Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins

Happy Mother's Day, everybody!!
Today, I made some pumpkin chocolate chip muffins for my mom. It's also her birthday!!
This recipe is from the Joy of Baking website. Here it is:

INGREDIENTS

1 1/2 cups (195 grams) all purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon ground ginger

1/4 teaspoon ground cloves

1/4 teaspoon freshly ground nutmeg

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup (113 grams) unsalted butter, room temperature

1 cup (200 grams) granulated white sugar

2 large eggs

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

3/4 cup (180 ml) solid packed, canned pumpkin puree

1 cup (175 grams) semisweet chocolate chips

INSTRUCTIONS


Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (177 degrees C). Place rack in the middle of the oven. Line 12 muffin cups with paper liners or spray each cup with a non stick vegetable spray.

In a large bowl, sift together the flour, baking soda, ground spices, and salt. 

In the bowl of your electric mixer, or with a hand mixer, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in the vanilla extract. Scrape down the sides of the bowl.With the mixer on low speed, alternately add the flour mixture and pumpkin puree, in three additions, beginning and ending with the flour mixture.Fold in the chocolate chips.   

Fill the muffin cups evenly with the batter using two spoons or an ice cream scoop. Place in the oven and bake for about 18 -20 minutes, or until firm to the touch and a toothpick inserted in the center of one of the muffins comes out clean. Place on a wire rack to cool.

Makes 12 regular-sized muffins.

PS. I did not write the paragraph above, it's the exact words from the website. Credit to the author.

ENJOY!! :D

Strawberry Shortcake

This is a recipe for strawberry shortcake that I don't actually know where I got. It's really easy, and good. This recipe is great in the summer!! The second "Instructions" is for a different way to prepare it. I got that way from an American Girl recipe calendar a million years ago. (Actually more like 3 years ago)

#1

INGREDIENTS

Angel Food Cake

Strawberries

Whipped Cream                                                          


INSTRUCTIONS

Cut a slice of cake.
Wash and slice the strawberries.
Put the whipped cream on top of the angel food cake and strawberries. Enjoy!!

INSTRUCTIONS 2

Wash and slice the strawberries.
Put them in the bottom of a glass (it looks cool i f you use a wine glass).
 Cut the a slice of angel food cake into cubes.
Layer that on top of the strawberries.
Lay down another layer of strawberries, and another of angel food cake.
 Do that until the glass is full.
Put whipped cream on the top.

ENJOY!!

#2

#1

Brownies!!

OK, I'm going to start off by saying that these are some of the best brownies ever. The recipe is from Ghirardelli.com. Ghirardelli makes really good chocolate! I would suggest going to their site, because they have some amazing recipes. I don't know for a fact that the other recipes are amazing, but this brownie recipe is epic. The recipe is called "Classic Chocolate Brownies"

INGREDIENTS
¹/₂ cup semi sweet chocolate chips
4 ounces dark chocolate baking bar
¹/₂ cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, cut into pieces
1 cup firmly packed light or dark brown sugar
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
2 large eggs
³/₄ cup plus 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
¹/₄ teaspoon baking powder
³/₈ teaspoon salt

INSTRUCTIONS

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Grease and 8-inch square baking pan. Chop up the four ounces of chocolate into small pieces. In a double boiler, melt the butter and the chocolate. I did not have a double boiler so I put a smaller pot on top of a larger pot, which held the simmering water. Stir occasionally, until smooth. Remove the pot with the chocolate and butter from the other pot, and let it cool. In a bowl, mix together the flour, salt, and baking powder. Add the vanilla and sugar to the chocolate and butter. Mix well. Then, add the eggs to the chocolate/butter/vanilla/sugar mix. Stir that until you can't see the eggs anymore. Then, I poured the chocolate mixture into a bowl. I then poured the flour mixture into the chocolate mixture. Mix well. Add in the chocolate chips and stir. Pour into the baking pan. Bake for 25-30 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean.
ENJOY!! 
PS. Make these, and tell me how they turn out in the comments!! These are extremely delicious!!!
PPS. Really.
PPPS. I'm not sure why the text is all high-lighted :(

My brownies still in the pan

Chocolate Chocolate Cupcakes

This is a recipe for chocolate cupcakes with  chocolate filling. I got it from my book from Spain called El Arte de Cocinar Magdalenas  or in English  The Art of Cooking Cupcakes.
These make about 8 cupcakes.

INGREDIENTS

55g of butter
55g of sugar
1 large egg
85 g of self rising flour ( if self rising flour is not available, add 3/4 of a teaspoon of baking powder to the flour)
1 tbsp of powdered chocolate
dark chocolate
*optional*- powdered sugar to sprinkle over the top

INSTRUCTIONS

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees farenheit (190 C)
Beat all the ingredients together in a bowl
Pour some batter into a cupcake tin
Make a hole in the batter, and put a small amount of dark chocolate.
Then, pour more batter over that.
Bake for about 20 minutes, or until they are done.

ENJOY!! :)

My Nutella Cookbook

This is my Nutella (please imagine there is an "R" in a circle here) cookbook!
I haven't had the chance to make anything from it yet, but I will :)
I got it in Spain. I hope this doesn't violate any copyright rules...  well, I'm not trying to sell it, so I don't think putting a picture up is illegal.

Suggestions

Hello, everybody!
So, I haven't really been baking lately for two reasons:
1) The only times I can really bake is over the weekend, and the kitchen has been being used the past few weekends
2) I don't know what to bake

I have a recipe book I bought in Spain, and I could use some of those recipes, except for the measurements are all in grams and kilograms and celsius, and I need some help with the Spanish baking lingo.
But anyway, I just wanted some suggestions. What kinds of things would you like me to bake? It doesn't matter if its a kind of cake, I can take a cake recipe and turn it into a cupcake recipe. So, please, comment with some of your favorite things, and I'll try to find a recipe to make them.
Thank you!!!

My Batter Bottle ( alliteration/ tongue twister)

This is a bottle I bought recently. How it works is: you pour the batter into the bottle,
then, you screw the cap back on and the batter comes out of the top. This makes the
cupcakes come out smoother topped! I used the bottle on the lemon cupcakes. You can
see the picture if you would like to see the results :)