Baking Essentials

The 

Untitled #3 by tarynraiedwards on Polyvore

La Cornue Albertine Provence Blue Stove
williams-sonoma.com

Hey Everyone!!

I'm back with another post. Yay! I'm trying to get more consistent with blogging. I truly enjoy it but wish I had more time to dedicate to it. One day fingers cross! 

Today,- I have some essentials you need to start baking. If you don't know how to bake and you need starter kit, here is a listen below what you should need. 

The most important thing you must have is some sort of mixer.  Now, in my opinion the best is a kitchen aid mixer. It comes with a whisk, paddle, and a dough hook attachment.  This are quite expensive, at $300, but you could probably find them used. That's how I found my first one. You could also just get a hand held mixer which could run you about $20.

Next, you need to have some measuring utensils. Accurate measuring is so important in baking. If you are off what ever you are making will not come out the way you want. You need a measuring cup like the picture above to measure out liquids and individual cups to me assure out your dry ingredients. Measuring spoons will come in handy to measure out salt, baking soda, baking powder etc. Lastly, I like to always have a scale. You will find some recipes that are in grams or ounces and the scale helps make it very easy. I tend to us my scale more because it's more accurate and it's easier to bake with recipes were you can measure everything with one tool. 

With so many options in bakeware it's hard to figure out just the basics. I believe to start out you should have 2-8" pans, 1 cupcake pan, 1 cookie sheet, and bundt pan. If you plan on making a lot of pies invest in a good pie pan. Now you can make cakes, cookies, brownies etc. 

 Lastly, you will need some utensils. A rubber spatula and a whisk is about all you need. You can us each of these in multiple ways. 

Well that's all for today and I hope it helps you to get started with baking. 

Baking Essentials by tarynraiedwards featuring a bundt cake pan

Kitchenaid pasta maker
jcpenney.com

Nordic Ware bundt cake pan
williams-sonoma.com

Molly Hatch oz measuring cup
anthropologie.com

Bone china
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Cotton pot holder
anthropologie.com

Williams Sonoma round cake pan
williams-sonoma.com

Creative Co op battery operated clock
nordstrom.com

Best Brownies Ever!!!

For years I have tried different brownie recipes and I think I have found the ultimate one. I've been watching Cupcake Jemma  on YouTube for some time now and all her recipes look and sound so delicious.  She is the owner of Crumbs and Doilies Bakery all the way in London. So, the only way I could possible try her stuff was to fly to London but don't really have the money for that right now; so, I opted to bake it myself. So here we go.

 For starters, you want to melt your chocolate along with the butter in a double boiler or in the microwave in 10 second intervals. 

While your chocolate is cooling you want to beat your eggs and sugar together until it's a pale yellow and doubles in volume.  Now, your vanilla extract. 

Once the chocolate has cooled then add it to the egg and sugar mixture and mix until it's all combined. 

Next, gentally fold in the flour and add a pinch of salt. You don't want to over mix or knock out all that air you created. 

In a 9x9 square pan line with baking paper, pour your batter and bake for 25 to 35 mins at 350 degrees Fahrenheit. 

And there you go the best brownies you will ever make. Recipe is below. 

250g Unsalted Butter (2 sticks)

250g Dark Chocolate

1 tsp Vanilla Extract

6 Whole Eggs

350g Sugar (3 1/2 Cups)

150g Flour (1 1/3 Cups)

1 Pinch of Salt

350 degrees F/ 180 degree C

Bake for 25-35 minutes

Chocolate Crinkle Cookies

If there is one thing you need to know is that I'm a chocoholic and proud of it. When I saw Laura Vitale do these cookies on her You Tube channel; I had to recreate them. They were so delicious! They had a bit of crunch on the out side and a mix between a chewy cookie and a brownie texture inside. These cookies were very simple to make and most of the ingridence you probably have in your pantry. 

I started off with butter and granulated sugar and bet them together with my paddle attachment until it is well blended.

It should look something like this.  Once you get to this point add your eggs and vanilla extract. A little hint, I always add a little extra extract. It won't hurt it and adds a little more flavor. Also, when baking make sure your eggs and butter are at room temperature. 

Mix this until it all comes together and scrap down the sides and the bottom with your rubber spatula and give it a quick mix to make sure its all incorporated.

Now, it's time to add all your dry ingridents. Before I add the dry I gave it a quick stir with a whisk to help blend it all together. I also added about a 1/2 cup of chopped bitter sweet chocolate I had lying around. The original recipe doesn't have this but it helps give the cookies extra gooyness. 

Once it's all mixed up it should look like this here. After mixing it up you will want to put the batter in the refrigerator for about 2-4 hours. This helps when it comes to forming the balls. I used a portion scoop to portion out the balls and I quickly rolled them in my hands and rolled them in powder sugar. 

Bake them for 11-12 minutes at 350 degrees.

1 cup of All Purpose Flour
2/3 cup of Granulated Sugar
1/2 cup of Cocoa Powder
1/4 cup of Unsalted Butter, softened at room temperature
1 tsp of Baking Powder
1/4 tsp of Salt
1/2 tsp of Instant Espresso Powder
2 Eggs
1 tsp of Vanilla Extract
1/2 cup of Confectioner Sugar

I hope you enjoyed this recipe. 

Love T

Afternoon Lunch

Hello Everyone,

I hope all is well. Recently, my husband and I went to the farmers market to stock up on groceries. The next day we both had the day off, which is very rare. So, being the chefs we are with a day off and refrigerator full of groceries what do we do? Cook! We had a friend to come over to enjoy the food we ( my husband) prepared. 

First course, was a capreses salad with tomatoes, basil, mozzarella, and he added slices of salami. He drizzled this with a little olive oil and sprinkled salt and pepper. 

For the second course, we had a beef and rice noodle bowl. He took thinly sliced ribeye, scallions, Swiss chard, and Shitaki mushrooms and sauté them and added chicken broth. He roasted some garlic and thinly sliced them and add them to the mixture. Lastly, he added the rice noodles. It was so deliscous. 

For the drink, we had my husband favorite  whiskey sours.  These are so easy and so good. They taste like a grown up lemonade. Here is the recipe below.

3/4 cup of your favorite whiskey

1/2 cup of fresh lemon juice

1/2 cup of fresh lime juice 

2/3 cup of Simple syrup 

Maraschino Cherries

Hope you enjoyed this post.

XOXO

DIY: Hot Chocolate Mix

Happy Holidays everyone!! So, I know everyone is busy doing Christmas shopping and I thought this would be a nice Christmas gift that you can make at home and it's pretty inexpensive and who doesn't like hot chocolate. 

For the mix you will need:

1/4 cup Sugar

1/2 cup Confection Sugar

1/2 tsp Cornstarch

1tsp Cinnomon 

2/3 cup Cocoa Powder

4oz Semi-Sweet Chocolate

In a bowl combine all ingredients and whisk together. If you are giving it as a gift, find a nice mason jar or a Christmas jar like I have here and fill with the mix and leave room for a good amount of marshmellows. Then I top it off with a bow. 

 To make a cup of hot chocolate, you will need 1 cup of milk for every 2 tablespoons of the hot chocolate mix.

I hope this gives you an idea for a Christmas gift. Happy Holidays!

Love ,

Taryn