Applesauce Oatmeal Cookies

I wanted to bake some simple cookies, but didn't want to have to go out and buy chocolate chips or anything (seriously, how do I not have a stash of chocolate chips on hand for spontaneous cookie baking?).  I had a bunch of oatmeal but no raisins, so I started looking through recipes.  I came across one for Self-Frosting Oatmeal cookies.  The directions said to cream sugar with vegetable oil.  I've only ever creamed sugar with butter.  Butter has a better taste too.  So I looked up conversions from oil to butter in cookies.  I came across several sites saying pretty much the same thing.  Then I came across a site suggesting substituting half the oil for something healthier like applesauce or prune puree.  Well, I happened to have applesauce in my fridge, so here's my take on Self-Frosting Oatmeal Cookies.

• 1 cup Sugar
• 1 cup Brown Sugar
• 1/2 cup Applesauce
• 1/2 cup butter softened
• 2 Eggs
• 1 tsp Vanilla Extract
• 1 1/2 cups All Purpose Flour
• 1/2 tsp Baking Powder
• 1 tsp Salt
• 2 1/2 cups Rolled Oats
• 1/2 cup Confectioners' Sugar

I somehow managed to forget the oats in this picture

Cream together the first 2 sugars, applesauce and butter.   This was hard because the butter was softened, but hardened when mixed with the cold applesauce.  Next time I'd like the applesauce sit out a bit and get to room temperature first.  Beat in each of the eggs and stir in vanilla.

In a seperate bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, and salt.  Stir that into the wet mixture.  Next, mix in the oats.  Cover, and chill in the fridge for 2 hours while you do your dishes (hopefully it doesn't take you 2 hours to do your dishes, so feel free to do whatever you want with the rest of your time.  I enjoy solo dance parties).

Want!  NOW!!!

After the 2 hours roll into balls the size of walnuts, and roll in the powdered sugar.  Place 2 inches apart on a baking sheet.  Bake in an oven preheated to 350 for 8-10 minutes.  I'm still getting used to my oven so I started at 6 minutes and checked back every 1 1/2 to 2 minutes.  Once their done, let them sit on the pan for 5 minutes, then transfer to a cooling rack.

Not all of the sugar melted into "frosting"

My roommates really like them, but I'm still undecided.  One roommate and I decided that next time we'll have to try making them with cinnamon and pieces of apple.

Nom nom nom!

Peanut Butter Nutella Banana Bread

I've given you Nutella Cupcakes, now I present Peanut Butter Nutella Banana Bread!
Adapted (because I never seem to follow recipes) from a recipe found here!

What I used:

• 2 Mushy, browning bananas
• 1/2 cup creamy peanut butter
• 1/4 cup Canola Oil
• 1 Egg
• 1/3 cup Sugar
• 1/4 cup Brown Sugar
• 1 1/2 cups Flour
• 1/2 tsp Baking Soda
• 1 1/2 tsp Baking Powder
• 1/2 tsp Salt
• 3 Giant Spoons of Nutella

The most important part

The process:
1. Preheat oven to 350F.  Grease and flour bread pan.
2. Stir together flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt.
3. I used my mixer to mash the bananas, then added the Peanut Butter, Oil, Egg, and sugars.
4. Whisk until everything is well combined.

Delicious Mush

5. Switch out the whisk attachment for the paddle attachment and slowly pour dry ingredients into wet ingredients and stir until just combined.  The directions say it'll be thick, and be sure not to over mix.
6. Spread batter evenly into bread pan.
7. Drop 3 spoonfuls of Nutella on top.

Be sure to lick the spoon clean!

8. Swirl in with knife.

Yum!

Be sure to lick the knife clean as well!

9. Bake for 50 minutes, or until toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

While you're waiting, do the dishes and put away all of the ingredients to keep your roommates happy (however, who's not happy when there's Peanut Butter Nutella Banana Bread?). Or you can just sit a relax and enjoy a glass of Kool-aid.  I'm drinking a mix of Black Cherry and Blue-Raspberry Lemonade.

About 10 minutes in it smelled AMAZING!  I wish there was a way to post smells on the internet.

I meant to check mine about 40 minutes in, but forgot until about 44 minutes.  The Nutella on top was starting to burn :( but the toothpick came out clean.  I'd say closer to the 40 would probably have been perfect.  Next time I'll start checking around 30-35 minutes.

A little dark on top :(

Let cool in pan for roughly 10 minutes, then turn out onto cooling rack.  If it's sticking or having trouble coming out, run a knife along the edge.  Let cool before cutting.  I know, it's really hard, but it'll cut better once it's cooled down.

As you can see, the inside was done perfectly.

It was good, but there are definitely some things I'd like to change about it.   I'll have to play around with it and do another blog sometime :)

Barilla Ditalini Soup w/Barley & Potato

My roommate and I were grocery shopping the other day and pasta was on sale.  My roommate came across these cute little noodles:

They're called Ditalini

 He insisted we buy them.  I asked what you're supposed to make with them since they're so small.  Lo and behold, there's a recipe for soup on the back of the box.  Not only that, but we already had or were already buying almost all of the ingredients.  The only thing we really needed was vegetable broth.  We discovered it's WAY cheaper to buy vegetable bouillon than actual vegetable broth, so we bought some of that to test.

Here's what you need:

• 1 glove garlic, chopped
• 1 onion, diced (I used a medium sized yellow)
• 4 Tbsp Extra Virgin Olive Oil + some for drizzling
• 3 quarts Veggie Broth (or the equivalent in bouillon and water)
• 3/4 cup Barley
• 1 cup Ditalini Pasta (I used 1 1/2)
• 2 small Carrots, diced (mine were kind of big)
• 1/2 cup Celery, diced (2 stalks for me)
• 1 medium 6oz peeled potato, diced (just pretend I weighed mine and it was 6oz)
• Salt & Pepper to taste
• 1 Tbsp Parsley, chopped (or I used dried because I already had it)
• 1/2 cup Parmigiano Reggiano, shredded (or just grate a bunch on top until it looks delicious)

In a large pot, cook the garlic and onion in the olive oil over medium heat about 4 minutes.  Add the broth and barley, bring to a simmer, and cook for 30 minutes.  Since I was using bouillon, I added the water then let the bouillon dissolve in before adding the barley.

While that's going, there's time to do some dishes and chop your veggies.  After the 30 minutes, add the pasta, carrots, celery, and potato. Season to taste with the salt and pepper, and cook for 6 minutes.

Is that a Cucto knife?  Why, yes it is!  Good eye!  If you'd like your own awesome set, I know someone that can sell you some!

This is where it got a bit complicated.  After the 6 minutes of cooking, the directions say to let the soup rest for 20 minutes then stir in the parsley.  Well, my roommate came in and started helping.  I'm not sure when he started timing the 6 minutes.  When I time pasta, I wait for the water to re-boil before starting.  He kind of started between when the pasta was first added and when it started to boil again.  Also, it just said let "rest" and we debated if you turn the heat all the way off and if it needed to be completely removed from the hot burner.  He ended up putting the soup back on a low heat to make sure the pasta was thoroughly cooked.  We also added the parsley a little early since it was dried rather than fresh.

Once it's done, ladle it into a bowl, drizzle with EVOO and grate cheese to your liking on top!

It was yummy!!!

It says it makes 5 servings, but we each had a full bowl and I filled 2 tupperware containers full which probably have at least 2 more bowls in each.  Ok, maybe it's only 1 more serving than it said, but it seems like a lot.  We froze one for later and put one in the fridge for sooner :) 

A few Melinda-isms:

1)  Yes!  There's celery in there!  Why is this interesting?  I've never liked celery.  I'm slowly learning though.  At work once a co-worker gave me a celery stick with cream cheese on it.  It wasn't terrible.  And lately my roommate has been getting me to eat celery with peanut butter.  On a related note, I've discovered I don't hate broccoli as much as I thought I did.  It just has to be steamed just right.  It can't be raw, and it can't be cooked until it's mushy.

2)  I was sad because we didn't have any bread to go with the soup, but I remembered that we have Club Crackers.  I usually don't like to crumble up crackers into my soup, but these were really good in it!  Just as long as you only did one at a time so they don't get all soggy, but that's just a personal preference.

NUTELLA CUPCAKES!!!!

As you may have noticed, it's been a while since my last post.  First, I moved out of my apartment.  Before that, I did make hamburger buns from scratch for the 4th of July. They didn't turn out amazing and weren't anything special, so I ended up not bothering to write a blog about them.  After moving out of my place, I was couch surfing for a couple of months.  Not having regular access to a kitchen, and it being someone else's home, I didn't really do a lot of experimental cooking. Then, mid-September, I moved from Michigan to CALIFORNIA!!!  But, towards the end, I was house sitting for a little over a week.  While there, after a rough day, I made what are now somewhat famous, Nutella Cupcakes!

The cupcake itself is adapted from a recipe here, and the Nutella frosting is adapted from a recipe I found here.  My version makes 6, but they were so popular I made another 6 a few days later.


For the cupcakes:

• 1/2 cup All-Purpose Flour
• 1/2 cup plus 1 Tbsp Sugar
• 3 Tbsp plus 2 tsp Cocoa Powder
• 1/4 tsp Baking Soda 
• 1/8 tsp Salt
• 1/4 cup Unsalted Butter, melted
• 1 Large Egg
• 1/2 tsp Vanilla extract
• 1/4 cup Hot Coffee

Mix together the Flour, Sugar, Cocoa Powder, Baking Soda, and Salt.  In a separate bowl, beat together the Butter, Egg, and Vanilla until well mixed.  Add the egg mixture to the dry ingredients and thoroughly combined, being sure to scrape the sides as you do.  Add the Coffee and mix until smooth.  Pour into 6 cupcake cups that have either been greased and floured or lined with paper.  The original directions say to bake for 18-22 minutes on a rack in the lower third of the oven pre-heated to 350 degrees.  It's been so long I don't remember for sure, but I think they turned out perfectly at 18 minutes.  Everyone's oven if different though, so be sure to check them with a toothpick.

Bam!  Delicious, perfectly baked, moist, chocolate cupcakes!

For the frosting:

• 1/2 cup Unsalted Butter, soften - not melted
• 3/4 cup confectioners’ (powdered) sugar
• 1 tsp Vanilla extract
• 2 oz Bittersweet Chocolate, finely chopped (slightly melted...?)
• 3 Giant Tbsp Nutella
• 1 1/2 tsp Milk
• Pinch of Salt

The website gives directions using a mixer if you prefer (same for the cupcakes above), but mine was packed away so I did it all by hand. Cream the butter and sugar together until well combined. Stir in the vanilla, then chocolate, making sure they're both mixed in well.  Add the Nutella, Milk, and Salt until well combined and smooth.

All of my cake decorating stuff was packed away as well, but a ziplock bag with a corner cut off works as a pastry bag with round tip.  Just be careful that you're not squeezing too hard and your frosting isn't too thick or the seam of the bag may explode.

Frosted with deliciousness!

I had a few Strawberries in the fridge that I needed to use up, so I fanned them out on top.  And, Voilà!

Not only did baking make me feel better, but I think it made the day better for everyone that ate one!

Chocolate Stout Cupcakes with Mocha Ganache and Mascarpone Cream

Chocolate Stout Cupcakes with Mocha Ganache and Mascarpone Cream.  Sounds amazing, right?  As I've mentioned before, I had a bottle of chocolate stout beer in my fridge that I wanted to make a cake out of.  This one was specifically Cocoa Loco by Arcadia Ales from my hometown of Battle Creek, Michigan!  I came across this awesome chocolate stout cupcake recipe and decided to use it for cupcakes!  Then, I came across a recipe for Chocolate coffee cupcakes with mocha ganache and mascarpone cream and thought the topping would be great for my cupcakes :)  The cupcake recipe was for a dozen, and I didn't need that many so I halved it.  The topping recipe was for 30 cupcakes, and I ended up quartering it.

My ingredients

Chocolate Stout Cupcake Ingredients

•  8 tsp (or 2 Tbsp + 2 tsp) unsweetened cocoa powder
• ½ cup sugar
• ½ cup all-purpose flour
• ¼ teaspoon baking soda
• ½ pinch table salt
• 3 ounces stout beer
• 2 Tbsp melted butter
• ¾ teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 large egg
• 8 tsp (or 2 Tbsp + 2 tsp) sour cream
  

No, I'm not sampling the ingredients...

Directions

1.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
2.  In a medium mixing bowl, whisk cocoa, sugar, flour, baking soda and salt until combined.
3.  In a large mixing bowl, mix the stout, melted butter and vanilla together.

At this point I realized that using cold beer, while tasty, doesn't work when you're mixing it with melted butter. The cold beer made some of the butter hard again so the mixture was lumpy and hard to mix well. Next time I'll have to keep the beer at room temperature.

4.  Beat the egg into the stout mixture. Then mix in the sour cream.
5.  Add the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients a little at a time until it’s all mixed together thouroughly.
6.  Grease or line 6 muffin tins. Pour the batter evenly into the tins.
7.  Bake from 18-24 minutes, checking at 18 minutes and continuing to bake until they are set in the middle.

Ganache and Cream

• ¼ cup + ½ cup cups heavy cream

• handful of coffee beans – crushed

• 2 ounces milk/semi-sweet/bittersweet chocolate -- finely chopped

• ½ cup mascarpone cheese 

• 1Tbsp confectioners' sugar -- sifted

I'm not going to get super detailed into the ganache because it didn't turn out.  It was a paste like texture rather than ganache, which is weird because I ended up using more cream than it said so if anything, it should have been too thin, not ticker.  The cool part about this ganache is you boil the coffee beans in the cream, then let it sit and absorb the coffee flavor.

Beans & Cream - Strain out the beans - Mocha Cream!

After straining out the coffee beans, heat the cream again, then pour it over the chopped chocolate and stir until smooth.  If you want to learn the basics of making ganache, you should check out Martha Stewart's guide to making ganache.

My "frosted" cupcakes.

For the mascarpone cream topping, whisk the 1/2 cup cream into soft peaks.  Add the mascarpone and confectioners sugar and whisk until smooth. 

Whip it!  Whip it good!

I'm not sure if my topping turned out right either.  Their picture looks light and fluffy like whipped cream, but my topping seemed heavier and almost a little lumpy.  It still tasted good though :oD

Going to have to try making these again sometime!

Croissants

Well, it's been a while, but that doesn't mean I've been doing any less cooking. Since I last blogged, I've made unsuccessful croissant dough, German bread, successful croissants, mostly successful cupcakes, how-to-bribe-your-editor cookies, not yet successful croissant dough, and started experimenting with my own homemade spaghetti sauce recipe. There will be blogs on some of those coming eventually, but this blog is all about delicious, homemade, fresh baked CROISSANTS!!!

Unbaked croissants, they ended up much more golden brown!

The recipe I used can be found here.  It, as the site explains, is their own personal overhaul of Julia Child's recipe from Mastering the Art of French Cooking.  Her recipe can be found here, and I actually used that with a combination of the first site for the procedure.

My first attempt at these didn't go very well.  First, I tried to convert the ingredients from grams into things like cups, teaspoons, etc.  I think that was my first problem.  No, I take that back.  Even though I proofed my yeast, it was old and I don't think it reacted as much as it should.  THAT was my first problem.  Next, converting was the wrong thing to do.  Then, I was only following the first site.  The instructions weren't as clear, and I ended up with butter breaking through my dough everywhere. For the second attempt, I broke down and bought this little guy:

$19.99 but so far a great investment

Yup, a gram (and ounce) scale.  I have a feeling it's going to turn out to be extremely handy.  Just how differently the dough turned out weighing everything in grams may have been worth it alone.  I also bought new yeast.

Ingredients:

Bread Flour, 228g
Milk, 120g
Water, 13g
Sugar, 14g
Salt, 5g
Instant Yeast, 2.7g (a scant tsp)
Oil, 15g
Roll-in Butter, 125g (I used1 stick-8Tbsp-1/2 cup)

The essentials

 Mix together all of the ingredients except the butter.  Kneed with a bread hook for 3 minutes at a low speed and 7 at a medium speed.

The mixer, doin' it's thang!

Cover (I did with plastic wrap to keep in the moisture), and let rise at room temperature for 3 hours.

It's hard to see, but this is how much mine rose

While this is sitting, you can get the butter going.  I laid out a sheet of plastic wrap, cut my butter in half length wise, and set the 2 peices next to each other about 1 1/2 to 2 inches apart.  I then covered it with another piece of plastic so the rolling pin wouldn't stick.  Give each stick quite a few good whacks to mush it down and soften the butter, then roll it out into a 5 by 5 inch square, like so:

Mmm...  real butter!

Let that sit in the fridge for at least an hour to harded up a bit so it's not just a melty mess all over.  Once the dough and butter are ready, it's time to start folding the butter in.  This is where I combined the 2 methods.  The first site uses a block of rolled out butter where Julie Child spreads the butter on.  Julie Child however only puts it on the top 2/3, the folds the bottom third up, then top third down, so there are 3 layers of dough with a layer of butter between each layer.  The first recipe does this thing where it encloses the butter into a square first before folding.  It was confusing because there are no pictures or explanation.  I actually figured it out by reading the comments.  Someone was confused and asked, then the original poster explained what was supposed to be going on.

Not quite 2/3, but you get the idea

So you "book fold" in thirds, let it rest in the fridge for an hour (or however long it needs/you have time for), roll it out into a rectangle again, and repeat the book fold-resting 2 more times.

My edges weren't even this time but oh well...

After you've done the 3 folds, it's time to roll it out into a 8x16inch rectangle.  It may take a few times and a few rests in the refrigerator.  Any time the dough seems to be getting too warm and sticky while rolling, you're going to want to let it rest in the fridge for a while.  This part (along with the book folds), I'll do over a few days around my working/sleeping schedule to ensure that it was enough time to rest.  Just be sure to cover it in plastic so it doesn't dry out, and lay it flat. 

Once you've gotten your 8x16inch rectangle, it's time to cut your triangles.  Trim the edges and cut into 4 smaller rectangles that are 8x4inches each.  Then cut each rectangle from corner to corner to create 8 triangles.

I used a pizza cutter and it worked really well

 Next is the rolling the croissant shape.  I stretched them a little to get the tip of the triangle centered.  The directions on the first site say "roll up fairly tight, stretch out the tip with one hand when you roll the bottom with the other hand."  And I'm not sure how else to word it.  If you've ever seen a croissant, and if you haven't there are pictures in this blog and on those sites, you can pretty much figure out what you're doing.

For clarification, these already have the egg wash on them

Ooooh, look at that deliciousness!

The first site says that at this point you can put them the the fridge overnight to proof the next day, or freeze them.  I just baked them all, but the next batch I have going I may try to refrigerate and freeze some so I can bake them fresh (and just to see how they freeze).  If you're going to proof them right away, cover them in an egg wash (1 egg beaten with 1 Tbsp of water) and let them proof at 80F until "very soft and jiggly" which is around 3-3 1/2 hours.  It was a warm day, so I just did it at room temperature.

Aww, look at how big my little babies have grown! They're getting so chubby!

Brush with another layer of egg wash, and bake!  The first site says 425F for 10min, then turn down to 375F for 15min, Julie Child says 475F for 12-15 minutes. I followed the first site since that's the one I was mostly following.  However, after 10 minutes at 375F I checked on them and they were already a golden brown color so I took them out.  I'll have to play around with the time on the next batch.  But that's it!  They were done!  I had 8 beautiful, delicious, homemade, fresh croissants to eat!

YUMMY!!!!

They kept pretty well too.  It wasn't until about 3 days later when I was eating the last one that they started to seem stale.  Hence freezing some so I can bake them fresh every few days :)  I stored them in a paper bag, but brought some to work with me in a plastic bag and they stayed crispy in the plastic over night.  Over all they were really good and well worth all of the time put in.  I can't wait to bake the batch that I'm working on now!

Challah French Toast

Yesterday a friend and I went bakery hopping.  At the first bakery we went to I bought a beautiful loaf of Challah bread.  This morning, I made a delicious French Toast with it.  Here's my recipe (adapted from a combination of recipes and general knowledge of how to make French Toast).

Ingredients:

1 cup milk
3 eggs
1 Tbsp brown sugar
2 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
2 Tbsp RumChata

I sliced the bread into 1 inch thick slices, and cut them in half so they would fit in the pan better/cook better.

Whisk all of the ingredients together and pour into a shallow pan/dish/tupperware bottom that's big enough to fit the slices of bread.  Let the slices of toast soak in the mixture on each side for about a minute, or until well coated.  Melt butter in a large frying pan over medium heat and fry on each side about 5 minutes, or until a nice brown color and slightly crispy.  Do in batches and re-butter the pan between batches.

Look out!  Melinda's cooking with real butter!!!

These were amazing with the Agave Nectar I had in my cupboard.  If I make them again, I'll cook them longer on a little lower temperature so they're a little less soggy and more crispy without burning.  Over all, DELICIOUS!!!  :o)

Also last night while experimenting with different cocktails (some of which were really good, I may have to start a drink blog), we made my dad's homemade spaghetti sauce with some of the leftover French Onion Soup.  I'm not going to tell you everything in the recipe though, because I don't want to give away any family secrets ;o)

I browned a bag of veggie crumble, then brought it to a boil with the soup in a sauce pan.

Added the rest of the ingredients, and let simmer for an hour.

The "problem" with using vegetables rather than beef is that it's not greasy.  We ended up adding oil and a lot of water to the sauce because it was super thick.  I think I'm going to create my own version of my dad's recipe.  First trial I'll add crushed tomatoes to give it some liquid, and use fresh ingredients, especially garlic.

Next blog, homemade croissants!!!  (assuming the dough sitting in my fridge turns out...)