Good Tastin' and Good Lookin'

I'm pulling one from the archives with this recipe. Ask me why I haven't shared these muffins with y'all yet and I couldn't tell you, let alone could I explain why I haven't baked them since that first time way back when. Perhaps it's my curiousity and endless search for something better that's kept them from being a repeat. I love a good blueberry muffin. The sweetness mixed with the slight tartness of the blueberries. Paired with a cup of coffee you've got the perfect breakfast, but accompanied by a glass of milk you've also got a great afternoon snack. I haven't eaten these blueberry muffins in a long while, but I don't know off hand of anyway they could be improved upon, unless you add a sprinkling of struesel on top, but that would take away from the picture perfectness of these "Really Good Blueberry Muffins". Maybe it's the baker in me paired with the blogger in me, but I find eminent satisfaction in those times when I bake something that is not only delicious but also makes you say, "Wow, that looks good!" And, I think this is one of those recipes. Unfortunately, I have no idea the original source. But, I'm thinking I may have possibly gotten the recipe from The Ultimate Muffin Book, I can't swear to it though. Regardless, if you like blueberry muffins, give these a try. Really Good Blueberry Muffins 1/2 c. (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened 1/2 c. granulated sugar 1/2 c. packed brown sugar 3/4 c. milk 1 egg 1 3/4 c. flour 1 tsp cinnamon 2 1/2 tsp baking powder 1/2 tsp salt 1 c. blueberries 2 Tbsp flour Sift together (1 3/4 cup) flour, cinnamon, baking powder and salt, set aside. Cream together butter and sugars. Beat in egg and milk until smooth. Add sifted dry ingredients and mix just until moist. Lightly toss blueberries with 2 Tbsp flour, and gently fold into batter. Fill well-greased or paper lined muffin tins nearly full. Bake at 400 degrees for 20 minutes.

Nutty for Cookies

With my ginormous sweet tooth I love, love, love cookies. The choco-holic in me tends toward chocolate chip cookies, especially MY chocolate chip cookies. My Big Bad Dad aka Mr. Picky Eater on the other hand is a sucker for peanut butter cookies. He doesn't have nearly the sweet tooth that I have, but when there's peanut butter cookies in the house he can't walk by the jar without eating one. I dig the cute little criss-cross pattern that you see on almost all peanut butter cookies, but I don't like that crumbly texture that many peanut butter cookie recipes yield. So, long ago I decided that if they're going to be the much requested cookie around our house I need to find a recipe that suits me. After numerous tries, all of which were edible, some I considered promising even, but most of which weren't worth blogging or making a second time, I found the one. From the tempting dessert cookbook Caprial's Desserts I tried and loved Caprial's mom's peanut butter cookie recipe. The cookies are sweet, soft and chewy. They're totally F-A-B-U-L-O-U-S I tell ya. The only change I made was to add a cup of peanut butter chips, which for us is a must in any peanut butter cookie. I've been making these cookies for some time now, several years probably, and have been meaning to blog them, but slacked off and never did. My apologies for depriving you lovely readers of such delicious cookies. And my thanks to Marco for prodding me for this recipe, thus prompting me to get off my butt and share it with everything. Doubley Peanut Buttery Peanut Butter Cookies 1 cup cold unsalted butter, diced 1 cup granulated sugar 1 cup firmly packed brown sugar 2 eggs 1 tsp vanilla extract 1 cup peanut butter (NOT natural and I prefer chunky) 3 cups all-purpose flour 2 tsp baking soda 1/2 tsp salt 1 cup peanut butter chips Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease or line baking sheet with parchment paper and set aside. Place the butter and both sugars in the bowl of a mixer and beat on high, scraping down the sides of the bowl often, until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes. With the mixer on low, add the eggs and vanilla, then add the peanut butter and mix well. Add the flour, baking soda, and salt and mix on low until all ingredients are incorporated. Increase the speed to medium and mix just until the dough is smooth. Stir in peanut butter chips. Using a tablespoon or a small ice cream scoop, form the dough into 1/2 inch balls and place on the prepared pan. Flatten dough balls with a fork. Bake just until golden brown about 10 minutes. Let the cookies cool for about 5 minutes on the pan, then transfer to a rack and let cool completely. Yield: approximately 48 cookies

Breakin' Bread

I absolutely LOVE bread..I'm a carb addict, honestly. I swear to you I could never do the Atkin's Diet, I wouldn't last a day without carbs. Breakfast/lunch usually consists of bagels, waffles, homemade muffins or something along those lines. And, with that said..I made bread! From scratch, with yeast and everything. My goal is to learn the art of bread making. And I will be honest, that seems like no small feat to me. Bread baking has always been a bit intimidating to me. All that kneading, and rising..scary. I used a recipe from The Weekend Baker, which by the way is a fantastic book. It seems to have lots of great recipes. The book is broken down into 3 sections, based on the amount of time you are able to devote to the recipes. The only thing I don't like about the book is there aren't a lot of photos. I'm super visual so great color photos are a HUGE must for me when it comes to cookbooks! Peasant Boule Makes 1 round loaf 3 1/3 cups all purpose flour 2 1/4 teaspoons (1 packet) instant yeast 2 tablespoons granulated sugar 1 1/2 teaspoons table salt 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder 1 1/3 cups very warm water (between 115 & 125 degrees) 2 tablespoons unsalted butter melted Optional: 2/3 cup finely chopped mixed fresh herbs (recipe can be prepared by hand, however instructions are for using a stand mixer, as that's the method I used) 1. To mix in a stand mixer In a large bowl of a stand mixer, combine flour, yeast, sugar, salt and baking powder. Whisk until well blended. 2. Check water temp; should register about 120 degrees on an instant-read thermometer. In order for the yeast to grow, the liquid needs to be between 115-125 degrees. 3. Fit mixer with dough hook. With the mixer on medium-low speed, slowly pour the warm water into the flour mixture and mix until the flour is completely incorporated. Add the chopped herbs (if using). Increase the speed to medium-high and beat until the dough is smooth and pulls away from the bottom and sides of the bowl, about 6 minutes. If the dough clumbs up the hook, stop the mixer and scrape the dough back into the bowl. Don't venture too far away while the dough is mixing, as the mixer might dance around on the counter because of the large amoutn of dough. 4. Let the dough rise Scoop up the dough & shape into a ball. Lightly grease the bowl & pop the dough back into it. Cover the top securely with plastic wrap. Let the covered dough rise in a warm spot until doubled in size, about 45 minutes. 5. Generously butter an 8-inch round cake pan. Turn the dough out onto clean work surface (no need to flour; the dough is soft, but not sticky) and press down gently to deflate it. Shape dough into a rough 7 inches wide & place it, smooth side up, in the prepared pan. Generously brush with some of the melted butter. You may not need all the butter. 6. Let dough rise (no need to cover it) in a warm spot until doubled in size, about 25 minutes. It will fill the pan and will be light and airy to the touch. 7. Position an oven rack on the middle rung. Heat oven to 375 degrees. Brush dough with remaining butter. 8. Bake until the boule is well browned and sounds hollow when tapped, abuot 40 minutes. Transfer pan to a rack, tip the baked bread onto the rack, and remove the pan. Set the loaf right side up and let cool completely. I was pretty pleased with the outcome. This is just a good basic crusty white bread. Definitely a good beginner recipe for others like myself who want to start baking bread. I was afraid of over kneading the dough and actually I think I should have kneaded it more because it was a bit sticky. So I'll try the recipe again and be sure to knead the dough more. The only other thing I'm not sure about is why the bread softened up after it had been sitting overnight. It's by no means soggy, but initially it was fairly hard and when tapped the loaf sounded hollow. I put the loaf in a large ziploc bag on the counter overnight and the next morning I noticed it seemed to have softened up. My muffins often do this too. I guess something to do with moisture, does anyone have any clues or suggestions? If so I would love to hear from you, please let me know.

Hay, hay! It's Donna Hay

Time for another fun food blogging event!! This event is hosted by winosandfoodies and is centered around Donna Hay, the wonderful Australian domestic goddess, and her self frosting cupcakes. I absolutely LOVE her, so of course I was excited & jumped at the chance to participate in this event. She has a fabulous style. All her books & recipes are so elegantly simple, I just love that! So the idea of this event was that everyone participating follow the same basic recipe, either exactly how Donna Hay created it or add their own little twist to it. The recipe is featured in her book Modern Classics 2. The original calls for peanut butter as the "frosting", but as many bloggers before me have done I chose to use Nutella as my "frosting" and believe me I didn't go wrong with that decision. The cupcakes were delicious! I tried them out on my usual test group - the family, with the focus as usual on my niece & nephew. Not a crumb was intentionally left, but they are 3 & 6 years old, so a few crumbs ended up on the floor I'm sure..lol I sent the remainder of the cupcakes to school with my nephew the next day for his snack time and have been told they were a big hit, even with the teacher. I will definitely make these again, experimenting with different "frostings", I'm thinking I'll try apple butter next time. Maybe substitute brown sugar for some of the granulated sugar, maybe add some cinnamon. YUM-O! That would make a nice winter snack no?? I think yes!! My only complaint, I think I got a little generous with the Nutella in a few of the cupcakes because I notices a few of them split & looked a tad bit hollow in the very center. I think the Nutella is to blame for that. Recipe taken directly from Modern Classics 2. Self-Frosting Cupcakes aka Nutella Cupcakes (Originally known as Peanut Butter Cupcakes) 6 oz butter, softened 3/4 c. superfine sugar 3 eggs 1 3/4 c. all-purpose flour, sifted 2 tsp. baking powder Nutella (can substitute jam or peanut butter) Preheat the oven to 324 F/160 C. Place very soft butter, superfine sugar, eggs, sifted all purpose flour and baking powder in a bowl and mix, using electric beaters, until smooth. Line 12 muffin tins with paper cases. Spoon in the mixture and swirl 1 1/2 tsp Nutella (can also use jam or peanut butter) through each cake. Bake for 20 minutes. Makes 12 standard size cupcakes.

Wilton Course 2 Finale

I did it!! I have mastered the art of basketweave and royal icing flowers. Well, atleast according to the Wilton Course II outline..lol There are many many other flowers I have yet to learn. I missed class 3 of 4 for the course, so I was a bit nervous about how my flowers & cake would turn out, but I must say I'm very pleased. I had to teach myself how to do some of the flowers, but I'm pretty happy with how they came out. And the basketweave..well, that was an experience..I was able to get into a rhythm & it wasn't too long before I made my way around the entire cake..my hand was telling me it wasn't a moment too soon you can believe that..lol

Par-Tee Time

I present to you my latest creation!! I worked long & hard to come up with what I felt was just the PERFECT idea for this cake. First let me set the scenario for you... My neighbor knows about my interest & efforts to start my own homebased bakery as she is often my guinea pig when I make breakfast muffins. Well, she was hosting a golf tournament over the weekend & asked if I would do a cake because one of the players was celebrating his 60th birthday - as you can see. So of course I jumped at the chance, as it's a great opportunity to get my name out to other people & a chance to pad my portofolio just a little bit more..lol Of course it doesn't hurt that it gave me a pretty good bit of decorating practice right? After much work & standing over the cake for probably a good hour just staring, trying to decide if it was actually done or not..I was beaming from ear to ear with pride. As I always am when trying out a new recipe, which carelessly this was I was a bit nervous that maybe it didn't turn out right or that it just wouldn't suit the taste of my customer. Unfortunately this time I had reason to be nervous - come to find out the cake was very DRY!! I was crushed..absolutely crushed. I definitely should have tried the recipe before hand..but I made a cupcake out of the batter & sampled it. The flavor was pretty good, but yes it was a bit dry..but I figured once I iced the cake it would be fine. I finished the cake up about 24 hours before the party, so I figured it would be fine..shouldn't dry out too much before then right?? Well I guess with this cake that wasn't the case..Either that or maybe the cake dried out more than the cupcake. Regardless I'm terribly disappointed & will NEVER use the Barefoot Contessa recipe she featured on her show for the "birthday cake with pink frosting". The recipe was called exactly that..well something close. The cake was really cute when she made it on the show & normally I really like her recipes so I felt pretty confident the cake would be atleast satisfactory, but in this case I was wrong. Maybe she just doesn't do good birthday cakes? lol Anyway I'm pretty bummed about that. I don't expect all my recipes to be great..you just have to test & toss sometimes..lol But the fact that I made something for someone else..especially because they were using it for a party & they were going to pay me for it..that makes it bother me even more. Bleh..maybe I'll be able to write a much more redeeming blog SOON!! lol

Cranberries in summer...

I would try a new recipe everyday if I could. Unfortunately that would be very time-consuming, most of all just terribly wasteful. And to be honest, I'm afraid I would become horribly overweight. We keep enough baked goodies in the house now, that if there were new things each day I would just become one chunkie little ball of - well, fat. And we can't have that now can we? So until my home-based bakery is off the ground & I'm testing out new recipes daily for a profit, I must pick and choose my test recipes carefully. That leads me to the whole "Cranberries in summer.." title. The brownie recipe I tried out on Tuesday was decent, but a tad disappointing, so I think sub-consciously I felt the need to redeem myself. Well redeem myself I did!! Yesterday was a deliciously fabulous day. I am absolutely in love with orange cranberry muffins. Ever since working at Starbucks some years back as a Barista, where I would nosh on the orange cranberry muffins as I sipped my morning coffee and delighted in the caffeine addicts who I saw religiously I have been in love. Our romance was never quite an out in the open type thing, until now. Yes now that I have baked a batch myself & feel that I have found the recipe that was intended just for me, I will scream it from the highest mountain. Okay, maybe it's not quite that serious, afterall they contain no chocolate. But they are pretty delicious..and I feel good about eating them, they aren't laden with stick upon stick of butter and tons of oil. They have just enough of everything to make them a delicious treat, but not enough to make them a shameful endulgence. Perhaps I am being a bit dramatic?? What do you expect - need I remind you that I am admittedly Culinarily Obsessed?? Thanks to the Food Network for such delicious inspiration..what would I do without their recipes? Cranberry Orange Muffins 1 cup dried cranberries 1/4 cup fresh orange juice 2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour 2 teaspoons baking powder 1/4 teaspoon fine salt 1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened, plus more for preparing the muffin tin 1 teaspoon grated orange zest 2/3 cup granulated sugar, plus up to 1 tablespoon for topping the muffins, if desired 2 large eggs, at room temperature 1/2 cup milk Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Put the cranberries and orange juice in a small saucepan, and bring just to a simmer over medium heat. Remove berries from the heat, and set aside to cool and plump. Drain off any excess liquid and set aside. Lightly brush a 12-muffin tin with butter. Sift the flour, baking powder, and salt into a medium bowl and set aside. In a standing mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, or with an electric hand-held mixer in a large bowl, cream the butter, orange zest, and 2/3 cup sugar until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Scrape down the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Remove the bowl from the mixer. Fold the flour in 3 parts into the butter mixture, alternating with the milk in 2 parts, until just combined. Fold in the cranberries. Do not over mix. Divide the batter evenly into the muffin tin and sprinkle the tops with sugar. Bake until golden brown, about 25 minutes. Cool muffins in the pan on a rack. Serve warm.