Back to the Basic Baking

APPLE CRISP
So this one is another one of those easy recipes. Good, but most people already know how to do this anywho.

But I'm gonna do it anywho cause I want to. So there. And I'm trying to relax today and get rid of a nasty cold.

This is one of the minimal ingredient recipes. You basically need apples, water, flour, cinnamon, sugar and salt.... oh, and butter.Older apples work great for this. One-they are easier to cut, two-they take less to cook, and three-'cause my momma told me so.

I find I like just a bit of apple peeling left on the apple. Maybe it gives it more texture, maybe cause it looks cooler, maybe cause I'm lazy and don't get it all off. Sprinkle this with 1/4 cup of water.
Dust this with cinnamon. And a bit of salt. Both of these have a specific measurement but I just do it to what looks right.
In a separate bowl combine 3/4 cup flour1 cup sugarand 1/3 cup soft butter. Mix this together- I mainly used a fork for this one- not my hands. This is a finer mix than the struesel.Spread evenly over apples.Add left over struesel from previous recipe. (http://trbrockmann.blogspot.com/2011/09/breather-from-life.html ) I normally double the crumble crust but didn't have to this time. Bake in a 350* oven for 40 minutes or until golden. The leftover struesel was a bit dark to start with so it kinda was always golden. We kinda just judged it ourselves.

And there you have it. The world-famous-original-recipe-of-Auntie-Sharon-Pastor-Thad-favorite-smells-like-fall-when-you-bake-it apple crisp.

Feeling fallish,

Ti-Ti

Breather from life

COFFEE CAKE MUFFINS
So I have a lot of free time on my hands right now. I'm still out looking for a job every day but there is only so much that you can do in a day, and so with the rest of my time, I've been baking yet some more.
This one is actually one that isn't your normal, every day recipe like puppy chow or no bake cookies.
I've never made cake by scratch or coffee cake by scratch either, so this was a new experience. They turned out pretty well, if I say so myself. Enjoy.
(don't judge...but these are from marthastewart.com)
Ingredients:
For the Muffins
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour (spooned and leveled)
2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
1 cup sour cream
1 cup granulated sugar
1 tsp. pure vanilla extract
2 large eggs
For the Streusel Topping
1 cup packed dark-brown sugar
1 cup all-purpose flour, (spooned and leveled)
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/2 cup (1 stick) chilled unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
(FYI- I doubled the recipe and it turned out just fine)

I started with the streusel topping. Maybe I like doing things backwards. Maybe that's the way the recipe told me to. Maybe that's just the way I roll.

Add brown sugarand floursalt
and cinnamon
First dice up the butter into cubes Then add it to your brown sugar, flour, salt, and cinnamon mix I found it easier to get the texture I wanted if I mix this up with my hands..... They're clean... well, now they're not.... Put this in the fridge until read to use.
Then you mix the cake part.

Start with sour cream.... I've always wanted to try something made with sour cream or some other strange ingredient.Add yet more butter. I really tried to wipe out our supply of stick butter with doubling this recipe. Unfortunately, I failed and I had to make an Apple Crisp, too. (food blog coming soon) And even that didn't work.Add sugar.... Stir these together on medium speed. While it's mixing add vanilla and eggs (man, I wish I could crack an egg with one hand- sure would come in handy with taking pics while I cook. I tried to do it for this and ended up fishing out a few egg shells.... no worries, I got them all....)Then mix together the dry ingredients for the cake.

More flour baking powder

and baking soda
Slowly combine dry mixture with wet ingredients while on medium speed
Drop by spoonful into muffin pan, using only half of the batter. Fill about 1/3 or so full.Sprinkle half of struesel over the top.Put last of cake mix over the streusel.
Use the rest of the streusel over the top.Bake in a 350* oven for about 25 minutes. This depends on what kind of pan you use. As you can see I used a jumbo, regular and a mini pan. Each one was slightly different times. The mini used about 20 minutes and the regular was about 28 to 30 minutes. The jumbo pan took quite a while. Somewhere around 40 minutes I think. Test them by inserting a toothpick. If it's done, it will come out clean. I forgot about this method and took them out because they looked done and about 5 minutes latter remembered to test them and found them not done so I stuck them back in and back in and back in. (I'm a bit impatient) Don't be like me- it works better. (And yes, I have messy pans when I make muffins. Then you get to lick your fingers off when you clean it.)

And there you have it. Coffee Cake Muffins.
You try naming this blog something starting with a "B",

Ti-Ti

Baked Goods: In which I don't bake

So this new kitchen of ours is having an effect on me. I seem to be baking more than normal. Not so much cooking although I think a bit more of that too. But I'm loving these new bigger counters, photo worthy lighting, and organized cupboards.
I made chocolate chip cookies on Wednesday and apparently, those weren't enough for my dad.
He's not really into baked goods. He pretty much only likes chocolate chip cookies, melting moments, and chocolate cake with chocolate frosting.
And so on Tuesday- after having cleaned out our stash of cookies by like Friday- he needed something more. He even bought more milk to go with it. (He obviously was trying to hint at something when he put that extra gallon in the cart.)
I gave him the choice of cake or more cookies. I found it humorous the amount of time it took to decided. But he went with cake. But the thing is..... we do cake with a box mix..... and I didn't really feel that was blog worthy. And so I made No Bake Cookies.

I was going to make these earlier but used all the vanilla in the house for the chocolate chip cookies (actually we only 1 tsp. when I needed 2 but they still turned out fine and you couldn't really tell..... I don't know why I told you that but apparently that was important to the story.)

I know, I know. Seriously, who doesn't know how to make no bake cookies. ummmm so I basically just wanted to do another food blog. At least you get to see a small portion of the kitchen..... (By the way, we are getting closer and closer to being moved in. I'm planning an official photo shoot when that is done and then will post pictures. Patience, my friend.)
And there is kind of an art to making these. If you don't do it just right they won't sit right. They also don't like to harden on rainy days but it was a rainy day and these set just fine so maybe our theories are off. (But don't worry if they don't set. That never seems to be a problem in our house. Spoons work just fine.)

So here you go- a step by step method of no bake cookies.

Let the cook book open up to where ever it wants to. Inevitably, it will open to the page with no bake cookies. On the other side you will find the recipe to melting moments. We don't make either of these very often in our house. Opening to this page has nothing to do with the stained, wrinkled, ripped page, our cook book just likes this page naturally.....

I highly recommend listening to this song while baking. It will inspire you..... or get you so distracted by playing the air cello that you forget to cook at all......


Melt the butter and sugar
and milk in a medium pan
Measure out the oats in a separate bowl
The recipe says to put the coco in the pan with the milk, butter and sugar. We always mix it in with the oats.Stir oats and coco until oats are well coated.

Decide after you measure everything out that there is not enough and quickly double the batch. (You have to do this quickly because the butter and milk mixture is already melted and starting to boil)

Don't forget to also add more oats and coco to the bowl.

Let the sugar, butter, and milk mixture boil for one minute.

Add peanut butter
and vanilla (I was having issues with pouring vanilla and taking pictures so mom helped me out here. Don't look at the hands here. I promised mom that there wouldn't be any hands showing and as you can see, there is a bit showing. So don't look at them. K? K.)
Pause this process to quickly save your cake from burning in the oven.

It works best to use hot pads. Just saying.

Quickly go back to your peanut butter and mix it in well to melt it. (You really shouldn't leave it as you don't want to have peanut butter lumps in the mix which could happen if you don't mix it together quickly enough. And you mixture could start to harden. Don't follow my lead here.)

Pour over the oats and chocolate. (Yes, Aubrey, I had to go back and edit all of my "pooring". Sheesh. I love spell check.) Stir until all is evenly coated and there are no dry spots left.

Drop by spoonful onto waxed paper.

Eat with spoon while still hot...... oh, oops.... I mean... wait for it to cool completely before you eat half the batch.

And there you have it..... No Bake Cookies.... My version.

Loving chocolate,

Ti-Ti