01

May

Chocolate Peanut Butter Muffins

Adapting Bonnie’s recipe, but not much, we had some mini muffins for mom and dad’s visit. I tend to like variety, so I used one batch of standard muffin dough, split it into two smaller bowls, and made Cinnamon mini muffins and Peanut butter chocolate chip mini muffins. One batch makes 24 mini muffins, just the amount my one pan holds. Enjoy as a snack, dessert or with brunch (we had eggs florentine with them).

cinni mini muffins 

1-2 t. ground cinnamon (I tend to add a lot, for flavor)
1/2 t. ground nutmeg
1/2 t. allspice (optional)

topping:
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 t. cinnamon
1 T. margarine/butter, softened

chocolate chip peanut butter muffins

1/2 cup mini chocolate chips
1/4 cup peanut butter, softened
 
basic muffin dough (makes 24 mini muffins)
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour (or 1 cup white flour, 1/2 cup wheat pastry flour)
1/2 cup sugar or 2/3 cup Sucanat
2 t. baking powder
1/2 t. salt
1 TB ground flax seed + 2 TB water (or 1 egg)
1/2 cup vanilla soymilk (or cow’s milk)
1/4 c. margarine/butter, melted (you could sub applesauce, but it’s not the same)

directions:
1) Preheat oven to 375. Mix flour, sugar, baking powder and salt in a bowl. In a second bowl, mix wet ingredients–egg, soymilk and margarine. Once mixed thoroughly, combine the wet into the dry mix bowl and stir well. Separate (sticky) dough into half, putting the second half back into the wet ingredient bowl. This is how you’ll create 2 flavors of muffins.

2) In the first bowl, combine the chocolate chips and softened peanut butter. You want semi-melted, but not runny, peanut butter. Spray or line 12 of the mini baking cups and spoon a little less than a tablespoon into each of them.

3) In the second bowl (cinni mini muffins), add the cinnamon, nutmeg and allspice. (Add extra spice to taste.) Stir well and spoon into the other 12 mini baking cups.

4) Bake for 8-10 minutes. While baking, mix together topping for cinnamon muffins. (Choco-pb muffins don’t need a topping, trust me.) Let muffin pan cool on counter for a few minutes, then sprinkly brown sugar mixture onto top of each cinni mini muffin. Eat and enjoy!

This recipe is easily doubled or tripled, as ambitious as your little bake sale heart desires.

lion at naptime…on his back  
It was great to have mom and dad in town this weekend. We went to a dinner at my school, ate lots of tasty food, and spent a lot of time together. Great stuff! We visited the local zoo for the first time… *warning: matt loves instagram (google it if you like). So, as my favorite Baba Wawa says, Take a little time to enjoy the view. Enjoy some time outside (before it gets too hot) and have an incredible week!

koi pond with lovely lilypads                    
~Laurel~

15 years ago Short URL

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26

Apr

Puffy Scones

Have you ever walked in a kitchen with no plan? I just did. The result?


puffy scones (vegan)

these scones bring a little surprise by adding the toppings in the middle of this sweet, healthy dough. they’re low fat, low calorie and the small size allows you to snack on them any time of the day.

*makes 12-15 scones*
 
 1 cup all-purpose flour, plus more for rolling out dough
1 cup wheat pastry flour
1/2 t. baking soda
1/2 t. baking powder
1/4 t. salt
1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce
1/2 cup light vanilla soymilk
3 TB agave syrup 

toppings: (choose what you like)
1/2 cup sweetened coconut
1/2 cup chocolate chips/shavings
1-2 t. cinnamon sugar
 
step 1: preheat oven to 350. mix dry ingredients in medium bowl.
step 2: mix wet ingredients in a different medium bowl.
step 3: stir wet into dry ingredients. form into dough, which will be a little sticky.

step 4: flouring surface of a sheet of wax paper or counter surface, roll out dough into an egg shape (about 12″ lengthwise and 7-8″ width).


step 5: add toppings to one half of the “egg.” roll the plain half of dough over to the topping half of dough, making it a 2-layer dough with the topping in the middle. using 2″ cookie cutters, cut out your mini scones. place them on a non-stick baking mat.














step 6: bake for 8-10 minutes, until slightly firm but soft as well.

 e a t…lots.


 easy, simple ingredients, healthy!


~Laurel~

15 years ago Short URL

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08

Feb

Cake Pops!

Okay, I officially have a new love…

CAKE POPS!
I got this cookbook last week,in hopes of making some for my mom’s birthday (Feb. 5th). Angie Dudley is a self-proclaimed “non-baker,” and–thinking of all of my kitchen disaster incidents–her book intrigued me. The ideas were so cute and basic enough to try it myself, so I did.
Here’s how they turned out….
Cupcake Pops, purple and pink dipped in mint chocolate

Mom’s nickname at work, “The Payroll Queen,” made its royal debut in dessert form. Aren’t they cute?
 They are such a blast to make! It’s pretty simple…

1) Bake a cake (from a mix is fine, just follow the directions), any flavor, in a 8X12 (or so) baking pan.

2) After cake is cooled, cut into 8 squares. Over a large mixing bowl, pick up 2 squares and rub them together. You are “crumbling” the entire cake into the smallest pieces possible.

3) Once the crumbling is complete for the entire cake, add 12 oz. of frosting to the cake. Mix it in using the back of a metal or wooden spoon. (The book is right…do NOT use the entire 16 oz can of frosting…the mixture will be TOO moist!) Mix together until it all becomes a moist bowl of cake happiness. Taste this, but don’t eat it all!

4) Now put the cake in the fridge for 2 hours or freezer for 20 minutes.
5) Roll chilled cake into balls, about 1–1 1/2 inches in size. If they are not sticking together, put the cake back into the fridge to cool some more. Place the balls onto a cookie sheet lines with wax paper.
6) You can make the oh-so-tasty cake balls at this step, heating candy melts (like Wilton) in a deep microwavable bowl. Stir in between 30 second increments. A 1/2 pound batch (1/2 bag) should take about 3 minutes in the microwave to completely melt. 

7) Using 2 small spoons, dip/immerse the cake ball into the melted candy (I used dark chocolate mint) and juggle the ball between the spoons to drip off the excess candy.

8) Cool on wax paper for a few minutes. Eat! There are a million ways to decorate them, and it gets a bit complicated from there. However, this is TOTALLY worth 2 hours of your life!! I loved it, and I think my mom enjoyed the package she received for her b-day. 



I have so many ideas for using these cake balls for Cake Pops!…but some of you might be receiving those as gifts, so I shan’t post it here. 


Happy Baking!
~Laurel~

15 years ago Short URL 43 Comments

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