White Chocolate Chip Cookies!

For my last blog post, i decided to do another cookie recipe since i started off my blog with a cookie recipe, i wanted to end it with a cookie recipe! The recipe is quite similar to the original one i did in my first blog post but this is a little tweaked. Also a relative of mines birthday is coming up and they love white chocolate chips so what better excuse to make these amazing cookies from scratch! According to the book, "This cookie recipe will make a total of three dozen cookies when using two tablespoons for each cookie" (Pansino 32).

The ingredients you will need are:

- 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour 

- 2 teaspoon baking soda 

- 1 teaspoon salt 

- 2 sticks (8 ounces) salted butter, at room temperature 

- 3/4 cup granulated sugar 

- 3/4 firmly packed light brown sugar 

- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

- 2 large eggs 

- 12 ounces white chocolate chips 

Directions:

1. The first thing you do is preheat the oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit and in a medium bowl, mix together the flour, baking soda, and salt.
2. In a large bowl, cream together the butter, granulated sugar, brown sugar, and vanilla. Next you add the eggs, one at a time and scrape the sides of the bowl if needed.
3. After the two mixtures are all mixed, "beat the flower mixture in parts of three until combined" (Pansino 32). This step i think is such a important step because if you dont put the flour into three parts, it would get very messy and i know that no one want to clean up a mess of flour so i made sure i divided them into three parts and luckily, i didn't make a mess!
4. Next you would fold in the white chocolate chips and place two tablespoon of dough per cookie onto the baking sheet. This part i kind of changed up a bit because i am making these for a specific occasion and needed different sizes but the recipe says 2 tablespoons of dough per cookie.

5. After the oven is done pre-heating, put the cookies into the oven for 7 to 9 minutes and after they are done, take them out to cool completely. I decided to set my timer for 8 minutes because it is in the middle of seven and nine. In the book, the author specifically says when cooling the cookies, not to place them in the freezer but let them air cool (Pansino 21). When you place the cookies in the freezer, the cookies start to crack so i made sure that i didn't put them int the freezer and it took for me about 30 minutes for all the cookies to cool and finally be complete and ready to eat! If you have a wire rack, that would be a better place to place the cookies overnight and wake up to them fully ready to be gobbled down!

Final Presentation:

The total number of cookies that i got from this recipe was 39 cookies! Luckily i have people to eat them so they just dont lay around my house. I felt like this recipe with the white chocolate chips were okay but not the best. The brown sugar didn't compliment the white chocolate chips as well as they could've but they still tasted amazing. I feel like the white chocolate chips would be good with maybe a sugar cookie recipe rather than one that needed regular chocolate chips. Other than that, it tasted amazing and the white chocolate tasted amazing and overall, this wasn't my best recipe, but it was a good one to try out. Either way, THE OUTCOME WAS DELICIOUS! 

Question: What is your least favorite type of cookie and why?

Citation: Pansino, Rosanna. The Nerdy Nummies Cookbook: Sweet Treats for the Geek in All of Us. New York: Atria, 2015. Print.

Vanilla Cupcakes :)

Today i will be teaching you guys the steps on how to make vanilla cupcakes FROM SCRATCH! I feel like i have been making so much chocolate recipes and leaving vanilla behind! If you are not a fan of chocolate, this recipe is perfect for you because vanilla is such a staple to the baking industry and its such a classic that i think (or hope) everyone is a fan of). This recipe is also good for if you just wanted to bake a pan and in the book the author, Rosanna Pansino suggest that "You use a 9 x 13 inch pan" (25). If you are going to make these into cupcakes, they should make a total of 2 cupcakes
depending on how much you fill each cupcake tray.


The ingredients you will need are:
- 2 cups all purpose flour
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1/8 teaspoon salt
- 1 stick (4 ounces) salted butter, at room temperature
- 1/4 cup solid vegetable shortening
- 1 1/2 cups sugar
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 1/4 teaspoon almond extract
- 5 large egg whites
- 3/4 cup whole milk

Directions:
1. The first step in very baking recipe is always to pre-heat your oven so for this recipe, pre-heat your oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit and line your tray with cupcake tins and get your ingredients all ready.
2. In a medium bowl, mix together the flour, baking powder, and salt. Then set that aside.
3. In a large bowl. beat the butter and shortening until softened. Then add the sugar and beat until light and fluffy. This part took me about 3-5 minutes and i suggest scrapping the sides of the bowl so you get every piece of the batter.
4. Beat in the vanilla and almond extracts.
5. The author says to add each egg white one egg at a time and beat well after each egg (Pansino 25).
6. Alternate adding the flour mixture and milk to the butter mixture, beginning and ending with the flour mixture.
7. Pour the batter evenly into each cupcake tin, filling them 2/3 full and then pop them into the oven. The book says it takes about 18-20 minutes or until a inserted toothpick comes out clean but for me, 18 minutes was enough time for them to be perfectly cooked.
8. CAREFULLY (i put carefully in all caps because i wasn't) take out the cupcakes and let them cool for about 20 minutes and if you want, you may decorate!

Final Presentation/Thoughts: 
As i predicted, these cupcakes were absolutely delicious! My first thought was that they tasted exactly like the box version (to be honest) which i guess is not a bad thing, but it was ju
st so surprising to find out that they taste so alike. Other than the comparison to the box, the cake was so fluffy and soft and it was just perfect and the blue icing to top it off added
some cute bonus points! Overall i think that this was a successful recipe and it worked very well and i'm so happy with the outcome. :)

Question: Do you guys like pre-made cake mixture or making it from scratch?

Citation: Pansino, Rosanna. The Nerdy Nummies Cookbook: Sweet Treats for the Geek in All of Us. New York: Atria, 2015. Print.

Rich Chocolate Cake

This next recipe that i will be sharing with you guys was the toughest recipes I've done for this Independent Reading Project so far. There was so many bumps (literally) and challenges that i faced doing this but through all those challenges, the outcome was better than ever. This recipe will feed about 4-5 people depending on how many slices a person wants. In the book, there was an option of doing this recipe as a cupcake or just as a whole cake but if you decided to, "this recipe would make 24 cupcakes as well" (Pansino 27).

The ingredients you will need are:
- 1 & 1/2 cups of all-purpose flour
- 2/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder, plus more for dusting the pan
- 1 &1/2 teaspoons of baking soda
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon of ground cinnamon
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 & 1/3 cups of granulated sugar
- 2/3 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
- 4 large eggs
- 1/3 cup of water
- 2 teaspoons of vanilla extract
- 1 cup of sour cream
- 1/4 cup of vegetable oil

Directions:
1. The first thing you will need to do is gather your ingredients and
pre-heat your oven to 325 degrees Fahrenheit then after that, grease a 9 x 13-inch metal pan. Now this was kind of weird for me because whenever i see a cake, i dont see it in a baking pan. I usually see it in a round baking pan so i decided to change that and use a round pan instead of a basic baking pan. Line the bottom of the pan with parchment paper and dust some cocoa powder on the pan.
2. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder, cin
namon, and salt. After those are all mixed, mix in the sugar in until evenly combined and then set that aside. A thing that was challenging for me was that i kept getting little "rocks" of brown sugar and you dont want those because you dont want to take a bite of just brown sugar in your cake. So, i got a pair of gloves and popped the brown sugars so i didn't have any bumps!
3. In a medium bowl, whisk together the eggs, water, and vanilla and then after that is mixed, then add the sour cream and oil.  After the two mixtures are evenly mixed, your gonna make a hole in the dry mixture (this is called a well) and then you would add the wet mixture into the whole and then in a folding motion, mix the two mixtures until there is not more dry streaks of flour but DO NOT OVER MIX!
4. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and spread evenly then tap the pan on the table to get rid of any bubbles. Bake for around 25-40 minutes or until a wooden pick is inserted and it comes out clean. For me, 37 minutes was fine.
5. Let the cake cool in the pan for about 15 minutes and also in the book, the author says that if this necessary, you can loosen the cake from the sides of the pan with a small knife (Pansino 27). Carefully flip the cake upside down onto a wire rack or a plate that can fit the cake and peel off the parchment paper, and then flip the cake right side up and decorate (always optional)
NOTE: if making cupcakes with this recipe, line the 24 cupcake trays, fill them almost 3/4 full, bake for around 18-20 minutes, and then let them cool for 15 minutes and decorate (optional)

Final Presentation:

Although this was the hardest and most difficult recipe i made for this IRP, it was definitely the tastiest. The cake was super rich, rich to the point where it started to taste like dark chocolate. It was super fluffy and absolutely perfect and adding frosting made it 1000 times better. One tip that i do have for you if you ever do this is to make sure there are no bubbles or pieces of sugars because i did find one big chunk of brown sugar in one a slice that i took out. Just make sure to mix the dry ingredients carefully but other than that, it was amazing. If i had to chose which recipe i would do again out of all the recipes iv'e done so far, i would definitely chose those because the cake was seriously so good! In the end, there were some challenges to face along the way but the outcome was to die for!

Question: What's your favorite cake flavor and why?

Citation: Pansino, Rosanna. The Nerdy Nummies Cookbook: Sweet Treats for the Geek in All of Us. New York: Atria, 2015. Print.

Brownies!

The next recipe that i am gonna share with you guys is one of my favorite deserts of all time. I always bake for any special occasion whether its a holiday, birthday, or just whenever i'm bored, i bake. I may not be good at it, but i have a passion for it and always strive myself to be the best baker i can be and brownies are (to me) the easiest thing to make. The reason why its very easy for me is because i would always use a boxed brownie mix. Since this book has a brownie recipe that doesn't need any boxed brownie mix, i wanted to give this a try! Also since the holidays are coming up, why not try these out and make them for a party or a family event! Although, since this recipe only makes around 9-16 brownies, if you were to make these for party's i suggest doubling the recipe.

The ingredients you will need are: 

- 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar 

- 1/2 cup all-purpose flour 

- 1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder 

- 1/4 teaspoon salt 

- 1/2 cup vegetable oil 

- 1/3 cup whole milk 

- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract 

- 1 large egg

Directions: 

1. The first thing you will need to do is preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit grease a 8 x 8-in
ch metal baking pan. Then line the bottom and two sides of the pan with parchment paper. A tip that the author provides us with says to "Leave an overhang to make it easier to take out o the pan" (Pansino 30). 

2. Next, in a medium bowl, whisk together the sugar, flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, and salt. If you dont have a whisk (which at that time i couldn't find one),  i read once that a good replacement for a whisk is a fork. 

3. After that is all whisked, add the oil, milk, vanilla extract, and egg and then whisk that util well combined. Then pour the batter into the prepared pan and spread evenly. 

4. After it has been put into the pan, wait for the oven to be down pre-heated and then bake the brownies around 20-25 minutes. another way to know when the brownies are done is when you insert a wooden toothpick and it comes out clean with not brownie mix on the toothpick (Pansino 32). 

5. Finally, let the brownies cool in the pan and then cut into squares before serving and if you want, to decorate! 

Final Presentation: 

When i did this recipe, it came out with 11 cookies so again, if you were planning on making these for an occasion that you know has a lot of people, i suggest doubling the recipe. As you can see from the pictures, i decorated them but lets just say that my decorating skills were not the best that day. But if you were to look under the frosting and sprinkles, the brownies looked amazing! Also when you bit into the brownies, it was perfect! it was chewy but not too much and it tasted cooked and marvelous! one thing that was very tricky to pull of was the lining of parchment paper in the pan. If i was to be honest, i suggest you guys not use the parchment paper because its just too much work to get the perfect shape for your pan and if you didn't get the perfect shape, it would seep through and there would be brownie mix under the parchment paper and that would eventually get brunt. So what i would've done was just grease the pan and call it a day. But  besides that, i think this recipe was definitely a win!  Also this wasn't as time consuming as i thought it would be! I started this recipe at 8:30 and ended with the brownies plated around 9:30 so it wasn't a super long time. Overall this recipe was a huge success in my case and i encourage you all to try this out because you wont be mad at the outcome!

Question: What do you like on your brownies and why? 

Citation: Pansino, Rosanna. The Nerdy Nummies Cookbook: Sweet Treats for the Geek in All of Us. New York: Atria, 2015. Print

Chocolate Chip Cookies

Baking is something that really interests me but sometimes it can get tough. People start to throw out these crazy ideas and next thing you know, some Italian has made the world's largest cake sculpture in the world! That's why i like to stay with the classics. It might be fun to try out those crazy ideas once in a while but classics will always be the easiest and possibly even the tastiest! It's always good to start off easy and progress onward so today i am going to be showing you a easy and simple chocolate chip cookie recipe that you can try at home because it's not that hard. And plus, who doesn't like chocolate chip cookies?

The ingredients you will need are:

- 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour 

- 2 teaspoon baking soda 

- 1 teaspoon salt 

- 2 sticks (8 ounces) salted butter, at room temperature 

- 3/4 cup granulated sugar 

- 3/4 firmly packed light brown sugar 

- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

- 2 large eggs 

- 12 ounces semisweet chocolate chips 

Directions:

1. The first thing you do is preheat the oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit and in a medium bowl, mix together the flour, baking soda, and salt.
2. In a large bowl, cream together the butter, granulated sugar, brown sugar, and vanilla. Next you add the eggs, one at a time and scrape the sides of the bowl if needed.
3. After the two mixtures are all mixed, "beat the flower mixture in parts of three until combined" (Pansino 32). This step i think is such a important step because if you dont put the flour into three parts, it would get very messy and i know that no one want to clean up a mess of flour so i made sure i divided them into three parts and luckily, i didn't make a mess!
4. Next you would fold in the chocolate chips and place two tablespoon of sough per cookie onto the baking sheet. This part i kind of changed up a bit because i am making these for a specific occasion and needed different sizes but the recipe says 2 tablespoons of dough per cookie.
5. After the oven is done pre-heating, put the cookies into the oven for 7 to 9 minutes and after they are done, take them out to cool completely. I decided to set my timer for 8 minutes because it is in the middle of seven and nine. In the book, the author specifically says when cooling the cookies, not to place them in the freezer but let them air cool (Pansino 21). When you place the cookies in the freezer, the cookies start to crack so i made sure that i didn't put them int the freezer and it took for me about 30 minutes for all the cookies to cool and finally be complete and ready to eat! If you have a wire rack, that would be a better place to place the cookies overnight and wake up to them fully ready to be gobbled down!

Final Presentation: 
The total cookies that i had when i was done was 52 so grab all your friends and get ready to tear
 these cookies apart! When i first look at the cookie, it looks amazing and delicious but when i bit into it, something was off. It wasn't that it didn't taste good, but it was very chewy. The cookie dough wasn't cooked all the way which to be honest, i wasn't mad because i like cookie dough but my advice for people who are trying this recipe out, is to bake them for 9 minutes just so you can be safe and no eat chewy cookie dough. But overall, they were still super delicious and looks amazing. The cookie was so chocolaty because of all of the chocolate chips that were added so there was chocolate in every bite which is awesome! In conclusion, this cookie recipe is an amazing recipe that everyone should try because trust me, the outcome is the best!

There is also another plate full of cookies that couldn't fit in the picture!

Question: What is your favorite cookie and why? Also do you like to eat cookies when they are still hot and fresh out of the oven, or when they have been sitting around for a while and why?

Citation: Pansino, Rosanna. The Nerdy Nummies Cookbook: Sweet Treats for the Geek in All of Us. New York: Atria, 2015. Print.