inaugurating the kitchen aid

 For New Years Eve, I decided to whip up some Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Peanut Butter Chip cookies to break in the Kitchen Aid I got for Christmas.

 Ready to roll!

 Works like a charm!

 The little Kitchen Aid did all the hard work for me!

 The cookies sheets are lined with parchment paper, and they are ready to be popped into the oven!

 The bottoms came out a little burnt, but they still tasted great!

Windshield Diaries Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Peanut Butter Chip Cookies

Ingredients:

3/4 cup butter, at room temperature

3/4 cup brown sugar

1 egg, at room temperature

1 tsp vanilla

3 cups oats

1 cup unbleached flour

1 tsp salt

1/2 tsp baking soda

1 bag of Hershey Chocolate Chips

1 bag of Reese's Peanut Butter Chips

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2. Cream together the butter, sugar, and egg.

3. Add the rest of the ingredients and mix well.

4. Place heaping tablespoons of dough on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper.

5. Bake for 12-15 minutes.

6. Devour! 

smores cookies

 Last week we bid bon voyage to an awesome chick going back out west, and I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to try a new cookie recipe I came across on Sugar Cooking. So I gathered the ingredients, pre-heated the oven, and dove in!

 The recipe calls for a cup of Graham Cracker crumbs. I chose some cinnamon graham crackers. I think the next time I make these I will up the graham cracker crumbs to give the cookies even more of the smores experience.

 The graham cracker crumbs are mixed with the other dry ingredients.

 The sugars are creamed with the butter.

 The dry and wet are mixed thoroughly, and an entire bag of chocolate chips is folded in to the dough. Then the dough is scooped into tablespoon sized blobs.

Bake the dough for 8 minutes, pull out the cookies and stick some mini marshmallows and pieces of Hershey bar on the top. Bake for 2-3 more minutes, cool. Then....you STUFF!

Want to make them yourself? 

Here's the recipe from Sugar Cooking (who adapted it from Baked Perfection)

Smores Cookies

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
• 1 cup graham cracker crumbs
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 dash of cinnamon
• 1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 3/4 cup brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 eggs
• 1 1/2 cups chocolate chips
• 1 1/2 cups mini marshmallows
• 3 Hershey bars, chopped

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
2. In a medium bowl combine the flour, graham cracker crumbs, baking soda, salt, and dash of cinnamon. In a second larger bowl beat together the butter, sugar, brown sugar and vanilla extract until creamy. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Slowly beat in the flour mixture until smooth. Stir in the chocolate chips. Drop by rounded tablespoon onto ungreased cookie sheet (I chilled the dough for an hour first; I always do).
3. Bake for 8 minutes, and remove from the oven. Push 3 to 4 marshmallows and a few pieces of hershey bar into each cookies. Return to the oven and bake an additional 2-3 minutes until fully cooked. Cool cookies on a wire rack.

baking christmas cookies

 

Rolling out the dough

 Thank you eBay for our vintage Peanuts cookie cutters!

 M was in charge of stamping

 First attempt was rolled too thin, so we scrapped them and re-rolled the dough.

 Perfect! Time for the oven, kids!

 Baked and cooling!

 Starting to ice the cookies

 M disposed of the icing in the sink and made some art in the process!

 M's Charlie Brown with a bomb, and blown up Lucy...

 

The M 2010 Holiday Collection.

It took me about an hour to ice these 4 perfectly, but it was totally worth it!

baking with CAPow!

I mentioned a couple of weeks back that I baked some Nutella Macarons for M's sister and step-mom. Here's how it went:

Step 1: cutting the parchment paper to line the pans and drawing 18 circle templates on each sheet.

Meanwhile, make sure the eggs and butter are reaching room temperature.

Double sift the dry ingredients.

Pipe the macaron batter, then let for 15-30 mins until they don't stick to your finger when touched. Make sure to rap the sheet against the counter a few times to help encourage good pied!

Unfortunately, they didn't come out as perfect as I had hoped. The first batch was the perfect consistancy, but I didn't let them dry long enough so they cracked during baking, and didn't pied. The second batch I grabbed the wrong measuring spoon, so the dry ingredients measurements were TOTALLY WRONG. They didn't look right, but they still tasted amazing! 

I let the macarons cool, then filled the first batch with Nutella and the second batch with Peanut Butter Buttercream that I adapted from this recipe at Suzy Bakes.

If you want to try baking your own batch I totally recommend the cookbook I use: I Love Macarons. This book is super affordable, AND offers step by step photo instructions that makes baking macarons a snap!

mint julep cupcakes

recently we had a potluck lunch at the office where i work. i signed up to make cupcakes because i couldn't wait to try out the recipe i discovered last year: mint julep cupcakes. i made them last year for our kentucky derby party, and i thought they were pretty tasty. i was sure that my co-workers would like them too.

yep, that's some jim beam bourbon in that batter...

i even hand lettered a little name card, hoping to entice them into trying one of the bet cupcakes i've ever had.

i tinted the creme de menthe butter cream with a little green and sprinkled on some green sugar crystals, i also baked them in foil ups to mimick the traditional silver cups mint juleps are usually served in. i thought they looked pretty terrific!

here is the recipe i used, it's from hostess with the mostess

mint julep cupcakes

{adapted from Cooking and Booking}

Ingredients:

Cupcakes
1 cup butter
2 cups sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon mint extract
4 eggs
2 3/4 cups flour
3 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup milk
1/2 cup bourbon (or whiskey)
1/2 cup Creme de Menthe

Icing
3 cups sifted powdered sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon mint extract
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 stick unsalted butter, melted
milk

Directions:

Cupcakes
Preheat the oven to 350º F, and grease or line 30 cupcake cups.

Combine salt, baking powder, and 1 3/4 cups of the flour. Beat butter, sugar, eggs, and extracts in a large mixing bowl until creamy. Gradually beat in the flour mixture. Add the milk and liquors to the batter, then the rest of the flour (1 cup). Mix as little as possible, just until the batter comes together. Divide the batter evenly among the cupcake cups. Bake for 25-30 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center of a cupcake comes out clean. Let cool.

Icing
Combine the powdered sugar, salt, extracts and melted butter and beat until creamy. Gradually add milk until the texture is right for piping. When the cupcakes are completely cool, pipe or spread the icing on top. Garnish with cake sparkles or sprinkles, a straw (trimmed to size), and mint leaves.