Mixed Berry and Peach Tart

After my recent return from Israel, I immediately went to the library and checked out a dozen baking books, the favorite of which so far has been Baking with Julia Child. I started by making her French apple tart, but decided it could be modified for use with the abundance of berries we had in our freezer. So with a little tinkering with ingredients, some help from my dad, here is what we got. Crust from Baking with Julia Filling: 2 pints mixed berries 5 peaches 2 tbsp. sugar 1 tbsp. cornstarch In a sauce pan, mix together berries, about 2 peaches cut into chunks, the sugar and the cornstarch. Simmer for about 15 to 20 minutes until a nice sauce has formed around the berries and peaches. Allow to cool. Once the berries are cool, pour into pie crust and cover with very thin slices of peaches. Bake for 20 to 30 minutes. And Voila!

Chocolate cupcakes

So after making the molten cakes, Michelle and I tried out hand at cupcakes for my Sunday School class. Our first batch was an absolute disaster. I don't know what happened, but they completely overflowed and then sunk. They resembled chocolate bowls. I tried to salvage them, but my efforts were fruitless. So in the end, we had about 30 cupcakes get eaten up by the garbage can. The second batch was much better, probably due to a new recipe. I just used the basic chocolate butter cake recipe from The Cake Bible. They were not as chocolaty as I would have liked, but still very light and airy. I bought a new icing tip the other day, so I experimented trying to make perfect iced cupcakes. I still need to practice, but it was a start. I am still in search for the perfect cupcake recipe, because although the second batch turned out good, they still did not have the perfect chocolate cupcake taste. Needless to say, the kids at Sunday School gobbled them up and were asking for seconds before they had even finished their first. First disastrous batch... The second batch was much better...

Chocolate Molten Cakes

So I had thought that when I started to make these cakes that they were going to be more like souffle, but I was very wrong. Michelle and I made these together and instead of having a nice light souffle for desert, we ended up with a delicious mini-cake with a goey marshmallow in the center. Since I only had bittersweet chocolate instead of semi-sweet, as the recipe called for, it had a very rich and deep chocolaty flavor. With the marshmallow, I would have preferred a lighter chocolaty taste, but none the less, it was still delicious. Next time I'll be sure to use a different type of chocolate and to butter the ramekins with butter and flour and not with floured cooking spray. INGREDIENTS: From Sunset magazine 1 1/3 cups semisweet chocolate chips 1/4 cup (1/8 lb.) butter 1/3 cup granulated sugar 2 large eggs 1/2 teaspoon vanilla 1 cup all-purpose flour 6 large marshmallows Powdered sugar (optional) 1. In a 3- to 4-quart pan over very low heat, stir chocolate chips and butter until melted and smooth. Remove from heat and whisk in granulated sugar, eggs, and vanilla until well blended. Stir in flour. 2. Fill six buttered, floured ramekins (1/2-cup capacity; see notes) about halfway. Press a marshmallow into the center of the batter in each ramekin. Spoon remaining batter equally over marshmallows, completely covering. 3. Bake in the center of a 350° regular or 325° convection oven until tops are puffed up and crackly, 12 to 15 minutes. Let cool about 10 minutes, then run a knife along inside of ramekins and invert to release cakes. 4. Place right side up on plates. Sprinkle tops with powdered sugar, if desired. Serve warm.

Urban Legend Cookies

So the story goes...a woman asks to buy a cookie recipe and is told it will cost 'two-fifty.' She thinks this means $2.50, but then she gets her credit card bill back and finds out it is $250.00. Outraged, she spreads the recipe far and wide to try and get her money's worth. I first heard this story 6 years ago and was given a recipe on a sheet of paper which bore the date '1986.' The supposed originator of the recipe was a well-known cookie company. I have since heard this tale again several times, with the recipe originating from different upscale department stores. True story? Who knows, but it's a darn good cookie. These were delicious cookies. The oatmeal gave them a very subtle nutty flavor. They were also very sweet, so next time I might cut down on the sugar a little bit. There were some milk chocolate chunks thats didn't get grated, so they were very chocolaty. Be sure to bake for no more than 6 to 8 minutes. I baked mine for about 10, and even that extra minute made them harder than I would have liked. INGREDIENTS * 1 cup butter, softened * 1 cup white sugar * 1 cup packed brown sugar * 2 eggs * 1 teaspoon vanilla extract * 2 cups all-purpose flour * 2 1/2 cups rolled oats * 1/2 teaspoon salt * 1 teaspoon baking powder * 1 teaspoon baking soda * 2 cups semisweet chocolate chips * 4 ounces milk chocolate, grated * 1 1/2 cups chopped walnuts 1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Measure oats into a blender or food processor, and then blend to a fine powder. Set aside. 2. In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugars. Beat in the eggs one at a time, then stir in the vanilla. 3. In a separate bowl, mix together flour, oats, salt, baking powder, and baking soda. 4. Stir dry ingredients into creamed butter and sugar. Add chocolate chips, grated chocolate, and nuts. 5. Drop by rounded teaspoons onto ungreased cookie sheets. Bake for 6 to 8 minutes in the preheated oven.

Chewy Chewy Blondie Brownies

So in my rage of baking a many banana nut muffins to get rid of all the bananas we had that were going bad, I decided to try something besides fruit muffins, which turned into brownies. Not just ordinary brownies, but delicious chocolaty, chewy, blondie brownies. I got the recipe here, but I left out the nuts and the toffee bits and added an extra cup of chocolate chips. They were very very sweet and the lack of toffee was made up for by the coconut and chocolate chips.

Jumbo Cookies

So my step mom went to Miami for mothers day, and I made her a big batch of cookies to take with her. These weren't normal cookies though, they were JUMBO!! I also added some white chocolate chips to the regular chocolate ones, which made them oh so good. The recipe is the same as any tollhouse or basic cookie recipe, I just used 1/4 cup of batter for each cookie. This gave me about 12 cookies, but mine were super big, so I'm sure you could probably get about 14 out of it if you wanted. INGREDIENTS *2 1/4 cups all purpose flour *3/4 tsp baking soda *3/4 tsp salt *1 cup butter, room temperature *1 1/2 cups brown sugar *2 large eggs *2 tsp vanilla extract *1 cup white chocolate chips *1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips 1. Preheat oven to 300F and line a baking sheet with parchment paper. 2. Whisk together dry ingredients - flour, baking soda and salt - in a medium bowl. 3. In a large bowl, cream together butter and brown sugar until fluffy. Beat in eggs one at a time, followed by the vanilla extract. 4. Gradually beat in the flour mixture, mixing just until no streaks of flour remain. 5. Stir in chocolate chips. 6. Use a 1/4 cup scoop to shape large balls of dough and place on prepared baking sheets. Leave about 6-inches between each cookie to allow for spread. 7. Bake for 16-19 minutes, until cookies are golden around the edges. Allow to cool on baking sheets for at least 5 minutes before transferring to wire racks to cool completely.

Chocolate Tart

So I made this Chocolate Tart for the pie baking contest we had at my school on Friday. It was actually supposed to be a peppermint tart, but I didn't realize that we were out of peppermint extract until I was halfway through making it. The original recipe called for a very complicated crust, but I just made a simple oreo crumb crust. It was very dense and chocolaty. It was good, but in the end, I would have loved to have had some peppermint. Here is the original recipe and crust. I just made a crust of about 20 crushed up oreo wafers and a stick of butter. The baking contest was so much fun. We had 10 pies which were all so yummy. The strawberry rhubarb was probably my favorite. Pie Baking Contest!!

Banana Nut Muffins

So every few weeks or so we bring in muffins to my history class because it's first period of the day. Last time I brought in cupcakes which were so good, but I figured cupcakes aren't the best breakfast food, so this time iI decided to make muffins, specifically banana nut ones. The recipe came from the cookbook How to Cook Everything. It was very simple, but since it called for molasses instead of sugar and less milk because of the bananas, it was very thick, so in the end, I needed to add about 1/2 cup milk more then the recipe called for. INGREDIENTS *3 tablespoons melted butter or canola oil plus some for greasing muffin tin *2 cups all purpose flour *¼ cup molasses or honey *½ tsp salt *3 tsp baking powder *1 egg *1/4 cup milk *1 cup mashed ripe bananas *½ cup roughly chopped walnuts (optional) 1. Preheat oven to 400* F. Grease a standard 12-cup muffin tin or line with muffin liners. 2. Mix together dry ingredients in a bowl. 3. In a separate bowl, beat together the egg, milk, butter or oil, molasses and banana. 4. Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients and pour the wet ingredients into it. Using a large spoon or rubber spatula, combine the ingredients swiftly, stirring and folding rather than beating, and stopping as soon as all the dry ingredients are moistened. The batter should be lumpy, not smooth, and thick but quite moist; add more milk or other liquid if necessary. 5. Spoon the batter into the muffin tins, filling them about 2/3 of the way full and handling the batter a little as possible. 6. Bake for 20 to 30 minutes, or until the muffins are nicely browned and a toothpick inserted into the center of one of them comes out clean. 7. Remove from the over and let rest for 5 minutes before taking them out of the tin.

Prom Cake

So for my prom last week, I decided to make a cake for the party we had afterwards at one of my friends house. The cake was excellent, a chocolate butter cake, but the buttercream frosting was so light, that it didn't really taste like buttercream anymore, more like fluff. Both recipes were from The Cake Bible, by Rose Birnbaum, but I think that in the future, I'm going to stick to the more traditional buttercream frosting I usually make. My dad said that this was one of the best cakes I've ever made, and he is a harsh critic. I forgot to take a photo before it was cut, but as you can see, I went a little wild with the frosting and food coloring. Some people decided to dig in right from the plate.

Peanut Butter Brownies

One day while I was browsing the baking aisle at the supermarket, I saw that peanut butter chips were on sale, so naturally I bought a pack. I found a recipe for Peanut Butter Brownies from Hershey's. They were very rich and peanut buttery. The top glaze was a little gooey, and I probably would just leave it off if I made them in the future. INGREDIENTS * 1-1/4 cups butter , melted * 1-3/4 cups sugar * 4 eggs * 2 teaspoons vanilla extract * 1-2/3 cups all-purpose flour * 2/3 cup Cocoa * 1/2 teaspoon baking powder * 1/2 teaspoon salt * 1-2/3 cups Peanut Butter Chips, divided * PEANUT BUTTER CHIP GLAZE(recipe follows) Directions: 1. Heat oven to 350°F. Grease 13x9x2-inch baking pan. 2. Stir together butter and sugar in large bowl. Add eggs and vanilla; beat with spoon or whisk until well blended. Combine flour, cocoa, baking powder and salt; add to butter mixture, stirring until well blended. Reserve 1/2 cup peanut butter chips for glaze; stir remaining chips into batter. Spread batter into prepared pan. 3. Bake 30 to 35 minutes or until wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool completely in pan on wire rack. Prepare PEANUT BUTTER CHIP GLAZE; drizzle over brownies. Let stand until glaze is set. Cut into squares. About 32 brownies. PEANUT BUTTER CHIP GLAZE 1. Combine 1/2 cup REESE'S Peanut Butter Chips (reserved from brownies), 2 tablespoons butter or margarine and 2 tablespoons milk in small microwave-safe bowl. 2. Microwave at HIGH (100%) 45 seconds; stir until chips are melted and mixture is smooth. Gradually add 1/4 cup powdered sugar, beating with whisk until smooth. About 1/2 cup glaze.