Cake Mix Cookies

I am fo' realz back, only ten days after my last post. BAM. And I have these really easy and tasty cookies to share. All you need is a box of cake mix (any flavour), vegetable oil, eggs, chocolate chips and some oats, if you want. A bowl is probably good, too.


Start simple: beat some eggs.


Throw your cake mix and some oats, if you want them, into a bowl.


toss in the eggs, oil and chocolate chips.


Stiiiir it up, little darlin'.

I missed taking a photo of this but scoop the batter into about 2-tablespoon-sized balls and put them on a baking tray. Then bake them.


They will look and smell delicious when they come out of the oven.


These were the last three cookies left... about 36 hours after I had baked them.

Recipe

Cake Mix Cookies
1 boxed cake mix (any flavour)
¾ cup rolled oats (optional)
2 eggs, lightly beaten
½ cup oil
¾ cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 350°F. In a large bowl combine all ingredients, mixing well. Spoon batter in about 2-tablespoon-sized balls and place on a baking tray. Bake in preheated oven for 10-12 minutes. Cool briefly on trays before removing to wire rack to cool completely.

Guten Appetit! Continue reading...

Wilton Course 1 Class 2

Last night I had my second Wilton class in which we decorated our cakes with the Wilton rainbow!

On Wednesday night I baked my cake.

Now, I did two things I don't normally do. I used a mix and I wet a dish towel and wrapped it around the pan to make it bake more evenly.
I don't like that mixes call for so many eggs. Three? Geez! But I do love the homemade bake-even strip I used. In the first Wilton class the instructor suggested we get the Wilton brand ones, but using a dish towel is a lot more... free. So all I did was roll up a dish towel to fit the height of the cake pan, soak it, ring it, wrap it around the pan and secure it with a couple of safety pins. It made my cake bake completely evenly. I didn't have to level it at all and the outside edge wasn't over-baked. It was excellent.
I did have to bake the cake for about ten minutes longer, because the wet towel kept the pan cooler than normal. But if you're planning on using this trick, make sure to check the cake around the suggested baking time and determine just how much extra time it will need!

Anyway, yesterday I spent a tonne of time making different frostings and then frosting the darned cake.

I'm really not good at frosting cakes. It took me about an hour and it was really uneven and not very smooth. But I let the frosting set for a bit and then rubbed it down with parchment paper to try to smooth it out a bit. If you'd like a tutorial for that, check out this video! This lady does it with a paper towel, but you can do it with parchment, as well.

Finally, I took the half hour bus ride to Michael's (the bus system sucks here) and decorated my cake!

It turned out pretty well! The colours were insanely bright (although the photos make them look brighter than they actually were), and I managed to make my rainbow pretty even. It was fun to do, too.




When I got home, a good friend came over and shared some with me.

So I just have to say, I think the Wilton "butter"cream is disgusting. It's all shortening and no butter. It tastes like sugar and chemicals. I think next week I'll frost the cake with a real buttercream and just decorate with the Wilton buttercream. If you're interested, the recipe for the Wilton buttercream is below. I think I would probably stick with the basic recipe, but replace the shortening with butter - I think then it would be pretty decent.
Overall, however, I'm pleased with the class! It's fun to learn some decorating techniques, even if they are really simple. I'm hoping that after I'm done this course, I can just find the books for the other courses and follow those instead of doing the other courses. Mostly because it's ridiculously impractical for me to get to Michael's, but also because it's all pretty well laid out in the books and now that I've learned how they teach things in the courses, I think I can just transfer it to the next levels. I think I would recommend the first course to anyone who wants to learn the basics of frosting!

Recipe

Wilton Buttercream
1 cup solid white vegetable shortening*
1 teaspoon Wilton Flavour**
3 tablespoons milk or water
1 lb. confectioners' sugar (approx. 4 cups)
1 tablespoon Wilton Meringue Powder***
pinch of salt (optiona)

Cream together shortening, flavour, water and salt if using (it's good to dissolve the salt in the liquid, otherwise it might dissolve later in your frosting and mess up the colours). Add dry ingredients and mix on medium speed until all ingredients have been thoroughly mixed together. Mix for an additional minute or so, until creamy.

*they suggest Crisco because it's very white
**my instructor recommended a mixture of colourless vanilla and butter flavours, but I just used regular vanilla... coloured and all
***this helps stabilise the frosting - I actually like the product.

This recipe makes about three cups of stiff consistency frosting. Wilton has three consistencies they use in class and it's actually pretty useful to know them and what they're used for.
Stiff consistency is used for things like flowers with upright petals, like the Wilton rose or sweet peas.
Medium consistency is used for stars (with the star tips), figure piping, borders (like the shell border) and floweres with petals that lie flat. To make medium consistency frosting, add one teaspoon of water for each cup of stiff frosting, or one tablespoon if you want to make the full recipe medium consistency.
Thin consistency is used for writing, making vines, leaves and frosting the cake. To make thin consistency frosting, add two teaspoons of water for each cup of stiff frosting, or two tablespoons for the full recipe). Continue reading...

Easy food: pizza and Quaker muffins

The plan for my next baking endeavour was chocolate berry pie, but I haven't got the ingredients for it yet, so instead, the past two real food things I've made have been mostly packaged and easy.

First, Anders and I ate pizza for dinner last night. It's sort of a new dinner we've started enjoying, and it's nice because it's pretty easy.

We buy the crust ready-made with sauce included. Both are of surprising taste-quality.
We buy Molinaro brand:


Since Anders hates cheese more than anything in the world (no joke) and eats meat, we cut the shell in half and make completely separate pizzas.
His toppings usually include some sort of meat (most often bacon, but he's also put on ham, and maybe even hotdog once), pepper (red, orange or yellow), and some times pineapple.
I, on the other hand, like toppings that most other people think are insane. I put on the usual grated mozzarella cheese, then top that with broccoli and green olives. It's a lovely salty taste with a nice amount of crunch in the broccoli.



All in all, a great, mostly healthy dinner:



Second, today I made Quaker brand oatmeal chocolate chip muffins from a mix.

Yes, that is a poster of two girls making out in the background... I live with all boys, don't you know.

After a crummy day today, I was craving a chocolate hit, and while these are oatmeal chocolate chip muffins, most girls will understand that this is just not enough.
So, I had the ingenious idea of adding some unsweetened cocoa to a few of the muffins, before I remembered I live in a student house with four (now three, tomorrow two) boys and there is not a dusting of unsweetened cocoa to be found. Instead I nicked some of Trevor's Nesquick and added that to a few of the muffin cups before they went into the oven.


After baking for a mere 18 minutes, the muffins looked lovely and golden... kind of like this:


And how did the Nesquick ones actually turn out?

Pretty good. Could definitely use more chocolate, still.

Guten Appetit! Continue reading...