Raspberry-Lemon Mini Pies

It must be pie week in the Rainy Baker household! Coincidentally, after baking my Meyer Lemon Pie yesterday afternoon, we learned new pie techniques later that evening in class. This left me with a lot of leftover pie dough. Mini pies are all the rage right now, appearing all over foodgawker and the blogasphere. I have never tackled mini pies before and thought this would be an excellent use for my scraps of pie dough. This is a good reason to always save any extra pie dough you may have! I also had leftover raspberries and Meyer Lemons from previous baking experiments and thought these would be a lovely combination for my pies.

Shaker Lemon Pie

It's that time of year again, everyone! Meyer Lemon season. If you have never had a Meyer Lemon, it is a delicious, sweeter relative of the common lemon. Originally native to China, the Meyer Lemon is a cross between a lemon and a mandarin orange. Due to their temperamental nature, the majority of Meyer Lemon crops are only able to be harvested between November and April. I was lucky enough to stumble across a bag of them at Costco last week and I knew that I had to use them to make a Shaker Lemon Pie!

Easy as Pie Dough

A good pie is made up of two parts: a delicious filling and a flaky pie crust. Too often do people spend hours putting together a delicious pie filling and a beautifully decorated crust, only to eat the filling and throw away the rest. When I ask people why they don't make a fresh crust instead of buying a frozen one, most people respond that it is simply too difficult. Making pie dough is, well, easy as pie and the outcome is delicious!

Sweet Potato Rosemary Crackers (Daring Bakers' Challenge)

A lot of the blogs that I am currently following participate in a monthly challenge called the Daring Bakers' Challenge. At the beginning of every month a new host issues a baking challenge -- anything from pretzels to doughnuts to tortelettes -- and we post our completed challenges on the 27th of the same month.

Sarah from All Our Fingers in the Pie was our February 2013 Daring Bakers' host and she challenges us to use our creativity in making our own Crisp Flatbreads and Crackers! :)

First Day of Baking School and Chocolate Chip-Walnut Cookies

My first day of baking school. Back to the basics. The first technique we learned was the creaming method -- mixing air into fat and sugar to assist in the leavening process during baking. Our first homework assignment to utilize this technique was to bake a classic: Chocolate-Walnut Cookies. 

Raspberry Swirl Cupcakes

A sweet for my sweetie!

A couple days late for this Valentine's Day posting but the DH and I just got back from a quick trip to Sin City for a work convention. However, I think it is never too late to make a sweet treat for your sweetie! 

For this Valentine's Day I was set on making something with raspberries in it. My first attempt was chocolate-raspberry petits fours that ended up more like chocolate-raspberry mush once I coated them with poured fondant. Sigh. 

Second attempt, Vanilla-Raspberry Swirl Cupcakes. From this attempt I learned two things: 1) do not buy cupcake liners at the dollar store no matter how cute and, well, cheap they are; and 2) do not try to bake anything in a four-day-trip-to-Vegas exhausted state. Things will not turn out as expected.  

Peanut Butter-Banana Bread with Chocolate Chips and Walnuts

Banana, chocolate, peanut-butter, oh my!

I always seem to be a little over zealous of my ability to eat an entire bunch of bananas. I usually eat two or three bananas and then completely forget about the rest of the bunch. About a week later, I will find the rest of the bananas on the counter, very ripe, very brown and very inedible. Luckily, very ripe bananas combined with a few spices, some sugar and some flour becomes extremely delicious banana bread!