What Should I Put In My Cookie?

No, I'm not coming on to you.

Last night, I made Cookie-Stuffed-Cookies. They are amaaaaaaaaazing. *melts* *drools*

So it got me to thinking: what else can I stuff in my cookies? Candy? Chocolate? Bacon?

Leave your ideas in the comments!

I'll take pictures of the experiment for next week's blog!

Uh...

So I did bake this weekend. It was McK's birthday recently and he lurves him some red velvet cake. So I made him 26 red velvet cupcakes, which he ate half of and then got hella sick.

That's the good news. (Except the sick part.)

I totally didn't take any pictures and the whole thing was from boxed mix.

:( Next week! We swears it!

To Make Up For My Long Absence

Here are some websites I totally ADORE and which also have excellent recipes.

thepioneerwoman.com (under COOKING and TASTY KITCHEN)

bakerella.com

picky-palate.com

howsweeteats.com

I'll really really try and post something this weekend!

Love,
Binah the Bold

Flourless Chocolate Cake

This cake is amazing, you guys. It's super simple to make and it tastes like GOD and ALL THE LITTLE ANGELS. Except not literally, that would be weird.

Additionally, I don't have a camera anymore, unless ya'll want me to use my cell phone camera, which is like THIS CLOSE to giving up the ghost anyway. So, you know, use your imaginations.

THE CAKE

You will need:

4 oz bittersweet chocolate (I like using Ghiradelli)

1/2 cup unsalted butter

3/4 cup sugar

3 large eggs

1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder + some extra for sprinkling (because really, who doesn't like sprinkling?) (also, who just happens to have ONLY 1/2 cup of cocoa powder lying around? Totally worth saving some to sprinkle.)

It is worth noting that you will also need parchment paper, some sort of non-stick buttery type item, an 8-inch cake pan, a working oven etc etc etc. I'm going to assume that you do in fact have all these things and skip to the recipe.

1. Oven: 375 degrees.

2. Pan: Buttered/sprayed/nonsticked and lined with a round of parchment paper (or wax paper).

3. Chocolate: Chopped into bits, then melted with the butter and stirred til smooth. The recipe says use a double boiler but we ain't so hoity toity round these parts so I just use the microwave in 30-second increments.

4. Sugar: Whisked into choco-butter-melty-goodness. (Alternately, you can transfer the melty yum into a larger bowl that DIDN'T fit in the microwave and whisk the sugar into it then.)

5. Eggs: Added, whisked, quickly forgotten, never mourned.

6. Cocoa powder: Sifted into batter and mixed until just combined.

7. Batter: Sampled delicately. Sampled again. Wrestled away from cook, then poured into pan and baked in the middle of the oven for 25 minutes.

8. Cake: Cooled for 5 min, then inverted onto a serving plate and dusted with additional cocoa.

9. Hungry people: Devour cake with the enthusiasm of a zombie horde.

Hope you enjoy! Relatively stress-free recipe and also PHENOMENALLY DELICIOUS. Plus, you remember those Got Milk? commercials where the dude eats a big ol hunk of cake and then goes for the milk and there's none and he's like NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! ? Yeah, like that. So you probably want to make sure there's milk handy to go with this puppy.

Love,

TWC

Darling Confectionettes!

Fear not, TWC will return in 2011.

Or maybe you should be fearful, actually, because TWC WILL RETURN IN 2011!!! BWAHAHAHAH.

*ahem*

Ciao til then!
TWC

Cheesecake Bites (assuming you take REALLY big bites)

Okay, not really bites. Cupcakes that don't puff up? Cookie-like cheesecakes? Something like that.

Also, I forgot to take pictures. :(

Here's the original recipe:

• FOR THE CRUST:
• 2 cups Graham Cracker Crumbs
• 1 stick Butter, Melted
• 3 Tablespoons White Sugar
• _____
• FOR THE FILLING:
• 4 packages Full-fat Cream Cheese, Softened At Room Temperature (8 Ounce Packages)
• 3 Tablespoons All-purpose Flour
• 1-½ cup White Sugar
• 1 whole Lemon, Zested (optional)
• 4 whole Large Eggs
• ½ cups Milk
• 8 ounces, weight Full-fat Sour Cream
• ½ Tablespoons Vanilla Extract

This recipe claims to serve 18, but I made 18 cupcake-things AND a small cheesecake (broke in my *new* Springform pan HUZZAH) easy. So maybe it serves 18 fat people. Or maybe you should tweak the recipe yourself because I kind of messed it up beyond belief, anyway.

OKAY SO HERE'S HOW YOU DO IT:
(with notes on how I did it in orange.)

Preheat oven to 350 F. Grease the sides and bottom of a 9″ Springform pan well with shortening. Don't bother preheating until you're done with the crust, don't bother greasing a Springform pan but DO get out some cupcake trays and stick the holders in. Then, later, realize you have A HUGE AMOUNT OF CAKE OMG and hurriedly grease a 6" Springform pan because SURPRISE that's all ya got.

For the crust:
In a medium bowl, mix the graham cracker crumbs with the melted butter and sugar. Press the mixture into the bottom and up the sides of your prepared pan. Now put your pan, uncovered, into the freezer while you’re making the filling. Crush the graham crackers in a baggie with a rolling pan. Spill crumbs everywhere. Curse like a sailor. Repeat. Microwave a stick of butter. Accidentally spill boiling butter all over your potholders and the table. Curse like a sailor. Repeat.

For the filling:
In a large bowl, using an electric mixer, cream the cheese until it’s nice and smooth. You don’t want to have any lumps. Completely ignore the instructions about "room-temperature" cream cheese. Curse at the mixer when the 32 oz of cream cheese all stick to the mixer at once. Turn the mixer off, scrape it down and shudder because EW cream cheese is GROSS.

It’s best to whisk your flour and sugar together first, to prevent any lumps when they’re added to the cream cheese. I totally didn't. Pour them into the cream cheese and mix. Make sure to scrape down the sides of the bowl, add lemon zest, I didn't do this, either. and continue to mix. Make sure you don't mix up the measurements on the flour & sugar and accidentally put in 1 1/2 cups of flour and 3 tbsp of sugar because that would be BAD. Right, kids?? RIGHT. *ahem hem* Also, if there is so much flour that you have to hand-knead the dough to incorporate it, YOU MAY HAVE DONE SOMETHING WRONG FYI.

Mix in the eggs, one at a time, or all at once mixing on low just enough to incorporate. Do not over mix! It's a bomb. If you overmix we are all DOOMED. Also, realize that your filling is extremely lumpy and gross. And then The Mother takes a fingerful and goes "ew," and The Mother LOVES this shit. So re-look at the recipe and go OH FFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU okay don't panic... add 6 tbsp & 1/2 cup of sugar. Blend.

Blend in milk, sour cream, and vanilla extract. Again, do not over mix. Just mix until you get a smooth consistency. Yep yep yep.

Pour filling into prepared crusts and bake.

Baking:
Stick your cupcake tins pan into the preheated oven, turn down the temperature to 250F, and bake for an hour and a half 45 min. The center should still wobble a little. It shouldn’t be pure liquid or completely set. It will be almost completely set. Once it’s done baking, turn the oven off and let it sit on top of the oven for about 30 min for at least an hour (more if you have the time). After about an hour or so, I open the oven door and let it sit for a few more hours. Then stick em in the fridge until you have to run out the door. Share! They are quite good and very rich.

(Recipe found at Tasty Kitchen.)

<3,
TWC

Chocolate Chip Blondies (aka why my thighs are now the size of heifers)

OMG.

OH. EM. GEE.

These are SO. GOOD.

:D

You will need:
1/2 cup butter (1 stick) (use 1/4 cup if you like a brownie-texture instead of a fudge-texture)
1 cup brown sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
Lots of chocolate chips.

STEPPAH HWUN
Butter. Saucepan. Cook on low. Stir stir stir.

STEPPAH TUHWOO
Brown sugar. Stir stir stir.

STEPPAH THUHREE
Remove from heat. Stir stir stir. Cool cool cool. (Mebbe 1 minute of cool time.)

STEPPAH FUHWOR
Add egg, add vanilla, beat it like the Jets in Shark territory.

STEPPAH FUHIVE
Add flour, baking powder & salt. Joy of Cooking wants me to sift but I didn't because THAT'S JUST HOW I ROLL.

STEPPAH SUHIX
Pour in as many chocolate chips as you want. Mix, fold, mix. Dump into well-greased baking pan, bake at 350 for 20 - 25 min (50 min if you used a whole stick of butter).

STEPPAH SEHEVEN
EAT EAT EAT NOM NOM NOM.

Pictures will be up as soon as my computer stops being an asshole.

<3,
TWC