I changed the look of the blog a little bit; I think it's easier to read now, and the colors are pleasing to the eye.

I haven't been doing much baking these past two weeks, but I was given Jennifer Appel's cookbook Buttercup Bakes At Home for my birthday recently and I couldn't wait to try out her Marshmallow Crunch Bars!

Mine don't photograph nearly as nicely as hers, but they are ridiculously tasty!

A layer of fudgy brownie, a layer of marshmallows, and a layer of peanut butter, chocolate, and Rice Krispies... I won't post the recipe but I encourage you to look it up if you're tempted. I didn't let the peanut butter/chocolate/cereal mixture sit for long enough before spreading it on top of the marshmallows so the marshmallows pushed their way to the top in some areas; I also didn't have enough to cover the entire layer so as you can see, the marshmallows poke out near the edges a little, but Mike likes the marshmallow layer best, so he doesn't mind.

I also got Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World for my birthday, so prepare yourself for my next post.

Labels: brownie, marshmallow, peanut butter, rice krispies

I've been looking for a bundt cake recipe to break in the bundt pan I got for Christmas last year; yesterday I finally found one that struck my fancy. I've been on a peanut butter kick lately but nothing I've made has been very successful these past few days. My cake burnt a little around the edges; my oven cooks things too quickly for it's own good - I pulled this out about fifteen minutes earlier than the recipe calls for. I was angry at myself for not pulling it out sooner but the cake tastes great!

The center is moist and has a strong but not overwhelming taste of peanut butter (I actually added 1/3 cup of peanut butter to my cake batter) and the small layer of streusel adds just the right amount of ZING! to the cake. I also had to compromise for the frosting; I ran out of smooth peanut butter and had to use crunchy peanut butter halfway through the recipe so my frosting is a little crunchy but I actually really like the way it turned out. The frosting also firms up a bit after sitting out for a few hours, so there's no mess! Overall, I am very satisfied with how everything came together.

2-1/4 cups flour
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup sugar
1 cup peanut butter
1/2 cup butter, softened
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1 cup milk
1-1/2 tsp. vanilla
3 eggs

Frosting:
2 cups semisweet chocolate chips
1/3 cup peanut butter

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease and flour a 10 cup bundt pan and set aside.

In large bowl, combine flour, brown sugar, sugar, 1 cup peanut butter, and butter and mix at low speed until crumbly.

Reserve one cup of this streusel mixture and set aside. Add remaining ingredients, except chocolate chips, to crumb mixture in mixing bowl. Blend at low speed until combined, then beat three minutes at medium speed. Pour half of batter into prepared pan.

Stir 1 cup chocolate chips into streusel mixture. (I skipped this step and just threw a few chips on top after laying the streusel topping down.) Sprinkle streusel over batter in pan. Spoon and spread remaining batter over streusel mixture. Bake at 350 degrees F for 55-66 minutes, until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool in pan for 15 minutes, then loosen edges and turn pan onto serving plate. Cool completely, then frost as directed below.

Frosting:
In small saucepan, melt 1 cup chocolate chips with 1/3 cup peanut butter. Spoon over cake.

Labels: bundt, peanut butter

1 egg
1/4 cup milk
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla
butter
4 slices of bread
Nutella

Whisk the egg, milk, cinnamon, sugar, and vanilla together in a bowl. Heat butter in a frying pan until it sizzles. Dip both sides of bread in batter and toss into frying pan, let cook until golden brown on both sides. Spread Nutella on bread and cut into fours. Sprinkle powdered sugar on top, and enjoy!

Labels: french toast, nutella

I made a chocolate cake yesterday using my own version of this recipe. Mine is just a one layer cake topped with store-bought icing left over from cupcakes I made a few weeks ago. I wanted to make a three or four layer cake, but I found out at the last minute that this recipe only makes about one layer of cake for a 9" circular pan, so if you plan on making a layer cake I would double or triple the recipe!

The cake itself is very moist and dense, the perfect combination. I had some decorating mis-haps - Mike likes white icing but I prefer chocolate so we compromised, except that the ziplock bag I was using to hold the white icing burst halfway through the decorating process, and left me with a mess of a cake :/ but it tastes great and that all that really matters. I'll end this post with Mike's response to my inquiry of his feelings on the cake: "It's even better than cake mix cake!"

Labels: cake, chocolate

Mike and I made another pizza last night; we used the same whole wheat crust recipe we did for the first pizza but we made this one rectangular instead of circular. We topped this one with breakfast sausage, pepperoni and green peppers and I think it tasted even more delicious than the first one!

Labels: pizza

Last night I came across a recipe for Oatmeal Peanut Butter Cookies and I decided to try it out this morning. I kept the cookies sized fairly small and split the batter into thirds; I kept one third plain, added chocolate chips to another third and topped the last third with Reese's Pieces like the recipe originally calls for. These cookies are quick and easy to put together and they taste fantastic; the oats and peanut butter are a perfect combination. The plain cookies taste great with some Nutella spread on top too.

Labels: cookies, oatmeal, peanut butter

Last week I tried out Martha Stewart's recipe for Outrageous Chocolate Cookies. I wasn't very happy with the results - the cookies ended up having a very cake-like consistency and they didn't flatten at all during cooking. I added macadamia nuts to the batter, which Mike discovered actually makes for some pretty good Rocky Road Cookies when you melt a layer of marshmallows to the tops of the cookies. This was my first time making double chocolate cookies and I would definitely give them another try but I don't think I would use this recipe again.

Labels: chocolate, cookies, macadamia