If you’re in desperate need of money, and have a copy of The Last Course, you should consider selling it – it’s going for quite a bit of money on Amazon.
Make money from your cookbook shelf – Eatocracy – CNN.com Blogs.
I’ll be trying this with my KitchenAid soon…
Have you ever made your own Pumpkin Spice Latte? I love getting them from Starbucks, but it’s so expensive to support a Starbucks habit. This is a recipe I found at The Kitchn. I think I’m going to try it the next time I open a can of pumpkin to make cookies.
DIY Recipe: Pumpkin Spice Latte (Just Like Starbucks!) | Apartment Therapy The Kitchn.
P.S. I’ve figured out how to make my own chai latte, complete with foam! A bonus for DIY – you can use any chai you want, you’re not limited to Tazo.
When a lazy Sunday comes around where you wake up and life is good, when you’re relaxed and you know that the day is going to be relatively low stress, making muffins for brunch (or, er, lunch, if you happen to roll out of bed around 11:30am) is the way to go.
These banana muffins are super simple, taste good, and take one bowl and one measuring cup to put together. They take maybe 15-20 minutes to mix up and another 20 to bake. Don’t use the paper liners like I did…they stuck to the muffins. Get out your trusty cooking spray and spray your muffin tins – life will be much easier.
A hint so that you have fewer dishes to clean: When measuring the liquid ingredients, measure the 1/2 c. of milk into a Pyrex glass measuring cup, then add the 1/4 c. oil (so the liquid should be at the 3/4 c. mark). Crack the egg into the Pyrex, then whisk it all together. You’ll save a couple dishes that way, which is good, because who really wants to be doing dishes on a lazy Sunday?
So. Make the muffins. You’ll be glad you did. Then, try to keep from eating all of them in one day…because, well, the husband and I ate way too many of them today. It’s the lazy Sunday curse…when you don’t want to cook, you grab whatever’s handy – bonus points if it’s freshly baked. Bake on!
It’s been a bit since I’ve written – sorry about that. I took a part time job at a bakery in Manhattan and it took all of my energy. Now that I’ve left, I have plenty of time to post! At least until classes start. I’ve been stocking up on things to post though, so there will be more coming!
Let’s get started with something really…interesting. Cream Soda Toffee Cupcakes. Yes, cream soda. Grab your favorite can and use it here. I wouldn’t suggest using diet (and the recipe specifically says not to). I used Mug Cream Soda – I’ve only ever seen it in NYC and it’s wonderful.
The frosting on these cupcakes is browned butter – one of my favorite foods ever. Ever. Browned butter makes anything it’s in taste absolutely amazing. The recipe also calls for toffee pieces. I couldn’t find any (I checked about 5 stores), so I bought a couple small boxes of Nips. They worked ok but stuck to my teeth. If you can find the toffee, I highly recommend using that instead. Enjoy the cupcakes – bake on!
In the previous post I posted some baseballs that I had made for my Dad (happy birthday and happy Father’s Day, Dad!) but I didn’t post the recipe for the frosting I used. I used a poured fondant for the white on the baseballs and then tinted royal icing red (using Wilton paste food colors, although I think I’m going to switch to Americolor or Ateco because they come in squeeze bottles) for the stitches and the writing. You can find the recipe for the poured fondant here (take a few minutes to read through the blog, it’s great if you like baking and science). While reheating the fondant base, I only used enough of the sugar syrup to make the fondant a bit more liquid (instead of really runny) because I didn’t want it to run over the sides of the cookies…so don’t use the amount he uses, just use enough that you can dip the top of your cookie in and it won’t run over the side. It takes some practice, but it’s worth it to get a perfect finish on the cookies.
The royal icing I used for the stitches is from Peggy Porschen’s Pretty Party Cakes. I seriously want to make all the cakes and cookies in this book, so if you need a custom cake or cookies for an event (or just for the fun of it), let me know. I thinned the royal icing out with a touch of water just until it was thin enough to use with a parchment paper triangle (or a decorating bag with a small round tip). You want to thin it out enough that it will pass through the tip, but you don’t want it to be runny. Here’s something else I did with that royal icing recipe:
Pretty, right? I outlined the butterflies with stiff royal icing, then flooded them with runny royal icing. Click “read more” for the icing recipe!
…To show you what I sent my dad for his birthday and Father’s Day.
You’d think I’d remember that I’m not a huge fan of butter cookies. They’re ok, but I’ll always choose a good oatmeal scotchie over any kind of butter-based cookie (including shortbread, sorry Andy). But no, I forget, and those are the recipes I choose to try first.
Well, although this is a butter-based cookie, it’s still pretty good. These are mocha coconut butterballs, and I got the recipe out of a book. Not a cookbook, but an actual novel. Joanne Fluke writes a series of novels around Hannah Swensen – a baker who solves mysteries. Her newest book, Apple Turnover Murder, features mocha nut butterballs, which I modified slightly to include coconut (one of her suggestions).
The recipe makes between three and four dozen, so these are good if you need something to take to a party – they’re easy, fun, and pretty tasty, especially if you refrigerate them! I know, weird, right? Just out of the oven they had kind of a sandy texture, but when they came out of the fridge (which is how I was setting the chocolate on the top), they were really good and really addictive. They may have disappeared in just a few days. Whoops.
One more thing – the original instructions in the book make the cookies sound as if they’ll stay in a ball shape while they bake. Mine most certainly did not, even though I put the baking sheets in the fridge before I baked them (it was really hot and the dough was getting a bit goopy). The instructions in the book said to roll them in powdered sugar, but they weren’t rollable, so I made a cornet (fancy word for a parchment paper cone…just use a ziploc bag with the corner cut off) and drizzled some chocolate over the top. Yum.
Play around with these – instead of using coconut, use chopped nuts. You don’t need to put the chocolate in the center if you don’t want. Let me know how you make them and how you like them best. Bake on!
I’ve been tossing an idea around in my head, and I think I’m going to implement it. This started out purely as a baking blog (granted, with some extras thrown in – like ice cream), but I think I’m going to start adding cooking to the equation. You see, a girl (and her husband) can only take so many baked goods before she starts to feel like a baked good. Without having people nearby who are willing to accept and eat all of the yummy treats, they sit around our apartment and get eaten by us.
No good. Especially for our waistlines.
So, I’m going to start posting some of the savory dishes that Andy and I have been cooking lately. We took up cooking once we moved to New York, and it’s been a lot of fun! We learned how to make tofu pot stickers and a fantastic paella that you just have to see (and try!).
That being said, I did do some baking this weekend, and sadly, it didn’t turn out as well as I had liked. I was so excited to post pictures of the cute little brownie/chocolate chip cookie hearts that I gave Andy for Valentine’s Day, but the dough just didn’t want to be made into hearts (or bake properly, really. It was underdone). I’m going to have to try again, but I think I’ll save it for next year (or maybe our anniversary in May).
Coming soon on the blog – challa bread, and probably another kind of bread. I’m determined to start making our bread so we don’t have to buy it at the store. So stay tuned, keep watching, and I’ll keep baking (and cooking).
Sorry there’s no post today, but Andy and I picked up our new cat from the ASPCA this morning. His name is Mickey (after Mickey Mantle). There’s been so much to do I haven’t had time to bake! How could you get mad at a face this cute, anyway? More soon, I promise!
