Day 11: Favorite Treat

HI! Sorry I'm so late tonight... it was a busy day. I'm imagining this is how it's going to be the next week or so with my mother-in-law in town. It's okay!

My favorite treat. SO DIFFICULT.
Here's the thing. I absolutely love donuts to no end. I could eat donuts with everything. Plain glazed donuts are my favorite but I'll eat the other kinds too. I tried my hand at baked glazed donuts once and they turned out pretty well except that I used too much yeast and mixed it at the wrong time... but we still ate them!

My favorite thing to make as a treat, though would have to be chocolate chip cookies.
Here is my favorite recipe:

Best-Ever Chocolate Chip Cookies
barely adapted from Anna Olson, Food Network Canada

Ingredients: 
3/4 c. unsalted butter, softened 
3/4 c. brown sugar 
1/4 c. granulated sugar 
1 egg 
2 tsp. vanilla extract 
2 c. all purpose flour 
2 tsp. cornstarch 
1 tsp. baking soda 
1/2 tsp. salt 
1 c. bittersweet chocolate chips

Directions:
1.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

2.  In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, cream together butter and sugars until fluffy and light in color. Add egg and vanilla and blend in.

3.  Mix in flour, cornstarch, baking soda and salt. Stir in chocolate chunks.

4.  Using a standard-sized cookie scoop or tablespoon, drop dough onto a prepared baking sheet.  Bake for 8-10 minutes, until barely golden brown around the edges.  (The tops will not brown, but do NOT cook longer than ten minutes.)

5.  Let cool, on the sheet, on a wire rack for five minutes.  Remove from baking sheet and let cool completely.  Makes approximately 3 dozen.  Try not to eat them all.


But, here's a thing too.
Next time you need a quick and easy cupcake recipe, just take any box of any flavor of cake mix and take 1 can of room-temperature (or not, it just makes it easier to stir and rise a little better) cola or sprite or root beer or cream soda or whatever, just make it carbonated. Works like a charm and they're delicious.

love, Ellen

Duh Duh Doughnuts.

Hey, everyone! So this morning I was totally craving doughnuts. It might have been because I used to eat at least one doughnut at work every other day or so or because I watched an episode of "Unwrapped" on Food Network all about doughnuts this morning. So I did what any girl that didn't want to leave home would do, Pinterest! I found a few recipes but none of them seemed that great and I don't have a thermometer for oil... so I continued searching until I found a great recipe for a baked doughnut. Luckily, Sean likes making bread, so we had some yeast around the house. Here's the recipe, if you wanna try it out.

First came the dough:

First, I had to whip up the dough and then let it rise for an hour. Easy peasy. While I waited, I watched Clueless. Great movie!

Then the dough was cut and let to rise again. like it does.

Then some time in the oven and BLAM! awesomeness.

 I don't have powdered sugar so I had to find another way to make a glaze. I found this recipe and then got to work whipping it all together. turns out, these puppies are SO GOOD.  Then just a dash of cute sprinkles and then gobble them all up! 

YUM! oh, and kitty just loves the smell of fresh homemade donuts and the cool breeze of the fan. What a cute kitty! 

Hope everyone has a sunny spring week!

love, Ellen

Recipe for Success

well... i guess you could call cookies success... anyway...
I made cookies! And i came up with the recipe! It's kind of a personal spin on a different recipe but i'm still gonna say i came up with it. And i don't have a name for these babies yet and if you think of one, i'll use it.

Ingredients:
1 box Dark Chocolate Fudge cake mix (you could probably just use any chocolate cake mix, this is just the one we had on hand and it was delicious)
About 1/3 cup oil
1 Egg
Between 1/4 and 1/3 cup milk (depending on the consistency you're looking for)
1/2 cup peanut butter (i actually used a little less than that because we only had 1/2 jar and it was the good kind but i think 1/2 cup is ideal)

1: put all the ingredients in a bowl.
2: mix it up well and make sure it's the consistency you want it. I like my cookies soft but it's totally up to you.
3: Bake at 350* for about 12 - 14 minutes (again, based on preference)
4: take them out, let them cool, eat.
For added tastiness, spread some peanut butter on the top (or, if you have a good peanut butter frosting recipe, use that. i don't know one, so i'd just go straight for it.)

I promise, they're delicious. I ate like 3 today. You might want some milk with them, because they're kinda rich.

Also, Happy Birthday, America! Hope it's kick-butt.
Love, Ellen.