anna bakes - pear clafouti

I made this pear clafouti a few weeks ago, and it turned out so well that I made another one yesterday for a dinner my roommate and I hosted. I used Ina Garten's recipe, and it was so easy and so delicious I was surprised clafouti are not more popular! It was great warm, room-temp, and chilled. You really can't go wrong with this one. I'm looking forward to making another with different fruit - cherries, raspberries, topped with almonds... The possibilities are endless!

anna lusts - summer cakes

It is officially my birthday month, which has me thinking about cake. Last year I was in a baking mood, and so I made my own cake - a chocolate cake with chocolate buttercream frosting. It was delicious. I'm planning to go out on my birthday this year, but that hasn't stopped me from lusting over a few summery cakes. Here are three of my favorites:

Martha Stewart's Coconut Cloud Cake

Food52's Icebox Cake:

Blackjack Bakehouse's Lemony Cream Butter Cake:

You can follow my "Cake" board on Pinterest here!

anna bakes - 4th of july pie

For the fouth of July this year, I decided to bake a red, white, and blue American flag pie. Check out my inspiration via Woman's Day magazine here. 

Here's my pie:

And here's how I did it:

Step 1: Make your pie dough. Refrigerate. 

I used Ina Garten's Perfect Pie Crust recipe with a 9in pie plate, which left enough extra dough to make a crostata the next day.

Pre-heat the oven to 400F.

Step 2: Assemble your fruit, keeping the blue fruit separate (this will make up the stars part of your pie flag).

I used 4 peaches (white), 1 carton of raspberries and 1 carton of strawberries (red), and 1 carton of blueberries (blue). I also used the zest of one orange to flavor the fruit. 

Step 3: Wash, cut, and combine your fruit with granulated white sugar, lemon juice, and orange zest. 

I used 1/4 cup sugar for the blueberries, which were on the sour side, and 1/2 cup sugar for the rest of the fruit. Set aside. 

Step 4: Roll out one half of your dough until it is pretty thin (you will almost be able to see through it).

Step 5: Arrange the dough in the 9in pie plate. Refrigerate.

Step 6: Roll out the other half of the dough and cut into stars and stripes. 

Step 7: Assemble the pie. 

Step 8: Bake at 400F for 10 minutes, then turn the oven down to 350F and cook for another 40 minutes. 

Step 9: Enjoy!

anna bakes - holiday cookies

I made my grandma's roll out cookies this week - you can get the recipe here.

The secret to these cookies is rolling out the dough super thin. It should be thin enough for you to see your fingers through. Letting the dough rest overnight is also key. 

Happy holidays!

anna cooks - homemade granola bars

A few years ago I made this recipe for Banana Chocolate Breakfast Bars from the blog Chocolate and Zucchini. They came out very well, but I then totally forgot about the recipe until this past week. I was going to visit my boyfriend for the weekend, and since he is trying to loose a few pounds after his summer in Brussels, I decided to bring him these granola bars, instead of my usual cookies or brownies.

This time I added dried cherries - I love the combination of cherries and chocolate - as well as more shredded coconut to the recipe. They came out so well that I made them two days in a row! Easy, delicious, and healthy, this is a must try recipe.

Oh, and this recipe is vegan! No butter or honey, etc.

Vegan* Chocolate, Cherry Granola Bars 

Adapted from Banana Chocolate Breakfast Bars on Chocolate and Zucchini, which adapted its recipe from Nikki's Healthy Cookie Recipe on Heidi's 101 Cookbooks.

*As long as the chocolate you use is vegan!

- 2 cups rolled oats
- 2/3 cup ground almonds (I ground mine in a food processer)
- 1/2 cup dried, unsweetened grated coconut
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 4 very ripe, medium bananas
- 1/2 teaspoon natural vanilla extract
- 1/4 cup slightly warmed coconut oil (may substitute whole almond butter or olive oil)
- About 3 1/2 ounces semi-sweet chocolate chips (may substitute with a darker chocolate)
- About 1/4 cup dried, sweetened cherries chopped (about in quarters)**

**You can add any type of dried fruit you'd like - cranberries, blueberries, pineapple, etc. It is a very flexible recipe.  

Preheat the oven to 350°F and grease an 8x8 baking dish with vegetable oil.

In a medium mixing bowl, combine the oats, ground almonds, coconut, and salt. Set aside.

In another medium mixing bowl, combine the bananas, vanilla, and coconut oil, and mash together using a potato masher. Add the oats mixture and mix well. Fold the chocolate and cherries in gently.

Pour into the prepared baking dish, level the surface, and put into the oven. Bake for 25 minutes, or until the top is set and the edges are golden-brown. Let cool completely before slicing.

Cut into bars of your preferred size and wrap in wax paper or saran wrap. Decorate with stickers.

baking, etc. - anniversary pie

Yesterday was my parents' 29th wedding anniversary. My mom made a pie to celebrate. She is a master pie maker. Photo credit goes to Dad Devine.

As I mentioned in my last post, it is almost September but there is still lots of summer food I need to make! I have been meaning to bake a pie since I got this light blue bird pie funnel from Sur La Table for christmas.

Perhaps this peach and raspberry pie recipe from Saveur Magazine is in my future...

Do you have any favorite summer pie recipes?

anna parties - birthday cake

Yesterday was my birthday! I turned 25. I had a little after dinner party of cake and prosecco on our roofdeck. Despite generous offers from others, I decided I wanted to make my own birthday cake. For me, birthdays are all about the cake. I chose Ina Garten's Beatty's Chocolate Cake with Chocolate Buttercream Frosting.

I had never made it before, but it turned out wonderful. It was an easy cake to make, and the buttermilk in it made it very moist and delicious. The frosting was good, but definitely on the sweet side. I might make something less sweet next time.

Here's to my first quarter century!

PS: For more info on the dress I'm wearing, click here. 

anna cooks - dessert

Last night my friend Alyssa had my roommate and I over for dinner and an episode of Downton Abbey. I offered to bring dessert, and ended up making a twist on Ina Garten's Peach and Blueberry Crumble. I love this recipe, because you can swap the fruit depending on what is in season. For this crumble, I decided to use peaches, strawberries, and rhubarb. The result was a cute pink dessert that was perfect for our girls' night.

Peach, Strawberry, Rhubarb Crumble - A Photo Recipe.

The exact ingredients and measurements can be found here.

Step 1: Mix the fruit with lemon zest, lemon juice, sugar, and flour.

Step 2: Mix the dry ingredients until the butter is the size of peas. 

Step 3: Put the fruit mixture into ramekins and top with the crumble -- add more crumble than you think you need, because it fall down into the ramekin during baking. 

Step 4: Bake with a lined baking sheet under the ramekins at 350F for 45 minutes, or until the top is golden brown.  

Step 5: Top with heavy cream and enjoy!

nails, etc.

This weekend was particularly gorgeous in Boston. It was 75F and sunny all weekend long, which made it a great chance to sport new summer styles. While I've always enjoyed painting my toe nails, I've recently starting painting my finger nails as well. It is a fast and easy way to add color to an outfit.

Today I wanted to share my newest nail polish experiment. I was inspired by this picture on instagram from Meredith (author of the blog one sheepish girl) of @sheepishknitcrochet.

   

I happend to have a bottle of OPI (sparkle-icious) glitter nail polish I stole from my sister (sorry Jackie!), as well as a new coral, pinky color from Essie (e-nuf is e-nuf) I got on sale at CVS.  

I layered the two, because the OPI glitter polish is more like a top coat with specs of glitter. You would need to do many coats to get a full glitter look. 

I'm calling this duo Birthday Cake Nails, because the mix of the rainbow glitter on the pinky-red reminds me of a birthday cake. Perfect for summer!

Pink Vanilla Bean Birthday Cake by Smells Like Home on Flickr

packaging, etc.

A Finals Week Survival Treat

Finals. I've been there. It is a stressful time. And while I'm not in college anymore, I thought I'd send a little finals week survival treat to some friends who are. 

Homemade cookies are my go-to item for de-stressing during finals. I decided to bake some chocolate chip walnut cookies using the Original NESTLÉ® TOLL HOUSE® recipe. 

While the cookies make studying a little bit sweeter, the bubble wrap is there to help relieve some of that finals week induced agression.   

And for those of you sitting at your computer feeling stressed, here is some virtual bubble wrap to take the edge off:

~enjoy~

anna gifts - grandma's cookies

Printable Grandma DeSimone's Butter Cookies Recipe Card Now Available Here!

I made the rest of the Grandma DeSimone's Butter Cookies yesterday for my friend Melissa's birthday. Since the recipe makes so many, I wrapped a few up in these cute heart bags from Martha Stewart, and gave them out to people attending her birthday dinner.

I included a little printout of the custom stickers I ordered from The Paper Source in case people wanted to visit the blog to get the recipe. The stickers are meant to be personalized gift tags for holidays or after weddings, but you can customize the writing with whatever words you want! See the template I used here. 

anna cooks - grandma's cookies

For a special Easter edition of anna knits, etc., I wanted to share my Grandma's butter cookies recipe. These roll outs are great for holidays, because you can cut them into any shape you want. Below is a handwritten copy my Aunt Joanne shared with me for the butter cookies.

Grandma DeSimone's Butter Cookies
- 1 cup butter
- 2/3 cup sugar
- 2 teaspoons vanilla
- 2 eggs (beaten)
- 3 cups flour
- 1/2 teaspoon salt

1. Cream butter and sugar.
2. Add vanilla to butter mixture.
3. Add eggs, one at a time, to the butter mixture.
4. Add flour and salt to butter mixture. Mix until dough forms.
5. Wrap dough in plastic wrap and chill in the refrigerator for at least 2 hours (overnight preferred).
7. Preheat oven to 350 degrees fahrenheit.
6. Cut the dough into a manageable piece (fourths works well), and roll out the dough until they are pretty thin (a little less than 1/8 inch).
7. Cut dough into desired shape.
8. Place cookies on an un-greased baking sheet.
9. Bake for 10 minutes or until light brown edges form.

Icing
- Confectioners sugar
- Milk or cream
- Vanilla
- Sprinkles

1. Warm a few tablespoons of the milk or cream.
2. Add a splash of vanilla to the milk.
3. Slowly add the milk mixture to the confectioners sugar until a paste is formed.
4. Ice cooled cookies and decorate with sprinkles.

Ta-da!

The recipe makes a lot of cookies, so I just baked up a half recipe and put the other half in the freezer for later. 

For a more intense look, try covering the cookie in sprinkles. While they are not in keeping with Grandma DeSimone's aesthetic, I think these Valentine's Day butter cookies from The Yvestown Blog came out super cute!

Rainbow dots have also been making their way into the fashion world this season. Check out this felted rainbow bobble bag via the blog a pair and a spare.

Felting wool is something I have never explored, but hope to try it this spring. It is a great way to bring your knitting into the warmer months. 

Happy Easter!