Month: April 2020

Posted in My life

Fudgey Brownies!

Posted on by theblessedpath

As you might know, I like watching the You Tuber, The Icing Artist. But I never had the chance to see if her recipes actually work. Mom was craving Brownies recently, so I found this was the perfect time to see if her recipes work. I knew she had a brownie recipe, but I wanted to know if her recipe worked, like Chelsweet’s cinnamon rolls, or if her recipes didn’t really work, like the first You Tuber I liked. (I don’t anymore.)

Today I really got to try out her recipes, and I was delighted with the results. Her recipe worked, mostly. Her brownie recipe, https://www.theicingartist.com/brownies, worked (as in, the brownies didn’t explode). It could have been me, and it probably was, but some of the brownies were really cocoa-y and too bitter. The other half was good and had a nice balance. If you try it out and have similar results, then it is DEFINITELY the recipe. But that’s OK. For most of the recipes I try (not all, but most) I change a little thing here or there. For example, even the cinnamon roll recipe, I tried filling the rolls with less or more filling to see the results. Surprisingly, the one with less filling turned out better (because it wasn’t too sweet). It might have been that she used sweetened cocoa and I used unsweetened, but I don’t really know. Anyway, this is the recipe: https://www.theicingartist.com/brownies.

Brownies

Ingredients:

  • 2/3 cup melted butter
  • 2/3 cup chopped chocolate
  • 1/3 cup dutch process cocoa powder
  • 1 cup white sugar
  • 1/4 cup dark brown sugar
  • 1 1/2 tsp vanilla
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 3 eggs
  • 1/2 cup flour
  • 1/2 cup extra chopped chocolate

Directions:

  1. Combine 1/3 cup of chopped chocolate (or chocolate chips), and cocoa powder in bowl. Pour melted butter on top and stir until everything is melted and looking silky. Set aside to cool slightly
  2. In a separate bowl, combine both sugars, vanilla, salt and eggs. Whip on high speed for six minutes until light and fluffy
  3. Add in chocolate mixture and mix again until combined
  4. Add in flour and remaining 1/2 cup of chopped chocolate, and fold into brownie mixture (Careful not to over mix!)
  5. Pour batter into an 8” square pan and bake at 350F for 40 minutes

*Tip for extra fudgeyness take brownies out of oven at the half way point, and tap the pan on your counter like you do with cakes to get out the air bubbles.

For a 9 x 13 pan, simply double the recipe!

Posted in My life, recipes

The Dreaded Cookie Stand (AND A CARROT CAKE RECIPE)

Posted on by theblessedpath

After the first cookie sale, (which, as you might remember, was when we sold out) we decided to hold another sale a week later. I didn’t want to run out of meringues again, so I baked over 100 cookies. I was selling them in bags of 10 for a dollar, because they’re small. Guess what? They didn’t sell. Avery made some Peanut Butter and M&M Blondies, Isabel made some Sugar Cookies (which were hard as rock) and I made lots of meringues. Aubrey and I stood by the cookie stand and Avery and Isabel fiddled with the sign. I sold 2 bags of Blondies and some Sugar Cookies. That was all. I won’t go into detail about how many hours we waited for someone to stop by. I wondered why we weren’t selling, even though our product was still great. It might have been because nobody was actually sitting at the sign and we were eating all the cookies, or it might have been that nobody could see the sign, because they were driving too fast. Or it might just have been a bad day.

Although I didn’t know it at the time, sales were low because of the Coronovirus. I figured it out when Aubrey commented on this site a month later wanting me to email her about the stand.

And I replied explaining that the virus was the thing that made our sales low, along with a few other points, and told her that while the virus was going on I would make my parents and siblings fat.

And so I found this recipe and stuck true to my email . (Note*** Double the recipe if you want a nice, tall cake.***)

Cardamom Spiced Carrot Cake with Ginger Frosting & Caramel Drizzle

★★★★★ 4.8 from 6 reviews

Author: Sarah Fennel

INGREDIENTS

FOR THE CAKE

  • 1 1/3 cups sugar
  • 3/4 cup coconut oil, melted
  • 3 large eggs, room temperature
  • 1/4 cup milk
  • 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
  • 2 cups all purpose flour
  • 3 teaspoons baking powder
  • 1 teaspoon freshly ground cardamom
  • 1/2 teaspoon powdered ginger
  • 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 2 cups shredded carrots
  • ¾ cup unsweetened, shredded coconut

FOR THE CARAMEL

  • 1/2 cup granulated sugar
  • 3 tablespoons butter, room temperature
  • 1/4 cup heavy cream

FOR THE FROSTING

  • 1/2 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
  • 6 oz cream cheese, room temperature
  • 2 1/2 cups powdered sugar
  • 1 teaspoon ground ginger
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

INSTRUCTIONS

MAKE THE CAKE

  1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease and line three 6″ cake pans with parchment paper.
  2. In a large bowl, mix together sugar, coconut oil, eggs, milk, and vanilla extract.
  3. In a separate bowl, combine flour, baking powder, cardamom, ginger, cinnamon, and salt. Carefully fold dry ingredients into wet until mostly combined.
  4. Fold in carrots and shredded coconut. Distribute batter evenly into prepared pans (1 1/3 cups of batter per pan).
  5. Bake for 30 minutes, or until a knife inserted in the center of the cakes comes out clean. Allow to cool completely before frosting.

MAKE THE CARAMEL

  1. Make the caramel while the cake is baking. In a medium saucepan, heat the sugar on medium-low heat for about 5 minutes. Use a spatula to occasionally stir the sugar, getting to the bottom of the pan.
  2. Once the sugar is fully melted and turns a medium gold hue, remove from heat immediately and stir in butter. The mixture will violently bubble. Use your spatula to stir the butter and sugar until they melt together completely.
  3. Next, pour in the heavy cream. Use your spatula to stir until everything is combined. Place back on the stove for about 30 seconds, stirring the whole time. Remove from heat and allow to cool for 15 minutes.

MAKE THE FROSTING

  1. To make frosting, whip butter and cream cheese in a standing mixer on high speed for 1 minute. Lower speed and add in powdered sugar, ginger, salt, and vanilla extract, mixing until combined.
  2. Place the first layer of cake onto a cake stand, then top with a heaping 1/2 cup of frosting. Spread to edges, smoothing evenly. Repeat with second and third layer.
  3. Add remaining frosting to sides of cake, then use a cake scraper or flat cake knife to smooth frosting out around edges.
  4. Pour caramel around outside crown of the cake, using a fork to help pull drippy bits down the cake. SERVE!
Posted in My life, recipes

Meringue Mishaps

Posted on by theblessedpath

It turns out you can never say you’ve mastered something. It’s bad luck. No matter how many fails or how many successes, you can never be perfectly sure that you’ve mastered it.

Once upon a time, I made creme brulee and had a lot of whites left over. I really wanted to make something with the whites instead of letting Mom use them for scrambled eggs. After we googled some recipes, I decided to make meringue cookies. I added a little sugar, cream of tartar (is it pronounced Tar-tar, or TAR-ter?) and the egg whites. I beat them up with a hand mixer and made this fluffy, super light and supercalifragilisticexpialidocious (aka wonderful) meringue. I piped it out with a star tip, and baked them at 200 degrees F. I baked them for 50 minutes and they came out BEAUTIFULLY! They were crunchy if you chewed them and melt-in-your-mouth. Luckily, I saved some to bring to church for lunch, since it was Saturday when I baked them. People (aka the kids at church, because they were all gone by the time the grownups got them) loved them. One person (Lily) asked how I made them and I said “I beat egg whites, sugar, and cream of tartar and-” she stopped me right there and said “Oh, we can’t do that. My mom only buys brown eggs.” 🤣

Turns out, it was just chance that it turned out right.

The next time we made them, I decided to make a lot because we loved them so much last time. Instead of the hand mixer, I used the stand mixer. A number of things went wrong with this batch. First of all, I didn’t know that it had to be the whisk and accidentally used a paddle attachment! What an amateur mistake! Except, at that time, I was an amateur.

Because it wasn’t whipping, I thought I hadn’t added enough Cream of Tartar. So I added more. Another amateur mistake.(cream of tartar is an acid????) As you might expect, it became really sour!🤢 So I decided to make them lemon meringues! (Honestly, I didn’t know what lemon meringue pie was, so I didn’t know that the pie was lemon, not the meringue) So I squirted some lemon juice inside. And it became worse.

Luckily, my siblings don’t care as much about the sourness as I did, so they still ate them.

After googling more recipes, I found out that some meringues don’t use cream of tartar, so I changed my recipe. This worked out pretty well, but the meringue was foamy instead of creamy??!! I dunked it, but after googling some MORE, I found out that I just had to keep mixing! Frustrated with this simple dessert, I stopped trying meringues for a while.

What it should look like
A little like what mine looked like

Months later, I tried meringue again and somehow, it worked! 😲 No sourness, it was creamy, and supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. (I love that word!)

Soon after that success, our next-door-neighbor asked us to help her with her “bake sale” AKA a cookie stand set up in her front yard. I knew meringues took a long time to bake, but I also knew that if we were selling them, I better had bake a lot! Unfortunately, I hadn’t found out that meringue doesn’t last that well at room temp, and it becomes foamy and unpleasant. It can’t hold the star tip’s design or even stay in pretty little mounds. So I had only a few successful meringues, and that was the ONLY cookie stand bake sale that we ever sold out.

Well, after more and more googling, and more and more testing, I have still not perfected meringues. Did you know that if you haven’t baked them long enough, at room temp they’ll get all sticky and melt? This is my warning list for meringue:

  • Make sure you’ve got the whisk attachment!
  • Make sure that there’s NO yolk in your egg whites
  • DON’T PUT TOO MUCH CREAM OF TARTAR!
  • Make sure to bake them long enough, and at a really low temp. These bake low and slow! If you try to speed it up by firing up the oven to 350, you’ll end up with brown-ish meringues that are still gooey inside.
  • Don’t give up! Apparently, it’s possible.
  • DON’T LET YOUR SIBLINGS EAT THEM ALL!!!!!!!!!!!!
Posted in My life

Let’s try something new

Posted on by theblessedpath

I realize that even though this blog is called The Prancing Pony Club, it has nothing to do with horses. Scrolling through the list of posts, I found that only a few actually were about horses. I’ve blogged about places we’ve went, books I’ve read, contests I made up, funny videos and favorite songs. I’ve blogged about what just happened in my life, stories I’ve come up with, DIYs that were only partly horsey. and more contests. But out of all the subjects I’ve written about, recipes were my favorite. (Actually, I also really enjoyed DIYs but I don’t do enough interesting projects to blog about.)

So I think I’ll be blogging about recipes for a while and see how it turns out. My dad said that my blog is for practicing my writing, so I need to write on this blog, not just type up recipes. I could write about restaurants I went to and learn to use more descriptive words for food rather than “delicious” and “so yummy” or “good”.

It isn’t official yet, but we’re just trying this out, okay?

Posted in My life

The BEST cinnamon rolls EVER

Posted on by theblessedpath

I know I say the “best” a lot, but really, these are the best cinnamon rolls I’ve ever had. It takes a while to make, but theses were SO GOOD!! The middle is really fluffy, and…. it’s just so delicious. For a first time making them, it was a success.

Recipe: https://chelsweets.com/2020/02/20/quick-yeast-cinnamon-rolls/

Quick Yeast Cinnamon Rolls

These quick yeast cinnamon rolls are ready in 1 hour, and are soft and fluffy, with gooey centers! They’re frosted with a cream cheese icing that is to so delicious!!

PREP TIME: 15 minutes

COOK TIME: 25 minutes

ADDITIONAL TIME: 20 minutes

TOTAL TIME: 1 hour

Ingredients

Quick Yeast Cinnamon Roll Dough

  • 3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour + up to 1/2 cup addition flour (added later in process)
  • 2 1/4 tsp or 1 packet instant dry yeast (7 grams, 1/4 oz.)
  • 1/2 cup sugar
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1 cup whole milk
  • 1/4 cup butter, at room temperature
  • 1 egg, at room temperature and beaten

Cinnamon Roll Filling

  • 1/4 cup unsalted butter, softened
  • 1 1/4 cups packed light brown sugar
  • 2 1/2 tablespoons ground cinnamon
  • 1 Tablespoon cornstarch (optional, but helps the filling stay in place while the rolls bake)

Cream Cheese Frosting

  • 1/2 cup full fat cream cheese (4 oz), room temperature
  • 1/4 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
  • 2 1/2 cups powdered sugar
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 2 Tbsp heavy cream
  • 1 Tbsp vanilla extract

Instructions

Cinnamon Roll Filling

  1. While the dough rises, make the cinnamon roll filling.
  2. In a medium sized bowl, mix together 1 1/4 cups packed light brown sugar, 2 1/2 tablespoons ground cinnamon, and 1 tablespoon cornstarch.
  3. Set aside.

Cinnamon Roll Dough

  1. Preheat your oven to 200 degrees F.
  2. In a large bowl or the bowl of a stand mixer, combine 3 1/2 cups of flour, 1 packet instant dry yeast, and 1 tsp salt.
  3. In a separate bowl, add 1 cup milk, 1/4 cup softened butter, and 1/2 cup granulated sugar into a microwave safe bowl.
  4. Heat on high power for 75 seconds, until the mixture is warm to the touch.
  5. Stir to combine the ingredients.
  6. Add 1/3 of the warm milk mixture into the flour mixture at a time, mixing on medium speed with a dough hook between additions.
  7. Add in the beaten egg, and mix on a low speed until a sticky dough ball forms.
  8. Continue to mix on a low speed for 2-3 minutes, until the dough becomes more elastic.
  9. As the dough mixes, add additional flour, 1 Tbsp at a time until the dough begins to leave the sides of the bowl. I like to add in a Tbsp at a time, to get just the right amount.
  10. Cover your bowl with plastic wrap, and set aside to allow the dough to rest for 5 minutes. The plastic wrap should fog up a bit from the warmth of the dough.
  11. Place the dough on a lightly floured surface, and roll it into a large rectangle 10 inches x 18 inches. Is should be about 1/2 cm thick. 
  12. Spread 1/4 cup of softened butter over the dough, leaving 1 inch of dough on the long side of the rectangle uncovered (this will help you seal off the roll and keep it tight).
  13. Sprinkle the cinnamon roll filling (instructions above) evenly over the buttered area. 
  14. Tightly roll the dough horizontally, toward the uncovered strip.
  15. Cut dough log into 9 equal pieces (you can cut it into more pieces if you want smaller/shorter cinnamon rolls), and place in a greased square pan (mine is 8in x 8in).
  16. Turn the oven off! I REPEAT, TURN THE OVEN OFF.
  17. Cover the cinnamon roll pan with foil and place in a the oven for about 30 minutes (until the cinnamon rolls have risen).
  18. Remove from the oven and take off the tinfoil. Turn the oven back on, and heat to 350 degrees.
  19. Bake for 25 minutes, or until rolls are golden brown.


Cinnamon Roll Frosting

  1. To make the frosting, stir together the softened 1/2 cup of cream cheese and 1/4 cup of butter with a spoon or stand mixer.
  2. Add in the 1/2 tsp salt and 1 Tbsp vanilla extract.
  3. Stir in 1 cup of powdered sugar, then add in the 2 Tbsp of heavy cream. Mix in the remaining 1 1/2 cups powdered sugar, and stir until the frosting is smooth.
  4. Let the cinnamon rolls cool for 5 minutes, then spoon the frosting over each cinnamon roll.
  5. Serve warm.

Notes

Making These Cinnamon Rolls in Advance:

If you want to make these quick yeast cinnamon rolls ahead of time, be sure to use regular yeast rather than instant yeast, and double the amount (some of the yeast may be damaged when frozen, so doubling the amount ensures your cinnamon rolls will rise properly). Freeze the cinnamon rolls after they have been cut and proofed in a greased pan.

Cover the cinnamon rolls with an airtight lid or plastic and freeze for up to a week. To thaw, take them out 2 hours before you plan to bake them, and then follow the recipe to bake.

If you want to make smaller cinnamon rolls, cut the rolled dough into 12 pieces.

Be sure you are using instant yeast! It comes in tiny packets that can usually be found in the refrigerated section of your grocery store.

Posted in My life

Awesomest Science Experiment EVER!

Posted on by theblessedpath

Cornstarch + Water = goo/oobleck/a non-Newtonian fluid

This stuff is awesome! It’s neither liquid or solid, so it’s really fun to try out.

What it looks like in person

RECIPE:

  • 1/3 cup water
  • 1 cup cornstarch + a little extra
  • A couple drops food coloring
  1. Pour cornstarch into a BIG bowl. Trust me on this, you want a big bowl.
  2. Slowly pour in a little of water and mix.
  3. Keep adding water in gradually and when half the water’s gone, add food coloring.
  4. Once mixing gets hard and clumpy, get your hands in!
  5. You’ll never stop playing with this stuff for a week.

In the video, hers was a little thick and mine was thinner, but if you want a thick one, just add more cornstarch.

To store, pour into a jar and close the lid. Don’t worry if it dries out, you can just restore it with a little water when it’s play time again.