Flour Free Peanut Butter Chocolate Cookies

yes, i'm still alive! law school does tend to eat one's soul... er, i mean, time. i have managed to bake a few things in the past few months, but not to blog about them. so here's to catching up!


i made these flour-free peanut butter cookies, a variation on another recipe i'd tried before. the old recipe was just 1 cup of peanut butter, 1 cup of sugar, 1 egg. bake for 8 minutes at 350 degrees. that's it. super easy, and pretty tasty too.

this time, i tried one that looked more like a regular cookie recipe, from allrecipes.com:

• 2 cups peanut butter
• 2 cups sugar
• 2 eggs
• 2 tsp. baking soda
• 1 pinch salt
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract

mix, drop onto cookie sheet, bake at 350 degrees for 8-10 minutes. still super easy.

these are good for those who want to cut out wheat products, but they're still not quite the same. the sugar doesn't dissolve very well in the peanut butter or something, and i don't think the baking soda adds any lift to these, so i'd just as soon leave it out.


but, as you can see, these cookies were not left alone. what can make mediocre cookies delicious? chocolate ganache! i am a huge fan of ganache.

• i think this was one part cream to one part semi-sweet chocolate chips.
  
• heat the cream slowly, i prefer on low power in the microwave in a pyrex measuring cup.
  
• then pour over the chocolate and stir. ta-da! ganache!

Lemon Cupcakes

mmm.... lemon cupcakes... cue the mouth-watering. i decided to make these as a thank you for somebody who let me swim in his pool while he was at work. i wanted something summery, a bit light, and not too decadent. these fit the bill! and boy, was it easy. how easy was it? well, i'll tell ya.

to make these cupcakes, you'll need:

• 1 box yellow (or white, i guess) cake mix, plus whatever it calls for on the box
• 1 box instant lemon pudding
• lemon buttercream frosting (more on that later)
  

that's it! just add the lemon pudding mix to the cake mix and then prepare the cake as directed. i guess you could just use a lemon cake mix, but i think this method makes a better cupcake. they're a bit dense and extremely moist. and, i think the lemon flavor would be too overwhelming with a lemon cake mix when you combine it with the lemon buttercream frosting (i promise, it's coming).

the batter will be quite thick, but don't worry. it's fine. here's the batter in the cups. see how it isn't settling down:

and when they come out, they fall a little bit, so this recipe probably isn't good for a full sized cake.


but it's great for cupcakes- more frosting! i sort of 'spackled' the dips with frosting to make a flat (ok, slightly rounded) surface to pipe on.

here they are all piped up.



so, what did i frost these puppies with? quite possibly the crown jewel of this whole project: lemon buttercream frosting.

i took this simple buttercream frosting (that i've used before) and added lemon juice. at first, i just added it after the sugar, substituting 2 tbsp lemon juice for the 2 tbsp milk, but the frosting was a little dry. so i added the 2 tbsp milk as well, and it was perfect!
but a word of caution: lemon will curdle milk if they're added together, so make sure you mix in the milk or lemon juice completely before you add the other one, otherwise you might get some nasty results.

you could just use canned buttercream or white frosting, but really, this lemon buttercream frosting really makes these cupcakes shine. my mom said these are her favorite cupcakes of mine so far, largely due to the frosting. so, make the darn frosting!

so, here's some of the cupcake carnage.


it's so good!

International Goodies

to celebrate my membership in the george washington international law review, i decided to make an international treat. i was thinking about some sort of ethnic cookie, but i really wanted to do something russian, and they're not big on cookies. then, i remembered something my host mom made for me all the time when i studied abroad: oladi!

"what the heck is oladi?" i hear you asking. well, it's in the pancake family. it's like a small, thick, lightly leavened blini, and a blini is like a crepe. oladi, like much russian cuisine, are an inexact science... more of an art, i suppose. you mess around with it, get the hang of it, and after a few failures, it just clicks and you get it. in fact, there's a russian saying, "the first blini is always a lump," (по-русски: "первый блин всегда комом") meaning practice makes perfect, or if at first you don't succeed, try, try again.

so, away we go. ingredients (based on this recipe):

• 1 egg
• 2 cups (1 pint, or .5 liter) unflavored unsweetened kefir, available at a whole foods or wegman's type store; you can also use buttermilk or plain yogurt if you don't have kefir. you could even dilute some sour cream with milk... any sort of thick/fermented milk product will do.
  
• 4 tbsp sugar (or more if you want sweeter, more desserty oladi)
  
• pinch of salt
• 10 tbsp flour, to start
• 1 tsp baking soda, plus some vinegar

in a medium to large bowl, whisk together the kefir, egg, sugar and salt, just until blended. don't use a mixer! a fork works well.

next, whisk in the flour. you want it to be the consistency of thin sour cream. if it's too thin, add more flour by the tablespoon, whisking after each addition. i think i ended up having like 15 tablespoons or something in my batter. but start with 10: you can always add an ingredient, but you can't take it out.

now, at this point the original recipe said put a teaspoon of soda into a tablespoon, fill the tablespoon with vinegar, and mix into the batter. but i think if you just pour the soda into the batter, and before you mix it in, pour on 2 teaspoons of vinegar, and then mix it in. you're just trying to get some leavening in there. other recipes call for yeast, but this is easier. especially since i usually don't keep yeast around.

here's what my final batter looked like:


to cook these bad boys up, heat 5-6 tablespoons in a heavy skillet (i used our cast iron one, i think), over medium heat. the amount of oil is approximate; you just need enough to cover the bottom of the skillet, because you'll be frying these.

once the oil is hot, use a 1/4 cup measuring cup to ladle the batter into the pan. you want them to be about 2-3 inches in diameter, and you can do a few at a time, like so:

(sorry for the bad lighting- i was concentrating on not burning them or getting splattered with hot oil. no time to check the flash.)

fry them for about 2 minutes, then flip and fry on the other side for two minutes. make sure you have enough oil in the pan after each batch. these guys soak up a lot of it, so you'll most likely need to add more to make sure the bottom of the pan is covered.

i guarantee you'll burn your first one, so just get it out of the way so you can go on to rock the oladi. see, here's what they're supposed to look like (from tasterussian.com):


and here's my first batch:


pretty bad, i know. (actually, the burnt-ness doesn't mar the taste too terribly bad. they're still edible, just not as good as they should be.)
but, here's how some the rest turned out (most had been gobbled up by this point):


and here's a close up of the one with jam on it:


pretty darn good. serve them with sour cream and jam (cherry preferably, but raspberry or strawberry is good too). we were out of sour cream, so we just put jam on them, like the one on top. you could also serve them with something savory if you wished, and they'd make a good side dish to eggs and bacon. as you can see, they're generally a breakfast thing, but are fabulous as a dessert too.

cheers, to international law review and international treats!

(Dark) Chocolate Cookies

i made this recipe from one of my favorite blogs, living locurto (she's from texas, how can i not love her?). the recipe is on her site (that's right, i'm making you go to her site for it- don't be lazy, now).

basically, it's a dark chocolate cake mix with butter, brown sugar, eggs, vanilla, chocolate chips, and nuts. for my version, i used devil's food cake mix because i couldn't find dark chocolate cake mix. it turned out well with the devil's food, although i did later find the dark chocolate mix at target, so i might have to try them again with the dark chocolate mix this time. and i put in semi-sweet chocolate chips, as directed, and used pecans for my nuts.

man, were they good! i was afraid that they would be a little cake-y, being from a cake mix and all, but they were nice and chewy, just like i like 'em. and, the original recipe calls for cream cheese, but i didn't use any and they were still delicious. the only thing i'd do differently next time, other than maybe use a dark chocolate cake mix, is add more nuts. the cookies were quite chocolate-y, and having more nuts would have balanced it out quite nicely.

now, these got all scarfed up before i could take a picture, so i'm posting a picture from living locurto's site. mine were a little flatter than hers, but essentially the same.

overall assessment: great recipe- easy with phenomenal results!

Lessons in Chocolate

no, i don't mean a textbook made out of chocolate. (but how fun would that be?) when i made s'mores pops, i learned some valuable lessons about working with chocolate flavored candy coating, so i thought i'd share my trials and solutions here.

don't drink water while you're working with chocolate. i was drinking ice water because it was really hot in my kitchen (don't worry, i could stand the heat). i grabbed my water and was taking a drink, and then... a drop of water fell into the chocolate coating. the coating immediately seized up and got all grainy and thick. ew, gross. it was completely unusable.

but no fear, there is a solution. i hopped on the internet and found you could just mix in paramount crystals to fix the problem. well, that's another problem: paramount crystals are available almost exclusively online. then i read that you could put shortening in it, but i was fresh out of that too.

then, i discovered the solution: vegetable oil. just mix it in until the chocolate is smooth again. thank you Jesus! the chocolate will take longer to harden, but harden it will. awesome.

S'mores Pops

i'm very proud of these because i came up with the idea all by myself. i feel so creative! it occurred to me after i went camping and still had some leftover marshmallows from real s'mores.

they don't look particularly delicious, but they really are. and so simple, too. basically, they are marshmallows on sticks, dipped in chocolate, and covered in graham cracker crumbs. so let's break it down.

1. i had these lollipop sticks that i bought on sale. they were a bit long, so i cut them roughly in half (just eyeballed it).


2. i stuck the sticks into the marshmallows. i stuck the unfinished cut end into the marshmallows to camouflage the rough ends.

TIP: the more stick in the marshmallow, the better. they get a little heavy with the chocolate on them, so they need support. put the sticks as far into the marshmallows you can without poking out the top and insert the stick through the longest part of the marshmallow, as shown below.


3. melt some chocolate flavored candy coating. i got mine from walmart. i also put in about half of a hershey's bar to make it more chocolate-y.

TIP: i put the bowl of chocolate on top of a heating pad to keep it from solidifying so fast. and, i covered the heating pad with some saran wrap to protect it from drips. you can sort of see it in the picture here.


4. dip the marshmallows on sticks into the chocolate. make sure to get chocolate all over it, even on a bit of the stick to help the marshmallows stay on the sticks.

TIP: after you dip them in the chocolate, you may need to scrape some of the chocolate off. "what? scrape off chocolate?" i hear you saying... but if you don't, they'll be too heavy and the graham cracker and chocolate will fall off.

5. dip, roll, and/or sprinkle the pops with graham cracker crumbs. i used the bottom of a glass to mash the graham crackers into crumbs. but, i hear you can also buy the crumbs in boxes if you like.


6. let the chocolate solidify, and they are ready to eat! i laid them down on wax paper because they were too top-heavy to stick in styrofoam or something. voila! let's take another look at them...

Cookie Cake Pie

no, that's not a list of items, it is one single, solitary, satanic item. it's like the turducken of desserts. i saw it on cakespy and immediately started salivating. cakespy, in case you were wondering, is an evil genius. with a blog. evil geniuses are coming into their own in the 21st century, i guess.

anywho, i made two of these suckers and neither one of them lasted long enough to be photographed. so i'll just put cakespy's photos.


looks good, right? oh but wait, there's more...


it's a pie shell with cookie dough in it, then cake batter, then frosted. oh, mah, gaw. cakespy made her own crust and dough, then used boxed cake and frosting. but i went all pre-fab and changed the flavors a bit too. it easily lends itself to such customization.

so, the first one i made, the cake didn't get cooked because my mom took it out too early. she didn't do the toothpick test, but said it just looked done... well, it wasn't, and the center was just warm batter. but of course, that didn't stop us from eating it. it just put me on notice that while the top may look fairly brown, it's not done and it won't burn, so stick to the toothpick test.

alright, down to the nitty gritty. you will need, for one (pre-fab) cookie cake pie:
-1 pie crust
-1 roll of chocolate chip cookie dough
-1 box of yellow cake mix
-1 can of chocolate frosting.

-preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
-defrost your pie crust, put it in a pie tin if it isn't in one already (the frozen crusts are by the fruit and cool whip and come in a pie tin, but the refrigerated ones are by the cookie dough in the grocery store and are just rolled).
-dock the crust (poke the bottom with a fork a few times), just to be safe.
-put the cookie dough in the bottom of the pie crust, about an inch thick. i found it best to break it up into little pieces (think grape or peanut m&m size) and drop them in the crust, and then gently sort of spread/push them together. be careful not to tear the crust. there will be dough left over (about 1/2 to 1/4 of the roll).
-mix up the cake mix according to the directions. pour it in the crust, over the dough. leave a little room for the cake to rise. you'll probably only use about half of it, so use the rest to make a single layer 8" cake, or something.
-bake until it passes the toothpick test (until a toothpick stuck in the middle comes out clean). for me, that was about 40 to 50 minutes. i'd say start checking at about 30 minutes, then every 10 minutes thereafter. it might start looking a little burnt, but unless it's black it's not burnt.
-cool, then frost with about half of the frosting. more if you want (of course), but i used only half so i could use the rest for the 8" cake i had made with the rest of the batter.

YUMMY! some people say it's too sweet, but that doesn't stop them from eating it. but i would advise a tall glass of milk to wash it down.

Carrot Cake Balls

i decided to give the cake balls another go, this time with carrot cake (and cream cheese frosting, of course) because that's what was in the pantry. and i coated them in white chocolate. i did a much better dipping job this time than last. for one, i made the balls smaller, using the larger end of a melon baller instead of just guessing. they held together better when they were smaller. also, i kept the chocolate warm by putting the ceramic bowl on top of a heating pad. i put the heating pad in another bowl to distribute the heat better, and put saran wrap over the heating pad to protect it, and so my dad doesn't get chocolate on his back the next time he uses the heating pad.

also, my technique was just better, in dipping the ball and wiping off excess chocolate and scooting onto the wax paper. i guess it just takes practice. and i drizzled the balls with white chocolate, which helped to camouflage any imperfections.

also this time, though, i made two 8" round cakes instead of one 13x9" cake, using half a can of frosting for each cake. i admit, this was at the request of my mother. she liked the cake balls but thought they were a little too sweet (they are), and being somewhat wary of some of my culinary innovations and experiments, she preferred the tried-and-true regular cake over the cake ball invention.
but that doesn't mean that i just made a plain ol' cake. well, i sort of did. but i added a little embellishment, while i had the white chocolate out for the cake balls. criss-crosses on wax paper...


then stuck into the cake!

sorta looks like it's from a fancy bakery, don't it? sort of. let me make a point here- the criss-crosses are important. if you just do loops (so the lines are all parallel, essentially), they just fall apart. so, criss-cross, people!

here's a piece of cake and some cake balls, before headed over to the neighbor's house.

and, the inside of a cake ball, before meeting its delicious, impending doom in my mouth.

see those little orange bits? carrots, right? wrong. they are "carrot flavored bits," as proudly advertised on the cake box's front! they're carrot powder, sugar, and some other binding stuff. the cake still tasted good, it just didn't really taste like carrot cake. more like a plain spice cake, which was still good, as i said.

Mini Apple Pies Redux

i had extra apple pie filling, and the mini apple pies were so good, and i made so few of them in the first batch, that i decided to make more! this time, i made a crumble topping, which is sooo yummy. also this time, i found the regular pie crusts (which are by the cookie dough and biscuits) instead of the frozen ones in the pie tins. they were bigger, so i could make more mini pies. yay!

other than that, second verse same as the first. pie crust circles, apples from a can, topping (lots of crumble on the bigger ones, mini lattices on the mini ones). baked and checked every ten minutes. voila!


i sort of shot from the hip with the crumble topping. i started with about a quarter cup white sugar and half a cup flour and a few tablespoons butter... then my mom told me you make crumble topping with brown, not white, sugar. oops. so i threw some of that in there too. i think it ended up being like a cup of sugars and a half a cup of flour and a stick of butter. so, of course, i ended up with too much crumble topping. i really piled it on the regular-muffin-sized ones, and still had some left over... also had some leftover apples... and pie crust scraps... what to do?

apple crumble cobbler something-or-other!


an inside peek into the apple crumble cobbler something-or-other:


ok, so i realize it doesn't look that great, but it tasted like, oh man. it was amazing. in a glass pan, i put in the rest of the canned apples, and some fresh ones with some cinnamon and sugar, and put the pie crust scraps on top, and the rest of the crumble (and some cinnamon on top). bake at 350 for like 20 minutes (the check-every-ten-minutes method). it was so good. sort of like a crumbled up pie.

here's all three apple creations together: mini apple pies, micro apple pies, and apple something-or-other:


and, all three with, what else, whipped cream. talk about yummy.

Mini Apple Pies

i was inspired by not martha (via bakerella) to make mini apple pies a few weeks back... i know, i'm a lazy blogger. so, i made them in two sizes, in a regular muffin tin and in a mini muffin tin. and, because i'm also a lazy baker, i used all pre-made ingredients- a can of apple pie filling and frozen pie crust. i couldn't find the regular pre-made pie crust, so i had to get the kind that's already in the pie tin. i let the crust thaw, then laid it out on a cutting board and cut circles out of it, like so...



you can see the little crimps where it was in the pie tin. for the regular muffin size, i used a big ol' can of broth (probably like five inches across), and the cap of my cooking spray for the mini muffin size (about two inches across).



for the regular muffin size, i cut a little wedge out of the crust to make it fit better in the muffin tin. it probably could have stood a little more cut out, but it still helped.



next, just put it in the muffin tin, like so...


then i filled it with canned apple pie filling. as i was doing that, i thought how silly that was because apple pie filling is the easiest thing to do yourself- just cut up apples and sprinkle them with cinnamon and sugar. but, i already had bought two cans of the stuff, so i figured i'd use it. i did have to cut the apple wedges into smaller pieces, though- just sliced them up in the can.

for the tops, i tried to be fancy and make a lattice top. but, i didn't re-roll out the dough (i told you, i'm lazy), so i just used scraps.

here's the unbaked regular muffin tin pies:



and here's the unbaked mini muffin tin pies:



i also didn't use an egg wash to join the lattices to the pie dough cups, nor did i egg wash the tops. all that to say that mine didn't turn out as adorably as bakerella's. but they were still pretty darn adorable (what mini-food isn't?) and were pretty darn delicious.



instructions:
-preheat oven to 375 degrees. grease muffin tins.
-thaw pie dough, cut circles out of it.
-line muffin tins with dough circles, fill with apple pie filling (canned or your own cut apples sprinkled lightly with cinnamon and sugar).
-use scraps to make lattices, put lattices on pie cups and pinch edges of lattice to pie cup.
-bake for about 20 minutes (i checked mine every ten minutes), covering them with foil for the last ten minutes, until golden brown.

overall assessment: delicious and precious! will be making again in the future.

Clean-Out-The-Cupboard Cookies II

i had such great success with the first clean-out-the-cupboard cookies that i decided to try to clean out my cupboards some more by making some more cookies. so i made peanut butter oatmeal cookies... which sound like they might be pretty good. well, let's just say they weren't my best work. they were certainly edible, and were pretty good for breakfast (c'mon, they've got oatmeal, and peanut butter for protein! right?), and were ok if you just really needed some cookies, but they just weren't that good.

here's my recipe, based loosely on this one. this original oatmeal cookie recipe is really, really good... but not so much with the peanut butter.

1/2 c. shortening
1/2 c. peanut butter (crunchy)
2 c. dark brown sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla extract
2 c. flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. cinnamon
2 c. uncooked oatmeal
-cream fats and sugar, mix in rest of wet ingredients. in separate bowl, mix dry ingredients except oatmeal, and add to wet ingredients in about 3 installments (so it doesn't splatter everywhere). then, mix in oatmeal. roll into balls, press slightly and bake about 8 minutes at 350 degrees.

no pictures this time. the cookies weren't worth it.

Clean-Out-The-Cupboard Cookies

so, as i was getting to move into my apartment, i was trying to eat all of my food. i didn't want to move it all, but i also was leaving in may for the summer so wouldn't be able to eat it. so, i made some cookies with whatever i had on hand! the recipe was based on a classic, but of course it was different because i was using whatever i had in my cupboard.

Clean-Out-The-Cupboard Cookies
1/2 c. shortening
1/2 c. butter
1 1/2 c. brown sugar
1 tsp. vanilla
2 eggs
2 1/4 c. flour
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. baking soda
1 c. semi-sweet chocolate chips
1/2 c. white chocolate chips
1/2 c. chopped pecans
-cream butter and sugar, add rest of wet ingredients. in separate bowl, mix dry ingredients then add to wet in about three installments. roll into balls, drop onto cookie sheet, bake at 350 degrees for 8-10 minutes.

these were really good! the brown sugar made it chewy, and the white chocolate chips gave them that extra little sweetness. and the nuts... oh, the nuts... pecans make everything better. i would have preferred more chocolate and nuts in the cookies, but that's all i had in my cupboard (sort of the point of these cookies).

a tip from experience: don't bake the refrigerated dough- let it come to room temperature first. otherwise, it doesn't bake all the way and burns on the bottom... oops.

Irish Cream Sugar Cookies

so, i made the homemade irish cream for the party. but i still had some extra ingredients (like the half-and-half) that i didn't have anything else to do with, so i made some more irish cream, this time with the instant coffee instead of brewed coffee. i recommend the brewed coffee, because the granules didn't really dissolve. anywho, nearing the end of the semester i still had a bunch of the irish cream left over and didn't have anything to do with it... so i made cookies with it! here's the original recipe, but here are my edits:

1 c. butter

1 c. brown sugar

1/2 c. white sugar

1 egg yolk

1 egg

1 c. irish cream

4 c. all purpose flour (i used about half whole wheat and half unbleached white)

1/2 tsp salt

1 tbsp baking powder

-cream butter and sugars, add dry ingredients. refrigerate, then roll into balls. then, and here comes the fancy part, roll in sugar and put on the cookie sheet. then make indentions in the balls (i used the back of my teaspoon measuring spoon) and put a few drops of irish cream in the divet. just a little- if you put too much, it'll spill and burn on your cookie sheet!

i tried to find a way to make them sweeter and more irish-cream-y. i rolled them in white sugar, i rolled them in brown sugar, i rolled them in irish cream and then in sugar, i topped them with brown sugar. the brown sugar and the irish cream caramelized and burned in like 6 minutes. good thing i had put foil on my pan first!

anywho, i decided rolling them in sugar and putting the little bit of extra cream on it makes the cookies sweeter and a little more irish-cream-ier. still, they're not that sweet and not that irish-cream-y. but they were pretty good, and good enough to give away to my professors at the end of the semester. but i probably won't make them again. too much work for too little payoff, since they didn't taste much like irish cream.

and, here's pictures!