Cakes, cookies and birthdays, oh my!

So it's been a while. At first there were no updates because there were no new recipes. Then it was because I was so busy making said recipes. And lately it's been because I just haven't felt like it.

All right, that out of the way, let's get down to the updates.

I've been experimenting with sugar cookie doughs, trying to find a recipe that I like that I could also sit down and pipe out awesome patterns with royal icing for a few hours. I still haven't found the perfect dough to my liking, but I did make some pretty good chocolate cookies for my best bud down in Evansville.

Happy Easter!

And so the Easter Bunny climbed down our chimneys and left gutted pumpkins full of candy and fireworks under the tree. The end.

But really, a Happy Easter to everyone!

In other news, the day before (yesterday, or otherwise known as "Saturday") was my guy's and I's first anniversary. Woohoo! Of course we're poor right now so it was pizza in a cute little joint east of here, and afterwards we rented a rom-com that didn't make either of us vomit. AAAND I got to show off said boyfriend to my huge flippin' extended family earlier that afternoon at a big get-together way outside the city. We both survived, pretty much unscathed.

Today for Easter my guy and I puttered around downtown Milwaukee for some hi-jinks down by the lakefront. Then I made him drive until we found a little hole-in-the-wall Mediterranean bakery. There I got us a little combo package of baklava and other sweets. There were these little honey filled donuts that we tried. Kyle was so excited when he saw them, less excited when he tasted them. Apparently his taste buds are less adventurous than mine, and after two bites I had the whole container all to myself. Unfortunately, I don't recall the name of those little donuts. But I noticed a hint of rosewater in with the honey, which inspired my newest cookie creation.

First Cake!

Layer cake with butter-cream frosting and fondant a successful test run. I've made cakes in the past, but I'm really calling this my first cake, as it has all the bells and whistles my prior cakes sorely lacked. Now I'm cake obsessed and I feel compelled to spend hundreds of dollars on all the little cake making/decorating accessories you find on the Wilton website. But no, I must be thrifty! I'm going to poor-girl it and see if I can hunt down cheap alternatives to a lot of the tools on the website. Of course, I'll share them with y'all. :)

Happy Cake

Getting creative as my pantry empties more and more...

Still haven't hit the store, but when company comes over, I want to be able to offer a little something sweet. Even if it's just my brother coming over to bum around with Kyle playing Modern Warfare 2. Really, I'll use any excuse to bake.

So I consult with my pantry, take stock of my supplies. And guess what, it's cupcake time! I used up the rest of my sugar and cocoa powder on this recipe, so now I really have no choice but to get my grocery shopping on.

Isn't it so sweeeet?

Give a girl a cookie, she's happy for a day. Teach a girl to bake cookies...

So the ol' larder's running low. Low on butter, low on AP flour, low on brown sugar. Who has two thumbs and refuses to let that stop her from making cookies? This girl.

I only had 1 stick and a couple tablespoons of butter left, and no self respecting cookie recipe uses that little butter without any other fat in it (like peanut butter cookies). So I thought to myself, what is butter really. A ratio of delicious fat and water. So I figure, a few tablespoons of shortening and some good ol' liquor for the water aspect and we're cooking with Crisco, baby. Literally. The shortening lends to making the cookie more tender as well. And then there's the flour. I was down to my last cup so I had to use cake flour to reach the quota. Due to the lower protein content of cake flour, this also resulted in a fluffier, tender-er cookie. Yay for improvising! I'm sure this recipe would turn out fine with 2 1/4 C of regular AP and 2 sticks of butter, but why mess with a good thing?

The Divine Redemption of the Cursed Cookie

Dum dum DUUUUM *dramatic music*

So I'll be honest, painstakingly cutting out individual cookie shapes is not something I always enjoy doing, especially when the dough is cursed. So what to do with a ball of leftover linzer dough and a bowl of homemade strawberry jam? That's right, boys and girls, it's crumble time.

During my shopping therapy session, I found some ground cardamom and glorious looking pears. I've never cooked with cardamom, so this seemed like a good first application for it.

I may be playing up the awesomeness of this dessert, but I should note that one of my favorite things is streusel topping. You know, that crumbly, cinnamony, oaty, buttery stuff that sometimes comes on top of apple pie. Oooh yeah. On with the recipe! By the way if you don't have, or don't want to make the linzer cookie dough from the prior post, store-bought pie dough (or a tube of sugar cookie dough) will work just as well.

The Cursed Cookie

So in the end, I put a lot more effort into these cookies than should ever be necessary for any cookie ever. I basically fail-boated my way to the results.

It started out well enough, I tried making my own strawberry jam, and set a pot of strawberry puree on a burner. There was a bowl I had used to wash the berries on another burner. Guess which burner I turned on. Sigh. I freaked out and poured water on it, it broke in four pieces right away. Science!

More like Dr. Failure

Not a total failure, they tasted yummy, but certainly not Dr. Pepper-tasmic.

So cooking down Dr. Pepper to try to get a concentrated syrup is possible (if you add enough sugar), but the flavor dissipates with the steam. You're basically left with a syrup that tastes vaguely like flat Dr. Pepper. I will try a soda cookie recipe again, but with flavoring extract or syrup or something instead.

I was too lazy to get a picture of these guys before they were gobbled up. I'm going to make a more concerted effort to post pics of my fails in addition to my successes on this here little blog.

For my next cookie, I'll probably go a little more traditional. On impulse I bought some strawberries the other day. Now I'm not really a fresh strawberry eater, but I like them when cooked/baked into things. We'll see what I come up with, or if it's even a cookie.

On another note, I will be making my sister-in-law's birthday cake this year. I'm going to try to go all out with this one, experiment with fondant and the like. We'll see what I come up with. Definitely time to experiment with firm-textured cakes!

If anyone even ever looks at this blog, you'll get to see the results early May. :)

The doctor is in

I'm inspired by my diet Dr. Pepper-aholic boyfriend to try making a cherry Dr. Pepper cookie. I know that to get a more intense flavor one should use Dr. Pepper syrup concentrate in the mix, but I'm going to see how it works to simply simmer the water out of a can's worth of Dr. Pepper and hopefully reduce it to a syrupy consistency. Will this experiment spell disaster for our heroes? Stay tuned to find out.

Tea and cookies or death!

 This recipe needed a lot of tweeking. I think I got it pretty close though. All in all I'm happy with how they came out, I like the flavor definitely.

Tea & Lemon Cookies

1 c water
3 tea bags (your choice in flavor, I chose a breakfast black tea)

1 1/4 c brown sugar
1/2 c (1 stick) butter
1 egg
1 tsp lemon extract
3 1/2 c flour
2 tsp corn starch
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp salt
Turbinado sugar

Start with the tea. Boil the water and steep the tea bags for 5 minutes.

In a small bowl mix flour, cornstarch, baking soda, cinnamon and salt. Set aside. Cream the butter and brown sugar together until fluffy. Add the tea (while still hot) and beat with the butter mixture until you get a thick liquid. At this point it should be cooled slightly so you can add the egg and the lemon extract. Slowly incorporate flour mixture, do not over-mix. Dough should be sticky and elastic. Cover dough with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes.

Using a 1/2 oz. cookie disher, scoop out dough and roll in turbinado sugar before placing on a greased cookie sheet.

Bake at 375 degrees for 9-11 minutes or until dough springs back when pressed lightly.

Who doesn't love
pretty cookies all lined
up in a row?

Lemon glaze

A bunch of powdered sugar
A bit of lemon juice

You'll have to toy with this one. I believe 2 c of powdered sugar vs. 2 1/2 tbsp of lemon juice should do the trick, but you'll have to keep adding either/or until you get a very stiff glaze/frosting. If it's runny, add more powdered sugar. I dipped half the cookie in it and set it on parchment paper to harden.

By the way, if you haven't ever used turbinado sugar, it's also known as Sugar in the Raw. It's very coarse, much coarser than table sugar and makes for an excellent crunchy coating or topping on pastries, cakes, pizza, etc. It also makes an otherwise ordinary cookie look extra perty.

Simply peanut-tastic

I'm on a roll this weekend with the cookies, it seems. My guy had been begging me for a while to bake his favorites, a variation of Nestle's Chunky Chocolate Chip Peanut Butter Cookies. He even offered to help me make them, awww how selfless.

I claim this cookie for
the republic!

He prefers them without the chocolate or peanuts and instead with peanut butter chips. In order to fulfill my desire for chocolate I simply stick a Hershey Kiss in the ones I claim as mine. Win win. BTW, the secret ingredient that makes all the difference in these babies? 1/2 tsp of cinnamon. I swear, they taste more peanut-buttery and waay more delicious-y if you include a pinch of cinnamon.

Tomorrow I'll use some co-workers as guinea pigs for the cannoli cookies. I got good reception for the cheddah cookies, we'll see if I get a few fans for these. For tonight, it's just me, my guy, our cat and a plate of home-made fresh-from-the-oven peanut butter cookies.

It's really the simple things sometimes.  

Leave the gun, take the cannoli... cookie

If you've never had a cannoli... you have not yet lived!

So I was thinking about cannoli recently, which is to say I think of it often because it's so awesomesauce-ly delicious. As a girl with a sweet tooth the size of a mastodon, I consider myself a connoisseur of sorts when it comes to desserts. And cannoli is right at the top. There was a two year stretch where my birthday cake request was simply a dozen cannolis (with chocolate dipped shells!). So it's surprising that it wasn't until two days ago that I thought of turning it into a sandwich cookie. It's certainly easier to make than the real deal, who wants a bunch of uni-tasker metal tubes cluttering their kitchen drawer?

So I did my research. What is in a cannoli anyway? What makes it so cannoli-esque? Several recipes I found include marsala wine as a key ingredient in the shell. Of course there's the pistachios, the citron, the creamy ricotta goodness. 

For my first attempt I tried to make a cookie based on a recipe for a cannoli shell, with the main difference being the shell would be baked instead of fried. Epic failure. The dough was so dry, even letting it rest did no good. After carefully rolling it out and baking the little dough disks, I succeeded in making hard tack instead of the flaky, crusty cookie I was envisioning. But the marsala added a nice flavor.

On the second attempt, I abandoned the cannoli shell recipe and simply created an actual cookie recipe featuring the marsala. By the way, if you can't find marsala wine in the wine section (like I couldn't,) try the cooking section. It's a cooking wine I guess so they leave it out near the vinegars.

The Kitchn featured a guest post from Katie of goodLife {eats} with a cannoli cookie recipe that served as my main inspiration for my cannoli cookie sandwich. With some minor differences in ingredients and execution, they're pretty similar. Great minds think alike I guess!

And without further ado, I present my:

Cannoli Cookie Sandwiches

The cookie:

2 c all purpose flour

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 c (1 stick) butter, softened

1/2 c sugar

1/2 c brown sugar

1 egg

1/4 c marsala wine (or other dry red wine)

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 c chopped pistachios (optional)

Turbinado sugar (optional)

In a small bowl, mix together flour, baking soda, salt and cinnamon and set aside. In a large bowl, cream the butter and the sugars until light and fluffy. Add the marsala, egg and vanilla until thoroughly incorporated. Gradually mix in dry ingredients. Fold in pistachios.

Using a cookie disher, scoop out cookies onto greased cookie sheets (or get yourself some silicon mats!) Pat down dough balls slightly, and sprinkle with turbinado sugar. Bake at 375 degrees for 9-11 minutes or until golden brown at the edges. Allow to cool completely on a cooling rack before sandwich-izing them.

The filling:

The Holy Kitchen-Aid
of Awesome

1 15 oz. tub of ricotta cheese

1/2 c cream cheese

1 c powdered sugar

1/2 tsp lemon extract

1/2 c chocolate chips (mini works best)

Whip the cream cheese until light and fluffy. Add the ricotta cheese and mix thoroughly. Mix in powdered sugar and lemon extract. Fold in chocolate chips.

I used a freezer bag as a piping bag for the filling, but you can get it on the cookies however you like. I drizzled melted chocolate over the cookies for some extra curb appeal. Another idea is to take some finely chopped pistachios, or even finely chopped maraschino cherries to stick on the edges.  Mmm!!!

A note about the filling, you'll probably end up with more filling than there are cookies to fill. Either cut the recipe in half or just eat the rest later. ;)

It's all in the 'cheddah'

Spiced Cheddarhead Cookies

2 c plus 1 tbsp - cake flour

1 tsp - baking powder

1/2 tsp - baking soda

1/2 tsp - salt

1/3 c - medium cheddar cheese (shredded)

3 tbsp - butter

1/2 c - apple  juice

1/2 c - sugar

1/2 c - brown sugar

1 egg

1/4 tsp - allspice

1/4 tsp - ginger

3/4 tsp - cinnamon

1 tbsp - maple syrup 

Mix the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a small bowl and set aside.

In a pot on your stovetop, melt butter over medium heat. Once completely melted, scoop approx. 1 tbsp of cake flour into butter and whisk vigarously to work out any lumps. Congrats, you've made a roux! Add in cheese and whisk thoroughly with roux until completely melted. Turn off heat, move pot to a cool burner and whisk in apple juice, sugar and brown sugar, spices and maple syrup. Once mixed, whisk in egg. (Be careful! If mixture too hot it could curdle egg, that's why you dont' wanna use high heat in this recipe!) 

Sift the dry ingredients into the pot and fold with a spatula until incorporated. At this point nuts or raisins are optional, fold whatever else you like into the pot. 

Cookie scoop onto GREASED pans about an 1 1/2 inches apart. I mean greased guys, EVEN with silpats these babies stick. Bake at 375* for 8-10 minutes or until golden brown. Move to drying racks to cool completely. 

To finish, I spread fruit jam (peach apricot) on the bottoms of the cookies and stuck them together sandwichlike. If this appeals to you, trust me, it's worth it. Otherwise they're tasty by themselves :)

A note about the temperature. I baked them at 350, but my oven's natoriously about 25 degrees hotter than it should be. Bake yours at 375 but keep a closer eye on them near the end of the 8 minutes in case they bake quicker for you. This also depends on how big your dough balls are. 

The consistency of this one is a relatively fluffy cookie, with some extra chew due to the protein content. I sprinkled my cookies with powdered sugar, which may not be a bad idea for you to do as it helps the cookies not stick to each other or the bottom of your storage vessel.

**Side note: Please excuse the photo quality. I'm going to get one of my friends to start taking pictures of my cookies with their super deluxe camera from now on**

And so it begins...

To start, I really love cookies.

I love cookies so much, I consider them their own food group.

I once brought cookies to a job interview. And I got it.  (I should note that there was a specific reason for cookies to be at this particular interview, but I'll just let you think I did it to grease the wheels.)

I suppose I bake like most people cook, that being rather imprecisely. I've gotten better, but I still won't level out a cup of flour or pack down brown sugar. Spices and leaveners are doled out in pinches, usually. It always turns out tasty (well, most of the time), but I have trouble recreating the exact same cookie twice.

I'm an experimenter. I see an ingredient and build recipes around it. Or I take what's in the house and throw it in the ol' Kitchen-Aid for a whirl (best investment evar!) Recently I declared that I would take more care with my baking and actually properly measure and record the ingredients that I use in an experimental recipe (effort..) But one cookie got me thinking about perhaps starting a blog. I love to talk annoy my boyfriend about recipes and baking techniques nearly as much as I love talking about myself. So I figure why not shoot two stones with one bird and unleash my experimental recipes on the masses in a blog-type setting. Not that anyone will read it, but there is the therapeutic value.

The cookie in question that inspired this blog has a lot to do with my home state, Wisconsin. Not to give away the secret, but the secret ingredient is cheddar cheese. So I guess that gives away the secret. My aspiration in life is that one day this cookie becomes the official state cookie of the dairy land, but I guess I'd settle a gold star :)

If you stumbled across this page by accident, and are unusually enticed by the thought of a cheesy cookie, stay tuned for the forthcoming recipe.

Erika out!