Mini Crumb Cakes!

Good news is that that I finally managed to find time to bake! YAY!  I was planning on keeping it Halloween or fall-themed at the very least.  It was running a bit late so this small and quick recipe for Mini Crumb Cakes seemed like the logical choice.  Plus, it doesn’t make too many, meaning I can get around to a more appropriate and fancy recipe this weekend 🙂

Lets take a look at those Mini Crumb Cakes, shall we?

Mini Crumb Cakes

I got this recipe from my relatively newer cookbook Betty Crocker The Big Book of Cupcakes.  Its super simple and takes about 10 minutes to put together and another 30 minutes in the oven. A quick fresh out of the oven snack if you ever feel like having something sweet.

Makes 6 mini cakes

Ingredients

1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 cup packed brown sugar

1/2 cup butter (or margarine), softened

1 egg, beaten

1/4 cup milk

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

1 tbsp powdered sugar

Fresh out of the oven!

How to Make it:

1) Heat oven to 350F. Place paper baking cup in each of 6 regular size muffin cups.  In a large bowl, stir together flour, brown sugar and butter with spoon until crumbly. Reserve 1/3 cup mixture for topping.

2) Stir egg, milk, baking powder and cinnamon into remaining crumbly mixture until well mixed.  Divide batter evenly among muffin cups.  Sprinkle reserved crumbly mixture over batter

3) Bake 20 to 30 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center of cake comes out clean.  Cool 5 minutes.  Remove cakes from pan; place on cooling rack.  Before serving, sprinkle warm cakes with powdered sugar.  Serve warm or cooled.

 

These turned out to be really awesome.  It smelled amazing and it was super easy to make.  Also, the texture was very good especially with the streusel-like topping.  Its like a coffee cake streusel cupcake.  There wasn’t need for many modifications.  I did replace the milk with almond milk.  Also, I couldn’t find my powdered sugar so I didn’t sprinkle any extra sugar on the top.  It was already sweet enough for me, so I don’t really think its necessary.

Inside the Mini Crumb Cake

I had a tasting even though it was really late at night.  The texture was moist and mixed with the texture of the initial bite of the streusel topping, it had gave it a little crunch as well.  Very awesome recipe! You should try it out.  It does only make 6 mini cakes so you might want to double the recipe accordingly if you plan on making it for more company.

Happy Tuesday everyone! 🙂

 

 

Banana-Nut Bread!

I’m slowly getting back into the baking thing.  It takes time which I don’t seem to have as much recently.

On Saturday, I realized that we had some extra ripe bananas and I wanted to bake something before we headed over to my boyfriend’s place. We came to the conclusion to make banana nut bread.

Banana nut bread

I found the recipe in Looneyspoons recipe book called Sweet Home Alabama. Its supposed to make two small loaves but I just made one bigger one.

Makes 2 small loaves/ 8 slices each

Ingredients:

1 3/4 cups all purpose flour

1/2 cup oat bran

2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1/2 tsp salt

1 1/2 cups mashed ripe bananas (about 4 medium or 3 large)

3/4 cup buttermilk or plain yogourt

2 eggs

1/2 cup packed brown sugar

2 tbsp butter, melted

2 tsp vanilla

1/2 cup chopped pecans

1/3 cup mini semi-sweet chocolate chips

1) Preheat oven to 350F.  Spray two 8×4 inch loaf pans with cooking spray and set aside.

2) In a large bowl, combine flour, oat bran, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon and salt.  Mix well and set aside.

3) In a medium bowl, whisk together bananas, buttermilk, eggs, brown sugar, butter and vanilla until well blended.

4) Add wet ingredients to dry ingredients and mix just until dry ingredients are moistened.  Fold in nuts and chocolate chips.  Do not overmix batter.

5) Divide batter evenly among loaf pans. Bake for 30 to 35 minutes.  Cool loaves in pans over a wire rack for 10 minutes.  Remove loaves from pans and (1) slice and eat warm, or (2) cool completely on rack, then store in plastic wrap.

Banana nut bread

I made a few modifications to the ingredients.

– Substituted buttermilk due to lactose intolerance to vanilla flavored almond milk

– Omitted vanilla (none left)

– Substituted brown sugar with white sugar (none left)

– Substituted chocolate chips with slivered almonds

Banana nut bread

Despite all the replacements, the banana nut bread turned out pretty good.  The nuts gave it a nice chew and the bananas kept the bread soft and moist.  There wasn’t too much sugar (and you can always put less) if you’d like to.  Plus, the recipe is rather straight forward and easy and then 30 minutes later, its ready to eat.

I’d call that one a winner for sure! 🙂

Scones with Almonds, Coconut and Chocolate Chips!

Monday morning is around once again and what better way to bring in a nice morning but with some baked goods.

In a chat with Nick at Cinematic Katzenjammer last week, he suggested me to make scones with almonds, coconut and chocolate chips.  A huge THANKS to him for giving me the baking missions ;).  Its been a while since I’ve baked scones.  I brought it over to my boyfriend’s family for dinner and they loved it!

 

To make this, I got a bit creative and used a Looneyspoons Collection cranberry-orange scones recipe and changed it to incorporate the ingredients I wanted.

Ingredients

Makes 12

1 1/2 cup all-purpose flour

1/2 cup oat bran

1/4 cup chopped almonds

1/4 cup sweetened shredded coconut

1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

1/3 cup packed brown sugar

2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1 cup unsweetened vanilla almond milk

2 tbsp butter, melted

1/2 tsp vanilla

1 egg

 

1) Preheat oven to 400F.  Spray a large baking sheet with cooking spray and set aside.

2) In a large bowl, combine flour, oat bran, chopped almonds, coconut shreds, chocolate chips, brown sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt.  Set aside.

3) In a medium bowl, whisk together milk, butter and vanilla.  Add wet ingredients to dry ingredients.  Stir until a soft dough is formed. Add a bit more flour if dough is too sticky.  Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface and divide into 2 pieces.  Form each piece into a ball.  Place the balls on the baking sheet.  Pat dough to 3/4 inch thick circles about 6 inches in diameter.  Using a sharp knife, cut each circle into 6 wedges.

4) To make glaze, lightly beat egg and 1 tbsp water in a small bowl.  Brush glaze lightly over top of dough (you won’t use it all).  Bake for 15 to 17 minutes, until scones are puffed up and golden. Cool slightly and serve.

 

There you go! How does that sound?

As I was typing this up, I realized something that I did which was different.  However, lets start with what they originally suggest. If you aren’t lactose-intolerant, you can use buttermilk instead of almond milk. As for the scones, when in their wedges, I made the mistake of pulling them apart, so they turned out all weirdly shaped.  However, they aren’t supposed to be separated.  Try that out when you do it. Just bake them in circles separated in 6 wedges and pull them apart when you want to eat them after they’ve cooled down 😉

The texture seemed soft and puffy, even though mine seemed more like the height of cookies instead of scones.  Everyone loved them yesterday and they ate them with smiles.  That always is a good sign 😉

Also, before I let you go, I urge you to go check out Nick’s Cinematic Katzenjammer.  His blog posts about movie-related news,  reviews and much more plus he has various other bloggers who write for his site as well.  I just started listening to their podcasts and they are really fun. Check it out!  I linked his blog up on top but HERE it is once more! He’s super awesome so drop on by and I sure that you’ll love it!!

Have a great Monday morning! 🙂

Copabanana Cake!

Originally, the dessert request was for some banana nut bread.  The counter is full of very ripe bananas so it had to be done.  But in the absence of a good banana nut bread recipe, I decided to make some delicious banana cake! Whose in for that?

I got this wonderful recipe from my Looneyspoons Collections called exactly that: Copabanana Cake.  This is a super easy recipe, originally made with chocolate chips, but I replaced it with chopped almonds.

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 cup whole wheat flour

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1 cup granulated sugar

2 eggs

1/4 cup butter, at room temperature

1 cup mashed ripe banana

1/2 cup light sour cream

1 tsp vanilla

1/2 cup mini semi-sweet chocolate chips (in my case, chopped almonds)

1) Preheat oven to 350F. Spray a 9×13 inch baking pan with cooking spray and set aside.

2) In a medium bowl, combine both flours, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.  Set aside.

3) In a large bowl, beat together sugar, eggs and butter on medium speed of electric mixer.  Add bananas, sour cream and vanilla.  Beat again until smooth.

4) Gradually, add flour mixture to banana mixture, beating after each addition.  Batter will be thick.  Fold in almonds (or chocolate chips).

5) Spoon batter in prepared pan and spread and evenly using a spatula.  Bake for 25 to 28 minutes, or until a wooden pick inserted in center of cake comes out clean.  Cool completely on a wire rack.  Cut into 16 pieces and store in an airtight container.

This is a pretty straightforward recipe.  I didn’t have to change much of the recipe. The only ingredient that I did take out was sour cream.  I can’t eat that so I didn’t even bother to replace it with anything like water, which I usually would do.  However, it didn’t affect it much.  The taste of this cake is really good and the texture is exactly right, not too moist and not too dry. Exactly how I like it! I’m sure you would too!

What’s your favorite banana dessert? Cake, Ice cream, muffins, cupcakes..etc? The choices are unlimited!

Baked Chinese New Year Cake

Chinese New Year is right around the corner.  This year its just me and my boyfriend celebrating together.  My mom has yet again gone on her vacation and to represent our family for my cousin’s wedding in Australia.  Fun times, right?

Before she left, I asked her to leave me the recipe for this wonderful little dessert that we have to ring in the New Year’s.  Just saying, this weekend will most probably be the first recipe up for A Bite of China project. I added the link there so you can check it out.  We are going to ring in the Year of the Snake in style 🙂

For now, we start with my attempt at this delicious dessert:

Before I tell you more, here is the recipe:

CHINESE NEW YEAR CAKE

Ingredients:

1 bag (400g) White Glutinous Rice Flour

2 1/4 cups Milk (but I used water)

2/3 cup cooking oil

1 1/3 cups sugar (I only used 1 cup)

1 tsp baking powder

3 small eggs (or 2 large)

Optional:

1 cup Coconut flakes (I used coconut shreds)

some Toasted Sesame Seed (skipped these)

Right out of the oven, it tends to be puffy but it will go back down as it cools down

Directions:

1) Mix above 6 ingredients in a large bowl.  Use electric mixer to beat 3-5 minutes at slow/medium speed and 5-7 minutes at high speed until bubbles formed.  Add coconut flakes

2) Pour the cake mixture into a baking pan lined with parchment paper or non-stick spray to prevent cake sticking to the bottom of the pan.  Sprinkle toasted sesame seeds on top of the cake (if you desire).

3) Put the pan in a preheated oven at 350F and bake for 40-45 minutes or until the top of the cake turns golden.

4) Cut the cake after cooling at least 10 -15 minutes.

If you look at the ingredients, you’ll see what changes I made.  Just a confession (and I blame it on fatigue and stress), instead of baking powder, I used baking soda.  However, it did turn out pretty decent. I figure it might change the consistency a bit.  Just be super attentive if you do that that the glutinous rice flour doesn’t get stuck at the bottom of the large bowl.  That happened to me and the electric mixer just doesn’t go that far so remember to scrape the bottom a bit to make sure you get it mixed thoroughly.

Also, stick with non stick spray or oil to prevent the cake from sticking to the baking pan.  I was trying out parchment paper for the first time and the glutinous rice flour has that name because it gets very sticky and it just stick onto the parchment paper as I tried to cut a piece out.  Ended up sitting there peeling off the little pieces of parchment paper before I could taste it.  Just warning you to save you the hassle.

As for the taste, despite all my little changes, I may have taken away the sugar but adding the coconut shreds (which my mom doesn’t do) helped compensate for that and gave it a nice texture to bite into.  Definitely going to try it another time WITH BAKING POWDER this time and probably will post an update at the bottom.

Do you enjoy trying food or desserts from other cultures? Which ones do you like? Any recommendations?

Cherry Swirl Coffee Cake

VOILA! I promised you baking and I got right down to business on Friday night! Still working on my Valentine’s lineup of treats so hopefully by next weekend, I will have something up. For now, here is one that I have been meaning to do: Cherry Swirl Coffee Cake.  I haven’t made coffee cake since I was 15 probably.  So that’s over 10 years now and I seriously forgot how simple it was. Although, this one was a bit layering so it took a bit more time.

Recipe: Cherry Swirl Coffee Cake (from Betty Crocker’s Christmas Cookbook)

Makes 18 servings

Ingredients

Coffee cake:

1 1/2 cups granulated sugar

1/2 cup butter, softened

1/2 cup shortening

1 1/2 tsps baking powder

1 tsp vanilla

1 tsp almond extract

4 eggs

3 cups all-purpose flour

1 can (21 oz) cherry pie filling

Glaze:

1 cup powdered sugar

2 tbsps water

1. Heat oven to 350F.  Generously grease 15x10x1 inch pan with shortening or cooking spray (Oops…forgot to do that!) . In large bowl, beat granulated sugar, butter, shortening, baking powder, vanilla, almond extract and eggs with electric mixer on low speed, scraping bowl constantly.  Beat on high speed 3 minutes, scraping bowl occasionally.  Stir in flour.

2. Spread two-thirds of the batter in pan.  Spread pie filling over batter.  Drop remaining batter by tablespoons onto pie filling.

3. Bake about 45 mins or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.

4. In small bowl, mix glaze ingredients with spoon until smooth and thin enough to drizzle.  Drizzle glaze over warm coffee cake.  Serve warm or let stand until cool.

I love recipes that go straight to just mixing almost all the ingredients in then adding flour at the end.  Most of the recipes actually would work like that too.  I have a hand mixer so the whole standing around holding it for 3 minutes was testing my strength a bit, but it did work like a miracle to turn up the speed.  There was one slight change that I made for this recipe and it was lowering the sugar to 1 cup.  My mom is into healthy living so I lowered it so that she could enjoy it more.  Also, I modified the glaze to 1/2 cup powdered sugar so that I could just put glaze on one half and the other half was made to not have glaze so it was also less sweet.  It tasted fruity and had a crispy crust on the top.  The texture was moist around the middle fruity layer and more crumbly at the bottom.  I love this type of  texture in any sorts of desserts so I loved it. My mom thought that it was perfect (without the glaze).  As for my boyfriend who isn’t a huge fan of cherries, he still really enjoyed it.  This recipe tends to taste better when warm so keep that in mind before you serve it or eat it.

What do you all think about coffee cakes?  Fans? Any other flavors you’d recommend to me?

Christmas Baking: Gingerbread Cookies

I have mentioned it before on multiple occasions that I am crazy about baking with GINGER.  So of course, gingerbread cookies was a no brainer for me.  Its almost an annual tradition that I explore different recipes until I find the perfect one.   This year, I am proud to announce, I am 90% sure that I have found it!

On top of that, when I went to Plattsburgh last weekend, I managed to find some super cute Christmas cookie cutters.

These are the awesome Gingerbread cookies! Festive, right?

GINGERBREAD COOKIES (from Betty Crocker Christmas Cookbook)

makes about 2 1/2 dozen 2 1/2 inch cookies (mine varied because they all were different sizes)

INGREDIENTS:

1 cup packed brown sugar

1/3 cup shortening

1 1/2 cups full-flavor molasses

2/3 cup cold water

7 cups all purpose flour

2 tsp baking soda

2 tsp ground ginger

1 tsp ground allspice

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1 tsp ground cloves

1/2 tsp salt

Christmas tree

Snowflake

Candy Cane

Bitten Gingerbread boy and girl

1. In large bowl, beat brown sugar, shortening, molasses and water with electric mixer on medium speed.  Stir in remaining cookie ingredients.  Cover; refrigerate at least 2 hours until firm.

2. Heat oven to 350F.  Lightly grease cookie sheet with shortening or cooking spray.  roll one fourth of dough at a time 1/4 inch thick on floured surface.  Cut into desired shapes.  Place about 2 inches apart on cookie sheet.

3. Bake 10 to 12 minutes or until no identation remains when touched.  Immediately remove from cookie sheet to wire rack.  Cool completely, about 30 minutes.

I apologize to the crippled Gingerbread Girl..very unfortunate that she is not only bitten but I crushed her leg by mistake.

I actually did quite a few things different for this one.  First of all, I ran out of brown sugar so we improvised with half brown and half granulated.  Also, I used 6 cups of flour instead of 7. It was already getting really hard to mix it in, so we stopped at 6 cups instead.  This year, I really tried to find allspice and cloves but they didn’t have it.  Someone actually knows where to find them? Are they under another name? So as usual I replaced it with 1 tsp nutmeg.

This recipe came with decorator’s icing but I didn’t do it.  However if anyone is interested in getting that part, just comment below or send me an email and I’ll forward it to you.

Are gingerbread cookies a tradition for you during Christmas? Like the cookie cutters?  Anyone else making gingerbread cookies?

Chocolate Chunk Oatmeal Cookies

I’m still wondering if I posted something similar before, nonetheless this is a new recipe so it deserves it own posts.

The past weekend, I decided to make Oatmeal Cookies and since it was for my boyfriend’s parents, I added in some Chocolate Chunk on the top of them.  If you’ve been following me for a bit, you know that I can’t eat chocolate.  I can tell you one thing: They were a hit.  The moment my boyfriend’s dad had the plate in this hands, he started munching on the cookies..one after another.  As someone who likes baking, I enjoy seeing the happiness others get from what I make.

Makes 20 cookies

2 cups quick-cooking rolled oats

1 cup + 2 tbsp all purpose flour

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1 cup lightly packed brown sugar

1/3 cup butter, at room temperature

1/3 cup unsweetened applesauce

1 egg

1 tsp vanilla

Chocolate chunks for topping

1) Preheat oven to 350F.  Spray a large cookie sheet with cooking spray and set aside.

2) Combine oats, flour, cinnamon, baking powder and salt in a medium bowl.  Mix well.

3) In a large bowl, beat brown sugar and butter on low speed of electric mixer until mixture resembles wet sand.  Add applesauce, egg and vanilla and beat again until well blended.  Add oat mixture to sugar mixture.  Using a wooden spoon, stir until dry ingredients are moistened.

4) Drop dough by spoonfuls onto prepared cookie sheet.   Use about 2 tbsp dough per cookie and space 2 inches apart.) Flatten cookies to 1/4 inch thickness using fork.  Dip the fork in water to prevent it from sticking to cookies.  Place a few chocolate chunks into the top of the cookie dough.  Bake for 12 to 14 minutes. Let cool on cookie sheet for 5 minutes, then carefully remove from cooling rack.

This should turn out to be soft and chewy.  It was originally a recipe for oatmeal raison cookies inspired by Looneyspoons Collection.  If you’d like to do those instead, then instead of chocolate chunks as topping the cookies, you mix it in after the dry ingredients are moistened in Step 3 for 1/3 cup raisins.

What do you think? Are you going to try this one out?

Glow in the Dark Cupcakes!

Last night I went to the Halloween party and being inspired by a recipe from another blog, I decided to make chocolate cupcakes with glow in the dark frosting.  I had asked my boyfriend’s sister and she went to get the black light to make it all work.  Originally, I had wanted to do a test run of these cupcakes first but ended up doing the Pumpkin Spice Muffins instead, so I brought some of those as well as a backup plan if the others ones weren’t enough or others weren’t interested.  It will also be the first time that I used my frosting piping set that I had bought last month.

This is how they looked like at my place before going to the party:

Later on, I’ll show you what they look like under the light.  First of all, I’m going to show give you the link for the recipe.

The cupcakes are called Devil’s Food Cupcakes found on Sweet Little Thang’s blog: http://sweetlittlethang.wordpress.com/2012/07/25/devils-food-cupcakes/

She also came up the Glow in the Dark Frosting which can be found here: http://sweetlittlethang.wordpress.com/2012/09/23/glow-in-the-dark-frosting/

See them glowing? The top ones are more obvious.

First off, I’d like to say that my cupcakes are lacking a bit of decorative skills. I tried my best though and I guess they look okay.  I will try to practice more.  Now for the changes I made to the cupcakes recipe.  Instead of cocoa powder mixed with hot water, I just melted Semi Sweet Chocolate Chunks.  I also decreased the portion of butter and sugar because that just looked way too fattening.  I used 1 cup butter and 2 cups sugar (not sure about the sugar modification). As for eggs, I used 3 extra large ones.

As for the frosting, I just kept it the way it was and I think it tasted alright.  The only thing was that I ran out of time so when it said to dip 4-6 times, I only had maybe 3 or 4 times.  I’m just glad it glowed so all the hard work wasn’t wasted and plus, the friends that ate the cupcakes seemed to enjoy it.  The only thing is that with the frosting process, the green ones need to be in the freezer for an hour so it was still pretty hard when it got to the party.  Although it sat in the fridge for a bit afterwards and I think it helped a bit.  Still, it seemed to be a hit.

The whole glow in the dark concept of it as it gave a little extra Halloween spirit to the dessert.  Extra because the place was decorated with spider webs and body parts, and everyone that came was dressed up really nice to the theme.  I’ll have another post touching on that soon.  As for anyone that wants to do this, try to schedule in maybe 2-3 hours from making the cupcakes to doing the frosting and making them glow in the dark, if you plan to do it all in one day.  If not, just do the cupcakes first and then the frosting and all the remaining work another day.

So what do you think about it? You think that it would be something interesting to do? Anyone going to give this a shot? Anything special that you usually make for Halloween?

Pumpkin Spice Muffins!

You don’t actually get into Halloween spirit without having something or another made with pumpkin.  I don’t cook pumpkin or squash much but I do bake. The debate was really between Pumpkin Pie and something in the form of a muffin or scone or cookie.  I went with muffins as they are easy and should be as close to foolproof as I can get for the first time baking with something new.

These are called Pumpkin Spice Muffins (at least I call them that).  The recipe that I got it from was from Looneyspoons and of course, they had another witty and long name, it was Pumpkin and Spice and Everything Nice.  Just to say, I followed everything to the recipe and only had two omissions. I’ll talk about that in a bit.

PUMPKIN SPICE MUFFINS (Looneyspoons Collection by Janet and Greta Podleski)

Makes 12 muffins

Ingredients:

1 1/4 cups all purpose flour

1/2 cup whole wheat flour

2 tsp pumpkin pie spice (I made my own with 1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon, 1/4 tsp ground ginger and 1/4 tsp ground nutmeg)

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1 cup canned pure pumpkin (not pumpkin pie filling)

1/2 cup plain low-fat yogourt

1/2 cup pure maple syrup

1/4 cup butter, melted

1 egg

1 tsp vanilla

1 cup finely grated carrots

1/2 cup mini semi-sweet chocolate chips

1/2 cup chopped walnuts or pecans

 

Directions:

1. Preheat oven at 375F.  Spray a 12 cup muffin pan with cooking spray and set aside.

2. In a large bowl, combine flour, whole wheat flour, pumpkin pie spice, baking powder, baking soda and salt.  Set aside.

3. In a medium bowl, whisk together pumpkin, yogourt, maple syrup, butter, egg and vanilla.  Stir in carrots.  Add wet ingredients to dry ingredients and stir using a wooden spoon just until moistened.  Fold in chocolate chips and walnuts.  Batter will be thick.

4. Divide batter evenly among 12 muffin cups.  Bake for 20-22 minutes or until wooden pick inserted in center of muffin comes out  clean.  Cool on wire rack.

 

Looks pretty good, right? I’m eating one of these as I’m typing up this post and its exceeded what I thought it’d taste like.  I was always worried that the pumpkin taste would be strong and it isn’t.  Its a well-balanced muffin.  Its not dry either so thats too my taste as well. I did make a few modifications. I had to take out the yogourt and chocolate chips from the recipe and instead of chopped walnuts, I put in chopped almonds.  Thats about all that I have to say. The taste is definitely pretty good.  I was pleasantly surprise and maybe will make it again next year.

Although, due to this recipe, I have the remaining can of pumpkin to use up and I have no idea what to do with it.  I’m pretty sure I’ll look for something randomly and make it.  I should be back with more pumpkin in some form of meal. Any suggestions?

As always, if you try out this recipe, please tell me how it turned out.  I’d love to know if you liked it or if you would make any changes to it, that sort of thing.