Week 8- Chocolate Cake and Mini Donuts

This week I made the christmas dinner on Sunday, and for dessert I  made a chocolate cake and mini donuts.
The chocolate cake turned out actually very, very good! That's cause I mixed it up a bit. When I was younger, I'd make a betty crocker cake and buy frosting and just spread it on. However, with this chocolate cake I made a chocolate mousse filling that went wonderful with it and it tasted like a buche de noel. My favorite part of the whole cake was the chocolate fondant I topped it with. My goodness, it was to die for. It was like someone melted chocolate truffles and spread it on the top. However, I strongly recommend using ghiradelli chocolate chips instead of toll house. Also, for a received a pastry bag with different tips for christmas, so next time I make a cake I will be fancy-ing it up a bit. :)

The mini donuts were made with the donut maker my sister got for Christmas. I used the recipe that was in the directions of the kit for the donut, but used my own glaze recipes. The donut part itself was okay. It wasted more like the inside of a croissant or biscuit, but not completely. I don't know if that makes sense. Oh, well. Anyways, I made a chocolate glaze, vanilla glaze, apple cider glaze, and a cinnamon sugar topping. I basically just used conf. sugar with milk, or cocoa, or apple cider. They weren't bad, they were just that 'meh' glaze you don't really notice. I didn't like the chocolate one cause I used cocoa instead of  melted chocolate. I'll definitely change that next time. And I didn't care for the apple cider one cause it was kind of sour instead of sweet. Well until next time, and happy holidays! :)

Week 7- Christmas Baskets

This week I made fudge, sugar cookies, snickerdoodles, gingerbread men, shortbread cookies, chocolate turtles, and elephant ears. I put them in little baskets and gave them to friends and family for the holidays. I will go over each one, one by one.

The fudge was made with the recipe found on the back of a fluffernutter container. To save time, my mom helped me with it. It came it real nice and creamy and my dad, a fudge fanatic, loved it.

The Sugar Cookies were just made with the betty crocker sugar cookie mix. They came out normal as usual. I made different shapes with them, colored them to create the swirl effect, and mixed cinnamon sugar with them (that's how I made the snickerdoodles).

The gingerbread men were really good as well. The only thing is, baking them for just the perfect amount of time. If anything, over bake them, so they are strong and not floppy. Some of them I baked for a less amount of time and I just assumed when they cooled they would harden. They did not, they were floppy.

The shortbread cookies were the same ones I made from week 5. The only thing I did different was sprinkle green and red little sprinkles and flakes on the chocolate while it was still wet.

The chocolate turtles did not come out like the ones that my mom usually buys from christmas stores. They were okay. Each one had 5 pecans, a drop of caramel, and covered on chocolate. The caramel, like the caramel cupcakes, was very, very hard. So the turtles were very hard and chewy. If you like hard and chewy type of things, then you'll like these.

The elephant ears were probably my favorite thing that I made. Using just puff pastry and cinnamon sugar, these tasted like monkey bread but with a more flakey texture. Mmmmm:)

Picture will be posted soon

Week 6- Caramel Cupcakes

This week I made caramel cupcakes. I have someone who strongly dislikes these (mom, lol), and I have someone who strongly loves these (dad, lol).
But I thought they were good in moderation. Not bad tasting or unpleasant. They were very sweet. Each one was basically a sweet vanilla-flavored cupcake, with a half of a caramel in the center, a caramel glaze spread thin on top, then caramel whipped cream on that, with a caramel drizzle on the very top. Lotsa caramel!
As flavorful as they were, there are some things I changed and will change next time. I tried to do the 'caramel frosting' the recipe called for and it came out just as a caramel sauce type of thing. So I left 1/4 of that sauce in the bowl (for the first spread and drizzle) and whipped up leftover heavy cream and gradually added much of the caramel to the whipped cream to flavor it. Came out good!
I was surprised to see the caramels in the middle of the cupcakes harden after they were out of the oven. Since my cupcakes were super small, it was like a blowpop. You eat it, and the middle you suck or chew on that piece of caramel. That was the make it or break it deal. My dad loved that after affect of the caramel, whereas my mom didn't.

By the way, the way the recipe uses its directions for the 'frosting' is screwed up. I can't explain it, but working with melting sugar and water and all that is really hard.

Week 5- Shortbread Cookies

This week I made shortbread cookies. These are definately, by far, the most loved baked good I've made. They are just scrumptious! Lol. I actually have a request for the recipe I used! Someone said they tasted like they are from a bakery. The only thing I changed about the recipe is that I added about 3 tablespoons of water into the dough before I put it in the refridgerator because it was to crumby to clump together. I also dipped them in ghirardelli  chocolate after they cooled. The texture of them was perfect, especially when they're all chewed in your mouth. I'm debating to delete that sentence, I guess I'll leave it. I'll upload a picture in a couple days (technical difficulties).

Ingrediants:
-3/4 pound butter softened
-1 cup sugar
-1 tsp vanilla extract
-3 1/2 cup flour
-1/4 tsp salt
-gran. sugar for sprinkling
- (optional) chocolate melted for dipping


Steps:
1.) mix butter and sugar till fluffy, then add in the vanilla.
2.) mix flour and salt in a seperate bowl, then add it to the butter mixture.
3.) Dump onto floured surface and shape into a flat disc, then cover in plastic wrap and chill 30 mins.
4.) Roll dough 1/2 inch thick, then but into 3x1in rectangles.
5.) sprinkle some gran sugar on top all of them, then bake 20-25 mins at  350 degrees f.
6.) Dip, drizzle, or do what you want with the melted chocolate after they've cooled.


I made about 40 cookies, and each one had around 130-140 calories.

Week 4- Strawberry Scoop (aka strawberry bread pudding)

This week I had made strawberry scoop, some call it strawberry bread pudding. It was okay. I made a few changes to the recipe and it came out okay. I only used the non-crust part of the bread (maybe that's why it was kind of soggy). I also used more strawberries than it asked for. Surprisingly, it didn't stick to the pan, and when it cooled, it was easy to cut out. The looks of it were o.k., not really pretty but not gross. It tasted better when it was right out of the oven. I had some with ice cream, and it was a good combination. Whipped cream would work as well. To be blunt, I didn't really care for the taste. The only thing that made the recipe good was the strawberries. The bread part was weird to chew in the mouth, like kind of play-doh-ey. Also, it was to moist, as in the juices were at the bottom of the pan. My mom like it more than I did. However, when it was refrigerated, it just sat in the fridge the rest of the week cause it doesn't taste good out of the fridge. No, I wouldn't say Strawberry Scoop was a success. It was a little gross after a while, actually.

Ingredients:
-4 eggs
-2 cups milk
-1/2 cup sugar
-1/4 cup brown sugar
-1 tsp vanilla
-2 tsp cinnamon
-1/2 tsp salt
-12 oz. bread in pieces (I used a hard crusted loaf)
-2 cups strawberries

Week 3- Apple Hand Pies

This week I made Apple Hand Pies. I liked them very much. I followed the directions mostly to a tee, with a few extra changes. First of all, when I mixed the diced butter and flour, I had to hand mix it. Stirring wouldn't do anything, obviously, the electric mixer started to make a complete mess, and I did not have a food processor. However, hand mixing is not a bad choice. It ended up 'sandy' within just a few minutes. Also, I did not use any salt because the only butter in my house was salted butter. Also, the end results seemed plain, so I sprinkled cinnamon sugar and the rest of the apple filling on top of each one. I thought they tasted very good, especially the filing part.
 The only changes I would make are rolling out the dough thinner, so that more are made and they wouldn't taste as doughy. Because the dough was kind of thickish for each one, I had to bake them longer and they did in fact, taste doughy (which I don't mind). Also, next time I need to close the ends better because some of the pies were slightly opened where they should be closed.

But yes, I think these were pretty successful! :)

Ingredients:
2 1/2 cup flour
1/2 tsp salt
2 sticks butter, diced
1/4 cup sour cream
1/2 cup ice water
4 tsp lemon juice
2 apples peeled and diced
2 tbsp butter melted
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/3 cup brown sugar

Week 2- Chocolate Jelly Roll ll

I redid the roll today! It's not beautiful, but it was a lot better this time than my last one!

Week 2- Chocolate Jelly Roll

Today I made the Chocolate Jelly Roll and it was a disaster. Not competely, just the end product. It was supposed to be a chocolate cake part, mousse chocolate filling, and a chocolatey drizzle on top. I didn't do the drizzle on top at the end cause it was too messy and I just couldn't make it look nice no matter what. Alright.
First things first, I am HORRIBLE at whipping anything into nice stiff peaks. For the mousse part, I needed to whip the whipping cream a lot more. Also, when I added the melted chocolate and egg mixture to the mousse part, I should have let both of them cool more before folding in. It just warmed the whipped cream even more and made it more liquidy. Next, the cake part came out nicely. However, I rolled it in a towel and I should have let it cool in the towel longer. When I unrolled it and applied the mousse, it started spreading out a lot more and off the cake! So when I rolled it back up, that was my breaking point. 1.) the cake was stuck to the towel and chunks were coming off and 2.) the melting mousse was poooouuring out of the cake. Arg! So in the end, I just shoved it all in a tupperwear container.

My mom says I should try it again next week. Despite my frustration, humiliation, and dissapointment, maybe I will. I mean who wants to be a failure? Not me. And I was excited to use the cornstarch cause I've never used it before. Until next week, buh bye!

Ingediants:
(cake part)
1/2 cup flour
1 tsp baking bowder
1/4 cup cocoa powder
1/4 tsp salt
4 egg yolks
1/2 tsp vanilla
1/3 cup sugar
4 egg whites
1/2 cup sugar

(chocolate mousse part)
6 oz chocolate
1  cup heavy whipping cream
1 tbsp water
1 egg
2 egg yolks
pinch salt
1/3 cup sugar

(chocolate drizzle)
1/2 cup sugar
4 tbsp cornstarch
dash salt
1 oz chocolate
1/2 cup water
2 tbsp butter

1/2 tsp vanilla

Week 1- Chocolate Phyllo Pockets

Hi, I'm Alexis. I am starting this new thing where I bake something new once a week for the next year. Why am I doing this? It's because I simply love to bake, and I need something in my life where I can control happily and enjoy. So, I started two days ago, Monday. I made my first dessert- Chocolate Phyllo Pockets. By the way, I don't make the recipe, I copy them from wherever I can find them (magazines, cookbooks, online, etc.) Sorry if I 'copy' a recipe of yours. Be flattered :) ! Anyways, I will also be making a short video of the baking process, for my own good (and anyone else who is interested). I'm not sure how to post videos, so I'll lay that off for a while. But let me tell you about my pockets.

First of all, the recipe I used calls for like this big ole bowl of butter so you can brush the pockets, I didn't use nearly half of it. So you just need a little bit (not 6 tbsp). Also, it was the perfect amt. of nutella-choc mix. The phyllo, as I heard before, was in fact kind of ahrd to work with because it is so thin, and it dries easily. So work fast! Maybe add a couple more layers of phyllo on each pocket, or at least a whole one. The end result was what it looks like, it tastes like. A little plain, the poundcake part that is. My suggestion for the next time I do this recipe-- add something in it. Maybe cut up fruit (ex. strawberries, bananas, apples, etc.), chocolate chips or other kinds of chips, or even some kind of cream in the middle (bavarian?). Makes about 12 pockets, and 210 cals per pocket (calories differ with different types of poundcake and chocolate and other things. You can always ask me what calories are in something, I'll always have an answer [eventually]). Thanks for reading! This is my first blog type of thing, so I appreciate anyone who is interested :) !


Ingrediants:
-5 oz semisweeet chocolate
-1/2 cup nutella
-1 box betty crocker poundcake (made already)
-6 tbsp butter (probably more like 3)
-4 sheets phyllo dough (I used like 7)
-2 tbsp conf. sugar
-optional: raspberries for decoration.