Vanilla muffins

So, I haven't posted in a while. Well, maybe not that long... I think it's been like, a week and a half or something. I'm not sure. But anyways... I haven't baked much in the past week and a half. I did make some of Joy the Baker's whole wheat molasses bread, which was pretty fabulous. I used sour cream and blackstrap molasses just because that was what we had in the house and I was feeling too lazy to go out at 9 at night. It still turned out wonderfully, although next time I'd add a little milk because it was a little dry since I used sour cream.

I also made some cookies the other day but they turned out badly. Well, they tasted great, but they were not aesthetically pleasing at all. So instead of pitching a fit and then throwing them out, I went to the store, got the stuff to make ice cream, and made some pretty delicious ice cream. It wasn't a good consistency, but it did taste pretty yummy.
I'm going to keep working on the cookie recipe because I think it will be good once I can get the cookies the right texture/thickness.

When I was about 5, my mother, sister and I would go to this coffee shop/bakery by my old house a lot. I think my mom usually got cream cheese muffins, my sister got some form of chocolate, and I always, always got vanilla. They were wonderful. Humongous and super vanilla-y. Maybe that's where I got my obsession with vanilla from. I add way too much vanilla to everything, because I just think it makes everything taste better. The same with malt and cinnamon, but I just had vanilla in these muffins.
They weren't like the ones at the bakery, but they were definitely delicious. I think next time I'd cut down a little on the sugar, because they were very sweet. I had added 1/4 cup less sugar than the original recipe, but even that was a bit much. They were also a lot lighter in texture than the ones from the bakery, but that was definitely a good thing. I think they could have been a little heavier, as they were almost cupcake like, but they were still very good. It only takes about 5 minutes to put these together, which is awesome as well. I over-filled mine because I love muffins with big tops, but you could fill to about 3/4 full and get more muffins. I filled mine up to the top almost, and got 12 muffins.


Vanilla Muffins
Adapted from The Singing Chef

2 cups flour
1 tbs baking powder
1 cup sugar
1 tsp salt
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 eggs
1 cup milk
1 tbs vanilla

Preheat oven to 350, line 12 muffin tins with papers
Sift together the dry ingredients, then add the rest of the ingredients and stir until just combined. Spoon into muffin tins and bake 18-21 minutes, until a toothpick comes out with just a few crumbs.

Nigella Lawson's Bread

I made this last week, but I kept forgetting to post it. I'm posting a picture now, and will be posting the recipe soon :) It was definitely the best bread I've made so far. I haven't completely gotten the hang of bread yet, I think most of my problem is stressing too much about burning it so I take it out of the oven soon. This bread was delicious though, and gone very fast.

Random Chip Cookies

I was bored last night and felt like baking, so I decided to use up the rest of the half bags of random chocolate chips. They actually turned out really well. They were a bit sweet last night, but I tried them again today and I feel like they're less sweet. Obviously you could make these with normal chocolate chips, that's what the regular recipe called for, I just wanted to see what would happen if I threw all the extras together :P I used white chocolate chips, peanut butter chips, toffee bits, and butterscotch chips. Soooo yummy!

Any Chip Cookies

Adapted from Joy Of Cooking

Makes about 3 dozen cookies (ish... forgot to count)

1/2 cup shortening (I ran out of butter)

1/2 cup white sugar

1/2 cup brown sugar

1 egg

1 tsp vanilla

1 cup plus 2 tbs flour

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp baking soda

1 to 1 1/2 cups chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350.

Cream together shortening (or butter, you could obviously use that too), and sugars, then beat in egg and vanilla. Sift in flour, salt, and baking soda and stir until completely incorporated. Mix in chocolate chips. Bake for about 9 minutes, until slightly brown on the edges but still not completely set in the middle. Cool on the cookie sheet for about 5 minutes before removing to cool completely on wire cookie racks.

Nigella's Snickerdoodles

I got "How To Be a Domestic Goddess" by Nigella Lawson out of the library yesterday, and I decided to try her snickerdoodle cookie recipe. I looked it up online to see what other people who made these had thought of them, and the majority of them seemed to think they tasted a bit like donuts. I think it's the nutmeg.

I thought they were sort of a strange texture at first, but they're really, really good. A bit dry, but not in a bad way. Also, they're cute. They look like little pebbles.

She said they made about 32, but I think I only got about 18-20 out of them.

Here is the recipe:

Snickerdoodles

Slightly adapted from Nigella Lawson

1 2/3 cups flour

1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
3/4 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup butter, room temp

1/3 cup sugar, plus 1 tbs for rolling

1 egg

2 teaspoons vanilla

1 1/2 tbs cinnamon for rolling

Preheat oven to 350.

Combine flour, baking powder, salt, and nutmeg and set aside.

In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugar until light and fluffy, then beat in egg and vanilla. Slowly stir in dry ingredients until fully incoporated.

Combine cinnamon and 1 tbs sugar. Roll dough into a walnut sized ball (mine were bigger than walnuts, but not too much bigger), and roll in the cinnamon sugar mixture. Place on cookie sheet with parchment paper and bake for about 14 minutes (not exactly sure the time of this, Nigella said 15 and I started with 10 and kept adding until they were done). Let cool slighly on cookie sheet before removing to a wire rack to cool completely.

Chocolate Truffle Cookies

I've been wanting to make these for a while, but we never ever have sour cream (I find it completely disgusting, unless it's baked into something), but I actually remembered to buy some last night when we went to the store, soooo I made some :)
They were sooo good. I was lazy and didn't roll them in cocoa powder or powdered sugar, but next time I will chill them until they're firm enough to roll into balls, and then roll them in cocoa powder/powdered sugar.
They have a really great texture, and they're very rich, I think partially from all the butter, but also from the sour cream. They were very chocolate-y and sweet because I used milk chocolate chips, but not too sweet. I will definitely be making these again :)

Chocolate Truffle Cookies
Adapted from Baking Bites

1 1/4 cups butter, room temperature
2 cups confectioners’ sugar
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/4 cup malted milk powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/3 cup sour cream
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
2 1/4 cups all purpose flour
2 cups milk chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 325 and line cookie sheets with parchment paper.
Cream butter, stir in sugar, then beat using a mixer (so that powdered sugar doesn't fly everywhere when you're trying to mix it in). Sift in cocoa powder, malt and salt, mix until fully incorporated. Beat in vanilla and sour cream.
With the mixer on low, slowly add in flour until fully incorporated. Stir in chocolate chips. Roll into balls (I just used a spoon and my finger and put the dough on the cookie sheets that way), and place on cookie sheets. They don't spread much.
Bake for about 9 minutes, until barely set. Cool on sheet for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.

Dorky post

This is going to sound like a dorky post buuut.
YAY! :D Thank you guys for reading and commenting on my blog! I've had like, 200 views in the last 24 hours because of the post on Cookie Madness :D So excited! I absolutely LOVE her blog and I am seriously rediculously excited that she actually read my blog, haha. I know I'm such a dork, but whatever :P haha.

Also, I seriously need to get started on the Daring Cook's challenge... I think the reveal date is the 17th? I'm not sure. I need to go look. But it looks hard. And I just checked the Daring Baker's challenge for this month, and I have to say that it looks preeetty petrifying :P I will try though! If I can get my stuff together xD I guess we shall see... I'll probably post when I actually finish it. Not details until the reveal date, obviously. But just that I finished the challenge and probably that I ruined it xD And then post pictures and details and all that jazz when it is the reveal date.

All done rambling :P Hope everyone has a good weekend! I plan to bake something tomorrow... kind of craving chocolate cake... hmmm...

Cinnamon Swirl Bread

I already have the recipe on here, but I just wanted to post pictures because I made it again today and got some pictures...
It is deliciousss. One of the loaves is already 3/4 gone, and only two people have eaten it so far :P Super yum! The link for the recipe is here

Vanilla Ice Cream

I made ice cream for the first time last night. It was AMAZING. SO worth the effort. Probably about the same price as buying ice cream at the store and it tastes a thousand times better. This was the first time I've ever made ice cream and it was delicious.
The picture I have is terrible, but I'll try to take a better one later.
I only chilled it for about 2 hours, because I was impatient :P


Vanilla Ice Cream
Adapted from David Lebovitz
1 cup whole milk
A pinch of salt
3/4 cup sugar
2 cups heavy cream
6 large egg yolks
2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

This is mostly copied and pasted from his website, because he can do a better job explaining than I can.

1. Heat the milk, salt, and sugar in a saucepan.
2. To make the ice cream, set up an ice bath by placing a 2-quart bowl in a larger bowl partially filled with ice and water. Set a strainer over the top of the smaller bowl and pour the cream into the bowl.
3. In a separate bowl, stir together the egg yolks. Gradually pour some of the milk into the yolks, whisking constantly as you pour. Scrape the warmed yolks and milk back into the saucepan.
4. Cook over low heat, stirring constantly and scraping the bottom with a heat-resistant spatula, until the custard thickens enough to coat the spatula.
5. Strain the custard into the heavy cream. Stir over the ice until cool, add the vanilla extract, then refrigerate to chill thoroughly. Preferably overnight.
6. Freeze the custard in your ice cream maker according to the manufacturer’s instructions.

White Chocolate Sugar Cookies

These are delicious. I was very tempted to eat all the dough before it could even go in the oven. It was worth baking them, though. The edges got crispy and the middle was chewy. Sooo good. Definitely use good quality chocolate. I used ghirardelli white chocolate baking bar, white and milk chocolate chips for these. The original recipe had dried cranberries, but none of my family like fruit in their cookies.
Sorry these pictures are so terrible, but the cookies are SO good! :)

White Chocolate Sugar Cookies
Adapted from Baking Bites
Makes about 3 dozen cookies

2 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
3/4 cup butter, room temperature
1 cup sugar
1 large egg
2 oz white chocolate, melted and cooled
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
3/4 cup white chocolate chips
1/2 cup milk (or semi-sweet) chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350, line baking sheets with parchment paper.
Melt the 2 oz of white chocolate, set aside.
Whisk together flour, baking soda and salt in a medium bowl, set aside.
Cream together butter and sugar until light and fluffy, beat in egg, then vanilla and white chocolate. Slowly stir in dry ingredients and mix until fully incorporated.
Stir in chocolate chips.
Roll cookie dough into 1 inch balls, place on sheet about 2 inches apart. Bake for 10-12 minutes, until edges are brown and center is just set.

pancakes and browned butter peanut butter cookies

Yum! Sooo much peanut butter

Mmmmm delicious :D

Yay for chocolate chips! The 5 year old didn't want them... the 16 year old did. Weird little 5 year old child...

Browned butter specks right thurrrrr :P

So today I decided to try browning butter when I made peanut butter cookies. I think I may have over-browned it, but they still tasted good :D They were very thick and almost fudgy. I think part of that was the peanut butter chips, too. You don' t need to add those, but they definitely make it better. If I had peanuts I would have added them, too, but we never have peanuts. Chocolate chips would also taste good, I'm sure, but I really just wanted mass amounts of peanut butter haha.
Also, I tried Nutella for the first time. Oh my lord. Definitely going to find something to bake this in soon :P

Browned butter double peanut butter cookies
adapted from allrecipes.com
1/2 cup browned butter
3/4 cup crunchy butter
1/2 cup white sugar
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1 eggs
1-1/4 cups bread flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup peanut butter chips
1 teaspoon vanilla


Brown butter and set aside.
Whisk together flour, baking powder, salt and baking soda.
Cream together sugars and butter, stir in peanut butter, then egg and vanilla until fully incorporated. Slowly mix in dry ingredients and then mix in peanut butter chips.
Chill in fridge for an hour or freezer for 30 minutes. Form into balls, flatten slightly and bake at 350 for about 9 minutes.

I make these pancakes for my little sister sometimes, because she's obsessed with pancakes and these are delicious and super fluffy

Pancakes
adapted from allrecipes.com

3/4 cup and 2 tablespoons milk
2 tablespoons white vinegar
1 cup all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons white sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 egg
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 tablespoons malted milk powder

Put milk and vinegar in a bowl to sour for 5 minutes.
Whisk together flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, malted milk powder, and salt.
Whisk egg and vanilla into milk and then whisk into dry ingredients. Do not wisk until all the lumps are gone!
Pour onto lightly greased preheated pan and cook until the batter starts to bubble. Flip over and cook until cooked through.
Throw some chocolate chips or berries onto the batter right after you pour it into the pan. YUM.