Butterscotch Chip Cookies

We're almost done with this loooooong week! And tonight I was getting ready for an awesome camping weekend out in western Mass by....making some cookies of course! I decided to whip up some butterscotch chip cookies, and MAN did I eat a lot of cookies dough. I'm gonna have to run that off tomorrow Morning!!!!

Ingredients:

3/4 cups sugar
3/4 cups brown sugar
1 cup butter, softened
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
pinch salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 1/4 cups flour
1 bag butterscotch chips

First off, blend together your butter and the two sugars.

Next add in your egg and vanilla.




Followed by....your flour, salt and baking soda. Generally I mix in the baking soda and salt first, then slowly add the flour, just to make sure those first two dry ingredients get mixed evenly into the batter. Now its time for your butterscotch pieces. Make sure to save a few of these babies for yourself!

Mix until JUST blended. your dough should stick to your mixing paddle, like so:

Using a large spoon to keep your measurements equal, roll the cookies into 1 to 2 inch balls (I usually err on the side of BIG).

Bake at 375 for 8 minutes. You'll get a soft, sweet, rich chewy result.

I also whipped up some rice krispie treats for the kiddos who are coming along for the weekend/ (Who am I kidding, they're really for me).

Have a great Holiday weekend folks!

Thank You Cookies

Update!

Tonight I finished my Thank you cookie-bags for my confirmation class teachers. I decided to add to the biscotti with some coconut macaroons dipped in white chocolate.....


These were pretty delish, gooey and messy....but delish.

Aaaaaand one of my all-time classics, snickerdoodles.

Then I wrapped them all up with some love and fancy ribbon :) Ta-da!

I hope everyone's week is off to a good start!

Banana Biscotti

As the weekend winds down and another busy week begins, I started in on my latest baking project: Thank You cookie bags for the presenters at my confirmation class. I was confirmed last weekend as a full-blown Catholic in preparation for my Wedding, and this week I'm having dinner with my class and the presenters who volunteered their time for the last 9 months. Cookie gifts were obviously in order.

I wanted to have some variety in my gift bags so tonight I thought I'd make a biscotti. Conveniently I had some very ripe bananas, so I googled some recipes. I started out following a random recipe from a blog, but ended up pretty much winging it due to several factors (my lack of brown sugar, love of butter etc...) Here's what I came up with.

2 eggs
1 cup sugar
2 mashed bananas
½ cup butter
1 tablespoon vanilla
2.5 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 tablespoons cinnamon, whoops
1 cup choc chips

First I mixed together my sugar and butter, eggs, vanilla and bananas. I couldn't resist putting in a second banana, when my recipe only called for one, so at that point I just went totally rogue and started making things up.

Then I added in my flour, baking soda and cinnamon. I thought I had a slotted cap on my jar of cinnamon, however this was not the case. As a result, I dumped a TON of cinnamon directly into my batter. I tried to skim some out, but I decided it was best to just roll with it. Apparently there's fiber in cinnamon, call it a health food.

After it was all mixed together it was time to form the dough into logs. This was more challenging than usual as the dough was SUPER sticky. SO sticky in fact that I thought my experiment might be going awry. NO way to tell for sure though until you bake the damn thing. so....Into the oven!

Bake at 350 for about 30 minutes. In my oven, more like 27 minutes. I think my oven is gradually getting hotter, I need to start systematically knocking minutes off my bake time.

Diagonally slice your log into your happy little biscotti pieces.

Then it's time to bake again! Turn down the heat to 300, bake for 12 minutes, flip, then bake one more time for 10 minutes.

Yum.

Stay tuned this week for the rest of my cookie gift bags, and some memorial day yummies to come!

Orange-Coconut Macaroons

Happy Weekend! After a lazy afternoon that involved team-napping with my elderly cat, I decided to whip up some Coconut Macaroons (one of my FAVORITES). I usually make these with dried cranberries and orange zest, but seeing as I had neither of those ingredients on hand, I thought I'd just use orange extract, with some chocolate drizzle action.

Ingredients:

2/3 cups sugar
2 teaspoons Orange Extract
2 egg whites
dash salt
3 cups shredded sweetened coconut
3 ounces bakers chocolate
1 tsp shortening

Whisk together your egg whites, sugar extract and salt in a large bowl until evenly blended.

Next, fold in your coconut until it's evenly moistened.

Roll your Coconut into balls, and place on a baking sheet. Bake at 350 for 12-14 minutes. (I baked for 15 and it was too long, I had some burn victims). Meanwhile, melt together your chocolate and shortening over low heat.

I decided to use a pastry bag to make my drizzle a little neater, you can also just use a spoon...

Yum. A little on the dark side, but they still taste good. :)

drizzle your chocolate over the macaroons once they've cooled off a bit, and you're done!

Have a great weekend everyone!

Weekend Baking

Happy weekend! Yesterday I whipped up a couple of fun things so I thought I'd share some pictures. My cousin was kind enough to host me and a few other lovely ladies at her house last night to do some wedding-crafty projects and my first hair trial (ahhhhh I'm getting married SO soon! Crazy!)

I was kind of running around all day beforehand, so I just whipped up some quick bites to bring to the party. First up (not a dessert) were some Jamaican style meat pies. Love these....

Basically you cook a filling of beef, onions, scotch bonnet peppers, and yummy seasoning, then plop it in some puff pastry circles.

And Bake! Yum.

On the dessert front, I broke out the cookie press once again....

I tweaked the basic Butter Spritz Recipe by using orange extract instead of vanilla...

Then sprinkled it with some cocoa powder and powdered sugar.

Hope everyone's out enjoying this sunny day!