The Kitchen Whisperer

1. Preheat oven to 300F degrees.
2. Sift the flour, sugar, and cornstarch together in another small bowl.
3. Add in the water and stir to combine.
4. Either with a whisk or hand mixer with a whisk attachment, beat the egg whites, extracts, and oil together in a bowl until frothy.
5. Then add in the flour mixture to the egg white mixture and whisk until you get a completely smooth, silky batter.
6. On a greased baking sheet, pour about 1 1/2 tsp of the batter and spread it out so that it forms a nice circle. Try to make it as thin as possible. Unless you like thicker fortune cookies. *TIP – I would start off by making 2 circles and then baking them. It’s not hard but you do have to work fast once you remove them from the oven. This is a great thing to involve the family in!
7. Bake for 14-15 minutes until the edges start to brown. Remove from oven.
8. Working quickly remove each circle from the cookie sheet. Watch, they are HOT!
9. With the bottom of the cookie facing up, put the written fortune in the middle of the cookie and fold the circle in half.
10. Then using a cup or glass, push the center of the fold over the edge of the glass to get their shape.
11. Remove it quickly from the glass and place in a muffin tin (ends facing down) so that it keeps its shape while cooling. You have to work quickly!! These cool super-fast and won’t be very foldable. If you don’t work fast you’ll end up with “misfortune” cookies.

1. Put the cocoa powder in a medium heavy-bottomed pot.
2. Put 1/3 cup of the boiling water into the pot with the cocoa and mix to form a thick paste.
3. Put the pot on the stove over medium-low heat.
4. Add the rest of the water and the butter. Stir well with a wooden spoon. It will be lumpy and funky looking but don’t despair. Just keep stirring. It will smooth out once it heats up.
5. Once it smooths out a bit, add the sugar and the corn syrup.
6. Stir to incorporate.
7. Keep the mixture on the stove over medium-low heat and bring it up to a simmer. By this point it should be smooth and liquidy.
8. Now this is IMPORTANT! You need take a pastry brush and brush down the insides of the pot with water. As the mixture comes up to a simmer, brush down the insides of the pot with water to dissolve any stray sugar crystals. If you don’t do this, if you get one sugar crystal in the fudge sauce it’ll end up turning it into solid candy.
9. Working fast, use a pastry brush dipped in a little cold water. Try not to get extra water into the mixture You really only have to do this a few times.
10. Steps 8 and 9 should be fairly quick as you only want this to simmer exactly 8 minutes WITHOUT stirring. So yes, cook this for exactly 8 minutes. Now keep in mind you only want this to be at a good simmer/low boil. Keep an eye on your heat as you may need to adjust it.
11. As soon as your 8 minutes are done, remove the pan from the stove.
12. Add the vanilla and stir with a CLEAN wooden spoon. Why? You don’t want any stray undissolved sugar crystals to get into your luscious sauce!
13. Pour into an air-tight, heat-proof glass jar. Store in the fridge.
14. To reheat, remove the jar from the fridge and bring to room temp. Wait… who am I kidding? This’ll be gone in 1 setting
15. Once at room temp, remove the lid and put it in a pot of warm water where the water comes up a few inches up the side of the jar and reheat for about 5-10 minutes or until the sauce is heated through.

1. Heat the oil in a medium skillet.
2. Add the shallots and saute until tender about 3-5 minutes.
3. Add the garlic, jalapeno and cumin and saute for about 1 minute.
4. Add the shrimp, tequila and cook until the shrimp are pink, about 1-3 minutes per side.
5. Remove from the heat and add the shrimp, lime juice, cilantro and salt and pepper.

To broil:

1. In a bowl, combine all of the ingredients but the shrimp and mix well.
2. Add in the shrimp.
3. Stir gently to combine.
4. Cover and refrigerate for 1 hour.
5. Preheat oven to broil setting with rack in the middle.
6. Lay shrimp on a single layer of a baking pan; discarding the marinade
7. Broil for about 2-3 minutes or until the shrimp are pink.

1. In a medium bowl whisk the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Set aside.
2. Using your stand mixer, beat the oil/(applesauce), sugars, eggs, vanilla extract and espresso powder for 3 minutes.
3. Add the shredded zucchini to the dry ingredients and toss to coat the zucchini evenly.
4. Add in both chocolate chunks and combine gently.
5. In batches add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients using a spatula to incorporate everything until just mixed. Do NOT use your mixer.
6. Cover the muffin cake batter with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 1 hour (you can go overnight for this).
7. When you’re ready to bake, preheat the oven to 425F
8. Spray the tops of the cupcake pan with non-stick spray (you want to spray around the tops of the pan to prevent the muffin cakes from sticking when they rise).
9. Line with cupcake liners – start off by lining 6 and add more as you go.
10. Remove the muffin cake batter from the fridge and using an ice cream scoop, fill the tins almost to the top of the paper liners. Don’t go over. You want to see about an 1/8” of an inch of paper. If you don’t have enough batter to make 12 cupcakes, fill the empty cavities ½ way full with water.
11. Bake for 9 minutes at 425.
12. Reduce the heat to 350 and bake for 7-9 minutes or until a toothpick comes out barely clean (crumbs are OK). *IMPORTANT – do not open the oven door to drop the heat. Let the heat drop down naturally.
13. Remove from oven and cool in the pan for 1 minute.
14. Gently remove the muffin cakes from the pan and cook on rack. Do not leave them in the pan to cool completely as they bottoms and sides will become soggy. Leaving them in the pan builds up too much moisture.

1. Never use a mixer to incorporate your dry ingredients to your wet. Use a spatula or spoon.
2. Do not over mix your batter.
3. Cover your batter and refrigerate for at least 1 hour (can go overnight as well).
4. Preheat your oven to 425F. Yes, I know the recipe calls for 350 but trust me on this. I typically bake my muffins in the upper third of the oven. You see placing the muffins in the upper third of the oven it tends to be hotter and the heat more constant. You can most certainly use the middle rack as well if you want.
5. Spray the top of your muffin pan with non-stick spray.
6. Line the pan with cupcake/muffin liners.
7. Fill the muffin papers almost ALL THE WAY TO THE TOP OF THE PAPER. (just leave about an 1/8″ from the top). Yes I know, it’s spilled over before but this works.
8. If you have empty cavities in your muffin tin (not enough batter), remove the liner and add 1/2 cup water in each.
9. Bake 6-9 minutes at 425. The muffins should be about a 1/4″-1/2″ above the paper. That’s the sign the heat can be turned down.
10. Reduce heat to 350 (DO NOT OPEN THE DOOR TO DROP THE TEMP.. sorry for the YELLING.. lol) and bake for 6-10 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out barely clean (crumbs are OK). *Note: this will depend on your actual recipe.
11. Remove from the oven and cool in the pan on a rack for 1-2 minutes.
12. Remove the muffins (they will be hot) from the pan and cool on the rack. Do not leave them in the pan to cool completely as they bottoms and sides will become soggy. Leaving them in the pan builds up too much moisture.