When Life Gives you Ingredients...

...Bake!


When someone gives you ingredients, the only thing to do is think of all the recipes that they the ingredient can be used in. Today I got three very ripe bananas, oh the recipes that come to mind. Blueberry Banana Muffins, Banana Pudding, Banana nut muffins, and the list goes on.

Lucky recipe of tonight....Chocolate Banana Bread!

I made this delicious bread the night before I left for spring break. I was off adventuring in Germany for 10 amazing days. I don't usually sleep on planes so I thought it might help to stay up really late the night before and bake.

I think the best part of loving to cook is having so many cookbooks that you are guarunteed to have one with the recipe you are looking for. Oh another perk, is having extra batter to make muffins!!

Banana & Chocolate Loaf
From Baking Cookbook

Ingredients
~1 stick Butter
~2 ripe bananas
~1/2 cup sugar
~2 eggs
~1 1/2 cups self-rising flour
~1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
~1 tsp baking powder
~1-2 tbsp milk
~1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips (I used broken Hershey's Bars that I found in the freezer)

1. Grease loaf pan and flour. Peel bananas and mash in large bowl

2. Add butter, sugar, eggs, then sift flour, cocoa, and baking powder to bowl. Mix well until well blended. Add milk. Stir in chocolate chips

3. Spoon mixture into loaf pan and bake at 350 degrees for 50-60 minutes. Let cool on rack for about 5 mintues then turn out and cool completely.


~Baking the World a better place!

Marble Blondies

I hate studying, frankly I'm not a huge fan of school, but it's gotta get done. So for a wee bit of motivation I study for a specific time then treat myself to a baking adventure then while it's in the oven I can study some more. Well, lack of motivation is even worse this week because on Thursday I am flying to Germany for 10 days for Spring Break. In order to get some studying done for my French exam tomorrow, I promised myself I would bake. Luckily for me, I had the right ingredients. I'm a huge fan of brownies, but sometimes it's good to branch out from good ol' chocolate brownies. this recipe incorporates two of my favorite things: chocolate and peanut butter...yuuuum!

This recipe is based off another Peanut Butter Chip bag recipe.

Ingredients

•  1 stick butter
• 1/3 cup peanut butter
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 cup packed light brown sugar
• 3 eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 cups all purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 10-oz bag of milk chocolate chips
• 1/2 chocolate syrup

Instructions
1. preheat oven to 350 degrees and grease 13x9 baking pan
2. Beat butter and peanut butter in large bowl. Add sugar and brown sugar and beat well. Add in eggs one and a time and beat well. Add in vanilla
3. Stir together flour, baking powder, and salt then mix into peanut butter mixture. Make sure to blend well. Stir in chocolate chips.
4. Spread half of batter in pan then pour chocolate syrup on top. Next spread other half of batter to create a marbled look on top.
5. Bake for 35-40 minutes
6. I recommend eating warm with vanilla ice cream (sadly, we didn't have the ice cream)

Not only to I benefit from these baking ventures, but my room mates do as well, and they love it. When I'm baking, I know I've always got bowl cleaners close by.

Baking the world a better place!

Mocha Muffins

I've been jones-ing for muffins lately. So, with my wonderful Muffin cookbook, I put together a quick recipe of my own. This cookbook is amazing. Not only does it give recipes for sweet muffins, savory muffins, appetizer muffins, fruity muffins, and even healthy muffins (woah), but it includes a basic muffin recipe. The book is called 1 Mix, 100 Muffins and all I want to do it bake all the muffins in the world with it!

The muffins are great because there is only a hint of coffe which enhances the chocolate flavor. I recommend spreading a little butter on the muffins and eating while warm!

Ingredients

2 tbsp instant coffee

2 tbsp boiling water

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

1 tbsp baking powder

1/8 tsp salt

heaping 1/2 cup firmly packed light brown sugar

2 large eggs

1/2 heavy cream

6 tbsp sunflower oil or melted butter

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees

2. grease muffin tin

3. sift together flour, baking powder, salt, and cocoa powder

4. stir in light brown sugar

5. lightley beat eggs, then beat in the cream, oil, and coffee

6.  add in dry ingredients to wet ingredients, make sure not to over mix

7. spoon into muffin tin, bake for 15-20 minutes

-Baking the world a better place!

Decadently Dark Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ladies and Gentlement, presenting my BEAU-tiful new KitchenAid Mixer. I am soo happy that my wonderful parents got me this amazing mixer for my birthday. I want to use it non-stop, unfortunately, school is getting in the way. On the bright side, I used it twice today! Second delicious creation...the classic chocolate chip cookie, with dark chocolate chips of course.

Mixer in action! Cookie dough is the best part of baking cookies from scratch, the smell, taste, even the excitment of what will come out of the oven!

We had to make an executive decision, it was a tie between my boyfriend and I about which way to bake the cookies. He usually bakes the dough all together like seen below, but I love making individual cookies. Well, I got my room mate to be the tie breaker, we had decided to do a regular batch style except when I got to putting the dough on the sheet my one track mind decided to please my boyfriend, oops.

Luckily.....there was some dough left over to make a regular batch as well! Let's be honest though, no matter which way you bake 'em deliciously decadent cookies come out of the oven.

I went the old fashioned route and got the recipe for the cookies off the back of the dark chocolate chip bag. While it is an easy way to find recipes, they never fail at being delicious.

Original Nestle Toll House Dark Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ingredients:

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp. salt

1 cup (2 sticks) butter

3/4 cup sugar

3/4 packed brown sugar

1 tsp. vanilla

2 large eggs

1 (10 oz. bag) dark chocolate chips

1. preheat oven 375 degrees

2. combine flour, baking soda, and salt in small bowl

3. beat butter, sugar, brown sugar, and vanilla until creamy

4. add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each

5. gradually add flour mixture

6. stir in dark chocolate chips

-Baking the world a better place!



Twist on Buttermilk Pancakes

When I was younger, my dad would always make the best pancakes. My brother's and I would call them bonkies. Now I like to make all different kinds of pancake recipes. Usually, I am a pancakes from scratch purist, but I've recently been introduced to some enticing recipes. This recipe I found on my best friend's blog, Skinny Muffin. Even though the recipe sounded delicious, I decided to put my own flair on the recipe.

Instead of using peanut butter, I decided to add in Nutella. I am addicted to Nutella, it's almost worse than my ranch addiction. Nutella + Pancakes = Pure Happiness

 I got a new mixer for my birthday recently and have been so excited to try it out. The pancakes were the first recipe I used on my new KitchenAid Mixer. If you know anything about cooking and kitchen tools, you know that having a KitchenAid is for me better than getting a car. I believe now that with my new mixer and will be unstoppable in the kitchen.

Another twist I made to the recipe is making a strawberry syrup for the pancakes. Fruit and Nutella never goes wrong.

Twist on Peanut Butter Buttermilk Pancakes: with Nutella
From Skinny Muffin

1/2 c flour
1/2 c buttermilk
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1 tbsp sugar
Pinch of salt
1 egg white
Giant scoop nutella
1 tbsp vegetable oil

Instructions:

1. mix dry ingredients

2. add wet ingredients and mix well

3. make pancakes  

Strawberry Syrup

1. wash and cut strawberries

2. put in sauce pan with 1 cup sugar

3. let strawberries reduce to make syrup/compote

- Baking the world a better place!

Welcome Post!

Hello faithful followers!

My best friend has gotten me into blogging and I am going to try to do her justice and blog as much as possible. My primary interest is in baking. I want to be a pastry chef when I grow up (despite the fact that I am 21, I still have big dreams). Bear with me because I'm not the most eloquent writer, but let's be honest, it isn't about the writing, it's about the food and trust me my food is good. Ask anyone. Hope you enjoy my posts to follow and please comment and let me know what you think!

-Baking the world a better place!