“Ch-ch-ch-ch-chocolate” (to the tune of changes by David Bowie)

I LOVE chocolate and all things that contain chocolate. If I’m in a chocolate mood I usually make just classic chocolate chip cookies. They never fail and they’re SO simple to make. Today though I finally decided to try out something I have been wanting to try from the Joy of Cooking book. 

Chocolate Oat Bars. Need I say more? I cannot express how easy this is to make.

The Bar Part

•  You literally just do the traditional mix of the butter and sugar and then add the “dry” ingredients to that. In this case the dry ingredients were just oatmeal, flour, salt and baking powder, essentially the same as what you use for chocolate chip cookies minus the oatmeal. 
• It was kind of struggle some when you have to press down the dough in the bar just because the butter starts to melt in your hands and it gets all over you but if you work with a spoon or just work quickly you’ll be fine. 

The Chocolate 

• Melt chocolate, condensed milk, vanilla and butter together. That’s it. Really. 

This was actually surprisingly amazing. It isn’t even too sweet. I can’t imagine how this could possibly get any better. 

Leaning Tower of Pancakes

Pancakes, not just any pancakes though. These Pancakes or Griddle Pancakes are “the classic all-American pancake,” which can be made in a quick time, if you don’t let the batter sit.

The Batter

• I’m not going to lie. I thought this pancake recipe was going to be SO easy and that I’d just nail it on the first try no problem. However, of course, without a doubt, there was a problem.
  • The same situation with crepes that I has previously had seemed to happen with the pancake batter. I added the liquids together, the milk, eggs, and melted butter and then there would be these weird like chunk of what I assume/hope was butter. It honestly looked like the milk was spoiled and chunky but I swear it wasn’t. Right when I added the melted butter it got so gross.
  • Then I thought well maybe I just mixed everything together to quickly and need to mix slowly, so I did. That’s right I started a new set of liquid ingredients. And this time I poured the butter in ever so slowly.
    • BUT GUESS WHAT? THE SAME THING HAPPENED!
    • I honestly don’t know why but it did. I decided to just strain it before adding it to the flour mixture.

The Pancake

• The pancake  it’s self was too doughy in my opinion. It was good but just had a weird texture. Maybe if I let it sit for a couple hours?
  • Ok now that I think about it I should’ve let it rest.
    • But I was just really hungry! Sorry!
• Cooking it was pretty easy too. You just wait of the bubbles to appear.

I think I’ll wait next time for the batter rest before I make the pancakes.

Carrots Are Better with Cake

Carrots. Since I was young I was told that they could help with my eyesight. So naturally I ate a carrot every chance I get. Well, now here I am, typing away adjusting my glasses every few seconds because the carrots failed me. However, even though they didn’t heal my horrible eyes, I still love them in different foods.

Today, I made carrot cake with cream cheese frosting. 

The Cake 

• Super duper easy to make. Mix all the ingredients and you get the batter.
• I was actually surprised that the batter was very similar to that of the coffee crumble cake thing I previously made.
  • It was sticky and looked like a very small amount of dough as I spread it across my 9×13 pan.
• Also like the other cake, it wasn’t that sweet, as it only had one cup of sugar.
• The recipe said that in the 9×13 pan it would take 30-35 minutes but at like 25 my cake was done. Guess it really does just depend on the oven.

The Frosting

• Very easy except I didn’t really know what consistency it was supposed to be. I think mine was a little to “runny” but the flavor was pretty good.
• I also didn’t use all the powdered sugar it said to use.
  • I used 2 cups instead of 3

This cake complimented very nicely with the frosting since the cake wasn’t super sweet. I would most likely make this again once I know the “perfect consistency” of cream cheese frosting.

What is that thing on top??

Lemon. I love lemon. When I found Lemon Curd Bars in JOC I figured I needed to make it.

This recipe was, overall, really simple to make. The times suggested for baking were also on point.

The Crust

• Flour, sugar and butter. I had to cut the butter into the flour and sugar so I used my fingers like suggested. Eventually, I found myself using my whole hand and figured what could go wrong.
• The recipe also said to make the mixture into “pea size” crumbs or something. Some were pea size. Others were grape size. And others looked like sand. I didn’t know how to fix this, so I just went with it and threw it in my pan.
• The butter did start to melt and I think it’s just because I “played” with it too much.

The Filling

• Really simple and good!
• I didn’t have enough lemons. I had previously bought 5 lemons but had to work with 3 because my dad decided to use some during the week because carne asada and lemons are a must. I should’ve had 1 cup and a little more to use in the filling but I came up with only 1/3 cup. It worked though! I feel like 1 cup would’ve been too much.
• OK and what the heck is the white thing that is on top? Its really fragile and and like sweet. Is it from the sugar? I honestly don’t know what it is but it kind of ruined the bars. Its way too sweet. I just scrape it off when I get a bar. Maybe it was because the recipe had a lot of sugar in it? 3 cups!

Like I said these were really good, but that thing kinda ruined it. If you have any idea why its there let me know. I’ll make them again for sure.

PS: I don’t mean the white powdery thing, thats powdered sugar that I added (and eventually took off) because I didn’t know it’d be so sweet. I mean the thing that has the cracks in it.

J’aime la nourriture!

Aujourd’hui, je fais

Pardon! Today I am feeling in a French kind of mood. I listened to some French music, which made me think of my French classes I had all four years of high school. Then I remembered how my French teacher, on the day before winter break started, would bring homemade crepes to the class. Everyone would bring something to put into the crepes like Nutella, strawberries, whipped cream, bananas, etc.

I’ve made crepes before but they didn’t come out too great because they had these weird lumps of flour. So today I figured, why not try again? What’s the harm? So I did.

Let me just say, OH MY GOSH! So good! They were very simple to make thanks to Joy of Cooking. I took three of their recipes and used them all in one dish.

The Sweet Crepes (I halved the recipe but still got 12 crepes)

• In order to avoid the lumps I previously had, I sifted the flour first. The crepes recipe provided didn’t have any particular way to add the ingredients so I just added everything in one bowl and whisked it. It still had lumps though, but it wasn’t lumps of flour, I honestly don’t know what it was.
  • To make it smooth, the final step I did was add the batter into my measuring cup, but put it through a fine mesh strainer first. It all worked very well I might add.
  • I’ve seen people use a blender on food network, maybe that’ll help?
• There was no specification of what type of milk to use so I just used the regular fat free milk we had in the fridge. I think it made it a little too watery, but it still tasted fine.
• The cooking process is also not as hard as it may seem! I used my fingers to flip the crepe so I wouldn’t rip it with a fork or spatula.
  • To make it easier on me, I cooked the crepe on a back burner and then moved the pan off the heat and to the burner(which was off) in front of it to flip it so my hands wouldn’t burn, then moved it back to the back. (ha)
• I also placed a piece of wax paper in between each crepe to prevent them from sticking together!

Caramelized Apples (I didn’t make the sauce that was part of the recipe)

• These were so easy to make and the only thing I did different from the recipe is use a different apple. It called for Golden Delicious apples and I used Gala. Tasted great!

Whipped Cream

• This was probably the easiest thing I’ve made. I add sugar and vanilla and it was perfect.

This was definitely something that anyone can make because the ingredients are so accessible. Well, now I feel like watching Midnight in Paris. I’ll probably watch while I eat some crepes.