A bit of flour

Tomorrow I shall order breakfast in bed.

I shall have a tall glass of fresh squeezed orange juice, a two egg omelet with a dash of salt and a bit of pepper, two sausage links mixed especially for me by my favorite butcher and a sticky bun made from my own little recipe.

My breakfast shall be served to me on a beautiful ‘rose petaled’ platter. I shall be given a lacey little napkin to lay in my lap and a lovely little bell to ring when I am finished.

I shall not awake until all of my breakfast needs have been met.

Posted on October 31st, 2008 under General. Comments: None

If I don’t figure out the cookie dilemma, I could send brownies during the holidays.

It would be a great alternative, if it didn’t pose a bit if a problem. And that is the fact that I don’t have a tried and true recipe for gourmet brownies. And if I plan to send any, no other type of brownie will do.

I want a very special brownie recipe. It can’t make light and fluffy brownies, those that are more like a cake. And it can’t be too dense, I don’t like fudge. No this recipe must create brownies that are silky and smooth, not too heavy not too light. Just perfect.

I do have one brownie recipe in my collection, but I don’t use it. I must say that I prefer the stuff from the store. My brownie recipe is only there as a place holder. I always planned to switch it out with a 5 star recipe, but just never got around to it. However with this new need for something to fall back on, I think its time I made finding the perfect recipe a priority.

Posted on October 30th, 2008 under General. Comments: None

I am so excited.

I’ve been granted the privilege of hosting an absolutely amazing event.

Come next Tuesday, I shall be hosting the ‘Make it from scratch’ blog carnival.

Woo hoo!

I’ve already taken a sneak peek at some of the posts that will be included in the carnival.

This is going to be so much fun.

If you’d like to join us, you have two options:

1.    You can submit your post to blogcarnival.com/bc/submit_1123.html

Or

2.    You can submit it via email to makeitfromscratch at ymail.com

If you choose the second option, make sure you include the following information:

(1-5 are required, 6 & 7 are optional.)

I am really looking forward to this.

Posted on October 29th, 2008 under General. Comments: None

As I was making a batch and freezing the other two batches of chocolate cookies, I could not help but think about Christmas time.

Like many, I love the idea of sending cookies during the holidays. I know how cool it is to receive special treats in the mail and getting that sort of thing during major holidays just has a way of making it even more special.  

I feel a lot of excitement and a bit if anxiety this year.

I’m excited because I’ll be able to send these chocolate cookies along with chocolate chip cookies. I’ll send some with chocolate morsals, some with walnuts, and some with both. 

I can give those who visit frozen ‘log shaped’ dough with a gift card that tells the baking temperature and the cooking time. I’m very excited.

But as I mentioned there is some anxiety. It stems from the fact that the cookies take two days to get where they are going. I wondered about freshness. So I wrapped the cookies in plastic and placed them in a box to see what they would be like after two days.

I was not pleased. They never live that long here, I only bake enough for one day, so I had no idea what a difference a couple of days makes. I must find a way to send them through the mail so that they reach their destination with as much freshness as possible.

I know I have options. If all else fails, I could go the ‘cookie in a jar’ route or simply ‘overnight’ the cookies.

Posted on October 28th, 2008 under General. Comments: 2

I had a wonderful weekend. But today I find I have no sweets. I must away to the kitchen to make pies and cookies and cakes and such.

Posted on October 27th, 2008 under General. Comments: None

I’ve tweaked the cookie recipe again. And I’m extremely pleased with it now.

As I was working with it, I thought the melted chocolate was too much trouble and that I should just omit it. But I discovered that warming the chocolate in the microwave worked just as well as warming it on the stove and it only took a few moments. Of course the chocolate had to be watched very closely, but again it only took about 30 seconds, with me stirring every 5-10 seconds.

Chocolate cookies

½ cup butter flavored crisco

1 cup sugar

2 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla

2 oz melted chocolate

1½ cups flour

 ½ cup cocoa powder

½ teaspoon baking soda

½ teaspoon salt

First I beat the crisco and sugar, at the medium setting, for about a minute. Then I added the rest of the ingredients and beat until everything was incorporated.

When the cookie dough was done, I put it into an oiled ziplock bag. Then I removed as much air as possible, and proceeded to roll the dough into a log. Once logged, the dough went into the freezer, while I cleaned up.

After I was done, the dough came out. It was stiffer and easier to cut. I placed the pieces on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper and baked them for 10 minutes at 325 degrees. They cooled for 5 minutes.

How did they taste?

Terrific!

They were soft but not too soft. They were rich and delicious and they sort of melted in my mouth. They were extremely chocolaty, having both melted chocolate and cocoa powder. I did choose to leave out the chocolate chunks called for in the original recipe, but they certainly could have been left in to deliver a triple chocolate whammy. Come to think of it, nuts would’ve been great too.

 Suffice it to say, they were very very good.

ps Sunday is a day of rest around here, so I’ll see you Monday

Posted on October 25th, 2008 under Desserts. Tags: Recipe. Comments: None

I was just about to make the chocolate chocolate chip cookies when I decided to give Martha Stewart’s milk chocolate cookies another chance.

That picture looked so good.

But I didn’t want to make three dozen cookies. I only wanted to make a few in case the problem really was recipe related.

        I used a conversion calculator to scale things down. This time I only made enough batter for about 6 cookies. Even then though, I had decided not to put all of my hope in one cookie basket.

        I resolved to make another scaled down batch. This one for tweaking. Not much, just one or two changes. Like melting the chocolate by itself and using butter flavored Crisco instead of butter and adding a little water because the batter looked a bit dry.

Small changes.

They both baked at 325 degrees for 10 minutes and cooled for 5.

The first set, the original recipe, were not like the cookies I’d made a few days ago. They were good. Not at all crunchy.

        The second batch was also good. Very soft, very fudgey.

Which was better?

I have to be honest and confess that my palette is not yet sophisticated enough to be able to tell the difference. I know which version I’ll be making in the future but other than that, I think they are both good.

I have to say I sure am glad I gave the recipe another chance.

Posted on October 24th, 2008 under Desserts. Comments: None

I think its time I learned to make frosting. I need to be able to make a chocolate one for cakes and a sugar frosting for cinnamon rolls.

For the chocolate frosting, I’ll be trying the recipe that goes with Peabody’s chocolate cake. I’ll also be making a recipe from Martha Stewart’s cookbook, which has a picture on page 148 that looks amazing.

I’m excited. It’ll be so nice to be able to make my own frosting and not have to rely on store bought any more.

As for the sugar frosting, being able to make that will mean I’ll have options and I won’t be limited to a cream cheese frosting whenever I have cinnamon rolls.

I’ll start by grinding some regular sugar in my blender. Once its been powdered, I’ll add a wee bit of vanilla and a couple of dribbles of milk. 

In the past, my failures have been due to adding too much liquid. I tried to follow the recipes but I never seemed to be able to stop myself from adding more milk. It just seemed to need it.

But this time, I’ll add the teeniest tiniest bit of liquid.

Posted on October 23rd, 2008 under General. Comments: None

Have you ever been to the King Arthur Flour website?

Oh I love them. They have a great recipe collection and a message board.

However, the last time I was over there I wasn’t looking up recipes or checking out the message board. I was doing some online window shopping. And I saw all sorts of must haves. Specialty flours and measuring spoons. Baking pans and pie shields. oh man.

Another cool item is a dvd called Blitz Puff Pastry. That one I did not even try to resist. Into my shopping cart it went. And the free shipping was nice.

The funny thing is I had never even heard of blitz pastry before. I had heard of puff pastry, but not the blitz part.

When I got the dvd I watched it twice and headed off to the kitchen to make my first batch of puff pastry. It was very easy. I used it to make a few apple turnovers and a lot of twisty cinnamon sticks.

I had actually never made apple turnovers before. I figured they were just apple pies with a different shape, so I simply used the filling from an old apple pie recipe I liked.

After making and baking one, I determined that the filling did not go well with the dough. So I combed allrecipes.com for a proper apple turnover filling.

I found one, scaled down the recipe and proceeded to make and bake another turnover. It was a winner. (I love reader reviews, they save me so much time and energy, not to mention resources.) I made more filling, then added three more turnovers to the platter. After that, I switched gears, time for some twisty sticks.

They were also easy. But half way through I nixed the ‘twisty’. Too time consuming. But I did add cinnamon sugar to both sides of the dough before baking. It made such a huge difference in taste that I couldn’t afford not to do it.

Posted on October 22nd, 2008 under General. Comments: None