Nicole Hvidsten | (TNS) The Minnesota Star Tribune MINNEAPOLIS — There’s one common ingredient running through the pages of Sarah Kieffer’s fifth cookbook, “100 Afternoon Sweets,” but you won’t find it in any recipes. It simultaneously fills your soul and satisfies your appetite, whether you’re baking Blueberry Muffin Cake and Banana Bread Brownies or Scotcharoo Blondies and Peanut Butter and Jelly Cake. It’s nostalgia, and it’s not in short supply.
The recipes will conjure memories of childhood afternoons, whether those afternoons were bursting through the door following the aroma of mom’s fresh-baked brownies or were more self-sufficient, with toaster pastries always ready with a warm welcome. “This book is geared toward afternoon sweets, which to me are all the baked goods that I would normally crave in the afternoon hours, complete with a cup of tea or coffee,” Kieffer wrote in the book’s introduction. “When I learned to bake, it was always in the afternoon hours that I did so: after school with my mom, or the late-afternoon shift at the Blue Heron,” the Winona, Minnesota, coffeeshop where she worked while in college.
Kieffer’s latest is divided into eight chapters: one-bowl bakes; brownies, blondies and bars; pie bakes; no bakes; for a crowd; weekend projects; beginnings and ends, which handles what you need to start or finish recipes, like crusts and buttercreams; and extras (think creams, curds and streusel). What you won’t find? Cooki.
