caramel stuffed red velvet cookies
I wanted to make Jake something unique and special for Valentine’s Day last week. Red Velvet Cupcakes are his favorite … Continue reading caramel stuffed red velvet cookies
Tag: cookies
lemon “tea” cookies (with actual tea)
Our lemon tree is seriously overflowing with lemons right now. I keep thinking “I need to make lemon stuff!” and this was just one way to get it done. I pulled 5 lemons off the tree for this recipe – but I really probably only needed 4. They’re kind of extra lemon-y, but since they’re Meyer lemons, they’ve still got a hint of sweetness to them.
I brought in little baggies of cookies for my co-workers with a little note on them:
My co-worker, Lauren said, “It’s like a tasty little window of hope in my day” when she tried one of the cookies. Is that a shining endorsement or what!?
These lemon tea cookies aren’t just a clever title either. You can eat them with tea, but they have actual tea in them, too. I used some Lemon Berry Breeze tea from Gevalia – which is a Lemon Raspberry Tea.
The tea comes in tea bags and this is what it looks like poured out of the bag. Many little flecks of tea!
I didn’t do the step-by-step (oooh, baby) photos this time, but here’s the cookie log.
You can see the specks of the Lemon Berry Breeze tea in the dough! The recipe I used said to chill the dough and then roll it out and cut out cookies. Pfftt. I hate rolling out cookies. I just sliced off pieces from the log – way quicker! You just have to be careful to make them all about the same thickness otherwise you could get a couple of “well baked” ones (yes, I burned a couple of too thin ones. They became dog biscuits).
I also discovered I had no powdered sugar in the house. Which was weird, since I usually buy powdered sugar when I don’t even need it anymore. I wondered how easy it would be to make my own, and a quick Google search told me that I could make powdered sugar in the Vitamix in about 60 seconds. Using only sugar!
I was disbelieving until I actually tried it – and no joke, it takes about a minute! You just pour 1 cup of sugar into the Vitamix and put the variable to “1” and switch it on – and slowly turn the variable up to “10”. You can then switch it on high for a few seconds but I found that at this point it was already totally powdery. I was instantly in awe and vowed to never buy powdered sugar again.
With my homemade powdered sugar in hand, I made a quick glaze with lemon juice and lemon peel. I love how bright the peel is! I started spooning the glaze onto the cookies until I figured out dipping was quicker and more efficient (and results in less glaze all over the damn place).
These cookies are crispy, buttery, and chock full of lemon flavor. Next time, I might try emphasizing both flavors in the tea – the lemon and the raspberry – with maybe a raspberry glaze on the cookie. I couldn’t taste the tea all of that much, but all of my co-workers seemed to be able to detect it (though, my sinuses and taste buds were still kind of jacked up from this killer-never-ending virus/cold thing I’ve got going on). I would maybe up the tea a little, too, by adding in any extra bag for extra “oomph”.
Recipe below! Continue reading “lemon “tea” cookies (with actual tea)”
holiday baking recap 2012
I kind of slacked on doing photos for everything this season. But here’s a little Holiday Baking recap! It isn’t … Continue reading holiday baking recap 2012
lemon pistachio cookies – christmas baking begins!
This is one of my “maybe” Christmas cookies – I haven’t quite decided if this is going on the final baking list. Every year I always make at least one lemon treat because in the winter our lemon tree seems to always be exploding with lemons – and this year is no different. I decided to experiment ahead of time to see if this new recipe would be a winner for the cookie list this year – but I can’t decide! People seem to always really enjoy what I’ve made in year’s past, so it’s hard to decide what to mix it up with. Maybe you’ll have an opinion?
You don’t need too much for this batch – fresh lemons, pistachios, and the usual suspects: sugar, flour, eggs and butter.
Start by whipping that butter and sugar together in a frenzy. Frenzy, I tell you! Anything else and it won’t turn out as right.
Well… it probably will. But I just like to say the word “frenzy”.
After that, you must add eggs. And flour. And lemon juice. Continue with the frenzy.
Then, pull it off the mixer and fold in your pistachios. I suppose you can to this in the mixer, too, but I rather like doing it by hand.
Just a thing, I guess.
Then you take your lemon zest…
and mix it in with a half a cup of sugar. Mix and smoosh it together to make “lemon sugar”.
The lemon sugar is super sparkly and makes the cookies shiny and glittery!
You’ll take a ball of dough and roll it up and then roll it around in the sugar.
Then place it on your cookie sheet and slightly flatten out the cookies. You can use your fingers or a little spoon, like I did.
The cookies spread out a bit, so I did rows of 2 so they’d have a little extra room for expanding.
If you like a really nice lemony flavor, use extra lemon juice when making the dough. If you’d rather have a “hint” of lemony flavor without feeling like you’ve been punched in the face, use about 1 tablespoon of lemon juice instead. I kind of lean towards “punch me in the face” but not everyone is into that (ie: Jake).
I love how the sugar sticks to the cookies and create a glittery effect. It reminds me of ornaments and frosted things. The pistachios give a nice little crunch to this cookie as well. If you want a crispier cookie, cook these for a tad longer – otherwise, these have a soft inside with a light crisp edge. Get the recipe below!
Continue reading “lemon pistachio cookies – christmas baking begins!”
winter spice cookies with pumpkin cream
A couple of weeks ago I was invited to a food blogger potluck hosted by CC of Pink Candles at Ridgemont High. I wanted to make a little dessert to go along with some pesto pasta salad that I made and I decided I wanted to make sandwich cookies – with pumpkin filling!
Except… well. The cookies didn’t come out as planned.
And neither did the pumpkin filling.
But, not wanting to waste my efforts and deciding that the cookies still actually tasted okay, I just went with it. And called them cookies with pumpkin dip. I let people assemble the cookies themselves since my pumpkin filling was way too loose to stay together in the cookie (hence, I called it “dip” instead).
The cookies have similar spices to pumpkin pie – so you could easily use pumpkin pie spice instead or adjust to your liking. The recipe is from a cookbook I got in a reddit gift exchange called One Girl Cookies. It originally calls for twice as much ginger with just a little cinnamon, but I love cinnamon, so I switched up the flavors a little bit.
The first thing that went wrong is that I rolled out the dough too thick. I haven’t rolled out cookies in forever, and for some reason I couldn’t remember what an 1/8th of an inch looks like. The cookies ended up puffing up and getting way too thick for cookie sandwiches, and I ended up splitting them open with a knife to make them sandwich cookie worthy.
The second mistake? Too much pumpkin in my filling. I could have “fixed” it with more powdered sugar, but it already tasted super sweet to me so I didn’t want to go that route. I added about 4 or 5 spoonfuls of pumpkin which was too much, so I adjusted my recipe below to 3 tablespoons, which should be about enough (though test it after two if you want a more cookie sandwich filling rather than a dip).
All in all though, the cookies were still pretty tasty. The cookies have a gingerbread-like flavor and spice and are a bit crunchy on the outside and softer in the middle (especially if you make a boo-boo and don’t roll them out thin enough like I did!). Continue reading “winter spice cookies with pumpkin cream”
hans & harry bakery / bonita – san diego, ca
Hans & Harry is a local bakery down in Bonita that I have heard about forever, but never went to. Which is silly, since Jake and I are usually in the area every other week to pick up his kids for a weekend. We finally went by to check it out afternoon when I was especially in the mood to try some sweet treats (which, FYI, is pretty much every afternoon, ever).
[a wall of strudels greets you upon entry]
This is what greets you when you first enter Hans and Harry.
Be still, my heart!
All of the pretty, delicious looking strudels are waiting to enter to your belly.
[fruit studels]
Such beautiful strudels!
[one case of baked goods at hans & harry]
And this is actually only ONE of the cases at the counter. I think I must have zoned out because I didn’t photograph the rest of the offerings. Just know that there is MORE.
[peanut butter bar]
Though the strudel looked seriously awesome, I wasn’t in a strudel kind of mood. Instead we shared a variety of treats, one of them being this peanut butter bar.
The peanut butter bar was sort of a cross between a cookie and a brownie. It had a softer, chewier middle (like a brownie) with the outer crust a little crisper (and cookie-like). Overall though it was a little dry and not super moist – I guess I was thinking it’d be more like a fudgy peanut butter version of a brownie. Too bad it wasn’t. Continue reading “hans & harry bakery / bonita – san diego, ca”
caramel cracker cookies (make your own candy, put it in a cookie, woohoo)
I’ve made these chocolate caramel cracker things a lot – usually around Christmas time when I decorate them all up and give them away as desserts. Then one day I day a thought… what if I put that crazy candy inside of a cookie? So I did it. And then I immediately gave away a bunch of the cookies because it was too much to have that deliciousness just sitting in my house. If you need some deliciousness in your house though, might I suggest making these? You might want to give some away, too. Or hey, keep ’em for yourself. I won’t tell.
First things first! We gotta make the candy. It’s easy, I swear. Don’t be frightened of the word “candy”. We won’t even use those scary candy thermometers or anything! Promise.
Brown sugar, butter, and condensed milk is what you need for the caramel goo. The chocolate chips are for later.
Get a tray and put your fancy silpat mat on it – or just aluminum foil. You’ll want this – it’ll make it easier to remove the candy and you’ll thank your stars you did that step.
For the goo, you just melt the butter and sugar with about half a can of sweetened condensed milk. Sit around and watch this on the stove and stir it every so often. You want to cook it until it starts to bubble and thicken up. From there, you’ll want it cook it for another 2 minutes. It’ll look all frothy and lovely, like below:
Pour the goo over your saltines.
Mmm, goo.
Continue reading “caramel cracker cookies (make your own candy, put it in a cookie, woohoo)”
the secret cookie service / san diego, ca
A brief knock on the door. I peek outside and see a well dressed guy in sunglasses, black slacks, white shirt and a tie holding a briefcase. I quickly usher him inside. Agent Snickerdoodle has arrived with my special delivery and I’ve been waiting all night for it to arrive. What’s in the briefcase that could be so important?
Why, cookies, of course!
[hand delivered brown paper bag contains the goods]
The Secret Cookie Service has been in operation since September 2011, delivering late night cookie treats to the students at UCSD. The service has recently expanded to deliver to nearby neighborhoods and has recently set up shop so the students at SDSU don’t miss out on any of the cookie service goodness.
While they are mainly an at-night service, placing an order 24 hours in advance can net you a daytime delivery if you don’t live the vampire — or student — lifestyle.
Agent Snickerdoodle, after passing a screening from my dog, Maya, handed me this seemingly plain brown paper bag that contained what I’d been jonesing for all night. I couldn’t wait to dig in and try out this stash!
[mysterious white envelopes holds the cookies together during transport]
These random looking white bags are not really random at all.
For they contain delicious treats.
COOKIES!
[reese’s pieces cookies]
These aren’t peanut butter cookies per se, but they are loaded with Reese’s Pieces, one of my very favorite candies. There’s a sweet peanut butter flavor from the candy but the cookie itself is just a base for holding the pieces. There’s a good candy to cookie ratio here – I got a Reese’s Pieces in nearly every bite. The cookies are very soft and chewy. My second favorite of the bunch.
[mint chocolate chip cookies]
The mint chocolate chips were still kind of melty and sticking to the white envelope. The nice thing about that is that it let me know the cookies were baked fresh very, very recently and I love when chips are partially melted still. That’s the best part of warm cookies! These were quite soft and had a good minty-chocolate flavor.
Agent Snickerdoodle informed me that this is one of their best selling cookies and I could definitely see why.
Continue reading “the secret cookie service / san diego, ca”
strawberry delight for a hot summer’s day
The first time I ever had a dessert like this I was in the Midwest and it was made with blueberries instead. It was referred to as “Blueberry Delight” and I remember being a bit blown away by such a simple dessert. This is a layered dessert, something very well known in the South but I had never had it out here in California before… It’s got a cookie-like crust, a sweet cream cheese layer, your fruit, and then whipped cream or whipped topping and nuts to top it all off. It’s simple, easy to make, and deliciously creamy.
I had picked up a fresh basket of locally grown strawberries and I thought, “Well, I bet I can turn Blueberry Delight into Strawberry Delight!”. Any mixture of berries will do for this dessert, really, and I think fresher is better for this one. The dessert starts to look kind of droopy after a day or two, so it’s best to try and gobble this one up quick and all leftovers need to go into the fridge.
[beautiful, ripe strawberries]
I picked up these beautiful strawberries at The Fruit Stand off Morena Blvd. They had some fine looking fruits and I could not resist getting this basket.
To prep, I just washed the strawberries and sliced them. I added about two tablespoons of sugar to macerate the strawberries.
[pecan shortbread-like crust]
After finishing the berries, I prepped the crust. It’s a very simple mixture of flour, sugar, pecans and softened butter. The mixture comes together quickly and spreads out easily in the pan. I pushed it with my fingers to spread the crust out evenly. This is the only thing you’ve got the bake! 15 minutes and you’re done. This is also something you should do ahead since a cooled crust is necessary.
This crust seriously tastes like those pecan sandies cookies they sell in the store.
[trying to quickly defrost my whipped topping]
I forgotten to tell Jake to leave the whipped topping out for me on the counter, so when I realized that my topping was still frozen I grimaced a little and then figured I’d try this.
The crust had just come out of the oven so I put the two tubs on top of the crust.
Hey, it sort of worked! It did at least speed up the process a little bit so I was able to work with it to make my sweet cream cheese layer.
Continue reading “strawberry delight for a hot summer’s day”
baby shower!
I’ve been having some very busy days lately and last weekend was no exception! So short post today mostly recapping Alyssa’s baby shower!
Alyssa used to write for this blog, back when she had time to do so. I miss having her posts on here! Now that she’ll be a mom in a few short months, I think it’s safe to say she’s not coming back (though I’ve known that for a long, long time). We celebrated the future birth of her baby boy with a little baby shower, hosted by her old friend Christina. All I did was set up and do desserts, so most of this is Christina’s lovely handiwork.
The spread, from the view of my desserts! I finally bought myself a Dessert Tower. I’ve been wanting one forever but didn’t really feel that I needed it. But I’m over that now. I need it. I want it. It makes cupcakes look so pretty.
A bit of a close up – red velvet cupcakes on the first three levels and lemon ricotta cookies on the bottom. The overflow of cookies is on the cake stand to the left, with some vanilla meringues from Trader Joe’s. The little sugar animals are from Do it With Icing in Clairemont (I love that place).
urban eats / hillcrest – san diego, ca
Urban Eats is a new little restaurant in Hillcrest that’s been open for about three months now under the helm of Chef Christopher B. Sayre. The spot started out earlier this year as Taco Banh before Sayre decided to switch gears and instead open up Urban Eats, a locally sourced restaurant serving up a mix of American dishes. My cohorts and I had noticed on the bottom of our bill it has said “Taco Banh” and curiosity got me to Google searching. It seems Taco Banh didn’t quite work out and Urban Eats was able to rise up out of that. Jake and I are certainly glad that it came to this as we dined here twice within one week – once as a guest and another time on our own with our friend, Laura.
The space is small, but cozy. The bar is the first thing to catch your eye with its colorful Asian lanterns. The simple seats are all set up with place settings and menus and your greeted in a most friendly manner to “sit anywhere you’d like!”
Kyle, our host, server, and waiter extraordinaire, was there to take care of us on both visits. His warm and friendly personalities just exudes charm. I loved him immediately, especially when he recognized us on our second visit and already knew we were going to order the macaroni and cheese again.
More on that later.
At Urban Eats you get cucumber water, which I love. Jake puts his cucumbers into my glass because he’s weird and doesn’t like cucumbers.
*eye roll*
[cheesy baguette slices with honey butter]
All customers get this complimentary appetizer to start. It’s a little more doled up than just “bread and butter” so I call it an appetizer. Baguette slices with cheese and a little cup of honey butter greet you shortly after you take a seat, luring you in. The butter has drizzles of honey on it, so the honey is still distinct as you slather it onto a slice and devour it. It’s a yummy way to start any meal.
[mini grilled cheese – swiss + cheddar + brie + tomato bisque – $6]
On our first visit, I decided I had to try the Mini Grilled Cheese. The grooves on this appetizer are serious. Super panini pressing was going on to create this sandwich. The size reminded me of those weird French Toast sticks. I could tell it was basically a sandwich cut into fours, but I didn’t really care. Oozing cheese on grilled bread makes me happy and these were pretty tasty dunked in the cup of tomato bisque that accompanied them. My only complaint would be that I thought it was cooked a little too long and I tasted more bread than cheese.
Bake Sale
The San Diego Food Bloggers Bake is being held TOMORROW – April 28th, 2012 from 10AM to 2PM! Come out … Continue reading Bake Sale