Obsessed with Martha Stewart

Oatmeal-Raisin Cookies from Martha Stewart's Baking Handbook

 

Rating (1-10): 9

The evening I made these cookies, my husband came home and gravitated to them. The first question he asked me was, "Can I have one of these?" Of course, I said yes. He is one of the big reasons that I cook. It's fun cooking for someone besides yourself. But I was confused that he seemed to like them so much. I could have sworn that he had told me that he didn't like oatmeal-raisin cookies. When I asked him about it, he told me that oatmeal-raisin is one of his favorite kinds of cookie. I was shocked. It wasn't really a big deal. He can like or dislike whatever flavor cookies and it wouldn't matter, but I couldn't believe that I had gotten that wrong. I thought I knew almost everything about my husband, especially what he likes to eat - that's what living in a small apartment in Brooklyn when you're broke will do - but I guess I don't.

If you're an oatmeal-raisin cookie fan, then you'll love this recipe. I never thought of adding coconut to oatmeal-raisin cookies until I came across this recipe in Martha Stewart's Baking Handbook. It was a delightful addition. 

Chocolate Chunk Cookies

 

Rating (1-10): 9

Since I was a kid, chocolate was never a big deal to me. In fact, my parents soon realized that the chocolate Easter bunnies in my Easter baskets would never get eaten and would have to be thrown out eventually. When I make anything with a lot of chocolate, I have to rely on others to let me know if its good. But if there is something I know, it's good cookie dough. I love chocolate chip cookie dough. Confession: sometimes I eat around the chocolate chips when munching on the dough. When I was in college, you could usually find a container of cookie dough in my fridge. I wouldn't bake the cookies - I would just eat little pieces of the raw cookie dough for a treat. If you're cringing right now - try it before you judge. 

Anyways, even though these are chocolate chunk cookies, I feel confident that I can rate them on the taste of the dough. It came pretty close to the best cookie dough I've ever eaten. I ate about three large spoonfuls of the cookie dough, because it was so delicious. The cookies were alright to me - I ate a couple of them when I wanted something sweet - but the cookie dough was something I would make just to keep in the fridge to nibble on. 

Note: Recipe comes from Martha Stewart's Baking Handbook - page 75

White Chocolate-Butterscotch Cookies

Rating (1-10): 7

If you've been reading my blog since January, you know that I'm focusing on one chapter of Martha Stewart's Baking Handbook for two months at a time. January and February I focused on the first chapter, simple baked goods, and now that it's March, I'm focusing on cookies. I'm so excited to make lots of these cookie recipes. I started with the white chocolate-butterscotch cookies, because I'm a total sucker for white chocolate. 

Side Note: My sister-in-law knows how much I love white chocolate, so she sent me a white chocolate candy bar that also had bits of shredded coconut in it. Talk about heaven. I was trying to eat only a couple pieces of the candy bar each day to limit caloric intake and to make it last longer. I had it sitting next to my computer, and my computer got so hot that it melted the candy bar. I had half of it left, so I did what any self-respecting woman would do - I licked it off the wrapper. And it was delicious. 

Now that you understand my love for white chocolate {I don't like milk chocolate unless it's my time of the month or it's mixed with other yummy stuff like caramel and I NEVER EVER eat dark chocolate - yuck} you'll understand that you almost can't go wrong with me if the dessert has white chocolate in it. But this cookie completely disappointed me. It was too rich, and the butterscotch flavor didn't do anything for my taste buds. I gave it a 7, because everyone else liked them, including my husband who had about 5 of these giant cookies. I'm glad others could appreciate my hard work - but they better not get used to them, because this recipe is going on the "not gonna make it again" list.

 

Cherry-Streusel Coffee Cake

 

Rating (1-10): 8.5

Instead of waiting until Saturday morning to make breakfast, I made it the evening before while I waited for my husband to get home from work which was a great idea. My attention span won't allow me to do any work past 5 on a Friday, and I'm giddy for my husband to get home so we can have our Friday night date. He doesn't usually get home until 6:30, so I decided to bake this coffee cake while waiting which was therapeutic and put me in a fantastic mood. I danced around the kitchen to some of my favorite tunes while measuring and mixing the ingredients. I think this might be my new Friday evening routine.  

For some reason I thought this cherry-streusel coffee cake from Martha Stewart's Baking Handbook was going to be difficult. When I looked at the picture of the cherries in the middle of the cake, I wondered if I would be able to do it. However, the clear instructions made this recipe easy and enjoyable. Thanks Martha!

Pear-Spice Bundt Cake

 

 

Rating (1-10): 8.5 

The rating is based solely on taste. I don't know who wrote this recipe, but I think the person might have been smoking a little pot. I had to bake it DOUBLE the amount of time indicated - it says to bake for 35 to 40 minutes, but it took me an additional 40 minutes before a cake tester came out clean. When I first tried to pull it out, it looked soupy and my husband just shook his head. I thought that it might be a lost cause - but I kept baking it and I'm glad I did. It was delicious.

In my opinion, you've got to be a dedicated baker to make this recipe. There are a lot of ingredients, a lot of steps, and you have to make your own pear sauce. It's definitely not one of the easiest baking recipes that I've attempted.    

Has anyone else baked this cake? Did it take you an additional 40 minutes of cooking time?

Cranberry-Zucchini Muffins

 

Rating (1-10): 8

These cranberry-zucchini muffins from Martha Stewart’s Baking Handbook were easy to make and super tasty. The hardest part about making these muffins was grating the zucchini, and almost anyone can do that. My favorite part is that you don’t have to use a mixer which entails a lot more clean up time. If I was writing the book, I would have put this recipe closer to the front of the chapter, because any level baker could make these.

I’ve made two muffin recipes from this book, and I was surprised that I liked the cranberry-zucchini muffins more than the blueberry muffins.

January Overview...28 recipes!

As January comes to an end, I’ve compiled a list of all the recipes I’ve completed this month. I’m really proud of myself, because I cooked/baked/stir-fried/blended/juiced 28 recipes….I’m going to try to top this number in February, so keep checking in on a regular basis. I also participated in a Body + Soul Challenge (which I'm still doing) and a 4 day detox.

 

Martha Stewart’s Baking Handbook (5 recipes):

 

Baking Powder Biscuits

Pumpkin Bread

Classic Crumb Cake

Spicy Cheese Biscuits

Blueberry Muffins

 

Everyday Food (14 recipes):

 

Spicy Sausage, Bean, and Cheese Nachos

Pasta with Roasted Vegetable and Spinach

Turkey Sausage Sandwiches

Chicken and Rice Soup with Lemon

Pork Tenderloin with Swiss Chard and Polenta

Beef Rolls with Spring Salad

Polenta Wedges with Asparagus and Mushrooms

Healthy Morning Muffins

Fresh Orange Yogurt Tart (Attempt 1 and Attempt 2)

Black-Bean and Brown-Rice Cakes

Cauliflower Gratin

Portobello, Broccoli, and Red Pepper Melts

Salmon with Green Beans and Lemon Zest

Stir-Fried Honey-Ginger Chicken with Peppers

 

Body + Soul/Whole Living (7 recipes):

 

Mango Smoothie

Green Juice

Carrot, Beet, Cabbage, and Watercress Juice

Chilled Cucumber Soup

Fennel/Apple Juice

Energy Smoothie

Stir-Fried Vegetables and Chicken with Buckwheat Noodles

Steamed Salmon with Fresh Herbs and Fennel

 

Martha Stewart Website (1 recipe):

 

John Legend’s Macaroni and Cheese

 

Martha Stewart’s Cookies (1 recipe):

Ginger Cheesecake Bars
 

Spicy Cheese Biscuits and Blueberry Muffins

Spicy Cheese Biscuits

Thursday morning I woke up extra early to bake spicy cheese biscuits from Martha Stewart’s Baking Handbook. I made my morning green juice just like Martha does and went to work making biscuits, so my husband could enjoy some before work. They weren’t very difficult to make. My favorite part about them was I didn’t have to roll out the dough like the first biscuit recipe in the book.

I was a little disappointed when I tasted them, because I thought that they would taste spicy and cheesy…I mean the recipe is spicy cheese biscuits. They lacked flavor. My husband and I decided that they would need a slice of sausage and another slice of cheese to be mouth-watering. I forgot to take a picture before I rushed my husband off to work with a bag containing the rest of the biscuits.

Blueberry Muffins

This morning I woke up to a world of white. It snowed last night and was continuing to snow when we got out of bed at 6:00 a.m. due to our puppies chirping like little birds. When they whine, it seriously sounds like birds chirping. The puppies love the snow. They play and wrestle in it until they get too cold, and it’s really adorable. I wish I could find my video camera, because it’s just one of those moments that makes you smile.

Anyway, I was thankful that I had already gotten the ingredients to make blueberry muffins (from scratch, not the box kind) from Martha Stewart’s Baking Handbook. I made green juice again and then baked the muffins. I hate when Martha instructs that you have to generously butter the muffin pan and then dust it with flour. I haven’t been able to come up with an easy or logical way to do this, so it gets really messy. Once I got that part out of the way, they were simple to make.

My husband declared that he helped with this recipe and wanted some credit. He didn’t “really” help. This is what he did: got out the ingredients (but he didn’t measure them – I did), cleaned the paddle attachment of the mixer because I asked him to (It wasn’t clean when he handed it to me. It still had globs of muck on it from the last time I used it. I re-cleaned it.), measured out the milk (this was the only thing he measured), and tried to dry off the blueberries (I had to rinse them, because we had to use frozen) with a paper towel (it didn’t work). So here I am giving him credit for the tiny contributions he made to the muffins.  

It was really nice to eat warm blueberry muffins while watching the snow fall. It would have been pretty romantic if our 2 year old lab mix didn’t insist on sitting between us. The worst part is she has really awful gas at the most inopportune times…

Classic Crumb Cake

 

Yesterday I baked another recipe from Martha Stewart’s Handbook: the classic crumb cake. Underneath the title of the recipe there is a statement that says, “This foolproof cake is perfect for beginning bakers.” Um, I don’t think so. First, I didn’t have a clue what a pastry blender was until I made the biscuits from this book, so I don’t know how a beginning baker would know what it is or how to use it. I thought this recipe was going to be super simple, but it took me more than 45 minutes to prepare it to put it into the oven and it took 50 minutes to bake. I had planned on making it for breakfast, but breakfast became lunch.

The recipe states that it will need to bake for 40 to 50 minutes, and I purchased a nifty little oven thermometer just to make sure that my oven was heating up to the right temperature. It was. My husband attempted to take the crumb cake out of the oven at 40 minutes, so I could test it with my toothpick. At this point, the crumb topping is basically overflowing and running down the sides of the pan. The top is jiggling when I try to test it. Obviously, it’s not ready, so I set the timer for another 10 minutes. When I test it again, it’s still wobbling in the middle. I baked it in a clear pan and I could tell that the cake on the outside was getting over-baked. I took it out three minutes later.

While my husband pulls down the wire cooling rack, he grabs another pan from the cabinet and says, “I think you baked it in the wrong size pan. This is a 13-by-9-inch pan.” Guess who told me to use the clear pan that I used….come on…I’ll give you one guess….

My husband.

The moral of the story: measure your pans if you’re not sure how big they are. We happily ate the outside of the crumb cake and threw out the mushy middle. We had some leftovers for breakfast this morning along with a healthy smoothie made from pineapple, a banana, and coconut milk.

Pumpkin Bread Fiasco

 

The second recipe I attempted from Martha Stewart’s Baking Handbook was the pumpkin bread. It was really easy to make and it made two loaves. The problem occurred when I pulled the pumpkin bread out of the oven and tested it with a toothpick. I thought the toothpick came out clean and the instructions are to bake it for 55 to 60 minutes. I had baked it for 55 minutes. I tried to be patient and let the pumpkin bread cool on the wire rack, but I was so hungry – I had been up for over an hour with no breakfast.

While waiting, I asked my husband if he wanted to have some eggs and toast, and he turned me down saying that he was waiting for the pumpkin bread. I couldn’t believe it. My husband who hardly ever turns down food (he’s not fat – he just has a healthy appetite) didn’t want eggs and toast for breakfast! Well, I decided to cut the pumpkin bread before it was done cooling. The inside looked like pudding and the consistency made my stomach ache for a couple hours after I ate it.

Next time I’m cooking it for a little longer….