Pound Cake Poppers

Ok, here's those lime pound cake poppers you've been hearing about.

Oh, wait, no one's been talking about these...just me! I made these for a presentation I gave on Monday (to butter up the audience before presenting...haha...pound cake...butter...get it?) & I think they were well-received. They were even more loved than the other dessert I brought (which I personally liked better).

This recipe was modified from Chow...I didn't really want to make a loaf cake so I decided to put the batter in a mini muffin pan, and I really liked how they turned out! I decided not to add the glaze (actually, that's a lie, I made the glaze, put it on a few of them, and decided I liked them without the glaze better) because they tasted delicious right out of the oven.

The only problem with these is that they are so little, you can't stop eating them! Check out the original recipe for the lime glaze if you're interested...Tim really liked the glaze, I just thought it was unnecessary.

The major changes I made were to half the recipe & then quadruple the lime zest. Mmmmm...I love the taste of lime in baked goods! Reminds me of when I made Patricia's lime sugar cookies. :)


Lime Pound Cake Poppers
adapted from CHOW

Ingredients:

scant 1 cup all-purpose flour
3/4 tsp baking powder
1/3 tsp salt
1 stick (4 oz) butter, room temp
1/2 cup sugar
2 large eggs & 1 egg white, room temp
finely grated zest of 2 medium limes (abt 2 packed tbsps)

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. Butter & lightly flour a mini muffin pan; set aside.

In a large bowl, sift flour, baking powder & salt.

In a separate mixing bowl, beat butter with an electric mixer until creamy. Add sugar & beat until light & fluffy, about 4 minutes. Add eggs one at a time, beating thoroughly in between.

Add flour in two phases, mixing in between each addition until just combined. With rubber spatula, fold in lime zest. Pour batter into mini muffin tin and put into oven.

Bake until muffins rise & sides are golden brown When inserted toothpick comes out clean, about 10-15 minutes, the muffins are ready.

Makes about 30 mini muffins.

Lentils, two ways

So we bought a slow cooker. A month ago. Yes, we had been talking about it since before Christmas. At first it didn't seem to make a lot of sense as we wouldn't be cooking meat in it (isn't that what slow cookers are for?) but once we found some vegetarian slow cooker cookbooks, we were determined. Chilis, soups (ok, I don't remember any more examples of cool things we wanted to make).

And we didn't even have to DO ANYTHING! It would just cook. On its own.

So, I think we made something in it once, right after we bought it. Or maybe we didn't. Regardless, it hasn't gotten all that much use. It's just hanging out in our tiny kitchen. Yeeeeaaaaaah. GREAT idea Sarah.

The other afternoon I got the amazing thought to finally start using this puppy. Of course, it was 4 pm, and the recipe I had chosen took 8 hours to make. I thought somehow it would be ok. Needless to say, we didn't have that for dinner that night...

But the next night we put these "sloppy lentils" that I had decided to make back into the slow cooker for a few more hours. I had found this recipe for a "veggie version" of sloppy joe's and was intrigued. Yes, I knew it wouldn't really taste like a big pot of meaty sloppy joe's, but I thought it might be delicious in its own right. And it turned out to be quite yummy!

I added some cornstarch because...well, because I did. I thought it might help thicken it up, and it probably did, but I don't really know for sure.

When the lentils got to the right consistency (or what I thought was the right consistency), we got out our rolls & sprinkled some shredded "Italian" (read Parmesan, mozzarella) cheese onto the top section of the buns & put them in the toaster oven to melt the cheese. Then we piled the lentils onto the bun, and there they were, all sloppy!

Sloppy Lentils
Adapted from Fresh from the Vegetarian Slow Cooker

1 small green bell pepper, seeded & diced
1 1/2 cups dried red lentils, picked over & rinsed
14 oz diced tomatoes (1 can)
1 shredded carrot
3 cups water
1 Tbsp apple juice concentrate
1 Tbsp light brown sugar
1 Tbsp chili powder
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp salt
black pepper
1 Tbsp cornstarch

rolls of your choice (our sesame seed rolls went really well with the lentils!)
shredded Italian cheeses

Add veggies, lentils, water, apple juice concentrate, sugar, & spices to the slow cooker & cook (on low according to the cookbook, but I cooked on high...I think maybe because of the kind of lentils I used) for 8 hours. When there is only about an hour left (or when a lot of the liquid has been absorbed), add the cornstarch & stir well.

I admit, I had my doubts about this recipe as it was cooking. I tasted it a few times as I went, and not being satisfied with the taste, I just started throwing spices in there. Feel free to add as much salt/pepper/chili powder as you see fit. Overall, I was really pleased with this recipe. It was very satisfying!

Of course, the next night we had quite a bit leftover, and it just didn't sound all that appealing the second night in a row. So I decided I was going to make lentil soup with the rest (can't really give you an exact amount that was leftover...) & basically threw the sloppy lentils in with some veggie broth and more cumin. While it didn't look so beautiful, it tasted pretty good!

Lentil Soup:

Sloppy Lentils
Vegetable Broth
Cumin

Place about 1/2 of the sloppy lentils into a blender/food processor with cumin (to taste) & vegetable broth (to desired consistency). Stir together the processed lentils & unprocessed lentils in a pot & heat just until warm. Voila. Dinner, two nights!

Serve with bread, or if you're us, wheat thins.

:)

Carrot Cake

I came home today miserable, broken down, and determined to forget all about my day (and basically my life). What is that you're talking about? I don't have an adviser. Graduate student, what? Thesis, huh? Masters defense in a week...? I don't know what you're talking about, you must be referring to someone else. I just bake. And cook. And babysit.

So I headed to the supermarket, where I bought everything I needed...except lentils. Yes, that was the basis for the dinner I was planning on making. I had somehow convinced myself that there was a bag of lentils in the cabinet, but of course there wasn't. Luckily, this just allowed me to make a quick trip to the little (only) natural foods store in our town.

I got home at 4 (turned on the nice loud "musica urbana" station on the tv (bonus points if you can name 3 artists who would be played on this channel...and please forgive my taste in music), I'm sure my neighbors love me), and in an hour I managed to do 2 loads of laundry, get dinner ready, make rice pudding, clean my bedroom, wash dishes & eat soup. Yes, I was convinced I could forget.

While I did not necessarily succeed in completely letting go, I did make a yummy carrot cake instead. And actually, I did a pretty good job of not thinking too hard about that stupid email & its consequences all night. Oh, and I also succeeded in eating more sugar than I have in months.

Without further ado, the fruits of my labor:

*The original recipe used a bundt pan...I of course didn't, because I don't own one. Also, sometimes I drain the carrots, but the author of the recipe didn't, so I didn't either, and the amount of moisture was perfect. I soaked the raisins in hot water for about 10 minutes before I added them to the recipe, and I also tossed them with flour so they wouldn't add too much additional moisture to the recipe.*

Carrot Cake
adapted from Cookie Madness
changes noted in recipe, original recipe found here.

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 1/4 cups granulated sugar
1/2 tablespoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 tablespoon cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg
2 large eggs
1/2 cups vegetable oil
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup applesauce
1 heaping packed cup shredded carrot
1 cup plumped raisins
1/3 cup shredded coconut

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Grease a 9x9 inch metal pan. Sprinkle with some flour.

In a large bowl, thoroughly stir together flour, sugar, baking soda, salt, cinnamon & nutmeg.

In a second bowl, stir together eggs, oil and vanilla extract. Add oil mixture to flour mixture and stir with a mixing spoon until blended.

Add applesauce and stir just until mixed, then stir in carrots, raisins and coconut. Pour mixture into pan and bake for about 45 minutes, or until toothpick inserted comes out clean.

Let cool in pan for about 10 minutes, then flip from pan. In the meantime, make the icing (below) & let the cake cool completely. When cake is cooled, spread icing onto cake.

Cream Cheese Icing
(I just concocted this as I went)

8 oz cream cheese, room temp
1 generous cup powdered sugar
3 Tbsp butter, room temp
1 tsp vanilla extract

Throw all ingredients into small bowl & beat with an electric mixer. (Ok, maybe you're supposed to cream the butter & cream cheese first, which I sort of did, but basically the throwing it all into a bowl & mixing it worked for me!)

Honestly, I thought this would be good, but it was AMAZING. I really liked it...if you've never made a carrot cake before, now's the time! And I HATE carrots, so you should believe me. :)

Oh, I almost forgot...with the extra batter from the cake (I probably could have fit it all in the pan, but I had other plans for that batter) I made some carrot cake "cookies". Basically, I just added flour to the batter until I felt like they were cookie texture, then I put the batter in the fridge for 1/2 hour. There is a recipe for carrot cake cookies on Epicurious here but I didn't really use that recipe, so I can't vouch for how good it is. The reviews are really positive.

Ok, I'm going a little tangential here. Anyway, so I added some flour to the batter, put it in the fridge, spooned scoops of it onto the cookie sheet, baked them at 375 degrees F for about 10 minutes, and let them cool. Then I creamed together the extra icing & some vanilla ice cream, sandwiched 2 of the cookies with the icing ice cream, and put them in the freezer for a few hours. Possibly even more delicious than the carrot cake! No, wait, it's a tie.

Another Granola Recipe

And by "another", I don't mean that I've written one before, I just mean that there are so many different recipes out there! It's really kinda impossible to follow a recipe when it comes to granola. There are so many ingredients to choose from, and so many possibilities. So I'm offering here, just another possibility. :) Change the variables to make one that pleases you most!

Yummy Granola
adapted from here & here & here

dry ingredients:
2.5 cups oats
1/3 cup flax seed meal
1/2 cup coconut
3/4 cup chopped pecans
3/4 cup chopped almonds
1/2 cup sunflower seeds
1/3 cup pepitas (pumpkin seeds)
1/3 cup light brown sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp salt

wet ingredients:
1/3 cup apple sauce
1/4 cup peanut butter
1 Tbsp honey
1/2 Tbsp canola oil
1 tsp vanilla extract

dried fruit:
1/2 cup raisins
1/2 cup cherries

Preheat oven to 300 degrees F. In a (very) large bowl, stir dry ingredients until well distributed. Add wet ingredients & blend until the mixture is coated evenly. Spread mixture into a cookie pan that has sides and place in oven. Bake for about 30 minutes, stirring every 10 minutes or so.

I like my granola rather crispy, but if you prefer yours not so crunchy, make sure to check on it earlier & make sure that it's not getting too brown for you. It will harden out of the oven, so there's no need to bake it until it looks completely solid.

Potato-y Skins

Just a note to mention that I made potato skins for dinner...sans bacon of course! They were yummy and easy!

Just wash the potatoes, rub with oil, pierce skin a few times with a fork, and bake in oven as if you were making baked potatoes (~400 degrees F, until fork inserted slides easily into potato). Then, slice potatoes in half, scoop out center (all but the layer closest to the skin) and bake in oven again (I just placed them on the oven rack) for maybe 1/2 an hour, flipping over halfway through. Place the potatoes so that the scooped out part is facing up, and cover with as much cheddar cheese as you like! Broil for another couple minutes.

Not the fanciest dinner ever, but we sure were excited! Tim said even bacon couldn't make them better. :) Oh, and you may want to furnish with sour cream...I can't stand the stuff, so we went without, and they were still delicious!

Chocolate Brownie Cupcakes

So today I was in the drug store (which, sidenote, I ran into SIX PEOPLE I knew today while I was out...was the whole world last minute Valentine's Day shopping?) & I ran into one of the students from the lab where I work. We say hi & I expect her to ask how I'm doing or if I'm enjoying the snow or something of the sort, but instead she bursts out "Oh my god, can you please give me the recipe for those cupcakes you made the other day?" :)

Since it was a close friend's birthday, I wanted to make something special & I decided on brownie cupcakes. I was hoping to have something that was really 1/2 cupcake, 1/2 brownie, instead of brownies in a cupcake liner (mostly because I had a plate of brownies already sitting on the coffee table).

I decided on the recipe from GigiCakes, because of course her recipes are lovely. :) I'll reprint it to make it easier, but here's a link to her site so you can see all of her advice.

I attempted to make her espresso buttercream as well, but I screwed it up big time (possibly due to a faulty candy thermometer, possibly due to a faulty baker) and decided to go with a peanut butter icing instead, which is always a crowd pleaser so it worked out.

Brownie Cupcakes
adapted from Gigi Cakes

-12 Tbsp butter
-12 oz dark chocolate, chopped
-1 cup packed brown sugar
-2/3 cup of sugar
-4 eggs
-1 tsp vanilla
-1 cup flour

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line 2 muffin tins with liners.
2. Melt butter and chocolate in a medium microwavable bowl. Microwave on low, stirring occasionally, until melted and smooth.
3. Stir in the sugars, then add the eggs one at a time. Stir in vanilla, then flour.
4. Divide batter into the liners.
5. Bake cupcakes for 15-20 minutes or until a toothpick comes with moist crumbs attached (similar to a brownie). Cool completely before icing.

Mine made about 24 cupcakes.


Icing adapted from Bon Appetit, January 2003

Peanut Butter Icing

1 cup powdered sugar
3/4 cup chunky peanut butter
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 tsp cinnamon
2 tbsp vanilla yogurt
2 tsp instant coffee + 1/2 tbsp water

In a small bowl, mix instant coffee & water until blended. Put powdered sugar, peanut butter, butter, vanilla, & cinnamon in medium bowl. Using electric mixer, beat until mixture is smooth. Add yogurt and coffee mixture slowly, and mix until blended.


The peanut butter icing is reportedly "not too peanut-buttery" according to one of my taste testers. And another said "I didn't know that peanut butter & chocolate could go together in THAT way" (not that I necessarily know what that means, but I assume it wasn't the classic pb & chocolate combo).

Both parts of the recipe were quite easy. And you'll love them!

Baked Ziti

Let me just take a moment to say...I LOVE baked ziti. It is probably my favorite thing to eat. When I lived alone, I used to make little individual (impostor) baked ziti by placing pasta, sauce & mozzarella in a bowl & microwaving it. But I especially love when I can make real baked ziti to share!

Now this post is going to be a bit hard, because when I make baked ziti, I don't measure anything. But I tried to take note of how much of each ingredient I used, and I will transfer that knowledge onto you.

Baked Ziti

10 oz ricotta cheese (I use part-skim)
2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese
1/2 cup parmesan or romano shredded cheese
1 tsp Italian seasoning (or basil, oregano & parsley)
1/2 tsp pepper (or to taste)
1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp red pepper flakes

1 egg
1 lb ziti pasta
1 jar tomato sauce

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Bring large pot of water to boil, add pasta & boil for about 3 or 4 minutes, not too long, just to get it a little cooked. Drain.

Blend together (using hands, spoon, spatula, whatever you have around) ricotta cheese, 1/2 cup of the shredded mozzarella, parmesan, spices, and egg.














Pour about 1/3 of the tomato sauce into the bottom of the glass pan, and add 1/2 of the pasta.








Spoon 1/2 of ricotta mixture on top, being sure to spread it out evenly to cover the pasta.







Pour another 1/3 of the tomato sauce on top, add the rest of the pasta, spreading evenly, and then the final layer of the ricotta mixture.





Pour the final layer of tomato sauce, and spread the rest of the mozzarella generously on top.









Cover with aluminum foil & bake for about about 45 minutes. Remove foil, and continue baking for another 15 minutes, or until cheese is browned around the edges & bubbling.

Now my mama says she loves ricotta cheese so much she could eat it right out of the jar with a spoon, but I'm not such a big fan, so this is the perfect amount for me. If you really like the taste of ricotta, feel free to add more. And of course, I don't use meat, but I'm sure this would be delicious with a meat sauce.

Chocolate Banana Muffins

I intended to make this today: Banana Chocolate Walnut Bread but instead (due to what I had on hand) came out with these.

And they were delicious!

Chocolate Banana Muffins
adapted from the Wednesday Chef

3/4 cup white whole wheat flour
1/3 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cocoa powder
dash salt
dash cinnamon
1 1/2 tbsp butter
1 1/2 tbsp applesauce
1/4 cup light brown sugar
1 egg
1 medium banana, ripe & mashed
1/4 cup vanilla yogurt
1/4 tsp vanilla extract
2 oz dark chocolate, chopped into pieces

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Oil/spray muffin tins.

Combine flour, baking soda, cocoa powder, salt, and cinnamon in mixing bowl.

In a separate bowl, beat together butter, applesauce and brown sugar. Add eggs until blended, then beat in the mashed banana, yogurt & vanilla extract.

Pour flour mixture into wet ingredients and mix until just incorporated. Gently stir in the chocolate pieces. Pour mixture into muffin tin.

Bake for about 20 minutes, or until muffins are lightly browned & inserted toothpick comes out clean. Makes about 9 muffins.

Ok there is NO SUN in the whole state right now, so there won't be any pretty pictures for a while...4 days of grey and counting!

Peanut Butter Chocolate Cookies

FINALLY!

courtesy of Smitten Kitchen

I'd been SO excited to make these ever since I saw them. I love peanut butter and had been itching to make some cookies. Plus her pictures are so beautiful that any dish would look irresistible!

They were pretty easy to make, even the sugar sprinkling. I used chunky peanut butter, & the batter was a little grainy so it's possible I didn't mix it enough, but they still tasted great so don't worry if you run into that problem. At the end, I put a couple inches of sugar into a bowl, rolled the batter into 9 or 10 little balls, dropped them into the bowl & swirled it around. Did the job well! Make sure to press the cookies down before you put them in the oven, because they definitely will not flatten on their own.

Here's the recipe.

Of course...we actually barely ate any of these. Ha, that's the way things work in our kitchen. We buy or make LOADS of delicious things, and hardly seem to eat them when they are here. Perhaps that's due to there only being 2 of us here, but for whatever reason there is an entire container of stale cookies currently sitting on our kitchen table. Luckily, I gave away quite a few of them. :) And they were well-received!

You won't be sorry if you make them...good luck!

Sometimes I'm a mess!

Today was both a bad and good day in my world of baking. Bad because I broke some things. Good because I have a wonderful friend who only wants me to be happy. :)

Usually I like to hear bad news first because then I get to save the good, but lately I've been realizing that might not be the best way to think, so I'll start off differently today.

The good is that a very amazing friend of mine gave me a surprise present, for no reason at all whatsoever! It was really sweet and really made my day.

The bad is that when I got home I decided I wanted some dessert (yes we do need to eat dessert after breakfast), so I got ready to make some brownies (box mix...mint - yum!) & use my new toy. :)

Now there was the remnants of some cake I made Tim earlier in the week sitting on the stove on top of one of the rear burners. After I turn the oven on, Tim moves it away & informs me that there is a vent in that burner & (surprise) it gets really hot back there so we shouldn't keep anything on it. Now, I knew that the back of the stove got hot, but somehow, honest to god, I never knew there was a vent back there. So Tim goes outside to shovel some snow, & what do I do? I put a PLASTIC LID from a tupperware container RIGHT ON THE BURNER.

Ok, not my most shining moment. It melted all over the burner. So I pull the burner off the oven & run to ask Tim what to do. He assures me it's ok, at which point I return to the mixing bowl. Contentedly mixing, suddenly the head of my spatula breaks in half. The wood pops through the rubber part. GREAT. I loved that spatula. Yeah, silly, I know, but it was one of the first tools I bought for my kitchen in my new apt & it was GREEN! And it had a bamboo handle. And I broke it. *tear*

Just not one of my best days in the kitchen. This day topped off my week which consisted of me showcasing my cake baking skills. I guess the cake itself was ok (though I didn't love the taste of it) but when I tried to make lemon curd to put between the layers, I mixed together all 8 egg yolks, 3 lemons juiced & zested, & proceeded to boil the eggs. Yum. Everyone loves boiled egg in their lemon curd. Determined to not waste 20 minutes of zesting, juicing, and separating, I tried to strain out the egg. Yes, I know, illogical, but it made sense at the time. I figured even if I didn't get the lemon curd to work out (even though that was the whole point of making the cake), I could make some excellent icing. So what do I do? I manage to somehow beat the sides of the pan into the icing. Little black flecks of teflon. Needless to say, I won't be adding a post about that one (although you can read how to make it properly here).

So the brownies were yummy after all, I broke up some spare junior mints & put some extra chocolate chips in it to make it ultra-not-so-good-for-me.

Haha, you thought you were going to get a recipe for brownies today, but instead all you get is the knowledge that I make my brownies from a box! :)

Here's to a great start to your week!