Hershey's Brownie Pie a'la Mode

So, how could I do a pie week without including a decadent chocolate something from Hershey? Clearly, this recipe fits the bill. If you ever need a chocolate fix, I think this should be your 'go to' dessert! Don't forget the chocolate sauce. That's what puts it over the top!!

1/2 cup sugar
2 tablespoons butter or margarine
2 tablespoons water
1-1/3 cups HERSHEY'S SPECIAL DARK Chocolate Chips or HERSHEY'S Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips
2 eggs
2/3 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3/4 cup chopped nuts(optional)
FUDGE SAUCE(recipe follows, optional)
Ice cream(any flavor)


1. Heat oven to 350°F. Grease 9-inch pie plate.
2. Combine sugar, butter and water in medium saucepan. Cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally, just until mixture boils. Remove from heat. Immediately add chocolate chips; stir until melted. Add eggs; beat with spoon until well blended.
3. Stir together flour, baking soda and salt; add to chocolate mixture, stirring until well blended. Stir in vanilla and nuts, if desired; pour into prepared pie plate.
4. Bake 25 to 30 minutes or until almost set. (Pie will not test done in center.) Cool. Prepare FUDGE SAUCE, if desired. Top pie with scoops of ice cream and prepared sauce. 8 to 10 servings.


FUDGE SAUCE
1 cup HERSHEY'S SPECIAL DARK Chocolate Chips or HERSHEY'S Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips
1/2 cup evaporated milk
1/4 cup sugar
1 tablespoon butter or margarine

Combine all ingredients in medium microwave-safe bowl. Microwave at MEDIUM (50%) 1 to 1-1/2 minutes or until hot. Using whisk, beat until chips are melted and mixture is smooth. About 1-1/2 cups sauce.

CONVENTIONAL METHOD: Combine all ingredients in small saucepan. Cook over low heat, stirring constantly, until chips are melted and mixture is smooth.

Cherry Cheese Pie

I've always felt a strong connection to my grandfather, Pop Maloney. Maybe it's because he also loved to bake. Maybe it's because I was born on his birthday. Whatever the reason, I'm glad to have known him, if only for a short time.
This is his recipe and it has become a staple in my family for every holiday gathering (made famous by my sister, Maureen). It's one of my all time favorite desserts!! Thanx Pop.

1 store bought pie crust or half the recipe for Easy Pie Crust

1 (20oz) can cherry pie filling, or your own homemade

1 (8oz) pkg. cream cheese

1/2 cup sugar

2 beaten eggs

1 (12oz) can evaporated milk

3 tbs flour

1 tsp pure vanilla extract

cinnamon

Heat oven to 350. Line pie plate with crust. Flute the crust to make a decorative edge. Spread pie filling over bottom. Cream sugar and cream cheese until smooth. Add eggs, milk, flour, and vanilla. Slowly pour cheese mixture over filling. Sprinkle cinnamon over top. Bake for one hour or until set.

Tips:
Clearly you could use any other favorite pie filling, such as raspberry, strawberry, blueberry, peach, or pineapple.
Be very careful when transporting the unbaked pie to the oven. It's super easy to spill as you walk across the kitchen with a pie filled with liquid. An easy way to prevent this is to open your oven and pull the center rack out a little so you can get to it. Before you pour the cheese mixture over the filling, place your pie plate with fruit filling on the rack. Pour your cheese mixture over the filling and sprinkle with cinnamon as usual. Then carefully slide the oven rack back in. No need to worry about spilling!
I always put a baking sheet or a sheet of foil on the rack below the pie because I have a habit of over filling the pie and it sometimes bakes over.
I always use a Pyrex pie plate, which is deeper than a regular 9" pie plate, just because I like more cherry filling in the pie. My Mom used to make 2 pies at a time, and she'd split one jar of pie filling between the two pies.

Sour Cream Rhubarb Pie

Here are some interesting facts:

In acting, it was common for a crowd of extras to shout the word "rhubarb" repeatedly and out of step with each other, to cause the effect of general hubbub. As a result, the word "rhubarb" is sometimes used to refer to irrelevant chatter by a chorus or crowd of extra actors.

In Baseball, the term "rhubarb" is an old-timey reference to a fight amongst many players. The iconic bench-clearing brawl is known as a "rhubarb".

In the 1989 film Batman, The Joker tells Bruce Wayne to "never rub another man's rhubarb". The term was used as a threat to Bruce Wayne, warning him to leave both men's love interest alone.

In Canada, the phrase "putting it in the rhubarb" describes driving a vehicle off the road, possibly into roadside vegetation.

When I think of rhubarb, I don't think of a hubbub or a brawl or a threat or driving a car. I think of that amazing extremely tart tasting plant that looks like "red celery stalks" and is WONDERFUL in pies and jams. It's famously paired with strawberries but stands beautifully on its own.
This recipe is a different twist on the usual rhubarb pie. It's creamy and delicious, with a yummy crumb topping.

Pie Filling:
one pie crust or half the recipe for Easy Pie Crust
4 c rhubarb, cubed
1 1/2 c sugar
1/3 c flour
1 c sour cream

Crumb Topping:
1/2 c flour
1/2 c brown sugar
1/4 c butter

Preheat oven to 400F. Line a pie plate with pie crust. Flute the crust to make a decorative edge. Arrange rhubarb in unbaked pie shell. Mix sugar and flour; blend in sour cream and pour evenly over mixture. Blend topping ingredients till crumbly. Sprinkle crumbs over rhubarb. Bake at 400F for 15 minutes, then at 350F for an additional 30 minutes till fruit is tender, filling set and crumb topping golden and bubbly.

Note:
Seriously, it's all about the brown sugar crumb topping. 'Nuff said.

Blueberry Apple Pie

What's your favorite kind of pie? If someone were to pose that question to me, I'd have to say, hands down, it's apple, with blueberry running a close second. What could be better than to put them both together?? Top it with a scoop of vanilla ice cream while it's still warm, and I'm in heaven! It just doesn't get any better than this.
Enjoy!

pastry for a two crust 9" pie
4 macintosh apples
1 pint blueberries
3/4 cup sugar
3 tbs cornstarch
1 tbs freshly squeezed lemon juice
cinnamon to taste
1/4 tsp salt
2 tbs butter

Heat oven to 425 degrees F.
Using either a ready made pie crust or my Easy Pie Crust, line a deep dish pie plate with one pie crust, making sure to let it hang over the edges about an inch. Set aside.
Peel, core, and chop apples into small dice. Pick over berries to remove any stems. In a mixing bowl, place apples, berries, sugar, corn starch, lemon juice, cinnamon and salt. Using a rubber spatula, GENTLY toss ingredients together, being careful not to smash the berries. Pour apple-berry mixture into prepared pie plate. Cut butter into small pieces and place over top of apple-berry mixture.
Place second pie crust on top. Fold top crust under lower crust to form a ridge. Flute to make a decorative edge. Cut slits in top to allow steam to escape.
Bake for 15 minutes. Reduce heat to 350 degrees F. Bake 30-35 minutes more or until crust is golden. Cool on rack.

Tip:
Instead of just cutting slits in your top crust, try weaving your pie crust like I did for the picture. To learn how, watch my video, How To Make a Lattice Top.
Use as much or as little cinnamon as you like. I usually just get the container of ground cinnamon and do a few shakes across the bowl just before I toss everything together.

The Gooey Butter Cake-Off

For years and years, I've looked for the right recipe for Gooey Butter Cake. When I say "the right recipe", I mean the one I can use as the standard against which all others are compared. Well, usually, I'd only find a recipe that uses a cake mix as its base. Even Her Highness, Paula Deen, uses a yellow cake mix to make hers. Somehow this didn't sit right with me. Sorry, Miss Paula. I wanted to make it from scratch!
Well, lo and behold, I finally found a recipe that makes its base from scratch. But wait! The cake mix recipe has cream cheese in it....and the scratch recipe uses corn syrup. Hmm....which one is authentic? Which one is the REAL Gooey Butter Cake? How does one decide?
So then I decided to do some research to find out where the recipe originated. As it turns out, it comes to us from St Louis, MO, supposedly first made by accident in the 1930s by a St. Louis-area German American baker who was trying to make regular cake batter but inadvertently reversed the proportions of sugar and flour. Hmm...that still doesn't tell me which on is the REAL one.
I also found out that The St. Louis Convention & Visitors Commission includes a recipe for the cake on its website, and it uses cake mix and cream cheese. But, according to my research, almost all bakeries in the greater Saint Louis area use a recipe based on corn syrup with no cake mix or cream cheese involved. Clearly, the only way to decide which was the "right recipe" was to have a Gooey Butter Cake-Off! And so it began.
I made both recipes, the mix and the scratch. The mix was clearly easier to make, but the batter for the scratch was clearly much more buttery and in my opinion, much tastier. The scratch seemed to take a long while to bake, and they both turned out to be much darker than I had expected by the time the center had finally set.
So I brought both cakes to a family gathering. Jeanie, Denny, Cathy and I all thought that the scratch recipe was much better, but that's not how the rest of the crowd saw it. Everyone else seemed to like the mix recipe. I think it was the cream cheese that pushed it over the edge. Ginger said she didn't even want to finish the piece of scratch cake, but she wanted to eat the entire mix cake. So there you have it. If you'd like to conduct your own Gooey Butter Cake-Off, please tell me your results!! Here are both recipes.

The Mix- (the one on the left)
Gooey Butter Cake
2 pkgs yellow cake mix
1/2 lb butter melted
4 eggs
2 cups powdered sugar
2 eggs
8 oz cream cheese

Combine the first three ingredients. Mix well. Place into a 9x13 pan. Press the layer in evenly. Beat the last 3 ingredients together very well, until very light. Pour over the top of the dough layer in the baking pan. Bake 45 - 60 minutes at 350 degrees. Cool completely before serving.

The Scratch-(the one on the right)
St. Louis Gooey Butter Cake
1 c all-purpose flour
3 tbs sugar
1/3 c butter or margarine
1 1/4 c sugar
3/4 c butter or margarine
1/4 c light corn syrup
1 egg
1 c all-purpose flour
2/3 c evaporated milk
powdered sugar; optional


Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a mixing bowl, combine 1 cup flour and 3 tablespoons sugar. Cut in 1/3 cup butter until mixture resembles fine crumbs and starts to cling. Pat in the bottom of a 9-inch square baking pan. For the filling, beat the 1 1/4 cup sugar and 3/4 cup butter until combined. Beat in the corn syrup and egg just until combined. Add the 1 cup flour and evaporated milk alternately, beating just until combined (batter will appear slightly curdled). Pour into crust-lined pan and bake for about 35 minutes, or until cake is nearly firm when you shake it. Let cool in pan on a wire rack. Remove to a serving plate; sprinkle with sifted powdered sugar, if you like.

Notes:
I used a golden butter cake mix instead of yellow cake mix, and I increased the scratch recipe by half and used a 9x13 pan.
Big thanx to everyone in my family for being my tasters!

Hershey's Cocoa Chocolate Shake

As I was browsing through some recipes, trying to decide which recipe to post, I realized that it's been quite some time since I posted a Hershey's recipe. Clearly, I've been neglecting the chocoholics of the world. I'll try not to let that happen again! Hopefully this will make up for it. This is the perfect thing for a warm summer night. It really hits the spot!


1/4 cup warm water
2 tablespoons HERSHEY'S Cocoa
1 tablespoon sugar
1/2 cup milk
2 cups chocolate or vanilla ice cream

1. Place water, cocoa and sugar in blender container. Cover; blend briefly on low speed. Add milk.

2. Cover; blend on high speed until thoroughly blended. Add ice cream. Cover; blend until smooth. Serve immediately. About three 6-ounce servings.

Thought from Joey:
Is anyone else thinking Kahlua? Who's with me????

Dina's Honey Dijon Vinaigrette

Dina is another one of my most favorite people on the entire planet, and she just happens to be a fabulous cook. Every time I stop over for a visit, we inevitably wind up talking about food and whatever new recipes we've tried and cooking shows and such. She recently made this vinaigrette for Tricia's bridal shower and it was a big hit. I'm so glad she shared it with me! Thanx Dina!



Here's the recipe for the salad dressing. It should yield you about 2 cups, enough to dress a couple pounds of lettuce - if you need more just double it! I used baby spinach for Tricia's shower. Enjoy! (P.S. If you're not into mayo, omit it and just add a bit more honey!)
Love, Dina



1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
1/4 cup mayonnaise
1/2 cup vinegar (red, white, or cider)
1 tablespoon honey
1 cup extra virgin olive oil
2 teaspoons salt, plus more to taste
Freshly ground black pepper

Whisk together mustard, mayo, vinegar, honey, salt & pepper. Gradually
whisk in the oil. Season with more salt and pepper to taste.

Note from Joey:
When I made it, I didn't have the exact ingredients, but I used what I had on hand and it all worked. I used regular vegetable oil instead of olive oil. I used half cider vinegar and half white vinegar. And I doubled the amount of honey, just because I like a sweeter dressing. My friend, Paul, loved it so much he said he wanted to bathe in it. It's THAT good!!!!