Cakes/Bakes I have made recently series part 3

Hello, Welcome back to The Nook

Todays quote is "People say nothing is impossible, but I do nothing every day" -Winnie the pooh

today I want to share with a part three of my bakes that I have made recently. I am going to share with you 4 bakes. 

The first bake that I what to share with is this cake that I made for a thanksgiving gathering.
the flavour of cake that I had made was my all time favourite (chocolate cake). with buttercream icing. I used thanksgiving colours. yellow, brown, and red. then I covered the top and the sides of the cake with flowers.

The next bake I want to share with you is my favourite chocolate chip cookies. I wanted to see if I could find a different kind of cookie to make,  I can't say no to a chocolate chip cookie! it doesn't matter which chocolate chip cookie recipe is, I'll eat it!

These are my favourite cookies to make, I can't get enough of them! 

chocolate chip cookies

8 TBSP Butter

1/2 Cup sugar

1/4 Cup brown sugar

1 tsp Vanilla

1 Egg

1 1/2 Cup all-purpose flour

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt 

3/4 cup chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 350 F. Microwave the butter for about 40 seconds to melt it.

using a stand mixer, beat the butter with the sugar until creamy. Add the vanilla and the egg; beat on low speed until just incorporated, about 10 to 15 seconds.

Add the flour, baking soda and salt. Mix until crumbles form. Use your hands to press the crumbles 

together into a dough. It should form one large ball that is easy to handle. Add the chocolate chips and mix. Roll out cookies and place on cookie sheets. Bake for  9 to 11 minutes until the cookies look puffy and just golden brown. cool and enjoy.

The next bake I want to share with you is cupcakes. The cupcakes that I made where ultimate chocolate peanut butter cupcakes. 

I made these ultimate chocolate peanut butter cupcakes for my friends jack and Jill wedding shower. (a jack and Jill shower is, it is a shower were both the guy and the girl attend the shower.)

I love chocolate cupcakes and peanut butter, so it makes sense to put them together. 

   I have made the cupcakes twice now, because I had so much icing leftover. The second time I made these, I used a different recipe. The original cupcake recipe was a little crumbly, but that could have been because I made them a couple days before the shower. The second time made them I used a recipe that I know tastes good. The peanut butter icing was a little hard to work with, but I managed to make it work.

Ultimate chocolate peanut butter cupcakes

Makes 18 cupcakes 

chocolate cupcakes

3 TBSP coconut OR canola oil

1 stick/ 1/2 cup unsalted butter 

1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

3/4 cup & 2 TBSP all-purpose flour

1/2 tsp baking soda 

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

1/2 tsp salt

2 large eggs + 1 egg yolk, room temperature 

1 cup white sugar

1 tsp vanilla 

1/2 cup full fat sour cream 

1/2 cup hot water OR hot water

18 peanut butter cups or mini peanut butter cups

Peanut butter frosting 

1 & 1/2 cup creamy peanut butter 

1 cup OR 2 sticks unsalted butter

1 tsp vanilla

3 cup confectioners sugar

1/4 tsp salt 

3-4 TBSP heavy cream

9 peanut butter cups cut in half or 18 mini peanut butter cups

Instructions
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees (F). Line a 12-cup cupcake/muffin tin with cupcake liners and lightly spray the liners with non-stick spray (optional but it does help them peel right off). Set aside.
Melt the oil, butter, and chocolate together in the microwave, heating in 30 second increments, stirring between. *You can also melt the oil, butter, and chocolate over very low heat on the stove top, but I find the microwave to be much easier. Whisk mixture completely smooth and set aside to cool.In a medium-sized bowl combine the flour, baking soda, baking powder, cocoa powder, and salt; stir together until thoroughly combined and set aside.
In a large bowl whisk together the eggs, yolk, sugar and vanilla together; beat until smooth. Add the cooled oil/butter/chocolate mixture and whisk until smooth. Add half of the flour mixture, then half of the sour cream. Repeat the process until everything is added, and be sure to mix until JUST combined. Quickly stir in the hot coffee/water. It's important not to over mix, here! Just stir until evenly combined.
Scoop 2 tablespoons of batter into the bottom of each cupcake tin, press a peanut butter cup into the batter, then top with another 3 tablespoons of batter; each cupcake mold should be 3/4 full. You will have leftover batter (enough to make another 6 cupcakes).
Bake for 16-18 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool completely before frosting.
For the Peanut Butter Frosting:

Using an electric mixer, beat the peanut butter and butter on medium-speed until completely smooth. Beat in vanilla. Reduce the speed to low and add in the remaining ingredients, beating until fully incorporated. Increase speed to medium-high and beat the frosting for 1-2 minutes, or until light and fluffy. Once the cupcakes are cooled, spread or pipe the frosting on top then press half of a peanut butter cup on top.

   The next item I want to share with you is my chocolate chip shortbread cookies. 

These shortbread cookies I made for a lady at my church, sargent avenue mennonite church. Of course like always I look on pintrest for recipes, and I found this one. I remember trying shortbread before and not liking it. These shortbread tasted really good, plus they had chocolate chips in it and we dipped in chocolate. I really liked them, I could get enough of them but I could only test one.

If your interested here is the recipe.

chocolate shortbread cookies

1 cup butter

2/3 cup powdered sugar 

1/2 tsp vanilla extract 

2 cup all-purpose flour

3/4 cup mini chocolate chips

8 oz chocolate wafers

Instructions

• In a large mixing bowl, use a hand mixer to beat together butter and powdered sugar until light and fluffy. Add in vanilla extract and beat until combined.
  Add in flour and mix just until flour disappears. Fold in mini chocolate chips.
  Transfer dough to a gallon-sized resealable plastic bag, or place between two layers of plastic wrap. Roll until 1/4 inch thick. Refrigerate on a flat surface until firm, about 1 to 2 hours.
  Remove dough from plastic and use a butter knife to cut into equal-sized squares or rectangles. Transfer cut pieces to a parchment lined baking sheet.
  Bake at 325 degrees for 18-20 minutes, until edges are just lightly kissed with brown.
  Melt dipping chocolate in a small microwave safe bowl by microwaving on high for 30 seconds at a time, stirring between. Dip cookies in chocolate covering 1/3 or 1/2 of the cookie and transfer to parchment paper to harden.
  
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  Have a lovely day,
  Until next time.
  
  
  
  
  here's where you can find me 
  Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/maddy.enns
  Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/madeline_enns/
  Baking instagram: https://www.instagram.com/madelineennsbakes/
  Twitter:https://twitter.com/MadelineEnns 

Im back- 5 months later

Hello and welcome back to my blog. Todays quote is "What I like doing best is nothing" says Christopher Robin, How do you do nothing says pooh its when people call out , "what are you going to do , Christopher Robin?" And you say, "Oh nothing" and then you go and do it."
sometimes I just like to do nothing myself.

The last blog that I posted was October 10th 2019, 5 months ago. Since then a lot has happened, and not in a particularly good way. It was around April of 2013 when I thought that I needed new glasses. Long story short I went to the optometric and found out that there was something pushing on my optic nerve, which was what we found to be a brain tumour. I didn't know what a brain tumour was, but I knew that it needed to be removed. To be honest I was scared to have surgery, I just wanted to get this over with.  I got a lot of visitors and gifts which distracted me from the fact that I was in the hospital which was good. After spending sometime in the hospital, I got to go home!
so that's the first thing that happened to me.
   After being away from the daycare for a bit, I decided to go back. in December I believe it was, I was in the kitchen making muffins when I started to have a seizure. my head kept shaking and I couldn't form any words. this was scary to me because I didn't know what was going on. I spent a couple days in the hospital. this time when I was in the hospital it was not very enjoyable, because it was very noisy. When I finally got to leave the hospital, I was excited to be home in my own bed!
  since the hospital I have not been doing much. mostly lying on the couch and watching tv/movies. I have been trying to push myself to do yoga and go for walks, but for me its not that easy.  I have been having game nights with my aunties and been doing some painting, so that has kept me busy-ish.

This year has been a little unexpected and I hope everything goes back to normal-ish. By normal for me I mean having a little more energy and maybe not having to take so many pills, also I hope that the corona virus is gone and we can be safe again.
thanks for reading and don't forget to be safe and wash your hands!!!
Leave a comment if you would like.

Heres where you can find me
Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/maddy.enns
instagram:https://www.instagram.com/madeline_enns/
baking instagram:https://www.instagram.com/madelineennsbakes/

until next time, bye

20 Random facts to get to know me more

Hello welcome back to the Nook,
Today's quote is "Oh, boy its good to be home." from piglet.
  After my last post, I wanted to do more of a fun post. I have only done a Christmas Q&A's before.
 I have been looking at other blogs to see what kind of questions they have answered. Some of my questions while be coming from blogs, and some from me.

1. What are your favourite flowers? Sunflowers, and Lavender. https://www.summerthorntondesign.com/beauty-brains-and-blogging-a-qa-with-laura-of-bright-and-beautiful/

2. What is your full name? Madeline Abigail Enns.

3. Do you still have your childhood teddy bear? Yes I do, she is a rabbit from Peter Rabbit.
https://vloggerpro.com/qa-questions-youtube-vlogging/

4. What is your pets name? My cats name is Roo, like Kanga and Roo from Winnie the Pooh.
https://vloggerpro.com/qa-questions-youtube-vlogging/

5. What is your eye colour? My eye colour is Blue.
https://vloggerpro.com/qa-questions-youtube-vlogging/

6. What's your favourite colour? My favourite colours are yellow and purple.

7.  Are you an extrovert or an introvert? I am an introvert.
https://www.rootreport.com/get-to-know-me-tag-questions/

8.  Are you a morning or a night person? I am neither, I like my sleep!
https://lindsaylovinlife.wordpress.com/2017/04/21/100-questions-for-your-get-to-know-me-tag/

9.  Are you a coffee or tea person? I am more of a tea person, although I do have the occasional coffee.
https://lindsaylovinlife.wordpress.com/2017/04/21/100-questions-for-your-get-to-know-me-tag/

10. What is your coffee order? My favourite hot drink is a Mocha, my favourite cold drink is a java chip frappuccino from Starbucks.
https://www.youtubesociety.com/get-to-know-me-tag-questions/

11.  How many siblings do you have? I have 2 sisters.
https://www.youtubesociety.com/get-to-know-me-tag-questions/

12. Whats your favourite show on Netflix? Switched at Birth.
https://www.youtubesociety.com/get-to-know-me-tag-questions/

13.  Favourite movie? Christopher Robin (Anything Disney!)

14.  What do you like to do in your spare time? I like to bake in my spare time.

15. What is your favourite thing to bake? My favourite thing to bake is cakes, because then I can decorate them.

16.  What is your favourite birthday present? My favourite birthday present is an easy one. Going to Disney World last year, It was the best!! I wrote a blogpost on my experience if you would want to go check it out.
https://wisledge.com/get-to-know-me-tag/

17.  Candy or Chocolate? I like both, it depends what kind of mood I'm in.
https://wisledge.com/get-to-know-me-tag/

18.  Favourite sour candy? Sour patch kids.

19. Favourite sweet candy? Kit-Kats.

20. Favourite Disney character? Winnie the pooh.



I hope you enjoyed getting to know me more. 😀
Here's where you can find me
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/maddy.enns
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/madeline_enns/
Baking Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/madelineennsbakes/

Thanks for reading
Until next time, bye

Sharing my social skills

Hello welcome back to The Nook.
  Today's quote is "Sometimes if I am going somewhere and I wait, somewhere comes to me.-Winnie The Pooh. I changed my blog again because I didn't like that shade of yellow, I would love to know what you think of this change.
 Today I want to talk about something different. I want to talk about something that I struggle with, which is my social skills.

 I was always a shy kid from what I can remember until now. Sometimes I wish that I could change this, but I guess it's a part of who I am. I have been asked by some people why I am so shy, I honestly say that I just am. I definitely have noticed that I have improved from where I was.

I have recently been noticing times where I have done somethings that I would have never thought that I would ever have the guts to before, things like working at camp by myself, or something as small as talking with co-workers or even extended family. To some people this sounds silly, just small things. To me it feels silly even saying this but its true.
 Big groups/taking in groups, and public speaking or just one on one speaking with some people scare me the most.   Having certain people around in a group setting that make the conversations with other people a little easier for me.

In the fall I start school at Red River for Professional Baking. I have been trying to make an extra effort to be more comfortable with being more social, especially because I will be living in dorm with a roommate that I don't know.  I want to have a good year and make friends. It doesn't come natural to me, I will have to work at it but I think that I can do it.

The words were in my head but I just had a hard time getting them out on paper, I left this for a while to collect my thoughts. This was different for me to share this for people to read it.

Here's where you can find me on social media.

Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/maddy.enns
Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/madeline_enns/
Baking Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/madelineennsbakes/

Thanks for reading.
Until next time, Bye.

 

Cakes I have made recently Series - Part 2

Hello, welcome back to the Nook, Today's quote is "Hello, there. Are you on an expotition too?" -Winnie the pooh. Since the seasons are changing, I thought I would change my blog with it. I wanted something brighter, I played around with the colours and ended up with yellow. This is one of my favourite colours, and it fits with summer. I would love to know what you think about the new look.

Today I want to share with you a part two to my Cakes that I made recently series. In the past few months I have baked and decorated 3 cakes.

The first cake I want share with you is a cake that I made was for the loft. The loft is something that happens once a month at my aunties church, where they have coffee and dessert. I was asked if I would bake for it last August. For the loft I could make anything that I wanted, so I would make different desserts depending on what I felt like doing. Lately I have been matching my desserts with themes relating to that month. The cake that I made for the loft was spring themed.

My cousin-in-law Kim and I decorated a cake together a few moths ago. She always comes to family gathering with amazing cakes and cupcakes. I was always so amazed. we had decorated a cake together, and she showed me how to pipe roses.  On this cake I wanted to practice more roses, and since it was a spring cake it seemed fitting. 

These cupcakes were also made for the loft.  This loft was in the month of march, I looked up events that happened in march, I found that Dr. Seuss's birthday was in march. One of my favourite Dr. Seuss's books when I was younger was One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish. I didn't have any blue fish, but there were green fish. The cupcakes were chocolate, you can never go wrong with chocolate!  

This cake was for or Easter gathering. Since I wanted to make a cake for Easter, and Kim always brings cakes to family gatherings as I said before, this year I had the idea since that we should make an Easter cake together. 

This cake I actually did not make, I did make the icing though.  Just to speed up the process of cake decorating, I asked Kim if she could make the chocolate marble cake and do the crumb coat ahead of time.  

  She got to my house and we got straight to decorating, we put the cake in the fridge so it would stay firm. The first component we started on was the flowers. The colours we decided on were Purple, Blue, and Yellow and Green for the leaf's.  The flowers we did were roses. After we put the roses on, there was still some room on the cake, so I got out my drop flower tips and we covered the cake with the flowers and leaf's.  I was scrolling on Instagram and saw something that I liked, and wanted to do on this Easter cake. The idea was white and yellow stripes around the side of the whole cake. We didn't have enough yellow to finish the yellow strips so we finished it with the whit icing. This is not quite how I imagined it, but it turned out good. The ears were made from melted chocolate that we froze on wooden skewers, the tail was made from fondant, the feet were also made from fondant with chocolate hearts, and fondant for the tail. 

 This was a really fun cake to decorate and it always makes it more fun to decorate with someone else.

This last cake I made was for Mother's day. Last year for Mother's day I decorated the cake with flowers, This year I wanted to do flowers again but different than last year. I have seen cakes like these on Instagram and Pinterest. I piped out all the roses on the entire cake, after I piped the roses there was still room on the cake. I put some drop flowers to cover the whole cake. The flavour of the cake was a Peanut butter and chocolate marble cake.  The cake was suppose to be put into 3 9-inch pans, I didn't realise so I put it into 2 pans. The cakes rose quite a bit, I used the tops that I cut off of the cake and the left over icing I had for cake pops.    

I hope you enjoyed reading about cakes and cupcakes that I have made recently

If you like my blog and don't want to miss a post, hit that subscribe button.

Have a lovely day,

Until next time.

Here is where you can find me:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/maddy.enns

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/madeline_enns/

Baking Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/madelineennsbakes/

5 year Blog anniversary + New job - The Nook

Hello,  Welcome to the nook. I want to start every post by referring to it as a nook. One day it had come to me that The nook would be a great name for my blog. I had already started my blog and had a name for it, and it couldn't be changed. I thought I would start every post by welcoming everyone to the nook.  I think it sounds cozy and I like it.  Today's quote comes from Winnie The Pooh himself. "If it's not here, that means it's out there."

Today I have been blogging for 5 years! (Hurray)  I started in March of 2015. I begun with everyday post to travel blog, blogmas and baking posts. It has been fun sharing these stories with everyone, and I am excited to share more.  This started with the idea of me wanting to start a YouTube channel.  If you know me, then you would know that I am a shy person. It didn't work out for me, so I started writing a blog.

 One day I was scrolling through Facebook and I came across this dishwasher/kitchen help job at Amanda Lynn's. At first I just went past it. This post had been stuck in the back of my mind so later in the week, I went back to find it.
  When I found out I got the job I was excited to get back into working.  One the first day I was a little nervous. I started off with doing dishes for he first couple of days, and then I started to pack the perogies. I will leave a link down below to her website.
This place had just opened up this past year. This place use to be a pizza place, it closed down awhile ago and has been empty for a few years. Amanda Lynn's speciality food and grocery store sells gluten-free and vegan and regular perogies, (sweet and savoury) gluten-free pizza, chili and also desserts like rice Krispy squares, peanut butter marshmallow squares, and lemon squares.
 So far I have only worked three shifts, and I like it there, Everyone is really nice and friendly. I can't wait to see what I get to do next.

I hope you enjoyed reading this.
Like my blog post? Want to keep reading them? Subscribe to me so you wont miss a post.
and leave a comment, I would love to hear from you.
Here's where you can find me
Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/maddy.enns
Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/madeline_enns/
Baking Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/madelineennsbakes/
Amanda Lynn's website:https://www.algf.biz/orderglutenfreeperogies

Chocolate Valentines Kiss Cookies

Hello, Welcome back to my blog.
During my Blogmas I started off every post by giving you a Christmas quote, or a joke. My mom had found this book of quotes from the Christopher robin movie, I thought I would share one with you at the begging of every post.
  "Come on pooh says Christopher Robin. Where are you going Christopher Robin? says Winnie The Pooh, Nowhere. says Christopher Robin, One of my favourite place says Winnie The Pooh."

   Today I thought I would share with you a recipe that I made for a bake sale. Chocolate Valentines Kiss Cookies.  I started of by taking out all the ingredients and setting them on the counter.
I like to take all my ingredients out and then as I use them I put them away, That's how I know I have used it.

First I worked on my wet ingredients. Using a stand mixer, with the paddle attachment I combined the butter, sugar, eggs (one at a time) and vanilla, and beat it on medium-high speed, Next I moved on to the dry ingredients. In a medium bowl sift together the flour, cocoa powder, and salt. Then I combined the dry ingredients to the stand mixer a little at a time, making sure it is all combined. Then I got out some plastic wrap, and put the dough in the fridge for 1 hour. 

After the dough was chilled, I took it out to roll out the dough and into the sprinkles.

                                              

Before putting them in the oven, I made an imprint with my thumb in the middle of the cookies.

While the cookies were in the oven, I unwrapped Hershey kisses. When the cookies came out of the oven I put one kiss on each cookie, and let them cool. I then tasted one to see how it tasted.

Chocolate valentines kiss cookies

Makes 25 cookies

1 cup all-purpose flour                                                                                                                     

1/3 cup cocoa powder                    

1/4 tsp salt                                         

1 stick ( 8 TBSP) unsalted butter 

2/3 cup sugar 

1 egg yolk

2 TBSP Milk

1 tsp vanilla

25 Hershey kisses or Hugs

Valentines heart sprinkles

Method

1. With a stand mixer or a hand mixer, beat together butter and sugar on medium-high speed. Add egg yolk, vanilla and put aside. 2. In a medium sized bowl combine Flour, salt, and cocoa powder. 3. Combine the flour mixture to the butter, and mix until combined. 4.Wrap the dough in plastic wrap, and chill in the fridge for 1 hour. Using a TBSP roll out the dough, and into the heart sprinkle. Put on pan 2 inches apart, and push down the centre with your thumb.  Put in oven at 350 F for 12 minutes. While the cookies are in the oven, unwrap the Hershey kisses. Once the cookies come out of the oven, place one Hersey kiss on each. Let to cool, and enjoy.

Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed reading this.

If you make these cookies yourself, you could tag me in them @madelineennsbakes with the hashtag #ChocolateValentineskissCookies

Leave a comment, or Subscribe if you would like.

 Here's where you can find me:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/maddy.enns

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/madeline_enns/  

Baking Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/madelineennsbakes/

I hope you have a magical day,

Until next time. bye.