Rice Krispie Treats

For this week's food, I thought it might be fun to make a classic childhood treat... Rice Krispie Treats! The recipe didn't call for that many ingredients, but it was only of the most interesting things I have made to date. In addition to making the "original" Rice Krispie Treats, I made chocolate ones by adding chocolate chips into the marshmallow-cereal mixture, which I strongly suggest to you if you're planning on making some of these any time soon!

Here are some pictures of the entire process from start to finish:

I got the recipe for the rice krispies from: http://www.ricekrispies.com/search/kids.aspx?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_term=treats&utm_campaign=Desserts#/recipes/the-original-treats

I tripled the recipe so I could make enough for the people at PATH and a couple for my family, so it was a bit harder to manage all of the marshmallow fluff and all the cereal in the pot, but I managed to make them tasty so it's all good :). Since the heated marshmallow fluff would harden quickly once mixed with the cereal, I had to rush to mix the two together and put them in their containers -- so I didn't have much of a chance to take pictures for that part, but it was so interesting to be under that time-crunch and have to make the rice krispie treats perfectly because they tested my abilities as a baker. This week I learned that when dealing with sticky foods that harden fast, you need to be clean and fast. This week I really tested those abilities in myself and I feel as if I will be more prepared for the next time I make these because I'm more familiar with it and I know how to be more efficient now.

The treats tasted really great in the end, and I especially liked the chocolate ones because they were more flavorful and rich. I made about 45 treats and I gave the people at PATH about 36, enough for all the residents and staff, so there was 9 left over for my friends and family who had been requesting some more of my foods :D.

Even though it can get a but messy, the Rice Krispie Treats were a blast to make. They only take about 1.5 hours to make and the final result is so great you'll want to make them all the time!

All in all, this weeks dessert = A+

Try making the treats at home sometime soon, I promise you won't regret it! Thanks so much for reading and remember, stay blissful!

Sincerely,

The Blissful Baker

Chocolate Peanut-Butter Cupcakes

For this week's dessert I decided to make something unusual, difficult, but definitely tasty! I decided to make... chocolate peanut-butter cupcakes! The combination of chocolate and peanut-butter sounded amazing when I first thought of it so I wanted to give it a try. Chanee at PATH told me several times before that she loved the chocolate cake I used for the superbowl cake, so I thought it would be a good idea to use that recipe for the cupcakes, then find a recipe for the peanut-butter frosting. Here are the recipes incase you'd like to use them:

Cupcake: http://www.hersheys.com/recipes/recipes/detail.asp?id=184

Frosting: http://www.cdkitchen.com/recipes/recs/33/Peanut_Butter_Frosting52823.shtml

But this week for the first time, I had a little bit of trouble :( I wanted to make super large muffins so I put a little extra batter in each of the cupcake pans, but it ended up being a little bit too much! The muffins ended up tripling in size and some of the batter even spilled off of the cupcake tray onto the floor of the oven. I managed to save most of the cupcakes from sticking to the tray and being completely destroyed but I made less than I expected. The cupcake itself was delicious and the frosting, thankfully, was amazing! It had perfect amount of peanut-butter -- not too strong, but very tasty and apparent. I tried to fill some of the cupcakes with frosting by punching in a straw to make some space to fill the frosting in. Here are some pictures that I took while making the cupcakes:

All in all, despite the disaster, the cupcakes turned out delicious! Even though I planned to make about 50 cupcakes, I only made around 30 and I gave 24 of them to the people at PATH to enjoy. I decided to keep just a couple this week because 1. I loved the cupcakes! and 2. I gave some to my family to try. They all loved the cupcakes too so I can definitely see myself making this again sometime in the near future.

I also made a new friend this week! Since I dropped off the cupcakes a bit later Saturday afternoon, another person was at the receptionist desk at PATH. He introduced himself as Joe and took great interest in my cupcakes so I'm hoping they all liked them! It was so great to make a new friend at PATH this week and hopefully I'll see more of him and the other people there soon. Thanks so much for reading and until next week, stay blissful!

Sincerely,

The Blissful Baker

Hamntaschen and Mishloach Manot!

Hello! This last Saturday marked my 11th week of "Blissful Baking", so I decided to do something a little festive. In honor of the Jewish holiday "Purim", which was on Sunday, I decided to make the people at PATH hamentaschen!! Hamentaschen are triangular shaped cookies with either a chocolate, strawberry, apricot, or poppyseed filling inside them. I thought it might be fun to make them cookies that Jews usually eat around this time so I can give them a taste of the Jewish holidays. Although, after thinking about it for a while, I thought it would be even better if I went a step further to make them mishloach manot! Mishloach manot are gift bags full of goodies that children exchange during Purim. I was so excited about this idea of making them hamentaschen and putting them in mishloach manot that I went to Ralph's an hour after I thought of the idea and got all the supplies! I bought a bunch of mini snickers, milky ways, mint candies, hershey kisses, licorice, as well as some plastic bags so I can put all of it together. In addition to giving them the cookies and candies, I thought it might be interesting if I put a note in each of their bags that explained to them what Purim is and why I'm giving them gift bags. When I went to PATH and gave Chanee their gift bags she looked really happy about what I brought for them so it was really worth it!

I was up at 9 am Saturday morning to make the hamentaschen and although I was really excited, I was also pretty nervous. I had made hamentaschen one time last year and they weren't that..um, tasty to say the least :/ But I really wanted to make them great hamentaschen and I knew that with the right recipe and precision I would be able to, so I searched for some recipes and I found one that I knew I could trust. It was from food network and it was put up by the chef Gale Gand who has a show called "Sweet Dreams". I saw the comments and everyone reviewed them as wonderful and delicious, so I decided to give it a shot. Here's the recipe just incase you'd like to try it:

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/gale-gand/hamentaschen-recipe/index.html

So I made the hamentaschen and they turned out wonderful! I made about 65 total (with the help of my mom) and I gave the people at PATH 40 hamentaschen in gift bags so that all the residents and staff could enjoy some. I decided to make the extra 25 so I could give some to my family and friends.

Here are some pictures I took while baking:

I finished making the hamentaschen and mishloach manot by around 2 pm, so in total it took me about 5 hours but it was totally worth it. I'm so glad I was able to give the people at PATH something unique this week and I really enjoyed the whole process. I hope all of you had a great Purim and until next time, stay blissful!

Sincerely,
The Blissful Baker