Libby's Famous Pumpkin Pie (or my mom's not-so-original recipe) - You Want Pie with That?

Libby's Famous (and good enough for my family) Pumpkin Pie

Okay, my brain synapses aren't snapping. For this month's You Want Pie with That? theme, Natalie of Oven Love decided on Family Favorite Pies. Here are the full directions:

Everyone's family has traditions, including favorite desserts. What's your family favorite? Is it your mom's brownies, your grandmother's banana pudding, your brother's famous chocolate chip cookies? Whatever that favorite dessert is, take it and turn it into a pie! If it already is a pie, make the recipe with your own special twist. If you're feeling extra energized and willing to divulge family secrets, include the original recipe!

Dude, I only saw the logo and thought I needed to bake a family recipe, not use one as a base for a creative pie! Okay, so...please play along with the voices in my head and pretend the theme is an actual family pie recipe.

This is where we have some problems. My family doesn't make pie! My mom came from Okinawa, Japan in 1964 and didn't grow up with pie. What she did do was plant rice (as she told me over and over again). She said, "I used to be so good at planting rice. One by one. One stalk at a time. You have to be very patient..." Then she looks at me with the thought, "My impatient daughter could never plant rice. Good thing I came to America."

So, I may not be able to squat for hours in a muddy field, but I still got the rice planting short legs with thunder thighs...Oh, generations of peasant ancestors give me my 5'2" frame! :)

I'm in the red dress and my mom is holding me. We're in the West Adams area of Los Angeles at my paternal grandparent's house (1972).

Back to my mom. I only remember her making one pie. It was pumpkin pie...and it was from the Libby Pumpkin Pie can.

Nothing like a pie made from the freezer (the crust), two cans (pumpkin and evaporated milk), sugar, spices and eggs! (Find the recipe on the back of the can or here.)

There is one memory I have though...one Thanksgiving or Christmas she made the filling and popped it into the frozen crust. I totally remember her saying, "Oh no! I forgot the eggs!" Not one to waste anything (that would be mottainai), she yanked open the oven, poured the filling back into her green Tupperware bowl (yes, that above bowl is an original) and mixed in the eggs.

Just like mom used to make..

Recipe: Libby's Famous Pumpkin Pie
Be sure to check out the other You Want Pie with That? bakers!!

Cinco de Mini-Break - Tuesdays with Dorie

With apologizes to one of my favorite bloggers, Megan of My Baking Adventures, I skipped this week's Tuesdays with Dorie selection of Tiramisu Cake (from page 266 of Dorie's book, Baking: From My Home to Yours) because I went on a mini-break to San Francisco.

Be sure to check out the other Tuesdays with Dorie bakers and see how they made another delicious Dorie recipe!

Happy Cinco de Mayo and Boy's Day in Japan!

The Baked Brownie

Happy Friday.
Happy May Day.
Happy Birthday, Jessica and Harry!

The Baked Brownie.
From Baked: New Frontiers in Baking by Matt Lewis and Renato Poliafito.
It's good.
It's easy.

Recipe here on the Amazon website or here. Or see if your library has the book on WorldCat.

Heading up to San Francisco for a weekend visiting friends. Be back next week to post my usual food crawl through the city (as noted here and here). Have a great weekend!!

Chocolate Cream Tart - Tuesdays with Dorie

For this week's Tuesdays with Dorie selection, Kim of Scrumptious Photography picked Chocolate Cream Tart, pages 352 and 353 of Dorie's book, Baking: From My Home to Yours.

I woke up this morning...contacts completely stuck to my eyes, TV playing some infomercial about a snuggie blanket that can also shape your abs with absolutely no exercise (or money down!), and with the thought, Oh darn [insert a more descriptive word here]! I fell asleep last night before making the Tuesday with Dorie Chocolate Cream Tart!

I raced home from work, used too much math to figure out 1/4 of the recipe, and felt like I should be using my easy bake oven with the tablespoons of ingredients! :)

I love the chocolate cream! So much so that I decided to skip the whipped cream and just make it a chocolate delight!

Whew! 10:31 pm Pacific Daylight Time! Just in time!

Be sure to check out the other Tuesdays with Dorie bakers!

Find the recipe on Kim's beautiful blog, Scrumptious Photography

Snickerdoodle Muffins (Recipe from Peabody)

I'm late on the Snickerdoodle Muffins bandwagon. But then I'm quite slow with many things. Peabody made these in 2007 and they made the rounds on the blog, including some crazy person who sent Peabody a bill for her ingredients because she didn't like them. I wonder if that person is now calling herself the Octo-Mom. Anyway, I'm sure by 2010 I'll make the Snickerdoodle Blondie and Snickerdoodle Bundt Cake - those are still on my list. I love me the Snickerdoodle - here are the Martha Stewart Snickerdoodle cookies I made earlier.

Recipe here on Culinary Concoctions by Peabody. Peabody is very funny and a great chef and baker!

Make the stiff batter. Using an ice cream scoop, plop a ball in a cinnamon sugar mixture.

Rolly polly round it goes...

...into a greased muffin tin

Aren't these cute? The tops look just like a Snickerdoodle cookie!

Get the recipe for Snickerdoodle Muffins here on Peabody's great blog.

P.S. If you are here for the Tuesdays with Dorie post, I pray that it will be coming. I hope I can run home and make a little tart!

Oatmeal Cinnamon Chip Cookies (from the package)

Can I begin to tell you how excited I am to have found Cinnamon Chips in Los Angeles? (I went to a big, nice (not like my janky) Albertson's).

I turned the package of goodness over and found this recipe for oatmeal cookies! I love the back of the package recipes. They rock.

Find the recipe here on the Hershey's website!

My changes to their recipe:
1. Used old fashioned oatmeal (not quick cooking)
2. Omitted the raisins
3. Added 1/4 teaspoon of cinnamon to the dry mixture

Notes: The recipe calls for 1 bag (10 oz) [1 2/3 cups] of cinnamon chips. Now, if I manufactured the main ingredient, of course I would tell you to use the WHOLE bag and then more! But, since I don't work for Hershey, I'll tell you that I think you could scale back the chips a bit. They made the cookie really sweet. Perhaps if you had raisins in it, that would cut some of the sweetness...anyway, that's my opinion. Try it out and let me know what you think. I'm just glad to have found the cinnamon chips!! :)

Ingredients:
1 cup (2 sticks) butter or margarine, softened
1 cup packed light brown sugar
1/3 cup granulated sugar
2 eggs
1-1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
2-1/2 cups quick-cooking oats
1-2/3 cups (10-oz. pkg.) HERSHEY'S Cinnamon Chips
3/4 cup raisins

For the how to, see their recipe online or the back of the package!!

Recipe:
Oatmeal Cinnamon Chip Cookies (Hershey's website)

Blueberry Mochi Cake

Blueberry Mochi Cake

Mochi (pronounced mo-chee) is one of my favorite Japanese foods on the planet. It is pounded special short-grain rice. I did a few posts about the plain New Year's mochi my family makes and the sweet Japanese confectioneries such as those sold by Sakuraya in Los Angeles.

In those tart frozen yogurt shops (such as Pinkberry, Tutti Fruitti and Yogurtland), you can get little mochi balls of goodness. They are perfect with frozen yogurt because they are chewy, sweet, and they don't harden against the cold yogurt (unlike those killer mini-gummy bears - I thought I was going to need dental work!)

Recently, I was gifted some Blueberry Mochi Cake by JustJenn. OMG. So delicious. I had to make it!

The key ingredient is the box of Mochiko (sweet rice flour) - it cannot be substituted. Really, no substitutions. I used Koda Farms Mochiko sweet rice flour (see their website for information about mochi and this California family owned Japanese American farm). You can find this in a Japanese, Asian, or health food store (it's gluten-free). Mine sells it for under $1.50 per box. Mochiko is made from special sweet short-grain rice and is very soft in texture. It will make the cake a bit chewy and, well, mochi-like!

This is more of a Mochi "cake" than mochi you might have seen in a Japanese store. Those are usually filled with sweetened beans (red or lima) and the outer mochi doesn't have a bunch of eggs and milk in it like this one.

Blueberry Mochi Cake

Adapted from JustJenn who adapted it from Hawaii's Best Mochi Recipes by Jean Watanabe Hee

1 pound mochiko (1 box)
1 cup butter (2 sticks), melted
2 cups sugar
1 can evaporated milk (12 oz can)
4 eggs
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons vanilla
12 oz frozen blueberries (or 1 can blueberry pie filling)

In a large bowl, combine (by hand) the sugar and melted butter. Add evaporated milk and mix well. Add eggs and mix. Finally, stir in baking powder, mochiko and vanilla.

After mixing the batter, I spread a thin layer in the 9 x 13 pan. Then I sprinkled some semi-thawed blueberries. Repeated a couple times. Or, you can mix it all together but the batter gets a little blue (nothing wrong with that!)

I used Trader Joe's Frozen Wild Blueberries. These blueberries are smaller and I ended up using 3/4 of the 12 oz. bag.

My new oven! See the temperature remained at 350 for the entire cycle! Yippee.
Bake for 1 hour at 350 degrees until toothpick clean and golden brown.

Blueberry Mochi Cake

Not too sweet.
Slightly chewy.
Yummy blueberryness.
Gluten-free.
Try it out!

Winners of the Food Librarian's First Annual National Library Week Giveaway!

Thank you soooo much for celebrating National Library Week with me. It's definitely going to be an annual event! I really enjoyed reading your comments and support for libraries. Ahhh...warms my heart. I switched careers for librarianship and know that I made the right choice!

Seems that many people are just one degree away from a librarian in the family (or at least "my boyfriend's mother"). I cracked up when Slush wrote, I still have to take my books back. I swear, I'll do it today.

Tracey, who left some of the best comments and even a shout out on her blog, wrote I am really going to miss the librarian action figures. I think they should make special guest appearances on your blog in the future. Don't worry, Nancy Pearl Librarian Action Figure will be back during the year!

And the best part is that seeing dancing librarians reminded you to visit your library and discover something new! Success! :)

Okay, so the randomly (used Random.org) selected winners are...

Day 1: Mini-cake pans, bookmark & bag
Monica H of Lick the Bowl Good


Day 2: Mini-loaf pans, bookmark & bag
Heather of Sherry Trifle and Cats


Day 3: Trader Joe's favorites, bookmark & bag
Jinger from Jingerly


Day 4: Mini-tart pans, bookmark & bag
Hennifer of Life of Uncertainty


Day 5: Hello Kitty and cupcake holders, bookmark & bag
NikiTheo of It's all abut the "sweet" stuff

Thanks for entering and congrats to the winners!

Heather & Hennifer, please email me your mailing address: thefoodlibrarian [at ] gmail [com]. The other winners should get an email from me.

P.S. EmilyG - Yes!!! The Library Action Figure totally looks like she is picking her nose when she's shushing! Oh well, we librarians are real people too and we have clean noses. :)

Chocolate Bread Pudding (Tuesdays with Dorie)

Chocolate Bread Pudding

For this week's Tuesdays with Dorie selection, Lauren of Upper East Side Chronicle picked Four Star Chocolate Bread Pudding on page 410 of Dorie's book, Baking: From My Home to Yours.

I've never made bread pudding! I've devoured it in restaurants but never made it! What a delight that Lauren selected this recipe.

I picked up this lovely and huge brioche from my local Italian deli (and had to pick up their famous sandwich while I was there...you know, stimulating the local economy and all). Isn't it a beauty? After weighing it, I figured I should use half of the brioche (AKA butter delivery device).

After toasting the brioche pieces for 10 minutes at 350 degrees, I just wasn't sure how much bread you should have in a bread pudding! :) Once I poured the custard mixture on the bread, I felt they were swimming and cut up another quarter of the brioche (so I used a total of 18 ounces or 3/4 of the loaf).

Only after 30 minutes did I realize I probably didn't need the extra bread as the bread is a super sponge that absorbed most of the custard mixture. (See, I told you I haven't made bread pudding before...)

I brought it into work and suggested a 10 second zap in the microwave. Those 10 seconds made all the difference in the world. It softened the custard a bit and just made the whole bread pudding sing.

Carbs + Butter + Chocolate = Yum

Be sure to check out the other Tuesdays with Dorie bakers! And look for the recipe on Lauren's Upper East Side Chronicle blog or page 410 of Dorie's book, Baking. Also, did you know Dorie Greenspan is on Twitter? Follow the most wonderful cookbook author online!

Sky-High Chai Cake with Honey-Ginger Cream (The Cake Slice Bakers)

Chai Cake with Honey-Ginger Cream

For this month's The Cake Slice Bakers selection, we voted to make Chai Cake! I made this cake right after I got the fantastic book, Sky-High Cakes by Alisa Huntsman (see post here) and was delighted to make it again. It was a fan favorite at the library back then, and it continues to be one of my absolute favorites. It's on page 152 of the Sky-High Cake book and I'm sure you can find the recipe on other Cake Slice Baker's blogs.

Last time, I used regular Chai tea and gave away the extra tea bags because I don't drink caffeine (I get headaches). So this time I picked up decaf Chai at Fresh & Easy so I could enjoy the extra tea bags!

Next time (of course there will be a next time! I love this cake!), I'm thinking of trying the Good Earth Sweet and Spicy tea that you can pick up at Trader Joe's. I think that combo of spices will be delicious as well! :)

Topped with a honey, ginger, cream cheese frosting...all made in the food processor. That is brilliant! True to the name of the book, this cake is SKY-HIGH. Three 8-inch layers...I hope it doesn't topple over in the car on the way to work! :)

Thanks Alisa for writing such a fantastic book! If you don't have it yet, please, please pick it up - you won't be disappointed! Check out the other Cake Slice Bakers!

P.S. Today is the last day to enter my 5 giveaways for National Library Week. See the five posts below! Good luck and please check out your local library! :)