Romantic Raspberry Danish: an Entenmann's Copycat Recipe

It was my parents' anniversary this past week. 20 YEARS!!! That's a really long time!

I wanted to do something nice for them for their anniversary. I decided to make them breakfast, so that they could get up and have a nice meal without having to worry about putting it together themselves (for once!). However, this posed a problem because I actually have to leave for school at 7:00 in the morning, meaning that even if I did find time to make a meal, my parents probably wouldn't be up to eat it!

So I looked for something that I could make ahead and that would still be nice and fresh and tasty in the morning, and that would be special for my parents--that is, though I have several delicious breakfasts in my arsenal, I wanted to surprise them with something new.

Does anyone remember these Entenmann's pastries?

Entenmann's Raspberry Danish

Probably not--but they used to be a breakfast staple in my household when I was little. My dad would pick them up from the grocery store to have as a special treat. Then Entenmann's discontinued them. My family was discussing them wistfully the other day. Lightbulb!

I ended up finding this recipe from Rate. Bake. Create. that looked pretty much exactly like what I was looking for: a pastry dough topped with icing and raspberry jam. I need to give tons of thanks for this recipe because it was the only one I found that had everything I was looking for--it was easy, basic, no cheese impinging upon my raspberry jam, and it was ABSOLUTELY DELICIOUS.

Plus, it was pretty fun to photograph because of how curious this piece of pastry looked.

Look, it's Santa's sleigh!

An edible sundial!

And here it just looks really really yummy.

Here's the recipe and pictures!

3 Reasons I Bake Bran Muffins!

Three Reasons Bran Muffins are Healthy

1. Apparently flaxseed is so good for you, that had my muffins existed approximately 600 years ago, it would have been illegal not to eat them!

Haha I'm not even kidding! I found this on like three different sites! And they're not even all flaxseed vendors!

This is like the opposite of banning large drinks in New York...

Apparently, as if by divine inspiration, Frankish emperor Charlemagne predicted the health benefits of flaxseed and required it consumed by all his subjects!. If you don't believe Charlie, WebMD also agrees.

(original) image courtesy of thehistoryprofessor.us

2. They're NOT cookies!

Image courtesy of okmagazine.com

You'll have to decide for yourself if that's a plus or a minus.

3. Bran muffins = sleep. 

Portable bran muffins --> I can eat breakfast in the car or at school instead of at home --> I can wake up later --> MORE SLEEP!

Image courtesy of clipartpal.com

Those reasons sound good enough for me! 

Starbucks Frosted Lemon Cake (without flavedo!)

The other day I was besieged by a raging craving for dense, moist, sugar-gilded lemon cake.

As I saw it, I had two options.

The first was transporting my hungry self to the closest Starbucks (I still can't get over the perks of driving myself!) and passing some money to the person across the table for a pre-cut slice of their own lemon-flavored breakfast cake.

Starbucks' lemon cake

Hm, tempting. I mean, the convenience of the option. Compared to the alternative, which is making it myself...and as a first-semester senior facing the considerable challenge of summarizing my life in an immaculately structured 600-word essay, I barely have time to produce cookies for the nourishment of my poor ailing family, much less indulge every junk food hankering that interrupts my English homework. 

I mean, iced lemon cake is iced lemon cake, right? 

That yellow highlighting means that I don't know what Starbucks is talking about. Therefore that scares me. (Also, I'm sort of concerned that they feel the need to call lemon zest "lemon flavedo" )

Ok, maybe if I bake really fast, making lemon cake won't take that much longer than detouring to Starbucks...

(Besides, we all know that all baked goods are not created equal, right? That's why I have a blog ;) )

Darn I'm out of granola

I made some granola before my family left for vacation, about a month ago.

I made FOUR RECIPES. That consumes an entire container of oats.

I made so much granola, I had to mix it in a POT.

I made so much granola I had to strategically organize it in my oven.

IT'S ALL GONE. AGAIN.

It's not really that the granola is addicting...it's just sustenance. I eat granola for breakfast almost every day. It's like my version of coffee. It's about as high-maintenance as Cheerios, but way less depressing. And it actually keeps you kind of full until lunchtime at 1:00 (yes, my school's schedule is messed up). And it tastes good, and you need something to look forward to at 6:30 in the morning. In short, perfect for a zombified student who just can't eat Cheerios every day.

--Seriously, one of the things that scares me most about the idea of going to college and living in a dorm is the idea that I will not be able to make my own granola any more. Just thinking about it makes me feel helpless :[

To comprehend the above sentiment, you have to understand how easy it is to make granola. There are basically four ingredients: oats, nuts, peanut butter, and honey. You use whatever kind of nuts you want, and you can substitute whatever sort of nut-derived butter you like. The most involved part is mixing everything together, which is an arm workout when you're making four recipes in a pot. And then you live on it for the next month. It's way cheaper than store-bought granola, it's a lot more diverse, and you get the perfect crunchy texture.

So thanks for checking out the instructions, hope I've provided you with your new breakfast staple and haven't cursed you to new dependencies and inter-family civil war--

JK here's the actual recipe :D

Chocolate Chip Muffins worthy of the most important meal of the day

Sometimes you need to function at 6:00 in the morning. Sometimes, you need chocolate to get you through it. Your answer :)

The "It's too early for chocolate" Muffins

The other evening I was taken with the creative spirit and decided to throw together (with a few alterations) a muffin recipe I found in my mom's recipe binder (I use the term loosely, since the spine of the rings is not bound to the spine of the cover and half the pages are not bound to anything). It was worth making off-the-cuff because I actually didn't have to do anything to the recipe to make it healthy enough that I wouldn't mind eating it for breakfast on a normal day and I had the essential ingredients.

Review: I thought they were okay. They weren't horribly flavorful, and I definitely appreciated the apple chunks I threw in there. The shocker, though is that my brothers LOVED THEM. To give you some context, these are the same brothers for whom I will make 50 cinnamon rolls in a sitting and they will come back a month and a half layer petitioning more. That meaning, that they have no aversion to sugar for breakfast (and snack and lunch and dinner, sometimes). But they really liked the subtle flavor of these muffins. My youngest brother (who isn't really a big eater in the first place) had two for breakfast and another for DESSERT. He told me he liked them better than my amazing and time-tested chocolate-chip muffins. Hear that, folks? BETTER THAN CHOCOLATE.

Another upside of these muffins is that if you have your oven on convection, they take like 10-15 minutes to bake, which is great if the designated baker (oh shoot, that was me) oversleeps and forgets to preheat the oven until half an hour before you have to leave.

So in the honor of those who are looking for something more toned-down, less sugary, and less time-consuming in the wee pre-school hours of the morning, I present:

Thanksgiving!...and more importantly, pumpkin bread

You know what that means...an excuse to put aside homework to spend all day baking inedible amounts of dessert!

My grandma was handling the main meal, which means my household was responsible for providing dessert. Which is just how I like it :D

Between us, my mom and I managed two pumpkin pies, a pecan pie, four loaves of pumpkin bread (with and without chocolate chips--more on that later), chocolate chunk and macadamia nut cookies, and a plate of pucharata (is that spelled right?)--essentially Croatian doughnut holes. They're good.

(That's how you know.)

I did the pumpkin bread and the pies along with the crusts (storebought pie crust? please), which explains why my mom thought Thanksgiving was so relaxing this year.

I started with the pumpkin bread. The chocolate chips were at the request of my uncle, who vehemently exhorted of me (and a week ahead of time, too!) that I make pumpkin bread WITH chocolate chips and-don't-forget-the-chocolate-chips! So I ended up making four loaves of pumpkin bread--two with chocolate chips for my uncle, and two regular for my family. I was kind of skeptical about the chocolate and the pumpkin, but all too willing to try it because remind me what doesn't taste good with chocolate? Unfortunately, the chocolate ended up overwhelming all taste of the spices, so in defense of the delicate spice-based appeal of traditional pumpkin bread, I advocate for leaving out the addition. (Don't think this means I'm not in favor of chocolate in breakfast food: that will be forthcoming.)

Besides, the normal version looked prettier ;)

I've made this recipe once before, and both times it has come out wonderfully. If you're not in the mood for bread, I recommend upping the sugar content and making muffins/ cupcakes, which you top with fresh whipped cream. Delicious.