Hurricane Sandy Cookies

I hope that everyone stays safe during these next few hours and days as we wait for the hurricane to pass.  This natural disaster will be truly historic, and something that we talk about for a long time to come.  Little did we know that when Good Sandy decided to reinvent herself for Danny Zuko that Bad Sandy would cause this much damage!  Ok that's my only corny joke....

As horrible as this storm is, there are some small perks and silver linings.... like having a little vacation from work and some time to spend with friends.  I took advantage of my time off by having a little 'hurricane party' with some of my favs at my apartment!

Ok, really there were 7 friends (and 3 dogs) at this event.  We all enjoyed a 'family' potluck dinner so I contributed with my now staple dessert: sugar cookies.  I chose umbrellas for obvious reasons.  I used an umbrella cookie cutter from my 'cookie cutters throughout the year' pack.  This one was meant for April, but it seemed much more fitting to use it for this!.  It took some maneuvering to transfer the cut out dough to the cookie sheet (mainly the handles), but with addition of some flour to the dough, they held together a lot easier.

I wanted to give the cookies a fall flavor, so I added a touch of cinnamon and a splash of apple cider to my standard cookie recipe.  I added a little cinnamon to the icing as well.  It didn't affect the consistency of either recipe, and the taste was not overpowering at all, just a hint of fall.  They were quite good.

Skull Cookies

I've been reluctant to write a post because over the summer I baked these beautiful watermelon cookies and I cannot find the pictures for them.  That's what I get for waiting to write a post on them.  Well just know they came out adorable and delicious.  If I find the pictures I'll complete that post.

Moving on I guess...

Happy October!!  I needed some serious baking inspiration after those hectic summer months.  When a couple of my friends and I decided to have a dinner party, it seemed like the perfect opportunity.  It was quite the serious dinner party: a salad to start, followed by penne alla vodka served on our fancy plates, paired with a Cabernet Sauvignon, followed by some loose tea and.. my freshly baked dessert.  What was the dessert you ask?  Fancy Skull Sugar Cookies of course!

Why Skulls you ask?  My reason was two-fold.  First of all, it was the beginning of October and that means Halloween season... which I love.  Enough said.

Second, my guests at the dinner party just started their own jewelry line, Guilty Jean.  Their concept is a mix between feminine beauty, rugged masculinity, spirituality, and goth inspired punk.    [ Shameless plug : Go to their website and check them out!  http://www.guiltyjean.com/ ]  Anyway,
the majority of the pieces they feature include skulls so I wanted to make something to show my support.

I tried a new low fat recipe for the sugar cookies and needless to say, I'm not going to copy and paste that recipe to this blog.  They tasted like chalk.  I just need to stick to the original recipe... full of butter, fat, and yummy goodness.

The good news is, the cookies looked awesome.  I used Color Writer Markers to make the faces.  It was ridiculously easy to do.  

Puffed-Up Chocolate Chip Cookies

Now that it's September and it's officially "back to school" season, it's time for me to resume my quest.  This summer was very tough to find time for baking... plus the fact that I was putting on bathing suits didn't help my motivation.  I did manage to make a few fun things, and I did find an amazing low calorie recipe for chocolate chip cookies.  It's from myrecipes.com.    It's actually called "puffed-up chocolate chip cookies" because it has somewhat of a cake-like airy quality to it.  So if you like that kind of cookie, you are in luck because these turned out amazing.

Puffed-Up Chocolate Chip Cookies
For 3 dozen cookies:

Ingredients
1 1/4 cups flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup applesauce
1 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup butter, softened
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 large egg
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips
Cooking spray

Preparation
Preheat oven to 375 degrees.  Combine flour, baking powder, and salt in a small bowl.  Spoon applesauce into a fine sleeve into a bowl; let stand 15 minutes.  Discard liquid.  Scrape drained applesauce into a large bowl.  Add sugar and butter; beat with a mixer at medium speed until light and fluffy (about 2 minutes).  Beat in vanilla and egg.  Add flour mixture; beat at low speed until well-blended.  Fold in chips.  Drop by level tablespoons 2 inches apart onto baking sheets coated with cooking spray.  Bake at 375 for 10 minutes or until almost set.  Cool on pan 2 to 3 minutes or until firm.  Remove cookies from pan; cool on wire racks.

For those of you who are interested, here is the nutrition information per cookie:
Calories: 78
Fat: 2.9 g
Carbs: 12.8 g
Fiber: .2 g
Cholesterol: 10 mg
Protein: .8 g
Sodium: 87 mg

Not bad ay?

Mouth Sugar Cookies

It's mid-June which can only mean 1 thing, the end of school and a looong vacation..... I wish.  For kids with autism, school is year round.  I actually had the option to take off, but I decided to stick around for the summer.  Even though I'm not looking forward to a long break from work, it's still the end of another successful school year which feels like a big accomplishment.  A large division of SLPs in the DOE (or Speech Language Pathologists in the Department of Education for those of you who don't know the lingo) got together today to celebrate with something we call "Feeding Therapy."  For our "Feeding Therapy," we had a luncheon in which we all brought our own meal... and volunteers were asked to bring dessert.  How could I say no to another opportunity to bake.  I thought about what to make for 40 hungry and tired speech therapists, and I decided to go full out 'speech dork' and try to make people smile.  I made sugar cookies in the shape of mouths.  What better way to honor SLPs and Communication, and the hard work we've done all year long.
I had some fun experimenting with how to ice the mouths.  Here are some of the outtakes.

And here is how I eventually decided to do them.

 

Wine Glass Sugar Cookies

HAPPY 30TH BIRTHDAY JUSTIN!!!!!   For my husband's birthday, 15 of our closest friends traveled with us to Ithaca (his alma mater).  We went on a Wine Tour around Cayuga Lake, enjoyed the annual Ithaca festival, shopped in the Commons, and hiked around the gorges.  First of all thank you so much to everyone who joined us, we have the greatest friends ever and we had an amazing weekend.  Second of all, hope you enjoyed the party favor cookies I baked!

Teddy Bear Sugar Cookies

I had a VERY busy week last week baking two batches of sugar cookies.  I didn't have a choice as I had two very cookie friendly events. 
1- school bake sale
2- a very special husband's birthday

These were two events I couldn't pass up!  I'll post about each separately, but note that my trusty photographer husband was not around when I was baking these, so my pictures are not as clear.  Here's the first:

My school had a bake sale to raise money for Autism Speaks, a charity dedicated to increasing awareness of autism spectrum disorders, to funding research into the causes, prevention and treatments for autism.  

The pink ones are chocolate sugar cookies with blackberry jam/chocolate icing and the brown ones are regular sugar cookies with chocolate icing

Peanut Butter Truffle Brownies

Ok I missed the boat on the Pinata cookies... but they were cute to look at right?  But I did get to bake this week.  In honor of my friend Sarah's birthday, I made Peanut Butter Truffle Brownies.  I work with Sarah so I brought a batch to work and they were gone in about 5 seconds.  I wasn't even going to write a post about them, but when I got the comment "These are the best brownies I've ever had in my life!," I thought it would be worth it to post the recipe.

Peanut Butter Truffle Brownies

Ingredients

Brownie Base                  Filling                                          Topping

6 tablespoons cocoa        1/3 cup butter, softened                3/4 cup semisweet chocolate chips

1/4 cup butter                1/3 cup creamy peanut butter        3 tablespoons butter

1 cup sugar                    1 1/3 cups powdered sugar

1/2 teaspoon vanilla        1 1/2 teaspoons milk

1/4 teaspoon salt 

1/3 cup flour 

2 eggs

Step 1:  Brownie Base

Preheat oven to 325°F degrees.  Grease an 8-inch square pan.  Dust lightly with cocoa and shake out excess.  Melt butter and mix it with cocoa powder. Then add sugar, eggs, vanilla, flour and salt. Mix to combine.  Spread brownie batter evenly in pan and put in oven to bake for 35-40 minutes.  Allow to cool completely, about 1 hour.

Step 2: Filling
In medium bowl, beat filling ingredients with electric mixer on medium speed until smooth. Spread mixture evenly over brownie base.

Step 3: Topping
In small microwavable bowl, microwave topping ingredients uncovered on High 30 to 60 seconds; stir until smooth. Cool 10 minutes; spread over filling. Refrigerate about 30 minutes or until set.  Store covered in refrigerator.