SMS – Peanut Brittle (with a twist)

Sorry for such a long absence!  Summers around here are usually pretty busy and three days of the week are spent at our cabin with no internet access.  I do plenty of cooking and baking, but very little documenting.  We had a great summer.  Beautiful weather, a lot of late days on the lake, and late nights on the deck.  We can’t wait for next summer to do it all again, but for now are enjoying what has so far been a very gorgeous, yet very busy fall.

For this week’s Sweet Melissa selection JoVonn of the Givens Chronicles chose Sweet Melissa’s Peanut Brittle.  I love peanut brittle and have never made it before.  I actually kind of like making candy, though it does terrify me a little bit.  I just have this thing against getting burned, even little minor finger tip burns freak me out.  I successfully managed to make this brittle without incident, and found the recipe to be quite easy.

I was in the mood for some fall flavors, so I added 1 tsp of pumpkin pie spice and replaced 2 TBS of the butter with 2 TBS of canned pumpkin puree.  I think the pumpkin made the brittle a bit chewier than normal and the pumpkin pie spice gave it a nice kick.

 

I love the orange color of this brittle.

Great selection, JoVonn!  Please visit her blog for the recipe and check out what the other Sweet Melissa bakers made this week!

 

sms – pumpkin bread pudding (with salted caramel bourbon sauce)

bourbon salted caramel sauce

Wow!  Is it Sunday already?  The days have been flying by!  Ater a week of rain we finally had a beautiful weekend.  Let summer begin!  We spent yesterday on our boat at our cabin.  It was a gorgeous day for bar hopping around the lake, soaking up the sun.  It felt great.  The last thing I wanted to do was go home and bake, so I didn’t!  I waited until the very last minute, as usual.  (My mom is reading this and rolling her eyes, thinking that some things never change).

mini bread pudding

This week’s SMS was chosen by Carmen of Baking is My Zen.  Carmen, unlike me, is ahead of the game with this recipe!  She chose it because she wants to get a head start on her holiday baking and try out recipes before the big day (Thanksgiving).  Carmen, you over-acheiver!!  You’re making the rest of us look bad…Well, I for one am glad she chose this recipe because I will make this bread pudding again.  I’ll just wait for a less than perfect day to do it!

Despite the rather long list of to-dos with this recipe it came together quite quickly.  I made the bread pudding in a 2 qt baking dish and 1 little ramekin since our friend is having us over for dinner and I said I’d bring dessert.  Rather than make the recommended rum raisin caramel sauce with this pudding I made a salted caramel bourbon sauce.  I just heated up a 1/2 tsp of fleur de sal with the cream while cooking the sugar and water and added 1 TBS of bourbon at the end.  I had a bite after I was done taking pictures and it is really good.  I might stop and get some vanilla ice cream on my way to my friend’s house, or maybe whip up some cream since I think it will benefit from something cold with it. (Plus, it’s not really rich enough with the 8 eggs and 2 cups of cream…ahem).

Go to Carmen’s blog to get the recipe (and check out her AWESOME photo tutorial – well done!).  You won’t regret it.  And check out what the other SMS bakers did this week.  I’m always inspired by these ladies.

mmmmm....caramel sauce