Basic Blondies

I have made these blondies countless times, but have never blogged them. This recipe was passed on to me by bakingblonde of Bakingblonde's Weblog. She is the queen of the blondies on The Nest's What's Cooking message board. These blondies are my go-to dessert for when we really want something sweet but don't have lots of time. They are so easy to throw together at the last minute, and as much as I love my Kitchen Aid stand mixer, I love when I don't have to get it messy. This is a one bowl dessert that is always a crowd pleaser.

The only issue that I have with this recipe is that it has no leavening agent and they always come out flat and a little raw tasting. Now don't get me wrong, I don't mind the ooey gooey undercooked chocolatiness. They're just a little hard to get out of the pan without squishing them. I think next time I will add a bit of baking powder and see if that does anything.

Basic Blondies

8 tbsp butter, melted
1 cup brown sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
pinch of salt
1 cup all purpose flour

Preheat oven to 350 and grease an 8x8 pan. Mix melted butter with brown sugar and beat until smooth (I always just do this in a large mixing bowl with a wooden spoon) Beat in egg and then vanilla. Add salt, stir in flour, and add in any mixins (below)

Pour into prepared pan and bake for 20-25 minutes or until set in the middle. Cool on rack before cutting.

Mix in ideas:
1/2 to 1 cup of chopped, toasted nuts
1/2 to 1 cup chocolate/white chocolate chips
mint/almond/any other extract of your choice in place of the vanilla extract

My favorite mix ins so far were a combination of toffee chips, almonds and dried cranberries. Yum! Tonight I just did about 3/4 cup of chocolate chips though. Rob and Maura like them best tat way :-)

Brown Sugar Pound Cake

I sometimes feel like I don't try enough new recipes. If I blogged every single time I baked something, including repeat recipes, I'd have well over 150 posts by now. But I tend to make the same baked goods over and over because they feel safe.

Well, I decided it was time to try something new. I have been wanting to make a pound cake for a while now and I knew that there were several recipes floating around my family. Mostly my aunts. I have lots and lots of aunts. My Dad had 7 sisters and my Mom has 2, and I have a couple of aunts related to me by marriage (my dad also had 2 brothers). So between all of them, I have enough recipes to last me a life time. I decided to refer to my family cookbook put together by one of my Dad's sisters. I found my Aunt Clare's Brown Sugar Pound cake recipe, and while it wasn't the traditional pound cake recipe I was looking for, it looked wonderful so I decided to give it a shot.

This cake is dense and rich and delicious. The brown sugar gives it a deep flavor that is amazing. You will definitely need a glass of milk though! The original recipe in my cookbook calls for a Caramel Rum Sauce to drizzle over the cake, but I skipped this because i was feeling a little lazy :-) However, the next time I make this for a party or get together, I will definitely try out the sauce because it sounds wonderful. This time I jsut dusted it with a little bit of powdered sugar.

Aunt Clare's Brown Sugar Pound Cake

2 sticks (1/2 pound) butter, softened
2 cups dark brown sugar, firmly packed
1 cup granulated sugar
6 large eggs
3 cups all purpose flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 cup of milk (Aunt Clare uses fat free half and half so that's what I used :-) )
2 tsp vanilla

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Grease and flour a 10" tube pan. In a large bowl, or the bowl of an electric stand mixer, beat the butter until fluffy. Add the sugars and cream until light and fluffy, about 3-5 minutes. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Combine dry ingredients in a medium mixing bowl, and then add to the butter mixture alternately with milk or half and half, beginning and ending with the flour mixture. Add the vanilla. Fill prepared pan and bake for 1 hour and 35 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean (my cake took only an hour and 15 minutes) Cool cake completely, then remove from pan. To serve, drizzle with rum sauce.

Caramel Rum Sauce
1/2 cup whipping cream
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 tbsp corn syrup
3 tbsp dark rum

Combine all ingredients in a heavy saucepan. Bring to a boil over medium heat, whisking occasionally. Cover and continue to boil for 1 minute to wash sugar crystals from the sides of the pan. Uncover and continue to boil for 3-4 minutes without stirring. Cool slightly. Drizzle over cooled cake and serve.

Asian Marinade

I made a really simple dinner tonight of grilled chicken, roasted veggies and brown rice. I have no pictures because I left my camera at my Mom's house last weekend. But the chicken was so delicious, that I had to post about it.

I love Asian inspired marinades and I've used one that is slightly similar to this one for my chicken stir fry. I was actually sad to discard the leftover marinade tonight because it smelled so good. Looking back, I probably could have reduced it in a saucepan on the stove top and turned it into a glaze for the grilled chicken. Next time!

Asian-inspired Marinade (I used this for my grilled chicken tonight, but I'm sure it would be delicious on veggies or even shrimp)

1/4 cup low sodium soy sauce
3 tbsp honey
3 tbsp olive oil
1-2 cloves of garlic, minced
salt and pepper

Combine ingredients in a large liquid measuring cup and whisk briskly with a fork or wire whisk. Add chicken (I used 3 boneless skinless breasts) and marinade ingredients to a large zip top bag and marinade in refrigerator for at least 2 hours. I marinaded mine for more like 5 or 6 hours. The longer the better. Grill or bake, as desired.

So easy and so delicious! I think I may use the leftover chicken in a salad tomorrow...

Blueberry Cream Cheese Tarts

Today was the Teacher Appreciation Luncheon at my daughter's school and I signed up to send in a dessert. I thought I'd do a mini cheesecake recipe that I've made several times and always loved. It was a recipe I saw on an episode of Paula Deen's "Paula's Home Cooking" show a long time ago. This recipe is incredibly easy to throw together and is a really great dessert for picnics or cookouts.

The idea was that my daughter would just take the dessert with her on the bus and take it to the office at her school for me since i have to be at work so darn early every day...Not such a great idea. Poor Maura dropped the container of cheesecakes while she was waiting for the bus. She felt really really badly about it! So anyway, the cheesecakes didn't end up making it to school. I feel really bad about the teachers not getting their treat, but I'm sure there were other desserts, and what can ya do? It was an accident. And now I have 12 smooshed mini cheesecakes to tempt me in my fridge :-)

Here's a pic of the disaster:
And here's the recipe:

Blueberry Cream Cheese Tarts (source: Paula's Home Cooking)
~2 8oz packages cream cheese, softened (I usually use 1/3 less fat cream cheese and that works just fine)
~1 cup sugar
~1 tsp vanilla extract
~2 eggs
~12 vanilla wafers
~1 (21 ounce) can blueberry pie filling, or other pie filling

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Place paper liner in each cup of a 12 cup muffin pan.

Beat cream cheese with an electric mixer until fluffy. Add sugar and vanilla beating well. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Place vanilla wafer, flat side down, in each muffin cup. Spoon cream cheese mixture over wafers, filling liners almost to the top. Bake for 20-23 minutes. Allow tarts to cool completely. Serve with blueberry pie filling on top, or pie filling of your choice.

These are much better the next day, but should be chilled in the fridge for at least 3-4 hours before serving. Otherwise, they stick to the liners and become an awful mess. I learned that the hard way. Next time, I may try these with lemon extract instead of vanilla. I love the blueberry and lemon combo.

Lemon Poppy Seed Muffins

Ok, so I have this thing for lemons. I love them. I put lemon juice or zest in anything possible. But it wasn't always like that for me and lemons. For the longest time I didn't even like them. But I realize more and more that there are things that I *think* I don't like, only to find out that if I try them again, I do like them. Anyway, I digress. Back to lemons.

Lemon poppy seed muffins is one of the ways I realized my love for lemons. They're sweet and tart and I love the extra crunch from the poppy seeds. So when I started seeing other food bloggers making them, I realized that I needed to find a recipe and make them for myself (and for my mom. I totally plan on giving her some when she comes over tomorrow.)

When I found this recipe from Dorie Greenspan's Baking: From My Home to Yours on Julia's blog, I knew I'd found a winner. These muffins are fantastic. Very dense, but moist and sweet and tangy. I love them and will be making them again sometime. Do yourself a favor and don't skip the glaze. It totally makes the muffins and brings them to a whole other level. Also, this was my first time ever glazing anything and I'm very happy with the results :-)

Lemon Poppy Seed Muffins (source: Dorie Greenspan's Baking: From my Home to Yours by way of Two Novice Chefs, One Tiny Kitchen)

Ingredients:

For the Muffins:
2/3 cup sugar
Grated zest and juice of 1 lemon
2 cups all purpose flour
2 t baking powder
1/4 t baking soda
1/4 t salt
3/4 cup sour cream
2 large eggs
1 t pure vanilla extract
1 stick unsalted butter, melted and cooled
2 T poppy seeds

For the Icing:
1 cup confectioners’ sugar, sifted
2-3 T fresh lemon juice

Directions:

To Make the Muffins:
Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Butter or spray the 12 molds in a regular-size muffin pan or fit the molds with paper muffin cups. Alternatively, use a silicone muffin pan, which needs neither greasing nor paper cups. Place the muffin pan on a baking sheet.

In a large bowl, rub the sugar and the lemon zest together with your fingertips until the sugar is moist and the fragrance of the lemon strong. Whisk in the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. In a large glass measuring cup or another bowl, whisk the sour cream, eggs, vanilla, lemon juice and melted butter together until well blended. Pour the liquid ingredients over the dry ingredients and, with the wish or a rubber spatula, gently but quickly stir to blend. Don’t worry about being thorough-a few lumps are better than over mixing the batter. Stir in the poppy seeds. Divide the batter evenly among the muffin cups.

Bake for 18 to 20 minutes, or until the tops are golden and a thin knife inserted into the center of the muffins comes out clean. Transfer the pan to a rack and cool for 5 minutes before carefully removing each muffin from its mold. Cool the muffins completely on the rack before icing them.

To Make the Icing:
Put the confectioners’ sugar in a small bowl and add about 1 1/2 T of the lemon juice. Stir with a spoon to moisten the sugar, then add enough additional lemon juice, a dribble at a time, to get an icing that is thin enough to drizzle from the tip of the spoon. You can then drizzle lines of icing over the tops of the muffins or coat the tops entirely, the better to get an extra zap of lemon.

Super Simple Corn Muffins

I went in search of a corn muffin recipe today, and found several on recipezaar.com I found one, in particular, that got some pretty great reviews so I decided to give it a try. They are so easy to throw together, and are pretty good. They are moist and tasty. I definitely recommend them if you're looking for something quick and easy.

Dot's Corn Muffins (source: recipezaar.com)

Ingredients
1/2 cup all purpose flour
1/2 cup cornmeal
3 tbsp sugar
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 egg
1 cup sour cream

Directions

~Line 8 muffin cups with paper liners. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
~In a bowl, combine the flour, cornmeal, sugar, baking soda, and salt.
~In another bowl, beat egg and sour cream; stir into dry ingredients until moistened.
~Fill prepared muffin cups 2/3 full.
~Bake in preheated oven for 15-18 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.
~Cool for 5 minutes before removing from pan to a wire rack.

Cupcakes!

I realize that I made cookies for my husband for his birthday. And he didn't ask for cake. But the dog ate all the cookies, and I've been craving cake. So hubby got some cupcakes too! I have had my eye on a couple of yellow cake recipes. I never think of making yellow cake because I'm such a chocolate cake lover. But Rob loves yellow cake with chocolate frosting, so I decided to try a from-scratch recipe for the first time. I looked through blogs and cookbooks and finally settled on the Cook's Illustrated's recipe for Fluffy Yellow Layer Cake. But decided that I'd make cupcakes instead of one big cake. Cupcakes are just so much fun and I don't make them nearly enough. It's also a really great way to control portion size :-)

This cake is absolutely amazing. It wasn't too hard to pull together and it turned out fantastically. The recipe calls for cake flour, which I didn't have. And I didn't want to have to go buy any. So I searched around the web and found a substitution for cake flour using all purpose flour and cornstarch. It worked perfectly. Here's a link to the substitution on Recipezaar. The substitution worked out perfectly for me. The cake really was light and fluffy.

I used the Hershey's "Perfectly Chocolate" Chocolate Frosting. This is really some of the best frosting I have ever made and it complimented the light, fluffy yellow cake perfectly.

Fluffy Yellow Layer Cake (source: Cook's Illustrated)

2 1/2 cups cake flour (see link above for cake flour substitute)
1 1/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp table salt
1 3/4 cups sugar
10 tbsp (1 1/4 sticks) unsalted butter, melted and cooled slightly
1 cup buttermilk, room temperature
3 tbsp vegetable oil
2 tsp vanilla extract
6 large egg yolks, room temperature
3 large egg whites, room temperature

1. Adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 350 degrees. Grease 2 9x2 round cake pans and line bottoms with parchment paper. Grease paper rounds, dust pans with flour, and knock out excess. Whisk flour, baking powder, baking soad, salt and 1 1/2 cups sugar together in a large bowl. In a 4 cup liquid measuring cup or medium bowl, whisk together melted butter, buttermilk, oil, vanilla, and yolks.

2. In clean bowl of stand mixer with whisk attachment, beat egg whites at medium-high speed until foamy, about 30 seconds. With machine running, gradually add remaining 1/4 sugar; continue to beat until stiff peaks just form, 30 to 60 seconds (whites should hold peak but mixture should appear moist). Transfer to bowl and set aside.

3. Add flour mixture to now-empty mixing bowl fittes with whisk attachment. With mixer running at low speed, gradually pour in butter mixture and mix until almost incorporated (a few streaks of dry flour will remain), about 15 seconds. Stop mixer and scrape whisk and sides of bowl. Return mixer to medium-low speed and beat until smooth and fully incorporated, 10 to 15 seconds.

4. Using rubber spatula, stir 1/3 of whites into batter to lighten, then add remaining whites and gently fold into batter until no white streaks remain. Divide batter evenly between prepared pans. Lightly tap pans against counter 2 or 3 times to dislodge any large air bubbles.

5. Bake until cake layers begin to pull away from sides of pans and toothpick inserted into center comes out clean, 20 to 22 minutes. Cool cakes in pans on wire rack for 10 minutes. Loosen cakes from sides of pans with a small knife, then invert onto greased wire rack and peel off parchment. Invert cakes again and cool completely on rack, about 1 1/2 hours.

This recipe can easily be turned into 24 cupcakes. Line 2 12 cup muffin pans with paper liners. Decrease bake time to 18-20 minutes.

Hershey's "Perfectly Chocolate" Chocolate Frosting (source: Hersheys.com)

1 stick (1/2 cup) butter or margarine
2/3 cup HERSHEY'S Cocoa
3 cups powdered sugar
1/3 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Melt butter. Stir in cocoa. Alternately add powdered sugar and milk, beating to spreading consistency. Add small amount additional milk, if needed. Stir in vanilla. Makes about 2 cups of frosting.