In the Quest for Easily-Baked Goods

Today is not a very nice day. It is dark, dreary, windy, rainy, and cold (well, colder than I'd like it to be). As if nature hadn't ruined this day enough, it decided to start throwing a temper tantrum at about 3am that was so loud it shook the house and woke me up with some seriously spooky sounds.

And so as a result of all this craziness I decided to do one thing I know that almost always makes me feel better: bake something. It has been far too long. Since I was feeling extra tired I knew it would have to be a recipe requiring minimal effort on my part. I found the perfect one thanks to my Twitter friend Russel van Kraayenberg (@rvank) of the wonderful dessert blog Chasing Delicious.

The Classics: Chocolate Chip Cookies | Chasing Delicious

I followed that recipe to a T and the result was some cookies that were pretty delicious, but not perfect, on account of a few mistakes I made:

- I used a coarser grain of salt, which means that the salty taste of the batter is pretty obvious and overpowering and lingers in your mouth after swallowing the yummy cookie you just ate. Not good. Next time in a recipe like this I'll use my salt grinder as it puts out some pretty powdery salt. Not sure what I was thinking there. Was probably not thinking.

- I preheated my oven as I was starting the recipe, when I should have done it closer to the end. My butter was too hard and so I wanted to get some heat into the ceramic mixing bowl I was using to help facilitate the softening and mixing or the butter and sugar. Result: oven was closer to 425C than 375C and the edges of my cookies were already a really dark brown 3 minutes into the baking time. Woops. They ended up only staying in there about 7 minutes for the first batch, 9 minutes for the second after letting the oven cool off a bit. Both batches were pretty dark, but thankfully not burnt.

- Not enough chocolate. I only had about 1/8 cup of chocolate chips, and about 2.5 squares of dark chocolate left over from one of those large thin slabs of 70% cocoa bars. Luckily this was a pretty small batch of cookies, so every cookie has at least a few chunks of chocolate, but... still not enough for my liking. But hey, that's impromptu baking for you.

And so a last-minute baking adventure was pretty much a success. These cookies should last me a little while... like until tomorrow. Happy baking!

Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins

Last week, while throwing yet another couple of browned bananas into my freezer, I noticed that the pile of hardened torpedoes was about to take over my entire freezer. I resolved to finally do something with these poor neglected fruits that I had been hoarding. And so, to Google I went, to search for yet another banana muffin recipe. I had been unsatisfied with my previous staple recipes, and wanted something new and different. I also had some chocolate chips that I wanted to use, because, well... chocolate is great.

And so I stumbled upon this recipe. It had more ingredients than I was used to, and so I was slightly skeptical of it (simple = easy = hard to screw up). But then I read the reviews. All were five stars. All were raving. The words "bakery quality" hit my retinas and I was instantly convinced. A few slight tweaks later, and I was the proud new owner of a batch of the most delicious muffins I've ever baked. Yes, they're that good.

Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins

1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 cup wheat germ

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp salt

1 egg

3/4 cup light brown sugar

1/2 cup vegetable oil

1/2 cup plain yogurt

1 tsp vanilla extract

2 large bananas, thawed and mashed (squished with a fork works too)

3/4 cup semisweet chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Mix together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and wheat germ in a large bowl. Set aside. Mash the bananas in another bowl, and then add the rest of the wet ingredients, including the brown sugar with the wet ingredients (I even moved it down in the list so you wouldn't be tricked into thinking it goes into the dry bowl. Helpful hint!). Make sure it's all well-mixed, then pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients. Mix until all ingredients are ALMOST incorporated, then fold in the chocolate chips. It's really easy to over-mix muffin batter, and if you do it, you end up with rubber bouncy balls instead of muffins. Over-mixing activates the gluten in the flour, which makes it tough and gummy. So don't over-mix! Combine the ingredients with the fewest amount of strokes possible.

Scoop your muffin batter using a 1/4 cup measuring cup into paper liners or a greased muffin pan. If using silicone baking cups, you'll want to coat the insides with a bit of flour. Just put some on your fingers and run them around the sides and the bottoms. Bake for 22-25 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. If your muffins are bigger, you'll have to bake them for a bit longer. Just watch they don't get too brown on the outside. If you're using silicone baking cups, you'll want to take them out of the cups immediately after taking your muffins out, otherwise the bottoms will continue to bake even when they're sitting on the counter and "cooling." I learned this the hard way, after multiple batches of muffins came out perfect except for the bottoms, which were almost black and really tough. I realized that the baking cups stayed extremely hot for a while after baking, and presto! Now my muffins are perfect all the way through. Don't do what I did. Remove them toute-suite. I use a pair of chopsticks and an oven mitt, because those puppies are seriously steaming straight out of the oven! Remove with caution.

And there you have it. Lovely muffins that are delicious AND nutritious! I was surprised at how moist they were, and yet the texture was still firm and not too crumbly. I think it was the yogurt. What a lovely secret ingredient! They also weren't too cake-like, which I hate. If I want something sweet, I'll make a cupcake. I like my muffins to be muffins. I like to think that the wheat germ added a bit more nutrition and fiber, so let's just pretend that these are a health food. (Note: I said pretend, so don't sue me like this lady sued Nutella over its so-called "health-food" claims.) Health food with chocolate in it? I'll take it!

B. <3

Peach & Berry Crisp

Last week, in my excitement at finding an obscene amount of peaches at a very reasonable price, I bought far too many peaches than I could ever hope to possibly eat. I had been slowly chipping away at the pile, eating a raw peach every day as a snack, when the rest of said pile started to get a little too soft. And so I was like, Egads! All this cheap fruit! I cannot let it go to waste! Whatever shall I doooo!? (previous scene possibly exaggerated).

So, with all these peaches on the verge of being far too ripe, I decided to make sure they would not go to waste, and that I would make something delicious in the process. And so, I came back to an article I had found last week over at Real Simple containing numerous creative ways to use up the bounty of lovely peaches available at this time of year.

This kind of peach. Perverts.

I went through all of them, multiple times, before I found one that seemed just the right amounts of easy, delicious, and requiring ingredients that I had in the house: Peach Crisp. Though it called for more peaches than I had, I was able to supplement the amount of fruit with some berries I had in the fridge. I was hoping for a tart yet sweet late-summer-fruit feel, and my instincts were spot-on. These fruits came together in a wonderful medley of flavours that let me pretend, if only for a few brief moments, that summer was going to stick around for a while. Summer-lovers, this one's for you.

Ingredients

Filling:

6 peaches, sliced

1-1/2 cups fresh blackberries

1-1/2 cups frozen strawberries

1/3 cup white granulated sugar

1 tbsp white all-purpose flour

Topping:

3/4 cup flour

1-1/4 cups light brown sugar

1/4 tsp salt

3/4 cup unsalted butter, cut up into little pieces

2 cups rolled oats

Method

Mix the fruit together in a large bowl with the granulated sugar and 1 tbsp of flour. Dump it all into a large, shallow baking dish and set it aside. (I forgot to add the flour here, so I mixed it in the baking dish like a fool. Also, my dish was pretty deep. It still turned out fine.)

In another bowl, mix together the brown sugar, salt, flour and butter with your fingers, pinching the mixture as you go along. After a few minutes it should resemble coarse crumbs. Add the rolled oats and mix roughly. Sprinkle this mixture on top of your fruit, squeezing it as you go, making large coarse clumps. It should look uneven and messy and glorious.

Bake in a 350-degree F oven for 45-55 minutes, or until the topping is golden brown and the fruit is bubbling.

Serve warm, with vanilla ice cream for extra delicious.

And there it is: the best way to make the most of summer's delicious bounty! Remind yourself as you eat it that you are eating fruit. And fruit is good for you. That technically classifies this as health food. You're welcome.

Blueberry Muffins

I love me some muffins.

They are probably the best vehicle for ingesting any type of fruit along with (the essential diet staple) sugar. Unlike the various types of loaves (banana, zucchini, pumpkin, etc) there are no extra steps required for their enjoyment. Nothing is standing in the way of pure loveliness except a flimsy wrapper that can easily get torn off. In most cases you could probably just bite right through it, eat the entire thing whole, and get a bit of extra fiber in the process. Mine, however, are that type of food-safe silicone that enhances your baked goods, and not your breasts. And they are heart-shaped. They are the clear favourites out of my vast array of kitchen utensils (but don't tell that to the spatula or she'll flip).

Easy Blueberry Muffins (adapted from Cat Can Cook)

1-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup wheat germ
3/4 cup white sugar
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp baking powder
1/3 cup of vegetable oil (can be substituted with applesauce, but I used oil this time)

3/4 cup of milk (though I needed to add more due to the wheat germ)

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 egg

1 cup fresh or frozen blueberries

Mix together dry ingredients. Break up the egg and whisk lightly in a separate bowl. Add the oil, milk, vanilla extract and mix well. Add the egg mixture to the flour mixture all at once, and mix until it's JUST combined. (You don't want to over-mix your muffin batter or else they'll have a horrible non-muffiny texture. Like if gruel were solidified.) I added the wheat germ for some extra fibre/nutrition value, but it meant I had to add a teensy bit more milk to the batter so that it was the right consistency. It should be not too runny, but not too thick. You shouldn't be able to pour it like pancake batter. And lumps are fine. Leave them in there.

Add the blueberries to the batter and carefully fold them in. Scoop into muffin tins, either greased or lined with paper, or silicone baking cups dusted with flour. Mine are kind of large so I scooped the batter with my 1/4 cup measuring device.

Bake at 400 degrees F for 20-25 minutes. Mine took about 22 minutes to get lightly browned. Let them cool for a minute or two and then either remove your cups from the cookie sheet and place them on a cooling rack, or overturn your muffin tin so they all topple out and put them somewhere to cool down. This way they won't continue to cook on a hot pan and you won't end up with burnt bottoms. This happened to me more than a few times. Embarrassing.

Enjoy your muffins as an awesome breakfast paired with a glass of milk (either the dairy, soy, or almond variety--whichever you prefer) or as a healthy snack. Well, healthier than most of the fruit-filled snack things you would get at a grocery store. And cheaper too! Now your tummy AND your wallet are happy.

Home-Made Granola (Note to self: buy some bowls)

I got a wicked urge to make granola today. I knew it would be hot outside today, so turning on the oven was like a deathwish. Fuck it, I thought. I want some damn granola. The ingredients have been sitting in my pantry for weeks. It's now or never.
So I looked up the recipe I used from Cat Can Cook back in March and started over. Except this time I was confused about where to put the brown sugar. The instructions say "put all liquid ingredients into a saucepan." From my own knowledge of baking, brown sugar is usually included in "wet" ingredients in a recipe, along with eggs and oil and what-have-you. So in this case, I thought, I should probably put it in the pot with the oil and the honey so it all warms nicely together.
I was wrong. This was a bad idea. When I poured this liquid honey-sugar mixture over my rolled oats and raisins, what I got was not enough liquid to go around. The sugar just clumped up and the honey seemingly disappeared. My granola was almost completely dry, and no amount of forceful mixing would fix it.
So I had to devise a plan. This plan involved sprinkling some extra brown sugar over the granola once it was in the pan, and then drizzling some extra honey all over it. It seems to be working, since I can't smell anything burning and I don't see any flames shooting out of the oven when I open it.
Here's my modified version of this recipe.
4 cups rolled oats
1 cup wheat germ
1/2 cup brown sugar (add to dry ingredients, like you're supposed to)
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg (I didn't have any so I left it out)
1 cup to 1-1/2 cups of various nuts of your choosing (I picked peanuts this time)
1 cup raisins or other various dried fruits of your choosing (I did 1/2 cup of raisins and 1/2 cup of chocolate chips, just to be WILD)
1/4 cup oil (I just used regular vegetable oil)
1/4 cup liquid honey
1/2 tsp vanilla or almond extract
Put all your liquids into a small pot and heat over medium-low, stirring occasionally until combined.
Meanwhile, mix all dry ingredients together in a large bowl.
(This was a lot more difficult than it should have been for me, seeing as I have no large bowls. The closest thing I have to a large bowl is a medium-sized pot, so I divided the dry ingredients into two separate different-sized bowls and a pot. Clever, right? Not really. It was hard to know how much liquid to use for each one. I eyeballed it and then ended up mixing together the contents of the two bowls in an attempt to get the consistency right.)
Cover two baking sheets with wax paper. Bake in a 325F oven for 30-40 minutes until golden brown. Stir the mixture every 10-15 minutes. The mixture will get crispy as it cools. Keep in an airtight container to seal in the goodness.
Note: if you're using chocolate chips in your granola, you will probably want to add them to the mix after it has cooled. Mine have pretty much disappeared while in the oven. Guess I'll just have to add more later.
Note 2: I devised a brilliant plan to make this last longer: mix it with Cheerios, or some other generic cereal of your choice. Someone donated two big bags of Cheerios to our pantry a while back and nobody's touched it. So into the mix it goes.
So there it is, a cheap and easy way to make an awesome and relatively healthy snack at home. Store-bought granola can be pretty pricey and not the best for you, so try making it yourself! All these ingredients cost me about $20, but most of the main ingredients (rolled oats, raisins, nuts) come in huge bulk-sized bags, so they will definitely allow you to make this recipe a few times.
And to anyone who says baking is difficult, or they "just can't do it": look how much I messed up in the kitchen today. Even if you can (or can't) follow basic instructions, something like this will probably come out juuuust fine.