Recipe: Pumpkin Spice Pancakes

 Ingredients

Batter

• 1 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
• 3 tsp baking powder
• 2 tbsp brown sugar (optional)*
• 1 tsp salt (optional)*
• 1 1/2 tsp Pumpkin Pie Spice Blend or you can put together
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
• 1/4 tsp ground ginger
• 1 cup milk
• 1 cup pumpkin puree or butternut squash puree.
• 2 eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla extract (optional)
• butter for cooking

Toppings

• a slice of apple
• 1/4 cup of plain Greek yogurt  (whole fat) mix with 1 tsp of pumpkin pie spice blend
• honey
• almonds

* personally, I didn't add sugar nor salt and they still turned out great. The pumpkin puree and honey topping provides the sweetness that you need.

Directions

1. Dry ingredients: In a large bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, brown sugar, salt, pumpkin spice blend
2. Wet ingredients: Using a blender, blend together milk, pumpkin puree and eggs. 
3. Pour the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and whisk using the manual hand-held mixer. 
4. Melt butter on lowest heat setting in a large skillet (if you use a non-stick pan, you don't even need butter nor oil), then pour about 1/4 c of the batter onto the pan. 
5. Cook until the topside of the pancake is not too wet anymore, then flip the pancake and cook for about 1 to 2 more minutes.
6. Repeat with remaining batter. This yields about 8 pancakes. 

Recipe: Japanese Souffle Pancakes

 Ingredients (Makes 4 pancakes)

• 4 egg whites and 2 egg yolks
• 6 tablespoons granulated sugar
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 6 tablespoons cake flour
• 1/4 cup milk
• 1/2 teaspoon freshly squeezed lemon juice
• 1/2 teaspoon salt (optional). I don't normally add salt for health/medical reasons. Honestly, I don't taste any difference with/without salt.
• Unsalted butter, for greasing and serving
• Optional (for serving)
• maple syrup
• confectioner's sugar
• whipped cream
• fruits

Materials

• Non-stick skillet with lid
• Mixer
• Large and medium mixing bowls
• English Muffin Rings

Directions

Step 1 : Egg yolk mixture

Place egg yolks in a large bowl. Make sure it's large because we are going to add the meringue in this bowl later on.

Add 1 tablespoon granulated sugar, the vanilla and baking powder to the egg yolks and whisk until blended. 

Add flour and milk. Whisk until fully combined.

Set aside.

Step 2: Make the meringue

Place egg whites in the bowl of a stand mixer or any medium bowl. 

Add lemon juice and (optionally) salt to egg whites. 

Using a stand mixer (fitted with the whisk attachment) or a hand mixer, whip mixture on a medium speed until foamy, about 1 minute. 

Continue to whip while gradually pouring (1 tablespoon at a time) the remaining 5 tablespoons of granulated sugar. 

Turn speed to high and whip until stiff, glossy peaks form and mixture doubles in size, about 1 minute. 

Step 3: Preheat

Heat the non-stick skillet over the lowest heat setting

Step 4: Mix the egg yolk mixture and meringue 

Using a rubber spatula, scoop about 1/3 of meringue into egg yolk mixture and gently fold, almost combined. 

Repeat with half the remaining meringue until almost combined, then fold in the remaining meringue just until no streaks remain.

Step 5: Cook the pancakes

Brush/grease the warm skillet and the inside of the English muffin rings using butter. 

Place the greased English muffin rings in the warm pan and pour 3/4 cup of batter into each ring. 

Place lid on top of skillet and cook pancakes between low and medium heat until they start to rise and a few small bubbles start to form on top, 2  to 3 minutes. 

Step 6: Flip the pancakes

Remove lid.

Carefully slide a flat spatula underneath each pancake and position another spatula on top, then gently flip pancakes in their rings. 

Place the lid back, bring the fire down to low heat and cook until pancakes are cooked through and spring back to the touch, 1 to 2 minutes. 

Transfer cooked pancakes to a platter, grease the skillet and pastry rings and repeat to make the rest of the pancakes.

Step 7: Serve

Recipe: Nanay's Apple Crisp

Ingredients

• 10 cups apples, peeled, cored and sliced. We used gala apples but I think any apples will work
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 cup water
• 1 cup quick cooking oats or Quaker Old Fashioned Oats. 
• 1 cup all purpose flour
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 cup melted butter

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C)
2. Place the sliced apples in a 9x13 inch pan. Mix the white sugar, 1 tablespoon flour and ground cinnamon together, and sprinkle over apples. Pour water evenly over all.
3. Combine oats, 1 cup flour, brown sugar, baking powder, baking soda and melted butter together. 
4. Bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for about 40 to 45 minutes.
5. Best served with vanilla ice cream. 

Recipe: Not-So-Sinful Brownies

On March 19, 2020, Governor Gavin Newsom of California released an Executive Order ordering all individuals living in the State of California to stay home or at their place of residence except as needed to maintain continuity of operations of the federal critical infrastructure sectors, as outlined at https://www.cisa.gov/identifying-critical-infrastructure-during-covid-19. 

Since then, our family has never gone out to eat at restaurants, not even ordering to go. I am comfortable with cooking meals from scratch but baking has never been my expertise. I make a few muffins. It's the easiest thing to make, I think. 

My youngest daughter's birthday was coming up and in our paranoia, we didn't want to order cake. So, I didn't have a choice but to try to bake the cake myself. I thought maybe I should experiment on making brownies first before I level-up to baking cakes. The cake didn't turn out the way I like it but the brownies did. 

I searched online for brownie recipes. With my first try, I followed everything to the letter. It was way too sweet for me. I've been trying to lose weight too but at the same time, I love desserts. It's hard but I have to indulge from time to time. With my second try, I experimented on the ingredients to make the brownies a little less 'evil' 😏  It was a success! You know how I knew? My sweet expert husband approved of it and my 3 kids loved it! Kids are always the best critics when it comes to dessert. 

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup butter
• 3/4 cup white sugar (the original recipe asked for 1 cup)
• 2 eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder. I used Hershey's.
• 1/2 cup oatmeal flour (the original recipe used all purpose flour)
• to make oatmeal flour: Place the oats into the bowl of your food processor. Pulse the oats until they are ground into a powder-like consistency. I used Quaker's® Old Fashioned Oats.
• 1/4 teaspoon baking powder

Directions

✪ Step 1

Pre-heat oven to 370⁰F (175⁰C). Grease and flour an 8-inch square pan.

✪ Step 2
In a large saucepan, metl 1/2 cup butter. Remove from heat and stir in sugar, eggs, and 1 teaspoon vanilla. Beat in 1/3 cup cocoa,1/2 cup oat flour and baking powder. Spread batter into prepared 8-inch square pan.
Optional: sprinkle dark chocolate morsels on top.

✪ Step 3

Bake in preheated oven for 25 to 30 minutes. Do not overcook.

In line with making this not so sinful, I chose not to make the frosting.

Recipe: Cinnamon Apple Muffins with Oats

It's back to school. I try to be creative about the snacks that my kids take to school. Some days they have fresh fruits for snacks, some days, I bake them muffins or cookies. I try to make the pastries as healthy as it can be. I can only do so much, otherwise, it would no longer taste good.

This week, I made Cinnamon Apple Muffins. The original recipe  calls for 2 cups of all purpose-flour. To add more fiber to the muffin, I replaced the 1 cup (out of the 2 cups) of flour with 1 cup of Quaker's Old Fashioned Oats.

Ingredients

• 1 cup all-purpose flour 
• 1 cup of Quaker Old Fashioned Oats
• 1½ teaspoons baking powder
• ½ teaspoon salt (optional. I don't normally add salt to anything that I bake)
• 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 2 cups diced apples
• ½ cup (1 stick ) unsalted butter, room temperature
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• ½ cup milk

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 375º F. 
2. Sift together flour, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon in a medium bowl. Set aside.
3. Cream together butter and sugar until lightened in color, about 3 minutes. Add an egg, one at a time, taking care to fully incorporate before adding the other. Mix in vanilla. I used an electric mixer for this.
4. Gently fold in flour mixture, alternating with milk. Stir until just combined. Fold in diced apples and scoop mixture into prepared muffin tins, filling about 2/3 to 3/4 full. I was able to make 12 muffins. 
5. Bake until a toothpick or skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean, about 30 minutes.

Since this is a healthy alternative, I didn't make the sugary toppings. Plus, the muffins are already sweet. However, if you do like to add toppings, check this recipe out: https://addapinch.com/cinnamon-apple-muffins-recipe/

Recipe: Banana-Chocolate Muffins

I read online that the secret to moist banana muffins was mayonnaise. Yep, mayonnaise! Initially, I feared that the muffins would taste like mayo but it turned out to be really good and the kids loved them.

Kids are the best critics when it comes to dessert. So when they approved of my chocolate-banana muffins, I know, I did well 😅

This recipe is actually a modified version of what I saw online. The original recipe does not have chocolate in it and it called for 1/2 cup of white sugar and 1/2 cup of brown sugar. I didn't want too much sugar so I replaced it with 1 cup of Swiss Miss Milk Chocolate instead - that's approximately 98g less sugar compared to the original recipe. I also added cinnamon and nutmeg for better flavor.

Ingredients

• 1 large egg
• 1/2 cup mayonnaise
• 3 ripe bananas (Don't mash the bananas separately. Just throw them in with the egg and mayonnaise and mash them with the electric mixer.)
• 1 cup Swiss Miss Milk Chocolate
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract (optional)
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• 1 tsp. salt (optional. I don't normally add salt to anything that I bake)
• 1-1/2 cups all-purpose flour

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Place 12 paper muffin cups in the muffin pans. The bottom diameter of each muffin mold in my pan is approximately 2 inches. 
2. In a large mixing bowl, beat together the egg and mayonnaise. Add the ripe bananas and beat until smooth. You can do this by hand or preferably, with a handheld electric mixer.
3. In a separate bowl, mix the dry ingredients: flour, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, Swiss Miss.
4. Make a well in the dry ingredients and pour in the wet ingredients into the well. Mix the dry and wet ingredients slowly and carefully. Do not stir. Stop mixing just when the dry ingredients are moist. Over mixing may produce tough muffins and bake unevenly.
5. Divide the batter between muffin cups (it should be about 2/3 of the way full) and bake for about 25 minutes or until muffins are set. Let cool slightly.