Chocolate Butterscotch Cookies

I found some butterscotch chips at the store. I thought they were cool so I bought them.

I also saw mini peanut butter cups too. I'll be going back for those.

I decided to make chocolate cookies with the butterscotch chips.

They turned out well. Very brownie-like and I like brownies.

Very tasty stuff.

It's a boy!

My friends, Ellen and Sara, and I baked some cookies for a baby boy shower.

Then we decorated them.

It was fun. And very messy.

I wish I had more than my phone camera to capture some pics.

 

 Duckies, Baby Carriages, Dinos, Rocking Horses, Froggies...      The works.

Banana Muffins with a Nutella Cream Cheese Frosting.

Cupcakes are like mini cakes. Sweet and covered with frosting. More of a dessert.

Muffins are like mini bread things. Lighter and not as sweet. Not frowned upon to eat for breakfast.

So, is it a muffin or a cupcake when the muffin is covered with frosting?

Probably just a mupcake, since cuffin is already in the urban dictionary.

I made some Banana Mupcakes.

Banana Mupcakes with a Nutella Cream Cheese Frosting

Peach Pecan Sour Cream Muffins

I wanted to make something using pecans and sour cream. Mainly because there was sour cream in the fridge and pecans in the cupboard.

The only problem was that I didn't have any butter or margarine or veggie oil. Slight problem when it comes to baking.

But I manage to crank out some muffins.

Peach Pecan Sour Cream Muffins

White Chocolate and Blueberry Cookies

I like baking with new recipes so when I found a cookie recipe with chocolate and blueberries, I was quite excited.

So excited that I might have even dreamed about it.

Chocolate and Blueberry Cookies.

Peanut Butter Cookies.

I'm addicted to peanut butter. I like it. It tastes good. It's good for me.

I have tons of open pb jars.  The regular Kraft stuff, the natural organic stuff... you name it, I've probably got it.

It makes sense that I like peanut butter cookies as well.

Some Peanut Butter Cookies were plain, 

others had some Cadbury Crunch chocolate bar added. 

Yeah, I can get real fancy like that.

Bark!

Want a quick snack?

Eat some bark.

Not tree bark, but chocolate bark!

Chocolate bark!

It's easy to make and fun to eat.

Melt some chocolate, add in whatever you want.

If you use semi-sweet, you might have to add in some sugar.

When your done, shove it in the fridge, then break it apart when its a solid piece.

Anything Goes...

A while ago, I helped out at an event.

There was a show to watch and then there was food to eat.

Lots of different stuff donated by local restaurants.

It was pretty awesome. 

There was this giant veggie bouquet.

Salmon-cream cheese-caper wraps from Blackfriars Catering.

Cinnamon-Apple Yogurt Bread

It's Fall.

There are lots of apples around.

I'm not great at making apple pies so I thought I would make an apple loaf.

Cinnamon-Apple Yogurt Bread

Chocolate Bar Blondies

I don't know if you've noticed but Blondes are not Brunettes.

It's the same in baking... Blondies are not Brownies.

Blondies are all about brown sugar. Brownies are more into chocolate.

I made some Blondies, not Brownies.

 Chocolate Bar Blondies

Waffled Grilled Cheese

Grilled Cheese is easy.

All you need is bread, cheese, and butter.

It's way cooler if you have a waffle maker.

Grilled Cheese

Black Bean Brownies

My oven has come alive again! It just started decided to work all of a sudden.

So now I'm testing out more recipes that seem healthier.

This recipe doesn't have butter or eggs, but it does have beans in it.

I love brownies. I don't like beans.

I tried this recipe anyways because I remembered that...

Beans, beans, the magical fruit
The more you eat, the more you toot
The better you toot, the better you feel
So, let's eat beans for every meal!

...every meal, including dessert.

 Black Bean Brownies

Yo! Let's go to the cafe... The Yogurt Cafe.

I went to Yo Yo's to grab some frozen yogurt.

A very good idea for them and for me.

They were happy because I served myself and they had less work to do.

I was happy because I got the tasty treat that I wanted.

A mutually beneficial relationship...

Yo Yo's Yogurt Cafe

Chocolate Chip and Toffee Cookies

I wanted to bake to cookies, but the oven is still broken.

Luckily, I had a toaster oven so I decided to put it to use.

Before I tinkered with the little baby oven, I was inspired by Waffleizer to make cookies with the waffle machine.

Waffled Chocolate Chip and Toffee Cookies

Relish on this.

I went to a Gourmet Burger restaurant and I ate a burger. The place was called Relish Gourmet Burger.

First you had to pick a Gourmet Burger Patty from the selection of:

• Pure ground sirloin, Grilled chicken breast, 
• Veggie burger, Portobello mushroom cap, 
• Lamb, Salmon or Bison

Then you had to choose your type of Gourmet Burger. There were lots of different burgers... like 40 or so. They also had interesting descriptions.

• Basic Instinct - "Cheddar cheese...extremely boring but who’s judging"
• Kosher Special - "Cheddar cheese-bacon...still kinda boring but again we're not judging"
• Stoned Kosher - "Cheddar cheese-bacon-sautéed mushrooms...see that better"
• Tucker and Tazz Burger - "Cheddar cheese-bacon-sautéed mushrooms and onions...good job!!!" 

F.Y.I. Tucker and Tazz are local radio hosts.

And then they had weirder ones.

• Nutter Butter Peanut Butter Burger - "Peanut butter-jack cheese-bacon" 
• Tree Hugger - "Pesto-grilled eggplant-grilled red peppers-grilled Bermuda onion-goat cheese" 
• Straight to LHSC - "Back bacon-double smoked bacon-Swiss cheese-cheddar cheese" 

F.Y.I. LHSC is a local hospital.

I had the Don Ho - "Pineapple ring-teriyaki sauce-red onion"

Mom's Wonton Soup

Today our air conditioning was fixed! Hurray!

Now our oven has decided to be uncooperative.

Apparently no clock display = no baking temperature display = no baking for Joyce.

Luckily, today's post did not require an oven.

Mom's Wonton Soup

Mango Dessert

For the last 8 weekends I have been taking mini vacations and traveling to near by cities. Usually I end up in Toronto, but I have gone as far as Montreal and Niagara Falls.

Montreal had some really great bagels. Montreal-style bagels. Sweet and tasty.

Niagara Falls had the Hersey Store. Limited edition chocolate. Cookies-and-cream kisses. Chocolate-and-almond kisses. Choco-mint Chipits.

With all this traveling, I haven't had time to buy flour since I ran out.

This can be a limiting factor when deciding what to make... 

In addition, the air conditioning broke down so I decided not to bake/use the oven to avoid overheating the house. Instead, I used the refrigerator for my Mango Dessert.

Mango Dessert

Take two.

It seems that I always have buttermilk on the verge of being expired and in need to be used up. 

I like to buy buttermilk because it just adds that little extra "umph" to my baking. The problem is that I never use it up in just one recipe, so I always have left over.

I usually buy more buttermilk because I don't have enough for another recipe. And of course, I end up with left over... once again.

So today was a special day.

I used up all the buttermilk, flour, vanilla extract, and eggs in ONE RECIPE. 

Great-tasting-Unintentional-Garbage muffins. 

Feel free to take two of my Berry Buttermilk Muffins.

No butter cookies.

I read online that some cookies can be made with bananas in place of butter.

It sounded too good to be true.

But I tried it anyways... I made up my own recipe. So beware.

Banana-Oatmeal-Peanut-Craisin-Almond flour-No Butter Cookies

That's a mouthful. Literally.

Boston Cream Pie... or Cake?

I've been wanting to make a Boston Cream Pie for a while so I did. Or at least I tried to. 

Yes, I am aware that I made a cake, but according to Wikipedia, Boston Cream Pie is a cake and not a pie. 

Yes, I am aware that Wikipedia is not a scholarly source, but they are just full of interesting info so I will just take my chances.

Boston Cream Pie

Starry-eyed about saving a stary pie?

A few days ago, I made some pies. A few baby pies. One was blueberry. The other five were apple. They were covered in stars. They were cute, just like most human babies.

I wanted them to be jam packed with fruit, but I didn't make enough pie filling. Oops. 

I charged on and filled the pies with what I had. I should have just made more filling.

 I baked the blueberry pie and one of the apple pies.
The rest of the pies were frozen...

but that all changed today.

Housekeeping.

This is a housekeeping post.

No. I don't plan on showing you how I wash my pots and pans. Mainly because I don't... just kidding. I do. I use lots of Palmolive too.

This post is just a clean-up, catch-all, touch-on-a few-miscellaneous-things (Awards and Brownies) blog post.

Item 1: I feel I'm still new to whole blogging world but a few days ago I received The Versatile Blogger Award from the Food Blogging Team at Just Food Snobs. WHIPPEE! I didn't even know such things existed!!

Par-ty in the par-k.

I love the park.
I love parties.
Naturally, I love parties in the park.

Leaf-Shaped Sugar Cookies seemed appropriate for this party.

When I made the cookies, I ran out of white sugar so I added about 1/4 cup of brown sugar (1:1 ratio) to supplement. I was warned that brown sugar can stay undissolved, which can cause the cookies to become crunchy and less sweet. I'm not sure how the recipe would have turned out if I only used brown sugar, but they were fine with the amount that I used.

After the cookies were made, I ran into some trouble with the icing. This is what I learned:

Tiger versus Zebra

I've always been a fan of tigers. I even dressed up as one for a party.

I like them as brownies too, so I made them. No, I did not bake tiger meat into dessert. I'm pretty sure that's illegal. WWF would be all over that.

Tiger Brownies are actually made up of a cookie bar and a brownie. They do not resemble a tiger (besides the stripes) and could probably be called Zebra Brownies. 

Tiger versus Zebra...  This is starting to sound like the lyrics to Metric's Stadium Love... Tiger versus Rat... (click here to cue the music)

Or forget about the animals, these could be called Brookies... or Crownies... or Browokies... or Cookownies...         endless possibilities.

Or I could just stick with the name Tiger Brownie.

Please pick me up.

Excuse me, would you tiramisu?

Would I what?

Tiramisu.

Oh! You mean: do I want to have some tiramisu? Because I do!

No. I want you to pick me up and carry me. I'm too tired from making the tiramisu. 

I don't understand.

Oy vey! Didn't you know that tiramisu translates to "pick me up" or "carry me up"?!

Oh. No I didn't know that, but I do now. May I have some tiramisu after I carry you?

No. It won't be ready for a few hours. The flavours need to soak in.

Oh. What about tomorrow?

Maybe... if you don't drop me.

Tiramisu

ps it's not that much work to make it.

"Put the lime in the coconut, then you'll feel better"

"Now let me get this straight;
You put the lime in the coconut
You drank them both up?" Harry Nilsson (click the link to cue the music)

Yup, you totally got it. 

Lime. Coconut. Oh and throw in some Mango too.

Why? To make ice cream, of course.

Ooops.

I thought of something really awesome to make. In reality, it didn't pan out. Well it did come out of the pan, it just didn't work out the way I thought it would.

A few days ago I wanted to find a use for the hardened Raisin Bread, but I didn't want to make the same old bread pudding as before.

 So I decided to make an Apple Bread Pudding.

Pass the gin..... ger snaps.

My favourite cookies at Tim Horton's are the Ginger Molasses Cookies without the extra sugar on top. There is one Tim's that makes it like that. All the other locations make the them with the extra sugar on top.

I'm not a fan of the grainy texture from the extra sugar. I made my own cookies so I won't have to go to that specific Tim's all the time.

Ginger Molasses Cookies

Beware of the raisins.

I don't care what anyone says. Eating freshly baked WHITE bread is the best.

I used the Kitchen Aid to make some French Bread.

Why so crabby?

People ask if I'm more of a baker or a cook. That's a tough question for me to answer. Why?

Sometimes I feel like I'm more of a cook because I'm not always exact in my baking measurements. I try to "follow recipes to the tee" but I usually stray a little. I'll add an extra tablespoon of this or 1/16 cup of that. What can I say? I'm kind of a free spirit.   (Ps 1 tbsp=1/16 cup)

Other times I feel like I'm more of a baker because... I'm always baking.

Maybe I'm a baker with an attitude of a cook.

Anyways, it doesn't matter if I'm more of a cook or a baker.
It just matters that people don't die or get food poisoning after eating my food.

For Father's Day, I made Crab Alfredo with Fresh Pasta

...and no one has gotten sick from my food, yet.

Don't let that MAN GO and get away with my cake!

Well, I suppose I did make the cake for him so I guess he is allowed to run away with it.
I was inspired to make a cake just like Trish's Sponge Cake for Father's Day.

It looks like a Strawberry Cake with a Dark Chocolate collar.

Hey - That's my cuit!

Cuit. It sounds like an inappropriate word but according to wiktionary, it means:

• 1. part, portion, share
• 2. property, possession, means
• 3. portion of food

So cuit is is not a "bad" word. Go ahead and use it more often.

Now what is it that I'm not really willing to share?

BisCUITs.

White Chocolate and Cranberry Biscuits.

Raisin Biscuits.

Well maybe I'll give you one or two... since it is a BIscuit.

Sometimes you just have to get pruney.

Ways to get pruney:

• - staying in the hot tub too long... too much water
• - apparently being poorly hydrated... not enough water
• - not wearing sunscreen and getting sun damage - not recommended
• - always wrinkling your forehead- not recommended
• - eating mini prune loaves - totally recommended

I'm MOVING!

I'm moving to South Africa!

Just kidding. I'm not physically moving anywhere. I will still be in London for the World Cup.

My blog, on the other hand, has moved to new home at http://www.voiceofjoyce.net. The old address http://www.voice-of-joyce.blogspot.com/ will still work but my new one is much easier to remember.

Sometimes the easy things are good and I like good things. 

Not the usual Betty Crocker

This was my first cookie decorating experience. It was messy. It was interesting.

Oh and it was really fun.

Turn that frown UPSIDE DOWN... and smile!

Why? Because I made an Upside Down Cake                 ... yay!

Oh I didn't make the regular Pineapple Upside Down Cake... but a Caramel Apple one!

Sweet Noodles

Would you like some Lo Mein?
It's a Chinese dish with noodles. It often contains vegetables and some type of meat or seafood.

So would you like to try some?
I just happen to have some Lo Mein with broccoli, carrots and ham...

...as a cupcake!

The Mac Quest

I'm relatively new the Mac world and this weekend I got to test them out.
I must say that they are sweet and pretty...

... pretty difficult to master.

No, no, no, I'm not chatting about Steve Jobs and his Apple Mac. No, definitely not.

I'm talking about on about French Macarons...

No, not coconut macaroons. Only one "o".
It actually sounds similar to macaroni, without the "i".

So what is a French Macaron?  one word: AWESOME.

Geez... You are STACKED!

Today's mission: To make a Stacked Cake.

By stacked, I don't mean "very muscular". Even though this cake is well built (if I do say so myself), it is far from being being muscular.

Sushi dinner? Presents? ... and Cake!?

I was asked to make two cakes this week.

A Thank-You cake.

A Birthday cake.

Raisin Bread

Today, my mom told me that she wanted to buy some bread. I told her that I would save her the trip and I would make some for her. I whipped out a recipe book and chose the Raisin Bread recipe.

A Present Full of Cake... literally.

I love presents. Too bad this one isn't for me.

My trip to BC

Traveling is the best, especially when I get to go with one of my best friends. Last week, I went to British Columbia right after I finished my last exam. My trip was jam packed with...

I really waffled over the title of this blogpost...

Do you know what this is?

Here's hint: you can find it in a kitchen.

Don't worry, I won't waffle about this for hours.

Maybe this will help...

or maybe I will just tell you...

These muffins just BLUE my mind away.

I've been dying to find ways to use up my buttermilk because I find it too weird to just drink. So I went on a hunt for the right recipe and I think I found one.

Be an angel and roll up your sleeves, please.

It's time to roll up your sleeves and make the "Best Angel Food Cake"! 
Let me warn you that it may get messy, but it always gets messy when I am in the kitchen.