Lemon Crinkle Cookies

I absolutely love to bake - the problem is that I also like to eat it all (but I didn't say of what... it doesn't matter.)   See when I cook I tend to think my efforts yield a sub par result.  My taste buds by the time I'm done with a main course are not salivating but are often underwhelmed by all that effort that was just put in.   That is not the case when it comes to baking.  Maybe it's the high contents of sugar and butter involved, but any way you go about it I love to bake and consume what is baked.  

I am always looking for something new to try and whip up when I find the time.   Between a lack of sleep and a lack of motivation derived from sleep deprivation baking is often on the back burner (ha!) of life.    Every now and then I come across a motivator (often found on Pinterest) that gets my creative juices flowing and I head to the kitchen. 

Yesterday that was a lemon crinkle cookie.   After the kids went to bed I got to work.  For a brief moment I thought that I had run out of sugar and while I searched the cupboard for some I laughed at the thought of having to go to the neighbor's house to borrow a cup of sugar.   Eventually I found my massive bag tucked in the back and refilled the easy access container that lives on the counter top. 

Next I started to zest a lemon.  I have to say I find zesting to be a really fun activity.  Don't ask why, I don't really know... but I love it.  With all the ingredients out and measured - the mixing began!  With two sleeping children - that often don't sleep with any duration or regularity I find having everything premeasured before beginning the mixing process works great.  This way if I am interrupted I can either ask the husband to dump stuff in OR more likely, I won't be distracted and dump in tablespoons of salt when teaspoons were asked for.  

For this recipe I looked at several different ones around Pinterest and ended up doing my own adaptation of ingredients and amounts of them, but as far as directions I followed Lauren's Latest

Ingredients (makes about 2-3 dozen):
½ cups butter, softened
1 C. sugar
1 t. Vanilla Extract
1 egg (room temp)
1 organic* lemon zested (about 2 T. worth)
2 T. fresh lemon juice
¼ t. salt
¼ t. baking powder
⅛ t. baking Soda
1 ½ C. flour
Powdered Sugar

Directions:Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In the mixer using the paddle attachment, cream butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Whip in vanilla, egg, lemon zest and juice. Scrape sides and mix again. Stir in all dry ingredients slowly until just combined, excluding the powdered sugar. Scrape sides of bowl and mix again briefly. Pour powdered sugar onto a large plate. Roll a heaping teaspoon of dough into a ball and roll in powdered sugar. Place on baking sheet, squish it down a bit (I know totally a technical term!)  and repeat with remaining dough.

Bake for 9-11 minutes or until bottoms begin to barely brown and cookies look matte {not melty or shiny}. Remove from oven and cool cookies about 3 minutes before transferring to cooling rack. If using a non stick darker baking tray, reduce baking time by about 2 minutes.

This recipe made 29 cookies... by the time they were cooled and ready to be put away for the night there were 18 remaining.   They were delicious, lemony, and soft (my favorite!) The lemon wasn't over powering and it wasn't "lemon scented" as one friend of mine described about some store bought lemon cookies the other day.     YUMMY!  I actually went and bought more organic lemons so I could make more later this week.

Ok one more picture of my cookies with a lemon...because it's the thing to do.

One last thing!

* You want to use organic anything if you are putting the outer shell of citrus into whatever it is you're cooking.   The pesticides that are used on non-organic lemons (oranges, grapefruits, etc..) are not held to a edible standard by the FDA because that part of the fruit is not consider part of the edible fruit.  Therefore, no amount of 'mild soap scrubbing' is worth the what-ifs associated with what else you're zesting into your cookies.  Bleck!   Buy organic, at least for zesting if not for other reasons.  :)

Babycakes Cake Pops

I recently purchased the Babycakes Cake Pop Maker and the Babycakes Cake Pop Cookbook.  I had previously seen the machine for sale and thought that would be neat, but I quickly dismissed it because I figured it wasn't worth $25 to just make cake pops every now and again.  Then I stumbled upon the cookbook and the fact that I can cook appetizers and other things specifically recipe-calibrated for this machine.   Hooray, I bought away! 

Did I buy for a specific event in mind?  No. Have I ever eaten a cake pop before in my life? No.  Do I think I'll get $25 worth of use of it? Yes, and then some! Are they delicious? Yum! 

For my first attempt making any cake pops this machine made it super easy!  I decided that I'd make some for our community group when it came our turn to bring dessert.   I used their lemon cake recipe.  Considering I didn't have an actual lemon as called by the recipe and only the lemon extract part, they were still quite yummy.  Can't wait to try it with a real lemon! :)

The recipe is super easy, relatively small, and easy to mix together.  After everything was combined, I tossed everything into a ziplock back and cut the end and created a easy device to feed the maker (and throw away when I'm done!)   Finding the right level of batter to create the perfect sphere took a bit trial and error but overall it was very easy.

I have to say that the cookbook does a great job walking you through the ins and outs of the cake pop maker.  Tips on just about anything you'd come across, and I greatly appreciated that.  The cake pops cook quickly only about 4 minutes and they were nice and fluffy.   They pop out of the maker pretty easily too!   Now after doing a lot of reading about 'cake pops'  I have been enlightened that the Babycakes Maker does not make 'traditional' cake pops - which apparently involve regular cake crumbled and a frosting mixtured rolled into a ball.   Forgive me if I say THANK GOODNESS for that!  That sounds disgusting to me.   I like the nice solid cake center.  :)

The book walks you through how best to affix the sticks to your cake pops.  Oddly enough you don't just jam the stick in the cake pops.   After I completed cooking them all (so about 4 rounds of using the maker) - I tossed them in a bowl and put them in the freezer for 15 minutes.   After that I melted a little candy, dipped the stick in it and then speared my cake balls and then I tossed all of those back in the freezer for 15 more minutes.   Then it was time for the fun stuff!

The cookbook offers several recipes for toppings to use on your cake pops, but for this time I chose to use the Wilton Candy Melts. The cookbook also walks through good techniques for using the candy melts to get a less drippy effect, etc..   This part is actually a lot of fun :)  I'm not sure why I found it so exciting, but it was.

Next up to add some fun color I broke out the sprinkles and got to shaking.  For things like sprinkles you want to do it while the candy is still wet.  For other decoration you want to wait for it to dry, just depends on the technique.   I love that the making of cake pops can be so multifaceted.

After making a good portion of the pops white with sprinkles, I thought that I would add in some hot pink dye to the melted candy to make some pink pops.   Apparently that was a grave error!  As soon as the two drops of dye hit the melted candy it turned into this grainy sandy mixture.  Eventually by adding a LOT more candies to the mix and melting those in it finally yielded back into a liquid form.   I guess that's one way to ensure that you buy the specific bag of colored candy melts!   So baker beware - candy melts don't like traditional food dye.  They require an oil based dye and Wilton makes some specifically for their candy melts (of course they do!.)

Ace was my taste tester... he loved them... as said with a mouth full of cake.   :)  Next up was cutting a piece of Styrofoam and then the rest was simple arrangement.  I left several off the sticks and some even completely uncandied for variety sake.  I put those in mini muffin cups and in the end they were all devoured.  Yum!

This was a very fun project and the maker cleaned up with an easy wipe down and thus clean up was a breeze.  :) Can't wait for more occasions to try out different recipes and decorating techniques!  Babycakes has not sponsored this blog, but I'd happily do business with them if they did want to.  Their cookbook is full of recipes and what I find even more invaluable than that is all of the great tips on perfecting your baking and decorating experience.   Stay tuned on a post about making meatballs in the maker!

Cranberry Bliss Bars

Oh yes, the oh so famous treat from Starbucks! They used to be available starting November 1st. A date a could hold out for and wait for... but last year they decided to wait until December 1st to release them from their bakery 'vault' - tragic! I was quite sad for some time (30 days to be exact) last year. This year, I was getting ancy and then several people started to create their own from recipes they had found/created. When one of my friends did, I jumped all over that recipe! YUM! I made them up and enjoyed them muchly! Might need to make some more. :)

The only thing that I altered to this recipe was to add a bit more white chocolate and cranberries that went into the mix, and for the frosting I did not have any orange zest so I put in an ever so slight and tiny splash of lemon juice instead.... and by splash I mean drizzle, drips... hardly any. :) They were delicious!

The Non-Birthday Party

Ok so life has been crazy this past week. Lot of things happening around here! What was supposed to happen last Saturday was Ace's Second Dinorific Birthday Party!! Mom had spent Friday night crafting this creation for his second birthday cake. I went to sleep late excited to see his excitement at the party to his fancy cake. Alas he woke that morning with a bug... a continuation of existing illness... reflux??? We're actually not sure (a post on these specifics to come later.) However, suffice it to say that he was in no mood to party and so the party was cancelled. He was a clingy bear to his dad most of the morning.


However, not all fun was lost on that day. While he felt pretty sad in the morning. I wanted to still get his balloons blown up, he loves them. I knew that they would lift his spirits some. We also revealed his cake to him and he was pretty excited about his 'dinee cake' which made me happy that he liked it and that he was smiling about something. And without fail after a while, the balloons were the first thing to eventually make him smile after a rough morning.



We still invited the grandparents to brave the (maybe) germs. We had them over and BBQed lunch. In one sense it was good it was just the 5 of us... BBQing in the rain for 25+ would have been less ideal for the chef.

Gran and Pop Pop brought over a present for Ace and he enjoyed it (and still is) immensely. He did some drawing with Gran and we watched a few movies while they were over including The Land Before Time, can't have a dinorific birthday without a dinosaur movie! :) He enjoyed it.


Sadly, due to him being sick first thing in the morning (he threw up twice) his diet was pretty bland for the day. We decided cake certainly would not be ideal on a delicate stomach, so he had to wait until the next day to consume some cake. Of course when he woke on Sunday he was back to 100% and enjoyed snacking on the cake in a very savage fashion with his father... we had a lot of extra cake and no one else was coming to eat it - so the boys got to go to town. Ace still was very clean about the whole thing, made his dad very proud. In fact quite disturbed when some got onto his finger, but recovered after a quick napkin wipe.


So while my boy did not have a blow out bash, that's ok. He still seemed happy enough and got to spend it with some of those that mean the most to him.

Raspberry Tart

Ok I've established that pregnant women should NOT be allowed to watch the Food Network - it's dangerous and results in even more 'cravings' or salivating moments. The other day I switched it on and Paula Deen got my taste buds watering from multiple angles (in fact she was the initiator for my baked potato craving.) In that same episode she made this delicious tart and it instantly moved to the top of my list to create and consume.

I didn't own a tart pan, but there is no time like the present to go and purchase one - and so on Friday, amid my other errands, a quick trip to Bed Bath and Beyond with a coupon was at the top of my list. They had the perfect dish and it came home with us right away.

I'll leave the recipe details up to Ms. Paula Deen and allow you to go directly to her link to obtain the instructions. I did two things differently. One on accident, which was to use granulated sugar in the crust instead of powdered. I just was on auto pilot and it was too late to correct it and I wasn't terribly enthused at the thought of wasting 3/4 cups of butter - so I figured I'd give it a go with the granulated sugar. I think it caused the crust to thicken a tad more, so a little tougher to 'cut' through than the powdered sugar, and the 'sweetness' was a bit less with the granulated sugar. Where as, I think it would have been sweeter with the powdered, but it worked out just fine. The only other alteration to the recipe was that I didn't use blueberry pie filling, I had just recently picked raspberries at a U-Pick farm, so I used those as my topping instead.

The worst part was waiting. :) I cooked the tart crust during the afternoon (before I put in the potatoes.) The tart crust has to fully cool before you can put the filling in. So I created the crust and then waited until after Ace went to bed to finish.

Tips that I would offer to make the 'cooking' process easier or less guess work. Make sure your heavy cream is super cold, slowly add the sugar to the bowl (so none collects on the bottom) and then ramp up to a fast beating of it. I had left it on a medium speed on the mixer and it just wasn't fluffing, my mom suggested to speed it up because what you're trying to do is get air into it... well that makes sense. :) So after I cranked up the speed, it was quite fluffy pretty quickly.

It was delicious. And yes it was my breakfast :) With the pecans on the bottom of the tart crust when eating it, it almost has the flavoring like you're eating a pecan pie without all the goo, but then also add in a light cheese cake flavor, but without the thickness and the fresh and sweetness of raspberries. This is a dangerous recipe! SO GOOD!

A fun feature of this tart pan that I bought, is that the base of the pan lifts out - so you just push on the bottom and you can easily move the tart out of the pan for super easy cutting and of course display.


sooo hard to put this in the fridge and go to bed!

Cranberry-Chip Cookies

More Christmas cookies! These were a random recipe I pulled out of one of my holiday craft books and I'm so glad that I did! They are dangerously delicious! I've already made two batches of these and would not be surprised if I made them again.

Ingredients:
1 1/8c of flour
1/2 c quick-cooking oats, uncooked
1/2 t baking soda
1/2 t salt
1/3 c brown sugar, packed
1/3 c sugar
1/2 c dried cranberries
1/2 c white chocolate chips (I used the swirl ones)
1/2 c chopped walnuts
1/2 c butter
1 egg
1 t of vanilla

Directions:
Mix all the dry ingredients together and use a fork to mash up the brown sugar clumps. Then add butter, eggs, and vanilla.
A rounded tablespoon for about 12-14 minutes (2 doz)
A rounded teaspoon for 8-10minutes (3 doz)
Bake at 350 degrees
I used vegan butter since I made them for a lactose intolerant friend, that same friend made them with regular butter and said that they didn't turn out as well - so it might make a difference. Haven't tried it with the regular butter yet. But what an excellent excuse to make another batch! Merry Christmas!!!

Swedish Christmas Cookies

I love to bake! I really do. I honestly prefer to bake than to cook meals. I just find butter, sugar, eggs and flour more compilable and willing to work with me rather than against me. :) This Christmas cookie time of year always yields Christmas Cookie Exchanges - a time to try out large recipes to see if these cookies will be delicious. Swedish Christmas Cookies was a home run! They are also very conducive to freezing the dough and simply cooking a few at a time when you get a hankering for them. I original obtained the recipe from here.



These cookies were created in a two step process and using a new spice that I had never worked with before. Cardamom, it is delicious - and I don't know how I've missed it all these years!



Ingredients

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons ground cardamom

1/4 teaspoon fine salt

1 cup unsalted butter, (2 sticks), at room temperature

1 cup confectioners' sugar

1 large egg, room temperature

1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract

1 teaspoon finely grated lemon zest

Colored sanding sugars or chopped toasted pecans





Directions:

Whisk the flour, cardamom, and salt in a bowl.



Combine the butter and confectioners' sugar until smooth. Add in the egg, vanilla, and lemon zest until combined. Add the flour mixture and blend all together. The dough should be butter and smooth.



After completing the dough, create two logs in plastic wrap. Place the logs in the refrigerator for 30 minutes in order for the dough to get firm enough to work with. Take the dough out and roll it into more even logs about 8 inches long and 2 inches in diameter. Refrigerate for at least 2 hours but best to refrigerate overnight.


I used an egg white and water wash to coat my logs, but I think any variant of an egg wash would be fine. In my oven I found 20 minutes to be perfect. The only thing I might try next time is to egg wash the tops of the cookies to give them a little more browning to them. They were a little bland ontop when they were out. So presentation wise they were a little underwelming on top compared to the fancy and festive sides. No complaints on the taste. The cardamom spice was yummy. Some describe it as lemon-y, others say peppery - so use it cautiously. I also added a dash of cinnamon into my recipe!



Preheat the oven 325'.
Take the logs out of the freezer and use an egg wash to coat the logs and roll the logs in the sugar. Slice into about 24 cookies from each log at about 1/4 inch thick. Cook for 20-25 minutes.

The Birthday Cakes

I had so much fun creating these cakes. The fondant recipe was the same as the trial run, but I did a little something different when laying it on the cake. I wanted to create a more fluid or wave like look to the cake, so I painstakingly laid and gathered the fondant (for quite a while) to give it the look of motion and waves. I didn't want it to look like I simply had done it because I couldn't get it smooth. This was intentional. I also imprinted some sea shells in the fondant, but it was a tad too warm for them to remain there - or my technique wasn't ideal and I didn't want to push it - so for the most part they are not very visible. The little cake's frosting is simply that, blue dyed frosting. No fondant for that one and I was whipping it together less than an hour before the party so the decoration and precision were not top priority. Besides my little one was going to smash it to bits, no one cared if it was pretty or not before he did it.

I look forward to next year when I can have another go with something fun and festive. I wonder what my son will be into in a year from now...

Test Run with Fondant

I have been addicted as of late to all the cake shows that are on tv these days. Ace of Cakes, Cake Boss, Food Network Challenge, I could go on - there are so many and I watch um most of them :) and with Ace's first birthday coming up, I've been inspired to do something grand. However, I thought it best to do a test run before the big event because I was going to attempt working with fondant for the first time. For a test run I thought it worked out wonderfully! The cake is nothing special, and neither is the frosting really - both box and containers. The fondant though was the 'homemade' piece of the cake.

It is a marshmallow based fondant and I originally acquired the recipe from this website, although like always I altered it to my liking.


16 ounces white mini-marshmallows2 to 5 tablespoons water
2 pounds icing sugar
1/2 cup Crisco shortening (although I used FAR less than this, because I find Crisco so gross!)


I melted the marshmallows in the microwave, stirring every 30 seconds for 2 minutes, then added the powdered sugar. I kneaded the fondant adding water as it was necessary, folding in more of the powdered sugar as I went. After I got the right texture, then kneaded in the food coloring to obtain the color that I wanted. Gently coated it in Crisco (yeck!) wrapped it in plastic wrap and the put it in the fridge for several hours. When I was ready to start wrapping the cake, I microwaved the fondant for 10 seconds and then got to rolling. Then applied it to the frosted cake (always frost the cake it helps the fondant stick to the cake.) Repeat the step for the next layer.



















After applying the fondant use a knife or a pizza cutter to remove the excess! Then decorate as you see fit. Nemo on the top was made out of fondant molded to be "nemo" shaped and then dyed frosting to paint him. He looked a tad sad, but that's ok it was a test run and I have a plastic Nemo to put on top of the actual birthday cake. The sand is brown sugar. Ace enjoyed sampling the cake, I think he'll do just fine come his big day!

Kitchen Gadgets

I was destined to be a baker. Yes when I was young I used to "bake" sugar cookies with my Grum. She used to get all the dough ready to go get it rolled out nice and even and then I'd go to town with cookie cutters and all the fixings to dress up the fancy shapes. We did this for many Christmas seasons. Baking sugar cookies led to a general enjoyment of baking for me, and so it was only fitting that for my Birthday/Christmas present last year, my grandma bought me my Kitchenaid Mixer.

Arriving in more than enough time this now favorite kitchen gadget of mine whipped up many cookies, doughs, breads, etc for the holiday season. On Christmas night it whipped up a mean batch of mashed potatoes and it knows the ingredients to pumpkin bread like no other Kitchenaid mixer can. So while I do love to bake, we can't eat breads and cookies for dinners (every night.) And while this is my prized kitchen gadget and the most used in our household. I have an affinity toward unique kitchen gadgets and tools. Most of them aren't terribly useful on a regular basis, but are still applicable to something at least once or twice a year.

My latest gadget acquired was a cherry pitter. This particular one is made by Oxo and it has been used to make two cherry pies. Currently it is visiting a friend's house to assist with her cherry pitting party. It's a handy dandy tool during cherry season. Far easier than trying to slice cherries in order to pit them. Although if your cherries are overly ripe (which is always excellent for cherry pie) it will look like a massacre has occurred as there will be splatter everywhere!

I am able to pit enough cherries for a cherry pie (about 4 cups) in about 10 minutes. Before the cherry pitter came to live with us, I rarely made cherry pie.

Another favorite of mine is the crinkle cutter. It's 80% useful and 20% fun! It's a great blade to hold and chop carrots and celery without much effort and you get a delightful crinkle with each chop. Although the one I have has a green handle hold.


I have a feeling as I do start to cook more that this will get more use time. However, besides my Kitchenaid mixer, which will come in handy for mealtime cooking, I think I need to find a little inspiration in other kitchen gadgets that will help making cooking meals easier (or just fun!) What might you suggest I "need"?


* stock photos taken from Amazon.com