Raspberry Butter

 

My sister brought to my attention that I have never posted my raspberry butter recipe.  I am glad she pointed that out, because it really is so good and should definitely be on The Sisters Cafe where we collect our favorite recipes! I once had this in the Carriage House restaurant in Salt Lake City and I thought I had died and gone to heaven.  Freshly baked rolls slathered in raspberry butter has got to be heaven on earth! When I got home I experimented to come up with a recipe for that delicious Raspberry Butter I had enjoyed.  I think this recipe is perfect!   I always make it for special dinners,  holidays or birthdays.   When the rolls are gone we enjoy it on our whole grain toast in the morning.  It is also fabulous on a crepe (or roll up pancake as we call them). Put some in a cute little jar and gift it along with some rolls to a friend or teacher and they will love you forever:)  So easy and simple to make,   I am sure you will find lots of wonderful ways to use this spread.

Raspberry Butter
submitted by Melanie~The Sisters Cafe

1 cup (2 sticks)  butter at room temperature
1/2 cup good raspberry jam (seeded)
1/4 cup powdered sugar (you could add more--depending on the sweetness of your jam and your taste)

Mix thouroughly and store in fridge.  Enjoy!
*the recipe can easily be halved--but trust me you will find lots of uses for the extras!

Welcome Berry Season!

It's that time of year again!



Berries, berries, berries!  Yum!  Have you noticed that all the berries are on sale lately?  Take advantage of the berry season to have some fun with your family. See if there are any U-Pick farms in your area. Here is one online resource I have discovered:   pickyourown.org I live in Michigan where there are lots of places to choose from. I've gone berry picking with friends (with and without our kids), with my husband for a fun and different date, with visitors from out of town, and of course with the whole family.  We've mostly done blueberry and raspberry picking, but I'd love to discover a blackberry patch around here.  As for strawberries, I have a little patch in my backyard that is more productive that you would think. I picked these strawberries in the picture this morning while I was out watering the garden.

There are so many things to do with berries during their on-season.   First of all, after coming home with your fresh berries, you must enjoy them with a drizzle of cream and a sprinkle of sugar.  It's pure Lusciousness.  And the kids find this tradition especially exciting! :)

Try some recipes that spotlight fresh berries in their full sun-ripened glory!  For all our berry recipes, search under the Recipe Archives Tab under the Berries category. (PS. This index will be revamped very soon for easier use.)

Try the Fruit Pizza that Amy posted last week:

Patriotic Berries and Cream Trifle:


White Chocolate Mousse Tartlettes:


Strawberry, Pinenut and Feta Salad:


...to name a few...
And of course, don't forget the classic: Homemade Freezer Jam!



I always make homemade strawberry freezer jam every Spring.  This year I also made blackberry freezer jam for the first time.  After trying some of my friend, Jenny Balmforth's, homemade blackberry jam at her house, I just had to make some of my own. It was heavenly!  If you're buying your berries at the grocery store, wait for the 10 for $10 sales, where you can buy a 6-oz container of raspberries, or a similar size of blackberries, or a 1 lb container of strawberries for $1 each. (And you don't have to buy ten of them to get that price, fyi.)  That's as good of a deal as you will find at the local grocery store.  I prefer to use the regular pectin that comes in a box for homemade freezer jam. It's a ratio of about 3 cups of crushed berries and 5 cups of sugar. (I confess that I don't really like the lower-sugar pectin varieties.) I follow the Quick & Easy Freezer Jam recipe, which entails crushing the berries, mixing in sugar, combining the powder pectin and some water on the stove, and then mixing it all together for three minutes. It is SO easy.  I can't wait to share Jenny's half-white, half-wheat homemade rolls. When I had her homemade blackberry jam on one of the warm rolls, it was pure heaven. I'll be posting those soon, so stick around!

Strawberry Cream Cheese

This cream cheese is amazing!  Seriously, it is so creamy and sweet and delicious.  You will love it! Of course you have to have it on a GOOD bagel - none of that packaged stuff from the grocery store.  A bakery bagel would be great or you can try homemade bagels which are pure heaven.  Making bagels might seem intimidating, but they are actually quite easy and foolproof! Believe me - they are. Try this recipe here. In a nutshell, to make a bagel:  1) mix dough  2) let dough rise  3) form dough into bagel shapes  4) boil bagels for 30 seconds  5) Bake bagels.  :) Try it!

I regress. Anyway, back to the cream cheese. You need to make the Strawberry Syrup that I posted last Saturday for this recipe. It usually makes 2 cups or so of syrup, so if you don't particularly want strawberry syrup but you do want strawberry cream cheese, I cut the syrup recipe into thirds for you and posted it below. It will make *roughly* 2/3 cups of syrup. So if you don't want any syrup leftovers, mix 1/2 cup of it with two bars of cream cheese.  If there is only a little syrup left over, just add it in. It will be a little more strawberry tasting, which is fine. If you have another quarter cup left over, you can add another bar of cream cheese... and you'll have lots of strawberry cream cheese. :) Or you can just make pancakes sometime for the leftover syrup.  You get to choose. :)

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Strawberry Cream Cheese

Submitted by Erin  ~  The Sisters Cafe

1/4 cup strawberry syrup (recipe below)

1 8-oz package regular cream cheese (NOT Neufchatel cheese or less-fat cream cheese), softened 

For strawberry cream cheese, mix cream cheese and 1/4 cup of strawberry syrup until smooth and creamy.  Serve on warm bagels.

smaller version of Strawberry Syrup recipe:

1/3 cup sugar

1 tsp cornstarch

dash cinnamon

2/3 cup thinly sliced fresh strawberries, roughly chopped

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For strawberry syrup, combine sugar, cornstarch, and cinnamon in saucepan - stir in strawberries.   Bring to a boil over medium heat - cook and stir for 2 minutes or until slightly thickened.   Remove from heat and cool slightly. Makes approximately 2/3 cups.

Original recipe for Strawberry Syrup is here. (It is easy to half, which would make 1 cup of syrup. The recipe above is 1/3 of the original recipe.)

Homemade Chocolate Almond Butter

My cute sister Brittany just left after visiting for Christmas.  It was heavenly to have her here!  On her last afternoon in town, we sneaked in a game of Scrabble over Nutella and homemade strawberry jam sandwiches.  I haven't had Nutella in forever, and it was sooooo good.  So when I stumbled on a recipe for homemade chocolate almond butter, I had to try it!  And WOW!  It is fabulous!  Silky, chocolaty bliss.  The original recipe called for dark chocolate, but since I'm a milk chocolate kind of girl... I changed it to suite. :)  The key to this almond butter is patience.  It's super easy, but it still took about 20 minutes for me to make it.  Lots of scraping down the food processor.  But SO SO SO worth it!  I've been eating this almond butter on bread with and without jam, on apples, with bananas, and I'm already looking forward to having it on waffles and oatmeal for breakfast this week.

Homemade Chocolate Almond Butter
Submitted by Mindy ~ The Sisters Cafe

2 cups raw almonds
1/2 cup chocolate (I used guittard milk chocolate chips)
1 tsp coconut oil
1/8th-1/4 tsp kosher salt, to taste (optional)

Place 2 cups of raw, whole almonds into a food processor. Process for about 15 minutes, scraping down the sides of the bowl every minute or as necessary. It is a long process, but you don’t want to stop until you have released all the oils in the almonds and the mixture is very smooth and buttery! This took me a good 20 minutes (although the original recipe says 15).

Just before your almond butter is ready, melt the chocolate with the coconut oil.  I do this in the microwave.  Microwave chocolate and oil in bowl for 2 minutes on 50% power.  Stir mixture until the bowl is no longer warm.  Then microwave at 30 second intervals on 50% power, stirring after each interval, until fully melted.*

Add the melted chocolate to the almond butter (still in the processor) and process for a couple minutes, scraping down the sides of the bowl as necessary. Add your kosher salt to taste and process more. Scoop into a container and store in the fridge. Makes 1 & 1/4 cups, 20 one-tbsp servings, or enough to fill a 250 ml jar.

*To melt chocolate on the stove top: Add the 1/2 cup chocolate chips and 1 tsp of coconut oil to a small pot. Melt on low. You want to remove the pot from heat when there are still some chocolate chip clumps remaining. Don’t worry they will melt as you stir the mixture. Take it off the heat a bit early to avoid burning the chocolate.

Adapted from: Oh She Glows (Angela has lots of pictures of the process on her site if you need them)

Strawberry Jam

Look what I did last week. I made a triple batch of the best (in my opinion) freezer jam. I have never found a store brand that even comes close to homemade. We just LOVE it!

I know this really isn't a recipe...but I had to share with you my favorite brand for freezer jam. Introducing...

This makes the BEST no cook strawberry freezer jam and the BEST part is ...it only calls for 1 1/2 cups of sugar to 4 cups of crushed fruit. It always disturbed me that the usual freezer jam packets called for equal amounts of sugar and fruit. Yikes--that is a lot of sugar! Anyway, I have loved this low sugar jam. It tastes more like fruit, and not too sugary! This jam is fantastic spread on thisor this!

PS When I can't get fresh strawberries (not the case now) I use the frozen ones from Costco. They are big, red and so fragrant--they make perfect jam!

Do you have a favorite homemade jam??