Monster Sweet Tooth

Daring Bakers October 2010: Doughnuts

2010-10-30T12:24:00.017-04:00

Apologies for having to post another Daring Bakers challenge late. It seems like these past few months have been just work, school, work, school for me. Anyways, I was super excited when I found out what the DB challenge for this month would be. I've always wanted to try my hand at doughnuts, and now I got the chance. Although...alas, I must admit something. I have been terrified of working with yeast. Notice how nothing I've made before contains yeast in it? I've always been so afraid that I would kill the yeast, not let the dough rise enough, etc, etc. Plus, it takes a very long time. It's so much simpler to just whip together a batter or dough in 10 minutes than make a dough, let it rise for an hour, punch it down, shape it into whatever you're making, let it rise again, and...oy! But I thought it was about time to face my fears, so although we were given the choice to make either yeast or cake doughnuts, I went with the yeast.

Another reason I pretty much had to go with the yeast is that I wanted to bake my doughnuts. Not that I don't love an amazingly crispy, greasy fried doughnut, I most certainly do. In fact, I would have preferred to make them that way, although I just didn't want to waste all the oil. My family does have oil specifically for frying things, however, the only things that have been fried in it are savory things. We use it to make tempura shrimp, fish, or even chicken, so nothing sweet has ever been fried in it and I was afraid it would affect the taste of my doughnuts. Plus, here's another confession. I've never fried anything! So again, being as I'm totally inexperienced in frying, I decided just to go with baking.
So...how did the process go? In all actuality, without a hitch! My first baking experience with yeast was a complete success. I measured the temperature of the milk carefully so as not to kill the yeast, and after about five minutes, my yeast was happily bubbling and expanding away. I added the rest of the ingredients, kneaded the dough, placed it in a bowl, and sure enough, after an hour it had doubled and looked just like it was supposed to. I cut out the doughnuts, let them rise again, and baked them and they turned out nice and light and fluffy. I originally was going to use two glazes to frost them, a chocolate and a strawberry, but the recipe ended up making less doughnuts than I thought it would, so I just stuck with a my favorite chocolate glaze recipe. While I'm sad I didn't get to make a strawberry glazed, I am happy that it didn't make too many doughnuts, since we just don't need that many in the house! So I glazed them, and topped a few with toffee bits, one with sprinkles, and left the rest plain. And oh, for the doughnut holes, I rolled them around in some melted butter and then covered them in cinnamon sugar. Very tasty! The only thing I was slightly disappointed about was that the dough itself tasted a little bland. It called for some nutmeg, but I usually find nutmeg too strong, so I omitted it. I was going to substitute cinnamon, but didn't, and ended up wishing I had. But other than that, they were very good and definitely worth trying again! Maybe next time I'll get to fry them. ;)

Baked Doughnuts (from Piece of Cake)
I got 5 large doughnuts, plus 5 doughnut holes of course, plus a tiny bit of extra dough.

Ingredients

1/2 cup plus 3 tablespoons warm milk, divided, 95 to 105 degrees (make sure to take its temperature, as the yeast will be killed if its too warm)
1 1/8 teaspoons active dry yeast
1 tablespoons butter, melted and still warm
1/3 cup sugar
1 egg
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/8 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg (I omitted, but as I've mentioned, I would advise against that...if you don't like nutmeg, substitute with something else.)
1/2 teaspoon fine grain sea salt

Directions

Place 3 tablespoons of the warm milk in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Stir in the yeast and set aside for at least five minutes. Place the remaining 1/2 cup of warm milk in a small bowl, stir in the butter and sugar, and add it to the yeast mixture. On low speed, stir in the egg, flour, nutmeg, and salt - just until the flour is incorporated. Switch to the dough hook and knead the dough for a few minutes at medium speed. At this point, make a few adjustments - if your dough is seriously sticky, add flour a few tablespoons at a time. Too dry? Add a little bit of milk. Eventually, you want the dough to pull away from the sides of the mixing bowl and become soft and smooth. Turn out the dough onto a floured work surface, knead it a few times by hand, and shape it into a smooth ball.

Transfer the dough to an oiled bowl, cover with plastic wrap and put it in a warm place. Let the dough rise until its doubled in size, about 1 hour.

Punch down the dough and roll it out 1/2-inch thick on a floured work surface. Using a 2-3 inch cookie cutter, stamp out circles. Transfer the circles to a parchment-lined baking sheet and cut holes in the centers with a smaller cutter, about half the diameter of the first--remember the hole will close up on the second rising if it's too small, so make it a little bigger than what a finished doughnuts would look like. (I actually just used two cups, since I don't own any round cookie cutters.) Cover the baking sheet with a clean cloth and let the doughnuts rise for another 45 minutes.

Bake in a 375 degree oven until the bottoms are just golden, 8 to 10 minutes - start checking around 8. Better to underbake then overbake here--pull them early if in doubt. Remove the doughnuts from the oven and let cool for just a minute or two. Dip each one in your favorite glaze or dip in melted butter and coat with sugar. Serve immediately.

Chocolate Glaze (from Food.com)
Makes enough to glaze 5 large doughnuts plus have a little left over.

Ingredients

3 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
2 tablespoons milk
1 to 1 1/4 cups sifted confectioners' sugar

Directions

Melt the butter in a small saucepan over low heat, about 2 minutes. Stir in the cocoa powder and milk. Cook the glaze, stirring, until it thickens and comes to a boil, about 2 minutes.
Remove the pan from the heat and stir in 2 cups of confectioners' sugar, adding more if needed to make the mixture smooth and a little thicker than pancake syrup; don't let the glaze get too thick.

Pour into a bowl and dip the still warm doughnuts in the glaze. Top with sprinkles or toffee bits or whatever you wish. Serve immediately.

The October 2010 Daring Bakers challenge was hosted by Lori of Butter Me Up. Lori chose to challenge DBers to make doughnuts. She used several sources for her recipes including Alton Brown, Nancy Silverton, Kate Neumann and Epicurious.

Pumpkin Scones

2010-10-20T18:03:00.010-04:00

After making those pumpkin cupcakes, I still had quite a bit of pumpkin puree left that I had to find something to do with. I immediately thought pumpkin bread, but I didn't want a really large-sized dessert in the house. I also wanted something I had never tried before when it came to pumpkin. So as usual, I headed over to Allrecipes, and just started looking through every single pumpkin recipe they had. I came to one that sounded super interesting, pumpkin French toast, but in the end decided on pumpkin scones. (I think I will be making that French toast sometime in the future though...yum!) The funny thing is, I didn't even end up getting the recipe off of Allrecipes. All of their pumpkin scone recipes didn't have very many stars, so instead I just did a quick search, and found one recipe that was used on each website I visited. It apparently is a clone for Starbucks' pumpkin scones, which I've never had before. Still, it seemed that everyone who had tried the recipe raved about it, so I went with it.

I don't make scones too often. They're a little messy to deal with, since they involve taking the really sticky dough, patting it out on a floured surface, and then cutting it into triangles before placing on a baking sheet. I dread anything that has to be rolled out on the counter top, as they always stick somewhat and then my pretty shapes that I cut out end up getting warped. However, I think these scones were worth it. They are light and fluffy and have a nice pumpkin flavor, along with some spice, and then are topped off with a surprisingly tasty spiced glaze. The recipe called for two glazes, one that was just made of powdered sugar and milk that you brush over the cooled scones, and then a spiced powdered sugar glaze that you drizzle over them once the regular glaze hardens. At first, I actually didn't want to use either glazes. I thought it would make them too sweet. However, in the end, I skipped the regular glaze and just used the spiced and I'm very glad I did. It was a wonderful compliment to the scones, and I'd even advise not to skip it whatsoever. As to whether or not they taste like Starbucks', I have no idea, but the recipe is so good that I'll definitely make it again.

Pumpkin Scones (adapted from Moms Who Think)
Makes 6 large scones

Ingredients

2 cups all-purpose flour
7 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
6 tablespoons cold, unsalted butter
1/2 cup pure pumpkin puree
3 tablespoons half-and-half
1 large egg

Directions

Preheat oven to 425˚F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Combine the dry ingredients in a large mixing bowl. Use a pastry blender or food processor to cut in the butter until the mixture is crumbly in texture and resembles coarse cornmeal.

In a small bowl, whisk together the pumpkin, half and half, and egg. Fold into the dry ingredients until barely combined. It is very important not to over mix the batter. At this point it should still be kind of dry and crumbly.

Loosely form the dough into a ball. Pat it into a 1-inch thick, 9″x3″ rectangle onto a lightly floured surface.

Use a sharp knife to slice the dough through it’s width into three equal portions. Cut each section diagonally to produce 6 triangular slices of dough.
Place each slice on prepared baking sheet and bake for 14 – 16 minutes, until the scones are golden brown. Let cool completely on wire rack, and then continue with glaze directions below.

For the spiced glaze:

1 cup powdered sugar
2 tablespoons milk
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/8 teaspoon ginger
1/8 teaspoon ground cloves

Directions:

Combine the spiced icing ingredients in a small bowl. Use a whisk to drizzle over each scone and allow to dry before serving. (I halved the recipe, and it ended up being the perfect amount to drizzle over each of the scones. But if you want a lot of glaze, go with the original amounts.)

Chocolate Chip Walnut Toffee Cookies

2010-10-17T19:07:00.008-04:00

I saw this recipe over at Cookie Madness quite a while ago, and have been dying to make it ever since. It actually is supposed to be a copycat recipe for the cookies they sell at the Doubletree Hotel. However, I know nothing about those cookies or that hotel, so I thought it wouldn't be fair to name my post "Doubletree Copycats" when I can't tell you anything about the originals and how they compare to this recipe (as opposed to the Levain copycats, in which I've never tasted the original, but at least I know a bit about them to compare). So why was I so attracted to this recipe then? Well, Anna's photo got me hooked, and as I read further, I saw that they had not only chocolate chips and walnuts in them, but toffee bits too! The toffee bits in particular made me want to try this recipe. I haven't used toffee bits in forever, so a cookie that contained all that wonderfulness sounded amazing.

But here's the reason why it took me so long to make them...I couldn't find toffee bits! Every store I went in that sold grocery items, I checked for toffee bits. Not a one had them. Finally, about a week ago, I went into a grocery store that I hardly ever go in to take advantage of some sales I saw in their circular. I thought I would take a stroll around the store just to see what they had, and when I hit the baking aisle, lo and behold. There were Heath Bits o' Brickle. I didn't think twice before snagging a bag off the shelf, inwardly squealing for joy, and making a mental note that this store carried toffee bits for future reference. So how were the cookies? Delicious! The toffee bits really paired nicely with the chocolate chips and walnuts. An interesting thing about this recipe is that it's very similar to the fake Neiman Marcus recipe, which I'm sure you all have heard of at least once. It contains oatmeal that you grind into a fine powder before adding, and a grated milk chocolate bar (although I omitted). I've actually made the fake NM recipe, and I remember it being delicious as well, but with the addition of walnuts and toffee bits that this recipe has, it's even more special and definitely worth making again and again.

Chocolate Chip Walnut Toffee Cookies (from Cookie Madness)
This is a smaller batch that makes a little more than a dozen. For the full recipe, go here.

Ingredients

1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons oatmeal (measure, then grind), ground in a coffee grinder or food processor
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 scant teaspoon salt
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, cold, cut into pieces
1/4 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup packed light brown sugar
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips
1/2 cup toffee bits
3/4 cups walnuts, chopped

Directions

Mix flour, oatmeal, baking powder, baking soda and salt; set aside. Cream butter and sugars in large mixer bowl. Add egg and vanilla and stir until mixed.
Add flour mixture and oatmeal gradually, stirring until incorporated. Stir in toffee bits, chocolate chips, and nuts. Scoop dough up with a quarter cup measure and shape into big balls. Press them slightly to make discs. Set the discs on a plate and chill for a few hours or until firm. (I didn't bother with this, I just wrapped all of the dough in plastic wrap, chilled completely, and then scooped round balls onto the baking sheet. Not flattening the dough = thicker, chewier cookies.)
Place on parchment lined cookie sheets about 3 inches apart. Bake at 375 degrees for 8-13 minutes. Cookies should still be slightly underdone. Move to wax paper lined counter to cool, do not use wire racks. (I'm not sure the reason for this or what it achieves. Again, I just skipped it, and used wire racks.)

MBCC: Caramel-filled Pumpkin Cupcakes with Brown Sugar Cinnamon Buttercream

2010-10-12T10:47:00.016-04:00

I had to miss out on it last month, but this time around I planned early and am now back for another round of Jamieanne's Mystery Box Cupcake Challenge. This month was a little bit different. The first two months I participated in had specific food items as their secret ingredient, but this month, the "ingredient" actually isn't an ingredient at all. This time it's a color, opening up a very large number of possibilities for the challenge. All we had to do was make some part of the cupcake orange or use an orange food, meaning the cupcake could be anything really, considering it's quite easy to color anything orange. But being that it's fall, and I haven't had a chance yet to bake with pumpkin, I had to go that route. It's a predictable route, but a delicious one. I did a quick search on Allrecipes, found a recipe rated five stars, did my little tweaking and moved on to the pairings.

When I decided on pumpkin, I immediately thought of caramel as a pairing. It's one that's been done over and over again, but I've never tried it. I settled on a homemade caramel sauce that I would use to fill the cupcake via the cone method. I really wanted to try a caramel sauce that didn't use any water, but just melted the sugar by itself in a pan since I hadn't tried it before. After a little searching, I came to this recipe which seemed promising. It also had another thing I've never tried before...adding butter to the caramel sauce. So then I needed a frosting. What about cinnamon? Ooh, what about brown sugar cinnamon? A particular recipe popped right into my head, again, another that I've never gotten the chance to try. Matt Lewis and Renato Poliafito's boiled flour cinnamon buttercream from their book Baked: New Frontiers in Baking. I've made a flour buttercream before, and didn't like it too much, but I get the feeling I didn't do it right the first time and wanted to give flour buttercreams another chance. So I took their recipe and did some tweaking to it, such as changing the white sugar to brown and reducing the butter, and I was set to go.
All in all, the cupcakes turned out delicious! The cupcake was great, the caramel delicious and much easier than caramel sauces that use water, and the buttercream? Completely delicious! (Although it was a bit time consuming...I might just stick with Swiss meringue buttercream as it takes less time and tastes almost the same). For more information on Jamieanne's Mystery Box Cupcake Challenge, please visit her info page here.

Pumpkin Cupcakes (adapted from Allrecipes)
Makes about 28 cupcakes

Ingredients

4 eggs, slightly beaten
3/4 cup vegetable oil
2 cups sugar
1 (15 ounce) can pure pumpkin puree
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 cup cornstarch
4 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon salt

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Blend the eggs, oil, sugar, pumpkin, and vanilla in a large mixing bowl; set aside. Stir together dry ingredients in a separate bowl. Add dry ingredients to pumpkin mixture and beat until well blended. (I did this all by hand, no electric mixer needed!)

Pour into lined muffin tins. Fill about 2/3 full. Bake in preheated oven for about 20 minutes or until center springs back when touched. Let cool slightly in the pan first, then remove to wire racks to cool completely.

Caramel Sauce (from Simply Recipes)
Makes a little over 1 cup of sauce

Ingredients

1 cup sugar
6 tablespoons butter (The recipe did not specify salted or unsalted, so I used 3 tablespoons salted [to keep it from tasting flat] and 3 tablespoons unsalted [to keep it from being too salty].)
1/2 cup heavy whipping cream

Directions

Heat the sugar on moderately high heat in a heavy-bottomed 2-quart or 3-quart saucepan. Make sure you have the butter and heavy cream ready to put into the pan. As the sugar begins to melt, stir vigorously with a whisk or wooden spoon. As soon as the sugar comes to a boil, stop stirring, only swirl the pan from now on.
As soon as all of the sugar crystals have melted (the liquid sugar should be dark amber in color), immediately add the butter to the pan. Whisk until the butter has melted.
Once the butter has melted, take the pan off the heat. Count to three, then slowly add the cream to the pan and continue to whisk to incorporate. (Be careful, as the caramel will hiss and bubble up furiously when both the butter and cream hits it.)
Whisk until the caramel sauce is smooth. Let cool in the pan for a couple minutes, then pour into a container and let sit to cool to room temperature.

Brown Sugar Cinnamon Buttercream (adapted from Baked: New Frontiers in Baking)
You may want to increase this recipe slightly in order to generously frost all the cupcakes.

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups brown sugar
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 1/2 cups milk
1/4 cup heavy cream
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, soft but cool, cut into tablespoons
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
2 teaspoons cinnamon

Directions

In a medium heavy-bottomed saucepan, whisk the sugar and flour together. Add the milk and cream and cook over medium heat, whisking occasionally, until the mixture comes to a boil and has thickened, about 20 minutes. (It should be VERY thick by the time it's done, kind of like glue.)

Transfer the mixture to the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Beat on high speed until cool. Reduce the speed to low and add the butter; beat until thoroughly incorporated. Increase the speed to medium-high and beat until the frosting is light and fluffy.
Add the vanilla and cinnamon and continue mixing until combined. If the frosting is too soft, transfer the bowl to the refrigerator to chill slightly: then beat again until it is the proper consistency. If the frosting is too firm, place the bowl over a pot of simmering water and beat with a wooden spoon until it is the proper consistency.

Assembly:

Once the cupcakes are cooled, use a small sharp knife to cut a cone out of the center of the cupcake.

Fill the cupcakes almost to the top with caramel. Cut off the excess cupcake from the cone and then place the "lids" back on the cupcake.

Frost the cupcakes with a piping bag or knife, then drizzle with any remaining caramel sauce. Enjoy!

The winner of October’s Mystery Box Cupcake Challenge will receive prizes from:

Angela's Images; a selection of handmade crafts
Bake It Pretty; a $5 electronic gift card
Beanilla; 2-fold Madagascar vanilla extract & 3 Tongan vanilla beans
Hello Hanna; a pack of Sweet Stands cupcake stands
Lisa Orgler; an 8.5"x11" original art print of your choice
Miss Kitty Creations; a handmade cupcake charm of your choice
Sweet Cuppin Cakes; a prize pack worth $25
Tundra Books; a selection 3 very sweet children's books

Thank you to all our prize sponsors!

Cream Cheese Pound Cake

2010-10-04T16:46:00.009-04:00

I'm not going to even beat around the bush with this one. You NEED to make this recipe. Period. Seriously, scroll down right now to the recipe, take out the ingredients that need to be at room temperature, then come back. I'll wait.

But in all honesty, this is probably the most delicious pound cake I've ever eaten. It has the most heavenly texture and taste, and my days of being jealous at the amazing tight crumbs that all the store-bought pound cakes have are over. And of course, it's a snap to put together and uses ingredients that are always on hand (well, in my case I had to buy cream cheese since I don't like the stuff unless it's used to make some kind of dessert, but I'm assuming the rest of you guys generally keep it on hand, right?) You don't taste the cream cheese, but what it does, along with a large portion of butter and whipping of the batter, is gives the pound cake an amazing light-as-air, velvety, melt-in-your-mouth texture. And the flavor? Perfect of course. The recipe called for both vanilla and almond extracts, but I just wanted to pure vanilla flavor, so that's all I added and I wouldn't have it any other way. To sum it up, the search for the perfect pound cake is complete. I shall stall no longer. Here's the recipe. Take it and make it. You know you want to.

Cream Cheese Pound Cake (adapted from smitten kitchen)
Makes one 10-inch tube cake or two standard loaves

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups (3 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 package (8 ounces) cream cheese, at room temperature
3 cups sugar
6 large eggs, at room temperature
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
3 cups cake flour (NOT self-rising; if you don't have cake flour on hand, substitute 3/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour plus 2 tablespoons cornstarch for every 1 cup of cake flour)
1 teaspoon salt

Directions

Preheat the oven to 325°F. Lightly butter a 10-inch tube pan, then line the bottom with parchment paper. Alternately, you can use a two 9x5 or 8x4 inch loaf pans. (I used 9x5 and just buttered, didn't need the parchment paper.)
Place the butter and cream cheese in a large bowl and beat with a mixer on medium speed until smooth. Add the sugar, increase the speed to high, and beat until light and airy, at least five minutes. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating after each addition and scraping down the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula as needed. Add the vanilla, then the flour and salt all at once. Beat just until incorporated. (I also sifted my flour three times, just to lighten it and produce an even better crumb.)
Pour the batter into the prepared pan and shake lightly to even out the top. Bake until the cake is golden brown and a toothpick inserted in the cake comes out clean, 1 1/4 hours. (The loaves take less time, only about an hour.)
Place the pan on a cake rack and cool for 20 minutes, then remove the cake from the pan and let cool completely. Serve at room temperature.

Daring Bakers September 2010: Decorated Sugar Cookies

2010-09-27T11:57:00.013-04:00

Oh my! I actually almost forgot about this post! Luckily I remembered early on in the day, otherwise I might not have been able to get this post up on time. Phew...anyway, time for another round of the challenges presented by the Daring Bakers! This month I was super excited when I found out what we'd be doing. It was almost as if Mandy from What the Fruitcake?! was reading my mind! I had been looking at intricate, decorated sugar cookies using royal icing on other blogs and had really been wanting to try it out myself, and then boom. I look at the Daring Baker challenge for September, and that's exactly what it is! For those who don't know, royal icing is a type of icing made from egg whites, powdered sugar, and then sometimes lemon or lime juice. It dries hard and shiny and creates the perfect finish for professional-looking decorated sugar cookies. You generally pipe fine lines using a small round piping tip to outline the shape you've created and then use a technique called "flooding" where you water down the royal icing and then use it to fill in the cookie where you've outlined. Then you go back after it's dried with the small piping tip and pipe on details. You can make it as intricate or simple as you like, but the finish product always is impressive.
For the challenge this month, Mandy wanted us to make cookies that were September-themed. She said we could do anything that September meant to us. To me, September means my birthday and the start of fall, my favorite season. The problem is, I only have winter/Christmas themed cookie cutters. So instead of going out and buying more or even making my own, I just free handed them with a knife. It actually wasn't too hard, and of course, if you don't like the shape you've cut, you can always roll it back out and try again. For my birthday, I made birthday cakes, a party hat, and circles with the number 20, the age I turned this month. (Admittedly, I just used a round glass to cut out the circles...no way can I free hand circles that well!) For the fall, I made pumpkins and red/orange/yellow leaves. I actually ended up pretty proud of my cookies. They're not as pretty as other decorated cookies I've seen, but they were pretty good for my first try. I definitely look forward to trying out more in the future! I encourage you to try making some...it's fun, and they taste good too!

Basic Sugar Cookies (adapted from Peggy Porschen)
Makes approximately 36 4" cookies

Ingredients

14 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature
3 cups plus 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 cup caster/superfine sugar
1 large egg, lightly beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions

Cream together the butter, sugar and any flavorings you’re using. Beat until just becoming creamy in texture. (Don’t over mix otherwise you’ll incorporate too much air and the cookies will spread during baking, losing their shape.)
Beat in the egg until well combined, make sure to scrape down the sides of the bowl. Add the sifted flour and mix on low until a non-sticky dough forms.
Knead into a ball and divide into 2 or 3 pieces. Roll out each portion between parchment paper to a thickness of about 1/5 inch. Refrigerate for a minimum of 30 minutes.
Once chilled, peel off parchment and place dough on a lightly floured surface. Cut out shapes with cookie cutters or a sharp knife. Arrange shapes on parchment lined baking sheets and refrigerate for another 30 minutes to an hour. (It's very important to chill the cut-out shapes before baking so they do not lose their shape and spread in the oven.)
Preheat oven to 350°F. Bake until golden around the edges, about 8-15 minutes depending on the size of the cookies. Leave to cool on cooling racks. Once completely cooled, decorate as desired.

Royal Icing (adapted from the Joy of Baking)

Ingredients

2 1/2 to 3 cups confectioner's sugar
2 large egg whites
2 teaspoons lemon juice
1 teaspoon almond extract, optional

Directions

Beat egg whites with lemon juice until combined. Sift the icing sugar to remove lumps and add it to the egg whites. Beat on low until combined and smooth. Add almond extract, if using, and mix until combined. Use immediately or keep in an airtight container.

For decorating tips and all that jazz, please check the printable pdf of this month's challenge here: The Daring Bakers September 2010 challenge.
The September 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Mandy of “What the Fruitcake?!” Mandy challenged everyone to make Decorated Sugar Cookies based on recipes from Peggy Porschen and The Joy of Baking.

Chinese Marble Cookies

2010-09-06T11:45:00.010-04:00

Here on the east coast, we have a chain supermarket called Wegmans. It's an absolutely fantastic store to just walk in and look around. They have a regular grocery store part, but then they have another section of the store that is filled with pre-made food stations. They have an Asian bar, Indian cuisine bar, pizza, sandwiches, bread bakery, sushi bar, even a little coffee bar that also sells gelato! I love going in there, but unfortunately, their prices run pretty high and so I usually don't end up buying things there. (I pretty much just go for the Asian bar for lunch, and that's the only thing I buy there.) The first time I went to Wegmans, they had a cookie bar, and I got a couple cookies. But they were ridiculously expensive...about 9 or 10 bucks per pound!! But one of the cookies I got was called a Chinese marble. It was very good, with a nice almond extract flavor and swirled with chocolate. I mentioned before about the time that I first discovered almond extract, and realized that it was the flavor in these cookies. Right after that moment, I went on a frantic internet search to find a copy cat recipe. My search led me to this forum thread, where I found a recipe that seemed very close. I did a little tweaking, and voila! I found the perfect Chinese marble clone.

Well...I say I did some tweaking...but more like minimal. One of the things I noticed was that the recipe didn't call for almond extract. I absolutely knew that these cookies had almond extract in them, so I added it myself. The only other change I made was to use butter instead of shortening, because that's just my thing (although feel free to use shortening...I won't judge!). The result was a cookie that tasted EXACTLY like how I remembered them, and a heck of a lot cheaper too! It produces a nice crispy edge, and a chewy middle. When I first made them, I was a little skeptical, as the chocolate that is swirled in is unsweetened. I've had a bite of unsweetened chocolate before out of curiosity and it was quite unpleasant...very bitter!! However, the sweetness of the cookies kind of blend into the unsweetened chocolate, and you don't get any bites of bitterness at all. The unsweetened chocolate was actually a great compliment, in my opinion! I took some to work with me, and they seemed to be pretty well received. If you've had the Chinese marble cookies at Wegmans, definitely try this recipe, as it tastes exactly like them and at much less of a cost...it won't disappoint! And if you haven't, try this recipe anyway, because it's a good one!

Chinese Marble Cookies (adapted from this recipe here)
Makes at least 2 dozen

Ingredients

1 cup unsalted butter or shortening
1 cup sugar
1 egg
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon almond extract
1 ounce unsweetened chocolate, melted

Directions

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.
Beat the butter or shortening with sugar and egg until light and fluffy. Add dry ingredients and beat until well combined. Add vanilla and almond extracts. Add chocolate a little at a time, cutting in with a knife. Do not stir.

(I, as I've stated many times, always refrigerate my dough before this step, and ALWAYS recommend doing so as well.) Form dough into balls and place on an ungreased cookie sheet. Bake 8 to 10 minutes until lightly golden. Enjoy!

Daring Bakers August 2010: Ice Cream Petit Fours

2010-08-29T11:20:00.017-04:00

So, I'm posting late this month for the Daring Bakers Challenge. Sorry about that! As I mentioned in the MBCC post, I've been quite busy with school and work here recently, so I haven't had as much time to bake as I usually do. From here on out, I would say to expect less posts, and also less pictures. Believe it or not, it actually takes quite a while to write up one of these posts and to post as many pictures as I do, and I just can't do it anymore. I won't be gone completely, of course, but as I said, just expect less posts and photos. Anyways, on to this month's DB challenge! When I first found out what we'd be making, I have to admit...I was a little disappointed. Ice cream again? I mentioned last DB challenge that I didn't have an ice cream maker, and so I just have to settle with putting the base in the freezer and mixing it until it freezes. And that still is the case.

The ice cream tastes good, but because I don't have a machine churning the ice cream and breaking up the ice crystals for me, the ice crystals remain rather large, so the ice cream's just not as smooth and creamy as it should be. So that was a little disappointing. However, this was the first time making petit fours for me, so I was still looking forward to it and the brown butter pound cake sounded absolutely heavenly. The challenge this month actually included a baked alaska as well, however, we could do both or just choose one, and so I chose the petit fours. As expected, the brown butter pound cake was indeed heavenly! And with 19 tablespoons of butter (brown, amazingly nutty and caramely butter!) in it, I should certainly think so! It was a snap to put together and the pieces of cake I sneakily ate when I was leveling it were absolutely delicious. I could have stopped right there and been thoroughly happy with the challenge this month. However, I proceeded onward to cut the cake in half, add the ice cream and then eventually the chocolate glaze.
As you can see, I took a much easier way out on the chocolate glaze. I covered one of the petit fours completely in chocolate and it took a surprisingly long time! With 24 more petit fours to cover, I thought that there had to be an easier way! And so I thought I'd just put some chocolate on the top and let it drip over the sides in an icicle like way and it'd still be efficient and pretty. So overall...the end product was...good. However, the freezer kind of dried out the cake a little bit, which was the best part of the petit four (though that was probably my fault for not covering the entire cake in chocolate). And they're a little hard to eat. The chocolate on top gets very hard in the freezer which is hard to bite through and overpowers the rest of the flavors a little bit. And if you hit the ice cream wrong when you're biting through it, it gives you the chills! All in all, I'm left a little disappointed this month... However, I most definitely WILL be making the brown butter pound cake again, and this time just enjoying it plain, because it was simply out of this world!

Ice Cream Petit Fours
Makes 25 petit fours

For the brown sugar ice cream: (From Dishing Up Delights)

1 1/2 cups heavy whipping cream
1 1/2 cups whole milk (I used 2%)
3/4 cup (packed) dark brown sugar, divided (I used light since that was all I had, but definitely use dark if you have it...it'll add better flavor)
1/2 vanilla bean, split lengthwise
6 large egg yolks

Directions

Combine heavy whipping cream, whole milk, and 1/2 cup sugar in heavy large saucepan. Scrape in seeds from vanilla bean; add bean. Bring cream mixture to simmer over medium heat, stirring until sugar dissolves.
Meanwhile, whisk yolks and remaining 1/4 cup sugar in large bowl until very thick, about 2 minutes.

Gradually whisk hot cream mixture into yolk mixture. Return mixture to saucepan. Stir over medium heat until custard thickens and thermometer inserted into custard registers 180°F, about 3 minutes (do not boil). Strain custard into large bowl set over another bowl of ice and water. Cool custard completely, stirring often, about 15 minutes. Cover and chill overnight.

Process custard in ice cream maker according to manufacturer's instructions. Transfer ice cream to container. Cover and freeze until firm, at least 6 hours and up to 1 day. (If you don't have an ice cream maker like myself, follow David Lebovitz's instructions here.)

For the brown butter pound cake: (adapted from Gourmet October 2009)

19 tablespoons unsalted (sweet) butter
2 cups sifted cake flour (not self-rising; sift before measuring)
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
1/3 cup granulated sugar
4 large eggs
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Directions

Preheat the oven to 325°F and put a rack in the center. Butter and flour a 9”x9” square pan.
Place the butter in a 10” skillet over medium heat. Brown the butter until the milk solids are a dark chocolate brown and the butter smells nutty. (Don’t take your eyes off the butter in case it burns.) Pour into a shallow bowl and chill in the freezer until just congealed, 15-30 minutes.

Whisk together cake flour, baking powder, and salt.
Beat the brown butter, light brown sugar, and granulated sugar in an electric mixer until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Beat in the eggs one at a time, mixing well, and then the vanilla extract.

Stir in the flour mixture at low speed until just combined.

Scrape the batter into the greased and floured 9”x9 square pan. Smooth the top with a rubber spatula and rap the pan on the counter. Bake until golden brown on top and when a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, about 25 minutes.
Cool in the pan 10 minutes. Run a knife along the edge and invert right-side-up onto a cooling rack to cool completely.

For the hard chocolate glaze: (from allrecipes)

1/2 cup unsalted butter
10 (1 ounce) squares semisweet chocolate

Directions

Chop the chocolate into small pieces. Combine chocolate with butter in the top of a double boiler, over simmering water. Stir frequently until melted and smooth. Remove from heat. Cool to tepid before glazing the petit fours.

Assembly:

Line a 9”x9” pan with plastic wrap, so that no sides of the pan are exposed and so there is some extra plastic wrap hanging off the sides. Spread 1 ¾ to 2 cups ice cream into the pan. Cover with more plastic wrap and freeze several hours.
Once the brown butter pound cake has completely cooled, level the top with a cake leveler or a serrated knife. Then split the cake in half horizontally to form two thin layers.
Unwrap the frozen ice cream. Flip out onto one of the layers of cake and top with the second layer of cake. Wrap well in plastic wrap and return to the freezer overnight.

Trim ¾” off each side of the ice cream cake to leave a perfectly square 7.5” ice cream cake. Cut the cake into twenty five petit fours, each 1.5”x1.5”.

Glaze the petit fours one at a time: place a petit four on a fork and spoon chocolate glaze over it. (Or be lazy like me and just let the chocolate drip over the sides.)
Place the petit fours on a parchment-lined baking sheet and return to the freezer for one hour.

The August 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Elissa of 17 and Baking. For the first time, The Daring Bakers partnered with Sugar High Fridays for a co-event and Elissa was the gracious hostess of both. Using the theme of beurre noisette, or browned butter, Elissa chose to challenge Daring Bakers to make a pound cake to be used in either a Baked Alaska or in Ice Cream Petit Fours. The sources for Elissa’s challenge were Gourmet magazine and David Lebovitz’s “The Perfect Scoop”.

Brown Sugar Banana Bread

2010-08-25T14:03:00.010-04:00

It always seems that whenever my family gets bananas at the grocery store, there are always a couple left over that don't get eaten. They just hang there on the banana hook and continue to become more and more ripe. Of course, what better to do with them then than to make a banana bread? I've already shared my favorite banana bread on here before, and although I love that recipe, I thought for once I might change it up and try a different recipe. This one in particular had caught my eye not too long ago on Allrecipes. It doesn't have too many reviews on it so far, but the small amount it has are quite positive. Most reviewers described the bread as having a wonderful flavor and a super soft texture thanks to the brown sugar. The one thing that worried me was that a couple of reviewers had trouble with the bread sinking in the middle the first time they tried it. But most people who had trouble with that had said that the second time they made it, it came out perfect, and provided tips for what they did to make it not sink. So with ripe bananas and tips on hand, I went to make this bread for breakfast.

One really interesting thing about this recipe is that it has very different directions than most quick breads. Generally for quick breads or muffins, you use the "mix, mix, pour, mix" method. As in, you mix together the dry ingredients in one bowl, mix together the wet ingredients in a second, pour the wet ingredients into the dry and mix again until combined. However, the mixing method for this recipe is actually more like a cookie recipe. You beat the brown sugar and butter until fluffy, then add the smashed bananas, egg, cinnamon, vanilla, and milk, and then add the dry ingredients. Using the advice of some of the reviewers, I beat my butter and sugar for quite a while, at least 7-8 minutes until it was incredibly light and fluffy. I also let my egg come up to room temperature, and though I didn't have time to let my milk come to room temperature, I zapped it in the microwave until warm. The result was an incredibly creamy and delicious batter that I had problems not eating straight out of the bowl! The reviewers also suggested that the cooking time wasn't long enough, so I let it go longer than called for until a toothpick came out clean. Sure enough, I ended up with a non-sunken, soft-textured, delicious tasting banana bread. I'm not sure if I like it better than the banana bread recipe I've already posted, but it's certainly on par with it, and definitely a recipe I'll keep and make again!

Brown Sugar Banana Bread (from allrecipes)
Makes 1 9x5 inch loaf

Ingredients

4 ripe bananas, cut into chunks (I only used 3 medium, since that was all I had)
1 1/4 cups light brown sugar
1/2 cup butter, softened
1 egg
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 cup whole milk (I used 2%)
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease a 9x5-inch loaf pan.
Place the bananas into a large plastic zipper bag, seal the bag, and smoosh the bananas with your fingers until very well mashed. Set the bananas aside. Place the brown sugar and butter into a mixing bowl, and mix on medium speed with an electric mixer until light and fluffy, 1 to 2 minutes. Cut a corner from the plastic bag, and squeeze the mashed bananas into the bowl of brown sugar mixture. With the electric mixer on medium speed, beat in the bananas, egg, cinnamon, vanilla extract, and milk until the mixture is well combined. (Don't be surprised at this point if the mixture looks really curdled...once you add the flour, it'll be fine!) Switch the mixer to low speed, and gradually beat in the flour, baking soda, baking powder, and kosher salt just until the batter is smooth, about 1 minute. Spread the batter into the prepared loaf pan.
Bake in the preheated oven until the bread is set and lightly browned on top, about 40 minutes. (Mine took 50 minutes to bake, and some reviewers said their bread took closer to 60...just remember to watch it!) A toothpick inserted into the center of the loaf should come out clean. Let cool in the pan slightly, then remove to a wire rack to cool completely.

MBCC: White Chocolate Raspberry Cheesecake Cupcakes

2010-08-19T11:06:00.011-04:00

Phew! I was beginning to think I wouldn't get this entry in on time. What with school about to start and me working all the time, I really haven't had many chances to bake, but here I am with my entry and I'm happy I could make it! I'm going to apologize first of all. Because I had so little time, I didn't have time to take a bunch of photos, so I only have photos of the finished product. Eek! Sorry! But anyway, it's time for round 2 of Jamieanne's Mystery Box Cupcake Challenge and this month's ingredient was white chocolate! When I found out what the mystery ingredient was, I immediately began racking my brain to see how I could incorporate it. At first I thought candy bar. Maybe take a white chocolate candy bar and recreate it into a cupcake. But what bar? A Zero bar? A white chocolate Toblerone? But eventually, another combo hit me. What about white chocolate raspberry? The combination was inspired by an amazing cheesecake I had made before (which unfortunately I made before I started blogging), and as I got to thinking, I remembered that a while ago, I had made a recipe for a cheesecake flavored frosting and still had not gotten a chance to try it. Perfect! A white chocolate raspberry cheesecake cupcake! And then oh, I thought, why not go the whole nine yards and add a cookie crust to it? However, as I did these last minute, I didn't have time to grind the cookies and make a crust, so instead, I just put a whole vanilla wafer at the bottom of each cupcake liner and voila! It was perfect!

The cupcake isn't an actual cheesecake. Sometimes when people make "cheesecake cupcakes," they just make mini cheesecakes in cupcake liners. But this recipe is an actual cupcake. It's a white chocolate cupcake with white chocolate melted in and then chopped finely into the batter, sitting atop a vanilla wafer cookie. I used the cone method to fill it with raspberry preserves and then topped it off with a white chocolate cheesecake frosting. How is the frosting "cheesecake," you say? The secret is actually cheesecake flavored instant pudding! I got the idea a long time ago in order to try and make cream cheese frosting more appealing to myself. I've never been a fan of cream cheese, and although you add a bunch of sugar and flavoring to it in order to make a frosting, I've never cared much for cream cheese frosting either. Yet for some reason, I love cheesecake. Doesn't make sense, I know! So when I saw a cheesecake flavored instant pudding in the store one time, I thought that by adding it to a cream cheese frosting, I could make a tasty cheesecake flavored frosting that I actually liked. I threw some melted white chocolate in too to keep with the theme. I can't take too much credit for the cake recipe, because I only altered it slightly from a recipe I found on allrecipes, so I wanted to be sure to make up for it with this frosting, and I think I did!

White Chocolate Raspberry Cupcakes (adapted from Clara's White German Chocolate Cake on allrecipes)
Makes about 24 cupcakes

Ingredients

About 24 vanilla wafers
5 (1 ounce) squares white chocolate, chopped, divided
2 1/2 cups sifted cake flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup butter, softened
1 1/2 cups white sugar
4 egg yolks
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup buttermilk
4 egg whites
1/2 cup raspberry preserves

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line a cupcake pan with liners. In each liner, drop a whole vanilla wafer to act as the crust. Set aside.
Sift together the flour, baking powder and salt (this will be the second time the flour is sifted). Set aside.
In a small, microwave safe bowl, melt 4 squares of the white chocolate, preserving the last finely chopped square. Set the melted chocolate off to the side to cool slightly. In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the yolks one at a time. Add the melted chocolate and vanilla and mix until well combined. Beat in the flour mixture alternately with the buttermilk. Fold in the remaining chopped chocolate.
In a large bowl, beat egg whites until stiff peaks form. Fold 1/3 of the whites into the batter, then quickly fold in remaining whites until no streaks remain. Divide the batter among the cupcake liners, pouring on top of the vanilla wafers.
Bake for about 20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool in the pan slightly then remove to wire racks to cool completely.
When the cupcakes have cooled, cut small holes in the top using the cone method. Fill each one with about a teaspoon of raspberry preserves and place the "lids" back on.

White Chocolate Cheesecake Frosting (my own recipe)

Ingredients

1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese
1 box cheesecake flavored instant pudding
2 ounces white chocolate, melted
4 cups powdered sugar, plus more if needed
2 tablespoons of milk, plus more if needed
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Directions

In a large mixing bowl, cream the cream cheese until smooth. Add the box of cheesecake instant pudding mix and the melted white chocolate. Mix until well combined.
Add the powdered sugar a little at a time and then add in the milk and vanilla. Turn the mixer up to medium and beat until well combined and fluffy. Use immediately to frost cupcakes.

For all the information on this contest, please visit Jamieanne's Mystery Box Cupcake Challenge info page right here.

The winner of August’s Mystery Box Cupcake Challenge will receive prizes from:

Bake It Pretty; $5 electronic gift card
Beanilla; 3 Indian + 3 Tahitian vanilla beans & a jar of Ground Vanilla
CT2Designs; a cupcake ring
Miss Kitty Creations; a cupcake charm of your choice
Sweet Cuppin Cakes; a prize pack worth $25

Thank you to all our prize sponsors!

Microwave Yellow Mug Cake

2010-08-12T18:17:00.013-04:00

It's been quite a while since I last posted, hasn't it? I apologize for that. I actually haven't been doing a lot of baking here recently, and when I have, they've been things I've already blogged about (like applesauce quick bread and Levain copycats...yum!). But now here I am with a new recipe. This one is as quick and easy as it gets when it comes to making sweets. I'm sure most of you have heard of the microwave mug cake by now. The chocolate one seems to be the most common one made. I've made it before a couple of times myself. But in all honesty, I was never too impressed with it. Sure, it was quick and easy to make, however, the texture was awfully rubbery and dense and the flavor just couldn't make up for it. I often ended up drowning it in a chocolate glaze just to make it edible. It wasn't horrible, but it was far from great. Just recently I got to thinking about it again and then thought, 'What about a yellow cake instead?' But could it end up being any better? I certainly think so!
The truth of the matter is, a cake made in the microwave will never be better than one made in the oven. EVER. However, this one is actually pretty good for being made in a microwave. After thinking about a yellow microwave mug cake, a quick search led me to this recipe, and it was the one I went with. The texture still wasn't perfect, however, I thought it was better. It produces a very dense slightly spongy cake that can only be expected since it's made in the microwave. However, the flavor was great, and paired with my go-to chocolate buttercream, it definitely satisfied my sweet tooth! Don't skimp on the flavoring is my advice. I used both vanilla extract and vanilla butter & nut flavoring (which is why my cake is extra yellow, since the flavoring contains yellow food coloring in it). It says just a dash in the recipe, but definitely go with at least a 1/2 teaspoon if you're using vanilla. Or if you're using a stronger flavored extract, adjust accordingly, but as I said, don't skimp! I'm looking forward to trying coconut and almond extracts in the future! Oh, and of course, be sure to use a really large mug. Here's the one I used compared to a normal sized mug.

Microwave Yellow Mug Cake (adapted from momoften's recipe on grouprecipes.com)
Makes one miniature cake that's actually big enough to share with 1 or 2 other people...however, if you want it all for yourself, I won't tell. ;)

Ingredients

6 tablespoons all-purpose flour
4 tablespoons (1/4 cup) sugar
1/8 teaspoon baking powder
dash salt
1 egg
3 tablespoons milk or water
3 tablespoons oil
dash vanilla extract (or whatever flavoring you like)

Directions

In a small bowl, place the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt and mix until combined.
In another small bowl, whisk together the egg, milk or water, oil, and extract. Pour into the dry ingredients and whisk until combined.

Spray a small amount of nonstick cooking spray into your mug and pour the cake batter in. (You can actually do this whole process in the mug if you don't want to dirty extra dishes. Just don't spray any cooking spray in it, then proceed to mix your dry and wet ingredients right in the mug.) Microwave for 2 1/2 to 3 minutes. (I only cooked mine for 2 1/2...I think the less you cook it, the less spongy it will be...just don't undercook.) Don't be alarmed if the cake at some point rises above the top of the mug. It will sink back down when you turn the microwave off.

Remove from the mug and enjoy warm or allow it to cool and frost with your favorite frosting. (I used my go-to chocolate buttercream that I also used to frost almond cupcakes.)

Daring Bakers July 2010: Swiss Roll Ice Cream Cake

2010-07-27T12:17:00.012-04:00

In my infinite knowledge (har har), I accidentally almost posted this yesterday! That wouldn't have been good, ha ha. I think I was just a bit frazzled. A huge storm came through my area on Sunday and knocked out my power, and my power didn't come back on until yesterday, 23 hours later! It was a rough bit, and I'm very glad that I made this ice cream cake a couple weeks ago, otherwise it most likely would have melted. Anyways, now that my confusion has been cleared up and I am indeed posting on the correct day, it's time to tell you about this month's Daring Bakers challenge. This is only my third DB challenge, but it was probably one that I was most excited for. I was a little worried at first, because I don't have an ice cream maker (though really want one), but I read that the poster of the recipe had made this recipe without one, so I was quite relieved. Like last time, all of the parts were very easy to put together, but this time, luckily nothing went astray!
This was the first time I've ever made a rolled cake. I was definitely a bit nervous. I still couldn't see how I could roll the cake without it breaking in two. But when the cakes came out of the oven, I certainly saw how! They were very spongy and pliable, and rolled up just fine. However, when they were cooled and I unrolled them to spread them with cream, surely enough, they were quite raggedy and slightly coming apart. Aha, but I said nothing really went astray, right? That's right. When I rolled the cakes back up with the cream, they certainly didn't look very pretty, but when I sliced into them and lined the bowl with them, they looked perfectly fine and nice (well, they could have been nicer, but not too bad for a first-timer). Woohoo! After that, everything went pretty quick and easy. Well, I say quick, but I mean putting them together. There was a lot of down time while making this, though. I assume if you had an ice cream maker, it would probably go a heck of a lot faster for you. Because I didn't have one, I used a method where I just put the ice cream bases in the freezer and as it froze, I took it out every once and a while and beat it with a wooden spoon. Though I have to admit I got a little slack...the ice cream took several hours to freeze totally! But I was happy to do it. Oh, and the hot fudge sauce? Probably the easiest, and very yummy!
So how did it taste? Very, very good! This is probably the most satisfied I've been with a DB challenge so far. In terms of taste, I think maybe the croquembouche was my favorite by just a slight hair, but the Swiss roll ice cream cake was delicious and much better looking than my croquembouche, so it wins for now. My only complaint would be that my favorite part of the cake was the one thing that there seemed to be the least amount of: the chocolate ice cream. Of course, Sunita, the daring baker who provided the challenge, did give us free reign on ice cream flavors, so I guess I'm to blame for that one. So I encourage you to give this recipe a try and don't be afraid to change up some of the flavors. There is lots of downtime, but it's certainly worth it in the end!

Swiss Roll Ice Cream Cake (inspired by the Swiss roll ice cream cake from Taste of Home; recipes developed by Sunita of Sunita’s world – life and food)
Makes 1 large cake

For the swiss rolls:

6 medium sized eggs
1 cup caster sugar
6 tablespoons all-purpose flour
5 tablespoons cocoa powder
2 tablespoons boiling water
extra caster sugar or powdered sugar for rolling
oil for brushing the pans

For the cream filling:

2 cups heavy whipping cream
1 vanilla bean, cut into small pieces (or 1 teaspoon vanilla extract)
5 tablespoons caster sugar

Directions

For the cake: Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Brush two 9x11 inch baking pans with a little oil and line with greaseproof baking paper (okay, I looked and looked for 9x11 inch pans, but I'm just not sure if they sell them in the US, so I baked mine in an 8x11, which was the closest I could find). If you have just one pan, bake one cake and then let the pan cool completely before using it for the next cake.
In a large mixing bowl, add the eggs and sugar and beat till very thick; when the beaters are lifted, it should leave a trail on the surface for at least 10 seconds.

Add the flour mixture, in three batches and fold in gently with a spatula. Fold in the water.

Divide the mixture among the two baking pans and spread it out evenly, into the corners of the pans. Place a pan in the center of the preheated oven and bake for about 10-12 minutes or till the center is springy to the touch.

Spread a kitchen towel on the counter and sprinkle a little caster sugar (or powdered sugar) over it. Turn the cake on to the towel and peel away the baking paper. Trim any crisp edges. Starting from one of the shorter sides, start to make a roll with the towel going inside. Cool the wrapped roll on a rack, seam side down. Repeat for the next cake as well.

For the cream filling: Grind together the vanilla pieces and sugar in a food processer till nicely mixed together. If you are using vanilla extract, just grind the sugar on its own and then add the sugar and extract to the cream.

In a large bowl, add the cream and vanilla-sugar mixture and beat till very thick. Divide the cream mixture between the completely cooled cakes.

Open the rolls and spread the cream mixture, making sure it does not go right to the edges (a border of ½ an inch should be fine). Roll the cakes up again, this time without the towel. Wrap in plastic wrap and chill in the fridge till needed, seam side down.

For the vanilla ice cream:

2 1/2 cups heavy whipping cream
1 vanilla bean, cut into piece or 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup granulated sugar

Directions

Grind together the sugar and vanilla in a food processor. In a mixing bowl, add the cream and vanilla sugar mixture and whisk lightly till everything is mixed together. If you are using the vanilla extract, grind the sugar on its own and then and the sugar along with the vanilla extract to the cream.
Pour into a freezer friendly container and freeze till firm around the edges. Remove from the freezer, beat till smooth and return to the freezer. Do this 3-4 times and then set completely.

For the hot fudge sauce:

1 cup caster sugar
3 tablespoons cocoa powder
2 tablespoons cornstarch
1 1/2 cups water
1 tablespoon butter
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions

In a small saucepan, whisk together the sugar, cocoa powder, cornstarch and water.
Place the pan over heat, and stir constantly, till it begins to thicken and is smooth (for about 2 minutes).
Remove from heat and mix in the butter and vanilla. Keep aside to cool.

For the chocolate ice cream:

2 cups heavy whipping cream
1 cup caster sugar
3 tablespoons cocoa powder

Directions

Grind together the sugar and the cocoa powder in a food processor.
In a saucepan, add all the ingredients and whisk lightly. Place the pan over heat and keep stirring till it begins to bubble around the edges.

Remove from heat and cool completely before transferring to a freezer friendly container till firm around the edges. If you are using an ice cream maker, churn the ice cream according to the manufacturer’s instruction, after the mixture has cooled completely.

Remove from the freezer, beat till smooth and return to the freezer. Do this 3-4 times and then set completely.

Assembly:

Cut the Swiss rolls into about 20 equal slices (approximately 1 inch each).
Cover the bottom and sides of the bowl in which you are going to set the dessert with cling film/plastic wrap. (I used my 4.5 quart Kitchen Aid bowl...it's about 8 1/2 inches in diameter and 6 1/2 inches deep.)
Arrange two slices at the bottom of the pan, with their seam sides facing each other. Arrange the Swiss roll slices up the bowl, with the seam sides facing away from the bottom, to cover the sides of the bowl. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and freeze till the slices are firm (at least 30 minutes).

Soften the vanilla ice cream. Take the bowl out of the freezer, remove the cling film cover and add the ice cream on top of the cake slices. Spread it out to cover the bottom and sides of the bowl. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and freeze till firm (at least 1 hour).
Add the fudge sauce over the vanilla ice cream, cover and freeze till firm (at least an hour).
Soften the chocolate ice cream and spread it over the fudge sauce. Cover with plastic wrap and freeze for at least 4-5 hours till completely set .
Remove the plastic cover, and place the serving plate on top of the bowl. Turn it upside down and remove the bowl and the plastic lining. If the bowl does not come away easily, wipe the outsides of the bowl with a kitchen towel dampened with hot water. The bowl will come away easily.
Keep the cake out of the freezer for at least 10 minutes before slicing, depending on how hot your region is. Slice with a sharp knife, dipped in hot water.

The July 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Sunita of Sunita’s world – life and food. Sunita challenged everyone to make an ice-cream filled Swiss roll that’s then used to make a bombe with hot fudge. Her recipe is based on an ice cream cake recipe from Taste of Home.-

MBCC: Spiced Vanilla Honey Tea Cupcakes

2010-07-16T14:46:00.016-04:00

I am beyond excited to share this recipe! But first, I should give a little background. The owner of a blog I really like to visit, Jamieanne of The Sweetest Kitchen, has decided to hold a cupcake competition each month. She's called it the Mystery Box Cupcake Challenge (which I have shortened to MBCC in the title), where each month there is a secret ingredient that is revealed and then competitors have to create a cupcake that incorporates this ingredient. This is the very first month and I immediately knew that if I got the time, I wanted to enter. At other blogs I like to visit, I've seen people competing in such cupcake competitions as Iron Cupcake, and I always wanted to try my hand at it because it seemed like a lot of fun. And not only that, but it would give me the chance to try and create my own recipes and expand my horizon as a baker. This competition has given me just the chance! I would encourage anyone to check it out as I have already had a lot of fun with this month's challenge and am going to continue entering each month that I get a chance! For all the info, Jamieanne has compiled all of the rules and guidelines right here.

So, onto the actual cupcake! This month's secret ingredient was tea. Tea! I'm not sure if I've ever mentioned it before, but I absolutely love tea. It's my favorite drink and we drink it like crazy at my house. We can make a huge pitcher of black tea and have it be gone or close to gone the next day. (And did I mention there's only 3 of us?) After my last adventure of creating my own coconut muffin recipe, I was super excited to try and create another recipe I could call my own. I started thinking of flavor combinations that I thought would be good. Spice, of course. But what about vanilla? And honey? How about all of them?! Sounds good to me! So I took my favorite yellow cake recipe and started tweaking and changing it to my liking.

For the spices, I knew I wanted cinnamon, and nutmeg sounded good too, but what about some ginger? I've actually never used ground ginger in a recipe before, but it sounded like it would be a good addition, so I added it in. I changed the regular sugar in the recipe to vanilla sugar and cut the sugar down a bit to replace some of it with honey. And of course, I put tea bags into the warm milk called for in the recipe to steep. For the frosting, I was thinking either a honey Swiss meringue buttercream or a cooked frosting that had spices in it. I've made a cooked frosting before and wasn't too sure if I liked it. I've been meaning to try one again to see if I like it any better, but because I knew that I already loved Swiss meringue buttercream, that one won. I knew that I had to go through multiple trials with my coconut muffins to get them perfect, so I was prepared to do so again with this recipe. So with a determination, I went off into my kitchen to bake.
After the batter was prepared, I tasted it. It was good! But still needed a little something extra. I doubled the cinnamon, and although I had initially decided not to add vanilla extract because I had already used vanilla sugar, I went ahead and added some anyway and tasted the batter again. Wow!! It was delicious! I never expected it to be that good. My spirits flew. Could these cupcakes actually turn out really good on the first try? I put them in the oven and crossed my fingers. I pulled them out and let them cool and then started on the SMBC. I subtracted a little sugar from my usual standards (1/4 cup of sugar per egg white) since I was adding honey. The butter remained at 1/4 cup per egg white. After making the cupcakes, I actually didn't have too much honey left. But that didn't matter as only a small amount sufficed just fine. My planned recipe had called for more, but it didn't need it. I added some vanilla to keep with the vanilla honey theme and it was delicious! So after frosting the cupcakes and snapping pictures, I bit into one. WOW! It was out of this world! And there are really no words to describe how proud of myself I was. The cupcakes were so tender and had lovely flavor and the buttercream was perfect for them. I am so thankful to Jamieanne's contest even if I don't win, because it has given me the chance to see that I can come up with my own recipes and have them turn out well, and allowed me to have so much fun and gain confidence as a baker at the same time. I look forward to entering her contest again and again!

Spiced Vanilla Honey Tea Cupcakes (original yellow cake recipe from A Passion for Baking by Marcy Goldman; all tweaks and changes made by yours truly)
Makes 12 cupcakes (**Again, I will warn you as I did with the coconut muffins, I have only ever made half of this recipe before, never the full recipe. But I will state again that I have never had problems scaling up or down recipes, so this full recipe should be fine.)

Ingredients

1 cup milk
2 black tea bags
1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
3/4 cup vanilla sugar (If you don't have vanilla sugar, you can use regular granulated and increase the amount of vanilla extract to 2 teaspoons.)
1/4 cup honey
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
pinch ground nutmeg

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line a standard cupcake pan with liners.
In a small, microwave-safe, microwave the milk for about a minute or until hot. Remove from the microwave and add the tea bags. Let the tea bags steep in the milk as you prepare the other ingredients.

In a large mixing bowl, cream the butter, sugar, and honey until light and fluffy. Add the egg and vanilla and mix well.

In a medium bowl, mix together the flour, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, ginger, and nutmeg. Retrieve the tea-infused milk and squeeze out any milk that was absorbed by the tea bags back into the rest of the milk. With the mixture running, add the dry ingredients to the butter mixture alternately with the tea-infused milk. Mix just until combined.

Divide the batter evenly between the cupcake liners and bake the cupcakes for 18-20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center of one comes out clean. Let cool in the pan for about 5 minutes, then remove to a wire rack to cool completely.

Vanilla Honey Swiss Meringue Buttercream (from my own mind)
Makes enough to frost 12 cupcakes

Ingredients

3 egg whites
1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons granulated sugar
pinch salt
3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
1 tablespoon honey
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Directions

Fill a large saucepan with about an inch of water and bring it to a simmer. In a heat friendly mixing bowl, place the egg whites, sugar, and salt, and fit the bowl over top of the pan, making sure that the simmering water does not touch the bottom of the bowl. Whisk the egg mixture constantly until a candy thermometer reads 160 degrees, about 5 minutes. If you don't have a candy thermometer, dip your finger into the egg mixture and rub it between your fingers. If it feels hot to the touch and it no longer feels grainy from the sugar, the mixture is ready.
Place the egg mixture in a bowl of a stand mixer and fit the stand mixer with the whisk attachment. Whisk the mixture until it forms a meringue and comes to room temperature, about 5-7 minutes. (Feel the bowl in order to tell if it has come to room temperature. If the bowl no longer feels warm at all, it's good to go.)

Switch to the paddle attachment and put the mixer on low speed. Add the butter one tablespoon at a time, waiting a couple seconds between each tablespoon. Once all of the butter has been added, turn the mixer on high and beat it until it forms a smooth, creamy buttercream, about 6-10 minutes. If at any time the mixture looks curdled, don't be alarmed. This is normal; just keep beating and the mixture will come back together. Also, if it ever appears to be very soupy, again, keep mixing, it'll thicken up.
Once the buttercream is smooth and creamy, add the honey and vanilla on low speed and continue mixing for a minute or two to completely incorporate the ingredients and to remove any air pockets. Use to frost cupcakes and enjoy!!

The winner of July’s Mystery Box Cupcake Challenge will receive prizes from:

Bake It Pretty; $5 electronic gift card
Beanilla; Tahitian vanilla fleur de sel & 3 organic Indonesian vanilla beans
Rishi Tea; the new Tsuki tea pot and 2 tins of tea
Soapylove Glycerin Soap Design; a Soapy Pop
Sweet Cuppin Cakes; a prize pack worth $25

Thank you to all our prize sponsors!

Harpoon Hanna's Coconut Muffins Copycat

2010-07-09T14:06:00.006-04:00

UPDATE! : I've recently remade these muffins using regular milk and a little bit of the vanilla butter & nut flavoring that I said I wanted to try and I think I hit the jackpot! They really are like Harpoon Hanna's muffins. Delicious! Also, the texture just isn't the same if applesauce is used. You can still use it if you wish, but if you're not too worried about it, definitely go with the oil. I've modified the recipe below. I've also edited the title to reflect what this recipe is really about.

I mentioned last post that I had finally created a recipe that I could call my own, and so now, here it is! This muffin recipe is copycat of a muffin I encountered when I was on vacation. I went to a restaurant called Harpoon Hanna's, and what they do is send around someone with a basket of bread and muffins for you to have while you're waiting for your food. One of the items was a coconut muffin, and although I'm always a bit iffy on coconut, I decided to try one anyway. And OMG! Amazing muffin!! It was so delicious that I decided there on the spot to try and recreate the recipe when I got home. So what I did was start off with a very basic muffin recipe that I found here on Allrecipes. And then I tweaked and tweaked the recipe until I finally got a delicious muffin! I went through 3 trials before I achieved really great coconut muffins, and then went through one last 4th trial just to substitute some applesauce for some of the oil, and it turned out great. I don't think they're quite as good as Harpoon Hanna's, but they still are a darn good muffin and one that I'm very proud that I was able to create.

The muffins are nice and fluffy and almost cupcake-like, which was like the muffins at Harpoon Hanna's. The muffins there though almost seemed to taste a bit like yellow cake mix, which I was going to try and compensate for by adding a little vanilla butter & nut flavoring, which I've mentioned before is basically like yellow cake mix in a bottle, but I also knew that I wanted to be able to share this recipe and a lot of people might have trouble finding it. In the end, I left it out, but if you ever happen to come across some, try it! It would probably be great in the muffins! (Edit: As I've mentioned in my update above, I ended up using it and it really makes the muffin. Try and find it, if you can. If not, just use regular vanilla in place of it.) The muffins also have a great, not too overpowering coconut flavor and a nice finish of vanilla. I think I did the best I could do, but you never know...I could still try tweaking it some more and making it an even better recipe! If I do, I'll be sure to post updates on this post. So if you're in the mood for coconut, or if you happen to also have been to Harpoon Hanna's and had their amazing coconut muffins, give this recipe a try and tell me what you think! I'd love feedback!

Coconut Muffins (base recipe from Allrecipes, all tweaks and changes made by yours truly)
** I must warn you. I have never made a batch of this scaled up recipe. All trials I did were in 1/4 batches that made about 4 muffins. Note that this scaled up recipe should make anywhere from 12-16 muffins. I have never had trouble scaling up or down recipes, so this one should be fine.

Ingredients

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
2 large eggs
1 cup milk
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 teaspoon vanilla butter & nut flavoring
1 teaspoon coconut extract
1/2 cup shredded coconut, plus more for garnish if desired

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line muffin tin(s) with paper liners.
In a large bowl, mix together the flour, baking powder, salt, and both sugar until well combined. Set aside.
In a medium bowl, whisk together the eggs, milk, oil, and extracts until combined. Create a well in the dry ingredients and then pour the wet ingredients into the well. Mix until the flour is almost all the way incorporated and then add the shredded coconut. Continue mixing JUST until combined. Do NOT overmix!
Fill the muffin cups 3/4 of the way full with batter and sprinkle with extra coconut if desired. Bake for 18-20 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center of one of the muffins comes out clean. Cool muffins in the pan for about 5 minutes, then remove to a wire rack to cool completely.

Milk Chocolate Chip Cookies

2010-07-02T14:05:00.008-04:00

Some people out there don't like milk chocolate in their cookies. Generally it's too sweet for an already sweet cookie. But sticking true to my blog name, I have a monster sweet tooth, so I say bring on the milk chocolate! It's actually my favorite type of chocolate, and I know, I know, it's the worst kind out there for you, but still so amazingly milky and creamy and sweet that I just can't get enough of it! I started getting a craving for some milk chocolate chip cookies, so immediately went on a little search. My search took me to this blog where she originally got the recipe off of Hershey's Canadian website and the cookies looked and sounded fantastic! I immediately put the recipe on my to bake list and waited for a time when I had a chance to make them.

As I've mentioned practically every time I post a cookie recipe, I ALWAYS refrigerate the cookie dough because it just makes better cookies. They're thicker and chewier, which is my favorite type of cookie. But every once in a while, I don't feel like waiting so I'll just make 2 or 3 cookies before putting the rest of the dough in the fridge. I did with this recipe and...big mistake. The cookies were extremely cake-like, which I should have realized being as the recipe uses baking powder. The were also kind of dry and just not that flavorful. That made me a little scared. Could refrigeration even help this recipe? I wasn't so sure. But I stuck the rest of the dough in the fridge and hoped anyway. So after chilling overnight, I again went to make cookies and...success! I underbaked them slightly and it resulted in a wonderful, slight puffy and very chewy cookie! I did think the cookies needed a bit more salt in them though. I used salted butter and didn't add any additional salt, and I think they need a bit. They were very good, but just needed that extra little edge that salt gives, so I'll keep that in mind if I make them again.

Also, did you notice? I finally did away with the letters on my pictures. I've never been completely sure about the letters, but for a while now I've been considering getting rid of them, so now I finally have and I think I like it a lot better. And stay tuned for my very own coconut muffin recipe! Yes, I took a basic muffin recipe, and tweaked and tweaked it and finally have my very first recipe that I can call my own. I'm so happy! Please look forward to them!

Chewy Milk Chocolate Chip Cookies (from Hershey Canada)
Makes about 5 dozen small cookies, less if making them larger

Ingredients

2/3 cup melted butter (I used salted, and I would suggest that)
2 cups lightly packed brown sugar
2 eggs
2 tablespoons hot water
2 2/3 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt (Make sure to add this even if you use salted butter. If you use unsalted butter, I would increase this to about 3/4 teaspoon.)
1 (12 ounce) package milk chocolate chips

Directions

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.
In a large bowl, beat melted butter, brown sugar, eggs, and hot water until smooth.

In a medium bowl, mix together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Stir into the butter mixer until well blended. (The dough will be really liquidy looking, so don't worry about it.)

Stir in the milk chocolate chips. Drop from small teaspoon onto an ungreased cookie sheet. (I used probably more like 1 1/2 tablespoons per cookie.)
Bake 8 to 10 minutes. Let cool 1 minute on the cookie sheets, then remove to a wire rack. (I baked my refrigerated dough for only about 6 minutes. If you don't refrigerate your dough or make your cookies smaller, I would suggest and even shorter cooking time. Just be sure to watch them.)

Daring Bakers June 2010: Pavlova

2010-06-27T09:44:00.011-04:00

Hello, everyone! I'm back from vacation and it's now time to post my second ever Daring Bakers challenge. (And please excuse the really long post...I've got a lot to talk about with this recipe!) I was really excited when I found out what we'd be making. I mean, chocolate pavlova? Chocolate mascarpone mousse? Yum! Bring it on! Pavlova is extremely similar to a meringue, made by whipping egg whites with things such as sugar and cornstarch (in this instance, confectioners' sugar, which has cornstarch in it) and then either piping it or spreading it onto a baking sheet and slow baking, resulting in a crispy exterior and marshmallowy center. It's traditionally just a vanilla meringue and is topped with whipped cream and fruit, but we Daring Bakers got super fancy, and made our pavlovas chocolate, topped with a chocolate mascarpone mousse and a crème anglaise sauce. Crème anglaise is French for English cream, and is basically a custard sauce made for pouring on desserts. It uses the same basic ingredients as custard or pudding does, except there's no cornstarch added, so it stays a sauce instead of becoming thick. I thought I had a clear picture of what I would like best and what I was least looking forward to...but to my surprise, it turned out quite different.
I was very excited to use the mascarpone. I've been wanting to try this cheese for a while now being as people have compared it to cream cheese, but said that it was much better. I'm not too much a fan of cream cheese, so I thought I might really like this one. The cheese was alright...but it basically just tasted like heavy cream. I don't know why I expected a kind of sweetness to it, but I should have known better, especially being as I've looked over this recipe for mascarpone that the Daring Bakers made for tiramisu before I was a member. The only ingredients in it are heavy cream and lemon juice. However, it would make a great base for American buttercreams, I think. If I ever decide to use mascarpone in the future, I'll definitely make it myself, because it was a bit pricy to buy already made. Anyway, the process of making everything was crazy simple. Each recipe went by so easily that I was quite surprised. The meringue for the pavlova? Easy peasy. The mousse? Piece of cake. The crème anglaise? Nothin' to it. Although there was quite a bit of down time for each process, everything went by so perfectly. In fact, too perfectly. I should have known that, with everything going by so smoothly, something bad was bound to happen.

Well, I expected to like the mousse the most, the pavlovas second best, and I actually didn't expect to like the crème anglaise. However, it was the exact opposite. I don't know what happened to my mousse, but something definitely went wrong. I folded in the mascarpone cream and the mousse was beautiful and smooth and creamy. However, I set it off to the side and did something for a small moment, and when I came back, I noticed it was starting to get weirdly thick. I tried to think nothing of it, and put it in the fridge until the pavlova was ready hoping that it would be okay. Needless to say, it wasn't. It was extremely thick and had a weird texture, one that I would liken to ricotta cheese. I definitely couldn't pipe it, so I just kind of had to lob it on to my pavlova as prettily as possible. The taste was just okay...but I think it was too dark and not sugary enough for my tastes. The longer it set in the fridge, the thicker and more weird-textured it became...I had to throw almost all of it out. I was SO disappointed, especially being as I used pricy ingredients in it (the same chocolate I was talking about last post). It was most likely my fault, but I'll probably never try this mousse again. The pavlovas were good, however, I baked them too long. They were crunchy all the way through instead of marshmallowy in the center. But they did taste good, so I would make this recipe again, just not bake it as long. And the crème anglaise? I actually loved it! It was the only recipe that went by without a hitch, and it was really, really delicious. I would definitely make it again, and really, it didn't even need the mascarpone or cream stirred in! It was perfect as is! Anyway, I'd encourage you to try this recipe anyway. Hopefully yours will go by better than mine did. :)

Chocolate Pavlova with Chocolate Mascarpone Mousse and Mascarpone Crème Anglaise (from Chocolate Epiphany by Francois Payard)
Makes about 8 small pavlovas or 1 large pavlova

For the crème anglaise:

1 cup (235 ml) whole milk (I used 2% and it was fine)
1 cup (235 ml) heavy cream
1 vanilla bean, split or 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
6 large egg yolks
6 tablespoons (75 grams) sugar

Directions

In a bowl, whisk together the egg yolks and sugar until the mixture turns pale yellow. (I did this in my stand mixer.)

Combine the milk, cream and vanilla in a saucepan over medium high heat, bringing the mixture to a boil. Take off the heat.

Pour about 1/2 cup of the hot liquid into the yolk mixture, whisking constantly to keep from making scrambled eggs. Pour the yolk mixture into the pan with the remaining cream mixture and put the heat back on medium. Stir constantly with a wooden spoon until the mixture thickens enough to lightly coat the back of a wooden spoon. DO NOT OVERCOOK.

Remove the mixture from the heat and strain it through a fine mesh sieve into a bowl. Cover and refrigerate until the mixture is thoroughly chilled, about 2 hours or overnight. (I chilled mine overnight. I suggest doing this too, as it saves time when you're making the rest of the dessert.)

For the chocolate meringue (for the pavlova):

3 large egg whites
1/2 cup plus 1 tablespoon (110 grams) granulated sugar
1/4 cup (30 grams) confectioner’s (icing) sugar
1/3 cup (30 grams) cocoa powder

Directions

Place a rack in the center of the oven and preheat to 200º F (95º C) degrees. Line two baking sheets with silpat or parchment and set aside.
Put the egg whites in a bowl and whip until soft peaks form. Increase speed to high and gradually add granulated sugar about 1 tablespoon at a time until stiff peaks form. (The whites should be firm but moist.)

Sift the confectioner’s sugar and cocoa powder over the egg whites and fold the dry ingredients into the white. (This looks like it will not happen. Fold gently and it will eventually come together.)

Fill a pastry bag with the meringue. Pipe the meringue into whatever shapes you desire. Alternatively, you could just free form your shapes and level them a bit with the back of a spoon.

Bake for 2-3 hours until the meringues become dry and crisp. (If you make thinner pavlovas like me, you may want to take them out a lot sooner. I baked mine for 2 hours, and as I said, mine came out crisp all the way through. Start checking at 1 hour.) Cool and store in an airtight container for up to 3 days.

For the chocolate mascarpone mousse:

1 1/2 cups (355 ml) heavy cream (cream with a milk fat content of between 36 and 40 percent)
grated zest of 1 average sized lemon (I omitted)
9 ounces (255 grams) 72% chocolate, chopped
1 2/3 cups (390 ml) mascarpone
pinch of nutmeg (I used cinnamon)
2 tablespoons (30 ml) Grand Marnier (I used about a tablespoon of vanilla)

Directions

Put 1/2 cup (120 mls) of the heavy cream and the lemon zest in a saucepan over medium high heat. Once warm, add the chocolate and whisk until melted and smooth. Transfer the mixture to a bowl and let sit at room temperature until cool. (My chocolate didn't completely melt using this method, so I quickly put on a double boiler and melted the rest that way.)

Place the mascarpone, the remaining cup of cream and nutmeg in a bowl. Whip on low for a minute until the mascarpone is loose. Add the Grand Marnier and whip on medium speed until it holds soft peaks. (DO NOT OVERBEAT AS THE MASCARPONE WILL BREAK.)

Mix about 1/4 of the mascarpone mixture into the chocolate to lighten. Fold in the remaining mascarpone until well incorporated. Fill a pastry bag with the mousse. Again, you could just free form mousse on top of the pavlova.

For the mascarpone cream:

1 recipe crème anglaise
1/2 cup (120 ml) mascarpone
2 tablespoons (30 ml) Sambucca (optional) (I omitted)
1/2 cup (120 ml) heavy cream

Directions

Prepare the crème anglaise. Slowly whisk in the mascarpone and the Sambucca and let the mixture cool. Put the cream in a bowl and beat with electric mixer until very soft peaks are formed. Fold the cream into the mascarpone mixture.

To assemble:

Pipe the mousse onto the pavlovas and drizzle with the mascarpone cream over the top. Dust with confectioner’s sugar and fresh fruit if desired.

The June 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Dawn of Doable and Delicious. Dawn challenged the Daring Bakers’ to make Chocolate Pavlovas and Chocolate Mascarpone Mousse. The challenge recipe is based on a recipe from the book Chocolate Epiphany by Francois Payard.

Honey Peanut Butter Chocolate Chunk Cookies

2010-06-14T15:15:00.007-04:00

Surprise! I thought I wasn't going to be posting anything between my last post and my Daring Bakers post because I thought Father's Day was sooner than it actually is. I though I might have too many desserts in the house, so I wouldn't be baking anything else, but because it's not coming up for about another week, I decided to go ahead and make some cookies. The theme I was thinking for these cookies was honey nut. But I didn't actually want nuts in the cookies, and thought of peanut butter instead. And then I thought, why not add oatmeal too? By using Allrecipe's nifty little ingredient searcher, I came across this recipe that had a perfect 5-star rating. Although it didn't have that much oatmeal in it (which is why I left 'oatmeal' out of the title), it still sounded like a winner and with a 5-star rating and chocolate chunks added in, how could I refuse?

The cookie was excellent and oh, so chewy which is what I love so much about peanut butter cookies. They practically never lose their chewiness. The honey and oatmeal are just barely detectable and add a nice little twist to the cookies. For the chocolate chunks, I used the rest of a Ghirardelli's Intense Dark 72% bar that I had leftover from an unfortunately failed dessert. I was so upset about wasting 1 1/2 bars in a dessert that I messed up that I chopped the rest up and put it in these simple peanut butter cookies just to spite the dessert. Ha ha, I'm silly aren't I? But I digress... (More on the failed dessert in a later post.) The resulting cookie was extremely tasty with the chocolate, but of course, feel free to use whatever kind of chocolate you like. Maybe even some chopped up peanut butter cups in them? I'll definitely try it out sometime because this recipe is a keeper that I'll make again and again.

Honey Peanut Butter Chocolate Chunk Cookies (from Allrecipes)
Makes about 2 dozen good-sized cookies

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/3 cup rolled oats
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup crunchy peanut butter (I used smooth)
1 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup unsalted butter
1/4 cup honey
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
5 (1 ounce) squares semisweet chocolate, chopped

Directions

Mix together flour, oats, baking soda, and salt in a medium bowl. Set aside.
Using an electric mixer, beat peanut butter, brown sugar, butter, honey, egg, and vanilla until well blended.
Stir dry ingredients into the peanut butter mixture in 2 additions. Stir in chopped chocolate.
Cover and refrigerate until the dough is firm and no longer sticky, about 30 minutes. (I refrigerated mine for several hours.)
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Butter 2 heavy, large baking sheets. (I used parchment paper.) With hands, roll heaping tablespoons of dough for each cookie into a 1 3/4 quarter inch diameter ball. Arrange cookies on prepared baking sheets, spacing 2 1/2 inches apart. (I used probably more like 2 tablespoons of dough per cookie.)
Bake cookies until puffed, beginning to brown on top and still very soft to the touch, about 12 minutes. Cool cookies on the baking sheet for about 5 minutes, then remove to a wire rack to cool completely.

Applesauce Quick Bread

2010-06-06T10:51:00.006-04:00

This recipe is a really great way to start off your day. I actually made it last night when I got a craving for quick bread (hence why I won't have any photos of the baking process, so please excuse me for that). I knew I had a lot of applesauce in the fridge, and although I've heard of it, I've never actually made applesauce bread. So I went on a quick search and it led me to this post in the forums over at Taste of Home. As I've stated back in my caramel cheesecake post, it's unusual for me to make a recipe that has little or no reviews at all, but it seemed like a solid recipe and the few people that posted there were assured that it was a good recipe. As usual, quick bread is an easy measure, dump, mix, and bake process, so it came together in a jiffy and in about 50 minutes, I had a wonderful and not too bad for you snack.

The recipe has little oil in it and only two eggs. It has just a couple of tablespoons of milk that you could easily use fat free for and a nice helping of applesauce in it, so it's fairly healthy for you. I have to admit that the applesauce flavor isn't really detectable, but gives the bread a nice moistness to it. The wonderful flavor comes from the cinnamon and nutmeg, so really it just tastes like a nice spice bread, and that was A-okay with me. Actually, if you happened to have any apple juice or even cider on hand, you could brush a little on the top of the bread when it's still warm to give it more of an apple flavor and to make it even more moist. But as I said, the bread is delicious on it's own.Just to mention, I'm going on vacation with my family from the 19th to the 26th, so obviously I won't be posting during that time. I'm mentioning it now because I'm not sure if I'll be posting anything else between now and then. I have a couple of things planned to bake, but one of them is my next Daring Bakers challenge (which I hope I won't be too worn out after my trip so that I can post it on time) which doesn't get posted until the 27th and the other is a treat for my dad for Father's Day, but I've already made the recipe before and blogged about it. I just wanted to clarify in the case that I don't post anything until the Daring Bakers challenge reveal. Anyway, onto the recipe now!

Applesauce Quick Bread (adapted from kathyf's post on Taste of Home)
Makes 1 9x5 inch loaf

Ingredients

1 cup sugar
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 1/4 teaspoons cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup unsweetened applesauce
1/4 cup oil
2 eggs
3 tablespoons milk

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Spray and flour a 9x5 inch loaf pan.
In a large bowl, combine sugar, flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt. Set aside.
In a medium bowl, mix together the applesauce, oil, eggs, and milk until well combined. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry and mix together with a wooden spatula just until combined. Do not overmix.
Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake for 50 to 60 minutes until a skewer inserted in the center of the bread comes out clean. Let cool for about 10 minutes on a wire rack, then loosen the bread from the pan and place on a wire rack to cool completely.

Levain Copycats

2010-06-02T13:44:00.013-04:00

Happy June, everyone! I hope everyone had a great Memorials Day weekend. This is an amazing recipe to start off the new month. I think this cookie has just become my new favorite chocolate chip cookie! This is a copycat recipe of the chocolate chip walnut cookies from Levain Bakery. Levain seems to be pretty well known, but if you don't know what I'm talking about, they're a bakery up in New York that sells monstrous 6 oz. cookies of four different kinds: chocolate chip walnut, dark chocolate chocolate chip, oatmeal raisin, and dark chocolate peanut butter chip. They're famous for being crazy ooey gooey on the inside, with a nice crunch on the outside and of course, their monstrous size. If you go to their website, you can see some pictures of the inside of their amazing cookies. The funny thing about all this? I've never actually had one of their cookies. I've only been to NY once, and we never got a chance to go up there, but I've still dreamed about having one of those amazing chocolate chip walnuts since I heard about them. I actually had walnuts in the pantry for once, so I had to settle for the copycat for now.

A baked cookie compared to a fortune cookie. (The cookie dough ball below step 4 is compared to a quarter.)

The copycat recipe that I used seems to be the one that's pretty much settled on as THE copycat recipe to use. If you type in "Levain copycat recipe" into Google, this particular recipe is the one that always comes up. The only difference I spotted was varying amounts of baking powder/soda. One version of the recipe contains more baking powder than soda (which was the one that I used) and one contains more baking soda than powder. I may try the other one next time, but the one I used was so amazing that I'm not sure if I want to! The cookie was wonderfully chewy and had great flavor, and honestly made me wonder why I don't put walnuts in my chocolate chip cookies more often. The recipe doesn't have any vanilla in it (which the owners of Levain have stated that they don't use) and I actually did taste a difference in the dough. As a lover of vanilla extract, this has kind of boggled me. Maybe I might try not putting any vanilla in some of my tried and true cookie recipes just to see what a difference it makes? All I know is that you have to try this recipe. If the actual Levain cookies taste anything like these copycats, they have to be out of this world!

Levain Copycats (from the commenter Lisa on Su Good Sweets)
Makes 12 BIG cookies

Ingredients

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, cold and cubed
3/4 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
3 1/4 to 3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour (I only needed 3 1/4 cups...more notes below)
3/4 teaspoon Kosher salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon baking soda (I used a rounded 1/4)
12 oz (2 cups) good quality semisweet chocolate chips (I only used 6 oz of semisweet chunks and it was plenty, but feel free to use however much chocolate you want)
1 cup walnuts

Directions

In a large mixing bowl, mix together flour, salt, baking powder, and baking soda. Set aside. (For the flour, Lisa said to go by the feel of the dough. You want the dough to be workable by your hands without it being sticky or sticking very little. I only needed 3 1/4 cups of flour and the dough was perfectly workable without being sticky at all. She didn't clarify on the baking soda, however, so I just put in a rounded 1/4 teaspoon.)
Place the cold, cubed butter in the bowl of an electric mixer. Beat on medium speed until it becomes creamy. Add both sugars and beat until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at time, mixing until fully incorporated.

Add the dry ingredients a little bit at a time until fully incorporated. Add the chocolate and walnuts and mix in by hand or on the lowest speed of your mixer.

Portion the dough into 12 equal portions (Lisa said that each portion will weigh more like 4 oz. instead of 6. I don't have a scale however, so I'm going by her word.) Refrigerate the dough until completely chilled or overnight. (You can skip this step, but I highly recommend that you don't. Refrigeration allows for a much chewier cookie.)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Situate the cookies about 2 inches apart on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper (they don't spread that much, so don't worry about that). Bake for 16 to 20 minutes. (I baked for 16 minutes at 350 and then turned it up to 375 and baked for 5 minutes more and they were perfect. Use your better judgement.) Cool on the cookie sheet slightly and then remove to wire racks.

Caramel Cheesecake

2010-05-29T11:52:00.015-04:00

Birthday #2 that I baked for was my brother's. My brother has never been a sweets kind of guy (which is funny being as my dad and myself have huge sweet teeth), he never really eats cake or cookies which is why I bake in such small batches; because it's only myself and my dad eating them. But one thing that my brother does like is cheesecake. So when I asked him what I could make him for his birthday, he requested the same thing that he did last year: caramel cheesecake. I was really happy because I've been wanting to make a cheesecake again for a while now, and because he requested the same kind of cheesecake last year, I knew I already had a great recipe that wouldn't disappoint.

For this recipe, I actually did something that I NEVER do, and that's take a recipe that didn't have any reviews for it and also from a site that I've never visited before. That's nearly taboo for me to do. I never try a recipe that doesn't have any reviews at all for it because I don't know if it's reliable or not and I hate the very rare occasions when I have to throw something out because it didn't turn out well. But the recipe sounded good and I put my faith in it, and thankfully, I'm very glad I did! This cheesecake is absolutely delicious with not only brown sugar adding to the caramel flavor, but also with a homemade caramel sauce swirled right in. I serve mine with extra homemade caramel sauce, but in actuality, it doesn't even really need it. The cheesecake is delicious on it's own.

Also, I've added a new recipe archive page to my blog that holds every single recipe and links to each individual recipe blog page for easy access. I realize the Blog Archive tab does somewhat sort of the same thing, but my recipe archive also sorts the recipes by type of dessert, making it even easier. Huzzah!

Rich Caramel Cheesecake (from That's My Home)
Makes 1 10-inch cheesecake

For the crust:

4 tablespoons melted butter
1 1/2 cups graham cracker crumbs (I used vanilla wafers)

For the caramel:

1 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup water
1/2 cup heavy cream

For the filling:

4 (8-ounce) packages cream cheese, softened
1 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon salt
4 large eggs, at room temperature

Directions:

Make the crust: Combine the butter and crumbs in a medium bowl, mixing with a fork. Press into the bottom of a 10-inch springform pan. (Keep in mind that this is only enough for a thin crust on the bottom only. If you'd like your crust to go up the sides as well, double the recipe.)

Make the caramel: Combine the sugar and water in a large saucepan over medium-high heat. Stir well. Cover with a lid and cook until the sugar turns a medium amber color, about 3 1/2 minutes after the mixture comes to a boil. Use a wet pastry brush every once in a while to brush down any sugar that starts to crystallize on the sides. (After the sugar starts to boil, do not stir it anymore. Simply swirl the pan to mix. Once the sugar starts turning color, I'd suggest to just take the lid off and swirl almost constantly until it reaches the desired color. Remember to watch it like a hawk!!)
Remove from the heat and stir for 30 seconds. Slowly stir in the cream using a long, wooden spatula, being careful to avoid splatters. The caramel will hiss and bubble furiously when the cream hits it. (Also, it will let off a ton of hot steam, so be careful!) If the sugar begins to crystallize or harden in the bottom of the pan, return the pan to the heat and stir constantly until the caramel becomes smooth. Set aside.

(Now is the time when you want to preheat your oven to 350 degrees F.) Make the cheesecake: Beat the cream cheese and both sugars at medium speed using an electric mixer until soft and fluffy. Scrape down the bowl when necessary.

Add the vanilla and salt and mix to combine. Add the eggs one at a time, beating on the lowest speed of the mixer until just incorporated.

Scrape down the bowl once more and mix again just until everything is fully incorporated. Do not overbeat. Pour two-thirds of the batter over the crust. Beat the caramel sauce into the remaining one-third of batter. Pour the caramel batter over the plain batter and swirl mixtures using a rubber spatula.

Bake at 350 for about 50 minutes (I baked mine for 55 and I would suggest baking for at least this amount, or even up to 60 minutes), or until the edges are firm but the middle still wiggles. Remove from the oven and cool. Chill. (I cooled mine at room temperature for 30 minutes. Remember to chill your cheesecake for at least 4 hours before serving.)

* If you'd like to serve your cheesecake with extra caramel sauce, simply make the recipe for the caramel sauce above again, or double the recipe to make at the same time. If you double it, just remember to use half in the cheesecake batter and save half for serving.

Daring Bakers May 2010: Pièce Montée (aka: Croquembouche)

2010-05-27T01:24:00.015-04:00

This is my very first Daring Bakers challenge! Woohoo, exciting! What's not so exciting? That every single one of my pictures came out blurry. Seriously, no lie. I apologize profusely for that. My camera is unfortunately not the greatest, and for some reason, I can never tell if a photo is blurry or not until I upload it on to my computer. Most look completely fine on the preview screen on my camera, but then boom, I upload them and realize how horribly blurry they actually are. I did my best to sharpen and fix them, but just know the photos in this post aren't going to be that great.
But more importantly, onto the actual recipe. When I first found out what I was going to be doing for my first Daring Bakers Challenge, fear came over me like no other. The look on my face would have probably been hilarious had it been captured on camera. I'm not exactly sure why I was so nervous. But the more I thought about the recipe, the more excited I got. A pièce montée is simply French for "assembled (or mounted) piece" and can refer to any decorated centerpiece dessert. More specifically, we made a croquembouche, another French word stemming from 'croque en bouche' meaning "crunch in the mouth." It's basically a bunch of cream puffs stacked up into a cone-like mountain of deliciousness and then decorated. I've been wanting to try my hand at cream puffs for a while now, so this was my chance. I apologize again, as I know that mine doesn't look very impressive. In my defense, however, usually people use a cone made of parchment paper or the like and then coat the cream puffs in a kind of sugar syrup or caramel and then just place them upside down in the cone, filling it up. The parchment pretty much does the work for them. I didn't have any and (admittedly) was too lazy to go out and get some, so I stacked them free hand.

The recipe itself wasn't too difficult. Definitely time consuming, but I do think in the end it was worth it. What's awesome about this recipe is that it doesn't require any special ingredients. They're all pretty much standard pantry ingredients. I had two friends over to help me, and we had a pretty good amount of fun. We had even more fun devouring them as soon as I was done taking pictures, ha ha. I went with the traditional vanilla pastry cream and I thought that the melted semisweet chocolate was a great compliment. I'd love to make cream puffs again, but try different fillings and coatings. Yum!

Croquembouche
Yields about 28 cream puffs

For the vanilla crème patissiere (pastry cream):

1 cup whole milk, divided (I used 2% since that's all I had, and it worked out fine)
2 tablespoons cornstarch
6 tablespoons sugar
1 large egg
2 large egg yolks
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 teaspoon vanilla
(I also added about a 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla butter & nut flavoring)

Directions

Dissolve the cornstarch in a 1/4 cup of the milk. Combine the remaining milk with the sugar in a saucepan. Bring to a boil; remove from heat.
Beat the whole egg, then the yolks into the milk and cornstarch mixture. Pour 1/3 of the boiling milk into the egg mixture, whisking constantly so that the eggs do not begin to cook.
Return the remaining milk to a boil. Pour in the hot egg mixture in a stream, continuing to whisk.
Continue whisking (extremely important so that the eggs don't solidify/cook) until the cream thickens and comes to a boil. (I cooked mine over medium high heat and mine became thick extremely fast, and pretty much went from liquid to extremely thick within a couple seconds. Just be careful about that!) Remove from the heat and stir in the butter and vanilla.

Pour the cream into a stainless steel bowl/ceramic bowl. Press plastic wrap firmly against the surface against the cream. Chill for at least 6 hours or overnight.

For the pâte à choux (cream puff dough):

3/4 cup water
6 tablespoons unsalted butter
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon sugar
1 cup all-purpose flour
4 large eggs, divided

Directions

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper. (I used foil.)
Combine the water, butter, salt, and sugar in a saucepan over medium heat. Bring to a boil and stir occasionally. When it comes to a boil, remove from the heat and sift in the flour, stirring to combine completely.
Return to heat and cook, stirring constantly until the batter dries slightly and begins to pull away from the sides of the pan. (This happened very quickly for me.) Transfer to a bowl and stir with a wooden spoon for 1 minute to cool slightly.
Stir in 3 of the eggs one at a time, waiting until each egg is completely combined before adding the next. The batter will go from appearing loose and shiny to like lightly-buttered mashed potatoes.
Transfer the batter to a pastry bag fitted with a large open tip. (I just piped without a tip, being as the bag had a large, round opening.) Pipe the choux about an inch apart on the baking sheets. Choux should be about 1 inch tall and 1 inch wide. Use a clean finger dipped in water to press down on any tips that have formed on the top of the choux when piping. You want them to be shaped like a ball with a smooth, curved top.

With the remaining egg, make an egg wash by placing the egg in a small bowl and lightly beating it with a pinch of salt. Brush the tops of the choux with the egg wash. Bake the choux at 425 degrees for 10 minutes, then lower the temperature to 350 degrees and continue baking until well-colored and dry, about 20 minutes more. Remove to a rack and cool.

For the chocolate glaze:

8 ounces finely chopped chocolate (I used semisweet, but feel free to use whatever kind you like.)

Directions

Melt the chocolate in a microwave or double boiler. Stir at regular intervals to avoid burning. Use the best quality chocolate you can afford. Use immediately.

Assembling the croquembouche:

Using a plain pastry tip, pierce the bottom of each choux. Fill the choux using either the same round tip for piping the choux or a star tip, and place on a paper-lined sheet.

Dip the top and bottom of the choux in the chocolate glaze. Dipping the top will act as decoration and dipping the bottom will allow for the glue to hold the choux together. Start assembling on your plate/stand using the largest choux first. You may want to practice building with unglazed choux first, seeing what fits together best.
Continue dipping and adding the choux in levels, building up into a cone shape.
Once you have finished stacking, feel free to decorate with the remaining glaze, a sprinkle of powdered sugar, flowers, ribbons, etc. Have fun and enjoy!

The May 2010 Daring Bakers' challenge was hosted by Cat of Little Miss Cupcake. Cat challenged everyone to make a piece montée, or croquembouche, based on recipes from Peter Kump's Baking School in Manhattan and Nick Malgieri.

Chocolate Birthday Cake with Strawberry Filling

2010-05-22T11:34:00.016-04:00

In my last post I mentioned that I've been baking like crazy here recently since I had two birthdays to prepare for plus the Daring Bakers challenge, so here's the cake from one of the birthdays. One of my close friend's birthday was just recently and I was delighted when I asked her if I could make her a cake and she said yes! I was a little nervous about making the cake and picking out the perfect recipe. I certainly didn't want to disappoint my friend, especially on her birthday! She at first told me that she just wanted a cake with strawberries in it, but after prodding her for more information, she finally decided on a chocolate cake with chocolate frosting and strawberry filling. "Great," I said! I'm not sure if I've mentioned it before, but I have a strawberry patch in my backyard. It's not very big, there aren't multiple rows or anything, but it's substantial enough to put my family into strawberry mania during the summer. So of course, I turned to my backyard for the strawberries, which was great.

I think I went through multiple cake recipes before I finally settled on one. I decided that I wanted to make a three layer cake, and finally thought of this cake that I've seen members of the baking group "The Cake Slice Bakers" bake before. Again, I was nervous. Mayonnaise? Blegh, I hate the stuff. But I've seen it in multiple cake recipes before and everyone always says that it's not detectable at all and makes the cake extremely moist. So I had to put my faith in it. The filling stayed simple and easy, by just cutting up strawberries from my backyard and mixing them with some sugar and layering them in. For the frosting, I wanted to go with possibly my favorite type of American buttercream: a chocolate frosting that uses melted unsweetened chocolate in it. American buttercreams can be extremely sweet what with all the powdered sugar in them, but by adding the unsweetened chocolate, it seems to negate the sweetness and just leaves you with a delectable, chocolatey frosting. I saw this recipe on Smitten Kitchen, and snagged it immediately.

So...was the cake okay? Yup! It was great and was very well receieved! Here is myself heaving a sigh of relief. The cake was, as promised, very moist, soft, and chocolatey, the frosting was perfect, and the strawberries went well with the cake. My friend was happy, so I was happy. (Also, apologies for not having a picture of the inside. I didn't want to impose on my friend's birthday cake, ha ha.)

Triple-Layer Chocolate Cake (from Sky High: Irresistible Triple-Layer Cakes by Alisa Huntsman and Peter Wynne)
Makes 3 9-inch cake layers

Ingredients

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
2 1/4 teaspoons baking soda
1 1/4 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon (my friend isn't a fan of cinnamon, so I omitted)
2 1/2 ounces unsweetened chocolate, chopped
1 cup milk
1 1/4 cups hot, strongly brewed coffee
2 eggs
1 cup mayonnaise (not low fat or fat free)
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 1/4 cups sugar

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Butter the bottoms and sides of three 9-inch round cake pans. (I actually only have two 9-inch cake pans, but used a 9-inch springform pan as my third, and it worked out just fine.) Line the base of each pan with parchment paper. (I HIGHLY suggest you do this. I didn't have any and so I sprayed and floured my cake pans but the cakes were quite difficult to get out [though still came out in one piece]...so use parchment.)
Sift together the flour, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt. Set aside.
Place the chopped chocolate in a large, heatproof bowl. (I would suggest one that has a spout.) In a small saucepan, bring the milk to a simmer. Pour the hot milk and coffee over the chocolate. Let stand for a minute, then whisk until smooth. Let the mocha liquid cool slightly.
In a mixer bowl, beat together the eggs, mayonnaise, and vanilla until well blended. Gradually beat in the sugar.
Add the dry ingredients and mocha liquid alternately in two or three additions, beating just until smooth and well blended. Divide the batter among the three prepared pans.
Bake for 25 to 28 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out almost clean. Let the cakes cool in their pans for 10-15 minutes before unmolding onto a wire rack and carefully peeling off the paper. Leave to cool completely.

Instant Fudge Frosting (from Smitten Kitchen)
Makes about 5 cups, enough to frost and fill a 3-layer cake. I only made half of this recipe, and it was just enough to frost the outside of the 3-layer cake, so keep that in mind.

Ingredients

6 ounces unsweetened chocolate, melted and cooled
4 1/2 cups confectioners' sugar
3 sticks (1 1/2 cups) unsalted butter, softened (I used salted)
6 tablespoons half-and-half or whole milk (I only ended up using 1 tablespoon in my halved version, which would be 2 tablespoons for this full recipe)
1 tablespoon vanilla extract

Directions

Place all of the ingredients in a food processor (I just used my stand mixer) and pulse until incorporated, then process until the frosting is smooth.

Strawberry Filling
This is only an estimate, as I didn't really measure anything.

Ingredients

2 1/2 cups chopped, fresh strawberries
2-3 tablespoons sugar

Directions

Place the chopped strawberries in a large mixing bowl. Sprinkle the sugar, to taste, over the strawberries and stir to coat. Allow the strawberries to sit for a few hours in the refrigerator to allow the natural juices of the strawberries to come out.

To assemble the cake:

Situate pieces of parchment paper in a circle around your cake stand or serving plate. Place one layer of the cake on top of the parchment. Put half of the strawberries on the layer, being careful not to place them too close to the edge. Lay the second cake layer on top of the first.
Place the second half of the strawberries on the second layer just as the first, and then top with the final layer. Press down slightly to make sure the cake is secure.
Frost the sides and top of the cake, and then if desired, run your knife or spatula under hot water and use it to smooth the frosting. (I like a rustic look, so I didn't do this.)
Pull the parchment straight out to leave a nice, clean edge. Decorate your cake as desired and serve. The cake is best eaten the day it is made (due to the strawberries).

Everything-but-the-Kitchen-Sink Cookies

2010-05-20T11:26:00.003-04:00

So finally, here is recipe #3. It's been crazy here recently with me baking up a storm, what with preparing for two birthdays as well as the upcoming Daring Bakers Challenge. But of course, I always love an excuse to bake! I came across this recipe when I was actually just looking for a spice cookie recipe. I came to a conclusion that there must not really be any spice cookies worthwhile that didn't contain molasses in it, something I didn't have, so gave up on it. But the search led me to this cookie, and I'm very happy it did! I've seen recipes for "Everything" cookies before, but my picky-eating-ness would always spot multiple things in the recipe that I wasn't a fan of. Either that, or I found that the recipe just didn't have enough ingredients in them to warrant being called "Everything-but-the-Kitchen-Sink." But this recipe on Allrecipes sounded great, with a lot of things I like, from everything to oatmeal and cornflakes to walnuts and chocolate chips, had great reviews, and used spices that I had been wanting to use.

The everything! (Also, apologies for all the brand-name dropping. It wasn't intended.)

These cookies have great flavor and all of the elements work really well. The poster of the recipe said that by underbaking the cookies slightly would yield a nice chewy cookie, and she was right. The gooeyness firms up when you let them cool and you're left with a chewy center, but still a nice crunch from the ingredients. I do have to admit that I left out the coconut since I'm usually not a fan, but I think it'd work really well in this cookie and I'd be willing to give it a try. I would advise, however, to maybe cut down on the sugar slightly or add less chocolate chips. My cookies turned out quite sweet, even for someone with a monster sweet tooth like me. I also might try them at some point without any spices, as I think they'd be great too. But I'd definitely suggest trying the recipe as is first, since it really is a great recipe.

Everything-but-the-Kitchen-Sink Cookies (from Allrecipes)
Makes about 4-5 dozen cookies

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/4 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground mace (I didn't have this, so I substituted with just an extra pinch of nutmeg)
1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
1 cup butter, softened
1 1/2 cups packed brown sugar
1 cup white sugar
2 eggs
1 tablespoon milk
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup cornflakes cereal, crumbled (I used frosted cornflakes so they wouldn't get soggy in the cookie dough)
3 cups rolled oats (I used quick-cooking, since that's all I had)
1/2 cup flaked coconut (I omitted)
2 cups semisweet chocolate chips
1 cup chopped walnuts

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Grease cookie sheets. Sift together flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, mace, nutmeg, and cloves; set aside.
In a large bowl, cream together butter, brown sugar, and white sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs one at a time, then stir in milk and vanilla. Gradually mix in the sifted ingredients until well blended. Using a wooden spoon, stir in the cornflakes, oats, coconut, chocolate chips, and walnuts. (I just used my mixer on the lowest speed.) Roll the dough into walnut-sized balls, and place 2 inches apart on prepared cookie sheets; flatten slightly. (I refrigerated my cookie dough over night.)
Bake for 8 to 10 minutes preheated oven. Allow cookies to cool on baking sheets 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely. (I baked my refrigerated dough for 10 minutes, so I'd suggest baking unrefrigerated dough for only 8.)

Almond Cupcakes with Chocolate Buttercream

2010-05-13T14:35:00.006-04:00

So here's recipe #2 in my attempt to post the three recipes I made while my laptop had died on me as quickly as possible. It's funny. When I made these, it actually wasn't because I expressly desired to eat a cupcake, but merely because I really wanted to make some since I hadn't in a long time. I thought about maybe a chocolate cupcake at first but decided I wanted something different and came to an almond cupcake. Have I ever mentioned that I LOVE almond extract? I do, really and truly. I have to admit that I was apprehensive the first time I bought it. I always seemed to read over reviews claiming that the almond in the recipe was too strong, so I came to the conclusion that this stuff could quickly become overpowering, which I don't like in a recipe. But I thought I'd give the extract a try anyway since I saw it so many times when looking through recipes. To my delight, when a first opened the bottle and gave it a whiff, I recognized the flavor! It was just like those Chinese marble cookies from Wegman's that I love! Sure enough, when I tasted it, that was indeed the flavor and my love for almond extract (which I don't find overpowering at all) has been going strong since.

When I began searching for a recipe, I found that it's kind of hard to find just a plain almond cupcake recipe. Most of the recipes I found paired the almond with something else, like chocolate or fruit or what not, or they used actual almond meal in the recipe and I didn't want that. I just wanted a nice, plain almond flavor using extract. Finally I came across this recipe on Recipezaar and it sounded like a winner. I did, however, double the almond extract. At first I was going to pair these cupcakes with an almond Swiss meringue buttercream, but eventually decided against it. Even though I have a love for almond extract, I thought almond on almond might not be exciting enough. In the end, I decided to go with this chocolate buttercream from Joy the Baker that I've been dying to try. I ended up with a nice and tender almond cupcake that was paired with a very delicious chocolate buttercream, neither flavors overpowering the other. And, I finally got to use my 1M tip! Hurrah! Now on to the recipe.

Almond Cupcakes (adapted from Recipezaar)
Makes 24 cupcakes

Ingredients

3/4 cup butter, softened
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 eggs
3 teaspoons almond extract (If you don't like as much almond flavor, you can reduce the extract back down to it's original measurement, 1 1/2 teaspoons)
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/4 cups milk

Directions

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Line 2 12-cup cupcake tins with liners.
Cream the butter at medium speed in the bowl of an electric mixer until smooth. Add the sugar and beat until light and fluffy. Add the eggs and extracts and beat until combined.
Combine the baking powder, salt, and flour in a medium bowl. Add the flour mixture to the batter alternately with the milk, starting and ending with the dry ingredients. Mix just until combined.
Divide the batter in between 24 cups and bake the cupcakes until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, about 17-20 minutes. (I seem to remember my batch taking only about 17 minutes to bake, so make sure to watch them.) Allow the cupcakes to cool for a couple minutes in the pans and then remove to a wire rack to cool completely.

The "Best" Chocolate Buttercream (from Joy the Baker)
Makes enough to generously frost 24 cupcakes

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups (3 sticks) unsalted butter, softened (I used salted butter)
1 cup cocoa powder
3/4 teaspoon salt (I didn't add this since I used salted butter, but in the end I did end up using another small pinch of salt)
4 cups powdered sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 cup milk
1 cup heavy cream (I would halve this...more notes below)
2/3 cup Ovaltine

Directions

Cream together the butter, cocoa powder, and salt. The mixture will be very thick. Turn off the mixer and scrape down the sides and then add the powdered sugar. Turn the mixer on low and mix in the powdered sugar slowly while adding the milk and vanilla extract. As the sugar incorporates, raise the speed of the mixer and beat the frosting. Beat until smooth.
In a 2-cup measuring glass, mix together the heavy cream and Ovaltine. Turn the mixer on medium speed and stream in the Ovaltine mixture slowly until you have reached the desired consistency. You may not need the full amount of cream and Ovaltine. (In my experience, I ended up barely needing any of it. I actually ended up adding a bit more Ovaltine to my buttercream, so I would highly suggest halving the cream but keeping the Ovaltine amount the same.)

Oreo Truffles

2010-05-12T12:44:00.012-04:00

I've been going through a bit of a row with my laptop here recently. About a week ago, it started acting up. Windows would load just fine but...nothing I clicked would come up! Every once in a while, a fair few folders would come up, but programs, the internet, task manager...even my shut down button wouldn't work! Admittedly, I spend way too much time on my laptop, so you can imagine how upset I was when this happened. But finally, I saved all of my files and whatnot and my brother was able to reset my computer back to the way it was when I first got it. Restoring my files was pretty simple and finally I've got my laptop back to the way it was. Yay! I've actually made three recipes since and wasn't able to put them up, so now I'm working on posting them as quickly as possible.

If you haven't made Oreo truffles or at least had them before, you need to make them. NOW. Seriously, scroll down and save the recipe and make them as soon as possible. Honestly, everything about these things is amazing. They're delicious, easy to make, require only three ingredients, and best of all, even though they're so simple, they are huge crowd pleasers. I made these for my last day of Film and Lit class, and they were devoured. The insides are nice and soft and have that wonderful Oreo taste and even though you use cream cheese to make the filling, you can't taste it, which is great for me being as I'm not the biggest fan of cream cheese. I think the white chocolate coating is a great compliment too. I've seen them covered with other types of chocolate, and had one that was coated in semi-sweet before and honestly, I think white chocolate is best. Believe it or not, the sweetness isn't overwhelming at all. But feel free to coat them in whatever chocolate you like. Just try them!

Oreo Truffles (from some unknown maker of this amazing recipe...I honestly wish I had come up with this, ha ha)
Yields about or a little over 50 truffles. It depends on how big you make them. My batch yielded 52. If you make them smaller, you could even make up to 60 of them.

Ingredients

1 regular package Oreo cookies (Feel free to try out different kinds. Most recipes tell you not to use Double Stuf, but I have before and it's worked out just fine. Try mint, Golden Oreos, or what have you.)
1 (8 oz.) package cream cheese, softened
About 1 1/2 to 2 (12 oz.) bags of white chocolate chips

Directions

Crush the entire package of Oreo cookies into small crumbs. (I use a food processor and this works best. If you don't have one, you can put the cookies in double layered ziploc bags [the cookies will break through just one bag, so double up to avoid that] and use your hands or a rolling pin to crush them. You can also just put them into a bowl and crush them with a fork if you want.) Place the crumbs into a large bowl of an electric mixer and add the cream cheese. Mix until completely combined.
If desired, refrigerate the mixture, covered, for several hours or overnight for easier handling. Roll the mixture into about 1-inch balls and place on a cookie sheet to set back into the refrigerator to firm up.
Melt about half of 1 (12 oz.) bag of white chocolate at a time. Place the chips into a microwave-safe bowl and microwave for 1 minute. Remove the bowl and stir. If the chips are not completely melted, place back into the microwave for 10-15 seconds. Remove and stir. If there are only a few little pieces left, do NOT put back in the microwave. Just stir and the heat from the mixture will melt these. (If you let white chocolate get too hot, the chocolate will seize, and once that happens, there's pretty much almost nothing you can do to bring it back, so be careful!!)
Coat the Oreo balls in the white chocolate, melting more chocolate when needed. For ease and a nice, round coating, use a fork to coat the balls. Place one ball in the white chocolate and use the fork to scoop up white chocolate to coat the top and side. Carefully slide your fork underneath the truffle, lift up, and shake slightly, letting the excess chocolate drip through the prongs. Wipe any remaining chocolate on the bottom of the fork on the side of the bowl and place the truffle on parchment or wax paper, or aluminum foil. If any patches on the truffle are left uncovered when you put it down, quickly use your fork and patch those places with a little white chocolate. Let the chocolate harden. Repeat for remaining truffles.
Serve and enjoy! Store any remaining truffles in a bowl in the refrigerator.

Quick Coffee Cake

2010-04-28T10:51:00.004-04:00

I'm getting better, slowly but surely. Thankfully, the sore throat is gone, but now comes the stuffiness and congestion. But as I said, I'm slowly pulling through, and the sickness wasn't enough to keep me out of the kitchen. I baked this up the other day when I got a craving for it for breakfast. (And made sure to wash my hands multiple times, of course.) This coffee cake is super great, and really lives up to its title "Quick." I looked for a coffee cake recipe a long time ago, but all the recipes I found included yeast or sour cream, which are two things I never have on hand. But finally I came across this recipe, found that it was composed of ingredients that are always on hand, made a couple of changes based on reviews, and voila! I found my go-to coffee cake recipe.

I find that a lot of store bought coffee cakes are quite tough, but this cake is nice and moist and soft. The cake itself is not too sweet, so it's a great base for the sweet and buttery brown sugar cinnamon topping. Usually when I make this cake, the topping melts into the cake a little bit and doesn't look too attractive, but this time it stayed in a nice and even layer without sinking in. I guess it's just the luck of the draw. Either that or it somehow knew that I would be taking its picture this time, ha ha. If you're in need of a quick breakfast, this cake is prepared and baked up in basically the same amount of time muffins are made and baked. Or, if you want, you could probably even make coffee cake muffins out of this!

Quick Coffee Cake (adapted from Allrecipes)
Makes 1 8x8 or 9x9 inch cake

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
slightly rounded 2/3 cup white sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup butter, cold and cut into pieces
3/4 cup milk
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 tablespoons butter, melted
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Directions

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F. Grease and flour an 8 or 9 inch square pan. (I used 8 inch...it'll produce a thicker cake.)
In a large bowl, mix together the 1 1/2 cups of flour, baking powder, white sugar, and salt. Cut in the butter with a pastry blender until the butter is the size of peas. (You can also do this with a stand mixer or a food processor for ease. I always use my stand mixer and the butter is incorporated in no time.)
In a separate, small bowl, mix together the egg, milk, and vanilla. Add the egg mixture to the flour and butter mixture all at once. Blend just until combined. Pour the cake mixture into the prepared pan.
In a small bowl, mix together the melted butter, brown sugar, 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour, and cinnamon until crumbly. Sprinkle evenly on top of the cake.
Bake the cake in the preheated oven for 15 to 20 minutes until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. (If you're using an 8 inch pan, start checking at 20 minutes. If you're using a 9 inch, start checking at 15.)

Ultimate Stand Mixer Chocolate Chip Cookies

2010-04-24T14:02:00.003-04:00

Springtime has gotten the best of me. I'm currently typing this up with a horrible sore throat and stuffy/runny nose, most likely thanks to all of the pollen and whatnot in the air. I baked these up two days ago when I felt the sickness coming on, so as to bake them when I was still well enough and when I was still able to taste things. I came across this recipe on Cookie Madness and they sounded really great, so I knew I had to try them. They're called "Ultimate Stand Mixer" CC cookies because you use a stand mixer to beat a ton of air into the butter, sugar, and eggs. I started out with cold butter that I beat for 5-6 minutes until creamy. Then you add the sugar and beat for another 4-5 minutes, and then add the eggs and vanilla gradually, beating again for about 4-5 minutes. You end up with an extremely delicious light and fluffy cookie dough that I honestly had trouble keeping my fingers out of.

I ended up having a serious soft spot for these cookies because they reminded me of my childhood. I think that's because their flavor is extremely similar to Tollhouse's chocolate chip cookie, which I always used to bake up with my mom when I was little. The difference is that these cookies are wonderfully thick and chewy. When I was little, the Tollhouse CC cookie was the best thing in the world to me, but in recent years, I've found that they're just too thin and crispy for me. I like a nice, thick cookie, and these cookies have that. I don't think these beat my current favorite CC cookie, the Cook's Illustrated CC cookie with that wonderful browned butter flavor, but they're still really great cookies with the traditional CC cookie flavor.

Ultimate Stand Mixer Chocolate Chip Cookie (W. Richard Stevens' recipe. A more printer friendly recipe here.)
Makes about 30-35 cookies

Ingredients

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature (as I said, I just started out with cold butter)
1 cup brown sugar
3/4 cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour (Generally I fluff up the flour and then measure, but I packed a little bit more flour into my measuring cups than usual. This helps to make the cookie thicker. Just know that the heavier handed you are with the flour, the thicker the cookies will be.)
1 1/4 teaspoons baking soda
2 cups walnuts, coarsely chopped (I omitted)
3 cups chocolate chips (I just put in enough for my liking)

Directions

Sift together the flour, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.
Beat butter using a stand mixer at medium speed until it is lighter and clings to the bowl (30-45 seconds). (If starting with cold butter, beat until creamy, about 5-6 minutes.) Keeping the mixer at medium speed, add the sugars in a steady stream. Cream the sugars and butter for 4-5 minutes, until light and fluffy. Scrape down the bowl as needed.
Whisk the eggs and vanilla together in a small bowl. Add the egg mixture very gradually, keeping the mixer on medium speed. Continue to beat 4-5 minutes.
Turn the mixer down to the lowest speed and gradually add the dry ingredients. Add the walnuts and chocolate chips just before the flour is completely incoporated. Mix just until the dough comes together.
Shape the dough into golf ball-sized balls and place on a baking sheet. Place in the refrigerator for at least 6 hours or overnight. Remove and let warm for 30 minutes at room temperature. Flatten slightly into hockey puck-like shapes. (Alright, I must admit...I didn't follow this exactly. I refrigerated all of my dough together over night, and then just scooped dough onto a cookie sheet. I didn't leave them out for 30 minutes, I basically put them in the oven from the refrigerator. I also didn't flatten them. But I do this because I like the thickest cookie possible.)
Bake at 400 degrees F for 8-10 minutes. Let cool for 5 minutes on the sheet, then remove to wire racks. (400 degrees was a bit too high for my cookies. I turned down to 375 and it was perfect.)

Just Plain Good Cupcakes

2010-04-14T23:15:00.007-04:00

Today's recipe is one of my all-time favorite cupcake recipes. It's originally from the book Small-Batch Baking by Debby Maugans Nakos. I've made this recipe countless times, and the recipe as is was good, but through experimenting, I've found that two small tweaks I made to the recipe make it excellent. This recipe and my post on the yellow cupcakes are my two absolute favorite vanilla cake recipes. I find that vanilla cake is much trickier to make homemade because sometimes a recipe can be kind of dry, not flavorful enough, or sometimes it can even end up tasting like cornbread. But these cupcakes are wonderfully moist, have a nice and noticeable vanilla flavor, certainly taste like a cupcake, and really are just plain good. They're actually so moist that a little bit of the cupcake always sticks to my silicone liners!

The changes I made to the recipe to make it great were super simple. Subtract just a tiny bit of flour and up the vanilla. As I said, the cupcakes were good as is, but each time I made them I found them to be a little dense and the vanilla flavor wasn't as strong as I wanted it to be. I find that when you're working with just vanilla as a flavor, you really can't be shy when it comes to the vanilla extract. You have to add in a good bit otherwise the flavor just won't be noticeable enough. So I doubled the vanilla and subtracted a little less than 2 tablespoons of flour, and they were absolutely perfect. I really encourage you to try out the recipe. It only makes four, but you can certainly double it or quadruple it if you like. Plus, it's a super quick and easy recipe. You don't need electric mixer or anything. I whip them together with a sturdy whisk just fine.

Just Plain Good Cupcakes (adapted from Small-Batch Baking by Debby Maugans Nakos)
Makes 4 cupcakes

Ingredients

1/3 cup plus 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour, lightly spooned and evenly swept
1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar
1/8 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons butter, melted
1/4 cup buttermilk (You can just use the sour milk trick that I always use. Place a 1/4 tablespoon [you can eyeball a half of 1/2 tablespoon measuring spoon] of lemon juice or vinegar in a 1/4 cup measuring cup. Fill the rest of the way with milk and let sit for 5-10 minutes before using)
1/8 teaspoon baking soda
1 egg yolk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line 4 muffin cups with liners.
In a medium mixing bowl, mix together the flour, sugar, and salt. Add the melted butter to the flour mixture and stir until pasty and moist.
In a small bowl, combine buttermilk (or sour milk) and baking soda. Stir to mix. Stir in the egg yolk and vanilla. Add the buttermilk mixture to the flour mixture and stir with a sturdy whisk until well combined.
Divide the batter evenly among the 4 muffin cups. Bake for 20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

You can frost them with whatever frosting you like. Mine are frosted with one of my favorites: French Silk frosting. (Just halve the recipe there to make enough for the four cupcakes.)

Cocoa Powder Brownies

2010-04-12T14:57:00.009-04:00

I haven't been posting a lot recently, and I know it. Life has gotten in the way, I haven't been baking as often, and when I have, I just plain haven't had the motivation to blog. But I've only been blogging since January and I guess it takes a little while to get into the groove of blogging. But just recently, I joined Daring Bakers! I'm very excited about it. I just registered, and there's a waiting period, so I won't officially become a member until May, so my first recipe with them won't be posted until May 27th. I'm a little saddened by that, and I do hope that I don't miss out on a good recipe this April, but like I said, this is most likely going to rejuvenate my interest in blogging. I might not post anything in between the DB recipes, but I'll do my best. So on to today's recipe.

This recipe came about from a big chocolate craving of mine. I've been craving chocolate, but there's been none in solid form in the house! No chocolate chips, candy, anything. I've had chocolate ice cream, but that didn't have the chocolate pow I was looking for. So I thought about a brownie that used cocoa powder since, like I said, I didn't have any chocolate in solid form. I came across this recipe on Epicurious which had a four fork rating and, for the most part, rave reviews. What's great about this recipe is that it's super quick, so I whipped them up in no time. They were good...really rich and dark and fudgy, maybe even a little too dark and rich for me. So I put a little whipped cream on mine and that helped to cut some of the richness and I liked them better that way.

They're dubbed "Best Cocoa Brownies," and are they? I'm not sure. I think I've only made one other brownie recipe before that had cocoa powder in them and they were super low fat and not very good, actually (which I should have expected). I will say that I don't think this recipe beats out a brownie that has chopped chocolate in it, though. I think I was a little disappointed in these...I felt they were missing something, and I think that something is only achieved when adding chocolate in solid form. But that doesn't mean at all that I didn't like them. All in all, these are really great when a chocolate craving comes about and you only have cocoa powder on hand; simple, quick, and good.

"Best" Cocoa Brownies (from Epicurious)
Makes 16 large or 25 smaller brownies

Ingredients

10 tablespoons (1 1/4 sticks) unsalted butter
1 1/4 cups sugar
3/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons cocoa powder (natural or Dutch-process) (I used natural, and like I said, they were already dark, rich, and fudgy...probably will be even darker if you use Dutch-process!)
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
2 cold, large eggs
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
2/3 cup walnut or pecan pieces, optional (I omitted)

Directions

Position a rack in the lower third of the oven and preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. Line the bottom and sides of an 8-inch square baking pan with parchment paper or foil, leaving an overhang on two opposite sides.
Combine the butter (cut into pieces), sugar, cocoa powder, and salt in a medium microwave-safe bowl. Microwave until the butter has melted. Stir until the mixture comes together. (The original directions used the double-boiler method, but that just dirties up more things and takes longer. Seriously, microwave is much easier and quicker). Set aside briefly until the mixture is only warm, not hot.
Stir in the vanilla with a wooden spoon. Add the eggs one at a time, and stir vigorously after each one. When the batter looks thick, shiny, and well-blended, add the flour and stir until you cannot see it any longer, then beat vigorously for 40 strokes. Stir in the nuts, if using. Spread evenly in the lined pan.
Bake until a tooth pick inserted in the center comes out slightly moist with batter, 20 to 25 minutes. Let cool completely on a cooling rack. Lift up the ends of the parchment or foil liner and cut brownies into squares.

Pistachio Muffins

2010-03-18T17:26:00.010-04:00

Happy Belated St. Patty's Day! I wanted to have this post up yesterday, but I have school all day on Wednesdays and wasn't able to even make these muffins until last night. So I have them today, albeit a little late. I wanted to make something green for St. Patty's Day, and I've been meaning to make some homemade pistachio muffins, so it worked out perfectly. The inspiration for these muffins came from the jumbo muffins they sell at one of my local grocery stores. All of them are absolutely delicious, but my favorite is the pistachio! Of course, whenever I come across something great, I always like trying to recreate it at home. So I went in search for a recipe on Allrecipes...and lo and behold, yet AGAIN, all of the recipes I came across were the same! I can't imagine why they let people submit the same recipe over and over again and yet put them under a different name as if there's something different about the recipe. I wanted a recipe that used pistachio pudding mix in the batter, and all of the recipes did...except they also all used cake mix, something I didn't have on hand and I didn't feel like using. I wanted a from scratch recipe.

So instead I thought that if I could just find any muffin recipe that used pudding mix in it, no matter the flavor, I could change it to accommodate the pistachio pudding instead. And by a happy chance, my google search led me to one of my favorite blogs, Cookie Madness. The recipe was for lemon poppy seed muffins, so I changed it just slightly and ended up with a wonderful pistachio muffin recipe. I was afraid that my muffins might come out tough being as I kept stirring the batter, adding a little bit of almond extract at a time, to taste, but surprisingly, the muffins came out wonderfully soft and fluffy and were still just as great today as they were yesterday, most likely thanks to the pudding mix. I was also a little apprehensive being as the recipe called for the muffins to be baked at 425 degrees F and I thought that might be too high as I've never seen a muffin recipe that went above 375 degrees. When I peeked at the muffins throughout the baking, they seemed to be browning fast. But all was totally fine and they came out with a wonderfully high-raised, crunchy muffin top, and soft insides, just like a great muffin should.

Pistachio Muffins (adapted from Cookie Madness)
Anna, the author of Cookie Madness, stated this recipe makes 10 muffins, but I made half the recipe and got 6 with a tiny bit of batter left over, so assume this recipe will make 10-12.

Ingredients

1 (3.4 oz) box instant pistachio pudding mix (This is almost exactly 1/2 cup...if you'd like to make the half recipe like I did, measure out 1/4 cup of pudding mix)
1 3/4 cups cake flour (I accidentally just used all-purpose, and they were still great!)
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
1 cup milk
1/2 to 1 teaspoon almond extract (I like a strong almond extract flavor, so I ended up using more than maybe someone usually would. You can just add a little bit and then taste the batter to see if you want more)
1/2 cup vegetable oil
couple drops green food coloring, optional

Directions

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F. Spray muffin pan with nonstick cooking spray or line with paper liners.
In a large bowl, whisk together pudding mix, flour, both sugars, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.
In a medium bowl, whisk together eggs, milk, almond extract, oil, and food coloring. Add the wet ingredients to the dry and stir until combined.
Divide the batter between the muffin cups. Bake in preheated oven for 17 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Let the muffins cool in the pan for about 5 minutes and then remove to wire rack to cool completely.

I think it's funny that pistachio flavored things are actually predominantly almond flavored. Pretty much anything pistachio I try, I always get the wonderful taste of almond extract. I often wonder if you could discern an actual pistachio flavor if you were to leave out the almond extract?

I totally forgot that I had these green-colored sugar crystals until I started taking these pictures. If I had remembered, I so would have sprinkled them on top of the muffins before baking to make things even more festive looking. Colored sugar is my favorite type of sprinkles, even more than jimmies or nonpareils. If you have any green sprinkles or even pistachio nuts, feel free to sprinkle those on top of the muffins before baking to give them a prettier finish.

Even though it's passed St. Patrick's Day, give these muffins a try. I promise they won't disappoint!

Snickerdoodles

2010-03-12T18:27:00.007-05:00

I baked these up about two days ago, but am just now getting around to blogging about them. Oh, but happy news...I finally got up to the store...and got some dulce de leche! Yahoo! Expect those duos up here in a day or two. But anyways, back to the current cookies at hand. I was really craving snickerdoodles, and I already had a recipe that I had tried before, but this time decided I wanted something a bit different. Most snickerdoodles are fairly thin and while they are chewy, they become crispy soon after. And so I decided to go on a search for a thick and chewy one. But as I was searching, I again experienced a phenomenon that seems to be happening a lot to me lately...basically all the recipes I came across were the same! I began to wonder if there actually was a different recipe for snickerdoodles out there. So I turned to google and after a bit of searching, I came across this recipe; finally something different. It looked promising, and so I tried it...and it was great!

Okay, so my cookies really weren't any thicker than the other snickerdoodle recipe I've tried, but I think that has something to do with the fact that I use butter and not shortening. Shortening usually helps cookies keep their shape more since it doesn't melt as easily as butter does. But in all honesty, I've never used shortening in my life and don't really know what it's like, so I just stick with butter (which is kind of funny, because the blogger that I got the recipe from talked mostly about her reasoning for using shortening and told a funny story about using it over butter). But at any rate, I was just happy to find a different recipe and the cookies are so wonderfully chewy that I could care less about their thickness. They were still awesomely chewy before I refrigerated the dough, and even more so after I refrigerated it. I definitely think this will be my go-to snickerdoodle recipe from now on.

Snickerdoodles (from Gild the Lily)
Makes a little more than 2 dozen.

Ingredients

1 cup shortening (I used butter)
1 1/2 cups white sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 egg yolks
1 whole egg
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons cornstarch
1 teaspoon baking soda
3 cups flour
2 tablespoons sugar
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Cream shortening (or butter) and 1 1/2 cups sugar in a large bowl until light and fluffy. Add a teaspoon of vanilla. Beat in egg and egg yolks one at a time and mix until thoroughly combined.
Add salt and then add the cornstarch. Beat in the baking soda and then the flour a little bit at a time and mix until combined.
Combine 2 tablespoons sugar and 2 teaspoons cinnamon in a small bowl. Roll the dough into balls and roll in the cinnamon and sugar mixture. Place on an ungreased cookie and bake for 7 to 9 minutes or until crackly and set. (I baked my unrefrigerated dough for about 8 and my refrigerated dough for about 10-11.) Store in an airtight container. Add a piece of bread to keep them soft, if you wish.

Ha ha! My spatula broke while I was making sure the dough was thoroughly mixed. That's okay though, I have two others. Also, while you're waiting for your cookies to bake up, you could clean some dishes, or...

You could sneak in a picture of your cat. I had to sneak a picture of my cat into this post in particular because I often call her my "snickerdoodle"...or "snackerdoodle." Why? I have no idea. I have a bunch of crazy nicknames for my cat, all of which sound nothing at all like her actual name, which is Pinky. (Hey, my brother named her, alright? It was when we were young too, so don't blame me.) At any rate, try these cookies, because they are delicious!

Vanilla Cupcakes with Vanilla Bean Swiss Meringue Buttercream

2010-03-09T11:57:00.008-05:00

Nope, still no Dulce de Leche Duos yet. (Still haven't gotten my butt up to the store to buy the frackin' stuff!) But, luckily, this recipe is worthy of just as much enthusiasm. It's delicious! The cupcake recipe is one I've used before. It's the same one I used for my yellow cupcakes and is my stand by yellow cupcake recipe. The only difference this time was that I used regular vanilla extract instead of vanilla butter & nut flavoring, and this is the first time I've done so. I was afraid that the flavoring might overpower the lovely taste of the vanilla beans in the frosting, and certainly didn't want that!

So now that I've mentioned it, on to the frosting. Ugh...it is amazing. I was afraid at first that it might be too plain tasting, but I've learned that I should never doubt the awesome powers of a vanilla bean. If you've never used vanilla beans before, I really recommend you try them. I know, they can be pretty expensive, but I happen to know that you can buy them SUPER cheap off of eBay (and they're great quality too) if that's your thing or you can even buy them cheaper at Costco. That's where I got my last bunch of vanilla beans. They're certainly worth the investment because their flavor is out of this world. It's intensely vanilla, so much more flavor than just using extract, and they really shined in the buttercream. Plus, of course, I always love the look of those little specks of vanilla bean seeds. I left the image above a little larger this time, so make sure to click to get the full size and see all those lovely seeds!

Anyways, back to the actual frosting. It's a Swiss meringue buttercream and, again, if you haven't tried this buttercream, you really need to. Forget the things you've heard about it (if you have heard anything), and give it a go. I really have Cassie from How to Eat a Cupcake to thank from turning me on to this buttercream, and it's her standards for butter that I use. She uses only 1/4 cup of butter per egg white, and I find that to be the perfect amount. Almost all other recipes I've seen use way more than that, and I can only imagine why people think the frosting tastes like a stick of butter...because it probably does! 1/4 cup per egg white makes the perfect butteriness, I think. This frosting is creamy, not too sweet, and has wonderful flavor. It can seem a little intimidating and is a little time consuming, but it's really not so hard after all and is so worth it. So definitely try it!

For the cupcake recipe, go to my other post here. Again, the only thing I did differently this time was to use regular vanilla extract instead of vanilla butter & nut.

Vanilla Bean Swiss Meringue Buttercream (From my own mind. :] )
Makes enough to generously frost 12 cupcakes (plus probably have a little left over).

Ingredients

3 egg whites
3/4 cup granulated sugar
pinch salt
3/4 cup (12 tablespoons/1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3/4 vanilla bean (about a 4 to 4 1/2 inch piece), split and seeds scraped

Directions

Fill a large pot with about an inch of water. Place on stove and bring water to a simmer. Place egg whites, sugar, and salt in a large, heatproof bowl and place the bowl over the pot of simmering water (make sure that the water does not touch the bottom of the bowl).
Whisk egg white mixture constantly until a candy thermometer reads 160 degrees F or until the mixture feels hot to the touch and no longer grainy when rubbed between your fingers, about 5 minutes.
Put the egg mixture into the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, and whisk on medium high speed until the meringue comes to room temperature, about 5 to 7 minutes. (Feel the bowl in order to tell if it's come to room temperature or not...if the bowl no longer feels warm at all, you're good to go.)
Switch to the paddle attachment, and on low speed, add the butter one tablespoon at a time. Don't be alarmed if the mixture seems liquidy at first. Increase the speed to high and beat until the mixture is thick and creamy, about 6 to 10 minutes. Also don't be alarmed if your buttercream appears to have curdled at some point. Just keep beating, and it will come back together. (I have pictures of what it looks like curdled here, under step three in the buttercream directions.)
Once mixture has become thick and creamy, reduce speed to low and add extract and vanilla bean seeds and mix until combined and also to remove any air pockets. Use to frost cupcakes and enjoy! :)

I finally remembered to do a different kind of pattern when piping! Oh, but I did finally get the 1M tip I've been wanting, but of course, I didn't get a large coupler which is needed for the 1M tip...but that's okay, I want to get some disposable piping bags too (as I actually always just use a ziploc bag). But for now, I think my #32 tip still does a pretty good job.

Double Chocolate Muffins

2010-03-07T13:01:00.011-05:00

Chocolate muffins seem to be infamous for being so hard to make homemade, being as most recipes tend to be on the dry side, not chocolate-y enough, or too much like a cupcake than a muffin. But, amazingly, this is only the second time I've made chocolate muffins from scratch...and I've found a wonderfully light and fluffy, chocolate-y, and non-cupcake like recipe!! This morning I decided that I wanted muffins for breakfast, but at first I wasn't quite sure what to make. I thought about maybe a spice muffin, or plain vanilla; just something simple being as I didn't have anything special like blueberries, or banana, or pumpkin, etc. But I got to thinking about a chocolate muffin, and possibly one with chocolate chips in it. Like I said before, I've tried making chocolate muffins from scratch once before with not so great results. They certainly weren't very chocolate-y and were dry even after I had added more milk than was called for. I also knew of the difficulty of finding a good chocolate muffin recipe, so I had my work cut out for me.

Finally, my searching brought me to this recipe on Allrecipes. Of course, there were a lot of mixed reviews. Some people thought the muffins were great as is, but there were a lot of people saying things like not very moist, not very chocolate-y, and too sweet. And so like my last post on the banana oatmeal cookies, I decided to take the recipe anyway and just make my own changes to it...and once again ended up with a wonderful recipe! I actually even left out the instant coffee granules I meant to put in to make it a bit more chocolate-y, but it was still a great muffin. I'm really happy that my altered recipes are coming out great here recently, because to me, that says that my baking skills are progressing. I'd eventually like to try my hand at coming up with my own recipes completely, because that seems about the ultimate test. But for now, I'll stick with my tried and true recipes/altered recipes. Now try these muffins!

Double Chocolate Muffins (adapted from Allrecipes)
This time I'm actually going to post my altered recipe instead of the original with my changes in green. I scaled down the recipe considerably since I didn't want a lot of muffins. This recipe makes 5. If you'd like to make the full recipe (about 18-20 muffins), you can double the amounts twice or times them by 4. If you'd like to see the original recipe, I linked it above.

Ingredients

1/2 cup sifted all-purpose flour (What I actually did was fluff up the flour and then measured a scant 1/2 cup. It's probably about equal to a sifted 1/2 cup, so I put it as such to try and give a more accurate measuring. I wish I had a scale to tell you an exact measuring, but unfortunately, I don't.)
2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
1/4 cup brown sugar
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
1/8 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/8 teaspoon salt
(Like I said, I forgot to put it in, but I think it would make the muffins even better...about 1/2 to 1 teaspoon instant coffee granules.)
1/4 cup plus two generous tablespoons milk
1 tablespoon egg (In order to measure this, crack an egg into a bowl, beat it lightly, and then measure out 1 tablespoon. If you don't want to waste the rest of the egg, you can use it to make scrambled eggs or store it in covered in the fridge for later use.)
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 cup semisweet chocolate chips

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Grease muffins cups or line with paper liners.
In a medium bowl, stir together flour, cocoa powder, both sugars, baking soda, baking powder, salt, and coffee granules. Set aside. In a small bowl, whisk together milk, egg, oil, and vanilla. Add the wet ingredients into the dry and mix just until combined.
Fill muffin cups about 3/4 full. Sprinkle chocolate chips evenly on top of the muffins.
Bake muffins for about 20 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out with just a few moist crumbs adhering. Cool in the pan slightly and then remove to cooling racks. Makes 5. These muffins are great warm or at room temperature.

Banana Oatmeal Cookies

2010-03-05T20:19:00.009-05:00

In all honesty, this wasn't a cookie I was planning on making at all. In fact, I had the plan to make the Dulce de Leche Duos from Dorie Greenspan's Baking From My Home to Yours that I've been DYING to make. The only problem was that I was running low on flour and didn't have any dulce de leche. A couple of times I almost made a trip to the grocery store, but since I needed a couple of hygienic necessities from Wal-Mart, I thought I would go ahead and get them there. But much to my dismay, it turned out my Wal-Mart doesn't carry dulce de leche and I just didn't feel like making a trip to the grocery store too. But, I plan on going to Costco tomorrow and so I decided to put off my trip to the grocery, which is luckily right across the street from there, until then. So now, being as I was in need of a sugar fix, I turned to a different cookie to tie me over.

I thought about making a chocolate chip cookie recipe that I've been wanting to try, but decided I wanted something different. I picked up some nutmeg and cloves, two spices that I've miraculously never used, from Wal-Mart so I thought about a spice cookie. I turned to my trusty recipe website Allrecipes and ran a search. But that lead to me looking at a banana spice cookie recipe, and then that in turn lead to looking at a banana oatmeal cookie recipe! I decided that that was what I wanted, and so took a look around at the different recipes. Turns out, nearly all of them are the same. In fact, I even looked at a Martha Stewart banana oatmeal cookie recipe, and that one was nearly the same too, ha ha! The reviewers informed me this was a cakey cookie, which I almost never make, so I thought it would be good to try. I was a little wary because the recipe had really mixed reviews, some saying the cookie was dry, some saying that it was bland, etc., but since I've never tried a cookie like this, I thought I would go with it and add a few things to make sure the cookie was full of flavor. A couple substitutions and some add-ins did the trick, and the resulting cookie was DELICIOUS! I think they may even have better flavor than my favorite banana bread! But expect to see those Dulce de Leche Duos on here soon, because as soon as I get my hands on some dulce de leche, I'm definitely making them!

Banana Oatmeal Cookies (adapted from Allrecipes)
As always, my changes and additions are in green. I really encourage you to make these changes. Recipe says it yields about 3 1/2 dozen, but again, if you make yours bigger like me, you'll probably only get about 2 dozen.

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg (I added an extra tiny pinch...be careful with nutmeg, it can be a bit strong)
3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon (I added an extra shake or two)
3/4 cup shortening (I used butter)
1 cup white sugar (I used 3/4 cup brown sugar, 1/4 cup white)
1 egg, beaten
1 cup mashed, ripe bananas
1 3/4 cups rolled oats
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 tablespoon honey
1/2 cup chopped walnuts (I omitted)

Directions

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.
In a medium bowl, stir together flour, baking soda, salt, nutmeg, and cinnamon. Set aside. In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugars; beat until light and fluffy. Add egg, banana, vanilla, and honey and mix until well incorporated. Add oats and mix until combined. Slowly add dry ingredients and mix until incorporated.
Drop cookies onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper (I ran out, and so used aluminum foil sprayed with a little non-stick cooking spray to be safe. I definitely think they would have stuck if I hadn't). Bake for 9-12 minutes or until edges begin to brown. (The original recipe called for 15 minutes!! Mine were done at 9! Though I might suggest turning the oven down to 375.) Cool on sheet slightly then remove to a wire rack to cool completely. Store in a closed container.

I made a couple of cookies right after I made the dough and then the rest after I'd refrigerated the rest of the dough. These are the juxtaposed refrigerated dough cookie (left) and nonrefrigerated dough cookie (right). This is a cakey cookie, so the refrigeration actually doesn't make a load of difference besides it being thicker and puffier, but I thought maybe it was a little more moist. If you decide to refrigerate your dough, I'd advise turning the oven down to 350, as mine started to burn around the edges before the cookie was done! Definitely try this cookie, though. It's great!!

Chocolate Peanut Butter Cupcakes

2010-02-28T11:17:00.015-05:00

The desire to try this recipe came from, of course, the classic peanut butter and chocolate combination, Reese's peanut butter cups. I actually hadn't had one in a long time until my dad bought a Valentine's box of mini Reese's on sale after Valentine's Day. While I like Reese's, I have this weird thing about peanut butter where I only eat it when I truly desire to eat it. I know that sounds totally weird and confusing, but it's kind of like this: for example, I could eat chocolate all the time. I adore it, and can eat it over and over without ever getting sick of it. But with peanut butter, if I eat too much of it in a short amount of time, I get tired of it and lose interest. So many of the minis disappeared without me eating a single one. It wasn't until there were only a couple left that I had one and suddenly realized how I had forgotten about how good they were. So I had to try the combo in cupcake form!

I planned to make them as chocolate cupcakes with a peanut butter frosting, and in particular, was eyeing this recipe of Ina's. But it had a couple of things in the recipe that I usually don't keep on hand and I also finally decided that I wanted a predominantly peanut butter taste than chocolate. I felt that if I made chocolate cupcakes, the chocolate flavor would be stronger than the peanut butter, and I really wanted the peanut butter to shine. So I found this recipe on Allrecipes. One thing that really stood out to me was that the recipe had cream of tartar in it. I've never in my life seen a cupcake recipe or any cake recipe besides Angel Food that had cream of tartar in it. I also read some of the reviews and decided to use oil in place of shortening. And my lord, the resulting cupcake was INCREDIBLY soft and fluffy! I honestly don't think I've ever made cupcakes as soft as these, and I have to think that it was the cream of tartar that did it. It definitely got me thinking about finding other recipes that used tartar in it or even coming up with my own that has it in the recipe. In the end, the cupcake was delicious and definitely great for the first peanut butter cupcake recipe I tried. I paired it with my old standby chocolate buttercream and it had a nice, Reese's flavor. I eventually would like to try the reverse, chocolate cupcakes with peanut butter frosting, but for now, these were great.

Peanut Butter Cupcakes (adapted from Allrecipes)
I halved the recipe twice and had enough batter for 7 cupcakes. A read a lot of reviews that said they were able to get about 30 cupcakes, so assume that this full recipe will make about 28-30.

Ingredients

2 cups brown sugar
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 cup peanut butter
2 eggs
1 1/2 cups milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons cream of tartar
a pinch of salt

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line a cupcake pan with paper liners or grease and flour cups.
In a large bowl, mix together brown sugar, oil, and peanut butter and beat until thoroughly combined. Beat in eggs one at a time, then stir in vanilla. Combine the flour, baking soda, cream of tartar, and salt in a medium bowl; stir into the batter alternately with the milk, starting and ending with the dry ingredients. Spoon into the prepared cups.
Bake for 15 to 20 minutes in the preheated oven, until the top of the cupcakes spring back when light pressed (or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Don't be fooled by the cupcakes like I was. I thought 15 minutes was too little as almost all cupcakes take at least 18 minutes to bake. The tops to me still looked a little wet and so I didn't even test them at 15 minutes. 2 minutes later they were starting to brown, although still looking a little wet on top, but I checked them anyway. Sure enough, they were done, so don't be fooled!) Cool in the pan about 10 minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool completely.

Creamy Chocolate Frosting (from Allrecipes)
This recipe makes enough to thinly frost about 24 cupcakes, so if you're making the full cupcake recipe, you may want to times the recipe by 1.5.

Ingredients

2 3/4 cups confectioner's sugar
6 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
6 tablespoons butter (I always use salted. If you only have unsalted, add a good pinch of salt)
5 tablespoons evaporated milk (I always use regular 2% milk since I almost never have evaporated milk on hand. But if you have it, definitely use it)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions

In a medium bowl, sift together confectioner's sugar and cocoa powder. Set aside.
In a large bowl, cream butter until smooth, then gradually beat in sugar mixture alternately with the milk. Blend in vanilla. Beat until light and fluffy. If necessary, adjust consistency with more milk or sugar (or cocoa powder). Use to frost cupcakes.

By the way, I totally meant to pipe a different kind of pattern on these cupcakes since I all too often just go back to the classic swirl. But there's just something about the swirl that captivates me and so I just did it by instinct! I think what I'm getting tired of is the fact that I actually only have one star tip, a Wilton #32 open star that I've used for all of the cupcakes I've posted so far. (The only other tips I have are two petal tips, a leaf tip, and a very small round tip that I actually haven't even used yet...I find trying to make buttercream flowers intimidating!) I've been dying to get a 1M tip that seems to be the standard for the classic swirl but just haven't dragged myself up to Michael's to get it. But luckily, tomorrow I have to head up there anyway to get some stretcher strips for a new painting of mine, so as long as I remember, I'm definitely getting it then!

Chocolate Cookies

2010-02-25T10:49:00.007-05:00

I think what I love about this recipe is its wonderful simplicity. No having to melt chocolate, or sift flour, or go through any complicated process really. In fact, it's so simplistic that it's been kind of hard to come up with what I want to say about them. I baked these cookies a couple of days ago, and started this post a couple of days ago...but for some reason I've felt a little unmotivated and unsure of what I wanted to say. But don't let that put you off of these cookies...they may be simplistic, but they're still delicious.

These cookies are buttery, chewy, and have a light chocolatey-ness about them, and I really love that. Not every recipe that has chocolate in it has to be deeply rich and dark. Of course, that's delicious every once in a while too, but now and then I like to have a much simpler chocolate treat and these cookies fit the bill. Made simply with cocoa powder and a nice dose of butter gives them a simple but tasty flavor and a chewiness that actually doesn't even require refrigeration. I'm usually a hugely strong supporter of refrigerating cookie dough, but this cookie will be chewy regardless of whether you refrigerate the dough or not, which is great when you're craving a nice, chewy cookie right then and there. White chocolate chips can be added if you like, although I actually prefer them plain. I'm not too sure where I found this recipe, as I printed it out a long time ago and the paper has been fortunate enough to not get ingredient spills all over it, so just know that this isn't my recipe.

Chocolate Cookies
If you're like me and make slightly larger cookies, this recipe should yield about 2 dozen.

Ingredients

1 cup unsalted butter, softened
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 cups unsifted all-purpose flour
2/3 cup Hershey's unsweetened cocoa powder
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 cups white chocolate chips (optional)

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Cream butter, sugar, eggs, and vanilla until light and fluffy.
Combine flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt; add to creamed mixture. Stir in white chocolate chips if using.
Drop by teaspoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheet, or chill until firm enough to handle and shape small amounts of dough into 1 inch balls. (I just use two spoons to drop dough onto the sheet. I used probably at least 1 1/2 tablespoons of dough for each cookie.)
Bake cookies for 8-10 minutes, or until edges seem set and crisp while inside still appears puffed and chewy.

I forgot that I wanted to make some with white chocolate chips, so I hurriedly pressed some into two of the cookies halfway between baking.

But like I said, I do still enjoy these best when they are plain and simple without anything to hinder the wonderfully chocolate, buttery flavor. Enjoy!

Banana Bread

2010-02-19T14:13:00.011-05:00

Do you ever feel as if you only enjoy a fruit when it's in its straight from the grocery store form? As in, you love the fruit as it is, but you just don't seem to like it when it's in any kind of dessert or baked good? Well, maybe not, but I certainly feel that way about a couple of fruits, and one of which is banana. I love bananas as is, but things like banana cream pie, banana pudding, even the banana/peanut butter combo, I'm just not a fan. Though, I do have a couple exceptions. One of them is Banoffee Pie. The other is banana bread...THIS banana bread. I've tried banana bread in the past, but for some reason, they just didn't do it for me. And so I became convinced that I just didn't like the stuff. But one day I had a couple of super ripe bananas laying around that needed to be used, and came across this recipe on Diana's Desserts and decided to give it a go. And...it's fantastic!

I think what I love about this banana bread is that it doesn't have a super strong banana flavor to it that always seemed to put me off of other banana breads I tried. Who knows? For all I know, the ones I've tasted in the past could have had some artificial or even pure banana extract added to them, and I just wasn't a fan. This bread also has cinnamon added to it, which is, in my opinion, such a great compliment. It is also incredibly moist, coming from not only the bananas, but from buttermilk and applesauce to give it a triple boost of moistness. It's perfectly sweet, and even better the next day after the flavors get a chance to mingle and harmonize and is the perfect addition to morning coffee or a hot cup of tea. All in all, I must say brava. It was enough to convert me and my finickiness, so I'd definitely say to give this bread a try.

Super ripe bananas. At one point, I was worried they might be too far gone, but they were just fine. :)

Buttermilk Banana Bread (From Diana's Desserts)
This recipe is halved in order to make one 9x5 inch loaf. If you'd like to make both loaves, you can double the recipe, or visit Diana's post here.

Ingredients

2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon (I used a little more to make up for the fact that I didn't include the other spices)
1/16 teaspoon ground nutmeg (I omitted. You can just eyeball this by filling your 1/8 teaspoon half full.)
1/16 teaspoon ground ginger (Again, I omitted, and just eyeball it.)
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar (light or dark), firmly packed
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter OR 1/2 cup vegetable oil (I always use vegetable oil)
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
1/2 cup fresh buttermilk
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 large ripe bananas, mashed
1/4 cup applesauce (You can use sweetened or unsweetened. I've used both in the past and find that it makes no difference.)
1/2 cup pecans or walnuts, chopped (optional) (I don't like nuts in bread, so I always omit)

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Spray one 8 1/2 x 4 1/2 inch loaf pan (or a 9x5) with nonstick cooking spray and, if desired, line the bottom of the pan with parchment paper; spray parchment paper also. (I sprayed mine with nonstick cooking spray and then dusted with flour.)
In a large mixing bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, and both sugars. Mix thoroughly; set aside.
In a medium size mixing bowl, mix together the melted butter (or oil), the lightly beaten eggs, the buttermilk, and the vanilla. Stir into the flour and mix just until combined. Do NOT overmix. Fold in the bananas, applesauce, and the chopped nuts, if using.
Pour the batter into the prepared loaf pan. Bake for 55-60 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the middle of the loaf comes out dry. Transfer loaf to a cooling rack and let cool in pan for 15 minutes, then invert the loaf onto the rack to let cool completely.

**Note: This bread keeps quite well tightly wrapped in plastic wrap for up to five days at room temperature or 3 months in the freezer. Can also be stored in the refrigerator if necessary.

Oh, and also. This banana bread recipe can easily be turned into muffins, if you so wish. That's actually what I usually make this recipe as. Just increase the oven temperature to 375 degrees F and bake for about 20 minutes and voila! =)

Lost Obsession: Fish Biscuits

2010-02-18T16:30:00.016-05:00

So...I didn't end up making anything for Valentine's Day. In the end, I just didn't feel up to it. But never fear...I do plan on making both things I considered at some point. The first thing I thought about making was a red velvet cheesecake, but discarded it being as I didn't feel like leaving the house to get cream cheese, sour cream, etc. Then I thought of Mexican chocolate cupcakes filled with homemade caramel and then topped with a boiled frosting...but like I said, I lost motivation, ha ha! But I still would love to try both of those, so I'll keep them on my To Try list and eventually I'll get around to them.

Anyway, if you don't watch Lost, you're probably wondering what the heck a fish biscuit is...and it probably doesn't sound too appetizing either! Well, here is the ultimate display of how obsessed I am with Lost. In season 3, one of the characters, Sawyer (played by the gorgeous Josh Holloway...certainly an incentive to watch!) is captured by a group dubbed "The Others" and is put in a cage for keeping. In this cage is a contraption, and if you're able to figure it out, it rewards you with a fish biscuit! As I was rewatching this episode, I had the craziest urge to try and make some. So I went on Google and lo and behold, I found this blog that had a recipe, instructions, and she even included a template for the fish biscuits! Awesome! Glad to know I'm not the only one with this Lost-obsessive idea! Of course, the "biscuits" are actually just a rolled sugar cookie recipe, so there's nothing fishy about this recipe except for the shape. If you aren't a fan of Lost, you should become one, as it's an excellent show. Hulu is streaming every single episode of Lost through December 31 this year, so even though the last season is now airing on ABC, it's never too late to become a fan! Or, of course, if you're not interested in becoming a fan (I'll just pretend like I didn't hear that), this is still a great dough for any shape you want it to be.

Rolled Sugar Cookies for Fish Biscuits (adapted from Epicurious)
Makes about 5-7 large fish biscuits

Ingredients

2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour (I used bleached, since that's what I had)
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 1/4 teaspoons grated lemon peel (I omitted)
1 1/4 teaspoon grated tangerine or orange peel (I omitted this as well)
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup powdered sugar
1 large egg
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla butter & nut extract
couple drops red food coloring
couple drops yellow food coloring

** This sugar cookie recipe can pretty much be flavored with whatever you like. The original recipe on Epicurious used citrus zest, but I used McCormick's vanilla butter & nut extract, the same I used for the yellow cupcake recipe. You can easily substitute any extract you like, such as vanilla or almond, etc., to taste.

Directions

Sift the flour, baking powder, and salt into a medium bowl. Using an electric mixer, beat the butter, grated lemon peel, and grated tangerine/orange peel until light (since I didn't use zest, I just beat the butter by itself. Don't add any extracts yet.) Add the sugar and powdered sugar and beat until fluffy.
Beat in egg and extract. Add food coloring a little bit at a time, working until you have a nice, rich salmon color. Keep in mind that the color will fade slightly when baked.
Add dry ingredients a little bit at a time until fully incorporated. Divide dough in half and wrap the dough in plastic wrap, forming two disks. Store in the refrigerator for at least 4 hours or overnight until set.

This is the color you're looking for.

Making the fish biscuits:

Preheat the oven to 300 degrees F. Line a large cookie sheet with parchment paper.
Generously flour your work surface and rolling pin. (I rolled out my dough on a piece of parchment paper which I also floured. I found that this really worked best.) Place one disk of dough on the floured surface, and flour the top. Roll out dough to about half an inch in thickness. Place fish biscuit template on the dough and cut around the template using a sharp, floured knife.
Continue rolling and cutting dough, making sure to keep leftover dough scraps for additional cookies and placing the cut out fish biscuits on your prepared cookie sheet. Depending on your estimated thickness, you should get about 5-7 fish biscuits. (I got 7, but the original blogger said 4-5...I guess I wasn't making mine as thick as hers!)
Once all fish biscuits have been cut out, fold the template in half and place on fish biscuit. Using a small rounded butter knife (I actually found that a toothpick works best!!), gently press in the top or bottom half of the Dharma logo letters. (Do whichever side you're more comfortable with. The original blogger pressed in the bottom half of the letters first, but I found it easier to press in the top half of the letters first.)
Remove the template and then press in the other half of the letters. Continue doing this for each fish biscuit. (The name DHARMA comes from a group called the DHARMA Initiative who were scientists who came to study the island and who were supplied with food with their logo on it...for more info on them, you can click here.)
Bake the fish biscuits for 15 to 20 minutes until they no longer give when pressed. Cool for 5 minutes on the baking sheet and then transfer to wire rack to cool. Serve warm or at room temperature and watch your favorite Lost episode as you enjoy! For the fish biscuit template and printable recipe and directions, please visit the original blogger's file here. (Must be able to see pdf files.)

Rick Katz's Brownies for Julia

2010-02-11T17:46:00.009-05:00

I know, I know...I've been bad. I said in my last post that I was going to try to not bake anything until Valentine's Day. But, this week's recipe for the TWDers was this fabulous brownie recipe that sounded like the exact type of brownie I love: ooey, gooey, and barely set. Yum! Upon looking at the recipe, I found out that it was basically the same brownie recipe as one that's been sitting on my To Try list for a while. Plus, all of my classes have been canceled this week and it's been a wintery wasteland outside like I've mentioned in my previous posts, so even though I'm not a member of Tuesdays with Dorie, these brownies begged me to make them, honestly! Ha ha. I think I'll still end up making the recipe I wanted to make for Valentine's Day. That is, if I can ever get out and get the ingredients with all this snow! I might just scale down the recipe and make individual portions. As to what recipe I have in mind, you'll have to wait until Valentine's Day to find out.

Like I was saying, this recipe is amazingly ooey and gooey, probably the most gooey brownies I've ever made! A lot of members of TWD said that they found a problem with that, and most baked their brownies a lot longer or just baked them in a larger pan in order to compensate. But I fully believe that a cooked-all-the-way-through brownie is an absolute crime! I saw one comment on the same recipe labeled "Best Ever Brownies" where the woman actually baked these things until a toothpick came out clean and I just about died!! So if you're looking for a really cakey recipe, this one is certainly not for you! But if you're like me and love an absolute sinful, chocolately, gooey, melt-your-mouth brownie, this one's a keeper! I'm not going to share the recipe here, so please go on over to the blog Chocolatechic for the brownie recipe. But I will share some photos of the baking process.

Melting the butter and chocolate. And there's a lot of it in this recipe! If you're looking to get on a diet, or looking for a lighter recipe, turn away now, ha ha!

An interesting thing about this recipe is that you stir in half of the sugar/egg mixture into the melted chocolate and butter and then whip the other half until the eggs have gotten really light and doubled in volume. I actually went through the same process of whipping the eggs for the chocolate espresso cookies in my second post, which also came out as more like a brownie batter than a cookie dough. Interesting!

The rest of the brownies. The recipe, I believe, calls for you to bake the brownies for 25-30 minutes. I baked for 30 and they were nice and gooey. I got impatient and cut a piece after only about 30 minutes of cooling, so you can see how the recipe really oozes. After I ate my piece, I placed these brownies in the refrigerator to set up a little more. They'll still be super gooey, but they won't ooze like how you see in the picture.

A close up of my slice. Yum! You can also see that the brownies have a nice, crackly, crispy top on them which is nice paired with the melt-in-your mouth gooey-ness. If you absolutely insist that you want your brownies to be more firm and you really want to try this recipe, I'd suggest baking your brownies upwards of 35-4o minutes or even adding about another 1/2 cup of flour to them. Just remember to watch them.

So try these brownies! They really are excellent, and I think I'll be using this as my go to recipe from now on! Until Valentine's Day!

Brown Sugar Cupcakes with Brown Sugar Caramel Buttercream

2010-02-08T18:11:00.015-05:00

Phew! Rather long title, huh? I decided that was a little too much for the photo, so I left it out, ha ha. I've been making a lot of cupcakes recently, but at least have been getting quite a workout shoveling snow! 28 inches was the official measurement by our yardstick! And we're due to get more snow tomorrow afternoon, 10-15 inches, according to the news!! I don't think our area has ever gotten so much snow in so little time, it's ridiculous! But, it's been closing schools, so that's been one positive thing about it.

Anyways, back to the cupcakes. These are awesome, the cupcake is incredibly moist, and the buttercream is simply delicious! The cupcake part I've actually tried once before, so I knew that would be good, but the buttercream was new to me, so I was really eager to try it out. It's a Swiss Meringue buttercream, made with brown sugar and then finished off with a large amount of homemade caramel sauce thrown right into the frosting. Yum! I really seem to be on a caramel binge here recently, and that does happen to me from time to time (caramel and malt seem to be most popular with me!). I've also had toffee bars on the mind, using the caramel recipe I made for the Banoffee Pie in my very first post. Those might be making an appearance on here in the near future! Though I'm going to try to not bake anything from now until Valentine's Day, just to be good, unless it's for breakfast. I don't think I ever realized how much sweets I made until I actually started documenting them on this blog, ha ha! Anyways, on to the recipes!

Brown Sugar Cupcakes (Originally under the name Salted Caramel Cupcakes from Cupcakes by Shelly Kaldunski)
Makes 12 cupcakes

Ingredients

1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup firmly packed dark brown sugar (I used light)
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature
2 large eggs, at room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 cup whole milk (I used 2%, and that's fine)

Directions

Position a rack in the middle of the oven and preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line a standard 12-cup muffin tin with paper liners.
In a bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt. In another bowl, using an electric mixture on medium-high speed, beat the sugars and butter until light and fluffy, 2-3 minutes. Add the eggs and vanilla and beat until combined. Add flour mixture in 3 additions, alternating with the milk in 2 additions, beating on low speed just until combined; scrape down the sides of the bowl as necessary.
Divide the batter evenly among the prepared cupcake liners, filling each about two-thirds full. Bake until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, about 18-20 minutes. Let the cupcakes cool in the pan on a wire rack for 5 minutes. Transfer the cupcakes to wire rack and cool completely, about 1 hour.

After you put the cupcakes in the oven, immediately begin working on the caramel sauce.

Caramel Sauce (doubled from Debby Maugans Nakos' Small-Batch Baking)
Makes about 1 cup

Ingredients

1 cup sugar
1/4 cup water
3/4 cup heavy cream

Directions

Combine the sugar and water in a medium saucepan over medium-high heat. Bring to a boil, stirring occasionally, until the sugar dissolves, about 3 minutes. Reduce heat to medium and cook, swirling the saucepan frequently, until the sugar syrup is golden amber in color, about 7 to 9 minutes.
Remove the pan from heat and gradually add cream, stirring slowly and carefully - the caramel will sputter when the liquid is added. The sugar will seize and harden. Return the pan to the heat and continue cooking until the sugar melts again, about 2 minutes. Pour into a bowl and cool to room temperature, stirring occasionally. (Your caramel sauce may seem rather liquidy at first, but will thicken upon cooling.)

Brown Sugar Caramel Swiss Meringue Buttercream
Makes enough to frost 12 cupcakes

Ingredients

3 large egg whites
3/4 cup brown sugar
pinch of salt
3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
caramel sauce, to taste

Directions

Place egg whites, brown sugar, and salt in a large heatproof bowl and fit the bowl over a large pan of simmering water (double boiler style). Whisk the egg mixture constantly until the mixture feels hot to the touch and no longer grainy when rubbed between your fingers, about 5 minutes (and about 160 degrees F on a candy thermometer).
Put the egg mixture into the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment and beat on high until the mixture is light and fluffy and hold stiff peaks. Continue beating until the whipped egg whites come to room temperature. (Feel the bowl for this...if it no longer feels warm at all, then it's good to go.)
Switch to the paddle attachment, and with the mixer on low, add the butter 1 tablespoon at a time, waiting a couple of seconds before adding the next tablespoon. Increase the speed to high and beat until the mixture is thick and creamy, 6 to 10 minutes. The mixture may appear to be curdled during this time...don't freak out, just keep beating and it will come back together! (Some people also may experience the buttercream seeming very liquidy...again, just keep beating and it will thicken up!)
Once the mixture is thick and smooth, add the cooled caramel sauce a little bit at a time, to taste. You will not likely end up using all of the caramel sauce. Start out adding about 1/4 cup, and increase the amount to your liking.

To Assemble

Frost the cupcakes with your favorite decorating tip or knife/spatula.
Drizzle the cupcakes with any of the remaining caramel sauce, if you wish. Enjoy!

Yellow Cupcakes with French Silk Frosting

2010-02-06T10:36:00.010-05:00

Here on the east coast we're currently getting SLAMMED with snow! And when I say slammed, I mean it! The numbers they've been predicting on the news has grown and grown, and it currently stands at 20-30 in, and I certainly believe them! A small tree in my front yard is currently totally weighted down with snow and my little Volkswagen Beetle is practically covered, ha ha! Anyways, I actually made these cupcakes two nights ago, but didn't get around to blogging them since I still had to blog about the light CC cookies, and didn't feel like typing up a whole nother post, but here I am now, and trust me, this recipe is absolutely delicious and one of my favorites!

What makes this recipe so delicious and addicting is certainly thanks to the vanilla butter & nut extract that McCormick makes! I discovered the cupcake recipe and the info about the extract on How To Eat a Cupcake. She had said that the extract was practically like yellow cake mix in a bottle! Yum! Even though I fully believe in baking from scratch, I do have a soft spot for the flavor of boxed cake mixes, being as that's what I grew up with. The extract really makes the cake, and while you could substitute with vanilla, it just won't be the same, so I suggest searching your store for this wonderful extract. Yes, it is imitation, but with all the processed foods we eat now anyway, I assume a tiny bit of extract in a cake recipe won't do much more harm. There were two bottles in just one store in my town and as soon as I made this recipe, I went back and bought the other bottle just in case they ran out and didn't restock!Also, the French Silk frosting is wonderful as well! French Silk refers to the light chocolate flavor like you get in a French Silk pie. It's an American buttercream (powdered sugar, butter, milk, flavoring), which usually I don't like too much because it's sickeningly sweet, but this recipe is actually great and not too sweet thanks to the unsweetened chocolate that you melt down and put into the recipe. It has a really great flavor and nice amount of sweetness. Now I've talked too long...on to the recipe!

(You could use better quality chocolate if you wish...but regular old Baker's chocolate works fine for me)

Yellow Cupcakes (Originally called Supermarket Yellow Cake for Strawberry Shortcake and adapted from A Passion for Baking by Marcy Goldman)
Makes 12 cupcakes

Ingredients

1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
1 cup sugar, finely pulverized (I actually didn't do this, and my cupcakes were still great. If you want to follow it though, just whir the sugar in a food processor for 1-2 minutes or you can use caster/superfine sugar, which has already been pulverized)
1 large egg
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla butter & nut extract (The original called for vanilla...but use vanilla butter & nut, I promise it's delicious!)
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup warm milk (This last time, I accidentally let my milk get hot, but used it anyway...seemed like the cupcakes came out even moister!)

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line a standard cupcake tin with 12 paper liners.
In a mixer bowl, cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add egg and vanilla butter & nut extract and mix well.
Add flour mixture alternately with the milk, starting and ending with the dry ingredients. Mix just until flour and milk are fully incorporated.
Pour batter evenly into prepared liners. Bake 18-20 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool completely before frosting.

French Silk Frosting (From allrecipes.com)
Makes enough to frost 12 cupcakes

Ingredients

1 1/3 cups confectioners' sugar
1/3 cup (5 1/3 tablespoons) butter, softened (I always use salted for American buttercreams. If you only have unsalted, add a pinch of salt)
1 (1 ounce) square unsweetened chocolate, melted
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 tablespoon milk

Directions

In a medium bowl, blend confectioners' sugar, butter, melted chocolate, and vanilla on low speed. Increase speed to high. Gradually add milk; beat until smooth and fluffy.

Surprisingly Delicious Light Chocolate Chip Cookies

2010-02-05T11:24:00.009-05:00

Yes, you heard me right, a delicious light chocolate chip cookie recipe!! Sounds too good to be true, huh? But the good thing is that it is true! I talked about these cookies in my chocolate cake post, and I've just now gotten around to blogging about them, so sorry about that! Anyways, I first came across this recipe on How To Eat a Cupcake, and I was intrigued. The recipe uses dates in it! You reconstitute the dates in water until all the liquid has absorbed and then put it through a strainer to make puree. I had actually never had a date before this recipe, so before attempting it, I made a quick search online to see what they tasted like, and pretty much just got the answer "sweet." And that's really the truth...I can't really discern a flavor except for sweet, so it was perfect for this recipe!

This cookie is wonderfully chewy inside thanks to the dates, and has a nice crispy outside. I have to admit, this was the second time around I made the recipe and I actually attempted to make it even healthier by upping the amount of dates, reducing the sugar slightly, and adding only an egg white instead of a whole egg. All in all, it didn't really change the stats of the cookies too much, and I don't think I liked the flavor as well as the recipe made to a T. So I definitely suggest making the recipe as it's written first, and then if you want to play around with it a second time, you can. The recipe when made as written produces a very crumbly dough that can be slightly hard to work with, but it is worth it! This second time around, my dough actually came together since I messed around with the recipe, so I don't have pictures of the crumbly dough. To see pictures on that, you can visit Cassie's post on How To Eat a Cupcake. Now on to the recipe!

Light Chocolate Chip Cookies (Originally from The America's Test Kitchen Family Baking Book)
Makes about 18 cookies

Ingredients

1 cup water
1/4 cup finely chopped dried dates
3 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/4 cups packed light brown sugar
1 large egg
2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips

Directions

Adjust an oven rack to the middle position and heat the oven to 325 degrees F. Line two large baking sheets with parchment paper.
Bring the water and dates to a boil in a small saucepan over medium high heat. Simmer until the dates are tender and most of the water is absorbed, about 20 minutes. Using a rubber spatula, work the dates through a fine mesh strainer into a medium bowl. You should have about a 1/4 of a cup of puree. Then cook the butter in a small saucepan over medium heat until nutty brown, about 4 minutes. Let cool.
Whisk the flour, baking soda, and salt together in a medium bowl. In a large bowl, beat the melted butter, brown sugar, and date puree with an electric mixer on medium speed until smooth, 1 to 2 minutes. Beat in the egg and vanilla until combined, about 3o seconds, scraping down the bowl and beaters as needed.
Reduce the mixer speed to low and slowly add the flour mixture until combined. Reserve 2 tablespoons of the chocolate chips, then mix in the remaining chips until incorporated (as I said, the batter will be really stiff and crumbly, so you can use your hands to bring it together).
(I strongly suggest refrigerating the dough for a couple hours or overnight before baking). Working with 2 tablespoons of dough at a time, roll the dough into balls, tear the balls in half, then press back together with the torn side up (I'm really not sure what the purpose of this is. All it did for me was make it so my cookies turned out ugly, so I just rolled them into balls and baked them just like that...the cookies, or at least my cookies, hold their shape in the oven). Lay the cookies jagged side up on the prepared baking sheets, spaced about 2 inches apart. Press the remaining two tablespoons of chocolate chips evenly over the cookies.
Bake the cookies, one sheet at a time, until the edges are set and beginning to brown but the centers are still soft and puffy, 15 to 20 minutes, rotating the sheet halfway through baking.
Let the cookies cool on the baking sheet for 10 minutes, then serve warm or transfer to cooling rack to cool completely. (I strongly suggest that if there's leftover cookies, to store them in an airtight container with a piece of bread. The cookies when left to sit out get really hard on the outside [though the insides do stay chewy], so putting them in an airtight container with a piece of bread will keep them soft.)

Vanilla Spice Crumb Cakes

2010-01-30T15:06:00.013-05:00

It's steady snowing away outside today, so it's definitely a good day to curl up with a hot beverage and a good book or movie with these DELICIOUS muffins! This is another recipe from the book Small-Batch Baking by Debby Maugans Nakos, and boy, is it a good one! They're called crumb cakes because they're similar to crumb or coffee cakes, but you bake them up as muffins. I thought they'd be good as I put the batter into the muffin liners as I got a little lick of the batter, but these muffins greatly exceeded my expectations!

The flavor of them is absolutely delicious, and in my opinion, a perfect balance of sugar and spice. The original recipe used nutmeg, but I used cinnamon since I didn't have any and I definitely recommend using cinnamon whether you have nutmeg or not! The vanilla bean gave them a nice vanilla flavor, and of course, those lovely looking vanilla seeds spread throughout. And the texture was nice and soft and fluffy. I think these might have just become one of my favorite muffins! I was a little skeptical because the recipe only used an egg white, and I never really see that too often in recipes (usually when a recipe only uses part of an egg, it uses the yolk), but they were so delicious, and hey, the egg yolk is the one part of the egg that contains fat and cholesterol, so I'm not complaining that the recipe didn't include it! Especially being as I ate 3 of the 4 muffins, 2 of them in quick succession! Ack! Maybe them being so delicious isn't such a good thing, ha ha. :)

Vanilla Spice Crumb Cakes (Adapted from Small-Batch Baking by Debby Maugans Nakos. No copyright infringement intended)
The recipe stated it made 3 jumbo muffins, but I made regular muffins and got 4.

Ingredients

1 piece of vanilla bean (about 3 inches), or 1/2 teaspoon vanilla paste
3 tablespoons granulated sugar
3 tablespoons brown sugar
2/3 cup plus 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg (I used cinnamon, and like I said, I really recommend it!)
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/4 cup buttermilk
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
White of 1 medium egg (I actually just used the white of an extra large egg, since that was what I had)

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Lightly grease only the bottoms of 3 jumbo muffin cups and set muffin pan aside. (I thought these directions were rather curious. I'm not sure what the purpose is, but I just used paper/foil liners and it was just fine. As I said, if you're using a regular muffin tin, you should get 4).
Split the vanilla bean lengthwise by slicing down one edge with the tip of a sharp knife. Open the bean and scrape the seeds into a medium-sized mixing bowl. Add the granulated and brown sugars to the bowl and mix well with a fork. Add the flour, salt, and nutmeg (or cinnamon), and mix with a fork until well combined. Add the butter and mix with the fork, or with your fingertips, until the mixture is crumbly (I quickly found out that fingers definitely work best). Set aside 1/4 cup of the crumb mixture for the topping.
Place the buttermilk and baking soda in a small bowl. Whisk in the egg white until it is well blended. Pour the buttermilk mixture over the remaining dry ingredients and mix with a fork until just combined.
Spoon the batter into the prepared muffin cups, dividing it evenly among them. Sprinkle the reserved crumb mixture evenly over the batter and press in lightly with your fingertips. Fill the empty muffin cups halfway with water to prevent them from scorching.
Bake the cakes until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, about 15 minutes (She must have a magic oven or something. I baked regular-sized muffins and they weren't done until about 20 minutes).
Cool slightly in pans and then remove to wire racks. Serve warm or at room temperature. Cakes can be wrapped in foil and placed in a plastic freezer bag for up to a month or store any leftovers (which I doubt there will be) wrapped at room temperature for up to 2 days.

Chocolate Cake with Caramel Frosting

2010-01-29T13:26:00.006-05:00

It's my dad's birthday finally, so here's the cake I've been talking about! :) I actually did end up baking something between the Strawberry Muffins and now, but they disappeared before I had a chance to blog about them! But I'll definitely be making them again and blog about them then...because they're chocolate chip cookies, they're delicious, and they're LIGHT! Yup, a delicious, better for you cookie. But for now, back to the cake.

This is possibly my favorite cake, and it's my dad's favorite too! The cake recipe is my go-to chocolate cake. It's incredibly moist, one of the moistest I've ever had, delicious, and best of all, it's a one bowl cake! All you have to do is put all the ingredient in a bowl and mix for about 30 seconds and bam, it's ready to go! It's actually so moist that I accidentally overbaked it slightly and it was still good and moist! And the frosting is just to die for! The only drawback to the frosting is that it's kind of gooey, and so it ends up running a little bit down the sides of the cake. Both of these recipes are from allrecipes, and some of the reviewers for the frosting said that they added some powdered sugar to make it more spreadable, but the flavor is so perfect by itself that I would hate to add sugar and make it too sweet! So instead just pop it into the refrigerator until the frosting sets and it's completely fine (just make sure to take it back out of the fridge after it sets, because if you leave it in too long, the frosting will get grainy). Anyways, on to the recipes!

Go-To Chocolate Cake (Adapted from allrecipes)
Makes one 9x13 inch cake (or a 2-layered 9 inch cake)

Ingredients

2 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups sugar
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
1 cup cold brewed coffee
1 cup buttermilk
1/2 cup vegetable oil

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease and flour a 9x13 inch pan. (I put a parchment paper round into 2 9-inch cake pans and then buttered the paper rounds as well as the side. Unless you have cake pans that have at least 2 inch sides, I wouldn't suggest using 8-inch cake pans because the cakes really rose to the top of my 9-inch ones).
In a large bowl, combine the flour, sugar, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients and pour in the eggs, coffee, buttermilk, and oil. Mix just until smooth. (Cake batter will be really thin, so don't freak out!) Pour into prepared pan/pans.
Bake in preheated oven for 35 to 40 minutes (only about 25-30 for 9-inch pans), or until toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool in the pans and then remove and cool the rest of the way on cooling racks.

Caramel Frosting (Adapted from allrecipes)
I upped the frosting just a little bit and it made a nice thick layer of frosting. I'll put the original measurements in red.

Ingredients

3 cups plus two tablespoons packed light brown sugar (2 1/2 cups)
1 1/4 cups heavy whipping cream (1 cup)
1/2 plus 1/8 teaspoon baking soda (1/2 teaspoon)
10 tablespoons butter (1/2 cup [8 tablespoons]) (I used salted butter and I think that's really important for this recipe. If you don't have it, I'd put about a teaspoon of salt in)
1/4 cup chopped pecans, optional (I don't like nuts in my frosting, so I omitted)

Directions

In a large, heavy saucepan, combine the brown sugar and heavy cream and bring to a rolling boil. Boil one minute. Add the baking soda and boil one more minute. Remove from heat and add butter but DO NOT STIR!! Let the mixture cool (I store in the refrigerator).
Beat the mixture well with an electric mixer. Stir in pecans, if desired. (If your frosting is still really runny, store in the refrigerator until it thickens up some. It will still ooze slightly. If it starts running on your cake, as I said, store the cake in the fridge just until set and then take it out so that the frosting doesn't get grainy).

Then frost the cake and enjoy! =)

Strawberry Muffins

2010-01-24T13:20:00.012-05:00

Yesterday my dad brought home from Costco possibly the most beautifully plump, richly red strawberries I've ever seen! We actually have a strawberry patch in our backyard, and it does grow pretty red, delicious strawberries (and most importantly of all, organic), but ours never get nearly as big as these, and these possibly also are even more red than the ones we get from our backyard! I really was itching to make something like strawberry shortcakes or this recipe from Diana's Desserts that's been on my 'To Bake' list for a while now, but there's only 5 days until my dad's birthday now, and I definitely don't want two cakes in the house at once! So instead I decided to make breakfast with them, and decided on muffins.

These muffins were good. Though I have to admit that they weren't as sweet as I like (monster sweet tooth, yeah? ;) ) But the bites that had lots of strawberry in them were quite delicious! I might have even put more strawberries in. I was actually worried that they would be dry because the batter was quite stiff. I even had to put an extra splash of milk in because I was having trouble incorporating the flour. But they were perfectly light and fluffy. Though the parts of the muffin that had strawberry in them were just slightly moist and soggy, but I expected that. It also might have had to do with the fact that the strawberry bits were still wet from when I washed them when I put them in the mix. If you make this recipe, you might want to pat your strawberry pieces dry first before adding.

Beautfiul red strawberries!

Oops...couldn't resist! x)

Strawberry Muffins (Adapted from allrecipes)
The recipe says it makes 8, but I made 3/4 of the recipe and still got 8. So with this full recipe expect to get 10-12.

Ingredients

1/4 cup canola oil (I used vegetable)
1/2 cup milk (As I said, I used an extra splash. If you're muffin batter is stiff as well, put another little splash of milk in)
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 cup sugar (I added a little brown sugar. If you like your muffins sweeter, I'd probably put in a lightly packed 1/4 cup brown sugar)
1 3/4 cups flour (I put in slightly less flour. I advise to subtract 1/4 a cup and just put in 1 1/2 cups)
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1 cup chopped strawberries

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line muffin tin with paper liners.
In a small bowl, combine oil, milk, egg, and vanilla. Beat lightly. In a large bowl mix together flour, baking powder, salt, sugar, and cinnamon. Toss in chopped strawberries and toss to coat with flour. Pour in milk mixture and stir just until combined.
Fill muffin cups. Bake for 25 minutes (I don't know why it says to bake so long. Mine were ready at about 19 minutes), or until the tops bounce back at the touch (or toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean). Cool 10 minutes and remove from pans.

Caramel Mousse

2010-01-23T12:21:00.010-05:00

I stumbled upon this recipe in a book called Small-Batch Baking by Debby Maugans Nakos. I found possibly my favorite vanilla cupcake recipe on one of my favorite blogs called Cookie Madness, run by Anna, and she said that she had gotten the recipe from this same cookbook. I thought it would be worth checking out since I always bake in small batches since really it's only me and one other person in my house eating the sweets! But when I looked it up on Amazon, I found a lot of the reviewers said that there were errors in the book, so I discarded the idea of getting it. Yet a couple days ago when I was in the library, I happened to find it and decided to give it a try anyway. Once I discovered this mousse recipe, I knew I had to try it!!

This recipe didn't quite have the texture I like in a mousse; it was actually pretty much just caramel whipped cream, but it's still very delicious! If any of you guys have never made a homemade caramel sauce, I don't know what you're waiting for! I have to admit that I was a bit intimidated when I first tried to make homemade caramel, but it's actually very simple and SO much better than anything you can get in a store! (And I know that there are packaged caramels in the picture...admittedly, they're just for decoration.) Anyways, do give this recipe a try. You can use it in a multitude of other recipes, or even use it as a topping for cupcakes, pies, cheesecakes, or whatever!

Caramel Mousse (Adapted from Small-Batch Baking by Debby Maugans Nakos. No copyright infringement intended)

For the caramel sauce:

1/2 cup sugar
2 tablespoons water
1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons heavy cream

Directions:

Combine the sugar and water in a small saucepan over medium-high heat. Bring to a boil, stirring with a fork (or whisk), and cook until the sugar dissolves, about 3 minutes. Reduce heat to medium and cook, swirling the saucepan frequently, until the sugar syrup is golden amber in color, 7 to 9 minutes.
Remove the pan from the heat and gradually add the cream, stirring slowly and carefully- the caramel will sputter when the liquid is added. The sugar will seize and harden. Return the pan to the heat and continue cooking until the sugar melts again, about 2 minutes. Pour into a small bowl and cool to room temperature, stirring occasionally. Makes about 1/2 cup.

For the mousse:

1/2 cup cold heavy cream
3 1/2 tablespoons caramel sauce (I ended up adding more to taste. I recommend starting out putting in the 3 1/2 tablespoons and tasting the mousse and then adding more caramel sauce if you wish.)

Directions

Place the cream in a chilled mixing bowl with a chilled whisk attachment/beaters (she recommends using a hand-mixer since the recipe is small, but I used my KitchenAid and it worked just fine). Beat on high speed until stiff peaks form, about 2 minutes.
Beat in 3 1/2 tablespoons caramel sauce and mix until well blended, 20 to 30 seconds. (Taste the mousse and add more caramel sauce to taste if you wish). Serve immediately or place in small bowls and wrap with plastic wrap and store in the refrigerator. Makes 2 small servings.

Extreme Vanilla Cupcakes

2010-01-21T19:54:00.009-05:00

Even though I had a major disappointment before I made these, the resulting cupcake was awesome and definitely made me brighten up! I first stumbled upon the recipe on a blog called justJENN recipes, under the name "VERY Vanilla Cupcakes," but I made a few changes from the recipe that warranted the name "Extreme!" These cupcakes are chock-full of vanilla in three forms: extract, vanilla milk, and, in with my change, vanilla bean. In Jenn's original recipe, she used vanilla sea salt, but since I didn't have any, I decided to substitute vanilla beans instead.

Anyways, the disappointment had to do with the mini little nut & party cups I was planning on making these in. I've seen them used in multiple blogs and being as I've never made mini cupcakes, the prospect sounded incredibly fun! I found Wilton nut & party cups at Michael's and was excited as I opened the package. I thought they'd be great, especially for someone like me since they stand up by themselves and don't require a mini cupcake tin, something that I don't have. But lo and behold, when I opened the package, they had a wax coating on the inside!! ARGH! Those can't go in the oven! I was so upset, particularly so because the packaging didn't even mention that they had a wax coating and were unsafe for baking. So I had to drag out the ol' regular-sized cupcake tin and paper liners. Definitely not as exciting.

But like I said, the resulting cupcake was still great, so all was good. By the way, please excuse my crazy piping on the cupcake. This is really the first time I've ever seriously tried piping anything, so I know it looks a little ridiculous, ha ha! I just tried a regular swirl at first, but I didn't quite get the edges, so I went back and did some crazy shell-like border around the edges. Feel free to giggle, as I certainly did! But I had a lot of fun trying to pipe and I look forward to practicing and getting better!

Extreme Vanilla Cupcakes (Adapted from justJENN recipes)
I halved the recipe twice and only got 4 cupcakes, so it's safe to say that this full recipe will yield about 16 cupcakes.

Ingredients

3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) butter, room temperature
1 3/4 cups sugar
3 eggs
2 1/4 cups cake flour (Again, I always use the all-purpose and cornstarch trick. See post below for how-to.)
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon vanilla sea salt (I just scraped in some vanilla beans and used regular salt)
1 cup vanilla milk (Jenn used Horizon Organic Vanilla Milk. I didn't have any, so just put a couple drops of vanilla into regular old 2%)
1 tablespoon vanilla

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line cupcake tin with paper liners.
In a medium bowl, whisk together cake flour, baking powder, and sea salt (or whatever salt you're using). Set aside.
Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs one at a time until incorporated and then vanilla (and vanilla bean seeds, if using).
Add milk, alternating with the dry ingredients until combined, starting and ending with the dry ingredients.
Spoon batter into prepared liners and bake for about 20 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Let cool in pan for a few minutes and then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

Jenn said in her post that she just frosted with a simple vanilla buttercream. Since I wanted to keep with the amped up vanilla theme, I frosted with a vanilla bean buttercream, yum!

Vanilla Bean Buttercream (adapted from Oprah.com...yes, Oprah.)
(This recipe is enough to frost 24 cupcakes, so it'll be more than you need. Feel free to reduce the ingredients slightly.)

Ingredients

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
1/2 vanilla bean, scraped
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup milk
4 cups confectioners' sugar
(I also added in a little shot of vanilla extract! Yay, vanilla!)

Directions

Cream the butter in a medium-sized bowl (or stand mixer) until very smooth. Add vanilla bean seeds and mix until they are evenly distributed.
Add salt and milk (and vanilla extract, if using) and stir until combined (it probably won't come together very well being as it's fat and a liquid, but don't worry about it. It'll all come together once you add the sugar.)
Sift the confectioners' sugar over the butter mixture and beat until perfectly smooth. If too loose, add some more confectioners' sugar. If too stiff, add some more milk.

By the way, as I was editing and adding text to my photo, I found this effect on Picnik:Ha ha!! Vanilla cupcake is all powerful! x)