Now normally when I go to the dining hall in the morning in the fruit parfait bar nothing really changes my eye. There’s a selection of a couple fruits but mostly canned ones such as pears or sour melon. However, this morning after finishing my Vietnamese final I was starving. Seriously, my stomach was rumbling every ten minutes, it was quite embarrassing. To my surprise I saw these delicious blueberries so I scooped up a couple handfuls and decided that I was going to bake something that had blueberries in it. This recipe comes from one of my all time favorite food blogging sites: The Pioneer Woman. However when making it, for some reason the crumbly topping didn’t turn out crumbly but rather just baked into the cake. Nevertheless, it still tasted delicious and it’s nice to have a dessert every once in a while without chocolate!

Ingredients
½ sticks Butter
1 Tablespoon (additional) Butter
¾ cups Sugar
1 whole Egg
½ teaspoons Vanilla Extract
2 cups All-purpose Flour
2-¼ teaspoons Baking Powder
½ teaspoons Salt
¾ cups Whole Milk
2 cups Fresh Blueberries
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FOR THE TOPPING:
¾ sticks Butter
½ cups Sugar
½ teaspoons Cinnamon
½ cups Flour
¼ teaspoons Salt

Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Combine flour, baking powder, and a salt. Stir and set aside.
Cream 1/2 stick plus 1 tablespoon butter with cinnamon and sugar. Add egg and mix until combined. Add vanilla and mix. Add flour mixture and milk alternately until totally incorporated. Do not overbeat. Stir in blueberries until evenly distributed.
Grease a 9 x 13 inch baking pan. Pour in batter.
In a separate bowl, combine topping ingredients and cut together using two knives or a pastry cutter. Sprinkle over the top of the cake.
Bake cake for 40 to 45 minutes, or until golden brown. Sprinkle with sugar. Cut into squares and serve with softened butter.

How ironic is it that I seem to be doing all my baking whenever I have midterms or finals? I guess baking is a way of relieving my stress and I do need sugar to function. This quarter I normally buy myself a chocolate muffin in between my Vietnamese and Stats class from the dining hall so I decide why not make them by myself. After all I am a baker and dining hall desserts have nothing on me!
What I love about this recipe is that it only contains a little bit of cocoa powder so it’s not too chocolate-y like a cupcake or too overly sweet. Recipe from Nigella Lawson from Food Network!

Ingredients
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
2 tablespoons best quality cocoa powder
3/4 cup superfine sugar
3/4 cup semisweet chocolate chips, plus 1/4 cup for sprinkling
1 cup milk
1/3 cup plus 2 teaspoons vegetable oil
1 egg
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
Directions
Special equipment: Muffin tin with paper muffin cases

Directions
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.

Put the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cocoa, sugar, and 3/4 cup of the chocolate chips into a large bowl. Pour all the liquid ingredients into a measuring jug. Mix the dry and wet ingredients together, remembering that a lumpy batter makes the best muffins. Spoon into the prepared muffin cases. Sprinkle the remaining 1/4 cup chocolate chips on top and then bake for 20 minutes or until the muffins are dark, risen and springy.

A delicious somewhat healthy dessert that I made using apples from the dining halls.

Ingredients
4 medium tart cooking apples, sliced (4 cups)
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup Gold Medal® all-purpose flour
1/2 cup quick-cooking or old-fashioned oats
1/3 cup butter or margarine, softened
3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
3/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg

Directions
1. Heat oven to 375ºF. Grease bottom and sides of 8-inch square pan with shortening.
2. Spread apples in pan. In medium bowl, stir remaining ingredients except cream until well mixed; sprinkle over apples
3. Bake about 30 minutes or until topping is golden brown and apples are tender when pierced with a fork. Serve warm with cream.

Recipe from Betty Crocker.

The end of the year is approaching quickly and in attempts to clean out our fridge, I am trying to use everything up because I absolute hate wasting food. Since I’ve tried to cut down on eating peanut butter after reading the nutritional label, I had a jar of peanut butter left in the fridge. What better use than to make cookies? I first made these cookies in 7th grade cooking class and they only contain three ingredients: sugar, eggs, and peanut butter, how easy is that?

Ingredients

1 cup sugar
1 cup peanut butter
1 egg

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
2. Mix all ingredients together and scoop into small 2 inch balls.
3. Roll the balls in sugar and use a fork to make the criss cross shape.
4. Bake for 12 minutes and enjoy!

A cheesecake I made for our annual quarterly outing. To dress up the cheesecake and add more flavor I covered the top with some blackberry jam and fresh blackberries that I bought at one of the marketplaces.

For my birthday celebration this year I decided to make my own cake. Although tiramisu is quite commonly found as ladyfingers layered in a dish, I wanted a proper cake to blow my candles out. Creamy marscapone frosting was layered in between two vanilla sponge cakes. I used home made whip cream to frost the cake and cocoa powdered as decoration. To create the pattern on top of the cake I simply used a doily which I cut out to fit the cake.

Some delicious Nutella cookies that my apartment mate and I whipped up a week ago on a Friday night when we were both bored and all the other apartment mates were out with their boyfriends. We make a great team, I mix up the dough while she scoops out the cookies. You can never go wrong with these heavenly chocolate hazel spread.

Here are some chocolate covered strawberries I made for my birthday a couple weeks ago. First I dipped the front of them in white chocolate and then the sides in milk chocolate. I then used a toothpick to draw the bow ties and buttons.

Some brownies my roommate Anisha and I made a while back!