Homemade Lemonade

Category: Other > Homemade Lemonade

A lot of recipes call for lemon zest- grated peel of a lemon. So the question is, what do you do with the left over lemon after you have used all the peel for zest? The answer is some homemade Lemonade.



Recipe:

• Lemons
  
• Sugar
  
• Water
  

Take your lemons, cut them in half, and squeeze them over a bowl. You will get more lemon juice from the lemons if you use a juicer but squeezing by hand will work in a pinch. Make sure you don't get any seeds in the lemon juice.

Now, measure how much lemon juice you have. Based on how much lemon juice you have, you will want that much water and sugar. So, if you have 1/2 cup lemon juice, you will want 1/2 cup sugar and 1/2 cup water.

Place the sugar and water in a sauce pot and bring it to a boil until the sugar is dissolved. This way your lemonade will be sweet, but won't have sugar constantly falling to the bottom of the pitcher.

In a pitcher, mix your lemon juice and sugar water together. Now, take your measurement, in this example it was 1/2 cup, and double it. You will want to add this amount of cold water to your lemonade. So, in our example, add 1 cup cold water. Stir your lemonade and taste. Add more water, a little at a time, until you like the taste of the lemonade.

Baking Tips:

• You should get about 2 tbsp. lemon juice per lemon.
  

Peanut Brittle

Category: Candy > Nuts > Peanut Brittle

I just want to state, for the record, that all the recipes I post have been tested by myself. Which is more than I can say for about half the recipes posted online. If you have a recipe from a cook book vs. a recipe online and don't know which to go with, go with the one in a published cook book.

Recipes posted online don't need to be verified by anyone. I'm not saying people intentionally post bogus recipes but one typo is all it takes to make a wonderful recipe turn sour.

Why am I saying this? Well for one thing, I don't want people to get frustrated if they try a new dish and it comes out bad. It probably isn't that you did something wrong, it might be the recipe. The second reason is because I chose to follow a poorly written peanut brittle recipe that forced me to trash my first batch and start all over. Something that would never had happened if the recipe I followed was a tad bit better written.

So, what went wrong with my peanut brittle? Well, in order to make peanut brittle you have to boil the mixture to 300 degrees. Needless to say, that is very hot. I was stirring my mixture with a plastic spoon, I always use plastic spoons, and was horrified when it started to melt all into the mixture. I felt like an idiot for not thinking ahead that the spoon might melt, but was more upset that the recipe I was following didn't take 2 seconds to say to use a metal or wooden spoon. It really is little things like that that distinguish a well written recipe from a poorly written one.

In the end though, my second batch of peanut brittle turned out really well and was gone before I knew it.



Recipe:

• 1 cup Sugar
  
• 1/2 cup Light Corn Syrup
  
• 1/4 tsp. Salt
  
• 1/4 cup Water
  
• 1-1/2 cups Unsalted Peanuts
  
• 2 tbsp. Softened Unsalted Butter
  
• 1 tsp. Baking Soda
  
• 1 tbsp. Butter
  

You will need a candy thermometer to make peanut brittle.

Take the 1 tbsp. Butter and use it to grease a cookie sheet. Set cookie sheet aside. Measure out the Baking Soda and 2 tbsp. Butter and set it aside, ready to use in the future. In a 2 quartz sauce pan, add the sugar, corn syrup, salt, and water. Over medium heat, stir mixture until sugar is dissolved and bring to a boil.

Once your mixture is boiling, set the candy thermometer in place. Make sure the tip of the thermometer is not touching the bottom of the pan or your reading will be inaccurate. Once you reach 200 degrees, stir in the peanuts.

Using a metal or wooden spoon, stir frequently until temperature reaches 300 degrees. You want to stir it frequently so the mixture and peanuts do not burn. Turn the heat up to medium-high or high-low to help you get to 300 degrees which will take a while.

Once you reach 300 degrees, remove from heat and immediately stir in the butter and baking soda that you had set aside. When you add the baking soda, the mixture will foam up. You only need to stir it a little bit. Quickly pour the mixture onto the cookie sheet. You can tilt the cookie sheet to help it spread a little bit but you don't want to take anything and spread it yourself. Doing so will deflate the air bubbles and make less crunchy peanut brittle.

Allow the peanut brittle to cool, about 1 hour, and then snap it into pieces. Enjoy.

Baking Tips:

• You can substitute a little bit of dark corn syrup for the light corn syrup to make the peanut brittle darker.
  
• When breaking the peanut brittle apart, be careful. The peanut brittle can be a little sharp.
  
• A lot of recipes call for Karo syrup. Karo is a name brand for corn syrup. If a recipe calls for Karo, you can use any corn syrup.
  
• You must reach 300 degrees. If you don't, your peanut brittle will not turn out right, which is why having a candy thermometer is so important.
  

Sausage Cream Cheese Croissants

Category: Pastry > Savory > Sausage Cream Cheese Croissants

These sausage cream cheese croissants make a great little breakfast pastry.



Recipe:

• 1 package (16 oz.) Ground Sausage
  
• 1 (8 oz.) Pack Cream Cheese
  
• 2 packs of Refrigerated Crescent Dinner Rolls
  

In a skillet, thoroughly brown and cook up the ground sausage. Once the sausage is brown, add the cream cheese and stir until the cheese and sausage are mixed together well.

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Open up the packs of Crescent Rolls. The rolls will be perforated into 8 triangles. Place two of the triangles together to form a rectangle and mash them together so they stick together. Do this to all the triangles so you have a total of 8 rectangles.

Take the sausage/cream cheese mixture and place it in the middle of each of the rectangles. You will want to leave 1/4 clear on each of the long sides and 1/2 clear on one of the short sides. On the side that doesn't have any clearance, start to roll up the dough. When you are finished rolling, take the 1/2 clearance and mash it down so the roll stays closed, then finish by crimping the sides closed. It will look kind of like an egg roll when you are finished. Repeat with the other rectangles.

Place in oven and bake for about 15 minutes or until golden brown.

Baking Tips:

• If you don't want to make up all the pastries at once, you can store the cooked sausage and cream cheese in the refrigerator for few days. You can roll them in the crescent rolls when you are ready to bake.
  
• You can add less then 8 oz. of cream cheese to the sausage if you like a less cheesy taste.
  
• If you want to make smaller pastries, you can mash all the crescent pieces together, roll it out, and then cut into smaller rectangles.
  

Sesame Street Count Cake

Category: Cakes > Butter > Decorated > Sesame Street Count Cake

If you are looking for an easy way to wow people, baking a cake in a novelty pan and decorating it is a good way to go. Novelty cake pans come in all sorts of shapes like flowers or popular cartoon characters.

A novelty pan usually takes one cake mix and can be decorated using a star tip. You cover the cake all in little stars. It takes a little time to cover the whole cake but the benefits are that making the little stars are easy and the cake will look good regardless of how well the stars are formed.



What you Need:

• Novelty Cake Pan
  
• 1 Cake Mix
  
• Cake Board
  
• Medium Consistency Buttercream Icing
  
• Food Coloring
  
• Pastry Bags
  
• Star Tip (size 16,18, or 21)
  

Grease and flour the cake pan. Mix up the cake mix based on the instructions on the box, pour into the cake pan, and bake. Let the baked cake cool about 15 minutes in the pan before you remove. Let cake cool completely, design side up, on a cooling rack. Once it is cool, you can transfer it to the cake board. Use the food coloring to color the buttercream icing as you need. Fill your pastry bag with the icing and put the star tip on the bag. Now you are ready to start filling in your cake with the icing.

Tips:

• Make sure you grease and flour your cake pan really well so that it comes out clean.
  
• When you first make buttercream icing, it will be stiff consistency (if you stick a knife in it, it will not move). Add a few drops of water and mix the icing to get a medium consistency. You will know it is medium consistency when you can stick a knife in it and it moves, but does not fall, when you shake the bowl. If you add too much water, you can add some powdered sugar to make it stiffer.
  
• Try to place your stars close enough together so you don't have gaps and see the cake underneath.
  
• Filling in your cake in star rows will help give your cake a better look.
  
• If you put a dab of icing on your cake broad and then place the cake on top, your cake will not move around on the broad.
  

Banana Chiffon Cake

Category: Cakes > Foam Cakes > Chiffon

A chiffon cake is different from other foam cakes because it contains a fat - vegetable oil. Chiffon cakes usually have light flavoring so rich icings or toppings work well. This is a Banana Chiffon cake with a Banana Buttercream icing.



Recipe (Chiffon Cake):

• 2 cups Flour
  
• 1-1/2 cups Sugar
  
• 1 tbsp. Baking Powder
  
• 1 tsp. Salt
  
• 1 large Ripe Banana
  
• 1/2 cup Vegetable Oil
  
• 7 large Eggs, separated
  
• 1 tsp. Vanilla
  
• 1/2 tsp. Almond Extract
  
• 3/4 cup Cold Water
  
• 1/2 tsp. Cream of Tartar
  

Icing:

• 1 Ripe Banana
  
• 1/2 cup Butter
  
• 1 tsp. Vanilla
  
• 1 pound (4 cups) Powdered Sugar
  
• Milk
  
• Pinch of Salt
  

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Sift together the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt and place in large mixing bowl. Mash the banana and add it to the flour mixture. Next add the oil, egg yolks, vanilla and almond extracts and the cold water. Whisk together until the batter is smooth.

In a different large mixing bowl, beat egg whites and cream of tartar with an electric mixer until stiff peaks form.

With a rubber spatula, gently fold the beaten egg whites into the batter just until combined – it is important not to over-mix at this step. Pour batter into an ungreased 10” angel food cake pan. Bake about 55 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean.

Invert pan over a cooling rack. Allow cake to cool completely in this upside down position before removing from the pan.

While the cake is baking you can mix the icing. Add the banana to a mixing bowl and mash. Add vanilla, a pinch of salt and butter. Cream together with the banana. Beat in the powdered sugar. If you need more liquid, add milk a tsp. at a time as needed. However, the banana provided a lot of liquid and you might not need to add any milk.

Once the cake is cool, you can ice it with the banana icing.

Baking Tips:

• Adding the salt to the icing helps cut down on some of the sweetness. You can add less or more to your taste.
  
• When adding salt to icing, you should place the salt in a liquid you need to add to the icing instead of just sprinkling the salt into the icing. That way you make sure to distribute the salt evenly.
  
• You need to start baking the cake as soon as the batter is finished being mixed so the air in the eggs don't start to escape.
  
• Because a chiffon cake is a foam cake, don't bang the batter around or it might not rise properly.
  
• Because of the banana, your icing will be a bit glaze like. You can add a tsp. of meringue powder to the icing to make it a little stiffer.
  

Spaghetti Soup

Category: Other > Spaghetti Soup

I decided to do something a little different today and post something that isn't baking related. Back when I was in college, living with a bunch of roommates, this is one of the recipes that was traded to me. It's called Spaghetti Soup, a tasty soup/stew made with spaghetti, sausage, and tomatoes as its' base.



Recipe:

• 16 oz. Ground Sausage
  
• 1 box Kraft Spaghetti Classics Tangy Italian
  
• 1 small bag Spaghetti Noodles
  
• 1 bag Frozen Super Sweet Corn
  
• 1 can Green Beans
  
• 1 can Crushed or Diced Tomatoes
  
• 1 small can Tomato Sauce
  
• 2 tbsp. Oil
  
• Salt, Pepper, Onion Powder, Garlic Powder to taste
  

In a 10 quart pot, pour oil to coat the bottom. Add the ground sausage and 1/2 cup water. Break up the sausage and cook until brown. You can add more water if the little bit you added evaporates. The water is to help make sure the sausage doesn't burn or stick to the bottom of the pot.

Once the sausage is browned and well cooked, add the green beans including the liquid from the can, add the crushed tomatoes, tomato sauce, and corn. Open the Kraft box and add the spaghetti from the box. Open the other bag of spaghetti and add it too. Add water to the pot until all the spaghetti is covered.

Add the seasoning from the Kraft box, plus salt, pepper, onion powder, and garlic powder to taste. Add more water until you have a nice soupy consistency. You can add more seasoning if needed. Bring to a boil and cook until noodles are tender.

When serving you can sprinkle some Parmesan cheese on top of each bowl of soup.

Baking Tips:

• You can use any seasoning to the soup you would like to your taste. For example, I have added Italian Seasoning at times.
  

French Toast

Category: Bread > Yeast > French Toast

I believe egg was the first thing I learned to cook as a little girl. Eggs were quickly followed by French Toast. As I was getting ready for this posting, I went and searched for French Toast recipes like I do for everything I post. I just wanted to see what was out there. I was surprised by the amount and variety of French Toast recipes out there. Most of them where pretty fancy, but I tend to think simple is often better.

French Toast is simply bread that is soaked in eggs and then fried or baked up.



Recipe (makes 4 slices):

• 4 Slices of Bread
  
• 2 Eggs
  
• 1 tbsp. Milk
  
• 1 tsp. Vanilla
  
• 1 tbsp. Butter
  

In a shallow pan that you can soak bread in, whisk the eggs, milk, and vanilla together. Melt the butter in a skillet and move it around so the bottom of the skillet is coated. Dip bread in egg mixture so each side is covered with mixture. Let each side soak up a bit of the mixture. On medium heat, place bread in skillet and let it cook for around 3 to 4 minutes. Flip over and repeat. The bread should be brown and well toasted. You can serve your french toast with syrup, powdered sugar, jellies, or fresh fruit.

Baking Tips:

• Since the bread is going to be toasted, stale bread works well for french toast.
  
• Don't use bread that is too thin as it will break easily once it is soaked in the eggs.
  
• Don't press down on the bread while you are cooking it.
  
• If you like your bread soggier, cook it less. If you like it crisper, cook it longer.
  
• Don't let your bread sit in the egg mixture until you are ready to cook it. As it sits, it will soak up all the egg mixture. So unless it is your last piece of bread, don't do it.
  
• You can use more eggs and soak more into the bread. The more egg you soak up, the puffier your french toast will be.
  
• You can use water, instead of milk, if you would like.