I made cookies.

So, Wednesday is Halloweeeeeeeeeeeen. Which is my most favorite of holidays to truly celebrate. In honor of this holy day I made spider web cookies.

These fuckers were a pain in the ass. I imagine they would've been less of a pain in the ass if I hadn't made a thousand million of them. Such is my weekly plight.


Anyways, they are simple chocolate cookies:

3 cups all purpose flour
1 1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 1/2 cups (3 sticks) unsalted butter
2 1/2 cups confectioner's sugar
2 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract

I rolled these out to about 1/8 inch and cut out spider webs with a knife free hand, they probably have cookie cutters but I wanted different shapes and sizes and I am a control freak so I hand drew them all with my awesome little green knife.
Then I baked them at 350 for 10 minutes. They don't look too different after baking so you have to be careful that they have baked long enough.

With some simple icing:
2 large egg whites, beaten until stiff
4 cups confectioner's sugar
1 lemon, juiced

Then I melted some delicious bittersweet chocolate and piped it onto the cookies in a spiral. And then I took a toothpick and drew it from the center to the edges and then from the inner curves back to the center.
And then I waited for them to harden.
And then I stacked them all on my spider web plate.
And then I decided that, while they taste fairly decent, not great, but not bad (especially for plain cut outs), they look fucking awesome. And looks are way more important.



By the way,
Mo' Birthdays, Mo' Problems..
Or, if you prefer,
Another Week, Another Birthday.
Tomorrow is Paul's birthday. I made him a birthday cookie anyway.
And I forgot to take a picture of it before wrapping it all up and sticking it in my fridge so you also get a super special sneak peak at approximately 3 items in my fridge. But more importantly, I am pretty happy with how his birthday cookie turned out. I think my m&m candles are pretty rockin'!!!! Am I right or AM I RIGHT?!?!


P.S. I am going to be a vampire for Halloweens. And I am totally wearing my fangs all day at work on Wednesday. It's subtle, yet bold.

Ginger Cookies Drizzled With Lame.

So these are ginger cut-out cookies drizzled with bittersweet chocolate.
And here is how it goes:
Oh man! These cookies are so cute! I bet they are super delicious as well! I will taste one!
Oh man! I just tasted one and it was not too fantastic! I hear these are supposed to be ginger, but I can't taste that too much! And should they really be that crisp?! At least they look good, though! Because that's what is truly important!



I did have one triumph this evening:

Today was Steve's birthday and I definitely forgot to make this wonderful birthday cookie for him yesterday evening. Because I was way too busy watching The Lost Boys. So I made it tonight and it is glorious. I had to bake the cookies in 9 inch springform pans. So not only is it glorious, it is also gigantasaurus. And that's chocolate cream cheese filling & topping. And a sad attempt at spelling Happy Bday in m&ms. Those fuckers are hard to write with. And apparently in real people size my photo is blurry. Which is a bummer. Just imagine how beautiful it is because I am way too lazy to take another picture. And yes those are mini semisweet chocolate chips scattered around the m&ms!!!



Post Cookie Update:

So my work peoples seemed to enjoy the cookies and they grew on me over time. Not literally grew on me, that would be weird.

Double Chocolate Coconut Cookies!

Yo! So I was browsing my mom's cookbook shelf and decided to take a gander at The New England Table. In it I found a number of glorious recipes including one for Double Chocolate Coconut Cookies. I altered it slightly, less coconut & more chocolate chips, semisweet chips instead of milk chocolate chips, and light brown sugar instead of dark brown. Not too much. But enough that they are even more delicious than Vermont could ever have imagined.
I got an early start on my cookies so I wouldn't have to mix while watching Heroes. Because Heroes is wonderful and I want Bennet, The Man In The Horn-Rimmed Glasses, to be my dad. I am kind of bummed that Nathan shaved his beard, though. He looked ridiculous with it but in the most wonderful way.

So, anyways,
2 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
2/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
2 sticks (1 cup) unsalted butter
2/3 cup granulated sugar
2/3 cup light brown sugar
2 large eggs
1 1/4 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups sweetened flaked coconut
1 1/2 cups semisweet chocolate chips

1. Combine butter and sugars. Add eggs one at a time. Mix in vanilla.
2. Add cocoa powder to butter mixture slowly.
3. Sift together flour, baking soda and salt then add to butter mixture.
4. Fold in coconut and chocolate chips.
5. Place on cookie sheets in mounding tablespoons, at least 1 inch apart. Bake 11-13 minutes at 350.

Now I don't usually talk up my cookies, especially before anyone else has even had one, but these are fucking amazing. They're super dense little cookies with just enough coconut and gooey chocolate. They're not overly sweet but they are definitely rich.

Also, Mr. Flying Teen High School is slightly less creepy than last week but still skeeves me out a little. Skeeves being a technical term, of course.

Snicker scoodlie hoodlie doodlies.

These cookies are actually just plain old Snickerdoodles. Not Snicker scoodlie hoodlie doodlies. But that name is far more exciting.

These cookies have disappointed me. Greatly. I am thinking that a more exciting name will make this less apparent.

I have never made Snickerdoodles. Or eaten them. Or seen them in person. So perhaps they turned out exactly as they should. But I am skeptical.


Hopefully they are mighty tasty. I haven't had the heart to even try one. Draaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaamatic.

Hamburger Cookies!

1. I am a ridiculous idiot. I will tell you a tale about this in a bit.
2. These are actually called no-bakes. But that is boring and lame. When my big brother and I were wee children we decided these so called 'no-bakes' most definitely looked like hamburgers and hamburger cookies was a much more suitable name. Thus they are hamburger cookies to me and mine.
3. Because I went out to dinner tonight and then watched Heroes I had to make a quick cookie so I would not be up until the late hours of the evening. Because I am up until the late hours of the evening far too often and need to cut back on this. Also, I love my hamburger cookies and do not make them very often. And it's my motherfucking birthday so I'm making cookies I like.


Recipe!
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter
2 cups sugar
1/2 cup milk
4 tbsp cocoa powder
1/2 cup peanut butter (I use chunky but it doesn't technically matter I guess. Chunky is supreme, though.)
1 tsp vanilla extract
3 cups rolled oats

Bring butter, sugar, milk & cocoa powder to a boil and boil for exactly one minute! Then add peanut butter, vanilla & oatmeal. Mix it all together real quick and then spoon mixture onto parchment paper. Let cool. Plate. Serve.

Now, back to 1. As you see in the recipe you must boil that deliciously sugary mixture. And mix it together real quick. Well, I was adding the peanut butter to the boiling sugary mixture and got a little overzealous and sent boiling sugary mixture down onto the floor. Onto my toes. And being the fool I am I did not immediately think, "Put down the pot and stick your foot under cold water!" I thought, "I must keep mixing these cookies and spoon them onto the parchment paper before they get too cool!" As I was spooning these bad boys I could feel my toes blistering. By the time I was done and put the pan in the sink to soak, 3 of my toes had fully blistered and the skin had started peeling off. I ran my foot under cold water for a little while but realized I had kind of missed the boat on that one. So I threw some ice in a bag and now have that resting on my foot while I am updating my cookie blog!

So, to summarize, I am a fool. And I put my cookies' safety above my own. But those fuckers are tasty, man.

All Growed Up.

Today is my 20th birthday. Which means I am old. It also means that certain peoples made me a Johnny Cash cake for my birthday. Which means awesome.

This is the blog-o-maniac who made my cake and she put up some rockin' pictures:
http://bittersweetlane-cherish.blogspot.com
Spoiler: You will see a ring of fire.



Also, I added to the link October's charity. We're donating to Second Harvest Heartland again. We donated to this charity a few months ago but it's really genuinely awesome and should get some more. The way they use their money is really amazing and they do some fairly sweet things with it. So you should click on that October's Charity link. You should.