Classic Blueberry Muffins

Classic Blueberry Muffins

I love Muffins... love, Love, LOVE them. can't get enough. Over the past few months I've been trying to make some from scratch for the first time in my life. The first batch I ever made(the recipe I got from a cook book) smelled so good,  but tasted so horrible I had to toss out the entire batch. I started to try some other recipes that i found online. They would turn out pretty well but they were always missing something. Either I wouldn't be exactly excited about the flavor or I didn't think they were exactly moist enough. So I started doing some experiments and trying different combinations of ingredients. I found that adding sour cream(something that I hate and refuse to eat) actually makes muffins and cakes really moist. I'm still working on on making a streusel topping for my muffins but I made this recipe for blueberry muffins came out great and I love it.

Ingredients

• 2 cups flour
• 1 cup sugar
• 1/2 tea spoon kosher salt
• 1 table spoon baking powder
• 1/2 tea spoon of cinnamon
• 2 eggs (room temperature)
• 1 cup milk
• 1/4 cup of vegetable oil
• 1/4 cup of sour cream 
• 2 tea spoons vanilla
• 2 tea spoons lemon juice
• 2 cups fresh or frozen blueberries

Cooking Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees and spray muffin tin or line with baking cups. 
2. In a large bowl sift flour, sugar, kosher salt, baking soda, and the together cinnamon. Whisk them a few times just to make sure that everything is mixed.
3. In a separate bowl smaller bowl whisk the eggs, milk, vegetable oil, sour cream, vanilla and lemon juice. I mixed one ingredient at a time starting with the sour cream and eggs. 
4. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients using a spoon or spatula, make sure everything not to over mix.
5. Now add the blueberries to everything and mix the in. batter will be lumpy.
6. Fill each muffin tin to about 3/4 of the way.
7. Bake for about 15- 20 mins until you can stick a tooth pick in and it comes out clean.

Meatloaf Cupcakes

I feel sorry for my Mom sometimes when I think back about my eating habits when I was growing up   I was a terrible picky eating... okay not was but am. I'me getting better though. Meatloaf was something that I would eat, but I was never really crazy about it. I would pick around the tomatoes and other vegetables.

I am eating better now though and love eating meatloaf.

Ingredients:

• 2 lbs of Ground Meat
• 1 Onion (or half of a large onion)
• 1/2 of a Bell Pepper (I used an orange one)
• 2 Eggs
• 1 cup of Bread Crumbs
• 1 cup of Cheese
• 1/2 cup BBQ Sauce 
• 1 can of Dice Tomatoes (I used half of it)
• 4 cloves of Garlic minced 
• 2 teaspoons Seasoned Salt
• 2 teaspoons Montreal Steak Season
• 2 teaspoons Worcestershire Sauce
• 1 teaspoon Creole Seasoning
• 4 slices of Bacon (optional) 
• 2 table spoons of Olive Oil

Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. 
2. Cook 5 slices of bacon on the stove then set aside (being careful not to burn or over cook them).
3. While you're cooking your bacon dice up both your onion and your bell pepper.
4. After you have dice up the onions and bell peppers sauté with olive oil for about 10 mins
5. In a large bowl combine all ingredients except for the bacon.
6. In an un-greased muffin pan scoop in meatloaf until about 3/4 full. Press you meal oaf down a little in the center to prevent from bubbling up to much.
7. Cut your bacon into slices about an 1 inch long and then lay them on top of the meatloaf muffins.
8. Cook in oven for about 15-20 minutes or until meat reaches 160 degrees.
9. Let sit for 5 mins and then using tongs transfer to cupcake  liners.
10. Decorate with mashed potatoes for frosting and bacon bits and vegetables for sprinkles. 

Weekend Pop-Tarts you can make with kids

Breakfast is happens to be one of my favorite meals of the day. Even though I actually don't eat breakfast that often, at least when I do it way past breakfast time. So this afternoon I decided to make one of my favorite breakfast snack "Pop-Tarts".

This recipe is really pretty easy to because I used store bought pie dough to make the crust. Usually I like to make most of my ingredients as much as possible but I happened to have some left over pie dough from the holidays I needed to us up. My crust actually has cinnamon roasted pecans (something I added to my pie crust) in it, which goes it a sweet nutty flavor. 

For the filling you can use any jelly or jam you my happen to have on hand. I used a Pumpkin Butter Jam I made out of left over pumpkins from thanksgiving for my filling. 

For the frosting I use a powder sugar and milk combination. depending on the type of filling you choose you may want to use brown sugar, orange juice or lemon juice in substitution or in combination with milk. And don't forget the Sprinkles!

If you have kids you should have them help you out. It's a great way to introduce them into the baking world. 

Ingredients

• Pie Dough store bought or homemade (I used Pillsbury dough)
• Your Preferred Jam/Jelly
• Milk
• Powdered Sugar

Instructions

1. unroll your pie dough and using a rolling pin roll the dough out into a rectangle that is about 10" x 14. Using a little flour on the surface you are working and on the rolling pin can help prevent dough from sticking.
2. Using a pizza slicer cut your dough into the size portions you would like for your tarts. I actually have a cut-n-seal sandwich cuter from Pampered Chef that I used. You can also you a 2 1/2 inch biscuit cutter or a glass that is also around that size if you want round pop-tarts. Other wise use a pizza slicer to make square or rectangular size pop-tarts. Make sure you Have an even number once you are done.
3. Using only half of the dough cut-out put about a teaspoon or so of jam/jelly in the center of each one.
4. Put an unused dough cut-out on top of each on that has jam/jelly on it.
5. Using a fork press down on the edges of the two dough cut-outs sealing in your jam/jelly.
6. Place on an un-greased cookie sheet and bake at 425 degrees for about 7 -10 minutes until crust is a slightly brown.
7. Once cool frost decorate with sprinkles.
8. If you have any left over dough repeat the process over again or you can refrigerate for later use.

Making the frosting

1. In a large bowl combine 1 cup of powdered sugar with about 1/2-1 teaspoon of milk. You won't  your frosting to be think so it doesn't run when you are applying it. I whisk mine together only adding a little milk at a time until I have my desired texture.

New Years Day Cookie Cake

So it's January 1st 2014. The brand new start to a new year and what better way to bring in the new year than with a new recipe. As a child I loved having Miss Fields cookies. Every time we went to the mall I just had to get a cookie. Then I discovered her cookie cakes and I was in "Heaven". Never before had something tasted so good.

I'm not if its because I grew out of them or because I just don't do that much shopping at the mall anymore thanks to amazon.com but I haven't had a cookie cake in for ever. So while I was browsing through Pinterst.com and Foodgawker.com two of my new favorite guilty pleasure I saw a few cookies and they brought me back to when I was a child.

Long story short I decided to give it a shot and try to make my own cookie cake, and wow it turn out amazingly. I tried to frost it, but I need to work on my tectonic still. I really do love this cake though even more than I loved Miss Fields. I ate with so ice cream which only made it even Better. try this out for yourself though. Let me know how it turns out.

Ingredients

• 3/4 cups of salted butter, softened
• 3/4 cups of brown sugar
• 1/4 cup of sugar
• 1 egg, at room temperature
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 2 cups all purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons of cornstarch
• 1 teaspoon of baking soda
• 1/8 teaspoon of salt
• 1 cup of semi-sweet chocolate chips (sometimes I put a little more, chocolate never hurt anyone)

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees and line your baking dish with parchment paper. (I used an 8 inch round one, you'll see why after it's all done.)
2. In a large bowl or mixer combine sugar and butter together until fluffy.
3. Next mix in your egg and your vanilla.
4. If you have a mixer I combine the put in the rest of the ingredients except the chocolate chips in the bowl and mix until dough in thick and can sticks together. If you are using an electric hand mixer you may want to mix all of the dry ingredients in a separate bowl (except chocolate chips) before mixing with wet ingredients.
5. Now you may stir in your chocolate chips.
6. Put dough in baking pan and press it down and speed it out even. 
7. Bake for about 20- 25 minutes until edges are brown. (if using a larger pan the cooking time will be less)
8. Let cool in pan for 30 minutes then transfer cool rack for duration of cool.
9. If you so desire frost your cookie cake once cool, or eat it with some ice cream or by itself It will taste wonderful no matter what.

Hello & Welcome

Welcome to my first Blog, I'm very excited to start blogging. I decided to blog about cooking. I've recently started to venture more into the cook and baking world. I've been tweaking some recipes I've found from other bloggers over the past few years and making some of my own. I figure that it might be fun to share the experience with others. I'm the type of person who loves to have people over to entertain. I also like just baking little goodies for my family and friends to have. Over the past few years I've also been collecting recipes and tweaking them to make them my own.