Kentucky Bourbon Balls

A few days after I sent off the Maple Pecan Cookies, I received a package in the mail from Jenny in Newport, Kentucky (the same person who received my cookies). Inside was a pretty tin filled with Kentucky Bourbon Balls. The smell of bourbon was pretty strong on opening the box, and boy were they good. They are definitely a good cookie to send by mail.

Included in the cookie exchange was also a haiku:
Bourbon Balls yummy
Yummy in my tummy tum
Next year maybe rum?

I may have to make a batch with rum myself.

Christmas Cookies

Growing up, I would make 8 to 10 different kinds of cookies over a weekend with my grandmother. Over time, it evolved into me making the cookies for her, to be given away to all her friends. Now I don't seem to find the time to make all the different kinds of cookies. This year, I had a cookie exchange to attend and a cookie exchange by mail so I found a recipe that sounded good and made a lot of cookies. I made Glazed Maple Pecan Cookies from the blog Under the High Chair. The dough was easy to put together, formed into logs, and then refrigerated overnight. Then it was just a matter of slicing and baking. The glaze consisted of maple syrup and powdered sugar. For the first batch, I followed the proportions and it came out really thick, more like frosting and it was hard to glaze the cookies. The second time I made the glaze, I started with 1/4 cup syrup and 1/2 cup sugar and then slowly added more sugar to make a glaze. I loved the combination of maple and pecan though the maple flavor was more subtle since I omitted the maple flavoring and my family devoured the ones that were left after the two cookie exchanges. I guess I will have to make more.

Lemon Torte

I know I have been ignoring this blog for quite awhile. I have pictures, I have recipes, but I've just been either very busy and then very lazy to deal with this blog. I will try to catch up over the next month.

I love lemon desserts, I even have a cookbook devoted entirely to lemon desserts though I don't think I have made anything from that particular cookbook. A week ago, friend dropped off some Meyer lemons and I have been trying to decide what to make with them ever since. Something simple but also a recipe that uses a lot of lemon juice. Yesterday I came across this recipe for Lemon Torte on the Baking Bites blog. It is a simple one layer cake that includes ground almonds and then it is topped with a powdered sugar glaze while still warm. I've had a stick of butter sitting out so I was ready to go.

The butter and sugar are creamed together first until fluffy. I was a tablespoon short of butter so I added in a tablespoon of olive oil. I've made this a second time and added 2 Tbsp of olive oil and 6 Tbsp of butter. After the addition of 3 eggs and 1 Tbsp of lemon zest, flour and ground almonds are added, alternating with lemon juice (1/2 cup total). Then it is baked in a springform pan. The powdered sugar and lemon juice glaze is poured on top when the cake is still warm. Removing the sides after adding the glaze allows it to run down the sides.

This cake was very easy to make with a standing mixer though a hand mixer would work just as well. The cake is very moist and full of lemon flavor. I don't know if the addition of olive oil made any difference. I've seen several recipes for orange olive oil cakes which sounds intriguing and so I may play around with this recipe.

Blogging by Mail: Package has arrived

My Blogging by Mail package arrived a couple of days ago, all the way from Australia. It was sent by Silver from Dragon Musings, another mom with three young kids. All three of my kids were quite excited to see what was in the package especially since the box was decorated with Winnie the Pooh.

Inside the box were
-Tim Tam biscuits, an Australian cookie that I had heard about but never tried. These particular ones are pink inside and only are sold in October.
-A large bag of Mixed Berry Brownies. Even though they had traveled for 10 days, they were still very good, brownies definitely travel well.
-A bar of Mixed Berry Chocolate and the recipe for the brownies so that I can make them myself
-A package of Cadbury chocolates with Australian animals on each wrapper for the kids (Gina loved the picture of the Tasmanian Devil, though she keeps calling it a bear)
-A diary for 2009 (this will definitely get a lot of use)
-A recipe magazine. I love cooking magazines and can't wait to read this one.
-A can of Spam. She had read on my blog that I had never tried Spam so now is my chance.

Thanks again to Silver. I really enjoyed getting this package and I'll be checking out your blog whenever I get a chance.

My package was sent to Fran at apple, peaches, pumpkin pie.

A big thank you to Stephanie from Dispensing Happiness for organizing this. It was a lot of work with 117 participants.

Baking GALS: Cookies in the mail

A while back I came across this group called Baking GALS. It is a group of bloggers who organize bakers to send goodies to soldiers stationed in Iraq and Afganistan. Each group sends to one specific soldier who then shares all the treats with his buddies.

This afternoon I made Blondies with Andrew's help. The recipe is from Cooks Illustrated and it is very easy. I had grand plans to make another kind of cookie but that never happened. I did buy lots of other stuff to fill the box and the kids donated their Halloween candy.

In addition to the Blondies pictured below, I also am sending several packs of gum, two bags of peanuts, two packs of dried mango from Trader Joe's, two boxes of granola bars, lots of Halloween candy and today's Sunday edition of the San Jose Mercury News. The box goes in the mail tomorrow.

Halloween cupcakes

I needed to bring some kind of treat for Gina's Halloween carnival at school and originally I was going to bake some kind of cookie. Then I saw these cupcakes on a local blog and changed my mind. They are called Tombstone Cupcakes. In the original posting, the cupcakes are black bottom cupcakes while I opted for the Betty Crocker mix this time. I did make my own chocolate frosting. The original posting also used homemade shortbread cookies. I knew I wouldn't have time for that so I bought Oatmeal cranberry Dunker cookies from Trader Joes. They have white chocolate drizzled on them which created a nice effect. I couldn't find chocolate wafer cookies at the store so I used chocolate bunny graham crackers and crushed them finely for the dirt. I also made a few little marshmallow ghosts.


Chocolate Frosting (from alpineberry blog) - I doubled this
(makes about 1.5 cups frosting which is enough to frost 12 cupcakes)

2 ounces (4 tbsp / half stick) unsalted butter, softened
2 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder (either natural or Dutch-processed is fine)
1 1/2 cups confectioners' sugar
2-3 tbsp milk or water
1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Beat butter and cocoa powder until mixture is soft and well combined. Add the confectioners' sugar, 2 tbsp milk and vanilla. Beat until fluffy. Add the last tablespoon of milk if frosting is too stiff.

Daring Bakers - Pizza

Once again I'm late doing this challenge and posting about it. This month's challenge was to make pizza dough and then top it with any toppings. Rosa at Rosa's Yummy Yums hosted the challenge and the recipe comes from Peter Reinhart's The Bread Baker's Apprentice. The kids love pizza so this was a good one to try. I haven't made pizza dough before, but it was really easy. I didn't bother with the big mixer, it was easy to mix by hand and then knead until smooth. I did have to plan a bit ahead since the dough needs to rest overnight in the refrigerator and then come out 2hrs before baking.

In the past I've used a rolling pin to make pizzas but I decided to try tossing the dough. I wasn't able to get pictures but nothing got dropped. Just stretching it out over two fists got the dough pretty thin in the middle but still round. I used Trader Joe's pizza sauce and cooked up some mushrooms and bacon for the toppings. I used to love having bacon pizza as a kid, it was always a real treat. Gina enjoyed helping put her pizza together. It was definitely a crowd pleaser (there were a few grumbles that we were missing olives) though I would like to try out some different pizza dough recipes to see how they compare.


Go to the Daring Bakers Blogroll to see all the other attempts at making pizza.