of pumpkins and cookies

cookies are really hard to make. i know you probably think that's ludicrous because everyone can make cookies. even my friend's kid makes them. he's three. to be fair, i'm pretty sure judging by the fact that they each had a neat little picture of the cars characters on them, they were break and bake. but still. i know. cookies are baking elementary. right?

wrong! cookies are the holy grail of baking. yeah, you didn't see that coming, did you. well, it's true.

to me, pies are a cinch in comparison. and listen, i enjoy cutting the butter into the flour just as much as the next person, but that's really as hard as it gets.

but cookies....aaaah. where do i begin? i've been trying cookie recipe after cookie recipe for hello, all my life, and sometimes a recipe will come out right and then the next time, poof! it's all off. i can't figure it out.

the chocolate chip cookie is the worst. my mom made chocolate chip cookies every week for my entire childhood. maybe even twice a week, who knows. and yet, i can't find and reproduce the perfect chocolate chip cookie recipe more than twice. it's tragic is what it is.

a few years ago i was really, really lusting after the perfect pumpkin chocolate chip cookie. it was mystifyingly hard to find even one recipe. and then the few i did find were just awful. (or else i'm no good at baking cookies???)

so, as soon as i saw this recipe on hey natalie jean, i had to make them! and let me tell you, they are really as good as she says. i can't vouch for their ability to be just as good the second time around, but this first time, they were top notch.

i'll let you be the judge. go bake your own. these are about to all be in my tummy.

gluten-free chocolate chip cookies for all ye dietarily restricted

well, the loverboy has surprised me yet again. he's gone gluten free (or mostly gluten free at least). and since i love a dietary restriction baking challenge just as much as the next nearly-all-white, poor-middle-class-rich girl (isn't this article hilarious?), i decided to make him some gluten-free chocolate chip cookies. so there i was, perusing the gluten-free section (that's when you know your neighborhood can't be all that bad) of our kroger, and i came across this recipe. i had heard about babycakes. of course, i also heard that if you don't have to be gluten-free and vegan why would you? however, i was itching for something to do because it was a wednesday and a not really exciting wednesday at that. you know how it goes. or perhaps you don't? perhaps your wednesdays are fraught with more interesting adventures than chicka chicka! boom boom! will there be enough room in that coconut tree? and can i get away with not washing my hair for the fifth day in a row (yes, i can!). (this post is becoming one long aside! which reminds me, you know, that moment in the new star trek movie where captain kirk asks bones what he's doing with that pygmy puff and bones says that he's injecting it with kan's blood and it was really awkward but you knew it was going to become important later? that was a really awkward aside. and also, apparently "aside" is an endangered word. try and use it in a sentence sometime and just see how many crickets chirp. tangent out.)

anyways, i weighed the cost of xanthan gum (holy dollar bills!) against the cost of my becoming even more bored, and decided to go for it. but, as one is wont to do when one has just halfheartedly (on account of the not actually being rich) become dietarily restricted, i refused, just plain refused, to buy arrowroot starch—and also i couldn't find any—and then i thought that well if you're going gluten-free then by all that's decent in this world, don't give up the butter too! so, i took a few other recipes and smashed them together.

here is what i got:

Gluten-Free Chocolate Chip Cookies*
1 c. bob's red mill GF all purpose baking flour
1.5 c. GF oat flour
1/4 c. cornstarch
1.5 tsp. xanthan gum
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
1 c. melted butter
1/3 c. white sugar
2/3 c. dark brown sugar
1 egg
1 egg yolk
2 Tbsp. milk (or half water, half half-n-half;)
1.5 tsp. vanilla
2 c. semi-sweet chocolate chips

Stir together first 6 dry ingredients in a bowl. Set aside. In a mixer, blend together sugars and butter. Add eggs, milk, vanilla and blend well. Gradually add in dry mixture until it is all incorporated. Stir in chocolate chips. Chill in fridge for an hour.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees fahrenheit. Drop dough by rounded spoonfuls onto baking trays. Bake for 13 minutes. Remove from oven and let cool on trays for another 2 minutes or more before removing.

presto! you are now dietarily challenged. they are nearly perfect. i mean, almost like regular cookies. but please, they never really are, you know? that's okay. it's part of their non-poisonous charm. and really though, they are not half bad. ;)

happy gluten free baking! 

*this recipe is best enjoyed by the (dietarily restricted) sleep-deprived moms of non-napping babies. happy sleepless afternoon activity time to you!

blueberry muffins for the road

happy labor day weekend!



we're driving to florida tomorrow morning (8 hours in the car with a baby, please pray!) for a church conference. i'm excited to get out of the house for the weekend, because that means no chores or dirty laundry or house projects staring me in the face and making me feel guilty and annoyed all. weekend. long. it's going to be pure bliss. and hopefully it will make up for the fact that the baby has a thing about his carseat, for which i am extra grateful to my friend jen for sending wilder a new toy (perfect timing jen!).

because we're living on a smaller budget these days, i'm packing a cooler with food and made these blueberry muffins for breakfast so we won't have to eat out as much.

muffins are one of my favorite food groups. if i'm not much mistaken they make up the sturdy base of your essential foods triangle. i highly recommend you make yourself a batch of these, for they are delicious!

big beautiful muffins:
(aka dr. B's essential *blueberry muffins)

3 cups flour
1 cup sugar
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1 Tbsp. baking powder
1 cup plain yogurt (or vanilla and honey if you choose)
2 large eggs
1/3 cup (about) vegetable oil
1/3 cup (ish) soy milk
1 stick butter, melted and cooled
1 cup blueberries*

preheat oven to 375 degrees. spray muffin tins.

mix dry ingredients in a medium bowl. beat eggs with yogurt and soy milk. fold into the dry mixture. fold in melted butter and oil. add in blueberries.

divide among muffin cups and bake for 25-30 minutes.

makes 12 regular muffins. or six jumbo muffins and seven regular muffins. i like to have options.

this recipe is adapted from a friend of a friend's recipe, by way of not having enough yogurt and thus adding in some soy milk and oil. also, you can substitute blueberries for any ol' fruit your heart desires! in fact, you can probably substitute in any ol' thing you want. this recipe is very forgiving! which is how i know it's a keeper.

taking tuesdays off

when your to-do list seems never ending...
when your baby has started waking up twice at night again...
when your wrists are mysteriously sore...
when you're cloth diapering for the first time and you're not entirely sure you know what you're doing...
when you're happy as all get out and also bored and also wondering how three people can create so much laundry...

when you've got fresh blueberries in the fridge...

and it's tuesday...

you take the day off and make blueberry coffee cake. and decide to make a habit of it. because this cake just made my day.







and you guys, this blueberry coffee cake really is the best blueberry coffee cake you will ever have. i baked mine 15 minutes longer by accident and it was none the worse that i could tell. also, i used about 1/3 cup more powdered sugar than called for in the recipe because my glaze wasn't turning out all white like the photo in cup of jo. it was delicious. go make it immediately.

happy tuesday!

some photos of summer

blah blah blah

oh wait, you wanted actual words with this post?

hmm, okay, here is what's up:

this summer has felt so long and, truth be told, a little lackluster. i wish i could say that i've been soaking up rays by the pool or communing with nature in my online absence, but the truth is that i've mostly just been stuck inside...communing with my couch, as it were. it's strange how you (i) can go away to far off, slightly exotic places (twice!) for a week at a time, and come back and fall so quickly into a monotonous life again.

mostly i've spent this summer looking for jobs and reading all the books i can find. i've got books coming out of my ears here. i even got my first Georgia library card this weekend (and i never thought i'd say this but it has to be said that the san marcos library puts the dekalb libraries here to shame. at least the ones near us.)

so, that's why i've been (seemingly) inside all summer. and also because have you been to Georgia in the summertime? it's like the sahari and the rainforest put together. and as i sort of hate the heat/humidity unless i'm at the beach/pool, i've lost every bit of tan i got in mexico, and it's not even officially fall yet!

but really, i think i've been hibernating a little. recuperating from a very stressful and hard spring, recuperating from a very stressful and hard last four years. maybe when all this hibernating/recuperating is over (please let it be over soon!), i'll write about it.

and in conclusion, here are some of the very few photos i've happened to take this summer of daily, normal, boring, real life, which make it seem like i haven't had quite as drab a summer as i say! :)














but i'm eagerly anticipating the first stirrings of fall, so hopefully i'll get off this couch and stop behaving like a vampire soon:)

xx
B

pink, sweet happiness

the very definition of a summer dessert:






inspired by this blog post and recipe. this was my numero first time using a springform pan. i love it! although i want to know where she got her mini pans, as mine was definitely bigger than her cute pies.

also, suggest this be made when you have a crowd of larger than 4 to feed as it doesn't do well languishing (freezing into a rock) in the freezer which means you have to eat it all yourself. no, of course i didn't. ;)

the unending blueberry muffin*

a state of being in which one finds oneself eating blueberry muffins all weekend long.

*literally called: best blueberry muffin. somewhere. possibly by betty crocker. but really, i've had better. i think from joy of baking. still, these are super easy to make and exceeding easy to eat. so that's what we do. :)





Recipe: Makes 12 (double for the unending blueberry muffin)

Ingredients:

1 egg
1/2 c. milk
1/2 c. oil
1 1/2 c. flour
1/2 c. sugar
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
3/4 c. bluberries

Directions:

Heat oven to 400 degrees. Grease muffin tin. Mix together dry ingredients. In a separate bowl, beat egg. Stir in milk and oil. Fold in dry mix just until batter is wet. Should be lumpy. Fold in blueberries. Bake 20-25 min.

Proceed to enjoy the unending blueberry muffin.

the making of a pie

i used this awesome recipe and as expected, it was wonderful (has smitten kitchen let anyone down yet?). however, next time i'd use more apples and more spices, even though i doubled them, per her footnotes. this is probably the best pie crust recipe i've ever made/had! and that, my friends, deserves a double eyebrow raise! :)

weekend life

this weekend, we looked for vintage stuff for the house (can you spot what we got?), had lunch at southern sweets bakery and tried their chocolate pound cake (super rich), made peanut butter bran chocolate chip cookies (so good!) while we finished painting our chalkboard, and other things...

his birthday, part 3: cinnamon roll dinner

our leisurely saturday was wonderful like this: 

got up we-have-no-kids-late, made some of the

coffee we brought back from ny, trotted out to

a bicycle shop and picked up a birthday present

for jazz, came home and spun it around, 

made some cinnamon rolls to die for 

(as in, i'll probably die if i eat a second one), 

and topped them off with scrambled eggs and 

soysage, since our cholesterol levels were

obviously going to be running low.

i do like saturdays like this.