Homemade Oreo's

Usually homemade Oreo's are made from a cake mix. Since this blog is dedicated to baking without a box, I am presenting a homemade Oreo recipe made from scratch. The filling is my favorite part!

Homemade Oreo's

Cookie

-1 C Butter, softened
-1 C White Sugar

-1 C Brown Sugar  
-1 tsp Salt              
-2 tsp Vanilla          
-2 Eggs, room temp   
-1 tsp Baking Powder
-1 tsp Baking Soda
-1 1/2 C Flour
-1 3/4 C Cocoa

-cream together butter, sugars, salt and vanilla until light in color and fluffy in texture.
-add eggs, one at a time, mixing until the mixture is light and fluffy.
-add the baking powder, soda, flour and cocoa and mix.
-roll into equal sized balls and place on a cookie sheet

Bake at 350 degrees F for 8-10 minutes 

removed from cookie sheet and allow to cool

Cream Filling

-1 pkg of white chocolate chips
-1 8 oz pkg cream cheese, room temp

-mix the cream cheese until it is soft and fluffy
-melt the white chocolate chips and mix them into the cream cheese
-whip the mixture until it resembles frosting

Frost one side of the cooled cookies with the filling and sandwich it with another cookie. ENJOY!

Vegetable Soup

This soup is perfect for a cold winter day. It freezes well once cooked and also makes a perfect crock pot meal. 

Vegetable Soup

-1/2 to 1 lb stew meat (beef, deer, lamb, whatever you have laying around...we seem to eat a lot of venison over here)
-2 cans beef broth
-1 can tomato sauce
-1 can diced tomatoes
-1 C frozen peas
-1 C frozen corn
-1 C chopped carrots
-2-3 diced potatoes
-1 C frozen or canned green beans 
-1 medium onion, diced
-2 cloves of garlic, minced
-3 stalks of celery, diced
-salt and pepper to taste

-in a large pot, brown the meat over medium high heat with about a tbsp of oil
-after the meat is cooked, add the rest of ingredients and simmer over medium heat until the vegetables are cooked through.

Brown Sugar Oat Muffins

One day while I was browsing Pinterest, I came across a pin for brown sugar oat muffins. The picture looked yummy and so I clicked on the link to check out the recipe. As I read through the ingredients, I was highly disappointed as the recipe called for things like "sugar free breakfast syrup" and "soy or almond milk" and didn't contain eggs, or butter! I'd say I'm pretty traditional when it comes to baking, meaning I like to use butter, eggs, sugar and flour. So using the title of the recipe as my inspiration I came up with this awesome brown sugar oat muffin recipe that is fantastic.

Brown Sugar Oat Muffins

-1 C Butter, room temp
-1 3/4 C brown sugar
-1 tsp salt
-2 tsp vanilla
-2 eggs, room temp
-1 tsp baking powder
-1 1/4 C buttermilk
-1 C whole wheat flour
-1 C flour
-2 C old fashioned oats
-1 C chocolate chips



-Cream the butter, sugar, salt and vanilla together until the mixture is light in color and fluffy in texture.
-add the eggs, one at a time, mixing until the batter is nice and fluffy
-add about 1/2 of the flour and baking powder to the batter and fold in
-add a 1/3-1/2 C of the buttermilk and fold it
-keep folding in the flour and milk alternatively until it is all incorporated, try not to over mix!
-fold in the oats and chocolate chips
-spoon batter into lined muffin tins

Bake at 350 degrees F for 15-20 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean

Classic Chocolate Walnut Fudge

Like my Cookies 'n Cream fudge, this fudge also is based off of the Guittard Choc-Au-Lait Vanilla Milk Chips bag, only I've switched a few things up to make a milk chocolate fudge instead of a creamy vanilla fudge. I've found the recipe is fairly versatile, and you could probably make any kind of fudge you desire using it. I plan to do a rocky road type fudge, and a turtle fudge, and whatever else I can think of that sounds delicious sometime in the future. Anyway, enjoy!

Chocolate Walnut Fudge

-1 1/2 C sugar
-1 Tbsp light corn syrup
-1/2 C evaporated milk
-1/4 C heavy cream
-1/2 tsp salt
-2 Tbsp butter
-2 C milk chocolate chips
-1 tsp vanilla
-1 1/2 C chopped walnuts

-Line a 8X8 pan with foil

-Combine the sugar, corn syrup, evaporated milk, cream and salt in a saucepan. Bring to a boil over medium heat.
-While the mixture is boiling, use a pastry brush dipped in warm water to brush down the sugar that has collected on the sides of the pot. Do this 2-3 times while the mixture is boiling
-Boil the mixture until it reads 225 degrees F on a candy thermometer.
-remove the pot from the stove and mix in the vanilla, butter, and chocolate chips, stirring until smooth
-fold in the chopped nuts and pour into your foil lined pan
-cool in the fridge for at least an hour before cutting and eating.

Cookies 'n Cream Fudge

I have to admit, I haven't had much luck with fudge in the past. But since I'm a little old fashioned when it comes to baking and like to make things from scratch, it just doesn't sit right with me to cheat when making fudge and use marshmallow puff. I finally found a super easy fudge recipe that uses boiled sugar. I found it on the Guittard Choc-Au-Lait Vanilla Milk Chips bag. Not only is it super easy to make, but it's absolutely delicious to eat! I've tweaked the ingredient amounts because I wanted a cookies 'n cream fudge and also, I didn't have the right amount of ingredients suggested on the recipe. Nevertheless, it turned out fantastic, so I'm going to keep my changes to the original recipe.

Cookies 'n Cream Fudge 

-1 1/2 C sugar
-1 Tbsp light corn syrup
-1/2 C evaporated milk
-1/4 C heavy cream
-1/2 tsp salt
-2 Tbsp butter
-2 C white chocolate chips
-1 tsp vanilla
-1 1/2 C crushed chocolate cookies

-Line a 8X8 pan with foil

-Combine the sugar, corn syrup, evaporated milk, cream and salt in a saucepan. Bring to a boil over medium heat.
-While the mixture is boiling, use a pastry brush dipped in warm water to brush down the sugar that has collected on the sides of the pot. Do this 2-3 times while the mixture is boiling
-Boil the mixture until it reads 225 degrees F on a candy thermometer.
-remove the pot from the stove and mix in the vanilla, butter, and chocolate chips, stirring until smooth
-fold in the crushed cookies and pour into your foil lined pan
-cool in the fridge for at least an hour before cutting and eating.

Variation:
Maple Walnut Fudge
-replace the crushed cookies with walnuts and the vanilla with 1 tsp of maple extract. 

Sweet Potato Pie

So I didn't make up the recipe, I got it from my mom ages ago who got it from...someone else...and this isn't technically a pie either, it's a casserole. But I put it in a pie dish and since I really dislike the word casserole, I call it a pie. This year I will be adding a bottom pie crust to mine to truly make it a pie (because I LOVE pie) but you can try it out either way, with crust or without, this stuff is pretty tasty. My husband will eat it, and if he will eat it, it must be fairly decent.

Sweet Potato Pie

-unbaked pie shell
-3 C pureed sweet potatoes (you can peel, cut up, boil and mash, or wrap in foil and bake, and then peel and stick in a food processor)
-1/2 C sugar
-1/2 C melted butter
-1 tsp vanilla
-1/3 C evaporated milk
-2 eggs

Topping:
-1/3 C melted butter
-1 C brown sugar
-1/2 C flour
-1 C chopped pecans

-mix the sugar with the butter, vanilla and milk until the sugar has dissolved. Mix in the pureed sweet potatoes.
-add eggs, one at a time, mixing until smooth
-spoon mixture into the pie shell or large pie dish if you wish to omit the bottom crust

-Mix the flour with the brown sugar and add the melted butter and mix until crumbly. Add the pecans and mix again.
-Top the sweet potatoes evenly with the crumble mixture

Bake at 350 for about 30-40 minutes

Zucchini Bread

For the record, I don't like zucchini bread. I actually don't really like zucchini at all, except for maybe once a year. However, I planted 3 zucchini plants in my garden this year and they grew better than just about everything else. Which means we had A LOT of zucchini. After we got tired of having fried zucchini, my husband convinced me to make some zucchini bread. Even though I dislike zucchini bread, I gave it a go anyway. It was actually pretty good. It still ain't got nothing on banana bread, but if you are a fan of zucchini, you will LOVE this stuff. I blend my zucchini up a food processor because I like the texture better, but I'm sure it will still taste lovely if you grate it instead.

Zucchini Bread

-1 C Butter                
-1 C Brown Sugar     
-1 C White Sugar       
-1 tsp Vanilla            
-1 tsp Salt                            
-1/2 tsp Nutmeg
-1 tsp Cinnamon
-2 eggs
-3 C flour
-1 1/2 tsp baking powder
-1  1/2 tsp baking soda
-1/4 C buttermilk
-2 C zucchini puree (or grated zucchini)
-1 C chocolate chips
-1 C chopped walnuts

-Cream together butter, sugars, vanilla, salt and spices until light and fluffy
-add eggs one at a time, until fully incorporated
-sift together flour, baking powder and baking soda
-starting with the flour mixture, add a little bit and mix just until combined. Add the buttermilk and mix again, just until combined. Add more flour until combined and then alternate adding the zucchini with the flour until it is all combined. DO NOT OVER MIX or your bread will be tough.
-gently fold in the chocolate chips and walnuts.
-spoon into 2 greased bread pans
(this recipe usually makes 2 loafs, AND 10-12 muffins or 24 mini muffins)

Bake at 350 degrees for 25-35 minutes

(or until a toothpick inserted into the middle comes out clean)

Variation: if you want more spice flavor, feel free to add more to taste...or less depending on personal preference.
You can omit the chocolate chips and add 2 C chopped walnuts to the recipe, or omit the nuts and add 2 C of chocolate chips