The Threadbare Bakery

Oatmeal Sandwich Creams

2011-04-22T09:12:00.004-04:00

Now HERE'S a cookie you can really sink your teeth into! Forget the Little Debbie's, these things are serious. Two delightful oatmeal cookies with a sweet, fluffy cream filling sandwiched in between. This is the second time I have made these cookies and even though the recipe makes a LOT (see photo below) they don't seem to hang around the house very long. This recipe came from a fall holiday magazine from Taste of Home. My sister brought this magazine to me when I was laid up in the hospital last September from my lung collapse.

Oatmeal Sandwich Creams

Ingredients:

1-1/2 cups shortening
2-2/3 cups packed brown sugar
4 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2-1/4 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1-1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
4 cups old-fashioned oats

Filling

3/4 cup shortening
3 cups confectioners' sugar
1 jar (7 ounces) marshmallow creme
1 to 3 tablespoons milk

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350°In a large bowl, cream shortening and brown sugar. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each. Beat in vanilla. Combine flour, cinnamon, baking soda, salt and nutmeg; add to creamed mixture. Stir in oats.
Drop by rounded teaspoonfuls 2 in. apart onto lightly greased baking sheets. Bake at 350° for 10-12 minutes or until golden brown. Remove to wire racks to cool.
For filling, in a small bowl, cream shortening, sugar and marshmallow creme. Add enough milk to achieve spreading consistency. Spread filling on the bottom of half of the cookies; top with remaining cookies. Yield: about 4-1/2 dozen.

Mapledoodles

2011-04-17T15:53:00.003-04:00

Ah ha! I am writing a blog post. I have made COOKIES! Ok, I have been making cookies for months, but now I am actually going to post the recipe and a picture or two. I know it has been a long time. I know I am bad at blogging. But let's forget all of the blaming and finger pointing and get down to business, shall we?

So, I haven't blogged since May of last year and a lot has changed. Well, very little has changed so far, but I expect things will change much faster by the end of the month... My most important baking project to date: the timer on a brand new baby boy is set to go off the 26th of the month! So yes, of COURSE I have been baking and eating. How ELSE do you make sure your baby grows right??? For now though, he is still snug in his little belly cocoon, waiting, I'm sure, until his arrival will cause the most hubbub. Also, maybe he heard that once he comes out, he won't be able to have any cookies or chocolates for MONTHS! That sure would keep me from making an appearance.

Now that we are up to speed, let me tell you about these Mapledoodles. This is another recipe from my Better Homes and Gardens Ultimate Cookie Book. They are actually called Honeydoodles, but they have a note to try maple syrup in place of the honey, so I had to. Favorite and I have recently discovered the unabashed joy of partaking in the consumption of Grade B maple syrup. All you ever see in the stores is Grade A, and one would assume that giving syrup a grade of "A" would mean it is simply better. Let me assure you, this is not the case. If you are a fan of putting corn syrup on your pancakes, go ahead, continue drowning your breakfasts in Grade A "maple" syrup. Let me tell you though, if you like actual maple flavor, if you want to REALLY KNOW down in your bones that your syrup ran through the veins of a delicious New England maple tree, you have GOT to do yourself a favor and demand all Grade B, all the time. Enough rhetoric! On to the cookies!

Mapledoodles
Ingredients:

1/3 c. butter, softened
2/3 c. honey, maple syrup or dark corn syrup
¾ tsp baking soda
½ tsp cream of tartar
¼ tsp salt
1 egg
1 ½ c. all purpose flour
1 tbs granulated sugar (optional)
½ tsp ground cinnamon (optional)

Steps:

Preheat oven to 375. Lightly grease a cookie sheet; set aside. In a large mixing bowl beat butter with an electric mixer on medium to high speed for 30 seconds. Add honey, baking soda, cream of tartar, and salt. Beat until combined, scraping sides of bowl occasionally. Beat in egg until combined. Beat in flour.
Drop dough by rounded teaspoonfuls 2 inches apart onto prepared cookie sheet. If desired, mix cinnamon and sugar together and sprinkle over tops of cookies. Bake 8 to 10 minutes or until edges are just firm. Immediately transfer to a wire rack and allow to cool.

Since I had chosen the maple option for these cookies, I did not sprinkle them with the cinnamon sugar mixture. The cookies came out light and cakey with just a hint of maple flavor. I was worried they were a bit boring (even though they WERE tasty) so I decided to frost half of the batch with some maple cream I had in the refrigerator (which is really just smoothly crystallized maple syrup) and I topped them with finely chopped walnuts. Favorite commented that the new incarnation was “tasty. Not better than the other cookies, just a different cookie.”

Sooo... Japan!

2010-05-08T12:57:00.024-04:00

So Favorite and I have been back from Japan for a while so I figured it was probably about time I posted pictures. This is going to be a long post so sit back and relax.

I met Favorite in San Francisco the night before our flight to Japan. The day of we got to the airport very early (there was no one at the international flights desk yet) and so we spend a huge amount of time waiting around. Then of course we spent another 12 hours on the flight. By the time we arrived in the Narita airport we had been awake about 18 hours ( we refused to sleep on the plane because we wanted to be able to sleep that night). We then spent another hour or so figuring out what train would take us toward our hotel and then another two hours on that train. When we finally stepped foot onto the streets of the Shinjuku area of Tokyo we were completely spent. AND we had no idea how to get to our hotel. After some wandering around Favorite saved us by combining some sweet map skills with some sweet police-officer-asking-skills to get us to the hotel. Dragging a huge suitcase around streets mobbed with people when you don't know where you are going is not the most fun thing when you've been up for almost 24 hours.

That night we went out and wandered into a nearby restaurant to eat. I tried my best to use our Japanese phrase book to get us some food and tea, but just to confound things more, we had happened into a Chinese food restaurant and I don't think anyone there understood Japanese either. After some pointing and awkward laughing and apologies Favorite and I ended up with some hot oolong tea, some fried noodle dish, and a plate of General Tso's chicken...

Okay, so obviously I could talk for hours telling in great detail the entire story of our trip, but I think I will save some of my words and let some pictures talk a bit.

Left: Shinjuku at night.

Right: Saw sculpture outside convention center.

Left: Giant cuckoo clock.

Right: Crowds in Harajuku on Sunday.

Left: Entrance to Meiji Shrine.

Right: Wedding at Shrine.

Below Left and Right: All dressed up in Harajuku

Left: Mt Fuji.

Right: Imperial Gardens.

Left: HUGE Tree.

Right: Picnicking at the park

Left: Indoor bento picnic.

Right: Cherry Blossoms

Left: Assorted desserts with green tea.

Right: Outdoor bento picnic

Left: Big Green Dusty Guys.

Right: Assorted mochi.

So we had a great time. We caught the cherry blossom season perfectly, had a ton of delicious foods, and saw all kinds of crazy Japanese things. This post seems so lame to describe the trip. I took 549 pictures and just about all of them are of something different.

Red Velvet Cupcakes

2010-04-18T15:27:00.004-04:00

I'm not usually a cupcake person. I like the chewy comfort of a cookie; the delicious, satisfying, toothy wonderfulness. I find that cupcakes are more often than not simply used as a vehicle for some kind of horrific sugar laden topping. Some people eat cupcakes JUST for the frosting. I am not one of these people. However, I am trying to break out of my own mold a little and try something a bit different. As a result I made these red velvet cupcakes. The recipe is out of The Hummingbird Bakery book that I received for Christmas last year. Sadly, I don't often have cream cheese in my house though and decided instead to top these babies with a meringue frosting found elsewhere in the book. The frosting was alright as far as frostings go, but just to crank it up a notch I decided to utilize my creme brulee torch making the top into a veritable toasted marshmallow. I think I would still prefer the more classic cream cheese frosting in the future, but these were okay after all.

Red Velvet Cupcakes with Merinque Frosting

Cake

4 tbsp room temp butter
3/4 c. sugar
1 egg
1 tbsp cocoa
2 tbsp red food coloring
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 c. buttermilk
1 c. + 2 tbsp flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 tsp white vinegar

Recipe

Preheat oven to 325.
Beat butter and sugar with paddle attachment of mixer until light and fluffy.
Turn mixer up to high, add egg, and beat until incorporated.
In a separate bowl, mix cocoa, vanilla, and red food coloring to form a dark paste. Add to butter mixture and combine thoroughly until everything is an even color.
Turn mixer to low and add buttermilk and flour and beat until well incorporated. Turn mixer to high and beat until smooth.
Turn mixer back to low speed and add salt, baking soda, and vinegar, beating for a couple more minutes.
Fill cupcake cups 2/3 full with mixture and bake 20-25 minutes or until cake bounces back when touched. Cool slightly in pan before cooling completely on rack.

Frosting

2 egg whites
1/2 c. sugar
1/8 tsp vanilla extract

Recipe

Put egg whites, sugar, and 2 tbsp of water into a heatproof bowl over a pan of simmering water.
Beat with a handheld mixer until stiff peaks form, about 7 minutes. Remove from heat and beat in vanilla.

Frost cupcakes only after completely cool.

Chocolate Chip Peanut Butter Muffins

2010-04-18T15:17:00.002-04:00

I have a lot of posts to catch up on so most of them are going to be pretty short. I stole the recipe for these muffins from Tracey's Culinary Adventures and you can find the recipe there if you are so inclined to make these. They were pretty delicious as far as peanut butter baked goods are concerned, but as a muffin I thought they were too dense. I was having a crazy day when I made them though so maybe I didn't achieve the optimal result. In fact, if you go to Tracey's website you can see that her muffins look fluffier and a whole lot less like peanut butter bricks.

Best Oatmeal Cookies Ever

2010-04-18T15:00:00.004-04:00

Sometimes I like to try new recipes so I can experience new tastes and textures, but sometimes you have the urge to just find the best of a particular recipe. I know there are endless posts on the best chocolate chip cookies, for instance. This urge is what led me to try these so called "Best Oatmeal Cookies Ever" found here.

I changed the recipe around a LITTLE. I added more cinnamon than called for (and ground it fresh instead), I left out the ginger because somehow I was out, and put in 1/2 tsp of cloves in its stead. I also decided against letting the raisins soak forever in the vanilla egg mixture, and simply added a very small quantity of milk to the raisins in a very small saucepan and heated gently until it plumped the raisins up. After all that, I don't know if these were the best oatmeal cookies EVER, but they certainly are friggin fantastic. I brought most of them into work with me and instead of simply disappearing (which is what baked goods tend to do at work) people were actually coming up to me and asking, "What is in these cookies?! They are amazing!" This recipe is copied over from the above linked website almost verbatim so the comments included are the originators, not mine.

Ingredients

1 cup butter, room temp
1 cup brown sugar
3/4 cup white sugar
2 eggs, well beaten
1 TBSP (yes tablespoon) vanilla
1 1/2 cups flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
2 tsp cinammon
1/2 tsp ginger
1/2 tsp nutmeg
3 cups oatmeal (quick cooking or old fashioned, not instant)
1 cup raisins
1/2 cup chocolate chips (optional)
1/2 cup chopped nuts (optional)

Directions:

Preheat to 350 F
The key is to soak the raisins. This makes all the difference in the world. Beat eggs and vanilla together and then add the raisins, stir. Soak for an hour or two. I just walked by a few times and stirred it while I waited.
Cream butter and sugars with mixer. In a seperate bowl combine flour, salt, baking soda, cinammon, ginger & nutmeg.
Stir the dry ingredients until well blended.
Add dry ingredients to creamed mixture and mix well. Now add in the egg & raisin mixture (I used my hands). Then add oatmeal and chocolate chips/nuts and combine well.
Form into balls on cookie sheet.
Bake 10 minutes. Let cool on cookie sheet for 2-5 minutes or until firm enough to transfer to wire rack.

Browned Butter Hazelnut Drops

2010-03-14T09:08:00.003-04:00

This is a pretty homely little cookie, and I wasn't too thrilled with them at first bite, but they grew on me. I liked the nutty richness of the dough. These cookies are very dense with no spring to them, but they are not hard or brittle. It really is just like turning a delicious nut into a chewy cookie dough.

Browned Butter Hazelnut drops

1/2 c. butter
2/3 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 c. milk
1 1/2 c. all purpose flour
1 cup toasted hazelnut flour
1 recipe browned butter frosting

Preheat oven to 350.
Heat butter in saucepan over medium heat until it reaches the color of light brown sugar, stirring frequently. Remove from heat.
Stir in brown sugar and milk. Stir in both flours until combined.
Drop by rounded teaspoons 2 inches apart onto ungreased cookie sheet. Flatten slightly with the back of a spoon.
Bake for 10 to 12 minutes or until edges just begin to brown. Let stand for 1 minute on cookie sheet before transferring to rack to cool.
Cool entirely before frosting.

Italian Cocoa Honey Spice Cookies

2010-03-09T19:43:00.003-05:00

Um yum, yum. These cookies are good! They are a little different style for me, I usually go for chewy sweet cookies with or without delicious chunks, but these were more like a tea cookie, denser, toothy, almost like a cross between a cake and a biscuit. They were also more richly chocolatey than I expected considering the only chocolate in here is cocoa powder and the only fat (!) is from the almonds.

That's right. I am on a diet so that I am not mistaken for Godzilla when Favorite and I make our momentous trip to Japan at the end of the month. That means I had to break out my "Perfect Light Desserts" book when Favorite's parents came over this past weekend.

Italian Cocoa Honey Spice Cookies

3/4 c. cocoa
1 1/2 c. flour
1/3 c. sugar
1 cup whole almonds, processed until fine
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground cloves
1 tsp baking soda
1/3 c. water or red wine

Preheat oven to 350.
Combine all dry ingredients in a large bowl.
Make a well in the center and pour in water and honey.
Incorporate wet mixture until a soft dough forms.
Break dough into 6 pieces and roll each piece into a 12 inch log on a lightly floured surface.
Use the palm of your hand to gently flatten the logs and then slice the log diagonally to make 2 inch diamonds.
Place on parchment 2 inches apart in every direction.
Bake cookies for about 15 minutes or until they are well risen and feel firm but springy when touched.

So the recipe makes a note of being sure not to overcook them because they don't have much liquid and, again, not fat but what's in the almonds. I actually ended up taking mine out at ten minutes and though I was a little nervous that they would be liquidy somewhere in the middle, they came out perfectly. They were in fact firm with a little give, but not dry at all.

I recommend, if you are not being too cheap with calories or time, that these cookies with drizzled with melted dark chocolate.

What the guys...

2010-02-25T21:32:00.008-05:00

Ok, these are not baked or knit:

But they are ADORABLE! That's right. We're taking a time out for some cuteness. For some reason, even though these guys claim VEHEMENTLY that they do not care much for each other, the always seem to be doing the same thing at the same time. And despite what they say about their desire to avoid each other, I have documented proof of them touching.

Boy those guys look grumpy. And beefy.

How about the view from where I sit?

Well, I had one beefer on my lap tonight:
And the other nearby in the office bed.

Then some jealousy happened.There was a short tussle, some furry fists were thrown, but everyone ended up alright.
Now it is time for everyone to go to bed. I hope I get room to sleep on the bed tonight and don't wake up to any kitty butts in my face.

Honey Nut Bars

2010-02-25T21:14:00.004-05:00

My sister was making fun of me the other day because she was looking at my blog and asked, "Ooo, how were those coffee frosted cookies?" and I had to tell her that she had, in fact, eaten them. She had totally forgotten since my post went up about a month after I had actually made them. This seems to be par for the course with my blog. No matter how often I bake I doubt that I will ever have the drive to do a post a day, or even a post a week. I have been sitting here in front of the computer for over an hour and I almost didn't even write this post.

I digress.

Here is a picture of a honey nut bar:
Yes, yes. Not bad looking. I made them about a billion years ago, but at least the picture stays fresh.

These bars were pretty tasty really. They are not something I would want all the time, but they made a delightful little breakfast treat. The bars came out a little dense, but I don't want to make it sound like a bad thing so I'll call them "hearty". Here's the recipe:

Honey-Nut Bars (from The Ultimate Cookie Book)

1/2 c. butter, softened
1/4 cup shortening
1 cup honey
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
3 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 c. all purpose flour
1 c. coconut
1 c. chopped walnuts
1 recipe powdered sugar icing

Preheat oven to 350 and grease a 13x9x2-inch baking pan.
In a large mixing bowl, beat butter and shortening on medium to high speed for about 30 seconds.
Add honey, baking powder, and salt and beat until combined, scraping bowl occasionally.
Beat in eggs and vanilla until combined and then add flour.
Stir in coconut and nuts.
Spread batter in prepared pan and bake for 25 minutes or until a wooden toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
Cool in pan, cut, and then allow to fully cool before drizzling with icing and topping with more nuts.

Mmmm.... I definitely wish these bars were around right now. I mean freshly baked ones anyway. I don't know about how it is where everyone else lives, but my house is being pummeled with angry rain. It is pouring buckets outside and the wind doesn't sound too happy either. It would be quite glorious to light the fire and have a nice cup of tea with a honey nut bar. ALAS! I am on a cursed diet. I happened to step on a scale the other day and nearly passed out when I saw the number. Terrible, terrible. Who is going to eat my baked goods now? The new job employs a person with a nut allergy which means I have just about no one to pawn my sweets off on. Maybe I should start an account with UPS so I can just keep shipping everything to my old job...

Peanut Butter Oatmeal Rounds

2010-01-30T10:07:00.003-05:00

I know. They look rather unimpressive. This time I will not blame my camera, or my lack of photography skills. These cookies really were quite underwhelming. I had in mind when I picked up the recipe that they would have the chewy, toothy sweetness of an oatmeal cookie while incorporating some delicious peanut buttery flavor. These fell flat. Granted it may be my fault... the recipe calls for 1 cup and a quarter of flour and I may have lost count (using only my quarter cup since my full cup was eggy) and accidentally added a cup in a half. Or it may have been the fact that I used one of those "only contains peanuts" peanut butters. Perhaps the recipe assumed that my peanut butter would already be sugared and salted. Either way these cookies came out too dense in a dry peanut buttery way and I actually had to add a good amount of salt (considering it's a cookie) in order for the flavor of the peanut butter to come out. Still, the idea of a peanut butter oatmeal cookies with chocolate chips still has a hold on me. Maybe next time I will try a different recipe.

Peanut Butter Oatmeal Rounds (from The Ultimate Cookie Book)

3/4 c. butter, softened
1/2 c. peanut butter
1 c. granulated sugar
1/2 c. packed brown sugar
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
2 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
1 1/4 c. all purpose flour
2 c. rolled oats
1 c. chopped cocktail peanuts or chocolate pieces

Preheat oven to 375.
In a large bowl, beat butter and peanut butter on medium to high speed for 30 seconds.
Add granulated sugar, brown sugar, baking powder and baking soda. Beat until combined, scraping sides of bowl as necessary.
Beat in eggs and vanilla until combined.
Beat in as much flour as you can. Stir in remaining flour, oats, and peanuts.
Drop dough by rounded teaspoons 2 inches apart on an ungreased cookie sheet.
Bake for 10 minutes or until edges are light brown.
Transfer cookies to a wire rack to cool.

Amigurumi Owl

2010-01-11T22:14:00.010-05:00

This little guy goes by the name Filbert. He is my latest creation from a book Favorite bought me of patterns called "Tiny Yarn Animals". I put this guy together as a gift for my mentor at Pilgrim station who took me under his wing and taught me the ways of nuclear. Little Filbert was shipped off along with some good old Tollhouse Cookies and some sugared molasses cookies the recipe for which I stole from the TWD Crowd. The molasses cookies tasted delicious, but I had a problem with the spreading and over baking just like the Cookies with Boys Blogger. I ended up adding an extra 1/2 cup of flour to the recipe to get the right texture and baked them for the minimum amount of time. Because of the trials and tribulations of those that came before me I had thankfully done a few single cookies as test batches. I recommend this approach until you find an amount of flour and bake time that works for you.

Sugar-Topped Molasses Spice Cookies
Dorie Greenspan

2 1/3 cups all-purpose flour (plus 1/2 cup or so)
2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground allspice
pinch cracked or coarsely ground black pepper
3/4 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
1 cup light brown sugar
1/2 cup molasses (not blackstrap)
1 large egg
1/2 cup sugar, for rolling

Whisk together the flour, baking soda, salt, ginger, cinnamon, allspice and pepper.
Working with a stand mixer, preferably fitted with a paddle attachment, or with a hand mixer in a large bowl, beat the butter on medium speed until smooth and creamy. Add the brown sugar and molasses and beat for 2 minutes or so to blend, scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed. Add the egg and beat for 1 minute more.
Reduce the mixer speed to low and add the dry ingredients, mixing until the flour and spices disappear. If some flour remains in the bottom of the bowl, to avoid over-beating the dough, mix in the last of the dry ingredients by hand with a rubber spatula. You'll have a smooth, very soft dough.
Divide the dough in half and wrap each piece in plastic wrap. Freeze for 30 minutes, or refrigerate for at least 1 hour. (The dough can be kept refrigerated for up to 4 days.)
Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
Line two baking sheets with parchment or silicone mats. Put the sugar in a small bowl.Working with one packet of dough at a time, divide it into 12 pieces, and roll each piece into a smooth ball between your palms. One by one, roll the balls around in the bowl of sugar , then place them on one of the baking sheets. Dip the bottom of a glass into the sugar and use it to press down on the cookies until they are between 1/4 and 1/2 inch thick.
Bake the cookies one sheet at a time for 12 to 14 minutes, or until the tops feel set to the touch. Remove the baking sheet from the oven and, if the cookies have spread and are touching, use the edge of a metal spatula to separate them while they are still hot.
Transfer the cookies to a rack to cool to room temperature.
Repeat with the second batch of dough.

Key Lime Shortbread Cookies

2010-01-11T20:12:00.004-05:00

So, once again I have been away from the blogging world for a while. Let me catch you up to date. First off, I have been without a job now since December 18th, which is a little slice of heaven, and while enjoying my freedom I have baked these Key Lime Shortbread cookies. I know it probably seems weird to make such a tropical sounding cookie during the middle of the winter, but I was grasped by the Imp of the Perverse when I saw the bag of key limes in the store. There is no other explanation. The cookies themselves were tasty enough, light, crisp, with a little hint of tartness, but it was the icing that made them into little bursts of sunshine! The icing was made only of confectioners sugar and the fresh key lime juice and it just exploded with juicy flavor as it melted instantly on your tongue. This recipe came from my Land o lakes cookie recipe book.

Key Lime Shortbread Cookies

cookie dough:
1 1/2 cups flour
1/2 cup powdered sugar
1/2 cup cornstarch
1 cup butter, softened
1 tbsp fresh key lime juice
2 tsp fresh grated key lime rind

glaze:
1 1/4 cup powdered sugar
1 tsp fresh grated key lime rind
2 to 3 tbsp key lime juice

Beat butter until creamy.
Add remaining ingredients to butter and stir on low until a dough forms.
Shape dough into two-ten inch long rolls on a floured surface and wrap both logs in plastic wrap.
Refrigerate at least 2 hours or until firm.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Cut logs into 1/4 inch slices and space one inch apart on an ungreased cookie sheet.
Bake for 9-11 minutes or until lightly browned. Allow to set for 1 minute before removing to racks to cool completely.
Make glaze by mixing powdered sugar and zest with just enough juice to make the desired glazing consistency. Spoon glaze onto cooled cookies and allow glaze to set.

Yeast Risen Sticky Buns

2009-12-08T12:58:00.003-05:00

Here is another recipe of of this year's BH&G Holiday Baking and my second foray into yeasty bread products! I put these together the night before Favorites birthday so that I could get up early and stick them in the oven. They were time consuming but relatively simple to make and boy were they tasty! I wanted to give them room to grow as they cooked so I made them on a jellyroll pan. I think next time I might try cooking them in giant muffin tins because it seems like I lost a lot of filling to the pan. The only other thing I would pay attention to next time is that I think I may have kneaded too much or not allowed the dough enough time to rise either the first time, or before I baked them because even though they were scrumptious, the dough seemed a little tough.

Our Best Ever Cinnamon Rolls

4 1/2 to 5 c. all purpose flour
1 package active dry yeast
1 c. milk
1/3 c. butter
1/3 c. granulated sugar
1/2 tsp salt
3 eggs
3/4 c. packed brown sugar
1/4 c. all purpose flour
1 tbsp ground cinnamon
1/2 c. butter
1/2 c. golden raisins (optional)
1/2 c. chopped pecans

In a large bowl, combine 2 1/4 cups of the flour with the yeast. In a small saucepan combine milk, 1/3 c. butter, granulated sugar, and salt. Cook and stir until just warm (120 to 130 degrees) and butter is nearly melted. Add to flour mixture. Add eggs.
Beat with electric mixer on low for 30 seconds, scraping sides of bowl constantly. Beat on high speed for 3 minutes. Using a wooden spoon stir in as much remaining flour as you can.
Turn dough out onto lightly floured surface. Knead in enough remaining flour to make a moderately soft dough that is smooth and elastic. Shape into a ball. Place in a lightly greased bowl, turning once to grease surface of dough. Cover and let rise in a warm place until double in size (1 1/2 to 1 3/4 hours).
Punch dough down. Turn out onto a lightly floured surface. Cover and let rest for ten minutes. Meanwhile, lightly grease a 13X9X2 inch baking pan; set aside.
For filling: In a small bowl, combine brown sugar, 1/4 c. flour, and cinnamon. Using a pastry blender cut in 1/2 c. of butter until crumbly.
Roll dough into an 18x12 inch rectangle. Sprinkle filling over dough. leaving 1 inch unfilled along a long side. Sprinkle with raisins and pecans. Starting from the filled long side, roll up rectangle. Pinch dough to seal seam. Cut into 12 slices. Arrange in prepared baking pan.
Cover loosely with plastic wrap, leaving room for rolls to rise. If baking immediately, let rolls double in size, about 45 minutes. If baking later, chill for 2 to 24 hours and then let stand, uncovered, at room temperature for 30 minutes before baking.
Break any surface bubbles on rolls with a greased toothpick. Bake in a preheated 375 degree oven for 25 to 30 minutes pr until golden brown. Cool in pan on a wire rack for 5 minutes. Remove from pan. Drizzle with powdered sugar icing if desired. Serve warm.

Nutmeg Softies

2009-12-08T12:38:00.003-05:00

November is over and December is here! Yes, I know I'm a little late. Everything has been done a little late recently, like this blog post. I made these little cookies the weekend before Thanksgiving. Between work and holidays and Nanowrimo (which Favorite and I both finished BTW, though I will deny it if you ask to see my manuscript) I didn't have time to post, but I still made time for baking. These little guys were a heap of trouble, though, and a testament to why I never make cookies that don't come with a picture. These Nutmeg Softies came out of my BH&G Ultimate Cookie Book. The first thing that went wrong is that I did not preread the instructions, and there were no pictures so when I put together the dough and realized there was no brown sugar, no molasses, no ANYTHING brown and sweet and wonderful, I knew they were not going to be what I wanted. I thought a nutmeg softie would be like a cross between gingerbread and a sugar cookie but with the only spice being nutmeg, boy was I wrong. Next I realized too late that I added 1/2 tbs of baking soda instead of 1 tsp. This was because I was baking at my mom's house. I simply grabbed the spoon that was second biggest and used it. Who owns 1/2 tbs spoons?? I decided to keep going. Then the recipe wanted me to roll and cut the dough like sugar cookies. For whatever reason this dough did NOT come out shape and bake. It was too sticky to do anything but drop cookies. So I altered the instructions a bit and decided to do drop cookies rolled in cinnamon and sugar and squashed a little with the bottom of a glass. I also added way more nutmeg then called for, a whole freshly grated pod, or seed, or whatever nutmeg is, and still found the nutmeg flavor subtle. They got good reviews, (especially since they were so delicate from all that exta baking soda!) but a nutmegy Snickerdoodle was simply not what I had in mind...

Nutmeg Softies

1/2 c. butter, softened,
1/2 c. shortening
1 1/2 c. granulated sugar
1 tsp ground nutmeg
1/2 tsp salt
1 c. dairy sour cream
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
4 c. all purpose flour

In a large mixing bowl beat butter and shortening for 30 seconds on high.
Add granulated sugar, nutmeg, baking soda, and salt. Beat until combined scraping sides of bowl.
Beat in sour cream, egg, and vanilla until combined. Beat in as much flour as you can with mixer and stir in any flour that remains. (Dough will be sticky)
Divide dough into thirds. Cover and chill dough about 2 hours or until easy to handle.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. On lightly floured surface roll out 1/3 of dough to 1/4 inch thick. Cut out dough with desired shapes.
Place cutouts on an ungreased cookie sheet. Sprinkle with colored sugar. Bake about 10 minutes or until edges of cookies are firm and bottoms are golden.
Transfer to wire rack and let cool.

Almond Cinnamon Cookies with Browned Butter Drizzle

2009-11-16T09:23:00.003-05:00

In case there is anyone I haven't complained to yet, Favorite has dragged me kicking and screaming into Nanowrimo this year. If you an unfamiliar Nanowrimo stands for National Novel Writing Month. This is basically some cockamamie idea some guy came up with where you force yourself to write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days. I have never written any substantial piece of fiction and the last time I wrote ANY fiction was probably 5th grade. Needless to say, after two weeks of writing, and 25, 000 words under my belt, I am in pain. For those math whizzes out there, 50K in 30 days means 1667 words a day. So after working, Favorite and I sit down every night and bang away at our keyboards until we fall over. Well the other night I couldn't take it any longer. I decided to take a night off and make up for it later. So when Favorite got home and mentioned turning on his computer I said, "Do what you want, but I need to bake cookies." He did question my usage of the word "need", but I assured him it was correct. I decided to make another recipe out of my Holiday Baking magazine.

Almond Cinnamon Cookies with Browned Butter Drizzle

3/4 c. butter, softened
1 1/2 c. sugar
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp cream of tartar
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup blanched almonds, ground
2 c. all purpose flour

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
In a large bowl, beat butter on medium high speed for 30 seconds. Add the sugar, baking soda, cream of tartar, and cinnamon. Beat until combined scraping side of bowl occasionally. Beat in egg and vanilla until combined. Beat in ground almonds. Beat in flour.
Shape dough into 1 inch balls or use a 1 inch cookie scoop. Place balls 2 inches apart on an ungreased cookie sheet.
Bake cookies for 13 minutes or until light brown. Transfer to wire rack and cool.
Drizzle cookies with browned butter drizzle.

Browned Butter Drizzle

In a small saucepan heat 2 tbsp of butter until it is golden in color and nutty smelly. Remove from heat. Slowly stir in 1 1/2 c. powdered sugar, 1 tsp vanilla, and enough milk to make of drizzling consistency.

Note: I didn't actually make new Browned Butter Drizzle. I had left over frosting from my Pumpkin Bars and I simply added milk until it was drizzly.

Sour Cream Pumpkin Bars with Browned Butter Frosting

2009-11-09T06:56:00.007-05:00

Another recipe from my Better Homes and Gardens Holiday Cookbook! Another delicious treat! I normally don't go for for frosted things as often both Favorite and I find that frosting, overly sugared and of dubious textures, can ruin an otherwise delicious dessert. However, something assured me that I would want to make this recipe in its entirety (ok, it wasn't something, it was my mom).
Sour Cream Pumpkin Bars

1/2 c. butter, softened
1 1/3 c. sugar
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
2 eggs
1 cup canned pumpkin
1/2 sour cream
1/4 c. milk
1 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 c. flour
1/2 c. whole wheat flour
1 c. chopped pecans or walnuts

Preheat oven to 350.
Grease a 15x10x1 inch pan (I used two 8X8s)
In a large bowl, beat butter on medium to high speed for 30 seconds. Add sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Beat in eggs, pumpkin, sour cream, milk, and vanilla until combined. Add flours and beat until combined. Stir in nuts.
Spread mixture evenly into prepared pan. Bake for 25 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean. Cool in pan on wire rack.
Prepare browned butter frosting and spread over cooled bars. Cut into bars. If desired top with nut halves.

Browned Butter Frosting

1/2 c. butter
3 c. powdered sugar
2 tbsp milk
1 tsp vanilla

Melt butter in a small saucepan over medium heat. Reduce heat to medium low and continue to cook for 5 or 6 minutes or until butter becomes brown and fragrant.
Remove butter from heat and cool slightly.
Put butter and remaining ingredients in medium mixing bowl. Beat until combined. Beat in additional milk 1 tsp at a time, to make frosting spreadable.

These bars were less dense than I expected them to be. I was thinking they would be almost like a blondie brownie but they were almost cake-like. Either way, the toasty flavor of the browned butter frosting was delicious with the sweet pumpkiny bar. I would have been remiss to try these without their topper!

Gingersnap Shortbread Cookies

2009-11-08T13:43:00.003-05:00

If you've already read my Pumpkin Kuchen post you should know that I have in my possession a copy of this year's Better Homes and Gardens Holiday Baking magazine and that I want to make pretty much everything in it. That's where the kuchen came from and it's where this recipe came from as well. Gingersnap Shortbread. Just the name brings up all kinds of warm fuzzies. It just sounds like the holidays.

This recipe was really pretty basic, simply a shortbread cookie spiced with the same stuff that goes in gingerbread. The one thing I did not expect though was the molasses. I've never put anything wet into my shortbread and even though the amount was small I was a little worried. Well I should not have been because the cookies were delightful! Crisp and spicy with thick sweet molasses flavor. The recipe below is the one I used (straight from the magazine, I halved mine though) but if I were to make them again I am sure I would use a heavier hand with the spices and maybe even add some nutmeg. I love the whole dessert spice family and I've never encountered "too much".

Gingersnap Shortbread

2 c. all purpose flour
1/2 c. powdered sugar
1/4 tsp ground ginger
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
1/8 tsp ground cloves
1 c. butter (two sticks)
2 tbs molasses
granulated sugar (optional)

Preheat oven to 325.
Combine flour, powdered sugar, and spices in a large bowl.
Cut butter and molasses into dry mixture until it resembles fine crumbs. Knead until mixture forms a ball and divide in half.
Pat each ball into an 8" circle on ungreased cookie sheets. Form decorative edge with your fingers and dust with granulated sugar if desired.
Prick cookies every inch or so with the tines of a fork and slice into eight wedges, without separating them.
Bake for 18 to 20 minutes or until bottoms just start to turn golden brown and centers are set. Recut wedges while warm.
Transfer wedges to a rack to cool.

Tote Bag Triumph!

2009-10-28T10:33:00.004-04:00

Being in Townsend has its advantages. Fewer streetlights and neon signs, lots of grass and trees, and another one: being close to my parents.

Having lived far enough away to deter me from making regular trips meant for me a twinge of jealousy whenever I heard my sister and my mom were casually going to grab a cup of coffee or go Christmas shopping together. When I learned they were taking a cake decorating class together I felt even more left out. Well now I have my OWN version of cake decorating class! For my mom's birthday this year (although it retrospect it seems more like a gift to myself) I registered us both for a sewing class taking place at a local high school. The first week we made tiny little drawstring gift bags. The second week we made cuffed pillowcases. Since both of these projects were pretty much just squares with seams, I have decided not to post them. This week, however we were tasked with tote bags!

I went to Joann's and bought my "decorator" fabric and webbing and headed to class. It turned out to be a little more sophisticated than I had planned for. Because my fabric had a loose weave and interior threads that had a tendency to get caught on things I ended up having to line the bag as well. So, this lovely carry-all has a flat bottom, a full lining, and handles sewn into the seams to make a very nice finished product!

Because the bag is very wide, I am considering installing some snap onto pleats in the side to give the bag a more purse-like look and make it a little more manageable to carry so it will look a bit more like THIS --->

I am pretty excited about having a little bit of success at sewing as my past projects are all in shambles with loose threads everywhere, all coming apart at the seams (very literally). Hopefully this is the start of a beautiful relationship with my sewing machine. I have to say though, when you first start sewing stuff it sure is helpful to have someone around to hold fabric straight while your pinning, or to remind you not to skip locking in your stitches. And this is why my mom will now have to be present any time I try to make ANYTHING on my sewing machine. That and the fact that she always brings me chocolate Riesens which help to quell the rising anger demons when I am losing my patience.

Back with Banana Muffins and Apple-Pumpkin Kuchen!

2009-10-26T10:19:00.005-04:00

Look at those babies! Those are banana muffins my friends! They were baked with love and swiftness last night while Favorite was bringing my computer back from the dead. Apparently I had unwittingly happened into the dreaded virut virus which is a particularly nasty one that likes to find windows exe files and eat them up until your computer can't even boot in safe mode...

So, the muffins came from the banana bread recipe in my handy Better Homes and Gardens cookbook.

Banana Bread

2 c. flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
1/8 tsp nutmeg
2 eggs, beaten
1 1/2 cup mashed banana
1 c. sugar
1/2 cup cooking oil
optional nuts or crumbly topping

Preheat oven to 350.
Grease your vessel.
Mix all ingredients up to nutmeg in large bowl.
Mix remaining ingredients in small bowl.
Stir wet into dry all at once until just moistened. Fold in any extras.
Fill your baking vessel and bake until done (15 to 20 for muffins, 30 to 75 for loaf pans, depending on size)

This recipe was super easy as you only need two bowls and about 5 minutes to prep your ingredients. I only had two bananas which made a little more than 3/4 c when mashed, so I halved the recipe and cut the oil down to two tablespoons (because of the extra banana). This made 4 decent sized muffins in my "Giant" muffin pan. Question for my readers: anyone know how to get real muffin tops? I am talking about the kind of muffin that has a top that has a greater diameter than its stump. I filled each well within a half inch of the top and got NO shoulder on my muffin. Any hints would be greatly appreciated.

I also recently made(and captured) my first ever attempt at a yeast leavened pastry! The hardcore German tastiness known as kuchen (pronounce koo-ken, apparently). I bought a small sugar pumpkin with designs on making some sort of pumpkin dessert with the real thing, and not the Libby's can. This was partially just for curiosity's sake and partly because, as some of you know, there was a horrendous shortage of canned pumpkin earlier this year. I didn't want to do something traditional where you end up boiling and mashing the pumpkin because I had a beautiful SOLID pumpkin and I wanted to take advantage of that fact. I finally had the idea to make an apple-pumpkin crisp with equal portions tasty apples and soft sweet cubes of pumpkin all dripping with sweet cinnamon goodness and topped with enough brown sugar to make Favorite proud (that is a LOT let me tell you...) Well I scrapped the idea of the crisp when I saw the Apple Kuchen in the Better Homes and Gardens magazine "Holiday Baking". I will literally be baking my way through this entire magazine! There has never been a periodic publication with so many deliciously sweet recipes to try! Anyhow, I took the Apple Kuchen and added my Pumpkin Twist.

Apple (Pumpkin) Kuchen

2 1/4 c. flour
1 package active dry yeast
1/2 c. milk
1/2 c. sugar
1/4 c. butter
1/2 tsp salt
2 eggs
4 c. apples (about 4 apples, or 2 apples and half a small pumpkin, par boiled)
1/3 c. packed brown sugar
1 tbsp quick cooking tapioca, crushed (I substituted with mochi rice flour because I had it)
1 tbsp lemon juice
1 tsp apple pie spice (or pumpkin pie spice)
Crumb Topping

Grease 13X9X2 pan.
Mix 1 c. of flour and package of yeast.
Heat milk, sugar, butter, and salt until butter is almost melted.
Add milk mixture, along with eggs, to flour and yeast. Beat on low 30 seconds, scraping sides of bowl, and high for 2 minutes or until smooth. Beat in remaining flour.
Spread mixture in prepared pan.
Mix apples (and pumpkin), brown sugar, tapioca, lemon juice, and spices together in large bowl. Spread mixture over batter in pan.
Sprinkle with crumb topping (1/2 c. flour, 1/2 c. brown sugar, 3 tbsp butter, cut in to pea sized crumbs) and allow to sit in a warm place for an hour.
After dough has risen, bake in preheated 375 degree oven for 30 minutes or until top is browned and apples are tender.

I used raw apples in this recipe, but I par boiled the pumpkin because I figured it wouldn't cook as fast and I didn't want raw pumpkin. It worked well as the pumpkin got soft enough without being overly mushy. The recipe in the magazine also suggests topping with a cream cheese frosting, but I decided to nix it as I had no cream cheese and don't care much for frosting anyhow. The kuchen is definitely tasty. The base is more substantial than I thought it would be. I was expecting something like a coffee cake,but it was definitely more bread or biscuit like (though admittedly I DID overcook it a tad). If I were to make this recipe again with the pumpkin, however, I would have more pumpkin and less apple as the empire apples I used overwhelmed the more subtle flavor of the pumpkin. More pumpkin, more spice, and vanilla ice cream on top!

Another New Kitchen!!

2009-09-14T10:56:00.002-04:00

Ok! It is officially official. Favorite and I have successfully bought our first (and if you ask him, LAST) house!!

You may have notice a distinct lack of blogging and yummy things lately and I have no excuse, but I do have reasons. We have been very busy moving into our new home. A lot of you know this already and some of you have probably helped us, THANK YOU! It is a very strange living situation as I am still spending the weekdays at the apartment so that I may commute to work. I cannot bake there anymore as all of my equipment is in the new house already (which is about 1.5 hours away from the apartment). I also have been unable to bake at the house until this past weekend when I finally moved all of my ingredients there. Things have been hectic and probably will be for a while. I am hoping to start back with the baking sometime in October (PUMPKIN SEASON IS HERE!!!) but there are a few things that need to happen before then. I would LIKE to get a decent camera so that I can photograph my subjects without taking a hundred snaps just to get one decent one. I also would like to get internet at the house because if I don't upload right away I procrastinate like crazy. I look over my blog sometimes and wonder to myself where all my other recipes have gone and then realize I never took pictures of them or never remembered how I baked them so they didn't make it onto the site. Man, I stink.

So! If you are a fan of this blog (re. if you are Favorite) you can look forward to a future full of better pictures of beautiful baked goods made in a lovely new kitchen. I just am not sure how fast that will happen. Also, Oktoberfest is coming up and I will have to get pictures of that for sure!

Peach Blueberry Pie

2009-08-02T10:47:00.005-04:00

I have made the Peach Blueberry Pie again! During my internet hiatus I made the momentus decision to add a couple cups of blueberries to a fresh peach pie and it rocked my world. Sadly I completely missed the photo opportunity. Well, I made it again and got a few snaps this time. They are not great, it turns out I am TERRIBLE at photographing pies. The whole pie is just too much to get in one shot well and it is quite difficult to get one perfect slice out of a fruit pie. For better or worse, here it is.
It really is a simple and delicious pie. Just 4 cups of sliced ripe peaches, 2 cups of blueberries, 1/2 - 2/3 a cup of sugar (depending on how sweet your fruit is) and 2 tbsp cornstarch stirred together and dumped in your favorite pie crust. You can add lemon zest or spices to the mixture, but with delicious fresh ripe fruit, I think it is best just to taste the fruit. I moosh my blueberries a little, by the way, so that they make more blueberry juice. I just like it that way. I also took my leftover pie crust bits and rolled them out, cut them in half, and bated one side with butter, topping it with cinnamon, brown sugar, and chopped pecans, and covered it with the other half. I baked this in with the pie on my pie-overflow baking sheet (which is a technique I have used ever since my first strawberry rhubarb pie set the oven on fire!) until it was browned. Tasty little snack! Favorite thought it tasted just like a brown sugar cinnamon pop tart, which I suppose is pretty much what it was.

In other non-food news, check out THIS guy!
I found this sucker hanging out on a window screen outside my apartment building. He looks just like a strangely symmetrical rumpled up dead leaf from far away, but when he is completely out of his camouflaging element he was pretty easy to spot. Click on the image to enlarge it and you can see how fuzzy he is, very cool dude.

Chocolate Oatmeal Barley Cookies

2009-07-26T13:54:00.006-04:00

Yes, barley. What a magnificent idea! Favorite and I were planning on tasting a very delicious sounding beer which seemed to need an equally delicious chocolate cookie to have with it. I of course turned to my trusty Ultimate Cookie Book, and found a recipe for chocolate oatmeal cookies. They looked dark, rich, and delicious, they used melted chocolate AND chocolate chips, and each was topped with a pecan halve. How could I lose? But, to make them even MORE special, Favorite had the brilliant idea of replacing some of the flour with crushed roasted barley, which he had of course in his brewing supply room. After I stopped beating myself up over why I hadn't thought of that before I got down to making the cookies. I only made a half batch since we also have cornbread, and marshmallows to eat. It was pretty much a typical chocolate cookies recipe, beat the butter and sugar, add the cooled melted chocolate, eggs, and vanilla, and then gradually add in the dry ingredients. I had taken 1/4 of a cup of roasted barely and used the grind feature on my mini prep to render it into dust with a few pieces of hull in there. I put this powder into the bottom of my measuring cup and added flour to make the amount I needed in total. I added this to the batter and then stirred in the oats (chopped a bit in the mini prep because they were old fashioned instead of quick cooking) and chocolate chips. I scooped the dough into heaps on my sheets, topped each with a pecan halve and put them in the oven. The smell was incredible.

The first batch, second batch and so on came out and all seemed to have on failing... they were all flat as pancakes!! Again I am having this problem. This time, however, I think I have REALLY found the solution. I had thought before that my dough was too warm, and tried chilling it; I thought that the butter was inferior, so I switched to brand name; I thought I was beating too much air into the mixture, so I became dainty with my beating of the butter. None of these "solutions" seemed to solve my problem, so I tried one more. I turned up the oven. My thought was, well if the oven is lower in temperature than it's saying it is, the heat would be enough to melt the dough without cooking it all the way. If I turn the heat up, the outside should cook faster giving it a better chance to set its shape.

So on my last batch I turned the oven from 375 to 385 and gave it ample time to heat up. I made sure to put the cookies on a sheet that was NOT still warm from the oven and I baked them for 9 minutes, right in the middle of the recommended 8-10. They came out... fatter!

I had used the same cookie scoop to make the cookies and you could clearly tell that the ones baked in the hotter oven were significantly smaller in diameter. They were chunkier, which meant they had more delicious interior to enjoy. I think I have finally found my cookie solution!

Pumpkin Spice Marshmallows

2009-07-26T12:48:00.006-04:00

Hello, hello! Today's edition of the Threadbare Bakery finds us in the uncertain world of CANDY MAKING.

If you follow my blog much you will know that I have tried making caramel and failed. I have tried making divinity and failed. If it involves heating sugar and water to a certain temperature, if precision is of the essence, I generally don't fare so well. Well... NOT ANYMORE. Thanks to Favorite's cousin and his lovely woman, we have acquired, as a wedding present, an infrared pyrometer! This is a fancy word for laser thermometer. It looks like a tiny version of a police speed detector and works similarly; point and shoot. However instead of reading back the speed of its target it shows you the temperature. Now it is exceedingly fun to take temperature readings of everything and everyone around you, but where it shines, as far as usefulness is concerned, is in the kitchen. Favorite has used it numerous times when making beer to ensure his mash or his wort are at the proper temperature. It takes temperature instantaneously, and accurately so when I decided to venture into candy making again, I had it ready to go.

I know it is not autumn, traditional pumpkin season, but I simply couldn't wait any longer to try the recipe I had found for Pumpkin Spice Marshmallows and here's why:Ha HA! Don't they simply look MARVELOUS? Yes, yes, they do, and they smell and taste lovely as well. I have to admit that I was certainly nervous, having the record with candy making that I do, but these were actually easy! You mix the pumpkin, cold water, and gelatin together in one bowl, then you begin heating your mixture of water, sugar, and corn syrup. Just for experiments' sake I put the standard candy thermometer I have in the sugary liquid to see how far off it was. The thermometer lagged FAR behind my laser gun, showing me a little over 225 when I finally took it off the heat with the laser telling me it was (in various spots) between 249 and 257, approximately hard ball. I then plopped the pumpkin mix gently into the syrup, hoping that the sugar wouldn't harden from the cold semi-solid, and once I had given it a few stirs to break up the chunks, poured the entire saucepan full into my kitchen aid, put my splashguard in position, and threw the switch to 11 (re. high). I wondered, had the temperature gradients in the liquid affected the sugary structure? Had I cooked it too long? Not long enough? Well my kitchen aid did its thing, for about 9 minutes and it had finally started looking lighter, fluffier, more opaque, and I was getting excited. I had premixed my spices and started sprinkling them in at the 9 minutes mark. The mix whipped for a minute more and then I removed the splashguard completely to reveal... MARSHMALLOW!!!

I poured the liquid mallow into lightly greased jelly roll pan praying I would later be able to get it out. Then it had to set for at least 4 hours with a recommended set time of overnight. I controlled myself and managed the overnight, but was thrilled when I went to clean my bowl and whisk attachment and found that the substance that had been so liquidy just moments before had already turned lightly elastic, foamy, and chewy.

Finally it came time to turn out the sweet mass. I threw together the powdered sugar and cornstarch lightly dusted the exposed surface, and flipped the pan over onto some parchment. I picked up the pan to disover the mallow had not com out, but, still overturned, I stuck a knife in the corner to begin prying the goo away and then it all seemed to com out at once. Victory! Once layed out I used a lightly oiled knife to cut the marshmallow into squares and tossed them in the cornstarch mix a few at a time giving them a light coating before storing them in some tupperware. Of course I tried one, so did Favorite, and they were delightful! They are not as chewy as store marshmallows. They are more tendy, foamy and chewy, but with a little less toothiness. And these of course were fragrant with spices and with a glorious orange color. There are only two things I would do differenly, were I to make marshmallows again (and oh, I will). One is I would try making them when the weather is a littles less humid because my cornstarch mixture seems to keep sucking up he moisure in the air causing the marshmallows to stick to each other more than is desireable. The other is that I would like to try making them in a lasagna pan so that I might get a thicker layer. I would like it very much to have the finished guys be a little more cuboid. Although, the thin sheet is probabl better for cutting more complicated shapes (I punched out a few little stars myself, hehe).

So go! Get accurate kitchen equipment and make candy! I know I will be venturing more into the candy realm know that I feel more secure in my ability to gauge sugar temperatures.

Boston Cream Trifle

2009-07-22T20:27:00.003-04:00

My sister has already blogged on Boston Cream. It was supposedly a disaster. I didn't try it so I don't know. This spurred something in me though. Like my sister I thought "What could be so hard about cake, cream, and chocolate?" and then I too was bested.

So it started out as a cake but ended up a trifle. Why? Because the cake somehow shattered coming out of the pan. Ok, I say shattered, which sounds like it was crispy and brittle, it was not, but it did somehow still manage to fracture into a million pieces. Trifle it is!

I used a different recipe than my sister. One that used less than a million pots, pans, and bowls. The cake was a white cake. It had a rather thick crunchy shell for some reason though I know I just managed to cook the center through. The pastry cream came out rather well I think. It was smooth and thick and, well, creamy. The recipe called for what sounded like some kind o terrible chocolate frosting so I opted for a makeshift ganache. I heated up some cream, melted chocolate into it until I thought it looked chocolatey enough, then added some powdered sugar. The powdered ugar may sound strange, but I kind of like the quasi waxy texture it lends. It reminds me of the peel offable frosting on a Hostess Cupcake. Anyway, the cake was not difficult (other than getting it out), the pastry cream was not difficult, and the chocolate was not difficult. Even still, it wasn't QUITE right. I don't know what to change, but this tasty dessert remains, for now, a mystery.

As a mini side project I baked up a small batch of the Cinnamon Chocolate Meringuey Cookies that I have made here before. Turns out, you don't even really need a recipe for these. I just wanted to get rid of the egg whites I had left over from the yolks that were used in the pastry cream. So I beat up the whites, added some sugar, dumped in some chopped chocolate, cinnamon, coconut, and chopped pecans, and threw those babies in the oven.

Oatmeal Cake

2009-07-18T09:46:00.004-04:00

I have a Better Homes and Gardens cookbook that I turn to from time to time when I can't think of a dinner to make or when I need to remember something like how long I should expect my stuffed peppers to cook in the oven. Last night, though, I pulled it out for something little different: cake. To be a little more specific: Oatmeal Cake with Broiled Nut Topping. Sound good? Check out my awful pictures of its splendor.I halved the cake recipe and it turned out 5 mini Bundts. This was not a spectacular idea considering these guys have holes in the middle, but I sacrificed one of the cakes that hadn't quite come out whole so that I could patch them and top them properly. Once the cakes get topped with the brown sugar, butter, coconut, pecan mixture they get popped back in the oven under the broiler for 2-3 minutes. This caramelizes the top just a bit so that the result is something not unlike pecan rolls except that it is on a sweet fluffy cake. Very sweet and yummy for dessert. If you could get over the guilt it would also be great with your morning coffee

Pumpkin Oat Muffins and a Scarf

2009-07-13T20:56:00.005-04:00

Hazzah!

I have not only BAKED Pumpkin Oat Muffins, but I have also remembered to take pictures of them!
They look quite glorious really, but I found them to be pretty dense. I used a vegan recipe for these, not because I am vegan but because I was without eggs! They are pretty good hot with some butter though. Ha, I would make poor vegan.

Also! I have finished a scarf that I started so long ago I can't remember (hyperbole: I think it was sometime last year). It was going to be the first quasi plain yet nice-looking-enough-to-be-a-real-scarf scarf and it was going to be mine! That was until I ran out of the yarn I was using...

So I had to make one half the opposite mirror image of the other half. Oh well... Favorite insists I keep it as it came out nice enough, but I am thinking the Salvation Army might need to keep some people warm.

The pattern is quite easy and the density of it is very nice; springy and elastic with some dimension without taking too much time or too much yarn. My friend Cheryl shared this pattern with me:

R1: K4, *P3, K3, repeat from *, end with K4
R2: P2, *K1, P1, repeat from *, end with P2

Easy peazy lemon squeezy! Now I'm working on some shrug-like thing. We will see how this turns out. Hopefully I have enough yarn this time. Probably not.

Oh My Internet

2009-07-11T17:48:00.002-04:00

I have not been on hiatus!

I have, in fact, been baking and baking. The problem lies in the fact that I have not had the internet. Well here ends that period of my life.

What you all have missed as a result of my lack of internet:

Blueberry Crumb Pie
Peach Blueberry Pie
Strawberry Rhubarb Pie
Almond Sugar Cookies
Homemade Granola Bars
Cheerios Breakfast Bars
Giant Oatmeal M&Ms Cookies

Sadly, not only have I not been blogging but my lack of blogability also led to a lack of motivation to photograph my creations. This is especially sad when I think of the peach blueberry pie. The lattice came out perfect, the insides were a mixture of dark blue and peachy goo, and man was it ever good (although that part is a little more difficult to appreciate from a picture). Well, this depressing dark spot in my blog history is over now and I look forward to the next post which I promise will be full of tasty nibbles and pictures to boot.

Happy Half-A-Birthday Cake

2009-06-04T13:48:00.023-04:00

It recently occured;

Favorite's half-a-birthday.

That glorious time where you are as far away from your birthday as you can ever be. The last one is 6 months behind, the next 6 months ahead. Favorite pointed out that this event should merit a cake. I thought so too.

So you might say to yourself "Oh Kerri! What a lovely cake you made! And after work! You are glorious!" While this may be true, it is not because of this cake. If you are also wondering why my cup, plate, and pecans look gigantic I will erase the wonder from your minds and reveal to you, it is a tiny minicake. As it was not a full birthday I did not make a full birthday cake. I actually made a quarter of a cake recipe, but let's not quibble. It was half of a single layer, how about that? Anyway, the fun thing about this cake is that I made it in the food processor in about 5 minutes. Well, that was after I toasted all the pecans (about 10 minutes). I had my doubts about this minicake... after I quartered my recipe it had only a tablespoon or so of flour, the rest of the cake being comprised of 1 egg, sugar, and pecans (and a tsp or so of baking powder). I zipped it up in the food processor until smooth and poured it into a greased and floured tiny little (4" diameter?) springform pan, topped it beautifully with whole pecans, and popped it in the oven. The tiny cake took as long as a full sized cake to cook (about 22 minutes!) but once it came out it looked lovely. Favorite ate it with happiness and relish and it was moist, and nutty.

The thing I liked best about the cake, not
having eaten most of it, was the appearance of the surface. It looked a little like it had been washed with a sugar syrup before baking due to the sheen and smoothness. Let me show you it's beauty:

I also just loved being able to pop it out of that tiny springform without having to worry about what happened to the bottom. It made it look just so neat!

Well I feel accomplished, though perhaps not deservingly. Nonetheless I shall advance to the next baked good as I have run out again. Next up:
The Obligatory Strawberry Rhubarb Pie of Spring!

Coffee Chocolate Nut Cookies

2009-06-04T13:40:00.005-04:00

Or something...

So I've been trying to catch up on my backlog. If you read my bean past buns post you may notice it is a little anemic due to my need to catch up with myself. Maybe you like that about it since I usually waste your time with many many words and not nearly enough good pictures. As it turns out too many words and too few pictures make boring food blogs. Oh well.

Here are my cookies. These are the cookies I promised to post the other day and didn't. Favorite and I made them a million years ago (re: this past weekend) when his parents came to visit. The cookie is flavored with instant coffee. It is flavored quite strongly so that they actually taste a bit like coffee ice cream. Yum. Then it has chunks of dark chocolate. Since I couldn't find my chocolate morsels, Favorite and I cut up Hershey's special dark bars. Boy, big chunks of chocolate somehow taste way better than chips. The squareness makes it more enjoyable somehow. Lastly there are some chopped up walnuts. Pretty tasty cookies. They went fantabulously well with all of the dark, highly alcoholic beers we sampled on Saturday.

More Steamed Bean Paste Buns

2009-06-04T13:34:00.003-04:00

Ok, so I am repeating myself a bit, but even though I've spoken about making bean paste buns before I don't think I've ever posted pictures.

I decided to make bean buns because I had a lot of bean paste left over from making the ichigo daifuku and I wanted to use some more of it before I put it in the freezer for next time.

Here they are! Oh the excitement.

Some things are much more difficult than others to get pictures of. Especially when you try to do it right out of the steamer while they are still getting your lens all fogged up.

Baked French Toast

2009-06-01T07:34:00.005-04:00

I don't usually post things I consider to be "meals" as this site is about desserts! However considering this "meal" was baked and contained copious amounts of fruit, butter, and sugar, I feel posting it is justified.

Mmmm baked french toast! Ok so it is a terrible picture. For some reason it was absurdly difficult to capture the texture of this item in the lighting the day provided me. But I digress. This sugar laden start to the morning was prepared as a send off to Favorite's parents. They had come to visit Saturday a little before noon, which started a 24 hour consumption-of-tasty-things fest. We first had turkey, bacon, and avocado sandwiches for lunch on Saturday. Then we went out for homemade ice cream that the candy house down the street makes. It was the perfect sunny, but not-too-hot day for ice cream. For dinner we had Grammy's recipe terriyaki chicken wings, baked beans (not homemade) and potato salad. Favorite then helped me make some cookies (these will be posted tomorrow!) and for dessert we had the cookies and a tasting sampler of beers including a number of Favorite's special homebrews.

After the cookies had been eaten (most of them anyway) and the beer had been drunk I prepared the french toast for the next morning. I used this recipe from Cooks.com with a couple little twists. I used a big fresh loaf of french bread that I had sliced into big fat texas-toast sized slices and had left them out for a day to dry a bit. I made the custard recipe as written and layered by bread in the pan, pouring the mix over the top. I then squished the bread down to sponge up the liquid, covered it with plastic wrap and put it in the fridge for the night. In the morning I put a good amount of berries in with the bread, pushing them down into the eggy mixture. I then topped the whole mess with the crumb mixture (I used pecans instead of the nuts suggested) and popped it into the oven before beginning preheat. This was really just to make sure that my cold glass dish wouldn't shatter. I know they are not supposed to, but it made me feel better. I definitely cooked the dish longer than the allotted 40 minutes as the berries exuded a lot of juice that I wanted to reduce so it wouldn't be mushy and gross. I put some maple syrup on the table with the french toast, but I also put down some fresh whipped cream and fresh berries. I don't really think the maple syrup got touched.

Although this was the first time I had made a dish like this, and although I had read mixed reviews about baked french toast recipes being too eggy, or two soggy, or generally not good, I thought this came out great. It also got rave reviews and the lasagna pan I used to make it was nearly empty by the time the four of us were done, so I think I am satisfied. If I made it again though, I would probably cook it for longer than 40 minutes even if I did not add berries (although why wouldn't you add berries? they were fabulous!) just to ensure the thick layers of eggy bread got cooked all the way through. Even with the extra cooking time the french toast was fluffy yet moist and spongy, definitely not dried out. I definitely recommend trying this. It would also be very tasty with small chopped apples in the mix.

Ichigo Daifuku (kind of)

2009-05-26T17:12:00.006-04:00

So unbeknownst to my readership I have been experimenting behind closed doors. Not so long ago I was introduced to mochi. Actually the first type of mochi I tried was an ice cream daifuku, a little ball of ice cream covered in a skin of mochi. Mochi, in case you are unfamiliar, is glutinous rice cake made (traditionally) by pounding glutinous rice into a thick sticky dough. It can be flavored with all sorts of things, it can be baked, it can be filled. It is simply lovely. Well, it turns out one can make mochi at home easily enough by substituting the pounded glutinous rice with cooked, reconstituted glutinous rice flour. It may not have the same glorious light yet chewy and smooth texture of traditionally made mochi, but it also it tremendously less labor intesive. When I have a trio of strong men to pound my rice for me perhaps I shall try it that way.

Anyhow! I have been experimenting with making different mochi treats. I say "kind of" in the post title because I am actually cheating. I could not find glutinous rice flour so for the time being, until I can get to the closest Asian market, I am stuck with plain regular rice flour. No, it doesn't have the same texture, no it does not make treats quite as wonderful, but it seems to handle relatively the same, and if you do it right they still come out quite enjoyable.

So long story short I tried out making some ichigo daifuku which are mochi skins filled with whole fresh strawberries which have been surrounded in adzuki bean paste. I made some fresh bean paste just for the occasion and they came out pretty darn tasty. Wrapping the starberries in the bean paste and then covering them proved a bit tricky though, even with cold beans, so I also tried a couple with the strawberries hollowed out and the bean paste hidden inside.

As a side note, I have complained before about making bean paste and about how long it takes to cook the beans, well, this time I soaked them overnight and it cut my cooking time by what seemed like 90%! Splendid. Now the only time consuming, laborious part is straining out the skins :-P

<---Here is another picture of when I got tired of dealing with strawberries and made one just filled with bean paste. My skins are probably too fat, but for the time being I will blame it on not having the right ingredients.

Celebration Berry Crumb Cake

2009-05-26T16:58:00.005-04:00

WOOOOOOO!!!

So I am finally done the horrendous nightmare that has been this past outage at work. No more nightshift. No more 12 hour days. No more eating every meal out of the microwave. I am supremely happy that I am done for another cycle. There has been a rather unfortunate development over the past month, however, which is that Favorite and I are no longer keepers of that which is called, The Internet. The Internet has been taken away from us for the time being and as such I only have access to my blog portal when I am at work. The most unfortunate part of this being that I can not take pictures and immediately upload them. Well, I have managed to get the pics to work to upload so here goes:

I have a recipe book called something like Light Desserts which has a ton of recipes made with fresh fruit. I figured, since it is berry season now, that this would be the best time to try one out. I showed Favorite a narrowed selection of berry recipes and he chose the crumb cake (I knew he would). The recipe was for blueberries, but based on Favorites preference in berries we decided to go with mostly blackberries with a few raspberries thrown in the mix.
The cake base was coffee cake like in density and sweetness and had some fresh lemon zest thrown in to brighten it up. The batter went in to a round cake pan followed by beautiful, fresh, fat blackberries and raspberries. On top of this went a cinnamony brown sugar crumb topping and into the oven it went. The cake came out brown and springy, the crumb golden and sweet, and the berries, hot and glorious (very, VERY, hot! I burnt my fingers a bit turning it out to cool). Favorite was about to dig in to his piece when I convinced him it wouldn't be right to eat it without a dollop of fresh, lightly sweetened whip cream and a couple of fresh berries. He managed to hold off woofing it down and he was glad he did. The blackberries were quite sweet with a good bit of tang that was tempered by the more overt sweetness of the raspberries and the crumb topping. It also went splendidly with a cup of vanilla camoro black tea. Overall I felt it was a good opening to the next couple of months of being able to bake in season. I hope I get to do a couple more of these recipes with super fresh tasty fruit.

Woe is the Baketress!

2009-05-14T23:13:00.002-04:00

So it has been about 4 weeks since the outage has started and I have not baked a thing in what feels like forever! I am going cuckoo working the night shift. As it turns out it is a good thing I don't live in Alaska because never seeing the sun does funny things to a person. In fact, the only things I seem to see anymore are the view outside my car window as I am driving to and from work, the inside of my cubicle walls, and the backside of my eyelids. I miss my Favorite! I miss my kitties! I miss fresh hot meals and lazy weekends! Luckily, the end is in sight. More of the outage is behind me than is ahead of me. Armed with that knowledge I think I will be able to make it through.

Sorry I have no pictures to adorn this wonderful post with, but the inside of my cube isn't that great. Plus, we're not allowed cameras onsite anyway.

Hope everyone is doing well here in the Blogosphere and beyond. Feel free to keep me abreast of current events by emailing me or commenting on my post. I don't have a lot of contact with the outside world right now and updates on the state of affairs are appreciated.

Surprise Mixed Berry Tartlet

2009-04-27T04:16:00.005-04:00

So Saturday night (can I still say last night if it's really 4 am Monday morning already?) was my first outage night off. Jay has been super awesometastic making me lunches with huge amounts of good foods and snacks, taking care of the kitties, and taking care of the house. He has even dealt very well with my grumpiness the few times I saw him at home while coming or going from my shift. Then he stayed up until after 1 in the morning with me on my night off so he could see me longer. He is totally the best ever! So I wanted to do something nice for him. He had been talking about wanting a tasty fruit dessert in celebration of spring so I decided (at about 5 in the morning) to whip up a little fruity pie, tart, whatever you wanna call it for his breakfast.

I actually had some leftover pie crust in the fridge and some mixed berries in the freezer. I know that fresh berries would have been better in the spirit of spring, but this is what I had. So I rolled the crust and used it to line the bottom and sides of a little white creme brulee dish. I then took a good handful of my frozen berries and stuck them in a small pot to thaw. When I realized that they may overcook in spots from the lack of liquid I poured in a little pomegranate juice just to cover the bottom of the pan. I let this sit on low until the berries were heated through. I added a little bit of flour and mixed it in well to thicken up the juices of the fruit. I let this sit on the stove a little while longer just for extra insurance against the taste of uncooked flour. While this was simmering I mixed up some butter, cinnamon, brown sugar, and oats. I cut the butter into the rest of the mix to make a crumby topping. I then put the berries into the pie crust, careful not to overfill it and trying to get more berries in there than juice. I crumbled the topping over the berries, place the dish on a cookie sheet and popped it in a 350 degree oven until the top and crust were brown and the fruit mix was thick and bubbly. Favorite got this served to him in bed with a nice cup of tea!

Favorite was very excited despite also being VERY zonky. He delighted me in my early morning baking by saying that his breakfast was "absolutely delicious" and "extremely satisfying". Win! That was all I needed to fall asleep happy and fulfilled (plus he shared a bite or two with me!).

Honey Cake

2009-04-22T21:06:00.004-04:00

So I've officially started working 12 hour night shifts. I will be working nearly 80 hour weeks (all between the hours of 6pm and 8 am) for the next 30 days or so. Needless to say there will not be a whole lot of baking going on. Although I DO have Saturday nights off and since Favorite will still have to go to bed like a normal person, I may end up spending the wee hours of Sunday mornings baking snacks to take to work.

But enough about that! Recently, though I can't seem to remember when, Favorite came home and said "I need dessert!! What can we make?" I was very excited that he wanted to cook with me so I broke out a few recipe books and began making suggestions. For simplicity as well as delicious-looking-ness we chose to bake up a Honey Cake. This was an interesting recipe as it first had you melt the butter and brown sugar over low heat. To this you add the honey. We used an interesting mix of honies we had in the house. Two were very dark "Wald Honig" honeys from the forests of Germany, one was creamed honey from a local bee keeper, and one was a light colored raw honey complete with comb in the jar. Then you mix the liquid (after it has been cooled) into the dry mixture with the beaten eggs. It all came together very easily although I didn't use my Kitchenaid and considering the thickness of the batter I definitely should have.

The mix of high quality honeys made this cake very tasty and the high amount of sugar made for a fabulous little crust on the outside of the cake. It tasted great with a cup of strong black tea. Looked pretty good too.

Do-Si-Dos, a Dance with Peanut Butter Cookies

2009-04-17T08:15:00.008-04:00

Look at these fabulous peanut butter cookies!!

Did a Girl Scout show up at my door this week?

Was I keeping these in the freezer for a moment of weakness?

No!

I made them in my very own kitchen!

Mmmmm Do-Si-Dos have always been my favorite of the GS cookie selection (I can hear all of you Somoas lovers out there in vehement disgust) and when I found a copy cat recipe for them on the internet I knew I had to try it out. I found a recipe at Baking Bites along with some other GS favorites. The recipe as written makes a crazy huge amount of cookies, so knowing my penchant for eating as many Do-Si-Dos as are set in front of me I cut the recipe down to 1/3. While some comments on the recipe site state these were too salty, too bitter from the leavening, or had filling that was too buttery, I thought they were fantastic!

There ARE a couple caveats to that glowing review however. For one thing, I used unsalted butter. I thought this was the norm in baking, but in case you want to make these with salted butter, don't. I also cooked my cookies a little longer than the recipe states to achieve the crispness I desired, otherwise the cookie ended up a little chewy, very much unlike the GS version. I also added a little more powdered sugar to the filling than is stated although this was more to get a thicker filling than to change the flavor. Since I was cutting things in thirds I wasn't quite sure my filling ingredients were measured accurately so I just added stuff til it looked right. Even though I made mine thicker I still preferred to leave the cookies in the fridge to really set up the middles so they wouldn't goosh when I bit them. Although, to be fair, this is also how I keep my GS cookies.

So! Next time you get a hankering for some cookies from those little green clad darlings and you haven't seen them canvassing the neighborhood in a while, think about producing some out of your own oven. Just make sure you have a nice cold glass of milk to wash them down!

Cashew Shortbread Cookies

2009-04-08T08:56:00.004-04:00

Shortbread cookies befuddle me. I have made many a shortbread cookie and they almost always get good reviews, but they seem to always leave me doubting the final product. Is it too crisp? Too floury? Did I bake it too long? Is the texture right? One of the reasons I find them so confusing is that you are not supposed to achieve browning, which always leaves me worried to overbake which inevitably leads to me underbaking. Also, there are two general methods by which to make the dough and they seem in direct conflict with one another. The first method, the method I generally use, is to use really cold butter and to cut it in to your flour and sugar until it is like sand. Then you mix it with you hands just enough to get the dough to come together, careful not to manhandle it and get the butter all melty. I believe this is in an effort to produce tiny pockets of butter in the dough in order to yield a crisp light cookie. The other method is to use a mixer or food processor to blend the butter into the dry mix until it all holds together. This seems to me that it would end up overblending the mix and making a tighter, less delicate texture to the cookie. I had never actually tried this method before though so I thought it was time to give it a shot. Behold the Cashew Shortbread Cookie!
The recipe for this cookie came out of a Land O'Lakes cookie book. This is an interesting fact because the thing I liked least about these cookies was the butter and I had used store brand butter. I am seriously beginning to doubt the quality of this store brand butter as anything that relies on the butter to come out well (like my ultra greasy Bocca Di Nonna) comes out greasy and has strange results. For example, the first portion of this recipe called for me to brown the butter for the dough (and also some for a frosting that was never made). I have browned butter before, just recently as a matter of fact when I was at my mom's house making browned butter frosting with Dayna. The strange thing that happened was instead of my butter browning, little FLECKS of my butter browned and almost burnt while it left the rest of the liquid golden and clear. This was when I gave up on the browning and poured off the liquid and threw away the bits. I then had to let the butter sit in the fridge for some hours until it hardened up again to make the dough. I then mixed the resolidified, not browned, butter into the rest of the dough ingredients according to the recipe. This was blended together with finely chopped cashews and then rolled into balls (another thing I've never done with shortbread!) before placing them on the cookie sheet. The cooled cookies were supposed to be frosted, but given Favorite's dislike of frosting, I chose to simply push a cashew half into the top of each cookie while they were still warm and pliable.

All in all these cookies came out alright. The bottoms of the cookies spread a little too much and ended up browning, they were a little greasy, and as I suspected they did not acquire the delicate texture I think a shortbread should have. If I were to make these cookies again I think I would try better butter and go back to my old cutting in the butter technique. As a matter of fact, I may just start buying better butter either way as I am tired of my cookies coming out funny and would like to see if my store brand butter is the culprit.

Green Tea Cake with Adzuki Cream

2009-04-04T20:25:00.007-04:00

The cake has been assembled! I finished making my matcha and red bean cake.

The cake part of this cake is a matcha sponge cake that I cooked in a jellyroll pan and then sliced into quarters. The filling is a sweetened whip cream with red bean paste. For those of you unfamiliar with red bean paste, or adzuki paste, it is made with cooked red beans, sugar, a pinch of salt, and a small amount of shortening for texture purposes. The beans are mashed and strained to remove hard bits and pieces of skin, and then it is all mixed together and simmered until thick. It is little labor intensive to make, but if you can't find it at your local store it's better to make it yourself I think than trying to buy it online. Plus then you have the added comfort of knowing the proportions of ingredients in your bean paste and having it be fresh and delicious and not taste like can!

So I made the bean paste early in the day because it takes HOURS to cook the beans. I then made the sponge cake and allowed it to cool. I whipped up the cream, added some sugar (not too much because the bean paste is sweet too) and then mixed in some bean paste until I liked the color. The recipe said 4 tbsp, but I might have put in up to twice that. Just taste it and stop adding when you like the flavor. I slathered the whipped cream mixture between the layers, stacked them up and then coated the whole thing. I put it in the fridge then to allow it all to set up a little. After dinner I made some gunpowder green tea and cut up the cake. I recommend using a bread knife and being delicate about cutting because if you're not you will squish out a lot of the filling and it just won't look very nice. Favorite had been questioning my judgement of mixing red bean paste with the green tea cake, but one bite changed that: "This is insanely delicious!!" So, we drank a whole pot of tea and ate more than half the cake in about 10 minutes.

I had seen this cake before and searched high and low on the internet for a recipe (had I known the filling was just whipped cream and bean paste I could have winged it, but I didn't). A lot of what I found was the green tea cake with chocolate. I didn't want to do that because it seemed to me the chocolate would overwhelm the delicate flavor of the matcha. The only version of this cake I could find was one for a jellyroll, but obviously the change in structure didn't hurt the tastiness of the cake. Here is the recipe for anyone else out there having a hard time locating one:

Matcha Cake with Adzuki Cream

Ingredients:

3 eggs, separated
1 cup sugar
1/3 cup water
½ tsp vanilla
1 tsp matcha powder
¾ cup flour
1 tsp. baking powder
¼ tsp salt
powdered sugar
1 cup cream
sugar to taste
4 tbsp red bean paste

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 375
2. Grease parchment cut to fit jelly roll pan.
3. Beat egg yolks and ¾ cup of the sugar.
4. Add vanilla, water, and match powder at low speed.
5. In separate bowl beat egg whites with a pinch of salt.
6. Beat ¼ cup of sugar into egg whites until firm peaks form.
7. Mix flour, baking powder and salt in separate bowl.
8. Gradually add dry mix to yolk mixture.
9. Fold half of meringue into yolk mix until smooth.
10. Carefully fold in remaining meringue.
11. Pour batter into jelly roll pan and bake for 8-15 minutes.
12. Turn cake onto wax paper dusted with powdered sugar and peel off backing parchment.
13. Allow cake to cool.
14. Whip cream and add sugar to taste.
15. Add bean paste.
16. Spread whipped mixture onto cooled cake and cut and stack layers until desired size.
17. Serve immediately or refrigerate.

Toffee Chip Cookies

2009-04-04T18:55:00.003-04:00

So another item that I am blogging post mortem (they are all gone) are some Toffee Chip Cookies. These, like the coffee cookies from the last post, called for refrigeration and slicing (which again I did not do!) but they seemed to work out with the mooshing method better than the coffee cookies. They were sweet and satisfying and a little crisper than typical drop cookie comes out. I made these with my sister Dayna and we ended up frosting some of them, ok, MOST of them, with a browned butter frosting that made them SUPER sweet but irresistible nonetheless. These were going to get a sprinkling of pecans, but they left the cooling rack at about the same rate they went on so the pecans never happened.

Coffee Frosted Coffee Cookies

2009-04-04T15:22:00.004-04:00

Rawr.

So things have been crazy again lately and I have once again lapsed in my blogging diligence. I HAVE been baking though, but it has been kind of razed baking, not the kind where you slowly prep everything and take photos and admire the results. I will tell you my tales, though, even if I don't have all of the photographic evidence.

First off were the Coffee Frosted Coffee Cookies. I think in my Ultimate Cookie Book they were actually called coffee sandwich cookies or something, but I neglected a good portion of the recipe which was requisite for the sandwich part. My impatience has caused the end product to suffer once again.The image is terrible, I know. Anyhow, these were pretty simple cookies flavored with instant coffee granules. The cookies themselves were kind of tea cookie like. A little biscuity, but satisfying. The frosting was a cream and powdered sugar base flavored with instant coffee and coffee liquer. It really gave these a punch since none of the alcohol was cooked off. So the reason these cookies did not come out optimally was because it was a last minute throw together and I realized the recipe wanted me to chill the dough for some ridiculous number of hour so I could pat it into a rectangular log and slice off thin square cookies to make my sandwiches with. I, instead, used my cookie scooper and squashed then flat with my fingers. They tasty good, but were not of show quality for sure. Oh well.

I've also recently acquired some matcha powder which I have been trying to get forever. I made a really quick and easy shortbread that came out simply beautiful, though I thought the flavor was a little too delicate and could've stood a tad more matcha powder. They went so quick I did not get a snap of them. Never fear, they were simple and tasty enough that I will definitely make them again.

So this is a super lame post, but stay tuned because I have some adzuki beans boiling on the stove and a matcha genoise cooling on the table. There is a tasty layer cake in my future!

Malted Milk Cookies

2009-03-16T20:56:00.005-04:00

I have been searching high and low for malted milk powder since I found a recipe in my Ultimate Cookie Book for mated milk cookies. They looked delicious and I love the flavor of malt (even when it's stolen from Favorite's beer making supplies!). Well I finally found my malted milk powder in Shaw's when I went to visit my mom on Friday. I was very excited to try out my malty cookies! The recipe was pretty straightforward as far as cookies go with the addition of malt powder and melted chocolate. The only minor issue was that I had no Whoppers to chop up and stick in the cookies. I didn't really care about this however, so I made about 16 cookies with no malt ball chunks. They were chewy, they were malty, they were... flat???

These were the flattest cookies I have ever baked save for the bocca di nonna. I was not too sad, but I could see from the picture that this was not how they were supposed to be. They were supposed to be fat like chocolate chip cookies! Well, I thought to myself, perhaps they really need the malt ball pieces to hold up in the oven better. I brought the 16 flat cookies to my mom's house where they were eaten to wash down the fantastic boiled dinner provided. The next day I picked up the malt balls. I chopped almost a whole box up, I mixed them in, I tried more, I tried less, I tried turning the heat down, all my cookies melted down to pancakes. I'm not sure what went wrong. I know that sometimes if your butter is too soft this will happen, but I left the remainder of the dough in the fridge overnight! Oh well. They were still scrumptious, but I am still left wondering how I erred.

Toffee Bars

2009-03-16T20:26:00.009-04:00

This past Thursday night I was anxious to bake something. I had picked out Honey Nut Bars, a glorious looking combination of honey, walnuts, and coconut, but I wanted to bring these to my Mom's house and my Stepdad hates coconut. Add to that the fact that almost every goodie I've ever brought to their house has had coconut in it and I decided to make something else. Since toffee is one of his favorite treats I thought the Toffee Cookie Bars were a winning idea. They looked pretty simple and fast and tasty so I dove in.

I didn't get home until 9:30 because I have a class on Thursday nights, but I wasn't worried because it was just a matter of mixing and layering a couple ingredients, no big deal. So I threw together the cookie base which was mostly brown sugar and butter (YUM!) with flour and an egg yolk thrown in to make it a bit more substantial. This got pressed in the bottom of the pan that had been prepared with a greased parchment bottom and greased sides and baked for 20 minutes. Next was the sweet stuff. I was to mix a can of sweetened condensed milk with butter and cook until thick an bubbly. Now is where I hit a roadblock. I had NO sweetened condensed milk. My last minute change in dessert direction had me minus an ingredient! So I looked up some substitutions on the internet. One said use evaporated milk with added sugar. Ok, but I only had a tiny little 5 oz can of that. I ended up using th evaporated milk, plus about a cup or so of regular milk, plus a bunch of sugar. It took HOURS to concentrate the milk to a point I thought was thick enough. Then I added the butter, got it all bubbly, and poured it over the base. I baked this for another 12 minutes or so, covered it in chocolate chips, another couple minutes in the oven, spread the chips out into a smooth, consistent layer, and topped it all with toasted pecans.

I let the bars set overnight in the fridge after they had come to room temp. I then chopped them up with my trusty Wilton Cookie Shovel. I have to tell you, the recipe did not call to cover the bottom of the pan in greased parchment, but I am sure glad I did. I have never had much luck getting anything bar-like out of a rectangular pan in one piece, but the parchment allowed me to get the bars out much more easily, and without injuring the bottom of my pan.

These bars ended up delicious, but very, very sweet. I'm not even really sure the consistency was right due to winging the ingredients a little, but they are good with a strong cup of coffee. Oh! And Charlie (my Stepdad) thought they were great!

Cinnamon Chocolate Macaroons

2009-03-08T18:16:00.015-04:00

Okay, so I'm trying to make up for lost blogging time. This is my second post of the day because I did manage (despite completely forgetting about daylight savings time!) to carve a spot out of the day in which to bake.

I was back into my Ultimate Cookie Book today and it has produced another winner. I wanted to do something simple and already had my mind on meringue when I nearly opened the book right up to Cinnamon Chocolate Macaroons. Splendid!

I separated out my two whites and set them in the Kitchenaid bowl to come to room temperature while I prepared the rest of my ingredients. I chopped a half cup of pecans, got a cup of coconut, grated 1/2 an ounce of chocolate and even ground a teaspoon of cinnamon from the stick with the new hand powered spice grinder I bought (think the peppercorn grinders but with smashed cinnamon sticks in there instead).

After about a half an hour I started whipping up the whites with the vanilla until soft peaks. I then added the cinnamon and 2/3 cup of sugar gradually and beat until I got to stiff peaks. It already looked like I wanted to eat it at this point. I then folded in my nuts, coconut and chocolate.

The mixture then got plopped on parchment paper by the teaspoonful and sent into a 375 degree oven. The recipe said to bake them for 20 minutes, but I found that they were dry on the outside and set at about 17 minutes. Actually they probably could've come out at 15 or 16 minutes, as most came out a little hollow and with less chewy inside than I'd hoped, but they were still quite delicious.

When they came out they cooled for a bit on the pan and then the cooling rack. They didn't hold their heat for long and then Favorite and I were stuffing them in our faces. Sweet, nutty, chewy and fantastic! They could stand a little more chocolate, but the coconut, pecans, cinnamon, and chocolate are in amounts that compliment each other and adding more chocolate, though delicious, might detract from the other components.

All in all I would say these cookies were a success. They are great at satisfying a sweet craving but are so light you don't have to feel guilty about eating a couple. This, of course, is in complete contrast to the Bocca di Nonna of the last post which were overly rich and greasy with very little in the way of satisfaction.

That's all for today!! Hopefully I will be back soon to detail another foray into the adventures of tasty treats. I can't imagine these macaroons will last long...

Bocca Di Nonna - Back to Blogging

2009-03-08T08:42:00.012-04:00

Oh boy have I been lax again! I took a week or so off from baking and it turned into a month! As it turns out after my small baking hiatus I got sick with some kind of flu-like wonder and it turned right into bronchitis which put me out of commission for a while. Then once I started baking again I seemed to be too busy catching up on stuff I neglected while I was sick that I didn't have any time to blog it. Well I am back. Sadly I only have one offering right now, unlike my sister's epic posts that tend to have 5-10 delicious treats at a go, and frankly it was quite disappointing.

I made a batch of cookies called Bocca Di Nonna. From the recipe the cookies appeared to be similar to florentine lace cookies with and earl grey chocolate ganache sandwiched in the middle. Although I made them from a recipe book you can also find the exact recipe posted online HERE (along with my less than stunning review of it). The recipe seemed simple enough. Like one of my sister's recipes for walnut cupcakes it uses a large amount of ground nuts, in this case almonds, for the bulk of the cookie. There is also a HUGE amount of butter. Herein lies my problem with these cookies. The cookies spread out a lot more than they were supposed to even though I used cold butter to begin with and chilled the dough after processing. I also made sure to allow the pans to cool between batches. There was nothing that could be done, they just contain too much butter. After removing each batch of cookies from the parchment paper they were baked on I could see rivulets of buttery grease that had been left behind. The cookies were also exceptionally brittle. After preparing and cooling the earl grey ganache (which was actually quite interesting and tasty) I endeavored to spread it on half the cookies so I could top them with the other half but the edges were so extremely fragile that I probably ended up with a few whole cookies worth of crumbs by the time I was finished. At this point I still had a feeble amount of hope that they might end up ok because they actually looked rather nice. This all being despite the fact that the ganache was oozing through some of the thinner parts of the cookies and that my hands were getting covered in grease from handling the buttery abominations. Well, I decided first to layer the cookies in paper towels. Maybe after absorbing some of the grease they would be salvageable. Then I decided to put the paper towel layered cookies in the fridge; maybe hardening up the grease would at least make them more palatable. Well nothing made me satisfied with these cookies. The flavor components are not substantial enough to hold up to the overwhelming flavor of greasiness. The only way Favorite and I have been able to dispose of them down our gullets is to break up the cookies and smother them with vanilla ice cream and cowboy sauces (chocolate and brown sugar dessert sauces made with beer). I may try these again someday, with a good amount of the butter removed from the recipe, but more likely than not, if I get the urge to make these again, I will just make florentines and add the earl grey ganache to those instead.

In defense of my lack of baking, you should know that I also made some allergy free brownie bites right before I got sick that were pretty darn tasty, but I have no pictures of them. I used the recipe posted HERE. Despite the lack of flour and eggs and dairy these little brownie nibbles were very chocolaty and satisfying. I'm sure they would be good with a dairy free ice cream if you wanted to go vegan all the way, but I know for a fact they were splendid with the good old cow ice cream that I ate them with.

So, for lack of stunning dessert pictures I will now pummel you with some adorableness. Prepare:

Peanut (the big headed guy) seems like he knows when I am taking pictures and endeavors to be supremely adorable. His charisma easily translates to pictures.

Marmalade (the mountain lion looking guy) doesn't appreciate the camera as much as he knows he ends up looking ferocious and fearsome. While I don't doubt his ability to take down a gazelle given the chance, this guy is the biggest mooshy love bug you will find.

Well that's it for this post. It is already the end of the weekend, but perhaps I could whip up something tasty as an offering to the gods of baking so that they may forget about the greasy cookies I made. I must atone for this baking catastrophe.

Salvaging and Valentine's Cupcakes

2009-02-15T12:33:00.015-05:00

So I have concluded that the divinity disaster could probably be attributed to a combination of things. The first thing is that rule number one of making divinity is to never make it on a humid day. Although I am pretty darn sure it couldn't be called a humid day I am not so sure it isn't humid in my apartment. Between all the cooking and beer making that occurs here it wouldn't surprise me to find out we generally have a relatively high humidity level. I also think I may have not achieved stiff enough peaks in my eggs. I was worried about over whipping and busting down the protein structure so may not have whipped quite as long as I should have either before OR after adding the sugar syrup. Rest assured this recipe will be tried again. I will not accept candy defeat! Anyhow, the nougat was still tasty even if it lacked the fluff so I figured out a way to salvage it. I did what any smart person would do when trying to fix a sweet-gone-wrong: I doused it in chocolate. Here is my pile of candies:

As you can see I've tried (in vain some of the times) to put fancy designs on the top. They don't exactly look professional, and there are definitely no two of the same size and shape, but they impressed my coworkers at least. I DID have a little trouble with my chocolate however. I am not awesome at tempering chocolate so throughout the "enrobing" process the amount of temper changed. Here I have an example of bad, ok, and good tempering:The chocolate at the far left has a hefty amount of "blooming" caused by chocolate that has been completely melted and cooled at an undesirable rate while not being properly seeded with well crystallized chocolate. So the chocolate becomes a little chalky, melts too quickly when handled, and generally looks less delicious. The middle chocolates don't have any blooming but do have less than awesome texture and also melt very quickly. The far right chocolates have been seeded well with chocolate of good texture that was not overheated to break down the seeds' crystallization. The result is a dark, smooth coat, able to stay at room temperature without any degradation in texture or appearance. Win! I ended up keeping most of the candies in the fridge until just before eating (to soften the nougat) so I could avoid the possible blooming since I wasn't sure how many (or which ones) were tempered correctly.
Here is a (bad) shot of the nougaty insides:

OK! Next up! I wanted to make Favorite something sweet and tasty for Valentine's day. I knew we wouldn't be going crazy this year because we are trying to save for a house, so instead of a romantic weekend away he would have to settle for some Sticky Toffee Squares. This recipe was very interesting as the batter for the cake-like base had NO sugar. The sweetness instead comes from reconstituted dates. The dates are roughly chopped and then boiled until they are soft and a little goopy and then baking soda is added which makes it all foamy and crazy!
The date mixture is then added to a bowl in which butter, flour, eggs, vanilla, baking powder, have been mixed just until combined. The recipe cautions often against overmixing and since I had used cold butter, due to my impatience, I ended up with a VERY lumpy mixture. I was suppose to bake these "bars" in an 8 X 12 pan, but I decided to go for cupcakes. The recipe made a dozen pretty perfectly. Then it was time for the topping. This is where the Sticky Toffee part comes into play. The frosting on these babies is brown sugar, butter, milk, and powdered sugar. VERY sweet. The instructions for the bars are to pour the frosting on, spread it out, and sprinkle some walnuts on top. Since I made cupcakes, and didn't want walnuts, I ended up frosting the cupcakes individually (which meant a thinner layer of frosting) and then rolled the tops in ground pecans. Here they are in various stages of dressing:
Favorite LOVED these babies! He was unsure of the topping at first because he is not a frosting kinda guy, and he wanted me to leave half naked, but once he tried one with frosting and nuts he wanted them all like that. The cupcake itself was just lightly sweet due to the flavor of the dates, and the sweetness and nuts of the topping combines to make this an utterly tasty treat. He especially liked the cupcake split, warmed and topped with vanilla ice cream. Sounds good to me. They really do look pretty yummy.

The last baking of the weekend was not such a success unfortunately. From the same book the Sticky Toffee guys came from I tried a recipe for baked rice pudding. It looked so tasty in the book! It appeared to be a cross between a creme brulee and a silky rice delight. Not so. This dessert tasty more like flan then either creme brulee or rice pudding. I know some people might think "Ooo, flan!" but I do not appreciate this version of custard. It is far too eggy, and especially with this dish, that had no sweet caramel to cover the flavor, the egg was just overwhelming. Trying not to hurt my feelings Favorite offered that maybe it would be good to eat for breakfast, where and egg flavor is more expected, but I think it should just be scrapped and never made again. Sometimes there's just nothing you can do to make a recipe taste good.

Help My Nougat!

2009-02-04T10:46:00.009-05:00

Ok, so I have performed another experiment. I don't have any pics of it up yet because I am writing this post quickly and in desperation. Sadly, no one really follows my blog so I doubt I will get much wisdom, but I have to try something... even the internet won't give me the answer.

I tried to make divinity. I recognize the fact that I am not a very good candy maker. I'm more of a drop cookie kinda gal. I thought that maybe I should put in some practice though because candy can be expensive and making my own, being able to customize it, sounded intriguing.

So I found a recipe for divinity, that soft, fluffy, sweet, white nougat, in my Better Homes and Gardens cookbook. It sounded relatively simple despite that there were 30 minutes in the recipe where I was supposed to be doing nothing, no stirring, no scraping, no measuring, nothing. I am not very good at doing nothing while I'm making something, I am very impatient. I tried my hand anyway. I put the sugar, water, and corn syrup in the pot and stirred just til it started to boil. I then turned the heat down until I achieved a consistent low boil. I boiled it untouched for probably about 25 minutes (though the recipe said 15-20 I wasn't relly concerned because I was being wussy about turning up the heat). Although I took the mixture off just as the termometer closed in on 260 (hard ball stage) I thought it looked pretty dark and had maybe overcooked despite the tellings of my equipment. I beat my egg whites in about 2 seconds with my hand mixed and brought them to what I'm pretty sure was pretty stiff peaks. Then I drizzled in the hot sugar syrup blending as I went. The candy turned out to taste pretty good. I had added vanilla and some chopped pecans to the mix. The problem I discovered was this: my divinity was not divine.

Honestly when I was making the divinity, I did not know it was a form of nougat. I figured this out when nougat was what I ended up with. Hard, dense, filling removing nougat. It wasn't fluffy at all. It didn't stay in nice little mounds on my baking sheet. Instead, it pretended to keep a shape only to ooze into a flattened blob a half an hour later. Why is my divinity so dense? What did I do wrong? How does one achieve the glorious fluffy texture I so desire? I have reviewed a number of divinity and nougat recipes now and they seem so similar that I cannot even really choose a technique out of the recipe that makes them different. Help, someone. Please, help my nougat!

Successes and Failures

2009-02-02T19:57:00.017-05:00

Despite my lack of postings I have made a number of forays into the battlefield of baking since last we met. Some battles have been victorious while others left a good number of casualties.

The first recipe I tried after the squash buns was another recipe from my new book The Ultimate Cookie book. This was the first dud from this publication. The recipe was for Spiced Chocolate Tea Cakes. I know it says cake and not cookie, which should have warned me, but the texture was just all wrong! In making the batter I realized that the dough was VERY stiff.The recipe wanted me to pipe the cookies into shell shapes using a 1/2 inch star tip. The star tip I have was too small and the dough was just too thick so I ended up just using my trusty cookie scoop and smooshing them flat with a wet finger. Favorite thought the turned out ok, but I thought they were dry and flavorless. I will NOT be making these again.
Next up was squashy cakes. I took the leftover squash paste from the buns and added some egg so they would set up. I tried pan frying them but they were too dense with no leavening so I tried steaming them and they just turned into gummy goops. Another failure in the kitchen.
Next up is a winner!! Well, I KINDA made these. Over the Christmas holiday my mom and I made an excess of gingerbread dough and ended up freezing an entire batch. The dough kept very well and I was able to make a really good amount of cookies. Some were nice and big, but I also made a bunch of tiny ones using pie crust cutters in case someone just wanted a nibble.Above you can see my dough rolled out on a pastry cloth with my assorted cookie cutters and my pastry cloth covered rolling pin. Pastry cloth is brilliant by the way. If you've never tried it for rolling cookies or pie crusts you really must. The only downside is when you don't put quite enough flour and then you have to wash the cloth after the dough gets stuck. But here are the glorious cookies!!

I also managed to make a chocolate banana tart after completely destroying some caramel that was meant for a caramel custard. I have no pictures of the tart however. It wasn't very pretty but it tasted ok. It was a pretty simple recipe for a cocoa tart crust (that did not come out too well) and basically milk, eggs, and chocolate poured in the crust with sliced up bananas and baked until set. Not exactly glamorous, but we had company and I needed to make SOMETHING for dessert!

I have also been secretly working on a hat. I got some absolutely splendid alpaca yarn from Favorite's mom for Christmas last year and I finally decided I wanted to turn it into a sweet stocking cap. I did the large bulk of it in about 3 days and then got tired of it and left it for weeks. I finally picked it up again this past weekend with a vengeance. I needed to finish it and so I did. Here it is:I think the grey looks fantastic with Favorite's blue eyes! Since I made him pose for this picture I did him a favor too. He woke up asking for muffins; any muffins. So I provided him with Oatmeal Cinnamon Chip muffins!!It is not super great picture, I know, but the tops had just a little chewy crunch and the insides were moist and pillowy and probably the best muffin texture I had ever achieved. I actually got this recipe from another blogger at Cookie Madness. She has a much better photo of the muffins here. The muffins look a little different however because I have a secret in where I get my cinnamon chips (they are the same ones they use in bakery scones, tiny little delicious cinnamon bursts) and it looks like Anna had to use the big waxy Hershey bits. Eiher way they are just fantastic muffins great for breakfast.

Squashed Buns!

2009-01-17T23:11:00.011-05:00

So, before I expound on my latest foray into sweet creations I will give a quick update for those of you concerned with my transportation situation.

After much pain and agony I located a set of wheels for purchase in CALIFORNIA. As mentioned before it turns out that the new Honda Fit Sport wheels are such a hot commodity to steal that the wheels are back ordered everywhere. The Honda factory simply can't keep up with all the people trying to replace their swiped wheels. Anyhow, I got the wheels, had tires mounted and balanced and the whole shabang put back on my car. The guy from the dealership actually came to my house and put the wheels on right there and then took it back to the dealership to ensure there was nothing else wrong with it. Sounds great right? Well it was pretty good until he peeled out of the parking lot leaving a nice 6 foot strip of the rubber off my new tires. But he made it to the dealer and nothing else was wrong with the car, thank goodness. So I'm rolling again right? Wrong. I drove the car away from the dealer and my TPMS (tire pressure monitor sensor) light comes on. So back to the dealer I go and drop the car off again. So I went back again tonight to get the car. The guy tells me that the sensors weren't initialized correctly the first time, but they totally got it right this time. They even gave it a 15 minute test drive to make certain the light wouldn't come back on. Well it did. It came on 2 minutes from my house. So back I go tomorrow! So much for weekends!

Okay, enough of that. On to yummy stuff. So I've made red bean paste buns before. If you aren't familiar with these goodies they consist of a center of sweetened adzuki bean paste wrapped with a lightly sweetened dough and steamed until the dough is cooked through. The dough comes out soft and delightful and the bean paste is warm and sweet and satisfying. Well I was struck with a bit of inspiration when I had some left over veggies from doing some fondue tempura and I thought, mmmmm... SQUASH BUNS!

So I first made the squash paste. Of course I've never made "squash paste" so I had to kind of wing it. I microwaved the squash, butternut, by the way, until it was just soft enough to mash up. Once I had it mostly mashed I put it in a pot on the stove. I mixed in a good amount of brown sugar to taste and a pinch of salt and cooked it and cooked it (stirring very frequently) so as to remove as much of the moisture as possible. Once it had come to a good thick consistency I stuck it in my mini food processor and whizzed it up. I then pushed it through a seive to remove any extra fibrous bits that were left and, while the mixture was still warm, threw in some vegetable shortening for mouth feel and taste staying power. All in all the procedure to make the squash paste was very similar to making the bean paste except that it took infinitely less time. When making the bean paste the beans cook forever and the skins make sieving the whole mixture extremely time consuming.

So once the paste was made all that was left was to wrap them in dough and pop them in the steamer. There are plenty of recipes on the internet for the sweet bun dough, I recommend you try a few to find one you like a they can be pretty different in texture. Getting the paste in the dough can be a little tricky. You make a little pinch-pot cup out of the dough (remember from first grade?) and then bloop some of the paste in and try your darnedest to get it closed without squishing all the filling out in the process. I didn't take any pics of them pre-steam (I'm still trying to get a hang of this chronicling process) but here they are coming out of their happy little sauna.
I'm not going to lie, those are definitely my squashy fingerprints on the outside of the dough. You can also see that I cooked the buns on little cupcake papers. Recipes will usually tell you to cut out parchment to put them on. It might be easier to get the parchment off the bottom of the buns, but the pre-made cupcake papers are perfectly sized with no waste from unused cut paper.

And here is a good detail shot of the hot , gooey, squashy insides:

A little TOO detailed perhaps. I know I can see some kitty hairs in there. Feel free to leave those out when you make these at your house. So Favorite and I sat down to a couple of squash buns and some hot delicious green tea. It made for quite a lovely little late night snack.

Starting off the New Year

2009-01-11T14:36:00.009-05:00

Well, isn't it just grand to start a year fresh and new? To start with a clean slate with renewed hope and motivation for what can be done? Well, I know I was very excited to start a new year. This year Favorite and I plan to purchase our first home together. That is definitely exciting. And just before the new year we went out and bought me a new car. It is my FIRST new car. I learned to drive in a black, 1993, Chrysler Lebaron. It was a decent car and I managed to keep it for about 5 years even though the doors fell off a few times and the body condition was becoming unsightly until an electrical problem that cost more to fix than the car was worth made it undrivable. My next car was ANOTHER Chrysler Lebaron. This time a red one, a '94, and a convertible. This car also treated me very well. It also had some electrical problems, but with no anti-theft system they didn't keep me from driving it. However, after some leaking in the rain, a window that wouldn't roll down anymore, a broken windshield (from an exploding growler of homebrew beer), and a growing gas leak it was decided that I needed a new car. A REAL new car. So I pondered the decision for about a year (I know, I am CRAZY fast at making decisions) and I finally decided what it would be: the Honda Fit.

So here I am in a new year with a new car looking forward to a new house when I have an experience not so new to me: theft. That's right, I went out early this past Friday morning to go to work and found that the ability to drive my nice new gas efficient car had been eliminated by the distinct lack of wheels.

To add insult to injury the police officer I spoke to told me this was not the first time this had happened in this apartment complex and the management just hadn't thought it necessary to tell anyone. Nice. Also nice was the insurance company letting me know that they might get around to my claim by TUESDAY. Another nice touch? There has been a rash of Honda Fit wheel thefts due to the market provided by people with old souped up Honda Civics that want the new wheels so the wheels themselves are backordered. I could get different wheels, but then the insurance wouldn't cover it. :-P

So what is one to do when they find themselves, robbed, wheelless, and invariably upset? I think you must know the answer: bake yourself a really tasty batch of cookies.

Cookies have an amazing ability to wrap you in coziness and comfort from the moment you start baking them. I needed this ability of theirs to keep from going berserk. Also, if you pick just the right cookie that sensation of comfort returns everytime you put one in your mouth. I tried to pick just such a cookie and happened to succeed. My cookie decision was aided by the fact that these cookies were named "Lumberjack Cookies" by the new cookie book I received (for Christmas) from my Mom. The book is titled The Ultimate Cookie Book by Better Homes and Gardens and if these cookies are any indication, the "Ultimate" is definitely accurate.

The cookies themselves are simply flavored mainly with molasses and with a hint of cinnamon and ginger. The book suggests rolling the dough into walnut sized balls and thn coating with granulated sugar before baking. I tried this on a few of the cookies and they came out very sparkly and pretty, but I didn't feel as if it added to the flavor and, in fact, the sweetness distracted from the lovely essence of the cookie itself so I ended up using my handy cookie scoop just to plop them on the baking sheet. Here they are:The smell of these cookies coming out of the oven was just glorious. They came out soft and gooey. Once cooled they got chewy on the inside with a little crunchiness to the edges. They went very well with a big cup of black tea and even though I halved the recipe in the book it still made a good number of cookies (when looking at the next image take into account that about 6-8 cookies had already been eaten to make sure they were ok).

So that's it for now. Hopefully the New Year has been a little kinder to everyone else. Wish me luck getting my car mobile again before Favorite comes back from Mississippi. Otherwise, I won't be able to get to work to make money to get the wheels back on my car! (Nevermind my newly acquired monthly payment...)

Christmas Cookies and Kitties

2008-12-21T10:38:00.016-05:00

So it's the Sunday before Christmas and Favorite and I are preparing to head over to my parents' house tomorrow so we are wrapping up what Christmassing we can. I had previously found some really cute snowman jars and decided I would fill them with cookie mix and give them as gifts. I also decided to crochet an animal friend as a gift. Here are the results --------------------------->

I got the cookie recipe from razzledazzlecookies.com. It's called Chunky Chocolate Chip Cookie Mix in a Jar. I didn't quite follow the layering instructions because I decided I wanted the snowmen to be mostly white so I separated the cocoa out and stuffed it in their hats and hid the nuts and chocolate chips inside the flour (the base is brown sugar).

Now I couldn't just give these as gifts not knowing how the recipe would turn out, so I HAD to bake a batch for myself and Favorite to make sure they were worthy cookies. I made sure to follow the directions of mixing the mix first and then adding the butter, egg and vanilla because I wanted to see how it would come out without creaming the sugar and butter first. I ended up having to mix it with my hands a little to make it come together ( it's tricky cutting in butter when chips and nuts are getting in your way!) but the cookies turned out scrumptious! They were nutty and chewy with just a little crispness to the outside. The chocolate of the cookie was tasty without being overwhelming (I could even eat them WITHOUT milk) while the melty chocolate chips satisfies any chocolate craving. By the way I used GOOD chocolate chips. Big dark chocolate ones.

So I was satisfied with the cookies making good gifts. I made sure to print a cute little instruction tag for the instructions and crocheted up some tiny little snowman scarves to attach the instructions to the jars.

While I was taking pictures to post here I got a little sad. I've crocheted a little kitty like this one before and I was wondering if my old kitty would miss my new kitty when he was gone. As such I did a little photo shoot with my two sleepy little guys.

Man, those little kitties are just too cute.

Merry Christmas everyone!

Bad Blogger

2008-12-01T07:49:00.006-05:00

I thought I was doing so well with all of my October posts, and then November came and once again I was lost to the blogosphere.

It turns out I am terrible at keeping up with stuff. Since my last post I have made chocolate spice cookies, pumpkin bread pudding, pecan meringue with coffee buttercream. I did not get a picture of ONE of them. I realize the list is really not all that impressive considering I haven't posted for a month and a half. I will try to do better.

Even though I have no pictures I am going to expound on the desserts I made for my own posterity. The chocolate spice cookies were very fast and easy to make. No special equipment required, no eggs, very little fuss. They were made with applesauce and were moist and spicy-delicious. The recipe was from a new book I got called Perfect Light Desserts. The meringue was from this book too. I made the meringue to serve to my sister and her fiance when we had them over for dinner. Once constructed it consisted of a very thick and creamy Swiss style coffee flavored buttercream sandwiched between two 10 inch diameter thin crunchy pecan meringue layers. It was rich and sweet enough to make a satisfying dessert without being heavy and overwhelming. I would make both the cookies and meringue again although the meringue is not nearly as quick and simple as the cookies. Despite having few ingredients, the meringue dessert took a significant amount of time to assemble between creating and baking the two 10 inch meringue layers, letting them cool, and whipping up the buttercream. The buttercream took so long to come together, even with my trusty Kitchenaid, that I was about a minute away from giving it up for lost when it finally broke and I knew it was almost ready. I'm sure it is exaggerated in my head, but it seemed like a half an hour went by easily. This time being added to the time it took to bring the sugar syrup up to temperature and then entirely down to room temp before beating. Whew! I was lucky I finished it before they arrived!

The pumpkin bread pudding was brought to Thanksgiving. With only about a spoonful left at the end of the night I figure it fared pretty well considering the sheer volume of desserts that were there. There are a few things I would change in the future however. I didn't have day old bread for one thing, and I feel like the custard was not properly soaked in. I also could have had a slightly higher custard to bread ratio. The last qualm I had was it needed more pumpkin spices!!! I am a pumpkin fanatic and the best part of pumpkin desserts is getting to spice them.

Anyhow, I will post the recipes soon. Next up though I am using my sweet amigurumi skills to make a floppy stuffed cat. The pattern, although crocheted, is reminiscent of a sock monkey. The final product will surely be fun.

Threadbear

2008-10-19T09:57:00.006-04:00

So I did it. I managed to finish my first tiny animal friend. I haven't decided on a name for him yet though. Maybe Winslow. His arms didn't come out exactly how I wanted them to and I had a hard time getting the face right (you can tell the nose is just, well, not QUITE), but he is here. So no one can complain any longer that the Threadbare Bakery has no threads. I feel really bad because I know any faults in the bear are not his fault, but mine, but still, I kind of just want to sacrifice this one, say I did my best, and give him to a kitty that needs something to chew on... It's hard to tell because the picture is so close up, but he's only about 5 inches tall and would be a perfect toy once rolled in catnip. Well he would be a perfect toy for about 10 minutes until his stuffing innards got all over the floor. This is probably why I haven't committed to naming him. Naming an animal and then sending it to it's death is just wrong.

Cookie Bonanza

2008-10-13T10:04:00.009-04:00

I have to say, I am quite pleased with the way the cookies came out. I made the snickerdoodles and the pecan pralines like expected (though without the icing as I ran out of brown sugar) and since I was running short of time I combined the last two cookies - pumpkin cinnamon chocolate chip cookies. Actually most of the batch was just pumpkin cinnamon chip, but I had some morsels hanging around and added those to the last batch or two.

From top to bottom are the pumpkin cookies, the pecan cookies, and the snickerdoodles.

I can't tell you the final count on how many cookies I made, but there were TONS! I filled two very large tupperware buckets. One could have fit a very large round cake while the other looked the size of a lasagna. I was pleasantly surprised to leave the weekend jaunt a little early with only about 15 cookies left. They were, in short, a hit. One especially nice compliment I got on my snickerdoodles went something like "I really like snickerdoodles, and these taste exactly like snickerdoodles!" Maybe he's not really one for words, but it got the point across.

The snickerdoodle recipe got from joyofbaking.com and the praline cookies I made from a faulous cookie book my mom has so I won't recreate those here (I'll try to get the name of the book sometime). I got the pumpkin cookie recipe from Teri's Kitchen at AOL hometown, but I made some changes to it so I'm renaming them and posting it:

Kerri's Pumpkin Cookies

Ingredients:

2 c. flour
1 c. oats*
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp pumpkin pie spice
1/2 tsp salt
1 c. butter softened
1 c. brown sugar
1 c. sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup pumpkin puree
cinnamon chips**
chocolate chips (optional)***

Recipe:

Preheat oven to 350 deg F.
Combine flour, oats, baking soda, cinnamon, pie spice, and salt.
Cream butter in a separate bowl and gradually add sugars beating until fluffy.
Mix in egg and vanilla.
Alternate adding pumpkin and flour mixture until well combined.
Stir in desired combination of cinnamon chips and or chocolate chips depending on preference.
On a parchment covered baking sheet drop batter by rounded tablespoons (I use one of those fabulolus cookie batter scoops that releases the batter when you squeeze he handle). Leave about two inches between each cookie. It is advisable also to wet your fingerips and flatten just the tops of the cookies so they will cook evenly.
Bake about 12 minutes until cookies are lightly browned.
Cool on wire rack.

The recipe I started from said to pour 1/4 c. of the dough for each cookie and to spread it to shape with a spatula. I didn't want cookies this big and was also afraid they would turn into something more resembling muffin tops. If this is what you are going for try it with the quick oats and the huger cookies and bake them for about 20-25 minutes instead of 12. Doing it my way actually gave a soft chewy pumpkin cookie which I have never had the likes of before as most are either soft and cakey or muffiny. I wanted them chewy so I was very pleased with the results and their relative low moisture compared to the cakey cookies meant that I could cool them and put them in tupperware without them gettin too wet and gooey and falling apart. They actually stayed really well for about a week. They may have been good even longer, except they were eaten so I don't know.

* Original recipe called for quick oats, but I didn't have any so I used rolled oats, this might have made the cookies chewier, which I am all for
** I believe I put in a whole cup of the cinnamon chips. I probably could have cut it to 3/4 because they were REALLy cinnamon chippy. Luckily they're mini chips so they kind of melted into the batter.
*** I only had a very small amount of chocolate chips so I put them in just the last baking sheet worth of cookies. It was probably only about 1/3 of a cup.

More Cookies Coming Up!

2008-10-09T07:08:00.002-04:00

So, no, I haven't finished my poor little koala yet. I just can't seem to find the time to sit down and DO something! It seems lately that once I get home, as soon as I am off my feet I am ready for bed. Luckily, baking is a mostly stand up kind of activity.

I am going out into the middle of nowhere with Favorite (my husband) and some friends this weekend to get some r&r out in a cabin in the woods. What a perfect opportunity to bake some cookies! So I have been making cookie doughs nights when I come home so that tomorrow I can bake them all batch after batch. So far I have a log of pecan praline cookie dough and one of snickerdoodle dough in my fridge. I am going to make at least one, possibly two more doughs. One will definitely have some chocolate in it and the other is going to be something pumpkinny! I have some cinnamon chips that my mom so thoughtfully gave to me and I was thinking about making some kind of pumpkin cinnamon chip cookie with them. We'll see how it goes.

Fibers

2008-09-30T08:42:00.006-04:00

It has recently been brought to my attention that although the title of my blog is the threadbare bakery I have conspicuously left out any fiber relating posts. This is actually because I have been too lazy to create that which does not give immediate gratification. Cookies are splendid because you can throw all the ingredients together, bake them, and eat them all in under an hour. Knitting and crocheting take a little more time and patience. I am happy to report, however, that thanks to my wonderful husband there will soon be a fibrous project to display! Incredible man he is he knows of my need for creation, my lack of time, and my love of the adorable so he bought me this book for my birthday.

His idea was that I can crochet all the little animals in the book, each one in very little time, and then maybe I can design my own tiny animals. I have actually already started and I have begun with the koala featured on the cover. I have all of his body parts made and all I have to do is darn them together. I have made amigurumi designs before and I find although attaching the body parts may sound simple it is actually the most difficult part. This is because the location and angle of the attachment is what really determines what the final critter looks like and whether or not their body shape seems natural. Well I will see if I can get the motivation to sit down and attach the little koalas bits and pieces and I will most certainly post the final results.

Oktoberfest-ivus!

2008-09-28T14:46:00.006-04:00

Since the husband and I have moved into our new place we have been very busy moving in, getting married, and going on our honeymoon. We just got back from the honeymoon this past Tuesday so we figured this weekend was a perfect opportunity to show everyone our new place and to celebrate the autumn glory that is Oktoberfest. He did most of the work for this party since all of the beer was homemade. We had on tap a Peppercorn Rye Bock, a Ruby Red Hefeweisen, a Four Grain Ale, an English Mild, and of course an Oktoberfest. We drank and ate in German style (brats, knocks, sauerkraut and potato salad) so I had to make my own contribution. I made Black Forest Cupcakes. It was an awesome decision since I got to utilize so many newly acquired baking items. I used my trusty Kitchenaid to make the batter and whipped topping, my mini food prep to process the cherries (and my new safety edge can opener to OPEN the cherries), my 12 cupcake pan to do the cupcakes AND, the crowning glory, the CUPCAKE TREE.

I got the recipe off of http://www.cupcake-creations.com and it was delicious! The only problem with it was they looked so nice in my cupcake tree that no one wanted to be the first to take one and mess it up!

Ice Cream Goodness

2008-08-04T13:39:00.004-04:00

So I am toying with the idea of adding my ice cream conquests to my blog. It is not made with thread, nor baked in an oven so I'm a little on the fence about the whole thing. I DO often incorporate homemade ice cream into desserts involving home baked goods, so they are not exclusive of one another, but I have yet to make the leap. Either way I'll let you know that there was a double batch of banana pudding ice cream made up last night. One was mixed with smashed oreo cookies. Both batches had a lot of delicious flavor, but the recipe was a little strange (it involved cool whip, pudding, and sweetened condensed milk, but no CREAM) and the resulting ice cream seems a little more icy than creamy. Still, I think I'll eat it all :-).

New Oven = Tons of Yummies!

2008-07-29T14:44:00.007-04:00

I have been baking up a storm! My fiancee and I just moved into a new apartment together at the beginning of the month and the change has brought me a wonderful opportunity in the form of a practically brand new oven. The oven I had been using previously never had any idea of what temperature it was or what is was supposed to be. As a result I was somewhat limited to cookies as they are much more forgiving than cakes and more delicate pastries (plus cookies still taste pretty good even when they are lightly burnt or a little dry). Well I have made up for all of the time spent with the crappy oven (2 years) in the span of the last month. Since moving in I have baked:

pumpkin scones (twice)
cinnamon scones (twice)
orange scones
graham cracker bundt cake
strawberry rhubarb pie
pumpkin pie
peanut butter oatmeal cookies
chocolate dipped peanut butter shortbread cookies
german chocolate sandwich cookies

Okay, so maybe none or these items have really CHALLENGED the new oven. I haven't tried any souffles or cream puffs or anything, but nothing got burnt and nothing dried out and it all slid very nicely out or off of whatever it was baked in or on. The unfortunate thing is that most of these baked goods got eaten before they could be captured on film. I guess I will just have to make them all again so I can do a glorious photoshoot. So I know that my new oven can perform, and so can my glorious new kitchenaid (it has certainly been broken in) now the only question is; what to bake next?

Dim Sum Dessert

2008-03-02T18:59:00.007-05:00

I love coconut and I also love the chewy wonderful texture of sushi rice, so when I bought a new recipe book on dim sum and found a recipe for Sweet Coconut Rice Bars I couldn't wait to make them.

Sweet Coconut Rice Bars

Bar:

2.5 c. uncooked glutinous rice
2.25 c. thick coconut milk
.5 c. superfine sugar

Topping:

1.25 c. unsweetened dried shredded coconut
.25 c. thick coconut milk
.5 c. shaved palm sugar or dark brown sugar
3 tbsp. water

Recipe:

cook glutinous rice
heat rice, coconut milk, and sugar in medium heavy bottom saucepan until liquid is absorbed
spread rice in parchment lined baking pan
refrigerate until firm
combine shredded coconut and coconut milk in bowl
heat sugar and water in saucepan until slightly thickened
stir shredded coconut mix and sugar syrup until well combined
spread topping over rice and chill for another hour

Although these bars came out rather tasty and addictive, there are some thing I would do differently next time. The recipe calls for thick coconut milk but all I could find was cream of coconut. The recipe states that you can dilute coconut cream into thick coconut milk by adding water. I mistakenly confused coconut cream with cream of coconut and the result was less coconutty than I would have liked. Next time I will simply mix up the coconut cream and use it straight. I would also cut this recipe in half as it makes more than 2 people can eat in a weeks worth of desserts.

First Post, Not my first Cookie

2008-02-17T14:07:00.009-05:00

I make a lot of cookies, but since I've only just started blogging it would be ridiculous to posthumously resurrect cookies that have descended into my stomach never to be heard from again. Instead I will start now. Here is my most recent cookie. I call it the Chocolate Dipped Pecan Shortbread. You'll have to bear with the low quality images. They are the best I can do.

Chocolate Dipped Pecan Shortbread Cookies

Ingredients:

1 c. toasted pecans, coarsely chopped
1 c. unsalted butter
2/3 c. light brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 c. wheat or graham flour
1/4 tsp salt
Your favorite chocolate

Recipe:

In a medium sized bowl combine the flour and salt.
In another bowl cream the butter and sugar together using two butter knives or a pastry cutter.
Add vanilla, flour mixture, and chopped pecans.
Mix (I usually end up doing this with my hands). Do not overmix. Mix just until dough comes together. Little bits of butter are good as they help create crisp little layers like in pie crust.
Divide the dough in half and wrap each half in plastic. Refrigerate until firm (at least one hour).
Preheat oven to 350 deg F. Line cookie sheets with parchment paper.
Working with half of the dough at a time roll to about 1/4" using flour as needed to keep it from sticking to surface or rolling pin. Cut shapes and place on parchment baking sheets.
Refrigerate for 10 minutes to firm up the cookie dough.
Bake for approximately 13-15 minutes or until the shortbreads are brown in color.
Once cookies have all been made and cooled, melt chocolate (no I don't know how much) and dip cookies to your hearts content!

Makes about 36 shortbread cookies (depending on the size).

Note: Making these cookies with wheat flour makes them extra crispy and nutty flavored, but you could just as easily make them with white flour if you prefer.