Cooking With Margaret

Tips And Tricks To Making Boxed Cake And Brownie Mixes Taste Homemade Everyone loves a good cake, or a delicious brownie, but quite a few people can be intimidated by making a  (or just baking alone) recipe from scratch based on all the measurements and “work” that can go into just cake.  Which is why many choose to use box mixes for a shortcut or just because they don’t have time. This post is to help those who use boxed mixes make them taste homemade. Everything below are tips and tricks used by friends, family and myself when using a boxed mix.  **Some of these changes may alter the cooking time of the cake Sift the mix, this allows all of the ingredients to get recombined after sitting on a shelf, in a box, for who knows how long  Oil vs Butter Now when it comes to using boxed mixes it should always be a 1:1 ratio of whatever fat you use, but changing out the oil for butter that has been melted, then cooled, can make a delicious difference  Water vs Milk, Cr...

One of my mom’s favorite cookbooks is A Taste of Oregon which she’s had for as long as I can remember, and around this time of year, we start making cookie platters for all of our friends and family to show them how much we care for them. This is always one of the recipes that we always make, because it is a favorite of everyone’s.  Peanut Blossoms Makes about 5 dozen Ingredients  Cookies Ingredients  1 cup granulated sugar 1 cup brown sugar 1 cup butter, softened  1 cup peanut butter  1/4 cup of milk or cream 2 eggs 1 tablespoon  of vanilla 3 1/2 cups sifted flour 2 teaspoons baking soda 1 1/2 teaspoon salt For Assembly  Granulated sugar 2 10oz bags of chocolate kisses, unwrapped  Preheat oven to 375 Cream softened butter, sugars and peanut butter until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs and vanilla. Sift flour, salt and baking soda together and stir into egg mixture.  Shape into balls  Roll in sugar,  Place on ungreased baking sheets....