What's cooking?

Trilliana

... I think I bake entirely too much. Monday I made this cake mix fudge that was so rich... mmm yum. Tuesday was banana pudding for my husband. Tonight... Apple Pie bites. 

Berenene

Sybilla said:

@Trilliana are those cinnamon swirls?

Augh, for various reasons I've hardly cooked from scratch in over a month. You lot are all making me jealous. The furthest I got was trying tea-stained eggs, but ended up eating them hard-boiled and forgot about the tea... Very scatty, recently!

That's alright. for the past 2 weeks and a bit I haven't made anything from scratch either...but that could be because I was overseas...partaking in the delicious food on offer from Japan.

Sybilla

@Berenene Your pictures look fantastic, now you're almost tempting me to make some kind of sushi or other western-diluted rendition! Shame we can't get "creap" here, eh?

Berenene

I hear it's the Creapiest.

Ourania

Fruit loaf!

Zael

When I get me some Banana Pudding, I use a big bowl so I can eat it.


I love my mom's Banana Pudding..

Kyriella

Making snickerdoodles (sugar cookies rolled in cinnamon sugar, basically) to take with me when I pick @Illyose up from work tonight!

The apartment smells heavenly... so hard not to just eat them all!

Illyose

You are amazing @kyriella. Can't wait to be off work.

Amunet

I can't make snickerdoodles. I end up eating the dough, and they never make it into the oven. 

Lunch today is a whole-wheat pita with hummus, some baby carrots and celery, a banana, and a handful of soy nuts. It is far, far too hot to cook. 

Tania

It's not too hot to cook, but I'm planning on having Sea Salt Caramel ice cream for dinner anyway. Because I'm an adult, I can eat what I want.

And if you don't have access to Island Farms ice cream, I feel very sorry for you. They make the best ice cream. Look at all those choices!

Trilliana

French toast using homemade french bread >.>

Skye

I made Cakepops. My mum bought this gadget on sale when she was in Australia (she also bought a gingerbread man version so... maybe there will be a sequel to this nearer to christmas >_> )






Three flavours: Plain Chocolate, Peanut Butter and Black Cherry


And of course much batter licking commenced after the baking.

Tania

I made this: UBC Ponderosa cake. It is a delicious, moist cake, and it's not too sweet, but it's perfectly banana-y.

And I'll tell you our secret ingredient: butterscotch chips as well as chocolate chips. It's so good! (My coworker and I are having our second bake-off. We tied our brownie bake-off, so now we're doing banana bread/cake.)

I also made a caramel sauce that tastes like Werther's caramels that was my grandmother's recipe:

1/2 cup butter

1 cup sugar

2 cups whipping cream

Cook butter and sugar, stirring constantly (I can't stress that enough), until golden and the sugar is completely melted. Once you hit that point, you'll want to immediately add the whipping cream, or else you'll burn the caramel and it will taste bitter. Stand back, because it will bubble and steam like crazy, since sugar melts at such a high temperature. I also added a little bit of salt. Not too much (it shouldn't taste salty), but enough that it turned out amazing. Cook until the sauce is thickened (it will coat the back of a metal spoon), and then refrigerate until cool. Serve on anything. Or just drink it as-is. You will want to.

Eld

Tania said:

I made this: UBC Ponderosa cake. It is a delicious, moist cake, and it's not too sweet, but it's perfectly banana-y.

And I'll tell you our secret ingredient: butterscotch chips as well as chocolate chips. It's so good! (My coworker and I are having our second bake-off. We tied our brownie bake-off, so now we're doing banana bread/cake.)

I also made a caramel sauce that tastes like Werther's caramels that was my grandmother's recipe:

1/2 cup butter

1 cup sugar

2 cups whipping cream

Cook butter and sugar, stirring constantly (I can't stress that enough), until golden and the sugar is completely melted. Once you hit that point, you'll want to immediately add the whipping cream, or else you'll burn the caramel and it will taste bitter. Stand back, because it will bubble and steam like crazy, since sugar melts at such a high temperature. I also added a little bit of salt. Not too much (it shouldn't taste salty), but enough that it turned out amazing. Cook until the sauce is thickened (it will coat the back of a metal spoon), and then refrigerate until cool. Serve on anything. Or just drink it as-is. You will want to.

Roughly how much salt is "a little bit"?

Berenene

I would guess a pinch or two, but less then a punch.

Tania

Damned if I know exactly how much, I used a grinder and tasted it after every couple of grinds until I got the taste right. Only a pinch or two in the end, it would have been. I'd also recommend using a finer salt than usual table salt, if you can get it - our grinder salt dissolves much faster than the table salt does.

Edit: you don't want it to taste salty, but you'll be able to taste a difference from unsalted and salted, so taste it before you add any salt, and if you're using table salt, ensure it's entirely dissolved before adding more or you'll have salty caramel sauce.

Eld

Tania said:

Damned if I know exactly how much, I used a grinder and tasted it after every couple of grinds until I got the taste right. Only a pinch or two in the end, it would have been. I'd also recommend using a finer salt than usual table salt, if you can get it - our grinder salt dissolves much faster than the table salt does.

Edit: you don't want it to taste salty, but you'll be able to taste a difference from unsalted and salted, so taste it before you add any salt, and if you're using table salt, ensure it's entirely dissolved before adding more or you'll have salty caramel sauce.

Fair enough. I wasn't looking for an exact amount or anything, just whether we were talking "a pinch or two" or "half a teaspoon" or what.

Melodie

Oh wow. That cake and sauce look -amazing-. I think I'll try baking that once I'm feeling better!

Sybilla

Well, woke up with a headache and have a full day of reading heavy articles today.

Just going to go ahead and leave this here. No big deal...

Tania

The sauce should taste like liquid Werther's candy. I actually poured a little into a cup and ate it with a spoon while my coworker laughed at me. But then she admitted after tasting it that she kind of wanted to drink it, too.

So basically you should make it.

Berenene

Tania said:

The sauce should taste like liquid Werther's candy. I actually poured a little into a cup and ate it with a spoon while my coworker laughed at me. But then she admitted after tasting it that she kind of wanted to drink it, too.

So basically you should make it.

That is not odd at all.  In fact, there is a chocolate store over here where you can even buy melted chocolate in a small cup just to drink.  Oh god it's amazing.

Yue

I just made the beginnings of chicken enchilada, then an organic cilantro-jalepeno hummus, and now I'm eating chicken enchilada/hummus chips. Recipe for both to follow. (You know, when I'm done stuffing my face.)

Skye

Peanut butter and banana cookies.

Generally followed the recipe except substituting a couple of tablespoons of peanut butter for nutella and using less sugar. They're nice but I still find them a little too sweet

Berenene

Yeah, nutella is better when it's scooped out of the jar with a spoon and applied directly to the mouth, without any intervening cookie pieces.

Trilliana

Lunch!

Anaidiana

nutella and strawberries FTW.

Berenene

Speaking of Nutella, apparently this happened:

http://www.nutelladay.com/

Also, I baked cookies on the weekend.

The recipe is appropriatly called "Best Chocolate Chip Cookies"

Ingredients

Makes about 4 dozen

 1 cup butter, softened

 1 cup white sugar

 1 cup packed brown sugar

 2 eggs

 2 teaspoons vanilla extract

 3 cups all-purpose flour

 1 teaspoon baking soda

 2 teaspoons hot water

 1/2 teaspoon salt

 2 cups semisweet chocolate chips

 1 cup chopped walnuts

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).

2. Cream together the butter, white sugar, and brown sugar until smooth. Beat in the eggs one at a time, then stir in the vanilla. Dissolve baking soda in hot water. Add to batter along with salt. Stir in flour, chocolate chips, and nuts. Drop by large spoonfuls onto ungreased pans.

3. Bake for about 10 minutes in the preheated oven, or until edges are nicely browned.

I didn't leave them in for the full 10 mins, because they browned up a little before then.  Also, the only change to the recipe I made was swap out the chocolate chips with half milk and half white chocolate chips.

Berenene

French toast with fresh berries and a light drizzling of honey and crispy-but-not-too-crispy bacon.

And they say Generation Y doesn't know how to cook!

Xli

Berenene said:

French toast with fresh berries and a light drizzling of honey and crispy-but-not-too-crispy bacon.

And they say Generation Y doesn't know how to cook!

Sweet and savoury together on one plate? Wrongness.

Krypton

Xli said:

Berenene said:

French toast with fresh berries and a light drizzling of honey and crispy-but-not-too-crispy bacon.

And they say Generation Y doesn't know how to cook!

Sweet and savoury together on one plate? Wrongness.

I hope you choke on some chocolate-covered bacon.