Melted

This vacation has been wonderful.

I took at least one nap a day. Often times two. I think Wilson enjoyed those times. He's a fan of "cat naps".

I ran all but one day last week. Weekly mileage total: 42.5 miles!

All that running left me hungry. Hungry for cookies. Today's agenda only consisted of lesson planning, no running. That means one hour more for baking.

These cookies are always better than I remember. The melted chocolate chunks are incredible, especially fresh out of the oven.

That's all for now. Back to the planning

Homemade Oreos: So Much Better than the "Real" Ones

I'm taking a break from the Spain documentation to introduce you to something incredibly delicious. Spain-trip posts will continue next week (hopefully).

I know I posted about homemade Oreos last year, but I just have to do it again.

I made them last weekend so we could eat them during the Patriots game. And eat them we did.

Monday came around and I needed another batch. I could seriously eat the entire batch in one sitting, but am too afraid of what the result would be. That meant that I needed to recruit others to help me eat them (or to prevent me from eating them all).

Two of Tom's college roommates were up Monday night and demolished a good fraction of the batch. It's hard to stop eating them when they're still warm from the oven. On Tuesday I brought the remaining cookies into school  to share with my mentor teacher and the UVM interns. I'm pretty sure they all agreed that these might just be some of best cookies out there.

I can't decide if I like them more than the chocolate chip cookies I can't stop talking about.

Homemade Oreo Cookies

Adapted From Smitten Kitchen

Ingredients

Cookies:

1 1/4 cups AP flour

1/2 cups Hershey's Special Dark cocoa

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 1/4 cups sugar

10 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature 

1 egg

Filling:

1/2 stick unsalted butter, room temperature

1/4 cup Crisco

2 cups confectioner's sugar

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

2 tablespoons milk

Directions

1. Heat oven to 375 degree F
2. In a standing mixture, mix the flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and sugar. Turn mixture to low and add the butter and egg. Mix until dough is sticking together in one ball.
3. Make teaspoon-sized balls of dough and place on parchment paper or baking sheet, about 2 inches apart. Slightly flatten the top of the dough, but not too much. Dough will flatten on it's own. 
4. Bake cookies for 4:30 minutes, rotate, and bake for another 4:30-5:30 minutes. 
5. Remove cookies from pan and cool completely on a wire rack before frosting.
6. While cookies are baking and cooling, add the butter and Crisco to a mixing bowl and beat for a few minutes. Add the sugar and vanilla and beat on high for 2-3 minutes. Add milk to make softer frosting, or omit for a denser filling. 
7. Fill pastry bag with #12 pastry tip and pipe onto cookie, then combine frosted cookie with unfrosted cookie. Wa-la! An Oreo!

Enjoy with a glass of milk, or take the cookies apart and eat one side at a time!

Early Christmas Gifts

Yesterday was a great day for multiple reasons....

1. I finally finished the lace patter on a pair of mittens I'm knitting. I had to restart this one mitten 5 times.
2. I got to take TWO naps! (They're only 10 minutes each)
3. For the first time ever I made a batch of royal icing that correctly flooded the cookies I was frosting. 

I also got two early Christmas gifts....

Mother nature was super nice. She gave us a 43 degree sunny day. I got to run 10 miles without a hat or mittens. There's still green grass and I even saw a runner wearing shorts. I absolutely love being able to do a long run this time of the year. 

And speaking of long runs, that's where my other gift comes in. I run the same route for 90% of my runs since we moved here two years ago. A few weeks ago they decided to replace a water line that runs directly under a section of my running route. How dare they?! That meant I had to run around town and no matter where I went I was going to go up a monstrous hill.

I headed out on my run yesterday afternoon not knowing where I would go or for how long. I caught up with a girl that was heading toward the bike path and decided to follow her. I was thrilled to get to the construction zone only to find out that it was no longer under construction!! And from that point on I knew where I was going and for how long.

It was a pretty awesome run. Thank goodness I had eaten plenty of fudge before hand to keep me fueled during the surprise long run :)

Oh, and as a side note - I normally do not take pictures while running. I busted my running watch yesterday which means I needed my cell phone to keep track of time.

Cookie Season!

If you haven't figured it out by now, I'll just come out with it. I am obsessed with cookies.

I'm also bad at making decisions. Especially when there are many options.

Needless to say, it's always difficult for me to choose which recipes to bake this time of the year because there are just so many to choose from. Thankfully, Tom usually knows what he wants, and on Tuesday it was sugar cookies.

Problem was, I wanted cranberry-white chocolate cookies. Oh what was I to do?

Make both!

I prepared the sugar cookie dough first because it needs an hour to chill in the fridge. I used the same recipe from last year and made some slight changes with the extracts. I also made the cookies thicker and was very pleased with that decision. I really enjoyed the softer texture of the final product.

Do you see that ornament in the top left? That's our Charlie Brown Christmas tree. It even plays music!

Sadly, the cranberry cookies didn't come out like I was hoping. I won't even bother to post the recipe.

However, it was very difficult to refrain from eating the entire batch of sugar cookies in one sitting. It's possible that a few were lost in the decorating process. The almond extract really makes these cookies pop!

I gave some to my mentor teacher, brought some in for the other interns at Montpelier, and Tom shared some with his co-workers. I definitely see another batch being baked in the near future.

What are your favorite cookies this time of the year?

Can you guess which cookie is my favorite? (pst....check out the little man in the center)

Sugar Cookies

Adapted from Homemade by Holman

1 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
1 cup powdered sugar
1 egg
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
3/4 teaspoon almond extract
1 teaspoon salt
2 1/2 cups all purpose flour, more for dusting surfaces

1. Cream butter in a mixing bowl on medium high speed until light (two minutes). Add the powdered sugar and beat until well mixed. Add the egg, extracts, and salt and mix until incorporated. Add the flour and beat on low until ingredients are just mixed.

2. Wrap ball of cookie dough well in plastic wrap. Place in the refrigerator for one hour (or overnight).

3. Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Line cookie pan with parchment paper.

4. Flour working surface and rolling pin. Roll cookie dough to about 1/4 inch thick. Cut cookies with cookie cutters. The buttered rim of a drinking or wine glass also doubles as a cookie cutter. Place cookies on baking sheets and bake 8-10 minutes. Cookies should not brown.

Royal Icing

4 cups powdered sugar
2 1/2 tablespoons meringue powder (or Just Whites)
1/2 cup warm water

Combine sugar, meringue powder, and 6 tablespoons of water in mixing bowl. Beat on medium high for 7-10 minutes, adding water if mixture is too thick. You will want the mixture to be runny at the end in order to pipe the cookies with icing bag and tips. Otherwise, you can leave it thicker if you are using a knife to frost the cookies.

The BEST Cookie Recipe: Jacques Torres Chocolate Chip Cookies

It's time for yet another cookie post. But this may be the last!

Yeah right...

I believe that I have finally found THE chocolate chip cookie recipe I've been searching for.

I can't remember how I came across this recipe on Crepes of Wrath, but I was intrigued when I saw that it called for cake flour, bread flour, and get this.... 1 and 1/3 pounds of chocolate chips!

You need to see the photo from Crepes of Wrath to fully appreciate what I'm talking about.

I made them in a hurry for work one night a few weeks ago. In fact, I was so much in a hurry that half the cookies were missing vanilla extract, and all of them were missing the sea salt that the recipes suggests to sprinkle on top.

I found that I actually enjoyed the cookies that were missing the vanilla more than the vanilla cookies, so I may choose to omit it in the future. And sadly, I don't have any Jacques Torres chocolate, like the recipe calls for. Nestle Semi Sweet chocolate chunks worked fine as the substitute. Finally, I did not let the recipe sit for 24 hours in the fridge as it suggests (remember, I was in a hurry!).

They're so chocolaty, so crunchy, and they have the perfect amount of salt. 

Jacques Torres Chocolate Chip Cookies
from Crepes of Wrath


2 cups minus 2 tablespoons cake flour
1 2/3 cups bread flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 1/4 tsp banking soda
1 1/2 tsp salt
2 1/2 sticks unsalted, room temperature butter
1 1/4 cups brown sugar, packed
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar
2 large eggs at room temperature
2 tsp vanilla extract (optional)
1 1/3 lb Nestle Semisweet chunks (equal to two smaller bags)
Sea salt for sprinkling (optional)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Sift together the flours, baking soda, baking powder, and salt into a medium bowl.

In the mixer bowl, cream together butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time until combined. Scrape down the sides of the bowl, add the vanilla, and mix. Gradually, add the dry ingredients until dough is just moistened. Use a large wooden spoon to fold in the chocolate chips. Optional - cover the dough with plastic wrap and place in the refrigerator for 24-72 hours. Bring the dough to room temperature before baking.

Line your cookie sheets with parchment paper and scoop dough onto the sheet in desired sizes (I made small cookies, yielding about 36 cookies). Optional -sprinkle the tops of the cookies with sea salt. Bake 10-12 minutes for smaller cookies or 18-20 for larger cookies. Remove from oven and allow cookies to cool on baking sheet for a few moments before placing on cookie rack.

Grab a glass of milk and enjoy!

Cooooookies!

I love cookies - chocolate chip cookies to be exact. I sometimes wish I was decorating cookies instead of cakes but I'm pretty sure that the additional frosting would put me in a sugar coma.

I didn't realize until last week that the last time I baked chocolate chip cookies was way back in January! I finally made time last week and tried the Thick and Chewy Chocolate Chip cookie recipe from Baking Illustrated. Tom got this book for me for Christmas after we heard great things about it from some friends. So far it's lived up to its expectations. I've made thin chocolate chip cookies, homemade pizza dough (which I highly recommend), and blueberry muffins. If I wasn't working two jobs and running marathons I would have spent more time in the book.

These babies were good, but I'm not convinced that they're my most favorite. I wanted more chocolate and wanted them to be more gooey, but didn't want to take the 10 seconds to microwave them to make them so. There's nothing better than cookies fresh out of the oven. However, it wasn't until today, when I bought one of the cookies from the hospital cafeteria, that I realized just how good these were.

And now for a random note - I am looooving this spring weather. The apple and lilac blossoms smell heavenly and make me want to run for hours. My African violet started blossoming four weeks ago and is still going strong. Amazingly, Wilson hasn't eaten this one like he has the others and I'm thankful because I bought it for my mom for her last Mother's day. The blossoms always put a smile on my face.

St. Patty's Day Oreos

Meet my sneakers:

And meet my legs:

(Yes, I intentionally put two different colored socks on before I went running.)

In 30 days we'll be meeting all 26.2 miles of the Boston Marathon.Yikes!

This time change and warmer weather over the last few days has made me feel so much more alive. I walked out of work Thursday and couldn't stop smiling. And as the photo shows - I got to break out my running shorts again. 

Not only did this week bring longer days, spring-like weather, daffodils for my desk, and geese flying north, it also brought Saint Patrick's Day!

A couple of weeks ago a co worker gave me a bottle of Mexican vanilla when she returned from Mexico. When she handed it to me I knew immediately what I wanted to make: oreos!!

The recipe is from Smitten Kitchen. To add a little holiday flair I added green food coloring to the frosting. I could easily taste the difference in the vanilla in the frosting. I love the crunchiness of the cookies and also the fact that they can't last on the shelf for months on end. Two separate people (Tom being one of them) said that they tasted like Lucky Charms.

It's a good thing I'm training for Boston because it's impossible to have only one of these little things.

Holiday Baking Comes to an End

Where did 2010 go?! This year seemed to fly by! So many great things happened and I can only look forward to the new year.

It was quite the year for Christmas baking. I made 4 successful batches of my mom's fudge and they all came out perfect! I even added a new touch, crushed candy canes on top, for an seasonal surprise! The key to making the recipe to come out smooth is to beat the batter for a long time once the temperature has cooled to 110 degrees. The longer, the better. But be careful - when the fudge decides to set, it's going to set immediately. You have to work quickly to get it into the pan.

I also made delicious sugar cookies. They had a very strong almond flavor the day I made them. It immediately reminded me of something from when I was little but I could never figure out what. The almond flavor weakened over the following days and the cookies became even better. Everyone at work loved them and said they reminded them of their mother's sugar cookies. 

Next came a cupcake order and cake order from a co-worker. She requested 6 chocolate peppermint cupcakes and 6 vanilla peppermint cupcakes. The frosting recipe can be found here. I was able to try a chocolate cupcake and L-O-V-E-D it! They will certainly be made again!

She also requested a raspberry chocolate cake, which was more difficult to make. The cake was super light. I'm not sure how it tasted. I must have used different cocoa because the cake didn't come out as dark as the photo in the recipe. The whipped raspberry filling was heavenly, however, it was too light to use as a filling. I found that the layers of cake slid around much to easily and had to put dowels in to hold the cake up. Finally, the cake was frosted with a rich chocolate ganache and topped with fresh raspberries.

Although I'm a day late, I hope you all a Happy New Year! 

A Taste of Fall: Pumpkin Spiced Cookies

Why do I love fall? To start, I love the trail running. Nothing better than the smell of running through a forest, flying down a hill, and hearing the crinkle of leaves underneath my footsteps.

Oh yes, and leaves. They turn quite beautiful around this time of the year. 

And when all of those leaves are put together, we get this:

Or better yet, this:

After the apple picking and cider donut eating, we get the pumpkins.

And with pumpkins, we get.....

Pumpkin Spiced Cookies

Last year I fell in love with my pumpkin cookies, but I wanted something new this year. Something with chocolate. My search led me to a blog with fantastic looking pumpkin cookies. I warn you, mine didn't come anywhere close to as cute as these.

Cookies
Ingredients:

1/2 cup butter

2/3 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup canned pumpkin

1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon ground ginger

1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon turmeric

1/4 teaspoon paprika

2 all purpose flour

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. 
2. Cream the butter with an electric mixer. Add the sugar and mix until creamy and fluffy, then add the pumpkin, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, salt, turmeric, and paprika. Mix the ingredients until smooth. Finally, slowly add the cups of flour to the batter until the batter is firm.
3. Flour a smooth working surface, as well as your rolling pin. Roll the dough about 1/4 thick, and then cut with cookie cutters. If you don't have any (like me), the top of a wine glass works excellent!
4. Place onto parchment-covered baking sheet and bake 9-12 minutes. The edges should be lightly brown, but be careful not to burn the cookies. Cool on a wire cooking rack before frosting

Chocolate Filling

1 cup Nestle semi-sweet chocolate chips

4 tablespoons milk

1. While the cookies are baking, add ingredients to a microwave bowl and cook them in the microwave for one minute on medium power. 
2. Remove the bowl from the microwave, stir, and then place back in the microwave for 30 seconds on medium power. Repeat this process until the mixture is smooth. Be careful not to burn the chocolate.

Frosting the Cookies

1. After the cookies and chocolate filling have cooled completely, place a large amount of filling on one cookie, then cover with a second. 

My recipe made about 20 cookies, but they were small. If you make larger cookies, be sure to bake them for slightly longer. 

Taste bud feedback: I loved them. As with most desserts, they were absolutely amazing fresh out of the oven with melted chocolate and warm cookie. They're definitely a cookie you'll want to heat up in the microwave a few seconds before eating the next day. The chocolate is very noticeable when they're warm, but the next day the spices took over. My co-workers loved them, and so did Tom.

Something Bad Has Got to Happen to Me

I just baked quite possibly the most amazing chocolate chip cookies in the world. They're so amazing that something bad has got to happen to make up for the incredible amount of enjoyment and satisfaction that I'm feeling right now. Like seriously, is my car going to crap out tomorrow on the way to work? Am I going to get hit by lightening? Is someone going to hack into my bank account and steal all of my money? 

Hopefully not. I can't help but wonder though....

I've realized how important good quality chocolate is. Growing up I couldn't distinguish between different cookies or chocolate. But there's a huge difference in the taste of chocolate. Nestle doesn't taste anything like Hershey's, which doesn't taste at all like Ghirardelli. I don't like Ghirardelli, but I think that Nestle taste almost too cheap. It taste like home-style cookies, but I would consider this recipe one that's more gourmet. Meaning, I need gourmet chocolate. 


Perhaps a chocolate tour of the world is what I need to find out which chocolate would make this recipe perfect. If only I had the money....

PS. Maybe the "bad thing" just happened. I took a batch out of the oven, was transferring the cookies to the cookie rack and one fell off! Cookie overboard!! There was water on the counter and it landed right in it. Crap! Hot cookie plus water equals sizzling! I rushed to get a spatula (cookie was too hot!) but in the process somehow flung some chocolate from the cookie onto my finger which then flung to the top of my left foot, burning that part of my foot, making my foot jump, sending the chocolate up to the back of my right calf, burning that as well. So if that's all that's going to happen, then I'm relieved!

Pumpkin Cookies

I had a can of pureed pumpkin since Thanksgiving. I bought it to make pumpkin whoopie pies but never got around to baking them. I was always missing one important ingredient. Then I wanted to bake pumpkin bread but that didn't happened either because my oven loves to burn bread. This week I was poking around online and came across a blog with a recipe for Iced Pumpkin cookies. Right away I knew I had to make them.


Tom came over for dinner and we made the cookies after. We made a pretty good baking team. They were easy to make, and easier with a helping hand. Tom licked the bowl of icing after we were finished so I assumed that at least that part was good.

The cookies pre-icing

We toasted our cookies to each other and took our first bite. They were quite good! Not over powering, in fact, I can't taste too much pumpkin. They were super light and very fluffy. And they were also the first batch of cookies that my oven didn't burn. Very tasty. The icing was a great add to it, otherwise they would have been to plain by themselves. These do seem to be very addictive. I'll eat like 4 at a time and will have to force myself to go upstairs so that I'm not tempted to reach into the tupperware and grap a few more.

The finished product - muy delicioso