Simple Shortbread, Total Fail

My newest must have kitchen tool, sort of.

  So I have missed you all, I imagine that you are all "where the heck is the crazy lady?"  And I would have to say "who me?  Crazy?"  And then you would roll your eyes, and I would sort of just stand there, it is just how it is you know?

  Anyway I have been at my new job for over a week now, and I love it!  But, I feel like an idiot, like I will never get it all.  I also miss all the time I had to bake and blog.  And so tonight I am jumping on to share a really simple cookie.  One that didn't turn out so well for me, but you might have better luck.  Anyway, life is really good, busy but good, and I hope to be back more often to read and blog. So here is a post I wrote way back last year when I was hoping to have a new cookie to share, then I never did, because it was so bad!  Oh well, could be worse.

 So here you go.

  I had a dream. It was a simple dream. It involved me getting a new kitchen gadget and me using it and me making something so awesome and amazing that people would want my autograph; they would be like "you are the best thing since sliced bread!" And I would be all "duh was there ever any doubt?" And that would be wonderful!

Never knew you could get this in the regular store, I was all panicked thinking I would have to go to a specialty store.

    In real life; I got a new shortbread baking pan. I was all ready to become the famous shortbread baking lady. I even bought rice flour to make it. And well; it was no dream come true if you must know. So basically what happened was I used two cups of butter and ended up with a crumbling pan of half baked and half raw shortbread.

I just lightly oiled the pan.

The flour stuck on in globs so I had to use a pastry brush to get some of it off.

 It was not a good day. I almost cried, I was all "how am I ever going to show my face in public again?" And then I tossed out almost all of it and sat on the sofa and pouted for a while. It was one of those things where I look back now and I know how I screwed up but I am not in the mood to try again, yet. So I figure if nothing else I have a post to share my pictures of failure of and it will fill some void in your heart. You know the void, the one where you need to see how badly I can screw up and still come back for more.

See the dough was so soft and I bet you could even pipe it.  Great now I want to try piping it.

You can totally see how over full my pan is, but I was not going to stop.

It's what I do people; I think of you. But if we could have a moment of silence for those two cups of butter that I will never get back that would greatly help with my healing.

Thank you.

 So I got this pan at the kitchen store and it had a recipe in it, but it was sort of vague. So I went on line to see if I could find out more about the pan and the recipe. Well for some reason the pan wasn't even on the manufactures site, which should have been a big sign that something was up. But I forged on I looked on google to see if there was anything special I had to do to prepare my pan. In the end I figured that seasoning my pan couldn't hurt and that is what I did. I rubbed some vegetable oil on the pan and then sprinkled some flour on it to make sure nothing stuck.   Then I got to making the cookie dough.

See, I should have taken a bunch out.

It looked way worse in real life.

 Short bread cookies
found on the pan instructions

1/2 pound butter
1/2 cup icing sugar
1/2 cake flour
1/4 cup rice flour
1 1/4 cup all purpose flour
1/2 tsp salt

Pre heat oven to 350, and season your pan.
Blend the butter until creamy, add icing sugar and salt, blend well.  Add rice flour and cake flour and blend well.  Add half of the all purpose flour and blend, add the rest of the flour and blend. Press the dough into the mold and bake until golden brown.

See all this was almost raw, I was so mad!

 So the first thing about this is that I have not used rice flour before and I thought that it was a neat idea and figured it would make for a nice smooth cookie. So  I measure out everything and mix it all together and that is when I notice how soft the dough is, the recipe says to press the dough into the pan and it was spreadable. Also the recipe didn't say how much it made so I figured I needed to put it all into the pan. But there was way too much. So instead of taking some out and doing two batched I smoothed it out and went ahead and baked the full pan. And that is where I messed up. I put the pan on a cookie sheet just to make sure that it would not over flow. But even after 30 minutes the middle was still sort of wet but the outside was getting dark. So I pulled the tray out and let it set to cool.

 I let it cool a few minutes then flipped the whole thing onto a cookie tray and it fell apart.  The middle was soft and not cooked and the outsides were really crusty.  I even cut it to try it.  Now I will admit it was a nice melt in your mouth soft short bread, or at least the few edges I ate were.  So I cut it up thinking it would set up, but it didn't.  So I took a few pieces to work and no one ate them.  I really cannot blame them.  Just means I need to try again, and I will and it will be amazing.  I won't add this recipe to my index yet until I figure it out, so stay tuned I may be brave enough again before 2014 you know.

This went to work, and it never got eaten.

Wedding Sweet Table-Black and White

So last September I did my first, and probably last, wedding table for a friend.  I say last because I just don't think I have that much time to do something like that again.  I loved it, but until I am rich, this will be it.

  Anyway, it was for a smaller wedding of about 50 people.  I took three days off work and baked my little heart out, with some help from my mom and sister.  I finally got the professional pictures so I get to share them here.  They were all taken by the wedding photographer Megan Ursini.  It was really nice to see some good pictures of my treats for a change.  But don't get used to it, this is not that kind of blog.  I do snap shots, and some times they are in focus, but usually not.  Anyway I thought  I would show you all the pictures then link the recipe posts to them in case you want to try making them.

I could eat these all day, I used simple black and white sprinkles.

Simple but great, chocolate covered pretzels.

I linked to these down below, but those are baby pies, the bride wanted a crunch so I rolled them in chocolate covered rice puffs.  Oh and the black candies are Sixlets, seriously those are so good.

This is an artistic shot.  And this is why I will never be good at pictures, I am just thrilled when they are in focus.

A close up of the vanilla ones, yummy!

Cute baby whoopie pies.

I made lots because it was just easier to make whole batches of items than it was to cut the recipe.  So there was lots to be had.

My mom said the ones with the regular swirl didn't look very professional.  I said as long as it was vanilla and not chocolate icing, it was all good. No poop icing here, at least this time.

This was a throw away cake stand, it was perfect to match 

The best from scratch cupcakes ever, Here!

More rod pictures.  And yes I know I am immature.  No need to point it out.

So these were the first attempt at gluten free for me, and they were killer.  I was so paranoid I didn't even put sprinkles on, because I don't know if those have gluten. Do they?  Please someone tell me, I don't want to google it.

These Gluten free cupcakes were the bomb!

These are my first attempt at these, and they turned out great, I have a post coming up about how to make them.  Sorry I'm way behind on that one.

This was the one and only time ever that my white chocolate melted and was perfect.  And then I was cocky and thought I could do it again that way every time.  Well never happened again, stupid chocolate!

I could eat these all, only three ingredients and I have a baby donut maker so super easy.

Super yummy, and super simple, Nutella donuts.

Again, I got cocky, I made these once before and they turned out so I was all, I can do this no problem.  They didn't turn out perfectly, but whatever, people still ate them.

And these little macarons that were a little over done, sorry.

Okay so I made two kinds of brownies, using the same brownie base.  I found that awesome chocolate frosting recipe on line, and now for the life of me cannot remember where. And that stinks because Hubby actually liked the frosting.  Sigh.

Here is the base for these great chocolate chip cookies.

And those brownies, oh those brownie are good!

Another nice picture.

I cut those brownies way too big, but whatever, if you cannot handle it, you need to leave it alone!

So apparently the biggest hit was the strawberries, weird.  Considering how I feel about fruit as desert.  But whatever, I filled the table up a few times and then headed home to my mom and Pork Chop.  I was happy to have been able to do something like this, made me feel sort of professional, but not really.

Kiss Cookies

When I brought these to work I was so excited to tell me friends that they could finally "kiss my cookies!"  And they gave me a sigh and head shake, I thought it was hilarious.  I mean the least they could do is laugh at my lame jokes, I made them cookies for crying out loud!

  I love nothing more than when I make something new and it turns out right.  And I hate nothing more than the fact that that does not happen very often.  It's just my life as usual. So when I found the bag of candy cane Hershey kisses I had in my pantry I was all "I am going to make kiss cookies!!!!" and then I went on google and pintrest and what have you, and all the recipes I saw were for cookies rolled in sugar or whatever.  And that is just one extra step I didn't want to deal with.  So I kept looking.

  I cannot tell you how long it took me, but I finally realized if anyone was going to have a good recipe for this, Hershey's would.  I mean seriously how I got this far in life I don't even know, but I have, so you have to deal with me.

  So I googled the Hershey website and they had recipes worked around their products.  So for me I looked under the kisses section and BAM; there it was.  I was like "I am so smart!"  And then I got over my awesomeness and made some cookies. Here is the link to the page I ended up on.  

Pork Chop was all "I am going to help!" And then he tried to roll one cookie and the dough was not working for him and he gave up.  Maybe I should force him to stick to it and stuff, he may fail later in life if I don't.  But then there are more cookies for me this way, so he may have to fail for the greater good.

So to start I wanted lots of these, some for my work, some for the elevator guys at my other work, and some to send to work with Hubby.  So I got three kinds of kisses.  I had my candy cane ones and then I got the mint ones and the cookies and cream.  It was simple, the day before I sat down and unwrapped those buggers, it was a huge pain because there were little bits of tin foil all over.  I put them in the fridge to get cold.  Now you would think I could have asked Pork Chop to help, even let him have a few, but no my child wanted nothing to do with it.  I need a new kid, one that loves chocolate and baking. Or maybe not, I don't like to share.

I may have over baked them, they looked kind of cute like this though.

I altered the recipe just a tiny bit.  The original was actually for one batch, half being chocolate the other vanilla.  So I just did two batches, but made them each full ones.  It was just easier that way.


Kiss cookies, vanilla
based on recipe from Hershey's website

1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup shortening
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1 TSP vanilla bean paste
2 cups plus 4 TBSPs all purpose flour
1 TSP baking powder
1/4 TSP salt

Now at this point Hubby was all over taking pictures with his new Ipad.  And yes I said new Ipad, my parents let him get his Christmas gift early.  I think they may favor him if you ask me.  Anyway he took pictures, then I didn't use them.  Just to show him what was what.  And I am not even sure what that means, but I stuck it to him, so that is all that counts.

Preheat oven to 350 and cream the butter and shortening together with the sugar. Beat in the egg and vanilla.   Sift dry ingredients together and add to butter and mix until combined.  Roll dough into balls and place on parchment paper lined cookie sheet.  I used a cookie scoop and baked them for about 8 minutes or so, until they were getting golden.  Then remove from oven, let sit for a minute then push a kiss into the top of each cookie and put cookies on cooling rack.

I found that the dough was not so soft as you could really roll the balls, you sort of had to form them, but it worked.  And my cookies cracked, so maybe I over baked them a few seconds.  I don't know, all I know is they were awesome.

So I was so excited when Hubby and Pork Chop actually wanted to try them.  But that was short lived, Hubby took the chocolate out and just ate the cookie.  But then Pork Chop was just trying to get a chocolate out of his, so I gave him the left over kisses and he was thrilled.  I may have sighed really loudly, and I may have just cursed them a little.  But only maybe, and only a little.

Kiss Cookies, chocolate
based on recipe from Hershey's website

1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup shortening
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1 TSP vanilla bean paste
2 cups all purpose flour
4 TBSPs cocoa powder
1 TSP baking powder
1/4 TSP salt

Follow the same directions as for the vanilla cookies

I found that I the chocolates would not harden back up while sitting out, our house can get warm when I bake, so I put the cookies in the fridge to get them to set up and they were a hit.  I was due for a hit, it has been a while you know.

These were my favorite, I love chocolate. And well, I want to make them again, they were that good.

Ice Cream Sandwiches

It looks way more impressive in real life I promise.  And my counter is not super shiny and weird, that is plastic wrap.

 So Pork Chop goes through fazes where he will eat something every day, the same for like months.  It all started with green olives when he was just a little pork chop, around 1 year old.  I remember taking him to Costco and he was sitting in the shopping cart.  We got a huge bottle of green olives, it was like half his size, and he hugged that bottle until we had to pay for it, and even then he didn't want to let go.  So my kid may have food issues.

This is the ice cream sandwich maker, so you use it to cut out cookies and then you put the bottom on and make your sandwich.  And I figured this out all by myself, there were no instructions.

  Anyway last year it was ice cream sandwiches.  You now the ones, with the chocolate cookie and vanilla ice cream.  He could not get enough, me well I would sneak one now and then, but he could eat them until the cows came home.  Which really makes no sense as we have no cows coming home, as far as I know.

  So this summer when I was at the store I saw these cute ice cream sandwich makers I was all "I need those!" But for once I was good, they were $10 for the set of three, but I knew it would be another one of those gadgets I get and then forget to use.  But when I went back in the fall and they were on sale for $2, well that right there makes them something I need.  So I got them, and promptly forgot about them.

Here you can see the cookies, they spread out a bit when baking so I have hot stamped them, or whatever you call it.  You know when they come out of the oven and you cut them with the cutter again. Anyway this is it, before I broke off the extra bits.

  I was planning to make cookies for Pork Chops class, and I figured I might as well kill two birds with one stone.  And I have no idea why this post has me using all these weird phrases.  I promise I have not been drinking; yet. And no birds were killed in the making of this post.  I may have baked some chicken for Pork Chops diner, but I did not kill it, with or without a stone.

  So I was grabbing stuff out of my pantries and I saw the ice cream sandwich makers and I thought heck we just got some ice cream, why not.

So the maker has a bottom on it, so I put that one, and stuffed a cookie inside.

  I didn't make too many as these were not going to work, it's hard to transport ice cream, and I also didn't want to share my ice cream.  So I did what any normal person would do, I made 4.  There may be 3 of us, but I know 1 will go to Pork Chop, he will  bite it then say gross.  1 will sit in the freezer for months while Hubby keeps telling me he will try it.  And the other 2?  Well I ate one already, and I have plans to eat the other one too.  So it makes perfect sense to make 4.

I just put a small scoop of ice cream in, and it doesn't have to be level, the ice cream sandwich maker will do that for you.

  I used my favorite sugar cookie recipe that I got from I am Baker.  Here is one of my old posts with the recipe.  Now I love this recipe, I think it's because I know what to expect and that it is going to work usually.  I really want to try a chocolate roll out cookie. I did chocolate chip roll outs once, and they were awesome, so I need to try new things.

Then you just smoosh another cookie on top.

  Anyway I rolled out my cookies, not too thick, and then cut them with the cutter.  I baked them then once they came out I cut the hot cookies again.  This ensures that they are the perfect size.  If you don't cut them they won't fit into the maker and you will be upset with your life.  Trust me on that one.

And then you just put the plunger thing in and push down to make it all even and compact.  Then you pull the bottom off and push it all the way out.

  So once they were cooled I broke off the edges and took out my ice cream.  For some reason the ice cream was really nice and soft.  It could be the fact I had been opening the freezer over and over to bake my cookies, but either way it was perfect.  If you have a hard ice cream, take it out of the freezer and let it melt enough so you can spread it a bit.

  So I put one cookie into the maker, I put the flat side up so the nicer side was facing out.  I then put a scoop of ice cream, not too much as I didn't want to make it so big.  Then another cookie, flat side against the ice cream.  Then you use the plunger to push it all together to make it a nice even sandwich.  I laid out some plastic wrap, took the bottom off the maker and pushed the sandwich out.  It looked perfect! I then wrapped it up and froze it.

It actually takes a good amount of pressure as it spreads out the ice cream.

  Now I ate one and it was not too bad, the ice cream was really soft and the cookies got a little hard, so it sort of squished out.  Also we only had mint chocolate chip ice cream, and the flavour was not the best for this cookie.   I think a plain rich chocolate would have been perfect.  Or even a chocolate cookie.  Either way, it was not bad and I think it was fun and easy to do.  I can see making these again for all sorts of themes and flavor combinations.

Ta-da!!!!

  Anyway for the $2 I paid for three different molds, you cannot go wrong.

I put them in the freezer like this, we should take bets on how long they sit there before they get tossed out:(