HOW TO: Perfectly Creamed Butter and Sugar

It's always in recipes, I feel. Butter, sugar, together in a "coarse meal." But here are a couple tips on how to perfectly cream butter and sugar every time.

• Always have butter at room temperature.

If your butter is soft, your life is gonna be sooo much easier. Try taking it out of the fridge 20 beforehand, or I like to heat it up in the wrapper for 20 seconds in the microwave. No more, no less.

• Cut the butter into chunks

If the butter is in smaller pieces, it will be much easier to combine with the sugar

• Start Slow, then Speed Up

I've found the way to get the creamiest possible mixture you could ever dream of. Start your mixer at a slow speed, letting all the sugar stick to it. Slowly increase your speed, letting the mixture be combine for a while on each level until you feel it needs to be faster. The key: take your time on each level and don't go too fast.



I hoped this was helpful! Maybe I'll do some more in the future. As for my trip to New Orleans. It got canceled because of the snow. Just kidding! Almost though, we got out just in time, and I took so many pictures, it took two devices to take them all. I can't wait to show you!
             -Rhode Island Red

New Orleans!

I'm going to New Orleans!!
I will take a bunch of pictures, I promise. And I will try to do some more mini series stuff, because New York was just kinda sad. I'm sorry.

See you soon!!
-Rhode Island Red

P.S. I'm sorry I there was no recipe's for valentine's day. I still have to finish a post for lemon poppy seed muffins, and i have a LOT of homework. I'll try to get lots of stuff up soon though!

Easy Banana Bread!

          Instead of making banana chocolate chip muffins for breakfast this week, I decided to switch it up a little. Last time I did that, I ended up with weird textured muffin that was not made from my original recipe. Not very good. So this time I opted out of muffins completely. This recipe was from the Hershey's website, and it's very, very easy. It takes very little prep time, but it does have to bake for an hour. But trust me, well worth the wait. I made this recipe twice, one the way the recipe originally said, one with altered ingredients.

This was my first batch. It was a little too salty, so I halved the salt.

I also substituted plum puree for shortening to make it healthier.

I still used white flour, but you could swap in whole wheat flour.

Mini chocolate chips are really fun to use. Sometimes they're just more fun than regular chocolate chips.

This recipe is so simple, and the ingredients are pretty flexible. It's definitely a go-to recipe. Bake it the night before, and have delicious, super fast breakfast for at least a week.

Easy Banana Bread 

• 1/2 cup butter, shortening or 1/4 cup plum puree
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup mashed banana (about 2 bananas)
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 2 cups flour (white or whole wheat)
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 cup mini chocolate chips

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Grease the bottom of a loaf pan. Combine butter/shortening/plum puree, eggs, mashed banana, salt, baking soda, baking powder, flour, and sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer. Fold in chocolate chips. Pour into loaf pan and bake for 60 to 65 minutes. Let cool. Dump over on to plate, loosen the sides with a knife if you have to, and wrap in plastic. Enjoy!