Cookie Fail/Win

**Note to my faithful readers: I made these cookies about a month ago.  I didn't want to post until I had a recipe for you!  These would be great any time of the year, perhaps some heart-shaped treats for your favorite valentine? :) I also have a recipe for pumpkin pie coming up that will knock your socks off!  Same thing, just waiting to get another copy of the recipe here (I lost mine! Woops!).  Enjoy, and I apologize for being a little late!**

Alright folks. I gotta be straight with you.

The "horn" cookies didn't make it to fruition. This is the point where I tell you all that *cringe!* I'm human. See, the recipe calls for evaporated milk, and I'll be darned if that's not RIGHT next to the condensed milk in the grocery store! My snarky, sarcastic side says I should blame this cookie failure on the grocery store...but I'm fully aware that I was rushing through my list of things to buy. The worst part? I even opened the can!!! The only reason I caught the mistake was that I looked at the recipe to see that it called for 6.5 oz of evaporated milk and thought, "Gee, this a 14 oz can, what a pain...wait...CONDENSED?!?!!? OH come ON!" So I scratched the idea (and about 6 cups of flour on top of that..."ouch!", says my wallet) and moved on.

So what I have for you today are some perfectly delightful Sugar Cookies, courtesy of Everyday Food Magazine. They turned out to be really cute, thanks to my new cookie cutters, and sparkly white decorative sugar from my favorite cooking store: Hill's Kitchen. Seriously. If you live here, go there! It's nothing short of the best!!

Today's sugar cookie recipe was a bit strange. The method to make them was very much like making pie dough, in that it required the butter to be cold and cut into the dry ingredients. I made these right after my mix-up with the horn cookies, so I started off flustered. Genius that I am, I forgot to add one of the sticks of butter at the beginning! So where it says "Pulse until it looks like coarse crumbs" I was thinking, "Well, not really...but onward!" Yep. So I added the eggs, the vanilla, and I pulsed and pulsed wondering just why it wasn't looking like "wet sand" as the recipe said. So I walk over to grab a spoon to clear the sides of the bowl, and what do I see? a FULL stick of butter on the counter. I won't repeat the expletives that were shouted for your innocent eyes...but I'm pretty sure my landlord upstairs might think I have Tourette's after this day of madness.

So here's where, if my husband were home, I would cry and probably throw a couple things around. Since I had no audience, my thought was, "Well...at this point it can't get any worse!" so onward I went.

AND IT WORKED!!!!!! Holy guacamole folks. I was seriously not expecting this. I cut the butter into pieces, popped them in the food processor, and together it came. Amazing. These cookies turned out so cute, and so delicious! I used a simple recipe for royal icing for some of them, and I used red and white sugar for the candy canes. So while I hope you don't feel the need to throw things around or scream expletives while you bake them, I do hope you enjoy them as much as I with did! With that, on to the recipe!

Citrus Sugar Cookies adapted from Martha Stewart Everyday Food, December 2009 issue

Makes 40 3-inch cookies

• 4 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for working
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 3/4 teaspoon coarse salt
• 1 1/4 cups (2 1/2 sticks) cold unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1 large egg plus 1 large egg white, lightly beaten
• 2 teaspoons finely grated lemon zest

1. In a food processor, combine flour, baking powder, and salt; pulse to mix. Add butter and pulse until mixture resembles coarse crumbs (if you're like me and you don't have a food processor, you can sift together the flour, baking powder and salt and then grate the butter into the dry mixture, lightly tossing to incorporate). Add sugar, eggs, and lemon zest and process until the mixture resembles wet sand.
2. Turn mixture out onto a lightly floured surface; knead several times until dough comes together. Divide into 3 portions; flatten each into a disk. Roll each disk to an 1/8-inch thickness between sheets of parchment (or wax paper). Stack dough (still in parchment/paper) on a baking sheet; refrigerate 20 minutes.
3. Preheat oven to 375 degrees, with racks in middle and lower thirds. Working with 1 dough sheet at a time, peel off parchment. With lightly floured cutters, cut dough into desired shapes and arrange, 1 inch apart, on baking sheets (reroll scraps). Refrigerate 15 minutes.

4. Bake until cookies are set but still pale, 7 to 9 minutes, rotating sheets halfway through. Transfer cookies to wire racks and let cool completely.

Another word for the wise? I used a spoon to decorate my cookies, and I found it to be the easiest way to get to the edges without looking too messy. The biggest trick is icing all the cookies before the frosting hardens in your bowls, so if you're really smart you'll recruit some helpers!  Or, you can be like me and watch The Goonies on TV like a zombie, and before you know it you're all done! :) Enjoy!

Stop...Cookie Time.

I think we can all agree that some point in our lives, "C" was for cookie, and it was good enough for all of us. Well this weekend, friends, I'm heading back to my little kid days, and whipping up some dee-lish Santa Snacks to share with all of you! I'm going the classic route, with sugar cut-out cookies. The Cleveland route, with Klotchky (Kolachy? I've heard both. Klotchky is to appease my huband...who is "always right.") Cookies, a classic for anyone who ever went to an old relative's house in Northeast Ohio during the holidays. And finally, the Cobb route! My wonderful mother-in-law passed out recipe cards in addressed envelopes to everyone who attended my bridal shower, and one that I got just recently was from my good friend Brenna Cobb. She passed down her grandmother's recipes for "Horn Cookies" which sound delicious!

So on we go, to tons and tons of cookies! Hopefully they make it long enough for me to get them to work tomorrow! :) The first recipe I did this weekend was for Klotchky Cookies. These are little cream cheese based cookies with a bit of jam in the middle. I don't know why they were so popular in Ohio, but I'm pretty sure that someone made them for just about every family event we ever had. Sometimes they were filled with Almond Paste, some filled with strawberry jam, even my Mom remembers her Great Grandmother making Prune filled cookies (go figure, they were her favorite!)! Well since I was making them this time around, I decided to go with my two favorites: Apricot, and Raspberry. Any jam, jelly, or preserves will work in this case, though, so get creative!

Klotchky Cookies

("Jam-filled cream-cheese cookies" from Everyday Food Magazine)

Makes 48. Prep time: 45 min. Total Time: 1.5 hr + chilling

• 8 oz bar cream cheese, room temperature
• 1/2 C (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
• 1/3 C sugar
• 2 C all purpose flour, spooned and leveled
• 1/2 teaspoon coarse salt
• 1 egg yolk
• 1 1/2 C jam, jelly, or preserves (I didn't measure this out, just scooped portions out of the jar)

In a large bowl, using an electric mixer (I used my stand mixer), beat cream cheese, butter, and sugar, until light and fluffy. With the mixer on low, add flour and salt. Beat until combined (but don't overmix!).

Divide dough into 3 portions. Flatten each into a disk. Roll each disk to a 1/8 inch thickness between sheets of parchment. Stack dough (still in parchment) on a baking sheet; refridgerate 20 min.

Preheat oven to 375F. Mix egg yolk with 1/2 tsp water. Working with the dough 1 sheet at a time, peel off top sheet of parchment (save for baking!). With a 2" round, or 2" star cookie cutter, cut out cookies. Spoon 1/2 tsp jam into the center of each, and brush exposed edges with egg wash. Shape cookies, and arrange 2" apart on two parchment lined baking sheets (mine didn't spread at all, so I went about 1" apart) and refridgerate 20 minutes (I did no such thing. Into the oven they went!). Before baking I brushed the tops with egg wash and sprinkled with plain sugar.

Bake until cookies are light golden brown, about 15 minutes, rotating sheets halfway through. Let cool completely on wire racks. To store, cover and keep at room temperature up to four days.

Okay, so as you can see above, I used the star cookie cutter method. Below is what the end product looked like:

Aren't they pretty?! Like little jewels! I used the star method, because as a kid, we always had them from round or square cookies with two sides folded in. These were much prettier, but most likely much more of a pain to get through. It took a while to make sure the edges were together, and even so, some came apart in baking (what a bummer! I get to eat the mess-ups! haha!). Another thing to note was that 1/2 tsp is a LOT of filling here. Some stars had an extremely hard time closing, and some (as you can see above) overflowed a bit during cooking. Towards the end, I used a tiny bit less, and pressed my thumb into the middle of my stars to give the jam a little more room.

These were SO good, though. I'm actually thinking about making more, since I have all of the ingredients. But onward we go!! Up next are the horn cookies! Stay tuned!....

There's a hole in this cake...

"It's a bundt"
"Boont?"
"BUNDT! BUNDT!"

Ah, one of my absolute favorite scenes from a movie ever. I can't make a bundt cake without saying it to anyone who may be around to listen...

So back to the story! This week's cake is a beauty. Even my picky-pants husband liked it (seriously, that's saying something)! This week I made a Chocolate Chocolate Chip Pound Cake courtesy of Ms. Paula Deen. I need to tell you it's by Paula so when you look at the recipe below and say "Natalie, what the heck is WRONG with you?! A stick of butter?!" you'll know it's not me...it's Paula. And DANG is it good! I'm quite convinced that the pudding is what makes this recipe so delicious. It stays so gooey and moist, I bet you could leave it on the counter for a day and it would still be delicious!

I made the Chocolate Chocolate Chip Pound cake on the premise that I would slice it up and bring it to the office bake sale. Yay me, good deeds. Welp. Not the case.

Turns out that the office bake sale was more of a department bake sale...and I have too much pride to bring it downstairs with a big smile and say, "I made you a cake to sell!" to a bunch of people I don't know. So now I have a big honkin' cake on my counter at home. Great.

I think I'm going to bring a big chunk to my landlord upstairs, wrapped up all pretty like I planned this all along :) Anyway, on to the recipe!

Chocolate Chocolate Chip Pound Cake
by, Paula Deen from The Lady & Sons, Too

• 4 eggs
  
• 1 1/2 C Water
  
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
  
• 1 pkg butter recipe cake mix
  
• 1 3.4 oz pkg instant vanilla pudding mix*
  
• 1 3.4 oz pkg instant chocolate pudding mix*
  
• 1/2 C (1 stick) melted butter
  
• 1/4 C vegetable oil
• 6 oz chocolate chips
  

Preheat oven to 350 F. Grease and flour tube pan.

In mixing bowl, beat the eggs, water, and vanilla by hand**. Stir in the cake mix and pudding mixes. Slowly add the butter and oil, and mix well. Stir in the chocolate chips.

Pour into prepared pan. Bake for 50 to 60 minutes***.

Cool for 10 minutes, then invert onto a cake plate. Sift confectioner's sugar over the cake, or drizzle chocolate sauce over it, if desired****.

Alrighty, here's where I put in my two cents.

*I have no idea what kind of mutant pudding packages they sell in Georgia, but here in our lovely Nation's Capitol, they sell 3.9oz packages. Normally I'd just throw in the whole package, but the cake is already so dense and moist, I just eyeball it and leave some pudding in the package. Use your best judgement.

**If you're looking to beef up your arms (maybe you're going for the Schwarzenegger look?)...go ahead and beat everything by hand. But I'll tell you that when the recipe tells you to mix in the oil and melted butter slowly, that batter is going to be so thick you'll be swearing like a sailor by the time you need to "mix well". I had Jeff come in and pour slowly, so I could hold the bowl with one hand and mix with the other. The next time I make it, I'll beat the eggs, water, vanilla in my KitchenAid mixer bowl by hand, then just attach it to the mixer for the rest, and keep it on low speed.

***For once my super-charged oven went the full time on a recipe! I cooked mine for the full 60 min.

****Call me a purist, but I say this cake needs nothing but a cold glass of milk.

Hope you enjoy!

But I would be proud to partake in your...

Pecan Pieeee!

Chocolate pecan pie to be exact. *gracefully receives "ooh"s and "aah"s from the peanut gallery. A-thank you, a-thank you*

Here's a little back story:

I had such a wonderful weekend. I took off work on Friday because my wonderful mom came to visit! We spent the weekend shopping, eating at awesome restaurants around DC (Seventh Hill, Co Co Sala, and Chef Geoff's to name a few), and of course made a stop at the incredible Georgetown Cupcake. We always have the best time when she's in town, and I'm always sad to see her go. So she left this morning, and I was admittedly a little mopey. What better to lift my spirits than baking?!

I started off with a pie crust recipe that I got from a cooking class at Hill's Kitchen. It's a Butter/Shortening pie crust that creates nothing short of heaven. Any other day I would post it here, but it's so involved and so tricky, that I would just recommend looking up a recipe on your own, and working through it. Pie crust seems to be a tricky beast to tame, and while it's been edible the two times I've made it, it's a serious science to figure out the consistency of the perfect crust.

Here's my step by step process for tonight's baking fun:

First: Make the dough!

Would ya look at that pretty little dough ball? Well after I let it sit in the fridge for 2 hours (it needs at least 30 minutes to chill) I rolled it out to find an extremely cracked hunk of dough. Lucky for me I had that handy-dandy glass of water there to help me. I have found, also, that this little baby makes pie dough a piece of cake...well...a piece of pie at the very least:

Meet my mean, green, dough making machine:

This little baby makes cutting butter and shortening into flour a cinch. No forks, no knives, just pulse! It's a beauty, and I doubt I'd be as adventurous about making pie if I didn't have it.

Next I followed Paula Deen's recipe for Chocolate Pecan Pie and used some adorable little mini fall cookie cutters that my mom got me this weekend from Hill's Kitchen. Seriously, if you haven't been to that store here on the Hill, it's just awesome. If you like cooking the tiniest bit, you will *love* this store! Here's what I ended up with (pre-baked):

How cute are those little leaves?! And here's what it looks like post-baked:

HA! Just kidding, I didn't eat the whole thing...just a slice. Bringing it to work tomorrow, though, because leaving it in my house is a dangerous dangerous thing!

Hope you all have a Happy Monday!

It's a...brownie!

OH Chocolate. Here's a little side story to start this post:

Today at work I ate lunch, and then went back to work. I worked for a bit and thought to myself "Woo! This day is flying by!"...then I looked at the clock and saw that it was only 1:15. Oy. My body decided then and there to tell me that if it didn't get chocolate soon it was going to revolt.

I staved off the craving with a couple handfuls of Special K with Strawberries and a piece of gum (gum is surprisingly effective here!). I was also able to because I knew that we were making brownies tonight. Not just brownies, but "OH my god I'm never making brownies from a box again" brownies. The are nothing short of the best brownies EVER.

One of my favorite (okay...my FAVORITE) food blogs out there is http://www.alexandracooks.com/. She finds wonderful recipes to share, she's eco-friendly without being preachy, and she takes pictures so gorgeous that you want to cook right then and there (and eat too of course). When I read the blog post about the "Best Brownies" I knew I had to give them a try. I've made them many times since, and I vow to never make brownies from a box again.

Tonight's baking bonanza is specifically for Beth's husband Justin's volunteer group. Justin volunteers for a very cool group that works with at-risk kids in DC to teach them about business and help them develop ideas, learn about becoming entrepreneurs, etc. So Justin is going to be making these kids and volunteers seriously happy. You will be too, you've just got to try them! The photo above shows some of the brownies we took home...Jeff and I had two as soon as we got in the car tonight, we couldn't even wait to get home!

Okay, so on to the recipe...

...

Well alright. Technical difficulties, I suppose, folks. For some reason the blog isn't letting me paste the recipe! For now, check out the recipe on Alexandra's blog here and I'll try to paste it in tomorrow.

Goodnight, and happy baking everybody!

Hey Y'all!

Tonight's baking adventure was awesome! Now if any of you who know me and my foodie-ness, you know that I have a serious soft spot in my heart for Ms. Paula Deen.

Just look at her! That big smile, those sparkling baby blues! How could Miss Paula EVER steer you wrong? Well she can't. It's just a fact. It's Paula's numero uno favorite ingredient, so it was with her in mind that I, with the help of my good baking buddy Beth, made BUTTER tonight.

Oh yeah...butter. And it was gooooooood.

Beth had the idea to make butter last week during our pumpkin cupcake baking night, and I was all about it. She thought we could make some corn muffins, and some tasty homemade flavored butter to go with them. So tonight we made Sweet Corn Muffins with Honey Cinnamon Butter and Maple Cinnamon Butter. We're talkin' finger-licking, heart-stopping tastiness tonight folks. If you've ever used Jiffy mix, I'd like you to take the box and throw it away (maybe scoff at it first, because you're straight up better than that after you've made these). Follow the directions below, sit back, and wait for the compliments to flow!

Sweet Corn Muffins

INGREDIENTS

• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 cup sugar
• 3/4 cup cornmeal
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup shortening
• 1 cup milk, divided

DIRECTIONS
In a mixing bowl, combine the dry ingredients. Add eggs, shortening and 1/2 cup of milk; beat for 1 minute. Add remaining milk; beat just until blended. Fill paper-lined muffin cups three-fourths full. Bake at 350 degrees F for 25-30 minutes or until muffins test done (**ours took about 17-18 min, so keep an eye on them! When they start to look golden around the edges, and pull from the sides, they're done).

Butter:

For this you'll need heavy whipping cream, salt, and whatever you'd like to flavor it with. You can tell this is going to be a crazy technical process...

We used honey and cinnamon in one, and maple and cinnamon in the other.

In a small-medium tupperware container pour heavy whipping cream (maybe 1/2 cup?). Flavor with salt (1tsp? this is optional, but I like salted butter). Pour honey or maple syrup in and shake cinnamon on top. Put lid on (tight!!) and shake until it starts to thicken. Remove lid and taste, add more spice/honey/syrup to taste.

Okay now here's the hard part.

Shake the crap out of it. Shake it, and shake it, and then when you think you're done? Shake it some more. Pretend like it's your boss's head, that cop who gave you a parking ticket, or that guy that cut you off in traffic......or maybe just shake in a non-aggresive way. Do what you gotta do.

The butter will start to look curdled and separated. When it gets to this point, take a couple paper towels, pour liquid out of tupperware and let butter fall into your hand. Squeeze it into a ball until thick enough to spread. Use your best judgement here. Mine was pretty soft, so I just worked it into a ball, then wrapped it tight in saran and stuck it in the fridge. I just checked it, and it's looking really good.

Well that's it! I hope you try it and I REALLY hope you enjoy it. I'm seriously loving all the possibilities with making butter! Next week, look out for something delicious and chocolatey! G'night y'all! ;)

The Blogger's Back!

I'm back! After a long hiatus while I switched jobs (I now work for the government and I LOVE it!), I am back to the blog. All of you faithful followers can thank my good friend Beth for bringing me back into baking mode. She emailed me last week and asked if I wanted to maybe come over and bake with her. Ummm, you'd like to give me an excuse to bake AND hang out? Yes please!


So off to the cupcakes...


Look at this beauties! This photo is substantially better than my usual cell phone quality pics that I post, thanks to Beth and her amazing camera/photographer skills. We're hoping allrecipes.com chooses this pic for the main recipe photo, so keep an eye out for it! We decided to go with a fall theme, and it actually worked out really well as the temperature was hovering around 45 degrees tonight when I got to Beth's place. I just LOVE pumpkin anything this time of year! It's so warm and cozy, and always makes your house smell so nice. We went with a Pumpkin Spice Cupcake recipe with Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting from allrecipes.com. They turned out really well, but Beth and I agreed that the consistency was more that of a muffin. They were pretty tasty none the less :) If you're looking for a good recipe to get you in that warm, cozy autumn mood, this is a great option!

Pumpkin Spice Cupcakes with Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting

Makes: 24 cupcakes

INGREDIENTS

• 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 cup butter, softened
• 1 cup white sugar
• 1/3 cup brown sugar
• 2 eggs, room temperature
• 3/4 cup milk
• 1 cup pumpkin puree **

**some folks wrote comments in that they used pumpkin pie mix instead, and that it turned out great. Also, some used an entire 15 oz can of pumpkin, and that it make for a very moist cake. If I were to make it again, I'd probably do that.**

Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting

• 1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese, softened
• 1/4 cup butter, softened
• 3 cups confectioners' sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
  

DIRECTIONS
Preheat an oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Grease 24 muffin cups, or line with paper muffin liners. Sift together the flour, 1 teaspoon cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, clove, allspice, salt, baking powder, and baking soda; set aside.

Beat 1/2 cup of butter, the white sugar, and brown sugar with an electric mixer in a large bowl until light and fluffy. The mixture should be noticeably lighter in color. Add the room-temperature eggs one at a time, allowing each egg to blend into the butter mixture before adding the next. Stir in the milk and pumpkin puree after the last egg**. Stir in the flour mixture, mixing until just incorporated. Pour the batter into the prepared muffin cups.

**Me again. I wasn't a fan of how the part above was written out. We mixed in the pumpkin after adding the eggs, then alternated the milk with the flour in 3 parts. It's just how I roll, seems like it would mix more evenly and not be too dense that way**

Bake in the preheated oven until golden and the tops spring back when lightly pressed, about 25 minutes. Cool in the pans for 5 minutes before removing to cool completely on a wire rack.
While the cupcakes are cooling, make the frosting by beating the cream cheese and 1/4 butter with an electric mixer in a bowl until smooth. Beat in the confectioners' sugar a little at a time until incorporated. Add the vanilla extract and 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon; beat until fluffy. Once the cupcakes are cool, frost with the cream cheese icing

They really were so delish. So delish that I ate one and didn't dare bring any home. Big thanks to Beth's husband Justin for bringing them to his office tomorrow!

I'm thinking of branching out from cupcakes as well, and telling you of my other culinary adventures (mostly just baking, though). Hopefully Beth and I will have more to blog about in the coming weeks. I made a PIE this past weekend! Yes...PIE!! Homemade crust and all! So keep an eye out for future blogs, and don't hold it against me if it's not always cupcakes. ;) Variety is the spice of life or something like that...right?!