Interesting...

see my camera?

I was baking biscuits (recipe coming soon!) in the toaster oven. Like most things in my kitchen, this toaster oven is older than me(and I'm fourteen), so it's not very well insulated. While I was cleaning up around the oven, I noticed how warm the air there was. Since I needed to melt a little butter, I decided to do a little experiment and placed a small plate of butter on top of the toaster oven. Surprisingly, it worked! The leaking heat melted the butter within 5 minutes!(The oven acted like a hot plate)

So if you happen to have a poorly insulated toaster oven and you need to melt some butter, put a small bowl of butter on the toaster oven. Yes, it takes more time than microwaving, but you'll be helping out our planet!

Blog Changes

You might have noticed that my blog has been undergoing some changes. First off, the title area has changed.

My very first header image was this:

And well... it was boring.

But you can't blame me for the ugly title! I started my blog at like eleven o'clock pm one day! (Don't ask me why I didn't start it at a better time.) So after a month of blogging, I decided to move on to something fancier. Which resulted in the following:

I'm going to admit it. It was ugly. The sugar-cookie-yellow just didn't go with the pale pink background. And the letters on the both sides were out of focus. (look at the S in "soft" and the S in "peaks")

So after having that title for two days, I decided to move on again. Which resulted in something better. And prettier.

This one turned out a lot more better. It still had the pink and green theme like the original one. But at least it wasn't as boring as the first one.

I also removed a few things from the right sidebar and spruced up the About page.

I might change a few more things, but they won't be major.

For now,
Amanda

How to Make a Cooling Rack

I don't own a cooling rack. And I don't think I need to go out and  buy one either. Whenever I need one, I'll just make my own. My substitution works perfectly every single time.

So here's the 2 sentence direction on how to make your very own makeshift cooling rack: Place a splatter screen on top of a similar-sized plate/bowl. Then, put the thing you want to cool on top of the splatter screen. Voilà - you have a cooling rack!

Healthy Blueberry Muffins

A person in my family(who shall remain nameless) is on a diet. Since baked goods are usually loaded with calories and fat, I decided to bake some weight-friendly muffins especially for her. These muffins are low-calorie and practically fat-free! Plus, they contain as much fiber as one cup of cooked spinach!

Using SparkRecipes, I imputed the ingredients into their Recipe Calculator, and found the nutritional value of a muffin. Each muffin is 110 calories, contains 0.3 grams of fat and 4.2 grams of fiber! If you're interested in the complete nutrition table, click here.

It is hard to make baked goods guilt-free. There was a number of things I had to consider when making this recipe. As a guideline, I used my former Home Economics teacher's chocolate chip muffin recipe. I looked at the ratio of wet to dry ingredients and went fom there.

Chocolate Almond Pousse

Pousse (pronunciation: pūs)

Something that was originally supposed to be a pudding, but then it turned out too light to be a pudding and too heavy to be a mousse. So it was named pousse in an effort to cover up the mistake and make it sound fancy.

So that's the first thing that went wrong in this recipe. The consistency went awry.

And then, another thing went wrong. I poured in too much almond extract, and my chocolate dessert became a chocolate-almond flavor. So I had to change the name to cover up the mistake again, from Chocolate Pousse to Chocolate Almond Pousse. That's a lot of name changes for one dessert.

I was lucky though. It turned out to be delicious.

This is a nice dessert for Valentine's Day, coming up tomorrow. It looks pretty, isn't too sweet, and isn't too hard to make. But it's not just reserved for Valentine's Day - you can eat it anytime. Things that taste this good isn't a once-a-year kinda thing. Besides, it's too healthy for it to be enjoyed annually.

You see, the secret ingredient is tofu. Yes, you read that right. Tofu.

How To Make Chocolate Shavings

 

Chocolate shavings are: 

a) yummy

b) pretty

c) easy to make

d) all of the above

Answer: d) all of the above

If I was ever given the above question on a test, I would check the answer d right away.

Chocolate shavings can be used in a variety of ways. They are an elegant addition to any dessert.

Just sprinkle some onto a store-brought dessert and bring it to a party. Everyone will ohh and ahh at it, and everybody will think it's homemade!

Since Valentine's Day is coming up, you can always sprinkle some onto a dessert to impress your sweetheart!

The possibilities are endless! (Okay, maybe not. I wouldn't sprinkle them on shrimp or broccoli or... you get the point)

Medium Pretzel Making

Okay, Chinese New Year passed (it was yesterday), and I wasn't able to make another prosperity cake. But, I won't give up yet! Who says that you can only eat a specific type of cake on a specific day of the year? I'll keep refining the recipe. When I perfect it, I'll post it. Anyway, I've been making prosperity cake for awhile now. And well, each time, it gets better, but it's still isn't fluffy as it should be. Maybe I should use yeast instead of baking powder to get a more fluffy cake?

Well, let's take a break from prosperity cake making. I'm getting sick of making and eating so much of it! After school on Friday, I decided made some pretzels for a change. Of course, since I manage to overcook everything, I overcooked the soft pretzels. They weren't soft, but they weren't as hard as hard pretzels either, so I named them medium pretzels (hence the title).

The recipe is from Joy the Baker, who took it from Gourmet.

So let's get started, shall we?