Old-Fashioned Chocolate Fudge

I have been wanting to make fudge for some time (particularly after the peanut brittle success). I know I've been a terrible blogger with my absence lately, however, I have been busy baking many things. Many of these things have already been posted quite well and I felt no need to beat them into the ground (my favourite frequents include Garlic Twisty Bread, Chocolate Chip Cookies, and Brownies). I finally made some fudge about two weeks ago, it is long gone into the happy tummies of my friends and family, so here is a review of how it came to be.

I used this recipe:
http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/old-fashioned-chocolate-fudge/detail.aspx
A note here, I found the first two comments at the bottom of this recipe quite useful. I did clean the sides of the pot while it was cooking and I was very careful to not stir, jostle or touch the pot as it was heating and cooling.

I started with these quality ingredients:


After stirring the milk, cocoa and sugar together in a medium pot I brought it to a boil.


I then reduced the heat, set my timer in place and set the alarm at 238 degrees. I didn't touch anything until it beeped. I then very carefully and slowly moved it to a cool burner and threw the butter and vanilla in but did not stir (as the first comment indicated).



It took nearly forty minutes to cool down to 115 degrees, and the butter was still a pool in the center.


I beat the butter in, but was careful not to overbeat.


I poured it into a pan to cool.


I cut it into about 36 pieces once it was totally cooled, but I forgot to take a photo of that, which kinda stinks.

Better luck next time :-)

Blueberry Muffins

I love fresh ingredients and making something new. The lovable hubby was listing off at least 4-5 things I've made repeatedly in the past (to some singing successes) that I've yet to chronicle for y'all. However, today I've elected to go with something new today, and it was TONS! of fun to make.

I used this recipe:
Best of the Best Blueberry Muffins

I started with these quality ingredients:



I put the butter, sugar and salt into the mixer bowl:


This is what it looked like "creamed":


Looks like I forgot to take a salvageable photo after adding the eggs one at a time. But here is one after adding the flour/buttermilk mixture:


Then it was time to work with the blueberries:

Look how I took the upper right one-quarter away:

I put these berries in my mortar:


I mashed them until they were heartily goo:






I also seem to have neglected to take a photo after adding the mashed berries but before folding in the unmashed ones and the rest of the flour. But here's one after adding those last ingredients:

I scooped this batter into two prepared 6 muffin tins greased and lined with the most adorable paper cups.


It filled the cups pretty much. I then sprinkled the remaining sugar atop them.

After 30 minutes in a 375 degree oven, they came out looking perfect:


MmmMmmMmmmm tasty!!!

Peanut Brittle

Here's a fun love story that's 100% true.

My husband was walking through the kitchen last week and said "you know what would be good? Peanut Brittle." I said, "I bet I could make Peanut Brittle." So I looked up a recipe and the only thing I needed was peanuts. I bought some on my lunch break the next day for $1.67 and came home to make delicious peanut brittle. Here; watch!

I started with these fine ingredients:



I mixed the sugar, corn syrup, salt and water in a pot on the stove until the sugar was totally dissolved. It was thick and a swirly white color:



I added the peanuts, and the mixture quickly came to a boil as I was setting the thermometer in place:


It took around 20 minutes of frequent (once a minute or so) stirring to reach 300 degrees. I could see various changes taking place, the mixture became thicker with white bubbles around 200 degrees, the 230s were agonizingly slow, by 250-260 the bubbles looked like caramelized sugar:


250 to 300 went very quickly, and I added the remaining ingredients:


I immediately transferred the mixture to my prepared well-greased pan:



As the recipe suggested, I used two forks to spread the mixture out to fill the pan. In retrospect, I wish I had used a spatula, I think it would have worked better.



I let it cool for an hour before I started cracking it apart:



And then it was delicious and amazing:


Woohoo!!

Triple Chocolate Chunk Brownies

Pillsbury, who I got this recipe from seems to think that these are only double-chocolate chunk. Additionally, I left out a step (involving more chocolate lol) but there's still three kinds of chocolate in these brownies, so I feel justified calling them triple chocolate.

I elected not to make the first of the two icings this recipe spreads atop the brownies, no one complained, and the brownies are gone, so they must have been good.

So, here's the recipe: http://www.pillsbury.com/recipes/double-chocolate-chunk-brownies/09eca55d-44b8-4e14-8558-5bd3ff2b7599/

I started with these fine ingredients:


From there I began packing my light brown sugar. I usually use "brownulated" sugar which doesn't need to be packed, but the store I visited didn't have that. So a lesson on packing brown sugar; in this shot, the cup looks nearly full:


However, after lightly packing it down, it was less than half full, I had to fill it up and then pack it down two more times before it was actually full. When I turned and dumped it into the mixing bowl with the white sugar and vanilla, it held the shape of the measuring cup:

Then I melted the butter on the stove. I always cut it up to make it easier for melting:

When I added the eggs and melted butter to the sugars and vanilla mixture, everything was very egg-y and brown. I couldn't believe that I hadn't added any chocolate yet. It was unpleasant to look at, so I thought a photo was needed to encourage others that they're on the right path at this step.

Next I added the cocoa, flour and salt:


And it came out quite thick and chocolate-y, like brownies (lol!):

I was unable to find white chocolate chunks available for purchase, so I had a bar which I proceeded to cut into chunk sizes:

I filled my measuring cup with my little white chunks:

And then I added them and the chocolate chunks to the mixture:

Finally, I put it all in a well greased and floured pan to go into the oven:

And a half hour later they came out perfectly. I cooled them in the pan for an hour and then cut them and put them on a platter where I poured the second part of the recipe's icing (just the white drizzle, not the spread) onto them.

They came out perfect:

Rainbow Cupcakes

Again my love for food coloring combats the stresses of real life. So while being threatened by Hurricane Irene, I tried out a recipe I've been thinking about for a while:
Rainbow Cupcakes

Unfortunately I did not have enough confectioner's sugar to follow this recipe's suggestion for buttercream frosting, so I found a different one to follow:

http://www.joyofbaking.com/VanillaCupcakes.html

So, I started with these fine ingredients:



I combined my dry ingredients and sent you a secret message:


I love my camera - the sharpness of the whisk-head on the mixer here as I combined the wet ingredients is awesome!


After I mixed the two together until "just combined," I poured roughly equal amounts into six bowls.


I then added 6 drops of color to each bowl:


Starting with the purple I poured tiny amounts into each pan (it barely made a full circle on the bottom with the first color) and STILL I only got 7 full cupcakes and one tiny one despite the recipe claiming it makes 10.


After 17 minutes of baking they looked adorable and popped right out of the pans after a quick run around the outsides with a butter knife.


I cooled them on a wire rack completely while whipping up the icing.


I started by sifting what powdered sugar I did have into a medium bowl:


Then I creamed the butter:


When I added the two together it made a rather small ball of goo:


I added the milk, which didn't look like it was going to do much:


But actually, after 3-4 minutes, it looked rather fluffy!


I loaded the icing into a ziplock bag and snipped off a corner:


Then I put an adorable little curlique of icing atop each cupcake for delicious rainbow cuteness!