I am a Honey Bee

All about my adventures with cooking, crafts, and travel

Archives for February 2010

Pineapple Cinnamon Pancakes

Pancakes with Grade B maple syrup (no butter)

In honor of National Pancake Day, Price and I had pancakes for dinner last night. I adapted a recipe for pineapple cinnamon pancakes from The Great Big Cookie Book by Hilaire Walden. Apparently pancakes fall under the scone and muffin category in a cookie book, who knew? Well I thought the combination of pineapple and cinnamon was interesting and would be good so I picked them as the pancake to try.

 

These pancakes turned out to be fluffy, thick, and flavorful. These pancakes were quite dense, which resulted in an airy sponge that soaked up our syrup. (awww we used syrup we got during a trip to VT for one of my birthday’s) Every bite was punctuated with bits of the crushed pineapple. I think that it could have used even more pineapple. The best is that there is little sugar and no butter or oil in the recipe making them a bit healthier and makes them light in texture.

coming together now

This is a large batch of pancakes. We purposefully make large batches of pancakes and waffles so we can freeze them and reheat them later on for a quick breakfast. Then freezing the pancakes separate them with pieces of wax paper before wrapping them up. Separating them will prevent them from becoming a block of pancakes and defrosting/reheating a lot easier.

Pineapple Cinnamon Pancakes

2 cups whole wheat flour
2 cups self rising flour
2 tablespoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
3 tablespoons sugar
2 eggs
2 1/2-3 cups milk (I use skim)
8 oz of crushed pineapple*
 

Sift together the dry ingredients into a large bowl.

Mix together the eggs and milk.

Combine the wet ingredients into the dry and mix together. Add in the crushed pineapple and mix. Add more milk if you like thinner pancakes.

Cook pancakes until golden brown.

*If you like pineapple feel free to add more. 8oz is the minimum

 
 

Polenta Almond Lemon Cake

Polenta Almond Lemon Cake- A rich, delicious cake that has light refreshing lemon flavor. The almond and polenta give it an interesting flavor and texture.

Post Originally from 2/22/10, Pictures updated 3/6/19

Post Contains Affiliate Links. Read my full disclosure HERE

I love when I make a cake for a special occasion. 

Of course, making a cake on a random Tuesday is enjoyable, but making a cake for something special doubles my excitement. Do you ever feel the same way?

…

Read More

the best of both worlds…Donut Muffins!

I’m addicted to a show called The Best Thing I Ever Ate on Food Network. I sit on the sofa with my iphone and my yelp app and bookmark the places to eventually go to. One of the latest episodes was featuring Snacks and while several featured places interested me I fell for the donut muffin. I don’t think Price would go for a trip to Downtown Bakery and Creamery in Healdsburg, CA just for a muffin. So what’s one to do…. google, google, google and then bake.

 

I didn’t find a recipe I exactly loved for a donut muffin so I made mine own. One of the things I wanted to emphasize was vanilla so I used the vanilla sugar and vanilla extract I made.  I now need to make more vanilla sugar but it was worth it. I think they had a great texture like a cake donut but were sweeter like a muffin- hell, being rolled in cinnamon and sugar will make anything sweet.

 

  

I made a mix of regular and mini muffins for this batch.  I perfer the mini muffins because they are a great size and I don’t feel as horrible if I have mini compared to a regular one! Plus they are so cute little. The recipe makes about 60 mini muffins. If you make mini muffins you will need to use more butter and cinnamon/sugar at the end because you will have more muffins (and more surface area) to cover.

  

I should have taken a picture of it ripped open but I was too busy baking and stuffing Pricer full of them. Then I shared some with Emily and froze the rest. The whole point of explaining this is that the inside was beautifully dotted with vanilla. ahh bliss

Donut Muffins

3 cups of self rising flour
1 ½ teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
1 cup vanilla sugar*
⅔ cups shortening
2 eggs
1 cup milk
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Sugar Coating**

1 1/2 cups of vanilla sugar
1 tablespoon of cinnamon
1 stick of unsalted butter

Preheat oven to 350. Grease muffin tins.

In a large bowl sift together the flour, salt, and pumpkin pie spice, set aside.  Measure the milk and add in the vanilla extract to the measuring cup, set aside.

Cream together the vanilla sugar and shortening together until light and creamy. (be in awe of the vanilla goodness)

One at a time, add the eggs until incorporated.

Alternating with the flour, add the 1/3 of the combined milk and vanilla to the mixture, blend until well incorporated.

Let the batter sit for 15 minutes before dividing it among the tins for baking.

Bake until the tops are golden brown and a tooth pick is clean upon it’s removal. The regular sized muffins will take 20-22 minutes and the mini muffins for 12-15 minutes.

While the muffins are baking melt a stick of butter in a skillet on low. Combine the vanilla sugar and cinnamon together on a plate.

Once the muffins are done and cooled to the touch, quickly roll the muffin in butter coating all sides. Roll the muffin in the sugar mixture.

*Make vanilla sugar by putting sliced and scraped vanilla beans into an air tight container of sugar. The longer is sits the better. I suggest making batches of this and always having it on hang because it is great to add to whipped cream, oatmeal, and other baking recipes. You can even make your own vanilla extract!*

** If you make mini muffins you will need more butter and cinnamon/sugar because of the increased quantity of muffins.

Peanut Butter Cookies

My friend Emily asked me what I use for a peanut butter cookie recipe since she wants to try a bacon peanut butter cookie. I think this is genius but what really makes it great is that she has never purchased bacon in her 23 years. Never purchased or cooked meat in fact. She is not a vegetarian but pretty close, except that I have brought her over to the dark side. She tried a big mac after boozy bowling for my 24th birthday. Pretty funny once she spotted a McDonald’s and announced that she wanted a Big Mac so Price had to drive around the block while we ran in. Needless to say Em felt like garbage later.

   

So back to the peanut butter cookies….. this simple question of “what recipe do you like?” prompted me to yank out several cook books to see what possibilities I had to try compared to my usual recipe. Whenever I have made peanut butter cookies I have used My First Baking Book. My mom got it for me when I was 6 and I have used this book several times even though it is a “kid’s cook book”.  To be quite honest I find it hard to believe that kids will be using puff pastry or making eclairs. What 6 year old makes Pate Choux?? 

 

This seems to be an easy and pretty standard peanut butter cookies recipe. While going through my cook books I noticed this was pretty close to a few others that I had. I made an addition to it by adding my homemade vanilla extract. I just think that everything should have vanilla extract. Additionally, I made some without chocolate chips and some with.

 

 

I’m not a fan of peanut butter cookies. I had 1 with the chocolate chips and it was good. Good texture, good flavor but I really don’t like pb cookies and without a sweet tooth I have had not made it my mission to try to perfect the cookie. Maybe I can work on that now. Either way, Price enjoyed them last night. I brought them into work to see what other’s have to say. Hopefully they will enjoy these and trying different recipes until they have picked the best.

Peanut Butter Cookies

2 sticks of room temperature butter
1 1/2 cups light brown sugar
2 eggs
1 cup of peanut butter
2 tablespoons vanilla extract
2 cups of self rising flour
chocolate chips (optional)

Preheat your oven to 350.

Cream the butter and brown sugar together until light and fluffy.

One at a time, add the eggs.

Add vanilla and peanut butter until batter is smooth.

Add the self rising flour until just incorporated. If adding chocolate chips add them in now.

Place teaspoon fulls onto a nonstick/greased/silicon lined baking sheet.

Bake for 12-17 minutes. Let cool on a rack and then enjoy with milk.

The Blizzard That Wasn’t

Lots of snow. A blizzard of snow. School closed all around Boston (about 18 hours ahead of time). Plows were at the ready. People stayed home from work. Drivers took public transportation so they would not get stuck later in the horrible conditions.

the only problem…

NO SNOW

 Boston ended up with about an inch of snow. Seriously.

The Cape got more but the point for me is where I live… no snow!!!!!

I think I need to change proffessions. If we make a mistake there are seriously things to account for and fix. But a weather(wo)man can be off about a 1′ of snow and no sweat, things changed. Their warns can close the publis school system ( I wish I had that power) and if they are wrong they just say “Oh the snow storm got to big it started to get warm. So, no snow.”

Pictures of the “Snow” when I left my office late last night.

Rememberance

Remembrance
Remembrance is a golden chain
Death tries to break,
but all in vain.
To have, to love, and then to part
Is the greatest sorrow of one’s heart.
The years may wipe out many things
But some they wipe out never.
Like memories of those happy times
When we were all together.
~ Author Unknown

My Poppy died 2 years ago today.

The passing years don’t make it easier, just a bit duller.

I miss that when we would visit him he would always say “Aaaa you made it!” and typically pinch my cheek.

I miss that he always had hostess crumb cakes in the fridge for us. He said he did not like them but kept it for us. Magically there were never the same # left from the last visit.

I miss my Dad telling me the funny things he would say once he moved into my Dad’s place. He would accuse my dad of eatting his chocolates, but in reality he finished his and started to eat my Dad’s.

The pictures are from his 95th birthday party in 2005

 

Got Milk? Tres Leches Cake

 

Another staff meeting, another cake. I really love that I make cake for work things. It’s a good way to try new cakes, I try to make a new cake every meeting. A way to keep things fresh and new.

  

 

I have wanted to make Tres Leches Cake for a while. I’m not a dessert person but this really makes me have a sweet tooth. The custardy consistency and the frosting really get me hooked. I was always interested in the frosting because its taste reminded me of a marshmallow. Well I learned that it is just heavy cream vanilla extract, and A LOT of sugar, which explains the sugary sweet marshmallow taste.

 

  

I search for the perfect recipe had my blog hoping and diving into cook books. In the end I decided to go with the one on Foodnetwork.com by Alton Brown. I picked this one because the frosting had the most sugar in its frosting recipe (how dare someone else tell me that 2 tablespoons is enough?) and I met him!! I was using a bigger pan than the recipe called for. I decided to multiply the recipe by 1.5 for my 11x 14.5″ pan. There were a few things that I played around with like the quantities for the glaze, like I just used 1 can of evaporated milk, 2 cans of condensed milk, and 2 cups of heavy cream (instead of the half and half).

 

 I think it turned out pretty well. Next time I would poke a few more holes and add the milk mixture in 2 batches so it would soak in it bit at a time. I think pouring all the mixture in at once prevents it from soaking in properly. The mixture did not soak in consistently, it settled in the bottom and soaked up about 4/5 of the way up- which kinda defies gravity. Either the mixture was tasty and the frosting was addicting.

Tres Leches Cake

Vegetable oil
6 3/4 ounces cake flour, plus extra for pan
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
4 ounces unsalted butter, room temperature
8 ounces sugar
5 whole eggs
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

For the glaze:

1 (12-ounce) can evaporated milk
1 (14-ounce) can sweetened condensed milk
1 cup half-and-half (or heavy cream)

For the topping:

2 cups heavy cream
8 ounces sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Lightly oil and flour a 13 by 9-inch metal pan and set aside.

Whisk together the cake flour, baking powder and salt in a medium mixing bowl and set aside.

Place the butter into the bowl of a stand mixer. Using the paddle attachment, beat on medium speed until fluffy, approximately 1 minute. Decrease the speed to low and with the mixer still running, gradually add the sugar over 1 minute. Stop to scrape down the sides of the bowl, if necessary. Add the eggs, 1 at a time, and mix to thoroughly combine. Add the vanilla extract and mix to combine. Add the flour mixture to the batter in 3 batches and mix just until combined. Transfer the batter to the prepared pan and spread evenly. This will appear to be a very small amount of batter. Bake on the middle rack of the oven for 20 to 25 minutes or until the cake is lightly golden and reaches an internal temperature of 200 degrees F.

Remove the cake pan to a cooling rack and allow to cool for 30 minutes. Poke the top of the cake all over with a skewer or fork. Allow the cake to cool completely and then prepare the glaze.

 For the glaze:

Whisk together the evaporated milk, sweetened condensed milk and the half-and-half (or heavy cream). Once combined, pour the glaze over the cake. Refrigerate the cake overnight.

 Topping:

Place the heavy cream, sugar and vanilla into the bowl of a stand mixer. Using the whisk attachment, whisk together on low until stiff peaks are formed. Change to medium speed and whisk until thick. Spread the topping over the cake and allow to chill in the refrigerator until ready to serve.

Holy Glitter Batman!

I have been feeling a little off lately. Just not myself which has translated into a scrapbooking slump for a few days. I also think that this contributed to the muffin mishap on Sunday (see earlier post), clearly I was not thinking properly, ha.

Well I finally told myself to shake it off and get back to being crafty. I have been thinking about this layout for a few days but have just been putting it off. It’s kinda simple but that was sorta all I could handle last night. I have had these Stickycut Letters from Stampin’ Up! for a long time. I decided that I would used them for this layout and use glitter to make a bold title.

I made a horrible mess on the floor, table, and my face. Price said he could see glitter all over my face… great, I hope I got every speck off in the shower this morning. Either way I love glitter and I have a feeling I’ll be using these Stickycut Letter a lot since they are made for glitter and beads, and I imagine sand would work too!