Pumpkin Corn Muffins

This is another magazine recipe:
I can't resist fall issues of any magazine that involves food, really. What else would I do with all of my pumpkin?

This is a quickbread, which means a three step recipe - 1. prepare dry ingredients:

2. Prepare wet ingredients. 3. Add wet ingredients to dry:

And then pour into prepared tins (or pan, if you follow the recipe more closely than I did) and bake!

Coconut Macadamia Cake

I love coconut, and I love making cakes:

This elaborate recipe seemed to be just the ticket for a recent celebration.

The first step was to melt sugar in a skillet and coat the macadamia nuts:

Once those were cooling, I moved on:

The pastry cream was next. I cooked together egg yolks, sugar, milk and cornstarch until it was thickened, and then whisked in vanilla and set it in the fridge to chill. To the side, you can see the egg whites, soon to be beaten into the cake batter, and behind that, a covered bowl where butter is softening, ready to be creamed:

The next step was the cake batter. This mixture below was almost ready...

Once it was lightened with stiffly beaten egg whites, off to the oven:

I chopped my macadamia praline rather than grind it while my cake layer cooled:

I was all set for the most fun part...

Construction!

Whole Wheat Pecan Bread

After my last experiment, I set out to try another whole wheat recipe. This Whole Wheat Walnut Bread (I substituted pecans) was delicious, if a bit on the dense side of hearty:

The dough, thankfully, was smoother than the last whole wheat bread. I took it as an encouraging sign:

Soon, the warmth of the dough had clouded over my plastic wrap:

I used a slightly smaller bread pan and hoped that this would rise well:

And once the dough crested the top, into the oven it went!
This loaf is particularly nice for peanut butter and jelly.

Bread Fail: Whole Wheat Bread

I've made breads I didn't love, and cookies that weren't quite right. Nothing compares, though, to this seemingly innocent piece of dough that looks a little shy of ready to go into the oven:

Part of it was a time crunch - I just didn't give the poor dough long enough to rise, and gambled that it would all turn out ok. I mean, looking above, it rose quite a bit from this:

And it had all started out so well, with a starter, soaker and plenty of hard to work with whole wheat flour:

Here's the pathetic finished product. It was...dense:

Earl Grey Tea Cookies

My fridge is slowly filling with logs and packages of dough like this, ready to be baked into Christmas cookies:
The dough log above is from this recipe - a friend sent it to me a few weeks back thinking that it would be a perfect elegant and quick treat for unexpected guests. After all the Christmas cookie baking is done, I'll need to keep a log of this dough in my freezer!

The recipe is quick - first the butter is creamed:

Sugar is added, and then you add flour, leavening and ground tea - I used a green tea with mango instead of the Earl Grey called for in the recipe.

Slice the chilled log of dough, bake and eat!
You may have noted that I didn't follow the recipe directions here - I don't keep a food processor on my counter, and although that makes this recipe easier, this is a recipe that is easily adapted to a hand mixer - or even just a sturdy spoon.

Welcome to My Kitchen: December Baking

December.

Eight pounds of butter, fresh from Costco.

A fresh bottle of molasses.

Cinnamon.
It can only mean one thing, really. The Christmas cookie baking has begun!

College Cookies

I like magazines, and I also like cookies. I'll at least glance through a free magazine for things that might be useful, like cookie recipes, and as luck would have it, MORE Magazine came through with a free issue distributed at the MORE Magazine Marathon and Half Marathon Expo. And it involved butterscotch, which I never use, so I pulled it out for the start of cookie season!

The recipe is a fairly basic creaming of butter, sugar and milk at the start, followed by adding eggs, then spices, flour and leavening:

Then a few treats: oats, raisins, nuts and then butterscotch chips:

The resulting complex and sweet cookie is a keeper for my recipe box: