[Italiancook]

I baked my husband his favorite chocolate cake -- my grandmother's recipe. I use my grandmother's cake pan, although I've been thinking for a while I should buy a testing kit to see if it has lead. It's in oven now. I'll ice it with a fluffy vanilla icing.

[Italiancook]

I made Double Chocolate Brownies this morning to giveaway to someone who had to make a difficult major life decision recently.

[Italiancook]

Update on the PaperChef Parchment liners. Previously, I had only used them on my go-to muffins, which are small. Now that I've made Blueberry-Nectarine Muffins, which are larger, I'm thinking the size of the muffin might determine when the liners pull away from the sides. With the larger muffins, the liners adhered to the muffin sides. Regardless, I really like this product.

[Italiancook]

Thanks, BakerAunt, for providing the oil website that you use.

For breakfast this morning, I made Food Network's Blueberry-Nectarine Muffins:
https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/food-network-kitchen/blueberry-nectarine-muffins-4621424

BakerAunt, the fat is oil, not butter. I used Light Olive Oil.

The total time on the recipe is 2 hours, which almost kept me from making them. But it didn't take that long, and I'm glad I made them. Recipe calls for course sugar on top. I had the sugar on the counter and still managed to forget it. Because I don't like really sweet muffins, I didn't miss the sugar. I used vanilla instead of almond extract, because I don't like the flavor of almonds, which means I omitted the almonds on top.

[Italiancook]

Thanks, chocomouse & Mike, for educating me on sandwich thins. Chocomouse, I checked them out on Arnold's website. I've never seen them in any of the stores here, but I also was never looking for them. I'm glad you found a recipe that works for you.

[Italiancook]

BakerAunt, did you find a chart online that tells you how much oil to substitute for butter? Or, do you guesstimate? If you found a chart, would you please tell us where it is on the Internet, if it's not too much bother. Thanks for thinking about this.

[Italiancook]

chocomouse, I don't know what "sandwich thins" are. Sandwiches on thin bread? Please educate me on this. Thanks!

[Italiancook]

Your birthday celebration sounds wonderful, Joan. Happy Birthday!

[Italiancook]

Thanks, BakerAunt, for weighing in on my speckly rolls. When I pulled them apart to put in the freezer, the torn edges were perfect. Thanks for the tenting suggestion.

I baked "Simple Banana Coffee Cake" from Allrecipes today. It's for breakfast tomorrow.

[Italiancook]

I baked Surprise Rolls today. The surprise is supposed to be that they're made with cottage cheese. But I received another, unwanted surprise. Does anyone care to offer a guess as to why this happened:

The finished rolls have black speckles of something on them. When I put the formed dough into the oven, I didn't notice anything black on the rolls. Somehow, these black thingies got onto the rolls in the oven. What could they be?

Otherwise, the rolls look great. Oh, btw, they're round rolls, baked in a 9" round pan.

Since I made them for the freezer and for my consumption only, I will eat them. But if I had made them for guests, I'd toss them out. The black dots are noticeable even though they don't completely cover the rolls.

[Italiancook]

BakerAunt, I'm curious. Which butter substitute do you use for spreading, say on toast, on your new lower-fat journey? I've used Olivio since the last century. I'm thinking you may have found a better option on the shelves these days.

[Italiancook]

I have Sara Moulton's Shortbread biscuits cooling as I type. They're for the freezer until I have strawberries to go on them. Here's a recipe of hers that similar to the one she was publishing a decade or longer ago. I use 1-1/4 c. cream & 3 tablespoons sugar (I use half white Splenda & half sugar). And I reduce the salt to 1/4 teaspoon. https://saramoulton.com/2013/04/cream-biscuits/

[Italiancook]

I don't experiment with herbs and spices, since I cook mostly from recipes.

What I remember about Velvetta is after my dad retired. The government was giving cheese to older adults, and my dad went for it. Turned out to be Velvetta, and he was happy to have it. Since he lived out-of-state, I don't know what he did with it. I just remember that after all his years of paying taxes, he thought he'd finally hit the pay-off. I don't know if the cheese was in the Velvetta box or other packaging. I just know he told me it was Velvetta.

[Italiancook]

Thanks for the warm welcome, Everyone.

[Italiancook]

When I was growing up, my mother made mac 'n cheese way too often. It was horrible. Dry, with terrible taste. I could only tolerate her mac 'n cheese during the summer when fresh tomatoes were in the garden. A fresh tomato on top of the macaroni made it tolerable.

Because of so many bad experiences, I've never tried mac 'n cheese as an adult. Once, I made Ina Garten's Four Cheese Penne (or is it 5 Cheese?), and it was good. She has a mac 'n cheese with tomatoes under the bread crumbs that looks good, but my aversion to mac 'n cheese is so strong I probably will never try it.

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