cookie dough

Have I mentioned before that I love cookie dough? Remember the chocolate chip cookie dough brownie?

I have tried two new recipes involving cookie dough recently. First, let's deal with the one that didn't work out so well.

The name is super long:

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough + Cupcake = The BEST Cupcake. Ever.

Quite a name, right!?! For me, the equation ended more like this:

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough + Cupcake = Lots of potential. But fail.

Oh well! I'll try again!

The cookie dough looked great. There may or may not have been some major sampling at this point. ;-)


The recipe actually involves making cupcakes from a mix. I don't really ever make cakes from mixes because I don't like the flavors very much, but I figured it would save some time and not be as noticeable with cookie dough so I did it that way.
Still looking very promising!


And then they came out of the oven looking delicious!


The reviews of this recipe warned that the cupcakes wouldn't look done but to take them out anyway. Within a minute of being out the oven, I realized that they clearly hadn't been in the oven long enough. They had all sunk in way too much:


I still sampled, because it takes a lot to deter me from dessert, but they just weren't edible. Way underdone.


I haven't given up on this recipe yet, but next time I will make the cake from scratch and I will leave them longer in the oven.

The other cookie dough recipe I made was a much bigger success. And was much easier. And is vegan!! It's from Angela over at Oh She Glows: Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough "Blizzard"



If the "vegan" description turned you off, I beg you to reconsider. You would have no idea these were vegan if I hadn't told you.

At this point, once again, there may have been some serious sampling. I couldn't even resist eating one between these two pictures. Just look at these!


Then you blend a frozen banana and a few tablespoons of cookie dough, add a few cookie dough balls and you have a blizzard!


I'm sorry for the quality of the pictures for this recipe. My camera has been acting up so I sent it in for repair. I'm lost without it and have to make do with my iPhone. (Although I do think it's doing a decent job.)


The best part of this recipe? Aside from the deliciousness of course... I got to use my Ninja blender! Still loving it! :-)

small kitchen appliances

Someone recently asked me if I was one of those people who gets really excited about small kitchen appliances or gadgets. First of all, I didn't realize that was a defined group of people. Second of all, it doesn't sound like a group I want to be associated with - sounds pretty silly. So my first impulse was to reply nooooo. But as I prepare to write this post, I realize that I might just be part of that group because I am truly excited to tell you about my new blender!! But first, let's talk about my new slow cooker.

I've been wanting to get a slow cooker for a long time, but I am not really sure what held me back. I finally got one. I christened the slow cooker with Corn Spoon Bread from allrecipes.com. I didn't actually know what it was, so I didn't know what to expect.




It turned out like corn pudding. I liked it when I first ate it, but as time goes on, I've gotten less thrilled with it. I froze several pieces of it, and haven't yet had the desire to defrost any. Maybe it will grow on me. Maybe not.




PS: I'm intrigued by this product. I may have to try it on its own one day. I do love corn bread!



The second use of the slow cooker was more successful.



I decided to try a Slow Cooker Stout Stew from allrecipes.com, even though that's really a winter dish not exactly appropriate for the heat we're in.




Nonetheless, I'm glad I tried it because it was delicious. Very meaty.



Slow cooker = success!

And now, ladies and gentlemen, for the piece de resistance.... my new blender!! It is the Ninja, recommended by my dear friend Alicia. It is fantastic.



Pros:
- It's very powerful. It did not hesitate to crush through frozen fruit and ice!
- Everything except the motor goes into the dishwasher. And since I have a new working dishwasher, this makes me very happy.
- The blades are at different levels in the pitcher so you don't get stuck with unblended items at the top that you have to push down.
- It's very easy to use: just push down to run it. You either push down continuously or pulse depending on what you're trying to do.
- First you put the blades in the pitcher and then you add the food. When you're ready to pour out, you take the blades out and then pour. This means that you can get everything out with minimal waste, unlike traditional blenders.

Cons:
- It's a bit more work than other blenders to add things in while blending, because you have to remove the motor and the top. Minor drawback as far as I am concerned.



The maiden voyage was Fresh Pineapple-Berry Fiasco from allrecipes.com. A delicious smoothie. Well, I think it's supposed to be a bit more like a frozen drink because you're supposed to juice the fruit, but I skipped that part and just blended all the fruits together. Delicious! It was frothy and fresh and perfect. I highly recommend it!




This blender might be a keeper! Let's hope it fares better than my last 3! ;-)

Please note: I am an Allrecipes Allstar Brand Ambassador (a voluntary position) and I’m not compensated for my work with Allrecipes.com. Products received from advertiser are only used for experienced-based reviews on "the hidden foodie in me". The reviews, content and opinions expressed in this blog are purely the sole opinions of Caroline C.

award winning

In looking back through some of my previous posts, I noticed that I have shared a lot of my cooking...shall we say, learning opportunities? Yes, learning opportunities. I think it's time to focus on some successes. In addition, I really want to share this recipe with you. It is by far the best cookie recipe I have ever made and every time I share these cookies, people gobble them up and ask for the recipe. Part of their name is "award winning" and you will soon discover why.

(If you didn't already know this about me, you are about to learn that I love lists. If you're a list-lover too, you will like this post. If you don't like lists, hmmm, are you sure? Okay, just skip to the link then.)


Photo courtesy of my lovely sister Camille and her fantastic camera

Here is why they are great:
1. They are soft.
2. They stay soft for days.
3. The entire recipe makes a massive amount of cookies, but you can just as easily make half or a quarter of the recipe (although trust me when I say that there are never enough of these).
4. You can freeze these and reheat them in the toaster oven and they taste just as fresh.
5. You can vary the flavor of the secret ingredient (secret to be revealed below) and the kind of chocolate chips to create an infinite number of fantastic and creative variations.

Oh my goodness. Just thinking about these makes me want one right now.

Are you ready for these?

Oh my gosh, I'm so excited to share this! Really ready?

Okay, okay! Here you go:

Award Winning Soft Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ta-da!

And the secret ingredient is........pudding mix!!! Yes! Love it! This is what makes these cookies soft and delicious! I have tried vanilla, chocolate, lemon, and banana. I also plan on trying pistachio. Lemon wasn't my favorite but my co-workers liked it - they said it reminded them of a fig newton. Suuure.

My favorite combos:

(Measurements are for 36 servings or half the recipe so you need 2 cups of choc chips total)

1. Vanilla pudding / 1 c milk choc chips + 1/2 c semi-sweet choc chips + 1/2 c white choc chips

2. Chocolate pudding / 1-1/2 c of white choc chips + 1/2 c semi-sweet choc chips

3. Banana pudding / 1-1/2 c milk choc chips + 1/2 c white choc chips

But please be creative here... and share your results with me!



Now, I don't know how much baking experience you have, so I will share a few tips that I have learned along the way:

1. The butter must be at room temperature before you start. If your home is hot, put the butter out for a while and then put it in the refrigerator for about 5 minutes before you use it. The butter needs to be soft, as in you can gently press down and leave a finger mark, but not melted. This has a high impact on the consistency of the cookies, as well as whether or not they will hold their shape.

2. You can beat the sugar and butter as long as you want. In fact, I would say that 3-4 minutes is good. You can really beat all of the ingredients as long as you want...until... you add in the flour. Once the flour goes in, make sure you are only mixing until all of the ingredients are incorporated. Over-mixing once the flour is in will create tough cookies.

3. Make sure your baking soda isn't old. This one is kind of random and probably doesn't happen too often, but it's on my mind because I recently discovered that my baking powder was no longer effective. Just something to check if you have any problems.

4. It is very important to scoop the flour out of the container and lightly sprinkle it into your measuring cup. If you use the measuring cup to scoop the flour out of the bag, you will have too much flour and your cookies will be too dense. The best way to make sure you have the right amount of flour is to change the measurements to metric and then weigh the flour. Not sure if you'll be up for that, but it's worth a shot if you any problems and have a scale that measures in grams.

5. In allrecipes.com, you can easily scale the recipe by changing the number of servings (originally 72 cookies for this recipe) and hitting the "Calculate" button. Allrecipes.com does the math for you. And if you're really averse to math, half the recipe is 36 servings, and a quarter is 18. ;-)

6. Cookie scoops are awesome. They enable you to make cookies of the same size, which is good to prevent fighting over the biggest cookies and because they will be evenly baked. I waited way too long before buying this kitchen utensil. I am in love with it and am not sure how I lived without one. Alternately, you could use a tablespoon. (But once you have a cookie scoop, you'll fall in love with it too and also wonder how you lived without one.)

7. It helps to cool the batter a bit before you bake the cookies. Therefore, keep the dough in the refrigerator in between batches. It'll make the cookies better.

8. And one last tip: take these out of the oven even if you don't think they're done. When the edges are starting to brown, take them out! They will continue to bake a bit out of the oven and be just perfect. My oven is about average in temperature, maybe slightly hot, and I take these out at exactly 10 minutes. If you don't know how hot your oven runs, err on the side of caution and check on the cookies at 8 minutes.



Now I hope you're not overwhelmed. All I really needed to say about this recipe is that it is THE BEST!! You can thank me later for sharing this recipe. For now, just go make these.

strawberries

I like the idea of strawberries, but whenever I buy them, I lose interest in eating them. Last time I even bought Cool Whip in the hopes that it would motivate me, but that didn't do the trick either. Therefore, as with most fresh fruits and vegetables I buy, I ended up with a lot left as they were starting to lose their freshness.

I decided to bake with them so I searched for a strawberry recipe that wasn't a pie. And that's where the Strawberry Bread comes in. (Although I have to admit that once I cut these up, I was definitely in the mood to eat them instead of baking them!)

I didn't have high hopes, because I thought it sounded weird and wasn't very inspired by the pictures. Boy, was I in for a treat! The bread turned out moist and delicious and I ate right through it.

If you want to try it, find the recipe here, but I suggest reading the comments (especially mine of course) before making it as it doesn't need nearly as much oil as the recipe calls for.

The pictures don't do it justice. Trust me, just try it.

dessert obsession... and two healthy dishes

I have a few things to show you today. Let's start with the sweet stuff, shall we?!

My favorite classic flavor combination is vanilla and chocolate. Take that into baking dessert and we're talking about brownies with vanilla ice cream, chocolate fudge, and whipped cream. With the brownie preferably warm. One of my favorite ice cream flavors is Ben & Jerry's Half Baked that includes chunks of brownies and cookie dough. Imagine my excitement when I came across a Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Brownie recipe over at recipegirl.com!! I was slightly disappointed, maybe because my expectations were so high, but that doesn't prevent it from being a delicious indulgence that I would still recommend. Here is the result:

Now moving on to actual meals... I tried another recipe from my favorite daily food blog: dailygarnish.com. This Mexican Quinoa with Black Beans and Avocado looked good and I already had most of the ingredients so I made it just a few days after her. The only modification is that I had red quinoa, but I doubt that impacted it much. I thought this dish was really good. I never would have combined these ingredients on my own, but they worked really well together. You should try it. Super easy too.

And last, but not least, I made an oldie but goodie from allrecipes.com. Chicken breasts with balsamic vinegar and garlic served with mashed potatoes. Yum! Look for my comment (in 2008) to see what I change in the recipe... really just don't flour the chicken and add a bit of cornstarch mixed in with cold water at the end to thicken the sauce.

And I will end with this: would you believe that my new blender broke?! It overheated one day while I was making a smoothie. I used it, what, 3 times!?! Anyone know of a good blender I could buy that will actually last a while? Anyone?

coffee anyone?

Yesterday's weather prediction of 4-6" of snow, ice, and rain turned out to be 16" of snow!! It was gorgeous and enabled me to work from home today. Which leads me to the food story of the day... bear with me, please.

I have noticed that at around 10 AM on snow mornings, the plow guy clears my parking lot. And the best way to use this knowledge is to go outside, clear off my car, and move it to a spot he has already cleared so he can fully clear "my" parking space. Everyone wins! Well there was so much snow today that I couldn't just back out of my spot but actually had to clear some of the snow behind my car and tires. Not so easy without a shovel, but I dug in with my hands. Seeing this, the nice plow man stopped his truck and proceeded to dig me out with his shovel. So nice! We started chatting and he told me that he had been working since 9 PM the previous night. Ouch! I thanked him and moved my car to a cleared spot.

Once inside, I felt that my simple thank you just wasn't enough. I decided to bring him some snacks and coffee. I brought out my coffee machine and started brewing. (I need to remind you here that I don't drink coffee. Ever. So I don't know how to brew it.) So once it was done and looked pitch black, I figured that I may have put slightly too much coffee. I added more water to the coffee machine, but that went through the filter again and it still looked really dark. I ended up adding plain water directly to the coffee, thinking to myself that this is probably taboo to a coffee drinker. I took a tiny sip to make sure it didn't taste awful, but really, it did, which is how coffee always tastes to me. I couldn't tell if there was a difference from the "normal" awful.

As I brewed the coffee, I pondered how to get it to him. A mug? This could be problematic: I pictured much splashing and scalding as he maneuvered back and forth in the parking lot. Plus, then he'd have to get the mug back to me. I didn't want to make him waste any more time than needed - I was sure he was just dying to get home. I searched my cupboards for something suitable, but found nothing. Finally, I decided to use a big, plastic water bottle. I folded up a paper towel, then taped it around the middle so he wouldn't burn his hands.

With the coffee situation now under control, I scrounged up some snacks. I grabbed a banana, two clementines that looked like they might still be tasty (ever try to get through a whole crate by yourself? It's tough), and then I heated up two pieces of blondie brownies that I made last week and froze in single portions. To my goodie bag, I added a little baggie of sugar, a little baggie of almond milk, a bottle of water, a small can of pineapple juice, and a napkin.

Feeling satisfied with my offering of thanks, I set out for the parking lot in search of the nice plow man. But to my dismay, he wasn't there! I walked to the next street, then the next one, then the next one, and after walking through the whole neighborhood, I had to admit to myself that he was truly gone. Oh, what a disappointment! Nice plow man, I know you're not reading this because no one is, but I am sending a big thank you out to universe and I hope you will catch wind of my gratefulness. I know you must have been exhausted after working for so long, and I want you to know that I really appreciate you digging me out so efficiently and nicely. Next time it snows, I'll be ready for you.

Which brings me to the food part. (I told you to bear with me... thanks for doing so!) Now I was home with a huge pot of coffee and no one to drink it. I decided to do something with it - I couldn't just throw it out! I searched allrecipes.com for recipes that called for brewed coffee and settled on Simple 'N' Delicious Chocolate Cake with Coffee Butter Frosting. I was quite excited about the chocolate cake actually, because our family recipe for decadent chocolate cake has the secret ingredient of coffee. Instant and not brewed, though, so I couldn't make that recipe. Both the cake and frosting turned out pretty tasty, although neither has a strong coffee flavor, which is fine by me. I made the cake into mini cupcakes to easily bring to work tomorrow - it's someone's last day so it's the perfect excuse!

Funny how my first post talked about my quest for healthier eating and my second post is about baking! Aaah, my sweet tooth (teeth, really) will never stay hidden for long.