A Note to Folks on Weight Watchers

I forgot to mention to those folks on Weight Watchers that these Babycakes could be a great little snack to satisfy the sweet tooth.  They could be made and frozen in snack size zip bags.

On the Weight Watchers site, there is a cake recipe (link below) that could be used in the Babycakes gadget.

This recipe serves 24, with one serving counting as 3 Points Plus.  I can only guesstimate that 4 or 5 Babycakes made with this recipe would count as 3 Points Plus.

http://www.weightwatchers.com/food/rcp/RecipePage.aspx?recipeid=252983910

Wow, what a difference a pen makes!

The scoop was easy, but slow. The first babycake was almost cooked by the time I finished filling all the holes.

With this "pen" gadget, I can whip right around and fill all the babycake holes in no time flat! Awesome and kinda fun to use.  I leaned a ruler against it to show you how tall this Pancake Pen is.

I also found that it was only necessary to spray the babycake holes at the beginning of the cooking process. I did not have to spray for each batch.  Made for easy clean up, and that's always a good thing.

Look What UPS Just Brought...

I was hoping to have this to use to dispense the cake batter into the Babycakes gadget, but it just arrived.  It's bigger than I thought, but that's a good thing.  It'll hold a lot of batter before needing to be refilled.  It also fills from the bottom or top and has incremental measurements along the side of the bottle.  I picked mine up on Williams - Sonoma for $10 (they had free shipping on any size order).
Amazon has the same item for $10.60 free Amazon Prime shipping.

Babycakes, it's warm inside!

I couldn't help myself. I'm a sucker for a bargain, and if it's on a kitchen gadget...I'm there.
This week someone posted a Kohl's deal that I couldn't pass up on Babycakes cake pop maker.  The deal:
Regularly $25, sale $14.99  + 20% off = 11.99, then there is a  $10 rebate  = $1.99   Really, can you blame me?

So a few minutes ago, I gave it a try.  It's awesome! So cute, so easy, so fun,  so delicious, so many possibilities.

The directions give you a "from scratch" recipe, but I decided to try a conventional cake mix.  It works great with a cake mix.   The babycakes machine comes with a fork tool to pop them out of the machine so you don't burn yourself and is also helpful in dipping them; a cooling rack and pop stand, a package of cake pop sticks and an injector if you want to fill them.  The machine has a red light - Power, and a green light - Ready. Ready only applies to when the appliance is ready for the batter. You have to use your own timer set to 4 - 5 minutes, then check with a toothpick or cake tester to see if it comes out clean - then it's ready.

In the photos, you'll see that I sprayed them with Baker's Joy. I prefer this over Pam for baking as it doesn't impart any flavor into the baked goods.  
After putting batter into the first well with the scoop shown in the photo, it was obvious the scoop was too big, so you might opt for the smallest scoop (1 Tbsp.) or just use a measuring tablespoon.
There are a few videos from individuals online, but they seem to have a big mess afterwards to clean the wells, because they overfilled or didn't use the Baker's Joy.  I learned from their mistakes, I thank them for that.

I warmed some German chocolate premade frosting in the microwave, swirled the cute little cake spheres into the frosting while the frosting and cake was still hot. Popped it in my mouth.  Delicious.  I didn't wait for the cake to cool, but the frosting would probably set better had I waited.   I'm not sure how many pops one cake batter makes, as I wanted to do one batch and post this for you.

I can see myself filling these chocolate cake goodies with whip cream and having a whoopie pie tasting pop, or dipping them in chocolate and rolling them in jimmies/sprinkles or coconut or nuts.

The book comes with some recipes, but your only limited by your imagination with this little kitchen gadget.

If you have children or grandchildren, this would be such a fun project to do with them anytime.

With my love of starches, I'm thinking maybe of putting some bread dough in the machine and dip into spaghetti sauce.   I welcome any other ideas you might have.  For sure, I'd be happy to try them out!

This is the item on Amazon, it is sold by another party through Amazon.  I did write to Amazon to tell them this price is way off from other vendors. Not sure if that'll have any affect of the seller's willingness to lower the price, but here it is none the less.

P.S. I sneaked in a pic of part of the Christmas decorations in my house.

 Christmas, partially decorated.
(All my cast iron cookware is in & under the old school desk.)

 Here it is, cute huh?

 Cake batter, scoop, Baker's Joy & babycake machine.

 Batter: The first one I overfilled, you only need 1 Tbsp.

 Cooked

 Popped out of the appliance, clean and ready for the next batch.

 Warmed frosting glazed onto warm cake.

You'll notice some of the slots are empty. Yes, I ate them. :0)

Pre Christmas Baking - Chocolate Biscotti!

Happy Friday! I'm back in the kitchen again. Still working out the best places to put things and trying to figure out which storage bin holds which items, but all in all it's coming together.

Today the gadgets I've used are a silpat mat, Cuisinart hand mixer, Cuisinart mini food processor, Cuisinart cooling rack, Victorinox bread knife.

Being that it is the holiday season, I thought I'd prepare Chocolate Espresso Biscotti.  Not to worry, this is from the old Weight Watchers New Complete Cookbook.  I didn't follow it exactly, but will give you my spin on it.

Ingredients:

2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 cup slivered almonds (I used whole and chopped them in the mini food processor)
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
2 1/2 Tbsp ground coffee fresh from your canister (I used very finely ground espresso)
3/4 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp salt
1 cup sugar
2 large eggs
3 Tbsp strong brewed coffee

My method:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees
2. Spray an approx. 11" x 14" cookie sheet, or line with a silpat mat
3.   Combine flour, cocoa, ground coffee, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt.
Use an electric mixer to blend ingredients.
4. In a separate bowl, combine sugar, eggs, brewed coffee and vanilla.
Add the sugar mixture gradually to the flour mixture, beat on low speed until well combined. The dough will be fairly dry.  Use a wooden spoon or rubber spatula to combine any of the mixture that hasn't blended into the dough.  Mix in the almonds.
5.  Put dough on the cookie sheet, form it into an approx. 5 x 9 inch log.
6.  Bake until firm to the touch and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, approximately 30 - 35 minutes.  Transfer the log onto a cooling rack and let cool 10 minutes.  Put the log onto a cutting board, and with a serrated knife, cut the log crosswise into approx. 1/2 inch slices.
7. Arrange sideways back onto the cookie sheet, bake an additional 12 minutes at 300 degrees, turn at 6 minutes so both sides of the cookie get toasted.
Transfer to wire cookie rack.  They will crisp as they cool.
Makes 15 large biscotti.
WW uses the same recipe, they just divide the dough into two logs, cook them for 20 - 25 minutes and their recipe makes 42 biscotti. With an old point recipe value of 1.
54 calories, 1 g Fat, 0 g Sat Fat, 0 g Trans Fat, 10 mg Col, 35 mg Sod, 10 g Carb, 1 g Fib, 1 g Prot, 11 mg Calc.


In with the gadgets, I also posted a Delonghi espresso machine. It's appears to be a bit bigger than the one in my photos, and has good Amazon ratings.

Here is Our New (England) Kitchen!

After many weeks of roughing it, the project is done. It seemed like forever, but as projects go, I'm told this was done in good time. We started in October and the painter was the last to do his thing, he was done last Saturday.
The video might be a little jumpy, so I've also posted some still photos.  You might see my shoes on the rug in the hall pantry...they were making too much noise on the wood floor, so I kicked them off during the video.

Updated photos below the video: April 27,2012

Here is the reveal video:

Some updated & some close up photos (April 27, 2012)

The Reveal will be coming soon!

Hope you all had a great Thanksgiving and put some of your kitchen gadgets to good use. Thanksgiving is THE cooking and eating holiday. It doesn't get mixed up with gift giving or egg hunts, it's a time to truly enjoy the bounty provided to us by our farmers and our gardens.

I skipped the Friday Flick for last week, figuring you would be busy Black Friday shopping or napping from still full Thanksgiving bellies.

I'm putting a video together of the finished kitchen and pantry that I'll share with you later today.
I actually had a chance to use my new gas range and use the oven last night!

Wednesday I went to our local wholesale club and restocked my fridge with healthy fruits and veggies. Yesterday I went to our local market to restock pantry staples.  I felt like a kid in a candy shop! I'm sure I'm not the only one who gets excited food shopping.  So many interesting items, so many meal possibilities!

Ok, time to get to work on the video.  See you all later.
TGI Friday Flick.

Off topic:  Here is a witty neighbor: