Author: emily
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Burnout Muffins
Unfortunately, I have a severe case of burnout. The good news: I have a week off during which I can do whatever I want. The bad news: when I’m really tired and or stressed (aka burnt out) I find most foods extremely unappetizing and even nauseating (to make matters worse I take medication that can often act as an appetite suppressant). Long story short is that Sprouts double chocoalte muffins are a food I can always eat, so I tried to make them at home and ended up making this recipe for chocolate muffins. And I was really not a fan.
Things to take into account: I didn’t have chocolate chips (very sad), I used a regular size muffin tin (not jumbo as in the recipe), I halved the recipe (because I didn’t want to have 24 muffins if I didn’t like them), cakes and muffins are not my baking strong suit, and my appetite is extremely fickle at the moment (unintentional bias).
I found the flavor rather lack-luster and my partner and I agreed that they have a weirdly gummy texture. If I were to try and make double chocolate muffins again, I would for sure try another recipe.
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Vanilla – 8 days later
My vanilla is extremely dark and it has only been one week! The vanilla I bought was a “red type” of vanilla bean which means it has lower moisture content and essentially it just doesn’t look like the thick juicy vanilla beans that one might imagine when they think of a typical vanilla bean. Despite the beans being dried up little guys they are obviously packed full of vanilla goodness because my extract has darkened so quickly and it has only been about 10% of the recommended extraction time.
For reference this is what they looked like right after jarring.
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S’Mores Chocolate Chunk Cookies (Cookie #5)
Tonight I finally got around to making the S’Mores Chocolate Chunk Cookies that have been on my mind for the past week. I bought marshmallows to make a marshmallow coffee syrup which by the way went so horribly wrong. I made the syrup and then put it in a jar in the fridge and the next day it had solidified into a gloopy sugary slime monster and I instantly threw it away. Thanks to that syrup failure, I now had marshmallows in the house which meant I was one step closer to having the ingredients needed to make the next cookie on my list. After acquiring graham crackers I was all set to get baking. All I had to do was find a day where I had the energy and time to bake amidst job hunting, quitting a job, and working out the details of a new job offer. The hardest days are when I want cookies the most and yet they are also the days I struggle to rally myself off the couch.
Tonight, thanks to a splitting headache due to stress and lack of water, I was unable to scroll on tiktok any longer and it was finally cookie time.
These cookies came together really easily and quickly and overall they went pretty well. Of course, as I was sliding the tray of cookies into the oven, I saw a note on the recipe that said they used dehydrated marshmallows and specifically: “Do not use regular miniature marshmallows in this recipe. They will melt and burn”. Well joke’s on them because I didn’t use regular miniature marshmallows, I used regular full sized marshmallows cut up into small pieces. Because OF COURSE I used regular ones, who would think otherwise?! They should really put that note in bold at the top of the recipe if they want anyone to read it.
Notes:
The recipe says to use dehydrated mini marshmallows (like the ones found in hot chocolate packets) but if you use regular ones they actually turn out ok. Some of the marshmallow chunks did melt but they sort of caramelized and I didn’t mind it.
This cookie might be more s’mores flavored if you increased the graham cracker crumbs and decreased the chocolate (by a quarter or maybe even half).
Overall, this is a good cookie but it just tastes like a good chocolate chip cookie. If I was blindfolded I’m not sure I ever would have guessed that the intended flavor was s’mores. If you already have marshmallows and graham crackers, go for it, but I wouldn’t venture out of my way to get the necessary ingredients in order to make them.
Overall: 2.5/5
Texture: 4/5
Flavor: 2/5 (lacking s’mores flavor)
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VANILLA!!!
This was the highlight of my week, maybe even the highlight of my month. I never would have guessed that making my own vanilla would make me so happy.
I recently ran out of my generic target brand bottle of vanilla and I looked into the Nielsen-Massey brand that I see so many content creators using in their baking and coffee syrup making videos. It is $20 for 4oz of this brand of vanilla extract. I’ve been seeing a lot of vanilla paste being used on the internet, but I’ve always been an extract person and I’d have to learn more about why a person would use paste over extract… anyway time for some math.
I bought loose cut vanilla from Slo Food Group, which was $25 for 4oz of beans. Their website has a vanilla extract recipe that suggests .8oz of beans per cup of alcohol. This means that if I rounded up, I could make 4 cups of vanilla (32 oz).
As we know, few things go according to plan and I ended up standing in Sprouts for longer than I would like to admit overthinking which size jar to buy. I wanted to get 2 2 cup mason jars, but of course they only had 1.5 cup jars and 3 cup jars. Obviously the right answer was to panic and buy 3 of the 1.5 cup mason jars. Why was that the answer? I’m still not sure.
In the end my vanilla math looked like this: 3 jars each got 1.3 oz of vanilla (4oz/3jars= 1.33oz) and 1.5 cups of alcohol. This calculates out to .86oz of vanilla beans per cup of alcohol (1.3oz/1.5cups). I did a lot of thinking and planning but in the end I also did a lot of panicking and guessing and really I just got lucky that my ratio ended up being almost exactly what Slo Food Group recommended.
The worst part about having 3 jars is that I bought vodka and bourbon and so I had to decide how to split that up. I now have 2 jars extracting in vodka and one in bourbon. Again this decision was made simply because I could not spend another second debating over which alcohol would get 2 jars.
If you’ve made it this far congratulations! The final calculation, and the main reason I wanted to make my own vanilla was this:
$25(vanilla beans)+$13 (half a bottle of Bluff Springs bourbon)+$21(one full bottle of Summum vodka) = $59
$59 is a lot more than the $20 extract I mentioned at the beginning, but its a lot more appealing to look at the ounces.
$20/4oz = $5/oz for the trendy Neilsen-Massey vanilla extract
$59/37oz = $1.59/oz for home made vanilla extract.
I will be saving a lot of money, but not for about 3 months which is how long they suggest you let your vanilla age/develop. I’ll be back with many updates about my little vanilla babies.
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Bagel Sunday 🙂
My love and gratitude forever is being channeled towards Claire Saffitz, but especially on bagel day. I first tried bagels because I recall Claire saying something about how if you tried sourdough bread during the pandemic and it was challenging, then bagels might be an easier and more fun place to start. My bagels have improved immensely over the past couple of years. I went from making delicious but extremely flat UFOs to making something that more closely resembles the classic NY bagel everyone loves.
The video I used to learn how to make bagels (NYT Cooking): Claire Saffitz Makes Homemade Bagels
Claire’s newer video on making bagels (Claire Saffitz X Dessert Person) : Claire Saffitz Teaches You How To Make Perfect Bagels
My first try ever:
The bagels I made this weekend:
These were brown sugar cinnamon bagels with dried tart cherries. They turned out pretty good, but next time I would add more cinnamon (we ran out so I couldn’t add much to begin with) and I would cut the dried cherries smaller. Also, given the sugar content I would for sure use parchment paper next time.
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The “Ultimate” Chocolate Chip Cookie
I think if you are a person without a go-to chocolate chip cookie recipe, than this would be a good one to have in your pocket. My forever favorite, or what I’m assuming will stay my forever favorite, is the Bakery Style Chocolate Chip Cookies from Handle the Heat with the only alteration being that I require the butter to be browned.
The Ultimate Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe this book provides is a solid cookie. If I could only use one word to describe these cookies it would be: fine. I think this recipe could possibly be improved by browning the butter (there are few things that aren’t improved by the addition of brown butter) but that definitely ups the challenge and effort required. Overall its not a standout cookie and I think it lacks some complexity. Most cookies develop more flavor when frozen or chilled overnight, but these had a similar texture and flavor after one hour of freezing and after two days.
Overall: 3.5/5
Flavor: 3/5
Texture: 4/5
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The Best Cookie Yet
This cookie far exceeded my expectations. I was going to see family for dinner and I offered to bring desert. I made these cookies with one person in mind, a person who loves cookies but doesn’t love anything too sweet (for our holiday cookie bake off she made Adobo chocolate chip cookies which contain soy sauce and pink peppercorns). These Strawberry and Rosemary Shortbread were a hit and the rosemary helps give them a flavor that is more complex than your average shortbread.
Notes: You DO NOT need as much strawberry sugar as the recipe calls for. This is just a topping so you need 1/4 cup MAX. To make the strawberry sugar it calls for 1/2 cup sugar and 1/2 cup freeze dried strawberries, I would use two tablespoons of each. I’ve been adding strawberry sugar to everything I’ve eaten since making these cookies and I still have so much left.
Notes: I was running late making these and I cut them while still warm. The cookies were delicious but really crumbly so next time I would cut them while warm but leave them in the pan until cool.
Lastly, I baked them for 35 minutes. They were browning at the edges but when cut still seemed undercooked in the middle. Not sure if this is due to underbaking or due to cutting and eating them while warm.
Overall Rating: 5/5 Stars
Texture: 4/5 (see notes above)
Flavor: 5/5
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A Delicious Puddle
This cookie (Spiced Chocolate Chunk Oatmeal Cookie) has potential. As you can see, there were some technical difficulties. A few factors to take into account: I made a half recipe and I am notoriously bad at halve-ing recipes successfully, also the recipe calls for rye flakes with the option of subbing in more oats if you don’t have rye flakes. I have no clue what a rye flake looks like let alone how it affects baking, but based on how my cookies turned out I would guess that the rye flakes act as a better binding agent than the oats.
Notes: Next time I would either buy rye flakes or sub the 1/2 cup rye flakes for 1/4 cup flour and 1/4 cup oats rather than just 1/2 cup of oats. Also the recipe calls for dark chocolate but I used milk chocolate which I had in the house. Would not recommend milk chocolate, it makes them a bit too sweet.
Going off of how my attempt turned out I give these cookies the following rating:
Overall: 2/5
Flavor: 4/5
Texture: 2.5/5 (big possibility this was user error)
I want to try these again because I think I would love them if they were the thickness of the cookies shown in the recipe and if I used dark chocolate.
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Cookie #1
Cinnamon Pinwheel Cookies
These were fun to make if you’re down for a project. They’re cute once baked but certainly more work than just rolling the dough in cinnamon sugar (which I imagine might yield a similar flavor?). I’m tempted to say you don’t need as much cinnamon sugar as the recipe calls for because when baked there is the texture of just chewing on raw sugar which isn’t my favorite. I also think less filling would keep the spirals from falling apart which many of mine did.
Overall: 3/5
Texture: 3.5/5 (originally 2/5, see update below)
Flavor: 4/5
UPDATE: Ok, so I hadn’t baked all of the dough the first night and I cut up a few more to bake the next day and cooked them for about 2 minutes less. Specifically, I baked them until they were no longer shiny, but before they started to brown. I like them so much more this way! If you don’t like a crunchy cookie be sure not to overbake them.