Homemade Whole Wheat Oreos

I'm allergic to chocolate so I couldn't eat these but I thought the kids at church might enjoy them. THEY WERE A HIT!

All this came about because Dj wanted homemade cookies and cream ice cream (which I still haven't made). I adapted this from the recipe posted on the Cupcake Project. 

Ingredients

2.55 oz whole wheat bread flour (hard wheat)

2.55 oz whole wheat pastry flour (soft wheat)

2  oz unsweetened cocoa

6.75 oz white sugar

1 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 cup + 2 tbsp softened butter

Directions:

Mix together dry ingredients

Add wet ingredients (doesn't look too great does it)

Divide dough into equal portions and place on a lined baking sheet about an inch apart, they spead A LOT, and flatten. (I'm a perfectionist so I actually weighted mine. Each cookie was exactly 1 oz).

Bake at 375 F for exactly 9 minutes. After baking set on rack to cool. The cookies need to be COMPLETELY COOL before adding filling. I was impatient and made a horrible mess. 

Filling:

1.75 oz shortening

9.15 oz powdered sugar

1/4 cup unsalted butter, softened

2 tsp vanilla extract

Whisk butter, shortening and vanilla extract together (I would suggest using a stand mixer or hand beater). Slowly add in powdered sugar a little at a time until it's all incorporated. The picture is from when I attempted this by hand = not smart.

The easiest way to add the filling is to put it in a zip top bag and use it like a pastry bag.

Put filling on half the cookies and top with remaining cookies. 

This is the result:

As I stated earlier I was impatient and didn't wait for the cookies to fully cool before adding the filling. 

That's it!

THOUGHTS:

I didn't actually taste these because I can't but the kids LOVED them. My mid-20 friends told me that they were ridiculously sweet. They loved the cookies but thought the filling was too much. Next time I'll use a cream cheese filling. 

Until next time, 

Kellan

I love Auntie Anne's Pretzels But They're Not Whole Wheat

Auntie Anne and I have a love affair but in my attempt to 1) spend money wisely and 2) eat better I cannot continue to go there. Although that saddens me, it's for the best. So I attempted to make a whole wheat version of those delicious pretzels, here's how it went:

Whole Wheat Pretzels

Pretzel
1 1/2 cup warm water
0.25 oz active dry yeast
0.90 oz  brown sugar
0.20 oz salt
9.85 oz whole wheat bread flour (hard wheat)
5.85 oz  whole wheat pastry flour

Baking Soda Mixture
2 cups Warm water
2 tablespoons baking soda

Dipping
to taste coarse salt
4 tablespoons butter (melted)


Directions
Dissolve brown sugar in water, then mix in yeast. After yeast starts to bubble, pour into mixing bowl. Mix salt into flour and slowly add to wet ingredients. Mix until a smooth, elastic dough forms. 
Knead for about 5 minutes. (Clearly I didn't knead this long enough but it was late and I honestly didn't care)

Cover and let dough double in size.

While dough is rising, prepare a baking soda water bath with 2 cups warm water and 2 Tbsp baking soda. Then shape. Now because I failed to adequately knead my dough I couldn't make those nice, thin, neat pretzels at Aunt Anne's but I was more concerned with taste than appearance.

 Dip pretzel in soda solution and place on greased baking sheet. Allow pretzels to rise again. Bake in 450 oven for about 10 minutes or until golden. Dip in melted butter and sprinkle on your favorite topping! 

Thoughts:

I wish I hadn't been so lazy and properly kneaded my dough. The pretzel were DELICIOUS but I would have liked for them to be delicious and pretty. There's always next time. 

Until next time,

Kellan

CrockPot Hot Process Soap: Attempt 2

I recently decided that I was going to make my own soap, preferably castile soap (soap make from 100% olive oil). I did A LOT of online research and talked to a few people, it was time to take the plunge. I will admit that I was scared but I did it. I decided to make castile soap because I usually buy Dr. Bronner's (even though Dr. Bronner's isn't true castile soap) and I can get olive oil for cheap. Cold process soap has a 2-3 month wait before the soap could be used.........I don't have the kind of time, Christmas is exactly three months away and people are getting soap this year! I found three good posts for making bar soap using the crockpot hot process method that I followed (liquid soap is another day), they were from Soap-Making-Essentials, Such Treasures and Orthogonal Thought.

So I setup my lye prep area. Professional soap makers will probably laugh at me but hey, it's my first time.

And I setup my mixing and cooking area

I mixed my lye together and let it cool. In my research I found that the temperature of my lye didn't really matter. There's an ideology about soapmaking called the room temperature method, which basically says that I can mix my lye the night before, leave it overnight and use it the next day. I don't have children, so this is a great option for me. I really didn't want to fool with taking the temperature of the lye solution and the heating the oil. If you have kids and/or pets, but don't have a room that you can lock them out of this would probably be a bad idea. I've read a lot of horror stories about kids that accidentally poured lye on themselves.

I measured out my lye and water, I find out how much lye and water I needed at SoapCalc

Poured the lye into the water while stirring, and continued to stir until the water turned relatively clear again. I don't remember anyone saying that the water would get cloudy, so I was a little freaked out when the water turned white. You MUST do this in a well ventilated area. This chemical reaction kicks out A LOT of heat and A LOT of fumes.  

After the lye solution cools down, pour it in the oils (I'm using all olive oil so it didn't need to be heated). It immediately started to saponify, which is what made the light color under the oil. 

It took me 15 minutes of blending and stirring to reach trace. I hear that it takes longer to achieve trace with 100% olive oil soap, than with mixtures of oils. When I made Attempt 1, I used 85% olive oil to 15% coconut oil, I think it traced in about 10 minutes.

From here I turned the crockpot on low, put the lid on and let it go for about an hour or so. While I was waiting I cleaned everything in hot soapy water with LOTS of vinegar and started making oreo cookies (that's the next post). After an hour, I stirred my soap and it looked like this:

It wasn't quite done it, it was still soupy, kind of the texture of applesauce. So I put the top back on and let it for another 30-45 minutes or so. At that point I achieved the mash potato stage, which means my soap is done cooking........YAY!

I spooned this into a glass loaf pan that I covered in plastic wrap, during Attempt 1 I used unlined muffin pans but I had a very hard time getting the soap out. It works great......it's just not the prettiest because of the skewer marks from digging the soap out. Anyways, this is what the soap looks like now:

I'll come back tomorrow once I get it out the loaf pan. It's interesting because at one point last night it turned a really dark green. I think this is because I used really good extra virgin olive oil for this. I know what you're thinking why would I use high quality olive oil to make soap? Well, the gourmet market by my house sells it for $2.99/lb so it was the most economical option. I haven't gotten to adding fragrance and color yet but soon.

I'll post more on this tomorrow. Until then.....

Kellan

Homemade Cream of Wheat (or Farina)

I love to eat......LOVE IT, and I have very fond memories of waking up for church on Sunday mornings at my grandparents' house and eating Cream of Wheat. I love Cream of Wheat, don't ask my why but I think it's delicious. I didn't realize how much it cost to buy it from the store however. I've been eating Cream of Wheat all my life and when I went to college my great grandmother (yes my great grandmother was alive, well and living in her house by herself until about 5 years ago) would send me boxes and boxes of Cream of Wheat. When she died I stopped eating Cream of Wheat and honestly I didn't realize that until about 3 weeks ago when I got a SERIOUS craving for Cream of Wheat. So I headed to Kroger to pick some up, I so happy to be going to get some until I got there. A small box is like $3.69. My thoughts were this exactly, "THESE PEOPLE ARE SMOKING CRACK ROCKS!" The box also says that it has some sort of chemical in it for quick cooking. They put that on the FRONT of the box, so just imagine what's on the side of the box. I couldn't do it, I just couldn't.  I immediately ended my phone conversation and launched my internet browser on my phone because I was determined to find how to make Cream of Wheat from scratch. I do have 75 lbs of organic wheat don't I?

I got home and after a little digging on Google I found this post on The Fresh Loaf (which is a really cool website by the way). I tweaked his recipe a little, the one person portion he made was just WAY too much. I ate it because I was excited but I couldn't eat anything else all day.

Homemade Cream of Wheat

Ingredients:
1/3 cup wheat (I used hard white wheat)
2/3 cup milk
2/3 cup water

1) Mill wheat to medium coarseness, you can actually do this in a regular blender if you want. I just wouldn't suggest using whole wheat flour...........you'll end up with paste.

2) Add milk and water

3) Set timer for 15 minutes and stir occasionally

4) At exactly 14 minutes it'll be done. I stir in butter and honey for the last minute but that's just how I like mine.

So tasty and delicious. I love this because you can make it in any quantity, just decide how much wheat to use then add double that amount in water and milk. It's that simple. I calculated that it probably costs me about $0.20 per serving to make this and it's good for me. Check it out:

Nutrition Facts Homemade Cream of Wheat
Serving Size: 1 serving
Report incorrect nutrition info
Amount Per Serving
Calories		378.0
Total Fat		7.9 g
	Saturated Fat	4.7 g
	Polyunsaturated Fat	0.3 g
	Monounsaturated Fat	2.2 g
	Trans Fat	0.0 g
Cholesterol		23.8 mg
Sodium		71.4 mg
Potassium		23.1 mg
Total Carbohydrate		71.2 g
	Dietary Fiber	4.9 g
	Sugars	42.0 g
Protein		10.8 g

Vitamin A	9.1 %
Vitamin B-12	0.1 %
Vitamin B-6	0.5 %
Vitamin C	0.9 %
Vitamin D	16.5 %
Vitamin E	0.0 %
Calcium	19.5 %
Copper	1.3 %
Folate	0.0 %
Iron	1.3 %
Magnesium	0.6 %
Manganese	1.7 %
Niacin	0.3 %
Pantothenic Acid	0.3 %
Phosphorus	0.3 %
Riboflavin	1.0 %
Selenium	0.6 %
Thiamin	0.0 %
Zinc	0.6 %

This calculation includes the butter and honey. Can't tell me this isn't a good breakfast.

Until next time,
Kellan