Cubicle kitchen: Traditional Shortbread with Earl Grey Glaze

Okay, everyone.  I promise, I really did go to the UK.  It was not a dream, nor was it a extreme fib to excuse a blogging break.  I was there for a relatively few short days, and I filled those days with lovely walks in the park, yummy food, a little culture and of course a few yarn stores.

I still hope to share some photos from my trip in later posts.  But to prove my point, here is just one from another 'of course'.  At least it was an of course for me.  Because when I would visit my grandparents for weeks at a time during the summer when I was a kid, Hamley's, the seven-story toy store, was always high on my list of places I had to go to.  So even as a twenty-something, I have to have a wander around.

Though I was able to keep myself from buying any toys, I did snap some photos of these excellent Lego displays:

First, the Queen and one of her Corgis, and then Prince William and Kate doing the wedding wave alongside Charles and Harry.  There you have it, proof that I was there less than three years ago.

Further circumstantial evidence could be taken by the fact that the first klatch treat I made after the trip was shortbread with a tea glaze.  What can I say, I was feeling British.  These are excellent for enjoying with your tea, which should of course be drunk out of some Royal Wedding china.

Traditional Shortbread with Earl Grey Glaze

Ingredients

• One batch shortbread; I used this heirloom recipe from Gale Martin
• About 1 cup powdered sugar
• About a tablespoon of strongly brewed Earl Grey tea, cooled

Directions

1. In a cup or small bowl, sift powdered sugar.  Add tea and use a fork to mix until you reach the desired consistency.  I look for it to easily flow from the tines of the fork, but not drip.
2. Drizzle glaze over cooled and cut shortbread.  Allow to dry.

Cubicle kitchen: Grapefruit Spritz Cookies

Whoops!  Guess who totally forgot to post on Wednesday?  Without any good excuses like not having an internet connection?  That would be me.  All I can claim is to have a lot on my mind, and maybe that the yoga helped me clear it a little too well.

Oh well.  At least I still have lots of recipes to share with you all, starting with one from just before my trip.  This was my first time using a fancy cookie press, and even though it can be a bit fiddly, once I got the hang of it, it wasn't actually any more difficult.  And people were very impressed by spritz cookies.  Because I can't leave well enough alone, of course I had to add a puddle of glaze in the center to make them into even more citrusy flowers.

So I guess this is my way of apologizing for not posting yesterday, with a bouquet of flower cookies.  Forgive me?

Grapefruit Spritz Cookies
Adapted from Bakers Royale: Lemon Sandwich Cookies
Makes about 2 dozen

Ingredients
For the cookies:

• 1/2 cup butter, softened
• 1/3 cup granulated sugar
• 1/2 cup powdered sugar
• 1 large egg, plus 1 yolk
• 1 Tablespoon grapefruit zest
• 1/2 teaspoon lemon extract
• 1/2 teaspoon orange extract
• 1 1/2 cup flour, plus 2 Tablespoons
• 1 Tablespoon cornstarch

For the glaze:

• About 1 1/2 cups of powdered sugar
• About 1/2 Tablespoon grapefruit juice

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350°.
2. Cream together butter and sugars.  
3. Add egg (including additional yolk), zest, and extracts.
4. Whisk flour and cornstarch together.
5. Add dry ingredients to wet mixture until dough forms.
6. Follow the directions for your cookie press.
7. Bake for 10-12 minutes, until cookies are lightly golden.  Allow to cool on a wire rack.
8. In a small bowl, mix powdered sugar and juice together until you reach the desired glaze consistency.  Drizzle over cookies and allow to dry.

Cubicle kitchen: Cranberry Peach Thumbprints

Have you ever seen Gosford Park?  Remember the scene where one of the guests is found indulging in preserves straight from the jar after his interrogation?  This is a minute or two into it, but you can see that he's still tasting away while Dorothy gives a great little treatise:

Yes.  Yes to believing in love.  And yes to jam.

Everyone thinks of cranberries for Thanksgiving, but they are so tart and bright, they go very well with the summery peaches from my day trip to Fredericksburg a few weekends ago.  I don't know that it would be deemed appropriate for the inhabitants either upstairs or downstairs in an English country home, but it's very tasty.

I also really like this particular recipe for the thumbprint cookies.  Thank you, Martha Stewart.  It's the texture that makes them, from the crunchy sugar coating to their overall lightness.  They make these really taste like fresh, summer cookies, not an autumn dessert that forgot what month it was.  Although you could still make them for Thanksgiving as a surprise for the dessert table.  I have diced peaches in the freezer, so this could actually happen.

Cranberry Peach Thumbprints

For the jam:

Ingredients

• 1 lb diced peaches
• 4 oz cranberries
• 1/2 brown sugar Splenda
• 1 Tablespoon lemon juice
• 1 Tablespoon orange juice

Directions

1. Mix together all ingredients in a microwave-safe bowl.
2. Microwave in 8-minute intervals, stirring after each interval, for a total of 24 minutes cooking time.
3. The mixture should be thick and jammy.  If necessary, microwave for a few more minutes.
4. Allow to cool, then set aside.  Can be stored in a container in the fridge for about a week.

To make the thumbprint cookies:
Follow the recipe from Martha Stewart: Shira's Cranberry Thumbprint, substituting your jam for Martha's filling.  You should have some leftover jam.

Cubicle kitchen: Pomegranate Chocolate Quinoa Cookies

Even though I'm never the first to try one of the new food trends, I do get there eventually most of the time.  Especially when it comes to overnight health sensations.  So forgive me, because there's going to be a lot of quinoa coming up in my cubicle kitchen.

I told you about my quinoa-stuffed baked tomatoes the other week.  Well, after filling the tomatoes with not just quinoa but onions, spinach, and an egg, there was still plenty of quinoa left for other purposes.  And by other purposes, I usually mean baking treats.  Turns out, there are all kinds of uses for quinoa in goodies, and for the most part you can treat it like you would oatmeal.  As in, when making oatmeal muffins, substitute the same amount of cooked quinoa for the uncooked oatmeal called for.

Because I also had some pomegranate arils collected, I decided to go with a cookie packed with healthy excuses to eat one more.  Between the vitamins in the pomegranate, the antioxidants of dark chocolate, and quinoa's protein power, this is practically health food.  Since breakfast cookies also seem to be pretty trendy, I think you could pass these off as one of those too.

Pomegranate Chocolate Quinoa Cookies
Recipe from hidden ponies: Chocolate Pomegranate Oatmeal Cookies

My notes:

• I chopped up Brookside Dark Chocolate Pomegranate instead of just chocolate chunks to amp up the pomegranate factor
• I substituted equal amounts of cooked quinoa for quick-cooking oats
• The quinoa makes the cookies really moist, to the point of falling apart; I would suggest maybe adding a little flour, or some of the originally called for oatmeal, and cooking for a few more minutes or perhaps cooking them in a mini muffin tray for soft cookie bites
• I used an ice cream scoop to get these onto the sheet because the dough is quite wet
• Some cookies don't need the two inches of space between them on the cookie sheet, but these definitely do because they spread quite a bit

Cubicle kitchen: Red Velvet Cookies

I bake a lot of sweet treats, but because a blogger cannot survive on cupcakes alone, I also like to do some savory cooking.  It's just not as varied.  For klatch I try to come up with something new every week, either completely or some kind of variation.  My dinners, though, tend to be a rotation of simple favorites.  Steamed broccoli with melted cheese, oven-roasted zucchini, spaghetti squash with tomato sauce...no, I'm not vegetarian, I just like my veggies.

I also am a firm believer in this truth: everything is better with an egg on it.  So when my mom and I heard about a recipe for stuffing tomatoes with spinach and quinoa, we liked it.  When we realized we could also crack an egg in there, we had to try it.  We scoped out a few recipes for tomatoes stuffed with quinoa, or tomatoes with eggs baked inside, and decided that we could mostly just wing it.  We cooked up some quinoa, sautéing spinach with onions and garlic, coring out some ginormous tomatoes and filling them as we saw fit with both of those, along with some cheese and egg.

The results?

Delicious.

What does this have to do with Red Velvet Cookies?  Well, while purchasing the produce for the tomatoes, I spied some avocados and remembered that you could also fill those with eggs and bake them.  So we bought avocados as well, but that never made it into the roster of zucchini, squash, and broccoli.

Instead, I decided to try using them as a substitute fat in baking.  The cake mix I grabbed from a clearance end cap in Target.  I figured that, like chocolate, red velvet was a strong enough flavor that you wouldn't realize that there was avocado in there.  Because the mix asks for oil rather than butter, substituting is a little more complicated, because avocado isn't as moist.  So rather than attempting to make the original cake or cupcake, I went with the more texturally-forgiving cookie.

I also didn't attempt to replace the oil in the frosting mix with avocado, because you would definitely notice that tinge of green in the crisp of white cream cheese-flavored frosting.  I did still make a substitution, melted Brummel and Brown spread, but that's not particularly innovative.

To make these perfect for 4th of July, I would suggest either topping with a blueberry or blue star sprinkles.

Red Velvet Cookies
Adapted from Kirbie Cravings: 3 Ingredient Avocado Chocolate Cookies
Makes about 2 1/2 dozen cookies

Ingredients

• Pillbury Supreme Collection Red Velvet Cake Mix

Instead of add-ins called for on box for cake*:

• 1/2 cup mashed avocado
• 1/4 cup (1/2 stick) butter, softened

*Use additional ingredients as called for on box for frosting

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350°.
2. Cream together avocado and butter.
3. Mix in cake mix until dough forms.
4. Roll dough into 1" balls and place on parchment-lined cookie sheets.  Flatten balls slightly with glass or other flat-bottomed tool.
5. Bake for 10-12 minutes, until top and edges are set.  Allow to cool for several minutes before moving to rack to cool completely.
6. When cookies are cooled, assemble frosting as directed on box.  Frost cookies.

Cubicle kitchen: Scrambled Cadbury Cream Egg Cookies

I love Cadbury Creme Eggs.  I am not alone in this.  Recently, one of my favorite food bloggers, Vanilla Sugar, recently tweeted:

Amazing how fast the weight comes off when you drop ice cream, Cadbury Eggs & strawberry shortcake from your diet. No?

Indeed it is.

I still have a precious few Cadbury Creme Eggs stashed away in my freezer from this season's Easter haul.  That's my preferred way to eat them: fresh from the freezer, with the chocolate hard enough that I can bite into it to crack it and then eat the little shards while saving the creamy center for last.  Freezing them is the only way for the center to still be relatively intact and not completely all over my fingers by the end.

There are two ways to look at why I made these cookies.  The first is that I generously sacrificed part of my Creme Egg stash for the sake of the tastier klatch good.  The second is that I just wanted to see if it would work and was once again experimenting on my coworkers' taste buds.

I'm going to go with a little bit of both.  Either way, these are yummy.  I like Sally's recipe because the cookie is soft and fluffy, which pairs really well with the milky chocolate shell and fondant creme.

Scrambled Cadbury Creme Egg Cookies
Recipe from Sally's Baking Addiction: THE Chocolate Chip Cookie

My notes:

• Instead of chocolate chips, I chopped up about 8 Cadbury Creme Eggs and mixed those into my cookie dough.
• To chop up the Creme Eggs without making a gooey mess, place the eggs in the freezer at least overnight.

Cubicle kitchen: Monster Blondies

After my foray into wittily-named baked goods, I started thinking of these as 'Zombie Marilyns', but I already had to explain what Monster Blondies were, so getting any more witty would have negatively impacted understanding.  And since my work is all about creating understandable, usable content, it would be ironic for me to name these something that confused them and kept them from being able to eat them.

Basically, I took smitten kitchen's wonderful base recipe for infinitely adaptable blondies and overloaded it with even more add-ins than she allows for (making them into monsters), then used a much larger pan to make them thinner.  They end up a little more like thick cookie bars than brownies.  But really, I'm not sure where the line is drawn between blondies and cookie bars.  They are moist like fudgy brownies, but with the slight chewiness of a cookie.  Making them thinner also allowed me to slice them into long, narrow triangles rather than the usual small square.

I also tried to get a little cute with my photo for these treats.  Since they had 'Monster' in the name, I wanted to take their picture with my own knitted monster, Union Jack.  And because I had cut them into triangles, it seemed like a fun idea to arrange them like bunting for a little monster party.  Here's the best picture I was able to take:

Now, while I think this is adorable, it's not really the best way to feature the recipe.  So I took a slightly more boring but informative photo as well.  I'm just going to have to rely on the colors of the Mini M&Ms to draw you into the deliciousness.

Monster Blondies
Recipe from smitten kitchen: blondes, infinitely adaptable
Makes a 9" x 13" pan

My notes:

• I added about 1 1/2 cups assorted chocolate candies: Mini M&Ms, chopped Snickers, Brookside Dark Chocolate Pomegranate, some nuts, etc. 
• I baked my blondies in a 9" x 13" pan lined with parchment paper. This is about twice the size of the pan originally used, so you get a thinner blondie that's more like a thick cookie bar than a blond brownie.
• I cut my pan of blondies in half longwise and then sliced narrow triangles from that.
• I also substituted about half of the all-purpose flour for whole wheat flour.  You know, to make it healthy.

Cubicle kitchen: Chuckledoodles

Normally I would give these a 'real' name and save the witticisms for my own inner giggles, but I just love this one too much.

It was a while ago that I reduced root beer into something like corn syrup.  After making Creamy Root Beer Float Bars, I was waiting for another good way to transform a recipe that used regular corn syrup and give it some root beer edge.  It needed to be something that took advantage of the root beer, not something where there was just a tablespoon of syrup and no one would be any the wiser.

What I love about these is that they take the innate spiciness of root beer and translate it into a cookie that's traditionally a different kind of spicy: the snickerdoodle.  Where those are usually cinnamon sugar coated, I thought that the addition of clove would bring out some of the sassafras-ness of the root beer. Because these don't have any egg, they are more chewy and dense than the snickerdoodles I usually have.  But I think that would make them perfect for topping with some frothy frosting, or sandwiching around some ice cream.

Because I am never not thinking about a root beer float.

Chuckledoodles
Adapted from Karo Syrup: Alphabet Cookies
Makes about 3 dozen

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup butter, softened
• 1/2 cup reduced root beer*
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup creamy peanut butter
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• a pinch of salt
• 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon ground clove
• 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

* To reduce root beer: pour several cans of root beer into a heavy-bottomed pan and simmer until it has reduced to the consistency of corn syrup, stirring occasionally and making sure it doesn't burn.

Directions

1. Cream butter and peanut butter with reduced root beer and sugar.  Mix in vanilla extract and salt.
2. Mix in flour until combined.  Place dough in the fridge if needed to make it more workable.
3. Preheat oven to 350°.  In a small bowl, combine sugar and spices.  
4. Form dough into balls (about a tablespoon per ball) and roll in sugar spice mixture.  Place on cookie sheet and flatten using the bottom of a glass or jar.
5. Bake for about 15 minutes until the edges are golden and have set.  Allow to cool on the pan for a few minutes before transferring to a wire rack.

Cubicle kitchen: Crunchy Coconut Lime Cookie Cups

One of the things I love about baking is that there's an infinite number of possibilities.  When you walk into the kitchen, you can not only mix and match the ingredients, you can also switch up how you bake them to create something new each time.

Last week, I made two treats from three main ingredients:

• Coconut
• Lime
• Chex cereal

These cookie cups are the first result.  The Chex adds a crunch to what is basically a sugar cookie recipe that is pressed into a mini cupcake pan to create little tartlets.  The filling I just kind of threw together, adding powdered sugar and corn starch to thicken up the condensed milk a little more so that you can safely take two bites to eat them without losing any of the creamy gooey deliciousness.  Then the coconut and lime comes in to make these a tasty way to ease into the realization that it's practically already summer and where is the year going?

Plus extra crushed Chex, because more Chex means more crunch, and more crunch is always good.

Crunchy Coconut Lime Cookie Cups
Makes 4 dozen

Ingredients

Cookie cups:

• 1 cup butter, room temperature
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 eggs
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 2 cups flour
• 4 cups Chex cereal*, crushed (ended up measuring about 2 1/2 cups when crushed)

Filling:

• 1 14 oz can sweetened condensed milk
• 3/4 cup shredded coconut
• juice and zest of one lime
• 1/2 cup powdered sugar
• 2 Tablespoons corn starch
• 1 cup Chex cereal, crushed*

*I mixed equal parts Rice and Corn Chex

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350°.
2. In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugar until fluffy. Add eggs and extract and combine.
3. Add the baking powder, salt, and flour to the wet batter and mix just until combined.  Mix in crushed cereal.
4. In a well-greased mini cupcake pan, scoop an spoonful of batter, pressing slightly to create a well in the center of each.
5. Bake for about six minutes, then remove from the oven and (carefully) re-press the well into the half-baked cookie using the other end of a wooden spoon.  It will have risen slightly in the oven.  
6. Return to the oven for another 5 minutes or until golden.  Remove from the oven and allow to cool before removing from pan.  Set cookie cups aside.
7. In a bowl, stir together all of the ingredients for the filling.  Spoon into the cookie cups.

Cubicle kitchen: Citrus Mint Slice and Bake Cookies

How did orange juice become the go-to breakfast beverage, despite the pretty much universal agreement that nothing tastes worse than that first sip right after you've brushed your teeth?  That toothpaste mint and super-sweet citrus is just...not a good start to the day.  And yet, it's become a cliche part of 'this complete breakfast.'

Now, that being said, the combination of fresh mint and fresh citrus zest in this cookie is a totally different story.  The mint was care of one of my mom's coworkers who had some growing in her garden, and the zest came from the extra large grapefruits that have been my go-to dessert fruit since pomegranates have gone out of season.  Rather than clashing, they complement each other to create a totally light and refreshing cookie.  The citrus comes first, thanks to the lemon extract backing up the zest, but the mint leaves your mouth feeling clean and ready for another cookie.

Most of my treats are eaten with coffee, but I think these were made for an elegant tea.  Pinky out!

Citrus Mint Slice and Bake Cookies
Adapted from smitten kitchen: a slice-and-bake cookie palette
Made about 5 dozen

Ingredients

• 2 sticks unsalted butter, room temperature
• 2/3 cup powdered sugar
• 2 egg yolks
• a pinch of salt
• 1/2 teaspoon lemon extract
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 Tablespoons grapefruit zest
• 1/4 cup chopped fresh mint
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2-1 cup granulated sugar, for rolling

Directions

1. Cream together butter and sugar until smooth.  
2. Add egg yolks one at a time and combine.
3. Add salt, extracts, zest, and mint and combine.
4. Mix in flour 1/2 cup at a time, just until combined.
5. Gather dough into a ball, divide in half, place in plastic bags or wrap in plastic wrap and leave in the fridge for half an hour.
6. On a smooth surface, roll each half of dough into logs about 1" in diameter.  Wrap the logs in plastic wrap and place in the fridge for at least two hours, or up to a few days (can also be frozen for longer).
7. When ready to bake, preheat the oven to 350°.
8. Roll the logs in sugar, and slice cookies about 1/3" thick.  Coat both sides of cookies in sugar before placing on parchment-lined cookie sheets.
9. Bake for about 12 minutes.  The cookies should be set, but not necessarily golden.  Allow to cool on a wire rack.

Cubicle kitchen: Marshmallow Sandwich Cookies

Last year I joined the Kickstarter campaign to bring Veronica Mars back from the mists of cancelled TV time to make a feature film.  And a few weeks ago that film made its world premiere right here in Austin at SXSW.

In honor of the movie, I was, to quote Wallace in the premiere, 'just dying' to bake something:

And from that moment on, marshmallows have been associated with this troublesome teenage detective.  Somehow, I always forget that part about the Twinkie.  Personally, I think Veronica is far too unique to be a Twinkie, though she might have the same capacity for survival.  So I made my own marshmallow treat for her.

If I'm honest, she would probably think these were a bit too baby shower pink.  I'm sure Logan would have something sarcastic to say about them.  But they are such pure sugar-high deliciousness, I still think she would bring them to a stake-out.  I know they made the rest of the afternoon better for my coworkers after they ate them at klatch.

And as with most of my favorite recipes, there are so many flavor possibilities.  You are limited only by the gelatin aisle of your grocery store.  I've seen both cranberry and green apple in stores at various times, I'm thinking I might need to bring those out for fall...

Marshmallow Sandwich Cookies
Makes 22 sandwich cookies

Ingredients

For the cookies:

• One batch of Bakerette's Jello Cookies*, for me this was 44 cookies, but any even amount is fine

For the marshmallow:
(My original source for the recipe has been lost to the interwebs, but I found the same one at Everyday Nutrition: Homemade Marshmallows.  I'm going to go ahead and document it here for posterity.)

• 1 3 oz packet of Jello*
• 1 teaspoon unflavored gelatin
• 2/3 cup boiling water
• 1 cup sugar
• 3 Tablespoons corn syrup (I used light)
• Additional sugar or Jello for rolling

* I used Cherry Jello for both the cookies and the marshmallow (and Berry Blue for rolling), but you can use any combination of flavors you like.  I have not tried using sugar-free versions.

Directions

1. The Jello cookies should be baked before starting the marshmallow, to ensure that they are fully cooled before assembly.
2. In a saucepan over low heat, whisk together the Jello and unflavored gelatin in the boiling water until dissolved.
3. Stir in sugar and corn syrup.
4. Transfer mixture to large glass bowl (it needs to be big enough to allow the marshmallow to at least triple in size) and refrigerate until slightly thickened.
5. Beat the chilled mixture until soft peaks form.  You will need an electric mixer for this, and it will take at least ten minutes.  For me, it was more like fifteen.
6. Assemble the cookie sandwiches, dolloping about two tablespoons of marshmallow per sandwich, squishing the cookies together and rolling the edges in sugar or Jello if desired.  Allow the marshmallow to set a little before packing, or you can eat them straight away.

There will be leftover marshmallow, feel free to complete the remaining directions for making marshmallows, namely:

1. Spread evenly into a tray lined with parchment paper. I used my 7 x 9" pan, but only spread the marshmallow over about 3/4s of it, so it was about an inch thick.
2. Place in fridge to set overnight.
3. The next day, carefully slice into squares or use a cookie cutter to make fun shapes.  Roll in powdered sugar (or more Jello).

Cubicle kitchen: Coffee-Laced Oatmeal Lace Cookies

Sometimes you can take for granted that certain ingredients will be in your pantry.  Like, say all-purpose flour.  Thankfully, when you find yourself without one thing or another, there's always another option.  And when what you're missing is flour, there's a whole Google-verse of gluten-free recipes to choose from.  The trouble there is usually finding recipes that don't require flour at all, rather than ones that use chickpea or some other concoction to fake it.

Because I had just brought in peanut butter cookies the week before, I wanted to steer clear of another nutty treat.  So I turned to another gluten-free staple, oatmeal.  I had been wanting to make some of those thin, crispy lace cookies for a while, and doing them with oatmeal instead of flower made them a little chewy as well as crunchy.  I added some instant coffee to add another layer of flavor and make them particularly appropriate for our afternoon coffee klatch.  If you want them to be more than just laced with coffee flavor, though, feel free to add more.

Making these can get a little messy because the 'dough' is so loose.  You are really just taking pinches of the mixture and trying to get them close enough together that they stick together when baking, without them sticking to your fingers.  Or at least, only as much sticking to your fingers as you want to surreptitiously eat.  I might have enjoyed licking my fingers a little too much, because I decided to bake two batches of these over the course of the same weekend.  But it's okay, because they are so delicate and tiny that people don't have to feel guilty about eating several at a time.

Coffee-Laced Oatmeal Lace Cookies
Adapted from Chinese Grandma: Flourless oatmeal lace cookies
Makes about four dozen (at least)

Ingredients

• 2 1/2 cups quick-cooking oatmeal (could also use old-fashioned)
• 1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, melted
• 1 cup packed brown sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp instant coffee
• Dash of salt

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350°.
2. Combine all ingredients in a bowl.  It will be very loose, that's fine, just make sure everything is mixed in completely.
3. Take teaspoonfuls of the mixture and form roughly-shaped circles onto parchment paper-lined baking trays.  Pat circles down to ensure you get the flat, lacy look in your finished cookies.
4. Bake 10-12 minutes until cookies are golden brown.  Allow cookies to cool before removing from tray.

Cubicle kitchen: Honey Roasted Nut Butter Cookies

Part of the secretly selfish reason I bring baked goods into work to share is because I love baking, but I cannot eat the results in a portion-controlled way without half the batch going off before I get to it.  A few dozen cookies eaten one at a time?  Eep.  And the equally unacceptable alternative would be eating them all myself in the space of a few days.  Double eep.

So by bringing in those cookies, I'm spreading not only the love, but the calories around.  And with these cookies in particular, I was deliberately passing on the calories before I ate them all myself.  Nuts are delicious, and full of healthy fats and protein.  But they also pack a fair number of calories for not a lot of nuts.  If you've ever weighed a one-ounce serving of almonds and then counted the actual number of almonds that gave you, you understand what I mean.

I indulged in nuts as a post-running snack while I was marathon training, but they were kind of mocking me in the post-marathon haze of my pantry, so I wanted to get rid of some of them.  But not all of them, they will be my motivation to get back to some longer runs in the future.  I'll spend a Saturday morning running if I can eat a big handful of nuts afterwards and not have to count them.

Because I made these after my weekend trip to Phoenix I didn't have time for a complicated recipe that required forethought in collecting ingredients.  To that end, peanut butter cookies were the perfect nut-sharing solution, with a honey-roasted twist.  And getting to 'sample' the dough (always the baker's prerogative) was a delicious bonus.

Honey Roasted Nut Butter Cookies
Adapted from Kraft: Easy Peanut Butter Cookies
Makes about 3 dozen cookies

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup creamy peanut butter
• 1/2 cup honey nut butter
• 1 egg, lightly beaten
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup chopped honey roasted mixed nuts

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350°.
2. Combine the first four ingredients in a bowl and mix until dough forms.  Then mix in chopped nuts.
3. Roll into 1-inch balls and place on prepared cookie sheet a few inches apart.  Using a fork, flatten the dough with the traditional peanut butter cookie criss-cross.
4. Bake for ten minutes, or until the edges are golden brown.  Allow to cool on the sheet a few minutes before transferring to wire rack to cool completely.

Cubicle kitchen: Archduke Chocula Cookies

There is something so visceral about children's cereal.  Whether you were given free rein to eat a glorified dessert for the most important meal of the day, or you were left spooning bran flakes and coveting Cap'n Crunch, it's a shared experience that crosses generational boundaries.

Bringing in these cookies sparked a really fun discussion of childhood cereals.  One coworker had memories of something called 'King Vitaman', while another told tales of a cereal that you could stack up into a tall tower (because playing with your food is fun!).  I have a wide range of nostalgic breakfast cereals, and I still enjoy eating cereal almost every day, though usually as a sweet evening snack.  Because there's no sweeter way to end the day than with Apple Jacks and pumpkin ice cream.

Except maybe with these cookies.  These are cute, chunky nuggets of chocolate, not the most photogenic, but absolutely delicious.  If the cereal is a Count, then the cookies have to at least be Archduke, because I threw in white, milk, and dark chocolate chips into the already chocolate dough along with the namesake cereal.  It gave them a nice crunchy texture and the occasional marshmallow bit was a nice surprise.  To borrow another cereal's tagline: They're grrrrrrrrrreat!'

Archduke Chocula Cookies
Recipe from Hershey's 'Perfectly Chocolate' Chocolate Chip Cookies

My notes:

• I used Ghiradelli sweet ground chocolate, following the substitution on the packaging; in this case, adding 2/3 cup of the cocoa and removing 1/3 cup of the white sugar called for in the recipe
• I used a combination of white, milk, and dark chocolate chips for the 2 cups of chips called for in the recipe
• Where the original recipe includes 1 cup of nuts optionally, I just added 1 cup of Count Chocula cereal
• Made 5-6 dozen cookies

The Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap: Poppy Seed-Filled Cookies

Huzzah!  The Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap has commenced!  And it was delicious!

As I was preparing my three boxes of a dozen cookies, I thought I should add something to reflect my knitterly side as well as my bakerly side.  So I whipped up these Cookie Swap Badges with safety pin backs:

They were pretty quick, being so small, but it did require figuring out how to sew a French knot.  After a few frustrating tries, I finally figured it out.  And though I hope that all of my cookies made it to their destinations uncrumbled, at least I know that these were safe.

My fellow bloggers did very well with their packaging, crumble-wise.  I received yummies from Ashley from Memoirs From My Kitchen and Kimberly from Kimberly's Treats.  I'm still waiting on a mysterious third dozen, but I'm spoilt for choice each night as I decide between dessert options as it is.

I sent cookies to three fabulous food bloggers you should check out: Catherine at The Cat Dish, Alison at Heart of Gold, and Jen at What Jen Does.

As I hinted on Saturday, I took my inspiration for my own cookies from a favorite Czech treat of mine: poppy seed kolaches.  I've been lucky enough to have them in Prague, but there's also enough of a Czech immigrant population here in Texas that kolaches are a not entirely uncommon baked good.  Which is why I hoped that this flavor profile would be the perfect mix of being personal and interesting,  without being too out there.  And since these are special cookies, I decided to give them a special photo shoot with some other Czech favorites.

They take a little bit of love, bringing the dough together, rolling it, cutting it, filling it, crimping it, and baking it.  But that's what the holidays are all about, right?  I had so much fun scheming, baking, and receiving in this truly great swap.  If you want to get a heads up for next year's event, you can sign up here.  And many thanks to our lovely hosts Love & Olive Oil and The Little Kitchen.

Poppy Seed-Filled Cookies
Makes at least 6 dozen

Adapted from Taste of Home: Raisin-Filled Cookies

Ingredients

• 1 cup packed brown sugar
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 cup butter, softened
• 3 eggs
• 2 Tablespoons vanilla extract
• 5 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 3 tablespoons buttermilk
• 1 12.5 oz can prepared poppy seed filling
• Additional poppy seeds for sprinkling (optional)

Directions

1. In a large bowl, cream together the sugars and butter. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Mix in vanilla. 
2. Combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.  Add to creamed mixture alternately with buttermilk (Note: I used a powdered buttermilk as directed). Cover and refrigerate until easy to handle.
3. Preheat oven to 350°.
4. On a floured surface, roll out dough into 1/8-in. thickness. Cut with floured 3" round cookie cutters. Spoon about 1/2 teaspoon of poppy seed filling on each of the rounds, near the center but not quite. Using water, milk, or an egg wash, wet the edges of the round and fold in half, creating a half-moon dumpling.  Crimp edges together with a fork, and cut a small slit in the top. Using more of whatever wash you used for the edges, wet the top of the 'dumpling' and sprinkle additional poppy seeds on top.
5. Place 2" apart on ungreased baking sheets. Bake for 10-13 minutes or until lightly browned. Remove to wire racks to cool.

WIP Wednesday: Sew-wonderful, sew-marvelous

My days are completely mixed up this week.  I had Monday off, and then a monthly team meeting that has tended to fall on Fridays was held today, it's all a jumble.  Overall, there's a sense to me that there's barely time to get back to what we were all working on before Thanksgiving before we start dropping off to take our Christmas break.  Especially for those of us who are using up a few extra days.  I'm grateful to have these vacation days to use, but it would be nice to have a few more to make it worth using them during the year for trips to see family overseas.

But anyway.  In the few weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas, there is work-work to be done and craft-work.  I have some gift knitting to do, but not much.  I've joined a Jane Austen-themed swap on Ravelry, so stalking and spoiling has commenced for that.  I am, of course, consulting all four editions of Jane Austen Knits for projects.

I've been busy in the kitchen as well.  I've sent off all of my cookies for the Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap and even received my first dozen last week.  And I made another batch of homemade marshmallows using Jello as part of a fund-raiser for a fellow Raveller who needed some support.  They are still setting in the fridge and need to be cut and rolled in powdered sugar before sending.  If you haven't tried making these yet, I'll repost the recipe soon, I highly recommend them.  So much more fluffy and delicious than the ones you buy in the store.

I have also done a little sewing in the past week!  First, I finally did some seaming on my cardigan.

So far it's just the back and one of the front panels, I still need to attach the back to the other front so I have a continuous edge for the bottom ruffle.  I'm still amazed that the pattern has you make the ruffle on the separate pieces.  That would drive me absolutely nuts, to either have unconnected ruffle sections, or to have to sew a ruffle together.  But anyway, progress.

I did some sewing as part of the Cookie Swap as well, because I decided to make a little something extra to go with my cookies.  I'll have to include that in the post with the recipe, but it included learning how to do a French knot.

Then today the activity center at work hosted a crafting session with supplies for sewing up felt ornaments, so I made some of those as well.  I'm going to send them in a holiday card swap, but I'll show those later as well.  I still need to make one more anyway.  And I think I kind of love making these cute little felt things.  Because I need another craft to take up, of course.  And I got to use that French knot technique again, which made me feel kind of expert, even though I'm so very not.  It was a great time, though, getting to sit and chat with people not in my direct working group and enjoying a little shared craft.

How is everyone's Christmas knitting going?  Or if you aren't knitting, just the gift buying?  Do you at least know what everyone is getting, because I think that's the hardest part.

For more WIP Wednesday posts, go to Tami's Amis.

Cubicle kitchen: Potluck Cookie Trio

I didn't set out to bring a smorgasbord of cookies to the potluck we had at work a few weeks ago, it just kind of happened.  You know how that goes?

It started with my wild and crazy desire to try to make an herbed shortbread.  After having experimented with that, I liked the results but didn't have enough faith in them to make them the only cookie I brought, so I went with a pumpkin shortbread that was seasonal and relatively safe.  And then after that I just coated some store-bought pumpkin sandwich cookies in candy melt.  Because I needed to complete the trio.

I didn't adapt either of the recipes sufficiently to reproduce them here, so just a little link love and my notes.

Potluck Cookie Trio
From the top going clockwise:

• Very Best Baking: Autumn-Spiced Pumpkin Shortbread
• No changes, these were delicious!
• Fudge-covered pumpkin sandwich cookies
• Very simple: I took storebought pumpkin sandwich cookies, melted some vanilla candy melt, and dunked the cookies into it, like I would have done with cake balls.  Messy, but effective.
• Food 52: Sweet and Salty Herbed Shortbread
• I used caraway seeds as my herb of choice
• The cookies ended up rather thin in my 7 x 9" pan, I could probably have doubled the recipe for a more average depth.
• Because chocolate makes everything better (especially weird baking ideas), I added a coating of dark chocolate to the squares.
• For those wondering whether caraway cookies 'work', I would say the results were mostly positive.  The seeds have an almost anise/licorice quality to them, so they lend themselves to a more sweet application.  It was most disconcerting to those who had an Eastern European background and associated it with cabbage or baked into bread.

Cubicle kitchen: Pumpkin Spice Candy Corn Cookies

For the past few years, I've look forward to the day after Halloween more than Halloween itself.  Because that's when all the candy goes on sale, of course.  All of the really popular candy disappears in a puff of smoke almost instantaneously, it seems.  But there's always a healthy stock of leftover candy corn.  I'm still seeing it in stores, tucked away in clearance corners with the last of the Halloween make-up.

I, like most people, don't really eat a lot of candy corn.  Maybe one or two pieces out of holiday spirit, and then I'm done.  But I have some ideas for how to use it in baking that I want to experiment with, so I've stocked up on several pounds of the stuff.

My first results are simply cookies with candy corn in place of nuts or chocolate chips.  But they hint at one of the things I want to do later, which is actually an encore of something I've done before: the Homemade Butterfinger.  A peanut butter cookie with candy corn 'chips' doesn't really taste much like Butterfingers, but they are pretty tasty.  Because the candy corn was supposedly 'pumpkin pie spice' flavored, I used another sale item, a pumpkin spice cookie mix.  I don't think the pumpkin-ness came through much, though you could taste the cinnamon notes a little in the candy corn itself.

While baking, the candy corn will melt a little, but it will be back to regular corniness when cooled.  That does make the cookies rather sticky when it comes to the pan, though, so I advise using parchment paper as usual, and waiting a few extra minutes before trying to move the cookies from the pan to a tray to cool.

Pumpkin Spice Candy Corn Cookies
Makes about 3 dozen

Ingredients

• 1 pouch Betty Crocker Pumpkin Spice Cookie Mix
• 1/4 cup crunchy peanut butter
• 1/4 cup smooth peanut butter
• 3 Tablespoons flax meal*
• 2 Tablespoons water
• 1 large egg
• 10 oz bag Pumpkin Spice Candy Corn, roughly chopped

* Completely optional, I just threw it in

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Mix contents of pouch with remaining ingredients, except the candy corn, until incorporated.
3. Fold candy corn pieces into the dough.
4. Roll dough into 1-inch balls and place on cookie sheet, pressing flat slightly.
5. Bake according to directions on pouch.

Cubicle kitchen: White Chocolate Cream Cheese Cookies

I've done my fair share of knit-related swaps on Ravelry, making shawls, buying yarn and gathering notions to make a fellow crafter squee with delight.  But now I'm entering a new realm of swapping.

I am a confirmed participant in the 2013 Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap!

For those who haven't heard of it, this is the third year of the cookie swap, organized by as a way to raise some money for charity, share some exposure, and of course fulfill cravings!  There are over 600 food bloggers taking part this year, and we've all agreed to send out a dozen cookies to three other bloggers and post the recipe on our own blogs.  And then, we each get a dozen cookies from three other bloggers!  Isn't that exciting?  Who knows what cookies I will get to try.

I have already received my list of three bloggers that I'm baking for, and now the tough part comes when I have to decide what I'm going to send to them.  I want them to be special, but not risky in any way (I don't want to have to rebuke three dozen cookies).  And I'd like the flavors to be interesting, without being 'weird'.  They will also need to be easy to ship without ending up with a box full of crumbs.

These cookies would probably survive shipping well, because even though they are soft, they are more chewy than cakey.  And they are certainly tasty.  But we're sending new-to-us recipes only, so I'm going to have to keep thinking.  Do you have a favorite cookie recipe to suggest?  I want to make a good impression on my fellow bloggers!

White Chocolate Cream Cheese Cookies
Recipe from Averie Cooks: Softbatch Cream Cheese Chocolate Chip Cookies

My notes:

• Instead of semi-sweet chocolate as Averie uses, I chopped a block of white chocolate into chunks because that's what I had on hand
• I used the slightly lighter Neufchatel cream cheese
• I let my formed cookie dough balls chill overnight in the fridge
• You really will doubt whether these are done, but trust in the directions and they will come out perfectly

Cubicle kitchen: Cranberry Jaffa Cakes

Remember how I went on a roadtrip on Saturday and came home with a spinning wheel?  That was a fantastic finish to what was already a very exciting plan to meet up with a fellow Raveler and surprise her with spoils from several members of our group.

They had been sending their contributions to the uber-package for the past couple of months; yarn, knitted items, tea, buttons, books, we collected a big box of things for her.  And because she's known for making and sending the fudgiest, most deliciously chocolate brownies, it only seemed to make sense that I should bake something for her as well.

Deciding on what to make was tough precisely because she is a baker herself.  I obviously wasn't going to do brownies, because they wouldn't be better than hers, and if she wanted them she would make them for herself.  What could I make that would be delicious, special, and travel well in the car for five hours?

The answer is Jaffa Cakes. A sponge cake/cookie base with a jelly center and covered in chocolate.  Traditionally, that jelly is orange.  But if you're going to make something at home, you might as well take the opportunity to change things up, right?  Plus, I knew from some of her posts that she liked cranberry.  So once again I played to the season and went with an autumnal flavor.  I also added some orange notes to the cakes and the chocolate because she liked that combination.

What I'm most excited to pass along to you all are the tricks I came up with to make creating these a little easier.  Notably, the use of cupcake and mini cupcake pans, tablespoons and teaspoons, to create some uniformity in the size and shape of the cake and jelly.  And take my advice on freezing them before coating in chocolate.  It gives you just that little bit of a head start in not ending up with oozing jelly chocolate mess.

This is one of the more involved recipes I've done, which is one of the reasons I wanted to make it.  It's the kind of treat that most people, even bakers, wouldn't necessarily make for themselves.  But it's so satisfying to get to the end of the process and look at a tray full of your very own, homemade Jaffa Cakes.  And then even more satisfying to give them to someone who loves them.

Cranberry Jaffa Cakes
Adapted from BBC Food Recipes: Homemade jaffa cakes
Makes a dozen

Ingredients

For the jelly:

• 1 3-ounce box of Cranberry Jell-O
• 125 mL boiling water (just over 1/2 cup)

For the cakes:

• 2 eggs
• 50 grams sugar
• 50 grams flour
• 1 teaspoon orange zest

For the chocolate coating:

• 1 bag semisweet chocolate chips (you won't need the whole bag)
• up to 1 teaspoon shortening
• up to 1/2 teaspoon orange extract

Directions
Make the jelly:

1. In a bowl, mix the Jell-O packet with the boiling water, making sure the powder dissolves completely.
2. Pour a teaspoon of the mixture into each well of a mini cupcake pan.  The pan should either be non-stick or sprayed to avoid sticking.
3. Place the pan in the fridge and leave to set.  This will take a few hours.

Makes the cakes:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Prepare a double boiler on the stovetop, with water simmering.
3. Add eggs and sugar to the bowl suspended over the water, and beat for about four minutes, until they are pale and fluffy.  Continuing to beat, add in flour and zest.  Mix until combined.
4. Pour a tablespoon of batter into each well of a cupcake pan.  The pan should either be non-stick or sprayed to avoid sticking.
5. Bake for 8-10 minutes.  When done, remove from the oven and set aside to cool.

Assemble and coat:

1. When the cakes are cool and the jelly has set, place a 'coin' of jelly in the center of each cake.  
2. To make covering the cakes in chocolate easier, place the jellied cakes on a tray lined with parchment paper and place in the fridge or freezer for a while again to make sure they are as cool as possible.
3. Using the double boiler again, melt the chocolate, using about a cup at a time.  Mix in the extract.  Add a little shortening to make it easier to work with.  You can add more chips, shortening, and extract as needed as you coat the cakes.
4. When the chocolate is ready, remove the cakes from the fridge or freezer.  Working quickly, coat the tops of the cakes with melted chocolate.  The key is to completely seal in the jelly before it is melted by the heat of the chocolate.  Place coated cakes back onto the tray.
5. When all of the cakes have been coated, place in the fridge to set the chocolate.  These should be served at room temperature, but you don't want them to get too warm while you are transporting them.