Kitchen Time: Blueberry Coffee Cake Muffins

Welcome back to the Kitchen! I hope you are all in the mood to do some baking today!

Muffins are a great quick and easy breakfast on those mornings when you just don’t have much time.  You can grab one on your way out the door to work, school, errands, appointments, etc- and eat on the go!  After much debate in the family about a previous muffin recipe, I set off on a mission- to find a new, better, enhanced muffin style that everyone would agree on.  This was the winner, and I just had to share it with all of you!

Blueberry Coffee Cake Muffins

(Courtesy of The Food Network, 2002, Barefoot Contessa Family Style)

Ingredients

12 tablespoons (1 ½ sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature

1 ½ cups sugar

3 extra-large eggs, at room temperature

1 ½ teaspoons pure vanilla extract

8 ounces (about 1 cup) sour cream

¼ cup milk

2 ½ cups all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

½ teaspoon baking soda

½ teaspoon kosher salt

2 half-pints fresh blueberries, picked through for stems

1.     Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

2.     In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with paddle attachment, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes

3.     With the mixer on low speed, add the eggs 1 at a time

4.     Add the vanilla, sour cream, and milk.

5.     In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.

6.     With the mixer on low speed add the flour mixture to the batter and beat until just mixed.

7.     Fold in the blueberries with a spatula and be sure the batter is completely mixed.

8.     Scoop the batter into prepared paper-lined muffin pans, and baked for 25-30 minutes, until the muffins are lightly browned on top and a cake tester comes out clean.

So there you have it – all the ‘tools’ you need to make super delicious blueberry muffins!  These are a great beginner baking item, so if you are someone or know of someone who is new to baking, be sure to pass this recipe on to them for more enjoyment!

I hope you all have a blast experiencing the baking process!  Be sure to leave me comments below letting me know how the finished product comes out, and tweet me pictures of your muffins!

Until next time, Happy Reading!

Allison

Kitchen Time: Cake Balls

For my graduation party this past summer, one of the many things that I served as a dessert were cake balls. I’ve always wanted to try making them, and I tried out the following recipe that one of my closet friends was kind enough to give me.  I’m definitely not an expert at making them, nor am I as skilled at making them as she is, but they are definitely a delicious treat!

Ingredients:

1 can of icing

1 box of cake mix

1-2 containers of chocolate bark (depending on which brand you purchase)

Making the Magic:

1.     Cook the cake mix according to box directions

2.     Allow to cool completely

3.     Put the cake into a bowl and break into fine pieces

4.     Mix the entire can of icing in with the cake pieces (you can use a spoon but eventually you will need to use your hands to really get it mixed in)

5.     Once the cake and icing are all mixed together, scoop them out with a cookie scooper, or you can roll them into balls using your hands.

6.     Place on a wax paper covered cookie sheet or container.

7.     Place in refrigerator to cool and slightly dry out for an hour or so.  Keep them uncovered so that they can dry.

8.     Melt the chocolate bark according to directions (do a little at a time to keep it from cooling and becoming too thick)

9.     Using a spoon, dip the cake ball into the melted chocolate and roll around or cover with chocolate using the spoon and place it on the cookie sheet once finished.

**If you want to get fancy,  you can add things while the chocolate is still melted like sprinkles, crushed Oreos, mints, etc.

10. Place cookie sheet in fridge to cool and dry.

11. TASTE TEST! J

So there you have it!  Let me know if you guys end up trying out these awesome treats!  These would make great additions to the holiday dessert collections that you enjoy, or even would be a great addition to any groups cookie swap.  Comment and let me know your own experience with Cake Balls and how they turned out, and don’t forget to tweet me pictures of your finished product!

Kitchen Time: Black Bean Brownies #2

So recently I posted a pretty in-depth post about a recipe for Black Bean Brownies that I’d tried.  Well, after trying that one out, and after sharing it with my family, I decided to give another one a try. 

This recipe was taken from a blog, “Chow Divine,” and I’ll just say it right off the bat, I like this recipe better.  The prep was just as simple, but the overall result was just a tad better.  If you were only going to choose one recipe to try, I’d try this one. 

So, without further ado, here is the recipe! (I’ll also have the recipe, along with the blog, linked down below)

Flourless Chocolately Black Bean Brownies

1 ½ cups cooked black beans

¼ cup canola oil

3 eggs

1 tsp vanilla extract

½ cup unsweetened cocoa powder

½ sucanat or light brown sugar

1 tsp instant coffee

¼ & ¼ dark or semi-sweet chocolate chips

½ tsp baking powder

1-2 TB powdered/confectioner’s sugar for dusting (optional)

1.     Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Prepare a 9″ x 9″ (8″ x 8″ works too) baking pan by lining it with parchment paper. Leave enough parchment paper on the sides to create a sling. This will make it easier when you lift out the end product.

2.     Add all of the wet ingredients – beans, oil, eggs, and vanilla – together in a blender. Pulse a few times to get the ingredients to come together. Then blend until the mixture is smooth. Add the dry ingredients – cocoa, sugar, coffee, and baking powder to the blender. Pulse a few times again and blend until the mixture is smooth. Add half of the chocolate chips. Pulse a few times again and blend until the mixture is smooth. The chocolate chips do not have to completely disintegrate.

3.     Add the other half of the chocolate chips to the mixture. Mix, NOT blend. You want these to be whole. Alternatively, reserve the chips to sprinkle on top before baking. Pour the batter to a prepared pan. If you chose to reserved the chips, sprinkle them on now. Bake for about 20-23 minutes, until the center is set. Don’t overbake.

4.     Allow the brownie to cool in the pan for about 15 minutes. Cool completely on a cooling rack. Dust with powdered sugar if desired. Cut them into squares and enjoy them with a glass of milk or a scoop of your favorite ice cream.

Cook’s Note: It’s important that you don’t over-bake these brownies. Due to the nature of the ingredients, the brownies will become powdery or cakey if you over-bake them. Just bake until the center sets.

Sucanat is a type of sugar that has been minimally processed; thus, the vitamins, minerals, and molasses are intact. If you can’t find it, it is perfectly acceptable to use light brown sugar. And dairy-free chocolate chips were used for this recipe.*

I will give you one warning: the batter gets VERY thick.  It got to the point where my blender couldn’t handle it and I had to take the last bit out and hand mix it in a bowl with a spatula.  But it turned out just fine.  And, because of it’s thickness, I actually needed my Mom to hold the parchment paper in the pan so that I could spread the batter out evenly.  Worth the extra hassle?  Definitely.

Overall, my experience with Black Bean Brownies has been different from what I was expecting.  I was expecting to be blown away be the grossness of it all (as I am just NOT a bean lover), but instead, I embraced something new and found that it actually didn’t kill me, and it wasn’t so bad.  Is it my favorite thing in the world?  No.  But is it a good, healthier dessert option?  Absolutely.

The Original Recipe: http://chowdivine.com/flourless-chocolatey-black-bean-brownies

Chow Divine Blog: http://chowdivine.com/

Kitchen Time: Black Bean Brownies

I know what you’re thinking.  BEANS in a brownie?  If you’ve never actually heard of or tried this latest craze in baking, using beans in baked goods is actually a way of making your desserts more healthy.  This particular recipe, is gluten free, and tastes, in my own opinion, pretty darn good, considering the not-so-secret ingredient.

Ingredients

1 (15.5 oz) can black beans, rinsed and drained

3 eggs

3 tablespoons vegetable oil

¼ cup cocoa powder

1 pinch of salt

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

¾ cup white sugar

1 teaspoon instant coffee (optional)

½ cup milk chocolate chips (optional)

Directions

1.     Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C)

2.     Lightly grease an 8x8 square baking dish

3.     Combine the black beans, eggs, oil, cocoa powder, salt, vanilla extract, sugar, and instant coffee in a blender; blend until smooth.

4.     Pour the mixture into the prepared baking dish.

5.     Sprinkle the chocolate chips over the top of the mixture.

6.     Bake in the preheated oven until the top is dry and the edges start to pull away from the sides of the pan, about 30 minutes.

Making these brownies is fairly simple- simply combine all the ingredients and blend together.  Oh wait, blend? Yes, blend. 

oops...

However, me, thinking I was a genius and ‘above reading directions’ didn’t read the part about blending the ingredients until after I had already begun to mix them together with a hand mixer.  And let’s just say you don’t get the same results.  Not that anything terrible happened, but the beans do not completely mix in with the rest of the batter, leaving you with large chunks.  So the blender, on a ‘batter’ setting, is crucial.  Once I realized what I’d done, I transferred the batter into the blender and after a few spins, the batter looked perfectly smooth- you would never have guessed I’d made a blunder.  No harm done.

Overall, the brownies were super easy to make, despite my own reading error.  If you’re new to the black bean brownie craze, I would definitely recommend this recipe to try it out, you never know what you may think. 

Perfectly blended batter

Do I like these brownies better than regular old plain chocolate?  Probably not.  But, you’re asking a self-proclaimed sugar freak who practically lives off of caffeine and junk food.  So while I’m completely willing to ‘health up’ a junk food to try it out, nothing will beat the original version to me.  Would I make this bean version again? Definitely.

So go ahead and try out the bean brownies.  A tip for serving it to others: don’t tell them what they’re eating.  Let them assume they’re regular brownies, and then tell them the secret.  It’s probably the only way to get a true reaction on what they think of the taste. 

If you do try out this recipe, or have tried out other recipes already, let me know what you think in the comments below!  I’d love to hear what you think about this trend in the food world!

Until next time, Happy reading AND eating!

Allison