Peace on earth, and in cookies

Happy blogiversary to me!  5 years and 485 posts later, I'm still here. =)  I'd hoped to be closer to 500, but it's been a busy month.  I've been on vacation for the past few days and have finally had time to do some holiday stuff.  We finally put up the Christmas tree last weekend, and finished putting ornaments on it today.  Yes, it's been that kind of week.  On Wednesday I baked lots of cookies to take to G's kindergarten holiday party.  The kids had fun decorating the cookies (and eating lots of the decorations straight up, since I brought stuff like chocolate chips and m&m's).  B's party was Thursday, and at her request I made brownies for her to take.  Then on Friday I made a batch of caramel snack mix to bag up for my employees.  Right now I'm working on chocolate sponge cake that will be one component of a chocolate mousse cake (G's request for a holiday dessert).  Tomorrow I should finally get to cookies for us--and Santa Claus--now that I've finally gotten my hands on Hershey's kisses after looking at three different stores.  

Along with all the other baking, I wanted to make something for teacher gifts.  The girls were in favor of something chocolate.  I wanted something without nuts, since there are allergy issues at the schools.  I also wanted a dough that was easy to make ahead if necessary and bake off as needed.  I've never been a big fan of slice & bake cookies, but I may have changed my mind this year, after settling on Dorie's World Peace Cookies as the recipe to make.  I've made them before, of course, but not in as large a quantity as I did this year.  To make them more festive, I substituted peppermint crunch baking bits for part of the chopped chocolate, and used mini chocolate chips for the rest.  

The verdict?  I've made three batches so far, and will make at least one more to ship, since these should be sturdy enough to travel.  I got a couple of notes from the teachers, saying that they really liked the chocolate & peppermint combo.  I've stashed away several bags of the mint baking bits so I'll be able to make a bunch more of these if we want.  I've also passed out the recipe to several people, and I hope they'll give them a try for themselves.  If you'd like to, you can find the recipe online at Bon Appetit.

I've really enjoyed sharing both my baked goods and my life with all of you over the past 5 years--I've made lots of great friends, which is without a doubt one of the best things about blogging.  Here's to many more wonderful years!

Going green

I never gave much thought to pregnancy cravings.  When I was pregnant with Brianna, the biggest food issue I had was actually an aversion, rather than a craving.  I didn't want much of anything to do with meat.  Any kind.  I can remember sitting in our living room on Thanksgiving (at 7 months pregnant), giving direction to Jamie and our friend Paul as they were in the kitchen trying to cook the turkey.  I had more or less told them that if they wanted turkey, they'd have to make it themselves.  It was interesting.  =)  I did have a bit of a craving toward the end, for Nestle butterscotch chips.  Normally I find them incredibly sweet, but I went through several bags over the last couple months before Brianna was born, eating them straight up (not even in cookies or anything).

With Gillian, though, I really got a taste of the whole crazy craving thing.  I was pregnant with G during a Texas summer.  So it wouldn't seem unusual that I might eat a little ice cream.  Well, it's safe to say I ate more than a little.  Not that I ate a lot at one time, it was just a scoop or so a day.  For months.  Like, about four months.  Only one flavor--HEB Creamy Creations mint chocolate chip.  It's a lovely pale green color, with the best bits of chocolate in it.  I ate that ice cream every single day for months.  I'm afraid to even think about just how many gallons of it I consumed over the summer, one scoop at a time.  Jamie would suggest other flavors once in a while, but the only one I really wanted was mint chocolate chip.  After G was born, the craving went away, and I've only occasionally eaten it in the four years since.

Now to be fair, part of that is because I hardly ever buy ice cream anymore.  It's too much fun to make my own. =)  This week's Tuesdays with Dorie recipe gave me another good opportunity to play around with ice cream.  Katrina of Baking and Boys picked the delicious Ganache Ice Cream for us to make this week.  I know it's delicious because I've made it several times before.  The first time was almost exactly 2 years ago, when I blogged about it as part of an event for World Breastfeeding Week.  Since then I've made it quite a few times, playing around with different additions.  I was having a hard time deciding what variation to make for this post, then I had a great idea.  Chocolate mint chip.

No, that's not quite the same as mint chocolate chip.  In this case, I added mint chips to chocolate ice cream, rather than the other way around.  The idea was partly inspired by my blogging friend Tracey.  A while back, she mentioned that she likes Guittard Green Mint Chips, but has a hard time finding them.  That reminded me that I had some stashed away in my pantry.  (I can sometimes find them here, mainly during the holidays.)  Ever since then, I've been looking for something good to use them in.  They seemed like the perfect addition for this ice cream!  The only thing that worried me was that full-size chips can be hard to eat--literally--in ice cream.  So I used a tip that I learned from Alice Medrich for making homemade chocolate chunks.  You melt the chocolate (I used 115g, or about 4 ounces), spread it on a sheet of parchment paper, and freeze it.  Then you chop the sheet of chocolate into small bits and keep them in the freezer until you're ready to add them to the ice cream.  The only other addition I made to the ice cream was a couple tablespoons of rum.  I find that most chocolate ice creams freeze very hard, and a bit of alcohol helps make it easier to scoop.

The verdict?  Mmm, we really enjoyed this flavor.  The chocolate ice cream itself has a really great texture.  (It's almost pudding-like when melted.)  Jamie said that he thought it had a nice balance between the chocolate and mint flavors.  I don't feel the need to eat this compulsively, but it won't be at all difficult to eat the rest of the quart.  Brianna and Gillian like all chocolate ice cream, and this was no exception, so I'm sure they'll help with what's left. =)

If you'd like to try this recipe for yourself, you can find it on Katrina's blog.  And be sure to check out this week's links to the other TWD bakers to see what fun they had with this ice cream.

Sensational

Since July 5th was a federal holiday this year (due to the 4th falling on a Sunday), I had the day off.  The daycare was closed that day, too, so I had both girls home with me, while Jamie had to work.  (UT has its own ideas about holidays sometimes.)  Since I'd already been home with them for Saturday and Sunday, I was really hoping that they wouldn't drive me completely crazy.  I was really brave that morning, and took them to Target in search of new puzzles.  That trip went better than expected, so I was even braver in the afternoon.  I let them both help me in the kitchen.  One at a time is usually just fine, but with both of them, things usually degenerate into arguing and sniping at each other.  But they were really excited at the prospect of helping me with this week's Tuesdays with Dorie recipe.  Karen of Welcome to our Crazy Blessed Life picked Brrr-ownies for us to make.  I think the girls were intrigued by the idea of putting candy (in this case Peppermint Patties) into brownies.

I've discovered that the key to having both Brianna and Gillian in the kitchen with me is to give them different jobs. Brianna is now at the point where I can let her help measure stuff.  I use my scale for everything these days.  She knows how to tare, and since I use grams most of the time now, that's what she gets to use, too.  Starting her out right!  =)  Maybe this way it'll end up being more intuitive for her that it was for me at first.  

The girls both like to stir, so usually Gillian gets dry stuff (flour, salt, baking powder, etc), while Brianna gets to do the wet stuff (liquids, eggs).  They fight over who is going to get to crack the eggs, which up until now has consisted of tapping the eggs on the counter until they crack a little, then giving them to me to actually break the shell the rest of the way.  This time, though, I let B do the whole thing, and she was quite startled when the shell on one egg separated unexpectedly.  No eggshell in the bowl, though, so it was a success!  G would have been giving me a hard time about letting B do the eggs except that I'd given her the most important job--cutting up the peppermint patties.  Armed with a plastic knife and lots of muscle, she carefully cut each pattie into quarters:  

At least she waited until she was done to lick the knife! 

Once she was done, I stuck the bowl in the freezer to chill the pieces.  A number of people reported on the P and Q this week that they had problems with the peppermint patties melting and bubbling out of the brownie batter, and I thought the chilling step might help.  Once Brianna finished mixing up the batter, I carefully folded in the peppermint patties and spread the batter in a pan lined with non-stick foil.  (That stuff is great!)  We baked the brownies for about 30 minutes. 

Brianna complained that I don't bring treats for her teachers often enough, so I told her that we could take these brownies in for them.  Not knowing how many people would be there, I went for pieces that were bite-sized.  I was looking for something to put them in, and discovered that I still had some snowman mini cupcake papers.  I figured they would be perfect for these minty treats.  Christmas in July, anyone?  =)

The verdict?  These brownies were quite good.  They lasted longer at the school-age building (where B is for the summer) than they usually do with G's teachers, but the container still came back empty.  (I tell them they have to return it so I can fill it up again.)  Brianna and Gillian liked them, too, and were happy to tell Jamie all about how they helped make them.  I wasn't surprised, though, when B asked if the brownie recipe could be made without the peppermint patties.  She tends to like things without add-ins.  I liked the big pieces of peppermint patties, and I think the size helped keep them from melting too much and making a mess.  I would definitely make these again.

If you'd like to try this week's recipe for yourself, you can find it on Karen's blog.  And don't forget to head over to this week's Leave Your Links page to see what everyone else did!

12 Days of Cookies - Day 5 - Chocolate Chip and Peppermint Crunch Crackles

As a child, there were definitely times when I was convinced that my mom had a direct line to Santa Claus and really could call him up to cancel Christmas.  She'd pick up the phone and start dialing, and my sisters and I would all panic and try to undo whatever damage we'd done that evening.  I'm pretty sure now that she was calling my dad at work, but she made it sound really good.  =)

Now that I'm a parent, I have a much better appreciation for what she must have gone through.  And I only have two girls, not four.  Earlier this evening, I had to make a trip upstairs, where I threatened my children with not putting up the Christmas tree tomorrow if they didn't stop fighting and be quiet and go to sleep.  Not quite to the point of canceling Christmas, but not far off if they don't settle down and stop driving me crazy... =)  Fortunately, there is one thing that is putting me in the holiday spirit this evening.  It's the fact that my whole house smells of chocolate and peppermint.

Just for the record, a rolling pin isn't that great at crushing small candy canes into pieces.  A hammer works much better. =)  I didn't get to do much of that tonight, but it was nice for venting my frustrations last night, which is when I made the cookie dough for my Day 5 cookie.  It needed chill time, and since I had to work today, I knew I didn't have much chance of getting cookies baked for today unless I made the dough ahead of time.  It's kind of surprising that this is the first chocolate cookie that I'm posting.  And it does have plenty of chocolate in it--a bunch of bittersweet, a little unsweetened, and some chocolate chips thrown in for good measure.  The peppermint comes from both the candy canes and some peppermint extract.  The cookie dough reminded me a lot of brownie batter, which isn't a bad thing considering how much I like brownies.  The recipe says to chill for 3 hours to 1 day.  Mine was in the fridge for just under 24 hours, and it was actually too hard to scoop at first.  I had to let it warm up for about an hour, I think.  Once I was able to work with the dough, I ended up baking my cookies for 11 minutes at 325 degrees F, and got about 3 1/2 dozen from the recipe.

The verdict?  I think it's a very good thing that I'm planning to pack most of these up tomorrow to ship out to someone.  They are way too dangerous to keep in the house.  I ate three already, and it hasn't been that long since I finished baking them.  Gillian seemed to like the one she had for dessert.  I wasn't too surprised when she asked me for more milk, though.  =)  These are quite chocolatey.  Mine didn't get a very crackled appearance, but that's okay.  They had a nice fudgy texture that I really like.  And the candy cane bits added an interesting textural element.  I didn't top my cookies with anything, though I might try that next time.

If you'd like to try these for yourself, you can find the recipe here.  And be sure to check out the other bakers participating in the 12 Days of Cookies to see what they've baked up for today!

Andrea of Andrea's Recipes

(honorary member and our founder but not participating this year)

Claire of The Barefoot Kitchen

Courtney of Coco Cooks

Judy of No Fear Entertaining

Kelly of Sass & Veracity

Michelle of Big Black Dog

RJ of Flamingo Musings

Sandy of At the Baker's Bench

Tiffany of The Nesting Project