Lime sugar cookies

I'm headed to a tacos-and-tequila party tonight: It's a "Cuatro de Mayo" party, being thrown by someone who doesn't believe in waiting until Saturday to party. I'm not really a partier, but then again, I don't really get invited to parties, so I figure that when I do get invited, I should try to go.

So it's a Mexican-themed party, and we're expected to bring something, perhaps a bottle of tequila, perhaps something else edible or drinkable. Obviously, I decided to bake something for dessert. But what? I don't really know any Mexican desserts. There really aren't that many, aside from flan and churros, both of which have downsides as far as being party food. So I decided to think outside the box a bit, and what I came up with was this: There will be tequila at the party. What goes with tequila? Doesn't lime go with tequila? Lime is in margaritas, isn't it? Lime it is, then.

I turned up this recipe for lime sugar cookies and decided to give it a go, figuring that I'd end up with a nice sweet treat to pair with both tacos and tequila. As it turns out, they aren't as lime-y as I'd hoped, but they're still tasty, mostly a nice sugar cookie but with a hint of lime at the finish. I'd make them again, but I might try to find lime extract to bump up the lime flavor, or I might just leave it out altogether and make plain sugar cookies.

Lime Sugar Cookies
Adapted from My Baking Addiction

2 3/4 c flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 c butter, softened
1 1/2 c sugar
1 egg
1/2 tsp vanilla
Zest of a lime
3 tbsp lime juice
1/4 c sugar for rolling

1. Whisk together the flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt and set aside.
2. Beat together the butter and sugar, then beat in the egg, vanilla, zest and juice. Stir in the flour mixture until combined.
3. Take a rounded teaspoon of dough at a time, form it into a ball, roll in sugar and place on a parchment-lined cookie sheet, an inch and a half apart.
4. Bake at 350 degrees for 12-14 minutes, until lightly browned. Let sit on pan 2 minutes, then remove to a cooling rack.

Peanut butter cup brownies

Sometimes, you have this grand, elaborate plan to make something that'll perfectly fit the occasion, something fancy that will really impress, or something that's seasonal or fits with a theme. And sometimes, you just need to come up with something simple that'll please a crowd, and you don't have a lot of time to think about it.

I had a bunch of mini peanut butter cups in the fridge that I'd stockpiled from post-Easter sales. Everybody likes peanut butter cups. So I plugged in "peanut butter cup" on Pinterest, my new best friend as far as the Interwebs goes. And I found these. And they were, indeed, crowd-pleasers: one person called them "crack," and another said "you're evil -- I can't stop eating these!"

One big, huge warning before you make these, though: Cut strips of parchment wider than the muffin cups and lay them inside each cup before you put in the batter (just plop the batter on top to make the strip fall into the cup). DO NOT SKIP THIS STEP. Or you will end up crying and swearing, like I was, as you scrape half-brownies out of the pan and throw them away, 'cause no matter how nonstick your pan is, these will not want to come out in one piece -- the tops will peel off in your hand, leaving the rest stubbornly sitting in the pan. And my pan is super-slippery, the type of pan that I usually don't even need to grease, 'cause stuff just slides right out of it. Trust me, just use the parchment strips: You'll end up with little parchment slings that you can pull to get the brownies out.

Peanut Butter Cup Brownies
Adapted from Savory Sweet Life

3/4 c butter
3/4 c sugar
3/4 c brown sugar
2 tsp vanilla
2 eggs
3/4 c flour
1/2 c cocoa
1/2 tsp salt
Around 40 mini peanut butter cups, unwrapped

1. Melt the butter in a large bowl. Mix in the sugars, vanilla and eggs. Then, stir in the flour, cocoa and salt.
2. Grease your mini muffin pan. Cut little strips out of parchment paper, about a centimeter wide and long enough to put inside your mini muffin cups and have some hanging out over the edges.
3. For each muffin cup, hold a strip of parchment over the cup, then plop about a teaspoon of the batter onto it to push it down into the cup. Fill the cups only about two-thirds full of batter.
4. Place a peanut butter cup into each muffin cup and push down until the top of it is level with the top of the batter.
5. Bake at 350 degrees for about 15 minutes. Let cool in the pan for 5 minutes, then remove them from the pan by pulling on the ends of the parchment strips, peel off the parchment and place them on a cooling rack.

Oatmeal-raisin-nut cookies

Y'know, nobody told me that wedding planning would take all of my free time. But it's ridiculous how booked my calendar has gotten -- and when you're this busy, there's not enough time to contemplate fun hobbies like baking. I'll need to change that, though, if for no other reason than that there are a few events coming up soon for which I'm obligated to bake something.

Alright, confession time: I did bake one thing since the last time I posted. It was an orange angel food cake for Easter, and it proved disappointing -- while it tasted alright, the texture was just off, the crumb too uneven and a bit too chewy. This experiment taught me that if you already have a good recipe for something, you probably shouldn't reinvent the wheel. I might make an orange angel food cake again, but next time, I'd just modify this recipe to add orange flavor.

That failure sort of reminded me of my mission when I started this blog, though. It wasn't about making whatever fancy or trendy recipe I came across (though there's nothing wrong with that necessarily) -- it was about establishing a baseline, finding good, solid recipes for basic things that I (and you) can turn to again and again whenever I need to make a cake, or some cookies, or what have you. And while I've found a few good ones, there are still a lot of basic things that I don't have my own recipes for -- like pound cake, and great biscuits (not just passable ones), and really good white bread.

And oatmeal cookies. Yes, those, too. I have plenty of cookie recipes, some of them old standbys by now, but the one basic cookie I hadn't made yet was oatmeal.

The hardest part of making these was deciding where to start, what sort of cookie I wanted to end up with. A chewy oatmeal cookie was a given, but aside from that, the options were dizzying: oatmeal raisin? Oatmeal chocolate chip? Oatmeal peanut butter chip? Oatmeal-pecan-white chocolate-coconut? Ultimately, I decided to stick with a classic, or close to it, anyway -- I went with the standard oatmeal-raisin, but as luck would have it, the recipe I ended up basing mine on included walnuts, which I'd already been thinking of throwing in.

These came out pretty good, though a bit small (you'll want them small so you get a decent number of them and so they cook properly all the way through). Also, I discovered that while warm chocolate chip cookies are great, warm oatmeal cookies fall flat -- they were vastly better the next day than fresh from the oven.

Oatmeal-Raisin-Nut Cookies
Adapted from a Smitten Kitchen recipe

1/2 c butter, softened
2/3 c light brown sugar
1 egg
1/2 tsp vanilla
3/4 c flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp cinnamon (I scaled this back a bit 'cause I was using strong Tung Hing cinnamon; next time, I'd use more)
1/4 tsp salt
1 1/2 c rolled oats
1/2 c raisins
1/2 c chopped walnuts

1. Beat together the butter, brown sugar, egg and vanilla until thoroughly combined.
2. In another bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, cinnamon and salt. Stir into the butter mixture.
3. Stir in the oats, raisins and nuts.
4. Form into medium-sized mounds (mine were maybe an inch and a half or so wide -- I don't own a cookie scoop, so I just sort of made what looked like a reasonable size to me) and place 2 inches apart on a cookie sheet.
5. Bake at 350 degrees for 10 minutes, until the edges are browned but the centers still look underdone. Let sit on the pan for 5 minutes, then remove to a rack and cool completely.

Cinnamon-cocoa meringues

When life gives you lemons, you make lemonade. And when life gives you not one but two lousy recipes for lemon curd (of which we shall never speak again -- maybe someday, I'll muster the enthusiasm to try making it again, but not soon), causing you to waste six egg yolks... well, at least you can make something good with the whites.

Finding this recipe was actually perfect timing, too, 'cause we'd only had a Penzeys open around here for one day before I was there, buying ridiculous amounts of stuff, including what ended up to be four different kinds of cinnamon. Good thing I like cinnamon, but I definitely need to come up with more uses for it now.

These came out pretty good, but I'm not sure if they're something I'd want to eat all the time. And I'd cut back further on the cinnamon next time -- I knew to use less than the recipe said, 'cause I'm using fresh, good-quality stuff, but I also used one of the hotter kinds (China Tung Hing), so it was still a bit much. Also, I had an awful time trying to figure out when these were done. I ultimately just went ahead and overbaked them, erring on the side of caution, 'cause they're on low heat anyway, so it's not like they'll burn soon, but you definitely want them nicely dry, not sticky in the centers.

Cinnamon-Cocoa Meringues
Adapted from Eating Well

3 egg whites
1/4 tsp cream of tartar
3/4 c sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla
3 tbsp cocoa
1 tbsp cinnamon (or much less if you're using high-quality stuff)

1. Beat the egg whites with the cream of tartar on high until soft peaks form when you turn off the mixer and pick up the beaters. Beat in the sugar a bit at a time until combined, then continue to beat until stiff and glossy. Beat in the vanilla, then the cinnamon and cocoa.
2. Drop 1 1/2-inch-wide mounds a half-inch apart on a parchment-lined baking sheet.
3. Bake at 200 degrees (yes, that's not a typo) until dry and crisp, about an hour and a half (or longer if you made your meringues too big, like I probably did).

Out of the Kitchen: Albany Cupcake-Off

I think it's time to acknowledge that sometimes, interesting food-related stuff happens that's not directly tied to me baking something. And so, I've added a new entry tag: "Out of the Kitchen." And I can't think of a better way to start off my non-recipe entries (of which I assure you there won't be a whole lot -- this will still be primarily a baking blog) than with an event I was part of today: a blind tasting of area cupcakeries' offerings.

The competition has been pretty fierce around here between the four major cupcake bakeries. There's Coccadotts, best known as either the people who failed miserably on "Cupcake Wars" (and got a lot of flack afterwards for it) or the people who recently got a lot of publicity for making Buffalo wing cupcakes. There's Bettie's, which you can't miss, with their multiple outlets (at least three, last I knew) and two cupcake trucks and massive publicity everywhere you go. There's Sweet Temptations, now in two locations and with one truck. And there's Fluffalicious, which started out as a truck and only recently opened a shop of their own.

But while all of them have their fans and detractors, who really has the best cupcake? I was determined to find out, and after planting a bug in the ear of the Profussor, who has set up quite a few head-to-head food comparisons like this, we had our answer.

Many precautions were taken, because the cupcake business can be cutthroat around here. The orders were placed anonymously, just an order for a party or something, no mention given of our true intent. All participants were sworn to secrecy, not allowed to say anything about the event in public in case a bakery were to find out and somehow game the system, make sure that we had extra-good cupcakes just for us, when what we wanted was to find a fair answer: If you walked into one of these places off the street, right now, where would you get the best cupcake? And to remove our own biases, we tested them blind, with only a few organizers on the other end of the room knowing whose cakes went on plates labeled A, B, C and D.

At high noon, we gathered and prepared for the tasting, which included water and cold milk to wash down the cakes.



First up was the vanilla round: Yellow cupcakes with vanilla frosting.



Cupcake A stood out for being almost shortcake-like, with a whipped-cream-like, non-gritty frosting that had a pleasant vanilla flavor and a fairly good cake. Cupcake D's frosting wasn't so good, awfully greasy-tasting, but their cake was buttery and moist and delicious.

Meanwhile, Cupcake C's frosting tasted chemical-y and buttery in the bad way, like a stick of butter, while their cake tasted mostly like cake flour, like the chemicals used to give cake flour its texture. And Cupcake B was just wretched -- the frosting tasted like Crisco and chemicals, and the cake was about the same, artificial-tasting and just awful. Even the sprinkles were bad; for some odd reason, they tasted like black pepper. You could actually do a little better to buy a box of cheap cake mix and a jar of frosting at the grocery store than to eat this one. We also noticed that B was the smallest cupcake, but considering how bad it was, that might've been a blessing.

So much for "yay, we get to eat cupcakes!" Clearly, they were not all created equal. Onward to round two: Chocolate cakes with chocolate frosting.



Again, A stood out, this time for being the only one that tasted like chocolate: the frosting had a clear cocoa taste, while the cake also tasted like chocolate cake. D was so-so, not offensive but not chocolate-y, either. C's frosting had a hard crust on top, like it had been sitting around for a while, and its cake was even worse: it was beyond dry into full-on tough, actually hard for me to cut through with a knife, and it tasted about the same, dry and awful. But B was again the worst, tasting like chemicals and grease instead of like cake.

Round three was the specialty-flavor round, and we went with the most popular one across all four shops: Peanut butter cup.



A faltered a bit in this round -- it was pretty much the same as the chocolate/chocolate one in the previous round, except for a scant peanut butter filling (which I think was tasty, but I can't be sure 'cause there was so little of it). C actually redeemed itself a little bit here, 'cause while their cake was again very dry and lacking in flavor, the frosting was the best of the bunch, very peanut-y. D was slightly peanut-y in the frosting but sort of greasy and overall unimpressive. And B, well, by this point, I actually resented that I had to put this in my mouth, and when I got a taste of their frosting, I actually made a face -- again, it was all Crisco and chemicals, as was the cake.

You shouldn't actually dread eating a cupcake, but with bakery B's, I did. They were so bad, across the board, so chemical-y and artificial-tasting and lacking in any good flavor at all, that I was actually offended by them. How does bakery B get away with selling these? How do they have the nerve to charge people money for such wretchedly bad cupcakes? Don't they have any taste buds to know how much theirs suck? Do they have no shame?

After much eating and thinking, we turned in our score sheets, and then, we were told the identities of the bakeries we'd been eating from...



Bakery A was Fluffalicious.
Bakery D, which I'd say was my second-favorite (and my favorite yellow cake), was Coccadotts.
Bakery C was Bettie's.
Bakery B was Sweet Temptations.

After the big reveal, the ratings of bakery C made sense to me, 'cause I have tried their cupcakes a couple of times and have always found them to be very dry and not very good in flavor (which is why I stopped eating theirs). I was open to them being the winner, because it was a blind test and I could've been surprised, but I wasn't -- all of the added locations and cute pink ads and double-decker buses in the world can't save a dry, lousy cupcake.

As for Sweet Temptations, I just don't understand how someone can run a shop specializing in cupcakes and make ones that are that horribly bad, then put their name on them and charge people money for them. They were just that bad. I mean, before they opened, didn't they ever eat a cupcake before, ever notice that they're not supposed to taste like grease and chemicals? How do they have the nerve to sell this crap? As for the second obvious question, why do people buy them, I'd guess it's simply because they have no basis for comparison at the time, because it's a cupcake, if not a good cupcake. For that matter, I've eaten one of their cakes before, and I don't remember it being so bad, but not good, either. I almost think it's one of those things where if you buy one of theirs and think, "gee, this isn't very good," you might second-guess yourself, "but they're cupcake bakers, this is what they do, they're professionals... maybe I'm just not appreciating the goodness of this cupcake, 'cause if they run a cupcake shop, they must make good cakes, right?"

(Further reading: The Profussor's recap with scoring breakdowns.)

Cream cheese brownies

This was supposed to be a crowd-pleasing St. Patrick's Day recipe.

See, I knew the scones wouldn't go over all that well, being as authentic (read: kinda bland) as they were. So when I came across this recipe, I figured the week before St. Patrick's Day would be a good time for some totally inauthentic baking, too. And who doesn't love Irish cream? Heck, who doesn't love boozy baked goods?

Except that the Baileys doesn't come across here, not that I can taste, and I can usually pick up liquor flavors very easily. All I taste is a cream cheese-swirled brownie, a pretty darn good one, I must say, so I'd totally recommend this recipe, but I didn't get any Irish out of these at all, just yummy chocolate and cheesecake flavors. Maybe it needs more Baileys -- that might be worth trying. Or you could just appreciate these for what they are, which isn't Irish but is still delicious.

Cream Cheese Brownies
Adapted from Wee Kitchen


1 c butter
4 ounces unsweetened chocolate
2 c sugar
4 eggs
1 1/2 c flour
1/2 tsp salt

16 ounces cream cheese
1/3 c sugar
1 egg
3 tbsp Baileys Irish Cream

1. Melt the butter and chocolate together (I use the microwave, stopping to stir occasionally). Stir to combine and set aside.
2. Beat the sugar and eggs together until fluffy.
3. Whisk together the flour and salt, then beat a bit at a time into the sugar mixture. Fold in the chocolate mixture.
4. Beat together the cream cheese and sugar, then beat in the egg and Irish cream.
5. In a greased 9-by-13 pan, pour half of the brownie batter, then all of the cream cheese, spreading it out over the whole pan, then the rest of the brownie batter. Swirl together with a knife.
6. Bake at 350 degrees for 40 minutes. Let cool before cutting.

Irish scones

With St. Patrick's Day approaching, I thought it was time to try something from an Irish cookbook I picked up some time ago. The book promises authentic Irish recipes, collected from cooks across Ireland. And for the most part, it delivered -- these taste how authentic scones have always been described -- not sweet, not salty like biscuits, actually rather bland in flavor, a peasant concoction that's best as a carrier for jam.

I might make these again, and they definitely get points for authenticity, but to my American palate, they really could've used some salt (there isn't any at all in the recipe). Next time, I might make a more common, biscuit-like recipe instead, 'cause like many foods from my heritage (see also black pudding/kishka, steak and kidney pie, haggis, etc.), just because it's what my ancestors ate doesn't mean that I've inherited a taste for it.

Irish Scones
Adapted slightly from "The Country Cooking of Ireland"

6 1/4 c flour
1/2 c sugar
2 tsp baking soda
1 c butter, cut into pieces, cold
3/4 c currants or raisins
1 3/4 c milk
1 egg

1. Mix the flour, sugar and baking soda together in a large bowl. Cut in the butter until the mixture resembles coarse meal. Stir in the currants or raisins, then add the milk and stir just until the dough comes together. (This totally didn't work for me -- I ended up dumping it all out onto a floured counter and kneading it together, 'cause it just couldn't be mixed in a bowl.) Form into a rough ball.
2. Divide into 2 pieces and form each into a ball. Arrange on parchment-lined cookie sheets at least an inch apart.
3. Beat together the egg and a teaspoon of water and brush the tops of the dough balls.
4. Bake at 400 degrees for 30 to 35 minutes, until golden brown. Remove to a rack to cool.

Banana-butterscotch muffins

Sometimes, when you've stopped looking for something is when you find it.

I'd been looking for a good banana recipe for some time now, banana bread or banana muffins, there's not a huge difference. But I'd sort of given up on that, put it on the back burner and focused on other things. And then, my fiancé decided to clean out the freezer the other day, and I noticed how many bananas had piled up in there, quite a few of them no longer good, I'm sure, but some of them I knew I'd only put in there a few weeks ago.

Meanwhile, I'd already noticed that the giant pile of bags of baking chips had been sitting there in the pantry, mocking me, and I'd pulled out a bag of peanut butter chips and opened them, nibbling on a few here and there. So when I saw the pile of bananas needing to be used up, I thought, why not look around for a peanut butter-banana something, a muffin or cookie or somesuch?

Of course, once I'd settled on this recipe, I realized that while I have one bag of peanut butter chips, I have four bags of butterscotch chips, and they're all set to expire in October, meaning that I have to use them up between now and then. (In case you're curious, the reason why I have four bags of butterscotch chips to use up is that I was stockpiling them when they were on sale for a baking project that was supposed to happen in January... but it got postponed until next spring, far past when the chips need to be used. So much for planning ahead.)

But it all worked out for the best, 'cause really, butterscotch is only a few steps away from caramel or brown sugar, flavor-wise, and those are the sorts of flavors that pair nicely with banana. These came out even yummier than I'd hoped for, and they filled this house with a sweet, almost pancake-y aroma. Plus, not only is the pairing of banana and butterscotch a good one, but the muffin recipe itself is a keeper, very moist and light and delicious. :)

Banana-Butterscotch Muffins
Adapted from Fun & Fearless in Beantown

1 1/2 c flour
2/3 c sugar
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp cinnamon
2 bananas
1/2 c butter
1/4 c buttermilk
1 tsp vanilla
1 egg
3/4 c butterscotch chips (or peanut butter, or chocolate, or nuts, whatever)

1. Whisk together the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt and cinnamon. Set aside.
2. In another, good-sized bowl, microwave the bananas and the butter until the butter melts, then mash together until it's as smooth as you can get it. Stir in the buttermilk and vanilla, then the egg, then the dry ingredients. Mix in the butterscotch chips.
3. Divide evenly among 12 greased muffin cups. Bake at 350 degrees for 20 to 25 minutes, until they are golden and a toothpick inserted in the centers comes out clean. Cool for a few minutes in the pan, then remove onto a cooling rack.

Chocolate-strawberry whoopie pies

It's Valentine's Day eve, and I now own a wedding dress! The wedding planning is humming along quite nicely -- but I haven't neglected the kitchen, fret not. In fact, I couldn't let Valentine's Day pass without one more chocolate recipe, so when I saw a recipe for a raspberry-filled whoopie pie, well, that seemed perfect, especially since I'd been meaning to try my hand at whoopie pies for quite some time (they're the latest baking trend, y'know). What better time for making whoopie (pies) than Valentine's Day? ;)

Of course, I couldn't leave the recipe alone, not when I have lots of fresh-picked-in-season strawberries stashed in the freezer that need to be used up. Plus, the cake part of the 'pies looked a little flat in photo that went with the original recipe -- why not sub in another cake recipe that looked much more promising?

The only major problem I ended up having with these was that as often happens, I ended up with way too much buttercream (and the original recipe's yield actually indicated that I wouldn't have enough). Next time, I might half that recipe.

These came out really delicious, though, like a cakey version of a chocolate-covered strawberry. I'm sure your Valentine would really appreciate them. I know mine will -- he loves anything strawberry. :)

Chocolate-Strawberry Whoopie Pies
Adapted from this recipe, with a version of this filling, both from Baking Bites

2 c flour
1 c cocoa
Scant 1/2 tsp salt
1/2 c butter, softened
1 c sugar
1 egg yolk
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 c hot water
1/2 c buttermilk

1 c butter, softened
1/4 c strawberry puree (blend berries until no chunks remain, then pass through a sieve)
1 tbsp milk
1 tsp vanilla
3 c confectioners’ sugar

1. Whisk together the flour, cocoa and salt and set aside.
2. Beat together the butter and sugar, then beat in the egg yolk and vanilla.
3. Combine the baking soda and hot water.
4. Into the butter mixture, stir in a third of the hot water, a third of the buttermilk and a third of the flour mixture, stirring after each addition. Repeat until everything is mixed in.
5. Form into 1-inch balls and place on a parchment-lined cookie sheet. Press down on each to flatten.
6. Bake at 400 degrees for about 6 minutes, until the tops are cracked and the cakes look set. Remove to racks to cool.
7. Beat the butter, then beat in the milk, vanilla and strawberry puree. Beat in the confectioners' sugar until combined, then beat on high until fluffy. Sandwich between the cooled cakes.

Nutella brownie bites

It's so hard to find the time to bake and blog when you're caught up in a whirlwind of wedding planning. But that doesn't mean I don't still love to do it, and so, when I came across this recipe on Pinterest for three-ingredient Nutella brownie bites (so quick, so simple!), I had to try it. After all, I've had a craving for chocolate and brownies for weeks, because Valentine's Day is approaching, so this was perfect... and a perfect excuse to buy a jar of Nutella, of course. :)

My verdict on these is that while they were indeed quick and easy, I'm not sure if they were worth the amount of Nutella used in them. If you want a nutty-tasting brownie, go for it, but some of the fudginess of the Nutella gets lost in this recipe, so they're more nutty than chocolatey. They're not bad by any stretch, and they're sure worth the tiny amount of effort that goes into them, but I think I'd rather make a more chocolatey brownie and save the Nutella for eating straight from the jar, myself.

Nutella Brownie Bites
Adapted from a Savory Sweet Life recipe

1 c Nutella
2 eggs
10 tbsp flour

1. Mix together the Nutella and the eggs until well combined. Stir in the flour until blended.
2. Spoon into a greased mini-muffin tin.
3. Bake at 350 degrees for about 10-12 minutes, until a toothpick comes out with crumbs clinging to it. De-pan, cool and serve.