Taking Off For Two Weekends

It's been a crazy week - much drama at work (see my other blog about working in Paradise).  Although I often find baking/cooking to be relaxing, I decided not to try any new recipes this week.  I needed the time to relax.  I was able to finish the first book in a new culinary mystery, Cooking Up Murder (A Cooking Class Mystery).

It took me a while to get in to the book, but I think that has more to do with the fact that it's the first book in long time that I have not read on my Sony eReader.  It's hard going back to paper!  I loaned my reader to my father-in-law and just got it back.  Can't wait to jump in to another book.  I'll definitely add the Cooking Class Mysteries to my "To Read Book List".  I'm really enjoying the light-hearted mystery with the touch of romance.

I'm going to also take the following weekend off for a family vacation.  In the meantime, explore the books I've listed, try some of the recipes and feel free to share your experiences in the comments section.

Chocolate Chip Crunch Cookies

Novel: Chocolate Chip Cookie Murder (Hannah Swensen, #1)

Author: Joanne Fluke
It's the recipe that started it all.  From the first book in the series, this is an unusual Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe. It gets its "crunch" from crushed corn flakes.  I like my cookies soft and somewhat chewy.  These cookies are definitely crunchy and somewhat on the chewy side. My husband and his mother LOVE crunchy cookies and so I hope that they'll love these.

Here's what the batter looked like just before I mixed in the crushed corn flakes. 

Per Joanne's recipe, I only crushed the corn flakes by hand, just before adding them to the bowl. I wouldn't recommend pulverizing them or you'd lose the crunch factor.

Surprisingly, the corn flakes didn't make too much of a difference in the batter and didn't show up much as I placed the balls of batter on the cookie sheets.

I've tried one other cookie recipe from the Hannah Swensen series and it was an utter disaster. The cookies spread out way too much and didn't cook completely through. I was afraid of the same result with this recipe, so I followed Joanne's advice and reduced my oven's temperature to 350 degrees and did not flatten them. I baked the cookies for 10 minutes and took them out of the oven just as the bottom of the cookies were starting to brown.

I'm pretty happy with the finished product and will definitely add this recipe to my regular file.

Blue Blueberry Muffins

Novel: Blueberry Muffin Murder (Hannah Swensen, #3)
Author: Joanne Fluke
As the title recipe for the third novel in the Hannah Swensen series, Joanne Fluke's Blue Blueberry Muffins sounded too good not to try.  The recipe calls for 2 sticks of butter, blueberries and blueberry pie filling.  What's not to love?  When I read the list of ingredients and the easy-to-follow directions, I thought I have to try this!  


Joanne calls these muffins Blue Blueberry Muffins because the batter takes on a blue color after the blueberry pie filling is added.  This is what my batter looked like for my second attempt at making these muffins and true to her word, the blue hue did not stay once the muffins were done baking.

I've cooked the recipe twice and both times have been very happy with the taste of the muffins; however, I'm still having problems with the presentation.  The muffins have a buttery, sweet, crumble topping.  The first time I made the muffins, I failed to leave enough room in the muffin tins for the topping.  The crumble spread out over the tin and therefore cracked when I removed the muffins from the tray.  The second time I made the muffins, I made sure to leave room for the topping and pressed the topping in to the batter before baking.

I didn't have any cupcake liners for the second batch of muffins and although I greased the bottom of the pan, the muffins did not come out cleanly.  Again, they tasted great, but were not pretty enough to serve to anyone outside of family.  I was able to salvage two muffins to offer my work colleagues.

Tips for this Recipe:

• Definitely use liners
• Leave enough room for the topping.  I would use a 1/3 cup of batter for each muffin

What I Love About This Recipe:

• Wonderful buttery flavor
• Enough batter left over to make a small loaf of bread
• The topping, the topping, the topping

Variations:

• After I make the perfect batch of blue blueberry muffins, I want to try the same recipe with cherries and cherry pie filling.