Bourbon Chocolate Pecan Pie, pg 97

I’ve had a phobia of making pies so I’ve just avoided them but all the pies from this cookbook had turned out really well so I was excited to try the pecan pie. Last time I made the pie crusts I made a double batch so I already had a crust ready. The recipe is super easy, aside from having to wait a few hours for the pie crust to freeze. It’s just a mix, fill and bake. We had just come back from vacation and everyone was very impressed when I showed up the next day with a homemade pie.

The Verdict: I’m not even going to lie, I ate probably 1/3 of the pie. Usually pecan pies are so sweet and heavy but this one wasn’t terribly sweet and the chocolate was a really nice mix. It was like a delicious cookie. Since it was a Friday and my office was near empty, I took a slice or two home and delivered it to my sister where she too declared it too delicious to share.

Tips for Next Time: None. Really. Perfect as is except that I omitted the bourbon. 

Sour Lemon Scones, pg 27

When I worked at the bakery we made the pastries for some local coffee shops. I was never fond of scones but this bakery did them right. They were amazing. Because they were so good, I was making large batches of scones 2 days a week for the coffee shops. I was a little too honest to steal the recipe from the bakery when I left which I totally regret now. I was hoping that this recipe could compare.

The Verdict: Wahhhhwaaaa. Ok, that’s a little dramatic. This recipe makes your classic scone which is the equivalent of shortbread. A giant triangle of shortbread. It wasn’t as dry as most but not as moist. The flavor was also very subtle. In the recipe it calls for ginger, doesn’t say if it’s powdered or microplaned or if it’s just a giant chunk. I went for the microplane approach. The lemon in the recipe is just lemon zest so between the lemon and the ginger it had just a hint of lemonish flavor. I didn’t like the way that it was so subtle so I made a glaze with lemon juice and powdered sugar.

Tips for Next Time: I’m going to keep looking for the perfect scone recipe which might be my equivalent of a unicorn.

Red Hot Velvet Cake, pg 53

I loathe red velvet cakes. I think that red velvet cakes are just for people who want an excuse to eat frosting because I don’t think that the cake tastes like anything. But it’s in the cookbook so it has to be made! I was flipping through the book one day looking for a recipe that wouldn’t require me to go to the store and this was the first one that I came across. Actually, I didn’t have dark unsweetened powdered chocolate but for some reason I bought TONS of unsweetened chocolate chips so I melted those down and used them.

The Verdict: I’m not going to lie, the frosting is delicious, but it’s also not light and fluffy. I don’t see how it could be, it’s literally milk, sugar and butter. I didn’t really care of the flour in the frosting, I could still taste it but it was tasty enough that I could overlook it. By adding the cinnamon it made it taste like cinnamon toast crunch, and there is nothing wrong with that. I sent the cake with my husband to his work so I didn’t get a slice but from the scraps, I think it was probably pretty tasty. Bonus points, the frosting doesn’t have eggs or cream cheese so I would feel a little bit more confident with leaving it out for a longer period of time.  Minus point, there is nothing “red hot” about this cake except for maybe the color and I was kinda expecting a spicy element.

Tips for Next Time: I would maybe cut down the food coloring a little bit next time but that’s just because 2 tablespoons of coloring grosses me out. If someone made me make a red velvet in the future (which I’m betting is pretty inevitable), I would probably make this one again.