Making this cake was a hoot. Neither Amanda and I have ever carved a cake before, so you can imagine the hilarity that occurred. Mostly we just kept shouting, “This is going to be EPIC!” And it was. Oh friends, it was.

Granted our dragon lacks wings, making him more of a… loch ness monster, let’s say, or maybe a dinosaur. We had counted on having fruit roll ups in the pantry (our roommates are awesome people, so you can find all sorts of goodness like that in our pantry at any given moment)– but alas, no such luck. And as this was a spur-of-the-moment adventure, we didn’t really bother with the details.

There are many more plans for dragon cakes in the future. For our little brother’s 6th birthday, we will be recreating this gem, only better. We’re discussing stockpiling Cadbury Eggs while they’re in season, tracking down chocolate coins (you know, the sort wrapped in gold foil?), and even chocolate rocks. Needless to say, it will be green or at least some color less girly than pink– and, of course, it will have wings.

To learn how to make your own dragon cake, visit this oh-so-handy tutorial. If you’ve got mad cake-carving skills, you can also check out this dragon cake, the one that initially inspired me until Amanda tracked down the former link.

First, you have to see these precious chocolate mice.

These adorable little treats are perfect for the holidays. They’re both easy to make (although we recommend having all your supplies ready to assemble and a second person on hand to help!) and also are– hello!– too cute not to fall in love with. I wish I had a better picture, but we made these late in the evening, so the lighting was poor and I wasn’t too interested in getting a great shot (much to my chagrin now).

We also used an all-purpose butter cookie recipe from Gourmet via Gourmet Unbound to make chocolate-drizzled cookies and thumbprint cookie. The dough was simple to make, tasted light and sweet, and perfectly adapted to both variations. A short chill in the freezer and they sliced cleanly without crumbling– a problem we’ve encountered before with other recipes.

Finally, there’s this coffee cake that Amanda and I baked at the last minute on Christmas day. And I am so, so glad we did. I think I could eat this every morning for breakfast. And probably for second breakfast, elevensies, lunch, supper, afternoon tea, and any other meal I could use as an excuse to eat this cake. It was so good, that Amanda and I made another one the day after– and made it better. The addition of a little cinnamon and chopped walnuts to the streusel took this from glorious to sublime. If you’re feeling especially festive, add a 1/2 teaspoon of brandy to each the cranberry filling and batter.

The recipes:
Chocolate cherry mice
Butter cookies
Cranberry coffee cake

Well, this unexpected hiatus is over. Expect some recipes soon as Amanda and I begin holiday cookie baking. There may even be an encore of that birthday cake. It was that good.

How to use up that raspberry frosting? Sandwich cookies. (Amanda actually had a number of other intriguing suggestions for me when I grumbled about having to throw away so much perfectly good– well, you know– frosting. Among them: swirl it into brownies or a cheesecake.) And with any luck, the girls won’t consider that this is the same stuff on top of their cupcakes.

Of course, now that I’ve solved the left-over frosting problem, I have a new one to contend with: leftover egg whites. Any suggestions?

I modified a Martha Stewart (did you expect anyone else?) recipe for the cookie. Her pink grapefruit sandwich cookie recipe seemed like a perfect option, especially considering her cream filling is remarkably close to my raspberry frosting. My cookies, of course, have no grapefruit zest or juice in them. I replaced these with 1 teaspoon vanilla extract and milk, respectively. Below is the recipe with my substitutions.

Raspberry Cream Sandwich Cookies
Cookie:
1 stick (1/2 cup) unsalted butter
scant 1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 large egg yolks
2 1/4 cups minus 2 tablespoons all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 milk

In a small bowl, combine flour, baking powder, and salt. In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugar. Add vanilla. Add egg yolks one at a time. Add flour in two batches, alternating with the milk. Mix just until combined.

Turn out dough onto a piece of plastic wrap. Flatten into a disc about 1/2 inch thick. Refrigerate about 30 minutes.

Remove dough from refrigerator and preheat oven to 350. Roll out dough on floured surface about 1/8 in thick. Cut out with 2 inch round cookie cutter (I used a 1/4 cup measuring cup for lack of a cookie cutter. It worked reasonably well.) Bake 15-20 minutes, or until edges begin to brown. Cool completely.

Filling:
1 stick (1/2 cup) unsalted butter
3-4 cups powdered sugar, or to taste
1/4 cup seedless raspberry jam

**The original recipe suggests to beat the butter and jam together first, then to add the powdered sugar until it reaches the desired consistency/taste. However, the butter and jam curdle if you do this (it’s fine once you add enough sugar). Instead I would begin by creaming the butter and some powdered sugar, add the jam, and if necessary more powdered sugar.

P.S. Please forgive my pictures! I was in a hurry to get these to Rebecca on time, as always.

These are my take on Konosur’s version of Ina Garten’s muffins. They’re so far from the original recipe, though, that it’s kinda amusing.

But OMG these are so good.  I’ll be the first to admit that healthy baking just doesn’t work as well as the regular stuff, but these are a most unexpectedly fabulous exception.  Despite being made with whole-wheat flour and bran, these are still light.  Despite having no butter or oil, they are still moist.  Then they’re sweet without being overly sweet.  And oh! the cinnamon and honey are perfect in combination with the apples and raisins!  If you need an introduction to a good-for-you breakfast, this is it.

Apple & Raisin Muffins
yields 9

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.  Prepare muffins cups. 

3/4 c whole wheat flour
1/2 c wheat bran
1/4 c light brown sugar
1/2 tsp each baking powder and baking soda 
1 tsp cinnamon 

Whisk together dry ingredients.

1 egg
1/4 c unsweetened applesauce 
1/2 c nonfat milk
3/4 tsp vanilla (just guess)

Whisk together wet ingredients.  Fold into dry ingredients.

1 medium apple, diced
1/4 c raisins
1/4 c wildflower honey (I may reduce this to 3 Tbs next time)

Fold remaining ingredients into batter carefully (nuts would be a good addition as well).  Nearly fill muffin cups (these will puff up a bit).

Bake 22-25 minutes (mine took about 24 min).  Let sit in cups for a minute, then remove to cool on wire racks.

Have a happy, healthy, and super-tasty Valentine’s weekend!  I know I will.  :)

Last night I just had to bake some cookies. I’ve got a list of other recipes I desperately want to try (have you seen these?!), but last night I needed cookies. And that craving necessitated chocolate chip cookies. (Two days ago I was dying to make my signature cookies, but now it’s chocolate chip. Go figure.)

For this attempt, I strayed from the Hershey’s recipe (it’s just so handy there on the back of the bag) and used one I found at Smells like Dessert. (Chris, at least, has ended his quest. I thought I might could skip that whole quest thing and just have the holy grail.) The fact that I didn’t strictly follow the recipe probably defeated the purpose though. As I only had one egg, I necessarily omitted the additional egg yolk, which assuredly changed the texture of my cookies. And I added in about half a bag of heath toffee bits that I’ve been keeping in my pantry for just such an occasion as this. (Although I disadvantaged my cookies by my blasphemous egg-yolk omission, I will staunchly maintain that the addition of toffee pieces can only be construed as an improvement to the original recipe.)

A note to you “I’m still clinging to my New Years resolution and cannot possibly make cookies as large as the recipe suggests” people– just make the cookies that big. I myself defied Chris’s plea to do so and made most of mine tablespoon-sized, but the last six I said what the heck, and plopped mounds of dough on the baking sheet. It really does make a difference!

In conclusion, while these are not my holy grail of chocolate chip cookies (perhaps I should try these again with that extra egg yolk, though) I am quite happy with this recipe. (Rebecca was rather enthusiastic, and gave me a high-five upon biting into one.) Crunchy around the edges, chewy towards the center. And who doesn’t love the toffee-chocolate pairing? My waistline, maybe not so pleased.

Recipe at Smells Like Dessert.

Hello, biscotti. Ever since Amanda made her raisin biscotti back in December, I’ve been dying to give it a try. Now seems like the perfect opportunity, don’t you think? Yes, I agree. Not wanting to frustrate myself with cutting in butter, I opted to use the same Martha Stewart recipe that Amanda did as it, thankfully, requires none.

For my batch, I stood catatonic in the kitchen for a solid three minutes debating whether I wanted to use dried cherries (love!) or chocolate chips (how is a girl to decide!)… and eventually surrendered to my chocolate craving. (Honestly, if I had remembered to buy craisins at the grocery store this morning, I would have used those.) Then I decided I should at least attempt to be somewhat healthy about this endeavor and threw in some almond slices that have been in my pantry for a while now. But it needed something else– orange zest. Perfect.

These turned out nicely, and I am quite pleased with my first ever batch of biscotti. The orange zest ties it together very well; I think they would be far too bland without it. As it is, they are a wonderful (almost) guilt-free way to assuage my crazy chocolate cravings, and will be wonderful with a cup of coffee in the morning.

Whole-Wheat Chocolate-Almond Biscotti
(recipe adapted from marthastewart.com)
1 1/4 cups whole wheat flour blend
scant 1/3 cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
1/3 cup almond slices
zest of one orange, approx 1 teaspoon
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla

Preheat oven 350. Combine ingredients through orange zest in a large bowl. In a separate bowl, whisk together eggs and vanilla. Add into flour mixture; stir until just combined.

On a lightly floured surface and with floured hands, shape dough into log about 1 inch thick and 2-3 inches wide. Place onto greased baking sheet and bake 20-25 minutes, until risen and golden brown. Remove from oven and allow to cool. Drop oven temperature to 300. When biscotti has cooled, slice the log diagonally and place pieces back onto baking sheet. Return to oven for 25-30 minutes, turning once.

So when I realized this morning that my remaining two bananas were wonderfully brown, I knew what I wanted to bake: banana cupcakes. Amanda and I made these, oh, probably two or three years ago from Martha Stewart’s recipe, so I decided to use it again (although, I admit, I don’t particularly remember how our earlier attempt turned out). Martha calls for 1 and 1/2 cups of mashed bananas, which she translates to about 4 bananas. As I only had two, I simply halved the recipe. (Incidentally, I ended up with seven cupcakes instead of six, as one would expect. Not that I mind.)

A random note: when I mixed the wet ingredients, I simply melted the butter, beat the egg and vanilla into it (with a fork), and mashed the bananas into the mixture. I suppose because of the warmth from the butter, when I beat in the egg and vanilla it became this custardy-texture and smelled indescribably delicious! I highly recommend you do it my way.

I also decided to give the suggested honey-cinnamon frosting a try. I briefly considered making a chocolate frosting instead (who doesn’t love the banana-chocolate combination?) but Martha made hers look so adorable, I couldn’t help but do this one by the book. Besides, I love cinnamon. I almost always increase the amount of cinnamon called for, and often add it to things where it isn’t called for at all. 

These cupcakes are so wonderfully moist! I didn’t actually measure my mashed bananas– I just mashed them straight into my butter, egg, vanilla mixtures– so it’s possible that I ended up with more than 3/4 cup banana, but who would complain about that? They are sweet, but not cloying… and I almost don’t feel guilty about eating one because bananas are good for you… and I am excellent at rationalizing. Haha.

I guess I can’t rationalize that frosting, though. (Cinnamon has excellent health benefits, right?) But it is lovely. And oh so tasty. (I have quite a bit of leftover frosting, although I did halve that recipe, too. I hope Rebecca finds it soon, or I will definitely be eating this with a spoon later. Argh.) Very sweet– I mean, it’s butter and powdered sugar– but this is a cupcake here people. Embrace the sweet cupcake goodness!

…In moderation, of course.  
 

Recipe for Banana Cupcakes and Honey-Cinnamon Frosting at marthastewart.com

I decided to bake both boxes of brownies (one, to get them out of the house before I decided to consume an entire pan myself, and two, to provide for scavengers from other small groups who I hear are quite envious of Rebecca’s provision of baked goods)– and of course this calls for brownies two ways. 

For the first batch of brownies, I simply replaced the quarter-cup of water called for by the mix with a quarter-cup of cold-brewed coffee (the flavor is more intense and less acidic than brewed in the coffee maker). I confess I definitely licked the spatula and it was awesome; the coffee cut the sweetness of the brownie mix a little and there was a definite coffee taste to it. Alas, I did not try a baked brownie, since I dutifully sent them all to Rebecca. I imagine the coffee taste in the batter subsided to a nice depth of flavor… but hopefully it still had a coffee after-taste, because who wouldn’t love that?

For the second batch, I prepared the brownie mix as directed (*yawn*)… and then added a cream cheese swirl (hoorah!). I chose the recipe for the cream cheese mixture from a smitten kitchen, because let’s be honest, Deb is our hero. These actually had to bake for quite some time, so I was down to the wire to deliver them in time to Rebecca. Their tastiness was well worth it, though, I’m sure.

No pictures because I was rushing out the door as soon as these came out of the oven! The poor cream cheese brownies had absolutely no cooling time before I transferred them to a plate; thankfully they survived intact.

In an attempt to make a muffin that would be healthy and satisfying, I made Pumpkin Bran Muffins from a recipe that I found on recipezaar.  It had great reviews, but honestly I wasn’t very impressed.  I mean, it was good, but not that good.  I won’t be making it again.  Ah well, there’s a long semester ahead of me and plenty more muffin recipes to be tried…