I'm Here! + Lime-Glazed Cookies

I'm here, I'm here! I hope you didn't forget about me while I was away... I know I didn't forget about you :) A lot has happened since the last time I posted something (on the first day of this year -- over six months ago). A lot has also not happened since then, as well.

Like cooking or baking. That pretty much did not happen at all.

Writing things for fun. Nope.

Doing anything blog related. Nada.

But I do have some good excuses, and I also have some good reasons for coming back.

The last time I posted I looked something like this:

But this time I look something like THIS:

That's right... we're having a baby!!!

So, you can see why I haven't been around for awhile. Between morning sickness for the first trimester and just overall tiredness at the end of teaching all day long while being pregnant for the rest of the time, I had no energy to spend doing something creative in the kitchen. There were many times when I just had no energy to go into the kitchen, let alone be creative. The second trimester was much easier and I started cooking again, but nothing newsworthy. I actually just visited my own blog each week and thought, "What are the easiest things I can make?" Which led us to a diet of fish tacos, leek-baked eggs, and lots and lots of pasta.

But now I am back, and I am back for real!

Last Friday I said goodbye to another group of students and locked my classroom door -- but this time I will not be getting another bunch in the Fall. This time I will be taking care of my own baby boy, my now full-time student as several friends have called him. My chosen career as a teacher was spectacular, and now my new chosen "career" as a homemaker/at-home-mommy will be a new adventure, equally spectacular yet very, very different.

So now, after growing a baby, teaching children to write essays and do multiplication, and writing a master's thesis (oh yeah, I did that as well this year), I am READY to be back in the kitchen. To help me get motivated and hold me somewhat accountable I asked my friends on Facebook if anyone was interested in joining a baking group with me. Nineteen of my friends said yes! The very first recipe we did was Martha Stewart's Lime-Glazed Cookies, and this household of two-and-a-half loved them. It was a nice blend of tart and sweet, and really great to enjoy on a hot summer day. Be forewarned, however... they are small and you might just eat the whole batch in one day. I mean, it's not like we did or anything. Shoot -- who am I kidding? We totally did. Feel free to do the same thing, too. You might just have to find a different excuse as my "I'm eating for two" doesn't apply to everybody at this moment ;)

Thank you so much for stopping by today and reading this. I am very happy to be back on this cooking journey with you, and hope that this finds you well, healthy, and happy. Cheers!

LIME-GLAZED COOKIES

Recipe from Everyday Food, July/August 2004

(Glaze recipe slightly adapted)

24-32 COOKIES   •  PREP TIME: 30 MINUTES  •  TOTAL TIME: 1 HOUR 30 MINUTES

Ingredients for the cookies:

• 1 ½ sticks unsalted butter at room temperature
• ¼ cup granulated sugar
• ¼ cup confectioner’s sugar
• 2 tablespoons grated lime zest (from about 2 limes)
• 2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• 1 ½ cups all-purpose flour

Ingredients for the glaze:

• ¾ cup confectioner’s sugar
• 1 tablespoon lime juice
• 2 teaspoons water
• 1 teaspoon grated lime zest

directions

1. With an electric mixer, cream butter and sugars until light, scraping down sides of bowl as needed. Add lime zest, lime juice, and salt; beat until combined. Add flour; beat until dough is just combined.
2. Place dough on a 16-by-12-inch piece of parchment or wax paper. Using your hands, shape into an 8-inch log; flatten into a rectangle (1 1/2 inches high and 2 1/2 inches wide). Fold paper over log; flatten sides against work surface. Refrigerate dough until firm, at least 1 hour and up to 1 day.
3. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line two baking sheets with parchment. Slice dough crosswise 1/4 inch thick; place on sheets. Bake, rotating sheets halfway through, until cookies are puffed and barely golden, about 15 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack to cool; glaze.
4. To make Lime Glaze: In a small bowl, whisk together all ingredients until spreadable. Using back of a small spoon, spread about 1/2 teaspoon glaze on each cooled cookie.

Store unglazed cookies in airtight container, up to four days. Glazed cookies are best eaten the day they are glazed.

COST: $3.82 (Less than 20cents per cookie)

Cookies    //    Dessert    //   Baking

Nutritional Information per Cookie
calories 107   •    total fat 6g    •    sodium 1g    •    sugars 6.8g   •    protein 1g

Peppermint Crinkle Cookies {Cookie Swap Recipe}

My poor baking gadgets have been neglected.  There they sat, in the drawer, lonely and wondering what they did that was so bad to make me never take them out to see the light of day or feel the heat of the oven.

Poor babies.

Good thing the Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap came to the rescue!

This was the second year I participated in this cookie swap, and both times I have had so much fun!  I mean, who doesn't like to have boxes of cookies -- freshly baked, I might add -- show up at their door?!  Yeah, that's what I thought.

Last year I sent off some cookies to Tennessee, and later met and became friends with the lady who received my box.  And, completely randomly, I received a box from someone who lives in the same little town in Illinois that my mother and grandmother grew up in.

Cookie swaps make the world just a little bit smaller...

How nice of OXO to send us all spatulas!  You can get one of these
bad boys for yourself HERE, and half of the proceeds go to fight
cancer in kids.  SWEET!

Of course, there is always the task of finding the perfect cookie recipe.  Since it can't be one that is on your blog yet (and if you are like me, you can only cook things that you put/have put on your blog), that means you need to find a new recipe.  One that you will like, one that strangers will like, one that ships well.

Luckily we live in the day and age of Pinterest.  Within five minutes I found it.

Cookies that taste like brownies???

Yes, please!

To celebrate my favorite flavor of Christmas, I added some peppermint extract.  Peppermint + chocolate = a merry Christmas, if you ask me.

And so, Peppermint Crinkle Cookies were born.  They lived a good life, for about five minutes, until my husband gobbled them all up, leaving me with one.

He apparently forgot that sharing was caring.

How nice of him to leave me one... ;)

In the end, these cookies traveled from my home in California to New York, Maryland, and another city not too far away from me, hopefully to arrive in tact and still fresh.  You never know with the busy holiday mail season!

And the best part?  I got cookies, too!  Thank you Natalie at The Sweets Life and Taylor at Greens & Chocolate.  You ladies had me at the peppermint...  As for Beka, your coconutty cookies were a perfect treat for this half-Brazilian home.  You brought a little bit of Natal our way.  Thank you!

Cookies from Taylor @ Green&Chocolate

Another holiday season, another cookie swap in the bag.  Merry Christmas!

Recipe adapted from the Magnolia Bakery in Los Angeles

MAKES 24-30 cookies
INGREDIENTS:  

1 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
2 cups White sugar
½ cup vegetable oil
4 eggs
1 1/2 tsp. Vanilla extract

1/2 tsp. peppermint extract
2 cups all purpose flour
2 teaspoon Baking powder
½ tsp. Salt
½ cup powdered sugar

DIRECTIONS:

1. In a small bowl whisk together 2 cups flour, 2 tsp. baking powder and ½ tsp. salt. Set aside.
2. In a medium size stainless steel bowl whisk together 1 cup cocoa, 2 cups white sugar and ½ cup vegetable oil.
3. Add the eggs one at a time, whisking slightly after each.
4. Stir in the vanilla just until mixed.
5. Stir the flour mixture into the cocoa mixture.
6. Cover dough and chill for at least 30 minutes
7. Preheat oven to 325 degrees
8. Using a scoop, roll dough into a one inch balls.
9. Roll the balls in powdered sugar coating generously.
10. Line a sheet tray with parchment paper and bake  cookies for 10-12 minutes just until set. Watch these cookies carefully. They are like a brownie and are better when the center is just barely set. The cookies will “crack” on top exposing the soft chocolate center.

COST: $3.16    COST PER DOZEN (about 3): $1.06

Sweet Potato Chocolate Chip Cookies (Sundays with Joy)

"Oh, come on, try some.  You'll like it, I promise!"

How is it that every single time someone says those words they turn out to be a liar?

This is how my dear, incredibly honest aunt became a liar every single Thanksgiving.  The food she was talking about?  Yams.  Yucky yams.  I tried them, I did not like them, and then the next year we would go through the same thing.

You know what else I didn't like? Every year?  Sweet potatoes.  Because they tasted like yams.

Vegetables are not supposed to be sweet!  It is against the laws of nature, right?!

This week's Sundays with Joy recipe is sweet potato chocolate chip cookies.  Sweet potatoes + chocolate chips.

Yes, you read that correctly.

But... but.  Hold on a second.  When I was in Nashville this summer I went to this local joint called the Pancake Pantry and I was told I had to try the sweet potato pancakes.  "Come on," they said, "try them.  You'll like them.  Promise."  Liar liar, pants on fire...

Except when I did try them (a bite off someone else's plate) I DID like them.  A lot.

So this recipe by Joy the Baker did actually sound like it had some good potential.

Yes, those are some large 'heaping tablespoons' there.  And yes, my cookies came out quite large.  But whatever, they taste GOOD.

Sweet potatoes, you are no longer on the Yucky List!  Maybe vegetables can be sweet, in sweet things.   Now I need to try some yams...

Nah.

Since I am participating in October Unprocessed this year, I made these so they would be 'unprocessed'.  (I know it is not October until tomorrow, but I will be eating them in October, so I figured I should just go for it.)  These cookies were made with unbleached flour, raw sugar, and some chocolate chips that are made out of the same types of things (pure sugar, unsweetened cocoa, cocoa butter, and salt -- that's it, no more, no less).  You, of course, can make them any way you like them, but however you do it, they taste good.

Go ahead, try some.  You'll like it.  I promise.

And I am not lying!

Recipe adapted from the Joy the Baker Cookbook.  Do yourself a favor and buy a copy HERE.

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup baked, mashed sweet potato (pierce skin with fork and bake at 400 for 40 minutes on tin foil-lined baking sheet)
• 2 cups unbleached flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 baking soda
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon Allspice
• 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
• 2 large eggs
• 1 cup packed raw brown sugar (smells a little different but tastes great)
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
• 1 cup 'fresh' chocolate chips

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease baking sheet and set aside.
2. In large bowl, mix dry ingredients together. Set aside.
3. In medium bowl, whisk eggs and sugar together.  Add oil and vanilla; whisk again.  Fold in mashed sweet potato.
4. Add egg mixture to dry ingredients, all at once.  Using a spatula, mix until now flour remains dry.  Fold in chocolate chips.
5. Scoop cookie dough, by the heaping tablespoonful, onto greased baking sheet, 2 inches apart.  Bake for 10-12 minutes.  Remove from oven and let cool for 10 minutes before placing on wire rack to cool completely.

COST: $5.34   COST PER Cookie (18): $0.30

Raspberry Lemon Cream Cheese Whoopie Pies {Guest Post from Indigo Scones}

Friends, do I have a treat for you!  I would like to introduce you to Ellen from Indigo Scones.  Not only does she whip up amazing goodies and take breath-takingly beautiful photos , but she is still a teenager.  Yes, you heard me right, this is the work of "a kid".  Her talent at such a young age far surpasses many of us "old folk", and it goes to show that we never are too young to start, or too old to keep learning!  Thank you, Ellen, for helping a girl out in my time of being a kitchen absentee, and the rest of you, GO CHECK OUT HER BLOG!!! 

Hello friends of Tiffany! I'm happy to be here today, sharing naughty recipes and silly stories. I'm sure we'll get along swell.

There's something you should know about me, I'm a cream cheese girl. My toasted bagel isn't complete until it gets a thick slathering of it. This disgusts some people, and others it relieves; knowing they aren't the only ones who binge. Cheesecake is heavenly, cinnamon rolls scream for cream cheese frosting, and red velvet is nothing without it. The world needs cream cheese.

One day I was stuck with a surplus of pie crust scraps. When you're a crazy baker, these little odds and ends tend to pile up in your freezer. I wasn't feeling up to sprinkling them with cinnamon sugar and calling it a day, a combo that I never was crazy for, I wanted something a little different.

I improvise a lot in my kitchen, mostly because I don't have a steady income and I live 20 minutes from the nearest grocery store. You learn to work with what you've got! I recalled seeing some cute little hand pies floating around the internet, and thought, why not make even smaller ones? Bite-sized pies filled with whatever my heart desired, that's what I was going for. So I did a quick inventory check, and came out with a jar of Jif, chocolate chips, some leftover brown sugar pecan filling (crazy baker leftovers strike again!), a jar of raspberry jelly, and some cream cheese.

Look, suffice it to say that I don't even remember what the other flavor combinations tasted like. One bite into those raspberry jelly cream cheese pies, and I was a goner. It was a combination to die for.

Not too long ago, I was making a pie to bring to some occasion or other. I felt a little bad for leaving my parents pie-less when the whole house smelled like heaven, so I pulled out a little cake tin and again put those pie scraps to use. A layering of jelly, frozen berries, and cream cheese chunks was all that was needed. It baked up with the big brother pie and I left it to cool for their dessert. 15 minutes later I got texts from both of them, gushing over how fabulous it was. They had just grabbed a couple of spoons and gone at it, even my crust-hating dad. It was still a winner.

And here I am now! Incorporating this flavor into whoopie pies, with some lemon thrown in, just for good measure. Whoopie pies are a little different from your average cookie, they're more cake-y, and just glorious when stuffed with frosting and left in the fridge overnight. They're also really fun to say five times fast. The batter is very thick, and not too easy to pipe.

I'm a little out of practice in my whoopie piping, so they kind of came out like little beehives. Just use a very large tip, and know that the less beehive-like they look, the better. Also, try not to mound them too much (which kind of goes with the no-beehive theory), you want them a little more flat and disc-like as they will puff up in the oven.

And most importantly, remember that no matter what they look like, they're still going to taste awesome :)

Gauging when they're done isn't hard, but be very careful not to overbake them. Hard, crumbly whoopie pies just aren't right. Their color doesn't change much when baked, but they will puff up and firm. When you touch the top lightly with you fingertip, it should bounce back. However, I prefer to go by the "just until set" method; meaning they will be puffed, no longer raw-looking, but still a bit soft in the center (hence the fingertip test doesn't work so well).

Filling them is a breeze. Food coloring is optional, and I went a little overboard with mine here. I wanted to accentuate the raspberry jam a bit more, and got some reaaalllyyy pink frosting as a result! Anyway, these really are hard to screw up. They only thing I should warn you about is their addictiveness.
  

Recipe:
Raspberry Lemon Cream Cheese Whoopie Pies
Yield: 20-24 sandwich cookies

Ingredients for the cookies:
8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature
¾ cup sugar
1 large egg plus 1 large egg white
1 vanilla bean, split lengthwise (or 1 teaspoon vanilla extract)
1 teaspoon lemon zest (from about half a lemon)
2¼ cups all-purpose flour
1½ teaspoons baking powder
¾ teaspoon salt
½ cup buttermilk

Ingredients for the filling:
4 oz. cream cheese, chilled
2½ tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature
¼ teaspoon vanilla extract
2 tablespoons raspberry preserves
1¼ cups powdered sugar
Red food coloring, if desired (I used gel food coloring)

Directions:
To make the cookies, preheat the oven to 350˚ F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone baking mats. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment (or with a handheld mixer), combine the butter and sugar. Beat on medium-high speed until light and fluffy, about 2-3 minutes. Blend in the egg, then the egg white; scraping down the bowl between additions. Scrape the beans from the vanilla pod into the bowl and blend in with the lemon zest. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt. With the mixer on low speed, beat in half of the dry ingredients, mixing just until incorporated. Mix in the buttermilk. Beat in the remaining dry ingredients, just until incorporated.

Transfer the cookie batter to a large pastry bag fitted with a large round tip. Pipe the batter into 1-inch or 1½-inch rounds onto the prepared pans, spacing them an inch or two apart (Be mindful that you don't mound them too much, unless of course you want them to be that way.). Bake 7-12 minutes, or until puffed and set, rotating halfway through baking time. Let cool on the pan at least 10 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

To make the filling, in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment (or a handheld mixer), beat the cream cheese and butter on medium-high speed until well combined and smooth, about 2-3 minutes. Mix in the vanilla extract and raspberry preserves. Gradually beat in the confectioners’ sugar until totally incorporated, then increase the speed and beat until smooth. Add food coloring, if desired. Transfer to a pastry bag fitted with a large tip.

To assemble the cookies, match them up in pairs by size. Pipe a dollop of filling onto the flat side of one cookie of each pair, and sandwich the cookies together, pushing the filling to the edges. Place in an airtight container and refrigerate until set, at least 1 hour.


Sources: whoopie pie adapted from Annie's Eats, cream cheese filling also adapted from Annie's Eats

Cookie Swap 2011: Peppermint Spritz

I went out on a limb and tried something new this year: I participated in a cookie swap.

Deciding to do it was easy.  Getting three packages of cookies at my door sounded like something I definitely wanted.  So I headed on over to the sign-up page, dropped my information off, and went on my merry way.  October finished up and Thanksgiving came and I was sent my matches for who I would be making cookies for.  Curious, of course, I headed off to visit their blogs -- their beautiful blogs.  Blogs full of great cooking and tons of followers.  These were the people who were going to eat my cookies?  I could imagine them in their nice little aprons, shuffling around the kitchen, whipping up cookies for their recipients, singing "Silver Bells" as they went.  Quite different than what my process would look like. 

I am no baker.  Shoot -- I had never even made Christmas cookies before.  And all of the Christmas cookies I knew of contained fancy frosting.  Unfortunately, frosting and I rarely get along.

Suddenly it didn't seem like a good idea anymore, more like an overwhelming idea.

But I had signed up for it, so I had to do it.  I reached up into my cupboard, pulled down good ol' Better Homes and Gardens, and flipped through the pages.  I finally found one that sounded both do-able and delicious (and only required ingredients that I had or knew where I could find them).  Peppermint Spritz. 

All I would need was a cookie press.  

However, I had no idea what that actually was. Thank goodness for Google, which can be a handy tool in times like that, and Crate & Barrel, who so kindly stocks all of your baking needs.  After a quick internet search, a little shopping trip, and careful direction reading, I was set.  It was time to put my nose to the grindstone and make some Christmas cookies.

You know what?  I can now say I am a Christmas cookie maker.  And according to at least two of my recipients, they were delicious.  Score!

Another good thing about this was, of course, coming home and have packages on my doorstep.  I have received two of them so far, one from Kansas and another from Illinois.  Actually, the second was from the same little town my mother/grandmother/grandfather/great-grandparents/etc. grew up in!  What are the odds?  That brought smile to my face. 

Thank you, Erin at Naturally Ella for your scrumptious, healthy-yet-tasty cookies. (Click either picture to be taken to the respective recipes.)

And Carly at CarlyKlock, my husband ate almost all the cookies, but the two I got to try were delicious as well.

Looking forward to having a third package dropped on  my door soon :)

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups butter, softened
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 egg
• 1 teaspoon peppermint extract 
• 3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. In a large mixing bowl beat butter with an electric mixer on medium to high speed for 30 seconds. Add granulated sugar and baking powder. Beat until combined, scraping sides of bowl occasionally. Beat in egg and peppermint extract until combined. Beat in as much of the flour as you can with the mixer. Stir in any remaining flour.

2. Force unchilled dough through a cookie press onto an ungreased cookie sheet. If desired, sprinkle cookies with colored sugar. Bake for 8 to 10 minutes or until edges are firm but not brown. Transfer to a wire rack and let cool.

3. Makes about 84 cookies.