The Not-So-Monster Chewy Monster Birthday Cookies

Mom (upon seeing me getting ready to put the cookie sheets in the oven): "Katie, those cookies are HUGE."
Me (laughing slightly): "Yeah, well, they're called monster cookies, Mom."

Being in college makes it hard to get your friends birthday presents. For my best friend, I decided to make her cookies this weekend and freeze them until I mail them to her. (What I think is really going to happen is my mom is going to give them to her parents to take down to her this weekend but! Anyway.)
She likes cookies. A lot. She likes peanut butter. I saw this recipe on http://www.browneyedbaker.com/ and thought I would try it out. I, of course, changed the original recipe a bit due to some lack of ingredients (and patience). My cookies were big, round, chewy and pretty delicious. Once again, Steven and mom were the guinea pigs and they seemed to enjoy them. Here it goes!

Monster Cookies
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup brown sugar
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 teaspoon corn syrup
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 stick melted butter
1 cup creamy peanut butter
2 cups oats
1 cup M&M's (roughly two of those bags you pick up while waiting to check out at the grocery store. You know... the one you always buy and eat in the car on the way home)
1/2 cup Reese's Pieces
1/2 cup chocolate chips

1. Preheat oven to 350. Spray baking sheets. Mix together eggs, sugar, brown sugar, vanilla, corn syrup, salt and baking soda. Stir in peanut butter and eggs (I could NOT get the butter to mix in at first, but just keep going and fold it into the gooey egg/sugar mixture. Be sure to scrape down the sides of the bowl). Stir in flour and oats. Add M&M's, Reese's Pieces, chocolate chips, or any other candy you just want to throw in. Let the dough rest for thirty minutes.
2. Using a large ice cream scoop (that's what I used, at least) drop large globs of cookie dough onto baking sheets. They are supposed to be BIG. Hence the name, Monster Cookies. Flatten them a little with a spoon or spatula or your fingers... whatever is around, really. Bake for about 10 minutes. Mine had to bake a little longer thanks to the weird positioning of the oven racks. Let cool 3 minutes before transfering to racks to cool.
3. I put mine in the freezer. We'll see what my best friend says about them...

PS - Always put a little heart into your baking. What's the point of making things for other people if you don't do it with love?

One of my best friends bought me these measuring cups for my many baking adventures. It was the perfect birthday present. (She got these at Urban Outfitters.)

"Three-Bowl" Chocolate Cupcakes

 My Martha Stewart cupcake book has a recipe for "One-Bowl Chocolate Cupcakes" that sounded so easy I couldn't wait to try it. Unlike some of her recipes, this one did not require simmering various ingredients over the stove or procuring whole vanilla beans (as a baker I should probably figure out where to buy those. And how to use them, come to think of it...) just to bake a batch of cupcakes. So naturally, after seeing how easy it was to follow, I jumped right in.

The description of the cupcakes says in place of vanilla extract, a different extract can be added to change the flavor of your cupcakes. I thought "Well that sounds like fun!" and divided the batter into three separate bowls before adding a different extract to each. The recipe and results follow...

One-Bowl Chocolate Cupcakes (adapted from Martha Stewart's Cupcakes)
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
2 eggs
3/4 cups Dutch-process cocoa powder (more if you want to make simple chocolate buttercream)
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
3/4 teaspoon salt
2/3 cup milk
3/4 teaspoon lemon juice
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
3/4 cup warm water
(1 teaspoon vanilla extract, OR 1 1/2 teaspoon orange extract, peppermint extract, etc)

1. Preheat oven to 350. Line muffin tins with paper liners. Combine all dry ingredients. Add eggs, milk, lemon juice, water, oil and your choice of extract to mix. If you, like me, want to create three different cupcakes from this one recipe, do not add extract but first divide the batter into three (or two or more) bowls.
2. In one bowl, I added almond extract. Because the 1 1/2 teaspoon almond extract is for a full recipe and I had divided my recipe into thirds, I only added 1/2 teaspoon almond extract.
3. To my second bowl of batter I added 1/2 teaspoon orange extract, 1/3 cup of chocolate chips, orange zest and a dash of fresh squeezed orange juice and saved the orange to use for an orange glaze (recipe to follow).
4. Bowl number three gets plain old vanilla extract.
5. Bake until toothpick (it doesn't have to be a toothpick - you could have a legit cake tester) comes out clean. Around 20 minutes.
Yield: 18 scrumptious cupcakes.

After the blueberry pancake fiasco, I swore to follow this recipe exactly. I had gotten to the very end before I realized that the cocoa powder was still sitting on the counter in its measuring cup waiting to be added. I have learned from past experiences that order in which you add ingredients does matter. In this case, I chose to ignore my instincts and just stir the cocoa powder into the now moist batter. Surprisingly, the cupcakes were still very good and moist (or maybe that's not so surprising to you. I mean, it is chocolate for crying out loud. Where can you go wrong?).

I took these to Steven's for dessert and they we a huge success. Especially after the incredible Eggplant Parmesan he and I had whipped up! ;)

My personal favorite? The chocolate/almond cupcakes with cinnamon buttercream.

Chocolate/Orange cupcakes with Orange Glaze
Orange Glaze "Recipe"

1/2-ish teaspoon freshly grated orange zest
2 tablespoons fresh orange juice
1/2 cup confectioners sugar

Whisk together ingredients until smooth. For this recipe, I like it a little more runny than thick. It gets too sweet with too much confectioners sugar and I like the orange flavor to take center stage. Again, it's up to you.

I Was Supposed To Measure That?

I don't like being exact in my measurements when I bake. In fact, I don't really like following the recipes at all and usually end up adding extra ingredients. Sometimes, this goes horribly wrong. Like the other night when I told Steven (boyfriend) I would make us blueberry pancakes for dinner with the fresh blueberries he and his family had picked. I printed out three different recipes and looked at the ingredients... Then I just started throwing things together in the bowl.

What I discovered is that this method only works for the fortunate few who have been blessed with true culinary talent. For the rest of us, it produces flat, chewy pancakes with little flavor and burnt blueberries. In all fairness, they weren't COMPLETELY inedible. Steven made some berry sauce to put on top in place of maple syrup and the pancakes were almost tasty drenched in that delicious mixture. I ate a couple before deciding on Life cereal for dinner. Steven ate the other 12. (Somewhere between pancakes one and five he said I should start a blog and write about my successes and failures in the kitchen. The pancakes were a big hit with him. He said they were "revolutionary". They were something alright.)

My point is, somethings just need to be measured. The only thing (I like to think) I have truly mastered without measuring is my version of buttercream frosting. It's so easy it is hard (even for me!) to mess up. Here is my (general) recipe.

Buttercream (for roughly 12 cupcakes. More is you don't like frosting as much I do!)
1 stick softened butter
1 1/2 - 2 cups confectioners sugar
1-ish teaspoons of vanilla (or other) extract

All you have to do is whisk these three simple ingredients together and you have made a delicious frosting. In place of vanilla extract, you can use orange, peppermint or any other you so choose. I like to add a little cream here and more sugar there, but it's really up to you. Some people pull out the big mixer but I always prefer to use a bowl, a fork and a little manual labor.

The other night I made chocolate buttercream by dumping (literally. It was a mess. No one warned me of the dangers of cocoa powder) in some dutch-processed cocoa powder that I had used in the cupcake mix itself. I also added in a tiny bit of Hershey's chocolate syrup for good measure. It was good, I promise.

 (chocolate/almond cupcakes with cinnamon buttercream)

To top my chocolate/almond cupcakes, I chose to attempt a cinnamon buttercream. All I did here was add some cinnamon to my frosting mixture! It was easy and soo good.

What it comes down to for me is taste - not measurements. You have to keep tasting your creation and make sure you like. Otherwise, there  is no point making it.

The "Sickness" That Started It All...

As a senior in high school, I spent most of my time watching television and putting off homework assignments that did not seem nearly as pressing as they had a year before. I had sent off my college applications and found myself with lots of free time despite several AP courses and unfinished art projects. I had developed a bad case of senioritis, and it wasn't going away anytime soon.

Sometime last September I found myself in the kitchen with a box of cake mix and paper tin liners on the eve of a beloved friends birthday. With a few eggs, oil and water- VOILA!- I had made 24 beautiful yellow cupcakes. The icing too came out of a box (or can? or do you call those plastic things jars?), but that didn't stop the compliments from rolling in the next day as I presented my friend with her 18th birthday present. In the course of the following months, several dozen more cupcakes were baked, as well as a few batches of cookies here and there. By Christmas, I had become a full-fledged baker.

Once my senioritis took serious hold in the spring, the baking began in earnest. Birthdays, an art show opening, graduation party, beach trip... everything seemed to be an occasion to bake and I just couldn't resist the temptation to pull out the muffin tins in times like those. For Christmas I had asked for and received a Martha Stewart cupcake cookbook and flipped through it regularly. For my 18th birthday I got a copy of Cook's Illustrated Baking Illustrated. I looked up recipes online and drooled over the Food Network's "Ace of Cakes" and "Cupcake Wars" (another favorite is TLC's "Cake Boss"). When I arrived at college a few weeks ago, instead of doing homework I would skim baking blogs until it was suggested to me by my boyfriend (who put up with many a long pause in our phone conversations as I trying to determine if I wanted to add a certain blog to my "favorites") that I start my own. Why not?

This blog is not only about my adventures in baking, but my many many mishaps with food as well. As the title suggests, I am not the most graceful person in the world and that will become quickly apparent. I make messes. I make gross looking cupcakes-things. I cook inedible food. I get hurt in the strangest ways (knives are surprisingly hardly ever involved in my kitchen related injuries). I tend to crack eggs all over the counter. I have burnt cupcakes to a crisp. I have cried. I have laughed. Mostly, I've just had fun. Enjoy.