Busy week!

Hi all!

Haven’t gotten to post lately life has been so crazy! All week I have been working at OMG! Insider and have been baking some awesome treats for Echo’s Friends’ Cookies!!

Echo got to play tug of war for real finally with an awesome pup Charlie at the dog park.

Lindsey and I made a new treat Beefy Donuts!

I’ve also been looking for a new roommate which has been a bit more time consuming than expected. Hopefully we can find the right person soon.

Last night I also made lunch for the next two days at work, Lindsey and her mom had given me this pot of condensed stock:

Shes been making roasts and chicken with it recently, so good!

So I made some ground turkey, spinach and rice using this condensed stock.

First I cooked up the turkey meat on the stove with organic Worcester sauce.

The put 2 bags of rice melody (from trader joes) in the microwave.

Once the meat was cooked up I added the condensed stock and organic frozen spinach, and cooked it until the spinach was warmed through.

Last I added the cooked rice and stirred it well.

Also check out:

Echo’s Friends’ Cookies Website and Facebook Page!

Filmmaking & Cookiebaking’s Instagram

Sister site: Craft Making and Drag Racing

Lindsey’s Jewelry: Hard Wear by Lindsey (Awesome stuff)

Rustified.com – Lifestyle Inspirations from a Renaissance Man (I love his blog- 365 page book for this year, recipes, & daily inspirations)

Rusty J’s Music Site

Echo’s Friend’s Cookies

Yesterday Echo went back to Doggy Day Care and had a blast again at Camp Run-A-Mutt South Bay! While I was there I got to talking with the awesome manager Julie about the adoption event coming up. She mentioned that they have vendors at these events and asked if I baked dog treats. Later when I was with Lindsey we cooked up an idea.

While she was there today Lindsey and I ran all over so I could get all my Easter groceries. We also bought all the supplies for making awesome, mostly organic, non-GMO dog treats! Here’s what we made:

Peanut Butter Banana Crunchies
Adapted from Witty in the City

1 Banana (organic)
1 C Oat Flour
2/3 C Rolled Oats
5 TB Peanut Butter (non-GMO)
1 egg (non-GMO)

• Pulverize 2 C rolled oats in a food processor.

• In a mixing bowl – Mash 1 banana

• Add 1 C oat flour

• Add 2/3 Rolled oats and 4-6 TBSP Peanut Butter

• Add 1 egg

• Combine well

• Prep your counter for rolling out.
I used brown rice flour

• Roll out and cookie cutter!

• Bake at 350 until lightly browned on the bottom and 1/2-3/4 of the moisture as evaporated.

I even did some itty bittys

After they were all done and cooled we took them to Camp Run-A-Mutt for them to check out, feed to their pups, and send home with other camper parents to take home!

Lindsey designed the Tags and I made the ingredient labels. Team effort business building!

She made a second kind of treat also that she will cover on her blog soon-ish!

Banana Carrot Sticks!

Also check out:

Filmmaking & Cookiebaking’s Instagram

Sister site: Craft Making and Drag Racing

Lindsey’s Jewelry: Hard Wear by Lindsey (Awesome stuff)

Rustified.com – Lifestyle Inspirations from a Renaissance Man (I love his blog- 365 page book for this year, recipes, & daily inspirations)

Rusty J’s Music Site

Sticky Chocolate Brownies

I know I just posted about weight loss and fitness but Lindsey and I decided again that we needed chocolate, yes again needed, (haha). So instead of just eating Nutella or chocolate chips I remembered this brownie recipe that i made and the past that was also pretty quick.
From this book:

that I got in a bargain bin years ago.

So here it is:

Sticky Chocolate Brownies

• Grab a small sauce pan and add: 1 TBSP Light Corn Syrup, 3 oz. Butter, 3/4C. Superfine Sugar, 1/2C Brown Sugar, and 4 1/2 oz. Semi Sweet Chocolate .

(I would highly recommend cutting your butter into small pieces. I should have)

(I didn’t have superfine sugar so I used regular but the consistency is better with superfine.)

(I used more chocolate then recommended, I added some mini choc chips, some white, and 2 squares super dark)

• Heat gently until combined well.

• Cool your chocolate mixture after its ready.

• Meanwhile, add 2 eggs, and 1 tsp. Vanilla extract to a mixing bowl and whisk.

• Slowly mix the chocolate mixture into the eggs. And add 3/4C Flour.

• Pour into a well greased cake pan and bake for 25 minutes @ 350.

As the book says….

“it will still be quite stodgy and soft to the touch.”

It is super gooey, rich, sticky, chocolatey, moist, and amazing!

Also check out:

Filmmaking & Cookiebaking’s Instagram

Sister site: Craft Making and Drag Racing

Lindsey’s Jewelry: Hard Wear by Lindsey (Awesome stuff)

Rustified.com – Lifestyle Inspirations from a Renaissance Man (I love his blog- 365 page book for this year, recipes, & daily inspirations)

Rusty J’s Music Site

Airplane cake part 2

As you can see the cake came together great!! But I will finish taking you through how we got there!

Yesterday we left off here…

I pushed it back up and started on a new one! Luckily I was semi prepared for this outcome. So I added two more couplers and plugs and screwed the same plywood used for the wings onto the PVC plugs. (I hope that makes some sense)

After making more rice crispies I started molding the new plane!

Than even more!

Once I was satisfied with that, it was finally time to frost and fondant!! Here’s a nice thin layer of buttercream to help smooth everything out

Now fondant

Then came the details to make it an American Airlines plane!

Then I laid fondant over the base… I prepped and frosted the actual cake part of the cake

(Sorry I didn’t get pics of the assembly but you can still see everything Lindsey and I did to make it come together.

We put the plane on, iced the grass around, painted the base fondant, and added the Birthday girls name!

Thank you to Frank for allowing me to make this cake for Lourdes!

Also check out:
Sister site: Craft Making and Drag Racing

Lindsey’s Jewelry: Hard Wear by Lindsey (Awesome stuff)

Rustified.com – Lifestyle Inspirations from a Renaissance Man (I love his blog- 365 page book for this year, recipes, & daily inspirations)

Rusty J’s Music Site

Airplane cake part 1

I mentioned this yesterday but the last three days I have been making this airplane cake for a client that is a friend. I cannot show you all of it today because the lovely lady he bought it for doesn’t get it until this afternoon! But I can show you part 1.

The idea for the cake is a 3-D airplane over a Tarmac. So Lindsey, Riley, and I started designing and engineering the structure. We decided to make the plane from Rice Crispies. And the Tarmac the cake.

Shopping trip, cake supplies.

I started my screwing the new 2ft x 2 ft Cake board onto a previously made cake stand

Adding PVC plugs onto the base for the plane stability.

While I was doing this Lindsey started planning the wings and drawing them onto very thin plywood.

Next we started cutting PVC for the plane structure.

Lindsey started making rice crispy treats for molding.

And we set off to molding the plane….

By the end of our molding it looked like this …

But by the next morning it looked like this…

And even worse later in the day….

Come back tomorrow to see how we fix the airplane and completed the cake!!!

Part 2 tomorrow! I promise it all worked out for the best

Also check out:
Sister site: Craft Making and Drag Racing

Lindsey’s Jewelry: Hard Wear by Lindsey (Awesome stuff)

Rustified.com – Lifestyle Inspirations from a Renaissance Man (I love his blog- 365 page book for this year, recipes, & daily inspirations)

Rusty J’s Music Site

Banana Muffins with Chocolate chips

So here is the second half of Wednesday night baking with Lindsey. While she was making donut “poops” I made Texas Sheet Cake and this banana bread (which I made as muffins with chocolate chips. Both recipes were handed down from my Grandma Gile.)

These are great for weekend breakfast or snack. (Much healthier without the Chocolate chips though, obviously)

• Add 3/4 C. Sugar, 1/2 C. Oil, and 2 Eggs and mix until frothy.

• Add 1 C. Mashed Bananas, 1 tsp. Vanilla, 1 tsp Cinnamon, & 1/2 tsp. Nutmeg and mix really well (it will be more frothy now).

• Add 1 3/4 C. Flour, 2 tsp. Baking powder, 1/2 tsp Baking soda, & 1 tsp. Salt (once again lol) mix well.

• Add 1 to 2 C. Chocolate chips & nuts (if desired).
• Scoop into muffin cups.

• Bake @ 350 for 16-22 minutes (depending on the size of your muffins) or you can always make it a loaf.

Also check out:
Sister site: Craft Making and Drag Racing

Lindsey’s Jewelry: Hard Wear by Lindsey (Awesome stuff)

Rustified.com – Lifestyle Inspirations from a Renaissance Man (I love his blog- 365 page book for this year, recipes, & daily inspirations)

Rusty J’s Music Site

Blueberry and pumpkin streusel top muffins

After making the pumpkin purée from our garden sugar pumpkins here what we baked! We also had a Costco sized container of beautiful blueberries, my roommate loves them. So Lindsey and I set to baking! (Check out her site! )

Here is the flour, salt, and baking soda in both bowls.

Next, Lindsey added all the spices! Traditional pumpkin pie spices and freshly grated nutmeg

And here comes the pumpkin, from the pumpkin purée I made from my backyard pumpkins!

Since I was making the other muffins we missed photographing some steps … Oops! Sorry friends

Here’s the batter all yummy and ready to go into the muffin cups

Meanwhile i did the blueberry muffins … back to that!

After the flour was measured and set aside (mentioned at the beginning)
I creamed together the butter and sugar

Added eggs, vanilla, and cream

Added the flour mixture (flour, salt, baking soda)

Next comes the glorious blueberries!
Stirred in gently of course 😉

Last thing before baking we mixed up this incredible streusel topping.
Butter, brown sugar, white sugar, cinnamon, oats, yummyness!

Once the batter was scooped and topped with as much streusel as possible it was time to bake and enjoy!

Blueberry on the left, pumpkin on the right.

Here is the recipe I adapted mine from, with a different streusel:
http://barbarabakes.com/2011/05/best-blueberry-streusel-muffins/

Here is the pumpkin recipe: http://www.twopeasandtheirpod.com/pumpkin-cinnamon-streusel-muffins/

What are you baking this fall?

Chunky chewy cookies

I was totally craving cookies this week and I had finally bought more chocolate chips, so here they are! I even made a double batch so I could freeze part of it.

This is my same base recipe I always use, just with different mix ins.

1- Cream butter, white sugar, and brown sugar.

2- Add eggs, vanilla, baking soda, and salt

3- Add flour

4- Add mix ins – chocolate chips, etc.
Today I added: semi-sweet chips, milk chocolate chips, cocoanut, and Heath pieces.

5 – Use an ice cream scoop to scoop the dough onto parchment lined cookie sheets

6 – Bake (I baked mine for a couple extra minutes to get crispy edges.)

What are your favorite mix ins for your cookies ?

Red Velvet Cake

After my errands today I decided to make a Red Velvet Cake. I have my recipe I have adapted and used for a couple years now for my bakery Elle and Olle’s Goodies and Noms but this week on Pintrest I saw both Paula Deen and The Pioneer Woman’s recipes for Red Velvet and wanted to try theirs; so today I am baking Ree’s ( The Pioneer Woman )

Here is Ree’s in this link she made it into a sheet cake where as in her book I used it is a layer cake. Though she says it is basically the same recipe.

(I should’ve taken this pictures as one group shot, oops!)
Anyway, first I creamed the butter and sugar.

1/2 pound (2 sticks) Butter
1 3/4 C. White Sugar

I like to add the food color into the fat ( this is different than Ree’s directions)
And the vanilla. This vanilla paste (pictured) is my absolute favorite thing I have ever found for baking. It is INCREDIBLE, I highly recommend ordering some. Especially if you like making Creme Brûlée or Vanilla cheesecake.

I also added the salt at this point

Next add 2 large Eggs
(oops I forgot to photograph this, sorry!)

I mixed 1 C milk with 1 tsp vinegar, to make a buttermilk substitute.
Also, preparing for the vinegar/baking soda mix

Alternating I added the cake flour and milk mixture to the batter

Last, I added the cocoa powder and the vinegar / baking soda. Finished mixing and added half to a oiled and flowered cake pan.

This only thing I don’t like about the oiled and flowered pan is the residue it leaves on the cake. Next time I will go back to oil and parchment ( Ree only has cooking spray in her directions, I should’ve listened!)

Now for the cream cheese frosting!

Yummy! Hopefully soon I will make Paula Deen’s as well.