Cupcakes: Shaken, Not Stirred

Thanks for my dearest sister for another great blog posting. Here it is....

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Anyone who has followed my guest posts knows that I don’t like putting a lot of time or effort into cooking. If the instructions are longer than Take it out of the box and put it in the oven, I’m probably not going to make it.

So I was really interested to try the new Shaker cupcakes from Dr. Oetker. (They also have Shaker muffins, but I’m not a big muffin fan. Cupcakes on the other hand…)

My first thought is that these things are environmentally irresponsible - the plastic container will be used once and then outlast our entire species. Let’s take a moment and hail the recycling programs that turn these things into sweaters and picnic tables! Yay recycling!

Moving on. Making these cupcakes was easy as pie. :) Pour in some milk (you don’t even measure it, just pour until you reach the fill line on the container), shake, and pour into a cupcake pan. I was impressed how perfectly the batter filled exactly 6 cups. But it brings up another drawback of this product – for $3 you get only 6 cupcakes. If you’re a cupcake connoisseur, you may go broke.

Pop them in the oven for 22 minutes, let them cool, frost them, and voila! Cupcakes: shaken but not stirred. :)

Of course, I didn’t make frosting because that requires work. And why make something when Betty Crocker is perfectly willing to make it for you? I also used drizzle icing left over from the mocha brownies experiment.

And the taste… Yum! Good chocolate flavour and light, fluffy texture. The frosting was especially good, lol.

I would recommend the Shaker cupcakes if you need a small batch of cupcakes quickly, don’t mind spending $3 for such a small batch, and are good about rinsing and recycling your plastic.

Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

This blog post is the creation of my BFF, Skottie. Skottie and I go way back but we've never spent any significant time in the kitchen together. So it was news to me that deep down, in the shadows of Skottie's heart, lies a master baker. Let's learn from Skottie the baker together, shall we? Take it away, Skottie.......

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The awesome Foodiestudent has asked me to be a guest on her blog a couple times but I haven't done it yet. I recently promised my co-workers I'd bake them something for our next team meeting so I thought this was a perfect opportunity to show my culinary fortitude on the blog.

I love baking cookies. They're quite easy to make and they taste very good. The cookie monster in me decided that it was time to make Oatmeal Chocolate Chip cookies. I've made this recipe once before but this time I decided to experiment a bit.

One of my favorite spices for sweet dishes is cinnamon. I ran this idea by Foodie and she thought that it might not go over very well with chocolate. She suggested that I swap the chocolate for raisins. For those of you that know me well, you'll know that raisins are just WRONG. They do not belong in any cooked dish. I stayed true to my desire to add cinnamon with the chocolate chips.

Here's a link to the base recipe I started with: http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Oatmeal-Chip-Cookies/Detail.aspx

I rarely do this, but for all you followers out there, I carefully measured out all of the ingredients and put them in colourful bowls. I think this is the first time I've used some of these bowls. If you look very carefully you can see a bit of cinnamon on the plate. I didn't want to overpower the recipe so I started with a small amount. There are 2 ingredients missing. One ended up in the cookies, the other did not. Can you guess what's missing?

The first step of the recipe is to cream together all of the "wet ingredients". Yes foodie students, sugar can be considered a wet ingredient! This results in a brown gooey mixture that tastes like heaven.

After that, you're supposed to fold in the dry ingredients. Usually I don't use oats in my cookies. After mixing it all together, I noticed that this recipe is quite dry due to the oats.

Here's a shot of my well-used cookie sheet with an awesome invention on top of it: Silpat. Silpat is a silicone baking sheet that prevents things like cookies from sticking. It's works wonders and makes for easy cleanup too.

Some of my co-workers say that my cookies look very professional. They're all the same size and shape (usually but you'll see later on that's not so true this time). I do this by carefully by measuring the amount of cookie dough using a measuring spoon as shown in the photo.

Here you can see a picture of the baked cookies. Is your mouth watering yet?? Being a semi-professional pastry chef (I've taken one class), I know I must taste my creation. I tasted one of each batch. I prefer a cookie that's crispy on the outside but gooey in the middle. The first batch was just like that. Yummmmm. The subsequent batches were less gooey -- more on the dry side. And one batch was over cooked because I wasn't paying attention. That will teach me a lesson. I had a timer on and didn't hear it go off because I was busy browsing the interwebs.

I took the cookies to work in a fancy package: a ziploc bag. I challenged my co-workers to guess which ingredient was missing (vanilla) and which was added (cinnamon). One person said nothing was missing and that they were perfect as-is. No one could guess the missing ingredient without some hints. I also learned that I didn't add enough cinnamon. No one was able to guess that it was there. Other quotes: "Excellent!" "These would win at a bake off". Overall a success. Next time I'll add more cinnamon and ensure that they aren't too dry.

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Thanks for an awesome post Skottie. And yeah, my mouth is totally watering. I'm going to have to make some of these cookies. My stomach demands it. :)

Caramel Apple Sticky Buns

I defy anyone to take a look at this recipe for Caramel Apple Sticky Buns and not start drooling. Even though I don't really like apples, a little voice told me I had to make them or I would forever regret it. Always listen to those little voices.

Diced apples with a sprinkling of lemon juice cus, you know... brown bits are yucky.

Remember this bread/cinnamon roll dough? Well, now is the time to use it. Don't worry, although the blog posts are like a week apart, the making of the sticky buns only happened the day after the cinnamon rolls. The dough will keep in the fridge for up to 2 days so I was within the safety zone.

The caramel sticky sauce starts by melting some butter in a saucepan.

Then I added some brown sugar, white corn syrup (instead of dark), and milk (instead of cream). Trust me, the substitutions made no difference in the final product.

When the caramel sauce starts to boil set it aside to cool.

I won't go over the step by step process of rolling out the dough and making the cinnamon rolls as they are the same for this recipe as for the other cinnamon rolls.

Divide the caramel sticky sauce into two well greased 9 or 10 inch round cake pans.

Top with the diced apples.

Place the cut cinnamon rolls in the pans on top of the apples. Let them rise for about half an hour and then bake.

Ahhhh, baked yumminess :)

Flip the bunch of them over onto a plate and watch the ooey gooey goodness overflow. I covered these with plastic wrap and took them into the office. I was worried that with so many sticky buns I'd be taking some home at the end of the day. However, I went to check on them at lunch time and they were all gone. They were, most definitely, a huge hit.

Lessons learned were exactly one..... that is to divide the rolls into three pans, not two. Two pans were just too full and caramel sauce overflowed during the baking process which resulted in the following.....

Burning and smokiness. Didn't affect the buns but made the kitchen smoky-stinky.

Would I make these again? TOTALLY AND COMPLETELY YES! I only had one but it was very yummy and, judging by the speed by which the others were claimed, the others were yummy too.

Cream Cheese Frosting

Weeza has requested my recipe for cream cheese frosting. I got this recipe when I first made Pioneer Woman's cinnamon rolls but wanted a more Cinnabon-like frosting. So I did what every good foodiestudent would do... I googled Cinnabon frosting :)

Here are the ingredients. Icing sugar, margarine, cream cheese, vanilla, and lemon juice. I was only making 1/2 the recipe so I used just 1/2 a bag of icing sugar and a cup each of margarine and cream cheese.

Very important step.... wait for the margarine and cream cheese get to room temperature. I have tried mixing them right out of the fridge and now I'm in therapy.

The recipe I found was absolutely adamant that margarine, not butter, be used in this recipe. I didn't fully understand why but there was no doubt that in this case butter was to be avoided and margarine embraced. However, I have seen similar recipes that call for butter instead of margarine. So who are we supposed to believe? That's a question for another day. Today we are using margarine.

See how nicely the cream cheese and margarine mix together? That's because they are room temperature. :)

It's time to add the icing sugar. Please learn this lesson from foodiestudent.... turn the mixer down to low. The lowest possible setting. Add the icing sugar to the bowl one spoonful at a time. It will mix together quickly but won't explode out of the bowl in an icing sugar snowstom which is what will happen if the mixer is on a higher speed. This I have learned. Use a spatula to scrape down the sides when needed.

When the icing sugar has all been added turn the mixer on medium or medium-high and let it do its thing for 12 minutes. This will make the frosting super smooth and......

...strangely, it's a lighter colour. The frosting is much whiter now. Weird!

Once again, learn a lesson from foodiestudent, when the 12 minutes of high speed mixing are done, turn the mixer down to low. Add 1 teaspoon of vanilla and lemon juice and barely mix until they have incorporated into the frosting. If you overmix or mix at a higher speed the frosting becomes curdled. And curdled is bad.

Grab the two cinnamon buns closest to you and top with a dollop or two of the frosting. Enjoy :)

Cinnamon Rolls - Pioneer Woman's recipe

My cinnamon roll recipe has been a hit since the first time I made them. I give all respect and acknowledgement to Pioneer Woman. Her recipe (with fabulous photo instructions, as she always provides) can be found here.

Pioneer Woman uses a maple frosting to cover her rolls. I'm not a fan of maple flavor so I use a different frosting which I will demonstrate in a future post.

But for now, let's go through the steps of making cinnamon rolls.....

The dough is the same recipe as for white bread dough. So if you want to make this recipe and use half for bread buns and half for cinnamon buns, well, that would be smart. I've done that a few times :)

Start by scalding milk, sugar, and oil.

When the mixture has been scalded and then cooled for an hour or so add some yeast and flour. I use white bread flour but all-purpose will work. Mix them all together and let the mixture sit for an hour. It will rise a bit so make sure it is in a large enough bowl to allow for expansion.

After the mixture has risen add in another cup of flour, some salt, baking soda, and baking powder. Kneading isn't really necessary but will help incorporate the ingredients together when the mixture gets stiff. This picture shows HALF of the final dough mixture.

And I wanted to accommodate Weeza's request of showing an additional item in the pictures to give an idea of scale. Philly cream cheese packages are a fairly recognizable size and shape so I hope this works for you :)

Roll the dough out into a rectangle. This looks less like a rectangle than a Weeble that wobbles but has fallen down on its side. But the intention is to make a rectangle. Good luck with yours :)

The recipe calls for about a cup of melted butter but I find that to be too messy and too rich... 2/3 of a cup is plenty. Drizzle the melted butter all over the dough except for the front inch or so. Then sprinkle a cup of sugar all over and a generous sprinkling of cinnamon. I don't measure the cinnamon... just sprinkle until I think it's good enough :) Again, avoid the front inch of the dough.

Pioneer Woman doesn't add nuts or raisins here and neither do I. But if you had a nut or raisin deficiency that needed to be addressed in your diet then now would be the time to take care of that.

And.... we're rolling! Start at the end farthest from you and tightly roll the dough towards you. You'll thank me when you get to the end and you pinch to seal the front end of the dough to the roll. Keeping that final strip of dough free of butter and sugar makes it easier to seal dough to dough. Sealing dough to buttery dough is significantly harder.

I tried to get the whole roll in this shot but couldn't quite manage it. Anyways, the sealed roll is longer than the length of the rolled out dough from a few pictures above. That's because once it's all rolled up you will probably notice some thicker and thinner parts. It's best to even those out by lifting and gently stretching the thicker sections. The end result produces a longer roll than you started out with. Make sure you have the counter space to do this.

With a sharp knife, slice the rolls about 1 inch thick. For 1/2 the dough you'll have enough rolls to fill three 10" round cake or pie pans.

Let the pans sit for about 30 minutes to rise and then bake for 15-18 minutes in a 375 degree oven.

Here they are, all baked and yummy. The two pans on the right are 10", regular, Wilton brand cake pans. The rolls in those pans were fully cooked in about 15 minutes. The ones in the disposable pan on the left needed another 3 or 4 minutes to brown. Interesting! I learned a foodiestudent lesson when I didn't even do an official experiment :)

I took 2 cinnamon buns because they were the smallest of the bunch. Don't judge me! :)

A little yummy frosting on top and these were consumed with much haste.

Thank-you, Pioneer Woman, for this recipe. I love it and have had this recipe requested many times. Now that I have made a batch I will try not to make them again until Christmas. Or at least Thanksgiving. Okay, maybe Labor Day. Wait, that's in a few days. Yup, I can definitely wait until Labor Day :)

Oh, and what happened to the other half of the dough?

It continued to grow and prosper in its own way. Stay tuned for the adventures of the rest of the dough......

Non-stick Spray vs Butter & Flour

The Experiment: Does using non-stick spray instead of buttering & flouring a cake pan make a difference in the ability to remove the cake from the pan?

Inspiration: I follow Pioneer Woman's blog and her instructions in baking often include buttering and flouring pans but I'm a habitual non-stick spray user and never flour the pans. I wondered if I was getting worse results because of taking a shortcut.

Expected Results: I expected the process of buttering & flouring to be more time consuming than using the non-stick spray but I expected the results to be about the same.

Actual Results:

Butter Flavoured Pam is my non-stick spray of choice. Lucerne regular salted butter and Robin Hood all-purpose flour are my butter and flour choices.

On the left is the Pam'd pan. And on the right is the buttered and floured pan. I melted the butter and used a brush to spread it around the pan. Then I put a tablespoon of flour in the pan and shook it around to cover the interior. I had to do that a few times to fully cover the buttered surface.

I poured the cake batter into the pans. This is my "Canada Day Cake" recipe. Just looking at these pictures is making me drool :)

Time to bake the cakes....

Here you can see that there is a small difference to be seen in the pans. The one on the left is noticeably browner around the edges. It's almost as if the Pam fried the edges of the cake a little.

Here's a side view. You can see the browner edges. But here's the really shocking part, the shape is different.

The floured pan on the right rose more in the middle but the edges didn't rise much, resulting in a domed cake.

The Pam'd cake on the left seemed to rise evenly all around. There is some rising in the center but the edges rose too giving an interesting wavy but fairly even surface.

Time to take the cakes out of their pans. They both slid out easily with no sticking to the pan. The one on the left has no residue but the one on the right has a floury residue on it.

So which method is best? For convenience and clean results I'll be sticking with my non-stick spray. The floury residue is unappealing and is the real deterrent to using the butter and flour method. The convenience of using non-stick spray is just a bonus :)

Dessert Pizza

I am determined to find a great strawberry and cream cheese dessert. Strawberries are in season and cream cheese is on sale. And frankly... yum yum yum!

Meet store bought naan. This is not the light, airy, tandoori oven, tasty naan of Indian restaurants. It's is a very poor cousin. However, it makes a really great base to individual pizzas. And in this case, dessert pizza.

I mixed some diced strawberries with a little sugar. In retrospect I should have used a bowl in a contrasting colour for this picture. This is why I am foodiestudent instead of foodieexpert ;)

And this container contains a little melted butter and oats. There may have been some brown sugar too. It's been so long. I'm starting to understand the downside of writing up a blog post weeks after taking the pictures.

Here's the naan, topped with strawberries, topped with the oat mixture. Yeah, I'm pretty sure there's brown sugar in there.

I baked the dessert pizza in a 350 degree oven, just as I would for regular individual pizzas. I put it on a cooling rack on top of a cookie sheet before baking as it makes the crust nice and crispy underneath instead of making it soggy underneath.

This was especially important in this recipe as the strawberries had lots of liquid in them and if they didn't have a way to drain away the crust would have become a mushy mess. If I hadn't used quite so many strawberries this wouldn't have been as much of an issue. But I did. Hindsight. Let's move on.

This is leftover cream cheese frosting from a batch of cinnamon rolls. By the way, I LOVE cinnamon rolls with cream cheese frosting. How did I ever have leftovers? Oh well, the important thing is that I had leftovers as without them I wouldn't have been able to do the next step.

I took some cream cheese frosting and mixed it with a little milk.

Frosting + Milk = Glaze

Glaze was preferable to frosting as I wanted just a thin layer to drizzle over and fancy up the dessert pizza.

Witness......

This was good but didn't keep very well. If you didn't eat it soon after it came out of the oven it was a lost cause. The liquid from the strawberries seeped into the crust more and more as time went on and made it too mushy to be enjoyable. Luckily, that wasn't a problem as we ate most of it at once :)

The naan was a nice non-sweet base (as there was sugar in every other layer, this was important). The strawberries were good if a little liquidy. The oats gave a nice heartiness and crunch. And the glaze added the final touch of sweetness to ensure one was aware they were eating dessert and not a main course :)