Fail Muffins

A friend of mine had suggested I made peanut butter muffins. Which I had never heard of before, so I went in search of a recipe and found one for Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Muffins. There was a typo in the recipe which caused me to have 3 times as much peanut butter than was necessary. The resulting muffins, were not very muffin like, and the batter was very fluffy.

One of the first hints that the recipe was wrong, was that I had way more batter than was needed for 12 muffins, which is what the recipe was supposed to make. They also didn't rise at all. After making the first dozen I popped the batter in the fridge, and commented on the post where I found the recipe. Once I heard back, I found out that there was indeed a typo. After asking my mom for some advice to improve the batter that I already had I made some changes. I added another egg, a little bit of water, and about half tsp of baking soda, which resulted in a much improved muffin.

Fail muffin VS. Improved muffin

Till next time, thanks for reading =)

*this post has been back-dated(posted on May 3rd)

*Gingersnap Cookies 3.0*

I have been on a long search for a soft and chewy gingersnap cookie. I think I finally found it! (happy dance). I found it on Fortheloveofcooking.net via a google search. The recipe has white chocolate chips in it, but they could easy be left out. The recipe made 2 dozen cookies (ice cream scoop size), so next time I'm gonna try doubling it without the white chocolate chips.

Soft Gingersnap Cookies with White Chocolate Chips

• 1/2 cup of unsalted butter, softened
• 1/2 cup of white sugar (plus some to roll the dough in)
• 1/4 cup of molasses
• 1 tbsp canola oil (I used olive oil)
• 1/2 tsp vanilla
• 3/4 tsp cinnamon
• 3/4 tsp ground cloves
• 1/2 tsp ground ginger
• 1/4 tsp fresh nutmeg, grated (I used 1/2 tsp ground nutmeg)
• 1 large egg
• 1 3/4 cup of flour
• 1 1/8 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 3/4 cup white chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

Beat the butter and sugar together until creamy. Add the molasses, canola oil, vanilla, cinnamon, cloves, ginger, and nutmeg. Beat until mixed. Add the egg and continue to beat until well combined.

Add the baking soda and salt to the flour and mix really well. Slowly add the flour mixture into the molasses mixture until well combined. Add the white chocolate chips and mix into the dough. Scoop the dough into balls and roll into some white sugar. Place on parchment lined baking sheet about 2 inches apart.

Place into the oven and bake for 10-12 minutes. Remove the cookies from the oven and let cool for a few minutes before transferring them to a rack to cool. Enjoy.

Misty Mints Treasures

Misty mints are on my my all time favourite Christmas chocolate/candy.  I bought 2 boxes this past year and kept one in the fridge. Hence why i made cookies with Christmas candy in September. Wow that's almost 10 months later I just realized, but oh well. They come with a recipe inside the box that I wanted to try. They were very good, only problem is I ate them too fast, especially since they are so small. *this has been post dated.

Slightly blurry, but a look inside the finished cookie.

Till next time, thanks for reading.

Fudge Rounds

I found this recipe on Confession's of a Cookbook Queen's blog, and just knew I had to make these. I'm so glad I did 'cause they are awesome. So awesome that I've made them 3 times now. (as of Jan '12)

 Right when you take the cookies out of the oven they look slightly poofy but they settle down once they start to cool. I found making them slightly small and flattening them before baking made it easier when putting the cookies together.

 I found the frosting recipe made a lot of frosting. I used the whole recipe and used it for 2 x the cookie recipe. If you were to put twice as much frosting on each cookies to use it up, the frosting would just squish out the sides.

And here is the recipe. From Confessions of a Cookbook Queen

INGREDIENTS

1 1/4 cup salted butter, softened
2 cups sugar
2 eggs 
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 cups flour
3/4 cup cocoa
1 teaspoon baking soda 

Heat oven to 350.

In the bowl of a mixer, cream butter and sugar on medium until fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time mixing after each addition. Mix in vanilla.

In a medium bowl, combine flour and baking soda. Add slowly to the butter/sugar mixture in the mixing bowl. Beat until combined.

Drop spoonfuls on ungreased cookie sheets and bake for 7-9 minutes. Remove baking sheets to cooling racks and remove cookies after a few minutes to continue cooling.


While cookies cool, make your filling.

FILLING


1/2 cup shortening
1/2 cup salted butter, softened
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 cup cocoa powder
3 cups powdered sugar
4 tablespoons warm water


In the bowl of a mixer, beat the shortening and butter on medium speed until smooth and combined. Beat in vanilla. Add cocoa powder and powdered sugar and beat on low until just combined. Add water and beat on medium high for about 2 minutes or until light and fluffy.


Once cookies have cooled, pipe or spread filling on the flat side of half of them. Gently press another cookie on top of the filling.


For the stripes, microwave 1/2 cup milk chocolate chips and 1 teaspoon vegetable oil in a microwave safe bowl, stirring every 15 seconds until smooth. Drizzle or pipe on top of Fudge Rounds. Refrigerate until chocolate is set.

Rocky Road Brownies

I dont have much to say in this post except that these brownies are super delicious, sweet, and very fudgy.

Recipe: Rocky Road Brownies

(from Better Home & Gardens ultimate cookies & bars-"Chunky Path Brownies")

Ingredients:

2 cups all purpose flour

2 cups sugar

1 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

1 cup butter

1 cup water

1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

2 eggs

1/2 cup buttermilk

3 cups mini marshmallows

1 1/2 tsp vanilla 

Instructions:

1-Preheat oven to 350˚. Line a 15x10x1 inch (i used a 9x13x2 pan and it worked just fine) pan with foil, extending the foil over the edges of the pan. Grease foil;set aside. 

2-In a large mixing bowl stir together flour sugar, baking soda, and salt; set aside.

3-In a medium saucepan combine butter, water, and cocoa powder. Bring Mixture just to boiling, stirring constantly. Remove from heat. 

4-Add the chocolate mixture to the flour mixture. Beat together until combined. Add eggs, buttermilk, and vanilla. Beat for 1 minute more (batter will be thin). Pour Batter into prepared pan. Bake about 25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the centre comes out clean.

My helper who accidentally added WAY more vanilla than was necessary. 

5-While brownies bake make chocolate topper.

Chocolate Topper:

In a medium saucepan heat and stir 2 cups semisweet chocolate pieces, 1/2 cup whipping cream, and 1/4 cup butter over medium-low heat until smooth.

6- Sprinkle marshmallows over hot brownies. Top with chocolate topper. Cool in pan on a wire rack. Use the foil to lift the brownies from the pan. Cut into bars.

One suggestion I have is to make sure you grease the foil all the way up the side, because the marshmallow sticks a lot.

Till next time, Thanks for reading! =)

Banana Split Brownies

Recipe: Banana Split Brownies

 (from Better Homes and Gardens- Ultimate Cookies & Bars 2010)

1/2 cup butter, softened

1 cup sugar

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/8 tsp salt

1 cup mashed bananas (2 -3 medium)

2 eggs

 1 cup flour

1/3 cup cocoa powder

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350˚ F. Grease a 13x9 baking pan; set aside. In a large mixing bowl beat butter till smooth. Add sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Beat until combined. Beat in bananas and eggs. Stir in flour, and cocoa powder. Spread batter evenly in the prepared pan.

Bake about 20 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the centre comes out clean. Cool in pan on a wire rack. Spread cooled bars with Strawberry-Cream Cheese Frosting. Cut into bars.

Strawberry-Cream Cheese Frosting:

In a medium mixing bowl beat 4 ounce of cream cheese with 1/2 cup thawed, frozen strawberries, cut up, and drained. Beat in 2 1/2 - 3 cups of icing sugar to make a frosting of spreading consistency. The frosting will stiffen when refrigerated but not as much as I thought it would. I didn't addd the full amount of icing sugar, so next time I will make sure I add enough. My frosting was pretty runny, but still very tasty.

Thanks for Reading! =]

Oatmeal Raisin Cookies & a Pink Bow

I made oatmeal raisin cookies for my bf Nic, and a pink bow for my lil sister Breanna's Hello Kitty stuffy.  I only ate a couple of the cookies because I couldn't get over the raisins. Minus the raisins they are super tasty especially with the slight cinnamon flavour. I'm not a fan of raisins baked in stuff though. I only like them plain, or dipped in chocolate.

If you want the recipe for the cookies, just let me know.

I was going to sew the strip of fabric together and use it to tie around the middle of the bow, but that failed. So I opted for a flowery piece of ribbon, and sewing it on the back.

Till next time, thanks for reading =]

Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins

I almost always have banana's around the house, and so when they get close to going bad, I always find a way to use them up. This time I made banana chocolate chip muffins, one of my favourite flavours of muffins =]. I ran out of muffin liners, which resulted in having to spread butter on the remaining holes.

The batter was also a lot thicker than I was expecting it to be. Almost like dough, but they turned out excellent =].

I didn't fill all the cups evenly so I got a whole bunch of random sized muffins, but all very tasty.

And this one muffin just looked so perfect =]

Till Next time, thanks for reading!

Rice Krispie Squares

I bought marshmallows quite a while ago specifically to make rice krispie squares, and I finally got around to doing it. I used the recipe that comes on the box, and then I added chocolate on top. I was wanting to kind of drizzle it on, but it wasn't liquidy(i don't think that's a work but oh well) enough. So I ended up spreading it around, which didn't look the prettiest, but its the taste that matters.

I also managed to chip off part of my nail pulling a fudgesicle out of the mold. I was amazed that just the gel chipped, and my natural nail didn't break.

Till Next Time,

Thanks for Reading!

Swirls & Chocolate

I had found this recipe in one of my mom's cookbooks(a Betty Crocker one I believe), and thought it seemed interesting I had no idea what this was gonna turn out to be. Especially when the description called it a "jelly roll". But it has no flour, which meant my mom could eat it =D. I also decided to have ago at making 'pinwheel' cookies, and I'd say not too bad for my first try. But I will definitely try a slightly different method next time.

1-Separaed Eggs(I used an ice-cream scoop) 2- Egg whites beat with sugar 3&4-Egg yolks beat with sugar

1-3 - Adding the cocoa and vanilla. I thought it looked neat when I first started mixing it.
 4-Folding in the egg white mixture.

1-Everything all mixed together 2-prepared pan 3-'Batter' poured in 4-The baked 'cake'

1-Sifted Icing sugar 2-'Cake' placed on top with wax paper 3-Cake rolled in a tea towel 4- Whipped Cream

1-Cake unrolled ( I don't know why it cracked like that) 2-Melting Chocolate chips with water

 3-Chocoalte Spread over the cake 4- Whipped Cream spread over the cake

And some what sadly I forgot to take a picture of the completed cake all rolled up. But it didn't roll terribly well, but I think there was too much whipped cream. The original recipe calls for 1 1/2 cups, but next time I will use only 1 cup. Even though it wasn't the prettiest looking 'cake' it was very tasty =D.

And for those who want to try this out themselves, here is the recipe:

Chocolate Roll

6 egg whites, room temperature

1/4 cup white sugar

6 egg yolks

1/2 cup white sugar

6 tbsp cocoa

1/2 tsp vanilla

Line greased 10x15 inch pan with waxed paper, and also grease the waxed paper(I used a cookie sheet that happened to be this size, its best if it is slightly deeper).

Beat egg whites until soft peaks form. Add sugar and beat until stiff.

Beat egg yolks with sugar until lemon coloured and light. Beat in cocoa and vanilla. Fold into egg whites. Spread into prepared pan. Bake in 350˚F oven for 15 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean whne inserted. Sift icing sugar over a tea towel. Turn cake on top of towel(while still in the pan). Remove the pan, and peel off the waxed paper. Starting at narrow end roll the cake up with the towel till it cools. When col, unroll and spread with filling. (By the time you make the filling it should be cool)

Filling

2/3 cup Semisweet chocolate chips

2 tbsp water

1 cup whipping cream

Melt chocolate chips together with the water in a small saucepan. Spread over unrolled cake.

Whip cream until stiff, and peaks form. (I added a tsp of vanilla and a couple tbsp of sugar) Spread over chocolate layer, and then roll the cake starting at the narrow end. Keep refrigerated.

And because I already put plenty of pictures in this post, I'll just put one of my pinwheel cookies.

Till Next time,

Thanks for reading!

*Gingersnap Cookies 2.0*

Since the earlier batch of gingersnaps weren't completely to my liking, I decided to try again. I found a different recipe this time with more flour, less ginger, and cloves. I also realized I was probably baking them too long. I baked my earlier ones for 15 min, but all the recipes only say 10. These ones turned more fluffy and soft like i wanted them to be, but I think they could've been baked just a minute or two longer.

Dough rolled in sugar

Cookies just out of the oven

Cookies once they cooled(they got flat!)

And if anyone is curious, here is the recipe for these cookies =D

(very slightly adapted from Allrecipes.com)

Ingredients

• 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons ground ginger
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 tsp teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 cup margarine, softened
• 1 cup white sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 tablespoon water
• 1/4 cup molasses
• 
  
• 2 tablespoons white sugar (for rolling dough in)

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Sift together the flour, ginger, baking soda, cinnamon, cloves, and salt. Set aside.
2. In a large bowl, cream together the margarine and 1 cup sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the egg, then stir in the water and molasses. Gradually stir the sifted ingredients into the molasses mixture. Shape dough into walnut sized balls, and roll them in the remaining 2 tablespoons of sugar. Place the cookies 2 inches apart onto an ungreased cookie sheet, and flatten slightly.
3. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes in the preheated oven. Allow cookies to cool on baking sheet for 5 minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool completely. Store in an airtight container.

Well till next time,

Thanks for reading!

*Gingersnap Cookies*

For Father's Day I decided I would bake some cookies. He said gingersnaps were his favourite, so that's what I made. They didn't turn out quite the way I wanted too, but they still tasted good, and he liked them. It seemed like the dough was way too fluffy, normally its stickier, it looked like it had been whipped.

When the cookies were baking, they seemed like they were gonna turn out like I wanted. Being soft and fluffy, not slightly soft and flat, like they ended up being. I even looked up the recipe on line, found the same one, and all the pictures showed fluffier gingersnap cookies.  Alas, thats not what I got but they were still very tasty.

Until next time,

Thanx for reading

Baking & Decorating Sugar Cookies

I'm already getting behind on this, shame on me. LoL

On MONDAY, my friend came over and we baked, and decorated sugar cookies. It was fun of course, especially since I haven't made sugar cookies since December.

Fully Baked Cookies

We also cut out our own shapes

We used all sorts of random cookies cutters, and also cut out some of our own shapes with butter knifes. After cutting a few, I realized dipping the knife in flour worked better to make the edges smoother.

Putting dough on the pan

Icing colours all mixed up

Icing, sprinkles, cookies; all ready to go

We spent around four hours making these cookies. Most of the time was decorating, but thats what happens when you make every cookie unique.

Cookies I Decorated

Cookies Alice Decorated

We also ended up with a little bit of extra icing, so we ended up -of course- eating some of it. We also 'practiced' are icing writing- on our fingers, and on the table. And I managed to get food colouring all over my fingers, hence why my fingers are blue, and red, and green..

Icing on a glass table, great idea eh? I made sure to clean it off before it dried completely, otherwise it wouldn't have been fun to get off. The table (and the floor) were also covered in sprinkles. Im sure the next time i sweep the floor, I'll find sprinkles.

Well till next time, Thanks for reading!