Blueberry Muffins

My daughter, whos seven, is the average girl she loves Barbies, puppies and babies. Shes silly, giggly and sometimes just plain crazy. Shes also very clever and artistic. One of the funniest things about her, though, that makes her stand out from her peers, is her love for armadillos. Yes, its true, my daughters favorite animal is the armadillo. Shes never even seen one in real life, but while her classmates draw pictures of horses, dogs, birds or dragons, my daughter draws armadillos.

Shes recently became interested in cooking and baking, even watching and becoming engaged in MasterChef. A couple of weeks ago, I posted a recipe that she loves which she actually prepared by herself tuna pasta salad. She then wanted to try to make muffins or cookies on her own. We chose blueberry muffins from Inspired Taste to start with. She has helped me prepare batter or dough in the past, but Ive never actually handed her a recipe and said go for it! (I dont have that much patience!). It was a very exciting time for her!

I wrote down her recipe and with a bit of help on how to measure flour, and which was the baking powder, she did a brilliant job preparing the batter (while wearing my Jessie Steele apron that I won from Iron Cupcake: Earth!).

She also learned a few things, like how to let cold ingredients come to room temperature, not to over-mix the batter to ensure shell have soft, tender muffins, and to know when the muffins are done without having to use a toothpick or cake tester (muffins should spring back when lightly touched on the their tops with a fingertip).

We didnt change much about the recipe, except using vanilla bean paste instead of vanilla extract, and we sprinkled the tops of the muffins with demerara sugar instead of regular sugar.

I placed the muffin tin in the oven for her and then we waited, watching excitedly as the muffins rose and turned golden. Their aroma was heavenly as they were baking. I just couldnt wait to take pictures of them, because they looked gorgeous in the oven!

They did, in fact, turn out to be quite photogenic! These lovely muffins, with fresh blueberries, have a perfect golden and crunchy top. My daughter was quite pleased with herself and could barely wait for them to cool down to sample one.

The insides of these delicious muffins were so soft and tender, filled with beautiful juicy blueberries. We all fell in love with these little morsels and Im sure this is going to be a staple recipe from now on. Next time, I may try adding a bit of white chocolate chunks to the batter!

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Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies

Around 25 years ago (give or take a year or two), I ate the best chocolate chip cookie I have ever had in my life. I was young and spent time with an elderly babysitter during the summer and after school. My elderly babysitters mom, who, of course, was even more elderly, lived just down the road from her. On one occasion, I was able to visit my babysitters mom. Her house was the classic elderly home; it even smelled elderly. But it was a lovely home, and this aging woman was even lovelier (I, unfortunately, do not remember her name). I wasnt allowed to touch anything, so instead I wandered about with my hands clasped behind my back. She had her front door blocked off with furniture, which I thought was odd. I think she had a birdcage hanging from a stand, but there wasnt a bird inside. I dont remember much about her home. What I do remember, however, and have remembered for 25 years, is what I ate there. This little old lady had been baking homemade chocolate chip cookies. She offered me one, lying the tray on the table and winking at me. I was shy, but my babysitter encouraged me, so I grabbed one off the tray and sank my teeth into the chewiest, meltiest, gooiest chocolate chip cookie that has ever existed. I might have even had two of them.

25 years later, I am still talking about these chocolate chip cookies. Every time I try a version of homemade chocolate chip cookies, or bake a batch myself, I always compare them to the cookies that my babysitters mom made upon my visit to her house when I was little. And in the past 25 years years, no cookie has ever compared. Ive tasted wonderful chocolate chip cookies, of course, but none of them have brought me back to that time I took my first bite of the best chocolate chip cookie in existence.

Recently, on FoodGawker, I saw a recipe for chewy chocolate chip cookies. The cookies themselves looked completely unassuming and not exactly spectacular, but the description claimed that these were the most amazing chocolate chip cookies ever, thanks to a special ingredient. I shrugged the recipe off at first, but bookmarked it for future reference.

The secret ingredient was cornstarch. What good could cornstarch do in a cookie recipe?

I chose the cornstarch chocolate chip cookie recipe for my 7-year-old daughter to prepare on her own. She had been wanting to make chocolate chip cookies since she successfully prepared a wonderful batch of blueberry muffins last week.

And so, she began work on these cookies, with a bit of help from me now and then. The dough was so delicious that I kept stealing bits of it as she was dropping it onto the cookie sheet.

Yes, she learned how to use my digital scale to make sure all the cookies were the same size.

The first batch we put straight into the oven. While this batch baked, we refrigerated the rest of the dough. We discovered that we preferred the look of the finished cookies from the very first batch, rather than the refrigerated dough, so we left the dough out for the final batch (we had three batches go into the oven). Oddly enough, the chilled dough seemed to flatten out more than the unchilled dough! So we had some wider, flatter cookies and also some not-so-wide, thicker cookies. I mainly chose the thicker ones for the photos youll see below.

We used exact ingredients and only changed the preparation method slightly; instead of adding the flour, cornstarch, baking powder and salt separately, we combined them in a small bowl and whisked them together before adding these ingredients to the dough.

When measuring out the cookie dough, we used 30g of dough to make each cookie. We rolled them into a rough-shaped ball, and pinched the tops in a few different places to get a rustic look on the finished cookie, as you can see above. Our chilled dough didnt hold the pinches as well as the unchilled dough.

We could barely wait to taste these. It was excruciating, waiting to take the cookies off the baking sheet and placing them on the cooling rack. My daughter got first pick. I saw the chocolate ooze out of the bite she had taken of the cookie. My turn! I chose my cookie and took a bite.

You know how on movies sometimes, when someone remembers something, and a flashback scene dramatically appears with flashes of light? Thats what happened to me when I took my first bite of this cookie. Everything about it, right down to the flavor, reminded me of my babysitters moms chocolate chip cookies. Warm, soft, chewy, gooey; in other words, perfect. I was shocked. And floating dreamily in heaven.

I couldnt believe it. Now Im left wondering if, perhaps, my babysitters mom knew the secret of using cornstarch in chocolate chip cookies. It couldnt just be a coincidence that the cookies my 7-year-old daughter made ended up being my legendary cookie. Ive eaten and baked dozens of chocolate chip cookies, none of them anything like the cookies I remembered, then a recipe appears that uses cornstarch as a secret ingredient and suddenly I am transported back in time, standing shyly in that old womans kitchen, with chocolate smeared on my lips, not even knowing that 25 years in the future that that moment would be one of the highlights of my foodie life.

I dont know what cornstarch did to these cookies did it make them chewier, fluffier, tastier? What would these cookies be like if I left out the cornstarch? No idea, but Im not going to fix whats not broken. For me, this recipe ends all other chocolate chip cookie recipes.

Upon the second day of life for these cookies, I can tell you that while they still tasted nice, they were nothing like they were on the day they were made. Upon the third day, despite having been in an airtight container, they began to taste and feel a little stale. So, my recommendation is to make these cookies on the day you want to serve them and make sure youve got friends around to eat them all up, fresh from the oven. Theyll disappear like Houdini.

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Raspberry-Brownie Cheesecake Pots

Its been very hot in Sydney lately. I dont mean to complain, but weve had days where its been near (or right at) 110F; thats seriously crazy! As you may understand, I havent been baking very much because of this heat. Instead, Ive been trying out an assortment of chilled sweet foods, such as cheesecake pots (todays post), yoghurt parfaits, sorbet and cool drinks.

In December, delicious. magazine released its first ever Summer Special issue. Unfortunately, this issue didnt make its way to subscribers as we actually to buy it in the shops! There are a lot of lovely things inside this issue, though, such as the recipe Ill be sharing with you today for raspberry cheesecake pots with a brownie base!

This is a recipe you can prepare with a snap of your fingers and is perfect for entertaining. The base of these cheesecake pots is pure brownie. I didnt even turn on the oven to bake a batch of brownies; I just bought a package of brownies from the bakery department of my local grocery store. On top of the brownie base is a smooth, luscious filling of cream cheese, cream, vanilla beans and fresh raspberries. Each cheesecake pot is topped with a few toasted hazelnuts and extra raspberries.

Simple, beautiful, elegant and delicious!

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Raw Peanut Butter Cookies

I dont have any New Years resolutions. Im not sure whether that portrays me as lacking initiative or rather being happy with where I am. Ive enjoyed reading and hearing about other peoples resolutions, however; check out Google Zeitgeist to read resolutions from all over the world. No junk food, Propose to Dawn, Quit Facebook, Get into shape, Tell my family every day that I love them, Play better golf, and heaps more. Good luck to those of you who have resolutions!

With todays post, I hope to encourage those of you who have goals of eating healthier, eliminating junk food, and perhaps going vegetarian, vegan or gluten-free. I have a friend who is vegan; she eats some crazy food, but the photos she posts on Instagram look spectacularly delicious. It appears that its actually quite easy to achieve a healthy and balanced diet without using refined sugars, processed foods and meats. She inspired me to try out a recipe I found for healthy peanut butter cookies via La Mesa that uses no sweeteners except medjool dates and almond meal instead of flour.

This simple recipe, which results in a cookie dough-like texture, uses only 4 ingredients and can quickly be prepared in your food processor.

Youll need almond meal (whole almonds, raw or dry-roasted, will also work), pitted medjool dates, natural peanut butter (although you can use any type of peanut butter, or other nut butter such as almond, cashew, etc) and pure vanilla extract. The ingredients are processed in a food processor, then formed into balls. You could probably leave them as balls and call them bites instead of cookies, or you could flatten them with a fork for that classic peanut butter cookie look. And thats it. Thats all there is to it. You dont even need to turn on your oven.

A word of warning processing the dates can put a bit of strain on a food processor, so process the mixture with caution. If you have a strong processor, you should be fine, but if you have a cheaper brand or if its just not a good processor, well, youve been warned! Remember to remove the pits from the dates before processing.

As I mentioned, these cookies have a cookie dough-like texture, and Im sure theyd be perfect to use as cookie dough truffles, or buckeyes, if you formed the dough into balls and dipped them in chocolate. You could even add some chocolate chips to the dough, if you felt so inclined. Id suggest mini ones, as the cookies themselves arent very large. Theyre not the type of cookie youd want to make large anyway as the cookie would just fall apart if it were any bigger, and the texture is very chewy; its best that the cookies are formed into a smaller size.

I admit, I was a little bit scared of tasting these because Im not real keen on dates. But, I love peanut butter, so I had to give it a go. I fell in love with these little cookies and couldnt get enough of them. The taste of the peanut butter overpowers the taste of the dates, so the cookies basically tasted like raw peanut butter cookie dough. I was so excited and immediately proclaimed my love for them! This is one recipe Ill be making again and again, and I would highly recommend it to anyone.

These particular cookies may or may not be labelled as raw, depending on the ingredients you use. If you prefer raw food, just make sure the ingredients you use are raw. In my case, I used store-bought almond meal and peanut butter, so I doubt Id be able to officially call these raw! However, these cookies are perfect for vegetarians, vegans, people with a gluten/sugar-free lifestyle and those just simply looking to eat healthier. Heres to eating right in 2013!

If you loved these peanut butter cookies, visit Megan at La Mesa for more delicious healthy and vegan-friendly recipes!

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