Lovin' From the Oven

NY Style Crumb Cake

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I’ve come to the conclusion that I have an unhealthy obsession with blogging. Whenever I get an idea in my head, I just want to hop over to google domains and create a new website. What’s the point of owning +10 (I really only have three) websites? Nothing if you dont do anything with them.

Looking back on it, I’m wondering why I didn’t just combine all of my websites into one. It’d make my life so much easier and I’d be saving twenty bucks a year. Plus, it would look like I update a lot more often. Darn, why didn’t my ideas all come at once instead? Kind of like Cupcakes and Cashmere, where she combines both baking and fashion. If you haven’t heard of that blog yet, make sure to check her out! I lust over all of her clothes and her lifestyle in general.

Oh well, I guess the good part of is that I get to keep it all organized and separate. Actually, not really. If my blog name wasn’t so specific, I’d probably merge my fashion blog into this one. Poop.

Moving onward, this crumb cake was a hit at the baby shower I brought them to. They’re fluffy, tasty, and a cinch to whip up! They’d be a great addition to breakfast, a cup of tea, or some coffee. I halved the topping because I only had a stick of butter left, but I definitely recommend sticking to the original recipe as posted. This comes from First Look, Then Cook, and surely makes a TON! Halve the recipe and bake it in a smaller pan if you don’t want to feed all of Kansas.

Topping:

  • 1 cup (packed) dark brown sugar
  • 1/2 cup sugar
  • 1 1/2 tablespoons ground cinnamon
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, melted, warm
  • 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

Cake:

  • 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 3/4 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
  • 1 1/2 cups sugar
  • 2 large eggs
  • 1 1/3 cups sour cream
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

For topping:

  1. Mix both sugars, cinnamon, and salt in medium bowl and whisk to blend.
  2. Add warm melted butter and stir to blend.
  3. Add flour and toss with fork until moist clumps form (topping mixture will look slightly wet). Set aside.

For cake:

  1. Position rack in center of oven and preheat to 350°F. Butter 13 x 9 x 2-inch glass baking dish. Sift flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt into medium bowl.
  2. Using electric mixer, beat room-temperature butter in large bowl until smooth. Add sugar and beat until light and fluffy. Add eggs 1 at a time, beating until well blended after each addition.
  3. Add sour cream and vanilla extract and beat just until blended. Add flour mixture in 3 additions, beating just until incorporated after each addition.
  4. Transfer cake batter to prepared baking dish; spread batter evenly with rubber spatula or offset spatula. Squeeze small handfuls of topping together to form small clumps. Drop topping clumps evenly over cake batter, covering completely (topping will be thick).
  5. Bake cake until tester inserted into center comes out clean and topping is deep golden brown and slightly crisp, about 1 hour. Cool cake in dish on rack at least 30 minutes.
  6. Cut cake into squares and serve slightly warm or at room temperature.

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Chocolate Toffee Cookies

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I just got home from Vegas and I can’t wait for a little R&R. Weird, right? You shouldn’t need R&R coming home from vacation, but this trip was just the opposite. We walked at least 3 miles a day in 110 degree weather, ate our weight in the 24 hour buffet, stayed out until 3 AM every night, and battled our way through outlandish crowds. Usually, people go to Vegas for the clubs, drinking, and gambling, but for me, it’s all about the food and shopping! You don’t need to be an alcoholic party animal to enjoy Vegas.

As much fun as my trip was, I’m glad to be back at home watching “Trick ‘R Treat” with my DB. Yes, I’ve talked about before how my guilty pleasures consist of bad scary movies, so this is a perfect way to end the weekend for me.

These cookies come from the Culinary Chronicles. My DB loved them, but that’s probably cause there’s toffee in them and he’s a sucker for toffee. They were really chewy and I would recommend baking them for longer than I did. These definitely are fragile cookies, so be careful if you’re going to travel with them. They’re also very chocolate-y, so if you’re not a fan of chocolate cookies, stay away!

  • ½ Cup All Purpose Flour
  • 1 Teaspoon Baking Powder
  • ¼ Teaspoon Salt
  • 16 Ounces Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips
  • ¼ Cup Unsalted Butter, room temperature
  • 1¾ Cups Light Brown Sugar
  • 4 Large Eggs, room temperature
  • 1 Tablespoon Vanilla Extract
  • 8 Ounces Coarsely Chopped Toffee Bars
  1. Preheat oven to 350° degrees.
  2. Sift together flour, baking powder and salt in a small bowl. Combine chocolate and butter in a heatproof bowl. Melt the chocolate and butter in the microwave using 20-second intervals, stirring in between each period. Continue until the mixture is melted and smooth—about 100 seconds, depending on the oven. Do this slowly and carefully as to not scorch the chocolate. Cool mixture to lukewarm.
  3. Beat sugar and eggs in bowl until thick, about 5 minutes. Beat in chocolate mixture and vanilla. Stir in flour mixture and then toffee. Chill batter until firm but not hard, about 30 minutes.
  4. Using a large scooper, about 1/4 cup, place dough onto prepared baking sheets, spacing the cookies 2½ inches apart. Bake just until tops are dry and cracked but cookies are still soft to touch, about 15 minutes. Cool on sheets.

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Dark Chocolate & Almond Cookies

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When I was little, I used to be allergic to chocolate. Crazy, right? How could anyone be allergic to such a divine substance? Whenever I ate chocolate, I got a nosebleed momentarily after. It was weird because all of my siblings were the same way; chocolate equals nosebleed. Of course, that never stopped us from eating Crunch ice cream bars or nibbling a bit of chocolate every now and then. It just meant that we had to be prepared later on with wads of tissues and a comfortable place to sit down.

I actually got so many nosebleeds in elementary school that I became BFFs with the nurse, Barbara. She was the sweetest little lady and knew me by name. She always knew to grab the ice pack and tons of tissues the moment she saw me walking through the door. Why did this happen? I’ll never know. All I know is that I eventually grew out of it and was able to eat all the chocolate in the world without a worry. Thank goodness!

This recipe is adapted from pixie baker and I’d say it’s a good base for a cookie. I’ve come to the conclusion that baking cookies with bread flour is my favorite way to make cookies. It always results in a firm and chewy cookie. I used 72% dark chocolate, but that may have been a bit much for some people, so feel free to use whatever kind of chocolate you want!

Ingredients

  • 1 cup (two sticks) unsalted butter, at room temp.
  • 3/4 cup granulated sugar
  • 3/4 cup brown sugar
  • 2 eggs, beaten
  • 2 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 3 cups Bread flour
  • 3/4 teaspoon of salt
  • 1 teaspoon baking Soda
  • 1 1/3 cups dark or bittersweet chocolate chips (I used Trader Joe’s Pound Plus Dark Chocolate Bar)
  • 1 to 1 1/3 cups coarsely chopped almonds
  1. In a large bowl, cream butter and both sugars just until they come together. Add the egg and vanilla extract, beat just until incorporated. In a seperate medium-sized bowl, whisk together the flour, salt and baking soda. When thoroughly mixed, add to batter and stir just until blended. Stir in chocolate chips and nuts. The dough should be neither sticky nor dry. Cover the bowl and refrigerate the dough for at least two hours.
  2. Preheat oven to 350.
  3. Form the cookie dough into balls.
  4. Place the cookies on an ungreased insulated cookie sheet or an upside down rimmed cookie sheet. Bake for 12-15 minutes. Let cool on cookie sheet for five minutes before removing.

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