Bacon and Chocolate Cookies

That's right. Bacon. F found the recipe and we were feeling daring, so on one of her trips back up to the Bay F, H, and I proceeded to test out the assertion "bacon makes everything better" by making these cookies lol. The cookies came out pretty good, just don't let them sit around too long. Then they're....not so good. I believe, however, the consensus was we would have liked the cookie without bacon even better :X So there you have it. At least for the 3 of us, bacon, sadly, does not make everything better lol.



Bacon and Chocolate Cookies
adapted from recipezaar

Ingredients

3/4 cup butter
2/3 cup packed brown sugar
2/3 cup granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 eggs
2 1/2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup white chocolate chips
1 cup dark chocolate chips or semi-sweet chocolate chips
2 lbs bacon, cooked and crumbled (about 2 cups)

Directions

1. In a large bowl, beat together the butter, sugars, extracts and eggs until creamy. In another bowl, sift together the dry ingredients. Add the dry ingredients to the butter mixture and stir together.

2. Dough will be slightly soft. If you want a more cakelike cookie, add another 1/2 cup of flour. Mix in chocolate chips and crumbled bacon. Stir until well integrated.

3. Place dough on a sheet of wax paper and refrigerate at least 1 hour.

4. Preheat oven to 350°F.

5. Remove dough from fridge. Pinch off 1 ½ -inch pieces and roll into balls. Set dough balls about 2 inches apart on an ungreased cookie sheet. Flatten dough balls in the center slightly with your fingers. Bake about 10 minutes, or until the dough starts to turn golden brown. Allow cookies to cool on a cooling rack.

White Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies

These...are...delicious! I made these at least 3 times last year and I always found it incredibly hard to stop eating. There are just enough oats to give the cookies texture, and the amount of white chocolate and pecans are just right to make these cookies a sweet treat that you can't stop eating...well me anyway. lol. I am looking forward to making these again someday soon :)

White Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies
from allrecipes

Ingredients

1 cup butter
1 cup light brown sugar
1 cup white sugar
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups rolled oats
2 cups white chocolate chips
1 cup chopped pecans

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Lightly grease cookie sheets.

2. In a medium bowl, cream together the butter, brown sugar and white sugar until smooth. Stir in the egg and vanilla. Sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt, stir into the creamed mixture. Finally, stir in the rolled oats, white chocolate chips and pecans. Drop by tablespoons onto the prepared cookie sheets.

3. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes in the preheated oven. Remove from baking sheets to cool on wire racks.

Chocolate Chocolate Mint Cookies

I made these last year in an attempt to make delicious chocolate chocolate cookies since I have yet to find a go to recipe for these. I also wanted to use my homemade mint chocolate chips that I made from a Ghirardelli Mint Bliss chocolate bar I got from work. I made the mint chips by simply melting the chocolate bar and then dropping drops using a spoon onto my silpat. So simple! The cookies turned out ok, I don't remember them being mind-blowingly spectacular, but they were decent and had a strong mint flavor due to the chips. I'll definitely be trying out other chocolate chocolate cookie recipes but I think I'll give this one another shot as well, without the mint lol. They did turn out quite soft and yummy.





Chocolate Chocolate Mint Cookies
adapted from allrecipes

Ingredients

1 cup butter, softened
1 1/2 cups white sugar
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
2/3 cup cocoa powder
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 cups mint chocolate chips
1/2 cup chopped walnuts (optional)

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
2. In large bowl, beat butter, sugar, eggs, and vanilla until light and fluffy. Combine the flour, cocoa, baking soda, and salt; stir into the butter mixture until well blended. Mix in the chocolate chips and walnuts. Drop by rounded teaspoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheets.
3. Bake for 8 to 10 minutes in the preheated oven, or just until set. Cool slightly on the cookie sheets before transferring to wire racks to cool completely.

Cream Wafer Sandwich Cookies

Continuing with the Valentine's menu from 2008, I made these cute little heart-shaped cream wafer sandwich cookies :) These are so easy to make and I find them quite delicious :9 I like making them small and bite-sized, but that might just be my affinity towards small and cute desserts. The only drawback of making them tiny is the sheer amount of time it'll take to get them all in and out of the oven, cooled, and ready to put together. Other than that, I have no issues at all with this recipe!



Cream Wafers
from allrecipes

Ingredients

1 cup butter
1/3 cup heavy cream
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/3 cup granulated sugar for decoration
1/4 cup butter, softened
3/4 cup sifted confectioners' sugar
1 egg yolk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions

1. Mix flour and 1 cup of butter or margarine thoroughly. Stir in whipping cream and mix well. Chill 1 hour.

2. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C).

3. Roll dough 1/8 inch thick on lightly floured board. Cut into 1 1/2 inch rounds. Transfer to waxed paper heavily sprinkled with sugar, turning to coat both sides. Place on un- greased baking sheet. Prick in 4 places with fork. Bake 7 to 9 minutes or until slightly puffed. Put two cooled cookies together with filling.

4. To Make Filling: Blend 1/4 cup soft butter, 3/4 cup sifted confectioners' sugar, 1 egg yolk, and 1 tsp. vanilla. If desired, tint with food coloring.

Note: I tinted my filling pink and also used a little raspberry jam in each of my cookies to get the two-colored filling.

Orange Madeleines

When I was in Japan I always made a TON of truffles, cakes, and cookies for Valentine's Day and as much trouble as it was, I really missed doing that when I came back to the States. I guess I lucked out in that I was working for Valentine's Day 2008 and so I prepared a bunch of little things to take to the office to pass around :) This week is the first of the three items that I made..madeleines! I absolutely love madeleines! I don't think I eat them often enough T_T This was the first (and only) time I made them. I found this recipe on allrecipes and just substituted in orange zest for lemon zest in the recipe and used my cute heart shaped madeleine pan that I got in Japan for these :) I tried two versions, one dusted with powdered sugar and the other half dipped in bittersweet chocolate.

Oh and also a completely unrelated note, *Happy Birthday F! Welcome to the quarter century club XD XD*





Orange Madeleines
adapted from allrecipes

Ingredients

2 eggs
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon orange zest
1 cup confectioners' sugar
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 cup butter, melted and cooled

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Grease and flour twenty-four 3-inch Madeleine molds.

2. In a medium bowl beat eggs, vanilla and lemon zest with an electric mixer on high speed for 5 minutes. Gradually beat in the confectioners' sugar. Beat for 5 to 7 minutes or until thick and satiny.

3. Sift together the flour and baking powder. Sift one-fourth of the flour mixture over the egg mixture, gently fold in. Fold in the remaining flour by fourths. Then fold in the melted and cooled butter. Spoon batter into the prepared molds, filling 3/4 full.

4. Bake at 375 degrees F (190 degrees C) for 10 to 12 minutes or until the edges are golden and the top s spring back. Cool in molds on a rack for 1 minute. Loosen cookies with a knife. Invert cookies onto a rack and cool. Sift confectioners' sugar over the tops or melt semi-sweet chocolate chips and dip the tips in the chocolate. Store in an airtight container.

Oatmeal Raisin Cookies!

I love oatmeal raisin cookies! They're one of my comfort foods :) Interestingly enough, I never really had any until I started baking them on my own in college, and yet, I can manage to feel happy and nostalgic while I consume these.. It must be the combination of the chewy oatmeal cookie and the raisins. Oh. And the cinnamon. Let's not forget the cinnamon! Anyhow, I've made these from a couple of different recipes, and it looks like this was my recipe of choice, back on..2/11/08!



Oatmeal Raisin Cookies
adapted from allrecipes

Ingredients

1 cup butter, softened
1 cup white sugar
1 cup packed brown sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
3 cups quick cooking oats
1/3 cup raisins

Directions

1. In a medium bowl, cream together butter, white sugar, and brown sugar. Beat in eggs one at a time, then stir in vanilla. Combine flour, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon; stir into the creamed mixture. Mix in oats and then mix in raisins. Cover, and chill dough for at least one hour.

2. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Grease cookie sheets. Roll the dough into walnut sized balls, and place 2 inches apart on cookie sheets.

3. Bake for 8 to 10 minutes in preheated oven. Allow cookies to cool on baking sheet for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.

I fail at reading

I saw this recipe and thought it'd be the perfect one to do. I have tons of dark brown sugar that's been waiting to be used (and getting clumpier by the day..I'll have to remember to store dk brown sugar better from now on o_o) and lots of butter of course! This looked quite simple and easy to throw together so I thought it'd be no biggie to do this on a laid back Friday.

Of course things don't always turn out as planned...The dough was incredibly sticky, as warned in the recipe, but probably due to my incredibly lame log-making skills, I couldn't get the dough to form a nice log. I ended up chilling the dough in the fridge for half an hour before turning it out onto parchment paper to shape, but that half hour didn't really help with making the dough more workable. I wound up first chilling one large log in the freezer for a couple of hours and then cut that log in half and made two smaller logs and chilled those overnight. I can tell you this dough does not get hard. Even after an overnight rest in the freezer, it was still rather soft to the touch and warmed up really quickly once taken out. I also found that 10 minutes at 350 was much to long for my poor cookies...and then subsequent testings at different temps and times somehow did not produce the pretty golden cookies that were pictured on the baking bites site ;__; So then, I finally went back to check the recipe, and lo and behold I mixed up baking powder with baking soda -_-;; One thing to say though is that even though they all turned out really brown and did not look too appetizing...they were still delicious. That's a testament to the flavor of these cookies!



Look out for a subsequent test with baking powder rather than baking soda...it'll be coming in a couple of weeks!

and here's the recipe if anyone wants to um..replicate my failure..

Butterscotch Thins
adapted from Baking Bites

1 cup all purpose flour
2 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp salt*
1/2 cup salted butter
1 1/2 cups dark brown sugar
2 large eggs
2 tsp vanilla extract

1. Whisk together flour, baking powder and salt in a small bowl and set aside.

2. In a medium bowl, cream together butter and sugar until mixture resembles wet sand. Beat in eggs, one at a time, followed by vanilla extract. With the mixer on low speed, or working by hand, blend in flour mixture until no streaks of flour remain.

3. Chill dough in the refrigerator for at least half an hour.

4. Transfer dough, which will be very sticky, to a large piece of wax paper and roll it up into a log.

5. Freeze for at least 1-2 hours.

6. Cut log in half to form two smaller logs. Freeze logs for at least 1-2 hours or overnight.

7. Preheat oven to 350F and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

8. Cut dough into slices no more than 1/4-inch thick and place on prepared baking sheet, leaving plenty of room for the cookies to spread. These cookies spread to about 2x their original size.

9. Bake for about 7 minutes, until cookies are a nice dark caramel color. For crispy cookies, increase the baking time by a minute or two.

10. Cool for a minute or two on the baking sheet, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

11. Cookies should be cooled completely before eating (otherwise they might stick to your teeth) and can be stored in an airtight container.

*use less if you prefer weaker salty taste or go with the original recipe's 1/2 C unsalted butter and 1tsp salt. I had lots of salted butter I needed to use so I chose to use salted butter instead

Quest for the Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookie

Another old recipe update! I'm always up for trying a new chocolate chip cookie recipe as I haven't really found me go to recipe yet. Although I do use one particular recipe from my college days quite often because it's tasty and nostalgic! That any my old housemates gobbled them up..just like cookie monster would (I'm looking at you S!)

Anyhow, this recipe comes from Baking Bites and the fresh baked cookies were the best. Crisp on the outside and soft and chewy on the inside..mmm delicious!



Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies
from Baking Bites

Ingredients

2 cups plus 2 tbsp all purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
3/4 cup butter (12 tbsp), melted and cooled until just warm
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
1 egg
1 egg yolk
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/4 cups chocolate chips

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 325F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

2. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda and salt.

3. In a large bowl, whisk together butter and sugars. Beat in the egg, egg yolk and vanilla. Stir in flour mixture, followed by chocolate chips.

4. Drop by (scant) 1/4 cups onto the baking sheet and pat lightly so the cookie is an even thickness, not a ball shape. Cookies will spread as they bake and this ensures a more even spread.

5. Bake at 325F for 15-17 minutes, until just turning light brown all over. The edges should only be very slightly more brown, if at all, from the rest of the cookie. Allow cookies to cool before removing them from the baking sheet.

Makes 18-24 large cookies

Homemade Samoas

A from buttered blasphAmy and I made these last year and they turned out quite well! I think you really can't go wrong with the flavor combination of the Girl Scout samoa cookie anyway though lol. We decided to not punch the trademark holes in the cookie and we were a little short on the caramel, which might be why the coconut caramel topping was a tad difficult to spread. We also didn't bother with piping the chocolate and just went at it with forks lol. But the end result was quite delicious :D I would definitely make these again! I'm also looking forward to someday making the rest of the Girl Scout cookie recipes on Baking Bites as well :)



Homemade Girl Scout Cookies: Samoas
from Baking Bites

Cookies:
1 cup butter, soft
1/2 cup sugar
2 cups all purpose flour
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
up to 2 tbsp milk

1. Preheat oven to 350F.

2. In a large mixing bowl, cream together butter and sugar. Mix in flour, baking powder and salt at a low speed, followed by the vanilla and milk, adding in the milk as needed to make the dough come together without being sticky (it’s possible you might not need to add milk at all). The dough should come together into a soft, not-too-sticky ball. Add in a bit of extra flour if your dough is very sticky.

3. Roll the dough (working in two or three batches) out between pieces of wax paper to about 1/4-inch thickness (or slightly less) and use a 1 1/2-inch cookie cutter to make rounds.

4. Place on a parchment lined baking sheet and use a knife, or the end of a wide straw, to cut a smaller center hole. Repeat with remaining dough. Alternatively, use scant tablespoons of dough and press into an even layer in a mini donut pan to form the rounds.

5. Bake cookies for 10-12 minutes, until bottoms are lightly browned and cookies are set. If using a mini donut pan, bake for only about 10 minutes, until edges are light gold.

6. Cool for a few minutes on the baking sheet then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

Topping:
3 cups shredded coconut (sweetened or unsweetened)
12-oz good-quality chewy caramels
1/4 tsp salt
3 tbsp milk
8 oz. dark or semisweet chocolate (chocolate chips are ok)

1. Preheat oven to 300.

2. Spread coconut evenly on a parchment-lined baking sheet (preferably one with sides) and toast 20 minutes, stirring every 5 minutes, until coconut is golden. Cool on baking sheet, stirring occasionally. Set aside.

3. Unwrap the caramels and place in a large microwave-safe bowl with milk and salt.

4. Cook on high for 3-4 minutes, stopping to stir a few times to help the caramel melt. When smooth, fold in toasted coconut with a spatula.

5. Using the spatula or a small offset spatula, spread topping on cooled cookies, using about 2-3 tsp per cookie. Reheat caramel for a few seconds in the microwave if it gets too firm to work with.

6. While topping sets up, melt chocolate in a small bowl. Heat on high in the microwave in 45 second intervals, stirring thoroughly to prevent scorching.

7. Dip the base of each cookie into the chocolate and place on a clean piece of parchment paper.

8. Transfer all remaining chocolate (or melt a bit of additional chocolate, if necessary) into a piping bag or a ziplock bag with the corner snipped off and drizzle finished cookies with chocolate.

9. Let chocolate set completely before storing in an airtight container.

Makes about 3 1/2-4 dozen cookies.

Banana Chocolate Chip Cookies

Mmm more cookies! I had two very ripe bananas and it wasn't enough to make my go to banana bread and I was also looking to try out more recipes from the Field Guide to Cookies (I also did not want to do my final papers, but let's not go there), so this was an obvious choice! These turned out quite well. I'd say they taste like chocolate chip banana bread + oats. I like how the oats add to the texture of the cookie. Otherwise they'd be very light and airy. These are great with a glass of milk and fresh from the oven :D I think next time I'll add a little more banana to up the banana flavor, but that's my personal preference lol. I will definitely be making these again :)



Banana Chocolate Chip Cookies
from Field Guide to Cookies

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 3/4 cups rolled old fashioned oats
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp salt
3/4 cup softened unsalted butter
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup mashed ripe bananas
1 cup (6 oz) chocolate chips

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 375F. Line cookie sheets with parchment paper or silicone baking mats.

2. Mix the flour, oats, baking soda,cinnamon, and salt in a bowl.

3. Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the egg and vanilla and mix until combined.

4. Mix in half the flour mixture until just combined. Then add the bananas and mix to combine. Add the rest of the flour mixture and mix until combined. Mix in the chocolate chips.

5. Drop tablespoon sized balls of dough on to cookie sheets about 2 inches apart.

6. Bake for 12-14 minutes, rotating sheets halfway through. Cool sheets on wire racks for a few minutes before transferring cookies directly to wire racks using a spatula.

Green Tea Cookies

It's finally hitting me that I'm going to be leaving Michigan in slightly over 2 months and I have so many baking materials that I need to use up before I go O_O So, I decided to start making a dent into my supplies this week! I got the Field Guide to Cookies as a gift and I've been flipping through it quite often just to read about different cookies and look through all the recipes. The recipe for green tea cookies looked quite simple and I had all the ingredients on hand so I decided to give it a go! I am quite happy with the end result and I love any excuse to use my cute little Japanese cookie cutters :) The only issue I had with this was the dough was rather crumbly, making it a bit hard to roll out. Otherwise all went well. I think I'll definitely try them again, but use less matcha next time. I threw in 2.5 tbsp this time for an extra punch but I'm not always in the mood for a really strong matcha flavor ^_^;



Green Tea Cookies
adapted from Field Guide to Cookies

Ingredients

1 1/2 cup flour
1/2 cup rice flour
1/4 tsp salt
2 1/2 tbsp matcha powder
1 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup sugar
extra sugar for dusting
extra flour for rolling out dough

Directions

1. Mix the flour, rice flour, salt, and matcha powder together.
2. Cream the butter and the sugar together.
3. Slowly mix the flour mixture into the butter and sugar by hand until combined.
4. Turn out the dough onto a sheet of plastic wrap. Shape the dough into a rectangle of about 3/4" thickness.
5. Chill dough in refrigerator for 2 hours.
6. Preheat oven to 325F and grease cookie sheets or line them with parchment paper.
7. Sprinkle flour on a flat surface and on the dough. Roll out the dough until about 1/4" thick. Cut with desired cookie cutters (approximately 1.5-2 inches in diameter).
8. Place cookies on cookie sheets and sprinkle sugar on each cookie.
9. Bake cookies for 10-12 minutes, until the edges are slightly brown.

*if your cookie cutters are larger or smaller than 1.5-2 inches in diameter you will want to adjust the baking time

A twist on PB Cookies

This is a recipe I made over a year ago, but since I haven't been baking recently, I thought I'd start posting about past creations :)

This cookie turned out quite well and S gave it her seal of approval. She thought about them so much and actually got the recipe from me and attempted to make them on her own, which is saying a lot! Especially since she was always the big eater and not a cook, at least during our college days ^_^;;

Anyway, the only part I had a little trouble with was the peanut butter filling and that was just not realizing it takes a little time for the peanut butter and the powdered sugar to combine. They turned out great and when I took them into work, they disappeared in no time :)

Magic Peanut Butter Middles from Allrecipes

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 cup white sugar
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup butter, softened
1/4 cup peanut butter
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 egg
3/4 cup confectioners' sugar
3/4 cup peanut butter

Directions

1. In small bowl blend flour, cocoa and baking soda. Mix until well blended.

2. In large bowl beat sugar, butter or margarine and 1/4 cup peanut butter, until light and fluffy. Add vanilla and egg, beat. Stir in flour mixture until blended. Set aside.

3. To make Filling: Combine confectioner's sugar and 3/4 cup peanut butter. Blend well.

4. Roll filling into 30 - 1 inch balls. For each cookie, with floured hands, shape about 1 Tablespoon of dough around 1 peanut butter ball, covering completely. Place 2 inches apart on an ungreased cookie sheet. Flatten with glass dipped in sugar.

5. Bake at 375 degrees F (190 degrees C) for 7-9 minutes. When cookies are done, they should be set and slightly cracked.

Lazy Friday

I had planned to wake up early, get my paper done, and get cracking on readings for next week's classes. Of course, things never go as planned for me since my inherent laziness takes over and what ended up happening was I woke up around 8:30, browsed food blogs, watched some variety shows I downloaded, finished my paper 3 hours before it was due, browsed more food blogs, watched more variety shows on youtube, and then ate dinner. In that order. I had to do something that .. wasn't watching things on my computer, so of course I decided to bake! I had leftover cinnamon sugar from making the palmiers last week so I naturally decided to make snickerdoodles :) I love these cookies. They come out soft and so delicious!

I've used this recipe before so I know they turn out well. This time I tweaked the method just a little bit since the cinnamon sugar mix I had on hand was heavier on the sugar side than cinnamon. The cookies turned out with a light hint of cinnamon with a soft center and slightly crispy and chewy sides, mm delicious! On most days, I usually prefer the stronger cinnamon flavor in snickerdoodles, but today the light flavor really hit the spot :) I was probably just looking for a sweet end to the day lol! The only thing I'd try differently next time is to use all butter and no shortening.



Snickerdoodles
Adapted from Allrecipes

Ingredients

1/2 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup shortening
1 1/2 cups white sugar
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons cream of tartar
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
4 tablespoons white sugar
1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C).
2. Cream together butter, shortening, 1 1/2 cups sugar, the eggs and the vanilla.
3. Blend in the flour, cream of tartar, soda and salt in a separate bowl and then mix into the wet ingredients. Shape dough by rounded spoonfuls into balls.
3. Mix the 4 tablespoons sugar and the cinnamon. Roll balls of dough in mixture and then roll balls between your hands again. Roll balls one more time in the cinnamon sugar mixture. Place 2 inches apart on parchment paper lined baking sheets.
4. Bake 8 minutes or until set but not too hard. Be careful to not underbake these cookies. Let cookies sit on the baking sheet for 1-2 minutes before removing to a rack to cool.

Celery...cookies?

So F suggested that I try making cookies with celery a while back and I've been stewing over ways to infuse celery into cookies. The first thought was to try making a sugar cookie with celery in it. My first thought was to use some sort of celery extract or juice in the dough itself and then roll balls of dough in a celery infused sugar before baking. It all sounded nice and pretty in my head, but upon trying to create this masterpiece, I discovered things don't go as well as planned all the time :X The celery sugar turned out very light in the celery flavor and I hadn't realized that I don't have a food processor, juicer, or blender to extract the liquid from the celery, so I ended up making a celery syrup by boiling celery in water and sugar. The result was a sweet syrup with a semi-strong celery flavor that came after the sweet, but that celery flavor wasn't strong enough to come out through the dough. I didn't anticipate that and even reduced the amount of sugar from the original sugar cookie recipe to accommodate for the syrup. Needless to say this was a complete failure. There was no celery flavor to the cookies, and they were not as sweet as regular sugar cookies. In fact, most of what I tasted was vegetable oil (bleh). Next time I'll stick to tampering with a recipe that I've tried before and stay away from oil :X Also, I'll wait till I have access to some sort of juice extracting contraption before thinking about making more celery cookies. Either that or I'll start experimenting with celery seeds...

Palmiers <3

I love cinnamon in cookies, in buns, in desserts and sweets in general, so of course I had to make these cinnamon palmiers when I saw them on i shot the chef. I actually made these once before over winter break and found out how long they actually take to make with all the resting in between but they are definitely worth the effort.

I really enjoyed these cookies, as did my friends and my cousin! Thus, I had to make them again! Of course it helped that S wanted to try them and didn't get any since he ran off to HK so I had reason to make these again :) The first time, I didn't really know what I was doing when I was folding the dough and making the cookies, and this time..despite having one batch under my belt, they were just as hard to shape again. I'm guessing it's because I keep halving the batches. Next time I'll do a full batch :) I also need to work on rolling them out and stuffing lots of cinnamon sugar into them too. They seemed to be lacking in the cinnamon sugar flavor this time =/ But they flaky buttery cookie is good..because of the flaky buttery-ness...:X


Sigh..they were much too pale..


In the tupperware to be sent to S lol

Recipe can be found here: A Cheap Cookie