I Bake! Again

Today I came home from school and I immediately wanted to bake. My mom was working, Ella and Abe were busy, and Sadie was at tennis: this was one of the rare times in my life that was ideal for baking. I got permission from my mom and soon I was looking through every cookbook I own, trying to find a recipe that was quick, easy, and most importantly, delicious. As I have done many times before, I fell to using one of my favorite cookbooks, The Big Book of Cupcakes, which my dear friend Anna gave me for my birthday. I looked through it, trying to find a recipe without frosting that tasted good and that was super quick. I quickly found the perfect recipe, Fudgie Babies, and I can tell you that they turned out very well.

I started by melting the chocolate and the butter in the microwave. 

• Confession #1: Instead of putting the chocolate and butter in a bowl and putting the bowl over a pot of boiling water to melt it, I simply melted it in the microwave.
• Confession #2: I used 3/4 cups of chocolate chips instead of chocolate baking squares

While I let this cool, in as large mixing bowl I mixed flour, sugar, and eggs together. 

I sadly say goodbye to to the cleanliness of this white bowl as I prepare to start mixing.

Then I added the chocolate mixture to the flour-egg-sugar mixture.

I made lots of mistakes,

As you can see, I accidentally mixed a little too energetically.

When I was pouring the chocolate mixture into the flour-egg-sugar mixture, I accidentally dropped the chocolate mixture into the other ingredients.

I made lots of other mistakes, (I didn't even bother to take a picture of my sleeve) but they got into the oven without any serious mishap,

And soon they were out of the oven, and in my mouth!

Tonight, our dinner was provide by my mom's dear friend who has been praying for us and who got us flowers along with dinner. We all are now enjoying our delicious meal!

Fudgy Baby Cakes

From: The Big Book of Cupcakes Cookbook

You will need:

• 6 (1-oz.) semisweet chocolate baking squares 
• 1 cup butter
• 1 3/4 cup sugar
• 1 cup all-purpose soft-wheat flour
• 4 large eggs
• 2 tsp. vanilla extract
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• paper baking cups
• vegetable cooking spray
• powdered sugar

1. Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees

2. Pour water to a depth of 1 inch into the bottom of a double boiler over medium heat; bring to a boil. Reduce heat, and simmer; place chocolate and butter on top of double boiler over simmering water. Cook, stirring occasionally, 5 to 6 minutes or until melted. Remove mixture from heat, and cool ten minutes. 

3. Whisk together sugar, flour, and eggs in a large bowl; add chocolate mixture, stirring until combined. Stir in vanilla and salt.

4. Place paper baking cups in 2 (12 cups) muffin pans, and coat with cooking spray; spoon batter into cups, filling 2/3 full.

5. Bake for 12 to 15 minutes. Be careful not to over bake; they should be gooey. (They will crack and sink in the middle;  this is normal). Cool in pans on wire rack 10 minutes; remove from pans to wire racks, and cool completely.

6. Sift powdered sugar over the top of each  cupcake.

Tips: Please Read

• If you don't have chocolate baking squares, just use 3/4 cups semisweet chocolate chips. Mine turned out fine.
• For #2 , it is easier to simply melt the chocolate and butter in a saucepan or in your microwave. 

Enjoy them!

-Mia Susan

Chocolate Chip Cookies: The Hardest Recipe To Make

My family loves chocolate chip cookies, and how can they not? We have a special recipe that we use for all of our chocolate chip cookie needs, and they almost always turn out perfect. They almost always turn out perfect because they are SO easy, and that is why my mom lets me make them.

As I just said, they are super easy, and so why does the title say something different? Because people in my family have extremely strong views on the proper way to make these cookies. For example, today my mom asked me to make these wonders, and I probably had a fifteen minute pep-talk from the family on how they were supposed to turn out. Of course I already knew exactly how they liked their cookies, but I had to endure through it anyway.

You see the reason there is such a bitter struggle between the baking time of the cookies is because my parents like opposite things. For example, my dad likes gooey, under baked cookies that still have cookie dough in the middle, while my mom likes cookies that are thoroughly baked. My mom would rather eat cookies burnt black than cookies the slightest bit undercooked. My dad, however, would rather eat cookies that would give him salmonella than cookies the slightest bit over baked. My siblings care more for the cookie dough, and I almost always find a good chunk of cookie dough missing. With this crew in tow, I set off to make the most perfect batch of perfect cookies that was humanly possible. The expectations were high, and because I was teaching our neighbor Eleanor, Ella, and Abe to be bloggers, (the lesson was in photography today) and Sadie was being my personal cameraman, my failings were to be recorded on four different cameras.

I started creaming the butter and sugar first...

Then I added in the tightly packed brown sugar,

Then I added the vanilla, and then I added the eggs,

After that, I had to mix the dry ingredients. Flour, baking soda, salt, the works.

And of course, I had to mix the dry ingredients into the wet.

 And of course, I had to add the chocolate chips.

I put them the oven at 350 degrees even though I was supposed to put them in at 325, but i would say they turned out fine, don't you?

The kitchen was a mess, and everyone was a grump, but I had fun making these chocolate chip cookies, and they ended up satisfying everybody.

Best Chocolate Chip Cookies:

From: Sharing our Best Cookbook (Our Redeemer Lutheran Church)

You will need:

• 1 cup butter
• 1 1/3 cups sugar
• 2/3 cup brown sugar tightly packed
• 1 1/2 to 2 teaspoons vanilla
• 2 eggs
• 3 cups flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 2 cups chocolate chips

Pre-heat oven to 325 degrees, (I personally prefer 350 degrees, but you don't have to)

Cream the softened butter with the brown and white sugar. Add in vanilla and eggs. In a separate bowl whisk flour, salt, and soda together. Add dry ingredients to wet and mix until combined. Add the chocolate chips.

Bale for 10-12 minutes.

Enjoy!

Dinner at our House w/ Grandma

I am literally astonished that this post exists.  I thought for sure that this post would be published following another post, on a different subject, that I was supposed to post about (a.k.a a museum).  However, I couldn't take pictures at the museum and therefore I thought for sure I wouldn't be able to post at all.  I also had no idea that I would have anything to post about at all, but this post survived, drastically changed and hastily written.

For dinner tonight, we are having homemade meatballs w/ penne noodles, or "pasta." Because we make every thing but the noodles from scratch, I think our pasta is far superior to any other pasta.

We started this meal by making the meatballs. For our meatballs we use ground pork, and we mix it with spices, crushed saltine crackers, and of course, Romano cheese. 

While I scooped the meatballs with an ice cream scooper, Ella rolled the meatballs into neater balls. Soon, they were in the frying pan and sizzling away. 

While I typed the previous section, Ella started making our sauce, which is about as non-complex as it gets - if you make a single batch. We, however, make our sauce in bulk and so when ever we make it, there is a ton of juggling ingredients.

While we made the sauce, my Grandma cooked the meatballs and eventually put them in the crock-pot.

Then we poured the sauce on top of the meatballs in the crock-pot, and let it cook.

(Well, technically I headed to soccer practice, so they cooked the sauce.)

Then THEY made the salad, noodles, and croutons.

I had no idea that they were going to make croutons, but they did, and from what I've heard, all you do is cut up bread, butter it and then put it in the oven, and wala! you gave croutons.

I could be wrong.

Maybe they sprinkled salt on them too? Well, I'll never know.

For dinner we had:

• Homemade Pasta
• Salad
• Croutons
• Brownies

Spaghetti/Pasta Recipe

From: Grandma

You will need:

For the meat:

• 1 pound ground pork
• 6-8 saltine crackers
• 2 tsp. parsley
• 1 Tb. Grated Romano cheese
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 1 egg

For the Sauce

• 3- 10 oz. Tomato Sauce
• 1-Small Tomato Paste
• 1-10 oz. can paste
• 1- 10 oz. can water
• 1 Tbs. Sugar
• 1/2 c. Romano grated

Mix and brown meatballs. Drain. Add mixture for sauce. Simmer for 1 1/2 hrs. (simmer on low in slow cooker all day.

Enjoy!

Monday Recipe No. 3

This recipe isn't exactly annual for our family, but it is so good I wish it was!

Maple Syrup Fudge

From: Grandma

You will need:

• 3 c. Sugar
• 1 1/2 c. Maple Syrup
• 1 Tb. Corn Syrup
• 2 c. Whipping Cream
• 6 Tb. Butter
• 1 1/2 oz. Conf. Coating (shaved)

Line 8" suare pan w/ foil and butter. Use a big, heavy pan- add sugar, syrup, and cream over Medium heat, stir w/ wooden spoon. Use pastry brush w/ Hot water to wipe down sides. (3x) Heat until 238 degrees (approx. 30 mins.) [water boils @ 212-test therm] Remove from heat. Let stand for 10 min. Cut butter and lay on fudge surface. when butter has melted, stir in conf. coating. Pour into pan Refridgerate for one hour.

Post-Christmas Eve

I stayed up until eleven o'clock last night with our family festivities and now I am back to living at my own house, and doing normal things, like work.

We were only gone for a few days, but with all the presents and with all the suitcases, our house is in disarray. We also are grumpy, from lack of sleep, and so we are all as companionable as crabs. But, today might turn out exciting after all, I got a camera last night, and today I just got a memory card for it. Even if today is miserable, I at least will be able to capture it on film!

(Just a joke my mom would NOT permit it)

First, in this day, we invited our good friend and neighbor, Eleanor, came over. Then we started taking down our Christmas tree. (I"ll post more on that later) After this, I made "gourmet" mac 'n' cheese out of box for lunch.

Then, after working for a little bit longer, we made homemade apple pie for dessert for dinner.

To finish off our "terrible" last day of Christmas break, we drank some of our homemade hot cocoa with mint marshmellows covered in chocolate

Today turned out not to be as bad as I expected it to be!

Monday Recipe No. 2

This is a delicious twist on the rice krispie treats we have all grown to love! They are easy, quick and delicious.

Fudge Krispies

From: My Grandma

You will need:

• 1 -11 1/2 oz. pkg. Milk Choc. Chips
• 1/2 c. butter
• 1/2 c. light corn syrup 
• 2 tsp. vanilla
• 1 c. conf. sugar
• 4 c. Rice Krispies

Melt chips butter and corn syrup until smooth. Remove from heat. stir in vanilla and sugar. Add Rice Krispies. Spread in 13x9x2 and chill until firm.