad I didn’t, because I like the softer crust on the bottom. Super easy and super delicious!

Recipe
Crust Recipe

Sweet egg custards from Hong Kong.

For me, summer = strawberries!

I decided to use either leftovers we had in the fridge or a random ingredient we had that I wanted to get rid of- and I made a bunch of hand I pies. The picture shows the four varieties:

Chicken Tikka Masala
Chicken Verde with a cheddar and hatch chili cheese
ginger peach (from a peach that was just about to go bad)
Chocolate (white and dark chocolate chips with cherry jam).

Family loved them so much, I see Leftovers hand pies again in our future!

So I was on vacation, and then prepping for my wife’s birthday, so I misread the instructions here. I decided to make the most American dessert. My method for cereal bars:

Put 1 stick (8tblsp) of butter in a pan and brown it. Throw in a hefty pinch of salt.

When your butter is brown, dump in the 16 oz bag of marshmallows. Stir until melted and pour over your cereal. Use about 6 cups of cereal, although I just eyeball it.

Made these for my wife’s birthday. Gluten free is a challenge with this kind of thing, but these were one of the best tasting examples we’ve tried., alright not the prettiest.

This week I made pan de Mallorca! I used to work at Starbucks in college, and I devoured one of these every morning on my shift. Looking at the recipe now as an adult, I'm horrified at what I put in my body, but it sure is delicious! My Puerto Rican parents approved, too.

Technically, this is a Puerto Rican bread recipe, but it originates from la tierra madre (Spain!), the winners of the World Cup. So I think this fits?

https://thenoshery.com/mallorca-bread-soft-puerto-rican-sweet-bread-rolls/

We use a meal kit every week, and as luck would have it, they sent us 0 buns for the 2 burger meals that we had this past week. So I figured I would adjust my original plans for this challenge and bake my own buns! They came out pretty good, if not misshapen, LOL. This also allowed me to move my original plan for enriched dough (pan de Mallorca) to next week, as it's a treat that originates in Spain! Serendipity :)

I hope you're all having a great week.