Scones, coffee cakes, tarts…so many recipes, so little time.
Do you think chocolate peanut butter sandwich cookies would be enough to lure this lovely spring weather into sticking around? I know these homemade versions of PB Oreos would be enough to convince me to stay anywhere, so hopefully it will work on warm sun and blue skies.
If you’ve ever stood in the cookie aisle at the grocery store marveling at how many different varieties of Oreos there are now, well, you and I have a lot in common. But also, what happened to regular and Double Stuf? The peanut butter variety did catch my eye though, but instead of splurging on the store-bought kind I decided to just make my own.
Chocolate and peanut butter is maybe one of the most delicious combinations in the world. I’m a bad little food blogger and don’t have a link to the recipe, but I’m pretty sure you can find it in the MS Baking Handbook…or you can just buy peanut butter Oreos, but who would do that?
The luck of the Irish was certainly with me when I stumbled upon this recipe for Irish Coffee Blondies. Chewy, dense, and addictive, these St. Patrick’s Day treats are spiked with coffee and whiskey, because who doesn’t want uppers and downers in their desserts?
These bars were ridiculously easy to make — dangerously easy as they are soooo delicious. You don’t even need to use a stand mixer…all though I didn’t realize this until I’d fetched down my red beauty only to read the part of the recipe indicating all you’ll need is a large bowl and a spoon. Old school, nice. All I know is that recipes starting with copious amounts of melted butter and brown sugar are fine by me.
Sliced almonds give the bars a nutty crunch while the glaze (which is a trifecta of awesomeness: butter, powdered sugar, and whiskey. Uh-yeah) ties the flavors together with its boozey sweetness. Plus, it gives the whole thing a zigzaggy Jackson Pollack look.
I paired these blondies with my Double Mint Chocolate Cupcakes for a double dose of Irish desserts for the 5th annual St. Patrick’s Day party we threw last weekend. Which was epic, as always. The desserts were a big hit…or so I heard.
The cupcakes were devised from my own imagination. I contemplating repeating last year’s Irish Car Bomb Cupcakes, which were legendary, but I love to make new things each time. For some reason, mint and chocolate scream St. Pat’s to me — maybe it’s because mint is green? Regardless, I whipped up a batch of Martha’s One Bowl Cupcakes (my go-to) and nestled a little Ande’s mint between two layers of batter for a little minty surprise.
I topped the cupcakes with a swirl of Fluffy Vanilla Frosting mixed with a hint of mint extract (and um, green food coloring, clearly) plus a sprinkling of festive shamrocks and a cute little Irish topper. God, I’m a nerd.
I don’t mean to sound like a big a-hole, but I was totally concerned people would think these cupcakes were store bought. And I don’t mean like, fancy store bought, but more along the lines of pre-packaged grocery store cupcakes. I think it’s the color and the swirl of icing, but these are homemade, bitches!
Happy St. Patrick’s Day! Make some delicious treats to celebrate the day. Or just get schwasted, as is customary. Oh and be super jealous that any party you go to today won’t have a cooler invitation than this (thanks to APP):
Ah, Valentine’s Day. The time to express your love for people through copious amounts of chocolate. If you’re lucky, your sweetheart will be presenting you with a box of these decadent chocolate raspberry bars rather than some crummy old box of chocolates. Who am I kidding? I am an equal opportunity chocolate-consumer. But in my humble (ha) opinion, nothing says I love you like homemade treats.
For a perpetually single person, I am shockingly enamored by Valentine’s Day — I love the color combination of red and pink, the doilies, the supermarket decorations, the cheesy cards, I just can’t help myself. Most people hate it, ignore it, or proudly declare that they’re “just not a Valentine’s Day person.” What? Who is not into candy, chocolate, hearts, and declarations of love? Communists.
I’d had chocolate and raspberry on the brain for sometime and I wanted to make a delicious Valentine’s Day treat to bring in to work for everyone. I keep talking about how much I love to bake and how I’m always cranking out tasty snacks, but I’d never provided any evidence. I figured now was as good a time as any to pony up. In a twist of luck, I stumbled upon a New York Times story by Melissa Clark called “Plain-Jane Cookie Dolls It Up for Valentine’s Day” all about taking the classic staple that is the shortbread cookie and gussying it up with jam, dark chocolate ganache, and fleur de sel. Yes, please. This recipe had everything I was looking for and all I had to do was sub out the cherry jam for raspberry to complete my plan.
The shortbread dough is super easy to make — just a few quick pulses in the food processor and you’ve got yourself a mass of crumbly chocolatey goodness. It’s easier to work with than regular brownie batter too because all you have to do is press it into the pan. Once the shortbread was baked and cooled, I slathered on a thick layer of sweet, fruity raspberry jam.
Then there’s the ganache. Sweet, dark, mysterious ganache. It can seem daunting, this culinary confection. There are those who have no idea what it is and others who think it’s too complex to ever try at home. This is not the case! It is…chocolate mixed with warm heavy cream until the chocolate melts and the cream blends in yielding thick, luscious, spreadable, magical ganache. There you have it! Mystery solved. You can even make truffles by rolling the cooled ganache into little balls and coating them with cocoa powder or anything your chocolate-loving heart desires. Yes, that is all truffles are. Sorry to shatter any grand illusions.
Once the ganache is spread over the jam layer like an edible blanket, a sprinkling of fleur de sel is all you need to bring the rich decadence to life. I must say though, shocking as it may be, I ended up with a bit too much ganache. As if that’s possible. But having doubled the recipe to yield more deliciousness, I think I overdid it on the ganache, which resulted in an uber-thick layer on top. There are worse problems to have.
This is a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on crack. Imagine the most decadent version of the classic lunchtime staple and you’re not even close to how sweet, salty, and luscious this cake was.
Yes, another birthday — I have a lot of awesome friends with big birthdays this winter and for APP’s 30th he requested the ultimate of flavor combinations, the PB&J one-two punch. The cupcakes I made for last year’s Back to School party left a lasting impression on him and a celebration of this magnitude called for one gigantic cake rather than several little ones, right? Right.
Similarly to the PB&J cupcakes, I used a recipe (obviously I only used the cake recipe and ignored any and all references to lemon curd) for a very fluffy, white cake made with a lot of whipped egg whites as an homage to the slices of classic white bread that are a key component to the inspirational sandwich.
After splitting the two cake layers in half (with painstaking precision, I might add — they were only slightly lopsided) I spread on a thin layer of creamy peanut butter frosting (Ina’s, naturally — it’s basically peanut butter hopped up on heavy cream, butter, and powdered sugar) followed by a thick pool of grape jelly. Obviously you could use any flavor of jam or jelly, but grape is oh so iconic. Instead of just smearing on the lumpy jelly, I employed the same technique from the French Apple Tart I made this fall — forcing the jelly through a fine sieve so it comes out all smooth, luscious, and spreadable. Nice.
This teetering 4-layer stack of peanut butter and jelly goodness was the first cake I’ve made that required me to use sturdy skewers to stabilize it. Legit, I know. Because of the naturally slippery nature of jelly, the layers just needed a little something to help them stay upright and fortunately I have a secret supply of skewers for testing cake done-ness that, when clipped to size, make perfect little pseudo-dowels. Although, we did have a slight panic moment while slicing the cake when we had only located one skewer after cutting almost half the cake. Yikes. No one was injured while eating…that we know of.
Look at those perfectly chopped peanuts. They’re even divided into size categories, ensuring all the peanuts pressed along the side of the cake would be symmetrical. This meticulous peanut method, and a great deal of photography, assistance, and general cake-related support was provided by bestie and former roomie Jenny. Her help was invaluable, especially when she talks me off a cake-meltdown ledge and tells me to finally stop smoothing the icing on the top of the cake — otherwise I would just keep spreading. Also, the cake was for her boyf, so it was fun that she was a part of the assembly process!
What’s the deal with the irregular letter sizes in the writing, you might ask? Well, if you haven’t noticed from earlier in this post, a moniker we typically employ for the birthday boy in question is APP. You can’t spell happy without APP. So I thought it would be funky and cool to make a subliminal birthday message, you know, like a magic eye except you don’t have to put your face close to the cake or cross your eyes to see it. I thought it was awesome and Jenny echoed my thoughts. However, there was many a guest at the party who thought it simply said Happy Birthday, or that I’m not able to pipe letters all the same size. One friend, upon learning that there was what I referred to as a subliminal message on the cake, exclaimed gleefully as she ran over to take a look, “Is it a tree?!” No, it is not a tree.
A-yum. Look at those layers. PB&J+cake=THE BEST. Sure, the filling gooped out a bit and the skewers posed a mildly dangerous inconvenience, but this cake was glorious and seemed to transport everyone who took a bit back to simpler, peanut butter and jelly-filled times. I can’t think of a better way to celebrate the big 3-0 than with a whimsical, nostalgic cake like this (being surrounded by your friends and family and a taco bar doesn’t hurt either…way to go APP!)
I struggled with what to call these delicious confections. The recipe says sandwich cookies, but that just didn’t seem to do them justice. I didn’t intend for them to stray into the whoopie pie zone, but I can’t think of how else to categorize them — the cookies just aren’t cookie-like. They’re more like a cake/cookie hybrid. Thus, the whoopie pie decision. Glad we cleared that up.
My lovely friend Emily requested carrot cake for her birthday treat (and by requested I mean, I kept hounding her until she chose a flavor for me to foist baked goods upon her. Such is the life being friends with me). I’d always been looking for a reason to make the carrot cake sandwich cookies from Martha’s cookie book and here the opportunity fell in my lap! Plus, cakes are tricky at bars, where the party was taking place, and cupcakes are you, you know, cupcakes. Nothing against the cupcake, I love them, I just need a break, Ross and Rachel style.
What made these little handheld versions of carrot cakes extra special, besides the smooth, sweet cream cheese frosting in the middle, is the use of freshly grated carrots. I think it helped make the cookies ridiculously moist and soft. The recipe called for raisins, which I would have loved, but the birthday girl was anti-raisin, so raisinless they were!
Look how cute Emily and her birthday buddy Carol are! That is sheer birthday carrot cake whoopie pie-fueled happiness right there. Also, people lose their shit when you bring homemade treats to a bar. Not people I know, like, actual strangers. I had to fend off randos and practically guard these bad boys with my life. They were just that good.
Technically, all those days of Christmas, with the partridges and lords a leaping and such, actually begin on Christmas Day. That means this post about holiday baking is no where near as behind the times as you’d like to think its, as we are just now approaching the twelfth day of Chrismas. Plus, I always have a difficult time letting go of the merry festivity that goes along with the holidays.
Look at those festive treats! Crumbly, buttery spritz cookies dipped in chocolate, and big, chewy chocolate chip cookies studded with (hand-picked — that’s how I do it) red and green PEANUT BUTTER M&Ms. Outrageous. I want a time machine so I can go back and eat these again. Or I could just bake them again. Whatever, time machine would be awesome.
I was not even remotely kidding, I went through a bag of peanut butter M&Ms and selected each and every red and green one. And it’s not like I haven’t done that before. You say crazy, I say meticulous. I don’t know how we even ended up with any cookies because that dough is crazy delicious.
While I was home, I got on a major spritz cookie kick. Usually I make sugar cookie cutouts so painstakingly decorated I don’t even have any interest in eating them once I’m finished (like the first photo in this post — gorj, right?). But this year, I threw an amazing cookie decorating party in Brooklyn, so I was kind of cookie cuttered out by the time I got home (much to my dad’s chagrin — he’s a sucker for the classic cutouts). Enter, the spritz cookie.
The cookies are super simple and are made from a basic butter cookie dough — all you need is a cookie press with various little discs that shoot the dough out in cute shapes like hearts and trees. You can tint the dough with food coloring in cheery red and green too! Little M&M toppers couldn’t hurt either.
When in doubt, add chocolate. That’s generally my motto. A quick dunk in melted chocolate really jazzed up the cookies. Some of them got a quick drizzle made all the easier by my grandmother’s helpful tip of adding a bit of vegetable oil to the melted chocolate. Genius! It makes the chocolate silky smooth and shiny. Also, don’t you just love my sparkly nail polish?!
Only 353 days until Christmas!
