Tag Archives: butter

Biscoff Blondies

21 Oct

So after Biscoff Brownies, my first experiment with cookie butter, I was both completely enthralled by Biscoff and I still had some left in the pantry. So since brownies had already been done, I tried my hand with blondies. And this is rare for me, because as you know, I’m a straight-up chocaholic, but…

OH MY STARS Y’ALL THESE ARE SO GOOD YOU HAVE NO IDEA STOP READING AND MAKE THESE RIGHT NOW. RIGHT. NOW.

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Here’s the thing. Once cooled and cut into bars, these are just as good as any other brownie or blondie. Delicious, but not completely insane.

But if you bake these, pull them out of the oven, and then proceed to immediately eat them with a fork out of the pan? You will think you have died and gone to heaven. Oh yes you will.

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Like, after I cut them up the next day into actual bars, I tasted one, and it was good. But really, I was trying to give the bars to family and friends and coworkers to get rid of them as fast as I could in order to justify baking another batch to eat straight out of the oven. I guess it would have been smarter to leave them in the pan and re-heat them in the oven the next day, but I just didn’t know any better. Please, learn from my mistakes. I beg you.

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Here’s the recipe. You’re welcome.

Biscoff Blondies from The Traveling Spoon

3 tablespoons butter
1/4 cup Biscoff cookie butter spread
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 cup flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 large egg
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Grease an 8×8-inch baking pan lightly with butter. In a medium saucepan over medium-low heat, melt butter, Biscoff spread, and brown sugar until just combined. Stir until smooth. Remove from heat and set aside to cool.

In a small mixing bowl, combine flour, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.

Stir egg and vanilla into the cooled Biscoff mixture until just blended. Add the flour mixture, and stir until smooth. The batter will be very thick. Fold in chocolate chips.

Transfer mixture into the prepared pan, spreading evenly with the back of a spoon (or mush it with your fingers, if necessary). Bake for 20 minutes or until the edges just begin to brown. Eat directly from warm pan! (Or, if you just gotta be like that, cool in pan on a wire rack before cutting and serving.)

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Linking up With:

Funday Monday from Still Being Molly and Lipgloss and Crayons
Block Party from Sumo’s Sweet Stuff
Made by you Monday from Skip to my Lou
Inspiration Monday from I Should Be Mopping the Floor, Twelve O Eight,Redhead Can Decorate, and Scattered Thoughts of a Crafty Mom
Melt In Your Mouth Monday from Make Ahead Meals for Busy Moms
Time to Sparkle from Love Grows Wild, Inside BruCrew Life, The Recipe Critic, and The Gunny Sack
Create It Thursday from Lamberts Lately
Full Plate Thursday from Miz Helen’s Country Cottage
All Things Pretty from Sparkles and a Stove and My Fashion Forward Blog
Foodie Friday from Simple Living & Eating

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Garlic Mashed Rutabagas

25 Feb

We got rutabagas in our CSA this week. Having never seen one before, I had to do a bit of research. Here’s what I found:

Rutabaga!

  • It’s a cross between a turnip and a cabbage. In English-speaking countries outside of North America, it’s more commonly referred to as a “Swedish turnip.”
  • It’s in the brassica family, so it’s related to turnips, cabbage, kale, cauliflower, broccoli, brussel sprouts, etc. Rutabagas have loads of nutritional value.
  • You can eat any part of the rutabaga! Some ideas: The root/bulb and stems can be sliced and diced and added to a stir fry. The bulb can be mashed like mashed potatoes. The leaves can be cooked like any greens, sauteed and added to pastas or soups, or used raw in green smoothies.
  • Pretty much anything you’d do to a potato or sweet potato, you can do to the rutabaga bulb. It’s like a healthier, more nutrient-rich, less-starchy, delicious version of potato.

For dinner, we decided to try garlic mashed rutabagas. The BF and I spent a considerable amount of time shouting “rutabaga!” while cooking. It just is a necessary part of cooking a veggie with such a weird name.

Mash 'em up

I thought it was delicious. It tastes so much like the butter and garlic I added, I really didn’t think it was all that different from mashed potatoes. Give this a try! Even if you still include the unhealthy dairy mixed into it, rutabagas are still way healthier than potatoes. They have about 36 calories and 8 grams of carbs, compared 77 calories and 18 grams of carbs in a white potato. I added some plain Greek yogurt to make it a little creamier. That allowed me to reduce the amount of milk and butter.

Smashed

They’re a little more yellow than potatoes. I like ’em smashed, not mashed. Or shmashed. Whichever. We had garlic mashed rutabagas with barbecue pork chops and a green salad. Yum-o! (And just for the record, I did eat more salad than what’s pictured here. Gotta get your veggies!)

Dinner's ready!

Garlic Mashed Rutabagas, with inspiration from Paula Deen

My sincere apologies that this isn’t a real recipe. I didn’t measure anything! Here’s my recommendation: take your favorite mashed potato recipe, and follow that, subbing rutabagas for the white potatoes. It’s that simple.

2 rutabagas, peeled and cut into 1-2″ chunks
2 cloves garlic, minced
plain Greek yogurt
milk
butter
salt & pepper

Peel the rutabagas and cut them into small chunks. Place in a large pot and cover completely with water. Add a few dashes of salt. Bring to a rapid boil, and then simmer 35-40 minutes until tender.

Drain the rutabagas. While they’re draining, add the garlic and a little butter to the pot. Heat over medium or medium-low until you can smell the garlic, 3-4 minutes. Reduce heat to low.

Return rutabagas to the pot and smash with a fork or potato masher. Add a spoonful of plain Greek yogurt and a splash of milk. Mix well. Add butter to taste, and/or serve with a pat of butter on top.

Linking up with:

YOLO Mondays from Still Being Molly and Lipgloss and Crayons
Monday Meet Ups from Covered in Grace
Market Yourself Monday from Sumo’s Sweet Stuff
Your Great Idea Link Party from Or So She Says
Time for a Party from Fine Craft Guild
Make Something Monday from Sarahndipities
Made by you Monday from Skip to my Lou

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Chocolate, Chocolate, Chocolate Cake

20 Feb

This is my favorite cake ever. It has 3 different kinds of chocolate. And it may have more, depending on the variation you choose to make — I’ve had up to 5 before! And this cake is always a crowd pleaser, so if I’m heading somewhere new and not sure what people will appreciate, this is my go-to recipe. I’m a little worried about posting this one because it’s actually only semi-homemade, and I don’t want people to think I’m a slacker. But oh well — all my secrets shall be revealed here sooner or later. The pictures for this one are awesome, so I’m including quite a few more than usual. Compliments to the BF/amateur photographer. So feast your eyes, and I’ll go feast my belly.

I start off by moving the rack to the middle of the oven, pre-heating it to 350 F, and buttering a bundt pan. I like using a bundt for this particular cake for a few reasons: One, because it looks fancier without any extra effort. Two, it has a drizzle instead of a full icing, and I think that looks nicer on a bundt. And three, it’s pretty rich, and it’s easier to cut a bundt cake into smaller, neater slices than it is a round or sheet cake.

So after the prep, I dump almost all the ingredients rather unceremoniously into a large mixing bowl: 1 box devils food cake, 1 package chocolate instant pudding mix, 4 eggs, 1 cup sour cream, 1/2 cup warm water, and 1/2 cup vegetable oil.

Batter IngredientsI blend it with a hand-mixer on medium-low for 2-3 minutes. Then I fold in  1 1/2 cups semisweet chocolate chips, and once it’s well-mixed, pour it evenly into the bundt pan.

Mixing the BatterChips!Batter in the pan

I bake it for 45-50 minutes. The cake slightly pulls away from the sides of the pan, and it should pass the toothpick test. I let it cool it on a wire rack for about 20 minutes, and then remove it from the pan. If you don’t cool it long enough, it’s more likely to crack when you try to remove it. And if you’re having a hard time getting it to pop out of the pan, take a long wooden skewer and run it around the edge of the cake before flipping it over. This will loosen it up without cutting your cake or scratching your pan.

Plain cake
Once it’s completely cool, I add the ganache-y chocolate topping — the same one I put on top of the Banana Butterscotch-Chocolate Cake. The rule for this topping is a 2:1 ratio of chocolate to butter. So I melt about 1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips and 1/4 cup (1/2 stick) of butter in 30-second intervals, stirring well in between. While it’s still warm and runny, I drizzle in back and forth over top the cake. As it cools, it will firm up but not harden.

DrizzleChocolate Chocolate Chocolate Cake

Not to toot my own horn or anything, but I just have to say it again: seriously, this is the best cake ever. The other reason I love this cake is because it’s sooo easy. There aren’t any silly rules about beating in eggs one at a time or anything like that. And aside from the sort-of long cooking time, it’s really quick and easy to throw together. Actually, I try to keep the ingredients for this on hand at all times in case I need a last-minute cake.

I also like that this cake is so versatile and easy to make your own. I’ve substituted the semisweet chips for milk chocolate chips. Once I did half semisweet and half white chocolate chips. You could get even more wild and crazy and use butterscotch or peanut butter chips, or maybe a caramel topping. I haven’t tried those yet, so if you do, let me know how it goes.

If you’re worried about it, it’s okay to swap light sour cream for regular sour cream. But if you’re honestly counting calories, that seems like a waste of time when it comes to this cake. I haven’t tried the whole swap your oil for applesauce thing, so I don’t know how that would work out with this particular recipe. If you try it, let me know!

Yum

Triple Chocolate Cake

Cake:

1 box devils foods cake mix
1 package instant chocolate pudding mix
4 eggs
1 cup sour cream
1/2 cup warm water
1/2 cup vegetable or canola oil
1 1/2 cups semisweet chocolate chips

Topping:

1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) unsalted butter

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 350 F. Spray a bundt pan with cooking spray and set aside.

Add all the cake ingredients to a large mixing bowl. Blend with a hand-mixer on medium-low for 2-3 minutes. Fold in 1 1/2 cups chocolate chips. Pour batter into prepared pan.

Bake for 45-50 minutes or until an inserted toothpick comes out clean and the sides spring away from the edges of the pan. Let cool for about 20 minutes before inverting onto a platter. Top with chocolate ganache topping.

For topping, place 1/2 cup chocolate chips in a medium bowl. Chop butter into rough chunks and add to bowl. Microwave in 30 second intervals, stirring well in between each interval. Do not over-cook. Once thoroughly melted without any chunks, pour over top the cooled bundt cake. Let cool.

 

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Banana Butterscotch-Chocolate Cake

16 Feb

I don’t know why, but I have been having some issues in the kitchen lately. Burnt butterscotch,  chocolate blooms, spilled food, cracked cakes, depleted food stores… you name it. I’m in some kind of food funk, so I guess I’ve been avoiding the kitchen for a couple weeks. I re-entered carefully a few nights ago, trying out a new semi-homemade recipe I got off the back of a bag of Nestle Tollhouse butterscotch chips. Even this proved challenging for some reason, though the end result turned out tasty. I edited the recipe a little bit to include chocolate, since a dessert isn’t really a dessert unless chocolate is involved (and I ran short on butterscotch). I’ll go through how I made it, but word of warning: be sure to have quite a few medium and large bowls on hand, and preferably someone to wash all these dishes for you.

I started by pre-heating the oven to 375 F and buttering a bundt pan. Then I filled a large mixing bowl with a box of yellow cake mix, 4 eggs, 1/2 cup vegetable oil,  1/4 cup water, and 1/4 cup white sugar. I also added in 2 mashed bananas — I didn’t worry too much about mashing them well. I just kind of shmushed them with a fork as I dropped chunks of banana into the bowl. I figured the hand mixer would take care of them.

Ingredients

Then I mixed everything together with a hand mixer in medium-low speed for about 3 minutes.

In a medium-sized, microwave-safe bowl, I melted 3/4 cup of butterscotch chips by cooking at 20-second intervals in the microwave, stirring in between each round. I did the same thing with 3/4 cup of dark chocolate chips in another medium-sized, microwave-safe bowl. I added about a cup of the banana cake batter into each of the melted chips bowls.

Banana-Butterscotch BatterBanana-Chocolate Batter

So then I had: a bowl of banana batter, a bowl of chocolate-banana batter, and a bowl of butterscotch-banana batter.

3 Batters

Then I set about filling the bundt pan in a way that would give me a great marbling effect. I just dropped random spoonfuls of each batter into the pan: spoonful of banana, spoonful of chocolate-banana, spoonful of butterscotch-banana… repeat. The bowl looked pretty cool, with yellow, brown, and tan spots everywhere.

Marbled Cake Batter

Once the pan was full, I put it in the oven for about 35-40 minutes, until I poked it with a toothpick and it came out clean.

Hot Cake

Once again, I was too impatient, and I tried to take the cake out of the pan too soon, resulting in a cracked cake! And this time I didn’t have an icing to hide the cracks! BAhhh what was I gonna do!? Easy — I just cut it into two halves, and served it as two separate cakes. Where the cracks were messy, I just sliced off a bit of crumbled cake and ate it, so that the edges would be smooth cuts. This worked out really well since I was taking some to the office, and they never eat it all anyway. So I sent one to my office and one to the BF’s office.

But first — the topping! The recipe called for drizzling melted butterscotch over the top of the cake. Unfortunately, I completely burned and ruined the last bit of butterscotch I had, so that was a fail. (Told you I’ve been having kitchen issues lately.) So instead I topped it with melted chocolate, which is a fantastic substitute. (Even that took two tries though. Issues.) This is the same ganache-y topping I use on my Chocolate Chocolate Chocolate Cake. The general rule is one part butter to two parts chocolate. So I melted about 1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips with 1/4 cup (1/2 a stick) butter, heating in the microwave in 20-second intervals, stirring well in between each round. While the chocolate is still warm and smooth, drizzle it over the top of the cake, evenly all around. As it cools, it will firm up to be solid, but it won’t get hard, thanks to the butter. Tasty!

Banana Butterscotch Chocolate Cake

How Sue Sees It:
– If you prefer only butterscotch and not the added chocolate (not sure why you would, but whatever), just replace all the chocolate with more butterscotch.
– Reviews for this cake were mixed — some loved it, some liked it, some didn’t care for it. I think it totally depends how the taster feels about banana. If you like banana, you’ll love this cake. If you don’t, you won’t. Duh.

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6/7/8 Layer Magic Bars

1 Feb

Seven-layer bars are not anything new or exciting, but I had been craving these “magic bars” for days. I have no idea why — I haven’t had a seven-layer bar in years. But I pulled out my bar pan, and two trips to the grocery store later (I forgot stuff), I set to work on the bars. This is a classic recipe and can be found anywhere online or even on the back of a can of sweetened condensed milk. I probably know this one of the top off my head now, it’s so easy.

Graham Cracker & Butter Mixture
Once it was completely mixed, I pressed a small amount into each  of the 12 cups of the bar pan, pressing flat to make a solid crumb layer along the bottom.

Graham Cracker Crumb Layer
Then I set about filling up the layers. What I like about using the bar pan is that you can change up the ingredients. Someone doesn’t like nuts? Leave out the nuts on one row. No coconut? Leave out the coconut. What I don’t like about using the bar pan is that it takes more time, it’s difficult to spread the layers evenly, and it can be hard to remove the bars too. So if you want to use a normal baking pan and cut them into squares, that’s cool too.

Bar Layers
I managed to pry out a few bars and keep them whole, and they look delicious. (All the bars that I broke I dumped into a bowl and I just eat them with a fork. Talk about guilty pleasure.)

Magic Bars
I picked out the three best-looking bars and packaged them in a gift bag with a ribbon. Adorbs!

Magic Bars Gift Bag

I consider these true seven-layer bars because they include seven layers: graham cracker crust, white chocolate chips, dark chocolate chips, butterscotch chips, walnuts, coconut, and sweetened condensed milk. Other recipes do not include the white chocolate chips, but still call it seven layers by counting the butter that’s mixed into the graham cracker crust as a layer. And I call b.s. on that.

Be careful not to add in too much sweetened condensed milk, which is really easy to do in the small bar cups. I definitely should have used a spoon to drop in a small amount rather than being impatient and trying to pour it in. Some of my bars ended up with WAY too much sweetened condensed milk — these looked funny, and they were the ones that wouldn’t come out of the pan in one piece. Check out this picture — the bars in the front of the shot are nearly overflowing with sweetened condensed milk. Too much!Too Much!And next time I’ll probably add in the coconut at the end, after I spoon in the sweetened condensed milk. The coconut got kind of mushed under the weight of the milk, and it looks better when the coconut is fluffier.

Enjoy!

6/7/8 Layer Magic Bars

1 1/2 cups of graham cracker crumbs
1/2 cup melted unsalted butter
3/4 cup butterscotch chips
3/4 cup dark chocolate chips
3/4 cup white chocolate chips
1 cup chopped walnuts
1 cup shredded coconut
1 can of sweetened condensed milk

Preheat the oven to 350 F.

Mix the graham cracker crumbs and butter together. Press into the bottom of a bar pan or a 9×9 baking dish.

Layer on the chips and nuts evenly. Pour in the sweetened condensed milk. Spread the coconut evenly over top.

Bake for about 18 minutes, or until the edges are golden brown.

Let cool completely, and then carefully cut into squares and remove from pan.

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Cream Cheese Frosting

18 Dec

I think I got my love of cream cheese frosting from my mom. After you make this once, you will put it on everything: carrot cake, red velvet cake, chocolate cake, cookies, anything. It’s that amazing – super easy, quick, and deeelish.

I combined 2 packages of softened cream cheese and 1 stick of softened butter (1/2 cup), and I blended them with the hand mixer till it got creamy. Then I mixed in 1 teaspoon of vanilla and then gradually stirred in 2 cups of sifted confectioner’s sugar.

Cream Cheese Icing

Here’s a little trick though: I actually don’t worry about sifting the sugar. It takes a long time, and I get bored easily. Instead I just dump it right in the bowl and blend it with the hand mixer for a little bit longer. The extra blending makes sure there’s no sugar lumps, but also I actually prefer it that way because it gives it a slightly lighter, whipped texture instead of so heavy and creamy.

Cream Cheese Icing

What’s the best thing you’ve put cream cheese frosting on? I’d have to go with my carrot cake. Yum!

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