Hi all!  I just wanted to let all of my bajillions of blog readers know that I’ve moved the content of my baking blog over to my main blog at: OneGeekyGirl.com .  To see only the baking related posts click on the Jessybakes icon in my sidebar once you get to the new site.  Update your bookmarks and I’ll see you there!

Image from bakerella.com

Please go here and lavish Bakerella with praise for doing it, yet AGAIN!  She blows me away.

image by Flirty Kitty via Flickr

National Chocolate Cupcake Day is almost here!  I had originally planned a chocolate cupcake showdown for October 18th, but I’m not sure if that’s going to happen.  Instead, check out Dori Greenspan’s perfect chocolate cupcake recipe over at Makes and Takes.  If you love it, you might be interested in checking out Tuesdays With Dorie. Enjoy!

The first think I thought of when I woke up this morning was… ok, truthfully the first think I thought of was this ker-aaaazy dream I had last night!  The SECOND think I thought of though was what to make the baby for breakfast.  I like to cook her breakfast when I can (mostly because she loves stuff like cheesy eggs or french toast AND it’s easier to sneak in the healthy stuff and make cheesy PEASy eggs or whole wheat french toast with yogurt to dip). So, when it comes to waffles and pancakes it’s all about fruit for us.  Put some berries in there and I’m happy, she’s happy…HE’s happy because because we’re happy…you know the drill.  The downside to waffles and pancakes is the prep and cooking.  I try to get them just right.  Then, I put on the butter and syrup and cut into pieces to cool a bit.  All the while the little one is getting better at flinging her sippy cup across the kitchen to make sure I know she’s WAITING!  If she knew to do a little foot tap or finger drumming, she would.

So, even though I wanted to make pancakes, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to go through the fuss.  Well, Bakerella recently posted her recipe for Mini Maple Pancakes.  Looked SO good.  I could take a little more time mixing stuff together and then pop them in the oven to get done on their own while I entertain my toddler.  Plus there was a perfectly good bunch of blueberries trying not to get frost bite in my freezer.  Perfect!  I made a couple of small tweeks to her recipe and beep beep.  Breakfast time!

Blueberry Maple Mini Panuffins ~makes about 18~

1/2 c. all purpose flour

1/2 c. whole wheat flour

1/2 tsp. baking soda

1/4 tsp. salt

1 Tbl. sugar

1Tbl. light brown sugar

2/3 c. buttermilk (I almost never use buttermilk, so I keep the powdered stuff on hand instead.  The equivalent would be 2- 1/2 Tbl powder with dry ingredients and 2/3c. water with the wet.)

1 egg

2 Tbl pure maple syrup (using the real stuff really makes a difference guys!  SO yummy!)

2 Tbl. butter, melted

desired amount of blueberries.  I used about 2 handfulls.

*PREHEAT OVEN 350 DEGREES*

*Grease mini muffin tin.  My butter baking spray didn’t do the best job… yes I promise I was generous! So, I took a paper towel and used it to pinch off and squish a little butter and used that to grease the dish the second time around.  Much better. *

1. In a medium-sized bowl use a whisk to combine flours, powder, soda, salt and sugars (and powdered buttermilk-if using).

2. In a separate bowl stir together buttermilk (or water if using the powdered milk), egg, syrup and butter until just combined.

3. Add wet ingredient to dry ingredients and stir until combined.

4. Toss in berries and mix until evenly distributed.

5. Bake 8-9 minutes. Or if you fill the cups almost full and use frozen blueberries (like I did) plan on more like 10-12

Bakerella mentioned using a toothpick around the edges to help the muffins escape the tin a bit better.  Works!

6. Serve with butter and syrup.  Mmmmm…

Like I said, it’s all about fruit around here in the morning (well, except for the odd nutella toast… everyone does that right?       right???):

Panuffins and yogurt for the little one:

Mom likes ‘em straight up:

A new breakfast tradition has been born.  Thanks Bakerella!  Enjoy everyone!

Anyhoo, I was craving chocolate big time the passed couple of weeks and decided to throw together a batch of my favorite chocolate chippers.  Wait!  Hadn’t I just purchased the above-mentioned gargantuan bar of goodness?  Why not beat the living daylights out of a piece of that to add some zing to my cookies?  More chocolate?  Well ~chuckle~ ~chuckle~  of COURSE I could find a way to add MORE chocolate!  And I did:

Jessy’s Choc-A-LOT Cookies ~ Makes 18~

3/4 c. flour

1/4c + 1/8c cocoa powder (I use Hershey’s)  *for the 1/8 c. I just eyeball about halfway up the 1/4c. cup*

1/2tsp. soda

1/2tsp. salt

1/2c (1stick) butter, softened (or just cut the cold stuff into small squares and nuke for about 13 seconds)

1/4c + 1/8c sugar

1/4c + 1/8c brown sugar

1/2 tsp. vanilla

1 large egg

desired amount of chocolate chips or pulverized chocolate bar of choice

~PREHEAT OVEN 375 DEGREES~

1. In a small bowl use a whisk to combine flour, cocoa, soda and salt.

2. In a separate bowl beat together sugars and butter.

3. Add egg and vanilla and beat together, scraping down sides.

4. Add dry ingredients to the wet ingredients.

5. Toss in chocolate chips or chunks and mix with a spoon or spatula until evenly distributed (a chocolate chunkless cookie is a sad sad thing).  *To break up my chocolate squares into chunks I place them in a plastic baggie and pound them into submission with the “knife sharpener” that came with my knife set.  It’s metal and heavy.  Works!*

6. Drop onto a parchment-lined cookie sheet.

7. Bake 9 – 11 minutes.  10 minutes of perfect in my oven!

I usually bake one dozen and drop the remaining dough onto a separate cookie sheet, placing it in the freezer until the balls of dough are firm.  Then I put them in a plastic freezer bag.  That way I can have a couple of freshly baked cookies on a whim without the prep and dishes.

nnn nnn n nnn?  Oh excuse me… talking with my mouth full…  I mean, need I say more?

Pink Ribbon Gifts – Breast Cancer Fund Raising.

These oreos are so cute.  The site also has graham crackers and marshmallows decorated to support breastcancer.org.  Even if you don’t buy I thought some of their stuff could be inspiration for your own pink creations for October.

I really wanted brownies this week!  Since I tried to bake the ones from Riot Wife I can’t bring myself to try another recipe.  So, I decided to add a couple of simple touches to make these brownies my own.

Jessy’s Chocolate Chip Hazelnut Brownies

Ingredients:

1/2 C. unsalted butter (1 Stick), room temp ~ I just cut it into squares and nuke it for                 13 sec~

1 C. dark brown sugar ~that’s what I had on hand~

1 egg

1/2 C. Hershey’s cocoa

1 tsp. vanilla ~I use “Pure Bourbon Vanille Extract from Trader Joe’s~

1/2 C. flour

Pinch of salt

1/2 c. chocolate chips ~I use the Nestle semi-sweet mini morsels (I put them in my                    store in case you can’t find them at your local grocery~

Nutella ~also in my store if you can’t find it~

Directions:

Preheat oven 350 degrees.  Lightly grease glass baking dish.  I use an 8 x 6 Pyrex Baking Dish (I put something similar in my store).

Combine flour, cocoa, and salt in a small bowl.  I generally use a whisk to quickly combine my dry stuff.

In a larger bowl cream together butter and sugar.  Add egg and vanilla and mix well.

Add dry ingredients to wet and mix until evenly combined.

Mix in chocolate chips.

Pour into  baking dish and bake 15-20 minutes.  ”Never Longer!” According to Riot Wife  I take my out at around 18 minutes and let them cool for 1 hour.  That makes them just fudgey enough for me.

Once the brownies are completely cooled, add a layer (whatever thickness you desire) of Nutella.

Here’s the Original Recipe

I made a few subtle changes.  So, here’s my version:

Jessy Didn’t Bake These Cookies 1:

• 2 cups white sugar
• 3 tablespoons Hershey’s Original cocoa powder
• 1/2 cup unsalted butter
• 1/2 cup lowfat milk (I used 2%.  No particular reason.  Just what I had on hand.)
• 1 pinch salt
• 2-1/2 cups quick cooking oats
• 1/2 cup peanut butter (I actually replaced about 1/4 of this with Nutella)
• 1 cup sweetened shredded coconut
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1. Place sugar, cocoa, butter, milk and salt into a saucepan and stir, slowly bringing to a rapid boil.  Boil for 1 minute (constantly stirring).

2. Add rest of the ingredients (I had them pre-measured and ready to just dump in!) and stir until combined.  Turn off heat.

3. Drop by rounded spoonful onto wax or parchment paper (I used a cookie scoop because the mixture is pretty warm.).  Let cool.  Feel free to “clean” the pan and spoon while you wait  They cool down a bit faster than the cookies.

I found this post by Olga on Sassy Radish and thought I’d give it a try.  Her cookies look fantastic!  I was a little shaken by my earlier Newton Fiasco.  I thought there was no way these cookies would actually taste exactly like Oreos anyways.  I’d just screw up and go buy a bag and deal with the consequences.

I’m SO excited to report that Olga’s recipe is perfect!!!  You can smell Oreo as soon as you mix together the dry ingredients!  It really smells like the dark round goodness I’m used to.  The filling is just right too!  These are SO easy to whip up I’ll likely never buy another bag of Oreo cookies.  The only change I made was to use Hershey’s Special Dark cocoa powder.  I also have to say that flattening your cookies pretty well is a good idea.  They do puff a bit, but are a wafer (read CRUNCHY… like Oreos).  I used a cookie scoop and just pinched the ball in half to make my cookies.  They turned out just the right size.  Yay for Olga’s Oreo’s!

I don’t want to talk about it…

OK, yes I do.  I was given a bagful of figs from a gardener friend (oh how I envy all you green thumbs).  I knew immediately that I wanted to make fig newton-like cookies for my daughter with them.  My one year old LOVES mini fig newtons.  I love that she loves them because that’s 15% of her daily iron right there in a yummy snack.  The 100 calorie snack packs of them are a bit pricey, $4+ a box.  We burn through them too.  So, I thought I could find a great recipe for newtons and make bunches of filling and freeze it in portions.  That way I can just make batches of pastry and have the filling on hand.  

After looking at recipe after recipe,  I decided to try the one posted by Melissa on the Boastful Baker.  I mean, look at her pictures!  Those babies looks awesome!

I made the filling and pastry the last night.  My goodness!  I’m not sure what I did wrong, but the dough was a nightmare for me to work with!  I tried to salvage it into little cookies with fruit filling (in the picture above).  So, it wasn’t a total loss.  There was tons of filling left too as Melissa notes.  It would be great inside of some yummy crepes I bet!  Mmmm….  I always use Paula Dean’s crepe recipe.  SO easy and (unlike my newtons) they always turn out.