chewy chocolate chip oatmeal cookies

[Check out the recipe from How Sweet Eats.] You think you don't want to add all that cinnamon, but trust me, you do. It's amazing.

They are like granola bars. Chocolate chip, cinnamony granola bars...in cookie form. With more butter.

Totally acceptable (and delicious) for breakfast with your morning coffee.

I'm sad these only made about 20 cookies, because they lasted two days. Well, three days, but one cookie left over thanks to my hubby and brother-in-law doesn't count.

I had been craving chocolate chips and oatmeal in some combination and this satisfied that. Or, I mean, made me want more. These are so good. Make them!!

Chocolate Chip Peanut Butter Banana Bread

Another delicious recipe from How Sweet Eats - Chocolate Peanut Butter Banana Bread.

My favorite breakfast is whole wheat toast, peanut butter, chopped bananas and dark chocolate shavings. Yum. This bread (toast it with some peanut butter) might be my new favorite breakfast food.

Yum.

Chocolate Chip Peanut Butter Banana Bread
(recipe adapted from How Sweet Eats. ingredients below reflect the changes I had to make due to not having all ingredients required on hand)
makes one loaf

~ingredients~

1/2 cup butter, at room temperature (I was out of butter so I used canola oil, though I would suggest not substituting unless necessary)
1/2 cup peanut butter
1/3 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup white sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 large ripe bananas, mashed
2 cups all purpose flour
1 1/4 teaspoons baking powder 1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 cup milk
1 cup chocolate chips
~instructions~

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine flour, baking powder, cinnamon and salt in a bowl and set aside.
2. Cream butter and peanut butter in the bowl of an electric mixer. Add sugars and beat until fluffy, about 3 minutes. 
3. Add egg and vanilla, mixing until combined. Add bananas and mix. 
4. Add dry ingredients slowly, mixing until just combined. 
5. Stir in milk, adding more one tablespoon at a time if batter is not wet enough. 
6. Fold in chocolate chips.
7. Spray a loaf pan with non-stick spray and pour in batter. Bake for 50 minutes, or until knife inserted comes out clean. (it took over an hour for my bread)

strawberry cupcakes + vanilla cream frosting

It's not that I wanted to make cupcakes tonight. But you see, I had all these gorgeous strawberries and was so afraid they were going to go bad. Something had to be done.

 

Enter: my newest first-search for recipes. If you don't follow Jessica over at How Sweet Eats, there is seriously something wrong with you. Or maybe you've never heard of her blog, and that makes me sad. I love her funny posts, gorgeous pictures and amazing recipes. I've made several things from her blog including her homemade barbeque sauce, roasted potato salad (ah-ma-zing), and now these amazing strawberry cupcakes. Not to mention I've drooled over and bookmarked some of her beautiful mixed drinks and several desserts.

So, these strawberry cupcakes are pretty darn awesome. I almost ate a whole bunch without even adding the frosting. I think some strawberry jam or strawberries on top would have been really great, but I was afraid they would get all watery over the frosting.

Oh - and I didn't have any more cupcake liners. But that didn't stop me! A few years ago some of the SKANK's decided to make sweet potato cupcakes and follow a recipe online that instructed using parchment paper instead of liners. Of course we had only wax paper...which we didn't realize wasn't the same thing...and that was quite a disaster, pulling out the cupcakes, dumping the half-baked cuppies into real liners. Yikes. Won't make that mistake again.

Anyway, I thought these turned out super cute with the parchment lining. It worked best for me to fit and fold them into the cupcake tins and dollop only a little at a time inside the parchment cradle with a spoon. This allowed for the cuppies to bake around and flatten out the folds.

Awesome! And - I got this fabric from my boss's mom - she was giving away a bunch of random fabrics - and it turns out this is some Ralph Lauren HOME collection fabric! I really want to use it to make some pillows, they would look nice with our couches. Oh...sorry...tangent...

I used a vanilla buttercream for the frosting. I wish it could have been a white chocolate buttercream, but I didn't have any good quality white chocolate to use.

Vanilla Buttercream

~ingredients~
1/2 c butter (I used 1/4 c and 1/4 c shortening - that was all I had)
1 T vanilla (or more - I wanted a lot of vanilla flavoring in the frosting)
1-2 T heavy cream (as needed)
2-3 c powdered sugar

~instructions~

1. Cream everything together. That's it. Easy, huh?

Anyway, check out How Sweet Eats for the strawberry cupcakes recipe!

Anyone else have a semi-disastrous kitchen or baking episode??

s'more cupcakes: graham cracker cupcakes

i've been craving s'mores cupcakes for a LONG time. well, s'mores in general. anytime the weather gets nice - i want that melty chocolate, graham cracker crunch, crispy outside/gooey inside marshmallow goodness.

these s'more cupcakes were a little different than what you usually see when browsing the web, but amazingly delicious. graham cracker cupcake goodness, melted chocolate delight on top and oozing in the middle, easy marshmallow frosting on top.

the cupcakes alone were amazing. great texture, great flavor. not to mention the other bits of deliciousness on top.

graham cracker cupcakes recipe from Nabisco. (i made a 1/2 batch because i didn't have enough graham cracker crumbs. i still used the 2 eggs, but everything else was halved.) my plan was to pipe the chocolate goodness inside the cupcake, but the chocolate didn't really want to cooperate, so i ended up smearing some on top as well. the frosting recipe adapted from Rachael Ray. since i ended up with only about 10 cupcakes, i had to alter this recipe too. i did 4-5 T butter, around a teaspoon of vanilla, about 1/2 cup of marshmallow fluff and about 1/4 cup (eyeball it) of powdered sugar.

i used this "cake decorating" tool for the first time, even though i had purchased it years ago. this was SO much easier than piping from a bag - way more control, way easier to fill and do you see that image below? yeah, no wasted frosting. every ounce scraped out.

also, isn't that fabric cute that the cupcakes are on? it's actually an apron (with an "A" on it!) that i received at my bridal shower. i don't use it as much as i should...(i always forget to put aprons on...) but the pattern i thought was perfect for something different than my usual countertop or tablecloth pics.

braided strawberry almond cream pastry

if you've known me long or been reading this blog (at all) you should know i have no problem admitting my baking or cooking mistakes.

remember that basic boule bread i told you about yesterday? well, i found another use for it today. or so i thought.

i found this delicious sounding pastry and proceeded to make it. unfortunately i realized while reviewing the recipe - that it called for the basic BRIOCHE dough from the book, not the boule dough...which is pretty different. so...i didn't find another use for this dough...exactly. i must have been half asleep when i read it the first time.

but, alas, i figured this out too late - the "pastry" was made.

for the most part this was pretty easy - having the dough ready to go was awesome (would have been better if it was the right dough...). definitely need practice in the dough-braiding method...then again...right dough...better braids i'm sure.

the recipe also called for almond cream - which was a recipe in the book - that you first need almond PASTE for. i didn't have either of course, but i did have almonds! i used this recipe from my sister's kitchen but halved it. the almond cream was a mixture of the paste (paste is ground almonds, egg white, powdered sugar and almond (or in my case, vanilla) extract), butter, an egg, flour and more almond (vanilla) extract. the paste was oh so yummy - i know i shouldn't have been eating it - but it was just...so creamy...

the original recipe also called for raspberries and raspberry jam, but i went with strawberries.

but oh-my-gosh how huge did this turn out!?

also - these were really really tasty strawberries.

although the "pastry" still tasted like any basic bread towards the ends - the middle was still delicious. that almond cream - mmmm...

i am DEFINITELY going to try this again - with the correct dough and maybe with raspberries instead of strawberries.

still. pretty darn delish. some advice: read, read and read again your recipes. before you start. and then read it again five more times.

basic boule bread

my aunt bought me this book for Christmas last year and i finally had the courage to try a recipe this week.

if you don't know anything about it - the basic idea is:

1. make wet dough recipe. let rise for 2 hours.
2. after first rise, you can put it in the fridge for up to 14 days or bake some bread!
3. when you're ready, pull off about a grapefruit size piece, pull it into the appropriate shape (based on what you're making), let rest for 40 min, then bake for 30.
4. the point being - you can have fresh baked bread every day, without needing the 2+ hours of rising time that is usually required.

the idea of a "wet" bread dough kind of scared me. what if i did it wrong? i'd have crappy bread for weeks, not just a few days.

so, i tried it. the process was way easy. i did the basic recipe which called for 6 1/2 cups of flour. only problem was when i reached 4 cups...i couldn't remember if i had just DONE 4 cups...or if i was on 4 cups. so, i ended up adding more flour in the end (bout 3/4 cup), and i think i was on the LESS flour side as my dough was SO WET i could barely pick it up.

anyway, i ended up making two loaves b/c my container where i mixed the dough was OVERFLOWING after less than 2 hours.

my bread came out so crispy crunchy on the outside and warm and soft on the inside. probably the best bread i've ever baked. it was more like baguette-size, but it still was delicious!

also - best thing for bread is having cornmeal, a pizza peel and a pizza/baking stone. adding water (in a broiler pan, or in my case - a shallow baking dish) as well will all combine to give you crusty bread and soft insides. yum!

more on the book here: artisanbreadinfive.com

chocolate cake w/ strawberry buttercream: sissy's birthday!

 
my sister's birthday was like YEARS ago, and we finally celebrated this past weekend (and by years, i mean April 2). she requested something vanilla with yummy buttercream and fruit or luscious chocolate with globs of frosting. so, pretty much anything.

i made her a yummy cake based off of a recipe from Annie's Eats for Chocolate Raspberry Truffle Cupcakes. the main cake recipe is from David Lebovitz's recipe for Devil's Food Cake. i was extremely pleased with how the cake turned out. moist and delicious.

the frosting however - not quite as i had hoped. i slightly followed Annie's recipe - but planned on only making half the amount called for, but stupidly added WAY too much strawberry puree at the beginning and used a WHOLE BAG of powdered sugar and it was still too thin. it ended up being more like a (very sweet) glaze on the cake, but it still tasted good!

also, the strawberries on the top starting oozing their delicious juiciness all over the top of the cake...which was okay, but didn't look so great.

Josh's birthday is next week and his brother Dan has requested cake pops since he LOVED the ones we made for Chloe's birthday (i had lots of extras). i think i'm going to make some sort of triple chocolate cake balls for the Easter/Birthday celebration! can't wait to do those this weekend!

devil's food (birthday) cake with whipped ganache

 

yes, for my birthday i made my own cake. yes, it took hours out of my day - but you know what? that's okay. i enjoy cooking and baking and i couldn't ask anyone else to spend hours making me this cake, so - i opted to do it myself.

my cake did not look nearly as beautiful when cut (or when not cut) but it was still delicious. it was extremely rich, but balanced by the chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream we had to accompany it, it was just right. i also wish it would have been a little more moist on the inside (the cake layers fell apart), but - it wasn't. i left it in for 20 minutes and it wasn't done, so 5 more minutes and...too much. bummer.

also, for the whipped ganache, i used peanut butter and had it whipped to what looked like the PERFECT consistency. i also didn't have the right chocolate cacao %'s, so i added some powdered sugar. i decided to throw in the last few tablespoons of heavy cream i had and - boom. too. much. whipping. ganache was grainy and stiff. total. total. bummer. i ended up heating it a little to make it more spreadable (actually worked) but only did this when applying the chocolate shards.

speaking of the shards. they really were not that hard to make. probably the easiest part of the whole cake, though a little time consuming.

you can grab the recipe from design*sponge here. definitely want to attempt to make this again and 1) not overbake 2) not overwhip and 3) use the correct chocolate cacao %'s.

Easter

for Easter we had lasagna, meatballs & salad. for dessert we had cherry pie and cake!

the top of the cake has green-dyed coconut, peeps and Cadbury mini eggs.

thanksgiving and things

for thanksgiving i made pumpkin cupcakes with browned-butter cream cheese frosting. both of these recipes were thanks to Robin Sue @ big red kitchen. the cupcakes i made with the 2-ingredient pumpkin cake recipe [which, i must say...i botched first because i didn't READ right, and made the actual cake - adding the eggs, oil and water - and then the can of pumpkin. yeah, that was a disaster. i had to go back out to the store and get more pumpkin :( ]. the frosting, however, was amazing and turned out great! well, the cupcakes did too, after i made them the second time...

kristen made lemon squares...

pumpkin cupcakes w/ browned-butter cream cheese frosting. topped w/ cinnamon sugar.


i love thanksgiving dinner!


me and my cousin, rebekah. i can't believe she's almost 18 and graduating this year!!!

yesterday kc and i decorated our christmas tree. you can check her blog out for pictures, but i'll post some tomorrow i'm sure.