Tag Archives: dessert

Toasted Sugar Chocolate Chip Cookies

dessert,

Hi!

I tried an experiment, and I like the results! (It definitely has room for improvement, but it’s good.) So, I recently read an article about how to caramelize plain granulated sugar, like the stuff you use for baking, without making it a liquid.

I did that last Saturday, and I love how it turned out. The sugar actually tastes like caramel, and it’s hard not to just eat the sugar as is but to save it for recipes and stuff.

Then, I decided to make chocolate chip cookies using the stuff in place of granulated sugar. (Ok, so I actually made my more usual double-chocolate-chip cookies. With a few variations.)

They turned out well. In the future, I’ll definitely increase the Toasted Sugar / Brown Sugar ratio, though; the caramel flavor is fantastic when it comes through. I may even decrease the chocolate chips!

Double-Chocolate cookies, with carameled sugar.
Aren’t they pretty? (If upside down?)

Recipe

Ingredients:

  1. 1 stick of butter
  2. 1 egg
  3. 1/2 tsp vanilla
  4. 1/2 tsp salt
  5. 1/2 tsp baking soda
  6. 1 tbsp cocoa powder
  7. 1/4 C + 1 TBSP dark toasted sugar. (I toasted it for about 3 hours, I think.)
  8. 1/4 C + 3 TBSP dark brown sugar. (<- I don’t have an 1/8 C measure.) (And in the future, I’ll be moving the ratio back to even sugar/brown-sugar.)
  9. 1 egg
  10. 1 1/8 C flour
  11. 1 C total of semi-sweet and dark-chocolate chips.

Instructions

Preheat oven to 375. Cream the butter with the sugar, add salt, soda, and vanilla. Mix in the egg. Add the flour, somewhat gradually, with the cocoa powder. Add chocolate chips.

Spoon onto cookie sheet. (I made 19 cookies. Size will determine.)

Bake for 9-12 minutes, depending on the size. Cookies will appear not-too-wet in the oven when you take them out.

Enjoy!

The “Yes I AM technically an ‘adult’, thank you for noticing!” Victory Dessert

dessert

Hello!

So, yesterday, I officially finished one of my hardest academic sets ever. So far, anyway. So, I decided to make myself a dessert. Here are the directions.

The “Yes I AM technically an ‘adult’, thank you for noticing!” Victory Dessert

Victory Dessert
VICTORY! So sweet.
  1. Finish something major. Like, a combination of term papers, grading, tough quarter/semester, whatever. Something that’s a victory.
  2. Scoop ice cream into a bowl. Use a single spoon so that you can feel good about yourself because it’s “only a spoonful”.
  3. Sprinkle with little capsules of joy. (aka, sprinkles.)
  4. Put dessert in freezer while you clean up the result when “joy overfills” due to overzealous sprinklage.
  5. Bring dessert-in-process out of freezer after rainbow joy bits are cleaned up.
  6. Insert “Birthday-cake” Oreo.
  7. Insert Funfetti Cake Cookie.
  8. Top with honey cheerios.
  9. And butterscotch-chips.
  10. And chocolate chips. (Not shown.)
  11. Insert spoon.
  12. VICTORY.

Enjoy!

Double-Coolmint Chocolates (Dessert)

dessert

Hello, readers!

I discovered a New Favorite Thing for the summer. I’m calling it “Double-Coolmint Chocolates”.  It is possible one of the easiest recipes I will ever post here.

Ingredients

  1. 1 bag of mint-chocolate candies. (I used M&Ms. I imagine Andes Mints or York Peppermint Patties or anything else would work.)

Directions

  1. Purchase the individual bag(s) of mint-chocolate candies
  2. Put in freezer
  3. Let chill for at least 10-30 minutes, until chilled.
  4. Take out of freezer, serve immediately.
  5. Enjoy.

There you go. Have a great day!

Summer Fruit Salad Dessert

"Gourmet", dessert, fruit, ,

Hello!

It is now summer, which means I may actually have time to do some cooking again!

Tonight, I am going over to a house of some friends for dinner, and I’m bringing (in their words) a “salad-dessert combo”. (I gave them a list of things I would be very happy to bring, including “some combination thereof”, which then translated into a combined salad-dessert. Yup. Head’s up: Don’t try to take things too literally with me, because I will respond in kind.

So for dessert, we’re having a frozen fruit salad with a cinnamon-lemon “dressing”, and canned whipped-cream.

frozen fruit salad with a lemon dressing / glaze
It’s frozen. It’s fruit. It’s got “dressing.” (Whipped-cream not shown.)

I’ve sampled it, and it’s gonna be good. 😀

Ingredients

  • Fruit:
    • 1/2-1 1/2 C Strawberries
    • 1 C Blueberries
    • 1-2 Bananas
    • Frozen Cherries
  • Glaze / “dressing”
    • About 1 Tblsp honey
    • About 1-2 tsp lemon juice
    • About 1 tsp vanilla
    • cinnamon

Make the “dressing” / Glaze

In the bowl you will be mixing and freezing from:

  1. Pour in the honey. Make sure the honey is liquidy. Mine solidifies… frequently. So, in order to use it, I needed to stick it in the microwave for a few seconds at a time until it was liquid again. I do things in about increments of 15 seconds at power level 5 at first, and then 7 second intervals to get rid of the lumps. Note that you should do this step first.
  2. Add the lemon juice. Stir a bit.
  3. Add the vanilla. Stir more.
  4. Add cinnamon. Stir vigorously or whisk until completely smooth.

Making the fruit salad

  1. Slice the fruit into bite-size pieces
  2. Add the fruit into the bowl with the “dressing”, one type of fruit at a time
  3. As you add the fruit, stir it in with the glaze.
  4. Sample as needed to ensure that the fruit and “dressing” really go together. 😉
  5. Freeze for a while
  6. I have not done this yet, but stick in refrigerator for probably about an hour before ready to serve. Or bring it out for a few minutes, and let it sit in the summer heat, so that it can partially thaw.
  7. Divide into individual portions, douse with whipped-cream, and enjoy.

sweet things that I have no clue what they were

dessert

Hi everyone!

Sorry for the long delay. I meant to write something over break, but break happened. (In related news, I’ve now beaten both Portal games…)

Yup.

Anywho, I experimented with a recipe, and I did not expect it to turn out as well as it did, so I have no pictures.

Or real recipe.

Oh well, here it goes. (Please excuse the “ish”es, and all those good stuffs.)

I have no clue what they were sweet experiments

(But they were kindof like a cross between a pound cake, candied pecans, biscuits, and muffinish type thingamabobbers.)

Yes, you read that “tagline” correctly. Unless you read something about “murder” or “unicorns” or something else not actually in the tagline. So maybe you didn’t. And I think I’ve now used enough space to put in the second h2 tag for ingredients, and not completely throw you off visually.

Ingredients (makes 4ish)

  1. A bit more than 1/4ish Cup flour
  2. A bit less than 1/4ish Cup sugar
  3. 1 TBSP butter, plus another tbspish butter, separated.
  4. 1/4 tsp salt
  5. 1/4 tsp baking powder
  6. 8-16 pecans
  7. about 1stp-ish of brown sugar
  8. 4 shakes(ish) of cinnamon
  9. 2-4 TBSP milk

Note: I used a silicone muffin-tin-thing, and made them “upside-down cupcake” things.

Directions

  1. Preheat oven to 350ish.
  2. Mix the flour, sugar, salt, baking powder, and 1 tbsp butter in a small mixing bowl, until flaky. Don’t mix too much.
  3. Add the milk, until you get a slightly sticky batter. Slightly overmix here to get a more chewy consistency. At least, I think that’s what happened. Somebody with time should run an experiment with overmixing / not overmixing, and let me know. 🙂
  4. Melt the remaining tbsp butter, and pour evenishly into 4 of your muffin-pan things.
  5. Shake some cinnamon over the butter, and add a pinch (or more, if desired) of brown sugar to each one.
  6. put 2-4 pecans into the base of each cupthingy.
  7. Spoon batter into the doohickies.
  8. Bake until the batter starts to not stick to the sides of the pan.
  9. Remove from oven
  10. Make a cup of coffee (nonoptional.)
  11. Enjoy your “I-have-no-clue-what-the-heck-this-is” with your cup of coffee. (Also nonoptional.)
  12. Have a great day/night/week/whatever! (Optional.)

Mocha Meltdown Madness

"Gourmet", About A Buck, beverage, dessert, , ,

Hi, readers!

It’s getting on towards the end of the quarter for me. At some point I’m going to need to do a series of posts on the interesting snacks I’ve experimented with, but I don’t have the time.

I do have the time, though, to share a fairly quick coffee drink recipe with you. It’s a white-chocolate, chocolate, peppermint drink I’m calling “Mocha Meltdown Madness” for a few reasons.

A) Alliteration. Duh.

2) Chocolate. I’m getting towards (2ards? Meh) the end of the quarter, which means that chocolate is required to prevent / help with “meltdowns.” Also, chocolate melts. So, it’s a pun.

last) Madness. Why didn’t I think of this before? Why is the end of the semester so busy? Why are all these ingredients in the same cup tasting so good? Madness, I tell you!

Mocha Meltdown Madness

Ingredients

  • 1-2 ounces of milk (per 10 ounces of coffee, up to you.  It depends on the size of your mug.) Cream would be better, but hey- grad school budget. (negligible price / not worth the time of estimation.)
  • 10 ounces of coffee, thereabouts. (About 30 cents, according to my Dad’s calculations. Or free, if you get someone else to buy the coffee for you.)
  • About 1 TBSP white chocolate chips (negligible cost)
  • About 1 TBSP bittersweet chocolate chips (negligible)
  • 5-6 drops peppermint extract / a bit less than 1/4 tsp. (If you don’t like peppermint that much, even though it helps with concentration so it’s practically a necessity / healthy for students, use less.) (negligible)
  • A small capful of vanilla (optional). Or a big capful. But that’ll change the flavor. Obviously.

Directions

  • Heat milk, either in microwave or saucepan/skillet/stovetop-safe-thingy until it is hot enough to melt your chocolate
  • Add the chocolate chips, peppermint, and vanilla
  • Stir/whisk together until blended
  • Stick in microwave again, to ensure that your coffee stays hot for as long as possible. I use about 45 seconds on 20% power. Or use whatever setting you would for melting chocolate.
  • Pour coffee into mug, stir again.
  • (Optional: If you have whipped cream, put on top. Peppermint sprinkles would make a nice garnish. However, since this is a recipe by a graduate student, the original recipe does not have anything like that. After all, I choose not to afford cream on a regular basis. So, no whipped cream… for a regular thing.)
  • Test it. If necessary, or if merely desired, add more chocolate chips. White chocolate chips makes the drink sweeter, whereas bittersweet makes it more, well, chocolatey.
  • (nonoptional) Enjoy.

Total price? Probably less than a buck. But does it matter? Nope. It is SO. WORTH IT.

I hope you enjoy!

My Grape Juice Turned Into a Smoothie

beverage, dessert,

Hi readers!

So. I ended up going to a highly aerobic dance club tonight. (Seriously, I completely understand how some types of dance can burn about 500 calories an hour.) (And no, it wasn’t Zumba- it was Charleston. A WHOLE lot of fun!)

And after I got back, I thought that I really wanted grape juice. After all, I’ve got some frozen grapes in the freezer and a vitamix. Shouldn’t be too hard, right?

Unfortunately, ingredients just kept on popping up their heads saying “ooh, put me in! I’d be great!”

So the end result looked like this:

A fruit smoothie that was originally supposed to be grape juice.
Uh, “Grape Juice!” Yup, sure… 😀

And it’s REALLY, REALLY GOOD. 

So, here’s the recipe for:

Not Quite Grape Juice… at all

Ingredients

  1. 3 jumbo ice cubes (minimal charge)
  2. About 4-7 frozen strawberries (No more than 1/8 of a $2.00 bag, so about $0.13. Tops. Probably close to 7-10 cents.)
  3. About 6 frozen grapes (minimal charge.)
  4. About 1/4-1/3 Cup Milk (Maybe 5 cents?)
  5. (Optional) About 1-2 TBSP half & half (Maybe 5 cents?)
  6. A splash of vanilla (minimal)
  7. 1-2 tsp honey (MAYBE $0.05?)
  8. A shake of cinnamon (minimal)

Total cost: absolutely no more than $0.30. Probably much closer to $0.10. So, basically negligible. Especially if you already have the ingredients on hand. 🙂

Directions

  1. Start off by planning on having grape juice.
  2. Turn that idea into strawberry-grape juice.
  3. Realize you have milk, and could make something icecreamish
  4. Scratch the ice cream idea, because you want a beverage
  5. Add the ice, strawberries, and grapes into the vitamix
  6. Add the milk and half & half anyways, and decide to turn it into a smoothie
  7. Realize that vanilla would go nicely
  8. Add said vanilla
  9. Go, “Ah! I can make this ‘healthy’!” and add a shake or two of cinnamon
  10. Realize that both the cinnamon and vanilla will need sweetening
  11. Put in a bit of honey
  12. Blend until smooth

Serving: About 1 Cup.

Simpler Directions

  1. Put ingredients into the vitamix
  2. Blend until smooth
  3. Enjoy
  4. Or don’t. Really, it’s up to you.

I hope you have a tasty drink/smoothie/thingy!

The Masochist’s Cookies

dessert

Hi there!

Somebody I spoke to about getting a Ph.D. once said that you can enjoy  graduate school- you just need to “embrace the masochism.”

In part in honor of that, I made what I’m terming “Masochist Cookies”, for reasons that will be apparent shortly…

These are a slight variation on chocolate chip cookies. And they are NOT for everyone, but some will really like them.

Masochist Cookies

A “Fun” Variation on Chocolate Chip

Ingredients

  • 1 1/8 Cup of Flour
  • 1 stick of butter
  • 1 egg
  • 1/2 Cup dark brown sugar
  • 1/4 Cup white sugar
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1/2 tsp baking soda
  • 1 Cup Chocolate Chips

“Masochist” addendum:

  • 1 tsp – 1 Tbsp cocoa powder
  • 1/8 – 3 tsp cayenne (depending on spice preferences)
  • 1/4 – 1 tsp cinnamon

Directions

Ok. So, what I did tonight was I made the basic chocolate chip cookie dough, and then played with it…

To make the plain dough, basically just combine all the ingredients. This time I put the “dry” ingredients in first. So, flour, baking soda, salt, sugar. Mix those up nicely. I then melted the butter, and mixed that in, and then added the egg. I next added the “Masochist” part. Then I let the dough chill in the fridge for about an hour while I read another chapter in Theory of International Politics by Kenneth Waltz for a class, and then dished the cookies onto the cookie tray. (I heated the pre-oven to about 350, made really tiny cookies, and baked them for about 7 minutes. Seriously, they were miniscule. I got about 3 dozen cookies onto one sheet. So, mini chocolate-chip / butter-toffee cookie size like what you can get at the grocery store type of tiny.) If you go for normal size cookies, heat the oven to between 350 and 375, and cook them for between 9 & 11 minutes, or until you can smell them, basically.

For the “masochist addendum”. I first mixed up the basic dough.

 

I then pulled about half of it out, and mixed the cocoa powder in. After that, I pulled half of the chocolate dough out, and mixed the cayenne and cinnamon in. Tonight, I think I used about 1/4 tsp of cinnamon, and a bit less than 3/4 tsp cayenne. That was MUCH more cayenne than I meant to use. It turned out very noticeably, and the dough definitely deserved its title. But that’s why there’s a VERY wide range for the seasonings listed above- I made basically a quarter recipe of the masochist cookies. Increasing the yield would (in theory) require increasing the ingredients.

In order to determine how much cayenne and cinnamon to use, though, I’d seriously just sample the dough. Start with smaaaall quantities, though. Especially of the cayenne. Especially if you’re not entirely sure about the “hot chocolate” element. 🙂

So, yeah! I hope you enjoy! And have a great Saturday.