Gift Guide! (for a foodie, of course)

Bake It Pretty's Best ever icing kit: No joke. The frosting looks professional!

How about some pretty cupcake liners? I bought sooo many of them!!! :)

Or, if they bake cookies, why not an ice cream scooper for those perfectly shaped and portioned cookies? (I have the medium -good for cookies and large-good for cupcakes)







Or how about a subscription to a foodie magazine? Cook's illustrated is awesome with their time tested recipes, food network is creative, fun and inspiring, bon appetit is delicious looking, and much more!!

Cook's Illustrated

Food Network

Bon Appetit

Chocolate Chocolate Cookies

If you like decadent chocolate bliss, then these are the cookies for you. Rich, dark, chock full of ooey gooey delicious chocolate chunks. Yum, just writing about these cookies make me want to march into the kitchen and chow down on one of these. Oh wait, I just polished one off while writing this post. Oops, maybe I should wait until after dinner to have another!

Scroll down for recipe

 

Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cookies
From My Baking Addiction
Ingredients:
2 sticks cold and cubed unsalted butter
1 1/4 cup granulated sugar
2 eggs
1/2 cup dark cocoa powder
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 tsp salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
2 1/2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees
2. In bowl of electric mixer fitted with paddle, cream together butter and sugar until well blended and fluffy. Add eggs and beat until well-incorporated, then beat in cocoa powder.
3. Mix in flour, salt and baking powder until just combined. Gently fold in remaining ingredients.
4. Bake in the preheated oven 16-20 minutes
5. Let cool on a rack and store what you don’t immediately eat, in an airtight container. (To freshen them after a few days microwave for 5-10 seconds)

America has her own kitchen?

Can you believe I've I had never even heard of America's Test Kitchen? Who knew America had her own test kitchen!? (You know I'm joking, right?). Well that was the past, as I'm now a definite fan of America's Test Kitchen, Cook's Illustrated, and the like. My mom bought me their Holiday Cookie edition, and my oh my, are those recipes amazing. Btw, if you're wondering why I'm posting something from a holiday cookbook now, in the spring time, well, that's how good they are!

While flipping through the recipe booklet, the cream cheese brownie immediately caught my eye. Actually, the recipe was for a raspberry cream cheese brownie, but I had to omit the raspberry since I had none of hand :( But what caught my eye was having the cream cheese in a layer, rather than marbled into the batter. From the top they look like an ordinary brownie, but from the side...they're awesome!!

Cream Cheese Brownies
Adapted from America's Test Kitchen Holiday Cookies
Ingredients:
For the cream cheese mixture
1 8 ounce package cream cheese
1/4 cup sugar
1 egg yolk
3/4 teaspoon vanilla

For the brownie:
2/3 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
8 tablespoons butter
4 ounces unsweetened chocolate
3 large eggs
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 1/4 cup sugar

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350˚F and line a 8 x 8 inch pan with foil. Spray foil with pam.
2. Cream together cream cheese, sugar, egg yolk, and vanilla until smooth
3. In a separate bowl, combine flour, baking powder, and salt.
4. In a microwaveable bowl, microwave butter and chocolate until melted
5. Add in egg, vanilla, and sugar, stirring until smooth.
6. Add in the flour mixture, and fold until combined
7. Place half of the batter in to the pan. Smooth out, and then top with the cream cheese mixture. Smooth out, then pour the remaining batter on top.
8. Bake for 30-40 minutes
9. Enjoy!

Oatmeal + Butter + Chocolate = ???

Oatmeal + Butter = An amazing crust.

Oatmeal + Butter + Chocolate = Delicious oatmeal fudge bars.

Plus, because these bars have oatmeal in them I can call it a breakfast food, right? So each time I take a bite of the buttery crunchy crust and rich chocolate filling, I can say I'm actually being "healthy" because it's only breakfast, right? Definitely. Unless you think of chocolate and butter as non breakfast ingredients, but who does? Okay, maybe I do occasionally, but don't worry, its all about moderation. One of these bars for breakfast and a big bowl of three grain edamame salad for lunch. Yup, those just about balanced each other out. ;)

The recipe is from America's Test Kitchen Holiday Cookie booklet. I know what you're thinking, it's kind of late to be making holiday recipes in spring, but these are definitely year round bars. Plus, using one recipe for both the bottom layer and the top crumble part makes these bars quick and easy to make.

Oatmeal Fudge Bars

From America's Test Kitchen Holiday Cookies 2010

Ingredients:

1 cup quick-cooking oats

1 cup packed light brown sugar

3/4 cup flour 

8 tablespoons butter, melted

1/4 cup flour

1/4 cup brown sugar2 teaspoons instant espresso

2 tablespoons butter

1 1/2 cups semisweet chocolate chips

1 large egg

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 325˚F and line an 8 x 8 pan with foil. Grease foil

2. Combine oats, brown sugar, flour, baking powder, and baking soda

3. Add in melted butter and stir until combined.

4. Reserve 3/4 cup mixture for topping. Evenly spread the remaining mixture in to the prepared pan. Press into an even layer. Bake for about 12 minutes. Allow to cool, but keep oven on.

5. In a bowl combine flour, brown sugar, and espresso

6. Microwave butter and chocolate until melted. Stir in egg. Stir in flour mixture and whisk together.

7. Evenly spread chocolate mixture over crust and sprinkle with remaining oatmeal mixture.

8. Bake for 25-30 minutes. Allow to cool before cutting. Enjoy!

David Lebovitz's No Fat Gingersnaps

I know what you're thinking. Gingersnaps in april?! No one eats gingersnaps in April! It's spring already, not winter!

But I do. Especially these no fat gingersnaps. They're soft and spicy, with the perfect sugary crust enveloping the gingery center.

I actually kept a container of already preshaped and sugar rolled dough in my freezer for when I had a cookie craving. The dough balls didn't hold their shape, and instead sort of oozed into a big mass with slightly proliferated edges. Although they didn't look as nice before I baked them, they still turned out great and tasted as good as they did when I first baked them!

Amazingly Soft Fat Free Gingersnaps
Adapted from David Lebovitz
Ingredients:
1 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 cup applesauce
1/3 cup molasses
2 1/4 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoons ground dried ginger
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 egg

Granulated sugar

Directions:
1. In the bowl of a standing electric mixer, beat the brown sugar, applesauce, and molasses
2. In a separate bowl sift together the flour, baking soda, spices, and salt.
3. After five minutes, stop the mixer, scrape down the sides, and add the egg. Beat another minute.
4. With the mixer at its lowest speed, add the dry ingredients until completely incorporated, and mix on medium for one minute more.
5. Roll tablespoons of dough in granulated sugar.
6. Preheat the oven to 350F (180C).
7. Bake for 10 minutes

Chewy Chewy Chewy

I used to hate ginger when I was younger, but now gingersnaps are one of my favorite cookies. I remember when my mom would buy chocolate covered ginger from See's Candy, and you know how they put all of the chocolate in one bag? Well, I would always get their toffee or chocolate covered caramel marshmallows, and I would reach in to the bag, pull out a candy, pop it in my mouth, and start chomping away. Imagine my surprise when I experienced an explosion of gingery spicyness. Yuck. It was awful, at least for a ten-year-old.

These cookies pack a punch of ginger, and too bad I didn't have any chocolate covered ginger because those probably would've made these cookies out of this world!

AH! So sorry everyone, turns out I forgot sugar....let me find my notes and I will get back to you guys on the recipe!

Chewy Gingersnaps

Ingredients:

1 cup flour

1/2 tsp baking soda

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 1/2 teaspoon ginger

1/2 teaspoon all spice

1 tablespoon yogurt or non dairy milk

1/4 cup oil

2 tablespoons molasses

1/2 cup chopped candied ginger or chocolate covered ginger (optional)

Directions:

1. Sift together flour, baking soda, cinnamon, ginger, and all spice

2. In a separate bowl combine yogurt, oil, and molasses.  Mix in the flour. Add in ginger pieces.

3. Place rounded tablespoons of dough on a cookie sheet

4. Bake at 350˚F for 12 minutes

Sugar and spice makes everything nice!

Yes, it's another snickerdoodle recipe. You may say I have too many, but c'mon, can you really have too many snickerdoodles? Answer to that question: No, never! A soft cookie with a cinnamon sugar crust. Who could resist? I mean really. Could you resist those thick, soft, chewy cinnamon sugar coated cookies?

Especially if those snickerdoodles are thick and soft. I've finally made a chewy, non-flat snickerdoodle. In the past I've had a little trouble accomplishing this feat (which you can see here or here) but I've finally done it! And it's all thanks to a little tip I learned from Joanne Chang, the lady who owns Flour Bakery in Boston. After mixing up the dough, I popped the entire bowl into the refrigerator for a couple of hours, until it was firm, then coated individual balls with cinnamon and sugar and baked them. They turned out beautifully. I also figured out a way to make a single cookie at a time, for the inner cookie monster :)

After coating balls in the cinnamon sugar, freeze the dough on a tray, and once frozen store in a ziploc bag. When you have a craving for something cinnamon-y you can take out how many balls you want to eat, place them in the oven, and bake for about 2 minutes longer than normal. It's that easy! I recommend over estimating the number you need because these go pretty quickly!

See that finger? That's actually my thumb! Just to give you guys a visual idea on how thick these cookies really were.

Snickerdoodles
Adapted from Flour Bakery
Ingredients:
1 cup shortening, room temperature
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 eggs
2 1/2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cream of tartar

1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup ground cinnamon

Directions:
1. In a bowl cream the butter and sugar. Beat in the eggs
2. In a separate bowl sift together the flour, baking soda, salt, and cream of tartar. Mix flour mixture into butter mixture.
3. Place dough in the fridge in an airtight container for 3 hours, or until dough is firm and easy to roll into a ball.
4. Preheat oven to 400˚F.
5. In a small bowl combine 1/2 cup sugar and 1/4 cup ground cinnamon.
6. Coat rounded tablespoons of dough in sugar mixture.
7. Place coated balls on a cookie sheet, and bake for 12 minutes or until the edges are golden

What better way to celebrate the end of finals?....

....Than with cookies? And spiced brown sugar star shaped cookies to be exact. Finals were stressful, and I still feel like I should be studying! But it also feels like a tremendous pressure has been lifted from my shoulders. Ah, such a relaxing feeling. :) Plus, my hands, and brain, are so grateful it's over. After writing practice essays for a couple hours, my hands seriously did not want to write another essay. I can't even believe I'm writing this! I feel like I should be vegging out in front of the tv. Oh wait, I already did for three hours!

Unbaked star cookies

I actually made these during winter break, but didn't get around to post them until now. Usually I don't like to make shaped cookies, but surprisingly the dough was easy to roll out and cut. The trick I found is to roll out the dough between plastic wrap, peel away one side, cut out the shapes, and then flip the cut out shapes on to a sheet of parchment paper. I wish I took an after picture of these cookies, but they were eaten too quickly! The dough didn't spread a lot, which meant they kept their shape. Hooray! It's so discouraging when prettily shaped cookies spread an turn in to a plain drop cookie.

Spiced Brown Sugar Cut-Out Cookies
From Annie's Eats
Ingredients:
3 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp. baking powder
½ tsp. salt
½ tsp. ground cinnamon
¼ tsp. ground ginger
1/8 tsp. grated nutmeg
1/8 tsp. allspice
½ cup sugar
½ cup light brown sugar, packed
16 tbsp. (2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 large egg
1 tsp. vanilla extract

Directions:
1. Combine the flour, baking powder, salt and spices in a medium bowl; whisk to blend.  In the bowl of an electric mixer, combine the sugar, brown sugar and butter.  Beat on medium-high speed until light and fluffy, 2-3 minutes.  Blend in the egg and vanilla.  With the mixer on low speed, mix in the dry ingredients just until incorporated.  Form the dough into a ball or disk and wrap tightly in plastic wrap.  Chill until firm, at least 30-60 minutes.
2. When ready to bake, preheat the oven to 350˚ F.  Line baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone baking mats.  On a lightly floured surface, roll the dough out to about ¼-inch thickness.  Use cookie cutters to form desired shapes and transfer to the prepared baking sheets.  Bake 10-12 minutes.  Let cool on the baking sheet a few minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.  Decorate as desired.

Lavender Madeleines

Happy New Year's Eve everyone! Has everybody decided on their New Year's goals? Usually I always forget about them until after New Years, but this time I thought of making goals to improve my baking. My first goal is.....to make a successful batch of french macarons. After countless errors, I'm determined to make these tasty little French sweets. My second goal is to make a baked alaska. I'm not sure why, but I just love the idea of ice cream, cake, and fluffy meringue on fire! I don't really have a third goal, or at least not yet, but I'll probably think of something.

Also on my list of things I wanted to make was madeleines! My friends got me a madeleine pan for Christmas (thanks guys!) so this morning I decided to make some madeleines. While I was cleaning out the pantry I found some dried lavender, so I made some Lavender Madeleines! They're the perfect finger food for a New Year's party. Enjoy!

Lavender Madeleines 
Adapted from Purple Foodie
Ingredients:

3/4 cup flour

½ tsp baking powder

5 tbsp butter

2 tsp dried lavender, crushed/pulsed

2 eggs

1/3 cup sugar

1 tsp lemon juice

Directions:

1. In a saucepan, melt the butter and lavender. Allow to cool, then strain. 

2. Sift together flour and baking powder. 

3. In a separate bowl whisk eggs and sugar until thick, about 3 minutes. Add lemon juice.

4. Fold in flour mixture, and then lavender butter. 

5. Transfer batter into a piping bag. Allow to rest in the refrigerator for 3 hours. (I skipped this step)

6. Preheat oven to 400˚F and liberally butter a madeleine pan

7.  Pipe batter into pan and bake for 10 minutes.

Daring Bakers: Christmas Stollen

This month's challenge was hosted by Penny over at Sweet Sadie's Baking. She chose Christmas Stollen as this month's recipe. I've never even tried stollen, so I was excited to try making it. When I looked over the recipe, it reminded me of a fruit cake in bread form. I'm not much a fan of the whole fruit and nut combo, so I chose to use dried cranberries and no nuts instead. I love the wreath-shaped look of stollen, but had a little trouble shaping it at first. Mine didn't turn out perfect, but it was still tasty.  Actually, my dad loved it, and even before I put the powdered sugar layer on he had already eaten some!

Recipe over at Sweet Sadie's Baking

Winner of the Giveaway! and A Recipe for Molasses Spice Cookie

So first on the agenda is the winner of the giveaway. Did you know there aren't number on the sides of the comments? Well I didn't realize that, so good thing I didn't have to count very many because the lucky winner is... (picked using randomgenerator) ......drum roll please...:

Comment #7....Terri!

Congratulations Terri! I will be contacting you shortly so watch out for my email!! Thank you to everyone who participated! And I hope you all enjoy your holiday, and favorite dish of the season :)

Now, moving on to other important cookie matters. Look at these babies. They are packed with a delicious blend of spices to create a soft and chewy cookie perfect for giving away or eating all by yourself! As you can see they aren't covered in sugar...well oops. That's my bad, I meant to roll them in sugar. I even had the bowl full of sugar and everything. But uh, well I don't know I guess I had a brain fart or something. On a side note about my forgetfulness. Just yesterday I was making a batch of cookie, and I realized I forgot to put in 66% of the sugar! That's a not very sweet cookie! But anyways, these molasses spice cookies are delicious, and you should try them. But don't feel like I'm forcing you, cause I'm not. But really, they're really really good! :)

Don't they look mouthwatering? Maybe my photography isn't the best, but they do make your house smell amazing. It's like having a spice infused candle radiate from your oven!

Molasses Spice Cookies
Adapted from Flour
Ingredients:
3/4 cup butter, room temperature
1 cup packed brown sugar
1/3 cup molasses
1 egg
2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
Sugar for coating

Directions:
1. In a bowl beat the butter and sugar until fluffy. Beat in molasses and egg.
2. In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, ginger, cinnamon, salt, and nutmeg
3. Mix the flour mixture in to the butter mixture
4. Place dough in an airtight container in the fridge for at least 3 hours
5. Preheat oven to 350˚F
6. Coat rounded tablespoons of dough in sugar, and then place on a cookie sheet
7. Bake for 14 minutes or until slightly firm to the touch
8. Enjoy!