Gran(d)ola bars

I just finished finals, so what do I do the first day of freedom? Obviously rekindle my relationship with Gertrude that has been a bit frayed these last few weeks.  Since the holiday season is inevitably filled with cookies, fudge and candy, I decided to hold off on the peppermint bark, gingerbread men or peanut butter balls.  Instead I made homemade oatmeal date granola bars  Before you walk these off as rabbit food or cardboard, realize that  I do actually value taste, so I may have sprinkled a generous amount of dark chocolate chips to the granola bars. But dark chocolate is healthy, right??

Whenever I am on pinterest, specifically the "health and fitness" area, I always see these pins for not-so-appealing sounding recipes that say have captions of "OMG these were so good, I am never buying XXX store- bought again!!". What I think- "really? really? you are never going to buy store bought ice cream ever again since you discovered mashed up frozen banana 'ice cream'......... I don't think so".   Anyways, that is what I think MOST of the time.  But these granola bars were literally so good that I may not buy store bought granola bars ever again (ok, that is a lie- I may not WANT to thought!).

• 1 cup packed dates, pitted
• 1/4 cup honey 
• 1/4 cup natural peanut butter 
• 1 cup slivered almonds
• 1 1/2 cups rolled oats
• 1/2 cup dark chocolate 
• 1/2 cup dried bing cherries 
• 1/4 cup dark chocolate chips

1) This was the one step that Gertrude was actually involved in....lightly toasting the oats.  I was a bit doubtful that Gertrude has the ability to "toast", let alone lightly "toast" anything.  But, I decided to give it a try using parchment paper.... which ended up working like a charm. No charred oats in these bars! I toasted the oats for about 300 degrees for 15 minutes. 

2) Next, it was time to puree the dates.  This was probably (ok, definitely) the first time in my entire life that have ever bought dates.,,, so lets just say I was a bit ignorant about the anatomy of a date.  I put the dates in the food processor.... and nothing happened to the dates.  A bit annoyed that my trusty food processor was not processing, I took the dates out and started to cut them..... andddd then I realized that dates have pits.  Genius moment of the day.... I am on winter break after all.  After pitting, the dates processed beautifully. 

3) Next, warm honey and peanut butter in small pan.  I couldn't really mess this up.  

4) Mix the oats, dates, honey/Pb mix, almonds, 1/2 cup chocolate and cherries in a large bowl.  You will probably need to use some force to mix everything together. 

5) Transfer mixture into 8 by 8 pan (with parchment paper on the bottom) and pat down hard

6) Melt remaining dark chocolate (add a little bit of butter if needed) and spread on top 

7) Put in fridge to set 

8) enjoy!

The best part of these are that they taste as good as a dessert, but I still consider it a healthy snack. This means it is socially acceptable to eat "dessert" for breakfast before my workout.... which is awesome. 

P(y)ummmmmkin Muffins

I want to first apologize for my lame excuse of a creative title.  I was trying to think of some punpkin..... oh wait I mean PUMPKIN puns, but I could not find anything all that smashing :P Yesterday signaled T-7 days before thanksgiving and at this time, I came to the horrific realization that I have made it 89% of the way through pumpkin season (october 1-thanksgiving in my book) without baking a pumpkin dessert.  In this time, I have consumed probably 10 cans of pumpkin on my oatmeal or just by the spoonful (I am not quite sure how socially acceptable that is, but it is good!) but Gertrude has not turned out a warm, spicy, moist pumpkin-y baked good...... yet. My excuse to bake this time was to bring something for my Biochemistry project group to celebrate our successful analysis of the protein, Uracil phosphoribosyltransferase.  For those that are wondering (because I know so many are), Uracil phosphoribosyltransferase  is a protein that catalzyes the reaction that makes Uracil Monophoshate, UMP, the ugly stepsister of ATP/AMP.  So perhaps I should retitle this blog P(UMP)kin muffins........... or not. Anyways, here is what I did:


FILLING:
1 package (8 ounces) Cream Cheese
1 egg
1 tablespoon sugar

MUFFIN:
2-1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp ginger
1/4 tsp allspice
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 eggs, lightly beaten
2 cups sugar
1 cup canned pumpkin
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup pecans

STREUSEL
1/3 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup flour
4 tbs cold butter, diced into pieces
1 tsp cinnamon


1. Blend together ingredients for filling in small bowl and set aside
2. Blend flour, spices, baking soda and salt in medium bowl
3. Beat together eggs, sugar, pumpkin and oil
4.  Slowly combine dry ingredients into pumpkin mixture and beat until combined
5.  Mix in pecans, if desired
6.  Fill prepared muffin tins halfway with batter
7.  spoon as filling on top of batter (as much as desired)
8.  Fill muffin tins with remaining batter- I as able to make 12 very full muffins and about 6 smaller ones
9. Bake for 20 minutes at 350 degrees
10.  Prepare streusel by using a food processor to make small crumbs
11.  Sprinkle with streusel immediately after they come out of oven
12.  Let cool and enjoy!

 

Butterscotch Caramel Blondies

 Once upon a time, I did not actually bake ridiculous desserts.  Instead, I stuck with the generic chocolate chip cookies or vanilla cupcakes that I would find in my mom's cookbooks.  I mean this in no disrespect to chocolate chip cookies or vanilla cupcakes, but honestly, the chocolate chip cookies or cupcakes you can buy at the grocery store bakery are probably better than the ones you could make by yourself.... just sayin' (though if anyone wants to prove me wrong with tangible baked  I would be happy to consider). As I have matured as a baker, I have decided that making those recipes that you can't find at the counter of every grocery store is what makes baking more exciting and rewarding. The first recipe of this sorts that I ever embarked upon were caramel brownies, at the following link  http://allrecipes.com/recipe/caramel-brownies/.  I distinctly remember the day after a long run in high school that my good friend  and I decided to make this recipe..... we were so excited how good they were that we made them again, and again, and again.  While I only see her once or twice a year now, we still carry on the tradition.  While I think we have both betrayed the other a few times and made the brownies in our own separate lives, I try to keep my caramel brownies making to when I have my partner-in-crime.

             
The one thing about caramel brownies, is that there is some room for variation. While the original recipe calls for german chocolate cake mix, my friend and I definitely did an experiment where we tried three different types of chocolate cake mix at the same time and did a taste test.  The result: milk chocolate cake mix gives the best caramel brownies (it also has about .5 g less fat than the german chocolate cake mix.... so these caramel brownies are basically healthy).  But they were all delicious nonetheless.  As I was thinking about about what type of recipe I wanted to do for my last day of work (I have the best job ever :), I needed some foolproof recipe that could leave me a little room for experimentation.  The result of my brain storm sesh- butterscotch caramel brownies.  SO GOOD.   

Butterscotch Caramel Blondies

1 box french vanilla cake mix

1/3 cup evaporated milk

3/4 cup softened butter

1/4 cup brown sugar

2 tbs maple syrup 

1 package butterscotch chips 

1/4 and 1 tbs evaporated milk 

11 ounces wrapped caramel 

1. Combine cake mix, 1/3 cup evaporated milk, brown sugar, syrup and butter in large bowl 

2.  Spread 2/3 of mix on greased 9 by 13 cake pan (batter will be thin) 

3. Bake for 8-10 minutes at 350 F

4. While it is baking, melt the 11 ounces of wrapped caramel with 1/4 cup and 1 tbs evaporated milk on medium heat. 

5. After 8-10 minutes, take the pan out and pour the melted caramel onto the brownies. 

6.  Spoon the remaining batter on top and sprinkle the butterscotch chips on. 

7. Bake for another 15-18 minutes

8. Let cool and enjoy!

  

No-bake Cookie Dough Truffle Bars

Happy Halloween Everyone! I am very happy to have the time to share this recipe with everyone, since I have been fairly swamped with necessary, productive activities the last few weeks.  Since my first round of midterms are over, I decided to bring some treats to work today.  Today also seemed like an appropriate day to get into the Halloween spirit.

As a child, Halloween (and all holidays for that matter) were at least month long ordeals.   Starting October 1, I would start thinking of costume ideas and planning out trick-or-treating routes to get ready for the big day.  Don't even get me started on Christmas.  The moment Halloween was over, I was scouring the toy catalogs to start making my list. As a college student, it is almost the opposite. There I was, thinking about all the notes I had to catch up on or the essays I had to write when I realized, "oh hey, Halloween is this Thursday...... wait it is Thursday right?? Or is it Wednesday?"  I obviously am on top of it .....NOT.  Aside from my daily concerns of overdosing on Vitamin A from the copious amounts of pumpkin and sweets potatoes I eat each day (pumpkin in oatmeal anyone?) I literally have put no thought into the holiday.  So, I thought, what better way to enter Halloween week than making a delicious Halloween treat?

After spending a while on Pinterest pursuing the various cute tombstone brownies, eye ball cake pops or spider cookies I could make, I simply couldn't find anything that would take a reasonable amount of time with relatively few ingredients.  So I ditched the  Halloween theme, and shortly after had a "brain blast" (what show, everyone???) of the easiest, most delicious (albeit calorically dense) dessert ever.

I realized that eggless cookie dough finds its way into many of my recipes, such as in http://cookingwithgertrude.blogspot.com/2013/06/cookie-dough-brownie-bombs-danger-danger.html, as do Oreo truffles, such as here:  http://cookingwithgertrude.blogspot.com/2012/12/tis-season-for-awesome-cupcakes.html. Why not put them together to form Cookie Dough Truffle Bars? No baking (ie, no dealing with pesky Gertrude) , 20 minute prep time, out-of-this world taste.... can't get much better than that.  Driving to the store I was redetermined to tie back in my halloween theme by using Halloween Oreos for the Oreo truffle layer.  My dreams were crushed when I learned that  Safeway apparently does not believe in virtue of Oreos with bright orange cream. So, in a last-ditch effort to tie some halloween-ness into my treats, I picked up some Candy-Corn M&Ms (which are really just candy corn colored M&Ms with white chocolate) to mix into the cookie dough and put on top.

 I'm sure someone else in the wonderful world of Pinterest has done this exact idea, but I am going to tell myself that this recipe was a unique Cooking-with-Gertrude Creation.  Want to recreate the magic? Here is what I did

No-bake Cookie Dough Truffle Bars

Oreo Layer 
8 oz. Oreos (I used 1 pack of mini-Oreos, but 20 normal Oreos is equivalent)
4 oz. Cream Cheese (I realized after that I should have used pumpkin cream cheese!  That would have been way been way more Halloween-y than my lame M&Ms ) 

1. Line 8 by 8 pan with aluminum foil  
2. Crush up Oreos using the method of your choice. I started with the old-fashioned fist crush and then put the cookies into the food processor to finish the job.  
3.  Soften cream cheese and mix into oreo crumbs to make a dough-like mixture.  
4. Pat mixture into bottom of pan
5. Put into fridge as you prepare the cookie dough 

Cookie Dough layer (adapted from  http://www.cupcakeproject.com/2009/03/raw-cookie-dough-thats-safe-to-eat.html) 

2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup unsalted butter, melted
1 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1/4 cup milk
1 cup candy corn M&Ms  
1 cup chocolate chips 

1. Mix all ingredients together into a large bowl.  
2.  Pat about 1 inch cookie dough (or more or less, depending on your love for cookie dough) on top of Oreo layer. I had some extra cookie dough..... Too bad I can NEVER find any use for extra cookie dough :) just kidding. 


Chocolate Topping 

1 cup chocolate chips 
1 tbs shortening 

1. Melt chocolate and shortening at intervals of 30 sec until smooth
2. Pour over cookie dough layer
3.  Garnish with extra M&Ms 
4.  Place in fridge for about an hour to set before cutting 
5.  Enjoy!

Cookies with Gertrude

As of late, I have discovered something dangerous. Gertrude can make cookies...... really, really, really good cookies.  The whole 50 degrees lower + parchment paper+ high rack words wonders. 

I needed to bake some cookies for various people for random favors, so I needed a crowd pleaser that I could make a lot of in a relatively short amount of time.  I also didn't really feel like going to the grocery, so I had to make do with what I had.  Since I have oatmeal religiously for breakfast every morning, I have a huge can of it that I would happily donate 1.5 cups towards cookies.  Also, white chocolate chips happened to be a irresistibly cheap at the store, so I happened to have some of those on hand too.  So it was settled: oatmeal white chocolate chip cookies. 

I used the following recipe: http://allrecipes.com/recipe/white-chocolate-chip-oatmeal-cookies/  with a few modifications.  I unfortunately did not have pecans (remember I'm on a budget), but I had the exciting addition of 1 tsp cinnamon.... definitely a nice touch.  Anyways, the recipe was pretty straight forward so I had no kitchen fails. However,  I did learn a valuable lesson that can be expanded to all other aspects of life: trust the process.  Even though the cookies only looked half-baked when it is time to take them out, I needed to trust that they would harden up only slightly to be literally the most chewy, delicious cookies ever.  And they did.  Anyways,  10 of them are sitting in my freezer right now so I can take them to work.  Writing this blog is one way to distract myself.  

Fun with Fondant

Wow, it is good to be back.  I have been super busy studying for a big test I had to take this past wednesday, but now that it is over, I can relax for a whole week before school starts.  For me, relaxing means cooking awesome foods..... obviously.   My week of relaxation also perfectly corresponds with a cake auction at my dad's work that I plan to bake a cake for.  Since most of the cakes I make are just for birthdays, I don't ever feel that much pressure about making them look super professional (don't want to have people think they are store-bought, right??).  However, a cake auction seems like sort of a big deal for me, so I want to make the cook look super good (along with having it taste super good too).  This being said, I cannot deny that pretty much every cake I have ever looked at and been like "wow, this cake is decorated really nicely" is made with fondant.

For those of you who don't know, fondant is basically like frosting dough that you can mold and cut to put on cakes to give that "bakery" appearance.  I have heard that sometimes this good look of fondant compromises its taste.  Therefore, I did my research to find the best-tasting/easiest recipe I could possibly find.  A marshmallow fondant recipe I found looked the most promising, but I was still a little bit skeptical about it so I decided to practice it in a low- risk situation.  Every saturday I tutor kids so I decided to bring them cookies... since bringing them any cookies (not to mention decorated cookies) basically makes their days, I decided if my fondant turned into not-so-(fun)dant I would not feel too bad.  

This endeavor had an even greater risk of failure do to the fact that I decided to make cookies.... in Gertrude.  For those of you that don't remember, Gertrude decides to take all of her pent up anger out on cookies.  Challenge accepted. 

I used the following recipe http://allrecipes.com/recipe/the-best-rolled-sugar-cookies/?scale=15&ismetric=0 with a few modifications.  I quartered the recipe because I only needed about 15 servings rather than 60 servings.  After quartering the recipe, I added a 1/4 cup of powdered sugar just because :) Also, I reduced the over temperature to 350 instead of 400 in an attempt to make it more Gertrude-proof.  This precaution, along with my raising the oven rack and putting the dough on parchment paper, turned out the most successful cookies I have ever made (in Gertrude that is).  

Next, I rolled out the fondant using a ghetto rolling pin (aka a plastic cup.... gotta love college) and used a similarly ghetto cookie cutter (a wine glass) to cut out fondant circles.  I did not have any normal frosting to "glue" the fondant to the cookies, so I decided to just put the fondant onto the cookies straight out of the oven with the hopes it would melt on.  In retrospect, this could have gone horribly, since in a very parallel universe the fondant could have liquified, turning into not-so-(fun)dant. However, that surprisingly did not happen and I have nine beautiful, happy cookies to give to my students today.  Not to mention the fondant tasted pretty good too.  Needless to say, I am happy with this fondant experience and feel confident about buying an absurd amount of marshmallows to make this cake (that will be featured on my next blog) happen!

IN THE (cal)ZONE.....

So it looks like this week I am going pretty much all out with the whole-wheat bread products.  From England on Monday with my English muffins, I decided to take a little stroll across Europe to the land of alfredo, pesto and mozzarella... Italy (I don't know for sure if Calzones actually originated in italy, but one can guess).  Anyways, those three things I mentioned... Alfredo, pesto, and mozzarella... well, I decided they should all be included in this calzone.  Before you assume this is going to be another peanut butter cookie dough cheesecake bar recipe where your arteries close by simply looking at the pictures, think again.  This recipe is actually decently healthy.  Whole Wheat Crust, a lightened up Alfredo sauce and spinach make this a filling yet wholesome recipe.

STEP 1: I got to use my handy dandy bread machine! First, I mixed the following ingredients, in order, into a bread machine and let go on the dough cycle (takes about 1.5 hrs on mine)
1 1/3 cups water
2 tablespoons olive oil
3/4 teaspoon salt
1.5 cups bread flour
2.5 cups whole wheat flour
2 teaspoons yeast

STEP 2: While the dough was doing its thing, I prepared the goodness that was going to be stuffed into these calzones.  I used the following recipe from http://recipes.sparkpeople.com/recipe-detail.asp?recipe=163122 the alfredo sauce:

Ingredients

1 Tbsp. extra virgin olive oil
 

4 cloves garlic, minced
2 cups skim milk
1 cup chicken broth
3 Tbsp. all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. black pepper
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese

Top-Rated Olive Oil at Amazon

Directions

In a medium saucepan, heat oil over medium heat. Add garlic and saute until golden brown.

In a small saucepan, stir together milk, chicken broth, flour, salt and pepper over low heat until smooth and thick. Stir in parmesan.  

I'm always I little skeptical of these "lighter Alfredo sauces" since I am usually faced with what I call the "Healthification dilemma".  I will explain: I often see recipes for items such as "skinny cookie dough bombs", "healthy donuts" or "low-fat nutella cheesecake". The "Healthification dilemma" arrises when I realize that in order for these recipes to taste at least remotely close to their calorie and fat laden originals, they have to have an amount of fat and sugar that I would consider to be "unhealthy" according to my maniac-runner health-freak standards.   Therefore, I am faced with the question: why don't I just enjoy the real thing in slightly smaller/less frequent amounts, rather than dealing with this recipe ridden with an identity crisis as it just tried so hard to be "heatlthy" but really is neither particularly nutritious nor delicious.

Alfredo sauce definitely is one of these major dilemna foods: would I rather have a delicious,rich, creamy, buttery plate of Fettucchine Alfredo once every month as a treat or a seriously watered down version every week? Usually I would go with the first, but after perfecting this sauce, I may go with the second.  The key to making a decently healthy (but not overly so, of course) Alfredo sauce: patience, my friend.  In the words of our beloved Dory: "just keep (stirring)"!  The sauce took a good 20-25 minutes of stirring to achieve the thickness that hallmarks a delicious Alfredo sauce.  In chemistry class, we use magnetic stir bars to keep stirring the solution constantly.  I would imagine that someone has invented a similar invention with culinary uses,which I would like to acquire.  Until that time though, I found the best solution was to plop a chair in front of the stove and just keep stirring!

STEP 3: I just happened to have about 2 tbs of pesto in my fridge, so I just basically smothered it all over the 8 or so chicken tenderloins I had thawed, added about 1/4 cup of chicken broth and cooked on medium heat until done.  Sorry I don't have an exact recipe for the chicken, but at this point I was just wingin' it and making do with what I had.

STEP 4: After the dough was done, I divided it up into 5 balls, flattened them out into 7 inch or so rounds and began to fill.  I chopped up some spinach to add into the calzones along with the Alfredo sauce, chicken and a sprinkle of light mozzarella cheese. I must admit, I got a bit greedy with the stuffing.  I have never really made calzones before but now I know: there is a very fine line between deliciousness and disaster. Though three of the calzones worked magnificently, the other two  couldn't really keep in the filling after I folded them in half and sealed them.  But I made it work.

After baking at 375 for 20 min, here is the result: As you can see, my greediness in overstuffing continued to backfire as a few sorta exploded in the oven.... however, parchment paper was my saving grace because Gertrude miraculously decided not to burn the oozing cheese.

They made an excellent dinner.... and lunch.... and dinner.  I am a little (Cal)zoned out now.  Ciao!!!

English Muffins

Once in a while, I actually do what a food blogger should do: make up recipes.  Usually I  use already developed recipes with small adjustments (peanut butter chips for chocolate chips... *gasp*) that I don't feel comfortable crediting as my own.  However, this time around, a deficiency of a few vital ingredients forced me to essentially create my own recipe for..... English Muffins!

 I love English Muffins, but often don't buy them at the store because I find them ridiculously overpriced.  $4 for 6 English muffins that are probably going to go bad in 2 days??? I don't think so.  I've run the gambit on other bread products- bagels, pretzels, bread, regular muffins, etc- but I have never done english muffins.  This is another episode of cooking without Gertrude, since the odd part about English muffins is that instead of putting them in the oven, you heat them up on the griddle (okay let's be honest, I don't have a fancy griddle-  I used a skillet).  I guess the British had had enough of finicky ovens like Gertrude and resorted to other heating sources.

Here is the recipe I used for the muffins: 

1/4 cup warm water
1 tbs yeast
3 cups whole wheat flour
1/4 vital wheat gluten
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup water
1/3 dry milk powder
3 tablespoons oil
1 tablespoon honey
1 egg
Whipping this together, I was a bit skeptical- I am always a bit skeptical when powdered milk is involved. The stuff has the oddest texture.  But it ended up working out  Anyways here is the process

1.  sprinkle yeast in 1/4 cup warm water (about 105-110 degrees F) in a bowl and allow it to become foamy (about 10 min) 
2. mix flour, salt and vital wheat gluten in a different bowl
3.  In another bowl (sorry for all of the bowls!) mix together the milk powder and water to make "milk" and add the oil, honey and egg.  
4. Add half of the liquid mixture into the flour mixture, followed by the yeast, followed by the other half. 
5. mix until smooth and then return to a floured surface to knead for about 5 min. 
6. let rest in covered bowl for about 1 hr until it doubles in size.  Ideally, this should be a warm place- luckily, I just plopped the bowl on my backyard and prayed that no woodland creature would try to snack on it.  It was just fine. 
7.  flatten out to about 1/2 inch and use  some object with a 3 in diameter to cut circles.  The dough was a little bit hard to cut, so I used a pizza cutter to cut the circles. 
8. let rest for another 20-30 minutes
9.  heat up a skillet and cook each side for 3 minutes, until the tops become golden but not burnt.  
10.  enjoy with cheese, peanut butter, a slab of butter or a drizzle of honey (probably not all of those together) 

  

A lot of catching up to do.........

Hello to my loyal visitors who are still checking this page despite my complete negligence.  That being said, though I have been slacking off majorly on the recording of my baking escapades, I thankfully have gone full force on the important part- the baking!  In the last... uhhh month... I have made a plethora of scrumptious treats that I am going to briefly talk about (and show pretty pictures obviously).  For those of you who are more interested in the play-by-play kitchen commentary, I will try to squeeze a little of that in too.  However, for the sake of brevity, I will resume with the step-by-step recollection of my baking experiences next time (earlier than September, don't worry).

RECIPE 1: First up is the famed bread that I briefly mentioned in a previous post.  Though I was showing the fairly primitive stages of the bread during that previous post, it evolved quite nicely as you will see below.  The recipe is at this link:  http://www.marthastewart.com/907240/chad-robertsons-tartine-country-bread

See the resemblance?? I don't either......

The bread some mean paninis with tomatoes, pesto, fontina and sopressata: 

 Just one more picture of 3 of the 7(!!!!) loaves:  It was quite a big time commitment so multiple loaves were necessary to justify the fact took a whole day to make! 

RECIPE 2: The recipe was not outrageous like a few of the ones to follow, but I had to mention these (http://www.simplyrecipes.com/recipes/heath_bar_cookies/) Toffee cookies because they represent the first successful cookie-making endeavor in Gertrude.  The secret (or should I say secretS) is two pans stacked on each other, parchment paper, top rack, half the necessary time and 50 degrees less in the oven.  The result- beautiful, unburnt, chewy cookies.  In my opinion, crunchy cookies are not worth eating, so I am glad that attacking Gertrude at various angles allows for edible cookies. 

RECIPE 3: Cake batter balls.  Once in a while, I come across a recipe that I wish I didn't know about. In these cases, the reason for my desire of ignorance is that the recipe produces something in just too little time that tastes just too delicious.   This recipe (http://www.the-girl-who-ate-everything.com/2011/03/cake-batter-truffles.html) is actually an instance of "Cooking With(out) Gertrude", since Gertrude played no part in this.  Despite Gertrude's lack of involvement, I had a minor fiasco with the dipping chocolate.  Though dipping chocolate is supposedly way easier to work with than chocolate chips, the addition of the cake mix to the dipping chocolate as mentioned in the recipe did not bode particularly well.  The chocolate did not get to the thin consistency I needed, and I ended up way overheating the chocolate to the point of no return.  Unfortunately, dipping chocolates are very hard to come by in Davis, California after 7 pm.  I thus had to resort to using white chocolate chips which though albeit delicious, do not look as attractive when melted. Luckily, covering the balls in sprinkles made everything better.   It helped that these cake batter truffles tasted phenomenal.  I don't think I will ever make the traditional cake balls again- why bake a cake, destroy it, then ball it up again when you just ball the batter up and skip those middle steps?? 

RECIPE 4: Oh boy, now I'm on to the good one.  Peanut Butter Cup Cookie Dough Cheesecake bars.  If every major obesity-related medical problem could be packaged into bar form, this would be it.  I mainly followed this recipe http://insidebrucrewlife.com/2013/03/peanut-butter-cheesecake-cookie-bars/ with a few modifications.  I did not have chocolate chips, so I just used peanut butter chips in the dough.  To compensate for the lack of chocolate in the dough, I added a layer of 12 big peanut butter cups that I broke up into pieces.  Then, I proceeded to add the cheesecake, more cookie dough, peanut butter chips and a chocolate drizzle.  There literally is no way for this to go wrong.  A picture is worth a thousand words. 

RECIPE 5: This one was fresh out of the oven today.  Yesterday at my work, my students (who are the lucky recipients of 95% of all of these baked good) finished off a box of drumsticks in about 10 min (2 drumsticks each).  A while later in the class,  I asked them what type of dessert I should bring for the next day (today).  They were all so full from the ice cream, that they jokingly suggested salad.  While I didn't go that extreme, I did use vegetables as an inspiration as I decided with zucchini cupcakes! I used the following recipe of http://www.tasteofhome.com/recipes/zucchini-cupcakes for the cake part and http://www.food.com/recipe/homemade-caramel-frosting-303255 for the caramel icing.  Though I accidentally used bread flour instead of cake flour to make them a bit more "bready" then I wanted, they had a lovely flavor that was complemented well by with the icing.  And the picture turned out really well:

Man, I am sick of writing now.  Well, I guess that is my own fault.  Until next time!!

Cookie Dough Brownie Bombs.... Danger, Danger!

In summer time, I work for a tutoring company.  In order to stay on the good side of the kids I teach I make them treats eat week..... it's a great job. Anyways, I usually try to only make really intense desserts when I have a legitimate excuse, meaning I have many people to give them so they do not sit in my fridge for days on end (ok, maybe just a few days before they get eaten). I consider this job a very legitimate excuse (and I get reimbursed for the materials, even better!!).   Anyways, I decided to go with what I was comfortable with for the first week.... brownies, cooking dough and chocolate! Luckily for me, Gertrude's inability to make cookies was not a problem because this recipe has cookie DOUGH, not cookies.

Here is the recipe:
http://thedomesticrebel.com/2013/02/20/chocolate-chip-cookie-dough-brownie-bombs/

 Anyways basic idea.... make cookie dough (without eggs of course!), roll it into balls, make brownies, smoosh them up, roll smooshed brownies around cookie dough balls, dip in chocolate.... there really is no way they could not be delicious.  And the were.  These are a little bit too good, so I was very happy to get these out of the house very quickly.  The whole process went very smoothly (hence I don't have a long story like I usually do!).  Gertrude can handle brownies pretty well, so I only had to do some minmal edge trimming to ensure the brownies were fudgey enough to smoosh.   Nom Nom Nom Nom

Stay tuned for more kitchen adventures!!

The father of all berry pies

I really have just been on a roll with these fruity desserts lately.  While for mother's day I made lemon cupcakes, I went with a berry pie for father's day as per the request of my wonderful father. Pumpkin and apple pies are the only types of pies I have experience making, so I was slightly worried about the idea of a berry pie.  I imagined a sloppy, juicy mess of berries that would seep through the crust to make it more of a cobbler instead of a pie (not that there is anything wrong with that, but my dad specifically requested a berry PIE).  Regardless, I decided to go with a fairly simple recipe (aka the first recipe listed on google): http://allrecipes.com/recipe/three-berry-pie/ 

I went all the way out to a local fruit stand to get the berries for this project (have to get the best for dad, right?).  However, apparently raspberries have been pretty popular so I literally got the last basket of raspberries.  The recipe calls for two cups raspberries, and I only had one cup because of this tragic raspberry shortage. Therefore,   the final berry amounts I used were one cup strawberry, two cups blueberries and two cup raspberries.  Although this was 1/2 cup less total berries than the recipe calls for, I am glad I did not use more! As you will soon see, my pie exploded a bit!

For this pie, there was no way I was going to trust Gertrude after the bread roll disaster of last week: (great recipe btw if you are interested http://allrecipes.com/recipe/light-wheat-rolls/ )

That does not look too bad, does it??? OH, wait. That was the one not BURNT roll.  Here are the bottoms of all the rest!

Not cool Gertrude.  I think you understand now why I was not going to trust Gertrude with this berry important project that was my pie.  I ended up using my parents' oven to bake my pie after I finished creating a beautiful lattice on top.  I realized aftwewards though, by creating a lattice I effectively reduced the volume of the pie that was allowed to hold berries (compared to if I had a full crust on top that prevented any spillage).  Therefore, some of the berries oozed out a little bit in the baking process to create a not super aesthetically pleasing pie.  Luckily, the pie was simple DIVINE! The cornstarch I added helped to thicken the berry filling to squelch all qualms I previously had about having a too-juicy pie.  The slices did not slice as well as I hoped (hence the lack of nice "pie slice" pictures), but this was definitely one of the best pieces of pie I have ever eaten- and believe me, I have eaten a lot of pie in my day.

When life hand you lemons, add more butter.

This past Wednesday was another one of my roommate's birthdays (leaving me as the only 20 year old left in the house!).  I have decided that weekend birthdays are much easier for the cake bakers, since some of the cakes I would love to make are a bit too elaborate for me to successfully complete while trying to go through my daily schedule.  After not-so-subtly asking the birthday girl the day before her birthday what type of dessert she would like, she gave me five different options that I could choose from in order to create an element of surprise.  I found that the one that I could most easily squeeze (pun intended) into my day was this one http://www.ziplist.com/recipes/574736-Lemony_Lemon_Brownies.

These was actually not made in Gertrude, since my trusty sidekick and I wanted to actually surprise the birthday girl so we headed down the street to some friends' house to use their oven. Funny story about making these... If you read the instructions, you will see it calls for 1/2 cup butter.  This should be a very simple piece of instruction to follow for a fairly avid baker like myself.  However, the butter I was using was not in the normal shape.... it was longer and thinner than usual.  For some reason in my head, I thought that I needed to add TWO sticks of butter to make 1/2 cup.  So I did.... and I did not realize until they were baking that I may possibly have doubled the amount of butter.  But honestly, can you ever go wrong with doubling the amount of butter? Of course not.  After putting both lemon glaze and  frosting on these bad boys, I was pretty positive that these would be pretty delicious.  And I was right! They were gone within a matter of hours (to our credit, it was an 8 by 8 pan, not 9 by 13). Think lemon fudge.

To conclude, I want to give a special shout-out to my trusty lemon zestor... without your fine lemon zesting (and juicing) technique, none of this would possible.

Tournament Weekend with Gertrude

For this three day weekend during which I fairly minimal necessary school work, I decided to experiment quite a bit in the kitchen.  My efforts yielded a wide variety of results. I had a loss, a draw, a win and one that is still TBA. In order to end this post on a positive note,  I will start with my loss: cookies.  

I must admit, I have never actually made cookies in Gertrude before. I have observed during my roommates' cookie-making experiences that cookies bring out the worst side of Gertrude.  She feels the need to cook the heck out of the bottom of the cookies and just channels so much of her energy there, that she forgets about the other 2/3 of the cookie (ie, the inside that needs to be baked).  Nevertheless, I though Gertrude would behave for me, since we have such a special bond.  

I excitedly whipped up http://allrecipes.com/recipe/oatmeal-butterscotch-cookies/ with some added walnuts that I decided would make a nice touch.  I didn't grease the pan, just like the instructions said, and I put them in the oven.  The recipe said it would take 8-10 minutes to cook.  However, just THREE minutes in, I sensed an unpleasant smell coming from Gertrude.  The bottoms were completely brown and the tops were still mush! Not cool Gertrude.  YOU HAVE ONE JOB!!!  

Anyways, in case you were wondering, the dough tasted wonderful.  So this is definitely a recipe I

need to try again..... perhaps in a different oven.  

On the same topic of second tries, I decided to retry the whole cauliflower pizza thing (remember http://cookingwithgertrude.blogspot.com/2013/01/cauliflower-cooking-catastrophe.html) .  I used the same recipe http://www.theluckypennyblog.com/2013/02/the-best-cauliflower-crust-pizza.html.  Sparknotes of my "Cauliflower Cooking Catastrophe Post": I accidentally mixed the cheese and egg with the cauliflower before microwaving the cauliflower for 4 minutes.  Whoops.  This time around, I did everything exactly as the recipe said.... except I baked the crust on tin foil instead of parchment paper. No big deal, right? I didn't think so. Well, I excitedly loaded up the pizza with sauce, mozzarella, chicken, broccoli, garlic, spinach.... basically the whole nine yards.  I baked it as the instructions said and took it out of the oven. Looks sort of like a pizza: 

  Then I tried to cut it....... The tin foil was a bad choice.  Gertrude thought it would be nice to fuse together the crust and the foil.  So basically, cutting this pizza made it so it was not a pizza anymore.  I am going to call this "cauliflower casserole" instead of cauliflower pizza.... it's a unique "cooking with Gertrude" creation: 

It actually tasted delicious too.  Nevertheless, I decided this was my tie with Gertrude. She didn't quite cooperate but I have able to salvage a delicious product. 

Onto the win: whenever I am on pinterest, I spend the majority of my time on one of three boards: "humor"(who doesn't like Internet memes), "food and drink" (duh) and "health and fitness" (I guess, duh).  The "food and drink" recipes are usually pretty outrageously delicious, but not the most healthy.... okay let's be honest... most of the time they are outrageously unhealthy.  Therefore, I try to spend some time on the "health and fitness" board because it usually has some more healthy recipes .  One of pins I would commonly see was that for spaghetti squash recipes. I love squash, and I love spaghetti, so I was fairly intrigued by the idea that this squash could closely mimic pasta and decided to give it a shot. 

 First, I had to roast the spaghetti squash.  This means I basically stabbed the squash like crazy with a knife and put it in the oven for 80 minuetes at 375 degrees.   I was a bit worried after four minutes when I heard weird noises coming from the oven, but the squash ended up turning out perfectly and it was fairly easy to scoop the "spaghetti" out of it once I let it cool .  I used the following recipe: http://www.marthastewart.com/873339/roasted-squash-parmesan-and-herbs.  Did it taste like spaghetti? Not at all.  However, it was still delicious because it tasted like thanksgiving stuffing, which is always a win.  I also whipped up some roasted green beans/sweet potatoes/asparagus medley, which complemented it quite well. 

And finally, my baking project that is still up in the air.  Apparently, this breadmaking method yields some amazing bread with various complex flavors.  I honestly don't know how complex of a flavor bread can possibly have, so I was very intrigued.  I will talk more about this in future blog posts, but here is the recipe I am following http://www.marthastewart.com/907240/chad-robertsons-tartine-country-bread.  It requires a starter that takes about three weeks to make, so the making of this bread is a fairly large commitment.  The ending bread just looks so good though, so I am hoping it is worth the effort and that Gertrude does not mess everything up.  Anyways,  the first step is to mix flour and water and wait two days for bubbles to form. YUMMMMMMM.... If you don't believe me that this bread is going to be delicious, watch this video: http://vimeo.com/14354661

Not-so-special (albeit delicious) brownies

This past Saturday, my household posted a BBQ.  Every time there is even a semblance of an excuse for me to make something delicious, I will.  I originally had settled on making ice cream with the ice cream machine  I remembered I had....yes, another unnecessary kitchen appliance.  Unfortunately, I forgot to put the ice cream canister thing in the freezer until the day I needed it.  The instructions said freezing the canister could take anywhere from 6-24 hours so needless to say, I was hoping for six.  I soon found out though that my  freezer is Gertrude's cold0blooded brother.... we will call him Brutus.  Basically Brutus is just as unreliable and angsty as Gertrude is, and because I have not yet fostered a  close, understanding relationship with Brutus as I have with Getrude, he was not playing nice.  Long story short, my ice cream was more like a milk shake.... if that.  It was very disappointing. I even tried it again the next day after the can had frozen for a good 20 hours, and that still did not work! I guess the instructions manual was not kidding when it says it can take up to 24 hours to freeze.

Luckily, I had decided on saturday before the ice cream fail that I would make some small treat to accompany the ice cream.  Well, that obviously turned out to be the main treat, but luckily these brownies were pretty darn good.  I cut straight to the chase when finding a recipe by googling "best brownies" and I came up with this recipe:
http://allrecipes.com/recipe/best-brownies/

I rarely make JUST brownies (usually they are accompanied by some cookie dough and/or caramel and/or peanutbutter magical goodness), but since I was supposed to have ice cream with them, I decided to go with old fashioned brownies.  I should have doubled the batch, because they turned out wonderful; fudgy and chewy... just as brownies should be!

When life hands you lemons....

 If someone were to just peruse my blog for even one minute, one thing that would be fairly obvious is my stance on chocolate.... I love chocolate.  Therefore, the bulk of my recipes revolve around chocolate.  However, in order to expand my baking abilities and possibly gain some followers who *gasp* don't like chocolate, I decided to branch out a bit and try making a fruit dessert.  In the spirit of mother's day, I decided to make some lemon cupcakes for my wonderful mother who may be one of those people who isn't as obsessed with chocolate as I am.  I have to admit, I was a bit nervous.  I rarely make fruit-based desserts, let alone make fruit-based in Gertrude, so I was really hoping that the stars would align to allow me to perfect a slightly ambitious recipe of lemon-curd- filled lemon cupcakes with lemon buttercream.... wow, that is a lot of lemon!!

Usually when I bake super ambitious desserts, I use my parents' kitchen due to the presence of a reliable oven and more importantly, a kitchen-aid.  I have already decided that the first kitchen item I will buy when I am no longer a starving student (well, not exactly starving) is a kitchen-aid.  Those things are amazing for ambitious, yet slightly lazy bakers like myself.  Anyways, because I was going to surprise my mom, I decided I should just do this whole production in my little kitchen with Gertrude and my $20 hand mixer that doesn't even have all the right metal attachments.

I used this recipe:

http://oishiitreats.blogspot.com/2013/04/so-me-your-pucker-face-lemon-curd_16.html

I didn't feel like having three windows open and this recipe covered everything (cupcakes, lemon curd filling and frosting.)

step 1: cake.  Mixing it up was simple enough.  I highly recommend that anytime a recipe calls for cake flour, use it! It makes a world of a difference in cakes/cupcakes... it is called CAKE flour after all.  Likewise, I have mentioned this before, but always use unsalted butter in recipes.  The amount of salt in different butters is variable, so don't just take the salt out of the recipe and use salted butter.  Anyways, Gertrude was on pretty good behavior.  The edges were slightly brown, but not too bad.  I figured the slightly browned edges were just an excuse to put more frosting the cupcakes.

step 2: Lemon curd.  This was the step that would make or break me.  You can look at the posted recipe for more specifics, but in short, the idea with lemon curd is to heat up butter, eggs, lemon juice and sugar.  I have a bit of lets call it eggsxiety... meaning I get a bit anxious when heating up eggs in any custard/curd-like product since I always seem to get the eggs too hot..... which means they scramble.... which means I usually have to filter out scrambled eggs out of my product.... not cool. The recipe was very specific about not letting the mixture boil, so I literally sat there for about 10 minutes stirring this mixture as fast as I possibly good to prevent any boiling.  When it started to boil even with my stirring, I decided to take it off the heat, even though it wasn't exactly that thick yet.  Regardless, I followed the instructions and put it in the fridge.  Usually, I would be very impatient and try to prematurely fill the cupcakes, but I decided to be a mature adult and let the lemon curd sit in the fridge for a while.  When I came back, the slightly grossish looking curd had turned into a magical bowl of lemony goodness... patience is a virtue.   I proceeded to use a teaspoon to make little holes in the tops of my cupcakes and fill them up.

step 3: frosting.  This is the part I was least worried about, yet it caused me the most problems.  I followed the recipe exactly, but after two batches of cupcakes in gertrude on a 90 degrees day, my kitchen was slightly on the warmer side.  Therefore, my frosting was not quite the consistency I was hoping for... a little soupy.  I still decided to load up my dessert decorator pro (aka the best 10 dollars I have even spent in my life) with this liquidy frosting.  The frosting sort of lost its form after I put in on each cupcake... not exactly what I was going for... But no one has to know that! They ended up looking decent after they firmed up in the fridge for a bit.

Most importantly, the cupcakes were absolutely delicious.  Fruity dessert win.  My mom loved them, which was obviously my ultimate goal.  Anyways, here were the final products!! So in conclusion... when life hands you lemons, make lemon cupcakes!

Balanced Meals FTW

It's pretty sad that I have almost updated this blog more times in the last 3 days than I have in the last 3 months.  To make up for that, I decided to show TWO of the wonderful creations I whipped together in my kitchen tonight.  I'll start with dinner.  This was actually a pretty typical dinner for me , but I really am just having too much fun with the retina display on my new iphone camera so I decided to take one of those "oh look at me I eat super healthy" pictures.

In this lovely salad, we have:
1)organic baby spinach (which is delicious.. after I wash the lady bugs out!)
2) green beans and asparagus that I tossed in olive oil, salt, pepper and minced garlic and baked for 15 min at 425 degrees
3) battered wild alaskan salmon (I admit, all I had to do was take this out of the box and bake it)
4) a crumble of feta cheese
5) dried cranberries
6) corn that I heated up in the microwave and tossed with salt and pepper
7) My "lite cranberry walnut vinaigrette" that I would love to say I made, but actually just got from a bottle.

So that was dinner... full of healthy omega three fatty acids and leafy greens.  But it looks like I am lacking some carbs, right? I thought so.  The solution???? THIS:

I followed the recipe pretty much word for word, except the store did not have any big peanut butter cups so I just used mini dark chocolate ones.   The bars are sitting nicely in my fridge right now and it's basically taking every bit of self-control I have to not go and eat every single one..... Hence I am writing about them.    Think delicious combination of peanut butter cookie and fudge.  And they are practically healthy.... they have two cups of oatmeal!! Nothing like Peanut Butter Dream Bars to round off a healthy meal.