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Glazed Orange Scones

March 6, 2015 No Comments

Last week at my Bible study someone brought in scones. Normally scones don’t tempt me but a friend I was sitting with got a plate and brought it over to share. There were two kinds, blueberry and orange. Not expecting much I took a bite aaaannnnndddd….hold me back. These scones were good. No, not just good, AMAZING. I initially thought someone in our study had made them but I soon found out they were from Panera! I haven’t had much from Panera except their soups and sandwiches and of course when bagels were “healthy” a few years ago and I worked in an office that had them on a regular basis in the break room, I stuffed my face happily with the carb-y goodness. But I had never given their scones a second glance and I now realize that was a huge mistake! They are simply delicious. Out of the two, blueberry and orange, the orange was my absolute favorite. They were both flaky and buttery and not too sweet but the chunks of orange zest along with the delicious orange glaze on top, sent that one over the top in my opinion.

So naturally I went home and was obsessed with finding a recipe to duplicate my own Panera orange scone! I finally came across this one from Love Grows Wild. Overall this was a great recipe and everyone who tried the scones loved them. While I thought they were good, they didn’t quite meet my Panera scone standards. Haha. The scones I made were more cake-like and a tad on the bland side in my opinion. I think I was hoping for a lot more citrus flavor and a more crumbly biscuit texture. However, if you like your scones dense and cakey and not overwhelming sweet, these are the scones for you! They do go well with a nice hot cup of coffee!

Glazed Orange Scones

Ingredients

Scones

3¾ c. All-Purpose Flour
6 T. Sugar, divided
1½ T. Baking Powder
½ t. Salt
1 Stick Unsalted Butter
3 Eggs, lightly beaten
1¼ c. Heavy Whipping Cream, divided
1 t. Pure Vanilla Extract
4-5 t. Orange Peel, finely shredded (I used two whole oranges)

Glaze

1½ c. Powdered Sugar
1 t. Pure Vanilla Extract
⅓ c. Fresh Orange Juice
Zest of One Orange

Instructions

For the Scones

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Line two large baking sheets with parchment paper.
In a large bowl whisk together flour, 4 tablespoons of sugar, baking powder and salt. Using a pastry blender, cut in butter (I grated mine first with a cheese grater) until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Make a well in the center of the flour mixture and set aside. In a medium bowl, combine eggs, 1 cup plus 2 tablespoon of heavy whipping cream, vanilla and orange peel. Add egg mixture all at once to flour mixture. Using a fork, stir until just moistened and the mixture comes together in a ball. Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface. Knead dough by folding and gently pressing for 10-12 strokes or until dough is nearly smooth. Divide dough in half. Pat or lightly roll each dough half into 8-10" circles. Cut each circle into 10 wedges. Place dough wedges two inches apart on baking sheets. Brush scones with remaining two tablespoons whipping cream and sprinkle with remaining two tablespoons of sugar. Bake 12-14 minutes or until golden. Remove from baking sheet onto a rack.

For the Glaze

In a medium bowl, whisk together powdered sugar, vanilla, orange juice and orange zest. Spoon and spread over warm scones (I had enough to do this twice after the glaze dried the first time). Serve warm.

Notes

Makes 20 scones.

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Enjoy!

Desserts

Bake a Cake Inside an Orange

September 9, 2012 No Comments

Did you know you could bake a cake inside an orange?! Over a campfire, no less?!?! I wouldn’t have believed it myself but according to this little tidbit on lifehacker.com it’s a REAL THING. All you need is cake batter, an orange, some foil and an open flame and voila! Cake! I happen to love chocolate and orange combos so I will totally be trying this in the near future! See the full instructions here.

Cake, Desserts, Recipes

Orange Slice Cake

December 23, 2011 6 Comments

I just had to get in one last recipe before Christmas is over and this cake was the perfect one to share. This is a cake that my Grandma used to make and I first had it a couple of years ago when my Aunt Tammy made it for a family get-together. Can I just say, this cake totally blew my mind? I kid you not. It was so incredibly moist and bursting at the seams with all kinds of good stuff…dates, coconut, orange slice candy and pecans. It had an orange glaze all over it that had soaked into the cake and made it out-of-this-world amazing. AMAZING.

I started craving it a couple of days ago. At first I tried to ignore the craving, telling myself I already had enough to make and bake, but it just got more and more persistent. So I thought ok, I’ll see if I can find the recipe, but no such luck. Not meant to be. And then my mom emailed me a recipe for Orange Slice Loaf. Hmmm, that might work. But before I settled on that one I hopped onto allrecipes.com and sure enough, found a recipe for an Orange Slice Cake. I figured between the two recipes, I could probably come up with something VERY similar to my grandmother’s. So I finally gave in, went and bought everything and made the dang cake! How did it turn out? Umm, awesome. If I do say so myself. Just like Grandma’s!

Now the good thing about this cake is that it gets better with time as it sits in the fridge and soaks up all the orange glaze goodness, so if you make it now, by the time Sunday rolls around it will be complete and total perfection! Give it a try, I think you’ll love it!

5.0 from 1 reviews

Orange Slice Cake

Ingredients

1 c. Unsalted Butter
2 c. Granulated Sugar
4 Large Eggs
1 t. Pure Vanilla
4 c. All-Purpose Flour, divided
½ t. Salt
1½ c. Buttermilk
1 t. Baking Soda
2 T. Orange Zest
1 lb. Orange Slice Candy, chopped (I used my kitchen scissors to cut each piece into 4 small pieces)
1 lb. (2 c.) Dates, finely chopped
2 c. Sweetened Flaked Coconut
1½ c. Pecans, toasted and chopped
1 c. Orange Juice
2 c. Powdered Sugar

Instructions

Preheat oven to 250 degrees. Lightly grease and flour a 10-inch tube pan.
Cream the butter and sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 3-5 minutes. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add vanilla. Dissolve baking soda in the buttermilk and set aside. Whisk together 3½ cups of the flour and the salt. Add the flour to the butter mixture alternately with the buttermilk, beginning and ending with the flour.
In a large bowl, combine the orange slice candy, coconut and dates. Toss with ½ cup of the flour. Add to the batter and thoroughly combine. Fold in chopped pecans.
Pour the batter into the tube pan. Bake for 3 hours. Whisk together the orange juice and powdered sugar. Heat the juice mixture for 30 seconds in the microwave just before applying to the cake. As soon as the cake comes from the oven, poke a few holes in it with a chopstick or other pointy object and begin spooning the orange juice mixture over the cake. It will take several times of spooning it over the cake for it to soak in. Just apply some of the juice, let it soak for a few minutes and then do more. Let the cake cool completely and then put in the fridge until ready to serve.

Notes

Serves 18

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Desserts, Holiday, Life

Christmas Cookie Exchange

December 15, 2011 No Comments

Last week I got to experience my first every cookies exchange and it was SO much fun! A sweet girl from our church, Monica, was gracious enough to host the event for a whopping 27 women! Yes, 27 women…27 different kinds of cookies, candies, etc. We made 12 dozen of the treat of our choice and swapped goods when we got there which meant we left with 12 dozen different goodies! It was insane. I was in sugar heaven. I brought my famous Peanut Butter Balls (recipe tomorrow!) and had so much fun checking out and tasting everyone else’s homemade treats. I can’t wait to do it again next year! Here are a couple of photos of the bounty I brought home.

This is the platter…there was fudge, toffee, butterscotch cookies, chocolate cookies, buckeyes, Oreo stuffed brownies, ginger cookies, Nutter Butter Snowmen cookies, Oreo truffles, chocolate dipped candy cane coated pretzels, loaded oatmeal cookies and on and on it goes….

One of my favorites was the Chocolate Candy Cane Cheesecake. Soooo good.

And my absolute favorite was this biscotti. It had spices and orange flavor (at least I think it was orange..something like that), along with chocolate chips…it. was. amazing.

Bars, Desserts, Recipes

Sunny Oat-Date Bars

November 14, 2011 No Comments

Last week I posted some healthy dessert recipes and I had my eye on a couple to try myself. I decided to start with the Sunny Oat-Date Bars. I just happened to have a HUGE bag of dates sitting on my counter that I had been meaning to make into a dessert but had never taken the time to find a recipe. These bars were the perfect thing to use them in!

I made some minor adjustments to the recipe and overall the results were delicious. They turned out a teensy bit crumbly so I’d recommend eating them with a fork. And after I simmered the dates and orange juice, I had no liquid left over to add to the dry ingredients, it just turned into a very thick mixture. So even though I didn’t have any of the orange/date liquid to add to the oats, it still worked fine. I absolutely LOVED this recipe and found I could hardly stay out of the bars. The flavors of orange, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and dates was ah-mazing. Pretty sure a healthy recipe becomes not so healthy when you eat 2-3 times more than you should! Oh well.

Enjoy!

Sunny Oat-Date Bars

Ingredients

2 c. Very Finely Chopped and Pitted Dates
1 c. Fresh Orange Juice (I used fresh-squeezed)
2 t. Grated Orange Rind
2 c. Thick Rolled Oats
½ c. White Whole Wheat Flour
1 t. Baking Powder
¼ t. Baking Soda
½ t. Salt
1 t. Cinnamon
⅛ t. Nutmeg
¼ t. Cloves
⅓ c., plus 1 T. Safflower Oil
⅓ c. Honey
3 T. Pure Grade A Maple Syrup
1½ t. Pure Vanilla Extract
¼ c. Pecans, coarsely chopped

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray a 9x9 pan with cooking spray.
In a small saucepan, combine the dates, orange juice and orange rind. Bring to a simmer over medium-low heat and cook, stirring occassionally, until dates are very soft and the mixture has turned very thick (about 5-8 minutes). Remove from heat and set aside to cool. Once cool, mash until smooth.
In a large bowl, whisk together oats, flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves. In a small bowl, whisk together oil, honey, maple syrup and vanilla. Add oil mixture to the dry ingredients and mix thoroughly.
Press ⅔ of the oat mixture into the pan and spread the date mixture over the crust. Stir pecans into remaining oat mixture and drop by spoonfulls onto the date mixture and spread evenly.
Bake 30 minutes or until lightly browned.

Notes

Makes 18 bars.

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Bars, Cake, Chocolate, Cookie, Cupcakes, Desserts, Fruit, Healthy, Recipes

Healthy (yes, healthy!) Fall Inspired Desserts

November 9, 2011 No Comments

Believe it or not, there are some people on diets this time of year. Yes, DIETS, preparing/starving themselves for the two month long eat-o-rama that begins around mid-November and doesn’t stop until somewhere around the new year. I myself believe in moderation and balance and try to get plenty of exercise and eat an overall healthy diet (I definitely do NOT believe in starvation and “diet” trends). And I am most certainly planning on indulging during the holidays but in moderation.

So, for those more health-conscious readers out there like myself, I thought I would provide you with some healthy dessert options for you to bring to those family get-togethers. Some are most definitely more healthy than others; there are low-fat, low-calorie, high-protein, low-sugar, etc. Options! That’s what I’m all about. 🙂 I’ll definitely be testing a couple (the Date Bars and Honey-Almond Cake are calling my name!) to see if they are worthy of the upcoming family festivities. I’ll post my results!

Pumpkin Spice Whoopie Pies

Chocolate Accordion Bread

Sweet Potato Cinnamon Bundt Cake with Orange Glaze

Pumpkin Rice Pudding (Scroll a just over half-way down the page to see the recipe.)

Chocolate Cupcakes

Sunny Oat-Date Bars

Apple Dumpling Cinnamon Rolls

Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Bars

Oatmeal Peanut Butter Coconut Cookies

Flourless Honey Almond Cake

Pumpkin Sesame Cookies

Chocolate Torte

Cake, Desserts, Recipes

Whole Orange Bundt Cake with Chocolate Glaze

March 12, 2011 No Comments

I love the combination of orange and chocolate so when I saw this recipe on a blog, I knew immediately I had to try it. It turned out quite yummy although the chocolate was a little overwhelming on the cake. The cake by itself was delicious so I think next go around I’d just put an orange glaze on it. Try it if you love orange and chocolate–you won’t be disappointed.

Whole Orange Bundt Cake with Chocolate Ganache Glaze

Ingredients
2 Whole Oranges (preferably seedless navel), scrubbed and washed well
3 Sticks of Unsalted Butter (3/4 pound), softened
2 c. Granulated White Sugar
3 Large Eggs, room temperature
1 T. Pure Vanilla Extract
3 c. AP Flour
3 t. Baking Powder
1 t. salt

Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Generously grease and flour a Bundt pan and set aside.

Quarter the oranges, remove any seeds if not using navel, and put in food processor to puree. Set aside.

While the oranges are pureeing, cream the butter and sugar together in the base of an electric mixer for 5 minutes until light and fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time, waiting until each is fully combined. Add the orange puree and vanilla extract and mix until combined.

In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt. Mix into the wet ingredients gently, just until fully combined.

Pour the cake batter into the prepared Bundt pan, spreading so that it is evenly distributed. Bake at 350 for about 60 minutes (mine took 70) or until a tester inserted in the cake comes out clean.

Let cool in the pan for 15 minutes before inverting onto a wire rack to cool. When completely cool, pour on the chocolate ganache glaze (below) and let set for at least 1 hour before serving. Will keep for 3-5 days under a cake dome or plastic wrap.

Chocolate Ganache Glaze

Ingredients
1 cup heavy whipping cream
2 cups semisweet chocolate chips (I used Ghirardelli)

Heat the heavy cream over medium heat just until small bubbles begin to form. Pour the hot cream over the chocolate chips and whisk gently until fully melted and combined. Let cool for 10 minutes before glazing cake. May be prepared in advance and gently reheated in a moderate microwave.