Stained Glass Sweet Bread
1½ cups dried tart cherries
½ cup chopped dried pineapple
4 Tbl. (½ stick) unsalted butter, softened
1½ cups sugar
2 eggs
4 cups all-purpose flour (High altitude: add 2 Tbl.)
4 tsp. baking powder (High altitude: 1 Tbl.)
½ tsp. baking soda
1½ cups orange juice
Place the cherries and chopped pineapple in a large bowl and cover with
boiling water. Let stand 15 minutes, then drain and pat dry with paper
towels. Set aside.
Butter and flour two 8½ x 4½-inch loaf pans. Set aside.
Cream the butter with the sugar until well blended. (Mixture will look
like wet sand.) Add the eggs and beat well. Sift the dry ingredients
together twice. Add the flour mixture alternately to the creamed mixture
with the orange juice, beginning and ending with the dry ingredients.
Stir in the fruits, blending well. Divide evenly between the pans.
Allow to stand for 20 minutes.
Bake the breads for 45 to 55 minutes, until toothpicks inserted in the
loaves come out clean. Cool in the pans 10 minutes, then allow to
cool completely on racks.
Makes 2 loaves
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Chocolate Emergency Cookies
6 oz. semisweet chocolate chips
6 oz. bittersweet chocolate, broken into large pieces (recommended
brands: Lindt Bittersweet, Godiva Dark)
8 Tbl. (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened and divided
1½ cups all-purpose flour
1/3 cup unsweetened Dutch-style cocoa (recommended brand:
Hershey's European-style)
1½ tsp. baking powder
½ tsp. salt
¾ cup dark brown sugar, firmly packed
¾ cup granulated sugar
3 large eggs
1½ tsp. vanilla extract
Vanilla Icing (recipe follows)
In the top of a double boiler, melt the chips, chopped chocolate, and
4 Tbl. ( ½ stick) of the butter. When melted, set aside to cool briefly.
Sift together the flour, cocoa, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.
In a large mixing bowl, beat the remaining 4 Tbl. of butter with the
sugars. When the mixture is the consistency of wet sand, add the
eggs and vanilla. Mix in the slightly cooled chocolate mixture,
mixing only until completely combined and no traces of flour appear.
Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 25 minutes, until
the mixture can be easily spooned up with an ice-cream scoop.
Preheat the oven to 350ºF. Butter two cookie sheets.
Using a 4-tsp. ice cream scoop, measure out a dozen cookies per sheet.
Bake one sheet at a time for about 9 to 11 minutes, just until the cookies
have puffed and flattened. Do not overbake; the cookies will firm up
upon cooling. Allow the cookies to cool 2 minutes on the cookie sheet,
then transfer them to racks and allow to cool completely.
Frost with Vanilla Icing.
Makes 4 dozen cookies