Snicker Doodle Muffins

From this angle they look like cookies.

  Today I am going to share with you guys one of Hubby's favorite things I make. And by favorite, I mean he actually eats them.  The first time I made these muffins he ate almost all of them, then I think I made them for him almost every week or so until he had to tell me to stop.  I mean come on, if he is actually eating something I make how can I not get excited right?  Well I have not made these in a long while, and I was looking for something quick to make to blog about and this is when I had the brilliant idea to make them again.


  I first saw these on the Pioneer Woman blog.  I knew the moment I saw them Hubby would love them, I mean I say that about a few things, but this one, this was different.  Or at least I hoped it would be.  And for once I was right, but don't let him know that.

  So this is a nice easy recipe that gives you a nice moist dense muffin, covered in a layer of cinnamon sugar. What is not to love right?  So I have not made any changes, other than I don't buy butter milk, and make my own, it is all the same.

  To make your own butter milk you just put some vinegar in with your milk and let it set for about 5 minutes.  I will let you know the amount in the recipe.

All ready to go.

 Snicker Doodle Muffins
Via Pioneer Woman Cooks
By Two Peas in Their Pod
Originally from Culinary Concoctions from Peabody

(wow that is a lot of recipe info)

-1 cup butter
-1 cup sugar
-2 eggs
-2 TSP vanilla extract
-2 1/4 cups flour
-3/4 TSP baking soda
-3/4 TSP baking powder
-3/4 TSP cream of tartar
-1/2 TSP salt
-1 cup sour cream
-1/4 cup butter milk*

*instead of real butter milk just put a splash of white vinegar into a measuring cup then fill the rest of the way to 1/4 cup with milk, stir and let stand for 5 minutes.  If you leave it a bit longer and the milk gets chunky, don't worry it is still fine.  I let mine sit for over 10 minutes and it still turned out fine.

  Pre heat oven to 350. Cream the butter and sugar until fluffy, add the vanilla and one egg at a time and mix fully.  Sift all the dry ingredients together and add half to the mix, then add the sour cream, mix, then the rest of the dry ingredients.  Then mix in the butter milk.

As the first batch was baking I rolled the second batch and put them in liners to wait.

Topping

-2/3 cups sugar
-2 TBSP Cinnamon

  Mix the topping and then take a scoop of muffin mix and roll it in topping.  Then place muffin in muffin liner.  These are very soft muffins so you need a liner.  Once all the muffins are rolled top them all with the left over topping and bake for about 18 minutes, until a toothpick put into the middle comes out clean.

So good!  I could eat these everyday!

  These are some of the tastiest muffins, so good, even a day or so later, if they last.  The batter is nice and thick, so once you scoop it out into the bowl of topping it is easy to handle.  Hubby ate a whole bunch and is a little upset they are running out.  But I will make them again, I promise.

I'm Linking up Here


 

Why I Use Vanilla Bean Paste

  So vanilla is in almost every recipe that I use. I mean it is a staple in most bakeries and in my house we always used the artificial vanilla.  Why?  Well it was the cheapest and usually the only thing available at the local store.

See the tiny bottle on the left, I paid over $12 for it, the large one on the right was just under $40, I love this stuff!

  So when I read recipes where they called for an actual vanilla bean I would just use the fake stuff or skip the whole recipe. Vanilla beans are costly and they sort of intimidated me.  I mean you have to cut it open and scrape out the seeds and such.  Too much work for me.  So you know, for years it was the cheapest thing I used.

  That is until I started reading baking blogs and read about bakers using vanilla bean paste. I was all, that sounds good.  And I went looking for it.  I found it, but usually it was like $15 for a small bottle, and when my cookies needed like 4 TBSPs I was not going to get it.  Then at a warehouse store I found a bottle for $7, got it and was promptly hooked.

  Now vanilla bean paste is just what it says.  It is vanilla beans, the tiny little seeds, in a nice thick paste.  So you use it just like vanilla and it is amazing.

  I find it gives a nice strong flavour, and you feel fancy saying "this is vanilla bean such and such"  Being fancy is a big deal you know.

  Anyway I use it in place of vanilla in most things.  I also looked for the best price, because if you are using it a lot it can add up.  I found it at my local baking store for $40 for this huge jar.  Great price and it does not last if you bake a lot.

  I use it in almost anything.  The only exceptions are when I make icing that I am going to colour, I don't think seeing little flecks of bean looks as nice as when you are making a coloured icing.  Also chocolate stuff, you cannot see the flecks and I will either do half and half paste and fake vanilla or just use fake. When I make my sugar cookies I use half paste and half the fake stuff, I need 4 TBSPs I think, so that is a lot, it works just as well. Also when I make homemade marshmallows, this is the best stuff for it, it really makes a difference in the taste and look of them.

  So if you can, give it a try, I love it and it really does add a nice touch.  I am also paranoid and mention to people that things like my cookies have vanilla bean paste so they don't think it is dirt.

Could you imagine?  "Wow these are some fancy vanilla bean cookies.''

"That's not vanilla beans, that's dirt."

It could happen!

They Had A Parade For Me!

This is me, and I sat at that window and did the "Queen wave" I felt like an idiot, since it was not a real float an no one knew who I was, but you know, they will one day.

  Okay, well it wasn't just for me.  I mean they called it the Easter Parade, but you all know it was all about me right? Oh and just to warn you, there are lots of pictures, I mean a bunch.  Which is cool because I think they are all in focus, which is a first for my blog!

 So here are the pictures of us running through the Path system at work, then on the subway platform, I know amazing right! Also this is the start of the parade, as it went down the road the whole sidewalks were filled, it is a big deal apparently.  We never do parades I don't like crowds, unless they are there to see me.

There were lots of people, free candy will do that.

  So I got a last minute email from the TTC ( Toronto Transit Commission) You may remember when I won the contest to name the new train here in Toronto? Well if not, you can check it out on the link.  And then come back and be amazed that you are reading something that a famous person wrote.  Even if I am only famous in my own mind.

You can barley see the street car coming down the tracks, there were two of them.

  So I got the email saying that there were going to be some really old street cars in the parade and we could go ride along.  I was thinking I didn't want to, too much traffic, too much time you know, just being my famous diva self. Then I figured when will Pork Chop have the opportunity to be in a parade again?  I have been in a few.  One as a cheer leader; don't laugh, I used to be hot.

This lady cracked me up she was all "get out of the way! There is a street car coming!"  And no one listened to her. 

I think if I get a new car, I need to put ears on it.

 Also I figure what a fun cheap day out.  So I said sure we would go and we figured out that we would take public transit, which I hate, and just have fun.  Now just to clarify I don't hate transit itself, I hate being packed in with lots of people I don't know. People that don't cover their mouths when they sneeze, or people who take out and clean their crack pipe while you try not to look or as was on the news earlier this year, people doing inappropriate things without pants on while really drunk.  (google it trust me it is not safe for work at all!)

This is the streetcar we rode, I took one side, Pork Chop and hubby the other.  

   I figured it was a holiday Sunday so we should be safe.  And we were, mostly.  On guy was eating and dropping food all over the floor, and Hubby and I nearly gagged.  Pork Chop on the other hand loved it.

Pork Chop was just happy to have some candy, that is all he wanted any way.

Hubby trying to look cool, he was all "Take another one!" He is so vane.

  We first took the subway, and on the other side the Toronto Rocket, the new train, was passing.  Pork Chop started to scream,

"Look Mommy! It's your train!!"

  I just said, "shhh"  I didn't want the public to be alerted to my being there, I was not in the mood to sign autographs.  (What? it could happen.)

And the parade had not even started and Pork Chop was doing his Diva "No pictures!" move.  I may have to hurt him.

  Then we got on the street car, and rode it all the way to the end of the parade route.  Once there we looked high and low for the streetcar.  But no one had any mention of it.  So we waited and called my contact who said it came later as it was still an in service car, so it needed the tracks.  I thought maybe it would be on wheels or something. What do I know, I am just the talent.

  As we waited we went for a snack, Pork Chop wanted candy, as the parade is about candy being tossed out and he would not get any. And Hubby and I found a bakery to get some treats, yum.  We also hit two chocolate stores and I bought treats for later.  So good!

This is in the front, not sure what it is for as the driver was on the other side of the car.  Maybe this street car goes in the water like the Hippo bus we have here.  Now that would be cool.

  So the two street cars arrived and we got on the older one.  It was made in 1921 I think, it was so nice, all wood and nice lights.  There were old advertisements and stuff, so cool. And at the back was a sort of bay window and we opened the windows to sit and be able to wave to the fans.  Notice I did not say my fans.  Just you wait.  I was shown up!

  So we start going and there is this guy, with this super cute dog, just wanting to ride the street car.  And his super cute dog had on bunny ears.  I was chop liver compared to that.  Oh well.  I took one side, Hubby and Pork Chop the other and we waved, and said hi and did all the things famous people do in a parade. Man my arm got tired!

This is the driving side, so fancy!

See all those people, that was nothing, it was so busy at some points.

And Pork Chop was working his "queen hand" wave, so funny!

You could look out and see the whole parade behind us from the window.

See this is why I could not wear my pink bunny ear's.  A red jacket, and a good hair day

How you doin?

   Anyway, it was really fun, I even bought bunny hats and ears.  Only the ears for Pork Chop were the same ones the dog was wearing so he did not want to wear them. And I wore a red jacket which clashed with my pink hat, and I was having a good hair day.  So only Hubby wore his hat, and I took a picture and put it on Facebook as fast as I could.  Then he got mad, but you know he loved being "the first hubby" for me.  He had that arm wave and smile down pat.  And he is all mine ladies!

This is the whole view, isn't it so nice, I can just imagine all the workers back then in their cute old outfits going home.  I bet none of them cleaned their crack pipes on the street car, that is what you call class.

 So we rode the street car, at the front of the whole parade and then got off to get on a new street car to go back home.  It was fun, I mean if I am going to be famous I better get used to this.  But next time I want a limo. And  a pony, because if I get really famous, I am so getting a pony, a cute one. And I will name it mini me or Cupcake.

I felt so cool, until the dog showed up.

And this was the other street car in the parade. I love seeing old stuff like this.

A Whole Lot of Whoopie, Pies That Is.

  Hey guys, so this is actually a guest post I did last month so I thought I would come here and share it all in case you missed it and, you know, it makes up for the fact I have not been able to bake for a bit. I will for sure this weekend, promise!  So enjoy, and try to ignore the worse than usual pictures, I try to.

  So I wanted to do something fun and easy, but something that you could really make bigger and better, you know?  So I decided I would make whoopie pies, but not just any whoopie pies.  I wanted to show you how to make itty, bitty, teeny weeny little pies.  Why?  Well firstly, whoopie pies are awesome, secondly anything small is automatically cuter, and thirdly, with minis you can eat way more and try different flavours.  So it is a win win all around!

This is how it all starts, me measuring everything out and being all ready to just toss it in the mixer.

  I am going to show you how I make my mini pies, and I will include the recipe for the vanilla ones I made, I will link you back to posts where I made the chocolate and red velvet ones.  So this is a three in one deal!

  To get started, I used recipes from the book "Whoopies" because it is the best thing ever , really a must have for whoopie pies.

  As I was baking in bulk, think four batches, I started out with my mes en place.  That is fancy talk for having your crap all together.  So this means I measure out and sift all my dry ingredients together and then put out all the wet ingredients then I get to work.  So here is the recipe for vanilla whoopie pies,  I doubled it because I wanted lots, and I ended up with way too many.  If there can ever be too many whoopies you know?

Obviously these are chocolate, but I was not thinking when I was in the throws of whoopie pie making and this is the picture I took.  Sorry.

Vanilla Whoopie pies
From the book Whoopies  by Susanna Tee
-1/2 cup butter
-1 cup sugar
-1 TSP vanilla
-1 extra large egg
-2 1/3 cups all purpose flour
-1 1/4 TSP baking soda
-pinch of salt
-1 cup butter milk ( I use regular milk, just put a TSP of vinegar in your measuring cup, then fill to the 1 cup line, then stir and let sit for 5 minutes, and you have butter milk!)



Set your oven to 375, or if you have a convection oven 350.

Start by creaming the butter, sugar and vanilla together.  Once creamed, add your egg.  Then once the egg is fully incorporated you add the dry ingredients.  Once they are all in there, and trust me the dough will be crumbly and thick, slowly add the butter milk.  Then mix well and get ready to scoop.

See they spread out a bit, and remember you are using two of these and icing, they are a mouth full!

For these minis I used my tiny little ice cream scoop.  I mean it is small, like 1 TSP small.  It doesn't look like much, but trust me it will be perfect.  So I scoop them out, onto a parchment lined cookie sheet, leaving room for spreading and then bake them for about 5 minutes.  You know they are done when you notice they are no longer wet looking on top, and maybe they are browning just the tiniest bit.  Then take them out of the oven, and let sit for a few minutes before removing them to a cooling rack to finish cooling.

As I was making hundreds I just put them all in cake pans to store.  Please ignore the three large ones in there, those were to be used as taste testers.  I think testing is important.

I think I got about 180 whoopie halves out of this batch, but I was doing 4 different ones, and since I doubled the batch and since I was at this for hours, I lost count, but trust me you get lots!  You can also make them larger with a TBSP size cookie scoop, but that seems to be huge to me, and then I can hardly even eat one, so you know, you choose. So you should get around 80 halves in a regular batch.

Now for the filling I made a few different ones.  For these pies I made two.  A basic chocolate butter cream, and a vanilla butter cream with chocolate pearls.  But it was all one recipe and so easy.

Basic butter cream:
based on me just putting stuff in a bowl and mixing it all up

(this should be more than enough to fill two batches of minis, with lots of icing)

1/2 cup butter
1-2 TBSP Vanilla Bean Paste, or just regular vanilla
milk and icing sugar to add as you need.

-cream the butter and vanilla until creamy, then add about 1/4 cup of milk
-add icing sugar until it is thick enough for what you want, if you feel there is not enough just add milk 1 TBSP at a time then more sugar.  I know it's not exact, but I never do things the right way you know.

Now using this basic butter cream you can change it up however you like.  For my chocolate I just put in cocoa powder until it looked dark enough for me, about 1/4 cup.  And then to make the vanilla with sugar pearls, I just added these chocolate covered rice puffs, they stay nice and crispy but add a little something. Just add as many as you like, I think I added almost 3/4 of a cup.

This was a great find, they were at the outlet store for under $20, and they are yummy!  Little puffs of rice covered in chocolate.

So you can be very organized and lay out all your whoopie halves and what not, like I usually do, or you can just do whatever.  I suggest laying them out, it is much faster.  So lay out your bottoms, wrong side up, and fill with frosting, you can scoop it, or use a piping bag.  I found the frosting with the pearls was really hard to pipe so I used a disposable piping bag and just cut a huge hole in the end for it.

You don't have to pipe it all nice, you won't really see it. Also  I usually do this on a large piece of parchment paper, but I was tired and just wanted to get them done.  Hundreds of whoopies will do that to you.

Once you have filled them, just put the other half on top and press them together to make the icing spread out and stick together.  If you want you can then roll the sides in sprinkles or sugar to look pretty.  I would have, but after whoopie number 200 I was just tired and wanted to be done.

You can store them in the fridge in a container or leave them out for the day for a party.  The only thing that would go bad is the butter cream but you have a good day before you need to worry.  If you make cream cheese icing, I would keep those in the fridge until you are ready to serve.

These are the red velvet ones I made.   I sort of just stacked them together in a cake pan to take them to my moms.

I hope you enjoy these and try them out, I love that you can make so many different combinations, like adding  things to the batter.  I have done banana chocolate chip, chocolate chocolate chip, chocolate with crushed whoopers, and well you can do anything!  Be creative. 

And this is the party picture my Mom took, I was at work, and well, they look sort of bad, but they tasted great!

I Put a Button on it!

  So I have been wanting a button for a while now. And with most things I want, at least related to computers, I tell Hubby.  Then I wait and see if he forgets, because I am constantly telling him about things I "need."

  So I really was not too shocked when he didn't get to it.  I  mean the man works two jobs, takes care of me and Pork Chop and you know, just tries to survive.  Don't tell him, but he does a lot, but this button thing.  Well I was on my own.  And by being on my own, I mean I was not going to do it.  So that is how it was.

  That is until Adrienne at Happy Hour Projects was super awesome and offered to make me one.  Seriously you guys, she made me my very own button!!!!!  After I told Hubby, who said, "I was going to do it!" I did a little happy dance and then promptly set about figuring out how to put it on my blog.  As you can tell, I did but other than that I have no clue what else to do with it.  I know some bloggers have buttons you can grab.  One day I will too.  Until that day I will just look at it and feel special, because I love it!!!  And if you want to make a button, check out this post by Adrienne.  Simply amazing! I know I have read her post a few times, but seriously computer stuff goes right over my head.  I need to have an hour or so, with no one else in the house so I can actually read and understand it.  It is simple for those of you that understand this sort of thing.

  And just so you know, Adrienne was so awesome to do this for me, she offered, as I had done a baking post for her.  But I totally got the better deal, have you seen my button? It's amazing!  Now if only we could make it smell like cookies, that would make it even better!

Thanks Adrienne!