Perfect Sweet Cornbread

I don't know about you, but I think that people have a reallllyyyyy weird thing with cornbread.  I lived in Texas for a while, and it seems that the South as a whole would be shocked and appalled at a sweet cornbread.  Their cornbread is crumbly and savory.  Hey, I like that too ... but there's something about cornbread that's moist with just a touch of sugar that gets me excited.

That's the saddest realization I've ever come to on this blog.

Anyway .. say what you will, this cornbread is really delicious.  Put away your Jiffy mix, and get out the butter and honey.

You'll need.... (this is for a TON of cornbread, like a 9x13 pan full)

1 cup of yellow cornmeal

3 cups of all purpose flour

1 1/3 cups of sugar

2 Tablespoons of baking powder

1 teaspoon of salt

3/4 cups of vegetable oil

1/3 cup of melted butter

2 tablespoons of honey

4 eggs, beaten (be gentle)

2 1/2 cups of whole milk

Optional: some diced pickled jalapenos or a can of green chilies would be great in this.  You can also add some cheddar or Monterrey jack cheese ... lots of tasty options.  

Alrighty, preheat your oven to 350 degrees, and grease a 9 x 13 inch baking pan.  

In a large mixing bowl, put in your flour, salt, sugar, cornmeal, and baking powder.  

Mix until just combined.

In a separate bowl, add your eggs, vegetable oil, melted butter, honey, and milk.  Whisk together. 

Add the egg mixture to your batter, and stir until just combined.

That's it for the batter!  At this point I would add in any cheese or peppers if you want to spruce this recipe up a bit.  I didn't think about it until later... it was still delicious on it's own!

Add the batter to your greased baking dish.

Bake for 45 minutes until it starts to turn golden and shows a few cracks on the top.

Let it cool for a bit, then slice it up and serve warm with some melted butter and honey.  Ohhhh man.  I ended up serving this with my chicken tortilla soup ... keep an eye out for my next post for that recipe!

Hope you enjoy, even if you like the crumbly stuff.

Courtzilla

Butterscotch Chip Cookies

I brought these cookies into the office the other day and there was almost a riot when I ran out.  These come highly recommended!!  The secret ingredient is some cream cheese - adds an interesting texture and tang to the cookies.  You'll definitely have to let me know how these go over if you end up making them.

P.S. I just realized these are the first cookies I've posted to this blog. I'm going to celebrate with a glass of wine.  Fine, it's an excuse to drink wine. 

You'll need... (for about 20 cookies)

1 stick of butter (room temperature)

4 oz of cream cheese (half a package)

1/2 cup of granulated sugar

3/4 cup of packed brown sugar

1 egg

1 tsp vanilla

2 cups of all purpose flour

1/2 tsp of baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

8 oz of butterscotch chips

[source]

Ok!  Throw in your butter and cream cheese into a mixer and cream that together really well... like 2 minutes on high well.

Should look like this when you're through.

Next you'll add both the brown and granulated sugar, and mix until fully incorporated to the cheese and butter.

It should look pretty similar to this!  

You'll then want to add the egg and the vanilla and mix until everything comes together.

Action shot!

OK! We can move on to the dry ingredients.  You'll want to mix together the flour, salt, and baking soda ... you can sift it if you like but that just dirties another tool and I am against doing dishes.  

Slowly add this to the butter mixture on a low speed.  You don't want to over mix it because the cookies will turn out tough.  Just do it to the point where everything looks like it has come together.

You'll then want to fold in the butterscotch chips with a spatula, then cover and refrigerate the dough for about 2 hours.  This will allow the butter to harden up again, and your cookies won't spread out as much when you bake them.

When the two hours is up you'll want to preheat your oven to 350 degrees, then scoop the dough into about 1 1/2 inch balls on some lined cookie sheets.  If you overcrowd the pan, the cookies will all run together and not bake properly.  TRUST ME.  (Bad past experience).  

Bake these babies for 10-12 minutes, turning the pan halfway through to make sure everything is cooking evenly.  My oven is pretty hot, I took them out almost exactly at 10 minutes.

Let them sit on the pan for a couple of minutes (they will be really soft at first), then move them to cool on a wire rack.

Ta daaaaa!!  You're done!  Store these in a tupperware container or a ziplock bag, they should stay soft and delicious for about 3-5 days.  I'm just guessing, the batch I made lasted about 3 hours.

Enjoy!

Courtzilla

The Best Birthday Cake

Time to get serious.  Two cake layers.  Double the frosting.  Mass amounts of sprinkles.  This cake was for my roommate Aly, but I'm posting in celebration of someone else's birthday... MINE!  I'm hoping you'll make me one of these. Deal?  Birthday's July 9th... you know in case you were wondering.

 Recipe yoinked from Deb over at Smitten Kitchen


You'll need:
- 2 9" cake pans, can be round, square - whatever strikes your fancy.
- 4 cups plus 2 tablespoons cake flour
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 2 sticks unsalted butter, softened
- 2 cups sugar
- 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
- 4 large eggs
- 2 cups buttermilk


Alrighty!  First you'll want to butter and flour your pans.  Grease up the pans with a bit of butter, then pour a small bit of flour in the pan.  Shake it around until the whole pan is covered with flour, then shake out the excess.  Should look like this....

Ok!  Now, mix together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a bowl. 

In another larger bowl, beat together the butter and sugar until fluffy, and then add the vanilla.

Add your eggs one at a time.  Make sure you scrape the sides of the bowl down after each egg, so we can guarantee it's all been mixed together perfectly.  After that, slowly add your buttermilk until just combined.  Then you can add you flour in 3 batches, beating after each batch.  Make sure you stir/beat it until it's just mixed together.  If you over beat the flour you can wind up beating out the moisture from the cake.  What's the point of cake without moisture?  Oh wait, frosting. I forgot.

Pour the batter into your cake pans, and put them in a 350 degree oven for 35 to 40 minutes.

VOILA!

Alrighty.  Now in order to stack these so they line up and don't look like a soccer ball, we have to cut off the rounded tops.  I think it's easiest to do this once they've cooled with a big knife while they are still in the pan.  That way you get perfect measurements, and the two cakes will line up perfectly.

Now, take on half of your cake, and spread frosting on the top of it.  Let's be honest here - I got lazy and bought frosting in a can.  SO SUE ME.

Now turn the other half of the cake upside down, and plop it down ever-so-gracefully on top.

Here's another trick for you, slide 3 pieces of parchment or wax paper under the cake, so none of the rim of the cake touches the plate/counter.  That way when you're done frosting you can pull away the parchment, and it won't make a mess.  THANKS MARTHA STEWART YOU'RE THE BEST.  Don't even act like you don't watch her show religiously.

An easy way to frost a cake is to put a "crumb layer" of frosting on first.  Just a thin layer that will hold down all the crumbs so they don't peel off and get everywhere.

We're going for function here, not beauty.

Now, get the rest of the frosting on there.  Lay it on reallll thick.  Like sarcasm.

Sprinkles anyone?

Ta daaaa! Aren't you impressed?  Now you can pipe your favorite roommate's name on top.  Apparently I need to work on my piping skills.  Pull away the parchment paper at the bottom, and you are ready to throw a birthday party.

I'll be expecting my cakes no later than the 8th of July.

Enjoy!!

<3<3Courtzilla

Texas Chocolate Sheet Cake

 Texas sheet cake.  Why do they call it "Texas" sheet cake?  I have no idea.  One thought is that it may be called that because it makes enough cake to feed the entire state of Texas.  I wish I was kidding.  Might want to halve this recipe unless you're planning on going up a pant size.

What you'll need:
- 2 cups of flour
- 2 cups of sugar
-1/4 tsp salt
- 4 heaping tablespoons of cocoa.  If you're feeling fancy use the dutch process fancy pants kind.  If you're me use Hershey's.
- 1/2 tablespoon instant coffee grounds
- 1/2 cup buttermilk
- 1 cup boiling water
- 2 beaten eggs
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 sweet dinosaur cupcake pan (optional)

Let's get crackin.

First things first, boil your water so it's ready to go.  Simple enough.

Ballin'.  Alrighty, now in a mixing bowl stir together your flour, sugar and salt.

Here's where things get serious.  Melt TWO sticks of butter in a medium sized pot.  Oh, be still my heart.

 

To the melted butter, add your cocoa and coffee.  Quirky fact: adding instant coffee to your chocolate cake/chocolate chip cookies will make Hershey's cocoa taste more rich.  See?  Learning all kinds of things today aren't we.

 

Now, add the boiling water to the chocolate/butter mixture.

Take a sniff.  Die a little.

Let this boil for about 30 seconds, then turn off the heat.  Pour the chocolate on top of your flour, and stir to combine.  You'll want to hang out a bit and let that cool down.

Forgive my yellow bowl, it does not realize what it does to pictures.

While that's cooling off, measure out your buttermilk in a measuring cup.  Add the baking soda, vanilla and eggs and whisk it around to combine.

If your flour/chocolate has cooled down enough, mix it together with the buttermilk mixture.  Make sure it's cool though, or else you'll wind up with scrambled eggs, and I'm sorry, but scrambled egg chocolate sheet cake just doesn't have the same ring to it.

Pour this onto a sheet pan and bake at 350 degrees for about 20 minutes.  I don't have a sheet pan with rims that high, so I used my trusty 9 x 13" pan.  NBD.

After I got the batter into that pan, I realized... I still have a ton of batter left.  There's only one reasonable solution to such a problem.

DINOSAUR CUPCAKES.  I'm sorry, but just bask in the glory of this awesome pan.  Are you jealous you don't have one??!??!

You could make a frosting for this cake, but why?  It's honestly so moist and so rich, just a dusting of powdered sugar will do.  Make sure the cake is completely cool though, or else the powdered sugar will just melt into the cake.

Delicious.  As for the dino cupcakes?

I had no problem getting rid of those.

Ahahahhaa.  I love that pan.

Enjoy!

<3 Courtzilla

French Toast Casserole

So you might be wondering... just fruit before a full day of drinking? That's what I thought too... ludicrous. We need something of substance!

I made this recipe, had one bite, and was hooked. It's easy, portable, and you can make it the night before so it doesn't get in the way of your horrible drinking habits. Sounds like my kind of recipe.

Here's what you'll need:

-a loaf of french bread or challah bread, cubed
-1/2 cup of butter
-1 cup of brown sugar
-1 tsp of cinnamon
-1.5 cups of milk
-5 eggs

First things first, cube up your french bread. It'll make a mess using the good crusty bread, but it absorbs so much more of the egg mixture that you'll definitely want to just go for it.


Butter up a 9 x 13 ish inch pan.


Place half of your bread in the bottom of the pan.


Mix together the brown sugar and cinnamon, then sprinkle half of it over the bread layer.



Layer the last of the bread on top of that, then sprinkle the rest of the sugar mix on the very top.


Measure out the milk in your measuring cup, add in the 5 eggs and the vanilla extract directly into the measuring cup


andddd WHISK


Now pour this all over top of the casserole.


Cover with tin foil or plastic wrap and let it sit and soak overnight. The next day, just pop it in a 350 degree oven for 30 minutes. Take it out and uncover, then cook for an additional 15 minutes to brown up the top. Hollllyyyy cow. Serve it with some maple syrup. Die.

I don't have the sweet finished product because we went and ate it too fast. But let's just say...this picture sums it up.


Sorry John, I had to.

Happy St. Patty's day!

<3
Courtzilla