chocolate chip shortbread cookies

So…. hi! Remember me? I figured that the best way for me to get back into the world of blogging was to start with something short & sweet, and what could fulfill that promise better than chocolate chip shortbread cookies? Ha, I crack myself up. That pun wasn't intended until I reread the "short & sweet" bit. Man I'm a natural. 

Anyway… This recipe. YUM and so easy. It only requires 5 ingredients! Perfect for taking with you to Thanksgiving when you need to look like you put forth some effort when in reality there's so little time that you'll probably be baking these treats at 1 am Wednesday night. But be forewarned: this recipe isn't one you can just throw together and have cookies in 30 minutes. The butter needs to be at room temperature & the dough needs to refrigerate for at least 2 hours before baking. And if you're feeling like an overachiever, I think this recipe would be incredible dipped in dark chocolate & I'm pretty sure your guests would think so too ;)

Chocolate Chip Shortbread Cookies

Yield: about 3 dozen

Ingredients

8 oz. (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature

2/3 cup confectioners' (aka powdered) sugar

1/2 tsp. vanilla extract

2 cups all-purpose flour

3/4 cup mini chocolate chips

1. In a stand mixer, beat butter and confectioners' sugar together on medium speed for about 3 minutes, until the mixture is very smooth. Beat in vanilla, then reduce mixer speed to low and add flour, mixing only until it disappears into the dough.

2. Fold in the chocolate chips with a spatula.

3. Gather dough and place in between two sheets of parchment paper, the bottom sheet on a cookie sheet. Roll the dough into a rectangle shape 1/4-inch thick. 

4. Refrigerate the dough for at least 2 hours.

5. After the dough is firm, preheat the oven to 325 F. Cut the dough into 1 1/2-inch squares.

6. Bake for 18-20 minutes, or until the edges turn golden brown.

Word to the wise: You might have noticed the cutesy cut cookies in the picture. If you do want cookies in some shape other than the cut squares, consider doing that before you refrigerate them for 2 hours. I didn't think about it until as I was pulling them out of the refrigerator with an idealistic "Oh, we have those fun biscuit cutters! Let me find those somewhere…" The dough is now firm by this point which means if you're cutting with some shape other than straight lines, the dough will crumble and your cookies will look less than amateur status, and you'll end up with shapes that look like the state of New York because it'll be harder to reform them than to just leave them be… So if you're cookie cutting them, do so before you refrigerate. 

And that friends is my first post back to the blog world. Sometime in the coming days or weeks I'll share our trips to Maine & Orlando, but considering that I haven't blogged in two months I'd hedge a bet that it won't be tomorrow ;) 

put down the ready-made pancake batter & nobody gets hurt

Could there be a better way to start off a weekend than making pancakes? I don't really think so, but then I again I'm the type that frowns on ready-made batter you can buy at the grocery store. My quips are that:

1) making your own is one of the least involved recipes anyway {take it from me, I'm a simple recipe kinda gal} 

2) I don't know what all those ingredients are on the label & after watching all these food documentaries I'm getting a little paranoid

3) you can't lick the batter out of the bowl if it comes in an aerosol can, & pancake batter ranks right on up there with cookie dough & poppy seed cake batter on favorites to dip your finger into ;)

4) it's hard to have the right chocolate chip to batter ratio when it comes straight out of a can to the griddle, & let's face it: chocolate chips are the best part of the deal

In summation: pancakes are worth the time to make by hand. Plain & simple. The go-to in my family has always been the recipe from Joy of Cooking {easily the most referenced cookbook in our clan}. So for all you who tend to grab a can of ready-made at the store, try this recipe next time you get a hankering & tell me it doesn't taste better than the mystery mix you usually buy. 

Chocolate Chip Pancakes

Yield: about sixteen 4" pancakes

Whisk together in a large bowl:

1 1/2 c. all-purpose flour

3 T. sugar

1 3/4 t. baking powder

1 t. salt

Combine in another bowl:

1 1/2 c. milk

3 T. butter, melted

2 eggs

{optional: 1/2 t. vanilla extract, I never use this}

Create a little crater in your dry ingredients. Mix the liquid ingredients quickly into the dry ingredients, but don't overbeat it. Lumps are expected. 

Now the best part:

Add the chocolate chips {the quantity is totally up to you}! We tend to add almost a 1/4 of a bag of Nestle Toll House semi-sweet chocolate mini chips & about 25+ Ghirardelli 60% Cacao bittersweet chocolate baking chips.

Once your griddle/pan is warm enough {leaning towards low or medium-low heat for us}, scoop the batter out using a 1/4 measuring cup, making sure to stir the mix every time you scoop to prevent the chocolate from settling to the bottom & creating less than optimal chocolate to batter ratio pancakes {the horror!}. I'm assuming you know how to cook pancakes, but just in case, the time to flip them is when the edges begin to dry out & bubbles have started to rise & break on the surface {2-3 minutes}. 

Oh and if you're one of those well-disciplined types, these pancakes freeze really well for a week or so & make for the best microwaved breakfast since chocolate chip Eggos came out in elementary school {another food I'm not sure of what it's made of, but I made it this far so I think I'm in the clear}. 

So there you have it. For most, a pretty redundant recipe, but for you slackers out there {you know who you are}, a simple way to make your Saturday mornings that much sweeter. Hope everyone had a great weekend!

alphabet gummies + strawberries: the perfect popsicle

So call me naive, but all my life I've been under the impression that popsicles were too messy, too involved, too everything to make the effort to create your own. Ha. That's just silly. But the effort to make ice cream? That's another story. But I digress...

While perusing the bulk candy aisle at Wegman's, I made a pact that by golly, I was going to make popsicles so that I could have an excuse to buy the super fun alphabet gummies! Husmate laughed at me, & this is what transpired: simplistic yumminess.

We're talking 4 ingredients, plus the gummies {if you have a sweet tooth like me}.  So the mystical number 5! That's it, & if it's summertime, there's a darn good chance that you already have the core four: strawberries, water, sugar, & a lime. Lucky for me, I picked up my popsicle molds on a whim for cheap at IKEA, but if you don't have molds, just use little paper cups.

1 cup mashed strawberries

1/2 cup water

3-4 tablespoons sugar

juice from 1/2 a lime
fun gummy bears, letters, fish, etc. {optional, but yummy}

Add the first four ingredients together, put gummies in your molds, pour the mixture over that, & freeze.

A few notes: I used 3 tablespoons, banking on the gummies adding a sweeter taste. 

Don't be brave & try mashing the strawberries in the measuring cup with spoon like I did at first. It will fail miserably & cause your counter to turn a darling shade of rosy red. Just whip out the potato masher you were gifted or bought because mashed potatoes are totally your comfort food. It's much easier. Believe me.

That amount filled six little molds for me, but it could make more or less depending on what you're using.

& voila! Easy popsicles. Perfect way to cool down during these muggy, humid summer days, & quite tasty, too, if I do say so myself.

the tasty thorn in my side

Don't be mislead. This is the end result. The middle doesn't look so pretty.

Surely everyone has a recipe that causes them to huff in annoyance, curse in the comic book language of exclamation points, asterisks, and pound signs {that really is what I envisioned in my head... nerd from a young age}, & declare said recipe as the bane of his existence {that phrase would of course be printed in the comics in bold & italics}?

My recipe of choice to fall in this frustrating category is weirdly enough... poppy seed cake. It is honestly one of the easiest recipes ever, but because I think about what frustrates me only after I've already started the process of making it, it's always too little, too late to prevent the ensuing drama.

You see, the recipe calls for all the ingredients {except the poppy seeds & optional pecans} to be mixed together at once. How easy can it get, right? Except the way that my recipe card is written all hefty dry ingredients come first and the liquids that would actually mix them all together into something smooth & cohesive don't come until the end... after the mixture is one giant lump & causing my mixer to almost unhinge itself from its lock position. Thus, the comic book symbols language.

And you would think that I would you know... alter my recipe card to REMIND ME OF THIS the next time. But nope. 

It's turning into something of a tradition for me that goes like this: husmate requests that we make it, I agree with a slight hesitation because I remember that something is frustrating about this simple recipe but I can't quite place my finger as to what?, I start the baking process, I curse in symbols, husmate talks some sense into me, the recipe comes together, the end result is yummy, the thorn in my side is forgotten.

And the cycle repeats itself.

Maybe I'll remember next time around? Eh, I doubt it. Here's to next time.

sweet cornbread muffins

What do you do when you're craving Founding Farmers' skillet cornbread but not their usual hour-wait time? Make your own. Sadly, the Founding Farmers cookbook doesn't come out until this fall (& you better believe I'll be owning a copy of that), so I had to make do with finding another. 

While not as wonderful as the buttery, sweet goodness you get at FF (complete with homemade honey butter... yum), this recipe was surprisingly good (after tweaking its ingredients a bit). I recommend it for any of you that prefer sweet cornbread over regular, & though I tend to want the latter, even I was reaching for this cornbread as a snack from the refrigerator...

There was one more muffin, buuuut husmate got ahold of it before I could snap the picture, claiming it would look better without that muffin.
 Nice cover there, dear.

Sweet Cornbread Muffins

|| Ingredients ||

1/2 c. butter, softened

1/2 c. sugar

1/8 c. honey

2 eggs

1/2 t. salt

1 1/2 c. all-purpose flour

3/4 (or a little extra) c. cornmeal

1/2 t. baking powder

2/3 c. milk

3/4 c. frozen/canned corn kernels, thawed (canned would be better but we've made it with frozen corn from Trader Joe's and it tasted fine)

|| Directions ||

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Grease or line 12-18 muffin cups. In a large bowl, cream together butter, sugar, honey, eggs, & salt (cream 4-5 minutes). Mix in flour, cornmeal, & baking powder; blend thoroughly. Stir in milk & corn. Pour batter into muffin cups (2/3 full). Bake in preheated oven for 20-25 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of a muffin comes out clean. 

If you have any yummy recipes you want to share please do! 

delightfully delicious chocolate chip cookies

First, to Laney, I apologize for caving on our agreement & posting a recipe. I did my best to make a compromise & post it on a Friday which generally has the lowest viewership, so... you're welcome.

Also, this is by far the best chocolate chip recipe I have ever made. So, you're welcome twice, readers. I stumbled upon it while perusing this wonderful cooking blog, A Tender Crumb. Now for my disclaimer: {DISCLAIMER} this recipe calls for a whole heck of a lot of fattening ingredients, but it redeems itself by making 8 1/2 dozen cookies. So when your eyes bug out & your arteries prematurely stress after glancing at the ingredients list, quickly draw your attention back up here and read that disclaimer again.

Jacque Torres' Secret Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe

|| My Helpful Hints ||

+ tastes the best when using 60% cacao bittersweet chocolate or higher (we obviously prefer Ghiradelli)

+ to make chopping chocolate bars easier (& your wrist hurt less), stick them in the microwave for 15-20 seconds

+ if you're having trouble finding pastry or bread flour that isn't whole wheat, that's what we've been using & it tastes great. Plus it's healthier for you, and with the components of this recipe, you need all the help you can get

+ we've found that this recipe is a lot bigger than our Kitchen-aid stand mixer, so we use a big ole mixing bowl & a hand mixer

+ because this recipe is so large, I tend to measure out everything before I start mixing, combining the first group (sugars) in a small bowl and the second group (flours, salt, baking powder, baking soda) in a large bowl. That way the only thing I have to do individually is crack eggs & measure the vanilla extract

+ for the best results, chill the dough 8-48 hours before baking. It really makes a difference on the texture of the cookie {as noted by our flat cookies above which proves we were too impatient to wait to eat them the next day}

+ the original recipe calls for baking the dough at 350 F for 15 minutes, but we've found that cooking them at 325 F for 12 minutes gives you a softer cookie {you know, if you prefer that kind of thing}

+ this cookie dough freezes really well. So if you don't have a hankering for eating 102 cookies at once or even in the near future, don't worry you can just pull it out in a few weeks or more. We tend to bake some, refrigerate some, & freeze some just for good measure :) we're cookie dough stock holders as evidenced by this post {by the way, still no shame}

|| Ingredients ||

1 lb. unsalted butter

1 3/4 c. granulated sugar

2 1/4 c. packed light brown sugar

4 eggs

3 c. + 2 T. pastry flour

3 c. bread flour

1 T. salt

2 t. baking powder

2 t. baking soda

1 T. vanilla extract

2 lb. chocolate {we go closer to 22 ounces, which breaks down to 1 (10-oz) chip bag & 3 (4-oz) bars OR 2 (10-oz) chip bags & 1 (4-oz) bar. The former tastes better, but the latter costs less. I would still throw in some cut up bars because frankly they taste better than chips (plus, they make you feel way more professional)}

|| Directions ||

1. Chop bars into chunks. Preheat oven to 350 F.

2. Cream together butter and both sugars.

3. Add eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each addition.

4. Reduce speed to low & add both flours, salt, baking powder, baking soda, & vanilla; mix well until combined.

5. Fold in chocolate.

6. Using a 4-oz scoop for larger cookies or a 1-oz scoop for smaller cookies, scoop cookie dough onto prepared baking sheets, about 2" apart.

7. Bake until lightly browned, but still soft, about 20 minutes for larger cookies & 15 minutes for smaller cookies.

8. Cool slightly on baking sheets before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.

Makes 26 5" cookies (have not tried those out yet), or 8 1/2 dozen 1 1/4" cookies