cupful of love...

I saw this recipe and immediately fell in love, head over heels i tell you.
It has everything anyone could ever want- chocolate, butter, gooeyness, warmth... all in one cup.
So instead of going on dates, sobbing over failed relationships I made these babies and enjoyed them full heartedly with my brother.

CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIE LAVA CAKES

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1/2 c butter (softened)
1/2 c sugar
1/2 c brown sugar
1 egg
1/2 tsp vanilla
1 3/4 c flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 baking soda
1/2 bag of chocolate chips
or
1/2  bar of chocolate
(i used just 4-5 ounces of lil chocolate candies)
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Preheat oven at 350 F (170C), get your muffin pan ready and greased up.
Melt the chocolate in a double boiler, let it cool off.
Cream together butter and sugars. Beat in egg and vanilla. In a separate bowl mix all dry ingredients.
Mix it all up into one lovely clump of dough.
Press some dough into the bottoms of the muffin pan (maybe half), dollop some chocolate sauce in the middle. Then use up the rest of the dough to seal the chocolate sauce in the middle- just placing flattened dough on top.
Blop it into the oven for 9-12 minutes- till golden and crispy looking. Carefully run a knife around to remove each cup.
Enjoy with some ice cream or whipped cream placed in the perfectly formed bowl in the middle of the cup.

nutella = success

I finally did it. I successfully converted and tweaked my recipe to fit Finland's climate and sea level. My delicate bakeress confidence is restored to its rightful place.
This is actually one of my favorite recipes, because anything with nutella...I'm sold. The sour cream adds a tang to it to keep the sweetness in check, without that its kind of an overkill. They're also a lot more dense than cupcakes would be, and lemme tell you I would pick a muffin instead of a dainty cupcake any day.
So if you've got some left overs of nutella (doubtful, i eat it in spoonfuls each night), bake up a batch of these babies.

NUTELLA SWIRL MUFFINS

1 1/4 c flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
2 eggs (room temperature)
3/4 c sugar
1/2 c butter (softened)
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 c sour cream (room temperature)

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Oven at 350.
Sift all dry ingredients together. In a separate bowl whisk together eggs and sugar, add rest of wet ingredients- sour cream last. Combine both mixtures together. Place in prepped muffin tins/cups. Dollop 1-2 tsp nutella in each muffin cup and with a toothpick, knife or fork make swirls.
Bake for 23-30 minutes.

crispy and crumbly...

I recently had a lil family get together and promised I'd bring a dessert. So far baking on another continent, and different sea level has proven to be tricky- seems like nothing works out. My cake burned, my cookies were too crispy, under done, over done, burnt, gooey...aka. a complete mess, leaving me with no confidence in my baking skills, none whatsoever.
So I decided on a good ol' reliable recipe which never fails me. Its absolutely perfect and heart warming as long as you have a scoop of ice cream. And lo and behold....It was gone in seconds. :)
May i present...

APPLE CRISP

filling:

5-6 apples peeled and sliced (better if they're a softer kind of apple)

1 tsp cinnamon

1 tbs lemon juice (fine without)

1/3 c sugar

topping:

1/2 c brown sugar

1 c oatmeal

2 tsp cinnamon

1 c butter (room temp or from the fridge is best actually)

1/2 tsp salt

the drill:

set oven at 350.

prep the apples, toss in lemon juice, cinnamon, and sugar mixture- place into lightly buttered pan.

mix all dry ingredients for topping, then add butter and mix till it becomes crumbly and lil clumps form.

if the mixture seems dry and isn't holding together add a bit more butter. a lil' more butter never hurt anyone :) sprinkle crumble mixture on top of apples till almost all the way covered. bake for 40-50 minutes. sometimes even 30 minutes will do the trick, just depends on how crisp your apples are.

Enjoy with a huge ball of ice cream - perfect for those cold, misty days you wanna cuddle and stay home watching TV.