I feel like I should be writing more about cooking things. But I haven't been. Cooking things that is.
At least I don't think so. I mean I made dinner last night (whole wheat fettuccine, sausage, tomato sauce) and it wasn't anything exciting. But I haven't been cooking because I haven't been eating. Something decided to wreak havoc on my body on Monday afternoon and I haven't a clue as to what happened. I went to grocery shop for the week and pulled into the lot then I got all shaky and light headed. My heart was racing and then I thought I was going to toss my cookies. I grocery shopped anyway because, what the hell, I was already there. Then went home and cried in bed because I thought I was dying. Boyfriend came home later and gave me a strict bed rest order that lasted through Tuesday. So I've been out of commission for a couple days and my stomach is still pretty much being a bitch, but it feels the same whether I eat anything or not.
Oh. But, I did make something! Carrot cake mix cookies with white chocolate cream cheese frosting. Except the cookies were really fluffy and spongy and light so instead of frosting the tops of them I flipped them over and made them into whoopie pies! Genius! I know, I know. And I think I have finally solved my white chocolate tempering problem. I have attempted several times to make white chocolate cream cheese frosting and every time with out fail, the white chocolate burns or turns back into white chocolate flakes upon hitting the cream cheese and butter in the mixing bowl. I seriously feel like I cannot win with this. But! BUT! The geniuses (genii?) at Philadelphia have fought my battle for me. They now make dessert cream cheese! Holy hell, yes! White chocolate, milk chocolate, and dark chocolate cream cheese. Amaaaaaazing. I cannot wait to experiment with the dark chocolate variety. And normally I am anti chocolate. But. I do love dark chocolate above all others. And I am thinking birthday cake thoughts here. Normally I go the fruity, sometimes frosting-less route, but I am envisioning amazing things with the dark chocolate cream cheese. Although I think there will have to be some sort of raspberry filling. Originally I was dreaming of a fluffy white cake with citrus curd in the middle and fluffy whip cream frosting and apricot preserve glazed fruit arranged all pretty on top. Now I am having second thoughts. Hmm...I am also still on the look out for a faboosh recipe to one up either of these birthday cake ideas. Thoughts? Anyone? Bueller?
Showing posts with label cookies. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cookies. Show all posts
Thursday, April 5, 2012
Wednesday, March 7, 2012
Back to Basics
Shhhhh....be vewy vewy quiet, I am being sneaky in the kitchen. So I know I promised you something fun and exciting and sweet. But, boyfriend, ever the traditionalist decided he had a cookie craving that only I could satisfy. (That is probably not true, but we were out of E.L Fudge cookies and Oreos, so what could I do?)
So no cookie pie, no apple crisp (at least for the time being) because I can only deal with dirtying and then washing so many dishes per day. The downside of not owning a dishwasher. So I contended with good old-fashioned chocolate chip cookies. I, like most experienced home cooks, have a go to recipe for chocolate chip cookies. In fact, it's my go to cookie base in general. I have tried others every so often, but I ALWAYS go back to the one I'm going to give you. Now, when baking I don't normally mess around with the recipe because baking is like science you have to have things in the correct ratios otherwise things don't turn out; savory recipes I can't leave alone, but to me, they're like art - I always have to put my own touches on things and ultimately I can usually correct something like too much acid or salt, etc. But I messed around with my go to cookie recipe today because it seems like boyfriend is having some inner turmoil. Eating healthy vs. eating tasty. So I wanted to help that out a little bit. And I did that by subbing in whole wheat flour for half the flour - next time I'm betting I can get away with all whole wheat.
Basic Cookie Recipe
3 Cups flour
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
2 sticks butter melted and cooled
1 cup white sugar
1 1/2 cups brown sugar
3 large eggs
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
2 1/2 cups chocolate chips
Pre-heat oven to 375. Sift (I know, I know, honestly I pretty much NEVER do this) flour, baking soda and set aside. Beat together both sugars and butter until smooth. Add in eggs and vanilla. Beat. Beat in flour mixture. Stir in chips. I don't measure my chips - I use a bag and a half. This time it was 1 bag of semi-sweet and half a bag of white chocolate chips. Also, I didn't have large eggs; I had teeny little medium eggs, so I used four of them instead of three. I won't say it was a mistake, everything turned out ok in the end, but I ended up adding a little extra flour and setting the dough in the fridge for 20 minutes because it was looser and stickier than I usually work with. This particular recipe makes ALOT of cookies. Here is my downfall, I get tired of putting out sheet after sheet of cookies so the cookies gradually get larger so I have to make fewer of them. Ultimately I ended up with roughly 40 large-ish cookies. Had I made them "normal" size I would probably have around 60. That rarely happens. I know boyfriend likes it better because he has "lots" of cookies, but in my opinion, 40 is still lots of cookies, they're just freakishly huge now.
I promise. To both you and myself that there will be something more exciting happening tomorrow.
Oh, and the steak - it was totally bad assly awesome.
So no cookie pie, no apple crisp (at least for the time being) because I can only deal with dirtying and then washing so many dishes per day. The downside of not owning a dishwasher. So I contended with good old-fashioned chocolate chip cookies. I, like most experienced home cooks, have a go to recipe for chocolate chip cookies. In fact, it's my go to cookie base in general. I have tried others every so often, but I ALWAYS go back to the one I'm going to give you. Now, when baking I don't normally mess around with the recipe because baking is like science you have to have things in the correct ratios otherwise things don't turn out; savory recipes I can't leave alone, but to me, they're like art - I always have to put my own touches on things and ultimately I can usually correct something like too much acid or salt, etc. But I messed around with my go to cookie recipe today because it seems like boyfriend is having some inner turmoil. Eating healthy vs. eating tasty. So I wanted to help that out a little bit. And I did that by subbing in whole wheat flour for half the flour - next time I'm betting I can get away with all whole wheat.
Basic Cookie Recipe
3 Cups flour
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
2 sticks butter melted and cooled
1 cup white sugar
1 1/2 cups brown sugar
3 large eggs
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
2 1/2 cups chocolate chips
Pre-heat oven to 375. Sift (I know, I know, honestly I pretty much NEVER do this) flour, baking soda and set aside. Beat together both sugars and butter until smooth. Add in eggs and vanilla. Beat. Beat in flour mixture. Stir in chips. I don't measure my chips - I use a bag and a half. This time it was 1 bag of semi-sweet and half a bag of white chocolate chips. Also, I didn't have large eggs; I had teeny little medium eggs, so I used four of them instead of three. I won't say it was a mistake, everything turned out ok in the end, but I ended up adding a little extra flour and setting the dough in the fridge for 20 minutes because it was looser and stickier than I usually work with. This particular recipe makes ALOT of cookies. Here is my downfall, I get tired of putting out sheet after sheet of cookies so the cookies gradually get larger so I have to make fewer of them. Ultimately I ended up with roughly 40 large-ish cookies. Had I made them "normal" size I would probably have around 60. That rarely happens. I know boyfriend likes it better because he has "lots" of cookies, but in my opinion, 40 is still lots of cookies, they're just freakishly huge now.
I promise. To both you and myself that there will be something more exciting happening tomorrow.
Oh, and the steak - it was totally bad assly awesome.
Thursday, March 31, 2011
everyone i know is getting married and having babies. i'm just making ridiculous cookies
Oh boy. I am totally going to have to go on a healthy [cooking] kick after this recipe. Because this is some serious uber indulgence going on right now. And I have to give credit where credit is due: I am totally cribbing from Peabody. She is definitely my go to girl for seriously indulgent sweets. And I felt like I needed/deserved a little indulgence in my life (especially after making the fat free muffins this morning - which are actually seriously good. I have to give a plug here for Krusteaz fat free muffin mixes. So tasty, you'd never know there was no fat in it.) So I made cookies and cream cookies. Now I know it seems like a waste of perfectly good cookies (double stuff oreos to be exact), but it just sounded so good and perfect. And I like cookies and cream flavored things (like ice cream) but actually kind of hate cream filled cookies - oreos, specifically. I think it originated from a fear regarding my appearance after eating them (hello, being thirteen with black junk stuck in your braces. Totally embarrassing.). But, never the less, there will be some heading over to my parents' house tomorrow night to be judged by the connoisseur of cookies, my father.
Cookies and Cream Cookies
1 cup butter (2 sticks)
1 1/4 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
10 Double Stuff Oreos
2 eggs
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 cups flour
Peabody calls for a bag of Hershey's Cookies 'n' Cream drops, but my local grocery store didn't have them. I substituted that for 3/4 of a bag of cookies 'n' cream miniatures which had both white chocolate with cookie pieces and milk chocolate with cookie pieces. Basically the only part I didn't use was the plain milk chocolate miniatures. And I chopped each one into thirds.
I am fortunate enough to have access to a stand mixer, which makes life infinitely easier. Basically the way I listed the ingredients is the way they go in. Start with your butter at room temp, if it's not nuke it for 30 sec or so to soften it just a little. Cream butter and sugar and vanilla until it is fluffy. Add in Oreos and mix until they are broken down into small pieces. I didn't necessarily believe that they would break down in the mixer, but low and behold they totally did. Then add your eggs one at a time and allow them to mix in between. Then toss in your dry ingredients. Finally remove your bowl from the mixing stand and fold in your chocolate, be it drops or miniatures. Honestly, the batter on this one is almost better than the actual cookie - it reminded me of super concentrated cookies 'n' cream ice cream flavor. So good.
This recipe is kind of beautiful because it is a one bowl wonder. I LOVE stuff like that. Especially when I am the primary kitchen cleaner in my apartment. That is pretty much my domain where cleaning comes into it. The dining room is the female roommate's domain, their bedroom is up to them, the bathroom is shared between she and I, and for the most part the living room is all them. So yeah, the less stuff I dirty in the kitchen, the better. And trust me, I dirtied plenty of stuff when I made dinner.
Cookies and Cream Cookies
1 cup butter (2 sticks)
1 1/4 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
10 Double Stuff Oreos
2 eggs
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 cups flour
Peabody calls for a bag of Hershey's Cookies 'n' Cream drops, but my local grocery store didn't have them. I substituted that for 3/4 of a bag of cookies 'n' cream miniatures which had both white chocolate with cookie pieces and milk chocolate with cookie pieces. Basically the only part I didn't use was the plain milk chocolate miniatures. And I chopped each one into thirds.
I am fortunate enough to have access to a stand mixer, which makes life infinitely easier. Basically the way I listed the ingredients is the way they go in. Start with your butter at room temp, if it's not nuke it for 30 sec or so to soften it just a little. Cream butter and sugar and vanilla until it is fluffy. Add in Oreos and mix until they are broken down into small pieces. I didn't necessarily believe that they would break down in the mixer, but low and behold they totally did. Then add your eggs one at a time and allow them to mix in between. Then toss in your dry ingredients. Finally remove your bowl from the mixing stand and fold in your chocolate, be it drops or miniatures. Honestly, the batter on this one is almost better than the actual cookie - it reminded me of super concentrated cookies 'n' cream ice cream flavor. So good.
This recipe is kind of beautiful because it is a one bowl wonder. I LOVE stuff like that. Especially when I am the primary kitchen cleaner in my apartment. That is pretty much my domain where cleaning comes into it. The dining room is the female roommate's domain, their bedroom is up to them, the bathroom is shared between she and I, and for the most part the living room is all them. So yeah, the less stuff I dirty in the kitchen, the better. And trust me, I dirtied plenty of stuff when I made dinner.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)