Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Loaf

from a great cookbook Baked!

Yields 2 (9x5x3 inch) loaves

INGREDIENTS:
3 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1/2 tsp ground allspice
1/2 tsp ground ginger (optional)
2 tsp baking soda
2 tsp salt
1 3/4 cups (one 15-oz can) pumpkin puree
1 cup vegetable oil
3 cups sugar
4 large eggs
1 tsp pure vanilla extract (I used vanilla bean paste)
1 1/2 cups (12 oz) semisweet chocolate chips (I mixed chunks, minis and regular chips)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Butter two 9x5x3 inch loaf pans, dust them with flour, and knock out the excess flour. (Or do like me and use the Pillsbury spray with both already in it!)

In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, ginger, baking soda, and salt.

In another large bowl, whisk together the pumpkin puree and oil until combined. Add the sugar and whisk again. Whisk the eggs into the mixture, one at a time, followed by the vanilla. Add 2/3 cup room-temperature water whisk until combined. With a rubber spatula, stir in the chocolate chips.

Fold the dry ingredients into the wet. Do not over mix.

Divide the batter between the prepared pans. Gently knock the bottom of the pans against the countertop to even out the batter. Use the spatula to smooth the tops.

Bake in the center of the oven until a toothpick inserted into the center of a loaf comes out clean, 1 hour and 15 minutes to 1 hour and 30 minutes, rotating the pans halfway through the baking time.

Transfer the pans to a wire rack & cool for 15 minutes. Invert the loaves onto wire racks and cools completely before serving.

The loaves will keep for 3 days, wrapped in plastic wrap, at room temperature.

Secret Ingredient Chocolate Chip Cookies

First of these were wonderful!!! I have a few hours a day to spend with my daughter while my son is at summer camp and I wanted to find something that she may enjoy making with me.

I ordered a book by Cindy Mushet of Sur la Table named "Baking Kids Love". I think we will be pulling some more of her recipes out as we approach the holidays for some new family traditions.

Something else you should know...this makes a lot! When it says you need 2 large bowls, you need 1 XLarge bowl to dump it all into. If you have 1 large and one x-large for the dry you are set. It took a bowl the size of the metal bowl of my KitchenAid stand mixer.

A tip I wish I'd read ahead of time: You can bake some of the cookies today, and freeze the rest of the dough balls for another day. Put the balls close together on a pan and freeze for 30 mintues, or until hard. Transfer teh frozen balls to a resealable plastic freezer bag, and freeze for up to 3 months. To bake, take out as many cookies as you need, and space them on parchment-lined baking sheets. Let them thaw for 15 minutes, then press down on them to flatten slightly, and bake as directed.

INGREDIENTS

• 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
• 4 large eggs, at room temperature
• 1 Tbs pure vanilla extract
• 1 cup canola or corn oil
• 4 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
• 2 cups sugar
• 2 cups tightly packed light brown sugar
• 2 1/4 cups old-fashioned rolled oats or quick oats (NOT instant)
• 2 tsp salt
• 2 tsp baking soda
• 2 1/2 cups Kellogg's Corn Flakes (for best results, stick to this brand)
• 1 (12 oz) bag miniature semisweet chocolate chips

Before you begin:

Postition 1 oven rack in the top 1/3 of the oven and 1 oven rack in the bottom 1/3 of the oven, and preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line the baking sheets with parchment paper.

Mix the dough:

Put the butter, eggs, and vanilla in a large bowl or x-large bowl & stir with wooden spoon until blended. Add the oil and beat well until combined. It will look like a mess, but that's okay.

Put flour, sugar, brown sugar, oats, salt and baking soda in another large bowl and whisk until blended. Add the dry ingredients to the butter mixture and stir well with a spoon. You can even use your hands to squish all the ingredients together. Sometimes your hands are the best tools.

Put corn flakes into a gallon size resealable plastic bag, squeeze out the air, and seal the top. Squeeze the bag until the flakes are broken into tiny pieces (do not use a food processor, it grinds the flakes too small). Add the crushed flakes and the chocolate chps to the dough and stir until evenly blended.

Shape the cookies:

Use a large (3 Tbs) or small 1 Tbs ice-cream scoop to shape the dough into cookies. You can also shape the dough by measuring out level tablespoons - 3 for each big cookie, 1 for each smaller cookie-- and then roll the dough between your palms into balls.

If you are making large cookies, bake only 6 at a time on each baking sheet, spacing the balls about 4 inches apart. These cookies spread when they bake. If you are making the smaller cookies, you can fit 12 cookies on each pan. Press down on each ball with your palm to flatten slightly.

Bake the cookies:

Place 1 baking sheet on each oven rack. Bake the large cookies for 7 minutes or the smaller cookies for 6 minutes. Using the oven mitts, switch the pans between the oven racks. Bake until light golden brown, another 7 to 8 minutes for large cookies, or 6 to 7 for smaller cookies.

Transfer the pans to the cooling racks and let the cookies cool completely. You may need to reuse the pans to finish baking all of the cookies. Let the pans cool before you put more dough on them for baking. Store the cookies in an airtight container or resealable plastic bag for up to 1 week.



Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins on a Caffeine Buzz

So what do you get when you have 4-5 over ripe bananas, one last fresh farm egg that needs to be used, little time or energy after getting the kids a bath, dinner and ready for bed? You get these marvelous muffins! Dense, moist and packed full of flavor. You can taste every bit of the banana, chocolate, and yes, the hint of coffee/espresso. And even better, they were super easy to make!

I just received a highly recommended book in the mail yesterday, Baked: New Frontiers in Baking, by Matt Lewis & Renato Poliafito. I couldn't wait to give a try and was thinking maybe this weekend, but the bananas sent me searching for something quick and easy, but I didn't want just another banana bread. Although their Banana Pecan Piloncillo Ice Cream sounded just wonderful, sorry guys, I don't just have piloncillo sitting around...and what is piloncillo anyway?! Guess I'll have to find out!

OK, enough jabbering, here's the recipe:

INGREDIENTS  (yield 12 muffins) ( I made 18)

1 1/2 cups mashed, very ripe bananas (about 4 medium) (I used 5)

1/2 cup sugar

1/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted

1/4 cup whole milk

1 large egg

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1 tsp instant espresso powder (NOT ground) (I used 2 tsp of instant coffee)

1 1/2 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

1 cup (6 oz) semisweet chocolate chips (I used Ghiradelli mini chips>

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Spray a 12 cup muffin pan with nonstick cooking spray.

In a medium bowl, stir together the bananas, sugars, butter, milk, and egg.





In another medium bowl, whisk together the flour, instant espresso powder, baking soda, and salt. Make a well in the middle of the dry ingredients. Pour the wet ingredients into the well and stir until just combined. Fold in the chocolate chips. 

Fill each cup about 3/4 full. (These barely rise) Bake in the center of the oven for 20-25 minutes, until toothpick inserted in center of a muffin comes out clean.

Move the muffin pan to a cooling rack, and let cool for 15 minutes. After 15 minutes, remove the muffins from the pan and let them finish cooling on the cooling rack.

Muffins can be stored in an airtight container for up to 2 days.

Go ahead! Give them a shot. They're great and a wonderful change from the ordinary.

(Note: Bananas that are over ripe, but you are not ready to bake with yet, may be frozen, then thawed when ready for use. So go ahead, save that one or two in your freezer and you may accumulate enough so that when you are ready, you'll have plenty to use!)