Recipe #3 Chiparoos

This recipe was inspired by a cookie bar recipe from a company that sells condensed milk.  It's a very easy recipe.  It only takes about 10 minutes to prep and about 30-35 minutes to bake.  The original recipe had only one kind of chocolate chip and coconut and nuts.  I'm not a fan of coconut, so I changed it to include 3 different varieties of chips and moved the nuts to the crust.  Have fun with this one, it's a very quick, very sweet treat for bake sales or sweet tooth cravings.

Difficulty Level:  Easy

Ingredients:

1/2 cup butter (1 stick) or margarine, melted
1 1/2 cups graham cracker crumbs
1/2 cups finely chopped pecans
1 (14 oz) can sweetened condensed milk
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips
1/2 cup peanut butter chips
1/2 cup butterscotch chips

Directions:
Heat oven to 350 degrresF.  Coat 13 x 9 inch cake pan with vegetable cooking spray.  In a medium mixing bowl, combine butter, graham cracker crumbs, and pecans.  Mix until all crumbs are moistened.  Pour into pan and press down firmly with the back of a spoon or measuring cup to create a firm crust.  Pour the entire can of condensed milk evenly over the crust mixture.  Layer evenly with all of the chips.  Press chips into milk with a fork.  Bake for 30-35 minutes or until lightly browned.  Cool completely and cut into bars to serve.

What I learned from this recipe:
- Chocolate chips are an easy thing to change.  There are so many varieties of chips available, that it is easy to give your favorite chip recipe an overhaul even using the same amount of chips called for in the recipe.
- You can always take out ingredients that you don't like and add others.  Since I don't like coconut, there are many other things I could have used in this recipe.  Also if you prefer a different kind of nut, you could use that instead of the nut in a recipe.  Most nuts cook the same way, so that is an easy change that can be made.

It really felt good to have a recipe work the first time.  Have you had any recipe failures?  Did you do anything to fix it, or did you just throw it out?

Recipe #2 Easy Chocolate Raspberry Overload Cake

This recipe was inspired by a Chocolate Cake found on a recipe website.  I love the combination of raspberry and chocolate, so I changed the recipe to incorporate raspberry flavor.  This recipe was a little difficult for me to adapt as it was pretty much a chemistry lesson.  I had to make it twice to get it exactly like I wanted it.  It is a really easy recipe that is pretty much dump, mix and bake.  Getting the combination of liquids right was tough.

Difficulty Level:  Easy

Ingredients:

1 (18.25 oz) package devil's food cake mix
1 (5.9 oz) package instant chocolate pudding mix
3/4 cup raspberry preserves (either seedless or seeded will work)
1/2 cup sour cream
3/4 cup vegetable oil
4 eggs
1/2 cup warm water
2 cups semisweet chocolate chips

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.  Spray a 9 x 13 inch pan with vegetable spray.  In a large bowl, mix together all ingredients except chocolate chips.  Mix with an electric mixer until well mixed.  Batter will be thick.  Stir in chocolate chips and pour batter into prepared pan.  Bake for 1 hour to 1 hour and 10 minutes or until top is springy to the touch and a wooden toothpick inserted comes out clean.  Cool cake thoroughly in pan before inverting onto a plate if desired.  Dust the cake with powdered sugar and cut into squares.


What I learned from this recipe:

I learned that when adding an ingredient to an existing recipe, you should evaluate the other ingredients in the recipe.  For instance, when I added the raspberry preserves to this recipe the first time, I kept all of the other ingredients at the same amounts and it didn't bake fully.  I used a bundt pan for my first attempt at this recipe and put a tunnel of raspberry preserves in the center of the batter.  When the cake baked all of the preserves melted and sunk to the bottom of the cake making a gooey top to the cake.  When my first attempt failed, I needed to change the entire presentation of the cake.  I lowered the amount of oil and sour cream from the original recipe to accommodate the addition of the preserves.  The result was a subtle raspberry flavor and a very moist, chocolaty cake.

What are your favorite flavor combinations?

Recipe #1 Cherry Almond Coffee Cake

This is the first of 150 recipes in the Sweet Tooth Project.  The inspiration for this recipe was a Cranberry Upside-Down Coffee Cake found on a recipe website.  I love Cranberries and Pecans, but thought cherries and almonds would be an interesting twist.  I kept the same upside-down presentation and just changed a few of the ingredients.  Here is Recipe #1

Difficulty Level:  Medium - High

Ingredients:

2/3 cup packed brown sugar
1/3 cup butter
1 (5 oz.) bag dried cherries
2 cups orange juice
1/2 cup sliced almonds

1/2 cup butter, room temperature
3/4 cup white sugar
2 eggs
2 teaspoons almond extract
1 cup sour cream
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. In a small, microwave safe bowl combine cherries and orange juice and microwave on high power for 3 1/2 minutes. Generously spray a 9 inch round cake pan with cooking spray.  In a mixing bowl, mix together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon and salt.  Wisk until well incorporated and there are no lumps in the flour. Set aside.  Melt 1/3 cup butter in the microwave and pour into the cake pan.  Sprinkle brown sugar over the melted butter and mix until sugar is moistened. Spread sugar/butter mixture evenly over the bottom of the pan. Sprinkle almonds over the sugar/butter mixture.  Drain the cherries and sprinkle evenly over the almonds.  In a large bowl, cream together the butter and 3/4 cup sugar until light and fluffy.  Beat in the eggs one at a time, then stir in the almond extract.  Beat in the flour mixture alternately with the sour cream.  Pour batter into prepared pan. Place the pan on a cookie sheet while baking to catch any bubbling sugar mixture that may escape out the top of the pan. Bake in the preheated oven for 60 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean.  Cool in pan for 10 minutes, then invert onto serving platter and carefully remove pan.  Serve warm.

Note:  if your cake pan is dark metal, decrease the temperature of the oven to 325 degrees.  Bake time may increase by 5-10 minutes.  Use the toothpick test to check doneness.



What I learned from this recipe
-Anytime you make changes to a recipe it is a shot in the dark as to whether it will come out or not.  Especially if it is a baking recipe.  I made 2 batches of the recipe both with my changes and baked them at the same time.  I have learned that for my next recipe, I will make one recipe with my changes and evaluate it, then make another recipe with any further changes needed.
For example, I originally made this recipe without soaking the cherries in OJ and they were a little overcooked with a sort of burnt sugar flavor.  I have since changed that hoping that the moisture from the OJ will eliminate the overcooking of the cherries.  The cake was incredibly moist so I changed nothing but to increase the almond extract.  I originally had 1 teaspoon, but increased it to 2 to give the batter a little more almond flavor.  If you like cinnamon flavor more than almond, you can use 1 teaspoon almond and increase the cinnamon by 1/4 teaspoon.

Looks like I will have to try this one again to see if my changes are workable.  Does it sound like something you would like to try?  Do you like to experiment with recipes too?

Update:  Tried this recipe again with my changes.  It came out perfectly.  Had to scoop out the almond and cherry topping and put it back on, but I think it makes it prettier that way.