Creamy Almond Butter

I always make baked goods for my English teacher, and though she is always pleased with my creations, she complains all my baking is going to make her fat. To compromise I decided to make her some healthy almond butter. Though this may not be a baked good, it can certainly fill your sweet tooth if you place it on top of sliced apples and drizzle them with a smidge of honey.

To make the butter is very easy, just take 2 cups of whole almonds and spread them out onto a baking sheet and place them in a 350° F oven for 12 minutes, stirring them around halfway through to prevent them from burning.

Ready to spread and enjoy in about 20 minutes.

Though toasting the almonds is not essential, I find it really helps to bring out the “nutty” flavor.

Let the nuts cool and then place them into a food processor. You could also use a blender but you won’t be able to put in as many nuts in the blender at a time as you can with a food processor.

Now for some slight amusement, my food processor is currently not working properly so I had to hold down the button the whole time because it won’t stay down. Fortunately, it only took about 6 minutes for the nuts to become creamy. I periodically scraped the sides as the nut’s oil released and the nuts went from becoming what looked like crumbs to real smooth nut butter.

When it was all finished I placed the end result in a small mason jar. I didn’t add salt or honey, but if you want you can put them in and pulse the food processor a couple times to mix in the flavoring evenly.

After tying a bow around the jar I was finished,

Can you say A+ on that essay I just wrote please?

Double Decker Toffee Chocolate Brownies

Well I owe my friend Cathy some money, so we decided that if I baked her 3-4 batches of baked goods, that would be sufficient instead of the cash. (I thought this was a pretty good deal). I already made her a recipe with peanut butter so I thought, why not some toffee this time?

I came up with this batch of yummy brownies:

Ingredients:

3/4 cup butter

1 cup sugar

1 cup packed light brown sugar

3 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla

2 1/4 plus 1/4 cups flour

2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa

1 tablespoon butter

1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

1/2 cup plus a little more than a 1/4 cup toffee bits

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350°F. Lightly grease a 13x9 inch pan.

In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar until fluffy and then beat in the eggs and vanilla. Add the dry mixture of the 2 1/2 cups flour, baking powder, and salt.

Toffee bits on top, no need to press

them into the dough.

Divide batter in half. Blend the cocoa powder into one half of the dough and spread it evenly into the pan. Melt the 1 tablespoon butter and evenly drizzle and then spread it on top of the chocolate mixture in the pan.

I had to use my hands (just washed

of course) to spread the top

layer evenly over the bottom.

Stir remaining dough with the extra 1/4 cup flour, 1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips and 1/2 cup toffee bits. Heap bits of white dough on top of the chocolate dough and spread the layer evenly. Top with 1/4 cup plus a little more toffee bits on top.

Bake for 25-30 minutes, let cool, cut into squares, and dig in!

How good did turn come out?

My friend ate 3 within 2 minutes, enough said.

Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Bars

It’s Saturday and being a little tired from last night, Olivia and I thought we should chill out and bake…chocolate chip oatmeal bars of course!

This isn't an 8x8 but it is equivalent in size.

Ingredients:

1 ½ sticks of softened butter

1 egg

1 cup brown sugar

¼ cup milk

1 ½ teaspoons of vanilla

¼ teaspoon salt

1 ¼ teaspoon baking soda

¼ teaspoon cinnamon

1 cup flour

1/3 cup sweetened coconut flakes

2 cups oats

¾ cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

½ cup chopped walnuts

Don't mind the X on her hand.

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350°F. Mix together butter, vanilla, eggs, brown sugar, and milk. Sift together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt and then slowly add it to the other mixed ingredients. Once those ingredients are mixed, stir in the sweetened coconut flakes and oats and then add the chocolate chips and chopped walnuts. Pour the batter into a greased 8 x 8-inch baking pan and bake for 23-25 minutes in the oven. Remove from the oven, let cool, and cut into squares.

These turned out thick and crisp on top with just the right amount of chocolate and nuts.

Snickerdoodle Bars

Tonight is Friday and also my friend’s birthday. She is having  big party and asked if I would bake for it, and obviously I said yes. I didn’t have a lot of time to bake though today so I wanted to make something that was quick but still tasted good. While cookies can be simple to make, I find the easiest think to make is bars. I still wanted to make something that wasn’t completely ordinary so I tried making regular snickerdoodles into a snickerdoodle bar recipe.

Ingredients:

2 1/3 cups flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

2 cups packed brown sugar

1 cup softened butter

2 eggs

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

1 tablespoon plus 2 tablespoons white sugar

1/4 plus 2 teaspoons cinnamon

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350F and lightly grease a 9 x 13 inch pan. Sift together flour, baking powder, 1/4 teaspoon of cinnamon, and salt and in a large bowl, beat together the butter, brown sugar, egg, 1 tablespoon sugar, and vanilla until smooth. Stir in the flour mixture until well blended. Spread the batter evenly into the lightly greased pan. Combine the extra 2 tablespoons white sugar and 2 teaspoons of cinnamon in a little bowl. Evenly sprinkle cinnamon sugar mixture over the top of the batter. (I had a little left over but I would still recommend making this much because it is a good sugar to cinnamon ratio.)

Just sprinkling cinnamon sugar on top is even

easier than rolling each individual cookie in it.

Bake 25-30 minutes and cool slightly. While still warm, cut into bars with a sharp knife.

Snow Day Hot Cocoa Cookies

It’s a snow day! Work on schoolwork? Nah, instead it’s time to try a new recipe.

What better than hot cocoa cookies on a chilly snow day?

Ingredients:

Cookie

3/4 cup softened butter

1/2 cup sugar

2 eggs

1/4 cup evaporated milk

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour

1 cup instant hot cocoa mix

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

18 large marshmallows, cut in half

Glaze

1 3/4 cups powdered sugar

6 tablespoons butter

1/4 cup plus 1 1/2 teaspoons milk

2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa

Directions:

Nonfat milk powder and water can be mixed

as a substitute for evaporated milk.

Stale marshmallows can be softened

by putting them in the microwave

for a few seconds.

Heat oven to 350°F. Combine 3/4 cup butter and sugar in bowl. Beat at medium speed. Add eggs, milk mixture and vanilla. Continue beating until mixed and then add flour, cocoa mix, salt, and baking soda. (I actually only had hot cocoa mix with marshmallows so I had to sift through and take out each one of the mini marshmallows- not so entertaining, but worth it.)

Drop dough by rounded teaspoonfuls onto un-greased cookie sheets. Bake for 8 to 9 minutes or until set. Remove from oven and top each cookie with marshmallow half (i cut my marshmallows using scissors). Continue baking for 1 to 2 minutes until marshmallow begins to puff. Cool completely.

Meanwhile, place powdered sugar into medium bowl; set aside. Combine all remaining glaze ingredients (1/4 cup of the milk) in 1-quart saucepan. Cook over medium heat until mixture comes to a boil; boil 1 minute. Remove from heat; cool 5 minutes. Pour mixture over powdered sugar in bowl. Beat at medium speed until creamy. Add the 1 1/2 teaspoons milk, mix, and then reheat the mixture in the microwave for 15-20 seconds.

Immediately spoon glaze over cooled cookies in a criss-cross pattern. Let the glaze harden and then store the cookies between sheets of waxed paper.

Warning: the dough is very loose and spreads quick. I made less (only 26), but bigger cookies. You can experiment to find what marshmallow to cookie ratio you like best.

I would make these again because they tasted pretty good and looked great, but they probably won't be come one of my go-to recipes.

The Best Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

So I was trying to find ways to procrastinate from studying for my math midterm so I thought; what better way to not spend my time not studying than to bake cookies for my friend who just got into college? While I often like to try out interesting recipes for my friends, this friend insisted her she liked classing cookies the best so I settled on making her some old-fashioned oatmeal chocolate chip-cookies. I made up my own recipe, using a tad of shredded coconut and sour cream for moistness. I found the nuts really helped the cookie stay together and not spread, and 9 to 10 minutes was the perfect amount of time to bake them, and if I do say so myself they turned out de-lic-ious. Chewy on the inside and crispy on the outside. 

 Hungry? If you start mixing now you'll be able to eat these in less than a half hour.

Ingredients:

1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 1/4 cups packed brown sugar

1 cup softened butter

1/2 cup granulated sugar

2 large eggs

1 tablespoon milk

1 tablespoon sour cream

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1/4 cup sweetened shredded coconut

2 1/2 cups oats

2 cups Semi-Sweet chocolate chips

1 cup chopped walnuts

Directions:

Preheat oven to 375° F. Mix together flour, baking soda and salt in small bowl. Beat brown sugar, butter and granulated sugar in large mixer bowl until creamy. Beat in eggs, milk, sour cream, and vanilla extract.

Gradually beat in flour mixture and add the shredded coconut. Stir in oats, chocolate chips and nuts; mix well. Drop by rounded tablespoon onto baking sheets.

Bake for 9 to 10 minutes for chewy cookies or 12 to 13 minutes for crispy cookies. Cool on baking sheets for 1 minute; remove to wire racks to cool completely.

Straight out of the oven.

Note: This recipe makes A LOT of batter, so you can half the recipe or do what I did which is just put the left over batter in a container to freeze to whip out some other time when I need to make cookies but don’t have enough time.

Pumpkin Creme Brulee

My mom has always been known for her extravagant Thanksgiving, and though I realize it has been quite a few months since we've had our share of turkey, I still thought it would be worthwhile to show the crowd pleaser dessert of this year's feast. This recipe not only calls for you to use pumpkin in the batter, but also to place the creme in the pumpkin itself! We had some difficulties finding the right sized pumpkins and you must be careful when you cook the dessert that there are no holes in the pumpkins so that the creme brulee doesn't seep through but in the end the work was completely worth it!

Recipe:

Ingredients

• 4 cups heavy cream
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 16 egg yolks
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 3/4 cup white sugar
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1 cup canned pumpkin puree
• 1/4 cup white sugar

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F (165 degrees C).

2. Heat the cream and vanilla in a large, heavy-bottomed saucepan over medium heat; bring to a simmer. Whisk together the egg yolks, brown sugar, white sugar, cinnamon, salt, ginger, cloves, and pumpkin in a bowl. Slowly pour 1 cup of the cream mixture into the egg mixture, stirring continually. Then pour the entire egg mixture into the saucepan; whisk briskly for 1 minute. Pour the mixture into ramekins. Arrange ramekins on a baking sheet.

3. Bake in preheated oven until set, about 15 minutes; refrigerate for 4 to 6 hours.

4. Before serving, sprinkle 1 teaspoon of sugar over the top of each creme brulee. Use a kitchen torch or your oven's broiler to caramelize the sugar. It may take 2 to 3 minutes in the broiler. Serve immediately.

These definitely impress.

Cake Experiment #1

Watching over the top cake decorating shows such as Cake Boss and Ace of Cakes has given me motivation to try some basic decorating of my own (and I mean very basic when I say basic). Instead of using your typical pastry bag, I found a kid's cupcake and cookie decorating kit at Williams-Sonoma (http://www.williams-sonoma.com/products/wskids-cookie-and-cupcake-decorating-kit/). The easy-grip bottles and various tips gave me more control in decorating.

Photo Courtesy of williams-sonoma.com

I started out by using all recipe's simple white cake recipe (http://allrecipes.com//Recipe/simple-white-cake/Detail.aspx) to make two round layers that I later frosted with homemade butter cream frosting. I was going less for taste and more for an easy recipe to be bale to practice decorating on.

I mad sure the layers were cool, brushed off the crumbs, and frosted the 2 cake layers together. I spooned a large heap of frosting in the center of the top of the cake and then smoothed it around the top and sides with a warm, wide knife. I put the cake in the fridge for a few minutes to harden and then used the star tip to create a simple design around the top and bottom, and I think it turned out pretty well for a first attempt!

Next time I'm going to try different colors and possibly lettering.