Sandy Pecans

I don't really care that much for nuts...but these are actually pretty tasty. I wasn't paying much attention to the actual recipe at first so I had already started mixing some of the ingredients together before I noticed that it called for four freaking cups of flour. This is a perfect example of why you should completely read the recipe including amounts before beginning anything. If I had, I might not have eight dozen decent sized pecan sandies right now.

I've never actually consumed a store bought pecan sandie before, so I can't testify if these are that similar or not, but people seem to be eating them. Again, I must make note of the fact that my test group don't seem to be all that discerning when it comes to free baked goods.

Allen's Awesome Apple ^2s

Allen requested that we bake something in his honor. Fried chicken and watermelon cookies just don't sound appetizing, so we picked the next best thing -- apple pie. When Allen lived in Vincennes, almost every weekend he came to visit we would buy a pie to eat while we watched High Fidelity. It was always a frozen Sara Lee Dutch Apple pie with Breyer's vanilla (not vanilla bean, mind you) ice cream to go with it. We got pretty good at baking those frozen pies without burning the crusts by the end of the year.

We found a couple apple pie-type bar recipes, but no dutch apple pie bar recipes. So we combined them and got these tasty little squares. It's not quite dutch apple, but the oatmeal gives that crunchiness plain ol' pie just doesn't have.

So here they are, Allen's Awesome Apple^2s. (That's Apple Squares for you non-math people.) Best served warm with vanilla ice cream and a heaping scoop of John Cusack.

Weekend Baking

Jillian working hard on the indoor smores.


Baking bacon! The beginning of the Bacon Street Bars!


I'm not sure exactly what she was trying to convey with that look...I'll leave it for you to decide.


The melding of the chocolate and the bacon!


In case you can't tell from our expressions, I think we need a little work in the chocolate bacon realm.


This guy...this guy on the Honey Graham Box, the one that looks a little bit like Draco Malfoy? He was looking at me funny. I didn't like it. Creepy little freak.


Jillian, friend that she is, took him out for me with one of her Christmas knives...personally I think she was a little too aggressive with the stabbing...but he deserved it.


Indoor smores are oh, so tasty. PFS couldn't hold a candle to these chewy dears.


Orange slice cookies. Made with only the finest CVS orange slices. Diligently hacked into tiny pieces by me.

We might have made some other things too, but, to be honest, we took a little break and that break turned into watching the movie Stardust, which we both highly recommend. It was much more entertaining than anticipated.

Bacon Street Chip Cookies

Soo...Bianca loves bacon. Allen loves bacon. Jill loves bacon. I love bacon. My mother loves bacon. My family loves bacon.
Vegetarians do not love bacon, but...
This guy loves bacon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVKJpkq-wNo
This lady and her husband love bacon too:
http://neverbashfulwithbutter.blogspot.com/2007/12/experiments-in-deliciousness-bacon.html

Jill and I have long contemplated the vast and varied possibilities of bacon...and once I found the above recipe I knew I had to try it. Once my cookie-tasting co-workers seemed to like the idea...I decided to go ahead.

Just the bacon...

...my dear grandmother Arline, who is far more successful and accomplished and experienced at the baking of bacon cooked the bacon for me at her house. She even crushed it up into bits too!

Normal chocolate cookie dough at this point...


Uh Oh! What is happening here?!


Baking with Bacon...pre-icing


and post...


And finally, a closer look at the bacon


I brought them in today at work...and overall they seemed to meet with a resounding,
"Well...that's odd...but not bad...actually, I think they are pretty good."

As an interesting side note, for over half of the time I was working on these, I was on the phone with a vegetarian. He wanted to taste them. Really. I could tell.

Peppermint Swirls

These cookies remind me of the stereotypical dumb blonde of the cookie world...pretty...put together...but without much substance. I still have three rolls of these in the freezer, a dozen each, I suppose I'll have to find someone out there to consume them.

Peanut Butter Oatmeal...Chip?!

&



This recipe made freaking six dozen cookies...yet amazingly they all vanished today at work. Turns out I actually liked this recipe...there was enough oatmeal to tell there was oatmeal in them...but not enough to influence the cookie's tasty-personality.

Michael's Cookies

Michael's birthday is this weekend, but since he's going to be in Memphis with his lady friend, we're celebrating tomorrow. He requested some cookies with peanut butter and/or chocolate chips, so I came up with these. I had all the ingredients to make peanut butter cookies, but no chocolate chips. I didn't feel like going to the grocery store, much like Xian, so I just melted some dark chocolate bars I had in the pantry. They turned out pretty well, although I wish I had some nuts or something to give them a little extra punch. That's ok though -- from my experience, mathies aren't too picky when it comes to free cookies :-)

Ultimate Cheesecake

Look at the fabulousness that is this cheesecake! It honestly was the best cheesecake I've ever made.


The crust was perfect thanks to my new food processor (thanks Nanny!).


And the top wasn't cracked at all! So beautiful! That is, until I stuck my oven mitt in it :-(


Oh yeah, and Wayne helped, too!

The recipe can be found here .

I got the recipe from my super awesome Food Network Favorites cookbook (thanks Rob!). It's important to leave the cheesecake in the oven with the door closed and oven off for an hour after it has baked for 45 minutes. It says this in the book, but not online.

Brownie Batter Deliciousness

Robin wanted me to make Kendra and the bowling ladies some Brothel Brownies for Tuesday night. I didn't.
a.) I didn't have the time after I got off work
b.) I was down to four sticks of butter
c.) I didn't want to go to the store
d.) I'm poor and was unwilling to bankrupt myself for brownies

I made these instead: Brownie Batter Cookies with semi-sweet, milk and white chocolate chips.

Polka...Polka...Polka DOT!

I've been wanting to make these for awhile. They are two of my favorite things COMBINED...actually three...orange, chocolate and polka dots. They looked adorable. There was some extra effort involved in these babies...extra effort that paid off not at all. If I had been going for a regular sugar/shortbread cookie, these would have been delicious. That wasn't what I was going for...that wasn't why I zested the orange and bought orange concentrate (ick!) and added orange extract. The orange tri-fecta...all for kinda bland cookies.

This is what they looked like before I actually tried them:


This is what they looked like after I realized that the only thing that would help these bland little dears would be more chocolate:

Nanny's Chocolate Chip Cookies

Oh my, is that a cookie jar filled with... gasp... cookies?

Yes, my friends, that's right. I'm actually using my cookie jar to store cookies. It's a crazy idea, I know, but it was bound to happen sometime.

Dan's sister requested that I bring my awesome chocolate chip cookies to her daughter Emily's birthday party today. However, I cannot take full credit for the awesomeness of my cookies -- we all know that's due to my grandma, Nanny. In college, my friends and I couldn't wait for my birthday (or my brother's birthday!) when Nanny would send a box of the best tasting cookies in the world. Now I have the recipe, although I have to admit it's not as fun as getting a box of cookies in the mail. (Hint, hint, Nanny).

Some reviews from the masses:

"They are AMAZING!"

"Almost as good as sex."

"They are so good!"

Okay, so maybe that was all from one person. But they honestly were a hit at the party, I just didn't write down any of the reviews.

Banana Cream Pie

We had some ripe bananas lying around the apartment, so I thought pie would be a nice change to banana bread.

The filling is basically a vanilla pudding with bananas in it. I screwed up on my first attempt at the pudding -- some of the sugar stuck to the bottom and caramelized, messing up the whole custardy goodness I had going on. Luckily I had enough ingredients to make a second batch, and I stirred the heck out of it that time. And I got a lovely pie! (Which I ate for breakfast! lols) The whipped cream is homemade too, which makes it extra tasty!

Raspberry Bars

These aren't very sweet...and they break easily...but I think they would be good as a kind of danish-esque iced thing.

Cherry Cheesecake

Chocolate free just for Mark. Justin loved them and I made a couple with chocolate filling for Kevin. These didn't last long. I wish they were prettier...but the dough was inherently too sticky for that.

Chocolate Mint Shortbread

I made these late Saturday/early Sunday...I didn't have any green dye...soo the icing didn't really tell you that they were mint...they tasted a bit like York Peppermint Patties and I like the shortbread texture.

First Attempt Vegan 'Chocolate' Chip Cookies

I made these for one of my mother's friends that works at the Vevay newspaper. She isn't allowed to have...umm...i don't know the list...so we will go with basically anything.



No butter, no milk, no eggs, no chocolate. They were pretty tasty all things considered.

It's like a 50s Malt Shop in your mouth!

So Mark had accidentally purchased some malt, which he was trying to offload to someone else before I could make a cookie out of it...of course this just brought the malt to my attention...an hour later...I give you...malt chocolate chip cookies...

...essentially a mooshed up whopper.

Brothel Brownies

Brothel Brownies: Sinfully Delicious

They don't photograph well, but they are ooey, gooey and tasty. Next time I'll probably go for the layered look instead of the marbled toppings, but this was alright for now.

Candy Mountain!

Wake up Charlie! We found a map to Candy Mountain! The magical Lioplurodon will show us the way!

SHUNNNNNN!

Lols, who could forget this awesome cake we made for Wayne's going away to Ukraine party?! Ok ok, so maybe I did, but here it is now! Pretty awesome on short notice, eh?

Neiman Marcus Cookies

Cookies I made last night for mom to take to her bowling meeting...
I don't know how many of you have heard the story...you can google it if you really have no idea what I am talking about.



From the Neiman Marcus website: An urban myth is a modern folk tale, its origins unknown, its believability enhanced simply by the frequency with which it is repeated. Our signature chocolate chip cookie is the subject of one such myth. If you haven't heard the story, we won't perpetuate it here. If you have, the recipe below should serve to refute it. Copy it, print it out, pass it along to friends and family. It's a terrific recipe. And it's absolutely free.

Ingredients
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, softened
1 cup light brown sugar
3 tablespoons granulated sugar
1 large egg
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1-3/4 cups all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1-1/2 teaspoons instant espresso coffee powder
1-1/2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Cream the butter with the sugars using an electric mixer on medium speed until fluffy (approximately 30 seconds)
2. Beat in the egg and the vanilla extract for another 30 seconds.
3. In a mixing bowl, sift together the dry ingredients and beat into the butter mixture at low speed for about 15 seconds. Stir in the espresso coffee powder and chocolate chips.
4. Using a 1 ounce scoop or a 2 tablespoon measure, drop cookie dough onto a greased cookie sheet about 3 inches apart. Gently press down on the dough with the back of a spoon to spread out into a 2 inch circle. Bake for about 20 minutes or until nicely browned around the edges. Bake a little longer for a crispier cookie.
Yield: Approx. 2 dozen cookies

Monday's Failure

My first attempt in meringue...resulted in...meringue soup instead of the peppermint kisses I was going for.

A variety of factors combined for this particular failure...

...try try try again, but not this week.

Oatmeal Butterscotch

Don't ask why the cookie lols. Just eat it.


I always say that Oatmeal Butterscotch are one of my favorite cookies. It's odd though because it's not like butterscotch is one of my favorite flavors. But oh, as soon as I eat one of these cookies, it all comes rushing back. The crispy bottom, chewy top, and gooey butterscotch... it's just so tasty! I used to help my grandma make these -- they bring back so many good memories!

Well that's probably my baking event for the week... more to come this weekend!

Chailicious

Chai Chocolate Chip...tasty and delicious...actually a little too chippy for my tastes...made these to take to work tomorrow.

Snickerdoodles

My first attempt at snickerdoodles...having never consumed or created a snickerdoodle in the past I had to rely on others to confirm I was in fact baking snickerdoodles.

Poppy Seed Cookies

These look better than they taste. Mom really wanted to try them...enough so that she went out and bought the poppy seeds.


...let's hope Jane doesn't start instituting drug tests this week!

The tastiest cookies ever made...by me anyway

It isn't a secret that I love orange. The color...the food...doesn't matter...I love oranges and these chocolate orange cookies were freaking fabulous. They were really light too, more like orange and chocolate butter cookies than anything else...I tried some chocolate cookies with a little orange extract and they didn't taste nearly as good.

Friday Night Baking

It was a Friday afternoon...I was bored...there was baking to be done!
First up...
Raspberry Thumbprint Cookies...Mom and Grandma really really liked these...

Then Mark suggested I do something with the ripe bananas we had around the house...
Banana Chocolate Cookies with and without nuts.
I prefered these.

Root Beer Float Cookies

These are what happened when I googled "weird cookie recipe."
I took them to work and they disappeared pretty quickly.
They must not have been too bad despite their rather unattractive appearance.

In the Beginning...

... and thus was born our Gay-kery!

Christmas Cookies

My older sister Amber and I were in charge of decorating cookies for our Christmas Eve celebration on my step-dad's side of the family. We really enjoyed ourselves!

I bought new "sparkly" yellow icing, which looked fabulous in the tube, but not as fab on the cookies. I also bought some icing tubes at Target in the dollar section that were nice for details. It wasn't that gel kind either, it was actually icing! I bought a few more packs once they were down to 25 cents. Have I mentioned how much I enjoy Target?