One Can Make a Lot Over a Month

Well...I've been extremely busy these last few weeks. Some of it baking! So exciting. Looking back, I think I have spent every free hour-plus chunk of time I have had free baking. Maybe this is why I haven't had any time to sleep or rest. Hmm...probably, but baking is just so much fun! So what have I made since the last I posted? The first important thing to know to answer that question would be "when was the last time I posted?" I'm going to go look that up right now...September 8th! Wow, that was over a month ago; so much has happened. For instance, if became fall! Pumpkin and apple recipes have been popping up all over the place, so naturally, I have made a ton of pumpkin and apple recipes. So here is what I have made (and can remember):

• Mini Oreo & Peanut Butter Pies
• Chocolate Marshmallow Fluff -- probably the best made up invention ever. If you thought that marshmallow fluff was good, this is ten times better.
• French Toast (GFDF)
• Sticky Rice -- made with my dad: an experiment as it was our first time making it (GFDF)
• Baked Cinnamon Roll Oatmeal w/Icing (GFDF)
• Pumpkin Donuts (adapted - GFDF)
• Pumpkin Apple Bread (adapted - GFDF)
• Apple Cider Pancakes (GFDF) -- took me less than 5 minutes: made with oats and a blender
• Apple Cider Caramel Sauce (Vegan)
• Pumpkin Oatmeal Cookies (w/cinnamon, chocolate chips, peanut butter chips, or marshmallows)
• Pumpkin Spiced Latte Muffins (experiment: didn't have espresso powder)
• Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookie Pie (adapted - GFDF)
• Pumpkin Spice Syrup (ignored measurements past the water & sugar) -- which I used to make Pumpkin Spiced Hot Chocolate, sooo good! I'd even say better than Starbuck's Pumpkin Spice Latte (which I love!)

Creating Less Time by Cooking

Lately, I have been very much in love with cooking. I have taken every opportunity to cook, every bit of free time I have. While these bits of free time probably should be spent catching up on homework or studying for upcoming tests, I have used them to cook. It has been so enjoyable though, so I don't regret it at all!

Here are some things I have made recently:

• Cinnamon Peanut Butter Banana Oats
• This single serving of oatmeal is so good! It is quick and easy, ideal before I run off in the mornings and makes me feel great! I have been obsessed with peanut butter lately so it is a perfect fix.

• Peanut Butter & Chocolate Chip Cookies
• These were absolutely fantastic! I loved making them: I had a persistent itch to make cookies and this satisfied it. The recipe was just Better Homes & Garden's Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe (butter replaced the shortening) and instead of just chocolate chips, I added peanut butter chips as well. I brought them into school and they were gone in a flash, everyone loved them.
• I also made chocolate chocolate chip cookies for those in my family that can't have gluten or diary, they love those too!

•  Crepes
• This recipes is one my mom and I have tweaked and created over the years. At the moment, it is resting in my homemade cookbook. =) Though the ingredients were slightly different, I had to make these gluten & diary free because of my family's allergies, it turned out pretty good. Cooking with the substitute flour made them thicker and denser, but they were still a hit. The table is set with the array of topping I choose: butter (vegan & non-vegan), peanut butter, honey, lemon curd, and cherry preserves.

• I am also planning to make 2 things very soon:
• Tonight: Shepard's Pie
• Tomorrow: Mini Oreo & Peanut Butter Pies

End of Summer

Since I have already started school and Nate should sometime around now I believe, the summer challenge game is coming to an end. I know it's sad isn't it? But that doesn't mean the blog has to stop! Oh no, of course not! I think it is great, well when I actually post. Anyways, back to the point. I have decided to stop the challenges--it is difficult for me to get ingredients and time--but the posting and cooking will not stop!
Whenever either of us cooks, we will post and hopefully I'll get pictures up... Maybe this time too we can comment on each others posts and have a sort of conversation between the two blog authors.
Nate, what do you think of this idea? =)

Late, Late, Late...Butterbeer Cupcakes!

Alright guys, I am so sorry that I keep being so late! I will actually try to be on time this time. If I don't have a recipe completed or pictures, I will try my best to write at least something. It will be a lot easier now too because I have gotten my fixed computer back! Yay! My memory was wiped, but other than that it is fantastic!

For my baking challenge, I decided to make cupcakes! I know, I know, it's not really that much of a surprise considering how much I love cupcakes, but it was still exciting to make. This time, I had lots of help, or lots of teaching whichever you'd like to call it. I had my two friends over for a little get together, my one friend was going away for a bit so we wanted to see her before she left. Her name was Amanda and my other friend was Robbie. Firstly, I need to say that they are both amazingly awesome and I love them and I had a great time hanging out. Secondly, it was a sort of get together for my birthday because it was around my birthday...so Amanda brought all the ingredients to my house! It was so nice of her since I don't have much at my house right now. We decided to make, well I kinda decided to make and asked if it was ok, Butterbeer Cupcakes!
They turned out delicious, but so sugary! I might've eaten some of the frosting and the ganache while I was making it, oh and maybe a couple mini cupcakes too...but besides that I only had 1 cupcake. That 1 little simple cupcake made me so hot it was ridiculous! (I get very overheated when I have too much sugar) It was so good though! I wish I hadn't dropped them the next day...

Cinnamon Pull Aparts

For this weeks baking challenge I wanted to make something sugary and delicious so I decided to make a recipe that sounded pretty good and been thinking about for a while, some cinnamon pull aparts.

They're quite easy, all you really need is butter, sugar, cinnamon, and dough.

I started by mixing together 1/2 cup sugar and 2 1/2 teaspoon c
innamon in one bowl and melted 1
third cup of butter in a separate bowl. Next I got a Pillsbur
y biscuit dough (mostly because they are easier to handle and pop up just right) and cut each biscuit into 4 individual slices. After that I put each biscuit into the butter, rolled it aroundand flopped it over to the cinnamon sugar until it was covered in sugar and then placed it on the pan. I did this with each one and stacked them on top of each other.

I set the oven to 400 degrees and put it on for about

20 mins. I had a large pan and you're really supposed to use a loaf pan for this so mine expanded and stuck to the pan quite viciously.

I think I needed to spray the pan alot better because it was hell trying to neatly get them off the pan. But once I succeeded I spread them on a plate and served. The recipe was easy and it didnt take very long to make. I highly recommend this fun desert :D

Birthday Challenge

I so need to get back on the ball with this blog! I am so sorry, but hopefully this will be the last time that I will get off track...I've been having problems with my computer so at the moment I do not have one =( I have still yet to decide whether or not to get it fixed or to buy a new one, so until then I am going to be using my iPod so no pictures sorry!
This week's challenge is, besides a little late, going to be a simple challenge (or challenging if you want). Tomorrow is my birthday (yay!) so the challenge will be to bake something, anything you'd like. Simply because I love baking and it should be fun. And yes, the baking is meant to be baking, not cooking. Have fun! That's the goal afterall =)

Ah, the Memories...

First of all, I am so sorry that this is so late, but I've been a little busy lately. Saturday was my birthday party and it was really great. It really brought back memories of old birthday parties with the same (or slightly same at least) family. This is what I choose as my childhood memories post, my birthday party because of my birthday cake. While we had to get two cakes because they were so many people, the first was a traditional (at least for my family) Chinese birthday cake. I doubt it really is traditional elsewhere, but that's ok with me. My Yeh-Yeh (grandpa) and I went to the Chonese bakery to get it and it was called a "Fruit Basket Cake." It was a sponge-cake like cake that wasn't so cakey because I don't really like straight cake with whipped cream (nit your normal type, it's hard to explain) and fruit pieces in the whipped cream which was a layer in the middle of the cake. On the top, there was all sorts of gorgeous fruit, strawberries and peaches and kiwi. My aunt used to eat the fruit off the top of the cake years ago, we still tease her about it. The outside of the cake is wrapped with a sort of other cake, same taste as the normal cake, but it is red and white stripped. This is most likely for decoration. So that's the cake! I will add pictures sometime soon, I'm on the road so this is difficult to post. I'm on a cross country roadtrip! Yay! WIm traveling with my grandma (she's awesome).

The Memories of Funnel Cakes

For this week of childhood memories I wanted to make something that reminded me of my younger life. The first thing that stood out to me was funnel cakes. whenever my family and I would go to a special event and funnel cakes were available, it'd be the main food focus of the day.

Just the smell of funnel cakes brings back memories from Disneyland and Fairs so I decided to search the house for a recipe of funnel cakes.Fortunately I have made funnel cakes in the past and the recipe was safe and tucked away.The recipe is simple enough and doesn't take long to make which makes this one of my favorite fun snacks to make from scratch.

Firstly I gathered together 2 eggs, 1 cup milk, 1 cup water, and 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract and beat them together.

Then I mixed in 3 cups flour, 1/4 cup sugar, 1 tablespoon baking powder (which I forgot :o) and 1/4 teaspoon salt, and mixed together until smoothed nicely.

Next I grabbed a pot, added 1/4 of the pot with vegetable oil, and set to medium high.

After that I grabbed a funnel and started pouring the mixture into the vegetable oil via funnel.

After the mixture is sizzling in the oil it doesnt take very long to heat up, about 5 seconds in and its time to turn the funnel cake over, another 5 seconds and its done or until golden brown. What frustrated me with this batch of funnel cakes was I couldnt get the structure right, it always seemed to bunch up and look like a blob, but meh it tastes the same in the end :D

Next let the cake lay on a paper towel and dry for a minute or so. Add some powder sugar and chocolate syrup is desired and enjoy! Its fast, easy, and totally delicious! and for me, tastes just like childhood memories! :D

Vacation!

So this week, I will not be in town...at all and I don't believe that I will be able to make anything so I decided to make a different type of challenge for this week. It is a very flexible challenge because I don't know what to expect this week, but it's simple. The goal of this week is to have or make something that you grew up with. It could be something you have everyday or something that you don't get very often. Whatever it is it is (obviously) delicious and should bring back some childhood memories =) So have fun with the challenge!

Late Again! Sorry, Cupcakes

Oh no! I'm sorry again, I'm late. I completely lost track of the days and it's already Monday! Well I made these cupcakes last week, on Friday so at least I remembered to make them! I just haven't posted anything on them yet because I hadn't uploaded the photos. Well I guess that's what I am going to do right now...

I guess while I do that I will start telling you about the cupcakes. I had two choices of cupcakes that I wanted to make: Bananas Foster Cupcakes and Butterfinger Blizzard Cupcakes. I couldn't decide which so I asked my mom and had her decide. She definitely picked one with a lot of work! The Bananas Foster Cupcakes. The reason these cupcakes had so much work is because they had four parts: French Pastry Cream, Caramel Sauce, Buttercream Frosting, and the Banana Cupcakes.

Making the French Pastry Cream was the hardest out of all of the parts for sure. It took us three tries to get it half-way ok, but it was still not thick enough. It still tasted good though! The first two creams curdled, but the final didn't! The Caramel Sauce was a lot easier to make, since I've made several caramels before. It was a lot of fun and it turned out great! Though we had to cook it longer after I finished because the alcohol didn't cook out completely. After we finished both of those parts, they were put into the fridge to cool down:

Then it was time to make the frosting! The frosting was a lot of fun to make, I hadn't made a buttercream frosting before and I never realized just how much butter is really in it! The Buttercream Frosting that I made probably was enough to frost 18 or so cupcakes and it used a whole pound of butter! I do love butter though so I thought it tasted fantastic!

The cupcakes were pretty easy, though it was done in parts as well. One part butter, sugar, and eggs; the second the flour mixture; and the third the banana mixture:

Once they were all added together, the mixture was ready to be put into the oven and baked!

Next came the filling with the mixture of the French Pastry Cream and Caramel Sauce:




Frosting the cupcakes was my favorite part! I love swirling the frosting on and it looks so good afterwards.

After they were frosted, the remaining caramel sauce was warmed up and drizzled on the top to make the delicious Bananas Foster Cupcake:

Hostess Cupcake Attempt

For this cupcake based week I attempted to try something a bit harder than what im used to. Ive never did a cupcake that had filling or more than a few steps to complete so I tried my best to find a recipe looked delicious yet a little complicated.

I discovered this recipe while browsing

http://www.beantownbaker.com/2009/04/fauxstess-cupcakes.html

I thought, ok that looks legit and delicious, lets do it!

After getting all the in

gredients I needed I got to work. I started with the cake part which seemed to be going good..

until I realized that I needed egg yolks and egg whites at two separate times

of the baking process. I basically just stuffed two eggs into the mixture, so without

starting over I thought I might as well just prepare an extra two egg whites.

This was my first time making egg whites and I didn't have a blender so I handbeate

d the eggs for a good 25 minutes until they were white... I severely underestimated how long it

would take without

a blender.

After this

process I added the whites to the batch and it was

time to bake them.

While they were baking I started work on the filling which was simple.. on paper. I had a hard

time understanding how to mix the ingredients on a metal pan on simmering water.

So I ended up heating water on low, placing a glass bowl on top and mixing them that way. again without a mixing tool I ended up beating the ingredients

by hand for a good 20 minutes until it was fluffy and filling like. At this t

ime the cupcakes were cooling on the rack and the filling was finished.

The ganache was next. This part was basically the easiest because all I had to do was heat up cream and add chocolate so once that was done it was time to start creating the cupcake.

I put some filling in

a tipped

bottle and injected it into the top of each cupcake until a fair amount was put in. after that I dipped each cupcake into the ganache and smoothed them out with a wet knife. Once the frosting dried a bit I started putting the hostess swirls on the tops. This however did not work for me because every time I tried it slipped off like water. I was a little disappointed by that :(

But once they cooled down I let everyone have a try and they loved it :D the cupcakes didnt last very long because everyone kept eating them and that made me happy! This recipe definitely was challenging but it worked out in the end and I have alot of new ideas for filling type cupcakes in the future.

Not Quite a War...but Still Cupcakes!

This challenge isn't quite a war, like Cupcake Wars, an awesome tv show on Food Network, but it should still be fun! For this challenge we can make any type of cupcake that we would like. Under one condition...that it is interesting! No boring old vanilla or chocolate, sorry! Now, if it must be chocolate or vanilla a twist must be put on it. Maybe you could add peanut butter? Make an interesting frosting? Possibly add a filling? Oh! Or you could do my favorite thing and make them mini! And then decorate them of course...

Spirited Dessert

For this Fourth of July, I made the dessert! I happen to like making desserts...especially ones that have a theme to them. The theme was of course the 4th, so I decided to make a red, white, and blue dessert. It took me forever to decide what I wanted to make, as usual to my indecisiveness, so I went with the standard, for me at least. I made something similar last year, I made my dessert in the shape of a flag. The flag is my standard...and I happen to be obsessed with mini foods. I didn't want to make a normal, boring custard (ok, it wouldn't be boring but I like adding flavors) so I made a lemon custards. So my dessert was mini lemon custards in the shape (and colors) of a flag, the America flag of course.

As you can see, I added whipped cream and berries to the tops of my lemon custards.

I whipped the cream myself, from heavy whipping cream, and I added the food coloring so my flag would be very noticeable.

Now, it would've been cool if I had flavored the whipped creams to the berries they accompanied, but I didn't think of that until after. Don't get me wrong though, they still were delicious! I had a lot of fun making these! So much so that my hands were red from food coloring afterwards, actually my hands have just started looking normal.

Old Fashioned Breakfast

For this 4th of July we decided to have an old fashioned waffle sandwich breakfast for dinner. For this we decided to bust out the waffle maker that I didnt know we had and whip up some bacon, eggs, waffles, toast and coffee. The idea is to get two waffles and put some bacon, eggs, and syrup inside to make it a sandwich. It tastes delicious :D

First we started with a simple batter for waffles which basically was a pancake recipe. I dont know much about waffle recipes but im assuming they're the same. Seeing how the waffles take twice as long as everything else, I made the other sides of the dinner at the same time.

Seeing as how I was making this for the whole family I had to make alot of bacon. Everyone loves bacon! And if I had enough of it, it'd most likely be in everything I eat. at the same time I had some eggs and toast cooking and toasting.

The kitchen smelled utterly delicious, we had the smells of bacon, waffles and coffee oozing out of the kitchen which made me want to do this more often.

After each was finished I stuck the eggs and bacon in between the waffles, drizzled a bit of syrup on top and accompanied it with toast and coffee to those who wanted it.

In the end it turned out great! It was delicious and had all the tastes of an old fashioned breakfast mixed into one bite. I will definitely be making this again.

Unfortunetly my phone died at the end so I couldnt

get a picture of the waffle sandwhich :( but I found this on Google and its exactly what it looked like, just add some syrup :D I highly recommend it!

Spitfire Challenge!

Not quite sure if "spitfire" is the correct term for this, but oh well I'm going to use it anyways! This challenge is going to be super quick because...it's the 4th of July challenge! The challenge is to make a dish for 4th of July, doesn't matter if it's complicated or simple, red white and blue or traditional. Whatever goes! As long as it's made for and on the 4th of July!

So many people have been making lists for 4th of July food so I thought I would give out some of them:

• http://www.browneyedbaker.com/2011/06/27/4th-of-july-recipes-desserts/
• http://www.creationsbykara.com/2011/06/4th-of-july-cookie-bars.html
• http://blogs.babble.com/family-kitchen/2011/07/02/patriotic-foods-to-celebrate-the-fourth-of-july/
• http://www.howsweeteats.com/2011/07/70-recipes-for-the-4th-of-july/
• http://www.evilshenanigans.com/2011/07/independence-day-round-up/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+EvilShenanigansBlog+%28Evil+Shenanigans+-+Baking+%26+Cooking+Blog%29
• http://www.bakersroyale.com/fast-and-easy/strawberry-icebox-cake/
• http://sweettreatsandmore.blogspot.com/2011/07/fourth-of-july-chocolate-peanut-butter.html
• http://kblog.lunchboxbunch.com/2011/07/vegan-menu-for-july-4th.html
• http://www.familyfreshcooking.com/2011/07/01/july-4th-sweet-treats-2011/
• http://www.livelovepasta.com/2011/06/4th-of-july-cupcakes/

Pasta Pasta a Little Late...

Hey! So sorry that this is a little late, but better late than never right! I made the pasta dish on Friday (maybe? or maybe it was Thursday...no clue) night along with other things for a nice big meal.

My mom and I made ribs on the grill, nice and slowly with a dry spice rub. They turned out fantastically!

Though our barbecue sauce wasn't as great. Ah well, everything was still good.
After we spent hours (yes, hours!) on the ribs, we started our pasta and veggies. Everything was so chaotic then! We had everything on the stove at the same time and it was a little crowded, but fun of course.

So the pasta that I ended up making was a side dish because we had already established the main meals until Saturday. It worked out though! The kind of theme of the meal was lemon. In the barbecue sauce there was lemon juice, the green beans (the veggie for the meal) had a lemon taste to it, and my pasta was lemony too.

Which brings me to my pasta, the pasta that I made was....*if you want, add a drum roll here* Garlic Butter Pasta! With Shrimp! This recipe is a big thanks to Evil Shenanigans and the food blogging world.
It was actually a really simple recipe, maybe not the cheapest, but still simple! Oh, and it was quick too. To start the recipe, all you need to do is boil the water and cook the pasta removing it one minute before it's done.

Oh, at the same time you have to marinate the shrimp in garlic, lemon zest, and oil. Well...if you can't peel shrimp this recipe isn't the simplest I suppose, oops forgot about that!

After that, you melt butter in a pan and add the shrimp. You just have to cook the shrimp until it is no longer translucent and turns a little pink. Then, add basil (the recipe calls for fresh, but we just used dried instead) and the pasta (after you drain it of course) and you just move it around and coat it all in the sauce and....walla! You have fantastic Garlic Butter Shrimp Pasta!