Cookies N' Cream Brownies

So for awhile now, I've been craving a rich and chocolatey brownie. I also happened to get my hands on The Taste of Home Baking Book. This book has a great selection of brownie recipes which I can't wait to try. As I flipped through, my eyes landed on a particular recipe since it has one of my favorite ingredients: Oreo Cookies. To be honest, I think that you simply can't go wrong with anything that has Oreos because they are just so darn good. My mind for the first choice was made up. The good news is that the brownies turned out great! They are moist and not too sweet. On the downside, I didn't really taste any Oreo flavor. So if I make these again, I will definitely be adding an Oreo topping of some sort, which will also add a nice touch.

Ingredients:

• -1 package (8 ounces) cream cheese, softened
• -1/4 cup sugar
• -1 egg
• -1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 
  BROWNIE LAYER:
• -1/2 cup butter, melted
• -1/2 cup sugar
• -1/2 cup packed brown sugar
• -1/2 cup baking cocoa
• -2 eggs
• -1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• -1/2 cup all-purpose flour
• -1 teaspoon baking powder
• -12 cream-filled chocolate sandwich cookies, crushed

Directions:

• 1. In a small bowl, beat the cream cheese, sugar, egg and vanilla until smooth; set aside.
• Tip: Make sure you scrape down the bowl while beating the cream cheese mixture AND the brownie mixture. You don't want any lumps leftover inside each of the mixtures before you pour them into the pan. At the same time, don't beat the mixtures too much because it can ruin the texture of the brownie. 

2. For brownie layer, combine the butter, sugars and cocoa in a large bowl. 

• 3. Beat in eggs.

4. Combine flour and baking powder; gradually add to cocoa mixture. 

5. Stir in cookie crumbs.

6. Pour into a greased 11-in. x 7-in. baking pan.

• 7. Spoon cream cheese mixture over batter; cut through batter with a knife to swirl. 
• Tip: Don't cut through the batters too much because you don't want to mix up the batters completely. The layers should stay separate - you just want to create a swirl effect for design.

• 8. Bake at 350° for 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out with moist crumbs. 

9. Cool completely on a wire rack. Cut into bars. Store in the refrigerator.

Banana Nut Muffins

It's been one of those days again...a day when there's bananas going bad and you have to think desperately what to do with them so they don't have to be thrown away. Well, lucky for those of us out there who face this problem often (I know I do), there's tons of great recipes out there for bananas. I have a few that I want to try out. But today, I decided to try this muffin since it makes for a nice breakfast and something you can have with tea or coffee. All I have to say is, these are super moist and delicious...you cannot go wrong with making these! The recipe is from the Food Network website...here's the link: Banana Nut Muffins: Tyler Florence. For an extra pop and more yummy flavor, I added chocolate chips in a few muffins...chocolate and banana = the perfect combo. Also, I didn't have pecans, so I substituted them with walnuts. Pecans or Walnuts, with or without chocolate chips, it doesn't matter...these are amazing. Enjoyyy =)

Ingredients

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 4 overripe bananas
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, melted and cooled
• 2 eggs
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup pecans, chopped

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F and prepare a muffin pan with cupcake liners.

2. In a large bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, and salt; set aside. 

3. Mash 2 of the bananas with a fork in a small bowl so they still have a bit of texture. Put aside. 

4. With an electric mixer fitted with a wire whisk, whip the remaining 2 bananas and brown sugar together for a good 3 minutes. 

5. Add the melted butter, eggs, and vanilla and beat well, scraping down the sides of the bowl once or twice. 

6. Mix in the dry ingredients just until incorporated.

7. Fold in the nuts and the mashed bananas with a rubber spatula. 

8. Spoon the batter into the muffin tins to fill them about halfway. Give them a rap on the counter to get any air bubbles out.

9. Bake until a toothpick stuck in the muffins comes out clean, 18 to 20 minutes. 

10. Let cool for a few minutes before turning the muffins out. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Tip: Add chocolate chips to make it even more yummy:

Pecan Tarts

It's been a VERY long time since my last post. I just want to sincerely apologize for the long wait. I haven't had many opportunities to bake in the past few months. With that said, Eid is one occasion for which I have to bake no matter what. It doesn't feel like a holiday unless there's goodies to wake up to in the morning and sweet, delicious aromas wafting from the kitchen. I haven't really made anything to do with pastries yet, so I thought I'd give this recipe a try since it seemed less complicated than making an actual pie or tart (which I have YET to try). Pecans are my favorite nuts, so there was also no question about using anything else for the filling (although walnuts are pretty good too). I made the mistake of using pecans that were a little old (which I stored in the fridge for some time.) Note: Always use fresh nuts for the best taste. In fact, always use fresh everything.

And finally, the recipe came from a book that came straight from South Africa (who they say have some of the best bakers) courtesy of  one of my cousins who went there over the past summer. The book is called "Busy Biscuits." Not sure if I like this book yet...I have a to try a few more things and then I will give it an official review. The only thing about these kinds of books from other countries is that they don't always have exact recipes. They give you general measurements for certain ingredients, and then usually you have to figure out some things as you go along. For example, there is no exact measurement for how much flour to use in this recipe, so I had to keep adding flour until I felt the dough was just right. Basically, the dough cannot be too gooey, and you add only very little flour at a time until the dough stops sticking to your fingers and the bowl - it should be pliable enough to roll out and cut out.

This tart wasn't bad at all. The pastry kind of melts in your mouth once you eat it. I feel like the filling could be better, which is why I will also add a different recipe of pecan tarts from another cookie book that I like to use "Cookies: 1,001 Mouthwatering Recipes from Around the World." Here's the final product, and following that is the recipe...

Ingredients:


For the Pastry:

• 1/2 cup (1 stick) butter
• 1/2 cup powdered sugar
• 1 egg yolk 
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 cup cake flour (or more...you will definitely need more!)
• 1 tsp vanilla flavoring

For the Filling:

• 30 g butter or margarine (softened)
• 1 egg white
• 1 tbsp cocoa
• 1 level cup chopped pecans
• 2 tbsp powdered sugar

Topping: 

Melting Chocolate (I used Ghirardelli Milk Chocolate Chips and melted it in a double broiler over the stove...YUMMM)

1. Take out a mini muffin pan with 24 cups and set aside. For the pastry, mix the butter, vanilla, and powdered sugar using an electric/stand mixer until fluffy.

2. Next, take an egg and separate the egg yolk from the egg whites. Put aside the egg white to use later for the filling.

3. Take the egg yolk and beat it into the pastry mixture.

4. Fold in the baking powder and cake flour to make a soft dough. After using 1 cup of flour, keep adding flour 1 or 2 tbsp at a time until you reach the right consistency of dough. (Read the intro of this post to get a better idea.)

5. Roll out the dough 4 mm thick, cut into rounds (at least 2-2 and half inches in diameter), and place them VERY GENTLY into the mini muffin cups. Don't press the rounds into the cups too hard or the dough will break. Gently press the top edges down.

6. For the filling, whisk the egg white until stiff. Then add sugar and whisk until it's dissolved. Fold in the cocoa, butter, and chopped pecans.

7. Take the filling, and fill the tarts in the muffin cups. Optional: Place half a pecan on top for decoration.

8. Preheat the oven at 350 degrees F, and then bake the tarts for about 10 minutes.

9. When the tarts are cool, drizzle the tops with melted chocolate. (I used a pastry big and round tip...take the pastry bag, drop in the round tip, fill the pastry bag with the melted chocolate, and squeeze gently!)

Cookies and Cream Cupcakes

These are cupcakes I made a looooong time ago and never got a chance to put up on my blog. From what I remember, they turned out pretty good. You can usually never go wrong with cookies and cream! The frosting and cupcakes are made with bits of Oreo Cookies...the best cookies ever invented in my opinion. Eat these with a nice, big glass of milk and enjoy =)

***UPDATE*** I made these cupcakes again recently and tried to make them a bit differently! (Not to mention after all this time, I've learned a lot more from my previous experiences!) Instead of cookies and cream frosting, I decided to make a vanilla buttercream frosting and I used mini Oreos as decoration. Using my big new star tip really helped me create a clean and professional looking swirl with the frosting. Check out the pictures below...

These are the ones I made the first time around...kind of ashamed of the way they look, but the point of my blog is to document my learning...so here it is:

(Please excuse the lack of effort in my decorating the cupcakes and the horrible quality of the picture - I made these cupcakes for some of my little cousins that day and they couldn't wait to eat them.

The recipe is from 125 Best Cupcake Recipes by Julie Hasson













*Preheat oven to 350 degrees F
*Line a muffin pan with paper liners

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted and cooled slightly
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup milk
• 10 chocolate sandwich cookies, smashed into small bits

Cookies and Cream Frosting -

•  1 1/3 cups confectioner's (icing) sugar
• 1/2 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
• pinch of salt
• 1/3 cup whipping cream 
• 1/2 vanilla
• 4 chocolate sandwich cookies, broken into pieces

1. In a small bowl, mix together flour, baking powder and salt.

2. In a large bowl, whisk together sugar, butter, and eggs until smooth.

3. Alternately whisk in flour mixture and milk, making three additions of flour mixture and two of milk, beating until smooth.

4. Add cookies, beating just until they're dispersed throughout batter. Do not overbeat.

5. Scoop batter into prepared pan. Bake in preheated oven for 20-25 or until golden brown and tops of cupcakes spring back when lightly touched. Let cool in pan on rack for 10 minutes. Remove from pan and let cool completely on rack. Top cooled cupcakes with frosting.

6. For the frosting, in a small bowl, using a mixer on low speed, beat together the sugar, butter, and salt until well combined. Increase speed to high, beating until light and fluffy. Add cream and vanilla, beating until frosting is smooth. Add broken cookies beating until mixed. Spread frosting on cooled cupcakes with a knife if desired.

Iced Sugar Cookies

Lately I've been all about the cookies...I'm not sure why. At first I think, OK...it's so much easier to make than other things. But actually, it requires a lot more time and patience. For one thing, one recipe makes so much quantity that you spend a lot of your time just baking tray after tray of cookies, constantly checking on the time, making sure the cookies are done just right, and cooling them off. Then there's the decorating part, depending on the cookie. I'd much rather make cookies than cake though, because cookies are more forgiving (in case you mess up).

Usually, I don't have to think much about what to make because my family is ready with their demands suggestions. This occasion was no different. As soon as winter break had begun, my little brother started asking me when I would make him sugar cookies ("you know...the kind with the icing???") I put it off for quite awhile, so I finally decided I should make them for the poor little guy. I never made sugar cookies before, nor have I ever made icing the way it's done for sugar cookies (it requires corn syrup, which for some reason, really grosses me out.)
 
So I searched on the Internet for some good recipes (something else I've been doing a lot lately, despite having quite a few baking books sitting on my shelf). I picked one of the first websites that showed up in the results and decided to give it a shot since it had thousands of good reviews. You can see the recipe here at AllRecipes.com: The Best Rolled Sugar Cookies Recipe. Then I had to look for a good icing recipe, which I found here at wilton.com: Poured Cookie Icing. (For the icing, I used these new disposable piping bags from Wilton that I absolutely love! The piping bag was so strong, I was able to wash and reuse it!)

After I rolled out the chilled dough (I left it in the fridge overnight), I used a star and flower shaped cookie cutter since those were the only decent cookie cutters I had (sadly, as large as my baking collection is, I really have to invest in some good cookie cutters). For decorating, I basically started out by making one recipe of icing, then dividing it in half. One half I put in the piping bag and used a plain tip (it has a circle, so that you can draw designs with it...kind of like writing with a pen), and the other half I colored with blue food coloring. I decided the theme of my cookies was going to be snowflakes to get into the snowy and cold winter spirit that has enveloped Chicago as of late. Basically, I used the blue icing to cover the cookie (as a background), then the white icing to pipe designs to make the cookies look like snowflakes. I also took plain sugar, put it in a ziploc bag, put a few drops of blue food coloring, smashed the sugar all up to mix in the color, and used the colored sugar to sprinkle on the cookies. It adds a fancy touch.

Let me just say that the icing can be a bit tricky. The first batch I made, I thought that the icing was to dry and hard to work with (I guess I ran out of patience and didn't mix it enough), so I added too much milk and it became runny. Here's how the cookies looked:

But then I realized my mistake once the icing wasn't holding up and the designs were just flowing into each other. So I made a second batch with less liquid, and it turned out PERFECT! This icing is amazing because once you leave it alone, it immediately becomes glossy, fixes itself, and in no time dries up. The fact that it dries up quickly though can also be a drawback since you can't mess with it once you leave it for about 5 minutes. This is how the cookies looked after the second time around:

 And last but not least, I had a lot of cookies, so I decided to have some fun with the icing and sprinkles that I had lying around and went a little crazy with the decorating. I'm sure my little nieces and nephews will appreciate it! =)

White Chocolate-Raspberry Cheesecake Squares

People are always asking me what are some easy things to bake. Here's an easy recipe that doesn't compromise on the taste. My mom is a harsh critic when it comes to my baking, and she said it was one of the best. White Chocolate and Raspberry are an incredible combination (just like Cookies and Cream =P), and the fact that the crust is made with Oreo cookies makes it even better! Drizzle it with melted white chocolate (or if you are a chocolate fan...melted chocolate) and you will add the perfect finishing touch.

For the recipe, click on the following link: White Chocolate - Raspberry Cheesecake Squares Recipe from KraftRecipes.com