cranberry orange cookie/muffin

this recipe comes from my "twin" who is helping me through my baking disaster from last time:) even though she said the cookies came out perfectly, i still have my aversion to baking with butter (i have no problem with eating it) so i used applesauce instead. so of course i get a bizarre cookie/muffin. which is great for people like my D whose teeth are not what they once were...they almost look like meringues because the texture is so smooth but the eating texture is definitely more muffin like. maybe pressing the dough down flat before baking will make a more crispy/chewy cookie.

Cranberry Orange Cookie (courtesy of my twin, although i bet hers tastes much yummier)
1 1/2 cup all purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 c packed brown sugar
1/4 c applesauce
1 egg
3 Tblsp orange juice
2 tsp grated orange zest
1 c dried cranberries

Directions:

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Lightly grease cookie sheets, or line with parchment paper.

In a medium bowl, cream together the white sugar, brown sugar, and butter. Stir in the egg, orange juice, and orange zest. In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt; mix into the orange mixture. Stir in the dried cranberries. Drop cookie dough by heaping teaspoonfuls, 2 inches apart, on the prepared cookie sheets. Makes about 20 cookies

Bake for 10 to 12 minutes, or until edges are starting to brown.

something wrong...

so after the deliciousness of yesterday's muffin i bought some sweetened dried cranberries (they were on sale) to try to make some citrusy cranberry muffins. plus, i finally got around to buying some greek yogurt since i've heard so much about it. i figured it would lend itself to giving a light and moist muffin. but no, the result is something so hard to describe, not quite muffin, not quite cookie, wish it had butter kind of baked good. i guess i can't get it right everyday...even my camera was scared away by the strange food. any suggestions on best proportions or uses for the greek yogurt in baking? i'm thinking maybe some cranberry orange cookies would be really delicious!

orange chocolate muffins

i don't even know how to tell you how delicious these are for how simple they were to make! they're getting gobbled up so quickly by the M and D. they are so soft and with such a great orange zing with chocolate that i had to put this up as soon as possible to share the yum! you can even see some orange zest in the picture! this was kind of spur of the moment "i feel like baking instead of studying for my chem" test next week that will more than likely kick my butt...but at least i have these muffins to make me feel better:) unfortunately, it was very much a throw whatever proportions into it so i'm not quite sure on measurements but here's the best i can remember

Orange Chocolate Chip muffins
1 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup instant oats (cooked in water)
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1 spoonful brown sugar
3 spoonfuls applesauce
1 egg
2 Tblsp orange juice
1 Tblsp orange peel, finely chopped
3 handfuls semisweet chocolate chips, to your own preference

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease and flour a muffin tin.

Cook the oats, it should still be pretty watery. In a bowl combine flour, baking powder, baking soda salt and brown sugar. Mix in the cooked oatmeal, then mix in the applesauce and egg. Add the orange juice, orange peel and chocolate chips. Scoop into muffin tin and bake for about 20 to 25 minutes (the muffins will be pretty tiny, but oh so delicious!)

i will fiddle around with the proportions to make sure i have this right. the M has said this is the best bread yet that i've made so it will definitely be made again!

zesting orange old school

so everyone talks about the best ways to use every part of a piece of food and taking the peel off of citrus fruits to use later for breads and such is always a big one. better to use every part possible of a food and never waste and i finally got off my lazy bum and just zest the darn things. (i only did 3 today:D so slow and steady is going to be my motto)i don't have a zester so i used my regular old peeler and then chop chop chopped at it. it's all frozen in a cute tiny tupperware until i crave some orange chocolate bread or something!

good news, my laptop is back to life! probably the fastest fixing of a virus happy pc every:)

Partybrot yeast party

this is my rendition of German partybrot. i tried this out from amanda's cookin. it had really simple ingredients (i didn't have any poppyseeds though...). in addition, i'm a yeast newbie so i figured i should just jump in and try using those living little thingys. and boy did i not do this right. it didn't dissolve all the way, my dough didn't rise the first time or the 2nd time:( but the bread still tastes good (really dense, not sure if that's the idea). perfect with some jam. so maybe yeast isn't my thing. but i'll come back to it some day. and i might try brown sugar to get a more molassesy flavor.

just in case you really miss me i may not be updating too often. my laptop ate a virus on friday and it's still up in the air whether or not it'll come back to me in one piece. so hopefully i can get some updates in every so often. happy late night eating (i realized this is my first late night cooking!)

something new and baked chips!

yan yan is a childhood treat s4 and i love and for valentine's day we shared one. the treat is a shortbread kind of stick that is dipped in chocolate. when we opened our package there was a wonderful surprise of silly animals with "factoids." our favorite was "seal-loves to sun tan"

lots of baby red potatoes sitting in our house so i baked them with old bay and olive oil and wha-la, a healthier potato chip. although that led to greater eating than what i would probably do with a bag of chips...i guess you win some and you lose some:)

Happy Birthday, Valentine's and New Year!

this is a big weekend for the fam. the D's birthday, valentine's day and the lunar new year! we made red velvet cake balls from bakerella! the color was perfect for valentine's day AND the new year. so best wishes for the new year and spend some time with your loved ones. when we made monkey bread for christmas morning the D really loved it so we tried a variation on it to decrease the crunchy part of the brown sugar and butter. we saw a recipe that used whipping cream instead, unfortunately with the blizzard the grocery store is a bit empty so we tried out whipped cream instead, except it didn't seem to work...it tasted just like the biscuits but in a bundt pan:)