Aren't No-Bake Cookies Supposed To Be Easy???

 The Secret to the No-Bake Cookie!!!

I cannot count how many batches of no-bake cookies I have messed up, either having puddles of oats and chocolate or crumbly mound-like cookies.

This was my first time making these, they're peanut butter corn flake no-bakes.

These are Corn Flake Peanut Butter No Bake Cookies

Which taste pretty good, although I think they'd benefit from a lack of corn syrup and maybe brown sugar instead of white. But before I made them I was looking at recipes for no-bakes wondering what I would do to prevent another no-bake fail. The perfect no-bake is chewy, not crumbly, and not sticky. I looked up what temperature I am supposed to get the mixture to, because no-bake cookies are almost candy. You boil a sugar syrup in this case, with other ingredients added for the chocolate kind, and instructions say "boil 1 minute" or endless variations of such. Now, I have searched for this before, but never found an answer. Today I did, and I tested it out with these. They are the perfect texture!

The corn syrup makes them shiny as the photo above shows, but they are just right when you bite into them. You must be dying to know the secret temperature by now, right?!

It's (drumroll please....) 230 degrees Fahrenheit!

If you want to make these peanut butter goodies, here is the recipe:

1/2 c. corn syrup
1/2 c. sugar
9 oz. (which was about 3/4 c) peanut butter, I used creamy
1/2 t. vanilla extract (optional)
3.5 c corn flake cereal

Just mix the sugar and corn syrup in the pan, heat to boiling and start checking the temperature. You could probably do the cold water test here, soft-ball stage is what you're looking for. 230 degrees Fahrenheit. I use an infrared thermometer which works for everything except meat in my experience. If you have a candy thermometer use that or one of those probe thermometers might work too.

Once you reach 230, remove from heat and add peanut butter and vanilla, and then the corn flakes. A lot of mixing is required to coat them all. Then just drop them by the spoonful (or whatever you want) onto waxed paper or parchment paper.

Makes 12 nice sized cookies, the recipe is easily doubled. Store airtight.

I am so happy to finally have a foolproof way to make these, I could never understand what I was doing wrong. When I make the chocolate no-bakes again I'll post a picture of those too.

The Out of Box Experience Episode 3: Eggo Waffles

The Out of Box Experience Episode 3

A miniseries of the best homemade versions of boxed food I have found.

Eggo Waffles (or pancakes)

This recipe uses my homemade baking mix recipe. If you have bisquick, that works too. However, we don't like the way eggs make the waffles taste, so I use egg whites and have a specific way of mixing ingredients to get the *perfect* waffle. My homemade baking mix is a bulk recipe, but it makes pancakes, waffles and drop biscuits very well, without the addition of any of the nasty stuff in store versions of baking mix. In this case, aluminum phosphate and a hefty serving of trans fat. It still has butter, you say? Well, butter is not trans fat.

Waffles
Mix in this order:

2 egg whites, beaten with fork
2 c. milk or I usually use dry milk (the powder mixed with water)
3 t. butter (melted)

I whisk all these together and add 3 c. baking mix. I preheat my waffle iron before I start mixing the ingredients and pour about 2/3 c. onto the iron. Less than 5 minutes later we have a waffle! They are crispy on the outside and uniformly light and fluffy inside.
 
All-Purpose Baking Mix
When I make this I use a kitchen scale so weight measurements are first, it's so much easier to prepare this way!

1.184 kg (9 c) all purpose (or bread) flour 
100g (7 T) baking powder (Costco has a big tub of aluminum-free cheap)
38g salt (2 T)

Did you know your daily limit for trans fat is 2g?

51g sugar (1/4 c)

That's it! Mix it and store it airtight! I used to use a gallon bag, but recently switched to a canister. You could try this with whole wheat or some other type of flour if you want it to be healthier.

I like to do this in large batches for an hour or so while I clean the kitchen and watch the kids, and we eat some and I freeze the extras in a freezer bag. Then when someone wants a waffle, just toast it or microwave it just like Eggos!

Yummy Additions to the Batter:

Fresh or frozen blueberries (or any other fruit in small pieces)
Bacon bits (sounds weird but it's good!)
Food coloring to swirl it (toddler likes these)
Sprinkles (another toddler addition)
Vanilla or cinnamon 

And, since I posted my baking mix recipe, here are the additions to the mix that will give you pancakes or drop biscuits.

Pancakes

1.5 c baking mix
1.25 c milk 
1 egg

Mix together and cook on griddle at 350. Just add more milk to achieve the consistency you want. These freeze great too. Makes enough for 3-4 servings. I usually double this.If the batter is left thick, it makes very thick pancakes!

Drop Biscuits 

2.25 c baking mix
2/3 c milk
4 T. butter (cut in, optional)

Mix all just until moistened, if using butter cut it in the dry mix before adding the milk. Spoon onto baking sheet, bake at 450 for 8-10 minutes. Also freezable. Makes 12 (or however many you choose).

The Out of Box Experience Episode 2: Pop-Tarts

The Out of Box Experience Episode 2
 A miniseries of the best homemade versions of boxed food I have found.

Pop-Tarts

My version of a Strawberry Pop-Tart

Around here we are not afraid of butter! In fact I go through about 4 lbs a month. We don't buy the stuff in the tub, maybe one day I'll post why, in short, butter is healthier. 
These tarts are not health food just because they are homemade. They still have *gasp* plain sugar and plain old white flour-but...they don't have trans fats, HFCS, TBHQ, etc. Here's the link, see for yourself. Wow. Also note the serving size, calories and sugar content, it's shocking!
http://www.kelloggs.com/en_US/pop-tarts-frosted-strawberry-toaster-pastries.html

Cocoa Marshmallow Creme Fail

My toddler didn't even get any, because hubby and I ate them all! In our defense the chocolate filling I put together on the fly was a fail, so no one ate them, but the crust was good. They are just in need of a filling that will hold up to the baking process. I tried flavoring marshmallow creme with cocoa and vanilla, it tasted good, but it deflated when I baked it (should've thought of that).

I used strawberry preserves with the plain pie crust and that was delicious. The crust isn't sweet, so there's a good balance between the sweet strawberry and the crust. I recall eating Pop-tarts long ago and feeling sick afterward thanks to all the sugar. These won't give you the stomachache. For the glaze I used powdered sugar mixed with milk till I got the right consistency (I wanted to make it thick enough to not run off, but some did anyway :).  Make sure you put the sprinkles on right after the glaze or it will dry and your sprinkles will roll right off. You could also flavor/color the glaze if you wanted.

If you're looking for a healthier version, I am going to create one. Coming soon.

Butter Pie Crust Dough
(from Epicurious)

1.25 c. all-purpose flour
1/2 T. sugar
1/2 t. salt
1/2 c. (1 stick) unsalted cold butter, cubed
3 T. ice water (possibly more)


Blend dry ingredients in a food processor. Add butter and pulse in until coarse meal forms. Add water, pulsing, just until moist clumps form. Gather dough into a ball, flatten into a disk and wrap in plastic wrap, refrigerate for an hour. Soften slightly at room temp before rolling.



Assembling Instructions:

1. Make dough/s and refrigerate, come back later.
2. Let dough sit on counter while you prep a surface to roll out the dough on. Get your trusty Pam spray can (or rolling pin), some flour for dusting, a ruler (if you care that much), baking sheets (no need to spray, this is butter dough!)
3. Roll the dough out in workable chunks to about 1/4 inch thick and cut to pop-tart size or use a cutter. I guessed using my bench scraper for the Pop-tart look-a-like and then used a little rubbermaid container as a cutter for the rest. You can reroll the scraps.
4. After all pieces are cut, lay them out and do a little math to ensure you have equal numbers for tops and bottoms. Spread filling on leaving space around the edges, add the top. Use fork tines to pinch it together. (*You could use egg white/water to seal the edges together before pinching, I didn't and the above shows what happened).

Bake at 350 until the pastry starts puffing up and looks done (*technical description*). This took about 10-15 minutes in my oven. I didn't have instructions from the recipe on this part so I winged it. I wanted them a little underdone so they could be toasted later, but later never happened :). Let them cool before glazing.

Store airtight. Plain crust recipe makes about 14 (complete) 2" square tarts. Each square has 124 calories.

Here's a link to the chocolate pie crust I used:
http://americanfood.about.com/od/desserts/r/Chocolate-Pie-Crust-Recipe.htm

If anyone figures out a filling for the chocolate or cinnamon versions I'd love to hear it!

The Out of Box Experience Episode 1: Cheese Crackers

A miniseries of the best homemade versions of boxed food I have found. 
The Out of Box Experience Episode 1
Cheese Crackers

These ones have cayenne pepper sprinkled on for the hubby...

I have been hunting for a good cheese cracker recipe for a very long time. No matter how yummy the pictures looked or the recipe sounded, none tasted like the boxed ones I was used to. They were bland, lacking character. It doesn't have to taste exactly like the square ones with one hole in the middle, I'd happily settle for just as good since there are no preservatives.

But these....

These crackers are better than the box kind! The entire first batch was eaten as fast as I was cutting them out and baking them. Some yummy variants include the cayenne listed above, and we also tried garlic parmesan and taco seasoning too. Just sprinkle on any spices you want before you cut the dough into triangles, squares, little animals (my 2 year old loved these), or stars and bake. I am convinced the turmeric/paprika/cayenne blend is what gives them their characteristic flavor, so don't skip it!

Helpful Tools:

Silpat or parchment paper
Bench scraper or offset spatula
1-1.5" cookie cutters or pizza cutter
Rolling pin with guide bands (or Pam spray can with rubber bands 1/8" thick)

Ingredients:
I prefer to measure dry ingredients by weight because it is more accurate, but the cup measurements are in parentheses. 
125g (1 c) all-purpose/wheat flour, plus additional
3g (3/4 t) sea salt
1/4 t cayenne pepper
1/4 t smoky paprika
1/4 t ground turmeric
227g (2 c) grated sharp cheddar cheese
71 g (5 T) unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
Cold water, a few tablespoons

Put everything but the water and cheese in a food processor and pulse until it resembles coarse meal. Add cheese and just enough water to form a dough that sticks to the blade. Divide the dough into halves and flatten into disks, cover with plastic wrap. Refrigerate 30 minutes to 24 hours, although  when I did a double batch I left some dough in there for a few days and it was fine.

Roll out dough to 1/8 inch. This is probably the hardest part, if you're rolling it with a Pam can and no bands, like I did. Too thick and they won't crisp all the way, so be sure to make it thin and even! They can be close together, just not touching. Bake at 350 for 15-20 minutes. 

To flavor them, after rolling out dough before cutting brush the top of dough with a small amount of water and sprinkle on sea salt (press gently to stick it), or garlic powder, sea salt and parmesan, or cayenne pepper and sea salt, or taco seasoning.

Yield varies greatly depending on size of cutter.
I used a 1.5" star and 1.5" animals, and when I got sick of cutting out these tiny crackers I used the pizza cutter to cut triangles. Poking holes can be done with a skewer or other pointy object, but I didn't think it made much difference, and I like the puffiness. Out of all four flavors we tried I don't think I could pick a favorite. They were all delicious.

This is where I got the recipe from, I have made some minor modifications in my version. She does a really great job on little ghosts with poppy seed eyes, check it out!

http://www.sassyradish.com/2012/10/homemade-cheese-crackers/

Survey Site Reviews

Let me say something about survey sites in general. They are making much more money off you than you are from them. Some sites will sell your personal info while giving you pennies in return. Legitimate surveys don't ask for your address or phone number and definitely not your credit card number.

I will be adding my reviews of all the survey sites I try, I am sure most will be a waste of time. There are no affiliate links to be found here, and I'm not promoting anyone who doesn't deserve it. 

The verdicts are based on whether I actually got paid and how hard it was to do so. Also I only recommend doing this if you have absolutely no other way to make money, because with surveys you're only averaging $2 an hour!

MommyTalkSurveys.com

I was directed to this site from someone else's blog. At first glance, the site looked legitimate, and they offer a $5 sign-up bonus. I qualified for one survey that took 49 minutes and paid $3. I was disqualified from 6 other surveys which took me 18 minutes altogether, and paid nothing. The final straw was when I thought I qualified for a Global Test Market (GTM) survey for $2.75 which was supposed to take 22 minutes. I answered very specific questions about streaming videos online, got to the demographics info after ten minutes of these questions and then it disqualified me. This tactic is infuriating, as I know MommyTalk is being paid for this data by GTM. So, I go looking on their site for a place to complain about this, and sure enough, there is no place for this. No help section, no contact us, nothing. And suspiciously their survey interface looks almost identical to the one Swagbucks uses, who also has endless surveys I never qualify for.

Verdict: Don't Waste Your Time.


CashCrate

This site has been around since 2006. I really tried to give this one a shot, and I got a little excited at what appears to be free games that you can earn real money from. There aren't any guides to the games however, and they require ActiveX, so I can't play them on my Mac; no thanks. All the surveys are links to surveys on other sites (like MyView, Global Test Market) and have low payouts, not that I suspect I'd ever qualify for anything. There are big bucks to be had if you, say, sign up and get approved for a Discover card. Or you can farm yourself out to work on cash tasks - quite popular among survey sites - which translates into working for a dollar or two an hour doing keyword searches on Google.

Verdict: Don't Waste Your Time


MyView

They pay you 100 points (33,000 is a $25 Amazon card) per survey that you are disqualified from and qualified surveys pay anywhere from 400-2,600. I got my first card about a month after I started, doing maybe an hour of surveys every other day, but checking the site often for new ones. The whole process of getting the gift card code was easy, and I didn't experience any delays close to payout either. Of course it won't make you rich, no survey site will, but this one will earn you a little cash on the side. I especially like that I don't have to wait on an email to tell me a survey is available.

Verdict: Waste Your Time


Swagbucks

One Swagbuck is equal to a penny. I have tested several of the ways on their site to earn money, but the best seems to be searching the web from their site. You are randomly awarded Swagbucks for doing normal searches, the amounts vary greatly, I have seen 10 cents through 50 cents, every few searches. There are things I won't do on their site that could potentially earn you some bucks, such as installing their toolbar and shopping through their links. 

You get randomly awarded with a few cents for playing the games, which are fun. The game tournaments look rewarding, but they are currently down for maintenance and it is unknown when they will return. You can watch 10 videos that are around 2 minutes each for a whopping three cents. The videos cover a wide range of topics, and the library is vast, but unless you already wanted to watch the videos this is not lucrative. The infamous cash tasks can also be found on this site, something else I don't bother participating in. ( FYI, cash tasks appear to be a lower paying version of what's on mTurk). 

The surveys leave much to be desired. I track all the surveys I take for a future project hubby and I are working on, and I have been disqualified from 10 surveys (that I tracked, there were more) with Swagbucks. Never been accepted to any, and I spent about 20 minutes altogether disqualifying as well. Out of those 10 surveys, they gave me one cent for each, except two of them, which I just didn't receive credit for. I will update when/if I ever qualify with how many tries it took. All in all I have made 199 Swagbucks since joining and trying out their site. I would give them a "waste your time", but since my ratings are about survey sites and making money from them, the lack of surveys you can take here makes them fail IMO. If you do a lot of shopping there are percent back deals, and you could go one there and make a few cents a day doing searches and NOSO's, but I'm not into that sort of thing. 

Verdict: Don't Waste Your Time 

Inbox Dollars

I'm not sure exactly how long it's been since I joined this site, but it's been at least 9 months. I just sent away for my first paycheck, a little over $40. That is horrible income, but I will say all I have done is check emails and I did sign us up for GameFly which earned me $7. It's an easy way to earn money if you shop online a lot or can take advantage of the offers where you get a large payout. It didn't post right away, and after 14 days I had to chat with customer service, but they promptly credited my account without any hassle. Probably just a cookies issue. If you stop doing cash offers and only check the emails you will get your email privileges taken away. Also if you aren't active on the site after you request a check they can forfeit your earnings. Read their TOS if you join so you don't get screwed.

Verdict: Waste Your Time

*Update* 
 I have decided after finding not even one site (I have tested many more than I reviewed) that I am stopping the site reviews. My biggest reason is I don't have time to waste on this anymore. If you want a good way to make money online use one of the sites like Elance or oDesk.

Real paid surveys/studies pay anywhere from $1-$5. Sometimes more depending on the funding available to the people initiating the survey. On certain sites I don't see anything that pays more than $1. This tells me they are pocketing most of the funds from the survey, or it's passing through so many hands there's only 50 cents left by the time it gets to me. The length of time the survey takes obviously doesn't change, so I always look for surveys paying higher amounts and coming directly from the source. These sites use tactics like a "check-in" button to get you on there each day, making you want the check so bad you'll do stupid things to get it. Like give away or sell your information for a measly 50 cents. But they make much, much more. I don't sell my information on principle, but that's not to say I haven't been tricked before. Be careful and read the privacy policies. Also beware of the software many sites want you to install that tracks where you go, among other things.

Meringue Cookie Heaven

So, a quick primer on meringue cookies if you've never heard of them, they are basically cookies made of egg whites, sugar and vanilla. There are at least three methods of preparing meringue. French meringue is made by combining the sugar with egg whites after they have formed soft peaks, and carries a small risk of salmonella (something like 1:20,000 eggs). The Swiss method involves dissolving the sugar in the egg whites over a double boiler and mixing. Italian meringue is made by heating a sugar syrup and adding that to the egg whites. I think the last two are considered cooked. The end result no matter the method, when done right, is a crisp cookie that melts in your mouth, they are so wonderful.

French Meringue Cookies

Up until now, I have only prepared French meringue cookies, and although they are supposed to be the easiest, they are extremely finicky in my experience. I think I have prepared them wrong in every way possible. The meringue can be underbeaten or overbeaten, and the sugar must be added at just the right time. You are basically unfolding the proteins in the egg whites, and stiffening them with the sugar. Mine have wept, beaded, cracked, if they could've cried they would have. Fortunately, you can always eat your mistakes. After getting a stand mixer and still being unable to produce the *perfect* meringues, I decided to try another method.

Italian Meringue Cookies

SO...Italian meringue, where have you been all my life? Besides being practically foolproof, it turns out so smooth and light. To make it even more fantastic I added some of that new powder flavoring for frosting to some, Chocolate Marshmallow Meringue Cookies. Yummy! I was a bit worried, because of how fat-phobic meringue is, but it didn't lose it's stiffness upon adding the powder. They are browner than the French ones, I don't know why considering the two recipes have the same ingredients. Maybe they browned differently due to the sugar being completely dissolved. They are a bit denser than the French, but in the middle the tiny bubbles are perfectly uniform. The photos show some of the differences between the finished products, I did everything for the vanilla French and Italian cookies the same.

Maybe one day I will take the time to explain everything that can go wrong and tips I have learned with the different methods, but there are plenty of tutorials online if that's what you're looking for. It is a learning experience, but a very satisfying one, just buy your eggs at Costco!

Italian meringue cookies, vanilla and chocolate marshmallow respectively

The recipe I used is here:
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/tyler-florence/italian-meringue-recipe/index.html


So, have some "more-angs" (more meringues) as my toddler says, they're delicious!

Fun Way to Entertain Toddler

Have a crazy toddler running around every night while you're trying to make dinner?

One day I did and had some washable dry erase markers and thought maybe the fridge would be a great place for my little artist to draw. After trying them out and seeing how well they erased, I figured I could let him use plain washable markers as well....



Even on the textured fridge, they work great and erase cleanly with a wet paper towel. He loves "erasing" just as much as drawing. The best part? It keeps him in the kitchen where I can watch him just in case he decides to pull a tip out with his teeth.



Laminate flooring also works. Thank you Crayola.