Sisters Baking Day, Part One

Every one in a while you should really take a day off work. For no reason. Not for an appointment, not for anything you HAVE to do. Just one day, preferably a Friday, stretching out your weekend and giving you some down time to just relax and do something just for you. Something fun and carefree. That's exactly what we did, my "sister" Jessica and I. We took a day off of adult life and had a Baking Day.

We didn't totally fly by the seat of our pants, we did write up a list and a loose plan. We started with the ingredients we already had on hand and built from there. We managed to scrape together quite a few solid ingredients to build off: cake mix, flour, sugars, a can of raspberry pie filling, a couple fresh peaches, canned blueberries, a little bit of leftover granola, some cherry chips, an assortment of extracts. We headed off to Aldi to get a last few things- we needed fresh citrus fruits for zests and juices, grabbed some cream cheese just in case, some nuts, real butter, and we were in business.

Not gonna lie here, we did grab a brownie mix at Aldi. Brownie mixes are just too easy and really very good to mess with all the melting and mixing of scratch brownies, especially when Aldi had a special buy on Ghirardelli brownie mix. We baked the brownies in mini muffin cups for the perfect two bite brownie treats.

The first recipe we put together was a super easy recipe you're going to want to remember. You start with a cheat item- cake mix. This is the easiest recipe to switch up to suit your tastes and ingredients on hand. Any cake mix, and add-ins. When using a white cake mix, you want to stick with egg whites only, so we used three. If you're using other cake mixes, two whole eggs are perfect. Here is what we did:

Almond Cherry Chip Cookies

1 box 2 layer size white cake mix

1/2 cup oil

3 egg whites

1 1/2 teaspoons almond extract

1/2 cup mini cherry chips*

1/2 cup toasted sliced or slivered almonds

*We used Gurley Golden Recipe brand mini chips

Heat oven to 350 degrees.

Mix the cake mix, oil and egg together.

Stir in the chips and almonds. 

Use a cookie scoop to make evenly sized cookies on an ungreased cookie sheet. Jessica's scoop is about a perfect rounded tablespoon.

Bake for 10 minutes until just lightly browned on the bottom. Let the cookies set on the cookie sheet for 3-4 minutes before removing to a rack to cool. 

We dusted them generously with powered sugar. So so so delicious!!

Up next we were thinking about things that could also go into the freezer, so we'd have treats for future road trips or busy mornings. Naturally muffins were the first thing we thought of! A while back we had a road trip to Boone and visited the Dutch bakery there where we got the most delicious cranberry orange muffins. That's what we decided on. Jessica had some dried cranberries in the cupboard, and fresh oranges and nuts were newly purchased so here is how we made them:

Orange Cranberry Mini Muffins

2 cups flour

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 stick butter

1 cup sugar

2 eggs

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1/2 cup milk

zest of one orange

1 cup dried cranberries

1/2 cup chopped walnuts

Heat the oven to 375 degrees. Spray a mini muffin pan with cooking spray. Set aside.

Sift the flour, baking powder and salt together and set aside. In a mixing bowl, cream the sugar and butter together until light and fluffy. Use a mixer for this, it's so much easier. Beat in the eggs and vanilla, the zest and then stir in the milk. 

Combine with the dry ingredients, mixing just enough to combine. Don't overmix or the muffins will be tough. Fold in the cranberries and walnuts.

Use a scoop to fill the mini muffin pans. Bake for about 20-25 minutes until muffins are done. Remove from pan and cool on a rack. Dip tops of cooled muffins into orange glaze, or drizzle over them.

Simple Orange Glaze

3/4 cup powdered sugar

freshly squeezed orange juice

Mix together with a whisk until desired consistency. Dip muffins or drizzle over.

The glaze adds just the perfect sweetness and is a great way to use the orange left over after zesting. It's the ultimate topping for these tasty little muffin bites and sets up well so you don't have a sticky mess.

We had plenty more baking on the agenda, so stay tuned!! You won't want to miss the Bars part of our Sisters Baking Day. 

Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the brands, products, or services that I mentioned. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission's 16 CFR, Part 55: "Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising."