Chocolate Chip Toffee Oatmeal Cookies

I made these cookies last week and wasn't planning on posting them for a bit. When I saw that Love & Olive Oil posted similar cookies yesterday, I decided to just put it up now. I got the original recipe from my oldest cookbook The Best of Country Cooking 2003 (it was a wedding present). It's a fantastic recipe (Toffee Malted Cookies) and I've only tweaked it a bit. Years ago, a friend gave me a tip to grind the oats in a food processor or blender. It's brilliant! You still get the nutty taste but don't have as lumpy a texture. I do it for all oatmeal cookies.

What you'll need (plus eggs *sigh*):

1 cup unsalted butter, softened
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
2 eggs
1 (3.4 oz) package instant vanilla pudding mix
1 teaspoon vanilla paste (or extract)
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 - 2 cups regular oats
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup toffee bits

1 1/2 cups milk chocolate chips (the original adds 1 cup chopped Whoppers instead of chocolate chips. Both taste divine.)

Pour oats into a food processor. Pulse until powdery. 

Combine with flour, baking soda, and salt in a bowl.

In a separate large bowl, cream butter and sugars together until light and fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each. Add pudding mix and vanilla, beat well. Add flour and oat mixture to creamed mixture, mixing until completely combined. Fold in toffee and chocolate chips (dough will be stiff). Spoon onto parchment covered baking sheets. Bake at 350 degrees F for 12-15 minutes. Let sit for 2 minutes before cooling on wire racks. Yields 5 or 6 dozen. 

(These are actually a different kind of cookie that I'm working on...but I wanted a "ready to freeze" picture)

Whenever I make cookies, I bake a dozen or so and freeze the rest. I scoop the dough into cookie sized balls and freeze them on a tray before transferring them to a ziplock freezer bag. This way I can have fresh cookies for the husband and kids in ten minutes, and cookie dough instantly for me.

An {L} Birthday

My baby is two as of yesterday. Crazy. We had a big party for her inside our church building (originally to beat the Houston heat and humidity, but we also avoided having a rain-soaked party.). For food we had chocolate cupcakes, using the same Martha Stewart recipe I always use. It made 36 cupcakes and around 13 mini-cupcakes. For the frosting, I beat 2 cups (4 sticks!) of softened butter with about 2 teaspoons of vanilla paste (you could use extract too). Then I added enough powdered sugar to make a really stiff icing. Finally, a few tablespoons of milk to get it to piping consistancy. I split it into thirds and colored each with Wilton icing colors (leaf green, pink, and violet). I made the frosting the night before the party, so in the morning I pulled it out of the fridge and let it sit at room temp for a bit, before beating in a little more milk. Then I piped it on:

I also made sugar cookies, using cousin Brenda's recipe:

1 1/4 cups sugar

1 cup shortening

2 eggs

1/4 cup light corn syrup

1 tsp vanilla

3 cups all purpose flour

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

Preheat oven to 350*F. Beat sugar and shortening together. Add eggs; beat. Add corn syrup, vanilla, baking powder, soda and salt; mix. Add flour and mix until combined. Chill dough for an hour. Roll between lightly floured wax paper to 1/4 inch thick. Cut out cookies with cutters. Bake for 7-10 minutes. Cool on wire rack.

I found a tutorial for flooding cookies with royal icing. I used Wilton Meringue Powder and the royal icing recipe included (I added some almond extract; around a teaspoon or two).

It was surprisingly easy to do, though it will take some practice to make them look as good as the ones in the tutorial. I need a steadier hand but they turned out just fine (and really tasty):

And finally, as if that weren't enough for a two year old, I made suckers. Same reciped from this post, just some different flavors (grape, watermelon and cinnamon):

I had some issues with the colors. Above are the cinnamon flavored ones. They're supposed to be pink......yeah. Orange happened because I added the flavor before the color. As I started dropping the coloring in, the steam caused by the flavoring hit me square in the face. Think about it: hot, cinnamon-infused steam....my eyes immediately teared up, my throat started burning, it hurt to breathe......it was awful. So I cranked the kitchen fan on and opened the nearest window. I stirred as fast as I could and slopped it into the molds, before retreating to my bedroom (the furthest away). Luckily the girls, who were already down for their naps, remained unscathed. And that's why we have green, purple and.....orange:

We invited a lot of kids (24 + older/younger siblings), so I knew we'd need some good, entertaining games. Going with the theme of "L", we had the kids "Pin [tape] the Spot on the Leopard":

My husband drew this. Pretty awesome, right? After that, it was time to "Leap Across the Lily-pads":

I traced the lid to our cylindrical ottoman on a roll of green art paper and then cut out a pizza slice.

And lastly, we made Lion masks:

My poor husband spent nearly two hours cutting out these masks. He deserves a medal (and a hand massage). We tied some elastic through punched holes and:

ROARRRRR!!!

S'mores Bite

I found a S'mores Cupcake recipe on Tasty Kitchen and immediately printed it out, they looked so yummy. After a little thought I decided to change it up (I thought it might be too sugary with the frosting.). So I came up with these:

S'mores Bite (I picked this name because it cracks me up. Be assured that these are delish.)

The cupcake batter has very few changes; just size and ingredient order. Next time I make them, I'm going to use all honey rather than half sugar.

Ingredients:

2 whole eggs, separated

1/3 cup unsalted butter, softened

1/4 cup honey (*or 1/2 cup, but don't add sugar)

1/4 cup sugar*

1 teaspoon vanilla paste or extract

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup graham cracker crumbs

1/2 cup all purpose flour

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1/3 cup milk

Marshmallow fluff

Milk chocolate chips

Extra graham cracker crumbs

Preparation:

Preheat oven to 325*F.

Combine graham cracker crumbs, flour and baking powder in a small bowl; set aside. In large bowl, beat butter, honey, sugar*, vanilla and salt until well combined. Mix in egg yolks.

In a separate bowl, beat egg whites on high until stiff peaks form; set aside:

Alternately add crumb mixture and milk to butter mixture, beating well after each addition:

Gently fold egg whites into batter until completely combined. It takes a minute, so be patient:

Spoon batter into a greased mini-muffin tin, 2/3 full.

Bake for 10-12 minutes. Keep an eye on them. They seem to brown quickly. Remove from tins to wire rack and cool completely.

Fill a pastry or ziplock bag with marshmallow fluff. Cut off tip and pipe onto cooled cupcakes.

Place "frosted" cupcakes into the freezer for 5 minutes. While they chill, melt chocolate chips in a deep bowl. Take the cupcakes out of the freezer and dip each one into the chocolate, completely covering the marshmallow.

Sprinkle with extra graham cracker crumbs.

Return to the freezer or refrigerator to set the chocolate. Serve at room temperature.

Enjoy!

Chocolate Pomegranate Meringue

I bought a pomegranate on a whim a while ago and it sat on top of my fridge for a long time.  I finally decided that something had to be done with it and I came up with this:

chocolate pomegranate meringue

meringue:

6 egg whites, at room temperature

1 cup sugar

3 oz bittersweet chocolate shavings

3 tbsp cocoa powder

1/4 cup pomegranate juice (I'd suggest buying a bottle of it rather than trying to juice the fruit yourself. I stuck about half the seeds in the blender before I'd thought that far ahead and after several unhappy tries, I ended up using a new pair of my daughter's tights to strain the juice out.)

Refer to the Chocolate & Berry Meringue recipe for step-by-step pictures.  Preheat oven to 350*F.  Cover a baking sheet with parchment paper, draw a 10 inch circle and set aside.  Beat the egg whites on med-high until soft peaks form.  Continue beating on high and gradually add sugar, a tablespoon at a time, until stiff peaks form and sugar is dissolved.  Gently fold in chocolate shavings, cocoa and juice.  Spread meringue onto prepared sheet and place in oven.  Immediately reduce heat to 300*F and bake for 1 hr.  Remove from oven and cool completely.  Carefully peel off parchment paper and place meringue on a large platter.  Top with freshly whipped cream, extra chocolate shavings and pomegranate seeds. 

Sweet Cuppin' Cakes?

Never fear, dear readers! I'm back. Of course, I never actually went anywhere. I'm not really sure why I haven't posted for so long. But here's a doozy for you: Yesterday, I made these Chocolate Balsamic Raspberry Cupcakes from Love and Olive Oil. The cake part was sooooooo good. Moist, light and fluffy, and chocolaty. mmmmmmm. I didn't have any almond meal or soy milk, so I just added more flour and used good ol' regular cow milk. The frosting.........well, it was a bit tart but good.......I just didn't love it with the cake. Too make it more pipe-able, I doubled the butter and added a bit more powdered sugar (I also used frozen raspberries rather than fresh).
And it has to be said: looking at this picture makes me think of this Cake Wreck. Just scroll down a bit, you'll see what I mean.

Birthday Cupcakes & Fruit Dip

My oldest is now 3. Old enough to show preferences for things like movies. Originally, I had planned on doing a Toy Story themed party, but life got in the way and before I knew it, I'd run out of time. Instead, her birthday turned into a pink-and-purple-fest. It started with my daughter picking out Tinkerbell plates, cups and napkins. Then she wanted pink and purple balloons. So I got matching streamers and the p & p party was born: I used the same chocolate cake recipe from Martha Stewart that I used for my brother's wedding cake. I made the full recipe and got 48 mini cupcakes and 21 regular sized cupcakes. I had to tweak the cooking time. The recipe said 25-35 minutes for the mini, and they were done in about 15 minutes. Cupcakes were finished in less than 20, rather than the 35-45 minutes. I used this buttercream formula for the frosting. I made one batch but only had enough to frost half of the cupcakes. I took half of the frosting and colored it purple with vanilla extract. The other half I colored pink and flavored with cherry extract. They were delish. I loved the cherry frosting with the chocolate cake. This is kind of funny to me because I hated when my mom would add cherries to chocolate cake batter, blah! I still think that's nasty, but the cherry frosting was wonderful.To dress up the cupcakes, I melted white chocolate chips and wrote out 3's and H's on parchment paper. After they hardened in the freezer I peeled them off and plonked them on the cupcakes: Next time I'll use a mold. They were OK, but, well I like things to look nice and neat. That does not describe these H's:
Oh well. I also made a super yummy fruit dip. I love this stuff. It's fluffy and just the right amount of sweetness.

Fruit Dip:

1 7 0z jar marshmallow cream
1 8 oz tub of strawberry cream cheese
1/2 cup whipping cream, whipped and sweetened to taste (you could use Cool Whip if you wanted)

Mix the marshmallow and cheese together until smooth. Gently fold in whipping cream. Serve with any kind of fruit you have on hand.

Piece of Cake

I did it. It's done. And it looked good! It was such a relief to finish. I tried hard not to stress out but I couldn't help it. Let me take you through the creation of my brother's wedding cake. . .
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A few days before the wedding, I pinned down my brother and almost-sister-in-law to ask some questions, trying to nail down the last couple of details: 3 slanted layers, maybe a topper, maybe not.
.

I finished making flowers, adding purple to the yellow, red and blue: I also made some leaves to act as filler just in case my sister was right when she said, "I don't think you have enough flowers.":

I then got the styrofoam discs for the bottom two layers and baked the top layer. The bride requested chocolate cake, so I looked up recipes and made Martha Stewart's Chocolate Cake. It's the first cake from scratch that has worked for me! And it was an easy recipe too. Next, I made my husband cut the styrofoam {I can't stand that stuff. The sound it makes when it rubs against anything. . .ughhhh! Gives me chills and makes my teeth ache.}

It made the most horrifying noise. I could barely stay long enough to take a picture. So, thanks again, Grant! The wedding was going to be Monday evening, so I decided to put the cake together in the morning, not really the smartest idea, but, thankfully it worked. Well, that morning came and I was trying hard not to freak out. My mind was racing through all of the worst-case scenarios it could think of: too few flowers, melting icing, cake layers sliding off of each other, crumbs in the icing, etc., etc. I was so nervous that I kept breaking flowers, which made me more flustered, leading to more dead flowers. . .anyway, my sister helped me by putting the finishing touches on the purple flowers. I moved on to cutting the cake top. My brother told me when I got there that they didn't have a topper. Now the pressure to have a level top layer was gone. So I cut the cake and put the layers together:

Then it was time to frost. I made the Creamy White frosting from my Homemade Oreo post. I tripled it and had just enough. Lucky for me, they {the bride and groom} didn't care if the frosting was smooth or not, so I didn't even try and I actually like what I did better:
For the cake layer, I preped it by freezing it for a few minutes and then doing a thin 'crumb layer' and freezing that again, before doing the final icing layer. So there were no black flecks to be found. Finally, the moment of truth! Time for the flowers:

I started at the top and I have to say that once I put those few on top all of the anxiety went away. My sister and I then finished putting the flowers on. We didn't go all of the way round the cake, but we could have {there were tons of flowers leftover} and looking back, we maybe should have. We were running short on time, I think it was past 5pm and the wedding was scheduled for 6. It still turned out fabulous:

It's Official. . .

. . . this is my all-time, most favorite dessert. EVER. Chocolate-Berry Meringue:

The chocolate meringue tastes like a brownie, but is less heavy. And with the whipped cream and berries, it's such a delicious, summery {not to mention gorgeous} dessert.

chocolate berry meringue

for the meringue:

Start by placing 6 egg whites in a large bowl. Let them sit at room temperature for at least 30 minutes. Preheat oven to 350°F. Cover a large baking sheet with parchment paper and draw a 10-inch diameter circle, leaving a 1-2 inch margin outside the circle {I just trace a spring-form pan on the paper}:Take 3 oz of bittersweet chocolate:and using a grater, finely shave it down:

Go back to the egg whites and with an electric mixer, beat eggs on medium-high until soft peaks form:

Add a cup of sugar, 1 tablespoon at time, beating on high speed until stiff peaks form and sugar is dissolved. The meringue will be very thick and glossy:

Gently fold in chocolate shavings, 3 tablespoons of unsweetened cocoa powder and 1 teaspoon balsamic vinegar:

Now spread the meringue onto the prepared baking sheet:

Place in oven and immediately reduce heat to 300°F. Bake for 1 hour. Remove from oven; cool completely on baking sheet on rack:

{This picture was taken right after it was pulled out of the oven.}

{This was taken several hours later. Cracks happen. It's OK.}

for the toppings:

You could, I suppose, use a tub of Cool Whip, but I would strongly suggest spending 3 extra minutes making the real stuff. I used 2 cups of heavy whipping cream, a few tablespoons of sugar and a dash of vanilla. I'm not sure how much sugar or vanilla I used, just add it to taste. Mix those all together {with an electric mixer} until the cream thickens and stiff peaks form:

Clean about 6 cups of berries; raspberries, blackberries, strawberries {sliced} and, if you like them, blueberries:

Remove the meringue from the parchment paper, carefully, and place on a platter {or, if you don't have one, put it back on the baking sheet}. Spread the whipping cream on and top with the berries. Finish it off by adding bittersweet chocolate shavings or curls and voilà!

enjoy!