Bourbon Molasses Cookies

Winter has settled in nicely around these parts. And by these parts I mean inside my house. While not quite the brisk 27 degrees it is outside my door, I’m about a day or two away from snowfall right in my kitchen.

I came home yesterday, after a day long excursion as one of the many Thanksgiving grocery shoppers, to find my heat had gone out in my apartment. I normally keep my apartment pretty cool, but it was downright chilly at 55 degrees by the time I woke up this morning. After spending the night curled up in my sleeping bag, it took every ounce of will I had to crawl out of bed.

The one thing that got me up (besides the idea of hot coffee) was the thought of baking cookies. Warm, spiced molasses cookies with a touch of bourbon—they’re the perfect cookie for a cold, cold day. And standing in front of the hot oven warming my hands didn’t hurt either.

I’m normally one to skip the chilling overnight step for cookie dough, (I’m just too impatient to wait that long) but I think it’s essential for these. Letting the dough hang out together allows the bourbon and spices to work their way into every part of the dough, giving it a big, full flavor.

We've made it a third of the way through our 12 Cookies of Christmas! But there's still 8 more cookies to go so be sure to stop back so you don't miss a thing!

Gingerbread Stout Cake

Well, the holiday season is winding down. I hope everyone had a good one! I sure did. I made it through another shopping season at work without losing my mind, I had a nice relaxing Christmas with my family, and I've eaten nothing but sugar for the past week. So all in all, it was a good time! I'm going to need a desperate sugar detox very soon, but it was worth it. 

One of the culprits behind the neverending sugar high was this cake. Gingerbread Stout Cake. Mmmmm.. 

This cake was meant for Santa. Instead of the usual milk and cookies, I thought Santa would enjoy cake for a change. Cake made with beer. The big guy had to like that, right? Well, I guess we'll never know because he never had a chance to try it. I totally ate all your cake, Santa. Sorry about that. I hope that doesn't put me on the naughty list for next year already.

I'm a sucker for cake made with stout. Gingerbread Stout, Chocolate Stout.. it doesn't matter-- I will devour it! It makes it incredibly moist and flavorful. Add the full, robust flavor of spicy gingerbread to it, and I just can't help myself! I seriously had this cake for breakfast a couple mornings. And a snack. And maybe for dinner..

I even liked it without the frosting. Just sprinkle it with some powdered sugar and eat it plain! My only issue with it-- it sank like the Titanic. I may have overmixed it, which the instructions clearly stated not to do, because both pans puffed up, then dropped like a rock in the center, leaving a huge crater behind. It still tasted amazing, and it was nothing a little frosting couldn't cover up, but the perfectionist in me still hated the sight of the slumped little slice when the cake was cut. Oh well.

Also, the recipe says it makes two 7-inch cakes. I don't own 7-inch cake pans. I'm not sure I've even seen 7-inch cake pans. So I made mine in a 8-inch and a 6-inch pan. Maybe next time, if they don't completely sink in the middle, I might try two 8-inch pans. They'll be shorter, but I'm sure you can stack them like a layer cake with the frosting in the center.

While Santa won't get to enjoy this cake for another year, you should totally whip one up for New Year's! What could be better to celebrate the last day before you start your new diet than a cake filled with alcohol?

Bailey's Irish Cream Cheesecake

Do you ever just not want to do something? You put it off, and hesitate, and find anything and everything else to keep from doing the one thing you just can’t bring yourself to do?

I was notorious for this in college. Around finals time, my house would be spotless because I’d much rather clean than study. A big paper due this week? I’ll just do all my laundry while I read over my notes. Oh, since I’m down here in the kitchen, I might as well start something for dinner. Now that dinner’s over, it’s time to wash every dish we own. Oh my laundry’s done. Well, now I have to fold everything and put it away. What? It’s midnight already? But I haven’t even started! Oh well. I’ll get to it tomorrow. And I’d start the whole process over the next day, finding bathrooms to clean and closets to rearrange, until finally, the night before the paper was due, I’d be busting out 15 pages at 3am, just praying I’d get it done in time for my 8am class, and cursing myself for waiting so long.

Well, here I am, almost 10 years later, still doing it. Meet my 15 page paper that was due last week.

Bailey’s Irish Cream Cheesecake. The perfect dessert to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day. If you get it done in time.

I had every intention of making this well before St. Patty’s Day. I had all the ingredients. I had everything planned out. And I avoided it like the Plague.

I have a bit of a rocky relationship with cheesecake. We’ve never really seen eye to eye. I want a beautiful, creamy, delicious dessert. Cheesecake wants to crack like the Grand Canyon, no matter how many tips I try to keep it from happening. Water bath? Yep. Room temperature ingredients? Check. Turn the heat up then down? Done it. I’ve left the oven door closed while cooling. I’ve left it cracked. Short of a cheesecake rain dance, I’ve tried it all—to no avail. So I reeeeally didn’t want to make it, because I knew I’d just end up disappointed again.

But finally, I sucked it up and said, “Just do the damn thing. Get it over with.” So, even though it was already too late to post in time for the holiday, I did it. And guess what. Not a single crack! Not even a tiny one! Other than a couple air bubble dimples, the top was perfectly smooth!!

It was a St. Patrick’s Day cheesecake miracle! I’m not sure what tip ended up being the deal breaker, if it was the combination of all, or whether I just had the Luck of the Irish that day, but it actually, for the first time ever, turned out perfectly! And it tasted pretty darn good too. Totally creamy with just a hint of Bailey’s. I’m not even ashamed to admit that I ate a piece for dinner one night.

So these are all the tricks I used to create a perfect cheesecake. Not sure if any or all of them are the reason it didn’t crack, but I’m definitely trying all of them again next time to see if it really is fail proof or just a fluke!

- Room temperature ingredients: I let everything sit out on the counter overnight to make sure there was no chill at all on them.
- Jayme of Delectable Deliciousness used a tablespoon of cornstarch to help it stay together.
- Jamie from My Baking Addiction suggested putting the springform pan in an oven bag to ensure no water gets in. I’ve had these turkey sized oven bags in my pantry for YEARS, so I tried it, and with the bag protecting the pan, I was able to bring the water bath higher up the sides than I would with just foil.
- I baked it until the sides were set, but the middle still jiggled a bunch. (It helped me to picture the cheesecake like the Target logo—as two rings surrounding a circle in the center. I turned off the oven when the outside circle didn’t jiggle, but the middle ring and the center circle still moved a bit.)
- I turned the oven off and let it cool, without opening the door at all, for exactly an hour. Then I took it out and set it on the counter. I ran a sharp knife along the edge to loosen it from the pan so it wouldn’t stick, then let it cool until it was just barely warm to the touch on the bottom before putting it in the fridge to chill overnight.

Pumpkin Cupcakes with Maple Rum Frosting

It’s here! It’s finally here! The calendar flipped to September and the temperatures dropped into the 60s. It’s FALL! I can finally break out my favorite black and red Miami University hoodie, not get overheated wearing cute scarves, stop sweating profusely on my non-airconditioned ride to work, and bake, eat, and drink all things pumpkin. It took one long hot summer to get here, but my favorite time of year has finally arrived. Oh Fall, how I love you so.

I kind of jumped the gun, and actually baked these cupcakes a few weeks ago, while we were still in the midst of summer, but I just couldn’t help myself. As the Halloween and Fall kids' books poured in at work, my coworker, Lisa, and I kept getting more and more excited about the upcoming season and the prospect of baking with pumpkin again! Finally we just couldn’t stand it anymore, and she invited me over for a pumpkin cupcake baking party at her house a couple weekends ago. So I packed up my stand mixer and half of my kitchen, and took my baking show on the road!

I’ve made pumpkin cupcakes before, with some delicious cinnamon rum frosting that I took to the second Cupcake Camp Columbus, but as a blogger, I have this terrible habit of never baking the same thing twice. So of course I had to find a whole new recipe. After comparing a couple different recipes, I ended up going with the always delicious Smitten Kitchen. Packed with spices, light with cake flour, and a bit more pumpkin than the other recipes, it just screamed, WINNER! to me. And it so totally was.

After a delicious dinner and my very first introduction to Jersey Shore, (now I know why I don’t have cable..), we hit the kitchen and started baking with the most adorable sous chef ever.

Chloe wants to help!

 The best thing about Lisa’s kitchen? Her oven has a window. I want a window for my oven! Although, I’d probably just sit and stare the entire time things are baking.. So maybe it’s better that I don’t.

Look how pretty they are already!

After an episode of Supernatural, the cupcakes were cooled and frosted, and ready to be devoured. And let me tell you, they’re complete heaven. They were moist and super soft, with just the right amount of spice. And the frosting is perfect. Not too mapley, not too rum flavored. Just perfect. We saved a couple for ourselves and Lisa took the rest to work the next day, where they were polished off before I even got there.

So the baking field trip was a raving success! And I may just have to amend my bad habits—these cupcakes deserve to be made more than once. With a couple months worth of prime pumpkin season, these will probably make an appearance several times!

You didn't save any for me?

Peach Hand Pies

I think I have the power to change the world. Like, seriously. I don’t believe in most of that new age stuff, but I think maybe that “law of attraction” thing might have something going for it. You know, that “think it and it’ll be true” theory. Lately, I keep thinking about something, and bam! There it is. Like the sweltering heat. During Ice Cream Week, I said how much I hated it and how done I was with it. The very next day, it was a comfortable 80 degrees, with not one single 90 degree day since. While baking for the fair, my initial vanilla cupcakes didn’t turn out as well as I’d hoped. I thought to myself, “I’m going to need a new recipe.” Oh look, My Baking Addiction just put up a recipe for vanilla cupcakes. So I baked them. And they won. 1st place. And most recently, I somehow convinced Joy the Baker, unbeknownst to her, that I needed a recipe to use up the gorgeous peaches my mom brought over from a local farm. The next morning I turn on my computer, and boom. She’s got a recipe for Peach Blueberry Pie.

Watch out world. I’ve apparently got some superpowers.

Because I can’t do anything full-sized, I decided to make them into mini-pies instead (without the blueberries). I’d made strawberry hand pies about a week before for a (not-my-own) family cookout, which I was in too much of a hurry to snap more than 1 picture of. So I thought I’d give peach a try as well, using Joy the Baker’s recipe instead. Searching around for a reference of how much filling to use for a hand pie brought me to Smitten Kitchen's Bourbon Peach Hand Pies. Mmm. I loved the bourbon in my Peach Cobbler, and this is an adaptation I know Joy would approve of.

Awhile back, I asked my fellow Facebookers how they made their pie crusts. It seemed like almost everyone did something different! Some used all butter, some nothing but shortening, some used lard, some did a more than 1. Well that didn’t solve my first time pie baking dilemma! I had no idea which to use! So I turned to Google to figure out what the difference was. Here’s what I found out from a very good explanation from Baking Bites:

*Butter is made up of mostly fat with a bit of water (about 1/5th of it). When the butter melts in the oven, it releases that water as steam, which creates a little pocket of air. All these little pockets of air create the layers in your crust that make it flaky. The butter also contributes to the overall flavor of the crust.

*Shortening is all fat, no water. When the shortening melts in the oven, it makes the crust even more tender than butter does, because you’re not losing any of it to steam, so every bit of the fat is soaking into the crust. However, without the steam, you don’t get the quite the flakiness you would with butter, nor are you getting much flavor.

*Lard is a bit of both worlds. It’s got most of the properties of shortening, being 100% fat, with the bonus of added flavor.

Well, I don’t generally keep lard on hand, so that option was out. I decided to adapt Joy’s to use a combo with a 3:1 butter to shortening ratio. I wanted the flavor and flakiness of butter without sacrificing some of the tenderness of the shortening. And it came out beautifully. Can I say how absolutely in love I am with making pie crust now? Seriously. I’m going to turn into a pie making machine soon! That 30x30 goal is going to be smashed! And I may have to change my stance on baked fruit. Cause between the peach cobbler, the strawberry pies, and these peach hand pies, I couldn’t stop myself from devouring them. These are sweet with a little hint of spice, and the perfect little hand-held size to grab a couple on every pass through the kitchen. (Which is exactly how the strawberry version disappeared. At the cookout, every time we saw Stacey’s husband, Bryan, he had a pie in his mouth and 2 in his hand.)

I realized with the strawberry version that 1 slit in the top is sufficient. 2 looks like a vampire attacked them.

I’m already envisioning an apple and a pumpkin version of these coming soon. And I’m excited to try out my new toy I found at Target the other day. (Yet another mind suggestion example?) I can’t wait for fall!

Brown Butter Bourbon Peach Cobbler

I am so ready for summer to be over. I’m sick of stifling heat and smothering humidity. I’m tired of 90 degree days. I’m done with feeling like I need to shower again as soon as I step outside, even though I’ve just showered a half an hour ago. I hate having to stop and think whether I even put deodorant on today, because it sure isn’t working anymore if I did, since I’m covered in sweat. I’m done. with. summer. The only thing I’ll miss—all the fresh fruit.

After a marathon, late-night, mad rush of baking for the fair last weekend, I thought I’d have a little baking hiatus for a week or so to let myself recover. By Tuesday, I was already itching to get back in the kitchen. I just couldn’t decide what to make. I thought about muffins, but wasn’t really feeling it. I didn’t want to do cookies or cupcakes again. Then my mom dropped off 3 fresh peaches from Lynd’s Fruit Farm—problem solved! Peach cobbler it is!

I’m not a fan of baked fruit. I don’t like the squishy texture of it. So I generally shy away from baking things like cobblers and pies and such. But peaches are one of my favorite fruits. So I thought I’d give it a try. After browsing through peach cobbler pictures on Tastespotting, I saw one that said “brown butter and bourbon” in the description. SOLD!

I’ve never made a cobbler before (check that off my 30x30 list!), so I had no idea how easy it was to whip up. No mixers. Staple pantry ingredients. Dump it all in a pan and bake. Who knew? Despite my aversion to baked fruit, I gobbled this thing up in no time! Serve it still warm with a scoop of melty ice cream—it's amazing. It’s buttery and gooey, with just the perfect cinnamon spice, and a bit of a nutty flavor from the brown butter and bourbon. I’m still weirded out by the squishy fruit, but I’ll get over that, because I’d definitely make this one again.

Guinness and Irish Cream Cupcakes

Happy St. Patrick’s Day! It’s the day when those of us who aren’t even remotely Irish (like me) get to pretend we are. And those that are Irish (like Boyfriend) get to celebrate it with a lot of green, and a whole lot of shenanigans. (That’s such a fun word!)

A couple weeks ago I started thinking of all the things I wanted to bake to celebrate a week’s worth of St. Patrick’s Day recipes. And then decided against pretty much all of them. My caramel didn’t turn out. I’ve done too many macarons. And everything else has been covered by pretty much EVERYONE else on the internet. I didn’t want to do the same old thing that you can find on every other blog. I wanted to be original. But, there was one thing that I just kept coming back to no matter what--Guinness and Irish Cream cupcakes. They’re everywhere. Everyone has made them. They’re not the least bit original. But they’re so damn good that I couldn’t help myself. So here it is. The obligatory Boozecake.

These things are seriously like crack to me. I can’t stop myself from eating them. Timmura (Mara Bakes) brought them as one of her entries in the first Cupcake Camp Columbus. I took about 5 of them home after the event. And didn’t share. A coworker used to bring a Guinness cake in every now and then. I’d eat 2 pieces on my lunch break. And maybe another on a 15. I can’t get enough of it. I don’t know why. I don’t even drink alcohol! But put it in a cupcake, and I’m ravenous.

Hope everyone has a safe and happy St. Patrick’s Day!

Rum Balls

Here it is. The end of 2010 already. It doesn’t seem that long ago that we were standing at the end of 2009 wondering what the beginning of the next decade would bring us. I can’t believe the year is over so soon! It took me until almost June to stop writing ’09 on my checks while I was paying bills, and now I have to remember to write ’11 already? Time seems to be just flying by and I don’t know how to make it stop! But I guess it’s time to just let 2010 go, lament over failed resolutions, make some new ones that won’t be achieved, and get on with the party.

Does anyone actually keep their New Year’s Resolutions? Cause looking back at last year, out of the 8 I made, I can give myself a half-win on 2. Not even a whole, “yes! I did that one!”. Just a “well, kind of..”. I’m not even going to delude myself into thinking I’ll stick with my resolutions this year, especially since I’m just recycling them from last year again, but I’ll give it a try at least. The one new resolution I’ll add to the list—bake adventurously. Not Iron Chef adventurous, throwing strange ingredients into cupcakes, but baking things I’ve never made before, like a pie crust or puff pastry. Or Rum Balls.

What better treat to serve at your New Year’s Eve party than a chocolatey bite filled with booze? It’s like a 2-for-1 deal! Most Rum Ball recipes I’ve seen use crushed up cookies (vanilla wafers or Oreos), but I decided to go with Martha Stewart’s Cookie book recipe that uses almost a brownie base instead. They’re fairly easy to make and taste pretty good, but the chocolate of the brownie sort of masks the rum flavor—great for those who don’t really care for rum, bad for those who do. Next time I’ll probably take the easy tried and true route and stick with the crushed up cookies instead.

Have a safe and happy New Years!

And a sidenote-- This is my 150th post! Holy crap. 

And another sidenote-- Look! My Christmas wish came true! I got a pony from Santa!

Baileys Shamrock Cookies

Happy Belated St. Patrick’s Day! Once again, it’s a little late, but hey. It’s the thought that counts right? And at least I’m only a day late this time! Even, though it’s already passed, what would St. Patrick’s Day have been without a little green, a little luck, and of course, a little alcohol? With Baileys Shamrocks, you get all three!

Buttered Rum Meltaways

On the Second day of Christmas The Busty Baker baked for me… Buttered Rum Meltaways!

Can I just say I’m not so great at the slice and bake kind of cookies? I never have been. Whether they’re the cookie dough logs you buy at the grocery store, or ones you make from scratch and roll up yourself, I’m absolutely terrible at them. Especially those ones you get at the store with designs in the center, like little Christmas trees or Halloween ghosts. They always end up totally uneven and the designs in the center completely mutilated. These meltaways? No exception. Luckily I had Boyfriend there to save the day.

Apple Rum Cupcakes

Apples—another great flavor of fall. There’s nothing better the crunch of biting into a crispy fresh apple. Except maybe pulling that crispy fresh apple right from the tree with your very own hands. There’s just something about walking through the orchard on a cool fall day, finding just the perfect ripened globe on a branch sagging under the weight of its glorious treasure. Apple picking is something I look forward to every year. I love coming home with my bag of apples bursting at the seams from trying to cram as many as I could into it. Unfortunately this year, I only had enough time to search for the perfect pumpkin at Lynd’s Fruit Farm, so my apple picking has been limited to wandering the crisp, cool aisles of the grocery store in search of the perfect fruit.

Pumpkin Spice Cupcakes with Cinnamon Rum Frosting

It’s been nearly a month since Cupcake Camp, and I realized I still hadn’t put up anything about my Pumpkin Spice and Cinnamon Rum Cupcakes! Talk about serious slacking. I’m kind of disappointed in myself for not getting this up sooner, because of the two cupcakes I made for Camp, these were by far my favorite. (I actually had time to taste them! And eat quite a few…) Although Cupcake Camp is long past, and Halloween has come and gone, pumpkin season is still in full swing, so I’m not too terribly late!