Iced Pumpkin Cookies

I really love Fall.  Fall makes me wish I lived in a picturesque suburb or something, where I have leaves all over my backyard.  Fall makes me count down to every holiday till New Year's.  Fall makes me want to be with family or lets me think of when I'm old enough to have my own. Fall makes want a Hallmark card style life.  Fall makes me bake with cinnamon and pumpkin...

Iced Pumpkin Cookies adapted from allrecipes.com

makes about 3 dozen Perfect Puffy Pumpkin Pillows


Ingredients:

• 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour (I used half AP and half whole wheat AP, no one notices that way)
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon of pumpkin pie spice 
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup butter, softened
• 1 1/2 cups white sugar
• 1 cup canned pumpkin 
• 1 egg
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
•  
• Glaze:
• I used about three cups of confectioner's sugar and 3 tablespoons of milk 

Do this: 

Preheat the over to 350 degrees

Combine all the dry stuff, so ingredients 1-6

Then cream together the butter and sugar, add pumpkin&egg&vanilla and beat until creamy

Slowly add the dry stuff 

Drop of cookie sheet in tablespoon fulls, the batter/dough is quite sticky and the amount of flour in this recipe lets these goodies be really cake-y and still very moist 

Bake for 15 minutes. 

Let cool then drizzle glaze on top.

then find lots of friends to come over and eat them because they are very addictive! (though not too bad for you, at 2 WW points each). 

These cookies were made in a last minute plan not to leave my house and to make my friends come to me instead - can't leave when the oven is on! 

I was never expecting them to be so darn delicious. 

My mother is the only one who takes it seriously when I ask for criticism on my cooking, I believe these are her new favorite cookies. 

My sister is ten years old, the next morning I just woke up and was coming down the stairs and I see her with two of these cookies on her place, microwaving them till they were warm for her morning snack.  I thought it was the funniest thing, girl has good taste. 

Coconut Chocolate Chunk Cookies

These cookies are an adaptation from the m&m Cookies but are more mature,
I added about a cup of toasted sweetened coconut and some chocolate chunks instead of the m&m's (which I much prefer), but still have the best cookie dough base.

very delicious

M&M Cookies

I made some cookies, I made some "adult" cookies and I made some "kid" cookies.  These are filled with m&m's in the best cookie dough I've ever had. 

adapted from How Sweet it is and Brown Eyed Baker and therefore CooksIllustrated

2 cups + 2 tablespoons of all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoons baking soda

1 1/2 sticks (12 tablespoons) of salted butter, melted and cooled

1 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup sugar

1 egg + 1 egg yolk, at room temperature

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 cup m&m’s (or whatever else)

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.

Mix together the dry ingredients in one bowl 

Mix together the sugars and butter in another then add vanilla and egg + egg yolk

Mix dry in (I don't know why this isn't letting me type correctly)

I really love this dough because the mix-ins are like mixed in and falling out and its just so I don't know, sweet.

Bake for like 10 minutes 

Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

I'm back at school but I made these goodies before I was forced back into my oven-less dormitory.  I've spent a lot of time figuring out what I want to do - not to sound conceited but I'm rather smart and always wanted to be known that way and not becoming a lawyer or having a ph.d in psychology (my other plans) didn't seem like the way to become a genius. However I now figure that it's much "smarter" to do what you love and I much rather dedicate my life to food.  Even though I have two more years at TCNJ, I'm going to spend them working towards culinary school and a nutrition program - I'm looking into Johnson & Wales and it sounds amazing; and just speaking to them, I'm so excited (hopefully excited enough to get me through two more years).  Now I just have the break the news to my professors here that I've been working so closely with in the academic world. I'll promise them free cupcakes if or rather, WHEN I open my bakery one day. 
For now, have a cookie.

Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies  
from how Sweet it is

2 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoons baking soda

8 tablespoons of salted butter, melted and cooled

6 tablespoons of creamy peanut butter, melted and cooled

1 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup sugar

1 egg + 1 egg yolk, at room temperature

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 1/2 cups chocolate chips

Preheat over to 325 degrees.

Melt butter and peanut butter together in microwave then set to cool

Mix together flour and baking soda in separate bowl

Mix sugars with the butters mix till combined

then add eggs and vanilla 

and finally the dry stuff

fold in the chips - I used mini cause thats what I had, there were so many of them so I cut it down to 1 cup and they were everywhere making every bite delicious.

Form decent size balls, like a small golf ball and place on ungreased cookie sheet and into the oven for 12ish minutes. 

attempt to let cool and then eat. 

 

they were incredible. maybe if I bring them to class, everyone will agree that culinary school is for me.

Bang! Bang!

Janie's got a gun....well not really - these violent cookies are for my cousin's 13th birthday.  Happy Birthday Dominick - enjoy your day! 

 

Cookies for Baby Jackson!

 

Jenna and I go way back to Kindergarten but soon she'll have her own kindergartener, well in 5 years.  Her mother through her a lovely baby shower but I couldn't resist having my own to celebrate my best friend and our new baby.

and I can never resist baking or the attempt at decorating sugar cookies - I want to be impressive as some of the other blogs I stalk and will need all the practice I can get! 

 

 

 

 

So Many Cookiesssssss! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I like pretending I'm professional and using fancy boxes 

 

oh, and cupcakes are delicious too!

  

Chocolate ones with Buttercream Frosting. mmm...

Baby is obviously a boy and I can't wait till he graces us with his presence - should be any day now.  He's going to be an amazing baby, hopefully he'll take after his mommy.  For now, I'll dream up his 1st birthday cake. ;)

Ice Cream Sandwiches!

Memorial Day ice cream dessert - what to make on a hot American holiday (when you're obsessed with your ice cream maker) and have a bunch of kids to serve? I think Ice Cream Sandwiches fit the bill.
Super simple, super yummy, with endless possibities

 

Ingredients
Ice cream - Strawberry & Lemon (homemade)
Cookies - Chocolate & Sugar (store bought)
Sprinkles  - American

Make ice cream according to recipe - I used:

The Perfect No-Cook Strawberry Ice Cream and Lemon Ice Cream from Epicurious 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When Ice Cream is soft, sandwich it between two cookies (I bought the cookies to make my life easier but I really wanted to make my own - but these from the supermarket bakery turned out so perfect) 

I used Chocolate cookies for the Strawberry and Sugar cookies for the Lemon

Roll the cookie sandwiches in sprinkles or whatever other toppings you'd like 

Let harden in the freezer and serve - the cookies I used didn't get mushy, they got soft and the chocolate ones, almost brownie like. These were frozen and soft and delicious and oh so cute.