Friday, November 30, 2007

Pink Grapefruit Cookies

Awhile ago I found this recipe online from Martha Stewart. As it is practically December, and my mom has a dinner she needs to take cookies to on Saturday, I thought this is probably a good time to use up any citrus recipes. I think the baking time is horribly off, especially when you roll something to 1/8inch thickness, so 10 minutes were all my cookies needed (after burning the first tray). Also, they are supposed to be sandwich cookies, but that halves the amount you can give out! So, I just iced them individually.


Pink Grapefruit Sandwich Cookies
Makes 15 sandwich cookies


Grated zest of 1 Ruby Red grapefruit, plus 1/4 cup freshly squeezed juice
1 cup sugar
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for work surface
3/4 cup cake flour (not self-rising)
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
2 large egg yolks



1. Preheat oven to 350°. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper; set aside. In a small bowl, combine zest with 1 tablespoon sugar; set aside. In a medium bowl, whisk together both flours, baking powder, and salt; set aside.

2. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat butter and remaining sugar on medium-high speed until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes, scraping down sides of bowl as needed. Add egg yolks, and beat until combined, scraping down sides of bowl as needed. Beat in reserved zest-sugar mixture. Add flour mixture in two batches, alternating with the juice, and beat to combine.

3. Turn out dough onto a piece of plastic wrap, and shape into a 1-inch-thick disk. Wrap in plastic, and refrigerate until firm, about 30 minutes.

4. On a lightly floured work surface, roll out disk to 1/8 inch thick using a lightly floured rolling pin. Using a lightly floured 2-inch round cookie cutter, cut out rounds and place about 1 inch apart on prepared sheet. Bake, rotating sheet halfway through, until edges are golden, 18 to 20 minutes. Transfer sheet to a wire rack to cool 5 minutes. Transfer parchment paper and cookies to rack to cool completely.

5. Using an offset spatula, spread 1 tablespoon filling onto flat sides of half the cookies. Sandwich with remaining cookies, keeping flat sides down. Once filled, cookies can be kept in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 3 days.

Pink Grapefruit Cream Filling

Makes enough to fill 15 sandwich cookies

1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
2 cups confectioners' sugar
1 tablespoon honey
3 tablespoons freshly squeezed Ruby Red grapefruit juice

1. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat butter and sugar until light and fluffy, about 4 minutes. Beat in honey. Add juice, 1 tablespoon at a time, until filling holds together and is smooth and creamy, about 2 minutes. Transfer to a small bowl, cover, and set aside until ready to use.

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Thursday, November 29, 2007

Raspberry Cobbler

I found a recipe for Blueberry Cobbler online, and coincidentally had a bag of berries in the freezer, although they were Raspberries. My mom wants to defrost the freezer so I've been trying to use up everything and yesterday I decided to make this recipe to use the Raspberries. It was so amazing, I can't even tell you. If I could open a bakery, this would sell like crazy and I would be totally rich. For real.

Here is the website I found it from:
http://thepioneerwomancooks.com/2007/08/the_great_cobbl.html

However, here is an easier list of the recipe:

1 stick butter
1 cup self rising flour
1 cup milk
1 cup of sugar
2 cups berries

Melt the butter. Measure 1 cup of sugar and pour into a mixing bowl.Measure 1 cup self-rising flour and dump into the bowl. Whisk in 1 cup of milk. Mix together well.
Next add the melted butter into the bowl. Whisk together. Now butter a baking dish…
Now pour the batter into the buttered baking dish.Now start sprinkling the 2 cups of berries over the top of the batter.Try to distribute them evenly. Now, sprinkle 1/4 cup sugar evenly over the top. Because if some sugar is good, even more sugar is better*.

Now pop the dish into the oven and bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour, or until golden and bubbly. You can sprinkle an additional teaspoon of sugar over the cobbler 10 minutes before it’s done.

*That single statement sums up the entire philosophy of my cooking.

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Sunday, November 25, 2007

No Bakes Round II

So I was really unhappy with the No-Bakes I made a week-ish ago, and so my awesome friend Nick found a recipe for them and tried it out, and gave it to me the other day, and he said they turned out really well, so I decided to try it at midnight tonight, lol. Well, I am such an idiot, I didn't check beforehand, and didn't have enough oats for the recipe, I had about half!! And this was after I already put the sugar in the pan with the butter!!! So, I scooped out about half the sugar, to sort of half the recipe, but I couldn't do anything about the butter, so I left everything else the same, and just added the liquid to the oats in a separate bowl. I still thought they were going to come out too mushy, but I just had one and they are setting perfectly, and they are not dry at all!!! I used my Hershey's Special Dark Cocoa, but next time I will use regular. It doesn't seem to melt very well.

EASY AND WONDERFUL NO BAKE COOKIES

2 cups white sugar
4 teaspoons cocoa
1/2 cup milk
1 stick butter
2 tablespoons peanut butter
1 teaspoon vanilla
3 3/4 cup quick oats
1 cup coconut
In a medium size saucepan combine sugar, cocoa, milk and one stick of butter. It's best for butter to be at room temperature.
Melt butter at medium heat and stir all ingredients together. Continue to stir until all ingredients come to a boil.
Once boiling, remove from heat and allow to stand for one minute.
Add vanilla and peanut butter and mix well. Stir in oats and coconut.
Put a large sheet of aluminum foil or wax paper out on the counter and place little scoops of your new treat on it. Serve while still warm or at room temperature.


* I did not use coconut, neither did Nick, and he didn't use Peanut Butter.

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Turkey Potpie 2

I made this last year after thanksgiving with the leftover turkey, and everyone loved it. The recipe is in the archives, but here are some new pics of the one I made today!

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* I did forget to put foil around the edges, but I think it's still ok!

Sweet Potato Cheesecake

I am so excited to post this! I love sweet potatoes/yams and a long time ago I found a bunch of recipes for sweet potato baked goods, like biscuits, pies, etc. And I found one for a sweet potato cheesecake, so I couldn't wait until thanksgiving time to bake it! Well I went to make it and it called for cooking and mashing of the SP's and also to make it in a springform pan, which I don't have, so I looked online and found a recipe at Philadelphia Cream Cheese's website, and It was perfect. I used a pre-made graham cracker crust and canned sweet potatoes that I mashed with my hand masher, and it was super easy and insanely good!!!

http://www.kraftfoods.com/recipes/cakespiescheesecakes/cheesecakesbaked/PHILADELPHIA3-STEPSweetPotatoCheesecake.html


PHILADELPHIA® 3-STEP® Sweet Potato Cheesecake

Prep Time: 10 min
Total Time: 3 hr 50 min
Makes: 10 servings


2 pkg. (8 oz. each) PHILADELPHIA Cream Cheese, softened

3/4 cup canned sweet potatoes, drained, mashed

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon

dash of ground cloves

dash of ground nutmeg

2 eggs

1/2 tsp. vanilla

1 HONEY MAID Graham Pie Crust (6 oz.)

3/4 cup PLANTERS Pecan Pieces

2 Tbsp. maple-flavored or pancake syrup

PREHEAT oven to 350°F. Beat cream cheese, sweet potatoes, sugar and spices with electric mixer on medium speed until well blended. Add eggs and vanilla; mix just until blended.

POUR into crust. Sprinkle with pecans.

BAKE 40 minutes or until center is almost set. Cool. Refrigerate 3 hours or overnight. Drizzle with syrup just before serving. Store leftover cheesecake in refrigerator.

* I didn't use the syrup!!

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Monday, November 19, 2007

Star Brownies

On Friday my friend Nick came home for the weekend so I wanted to bake him something, and I had just bought a new pan from Wal Mart, with the muffin holes in the shape of STARS! So, I bought some Ghiradelli Brownie Mix and baked in in the star pan!! However, the pan was very shallow, and I wasn't sure how long to bake the brownies, because I wanted them to be firm enough to hold the shape of the pan, but still soft. Well, I ended up over-baking them a little, but the insides were soft, and if you microwave the little star-brownies, they are perfect! Also, this mix was VERY chocolaty, so these little bites were more than enough chocolate for me.

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Sunday, November 11, 2007

Chocolate No-Bakes

I made these two days ago for my friend Ian who loves No-Bakes, but they turned out really dry, and I don't know why. I even used less oats then the recipe called for. I need to watch my mom make them because hers turn out better.

Ok I just searched all over for the recipe I used, and I think I picked a bad one to try out. All the others use Milk, and only boil for 1.5 minutes whereas the recipe I found didn't use milk, and said to boil for 5 minutes. Well here are the pics, but I'm not posting the recipe.

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Thursday, November 1, 2007

Halloween Funfetti Cupcakes

Tuesday night I made Halloween Funfetti Cupcakes, and then I decorated them Wednesday with superfun Halloween sprinkles. Here are the pics:

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Tuesday, October 30, 2007

Chocolate Rice Krispie Treats

Today, I stopped at Target on my way back from school, and they had CHOCOLATE MARSHMALLOWS!!! They were with the seasonal/halloween stuff and were only 99cents so I bought a bag, then immediately went to the grocery store and bought some rice krisipies cereal (not that brand though). The recipe is the same as always:

Melt 1/4cup butter over low heat, stir in marshmallows, when completely melted add 6 cups of cereal.

* I always go a little easy on the cereal, so the treats are extra marshmallow-y.
* I know you can make these in the microwave, but I always use the stove because I don't have a large enough microwaveable-safe bowl.

These are AMAZING! I thought when they melted, the marshmallows wouldn't be very chocolaty but they were VERY. And, they are different in flavor than Coco Pebbles treats. I also sprinkled some orange sprinkles over the final product for a more festive look. (You can't really taste the sprinkles though)

Pics:

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Monday, October 15, 2007

Castle Cake!

This is pretty much the most exciting thing ever. My friend Nirvana's birthday was yesterday and she loves Cinderella, and being treated like a princess, so I thought I should make her a Castle Cake!! I got some ideas off of the internet, basically I just needed to know how to make towers (two ice cream cones, icing-glued together!). I used two boxes of french vanilla cake mix, and one strawberry icing and one funfetti icing. Some of the batter I dyed pink with food coloring to make it more fun!! And I used smarties and hershey's chocolate to decorate!! Also, I got three aluminum ramekin type things from a flea market, and used them to make the (upside-down) heart shaped door!

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Sunday, September 30, 2007

Sour Cream Chocolate Cookies

Today, I made another recipe that I found at Anna's blog (cookiemadness.net): Sour Cream Chocolate Cookies. I have to say the picture totally caught my eye and made me want to try these when she first posted them, but I don't make cookies from scratch that often. However, I had the time and the extra Hershey's Special Dark Cocoa, from the cake I made at the beginning of the month, so I made a batch today. They are pretty much super amazing.

Sour Cream Chocolate Cookies

1/2 cup butter or margarine, softened
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1 egg
1/2 cup sour cream (I don’t recommend using light for this recipe)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1-3/4 cups all-purpose flour (spoon, don’t scoop)
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips or use a mixture of chocolate and white chips

Preheat oven to 350 degree F.

In a mixing bowl, cream butter and both sugars. Beat in egg, sour cream and vanilla. Combine dry ingredients; gradually add to the creamed mixture. Stir in chips. Drop by rounded
tablespoonfuls 2 in. apart onto greased baking sheets. Bake at 350° for 12 minutes
or until set - do not overbake. They should still look kind of moist on top when you take them out. They will set as they cool.

Cool for 2 minutes before removing to wire racks to cool completely.

Makes about 3 dozen




*I got 33 out of my batch, and I had to use slightly less flour because I had just under the amount of sour cream. Oh and these aren't the quickest cookies I've ever made because you have to cream the stuff and then add other stuff, not everything all at once, so just make sure you have some time.


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