The Nutella milkshake experiment

Happy Easter everyone!

My newly trimmed three-year-old Shih tzu (who is always mistaken for a 4 month old puppy) says Hi!!! His name is Little one (obviously because of his size), and to whom I'll dedicate a whole blog post soon.

The dog I perpetually bully because of his forever-sticking-out-tongue

I'm guessing that everyone else is busy enjoying their last few minutes strolling in the beach before school/work starts again. All the while, I'm stuck at home lounging around, catching up with some TV series, feeling the scorching summer heat of the sun.

After hearing mass and idly observing how the little kids endure the heat to find those Easter eggs around the event's place, I toggled along with my mom to the grocery store to stock up ingredients for more baking adventures. I bought sugars, flour, cocoa powder, and more chocolates (especially the Easy Melt Chocolate buttons, because my sister ate them all up). We also ended up buying a gallon of ice cream just because it is too hot. Trust me, the weather here is no good at all. The temperature was close to 40 degrees Celsius! Well, it may be appreciated by those tired of the cold, winter days. But me, personally, this heat is just too much. Snow come here!!!

Anyway, when I got home, I ate some Vanilla ice cream and topped it with Hershey's syrup. Yum.
But I want more. I saw this Nutella jars at home (we really do have a lot, actually) and acted on making up my own milkshake - a Nutella milkshake.

What is a milkshake? How does it differ from a smoothie?
 According to the Free Dictionary online:

milkshake (mĭlk´ shāk`)

n.

1.

A frothy drink of milk and flavoring and sometimes fruit or ice cream, shaken together or blended in a blender.

 A smoothie, on the other hand, is a blended, icy drink. It does not require any ice cream! :)

My own version of a Nutella milkshake

 Here's basically what I did to achieve this Nutella milkshake. I just really tossed everything I wanted into the mean machine then, voila! perfect milkshake for me! I did not realize milkshake was such a joy to do! :)

I added bananas the second time around and it tasted wonderful! I shared this to my boyfriend, and he did a version of it with his own "healthy" alternative. He used his protein shake powder instead of milk. It made it more chocolate-y, yes? But hey, it's more fun than drinking that protein shake straight up almost everyday, right?


You can also add whipped cream and top it with chocolate syrup! :)
  Ahh, the sweet smell of icy satisfaction.
Good book + yummy drink + cute little pet = Happy Easter!

Perfect summer cooler!

 
Furry dog blog posts soon! :)
 

Chocolate Chip Cookies

It's Good Friday today. While idling around reflecting, I decided to take this time to start and fuel up my blog (since "holidays and vacations" like this are limited).

Two weeks ago, my boyfriend and I were battling over my "over-indulgence" in baking tools/accessories which were not really needed in homemade baking creations; case in point: boxes for cakes, cookie cutters, toppers, etc. I did not want to bake again without going all out even in the decorations, and he is so supportive even if we have been driving around (well, he IS the one driving always) and circling places to no avail. Mind you, I'm no pro in these baking, so what I should have concentrated on instead is perfecting those little sugar concoctions, as he always reminded me. In the end, I succumbed to baking again, without my little "extras". I am a newbie in baking. Before this, I only have had baked less than 10 creations. Mostly brownies from recipes I pick up in the internet like the good ol' Hershey's recipes. Well, at work I sometimes observe (or pry) from the experts. But, that is another story.

Anyway, so my boyfriend convinced (or railroaded) me to bake during one of his visits here at home, so I grabbed the one on top of my head -- chocolate chip cookies! I checked the recipe and ingredients needed, and thankfully, I got them all covered (or so I thought). Here's my first attempt at baking again! Mixing became a bump in the process because I did not have any stand nor hand mixer. Yes, I did the good old twirling motions with my friend, the spatula. (No judgements, okay. I better invest in a really good mixer soon.)

Fresh from the oven cookies - soft almost melting chocolate chips

The aftermath

 I followed Neiman Marcus Chocolate Chip Cookies which I got through my good friend Google. Why? It has the simplest ingredients I could find. And its sugar-butter-coffee-chocolate proportions seemed good enough for me. (But of course, what do I know? Haha) I tweaked a little of the recipe because of my ingredients (or lack thereof).  

  
Here's the ingredients and procedure with the tweaks I incorporated. I know that in baking you should follow the recipe down to its last detail, but I guess the changes in the flavoring does not really count, right? Or does it? Anyway, here it is.

Kitchen adventure number 1: SUCCESS!

I poured in the salt while mixing the butter and the sugars 'cause when I just sift it with flour, it sometimes tends to not be distributed evenly. Okay, blame it on my manual powers of mixing. 

Also, as mentioned, I placed brewed coffee instead of the espresso powder, but I think a stronger coffee would work out better if you want that bittersweet taste of cookies.  

My chocolate chip cookies were also limited, so I used chocolate buttons instead, which i sliced into little squares! 

 Nevertheless, my cookies turned out great! Boyfriend loved it, even family loved it (and our househelp)! They finished everything in a blink of an eye. Oh, the wonders of baking. :)

What's good to bake next? Hmm.