Rheally Over Rhubarb

I'm not really over rhubarb! BUT this is our first blog post in a very long time without a rhubarb recipe, so I thought that would be a funny title.

It was my dad's birthday last month and so for a special birthday breakfast we made him doughnuts. We used a recipe from the Bravetart cookbook. Do you remember all of our Bravetart baking projects? And like all of the other recipes, my mom said that it was not worth the effort while she was doing it. But then she ended up making the doughnuts again three days later! One thing that we've learned about baking from that cookbook is that all of the recipes are much easier the second time you make them, because by then you've sort of gotten the hang of it. To make these doughnuts, first we made a dough. We did have to add way more flour than she says in the recipe both times though. Otherwise the dough was too sticky to work with. But then we rolled it out and cut out circles and pushed holes through the middle. Somehow we forgot to take pictures of all of that, but I'll definitely remember if we make these again. Then you fry them in coconut oil, just a few at a time, which means that this takes a while. Keeping the oil at the right temperature is a little bit tricky. They only take about a minute each and you have to flip them a few times. We had to time it at first, but by the end of our second batch, we could tell when they were done just by looking. They float to the top and then when they turn golden and puffy, it's time to take them out.

This is what they look like right out of the oil. You let them drain on paper towels.

Then you roll them in cinnamon sugar.

Don't you like my rainbow heart jammies?!

This recipe definitely takes some work, but having a plate of fresh warm doughnuts on the table is really special and totally worth it!

You can't even imagine how amazing these smelled!!!

We've made a bunch of brownies and blondies recently. One my favorites was Oreo brownies. This recipe was a bit unusual because it has you microwave the butter, sugar, cocoa powder and salt all together. That made this a great recipe for me, because without having to use the stove, these were brownies that I could mostly make by myself!

I learned recently about the difference between regular cocoa powder and Dutch-processed cocoa powder. Regular cocoa powder is very acidic. The beans for Dutch-processed cocoa are washed with an alkaline solution, which is something that neutralizes the acid. Do you remember the differences between baking powder and baking soda? Well that's the important part with the different kinds of cocoa. Regular cocoa powder can be used with baking soda, because it is acidic and will activate it. Dutch-processed cocoa powder isn't acidic and so it needs to be used with baking powder, which already has the acid mixed in. This recipe didn't specify and it didn't matter, because there isn't baking soda or baking powder in it. But I still thought that learning about the differences was interesting.

We all LOVED these brownies. They were fudgy and I really liked the Oreos in them. My mom was a little bit skeptical of this recipe at first because she thought that the microwaving was weird and we hadn't ever baked anything from this blog before. But they ended up being one of her favorites!!

There was a layer of whole oreos through the center and then crumbled oreos on top.

This is what they looked like cut. I thought that the Oreos in the middle looked pretty.

Next we switched to blondies. We started with peanut butter blondies, that had Reese's Pieces in them. These were fantastic. I love peanut butter and so does my mom and so these were definitely a quarantine favorite.

These are very soft and chewy.

We also made candy bar blondies. These were similar, but didn't have any peanut butter in the batter, and then had candy mixed in. We used Butterfinger and 5th Avenue that were left over from our TaTa taste test, and some Twix and Snickers that we had left over from another baking project. These were good, but not a favorite. They were nice and soft and had good flavor, but didn't blow me a way.

This picture doesn't show very much, but these blondies were so soft that they smushed when we cut them.

Most years, we go someplace for the 4th of July, but this year was different. I bet you know why! So we had the 4th of July at home and it was really fun. For breakfast we had red, white and blue smoothies and yogurt bark stars.

We made the smoothies with strawberries, raspberries, vanilla frozen yogurt and ice. Then we added whipped cream and blueberries to add the white and blue!

To make yogurt bark, you just mix plain greek yogurt with honey and spread it out on a cookie sheet and freeze it. We sprinkled on the berries and cut it into stars to make a patriotic version! I don't think that my mom used enough honey this time though, because they were too tart for me. My dad liked them though!

I thought that the blue plate was perfect!

We also made red white and blue strawberries. We just dipped strawberries in white chocolate and then dipped the tips into blue sanding sugar.

I loved my red and blue nail polish!

But the most special thing that we made on July 4th was DEFINITELY our flag cake!!!!!! We made a vanilla sheet cake with vanilla buttercream frosting and then decorated it with berries to look like a flag.

This is me putting on the blueberries.

And this is my sister putting on the strawberries.

I think that the way that we piped the frosting made our flag cake look extra pretty!

We've also made some really good dinners lately. One of them was a summer shrimp scampi. My dad actually found this recipe. We made it on Nantucket. I think that tomatoes and corn is a very good summer combination. And it's even better with seafood!

Doesn't this look summery?

We also made fregola with clams. Have you ever heard of fregola? We hadn't, but now it's a family staple! It's a type of Sardinian pasta. It looks similar to Israeli couscous, but it's firmer and chewier. We loved it and my mom has used it in place of orzo or rice in a bunch of other recipes since! When you're cooking clams, you have to wait for them to pop open. It's very important to throw out any that don't open because that means that they were dead before cooking and aren't good!

One of the things that I usually love about the summer is having s'mores at the beach. We haven't been able to do that so far this year, so we decided to make a s'mores dessert at home instead. It was a s'mores blondie. We all liked these. I especially liked the spots with melty chocolate. This recipe had the graham crackers mixed into the dough, which gave the bars a graham flavor with every bite.

I really liked the golden color on these.

A completely new kind of recipe that we tried was peanut butter marshmallow popcorn bars. Have you ever had caramel corn or fancy popcorn with chocolate on it? These are like that, but in a bar form. They're made similarly to rice krispie treats. My mom and I really liked these a lot. My brother thought that they were good, but not a favorite. My dad said that he thought that they were really good and he'd eat them all day long, but he wouldn't put them in the top half of what we'd made in quarantine. He thought that they were interesting though. They are very easy to make, and I really liked the fact that they were something that I'd never had before.

The peanut butter and marshmallow mixture holds the popcorn together into bars.

The same day that we had these bars for tea, we had a chocolate peanut butter cake for dessert. It was a big peanut butter day! We actually used a different recipe for the peanut butter frosting though. The cake was very moist and the frosting was very rich. Next time we might try the frosting that came with the cake recipe to compare them.

I loved the peanut butter cake, but if you're only going to pick one thing from this post to try, I'd recommend the doughnuts. It is a big project and a bit of a commitment, but they're special enough that it's worth it!

Except for the doughnuts, everything in this post was actually really easy. Our baking usually turns out well regardless, but it's true that some days it goes more smoothly than others. I'll fill you in on some of our recent baking drama next time, so stay tuned! And Rachel suggested that we try some citrus desserts, so that's coming up too. Keep sending me your suggestions; I'm ready for them!