Cookie Monsters Anonymous

Vanilla Protein Crepes

noreply@blogger.com (It's me! Molly!!) — Fri, 04 May 2012 17:59:00 +0000

full recipe nutrition: 286 calories / 29g carbs / 4g fat / 34g protein / 2g fiber / 18g sugar

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, I'm going to pretend you're a crepe and wrap yummy things inside you.
That has a ring to it.
A vanilla-y, cinnamon-y, ring to it.
Oh you can't hear taste? That's good because Paprika just called your mother a slut and your face a blemish on society. Oh Paprika. You spicy little bitch.

So I set off this morning trying to make protein-y yogurt based pancakes-for-one using the stuff I already have in my fridge. This consisted of these extremely specific, fine, fine ingredients...

3oz Vanilla Siggi's Icelandic Style 0% Skyr (similar to Greek yogurt)
1 tbls Unsweetened Vanilla Almond Milk
1.5 tbls Egg Whites
1/4 cup Vanilla MusclePharm Combat Powder
3/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 packet truvia
A dab of crunchy peanut butter

I combined my dry ingrediens and combined them with my mixed together wet ingredients, added that little bit of peanut butter because I add peanut butter to everything (next up: body wash!) and proceded to expect great things.

I only have one kinda-stir-fry pan and one saucepan (I'm that kid who can't be trusted to clean pots if she has more than one pot but mostly in the year I've lived in my current place, I've consistently forgotten to buy a second pot) so I got my stir-fry-y pan nice and hot and ready to go.

It started out beautifully. They were plump and cute little pancakes. The things I was expecting! Such great things!

Then I flipped them over.
Deflated. Both myself and the pancakes.

I quickly added more baking soda because I'm pretty sure baking soda heals all wounds and time can go suck it but it was to no avail.

All hell broke loose.
Actually, if hell is anything like what happened to these pancakes, I'm going start kicking puppies ~~more often~~ for the first time ever I swear.
The little flat, deflated, still-moist and soft disks I made were not pancakes anymore. They were better. They were crepes.

And crepes are entirely more fantastic than pancakes. You can roll crepes up with all sorts of goodness and that bitch just got portable. I still sat on my couch to eat them, however. But I did move them from my plate to my face pretty frequently. Held up like a champ.

Stuffing:
2 oz Vanilla Siggi's Icelandic Style 0% Skyr (the rest of the cup)
40g banana, sliced
1 tsp of crunchy peanut butter

Spread some peanut butter. Slather some yogurt. Slip in some banana (that's what she said?). I'm pretty sure you can dress your own crepe but I went to a small private school founded by three French sisters with a name that ends in "ehhh" when it reads like "et" SO I'M KINDA AN EXPERT.

RATE ME!!

TASTE: 4/5 This are the yumz, guyz. Save for the tasting I do of my own baked goods, I don't typically eat many refined carbs or nothin so that means I don't eat much in the way of breads, or pastas, or cereal. Or crap. I also don't terribly like those things so for me to a) eat these crepes and b) like these crepes is saying a lot about them. Also with goodies like that inside of them, how could they not be tasty? Plus 34g of protein is not fucking around so they are very filling.

EASE: 4.5/5 Every ingredient I used was already in my fridge and since Whole Foods employees are starting to judge me with their eyes, that's nice.

FILTH OF THE KITCHEN: 2/5 Shrinking down this recipe to what I have it at now, it only makes enough to serve one person. Less ingredients, less chances for horrible, horrible messes. I mean I still made a mess but then I said "Bless this mess!" and that was that. I don't clean much. I mostly just let idioms take care of things.

DID THE DOG EAT THE DOUGH? Um, it was breakfast time. The dog hadn't gotten out of bed yet. FOR THE NEXT THREE HOURS.

IMPRESS-O-METER: 1/5 OR 4/5 Ok two scores here. These are the least impressive pancakes you have ever seen. However, crepes are French and French sounds fancy and 34g of protein and only 29g of carbs for a typically carby kind of meal is enough to impress me. And I am all that matters. In the world.

A Healthier Banana Bread + Something Ridiculous

noreply@blogger.com (It's me! Molly!!) — Wed, 02 May 2012 03:13:00 +0000

I am moving 225 miles away in 2 weeks and I am stressed.
I am stressed and I am moving 225 miles away in 2 weeks.
I have a hard time turning off my brain when I am stressed and when I am moving 225 miles away in 2 weeks.
Sometimes I sit up in bed and make little notes on my phone when I should be doing anything else.
Thankfully, this is the sort of shit that just won't quit...

And so it was determined that I was going to revamp my mother's banana nut bread recipe to make it...

healthier
chock full of other things
in a motherfucking apple

I think this was the best idea I've ever had in my ever.

But before we get to that, let's examine how to make a very moist banana nut bread into a very moist and healthy banana nut bread using the stuff I have in my fridge.

Ingredients

8 tbls tahini

24 packets Truvia

2/3 cups unsweetened applesauce

4 super ripe mashed bananas

3 tbls reduced fat sour cream

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 cup oat flour

1 cup vanilla protein powder

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 cup chopped walnuts

Quick! Make me 18 or so regular sized Banana Nut Muffins!

Preheat oven to 375. Line your muffin sheet with some muffin papers.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, protein powder, baking soda, and salt to combine. Set aside.

Beat the tahini and truvia in an electric mixer until completely combined. Beat in the applesauce. Beat in the bananas and the sour cream. Add the vanilla. Slowly add the dry ingredients and mix until well combined. Add the chopped walnuts and mix by hand with a spoon of your liking. Or a fork. Or a hand. Go nuts. (Get it? GET IT?!?!?)

Fill the muffin papers 1/2 - 2/3 full of batter. Bake for 18 minutes. Eat! EEEEEAT!

Nutritional Information Per Muffin: 130 calories / 18g carbs / 7g fat / 6g protein / 3g fiber / 5g sugar

So that's cool and all. Healthy banana nut bread. Rad, guys, real rad. But I'm bored? And I still have other shit in my fridge? And it was entirely too easy to make a healthier banana nut bread that tastes exactly the same as regular old fatty-4-life banana nut bread. So let's do some add-ons, k? Plus we still have the iphone note to deal with...

If You Want Some Add-Ons, You've Come to the Right Place

Take 1 tsp of peanut butter and plop that sucker

in the middle of your please-bake-me-soon muffins

Add 30 calories / 1g carb / 3g fat / 1g protein to your serving.

Use 1/2 tsp of peanut butter, 1/2 tsp of mini chocolate chips, and 1/2 a tsp of banana to form a

little ball of gooey goodness. Drop that little marble from heaven into your unbaked muffin.

Add 30 calories / 2g carbs / 2g fat / 1g protein / 1g sugar to your serving.

Slice a few insanely thin slices of banana. Stick them in your

why-haven’t-you-baked-me-yet muffins. Be artful. I dare you.

The nutrition facts won’t really change if you’re like me and your slices are crazy thin/borderline meaningless.

Just throw 1/2 tsp mini dark chocolate chips in (not on, like I did...I’m so ashamed)

your muffin already. You wanted to from the beginning.

Add 11 calories / 1g carb / 1g fat / 1g sugar to your serving.

now onto why we were all put on this earth by a higher baking-soda-not-yeast-based bread...

BANANA NUT BREAD BAKED IN AN APPLE

IF YOU'RE DOWN FOR IT,

I highly suggest baking some banana nut bread in a motherfucking apple. I used a fiji apple, cored it down to like half an inch from the bottom, and carefully scooped out a substantial part of the inside flesh of the apple. I left probably a half an inch wall at most. I'd say half the apple was removed. Fill your apple 2/3 full - mine fit about 2 muffins-worth. Place in a baking dish with a half inch or so of water in it. Bake for 35 minutes, or until the top of the banana bread seems set and a toothpick comes out clean.

Estimated Nutrition Facts Per Baked Apple Banana Nut Bread Amazing Thing: 310 calories / 46g carbs / 14g fat / 12g protein / 8g fat / 18g sugar

RATE ME!!!

TASTE: 7/5 Yeah. I went there. I don't even need to explain it but I have never, ever, ever in my life minced words. I have minced everything (EVERYTHING!) else. The regular banana nut muffins are really yummy and taste exactly like the fatty version. So, you know, go team. But I ate half of the baked apple banana nut bread and, um, I don't want to ever go back to the person I was before eating that half of a banana nut bread baked in an apple.

EASE: 4/5 The hardest part is coring the apple. And saying "goodbye."

FILTH OF THE KITCHEN: 4/5 So when I opened the jar of tahini I didn't realize it was the kind with the oil on the top that needed to be stirred and so, blah blah blah, I have a really shiny complexion. As does my floor. And my oven. And my stroke-y dog.

DID THE DOG EAT THE DOUGH? At one point, the dog emerged from ~~the closet~~ his office to stare me down and make weird noises. I'm pretty sure he knew something special was going on. Or he was having a stroke. Dunno.

IMPRESS-O-METER: I explained the dessert to the Impress-O-Meter who told me "HOLD THE PHONE." And then it looked sternly at me through the googly eyes I hot glued to its impress-o-face and said "forever."

Peanut Butter Cupcakes Three Ways

noreply@blogger.com (It's me! Molly!!) — Sun, 29 Apr 2012 14:14:00 +0000

Hey there.

Are you sick and tired of having only one way to enjoy your peanut butter cupcakes?

Are you tossing and turning night after night, wrestling with the idea of settling down with just one peanut butter cupcake topping?

Are you pretty sure peanut butter cupcakes know you're not a hit it and quit it type of person but sometimes your eyes wander and then your mouth wanders but it's okay baby, you're still the peanut butter cupcake for me but sometimes a grown adult just has these urges that are totally, totally normal and happen to everyone and if God wanted us to only enjoy one type of peanut butter cupcake for the rest of our lives, he wouldn't have given us taste buds?

Stop! You don't have to settle for another sleepless night!

Now you can live the good life with Mini Peanut Butter Cupcakes Three Ways!

Because you deserve it. And cupcakenogomy is dead.

So that was weird, huh? I mean, all I've had for dinner tonight is cupcakes, 1/2 cup of edamame, and a yogurt and while that may seem like the perfect meal - it very much is the perfect meal and you were right for thinking that. My hands may be shaking? I can't imagine any correlation. Is this the danger of eating around? I should have used protection.

Let's get on with the deets...

Cupcake Ingredients

1/2 cup vanilla protein powder (use soy based protein powder to keep it vegan)

1/2 cup oat flour

1/2 tsp salt

2 tsp baking powder

1/2 cup + 1 tbls crunchy peanut butter

18 packets Truvia

2/3 cup unsweetened applesauce

1 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 cup unsweetened vanilla almond milk (or any variation)

Optional: a couple chocolate chips for plopping in the middle of the cupcakes before baking

Do as I say

Preheat the oven to 325. Line a mini cupcake pan with some mini liners. This recipe makes three and a half dozen mini cupcakes. Get ready to be overwhelmed.

In a medium bowl, whisk the protein powder, oat flour, salt, and baking powder. Set aside.

Beat the peanut butter with the truvia with an electric mixer until well blended. Add the applesauce and beat it like Chris Brown just caught it with another cupcake. (Too soon? Too nonsensical?) Mix in the vanilla. Mix in some of the dry mixture followed by some of the milk and continue alternating, finishing with the dry ingredients. Mix until fully incorporated.

Fill your mini cupcakes about 2/3 of the way full (here's where you can add some chocolate chips in the middle if you want) and pop in the oven for 12 minutes. Take out, let cool, repeat a half a million times.

Now let's get on with the cupcake swinging...

Option 1: Peanut Butter and Jelly

Ingredients

4 tbls vegan butter

3/4 cup confectioners sugar (I didn't have enough - don't make my mistakes.)

A splash of unsweetened vanilla almond milk

2 tbls of your jam of choice...but always choose red fig jam. No pressure.

Get on with it

Using an electric mixture, beat the vegan butter on high for a bit. Then add the confectioners sugar and beat until it incorporates. Beat harder and faster (teehee) to fluff it up (teeeeeheeeee). Add the splash of milk and the jam. Beat beat beat beat until you're happy with it. Spread it on the cupcakes. Devour the cupcakes.

Option 2: The Jackson Pollock

Ingredients

1/4 cup unsweetened vanilla almond milk (I had a lot of it, okay?)

2 tbls vegan butter

1/2 cup dark chocolate chips

Take the lazy way out

Get the butter and milk in a bowl together. Pop it in the microwave for a minute. Mix it. Add the chocolate chips and stir until smooth. Take your spoon and flick the ganache across the cupcake top like a masterful artist who's ~~probably~~ a ~~little~~ ~~lot~~ ~~drunk~~ hammered. Enjoy your delicate work of art.

Option 3: Chocolate Smothered Peanut Butter

Using the same ingredients as above

Dip your mini cupcakes top down into the bowl of ganache. Swirl a bit and set it on a cooling rack to set. Refrigerate to harden. Make sure to get chocolate all over your face and hands and face some more when you lose all self control and eat these like a savage animal. Yum!

So there you go. Three different options for your indecisive needs. And if you need more than three, you're just a sick fuck.

RATE ME!!

TASTE: 5/5 These cupcakes are so very good. Each option is a winner. And my love for bite-sized goodies is undeniable. If anything, the vegan substitutions in the batter elevate the taste and consistency. The cake itself is perfectly peanut buttery and the little crunches of peanuts are stupid good. Creamy peanut butter is for pussies and WonderBread. And you don't look like WonderBread to me...

EASE: 4/5 Vegan recipes are just oddly easy, if you ask me. Everything is so...soft. And when there's nothing in the batter that can cause you crippling stomach cramps if eaten in its raw form, it's also incredibly easy to taste as you go and adjust to your liking. And I like to pretend that it's healthier too. It's like taking a completely non-violent action to a bird with two stones! I think!

FILTH OF THE KITCHEN: 5/5 I'm just going to burn it down and start fresh. I think I have peanut butter and/or jam in my hair. I'll just shave my head. It's fine. I want to move on from this forever.

DID THE DOG EAT THE DOUGH? The dog woofed at me at one point because he realized it was 1am and I hadn't taken him out yet. Then I was all like, "Frank, shut the front door." And that confused him enough to convince him to go back to bed. (I'm pretty up to speed with my dog's mental capacity.) I think he's hibernating.

IMPRESS-O-METER: 4/5 If I've said it a million times, I will now say it a million and one times: vegan baking earns you street cred. Sure, it's a street that's gentrifying more and more with each passing second but it's also a street. And you cannot get cred anywhere else. Also, I hear they just opened up a new coffee house that serves one no-frills-back-to-basics brew in hand thrown mugs from a Polish grandmother's open-air studio that used to be a whorehouse. It's also fair-trade. It's pretty legit.

Mini Cupcake Nutrition Facts

per Peanut Butter Cupcake

32 calories / 3g carbs / 2g fat / 2g protein / 0g fiber / 1g sugar

per Peanut Butter and Jelly Mini Cupcake (estimation based on the recipe making enough for 20 or so servings)

72 calories / 8g carbs / 4g fat / 2g protein / 0g fiber / 6g sugar

per Chocolate Smother Peanut Butter Cupcake (estimation based on the recipe making a shit ton of ganache - I guessed 60 cupcake tops worth)

45 calories / 4g carbs / 3g fat / 2g protein / 0g fiber / 2g sugar

Spicy Tofu Nuggets

noreply@blogger.com (It's me! Molly!!) — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 17:56:00 +0000

Hey! These aren't cookies or cupcakes or muffins or cake-cakes or brownies or salty chocolate peanut butter balls! What the what?!!?!

Hear me out.

Just as the Native Americans respected the animals they killed by using every part of their bodies in some productive way, so have I respected the left over wheat germ and tofu from my healthier mini and bite sized cheesecakes. Because let's be real folks, I currently pay rent for two apartments and I work in retail and I do all my shopping at the Whole Foods attached to my building. Bottom line: this girl is dirt poor. (Dammit.) And that wheat germ and sandwich baggy of tofu in my fridge is not going to waste. (Dammit!) Unless these tasted bad. (Dammit?) Then boy would my face be red.

People in my financial situation use ottomans as tables, macbooks as plates, and iphones for cameras.
#whitegirlproblems

My face is not red.

That's just my normal healthy glow, folks. These Spicy Tofu Nuggets are everything you could hope for in a super easy to make, super healthy, meatless nugget recipe. And I hope for so much in these things!

Now if I could only figure out what to do with the tofu's hide and brain. What's that, you said? Tofu doesn't have hide or a brain? Then what have I been tanning for days to make into a festive tunic? And where's my dog?

Spicy Tofu Nuggets

note: I had about 3.85oz of left over tofu that I cut into 5 uniform pieces and one almost full misshapen piece...this recipe follows the amount of stuff I used to make about 6 tofu nuggets

Ingredients

nuggets

extra firm tofu, cut into 2"ish triangle nuggets and patted as dry as you can pat them (pat more!)

breading

2 tbls raw wheat germ

1 tbls parmesan (I used shaved because I had it in my fridge. respect the fridge - use the whole fridge. especially the drawers.)

1 tsp garlic powder

1/2 tsp onion powder

1/2 tsp paprika

1/2 tsp oregano

1/2 tsp black pepper

wash

3 tbls egg whites

3.15 oz unsweetened soy milk

~~fry~~ bake like ~~bacon~~ imitation meat!
Oh fuck it. Just let me eat you.

Bake Them Nuggets

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. spray of baking sheet with cooking spray.

whisk your egg whites and soy milk in a small bowl. in another small bowl or in a ziploc bag (aforementioned poor folk like myself are all out of ziploc bags smaller than a gallon - my life is so touch and go these days!), combine the breading ingredients. make your little breading/washing/breading station and proceed to bread/wash/bread. you'll coat the tofu nugget once in breading, then dunk it in the wash, then back in the breading and onto the baking pan. arrange them on the baking sheet and pop in the oven for 15 minutes. Flip over and bake for another 15 minutes. Bake/flip/bake/flip in shorter intervals until you reach the tofu density you prefer. I ended up doing it about another 12 minutes. I like my tofu nuggets like I like my life: tough.*

*That's top five one of the more ridiculous things I've said in days.

I hope tofu hooves make glue as wonderful as this nugget tastes!

Nutrition Facts

Calculated by Wizardry

Per Nugget

35 calories / 3g carbs / 1g fat / 3g protein / 1g fiber / 1g sugar / 1g cholesterol / 10mg sodium

RATE ME!!

TASTE: 4.85/5 .15 was taken off here because I should have used grated parmesan. It's all very technical, you see. Otherwise, damn you bitches taste mighty fine. I'd say they taste better than chicken nuggets but I think chicken tastes disgusting so that be like saying they taste better than shoes. And they taste a million times better than shoes. So by my standards of reasoning and logic, these tofu nuggets taste 1,000,000 times better than chicken nuggets. There. Done.

EASE: 5/5 If you've ever made eggplant parmesan, you know just how easy it is to dredge stuff and make it taste great.

FILFTH OF KITCHEN: 2/5 Not too bad! Mostly just heaps of paper towels from those jerky uncooked tofu pieces that thought if they were damp for forever, I may not eat them. Idiots.

DID THE DOG EAT THE DOUGH? It's almost 2pm. The dog is still passed out asleep. He doesn't get out of bed for less than $10,000 in raw steak. He also likes carrots.

IMPRESS-O-METER: 5/5 Sure, everyone can make tofu nuggets but can everyone say they have raw wheat germ hanging around? I DIDN'T THINK SO. WALK AWAY.

Post-Workout Cookie Sandwiches Revisited

noreply@blogger.com (It's me! Molly!!) — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 13:14:00 +0000

I gave my I'm-Real-Beat-From-Running-Someone-Get-This-Girl-A-Cookie-Sandwich recipe a moderate facelift yesterday. It's the same basic idea, just a few ingredient replacement. So here goes it!

Ingredients

1/2 cup vanilla protein powder (use a soy-based powder for vegan)

1/3 cup oat flour

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

4oz fresh ground almond butter

18 packets Truvia

1/4 to 1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce

1 tsp vanilla

2 tbls instant espresso powder

1 1/2 cups oats

1/2 cup mini dark chocolate chips

Do These Things Now

Whisk your protein powder, oat flour, baking soda, salt, and cocoa powder together in a bowl. Set aside. In a mixing bowl, "cream" the almond butter, applesauce and truvia til smooth. Add the tsp of vanilla and the espresso powder. Mix some more. Add the dry ingredient mixture a half a cup at a time. It should seem pretty dry. If it seems too dry, add a bit more applesauce. Add the vanilla and espresso powder. Smoooooth. Fold in the oats and the chocolate chips.

Divide the dough in half. Take one half and plop it down on some wax paper. Wrap it up like a tootsie roll and roll it out into a log. It should be about an inch and half or so in diameter. Wrap tightly in the wax paper and let cool in the fridge for 4-6 hours. Repeat with remaining half of dough.

4-6 hours/one reading of The Hunger Games later...

Preheat the oven to 350. Line some cookie sheets with parchment paper. Take your doughy logs out of the fridge. Slice the logs into thinnish cookie disks no bigger than a half an inch wide. If they crack a bit, you can always reform them with a little of the fallen off dough. Press the disks down onto the cookie sheets, making them just a tad slimmer and peanut butter spreading friendlier. Add fallen apart dough as needed. Bake for 9 minutes. Remove and cool for a minute or 2 on the sheets, then transfer to cooling racks.

Assembly!

This is pretty straightforward. If it isn't, I'm afraid of how you got this far and no, this is not a pie recipe. Take one cookie. Spread a tablespoon of your favorite chunky peanut butter on the smooth bottom side. Top with another cookie's smooth bottom side. Giggle about "smooth bottom sides."

Nutrition Facts

Per cookie

50 calories / 6g carbs / 3g fat / 2g protein / 1g fiber / 0g sugar

(based off the recipe making the 42 cookies I made)

Per cookie sandwich with a tablespoon of Maranatha No Stir Crunchy Peanut Butter

190 calories / 16g carbs / 14g fat / 8g protein / 3g fiber / 3g sugar

One-Bite Orange Ginger Cheesecake-y Muffins

noreply@blogger.com (It's me! Molly!!) — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 17:10:00 +0000

RAPID CHEESECAKE FIRE. That's what's going on right now.

So those first cheesecakes were self-accessed as "pretty okay." Not bad by any means, but mostly okay. I mean, fat free sour cream + fat free cream cheese is a lot of freedom from fat. And freedom is great and all, don't get me wrong. I've seen Braveheart. Like, a lot of times. I know about freedom. But sometimes, folks (me) just don't know what's good for them (me). That's why we need ~~SOPA~~ ~~NC-17 movies~~ ~~waterboarding~~ reduced fat cream cheese and sour cream. (I knew it!)

Also, I wasn't wild about the chocolate cheesecake thing. I know some people like that (I bet you like freedom too, huh? I THOUGHT SO. Communist!) but I mean, I like my cheesecake beige and creamy. I also wanted something a little more yogurt-friendly (I like to put my foods inside my foods to make foodier foods) so, likeisaid, chocolate was just not quite right. So I went with a classic, tried and true combo: orange and ginger. The combination of pretentious champions. And, coincidentally, my second favorite icelandic skyr style yogurt flavor too*.

So here you go. Delicious One-Bite Orange Ginger Cheesecake-y Muffins. I changed the name to something entirely more complicated because they really aren't cheesecakes when they are this tiny. They are more so cheesecake inspired muffins. So pop them in your mouth, your icelandic skyr style yogurt, your organic large curd cottage cheese, or make them a vehicle for red fig jam (RED FIG JAM GUYS). Mostly just eat them. You can always just eat them. If you're into that.

*It's okay if you're no longer cool enough to be my friend anymore after this sentence. You probably never were.

Orange Ginger Cheesecake-y Muffins or Ramekin Cheesecakes
Makes 24 One-Biters or 4 small Ramekin Cakes

Ingredients:
4 tbls wheat germ
8 oz reduced fat cream cheese
4oz extra firm tofu
11 packets truvia
1/2 egg
1 egg white
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 orange extract
4 oz reduced fat sour cream
15g ginger candy, grated or broken up
some orange zest

Directions:
PREP Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Spray a mini cupcake pan with some baking spray. Equally distribute some wheat germ on the bottom for your "crusts." Place the pan in the freezer.
MAKE Toss the cream cheese, tofu, and truvia in your food processor and process until smooth. Add the egg, egg white, vanilla, and orange extract. Process! Add the sour cream, ginger candy, and orange zest. Process!
ASSEMBLE Take the pan out of the freezer and spoon the cheesecake mixture into the cupcake pods. It's around 2 tbls ish or so of creamy goodness.
BAKE in your oven for 20 minutes. I think. Take out and cool and nom nom nom nom nom nom nom nom nom nom nom.

RATE ME!!!

TASTE: 3.9/5 Oh these are significantly yummier, yes. I also made one bigger one that was less muffin-y (hard to keep something that small moist enough for a cheesecake, ya know?) and more cheesecake-y and hooooly shit. Yum city.

EASE: 5/5 Anything with a food processor and a food processor only is magnificent.

FILTH OF THE KITCHEN: 2/5 Okay I dropped a fork with cheesecake batter on it all over myself and then it fell on the floor and that was gross. It was also the only mess. Nice. I have cheesecake on my pants. Upgrade.

DID THE DOG EAT THE DOUGH? Shhhhh. The dog is sleeping. Don't wake him, even though it's moderately impossible to do so. Unless you just said :walk." Did you just say walk? Are we going on a walk? We are? We're going on a walk? Because I think you said walk? I'm pretty sure I heard walk come out of your mouth when you said walk because you definitely said walk and I like to go on walks and I'm awake now. Look what you've done.

IMPRESS-O-METER: 4.5/5 Ahem. Orange. And ginger. And one bite cheesecakes. Oh they are 42 calories a bite-size piece too (250 calories a ramekin). CUZ YOU KNOW HOW I DO.

Miniature Chocolate Cheesecakes

noreply@blogger.com (It's me! Molly!!) — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 00:49:00 +0000

It's safe to say that everything is better in miniature form. (I'm sorry, have you seen miniature ponies?) I can think of literally tens of other things that follow suit. Bonsai trees. Shrunken heads. Teacup anythings. My apartment. Chocolate Cheesecake.

Shrunken Teacup Studio Apartment Chocolate Cheesecake slices. Cuuuute.
(Bonsai.)

Six things. I can think of six things that are better in miniature form. See? Everything.

Before we go on and on and on and on (my God, it's already starting) about Miniature Chocolate Cheesecakes, let's take a closer look at thing #5: my apartment. Bitch you be mad tiny. Like I've seen a lot kitchen sinks (I think?) but rarely have I seen one that, with proper aim, you can throw shit in ala office trashcan basketball hoops (the one exception to the miniature rule - pretty sure only assholes have those) while lying comfortably in your bed. Does that make sense? I don't care. My apartment is like miniature pony of apartments. And I have loved it for 11 months.

So as the lease on my tiny studio apartment winds down, it seems only fitting to make something miniature. In honor of my tiny studio apartment and all things miniature (I listed them all above, if you forgot what they were. That's the complete list. Also? You should be kinda worried that you couldn't remember that list. It was only a handful of sentences ago. It's probably a tumor.) I present some Miniature Chocolate Cheesecakes. Oh and they'll keep you tiny too because who wants giant people when miniature is so much better? SEVEN! Seven things! I did it!

Recipe adapted from Women's Health because I am crazier than Women's Health. And don't you forget it!

Makes 14ish standard sized cupcakes

Ingredients
4 tbl wheat germ
2 8oz packages of fat free cream cheese*
8 oz very firm tofu, drained
24 packets Truvia
1 egg
2 egg whites
1 tsp vanilla extract
2/3 unsweetened cocoa powder
8 oz fat free sour cream*
Some of this red fig jam I'm obsessed with

*(Use these if you're also crazy. Use reduced fat for it to taste better.)

Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. You can use terribly adorable cupcake liners or not. The not version turned out prettier but the liner was easier to handle. Either way, use some cooking spray to lightly coat the insides on the liners/pan. Dust the bottoms with some wheat germ for your crumb base. Toss that pan in your freezer.

Blend the cream cheese, tofu, and sugar (substitute) in a food processor. Add egg, egg whites, and vanilla. Process some more. Add the cocoa powder and sour cream. Process!

"Process me like one of your French girls."

Take your pan out of the freezer and load them up with cheesecake batter. Put them in the oven for like 20ish minutes or until they look done. That's helpful, right? Top with that jam I love.

Is that red fig jam on your mini slice of mini cheesecake?
BECAUSE IT LOOKS A LOT LIKE HEAVEN.

RATE ME!!!

TASTE: 2.99/5 (Updated: they taste significantly better after a few hours of refrigeration.) So okay, I went a little too *crazy with the fat free-ing. One or both of the creamy white parts needs to be at just reduced fat. But they still taste good and I would put red fig jam on everything I eat if I could. And since I live alone, I can. And I do.

EASE: 5/5 The only way this could possibly be easier would be if my food processor didn't have the motor of a chainsaw and as such, wouldn't leave my ears ringing for hours. It hurts.

FILTH OF KITCHEN: 1.5/5 Hey! Way to go Mini Chocolate Cheesecakes! You are almost entirely contained to 2 washable things! MINIATURES DO IT BETTER. Amiright?

DID THE DOG EAT THE DOUGH? If the dog doesn't go back to eating the dough when I move to my new apartment, the dog is going to have to start paying rent. The fuck happened to my living breathing vacuum/Swiffer Wet Jet all-in-one?

IMPRESS-O-METER: 4.5/5 Oh, haven't you heard? Miniature things are the best things.

Nutritional facts per mini cake:
76 calories / 13g carbs / 2g fat / 8g protein / 1g fiber / 2g sugar

Passover Torte

noreply@blogger.com (It's me! Molly!!) — Sat, 07 Apr 2012 07:58:00 +0000

Just a quick little snippet on this Passover dessert I made from the incredible, wonderful, Smitten Kitchen. That lady over there is amazing, folks. Clearly, I swapped out the copious amounts of sugar for Truvia, because I'm insane*. I'm sure this affected my macaroon layers negatively in appearance, but the taste was absolutely almond-y and fantastic in every way.

I used her suggestion of orange extract in the chocolate icing - ohmygodyes. My macaroon layers were not as meringue-y as I think they should have been (my peaks didn't get so stiff, I don't think...I blame the Truvia) and I couldn't really trim them too much without them totally crumbling to pieces...hence the uneven-ness. But, despite also not having quite enough icing and running out of decorative almond slices (the shame of it all!), it tasted so, so, so good. So good. But this amount of cake may last me the rest of my life. Sigh. I'll just have to learn to live with it.

There's no real story here. My bad. Just a big old happy Passover to you all. Now go eat some flourless cake.

*insane people also calculate nutrition facts per 1/2" slice of chocolate tortes. I know this first hand.
193 cals / 24g carbs / 12g fat / 5g protein / 2g fiber / 14g sugar

You Eat Post-Workout Snacks Like A Girl

noreply@blogger.com (It's me! Molly!!) — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 03:18:00 +0000

Vegan Chocolate Espresso Oatmeal Peanut Butter Cookie Sandwiches. (whew.)

I have some pretty silly fears. Elevator doors closing on me. Falling down escalators. Falling up stairs. Falling on my face. (There is something wrong with my balance? There is something wrong with my balance.)

But those are the ~~normal~~ ~~socially accepted~~ ones I typically admit. I also have food fears that I keep somewhat to myself. Oh who am I kidding, I don't keep anything to myself. You look horrible today, by the way. But yeah. Food fears. Fears makes it sound a little too wacky, I think. We'll call them food aversions. Eek. These include, but are not limited to, the following: cheese, bread, cereal, butter, oil, meat of all kinds, sugar. They come and go (eggs and milk used to be there too, so I'm open to modifying my psychosis) for various nonsensical reasons. So I've been adjusting my foods to be less scary, more approachable, friendlier, faster, stronger, better, cuter, more charming. Wait what? No, no. All that's perfect. And true.

It's common knowledge that I like my cookie doughs to look as
much like bowel movements as possible.

But where I struggle the most is carbs. Specifically post-workout carbs. And to make it worse, I've been falling in love with running these days. And as we're getting pretty hot and heavy, it's becoming readily apparent to me that I need to eat some damn carbs after those runs. For the sake of having enough energy to run again. But I don't want to eat a tuna sandwich everyday. Orrrr ever.

Is that oatmeal in there or little glimmers of sunshine?
(It's oatmeal.)

So I'm going to eat my post-workout snacks like a girl. Mostly because that is clearly the only way I know how. They're going to be Chocolate Espresso Oatmeal Cookie Peanut Butter Sandwiches. And they are going to be life-altering.

Ok. They are going be incredibly yummy. And a little funny looking. Oh and they're going to be - relatively - good for you. And vegan. Because why the fuck not, amiright?

Cute in that ugly you-must-have-come-from-turdy-batter way.
You know?

Adapted from this recipe. Here's how...

Assemble these things:
3/4 cup of oat flour
1/4 cup of unsweetened cocoa powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking soda
6 tbls vegan buttery flavor sticks
2 tbls unsweetened applesauce
18 packets of Truvia
2 oz cooled espresso
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups of oats
1/2 cup of chocolate chips
wax paper and parchment paper

Do these things to those things:

Whisk first 4 dry ingredients together in a bowl. Set aside to let it think about what it did.
Cream the "butter" and applesauce with the "sugar" in a mixer. Make air quotes.
Add the espresso and vanilla. Is it smoothish? Let me introduce you to step 4...
Nice to finally meet you. Stir in the oats and chocolate chips with a spoon of sorts.
Divide the dough in half. Place the halves in their own wax papers. Roll the doughs into 2 log (you-know-what) shapes, about 2" in diameter. Wrap up and refrigerate for at least 2 hours.

Come back. Preheat the oven to 350. Parchment paper your cookie sheets.

Slice the logs into 1/2" wide cookies. I got about 3 dozen cookies out of this. The original recipe claims 48. I call bullshit on this.
Bake the cookies for about 10 minutes, or until the tops look a bit dry.
Remove. Cool in sheets for a few minutes. Cool on cookie racks for many more minutes.
Assemble two cookies with a tablespoon of crunchy peanut butter.
LOOK WHAT I'VE CREATED. I HAVE MADE PERFECT POST-RUN SNACK!

Nutritional Info Per Cookie
56 calories / 8g carbs / 3g fat / 1g protein / 1g fiber / 2g sugar

Nutritional Info Per Sandwich
202 calories / 19g carbs / 15g fat / 6g protein / 3g fiber / 6g sugar

This beats a tuna sandwich 99% of time.
Dolphin meat wins 1% of the time.

RATE ME!!

TASTE: 5/5 TASTES SO GOOD IN MY SWEATY RUNNER MOUTH. It also tastes good in my regular mouth. These would also probably taste good in a shoe.

EASE: 4/5 I made the dough on my lunch break today, but only after stopping at the grocery, eating some lunch, and some general fucking around. The hardest part was cutting the turd roll. And that was easy as Sunday morning. Or Wednesday lunch break.

FILTH OF KITCHEN: 3/5 This is hard because my kitchen is a pigsty to begin with. As is the area by my kitchen (known from here on out as The Entirety of the Rest of My Studio Apartment) where I decided I didn't feel like folding my laundry yet. Oh me. I didn't add too much extra mess, however. Just a lot.

DID THE DOG EAT THE DOUGH? STOP REMINDING ME THAT MY DOG IS AFRAID OF MY KITCHEN ALREADY.

IMPRESS-O-METER: 2.5/5 Yeah these guys are ugly. That's for certain. -2 points. But they are Vegan (+1), Sandwich Cookies (+1), and made entirely from my heart (+.5). And then -1 for that last comment. And add another +1 for healthy-ness. Have we carried any ones yet? Perfect.

Because I Love You Muffins

noreply@blogger.com (It's me! Molly!!) — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 00:52:00 +0000

aka (vegan carrot cake)

My boyfriend loves me. It’s true. I’ll tell you how I know.

Last night, I went out to hang out with other girls which is plain old weird if you know me at all because that is not a thing I tend to do. Girls scare me. So does large organized socializing. Eep! So, as any social anxiety prone young lady is apt to do, I made sure I was good and drunk for the occasion. Double eep! On my quest to get shitfaced, I drank entirely too much.

Pre-blackout. Pre-ruining that adorable crocheted top.
Pre-friend on my left babysitting me at the bar. <3

Typically I can get away with this because I’m a stone cold badass who can hold her liquor. But that state of “typically” also includes eating normal things on a regular basis - like carbs. And my daily intake of carbs has taken up to or less than 36% (115g or less, usually) of my diet for like...3 weeks now. Don’t ask me how I know this. (Ask me how I know this!)

100% Psycho

So what does my boyfriend do? He comes to my rescue. Knowing full well there was a solid chance I was going to be sick.
When I woke up, boyfriend of the year was asleep on my couch. He had set my Britta within my reach with a few other choice items. When he woke up, he didn’t give me shit, didn’t make me feel bad, didn’t say anything negative. Clearly, I made some poor choices last night. He even showed concern for my shoes, which...took the brunt of the evening’s festivities.

*SKIP DOWN TO HERE IF YOU’RE NOT IN THE MOOD FOR STORY TIME*

(JERKWAD.)

Moist. We're calling them moist.
Just go with it.

So my boyfriend loves me and I know this. And I love him because motherfucking DUH. So I made a frankensteined Vegan Carrot Cake Muffin in his honor. Then I named them Because I Love You Muffins. CUTE.
So let me explain a couple things I did to this recipe. In an adorable way.

Because I love you, I shredded a bag of carrots by hand so you wouldn’t have to eat less-than-fresh bagged shredded carrots.

Shredded for his pleasure.

Because I love you, I replaced the sugar with stevia and applesauce so you wouldn’t feel guilty about eating these.

I'll throw these empty packets away within the next few weeks.
Or so.

Because I love you, I used organic whole grain pastry flour rather than white flour so you can get a healthy dose of whole grains with a flaky cake instead of highly processed gross stuff.

Tell me,
do you see a beautiful young woman or an ugly old lady in this picture?

Because I love you, I took the oil out and threw some applesauce in since oil is yucky and applesauce is not.

Nothing says "I love you" like sludge.

Because I love you, I calculated the nutrition facts so your minor ocd that is totally not weird could get some exercise.

I was going for a tones of beige-ish in this photo.
Nailed it.

Because I love you, I’ll never get so ridiculously horribly intoxicated again. I bet.

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees and get these things out:
2 cups pastry flour
24 packets of Truvia
¼ cup brown sugar
½ tsp salt
2 tsp baking powder
½ tsp baking soda
2 tsp cinnamon
3 cups shredded carrots
1 ¼ cups unsweetened applesauce
½ cup orange juice
½ cup golden raisins
¾ cup reduced fat unsweetened shredded coconut
½ cup chopped walnuts
Do these things to make about 24 muffins:
Combine the dry ingredients in a large mixing bowl by hand. Toss the carrots and applesauce in. Mix mix mix mix. Add the orange juice. Mix mix mix mix. Add the raisins, coconut, and walnuts. Mix mix mix mix! Fill up a baking sprayed muffin tin with your batter. Stick it in the oven for about 35 minutes. (Since there is nothing raw in there, the inside is still delicious even if not all the way set. I was mostly just getting antsy.) Let cool. Devour.
Nutrition Facts per muffin
99 calories / 18g carbs / 2g fat / 2g protein / 3g fiber / 9g sugar

SEEMS LIKE ENOUGH MUFFINS.
(help.)

RATE ME!!!

TASTE: 3/5 ok they are totally delicious but I think there is room for improvement. I'm talking about icing, folks. I want icing in my mouth when I eat these muffins. It's all I've been thinking about for like, 20 minutes. That is so many minutes to think about icing. Also - they didn't entirely become cake-y in the middle so let's call them "moist."

EASE: 4/5 You don't even need a mixer! Bitch is easy like your mom! But just like your mom, it takes forever to grate the carrots. That is the -1 point there, if you wanna check out the judges card.

FILTH OF KITCHEN: 5/5 Truvia packets. Truvia packets everywhere. Applesauce where the Truvia packets aren't. The counter edging my kitchen sink is lined with carrot ends. There's probably a lot of things in my hair. Plus side: my apartment now smells a lot more like OOOOH than ewwww.

DID THE DOG EAT THE DOUGH? The dog thanked me kindly for the carrot stumps. They're his favorite. Next to everything else that goes in his mouth.

IMPRESS-O-METER: 5/5 I'm giving this the ultimate rating for a few key points: each muffin is under 100 calories, they are vegan, I'm hungover.

Healthy Little Muffins

noreply@blogger.com (It's me! Molly!!) — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 05:09:00 +0000

Hey there Healthy Little Muffin, you wanna hang out before work?
Maybe after the gym?
Do you want to be my everything?
My one and only?

I want you inside me.

Recently, I've been having this kinda weird love affair with protein and fiber. I eat double fiber bread. I drink protein shakes. I nibble on Fiber Choice tablets. Protein bars? We've shared some romantic evenings.

Tonight was the final straw. I bought dried prunes and figs at Whole Foods. Wholesale. I know. I'm really passionate about pooping.

So making a muffin that will make you poop, give you energy, and maybe even taste halfway decent seemed like the obvious next step. Because cookies would have been stupid. Please. What is this, amateur night?

No #2 has ever tasted so much a winner.

It's official. This is not amateur night.

Here's the rundown on this recipe since I sorta kinda whipped it up out of my kitchen:

Ingredients

Almost 1/2 cup superfine sugar + 2 packets of Truvia (I ran out of sugar...then I ran out of superfine sugar...this was almost amateur night...)
2 tbs butter
2 eggs
1 cup of fat free sour cream
2 cups of old fashioned oats
1/2 cup of oat flour
1/2 Oh Yeah! Cookies and Cream Protein Powder (why wouldn't I buy the only brand with an exclamation point in the name?)
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp cinnamon
2 remaining dried figs, chopped
2 remaining dried prunes, chopped

You're This Close to a Fantastic Bowel Movement

Preheat oven to 425. That seems super hot, I know.

1. Cream butter and sugar in your mixer. Add the eggs, one at a time. Beat til brutalized.
2. Toss the sour cream and oats in a bowl to combine. Add them to your mixer and beat beat beat.
3. In a separate bowl (I plan to get your whole kitchen filthy), mix the dry ingredients.
4. Add the dry ingredients to your wet ones and mix on low until smoothish.
5. Douse your muffin pan with baking spray.
6. Evenly distribute the muffin batter into the 12 muffin tin. Add the random dried fruit you had left over into as many of the muffin pods you want. Be creative! Make a smiley fig face! Do not make a frowny fig face!
7. Stick it in the oven for 10 mins. Then reconsider how fucking hot that oven is. Turn it down to 375. Give it another 6 minutes. They look done? Sure, sure.
8. Let cool.
9. Allow yourself to enjoy how wonderfully the smell of muffins covers the smell of that entire bag of steamed spinach you whipped up earlier for dinner. Shhh...muffin time.

If my intestines were superhuman,
I'd eat every one of you, baby.

But wait!

I even have the nutrition facts for these little fuckers! These numbers may not seem like much but with such a low calorie count, I think they are moderately impressive. You get your fiber from the oats and oat flour and you could always add more prunes or figs to get a much more substantial amount. The protein obviously comes from the protein powder (per serving, it's one of the lower calorie, higher protein, lower carb ones available), the eggs, sour cream, oats, and oat flour.

Healthy Little Muffins
nutrition facts per muffin

cal: 152
carbs: 22g
fat: 4g
protein: 7g
fiber: 2g
sodium: 249mg

RATE ME!!!

TASTE: 3.5/5 These muffins are really yummy and perfectly breakfast-y. I will say, they do taste healthier than gluttonous. But I think that's a positive thing? They are plenty moist thanks to the sour cream and the cookies and cream protein powder actually tastes really good on its own so it's only uplifted by the addition of oats. I am a really big fan of everything I am tasting in these muffins. And they had the potential to be terrifyingly bad.

EASE: 5/5 I just want to make a poop joke here so bad. So I will. The only thing easier will be passing my next bowel movement. HELLO.

FILTH OF THE KITCHEN: 3/5 I used alllllll the bowls in my kitchen. But to be fair, I have like 3-4 bowls in my kitchen. USE ALL THE BOWLS.

DID THE DOG EAT THE DOUGH?: The dog got a bath earlier tonight. The dog wishes he was dead still.

IMPRESS-O-METER: 4.75/5 Excuse me, I made healthy muffins with protein powder that actually taste fantastic. Where's my ticker tape parade? When will all this fist pumping I've done tonight be appreciated? Soon. So soon.

I have to go to the bathroom now.

Banana Chocolate Cream Whoopie Pies

noreply@blogger.com (It's me! Molly!!) — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 08:55:00 +0000

I thought I'd open this post with something I like to call: Show the Terrifying End Result of the Story in Order to Lure in the Audience. I'm a big time Hollywood producer now. NBD.

See what you've got here is fucking horrifying. It's carnage. It's utter destruction. But I don't know if you see what I did there...See I showed you a little banana cream pie beacon of hope too. I was worried you didn't see that. What I did there. Just...stay with me. I swear it's worth it. And if it isn't, you got a tour of my kitchen for your trouble. IT'S SO ROOMY.

I'm the first one in the world to say this so take a seat. I have really fantastic ideas in the shower. Sure, they're typically overshadowed by the OMIGODMYHEADISBLEEDING moment when I forget that's just red hair dye going down the drain, not my brains. (It might be my brains though too?) But if an idea can get past that hurdle, it's a keeper.

And so, I offer you The Banana Chocolate Cream Whoopie Pie. Courtesy my thought process when I'm nakey.

Teehee.

I've been trying for 3-5 minutes to figure out how to properly describe these little goodies. Nothing's quite right but I think I'm close.

HOLY FUCK.

I mean, wow. Wow wow wow. But more of that later.

First things first, I prepared my browser for the evening. I set my bookmarks to Full Throttle. I'm in it to win or something.

HOW BOUT THAT BIGGEST LOSER FINALE?!?! AMIRIGHT!

Then I made something that looked remarkably like a turd.

You should be on your way out, not in.

Part of my stroke of genius was to make a double chocolate chip banana cookie for the whoopie pie. This was a mistake. Don't do this. They don't whoopie pie very well. Stick with your everyday banana chocolate chip cookie.

Hey! You! You don't belong there!
I can't eat you when you're there!

While the much more delicious banana chocolate chip cookies were baking, I got started on the custard. This is crucial to my whoopie pie cause. Because a banana chocolate cream pie without custard is like that horrible bitch in high school without her good looks: some bananas in some crusty shit that will probably wind up pregnant with a bastard child 1-3 months after graduation.

Much like the man in the moon,
there is usually a dinosaur in the custard.

Then came assembly time.

What you've got here is your typical Molly Banana Chocolate Cream Whoopie Pie set up. See, you've got one side being all vanilla custard-ed up with the world's thinnest slice of banana nestled inside like a little tiny banana present. Then you've have the other side, see, slathered in chocolate cream. What happens next will simply blow your mind.

Oh I'm sorry. I should have said something.
THIS JUST HAPPENED.

And so we've made our way back to the beginning. The filthy, filthy beginning. I HOPE YOU SEE WHAT I CLEARLY DID THERE.

Fun side note: I weighed myself consistently during this endeavor because I live alone and my scale is 12 footsteps from my oven so I'm allowed to do these things. I gained a pound and half from beginning to end. Sure, I also drank 20oz of Diet Dr. Pepper but that's the amount of Diet Dr. Pepper that could be inside my body at any given moment. My scale has adjusted.

You makea my dreams come true.
Ooo wooo. Oo oo.

Here's the recipe, if you're lady enough to try it.

RATE ME!!

TASTE: 5/5 I can't reiterate this nearly enough. Holy fuck. I ate the shit out of one of these whoopie pies. And I don't even like whoopie pies. Hell, I don't even like eating all that much. I would have eaten all of them, but I think I'm having a heart attack?

EASE: 3/5 These weren't hard to make, just kitchen consuming. What with the mixing and the custarding and the assembling and sometimes I wish I had an underpaid, under appreciated, overworked helper monkey to do my biddings. All I have is a stupid dog. I'm going to go kick around some dirt while staring at my shoes now.

FILTH OF KITCHEN: 10/5 May I direct your attention to the aforementioned video documentation of said filth? I might as well set fire to my apartment. I will never be clean.

DID THE DOG EAT THE DOUGH: I don't understand what is up with my dog. Half the time I was making these, he was "stuck" in the closet whimpering slightly. It sounds cruel of me to not help him and to put quotation marks around his apparent situation but he wasn't stuck. The door of the closet was open. That's how he got in in the first place. He just couldn't figure out how to get out. I don't know what else to say. The other half of the time, I was pretending he was invisible.

IMPRESS-O-METER: 5/5 I mean, I had this idea in the shower, you know? Who thinks about baked goods in the shower? Who thinks about anything other than "can I get by without shaving my legs today" in the shower? Who has the time! I do. Plus, I put a real pie into a fake cookie pie. I win.

Vegan Blueberry Muffins

noreply@blogger.com (It's me! Molly!!) — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 00:21:00 +0000

Hey guyz! It’s me! Molly! And I made some muffins, yo. I’ve also started ending my sentences with yo, yo. Things have really changed since I last posted. (Yo.)

I'm so excited to not see you in person!

In my hiatus from baking and blogging, I’ve been fixated on a dazzling array of things. What’s that? You said you want to read about these things in list form?

I THOUGHT YOU’D LIST FORM NEVER ASK.

Those new Ford commercials? With the press conferences? With the new Ford owners? They claim to be real? The fuck? The fuck. IAMNOTSTUPIDFORD. America is not stupid, Ford. Why do you treat us like we are so stupid? Is it because we look stupid? You are such an asshole. Now let me buy a Ford or twelve.

I’ve haven't baked anything since moving to my new apartment. This is especially silly because my oven is really shiny and, like 12 brand new Fords, shiny = high quality. Also, my apartment is tiny (456 sq ft tiny) and the smell of fresh baked goods would certainly fill the space much lovelier than the smell from my garbage disposal.

Blueberries taste yum.

Blueberries are so expensive that they should print cash on blueberries
so cash would have more value and save our economy.
Yall can stop occupying Wall Street now. I fixed it.

So this evening I did something about these things. I made some Vegan Blueberry Muffins. Why vegan blueberry muffins? For the same reason I've made other vegan things... Because lay off my case. That's why. Also milk makes me feel yucky. Please don't tell anyone. I have to maintain my strong facade. I wish I'd never italicized the word "vegan" earlier in this paragraph.

Can we talk about this recipes "wet mixture" instead?

I almost wish this was animal insides.
So it'd be less disgusting looking.

It's like anything but an animal bled into that bowl. Amiright?

Here. Have some streusel.

Streusel doesn't make anyone feel yucky!
No one!

Have you met my friend Streusel? It's like that natural exfoliating face wash you keep in the shower that, whilst washing off your freshly exfoliated face, tempts you to "forget" to close your mouth and taste a ~~lot~~ little of? Yeah. Just like that but double the brown sugar and imitation butter.

Do you want a nest of sugar and oats topping your muffin
or should I get used to telling you what's good for you?

So longest-story-in-the-world-ever short, these muffins are delightful. Like your sister but not the one that sucks, the one you like. Will you be my sister?

I can't wait to destroy you.
De. Stroy.

If you'd like to find the recipe (A SISTER WOULD DO IT), it was unceremoniously stolen from Delicious Sweets. And made slightly sugary-er. JK. I threw a lot more sugar into it.

RATE ME!

TASTE: 3.75/5 Bitches be yummy, yo. (THINGS ARE SO DIFFERENT NOW.)

EASE: 5/5 The hardest part of this recipe was taking a large bowl out of the dishwasher when it was still relatively hot from the drying cycle. So basically, it was the toughest.

FILTH OF THE KITCHEN: -5/5 Ok, get a load of this shit. I actually cleaned my kitchen so I’d have room to make these muffins. Stop raising your eyebrows in disbelief. You’ll get wrinkles and you’ll be ugly and no one will love you.

DID THE DOG EAT THE DOUGH: You know, ordinarily I’m sure he would have but currently he's focusing all his energy towards being afraid of his dinner bowl. I - I don’t understand. It’s like he told me he smells toast and had a stroke.

IMPRESS-O-METER: 5/5 Every time I take a bite of these muffins, a songbird flies through my balcony door and thanks me personally for not harming any of his animal brethren in the making of these baked goods. To be honest, I’m afraid of birds and I want them out of my apartment. But they refuse to stop tipping their tiny bird hats at me and I don’t have a broom to chase them out. Apparently, this is my life now.

Also, I cannot WAIT for my surprise press conference. I am going to make ALL the jokes.

Flour-less Cakes: Part 2...Clementine Cake

noreply@blogger.com (It's me! Molly!!) — Thu, 24 Mar 2011 01:01:00 +0000

Part 2
Clementine Cake

If you don't have this song stuck in your head the entire time you make this cake, you're doing it wrong.

In fact, if you don't get an urge to listen to a lot a lot of Bright Eyes in general while you make this cake, you're probably just doing life wrong. In general.

Maybe this should be named the Bright Eyes cake? Just kidding. That's dumb. This is the Clementine Cake. Because it's made out of 5 entire clementines, not 5 entire Conor Obersts. Although that would be really, really, adorably delicious. In a crooning hipster sort of way. WHEN WILL I GET MY CONOR OBERST CAKE?!?

Apparently, some other psycho beat me to it. Typical.

Anywho. Back the most important point of this post that isn't Conor Oberst. The search for the perfect flour-less Passover cake. And so, I give you the Clementine Cake.

Hello Yummy Texture. It's me, Molly.

I found this recipe once again at Smitten Kitchen thanks to the helpful Passover-Friendly Dessert Recipe Suggester. So helpful!

This cake is yumcity. I think I say that a lot about a lot of things but it is really very good this time. I promise. It's clementine-y, yes. But mostly, it has a delightful texture thanks to the heaping amount of ground almonds. It's just about perfectly sweet and probably would be satisfying for breakfast. Or mushed up and constantly pumped through your veins like a drug. One or the other.

I bet all of Conor Oberst's children I plan on carrying would looking really cute iced onto these mini cakes.
Chocolate portrait style.

Recipe!

4-5 clementines

6 eggs

2 cup plus 1 tbs sugar

2 1/3 cups ground almonds

1 heaping teaspoon of baking powder

confectioner's sugar for dusting

Go on with your bad self!

Get a big old pot out, toss the clementines in, and cover with cool water. Set it on the stove and boil your little clementines for 2 hours. Remove, drain, and set aside to cool. Slice them open, remove the seeds and chop up into smaller pieces to put in the food processor. Process until smooth-ish. Set aside.
Preheat your oven to 375 degrees. Prepare whatever size pans you're using (I used 2 1/2" ish, 5", and 6" because I'm just crazy like that) by greasing them and lining the bottoms with a piece of parchment paper.
Beat the eggs. Add the sugar, almonds, and baking powder. Mix well, adding the chopped up clementines.
Pour batter into your prepared pans. Set in the oven for 30ish minutes or until the top is lightly browned and a toothpick comes out dry.
Remove from the oven and cool on a rack. Once cooled, take out of the pan and dust with confectioner's sugar if you see fit. (I saw fit.)

I think I'm cured. No, in fact, I'm sure.
Thank you Stranger, for your therapeutic smile.

RATE ME!

TASTE: 4.5/5 I don't really like citrus. I really hate the smell of fruit being juiced. But the smell of it baking and the taste of it in baked goods really makes me happy. This cake was no let down in the happy tasty department.
EASE: 2/5 This gets a low ease rating simply because of the whole two-hour-boiling-clementines thing. That's a couple hours too many to boil clementines to make an otherwise simple cake. Just saying.
FILTH OF THE KITCHEN: 4/5 It was pretty disgusting but not nearly as bad as the flour-less chocolate cake mess. That...that was just terrible and I don't want to talk about it ever again so please stop bringing it up.
DID THE DOG EAT THE BATTER: Little dude was on fire today! And later, his butthole might be on fire :/ Not because he ate heaping amounts of pureed whole clementines that dropped on the floor but because he ate HEAPING amounts of pureed whole clementines that dropped on the floor. Double :/ What a guy. I love him.
IMPRESS-O-METER: 4/5 You know what? I don't even want to call it flour-less. That's amateur or something. I'm going to call it Gluten-Free. That's right. I went there. I impressed every person in the world who can't eat anything that tastes good ever. Sorry Gluten-Free folks. That must be the worst. But hey! This cake uses whole clementines! Eh? Eh?

Flour-less Cakes: A Love Story in Three Parts

noreply@blogger.com (It's me! Molly!!) — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 02:08:00 +0000

Preface

That Time I Decided to Make a Bunch of Flour-less Cakes

Occasionally on this blog, I bring up the very true fact that I am a Jew. I made hamantashen and told you all the story of three-cornered hats (it's Jew-talk...don't worry about it). My first venture in bread baking was challah because duh. So what's this getting at? Passover's coming up soon!!!!!!(!!!!!!) And Passover is my (only) favorite Jewish holiday! So in an effort to ~~find recipes for my mother to slave over~~ help plan our upcoming seder, I went about researching flour-less cakes. Because here's the only thing you need to remember about Passover food: that shit better not have ever risen a day in its life. Because Pharoh. And the Jews. And the desert. And Pharoh again. RESEARCH TIME!

Epilogue to the Preface
Research!

My fellow Jewess blogger, The Awesome Lady Over at Smitten Kitchen, compiled an extremely helpful list of flour-less Passover friendly desserts. I decided to tackle three of her flour-less cakes while putting my own little spins on each of them. All in the name of science. And research. And my expanding waist line. But mostly, PASSOVER!

The Jews didn't have yeast in the desert but they definitely had melted chocolate.
They weren't heathens.

Part 1
Chocolate Flour-Less Cake

with Espresso Whipped Cream and Raspberries

Use your vivid imagination to insert some raspberries where
I clearly ate the raspberries before taking this picture. Please.

I picked this recipe because it involves separating a dozen eggs and I like breaking things. I also like to pretend that the really loud noise my ridiculously over powered KitchenAid Professional Mixer makes while beating the shit out of one dozen egg whites is my own personal air show, minus the planes, the tricks, and the inevitable plane-trick tragedies.

Like the clouds at an air show, but with less impending doom!

So here's the recipe, adapted ever so very tiny bit slightly from Smitten Kitchen.

Cake:

12 oz fine quality bittersweet chocolate, chopped
6 tablespoons of water
12 eggs, separated
1 1/3 cups of sugar
1/2 tsp of salt
2 tablespoons cocoa powder

Filling:

2 cups heavy whipping cream
7 tablespoons of sifted confectioners sugar
4 tsp instant espresso dissolved in 4 tsp water
1 tsp vanilla
raspberries

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease your baking pans and line the bottoms with parchment paper. Set aside.
Melt the chocolate with the water over low heat. Set aside to cool to lukewarm.
Whip together the egg yolks, 2/3 cups of sugar, and salt in a mixer for 5 minutes or until pale yellow and thick. Fold in the chocolate until blended.
Clean your mixer, you filthy disgrace.
Beat egg whites until soft peaks are formed. Slowly add the remaining 2/3 cups of sugar and beat until stiff peaks are formed. Fold 1/3 of the egg whites into the chocolate mixture to make it light. Gently fold in the remaining egg whites until blended.
Evenly spread batter in your pans. Bake until puffy and the top appears dry. Rotate to ensure even baking. For my heart shaped mini pans, this took about 13 minutes. For my 5" and 6" circular pans, it took about 16 minutes.
Let cool on a wire rack. When cooled, sift some cocoa powder on the top of the cakes. Place wax paper on top of the pan, then place a baking sheet on top of it all. Invert the cake onto the pan, gently removing the paper lining. Place the layers in the freezer for about an hour so that they are firmer and easier to handle when frosting.

Make the frosting!

Whip all the ingredients together. BAM. You have delicious frosting.

Assemble the cake!

Keep the cocoa side of the cake down.
Frost the bare side with a heaping amount of whipped frosting. Place some halved raspberries on top of the frosting.
Place the next layer on top and frost, frost, frost.

You know you're a Jew when you subconsciously decorate your cake with a raspberry Star of David.

I stopped at 2 layers for both of my circular cakes. My heart shaped cake used 5 layers...then I ran out of frosting. Sigh.

If salt water at Passover reminds us of the Jews' tears, this clearly reminds us of
how sad we were as young Jews to not find the hidden matzah at Passover.

This cake is totally delicious. For realz. It's crazy light and airy because it has a dozen fucking eggs. My Elijah, that is SO MANY EGGS. I just want to make a million and a half egg puns here. But I'm stronger than that. Or something. Also, I've recently become a big girl and started drinking coffee. Currently my drink of choice is a grande soy cappuccino so this espresso whipped cream was right up my big-girl alley. Plus who doesn't love fresh berries with their cake? Pharoh. That's who. Fucking Pharoh.

This cake batter is very light but it could have used more plagues.
Are a few locusts too much to ask for?

Next I'm going to make this ridiculous sounding orange flour-less cake in various tiny, adorable shapes. But first...one more look at my sickeningly cute heart shaped cake. No but seriously. I feel ill after like two bites.

And Moses parted the flour-less cake so his people could escape the mighty Pharoh.

RATE ME!

TASTE: 3/5 You know what, the cake is really good. It really is. I think I just underbaked it a bit. I chalk this up to my inexperience with making flour-less cakes (see: Never) and my overall impatience. Surprisingly, this did not stop me from gaining a solid pound eating this cake last night. Nor did it stop a mysterious member of my family from going to town on these cakes sometime between last night and this morning. Hm.
EASE: 3/5 I was actually pretty surprised how easy this cake was to make. The only points deducted from ease come from the ONE DOZEN SEPARATED EGGS. Amazing for pent up rage, however.
FILTH OF THE KITCHEN: 5/5 I - I don't know what happened. It looked like a bomb went off. A bomb went off and then another, slightly chocolate-ier, bomb went off just for good measure. It was terrifying. It was so filthy.
DID THE DOG EAT THE DOUGH: He most seriously knew what was up when I was icing the cakes. I'm pretty sure I had his full I-Don't-Know-How-to-Sit-on-Command attention.
IMPRESS-O-METER: 4/5 Flour-less seems unnecessarily tricky and espresso whipped cream seems unnecessarily mature. Overall, that's not too shabby.

Peanut Butter & Jared Cheesecake Brownies

noreply@blogger.com (It's me! Molly!!) — Thu, 10 Mar 2011 00:16:00 +0000

Dear Planet Earth,

Hold the phone. Stop the presses. Go purge whatever you just ate for dinner. (That's a saying too, right?) I've got some very important news. It's called Peanut Butter & Jared Cheesecake Brownies. And it's going to change everything.

Hugs and Quiches,
molly.

Wow. That was such a serious intro to this post and it still isn't serious enough. Let me give you a scenario. It all began with two rag tag kids and one crazy-never-gonna-work idea. And it went a little something like this...

Brother: Can you make me some cheesecake brownies?
Me: Yes.
Brother: Can there be peanut butter in them too?
Me: Are we talking Reese's Peanut Butter Cups?
Brother: Yes. Yes we are.

AND SCENE.

Reese's Peanut Butter Cups:
The peanut butter that holds the relationship between me and my brother together.

So, many many (many) weeks after that conversation, I got down to business.

I adapted a Cheesecake Brownie recipe from My Baking Addiction to make this life altering dessert. Or you could eat it for breakfast. Or lunch. Or dinner. Or breakfast again.

I like my ingredients like I like my men: white, beige, or brown.
And handsome.

RECIPE
...for the brownies

1 stick of butter, cut into pats
7 1/2 tablespoons of cocoa powder
2 1/2 tablespoons of oil
1 cup of super fine sugar
1 egg
1/2 teaspoon of vanilla extract
pinch of salt
2/3 cup of flour
1/2 teaspoon of baking powder
8 Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, coarsely chopped

...for the cheesecake

8oz cream cheese
1/3 super fine sugar
1 egg yolk
1/4 tsp of vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 350. Line an 8x8 baking pan with foil and butter the foil.

Mix the oil and cocoa powder until well combined in a small bowl. Throw the butter pats in that bowl and stick it in the microwave for 30 seconds or so, until the butter melts. Mix until smooth.

Toss the cocoa/butter mixture in a mixing bowl. Add the egg, the sugar, the salt, and the vanilla. Whisk until smooth and pretty. Add the flour and baking powder. Whisk until just combined.

Spread the brownie batter in the pan. Top evenly with Reese's Peanut Butter Cup crumbles. Take a second to bask in the glory of what you are making. Nice. Very Nice.

Whisk together all the ingredients for the cheesecake in your sparkly freshly cleaned mixer. Spread the well combined cheesecake awesomeness on top of the brownie/Reese's Peanut Butter Cup batter. Grab a fork and swizzle the cheesecake topping around.

Pop in the oven for 35 minutes or until the corners look puffy and the center is just set. Cool on a wire rack. Try not to press your face directly into the hot baking pan. Or don't hold back. Be yourself. Be happy. Be covered in Peanut Butter & Jared Cheesecake Brownies.

If anything has ever asked for an imprint of an entire face, it's this guy.

PS: I cannot WAIT to make everyone I know really, really, really, really fat.

PPS: If you have some crazy ass idea for something you want to eat but you are more into eating than making, you should probs hit me up and suggest I make it.

RATE ME!

TASTE: 4.99/5 "I get the feeling Jesus ate these at the last supper." - Jared, namesake of these brownies. Also, timely for Ash Wednesday. I think. I'm Jewish. I'm going to go eat another brownie now probably.
EASE: 4/5 Guys, here's the thing. Making brownies is exceptionally easy. Like if you were ever impressed by your mom making you brownies, you should know that she was making you something only slightly harder than breathing. Ask her to make you some Ho-Ho's and watch the bitch sweat.
FILTH OF THE KITCHEN: 1/5 I managed to clean up the entire kitchen within 5 minutes. While the heavenly creations were baking. So perfect.
DID THE DOG EAT THE DOUGH: The dog licked cocoa powder off the floor where there was no cocoa powder on the floor. I don't want to know what he was actually licking. I bet it tasted like butt though. What can I say...I know my dog.
IMPRESS-O-METER: 4/5 People go bananas over things with "cheesecake" in the title and they go apricots over baked goods named after them.

Kitchen Sink Cookies

noreply@blogger.com (It's me! Molly!!) — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 01:13:00 +0000

You know what I like? Waking up with my hair looking Edward-Scissorhands-great, the outdoors a lovely shade of monsoon, and all-but-one-ingredient in my cupboard for just about 6,156 different recipes. Basically, days like today are the monsooniest. I mean the best. I mean the monsooniest.

And so we are left with some Kitchen Sink Cookies. Not to be confused with Refrigerator Cookies or...Refrigerator Cookies (this was going to be a great joke, I swear. Can we talk about my horrible hair day again?)

.Recipe.

The last full stick of butter from the no-man's-land in my refrigerator that I refer to as the butter hutch.
1/2 cup of white sugar mixed with 3/4 of molasses because you bought chocolate chips at the grocery store when you meant to buy brown sugar. Typical.
1/2 cup of white sugar because you didn't use all of it up to make brown sugar.
1 egg, lightly beaten. You know what? Those eggs look old. Make sure you have two eggs. Just to be safe. Just in case the egg has brown speckles in it. (Spoiler Alert: the first egg had brown speckles in it.)
1 tsp vanilla. You can do this. You always have vanilla.
3/4 of that oat flour you keep in the freezer because I'm pretty sure that's where oat flour belongs. Do not confuse it with the whole wheat flour you also keep in your freezer. Or the ice cream sandwiches. Especially the ice cream sandwiches. You need those ice cream sandwiches.
1/4 tsp cinnamon, nutmeg, salt, and baking soda. These just sound like a good idea. Plus, oregano would taste gross.
A cup of Kashi GoLean Crunch with Honey Almond Flax that sits on your kitchen counter and eyeballs you on the regular. Plus, this means these cookies are a good substitute for breakfast. Go with it.
A couple handfuls of pecans because who doesn't love pecans? Amiright?
A bag of chocolate chips which is definitely not brown sugar. Remember that for next time and then every time after that.

Don't look now but I the butter hutch is staring right at you.

Reiterating that recipe was the second most frustrating thing I've done all day. Wanna hear more about the weather? No. Fine. Moving on.

.How to assemble your hodgepodge of stuff you forgot you have.

Go on and melt your last stick of butter in a saucepan. Keep a quarter of your eye on your melting butter while you tackle your sugar problem. Lemme tell you something about brown sugar. It's as good as dead to me. I mean, until I buy it again. But seeing as I'm not going to buy it anytime soon because OMIGOD ARE THOSE CHOCOLATE CHIPS? Exactly. So you might want to mix that molasses and white sugar together. I used a fork to do it. You can use your sharp wit or piercing rage.

Is your butter melted? Awesome. Perfect. Great. Mix it with your fake brown sugar and real white sugar. Crack an egg in a small bowl. Are those brown speckles? I told you there would be brown speckles. Crack a newer looking egg. Beat it a bit and toss it in your sugar butter mixture. Add the vanilla. Mix mix mix. Rain rain rain. Mix mix mix.

Sift your oat flour (why not regular flour? I dunno maybe because it's the 90s! Get used to it!) and team of 1/4 of a teaspoon items together. Add them to your wet stuff. Looking good, looking good!

And now for the finishing touches...

Pulse your cup of Kashi a few times in a food processor because it just feels right. Throw it in your batter. Grab your handful of pecans, crumble them a bit in your mighty fist, and toss them in. Do it a second time because you have tiny hands and duh. Pecans. Duh. If the mixture is still a bit warm, throw it in the freezer. When cooled, empty as many chocolate chips as you want in there. I say "a lot" sounds respectable. Another handful of Kashi? Definitely. These cookies are looking DYNAMITE.

Plastic wrap and refrigerate for an hour or however long you're out of the house and negotiating the monsoon for. Keep in mind, this could be forever. You know what? You should probably leave a note.

* * * *

Wow. Thank God you left a note. I was worried.
Preheat your oven to 350. Grease some pans. Throw some cookie rounds on the pans and then flatten them a little with a metal spatula. Bake for 12-13 minutes. Cool in the pan then cool on a rack.

These look nothing like the sink I was promised.

You know, you could take this recipe further. I'm sure there's something under your sink or whatever. And hot sauce. Everyone always has hot sauce. Just not the oregano.

RATE ME!

TASTE: 4/5 If these cookies are the kitchen sink, I am the garbage disposable. BOOM. That's like the refrigerator cookie joke I've always dreamed of.
EASE: 4.5/5 Seeing as I was making up this recipe as I went along, it was pretty simple. Plus, it doesn't even involve a real mixer. Just these two guns I'm equipped with. I'm talking about my arms. My moderately strong arms. I work out. You were going to ask.
FILTH OF THE KITCHEN: 3/5 Exciting news! After maybe a month of not working, my dishwasher works again! That makes cleaning up so easy! I highly suggest working dishwashers to all my readers (my parents).
DID THE DOG EAT THE DOUGH: He was on that dough like a min pin on a kitchen sink. You know, dangerously close to getting his leg chopped off in the garbage disposable. It's a metaphor for doggy diabetes. Trust me.
IMPRESS-O-METER: 2/5 Ok the name "Kitchen Sink Cookies" really doesn't get you any gold stars. Plus there are entirely too few truffles in these cookies. Maybe you have some in your butter hutch?

Blueberry Muffins and Cinammon Raisin Bread

noreply@blogger.com (It's me! Molly!!) — Fri, 04 Feb 2011 05:31:00 +0000

Here are some ways I remember when my birthday is fast approaching:

Something about football. Whatever. Score another run, fellas. Swish and stuff. Hat tricks.
It starts to get so cold outside that my body begins sweating majestic snow flakes at an alarming rate.
My dad and I discuss dinner plans.

Adorably enough, my dad's birthday is the day before mine and Babe Ruth's. So over the last forever, no matter where either of us have been at the time, my dad and I have celebrated our birthdays together. And Babe Ruth's. Mostly Babe Ruth's. Then last year we just didn't. I was out in Colorado drinking flaming drinks and Pisco Sours, he was boozin on Bourbon Street (he was not boozin' Bourbon Street but he could have been) and much like the twain, the two of us ne'er did meet. (I think I did that right?)

But while we missed each others' birthdays that weekend, we still got to celebrate them together. A week later, my dad made sure to drop everything (just kidding, he's retired) because I asked him to come out to Colorado on a day's notice just to hang out with me. And take me out to dinner. Oh we ate so many dinners!

So it's my birthday on Sunday. And my dad won't be here to eat dinner with me for the second year in a row. But it's his birthday on Saturday. And I won't be there to eat dinner with him for the second year in a row. I could wait to give him a present when he comes to visit later this month but you only turn very very very (very) elderly (60) once (thank God) and you better fucking believe my dad will celebrate it with a package of Blueberry Muffins, a loaf of Cinnamon Raisin Bread, and the painstaking task of deciding where we're going to eat over President's Day weekend.

My what judging cinnamon swirly eyes you have!

Ball's in your court, Daddy. Happy birthday eve!

PS: 23 and 363 days and 114.5.

Vegan Chocolate Salty Peanut Butter Balls

noreply@blogger.com (It's me! Molly!!) — Thu, 13 Jan 2011 02:55:00 +0000

Before you read any further, I'd like to tell you something really, really important. I've been lauding the delightfulness of my vegan chocolate salty peanut butter balls for literally tens of minutes. I don't know if you think (you probably don't, amateur) but tens of minutes is SO MANY minutes to express love for vegan chocolate salty peanut butter balls. Especially aloud. Espcially to your mother. Especially to your extremely judgmental kitchen cabinets.

When will I live up to your standards?!

Anyways, I know Chef was the original purveyor of chocolate salty balls and I know the addition of "peanut butter" to "chocolate salty balls" makes you immediately think "creamy venereal disease" (no? how about now? that's what I thought. yummzville.) but that's just absurd. Just about everything in the world can and will benefit from the addition of peanut butter.

Example: Shampoo? Work a dollop of PB into your locks, neither wash no rinse, and voila! your hair is a tasty snack for mid shower hunger pangs. (You're allowed to called them "hunger bangs" if you're really clever.)

Example: Feeling chilly? Nothing says "boy am I comfy cozy" like a thin (or thick) layer of PB under your clothes. It also says "I'm friends with both bees and people who walk around with celery stalks and raisins!" but who couldn't use more friends? Amiright?

Those examples were exhausting. Less exhausting? These vegan chocolate salty peanut butter balls. They took about 20 minutes or so to make, including bake time. I've had eybrow waxing appointments take longer than that. And these balls makes you cry less too! (This whole post is one giant that's-what-she-said joke. Sigh. Such is life.)

"Hey baby, I wonder if you can fit all of me in your mouth?" - Vegan Chocolate Salty Peanut Butter Ball 2011 Predator of the Year

Oh yeah. Here's some of the nitty gritty. This recipe came from my new vegan baking cookbook, The 100 Best Vegan Baking Recipes: Amazing Cookies, Cakes, Muffins, Pies, Brownies, and Breads by Kris Holecheck. Although completely void of pictures, it's a pretty lovely little cookbook. Although the snickerdoodle recipe is more like a snickerdoody recipe if you catch my drift. (It's like poop.)

I'd like one of those hot stone massages but with
Vegan Chocolate Salty Peanut Butter Balls.
Everywhere.

RATE ME!

TASTE: 5/5 - The salty balls can do no wrong.
EASE: 5/5 - My dog could make these cookies if he wasn't such a gluttonous tramp who had no sense of self control. But I'm also willing to say a life size cardboard cutout picture of my dog could also manage this recipe. If the cardboard Frank wanted it bad enough.
FILTH OF KITCHEN: 1/5 - My cleanup process was included in my 20ish minute questimate of total time spent in the kitchen. No egg mess (thanks vegans!), no melting chocolate (thanks society!), and my peanut butter wasn't even terribly sticky (thanks advances in Peter Pan peanut butter air whipping technology!). My goodness. This recipe is starting to look dangerously perfect.
DID THE DOG EAT THE DOUGH: The dog was too busy trying to eat the cat. That boy needs to get his priorities straight.
IMPRESS-O-METER: 3/5 - See, I have this dilemma. I want to make a balls joke here so bad. So so bad. What if you just lolz as you would lolz had I told a really great balls deep joke involving my vegan chocolate salty peanut butter balls right here without me having to make a balls deep joke? Because if I make an honest to goodness balls deep joke here, I'll have to explain the term "balls deep" to my mom. Or I want have to. Honestly, I'm not sure which would be worse.

Do you see what I did here?
It's a face!

Voyages to the Great Vegan Unknown

noreply@blogger.com (It's me! Molly!!) — Sun, 19 Dec 2010 16:11:00 +0000

For you to feel just a bit like a jerk.

When I was in ninth grade, I got really into writing short stories. Really short stories. Like only-a-girl-with-ADHD*-would-think-a-short-story-is-500-words short stories. Well one story I remember really well was one about a dude. He kept hindering himself (as many times as one can keep doing anything in 500 words) in completely unnecessary ways just for the thrill of the challenge. The dude wore his pants backwards a la 1992 teen rap duo sensations Kris Kross just to making peeing a little tougher. In my short story, he failed out of school due to his extended bathroom breaks. Did you read that? He failed out of school. Because he wanted peeing to be harder.

The 90s weren't so much cool as they were revolutionary.
And cool. Mostly the cool part, actually.

So are you as excited as I am about that background story? I know, right! It was entirely too long! And relatively uninteresting to boot!

But here's the thing: vegan baking? Exactly like my Kris Kross embodying 9th grade imaginary male alter-ego. (We all have one.)

Common misconception about Vegan Banana Nut Chocolate Chip Bread:
This bread was the activist who freed the diseased monkey in the classic movie, Outbreak.
Wrong. That was Patrick Dempsey.

Thank goodness I made that bigger. And bold. And followed it with a picture of banana nut chocolate chip bread.
More? Fine. Whatever.

A FEW MORE WORDS ABOUT VEGAN BAKING...

Vegan baking is challenging and goofy and like wearing your jeans backwards just cuz (COMPASSION, yo) or going out and killing your own chicken with a bow and arrow instead of getting one at the supermarket. Ok it's nothing like that last one but my guy managed to accomplish a lot in 500 words. And he definitely did the chicken thing. But mostly, vegan baking is super fun, guyz. It helps that I know someone who will gladly test out my vegan goodies (everyone should have one). Because shockingly enough, no matter how delicious looking they may be, vegan anythings still have the ability to scare some folks off. Sad stuff.

"I'm not a vegan, I just fuck a lot without harming animals."
-Big Punisher's original lyrics before he got real real fat. And died.

Vegan baking is a lot like a puzzle. Consistencies can be a little hit or miss thanks to the absence of eggs but you know what? Absence makes the egg grow fonder. I mean, I don't want eggs. But I've started getting love letters written in yolk and now I lock my bedroom door at night is all.

"Go on. Smear me all over your face. Let's take this relationship to the next level."

Vegan baking is also super for dough eaters. Remember that time you almost stopped eating unbaked dough because you were all like, 'raw eggs are not good for me to eat!' but you kept eating anyways even though you felt a little bad for your insides? You don't have to feel bad for your insides when you eat vegan dough! It won't kill you! Slowly! Over an extended period of time!

Let's be real guys. Vegan baking is sort of great.

NEWZFLASH: if Mini Vegan Jelly Donuts had footies, they'd be the cat's pajamas.

So if you want to try to do some vegan baking (and you do because you're not some sort of a monster, right?) here are the 3 recipes I used the other day...

*Fun note: I do not have ADHD. I'm just a little stupid. Easy mistake.

The Great Oatmeal Raisin Cookie Showdown

noreply@blogger.com (It's me! Molly!!) — Mon, 25 Oct 2010 00:09:00 +0000

Ok "The Great" might be a bit much. And "Showdown" is maybe a little unrealistic. It wasn't like I drew a line in the flour a la that scene in the movie Hook and told the cookies that they can either be delicious or delicious-er a la the movies in my head. That would be weird because cookies making choices and my mind movies and whatever. But it's a moot point. Because that's exactly how this showdown went...down?

In this corner of my flour dusted counter, weighing in at a modest 133 calories and making the world an animal friendlier place, one block of firm tofu at a time is The Vegan Oatmeal Raisin Cookie.

"I make my own clothes out of synthetic fabrics!"
-Vegan Oatmeal Cookie's Senior Quote

Because I think Vegan cookies are interesting (I wanted to say exotic like in the same way the elderly refer to everyone not white as "exotic" but it's too soon or something?), I'm going to share the recipe with you.

*many hyphens were harmed in the making of this book

I lifted this recipe from Tofu 1-2-3: 125 East-to-Prepare Cholesterol-Free Recipes because if you know anything about me, you know I have a tofu-centric cook book in my possession. Duh.

.Ingredients.
2 cups flour
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
2 cups rolled oats
3/4 cup sugar
3/4 cup vegetable oil
3/4 cup maple syrup
1/3 cup rice milk
1/4 cup silken tofu
1 tsp vanilla extract
3/4 cup of raisins

1. Preheat oven to 350. Line cookies sheet with parchment paper.
2. Combine flour, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon in a large mixing bowl with a wire whisk. Add oats and sugar and stir more. In a food process, combine oil, maple syrup, rice milk, tofu, and vanilla and puree til smooth. Pour liquids into the dry stuff and stir. Add raisins. Chill.
3. Bake for 15 minutes. Transfer to rack. Profit.

How exotic!

Shit was crazy easy to make, by the way. And they came out insanely perfect. I added a little extra sprinkle of cinnamon because I like to jazz things up/I wanted my kitchen to smell better/I think adding things to recipes makes me seem mad knowledgeable. Taste wise - not too shabby. I was surprised with both the consistency and the fact that I didn't notice the missing butter and eggs. Way to go, Vegans. I still think yall are batshit crazy but you know, your cookies can be okay.

I expected vegan oatmeal raisin batter to look much more resentful.

But this wouldn't be a showdown if there wasn't some competition.

I know what you're thinking. You're thinking this is a done deal, yo. Other dude shouldn't even show up. You're also thinking I am the perfect height to be an arm rest for most full grown men. There you are correct. The former, however, is what I like to call "jumping to cookie conclusions before giving the animal product using cookies a chance." Yeah. I like to call it that.

So let me introduce the challenger...

Continuing with the overdone, cliche at best use of boxing terminology, weighing in at you-don't-want-to-know and sporting a mean chunky salt topping is The Salty Oatmeal Raisin Cookie.

"I rob animals of their goods on the regular!"
-Salted Oatmeal Raisin Cookie's Senior Quote

I first had a salted oatmeal raisin cookie when I was a carefree youth on the mean streets of NW Washington D.C. I had stopped off at Marvelous Market (thug life) after school with my mom to pick up my favorite Caprese Sandwich (hood shit, yo) and maybe a nice challah or some french bread with olive dip and a Perrier (I've run out of impressive street lingo) when a cookie by the register caught my eye. A monster salted oatmeal raisin beauty. It was probably one of the top 10 single things I've ever eaten. So I sought out to recreate it.

I settled up my debt at Williams-Sonoma the old-fashioned way,
with an IOU note for my firstborn son.

This recipe came from the Williams-Sonoma baking book I just purchased. It was a little different that other recipes I've come across as it asked you to melt the butter in a skillet first. Then you proceed by mixing in the remaining ingredients by hand. The not so obvious differences from the Vegan cookie included the use of nutmeg and brown sugar instead of white.

Common misconception: The Vegan substitute for butter is sand.

These smelled hands down 100x better than the Vegan cookies. Like, if you're into that sorta thing. To give them that little extra salty kick, I topped them with this fancy pants finishing salt I bought at Williams-Sonoma (I only spent a million dollars there is what I'm getting at). Popped those bitches in the oven and BOOM. Incredz.

Common misconception #2: Oatmeal Raisin Cookie batter
can replace your every daily need.

But to compare the two is pretty hard. The regular cookies flatted a bit more than I wanted while the Vegan ones kept a really lovely shape. They look just about perfect. The regular cookies are much more home-made in appearance. But man. The salt. I added extra salt to half of the Vegan cookies too and it just makes such an incredible difference. I highly suggest topping your oatmeal raisin cookies with chunky salt. Shit is unreeeeeeeeeal.

THE SHOWDOWN PART OF THE PROMISED SHOWDOWN!

TASTE: Salted Oatmeal Raisin Cookies. The vegan cookies are surprisingly good but the consistency is a little spongier than I'm used to. The salted cookies are really delicious. So salty. So wonderfully spiced.
EASE: Vegan Oatmeal Raisin Cookies. I've found that any cookie recipe that involves a food processor is way easier than any cookie recipe that does not. I don't really know how to justify this argument but it's my blog, not yours, and beat it.
FILTH OF KITCHEN: Vegan Oatmeal Raisin Cookies. It helped that they had like 9 more ingredients to deal with. And sloppy ingredients at that.
DID THE DOG EAT THE DOUGH: It's official. My dog does not like to hang out in this kitchen while I bake. It's a real drag because it means I have to mop the floor now.
IMPRESS-O-METER: It's almost a toss up here. On one hand, Vegan Cookies are pretentious and the Impress-O-Meter was birthed from pretension. But on the other hand, I topped those other guys with finishing salt. Finishing salt. What can I say, I'm 100% impressive 80-93% of the time.

Challah

noreply@blogger.com (It's me! Molly!!) — Tue, 12 Oct 2010 05:58:00 +0000

In case you had any doubts, I'm a total Jew. Case in point: I wanted to try baking bread today for the first time. What was my go-to bread recipe? Challah. Because duh. Also, if you said "matzoh," go fuck yourself. No seriously. Not only do I have ample unemployed time to watch my bread rise (sorry Jewz of Pharoh times, that must've suuuuuucked), but I have serious beef with matzoh.

**This is where I'm going to go off on matzoh for a sec in a slightly smaller font so as not to be a bother...
hold on to your seats**

Ok. Matzoh. Here's my ish with matzoh: non-Jews think it's incredible. When your high school sets out matzoh in the cafeteria around Passover because your high school gets it, you know who is the first in line to make matzoh PB&J sandwiches? Non-Jews. And when you causally bring up that you're a Jew and Passover is totally your jam, who pipes up about their love for matzoh? You got it. Non-Jews. Because non-Jews are the only people in the world who can't get enough of matzoh. Probably because they haven't been forced to get enough of matzoh yet. Give them time.

Here's the thing, non-Jews: matzoh tastes fucking terrible. It's not up for debate. It's not supposed to taste good. It's supposed to taste a little like guilt, a little like sadness, and a lot like cardboard. Jews escaping from Pharoh did not eat matzoh because it appealed to their palates. No. They ate it because they were too busy escaping horribleness to wait for their bread to rise and it tasted slightly better than sand and helped them starve less in the desert.

**This is where I stop going off on matzoh.
I feel better now. Thanks.**

So that time I went off on people who like matzoh for 2 paragraphs was kiiiiinda weird. Anyways. Challah! The bread non-Jews should really being going nuts for! AMIRIGHT?

If you're not familiar with challah, get with it already. It's a supremely delicious egg-y bread that's sorta similar in taste to brioche. It's sweet without being dessert-y. It's downright gluttonous when spread with butter and insane as french toast. (See: egg-y sugar-y egg bread doused with more egg and smothered with syrup. Also see: duh.) And it's braided so it's totally adorable.

Frank and I getting down to business in the kitchen.
(I'm the cute one.)

Of course, being the idiot I am, I decided that the first bread recipe I tackle be one that incorporates braiding dough. Turns out it's not as easy as braiding my hair. Which is weird because my hair often has the consistency of wet dough. Hmm.

But it was still kinda fun. It's something that clearly takes practice and a little know-how but hot damn, SO CUTE.

LOOK HOW CUTE THAT THERE BRAIDED BREAD LOOKS. AHH.

But hey, I'm totally getting ahead of myself here. The recipe started with me dissolving some yeast and some sugar. Exciting!

Then I whisked in oil, more sugar, and 4 eggs, one by one. I decided to hand whisk it instead of using my insane monster KitchenAid Pro Mega Destroyer 3000 XXX because A) that thing means BUSINESS and challah is like a delicate buttercup and B) I skipped going to yoga in order to make this bread which means girlfriend needed some serious exercise but didn't do that either and instead pretended that vigorous mixing was "exercise." Also C) I live in a dream world.

My right arm's sore/totally toned now.

Then I added 8 cups of flour. Eight is so many cups of flour! I got mad egg yolk/vegetable oil/yeast/sugar/flour on my shirt which was cool except that it looked pretty obscene.

Hey egg yolk/vegetable oil/yeast/sugar/flour mixtue: ew. Also: inappropriate.

It was fun/filthy/fun. I kneaded it ~~brutally~~ like a lady and let it sit for an hour as it expanded to twice its size.

It's like one of those dinosaur sponges except not at all because it actually works and doesn't ruin your entire day because it's a letdown like everything else in your childhood.

Blah blah blah, a little more resting, a little more assaulting. Then I split the dough in half (the recipe was for two loaves), kneaded some raisins into one loaf, and then got myself totally psyched for some bread braiding.

This is gearing up to look like something I'll be a natural at!

(I was not a natural at this.)

I'll be the first to admit it, my first loaf came out pretty stumpy. Whatevs. Still totally adorable and that's my number one requirement for all the food I eat. (Interesting note: it was at about this time that I was shocked that I didn't think to make mini challahs. That would have been the quintessential adorable Molly food makeover move. Next time.)

"Next time, I'll braid your hair!"

- Challah Loaf

Since I threw some raisins in the second loaf, I decided to keep it real after braiding it and form the loaf into a circle. Raisin-y circle-y challah loaves are mostly eaten around Rosh Hashana time to represent the cycle of a year and to bring a little sweetness into the new year. (Jew talk.) Also because raisins are my new favorite food. No joke.

"Have you met us? We're raisins, Molly's new favorite food and we are no joke."
- The Raisins in my Raisin Challah Loaf

Blah blah blah I had to throw the loaves in the freezer because I had dinner plans because ~~I am important~~ ~~I am really cool~~ ~~I am a social butterfly~~ ~~everyone wants a piece of me~~ my dad invited me out to dinner. When I got home, I took my little lovelies out of the freezer and let them thaw for 4 hours. (NO BIG DEAL.)

Next up was the second coat of whisked egg (I left out mentioning the first coat because it was just as boring as that time I brought up the second coat a few words ago) and a sprinkling of poppy seeds on the regular loaf. THEN CAME HEAVEN.

Holy shit. I am going to make the world's best wife/mother/first female president.

DREAMZ.

RATE ME!

TASTE: 4.7/5 > Even though the raisin loaf may be a tinge overdone, these taste outrageously good. I went so far as to email my mother at 2am to tell her how good these taste because I can't keep my awesome to myself/I suffer from insomnia.
EASE: 2.5/5 > It's not so much that it's hard to make challah, it's just hard to make it perfect. The braiding isn't difficult but it will certainly get easier. Also, the dough itself is incredibly easy to make.
FILTH OF KITCHEN: 10/5 > The dough attacked me (dayenu!), there's flour everywhere (dayenu!), there's bread everywhere (dayenu!), there's everything everywhere (dayenu!). Do you see what I did there with that cleverly placed Jew joke?
DID THE DOG EAT THE DOUGH: Frank was mysteriously absent from this exciting introduction to bread baking. I think he was exhausted/emotionally distraught after I walked him to the grocery store and tied him up outside so I could buy some eggs. I'm pretty sure part of him died inside. He was really banking on riding in the grocery cart. :(
IMPRESS-O-METER: 1000/5 > I made braided challah, motherfuckers.

Care Packages | Ho-Ho's and Pies

noreply@blogger.com (It's me! Molly!!) — Fri, 01 Oct 2010 17:53:00 +0000

Suppliiiiiiiiiiies!

Let's be real for a second, guys. Can we be real? Are we in the RealZone now? You're not familiar with the RealZone? It's like an arena of truth. That's centrally located on my couch. Welcome, guys. Welcome to my RealZone (couch).

Oh, nice to see you guys here. Took you forever. Anyways, here's the thing. I had this harebrained idea the other day about my future. This isn't out of the ordinary. I have silly ideas all the time. But this one almost seems doable. I want to, one day, open my own itty bitty bakery. I have some little twists that make my bakery idea adorable and awesome but I'm going to keep those a secret because even though we're in the RealZone, I don't trust a single one of you fuckers. Anyways, this exercise in care-packaging was just so I could try out some fun recipes I half-made up and see how shipping chocolate things works out.

(Hey at least my harebrained idea isn't as absurd as thefreedictionary.com's thesaurus entry for a harebrained idea: "a completely mad scheme to build a bridge between two mountains." That's fucking mad crazy.)

Now get out of my RealZone and let's talk about baking.

RED VELVET CAKE HO-HO's with CREAM CHEESE FROSTING

GUYS. I'm pretty sure I suffered from some minor diabetic shock last night. I was just wrapping up the final batch of Ho-Ho's and getting along to writing some notes. I was staring at my computer when the room started spinning. I don't know about you guys, but that only happens to me on Tuesdays and some Saturdays. (Tuesday is the new Saturday is the new every day of the week when you're unemployed, guys.) I think that's what happens when you surround yourself with red velvet cake, cream cheese frosting, and melted chocolate glaze for two days straight. That and you look fat. (Unrelated: I need to go to the gym.)

Mmmm. Tastes like thunder thighs and dizziness!
Just like Ma Hostess used to make!

But let's take a step back. Back to where this all started.

I've made normal Ho-Ho's before but the frosting in the recipe I used was horribly sweet. Sorta gross. So I thought, hey, these would be way cuter if they were red on the inside and I'd spread cream cheese frosting all over my face if it was socially acceptable (one day!). Why not make some red velvet cake Ho-Ho's? With cream cheese frosting? WHY NOT, I said.

So I did.

I'd be lying if I said it isn't the blood of a
virginal ox that makes Red Velvet Cake taste so good.

Making Ho-Ho's is all about technique. You have to make sure the cakes aren't at all over baked which is tough because you're baking them on a cookie sheet. Bitches gonna be thin.

Red like your pent up rage. Velvety like those fabulous curtains in the den.

Then, as I learned after much trial and error, you have to cut that cake in half...so it's thinner. This, by the way, is not very easy to do. Especially if the cake is at all over-baked. (Basically, if the cake is over-baked you've let down everyone you know. This goes back generations.)

Unfortunately, I took these pictures before figuring out a better technique but you get the gist anyways. You either ice that sucker as one big sheet and cut it up or cut it up and ice it. The latter makes a thousand times more sense when you get into the thick of things.

This is lose-your-left-hand diabetes material.
(Worth it.)

The rolling is a crapshoot. Sometimes it's perfect. Sometimes it looks like I'm making a hilarious joke where perfect Ho-Ho's are the butt and I pretend to be better than them even though all I want in the world is to sit at their table at lunch. Sigh.

Winner!

Finally, you dunk your little rolled cakes into melty chocolate. Using your hands. Using both your hands. Let's skip to the point: I had chocolate all over me. You know how you think melted chocolate all over someone is like, oh I don't know, sexy? Well, it isn't. It's fucking disgusting. You can't do anything. Nothing. You can't touch the sink to wash your hands. You can't even use your elbow to turn on the sink because even your elbow is covered in chocolate. WHY IS YOUR ELBOW COVERED IN CHOCOLATE? In summary: you will never be clean again.

But, if you play your cards right, you do end up with something as beautiful as this...

The Hostess people have started throwing bricks through my windows.
Bricks attached to more bricks.

This is getting so long! Sorry! That's what happens when you start out in the RealZone!

I made various mini pies too that I won't go into detail about. (It's called making a mini pie with lattice crust. Your grandma could do it if your grandma had tiny nimble fingers like mine and if your grandma didn't talk so much smack about you like EVERYDAY, yo.)

I made apple pies, peach pies, and mango/kiwi pies. Oh the pies I made!

Your girlfriend called. She said she's never going to be like me and you
should stop drawing big hearts in your notebook around 'Mr. Molly Wilkof' already.

Remember those neato oversized cross-section books that always had the hidden guy taking a dump somewhere in the scene? Here's a similar cross-section of the beauty that'll be arriving at people's doorsteps between noon and 3pm tomorrow...There's no dude taking a dump in there so you can stop looking for him. Also, what the fuck was up with that anyways?

Mini pies are capital 'B' Booming, guys.

RATE ME!

TASTE: 5/5 > Incredible. Nothing has ever tasted better in the history of things being tasted.
EASE: 1/5 > Instead of sewing wallets, sweatshops should make kids roll up Ho-Ho's so they could really appreciate the meaning of hard work.
FILTH OF KITCHEN: 5/5 > The melted chocolate debacle of 2010 will go down in history as super gross. As will all the other crap still strewn about the kitchen. I think my dog may have icing on him. Not sure.
DID THE DOG EAT IT THE DOUGH: When he wasn't giving me the cold shoulder last night, Frank was most certainly eating the dough. Which was great because it got everywhere and looked a little like blood and so it's a good thing he helped clean up the ~~murder scene~~ kitchen.
IMPRESS-O-METER: 10/5 > I would now like to quote a Twitter Direct Message from the one and only Josh Kenner: "i didn't know that hohos are a thing that people can actually make at home. this will be an adventure." You're damn right, Josh. You're damn right.

Last little note: I'm totally stoked about the 100% likelihood of the Ho-Ho's melting in transport. Things might get sloppy. We'll see. They're going to Maryland, Virginia, Oregon, and Colorado. Extra big pie packages are going to Georgia and South Carolina because they don't allow Ho-Ho's there. For real.

Chocolate-Hazelnut Smooches

noreply@blogger.com (It's me! Molly!!) — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 21:18:00 +0000

Let me shed some light on ~~how I pick out cookie recipes~~ the magic. Usually I go to foodnetwork.com, look up cookie recipes - hold on tight to your seat, this is where things get exciting - and sort them by "easy." First off, Foodnetwork.com, may I suggest changing that to "ease?" Just an issue that keeps me awake at night. Not a big deal. Just means the world to me.

Anyways, I go to about page 30 or something because every cookie recipe on foodnetwork.com is easy. But once I'm in the meat of the "intermediate" recipes, shit gets real.

Replace Martin Lawrence with me and Will Smith with Frank.

But it doesn't just take an intermediate recipe to get my goat. No. My goat is only gotten once I dig deeper...I'm talking the user ratings and reviews. And when I stumbled upon this gem, I knew it was meant to be.

You had me at "Labor Intensive!" but you sealed the deal with "life threatening."

Also, the creator of this recipe is named Baci. Baci! Best. Recipe. Ever. (!!!)

ON TO THE BAKING!

So I haven't baked in forever and I've never baked in this kitchen. I am slowly learning many exciting new things about ovens.

Noxious fumes are totally normal so don't worry if your face feels poisoned from time to time.
Just like two pairs of Levi's jeans that are supposed to be exactly the same size and style, no two ovens are alike. And just like those jeans which are both supposed to be 27s because you are sort of a 27 and you'd expect both 27s to fit the same but one of them fits great and the other fits like it was made by a one-eyed 8 year old seamstress (fuck you Levi's), some ovens are really really fucking hot.
Noxious is a great word, yeah?

This oven in New Orleans is without a doubt the hottest oven in the world. It only makes sense though, seeing as New Orleans is like hell on earth. I mean that in a mildly offensive way.

So I started by preheating my oven to 350 degrees (I think if you work New Orleans conversions, that comes out to about 10000 degrees so make sure you adapt to your surroundings) to roast 3 cups of hazelnuts.

Technically speaking, these hazelnuts go from here to ya-ya.

Three cups of hazelnuts is so many cups of hazelnuts! Imagine a lot of hazelnuts and then imagine more. That's how many three cups of hazelnuts is.

After roasting them for 15 minutes or something (I think you roast them for a couple years if using a normal oven) their skins got all peely and it was time to jump headfirst into the land of labor intensive baking.

After about 5 hazelnuts, you are tired of rubbing hazelnuts between your hands to get the skin off. After 3 cups of hazelnuts, you are wondering what kind of sick fuck Baci D'Alassio is. What's his angle anyways, you start to think.

Skinless but not ready to stop ruining your life quite yet.

But I was feeling pretty accomplished after all this. I even got Frank involved. We had a great routine for when I would drop hazelnuts (which was only constantly). I yelled "FRANK!" and he came running from wherever he was, looked at me, and waited for me to point to where the hazelnut was on the floor. Then he would feast. It's like I was having a real conversation with his hazelnut sized brain.

Next, I labor intensived some more with a knife. I'm like real afraid of knives. It's not a big deal except that it's a huge deal. Especially when you have to cut small round nuts with said death-tool.

Tip: red cutting board or bloody massacre? your guests will never know!

There's another thing I like about certain recipes. Call it a way to pick out the winners... Descriptive words. This recipe called for the hazelnut goop to resemble a powder and then a paste. I LOVE eating both powder and paste. The only thing I like more than powder or paste is sand.

Appetizing!

And the only thing I like more than sand (I know, I know nothing is better than sand but maybe just do me a solid and suspend disbelief for a sec?) is dirty wet sand.

Do I eat or do I rub it all over my face? Decisions!!

Then, it was time to make the turds. Only the best cookies look like poop. Descriptive words.

I dunno, I'd like to see it look a little more like excrement.
Right now it's hardly even trying.

Man. This recipe. I knew it would be the worst, but I wasn't prepared for how much the worst it would be. But let's get back to that life threatening part in the review. Food poisoning's my favorite right after unicorns and skipping but slightly ahead of rainbows. Apparently, this recipe suggests leaving these little turds out all night. Oh and there are 4 egg whites in this recipe. Something something not good for you something.

At this point in the recipe, I was starting to question Food Network. I mean, it seemed like every chance they got, they wanted me to be thinking about crippling diarrhea while making these cookies. Guess what guys, it totally worked. Pats on the back all around. These are poop cookies. It almost made me want to give up. But I wasn't going to let the three cups of toasted, skinned, chopped, and ground hazelnuts win. I'd let them make me violently ill, but not win.

I put the poo pans in the fridge and let them hang out all night. Then, this morning, I promptly burnt the shit out of them.

Mmm. Tastes like burning!

This fucking oven. They are totally soft and moderately delicious on top and burnt to hell on the bottom. I tried to scrape the bottoms but the cookies actually started laughing at me.

The only thing that's worse than burnt cookies is burnt cookies that take two days to make. And are labor intensive. And life threatening. And concocted from the sick mind of one Baci "Cock" D'Alassio.

The upswing to this whole burnt disaster? You get to smother the cookies with chocolate and make them into burnt sandwich cookies. Yay?

I'm almost disappointed to say that these cookies weren't that bad. They're kind of good. Why does the cookie always win?

I'll eat you, but I won't like it. I'll only love it. Asshole.

RATE ME!

TASTE: 3/5 > I'll have you know, this is an incredibly smug 3/5 rating. What a jerk this cookie is.
EASE: 1/5 > Labor Intensive is a nice way to put it. If I had a windowless basement where I locked up people I didn't like for an outrageously and inappropriately long time, I would insist they make these cookies everyday. That's how unfun this was.
FILTH OF KITCHEN: 4/5 > Hazelnuts everywhere. Hazelnuts hiding in the oven. Hazelnuts creeping between the burners. Hazelnuts haunting my dreams.
DID THE DOG EAT IT THE DOUGH: He ate more hazelnuts than any one dog has ever eaten. He's disgusted in himself and has been moping around for moments.
IMPRESS-O-METER: 3.5/5 > Hazelnuts are certainly more wow-y than pecans or walnuts or peanuts or almonds (did I just blow your mind with that nut knowledge?) but I burnt the shit out of them. And they are ugly poo cookies. I am so angry at this moderately good tasting cookie. I'm probably going to eat another one soon. Grr.

An Update/Mini Chocolate Chip Banana Nut Muffins

noreply@blogger.com (It's me! Molly!!) — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 07:01:00 +0000

I forgot to take pictures. Please accept these Native American E-Cards as my apology.

Are you sitting down? Here's the thing...I didn't know how to break this to you kids. The most important thing is that I love you.

No, no, stop crying. Mommy and daddy are not getting a divorce. As long as you keep your grades up and your weight down. Did I say weight? Good. I meant it. But this isn't about that. Back to my breaking news. I've been a little distant recently because I got a job. Well, a semi-job. Okay it's an internship. And it's almost over...get off my case already! Mommy and daddy are getting a divorce and it's all because of your thighs. There, I said it.

Anyways, I'm in beautiful sunny/blizzard prone Boulder, CO in a rented house and without my wingman, Frank* the min-pin. Last night was one of those blizzard days. Today was one of those beautiful sunny days. Just like your grandmother who can't make up her mind whether to keep hard candy or gummies in her candy jar, Boulder can't get its shit together. (Get your shit together, Grandma.)

So how do you celebrate a snow day when you're an intern? The same way you celebrate any unforeseen dramatic weather change. You stay strong and you bake, dammit. Plus, I like feeding my fellow interns with baked goods. I'm plumping them up so that one day I can stick them all into an oven and make intern pie. It will taste like tired. YUM!

But not before getting some inspirational words from a Native American Greeting E-Card...

"my soul hurts in ways most will never know" (sigh)

Soooo this just got weird. Anyways. Boulder! Colorado! The city that more often than not gets appropriate rest! Baking!

Baking in Boulder is weird. Not like weird in the sense that my oven emits noxious fumes every time I use it (it does) or that the slowest speed on my hand mixer is devastate (it is) but more so because of the altitude. We're at least a million miles above sea level here. I think. So alterations must be made. Just like my skin, baked goodies tend to get a little dry here if not properly tended to (now we're talking YUM!). Luckily, I've mastered one of these things. The baked goods part. Certainly not the skin part. Don't be ridiculous.

Anyways, mini chocolate chip banana nut muffins. That's a mouthful! Get it? Mouthful? You put them in your mouth and they are perfectly bite-sized? And it's a lot of words? Yeah? Well, I love chocolate chip banana nut bread. It's got to be one of my favorite things to make ever. And they're ridiculously easy. And life's hard enough as it is (I drink Seven and Sevens these days and weep over my stock portfolio by candlelight). Also, we get endless amounts of free bananas at work and free food's my favorite. But the thing about chocolate chip banana nut bread (C.C.B.N.B) is that the only part I really like is the crusty edges. So how do I make sure crusty edges are in every single bite? Mini muffin tins! Genius!

This is what it looked like when I discovered fire

So that whole hand mixer thing I mentioned. Are hand mixers a joke? Because they seem like a joke. Because if I wasn't too busy fearing for my life, I'd probably be laughing while using them. Because that's what you do when faced with a joke. UGH HAND MIXERS. Like, I guess I'm lucky I have them at all because otherwise there would be no laughter in this household thus making this house not a home and all that jazz. But really, I'm lucky I'm brilliantly strong and I have some original hand mixers at my disposal (they're called hands).

Still, it's cool using electric hand mixers. Everything you mix ends up looking like scrambled eggs. Everything. Except eggs. Because electric hand mixers are fucking JOKES.

Back to the baking in Boulder process. One of the things I read mentioned that you need to have the oven hotter when baking in high altitude. Something about science. But I'm a lady and reading is hard for my pretty little head.

Who has time for science with all this lovely hair to brush?

Now, the problem with making the oven hotter is that it burns the awesome out of stuff if you're not careful. So this mini muffin baking process involved an excessive amount of oven watching. And you know what they say about watching kitchen appliances...they can't have Beauty and the Beast-esque conversations with you around. So that was too bad.

Luckily, all this oven watching was worth it. I may have stunted some kitchen magic but these mini muffins were downright stunners. Bite size, crusty, chocolate-y, nutty, banana-y, and they made my house smell like heaven. And I love how heaven smells.

*Note: Frank the min pin had to stay at home in DC. He writes everyday and, despite his letters being entirely unintelligible, I can tell he misses me. He especially misses the crumbs I drop on the floor. I too miss his crumbs. Anyways, the rating meter had to change. Part of me wants to send him a box of crumbs and a FlipCam so I can get his point of view. But then I remember he's a min pin. And a dumb min pin at that. He would never figure out how to upload videos to his iMac. Dogs are DUMB.

"I use my interwebz to connect with old friends!"

RATE ME!

TASTE: 4.7/5 > Everyone (except Ilan) enjoyed these little angels. So to everyone (except Ilan), I say thank you. But definitely no thanks to Ilan.
EASE: 4/5 > I don't want to boast, but I could make C.C.B.N.B in my sleep. The electric hand mixer could lead to injury under such circumstances but I'd happily wake up to 9 fingers if they came bearing C.C.B.N.B. gifts.
FILTH OF KITCHEN: 3/5 > Electric hand mixers mean batter everywhere. I guess it's better than blood everywhere (I'm a glass half-full of blood kind of girl) but there was a fair amount of batter in my hair when I got to work. And that's slightly more batter than is normally in my hair.
DID THE DOG EAT IT THE DOUGH: Can we stop bringing up my dog already? I miss the awkward cat-dog crap out of him.
IMPRESS-O-METER: 3/5 > These are not impressive. Everyone can make them. However, they are tiny and that's adorable. And adorable sells, guys. I should know - I'm an ad intern who wears side pony tails and a goofy smile.