Milk & Cookies

For Serious? I am highly skeptical of these cookies...

Zoe is gone. She left me…

Well, I guess I don’t need to be so dramatic… she will be back in two weeks. While she is off playing physics-genius in Brazil, I have the whole kitchen to myself. Yep, a deprived meat-eater suddenly has the freedom to cook anything he wants. This could be trouble…

After my first steak and potatoes meal in well over a year, I was looking online for an interesting cookie to make this week and I stumbled upon this crazy creature: Joy’s Peanut Butter Bacon Cookies. Now, I’ve tried chocolate bacon before under the pretense “It’s Chocolate + Bacon…. how could it go wrong?”. Well, I hated it. But, Joy has rarely steered me wrong with her cookie recipes. After some waffling, I decided that if I ever wanted to give it a shot, this was the time to do it. So here goes… cookies + bacon…

INGREDIENTS (makes 12-15 cookies)

• 6 slices of bacon
• 1 cup Peanut Butter (all natural)
• 1/2 cup light brown sugar
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 tspn baking soda

DIRECTIONS

Start with the bacon. Cook it up in a skillet like normal, until its nicely cooked. Let it cool on a plate with some papertowels to absorb the extra grease. Then chop it up into bacon bits and set it aside.

Preheat your oven to 350F, and line a tray with parchement paper.

Combine the peanut butter and both types of sugar in a mixing bowl. Mix em’ together for about 2 minutes. Add the egg and baking soda and mix for another 2 minutes. The dough stays crumbly so it doesn’t really mix very well. Just keep going until you either get tired of it, or it looks mixed enough. Lastly, fold in the bacon by hand. That’s your dough.

Making the dough into balls is the most difficult part about these cookies. It’s messy, and the dough really doesnt want to stick together very well. Just dive in and get your hands dirty. Make the dough into ~1.5″ balls (ping pong ball size). Optionally, you could roll the balls in extra granulated sugar if you want. I did not. Place the balls a few inches apart on the tray and use a fork to mash them down a bit. Crisscross the tops or go crazy and make your own pattern!

Bake the cookies for 9-10 minutes. Then let them cool for a few minutes before transfering them to your belly.

So, are they good? I don’t know yet… I am not eating mine until cookie time.

Devils Food was actually sent from heaven.

Devil’s Food is one of my favorite desserts of all time. Right up there with cheesecake, blueberries, and dark chocolate. Zoe stumbled upon the following recipe on the internet and it was so simple and easy, I knew that I was going to have to try them sooner or later. Well, sooner won.

We have both been so busy with work/school that it has been getting difficult to maintain the motivation to keep making cookies every week. Recipes like this one are perfect because they don’t require a big time commitment, or a bunch of ingredients, so really there is no excuse not to make them. Yes, I am talking to you…. go make them!

The results of this week’s baking experiment are below:

INGREDIENTS (makes 25-30 cookies)

• 1 box devils food cake mix (18.25 oz.)
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup powdered sugar
• …thats it?
• yep. crazy simple!

DIRECTIONS

Preheat your oven to 375°F and prepare a baking tray with parchment paper.

Mix (by hand) the cake mix, eggs, and oil together in a large mixing bowl. Whew, these cookies are so complicated! There you go, stick that dough in the fridge for 15-30 minutes while your oven heats up.

Put the powdered sugar in a small bowl. Now start scooping the dough into ~1″ diameter balls. I prefer my cookies a little larger so don’t worry about them being a bit big. The larger dough balls will actually crack better during the cooking. Take each ball and roll it around in the powdered sugar. Try to get them as coated with sugar as you can. Place them a couple of inches apart on the baking tray. I was able to get 15 cookies on one tray, but they were just starting to touch, so maybe 12 is better.

Bake the cookies for 8 minutes. If you overcook them they will be a bit dry (like the edges of brownies) which some people seem to prefer, but not me. Let them cool for a minute before moving them to your serving plate. These cookies are so fast and easy that I think you should serve them right away. If you want some more later, just make some more then!

Seriously, don’t forget the milk with these bad boys. They go together like…. well, like milk and cookies, but you know, like, to the extreme!

Whats black and white and red all over?

Baking ritual part II. Scotch. As I mentioned before, nothing is as good as turning up the music and tuning out the world. As a part of that goal, I love to have a glass of scotch while I make cookies. Somehow music, a smooth scotch, and baking unite to form a trifecta of awesome that turns my kitchen into a temporary sanctuary from the world. I suggest that you try it, at least once.

These cookies come (yet again) from Joy the Baker. The results of this week’s baking experiment are below:

INGREDIENTS (makes 10 huge cookies)

For Cookies:

• 1 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 Tbls cocoa powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 5 Tbls butter, at room temperature
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 Tbls red food coloring
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1/2 cup buttermilk

For Vanilla Glaze: (OR VANILLA FROSTING)

• 2 cups powdered sugar
• 1 tsp light corn syrup
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 Tbls hot water

For Chocolate Glaze:

• 4 ounces semi-sweet chocolate
• 3 Tbls butter
• 1 Tbls light corn syrup

DIRECTIONS

Preheat your oven to 350°F and prepare a couple of baking trays with parchment paper.

Now, I needed to make cookies for more than 10 people so I doubled this recipe. I don’t recommend this. These cookies are HUGE, and you can get away with just making more smaller cookies if you so desire. Anyways, lets get started. Stir together the flour, cocoa, salt, and baking soda in a medium bowl. Set it aside for now.

In another medium bowl, beat together the sugar and softened butter until fluffy (~3 min).  Then add in the egg, vanilla, and food coloring and beat until well mixed.  Next, slowly incorporate the buttermilk and the flour mixture beating them in until the whole thing is smooth.  Nice red dough huh?

Now start spooning 1/4 cup scoops of dough onto the baking trays.  Spread them around a bit with a spatula so that they are nice and round.  The dough tends to want to puddle anyways, so it shouldnt be to hard.  Leave 2″ gaps between cookies, as these suckers will expand.  These cookies will be very large.  I was only able to get 6 per cookie tray without them merging during the baking process.

Bake the cookies for 12-15 minutes or until they pass the toothpick test. Let the cookies cool and then set them aside until you are ready to glaze them.

The vanilla glaze is very easy to make…just combine the powdered sugar, vanilla, corn syrup, and water in a bowl and mix it together with a fork (or whisk). The glaze immediately begins hardening and crystallizing so make sure you are ready to put the glaze on right away. I made the mistake of letting mine sit on the counter for a while and when I went to use it, it was virtually un-spreadable. Alternatively, you could use vanilla frosting from a mix. I would like to try this recipe again later and try that, as I felt this glaze was way too sweet.

The chocolate glaze is made by melting the chocolate and butter together in the microwave. Then add the corn syrup and mix it a little bit more. Voila!

Spread the glazes onto the cookies 1/2 and 1/2 with a butter knife or a spatula. Then pop the cookies into the fridge for 20+ minutes to set the glaze. These cookies can be very beautiful, but its not actually that easy. Maybe a few more tries and I can get it right. Thanks for reading…