Carrot Garlic Doggie Cookies (2nd attempt)

It's been a while since I've made doggie cookies. The previous few attempts were failures and that made me decide to give up on the quest for a while. But, I am back at it. This is something that Lucky appreciates very much. He is, of course, the official taste tester! And he loves these cookies.

My previous attempt at making these carrot dog treats didn't turn out at all as I expected. This attempt worked better. The result is sort of a drop cookie for dogs. It has a kind of chunky texture, the outside is dry and a bit crisp, and the inside is nice and soft. This recipe does include garlic, which is okay to give to dogs in small quantities. However, if your dog has known issues with digesting garlic, simply remove it from the ingredient list.

Note: After a few days, the cookies I made lost most of their crispiness.

Carrot Garlic Doggie Cookies

1/2 C mashed carrots (puréed would give a smoother texture)

1 egg

1/4 t garlic powder

1/2 C oatmeal (uncooked)

3/4 C flour

Cook and mash the carrots and place them in a bowl. Add the egg and garlic powder. Mix at medium speed for about a minute. This mixture will only get as smooth as the mashed carrots allow.

Add the oatmeal and mix until blended.

Add the flour a quarter cup at a time. If you want to roll the dough out, add a bit more flour until it isn't very sticky. Otherwise, the dough will be somewhat sticky. You may need some extra flour if you used puréed carrots.

Drop globs of the carrot dough onto a baking sheet.

Bake for 15 to 20 minutes. Bake longer if you want them to be crispier.

Cool completely before serving! Keep these in a cool and dry place. If the cookies have some moisture in them, they may start to get moldy after a week, so keep an eye on them.

Banana Kuchen

As promised, here is something very delicious to make up for the failed cookies of the last post. This cake was very easy to make. It didn't make very much, so it is great to bake and snack on for a few days. Or you can share it with people if you are feeling nice.

The texture along with the cinnamon crumble on top makes this very much like a coffee cake. The banana flavor is not overwhelming at all. The crumbly top is not too sugary. This seems to be a nicely balanced dessert which would probably go great with a glass of milk.

Banana Kuchen (Printer-friendly PDF Version)
1/4 C shortening
3/4 C sugar
1 egg
1 medium banana, sliced
1/4 C milk
1 1/2 C sifted flour
2 t baking powder
1/4 t salt
1/3 C brown sugar, packed
1/2 t cinnamon

Cream together the shortening and sugar.

Add the egg, banana slices, and milk. Mix until smooth. Mine was still a bit lumpy, but that is fine.

Add the flour, baking powder, and salt. Mix until well combined.

In a separate bowl, mix together the brown sugar and cinnamon.

Pour the batter into a 8x8 inch pan. Sprinkle the brown sugar mixture on top.

Bake at 350 for 25 to 30 minutes. Be sure to test at 25 minutes by poking it with a toothpick. If it comes out clean, it is done!

Serve warm or let it cool first. It is delicious either way.

Enjoy!

Brown Sugar Drop Cookies (Failure...?)

**Edit** I have been told that these cookies aren't that bad. I may be exaggerating a bit here. 

These cookies may be a good example of why I should not attempt to fix a broken recipe. The recipe resulted in dry crumbles so I added an egg and some vanilla. Oh my goodness, are these cookies awful. I wouldn't advise making them unless you are going to give them to someone you don't like.

They look nice, don't they? They look like yummy and safe cookies. But when you eat one, you realize that they are terrible and no one should ever eat them. I guess we can call these cookies a failure. Expect another post on Thursday of something edible.

Brown Sugar Drop Cookies (Printer-friendly PDF Version)
1 C brown sugar (packed)
1/2 C shortening
1 egg
1/2 t baking soda
1 3/4 C flour
1 C raisins (or anything else you want to put in/on them)

Cream together the brown sugar and the shortening.

Add the egg and mix until well blended.

While the egg is mixing in, sift the flour and baking soda together. Then add the flour mixture to the mixer and let it do its thing.

You will probably get a crumbly mixture. If you want to be foolish like me, add another egg and 1 teaspoon of vanilla. This will make a dough.

Take globs of cookie dough and place them on a cookie sheet. Press raisins, chocolate chips, butterscotch chips, or nothing into the top. Bake at 350 for 10 minutes.

Don't attempt to enjoy these cookies.

If you are foolish and still want to make these cookies, try sifting the flour before measuring. You may not need the extra egg and vanilla. This suggestion comes with no sort of guarantee.

Cocoa Pink Cuplets

I've never heard of cupcakes referred to as "cuplets" before. But I've also never considered cocoa to be pink. My cuplets did not turn out pink. I used the Hershey's Special Dark cocoa instead of normal cocoa, so I'm sure that has something to do with it. I'm also beginning to really enjoy all of this homemade cake. I may never make cake from a box again!

The chocolate flavor of the cuplets is light, even though I used dark cocoa, and the chocolate chips on top compliment the flavor very well. If you want a cupcake that has more of a rich flavor, you can probably try adding a bit more cocoa. Or you can just frost them with a chocolate frosting or ganache!

Cocoa Pink Cuplets (Printer-friendly PDF Version)
2 C flour
1 T cocoa
1 t salt
1 1/4 C sugar
3/4 C shortening
2 eggs
1 t vanilla
1 C cold water
1 t baking soda
1 C chocolate chips
1/2 C chopped nuts (optional)

Take the flour, cocoa, and salt and sift them together twice. Set this flour mixture aside.

In a mixer on a medium low speed, cream together the sugar and shortening.

Add the eggs and mix well on low speed. Add the vanilla at some point during this mixing process. I suggest scraping the sides of the bowl at least once.

Add the baking soda to the cold water and stir until the soda is dissolved.

With the mixer on low speed, alternate adding the flour mixture and the water mixture. I did 3 additions of flour and 2 additions of water. Be sure to start and end with an addition of flour and to mix well between each addition. The batter will be very nice and fluffy when you are done!

Fill baking cups half full with the batter. Put some of the chocolate chips and optional nuts on top of each blob of batter. This recipe will make 20-24 cupcakes, so don't worry if you don't have enough batter for 24 cuplets. I only made 22.

Bake at 375 for 20-25 minutes. Be sure to check at 20 minutes to see if they are done. Check this by stabbing a cuplet with a toothpick. If the toothpick comes out clean, they are done! If it comes out messy, you just killed a cuplet. You should be ashamed of yourself. Now continue to bake them for a few more minutes.

With the chocolate chips on top (and the optional nuts), I didn't see a need to add frosting to these cuplets. If you did, let me know how it turned out.

Enjoy!

Peanut Butter Cookies (chilled dough)

Joe's favorite type of cookie is peanut butter. Whenever I ask him what I should bake, he tells me to bake peanut butter cookies. I have made two types of peanut butter cookies for this blog already, so I haven't baked peanut butter cookies in a while. I recently found a new peanut butter cookie recipe in my mess of recipes. So he is lucky. Even though he has delicious peanut butter cookies to eat now, he is upset that these don't have the criss-cross pattern on them.

If you like brown sugar and you like peanut butter cookies, you will like these peanut butter cookies. It uses only brown sugar and no granulated sugar. I can taste the difference and it is a good difference! These cookies have a nice crunch to them and a crumbly texture. They also don't seem to get terribly hard or stale mushy if left uncovered.

Peanut Butter Cookies (Printer-friendly PDF Version)

1 1/4 C flour

1 t baking powder

1/4 t salt

1/3 C shortening

1 C brown sugar

1 egg

1/2 C peanut butter

Sift together the flour, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.

Place the brown sugar and shortening in the mixer. Cream them together. The mixture won't be creamy, but it will be well mixed and soft.

Add the egg and mix well.

Slowly add the flour mixture. Mix until well combined.

Add the glob of peanut butter and blend. The dough will look kind of crumbly and dry, but it is supposed to.

Form the dough into a log shape and wrap with cling wrap. Chill in the refrigerator for an hour or so.

Remove the chilled dough from the refrigerator, unwrap it, and slice into cookies. My slices were approximately 1/4 of an inch. Bake at 375 for 10 minutes. The cookies will start to brown.

This makes almost 3 dozen cookies. Feel free to double or triple the recipe to make more!

Enjoy!

Follow my blog with bloglovin

Quick One Egg Cake

This cake is kind of a mixture between a yellow cake and a pound cake. It is a bit dense, a bit dry (perhaps slightly over baked?), but has a strong flavor. You could add frosting if you want, but I wouldn't go with a very sweet kind. I won't be adding frosting to most of the "from scratch" cakes that I make. You can do whatever you want.

The title of this recipe is partially a lie. It does indeed only take one egg. The assembling/mixing part of the cake making is quick. The baking part, however, is not. Since the baking part doesn't require much attention, I won't complain too much.

Quick One Egg Cake (Printer-friendly PDF Version)
1 1/2 C cake flour
1/4 t salt
2 t baking powder
2/3 C sugar
1/4 C vegetable oil
1 egg, beaten
1/2 C milk
1/2 t vanilla

Sift together the dry ingredients three times. Pour into the mixing bowl.

Add the oil, egg, milk, and vanilla to the mixing bowl. Mix on high for one minute. I mixed on low for a few seconds, scraped the sides of the bowl, and then beat on high for one minute.

Pour the batter into an 8x8 inch greased pan. Bake at 350 for 40 minutes.

Enjoy!

Apple Krunch

Warm apples go best with crunchiness. If you agree, then this recipe is a good thing for you to make for dessert. It is a bit sweet, but you can adjust the sweetness levels by the type of apples and the amount of brown sugar you use. The assembling is easy and it smells great while baking.

This recipe seems easy enough, but the list of ingredients and directions that I used were not very complete. I did a bit of guessing, but it turned out pretty well! I think I may use a quarter cup less sugar and flour next time, since I didn't use all the "krunch" mixture. This recipe is more of a guideline that is easily adjusted to suit your tastes.

Apple Krunch (Printer-friendly PDF Version)
Apples, the amount depends on the type used
1 C sugar
1 C flour
2 t baking powder
1 egg
1/4 C brown sugar
2 T butter
ground cinnamon to taste

In a bowl, stir together the sugar, flour, and baking powder with a fork.

Add the egg and mix well. This will result in a crumbly and dry mixture. Set this aside.

Peel and slice your apples. Or, if you already did this and froze the apples like I did, remove them from the freezer. Line the bottom of a 8 x 8 inch casserole dish with apples. Make this layer thick. I would guess I used the equivalent of 3 apples.

Sprinkle the brown sugar over the layer of apples.

Cut the butter into small chunks and evenly distribute them over the brown sugar to the best of your ability.

Evenly layer the sugary mixture over everything. (Everything in the dish, not the kitchen...)

Sprinkle the top with cinnamon. Use as much or as little as you want.

Bake for 35-40 minutes at 350 degrees. Let cool 5-10 minutes before cutting and serving.

This is probably great with ice cream or milk, unless you are lactose intolerant. Enjoy!

Milk Chocolate Cake

This cake is absolutely delicious. It is moist and fluffy. The chocolate flavor is light and not overwhelming. No frosting is needed at all. Not even the drizzling of glaze and melted chocolate was needed. The only thing that I would suggest is a nice glass of cold milk. This is how cake should be.

I don't often make cake from scratch. I think I have done so 5 times at the most. If non-boxed cake turns out like this every  time, I may have to replace the time spent decorating a cake with the time spent making it from scratch. This cake, however, would not be good for decorating with a heavy decorator's frosting. It is too light and delicate.

Using cake flour for this recipe is a must. As is the sifting the flour three times. As a reminder, to make sour milk you place 1 T white vinegar or fresh lemon juice in a measuring cup and then fill it to 1 C with milk. Let set 15 minutes or until milk starts to slightly curdle.

Milk Chocolate Cake (Printer-friendly PDF Version)
2 C cake flour
1/2 t salt
1 1/2 C sugar
1/2 C butter (softened)
2 eggs
1 C sour milk
1 t vanilla
2 squares bitter chocolate (melted)
1 T vinegar
1 t baking soda

Measure 2 cups of cake flour and sift with the salt three times. Set aside.

Cream together the sugar and the butter thoroughly.

Add the eggs one at a time. Beat well after adding the first egg. Beat for two minutes after adding the second egg.

Add the vanilla to the batter. Alternate adding the flour mixture and the sour milk, starting with the flour and ending with the flour, mixing well between each addition. The additions should be: flour, milk, flour, milk, flour, milk, flour. That gives four additions of flour and three of milk.

Be sure to mix well.

Add the melted chocolate and mix it all up. The batter will look light and fluffy and delicious now.

In a cup, add the baking soda to the vinegar and give it a quick stir. It should bubble up nicely.

Add the dissolved baking soda to the batter and beat for 2 minutes. The batter now should look even more fluffy and delicious.

Pour the batter into two 8 inch round pans that are prepped with shortening and flour. Bake at 375 for 25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Let cool completely (in or out of the pan, I always remove cake). You can optionally drizzle glaze on top. To make glaze, mix 1 C powdered sugar with 2 T milk.

Enjoy!