Peanut Butter and Jelly Bars

Peanut Butter and Jelly Bars! Doesn't that sound delicious? I wanted to make a kid-friendly snack (assuming that the kids were not allergic to peanuts) and so I googled "peanut butter and jelly bars."  I used this recipe as my base and went with it. I did not have buttery crackers, so I just added a bit more more butter and flour.  

Pat half the peanut butter cookie dough mixture on the bottom of a pan.  Bake at 350F for 20 minutes.

Add a layer of grape jelly (I used Welch's Concord Grape Jelly).

Drop clumps of peanut butter cookie dough on top of the grape jelly.  Bake at 325F for 20 minutes.

I bit too soggy for my taste, but the sogginess was expected since the jelly has a lot of moisture and was heated in the oven when I baked the second layer of peanut butter cookie crumble. I'm not sure if I would make this again. If I did, I would aim to make a crunchy bar.

Large Mock Nothing Bundt Cake

Here's a picture of a large mock "Nothing Bundt Cake" that I made this month for a potluck party.  I think I'm starting to perfect my cream cheese frosting decorating skills.

I made some mini lemon bundt cakes in the past, but gave my mini bundt cake pan to a friend when we moved back home to Hawaii.
What do you think? Can I now start a bundt cake business?  Just kidding...

On a side note, I am starting to think that the Jello brand instant pudding formulation has changed.  I do not recall the batter being so thick and sticky.  I baked the cake anyway and I felt that it was not as fluffy as cakes I had made in the past.  I then made a rum cake (with cake mix and instant pudding) and the batter was sticky again. I ended up adding an extra 1/2 cup of water than what the recipe called for and it turned out fine.
Did anyone experience the same thing?

My Secret Brownie Bars

Two weekends ago, Mike and I were social butterflies and had about six different events to attend from Friday to Sunday. We were supposed to have a low-key Saturday night of just lounging around the apartment prepping for the baby, but then found out that an event was actually on Saturday night instead of the following Saturday.  

Yes, I know. Pregnant ladies do not have to stand on their feet and bake in the kitchen, but for some strange reason, I feel pretty good and am still in the kitchen baking.  We could have easily stopped by Sam's Cluba and picked up an apple pie or picked up some beers on the way to the party, but I would have none of it.  So, Mike and I had a little under three hours to whip up a dessert.  These brownie bars are slowly making it into my "For Keeps" Recipe book (these are my tried and true recipes that I can fall back on. Most of the recipes in it are from my mom's recipe book back home).

I basically start off following the directions on a box of chewy brownie mix. Duncan Hines works well, although I'm a Ghirardelli fan.  Ghirardelli brownie box mixes only make a 9"x9" pan, while other brands make a 9"x13" pan, so I stick with box mixes that make a larger pan size.
I slightly underbake the brownies (fudgy brownies are so good), then top it with mini marshmallows and Rice Krispies.

There is no measuring what-so-ever and then I melt some Ghirardelli 60% Cacao Chips (in the residual heat in my oven) and then spread it over the marshmallows and Rice Krispies. For the sake of time, I let the brownies cool on a rack, and then threw it in the freezer for 30 minutes.

We cut those brownies, put them in muffin cups and jetted out of our house with time to spare!

Shark Cupcakes

This is a shark cupcake. Kind of pitiful looking, but you get the idea. One of my friends at work sent me a link to these cute shark cupcakes and I told her that I would attempt to make them for her. The cupcakes are filled with raspberry jam, so when you cut them open, it's like blood is oozing out of them. 

Here's a destroyed shark cupcake. As you can see, when you only have chocolate cake mix at home, you cannot see the oozing raspberry jam blood come out of the cupcake.

I cored the cupcakes using a pastry tip.  It works extremely well for this application. 

Lazy Step #1-This actually might be lazy step 2, since I used cake mix for the cupcake. So I zapped this jar of jam into the microwave for a couple of seconds until it was a runny consistency and then dropped it into the cupcake holes.

Here's a picture of the jam-filled cupcakes.  

Lazy Step #2-I took the lazy route for these cupcake frosting. I do not like frosting on cupcakes (I've never did since pre-school), so I do not go out of my way to make a homemade frosting.  I bought the Duncan Hines Frosting creations and the blue cotton candy flavored powder (because it was blue) against my better judgement. Then when I got home I decided that chocolate cupcakes filled with raspberry jam probably would not taste good with cotton candy flavored frosting. So I just added some blue food coloring to the frosting.

Lazy Step #3-I bought some sugar sheets from the craft store for the shark fins. 1)I have never made or worked with fondant in my life; 2) I did not want to spend my whole day making shark cupcakes.

Here's the shark pack. I think that fondant would have been a better choice for the shark fins. But you get the gist of it. 

Decorated Cookies Part 3

This is my last attempt attempt at decorated sugar cookies for a while.  It's too time-consuming and I doubt that I will be working on tedious baked goods for a while.

I decided to go for the girly route and decorate pink onesies.  I settled on four bags of frosting-a dark pink, light pink, white, and a thick white for lining the cookies.

What do you think? If I keep practicing, maybe one day I'll be able to make really cute and professional looking cookies.  After attempting to decorate sugar cookies for the third time, I can now understand they bakeries charge so much for them!

Speculoos (Biscoff) Cream Puffs

I cannot believe that I never posted about Speculoos before! Back in 2010 when Mike and I traveled to France, we were addicted to this creamy rich speculoos spread (called Biscoff in the USA) that has the consistency of peanut butter but tastes like spiced cookies and condensed cream.  We used up all the bottles we brought home from France, and last year a friend bought us a bottle of the creamy spread and the crunchy one!
We then found out that Trader Joe's now sells a similar product (not that we have a Trader Joe's in our neighborhood yet-that's happening on September 6th).  And then I saw it in a recent Wal-mart advertisement. So I guess Speculoos may become a mainstream food item similar to Nutella.

Mike has been eating speculoos on plain white bread, so it got me thinking-I can replace the peanut butter in a recipe with the speculoos spread and voila, a Speculoos-flavored treat.

Cream puff shell batter.

 I just searched online for an easy cream puff recipe. I think I followed a recipe on the King Arthur Flour website.

Pate Choux (Cream puff shells)

Here's my Speculoos filling.
If you want the recipe I used here it is:

Ingredients
2 cups whole milk
1/2 vanilla bean, scraped* 

4 Tablespoons cornstarch
1/2 c granulated sugar
1/4 t. Salt
2 eggs

4 Tablespoons butter
3/4 cup Speculoos

Simmer the milk and the vanilla bean.  Whisk together the cornstarch, sugar, salt and eggs.  Temper the egg mixture with the warm milk by slowly whisk a third of the hot milk into the egg mixture. Then pour the warmed egg/milk mixture back into the pot with the remaining milk. Bring to a full boil for a few seconds and then remove from heat.  *Add vanilla extract (1 t) in at the end if you do not have any vanilla beans.  

Place in a container and cover with saran wrap. Chill until slightly solidified in texture and then place in a pastry bag and pipe into cut cream puff shells. 

Mike and my friends really enjoyed these cream puffs. The filling was delicious and I'd definitely try to flavor more desserts with speculoos.  

Decorated Sugar Cookies Round 2

I decided to attempt to make sugar cookies once again.  This time, I only decorated LARGE cookies.  A friend's baby shower was the other weekend and she's having a boy. Not only did I decorate onesies cookies, we also decorated onesies and bibs at her shower.

Here's all the pre-made cookies. I baked them the night before so that the task of baking and decorating the cookies did not consume my whole night. I baked these cookies until they were crispy (instead of soft in the middle). After I decorated the cookies, they had a softer texture (I blame it on the moisture in the icing and the humidity due to the weather). I thought that the recipe I used was pretty good.  It reminded me of the Diamond Brand Hawaii bead cookies.
Ingredients:
1 stick unsalted butter (4 oz)
1 stick margarine (4 oz)
2 cups granulated sugar
2 eggs
1/2 t. lemon extract
1/2 t. vanilla extract
5 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 t. baking powder
1 t. baking soda
1/2 t. salt
1/4 cup whole or 2% milk (I mixed heavy cream and skim milk)

Directions:
Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs and vanilla. Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Add to butter and sugar mixture. Add the milk.  Cover and refrigerate for 30 minutes. Roll out the dough on a floured surface.  Cut out cookies into desired shapes and place on a greased or parchment lined cookie sheet. Bake at 350 degrees F for 10 minutes or until edges are lightly browned.  Cool on metal rack.  

I prepared multiple bags of frosting (thicker frosting for lining) and less viscous frosting to fill in the lined frosting. This made decorating so much easier than my first attempt.

Secret Carrot Cake

Mike and I made a chocolate cheesecake and a carrot cake (my friend's family's secret carrot cake recipe) for his birthday a couple of weeks ago.  I felt privileged to receive the recipe, but was a bit intimidated on baking the cake. After all, I had never tasted the cake and I did not want to mess it up.  The recipe was for a three layered carrot cake with a yummy cream cheese frosting. 
How do you make a tri-layered round cake when you have only own round cake pan, one square pan, and two 9"x13" cake pans? I decided to make a rectangle cake out of one 9"x13" pan and a 9" square pan.

This is my attempt. 

If you have been following my blog for a while, you know that I do not make "pretty items." As much as I want to make cutesy and dainty cakes of perfection, I do not have the patience to do so.  Being pregnant does not help the situation, so I had Mike help beautiful my three layered cake. 

Mike took over frosting this cake and kept laughing and shaking his head while doing so. He kept muttering things like, "If you stack cakes on top of each other, they should not be leaning in one direction," and "You should have placed the cake layer that was falling apart on the bottom. The base is always the most sturdy part of the cake."

Yes Mike, I may not be an engineer like you, but I understand the laws of Physics.  

The cake turned out pretty well. Our friend really enjoyed it and I think I'd make the cake again.  After I baked the carrot cake, I thought that I did something wrong because it was not too sweet.  The cream cheese frosting makes up for the sweetness of the cake and I think is what makes the cake special. 

Rich Chocolate Cheesecake

I forgot to take a picture of the finished cheesecake, but here's  a picture of half of the cheese cake. Chocolate cookie crust, chocolate cheesecake, topped with a chocolate ganache. It's a bit mangled looking because I dropped it while taking it out of the fridge.  Recently I've been quite clumsy in the kitchen. I've woken up Mike and Butters from naps because they hear things crashing to the ground in our kitchen.

There are some desserts that I feel are better off bought from the store.  Chiffon cake from Liliha Bakery is one of them, cheesecake is another. I think that those frozen Cheesecake Factory cheesecakes are pretty tasty and are a great deal versus spending the money for ingredients and time in the kitchen.  A friend requested cheesecake for his birthday, so I whipped out my springfoam pan that my mom bought me and went to work.

I used a bag of chocolate animal crackers as my cookie base. It was kind of funny. While Mike was eating the cheesecake at our friend's house, he asked me what I made the crust out of.  Then something clicked in his brain. He realized why we had half a bag of chocolate animal crackers on the counter. We usually do not have store-bought cookies lying around the house and assumed that it had been a pregnancy craving (although I haven't been having those cravings and am starting to think that "pregnancy cravings" are a myth).

Here's my chocolate wafer crust.  Ground chocolate cookies and butter. 

So, I realized that I did not have instant coffee (Mike and I do not drink coffee), so I ended up brewing a  bit of coffee and adding that into the cheesecake mixture.  The recipe called for 1 t of instant coffee. I think I threw in 2 Tablespoons of strong brewed coffee.

Yum yum yum! The surface was not as smooth as I would have liked, but that's the beauty of a chocolate ganache layer.  It covered up my mess.  

Mike thinks that this could be my signature dessert to bring over to potlucks. He said that it tasted good, and impressed people because it looked professional.  I feel pretty neutral about cheesecakes. They are not very exciting to make, but hey if I can look like a superstar by bringing this semi-professional dessert to parties, I'm all for it.  I'd just like to tweak the recipe a bit and make a heavy more NY-style cheesecake instead.  

Liquid Cheesecake and Saran Wrap Mishap

I'd like to blame this mistake on "pregnancy brain" but it's more of a "stupidity" mistake.
Sidenote-I think I'm still functioning at 90% of my usual brain/memory capacity, but the other week, I did something really dumb. Mike let me choose the Redbox movie to rent while he dropped the groceries off at the car. He picked me up and asked, "So what movie did you select?" and I answered with, "The Vow," it's a Nicholas Sparks book.
Mike gave me a funny look and said, "Didn't we watch that movie?" Maybe all Nicholas Sparks movies  blend together-after all this is the second movie Rachel McAdams and Channing Tatum have been in.  Or maybe it was a pretty average unmemorable movie that I forgot I watched.  Whatever the case, I felt pretty silly and will probably not be in charge of movie rental selections in the future.

Back to my food mishap.  I just borrowed Christine Tosi's "Milk Bar" cookbook from the library and I wanted to try to make one of her recipes. Last year during our trip to New York, Mike and I visited the Milk Bar. I thought that the baked goods were super creative and was excited when the book came out.

Well, since I had bought a 3-lb block of cream cheese from Sam's Club to bake a cheesecake for a friend's birthday, I had extra cream cheese and decided to test out the "Liquid Cheesecake" recipe. It's pretty much an under-baked cheesecake that can be incorporated into other desserts as a filling or frosting.
The recipe required me to line a pan with plastic wrap. Yes, red flags popped up in my brain, but then I thought, "hmm....saran wrap can be used in the microwave, this cheesecake is baked at 300F for a short amount of time...not so bad."  Still my gut instinct told me, "Have you ever seen anyone place saran wrap in the oven?"  So against, my better judgement, I lined a pan with saran wrap and filled it with the cheesecake mixture.

Big Mistake. Luckily, since I was second-guessing myself, I looked inside the oven after a few minutes of bake time and quickly took the pan out.  So, no oven fire there!
Yes, the saran wrap melted.  Yes, I'm a dummy.  Yes, I usually have more common sense than this.  I then flipped through the book and saw that in the beginning of the book, the author explains that the "plastic wrap" that she is referring to is heavy duty plastic wrap. 

Here's the melted mess. 

Note to self-Never place saran wrap in the oven.  

Note to Self 2-Read the Introductory chapter of books before you follow recipes, usually there is a section that recommends what kind of ingredients and equipment you should use.  

Rainbow Cupcakes!!!

Here's a recap of my attempt at making rainbow layered cupcakes! I bought a box of white cake mix and followed the recipe on the back of the box....then added a bunch of food coloring.

Here are my bowls of colored batter. I used Wilton's colored gels for coloring, but you can use regular food coloring. 

Here are the first two layers of batter. While I was layering the green batter on the blue batter, I started thinking that you could make cupcakes that looked like a globe.

Three layers.

I tried to fill each cupcake cup two-thirds full with batter. 

The finished cupcakes. They look pretty fluorescent and fun, but the real test is if the colored layers are apparent when I cut them.

I need to work on these a bit more so that the layers are more uniform. I think there is potential in these cupcakes! I have to work on evenly portioning the cake batter out. But not bad for my first attempt.