Baking
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Kitsnacks: Cocoa Brownies
This is our family’s go-to brownie recipe:Cocoa Brownies
3/4 c sugar
3/4 c flour
1/3 c cocoa powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup butter, room temp or softer
2 eggs
1 tsp vanillaWhisk the dry ingredients together. Add butter, eggs and vanilla and mix. Scrape into a 9×9″ buttered pan. Bake at 350°F for 15-18 minutes, until barely done (a fork inserted in the centre should come out slightly gooey but not *wet*). Allow to cool. Frost as desired. (I usually use chocolate buttercream frosting.) Eat! Makes 16 brownies.
(This recipe scales well and can be used to make up to a quadruple batch successfully. I’ve never tried anything larger. We often make double batches, though. :))
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Sugar Wars: I Made Cookies
and they were GOOD.
I semi-invented a chocolate chip peanut butter cookie recipe that’s almost pretty decent. Well, I mean, it is decent. It’s not quite what I’m going for, not yet, so I’ll have to give it another go, but not for a while. I actually feel (tonight, at least, god knows tomorrow is another day) that the craving, which was as much for the baking process as the eating cookies, has been satisfied. Baking makes me feel better.
I also managed to walk 14K steps today, which didn’t negate the cookie indulgence but at least provided some balance. And I caught a Chansey! :)
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Kitsnacks: Pumpkin Muffins
I made a batch of absolutely gorgeous pumpkin muffins this morning. Light, fluffy, tender, just the right amount of sweetness.
The dog ate half of them.
#ragemachinemurderbot
Baloo’s Favourite Pumpkin Muffins:
1 (15 ounce) can pumpkin puree
4 eggs
1 cup melted butter
2/3 cup water
2 cups white sugar
3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground gingerWhisk wet ingredients together in a large bowl. Whisk dry ingredients together in another bowl. Whisk dry ingredients into wet ingredients until barely mixed. Scoop into buttered, floured muffin tins with a large spoon, not quite filling the tins to the rim. Sprinkle some cinnamon and sugar on top if you think of it. Bake at 375°F/180°C for 18-22 minutes, or until a skewer comes out clean.
Makes about 30 muffins. Would also make a very nice loaf, I expect, but I didn’t do that.
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Kitsnacks: Apple Pecan Cookies
About 45 minutes ago I said I thought I was going to go invent some apple pecan cookies, and did. It’s possible I should invent baking recipes more often. This is my third or so original recipe and so far I’m three for three…
Kit’s Apple Pecan Cookies
1/2 c soft butter
1/2 c brown sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cinnamon
1 1/3 c flour
1 c chopped toasted pecans
1 c peeled, diced appleCream butter and sugar; add egg & vanilla. Add dry ingredients. Stir in pecans & apples. Bake 12 minutes at 350° F. Makes approximately 24 cookies.
Eat. Try to leave some for the other people in the house.
Baker’s Notes:
I used 1.5c flour and am out of vanilla; the cookies I’ve made are sliiiiiightly more crumbly than I would like, so I think the addition of the vanilla and the slight reduction of flour are probably key to making them ideal.These aren’t super sweet cookies, which is what I was going for, but I immediately considered the possibility they needed a powdered sugar glaze/drizzle. Alternately, I might add a quarter cup of white sugar next time, to see if I can get a slightly chewier rather than cakier texture. But they’re pretty darn good. :)
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The Sorrow of Thin Mints
When I was a kid, she said, hunched over with one hand in the small of her back and the other waving an imaginary cane, they made Thin Mint Girl Scout cookies Differently.
They had the chocolate cookie base and the thin chocolate layer, but between them they had a thin layer of mint candy, like one might find in a peppermint patty or Junior Mint. The chocolate cookie base had a slight ridge around the outer edge, so the mint candy fit inside that, and one could scrape one’s teeth across the mint-and-chocolate-layer and come to a satisfying halt at the proscribed edge, and then nibble one’s way around the entire outside eating the chocolate off the cookie before putting what remained into one’s mouth as a whole and entire unit.
They don’t make ’em like that anymore. And it’s not that I couldn’t make them at home; there are recipes out there for it, or at least for the various parts that can be put together to create something of the same nature (except for the ridge; I’d have to…stamp them out, or something, to get the ridge), but it’s the nostalgia of not having to make it, of having this Perfect Mint Cookie delivered effortlessly unto my mou…
!!!
I have spent far too long on this blog post trying to find a picture of one of the older Thin Mint style boxes for a featured image on this post. I have failed and punted to a modern box pic, but while trying, I found the Canada’s Girl Guides have PROPER GIRL SCOUT THIN MINT COOKIES!!!!
THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING
CANADIANS
I NEED YOUR HELP
