Kahlua and Chocolate Cupcakes with Ganache

In college, my roommates and I were friends with a gal who claimed to make the best chocolate cake.  Not just a really good chocolate cake, or a superb chocolate cake, but the absolute best chocolate cake.  I admit to being skeptical.  I had no doubts about this girl's baking ability.  Another mutual friend had vouched for the deliciousness of said cake.  But with so many chocolate cakes out there, how could any one recipe truly be the best?

Fig, Almond, and Peach Breakfast Cake

  

Growing up, there was one snack food in particular that simply didn't appeal to me: Fig Newtons.  As a kid, I didn't like the texture of dried fruit and I couldn't understand how something as mildly sweet as a Fig Newton could be called a "cookie."  That just seemed like false advertising to me.  I can't have been the only one, right?  Fig Newtons just weren't as exciting as chocolate chip cookies, or graham crackers, or even 'Nilla Wafers. 

I still dislike Fig Newtons, but I've come to appreciate figs themselves in their dried form.  And just recently, I've started to enjoy fresh figs, as well.  This was the first year that I remembered fig season early enough to get my hands on some fresh figs.  I was not disappointed.  Fresh figs are both beautiful and delicious.  The exterior is a deep purple, almost black.  And when you cut into them? The fruit is the color of wine, rimmed in creamy ivory and studded with golden-hued seeds.  I really can't think of another fruit that is quite as pretty.  And if the figs are at the peak of ripeness, they will be exquisitely juicy and flavorful.   



Batch 7: Medical/Doctor-Themed Cookies

Hi, there!  Hope you all had a great weekend!

One of my younger brothers recently started his first year of medical school.  Unfortunately, I wasn't able to attend his white coat ceremony due to the distance.  However, I wanted to send him a little something to let him know that I was thinking of him and cheering him on.  Since I've been on a sugar cookie baking spree recently, medical-themed cookies were the obvious answer.

Birthday Cake Truffle Recipe (inspired by Momofuku Milk Bar)

I have a confession: Although I have lived in the greater New York area for five years, I haven't been to any of David Chang's ten NYC restaurants.  Not to Noddle Bar, or Ssäm Bar,  or Ko, or Má Pêche or even any of the Milk Bar locations.  For someone who claims to love food, that's a pretty terrible record. 

However, I have had the chance to enjoy a famous B'Day Cake Truffle from Momofuku Milk Bar.  The truffles are small treats no larger than the size of a donut hole.  But one bite was enough to convince me that I shouldn't wait much longer before making a dedicated trip to Milk Bar.     

Until I make that long-awaited trip, I thought I would try whipping up a batch of birthday cake truffles at home.  Luckily, a few other bloggers had already done some research into this very topic.  I found the recipe for the cake and cake crumbs on The Baker Chick, and my process for making the truffles is very similar to the one shared by Bake Like a New Yorker.  I made a few adaptations, such as adding oreo cream and decreasing the amount of cream cheese.  I also substituted rainbow nonpareils for the regular rainbow sprinkles.  It was a minor change that had a pleasant result: when I added the nonpareils, the batter turned a delightful shade of light pink.    

Basic Sugar Cookie Recipe

After making my very first batch of sugar cookies earlier this summer, I've rolled, cut, baked, and decorated about 350 sugar cookies.  Wow- that's a lot of cookies!  I still feel like a rookie when it comes to decorating sugar cookies, but I feel like I could bake them in my sleep. I've learned that, like many things, cookie making is all a matter of practice. 

Ultimate Ice Cream Sandwich

My husband and his younger brother are quite different from each other in many regards. They look different, have divergent interests, and have unique skill sets. As an amusing example, my husband drives a compact car, while my brother-in-law drives a pick-up truck. My husband's car could likely fit in the bed of his brother's pick up truck, with room to spare.  You get the idea.  

 

 As different as they are, they agree on one thing: these brothers love oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. For years, each of them has requested that I bake oatmeal chocolate chip cookies on their respective birthdays.  I've been using the same recipe since eighth grade, and it's a keeper.  My brother-in-law's birthday was last week and this year, I decided to change up the routine.  What if I were to incorporate the cookies into decadent, homemade ice cream sandwiches?  Two chewy cookies would surround vanilla bean ice cream rippled with a bittersweet fudge ribbon. As Ina Garten would say, "how bad can that be?" 

Peach Cupcakes with Raspberry Buttercream

Sometimes, I am so determined to try a new recipe that I ignore the fact that I am missing some of the ingredients or some of the recommended kitchen appliances.  There’s a little voice inside my head that chirps, “Must try this recipe. Now!  Make this now! Right NOW!  Why aren’t you walking towards your kitchen yet?”  I’m a bit stubborn in this regard.  Once I’ve decided to make a recipe, there’s little that can stop me – even if I have to substitute about half of the ingredients.  I know I should go out and buy whatever it is that I’m missing.  But more often than not, I try to make do with what I have on hand.  Sometimes the results are disastrous.  And sometimes – like with these cupcakes – the result is a pretty tasty concoction. 

Batch 6: Citrus Sugar Cookies

After making the Hawaiian shirt cookies in the last post, I had quite a bit of leftover lime green, yellow, and orange icing.  I wasn’t sure what to do with it, but I couldn’t bring myself to dump that much icing down the drain, either.  The excess icing had already been poured into squeeze bottles, so I just stashed them in the fridge and decided to figure out a plan later.

The next day, I had an epiphany: I had seen a tutorial by Marian on Sweetopia for citrus-themed sugar cookies.  What better way to use up a bunch of lime green, lemon yellow, and orange icing? (I’m aware that the word “epiphany” should probably be reserved for topics more serious than sugar cookies.  But it felt like an epiphany at the time, so I’m comfortable with my word usage).   Since I had so much extra orange icing, I decided I could even add a few drops of red food coloring and create blood oranges.  Cute!   

Batch 5: Hawaiian Shirt Sugar Cookies

A few weekends ago, my husband's aunt and uncle invited us to stay with them at their vacation home.  Awesome, right?  I thought it would be nice to bring some vacation-themed munchies to thank them for their hospitality. 


I had seen a Hawaiian shirt tutorial on The Sweet Adventures of Sugar Belle that was a great source of inspiration.  Honestly, this might be one of my favorite sugar cookie tutorials ever.  The hibiscus flower design looks really intricate and complicated, right?  However, the flowers are created using an unbelievably simple wet-on-wet technique.  What's "wet-on-wet" decorating?  Well, it's basically when you create a design with two or more colors of wet flood icing.  Using toothpicks, you manipulate the icing into a design while it's still wet.  What could be better than that?  It's one of my preferred techniques because of its efficiency and ease.  The more detail you're able to incorporate with flood icing, the less detail you need to add later with piping icing.  Major time saver. 


As  you may have noticed from the post title, this is my fifth batch of sugar cookies.  My cookie decorating skills still have tons of room for improvement at this point, but I'm starting to feel more comfortable with each batch I make.  Trial and error really is a great process.  Here is what I learned with this batch:

Batch 4: Wedding-Themed Sugar Cookies

I have a really special set of cookies to share today.  These were part of a wedding gift to my brother and new sister-in-law, who were married in July (hi, newlyweds!).  I made wedding dresses, bridesmaid dresses, bow ties, wedding shoes, with a few hearts thrown in, just for good measure.  To make these extra special and personal, I thought the cookies should look like the actual wedding attire.  I wanted these cookies to be a surprise so I tried to avoid directly asking the couple questions about their attire.  I already knew what the wedding dress and bridesmaid dresses looked like.  With the help of the bride’s sister, I was able to find out the color of the bow tie and color of the wedding shoes, as well. 

Batch 3: Patriotic Fourth of July Sugar Cookies

After making flower cookies for my last two batches of sugar cookies, I was looking forward to trying a few different cookie cutters.  The Fourth of July presented the perfect opportunity.  I realize that posting these cookies in August doesn’t seem as seasonally appropriate as it would have been in July.  However, I think there’s something fun about patriotic displays any time of the year. 

When I made the bridal shower favors, I got lucky with cool weather.  Such was not the case when I made these cookies.  In fact, the temperature in our kitchen was 86-88 degrees, before I turned the oven on.  We live in a 1920s apartment without central air conditioning.  At the time, we did not have an air conditioner in our kitchen.  Have you ever tried rolling out cookie dough in an 86 degree room?  Plain and simple, it's nearly impossible even if you've chilled the dough for a few hours.  The dough might be perfectly cool and firm as you roll it out.  However, it warms and softens so quickly that no amount of flour can prevent it from sticking to the table or to the cookie cutters.  You may manage to cut a clean shape, but then the challenge becomes transferring the cut dough from the table to the cookie sheet without the shapes melting and warping beyond recognition.    

 

Batch 2: Flower Sugar Cookie Favors

 

 

When I started decorating these cookies for my sister-in-law’s bridal shower, I had a great source of inspiration.  See, the bride’s sister is a graphic designer and had created a lovely invitation.  My goal was for the cookies to resemble the flowers on the invitation.  Isn't that a gorgeous invite?

 

 

Rolling and cutting the dough was a breeze with this batch.  We were blessed with a cool spell on the weekend when I planned to bake all these cookies.  The temperature was about 15 degrees below average, and it created the perfect dough-rolling conditions.  Given the large number of cookies I was making, I baked most of them ahead of time so that, in the final days before the shower, I could focus exclusively on decorating.  The cookies were wrapped and frozen for about a week before decorating, and I didn’t notice any impact on the taste or texture.  (You can also freeze the dough before rolling and baking.  I’ve done this many times).
 

Batch 1: Flower- and Cake-Shaped Sugar Cookies

In the pursuit of improving my pastry-rolling skills, I decided to start with decorated sugar cookies.  I considered starting with various fruit pies since I’d had such an epic failure in the past.  But to be honest, making sugar cookies seemed like more fun.  Plus, I could think of several upcoming occasions for which some jazzed-up sugar cookies would be just the thing: a bridal shower, a wedding, Fourth of July, vacation, birthdays, etc.      

The first of these events was my sister-in-law’s bridal shower.  It was to be a garden-themed party, so flower cookies would fit the bill.  I consulted with the other bridesmaids and offered to make the favors.  I was excited for the challenge.  I knew there would be a steep learning curve, but I thought I could handle it. 

 

Easy as Pie? Yeah, Right.

I have a complicated relationship with rolled pastry dough.  I know what you’re thinking: C’mon lady, stop being so melodramatic.  It’s just pastry.  It’s delicious.  What could possibly be so complicated? 

I won’t be offended if you roll your eyes.  I get it: I have pastry issues. 

It’s not that I don’t like rolled pastry.  Trust me, I do.  This isn’t some Atkins-diet, carb-hating hangup.  I’ve rarely met a pie, croissant, or cut-out cookie that I didn’t love.  But the dough can be so downright exasperating.  I'm just terrible at working with pastry dough.  Case in point:  a few years ago, I volunteered to make my mother’s famous apple pie for a Thanksgiving celebration with my in-laws (I wasn’t yet married at that point, but I still thought of them as my in-laws).  In my mind, I had visions of serenely rolling out pie dough into perfectly round circles.  After laying the pie crusts in the pie plate, I would fill it with heaping scoops of apples, and then crimp the edges together with plenty of dough to spare.  I would brush the crusts with an egg wash and finish with a sprinkle of sugar, to give that special sheen.  The crust would bake up to be perfectly golden brown and the aroma of fresh apple pie would waft through my kitchen.