Fully Baked

This dessert is every kid's (and adult's) dream come true. Its a cookie, its a muffin, its got tuns of chocolate, and its mind-bogglingly good!
This recipe came from the new Kosher by Design cookbook Teens and Twenty Somethings. Disregarding the lame name, this cookbook has recipes that not many can resist, especially the one I just made!
Once again, I cut down the recipe in half, which made about 12 little cupcake-sized cookies. It should make less, but its impossible to find deep/big muffin tins in this country! All I can ever find are the little cupcake sizes... which actually made these into really nice bite-sized treats.
The best way to eat these is straight from the oven. Gardner Boy and I put them on a hot plate while we ate lunch so that by the time we got to dessert they were hot and gooey in the inside with the perfect crunch and munch on the outside!

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When looking for a chocolate cookie recipe, these popped out at me because of one word in the name: crinkle. Who doesn't want to eat a cookie that crinkles?
I got these from Hershey chocolate's website, and they certainly lived up to their name! 
These have an incredibly moist and almost cake-like consistency inside with that great "crinkle" on the outside.

Sadly burnt and dry :(

Combine granulated sugar and oil in large bowl. Add the cocoa, beating until well blended. Add the eggs and vanilla and beat well.

In another bowl, stir together the flour, baking powder and salt; gradually add it to cocoa mixture, beating well. 

Cover and refrigerate until the dough is firm enough to handle, at least 6 hours. This is where it got messy for me. You're refrigerating the dough so that it'll harden enough for you to form it into balls later. My dough wasn't hard enough after 6 hours, so I simply used two spoons to spoon the dough onto the baking sheet. It worked fine, but the cookies came out looking like blobs instead of smooth, round shapes.

 Heat the oven to 176°C (350°F). Lightly grease a cookie sheet or line with parchment paper. 

Shape dough into 1 inch balls. Roll the balls in powdered sugar to coat. Because mine were spooned on, I first spooned them all onto the baking sheet, and then sprinkled the powdered sugar on top. Place the balls about 2 inches apart.

Bake the cookies 11 to 13 minutes or until almost no indentation remains when touched lightly, and the tops are crackled. Cool slightly. Remove from cookie sheet to wire rack and cool completely. 

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Last week I tried to make scones from Asher's cookbook. They came out pretty hard, dry, flat, and sorta tasteless. This was the third of baking experiments to go wrong, so I was pretty bummed that they didn't come out right...

I'm not sure how many inches this is, but it was good enough for me...

My tiny oven can only handle so many baked goods at a time, so I arranged them in a way that took up the least space :)

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I made these a couple of months ago, and so when I decided to post them, I just had to investigate the origin of the name for you...

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I'm not a huge fan of peanut butter and chocolate but I definitely respect the hell out this innovative combination of flavors... So why not pay my respects by creating the ultimate snack for all you peanut butter and chocolate lovers out there? Peanut Butter Cups!

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Along with my baking successes, I've decided to showcase my failures! 
I'm hoping that baring my own flaws will help others from making the same mistakes... 

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Today is super gloomy and rainy... Just the kind of day for a nice hot cup of cocoa and a cheery snack.
These are really festive looking, and add a nice touch of cheer to any gloomy day. Whip them up for a picnic, a party, or simply for dessert.
A cute twist on rice crispy treats (who doesn't love those?), these are guaranteed to put a smile on anyone's face.

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I cant help but show you guys Gardner Boy's first successful tomato! Isn't is cute?

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When I first thought of making meringues I was a little worried about the amount of work they required... little did I know! Meringues are extremely simple to make, have only three ingredients, and don't take very long, if you don't include the oven time.

Egg whites from 2 eggs

Less than ½ cup white sugar

1 tsp. white wine vinegar

Preheat the oven to 125 C (230 F), and line a baking tray with a baking sheet.

Whip the egg whites until they're very stiff. A little tip my mom taught me: If you can flip the bowl over without the eggs falling out, you’re good to go!

Add the sugar and white wine vinegar and whisk again. This time around, the whip won’t be a solid as before. And don’t worry about that awful smell. The vinegar will evaporate while cooking, and you won’t be able to taste or smell it once the meringues are done.

Put generous spoonfuls onto the baking sheet, or pipe it through a nozzle (right after I made these I found one at the local supermarket).

Bake for 2.5-3 hours, depending on how chewy you like them. The less time in the oven, the less chewy they'll be.

Remove from the oven and cool on a rack.

These will last a long time before going bad. Mine were still good after two weeks! Is that gross, or cool? I cant decide :)

Anyway, enjoy them, and watch out for those crumbs...

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One of Gardener Boy's first requests when I started baking was bagels. I'm so sorry I pushed it off as long as I did! These are so simple, and so delicious! I only made half the recipe, and I'm sorry I didn't make all of it... 

4 cups bread flour

1 tbsp sugar

1 1/2 tsps salt (I suggest adding 1/2 tsp more)
1 tbsp vegetable oil

2 tsps instant yeast

1-1/4- 1-1/2 cups of warm water.

Directions:

Mix all the ingredients in a bowl. You don't have to worry about soaking the yeast when you use instant yeast. The dough should feel stiff, but add the extra water if it's really stiff, or you can't get all the dry flour incorporated. If you want to make cinnamon-raisin bagels, this is the time to add about 1/2 a tbsp of cinnamon (add more or less according to how much cinnamon you like) and a handful of raisins to the dough.

Plop the dough down onto the counter, and knead for about ten minutes, or until the dough is nice and smooth.

Cut the dough into 8 equal sized balls, and let them rest on the counter for 20 minutes.

Pre-heat your oven to 218 C (425 F).

Take each of the dough balls and using two hands, roll it into a little snake on the counter. When the snake is longer than the width of your two hands, wrap it around your dominant roiling hand. The dough rope should be wrapped so the overlapping ends are together at your palm, near the start of your fingers. 
Take the two overlapping ends, and use your palm to squish/roll these two ends together. Once the dough is fused, you should have a perfectly circular bagel-to-be! 
This part of the process takes a little practice before your bagels look really professional.
It's ok if they don't look perfect. I think that the more home-made they look, the better!

Let your bagels rest on the counter for about 20 minutes. 
Meanwhile, bring a pot of water to boil (fill it about halfway), and grease a large baking tray lightly. 

After the 20 minute wait, your bagels will start to look puffy, and it's time to get them boiling! Add them as many at a time as you can to your boiling water without crowding them (when you first out them in, make sure they don't stick to the bottom).
Boil for about a minute, turn them over, and boil for another minute. 
Take them out and let them dry for a minute. Then place them on your oiled baking tray. Repeat until all the bagels are boiled.

Add the tray to the oven, and after 10 minutes, flip the bagels over, bake for another ten minutes; and they're done!

I made them a second time, and this time around I put onions and sesame seeds on!
Sadly, my onions got a little burnt.

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