Baked Sesame Chicken and Buzz Off by Hannah Reed

So tonight I tried a new recipe and thought I would share, this is a baked Sesame Chicken from the website Momswhothink.com I was really impressed. This recipe turned out really well, I loved it and my boys all ate it with out complaint.

Monday The Book Depository.Com  delivered the first of the cozy mystery by Hannah Reed Bee Keeping Mysteries Buzz Off and I have not been able to put it down. It is a wonderful series about a thirty something recently divorced grocery store owner and bee hobbyist in a small town in Wisconsin and I highly recommend it. I think the dishes can now wait while I finish this fun mystery and order the next in this current 5 book series.

*Baked Sesame Chicken, Basmati Rice, Caramelized Onions, Carrots and Snow Peas.
 Click here for the recipe on Momswhothink.com 

Off to enjoy my book and some of the coffee cake I made yesterday for dessert!
As with all my posts I would love to hear from you so please leave me a comment here or email me at karenmowen@gmail.com

Drunken Raisin Scones

Today I made Drunken Raisin Scones for a St. Patrick's Day platter and thought I would finally update this long neglected blog.

Drunken Raisin Scones
Scone Base:
1/2 cup of lard (you can use butter, margarine or shortening but I used lard)
2 cups of flour
3 tsp baking powder
1/3 cup of milk
1 egg
3 tbsp sugar
Drunken Raisin Mixture:
1/4 cup of raisins
1/4 cup of whiskey
1/4 cup of water
1 tsp cinnamon
2 tsp sugar

Whiskey Icing Glaze
2 tbsp of reserved reduced whiskey mixture
1/4 cup of icing sugar
1/8 cup of milk

Pre-Heat oven to 400F

Method:
Drunken Raisin Mixture:
In a small saucepan place the raisins, whiskey, water, 2 tsp of sugar and 1 tsp of cinnamon. Bring to a bowl and turn down to simmer. This is to plump the raisins and infuse the Whiskey flavor. When the liquid is reduced by 1/2 turn off and set aside.
 Scone Base:
In a mixing bowl sift flour, 3 tbsp sugar and baking powder, cut your lard in small pieces and then blend by hand the lard into the flour mixture, until it resembles a bread crumb mixture.  Add your egg and milk, mix in by hand. Next remove 2 tbsp of liquid from your raisin and whiskey reduction. Set aside for your icing glaze. Add the remaining raisins and liquid to your scone batter and mix in. If you find your dough is to wet add a small amount of flour.

Once the raisins and whiskey are incorporated in the scone mix  move it to a cutting board and form a circle shape as shown in the photo above. Cut into 8 triangles and place on an cookie sheet. Bake in oven until the edges are golden brown.  Remove from oven and let cool slightly.

Whiskey Icing Glaze:
In a small bowl place the icing sugar, add your reserved mixture and milk. *If you find it too think thin with a bit of water and drip over your baked scones

Serve with a cup of tea and enjoy!
~ Karen Owen The Baking Lady

Whimsey Jar Tea Swap I just made

Today I created a Teat themed Whimsey Jar for my Swap-bot Partner in our Tea Lovers Group. I love making Whimsey Jars and sending them. This was a swap I organized and I can not wait to send this to my Florida Partner! The swap called for a Tastefully Decorated Jar that had to be at least the size of a Peanut Butter Jar and could be plastic so I sent mine in a Mayonnaise Jar. You had to add 4 different tea bags, 4 napkins, a recipe and a tea light.

My swap partner likes Loose leaf tea like I do so I put together enough tea for a good sized pot of

Murchies Earl Grey  and

 Murchies Lavender Black tea

I added a Vanilla Rooibos tea with one of my tea labels that says "Keep calm and drink tea" that I ordered from Favors Favors Etsy Shop  and a Scottish Malt Tea.

I did include a recipe for Lonsdale Scones as well

1 1/2 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
2 tsp cream tartar
1 tbsp sugar
1/2 cup butter, margarine or lard
Enough milk to make a soft dough.
Roll out and cut your dough or drop on to a greased cookie sheet .
Sift all the dry ingredient together, mix in the butter by hand until the mixture is like bread crumbs, add enough milk to form a soft dough.

Bake at 400 F for 15 min or until golden brown

Enjoy with tea and jam of course!

As with all my posts I would love to hear from you so please leave me a comment here or email me at karenmowen@gmail.com

Banana Milk Chocolate Chip Muffins

I made these for breakfast yesterday morning. Nicholas loved them but my other two did not love them as much. They prefer the dark chocolate chips and I used milk chocolate chips.
Here is the recipe:

1 3/4 cups flour
1/2 cup white sugar
1 tbs baking powder
1/2 cup chocolate chips ( I used milk chocolate chips)
1  egg
1/4  cup cooking oil
1/4 cup  milk
3 mashed bananas

In a mixing bowl place the first 4 ingredients. Mix well.  In a small bowl mix the remaining ingredients then add to your dry mix. Stir only until moisten and then  spoon into muffin papers and bake at 400F for 20-25 minutes. Makes 12 LARGE muffins.

Served with English breakfast tea and it was delightful.
As with all my posts I would love to hear from you so please leave me a comment here or email me at karenmowen@gmail.com

Chocolate Marble Banana Bread

Having found banana's on special for 49 cents a pound recently I have ended up with lots of bananas for baking so today I made a Chocolate Marble Banana Bread, my family really enjoyed.
Here is how I made it...
1 1/2 cups of white sugar
1/2 cup margarine
2 eggs
4 mashed bananas
1/2 cup milk
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp baking soda
2 cups flour
3 tbsp cocoa powder

In your mixing bowl place sugar and margarine mix together add banana, vanilla and eggs. Beat together and then add milk, baking soda and flour. Mix until thick dough forms.
Remove one cup of batter and to it add the cocoa powder.

Spray two loaf pans with cooking spray and divide the dough between them. Add spoonfuls of your chocolate mix to the top and use a knife to swirl the chocolate into the batter. Bake at 375 for 50-60 minutes or until a cake tester comes out clean.

Cool in pans 5 minutes before removing to a cooling rack.

Tea time, serve with your favorite tea. I had "dish water" Earl Grey with mine as you can see a nice lightly steeped tea to enjoy with a dense and delicious marbled banana bread.

Enjoy!

The Baking Lady, Karen Mom of Three
As with all my posts I would love to hear from you so please leave me a comment here or email me at karenmowen@gmail.com

Make an impression with Swirl Cupcakes at your next cakewalk, birthday party or BBQ!

My boys school is having an end of year BBQ with a cakewalk and the parent council asked for donations for it. I was thrilled to sign up to make cupcakes. After all who doesn't love a cake walk!
I used a box cake, I think box cakes are fantastic and wonderful to have on hand, when they go on sale I stock up, I found Walmart here in Canada has a great Chocolate Cake mix and it is only $1 a box. So for school functions and parties you can not go wrong with a boxed cake.

To make my cupcakes look like they were done for a "bakery" I used my favorite icing recipe for "butter cream"
1 cup margarine ( you can use butter but I use margarine)
1 bag of icing sugar ( I did not sift mine this time as I used a large piping tip)
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tbsp cream of tartar (this helps hold the piped shape and keeps your icing from melting )
 2 tbsp water
Mix all incidence together and use a whip attachment on your mixer to create volume.
For piping the icing I used a disposable Wilton  piping bag, blue food gel and 2d tip.

To make your own Swirl icing, you will need to have a tooth pick or clean paint brush for food gel.

First put your tip into your piping bag. Trim it to fit and make sure that your tip is secure in place.  Then using your food gel and your toothpick or paint brush, paint 4 lines from tip to top of you piping bag.  Then fill your piping bag 3/4 way with your white icing. As you pipe your swirl on your cupcake your icing will show a swirl color as mine has. It may take a few tries but you will get the hang of it very quickly. The first few cupcakes you decorate will have darker swirls of color and as you pipe all your icing your swirls will get lighter, you can add more color when you reload your piping bag.

After making and plating the cupcakes, I enjoyed a few left over cupcakes with some much needed peppermint tea.

Now we are off to enjoy the Year End BBQ and Cakewalk!
As with all my posts I would love to hear from you so please leave a comment here or email me at karenmowen@gmail.com

Rainy Day Chocolate Chip Cookies

It is a rainy day here and for an after school snack for the boys I made Chocolate Chip Cookies.
The secret to making these yummy cookies even taster is running out of vanilla extract and having to use almond extract instead. My boys loved it and did not even notice the almond flavor. Here is the recipe.

1 cup margarine
1 1/2 cups brown sugar
1/2 cup of white sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp almond or vanilla extract
1 tsp baking soda
2 cups flour
1 cup chocolate chips (* More if you would like)

In a mixing bowl beat margarine and sugars, add eggs and mix, add extract, baking soda, flour one cup at a time and add your chocolate chips. I use a small baking scoop so my cookies are all the same size but you can also use a spoon and drop dough balls on your baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Bake 8 minutes at 375. Cool 5 minutes and enjoy with milk or tea like me.

Enjoy!
The Baking Lady,  Karen Mom of Three
As with all my posts I would love to hear from you so please leave me a comment here or email me at karenmowen@gmail.com