Chocolate Chip Pound Cake

So I bought this awesome new cookbook a couple of weeks ago, and I've been dying to try it out. Look, even the cover is awesome.

It's called Bake! Essential Techniques for Perfect Baking and it's by Nick Malgieri. There are step-by-step instructions and pictures for everything. That has been the most frusting part of learning to bake- the fact that most cookbooks and recipes assume a base of knowledge that I don't have. Not so with this cookbook!

So today, on a relaxing Saturday, I picked a recipe that I already had the ingredients for and went to town. And I am so glad that I did.

Because this, my friends, is delicious. So I decided to share the recipe with you and totally promote this book, because I love it and it is awesome.

Your ingredients: Flour, Butter, Eggs, Chocolate Chips, Baking Powder, Salt and Vanilla (oops again, that vanilla never wants to get in the picture)

First, combine your dry ingredients and mix them together in the mixer briefly on low, about 30 seconds. Then, add the butter, which should be very soft, and mix it on low until it's completely combined and looks like this.

Then, in a small bowl whisk together your eggs and vanilla. Make sure your eggs are room temperature, otherwise they'll make the batter seperate.

Add the egg mixture in 1/3 at a time, mixing for about 1 minute on medium speed in between each addition.

Fold in the chocolate chips with a rubber spatula, then just pour into your pan, smooth over the top, and bake!

Yum!

Chocolate Chip Pound Cake

From Bake! Essential Techniques for Perfect Baking

5 cups flour

2 sticks butter, very soft

1 tbsp. baking powder

2 tsp. vanilla

1 cup sugar

1/4 tsp. salt

1 cup chocolate chips

5 eggs, room temperature

Preheat the oven to 325°. Thouroughly grease a loaf pan.

In an electric mixer, combine the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt and mix on low for 30 seconds. Add the butter and mix until thouroughly combined and no butter chunks remain.

In a small bowl, whisk together the eggs and vanilla. Add in 1/3 of the egg mixture, then beat on medium speed for 1 minute. Repeat until all of the eggs are mixed in and it is smooth.

Fold in the chocolate chips by hand, then pour the batter into the loaf pan and smooth the top. Bake for 60 minutes.



Zucchini Bread

I love this bread. I love it a lot. If you've never had a zucchini bread before and you don't like zucchini, please don't be scared off. You wouldn't even know it was there if I didn't tell you, trust me. It just makes the bread moist and wonderful.

I got this recipe from my mother-in-law, and it is so, so, so delicious. It's great for breakfast. Or for desert. Or for eating between meals. Or for sneaking a piece when your husband's not home so that you don't have to cut him one to be equal.

Make it and you won't regret it.

Your ingredients: Eggs, Oil, Baking Powder, Baking Soda, Cinnamon, Zucchini, Flour, Sugar, Vanilla, Brown Sugar, and Salt

First, puree your zucchini. You need about 2 cups pureed zucchini. I wound up only using 3 of those small ones, if it helps you. Man, get a food processor if you can. This is the first time I've made this bread since we trashed our crappy blender, and this food processor made this bread a whole lot quicker and less messy to make.

Then, whisk together your "wet" ingredients- eggs, oil, vanilla, zucchini, sugar, and brown sugar.

Add in your dry ingredients- mix it really well, don't let any pockets of flour hide out on you. I know it looks green. You're looking at this, saying- "How could this bread possibly be sweet??" Trust me. Please.

Then pour it into 2 loaf pans and pop it in the oven for about an hour.

Then eat this bread and thank me. And my mother-in-law. And the underappreciated zucchini.


Zucchini Bread
From my wonderful mother-in-law
Makes 2 loaves
3 eggs
1 cup oil
2 cups pureed zucchini
1 tsp. vanilla
2 cups white sugar
2 cups brown sugar
3 cups flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. salt

Preheat oven to 325°.

Puree zucchini in a food processor or blender. Mix together eggs, oil, brown sugar, white sugar, zucchini and vanilla.

Sift dry ingredients in and fold lightly into the batter. Pour into 2 loaf pans and bake for an hour, until toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean

You can also make muffins with this recipe- it makes 2 1/2 dozen, bake them for 15 minutes.

Cinnamon....Pillows

Here's the deal. (Settle in, it's a story)

I've never tried anything involving dough before. It's too intimidating. But after a rash of recipe successes, and after finding an awesome new food blog, Baked Bree, I decided to give it a shot. Cinnamon rolls! They're delicious! They have icing! I could eat them for breakfast all week long!

That's what I thought to myself. But the thing is, right after I took my ingredients picture, I realized my milk was bad. So I substituted watered-down heavy cream, because everything I found said that was okay.

The thing is, I'm not sure that it was okay.

I first started to get worried when I rolled out my dough after letting it rise for 2 hours and it was still totally sticky and blob-y. Rolling it out and rolling it up was a nightmare. I started to panic, but for some reason kept taking pictures like everything was going fine.

It wasn't. I almost cried when they came out of the oven. Along with my determination to stick to the recipe EXACTLY (a rule which I had already broken with great trepidation), I also feel like a giant failure if my result does not look like the picture.

And this did NOT look like the picture, if you head over to Baked Bree you will agree with me. However, I've been convincing myself that I haven't failed this recipe, I've created a new one. Cinnamon Bread Pillows.

Look at this guy. He's totally sleep-able.

Tell your friends. And maybe the next time you see me, if you see me, you could tell me I'm not a failure.

 

Your Ingredients: Flour, Sugar, Powdered Sugar, Cinnamon, Yeast, Eggs, Cream Cheese, Milk, Butter, Brown Sugar, and Vanilla

First, put your yeast into the warm milk and let it dissolve. Let it sit for 5 minutes, it will start to foam.

In a mixer, mix together your butter, eggs, sugar and salt. I was super excited to use my dough hook attachment for the first time! Too bad it didn't turn out exactly... awesome.

Put in the milk/yeast mix, and then the flour, 2 cups at a time. Put in enough flour that it doesn't stick to the sides of the bowl.

Put your dough in a greased bowl, cover, and let it rise for 1-2 hours, until it doubles in size

In a bowl, mix together your cinnamon glaze ingredients, mash them together with a fork until they're a paste.

Uh, roll out your dough into a 16x21 inch rectangle and hope that it looks a little better than this. Spread the cinnamon glaze over it, and then roll it up.

Cut it into 1 1/2 inch pieces and put them in a greased baking pan. If yours turn out pillow-style, you might need to use 2 pans. Or you can shove them all into 1 pan and see what happens. Who knows at this point. Bake for 15-20 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.

To make the frosting (which I actually didn't fail at), cream together your butter and cream cheese. Add the salt, then the powdered sugar a little at a time, then the vanilla. Yum.

Did I lick the frosting spoon to make myself feel better? You bet I did.

And well... here it is. It's certainly not a roll, but you can definitely sleep on it. And have cinnamon dreams. Good luck.

Cinnamon...Pillows

Attempted from Baked Bree

Pillows:

1 package yeast

1 cup warm milk (microwave for about 50 seconds)

1/3 cup butter, softened

4-5 cups flour

1/2 cup sugar

1 tsp. salt

2 eggs

Cinnamon Glaze:

1 cup brown sugar

2 1/2 tbs. cinnamon

1/3 cup butter, softened and cut into chunks

1 tbsp flour

Icing:

8 tbs. butter

1/4 cup cream cheese

1 1/2 cups powdered sugar

pinch of salt

1 tsp. vanilla

For the dough:

Let the yeast dissolve in the warm milk. Let it sit for 5 minutes, it will start to foam.

In an electric mixer, cream together your butter, sugar, salt and eggs. Add the yeast/milk, slowly add in the flour 2 cups at a time. The dough should be pulling away from the sides of the bowl, you can use up to 5 cups of flour to get this result.

Put the dough in a large greased bowl, cover with plastic wrap, and let rise for 1-2 hours, until it doubles in size.

For the cinnamon glaze:

In a small bowl, put your cinnamon glaze ingredients together- mash with a fork until it starts to form a thick paste.

Roll out your dough into a 16x21 rectangle. Spread the cinnamon glaze over the dough. Roll the dough until it forms a log. Cut into 1 1/2 inch pieces, then transfer to a greased baking pan. Cover with a towel or plastic wrap and let rise for another hour.

Cook at 400° for 15-20 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.

For the icing:

Cream together the butter and cream cheese. Add the powdered sugar a little at a time, the salt, and then the vanilla until well-mixed.

Let the rolls cool completely before icing. Makes several...pillows.

Brown Butter Banana Strawberry Bread

Dear Joy the Baker, 

I saw this bread and I literally had to make it the next day. You know what the best part is? The only extra thing I had to buy was the bananas! Also, I would love for our blogs to be friends, or at least maybe your blog could be my blog's mentor.

Also, I think you're really awesome.

Love, Something Sweet

Surprise! Apparently I can't stop at baking just once during the week, it's now become a compulsion that I have to indulge mid-week as well! Lucky for you, because this bread is a gift from heaven. Or, a gift from Joy the Baker.

These pictures make me wish I could always bake in the daytime- natural light makes for such prettier photographs. Ah, well. Paying bills means I have to work instead of bake during the day.

Your ingredients- which apparently I can never get right for the photo. I realized I didn't need baking powder, and I should have put brown sugar in the picture instead of regular sugar. But just... imagine that it's correct.

First, grease up your loaf pan. (I'm sorry. You didn't need a picture of that. But the lighting was so nice I literally took pictures of everything. Be glad there's not pictures showing you how to open a box of brown sugar, or how to measure out a cup of flour.)

Next, whisk together your dry ingredients: flour, brown sugar, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon.


In a seperate bowl, mix together your eggs, vanilla, and buttermilk (or yogurt, but I used buttermilk). Once it's combined, add your mashed banana.

 Then add in your strawberries- you can dice them up a little finer than me if you want, but my bread didn't suffer for my laziness.

Next, glop it all into your loaf pan and put your finely sliced strawberries on top. Then, put it in the oven and get ready for your kitchen to smell WONDERFUL for about an hour.

Then, take it out and feast, my friend. Feast.

Browned Butter Strawberry Banana Bread
Taken (with love and the utmost respect) from Joy the Baker
6 oz. butter (for me that was 1 1/2 sticks, if you're not weigh-er)
2 cups flour
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
3/4 tsp. ground cinnamon
2 large eggs
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1/4 cup plain yogurt or buttermilk
3 medium bananas, mashed
1/2 cup diced strawberries, plus a few thin slices for topping

Preheat oven to 350°. Grease a 9x5 loaf pan.

To brown butter, melt in a medium saucepan over medium-high heat. The butter will pop and foam as it melts. Once it stops doing that, it will start to brown. Stir it a little so it doesn't burn. Once it starts to smell nutty, take it off the heat and pour it into a small bowl to cool.

In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the flour, brown sugar, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon.

In a seperate medium bowl, mix together the eggs, vanilla, and buttermilk. Once they're combined, whisk in the mushed bananas. When your butter is cool, whisk it in too.

Dump the wet ingredients all at once into your flour mixture and fold together, getting all the flour pockets. Try not to overmix. Fold the strawberries in until just combined. Pour mixture into the loaf pan and top with your thin strawberry slices.

Bake for 50 minutes to 1 hour until a toothpick comes out clean. Enjoy!