Funfetti Cookie Cake

Hey everyone! I'm sorry it's been so long since I last posted.  My life as a graduate student in Biochemistry has been hectic to say the least!

However, I am very pleased to share a brand new recipe: a Funfetti Cookie Cake!  I mean, who doesn't love sprinkles, chocolate, or cookies?

Ingredients:
10 tbsp unsalted butter
2/3 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup granulated sugar
2 eggs
1 tbsp vanilla
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
3/4 cup funfetti cake mix
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/3 cup sprinkles
3/4 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

Instructions:
1. Pull butter out of fridge and let sit at room temperature
2. Preheat oven to 350 degrees
3. Cream butter
4. Beat in brown sugar until mostly combined and then beat in granulated sugar. Make sure you scrape down the sides of the bowl.
5. Beat in eggs and vanilla.  It will be very liquidy, but don't worry about it.
6. Beat in baking soda, baking powder, and cake mix.  If you do not have funfetti cake mix, then you can use vanilla or yellow cake mix and add in more sprinkles.
7. Beat in flour, about a 1/3 of a cup at a time.
8. Add in the sprinkles and chocolate chips.
9. Grease a 9" (or 8") cake pan and spoon in the cookie dough. Press flat into the pan.
10. Bake for 30 minutes.

Valentine's Day Baking

Valentines day is exactly one week from today.  Do you know how you are going to celebrate it yet?  Are you going to bake for a valentines?  Are you going to bake for friends?  How about for yourself? Me, I am going to bake for my favorite valentines: my father!  What better way to bake then with the Valentine's day M & M's, and heart shaped (chocolate chip) cookies.

I am going to apologize in advance for my lack of pictures of some of the cookies and steps.  I accidentally pulled out the USB before I had finished uploading the pictures and lost half of them....

Ingredients:
3/4 cup unsalted butter (softened)
3/4 cup light brown sugar
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 large egg
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 cups (minus 1 tbsp) all-purpose flour
1/3 cup instant vanilla pudding mix
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 package M & M's (I recommend picking the holiday packages :) )

Instructions:
Beat butter and brown sugar in a mixer until combined.  Make sure to scrape down the sides of the mixer as needed.  Then add the granulated sugar.  Next, add in the egg and vanilla extract.  Add in the pudding mix, followed by the baking soda and flour.  You want just under 2 cups of flour (see my picture for below).  I recommend taking out 1-1.5 tbsp flour so that you can create a dome in your cup.  Next add in 1/2 cup of chocolate chips and 3/4 cup M & M's and mix in by hand.  Roll out the dough as follows: use ~1.5 tbsp of dough or 1/4 cup dough and take out 1 tbsp.  Roll the dough and place on the cookie sheet.  Place the side with all of the M & M's down on the cookie sheet (trust me on this!).  Chill the dough in the fridge for at least 2 hours.  Bake at 350 for about 10 minutes.  Pull the cookies out and add more M & M's to the top and bake for about another 2 minutes, or until browned.

This is what my second cup of flour looked like:

The cookies with the M & M's face down.

The first round of M & M addition.

Can't you see the difference already in the number of M and M's?

The final product, already packaged to be sent in the mail!

Have you ever wanted to make shaped chocolate chip cookies before?  They are not easy to make, and I can't imagine rolling out chocolate chip cookie dough and then baking it only to have it spread out and lose shape!  So, I went about making shaped chocolate chip cookies, or really blondies, in another way.

Ingredients:
2/3 cup unsalted butter, melted
1/2 cup light brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 eggs, beaten
2 tbsp vanilla extract
1/4 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1 cup chocolate chips, plus a few tbsp
1 cup peanut butter chips, plus a few tbsp

Instructions:
Melt butter, and then add the butter and brown sugar to a mixer.  Once all combined add in the granulated sugar.  Next, add in the egg and vanilla.  Mix in the baking soda, baking powder, and flour.  Last, add in the chocolate and peanut butter chips and mix by hand.  You can substitute the chips with any flavor that you want.  Line a 9x11 baking pan with parchment paper and evenly spread out the dough.  Bake at 350 for 15 minutes, then pull out and lightly press in more chips to the top of the blondies.  Bake for another 10-20 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean.  Let cool until the cookie is warm, and then use cookie cutters to cut out shapes!

This is what the cookies looked like after I cut out all the hearts.

Happy baking (and dough eating)!

Sugar Cookie Cut-Outs

This past weekend was my moms birthday, and seeing as it was a big birthday, the whole family met-up in the midwest to celebrate.  Given the fact that I haven't seen my family in over 3 months, and I love to bake, I decided to make cut-out sugar cookies.  I wanted these cookies to taste perfect, and didn't have the time to make mistakes, so I used Martha Stewarts Sugar Cookie Recipe; the one my mom has been using for years.

Having never made cut-out sugar cookies before, I learned a lot:

1. You can't color just the dough, you must also color your hands if you want pretty, colorful cookies!
2. Using a wine bottle works great as a rolling pin.  I know that I can buy an inexpensive one, but this was a lot more fun.

Yes, the wine bottle was empty

3. When making cut-outs that are more flimsy, make the dough about twice as thick.  This helps ensure that they don't break (or at least that they won't break as easily).

In this case, I am referring to the X's and O's.  It was much easier to transfer them when they were thicker.

Baking

It is 3 weeks until I move to Virginia, and I went into a baking frenzy today.  Why? I needed to figure out the best recipe to make m & m cookies.  A few weeks ago, I made the "perfect" m & m cookie by perfect-palate.  Everybody loved them, but there was something not quite right.  I was determined to figure it out.

Today, I re-made the perfect-palate cookies.  Last time, I had to use full-sized m & m's because I couldn't find the mini ones, therefore I used full-sized chocolate chips.  Today, I made them exactly as the recipe called for, using 1 cup of mini m & m's.  I also made Averie's soft m & m chocolate cookies.  I used 2/3 cup mini m & m's and a handful of normal-sized m & m's (a bag of mini m & m's doesn't get you too far these days...).  Additionally, I used 1/2 vanilla pudding mix and 1/2 cornstarch.

Now comes the hard part: which one is best!

First, they look amazing!

http://picky-palate.com/2013/04/03/how-to-make-perfect-m-and-m-cookies/

http://www.averiecooks.com/2014/01/soft-mm-chocolate-chip-cookies.html

Second, they taste great!  It has taken me a few days to decide which of these two cookies I like better...The first cookie is soft and chewy, and the second cookie is even softer.  However, the second cookie I found to be a *just* bit dense for my liking.  Therefore, I believe that the first cookie is better, ONLY if it is made with mini m & m's (that being said, I would make both again in a heart beat).

Until next time!

--Robyn