The Baking Medic

My favourite way to eat oatmeal cookies is studded with chocolate covered raisins. I love the sweet fruitiness of the raisins, but I’m also a hardened chocoholic. Basically, if you want the best of both worlds then you’ll certainly find them in this Oatmeal Chocolate Covered Raisin Cookies recipe.

They have a deliciously chewy texture and buttery taste.  They’re also packed full of oats and chocolate covered raisins. The recipe originally called for 1 cup/2oog of raisins, but me being me, I decided to double the amount. :)  The result is some cookies that are more chocolate covered raisins than cookie! To me, that is perfect, but you may want to reduce the amount a wee bit if that’s not to your liking.

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I seem to be baking a lot recently! But when I get stressed, I bake. And well, the exam’s tomorrow, so baking is a relatively short and productive revision break. Although, I must say it’s not terribly wonderful for my, ahem, waistline. :P O well.

I made this because on Thursday evening, my other half, B, had some Couchsurfers staying with him! We had a wonderful meal together and talked about everything under the sun from how to properly pronounce “Salford” in the Manchurian accent to driving down dirt tracks in rural Mexico.  They were just starting another several month tour of the UK, Europe and Asia before heading home to Australia.  Talk about living the dream!

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Pear + White Chocolate = Delicious Muffins

It’s the Easter break here in St Andrews and most students are off cavorting away somewhere on the Continent. Alas, for medics, the 2 week break finds us at home or still in the Bubble looking longingly outside as we get our first days of spring.  Such is the lot of people who have midterms the first day back from the “break”.

But I still found some time to make these muffins.  A few months back, I made a Glazed Pear & White Chocolate Bundt cake.  I loved the combination of pear and white chocolate, two soft sweet complementary flavours.  So this past weekend, I was running low on a few ingredients and was looking for a recipe to use up a couple of pears that I had sitting around.  See I was butter-less, which pretty much rules out 75% of cake and cookie recipes.  So I decided to go looking for a muffin recipe and I found a great basic buttermilk muffin recipe.  The recipe originally called for berries, but I substituted the same volume of chopped up pear and white chocolate chips.

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Omg. This mousse is divine!  And I think it’s most defining feature is that it’s eggless — so no consuming raw eggs (although I confess to regularly trying the cookie dough) or any fiddling about with beating until “soft peaks” form.  The secret to this mousse is that it uses cream cheese and whipped cream to achieve it’s smooth creaminess and lightness.  This recipe was adapted from a version I found on one of my favourite blogs, Closet Cooking.  Kevin there adapted it from a recipe from the Dairy Farmers of Canada — which explains the prominent use of dairy products in the recipe.

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Almost halfway through Week 2, my studies are definitely well underway… and I’m already well behind on notes! ;_; But nothing says procrastination productive distraction like baking and I’ve already brought in treats for my classmates a few times! :) This cake is from my Golden Book of Chocolate, one of the most amazing chocolate cookbooks every published.  I was surprised and impressed by its comprehensive introduction, packed full of information about the history of chocolate, it’s production, and it’s role in the economic world of today.  The language is a bit grandiose, but it was informative nonetheless.

However, what really sets this book apart is the variety and quantity of recipes.  There are over 300 of them! And every single recipe is accompanied by a mouthwatering, foodgasm inducing photo.  It’s a pleasure simply to sit down with a cup of tea and slowly leaf through it’s golden pages. » Read the rest of this entry «

It’s usually a stint of baking that motivates me to post again.  Today a friend and I made chocolate cupcakes (recipe to follow) and the simple pleasure of sharing something tasty to eat gave me the itch to blog again.  I made this jelly roll a few weeks ago during my visit to the Lake. My mum has this Company’s Coming cake cookbook full of delicious, old-fashioned cakes and desserts.  I was feeling in a “retro” mood and decided I wanted to try and make a jelly roll. » Read the rest of this entry «

As of today, I’ve been at the Lake for a whole week! I’ve nicely settled in, have gotten used to lazy mornings, and really have started to sink my teeth into the Harry Potter books.  I started them two days ago and already I’ve had to sheepishly phone my neighbour twice to ask for the next book in the series.  To be on the safe side, when I came to collect the Prisoner of Azkaban this afternoon I also picked up the Goblet of Fire.  Woo!

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Every year since my early childhood, my family travels to our cottage in northern Manitoba, known simply as “the Lake”.  Some of my fondest memories are of the (mis)adventures my brothers and I got ourselves into as we whiled away the long summer days of the north. Of course, things have changed a lot since then.  Gone are the days when we had to jump off the front porch because the stairs had rotted away.  Gone are the days when we spent hours on the neighbour’s trampoline, laughing when one of us accidentally bounced off. Gone are the days of doors that didn’t quite fit their hinges, as the cottage foundations succumbed a bit more each year to the soft muskeg below.   Gone are the days of mismatched furniture, orange curtains, and peeling lino. But the memories remain and I must admit I don’t miss all the mosquitoes buzzing around my ears!

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Cheesecake Brownies with Raspberry Marble

Although I routinely get the ‘brownie-shakes’, it’s not often that I crave cheesecake.  But last week, the urge hit and I couldn’t ignore it: I just had to make something with cheesecake in it.  Since I had decided that bars would be more practical if I wanted to share these with my colleagues at work, it was just a matter of choosing the type of base I wanted.

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So I’m very much behind on my posting again.  That’s not to say I haven’t been baking! Indeed, I feel like Ive been baking more than ever.  Perhaps it’s in procrastination – I’ve got a midterm this afternoon! *gulp* Go figure that I choose the morning of the midterm to post and not anytime in the past two weeks.

This post will be a quicky.   Just some pictures to let you know that I haven’t given up on this blog. :) If you want the recipe, just give me an email and I’ll be happy to send it too you! » Read the rest of this entry «