Baking

Pumpkin Muffin Cookies

I made this last week as a pick-me-up for myself after sooo much reading, and I have to say, it was perfect for this time of year! Although, I'll admit as October ends, I couldn't be happier because I am pumpkined out!

I'll call these muffin cookies, because it tasted like it was a median between the two, which I think is a good thing, because who doesn't like cookies for breakfast?



Yields 32 cookies. ~42 cals per cookie

Ingredients:
1 C whole wheat flour
1C AP flour
1C brown sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons of pumpkin spice
1/2 C unsweetened applesauce
1 teaspoon vanilla
1C canned pumpkin

Preheat oven to 350 degrees, prepare baking sheet by using a non-stick spray. Cream sugar with wet ingredients. Use a separate bowl to mix dry ingredients, then add to wet mixture. Mix until dough is formed. Place on baking sheet in ping-pong sized balls. Bake 15-18 minutes. Let cool, and enjoy!

Sparkline Wine Cupcakes!

So many Birthdays today! Which is always another reason for me to bake! Today was for my roommate's 21st Birthday! Roselle and I have known each other since the seventh grade! I'm so glad we got to reunite in college and live together. So in honor of her 21st, here are some alcoholic cupcakes:]


The original recipe can be found here. I however just bought strawberry frosting to make my life easier instead of making the butter cream, and my batch yielded 27 instead of 20 for some strange reason. I also think you can use any type of dessert wine/champagne to make it to your liking. I used Barefoot Moscato in the cupcake pictured. It was definitely delicious and subtle tasting. Next time I'll probably add a lot more wine ;]

Sparkling Wine Cupcakes

Ingredients:
  • 2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
  • 3 tsp. baking powder
  • 1 tsp. salt
  • 2/3 cup butter or lactose free margarine
  • 1 1/2 cups white sugar
  • 3/4 cup sparkling wine
  • 6 egg whites
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Prepare a cupcake pan with paper forms.

In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugar until very light and fluffy. Sift flour, baking powder, and salt together, and then blend into creamed mixture alternately with sparkling wine.

In another large clean bowl, beat egg whites until stiff peaks form. Fold 1/3 of the whites into batter to lighten it, then fold in remaining egg whites. Fill the cupcake liners about 2/3 full.
Bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for 20 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the cake comes out clean.
yummmmm. I drizzled it with even more wine!
Happy 21st Birthday Roselle!!!

I definitely need to invest in a cake decorating set!!!

Sidenote: I made the letters, numbers, and decor with melted white chocolate chips, putting it on wax paper and letting it harden in the fridge.


Reverse Chocolate Chip Brookie!

While I was away for the weekend, I desperately needed one of my shifts from work covered. Luckily, a lovely co-worker of mine was kind enough to cover me. As a thank you, she'll be getting some brookies :]


What I did was reverse the normal regular chocolate chip cookies by making a chocolate cookie with white chocolate chips! Then instead of using white sugar, I used golden brown sugar to make it thicker, making it taste like a brownie and cookie at the same time! Definitely a go-to recipe when you can't decide between having cookies or brownies! The possibilities are endless too! You can make it without the chips, dousing them with powdered sugar instead for a crackle cookie. Or if you love mint like I do, you can always do mint chips! Or maybe caramel? Yummm. Might as well make them all!!!

For this Reverse Chocolate Chip Brookie I just modified the Andes Mint Cookies. See below! Enjoyyyyyyyyyyyy!

REVERSE CHOCOLATE CHIP BROOKIE!!!


Yield: 2 Dozen

Ingredients:

1 cup all-purpose flour
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
5 Tbsp butter, softened
3/4 cup golden brown sugar
1 large egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 cup white chocolate chips

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350°F.
In a large mixing bowl, combine the dry ingredients (flour through salt).
In a separate bowl, cream the butter and sugar together on high speed for 2 minutes. Add the egg and vanilla, and beat until well combined. Add the flour mixture, 1/4 cup at a time, and mix until combined. Fold in the white chocolate chips.
Drop the dough by teaspoon-fulls onto a large baking sheet coated with cooking spray.
Bake for 10-12 minutes, or until no longer doughy. Cool completely on a wire rack.
80-90 calories per cookie

Chocolate Andes Mint Cookies

On Sunday I baked mint brownies for a friend as a thank you present, but I was still left with half a bag of mint chocolate chips. My coworker Sam and I wanted to bake cookies, so I thought it would be the perfect time to put the mint chips to use. The recipe I used can be found here, but I also pasted it below.



My picture does not do these cookies justice. They're soooo delicious. My favorite cookies are oatmeal raisin, but I think these cookies may take the top rank when it comes to my cookie preferences. Out of the 26 cookies that came from this batch, I ate 8. Yeah, they're that good.


Chocolate Andes Mint Cookies


Yield: 2 Dozen

Ingredients:

1 cup all-purpose flour
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
5 Tbsp butter, softened
3/4 cup sugar
1 large egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 cup Andes mint chips

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350°F.
In a large mixing bowl, combine the dry ingredients (flour through salt).
In a separate bowl, cream the butter and sugar together on high speed for 2 minutes. Add the egg and vanilla, and beat until well combined. Add the flour mixture, 1/4 cup at a time, and mix until combined. Fold in the mint chips.
Drop the dough by teaspoon-fulls onto a large baking sheet coated with cooking spray.
Bake for 10-12 minutes, or until no longer doughy. Cool completely on a wire rack.
80 calories per cookie
Slightly adapted from About.com

Apple Cinnamon Muffins

I had a muffin craze all week!!! The other day I made blueberry muffins and banana nut muffins, but it wasn't enough! I wanted to bake even more muffins! Hence, this post!



Photo Credit goes to Danielle who helped me bake them along with Mandy. Two girls I absolutely adore!

I found the recipe on this blog here that I stumbled upon during my google search. I also posted it below in case you were too lazy to click the link!

I must say. They were delicious, especially with french jam (although orange jam does not go well with it). I actually ended up making 18 muffins so that they came to 92 calories each. From my whole batch, I ate 6 of them (no wonder I'm not losing any weight despite my efforts at the gym :P)

Apple Cinnamon Muffins
Servings: 16
Serving size: 1 muffin
Approximate nutritional information
Calories: 100 * Carbs: 20 * Protein: 3 * Fat: 1 * Fiber: 1 * Points+: 1 * Old Points: 2
Ingredients:
1 cup whole wheat Flour
1 cup all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons cinnamon (next time I will add more because I really like cinnamon)
2 large eggs
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup 1% milk
1 cup applesauce
1 cup finely chopped apples
Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees
Step 1. Combine flours, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon in a bowl and set aside.
Step 2. Using a hand or stand mixer combine eggs, brown sugar, milk, and applesauce.
Step 3. Slowing combine dry ingredients into wet ingredients.
Step 4:  Fold in apples.
Spray muffin pan with cooking spray, fill muffin cups about halfway,  and cook app 15 – 18 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean.
Variations: You can also add apple pie spice and walnuts. Please note the walnuts will change the nutritional information.

Freezer Instructions

Wrap each muffin individually in plastic wrap then place all of them together in labeled freezer bag.

Reheating Instructions

Take muffin out of freezer and let thaw (this will only take a couple hours) or remove wrapping and place in microwave (1 -2 minutes) or toaster oven (10-15 minutes at 350 degrees) until heated through.
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