As you may be able to guess from the photo, I made one change to this recipe.  I choose to use a thick sliced white bread instead of the french bread.  I will probably try the french bread in the future with this recipe, but I felt like using a bread I was use to with french toast for the first try at the recipe.

The flavours were excellent in the recipe!  My only suggestions, when it says soak for a few seconds on each side, make sure to not over soak, it really means a few seconds.  My other suggestion is to definitely make sure that you have fully cooked each piece thoroughly!

I am also a big fan of cinnamon, so I also sprinkled more cinnamon on my toast with the powdered sugar!

The picture seen above is an actual picture I took of my completed french toast, it is not taken from the internet or played with in anyway.

Crock Pot Recipes

• Fiesta Chicken 
• Mac and Cheese 
• Mushroom & Onion Chicken with Rice 

Desserts

• Brown Sugar Fudge 
• Cathedral Cookies 
• Cherry Polka Dot Fudge 
• Chocolate & Butterscotch Fudge 
• Chocolate Covered Banana Pops 
• Cookies & Cream Fudge 
• Lemon Lover Cookies 
• Macaroon Cookies with Kisses
• Maple Sugar Cookies 
• Nanaimo Bars 
• Peanut Butter & Chocolate Chip Cattails 
• Peanut Butter Blossoms
• Peanut Butter Cake Bars 
• Peanut Butter Fudge 
• Vanilla Lemon Cake 
• White Chip Lemon Streusel Bars 

Main Dishes

• Calzones 
• Classic French Toast 

1 cup sugar
1 cup packed brown sugar
4 eggs
2 tsp vanilla extract
2 cups all purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 package (11 1/2 oz) milk chocolate chips

1. In a large bowl, cream the butter, peanut butter, sugar and brown sugar.  Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.  Beat in vanilla.  Combine the flour, baking powder and salt; gradually add to the creamed mixture.  Stir in chocolate chips.
2. Spread into a greased 13 x 9 inch baking pan.  Bake at 350 degrees for 45-50 minutes or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean.  Cool on wire rack.  Cut into bars.

Tips/Tricks/Notes

This recipe has a great peanut buttery taste and is nice and light for a cake!  I will note, it is very crumbly, so watch for the mess!  Also, it ended up double the thickness of the original recipe pictures.  It's a perfect example of why I take my own pictures!  The next time I do this recipe I may also turn down my oven slightly, but I have come to realize my oven seems to get hotter then most others.  I have had to lower the temperature for almost every recipe I have done!  The only other thing, I used semi-sweet chocolate chips instead of milk chocolate because that is what I had on hand!

Recommendation:  Try crunchy peanut butter versus smooth!

The picture seen above is an actual picture I took of my completed cake, it is not taken from the internet or played with in anyway.

As per a suggestion from a friend, I will be creating a Archive Post this week that will link on my right column.  This is so that new visitors and of course my regular visitors can easily access older recipes I have posted.  I thank Corrine, for this wonderful idea!

Crock Pot Recipes

• Chicken Fajitas

Main Dishes

• Classic French Toast

Fudge

• Chocolate & Peanut Butter Fudge
• Molten Middle Cookies

Review of Last Week

Crock Pot Recipes

• Make-Believe Lasagna - Completed, recipe to be posted
• Chicken Fajitas - Move to this week

Fudge & Cookies

• Nutella Candy Cookie Pizza - Planned for a later date
• Maple Fudge - Recipe did not turn out, I will be trying to figure out what went wrong
• Chocolate & Butterscotch Fudge - Recipe posted
• Mint Chocolate Fudge - Planned for a later date, grocery store was out of peppermint extract
• Peanut Butter Cake Bars - Completed, recipe to be posted
• Lemon Lover Cookies - Recipe posted
• Molten Middle Cookies - Moved to this week

Lemon Lover Cookies


















3/4 cup butter, softened
3 tbsp sugar
2 tsp lemon juice
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup cornstarch
1 tsp grated lemon peel

Lemon Frosting
1/4 cup butter, softened
1 cup confectioners sugar
2 tsp lemon juice
1 tsp grated lemon peel

1. In a small bowl, cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy; about 5 minutes.  Beat in lemon juice.  Combine the flour, cornstarch and lemon peel; gradually add to creamed mixture and mix well.
2. Shape into a 1-1/2 roll; wrap in plastic wrap.  Refrigerate for 1 hour or until firm.  Unwrap and cut into 1/4 inch slices.  Place 2 inches apart on ungreased baking sheets.
3. Bake at 350 degrees for 10-12 minutes or until edges are golden brown.  Cool for 3 minutes before removing to wire racks to cool completely.
Frosting
4. In a small bowl, beat butter until fluffy.  Add the confectioners sugar, lemon juice and peel; beat until smooth.  Spread over cooled cookies; sprinkle with additional lemon peel if desired.  Let stand until set.  Store in airtight container.

Tips/Tricks/Notes

Being an avid lemon lover this recipe was a must try.  After completing the cookie dough and baking the cookies I felt I had missed something, but I tasted a cookie before icing and it tasted perfect.  Later on in the afternoon well making another recipe I discovered I miss read the measurements on the package of my butter.  Here I had under measured the butter for this recipe.  Although I had made this mistake the cookies still turned out well, and healthier with less butter!  I was very shocked with my mistake as I am a stickler for double and triple checking everything, but mistakes can still be made!  

Recipe adjustment: Instead of garnishing cookies with lemon peel, I decided to add yellow food colouring to the icing.  I added 4 drops of yellow to get the nice light yellow you see in the pictures above.  I also used an decorating tip for easy icing of the cookies. 

The picture seen above is an actual picture I took of my completed cookies, it is not taken from the internet or played with in anyway.

Chocolate and Butterscotch Fudge
The picture seen above is an actual picture I took of my completed fudge, it is not taken from the internet or played with in anyway.

Coming This Week

Every Monday I am going to start posting what recipes I am planning to try for the week.  Yes, I know today is Tuesday, yesterday was a holiday here in Ontario and I was taking it easy!  After this post, all others will be on Monday.  I may not be able to get all the recipes I list posted with my comments in the same week I try them as some weeks I will have a lot more recipes, but I will try to get them posted within 2 weeks of the coming this week post.

Crock Pot Recipes

• Make-Believe Lasagna
• Chicken Fajitas

Fudge & Cookies

• Nutella Candy Cookie Pizza
• Maple Fudge
• Chocolate & Butterscotch Fudge
• Mint Chocolate Fudge
• Peanut Butter Cake Bars
• Lemon Lover Cookies
• Molten Middle Cookies

Crock Pot Mushroom and Onion Chicken















6 skinless, boneless chicken breasts
6 tbsp butter
1 (1oz) package dry onion soup mix
1 cup converted long-grain white rice
1/4 cup grated parmesan cheese
1 1/2 cups milk
2 cans condensed cream of mushroom soup
salt & pepper

1. Mix together onion soup mix, milk, cream of mushroom soup and rice in a medium bowl.
2. Lightly grease slow cooker.  Lay chicken breasts in the bottom of slow cooker.  Place one tablespoon butter on each chicken breast and pour soup mixture over all.  Season with salt and pepper to taste and sprinkle with grated parmesan cheese.
3. Cook on low for 8 to 10 hours, or on high for 4 to 6 hours.

Tips/Tricks/Notes

The original name I found this recipe under was "Parmesan Chicken", but I decided to rename it due to the fact that the parmesan cheese isn't even tasted.  The mushroom and onion flavours jump out more then the parmesan.  I used only 3 chicken breasts since there are only 2 of us in the house and therefore 6 would be way too much food.  I did however, leave all the other ingredients the same as we always enjoy lots of rice!

My only suggestion is to not over cook this!  I cooked this on low for almost 9 hours and found the chicken was a little dry.  Overall, it wasn't the best slow-cooker recipe I have tried so far.  The chicken was nothing spectacular, just chicken, but I will probably make it again as the rice was a big hit in the house!

What is Flour?
In the culinary sense, flour is a powder made of cereal grains, other seeds, or roots.

Types of Flour
Below are some of the most common types of flour with small descriptions.  (www.about.com)

Wheat Flour
Wheat flour is the most common flour used in baking. There are different types of wheat flour, and they're distinguished by the amount of gluten they contain.

Gluten is the wheat's natural protein, and it's what gives baked goods their structure. When dough is kneaded, these glutens develop and become firm. Flours made from hard, high-protein varieties of wheat are called strong flours. They have a higher gluten content. Flours made from softer, low-protein wheats are called weak flours, and are lower in gluten.

All-Purpose Flour
All-purpose flour is formulated to have a medium gluten content of around 12 percent or so. This makes it a good middle-of-the-road flour that can be used for a whole range of baking, from crusty breads to fine cakes and pastries. Even so, most professional bakers don't use all-purpose flour but instead use either bread flour, cake flour or pastry flour, depending on what they are baking.

One sifted cup of all-purpose flour should weigh around 4½ ounces or 125 grams.

Bread Flour
Bread flour is a strong flour, meaning that it has a relatively high gluten content — usually around 13 to 14 percent. A handful of bread flour will feel coarse and will look slightly off-white. Bread flour is used for making crusty breads and rolls, pizza doughs and similar products.

One cup of bread flour will weigh around 5 ounces or 140 grams.

Cake Flour
Cake flour is made from soft wheat and has a lower gluten content — around 7½ to 9 percent. Its grains are visibly finer than bread flour, and it is much whiter in color. Its fine, soft texture makes it preferable for tender cakes and pastries.

One sifted cup of cake flour will weigh around 3½ ounces or 99 grams.

Pastry Flour
Pastry flour is slightly stronger than cake flour, at around 9 to 10 percent gluten. It can be used for biscuits, muffins, cookies, pie doughs and softer yeast doughs. It has a slightly more off-white color than cake flour.

One sifted cup of pastry flour will weigh just over 3½ ounces, or around 101 grams.

Self-Rising Flour
Self-rising flour is a peculiar bird. It's basically ordinary all-purpose flour that has baking powder and salt added to it. Intended as a convenience, it's really anything but — the main problem being that there's no way to control how much baking powder it contains. Also, when stored in humid climates, the baking powder in the flour will quickly lose its effectiveness, making things even more unpredictable. Unless you have no other options, this type of flour is probably best avoided.

Vanilla Lemon Cake
The picture seen above is an actual picture I took of my completed cake, it is not taken from the internet or played with in anyway.

Cornstarch

Definition; it is a thickening agent that is the bland, gluten-free alternative to flour for frying and for sauces and gravies. Use it in cakes, cookies, pies, and a host of other sweet goods as well. Many cooks prefer using cornstarch as it imparts no additional flavor to foods.

Usage Tips from BigOven

• Cornstarch is a “super-thickener” compared to flour. The starchy granules attract liquids and expand, but only for a short time and not at high temperatures. Use only half as much when substituting for flour. The exception is acidic foods; these will decrease the power of cornstarch.

• Always make a paste of cornstarch and cold water (called a slurry) before adding to heated foods to prevent lumping. Do not overcook as it will begin to break down and thin out. Stir continuously but gently. Vigorous whisking will also cause loss of texture.

• When cornstarch paste is added, cook over medium heat and bring to a boil for about one minute. Remove and serve.

• Do not freeze any cooked recipe that contains cornstarch.

• Cornstarch can cloud a clear sauce but creates a nice sheen on pie crusts.

• Blend it with flour for a richer texture in cakes and pies.

• In Britain, it is called cornflour, but do not confuse this product elsewhere, which refers to a ground cornmeal product.

• If problems occur when using cornstarch, the best remedy is to add more liquid instead of additional cornstarch. In many cases, there may not be enough liquid to begin with, which does not allow the starch granules to enlarge to full capacity. Excessive sugars and fats can also inhibit thickening.

Don't Have Cornstarch?  All out of Cornstarch?
Substitute with All-Purpose Flour!
Preparation:
Just replace the cornstarch in your recipe with double the amount of all-purpose flour, and prepare as usual.