11.25.10 Bûche de Noël

11.21.10 Chocolate Bread

from davidlebovitz.com

11.14.10 Extremely Chocolaty Chip Cookies

recipe from the kitchn by Michel Richard

11.14.10 Thick and Chewy Oatmeal Cookies

recipe from Cook's Illustrated

11.9.10 Fudgy Chocolate Brownies

recipe from Martha Stewart

11.4.10 Spiced Applesauce Cake

I made this for a potluck.  The cake turned out to be underbaked so the center was a little gooey but of course Sarah, my resident dough eater didn't mind.  Everyone else at the potluck didn't either.

recipe from Smitten Kitchen

10.29.10 Gefüllter Streuselkuchen

aka German coffee cake with streusel filling.

I made this on Friday.  Today is Sunday.  The cake is ALL GONE.  What??

recipe from America's Little Germany (americaslittlegermany.blogspot.com)

10.23.10 Jacked-up Banana Bread

recipe from Smitten Kitchen

10.20.10 Homemade Chocolate Wafers

combined with marshmallows and you have a semi-oreo!

recipe from Smitten Kitchen

10.16.10 Dreamy Cream Scones

with dried cranberries and chocolate chips.

New food processor only means one thing: SCONES.   Actually, it's not new at all.  I just got it for free from a subletter.  It's old and a little dirty, but nonetheless functional.  And, it was completely fine after I thoroughly washed it.  I heard that scones are best made in food processors since they minimize the amount of dough-handling, so I decided to give it a try.

I used a recipe from the Smitten Kitchen just because it included cranberries.  I had wanted to use up the dried cranberries I bought a couple of months ago.  For some reason, though, I couldn't find many recipes that required DRIED cranberries.  Sarah also wanted something that could be eaten on-the-go, so it seemed perfect.

9.3.10 Banana Chocolate Chip Cookies

recipe from tasteandtellblog.com

10.5.10 Boudin Bakery's Brownies

recipe from latimes.com

10.2.10 Everyday Chocolate Cake

...with chocolate chips and coconut.

First week back in school!  As usual, I'm not that excited.  Homework and stress is never fun.  I will say, though, that this quarter didn't start off too bad.  Yes, I already have work to do and I still haven't figured out my work situation yet, but at least two out of three classes don't seem too intense.  The third, unfortunately, will be a pain.  Hopefully I can make it through without going insane.  At least I'll be relaxing with yoga?  Unless I get stressed from not being flexible enough to do yoga.

If all else fails, at least I'll have baking and chocolate.

8.29.10 Mom's Chocolate Chip Cookies

recipe from latimes.com

http://www.latimes.com/features/food/la-fo-homeecrec1-20100826,0,1863716.story

8.17.10 Cinnamon Blueberry Muffins

recipe from epicurious.com

8.16.10 Double-Chocolate Brownies

used about 1/2 cup mint ufos + 1/4 cup chocolate chips melted
lined first layer of batter with whole mint chips and covered with second layer

recipe form marthastewart.com

9.26.10 Coconut Bread

recipe from epicurious.com

9.19.10 Heirloom Bakery and Cafe's sour cream coffeecake

recipe from latimes.com

9.7.10 Rugelach

Mai forgot to take pictures part 5.

And I am REALLY sad.  No joke.

recipe from epicurious.com

9.5.10 Deep Dark Chocolate Pudding Cake

Mai forgot to take pictures part 4.

Honestly, I didn't like these at all.  I made them because they sounded interesting and the recipe looked ridiculously easy (it's a one-bowl).  I didn't like the texture of the pudding that formed on the bottom of the cake, and hated it after a day.  The "pudding" was also rather tasteless and bland.  The cake itself didn't help either.

Sadly, I would say that this one was a failure.  Many thanks to Sarah for finishing them off!

For once, I did let Sarah mix though.  An attempt at loosening up a bit and letting go of control.  Baby steps, baby steps.

recipe from King Arthur Flour

8.13.10 Spider Cupcakes

Mai forgot to take pictures part 3.

recipe by Gale Gand from foodnetwork.com

7.30.10 Chocolate-Espresso Snowcaps

Mai forgot to take pictures part 2.

And maybe that's a good thing.  Because these cookies looked like they had the plague.

These cookies are essentially a chocolate version of Mexican wedding cookies/Russian tea cakes.  You have to put together the dough beforehand because it's so soft.  I went a little baking high, so I ended up making the dough right after baking the outrageous chocolate cookies.  Once all the ingredients were combined, I wrapped the dough in plastic, rolled it out with a beer bottle, and threw it in the fridge for a couple of days until all of the previous cookies were gone.

After taking the dough out of the fridge, I enlisted Sarah and Megan to make small balls out of chunks of dough.  As the comments on Martha's websites said, the dough started melting immediately.  Their hands looked like they had been playing with dirt outside.  The balls were then rolled in powdered sugar and then set onto cookie sheets.

The cookies were supposed to come out looking cracked; I just didn't expect that the cracks would come out so... odd.  In place of nice, narrow lines, the brown areas of my cookies were thick so the white areas came out in patches.  Hence, "plagued."

Still, these cookies were delicious.  The combination of chocolate+coffee is absolutely addictive.  Some of the powdered sugar also ended up getting caramelized, especially on the bottom, giving the cookies some crunch.  The cookie is also moist, dense, and extremely chocolate-y.

I would definitely make these again, but maybe in the winter when I have cold, frozen hands so that the dough won't melt in my hands!

recipe from marthastewart.com

7.30.10 Outrageous Chocolate Cookies

Mai forgot to take pictures part 1.

Honestly, I don't remember much about these cookies.  I just remember that Mallory thought that I had baked them before.  As it turns out, I baked something VERY similar; but, not quite.  They were good because they had cocoa, melted chocolate, and chocolate chips in them (triple chocolate attack!).  Otherwise, nothing special.

recipe from marthastewart.com

7.9.10 Banana Walnut Bread

recipe by foodnetwork kitchens from foodnetwork.com

7.4.10 Outrageous Brownies

I love Ina Garten. She's so cute! She's such a nice, sweet, plump lady. That makes it sound like I want to eat her, but that's not what I mean. How can you not like her? Plus, she gets extra points in my mind for not being afraid of butter, even if the amount she uses can be a bit excessive at times.

I was excited to try out this recipe. I saw it on tastespotting and Smitten Kitchen, and everyone was raving about it. The only problem was that the recipe makes a lot, which means that I need a lot of people to eat it. So, when I was invited to a 4th of July bbq, I knew I had to make it.

6.26.10 Raspberry Buttermilk Cake

...except not.

You can't really tell from the picture, but the fruit in the cake is actually strawberry, not raspberry. I also didn't use buttermilk; I used a mix of half-and-half and milk. So i guess technically my cake is a strawberry half-and-half/milk cake.

6.22.10 Our Favorite Chocolate Chip Cookies

Who doesn't like a mountain of cookies? I definitely love them. If anything, I probably love them a little too much for my own good.

So lately I've developed a little obsession with Smitten Kitchen, a food blog, partly because of Rebecca. I've pretty much been hooked since she sent me a link to the simple tomato and onion pasta sauce. Anyway, it has great pictures and recipes of delicious-looking and -sounding recipes, and I can't stop looking.

6.16.10 Cupcakes

We've had lots of guests over recently. First the potluck, this time a barbecue! Mallory's friends Ghis, Samantha, and Elise are staying in our apartment. We also had Don come over to do the actual barbecuing, fire and coals and all. As usual, I decided to bake something for dessert. Since I baked a chocolate cake for the potluck, I chose to make basic vanilla cupcakes. Plus, I had some cream cheese frosting left over from the cake, and cupcakes seemed the perfect thing to use up the frosting on.

6.13.10 Easy Chocolate Cake

We had a potluck dinner at our apartment the other day. Mallory and I had Brandon, Megan, Emily over for the dinner, as well as Ghis, Mallory's friend. Brandon brought lasagna which was super good, Megan made a drink out of bourbon and milk that ended up tasting like egg nog, Mallory made garlic bread, Ghis made kamaboko dip, and I made a salad and dessert.

The recipe for this cake actually called for a chocolate glaze, but I opted for a cream cheese icing with chocolate chips because my guests couldn't decide between chocolate and cream cheese. I used the cream cheese icing recipe from the carrot cake. The chocolate cake came out dense and really chocolatey, so the icing balanced the cake out. Overall, everyone seemed happy and satisfied so I guess everything turned out fine.

Next time:
try out chocolate glaze.

recipe from marthastewart.com

5.27(?).10 New York Crumb Cake

Cake!

Crumbs!

Library! ...depressing.

I don't remember when I made these... I just remember that I baked them before finals week.

I've made these before and Sarah REALLY liked them. Last time I substituted leftover heavy cream for the milk and they tasted great, but the batter was definitely thick. I baked the cake in an 8x8in. pyrex pan instead of a 9x12.5in. pan and they came out perfectly. I also had an overabundance of crumbs, but Sarah and Megan ended up eating those on their own.

This time around, I used milk, didn't have Sarah and Megan at hand, but I was forgetful in general. Obviously, things didn't turn out as well. First, I forgot that the recipe just says "4cups all purpose flour" when you're actually supposed to separate it into 1 1/2cups for the batter and 2 1/2cups for the crumbs. Confusing. Second, since I used milk, the batter was a lot more watery than before. It could have filled up a 9x12in. pan, but I used the 8x8 instead. Third, I forgot that the recipe makes an inordinate amount of crumbs. I piled up as much as I could and ate the rest with Emilia, but couldn't finish them off. I threw away the rest. The cake rose more than I remember.

The cake was still good though, but I prefer the denser one I made with heavy cream. But nothing really matters when you're dying from finals and you just want to stuff your face in misery anyway...

Next time:
1. don't forget to split the flour

If using HEAVY CREAM-
2. use 8x8in. pan
3. reduce crumb recipe by half

If using MILK-
4. use 9x12in. pan

recipe from marthastewart.com

5.21.10 carrot tea cake with cream cheese frosting

Carrot cake is one of those foods that confuse me. Why would you ever think of putting vegetable in a cake? It's also one thing to make a savory cake using vegetables; it's another to make a sweet cake out of them... Though I guess it doesn't matter in the end because it's good anyway.

I made this cake partly because Mallory had asked me to before. She loves carrot cake, which is a little weird because she doesn't like vegetables. Try and make her eat salad; most likely she'll refuse, albeit politely. If making carrot cake makes Mallory eat vegetables and prevents her from getting scurvy, I will proudly bake it no matter how tedious it is (it isn't, but I'm lazy).

Another reason for baking this cake was that I had bought cream cheese for frosting a while back expressly for carrot cakes, and I was beginning to worry that it was going to rot soon (to those who have had a piece: don't worry, it wasn't close to rotting... I just like to panic). We also had a lot of neglected carrots in our refrigerator that were beginning to grow purplish leaves. They were a little disconcerting, but I figured they were fine to eat. I had all of the ingredients in the apartment, so I set out to bake the cake.

While preparing the batter, I encountered a problem: the number of carrots necessary to fill 1 cup. So Martha Stewart's recipe calls for a cup of carrots. In parenthesis, it says that 2 carrots should suffice. Martha must have some pretty large carrots growing in her garden because I had to grate probably 5 carrots total to reach 1 cup. Not that that was an issue... Recently, I bought a whole bag of carrots for some odd reason, even though I knew full well that we had neglected carrots. Lucky me, I didn't have to run to the market to pick any up.

The rest of the baking went smoothly. The cake itself came out drier than I wanted it to be, but that's probably because I used an 8x8 pan than the one that the recipe calls for. After I made the batter, I realized that perhaps using sprouting carrots would make the cake less sweet. Indeed it did. But overall the cake came out fine and the cream cheese icing definitely made up for the lack of sweetness and moisture in the cake itself, so everything was okay.

For next time:
1. use carrots that are NOT sprouting weird purplish leaves
2. take out the cake earlier than 40 minutes

recipe from marthastewart.com