In my little red paddleboat

Moved.

2010-04-19T13:12:00.000-04:00

Hm, I kind of stopped posting, didn't I? Well, I've packed up and moved to Tumblr!

RIP.

I know, I know.

2010-03-26T23:27:00.006-04:00

I keep changing my background.

We have giant raisins form Shady Maple. Can you see how ginormous and plump they are?! So I was thinking about them today and how good they would be thrown into some oatmeal raisin cookies (with pecans and extra cinnamon).
Recipe: just the standard recipe on the back of the oatmeal lid.

Earlier, I made an 1/8 recipe of these Chai Moon cookies and rolled the dough into little balls and froze them. Gosh, I even told you I was going to do this in the linked post! I mixed some cinnamon and honey into vanilla ice cream, and threw in the cookie dough. There were honey swirls all through it because when the honey hits the ice cream, it freezes. And it's quite exciting in my mouth.

I now present to you the song that was stuck in my head while I was baking! Bear Hands- What A Drag

Drinking. I can't say that word without it sounding like alcohol drinking.

2010-03-26T11:23:00.000-04:00

Well, I haven't been baking lately, but I have been...drinking?

I remembered something my mom would make my sister and I when I was much younger. She would slice up a banana in a cereal dish, and fill it up with chocolate or strawberry milk. I don't know if this was a way for us to each fruit, or if it was just plain ol' delicious, but I really wanted to taste it again. So I made a slightly more grown up version of it (or, not really, but it's at least more photogenic in a glass than in a bowl!)

It wasn't quite as magical as I remembered it to be, but it was still good of course. Although, I'm sure the chocolate milk part was much better this time, because what I did was make hot chocolate and chilled it (instead of use chocolate syrup for chocolate milk. I don't like it anymore!)

And this was my breakfast one morning: a smoothie consisting of vanilla yogurt & milk, a honey tangerine, a banana, and some frozen (fresh) pineapple. And raisin bread with cream cheese.

That's all I have for you right now!

Afternoon quickie.

2010-03-20T20:23:00.004-04:00

I made a bunting, see!:

Found here.

An Indigo Bunting! Get it? No? Ok.

No, really, I made a bunting:

You know, those things that are usually triangles on a string? Or they said 'H A P P Y B I R T H D A Y !', one letter on each triangle? Yeah, well this one is a half-circle bunting, made with (mostly) vintage-looking cloth. I'm not sure if the prints are reproductions, or if they're just vintage-inspired prints. They came together in a little stack I bought a while ago, each one just a tiny square piece.

A bunch of scraps I can't bear to throw away, even though I probably can't use them for anything because they're so tiny. Don't they kind of look like little undies?

Bunting tutorial here.

Exploration #16

2010-03-18T19:16:00.001-04:00

...of my "How to be an Explorer of the World: Portable Art Life Museum" by Keri Smith. Here's the page:

My scanner was misbehaving today, so I had to take pictures instead...anyway. I've been gathering answers to my questions for a while, using yahoo answers and some random poll-creating websites. Instead of graphs (boring) I did this: (You're definitely going to have to click to read this one.)

In case you're wondering, my answers are:

Favorite type of pie: A tie between apple, pumpkin, & blueberry. I have to pick just one?! In that case...apple. Maybe.

Chocolate: Dark chocolate! I used to hate it back when I was a milk chocolate fan.

Robots or Dinosaurs: I couldn't possibly pick. They're both so awesome (I just like them cutesy, no real-life metal talky robots for me. Or dinos that are going to eat me).

2 AM or 2 PM: 2 AM for sure.

French toast, waffles, or pancakes: FRENCH TOAST!! In second place would be pancakes.

Inanimate object: I have absolutely no idea. Random question. Though my favorite answers to that are: Johnny Depp's blanket, Justin Bieber's pants, someone's favorite necklace, and a suitcase ("because you get to travel the world", that person said).

What are your answers?

And I also came across this, and did as it said and underlined:

Not that I'm an artist, but it still applies. #1 kills me...I do it all the time, and end up convincing myself that I can't do something because I'm not as good as so-and-so.

Breakfast!

2010-03-16T19:28:00.000-04:00

Another baked oatmeal recipe! But not as good as the other. This one is full of almonds, sunflower seeds, soybeans, and flax seeds, and has four different spices in it. The first layer in the pan is diced bananas and blueberries, and then the dry mixture (the picture on the left) gets dumped on, and finally a milk, egg and maple syrup mixture. It tastes too healthy for me, and needs a bit more brown sugar and maple syrup (or maybe some honey?). It's alright with yogurt and honey on top, but by itself....I much prefer the Amish baked oatmeal! Recipe from Seven Spoons.
And this is what happens when you bake two pies (from the last post) and baked oatmeal all in the same night:

Dish mountain!

Pieee.

2010-03-16T19:21:00.007-04:00

My dad requested a peach pie made with some frozen white peaches we had previously bought and cut up. So here it is, with vanilla ice cream and a pie crust cookie! Peach pie isn't my favorite, but I still can't get over how good the shortening crust is.

With the second crust, I tried out something I had my eye on for a while:

Strawberry tart with orange cream! It's a tart shell filled with orange-flavored cream cheese and topped with strawberries. The recipe says to brush the strawberries with apricot jam, but I made an apricot jam and lemon curd mixture to use as a side dip. I love strawberries, and with the cream cheese and amazing crust it was just....and the dip.... Mm, really good together.

Songs I currently love.

2010-03-13T14:29:00.002-05:00

Pa Pa Power- Dead Man's Bones
Cartoons And Macramé Wounds- Mew
Twins in the Attic- Mr Little Jeans Vs. Twin Shadow
A Funny Thing- Penguin Prison
I Am Warm & Powerful- Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin
1999- Suburban Kids With Biblical Names
Zero- Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Go Do- Jónsi
Make This Go On Forever- Snow Patrol
My Wife, Lost in the Wild- Beirut
A Real Clever Trick Fur A Bear- Analog Rebellion
Giving Up The Gun- Vampire Weekend

This picture led to blueberry stains on my table.

2010-03-13T13:50:00.000-05:00

These are moist and delicious blueberry muffins, made with sour cream and (frozen) blueberries from our garden. They were made last night, and only one is left! Recipe from Lick The Bowl Good, but I added some lemon zest to them.
I'm currently eating...

...this, which is super yummy. Chex mix, bran flakes, dried cranberries, raisins, cashews, pecans, white chocolate chips, roasted soybean halves, and sunflower seeds!

SCONES! I like them.

2010-03-10T23:48:00.000-05:00

Berry juice & lemon zest. Extremely sticky dough & stained fingernails. 32 tiny triangles.
I made scones tonight!

Well, some not-so-pretty scones. They looked better in the pre-baked stages! But they taste fantastical.
These scones have buttermilk and sour cream in them, which help make them lighter and the scone texture that I like. I don't care for those rock hard ones....
The recipe was originally white chocolate blueberry scones from Lick The Bowl Good, but I used Vanilla Sugar's altered version (look at her pictures...you can really see the scone texture in the photo with the butter hunk). So in addition to her alterations, I used mixed berries (raspberries, blackberries, and blueberries), and instead of making 8 huge scones, I cut the dough so that I would have 32 tiny scones. And of course I ate them with lemon curd.

Time to eat more scones? Yes. That would be lovely.

Apple brownies and a sad fruit.

2010-03-08T15:30:00.000-05:00

My sister-in-law had an Oscar night gathering yesterday, and I brought some Apple Brownies! I first made them two years ago, and then a second time shortly after the first. But I had completely forgotten about them because I didn't have a picture of them. (Well I did...it was taken for my graduation project cookbook, back when all of my photos were horrible. So I didn't have a current, better-ish picture for my updated cookbook.)

This was a really rushed picture, taken at about 12:30 AM once I was home from the Oscar night. Oh, and the voting? I got 7 right, which put me in second to last place out of 6 people! This was my first Oscar-watching, so...I tried!

But really...Sandra Bullock, best actress? Eh, no.

Apple Brownies

1/2 cup butter, softened

3/4 cup sugar

1 egg

2 apples, peeled, cored & chopped

1/2 cup chopped pecans/walnuts

1 cup flour

1/2 teas baking soda

1/2 teas baking powder

1/2 teas cinnamon

Preheat oven to 350F. Cream butter and sugar, then beat in egg. Mix in apples and pecans. Mix in dry ingredients, and pour into an oiled 8 x 8 in pan. (I grease the sides and bottom, line the bottom, and grease over that. I've had issues with it.) Bake for 40 minutes.

We picked up an Ugli fruit at Wegmans because it intrigued me so. I love how they look, but they taste was just eh for me. Makes sense, I suppose, since I don't like grapefuit and Ugli fruit is part grapefruit! They came about from an accidental cross between a grapefuit, and orange, and a tangerine.

Basically it tasted like a milder, sour orange.

Attack of the cords!

2010-03-06T20:03:00.001-05:00

Another page! I just felt like sketching various cord-things around my room, and this is what I ended up with.

Oh....and it's probably a good idea to not print on thin brown paper bags, because this happens:

My fingers are stained with ink from dismantling and digging inside of my printer! I managed to rescue it so that it was useable, but I did have to tape half of the 'p' back on. Oh well, the wrinkles just...add to its charm!

Two new art journal pages!

2010-02-26T21:19:00.000-05:00

I drew that teapot (from one I have in my house) months and months ago, and finally used it now.
Click for a larger view!

And...this is pretty cute. Baking cookies with photoshop.

One 29 oz can of pumpkin....

2010-02-20T20:46:00.000-05:00

...can make 2 pumpkin pies, OR all of the following:

Pumpkin bars with cream cheese frosting (Sunday)

Cream cheese-rippled pumpkin bread (Monday)

Pumpkin cinnamon rolls (Friday)

And these pumpkin muffins that I baked this evening. I'm very disappointed, because they turned out like mush.

The pumpkin bars were definitely the best! They had the most pumpkin flavor, were nice and soft, and they disappeared very quickly. In second place, the cinnamon rolls. Good buns, though not enough filling and they tasted different, but not like pumpkin. Next is the pumpkin bread, which might have been in second place if I hadn't over-mixed the batter (uhh! I never do that!). The lower half of the bread (especially towards the center of the loaf) ended up tough and rubbery as a result of the over-mixing. Muffins, quick breads, pancakes....you have to be careful with the mixing. And finally, in negative 100th place, are the muffins from tonight. Yuck.

I'm satisfied that I tried out four new recipes, but now that they're all made up and eaten, my taste buds would have been much happier with a batch of the pumpkin bars and a pumpkin pie.

Questions for a spoon.

2010-02-20T12:46:00.000-05:00

I went on a little shopping spree last night at Impact...they had a good haul this time!

Well, this is only the stuff that I bought. I was eyeing up a few other things.....

All this set me back a huge sum of four dollars and twenty nine cents.

Girrrrl.

2010-02-18T22:46:00.005-05:00

Wanting chocolate + having a Ghiradelli's dark chocolate brownie mix + the added bonus of vanilla ice cream = just what I needed!
The mix was full of big chocolate chips too! And the cinnamon sprinkled on top was just incredible.
Brittany followed me upstairs to my photo shoot (kind of rare) and she stared and stared...her expression really looked like what I wrote in the thought bubble! And, I should add "why aren't you eating it and sharing with me?"!

Recent discovery: 8 tracks
A mix tape site! There's something about a mixtape, even one made by a stranger, that gives it a personal touch. To me, they just say so much more than the paragraphs that make up a review of an album or even a single song. It's a song...you're supposed to listen, not suffocate it with all those words!

From my childhood:

2010-02-18T22:33:00.001-05:00

I dug them out today and started building! I then randomly made a short movie with them. It's very shaky (from slightly different arm positions) and was just made up as I went along. Fun!

It's called 'An untitled short film concerning a man, a castle, and a time machine'. Watch it with headphones, it sounds so much better that way.

Basically there's a guy from the future who wants to go back in time to fight in a war, but the time machine takes him back further than he planned. And that was more of a plot that is in the actual film....this is what happens when I'm playing with blocks and I happen to have a rubbery red man that I found in a parking lot!

Homemade Samoas

2010-02-15T15:30:00.000-05:00

I made these about a week ago. They gave me trouble, which is why they look the way they do and not like this. They were good, but I think I almost died from the amount of butter in them! It called for 2 sticks of butter for about 50 cookies, and I used 3 tablespoons less. But it was still too much and I really think they would have been so much better with a whole stick less. I had been putting off posting these because they just....well, I really didn't want to have anything more to do with them! The picture wasn't even taken until a day or two later because originally I wasn't going to post them (that's how disgusted I was!). Once the butter hardened up they were alright, but on the first day all I could taste was butter (or maybe my tastebuds are just weird, everyone else loved them).

Priest's Pancakes are naughty.

2010-02-08T20:53:00.000-05:00

These pancakes look amazing and fluffy, right? (Click on the 'photos' tab and prepare to salivate!) Mine didn't quite turn out like that.... The pan I was using has a big ridge all around it, and the batter was so thin it kept running down the ridge. At first I was annoyed that I wasn't getting actual circles, but then I realized that the messed up ones looked like whales! So of course I was very careful to not rip off the tails during the flipping process.

And then I gave them each a chocolate chip eye, poured on some maple syrup, and rolled them up like crepes! They tasted like egg whites instead of pancakes, and they didn't cook quite right. Not to mention their paper thinness that was so wrong. But I did enjoy the whales!

Stupid automated systems.

2010-02-07T16:17:00.000-05:00

A sudden craving for apple pie yesterday created this:

I've always made oil pie crusts which turn out dry and blah, and usually burn in the oven. So crusts made with shortening are a revelation! The crust was so good it made me want to roll out another recipe, stamp out some circles and sprinkle some cinnamon sugar on top, and call them pie crust cookies! Bad for you, yes. But I still want to do it. Shortening not only makes a delicious crust, it also cuts in 10 times easier and faster than butter, and rolls outs so well (which is a definite plus, because those oil crusts were giving me so much trouble when I tried to roll them out - many times I ended up just throwing the dough in the pan and attempting to piece it together with my fingers).

I stamped out some pretty leaves with the excess dough!

Breakfast this morning:

Freezer waffles topped with sliced bananas, vanilla yogurt, granola (really just cereal tarts, but not baked in the tart pans), and honey. I've been eating that granola for breakfast almost every day for a week or two now. It's so delicious.

Note: I had to put the word verification back on for the comments....annoying, I know, but I've been getting spammed.

Because my posts are lacking...

2010-02-04T15:22:00.002-05:00

...a mini mix for you!

Oregon Girl- Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin
To Travels & Trunks- Hey Marseilles
Starring- Freelance Whales
In Steps- Letting Up Despite Great Faults
Marla Singer Doesn't Take Standardized Tests- Analog Rebellion
November Was White, December Was Grey- Say Hi

Enjoy!

An explosion of chocolate and peanut butter

2010-01-25T11:42:00.004-05:00

Girl Scout Tagalong cookies! The cookie part is so rich and buttery. Straight out of the oven, the middles are pressed down with your thumb to make room for the peanut butter filling, and after freezing them to harden the peanut butter, they are dipped in chocolate. Here they are in the filling stage:

In the above picture, the completely chocolate cookies are how it's supposed to be done....and on the left are drizzled lazy versions. The white chocolate ones were for my dad, who can't eat chocolate. I've never had bought versions of these cookies, so I don't have anything to compare them to. But I can say that the homemade versions are quite....delectable. And I would be very surprised if the bought counterparts tasted better than mine. Recipe from Baking Bites.

I had some more photo studio fun with picture 1B and picture 2!

I had (as the recipe hinted I would) some extra peanut butter filling from the Tagalongs, so I made (at the cookie recipe's suggestion) some peanut butter cups! They took forever because of all the chilling stages, first you pour some chocolate in and brush (yeah, with a mini paintbrush) up the sides of the cup wrappers with chocolate to create the shell, and refrigerate them until hardened. Then you fill them with the peanut butter mixture and chill, and then pour the top chocolate layer on. But it was worth...tediously...painting with chocolate. Mm, so rich and delicious. Recipe.

Yay!

2010-01-25T11:08:00.002-05:00

I snazzed-up some storage jars I had (that house my old wooden thread spools, wine corks, and coin collection) by covering the tops with paper...idea from Design Sponge. Gosh, I wish I had the pretty papers in that post.

AND.....I made a photo studio! This is a kind of behind the scenes shot of the above right jar photo:

I didn't have a lamp for the right side of the box when I took this, but it came out fine enough. Anyway, I used this tutorial (which says '$10 photo studio', but mine cost $0!). It basically consists of taking a box and completely gutting/mutilating it! It was a lot of cutting.

Biscotti!

2010-01-20T14:44:00.000-05:00

Requested biscotti. Filled with dried cranberries, sliced almonds, orange zest & almond extract, and drizzled with white chocolate. Quite good....recipe here. I reduced the sugar to 1/2 cup, and added a bit of zest and 1/2 cup of cranberries.

A busy day for my kitchen.

2010-01-15T19:20:00.002-05:00

This morning's breakfast: banana-oatmeal pancakes with pecans & chocolate chips! I was about to tell you how amazing these are, when I realized I had already posted them...almost a year & a half ago. (How has it been that long since I've made these??) But anyway, they're still as good as ever. Whipped cream adds much pleasure.

And for dinner I made some homemade pasta! I don't have a pasta machine, and it's kind of a pain to make. Although, all a pasta machine does is slice the pasta....the annoying part still has to be done by hand.

Basically you take some flour, mix some eggs in there with your hands and attempt to get it all to stick together, and knead it. Refrigerate, roll out until it's almost see-through when you hold it up (but you will never get to this stage because it's pretty much impossible, and you start sweating like a pig), and slice. I made pasta in a cooking program at the Art Institute a few years ago, and as I remember, it was much easier to roll out. And I'm pretty sure the light came through it when I held it up.... When I cooked my pasta tonight, it puffed up to three times it's original thickness and was still a bit al dente-ish in the middle. I made some Alfredo sauce for it, and sprinkled on some basil....yum.

And I fight through crowds once more.

2010-01-12T22:21:00.002-05:00

After dinner, my mom spontaneously decided to go back to Whole Foods, so we went (this time with my sister). Unfortunately only a fraction of the samples were left from what was out this morning, but to make up for it we bought these beauts (plus some caramel-glazed cinnamon buns):

Fruit tart with pastry cream, cheesecake brownie, and a raspberry & blackberry cheesecake (posing with an old whiskey jar found in the depths of our basement....which was going to be thrown out!).
My favorite was definitely the fruit tart, although I would have made it with a graham cracker crust, not a firm so-so crust. And #2 would be the cheesecake brownie, #3 the cinnamon buns, and then the berry cheesecake.
Oh the joys of stuffing ourselves with pricey desserts.

Late night food explorations.

2010-01-12T15:36:00.001-05:00

I had an abrupt idea last night to make inside out s'mores, so I did. AND IT WAS DELICIOUS!!

Shopping List: Soft chocolate cookies (like Archway), marshmallows, and graham crackers!

Do it. It's calling. It wants to be in your mouth.

And before that, I tried out this Chai tea recipe. Oh my....the third picture down is so beautiful. It tasted kind of weird though....I don't think I liked the black pepper in it. I had it for breakfast along with two of these carrot muffins:

Yum.
Today I went to the grand opening of a new Whole Foods and ate lots of free samples! I can't believe I didn't take my camera....they had Emu eggs for sale! So pretty. I was wondering how big the yolk was, and I found these pictures: Huge. That's a lot of egg. I think they were $20 per egg, if I remember correctly.

Mmm.

2010-01-09T15:23:00.004-05:00

What's this? Homemade chai tea that is actually....kind of....good?! Fresh ginger smells so amazing, almost lemony. Not that anyone has whole spices on hand, but I included the recipe anyway. It's readable if you click the picture to enlarge it.

Christmas presents:

This was a severely last minute bird painting for my mom, and for Laura & Meg a sushi and an ice cream sandwich keychain! The ice cream sandwich has a red mouth stitched on, but you really couldn't see it so I added a pink mustache using Picnik. Lovely improvement.

Sneeze + Sniff = Pie?

2009-12-31T15:56:00.004-05:00

7 egg yolks, 2 cans of sweetened condensed milk, a buttery crust, and heavy cream: the unhealthiest pie I've ever made?

Well, nevermind that...it certainly is rich and creamy.

So. We had visitors for Christmas, and all a certain family member does is beg for key lime pie! I had no idea that the actual lime that's used is called a key lime....I've never even seen one before. They're so tiny!

Though, that also means they take forever to juice. I had to grate 8 of them for the zest, and then cut all 24 limes in half and juice them, and then strain it to get out the pulp and seeds. All of this while I have a cold, so it went more like: juice, get up/blow nose/wash hands, cut, juice, get up/blow nose.......etc.

The final result?: Like I said, rich and creamy, but maybe a little too much so. Apparently it wasn't too sweet and had a nice pucker to it (I couldn't tell through my congestion). So it's kinda good, but not my favorite.

Oh, and the next day I had a request for this banana cream pie. We now have two half pies left, both made with graham cracker crusts, heavy cream, and richness.

Make them go away.

Oh, and after having 7 egg whites left over from the first pie, the banana cream also called for egg yolks. I have a container of 11 egg whites sitting in my refrigerator, just from two pies!

Merry Christmas!

2009-12-25T00:04:00.002-05:00

Freezers are good friends to people who have a baking compulsion.

2009-12-20T14:36:00.003-05:00

Photos from Better Homes & Gardens

So I made these Chai Moon cookies about a week ago and then due to a cookie tornado in my house, I completely forgot to post them. The dough was so incredibly delicious! I thought of someday making cookie dough ice cream with this dough because 1. it's delicious and 2. there are no eggs in the dough. Oh man. It would be sooo good.

Once they were baked, the spice flavor wasn't as strong and they just didn't compare at all to their pre-baked form. Still good though, and I didn't even frost them!

I baked them at the same time as some Danish Pebbernodder cookies, which are a molasses and spice cookie. They had such a strange texture...I won't make them again.

It was my mom's birthday last week, and I made these Café Macchiato Cups for her. The recipe calls for Kahlúa in the cookie and the filling, and I was mixing up the filling when I thought to ask her if the flavor was strong enough. She tasted it and told me to add another teaspoon...she tasted it...."Oh, add two more." Mix. Taste. "Add another one." So repeat this until there's about 7 teaspoons of Kahlúa in the filling, from an original 1 teaspoon! I guess it's good I asked.

I really didn't bother to take pictures. I was pretty pooped, and plus the BH&G pictures are far superior than mine.

I feel roughly the size and shape of the Michelin man.

2009-12-16T12:08:00.001-05:00

My mom had a little group lunch outing in which she was responsible for making the planned dessert (which really means I make it.....shhh, they'll never know!). Since we couldn't eat it, my sister and I cut the recipe down to a third and made two mini tarts! Anyway, it's a Weight Watchers recipe (then why does it have heavy cream in it??) and it's really really good. The bottom layer is a chocolate graham cracker crust, and then it's topped with a heavy cream mixture with a bit of grated chocolate mixed in. If you have a high patience level and you like your food to look nice, then it's topped with chocolate curls. If not, then chocolate chips!

Whipping Cream Chocolate Pie

4 1/2 oz chocolate graham crackers

4 T butter, melted

3/4 cup heavy whipping cream

2 T powdered sugar

1 t vanilla extract

3 oz dark chocolate (grated/curled)

Run graham crackers through a food processor until crumbs, pulse in butter. Press into the bottom (not up sides) of a 10" springform pan, chill. Beat cream, sugar and vanilla until stiff. Fold in half of chocolate. Spoon over crust and top with remaining chocolate (in whatever form you wish). Chill 2 hours.

And this is a pumpkin milkshake. Delicious.

Come out, come out, wherever you are!?

2009-12-16T11:48:00.002-05:00

New birds! We have a slight problem.....the birds from last year are hiding from us. I remember taking them out from the attic for this post and putting them right back, but um, we can't find them. Most of last years are a bit dull and not very detailed anyway, so it doesn't matter too much. Plus, I figure they'll pop up the day after Christmas anyway. That's just how these things work.

So I rushed to make duplicates of a few of these new birds, and now we have 20. It will have to do!

Something for your ears!

2009-12-13T22:37:00.000-05:00

This does not represent either band. But it is an illustration of a pomegranate tree, and it's very nice.

Origin.

So They Wait- The Plastics Revolution

Everybody Come Outside!- Pomegranates

You are good but please go away.

2009-12-11T16:37:00.000-05:00

Lots of cookies I baked for my mom to give away at her various social outings. Sugar cookies on the right, and on the left, cranberry-orange pinwheels, messed up cran-orange pinwheels, and poppy seed thumbprints.

Here are the beautiful pictures of them from an ultimate cookies issue of Better Homes and Gardens magazine. Instead of red currant, I filled the thumbprint cookies with a strawberry/plum/raspberry flavored fruit spread from Wegmans.

Carrot-Flecked Dinner Rolls (with poppy seeds!)

2009-12-04T19:00:00.002-05:00

This picture shames me, compared to the beauty of 17 and Baking's. Mine were seriously misbehaving. And therefore they are ugly.

Though, they tasted pretty good spread with butter and eaten alongside a nice juicy turkey breast!

Cooookies.

2009-12-02T16:20:00.009-05:00

I halved both of these recipes just to try them...Chai Shortbread and Cinnamon-Anise Crisps, both from Cooking Light.

Chai Shortbread

I added: more spice & nutmeg, some honey

Has: a nice crunch

Needs: more flavor, less oven time

Will I make them again? Eh, maybe just to experiment.

(Next day edit): These are very tasty with lemon curd.

Cinnamon-Anise Crisps

I added: a lot more anise seeds, some anise extract

Has: a nice chewy texture, lots of delicious flavor

Needs: less sugar

Will I make them again? Yes!

Felt adventures

2009-12-02T16:05:00.000-05:00

After having my iPod touch for about a year and a half, I finally made a case for it! I was previously using an old threadbare sock.

Mr. Bud is back to visit and looks quite handsome in a larger (and better made) version of the cat collar I made. He obviously agrees because he seems to like wearing it!

Dessert buffet?!

2009-11-29T18:13:00.008-05:00

I went away for Thanksgiving, which was a first. We had a dessert gathering with the neighbors! So starting from the top, we had butterscotch-pecan cake, my mom's pumpkin cake with pumpkin-cream cheese frosting, pumpkin pie, and an apple-cranberry pie covered in pretty pie crust leaves! The day before we stopped by Williams-Sonoma and my mom bought some pie crust leaf cutters for ourselves.

Sadly I didn't get to bake dessert this year, but I did make the frosting and glaze for the butterscotch-pecan cake (and frosted and decorated it). My sister needed to start cooking dinner so she asked me to finish the cake, and I was shocked by the recipe. I don't know how much butter was in the cake, but in the frosting alone there were three sticks, and twenty ounces of cream cheese (that's two and a half blocks!). Those amounts are just unheard of for a single recipe of frosting. Also there was a butterscotch-type sauce that you let soak into the cake that had another stick of butter in it. Lets assume there were 2 sticks of butter in the cake. So that's a grand total of 6 (at least) sticks of butter in one cake, plus all that cream cheese. That's just disgusting. It wasn't even sinfully good....it just tasted like butter! I'm really hoping that the recipe had some misprints in it, or otherwise Martha Stewart is trying to kill us slowly with butter and cream cheese. And pecans.

But our pumpkin cake was outstanding as usual, and I quite enjoyed the apple-cranberry pie.

The neighbors brought over a chocolate-pecan pie, a five (thin) layer cake with chocolate frosting, and another pumpkin pie.

Have you heard about the canned pumpkin shortage? So sad. Must stock up.

Pretty backyard view from the next day:

The first installment!

2009-11-22T22:00:00.000-05:00

You really must listen to Radical Face.

Wrapped in Piano Strings. Welcome Home, Son.

Dirt must be tasty.

2009-11-22T20:57:00.001-05:00

So there I was last night, trying to do my logic-grid and framework puzzles, when I couldn't concentrate anyone because.....I was thinking of making these chocolates that I made before.

I discovered that white chocolate, pistachios, dried apricots and cranberries taste really good together! The other highlight was semi-sweet chocolate and crushed gingersnaps. It tasted almost like a German cookie! After eating way too many and then going back to my puzzles, my dog fell asleep next to me and I sketched her:

I was just about to sketch her paw when she woke up, bolted upright and glared at me, and jumped off the couch. Uh, I love you too?
She did something silly today. She was given her morning dog food and she picked up her favorite piece (the round red one) and asked to go outside. She buried this one piece of dog food in the yard and came back inside. I suppose she wants to marinate it!

I made something!!

2009-11-22T20:35:00.002-05:00

I felt inspired and creative for the first time in a while.....and here's what happened:

I don't feel that it's finished. Something is missing....maybe it's a little empty in the top part? But anyway, it was plain white sketchbook paper that I painted black. I painted the triangle designs on a brown paper bag, the girl is cut from a magazine, and the yellow dome from an old textbook. The ray things coming out of it are from the security pattern side of an envelope.

Hm. Yeah, it definitely still needs something.

You know what got me out of my rut? Coloring pages!

I forgot how fun they were.....I shaded and mixed different colored pencils to get the different skin tones....and went over most of it with a blending pencil. My hand hurt afterwards, but it was still so relaxing. (They hurt so much I used marker for the monster!) I bet these would also work if you're stressed. Kids have it all figured out. JUST COLOR!
Printable sheets here and here.

Possibly, Maybe?

2009-11-20T22:24:00.002-05:00

How would the very few people that read this feel about an occasional (non-mainstream) music mention from me? Just a little nod in the direction of a recently discovered song or a revisiting of a good song? Comment your opinion or click the 'I want this.'
We could always take it for a spin and then you can tell me to stop if you find my music taste repulsive :]

(Idea from Laura Meg.)

Foodstuffs

2009-11-20T15:05:00.001-05:00

Pizza for dinner two nights ago. I copied a pizza I had in a restaurant, and got it pretty close to the original....other than the white wine garlic-butter sauce. And the other is just regular pizza with onions and mushrooms.

I love requesting free food samples to get in the mail! This one came in a really neat triangular prism box, and opened up like so! Umm....ok. I'm probably the only one to get excited about creative packaging.
The granola bar was tasteless and icky though. (A first for my food sampling adventures.)

A non-existing occasion is special enough for me.

2009-11-14T18:38:00.001-05:00

Owl cookies! Well....I tried anyway. The originals are much prettier and more owl-like. Please look: Chocolate and Vanilla Hoot Owl Cookies.

I was about to make these cookies when my sister doubted their awesomeness. She asked me (rough quote) why bother if we're just going to eat them? It's not like the cookies are for anyone or for a special occasion.

I then asked her what is the point of anything, with that attitude? And I said, "Well. If it doesn't matter, then I will just make you cookies out of poop." (Mmm, my dog would love those!)

So clearly, I don't belong in my family. They think it's odd that I never (or very rarely) bake something twice. Uhhh, the whole point is to try new recipes that sound super tasty. I have a whole collection, so why would I let them sit around and only bake 5 things over and over? MAJOR HARRUMPH.

I need a good chai tea recipe.

2009-11-11T16:49:00.002-05:00

I really wasn't expecting anything for my birthday, but....look! I now have the ingredients to make chai tea, 4 mini (4 inch) bundt pans, and a Cloth, Paper, Scissors issue. Plus a subscription to the magazine!

Yay!

I tried to make chai today but it didn't come out any better than when I tried before. (From that I discovered you have to use whole spices and not ground). This time it was really watery and still weak. So basically it was slightly seasoned water with milk in it. So far, nothing compares to Oregon Chai!

I sipped my tea along with my birthday cake with lemon curd on the top, and using the peach-strawberry as a dipping sauce. Quite good, quite good.

Harrumph.

2009-11-10T21:05:00.001-05:00

Apparently, I have aged. By a whole year. And according to this fact, I am no longer a teenager. Well. Hmph.

I made myself a cake though. Cake is good.

The Yogurt Cake was so delicious that I made it again, but instead of a mixed berry sauce I made a peach-strawberry sauce. It wasn't quite as good as the berry, but it was good all the same.

Plus the candles are awesome! I wanted these long colorful candles I saw before, but the store didn't have them... the squiggles are nice too.

I made the sauce for the cake yesterday, and I saved the strawberry pulp I had from pouring it through the sieve. So for breakfast this morning I had real strawberry yogurt! With banana slices on the bottom.
Did you know that red dye comes from crushed Cochineal bugs? Strawberry yogurt, strawberry ice cream, fabric...

The most delicious danish in the world....

2009-10-31T19:45:00.001-04:00

....and it only takes a few minutes to make. Once your puff pastry sheet is defrosted (my first time using this!), you cut it, spread cream cheese filling on, and a bit of cherry pie filling. Pinch together and bake! Yum, more please! I wasn't sure if I was going to make the drizzle icing or not, and then I ended up forgetting about it anyway. But it's not needed. Recipe here.
I had extra cream cheese filling, and I didn't use anywhere near the whole can of cherry filling, so I made a little tart using up both of those.

Newly acquired/tasty eats

2009-10-31T19:37:00.001-04:00

Starting on the top left:
-My brown wallet was causing me difficulties. I found a vintage yellow one with three zipper pockets for $8!
-Two new plates and one bowl from Impact.
-Three books from a used book store. I love the blue and orange one...the flower flap opens up and has the title underneath it. I really want to go back to this bookstore, it was so cozy and the books are so cheap! I bought three books for less than the average price of a new book.
-Blood orange & honey infused drink and chocolate parfait from Whole Foods. The drink had no sweeteners, only honey, and the parfait was delicious. I also had coconut breaded chicken pieces from the same store.
-Framed bird embroidery done with yarn, from Impact. Pretty. I think this is the most expensive item I've bought at Impact....and it was $3!

Pumpkin!

2009-10-29T12:18:00.000-04:00

Pumpkin Coconut Bread, baked last night! This bread is good. As in, "oh my, I can't stop eating you" kind of good. It's moist and pumpkiny, with coconut and coconut cream pudding mix in it! Super quick and easy, too.
Recipe from Taste and Tell.

I baked, but forgot to post.

2009-10-29T10:56:00.000-04:00

So. Catching up....I made Breakfast Cake for the millionth time to use up some sour cream. It's a recipe we've been making since forever and ever, originally called Coffee Cake. When I was little I thought that meant there was actually coffee (gross!) in the cake, not that you ate the cake with coffee. So from then on we referred to it as Breakfast Cake, because we eat it for breakfast. I didn't realize how strange eating cake for breakfast sounded until I made the cake again last week. It's tradition, I guess!

And the other day I made a pear pie flavored with ginger and maple syrup, with a delicious streusel topping! We were given a huge bag of pears that sat around waiting to ripen, and then all of a sudden they were overripe and needed to be used. Pies use up lots of fruit...so this was a perfect solution, and also bursting with DELICIOUS.
Recipe: Pear Ginger Maple Pie

First successful fudge!

2009-10-16T18:17:00.000-04:00

I made this marshmallow chocolate fudge today to use up the rest of the condensed milk from the last post. It's pretty good and was super easy. Just plop marshmallows and the milk into a bowl and microwave, and then stir in the chocolate! I cut it into way smaller pieces after the picture, but I thought it was pretty this way. Recipe: Easy Creamy Fudge.

I was hungry for cake.

2009-10-13T20:00:00.000-04:00

In making this cake today, I encountered my first apple with a worm in it. Ewww. (Needless to say, I did not use that apple.....)
Anyway, this recipe is from Veggie Foodist and is called Dosha Cake. It's a simple little cake made with condensed milk to substitute for eggs. And, prepare to be shocked....there is no sugar in this cake, except for 1 tablespoon sprinkled on the top! The condensed milk is sweet enough that sugar is not needed.
So vanilla cake + apples and cinnamon sugar + easy = pretty good. But I've had better.

Chirp chirp.

2009-10-09T13:18:00.000-04:00

Back in December, I told you I would post pictures of my birds after Christmas. Now, posting them almost a year later isn't what I had in mind, but it is still after Christmas. They were shoved into the attic and I dug them out, just for you! Time to make more....

Why I love Fall.

2009-10-07T11:37:00.004-04:00

Pumpkin craving alert! Luckily I had a huge can of it in the pantry yesterday. I used the recipe my mom has been making since who knows when, but this time I tried out a streusel topping. It makes it extra delicious!

Crust (Makes 2)
2 1/2 cups flour
3/4 teas salt
1/2 teas sugar
1/2 c + 2 tables oil
3 tables + 2 teas cold water

Combine flour, salt, sugar, and oil in a food processor. Add the cold water and pulse until dough is moistened and sticks together. Separate the dough into two equal pieces and set one aside. Flatten the other a bit on a piece of wax paper, and placing another piece of wax paper on top, roll with a rolling pin. Roll out from all sides to create a thin circle large enough to fill a 9" pie pan. Lift into the pan, patching up any rips and trimming off any excess over the sides. Repeat for the second pie crust.

Pumpkin Pie
3 1/2 cups pumpkin (one 29 oz can)
3 cups evaporated milk (two 12 oz cans)
1 1/4 cups sugar
1 teas salt
2 teas cinnamon
1 teas ginger
1/2 teas cloves
4 eggs

Preheat oven to 425F. Combine all with electric mixer, mixing until smooth. Divide evenly between the two prepared crusts and bake for 15 minutes at 425F. * Then lower the temperature to 350F and bake for 40-50 minutes, or until a knife inserted in the center comes out clean. Also, if the pies are done they won't jiggle when moved.
*The streusel should be sprinkled on at this point.

Streusel (Original here)
2 tables flour
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 teas cinnamon
2 tables chilled butter, chopped
1/2 cup chopped walnuts

Combine flour, brown sugar and cinnamon. Cut in the butter until crumbly. Mix in walnuts and sprinkle evenly onto pies. Bake for remaining time.

'E' for Emerson!

2009-10-03T23:28:00.004-04:00

My niece turned two today, and here is the deliciousness I made for her! A yellow layer cake with fluffy peanut butter frosting in the middle, and covered in fudge-like chocolate frosting. I really could not make up my mind about what cake to make. In about a two week time frame, I switched from a tri-color swirled cake (each color swirl with a different flavor!), to Elmo cupcakes, and to about ten different variations of layer cakes.

Everyone at the party loved my cake! And to think that my mom and sister advised against me using the peanut butter frosting because "it might not taste right" and "it's a party for a two-year-old, just make a regular cake".

Pfffh. Ok, for the first quote, that just reinforces my belief that you should always go with your instinct, and for the second quote, you could say that about any birthday:

"Oh, she's just turning 7, we've done this for the past six years. Just make a boring cake."

"Oh, he's just turning 45, it's just another birthday. It doesn't matter."

Well with that attitude, then what does matter?

I'm just teaching myself to stray away from the negative energy and attitude that is expressed from my immediate family.

And my cake was a regular cake, just with a little surprise when it's cut open. Who doesn't want a little BANG like that? You only turn two once. Sheesh.

Recipes: Cake. Chocolate frosting. Peanut butter frosting.

The offspring of Clarence.

2009-10-03T14:33:00.004-04:00

The mini peacock is done!! As you can see, I gave him beaded legs because the original leg pieces were too small to sew.

Father and son portrait! Poor mini peacock, he doesn't have a mother! Maybe she ran off with a lover and deserted them. Perhaps she died from a bad case of peacock flu. Or I just never made her.
Well, mini is going to be adopted anyway!
Clarence.

A softie!

2009-10-02T17:07:00.003-04:00

I made a softie inspired by an illustration from a 1963 textbook I have! He's super wonky but cute. The illustration itself is from the 16th century. The caption says it "depicts a creature supposedly representing the 'essence of mercury.'"

The symbols on the "beasts three arms represent the alchemical symbols for silver, gold and mercury, and below them is the head of a bearded alchemist."

I think I will name him Phineas.

Can I eat this every morning?

2009-09-26T19:41:00.004-04:00

For my breakfast this morning....an even better version of baked oatmeal! The first two times I made this, I added cinnamon and apples to the recipe, and this time I also tossed in some raisins. Also, because it was a bit dry before, I added an extra tablespoon of butter and a drop more milk.
It's all crumbly in the picture because I didn't wait until it cooled all the way to cut it. But I think I like it better that way. I'm making some more of this tonight to bake in the morning!
Like my pretty new plate? It's from Impact (only a dollar!) and matches my green cup wonderfully.

Amish Baked Oatmeal
1 1/2 cups oats
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 teas. cinnamon
1/2 cup milk (plus a splash more)
1/4 cup butter, melted
1 egg
1 teas. baking powder
2 teas. vanilla
Pinch of salt
1 apple, chopped
Raisins

Preheat oven to 350F. Combine oats, brown sugar, and cinnamon. Add milk, butter, and egg. Mix in baking powder, vanilla, and salt. Stir in apple pieces and throw in some raisins. Pour evenly into an 8 x 8" pan and bake for 25-30 minutes. Top with vanilla yogurt!

Shirt to Leggings

2009-09-19T13:47:00.001-04:00

I made leggings out of an old shirt! The darker areas in my shirt illustration show where I sewed and cut off excess fabric. Then, use the arms as pants and.....

...you have comfy around the house leggings! As you can see, there are holes above the knee which I ripped once they were on. I sewed them a bit too tight there! (And was too annoyed with them to fix it.)

Too good to be allowed.

2009-09-19T11:37:00.010-04:00

Finally I found a chocolate chip cookie recipe that doesn't produce flat cookies! They are also the most delicious cookies of their kind, or at least, that I have found so far.
I tried out dark chocolate chips for most of the dough, and peanut butter chips for the rest. Both were super delicious when dipped in hot chocolate!

Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies
2 cups plus 2 tables flour
1/2 teas baking soda
1 teas salt
3/4 cup butter (1 1/2 sticks), melted and cooled until just warm
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup white sugar
1 egg
1 egg yolk
2 teas vanilla extract
1 1/4 cups chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 325F. Combine flour, baking soda, and salt.
Cream butter and sugars. Beat in the egg, egg yolk, and vanilla. Stir in the flour, followed by the chips. Roll dough into tiny balls on a non-stick pan. Bake for 15-17 minutes, until they are just turning light brown all over. Makes 30 small cookies.

Who named these cookies?

2009-09-10T15:42:00.012-04:00

Jingle Jumbles. It's a horrible name. I guess they were going for a Christmas-y vibe because they're spice cookies, and then bells....that jingle. Uh, I'm going to rename them Raisin Spice cookies. Makes more sense to me.

Anyway, these are basically the same as my ginger sparklers, but they actually bake right and they aren't greasy. The raisins make them super delicious!

Raisin Spice Cookies (From The Cookie Bible)

2 1/4 cups flour

2 teas. baking soda

1 teas. ground ginger

1 teas. ground cinnamon

1/2 teas. ground cloves

1/2 teas. salt
3/4 cup butter (1 1/2 sticks), softened
3/4 cup dark brown sugar

1/4 cup molasses

1 egg
1 1/4 cups raisins

granulated sugar

Sift together the flour, baking soda, ginger, cinnamon, cloves, and salt.

Cream butter and brown sugar. Beat in molasses and egg until fluffy. Mix in dry ingredients, then add the raisins. Cover and chill for 30 minutes.

Preheat oven to 375F. Roll 1" balls, and roll in granulated sugar. Place on cookie sheets and bake 10-14 minutes or until edges are firm and centers are slightly soft. Cool on wire racks.

Makes about 2 dozen cookies.

*The original recipe says bake 12-14 minutes, but mine were done at 10. Which is why it is so important to always set the time to the minimum!

Why can't I be covered in beautiful feathers?

2009-09-08T18:22:00.006-04:00

Duck feathers, Parrot feathers! Chicken feathers! Peacock and Guinea Fowl feathers!

Oh my!

I had to work for those hen feathers. There were tons of them in various hen cages, and I had to poke a stick through the chicken wire to act as a really long finger to pull them out. I'm very ambitious when it comes to these things...

And the peacock really did not want me to take his feathers. I bent down to pick some up that were halfway outside of his cage, and he came charging over to my fingers. I tried again on the other side, and he kept following me! After, when he thought I wasn't looking, he pecked at one of the feathers and then ate it. Strange.

Oh my.

2009-09-08T17:38:00.025-04:00

I had my eye on these delicious looking sweet peach streusel muffins for a while, and a few days ago I finally made them. Mine didn't come out pretty. They didn't even bake! I checked them for browning and toothpick-checked them, and they looked done. Until I broke one open and saw that the whole lower half of them were mushy. Sure, I could have just cut off the tops and eaten them, but they were pretty bland despite the cinnamon in them. Yes, very disappointing.

But..... last night I made this amazing yogurt cake! I'm pretty sure it's the best cake I have ever made or eaten.

Mmm. The cake is so soft from the vanilla yogurt, and is spread with a thin layer of honey-vanilla frosting, and finally topped with a berry sauce. It is so good.

It's pretty easy to make, but not quick. I had to heat my berries until they defrosted, then wait for them to cook down, (which was taking too long so I threw them in the food processor) and then run them through a sieve to get all the seeds out.

Recipe here, but my version is below.

Vanilla Yogurt Cake with Berry Sauce

3 cups cake flour (substitution: 3 cups all-purpose flour minus 6 tables.)

2 teas. baking powder

1 teas. baking soda

1/2 teas. salt

2 sticks butter, softened

1 1/2 cups sugar

2 teas. vanilla extract

3 eggs, warmed in shell in warm water 10 minutes

2 cups vanilla yogurt, room temperature

Sauce:

5 cups berries (I used frozen strawberries, blueberries, blackberries & raspberries)

2/3 cup sugar

1/8 teas. salt

Icing:

1/2 cup powdered sugar

1 tables. honey

Drop of milk

1/8 teas. vanilla extract

Preheat oven 350F. Oil and line a 9 x 13" pan with parchment paper, oil over the paper and flour it.

Sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.

Cream together the butter, sugar, and vanilla. Beat in eggs one a time. Mix in flour in three batches alternating with the yogurt, starting and ending with the flour. Mix just until combined. Bake for 35-45 minutes.

While the cake is baking, make the sauce. Combine all sauce ingredients into a saucepan on medium heat, and stir until juicy, about 15 minutes. Simmer, stirring occasionally, until fruit breaks down, about 8 minutes. Pour through a fine-mesh sieve into a bowl, discard solids (or eat, like I did). Let cool.
Alternative method: Defrost berries if frozen, then grind in food processor until smooth. Pour into saucepan and heat with sugar and salt until the sugar dissolves. Pour through a sieve and into a bowl, discard seeds. Let cool.
This method wastes less of the berry!

Icing: Beat together all ingredients until smooth.
Evenly frost the cake and let the icing set (at least 15 minutes). Cut cake into squares and spoon a bit of sauce on.

Catching up

2009-08-31T19:38:00.017-04:00

Alright, this is a rushed post, and I won't be baking for the next few days!

We have some delicious oatmeal cookies with chocolate chips and peanut butter chips (recipe below), banana muffins with cream cheese filling (recipe here), and interesting soda flavors. The muffins should have more filling in them; I thought I put more in than I did and I was worried about them overflowing. They were good, but would have been better with more filling! The soda flavors are cola champagne, pineapple, and fruit punch. Mine was the pineapple. It was interesting, but it would be a whole lot better if you took some actual pineapple juice and mixed it with sparkling water!

Alright, cookie recipe! This recipe divides in half very easily in case you only want about 18-20. The halved amounts are pretty easy (and half of 1 1/2 cups is 3/4 cup).

Peanut Butter and Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies
3 cups flour
1 teas. baking powder

1 teas. baking soda

1 teas. salt
1 cup butter

1 cup light brown sugar

1 cup granulated sugar

2 teas. vanilla extract
2 eggs

1 1/2 cups rolled oats

1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

1 cup peanut butter chips

Preheat oven to 350F. Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a bowl.

Cream the butter and sugars. Stir in the vanilla and eggs. Mix in the flour. Stir in the rolled oats and both chips. Spoon onto pans and bake for 10-12 minutes. Cool on wire racks.

Strawberry Devils.

2009-08-21T14:58:00.005-04:00

I went thrifting on Thursday and found these beauties! Everything is from Impact except for the wooden mushroom plaque (Goodwill). It's obvious the mask is a zebra, right? When I got home my dad thought it was a devil.

And today, I made some chocolate covered strawberries! After six, I gave up and started dipping them into the chocolate and then into my mouth. There goes a whole box of strawberries!

Better than fudge?

2009-08-18T21:04:00.015-04:00

STOP.

Whatever you're doing right now, stop and make these. Right now. I'm serious.

They taste like a gigantic, super rich Reese's! Or like super creamy, soft fudge! The recipe is here, but a half recipe of this is below. No matter how good these are, you do not want a 9 x 9" pan full of them. Unless you're giving most of them away.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Treats

2 tables. butter

1/6 cup dark brown sugar

1/2 cup creamy peanut butter (I used chunky)

Scant 1 cup powdered sugar

Topping:

1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

1/2 tables. butter

Melt the butter. In a medium-large bowl combine the melted butter, dark brown sugar, peanut butter and powdered sugar. Press evenly into an 8.5 x 4.5" loaf pan. Melt the chocolate and butter, stirring often to avoid burning. Pour evenly onto the peanut butter mixture. Refrigerate until firm. (About 30 minutes. Not too long or it's hard to cut).

Oh, summer fruits...I love you

2009-08-18T20:43:00.008-04:00

My mom used to make this cake all the time; a soft crumb cake with sliced peaches, nectarines or plums layered on top, sprinkled with an almond-ginger streusel. I used all three fruits this time! I divided the batter into two smaller pans and put plums on one, and peaches and nectarines on the other. The plum one has a stronger taste and is definitely my favorite, even though I don't care for plums that much (when they're not baked into a cake). Recipe from Canadian Living '99.

Harvest Streusel Coffee Cake

4 ripe peaches/nectarines/plums

3/4 cup butter, softened

1 1/2 cups sugar

3 eggs

1 1/2 teas. vanilla

3 cups flour

1 1/2 teas. baking powder

1 1/2 teas. baking soda

1 1/2 teas. ground ginger

3/4 teas. salt

1 1/2 cups sour cream

Streusel:

1/3 cup packed brown sugar

1/4 cup flour

1 teas. ground ginger

2 tables. cold butter, chopped

1/4 cup sliced almonds

Peel peaches (but not plums or nectarines). Cut fruit in half and remove pits. Place, cut side down, on cutting board; slice thinly. Set aside. Preheat oven to 350F.

Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, ginger and salt, set aside. Cream butter and sugar. Beat in eggs, one at a time. Beat in vanilla. Mix in the dry alternately with the sour cream, starting and ending with the dry. Spread batter evenly into a 9 x 13" pan. Without overlapping, arrange sliced fruit over top.

Streusel- Combine sugar, flour and ginger. Cut in the butter with a fork until crumbly. Stir in almonds. Sprinkle over fruit. Bake for 1 hour* or until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool on wire rack.

*Mine was a bit over-browned on the edges at 50 minutes

Old collages

2009-08-18T16:00:00.002-04:00

Ok, I know some of you have already seen these. The first is a cloth collage that I kept adding to randomly. All that white yarn was slowly tacked down with thread! I was inspired by the word 'alienate' and made the paper collage on the right. I really like the ripped detail on its left side. Both of the collages are from a while ago, and I completely forgot to post them. As this blog is supposed to be a baking and crafty blog, and it is sadly rather lacking in the craft department, I thought I should get around to posting them!

I've really been disappointing myself with the lack of sewing/crafting. I used to do those so often, but lately I've been having the crafty version of writer's block. Crafter's block? Or just a really big brain fart.

Why do you do this to me, ginger sparklers?

2009-08-16T02:46:00.006-04:00

I am quite possibly going insane.

That cookie picture is from when I first made ginger sparklers two years ago. The first and only time they came out right! The second and third time they came out of the oven completely flat despite the 2 teaspoons of baking soda in them. I have no idea what I'm doing wrong (other than eating too much of the dough?) but at least they still taste fine. Well, more than fine.

But the other day when I made these, they not only baked flat, but I creamed the butter with granulated sugar instead of brown. I knew what sugar I was supposed to be using for a spice cookie, but I absentmindedly grabbed the wrong one. Now I have a bowl of creamed butter and sugar in the refrigerator that I have to find a use for. Then right before I popped them in the oven, I remembered I was supposed to roll them in sugar! I sprinkled a bit of raw sugar on top of them to make up for it. Ginger sparklers: a bit abnormal, but delicious.

Ginger Sparklers

2 cups flour

2 teas. baking soda

1/2 teas. salt

1/2 teas. cinnamon

1 teas. ginger

1/2 teaspoon cloves

1 cup brown sugar

3/4 cup butter, softened

1/4 cup molasses

1 egg

Sugar for rolling

Preheat oven to 375F. Combine flour, baking soda, salt and spices. Cream butter, brown sugar, molasses and egg. Mix in dry. Make 1" balls and roll in sugar. Bake for 8 minutes.

Peanut Butter Phase?

2009-08-16T02:09:00.004-04:00

I've only had three kinds of girl scout cookies: Thin Mints, Samoas, and those buttery square ones with chocolate on the bottom. I found a recipe for homemade Do-si-dos and my peanut butter taste buds went bonkers. They're two peanut butter oatmeal cookies with a peanut butter filling! Mmm, they were very good. Although if I make them again I'll use less butter in the filling. I actually used homemade butter for this recipe! While making the strawberry shortcake whipped cream, I accidentally made butter from over beating the cream. It turned out to be the perfect amount for this recipe, and they baked fine!

Recipe from Baking Bites.

Then the other night I made some very easy chocolate pudding, and used it in a pudding-banana-melted peanut butter sundae. There's no ice cream, but I don't know what else to call it. Maybe a pudding parfait? There's not as much peanut butter in there as it looks, it kind of mashed against the glass so it looks like a sickening amount. It was good, though very filling.

Shortcake: biscuit or cake?

2009-08-16T00:42:00.008-04:00

Growing up, my memories of summer revolve around my dad picking bucketfuls of strawberries from our garden and my mom hulling, chopping, freezing and making them into jam. Throughout the year we would defrost bags of strawberries for strawberry shortcake. My mom would bake a soft sponge cake, and after (not so patiently) waiting for the strawberries to defrost, we would pour them on, and top with a mountain of whipped cream. The strawberry juice would soak into the cake and make a delicious mess.
When I heard of strawberry shortcake with a biscuit, I was confused. Who would want a dense, floury biscuit with sweet strawberries? And after all, it is called strawberry shortcake. I shunned it.
After much debate between my biscuit-loving friend and I, we decided to settle it with a bake-off!

So. Three girls rooting for strawberry shortbisquit, and me for strawberry shortcake. I was convinced I could get them to switch teams with my obviously superior recipe, and they were convinced that mine was the obvious loser. Three against one, right?
We baked, we ate. I admit I was pleasantly surprised with the shortbisquit; I was expecting a dinner biscuit and not the lighter, sweeter thing that it was.

The verdict: Both are delicious and too different to compare. However, we stood by our original favorites.

At least I broadened my strawberry shortcake horizons and had fun in the process, right?

And now I share with you my recipe, taken from McCall's Cookbook, given to my mom in 1964 by her mother.

Hot-Milk Spongecake

1/2 cup milk

1 cup flour

1 teas. baking powder

1/4 teas. salt

3 large eggs

3/4 cup sugar

1 teas. vanilla extract

Heat milk in a saucepan until bubbles form around the edge of pan. Remove from heat. Preheat oven to 325F .

Sift flour with baking powder and salt. Beat eggs until thick and lemon-colored (this will take a few minutes). Gradually add sugar, beating until smooth and well-blended, about 5 minutes. Mix in flour until just combined and smooth. Add warm milk and vanilla, beating just until combined.

Pour into a 9 x 9 inch pan and bake for 25-30 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool on wire rack.

Top with strawberries and whipped cream!

Weed appreciation

2009-08-08T20:12:00.003-04:00

(No, not that kind)
I was on a walk and picked a few weeds. They dried pretty nicely. The leaf in the lower right dried almost like tissue paper! I love goldenrod (upper right). That piece is actually one I picked almost ten years ago, and it still has its smell!

Duplicating a box

2009-08-08T19:49:00.004-04:00

I have this chocolate box (they were so good) that I thought would be perfect for a little gift box, but in different paper. So I took it apart and copied it!

I traced it, cut it out, and scored all the lined that needed to be folded. I decorated it and then glued it together on the longer side, and folded it up! It's not quite as sturdy as the original, but it's prettier.

Mm, lemon curd!

2009-08-01T15:50:00.009-04:00

Remember that orange zest post where I said I would have more zest than I needed? Well, I ran out last night! I made some more of those delicious scones, but for half of the recipe I left out the cranberries and apricots (but kept in the zest). On these I sprinkled some cinnamon sugar on top and spread them with lemon curd! They were so good, I think I like them better than the original recipe.

The other day I came across these watercolor blob paintings I did a while ago. I forgot I made them!

Ice cream sandwiches!

2009-07-30T15:13:00.002-04:00

The picture doesn't show it all that well, but these are ice cream sandwiches. Chocolate chip and dark chocolate m&m cookies with vanilla ice cream! I also made a few using butterscotch chip and walnut cookies. Both were pretty good!
This was my first time baking with unsalted butter. We never buy it, and you're actually supposed to bake with unsalted. I should have added extra salt to the recipe, because I ended up with bland cookies from lack of salt (because of the butter). The ice cream made them taste better!
Idea from Baking Bites.

Chipster-Topped Brownies

2009-07-28T14:55:00.005-04:00

Brownies get a little too rich for me sometimes (and I love my chocolate), but these were perfect with a layer of chocolate chip cookie dough baked on top! I halved the recipe, and then further halved only the brownie layer. If I kept the ratio the same, I really don't think you would be able to taste the cookie layer.
Recipe from Ezra Pound Cake.

Naan Fail

2009-07-23T11:11:00.004-04:00

Picture 1: Naan from Trader Joe's
Picture 2: Naan picture above the recipe I used

Picture 3: My naan
I love this bread, and the second picture looks so delicious! It looks rollable, somewhat like a pita bread. Mine came out closer to the bread I had from Trader Joe's, except it didn't taste like it at all. It's just a regular bread in the shape of naan!
Oh well. I had made these for dinner to make chicken gyros, but since that was impossible we cut them in half and made open face sandwiches. Mine was chicken slices seasoned with oregano with ranch dressing on top. Yum!

They are sad from lack of use.

2009-07-19T12:48:00.007-04:00

Here's a glimpse of recent additions to my cloth collection. The other day I was picking through the bargain section at Joann's and found a roll of blue felt for $2, a yard of fuzzy brown cloth for $4, and a flowery print for $3 a yard. They also had bamboo cloth for $7 (originally $14)! It was so soft....I didn't like the color though.
And you can also see my stacks of cloth I bought to make clothes out of, which obviously hasn't happened yet. My problem is that I don't see any sewing patterns that I like, and I don't know how to make my own.

Here's some of my craft supplies! (That I love, but hardly ever use.)
Pretty embroidery floss, some ribbons and silver wire, and a tiny bit of my paper collection. That yellow paper I picked up on a sidewalk, and the 'a promise to keep' paper was inside of a used book...I took the paper bit and left the book. I drew the party hat guy.
I wished I used this stuff more often. I have creativity constipation.

My grunt was silent.

2009-07-19T12:09:00.009-04:00

Blueberry Molasses Grunt! I had a huge bucketful of homegrown blueberries to bake a pie with, but I was getting tired of pies. So I made a grunt. Why are they called grunts? Apparently when the berries bubble in the oven they 'grunt'. Mine were silent.
It's basically blueberries mixed with sugar and cinnamon and drizzled with molasses, and after baking for a few minutes they're covered (not completely) with a biscuit-like dough. To serve, it is inverted so that the biscuit is on the bottom. It's really good, although a bit too sweet.

Blueberry Molasses Grunt
Filling:
3 cups blueberries, picked over (fresh or frozen, thawed)
1/2 cup sugar (I'm going to try a heaping 1/4 cup next time)
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
Pinch of nutmeg
2 tables lemon juice
2 teas molasses

Topping:
1 1/4 cup flour
1 1/2 teas baking powder
1/4 teas salt
5 tables cold butter, cubed
1/3 cup milk
1 egg, lightly beaten

Preheat oven to 375F. Butter a 9" deep dish pie pan.
Combine the flour, baking powder and salt in a bowl. Cut in the butter with a pastry blender or a fork until it resembles course crumbs. Stir in the milk and egg with a fork until just well combined. Set aside.
For the filling, place the berries in the pie pan. Combine the sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg in a bowl and sprinkle over the berries. Drizzle with the lemon juice and molasses. Bake for 7 minutes, until the berries begin to release their juices. Remove from oven and increase the temperature to 425F.
Drop tablespoonfuls of the biscuit dough onto the berries randomly, not covering the entire surface. Bake for 20 minutes or until the berries are bubbling and the topping is browned.

These are white chocolate macadamia nut cookies from Baking Bites. Yum yum. They were buttery and loaded with nuts and white chocolate!

Alterations and Blueberry Soup

2009-07-05T12:41:00.002-04:00

I went thrifting and found this great striped red shirt, which was a little big. Once I got it home I realized it's a man shirt because of the way it's cut and it's from the Gap. (I don't think they would sell a baggy women's shirt...) But I really don't care because I love it. I did want to make the sleeves a little less man-ish, so I serged it from the sleeve all the way down to the bottom of the shirt. The sleeves are great, but the body of the shirt ended up being a bit more fitted than I wanted it to be. Oh well.

And I made a blueberry pie! You can't tell from the picture, but the recipe didn't call for enough corn starch, so it ended up being closer to blueberry soup than a pie filling. Still yummy though.

Sewing. Kind of.

2009-06-28T20:50:00.003-04:00

Here's my attempt at embroidery. I sewed some felt together and stitched on an old TV. Freehand, I didn't draw it on. And right now I'm working on a requested mini peacock!

A Loaf, Scones and some Muffins

2009-06-28T20:17:00.006-04:00

The past few days have been delicious! First I tried out a cinnamon raisin bread from my Williams-Sonoma bread book. Silly me, I was going to half the recipe and make one loaf, and it's a good thing I didn't. Loaf #1 was gone in a matter of hours! The bread was incredibly soft, and loaded with golden and dark raisins. The cinnamon and brown sugar swirl was a bit gooey and so good.

After loaf #2 was eaten, I made cranberry orange scones from the same cookbook. I never understood scones before this. They always looked hard, dense, and didn't have much going on taste-wise. My first encounter with good scones was at a tea house a week or so ago. Eating little bite-sized scones spread with devonshire cream and lemon curd, along with the best chai tea I've ever had made me scone-obsessed. Ever since, I've been searching for a scone recipe that is lighter and not dense.

Once I settled on the recipe, I decided to experiment a little. The recipe called for all-purpose flour, but I wanted to see how they would turn out with bread flour (which makes breads nice and soft). So, I made half the recipe with all-purpose, and half with bread flour. Just to see. In the picture the bread flour scones are on the left, and on the right are the all-purpose. They look exactly the same, but the flours really made a difference in texture. The bread flour scones were definitely lighter than with all-purpose flour.

I give the bread flour version an A+, and the all-purpose a B.

The scones didn't last too long either...and yesterday I made these incredible blueberry streusel muffins again. I'm looking forward to a summer of baking with fresh, homegrown blueberries.

Fail.

2009-06-23T22:28:00.005-04:00

I just had a massive baking fail. I've been eying up these cake truffles for a while now, but they were completely gross. There was a half-box left of a yellow cake mix in my cabinet, so I used that. I baked the cake, cut in in pieces, and crumbled it in the food processor. Maybe I pulsed it too much, or maybe I should have crumbled it by hand, because it went from cake bits to looking like a huge ball of raw cake. It tasted raw too. So, I figured maybe it was supposed to look like that. I mixed in the cream cheese. And...it turned into a huge ball of extra mushy raw-looking cake. Still tasted raw. I did test the cake, with a toothpick and for browning, to see if it sprung back from the pan sides, and I ate a small piece. That cake was baked perfectly.

So, I was left with a disgusting cake-thing. Disgusting to the eyes, taste buds, and the texture was awful. Kind of gummy. I didn't waste any chocolate to cover them. They went straight into the trash. R.I.P.

On a much more positive note, for father's day I made the cinnamon buns I made a while ago, and they turned out even better! (In taste and appearance.) I had actually run out of cinnamon, so I used up the tiny bit that I had left and made up the difference with some nutmeg and cloves, and they turned out great. And I added extra nuts and raisins!

Midnight chocolate melting

2009-06-20T12:43:00.005-04:00

Mmmm.

I started making these at 11:00 last night! The idea of them was worming around my head all day and I couldn't stand it anymore, I had to make them.

1. Milk chocolate with coconut and almonds

2. Milk chocolate with chopped hazelnuts

3. White chocolate with macadamia nuts and coconut

4. Milk chocolate with peanut butter (mixed with powdered sugar)

5. White chocolate with dried cranberries and almonds

I used Trader Joe's milk chocolate chips and Ghirardelli's white chocolate chips. TJ's stopped carrying their white chocolate (it's so much better that Ghirardelli's) and they didn't have any semi-sweet the other day. I bake with semi-sweet, so they better carry them. They also stopped carrying their delicious chicken nuggets.... So cruel.

Chocolate Chocolate

2009-06-08T14:45:00.008-04:00

I've been craving this recipe for the past week but I was trying not to bake anything (at least for a few days.) In the time that I ignored my 'must bake now' thoughts, I sewed a doll; I think I'll have to try to ignore them more often. But it's so hard.

Anyway, these are double delight peanut butter cookies with a chocolate filling instead of peanut butter. The cookie itself is the same dough as the original, so I have no idea why the texture was different than the two times I made the peanut butter in peanut butter ones. They were still pretty good...mmm, peanut butter and chocolate are so good together.

Chocolate-Filled Double Delight Cookies (recipe found here)

1 1/3 cups flour

1/2 teas baking soda

3/4 teas salt

1/2 cup butter, softened

1/2 cup brown sugar (I only fill it up ¾ of the way)

1/2 cup granulated sugar (I use a ¼ cup)

1 egg

1 teas vanilla extract

1/2 cup peanut butter

Filling:

1/2 cup peanut butter

2 T cocoa powder

3 T powdered sugar

3 T granulated sugar

2 T ground semi-sweet chocolate chips

Topping:

1/4 cup sugar

1/2 teas cinnamon

Combine the flour, baking soda and salt. Cream the butter and both sugars. Beat in egg, then vanilla and peanut butter. Add in the flour mixture slowly. Shape into a log 3” in diameter on parchment paper and chill until firm, about 2 hours.

Cream together filling ingredients. Shape into 20 balls. Cut the chilled dough log lengthwise in half, then make 10 even cuts to separate into 20 pieces. Roll into balls and flatten. Place one filling ball into each flattened dough ball, and gently cover the filling with the outer dough. Smooth into a ball and sprinkle with topping. Flatten gently with the back of a glass on pan. Bake at 375F for 9-11 minutes. Makes 20 cookies.

And this is dark chocolate pudding (I had a massive chocolate craving) with unbaked graham cracker crust and melted marshmallows on top. So it's kind of like a s'more. What's in that bowl, by the way, is way too much for one serving. I ate it all and felt really gross, but it was worth it. It's actually peanut butter chocolate pudding, but it wasn't chocolately enough for me so I added extra chocolate, which covered up all the peanut butter taste.

Peanut Butter Chocolate Pudding (from here)

1/4 cup sugar

3 large egg yolks

3 T cornstarch

4 T butter

1/4 cup creamy peanut butter

1 1/2 oz semi-sweet chocolate, chopped

1 1/2 oz dark chocolate, chopped

Pinch of salt

3 cups milk

In a small bowl, combine the sugar, egg yolks, and cornstarch.

Melt the butter and peanut butter in a saucepan over low heat, stirring until smooth. Add chocolate and continue to cook and stir until the chocolate has melted. Stir in milk and increase heat to medium. Continue cooking until bubbles begin to form around the edges, about 5 minutes. Stir in a small amount of the egg mixture in small amounts. Cook, stirring constantly, until it has thickened (about 1-3 minutes). Remove from heat and divide into individual bowls (or one bowl), and chill, covered.

Graham Cracker Topping:

6 graham crackers

2 T butter, cut into pieces

1/8 cup sugar

Pulse graham crackers in food processor until no chunks remain. Add in butter and sugar and combine.

Wonky.

2009-06-08T14:35:00.003-04:00

I tried sewing a doll with my own pattern after making the Mimi Kirchner doll. She came out alright, but not quite how I wanted her to. I think I'll name her Esha!

And I've decided on Frida for my Mimi doll.

Cereal Tarts

2009-06-01T14:35:00.002-04:00

I had these for breakfast yesterday and they were amazing. The tarts were baked the night before so they were ready in the morning. I changed up the ingredients for the tarts, so here's my version.

Cereal Tarts with Yogurt and Berries (Original from Country Living)

2 1/2 cups cornflakes

1/2 cup granola cereal

Small handful flax seeds

2 T butter, melted

3 T honey

Toppings:

Vanilla yogurt

Berries

Chopped walnuts

Preheat oven to 350F. Place 5 (4 inch) tart shells on a baking sheet. Grind cornflakes, granola and flax seeds in a food processor until smooth. Transfer to a bowl and drizzle with the melted butter and honey. Stir to combine, and evenly divide between the tart shells. Firmly press down bottom and sides and bake for 10-13 minutes. Cool completely. Spoon in the yogurt and top with berries and walnuts.

Cherry Cream Cheese Pie

2009-05-31T14:27:00.004-04:00

This pie has a graham cracker crust, a cream cheese layer, and cherry pie filling. Very good. Plus you only need to bake the crust!

Cherry Cream Cheese Pie

Crust:

1 1/2 cups graham cracker crumbs (about 12 rectangles)

1/4 cup sugar

1/4 cup butter, cut into pieces

Preheat oven to 375F. Break up graham crackers into a food processor and pulse until no chunks remain. Mix in sugar and butter until combined. Press firmly in the bottom and up the sides of a 9" pie pan. Bake for 8 minutes.

Pie:

8 oz cream cheese, softened

1/2 cup sugar (a bit less)

1 (21 oz) can cherry pie filling

Beat together cream cheese and sugar until light and fluffy. Spread into cooled crust. Pour pie filling on top and cover with plastic wrap, chill for 2 hours. Leave in the refrigerator.

He didn't believe he was handsome.

2009-05-28T20:09:00.001-04:00

I made a bow tie cat collar! It took about 5 minutes to make and much less than that for it to be scratched off.

Mimi Kirchner doll

2009-05-28T19:56:00.004-04:00

Mimi Kirchner makes amazing and incredibly detailed felt dolls (jealous.), so I was excited to try out the purl bee's mimi doll pattern. I have no idea how my doll's limbs ended up so wonky. Her arms are way too thick and disproportionate, and her legs want to cross constantly.

I like her better with her dress on!

She was all hand-sewn so it took a while. No name yet, any suggestions?

EDIT: I've named her Frida.

Cookies are good for the soul.

2009-05-21T21:39:00.006-04:00

These guys were taken out of the oven about 2 hours ago! I used the same dough (Tollhouse, but altered) for both, and added white chocolate chips and dried cranberries to half, and chocolate chips and sliced almonds to the other. Both are good but the white chocolate cranberries are amazing.

I'll alter the recipes for here so that each one makes a single recipe, instead of splitting the dough in half.

White Chocolate Cranberry Cookies

7 T butter, softened

1/8 cup granulated sugar

1/8 cup raw sugar

1/4 cup dark brown sugar

1 egg

1/2 teas vanilla extract

1 1/8 cups flour

1/2 teas baking soda

pinch of salt

White chocolate chips

Dried cranberries

Combine the flour, baking soda and salt. Cream the butter and all sugars. Beat in the egg and vanilla. Mix in the dry. Throw in white chocolate and dried cranberries to your liking, mix. Spoon onto baking sheet.

Bake at 350F for 10-15 minutes.

Makes around 24, depending on the size.

Chocolate Chip Almond Cookies

7 T butter, softened

1/8 cup granulated sugar

1/8 cup raw sugar

1/4 cup dark brown sugar

1 egg

1/2 teas vanilla extract

1 1/8 cups flour

1/2 teas baking soda

pinch of salt

Semi-sweet chocolate chips

Toasted sliced almonds

Combine the flour, baking soda and salt. Cream the butter and all sugars. Beat in the egg and vanilla. Mix in the dry. Add in the chocolate chips and nuts to your liking, mix. Spoon onto baking sheets.

Bake at 350F for 10-15 minutes.

Makes around 24, depending on the size.

A necklace and yummy bread

2009-05-21T21:22:00.004-04:00

I made a necklace yesterday!

Originally I planned to use colorful buttons but my inspiration waves weren't flowing after sifting through 5 containers of buttons, but then I thought of a black, white, and grey necklace. I took apart a necklace to use its chain bits (1) and the rest is just black string; I crocheted a bit of it (3). The felt flower (2) didn't show up that well. It's annoying to wear though because the buttons want to turn, and then you see the string clippings and knots.

Wegman's has a new bread out, Red, White & Blue bread for Memorial Day. It's flavored with cranberries, blueberries, and lemon zest, and it's delicious! It's crazy soft too, almost like a muffin.

Cookie overload

2009-05-20T13:21:00.006-04:00

80 cookies is way too many. I was told to make two cookie recipes for a get together my mom was having; I doubled the peanut butter cookies (since they only made 20) and halved the cowgirl cookies (they originally made 80). So I was left with 40 and 40.

Both pictures are from the first time I made the cookies. This time I halved the filling in the peanut butter cookies since they were way too rich before. The cowgirl cookies were better the first time, so I must have added extra white chocolate to them.

Still delicious though.

Double Delight Peanut Butter Cookies

1 ⅓ cups flour

½ teas baking soda

½ teas salt (I don’t fill the measuring spoon up all the way, maybe ¾ full)

½ cup butter, softened

½ cup brown sugar (I only fill it up ¾ of the way)

½ cup granulated sugar (I use a ¼ cup)

1 egg

1 teas vanilla extract

½ cup peanut butter

Topping:

⅛ cup roasted peanuts (unsalted, unless you really like salt)

⅛ cup sugar

¼ teas cinnamon

Filling: (halved)

¼ cup peanut butter

¼ cup powdered sugar

Combine topping ingredients in a bowl.

Cream together both filling ingredients. Shape into 20 balls. Cut the chilled dough log lengthwise in half, then make 10 even cuts to separate into 20 pieces. Roll into balls and flatten. Place one filling ball into each flattened dough ball, and gently cover the filling with the outer dough. Smooth into a ball and roll in the topping. Flatten gently with the back of a glass on pan. Bake at 375F for 9-11 minutes. Makes 20 cookies.

Cowgirl Cookies (halved)

¾ cup butter, softened

¼ + ⅛ cup granulated sugar (I use ¼ cup)

1 ⅛ cups brown sugar (I use a tiny bit less than 1 cup)

1 ½ eggs

½ teas vanilla extract

1 teas almond extract

1 ½ cups flour

¾ teas baking soda

¼ + ⅛ teas salt

1 ½ cup oats

¾ cup coconut

.5 oz white chocolate chips (I used more and it still wasn’t enough- I’ll try 3-4 oz)

1.75 oz macadamia nuts, chopped (I used a bit more, maybe 2.5)

Combine flour, baking soda, salt and oats. Cream butter and both sugars. Beat in egg, add vanilla and almond extracts. Add in dry, then coconut, white chocolate and nuts. Bake at 350F for 15 minutes. Makes 40.

Baking again.

2009-05-09T21:34:00.010-04:00

There were good reviews for the chai cake, which I did make into cupcakes. (Pictured on the left.) I did like them even though they just tasted like vanilla cupcakes with a little extra something. I was expecting them to taste more chai-like, so if I ever make them again I would increase the spice amount. Instead of a cream cheese-based frosting I made a vanilla frosting with cinnamon and honey! Recipe on Tender Crumb.
Pictured on the right are Sweet Carrot muffins, which I made for a bake sale. They're so moist and delicious!

Sweet Carrot Muffins
2 cups flour
1 3/4 cups sugar

2 teas. cinnamon

2 teas. poppy seeds

1 teas. baking powder

1 teas. baking soda

1/2 teas. salt
4 large eggs

3/4 cup canola oil

1 1/2 teas. vanilla extract

3 cups shredded carrots

3/4 cup golden raisins/dried cranberries

Preheat oven to 350F. Line two 12-cup muffin pans.

Combine the flour, sugar, cinnamon, poppy seeds, baking powder, baking soda and salt.

Whisk together the eggs, oil and vanilla until slightly thickened. Gradually stir the flour mixture into the egg mixture and beat just until smooth. Fold in the carrots and raisins/dried cranberries until just combined. Spoon into the muffin cups (about 3/4 full). Bake 20-25 minutes, or until golden, dry, and springy to the touch. Let cool on wire rack for 10 minutes and remove to cool fully.

**The recipe says it makes 14, but I get 24-30 out of it.

These are Mochaccino Biscotti Dunkers I made just a bit ago for Mother's Day. Coffee doesn't go over too well with my taste buds, so I didn't try them. But my mom will like them. Hopefully.

Recipe from Recipezaar.

You're so zesty.

2009-05-05T13:01:00.000-04:00

I don't care much for oranges, but I love the smell of orange zest. It adds so much flavor to recipes, so it's annoying when you come across a recipe using it when oranges aren't in season. Which is why I started grated oranges when we have them and freezing the zest! That's three or four oranges worth of zest in the bowl. I'm sure it's way more than I'll need, but it stays fresh. It can also be substituted for lemon zest in most recipes, and I never have lemons. So it'll be used. Or I could just defrost it and smell it.

Deliciousness, Frustration and Disappointment

2009-05-05T12:54:00.002-04:00

I posted about this delicious gingerbread before, (recipe here) but this time I managed to get a picture before it was gone.

For the past two days I have been trying to refashion some of my old clothes and finally came to the conclusion that it's impossible to make what I had in mind. It's pretty hard to make a loose, styled tank top out of two t-shirts that were already too tight. This is a recurring problem. I look my piles of clothes that don't fit anymore, but I love the fabrics they're made out of. I see them as different clothes and I go crazy drawing sketches, only to realize that there's just not enough cloth.

I then realized (yet again) that I don't even know how to sew clothes even though I've been doing some form of sewing all my life.

After that I got a huge baking urge (maybe a reflex to make myself feel better?) and planned to try a chai cake recipe, but ended up making the gingerbread again. The word spread around the house of what I had been planning to make and I severely disappointed my mom and sister my "making gingerbread again."

But...they ate it right up. The chai cake is definitely on my list though. I think I'll make it into cupcakes!

This spreadsheet was made for me

2009-05-03T20:47:00.000-04:00

For my high school graduation project I tried 30 some recipes and gathered up the best into a cookbook. I snuck in some favorites from years before that, of course. But looking at the book now, I'm surprised they let me graduate. Look at this thing, it's horrible!

I had decided that this book wasn't going to be a thing to toss after I graduated, but it would be something to continue working on. It's perfect for me because even if I mark a recipe letting myself know that I tried it, I don't really remember it unless there's a picture. Plus I love having my favorite recipes all in one place.

The recipes were typed in Excel on the family computer, but now I have my own Mac. So imagine my excitement when I opened up Apple's version of Excel, Numbers, and found a spreadsheet formatted for recipes! I redid my whole book.

I love it. Here's one page:

It's so beautiful. I can't stop flipping through all the pages!

Pie overload

2009-05-03T11:14:00.002-04:00

I can never remember if my pie crust recipe makes one or two crusts. Which is why I ended up with two pies after my dad requested a coconut cream pie! The recipe was found online, but after I made it I realized I already had a coconut cream pie recipe in my Williams-Sonoma book. Maybe it was a scatterbrained day, but no matter because both pies were pretty good.

Coconut Cream Pie

Crust:

1 1/4 cups flour

1/4 + 1/8 teas. salt

1/4 cup + 1 tables. oil

1 tables. + 2 1/2 teas. cold water

Combine the flour, salt and oil in a food processor. Add the cold water and pulse until it comes together, scraping bowl as needed. Roll out to fit into a 9" pie pan. Makes one crust.

Pie: (found here)

1 cup sugar

2 tables. flour

2 eggs

1/4 cup butter, melted

1 cup milk

1 teas. vanilla

6 oz shredded coconut

Combine all and pour into pie shell. Bake at 350F for 45 minutes until the custard is firm.

I added a little toasted coconut on top.

This one is an apple cranberry walnut pie, but I have no idea what the recipe would be because I just threw everything in there. It was based on a recipe and then changed to me adding things. It was really pretty before it was baked because the apple rounds covered the whole pie, but of course they shrunk in the oven.

Amazingly delicious bread

2009-04-24T19:45:00.002-04:00

I don't like vegetables.

But I have no idea how much of this bread I've eaten today! It's so moist and the flavors are amazing together. The recipe has zucchini and sweet potatoes, dried cranberries, walnuts, and three spices.

I altered the recipe a bit but it's from Joy the Baker.

Zucchini Sweet Potato Bread

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour

1/2 cup white whole wheat flour

2 teas. cinnamon

1/2 teas. nutmeg

1/4 teas. cloves

1 teas. baking soda

1/4 teas. baking powder

1/4 teas. salt

3/4 cup granulated sugar

1 cup light brown sugar

1/2 cup vegetable oil

1/4 cup applesauce

3 eggs

1 teas. vanilla extract

1 1/2 cups grated zucchini

1 1/2 cups peeled and grated sweet potato

1 cup chopped walnuts

1/2 cup dried cranberries

Preheat oven to 350F. Grease a 9 x 5 x 3 inch loaf pan, line the bottom with parchment paper, and grease.

Combine the two flours, spices, baking soda and powder, and salt in a bowl. Beat both sugars, oil and applesauce, eggs, and vanilla. Mix in the zucchini and sweet potato. Add the dry ingredients until just combined and fold in the nuts and cranberries. Bake for 1 hour and 20 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

It's a good idea to cover the top with tin foil during the last 20-30 minutes so it doesn't get too browned.