brown sugar | Not Just Sunday Dinner

Pumpkin Spice Scones

Pumpkin spice and apple flavors have made their fall appearance again. You would think it’s too warm to start craving these flavors, but it’s just not so!

Last week my mother and I made a trip to Ellijay for apples. It’s a quick drive from her house, and she is always up for a road trip. Unfortunately, there were not many varieties ready. This just means that another trip is in the near future. We were able to pick up a few Honeycrisp apples, but it was the fried apple pies that made the drive well worth it!

If you are a fall spice lover, you will enjoy these delicious pumpkin scones. They have the perfect balance of sweetness, pumpkin, and spice. They are delicious for breakfast with a cup of coffee or as an afternoon snack.

Scones are always best the day they are baked, so surprise a neighbor or coworker with a few of these tasty treats. They will be a million times better than anything you’ll find at the coffee shop and cheaper too!

Pumpkin Scones

Author:

Amye Melton

Ingredients

Scones:
2 c. all-purpose flour
⅓ c. packed brown sugar
1 tsp. baking powder
¼ tsp. salt
½ tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
¾ tsp. ground cloves
½ tsp. ground ginger
½ tsp. ground nutmeg
1 stick unsalted butter, frozen, and grated with a cheese grater
½ c. pumpkin puree
½ c. whipping cream
1 lg. egg
2 tsp. vanilla extract
Glaze:
1 c. confectioners' sugar
¼ c. whipping cream
Spiced Glaze:
1 c. confectioners' sugar
½ tsp. cinnamon
¼ tsp. ground cloves
¼ tsp. ground ginger
Pinch nutmeg
3 tbsp. whipping cream

Instructions

For the scones:
Preheat oven to 400°F.
Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and set aside.
Place the butter in the freezer for about 30 to 45 minutes. Remove from freezer and shred, using a cheese grater. Return the shredded butter to the freezer until you are ready to use.
In a large bowl, combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, baking soda, cinnamon, cloves, ginger, and nutmeg.
In a small bowl, whisk together the pumpkin, whipping cream, egg, and vanilla.
Add the frozen shredded butter to the flour mixture and toss with fingers to coat with flour.
Stir in the pumpkin mixture just to combine. Transfer dough to a well-floured board and dust top with additional flour. Working quickly, knead the dough a few times. Flatten, using your fingers, and roughly shape into a 9-inch x 4-inch rectangle.
Cut crosswise in the middle, then again in the middle of each piece. Cut each piece diagonally into two triangles. Place on prepared pan.
Bake 10 to 12 minutes in preheated oven. Remove from oven and cool 10 minutes.
In the meantime mix up the glaze mixtures. Brush the first "plain" glaze onto each scone using a pastry brush. Cool for a few minutes.
Spoon spiced glaze into a ziptop bag. Snip off a small section of the corner of the bag. Pipe the spiced glaze on top of the glazed scones.
Allow glaze to air dry at room temperature then serve.

Pecan Pound Cake with Easy Salted Caramel Sauce

I like salted caramel, and I can not lie! I have been on a salted caramel roll lately. I know that I posted salted caramel sauce recently. Hopefully, you like it as well as I do. This is a different recipe, maybe even a little easier, but equally as delicious! Poured over this moist and delicious pecan pound cake this dessert is the bomb! This cake is going to be my signature dessert during the fall and holiday season!

pecan pound cake with easy salted caramel sauce 5

This cake recipe works best in a large 12-cup bundt pan. I used a smaller pan simply because I’ve had this fancy cake pan for a while and had never used it. I had enough batter to make six large muffins in addition to the cake. You should have plenty of caramel sauce to drizzle over your cake and have extra for serving. I sprinkled my cake with a few chopped pecans, to let anyone eating the cake know that it contains nuts. This cake is by far the best new cake recipe I have tried in a while!

Pecan Pound Cake with Easy Salted Caramel Sauce

Author:

Amye Melton

Ingredients

For the cake:
1½ c. unsalted butter, softened
2 c. light brown sugar, packed
1 c. granulated sugar
5 lg. eggs, room temperature
3 c. all-purpose flour
1 tsp. baking powder
½ tsp. salt
1 c. buttermilk
1 tbsp. vanilla extract
1 c. pecans, chopped
For Easy Salted Caramel Sauce:
¾ c. unsalted butter
1½ c. light brown sugar, packed
1 tsp. Fleur de Sel (or kosher salt)
½ c. evaporated milk
1 tbsp. vanilla extract

Instructions

For the cake:
Preheat the oven to 325°F. Grease and flour a 12-cup bundt pan and set aside.
Using an electric mixer, beat the butter. Add sugars and beat until fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating after each addition.
In a separate bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, and salt. Combine buttermilk with vanilla extract. Add flour mixture alternately with buttermilk mixture, beginning and ending with flour mixture. Mix just to combine. Stir in the pecans.
Pour batter into prepared pan. Bake for 1 hour 15 minutes, or until a wooden pick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cover the top of the cake with foil if the top begins to get too brown.
Cool cake in pan for 10 minutes. Remove to a cooling rack to completely cool.
Place cake on serving plate and drizzle with Easy Salted Caramel Sauce and sprinkle with pecans.
For caramel sauce:
In a medium saucepan add butter, brown sugar, and salt. Stir to combine. Bring to a boil and boil
for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally.
Remove from heat and stir in ½ c. evaporated milk and vanilla extract. You may need to stand back while it bubbles up. Stir to combine.
Store in refrigerator. May be reheated in the microwave.

Brown Sugar Banana Bread

Banana bread has always been one of my favorite snacks around the house. Mama made it often when I was a child. Years ago, I took it into the office and often sent it to Greg’s office. And when we moved to Augusta years ago, it was in the neighborhood welcome package.

There are thousands of different recipes for it. Everyone likes it, and it’s so versatile. You can send it in lunch boxes, have it for breakfast, as an afternoon snack, pop it in the toaster or air-fryer, or even make French toast.

This Brown Sugar Banana Bread is one of my favorites. The brown sugar topping is quite tasty! Darker bananas produce the best bread, so this is always a great recipe for those last bananas in the bunch that you bought last week. Resist temptation and allow your banana bread to cool completely before cutting into it.

Banana bread can keep for up to four days on your counter. If keeping it longer than that, store it in an airtight container in the fridge, or freeze it.

To freeze banana bread, double wrap it in foil, pop it into a ziplock bag, remove as much air as possible, and freeze for up to four months.

I found a bag full of bananas for 99¢. I used some in banana bread and I will peel and freeze the rest for smoothies.

Brown Sugar Banana Bread

Course Breads

Author Amye Melton

Ingredients

2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
6 tablespoons butter melted and cooled
3/4 cup packed brown sugar light or dark
2 large eggs beaten
1/4 cup sour cream
1 1/2 cups mashed bananas
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 tablespoons packed brown sugar

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350℉.
In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, salt, baking soda, cinnamon and nutmet, set aside.
In another bowl, mix the butter, brown sugar, eggs, sour cream, bananas and vanilla.
Spray 9 x 5-inch loaf pan with Baker's Joy. Spoon batter into pan and sprinkle top with 2 tablespoons brown sugar.
Bake in preheated oven for 45 minutes or until wooden pick inserted in the center comes out clean.
Cool in pan for about 10 minutes. Remove to a wire rack to cool completely before cutting.

Bananas Foster Pancakes

I , like most mothers, love flowers and thoughtful gifts on Mother’s Day. I enjoy going out for a lovely meal and the calls and cards are nice too. However, I would love a day of pampering. By pampering I do not mean that I want a gift certificate for a mani, a pedi, and a nice long massage. Yes, that would be nice too, but what I’m referring to is a day sitting in my chair watching Lifetime all day long! The television would not be on Nascar, or baseball, or anything remotely close to an ESPN channel! I’d watch sappy chick flicks like You’ve Got Mail, While You Were Sleeping, and The Notebook, with a box of tissues and several diet Dr. Peppers. I could laugh and cry all day long. Oh, and no Criminal Minds marathons! All the while Greg and the kids will be doing the laundry…all the laundry…which includes folding and putting away. They could dust and vacuum, cook and clean up, and my most dreaded job, clean the bathroom! Oh my, that sounds like the most perfect day ever!!!

Whether you plan to do all of the above for mom or not you can still start her day with a nice home-cooked breakfast, maybe even breakfast in bed. This is a wonderful recipe for Bananas Foster Pancakes. This bananas foster syrup is very simple, even the younger kids can help out with a little supervision from dad. You can use the buttermilk pancake recipe or simply make Bisquick pancakes, which always turn out good. Mom will love it!

Buttermilk Pancakes

Author:

Amye Melton

Ingredients

2 c. all-purpose flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
3 tbsp. sugar
2 lg. eggs, beaten
3 c. buttermilk
4 tbsp. melted butter

Instructions

Heat griddle to 350°.
In a large bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and sugar.
In a medium bowl, whisk together eggs, buttermilk, and melted butter. Gently fold egg mixture into dry ingredients. Some lumps will remain. Too much mixing makes tough pancakes.
Butter griddle and pour batter by ¼-cup measure. Cook until edges look dry and there are bubbles on the surface. Turn and cook 2 to 3 more minutes. Serve warm with Bananas Foster Syrup, with whipped cream, if desired.

Bananas Foster Syrup

Author:

Amye Melton

Ingredients

½ c. unsalted butter
¼ c. light brown sugar, packed
½ pure maple syrup
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
4 medium bananas, peeled and sliced
½ c. chopped pecans

Instructions

Heat butter, brown sugar, and maple syrup in a medium sauce pan. Cook over medium heat for 3 to 5 minutes or until sugar dissolves.
Add bananas and pecans and heat through (2 to 3 minutes).
Serve warm over warm buttermilk pancakes.

Biscoff Cut-Out Cookies with Royal Icing

Have you jumped on the Biscoff bandwagon yet? I became a fan of the cookies years ago, when I first ate them on a Delta flight. I even ordered Biscoff cookies online before they were in my local stores. However, I was a little slow to catch on to Biscoff spread. My cousin, Cindy made a scrumptious pie at Christmas with Biscoff spread and I have been a fan since!

I have been trying recipes for cut-out cookies for years and I have thrown out many batches of them. When I saw the title of this recipe, and realized I had all of the ingredients on hand I tried them immediately. They were DEE-LICIOUS!!! I am thrilled beyond belief that I finally have a cut-out cookie recipe that doesn’t taste like cardboard!

This is probably considered a medium-size cookie cutter and I was able to get 20 cookies from this recipe. It’s incredibly easy with no refrigeration required! You don’t even need to flour the board to roll them out! Use parchment paper on top and bottom of the dough to prevent sticking. Also the addition of cornstarch is genius! These cookies are slightly crispy along the edges and slightly soft in the middle…just perfect!! They hold up nicely when decorated. I have added tips for the icing and decorating to the icing recipe.

Biscoff Cut-Out Cookies

Author:

Amye Melton

This recipe is from bakingamoment.com.

Ingredients

½ c. cold unsalted butter, cubed
½ c. Biscoff Spread
¾ c. light brown sugar
1 egg
1 tsp. kosher salt
2 c. all-purpose flour
¼ c. cornstarch

Instructions

Preheat oven to 375°F. Line baking sheets with parchment paper, set aside.
Cream butter, Biscoff spread, and light brown sugar together using an electric mixer.
Add the egg and mix until combined.
Mix the salt, flour, and cornstarch in a separate bowl and all in thirds. Mix only until incorporated.
Roll dough ¼-inch thick between two sheets of parchment paper. Cut out shapes and place on prepared pans.
Bake at 375°F for approximately 10 minutes or until slightly browned around edges.
Remove from oven. Cool on pan a few minutes then remove to a cooling rack to cool completely. Decorate cookies after they have cooled completely.

Royal Icing for Cookies

Author:

Amye Melton

This recipe is from thedecoratedcookie.com.

Ingredients

2 tbsp. meringue powder
¼ c. water
½ tsp. vanilla extract
1 tbsp. shortening
1 tbsp. light corn syrup
3½ to 4 c. sifted confectioner's sugar

Instructions

Whip the meringue powder and water on high-speed of an electric mixer, fitted with a wire whisk, for several minutes, until it's fluffy and peaks form.
Add vanilla extract, shortening, and corn syrup and mix to combine.
Gradually add confectioner's sugar to desired consistency.
Decorate cookies. Place cookies on cooling racks and allow to air dry for 24 hours.

Notes

Store at room temperature in a sealed container for up to a month.

TIPS:
Icing must be at the correct consistency. I found that I needed to thin this icing slightly. For outlining thin just slightly, remove about ¼ of the icing and set aside, then continue adding water until you reach the correct consistency for flooding. You'll want the icing that you use to outline the design to be slightly thicker than the icing you use for flooding. Since I'm new to decorating I like to use a #3 or #4 tip for decorating.

I found this tip online at sweetopia.com.: The trick to make sure icing is just right for flooding is called the "10 Second Rule". Drag a butter knife through the surface of your royal icing and count to 10. If the icing surface becomes smooth anywhere between 5 to 10 seconds, then your icing is ready to use. If it takes longer than approximately 10 seconds, the icing is too thick. Slowly add water, a teaspoon at a time. If your icing surface smooths over in less than 5 to 10 seconds, it is too runny. Mix your icing longer and slowly add in more soften confectioner's sugar to thicken.

If you are like me and don't have a steady hand, rest your elbow on something steady. Also, put your pan of cookies on top of a a few books or container to raise them up to a comfortable level for decorating.