vegan GF béchamel

Good news to Vegans and GF people
So... Now that I've discovered this super quick/easy white sauce recipe, i make it A LOT!! Im not a red sauce fan so I'ts no surprise to me that I would end up liking this Basic white sauce recipe as much as I have.I asked my mom the other night why she never makes any recipes using béchamel sauce and she said she can't because russ (her husband/my dad) is allergic to flour. so i asked her why she didnt just instead make béchamel w/ cornstarch or a GF substitute and she said "because it just wouldn't turn out." well.... guess what... she was wrong. Last night I ran out of AP flour and (like always) I wanted white sauce (aka béchamel sauce) so... I used Oat Flour instead! And just to be more experiment-ive, I also used vegan butter substitute instead of regular butter and almond milk instead of cow milk. (BTW: use only 1/4 cup milk if using oat flour instead of AP flour) And surprise! It totally worked. It really didn't taste any different.  The Only difference at all was the color was slightly different. White sauce is pure white. This came out as more of an off white. Oh! and this is kind of funny, but it smelled like Oatmeal while it was cooking. Hence, the oat flour. Next time I cook the Vegan-GF-béchamel, I'll snap a photo for this post (just so that way you'll for sure know that this really works.)

GF means Gluten Free (for those of you who didn't know)

Cookie Dough Cupcakes

Almost EVERY baking blogger has already made these and blogged about them. There are several different variations to this recipe so I had to decide which recipe/method I wanted to use.  In Annie Eats recipe, she makes a brown sugar cupcake cuts out the center of the baked cupcake pipes in cookie dough and then tops it with a flour based cookie dough frosting. Crumboss makes giant chocolate chip cupcakes, doesn't fill the cupcakes whatsoever, just leaves them as is. But then tops the baked cupcakes with a swiss meringue buttercream frosting that has eggless cookie dough stirred into it. It looks fantastic. And then theres a variation (used by Kevin&amanda) where you drop cookie dough into the cupcake batter and then bake the cupcakes and then top with frosting. I wasn't interested in that variation whatsoever. Why would you "bake" the cookie dough for a cookie "dough" cupcake?? once its baked, its no longer cookie "dough." So ya, not thanks on that one. To me thats not a cookie "dough" cupcake. thats just a cookie cupcake. So I decided to go with annie eats recipe but I used my cake recipe instead of hers. Just for the base cupcakes. But I used her cookie dough recipe and her frosting recipe and I also used her assembly method. It turned out Awesome!! This recipe is bomb. I can't speak for her cupcake batter, but I can definitely once again say that my vanilla cake/cupcake recipe is the BEST ever!!! Everyone LOVED these cupcakes!

Vanilla Scones

Ive been studying up on scone recipes for quite a while because I totally love scones but I think that they are very hit-or-miss so I wanted to make sure that my next batch were not a miss. Bloggers who make a lot of scones I notice will like a scone recipe they make and then make another recipe and Love it even more. They just think its a better recipe, but they don't know why its a better recipe. And because they don't know why it was a better recipe, they'll accidentally try another bad recipe because they didn't know what recipes to avoid. Heres what I noticed. All the absolute "best-scones-ever" recipes were the recipes that didn't have eggs in the dough or had a very small amount of egg in the dough. For instance Tyler Florence recipe is always a hit. It has no eggs. Pionner Woman vanilla scone recipe: Pretty big hit. Has Only 1 egg. Ina Garten's scone recipes: Lots of people hate it. People who don't know better like it or think it's just OK. For example: In this Post, smitten kitten blogs about the best scone recipe ever (americas test kitchen-no eggs) and also trashes Ina's recipe. She doesn't know why her new found recipe is so good, but hey Im glad she at least found it. Anyway, heres an awesome scone recipe I found on bakingbites.com. I made these with Caleb and the next door neighbor kids (who are over EVERY day.)  The dough tasted fabulous. I've never cared to eat scone dough before because it always just tasted OK but this was some good dough, so I knew right off the bat that taste wasn't going to be a problem. The kids, my bro, my mom, and I ate the scones within 20 minutes after they came out of the oven so I can't say how well these kept (it terms of staying fresh.) All I can say was they were delicious. The recipe calls for a vanilla glaze. Kids were too hungry to wait for any glaze plus they tasted so good without it. But next time I make them, I'll try and use the glaze just because it apparently help seal in the moisture so the scones stay fresh longer.

white sauce (thick)

I have fallen in love with basic "white sauce" some people call it "béchamel sauce." same thing (or even "white gravy.) Im a total dip/sauce person and this sauce tastes good with EVERYTHING: Mixed with pasta, layered over lasagna, poured over gnocchi, and/or as a sandwich spread or dip. And it only takes 5 minutes to make it.

White Sauce

5 Tablespoon flour
4 Tablespoon butter
1/2 cup cream or half-and-half (3/4 cup for thinner)
1/8-1/4 teaspoon salt.

Melt butter on Low in small saucepan. Raise heat to med. Add 1.5 T flour and stir constantly with spatula until roux is formed. If roux doesn't form, add 1/2 T more flour. Add milk and stir constantly over medium heat until sauce is thick (takes just a couple minutes, if even that.) Stir in 1/8 teaspoon salt. Taste the sauce and add up to 1/8 t more salt if needed.

Cookies n Creme Cookies

A Cupcakes

Stephanie, the EXPO at my work (Chili's) made these for one of our guy servers last shift at Chills. He loves butts, and always talked about girls and their butts (super inappropriate, I know, but hey welcome to life as a server ): stuff like this going on EVERY second) I wouldn't typically post something like this butt Stephanie is a really good baker. Not only do her cupcakes look awesome, but they always taste amazing.

Cupcake Recipe: Click HERE

Frosting Recipe: Click HERE

Fondant Recipe: Click HERE

No Bake Cheesecake

Jello No Bake Strawberry Cheesecake
AKA: Best Dessert Ever

I make this all the time, except i don't follow the box directions. I make it my way. I mix the crust mix with 6.5T butter (instead of 5T) and I use 3T sugar (instead of 2T.) I then press the crust on bottom of glass loaf pan. I mix the cheesecake filling with 1.5 C half-&-half (instead of 1.5C milk.) Mix on high speed 3 min.  I then pour/spread 3/4 the filling over the crust (the original recipe of course wants you to use all the filling. However, I think its too much filling for the amount of crust and topping that they give you. So my dad just eats the leftover 1/4 filling since he's allergic to flour and therefore he can't eat the crust part anyway.) I then pour/spread all the strawberry fruit topping over the filling and then put finished dessert  in the freezer for apx 1 hour and then in the fridge. To serve, u just cut into slices. Makes about 6 big slices. This dessert is bomb. Only lasts 2 days at max in our house! (everyone just ends up picking at it or spooning at it since they're all too lazy to cut a slice. Ha.) btw: one time bought the cherry kind. Nasty. don't do it. strawberry is the only way to go.

Crescent Cinnamon Rolls

I was craving cinnamon rolls but we didn't have pre-made cinnamon roll dough and we didn't have yeast. But we had Pillsbury Crescent roll dough. So I looked online for a cinnamon roll recipe that used crescent dough and found one that looked awesome. (Click HERE for recipe) What looked best about the recipe was the cinnamon butter. You'll have to read the recipe to understand. I also have always liked the recipe blog that I pulled it from. Anyway. I made them with Caleb. He was being a little difficult. Kept trying to play with my phone instead of helping me make the rolls. These turned out delicious. Caleb downed 2 and he usually doesn't like anything. 

Crescent Cinnamon Rolls
Click HERE for recipe.