Cake Slice Bakers - October 2010: Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Pound Cake

I am really excited. This past month I joined the Cake Slice Bakers!! Whoo which means cake every month! (can’t complain about that now can you?) Well the cake book we will be baking from is called Cake Keeper Cakes by Lauren Chattman and this is the first cake I have baked from it and it all cakes turn out as good as this one did, it’s going to be a good year :)

Now this is the first recipe I’ve ever made with pumpkin and I’m really proud of my self that it turned out soo good. The cake is really moist and it still tastes very good the second or third day. For the bath that I kept for home I made into cupcakes because I wanted to use my Halloween cupcake liners and the second batch, which I gave to my ex-piano teacher was in the traditional loaf shape. And after baking for 3ish hours the house smelled soooo good. I did make a few changes though. I wasn’t able to used ground cloves because by the time I got home from grocery shopping I realized we didn’t have ground cloved and I was too lazy to make the trip to the grocery store so I omitted that and also it called for walnuts and I would have loved to put them in, but I knew my sister would never even try it if it had even the tiniest hint to nuts in it, so I reluctantly took that out of the recipe as well.

I was a little hesitent to make these into cupcakes because i had no clue what the timing would be, but they turned out just fine :)

 Baked to perfection. They were springy and moist, just like the book said it should be.

mmmmm. This recipe is deffinately a keeper.  

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Pound Cake
adapted from Cake Keeper Cakes by Lauren Chattman
makes 8-10 servings per loaf (with cupcakes I got 17 cupcakes)

Ingredients
1 3/4 cups all purpose flour

1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp ground cloves (omitted)
Pinch nutmeg
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
1 1/4 cups sugar
3 eggs
1 cup canned pumpkin puree
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/3 cup milk (used 2%)
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips (used 2/3 cups mini)
1 cup chopped walnuts (omitted)

Directions

1. Heat the oven to 350F. Coat the inside of a 9 x 5 inch loaf pan with nonstick cooking spray and dust with flour. To make cupcakes just line a cupcake tin with cupcake liner.
2. Combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, salt, cloves and nutmeg in a medium mixing bowl.
3. Combine the butter and sugar in a large mixing bowl and cream with an electric mixer on medium high speed until fluffy, about 3 minutes, scraping down the sides of the bowl once or twice as necessary.
4. With the mixer on medium low speed, add the eggs, one at a time, scraping down the sides of the bowl after each addition. Stir in the pumpkin puree and vanilla. Stir in the milk.
5. Turn the mixer to low speed and add the flour mixture, ½ cup at a time, scraping down the sides of the bowl after each addition. Stir in the chocolate chips and walnuts. Scrape the batter into the prepared pan and smooth the top with a rubber spatula. Bake the cake until it is firm to the touch and a toothpick inserted in the centre comes out clean, 55 minutes to 1 hour (cupcakes take about 24 minutes per batch). Let the cake cool in the pan for 5 minutes, invert it onto a wire rack and then turn it right side up on a rack to cool completely.
6. Store uneaten cake in a cake keeper at room temperature for up to 3 days or in the refrigerator, wrapped in plastic for up to 1 week.

Nutrition Facts
serving size: 1 cupcake
Calories 214.5 Total Fat 8.7 g Saturated Fat 1.9 g Polyunsaturated Fat 0.1 g Monounsaturated Fat 0.3 g Cholesterol 52.0 mg Sodium 189.1 mg Potassium 12.3 mg Total Carbohydrate 31.4 g Dietary Fiber 1.1 g Sugars 20.2 g Protein 2.7 g

Breakfast for Dinner - Pumpkin Pancakes

I am definitely getting into the Fall spirit. I am getting more into pumpkin too. There is a pumpkin patch on 287 in Colorado called Rock Creek Pumpkins and you get to pick your own pumpkins from the vine and it is so much fun. Well while I was standing in line with my mom to pay for the pumpkins I spotted their pumpkin pancake mix and it looked really, really good. So I asked my mom if I could get it and she said yes. (By the way this place, Rock Creek Farm, has the BEST pumpkin bread ever. I seriously wait all year for this bread!) Well I looked on the instructions after I got it and it said that I needed pumpkin butter and after looking like a moron in my local grocery store looking for the pumpkin butter I finally found it by the jelly, haha.


Well a week went by and I still hadn’t made the pumpkin pancakes and this week is kind of make your own dinner night because my mom has been coming home late and I took this to be the perfect opportunity to make my pumpkin pancakes!

I know this might be kind of weird because the ingredients aren’t really local for people unless you live in Colorado and happen to go to Rock Creek Farm, but I haven’t blogged in a while and I just wanted to share my enthusiasm for these amazing pancakes! :)

bubbles popping :P, also the house smalled amazing after this!

 first pancake always burns, oh well

 adding the chocolate chips! mmm

 stack of pancakes! :P for once it made the number that it was supposed to

 pumpkin pancake mix

 the best pumpkin bread I've ever eaten!

For this I used the egg whites and it turned out really nice. I also added some mini chocolate chips to a couple of the pancakes and it made it even better! :)

Ingredients
makes eight 4" pancakes
1 egg (or 2 egg whites)
2/3 cup of milk
1/4 cup pumpkin butter or pumkin pie mix
1 cup of Rock Creek Farm pumpkin pancake mix

Directions

1. preheat your griddle to 400 degrees F
2. Beat egg and milk together. Once its mixed together add the pumpkin butter (or pie mix) and beat until fully incorporated. Then add in the 1 cup of pancake mix and whisk together until combined.
3. Lightly grease your griddle (I used a regular pan) and put 1/4 cup of mix into it. Once bubbles start to pop flip over once.

It's Finally October!

I am so glad its finally October! I absolutely love this month and plus it feels like fall now :D I don’t care what the calendar or the news reporters say, I don’t believe it’s fall until the first of October. I love the smell of autumn and the food it brings, especially the dessert type foods! Yum. This year I might actually carve my pumpkin for Halloween. I’ve always been afraid because I don’t like the pumpkin guts but hey, maybe this year will be the year…


Now that I have said what was needed to be said I would like to present to you Chocolate Bat Cookies! So these were an impulse bake. The Betty Crocker Two Holidays: One Packed Cookbook magazine was on my bed (because someone keeps forgetting to help build my second bookshelf *cough*) and I’m like, you know what it’s October and I think it’s time to start baking Halloween goodies. So I flipped through the magazine and I came upon the chocolate bat cookies. I had seen them before and I said I would make them and by golly I did! They were really fun and I had to make a few adjustments to the decorating part but I don’t care. I’m not sure what to call them. They kind of have the consistency of shortbread but it tasted better than the chocolate shortbread that I made last year for Christmas, either way they were pretty good. 3.5/5

 the dough was kind of hard to work with but they still turned out pretty

finished product and they taste pretty good too.

 
Chocolate Bat Cookies
from the Betty Crocker Two Holidays: One Packed Cookbook magazine
makes about 4 dozen cookies (I got 45 cookies)
 
Ingredients
3/4 cup butter, softened
1 1/3 cups granulated sugar
1 large egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups Gold Medal all-purpose flour (I used Pillsbury so I don't think it makes a difference)
3/4 cups unsweetened baking cocoa
1/8 tsp salt
2 tbsp red cinnamon candies (96 candies) (omited)
black decorator sugar cookies (omited)
colorful decorater gel
 
Directions

1. In a large bowl, beat butter, granulated sugar, egg and vanilla with electric mixer on medium speed. Stir in flour cocoa and salt. Divide dough in half and flatten each portion into a disk. Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 1 hour.
2. heat oven to 375 degrees F. on lightly floured surface, roll one prtion of dough at a time 1/8 inch thick. (Keep remaining dough in refrigerator until ready to roll.) Cut with 4 1/2 inch bat-shaped cookie cutter (I used bat, pumpkin and ghost). Place two red cinnamon candies on each cookie for eyes. Sprinkle with sugar crystals. On ungreased baking sheet, place cookies about 1 inch apart.
3. Bake 8-10 (8.5 minutes was good enough for me) or until edges are set. Cool 1 minute and transfer onto cooling rack.
4. I omited the candies and sugar crystals and baked the cookies then once they were cooled I decorated them with a colorful gel type thing 

Nutrition Facts
amount per serving (1 cookie):
Calories 71.9 Total Fat 3.3 g Saturated Fat 1.9 g Polyunsaturated Fat 0.1 g Monounsaturated Fat 0.9 g Cholesterol 13.0 mg Sodium 3.5 mg Potassium 2.6 mg Total Carbohydrate 9.8 g Dietary Fiber 0.4 g Sugars 6.1 g Protein 0.8 g

Do You Know the Muffin Man?

I don’t know why but the other day I just had a craving for chocolate chip muffins and my dad had bought jumbo cranberry orange, and chocolate-chocolate chip muffins and even though they were good once they were warmed up they just didn’t satisfy me. So, the past couple of days I have been looking through chocolate chip muffin recipes and I would either find pumpkin chocolate chip muffins (which I think would taste good but I refuse to use pumpkin before October), blueberry muffins (I don’t like blueberries) or banana chocolate chip muffins and I don’t like banana either. But finally I found this recipe for regular chocolate chip muffins and I like them a lot! It's moist and light. It's hard to get it all out of the liner but I think if I had cooked it a little longer I wouldn't have that problem. The chocolate chips are also really good, it adds a nice little surprise in the end :). Another bright side to this is these muffins are pretty healthy for you too! 

I would also like to mention this is the first time I've ever made muffins and I think I did a pretty good job :D The muffins probably could have been cooked for a little longer but I was too impatient and wanted them out of the oven.  8/10

The batter looked so smooth and creamy :)

Batter filled cups

now they are cooling, waiting so be consumed me me!

Chocolate Chip Muffins

slightly adapted from Shannon's webside Cooking Done Light

makes 12 muffins (I got 12 muffins plus 8 mini miffins)

Ingredients

1 1/3 cups whole wheat pastry flour (1 cup whole wheat flour)

2/3 cups all-pupose flour (1 cup all-pupose flour)

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

1 whole egg + 1 egg white

1 cup plain, fat free yogurt (I used Dannon's fat free, plain greek yogurt)

2 tbsp canola oil

1/2 cup skim milk (I used 2% milk)

1/3 cup light brown sugar

2 tsp vanilla extract

3/4 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips

Directions

1. 
   
   Preheat oven to 400 degrees F and line muffin tin with paper liners
2. 
   
   In a large bowl combine the flours, baking powder, baking soda, and salt
3. 
   
   In another bowl whisk together eggs, yogurt, oil, milk, sugar, and vailla extract. Add the wet to the dry ingredients and sirt until everything is smooth and moist. Fold in the chocolate chips
4. 
   
   Fill muffin tins 2/3 full and bake 20-25 minutes, or until goldenbrown on the top and when tooth pick is inserted it come out clean.

(estimated) Nutrition Facts

per serving (1 muffin or 2 mini muffins):

Calories 154.2 Total Fat 5.3 g Saturated Fat 2.2 g Polyunsaturated Fat 0.6 g Monounsaturated Fat 1.1 g Cholesterol 14.8 mg Sodium 231.2 mg Potassium 19.7 mg Total Carbohydrate 22.9 g Dietary Fiber 1.0 g Sugars 11.4 g Protein 4.4 g

Monster PB and Oatmeal Cookies

So a few weekends ago...or maybe last weekend, my dad got this recipe from one of his friends from high school over facebook and he asked me to make them. I said yeah because oatmeal and peanut butter are just an amazing combination! Well long story short I halved the recipe and I wasn't really measuring correctly and I just went willy nilly with the ingredients and they turned out good but I also omitted the m&ms that were supposed to go in. Then, on Friday my dad tells me that his friend wants me to try them with m&ms and I'm like YEAH! because I wanted to try it again but by then I knew I wouldn't be able to handle half the recipe so I cut it to 1/3 of the recipe and added in the m&ms and by God they are really truly amazing things. (and when you read the full recipe you'll understand why i cut it to 1/3)

little uncooked dough balls :)

the finished product

Monster Peanut Butter Oatmeal Cookies

from my dad's friend, Anne 

makes: too many to count (by thirding the recipe i got 71 cookies and 1 jumbo cookie)

Ingredients

12 eggs (4 eggs)

1 tbsp vanilla extract (1/2 tbsp vanilla extract)

8 tsp baking soda (2 2/3 tsp baking soda)

18 cups oatmeal (6 cups oatmeal)

3 lbs peanut butter (not reduced fat) (1 lbs peanut butter)

2 pounds brown sugar (2/3 lbs brown sugar {about 2.5 cups})

4 cups sugar (1 1/3 cup sugar)

1 lbs margarine (soft) (1/3 lbs {10 tbsp} margarine)

1 lbs chocolate chips (about 1/3 lbs chocolate chips) 

1 lbs m&ms (about half of a 12oz bag of m&ms)

Directions

1. 
   
   Preheat oven to 350 degrees F
2. 
   
   Beat eggs in a HUGE bowl.
3. 
   
   Add remaining ingredients in order (you will definitely be working with your hands...)
4. 
   Roll the dough into about 1 in. round balls and place on an ungreased baking sheet and spread about 1.5in apart. If you like thin and crisp cookies then you can smush them down to create 1.5 in disks.
5. 
   
   Bake for 12-15 minutes (mine came out perfect at 12 minutes)

**side note: cookies freeze well if you want to save them

(estimated) Nutrition Facts

Per Serving (one cookie):

Calories 121.7 Total Fat 5.6 g Saturated Fat 1.4 g Polyunsaturated Fat 0.5 g Monounsaturated Fat 0.6 g Cholesterol 12.3 mg Sodium 95.0 mg Potassium 21.0 mg Total Carbohydrate 18.1 g Dietary Fiber 1.1 g Sugars 12.8 g Protein 2.6 g

Biscuit Attempt

So last weekend I was shopping for my sister's 15th birthday that is coming up and while I was eating lunch at the food court I saw William Sonoma and I hadn't been there in ages. I know their stuff is pricey but sometimes they have good deals...maybe...right? Well I convinced my mom (it didn't take much) to take a detour from present shopping and go in there. Well after a while of looking through the store (everything was so shiny and pretty... I wanted to buy it all *.*) I found biscuit cutters! I know I could probably find cheaper biscuit cutters somewhere else but it was an impulse buy because I really wanted to make biscuits. I had never done this from scratch, and usually my family buys the ones in a can that I'm afraid to open because I don't like how it bursts open. Well last night I decided I would make biscuits for breakfast and went to Taste of Home and I found this recipe. It sounded pretty good, and I have a ton of flour (whole wheat, all-purpose, and bread flour) that I've been trying to use up because there's like 3 bags and one container full of the stuff. Long story short, many people gave this an awesome review and it had 4 stars :) you can't beat that, so I printed out the recipe and baked them this morning. In the end I didn't really like them as much as I wanted to. they were good just not the best I've ever had (aka the bread rolls at Red Lobster :P yum!). They also didn't rise as much as I expected but that might have to do with the altitude of the mile high state or maybe I just rolled them too thin... 3.5/5

maybe I rolled it out too thin?

I just think this is a cool shoot

you can see my eye...which is kind of creepy, but look how good my biscuits look!

final product

Fluffy Whole Wheat Biscuits

from Taste of Home

makes 12 biscuits (I got 14)

Ingredients

1 cup all-purpose flour

1 cup whole wheat flour

4 teaspoons baking powder
1 tablespoon sugar
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup cold butter, cubed
1 cup milk (I used 2%)

Directions

1. In a medium bowl, combine flours, baking powder, sugar, and salt; mix well. Cut in butter until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Stir in milk just until moistened.
2. Turn out onto a lightly floured surface; knead gently 8 to 10 times (whoops I miss read that and though it said minutes... luckily I though that was too long and only did it for 3 minutes). Roll to 3/4-in. thickness; cut with a 2-1/2-in. biscuit cutter and place on an ungreased baking sheet. Bake at 450° for 10-12 minutes or until lightly browned. Serve warm.

(based on Taste of Home site)
Nutrition Facts:
1 serving (1 each)
 122 calories, 5 g fat (3 g saturated fat), 13 mg cholesterol, 330 mg sodium, 17 g carbohydrate, 2 g fiber, 3 g protein.

...and in the morning, I'm making waffles!

So yesterday my mom told me that she's having her friend over for Labor Day for a brunch because she couldn't find a restaurant that would be open and have a brunch for today (go figure...). Well she asked me to make waffles because i do love making things and it would help her out, so i yes YES!

I usually make waffles and pancakes out of a box mix but lately I've been frustrated with the box mix because the little closey/open tab thing annoys me so i decided to make the waffles from scratch. I remembered that Alton Brown had an episode about making waffles and i wanted to try it out. So, I went to foodnetwork.com and got the Basic Waffle Recipe (only after reading the reviews to see if i should change anything or not even make them).

They were really fun to make and my mom, dad, sister, and mom's co-worker seem to really like them. I haven't eaten them yet because it was too late for breakfast for me, but I might have them for dessert later tonight....if there's any left that is.

the batter :)

I had to hurry with this one because i didn't want it to cook on one side more than the other.

Doesn't it look magnificent?

ta-daaaaa!

Cinnamon Waffles
adapted from Alton Brown's basic waffle recipe
makes 6 8" round waffles (I got 10 6" round waffles)

Ingredients
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
3 tbsp sugar
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
3 large eggs
1/4 cup butter, melted
2 cups room temperature buttermilk (I used low fat and it wasn't room temperature)
vegtable oil spray for greasing

Directions 

1. Preheat your waffle maker
2. In a medium bowl whisk together the flours, salt, sugar, baking powder, and baking soda. In a separate bowl mix together the melted butter and the eggs together until well blended, then add the buttermilk. 
3. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and stir until combined. Then add the vanilla and the ground cinnamon and gently stir. Let the batter rest for 5 minutes.
4. Ladle batter onto greased waffle maker and cook until both sides or a golden brown. Serve immediately or keep in an oven at 200 degrees F until ready to serve.  

(based on what the ammount I made)
Nutrition Facts
Per Serving:
Calories 189.6 Total Fat 6.8 g Saturated Fat 3.7 g Polyunsaturated Fat 0.5 g Monounsaturated Fat 2.1 g Cholesterol 78.2 mg Sodium 415.8 mg Potassium 121.5 mg Total Carbohydrate 25.6 g Dietary Fiber 0.7 g Sugars 6.2 g Protein 6.1 g