Tres Leches Cake with Whipped Cream and Dulce de Leche

This cake is not for the faint of heart. Nor the dieter, diabetic, or lactose intolerant. Nor is it for the procrastinator or the spontaneous. But if you don't fall into any of these categories, this cake is definitely worth a try! If you're not feeling quite so ambitious, simply buy the already made dulce de leche at the grocery store. Heck, get a tub of whipped cream while you're at it! But definitely give the cake a shot.

Tres Leches Cake
From Best of America's Test Kitchen 2009 Magazine, page 54

Milk Mixture:
1 (14 ounce) can sweetened condensed milk
1 (12 ounce) can evaporated milk
1 cup heavy cream
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Cake:
2 cups all purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter
1 cup whole milk
4 large eggs, room temperature
2 cups sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Frosting:
1 cup heavy cream
3 tablespoons light corn syrup
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1. For the milk mixture: Pour the condensed milk into a large microwave safe bowl and cover tightly with plastic wrap. Microwave on low power, stirring and replacing the plastic every 3 to 5 minutes, until slightly darkened and thickened, 9 to 15 minutes. (I actually heated mine on the stovetop in a saucepan on low heat for about 15-20 minutes, stirring often.) Remove the bowl from microwave and slowly whisk in the evaporated milk, cream, and vanilla. Let cool to room temperature.

2 For the cake: Adjust an oven rack to the middle position and heat the oven to 325 degrees. Grease and flour a 13-by-9-inch baking pan. Whisk the flour, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon in a large bowl. Heat the butter and milk in a small saucepan over low heat until the butter is melted. Set aside off the heat.

3. With an electric mixer on medium speed (if you're using a stand mixer, use the whisk attachment), beat the eggs in a large bowl for about 30 seconds, then slowly add the sugar until incorporated. Increase the speed to medium-high and beat until the egg mixture is very thick and glossy, 5 to 7 minutes. Reduce speed to low and slowly mix in the melted butter mixture and vanilla. Add the flour mixture in 3 additions, scraping down the bowl as necessary, then mix on medium speed until fully incorporated, about 30 seconds. Using a rubber spatula, scrape the batter into the prepared pan and bake until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, 30 to 35 minutes. Transfer the cake to a wire rack and let cool for 10 minutes.

4. Using a skewer, poke holes at 1/2-inch intervals in the top of the cake. Slowly pour the milk mixture over the cake until completely absorbed. Let sit at room temperature for 15 minutes, then refrigerate uncovered for 3 hours or up to 24 hours.

5. For the frosting: Remove the cake from refrigerator 30 minutes before serving. With an electric mixer on medium speed, beat the cream, corn syrup, and vanilla to soft peaks, 1 to 2 minutes. Frost the cake and slice into 3-inch squares. Serve. (The assembled cake can be refrigerated for up to 3 days.)

---

Dulce de Leche
From Milk.Com

1 can sweetened condensed milk

Remove the label from the can of condensed milk. Poke two vent holes in the top, by using a can opener for example. Put the can into a pot (with the holes up), and fill up the pot with water until it is a quarter inch or so below the top of the can. Put the pot on a stove and turn up the heat. Let the pot and can simmer gently for about one and a half to two hours for runny dulce de leche, or up to four hours for solid dulce de leche. Add more water, as necessary, when the level boils down too much.

When it's done, let it cool for a while, and then carefully open up the can completely and eat directly (for the solid variety) or use as a dessert spread (for the liquid variety).

The resulting product should be colored tan or brown.

---

I thought I'd get a little ambitious this week and try a cake! I bought my boyfriend the Best of America's Test Kitchen 2009 magazine recently, and in the dessert section there was a recipe for Tres Leches Cake that sounded absolutely delicious. What could be better than a cake soaked in 3 types of milk? Quite a bit if you happen to be lactose intolerant, but I'm not, so this cake sounded absolutely delightful! I had a can each of sweetened condensed milk and evaporated milk in my pantry that had been hanging around for awhile, and I finally had an excuse to use them! Unfortunately, upon inspection of the cans, I realized they had expired in 2006... 2006?!? That was before I even moved in here! What was I doing hauling around expired food?? Oh well.. Into the trash they went and I was off on another grocery store run. Story of my life.

Make that 2 grocery store runs. The first time I only got Dos Leches--I forgot the cream. *Sigh* I even make grocery lists so I know what I need! And they still sit attached to my fridge when I go to the store.. Someday I'll learn. Anyway. It was Thursday night, and I had promised my boyfriend that I would bring him cake on Friday. I had the whole day Friday off and thought, "Oh I'll have plenty of time to make this cake tomorrow!" WRONG. Upon reading the directions Thursday night before I went to bed, I realized this was a very time consuming cake. It was supposed to sit, soaking up the milk mixture, for at least 3 hours, but preferably overnight, and even up to 24 hours. 24 hours?? I'd have to start right then! So much for going to bed.. It was going to be a long night..

I started with the Tres Leches mixture: Sweetened condensed milk, cooked to a golden color, about halfway to dulce de leche, evaporated milk, and heavy cream.This mixture--incredible. If I didn't think I would be horribly sick afterwards, I would have stuck a straw in the bowl and drank it. Onto the cake. I was quickly realizing that this cake could never pass itself off as figure friendly. 4 eggs and 2 cups of sugar. Whole milk and a stick of butter. Not to mention the milk mixture that it would soon be soaking in. This was a caloric nightmare. And it made my mouth water that much more. Most of the sites I perused for tips on making this cake said to use a 9x13 glass baking dish so you can see if all the milk has soaked up into the cake. Ah-ha. I knew there was something else I was forgetting. I have every size but 9x13. The most common size baking dish, and I'm somehow lacking it. I have an 11x15 for pete's sake, but not the standard 9x13! How have I survived this long without one?? Oh well. It was 1:30 in the morning, and I was not about to make another trip out to the store. My 9x13 cake pan would have to do. 35 minutes in the oven, and I had a nice golden cake that I let sit for 10 minutes before I poked holes all over it and started pouring the milk onto it. I guess I should have been slightly more observant of my cake and its soaking abilities.. I poured the milk on in 3 parts. The first one went perfectly. It was soaked up in about a minute. The second part took a little bit longer to soak.. Blindly confident that my cake could hold all the milk that was left, I went ahead and dumped the rest of the mixture on top. This is when I started to question how much Leche you really should pour over the cake because it started to literally float in the baking pan.. Could the cake really suck up that much milk? How squishy was it going to be? I started to panic and feared it was going to end up a wet disgusting disaster, but I had faith in America's Test Kitchen. They wouldn't let me down. Would they? I just had to wait about a day to find out.

12 hours later... pulling it out of the fridge I could immediately tell my cake was still floating. It hadn't sucked up all the milk, and I knew no matter how long I left it in there, it would never absorb it all because it was already thoroughly saturated. It was probably already saturated after the 2nd round of milk mixture. The third was just overkill. Oh well. Too late now. Now it was time to figure out how to drain off the excess. I ended up having to completely remove the cake from the pan, wash the pan out, and scrape the excess off the bottom of the cake. That was a gruesome task.. Talk about one grande leche mess. It took me a good 15 minutes to wipe up all the milk off my kitchen counter. This had better be one amazing tasting cake.

Onto making the ducle de leche for the drizzle. This was definitely one of my more ambitious ideas. From everything I read online, you should poke holes with a can opener in the top of a can of sweetened condensed milk, and stick the whole can right into a pan of simmering water and basically boil it until it turns golden and thick. My directions said an hour and a half to 2 hours for a runny consistency. That was about what I wanted. Just something to drizzle over the top of my cake. So I set my timer for an hour and a half and kept checking on it. With about 15 minutes to go, from what I could see through the holes at the top, it hadn't changed colors at all. It was still a milky white. So I reset my timer for another hour. After an hour, it had changed to a very pale yellow. This was taking forever! I put another 45 minutes on the timer to take me up to about 3 hours of boiling this blasted can.. 3 hours waiting for this stupid thing to change colors. But it was a good time to get housework done. I managed to vacuum, clean up my hall closet, go through about 150 books in my bookcase and find 2 bags worth of things to donate, reorganize the bookcase, do 3 loads of laundry, unload and reload the dishwasher, and take out the trash. I was more productive in that 3 hours of boiling than I had been all week! My timer went off the final time, and still not much of a color change. Finally I had had enough of this. I was going to open the can up and see what the heck was going on inside. I probably should have done that an hour ago. The bottom was a nice golden tan color, and well on its way to being completely solid. It was just the top that was still a milky color because it hadn't boiled its way all the way up. So if anyone tries this later--Use a can opener to open the can all the way up about an hour into it and stir it up to see where it's at. Don't stupidly rely on the top holes like I did. And make sure you've got an oven mitt or something. That can's gonna be REALLY hot and I don't want anyone to burn themselves. I poured it all out into a bowl and whisked it up to get the solid chunk from the bottom to blend with the milky liquid from the top. It ended up being REALLY good. I licked quite a bit off the whisk when I was done... And then had a bit of a stomachache and a sugar rush. Not a good combination.

Just a spread of whipped cream and a drizzle of the cooled dulce de leche and the cake was finally done!! It was finally time to pack it up and head over to my boyfriend's with the promised cake. By that time, I was in desperate need of some real, substantial food, so we went out for dinner at a Mexican restaurant to get us ready for our dessert! When we got home, it was finally time to cut into the cake! And it was muy delicioso. It was sweet, but not overly sweet (at least to me) with a hint of spice from the cinnamon in the cake. The whipped cream was the perfect light topping for this incredibly dense cake. It's so good, you want to have another piece, but it's so filling that one is enough. Especially after a huge Mexican dinner! Mmm.. This post made me really hungry.. I'm going to have to go cut myself another piece right now..

Conversation Heart Sugar Cookies

Sugar cookies are so simple to make. The recipe has 6 ingredients. Six. That's it. So easy! And the royal icing to decorate--three! Well four if you count water as one of the ingredients. Super simple.

Conversation Heart Sugar Cookies
From Martha Stewart Baking Handbook, page 82
(This is the full recipe--I usually halve it.)

4 sticks (1 pound unsalted butter), room temperature
3 cups sugar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
5 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting
Colored sanding sugar or sprinkles for decorating (optional)
Royal Icing (recipe follows; optional)

1. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat butter and sugar on medium-high speed until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes. Add eggs, vanilla and salt; mix on medium-high speed until combined. With the mixer on low speed, add the flour in two batches, mixing until just incorporated.
2. Turn out the dough onto a clean work surface. Divide in half, and pat into flattened rectangles; wrap each in plastic. Refrigerate for at least 2 hours or up to a week.
3. Preheat oven to 350°F, with racks in the upper and lower thirds. Line large baking sheets with parchment paper. On a lightly floured Work surface, roll out one rectangle of dough to a scant 1/4-inch thickness. Using cookie cutters, cut out shapes. Using a small offset spatula, transfer shapes to prepared sheets, placing about 2 inches apart. Chill in freezer or refrigerator until firm, about 15 minutes. Set scraps aside. Repeat process with remaining rectangle of dough. Gather all the scraps, and roll out again. Chill 15 minutes; cut out more shapes and place on sheets.
4. Decorate cookies with sanding sugar or sprinkles, if using, before baking. Bake rotating sheets halfway through, until cookies are golden around the edges and slightly firm to the touch, about 15 minutes. Transfer cookies to a wire rack to cool completely. Decorate with royal icing, if using. Top icing with sanding sugar or sprinkles, if using. Cookies can be kept in an airtight container, layered between sheets of waxed or parchment paper, at room temperature for up to 3 days.

(This way makes about 3 dozen for a full recipe. I usually roll mine thinner than 1/4-inch thick, so I get about 6 dozen thin crispy cookies out of a full recipe. I also lower my baking time to 11-13 minutes for thinner cookies.)

---

Royal Icing
Also from Martha Stewart Baking Handbook, page 389
Makes about 2 1/2 cups
(I usually halve this as well if I'm only making a half-batch of cookies)

1 pound (4 cups) confectioners' sugar
5 tablespoons meringue powder
liquid or gel-paste food coloring (optional)
(I usually add in 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract as well to give it flavor, but you could add any extract you choose to give it your desired flavor)

1. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, combine sugar, meringue powder, and a scant 1/2 cup water on low speed. Beat until mixture is fluffy yet dense, 7 to 8 minutes.
2. To thin the icing for flooding (filling in areas with a thin layer of icing), stir in additional water, 1 teaspoon at a time. Test the consistency by lifting a spoonful of icing and letting it drip back into the bowl; a ribbon should remain on the surface for 5 to 7 seconds.
3. To tint icing, dip a toothpick or wooden skewer into food coloring, and gradually mix it in until the desired shade if reached.

---

Happy Valentine's Day! It's a day for love, romance, and most importantly, sweet treats! Okay I guess the love part of it is most important, but hey-- I love sweets! That counts right? As with almost all holidays with a theme, I had to make cutout sugar cookies. It's standard for me. I can't not make them. I tried. In the weeks before Valentine's day, I tried a couple different shortbread cookie recipes to change it up a bit this year. I learned after the 2nd recipe that I really don't care for shortbread that much. So I stuck with my tried and true sugar cookie recipe from Martha Stewart's Baking Handbook (page 82). (I know, I know. I need to get away from Martha. At least for a little while. So don't worry. The next recipe I have in mind to try has nothing to do with Martha.) I've used this recipe for almost every holiday, birthday, and party I've baked for in the past 3 years. I adore cutout cookies, and have amassed quite a collection of cookie cutters. You name it, I probably have it. So of course, I had to include them in my Valentine's cookie baking even though I've made them so many times before.


I debated how to decorate them, until I was flipping through my February issue of Living magazine (again with Martha! I swear I'll stop soon..) and saw a picture of cookies they had decorated to look like those candy conversation hearts you get at Valentine's day (page 128). I'm not a fan of candy hearts by any means. I find them to be rock hard and too sweet for my taste. But candy heart cookies? That's more my style. They had used an interchangeable-letter stamp and food coloring to print the letters on the cookies. Sounded simple enough to me, so I was off on what proved to be a bit of a Valentine cookie adventure.

Making the cookies themselves went without a hitch. Well. 1 minor hitch. I baked the last batch a minute too long, so they came out a bit more golden than I would have liked. Oh well. My icing went rather smoothly, other than rushing through it to finish in time to get to work. I ended up with a few bumps and bubbles and imperfections, but all-in-all, fairly decent. Now all I had to do was to let them dry and start the fun part of decorating them--the stamps!

The next morning, I made a quick run to Michael's Craft Store to pick up my interchangeable-letter stamp set. And yes.. it was part of the Martha Stewart craft line. It came as two parts. The stamp mount, and the actual stamps themselves. Even with two 40% off coupons which the cashier so graciously let me use even though it was supposed to be one per customer, it set me back almost $15 for both. When I got home, I opened them up and realized I had to do a little prep work. The stamp mount handle had to be glued on with the tiny tube of glue that came with it. Okay. No problem. I cut the tip off the glue and spread a thin layer like it tells me. I press the handle to the mount and hold it for 10 seconds. Great. I go to let go, and I've glued a tiny portion of my finger to the mount too. A little tug and it comes off.. No big deal. I pick up the bottle to put the cap back on, and I apparently was a lot messier with it than I thought, because now I've got my hand stuck to the bottle too! I rip it off my hand, throw it in the drawer, and go to put my scissors away. They won't close. When I cut the tip off, some glue must have squirted out, because my scissors are now glued into an open position. 5 minutes of prying and feeling like I'm going to break the scissors in half before I break the seal and they finally come apart. I now offically hate superglue, and I'm well on my way to being slightly irritated. Now to figure out the stamps.

The only instructions on stamps themselves are, "peel selected stamps off the acrylic sheet. Press stamps onto acrylic stamp mount, smooth side down, in reverse reading order." Guess what. They don't peel off. Well they might--as one full sheet of letters. They don't come off individually. They seem like they're supposed to.. some look slightly perforated. But they don't come apart without cutting them. I assume they are supposed to be reattached to the thick hard plastic backing they're stuck to and not the flimsy thin plastic sheet that lined the back part of the original packaging, so I'm stuck as to how to get the letters from the middle apart from their surrounding counterparts.. I start hacking away at them with a kitchen knife before I decide it was way too time consuming and irritating to continue and thought if they'd stick to the flimsy plastic well enough, then hard plastic be damned, I'm cutting through it. I'm not sure if it's what Martha intended, since she didn't leave clear instructions, just a "bright idea" at the bottom suggesting I store the stamps on the acrylic sheet provided, but it worked well enough and saved about an hour of cursing.. By now I'm horribly irritated and I haven't even started the actual stamping yet!

Getting color onto the stamps and ultimately onto my cookies was a whole new chapter in my Stamp saga. Theoretically you should be using an ink pad with these stamps, but I wanted them to remain edible, so red food coloring was my alternative. The magazine, in its tiny caption, suggested using "a paper towel damp with food coloring." It didn't specify what kind of food coloring. So I dug around in the cupboard and found a box of liquid food coloring that had been hanging out for awhile unused and poured a few drops onto it. The dry paper towel just sucked the food coloring up. It wasn't damp enough to stamp. So I added quite a bit more. Still no good. I then tried a damp paper towel with food coloring on it. Finally damp enough to get the color to stick, but not much. I tested on a piece of paper first to see how it would come out. Barely legible. So I threw some more on there. Still too light. If it wasn't showing up on a white piece of paper, you'd never see it on colored cookies! So apparently liquid food coloring was not the way to go. I grabbed my gel food coloring and smeared a thin layer onto the already saturated paper towel and stuck my stamp down in. Success! It picked up color, and more importantly put it back down in a deep red on my paper! When I tried it on my cookies, it was a little light, but definitely there! I slathered a thicker layer on the paper towel, and it worked almost perfectly. I had to reapply a few times cause it would start to dry out while I was working on cutting out my next phrase, but even after all the drama and hassle, it worked out pretty well. Better than I initally thought, but I'm still not entirely sure it was worth the time and money.

I took both the Conversation Heart Sugar Cookies and the Chocolate Sugar Cookie Bites into work with me on Friday. About 50 cookies in all. By the time I was done with my shortened 4-hour day, there were 3 left. Everyone really seemed to enjoy them, and that made me really happy. With all the drama surrounding these two kinds of Valentine's cookies, I was glad they went over well. They seemed to go over well with my boyfriend who received them as part of his Valentine's present too. So all in all, so much hassle and headache, but seemingly a success. Now how long do I have to recover before the next holiday?

A side note: On the page for the Conversation Heart Cookie idea on Marthastewart.com, they have a helpful hint at the bottom of the page: "We used a Cosco 2000 Plus Custom Stamp Kit (No. 614107), $24.99, from Staples. " I guess Martha had issues with her own stamp set too.

Chocolate Sugar Cookie Bites

Chocolate Sugar Cookie Bites
(*Original recipe called Giant Chocolate Sugar Cookies)
From Martha Stewart Cookies or MarthaStewart.com
Makes 8

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup good-quality unsweetened Dutch-process cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
1 1/2 cups sugar
1/2 cup vegetable shortening, substitute 1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted and cooled
1 large egg
1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1 cup frosting (recipe follows)


1. Preheat oven to 375. Whisk together flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, and salt in a medium bowl; set aside.
2. Put butter and sugar into the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Mix on medium-high speed until pale and fluffy. Mix in shortening (or additional butter). Add egg and vanilla; mix until creamy. Reduce speed to low. Gradually add flour mixture, and mix until just combined.
3. Using a 2 1/2-inch ice cream scoop, drop dough onto baking sheets lined with parchment paper, spacing about 4 inches apart. Bake until edges are firm, 18 to 20 minutes. Let cool on sheets on wire racks. Cookies can be stored in an airtight container up to 2 days.

(This method makes 8 giant cookies. I used a 1 1/2-inch cookie scoop and got 30 cookies out of it. For smaller cookies, reduce cooking time down to 11-12 minutes. I also used a baking mat, which could have been the reason for my cookies not spreading. I suggest using the advised parchment paper instead.)

---

Frosting:
From Allrecipes.com

2 cups confectioners' sugar
1/4 cup shortening
2 tablespoons and 1-1/2 teaspoons milk
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract (I substituted almond extract instead)
food coloring
Sprinkles (optional)

1. In a large bowl, cream together the confectioners' sugar and shortening until smooth. Gradually mix in the milk and vanilla with an electric mixer until smooth and stiff, about 5 minutes. Color with food coloring if desired.
2. Spread on cooled cookies and top with sprinkles, if using. Let icing set before storing, about 1 hour.

(I made half the original recipe and ended up with 1 1/2 cups of frosting and still had extra left over, so find some other stuff to ice cause this icing's too good to go to waste!)

---

It's holiday time! I love holidays! Well, I love holidays I can bake themed treats for. And Valentine's Day is just such a holiday! I've been busy for the past 2 days baking and icing cookies. I knew I wanted to make my usual sugar cookies (which will be featured in part 2 of my 2-part Valentine's series), but I wanted to make something a little different as well. I felt I needed something chocolate to go with them as well, because what's Valentine's Day without chocolate? So I checked back in with Martha for the perfect chocolate cookie recipe to go with my sugar cookies. I found a recipe for Giant Chocolate Sugar Cookies in the Cookies book (page 163) that sounded pretty good. And for the first time in a very long time, I actually had all my ingredients already on hand, so I didn't have to make a grocery store run! Certainly that was a sign that this was going to be a great idea!



Being the "giant" cookies that they claim to be, the recipe is only supposed to make 8 cookies. I needed a bit more than 8 cookies if I was going to be splitting my batch up between presents for my boyfriend and cookies to share at work, so I decided I wouldn't make them quite so giant. Plus the fact that the recipe says to use a 2 1/2-inch ice cream scoop to make them giant, and I don't have a scoop anywhere near that size. I decided to use my normal 1-inch scoop that I use for all my other cookies, thinking that once in the oven, the cookies would spread to an average size. So I scooped out my dough onto my baking sheets and popped them in the oven for about 16 minutes, thinking that the 18 minutes the giant cookies need to bake for might be a bit too long for my smaller size.

When my timer went off, I opened the oven up to take out my cookies and was slightly surprised. I knew I wasn't going to end up with "giant" cookies, but I wasn't really expecting the "dwarf" cookies I got. They were tiny! They hadn't really spread in the oven at all. I started with a 1-inch ball of dough, and ended up with a 1 1/2-inch cookie. (the picture above is the cookie before it went into the oven, but they looked pretty much the same coming out.) No way could these ever be called Giant Chocolate Sugar Cookies. They could barely even be called just Chocolate Sugar Cookies. They were the bite-sized babies of the Chocolate Sugar Cookies. So they became Chocolate Sugar Cookie Bites.

Martha claims that the "bold chocolate flavor says it all" for these cookies and no frosting is needed, but I felt they were lacking a little something. So I decided to frost them anyway. I searched the internet for a good sugar cookie frosting recipe and came across this one from Allrecipes.com. It seemed easy enough, and had gotten a lot of really good reviews, so I gave it a shot. I halved the recipe and added in almond extract instead of vanilla along with red food coloring to make it a dark pink color. I spread a mound of icing over the tops of each cookie and then added sprinkles to the top of each to give it a pretty pink festive look. They turned out pretty well, other than being slightly small. The cookie part is a little dry, and I'm not sure if that's from over baking or if it's just how the cookie is supposed to be since it's under the "crumbly and sandy" portion of the Cookie book, but they have a good chocolatey flavor to them. The icing is really good. It reminds me a lot of my aunt's icing for her sugar cookies she makes at Christmas. They're the ones my family fights over. I just hope my boyfriend and everyone at work enjoys them!
Stay tuned for part 2: Conversation Heart Sugar Cookies!

Mint Chocolate Cookies

Although I still love cupcakes, I decided it was time to move on to other endeavors. I decided to go with my other personal favorite (and who doesn't love them), cookies! I was in the mood to bake and I couldn't wait until later this week when I'll hopefully be starting my Valentine's Day cookies. So I consulted Martha (not the actual Martha, although that would be awesome, but one of my many Martha Stewart cookbooks) and decided to try the Milk-Chocolate Cookies (page 79) from her Cookies book (or Double Chocolate Cookies as she calls them on her website). But as usual, I decided to tweak the recipe a slight bit. I decided instead of Milk Chocolate cookies, I would make Mint Chocolate cookies. My boyfriend had suggested it to me over Christmas, and this recipe seemed to be the best to adapt, but it was one of the several things that unfortunately got axed from my list of about 15 things to make for the holidays. I still had the box of Andes Chocolate Mints in my pantry, so I decided to give it a shot.


The recipe calls for 8 ounces of milk chocolate-- 4 of it chopped for melting, and 4 of it cut into chunks to fold into the dough. In my slight alteration of the recipe, I used 4 ounces, or 1/2 cup, of semi-sweet chocolate chips (I didn't have any milk chocolate in my stash) and the box of Andes Mints which the package claims is 4.67oz. If you can't find the box in your grocery store, just get between 25-30 candies from the bulk candy bins, or swipe them from the restaurants that give them out as after-dinner mints! (Not really. I'm not condoning theft.. but if they're just sitting in those little bowls by the door...) I put the chocolate chips and a stick of butter in a glass bowl to melt over a pan of water while I chopped up the Andes. Once the chocolate was melted, I mixed it with sugar until it cooled slightly before adding the eggs. The recipe says to put the chocolate mixture, sugar, eggs, and vanilla in all together, but the chocolate was still pretty hot and I didn't want scrambled eggs in my cookies. Once that was mixed, I added in the sifted flour and cocoa mixture and mixed until just combined, then folded in my chopped mints. Scoop them out on a cookie sheet with a cookie or an ice cream scoop, bake them for 15 minutes, and out come lovely chocolate cookies! They're slightly crunchy around the outside edge, and soft and chewy in the center. They've got the just the right amount of mint flavor, enough to be noticed, but not too much to overpower the chocolate. These are perfect treats to serve after dinner! You get dessert and after-dinner mints all in one! These will definitely be making an appearance again in future holiday and non-holiday baking adventures.

Not So Vegan Chai Latte Cupcakes

Not so Vegan Chai Latte Cupcakes with Cinnamon Swiss Meringue Icing
Adapted from Love and Olive Oil and Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World by Isa Chandra Moskowitz

1/2 to 3/4 cup milk
1/4 to 1/2 cup Tazo Chai Concentrate
(*Note: Keep your liquids equal to 1 cup. For a mild chai taste use 1/4 cup of chai and 3/4 cup of milk. For a stronger chai flavor, use 1/2 cup of chai and milk each.)
1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons cornstarch
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/3 cup canola oil
3/4 cup granulated sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

For frosting:
1/2 cup sugar
2 large egg whites
3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon


1. Preheat the oven to 350°F.

2. Measure the chai in a measuring cup; add milk until mixture equals 1 cup. whisk in cider vinegar and set aside.

3. In a large bowl, sift together the flour, cornstarch, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and nutmeg. Pour in soy milk mixture, along with oil, sugar, and vanilla, and stir just until no large lumps remain.

4. Fill cupcake liners with 1/4 cup of batter (liners should be 2/3 full), and bake for 20-22 minutes or until puffed and golden. Transfer to a cooling rack and allow to cool completely before frosting.

5. For buttercream: put the sugar and egg whites in a large heatproof bowl over a saucepan of simmering water and whisk constantly, keeping mixture over the heat, until it feels hot to the touch, about 3 minutes. The sugar should be dissolved, and the mixture will look like marshmallow cream.

6. Pour the mixture into the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a whisk attachment and beat on medium speed until it cools and forms a thick and shiny meringue, about 5 minutes. Switch to the paddle attachment and add the butter, one tablespoon at a time, beating until smooth. Once all the butter is in, beat the buttercream on medium-high speed until is is thick and very smooth, 6-10 minutes. Add the vanilla and cinnamon and whip for another 30 seconds until incorporated. Spread or pipe on cooled cupcakes.

---

The cupcake obsession continues. A week ago Kiesha (52 Weeks of Baking) made Vegan Chai Latte Cupcakes from “Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World” by Isa Chandra Moskowitz. Being the huge chai fan that I am, I REALLY wanted to try them myself. I started scouring the internet for other chai cupcake recipes that I could try too, and came across Love and Olive Oil's adaptation with Cinnamon Swiss Meringue Buttercream Frosting. It sounded and looked absolutely delicious. Both Kiesha and Love and Olive Oil both made the spiced chai themselves by steeping black tea bags in hot soy milk, but I had been eyeing the Tazo Chai mix at work for some time. I wondered if I could cut out the steeping step and save myself from buying some extra spices I didn't already have (mainly cardamom) and just use the Tazo mix instead. While shopping yesterday at Whole Foods I decided to go ahead and buy some and give it a try.

I had today off so instead of cleaning my house like I promised myself I'd do, I decided to procrastinate and make my cupcakes! I know.. I really should have been cleaning, but the Tazo was just calling to me from the pantry. I had to.

Like all good chefs should, I checked out my ingredient list and directions first to make sure I had everything--which I didn't.. I swear every time I go to make something, I'm always missing at least 1 ingredient. This time it was cider vinegar. So off to the store I went, even though I had just been to the store twice yesterday and once the day before. But after the short detour, I was finally ready to make my cupcakes!

The recipe was actually really easy to do. Like my Chocolate cupcake batter from last time, it was a one bowl recipe. Well a One Bowl + One Measuring cup. But simple nonetheless. The only minor bump in the road was having to guess how much chai mix to use. I didn't really know how much of it would be equal to steeping 4 tea bags, so I used 1/4 cup and mixed it with 3/4 cup of milk and the teaspoon of cider vinegar. I was leery of using more than 1/4 of a cup because I didn't want it to be overpowering. I wasn't too concerned about making them vegan cupcakes, so I used regular milk instead of soy. I also just left the milk cold instead of heating it since I wasn't steeping anything in it. It wasn't until about halfway through that I wondered if I should have heated it anyway.. It didn't seem to make much of a difference though, so I guess not heating it was alright. I sifted the dry ingredients together, omitting most of the spices from the sifting, since they were already in the chai mix. I did sift the nutmeg however, since it was the only spice not listed in the ingredients of the chai mix. I added the chai mixture to the dry ingredients, whisked to combine, and poured the batter into my cupcake pan. 20 minutes in the oven and out came beautiful golden cupcakes! Now for the frosting!

I'm not much of a fan of frosting myself. Most frostings are too sweet or too rich for me, and I end up scraping most of it off. However, Love and Olive Oil said the Cinnamon Swiss Meringue Buttercream was the best frosting she had ever made being a lot less sweet than traditional buttercream. I was convinced that maybe this was the frosting for me! It was a bit more complicated to make than the cupcakes themselves, but I was willing to try. I heated my sugar and egg whites (totally not vegan) over simmering water until it looked like marshmellow like she said. So far so good. Then it was on to whisking it in my mixer until it cooled and got thick. I'm not sure I whisked it for long enough. It was mostly cool and shiny like it was supposed to be, but I'm not sure it was thick enough. From there it was on to adding the butter (again with the not vegan), one tablespoon at a time until it was smooth and incorporated. After all the butter was added it was time to mix it on medium high until it was thick and "very smooth". I started to worry when my buttercream looked like a little chunky instead of smooth, but after 6 minutes it ended up being pretty smooth. I added the vanilla and the cinnamon and whipped it to combine. It came out pretty well. I don't think it was quite as delicate as it should have been. It seemed more like a regular buttercream than a light fluffy meringue.

As I got ready to ice the cupcakes, I realized I was missing one more thing that I needed. I was out of pastry bags! I had to resort to using a ziploc bag, which I've never been very good at. For some reason, it always squishes out whenever I try to use a ziploc bag, making a huge mess. Today, however, wasn't bad. I was able to mound up my icing like I wanted to do with my Peanut Butter Cup-Cakes, and sprinkled sanding sugar on top to give it some sparkle. They ended up looking quite pretty. It was finally time for the taste test!

The cupcakes were incredibly soft and moist. They had a very subtle spice flavor, not too overpowering at all. Although, if you're a chai lover like me, you might want to bump the chai mix up to a 1/2 cup instead of a 1/4 for a bit more chai flavor. Just remember to adjust your milk accordingly as well, keeping your liquids to 1 cup so you don't get runny cupcakes.
The icing was rich and full of buttery flavor with just a hint of spice from the cinnamon. It wasn't nearly as sweet as regular buttercream, which was great, but it was still a bit too much butter flavor for me. All in all they turned out very well! I'm really happy with them!

As a side note-- Does anyone have suggestions of what kind of frosting I can make that isn't too sweet and doesn't taste like I'm eating a stick of butter? I'm a fan of cream cheese frosting, but it doesn't go well with everything.