Jolene's Recipe Journal

Another month has flown by and it's Muffin Monday again! This month's recipe is brought to you in part by my husband who buys variety packs of oatmeal but doesn't like one flavor that's in it. They were stacking up in the cabinet so I went searching the Taste of Home site for a way to use them up.    These Breakfast Oatmeal Muffins call for leftover oatmeal, so I made up a couple packets and let them cool.  I did make a few other changes to the recipe, first subbing canola for the vegetable oil, that's what I keep on hand.   Next up, the raisins.  While my guys will eat them, they don't really love them.  My son's vote was for cinnamon chips so I used those instead.  Chocolate chips, dried cranberries or other dried fruits would be great as well. My one mistakes was forgetting to toss the cinnamon chips with some of the flour like my Gram taught me.   Most of them sunk to the bottom which made it harder to test when the muffins were done...

If there's one thing that's always a hit around here it's cupcakes. They're fun to make and there are so many different variations! I had some buttermilk left over from making biscuits so I searched the Taste of Home site and found fellow Granite Stater Ellen M's Buttermilk Chocolate Cupcakes.  I did make a few changes.  I used coffee in place of the water, it really enhances the chocolate flavor. The recipe makes 24 full size, but I decided to split the batch a few ways and do minis as well.  The full size baked in about 18 minutes, the minis in about 9. For the frosting I used heavy cream instead of evaporated milk and a little more than what was called for to make it pipable, I should have probably sifted my powdered sugar first, it had been sitting a while. To make filling the pastry bag easier, I put it inside a tall plastic cup.    I used an open star tip, found the center of the cupcake, held the bag straight up and down and just applied gentle pressu...

Chocolate Week continues and today I'm sharing Chocolate Cinnamon Rolls. I found Rita L's recipe on the Taste of Home website and it's helped me to make another step forward in conquering my fear of yeast baking. I made no changes to the recipe but I can share a few tips in the actual process that I used. I made sure my water was the right temp (110º to 115º) by testing it with an instant read thermometer. I rolled out dough on top of a pastry mat, the measured markings make it simple to know you've reached the right size and also to cut into 12 equal pieces.   Since the dough is dark, I tested mine with a instant read thermometer to make sure they were done (about 195 degrees). I iced mine in the pan and rather than doing all the rolls in long ribbons, I did each one individually. It looks a little heavy handed but the ratio of roll to icing was perfect for us. I sprinkled the tops with some mini chocolate chips.  Chocolate shavings would be good as well if you wan...

It's Chocolate Week! Today through the 28th some foodie friends and I will be celebrating all things chocolate.  First up, I made fellow Taste of Home Community Cook Susan G's Chocolate Caramels. Candy making can seem intimidating, but the two most important things are a good thermometer and a block of uninterrupted time.  Though I love my instant read thermometer for this I went old school. Having it clipped to the side of the pot makes it easier to stir and to watch for it to hit those important temps of 234º and 245º. That being said, I had some distractions on my first batch and went over the final temperature by several degrees and ended up with delicious hard candy instead. The second batch turned out perfectly. I poured some into heart shaped silicone molds and the rest into lined/greased mini loaf pans.  The heart shaped ones I let set and then coated them in melted semi sweet chocolate.  Those were my favorite! Thanks so much to Christie from A KitchenHoor's...