Snickerdoodles

Yesterday was a cinnamon-y day. From the Moroccan chicken to these yummy cookies, I'm all cinnamon-ed out! (not really...) These cookies are really good right out of the oven. What I was really pleased about is that they stay good even through the next day.

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups Flour
1/4 tsp Salt
1 tsp Baking Powder
1/2 tsp Ground Cinnamon
1/2 cup Unsalted Butter, room temp.
3/4 cup Sugar
1 Egg
1/2 tsp Vanilla Extract

Coating:
3 tbsp Sugar
1 1/2 tsp Ground Cinnamon

Sift the flour, salt, baking powder, and cinnamon together. Set aside.
Beat the butter and sugar until you achieve a smooth, fluffy texture. Add the egg and beat, scraping down the sides of the bowl if necessary. Add the vanilla and mix until incorporated. Next, add the flour mixture and beat until everything is smooth and consistent. At this point, your dough will be kind of sticky. Cover and refrigerate until you get a nice playdough/clay consistency. (About an hour or so)

Preheat oven to 400. Mix the sugar and cinnamon together. Roll portions of dough in your hands into twelve 1-2" balls. Roll each ball in the coating. Place on a baking sheet/parchment paper/Silpat... etc. Next, flatten each ball to about a 1/2 inch thickness using the bottom of a cup or glass. Using your fingers, sprinkle a pinch of the coating on top of each flattened ball of dough.

Bake for 8-10 minutes or until the edges start to brown.

Enjoy!

I love the way the sugar sparkles in the light, so pretty!

Raspberry Marble Cheesecake Cupcakes

Have you ever looked through the Martha Stewart Cupcakes Recipe book? She has so many cute and yummy-looking recipes. Andrew's cousin invited us over for Christmas dinner so I picked out this recipe and gave it a try.


Ingredients (makes 32 cupcakes so I cut everything in half and made 16):

1 1/2 cups Graham Crackers, finely ground (About 12 sheets)
3 tbsp Unsalted Butter, melted
1 1/2 cups + 5 tbsp Sugar
1 container (6 oz) Fresh Raspberries
2 lbs Cream Cheese, room temp.
Salt
1 tsp Vanilla Extract
4 Eggs, room temp.

Preheat oven to 325. Line a muffin pan with paper liners. Mix graham crackers with 3 tbsp of sugar followed by the butter. Spoon about 1 tbsp of the mixture into the paper liners and press firmly to the bottom. Bake for about 5 minutes.

Use a food processor to puree the raspberries until smooth. Strain through a fine sieve. Discard the seeds. Whisk in 2 tbsp of sugar into the strained raspberries. Set aside.

Beat the cream cheese at medium high speed until fluffy. Reduce to low speed and add 1 1/2 cups of sugar in a steady stream. Add a pinch of salt and the vanilla extract. Mix until incorporated. Next, add the eggs one at a time, waiting until the previous egg is incorporated before adding the next.

Spoon 3 tbsp of cream cheese mixture into each paper lining followed by 1/2 tsp of raspberry puree. Use a toothpick to swirl the puree to create marbleized effect.

From bottom: graham cracker crust, cheesecake mixture, drops of raspberry puree, swirled around with a toothpick.

If you have a roasting pan large enough for the muffin tin to fit in, fill it with water to create a sort of bath for the tin. This promotes even baking. If you don't, you can heat up some water on the stove, pour it in an oven-safe pan and place it on the rack directly below the one your muffin tin is on. (Does that make sense?)

Bake for about 22 minutes rotating halfway. Allow to cool completely and refrigerate for 4 hours before serving to allow the cheesecake to set.

These look a little sad because I not-very-carefully tore the paper off. Using my new fancy mixer, I whipped up some unsweetened whipped cream and added a fresh raspberry on top. The cake is already sweet, so no need to sweeten the whipped cream. It'd also look cute with a sprig of mint!

For a better picture, check out Sako's blog!

Chocolate Chip Cookies Two Ways

When it comes to chocolate chip cookies do you like soft chewy cookies or hard crunchy cookies? Well I got both recipes here for you.

Let's do soft first, because that's what I like. This recipe is from Bakerella, and it's really simple and super yummy.

2 1/4 Flour
1 tsp Baking Soda
1/2 tsp Salt
1 cup Butter, room temperature
1 cup Brown sugar
1/2 cup Sugar
2 Eggs
2 tsp Vanilla
2 cups Chocolate Chips

Preheat oven to 350. Sift together the flour, baking soda, and salt. In a separate bowl, whisk the two sugars with the butter then add the eggs and vanilla and beat it! Add the flour mixture in two additions and mix well. Next, add almost all of the chocolate chips. Take about 1 tbsp scoops of the batter and bake for about 4 minutes. Take the cookies out, and sprinkle the remaining chocolate chips onto the cookies. Return to oven and bake an additional 4 minutes, or until golden brown. Doing it this way, you'll have chips all throughout your cookie.

Allow to cool on the pan for a few minutes, move to a wire cooling rack, then enjoy! These cookies will stay soft... =)

Now for the crunchy cookies. I don't know why these turned out crunchy. The recipe said they're supposed to be soft and chewy... they were when they first came out. Then they became crunchy, but they're still good. Also, they're much bigger cookies.

Ingredients:
2 cups Flour
1/2 tsp Baking Soda
1/2 tsp Salt
3/4 cups Butter, melted
1 cup Brown Sugar
1/2 cup White Sugar
1 tbsp Vanilla Extract
1 Egg
1 Egg Yolk
2 cups Semisweet Chocolate Chips

Preheat oven to 325. Sift the flour, baking soda, and salt together. Next, whisk the sugars and butter together. Add the egg and vanilla and mix well. Stir in the flour mixture in two additions. Add the chocolate chips. Scoop 2 tbsp amounts onto a baking sheet leaving about 3 inches of space between the cookies. Bake until golden brown, about 15 minutes.

Which did you prefer?

Coconut Macaroons Dipped in Chocolate... or not

I made these twice. The above picture shows the second time I made them.

Here's the first attempt:

Notice the difference? The first batch doesn't seem all that coconut-y. But it has a nice golden color. PLUS, I know you can't tell from the pictures, but I burned the second batch. I used a different brand of coconut, and I'm not sure if that was the culprit but the bottom of those macaroons, underneath the chocolate are charred. =) The first batch, though not as pretty... tasted sooooo good. The perfect amount of sweetness... they were chewy and sooo good. The second batch, not so much. So what's more important? Taste or looks?

I guess for the purposes of this blog, looks are more important. But to eat, of course taste is!

Anyway, here's the recipe:

Ingredients
2 Egg Whites, Room Temperature
A little less than 1/2 cup Sugar (I think 1/2 will be too sweet)
1/8 tsp Salt
1/4 cup Cake Flour, Sifted
1 1/2 cups Shredded Sweetened Coconut (Ralph's brand didn't burn, the Mounds brand did)
1/2 tsp Vanilla Extract

Whisk the eggs, sugar, and salt in a bowl over a saucepan of simmering water until the consistency is nice and creamy. (Make sure you use a bowl that won't melt!) What do I mean by creamy?
Like this, but all the way through. Not just on the top. It should be slightly warm to the touch. Basically, just beat those eggs until your arm feels like it's going to fall off. Then beat it a few minutes more. Beat those eggs into submission! (Andrew said that's weird that I said that)

Next, fold in the sifted cake flour, vanilla extract, and shredded coconuts. Cover and refrigerate for 2 hours.

Preheat your oven to 325. Divide the batter into 12 small mounds, a little more than a tbsp each, on a pan lined with parchment paper.

Bake for about 15 minutes or until golden brown. This is the tricky part. The bottom will cook pretty quickly. I think around 10 minutes, I turned down the oven. For some reason though, the Mounds brand burned so quickly. I think it had more sugar than the Ralph's brand.

If you'd like, you can dip the bottoms in chocolate. Then they taste like those girl scout cookies. What are they called? Samosas? No, that's the Indian food... Samoas? I dunno. I think once I accidentally called them Samoans.

Oh, btw I found this recipe on JoyofBaking.com

Berries and Cream!

After cooking Indian, I had a ton of plain yogurt and cream leftover. So, I mixed the yogurt and cream with a bit of sugar and vanilla and topped it with some berries--blue, rasp, and black. Yummy!

Just add heavy cream to plain yogurt until you get a consistency that you like. Add some vanilla extract and brown sugar. (About 1/4 tsp vanilla and for the sugar--your preference.) Drop in some berries/fruit, and instant dessert.