Cream Cheese Filled Carrot Muffins

When I finished my months of paper-hell I spent the morning watching 4 hours of Tabatha's Salon Takeover while my roommates continued to suffer exam misery. So I decided to bake them a treat and felt like making muffins. These muffins were especially awesome because of the gooey cream cheese filling.

Ingredients
Filling
1 8oz. pkg. light cream cheese
1/4 cup granulated sugar

Muffins
2 1/4 cups flour
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup light brown sugar, firmly packed
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. baking soda
1 1/2 tsp. cinnamon
3/4 tsp. ground ginger
3/4 tsp. salt
2  eggs
3/4 cup water
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1 cup grated carrots, (about 2 medium-large carrots)

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 400°F. Line a muffin pan with paper muffin cups, and grease the cups (strange I know but it actually makes it much easier to eat the muffins).

2. To make the filling, place the cream cheese in a microwave-safe bowl, and heat on low power for 40 seconds. Stir in the sugar and set aside. 

3. To make the muffin batter, in a medium-sized bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients. Stir the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients. Fold in the grated carrots, stirring to combine. 

4. Drop about 2 tablespoons of the batter into each muffin cup, spreading it to cover the bottom. Dollop on a heaping tablespoon of filling and cover with enough batter to hide the filling. The muffins cups will be quite full. 

5. Bake for about 20 minutes. Remove the muffins from the oven, and transfer them to a rack. If you serve the muffins warm, the filling will be molten. If you wait for them to cool, it'll firm up (so I advise microwaving them before eating (about 20 seconds will do)!

Surprise muffins!

MOVING! Ft. cookies.

NEW APARTMENT TIMES!
Sorry for being so MIA lately! We really have no excuse. I mean Odessa is in Peru, so I guess she's exempt, but myself and Lizzie (NEW ROOMMATE OMG) have been doing next to nothing for the past month. Summertime is the best!

But we're in our new place! And we brought Audrey.

New crew: Sarah, me (Caitlin), Lizzie, and Odessa (can't get rid of that betch)

Obviously, to christen our new environment, we had to bake something. We made these amazing cookies from my favourite restaurant in Victoria, BC, Rebar.

They're supposed to be made with apricots and walnuts along with chocolate chips (also AMAZING), but we decided to sub for coconut (and of course still chocolate chips).

Ingreds

-1/2 c butter

-1 1/2 c brown sugar

-2 eggs

-2 tsp vanilla

-1 1/2 c flour 

-1 1/2 tsp baking powder

-Pinch of salt

-1 c chocolate chips

-1/2 c unsweetened coconut

Cream butter and sugar, then add the rest of the wet ingredients. Mix dry ingredients and then combine these with the wet. Spoon the dough onto lined baking sheet (it will be messy). Bake for about nine minutes at 350 c and be sure not to overcook because they taste much better when slightly undercooked. 

NOMS.

Hope everyone's having the best start ever to summer!!! 

xx Caitlin

THE BEST SUGAR COOKIES EVER MADE

Ok so I know we already have a sugar cookie post on here. Those are delicious no lie, but they are just your run of the mill cookies. These are amazing. These cookies will have people telling you to drop out of school and start a bakery I swear. These cookies are so light and fluffy they are addictive.

I made them last Christmas, but decided not to blog about them because I wasn't ready to share my secret with the world. But now its out: you need an electric mixer. This recipe is essentially just a regular sugar cookie recipe however after each step you need to beat them to incorporate air. That is what makes them so different. So simple! So sneaky! So scrumptious!

We made them for Valentine's Day  Eat-Your-Feelings-Day!

Ingredients

4½ cups all-purpose flour
4½ tsp. baking powder
¾ tsp. salt
1½ cups butter, room temperature
1½ cups sugar
3 eggs
5 tsp. vanilla extract

Frosting:
5 cups icing sugar, sifted
1/3 cup butter, melted
1 tbsp. vanilla extract
7-8 tbsp. milk
Food colouring
Sprinkles

Directions

1. In a medium bowl combine the flour, baking powder and salt, and whisk together to blend. 

2. In the bowl of an electric mixer, combine the butter and sugar and beat together on medium-high speed until soft and fluffy, about 2-3 minutes. Beat in the eggs one at a time. Blend in the vanilla. 

3. This is where it gets messy. Add in dry ingredients in parts and mix with the electric mixer on low speed. Cover and chill the dough for 1 hour.

4. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line baking sheets with parchment paper. Roll the dough into evenly sized balls and flatten slightly on the prepared baking sheet. Bake about 10 minutes or just until set. Do not overbake! Overbake cookies are not fluffy! The edges should be no more than very lightly browned if at all. 

5. To make the icing, whisk together all the ingredients until smooth. Add in either milk or icing sugar until desired consistency is achieved. Frost the cookies once they are completely cooled.

Look at that drip.

Oh and you may have noticed this recipe makes A TON of cookies. But don't worry, they will all be eaten within a few days. All you need are some friends who have a lot of feelings to eat.

Decked Out

Baking with Bruk 2

Our favourite sous-chef is back at it! This time with delicious cookies! We got an amazing recipe for Cookies and Cream cookies, from here. They were great, but kind of runny, so next time we would use more flour. They tasted AMAZING though.

Ingredients
-1/2 cup butter
-6 tbsp brown sugar
-6 tbsp white sugar
-1 egg
-1 tsp vanilla
-1 1/4 cup flour (we would suggest 1 1/2, the dough was too soft)
-1/2 tsp baking soda
-1/2 tsp salt
-12 crushed Oreos

Classic exam-mode Dess with a classy Bruk

Directions
-Preheat oven to 350 degrees
-Mix everything together, folding in Oreos last
-Bake for 8-10 minutes, but watch them

See our problem? The other pan was better, but seriously, add more flour!!!

Our Halloween

This is so late, but we figured we should still post a lil collection of the AMAZING and spooooooky goodies we made this lovely Hallows Eve.

First things first: WITCHES' FINGERS
Caitlin has been making these with her momma ever since she was a little girl. AWWWW.
Dough:
-1 cup butter
-1 cup icing sugar
-1 egg
-1 tsp vanilla
-2 3/4 cups flour
-1 tsp baking powder
-1 tsp salt
Toppings (nails and blood):
-3/4 cup whole blanched almonds
-red decorator gel

Mix the dough and put it in the fridge for about a half hour. Shape the dough into creepy fingers with lotsa knuckle and stuff going on, and press an almond in as the nail. Take a fork to make pronounced wrinkles on the knucles.

Bake at 325 for about 15-20 minutes, let cool, and then take off each almond and squeeze decorator gel underneath then put it back into place, making the blood ooze. YUM!

Next project, a new, but DELICIOUS one: Pumpkin Spice Sugar Cookies, from here!
Cookies:
-2 cups flour
-1/2 tsp baking powder
-1/2 tsp salt
-2 teaspoons cinnamon
-1 tsp nutmeg
-1 cup butter
-1 cup sugar
-1 tbsp brown sugar
-1 egg
-2 tsp vanilla
And for the Icing:
-4 cups icing sugar
-1/2 cup butter
-2 tsp vanilla

Bake cookies at 375 for about 8 minutes, cool, and ice.

The last thing we made were some beaauuutiful birthday cupcakes for our dear friend Alia! They were just from a box, but check out that decorating, yo!

Hope everyone had a safe and happy weekend!

A Grown-Up Thanksgiving

Not sure if I'm alone in this but whenever I watched Friends when I was younger I thought they were so grown-up and cool that they had their own Thanksgiving dinners. So this year, when McGill decided that we should spend our "holiday" in the library we decided to have our own Thanksgiving dinner because screw you McGill, I will not spend all of my time holed up in Schulich.

Our dinner was very successful, we cooked up a feast and our guests each brought a few dishes of their own. We also played headbands, you know that game they played in the pub in Inglorious Basterds, except when we played not everyone ended up shot to death, which I think is more fun.

So Odessa made the "Holiday Chilli" that has become a family tradition ever since she became a vegetarian and her mom makes it for every holiday and nanaimo bars because she had a craving. Caitlin made vegetarian stuffing, gravy, tofurky and pumpkin pie (all very Thanksgiving-y). Daniele made brussels spouts, a hell of a lot of brussels sprouts.

Holiday Chili
It comes from here, the result of googling "what to make a vegetarian on Thanksgiving".  And it is VERY YUMMY!

Ingredients
3 sweet potatoes
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 cup chopped onion
2-3 cloves garlic, minced
1 red pepper, diced

2 cans black beans, drained and rinsed
1 28 oz. can diced tomatoes
1 16 oz. can crushed tomatoes
3 tsps. cumin, or more, to taste
1 tsp. oregano
2-3 green onions, thinly sliced, optional
Salt and pepper to taste

Directions

1. Bake or microwave the sweet potatoes until just firm. When cool enough to handle, peel and cut into 3/4-inch dice. Set aside until needed.

2. Heat the oil in a large pot (I used a wok because it is a very large recipe). Add the onions and garlic and saute over medium heat until the onion is golden. Add the remaining ingredients except the green onions, salt and pepper. Bring to a simmer, then simmer gently, covered for about 25 minutes or until sweet potatoes are tender.

3. Stir green onions, then season gently with salt. If time allows, let stand off the heat for an hour or two, then heat through as needed.

Stuffing times! We adapted the recipe from here, and not to make Caitlin's head bigger than it already is, but it was AMAZING.
On the day of, Caitlin dried the bread cubes by putting them in the oven at 225 for 15 minute intervals for about an hour, stirring in between. Also, a tip: Use a VERY large bowl, or two bowls while mixing the stuffing. It's not easy in a small one, let me tell ya!

Vegetarian Apple Stuffing
-12 tbsp butter
-2 chopped onions
-3 stalks chopped celery
-3 apples, diced
-8-10 cups bread cubes (we used part whole wheat part white)
-1 cup walnuts
-2 tsp thyme
-1 tbsp sage
-2 eggs
-3 cups vegetable broth, maybe a little more
-Salt and pepper

Directions:

-Melt half the butter in a skillet over medium-high heat, and add the onions and celery, and a bit of salt and pepper. Cook until softened, and transfer to a bowl.

-Again, in a skillet, melt the remaining butter, then add the apples and cook on high until they are soft, but not mushy, then add them to the onion bowl.
-Add the rest of the ingredients to the bowl and mix thoroughly
-Put mixture in a 9x13 baking dish and cook uncovered for 45 minutes or so

Next up: Tofurky! Or braised tofu with poultry seasoning!
This recipe is so easy and soooo so delicious. Caitlin has made it for 2 years now, and it's always a crowd pleaser.
Directions:
-Heat some oil in a skillet on high
-Cut desired amount of plain or herbed tofu into 1/2 inch slices and let them cook in oil until browned on both sides
-Add about half a cup of vegetable broth to the skillet once tofu has fried, along with poultry seasoning and salt and pepper to taste. Lower the heat so the broth is simmering, and cook until all broth is absorbed
-Keep more broth on hand because you might need more, but you want the tofu to slowly absorb it

To top the tofu off we used this veggie gravy. Pretty standard recipe, and actually tastes eerily meat-gravy like... 

And then there was pie. Ohhh the pie. Bakerella has actually created the best pumpkin pie recipe we have EVER tried. If you haven't tried this yet, you're welcome (or I'm sorry, I don't know).

Pumpkin Pecan Chocolate Chip Pie:
-1 deep pie crust

Cream cheese layer:
-8 oz cream cheese
-1/2 cup sugar

Pumpkin layer:
-15 oz. can pumpkin purée
-1 cup sugar
-1 tbsp. pumpkin pie spice (we used a mix of cinnamon and nutmeg)
-2 eggs
-1/2 cup evaporated milk

Topping:
-1 cup chopped pecans
-1/2 cup mini chocolate chips
-1/2 cup brown sugar
-2 tbsp pure maple syrup

Directions:
-Spread cream cheese layer in the base of the crust, then layer the pumpkin layer on top. Bake for 20 minutes at 350.
-Add toppings and bake for another 25-30 minutes

Hope everyone had a great thanksgiving! Get ready for our halloween post. 

Peanut Butter Cookie Time

This past weekend, two of us went to McMaster's homecoming. It was a fab weekend, but getting there was not exactly easy. To get to Hamilton from Montreal, we took a cab to the bus station, a six hour bus ride to toronto, a subway from the bus to the train station there, a go bus from toronto to hamilton and a cab to the lovely Amy's house. Needless to say, we needed SNACKS.

So we made peanut butter cookies, and everything was alright. The train ride felt like minutes! K I'm totally kidding, but they were good.

We used this recipe, adapted from the Joy of Cooking ('cause they da best):
1/2 c brown sugar
1/2 c white sugar
1/2 c softened butter
1 egg
1 c peanut butter
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1 c flour
1/2 tsp vanilla
1/2 c chocolate chips

As always cookie dough=best part

Preheat the oven to 350 c, and mix everything together. Flatten the cookies with a fork making a crisscross on the top, because that's just what you do. Bake for about 8 minutes, but watch them, because these are best a bit gooey.

Lookin' good!

We did bring some to Amy too... some.

Girls at homecoming :)

St. Patty's Day Fare

Just in case you haven't noticed, we like to go all out on holidays. Hosting the party is kind of our thing here at 169, so obviously we couldn't miss a holiday as important and intoxicated as St. Patrick's Day!

We hosted a most popular pancake funnel party, which began at 8:30 in the morning, in order to insure that we could partake in some festivities before our 10 am classes.

Our Lucky Charms and funnel :)

We served green pancakes (from a mix because of demand-- so sorry for the lack of recipe), prepared with beer, lucky charms marshmallows, and green food colouring and sprinkles. To ensure that everyone had a little something in their stomachs before the long day ahead, of course.

Yummm!

Odessa enjoying a 9 am margarita with her patty-cakes

Hope everyone had a great day and celebrated accordingly.

Eat Your Feelings Day

This Monday, we celebrated one of the most important holidays of the year by hosting a little shindig at Ste. Famille. No we are not talking about Valentine's Day, that is so 2009. We are talking about the 2nd annual Eat Your Feelings Day. A day where everyone around the world can celebrate, regardless of your dating status. A day where we all come together to cope with our emotions by eating, instead of dealing with our problems. And a day where we can stuff our faces and not feel guilty about it (seriously calories don't count on Eat Your Feelings Day).

For this Eat Your Feelings Day we wanted to make something epic. So we made chocolate chip cookies with chocolate bars inside. We also made chocolate chip cookie dough dip. As you can see chocolate is a necessary part of Eat Your Feelings Day.

Mmmm, you can see the caramel oozing out of them. So get out your heart-shaped measuring cups and let's get started. This recipe was adapted from http://picky-palate.com/ and we also recommend that you use this cookie dough recipe instead of your own because it is a lot less sweet which is needed for cookies stuffed with chocolate.

Ingredients: 
1 cup margarine
1 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
1 tbsp. vanilla
3 1/2 cups flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
10 oz. bag of chocolate chips
Chocolate bars, cut into small pieces (We used Reese's Bites, Snickers, Twix)

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
2. Cream butter and sugars until well combined. Add eggs and vanilla, mix well.

3. Place flour, baking soda and salt in large bowl, mix slowly. Then add wet ingredients. Add chocolate chips. The mix may be a bit dry, we added milk a teaspoon at a time until we had a dough we could work with.
4. Take two pieces of dough and cover the chocolate bar piece. Roll into a large ball. Try to make sure that none of the chocolate bar is sticking out or it will melt and make a mess.

5. Place onto a parchment lined baking sheet. Bake 9-13 min.

We also made Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Dip, adapted from http://www.howsweeteats.com/ .
Ingredients:
1/2 cup butter
1/3 cup brown sugar
1 8 oz block of cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup icing sugar
1 tsp. vanilla extract
3/4 cup chocolate chips

Directions: 
1. Melt butter in a small saucepan over medium heat. Add brown sugar and whisk until sugar dissolves and mixture starts to bubble. Remove from heat and whisk in vanilla.
2. Cream together cream cheese and icing sugar. Add in brown sugar and butter mixture. Mix until combined.
3. Wait until mixture has completely cooled then add the chocolate chips, otherwise you will get chocolate cookie dip like we had.

Serve with fruit, cookies, crackers or pretzels.

This was our spread on Eat Your Feeling Day, well most of it, if you can believe it more food came after this picture was taken. Festivities included Cosmo readings, a screening of He's Just Not That Into You, and emotional exchanges of conversation hearts.

Introductions

Hi there.

So we're starting a blog. And not just any blog: a food blog. Who does that? The answer is students. You know, those 20-ish-year-olds who have devoted their lives so profoundly to their educations that after late nights of paper-writing and days spent at the library with hundreds of pages in readings, have turned procrastination into a true art. We vow to give you the best of our time wasting, sharing our (mis)adventures in the kitchen as we try to feed ourselves without mommy's help. So far we're all still alive and seem to be avoiding major malnutrition, so I guess it's been fairly successful.

On this blog you can expect to find fun and easy recipes that we have tried and loved as well as some random other things that we find worthy of sharing with the online community.

In Audrey we trust.

This is where the magic happens. As you can see our lovely Audrey, for whom the blog is named, watches over us as we cook.

This is us. Just in case you were curious...