Apparently I really like peanut butter

So, It has been almost a month and a half since I have posted last..... it was not supposed to be that way.  Gertrude and I were going to have an epic last go at this whole baking thing and I was going to write an awesome post complete with witty puns and mouthwatering photos.   Considering how committed of a baker I am, very few things could possibly come in the way of this last hurrah.  Well, one thing did.... I found out I had to move to Minneapolis a month earlier than I intended for a new internship.  I make that sound like an absolutely TERRIBLE turn of events.... it really isn't.  I am so lucky to have gotten this job and would not trade anything in the world for it, including a good last Gertrude post.

I'm going to be honest and say that despite Gertrude's many quirks,  I really miss her.. especially since I scrubbed her for hours as one of my official lets-see-how-much-of-a-deposit-we-can-get-back tasks. I must say- she looked pretty darn fine by the end of my first oven cleaning experience.  I really think she regained at least 20 years to her life.  It's a shame I did not get to enjoy her at all in that state since I could not risk dirtying her up!  

This last month or so I have not yet had a kitchen of my own, so minus the occasional boxed brownies or cake batter cookies, I have not really had the chance to make anything.... something about doing a whole extravagant baking project in someone else's kitchen doesn't exactly go with my whole being a good guest plan (even though I am sure my hosts would have appreciated the treats!).  Yesterday though, a friend delivered a whole big box of my kitchen stuff to me... I felt like a part of me had been revived! One of my precious items in the box was a food processor.  Now, don't get me wrong- I appreciate food processors.  My food processor can crumb-ify oreos like it is nobody's business.  However, my appreciation for food processors has skyrocketed after my peanut butter making adventure today.

I love peanut butter.... skippy, jif, peter pan, trader joes..... you name it, I love it.  However, I do try to eat natural peanut butter since I am not all about things like partially hydrogenated oils.  Unfortunately, natural peanut butter is much more expensive and now since I am a poor college grad, I need to save every bit of money I can.  Nuts alone are way cheaper than a jar of natural PB or almond butter, so I decided to give making my own a whirl.  I am not even going to bother posting a recipe, because it is so freaking easy.  Just put your nuts in your food processor and let it spin for about 5 min (be patient!!).  I made normal slightly-salted PB and AB... my only fail of the night was my other batch of honey PB..... it did not get the smooth creamy texture I was aiming for.  I predict that I put the honey in too soon, so next time I am going to wait till the very end to add the honey.  Lesson learned (even though the picture of it is gorgeous). Anyways, I could not encourage everyone enough to give this a shot.  Go Nuts! (sorry, had to have at least one lame pun)

In 'Merica.... we eat peanut butter!

Now that summer is in full swing, I can spend all of my free time doing what else??... baking. Tis' the season of being reimbursed for making cookies and delicious bars as "work expenses".   Since I can't bake alllll the time, I have to do other things with my time. One of those things is..... watch world cup soccer.  I completely admit that I am the ultimate bandwagon fan, but I have been all about US soccer for the last few days (today ruined it a bit more me but I am still fairly impressed how the US did in these games). So, what better way to celebrate thursday at work than to make world cup themed desserts? (since last thursday was the day of the most glorious loss in US history to advance out of "the group of death")

I spent a while brainstorming of how I could integrate soccer into my dessert without straight out making cupcakes or something.... though to be honest, I really like the sound of World Cup-cakes..... Anyways, I brainstormed everything that is black and white.  The first thing that naturally comes to mind?? Oreos. Ok, so I was going to have Oreos in my dessert.  And as great as Oreos are as a stand alone treat, I needed something a little more than that! Then I thought, what do we have in America that we do not have in Germany (our opponent)..... and then it came to me: PEANUT BUTTER.  I don't know how whole countries could live without peanut butter, so I decided that this would be the perfect ingredient to integrate into my dessert to remind every how awesome the US is (in most ways that is).  So it all came to me:  Peanut butter blondies with Oreos on top resembling soccer balls.  I used this recipe with the minor exception that I left out the milk chocolate chips and replaced that with peanut butter chips.... I wanted to keep the emphasis on the peanut butter after all. These were seriously delicious, which made up for US losing.... and the somewhat questionable looking soccer balls.  But you get the idea, right?

Say cheese (cake)! And don't forget cookies.

Well, luckily I am keeping up with my one post a month- however, now that I am a free bird on summertime I expect to update much more! I am nearing the end of my relationship with Gertrude so I'm going to really have to make the most of these next few months with her.... can't have her forget me, right? This past week has been an exciting week for Gertrude... not only did she nail another batch of cookies, but she also managed to not mess up the one dessert I have never actually made successfully before now: cheesecake!

I will start with the cookies I made the day before the cheesecake, which maybe allowed Gertrude to warm up a little bit (well a lot, literally) so she was sharp and ready to go for the next day's bigger challenge.  This past quarter I have been in a lab class that has essentially consumed my life.  Two 6 hour labs a week are basically a day killer... and a week killer... and a quarter killer. And if you imagine that we are doing anything productive and scientific in those 6 hours, there is also just about that much outside work of writing lab reports and studying for quizzes that will ensure this productivity. While I make this class sound horrible, you can imagine that spending time with the same people for these long periods of time (not to mention the time slaving over lab reports) allows you to develop a sense of commodore with your classmates. I guess broken pH meters, ripped protein gels and countless upon countless rounds of Bradford assays can really bring people together.

To celebrate, we had a potluck on the last day and everyone was required to make (bring) something.  I of course, had to bring a dessert.  I ended up taking another recipe off the famed bucket list bake board on pinterest: buckeye brownie cookies! .  This is yet another recipe that is way too easy for its (and my) own good.  Peanut butter... chocolate... really can't get much better than that. I also wanted to integrate some of the best memories from my class into the cookies; my professor worked on research about the photo-sensing properties of a particular cyanobacteria.... so like many proud researchers much of his lectures were based upon these bacteria.  The claim to fame of this particular compound? it is going to dye blue m&ms from now on since it is a natural food coloring.  Therefore, I needed to somehow integrate the color blue into my cookies- I went with some blue icing that may or may not actually contain phycocyanonbilin. I also decorated the cookies with some awesome dinosaurs, microplates, plasmids and birds... things only MCB120L students will understand.

So that was the warmup.  The next day was the true test with the cheesecake.  My housemate mentioned to me that she wanted a cheesecake.... any type of cheesecake. Guess what I find the most difficult baked good to make? cheesecake....any type of cheesecake. So I definitely felt the pressure.  She also mentioned that she wanted something light as in a "oh now it is summer time" sort of thing.  There goes my peanut butter cookie dough nutella cheesecake plan! I tried to think of a fruit that would complement this "light" cheesecake (seems like a bit of an oxymoron to me!). At first I decided I was going to do strawberry shortcake... then I thought that seemed too boring.... I mean, in this day and age you can even get strawberry shortcake flavored frozen yogurt.  So I settled with raspberry white chocolate cheesecake, mainly since I was not sure on my housemates stance on raspberry and dark chocolate mixed together (turns out she is a fan but I was not sure how to casually slip that into a conversation before hand).

Anyways, I went to the store just like a normal person and bought 4 containers of cream cheese (because that is what every normal person does, right?), along with all the other fattening ingredients that would compose my masterpiece.  I started mentally preparing myself for the job. Another element of challenge was that I had a very small window of time to make this cheesecake (about 2 hours).  This left me very little time to put this whole thing together.  I used this recipe for raspberry white chocolate cheesecake  with oreo crust- it was really the picture that sold me.... did I think mine would look exactly like that?? no way.  Did I think it could even be close in comparison?? one could hope. Making this cheesecake, I had two major complications 1) I accidentally added the sugar in with the melted chocolate chips and heavy cream.  This was the kind of mistake that I was hoping would simply work itself out 2) my attempt at making a water bath. For those who don't know, a very common way to make a cheesecake is to put the cheesecake pan in a large pan of boiling water. Of course, the only pan I had that was big enough was a large springform pan.  And of course, that springform pan was a little bit leaky and could not hold the water.  Therefore, the water I put in it completely spilled everywhere...... so no water bath was to be had.  I just wrapped the pan in various layers of tin foil to try to buffer the heat a bit.

So, I put my cheesecake into the oven and hoped for the best.  Even after I took it out when I thought it was done (sorta just going with my intuition here), I had to wait a torturous 8 hours to let it set.  So I didn't actually find out it was actually good until the next morning!  So, did it look as good as the picture? nope.  But it definitely looked somewhat close, which I, as a complete amateur cheesecake maker was quite proud of.   It was definitely a little rough around the edges... the Gertrude touch!  But the most important thing was that it was gone within a day... that is what assures me it was a success.

Nutella stuffed cookies... yes, I said Nutella.

       Sometimes when I know I am going to bake something, I plan it days in advance and patiently wait until I am done with classes and all that nonsense for the week.  This time.... not even close.  There I was sitting in molecular genetics class, learning about transcription methods of prokaryotes (so exciting), when I the ultimate seed planted in my head that needed to be grown RIGHT AWAY.  This class, which is from 4:40-6:00 falls right during the time where I get very very hungry and also towards the last few minutes of the class, very very bored. Usually towards the last few minutes of class, I cave into my boredom and check my phone.  When I glanced at my email, I had gotten a notification form pinterest (because they apparently think I need a reminder to check my pinterest... yeah, right!) saying the my housemate had posted a dessert on our household "bucket list bake board" (all the desserts that I am going to make before we all leave).  Browned butter nutella stuffed chocolate chip cookies with sea salt.... I almost died.

As I impatiently waited out the last few minutes of hearing about the different sigma binding site on the core promotor region, my mind was already rolling of how I would find time to make these bad boys.... that evening. I used the following recipe  http://thebitesizedbaker.com/2012/09/18/nutella-stuffed-browned-butter-chocolate-chip-cookies-with-sea-salt/ to make the most amazing cookie I have ever made in my life.  Well done Gertrude.  The only credit I give to myself is for my killer intuition that lets me know exactly when the right time to pull out cookies are- you would always be surprised how much cookies harden up after they are out of the oven, so I always err on the side of undercooked..... and if they are undercooked??? well I would say death by undercooked cookies is a good way to go out. Anyways, these were truly magical.... I was a little bit skeptical about the sea salt but it really just added a wonderful last touch to a practically perfect cookie.

 JUST YOUR NORMAL CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES, RIGHT????

 PSYYCHHHHHH!!!!!!!!

CInnamon Pull-Apart Bread

         Happy April everyone! I am happy to say that I have been keeping up with my once a month updating of this blog.  The most recent of of my baking escapades was cinnamon pull-apart bread for easter morning.  Instead of using Gertrude for this endeavor, I used my parent's new giant convection oven; Lets call him Dusty (he gathered quite a bit of dust waiting to be installed).  Think of Dusty as the buff, stud-muffin of a grandson of cranky old Gertrude- MUCH easier to deal with and MUCH more effective at it's one job.  I also was able to use the holy grail of baking- the kitchen-aid standing mixer.  When the very far in the future day comes when I have a dispensable income, you can bet that the kitchen-aid will be the first thing on my list.  

         Anyways, considering this was for easter bunch (and I had basically my dream kitchen to work with), there was no way I was going to mess this up.   Learning from past experience of never trusting old yeast, I made sure to throw a new package of yeast into the basket at the grocery store to ensure that those little guys were just as sharp and ready to perform as was Dusty.  This was definitely a good choice. Nothing is better than that moment when you see that your bread dough has indeed doubled like the recipe said- no need to be a wishful thinker "oh, yeah.... that kinda looks like it has grown a little bit, right??".  

        One of the kitchen designs that has always baffled me is the placement of a microwave right above the oven.  Considering that most microwave handles are stainless steel, it makes absolutely no sense to have a large source of heat coming from right below.  Use of the microwave and the oven/stove are definitely not mutually exclusive so it is most definitely possible to get some very painful microwave opening experiences.  So where am I going with this?  Basically, while the hot microwave handle is quite literally a big pain in the...... hand..... inside the microwave is the PERFECT place to let bread rise (just don't turn on the microwave obviously).  Perfectly nice and warm, without feeling bad for wasting energy in any way by turning the oven light on or something.  This plus my brand new yeast created bread that rose like no other.   Anyways, I used the following recipe for the pull-apart bread http://joythebaker.com/2011/03/cinnamon-sugar-pull-apart-bread/ and the following recipe for cream cheese frosting http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/cream-cheese-frosting-recipe.html since you really can't have cinnamon bread without cream cheese frosting.  I sadly don't have any kitchen debacles to recant since the preparation went absolutely perfectly.  NOMNOMNOMNOMNOM

March Madness

Ahhh it feels so wonderful to have absolutely nothing to do but update this blog right now.  March is traditionally a very hectic month for me due to winter finals, but that does not mean I can't find a few spare hours to bake here and there.  It is just a lot easier to bake something than to document it on here- thus, I have some catching up to do! The beginning of March is full of birthdays at my house- this adds an element of challenge because I need to somehow make and decorate the elaborate treat item without having the birthday girl know about it.  I would also have to store the item somehow (ie shove it to the back of the fridge and hope no one sees).

At some point recently, my housemates came up with the idea of "hinterest", a pinterest-like platform that is specifically for finding and pinning items/recipes you like so that wonderful people in your life can make and or purchase those items for you.  Since the domain name for "hinterest" is already taken (and I don't think I have time in my life to maintain ANOTHER webpage), I figured we just had to use pinterest itself and I could make a board that people could pin on for hints of ideas of recipes I could make.  That way, I can choose among the "hinted" recipes so it is somewhat of a surprise.

For week one of birthday madness, I went with the cookie dough brownies.  I would say the creation of this recipe was analogous to purchasing something for a family member as a gift knowing that you too will be able to take part in the enjoying of that item.  Since there are very few things I like more than cookie dough and brownies, let alone them together, I'm not going to lie and say there was no selfish motive here.  However, I think the one down side of actually making the brownies is knowing just how much butter goes into making them.  Ignorance is bliss! But that honestly did not stop me from consuming an inappropriate amount of these brownies.  The pan must have weighed 20 pounds..... my household probably collectively gained that much after consuming the entire pan in 1.5 days.  Anyways here is the recipe for the brownies, I used "Brooke's best bombshell brownies" for the brownie base

COOKIE DOUGH BROWNIES 

Brownie Base:
1 cup melted butter
3 cups white sugar
1 tbsp vanilla extract
4 eggs
11/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 tsp salt
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

• 
  
• Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.  Prepare a 9x13 baking dish with foil.
• Combine the  butter, sugar, and vanilla in a bowl. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, mixing well 
• Mix  flour, cocoa powder, and salt in a bowl. Gradually stir flour mixture into the egg mixture until blended. Stir in the chocolate chips. Spread the batter evenly into the prepared baking dish.
• Bake in preheated oven until an inserted toothpick comes out clean, 35 to 40 minutes. 

Cookie Dough Layer

After the brownies had cooled, I prepared the cookie dough: I basically combined all these ingredients into a bowl 

2 cup flour

4 tablespoons flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt (can be left out or reduced to just a pinch)

1 cup margarine

12 tablespoons granulated sugar

12 tablespoons brown sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

water (add small amounts until the dough is proper consistency( about 1/8 cup at a time to avoid making it )

Fudge Frosting: 

6 tablespoons butter, softened

2 2/3 cups confectioners' sugar

1/2 cup cocoa

1/3 cup milk

1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla

1. cream butter 

2. add in sugar and cocoa

3. stir in milk slowly 

4. add vanilla 

Next, I put the cookie dough on the brownies, put it into the fridge for a bit and then frosted it.  This is it! 

Red Velvet Brownie Cake

With the amazing success of my cookie dough brownies, I had a lot to live up to for my second house mate who had a birthday exactly a week later.  Going back to the "hinterest" board, I had many options; however, I decided to go with a red velvet oreo truffle brownies.  Anything I have ever made with oreo truffle mix (crushed up oreos and cream cheese) has been pretty rockin'.  So I could not really see anyway that this could go wrong.  I used the following recipe (I did have it though since I wanted to fit it into a round cake pan): http://saorganics.com/red-velvet-oreo-truffle-brownie-bars/  

The result: the best creation I had ever made (in the opinion of my housemates)- I still thought the cookie dough brownies were pretty good (the brownies bias). I was very proud of my decoration as well- shaved white chocolate can make anything look better. 

Irish Soda Bread 

There are two main times when I like to bake: 1) when I have nothing going on 2) when I have way too much going on and just blow it off by baking.  This bread product was a classic example of the latter.   I had an enormous amount of studying to do, but figured celebrating my Irish heritage was significantly more important than learning about the muscles of the larynx.   I had always seen recipes for irish soda bread online and was intrigued by the simplicity of the recipe: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ina-garten/irish-soda-bread-recipe.html. I normally am not a big fan of things with raisins in them- I mean, what can raisins go in that chocolate chips would not be better? However, I realized the specific recipe I found didn't actually call for raisins- it called for currants.  I had never had currants before, but I figured I would just go all out.  Anyways, the end product was very delicious- it had a tint of orange and the currants complemented it perfectly. 

Anyways, so there we have it- march madness.  Luckily march isn't over yet and i'm on spring break: so hopefully I will be back on soon!

"Mint to be" bars

Though I honestly think I am one of the luckiest people in the world in terms of the wonderful opportunities and people in the world around me, I have to admit that this winter has been a series of unfortunate health mishaps- from a season-ending injury last fall to a nasty flu to my most recent diagnosis of mono, nothing has really gone to plan. After my poor mono-infected body lay on the couch eating nothing but soup, barely having the energy to walk across the room to get my computer charger for an entire week, I finally started feeling better this past friday.

To celebrate my regained energy and desire to eat food (I do find this a reason to celebrate) I decided I had to bake sometime.  During my sloth-week, I also spent an inordinate amount of time on Pinterest.  bot only did I rename and reorganize my boards but also I pinned a whole plethora of new desserts to make when I finally felt up to it.  One of such desserts were Loaded M&M Oreo bars.  The pictures looked amazzzzzing and I had most of the ingredients.  These two things made me to decide to go for it on Friday afternoon, aka the first day I had been outside in over a week.

 I decided to put a little spin on it and go with a mint theme: T-1 month before St.Patty's day, right? Also I would like to commemorate my current favorite TV show "Grey's Anatomy" (which returns this week yahoo!!) by calling these "Mint to be" bars- thank you April Kepner (I'm totally team Jackson for those that care/understand).  Though having mono is definitely NOT how I envisioned the winter of my senior year, I am hoping that something good will come out of being able to relax a bit- meaning, everything that has happened was "mint to be".  I know that is cheesy but despite hours on the pinterest humor board I cannot think of anything better and I am just SO excited for Grey's this week.  On to the recipe:


1/2 cup unsalted melter butter
1 large egg
1 cup dark brown sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 cup cake flour
18 Mint Cream Oreos
1/2 cup green and brown M&M's (yes, I picked them out)
8 mini-york patties

1. preheat oven to 350F
2. melt butter and add to large bowl
3. add egg, sugar and vanilla
4. add flour until combined
5. put Oreos and plastic bag and crush up
6. add Oreos to batter (I found that this mixture pretty much looked like some gross pesto mixture- though I agree "gross" and "pesto" should never go in the same sentence)
7. spread batter in 8 by 8 pan (I used by new brownie pan that had individual brownie squares and filled 9 of them)
8. cut up york patties and sprinkle on top
9.  sprinkle M&Ms on top
10.  bake for 15-22 minutes depending on type of pan (I did only 15)


Taking these out of the oven, I was a bit skeptical at the first glance.  I have some impatience issues sometimes, especially when I suspect something I've made has turned out a bit questionable,  so decided to scrap a little crumb off one of the top bars.  Examining the little crumb, I realized that York patties look like a gross, snotty white mess when melted.  This didn't stop me from putting it in my mouth however, since york patties in any form are delicious .  As I ate it, the gooey,white melted York cream mess crystalized suddenly and turned into pure sugar, sort of like some chemistry experiment I did in high school when we learned about supersaturation.  So basically my bars transcended some weird law of matter and taught me that the cream in York patties is supersaturated with sugar..... neither of which is a bad thing.  Though to anyone making this recipe I would probably recommend sprinkling the york patties on AFTER baking. Not that chemistry isn't exciting.

On a side note, all of my doubts I had about my brownie pan making overly hard and underly chewy/gooey brownies were alleviated when I realized these were cooked PERFECTLY.  Slightly crisp around the edges but just so so soft, chocolatey and minty in the middle. soooooo good.  My housemate and I did some serious work of these in an embarrassingly short amount of time.  We decided to leave the last two for our other two housemates, which ended up being a struggle of will. Our thought process- we could just finish them off now and they would never know about them....Unless they read my blog...... then it would be awkward.  So we resisted and let everyone in the Alice Palace taste the magic.  

The Hy(bread)

When reflecting on the different bread products I have made and written about, I realized that I have pretty much run the gamut on pretty much every type- bagels, muffins, bread, rolls, pretzels, corn bread, english muffins, calzones, scones and so on.  So when I finally finished my midterms this past week and was determined to bake something, I needed to come up with someone new to avoid sounding too repetitive.  Basically my baking falls into two categories: 1) over-the-top desserts (aka cookie dough, cheese cake, oreo, reese's peanut cup stuffed goodness) 2) or things I make with flour, yeast and water.  Since I am in the middle of my running season, I try to avoid numero uno unless I have a really good excuse or a really large group of people to distribute them to.  I sadly did not have that type of excuse this weekend so I had to settle with making some yeast product.  

A side note on yeast; I realized that the expiration date on a jar of yeast is only for an UNOPENED jar of yeast.  That would have been nice to know about a year an a half ago as I continued to use my two year old jar of yeast! I have had some failed yeast bread attempts and now I probably know why:  unhappy yeast that was probably over the hill. Apparently yeast jars should not be used longer than 6 months.  I thought I was being thrifty by getting the big jar of yeast but apparently not since I could not have possibly used it in 6 months unless I baked every day.  Anyone who can do that either 1) owns a bakery 2) has a lot more free time on their hands than I do. 

Anyways, in my attempt to come up with a unique product, I settled on English Muffin Bread.  My very strong ambitions to bake emerged fairly late last night so I did not have time to do a long-rise product.  I did find a fairly quick recipe for english muffin bread.  I like english muffins.... and bread... so why not give it a try to combine the two? I used the following recipes with no modification, except that I used my mini-loaf pan instead of the 8by4 pan (only have a 9 by 5 and didn't want to get flatbread!). http://www.tasteofhome.com/recipes/english-muffin-bread-2

My fresh, young and energetic yeast was also very happy and decided to actually make my bread double (usually I am overly optimistic about my bread's progress.... it's risen a little bit... right???? This time I had no doubt). I also actually measured the temperature of the milk/water mixture to make certain that I don't scald the yeast to death at such a young age :)  I did adjust the baking time a bit to only 30 minutes since I was using my mini-loaf pan.   The result was pretty much as expected, english muffin and loaf form.  Add some butter and honey to a nice toasted slice to complete a wonderful side to a nutritious breakfast (or dinner like I did!). 

Crockin' and almost rollin' with Gertrude

This year for christmas I got another kitchen appliance to add to my and my housemates' growing collection- you would think that with a food processor, waffle iron, sandwich maker, panini press, 2 blenders, fondue pot, george foreman grill and a ricecooker that I would not need anything else.... however, the aspiring adventurous chef inside of me said otherwise, so I asked for a CrockPot.  The idea of a CrockPot is very romantic- you can just whip up something in the morning before running out of the house and then come home to a warm,savory meal .  There are a few caveats however- first off, many of the recipes involve lots of processed food items that you simply throw together. Entire bottles of ranch dressing, cans of "cream of XXXX soup" or packets of taco seasoning are not exactly what I want to be putting into my body.  Therefore, I am on a mission to find healthy and delicious crock pot recipes with which I can fulfill this fantasy of coming home to a nice meal.  And when I mean delicious, I really mean it- my CrockPot is giant so anything I make I will be having for days!  Second, many of the recipes involve more work than you would expect- namely chopping lots of vegetables. So, I would like to find some recipes that minimize the amount of work (without sacrificing taste or nutritional value that is).

Last week on Saturday there was a 30% chance of rain.  That may seem like a normal winter day to anyone in any other year or in any other place (well actually it probably would be raining, not just a 30% chance) but this was a very significant day here in California since there was actually a CHANCE of rain- we have not had one drop of rain this entire year. Because of this it was actually somewhat wintery looking outside and I decided I needed to make a nice warm meal in the crock pot- I settled on a hearty beef stew.  I have never made stew before, so decided to strictly follow a recipe to ensure that this stew that I was going to be able to make at least 5 meals out of would be good. I followed the http://allrecipes.com/recipe/slow-cooker-beef-stew-i/ minus the celery since I simply do not like celery.  I also realized as I was putting in everything that I did not have Worcestershire sauce..... so I just added a splash of soysauce and ketchup (thank you yahoo! answers).  All in all, the stew was a tad bland. However, a sprinkle of salt fixed that!

Also for christmas I got some more pans! I got a brownie pan with individual brownie squares (which I am a little bit skeptical about since brownie edges are the worst) and a mini-loaf pan.  I decided to make use of the mini-loaf pans a make some whole-wheat cornbread with the following recipe http://www.food.com/recipe/whole-wheat-cornbread-80963.  My only faux pas came when I accidentally used the spoon I had been stirring the stew with (which had a strong flavor of onions) to scoop the batter into the loaf pans. Most of the time my worst nightmare is to have my baked good "contaminated" with onion-ness (I am not the biggest onion fan in general, let alone on things it just not be on!), but the cornbread with a tint of onion was actually pretty good.  Would I chop up onions and put them into cornbread.....??? probably not.  But this cornbread went wonderfully with my stew and was in the form of nice little freezable loafs. Now I'm off to go eat some of this stew....a week later. (don't worry I froze it too!)

Zebra Brownies

I will start by apologizing that I am writing this post almost two weeks after the creation of this product.  Lets just call this my belated holiday post.

If you go back to my december 2012 posts (wow 2012!- that was a long time ago.  Still can't believe it is 2014), you will see my entry called "gifty granola" which explains my yearly holiday tradition of giving a jar with some sort of delicious food item to my relatives.  I have done cookies many times, did granola last year and decided that this year I needed to continue to expand my horizons and do some other IAJ recipe.... IAJ obviously is an abbreviation for IAJ (a bet somewhere, in the world, that is a valid abbreviation).  The two requirements for IAJ recipes that I arbitrarily decided :  1) the receiver should not be required to put in more than 3 of their own ingredients into the mix to prevent them getting ripped off... some gift it is if they have to add 10 ingredients! 2) the mix has to look pretty.  That is really all there is to a successful something IAJ .

After browsing a bit online for some inspiration, I came across a recipe called "tuxedo brownies"  which fit all of my VERY strict requirements an IAJ recipe.  So, I decided to go for it. Basically, it entails layering walnuts, white chocolate chips, chocolate chips, brown sugar, flour, cocoa, salt and sugar.  I especially liked this recipe because it has no baking soda or baking powder to add to each one- that is annoying.

 If you haven't picked up on it, they are called "tuxedo brownies" because they have white chocolate chips and chocolate chips (black/white).  I was going to go with this exact same concept, but then I started to get the feeling that these are the types you give out at a wedding...... not christmas.  Maybe one day I will give my wedding guests tuxedo brownies IAJ but christmas was not that day! So, I racked my brain for other black on white things besides a tuxedo.  I came up with cow brownies (Davis resident obviously), Dalmatian brownies, piano brownies, skunk brownies (ew) and zebra brownies.  None of these are particular merry or festive as a christmas gift should be, so I just went with the most exotic- Zebra brownies.  I also found cool scrapbook paper that I could decorate with.  I ended up following the recipe exactly and then dolled up the jars to fit my zebra theme. I also obviously had to make a sample of these chewy, chocolatey and delicious brownies to bring to the party.  I suppose you could always make the brownies without even including the whole jar part if you are just making them on your own, but if you want a wonderful gift to give someone to give them the impression they are a masterful baker, you know what to do :) Happy 2014!!

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!!!