Baking – Page 2 – Kara Cooks and Eats

Lemon berry ricotta cake

Getting ingredients ready

I have been trying to catch up on some magazine-reading, including the March issue of Bon Appetit. While there are several recipes I’d like to eventually try, I could not stop thinking about this raspberry-ricotta cake. And since I’m just a little obsessed with lemon ricotta anything, I decided to add lemon, both juice and zest. I had some frozen mixed berries in my freezer, so I used a mix of raspberries and blueberries (the original recipe called for raspberries or blackberries).

The recipe says the cake can be made 2 days ahead and stored at room temperature, tightly wrapped. That is, if you can make it last that long!

Lemon berry ricotta cake
Serves: 8

Mixin’ batter

Source: Bon Appetit, March 2015

Ingredients
Nonstick vegetable oil spray
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 teaspoon kosher salt
3 large eggs
1 1/2 cups ricotta
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 Tablespoon lemon zest (from 1 lemon)
1 Tablespoon lemon juice (from 1/2 lemon)
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted

Outta the oven and ready to eat!

1 cup frozen berries, divided

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line a 9″-diameter cake pan with parchment paper and lightly coat with nonstick spray.

2. In a large bowl, whisk together dry ingredients (flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt) in a large bowl.

3. In a medium bowl, whisk together eggs, ricotta, vanilla, lemon zest, and lemon juice until smooth; fold into dry ingredients just until blended, then fold in butter. Gently mix in 3/4 cup berries.

4. Scrape batter into prepared pan and top with remaining 1/4 cup berries. Bake cake until golden brown and a tester inserted into the center comes out clean, 50-60 minutes. Let cool at least 20 minutes before unmolding.

Carrot apple oat muffins

Sometimes I just feel like baking! And I love it when that urge arises and I actually have ingredients on hand to make something, aka no trip to the grocery store required. This happened recently when I decided I wanted to make muffins that would incorporate a few leftover carrots and a Granny smith apple. A quick search on Pinterest led me to this recipe, which also included oats.

Dry ingredients + carrot and apple

I also inadvertently tested out the new battery in my smoke alarm (and learned that my smoke alarm has a “snooze” function). Since I typically make muffins on the smaller side, I decided to test out a silicone muffin pan with the extra batter. Both pans went into the oven at the same time, and the muffins baked in silicone burned…thus triggering the smoke alarm. I think I’ll be sticking to my regular ol’ metal muffin pans from now on.

Adding the wet ingredients

Except for the four burned-on-the-bottom ones, these were pretty tasty and were great for breakfast during the week.

Carrot apple oat muffins
Makes: 12-16 muffins
Source: Annie’s Noms via Pinterest

Ingredients
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup rolled oats
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
3/4 cup light brown sugar

Ready for the oven

1 cup grated Granny Smith apple, grated (about 1 apple)
1 cup grated carrot (about 2-3 medium carrots)
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup low-fat milk
1/2 cup canola oil

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease a 12-hold muffin pan, or use paper liners; may need more than one pan, depending on how big you like your muffins.

Ready to eat!

2. In a large bowl, mix together the flour, oats, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, ginger, and brown sugar. Add the grated carrots and apple and stir until they are coated in flour.

3. In a medium bowl, lightly beat together eggs, vanilla extract, milk, and canola oil. Pour over the dry ingredients and mix just until combined (do not beat or overmix).

4. Spoon batter into muffin pan(s). Bake for 15-20 minutes, until lightly golden and a toothpick in the center comes out clean.

5. Cool in pan for about 10 minutes, then transfer to wire rack to cool completely.

Delectabites

The infamous nut chopper

I do not know the story behind the name for these cookies or where the recipe even came from…I just know that, when made correctly, they are delectable.

I haven’t made these cookies in years (they used to be part of the regular Christmas cookie repertoire), and I accidentally doubled the amount of butter…using two sticks instead of just one. Even though they didn’t turn out as planned (flat, crumbly cookies instead of balls), they were still pretty tasty. I mean, how can you go wrong with two sticks of butter?

Delectabites
Makes 50 cookies

Butter (times 2) cookies

Ingredients
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, softened
2 Tablespoons granulated sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup sifted all-purpose flour
1 cup finely chopped walnuts
Powdered sugar

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

2. In a medium bowl, thoroughly mix butter, sugar, and vanilla. Gradually stir in flour and walnuts. Chill.

3. Shape into marble-sized balls. Bake on ungreased cookie sheet for 15-17 minutes, until firm but not brown. Roll gently in powdered sugar. Cool; sugar again.

Peanut butter banana bread

Bananas are not my favorite fruit, and I don’t often buy them…unless my parents are visiting (Charlie likes a banana every morning with breakfast) or I want to bake. I recently bought a bunch of bananas just so I could make this banana bread.

I think I have to thank Pinterest for the inspiration, and this web site for help with the conversions from weight to volume. That was a bit interesting…I did my best, and definitely broke some middle school home economics class rules about baking being super precise.

The original recipe was supposed to make one loaf, but when I transferred the batter to the loaf pan I realized it was going to be too much for a single loaf. Luckily I inherited a second loaf pan when I was home for Christmas and turned it into two smaller loaves. If I were to make this again, I think I’d try to adjust the ingredients to make two regular-sized loaves, perhaps another banana and a little more flour and sugar.

I had one banana left, which I sliced and threw in the freezer. I used it to make a delicious smoothie for breakfast (1/2 cup plain Greek yogurt, 1 teaspoon honey, 1/2 frozen banana, 1/4 cup each of frozen pineapple, mango, and peach, plus water to achieve your desired consistency). Two recipes for the price of one!

Trifecta of ingredients

Peanut butter banana bread

Makes: 2 small-ish loaves

Source: adapted from Alida Ryder’s recipe on Simply Delicious

Ingredients

1/2 cup butter (1 stick), softened

1 cup sugar

2 eggs

4 very ripe bananas

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 cups flour

2 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup peanut butter

1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

PB batter on the left, chocolate chip on the right

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Grease two loaf pans (I used Pam for baking spray)

2. In a mixing bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs one at a time, then add the bananas and vanilla extract. Mix well. Sift in the flour, baking powder, and salt.

3. Place 1 1/2 cups of the batter in a smaller bowl, then mix in the peanut butter. Mix in the chocolate chips in the batter without the peanut butter.

The finished products

4. Divide the batter with the chocolate chips between the two prepared pans, then dollop in the peanut butter-flavored batter (again dividing between the two pans). With a knife or the back of a spoon, swirl the batters together (do not overswirl; you do not want the batters to blend together completely).

5. Place the loaf pans in the oven and bake for 40-50 minutes or until a skewer inserted comes out clean. If the loaf is browning too much, place a piece of foil over it about halfway through the baking time.

6. Remove the loaves from the oven and allow to cool in the pans for 20 minutes before turning out onto a cooling rack.

Allow to cool completely, slice and enjoy!

Butterfinger cookies

Chopping Butterfingers

I know it may seem like all I do lately is run and bake cookies. It’s not entirely untrue, but I will hopefully get back to some regularly scheduled programming (aka cooking) in the near future. I do have to come up with something interesting for an Olympics potluck this weekend…any ideas?

Folding in the chopped candy

Claire and I made these for the fundraiser that we planned for the UNC-Duke game that was not meant to be, in addition to Valentine M&M cookies and Nika cookies (oatmeal chocolate chip pecan). We made 1.5 times the recipe in order to have enough to fill all of the Valentine treat bags, but I decided to include the original recipe here…because math is hard.

I got to use Claire’s fancy new meat mallet to chop the Butterfingers. I might need to invest in one of those – it had more surface area for “chopping” than my hammer!

Butterfinger cookies
Source: Sally’s Baking Addition via Pinterest
Makes: about 3 dozen Kara-sized cookies

Ingredients
1 and 3/4 cups all-purpose flour

Delicious finished product!

3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup granulated white sugar
1 stick unsalted butter, softened
1 large egg (use 2 if dough seems too dry)
8 fun size Butterfinger candy bars, chopped

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
2. Combine flour, baking soda, and salt in small bowl and set aside. In a medium or large bowl, mix together sugar and butter until creamy. Beat in egg until just combined.

3. Gradually beat in flour mixture. Fold in Butterfinger pieces. The dough will be very thick. Drop by slightly rounded teaspoonfuls onto ungreased baking sheet.

4. Bake for 10-12 minutes or until lightly browned. Cool and wire rack and enjoy! (I bet it will be hard to resist sneaking a warm cookie…)

Nika cookies

Apparently I like to bake during storms that occur in February and start with the letter “N”…last year Nemo, this year Nika, a slightly different version of a previous Oatmeal chocolate chip cookie recipe I’ve made. If you’re curious about the rest of this winter’s storm names, check out the list on the Weather Channel.

Nika (NEE-ka): From Greek mythology; the goddess who personified winning or victory.

View of the storm from my place

I was pretty excited that I actually cooked something…baking = cooking, right? It was a toss up between cookies and a red lentil soup recipe that I saw on Pinterest. Cookies won since I had all of the ingredients on hand (we definitely overbought for our post-Christmas cookie bake-a-thon as I still have two more pounds of butter in my freezer). Speaking of the Christmas cookiefest, these cookies were my almost favorite this year…M&M cookies will always be the favorite favorite. I think it was the substitution of the pecans for walnuts that gave them the silver medal over Martha’s sugar cookies and Sofra’s molasses cookies.

If you want to try these for yourself, I’ll be giving them away, in addition to Valentine M&M cookies, next week (2/12) at the UNC-Dook game watch event at the Baseball Tavern…in exchange for participating in a 50:50 fundraiser raffle to support my Boston Marathon fundraising efforts. I guess that’s what some people call bribing…you say potato, I say potato. Feel free to stop by, as long as you’re not rooting for the Dookies!

Oatmeal chocolate chip pecan cookies
Source: AllRecipes
Makes 6-7 dozen (depending on how big you like ’em)

This is how I chop pecans

Ingredients
1 cup unsalted butter (2 sticks), softened
1 cup packed light brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated white sugar
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
3 cups old-fashioned oats
1 cup chopped pecans
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

Directions
1. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F.

Just add milk

2. In a large bowl, cream together the butter, brown sugar, and white sugar until smooth. Beat in eggs one at a time, then stir in vanilla.

3. In a medium bowl, combine flour, baking soda, and salt; stir into the creamed mixture until just blended. Mix in the oats, pecans, and chocolate chips.

4. Drop by rounded spoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheets (I line mine with parchment paper).

5. Bake 9-11 minutes or until light golden brown. Allow cookies to cool on baking sheet before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.

Pumpkin chocolate chip bread

Pumpkin bread!

It was a perfect morning for baking, especially something pumpkin-y. I tried to use the baking attachment on my Ninja, but since the recipe made two loaves, the bowl of the food processor only had the capacity for the wet ingredients. It made quick work of mixing those up, and then I mixed the wet and dry ingredients the old-fashioned way.

I only have one loaf pan so I made one loaf of bread and 12 muffins. For the bread, it was hard to tell when it was done. The edges looked a little overdone while the middle was still undercooked. My oven tends to run a little hot, so I was checking on it periodically and ended up pulling out at just around 60 minutes. I really hope it’s not overcooked because I’m giving it as a birthday gift.

On a side note, my place smelled amazing for hours!

Ninja, pre-mixing

Pumpkin chocolate bread
Source: adapted from My Baking Addiction
Makes: 2 loaves or 24 muffins

Ingredients
1 (15-ounce) can pumpkin puree
4 eggs
3/4 cup canola oil
3/4 cup water
1 Tbsp vanilla extract
2 cups sugar
3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 tsp kosher salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp allspice
1/2 tsp cloves
1 (12-ounce) bag semi-sweet chocolate chips

Directions

Ninja, post-mixing

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease and flour two 8.5 x 4 x 2.5 inch loaf pans or two 12-cup muffin pans.
2. In a large bowl, combine pumpkin, eggs, oil, water, vanilla, and sugar. Mix with electric mixer (or use stand mixer) until well blended.
3. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, and cloves.
4. Slowly add the dry ingredients into the pumpkin mixture and stir until just blended. Fold in chocolate chips.
5. Pour batter into the prepared pans and bake for 60-70 minutes (bread) or 17-20 minutes (muffins) or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Apple cinnamon oat muffins

I finally had some time to bake something apple-y, which was a perfect rainy weekend activity. These have been great to grab in the morning for breakfast. I even brought a couple to my boss…he liked them but said they “seemed too healthy”.

Mixing up the batter

Apple cinnamon oat muffins
Source: adapted from The Goodie Plate
Makes: 12 muffins

Ingredients
1 1/2 cups flour
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 Tbsp cinnamon
1/2 cup canola oil
1/4 cup granulated sugar

Ready for the oven

1/4 cup brown sugar, plus more to sprinkle on top of muffins
1 large egg
1/2 Tbsp vanilla extract
1 cup plain Greek yogurt
2 apples, peeled, cored, and chopped into small pieces

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Oil a muffin tin (or use muffin liners).

2. In a medium-sized bowl, mix together flour, oats, baking soda, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon.

Ready to eat!

3. In a large bowl, mix together canola oil, sugar, and brown sugar. Add egg and vanilla and mix again. Then add yogurt and mix thoroughly.

4. Slowly add dry ingredients to the wet ingredients. Mix just until the flour gets incorporated, then fold in apples. Do not over mix.

5. Divide batter evenly among the 12 muffin cups. Sprinkle some brown sugar on top of each muffin.

6. Bake at 350 degrees F for 10 minutes, then turn down the heat to 300 degrees F for another 5-8 minutes, until they have a deep golden crust and a toothpick comes out clean.

7. Remove from oven, allow to cool, and enjoy!

Nemo cookies

Poor Bianca

I was going a little stir crazy thanks to Nemo (aka ~30 inches of snow), a snowed-in car, a travel ban, and non-running MBTA.

So I decided it to bake cookies…warm and delicious right out of the oven, they were perfect for a cold, snowy day. I *might* have had cookies for breakfast. Don’t judge…it’s a snow day, anything goes!

Chocolate chip pecan cookies
Source: adapted from Martha Stewart cookies
Makes about 3 dozen

Just add milk

Mixing up the cookie dough

Ingredients
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 cup packed light brown sugar
1 tsp coarse salt
2 tsp pure vanilla extract
2 large eggs
1 1/2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips
1/2 cup pecans, chopped

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Whisk together flour and baking soda in a medium bowl. Put butter and sugars in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Mix on medium speed until pale and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Reduce speed to low. Add salt, vanilla, and eggs; mix well until blended, about 1 minute. Mix in flour mixture. Stir in chocolate chips and pecans.

2. Drop heaping tablespoons of dough onto baking sheets lined with parchment paper, about 2 inches apart. Bake cookies, rotating sheets halfway through, until edges turn golden but centers are still soft, 10-12 minutes.

3. Let cool on sheets on wire racks for 2 minutes. Transfer cookes to wire racks and let cool completely. Cookies can be stored between layers of parchment in airtight containers at room temperature up to 1 week.