Aran somewhere got it into his head that he needs to make muffins, specifically chocolate chip muffins.  He's been asking about it for a couple of days now.  Today, after Kala finished grocery shopping, we made them.

We used a standard recipe for muffins from a cookbook, and I asked Aran if we should make regular chocolate chip muffins or chocolate chocolate chip muffins.  He immediately voted for the chocolate chocolate chip ones.  We added cocoa and chips to the batter, spooned it into paper-lined muffin tins, and baked.  They came out perfectly, and now the whole house smells wonderful.

A while ago I came across a recipe for making Twinkies at home, yesterday I decided to try it.  It appealed to the complicated baker in me.

First I had to make molds for the cakes, which I did out of tin foil.  Then I made the batter, which came out just fine, and carefully filled the molds.  Baking was no trouble, and they came out perfectly.  Then I whipped the filling.

I don't own a pastry gun to get the filling in there, but I have a trick that works just as well.  I scooped the flling into a plastic ziplock bag, squeezed out the air, and snipped off a bottom corner.  Presto!  Instant pastry gun.  I filled the cales through the bottoms and had quite a lot of leftover filling.  I might try for some filled cupcakes later or something.

Once they were done, I sealed each in a small snack bag.  Twinkies!  They tasted great, and the boys certainly liked them.

The powerful new mixer I got for Christmas has a really good dough hook on it, and I decided to try making bagels.  I looked up a couple of recipes on-line and picked one that seemed to be good.  As you know, Bob, bagels are boiled before they are baked, and this was a new experience for me.  I followed the recipe assiduously.  The dough hook performed beautifully! (Although I like making bread, I hate kneading it, and making large batches of bread dough isn't feasible in my bread maker.)  The bagels boiled up huge, though--deli-sized.  If I could do it again, I'd make them half-sized. They're baking in the oven now.  We'll see how they come out.

Update:

They came out pretty good.  Baking time needed to be longer than the recipe's stated time of 35-40 minutes. The undersides were clearly still damp, so I flipped them over and left them in for an extra ten minutes. Quite tasty with cream cheese bought just for the occasion!  Nom nom nom!

Supper will be late.