Chocolate Chip Cookie Cupcakes with Chocolate Frosting

I originally decided to make these cupcakes for the bakesale because they do not need frosting and since they needed to be packaged individually I figured it would save me quite a bit of time not worrying about smudging frosting, but per usual, my sweet tooth got the better of me. I could not resist making these into my own version of Mrs Field's cookie cupcakes. I you have ever had one, then you know why I had to proceed with that direction. If you have not had one, please immediately make these or go out to the nearest Mrs. Field's at once and buy one. Because this is not simply taking cookie dough and baking it in a cupcake tin they are not quite as dense as my original inspiration, but that makes them a perfect pair with the frosting. They are sort of a cakey cookie, and I am sorry, but it would just be in poor taste to serve cake without frosting. In order to keep them a little more tidy for packaging purposes, after they came out of the oven I used the rounded side of a melon baller to smush in a 1/2" well to fill with frosting. After filling the indentation with frosting I continued to swirl it up just a smidge to make them super cute. Since these are for a bake sale I also found the cutest ribbon to finish off the packages that says 'Thank You' to our oh so generous customers. I am still a few weeks away from being able to eat anything like this, but my taste testers were thoroughly impressed, so this definitely goes on the 'make again' list. I just don't know if I will ever get to that list with so many new things I want to try!

Recipe Adapted from Martha Stewart

Cupcake Ingredients (makes 24 cupcakes):

-1 1/2 Cups all purpose flour

-3/4 teaspoon baking powder

-1/2 teaspoon salt

-1 Cup unsalted butter, room temperature

-3/4 Cup sugar

-3/4 Cup light brown sugar

-3 eggs

-1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

-1/2 Cup milk (I used unflavored light soy milk, but non-fat cow's milk would work as well)

-8 oz semi-sweet chocolate chunks

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 375°. Line a standard size muffin tin with cupcake liners.

2. Combine flour, baking powder, & salt. Set aside.

3. At medium-high speed cream together butter and both sugars until pale and fluffy- about 3 minutes. Reduce speed to medium and add eggs one at a time until combined. Add in vanilla.

4.  Reduce speed to low and alternate adding flour mixture and milk in at least two batches. Stir in chocolate chunks by hand.

5. This is where I halt the process and refrigerate the dough for at least 24 hours, but you could also bake them immediately.

6. Fill each cup with 1/4 Cup batter. Bake for 20 minutes or until golden brown. Transfer the tins to wire racks and allow the cupcakes to cool completely in the tins.

7. After the cupcakes have been out of the oven 10 minutes, use your melon baller to push into the tops of the cupcakes to create a 1/2" 'frosting well'.

8. After cupcakes are cooled completely, use a pastry bag to fill/frost the cupcakes.

Dark Chocolate Frostng Ingredients:

- 16 oz semisweet chocolate, finely chopped

-6 Tablespoons Cocoa powder

-6 Tablespoons boiling water

-3 Sticks unsalted butter, just at room temperature (I have had a lot of trouble with my frostings if the butter is too warm)

-1/2 cup confectioner's sugar

-1/4 teaspoon salt

Directions:

1. Melt semisweet chocolate in a double boiler, or glass bowl over a simmering pot of water. Be sure not to let the water boil or touch the bottom of the bowl. Continuously stir over the heat until chocolate is just about smooth. Then remove from heat and stir until smooth. Set this off to the side, stirring occassionaly until completely cooled, about 30 minutes.

2. Stir together the Cocoa powder with boiling water until smooth, set aside.

3. In a mixer on medium-high speed combine butter, sugar, and salt until pale and fluffy, about 3 minutes.

4. On low speed mix in melted chocolate until combined. Beat in cocoa mixture. Scrape down the sides as needed until fully incorporated.

Chocolate Pretzels

I am now the proud owner of the Martha Stewart Cookie book and Martha Stewart Baking Handbook and simply cannot be baking enough these days. With my new kitchen aid mixer I am virtually unstoppable. I have quite a few baking supplies/ingredients left over from all of my holiday candy making so I have been narrowing down my choices by making things that don't require a trip to the grocery store......the snow and freezing temps have also ignited my baking drive a bit. I suppose another factor in my choices is the new year's inspiration to drop a few pounds, but a girl's got to eat and I just can't cut out sweets entirely.


My first recipe for the new year was Martha Stewart's Chocolate Pretzels from her cookie book. although they are shaped like pretzels they remind me much more of a biscuit or biscotti. They are not very sweet and taste best with coffee or tea. They turned out well, but not quite sweet enough for my taste. I much prefer a pretzel covered in chocolate. I could see myself making these again, but only in addition to a variety of other cookies and sweets in order to fill up a tray and add something that breaks up the really sweet things.

Ingredients:
1/4 cup unsweetened Dutch-process cocoa powder
1 teaspoon good-quality instant espresso powder
3 tablespoons boiling water
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon coarse salt
1 large egg
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 large egg yolk
Sanding sugar, for sprinkling (I used some left over sugar sprinkles I had from my christmas sugar cookies)


1. Stir cocoa and espresso powders into the boiling water in a small bowl until dissolved; set aside. Meanwhile, put butter and granulated sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment; mix on medium speed until creamy. Mix in vanilla and salt. Reduce speed to medium-low. Mix in egg, then cocoa mixture. Gradually add flour, and mix until a smooth dough forms. Turn out onto a piece of plastic; pat into a square. Wrap dough, and refrigerate until cold, about 30 minutes.


2. Divide dough into 24 equal pieces. Roll into balls. Shape balls into 12-inch-long ropes. Twist each rope into a pretzel shape. Space 1 inch apart on baking sheets lined with parchment paper.


3. Preheat oven to 325°. Whisk egg yolk with 1 teaspoon water in a small bowl. Brush cookies with egg wash; sprinkle with sanding sugar. Bake cookies, rotating sheets halfway through, until dry, about 35 minutes. Let cool on sheets on wire racks. Cookies can be stored in airtight containers at room temperature up to 1 week.

Nutella Kiss Cookies

This is becomoing an old favorite of mine that I could devour year round, but they always remind me of the holidays.

Ingredients:
-1 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
-1 teaspoon baking soda
-1/2 teaspoon salt
-1/2 cup chocolate hazelnut spread (I used world market's brand, super tasty!)
-1/2 cup butter, softened (1 stick)
-1/2 cup sugar
-1/2 cup light brown sugar
-1 egg
-1 teaspoon vanilla extract
-red and green sugar sprinkles
-1 package Hershey's Kisses (I used candy cane, milk chocolate, and caramel)


Directions:
1.Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.


2.In a medium bowl, combine flour, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.


3.In another medium bowl, place the chocolate hazelnut spread, butter, and both sugars. Using a hand mixer, cream the ingredients together, about 3 minutes. Add the egg and vanilla and blend until incorporated.


4.Stir in the dry ingredients, just until incorporated.


5.Shape the cookie dough into 1/2" balls with a table spoon. Rolls the balls in the sprinkles. Bake for 8 minutes. Remove the cookies from the oven. Quickly place a chocolate kiss in the middle of each cookie. Return the cookies to the oven and bake for another 2 minutes. Cool the cookies on a wire rack.


These were one of the first treats I made for the holidays so after they cooled completely I stored them in an air tight container and put them in the freezer. When I was ready to serve them I place them on the counter overnight with a slice of bread in the container to help soften them up and they were perfect.

1st is the worst, 2nd is the best....

In the past seven days my baked goodies have been in two different competitions. The first was an apple pie bake-off at my office. I think I have only baked one apple pie prior to this so I was pretty nervous. So nervous in fact that I did a trial run earlier in the week just to make sure my skills were up to par. The verdict of the bake-off, 2nd place, losing by 1 measly vote! However, I'm calling it a tie. Later in the day my office manager spilled the beans that she voted for my pie, but then decided not to count her vote. It was also declared that my crust was the best, yay! I think next time around all I would need to do is amp up my filling a bit with some more spices or a surprise.....the winning pie had craisins mixed it, admittedly, it was very tasty.

The second bake-off was a cookie bake-off at Bethaney's clinic. We decided to make S'mores cookies and they were awesome! A little graham cracker added to a simple chocolate chip cookie dough and some marshmallows on top, yum! They were very easy to make, but transporting them from cookie sheet to parchment paper proved to be extremely tricky. The dough really spreads thin and they fall apart if you take them off too quickly, but are really tough to get off the cookie sheet if you wait to long. Something about these cookies being thin and chewy makes them really delicious though. So, this was another 2nd place treat, the winner being some sort of brownie cookie. In my eyes a brownie beats a cookie most of the time so I can't complain, but perhaps I could question whether or not it was cookie enough to be in the competition.

Ah well, I'm a novice at baking and competing in bake-offs so I will take my 2nd places with pride and hope for the best with future entries. Here are a couple of solid delicious recipes:


Apple Pie (adapted from The Elegant Farmer):
Ingredients:
Crust:
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 cup sugar
Pinch salt
1 cup cold unsalted butter (2 sticks), cut into pieces
1/3 cup ice water (I ended up using a couple more tablespoons than this)


Filling:
2 Granny Smith apples/3 Honey Crisp apples, peeled, cored, and thickly sliced
1/2 cup sugar
1 1/2 tablespoons cornstarch
1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 1/2 tablespoons cold unsalted butter, cut into pieces


Directions:
1.Make the Crust: combine the flour, sugar, and salt. Cut in the butter until pea-sized pieces appear. Add the water and continue to cut in a few more times—it will still look crumbly. Transfer the crumbs to 2 pieces of parchment paper or foil and form into 2 disks. Wrap the discs with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight.
2.On a work surface lightly dusted with flour, roll out 1 disk to a circle about 1/8-inch thick. Keep rolling until the circle is at least 2 inches larger than your 9" pan. Line the pie pan with the dough, letting the edge hang over a bit. Roll the second disk, place it on a sheet pan and chill it until you're ready to build your pie.
3.Arrange a rack in the center of the oven and preheat to 375 degrees F.
4.Make the Filling: In a medium bowl, toss the apple slices, sugar, cornstarch, lemon juice, vanilla, cinnamon, salt, and nutmeg together. Transfer to the pie shell and dot with the remaining butter. Brush the overhanging edges of the dough with water. Carefully cover with the rolled-out top crust and pinch the edges together, turning them under all around to make a thick edge. To decorate the rim, press it all around with the back of a fork, or just pinch it to seal. With a scissors, cut a few V-vents in the center.
5. Slide the pie into the brown paper bag and fold the top down. Staple bag shut and place it on a sheet pan. Bake for 1 hour.
6.Remove the pie from the oven and cut a large circle in top of the bag. Return to the oven and bake until the crust is golden brown, about 15 minutes more.


Let the pie cool at least 30 minutes before serving. Serve warm or at room temperature.


 
S'mores Cookies (recipe adapted from Two Peas and Their Pod) makes 4 dozen:
Ingredients:
1-1/2 Cups all purpose flour
1 Cup Graham Cracker Crumbs
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 Cup (2 sticks) butter, room temperature
3/4 Cup Sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 eggs
2 cups mini marshmallows
3 Hershey bars, chopped

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 375°
2. In a medium bowl whisk together the flour, graham cracker crumbs, baking soda, & salt.
3. In a large bowl beat together the butter, sugar, brown sugar, and vanilla until creamy, about 3 minutes. Add the eggs one at a time, beat until combined.
4. Slowly beat in the flour mixture, about 3 additions, until smooth.
5. Drop small tablespoons onto an ungreased cookie sheet.
6. Bake for 8 minutes, remove and push 3-4 marshmallows and 3-4 pieces of chocolate onto each cookie. Place back into oven and bake an additional 3-4 minutes. Remove and cool on parchment paper.

Happy Halloween! Cream Cheese Sugar Cookies

I decided earlier in the week that I really wanted to make cream cheese sugar cookies for halloween and once I decide I want to bake something there is no stopping me.....Not only did I have to purchase a set of 100 cookie cutters to get the pumpkin I wanted, but since I was going to the symphony last night I was also up until 2 am baking and frosting these buggers. They sure are tasty though. It took me a bit to get the cooking time correct, the recipe said 8-10 minutes but each batch took about 12-15. I was also very excited to use my new food coloring gels that I have been hearing so much about, they really do seem to give a richer color and you don't need to use as much. Now I can't wait to make some Christmas cookies with all of my new cutouts!


Recipe's Adapted from Allrecipes.com
Cream Cheese Sugar Cookies
Ingredients
1 cup white sugar
1 cup butter, softened
4 oz cream cheese, softened
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon almond extract
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 egg yolk
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour


Directions
1.In a large bowl, combine the sugar, butter, cream cheese, salt, almond and vanilla extracts, and egg yolk. Beat until smooth.
2.Stir in flour until well blended.
3.Chill the dough for 8 hours, or overnight.
4.Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C).


On a lightly floured surface, roll out the dough 1/3 at a time to 1/8 inch thickness (I prefer a little thicker cookie than this), refrigerating remaining dough until ready to use. Cut into desired shapes with lightly floured cookie cutters. Place 1 inch apart on ungreased cookie sheets.


Bake for 12 to 15 minutes in the preheated oven, or until light and golden brown. Cool cookies completely before frosting.

Icing
Ingredients
2 C Confectioner's Sugar
6 teaspoons milk
4 teaspoons light corn syrup
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
food coloring

Directions
1. In a small bowl mix together sugar and milk until smooth. Add additional milk 1/4 teaspoon at a time if needed.
2. Stir in corn syrup and almond extract and mix until smooth and glossy. Separate into smaller bowl and add food coloring.

Nutella Kiss Cookies

One of my favorite cookies has always been the peanut butter blossom, but since I try to stay away from peanut butter these days (due to the migraines they inflict) and I love nutella I thought I would try these cookies with a bit of a twist. They are also a pretty dense cookie so I thought they would travel well. I made a double batch (which ended up being 100 cookies, whoops!) and sent some off to the bike & builders, brought some into work, AND had extra to bring to Molly for the 4th of July in St. Louis. This ended up being a pretty wet dough, so it helped with the handling to place the dough in the refrigerator for a bit before forming the balls and rolling in the sprinkles (green and gold sprinkles to send my love the green bay way). I also used a mix of caramel kisses and regular milk chocolate for a bit of a twist. The caramel kisses are a little delicate and cracked on quite a few, so I might try rolos next time. I think these could also be really cute with the red/white peppermint kisses around the holidays. I found this great recipe at Food Network from Giada De Laurentiis.

Ingredients:

-1 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
-1 teaspoon baking soda
-1/2 teaspoon salt
-1/2 cup chocolate hazelnut spread (I used world market's brand, super tasty!)
-1/2 cup butter, softened (1 stick)
-1/2 cup sugar
-1/2 cup light brown sugar
-1 egg
-1 teaspoon vanilla extract
-1/2 cup orange sprinkles, or orange sugar
-1 (9-ounce) package of chocolate candy kisses (use any kind you like, i think they would all work)

Directions:

1.Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.
2.In a medium bowl, combine flour, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.
3.In another medium bowl, place the chocolate hazelnut spread, butter, and both sugars. Using a hand mixer, cream the ingredients together, about 3 minutes. Add the egg and vanilla and blend until incorporated.

4.Stir in the dry ingredients, just until incorporated.
5.Shape the cookie dough into walnut-sized balls. Rolls the balls in the sprinkles. Place the cookies on a heavy cookie sheet about 4 inches apart. Bake for 8 minutes. Remove the cookies from the oven. Quickly place a chocolate kiss in the middle of each cookie. Return the cookies to the oven and bake for another 2 minutes. Cool the cookies on a wire rack.

Bethaney's Butterscotch Thins

Bridget and Bethaney are headed up to camp for the summer (as camp nurses, not campers) so I decided to give them a delicious send off. To start I made a caprese salad and cheated with a pre-made caesar salad. I did get a little fancy and made a chicken pesto pizza for the main course. Since no send off dinner is complete without dessert, I made Bethaney's favorite cookies from Baking Bites- butterscotch thins. The first time I made these it was almost a complete loss. Although the dough was delicious, they stuck to the wax paper I used and there seemed to be such a short window where they were the perfect consistency for transport to wire racks before sticking to the paper. I had to try this again since I have never seen Bethaney as upset as when she found out I threw out the cookie casualties that I couldn't get off the paper. I didn't change much this time around aside from using parchment paper instead of wax paper and that helped tremendously. Who knew they were so different? obviously not me. Lesson learned. As you can see from the photo, I still ended up with a lot of misshapen, not so pretty cookies, I can't help but wonder what the secret is to getting these to look as good as they taste. I tried baking them longer, letting them sit longer before transporting, using larger scoops of dough thinking if they were thicker maybe they wouldn't be so delicate, but none of those seem to be the trick. I think the next time I try to make them I might add a bit more flour. I don't think I'm selling these cookies all that well, but Bethaney has claimed that these cookies are her favorite dessert she has ever had and I have to agree that there is something so unexpectedly delicious about them. So, give 'em a try, and PLEASE let me know if you have any luck with creating pretty butterscotch thins.

butterscotch, toffee, name for favorite add-in, oatmeal cookies

I'm starting to get really excited any time I have an actual event to bake for. I think the initial appeal of having a baker around is wearing on my roommates and co-workers....we do have waistlines to watch afterall. Last night I went to see the Gipsy Kings with a group of friends/co-workers at Ravinia, so I of course offered to bring a dessert to share, along with the veggies and hummus, but I got too lazy to make home-made hummus, so nothing to blog about there. Oatmeal butterscotch cookies always tend to be a crowd pleaser, so I decided to make half the batch with butterscotch and then mix it up at make the other half with toffee chips. The butterscotch were the clear winner. I think I can improve upon the toffee by mixing in some chocolate chips too, they were good, not great and I just can't be going around passing out less than great baked goods. I find the recipe on the inside cover of quaker oats oatmeal to be the best, however, these cookies tend to spread a little too much for my liking so I might think of decreasing the butter by a bit the next time I make them.

Ingredients:
-1/2 pound (2 sticks) butter
-1 cup firmly packed brown sugar
-1/2 cup granulated sugar
-2 eggs
-1 teaspoon vanilla
-1-1/2 cups all purpose flour
-1 teaspoon baking soda
-1 teaspoon cinnamon
-1/2 teaspoon salt
-3 cups oats
-1 cup butterscotch, toffee, chocolate chips, raisins (whatever you think would be delicous)

Instructions:
1. Heat oven to 350°F
2. Beat together butter and sugars until creamy
3. Add eggs and vanilla
4. Add combined flour, baking soda, cinnamon and salt; mix well
5. Stir in oats and butterscotch until well combined
6. Drop rounded tablespoon fulls on ungreased cookie sheets
7. Bake 10-12 minutes, or until golden brown
8. Cool 1-2 minutes on cookie sheet; remove to wire rack

Andes Candy Mint Chocolate Cookies

My good friend Claire is biking across the country this summer (http://www.bikeandbuild.org/) and before she left I promised I would send many goodies to keep her going for over 4,000 miles. Her first mail pick up is tomorrow, so I made some of my favorite cookies to send her way. The first time I was graced with these cookies was from my freshman year college roommate's mom, but it was just this year that I decided to make them on my own. I love these pieces of heaven because there are not many ingredients, they taste delicious, this recipe makes a ton, and I think people think they are a lot of work even though they are so easy! This is my first experience shipping any sort of home made goodie, so I hope they make it, and the bikers can enjoy a sweet treat (or just Claire, but I sent over 40, so I hope she shares)!

Ingredients:

-2 packages Andes Mints (28 mints in each)

-¾ cup butter

-½ cup of brown sugar

-2 tablespoons water

-1 package (12 oz) semisweet chocolate chips

-2 large eggs

-2 ½ cups of all-purpose flour

-1 ½ teaspoon baking soda

Instructions:

1. Unwrap mints & set aside. In a saucepan, heat & mix together the butter,sugar & water. Add the chocolate chips and stir to partially melt. Remove from the heat andcontinue to stir until melted.

2. Pour into a bowl, let cool for 10 minutes. Beat in the eggs @ high speed. Add the remaining ingredients & beat to blend.

3. Chill the dough for 1 hour (at least). Line baking sheets with foil. Roll the dough into small balls(about 1” diameter). Bake @350° F for 10-12 minutes. Place a mint on each cookie as you remove them from the oven. Once candies have melted, spread with the back of a spoon.

4. Remove cookies from the cookie sheet.

5. Unless you have a ton of counter space, I suggest placing the cookies in the freezer for a few minutes to set the chocolate so you can store them.

Oodles of Doodles Sandwich Cookies

Considering I am still thinking about the delicious cinnamon sugar crepe that I had while in Austin I decided to share the wealth and make some snicker doodle cookies inspired by the crepes. I made Betty Crocker's lighter recipe for the snicker doodles. That way I don't have to feel too bad about sandwiching 2 together and adhering with a delicious cream cheese frosting. I used Martha Stewart's cream cheese frosting recipe as an homage to my brother who has been going through the 'Martha Stewart Baking Book' page by page for over a year. As an added touch I sprinkled some toasted coconut into the frosting while making the cookies. I think it adds the perfect flavor to make these a little more special than your average cookie. I personally think that coconut is delicious, although I know plenty of people that beg to differ, so for those crazy folks I left some cookies without the addition.