Marathon Cookie Baking

The other day, I baked 380 cookies. Three hundred and eighty. Cookies. I went through four pounds of butter. I ran out of flat surfaces in my house to cool them on. It was absolutely crazy and I loved every minute of it. The purpose of this all-day baking blitz was to make up trays to give to coworkers, neighbors, and family for the holidays. This was the first year that I covered everyone on my own, so it was a real challenge.

Laying everything out was key. I usually grab stuff from the cabinet as I need it, but this was no ordinary baking session. The only problem was that it took up precious counter space, so I ended up covering the dining room table with wax paper and using it for a giant cooling rack. No pictures of that, it was horrible.

I started pretty early in the morning (10:00 AM is super early unless I'm going to work) and I was rotating pans trying to be as efficient as possible. I don't think I'll be doing that again unless I get another timer. My timing scheme that was based on the time of the previous pan broke down disappointingly quickly, so I switched to a single batch at a time in the afternoon.

My (still relatively) new baking stone has been working wonderfully. It makes perfect cookies every time and I think I just might like it more than my trusty tin pans. I know I'm probably ages late in figuring out that stone bakes better than metal. Also, it fit 20 mini Snickerdoodles at a time. That was so awesome.

I also made Peanut Butter Corn Flake Balls again. They're simple, easy, and everyone loves them. You really can't go wrong with these things, it's amazing.


Here's a picture of a tray being assembled. The stack in the back is Salted Oatmeal White Chocolate. They're surrounded by mini Snickerdoodles, with the Peanut Butter Corn Flake Balls in the middle, and Neiman Marcus Chocolate Chip cookies in the foreground on the right. Also there is a horrible box of plastic wrap ruining the picture in the background. Yay for forgetting to set up the picture properly!

Here are a few of the completed trays. I had 13 total, with quite a few cookies left over for my immediate family. They all turned out pretty well, although some were a bit drier than I would have liked. I was afraid of having too few so I doubled each recipe and tried to make the cookies a bit on the small side. This completely backfired. Recipes that supposedly yielded 20-40 (I estimated 30, so 60 when doubled) ended up making 140. More than twice the generous estimate!

My favorite out of the bunch is probably the Salted Oatmeal White Chocolate. They were crispy and chewy, sweet and salty all at the same time, which was really neat. Even though I couldn't find the right kind of sea salt locally (supposed to use the flake kind), it worked out. I'll definitely be adding these to the list of cookies to bake for special occasions.

Here's where I got the recipes:
Salted Oatmeal White Chocolate - Smitten Kitchen
Neiman Marcus Chocolate Chip - Carmen Cooks
Snickerdoodles - Oven Haven

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Red Velvet Cake Balls

A cousin of mine graduated from high school this weekend, and I wanted to bring something sweet to the family get-together afterward. I had seen this recipe on Bakerella a week or so before, and thought they'd be perfect for the occasion.


I will give a bit of a warning: these take a while to make. Plan time to bake the cake, wait for it to cool, actually form the balls (I used my hands to mix in the frosting - worked well but made a mess), chill them, then coat them. Also, my entire kitchen was red from the all the coloring in the cake mix.

Sadly I didn't get any pictures of the actual cake in the middle, but they're quite stunning with the white outside/red inside contrast. Click here for some wonderful pictures and the recipe.

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Deep Dish Pecan Pie

At work, we designate one day a month to celebrate everyone's birthday that falls during that month. Well, one of the guys in our group had a birthday this past week, but was out of town for the party, so I thought I'd bake something. He had mentioned liking pecans before, and I had been wanting to try this recipe anyway, so I thought I'd take the opportunity to try it.

Now, I'd never made a pecan pie before. Well, I'd never even had pecan pie before. So this was all completely new to me. Although, after being horrified at the ingredient list, I came to the conclusion that anything with that much corn syrup in it would have to taste okay.


The pie filling looked pretty gross. You know when you're at a lake or something, and there's a bunch of sticks floating near the shore, and you suddenly change your mind about wanting to go for a swim? That's what the filling reminded me of. So I covered it with pecan halves. I tried to make it look like pictures of pecan pie that I've seen in the past.

Matt from MattBites is a professional. I mean, literally a professional food photographer. I'm a huge fan of his work. But I still have no idea how he got such a clean cut on his pie. It's really amazing, and makes mine look terrible. However, looks don't affect taste, and this tasted awesome. Of course, I didn't really have anything to compare it to, but the guys at work and my parents all thought it was good. Also, I have no idea if whipped cream is a proper topping for pecan pie, but that and some cinnamon was awfully tasty.



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Chocolate Cheesecake

I make a pretty decent cheesecake. Or at least, people tell me I do.


I usually make it plain, with a few different fruit syrups and chocolate to put on top. One time I tried to be a bit different, and made the crust out of crushed Oreos. The end result was okay, but the process involved setting off both the fire and intruder alarms at my parents' house. At ten o'clock at night. That's a story for another time.

For some reason, I just can't help but play around with this recipe. Cheesecake is like a blank canvas - you can add pretty much anything to it, and it'll still be delicious. The cheesecake, not the canvas.

So I decide to alter the filling part and make a chocolate cheesecake. It actually wasn't that hard. I replaced some of the cream cheese with good quality chocolate and added a bit of cocoa powder. The result wasn't too strong, and it maintained the wonderful consistency of the original recipe. I'll provide both below, with the chocolate addition/substitution in parentheses.

New York Cheesecake recipe adapted from JoyOfBaking.

Ingredients:
- Crust

• 2 cups graham cracker crumbs
• 1/4 cup granulated white sugar
• 1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted

- Filling

• Four 8 oz. packages cream cheese, room temperature (3.5 packages)
• 1 cup granulated white sugar
• 3 tbsp. all-purpose flour
• 5 large eggs, room temperature
• 1/3 cup heavy whipping cream
• 1 tsp. pure vanilla extract
• (4 oz. semisweet chocolate, melted)
• (1 tbsp. cocoa powder)

- Topping

• 1 cup sour cream
• 2 tbsp. granulated white sugar
• 1/2 tsp. pure vanilla extract

Recipe:

1. Grease or spray with Pam a 9 inch springform pan. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.
   
2. In a bowl, combine the crust ingredients, stirring well with a fork. Press the crust firmly into the springform pan, going up the sides about an inch. Cover and refrigerate until later.
3. For the filling, put cream cheese, sugar, and flour into a large mixing bowl. Beat on medium speed until smooth (about 2 minutes).
4. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well and scraping down the sides of the bowl after each one.
5. Add the vanilla and whipping cream (and chocolate and cocoa powder if making chocolate cheesecake) and beat until just incorporated. Take care not to overbeat, as that will put too much air into the batter, which can cause the cheesecake to crack while baking.
6. Pour the filling into the springform pan. Place that pan on a larger baking pan with a rim, and bake in the oven for 15 minutes.
7. Lower the temperature to 250 degrees and bake for another hour and a half. The center should look a little wet and the whole thing should still be a bit wobbly.
8. Remove and place on a wire rack to cool.
9. Combine topping ingredients in a small bowl and mix together with a fork. Spread the topping on the cheesecake evenly.
10. Return the cheesecake to the oven to bake for another 15 minutes.
11. Remove and run a knife around the inside of the pan to loosen the cheesecake and help prevent cracking. Let cool, then cover with foil or plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight.
12. Top with fresh fruit or fruit and/or chocolate syrup.
    

The experiment turned out well. The chocolate flavor was pretty subtle, and it tasted sort of like chocolate ice cream. If I were to make it again, I might add more melted chocolate to the filling and see if it tastes a bit stronger.

Peanut Butter Corn Flake Balls

She was right; holy crap, these are amazing cookies. It's a much more fitting name.

These little guys are really easy to make (no baking!) and taste awesome. Not that I don't like to bake or anything (I love baking) but sometimes you just don't want to mess with the oven, you know? All these cookies require from you though is a little bit of boiling, some mixing, and that you get creative (re: messy) with some melted chocolate. I melted it in the microwave. How easy is that?!

Ingredients:

• 1c. granulated sugar
• 1c. corn syrup (I used light, not dark)
• 1 18oz. jar of peanut butter (creamy)
• 6 cups corn flakes
• chocolate to drizzle on top (I used about 4 oz.)

Recipe:

1. Combine sugar and corn syrup in a medium saucepan. Heat over medium-high heat, stirring regularly, until it comes to a full boil.
2. Remove from heat and stir in the entire jar of peanut butter. Yes, the whole jar. I love peanut butter. Mix until the consistency is uniform.
3. Put the corn flakes in a large bowl (make sure you have enough room to stir it all around). Pour the peanut butter mixture over the corn flakes and mix well. Be sure to stir up the bottom of the bowl; I had a lot of peanut butter settle which led to a few cookies being more peanut butter than corn flakes (not that I minded).
4. Using a pair of tablespoons, scoop out the mixture, pack it a bit, and place on wax paper.
5. Melt the chocolate, either in the microwave or in a pot over a larger pot full of boiling water.
6. Drizzle the chocolate over the cookies (I dipped a spoon in the chocolate and used a whipping motion over the cookies. Looks great, but makes for a dirty countertop).
7. Allow time to cool.
   
8. Eat them!

I didn't take too much care to make sure they were completely sealed (or even covered properly) and they were good for a few days. Of course, they were gone before I could test exactly how long they'll keep for.