My Green Machine :-)

My beautiful shiny new green KitchenAid mixer came in the mail on Monday. But this was finals week!! So I had to wait until tonight to use it...and it was delightful.




I recently ran across this blog: Bake at 350. This woman makes some killer decorated sugar cookies, and I needed in on that. So I borrowed her recipe and ran with it!

She starts by creaming cold salted butter and sugar.

Notice that I used my new mixer.

I kind of love it.

Since the butter's cold, it'll take a little longer than usual.

Add in an egg and vanilla extract. She also suggested almond extract; I had lemon extract on hand, so I used that. It was a great choice!

Pour in flour and baking powder, and mix to combine.

This dough is kind of funny, because it ends up crumbly, and you're left saying, "How did I mess up a sugar cookie recipe? Really??".

But it's supposed to be like this! You just need to knead it with your hands to get it to a good cookie dough consistency.

I took about half the dough and put it on a piece of parchment paper. There's no need to chill the dough before rolling it out because we started with cold butter, remember?

Dust everything in sight with flour, and roll it out to your desired consistency.

FYI - that is too thin. But it happened.

As my students say, "It's like, whatever."

As I say, "I'm over it."

I got cookie cutters at Sur La Table last night. I had never been to that remarkable place... I love it!

I cut these out and put them on another piece of parchment and stuck them in the freezer for 5 minutes before baking them - that is the key to keeping crisp edges! And it worked!

Repeat with the remaining dough, making sure to reuse all the scraps. At the end, when I didn't have quite enough left for another cookie, I just grabbed the extra pieces and baked them as a snack. :-)

Before they were baked....

And after! They are delightful and popped right off the cookie sheets (because they're full of butter!).

These were my favorites - look at these adorable snowflakes!!

And I made lots of little trees and ornaments and people.

Tomorrow is my first experiment with royal icing (because these are WAY too cute to leave alone!!).

Here's the recipe for the cookies (adapted from Bake at 350):

3 c flour

2 tsp baking powder

1 c sugar

2 sticks salted butter, cold

1 egg

3/4 tsp lemon extract

1/4 tsp vanilla extract

Bake for 10-12 minutes at 350 degrees.

Pumpkin Bars

Is it too late for pumpkiny treats?

Is pumpkiny a word?

Either way, these pumpkin bars are delicious. To be totally honest, I didn't really like pumpkiny things before I made these. (Didn't I just say that about blueberries? This has been a life-changing month, I suppose!) I even worked at a pumpkin patch, and I didn't like pumpkin treats!

All of that has changed. These pumpkin bars are superfacil (also not a word, but Spanglish for "super easy"!) and superdelicious! I originally got these from my pastor's wife, Christie (who is an amazing cook - I wish she had time to blog!).

I teamed up with my dear friends Rachel and Erin for a baking extravaganza about a month ago and we made these and some darling owl cookies that I'll show you soon.

This first recipe starts with butter. Unsalted, of course.


Mix together sugar, butter, eggs...

flour, cinnamon, milk, baking powder, baking soda, salt, pumpkin pie spice, and

pumpkin!

After you've tossed all the ingredients in one bowl (how awesome is that?!), mix it until smooth...

and pour it in a 9x13 baking pan.

Gorgeous!

Bake for 30-35 minutes at 350 degrees. While it's in the oven, whip up some frosting! Powdered sugar, vanilla, milk, and butter....delish. :-)

Frost the pumpkin bars after they've cooled for a few minutes (if you can stand it!). These are seriously so easy, and they'll make a believer out of any pumpkin-hater. :-)

Here's the link to the original recipe on the Land O' Lakes website.

Blue. Berry. Muffins.

Happy Thanksgiving!

The last month has been crazy busy, so although I've been baking, I haven't been sharing it with you!

I'm thankful for a lot of things today, primarily my dear grandma, who's in the hospital with a lot of pain today. Our family Thanksgiving meal has been postponed, so I made blueberry muffins to take to the nurses and my parents.

In all honesty, I don't really like blueberry muffins. Um, let me rephrase that - I didn't like blueberry muffins UNTIL today. Mercy! These are delicious!

The blueberries came all the way from Canada via my dear friends Daniel and Victoria Meade. :-) Thanks again, you too!!


These beauties start with browned butter. I first experimented with browned butter when I made this plum cobbler back in August, and I decided it wasn't as scary as it sounded. Just heat butter over medium heat - it'll crackle for a few minutes and then little brown specks will appear in the bottom of the skillet. This is what you want!




Mix that with flour, sugar, eggs, baking powder, vanilla, and blueberries.

Grab the most plain muffin pan liners you can find (it'll make me feel better about myself).....

And use an ice cream scoop to divvy out the batter.

Mix together cold butter, sugar, and flour to make a streusel topping and sprinkle some on each muffin.

Twenty minutes later, these gorgeous babies are ready!

This is a crummy picture of the inside, but it was delightful! Fluffy, moist, and not too sweet. This is a perfect lazy morning recipe. :-)

Here's the link to the original recipe (from Joy the Baker, of course!).

Cinnamon Roll Muffins

Next month I'm going to buy a KitchenAid mixer.

My first project will be cinnamon rolls.

But I didn't want to wait that long to have homemade cinnamony goodness. So when I saw this recipe for cinnamon roll muffins, I just HAD to try them.

Start out with warm milk and yeast.

Stir them together and add them to a mixture of flour, sugar and salt.

Add oil and an egg...

And you'll end up with a smooth batter.

This is obviously not a REAL cinnamon roll recipe - there's no dough!

Divide the batter evenly into a greased muffin tin.

This next step is very important.

I, however, skipped it.

It was my downfall.

You will soon see.

PLEASE let this batter sit for 10 minutes! It needs to set up before the next part.

Mix together cinnamon, sugar, and butter and sprinkle it on top. Use your finger to push it in slightly so it's set.

Put the batter in a cold oven and heat the oven to 350 degrees. It will rise while preheating and look like this!

Ok, so, theoretically, after 20 minutes, you should have beautiful muffins that pop out effortlessly from the pan.

I didn't.

I let them cool for about 10 minutes, and I turned the pan over.

This is what I found.

Hey! That's all the cinnamon and sugar that was supposed to be INSIDE the muffins!

Bottomless muffins.

That's what I had.

Never fear! I decided to just frost them as they are and pretend nothing was wrong. :-)

They really are delicious.

I just need to start reading directions!

And, of course, after drizzling the frosting over the upside-down bottomless muffins, there is a lot of frosting left over.

I definitely did NOT take a spoon to this and enjoy it far too much. :-)

You can find the original recipe here. Enjoy!

Apple Walnut Bread

Fall is almost here!

I spend my Saturdays at the pumpkin patch in the fall, so I won't be blogging as much in the coming weeks (probably). But I do have a lot of really delicious recipes I want to try, so I'll do as much as I can!

I started with this bread.

It really shouldn't be called bread.

It's a cake.

But it's baked in a bread pan, so I can eat it for breakfast, right?

Good.

You can too.

Start by grating some apples.



Mix up all-purpose flour, wheat flour *just to make you feel better about eating it for breakfast!*, brown sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg.

Then whisk together buttermilk, melted butter, eggs, and vanilla.

Combine the wet and dry ingredients....

And throw in the grated apples, chopped up walnuts, and flax seeds *if you're feeling really crazy!*.

Pour into a bread pan and dust the top with cinnamon and sugar. This makes the top crunchy and sweet. :-) Exactly what you need to get going in the mornings!

Bake at 350 degrees for 40-50 minutes (mine took almost an hour, but I had a slightly smaller bread pan than the recipe recommended.

Your breakfast needs to be SO good that it motivates you to get out of bed in the mornings.

This bread is that good.

One word of warning: I found out the hard way that this has to be refrigerated. I kept it wrapped up in my pantry, and it spoiled before I could finish it. :-(

Don't let that happen to you!

Here's the link to the recipe. Enjoy!

Chicken Pesto Pizza

Let's face it.

Pesto doesn't look very appetizing.

But have you ever actually tried it?

It's delicious! And it's especially delicious on pizza dough with chicken.

I made some. It was superfacil. (That's my really correct Spanish word for "really easy!")

You start with olive oil, basil (I hit up the farmer's market), parmesan cheese, garlic, nutmeg, and either almonds or pinenuts.



I used almonds. Pinenuts were about 3 times the price, and I'm on a teacher's salary.

Don't judge.

Toast the nuts for just a couple minutes.

Grate the parmesan cheese. Freshly grated cheese is always so much better.

Toss the basil, almonds, parm, garlic, and olive oil into a food processor (I stole my mom's - I don't think she's noticed yet!). Blend until you get a good consistency.

Like this! Mmm....add nutmeg, salt, and pepper to taste. If you are a pesto junkie and want to make three batches, like me, grab some freezer baggies, date them with your preferred language, and throw them in the freezer!

So now it's time to DO something with this beautiful sauce! How about pizza?

If you don't have the time or resources to make your own pesto but still want to make pesto pizza, grab a jar of this the next time you're at the grocery store:

I love this stuff. Even though I now know how to make my own pesto (and have enough to last about a year!), this is still really great.

Ok. It's pizza time.

I got this pizza dough recipe from my dear friend Candice, who left me two years ago for Texas. She's pretty great, and so is this dough.

It's super easy and quick, and doesn't even need to be kneaded. It just needs to rise after it's stretched out on the pizza stone, either before or after putting the ingredients on. (The recipe is at the bottom of this post.)

I sprinkle some cornmeal onto a pizza stone, stretch the dough out over the stone, spread on some pesto, toss on some pieces of cooked chicken, top it with cheese (I use the 6-cheese Italian blend), and throw it on a grill.

Have you ever had grilled pizza?

I'll never go back to oven-baked pizza.

Even in January.

I'll shovel my deck for this pizza. That's how good it is.

And it bakes in 4 1/2 minutes! I crank the grill up to about 500 degrees and, very soon, the crust is fully baked and the cheese is melted. It's perfectly crunchy on the outside and soft and fluffy on the inside.

Here's a close-up:

Delicious. The dough can really be used as a base for just about any kind of pizza; I just think it goes best with pesto.

Enjoy!

Pesto

2 c basil

3/4 c Parmesan cheese
3/4 c olive oil

1/4 c almonds or pinenuts

3 garlic cloves

nutmeg, salt, and pepper to taste

Pizza Dough

2 tsp yeast (1 packet)

2 T sugar

1 c warm water

1/2 tsp salt

2 1/2 c flour

2 T oil

Mix together the yeast and water and allow the yeast to proof. Add the rest of the ingredients; mix until combined.

Yes. It's really that easy!