Chocolate Microwave Cake

Finally...a microwave cake recipe I would make again. Believe me, I've searched and searched for a good one. On Saturday, my twitter feed had one from Food Network about an instant chocolate cake. I had all the ingredient so I went for it.

Instant Chocolate Cake
courtesy Food Network

Directions
Whisk 1/4 cup flour, 5 tablespoons sugar, 2 tablespoons cocoa powder, 1 egg, 3 tablespoons milk, 3 tablespoons vegetable oil and a dash of vanilla extract and salt in a large mug until smooth. Microwave until puffed, about 2 minutes.

We made this in a cappucino mug because it was so much and I'm glad we did. It puffed up and would have overflowed in a regular mug. Whitney and I split it so this makes enough for two.

Carrot Cake Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting

Today is my birthday and rather than take the day off from work, I decided to work and bake cupcakes to take in to share. I love to bake and I don't do it anymore because really how much can I eat without turning into a blob of sugar.

So I decided to make carrot cake (healthy right...wink wink) into cupcakes so it was easier to transport. I searched high and low for a recipe that didn't have nuts (don't really care for them) and I found this one at Gimme Some Oven. Of course I don't have a food processor so had to grate my carrots by hand, but otherwise I followed it pretty well. It ended up with almost 30 cupcakes.

Carrot Cake Cupcakes

Cupcake Ingredients:
2½ cups (12.5 oz) all-purpose flour
1¼ tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
1¼ tsp. ground cinnamon
½ tsp. grated nutmeg
½ tsp. ground ginger
1/8 tsp. ground cloves
½ tsp. salt
1 lb. (6-7 medium) carrots, peeled
1½ cups (10.5 oz) granulated sugar
½ cup packed light brown sugar
4 large eggs
1½ cups canola, safflower or vegetable oil

Preheat the oven to 350° F. Line cupcake pans with 24 paper liners. In a medium mixing bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda, spices and salt; whisk together and set aside.

In a food processor fitted with a shredding disk, shred the carrots (you should have about 3 cups). Add the carrots to the bowl with the dry ingredients and set aside. Rinse out the bowl of the food processor and fit with the metal blade. Process the sugars and eggs until frothy and thoroughly combined, about 20 seconds. With the machine running, add the oil in a steady stream through the feed tube. Continue to process until the mixture is light in color and well emulsified, about 20 more seconds. Transfer the mixture to a large mixing bowl. Stir in the carrots and dry ingredients until incorporated and no streaks of flour remain.

Scoop evenly into the prepared cupcake liners, so that each is about 2/3 full. Bake for about 20-24 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Let cool in the pan at least 5 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

I didn't like her frosting recipe so I just used the one from Kraft.

The cupcakes were moist and flavored delicately. I'm really excited that I made these and everyone loves them.

Pumpkin Snickerdoodle Cookies

I made my first pumpkin recipe of the year last night. Whitney wanted to take something back to school today and it had to have pumpkin, so I made a recipe I had pinned on Pinterest. I haven't had the best of luck with my recipes there but this one is definitely a keeper.

I could tell it was going to be good just from the batter. You ever get one of those feelings like everything is coming together terrifically and it can't fail. Yeah, that's the feeling I got with this one.

Pumpkin Snickerdoodle Cookies
Recipe from Fake Ginger

Ingredients
For the cookies:
1 cup (2 sticks) salted butter, at room temperature
1 cup granulated white sugar
½ cup light brown sugar
¾ cup pumpkin puree
1 large egg
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
3¾ cups all-purpose flour
1½ teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon

For the cinnamon sugar:
½ cup granulated white sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon


Instructions
1. In a large bowl, use an electric mixer to cream the butter until fluffy. Add sugars and pumpkin puree and beat well. Mix in egg and vanilla, scraping down sides of the bowl to incorporate all of the ingredients.
2. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, salt and ground cinnamon. Beat flour mixture into liquid mixture a little at a time just until incorporated.
3. Cover dough with plastic and chill at least an hour, or until dough becomes slightly firm.
4. When ready to bake, preheat oven to 350F. Line baking sheets with parchment paper (or spray with nonstick spray). Mix rolling sugar ingredients in a small bowl.
5. Remove cookie dough from refrigerator. Use a medium cookie scoop (1½ Tablespoons) or a large spoon to scoop out dough and roll into balls. Use your hands to roll the balls in the cinnamon sugar and make sure they’re coated really well. Place 2 inches apart on the prepared baking sheets. Use a glass with a nice, flat bottom to dip in sugar and flatten the balls.
6. Bake for 10 to 14 minutes, or until they are slightly firm to the touch. Let cool on baking sheets for 5 minutes or so, then remove them to a wire rack to cool completely.

We love snickerdoodle cookies in our house. Our normal recipe includes cinnamon chips (super tasty). I never smash my cookie balls down before baking but I followed the recipe like written. These flattened nicely by doing that. One dozen I decided to not flatten them and they stayed in a ball. Still tasty but not as cute.

After eating one when it was cooling I knew it was blog worthy. Dan said wait until they cool since they always taste different then. I said I was confident since by that time everyone had had two cookies. 

No Sugar Apple Pie - Crazy Cooking Challenge

It's back! Yes, the Crazy Cooking Challenge in its year two format. You can get your recipe from anywhere, even make it up yourself. While I would not do that, I will go to Allrecipes.com to look for one.

This month is apple pie. Dan loves apple pie so much that I've actually made it for his birthday before. One of my early cooking memories when married was when I wanted to make him one. I didn't realize that paring an apple meant to peel it. Needless to say I have learned since then.

Since we are trying to cut back on calories and our normal recipe has lots of brown sugar, I wanted to find one that had none. Enter the no sugar apple pie. Dan was skeptical since he loves that brown sugar goodness but since I was cooking him a pie, he let me go for it. I don't make my own crust after the thanksgiving debacle years ago that had me breaking down in tears so I used store bought crusts. I think they taste fine.

No Sugar Apple Pie
Courtesy of allrecipes.com

6 cups thinly sliced apples (I used gala and Granny Smith)
3 T cornstarch
1 T ground cinnamon
12 ounces unsweetened apple juice concentrate
2 pie crusts

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Whisk together cornstarch, cinnamon, and 1/4 apple juice concentrate.

In a saucepan over medium heat, simmer the apples in the remaining apple juice until tender. Add the cornstarch mixture and stir until thickened.

Pour into bottom crust and cover with top crust. Bake for 45 minutes.

Pretty easy. The longest part was peeling and slicing apples. The taste was very cinnamony. I would cut that back because you could taste the rawness of that much cinnamon. I really didn't miss the sugar. Dan said that if you didn't know it was no sugar you would think it had it.

I'm not the best at making my pie look pretty.



I think this would be a nice dessert to have if you have a diabetic in the family.





I wonder how many apple pie recipes people will come up with. Look at the list below to find out.

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Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

Whitney's new little sis in the sorority likes oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. One day of this upcoming week is baking day where they give new little homemade cookies. Since she doesn't have a kitchen in her room I decided to be nice and make them for her. She was down for about an hour today getting a few other things so I was baking when she came through the door. These are pretty tasty.

Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies
Recipe courtesy of Betty Crocker

1 1/2 cups brown sugar
1 cup butter softened
1 tsp vanilla
1 egg
2 cups quick cooking oats
1 1/2 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

Heat oven to 350. In large bowl stir brown sugar and butter until blended. Stir in vanilla and egg until light and fluffy. Stir in oats, flour, baking soda and salt. Stir in chocolate chips.

Drop dough onto parchment lined cookie sheets. I used a ice cream scooper to keep them evenly sized. Bake 9-11 minutes or until go,den brown. Cool slightly, remove from cookie sheet to wire rack.

This made about three dozen cookies for us.

S'mores Cookies

Whitney's home so that means shopping and baking. We were the guinea pigs for her test run of s'mores cookies for big/little week. Of course we were happy to submit to the taste test kitchen. She found the recipe and pinned it, isn't that how all recipes come from anymore.

S'mores Cookies
adapted from Make and Bake

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 cup graham cracker crumbs
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 dash cinnamon
1 cup butter, softened
3/4 cup sugar
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 eggs
2 cups mini chocolate chips
1 1/2 cups mini marshmallows
2 Hershey bars, chopped

Preheat 375 degrees

In medium bowl combine flour, graham cracker crumbs, baking soda, salt, cinnamon. In second bowl beat together butter,sugar, brown sugar and vanilla until creamy. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Slowly beat in the flour mixture until smooth. Stir in chocolate chips. Drop by rounded tablespoon onto ungreased cookie sheet.

Bake for 8 minutes and remove from oven. Push 3-4 marshmallows and a few pieces of Hershey bar into each cookies. Return to the oven and bake an additional 3-4 minutes until fully cooked. Cool cookies ona wire rack.

Makes approximately 4 dozen cookies.






We halved the recipe and made about two dozen cookies. We still used two Hershey bars but everything else was cut in half. They were very chewy (yum) and tasted like toffee (double yum). The dough was super tasty. I wouldn't say that it wasn't necessarily s'more tasting, but definitely yummy.

This is a keeper recipe.

Two Minute Mug Brownie

My sweet tooth got the best of me last night so I tried one of those microwave cake recipes that are going around. This one was for a brownie. The two minutes refers to all the time it takes to make.

I found the recipe on Babble.http://blogs.babble.com/family-kitchen/2011/09/13/two-minute-mug-brownie/

1/4 cup flour
1/4 cup brown sugar
2T unsweetened cocoa powder
Pinch of salt
2T oil
2T milk, water or coffee

In heatproof mug or ramekin stir dry ingredients together until no lumps. Stir in liquids until you have a paste.

Microwave 1 minute checking after 30 seconds. It depends on your microwave strength for time. Brownie should be spongy on top but gooey inside.

I think I cooked mine a few second too long because I didn't have gooey. This is super rich and I could only eat half of it. I will definitely do this again just with a different recipe. Super easy.





Dry ingredients in my cute Beagle mug




The finished product.

Crazy Cooking Challenge - No Bake Oreo Cheesecake

After taking a couple of months off from the challenge, I had to rejoin when I heard the recipe of the month was cheesecake. I love cheesecake even if it doesn't love me. Who can resist all that creaminess and so many different toppings/flavors? All you have to do is look at the cheesecake menu at The Cheesecake Factory and you know what I mean.

Of course with it being the hottest part of the year (100+ temperatures...yuck) and a baked cheesecake takes at least an hour to cook, I decided to make a no-bake one. I would so love to try my hand at baking one again. My last attempt didn't turn out at all like the picture in the recipe (Pumpkin Cheesecake) but it was still tasty. But I wanted no-bake. After consulting with my dessert expert (Whitney) we decided we wanted an oreo cookie cheesecake. If I'm going to eat all those calories, by golly I'm going with something that has chocolate in it. And who can pass up an Oreo? It is after all the 100th anniversary of that cookie.

I searched all over the place for a recipe. I did find one that looked delicious but my goodness the amount of steps and stovetop cooking needed to make it just made me look elsewhere. Since the rules changed last month about being able to use a recipe from anywhere, I went to the Kraft website. (I know I took the easy way, but I'm serious about not turning my oven on for 2 months). There I found a recipe that looked easy and delicious. So I made it.

No Bake Oreo Cheesecake
(recipe from Kraft Foods)

9 OREO Cookies, divided
1 tub (8 oz.) COOL WHIP LITE Whipped Topping, thawed, divided
1 pkg. (8 oz.) PHILADELPHIA Neufchatel Cheese, softened
1/2 cup sugar
1 cup vanilla low-fat yogurt
1 OREO Pie Crust (6 oz.)

HALVE 4 of the cookies; reserve for garnish. Finely chop remaining cookies; set aside. Remove 1 cup of the whipped topping; store in tightly covered container in refrigerator to use as a garnish.

BEAT Neufchatel and sugar in large bowl with electric mixer on medium speed until well blended. Add yogurt; mix well. Gently stir in the remaining whipped topping and the chopped cookies. Spoon into crust.

REFRIGERATE 3 hours or until firm. Top with the reserved whipped topping and cookie halves just before serving. Store leftover pie in refrigerator.

So the changes I made to the recipe was I used a chocolate pie crust. I couldn't find a oreo one. (I think the oreo one would have added something so if you have one, use it). I also put all of the cool whip into the cream cheese mixture and didn't keep any out. I think it helped make the filling a little lighter. We also used the reduced fat oreos. I had no idea they made so many different types of cookie now.

I figured out the calories of one slice (1/8 of the pie) was 375. Which for a cheesecake isn't too bad.

Our overall impression was that it was tasty but we missed a real cheesecake's density and flavor. It had a tang to it but not as pronounced as when you use real cream cheese. I did appreciate that it was cold and didn't heat my house up to make.




Let's go see what other delights people came up this month!

Cake Batter Puppy Chow

Whitney wanted to take her friends at work a treat her last day so she tried a new recipe. She loves to make puppy chow since it just microwaves but one of the girls is allergic to peanut butter. So she tried this new recipe. Super easy and delicious.

Cake Batter Puppy Chow
Courtesy of food.com

5 cups Chex cereal (she used rice)
10 ounces vanilla flavored almond bark
1 1/2 cups yellow cake mix
1/2 cup powdered sugar

Melt almond bark according to package. Add shortening if it needs thinning. We added about a teaspoon.
Pour the cereal, cake mix, powdered sugar into a paper Bangor container with lid.
Drizzle melted almond bark over cereal and fold top of paper bag or put lid on.
Shake bag or container until cereal is evenly coated.

Oreo Stuffed Chocolate Chip Cookies

Whitney being home means one thing, some baking is going to happen. I can't believe she made it three weeks without doing it but she made up for it with this recipe. I like to bake but don't do too many desserts because I don't need that stuff in the house just taunting me. But Whitney has no qualms about making decadent dessert. She had a work meeting today to take them to.

She found this recipe at PickyPalate and made them all by herself. When I read it I thought boy are those going to be big cookies. And they were HUGE. I actually didn't eat one but the taste tester said delicious.

Oreo Stuffed Chocolate Chip Cookies

2 sticks softened butter

3/4 Cup packed light brown sugar

1 Cup granulated sugar

2 large eggs

1 Tablespoon pure vanilla

3 1/2 Cups all purpose flour

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon baking soda

10 oz bag chocolate chips

1 bag Oreo Cookies, I used the double stuff 

1.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.   In a stand or electric mixer cream butter and sugars until well combined.  Add in eggs and vanilla until well combined.

2.  In a separate bowl mix the flour, salt and baking soda.  Slowly add to wet ingredients along with chocolate chips until just combined.  Using a cookie scoop take one scoop of cookie dough and place on top of an Oreo Cookie.  Take another scoop of dough and place on bottom of Oreo Cookie.  Seal edges together by pressing and cupping in hand until Oreo Cookie is enclosed with dough.  Place onto a parchment or silpat lined baking sheet and bake cookies 9-13 minutes or until cookies are baked to your liking.  Let cool for 5 minutes before transferring to cooling rack.  Serve with a tall glass of milk, enjoy!

Makes about 2 dozen VERY LARGE Cookies 

Pumpkin Bars

Today is our annual fundraiser for the United Way and we have a soup kitchen. I decided rather than bring soup I would make dessert. I pulled out an old recipe and boy am I glad I did. The house smelled so good. They were very easy to make and I'm sure they are going to go fast today.

Pumpkin Bars
Recipe courtesy of Food Network - Paula Dean

Bars:

• 4 eggs
• 1 2/3 cups granulated sugar
• 1 cup vegetable oil
• 15-ounce can pumpkin
• 2 cups sifted all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon baking soda

Icing:

• 8-ounce package cream cheese, softened
• 1/2 cup butter or margarine, softened
• 2 cups sifted confectioners' sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Using an electric mixer at medium speed, combine the eggs, sugar, oil and pumpkin until light and fluffy. Stir together the flour, baking powder, cinnamon, salt and baking soda. Add the dry ingredients to the pumpkin mixture and mix at low speed until thoroughly combined and the batter is smooth. Spread the batter into a greased 13 by 10-inch baking pan. Bake for 30 minutes. Let cool completely before frosting. Cut into bars.

To make the icing: Combine the cream cheese and butter in a medium bowl with an electric mixer until smooth. Add the sugar and mix at low speed until combined. Stir in the vanilla and mix again. Spread on cooled pumpkin bars.