Home-Made Brownies

Ladies and Gentlemen - presenting Master Baker Tim!

That's right - Tim made homemade brownies all by himself last night. I didn't help at all. And let me tell you, those brownies are delicious. I'd even consider making these instead of boxed brownies. I mean, boxed brownies are amazing, but these were so chocolatey. I knowing that we made them ourselves (or Tim's self) is so awesome. I've only attempted brownies from scratch once before and it went ok. This is by far a better recipe. Give it a try!

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 1 cup white sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup chopped walnuts (optional)

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease a 9x9 inch baking pan.
2. In a medium bowl, mix together the oil, sugar, and vanilla. Beat in eggs. Combine flour, cocoa, baking powder, and salt; gradually stir into the egg mixture until well blended. Stir in walnuts, if desired. Spread the batter evenly into the prepared pan.
3. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, or until the brownie begins to pull away from edges of pan. Let cool on a wire rack before cutting into squares.

Baking Triumph

I have to give credit where credit is due. After reading the blog of my best friend (and Matron of Honor), Dessert Diva, I had an urge to make snickerdoodles. So while the fiance was at work for the day, I picked up my trusty spatula and got to work.

I've made snickerdoodles plenty of times in the past and I always encounter the same flaw: they go flat. I seem to recall that a certain aunt of mine (who may or may not read this blog - seriously, is anybody out there?!?!?) has mastered the art of the fluffy snickerdoodle, but I have yet to see that recipe. So I turned to the tried and true: AllRecipes.com

After sifting through plenty of options (hahaha, see what I did there?), I finally settled on the Mrs. Sigg's Snickerdoodle Recipe. It's fairly simple for a snickerdoodle recipe. I noticed that not many people had made comments regarding alterations to the recipe, so I figured it must be pretty good. (The comments on allrecipes are key to success. A recipe can be "ok" but with the comments from others you can end up with a stellar product. So pay attention to them!). I noticed that some people commented on the "flat snickerdoodle" dilemma that I've been dealing with. Huzzah! I'm not alone in my strife. Turns out this is a common complaint and some people noted that if you don't have fresh baking soda - the cookies will end up flat (btw - fresh means that if you throw a dash of the baking soda into water it fizzes immediately. If this doesn't happen, your baking soda's gone flat and so will your cookies).

I have to admit - although this recipe isn't perfect (the cookies weren't as fluffy as I imagined) it was by far the best I've ever used. These cookies are slightly crunchy on the outside and soooo chewy and delicious! Definitely give them a chance.

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup butter, softened (room temp)
  
• 1/2 cup shortening
• 1 1/2 cups white sugar
• 2 eggs (room temp)
  
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons cream of tartar
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 3 tablespoons white sugar
• 3 tablespoons ground cinnamon (or less to taste)

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.
2. By hand - Cream together butter, shortening, 1 1/2 cups sugar, the eggs and the vanilla. By hand - Blend in the flour, cream of tartar, soda and salt. Shape dough by rounded spoonfuls into balls.
3. Mix the 3 tablespoons sugar and the cinnamon into a zip-lock baggie. Roll balls of dough in mixture, covering completely. Place 2 inches apart on ungreased baking sheets.
4. Bake 8 minutes (this is exact). Remove immediately from baking sheets and place on wire rack to cool. Store in air tight container.

"Fall" cut-out cookies

With the air getting cooler, the leaves changing colors and the rain starting (stupid rain) I'm in a spectacular baking mood. This had led to numerous consecutive days of baking. Sunday night Tim helped me and we made cut-out sugar cookies. I tried a new recipe (the one from Crisco) and have to say I was mightily disappointed. The dough was too sticky and the cookies didn't keep their shape as they baked. So now we've got these oddly shaped things. To top things off, we were out of powdered sugar (which has since been remedied by my fiance) so these are naked (read no frosting) cookies. Not sure what kind of frosting I want to make for them though - if any. I'm considering leaving them as they are and making a better batch (read recipe from Williams Sonoma) this weekend.

On the topic of this weekend it just so happens to be a certain someone's birthday! I've got a cake planned for Friday/Saturday. I'm still waiting on the materials to make the birthday present. And I'm not sure what we plan to do this weekend... I'm hoping the weather might stay a bit decent so we could hit up a pumpkin/apple farm on Sunday. I just bought a new pie plate and I'm itching to be able to use it. Which reminds me, I need to check with Katy to see if she's still got that amazing pie crust recipe (why yes, I make them from scratch).

Anyhoo, back to the grind. I can't believe it's only 9:30am, feels like it should be 4 or 5pm. Darn long days!

Fall baking

So I found the elusive canned pumpkin in the grocery store yesterday so I had to take advantage and bake something delicious with it. I've wanted to try pumpkin cookies for over a year now, and I had a few recipes to play with. I went with one I found on Allrecipes.com that had great reviews. I didn't change anything in the recipe and I'm glad I didn't. I just wish I would have had powdered sugar so I could have made homemade glaze and/or cream cheese frosting. As my friend The Pink Spatula always says: homemade frosting is worth the extra effort!