REAL snowflakes!
so I have so far not been living up to my part of the bargain, and posting 2 times a week… I’ll try to make up for it! It’s December 6th, (holy crap I started wirting this post a while ago!) and since I work in retail, and in the school system, Christmas season for me starts immediately following Hallowe’en. Christmas carols have been on the in store radio station for the last 4 weeks or so (and I am one of the few people who honestly love it!), Christmas plays/dances/songs/poems/skits have been in practice for the last 2-3 weeks, and now Mother Nature has unleashed the snowy wintry weather on us too!
The first THREE snow days of the school year happened last week (also known as snowmageddon), and how did I spend them? Sleeping. Sleeping and blowing my nose. With this winter wonderland weather, I also caught a cold (surprise surprise), which had gotten worse probably due to the fact that since I could not get my car out of the drive way, I chose to walk to work. In the crazy snow. When the sidewalks weren’t shoveled OR plowed. How long did it take me you ask? about 25 minutes. How far away do I live from my work you ask? Normally it takes 5 minutes to walk there. Shitty.
Alright, enough of my complaining…..
What have I been up to the last couple weeks? I’m glad you asked!
1. I baked 10 dozen cookies for a cookie exchange. Seriously. They turned out awesome if I do say so myself. I know I know, I should have taken pictures! I took one, but then forgot. And it’s not an exciting pic, it’s just of the ingredients! I’ll tell you what I made though, and you can picture it in your head!
Sooooooooooooo, I chose to do chocolate covered mint wafer cookies. Fancy! They’re not wafers, so I’m not sure why the recipe calls them that, but whatever. They are chocolate covered, and they are minty, so 2/3 isn’t bad.
Here’s the recipe.
What you need:
- 1 cup Flour
- 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
- 1/4 cup baking powder
- 1/4 teaspoon salt, plus another 1/8 of a teaspoon
- 6 tablespoons unsalted butter @ room temp.
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 1 large egg
- 1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- 12 ounces semisweet chocolate
- 1/4 teaspoon mint extract
What to do:
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a bowl whisk the flour, cocoa, baking powder, and 1/4 teaspoon salt. Set aside.
- Beat butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in egg and vanilla. Gradually add flour mixture until just mixed.
- Form balls of dough about 1 teaspoon large and place on baking sheets. Take a flat bottom glass, and flatten balls into 1-11/2 inch rounds (OH- don’t forget!!!!- wet the bottom of the glass first!!! Otherwise the dough will stick to the glass, and it’s all messy). Bake slightly until firm, about 8 to 10 minutes. When done, transfer to a wire rack to cool.
- NEXT make chocolate coating! This can get MESSYYYYYY!
- Melt the chocolate, mint extract, and rest of salt on a double boil thing where you boil water, then put a bowl to rest on top part of pot. If the chocolate gets too hot, it will turn all sticky and doughy, not melty and smooth like you need it.
- LASTLY, line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Put cookies one at a time on a fork and dip into chocolate. Then place on parchment paper to cool. My advice is this…. I went through a lot more chocolate than I thought, so I just started throwing cookies in the chocolate, and forking them out. I’d put like 10 in, then pull out one at a time. Messy yes, but a little easier as they are already coated when you go to pull them out.
- Anywho, after coated decorate with whatever edible decor you’d like! I used sprinkles! 🙂
- Cool, and enjoy!
Ok, that’s a mix of the actual directions and my advice thrown in! By the last dozen, I was flying through the recipe. These cookies are easy peasy, AND they look professional. Always a plus!
Tip- if your chocolate turns all doughy and stiff, there is no way to save it. I googled it, and it said so, so it must be true.
Hmmm, what else can I share?
2. Oh, I tried again at the Cranberry Pumpkin Cheesecake and it rocked out with it’s cock out. (For those of you who don’t know, I actually own a T-shirt that says that.)
Oh wait, no I don’t it says rock out with your guac out. As in guacamole. Same difference though no?
the infamous t-shirt...
Ok, so last time I took a picture of that recipe and posted it, but it was kind of out of focus, so I’ll just type it out.
What you need:
- 2 cups gingersnap cookie crumbs
- 4 table spoons butter or margarine melted
- 3 packages cream cheese softened
- 1/3 cup brown sugar, 1/3 cup powdered sugar
- 2 tablespoons flour
- 1 tablespoon pumpkin pie spice
- 1 can pumpkin puree (not pie mix!)
- 1 can cranberry sauce
- 2 eggs
What to do:
- combine cookie crumbs, and butter in bowl, spread mixture into 10 inch spring form pan. Press crumbs evenly over bottom and 2 inches up sides.
- preheat oven to 350 degrees
- beat cream cheese, sugar, flour, and spice until smooth. Add eggs and pumpkin. Mix well and pour into crust.
- place pan on cookie sheet, and bake for an hour. Turn off oven, but leave in for another hour. Remove from oven, let cool, then refrigerate for at least 6 hours. You might want to actually take a butter knife and trace around inside edges of pan to make sure cheesecake doesn’t stick to sides!
- After cooling, carefully remove from pan, and spread cranberry sauce on top before serving!
Super good, super easy.
HOWEVER…..
if you remember, the first time I tried this, it was really moist….most likely because of the extra pumpkin puree I added!! AND it didn’t really have enough pumpkin pie spice taste. Soooooooooooooo, this time when I did it, I made some recipe modifications….. pay attention people, I’m not going to repeat myself.
- I halved ALL ingredients EXCEPT the cookie crumbs, AND pumpkin pie spice. ALSO instead of a can of puree, I only used about 2 spoonfuls. Still orangey, still pumpkiny.
- I used an 8 inch springform pan. Still springy, still cheesecakey.
It was so much more flavourful! BUT I will warn you, that it is quite a lot shorter. The first recipe is quite tall, more of a traditional cheesecake. The modified one is shorter in height, but way more flavourful and dense. Very VERY good if I do say so myself, and it got excellent reviews at our family Christmas party that was had this past weekend. Seriously. Awesomely. Good.
I googled awesome, and this is what came up! (it's for real my baseball team's logo!! haha)
Alright…I have a couple more posts in the works, AND I’m expecting my prof. wedding pics back like any day now!!!! (Like as in yesterday :P)
AND we got a fancy new camera thanks in large part to optimum points! So yay to Shoppers! Yay to new cameras!
We’re heading to the T dot tomorrow, so hopefully we’ll be breaking out the new cam and getting some sensi pics of a sensi 30 something get together.
ikes.
ok, for reals I’m embarrassed at how long I let this blog go…..
I’ll be back for real before Monday, I just got some awesome recipes, and some great craft ideas that need to be blogged about. Look out Martha Stewart, here comes Erin F-T. (In case you’re wondering, my new initials (as soon as I get around to changing my name) are EFT. Say it out loud. (I mean really sound it out) Just awesome.)
Check this out!
Whisk count = ….3? it’s definitely 3 or 4.
blog, shmog. 