What can I say here, I LOVE TO BAKE AND COOK! I have felt this way as long as I can remember (and as much as I insisted I would never bake again, or at least for a few months, after the 2 day long constant baking session for Holiday cookies... here I still am... baking away).
One thing I have found (thanks mostly to a very awesome boyfriend with an incredible appetite, and a family willing to try just about any food or baked good once) is that I don't need to go out and buy majority of my ingredients, I can make them from scratch more than half of the time! Matter of fact, I make my own peanut butter and chocolate chips, whipped cream, pie crusts, and some day hope to get into canning my own veggies and fruits for preserves. I also happen to have a VERY curious 16 month old daughter that loves to help me whenever I am baking or cooking, and what I love even more about her learning to help, is that I remember learning how to do this when I was a little older than her at my great grammy's house. I find it great to be able to pass this on to her.
I figured I would start off with a few little basic from scratch ingredient recipes that are often used in many holiday recipes this time of year.
One Ingredient I found pop up in almost 90% of my holiday baking this year was, Buttermilk (which is basically a soured milk). This is by far the easiest from scratch ingredient. Instead of buying a carton of Buttermilk from the store, just take a cup of Whole Milk and add a Tablespoon (Tbsp) of fresh lemon juice OR white vinegar. Stir once, and let sit for a few minutes to curdle (it will look like chunky runny milk, which looks and sounds completely disgusting, but holy hell does it make a delicious addition to a fluffy cookie or cake).
Another I found was for chips... you know, chocolate chips or peanut butter chips. All you need is vanilla extract (pure or imitation), milk, powdered/confectioners sugar, and peanut butter. To make 1 tray worth with each chip about 1/4" to 1/2" in size, the recipe is as follows...
4 tsp powdered/confectioners sugar
1 tbsp milk
2 tbsp peanut butter (smooth)
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
stir these together until a creamy smooth consistency and spoon into a piping bag or zip lock bag (if using a zip lock bag once spooned in, cut a very tiny tip off the bottom corner and twist the opposite side around to create a homemade piping bag), start piping out round dots and pull up from the center to get that signature peak on the top. Freeze the trays for about 30 minutes and then they are ready to use!
Lastly is my favorite recipe and I use it for a lot of cupcakes or cakes, even gingerbread. Whipped cream and cream cheese frosting/filling! This is absolutely DELICIOUS. (Recipe Girl actually has an awesome recipe VERY similar to this one but she uses 4oz cream cheese and 8oz Marscipone cheese, YUMMY!) The recipe is as follows...
2 cups heavy whipping cream
1/3 cup fine sugar
12oz soft cream cheese
I suggest using an electric mixer for this frosting/filling (I personally use a KitchenAid stand mixer, I am in love with it, it's my other child.... can you tell it makes me happy?!), start off by whipping the heavy whipping cream on medium until the consistency is noticably thicker and then turn that baby higher and let it go (this whole process takes about 10 minutes or so) until you see peaks forming and continuing to stick upright. Add in your sugar and mix until combined, then add in your cream cheese and mix until smooth and peaking. I use this on red velvet cake, banana bread as a spread, cake cookies, gingerbread, snickerdoodles, you name it! Or you could always freeze it and eat it like ice cream (evil laugh!! mwahaha).
Hopefully you find these helpful in your cooking and baking adventures and I'll always have more to update!
Casandra
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