Carrot Cake Scones

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Carrot Cake Scones

Adapted from: http://www.thekitchenmagpie.com/carrot-cake-scones

Typically scones are dry, these however are not. They are moist just like carrot cake would be, so if you're looking for a more traditional scone, these may not be what you're looking for. That being said, they are very good, lots of flavor, and convenient.

Also, this is one of those recipes where you need to read through it first. I made the mistake of not doing that, and adding baking powder at the wrong spot and ended up having to play around and kinda guess how to remedy the mistake. It worked out pretty good, and I fully advocate experimenting in cooking and baking- obviously, but it needs to be more of an educated guess as to how it will all work out. So in the original recipe, you have to add the Baking Soda to the greek yogurt and have it "poof" or fluff up. I added to the dry ingredients. stupid. But then I also added it to the greek yogurt so it went poof. Baking soda is meant to make the thinks you bake get more airy, so I knew having extra would allow me to add more wet ingredients, or heavy ingredients. I love a very carrot-y flavor, so I added an extra 1/4 cup of carrots, and 2 Tbs honey to the original recipe and they turned out very moist and delicious. The take home message though is read through recipes prior to diving head first into it.

Ingredients: 

1 cup of Greek yogurt
1 tsp baking soda (into greek yogurt) + 1 tsp into dry ingredients
4 cups of flour
1 cup of white sugar
1 cup of raisins- optional, I used chocolate covered raisins and they were good too
1 cup shredded carrots
1 cup of cold margarine or butter
1 egg
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
4 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp ginger
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp cloves


Directions: 


1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees, and line a baking sheet with parchment paper or cooking spray.
2. Mix together all dry ingredients, including spices, flour, sugar, baking powder and 1 tsp of baking soda.
3. Cut in the cold butter- make sure it is cold- into the dry ingredients. Do this by slicing the butter in small chunks into the dry ingredients.
4. in separate bowl mix together the 1 cup of greek yogurt with the other tsp of baking soda, and stir so that it beings to 'poof'. Next beat the egg and add it to the greek yogurt. Add the Mixture to the dry ingredients, and then add the honey. 
5. mix dough. This will be tough, so I just used my hands, since the dough is pretty thick. Refrigerate the dough for about 30 mins to 1 hour. This part isn't totally necessary, but I think it helps the scones to hold their crisp clean edges when baking. 
6. cut the dough into 3 large sections, pat each third into a large ball and flatten into a pancake like shape, and cut each round into 6 pieces. Place the pieces on the baking sheet and bake for approximately 20 minutes. 
7. allow to cool completely (i'm impatient and didn't and my frosting melted) and then frost or ice. Cream cheese frosting goes very well with these, or if your not a frosting person, sprinkling with cinnamon sugar about 3 minutes before coming out of the oven would be good too. 

Makes 18 large scones. 


Enjoy!

Chocolate Peanut Butter Cookie Bars

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Chocolate Peanut Butter Cookie Bars

Adapted from: http://www.pillsbury.com/recipes/peanut-butter-chocolate-chip-cookie-bars/f58c8757-c29d-4344-8848-3279a98fa06b/

There is really no other reason for making these other than that they are classic flavors and easy to make, and I was way over due to make something. This week has been crazy, and these were the quick and easy solution to my long week.

Ingredients:

1 package refrigerated chocolate chip cookie dough (makes 24 cookies)
1 Cup creamy Peanut Butter
1/2 Cup cream cheese frosting
1 Tbs oil (I used Olive because I had it on hand, but vegetable works great too)
1 bag milk chocolate chips
sprinkles

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees, and grease 9 x 13 inch baking dish. Press cookie dough into bottom of pan, and bake until golden brown, about 15 minutes. note: when pressing dough into pan, the layer will seem very thin, but the cookies will get much thicker as they bake. If however you want a thicker bar, use an 8 x 8 inch pan.
2. While the cookie layer cools, mix peanut butter, frosting, and oil in a bowl. Spread the peanut butter mixture over the warm cookie layer. This may be difficult, and using a little oil on your hands will help you to press the peanut butter layer down, without getting all over your hands. Spread evenly.
3. Pour chocolate chips into microwave safe dish, and melt in microwave on high for 45 seconds, and then 10 seconds after that as needed. Be sure to stir the chips every 15 seconds or so, and do no burn them by over microwaving them. Pour the melted chocolate over the peanut butter layer and spread evenly.
4. Sprinkle with candy coated chips, sprinkles, peanuts, etc, as desired for decoration.
5. Chill bars in refrigerator and when completely cooled (about 1.5 hours) cut into squares.

Enjoy!

Raw Energy Bars

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Raw Energy Bars

Lately the weather has been ridiculously warm, so turning on the oven was completely out of the question. So, I started looking into 'no bake' recipes. And seeing as how spring is here and summer is just around the corner I decided to go with something with a healthy spin. I wanted to use what I had on hand and while I had peanut butter, I left it out of this recipe because I wanted something fruitier, and also because peanut butter has begun to steal the spotlight of this blog. So anyway, I came up with these energy bars that have protein, fiber and are pretty healthy. Yay!

Keep in mind that you can play around with this, since they are "no bake", consistency is the only thing your going for here and there's no fussing with the oven or baking soda, or anything like that. If you like peanut butter, add some! just be sure to add more dry ingredients accordingly.

Ingredients:

2 scoops chocolate protein powder
1.2 cup splenda
1.5 cups lightly crushed fiber one original cereal ( subbing in a flavored kinda like the caramel squares or something might also be good- or whatever cereal you have on hand )
1.5 cups oats
3/4 cup ground flax
2 tbs reduced fat milk
8 Prunes
1 large very ripe banana

potential Add ins: peanuts, raisins, wheat germ, nuts, dried fruit, chocolate chips, cocoa powder

Directions:

1. In a small food processor or blender puree prunes, banana, milk, and then add in protein powder until evenly mixed.
2. Transfer mix to a medium sized bowl and add in the dry ingredients and stir until evenly distributed. Note that the mix will be very thick.
3. Line a 8 x8 pan with wax paper and dump mix into the pan. spread evenly (or if you prefer, roll into small balls)
4. Refrigerate the bars and cut after they have hardened some (about 1 hour). Store in the refrigerator up to a week.

Note that if you add cocoa powder as an add in, you may want to cut down on the amount of other dry ingredients slightly. Also add cocoa at the same time as protein powder to ensure even distribution.

Nutritional info per bar (with out add-ins, using 8 x8 pan and cutting into 16 bars):
95 calories
2 grams fat
18.5 grams carbs
5 grams fiber
5 grams protein
4 grams sugar