Well my sister in law wanted some monster cookies for her birthday in place of a cake. This wasn't really a surprise when you consider that monster cookies are her favourite cookie and last year she wanted a gingerbread house. Its taken me a little bit to finally get this recipe posted, I'm still not feeling great and having trouble creating much of anything, but here it is. Sadly I forgot to take pictures.
Enjoy!
Monster Cookies (with coconut sugar)
Ingredients:
3 eggs
2 cups coconut sugar
1 cup butter
1 cup peanut butter
5 cups rolled oats
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp vanilla bean paste
203g bag of smarties
150g (1/2 bag) butterscotch chips
Preparation:
Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
Combine coconut sugar, butter, and peanut butter in a bowl. Cream together, add vanilla and eggs. Mix well. Add remaining dry ingredients and mix well. Dough will be slightly stickier than normal cookie dough.
Using an ice cream scoop (or smaller if you wish for smaller cookies), portion the dough onto trays. Press the dough down as it will not spread while baking.
Bake for 12-14 minutes, or until just turning brown.
Carefully move to a cooling rack to allow to cool.
Saturday, June 28, 2014
Saturday, June 21, 2014
Peanut Butter Chocolate Chunk Cookies
Today I decided that I would finally make the peanut butter chocolate chunk cookies I had been craving. I also decided that I wasn't going to prepare a recipe ahead of time, instead I was going to make it up as I went.They definitely are good peanut butter cookies, fairly standard, but I will be playing with this recipe some more in the future just because I can! :) Tomorrow I get to remake monster cookies with coconut sugar for my sister-in-laws birthday dinner. They will be yummy, that I will make sure of!
Enjoy!
Peanut Butter Chocolate Chunk Cookies
Yield: 68 small cookies
Ingredients:
1 cup butter, softened
1 1/2 cups peanut butter
1 cup coconut sugar
2 eggs
1 tbsp vanilla bean paste
1 tsp baking soda
2 cups all-purpose flour
3 tbsp chia seeds
1 1/3 cups dark chocolate pieces
1/2 cup milk chocolate pieces
Preparation:
Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
Cream butter, peanut butter, and sugar together in a bowl. Add vanilla and eggs, mix well.
Add dry ingredients, mix well, and scoop onto lined trays. Press cookies down with a fork and bake for 10-12 minutes. They should just be starting to brown.
The dough really wasn't this orange, and the picture did not appear this orange when I took it lol.
Enjoy!
Peanut Butter Chocolate Chunk Cookies
Yield: 68 small cookies
Ingredients:
1 cup butter, softened
1 1/2 cups peanut butter
1 cup coconut sugar
2 eggs
1 tbsp vanilla bean paste
1 tsp baking soda
2 cups all-purpose flour
3 tbsp chia seeds
1 1/3 cups dark chocolate pieces
1/2 cup milk chocolate pieces
Preparation:
Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
Cream butter, peanut butter, and sugar together in a bowl. Add vanilla and eggs, mix well.
Add dry ingredients, mix well, and scoop onto lined trays. Press cookies down with a fork and bake for 10-12 minutes. They should just be starting to brown.
Wednesday, June 18, 2014
June 2014 BarkBox
Thursday, June 12, 2014
Apple Filled Cinnamon Buns with Cinnamon Twist Pastry Dough
Apple Filled Cinnamon Buns with Cinnamon Twist Pastry Dough
Yield: 21 cinnamon buns
Ingredients:
1 1/4 cup warm milk
1/4 cup coconut sugar
1 tbsp yeast
1 egg
3 tbsp chia seeds
3 1/8 cup flour
1 cup frozen butter, cut into very small cubes
Topping:
1/3 cup butter
1 tbsp vanilla bean paste
1/3 cup coconut sugar
2 tbsp cinnamon
Apple Filling:
4 granny smith apples, peeled, cored, and but into very small cubes
1/8 cup butter
1 tbsp cinnamon
1 tbsp lemon juice
2 tbsp agave syrup
Preparation:
The night before you plan to make this, cut the butter into very small cubes adn allow it to freeze over night.
Prepare the apple filling a couple hours in advance. Place all ingredients except for the apples in a pan and allow to come to a boil. Add the apples and cook over medium heat until the apples are half cooked. Remove from heat and let cool completely.
Heat milk in a sauce pan over medium-low heat. Once the milk has heated combine the milk, coconut sugar, yeast and chia seeds in the mixture bowl and stir together. This will allow the yeast to activate.
Add the egg and flour into the mixer and mix well. At this point add the butter in 3-4 batches being careful to not mix it too much. As I had to make adjustments to the amounts used in this recipe to get a nice dough I pulled the dough out to knead it by hand before adding the butter. I added the butter in and needed it briefly after each incorporation to prevent melting. Form into a ball and wrap in saran wrap. I chilled the dough in the freezer for half an hour, although 2-3 hours in the fridge would be a better option to chill the dough.
Once the dough has had time to chill, flour the table and roll the dough out into a large rectangle. Complete 3 book folds before rolling to the dough into one long rectangle, approximately 1/4-1/8th of an inch thick. To make this next part easier roll it so the width is the desired length of the cinnamon sticks, then continue to roll out the length of the dough until it has reached the desired thickness.
Brush the dough with the mixture of melted butter and vanilla bean paste.
Then sprinkle some of the cinnamon sugar mixture over the entire piece of dough, add the apple filling on top of that.
Roll the dough as you would for cinnamon buns (see below) and cut 1 1/2 to 2 inches thick. Place on a baking sheet and allow to rest while the oven preheats.
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F and bake for 23-25 minutes.
Book Fold Instructions:
Place the ball of chilled dough on a well floured surface, and cover with some more flour.
Roll the dough out into a rectangle
Fold each end in towards the middle.
Fold the dough along the midline. Roll the dough out again and repeat this process 3x, each time folding the dough opposite of the last time so you don't always have the outside edge staying on the outside, but rather you keep working it into the dough.
And finally roll the dough out to the desired length.
This does work best when you a chance to chill the dough for up to 30 minutes between each fold, but as this is closer to the blitz recipe, you do not need to chill between each fold.
Pictures!
Monday, June 9, 2014
Egg-less Chocolate Cake v 2.0
This has gotten closer to becoming an egg-less lava cake, and tasted even better than the original. Moist and slightly gooey center with the reduced baking time. Best served fresh out of the oven, and no need to worry about it being fully baked through due to there not being any eggs.
Egg-less Chocolate Cake v. 2.0
Yield: 8 cupcake sized cakes
Ingredients:
1 cup all purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp baking powder
6 tbsp cocoa powder
1/2 cup dark chocolate, melted
1/2 cup butter, softened
3/4 cup greek yogurt
3/4 cup coconut sugar
1 1/4 cup milk
8 Lindt Lindor Dark Chocolate
Instructions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
Cream together butter and coconut sugar, add greek yogurt and melted chocolate. Combine dry ingredients in a separate bowl. Alternate adding milk and dry ingredients to butter mixture, be careful not to over mix!
Fill muffin pan sections 1/2 way, add 1 Lindt Lindor chocolate into each cake, and top with remaining mixture. Prepare the muffin pans by using butter and flour to prevent the cakes from sticking. Bake 18-20 minutes.
Very carefully remove the cakes from the pans. Use a butter knife to run along the edges to make sure they are not stuck, then place a cutting board on top and very gently, but quickly, flip the muffin pans over and remove the pan.
The fruit was simply a mixture of 1 1/2 cup thawed frozen raspberries, and 1 cup thawed, frozen mangoes cooked over medium-low heat until soft and starts to thicken. Using a potato masher, mash the fruit to break down the chunks of mango. Serve with the cake.
Egg-less Chocolate Cake v. 2.0
Yield: 8 cupcake sized cakes
Ingredients:
1 cup all purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp baking powder
6 tbsp cocoa powder
1/2 cup dark chocolate, melted
1/2 cup butter, softened
3/4 cup greek yogurt
3/4 cup coconut sugar
1 1/4 cup milk
8 Lindt Lindor Dark Chocolate
Instructions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
Cream together butter and coconut sugar, add greek yogurt and melted chocolate. Combine dry ingredients in a separate bowl. Alternate adding milk and dry ingredients to butter mixture, be careful not to over mix!
Fill muffin pan sections 1/2 way, add 1 Lindt Lindor chocolate into each cake, and top with remaining mixture. Prepare the muffin pans by using butter and flour to prevent the cakes from sticking. Bake 18-20 minutes.
Very carefully remove the cakes from the pans. Use a butter knife to run along the edges to make sure they are not stuck, then place a cutting board on top and very gently, but quickly, flip the muffin pans over and remove the pan.
The fruit was simply a mixture of 1 1/2 cup thawed frozen raspberries, and 1 cup thawed, frozen mangoes cooked over medium-low heat until soft and starts to thicken. Using a potato masher, mash the fruit to break down the chunks of mango. Serve with the cake.
Friday, June 6, 2014
If I can't bake, I can blog about baking... and gaming! :D
Thanks to a couple injuries to my hip, and just a few days ago getting my third cortisone shot in 1 1/2 months I have been unable to do much of anything really. This is the reason as to why I have not posted any new recipes in the last week, and it may be a few more days at least until I have a new creation to post. In the meantime I will share with you some of my favourite substitution charts that I have found on Pinterest! No matter how much experience you have in the kitchen, substitution charts can always be of use, and that is why I keep a few on hand at all times. I have been to culinary school, worked in professional kitchens and bakeries, make my own recipes, and modify others, and yet I am not afraid to admit that I still use substitution charts. They don't make you any less of a chef or a baker.
Here they are, please find these useful! (Note that the link leads to the album I have created with all I have found.)
It was a choice between this really large size, or a size so small it was unreadable, with nothing in between... Frustrating, but what can you do? At least it can be easily read from here!
Well this one at least can be a more reasonable size! A guide to fat substitutions in baking? What can be more useful than this when you want to make healthier dishes?
A general baking substitution guide, another handy item to keep nearby.
The last of my favourite substitution guides is this one here, a general missing ingredient guide. Useful to anyone and everyone. Unfortunately no matter what I do it seems I cannot get rid of the large gap here, in the editing phase it shows no space between the image and the text...
And now onto a bit about gaming, and well what I have been up to lately while not studying for chemistry.
Well as some of you who read this will know, I play video games, and quite a bit of time is spent playing MMOs. With my injuries, this is about the limit of what I can do. I want to reorganize my house, and get it cleaned up, but that has to wait a bit until this last cortisone shot works a bit anyway.
In the world of MMO gaming, I have recently, along with my husband and a couple friends, begun to play World of Warcraft again for the first time in 3 years (I thought I had escaped!). During the 3 year hiatus from WoW we all played Star Wars: The Old Republic, pretty much since beta days. That is a long time in that game, but there are just a few thing that it lacks, that WoW has. The main one being a feeling of community.
SW:TOR was good for a while, but it really was the people that make the game undesirable to play. SW:TOR has better customizations for gear, you just move mods and enchancements into pieces that you prefer the look of (this is a lot of fun). The operations bosses also have some very interesting mechanics that keep the fights interesting. The devs put in some mechanics that I have not seen in wow, and it was a lot of fun while it lasted. The character creation is more customizable as well, and allows for nicer looking toons, and they kept a more traditional talent tree that WoW has moved away from! There is also more story to the game, and the story, especially the class story lines are a lot of fun to see.
With all those reasons, why would I return to WoW? It seems like SW:TOR has many things that are done better, and while these are fun, they are not what will keep you playing the game for hours on end. Despite the better story in SW:TOR, leveling is better in WoW. Why? I can't really explain it, but I don't mind leveling in WoW, whereas I hate leveling in SW:TOR.
Another thing to look at when comparing the two is the monthly subscription price. They both run off the same scale, $14.99 a month for month-to-month, $13.99 a month for 3 months at a time, and $12.99 a month for 6 months at a time. Even with those being the same, SW:TOR costs more to play overall. Why? Because EA charges taxes on top of the exchange where Blizzard does not. It comes down to WoW being $1 a month cheaper to play than SW:TOR. This adds up to be a fair bit in the end, especially when you only log in to run operations for 6 hours a week (or less as the last few months have maybe averaged 1.5-2 hours a week when you include all the cancelled operations).
I got a huge reminder yesterday while my husband and I were farming rare spawns for gear and enchanting mats. A very friendly level 90 mage helped us out, as well as gave me mats, enchants, gear, and flasks. I asked what they would like for them, and all they said was nothing. Its people like them, that I have run into repeatedly since I began playing the game 8 years ago that make the game what it is. I have also had conversations with complete strangers in the game, some about random stuff, while others have told me about new and upcoming features to the game that they thought I would like. Its easy to find people to talk to in WoW, and that is nice, it gives a reason to keep going back to the game.
Don't have a guild in WoW? You will receive a guild invite frequently until you finally choose a guild. In SW:TOR on the other hand you have to advertise who you are in trade or looking for guild channels, what your gear and experience are like, and maybe one day you will find a guild. Will the people there be friendly and helpful, or people you can work well with to see new content? Maybe, but to achieve all of that.... Not likely. Where most of this has been observed, rather than experienced, it seems to be a constant thing. Heck, the guild I am in won't even try out some of the players looking for guilds when we are short people. Why? They don't want to deal with new plays, or pugs. Instead they pull people from the opposite faction to create characters and level then run operations with us after they have finally reached the max level. Then comes gearing someone else. Again... Personally I think they should recruit some geared players and try them in the operations and see if they are a match for the guild. Not many people agree with this or share this viewpoint though. In all the years I played WoW I never had trouble finding a good guild, I would always have a full friends list, and someone to talk to almost any time I logged on.
In SW:TOR 90% of my friends list consists of real life friends or guild mates only because you can't just select whisper from the guild menu (very annoying by the way!). This makes the game less enjoyable. Sometimes guildies will talk, but after a week or two, they stop saying hi, or talking. Why? I don't really know, but it is something that always seems to happen. I have been in the same guild for 2 years, and seen many people come and go, and watched the operations team change on an almost monthly basis.
When you need help with something in WoW, quite often someone will help. In SW:TOR, you spend more time hearing if I could solo it so can you type responses to help requests. With general chat always being like that, you don't want to ask for help. Ask guildies, you can have better luck with getting help, but often only if they are trying to do the same thing, so it will benefit them to help you. And to use the dungeon finder or find a pug? That is the worst thing you can do most of the time in the eyes of others. Never mind that these tools can be used as a means to recruit new members to the guild and maintain an operations roster with a couple back ups that would allow you to run operations on a more regular basis.
Overall the community is much better in WoW, and there actually is a sense of community. I may not like the lack of story in the game, or this new talent tree crap that is just that, its crap. But it is still more fun to level, and leveling does not feel quite as much like a boring chore. And hey more guild benefits too!
Hopefully this long rant can be of help to someone out there looking at these games, or that someone just finds this interesting. Does anyone else feel the same way about these games? Or have anything they find to be good or bad?
Now for the big decision, continue to play WoW, or resub to SW:TOR tonight for the scheduled operations, that may or may not even happen. Decisions, decisions...
Here they are, please find these useful! (Note that the link leads to the album I have created with all I have found.)
It was a choice between this really large size, or a size so small it was unreadable, with nothing in between... Frustrating, but what can you do? At least it can be easily read from here!
Well this one at least can be a more reasonable size! A guide to fat substitutions in baking? What can be more useful than this when you want to make healthier dishes?
A general baking substitution guide, another handy item to keep nearby.
The last of my favourite substitution guides is this one here, a general missing ingredient guide. Useful to anyone and everyone. Unfortunately no matter what I do it seems I cannot get rid of the large gap here, in the editing phase it shows no space between the image and the text...
And now onto a bit about gaming, and well what I have been up to lately while not studying for chemistry.
Well as some of you who read this will know, I play video games, and quite a bit of time is spent playing MMOs. With my injuries, this is about the limit of what I can do. I want to reorganize my house, and get it cleaned up, but that has to wait a bit until this last cortisone shot works a bit anyway.
In the world of MMO gaming, I have recently, along with my husband and a couple friends, begun to play World of Warcraft again for the first time in 3 years (I thought I had escaped!). During the 3 year hiatus from WoW we all played Star Wars: The Old Republic, pretty much since beta days. That is a long time in that game, but there are just a few thing that it lacks, that WoW has. The main one being a feeling of community.
SW:TOR was good for a while, but it really was the people that make the game undesirable to play. SW:TOR has better customizations for gear, you just move mods and enchancements into pieces that you prefer the look of (this is a lot of fun). The operations bosses also have some very interesting mechanics that keep the fights interesting. The devs put in some mechanics that I have not seen in wow, and it was a lot of fun while it lasted. The character creation is more customizable as well, and allows for nicer looking toons, and they kept a more traditional talent tree that WoW has moved away from! There is also more story to the game, and the story, especially the class story lines are a lot of fun to see.
With all those reasons, why would I return to WoW? It seems like SW:TOR has many things that are done better, and while these are fun, they are not what will keep you playing the game for hours on end. Despite the better story in SW:TOR, leveling is better in WoW. Why? I can't really explain it, but I don't mind leveling in WoW, whereas I hate leveling in SW:TOR.
Another thing to look at when comparing the two is the monthly subscription price. They both run off the same scale, $14.99 a month for month-to-month, $13.99 a month for 3 months at a time, and $12.99 a month for 6 months at a time. Even with those being the same, SW:TOR costs more to play overall. Why? Because EA charges taxes on top of the exchange where Blizzard does not. It comes down to WoW being $1 a month cheaper to play than SW:TOR. This adds up to be a fair bit in the end, especially when you only log in to run operations for 6 hours a week (or less as the last few months have maybe averaged 1.5-2 hours a week when you include all the cancelled operations).
I got a huge reminder yesterday while my husband and I were farming rare spawns for gear and enchanting mats. A very friendly level 90 mage helped us out, as well as gave me mats, enchants, gear, and flasks. I asked what they would like for them, and all they said was nothing. Its people like them, that I have run into repeatedly since I began playing the game 8 years ago that make the game what it is. I have also had conversations with complete strangers in the game, some about random stuff, while others have told me about new and upcoming features to the game that they thought I would like. Its easy to find people to talk to in WoW, and that is nice, it gives a reason to keep going back to the game.
Don't have a guild in WoW? You will receive a guild invite frequently until you finally choose a guild. In SW:TOR on the other hand you have to advertise who you are in trade or looking for guild channels, what your gear and experience are like, and maybe one day you will find a guild. Will the people there be friendly and helpful, or people you can work well with to see new content? Maybe, but to achieve all of that.... Not likely. Where most of this has been observed, rather than experienced, it seems to be a constant thing. Heck, the guild I am in won't even try out some of the players looking for guilds when we are short people. Why? They don't want to deal with new plays, or pugs. Instead they pull people from the opposite faction to create characters and level then run operations with us after they have finally reached the max level. Then comes gearing someone else. Again... Personally I think they should recruit some geared players and try them in the operations and see if they are a match for the guild. Not many people agree with this or share this viewpoint though. In all the years I played WoW I never had trouble finding a good guild, I would always have a full friends list, and someone to talk to almost any time I logged on.
In SW:TOR 90% of my friends list consists of real life friends or guild mates only because you can't just select whisper from the guild menu (very annoying by the way!). This makes the game less enjoyable. Sometimes guildies will talk, but after a week or two, they stop saying hi, or talking. Why? I don't really know, but it is something that always seems to happen. I have been in the same guild for 2 years, and seen many people come and go, and watched the operations team change on an almost monthly basis.
When you need help with something in WoW, quite often someone will help. In SW:TOR, you spend more time hearing if I could solo it so can you type responses to help requests. With general chat always being like that, you don't want to ask for help. Ask guildies, you can have better luck with getting help, but often only if they are trying to do the same thing, so it will benefit them to help you. And to use the dungeon finder or find a pug? That is the worst thing you can do most of the time in the eyes of others. Never mind that these tools can be used as a means to recruit new members to the guild and maintain an operations roster with a couple back ups that would allow you to run operations on a more regular basis.
Overall the community is much better in WoW, and there actually is a sense of community. I may not like the lack of story in the game, or this new talent tree crap that is just that, its crap. But it is still more fun to level, and leveling does not feel quite as much like a boring chore. And hey more guild benefits too!
Hopefully this long rant can be of help to someone out there looking at these games, or that someone just finds this interesting. Does anyone else feel the same way about these games? Or have anything they find to be good or bad?
Now for the big decision, continue to play WoW, or resub to SW:TOR tonight for the scheduled operations, that may or may not even happen. Decisions, decisions...
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