Blueberry Buckle

Did you know that blueberries are grown in Florida?  More specifically, they're grown awfully close to where I live?  I've lived in the Tampa Bay area for over ten years, and I had no idea, until I Google-searched for some strawberry picking and found out I was way late on that.  I did, however, find blueberry farms.  I completely made my son's day the first time we went blueberry picking.  We've been several times, most recently on the last weekend of blueberry season at a local blueberry and blackberry farm, and came away with 5 pounds of blueberries.  My mother had told me that when she was little, her mother used to make something called blueberry buckle when they went blueberry picking up north, so I thought I'd do the same.

I did my homework and found several different recipes - some more cake-like, and some more biscuit-like.  I erred on the cake side of things, because doesn't cake just make everything better?  It does in my world.  So, I fiddled around and compiled a couple of different recipes, and wound up with this recipe.  It's got a wonderful streusel topping, and it can be used with fresh or frozen blueberries.  Best part of this recipe?  It's so easy, and blueberries are so wonderful for you, health-wise, that the fact that they're in a cake is perfectly okay!

My husband likes to eat his blueberry buckle warmed up with some half and half on the bottom

Blueberry Buckle
Printer-friendly recipe
3/4 cup white sugar
1/4 cup softened unsalted butter
1 egg
1/2 cup milk
2 cups all-purpose unbleached flour
2 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
2 cups fresh blueberries

Streusel topping
1/4 cup softened unsalted butter
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup white sugar
1/3 cup all-purpose unbleached flour
1/2 tsp cinnamon

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees and grease an 8x8 or 9x9 square pan.
2. Cream together the softened butter and white sugar until well mixed.  Add egg and mix well.
3. In a separate bowl, mix dry ingredients well.  Add to butter/sugar/egg mixture, 1/3 at a time, alternating with your 1/2 cup of milk.  Gently fold in blueberries, then transfer batter to your greased square pan.
4. To make the streusel topping: Mix brown sugar, white sugar, flour, cinnamon, and butter well.  This mixture will be a little bit crumbly.  Sprinkle mixture over the top of your batter.
5. Bake at 375 for 28-30 minutes.  Let cool before serving.  My husband prefers it served warm, so he puts in the microwave for a few minutes after he cuts a slice.

P.S. - Stay tuned for my next recipe next week, a marinara spaghetti sauce that reminds me of Maggiano's!  :)

Oh my goodness, it's my SITS day!!

I truly thought I was being punk'd when I spotted an email from Heather last weekend saying that my SITS day had come at long last!  Especially since I'm in the process of doing a market research study right now that requires me having a Flip Cam by my computer at the moment...a small part of me fully expected to have a bunch of cameras and lights pop out of nowhere and perhaps Ashton Kutcher would start laughing at me maniacally.  But, no, it truly is my SITS day.  And phew, I sure could use it right now.  I've been awfully depressed as of late, and as such have been neglecting my blog.  This email from Heather couldn't have come at a better time, it truly put a smile on my face when I really needed one. Best of all, it re-inspired me to work on my blog!

Here are the three blog posts you're definitely going to want to check out while you're visiting:

Brown Beauty Cake - the most famous cake in my family, though not the prettiest...

Double Fudge Cookies - big, chocolatey, and yummy!

Tiramisu Cake - the most wonderful thing I make, according to my husband

And if you're not into baking or desserts...
Beef Teriyaki - one of my favorite dinner recipes

Thank you so much for coming by!  If you like what you see, follow me, I've got some great recipes planned for June, including the second best thing I've ever baked for my husband, Blueberry Buckle.  I've truly enjoyed getting to know many of you through SITS, and look forward to getting to know more of you :)

For those of my loyal followers who aren't familiar with SITS, it's a fantastic blogging sisterhood that is a fantastic place not only to network but to find new blogs to love.  If you are a blogger or if you love to read blogs, you simply must check it out!

P.S. - Have you read a good book lately?  Tell me about it!  I absolutely love to read, and I'm running out of books to read on my To Be Read pile!

Peanut Butter Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

I love Brown Eyed Baker.  She has some fantastic baking recipes, that's for sure.  Her Better Than Brownies Cookies are filled with intense chocolate flavor and seriously, it's quite possible that they're just as the title says: better than brownies.  I especially love her Top 100 list of things she wants to make, and I fully want to make a list like that for myself.  I always come across recipes I want to try, and then I forget about them, so beware - there's a list a-coming around here!

When I came across this recipe on Brown Eyed Baker, I knew that I had to try it.  Immediately.  It has all of Husband's favorite elements: oatmeal, peanut butter, sugar...and chocolate chips are okay with him in moderation too.  These cookies got a resounding A+ from him, and I enjoyed them a bunch too, especially fresh from the oven and still warm.  Even Toddler is a big fan, and he hasn't yet decided if he really likes peanut butter yet.  I can see myself making these cookies as an awesome after school snack when Toddler gets bigger.

Peanut Butter-Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies from Brown Eyed Baker
Printer-friendly recipe

1 cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
¼ teaspoon salt
1 stick (½ cup) unsalted butter, at room temperature
½ cup creamy peanut butter
½ cup granulated sugar
1/3 cup light brown sugar
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
1 egg
½ cup rolled oats
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper and set aside.
2. Whisk together the flour, baking soda and salt; set aside.
3. On medium speed, cream together the butter, peanut butter, granulated sugar, brown sugar and vanilla extract, about 3 minutes. Add the egg and beat to combine. On low speed, gradually add the flour until just combined. Stir in the oats, and then the chocolate chips.
4. Use a large cookie scoop (3 tablespoons) and drop dough onto prepared baking sheets about 2 inches apart. Bake for 10 minutes, or until the cookies are lightly golden. Cool completely on the baking sheet and then store in an airtight container at room temperature.

Signature Pizza Crust from All Recipes

I like AllRecipes.com - I find good things there sometimes.  This is an instance where I found something awesome on AllRecipes.com.  I am always on the hunt for an awesome pizza dough recipe.  I love the recipes I make, but I always love to try new ones.  It's just like how I love to go to different pizza restaurants to try different pizzas.

My first hint that this was going to make for some awesome pizza was that over 2000 people rated this recipe.  Seriously.  That's a lot in my book.  Over 37,000 people favorited this recipe.  That's pretty awe-inspiring.  Given that I have a stand mixer, this recipe was very easy to put together, but even if you don't have a stand mixer, you should be able to accomplish this recipe using a big bowl and a strong wooden spoon (and the necessary elbow grease to go with it).

My second hint was how amazing the house smelled while the dough rose.  I love the smell of yeasty bread doughs.  There's something so homey about that smell.  It just makes you feel good.  This dough was no exception - the only problem was that it smelled even better while it was baking.  So good that when it came out and I put it on the table, I burned my mouth a little, so excited to try it.  It was worth the pain.  Really.  I will definitely make this pizza crust again.  Soon.

Signature Pizza Crust from All Recipes
Printer-friendly recipe

2 1/4 tsp active dry yeast (1 envelope)
1 tsp brown sugar
1 1/2 cups warm water (~110 degrees)
1 tsp salt
2 tbsp olive oil
3 1/3 cups all-purpose flour

1. In a large bowl (preferably your mixing bowl for your stand mixer), dissolve the yeast and brown sugar in the warm water, and let sit for 10 minutes.
2. Stir the salt and oil into the yeast solution. Mix in the flour using the dough hook attachment for your stand mixer.
3. Turn the dough out onto a clean, well floured surface, and knead in more flour (if needed) until the dough is no longer sticky.  Place the dough into a well oiled bowl, and cover with a cloth.  Let the dough rise until doubled - this will take at least one hour, sometimes more depending on how humid and warm your kitchen is.  Punch down the dough, and form a tight ball with the dough.  Allow the dough to relax for a minute before rolling out.  Use for your favorite pizza recipe.
4. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F.  If you are baking the dough on a pizza stone, you may place your toppings on the dough, and bake immediately.  If you are baking your pizza in a pan, lightly oil the pan, and let the dough rise for 15 or 20 minutes before topping and baking it.  Personally, I split my pizza dough in half and rolled it out, then gently placed it into two 9-inch cake pans that I doused with olive oil.  Make sure to place your baking pans on the lowest shelf in your oven to ensure that the crust fully bakes.  This recipe makes an awesome pan pizza crust.
5. Bake for 15-20 minutes, or until the crust and cheese are fully browned.

Oreo Chocolate White Chocolate Chunk Cookies

I love Oreos.  So much so that I've even baked my own home-baked version of Oreos, which are mighty good. These cookies, though, are a good marriage of a chocolate shortbread kind of cookie with creamy white chocolate chunks throughout, heralding back to the creamy white center of an Oreo.  Yum.  My mouth practically waters at the thought of them, they're so good.  There is very little that a good chocolate cookie can't make better.  Like when your husband is going away for a week, and you feel like your To Do list grows exponentially every day.  Like now.  So I'm going to curl up with some nice warm cookies and a nice big glass of milk and it will all be better in the morning.  Phew. 

Oreo Chocolate White Chocolate Chunk Cookies
Printer-friendly recipe

1 1/4 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2/3 cup dutch-processed cocoa
1/2 cup room temperature butter
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup dark brown sugar
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/3 cup milk
1 1/2 cups white chocolate chunks or chips

1. Preheat the oven to 325 and prepare a cookie sheet with a sheet of parchment or Silpat.
2. Whisk flour, salt, baking powder and cocoa together, and set aside.
3. Beat butter on medium-high speed until light, then add sugars, creaming well.  Add the vanilla and beat until smooth.
4. Add the flour mixture in 2 batches, alternately with the milk, mixing well.  Chill the dough for at least 15 minutes.
5. I used a smaller cookie scoop with these cookies, about a heaping tablespoon per cookie.  Scoop the dough your prepared cookie sheet and bake.  For smaller cookies like what I made, bake for approximately 10-14 minutes.  If you prefer a larger, bakery-style cookie, go for about 3 tbsp per scoop, and bake for 16-18 minutes, or until just set.  Cookies will look underdone - don't be alarmed!  Allow cookies to cool fully on the cookie sheet.

Mrs. Field's Snickerdoodles

I didn't grow up with snickerdoodles.  I had my first snickerdoodle as an adult at a cookie exchange, and it was awesome, and I was mildly horrified that I'd lived my life for so long without snickerdoodles.  I vowed that they would be something my kids would grow up with.

Toddler had his first snickerdoodle at Fresh Market not too long after he turned one.  He devoured it.  Just loved the darn thing.  Since then, I've been trying to find the most awesome snickerdoodle recipe, one that's big and chewy, soft in the middle, with awesome cinnamon flavor.  I've found it!  This recipe is nice and small, though easy to double, and makes about 15-18 cookies, depending on the size of your scooper.  These cookies come highly recommended from my whole family.

Mrs. Fields's Snickerdoodles
Printer-friendly recipe

1/2 cup butter (1 stick), softened
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/3 cup brown sugar
1 egg
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1 1/2 cups flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar

2 tablespoons granulated sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon

1. In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugars with an electric mixer on high speed. Add the egg and vanilla and beat until smooth.

2. In another bowl, combine the flour, salt, baking soda, and cream of tartar.

3. Pour the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients and mix well.

4. Preheat oven to 300 degrees while you let the dough rest for 30 to 60 minutes in the refrigerator.

5. In a small bowl, combine the sugar with the cinnamon for the topping.

6. Take about 2 1/2 tablespoons of the dough and roll it into a ball. Roll this dough in the cinnamon/sugar mixture and place on an ungreased cookie sheet. Take a drinking glass, grease it with a little bit of Crisco and press down on cookie to flatten.  Repeat for the remaining cookies.

7. Bake the cookies for 13 to 15 minutes and no more. The cookies may seem undercooked, but will continue to develop after they are removed from the oven. When the cookies have cooled they should be soft and chewy in the middle.

Makes 15 to 18 cookies.

Super Yummy Vanilla Waffles

Okay, okay, I admit it.  I don't use pure maple syrup on my pancakes and waffles.  Oh, the sacrilege!  I know, I know, pure maple syrup is supposed to be like the nectar of gods...but I grew up on Karo Pancake syrup.  Green label Karo, which is becoming harder and harder to find where I live.  It doesn't even call itself maple syrup.  That's how far removed it is from maple syrup.  But darn it, it tastes like home.

Growing up, my mom and I had waffles for dinner when my dad worked nights sometimes, when she had a long day or when she just didn't feel like cooking anything complicated.  She always used Jiffy Biscuit Mix for the waffles and we doused them in Karo.  I still sometimes make my waffles with Jiffy, and every bite makes me feel like a kid again.  Most often, though, I try to make my waffles from scratch.  In part, because cooking from scratch is important to me and also because I love trying new recipes and experimenting.  This recipe is an amalgam of three or four different ones, and it came out super yummy.  Nice and light, with a nice vanilla flavor to them, which of course complimented the Karo syrup just right.  This recipe doubles nicely, and freezes beautifully - just lay your cooked waffles out on cooling racks until fully cooled, and then pack up into large freezer bags.  Pop them in the toaster to reheat, and voila, it's like fresh waffles all over again!

Yummy Vanilla Waffles 
Printer-friendly recipe

2 eggs
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 3/4 cups milk
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 tablespoon white sugar
4 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1. Preheat your waffle iron.  Beat eggs in a large bowl until fluffy, then add the remaining ingredients and beat until just smooth.  Do not overmix!

2. Cook according to your waffle iron's instructions.  Beware, this batter does spread well when you close your waffle iron!

BBQ Chicken Bacon Wraps

Bacon really does make just about anything better, doesn't it?  It sure does, in my book.  Apparently, not so much to Toddler, though.  He was not a fan of this dish.  In the interests of full disclosure, though, he's not particularly interested in any food that's not yogurt, applesauce, fruit, pancakes, waffles, or cheese at the moment.  I try not to take it personally.

Sometimes my creativity in the kitchen pays off.  Not so much when I was a kid and attempting to create things that logically seemed like a good idea (hello, chocolate water, anyone?), but this time, creativity paid off in a big way.  I had some chicken breasts lying around, a bottle of barbecue sauce and some bacon, and I needed to come up with an idea for dinner, as it was already 5 o'clock.  I thought quickly, and tossed this dish together.

This a great dish to make on a night where time isn't on your side, or as an appetizer for your next party.  Stick some toothpicks in your chicken bacon wraps, and voila, an easy appetizer!  I served these for dinner, alongside some garlic roasted potato wedges and broccoli.  The dish took no more than 5 minutes to prepare and toss in the oven, another 25 to cook, and then dinner was ready.  It was awesome!  I will definitely be making these again.

BBQ Chicken Bacon Wraps
Printer-friendly recipe

1 1/2 lb boneless, skinless chicken breasts
1 cup of your favorite barbecue sauce (or make your own!)
20-30 strips of bacon

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees.  Find a 13x9 baking pan and set out on counter.
2. Cut chicken into strips.  Not too thin, you don't want the chicken to dry out.  But not too thick either, because you want to make sure the bacon and chicken cook at the same speed.  Aim for whatever length you like, but no more than 1/2" thick.
3. Wrap one slice of bacon around each chicken strip, and lay in your baking pan.  Do this to each chicken strip, and don't worry if they're all touching, it's okay.
4. Brush each wrap well with BBQ sauce.  Put pan in the oven, and bake for 13-15 minutes.
5. Take pan out of oven and flip each wrap over.  Brush each wrap again with BBQ sauce, then return to the oven for another 13-15 minutes.
6. Remove pan from the oven and immediately move wraps to a serving plate or platter.  You can brush again with BBQ sauce, or serve sauce on the side with your wraps.  Enjoy!

Triple Chocolate Cookies

Warning: Before you read any further, make sure you've got a gallon of milk on hand.

I love chocolate.  This is no secret.  I would wager to guess that at least 75% of the dessert recipes I've posted here have chocolate as a key ingredient.  These cookies are the perfect thing to have after a long day, especially with a glass of ice cold milk.  These cookies are wonderfully chewy, bursting with chocolate flavor, but very different from the brownie cookies I've seen floating around on the web lately.  Those are mostly brownie, just shaped like a cookie.  These are mostly cookie, with the flavors of a brownie.

These cookies are the kind of recipe my dad would have made - he was always the cookie baker when I was growing up, thanks to his arm of steel.  His beating arm made a stand mixer totally unnecessary.  This recipe is really just a good chocolate chip cookie recipe with some cocoa powder thrown in and the quantity of flour reduced as a result.  The only challenge with this recipe is letting the cookies cool - because they will be somewhat fragile until you have let them sit on the cookie sheet for at least five minutes after baking.  Just go do something else, preferably in another room of your home, where the lovely smell of the cookies doesn't force you to eat a cookie before it's fully set.  It will crumble all over you.  I promise.  It will taste wonderful, but it will make a huge mess.  Trust me.  I speak from experience.

Triple Chocolate Cookies
Printer-friendly recipe

1 cup (2 sticks) butter
1 3/4 cups white sugar
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
2/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder (or dark chocolate cocoa powder)
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup semi-sweet or dark chocolate chips (I recommend Hershey's Special Dark!)

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. In large bowl, beat butter, sugar, eggs, and vanilla until light and fluffy. Combine the flour, cocoa, baking soda, and salt; stir into the butter mixture until well blended. Mix in the chocolate chips. Drop by rounded teaspoonfuls onto greased cookie sheets.
3. Bake for 8 to 10 minutes in the preheated oven, or just until set. Cool slightly on the cookie sheets before transferring to wire racks to cool completely.

MSC: Lemon Meringue Cupcakes

Megan from My Baking Adventures, one of my personal favorite bloggers, selected the cupcake recipe for the Martha Stewart Cupcakes Club this month, Martha's Lemon Meringue Cupcakes.  As you may recall, we present our cupcakes on the 15th of each month and swap notes on what we thought of the cupcakes and the process of making them, and somehow, this month, the 15th appeared out of nowhere.  Maybe it was that darn Daylight Savings Time garbage this weekend that threw me off...

Husband was positively stoked when I told him about this recipe a while back.  Unfortunately for him, this spring forward weekend has been a bit of a mess, so I had to resort to a few shortcuts to manage to get these cupcakes made.  I have promised him an I.O.U. for a future making of these cupcakes, complete with seven-minute frosting and lemon curd. These cupcakes are really lemon meringue imposters.  I did manage to make the lemon cupcakes...but time was working against me when it came to making the lemon curd.  And well, I was already cutting corners, so I decided to make a simple vanilla buttercream frosting for the cupcakes rather than the seven-minute frosting.

What's cooking in Toddler's kitchen?  Could it be?  Has he mastered Martha's cupcakes?

These were a great treat for Husband.  We had a rough weekend, between having some serious computer challenges and Toddler becoming the pickiest eater on the planet, throwing tantrums left and right at the dinner table.  I think he really enjoyed sitting down to watch "The Amazing Race" with a yummy lemon cupcake.  And these sure were yummy.  They might not be beautiful, but they did taste good.

They may not appear on Tastespotting, but they were still tasty in their own right.