Saturday 20 June 2009

Cocolate Puffed Wheat Squares

Chocolate Puffed Wheat Squares









This recipe is always a winner. It's not healthy by any stretch of the imagination (hey, it's got puffed wheat, doesn't that count for anything?! And about a pound of butter and sugar, nice try) but it's good. That much I know.
My mum used to make it for us to take on school trips and the 4L ice cream bucket full of them was licked clean long before we got where we were going and sad was the kid who didn't realise we had brought them and didn't get one.

You can also substitute 4 C Rice Krispies for the puffed wheat. Magical.
But the most magical thing about them? They're dead simple. Even easier than that, really.
And, if you use margarine and not butter, they're vegan. Yum.

(This recipe is from memory, hence the wild-Missus-Mustard-this-does-not-make-sense style instructions.)

Puffed Wheat Squares

1/2 C butter or margarine
1 C brown sugar
1/2 C corn syrup
2 T cocoa powder (feel free to add more!)
2 t salt (this is my addition, but I recommend it)
6 C puffed wheat

Stovetop Directions
1. Melt butter/margarine over low-medium heat in a small saucepan. Add remaining ingredients - except puffed wheat - and stir until sugar dissolves.
2. Pour puffed wheat into an appropriately-sized, greased baking pan. ("Appropriately-sized" meaning, pour the puffed wheat in, and if it looks like the height you wish your squares to be, go for it)
3. Pour chocolate mixture over puffed wheat and stir to coat evenly.
4. Let set for a few hours at room temperature, if you can wait that long.

Microwave Directions
1. Melt all ingredients - except puffed wheat - in a large, heat-proof bowl until sugar dissolves or almost dissolves.
2. Pour puffed wheat into bowl with chocolate mixture and stir to coat.
3. Pour mixture into appropriately-sized, greased baking pan. * See above note!
4. Let set for a few hours at room temperature. I dare you.

Maybe Dad would like some.

Wednesday 17 June 2009

Root Beer Float Cake

Root Beer Float Cake



Recipe from joythebaker.com/blog

I had planned weeks in advance that this was to be my birthday cake. Baked my me. For my own birthday. Yes, my mum thought it was a bit weird too.

So I make the cake. With the whole cup of cocoa powder. And I tell my mum and sister what the icing is meant to be. There is uproar. No, you can't have root beer cake with root beer icing! Make a white icing! It was only after I played the "it's MY birthday!" card that they agreed to go along with this (in their opinion) overly root beery icing.

It turned out perfectly. I have never had a better cake in my existence. It wasn't that root beery but it was all-around delicious and thinking about it's dense, moist chocolateyness makes me want to bake one this instant. And I'm already thinking about that pop/soda to use next.

PS - This is the second cake I have ever made from scratch in my life. The last one being six years ago in Grade 10 at OSS.

Monday 8 June 2009

Key Lime Cheesecake

Key Lime Cheesecake





I have been away. I have been a naughty blogger.
But I am getting back onto the scene! (Literally meaning: I'm not "new" at my job anymore and Mr Mustard has moved back to Vancouver, so I can finally breathe)
And as I'm easing myself back into the beautiful bounty that is blogging, I present you with something easy (for me). Here's a link. Done.

Recipe from smittenkitchen.com

I'm not the loviest lover of cheesecake, but as my sister ordered it for her birthday, cheesecake it was! As you can tell, I did not use mango as a topping and I thought it was great (as far as cheesecake goes).