TWD - Applesauce Spice Bars (Thanksgiving rewind)

Give me options and see me overextended. Once I got a yes-no-coin from a friend I visited in Budapest. She was completely enervated by my unability to meet a decision (how can I decide between strawberry and blueberry yoghurt? and what about vanilla? vanilla might be fine as well. and what to drink in the morning? coffee? tea? which tea? aaaaahhhhh!!!)

At the same time, when I read "rewind" I was all "hooray, I can pick one of the many, many recipes I missed because I strated TWD so late".

So I limited the enourmous range of possibilities. And limited them further, and further, and further, until... until I recognized that I have about a million apples waiting to be eaten. So in the end it was an easy decision. I opted for the Applesauce Spice Bars, originally due for August 18, 2009. You can find the recipe in Dorie's book on pages 117 and118 or on Karen's blog, who was the first to choose this recipe for a regular TWD. Her bars look perfect, just like the picture in the book.

I made the applesauce myself, what is pretty easy (just cook the cored and peeled apples as a whole in a tiny bit of water, until they fall apart by themselves). Apple sauce is incredible, because it has very few calories and still tastes so sweet! Love it.
I ate a bit of the bar with applesauce and vanilla pudding and completely enjoyed it.

Apples and fall are a wonderful combo. But honestly spoken, I am not too sorry fall is almost over and I can for some months leave all the (wonderful, fabulous and delicious) apple-recipes behind me, and head over to some other things.

TWD: Not-Just-For-Thanksgiving Cranberry Shortbread Cake

I had no idea what a Not-Just-For-Thanksgiving Cranberry Shortbread Cake as chosen by Jessica of Singleton in the Kitchen chose for this week's TWD, should look like. So I did what every decent 21st century women does - I googled it.

Therefore I hope, what I made is pretty close to what it should look like. Anyhow, it did taste excellent, but it was not too hard to convince me, because I adore shortbread. They are really my favourite kind of cookies. Because they are sweets, but more and the fat-and-a-tad-salty taste than on the complete sweet side. And that is just my cup of tea.
The cranberries match perfectly. I am glad I didn't switch to plums - my first intention. Because it is impossible to get fresh or frozen cranberries here. Only dried ones. Dried with a heavy load of sugar. But we have something similar, lingonberry-jam, which is served with deer. So that's what I used. I know, I know, I skipped making the jam myself. But honestly, you cant' really buy fresh lingonberries, only the ready-made jam. I mixed them with some of the dried cranberries, and ended up with a good mix for the filling.

Without the jam in the middle, the cake would be a bit too dry. All in all it was pretty, pretty easy to make (uhm, maybe only because I buyed the jam...) and fast and at least one of my colleagues (and me!) loved it!

You can finde the recipe on Jessicas page or on pages 208-209 of Dorie's book

TWD - Peanuttiest Blondies

OMG, Tuesday's almost over and I haven't blogged and it was not because I did work so much today (unfortunately). Some other thoughts just kept my far away from the computer...
But here we go.
I adore Blondies. I did already mention it one or two times: I haven't ever seen a blondie until February this year. No joke. Never. Doens't exist aorund here. But I fell in love with them immediately once I had my first bite at Amy's Bread in Bleecker Street in the Village.

And, I also mentioned one or two times (or a million of times) that I fancy, love, adore anything peanuts and in particular peanut butter.
So, absolutely nothing could go wrong with these  Peanuttiest Blondies chosen by Nicole of Bakeologie for this week's TWD. You can find the wonderful recipe in page 119 in Dorie's book or on Nicole's page.

I used only half the chocolate chips amount, and added the rest of the peanutbutter chips I had left. For the peanutbutter I didn't use Skippy's but indian peanutbutter. It is slightly softer than the ordinary peanutbutter, but it did work out fine. I like the taste of this kind of peanutbutter slightly more, because it is a bit more natural (I guess it only pretends to be...).

These were really excellent and wonderful, and because they are so easy to make, I will definitely do them again!