do you like chocolate chip cookies, oreos, and brownies? congrats, you can be friends with me. just kidding, but not really. if you think i’m joking about basing my friendships off of food you obviously haven’t seen julie, daniel and i devour jimmy johns followed by insomnia cookies at midnight after an evening spent working in the newhouse labs. and that’s probably for the best, because you may be disgusted/nauseated by the amount of food we can collectively consume.

not that you care about my personal problems, but this was a particularly hellish week. i had a video project due in a class in which i thought i was going to learn how to write enterprise stories (remember when i was knowledgable and confident with video editing software? me either), i’ve been sick, my room has become a black hole of clothing, despair, and anxious cover letter writing, and everyone and their brother is freaking out about internships, so consequently i’ve hopped the bandwagon and have been freaking out about them too. the worst, right?

(Exhibit A. When is the last time I cleaned, you ask? That’s a good question. Not in the past two months, so there’s that.)

some people stress eat. i get it. it’s actually kind of great. and i mean, whatever works for you. i’m more of a stress baker myself, but I can relate. It’s all about the food, after all.

anyway, i found this recipe the other day and i knew i had to make it. i wanted to do it earlier in the week, but i was just too busy. so tonight, knowing i had a midnight deadline for an internship application, i strategically timed my baking so i would have had these puppies in the oven by 7:30, and then i’d still have 4.5 hours to write my cover letter, express my anxiety over inconsequential letter-writing formalities, and maybe even clean my room. and i accomplished the first two things, so i don’t feel too bad about disregarding the growing mass of clothing on the floor of my bedroom.

but enough about me. more about food.

here’s what you need to create the ultimate brownie-chocolate chip cookie-oreo dessert experience.

INGREDIENTS:

1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened
1 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup light brown sugar
2 eggs
1 Tablespoon vanilla extract
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt (are there people who actually put the salt in, though?)
2 cups (12 ounces) milk chocolate chips (i used semi-sweet, so, like, whatever)
1 pkg Double Stuffed Oreos
1 box Brownie mix
1/4 cup hot fudge (like the stuff in the jar)

DIRECTIONS:

Preheat your oven to 350. You’re in for a real treat, folks.

• Cream the butter and both of your sugars in a bowl. Add the eggs and vanilla and mix well.
   
• In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda and salt, then slowly incorporate with the wet ingredients until the flour is just combined.

• Stir in chocolate chips….MHMMMMM.

• Spread the cookie dough in the bottom of a 9×13 baking dish that’s you have lined prior to this with wax paper and sprayed with cooking spray. THIS IS IMPORTANT! Do both of these things.

• Top with a layer of Oreos. Yeah, OREOS. ON TOP OF COOKIES!

• Mix together brownie mix.

• BUT WAIT! And you totally would have seen this coming if you had read the ingredients list, but this is an integral part of this recipe. Add in the hot fudge. Yeah, hot fudge in brownies. Whodathunkit? 

• Pour the brownie batter over the cookie dough and Oreos. 

• Cover with foil and bake for 30 minutes. Remove foil and continue baking for an additional 15-25 minutes. 
• Let it cool before cutting, because your brownies may still be gooey in the middle when still warm, but I promise they’ll set up once they’re cool. Don’t overcook them because you’re paranoid that it’s not cooked, I proooooomise you’re okay.

Unfortunately, I didn’t get very good pictures of mine, but I can assure you they’ll taste phenomenal. Your friends will love you forever once they have a bite, and may even offer you strange things, like marriage proposals or large sums of money in one-dollar increments*, for your recipe. Until next time, happy baking!

* This totally happened today, it was uncomfortable.**
** KIDDING. I need to go to sleep. I am not funny. 

Last night some of my friends and I decided to throw a birthday party to celebrate the birthdays of four or five of our close friends—I guess it was a little belated since most of the birthdays we were celebrating happened a month or two ago, but whatever. It’s the thought that counts, right?

Anyway, I woke up this morning and remembered this really cool recipe I’ve been trying to make for a while, so I immediately hauled ass over to Tops. I don’t know if you’ve ever attempted to do grocery shopping on a Sunday, but it’s vicious. Soccer moms, the elderly, oblivious college students and extreme couponers in one location vying for food all at the same time. It’s enough to make you want to curl up in a fetal position in a shopping cart.

Nonetheless, I got everything I needed. I guess I should probably tell you what I made, too, right?  

So, okay. It’s an apple pie. BUT—and this is the but that makes this dessert treat actually significant—it’s baked inside of an apple instead of a pie crust. Appleception, if you will. Bring on the Yo Dawg jokes if you must.

I based mine off of this recipe, which seems to be circulating the internet right now, kind of like those oreo stuffed chocolate chip cookies did last year.

INGREDIENTS

• 5 or 6 Granny Smith apples (make sure they’re not lumpy and can stand up on their own to be baked)
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon nutmeg (or don’t, it’s whatever)
• 1 tablespoon brown sugar
• 1/4 cup sugar
• Pie crust. You could make your own, but I’d probably laugh at you for doing that. Pillsbury’s definitely okay.

Bake time: Approximately 45 minutes
Makes 4 servings

DIRECTIONS

• Slice off the tops of 4 of your apples and hollow them out with a spoon. You’re going to end up discarding all of the stuff on the inside . And be careful not to puncture the hollowed shell, because that’s what’s going to contain your pie. DUH. 

• So cute, am i right? Okay, so now take your other apple or two and peel them and slice them up pretty finely. Mix them with the brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg and sugar in a bowl, then fill the cavities in the apples with the mixture.

• Take your pie crust, roll it out flat and cut 1/4-inch strips of crust. Cover the top of your little apple-apple pies with a lattice pattern.

• Place your apples in a pan. Pour just enough water into the bottom of the pan so that the bottom’s covered, then place your apples inside the pan.

• Cover with foil and bake for 20-25 minutes at 375 (or if you’re like me, at whatever temperature you can), then remove the foil and bake for another 20-ish minutes until the crust gets crusty and the apples get soft.

I think they turned out real cute. Now I just need to find three willing people to eat them with me…

I know, I’m a little late to the party. National chocolate cake day was actually on Friday. But better late than never, right? And really, it’s never too late for homemade chocolate cake. Based on recent postings, I think this blog is not-so-slowly evolving into a chocolate cake blog and I can’t say I’m too sorry about it.

Anyway, this cake recipe is probably one of the simplest things ever. You can whip up the batter in ten minutes, bake the cake in half an hour, and when your friends come over for dinner they’ll be so impressed that you have dessert all ready that they won’t even notice that you haven’t ordered the pizza yet!

WHAT YOU NEED:

2 cups sugar
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
1 cup milk
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup boiling water

INSTRUCTIONS

• Grease and flour your pan. I used a 9-inch round pan and halved the recipe, but you can do whatever you want. This is America.
• Preheat your oven to 350. Or if you have a crappy kitchenette in a South Campus apartment like I do, you can just cross your fingers and turn on your oven and pray to the native Onondagan spirits presiding over your apartment that you don’t burn your cake.
• Combine all the dry ingredients (sugar, flour, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder, salt). Like I said, super easy.

• Add in the eggs, milk, oil and vanilla. It’ll be sort of thick.

• THEN, add in the cup of boiling water. I know it sounds totally weird and at first it looks sort of gross but then you mix it and it just looks like runny batter. You’re gonna have to trust me on this.

• Pour the batter into your cake pan of choice. I added some chocolate chips because everything is better with chocolate chips.

• Now pop your cake into the oven and bake the crap out of it for half an hour or until an inserted toothpick comes out clean.

AW, it’s sooooooo pretty. Wait for it to cool and frost it in your choice of frosting. Or if you’re like me, stick some birthday candles in it in honor of your friend’s belated birthday and prepare to celebrate with birthday pizza, birthday wings, your best friends, and a deceivingly easy-to-make birthday cake. 

You need a microwave and a coffee mug.

Combine the following in the mug:

4 tablespoons of flour
4 tablespoons of sugar
2 tablespoons of unsweetened cocoa
2 tablespoons whisked egg (it sounds weird but just trust me, okay?)
3 tablespoons of milk
3 tablespoons of oil
3 tablespoons chocolate chips (or as many as you want, this is america)
Just a splash of vanilla

Mix. Microwave for a little under 3 minutes. Thank me later. BOOM.

I met Maddy two years ago at SU’s Accepted Students Day. We were standing outside Newhouse and in true, genuinely curious and friendly Maddy fashion, she walked over to the group of people I was making terribly awkward small talk with and just started talking to us. A friendship was born. Things you should know about Maddy: Her favorite color is red, her favorite dessert is cupcakes, and consequently, today’s blog post, red velvet cake balls, are made entirely in her honor. And her birthday is tomorrow, so it only seemed fitting…

In case you live under a rock (or just don’t follow as many baking blogs as I do in your spare time), cake balls are essentially crumbled up cake mixed with frosting, rolled into balls and dipped in chocolate. Kind of like truffles on a budget. You can find a recipe pretty much anywhere online, but here’s essentially what you’ll need:

INGREDIENTS:

• 1 box of cake mix, prepared (I used red velvet but you can use whatever you want, this is America.)
• 1 container cream cheese frosting
• Chocolate or white chocolate bark

So I guess this goes without saying but I should probably say it anyway: Prepare the cake mix according to the instructions on the box. I’ve never made red velvet cake prior to this, but beware: your kitchen may end up looking like something from Dexter.

Once you bake the cake, let it cool (unless you want to burn yourself, then by all means carry on with the hot cake, you idiot) and crumble it into a mixing bowl.

Take the container of cream cheese frosting and mix it in entirely. You might need to use your hands, in which case your hands will look suspiciously like you just slaughtered a small animal.

Once it’s mixed together, line a cookie sheet with wax paper (I used parchment paper) and roll out tablespoon sized balls of the mixture. Recipes I’ve seen online call for about 40-50 but I ended up with about 70 across two cookie sheets.

Once you’ve rolled out all of your batter, stick the cake balls into the fridge (or the freezer, if you’re impatient) for an hour or two, until they’re firm. THIS IS REALLY IMPORTANT! If you don’t let them firm up, they’re going to fall apart and nobody will like you. Ever. Sorry.

Once they’re hardened, warm up your chocolate (double boiler method or in the microwave. I melted mine in the microwave because I’m lazy and it’s a lot easier). I recommend heating it in small batches or else it won’t stay warm.

Dip your cake balls in the chocolate. If you’re using white chocolate, you might want to coat them twice so you can’t see the cake through the chocolate.

And there you have them! Not bad for a first attempt, I think. Just to be sure though, I did a 100% completely professional and official taste test (and don’t worry, they were fabulous).

That said, happy birthday Maddy! You’ll get your cake (and eat it too) tomorrow.

Happy baking, guys!

I don’t know about you, but there’s just something about coming back to school for spring semester that makes my head want to cave in. Maybe it’s the fact that before fall semester you have a whole summer to recharge and forget everything you learned, and you get maybe a month (even less if you go to Pitt, am I right, yinz?) to do the exact same thing before spring semester. Maybe it’s the fact that I go to Syracuse and coming back to any amount of snow on the ground triggers something awful in me (most notably Seasonal Affective Disorder). Maybe it’s the fact that you’ve long forgotten about your New Year’s diet (or if you’re like me, you never started one. We’re the smart ones, guys).

Regardless, coming back to school can be super-depressing, right? But it doesn’t have to be! If you have access to even the most mediocre kitchen on all of South Campus, you can make these great popovers with strawberry butter that I whipped up this afternoon, adapted from this recipe. Super easy to make, won’t cause you to break your budget, and I don’t see how anyone could say no to them (my roommate certainly didn’t).

WHAT YOU’LL NEED:

For the popovers:

• 1¼ cups flour
• 1¼ cups whole milk
• 3 eggs
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 2 Tablespoons unsalted butter, melted (***I omitted the salt and just used salted butter here, BOOM.)
• 2 Tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into 12 even pieces

For the butter:

• 1 stick unsalted butter at room temperature
• 1/3 cup mashed fresh strawberries (so like, three or four strawberries)
• 2 Tablespoons powdered sugar

DIRECTIONS (now with pictures!):

Preheat the oven to 400. However, if you live in MY apartment, the temperature controls don’t work on the oven so your best guess will just have to do. Thanks Syracuse!

Blend together the flour, milk, eggs, salt and melted butter until mixture is the consistency of heavy cream. If you can’t do this, there is seriously no hope for you…this is the easiest recipe ever. It’ll look like this:

Place your muffin pan in the oven for 2 minutes to heat it. Then remove the heated pan and place one piece of butter in each cup.

Aw, it’s sooooo cute. Fill each cup in your muffin pan at least half-full with the batter you made earlier. My muffin cups are apparently tiny so they ended up mostly full. SORRY I’M NOT SORRY, JUSTATASTE.COM.

Bake those babies for 20 minutes, then lower the temperature and bake at 300 for the last ten minutes (or if you’re taking your life into your own hands like me and don’t have temperature controls, keep doing your thing at whatever temperature you’re at, it might work.)

MEANWHILE, let’s not forget about that strawberry butter!

Mash up some strawberries. Yep, they’ll look and sound like squishing brains. Mmm. Mix them with the stick of butter and the powdered sugar. This would have worked out a lot better if I had, you know, a mixer or something, but I made do and when it solidified in the fridge it wasn’t too bad.

You can serve it immediately or stick it in the fridge for later.

And of course, let’s not forget about your finished product! 

…And if I do say so myself, they were deeeeee-licious. Happy baking!

I’m Maya and this is my blog dedicated to the creations I bake up in my somewhat less-than-desirable kitchen at school. Without a KitchenAid, food processor or much in the way of prior experience, I set off haphazardly to make food that tastes good (and looks good too. Appearances are sort of important, yanno?). Last semester my friends gobbled up pretty much anything I baked and set in front of them; now I’m sharing my creations with the Internet too. If you have any questions, feel free to drop them in my ask box. Happy baking!