Lions & Tigers &...Peanut Butter Balls??!! Oh my!!!!

Yay!!! My computer is at long last fixed :)  Back to blogging for me...and lots of upcoming blogs for you to enjoy!

Today I had a relaxing day - knitting, making some phone calls, visiting my sister & her kids, fit a nap in there somewhere and what do you have?  A relaxing day.  After a very delicious supper cooked by my man, who is a much better cook than I, I just had that thing in your mouth.  You know...that thing, that sits on the tip of your tongue.  I tried to figure it out, what did my mouth want?  Then it hit me - Peanut Butter Balls.

To be quite honest, I google'd a recipe and the very first one I came across was the one I made.  During the mixing process, it occurred to me that I had never, EVER made peanut butter balls.  Why not?  They are sooooo easy!!  They take very little ingredients, and who doesn't like peanut butter balls?? (besides maybe someone allergic to peanut butter....)  I'll let you in on a secret, I actually halved the recipe in order to use up the unsweetened peanut butter I had in my cupboard (I only had a cup left).  I also almost always use margarine when I bake.  It's cheaper, it's always the consistency of room temperature butter and it works just the same.  If I do use butter, I will specify in my notes, because some things just absolutely need to made with butter.  I also made all the balls about the size of a large grape (or .5" diameter) and with a half recipe came out with 40 bite-sized PB Balls.

I was so astounded at how simple this recipe is!  I've made croissant dough from scratch that takes 2 days to prepare properly -- TWO DAYS!!!  But never PB Balls.  Why had I never made this simple and delicate treat before?  Well, I promise you I'll be making them more often in the future.  They are that thing you know you want, when you can't quite put your finger on it :)

Enjoy!

~Sally

Peanut Butter Balls

2 cups (500 grams) creamy peanut butter

1/4 cup (57 grams) unsalted butter, room temperature (or margarine)

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

2 - 2 1/2 cups (230 - 290 grams) confectioners (powdered or icing) sugar

Chocolate Coating

9 ounces (255 grams) semi sweet chocolate, coarsely chopped

2 tablespoons (25 grams)butter, room temperature (or margarine)

Peanut Butter Balls: 

• Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. 
• Place the peanut butter, unsalted butter, and salt in a microwaveable bowl, and heat in the microwave for about one minute or until just soft (check and stir the ingredients every 20 seconds). 
• Stir in the vanilla extract and confectioners sugar and mix until it has the consistency of a dough (add more sugar if necessary).
• Roll the dough into 1 inch (2.5 cm) round balls. Place on the cookie sheet and refrigerate for about one hour, or until firm.

• Melt the chocolate and shortening in a heatproof bowl over a saucepan of simmering water. 
• Dip the balls, one at a time, in the melted chocolate, making sure the entire ball is coated with chocolate.
• Then, with two spoons or a dipping fork, remove the peanut butter ball from the melted chocolate, allowing any excess chocolate to drip back into the bowl. 
• Place the chocolate covered balls back on the baking sheet. 
• When all the balls have been dipped in the chocolate, place in the refrigerator until the chocolate has set. 
• Store in an airtight container for up to two weeks. To serve: place in small fluted candy cups.

Makes about 40 pieces(1" diameter). Preparation time 30 minutes.

Death by Chocolate Cookies...oh my!

Hello.  As it turns out, my laptop decided to come down with a case of chronic trojan virus, so I cannot access the internet *at all* from home now...at least not until I can reformat my computer.  However, as fate has it, I am dog sitting for 4 days for my parents this weekend so I am back for a few days.  Hopefully it won't be too long before I can get my laptop fixed.

I was here at my mother's yesterday discussing last minute dog-sitting duties and was craving something as chocolately as could be.  My mother has an amazing knack of keeping recipes sorted and organized.  She clips them from magazines and papers and whererever she may come across them and has them all neatly put in plastic page holders and sorted in binders.  As I flipped through a few of her binders I came across a receipe for "Baker's One Bowl 'Death by Chocolate Cookie'".  It was in the binder labeled "Cookies, Ice Cream, Perserves".  This was a done deal.

They were quick and easy to make.  However, mine turned out chocolately but very crumbly, and mom said when I was mixing ingredients that it mixed differently than when she had made them last.  But regardless, they are super chocolately, and defintely a good fix when you want some chocolate.  Another delicious clipped recipe from my mother's wonderful collection of delights.  Enjoy!

~Sally



"Baker's One Bowl 'Death by Chocolate Cookie'"

Prep: 15 minutes
Bake: 12 minutes

2 pkg (16 squares) Baker's Semi-Sweet Baking Chocolate, divided
3/4 c. firmly packed brown sugar
1/4 c. butter or margarine
2 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
1/2 c. all purpose flour
1/4 tsp baking powder
2 c. chopped nuts (optional, but highly recommended by moi)

1. Heat oven to 350F.
2. Coarsely chop 8 squares (1 pkg) of the chocolate; set aside
3. Microwave remaining 8 sqaures chocolate in large microwaveable bowl on HIGH 1-2 minutes*.  Stir in sugar, butter, eggs and vanilla.  Stir in flour and baking powder.  Stir in the reserved chopped chocolate and the nuts.
4. Drop by tablespoons onto an ungreased cookie sheet.  Bake 12-13 minutes or until cookies are puffed and feel set to the touch.
5.  Cool on cookie sheet 1 minute.  Transfer to wire rack to cool completely.  Makes about 1 1/2 dozen cookies.


*Note: I melted my chocolate in a bain-marie (double-boiler) on the stove because in my experience baker's chocolate always burns when nuked in the microwave.

Oatcakes...Love 'em or Love to Hate 'em

When I was a kid, my family would go to this awesome restaurant in town from time to time.  The thing I loved about this restaurant was that instead of putting dinner rolls or bread on the table while you waited, they put baskets of oatcakes.  Big thick oatcakes, probably 3" x 3" square and 1cm thick.  They were sweet, and chewy, and that was my favorite part about going to this restaurant, because I had never eaten another oatcake like it anywhere.

The chef at the resort I worked at while working abroad thought it would be a brilliant idea that when a guest finished their meal, instead of receiving a mint with their bill, they would receive several bite sized oatcakes.  I never saw if this process actually happened in the restaurant as it was definitely slow going early in the season.  Once the bus groups ramped up, I was making individual packages of 2 bite sized oatcakes for each person on the bus tour.  Some mornings I'd have to have 42 (thats 84 oatcakes) ready...other mornings three times as many.  Whatever the reason, it seemed that oatcakes became a regular thing on the list of things to do all the time.

At first, I thought this a great opportunity for me to find an authentic "Nova Scotia Oatcake" recipe for all the worldwide travelers to taste and marvel over, as I once did when I was a little girl in that restaurant.  So I searched and searched online.  I checked cookbooks and asked the others in the kitchen.  In the end, during the middle of my workday, standing in the middle of my baker's kitchen, I did what any other self respecting girl would do when she didn't know what else to do.  I called my mother.

My mother checked her recipes and had a recipe called "Nova Scotia Oatcakes".  And that is what recipe we used all summer.  It was simple to make, easy to roll and they tasted great!  The first few times I made them I was in love.  One small recipe made 150 1" x 1" bite sized oatcakes.  I thought, "This is going to be a piece of cake!".  However, my mind was quickly changed after the first thousand oatcakes turned out.  I never wanted to see another oatcake again.  It wasn't the mixing, or the rolling, or the cutting.  The most hateful part was having to individually wrap packages of 2 oatcakes for the bus tours.  It also made me dread those little order slips I would get left on my counter long after my day was finished.  I would come in the next morning to find out I needed to make another 200 oatcakes.  Then another. And yet more.

It wasn't so bad, really, until that one morning I walked in to no slips on my counter.  You see, when the oatcakes were ordered for the bus tours, they had to be ready to go out to the front desk staff by 8am.  My morning started at 5am everyday so it was no problem to achieve this.  At 745am one morning, a front desk staff member came in looking for 64 packages of oatcakes (That's 128 oatcakes).  The slip got handed into the chef's office, instead of to the baker's kitchen.  After finding the order slip, I then had to do a major scramble amidst the other million things I had to do that day, to drop everything and slam out these annoying little packages of oatcakes for those 64 seniors on a bus tour that simply had to have their oatcakes before they left the resort.  And got them they did.  It doesn't seem like it now, but I never felt so stressed out over a simply little cookie ever before.

By the end of the summer, I was hateful toward oatcakes.  I didn't want to see those little order slips.  I didn't want to hear there was another bus tour pulling in.  I didn't want to roll out and cut another 200 little oatcakes...EVER AGAIN.  I haven't made oatcakes since I left the resort (over 8 months ago) but I actually have been wanting to make some lately since I do love them so much.  That restaurant I loved to visit for the oatcakes years ago has since gone out of business in the last year so I'm sad I will never be able to indulge in my childhood delight at that restaurant again.  But at least I have the knowledge, appreciation and know-how to make them myself.  Please make some for yourself sometime, and know that behind every baked good, there is always a story to be told.  Enjoy!

~Sally

Wedding Cakes 101

I love creating specialty cakes, especially wedding cakes.  There is such a huge space for imagination when it comes to what you can do with fondant, icing and gum paste.  They turn out so beautiful, since the sky is the limit when it comes to design.

This particular wedding cake, was my very first professional wedding cake that I did on my own.  It sold to the bride and groom and the very reasonable price of $495.00 +tax...hehehe!  The bottom tier is vanilla cake, the middle tier is chocolate cake, and the top layer is carrot cake!  What a way to mix it up!  The whole cake was frosted with a vanilla buttercreme and then wrapped in fondant.  Fondant, for anyone who might not know is a soft playdough-like cooked sugar mass that is draped and fitted over the outside of many fancier cakes and is usually white but can be colored.  It is very smooth in appearance when fitted to the cake.  You can also make a lot of figures and shapes with fondant (example: fondant daisies). 

This cake in particular, the bride provided a 1" white sheer ribbon to be wrapped around the bottom edge of each of the three tiers.  She also provided plastic pearl strings to be wrapped around each tier.  Then came in a large box of fresh pink lilies to be used in decorating her cake.  Sounds easy right?  Wrong.

The problem I ran into was that this cake was for a wedding in the middle of July which happened to be *the* hottest week of weather all summer.  It was a desperate 30 degrees Celsius outside which meant in the kitchens it was a mere pathetic 45 degrees Celsius.  The problem that presented itself was that it was so warm and *so* humid that the royal icing I needed for gluing the ribbon, pearls and flowers into place wasn't harding as fast as it should.    The buttercreme was getting so warm under the fondant that it was causing the fondant to sog, and the fondant itself started to sweat because of the humidity.  I ended up scrubbing down and clearing a section of the butcher shop for the assembly of half this cake as it was the only air conditioned area of the whole kitchen.  However, it wasn't as cold as trying to do such a task in the fridge, which would have caused worse sweating and sagging when the cake was hence removed into the hot day's air later. The other half of the cake was then assembled in the reception hall for the dinner after the ceremony whilst the servers were setting up for dinner service.

Did I mention the power was out the entire day due to a blown down tree over a power line?

It was definitely a challenge, but I got it done in the end just the same.  What turned out was the most beautiful wedding cake to which I take great pride in saying is all my creation.

~Sally

Bread Pudding Any Way You Like

You know what, my whole life I always hated bread pudding.  "Old" people would talk about it, and I'd hear people ordering it in restaurants, and my dad loved it but I never really knew what it was or what it tasted like.   To me: bread + pudding = barf city.  It looked like burnt gross soggy mush in a bowl and I didn't want any part of it.

Last summer, while working abroad at the resort, I had to make bread pudding as it was something we were going to try out for the breakfast buffet.  Apparently people worldwide love this stuff.  While I had an aversion to the stuff, having never tried it due to the inner child going "yuck!" inside me, I naturally had no sweet clue how to make it.  I looked up recipe after recipe and it seemed weird and complicated and none of the recipes sounded any good.  I thought, "I love everything I bake, even the stuff I don't like too much.  How on earth am I going to put heart and soul into this mush dish that I can't figure out?"

After much frustration I approached the sous chef who was a 29 year veteran of this particular resort, and he gave me his simple and surprisingly to myself, absolutely delicious recipe for fluffy, sweet, wonderful bread pudding.  The thing I love the most about this recipe is it is so interchangeable.  You always start with the base recipe, then add whatever you want whether it's maple syrup & brown sugar, or cinnamon & raisins, or once I even made it with apples, cranberries and pears.  It is amazing.  I hope you give this one a try sometime, even if you don't like bread pudding, and change your outlook as I did.  You'll find that there is something ready to tantalize your taste buds around every corner!  Enjoy!

~Sally


Reid's Bread Pudding

Old bread (enough to fill 9x13 pan)  Use any kind, white, wheat, raisin...mix it up for the best recipe.

Base Recipe:
1 liter coffee cream
1 liter whipping cream
1 liter eggs (cracked or carton bought, but cracked taste best)
2 tsp vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350F
Grease a 9x13 rectangle baking pan

1. Chop bread into bite size chunks and spread evenly in greased 9x13 pan. It doesn't have to look pretty, just spread around til the bread is as high as the edge of the pan or just over.
2. Mix base recipe until well mixed.  Pour over bread chunks in the pan.  The mix should come up just about to the lip of the pan.
3. Using a spatula or wooden spoon, press the bread into the egg/cream mix so that all the pieces have been soaked into the mixture.
4. You can bake it at this point for 30-35 minutes or until the egg/cream mix is not runny and the bread is brown on top or go to step 5.

5. Add whatever you feel like to the mix.  If you want cinnamon raisin bread pudding, add in 2 handfuls of raisins (sprinkle onto the bread mix before pouring the egg/cream mix) and throw a teaspoon of cinnamon into your egg/cream mix before pouring it.  It also tastes great if you sprinkle a handful of brown sugar over the top of the whole mix before putting it in the oven.

Note: If adding fruit or nuts, always sprinkle it into the bread before pouring the egg/cream mix on.
If adding flavoring (like cinnamon, maple syrup, brown sugar, etc) mix it into the egg/cream mix before pouring onto the bread.  Just a little will go a long way.

Brownies to the Rescue!

I love brownies.  Brownies seem to make the world right again, even when you think the world is all wrong.  They can be chewy, gooey, cake-like, soft, dense, fluffy, iced or not, or have nuts in them or not.  For some reason when you think you are in the snottiest, crankiest mood and no one else understands, the pan of brownies seems to understand.  (They also can make your hips understand that too many aren't good for you, but they understand nonetheless.)

Take this evening for instance, things are going okay for me in my life, but suddenly that instant of female mood swing hits and suddenly...wham! You find yourself in the middle of a personal upset over something ridiculous, or maybe it was nothing at all!   So I go to the kitchen and haul out my favorite all time brownie recipe.  I don't know where it came from, I don't know when I found it, but I've had it for years and years and it always brings comfort in those moments in life when you know the brownie will solve all your problems.

My favorite way to serve these is with walnuts in them (although some prefer to leave them out).  Even a few days later (if they last that long) they remain moist and chewy and divine.  Make them some night when you need that moment of brownie heaven to calm your nerves...or you just want an easy treat to serve to company!

~Sally


Sally's Favorite Brownies

1/2 c. butter or margarine
1 c. white sugar
1 tsp vanilla
2 eggs
3/4 c. cocoa
1/2 c. all purpose flour
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/8 tsp salt
1/2 c. walnuts, optional (but recommended)

Preheat oven to 350F.
Use an 8x8 or 9x9 square baking pan, greased

1. Put all ingredients in a bowl, mix well. 
2. Pour into the greased pan and spread around evenly.
3. Bake 30-35 minutes or until they begin to pull away from the sides of the pan.

Enjoy!

Blueberry Muffins Rock

Hi everyone in blog life...I realize I've been absolutely the worst blogger known to man. I'm going to try to set that straight once and for all.

A lot has happened in the last year and now it's a new ball game! Currently I'm living the non-working life, and doing a lot of trial baking and old favorites as well. I'm determined to write each and every time I bake something (which is usually everyday...or every other day) and give you my feedback and recipes from time to time.

Today I baked blueberry muffins. It's a very easy recipe from 500 Best Muffin Recipes by Esther Brody, and it was delicious! I find sometime the best muffin recipes are the simplest. Many recipes get bogged down with too many spices, or a method that's so long you want to dump the whole thing in the bin before you get the pan in oven. This one is easy, simple and make delicious blueberry muffins.

The prep time was about 10 minutes to mix everything up and 15-20 minutes to bake and absolutely perfect blueberry muffins will appear from your oven. The recipe calls for pastry flour, but I used all-purpose and it turned out just the same. The choice is yours. The only thing I strongly recommend on this recipe is to spray your muffin liners with pan spray before putting the batter in, otherwise you end up eating half your muffin off the paper liner, not that a little paper hurt anyone but it definitely ruins the experience.

Try out this recipe next time you feel like some simple, but scrumptious blueberry muffins!


~Sally



Esther's Favorite Blueberry Muffins
1/4 c. softened butter or margarine
3/4 c. granulated sugar
1 egg
1 1/2 c. pastry flour (or all-purpose works too for this recipe)
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 c. milk
1 c. fresh or frozen blueberries

Preheat oven to 400F (200C)
12 cup muffin tin, greased or paper lined

1. In a bowl cream together butter and sugar. Add egg, mix well.
2. In another bowl sift together flour, salt and baking powder. Add to creamed mixture alternately with milk; stir just until moistened. Fold in blueberries.
3. Spoon batter into prepared muffin tin, filling to the top. Bake in preheated oven for 15-20 minutes or until lightly browned.