Peanut butter cookies

The last few recipes have been a bit, ummmm, ambitious. Maybe it's time for a slightly easier recipe? Or maybe a really easy recipe? How about one that's so easy that the hubs managed to make it. Oh yes. That easy.

Flourless peanut butter cookies
1 C peanut butter
1 C sugar
1 egg

Combine the three above ingredients in a bowl. We used natural, chunky peanut butter, which I really think made the cookies so incredible! Preheat the oven to 350. Drop the dough on to a lined cookie sheet (lined with parchment paper) by the teaspoon-ful. Then flatten with a fork. Optional step: sprinkle with Demerara sugar before baking. Bake for 10 minutes.

Try not to eat the entire batch before they've even cooled. Yes, they're that good!

Yellow cake

What good is a frosting recipe without an amazing cake to go with it? Well, here's the perfect cake to compliment a rich buttercream frosting.

To make this cake, you'll need a mixer, 2 9" cake pans, parchment paper, and the following ingredients:

2.5 C + 2 Tbsp flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2 sticks butter at room temperature
2 C sugar
3 eggs, lightly beaten and at room temperature
3 egg yolks at room temperature
1 C milk
2 tsp vanilla

Prepare cake pans by flouring, buttering, and lining with parchment paper. I normally use 2 9" pans for this recipe, though it says you can also use 3 8" pans. But of course, I don't have 8" pans. In fact, I really only have 1 9" pan. Good thing springform pans can be used to make cakes too :) Now for the good stuff!

Sift the flour, baking powder and salt together in a large bowl. Set aside.

Beat butter on high until it's light yellow and sticks to the sides of the bowl. This should take about a minute.

Add the sugar in a steady stream, beating on high until mixture is light and fluffy. This should take about 3 minutes.

Reduce the speed to medium. Add the beaten eggs in small increments (about the volume of one egg at a time), allowing the egg to be incorporated between each addition. Now add the egg yolks one at a time, again allowing for it to be incorporated between additions. The mixture should have increased greatly in volume by the end of this step.

Since it's summer here and we don't have air conditioning, this is when I turned on the oven. It's important to minimize the time that there's something at 350F in my house. Did you catch that temperature? Preheat the oven to 350.

Now, find the dry ingredients that you set aside. Reduce speed to low. Add the dry ingredients in 4 additions, alternating with the milk, which should be added in 3 additions. So, that's flour + milk + flour + milk + flour + milk + flour. End with the flour.

Now, add the vanilla.

Pour in to the prepared pans and bake for ~35 minutes. They will be very dark on top, so don't be concerned if they're not "golden brown". The cake should spring back when lightly pressed in the center when they're done. Just be careful to not burn your hand. Steam comes out when you press it -- shocker, I know!

And you're done! Top with the buttercream frosting from here, and you're good to go! I like to melt some strawberry jam as a glaze between the layers.

Enjoy!

Buttercream frosting

I've always had this problem with cake frosting. I want it rich and creamy, but not too sweet. When you make the easy buttercream frosting, you mix butter, vanilla, and way more powdered sugar than I can even comprehend putting in my mouth. And it's just way too sweet. So, I always try to cut down the powdered sugar I put in, which changes the texture of the frosting. It never manages to hold its shape quite right, since the powdered sugar is what stabilizes it. I've heard rumblings of this buttercream frosting that's made with eggs. The eggs stabilize it instead of the sugar. Sounds promising, right? Or course, fear of the technique had me running for the hills. I finally decided to bite the bullet and give it a shot, though. And the result was INCREDIBLE!!.



Yeah, I'm pretty proud of that!

And now for the part you're all waiting for -- how to make the magic happen :)

The recipe is from cookingforengineers.com.

You'll need 4 eggs, 4 sticks of butter, 1 cup of sugar, 2 tsp. vanilla, and 1/2 tsp. salt. And a metal bowl, and a saucepan with which to make a double boiler. Yup, that's where this whole process gets scary. And a thermometer.

Crack the eggs in to the metal bowl.

Add the sugar and vanilla extract and whisk until combined.

Now set up your double boiler. You want the water hot but not boiling in the saucepan. Make sure the bottom of the bowl doesn't hit the water. Got that? You need to cook the eggs until they hit 160 ˆ F. Whisk constantly as you cook to stop the egg proteins from forming scrambled eggs. I don't think you want that look in your frosting.

Once you're reached 160, remove from heat and beat on medium-high for 5 minutes. It should turn light and fluffy by the end of the 5 minutes. And it should have cooled down. You don't want to melt the butter when you add it.

Reduce the speed to low and begin adding the butter, 2 Tbsp. at a time. Wait a few seconds in between additions. Keep on going until you've added all the butter.

Keep the mixer running until the frosting is smooth. Just wait for it. It'll happen. Really.

And you're done! This recipe makes enough to frost the 9in. 2-layer cake shown above. With a little extra for hubs to eat while I was working.

Trust me, it was worth the effort.

Millionaire's shortbread

Shortbread crust. Dulce de leche filling. Chocolate glaze. Magic in my mouth.

That's pretty much the only way to describe these delicious Millionaire's Shortbread cookies. They're sweet and rich and melt in your mouth. Everything you could want in a dessert. Well, everything but magically subtracting calories. But, I can live without that.

I took these from one of my favorite dessert cookbooks -- Baking for All Occasions, so I can't really share the recipe. But, I'll let you follow along with pictures :)

You start with a buttery shortbread crust. All good recipes should start with a cookie crust. You just can't go wrong there! The best part about using shortbread for the crust is it can't fall apart. The first time I ever tried to make shortbread cookies, the dough fell apart every time I tried to shape it. For this crust, you just press it into the pan and *presto*, it comes out perfectly.



While the crust cools, it's time to make the filling. Dulce de leche. And by that, I mean sweetened condensed milk with sugar and butter, boiled until it thickens. Incredible!



Spoon the filling on to the shortbread crust and spread into an even layer.



Once the filling has cooled, it's time to add the chocolate. I love the rich and velvety texture of melted chocolate. And the aroma that fills my house while I'm melting it. And, of course, the fact that I can never scrape it all out of the bowl with my spatula, which means I'm forced to eat a little chocolate every time.



The chocolate will set into a shiny (and wonderfully rich) layer. See, the foil reflect off of it! (Side note -- I lined the pan with foil to make it easy to lift the bars out later.)



And you're done!



See the three delicious layers? These were gone in no time!

Plain Jane brownies

The s'mores brownies got me thinking. I've never actually made brownies from scratch. I never use mixes for cakes, cookies, or bars. I always make my own frosting. But for some reason, I've always used boxes for brownies. And I decided that had to change. After all, they can't really be that hard, right? Anything that can turn out well when you mix powder with oil, eggs, and water has to be pretty foolproof. One thing I didn't count on, though, is that they compensate for lack of correct texture with lots of extra chocolate in the boxed mixes. I mean LOTS of extra chocolate. I doubled the chocolate in the recipe, and I still feel like these were a little lacking. I guess every first try can't be a success, right?



The color of these just isn't what I was expecting! Brownies from a box are dark brown, not the buttery brown of these. But the texture was amazing! Honestly, it made up for the lack of chocolate. Not that I won't add more chocolate next time. That's just crazy talk. And it definitely didn't make these last more than a day.



So, this recipe is definitely not perfect. But it was pretty darn good.

Ingredients:
1 stick unsalted butter
2 cups chocolate chips
3 eggs
1.5 cups sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1 C flour

1. Preheat oven to 350

2. Melt 1 stick of butter with 1 cup chocolate chips over low heat
Let cool to room temperature -- you don't want warm chocolate compromising the texture of the brownies!

3. Beat eggs in a mixer until light and fluffy. Gradually add sugar and vanilla. Beat on high until mixture becomes stiff. It will happen, I promise. You just have to be patient.

4. Mix in flour until just combined.

5. Fold in melted chocolate with a spatula. When combined, fold in the remaining 1 C chocolate chips.

6. Pour into 9x13 baking dish lined with greased foil. Bake 35 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean. You know the drill. Let cool completely.

Gooey S'mores Brownies

When I said that this next post would feature roasted marshmallows



I meant a whole lot of roasted marshmallows. Roasted marshmallows on top of some chewy, chocolately brownies, finished off with a graham cracker crust. S'mores -- in brownie form.



The gooey marshmallows on top made these a little hard to serve, but it was worth it. My favorite part of cheesecake has always been the graham cracker crust. So crumbly and buttery.



I stole this recipe from Jessica at How Sweet Eats and modified it a little. She had a bit of a hard time with the brownies being underdone, so I have to admit, I was a little terrified when I started this project. But, since I only had 3 left after 24 hours, I'd say they were a success.

Preheat the oven to 350 ° F

Graham cracker crust:
2 cups graham cracker crumbs
1 stick butter, melted

Combine the graham cracker crumbs and melted butter and stir until crumbs are evenly coated and sticking together. Press into the bottom of a 9x13 cake pan.

Brownies:
I'm a little embarrassed to say that I cheated and used a box. Ghiradelli double chocolate brownie mix, to be precise. If I'm going to cheat with a mix, at least it's a good one, right?

Prepare as directed on the box, and spoon over the graham cracker crust. It will be tricky to spread it evenly over the pan without picking up the crumbs, so just do your best. I definitely didn't notice the crumbs all mixed up in the batter, and I definitely had more than a few!

Because of the crust, you'll need to adjust the cooking time. Add 15 minutes to whatever the box says. Test with a toothpick when you think they're done, of course.

Allow to cool completely (or cool a bit, since I was impatient and wanted to try the finished product).

Marshmallows:
About half a bag of jet-puffed marshmallows

Spread marshmallows evenly over the surface of the brownies. They'll expand in the oven, so don't worry about spaces between them.

Broil for about 10 minutes, watching carefully to make sure they don't burn. Of course, some people like burned marshmallows on their s'mores. Definitely not me. Personally, I like them a nice, rich golden brown. Which is just how my marshmallows turned out.

Let fully cool and serve. The marshmallow will be sticky, so the pieces are difficult to separate. Maybe this is a sign that you should eat 2... or 3... or a whole row, just to make the serving process easier.

I started this blog, and seem to have immediately abandoned it! Rest assured, I'll be back soon! I even have a delicious dessert to post here. But my laptop is at work and the camera is at home, which is causing many posting delays. Until then, I'll leave you with a teaser of what's to come: roasted marshmallows and chocolate :)