Oatmeal Cream Pies

What could be better right? In my book, nothing. Sure, I'm a chocolate fan. And yes, I love coconut, and carmel, and even crispies, but if I had the option of choosing any of those over an oatmeal creme pie? I'd go for it every time. Delicious and sweet and a touch healthy. Never stomach-ache inducing (unless you eat your body weight in them, not uncommon, but none the less), and always so satisfying.

I took my time selecting a recipe. Anyone can write an oatmeal cookie recipe but it takes a very special recipe indeed to make the right filling. It's oreo-like. Flaky and buttery, yet light and not too sweet. It's an enigma. And in searching for such fillings I discovered it's true secret. Nay, the secret to anything good. And no, it's not butter, but rather it's evil and alluring cousin, shortening. Oh yes, this is the key. Make it and forget you added it. It's incredible and the best frosting ever. You can find the cookie recipe here (but really use whatever recipe you like, just something soft and chewy.

I scoured the internet looking for the perfect cream filling and the most common recipe involved "very hot" water and lots of work. This frosting recipe killed it. Hands down best I've had/made. LOVE it. I found it here, along with another, I'm sure equally as delicious cookie recipe.

Cream Filling

• 1/2 cup vegetable shortening (I imagine butter would work just fine)
• 1 1/2 cups marshmallow cream
• 2 cups powdered sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1-2 tbsp milk, as needed

Cream together the shortening and marshmallow cream. Add the powdered sugar and vanilla, beat well. Thin with milk until you get the right consistency. The mixture should be thick and creamy, but easily spreadable.

These cookies turned out amazing. I had many of them and they were all worth it. I love me an oatmeal cream pie. 

Chocolate Chip Cookies

Another Martha-inspired recipe. I've been on a cookie kick lately, mainly because they seem infinitely easier to tackle at the end of a day than say, a cake. The thought of them being completed the moment they are baked has been quite appealing lately. Plus, there are SO many delicious looking cookies in the Martha Cookies book that I feel compelled to make them all every time I browse through it. And you know the funny thing? They've all been pretty good. Surprisingly good. Unlike some of her other creations. If you click on the link above and go to "Look Inside" you can scroll through tons of recipes without actually having to buy the book! Best part? The chocolate chip cookie recipe is included in that preview under "Soft and Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies" (from the name alone I knew they would be good. This is my favorite kind of choc. chip).

These cookies turned out amazingly and honestly, I think they are the best I've ever made. My new cookie scoop has helped out immensely since I've made these. Mine doesn't happen to be a Martha, but it works just the same. Makes the process SO much easier and they turn out perfectly with a pre-measured scoop. Never going back to the spooning method (I was never very good at it anyway!). If you're in need/want of some choc. chip cookies, look no further. These are best (that I've found anyway).

Everything Good in One Bar (i.e. Peanut Butter Chocolate Crispies)

In general, I will usually go for anything that includes chocolate, peanut butter, caramel, coconut, and crispies (puffed rice etc. etc.). When I found these bars on Oh She Glows, I knew I had to make them ASAP. They contained more than half of my required allurements for sweets and knew that they would be incredible. They were.

Do you like chocolate (hopefully this is a yes)? Do you like peanut butter (again, yes)? And do you like crispies? Good, these are the sweet for you. If you don't enjoy or abstain from any of these items, this probably isn't the treat for you, or really, the blog for you. This is the kind of treat I could eat all day long everyday. Surprisingly light and yet incredibly satisfying. Also, they are a sinch to whip up. Requires one bowl, a pot, and a baking dish.

Oh and to make it a little healthier I found some organic kids cereal that fit the bill. It was delicious and I felt so much better about eating these without the thousands of ingredients and preservatives and flavorings added. They were not needed (or wanted).

Mom's Apple Crisp

I have been making this dessert like crazy for the past few months. Although I'm slowing down considerably now (thank God) because the honeycrisps (my beloved) are not really in season any more. I pretty much refuse to use/consume any other apple besides the honeycrisp. I use my mom's recipe and it is amazing! No sugar added, except for brown sugar in the topping. It's one of, if not the healthiest desserts I've made and is really pretty good for you considering that there isn't much else in it besides apples.....

That is, until it gets into my hands and I add some flare (and in doing so, make it extremely unhealthy, but SO WORTH IT). I made some homemade vanilla ice cream to go along. I don't think I can adequately express how $%^* good homemade ice cream is. The recipe I use is pretty much entirely whipping cream, a bit of whole milk (why even add this?), a bunch of sugar, and vanilla beans (I like to buy the pods in the bulk spice section, split them, and scrap out the seeds myself. SO much cheaper and fun). I don't care how unhealthy this ice cream may be, it's incredible and even better along side apple crisp. I now can't imagine one without the other. They are perfect for each other. I miss you already honeycrisps.

beauties

Meringue & Raspberry Cupcakes

Even though my updates have been a little sporadic lately, I have in fact been baking a fair bit. Last month for Collin's birthday it seemed I had been baking a lot and tried to suggest options for his birthday that selfishly looked easy to make. He resisted all my attempts to trick him into accepting chocolate chip cookies or a simple pie and insisted on these Raspberry Jam Meringue Cupcakes (similar recipe) that I foolishly showed him right off the bat. When it got down to making them I was dreading the meringues. I had never made them before and anything with eggs whites just seems fussy and likely to fail. They didn't in fact and were to my surprise, not too hard. Messy for sure, but not too difficult. I used Martha again. I'm in a Martha kick right now, not sure why. Her recipe called for making the entire cupcake/top a meringue then slicing it in half and filling with jam and whipped cream. This seemed odd to me. How would you possibly go about eating two hard things stuck together by glob of something smooshy? I made a simple vanilla cupcake instead and made the meringues not in a muffin tin like suggested, but on a baking sheet like normal. I can't for the life of me remember what cake recipe I used but rest assured it was something simple. Most vanilla cake recipes will work here. As long as it tastes good, you're good to go. Once the cakes were ready, I topped with a dollop of raspberry jam and whipped cream and finished with a baked meringue. The end result was good but a bit too sweet. Probably not something I will make again. Martha has fooled me yet again. Why do I still go back?? They weren't terrible by any means, but for me? Not my favorite. Although, who are we kidding, I love chocolate and peanut butter and frosting. My idea of a great dessert doesn't involve jam or fresh fruit of any kind really. But to each their own and this kind of dessert happens to be Collin's favorite so who am to say it isn't good?

A lot of left over yolks

Photos by Me and my new camera

Valentine's Day Tuxedo Cupcakes

For Valentine's Day (gasp, almost a month away now....) I made Jamie's Black Tie Cupcakes from My Baking Addiction. A recently discovered her blog after trying to fill the gap of another blog I read that, much like this one, is too infrequent to keep my interest. Hopefully you haven't all given up on me! So, I found her blog and was instantly impressed and wanted to try one of her recipe's out and since it was V-day, chocolate was in order. The cupcakes were delicious but the frosting really was incredible. It was just the right amount of sweet and was amazingly creamy and didn't at all taste like cream cheese. To me this is a huge deal. I'm not adverse to cream cheese frosting but let's just say it would be my favorite. I love a buttercream but am finding them to be waaaay too sweet for most things that you wouldn't just take a tiny bite of. What I do love about a standard cream cheese frosting is that they are rarely ever too sweet because the bite from the cream cheese cuts the sugar nicely. I enjoy them from time to time but to have a cream cheese frosting that gets away with tasting not cream cheesy? Now that's a winner in my book (insert Charlie Sheen reference here). I'm sorry if I offend the cream cheese lovers of there. Never the less, you'll know it has cream cheese even if you can't taste it so you'll probably enjoy it just the same. Anyway, the end result was a decadent, creamy, not too sweet (or sour), frosting that perfectly paired with a rich chocolate cake. The cake on the other hand wasn't very good. The coffee proportions were all wrong which may have been my fault (I used fresh espresso and diluted a bit instead of instant espresso). I've had many other chocolate cakes that use instant espresso and they are wonderful (i.e. Ina Garten's) but this one just didn't work. I would highly recommend sticking to Rose's Heavely Devil's Food Cake for that one. See previous post for the recipe here. There is NO comparison as far as I'm concerned. Best chocolate cake ever. But maybe that's why all other chocolate cake's pale in comparison?

Oh! AND these cupcakes were filled with chocolate ganache. So if you're a chocolate fanatic I'm sure you will enjoy this little detail. For me? It was a bit much. But there are a few chocolate fanatics (and some not as much) of my acquaintance that loved this part especially.

I topped them with a little more of the frosting mixed with a TON of red food coloring. I couldn't believe how much it took to make it a true red! I was using gel as well and it took so much! So be prepared for that. I'll blame it on the cream cheese. It must absorb food coloring into a black hole of some sorts. Only explanation.

Photos by Collin Monda

VEGAN Chocolate Cupcakes

I am no vegan but appreciate and admire its cause. The reason I made these cupcakes was not due to environmental reasons or animal rights, although those are HUGE pluses, I made them because they were easy. When it's 9PM, I'm laying on the couch watching the fifth Sopranos episode in a row (and possibly a few glasses of champagne deep) one of the last things I want to do is bake (and also clean up the inevitable giant mess I will create....due to champagne consumption). So I glanced through the Martha Stewart "Cupcakes" book and spotted these babies. Another huge reason I made these was because I was out of milk and whipping cream. So that means no frosting. Nearly every recipe contains milk or buttermilk, and inevitably has some sort of cream-related frosting recipe. When I happened upon a recipe with neither frosting nor milk involved in the cakes that's all I needed to whip them up. And the fact that they took like 5 minutes to prepare. I realized half way through (champagne) that the recipe only makes 12, so I had to go back and make another batch. Wasn't a problem though because it didn't require that much of any one ingredient. Thank God I had enough of everything because I was not about to go up to the store and I think I've used up all my favors long ago with Collin running that errand for me.

The batter was incredibly thin and I questioned whether they were going to turn out, but since they were chocolate I figured my lab-mates couldn't complain too much. Also, I decided to omit the vegan part until they had all consumed at least half before dropping that on them, figuring if they knew before hand they would say "oh yea, I know what you mean, they are dry" or "yea, butter would have really been nice here" or "where the hell is the frosting?". But instead of any of these comments, they were quite pleased they were vegan and requested more in the future. I was surprised but also agreed with them entirely. They were delicious cupcakes and certainly take no backseat to any dairy-ridden treat. I confess, I did use a tiiiiiny bit of butter in the ganache on top. What? It's ganache what am I supposed to do? I was confounded by the veganess and broke down and used some butter. In the book they have you dust cocoa powder on top which is a lovely version. So if you really want to be strictly vegan, use the cocoa powder or just have them plain. I promise they are good enough without any extras. 

I'm happy to add this to my repetoir and my fear of offering a vegan treat has subsided a bit. I no longer fear that the people will rebel if they don't get their weekly rations of butter and frosting from me and are perfectly happy with a sweet non-dairy alternative. We can all feel a little better about ourselves for it. Which reminds me....

A wonderful charity that I donate too frequently is the Human Farming Association which rescues animals from industrial farms in this country. Please check it out. They do great work for such a worthy cause. If you can, please buy your dairy products from a local/organic farm. They are usually much smaller farms (non-industrial) and treat the animals humanely. Happy cows = good milk and butter (happy body). Yum. 

In the case of these cupcakes at least, you will not miss the dairy. Promise. 

Vegan Chocolate Cupcakes (makes 12)

From Martha Stewart's Cupcakes

1 1/2 cups cake flour (not self rising, sifted)

3/4 cup granulated sugar

1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder, plus more for dusting

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon vegetable oil

1 tablespoon distilled white vinegar

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1 1/4 cups water

confectioners' sugar, for dusting

1. Preheat oven to 350° F (175° C). Line a standard muffin tin with paper liners. Sift together cake flour, granulated sugar, cocoa, baking soda, and salt.
2. With an electric mixer on medium-high speed, mix together oil, vinegar, vanilla, and the water until well combined. Add flour mixture and mix until smooth, scraping down sides of bowl as needed (batter will be very thin).
3. Divide batter evenly among lined cups, filling each three-quarters full. Bake, rotating tin halfway through, until a cake tester inserted into centers comes out clean, 20 to 25 minutes. Turn out cupcakes onto a wire rack and let cool completely.
4. Cupcakes can be stored up to 3 days at room temperature, or frozen up to 1 month, in airtight containers. Dust cupcakes with cocoa and confectioners' sugar just before serving.

Photos by ME this time (new camera). 

New Year's Pink Champagne Cake

Does anything sound more appropriate than the above name? Champagne and New Years clearly go together (or if you're me, any day of the week, and preferably every day, go with champagne) Combine champagne and cake and the color pink and you have a glorious, indulgent, and dare I say, perfect, New Year's treat. Or hell, for any day. God knows I could add cake to my daily list as well the champagne!

For Christmas, my cousin Nici may have received the best gift ever from a friend: a book called Booze Cakes. I could stop right there and I know most of you are sold already. I was. We flipped through the book, found the Pink Champagne Cake, and immediately decided to make it for New Years.

Since it was going to be four of us for our New Year's celebration, I cut the recipe in half and used my super cute 6" cake rounds to make a mini cake.

There wasn't anything too difficult about this cake, but for the frosting, I had to add two more cups of powdered sugar to get it thickened enough to frost. Either there was something lost when I halved the  recipe or the recipe was wrong (either by my hand-most likely, or the publisher-let's blame it on them shall we?). In terms of mishaps, having it happen with the frosting is probably the best possible option. It was completely liquid when I was finished, so I just kept adding more sugar (a good rule of thumb!) until it thickened to the desired consistency. It was a bit (a lot!) on the sweet side though, not surprisingly. I had a photocopied page of the recipe so I may have misread the frosting recipe. At any rate however, it was a delicious cake and some how had amaretto flavor. Strange and surprising, but not unwelcome. Not sure how, but the champagne must've given it this flavor by some reaction with the rest of the ingredients or when it was baked. Seemed to fit very well with the style of the cake though. Like a pettifor.

I've since purchased the book. Not only because it has great cake recipes but because it kills two birds with one stone. The other stone being booze.

Recipe:


Cake:
3C flour
3 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1C unsalted butter
2C suga
1 tsp. vanilla
6 egg whites
few drops red food coloring
2C champagne

Frosting:
3/4C unsalted butter
4C powdered sugar
1/2C champagne
3/4C whole milk
1 Tbs. vanilla
few drops red food coloring

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour two 9-inch round cake pans (or two 6-inch rounds and cut the recipe in half).
2. In a bowl combine flour baking soda, and salt; set aside. In a mixing bowl beat butter and sugar 3-5 minutes, or until light and fluffy. Add vanilla and beat in egg whites one at a time.
3. Mix in food coloring. Beat in flour mixture and champagne in three alternating additions, starting and ending with flour to prevent curdling. Pour batter in pans and bake 35 minutes, or until a knife inserted in the center comes out clean.
4. For the frosting, in a mixing bowl, beat butter 1 minutes. Gradually add powdered sugar, champagne, milk, vanilla, and food coloring; beat until smooth and creamy.
5. Once the cake has cooled completely, place bottom layer on a cake plate and spread half the frosting overtop. Add top layer and cover with frosting.


Photos by Collin Monda

Halloween Cookies (2 months later)

Ok, now this is embarrassing. How have I fallen so far behind that I couldn't be troubled to post a simple blog about Halloween cookies? I'm ashamed. Sorry.

I followed my mom's trusted butter cookie recipe as well as use her antique (at least to me) cookie cutters and a simple royal icing recipe (from martha stewart, gasp). The cookies are so simple to make it's ridiculous. Like a pie crust. Now, like the pie crust, the mixing of the ingredients is a breeze, that is, if you have a food processor, the molding/rolling/cutting of the mixture is not on the other hand. As I've said many times before, I have little to really no patience during most moments of my life, so decorating cookies is rather a hardship for me. I struggle with giving up, but what happens most times, is that I "decorate" the cookies as fast as I possibly can by slapping on a glob of frosting that if it all doesn't run off the cookies, remains an amorphous blob in the center (these cookies not shown, due to pride). So, if I'm making cookies I make something stress-free and patience saving, like snickerdoodles, or say sugar cookies (unfrosted). The key to decorating 50-100 halloween cookies? Employ help (for free) in the form of boyfriends, friends, and family. Luckily I had some help which not only saved me, but more than likely the cookies as well. It also adds some variety to the cookies, instead of each one looking like a perfect carbon copy of the one previous.............

The cookies cutters included a cat shape which naturally we turned into Penny....

and Murphy. Note the mustache.

Most cookies not shown due to either drinking too much or glob/patience issues. These were the survivors. Cookies aren't for me. Plus, they're meant to be eaten no? Who cares.

Photos and Cookie Assistance by Collin Monda

Pumpkin Spice Cupcakes with Cinnamon Frosting

This is almost embarrassing, but I can hardly remember when I baked these cupcakes. It must have been sometime in October, perhaps even early November. What I do remember however, was how tasty they were. I made these before in the form of a cake and nothing was lost in translation I assure you. I switched up the frosting a bit and made it with cream cheese and cinnamon instead of maple syrup. Both ways go wonderfully with pumpkin so you can't go wrong. All of it was a cinch to make and really had a great pay off. Perfect Autumnal treat. Except now, oh god, it's nearly January. Sorry. Well if you love pumpkin and don't care that the month isn't September, October, or November then make these. I promise you will wish it was Autumn. Or at least it will feel like it. I loved all the photos Collin took of these so I'm posting nearly all of them. Enjoy.

Photos by Collin Monda