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."

She Bakes- Rhubarb Mini Muffins

Rhubarb recipes are continuing from my little kitchen, as we're venturing into baking territory. If you ever spend any time looking through old church cookbooks, you probably noticed there are a LOT of people who used to cook with rhubarb. Like I have said before, back a generation ago it seems like every backyard in Iowa had a rhubarb patch and everyone's mom or grandmother had an arsenal of delicious rhubarb recipes. I just can't get enough of this stuff!

I know I could buy it at the store or the farmers market, but jeez, enough people still have it in their yards and so many people think they don't like it or don't know what to do with it that I can usually get a decent sized score from friends for free, and this year is no exception. My good friends Paul and Jennifer offered some freebie rhubarb and I've been playing around with it the last few days. I've been trying to be better at bringing food from home to work for breakfast and lunch instead of spending too much in the cafeteria all the time, and what better way to ration it out than to make muffins? Mini muffins? Even better (plus I couldn't find my regular size muffin pan so......).

As a baker, I can whip up a batch of basic plain old muffin batter with ease, but rhubarb is a bit of a challenge. It's heavily loaded with water so baking with it can be a bit tricky. If you overbake it, the rhubarb can break down and become soggy. Using it in pies, which have a long bake time, you definitely need a thickening agent like cornstarch or flour tossed with that fruit to make it saucy and delicious. You also have to think about the size of the cuts- the smaller they are, the less time they need to cook through. If you cut it too large, it won't cook enough during baking. Mini muffins presented quite a challenge! One way I altered my recipe was to use sour cream instead of the cup of milk I would normally use- it moistens the batter with just the right amount of "wet" so the muffins don't end up soggy from the fruit, and the diced rhubarb is just the perfect size to cook through during the baking without becoming mush. You can finish your muffins with a drizzle of glaze made from powdered sugar, or a quick roll in some cinnamon sugar. They are so delicious!

Cinnamon Rhubarb Mini Muffins

2 cups flour

3/4 cup sugar

3 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup sour cream

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, melted

2 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 1/2 cups finely diced rhubarb (1/4 inch dice)

1/4 cup sugar

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

Cooking spray

Combine the flour, sugar, salt, baking powder and spices in a medium bowl and set aside.

In a small bowl, beat the eggs. Add the sour cream, melted butter and vanilla. Combine well.

Add the rhubarb to the dry ingredients and toss to coat the rhubarb. Add the wet ingredients all at once and mix, folding gently, until just combined. Don't over mix. Mix remaining sugar and cinnamon in a small bowl.

Spray your mini muffin pan with cooking spray. Use a small scoop to evenly add the batter to the pan. Sprinkle each muffin with the cinnamon sugar. Bake in a 350 degree oven for 12-15 minutes, until lightly browned. 

Four mini muffins in a zip top bag make a great on-the-go breakfast for busy work days, or tucked in a lunch box for a mid day snack. The rhubarb keeps the muffins moist and remind me of something my mother would have made wen I was growing up. I think I should seriously start my own rhubarb patch right in my own backyard.

Goin' Bananas !!!!

It's not even WINTER yet and this girl has a serious case of cabin fever !!! I wanted to do some exploring in the area- partly because we haven't explored much at all, and I have a map of ghost towns in Guthrie County, and partly because our part of the state is so important to my new job- I need to get out and see the counties and towns.

But, alas, it wasn't meant to be this weekend and Sunday was spent mostly in jammies on the couch watching football. No Vikings this week so I just cheered for the Saints, Chiefs and Packers instead.

I haven't cooked much lately, haven't posted much, and was feeling a little neglectful of that. Plus, everytime I walked through the kitchen I could feel the sad eyes of two brown, overly ripe, sad bananas just BEGGING me to do something with them. So I knew I needed to do SOMETHING today.

So I went into the Room of Doom to try and find a loaf pan. Banana bread sounds good, right ? Ha !! Which box has the loaf pans ? Who knows...... so banana nut muffins then ? But where is the muffin pan ? Sigh........in the Room of Doom I'm sure. But then I remembered- I had been at a garage sale earlier this summer !! I bought a mini muffin pan (didn't NEED it but it was a quarter !!) and I KNEW that was in the kitchen. So, Banana Nut Mini Muffins it is.

Banana Nut Mini Muffins

1 3/4 cup all purpose flour
1/4 cup sugar
2 1/2 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp salt
1 beaten egg
1/2 cup milk
1 cup mashed banana
1/2 cup chopped nuts

In large bowl stir together flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. Set aside. Mash bananas in a small bowl.

Chop nuts and toss in bowl with flour. Combine beaten egg, oil and milk in small bowl. Add egg mixture all at once to flour mixture. Stir just until moistened, batter should be lumpy. Add banana. Prepare muffin cups, fill 2/3 full. Bake at 400 degree about 10 minutes or until golden brown.

How did they turn out ?? Yummy !!!!

How did the day of football turn out ? The Saints won, the Packers won and the Chiefs let me down.....now come on Ravens !!!!