Breakfast Recipe

I'm normally a huge breakfast fan... of any kind. Omelets, pancakes, breakfast burritos, pastries, yum. Give me any of it (and a latte on the side) and I'll be a happy girl. But I've been having a weird obsession with muffins lately. Just ask J. Starting Friday I would wake up and ask him to bring me a honey oat (or zucchini walnut) muffin to me in bed. Unfortunately, we had no muffins so this morning I was on a mission.

I must make some muffins!

When I was at the grocery store yesterday the blueberries were on sale. They're never on sale! Buy 1 get 2 free, yes please. So I pulled out my trusted Betty Crocker cookbook and made a new version of the classic blueberry muffins I've made many times before.... Blueberry Streusel Muffins

Muffin Batter

3/4 c. milk

1/4 c. vegetable oil

1 large egg

2 c. all purpose flour

1/2 c. sugar

2 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. salt

1 c. fresh/canned/frozen blueberries

Streusel Topping

1/4 c. all purpose flour

1/4 c. packed brown sugar

1/4 tsp. ground cinnamon

2 tbs. firm butter/margarine

[1] Mix milk, oil and egg until blended.

[2] Add flour, sugar, salt and baking powder at once. Mix until moistened. (make sure not to overmix)

[3] Fold in blueberries

[4] Combine dry streusel ingredients in small bowl.

[5] Cut in butter with pastry blender or two table knives in opposite directions. Should be clumpy.

This is how my streusel was turning out. I don't know if my butter was too firm or if I'm just horrible at using two knives to mix but it clearly wasn't working for me.
I decided to just have at it and stuck my hands in the bowl. I basically kneaded the ingredients until it was all mixed (and the butter clumps were gone) and I think it came out great. Messy, yes, but it did the trick.
[6] Fill muffin cups with batter and sprinkle each with about 1 tbs. streusel mix.

[7] Bake at 400*F for 20-25 minutes until golden brown.

[8] Remove immediately from pan and let cool

[9] EAT!

It is not my fault if you are drooling at this point. I'm sorry.

They turned out absolutely fabulous. They have just the right amount of crunch on top from the streusel and are warm and gooey on the inside. I love how much better fresh blueberries taste compared to frozen ones so if you can splurge (or catch the sale) I highly recommend the fresh ones.
I was able to make 16 medium sized muffins (the recipe said 12). Now the hard part is going to be not eating all of them today. I promised to bring a few to class tomorrow to share and I have to stick to that! I'll limit myself to a few or three and know that I can always make more later.

Happy muffin Monday everyone!

on how to bake a cake

Today is my boy's birthday! I think I might be more excited about it than he is, I just love birthdays and making someone feel so great and special on their day. Since I don't have a job currently (:-/, I'll leave that for another post) I got him a few little gifts that will be reviled later but I wanted to do something special for him.... so I decided, what could be better than a delicious chocolate-lover's dream cake? Plus I hadn't used my new cake pan yet so this was my excuse. This cake, a Fudgy Chocolate Torte from Betty Crocker, was super easy even thought I was nervous to make it. I wasn't sure how to use a spring-form pan but it was a complete success.

Start with 1/3 c. sweetened condensed milk (not evaporated) and 1/2 c. semisweet chocolate chips.

The recipe says to microwave it on half power for 1 minute until stirred smooth but it only took 30 seconds for me. I'm glad I checked it early because the milk can cause the chocolate to burn if it's heated too long. It should be completely smooth like this.

Next combine dry Super Moist Chocolate Fudge cake mix with 1/2 c. vegetable oil. Beat it on low for 30 seconds, don't worry if its crumbly, it should be. Take one cup of this batter out and set it aside.

To the remaining batter, add 2 eggs and 1 c. applesauce. Mix on medium speed for 2 minutes until it's all mixed. It's okay if it's grainy, that's from the applesauce so it's supposed to be. Pour this batter into a greased and lightly floured 9 or 10-inch pan.

At this point I had to heat the chocolate sauce from before just slightly because it sat for a little while and cooled, 10 seconds did the trick and it was smooth and runny again. Onto the batter in the pan, place teaspoon blobs of the chocolate sauce all over the top. It said to place more on the edges than the center, I'm not sure why and I tried but there was a good amount of chocolate sauce so I couldn't help it.

Remember that cup of batter you saved, now it gets crumbled onto the top of the batter/chocolate in the pan. If you want you can add either 1/3 c. chopped pecans or sliced almonds to the cup of reserve batter before you sprinkle it on top. I decided to omit this step because Jeff's truly a chocolate lover and isn't a fan of nuts. Again, it's fine if it's crumbly on top as long as there aren't any really big chunks.

Place the pan in the oven, heated to 350F, for 45-50 minutes. I set the timer for 40 just to check it and I only ended up leaving it in for an extra two minutes so definitely check it early. It's sorta hard to tell when it's done because the typical "insert-a-knife" test is hard with the blobs of chocolate throughout the cake. You're knife won't come out clean if you hit a chocolate pocket. In general, the cake should jiggle just a tiny bit when it's just done so give it a little shake to test. Let it cool for about 10ish minutes before you try to take the side of the pan off to make sure it holds its form. It should look delicious, just like this!

Can you say yumm-oo!? It looks awesome doesn't it. I may sprinkle it with a little powdered sugar or maybe get some whipped cream but I'm not sure at this point. I bet it'll be good with anything. I hope Jeff enjoys it and it tastes as good as it looks, I'll keep you updated when the taste-test commences. As of now though, it's sitting cooling on the counter (cool it completely before you cover and store it) staring at me with all of it's chocolaty-goodness.

on hating fixing things

+ It's official, I hate anything that has to do with fixing technical problems. Absolutely hate it. Like today, our internet decided that it wasn't going to run at normal speed. Not only that but it decided that instead of just being sorta slow on the pages that have lots of adds/pictures/links/etc, it decided to seriously not work. Like "take-ten-minutes-just-to-open-an-email" slow. Then when I tried to take matters into my own hands and fix the problem by restarting the router, it only made it worse. Now my lovely computer said I was connected to the airport network but would load and load and never get anywhere. I seriously wanted to throw the router at the wall it was so frustrating. And I wasn't going to call the internet company because well 1. I didn't have their number, I'd have to look it up online but funny, I couldn't do that anyways and 2. customer service people just annoy me. If anyone was going to call them it would have to be Jeff, he's much nicer to people in these types of situations. So the more time I sat here trying to get it to work the more pissed frustrated I was getting that I just started to unplug, re-plug, reset, push buttons, anything. I had no idea what I was doing and low and behold, it worked :-) But seriously, moral of the story, don't leave me with a non-functional router again. I'll attribute this time to luck and I doubt it would work for me again.

+ I went to Ikea this afternoon to purchase a cake pan because I want to make a cake but, as you can assume, I didn't have a pan. I have muffin pans and bread pans and brownie pans but nothing to bake a cake in. I have to admit that I was a little disappointed in Ikea's selection of bakeware. Sure its awesome if you want to make a cake in the shape of a horse but I'd rather die first. (In case you didn't know, I'm terrified of horses) I ended up finding a circular pan, one of those spring-form pans that the bottom comes out of and figured I could make it work for a regular cake. Plus it came with an insert if you want to make a cake with a hole in the center, like Angel Food Cake. I'll update if and when I decide to bake and let you know how this pan works or doesn't.

+I also purchased the following 3 jars that just happen to be my picture for my "365 Project". I've always wanted to have a kitchen where everything has it's place with little labels all in coordinating containers. This is my start I guess. This sort of goes along with my cake-aspirations because I hate having flour/sugar in the bags they come in. It makes it really difficult to measure, you always end up spilling and its just not as visually appealing. Someday I hope to have the kitchen of my dreams and not just have 3 jars it taped on labels. Maybe I'll have jars for spices, and cereal, and coffee, and snacks all with vinyl stenciled lettering... the list goes on and on.

003/365

+ Lowe's can be a very frustrating place especially when you go looking for some soil. I purchased some of these white flower pots to put my new cacti in so they weren't so farmers-market-looking in their plastic containers. They are the perfect size to fit on the window sill and I thought I'd give my new green friends a treat to some new soil. But what do you know... Lowe's sells nothing smaller than 1 cubic-foot of soil. Seriously? I don't need 23lbs of soil, I needed like 3 cups of soil. Needless to say, I left Lowe's empty handed and plan on scoping the nearby flower gardens for some extra dirt I can "use." For now my cacti remain in their original soil but in new pots with a little more room to grow. Good thing they're hardy and aren't fussy like some flowers.

on Betty Crocker's treats

Given the overcast sky and my lack of motivation to do homework and studying, I decided to play homemaker for the day and bake some delicious treats. There's something about baking that makes me think of home. I love the dusting of flour that's always left on the counter from mixing. I love the egg shells lying empty in the sink. I love the measuring cups and the bowls. I love how the apartment is left smelling like grandma's been in town. I love making things from scratch thanks to my wonderful Betty Crocker Cookbook, it literally is "everything you need to know to cook today." Making things at home is much cheaper too I might add which is a definite plus.

So today I decided to make brownies (sadly enough I didn't make these ones from scratch, I'll skip the box-mix next time I promise) and blueberry-chocolate chip muffins. We've been out of dessert items lately and I am guilty of many chocolate cravings in the evenings which is why I made the brownies. I made muffins because I love having something to take on-the-go for breakfast in the morning. My cookbook is so helpful for someone like myself who's done some cooking in my day but am not an expert by any means. There's awesome pictures that help you cook and know when things are done correctly. The muffin pictures show how to tell if they are cooked long enough based on the color, cracks and shape of the tops.

The Wonderful Batter- Before

I like muffin batter much better than brownie batter because it's less tempting to stick your finger in and indulge on the chocolate-y goodness. Ok so yes, I think that technically means I like, even love, brownie batter more and I wouldn't put it past myself to eat half the batter before it's even baked. Jeff usually helps me with this task too ;-)

The Golden Muffins- After

The muffins turned out wonderful. They are just slightly golden and the contrast of the light dough and the deep purple blueberries makes them oh-so pretty. Plus they look great on our new eggplant colored plates from Ikea we bought last weekend! I was a little worried about the blueberry/chocolate chip combination so I had to try one out. I knew I liked the blueberries and chocolate chips separately so I figured the combo would be delicious as well. And I am pleased to say I was right.

The Chewy Brownies- After

The box for the brownies had different recipes depending if you wanted fudge-like brownies or cake-like brownies. I decided to go for the earlier of the two. This meant adding one less egg to the mixture. They turned out a little more sticky/chewy than I anticipated but I'm sure they will still taste great. It just made getting them out of the pan and arranged on the plate a little more difficult. Plus Jeff is much more of a "half-baked brownie fan" as compared to cake-like brownies so I did it for him. :-)

While I have yet to accomplish anything productive for school today, at least I can say I made some yummy treats and made myself happy because of it. It's productive too, just on a different level. Hopefully these treats get eaten quickly so I have a reason to bake again soon.