Vittles Divine

This recipe is for all of you pumpkin pie lovers out there. This. is. better. For realsies. I got this from my friend Susie and it's the bomb diggity. I think it's something like 8000 calories per bite, but it's worth it .  Not exactly cake... not exactly pie.... just think of it as pumpkin perfection on a plate and go with it. Crust : 1 box yellow cake mix (reserve 1 cup for topping) 1/2 cup melted butter 1 egg Filling : 20 oz pureed pumpkin (not 29 ounces!) 12 oz can of evaporated milk 1 and 1/2 cup sugar 4 eggs 1 tsp salt 2 tsp cinnamon 1 tsp vanilla 1 tsp ginger 1/4 tsp ground cloves Topping : 1 cup cake mix (that has been reserved) 1/4 cup sugar 1 tsp cinnamon 1/8 cup butter Directions: Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray 9 x 13 pan (I used just a metal cake pan). Mix together CRUST ingredients and spread into the bottom of pan. Mix FILLING ingredients together very well and pour over crust. Mix TOPPING ingredients together until crum...

I fancy myself to be a decent cook, but I am a longstanding baking failure.  These two skills don't necessarily go hand in hand and I have moaned about it quite a bit lately. Recently I received a very timely, rather lengthy, and somewhat threatening email from my good friend Emily. She's a very accomplished baker, not that you can tell from the size of her skinny jeans, but whatever. My recent complaints troubled her deeply enough that she felt it was time to stage a no-nonsense intervention before my children lost all hope for homebaked goods and my husband started sniffing at the neighbors' kitchen doors. She admonished me to unleash the Baker Within. She pointed me toward an amazing recipe that is designed specifically for high-altitude baking and sent me a private discourse on the do's and dont's for novice bakers. The result: a paragon of cookie perfection. I am a baker . I bake. I made 54 absolutely perfect chocolate chip cookies.  Not doughy....

Justin asks for banana bread weekly. I'm not sure why , considering my last attempt (7 years ago) was a total bust. Last week he came home from work carrying a bundle of bananas as a gift for me himself, begging me to transform them into baked goods. I took to the internet in search of a fail-proof recipe and hit the jackpot . I don't actually own a bread pan, but I do own mini-muffin tins ! I modified the recipe to suit my equipment and it was a super-success. These are the best banana muffins I have ever eaten. In fact, it's the best banana "bread" I have ever had (and I just paid $4.99 last week for a loaf from Kneaders). I realize they don't look very special, but they are insanely moist and uniformly delectable, with no "crust" to speak of. It's like 48 inside slices of banana bread with the crusts cut off... when you are only baking something for 15 minutes, there isn't time for the outsides to get extra crispy. Ingredients 1/...

I learned this "recipe" while I was teaching English in Russia 15 years ago. I was thinking about it recently and decided to make it again so that I could see if it was as delicious as I remembered. It was, and then some! In fact, I was hard-pressed to convince my neighbor's husband that I really and truly only used one ingredient. Ingredient: 1 can of sweetened condensed milk Directions: Take the wrapper off the can. Boil the UNOPENED can in a pot of water for *3 hours. Keep adding water as it evaporates. Keeping a lid on the pot really helps with that problem. Stir the can once in a while. Tip it over, roll it around, whatever. Remove it from the pot after 3 hours. Set aside until cool. When I made it, I set it aside for about an hour, but the can still felt hot. At that point I dropped it in a bowl of ice water for about 4 minutes and then it was all ready. Open the can, scoop out the yummy, decadent deliciousness, and serve as a sweet, carmel-like dip! It i...

Let me describe them this way: "Muffins so good even Crew will eat them." Many of you know that I am not a baker. At all . Nevertheless, after sampling a few dozen of these mini-muffins on a recent visit to my friend Kerrin's house, I rallied my courage and bought ingredients for the proffered recipe. Only 48 cents for baking soda? Who knew? I am pleased (and a little shocked) to report that they turned out just as good as Kerrin's . Ingredients: Wet Mix: 1 cup pumpkin (or 1 cup pureed canned yams!) 2 eggs 1/4 cup vegetable oil 1/4 apple sauce Dry Mix: 2.5 cups all-purpose flour 2 cups sugar 1 tsp pumpkin pie spice 1 tsp baking soda 1/2 tsp salt Final Add-in 2 cups peeled and chopped apples Streusel Topping: 2 tsp flour 1/4 cup sugar 1/2 tsp cinnamon Cut in 4 Tbs cold butter (I grated it with a cheese grater!) Directions: Mix dry mixture and wet mixture separately. Mix together just until wet. Stir in apples. Spoon batter into greased mini-muffin cups, fill 3...