Here’s the deal: I make the best cookies. They’re freaking perfect. They are the cookies from the inside of the lid of one of those round cardboard boxes of Quaker Oats. The recipe goes like this(I have it memorized I’ve made it so many times):

• 1 cup of butter (2 sticks) at room temperature, or softened in the microwave(not melted)
• 1 cup of brown sugar (I prefer dark brown)
• 1/2 cup of white sugar (I prefer a fine raw sugar. The Olympia Food Co-op sells this in bulk)

Cream that stuff together. It’ll take up to a couple minutes, but be patient. When butter and sugar are “creamed” it means they look like one creamy substance instead of sugar with butter chunks in it.

Then add in

• 2 eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla

Mix those in nicely.

When that is all one delicious concoction, dump in 

• 1 1/2 cups of flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon

Mix it in well. Then add:

• 3 cups oats
• 1 - 2 cups milk chocolate chips (sometimes I just do a cup, sometimes whatever’s left in an open bag, sometimes the whole 12 oz bag, which equals about 2 cups)

Stir all of this with a wooden spoon, then put it on a baking sheet and bake for about 10 minutes at 350 degrees. They will be soft and mushy when they first come out of the oven but the bottoms should look toasty. Give them a few minutes and they will firm up nicely. Then transfer to a wire rack or a plate or your mouth.

Nom Nom!

My birthday fell on a Monday this year which meant that any sort of special food/things were pushed to Thursday. We had some friends over and I made a casserole, an artichoke dip and an amazing chocolate cake… busy busy busy! I’d promised myself that I’d make a cake and, while it wasn’t the one I was planning on originally, I did wind up making a really good Chocolate Stout Cake from Smitten Kitchen. I used really strong liquid coffee instead of instant and it worked really well. This cake keeps getting better the longer it sits around in the kitchen too! Oh man, I’m going to have to go have a piece now…

Chocolate Stout Cake

This recipe was originally intended to make a layer cake of 3 8-inch rounds. Upon many reviewers’ suggestions, I halved it and it fit perfectly in a bundt pan. The halved amount is below, and the icing replaced with a simple ganache.

1 cup stout (such as Guinness)
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder (preferably Dutch-process)
2 cups all purpose flour
2 cups sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
3/4 teaspoon salt
2 large eggs
2/3 cup sour cream*
6 ounces good semisweet chocolate chips
6 tablespoons heavy cream
3/4 teaspoon instant coffee granules

Cake prep:
Preheat oven to 350°F. Butter or spray a bundt pan well; make sure you get in all of the nooks and crannies. (Some people even go so far as to brush the inside of their bundt pans with melted butter–you cannot be too careful!). Bring 1 cup stout and 1 cup butter to simmer in heavy large saucepan over medium heat. Add cocoa powder and whisk until mixture is smooth. Cool slightly.

Whisk flour, sugar, baking soda, and 3/4 teaspoon salt in large bowl to blend. Using electric mixer, beat eggs and sour cream in another large bowl to blend. Add stout-chocolate mixture to egg mixture and beat just to combine. Add flour mixture and beat briefly on slow speed. Using rubber spatula, fold batter until completely combined. Pour batter into prepared pan. Bake cake until tester inserted into center comes out clean, about 35 minutes. Transfer cake to rack; cool completely in the pan, then turn cake out onto rack for drizzling ganache.**

Ganache:
For the ganache, melt the chocolate, heavy cream, and coffee in the top of a double boiler over simmering water until smooth and warm, stirring occasionally. Drizzle over the top of cooled cake.

101 Cookbook’s mushroom casserole is so very tasty! I like to substitute wild rice for half of the brown rice the recipe wants. Here’s the recipe taken from 101 cookbooks, make sure you visit her site to see what other tasty things she has:

Mushroom Casserole Recipe

Use any cooked grain you like. Feel free to use low-fat cottage cheese or sour cream if you prefer.

1/2 pound (8 ounces) brown mushrooms, cleaned and chopped
1 large onion, well chopped
3 cloves garlic, finely chopped
3 cups cooked brown rice, room temperature
2 large eggs
1 cup cottage cheese
1/2 cup sour cream
1/2 teaspoon fine grain sea salt
1/3 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
a bit of fresh tarragon, chopped

Preheat oven to 350F degrees. Rub a medium-large baking dish with a bit of olive oil or butter and set aside. The pan I use is slightly smaller than a classic 9×13 baking dish - just grab for something in this ballpark.

In a large skillet over medium-high heat saute the mushrooms in a glug of olive oil sprinkled with a couple pinches of salt. Stir every minute or so until the mushrooms have released their liquid and have browned a bit. Add the onions and cook for another 4 or 5 minutes or until they are translucent. Stir in the garlic, cook for another minute and remove from heat. Add the rice to the skillet and stir until combined.

In a medium bowl whisk together the eggs, cottage cheese, sour cream, and salt.

Combine the rice mixture and cottage cheese mixture in a large bowl, stir until well combined and then turn out into your prepared baking dish. Sprinkle with 2/3 of the Parmesan cheese, cover with foil and place in oven for 30 minutes. Remove foil and bake for another 20 or 30 minutes more or hot throughout and golden along the edges. Sprinkle with the chopped tarragon, and the remaining Parmesan and enjoy.

Serves about 6.

I also used 101 cookbooks’ baked artichoke dip recipe. I feel like there was something missing from it… something earthy to balance all of that artichoke, but it did wind up being pretty darn good, fresh from the oven. I think next time I’ll use the Quattro Formaggio cheese blend from Trader Joes instead of Parmesan, press the artichokes to get some of that extra moisture out and use a little less yogurt. This recipe was also taken directly from 101 cookbooks:

Baked Artichoke Dip Recipe

Sometimes silken tofu can be hard to find. No worries, I’ve had success using medium firm regular tofu as well - just stay clear of the firm and extra-firm varieties. For some added nutritional punch and color quickly saute a couple handfuls of spinach in a bit of olive oil - toss it in the food processor with the artichokes, tofu, and garlic.

2 (14-ounce) cans water-packed artichokes, well drained
4 ounces organic silken tofu
3 large cloves garlic
1/3 cup Parmesan cheese, freshly grated
2/3 cup plain (or Greek) yogurt
1/4 teaspoon fine grain sea salt, or more to taste
pinch of cayenne pepper

more Parmesan to sprinkle on top

Preheat oven to 350F degrees. In a blender or food processor puree the artichokes, tofu, and garlic. In a separate medium bowl whisk together the parmesan cheese, yogurt, salt, and cayenne. Stir in the artichoke puree and pour mixture into a medium-sized baking dish (or multiple smaller dishes). Sprinkle the top with more Parmesan. Bake uncovered until heated through and the cheese on the top starts to brown, about 45 minutes.

Makes 2-3 cups of artichoke dip.

I make the brownie recipe from The Joy of Cooking. I add a cup of milk chocolate chip in place of the pecans. Enjoy!

Brownies Cockaigne

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease a baking pan lined with foil. Melt in a small saucepan:

• 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter
• 4 ounces unsweetened chocolate

Let cool. If you don’t, your brownies will be heavy and dry. Beat until light in color and foamy in texture.

• 4 large eggs
• 1/4 teaspoon salt

Gradually add and continue beating until thick:

• 2 cups sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla

With a few swift strokes, stir in the cooled chocolate mixture just until combined. Even if you are using an electric mixer, switch to a wooden spoon for this. Stir in just until combined:

• 1 cup all-purpose flour

Gently stir in, if desired:

• (1 cup chopped pecans)

Scrape batter into the prepared pan. Bake about 25 minutes. Cool completely in the pan on a rack.

I woke up before the ‘rents this morning so I decided to try to sneak some cinnamon roles into the oven before they got up. Last week I’d spotted a very pretty recipe and I’d just been waiting for the perfect moment to try it out. This was such a moment!

And thus the cimaninny roles were born. I didn’t have any cream cheese on hand (as usual, I don’t have some ingredient or another so there was a bit of scrambling at the end), instead I made a frosting from an allrecipe recipe. The frosting was essentially: 3 tablespoons melted butter, vanilla, and 3 tablespoons milk plus a good deal of confectioner’s sugar (1.5-2 cups). So very tastey. I think next time I’ll make them the night before so they’ll be ready to pop in the oven in the morning.

I thought perhaps we’d be having more people come to dinner tonight than actually did and I started cooking with this in mind. I started to make a Pear Upside-Down Cake at 3:30, pulled it out of the oven at 5 and stuck the Baked Pasta Casserole into the still hot oven to get oozy and toasty as these cheesy things are wont to do. Alas it was only the three of us and I’m glad one of my favorite things just happens to be leftovers.

Ok, so this is really REALLY not my picture. I horked it from 101 cookbooks where I got the recipe. When I cook, I usually do it for dinner when the light is not so good and rather yellow. This happened with the pasta. I love this dish and I wanted to do it some justice.

I was intrigued by this cake recipe because it wanted buttermilk as well as freshly ginger, two things I definitely don’t dabble in every day. Or at all. I was totally unprepared for how beautiful fresh ginger smells. It has a clean, sweet smell that gets worked into your fingers as you grate it and into the wood of our counter top.

It turned out to be a heavy, molassesy moist cake that was still warm after we’d finished with dinner. With a chunk of vanilla ice cream melting into the edges, soaked up by the cake, everything felt right with the world. Right now both of these are sitting happily together on their respective dessert and pasta shelves in my tummy.

Ben had left some bananas to rot so today I made banana bread to celebrate overcoming a stomach flu.

I used this recipe from allrecipes.com with some minor alterations:

Moist Yummy Banana Bread

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup butter, softened
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup plain yogurt
• 2 bananas, mashed

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease a 9×5 inch loaf pan.
2. In a large bowl, cream the sugar and butter. Add the eggs and vanilla, mix well. Combine the flour, baking soda and salt, stir into the butter mixture until smooth. Finally, fold in the yogurt and bananas. Spread evenly into the prepared pan.
3. Bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for 60 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the loaf comes out clean. Cool loaf in the pan for 10 minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool completely.

These are by far my favorite cookies. They’re Sparkled Ginger Cookies from Bread & Honey. I think I’ve made ten batches in the last two months they’re so good!

I’ve only made two changes to the recipe. 1.) I don’t use that large grain sugar. I don’t like all that extra crunch. 2.) I only bake them for 9 minutes. They’re perfect at nine and they harden just slightly around the edges as they cool with a nice squishy center. I definitely let them cool on the pan for a while before I move them to a rack… it makes a big difference. Between these and the pumpkin scones from the same site our winter days are much tastier!

The first baking post. A while ago the Hanzipan team got together for a weekend of mad cookery. We just so happened to make some Lemon Poppy Seed Butterfly Cupcakes from the book Cupcakes! They took zest from four lemons but it was ohhh so worth it!

Starzipan modeling the tasty tasty cupcakes. They were gone well before noon the next day.

And then Star had the idea to make some mozzarella cheese. She’d gotten a kit a while ago and hadn’t used it yet. Can you think of a better time to make cheese than that one? No, I didn’t think so. Anywho, I know these pictures look familiar but I really wanted to document the occasion properly on this wee blog!

Blog is live! Blog is go!

XD

P.S. These are White Christmas Cupcakes from the book Cupcakes! by Elinor Klivans. I gave them to my relatives, tucked inside mugs. Get it? Cakes in cups? Cupcakes?

The cakes are a light, fluff pure white cake(though mine got a bit browned on top) with a white chocolate cream cheese frosting and shavings of white chocolate on top. And of course a dusting of powdered sugar.