Blueberry Muffins

I grew up knowing about Jiffy mix, but I had never actually tried it before. It wasn't until I read this article that I was reminded of it, and I decided to try it out. A company that has been around since the Great Depression and provides mixes for a much lower price than its competitors is a company that I want to support.

Classic, instantly recognizable packaging.

One of the most frequent complaints in the article's comments were that Jiffy mix came out a bit dry. I searched online until I found this simple way to spruce them up, and I got to baking. 

The instructions on the Jiffy packaging list one egg and one-fourth cup of milk as all you need. With the fancier instructions, I added water, vegetable oil, vanilla extract, and brown sugar. Because I ran out of baking tins, I filled them a little bit more than halfway full and baked then for about 15 minutes. I was worried that I made them a little too full, but they actually turned out fine.

Filled over halfway full, but they came out just fine.

These are a delight when fresh! White Dress thought they were quite buttery, was surprised to hear that I didn't add butter. They were still delicious when cool, but fresh muffins truly taste amazing. I will definitely be making these again, and I will try more Jiffy products. One thing I would do differently, though, is more evenly distribute the blueberries among the muffins. It wasn't a major problem, but I would have liked it for aesthetic reasons. 

Fresh muffin and a glass of milk, mmm! 

Until next time!

~Pink Heels

Sweet Bread + Raspberry Syrup

JK is still baking bread. This time, we made a sweet bread and a raspberry dipping syrup to go with it.

JK got the recipe from a friend, so I unfortunately don't have a source for it (see end of this post for a copy of it). We didn't follow the recipe exactly; it says to form rolls, and we left it as more of a loaf and baked it in a bread pan. About two thirds through baking it, we pulled it out, spread some butter on the top, and popped it back in - it created this lovely crisp top.

While the bread was rising, we got to work on making the raspberry syrup. We put three pints of fresh raspberries in a pot with half a cup of sugar to start (we would eventually add in two cups of sugar in total to try to thicken it). After the raspberries released their juice, we passed the hot mixture through a strainer and threw out the seeds. We continued to cook the juice, adding in the remaining sugar in the hopes of thickening it into a syrup.

Boiling raspberry juice has the most delicious smell.

Results? The bread was a little dry, but that went very well with the raspberry syrup. The syrup was not very thick or viscous, but it served its purpose and the flavor was just fine. White Dress thought it was delicious, so I still consider this a success.

Great bread to soak up sweet raspberry syrup.

Sweet Bread

Ingredients:
2 tsp active dry yeast
1/4 cup water
1/2 cup canned milk
3/4 cup milk
1/4-1/2 cup sugar
2 Tsb butter
1 tsp salt
3-1/2 cups flour
1 egg

Dissolve yeast.
Combine milk, sugar, butter, salt. Cool to lukewarm
Add 1 cup flour. Beat 5 minutes
Beat in softened yeast and egg. Gradually add remaining flour. Cover and let rise. [We did for an hour]
Form rolls and place on greased pan. [We left it as a loaf] Let rise and bake at 375 degrees Fahrenheit.

Cheddar Cilantro Bread

Hello! We're back after a short hiatus, and we have baking stories to share.

For a reason that he himself can't explain, JK had been baking bread. He had baked every day last week, and on Friday, he asked me to bake cheddar cilantro bread with him. I've never tackled bread before, but I figured that it would be fun to learn.

For the most part, he was very faithful to this recipe. He was extremely excited about the first step: adding yeast to sugar and warm milk. "We're going to make some yeast very happy," he said cheerfully (he's a biologist - it figures this would be his favorite step). We set that aside and started making the other half of the dough: flour, salt, butter, and milk. When the yeast was done frothing up, we added that into the flour mixture.

Yeast mixture meets flour mixture.

Once that was evenly mixed, we kneaded the dough on a floured countertop. This is the part I was a little nervous about. JK mentioned how his bread had been coming out fluffy, and I didn't want to spoil that by overkneading and making the bread tough. JK also said that the best description he read about when to stop kneading dough is when it reaches the thickness of an earlobe. Once I was about that point, I had him approve of my work. We put it into an oiled bowl and let it rest for about an hour. 

As it turns out, there is a lot of waiting in breadmaking.

Next came JK's second favorite part. "You literally just punch the dough," he told me. The purpose is to get rid of any air, but it was still fun - how often do you get to punch something soft and squishy like that?

Once we were done punching it, we rolled it out and spread a thin layer of melted butter on top (unfortunately, we didn't have a brush). JK spread the cheddar over the bread, which he previously mixed with oregano, garlic salt, and a liberal amount of cilantro. Then, he folded the bread in on itself and kneaded it a little to mix the cheddar throughout; he pshawed the cutting and stacking in the recipe. 

He coated the exterior with more of the cheesy herb mix, and after it had rested again, we popped it into the oven for about forty minutes.

The lovely, cheesy result.

It turned out great! It was especially lovely warm, with the cheesy interior still gooey and warm. I would definitely love to make this bread again, and I hope JK will invite me to join him on more breadmaking adventures.

Until next time!

~Pink Heels

Chocolate Chip Cookies: Substituted Edition

My dorm's kitchen can be very convenient. It stocks a lot of baking essentials - such as flour, eggs, white sugar, brown sugar, rice, butter, cream cheese, chocolate chips - as well as baking sheets, bowls, and measuring cups. Theoretically, I can walk in there and make some thing simple from scratch without buying anything myself.

Alas, that doesn't always happen.

As a stress reliever, I wanted to make the gooey chocolate chip cookies that I made JK. As I was gathering ingredients, I realized that the kitchen was out of eggs.

The kitchen is out of eggs?!

I pondered what to do. White Dress' opinion was that it was not worth it to run out and buy eggs, and I agreed. But I had other options, right? After searching online, I found this egg substitution: 1.5 tablespoons vegetable oil, 1.5 water, and 2 teaspoons baking powder for one egg. So far, so good - that is, until I went to add the white sugar and found out that the kitchen didn't have this either.

Seriously?!

Again, after searching online, I figured I could replace the white sugar with brown sugar, even though the recipe already called for brown sugar. I knew I was going to loose some of the great aeration that white sugar gives cookies, but I didn't have much of a choice.

I got stung by the kitchen's lack of supplies when they didn't have salt, and finally when it was time to add chocolate chips. While the kitchen usually has a large bag of chocolate chips that they keep regularly stocked, it wasn't there that night. Sigh. At this point, could I really be surprised? Luckily, I had a cup of semi-sweet chips and a cup of milk chocolate chips left over from making the boyfriend cookies a few weeks earlier.

An interesting property I noticed was that this time, it took a few minutes longer for these cookies to get brown around the edges. Also, due to the brown sugar substitution, they cracked pretty severely.

This is what cookies look like when you have to substitute practically everything in them.

The result? They were passable, but I definitely prefer the original recipe without substitutions. They were a little tough and chewy, and would probably taste best with milk, tea or coffee. The one positive is that these cookies held their shape much better than the previous ones I made for JK, although that may be because I baked them for a longer period of time. 

Spring break is coming up, and I am looking forward to baking with my mother. We usually make a small treat for me the day I leave so that I can bring fresh sweets with me back to university. My mother is a wonderful cook and baker, and I am excited to spend time with her. I just have to get through finals week first!

Until next time!

~Pink Heels

Mint Chocolate Chip Cookies

I had a dinner to go to Friday night and I wanted to bring a dessert, but I didn't have enough time to bake something from scratch. Fortunately, I had a cookie mix that would be really quick and easy to do.

Once again, Betty Crocker comes to the rescue.

I have really taken a liking to these Betty Crocker cookie mixes - so far, I've made peanut butter, pumpkin spice, and snickerdoodle, and they've come out quite well. With St. Patrick's Day not too far away, I thought this would be the most appropriate.

I just followed the directions on the back of the package, and they also have helpful substitution suggestions, so when I didn't want to use butter, I easily swapped that out for vegetable oil. Everything mixed together nicely, although I wouldn't suggest an electric mixer with this one due to the chocolate chips already being in the mix.

This is one batter you definitely want to hand mix.

In order to get more cookies, I made them on the smaller side and carefully watched them in the oven. It turns out that I got chewy cookies right around the eight minute mark rather than the ten minute mark suggested on the package. It just goes to show that you should always watch your cooking and take the baking time as a suggestion! 

Unfortunately, the chocolate chips got buried in the rest of the dough.

The result? Everyone who tried them at the dinner really seemed to like them, although I had to admit that they weren't made from scratch. Still, this is just another cookie mix from Betty Crocker that has worked out great for me - quick, easy, and enjoyable? When you're pressed for time, I would definitely suggest these.

Until next time!

~Pink Heels

Chocolate Chip Cookies

I usually spend my Thursday nights doing my math problem set, but my instructor pushed the due date back, leaving me with a free Thursday! Since JK was having a terrible week, I decided to bake him cookies to cheer him up.

I used this recipe and decided to make up my own mind if they really are the best chocolate chip cookies I've ever tasted. This recipe was a breeze to make, except that I ran into a major snag with the brown sugar. The bag was almost empty, and the only brown sugar left in there was in enormous clumps - I spent half an hour breaking up the clumps! According to a quick Google search, microwaving it for 30 second intervals would have also loosened it up. Oh well. I'll keep that in mind for next time. 

My dorm's kitchen, frustratingly enough, also didn't have vanilla. The last time I was in there, we had quite a large bottle of vanilla, but now it was nowhere to be found. Sigh. This is one reason why I dislike sharing a kitchen - when people don't put things back in their place, it creates an absolute mess. Thankfully, this was a nonessential ingredient - if I could't find the baking soda or flour, then I would be quite angry.

Adding in the chocolate chips this time was not nearly as bad as when making the boyfriend cookies. This recipe called for two cups of semisweet chocolate, and I was still able to mix it just fine. The recipe also called for I cup of chopped walnuts, but I decided to just stick with chocolate. 

Bursting with chocolate chips and waiting to go in the oven.

I popped them in the oven for about ten minutes, which was just enough time to bake them but still keep them chewy. In retrospect, I could have left them in there for a minute or so longer, because they were falling apart in the middle when I tried to get them off the cookie sheet.

Delicious, gooey chocolate chip cookies.

The result? The website doesn't lie - these really are some of the best chocolate chip cookies I've ever eaten. They were soft, gooey, and just the right amount of chocolate. JK really liked them, even though they fell apart quite easily; thankfully, they toughened up by the next day and were just right. I will definitely be making these again, and I am so happy I found this recipe!

Until next time!

~Pink Heels

Nutella Cookies

When I found myself with an unusual batch of free time tonight, did I use it to study for my upcoming exams or get ahead in my work? Don't be silly. Unexpected free time is clearly baking time!

At White Dress' suggestion, I looked around for a quick recipe using Nutella, and I finally came upon a very simple, straightforward cookie recipe. However, disaster struck at the very first step: I only had a half cup of Nutella, but the recipe called for one cup. My quick fix was to change it to a half cup of Nutella and a half cup of peanut butter, thinking that the two flavors would complement each other. (Unfortunately, this move means that JK won't be tasting these cookies, since he doesn't like peanut butter.)

The resulting dough was easy enough to work with, and after my last encounter with the chocolate chip stuffed boyfriend cookies, I was extremely grateful at how little elbow grease I needed to get all the ingredients mixed together. These last few baking experiences have made me realize what I missed in my baking supply shopping spree: a wooden spoon (for easier mixing; it would also come in handy while making buttercream frosting without a mixer) and nested measuring cups (I have been using the nested measuring cups in my dorm's kitchen, but I will eventually need my own).

These baked for a little under seven minutes, and when I was done, I had eighteen cookies:

The Nutella + peanut butter hybrid cookies.

The result? Perhaps I'm not the best person to comment on that, actually. I'm not a big fan of peanut butter cookies, and the peanut butter flavor definitely overwhelmed the Nutella flavor - a little disappointing, but now I know which taste comes out on top after head-to-head combat. Apart from the taste, I don't have many complaints - they were soft and chewy, although I did destroy one trying to get it off of the cookie sheet. Hopefully, the next time I tackle these, they will be solely Nutella flavored - perhaps even Nutella stuffed cookies?

Until next time!

~Pink Heels