I have taken a bit of a break from making brownies, but not a break from baking. I am excited because our church has started to have a fellowship time between services; I now have a place to take my baked goods so we do not eat them all here at home.
Last week I decided to make Cocoa Oatmeal Cookies. I was still on an oatmeal baking kick, so I decided to give these cookies a try.
The only change I made to the recipe was to not add raisins and to add chocolate chips instead. The resulting cookie reminded me of the no-bake chocolate oatmeal cookies, but a little less grainy.
The cookies were apparently a hit because my container was empty when I went to pick it up.
As I have started on this baking quest, I have done some research on how best to add different ingredients like whole wheat flour to recipes. In doing this research, I have learned some basic information about baking.
One detail I learned that was helpful in making these cookies is that if you want your cookies to come out soft and chewy, you need to keep the fats in the cookie as cold as possible. In order to do this, I refrigerated the dough before I started baking the cookies and I put the dough back into the fridge while the other dough baked.
Someday, I would really like to take a class on the basics of baking.
Join me as I try a new brownie recipe each week as well as look at other baking related topics.
Thursday, June 21, 2012
Monday, June 11, 2012
Recipe #10: Chocolate Banana Bread
With a toddler and 6-month-old in the house plus the current great price on bananas, there is no shortage of this versatile fruit in our house. I often try to buy extra bananas so I will have some nicely ripened ones for baking, but we tend to eat through them all rather quickly.
This last week I finally had some well-ripened bananas that were just waiting to be baked, so I decided to try this Chocolate Banana Bread recipe I found on the Money Saving Mom website.
Typically, I do not have much luck with banana bread, but this recipe came out perfect on the first try. It even came cleanly out of the bread pan!
The Review
This last week I finally had some well-ripened bananas that were just waiting to be baked, so I decided to try this Chocolate Banana Bread recipe I found on the Money Saving Mom website.
Typically, I do not have much luck with banana bread, but this recipe came out perfect on the first try. It even came cleanly out of the bread pan!
The Review
on a scale of 1 to 5
- Overall Rating: 5
- Recipe Difficulty
- Rating: 1 (easy)
- Mix together the dry ingredients; mix together the wet ingredients; mix the two together--it does not get much easier than that.
- Taste
- Rating: 5 (great)
- I don't recall having ever mixed chocolate and bananas before, but I found the flavors combine together well.
- The chocolate does not overpower the banana; instead they complement one another and both flavors come through.
- Texture
- Rating: 5 (great)
- The bread came out with the perfect quick bread texture. The bread is moist from the bananas, but not mushy.
- Hints and tips
- I am a Pampered Chef fan and I love using their stoneware. I found that I had to add about 5 minutes to the cook time to get it completely cooked.
- Instead of mashing the bananas, I cut them up and added them to the wet ingredients. I then mashed them as I stirred the ingredients, but I left some little chunks.
- If you happen to be using the Weight Watchers point system, one twelfth of the bread equals 5 points.
- Would I make this bread again?
- Definitely. I look forward to playing with the recipe by using whole wheat flour and either applesauce or Greek yogurt in place of some of the butter to see if I can make it healthier.
Tuesday, June 5, 2012
Recipe #9: Peanut Butter Bars
Last week I had it in my head that I really wanted to make something with peanut butter, oatmeal, and chocolate. While I did not find an official brownie recipe with these three ingredients, I did find this recipe for Peanut Butter Bars that was a suitable substitute.
I mostly followed the recipe except that I increased the amount of oats to 1 cup as recommended by one of the reviewers of the recipe. They were a little drier than I hoped that they would be, but otherwise the bars had a good peanut butter and oats taste. Next time I think that I will experiment a little with the wet ingredients to see if I can make it more moist.
I also baked them in a 9x9 pan instead of a 9x13. I was afraid they would be a little too thin in the 9x13. I had to increase the baking time about 15 minutes to make sure they baked through.
The Review
I mostly followed the recipe except that I increased the amount of oats to 1 cup as recommended by one of the reviewers of the recipe. They were a little drier than I hoped that they would be, but otherwise the bars had a good peanut butter and oats taste. Next time I think that I will experiment a little with the wet ingredients to see if I can make it more moist.
I also baked them in a 9x9 pan instead of a 9x13. I was afraid they would be a little too thin in the 9x13. I had to increase the baking time about 15 minutes to make sure they baked through.
The Review
on a scale of 1 to 5
- Overall Rating: 3
- Recipe Difficulty
- Rating: 1 (easy)
- Another basic recipe where you throw the ingredients together without any unusual or extra steps.
- Taste
- Rating: 4 (pretty good)
- The flavors balanced each other out well. It had a good, but not overpowering, peanut butter taste.
- I am glad I doubled the amount of oatmeal in the recipe. The taste of the oatmeal was present but again was not overpowering.
- I used milk chocolate chocolate chips because that is all I had in the house. They tasted good on the top of the bars, but I would like to try it with semi-sweet or dark chocolate to get a stronger chocolate flavor without all the extra sweetness.
- Texture
- Rating: 3 (not terrible, but could be better)
- As with most peanut butter recipes, I felt that these bars were a little too dry. I would like to make them more moist and chewy.
- Hints and tips
- If you want to taste more of a oatmeal, double the amount called for in the recipe.
- If you bake it in a 9x9 pan, increase the cook time to 40-45 minutes.
- Would I make these brownies (bars) again?
- Yes, but as I stated earlier, I plan to make changes to see if I can improve on the texture.
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