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Travel/Food

Pizza recipe and review

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By: Nils Hilleson

This recipe will make 4 full crusts.

Ingredients:

  • 1 tsp yeast
  • 1 tsp sugar
  • 1/4 cup warm water
  • 2 cups warm water
  • 1 tb sugar
  • 1 tb salt
  • 1/4 cup olive oil
  • 830 grams bread flour

Steps for dough:

Add 1 tsp yeast, 1 tsp sugar and 1/4 cup warm water into a bowl and let sit 5 mins for the yeast to bloom.

Then add 830 grams of bread flour, 1 tb sugar, 1 tb salt, 1/4 cup olive oil and 2 cups of warm water.

Knead in mixer until slightly sticky, add more flour if needed.

Dough is ready if it can be stretched to see light through.

Cut into 4 balls (they last for up to 7 days in the fridge).

When you are ready to use the dough, put them in olive oil coated bowls; let rise for at least an hour.

Steps for making pizza:

Preheat oven (for an hour) to its hottest temperature (550) with a pizza stone inside.

Take a dough and stretch it into a circle.

Put sparse amounts of flour on the surface you’re working on. This way the dough will slide onto the pizza stone.

You can add toppings like: tomato sauce, mozzarella, parmesan, goat cheese, other cheeses, pepperoni, garlic sauce, and really anything that goes on pizza.

Review:

I thought the pizza turned out pretty good. I made a regular pizza with fake pepperoni and goat cheese, and a garlic cheese bread pizza. Both turned out pretty good but I preferred the garlic one since I’m not a big fan of the pepperoni or the goat cheese.

Getting the dough ready was the hardest part for me because I couldn’t really understand how to properly shape it. I think the crust was a little thick on the garlic one so I should’ve stretched the dough more while prepping the pizza.

It doesn’t taste as good as pizza from most actual pizza places but it’s still pretty good. The crust was thicker and the toppings weren’t distributed as well as I would have wanted. If you like Pizza Luce you may want to give this recipe a try. The garlic bread pizza was similar to one I get from there.

Travel/Food

Krumkake recipe and review

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By: Nils Hilleson

Ingredients:

  • 4 eggs
  • 1 c sugar
  • 1 1/2 c flour
  • 2 tbsp cornstarch
  • 1 stick of butter melted
  • 1 tbsp vanilla
  • 1 tbsp cinnamon

Equipment:

  • Krumkake iron
  • Dowel

Steps:

  • Beat 4 eggs in a bowl
  • Add 1 cup sugar, mix
  • Add 1 1/2 c flour & 2 tbsp cornstarch, mix
  • Retrieve melted butter and add vanilla & cinnamon, mix
  • Add butter to bowl and whisk to combine.
  • Scoop out an acceptable amount of batter (about a teaspoon) and place on the iron
  • Wait for the iron light to turn off
  • Quickly retrieve the krumkake from the iron and roll it into a tube with the dowel
  • Let the krumkake cool until completely cool

This recipe makes around 30 krumkake

I really like krumkake, they taste sweet and vaguely cinnamon. My mom makes some every year around winter as a tradition. Krumkake is a Norwegian cookie.

Due to how many are made there plenty to give away to friends or family. They take awhile to make not because they’re hard to but just because of the fact you have to wait for them to cook for awhile, but it’s worth it since they’re so good.

Personally, I don’t normally do this, but since they’re tube shaped you can fill them with stuff like whipped cream. I find they can be a tad bit awkward to eat due to their shape.

Rolling the krumkake can be a little stressful since you have to do it quickly so they don’t harden before you can roll them properly.

This was based on my grandma’s recipe, but it really only had the ingredients, and directions on how to make the batter. I had to write out the rest of the steps.

Travel/Food

Recipe review: Everything cookies (Family recipe)

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By: Austin Bailey-Zimmerman

Ingredients:

  • 2 sticks butter
  • 1 cup brown sugar
  • 1/2 cup granulated sugar
  • 2 teaspoons vanilla
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 3 cups QUICK oats
  • 1 bag chocolate chips
  • 1 bag white chocolate chips
  • 1 cup raisins
  • 1 cup chopped pecans or sunflower seeds

Instructions:

  1. Preheat the oven to 350ºF.
  2. Soften butter and in a medium mixing bowl, mix the butter, sugars, eggs, and vanilla until combined.
  3. In a separate bowl, mix all of the dry ingredients together.
  4. Combine both bowls into one.
  5. Fold in the chocolate chips, raisins, and pecans/sunflower seeds.
  6. Roll batter into golf ball sized balls and set on a baking sheet.
  7. Bake for 8-10 mins or until golden brown.
  8. Take out and let cool.
  9. Enjoy!

Review:

Have you ever tried to find the perfect cookie to bake? For me, this recipe is it. My family and I made this recipe and decided to name these cookies “everything cookies” because they have everything you could think of for a cookie.

I associate these cookies with my mother because I have always made these cookies with my mom and older brother ever since I was a little kid. Whenever we would make everything cookies we would always have extra so we would share them with our neighbors, my grandma, and I would bring a bag to school and share with my friends at lunch. I think these cookies really made me feel connected to the people around me, especially my mom.

I have a lot of great memories making these cookies with my family. When we put them in the oven, the whole house would fill with the sweet warm smell of cookies and it would stay for the rest of the day. When we finally took the cookies out, we would always put on a movie or show and sit down in the living room with a glass of cold milk and the cookies still warm. They were always perfectly gooey on the inside, but golden around the edge.

Sometimes the ingredients change. Sometimes we add new things or take away something, but they always taste nostalgic. These have always been my favorite dessert, and maybe they’ll be yours too! Try these out! Enjoy!

Travel/Food

Review of copycat Crumbl red velvet white chocolate chip cookies

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By: Grace Wright

Recipe-

Ingredients

▢ 1 1/2 cup butter, softened

▢ 1/2 cup granulated sugar

▢ 1 1/2 cup brown sugar

▢ 2 egg

▢ 1 1/2 tbsp vanilla extract

▢ 4 cups all purpose flour

▢ 1/2 cup cocoa powder

▢ 2 tsp baking soda

▢ 1 tsp salt

▢ red food coloring

▢ 2 cup white chocolate chips

Instructions-

Preheat the oven to 350°.

Cream together the butter, granulated sugar and brown sugar.

Add the egg and vanilla. Mix until light in color and creamy.

Add in the dry ingredients (flour, cocoa, baking soda and salt), mix into the dough. Mix until completely combined. The dough will be soft.

Mix in the red food coloring (add until it looks like the desired color), then fold in the white chocolate chips.

Use a 1/2 cup measuring cup to portion out the dough. Roll the dough and flatten them slightly. Arrange 6 cookies per cookie sheet. This will make 12 cookies.

Bake at 350° for 15-17 minutes – the cookies should spread slightly, crackle a little bit and the centers should not look shiny and wet anymore.

Allow the cookies to cool for at least 10 minutes on the pan before serving. Serve warm.

These cookies were pretty easy to make but there would be some modifications I would make. One, I would change when you add the food coloring. The dough is a thicker kind so when it said to add the food coloring last, I struggled. I couldn’t mix the coloring evenly throughout the dough, so it ended up streaky and not really red velvet. I would recommend adding the food coloring when you are mixing all the wet ingredients. This makes sure the food coloring mixes nicely and you can add some more in the middle of mixing the dry ingredients in if you want it more red.

I would also recommend mixing the chocolate chips by hand. Once again, because the dough is thicker my stand mixer struggled getting the mix evenly throughout the dough. This made some of my cookies to have no chocolate chips or some to have a lot.

Finally, I would recommend that if you don’t like huge cookies to make them smaller. I think they are good this big but for my family we just like smaller cookies so then you don’t have to break them apart if you don’t want that big of a cookie. My parents agreed that they would have enjoyed them more if they were smaller.

I would say these are pretty close to the ones from Crumbl, but Crumbl’s have a better texture and are more flavorfull. Overall, I really liked making these cookies and they were tasty. I think most people can bake them with ease with just a few adjustments.

Here is the link to the recipe I used:

Travel/Food

Recipe review: Peanut butter protein balls

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By: Austin Bailey Zimmerman

Ingredients:

  • 2 cups rolled oats
  • 1 cup natural peanut butter or other nut butter
  • ½ cup honey
  • ¼ cup mini chocolate chips
  • ¼ cup unsweetened shredded coconut

Instructions:

  1. Combine oats, peanut butter (or other nut butter), honey, chocolate chips and coconut in a medium bowl.
  2. Using a 1-tablespoon measure, roll the mixture into balls.
  3. Put balls in the fridge (or freezer) to harden.
  4. Enjoy!

Review:

This recipe was great to make. It took me less than 10 minutes to make the balls, and it was so easy. There aren’t many ingredients at all and only 3 steps! The balls themselves tasted amazing, the peanut butter was very savory so the sweet honey really balanced it out. The chocolate chips and oats gave it a bit of a crunch and great texture. Sometimes I like to dip them in melted chocolate and freeze them to make them into more of a dessert.

I absolutely love eating these before going to the gym or going on a run. They give me lots of energy and protein, just without the unnecessary additives like a protein bar has. It has all very natural ingredients and is so healthy. I also eat them just for a snack because they are very satisfying and filling.

I got this recipe from Eating Well (https://www.eatingwell.com/recipe/275207/peanut-butter-energy-balls/) by Lisa Valente. She made this recipe so easy to follow and the website is very easy to navigate. The peanut butter balls were so good and so healthy, and she balanced health and a treat perfectly.

I have made these many times now, and each time they are gone very quickly because my brother likes to eat them before a workout as well. I really enjoy them, and I think you would too! Try this easy recipe out!

Travel/Food

Recipe review: Brookies

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By: Austin Bailey-Zimmerman

Ingredients

Brownie Batter:

  • ½ cup unsalted butter melted
  • ¾ cup semisweet chocolate chips or roughly chopped chocolate
  • ½ cup granulated sugar
  • ½ cup packed light brown sugar
  • ⅓ cup cocoa powder
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • ½ teaspoon salt
  • 2 large eggs
  • ½ cup all-purpose flour

Cookie Dough:

  • ½ cup unsalted butter room temperature
  • ½ cup granulated sugar
  • ¼ cup packed light brown sugar
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 1 large egg
  • ½ teaspoon salt
  • ½ teaspoon baking powder

Instructions:

  1. Line a 9×13 baking dish with parchment paper or grease it.
  2. Heat the oven to 350Fº.
  3. For the brownies, melt butter then stir in cocoa powder.
  4. Whisk in both sugar and the salt then add the eggs and vanilla and beat well (secret to glossy brownies is to beat the eggs and sugar very well.)
  5. Add the flour and mix until almost combined then fold in the chocolate chips
  6. Transfer the brownie batter to your prepared pan and spread into a thin layer then set aside.
  7. For the cookie dough, cream the butter, and sugars on high for 3-4 minutes or until light and fluffy.
  8. Mix in the vanilla and egg.
  9. Add salt, baking soda and powder then mix until combined.
  10. Pour in the flour and mix until almost combined then fold in the chocolate chips.
  11. Drop spoonfuls onto the brownie batter. You don’t need full coverage, it will be nice to see the brownie batter peaking through after baking.
  12. Bake at 350Fº for 35-40 mins.
  13. Allow to cool before removing from the pan and cutting.
  14. Enjoy!

Review:

These brookies were absolutely amazing. The brownie was so rich and gooey, and the cookie was perfectly browned and sweet. The chocolate chips in both were melted and tied both of them together. There was the perfect ratio of cookie to brownie, so in every bite I got a little bit of both. I paired it with a cold cup of milk and it made my night.

The recipe was easy to follow, but took up a lot of time since you have to make two different mixtures. It was all very worth it though, and now I have lots to share.

The next day while I was hanging out with my friends, I shared the brookies with them and they tasted just as good cold or warmed up in the microwave. I also gave some to my brother and he said that they were great.

I got this recipe off of Preppy Kitchen (https://preppykitchen.com/brookies/#recipe) by John Kanell. The website was easy to navigate and the recipe was amazing. He did a great job with creating the perfect brookie recipe.

I had a great time making these, and the result was so worth the time spent! It was great to share with my friends and family. Try making these yourself! Enjoy!

Travel/Food

How to make tres leches

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By: Nereida Dominguez Remedios

Image by @joefoodie via Wikimedia Commons

According to the Loco Gringo food blog, in the 19th century, there was a recipe floating around Mexico for a bread cake that was soaked in wine and topped with custard. This is thought to be a spin of the Italian tiramisu or the English trifle, both alcohol soaked sponge cakes with heavy cream, cheese and sugar! All recipes were a great way to reconstitute leftover, stale cookies, cake or bread into a great dessert.

There are several different styles of tres leches such as, coffee, chocolate, piña colada, strawberry, and coconut. But many people enjoy and prefer regular tres leches.

Oftentimes there are tres leches that have fillings like strawberry, pineapple, cookies and cream, or peanuts and another filling could be peaches.

The things you will need to make the cake will be listed below:

  • cake mix of choice (I use Betty Crocker’s or make your own)
  • sweetened condensed milk (I use la Lechera)
  • evaporated milk (Carnation)
  • regular milk (of choice)
  • heavy whipping cream
  • sugar
  • vanilla extract 
  • measuring cups

The majority of time when I make tres leches I often use cake mix. I follow the instructions on the box then when I take out the cake I let it cool down for at least one hour.

Once it is cooled down I begin to poke holes all around the cake with a fork.

While it’s cooling down, you can make the milk mixture (tres leche) by pouring a can of condensed milk with a can of evaporated milk (both contain a cup and a half) and lastly you add one cup of regular milk (of your desire).

Once you have finished the milk mixture you may add it to the cake and let that sit in the fridge for one hour to a hour and a half.

Once the milk soaks into the cake you may start the whipping cream. You use a cup and a half of heavy whipping cream and one fourth of a cup of sugar and lastly a teaspoon of vanilla extract. Once all the ingredients are in a bowl you may begin to mix them into a thick consistency. After that, you may put it on the cake.

If you would like, you also can put cinnamon as a topping, or strawberries, then you will have a tres leches cake.

You may now enjoy! 

For more information, please visit:

Travel/Food

Salted Tahini Chocolate Chip Cookies

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Byt: Evie Beaumaster

The original recipe asks for:

  • 8 tablespoons/113 grams unsalted butter at room temperature
  • ½cup/120 milliliters tahini, well stirred
  • 1 cup/200 grams granulated sugar
  • 1 large egg
  • 1 egg yolk
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons/150 grams all-purpose flour, or matzo cake meal
  • ½teaspoon baking soda
  • ½teaspoon baking powder
  • 1 teaspoon kosher salt
  • 1¾cups/230 grams chocolate chips or chunks, bittersweet or semisweet
  • Flaky salt, like fleur de sel or Maldon

Makes 12 to 18 cookies

This recipe was so fun to make. It took a long time to make though, but it was so good! I really enjoyed the warm salty cookies that I got out of this recipe. I would totally make this recipe again.

To make these cookies you need to mix together the dough in an electric mixer. Then you need to refrigerate for at least 12 hours; this was the hardest part of the recipe and it is why the recipe took so long. The total baking time was about 15 minutes and it took a long time to bake all the batches of cookies. 

The baking and waiting time were a lot but overall the cookies were super good! This recipe was pretty easy to make, just throw all the ingredients into your electric mixer. The dishes used were also minimal because of this. The cookies came out of the oven warm and chewy with a bit of a salty taste that went great with the dark chocolate chips I used. Most people would say that they don’t like salty cookies but these are great! 

When I started making these I was worried that the tahini might be too strong for these cookies and it would be all that you could taste. But in the end, these cookies were perfect, the tahini added a slightly salty taste to the cookies and the flaky salt sprinkled on top just helped bring out the slight tahini flavor. I would say that people who might not like the taste of tahini as much would still love these cookies. For anyone who might not know what tahini is, it is like sesame paste and it tastes like a saltier version of peanut butter in my opinion. I like it plain as a substitute for peanut butter in some instances, but it is a bit runnier. I really enjoy the taste of tahini and it is great in these cookies.

The cookies came out of the oven chewy and warm and when I sprinkled them with some salt it was absolutely delicious. They are the best if you eat them right after you take them out of the oven and they are nice and warm. I will say I kept them in an airtight bag after I baked them and the next day they were stale so I would eat them the same day. You could also freeze or refrigerate them and heat them up later. I would totally recommend this recipe to help you take your chocolate chip cookies to the next level!

Link to original recipe! 

https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1018055-salted-tahini-chocolate-chip-cookies

Travel/Food

Recipe review: Dubai chocolate bar

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By: Austin Bailey-Zimmerman

Ingredients:

  • 2 cups of Kataifi
  • 1 tbls butter
  • 1 cup of pistachio paste
  • 2 ½ cups of milk chocolate

*You can get Kataifi and pistachio paste online and at stores like Golden Nuts

*need a chocolate bar mold*

Instructions:

  1. Roughly chop up the kataifi dough.
  2. melt your butter in a nonstick skillet over medium-low heat, coating the pan.
  3. Add in the chopped kataifi threads and stir occasionally until they become golden brown (about 5-10 mins) and remove from the skillet.
  4. In a large bowl, mix the toasted kataifi with pistachio paste, then set aside.
  5. Melt the milk chocolate in a double boiler.
  6. Spread the melted chocolate on the inside of the chocolate bar mold until it covers the entire bottom.
  7. Freeze for 10 mins.
  8. Spoon the pistachio and kataifi mixture into the mold. Use a knife to flatten the filling and ensure it is spread to the sides of the mold.
  9. Gently add a top layer of milk chocolate to the mold.
  10. Freeze for another 10 mins or until the chocolate hardens.
  11. Enjoy!

Background:

The Dubai chocolate bar is a viral chocolate bar filled with Kataifi, which is tiny shredded crunchy dough, and pistachio cream. It is originally a dessert from Dubai, and is from Fix Dessert Chocolatier, where the catchphrase is “Can’t get Knafeh of it”. The chocolate bar has become a viral dessert in 2024 particularly on TikTok.

Review:

I absolutely loved this recipe. I have been seeing Dubai chocolate all over the internet and I have wanted to try it for so long. I found this great recipe and got a chocolate mold and decided to try it out for myself. My friend and I followed this very easy step-by-step recipe, and the result was amazing!

The chocolate bar was so sweet and the filling was the perfect mixture of crunchy and creamy. The pistachio and chocolate went together perfectly, the flavors balancing each other out. The bar was very big and I could easily split it with my friend.

I got this recipe from https://www.chocolatesandchai.com/dubai-chocolate-bar/ by Sarah Hamouda, and she did a great job making the recipe easy to follow and have great results every time!

I will definitely be making this again, and so should you! I hope you enjoy!

Travel/Food

Cinnamon Streusel Muffin Review

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 By: Alice Rapacz

Ingredients:

Muffin

  • 1 ¾ cups all-purpose flour
  • 1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
  • ½ teaspoon baking soda
  • 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
  • ½ teaspoon salt
  • ½ cup/8 tablespoons unsalted butter (at room temperature)
  • ¾ cup light brown sugar
  • 2 eggs (at room temperature)
  • ½ cup sour cream (at room temperature)
  • ¼ cup whole milk
  • 1 tablespoon vanilla extract

Cinnamon Streusel Topping

  • ½ cup all-purpose flour
  • ¼ cup light brown sugar
  • 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
  • 3 tablespoons unsalted butter (melted)

Directions:

  1. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Line a 12 count muffin tin with cupcake liners or spray with non-stick cooking spray.
  2. In a medium bowl add the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon and salt, combine together.
  3. In the bowl of a stand mixer or in a large bowl with an electric mixer, cream together the butter and sugar, about 2-3 minutes.
  4. Add in the 2 eggs, sour cream, milk, and vanilla. Beat on medium speed until just combined.
  5. Add in the dry ingredients and use a spatula or spoon to combine just until there are no more dry flour patches remaining.
  6. Make the streusel topping by melting the butter in a microwave safe bowl. Next add the sugar to the melted butter and mix until combined. Then add the flour and cinnamon and mix together until you have clumps of the mixture.
  7. Put the batter into the muffin tin, making sure to fill the liners all the way to the top.
  8. Sprinkle each muffin with the streusel topping.
  9. Bake the muffins for 5 minutes at 425 degrees and immediately reduce the heat to 350 degrees and bake for an additional 12-15 minutes.
  10. Once a toothpick can be inserted into the muffin and comes out clean, the muffins are done.
  11. Allow the muffins to cool for 5 minutes in the muffin tin, then take them out and let them cool on a wire rack.
  12. Lastly, Enjoy!

Review:

I thought that this recipe from Chisel & Fork was really good. Typically for baking recipes, I like to use Sally’s Baking addiction, but this time I wanted to try something new. I found this recipe for Cinnamon Streusel Muffins and wanted to give it a try. I thought that the recipe was easy to follow and understand. I followed the directions step by step, first measuring out my dry ingredients, and in a separate bowl my wet. I used a stand mixer to combine the wet ingredients, and I found that the end result is not as smooth as I thought it would be. There were small chunks of sour cream in the mixture even though I had mixed it for more than enough time. I was a little surprised at first, but once I added the dry ingredients into the wet, it all came together really nicely.

Once I divided the muffin batter into the tin, I topped each muffin with the streusel. I added too much on the first muffins, so I had to divide and sprinkle them onto other muffins to make sure there was enough for each one. Once they were baked, they filled my house with a warm cinnamon smell.

When I tried the muffin warm for the first time, it had a perfect texture, light, and fluffy. The streusel on top added a perfect crunch, that wasn’t too crunchy, it just added the perfect texture. The muffin itself had a nice cinnamon flavor, but I thought that the addition of the streusel was needed for extra cinnamon flavor. Everyone in my family tried them and two days later all the muffins were gone. They are the perfect sweet treat or easy on the go breakfast. Overall, I would definitely recommend this recipe if you’re looking for a quick, easy and delicious muffin recipe.