My kitchen elves

Yesterday, I shared with you some great chocolate-peppermint Whoopie pies. What I didn't show you is the little elves who helped me make them.

My regular readers know that Little Guy and Little Miss are my constant companions in the kitchen.  When I begin a recipe, one of them (usually Little Guy) will drag the step stool from the pantry to the island, and they'll both climb up and beg to help. 

Little Guy has been successfully wielding a hand mixer since he was two, and now it's Little Miss's turn. She's not quite there yet, but then again, she's not quite two years old. 

Baking with kids is hard under normal circumstances, and even harder when a time constraint is involved. Still, I try to let my kids do as much as my patience will allow, knowing that I want them to have fun in the kitchen and enjoy the processes of cooking and baking.  But it's more than just having fun and making memories:  I want them to see up close what it means to read a recipe, follow directions, measure, pour, mix, stir and improvise when necessary.  These are all important life skills that while learned in the kitchen, are applicable everywhere.  Further, I want them to be able to take pride in the result and understand that only when you put in the work can you reap the reward. 

And they sure do like the reward!

I wonder if my little kitchen elves know all that.  Maybe they're too busy enjoying the reward. 
Then again, so am I.  I just love my kitchen elves.

And so it begins...

I started my Christmas baking last night with two batches of Chocolate-Peppermint cookies and one batch of Mint Surprise cookies. It felt so, so good to bake something Christmas-y...and now I am full of holiday spirit.  And cookies.  

I made my Chocolate-Peppermint cookies as I have for the past several years.  My cookie is based on Hershey's Double Chocolate Mini Kisses Cookies recipe.  I simply decrease the amount of vanilla to one teaspoon, add one teaspoon of peppermint extract, and substitute the Mini Kisses for Andes Peppermint Chip Baking Bits.  Heaven!

I tried a new recipe and combined chocolate with mint to make these Mint Surprise cookies, which is based on Hershey's Triple Chocolate Cookies. I added one teaspoon of mint extract to the batter, omitted the chocolate chips entirely, and used Hershey's Mint Chocolate Truffle Kisses for the top. 

These were absolutely delicious!  The bag of Kisses contained twice what I needed for the recipe, and at the rate these are going, I'll need to make another batch soon. And next time, I might throw in some mint chocolate chips in the batter (instead of the mint extract--or maybe in addition to?) to turn the mint flavor up to full-blast.  Seriously, you should make these--they are amazing!

Then, because the oven was on and I needed to use up some pumpkin puree leftover from Thanksgiving, I made pumpkin doughnut muffins.  Because I can't live on just cookies, you know?

Actually, I could live entirely on cookies.  My health would be dreadful and my teeth would rot out of my head, but I could make it work for several years before being claimed by scurvy.

My holiday baking is now 15% complete.  That is, if I don't eat all of these cookies myself. If so, then it's back to the drawing board kitchen for me.  And I am completely fine with that.

Label those lids!

With the holidays upon us, I wanted to share a helpful tip for keeping track of rarely-used ingredients.  So often exotic and unusual spices and seasonings are purchased for holiday baking, only to be confined to the back of the cabinet for the rest of the year.  Write the month and year of when you first opened or bought those bottles, so that you can see at a glance just how old the spice/seasoning is before using it in a recipe. 

After all, the cream of tartar works much better when it hasn't aged out of usefulness.  Spices do not have an unlimited shelf life, and it's nice to know if the cardamom you're about to put into that cookie recipe is from 2010 or 1996. 

I started labelling the lids this summer, and it's been a huge help. Not only do I know when I opened something, but now I can also gauge how fast I go through something.  Example: if I'm plowing through an 8 oz. bottle of clear vanilla extract in three months, then I should consider buying more when they are on sale, or purchasing a larger size.  Like in a five-gallon bucket.  Just sayin'.

Happy baking!

Wilton Tent Sale 2011

Yes, it's that time of year again: the annual Wilton tent sale!  The sale opened last Friday and will continue through June 21. If you are in the area and into baking/cake decorating, then you have to attend the sale. 

Note to newbies:  Go as soon as possible, and go at lunchtime if you are going on a weekend, or mid-morning if you attend during a weekday. Bring water to drink (they have some for sale if you forget) and wear comfortable shoes and clothes--it gets really hot in that tent!

I got quite a bit at this year's sale:

I am proud to say I can justify ALL of my baking purchases, even my new tart/quiche pan.  While I've never made a tart, I'm pretty sure it was because I didn't have the proper pan.  And now that I do, I see a lot of tarts in my future!  Tarts galore!  I am especially thrilled with my two non-stick bread pans, which I really needed considering I bake bread almost every week. I've used them already and the bread slid right out.  With these, I see a lot more bread baking in my future as well.

I did make a list before I hit the sale, and I'm happy to report I got everything on it.  Of course, I did get a few things not on my list, like this pearl dust.  Isn't it awesome?  I've always wanted to try this stuff, and now I can!  For the record, everything I bought was half off retail, and that's my minimum for shopping at the sale. 

Note for newbies:  If it's less than half off, don't buy it, as you can do just as well or better with a coupon to Michael's, JoAnn's or Hobby Lobby. 

I did get a little crazy with the cupcake liners.  The Elmo ones are for Little Miss's 2nd birthday next February, and the Spiderman liners are for a yet-to-be-determined birthday for the Little Guy.  I'm trying to hold off on the Spiderman theme for another year, but I bought the liners now as there's no guarantee they will be in next year's tent sale. 

Note to newbies: the merchandise changes from year to year. Sometimes there's more baking stuff, and other times there's lots of scrapbooking materials.  It can be a real toss-up.

Aren't these mini-cupcake liners adorable?  I have no idea what I'm going to use them for, but I'm sure I'll come up with something!

While they didn't have many Martha Stewart Craft items, the Wilton tent sale did feature some great Halloween finds.

The crow and rat silhouettes were only $2.00 each, and the witch window cling was $5.00. Score!

I think she'll go in my living room window this year, right next to the bat and spider silhouettes in the foyer. 

Are you headed to the tent sale?  If so, let me know how it goes!  Happy shopping!

Halfway there

I've made six batches of cookies, which means I'm only halfway through my holiday baking.  Seriously, the amount of butter I go through this time of year is obscene.  Cookies make great gifts for neighbors, co-workers and friends, so I like to bake enough to cover everyone, and hopefully have some left over for my family. 

Most of my recipes are coming from these books:

I made Martha's snickerdoodles as found in the Cookies book.  This year, I kicked the flavor up a notch by adding cardamom, ginger and ground cloves to the cinnamon/sugar mixture.  Delicious!

I also tackled Martha's Chocolate Crackles.  I've wanted to do these cookies for a long time and I'm so glad I finally did it:  these are so good and rich!  Perfect for a chocolate lover such as myself.

They didn't turn out quite like Martha's, I think because the balls were too big and therefore spread out too much upon baking, which messes with the crackle appearance.  I was worried that as the name states, these would be really hard cookies but instead they are so soft and chewy. Yum!

The next two recipes came from my latest cookbook acquisition:  Hershey's Recipe Collection.  I took the recipe for Double Chocolate Mini-Kisses Cookies and made it my own by adding peppermint extract instead of vanilla, and peppermint baking bits instead of chocolate chips.  I omitted the nuts entirely.

I bake some version of this cookie every year, and I've been searching for a solid recipe to stick with.  I'm not sure if this is it, but it was darn good.  Peppermint and chocolate has to be my favorite flavor combination for the entire month of December. 

Also from the Hershey's Recipe Collection was Oatmeal Scotchies.  Of course, the Hershey's company calls them "Oatmeal Butterscotch Cookies" but that sounds boring to me. 

For my next round of baking, I'll take a few cookies from the Baker's Field Guide to Christmas Cookies.  Have you seen the Baker's Field Guide collection?  These books, all about Christmas cookies, candy, chocolate chip cookies and cupcakes, are wonderful.  All cookbooks should be this easy to follow. 

For my next round of Christmas baking, I'm thinking of cardamom wafers, toffee bars/cookies and perhaps some more peppermint.  Isn't Christmas time wonderful?  And tasty?  It's a wonderfully tasty time.

My delicious breaking point

Whenever I bake, with just about anything I bake, there's a breaking point.  That strange and mystical point in the creation process when I stop and I think "Why continue making this? I really want to eat it now."

My breaking point looks like this:

It's right after the white sugar, brown sugar and butter have been combined.

Doesn't it look delicious?  And wouldn't it be great on toast?

Oh, who am I kidding?  Forget the toast, I just want to eat it straight out of the mixing bowl.  

Martha's blueberry muffins

I have blueberries in my freezer.  They've been there a long time, and I had to take action. 

Enter Martha's blueberry muffins...here's what they look like:

The Little Guy and I decided to tackle these blueberry muffins and decrease our stash of frozen shame-berries (seriously, they've been in my freezer forever.  I keep meaning to use them...). 

Unlike a few of Martha's recipes I've tried recently, this one was absolutely correct in both yield and baking times.  The only thing I did differently from the recipe was to leave out the additional sugar and nutmeg for the muffin tops.

Granted, my muffins aren't as picturesque as Martha's, but I can guarantee they were just as tasty.  Yum!  In the meantime, I'm going to work with the Little Guy to turn him into a food stylist for this blog. 

After all, he's got the role of taste tester down perfectly.  Enjoy!

The Little Guy bakes a cake

A few weeks ago we celebrated My Big Martha/Grandma's birthday. The Little Guy helped make the cake. You can tell he's been helping me in the kitchen for quite some time by the ease with which he moves his hand from the mixing bowl to the mixer.



Keep in mind that the Little Guy is not yet 2 1/2. I'm just saying, that kid has talent.

And of course, talent like that must be rewarded:




We don't mess around in the TMI kitchen; here, we taking our baking very seriously.

Martha's cream scones

I made scones for the first time ever using Martha's cream scones recipe.  Here's what Martha's scones look like: 

Mmmmmm.  Just looking at the picture makes me want another.  Of course, with my batch, I added dried cranberries for some extra zing.

 
I used the food processor to mix the dough. 

My only complaint about the dough is that is was far stickier than I expected.  I added more sugar and flour in the mixing process, and a lot of flour was used on the work surface.

I used a 3" round cutter instead of two, and easily got eight scones from the recipe. 

They were delicious and reheated nicely in the microwave for the next day's breakfast.  I'm looking forward to making these just as the recipe states (without cranberries) and doing a cinnamon version.  Scone on!

Baking blitz

And the girl in the back said "Everyone attack!" and it turned into a baking blitz...baking blitz...

Okay, that's not exactly how the song goes, but that's what I was singing this past weekend.  The Big Guy and I made hundreds of cookies--it really was a baking blitz!

We made cookies for the Big Guy's coworkers:

We made cookies for the neighbors:

We made a cookie platter for the lovely ladies at the Little Guy's daycare:

And I made cranberry-white chocolate-almond cookies for my work's cookie exchange: 

It was electric, so frightfully hectic...at TMI we had a baking blitz!  Baking blitz!

Martha's banana bread

Martha's banana bread...moist, delicious and a great fall treat. 

The ingredients are fairly straight-forward.  Instead of using fresh bananas, I used frozen bananas. 

Warning: banana tangent starts now.

Did you know that you can freeze bananas in their skins?  It's true!  This is a great solution for overripe bananas that you don't want to toss, but can't use right away. Simply freeze the bananas, and then use them later for baking. 

Before using, allow the bananas to thaw in the fridge.  To get the banana out, simply cut off the top and squeeze the contents into a measuring cup. 

The bananas do get a bit watery, so it's best to put them in a seperate bowl at first. That way you can pour out some of the liquid before adding the bananas to the larger mixture.  Obviously, bananas stored this way are really only good for baking. I wouldn't recommend trying to peel and eat it like you would a regular banana. 

Banana tangent over. 

As you can see, the Little Guy helped. 

I doubled the recipe, and it made enough for 24 muffins and one loaf of bread.  I added pecans to the muffins.  Bake the muffins for 25-30 minutes.

The bread turned out great, and the muffins were ideal.  I was able to store them in the fridge, toss a few into the microwave for 30 seconds each morning, and take them in the car with me for a quick breakfast. 

Overall, I thought this was a great and easy recipe.  No frills and no fuss.  And when you're baking with the Little Guy, that's always a good thing.