Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

I needed to bring a dessert for a work function and perhaps inspired by living with my dad, who loves peanut butter enough to eat a peanut butter sandwich every day, I was in the mood for a peanut butter cookie. Not that peanut butter cookie recipes are that hard but I decided to go for one from a website I've looked at in the past, Joy the Baker (and no, I don't like simply because my name is Joyce!)

I followed this recipe to a T (even a cautious sprinkle of nutmeg, which to be honest, was maybe too light since I didn't taste it) but added a cup of peanut butter chips to the batter. In my opinion, a good peanut butter chocolate chip cookie has gooey gobs of peanut butter AND chocolate to help balance it all. I also was a bit indecisive in how I approached shaping these cookies - readers know how much I love my Oxo cookie scoops and how efficient (lazy) it's made me in creating cookies. I've turned recipes that aren't techniclly drop cookies into opportunities to use my scoop.  So even though I know a classic peanut butter cookie bears the cross hatch marks from a fork, I was curious to see how the batch would turn out in simple rounded form. Still delicious and moist! And then I started thinking that if I was bringing these to a work event, I needed them to be readily recognizable as peanut butter so people would nut allergies would avoid them. So the next couple of sheets got the fork treatment.

At the end of the day, there really wasn't much of a difference between the two shapes - loyalists would argue that it wouldn't taste as peanut buttery without the traditional shape but to be honest, I think the simple rounded approch had a slight edge in terms moistness/texture in my book. 

Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies from Joy the Baker

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
pinch of freshly grated nutmeg
2 sticks (8 ounces) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 cup peanut butter- crunchy or smooth, but not natural
1 cup light brown sugar (packed)
3/4 cup white sugar
2 large eggs
1 cup of semi-sweet chocolate chips (decreased slightly to make room for the peanut butter chips)
1 cup of peanut butter chips (my addition)
1/2 cup granulated sugar for rolling cookies

PS - Joy the Baker took much better pictures (in my rush, I only snapped one picture) so if you're not feeling inspired to make them, be sure to click on the link above.

Position the racks to divide the oven into thirds and preheat to 350 degrees F . Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.

Whisk together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt and nutmeg.

Working with a stand mixer, preferably fitted with a paddle attachment, or with a hand mixer in a large bowl, beat the butter on medium speed for a minute or two, until smooth and creamy. Add the peanut butter and beat for another minute. Add the sugars and beat for 3 minutes more. Add the eggs one at a time, beating for 1 minute after each addition. Scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl and, on low speed, add the dry ingredients, mixing only until they just disappear. Mix in the chocolate chips (and peanut butter chips). You’ll have a soft a pliable dough.

Pour the 1/2 cup sugar into a small bowl. Working with a level tablespoonful of dough for each cookie, roll the dough between your palms into balls and drop the balls, a couple at a time, into the sugar. Roll the balls around in the sugar to coat them, then place on the backing sheet, leaving 2 inches between them. Dip the tines of the fork in the sugar and press the tines against each ball first in one direction and then in a perpendicular direction- you should have a flattened rough of dough with crisscross indentations.

Bake the dough for 12 minutes, rotating the sheets from top to bottom and from front to back at the midway point. When done, the cookies will be lightly colored and still be a little soft. Let the cookies cool on the baking sheet for a minute before transferring them to a cooling rack. Cool to room temperature.

Repeat with the remaining dough, making sure to cool the baking sheets between batches.

EnJOY! :)

PS-What do you think - are a loyalists to the peanut butter cookie look or do you think by adding chips, I was safe to go with the standard chocolate chip cookie shape? And dare I mention that I tried a sheet of cookies without rolling them in sugar because of fears of sweetness (which was sacrilege, I've come to the conclusion that peanut butter cookies MUST ALWAYS be rolled in sugar).

Crème Brulee Cupcakes

My sister Amy's 29th birthday was a special enough occasion that it warranted two types of cupcakes - the first batch that Breena and I tackled were the Margarita cupcakes. The second batch that I selected were

Crème Brulee cupcakes - one, because Amy and I both love crème brulee (who doesn't?) but two, because they sounded like a fun thing to make (hello, blow torch anyone?)

So I proudly present our batch of Crème Brulee cupcakes, which required multiple steps and the aforementioned blow torch, but was so worth it in the end!

Crème Brulee Cupcakes from Beantown Baker
Ingredients
2-1/2 cups all-purpose flour

3 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt, plus a pinch for the egg whites
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
1-1/2 cups sugar
2 eggs, separated
1 cup milk - (I always use skim milk and never notice a difference)
3 tablespoons caramel syrup - (Like Jen, I used Smuckers ice cream topping)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions
Preheat oven to 350°F.

Mix flour, baking powder, and salt together and set aside. Cream butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Add egg yolks, one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Alternately beat in dry ingredients and milk.

Add caramel syrup and vanilla. Beat until smooth. Beat egg whites with a pinch of salt until stiff but not dry. Gently fold whites into batter.

Spoon batter into cupcake papers, filling cups about 2/3 full. Bake for about 15-20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Remove from oven and cool.

At this point, I was a little alarmed at how the cupcakes were turning out.  They kept caving in the middle and seemed a little too sticky in texture on top. But we kept the faith, realizing that the frosting would be the true standout of these cupcakes.

Brown sugar swiss meringue buttercream

Ingredients
1 cup light brown sugar
4 egg whites
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature

Directions
Put sugar, egg whites and salt into the top of a double boiler over a pan of simmering water. Whisking constantly, cook until sugar has dissolved and mixture is warm (about 160 degrees).

Whisking constantly, cook until sugar has dissolved and mixture is warm (about 160 degrees). Pour heated egg whites into the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the whisk attachment. Beat egg white mixture on high speed until it forms stiff (but not dry) peaks. Continue beating until fluffy and cooled, about 7 minutes total.

Switch to the paddle attachment. With mixer on medium-low, add butter two tablespoons at a time, beating well after each addition. Increase speed to medium-high; continue beating until frosting appears thick, about 3 minutes. Reduce speed to low and continue beating 1 minute to reduce air bubbles.

The resulting frosting is very light and silky in texture, very similar to the frosting on the Brown Sugar Praline Cupcakes I had made for Cupcake Camp Boston.

To assemble cupcakes

Remove center of cupcake using the cone method (which we didn't do since our cupcakes had conveniently collapsed and created their own craters). Fill cupcake with buttercream. Sprinkle brown sugar on top and caramelize with crème brulee torch.

This is the part where we put the birthday girl to work.  We thought of it as a part of her birthday gift.  We handed her the crème brulee torch and had her working hard on caramelizing the brown sugar.

I had read some comments on the Beantown Baker blog where people were having trouble with having their frosting melt off while using a torch.  With this in mind, we refrigerated the cupcakes before torching and put them back in the fridge right after. Amy was also careful to maintain a distance away from the frosting and stopped torching once the sugar started melting. Keep in mind that the sugar will continue to caramelize some more after you torch it, so you don't have to keep the flame on it for a long time.

Put simply, it was fun to watch the sugar melt:

We weren't quite sure how much brown sugar to put on top, so we went with roughly two teaspoons per cupcake

Which seemed to work out well in the end

Overall, the cupcakes were a success. We gave some extra cupcakes to Andrew's parents and our real estate agent (if you read a previous post, you'll note that we're not buying a new house for ourselves!), and they both loved the Crème Brulee cupcakes. In fact, it was the first time that our agent ever asked me for a recipe (and we fed her plenty of baked goods during our own house-hunting search).  They require a little extra work from your ordinary cupcake, which I think makes them the perfect special occasion treat!

Margarita Cupcakes

As Breena's visit coincided with Amy's birthday weekend, we knew a marathon baking session was in order.  Wanting to make desserts that were special and felt birthday-like, we decided cupcakes were in order and that we would make two different types. After perusing the always helpful Beantown Baker website, I selected one and Breena was wavering between Oreo cupcakes and Margarita cupcakes (we stayed away from chocolate because Amy's tastes are just like mine in terms of cake).  After conferring with Andrew, who told us to go for the Margarita cupcakes because they were out of the ordinary, I think you know what we decided on.  Full confession: I didn't think I would like these cupcakes because I hate tequila. No bad hangover story to along with this story, I was always hated the taste of tequila so I've never had the opportunity to drink too much of it!

Margarita Cupcakes from Beantown Baker

Ingredients
2 1/4 cups (9 ounces) cake flour

1 Tbsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/4 cups whole milk
4 egg whites
1 1/2 cups (10 1/2 ounces) sugar
2 tsp grated lime zest (I went ahead and grated one full lime)
1 stick (8 Tbsp or 4 ounces) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 tsp lime juice
1/4 cup tequila (equivalent of one nip of tequila - I left this tequila out)

Directions
Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Prepare 2 muffin pans with cupcake liners.

Sift together the flour, baking powder and salt.

Whisk together the milk and egg whites in a medium bowl.

This is my favorite part - put the sugar and lime zest in a mixer bowl or another large bowl and rub them together with your fingers until the sugar is moist and fragrant. The scent of the lime sugar is intoxicating - resist licking your fingers thinking that it will taste like Fun Dip! Add the butter and working with the paddle or whisk attachment, or with a hand mixer, beat at medium speed for a full 3 minutes, until the butter and sugar are very light.

Beat in the lime juice, then add one third of the flour mixture, still beating on medium speed.
Beat in half of the milk-egg mixture, then beat in half of the remaining dry ingredients until incorporated. Add the rest of the milk and eggs beating until the batter is homogeneous, then add the last of the dry ingredients.

Finally, give the batter a good 2- minute beating to ensure that it is thoroughly mixed and well aerated.

Divide the batter into the cupcake liners. Resist temptation to overfill them - they really should be filled 2/3 of the way rather than 3/4 to avoid overflow over the liners.

Bake for 20-25 minutes, or until the cupcakes are well risen and springy to the touch. Transfer to cooling racks and cool for about 5 minutes, then remove cupcakes from the pans and cool completely. Once cupcakes have cooled, brush the top of each cupcake with a 1/2 tsp of tequila.  I clearly skipped this part. 

Tada! You end up with perfect cupcakes, with a nice rounded surface begging for some frosting. I love how you can see the lime zest in the cake.

Be sure to use some colorful cupcake liners to help set a fun and festive tone for your cupcakes!

 

 

Frosting

Ingredients
2 sticks of butter, room temperature
2 lbs (8 cups) powdered sugar
1/4 cup tequila (again, this is the equivalent of 1 nip)
Zest of 2 limes
pinch of salt

Add butter to the bowl of a stand mixer, beat until light.

Add half the tequila, lime zest and salt, mix.

Add powdered sugar 1/2 cup at a time, mixing well and scraping down sides as necessary.

Continue to add sugar and tequila as necessary.

This makes a very stiff (and pretty forgiving) frosting. It takes some muscle to pipe it out but makes beautiful looking frosting. Taking a cue from Beantown Baker, I decorated each cupcake with a coordinating straw (I didn't have purple straws, so the purple liners got orange straws instead):














The end result? You get a wonderfully soft and dense cake with a touch of lime flavor. The frosting on top tastes great and is nice and thick.  This really may become my go-to white cake and white frosting recipes (sans lime zest and tequila).  The margarita flavor shines throw in a subtle way and even the tequila adds a complimentary, slightly salty note that balances out the sweetness of the frosting.

Hot summer nights may call for a margarita to cool off, but summer BBQs, showers, birthdays, pretty much anything can do with some colorfully delicious margarita cupcakes!

"Berry Tempting" Raspberry and Strawberry Daiquiris

In a celebratory mood this weekend (nothing better than toasting the warm weather and a nice, long holiday weekend), I busted out our blender for the first time (another wedding gift, thanks Kelli and Alex) and pureed some fresh berries into delicious summer drinks.  The best part is that Andrew was out for a guy's night with Phu, Rich and Jason, which meant I didn't have to share these with anyone!

First off, I made some simple syrup by following these directions - I ended up boiling down six tablespoons of white sugar with 12 tablespoons of water, which resulted in enough syrup for two drinks.

I started off combining a few different recipes and ended up adjusting along the way.

Raspberry Daiquiri
1 cup of fresh raspberries (I'm guessing may 20 - 25 raspberries)
3 tablespoons simple syrup
2 oz white rum
1 oz peach schnapps (in my world, EVERYTHING tastes better with peach schnapps in it)
12 ice cubes
Squeeze half a lime (or at least 3 tablespoons of fresh lime juice)

Hitting my ice breaker button first, and then blend, I blended for 20 seconds until smooth.  Voila! I had this vision of loveliness:

 And...since it was the holiday weekend and all, I didn't stop with one drink. I liked the raspberry daiquiri, but didn't think it did justice to the subtle raspberry flavor (so I saved the rest of my berries to eat) and was a little irritated by all the tiny raspberry seeds.  The seeds ended up collecting on the bottom of my glass while drinking, so it wasn't like I was getting a full mouthful, but I actually might recommend straining your daiquiri if possible.

Next up, I switched to fresh strawberries and used the exact recipe above except substituted 1 cup of sliced strawberries (I had six gigantic strawberries which fit the bill and I'm guessing around 10 regular strawberries would work).

The seeds weren't as irritating in this version and the strawberry flavor came through loud and clear. In fact, my mouth is watering as I look at this picture.

Be warned, these are very filling but I'd like to think they aren't that bad for you, with mostly fruit and ice making up the whole of the drink. I'm also thinking that you could easily substitute Splenda for the simple syrup to save on calories.

So the next chance you get - really, any warm night this summer - treat yourself to a berry daiquiri!

How I Became A Pyro AKA My Introduction To Bananas Foster

All it took was a huge pile of ripe bananas in the grocery store, and I was inspired to spend the whole weekend making Bananas Foster. I was first introduced to the dessert in college - one of my college roommates had a younger brother who was attending Johnson and Wales and wanted to be chef.  For us starving college students, that equaled free restaurant-quality food! Patrick was kind enough to cook dinner for one night, and while I don't remember the details about the meal, I do remember dessert. It was the first time I had ever heard of Bananas Foster and after seeing the spectacle of rum being lit on fire and having my first bite of caramelized banana, I was hooked.

Literally, for weeks. My roommates will tell you that I was making it every other night just for the rush of lighting the pan on fire.  And then, I got tired of it and promptly forgot about this wonderful dessert.  It all came rushing back while I was standing in the grocery store, and so I'm excited to share my infatuation with you.

Most recipes call for bananas sliced length-wise, but I threw in an extra banana's worth of slices, because you can never get too much banana - this is right after I threw the bananas into a butter/brown sugar mixture and before the caramelization process begins.

This is after the rum was poured in - you can see some furious boiling action happening but I bet you're asking where the flames are (note: always practice safety for this step, and light the rum with a long fireplace safety match like I did or use one of those button-push safety lighters)

A-ha! You can see the flames from this angle, but the picture does not do justice to how high they can get. Again, people, practice safety and keep your distance from the pan but also, enjoy the show.

Once the flames die down and disappear, your bananas are nice and gooey and ready to be served!

Spoon into waiting bowls

Top with some scoops of vanilla bean ice cream

Top with extra caramel sauce remaining the frying pan, and you've got yourself a wonderful combo of caramelized banana and creamy ice cream. It's not only delicious, but extremely easy to make, requires little ingredients and always impresses guests, which makes it the perfect dessert for a dinner party

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
This was just the beginning, come back tomorrow to see how I took this dessert up a notch for a special lunch with Andrew's parents!
 
Bananas Foster (Serves two - three) - Inspired by an Alton Brown recipe
 
Ingredients
3 tablespoons unsalted butter

1/2 cup (1.75 ounces) dark brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
3 ripe bananas, sliced in half lengthwise (use 1 - 1.5 bananas per person eating)
1/4 cup white rum (dark rum apparently works well but white rum was actually used in the original recipe for Bananas Foster, which is a traditional New Orleans dessert)

Directions
Melt butter in a 10-inch heavy skillet over low heat. Add brown sugar and cinnamon, stirring until sugar dissolves. Add bananas and cook for 1 minute on each side, carefully spooning sauce over bananas as they are cooking. Bring sauce to a simmer and carefully add the rum. Next, VERY CAREFULLY ignite and continue cooking until flame dies out, approximately 1 to 2 minutes. Remove from heat. Divide bananas between bowls, reserving syrup. Top with scoops of vanilla ice cream and immediately spoon remaining sauce over bananas and serve. Enjoy and scrape your bowl clean!

The Boston Blogger Cookie Challenge: Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookie

Is it possible to improve on a seemingly perfect thing?

I think most of America is familiar with the standard Tollhouse chocolate chip cookie recipe. It's quick, easy, and best of all, impossible to lose since it's printed on the back of every single Nestle chocolate chip bag. The most I ever do to jazz it up is add some almond flavoring (a trick learned from my friend Z).

However, I was tempted into trying a new chocolate chip cookie recipe due to a challenge issued by America's Test Kitchen.  Their recipe's name says it all - "Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookies" and can be found on their Cook's Illustrated website here. 

As this challenge was issued specifically to Boston bloggers, I couldn't resist giving this recipe a shot. But as you will soon find out - in true Cook's Illustrated trial-and-error style (you'll know what I mean if you've ever picked up this magazine or its sister publication, Cook's Country) - I had a few missteps before I nailed the perfect recipe at the end! 

Cook's Illustrated Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ingredients

1 3/4 cups unbleached all-purpose flour (8 3/4 ounces)

1/2 teaspoon baking soda 14tablespoons unsalted butter (1 3/4 sticks)
1/2 cup granulated sugar (3 1/2 ounces)
3/4 cups packed dark brown sugar (5 1/4 ounces) (fresh, moist sugar is needed!)
1 teaspoon table salt

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 large egg
1 large egg yolk
1 1/4 cups semisweet chocolate chips or chunks (go for some quality chocolate, I used a bag of Ghiradelli semi-sweet morsels I had on hand)
3/4 cup chopped pecans or walnuts, toasted (optional)

At first glance, the ingredient list doesn't look too different from the typical recipe. The subtle differences, however, all have a purpose. And once we hit the instructions, you'll know right from the start what sets this recipe apart from the ordinary.

1. Adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 375 degrees. Line 2 large (18- by 12-inch) baking sheets with parchment paper (Silpat in my case). Whisk flour and baking soda together in medium bowl; set aside.


2. Heat 10 tablespoons butter in 10-inch skillet over medium-high heat until melted, about 2 minutes. I followed the advice in the recipe's notes, and deliberately avoided using a non-stick pan so I could keep track of the butter's color.

Here's ordinary melted butter:

And then the magical tipping point when it turns into browned butter (don't be alarmed by the dark specks, that's apparently the milk solids in the butter) and you can smell this rich scent that reminds me of making pralines.

Continue cooking, swirling pan constantly until butter is dark golden brown and has nutty aroma, 1 to 3 minutes. Remove skillet from heat and, using heatproof spatula, transfer browned butter to large heatproof bowl. Stir remaining 4 tablespoons butter into hot butter until completely melted.

3. Add both sugars, salt, and vanilla to bowl with butter and whisk until fully incorporated. Add egg and yolk and whisk until mixture is smooth with no sugar lumps remaining, about 30 seconds. Let mixture stand 3 minutes, then whisk for 30 seconds. Repeat process of resting and whisking 2 more times until mixture is thick, smooth, and shiny. Using rubber spatula or wooden spoon, stir in flour mixture until just combined, about 1 minute.

So far, so good. I used my microwave to time my resting and whisking intervals (PS - I'm loving the speckled effect you can see in the dough!)

Stir in chocolate chips and nuts (if using), giving dough final stir to ensure no flour pockets remain.

4. Divide dough into 16 portions, each about 3 tablespoons (or use #24 cookie scoop). Arrange 2 inches apart on prepared baking sheets, 8 dough balls per sheet. (Smaller baking sheets can be used, but will require 3 batches.)

5. Bake cookies 1 tray at a time until cookies are golden brown and still puffy, and edges have begun to set but centers are still soft, 10 to 14 minutes, rotating baking sheet halfway through baking. Transfer baking sheet to wire rack; cool cookies completely before serving.

So this where I noticed things going wrong.  The dough felt too sticky to roll into a ball so I did my best to create balls with my beloved large Oxo cookie scoop (which holds around 1 tablespoon of dough). My sheets were smaller than recommended so I went with around two tablespoons of dough per scoop.

The end result was a bit ugly:

Crispy edges? Yes! Soft center? Yes!

Overly greasy residue? No thank you! 

It was after seeing the first batch that I knew that I must have done something wrong. I re-read the recipe's ingredients and had my doh! moment. In a truly amateur mistake, I had only scooped 1 1/4 cups of flour into the bowl, rather than the 1 3/4 cups needed.  Oops. The recipe explains that cutting back on the flour in the recipe (when compared to the Tollhouse version) helps improve the texture, but I clearly went a little overboard in that area!

The missing flour added and working with the amount of dough I had left, I made standard-sized cookies that were roughly 1/3 of the size that the Cook's Illustrated recipe calls for.

Now this was more like it.

While the smaller size doesn't allow you to enjoy a greater ratio of crispy edge to soft center, they were still the perfect amount of chewy for me:

Not only that, they looked special. If you look real close, you can see specks in the cookies that come from the browned butter. They remind me of the vanilla bean specks you see sometimes in ice cream, and ridiculous or not, are a visual cue indicating that these cookies are full of flavor.

After an official taste taste (ahem), I was thinking hands-down that this recipe had earned a spot in my recipe books for having the best texture and subtle toffee flavor. This picture just calls for a cold glass of milk.

What happened to that initial batch of minimal flour cookies? After they cooled, I stuck them overnight on paper towels to absorb as much excess grease as possible. And when I brought them into work, my coworkers raved about how good they were, even when warned that I had made a slight error in the amount of flour. Which makes me wonder how much better these cookies will get the next time I make them, with the right amount of ingredients from the start and taking care to use three tablespoons of dough to get perfect large cookie (as opposed to the 1-tablespoon-of-dough cookies I ended up with).  

My final conclusion - this recipe is good enough to convince any baker to abandon their rut of doing the same old chocolate chip cookie each time.

Snickerdoodles!

Happy Administrative Professionals Day!

Andrew asked me last minute to make something to bring in for the paralegals in his office. One is notoriously finicky and doesn't like nuts or nut flavors.  When checking my larder (I feel like Laura Ingalls Wilder when I use that term) I realized that I had NO chocolate chips. Which is weird for a frequent baker like me. I had two bags of white chocolate chips, one bag of mini chocolate chips, 10 bags of butterscotch chips (thanks to a care package from my mom) but no regular chocolate chips so that ruled out chocolate chip cookies.

I decided to keep it simple and go for a snickerdoodle - after all, who can resist the classic combo of sugar and cinnamon?

I was also excited to make my first recipe from the Rosie's Bakery Chocolate-Packed Jam-Filled Butter-Rich No-Holds-Barred Cookie Book. Please note that traditional snickerdoodle recipes tend to call for cream of tartar and shortening, and end up producing flat cookies.  I have visions of a crisp exterior and a soft interior, and I just like my cookies to be more domed in shape, so I was happy that this recipe seemed to fit the bill!

Baker's Best Snickerdoodles from the Rosie's Baker Chocolate-Packed Jam-Filled Butter-Rich No-Holds-Barred Cookie Book

Ingredients

3 cups all-purpose flour

1 Tbsp plus 1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

2 tsp ground cinnamon

1 1/2 cups plus 2 Tbsp sugar

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter at room temperature

1 tsp vanilla extract

2 large eggs

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Line several baking sheets with parchment paper, or grease them lightly with vegetable oil (or use Silpat liners).

2. Sift the flour, baking powder and sal together into a small bowl and set aside.

3. Combine the cinnamon with the 2 Tbsp sugar in a small bowl (I poured these ingredients directly into a sturdy freezer Ziploc bag). Stir together thoroughly, and pour into a plastic bag (or shake thoroughly in the bag).

4. Using an electric mixer on medium speed, cream the butter, remaining sugar and vanilla together in a medium-sized mixing bowl until light and fluffy, 1 minute. Stop the mixer once during the process to scrape the bowl with a rubber spatula, and scrape the bowl again at the end.

5.  Add the eggs and beat on medium speed until they are blended, about 30 seconds. Scrape the bowl.

6. Add half of the flour mixture, and mix on low speed for 10 seconds. Scrape the bowl Add the remaining flour mixture and blend on low for 25 seconds, stopping the mixer twice to scrape the bowl.

7.  Measure out generously rounded tablespoons of the dough and roll them into balls with your hands. (I used my medium-sized Oxo cookie scoop and dropped the dough directly into the sugar/cinnamon bag without rolling it first).

8.  Place 2 cookies at a time in the cinnamon/sugar mixture and shake the bag to coat (important - don't add extra cinnamon. I decided to add some turbinado sugar to the bag and added more cinnamon to balance out the sugar. The cinnamon is so fine that it coats the entire surface of the cookie without letting a lot of sugar to stick, so I recommed sticking with the recipe's original amount of cinnamon). Then place the balls 2 inches apart on the prepared baking sheets and bake until the centers are risen and slightly cracked and the edges are crisp, 16 to 18 minutes. Cool the cookies on the baking sheets.

Because I used my cookie scoop and didn't roll the cookies, my cookies had a beautiful crackled pattern on top (similar to the grooves that ice cream has after you've scooped it, if that makes sense).  While I wish a little more sugar had stuck to the surface of the cookies, they still tasted fabulous.

I stacked ten cookies and packaged them in beautiful containers (from the Paula Deen collection at Michael's - I bought them on clearance last year and now I wish I had bought more! As I was in a rush this morning, I forgot to take a picture of the containers but you get the gist of what they looked like.

I hope the cookies looked this good as the paralegals opened their packages - Andrew reported back that the cookies were a hit (even with the picky coworker).  You can't go wrong with a simple, classic cookie with tons of flavor.  Although I do want to try to make the other version of snickerdoodles since the cream of tartar is supposed to give it a distinctive "sour" taste.

Cupcake Camp Recap: Brown Sugar Praline Cupcakes

As you saw in yesterday's post, while my first batch of cupcakes ended up as a miserable failure, I did successfully end up making eight dozen batches of cupcakes in two flavors.  I had my eye on making praline cupcakes (inspired by the pralines a coworker brought back from New Orleans around Mardi Gras) and I bookmarked this recipe with the intent of making it for Cupcake Camp Boston.  I liked the fact that it was out of the ordinary, included the praline flavor and texture (yum!) and wasn't chocolate.

It was a bit risky to try a new recipe without a test run, but I had faith that it would all work out, and thankfully it did!

Brown Sugar Cupcakes

Ingredients

3 cups cake flour

1 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 cups brown sugar
1/2 cup dark brown sugar
6 oz. (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
1/4 cup sour cream
1 cup milk
4 eggs, at room tempurature
2 tsp pure vanilla extract

Directions
Preheat oven to 350F. In mixing bowl sift in cake flour, salt, baking powder, and brown sugars and mix for 30 seconds on low speed to combine. Add in butter and sour cream and mix for about 30 more seconds. In a seperate bowl whisk together milk, eggs, and vanilla and add it to the flour mixture in 2 parts mixing thouroughly and scraping the sides after each addition. Line cupcake pans with paper liners and fill 2/3 way full. Bake for 18 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean. Cool on wire rack. Makes approx. 30 cupcakes

The batter looked nice and thick when I filled the cupcake liners using my handy dandy new cupcake dispenser, a Christmas gift that I busted out for the occasion (highly recommended):














They came out of the oven perfect, slightly domed but flat enough to frost evenly:

I had high expectations for the flavor of the cake but it was pretty neutral, I'm guessing to balance out the sweetness of the praline frosting and topping. It also reminded me more of cornbread in texture, but was sturdy enough to hold up the weight of a heavy topping.

Next step was to make the praline topping. It's a delicate process that requires a candy thermometer because you only have a short window of time to scoop when it hits the perfect soft ball temperature.  From the sugaring you can see in my pralines, I overcooked the pralines but they still looked decent and tasted great! 

Pralines
Ingredients

1 1/2 cup pecan halves
1 1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
1/2 cup sugar
1 cup heavy cream
1/4 tsp salt
2 tbsp unsalted butter
1 tsp pure vanilla extract

Directions
In a 300F oven toast pecan halves on a foil lined cookie sheet for about 8 minutes checking often because they burn easily! Let cool and chop roughly.

In a medium heavy bottomed sauce pan combine brown sugar, sugar, heavy cream, and salt. Cook over medium heat until the sugars dissolve and mixture starts to come to a boil, making sure to stir occasionally.

Continue cooking until mixture reaches 235F-240F on a candy thermometer or soft-ball stage when small amount is placed in water, about another 15-20 minutes. Be very careful with this step, as overcooking will cause a grainy texture!

Remove from heat and add butter, vanilla, and pecans. Stir with a rubber spatula contiuously for approximately 3-4 minutes until mixture thickens enough to be scooped out and not be too runny.I used my Oxo small cookie scoop to quickly create uniform pralines on my Silpat sheets. Let cool (I had them sit out for eight hours before I used them).

Finally, the slightly labor intensive praline frosting.

Brown Sugar Praline Buttercream

Ingredients
4 large egg whites
1 cup packed light-brown sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups (3 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature, cut into tablespoons
1 tsp vanilla
8 pralines chopped finely (from the ones you created above)

Directions
In a heatproof bowl set over (not in) a pan of simmering water, whisk together egg whites, sugar, and salt. Cook, whisking constantly, until the sugar has dissolved and the mixture is warm to the touch.

Transfer to the clean bowl of an electric mixer with whisk attatchment. Beat on medium speed until fluffy and cooled, about 15 minutes. This is the part where I say "Presto, Change-o!"

Raise speed to high; beat until stiff peaks form. Switch to paddle attatchment and reduce speed to medium-low; add butter, 2 to 3 tablespoons at a time, until fully incorporated. Add in vanilla. Fold in praline pieces with spoon.

This is what the mixture looks like before you start beating it:

 

Ta - da! After fifteen minutes of beating (props to my Kitchenaid mixer for the hard labor):

To be honest, I'm not sure if I made the frosting correctly because it resulted in a very light and airy, almost foamy-in-texture frosting. Everyone who tasted it enjoyed it, but I was expecting more of a buttercream texture.

So as you know by now, this how the cupcakes looked once they were decorated. In hindsight, I would cut each praline in half and prop them upright on top since a whole praline just kind of sits there and looks meh.

So for inspiration, I'll leave you with The Frosted Cake 'n Cookie's perfect version of the Brown Sugar Praline Cupcake:

Photo credit here

Cranberry Scones with Orange Almond Glaze

Scones sound very British and frankly, very boring. We've all had the doughy, dry things with no flavor that are passed off as scones. I suppose those are specifically designed to be doused with jam and clotted cream (which I've yet to try) but I was seeking something that could stand on its own delicious flavor and texture.

So what inspired this baking session? I woke up early on a Saturday morning, Andrew was still dead to the world in bed, and I happen to see this recipe for Grapefruit Honey Yogurt scones in my Google reader. It instantly made me want to make scones, and once I mourned the fact that I didn't have any grapefruit on hand, I set out to make the best batch based on what I did have. I had an ulterior motive as well, I wanted to make scones good enough to tempt Andrew into eating one, since he had once told me that he didn't like scones.

Thanks to a Costco-sized bag of Craisins I have on hand, I decided on cranberry scones with an orange glaze.

Martha Stewart's recipe for Cranberry Scones

Ingredients
2 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for work surface
5 tablespoons sugar, plus 1 tablespoon for topping
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
6 tablespoons chilled unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
2/3 cup (plus 1 tablespoon) half-and-half (I used heavy cream)
1/2 cup halved cranberries, drained on paper towels (1 cup of Craisins for me, but I would recommend 3/4 cup for the perfect ratio of berries to dough)
I also added 1 teaspoon of vanilla and 1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon

Directions
1.Preheat oven to 425 degrees. In a bowl, whisk together flour, 5 tablespoons sugar, baking powder, and salt. Cut in butter with a pastry blender or two knives until mixture resembles coarse crumbs.  (By the way, the knives method never works for me. I ended up sticking my hands into the flour and breaking up the butter myself with my fingers. It never fails to work.) Stir in 2/3 cup half-and-half until just moistened. Gently fold in cranberries.

2.On a lightly floured surface, knead dough gently, 5 to 10 times. Pat into a 1-inch-thick round.

Cut into 8 wedges (I was ridiculously proud of how symmetrical my wedges turned out);

Place on a baking sheet, 2 inches apart. Brush tops with remaining tablespoon half-and-half; sprinkle with remaining tablespoon sugar.

Bake until golden brown, 12 to 15 minutes.

Let me tell you, these smelled amazing baking and I knew instantly that they were going to come out great! Andrew apparently agreed, he followed his nose out of bed and downstairs to the kitchen.  I could hear him stirring around in the bedroom , so I quickly grabbed a fresh-out-of-oven scone, topped it with orange almond glaze, and stood at the bottom of the stairs like a Stepford wife, holding out the plate to him.  Talk about a great start to the morning!

Because of my addition of vanilla and the cinnamon, the scones had a slightly sweet and distinct flavor all on their own that I really enjoyed, and I felt with the glaze on top, it was too sweet. However, Andrew liked both together, so I'll give you the recipe for the glaze but recommend leaving out the vanilla in the scone batter if you use it.

Orange Almond Glaze (I added the almond flavoring because I thought it needed a little flavor boost)

1/2 cup powdered sugar

3 tablespoons orange juice

1 teaspoon almond flavoring

Mix ingredients together to form glaze, spoon over scones and enjoy each and every bite:

As mentioned above, I enjoyed mine sans glaze with a cup of tea - heavenly!

This is the perfect recipe to treat yourself to on an overcast or rainy morning, or a nice breakfast treat on an occasion like Mother's Day.