Three Things Thursday - Desserts

I really love desserts, but unfortunately, truly sinful ones are not included in my new diet. After all, that would totally defeat the purpose, right? Since I won't be posting any desserts until the baby weight comes off, here are three that I'd love to try.

Oreo Cupcakes

• Stephanie over at Stephanie Cooks is baking up chocolate mint cake batter cookies.
• Celeste at Sugar and Spice is whipping up a chocolate peanut butter cake that looks outstanding.
• Just in time for the cold weather, Nicole at three square is mixing up peppermint hot chocolate that sounds very tasty.

Happy Thursday, all! One more day until the weekend!

Icebox Cake

Need something quick and easy to take to a pot luck? I've got a great dessert that you can whip up in about 10 minutes, and it doesn't even require you to turn on your oven.

Nilla Wafer Icebox Cake
Kitchen Canister Original (stolen from my mom)

Ingredients

1 box of Nilla Wafers
1 large box of chocolate cook and serve jello-pudding
1 small box of vanilla cook and serve jello pudding
cool whip (optional)

Directions

In an 8x8 pan, arrange a layer of Nilla Wafers. Set aside enough wafers for two more layers.



Prepare chocolate and vanilla pudding according to directions on box at the same time.

As soon as the pudding comes to a boil, carefully spoon the chocolate over the Nilla wafers. Arrange another row of wafers and repeat with vanilla pudding.



Repeat with wafers and chocolate pudding. Add a last layer of wafers, if desired. Chill for about 1 hour in the fridge so the pudding can set. Cut into slices and top with whipped cream.



Chef's Notes

If you like bananas, you can substitute the middle layer of wafers for sliced bananas. I don't really like them so I omitted them.

Also, a note regardng the pudding layers. The pudding will be hot and more "liquidy" than a thick pudding because it hasn't set yet. Be careful not to pour too much at once or the wafers will displace. If this happens, just move them around with the back of a spoon.

Warm Apple Cake

I made this cake on Thanksgiving and it was a real hit. Though the name of it is Warm Apple Cake, I served it room temperature. Keeping something warm while traveling and then eating a big turkey dinner is not an easy feat. I also hate reheating something that is supposed to be made warm. The taste just isn't the same. I once tried to reheat a pecan pie, and it ended up runny. It still tasted great, but the presentation just wasn't there.

So, while this cake wasn't served as intended, it was still delicious, and it really had staying power. We were eating it well into the next week. That's the thing about Thanksgiving meals. You're so full after the big meal, there's no room for all of those delicious desserts! I ended up eating only a small piece of this cake on Thanksgiving, as did the rest of my family. That left us with almost the whole cake leftover, which was fine with us! I will never turn down a delicious dessert that I can eat 3 or 4 more times after dinner every night.

Warm Apple Cake
taken from 101 Easy Entertaining Recipes, by Gooseberry Patch

Ingredients
1 c. all-purpose flour (I used half AP, half whole wheat)
1 c. sugar
1 t. baking soda
1 t. cinnamon
1/4 t. salt
1 egg, beaten
2 c. apples, cored, peeled and grated
1/2 c. chopped walnuts, divided

Directions
Preheat over to 350 degrees Farenheit. Combine first 5 ingredients in a large bowl. Mix together egg, apples, and 1/4 cup nuts; add to flour mixture. Spread in a greased 8"x8" baking pan. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, until a toothpick tests clean. Top with remaining nuts and serve warm.

Servings: 9



Chef's Notes
The recipe in the book also recomended that the cake be topped with a caramel sauce. I didn't have the time or the means to make this on Thanksgiving morning, so I skipped it. It would probably taste great, though. Instead, we topped it with whipped cream and when I had it later in the week, I served it with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.

When I first started to make this cake, I had some reservations. The batter seemed really sticky and wasn't really settling into the pan. I thought maybe I used too much flour, but after some shaking of the pan, the batter ended up covering it.

I used 4 fuji apples for this recipe and it was just sweet enough. I don't have a grater, so instead of grating the apples up, I chopped them into small pieces in my food processor. Having some chunks of apple in the cake was really a nice touch. I'm glad I didn't have the grater.

GO Phillies! - Sugar Cookies

Game 5 is underway and my Phillies have a chance to clinch a spot at the World Series tonight. The least I can do to wish them luck is.....bake? Yes, we don't have tickets (we didn't win the lottery the team ran), so we're watching from our living room and enjoying these sugar cookies from Alton Brown. (the icing was store bought because I have learned that I do not possess the skill to make a quality icing from scratch!)




Alton Brown's Sugar Cookies

Ingredients
3 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup unsalted butter, softened
1 cup sugar
1 egg, beaten
1 tablespoon milk
Powdered sugar, for rolling out dough


Directions
Sift together flour, baking powder, and salt. Set aside. Place butter and sugar in large bowl of electric stand mixer and beat until light in color. Add egg and milk and beat to combine. Put mixer on low speed, gradually add flour, and beat until mixture pulls away from the side of the bowl. Divide the dough in half, wrap in waxed paper, and refrigerate for 2 hours.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.

Sprinkle surface where you will roll out dough with powdered sugar. Remove 1 wrapped pack of dough from refrigerator at a time, sprinkle rolling pin with powdered sugar, and roll out dough to 1/4-inch thick. Move the dough around and check underneath frequently to make sure it is not sticking. If dough has warmed during rolling, place cold cookie sheet on top for 10 minutes to chill. Cut into desired shape, place at least 1-inch apart on greased baking sheet, parchment, or silicone baking mat, and bake for 7 to 9 minutes or until cookies are just beginning to turn brown around the edges, rotating cookie sheet halfway through baking time. Let sit on baking sheet for 2 minutes after removal from oven and then move to complete cooling on wire rack. Serve as is or ice as desired. Store in airtight container for up to 1 week.


Recipe Notes
Like alot of others, I found the dough very hard to work with. It kept sticking to my rolling pin even after using the powdered sugar on it. I had one un-iced and it tasted really good though, unlike some reviews stated. I cut the white flour with whole wheat and also used smart balance butter spread instead of real butter. The cookies had to go the whole 9 minutes to brown on the edges in my oven. I would definitely make them again!

GO PHILLIES!!!!

Super Easy Fruit Salad

This weekend we went to a Fourth of July BBQ at a friends house. There were going to be a lot of people there so I volunteered to bring a couple things. Since I'm trying to stay healthy, I went for a fruit salad and an orzo salad. Here is the recipe for a super easy fruit salad that was a real hit.

Super Easy Fruit Salad




Ingredients
1 lb bing cherries
1 box blueberries
1 lb green seedless grapes

Directions

Slice the grapes and cherries in half, and throw out the cherry pits. Add blueberries and mix. Serve either in a large mixing bowl, or portion into dessert dishes and top with whipped cream.





Note: Halving the cherries and grapes makes it look like this dish actually required effort. I will also say that everyone was very happy to have cherries without the work of getting rid of the pits! This also doubled as a delicious breakfast the next day.

Happy 50th Birthday Mom!

This weekend we had a surprise party for my mom. Here is a picture of the cake we ate (no - I did NOT make this). It was a quite a success. Thanks to the 120 guests and to my dad and brother for helping to throw it all together!

 

Cantaloupe Granita

Last week our local supermarket sent us some coupons in the mail. One of the coupons was for cantaloupe - 2 for $5. This is a pretty good price for cantaloupe, so I picked them up when I was grocery shopping. I went to cut them up this weekend and realized that there are only 2 of us in this house, and there is no way we'd eat all of this cantaloupe (I also bought 6 peaches) before it went bad. I ended up cubing one to eat for snacks this week, and I used the other one in a recipe I found for granita.

According to wikipedia, granita is a semi-frozen dessert of sugar, water and flavorings. It originated in the Sicily region of Italy. It is basically a cross between sorbet and italian ice. The most common flavorings are lemon, strawberry, almond and coffee. If you're interested in some other granita recipes, try this article I found at npr.org.

Cantaloupe Granita
Michael Chiarello, Food Network

Ingredients
1 1/4 cups superfine sugar
1/2 cup water
1/4 cup lightly packed fresh mint leaves
2 medium cantaloupes (about 4 pounds each) peeled and seeded, cut into 1-inch wedges
Pinch gray salt


Directions
Combine the sugar and water over low heat until the sugar has dissolved. Add the mint. Remove the pan from the heat and let cool.



Puree the fruit in a food processor until liquefied. Pour the fruit into a medium bowl and add the salt. Remove the mint leaves from the syrup. Add the syrup to the pureed fruit and mix well.

Pour the cantaloupe mixture into a pre-chilled 7 by 12-inch glass baking dish. Place it uncovered into the freezer. Stir with a fork every 1/2 hour until almost completely frozen but still grainy, about 3 to 4 hours.

Happy Easter!

Here are a few pics of the Easter desserts I'll be taking to our family today. They are nothing special, really. With tax season winding down, I didn't have much time, so I used store bought (gasp!) everything. The mix I used was Duncan Hines french vanilla and the icing was Duncan Hines buttercream. I felt kind of bad about doing that, so I thought I would at least decorate the cake with something Eastery and spring-like. I used the pastel colored M&M's for the border on the cake, and topped each cupcake with a couple.

I'm also a HORRIBLE cake froster, but I used some tips from smitten kitchen's website and the cake turned out okay. It's not smooth, but there are no cake crumbs like usual, thanks to her helpful post.

Here is the cake:



And here are the cupcakes:



I hope you and your families have a great Easter!

Oreo Cupcakes

Ah, Birthdays. At my office, my team has made a tradition of having cake on each person's birthday. Last week it was my turn to bring in the treat. Since we ALWAYS have cake, and we ALWAYS have trouble cutting it, I decided to bake some cupcakes this time. Low and behold, I found a recipe for Oreo cupcakes, with oreo frosting. I thought, "who doesn't love Oreos?, this will be perfect!", and it was. Everyone loved them.

I'll post some pictures of my creation below, but if you want the recipe, please make your way over to TPOX's blog by clicking here: Proceed with Caution.



The split Oreos for the bottom of the cupcake. Those broken ones were a lovely treat while I was waiting for the cupcakes to bake!


Oreos cut in half for the top of the cupcake.


The cupcakes before I iced them.


Final Product - how delicious looking!

Peanut Butter Chocolate Chunk Cookies

A friend invited us over to his apartment to celebrate his birthday last week. I had been craving cookies all week, so this was the perfect excuse to make them. After all, who wants to show up somewhere empty handed? (As always, changes in italics.)

Peanut Butter Chocolate Chunk Cookies
adapted from Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook, Bridal Edition

Ingredients

1/2 cup super chunk, all natural peanut butter
1/2 cup butter smart balance, softened
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
1 egg
1/2 tsp. vanilla
1-1/4 cups all-purpose flour- I divided this amount in half, and used whole wheat flour for the other half
1 cup chocolate chunks

Directions
1. In a large mixing bowl beat peanut butter and butter with electric mixer on medium to high speed for 30 seconds. Add granulated sugar and brown sugar, baking soda, and salt. Beat until combined, scraping sides of bowl occasionally. Beat in egg and vanilla until combined. Beat in as much of the flour as you can with the mixer. Stir in any remaining flour. Add chocolate chunks. Cover and refrigerate dough about 1 hour or until easy to handle.(I didn't refrigerate mine and they came out fine.)

2. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Shape dough in 1-inch balls. Place balls 2 inches apart on an ungreased cookie sheet. Flatten the cookies by making crisscross marks with fork tines, dipping fork in sugar between flattening each cookie. Bake about 8 minutes or until edges are lightly browned. Transfer to wire racks. Cool. Makes about 3 dozen cookies.

Review
These cookies were delicious. I really love peanut butter. So much, that I think I could probably eat it every day. The recipe says it yields about 36 cookies, which is more than we could eat. The BHG cookbook suggested spooning the dough out as if to make cookies, then putting it in the freezer for about a half hour. Once the dough is firm, remove them from the cookie sheet and store in a plastic bag. Now we'll be able to have a single serving of fresh baked cookies the next time we're in the mood! I hope this works out.

"Perfectly Chocolate" Hot Cocoa

Brrr!! It's really cold outside in NJ this time of year. The perfect cure for this a decadent cup of hot chocolate. As a result of my recent baking exploits, I have a box of Hershey's unsweetened chocolate powder in my cupboard. On the side of the box is the following recipe.

"Perfectly Chocolate" Hot Cocoa
from Hershey's Kitchens

Ingredients

2 tbsp sugar
2 tbsp Hershey's Cocoa
Dash salt
1 cup milk
1/4 tsp vanilla extract

Directions

Mix sugar, cocoa, and salt in a large mug. Heat milk in microwave at HIGH for 1 1/2 minutes or until hot. Gradually add milk to cocoa mixture; stir well. Stir in vanilla. (I topped mine with whipped cream and added a peppermint stick; see below)



Review

When I was a kid, my mom usually made me and my brother hot chocolate by grabbing a swiss miss packet and mixing it with hot water. While this is really good, using milk makes it taste SO much better. This is the perfect dessert on a cold wintry day.

Cappuccino Squares

As mentioned in a previous post, I made these squares for a New Year's Eve party we attended. Everyone loved them. The butter wasn't melting into the cakes when I was mixing it, so I was a little worried that they weren't going to turn out well. While it was in the oven, it melted in nicely, so they turned out okay.

Cappuccino Squares
adapted from Perfect Chocolate, a collection of over 100 essential recipes

Ingredients:
8 oz butter, softened
generous 1 1/2 cups of self rising flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp unsweetened cocoa, plus extra for dusting
generous 1 cup golden superfine sugar (I just used regular sugar)
4 eggs, beaten
3 tbsp instant coffee powder, dissolved in 2 tbsp hot water (I used regular coffee because I didn't have any instant on hand)

White Chocolate Frosting
4 oz white chocolate, broken into pieces
2 oz butter, softened
3 tbsp milk
1 3/4 cups confectioners' sugar

Directions



Sift the flour, baking powder and cocoa into a bowl and add the butter, sugar, eggs and coffee. Beat well, by hand or with an electric whisk, until smooth, then spoon into a greased and base lined shallow 11 x 7 inch pan and smooth the top.



Bake in a preheated oven, 350 degrees F, for 35-40 minutes, or until risen and firm, then turn out onto a wire rack and peel off the lining paper. Let cool completely.



To make the frosting, place the chocolate, butter and milk in a bowl set over a pan of simmering water and stir until chocolate is melted.

Remove the bowl from the pan and sift in the confectioners' sugar. Beat until smooth, then spread over the cake. Dust the top of the cake with sifted cocoa, then cut into squares. (NOTE: I cut the cake into squares before icing it. I thought it would be less messy that way)

Servings: about 15 squares



Review:
These went over really well. The cake was very moist and the icing was a perfect compliment. I was skeptic as to whether they would actually taste like cappuccino, but they sort of did.

Chocolate Bourbon Pecan Pie

This month I am participating in the What's Cooking Holiday Sweets Recipe Exchange. Before I even received my recipe, I decided that I was going to take whatever the dish was to our Christmas dinner at my husband's grandmom's house. I was delighted when I got Pecan Pie because it would be a great dessert. However, I was a little apprehensive since I've never baked a pie before. Oh yeah, and I've also never even TASTED pecan pie before. I crossed my fingers and hoped for the best. After all, this was my first Christmas at my husband's family's house, so I didn't want to be forever banned!

Since I had little experience with pies, I followed the recipe exactly and made NO SUBSTITUTIONS.

Chocolate Bourbon Pecan Pie
WC recipe exchange (if you are the owner of this recipe, please let me know so I can credit you!)

Ingredients:

1 (9 inch) deep dish pie shell
3/4 cup white sugar
1 cup light corn syrup
1/2 cup butter
4 eggs, beaten
2 tbsp bourbon
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips
1 cup chopped pecans

Directions:

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F (165 degrees C) and prepare pie shell.



In a small saucepan combine sugar, corn syrup, and butter or margarine.



Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until butter or margarine melts and sugar dissolves. Cool slightly.



In a large bowl combine eggs, bourbon, vanilla, and salt. Mix well. Slowly pour sugar mixture into egg mixture, whisking constantly.



Sprinkle chocolate chips into bottom of pie shell.



Pour mixture into pie shell and top with pecans.





Bake in preheated oven for 50 to 55 minutes, or until set and golden. May be served warm or chilled.



Review:
Wow, was this pie a hit. I've officially been allowed to come back next Christmas. I'm so glad that it turned out well. The only advice I would have is to be very careful when combining the hot mixture and the eggs. Mine started to scramble a little so I had to pick the scrambled bits out. Also, be careful when pouring the mixture into the pie shell. I almost overflowed mine I was pouring so fast. I would definitely make this again.

Oh - and don't forget to use up your extra pie crust as decorations on the top!

Lemon Pistachio Biscotti

Now that I've made an apple tart, I thought I would try my hand at something else that scares me - a twice baked dessert. I was flipping through my Better Homes and Gardens cookbook and found a recipe for Lemon Pistachio biscotti and decided to try it. I wish I wasn't so afraid of baking in the past, because they came out great.

Lemon Pistachio Biscotti
from the Better Homes and Gardens New Cookbook, Bridal Edition

Ingredients:



1/3 cup butter, softened
2/3 cup sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 cups all-purpose flour
4 teaspoons finely shredded lemon peel (I didn't have a lemon to zest for this, so I added a couple squirts of lemon juice to the batter instead)
1-1/4 cups pistachio nuts


Directions:
Lightly grease 2 cookie sheets; set aside. In a large mixing bowl beat butter with an electric mixer on medium to high speed for 30 seconds. Add sugar, baking powder, and salt. Beat until combined, scraping sides of bowl occasionally. Beat in eggs and vanilla until combined. Beat in as much of the flour as you can with the mixer. Stir in any remaining flour and lemon peel. Stir in pistachio nuts.



Divide dough into 3 equal portions. Shape each portion into an 8-inch roll. Place rolls at least 3 inches apart on prepared cookie sheets; flatten slightly until about 2-1/2 inches wide.



Bake in a 375 degree F oven for 20 to 25 minutes or until golden brown and tops are cracked (loaves will spread slightly). Cool on cookie sheet for 30 minutes.

Use a serrated knife to cut each roll diagonally into 1/2-inch slices. Place slices, cut sides down, on ungreased cookie sheets. Bake in a 325 degree F oven for 8 minutes. Turn slices over and bake for 8 to 10 minutes more or until dry and crisp (do not overbake). Transfer to a wire rack and let cool.



Servings: about 36 cookies

Review:
Since it's only me and the husband around our apartment during the week, I halved the recipe, so I only got about 15 cookies out of it. My only complaint was that the dough was a little hard to work with, so I chilled it for a half hour to firm it up. The cookies are really good and I'm glad I gave this recipe a try. There are some different variations in the book that I'd like to try, including double chocolate biscotti.

Apple Tart

Now that I have been cooking more often, I decided that I need to explore the "inside" of the oven, with baking. To tell you the truth, baking always scared me a little bit. With cooking, if you put too much or too little of something, you can usually fix it. Baking, on the other hand, is more like a science of exacts. If you have the tiniest bit too much or too little of an ingredient, it can sabotage the whole recipe.

So, this week I decided to put my fears aside and try out an apple tart. Afterall, I had a brand new tart pan, it's apple season, and my mom requested I bring a dessert to Thanksgiving dinner - what better reasons to jump right in head first!

I saw this apple tart recipe a few weeks ago on smitten kitchen and decided this was what I was going to make. Although my tart doesn't look quite as beautiful as the pics on SK, I think it turned out pretty good for a first attempt.

Alice Waters's Apple Tart
adapted from smitten kitchen

Ingredients:
For dough:
1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon sugar
1/8 teaspoon salt
6 tablespoons (3/4 stick) unsalted butter, just softened, cut in 1/2-inch pieces
3 1/2 tablespoons chilled water

For filling:
2 pounds apples (Golden Delicious or another tart, firm variety), peeled, cored (save peels and cores), and sliced
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
5 tablespoons sugar

For glaze: 1/2 cup sugar

Directions:
Mix flour, sugar, and salt in a large bowl; add 2 tablespoons of the butter. Blend in a mixer until dough resembles coarse cornmeal. Add remaining butter; mix until biggest pieces look like large peas.

Dribble in water, stir, then dribble in more, until dough just holds together. Toss with hands, letting it fall through fingers, until it’s ropy with some dry patches. If dry patches predominate, add another tablespoon water. Keep tossing until you can roll dough into a ball. Flatten into a 4-inch-thick disk; refrigerate.



After at least 30 minutes, remove; let soften so it’s malleable but still cold. Smooth cracks at edges. On a lightly floured surface, roll into a 14-inch circle about 1/8 inch thick. Dust excess flour from both sides with a dry pastry brush.

Place dough in a lightly greased 9-inch round tart pan, or simply on a parchment-lined baking sheet if you wish to go free-form, or galette-style with it. Heat oven to 400°F. (If you have a pizza stone, place it in the center of the rack.)

Overlap apples on dough in a ring 2 inches from edge if going galette-style, or up to the sides if using the tart pan. Continue inward until you reach the center. Fold any dough hanging over pan back onto itself; crimp edges at 1-inch intervals.



Brush melted butter over apples and onto dough edge. Sprinkle 2 tablespoons sugar over dough edge and the other 3 tablespoons over apples. (I had the same issue with the surgar as smitten kitchen. I think I only used about 3 tablespoons total for tart and apples.)

Bake in center of oven until apples are soft, with browned edges, and crust has caramelized to a dark golden brown (about 45 minutes), making sure to rotate tart every 15 minutes.

Make glaze: Put reserved peels and cores in a large saucepan, along with sugar. Pour in just enough water to cover; simmer for 25 minutes. Strain syrup through cheesecloth. (I didn't have any cheesecloth, so I just poured the whole contents of the pot through a strainer. This seemed to work okay)



Remove tart from oven, and slide off parchment onto cooling rack. Let cool at least 15 minutes.

Brush glaze over tart, slice, and serve. (I didn't serve mine until the next day, because making an apple tart in the morning, and THEN driving 2 hours to my parents house didn't seem like a good way to spend Thanksgiving morning.)



Servings: Everyone had smaller slices, but I think we got about 10 slices out of the whole tart.

Review:
I would say this recipe was quite a success. I was a little nervous making the crust, but it came out great. If I make this again, I'm thinking brown sugar might be good to mix in as well as white sugar for the glaze. As far as the taste goes, I give myself an A+ since the whole tart was gone within 5 minutes of putting it out on the table. Like I mentioned above, I baked this the night before, so I left the tart in the tart pan while transporting and popped it in the oven at 200 degrees until it was warm enough to serve (about 15-20 min). It went great with a scoop of vanilla ice cream on the side.

Snickerdoodles

I'll start this post by saying that I am going to chronicle my disasters as well as my successes. These cookies were not so much a disaster, as the dough did not have the correct consistency. Some friends of the hubs were coming over, so in addition to dinner, I wanted to make something to snack on. I've always found snickerdoodles to be quick and easy, so of course, I went for it. Unfortunately, I couldn't find the recipe I'd used in the past, so I turned to my BH&G cookbook, and boy was that a mistake.

The cookies came out well, but needed A LOT of tweaking to get there. The amount of flour the recipe called for was far too little. When I tried to form the round dough-balls we're all familiar with, they batter just sort of molded to my hand and wouldn't ball up. I added about a cup and half more flour and it got the job done, though the dough never really reached the right consistency.

After some research, I found that I read the recipe wrong. OOPS! I never chilled the dough and that's probably why it never really firmed up. Oh well - the end result turned out okay and I guess that's really all that matters.

One more complaint about the recipe is that it says it yields about 36 cookies, but even with the extra flour, I barely got 24. I was a little dissapointed since the chocolate chip cookies I made following a BH&G recipe came out so well. I guess they all can't be winners!!

Snickerdoodles
Better Homes and Gardens New Cookbook, Bridal Edition

Ingredients:



1/2 cup butter
1 cup sugar
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp cream of tartar
1 egg
1/2 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 cups AP flour
2 tbsp sugar
1 tsp cinnamon

Directions:



In a medium mixing bowl, beat butter with an electric mixer on medium to high speed for 30 seconds. Add the 1 cup sugar, baking soda, and cream of tartar. Beat until combined. Beat in egg and vanilla until combined. Beat in as much flour as possible with the mixer, then stir in any remaining. Cover and chill dough about 1 hour until easy to handle.(that is very important, don't end up like me!)



Combine the two tablespoons of sugar and the cinnamon. Shape dough into 1 inch balls. Roll balls in sugar-cinnamon mixture to coat. Place 2 inches apart on an ungreased cookie sheet. Bake in a 375 degree oven for 10 to 11 minutes or until edges are golden. Transfer to a wire rack and let cool.



Servings: About 36 cookies

Baking Gals - Devil's Food Chocolate Chip and Chocolate Chip Cookies

A couple weeks ago, I joined the webgroup at bakinggals.com .  This is a program where teams are formed and each team is assigned a soldier. Each member of the team bakes as many items as they want, and mails them to the assigned soldier. I think it's a great idea to keep our troops' spirits up. There are about 10 people on my team, so hopefully our soldier will get more than enough goodies! For my package, I decided to make two types of cookies, one traditional and a modified original. Altogether, I made about 100 cookies.

Devil's Food Peanut Butter Cookies

originally from Allrecipes.com, submitted by Deanna Storz

Ingredients:

2 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2/3 cup shortening

1 package devil's food cake mix

2 cups peanut butter chips

Directions:

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.  In a medium bowl, beat the eggs, vanilla, and shortening with 1/2 of the cake mix until light and fluffy.  Mix in the remaining cake mix and the peanut butter chips. Drop dough by rounded teaspoons, 2 inches

 apart onto ungreased cookie sheet. Bake for 10-12 minutes in preheated oven. Remove from cookie sheets to cool on wire racks.

Modifications:

1. I didn't have shortening, so I used butter instead.

2. I thought I had peanut butter chips, but it turned out I didn't, so I used chocolate chips.

3. In my oven, 10 minutes was too long. I baked them for about 9 minutes so they didn't burn.

Review:

These cookies are really easy to make, and have few ingredients. For how quick they take, they are really delicious! I only hope our soldier will like them, too! 

Chocolate Chip Cookies

from the Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook, Bridal Edition

Ingredients:

1/2 cup shortening

1/2 cup butter, softened

1 cup packed brown sugar

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

2 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

2 cups semisweet chocolate chips

Directions:

In a large mixing bowl, beat shortening and butter with an electronic mixer on medium to high for 30 seconds.  Add brown sugar, granulated sugar, and baking soda.  Beat until mixture is combined, scraping sides of bowl occasionally.  Beat in eggs and vanilla until combined.  Beat in as much of the flour as you can with the mixer.  Stir in any remaining flour.  Stir in chocolate chips.  Drop dough by rounded teaspoons 2 inches apart onto ungreased cookie sheet.  Bake in a 375 degree oven for 8 - 10 minutes or until edges are lightly browned. Transfer to a wire rack and let cool.

Modifications:

1. Instead of shortening, I used butter.

Review:

After I mixed all of the ingredients, I was a little skeptical about these cookies. The mix wasn't very doughy, so I didn't think it would come out 

that great. Despite my reservations, they came out really well. They actually look a little like store-bought as opposed to homemade though!