Recipe: Pumpkin Squares

Pumpkin Squares

Honestly, I don't know why I didn't post this recipe sooner, because I make 'em every time I start seeing pumpkins popping up in stores. I guess it's kind of like a traditional thing now, like how people bake a bunch of cookies for Christmas. Except for me, I make pumpkin squares in October.

Basically, pumpkin squares are just pumpkin muffins baked in a square pan. This particular one is a bit plain because we didn't have any chocolate chips on hand. I might drizzle it on top if I ever get my hands on a bar.

And I know the picture doesn't really show it justice, with the clutter, and it still being in the pan (silicon ftw), and how it's already been nommed on, and just the whole fact that it could be anything tucked in there... Oh well, I guess you just have to trust me on this one. I draw, I don't take photos.

I used to take a lot of cooking classes offered in the community center when I was a kid, and that's where I got this recipe from. I think the class was a weekly baking class or what not. I was still elementary then, and I've been making this recipe ever since. However, my mom praised me for this particular batch of squares, calling it the "best one I've ever made", even though I really don't think I made it all that differently than from a year or two ago.

Pumpkin Squares

•  1/2 butter (you could probably sub it with yogurt, I just didn't have any on hand)
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 4 eggs
• 2 cup pumpkin filling
• 2 1/4 cup flour
• 2 1/4 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp nutmeg
• 1 cup chocolate chips

1. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.
2. Cream the butter (if using), then mix in the sugars until evenly combined. Beat in the eggs ("until fluffy," as quoted by the recipe). Afterwards, add the pumpkin filling.
3. Add the flour, baking powder, cinnamon, and nutmeg into the batter and mix until all the dry ingredients are moist. (Refer to muffin method.) Add the chocolate chips.
4. Pour into a square pan and bake for 40 - 50 minutes (even though I ended up leaving it in the oven for an hour and a half... ick) or until a knife comes clean.

Anyways, I won't make you have to put up with more of my 3:00 AM crappy writing so bye bye.

Recipe: Tiramisu

Tiramisu

When I was taking it out, my mom kept commenting how nice it looked. Damn right does it ever look nice. Especially with the ribbon around it, even though it was tied on really ugly, but it really needed that ribbon to keep the lady fingers in tact.

I originally made it for an ice breaker pot luck for one of the clubs I joined, but due to issues which included a being super tired and a dead wall clock, I missed it. Instead, I brought it over to a baby shower that was also scheduled for that evening, but I was going to miss in favour for my club. I don't think the ice breaker needed anymore food anyways, according to my friend who was there.

The recipe I used is a combination of a bunch of tiramisu recipes I found online. And even though I'm including a recipe for lady fingers, I only used that recipe to make the rounds inside it. The outer ones were store bought, and man, are they ever plain. They look so soft in the package.

Tiramisu 

Lady Fingers

• 1/2 cup flour
• 2 eggs, seperated
• 1/3 cup sugar
• pinch cream of tartar

Filling

• 1 tub mascapone cheese 
• 2 cups (500 oz) whipping cream
• 1/2 cup powdered sugar
• 2 tbsp Kahula

Syrup

• 1 cup water
• 1/2 cup espresso
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup Kahula

1. For the lady fingers, beat the yolks until thickened and lemon coloured. Mix in the sugar, saving about 1 tbsp. In a separate bowl with clean beaters, whip the egg whites until they're frothy, then add the cream of tartar. Continue to whip till stiff peaks form. Quickly fold the egg whites into the yolks, then fold in the flour until combined. Pipe into lines or spread into a round. Bake for about 20 minutes in 400 degrees.
2. For the syrup, bring the water to a boil before adding the sugar, espresso, and Kahula. Simmer until the sugar is fully dissolved. Put aside.
3. For the filling, combine the sugar, Kahula, and mascapone cheese together. Gradually beat the whipping cream into the mixture with an egg beater until soft peaks form.
4. To make the tiramisu, brush on the syrup on the lady fingers, and soak both the rounds in the syrup.  Line a 9 inch spring form pan with the lady fingers around the diameter, and place one lady finger round on the bottom. Pour about half of the filling before putting on the last round, and using the rest of the filling for the rest. Dust with cocoa powder.
5. Let it sit overnight for a minimum of one day.

Yeah, my relatives were raving about how nice it looked, and how it could've totally sold for money. They even told me that I could quit school and start some kind of cake business (as a joke, of course). I don't mind building them websites or doing design work for money, because I know I don't suck at that, but baking? Eh, I don't know if I'll ever have enough confidence in my baking abilities for that. I wouldn't mind the extra money, though. 40 dollars a cake? I'm in.

Recipe: Melon Bread

Ready for the oven.

Done! Looks like I already ate one.

Crap picture quality, because I was baking them at night... but when were my pictures ever of good quality?

For those who don't know, melon bread doesn't actually have melon inside of it. It's just some bread with a cookie dough on the top with a pattern cut into it which resembles the surface of a melon. Yeah.

I had originally planned to make it earlier, a few days earlier to be exact. In fact, I made the cookie dough on that day I originally planned to do it, but after finding out the scale we had sucked, I opted to wait until I could borrow my friend's scale instead. Sure, even though the measurements for the cookie dough is also given out in grams, I just searched up how much the weight of so and so equaled in cups.

I could've done the same for the bread, yes, but since it was my first time ever baking bread, I didn't want to take any chances. I at least wanted to achieve a texture similar to Chinese bakery bread: soft and light.

None of them actually turned out as golden or as melon-bread-like as I wanted. I think the former is due to our pale North American eggs compared to the bright orange yolks of Asia. The latter is due to not enough cookie dough and thus the pattern being destroyed during the second rise. Yup, I learned a lot, at least. Some other stuff I found out along the way was:

• There is a "keep warm" setting on my oven and it's very useful for rising.
• You really need to coat your finger in bread flour to check if it has risen enough, otherwise the dough would just stick to you.
• I mess up a lot if I don't check the recipe frequently.
• If your bread dough is too sticky even after kneading forever, adding in some more butter helps wonders.

Ehh, too lazy to paraphrase the recipe, so why don't you just check out the video yourself?

Planning to make more soon while I've still got my friend's scale. Hopefully it wouldn't have that salty tinge next time.

Recipe: Angel Sponge Cake

Angel cake. Note: it's not the half-eaten on in the back.

No, it's not angel food cake, but this is angel cake - search it up, or, for the lazy people, click on the links. Though calling this an angel cake wouldn't be completely truthful either, because the only resemblance between the two are the colours of sponge I chose to make. I wouldn't know how angel cake would taste, either, because I've never had it. I'm pretty sure it's not supposed to taste like strawberries, vanilla, and "orange".

Anyways, if you were normal, you wouldn't have a cake everyday. And I wouldn't bake a cake just for the hell of it either. Nope, it was my mom's birthday, and I remember the last time I made an awesome cake, she asked for one too. Well, that time has come, but I think I like this one better.

Why? Well, for one, I switched from genoise to actual sponge cake this time. I've been avoiding it though because I hate separating eggs. But because I did, it rose beautifully. Emphasis on the beautifully part.

Cross section

...or at least, every layer minus the bottom layer (AKA the "Fruit Loops" layer - guess what that tasted like) did. Once you break those yolks and it gets into your whites, it's all over. You're better off redoing it.

Angel Cake
Based off this recipe.

• 2 eggs, separated
• 1/3 cup cake flour, shifted
• 1/3 cup sugar
• Pinch of salt
• Pinch of cream of tartar
• For vanilla
• 1/3 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup milk
• For Fruit Loops
• 1/3 cup freshly squeezed orange juice
• 1/3 tsp orange zest
• (Yellow food colouring)
• For "strawberry"
• 1/3 tsp lemon zest
• 1/2 cup strawberry puree
• 1/2 tbsp milk
• (Red food colouring)

1.  Preheat your oven to 325 degrees and line your pan(s) with parchment paper.
2. Beat the yolks until its thickened and lightened in colour. Gradually add sugar then flour. Finally, mix in any extracts, liquids, zest, or food colouring you plan to use.
3. In a separate bowl with an electric mixer, beat egg whites until white and frothy. Add the salt and cream of tartar and continue to beat on high until it starts forming stiff peaks.
4. Swiftly fold in the whites. Don't mix too much.
5. Bake for 40 minutes or until it slightly springs back up when you press the center.

I don't actually recommend trying out the strawberry flavour combo, because you can't really taste the strawberries. But apparently the texture is really good.

Notice the other cake in the background of the first picture? That was due to dad taking "no duh" - as in, "No duh, that cake is for her birthday" - for a simple "no". Figures, I shouldn't have expected so much from a parent. On the bright side though, the cake sucked, and that made my cake, in comparison, so much better. You know what this means? I just beat out a professional bakery!

Foodie post

Lasagna

Banana pudding with chocolate shavings

Pics of my dinner I made like a week ago or so because my parents were going out and I didn't feel like eating anymore take out.

Is this really worth a post? Well, I made it, so it does in my book. I'm especially proud of my lasagna because I made it from scratch with no help from a recipe (besides the baking temperature and time), and because of that I didn't see the part where you're supposed to cover it in tinfoil. Woops.
And I found out the hard way that unless you pre-boiled them, you should end in a layer of sauce instead of noodles. They came out way way way too tough, but because they were covered in cheese, I let that pass.
Still yummy, though. Made the sauce from scratch too, and filled it with lotsa meat and not that many vegetables. This is how unhealthy children make their food.

I'm still eating the leftovers. No complaints!

As for the pudding, yeah, I found a recipe. Tasted yummy, though... to me, anyways.

Recipe: Not-so-fail Cakes

So the cake I made last time (and ultimately failed at) was for preparation for this one. Since I have no faith in my skills as a baker or cook, I couldn't just give out a cake to someone without testing the recipe first. I say this as if I remade the cake again, but I really made an entirely new cake for said person. Anyways, let us continue.

First, my baby:

I'm nice, I know.

It got a stain on the side. :(

BLARGH, I SPENT THREE DAYS ON THIS. THREE DAYS. |
I know it doesn't look like it, because it looks pretty bad on the front, but it's true. Three days.

Wish I could have taken a picture of the cross section, because layered chocolate and plain cake to make a kind of stripe pattern. The outside is pretty boring being stark white and all save the words, but I intentionally wanted to have it look all innocent on the outside.

Chocolate and White Genoise with Coffee Frosting Proud of it because though it's based off recipes, when I was making it I had to rely on either memory or my taste buds thanks to the internet being down.

Cake

• 3 eggs
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1 cup cake flour (shift the flour before measuring)
• 2 tbsp melted butter
• (4 tsp chocolate powder)

Frosting

• 3/4 cups instant coffee
• 1 1/2 pkgs of cream cheese
• 1/4 cup vanilla yogurt
• 1/2 powderd sugar
• (Dark chocolate bar)

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees and line a 7" cake pan with parchment/wax paper.
2. Mix the sugar with the eggs until combined. In a larger bowl of hot water (around 170 degrees), beat the eggs with a hand mixer until it doubled in size. When the eggs are warm to the touch, take it out of the water and continue beating on high until you can draw ribbons for at least 3 seconds.
3. Mix in the the chocolate powder with the flour if using, then shift it into the batter. Swiftly fold into the batter and don't worry if it's not fully combined. Then fold in the butter until the batter is uniform and smooth. Try not to mix too much.
4. Pour the batter into the cake pan and drop a couple of times to break any air bubbles. Bake for 30 minutes or until it comes out clean. Drop the pan again once out of the oven to prevent shrinking (apparently, I don't think it really works).
5. As for the frosting, just mix everything together. I also melted half of a chocolate bar and poured ribbons on top on the frosting, popped it in the freezer for a while, then broke it up to make "chips".

I decorated the whole thing with fondant, which was just a bag of marshmallows, with a bunch of powdered sugar mixed in to make it dough-like. And I piped those words in dark chocolate.

Once I saw how heartbroken my dad would've been after finding out the cake was a lie, when I got back from delivery, I whipped up a completely new cake. The only problem is is that there's barely anything in the fridge I could use to make the cake look semi-fancy. I had some cherries, half a tub of yoghurt, and some extra dark chocolate at my disposal though, and scrapped something up.

I took the remainder of the vanilla Greek yoghurt I had and mixed it with chopped cherries and some powdered sugar and allowed that to chill in the fridge before spreading between the cake slices. I also made a kind of dark chocolate ganache with milk instead of cream to use to top off the dessert.

And for a dessert I just made on a whim with limited resources, I guess it didn't turn out bad. The cake is a little dry, but genoise is like that. Then again, how should I know for certain? Someone ate my share of cake too.

Now my mom wants me to make her a cake on her birthday, but I really don't think that's a great idea.

Fail Cakes

IT WAS SO BEAUTIFUL BEFORE IT DIED.

You can kind of see how it dying, though.

Note to self: make space in the freezer BEFORE putting a cake into it.

It was a good thing I even have pictures of it before the incident. One side of the mango-pudding layer (seen above) was beginning to crack, so I cut that chunk off and ate it. Then I saw the other sides were begging to crack and slide off, which is when I ran to get my camera. I don't think the cake itself turned out horrible, it just what happened to it after that made it fail. I don't want to explain the accident, because it's a tragic one indeed, but lets just say that most of the pudding and whipped cream ended up in the freezer than on people's plates.

Two days of work gone in just three seconds. I seriously wanted to cry afterwards if my cousin wasn't there. :(
(I knew the cake not rising was a bad sign.)

I don't know how much you people would like to make this cake, though, because I don't think it turned out properly. Alas...

Mango Mandarin Pudding Green Tea Cake

Green Tea Sponge Cake
(Stolen from here.)

• 3 eggs
• 1 cup cake flour, shifted
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 2 tbsp melted butter
• 1 teaspoon honey
• 2 teaspoon matcha

Mango Mandarin Pudding

• 1/4 can mango pulp 
• 1 cup mandarin juice
• 1 cup hot water
• 125 g half and half
• 2 pkgs gelatin

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Using a hand mixer, beat the eggs and sugar over a bowl of hot water (ideally around 170 degrees) until frothy and doubled in size. Remove from the hot water once the eggs are warm enough to touch. Add honey and continue beating until you can draw a ribbon which will last for 3 seconds.
3. Combine matcha and flour together and shift into the bowl. Fold the it into the eggs until combined, then fold in the butter until smooth (around 30 folds). Try not to mix too much or it'll prevent the cake from rising.
4. Pour into baking pan and drop it a couple of times on the counter to break any air bubbles. Bake for 30 minutes or until you can insert a skewer and it comes out clean.
5. For the pudding, first dissolve the gelatin in the hot water. Then stir in everything else and let it set in the fridge for an hour or two before pouring on top of cake. Afterwards, allow the whole thing to set overnight.
6. Decorate with whipped cream (or stars cut out from mangos like I did).

UGH, IT WAS SO BEAUTIFUL. I couldn't even enjoy eating it because I was so heartbroken.


But that's not the only cake I made this week! Behold, my banana bread (my mom refers to it as a banana cake so close enough).

My banana bread... or half of it anyways.

It's fail because it's under baked and it came all congealed on the bottom. But the top part was delicious.

Got the recipe from here. Kept everything pretty much the same except I substituted the butter for greek yogurt, and I added almonds. Yogurt was a good idea, almonds not so much.

 

Recipe: Blueberry White Chocolate Swirls

Not chocolate chip cookies.

Fresh from the oven. Looks like one's already been devoured.

Made them in the spur of the moment yesterday, with my mom pushing me to make it because it was "healthy" Plus, we didn't need to buy anything as everything we needed were readily available. It was like 9 at night when I made them. I don't know why I  had to make them, though, since it was my mom who saw the recipe in the newspaper and all (and I would have much preferred baking a cake instead).


Blueberry White Chocolate Swirls
From the Vancouver Sun
(There's also an additional lemon glaze that comes with it but we opted to go without it because it's "too fattening".)

• 2 cup flour
• 1 tbsp sugar
• 1 tbsp baking powder
• 1 cup blueberries
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 3/4 cup milk
• 1/4 oil
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup white chocolate chips

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenhiet.
2. Combine flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt. In a separate bowl, combine milk and oil. Add wet mixture to dry.
3. Sprinkle flour onto the work surface and roll out dough into a rectangle. Press blueberries and white chocolate chips into the dough, and roll it up to make the swirl pattern.
4. Cut into 8 - 9 pieces and bake for 25 - 30 minutes.

I guess they were pretty good, considering they're all gone now, haha.

Recipe: Chicken Teriyaki

This angle makes me artistic.

More eye and stomach candy.

The "LOL presentation" bowl of left over chicken that couldn't fit so beautifully on the plate.

Naw, I don't really have a recipe for you, or at least the one I made today anyways. I didn't measure anything at all, and coming from a person who still doesn't know how much a pound is in relation to something or how approximately a meter is, you should be afraid.

But since the title promised a recipe for you in the title, even though I discreetly said I wouldn't, I'll summarize what I did. Basically, I deboned eight chicken thighs into filets after finding out cutting through bones to make chunks (I called them "nublets" in my head... don't ask why) or cutting them into chunks in general even with the bone removed was too difficult. I then marinated it in equal parts soy sauce, mirin, brown sugar, and about four parts water. I even threw in a smashed tangerine slice to add that acidic kick I don't think really did anything in the end. After that, I put on the blue apron I made in home ec 8, pan fried everything, and when it was nearly cooked, poured in teriyaki sauce (equal parts mirin, soy sauce, brown sugar, half a part ginger juice) in a pan and let that reduce for about a minute. Oh, I flipped the chicken, too, halfway, and threw some green onions on top while it was reducing. I guess that's kind of important too.
And if you don't trust me, you can always trust the internets because I trust them more than I do myself too.

And why am I so excited over this so much? Because it turned out good when the last time I cooked any meat lead to something so horribly undercooked that I called my friends telling them I might die the following day. Over dramatic? Well, you didn't see my meat.

Now it's on rice. The difference.

 My sister gave me an "I approve" so I guess that's good, right? After all the chicken had been eaten, my dad took the sauce-laden dishes so he could salvage the rest as a topping for rice. He even told me I should make more dishes. Booyah. Slowly, but surely, I will one day get rid of this "I cooked something - BEWARE" title I have hovering over me.

Recipe: Whhite Chocolate Raspberry Cheesecake (&& BONUS Parfait)

Ugly angle.

LOOKS DELICIOUS.

There's like huge fissures on the top of the cake. It kind of looks like the raspberry jam evaporated out, leaving just an imprint, which facilitated further cracking. At least when covered in the top layer of jam, it evens it out pretty well. Being a translucent topping, you can still see the shadow of the crevice, but that's what additional toppings are for.

But, aesthetics matter not because this thing tastes awesome. Okay, maybe I'm jumping the gun a little, the cake still residing happily in the fridge, but the residue left from the sides of the pan tasted awesome anyways.

I feel kind of bad for putting these recipes up, because it's suggesting as if I came up with it. No, I just modified one I found via Google (through the help of helpful commenter, of course!)

White Chocolate Raspberry Swirl CheesecakeFor a 9" pan. (Since I only had a 6", I halved the recipe when I made it.)

• 2 cups Oreos
• 1/4 cup melted butter
• 1 tbsp sugar
• 6 tbsp seedless raspberry jam
• 2 cups white chocolate chips
• 1/2 cup half and half
• 3 pkgs room temp cream cheese
• 3 eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup sugar

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Line the bottom of the cake pan with wax paper.
2. To make the crust, crush the Oreos, along with the filling, until they're crumbs. Add in the butter and sugar, and press it into the bottom of the pan. 
3. Put chocolate chips and half and half in a metal bowl. Place the bowl over a pot of simmering water (or use a double boiler, if you have one), and mix until smooth. Let it cool until it's lukewarm.
4. Mix the cream cheese until smooth. Combine with sugar. Add eggs one at a time. Finish with vanilla extract and chocolate chip mixture.
5. Microwave the raspberry jam until runny, and let it cool for a while before using. Pour in half of the cake batter in the pan, and drizzle 3 tbsp on top. Repeat with the rest of batter and jam. Run a knife through the cheese cake to create marble effect.
6. Wrap the bottom of the pan in tin foil (if using a pan with removable bottom) and place on jelly roll pan and place in oven. Fill the jelly roll pan with hot water. Bake for 55 - 60 minutes, or until filling has set. If water evaporates, add more. Once finished baking, turn off the oven, and leave it in there for another hour.
7. Cool, then cover the top with plastic wrap and chill in the fridge for 8 hours. Top the cake with the rest of the jam.

Finally, some tips to help prevent cracking which I wished I had read prior to baking:
Tips for Cheesecakes
Perfect Cheesecakes

And walla! You're done! It's a long, long, tedious process, but all cheesecakes usually are.
Can't wait to cut into this baby.


And I mentioned a bonus parfait in the title, right? Well, a day or two prior to Canada day, my mom was fussing over what dessert to bring to our uncle's barbeque. While she was stifling through old recipes, I was hungry. So I made a parfait. And before you know it, it turned from this:

I actually have the perfect parfait spoon at home. Can you believe it?

 

To being mass produced into this:

Reusing plastic cups that I used for my trifles ftw.

Thank you, McD, for the idea. It's pretty much chopped strawberries and bananas, layered, with vanilla yogurt, and Cinnamon Toast Crunch. In my mass produced ones, my mom bought some whipping cream, so we topped every one of them with a serving of that. I think I might be improving with the pastry bag.

brb EATING DERICIOUS CAKE.

Recipe: Flan

You like eating? Well, no shit you do. But someone's gotta make it, right? I've been making some stuff recently, so I thought I'd share some food pics and recipes for once because that's helluva more interesting than my doodles.

First, what I endeavored to make today: flan. Sounds like something you'd find in porridge, but looks more like creme caramel. And also very popular with the animus.

I pretty much tried to make this:

But 100x less cute.

Nah, mine's looked like this.

Sides came out a little uneven, probably from the water boiling a little when I steamed the flan. And I think I should've caramelized the sauce a little darker, but I don't like the burnt taste homemade caramel gives off. And I think the pudding could've been a little sweeter, but the texture was smooth so it's all good.

Recipe's really simple. All you need is:

• 9 tbsp sugar
• 1 tbsp water
• 250 mL milk
• 2 eggs

And that shit makes four flans right there. I could tell you the recipe, too, but Cooking With Dog does a better job.

Chocolate Microwave Mug Cakes

Because I’m a nice kid, I like to give things away in the spirit of Christmas. Teachers usually are on my gift list. However, this year due to lack of preparation and funds, I was at a loss of what to give.

Cue chocolate microwave mug cakes.

Okay, so I got this ingenius idea of giving my teachers, as the name implies, a cake baked in a mug. I was going to decorate it so it looked like hot chocolate or what not. Plus, once they were done eating it, they were left with a cheezy Christmas mug I found lying around the house (that I soon learned was supposed to be a gift never given).

This recipe is so easy that I can recite it by memory:

Chocolate Microwave Mug Cakes

• Mug
• 4 tbsp flour
• 4 tbsp white sugar
• 2 tbsp cocoa
• Pinch of salt
• 1 egg
• 3 tbsp milk
• 3 tbsp oil
• 3 tbsp chocolate chips
• Splash of vanilla extract
• Marshmallows (optional)

Directions

1. Add dry ingredients together (that includes sugar) in the mug. Mix.
2. Add egg. Mix.
3. Add milk and oil. Mix.
4. Add chocolate chips and vanilla. Mix.
5. I personally poured out a little less than 1/3 of the batter into another cup to maximize my cheapness and to prevent too much overflow. This is dependant on how big your mug is, and if you care.
6. Put mug in the microwave and cook it on high for 1 and a half minutes. The batter will rise out of the mug, which is fine, as it’ll fall once you take it out. However, I would keep a close eye to any batter spilling over the sides, in which case I would stop the microwave, whip off the side, and continue cooking.
7. Stick a toothpick through the cake and see if it comes out clean.
8. For my mug cakes, I covered the top with marshmallows while the cup was still hot so it’d melt a little and thus hold its place. I was hoping that the melted marshmallow gloop would play the role of frosting in the sense of retaining moisture.

Yes, it may sound fishy that I actually don’t know how the whole thing tastes, but from the slice I had lopped off from an overflowing top tasted pretty good. It’s chocolate and moist. I would think the bottom of the cake isn’t completely baked, maybe even like a lava cake, but that’d be even better.

Yup, sorry for no picture! Forgot to take one! Not like that it looked impressive anyways. It was just cake in a cup wrapped in clear plastic.

Recipe: Mini Chocolate Cupcake Christmas Trees

Whoa, look at all those C words up there…

In an unusual gesture, for Christmas, I decided to give gifts for the teachers as well as my fellow peers. This Christmas tree recipe had caught my eye back when I had first purchased the book, and since the holidays have come along, it was my excuse to indulge in such an endeavor.

 It’s kind of required for you to buy the book, however, unless you have a 1inch in diameter round cookie cutter and a thimble to bake in.


Mini Chocolate Cupcake Christmas Trees 

Recipe from Itty-Bitty Baking by Delia Greve
Yields 12 trees.

Chocolate Cupcake
Ingredients

• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1/4 cup unsalted butter
• 1 egg
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 3/4 cup flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 cup milk
• 1 once melted unsweetened chocolate (put a piece of chocolate in a bowl and microwave it in 30 second intervals, stirring in-between, until it’s melted)

Directions

• Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit/175 degrees Celsius.
• Cream the sugar and butter. Mix in the egg until it’s smooth, then add the vanilla and melted chocolate.
• Add dry ingredients (flour, baking powder).
• Pour in the milk slowly until the batter is smooth (I personally never found the batter to be unsmooth, and it got a bit ruined after the milk, but whatever’s your own)
• Pour an inch of batter into a 8 inch x 8 inch pan. The rest goes into the Itty-Bitty cupcake pan included with the book (this is why getting the book is so vital in making it… unless you actually have a silicon thimble). The remaining batter will be used for a final round of cupcakes.
• Bake the cake for 20 minutes and the cupcakes for 10.

Decorations
Ingredients

• Green food colouring
• Frosting (store-bought or home-made – whatever works for you, but the frosting will be the most important part)
• A froster (either a piping bag or some other contraption which works in a simular manner) with a star-shaped tip
• Candies (cola balls and candy cane sprinkles were used in the book’s picture, while I used coloured – and regular – sugar, rainbow sprinkles, holiday coloured rounds, and a white chocolate chip for the star, but really, have fun with it!)

Directions

1. Mix the green food colouring and frosting together. This will be the leaves of the tree. Put frosting in your frosting device.
2. Squeeze a mound of frosting onto the cupcake part (the smaller part) of your cupcake. It should be pointed at the end. Keep doing this until you’ve covered the whole top in frosting.
3. Decorate and enjoy!

Recipe: Chocolate Chip Candy Cane Cookies

I promised I would bring some cookies to my Scouts camp a few days ago. I planned on just using my trusted chocolate chip cookie recipe, but then remembered that there was a member in my troop which was allergic to peanuts. I’m kinda glad for that, because without her, I wouldn’t have been so bold as to put candy canes in my cookies. xD
And yes, though I put white chocolate chips in mines, I checked and they were peanut free (unless shea oil is actually a nut in disguise! :O) and, besides, the cookie needed the extra kick.

Cookie on the left was rushed and made without the dark chocolate chips, the right was made with care and with the dark chocolate chips.
Chocolate Candy Cane Cookies
Adapted from my favourite chocolate chip cookie recipe in the Eyewitness cookbook.

• 1/4 cup unsalted butter (I like to buy the 1/2 cup sticks and just cut it in half, paper and all)
• 1/3 cup packed brown sugar
• 1/3 cup white sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 1/4 cup all purpose flour (I don’t really shift my flour or anything, I just fill, like, 1/4 less of my cup with flour; any other flour works fine, too, though I’m not very fond of pastry flour, but it works)
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda (I mistaken it for baking powder for my first batch of cookies, but really, they turn out the same :P)
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/4 teaspoon salt (or if you have the weird ones that only has one which says “just a pinch”, use that one)

The good stuff:
I estimate when it comes to this. I just use whatever I feel like looks good.

• peppermint candy canes (I use 4… even when I doubled it; use the pretty colourful ones!)
• white chocolate chips
• (optional: dark chocolate chips, but I think milk chocolate might taste better… don’t add too much, though, because I find it takes away from the delicate white chocolate taste, but, whatever; my mom likes the dark chocolate)
  

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit. I don’t know what it is in Celsius, but that’s what the internet is for. I’d strongly recommend using a convection oven (which, in that case, you would need to preheat it at 345 degrees) for any baking because the outside colour is nice and even, even on the bottom.
2. Crush candy canes until there are no pieces bigger than 1 cm or so. I put them in a Ziplock bag and go wild, using some kind of blunt object to break especially stubborn pieces. If you prefer a more minty and crunchy cookie, leave the pieces bigger. Put aside.
3. Cream butter with brown and white sugar. I like to leave my butter for a few hours before I use it to make it easier to use.
4. Mix in the egg, then add the vanilla extract.
5. Add the dry ingredients (flour, baking soda, and salt). They say to add it “a little at a time” but I just dump the whole thing in and mix.
6. Add crushed candy canes and chocolate chips.
7. Line cookie sheet with wax paper (because, believe me, even non-stick pans lose when it comes face to face with melted mints – so line your cookie sheet!) and scoop about 1 inch in diameter balls, roll them into balls, and squish them into the cookie sheet. The dough is a bit sticky, so make sure your hands are covered in flour, or to make them a bit more neat, you could wrap rolls of dough in plastic wrap, leave them in the fridge till they’re hard, and cut chunks off that.
8. Bake for 15 minutes, or when you can stick a toothpick in it, and it comes out clean. For a convection oven, I’d say around 10-7 minutes. For a softer cookie (and those are the best) leave it in for a few minutes less, or just gobble them up when they’re warm.

Yes, this recipe is easy - so easy that a 3rd grader (or so) could make them. I know because I’ve been doing it till then. I’ve got the whole recipe memorized, man! Chocolate chip cookies are like my speciality.
So yes, I think it’s a semi-festive treat for a cookie loving holiday.