One-Bowl Chocolate and Peanut Butter Cupkins

These were really fast, easy, and pretty good (kinda bland if you like flavor and lots of sugar though...and on the dry side). The original recipe calls them cupcakes, but I call them "cupckins" because they're denser than cupcakes but not quite as dense as muffins. I know technically they should be either "cupcins" or "muffcakes," but "cupcins" sounds better...and I wanted to use the "k" instead of the "c" because people might pronounce it "cupsins." Oh--and "muffkins" sounds dirty. I swear I heard somewhere that "muff" is something dirty.

Anyways, Michelle came over the other night and had a sudden desire to bake (at midnight lol)...so we made these!


Some were mini:

POOF!


RECIPE (original recipe here):

2 1/4 cups all purpose flour
1 1/2 cups sugar ** We only used 1 cup **
1/2 cup creamy peanut butter ** We used crunchy **
3 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon baking soda
3 tablespoons baking cocoa (cocoa powder)
1 1/4 cups 2% milk ** We used non-fat **
1 teaspoon vanilla
3 large eggs

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees
2. Combine all ingredients in a large mixing bowl; mix for 30 seconds while scraping bowl
3. Spoon cupcake batter into liners until they are 2/3 full
4. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean
5. Cool 10 minutes in pans. Move to wire rack to cool completely

Fat Witch Bakery's Pumpkin Witches (Brownies)

Found this recipe a couple of hours before the party I attended last week. Freaked out because I didn't have time to pick up brownie mix (the original plan was to bake brownie mix + pumpkin puree like this), and I had a hard time finding a recipe requiring only ingredients that I had. I was trying to find choc pumpkin brownies, but these ended up being just pumpkin brownies w/ choc chips. Also freaked out because the batter barely reached the edges of this jelly roll pan (thought I had surely done something wrong at this point) and because I had accidentally doubled the amount of chocolate chips. Turned out fine though...people liked these a lot. To me...I don't know--I'm biased against the things I make; I usually think they're not that great (even if it's not my recipe--I just know I can easily screw things up). Anyway, apparently Fat Witch Bakery sells these in New York. I'd describe them as cookies trying to be muffins. Or cakey scones. Or muffin tops. Or heavy/dense cake. They're not chewy like chewy brownies at all though...so if you want that, try another recipe (scroll down for this recipe).







RECIPE (Original recipe here; I only changed the choc chips amount):

12/3 cup flour
1⁄4 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1⁄2 tbs cinnamon
1⁄4 tsp nutmeg
1/3 cup butter (room temperature) *It wasn't quite room temp, but I recommend following instructions so you don't have lumpy & hard-to-mix butter*
1 1/3 cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs
1 tbs vanilla
1⁄2 cup water
1 cup canned pumpkin puree
1 cup chocolate chips

1. Preheat oven to 350º
2. Sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, and nutmeg & set aside.
3. In a separate bowl, mix butter, sugar, and vanilla.
4. Beat in eggs.
5. Stir in pumpkin.
6. Fold in dry ingredients.
7. Add chocolate chips.
8. Pour into 10×15 jelly roll pan and bake 25-35 minutes.**
9. Let cool 45 minutes and cut into two-inch pieces.

**I ended up baking mine for 25-ish minutes. I'd make these again!

Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cookies

Baked Tuesday, 11.4.08

These two big pics are of the peanut butter ones, but most of them were just plain chocolate cookies with chocolate chips. I was really just experimenting with putting peanut butter in the middles of these, and they came out yummy. I was going to try this chocolate peanut butter munchies recipe, but I won't anymore because it's healthier if you just use peanut butter without the extra sugar and stuff. Easy recipe. Good cookies! I'd definitely make these again--maybe next time half with peanut butter and half without.


RECIPE HERE (minus the walnuts) from Allrecipes.com

Auntie Joanne's Best Custard Pie

* Baked 7.25.08 *

It's more like a big cream puff.


Melissa, Minh-Chao and I made a custard pie (based off of my aunt's "Best Custard Pie" recipe) last night. SO GOOD--and so easy to make!

Whoops...somehow we ended up with too much filling (we didn't even add all of what we made).




Wait--there's a story, as there almost always is whenever I bake (I tend to screw up a lot). We weren't sure what kind of pie or cupcakes we were making until they got here, but we decided to go with this custard one, which is more like a giant cream puff than a custard pie. I got this recipe from my aunt because she made this several years ago for New Year's or Christmas or something. Unfortunately, I didn't read the recipe until we started baking in my apartment...so we had to make a few substitutions and adjustments. First, I didn't go down to get milk and eggs before Melissa and Minh-Chao came over (stupid!) so we all went downstairs to the little convenience store right on the corner for eggs cuz we didn't think we'd need milk. Then we realized the pudding requires milk and that you gotta make the pudding several hours before you bake the crust (so that the pudding is cold and hard). So we decided to cheat and use ready-made Handi-Snacks Vanilla Pudding (lol in the little individual cups), which I now think is kinda gross. Anyway, we mixed that with the one other filling ingredient (real whipped cream) and sped up to the crust-cooling process too by taking it out of the pan and onto a plate and into the freezer. That all worked out pretty well; it still tasted really good! You just can't think about the pudding part too much (unless you like the taste of Handi-Snacks pudding). I'm still pretty happy!

Oh! And I have to mention that we didn't have a mixer so Melissa whipped the cream by hand!! That was way cool.

Whipping cream in liquid form:

Getting closer...

THERE! *Let me remind you that Melissa did this by hand!*

Next time, I'll prep appropriately (i.e., make and refrigerate the pudding earlier). Can't wait to try it again!

Recipe for Cream Puff Crust:


1/2 cup boiling water
1/4 cup Crisco shortening
1/8 tsp. salt
1/2 cup flour
2 large or 3 small eggs

1. Mix boiling water, shortening, salt & flour over flame/heat.
2. Keep stirring until it rolls off sides & forms a ball
3. Remove from fire/heat.
4. Cool 5 minutes
5. Beat in eggs, one at a time, and beat by hand (fold) until smooth and velvety.
6. Place in 9-inch well-greased pie pan and spread out so it is 1/4 inch up on sides.
7. Bake 15-20 minutes in 400-degree oven.
8. Cool on shelf in pan it was baked in. It won't get soggy so you can bake it the night before.

Recipe for Filling:


1 Family size instant vanilla pudding
1 cup whipping cream

1. In the morning to be served, make pudding following instructions on package for pie (will not set if overbeaten).
2. Whip cream and divide in half.
3. Fold half the whipped cream into the filling and save the other half for topping.
4. Put pudding filling in cooked, cooled shell.
5. Cover the top with the remaining whipped cream.
6. Chill.
7. Serve.

Another 3-Layer Chocolate Cake

* Baked around Christmas 2006 *




I think this was a chocolate cake for two Christmases ago. It's three-layer chocolate cake (allll chocolate), but it turned out dry on the inside. At least the frosting was really good. No recipe...sorry (probably don't want it anyway).

Slightly Burnt Boston Cream Pie

* Baked 1.13.07 *

I guess it did get a little brown (it shouldn't have been though because I took it out a couple of minutes before the minimum amount of time)...but at least it's not black!! I didn't like the ugly parts, so I smoothed down the chocolate over them. I'm not sure how this one turned out because I only licked the spoons of the chocolate and the custard. I hope my friend liked it! If it turned out like the one we made for our other friend a couple of years ago, it was good...I think (we used the same recipe). Can't remember. Anyways, HERE is the recipe for that from The Prepared Pantry.

Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Muffins

* I originally posted this 1.13.2008, but I've made these two (?) times since then.

* bad flash/lighting...I know...

I found the original recipe at BakingBites.com, one of my favorite food blogs.

Here is my recipe (the only changes were that I used semi-sweet choc. chips and I cut down on the brown sugar):

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2/3 cup brown sugar (a little less)
6 tbsp butter, melted and cooled (actually, I used part of a margarine bar)
1/2 cup crunchy peanut butter
2 large eggs
1 cup non-fat milk
3/4 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

1. Preheat oven to 375F. Line a 12-cup muffin tin with paper liners.
2. In a large bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, salt and brown sugar.
3. In a medium bowl, whisk together the melted butter, peanut butter, eggs and milk until smooth. Pour into flour mixture and stir until just combined. Stir in chocolate chips.
4. Divide batter into muffin tin, filling each cup to the top.
5. Bake for 17-20 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean and the top of the muffin springs back when lightly pressed.
6. Cool on a wire rack (or just on a plate or tray).

Makes 12. * It really did make 12 full muffins; the picture is misleading because I ate the 12th one.

THE RESULTS:
* I love these because the muffin base itself isn't too sweet and the tops are PERFECT for muffin-top lovers (they're nice and big!). They were easy to make too! I would definitely make them again. I like the little bits of peanuts too. AND they smelled wonderful. I think the peanut butter flavor could be stronger, but since Nicole, the creator of BakingBites.com, says that peanut butter tends to make baked goods dry and dense, I'm not sure if adding more peanut butter would be a good idea. I think anyone else would like the peanut butter flavor though...I tend to not be able to taste pumpkin in pumpkin foods, so maybe there's something wrong with my taste buds. Also, I had trouble whisking the peanut butter in with the rest of the ingredients because the peanut butter kept getting stuck inside the whisk. Had to use my (clean) finger quite a bit. Overall, YUMMY. I plan on freezing these and saving them for when this semester starts stressing me out.

Vegan Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins

* Baked 12.2007 *


My second batch of muffins of the day (see previous post for a description of those)! I think I've found my favorite vegan pumpkin muffin recipe!! I have another really easy one, but this one makes softer muffins.

As usual, I used an existing online recipe and made it healthier. Here's the original recipe from allrecipes.com

And here is the adjusted recipe that I used:

3/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup applesauce -- can use oil instead
1/2 cup silken tofu (beaten) -- can use 2 eggs instead
3/4 cup canned organic pumpkin
1/4 cup water
1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
3/4 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Grease muffin pan or use paper liners.
2. Mix sugar, applesauce, & tofu. Add pumpkin & water.
3. In separate bowl mix together the baking flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt.
4. Add wet mixture & stir in chocolate chips
5. Fill muffin cups 2/3 full with batter.
**For all of my chocolate chip muffins, I add an additional few chips on the tops of each muffin so that they get baked directly and taste like HEAVEN when they're done. That's the best muffin tip I could give you right there.**
6. Bake for 20 minutes.

** THE RESULTS **

The GOOD:
+ Just enough chocolate chips.
+ Good texture - kinda fluffy!
+ Not too sweet

The BAD:
- I could have blended/beaten the tofu a bit more. Saw some white chunkies that might gross
other people out.
- This recipe only makes 11 muffins (the website said 12). What is up with me not ending up
with the right amount of muffins?
- They stick to the cupcake cups too much.

Next time:
* Don't use cupcake cups. Try greasing the tin instead.
__________________________________________________________________

Can't wait to try that one again. I'm excited about the tofu being unnoticeable (besides the tiny chunks that I saw, which I will definitely fix)! And the applesauce worked out well too. I feel so healthy. Except for the chocolate chips...but they just taste so good!

The 3-Layer Chocolate Cake

* Baked 12.2007 I think...2007 for sure*

Mom and I made this cake (the recipe was in a magazine...I don't know the name of it) for our family friends (and yes, I washed my hands repeatedly in order to take these step-by-step pictures):

The Frosting:
This cake tasted fantastic. Both the cake and the frosting were a hundred times better than those of the chocolate fudge cake with coffee frosting from Christmas Eve. It wasn't too too difficult, although it takes extra time because you have to make three layers and then frost the whole thing. You also have to be careful not to put too much frosting in between the layers because I had JUST enough with which to cover the top. Perfect. If only it were low in sugar and fat. Haha.