Cupcakes galore

Today is Veronica's end of year picnic. I signed up to bring a dessert, so I baked four dozen cupcakes for her school. Nothing fancy, I just used what I had on hand - white cake mix and red velvet. Duncan Hines was on sale for $.88 a while back, so I stocked up. I put icing on some, sprinkles on some, and left some plain.

Lemon Bars

So, I've been slacking. Not necessarily on baking, but on taking pictures and blogging. I made a couple batches of cookies and cupcakes for the kids that didn't make it here. Oh well.

Over the weekend I made lemon bars!! We spent the day with my Dad and I brought lunch over. His favorite flavor anything is lemon, so I thought these would be something he would like.

Very easy, and very yummy! Sort of a lemon pie in a bar.

2 cups sifted all-purpose flour

1 cup confectioners' sugar

1 cup butter, melted

4 eggs

2 cups white sugar

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 cup all-purpose flour

5/8 cup lemon juice

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease a 9x13 inch pan.
2. In a medium bowl, stir together 2 cups flour and confectioners' sugar. Blend in the melted butter. Press into the bottom of the prepared pan.
3. Bake in the preheated oven for 15 minutes, or until golden. In a large bowl, beat eggs until light. Combine the sugar, baking powder and 1/4 cup of flour so there will be no flour lumps. Stir the sugar mixture into the eggs. Finally, stir in the lemon juice. Pour over the prepared crust and return to the oven.
4. Bake for an additional 30 minutes or until bars are set. Allow to cool completely before cutting into bars.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

Veronica requested cookies and milk today, so chocolate chip cookies it is! The recipe is pretty straight forward. I halved it though, so that we wouldn't have a ton of cookies sitting around. I subbed half of the flour with wheat flour and I didn't have sea salt so I used regular salt.

• 1 cup (2 sticks) salted butter, softened
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
• 2 eggs
• 2 tsp. vanilla extract
• 2 3/4 cups (12 oz) all-purpose flour
• 3/4 tsp. smallish-medium coarse sea salt **
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• 1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
• 2 1/4 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips

**If you only have table salt, use 1/2 tsp

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 360 degrees. Cream butter, sugar, and brown sugar until it is nice and fluffy. Add both eggs and vanilla and beat for an additional 2 minutes. Add baking soda, baking powder, salt, and flour until cookie batter is fully incorporated. Finally add chocolate chips until well distributed. The cookie batter should be somewhat thick. Drop about 2 tablespoons of dough or use a medium cookie scoop and plop the batter onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Bake for 12-14 minutes until the edges are nice and golden brown. Remove from heat and allow the cookies to stay on the cookie sheet for an additional 2 minutes. Pick up the parchment paper with the cookies still on top and transfer to a cool non-porous surface. Allow the cookies to cool on the paper for at least 3 minutes before serving. Enjoy!

Bunny Baking!

Time for Easter goodies!! Although all I managed this year was a bunny cake. I made one of these last year and it was so easy and so cute.

The cake was my old faithful Pillsbury Butter Cake mix.

See these pans? They belonged to my Mom, and I can't remember a time that she didn't have or use them. My Grandma had some too. They are at least 40+ years old and I can't remember ever seeing pans anywhere else with sliders. Maybe in a catalog, but never in a store. The slider makes them unique in that your cake will never stick to the pan. All you need is a little non stick spray. No lining pans with parchment, etc.

To get perfectly level cakes, you can use Wilton's Baking Strips. Or the old school way:

Cut strips from an old bath towel as wide as the pan. Wet them, wrap around the pan, and secure with a pin. The results: Nearly level cakes (almost) every time. And this was free.

Use one round layer for the bunny head. Carve ears out of the other layer and use the middle for the bow tie.

(mine is a little crooked)

Humidity was my enemy today. It took forever for the icing to dry enough for me to smooth it!! I had to kick the a/c down pretty low and that finally did the trick.

And then the fun part... time to decorate!!

Happy Easter, Everyone!!!!

Easter Cupcakes

I thought making and decorating Easter cupcakes would keep Valerie and Veronica occupied for a little while. Wrong! They each decorated two cupcakes and announced they were done. Oh well!

My cake mix of choice lately has been Pillsbury when making a straight forward cake. The butter recipe is the best! I often use Duncan Hines for birthday cakes or other events. I have my own secret add ins for the mix to make it taste less like from a box, and for some reason it only works with Duncan Hines!

Granola Bars

My kids love granola bars. Usually I buy the Great Value high fiber bars for about $2.00 a box at Wal-Mart. Of course those are processed and full of bad-for-you things like high fructose corn syrup. I've made oatmeal bars before and they are usually hit or miss. I decided to try a new recipe for high fiber oatmeal bars today and YUM I really like these!! They take a little time but it's worth it. I made two batches - one for me with nuts and plain for the kids. I just hope my kids will eat them! If not, I'm sure I will. :-)

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

ingredients:

• 2 cups oats
• 1 cup peanuts, crushed * I used 1/2 cup crushed almonds
• 1/4 cup flax seed
• 2/3 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 cup honey
• 4 Tbsp butter
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/2 tsp salt (if your nuts are salted, you can use less salt or omit it)
• approximately 8 oz. dried fruit * I used less ~ 1 small snack box of raisins ,1/2 cup Fiber One cereal, and a handful of chocolate chips

This is the kind of recipe that is very easily altered to your taste. You can use whatever nuts you like, sunflower seeds, cereal, dried fruit, coconut, or any other usual granola bar add ins.

Toast the oats and nuts in the oven at 400 degrees for about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.

In a sauce pan, combine the brown sugar, honey, butter,vanilla, and salt. Cook on medium heat stirring often until sugar is dissolved.

Mix the oats, flax seed, fruit, and/or cereal (and add ins of your choice) with the sugar mixture.

Place wax paper in the bottom of a 11x13 baking dish, or smaller if you want thicker bars. Spray with non stick spray. Spread the mixture in the pan, and press firmly into bottom of the pan using a sheet of wax paper on top so it doesn't stick to your hands.

Cool completely... and cut into bars.

Banana Muffins

Today I decided to bake some banana muffins to keep in the freezer for quick grabs. Mainly I made them because I had some bananas about to go bad and I hate to waste food which means wasting money. These were really easy and quick to put together. And OH SO GOOD!

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 3 bananas, mashed ** I only had 2 bananas
• 3/4 cup white sugar
• 1 egg, lightly beaten
• 1/3 cup butter, melted
• 1/3 cup packed brown sugar
• 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 tablespoon butter

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Lightly grease 10 muffin cups, or line with muffin papers.
2. In a large bowl, mix together 1 1/2 cups flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt. In another bowl, beat together bananas, sugar, egg and melted butter. Stir the banana mixture into the flour mixture just until moistened. Spoon batter into prepared muffin cups.
3. In a small bowl, mix together brown sugar, 2 tablespoons flour and cinnamon. Cut in 1 tablespoon butter until mixture resembles coarse cornmeal. Sprinkle topping over muffins.
4. Bake in preheated oven for 18 to 20 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into center of a muffin comes out clean.