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Top 4 Pie Recipes
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Cooking Classes
We’ve been holding back here, trying desperately not to get ahead of ourselves.
Ever since we decided to poke another beam through the walls of our little Cooking Store so we could (literally) support cooking classes on the second floor of the building, we’ve been keeping lists of the recipes we want to teach.
Then when we put in the demonstration kitchen, we got the idea to run a bar-like counter-top around three sides of the demo kitchen so that every class participant would have a front-row seat and personal work area.
Take a look:
At that point we were tempted to announce classes before the building even opened
Our better judgment told us that we really needed to slow down and do some test-runs of our proposed classes before we invited everyone to join us. So we gathered 18 of our staff—all willing guinea pigs—and we had a great cooking-eating fest.
Our classes are now ready to go—and we’d love to have you join us. Click here to see what all we’re offering.
Meanwhile, and in case you can’t join us this time, here’s the recipe for the dessert we’ll be making and feasting on in our “A Quick-and-Easy Taste of Italy” class. It’s easy (you’ll feel like a smart cook when you serve it). It’s irresistible!
Grandma Herr’s Easy Butter Crunch
Makes a jelly-roll pan full
Fix-It and Enjoy-It 5-Ingredient Recipes, page 220
Prep Time: 10 minutes
Cooking Time: 20 minutes
Cooling Time: 1 hour
2 sticks (1 cup) butter
1 cup sugar
1½ cups blanched almonds, cut into sticks
6 ozs. chocolate bits
1. Melt butter in heavy skillet.
2. Stir in sugar.
3. Add almonds and cook, stirring constantly until golden brown and nuts begin to pop (about 12 minutes).
4. Spread evenly in jelly-roll pan. Sprinkle immediately with chocolate bits. As they melt, spread over mixture.
5. When cool, break into pieces.
Tip: This keeps well in the refrigerator, especially during the summer months.
Where do you get blanched almonds? Are they the same as roasted or maybe raw? These look yummy
You can usually purchase blanched almonds at the grocery store. If not, they are easy to blanch at home. The recipe calls for 1 1/2 cups, which would be equivalent to about a pound of whole raw almonds.
Place almonds in a heat proof bowl and cover with boiling water. Let stand for one minute, then drain and rinse in COLD water. Drain again. Dump the almonds onto a towel, pat dry, and slip off the brown skins.
Don’t allow almonds to sit in the hot water for longer than a minute. They will start to cook and loose their crunchiness.
Hope this helps.
What can be substituted for the blanched almonds? I have a sever allergy to ALL nuts.
Patti, maybe you could use pretzels?
I’ve made something similar before using crunchy chow mien noodles. Stir them in after cooking the butter and sugar, just before spreading in the pan so they don’t get mushy.
Are you allergic to soy? I used to buy ‘soy nuts’ which were just roasted soy beans. They are about the size of peanuts and would work well in place of the almonds.
http://www.nutsonline.com/nuts/soy-nuts/
Could Truvia be sub’d for sugar? Diabetic hubby would love this.
I’ve not cooked with Truvia yet. If I did it with Splenda I’d go half and half because I know the melting of the sugar and the consistency of it and the way sugar responds to heat are all important factors in getting the syrup to caramelize for the base portion of the candy. Even then I would experiment and see how it reacted at different temperatures, cooking the syrup alone without the almonds and testing it. If it won’t solidify after being cooked as instructed, I would cook it longer, continuing to test it out to see if a spoonful of the syrup would harden up. It would be a shame to put in the almonds and have them wasted because the syrup won’t solidify.
I guess you could try it and see. I’d be interesting in knowing what happens.
I wish I lived close enough to attend your cooking classes! I live in Indiana. I have some of your Fix It and Forget It cookbooks. I will continue watching your site for more good things to cook and eat.
> I live in Indy. If you know anything similar in our area, please post!
What a beautiful culinary studio! Thanks for the recipes. Keep ‘em coming!