I made birthday cake Oreos?

Apparently I haven't posted anything in a month.  Something about graduating and then driving home made me busy.  (That's no excuse, I got home two weeks ago today).  Anyways, I have cookies to tell you about.

I've been finding that I don't have as much of a sweet tooth lately as I used to.  A few people who have known me for a long time might ask... have you ever had a sweet tooth?  But that's beside the point.

Sweet tooth or no, I can still usually find room for Oreos.  (Really, Firefox spell check?  You don't know about Oreos?)  A little over a year ago, when I tried Birthday Cake Oreos for the first time, I was hooked.  And then couldn't find them anywhere, because apparently they were made exclusively for their 100th birthday, and then went out of production.  So back to normal Oreos it was.

A few months ago, I found myself in a room with some Birthday Cake Oreos again.  I ate my share and went looking to buy some, but, again, no luck.  This time, however, I decided to take action.  I already have a homemade Oreo recipe (as yet untested), but I checked to see if there was a birthday cake Oreo recipe somewhere on the internets.  I was lucky, and stumbled across Kojo Designs, and the story of finding the cookies in the Middle East and needing them again... and a recipe.  Time to start baking.

Pretty standard recipe procedures - first mix together all the dry ingredients (for the cookies).

I'm at home now, which means I get to use this awesome flat wisk thing - just about my favorite tool for mixing together dry ingredients.

Then mix together the sugar and the wet ingredients.  Kirsten, in writing her original recipe, mentioned that the cookies weren't as crisp as Oreos, and that Dutch process cocoa might make the difference.  However, I found that a mixture of half normal / half Dutch Process was about twice as expensive as normal cocoa, so instead I swapped out half the brown sugar for white sugar.

Fun fact: brown and white sugar are interchangeable in cookie recipes, and more brown sugar makes for a moister, softer cookie.

Once your wet and dry ingredients are mixed, mix them together until you have a nice ball of dough, then roll it out.  To prevent staining everything with chocolate, you can roll between parchment or wax paper (or what I did, a sheet of each...).  Seriously, the stuff stains badly, so be careful.

The rolled dough should then be refrigerated for a while.  I went out and gardened, which didn't help the brown-stained hands situation very much.

The recipe calls for the cookies to be cut into 1.5 inch circles.  I realized at this point that my family doesn't own any circular cookie cutters, nevermind one that's only 1.5 inches (slight lie - I do have a circular biscuit cutter, but it's huge).

Time to innovate.  I ran around the kitchen with a ruler measuring things.  Found a 1/2 Liter Nalgene with around a 2 inch circular lid, which could have sufficed (huge cookies, though).  Then I checked the spice cupboard, and ended up using this spice bottle lid.  Exactly 1.5 inches in diameter.

When my mom later asked what I used to cut the cookies, my dad and I just started laughing for a while, which, of course, led to some concern on her part.

Cut the dough into circles, reroll, cut more circles, hope that when you're done cutting you have an even number of circles.  Though leaving one cookie for eating after they've baked wouldn't hurt too much - I was so tempted, but couldn't let myself.

The cookies don't bake for very long, and I pulled them out of the oven and put them right back on top of the stove while I pulled out the cooling rack.  At this point, my mom walks in, looks at the cookies that are very close together on the baking sheet, and says "does the recipe say anything about how far apart they should be when they're baking?  Because these might spread quite a bit, and you wouldn't want them to stick together."

Don't worry, Mom.  I don't think that'll be a problem :)

I guess I forgot to take pictures of the frosting.  That got mixed up and piped onto cookies to make sandwiches, which was a painfully long process, mostly because I was far too stingy with my frosting to begin with, and had to go back and reopen and refrost some of the sandwiches.

Also, you can't really tell here, but the frosting was between pink and purple in color - I added extra sprinkles to enhance the funfetti effect, but they lost their color in mixing and simply colored the frosting a bit.  Would still do again.

Seriously.  Just look at these things.
Don't they look just... amazing?

When I first tried these cookies, I was a little disappointed.  The frosting was good, but the cookie was very crisp and too... chocolatey.  My parents loved them, but I wasn't sure I'd want to try them again.

The next day, however, I took a bunch of the cookies to my boyfriend's graduation party.  During the night, the frosting had hardened and the cookies had become just a little softer and they were perfect.  Perfect.  Everyone at the party loved them and I loved them, and when there was one left on the plate, I was tempted to take it but said to myself "No... I left a few at home... I can have one of those."

Naturally, when I got home, they were all gone.  I watched my mom eat the last one as I wished I'd had just one more at the party.  Or gotten to the last one first.

I've found myself craving them many times since I made them just a couple weeks ago, so I guess, even though they were quite a hassle, I need to make them again.

For any of you who want to try, here's the recipe, mostly copied from Kojo Designs but with my few tweaks.

Chocolate Wafer Cookies
1 1/4 cups all purpose flour
3/4 cups unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
5 TBS salted butter, melted
1/3 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup white sugar
1 large egg

1. Whisk together flour, cocoa powder and baking soda in a large bowl.
2. Stir together butter, brown sugar, and egg.
3. Add butter mixture to flour mixture and stir until you can form the dough into a ball.
4. Roll dough between two sheets of wax or parchment paper until 1/8 inch thick.
5. Transfer to refrigerator for at least 30 minutes or until firm.
6. Preheat oven to 350 with racks in upper third.
7. Cut out 1.5 inch circle shapes (preferably an even number).  Reroll scraps, re-refrigerate if necessary.
8. Place cookies on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper (not wax paper!), and refrigerate or freeze until very firm.
9. Bake for around 8 minutes or until firm.  Let cool completely.

Birthday Cake Cookie Filling

1/2 stick unsalted butter
1 1/2 cups confectioners sugar
1/4 cup funfetti cake mix
2 TBS extra sprinkles
2 tsp pure vanilla extract
1 to 2 TBS heavy cream, as needed (I used half and half, but heavy cream will probably be better)

1. Beat butter until light and fluffy.
2. Gradually add the sugar, cake mix, sprinkles and vanilla, while mixing.
3. Beat in cream in small portions until the icing is spreadable.
4. Scoop into a piping bag (or ziploc bag with a corner cut off).
5. Pipe icing onto cookies, adding another cookie on top of each pile of icing until all of your cookies are in sandwiches.

According to the original recipe, these cookies can be stored in an airtight container at room temperature for a week.  I wouldn't know.  They lasted less than 24 hours for me.

The Healthiest Dessert I've Ever Loved

So... I lied in my last post.  It was an accident.  But I told you I've never made pie.

I also lied a few posts back when I said I was done posting about apple dishes.

I didn't intend to lie, I swear.  It was just... forgetfulness.  I found these pictures of a vegan raw gluten free apple pie I made in January, and I just had to share.  Because it was delicious - one of the most satisfying desserts I've ever eaten.  And rather easy to make.  Much easier than normal pie.

Thanks to Lydia and/or James for first making this for me, and this recipe which I modified a bit.

First, peel several apples.  This was my first time baking with apples after learning how to properly peel apples, which was helpful.

Next, get out the food processor.  Grind a handful of nuts to sprinkle on the bottom of the pan (to prevent sticking), and then grind nuts, dates or figs or some sticky fruit, and a dash of maple syrup.  I used hazelnuts and walnuts, for this one, which was delicious.

The mixture forms into a sticky mess, which is really cool to watch for some reason.

See?  Sticky mess.

This mixture alone is delicious.  Extremely sweet and very nutty.  For obvious reasons.  It will be your pie crust.

 Press this down into your pan to form a "crust".

Mini rant about Blogger: I had to try 3 times to get this photo to upload.  The in-Blogger uploading isn't working anymore, so I uploaded the above pictures to imgur and connected the link.  For whatever reason, that broke too.  So now I'm uploading to Picasa?  Grr.

Finally, slice and grate your apples in the food processor.  Once that's been done, put apples, cinnamon, salt, lemon juice, raisins and vanilla in the processor and blend until smooth.

Actually, don't do that.  I'm looking back at the recipe I used and I misread it.  Grate your apples, then insert other filling ingredients (raisins, cinnamon, salt, lemon juice, vanilla) into the mixing bowl, and mix.  That would have saved me a lot of time....

Let this mixture sit for a bit, then squeeze out extra liquid.  Put the filling in the pan, then slice the apple you didn't peel in the first place and make your pie look pretty.  Then eat!

The squeezing out the extra liquid would have been a lot easier if I hadn't blended the apples... Whoops!  It looks fine and tastes great :)




Vegan Raw Gluten Free Apple Pie

1 cup + some nuts
5 dates or figs
3/4 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla
A splash of maple syrup

5 apples
1 tbs raisins (soak them in water a while first to plump them up)
Juice from 1/2 lemon
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp vanilla

1. Grind a handful of nuts, sprinkle on bottom of pie pan
2. Process rest of nuts, dates, salt, vanilla and maple syrup in the food processor until a sticky mess
3. Press into pie pan, refridgerate
4. Grate 4 apples, mix with raisins, lemon juice, salt, cinnamon and vanilla.  Let sit for 10 minutes.
5. Squeeze out (but save) excess liquid from apples and put in pie pan.
6. Slice remaining apple, dip each slice in liquid, and arrange slices artfully on top of pie.
7. Serve!  Or refrigerate until serving.

Still not Pad Thai

This time, I knew it wouldn't be Pad Thai, but I hoped it could be a reasonable estimation.  I found the recipe in a list of ideas for things to do with Ramen.  Ramen Pad Thai - make ramen, add some tamarind and other things, and boom! Pad Thai.

Easy as pie, right?

I mean, I haven't made pie ever, so maybe...

I decided to use a ramen I got at the Korean market, because why not?  I think this was one of my downfalls, honestly.  The ramen claims to take 4 minutes to cook but manages to be done in only 2.  So, in using ramen noodles to avoid overcooking rice noodles, I still overcooked my noodles.

Other ingredients: egg, tofu, fish sauce, bean sprouts, and tamarind.  I probably also didn't have everything I needed for the recipe, because I'm good at forgetting things.

Draining the noodles and adding tofu and bean sprouts wasn't hard.  Knowing how much of the seasoning to use when my seasoning isn't standard ramen seasoning?  That was hard.

Add egg and tamarind and... eww.

Yeah...

This one didn't turn out so good.  It was worse than the last try at Pad Thai.  So bad, in fact, that I threw it out and probably just made nachos.

Lesson learned: don't try to make Pad Thai.  It's easier just to order delivery.