These Muffins are Bananas (w/ Orange Juice Glaze)

There is almost no reason to ever throw away icky bananas. If a banana has a brown spotted peel, it is great for baking. Sometimes, the worse looking the banana is, the better the baked goods will taste. So don't throw away your bananas! If you have two icky bananas, make these muffins. They are delicious.

Banana Muffins (Printer-friendly PDF Version)

2 1/2 C flour

1 T baking powder

1 t salt

3/4 C brown sugar

1 C milk

1 egg

2 T butter (softened)

1 1/2 t vanilla

2 ripe bananas

In a bowl, place the flour, baking powder, salt, and brown sugar. In a separate bowl, smash the bananas. Set aside

Put the milk, egg, butter, and vanilla in yet another bowl. Beat these ingredients together until well combined.

With a fork, combine the ingredients in the flour bowl. Add the milk mixture to the flour mixture and mix together until blended.

Add the smashed bananas and mix well.

Put the batter in greased and floured muffin cups. You can also use paper liners.

Bake at 350 for 20 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool completely, or at least cool mostly before eating.

Orange Juice Glaze

1 C powdered sugar

1 T orange juice plus a bit more

Place the powdered sugar in a small bowl or glass measuring cup. Add the 1 T of orange juice. Mix well. Slowly add more orange juice to obtain the desired consistency. Drizzle over cooled muffins.

Peanut Butter Kisses

These cookies are terribly addicting. Every time that Christmas baking comes around, I have to make two batches of these cookies. The first one tends to disappear too quickly! At least these are easy to make. 

Peanut Butter Kisses (Printer-friendly PDF Version)

1/2 C sugar

1/2 C brown sugar (packed)

1/2 C peanut butter

1/4 C butter (softened)

1/4 C shortening

1 egg

1 1/2 C flour

3/4 t baking soda

1/2 t baking powder

sugar for rolling

Approximately 3 dozen unwrapped chocolate kisses

Unwrap all of the kisses and place them in a bowl or on a plate.

Place the sugars, peanut butter, butter, and shortening into a mixing bowl. Cream these ingredients together.

Add the egg and mix it in well.

Add the flour, soda, and powder. Stir these in until just blended.

Place some extra sugar into a small bowl. Roll the cookie dough into 1 inch balls. Roll the balls in the sugar. Place evenly spaced on a cookie sheet. These will spread some, but not a lot.

Bake at 375 degrees for 10 minutes, or until the edges turn slightly brown. Remove from oven and place the kisses on top of each cookie. Let set on the cookie sheet for a minute or so. Remove to a cooling rack and cool completely.

The kisses will take a long time to harden after they are placed on the cookies. To speed up this process, place the cookies in the refrigerator for a while.

Raisin Bread

I have always enjoyed store bought raisin bread. I had no idea how incredibly addicting homemade raisin bread is. I had difficulty restraining myself from eating the entire loaf. If you have the time, you should absolutely make this bread. A KitchenAid mixer with a dough hook is also a great thing to have. I'm going to be making this again very soon.

Raisin Bread (Printer-friendly PDF Version)
2 cakes yeast (same as 2 packets active dry yeast)
1/4 C lukewarm water
1 C milk
1 1/2 t salt
1/4 C sugar
1/2 C shortening
3 eggs
5 C sifted flour
1 C (or more) raisins
6 T or so melted butter
1 C sugar mixed with 2 T cinnamon

Take the yeast and add it to the lukewarm water. Set it aside. Place the three eggs into a cup and beat them. Set this aside as well.

Sift plenty of flour, enough to give you more than 5 cups worth.

Place the milk into a small sauce pan. Heat the milk over medium heat. You will need to pay attention to the milk and stir it often. The milk is heated enough when it just starts to lightly boil. Small bubbles will appear  near the edge of the pan. Don't scorch the milk, just scald it. Remove from heat and add the salt, sugar, and shortening. Mix until blended.

Pour the milky mixture into a mixing bowl. Add 2 cups of sifted flour. Mix these together completely using low speed.

Add the yeast mixture and the eggs. Mix these in completely as well on low speed.

Add the remaining 3 cups of flour and mix until completely blended.

If you have a KitchenAid mixture (or a good mixture with a dough hook), replace the beater with the dough hook. (Optionally, spray the hook with cooking spray to prevent sticking). Mix/knead on low for 10 minutes, occasionally stopping the mixer to remove the dough from the hook. Otherwise, knead the dough until "satiny". Cover the dough with a clean dish towel and let it rise in a warm place until doubled in bulk. This will take approximately 1 hour.

Punch down the dough (or mix with dough hook for a minute). Add the raisins and knead down. I used the mixer for another 4 minutes. Let rest for 10 minutes.

Divide the dough into two equal(ish) sections. Roll out the sections of dough to about 3/4 inch thickness. Brush with melted butter. Sprinkle generously with cinnamon sugar mixture.

Roll up the flattened dough. Place into greased loaf pan. Let rise until double in size. Again, this takes about an hour.

Bake at 400 degrees for 40 minutes. Check at 35 minutes. I forgot to check and the top burned. Cool thoroughly. After 10 minutes, the loafs can be removed from the bread pans and placed on a cooling rack.

The Compromise Cookies

There are times when you must choose between eating cookies and eating a candy bar. (I'm not sure when this would happen, but I'm sure it does.) This is a difficult decision to make. Fortunately, with the help of these cookies, you no longer have to make that decision. You see, these aren't just cookies. They are cookies with a piece of candy bar inside! These cookies are even sneaky in their disguise and look like plain cookies. So you can easily eat them and people will think you are just eating a cookie. Everyone wins!

The version of this cookie presented below is made with Pilsbury pre-cut, ready to bake sugar cookie dough and mini Snickers. These can be made with any type of mini candy bar and probably any sort of pre-made dough.

(Printer-friendly PDF Version)

Needed:

• ready to bake cookie dough (store bought or homemade)
• mini candy bars

Zeroth step, preheat oven to the temperature the cookie dough desires.

First step, unwrap all the candy pieces. Place them on a plate or in a bowl.

Second step, place the unwrapped candy pieces next to the cookie dough. The dough is easier to work with when softened, so leave the ingredients alone on the counter to get acquainted if needed.

Third step, place a piece of cookie dough on your palm and smash it with your other palm. Don't worry, the cookie dough cannot feel pain.

Fourth step, place an unwrapped piece of candy in the middle of the smashed dough. Wrap the candy piece with the dough.

Fifth step, repeat the third and fourth steps until a pan is full of dough balls.

Sixth step, place the filled pan in the oven for the designated bake time (the cookies will tell you how long this is).

Seventh step, remove the cookies from the oven. Let cool a minute or so on the pan before removing to the cooling rack.

Snowballs

These are also known as Russian teacakes, butter balls, and Spanish (Mexican) wedding cookies. Whatever you want to call them, just know they are mainly butter. Sounds healthy, right? To be honest, if you are eating cookies you probably aren't worried about the healthiness of the cookies.

These are a more recent addition to the Christmas baking frenzy. I think we found this recipe on a bag of Nestle Holiday Morsels. Where ever the recipe came from, it is delicious. The cookies are kind of dry but also melt in your mouth as you eat them. I recommend having a glass of milk on hand while consuming these.

Snowballs (Printer-friendly PDF Version)
1 1/2 C butter (softened)
3/4 C powdered sugar
1 t vanilla
1/4 t salt (only if butter is unsalted)
3 C flour
10 oz chocolate chips (more or less, up to you)
1/2 C finely chopped nuts (extremely optional)

Toss the butter, powdered sugar, and vanilla in a mixing bowl. Cream together very well.

Add the flour one cup at a time, mixing well after each addition. Add the chocolate chips and mix until evenly distributed. At this point, also add the nuts if you want to ruin the cookies. The dough will be heavy, thick, and not sticky.

Roll the dough into 1 inch balls. Place on a cookie sheet. These won't spread or change shape very much, so you can place them close together if you want. I, however, have the terrible habit of allowing no more than 12 cookies on a sheet.

Bake at 375 for 10 to 12 minutes. Don't over bake or they will be hard and dry. Under baking just makes them soft and crumbly. Let cool on a cooling rack.

Once the cookies are mostly cooled, place a few cookies into a container with 1/2 C powdered sugar. Close the container and gently shake. Tada! Powdered sugar covered cookies that look just like real snowballs. Maybe not, but we can pretend. Repeat this until all cookies are coated with powdered sugar.