Peanut Butter Cookies and more!

Hey there! I know it’s been a little while, but rest assured, I have been baking. I just haven’t had enough time to blog it all. I made mini pumpkin spice bread loafs. They were delicious and very cute. I was in a quick-bread mode, so I made some mini chocolate pound cake loafs. Also tasty, but not my personal favorite. I also made my famous chocolate chip cookies. They have some EXTRA secret ingredients that make them the best chocolate chip cookie EVER.
My friend Robert’s birthday is today, so I made him a cake for Friday [which was the closest i could see him to his birthday]. This could be a long post :) .

Chocolate Cake with Mocha Buttercream

Cake
2 cups sugar
1 3/4 cups all purpose flour
3/4 cup+ 2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup whole milk
2 large eggs
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted
1 cup hot water
1 tablespoon instant espresso powder or instant coffee

Position rack in center of oven and preheat to 350°F. Butter two 9-inch-diameter cake pans with 2-inch-high sides. Line bottom of each with parchment paper; butter paper and dust pan with flour.
Sift sugar, flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda, and salt into large bowl. Add milk, eggs, and melted butter. Using electric mixer, beat at low speed until blended. Increase speed and beat 2 minutes. Stir 1 cup hot water and espresso powder in small bowl to dissolve. Add to batter; beat until blended (batter will be thin). Divide batter between pans (about 3 cups each).

Bake cakes until tester inserted into center comes out clean, about 32 minutes. Cool cakes in pans on racks 10 minutes. Cut around cakes; turn out onto racks. Peel off parchment and cool completely. Let cake stand at room temperature 1 hour. Cut cake horizontally in 2 halves. Using an offset spatula, spread mocha buttercream between layers generously. Position second part of cake on top. Continue with however many layers you choose. Frosting the sides and top of cake. Enjoy decorating!

Mocha Buttercream
2 1/4 sticks unsalted butter
Pinch of salt
2-3 cups of powdered sugar
3/4 cup Dutch processed unsweetened cocoa powder
2-3 teaspoons of coffee extract

Peanut Butter Cookies

2 sticks unsalted butter, room temperature
3/4 cup smooth peanut butter
1 cup sugar, plus more for later
1 cup packed brown sugar
2 eggs
2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt

Position rack in center of oven and preheat to 350°F.
In an electric mixer with paddle attachment, cream butter and peanut butter until smooth. Add both sugars and mix until smooth. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. In a large bowl, whisk flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. With mixer running on low speed, add flour mixture in 2 turns. Continue mixing until dough forms. Form dough into a ball and flatten slightly into disc shape in plastic wrap. Refridgerate 1-2 hours. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Using 1 1/2″ batter scoop, make balls. Roll in sugar, covering the ball completely. Use a spatula to flatten ball and use a fork to make ‘#’ shape. Bake for 16 minutes, rotating the pan at 8 minutes. At 15 minutes, use spatula to flatten puffed-up cookies. Remove from over and let cool completely.

These cookies are the best peanut butter cookies I’ve ever had. They are crunchy on the outside, soft and chewy inside. So good. Mmm…

I’ll put the recipes for the pumpkin spice bread and the cookies up later. My hands are cramping.
xoxo
Natalie

Cookies!

So yesterday I made two kinds of cookies. One was a basic vanilla rollout cookie and the other was a lemon sugar cookie. I did make a couple changes to the recipes that I used and will be sure to include them.

I made little hearts and elephants. I thought they were so cute. Some people thought the elephants were like “republican elephants” and they are not. i’m not a republican i just like elephants. they’re cute. period.

Vanilla Rollout Cookies
10 tablespoons (1 1/4 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 large egg
1 1/4 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 cups all purpose flour
3/4 tsp cinnamon

Using electric mixer, beat butter in large bowl at medium speed until smooth and creamy, about 2 minutes. Add sugar and salt and beat until pale and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Add egg; beat until well blended, about 1 minute. Reduce speed to low and beat in vanilla. Add flour and cinnamon and beat on low speed just to blend. Gather dough into ball; divide in half. Form each half into ball and flatten into disk. Wrap disks separately in plastic and chill until firm, at least 4 hours. I only chilled by for about 3 and it worked fine.
The dough can be made 2 days ahead. Keep chilled.

Position rack in center of oven; preheat to 350°F. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper. Working with 1 disk at a time, roll out dough between 2 sheets of waxed paper to 1/8-inch thickness for smaller (2-inch) cookies and 1/4-inch thickness for larger (3- to 4-inch) cookies. Using cookie cutters, cut out cookies and transfer to prepared sheets, spacing 1 inch apart. If cookies become too soft to transfer to baking sheets, place in freezer on waxed paper for 5 minutes before continuing. Gather scraps, roll out dough, and cut more cookies, repeating until all dough is used. If not icing cookies, decorate with sprinkles or other sugar toppings, if desired.

Bake 1 sheet at a time until cookies are firm on top and golden around edges, about 10 minutes for smaller cookies and up to 14 minutes for larger cookies. I rolled by cookies about 1/6″ thick and baked for 10 minutes and they came out PERFECTLY. I suggest starting with 10 minutes and then going from there since they are super easy to burn. Cool completely on rack.

Decorate with royal icing, then sprinkles or other sugar toppings, if you’d like [they look so pretty!]. Let stand until icing sets. DO AHEAD: Can be made 4 days ahead. Store between sheets of waxed paper in airtight containers.

Royal Icing
3 1/4 cups (or more) powdered sugar, sifted
2 large egg whites
1 teaspoon strained fresh lemon juice
Assorted food colorings (optional)

Using electric mixer, beat 3 1/4 cups powdered sugar and egg whites until thick and shiny, adding more powdered sugar by tablespoonfuls if mixture is too thin to spread, about 3 minutes. Add lemon juice. I found that this was just a little too thick to flood, so I added about 1.5 tablespoons of water and it was perfect. Divide icing into portions, if desired, and add different food coloring to each. Cover until ready to use.

Lemon Sugar Cookies

1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/4 sticks (10 tablespoons) unsalted butter, softened
1 1/2 cups plus 2 teaspoons sugar
1 large egg
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
Couple drops of lemon oil

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Whisk together flour, baking soda, and salt; set aside.
Mix butter and 1 1/2 cups sugar with an electric mixer on medium-high speed until pale and fluffy, 2 to 3 minutes. Add egg, extract, lemon oil; mix until smooth. Reduce speed to low. Gradually mix in flour mixture.
Scoop batter using a 1-inch ice cream scoop; space 2 inches apart on baking sheets lined with parchment paper. I used a 1-1/2 inch scoop and they were HUGE. Like 5-6 inches across and very flat and tasty :).
Bake cookies 4 minutes. Remove from oven; gently tap baking sheets on counter to flatten cookies. Return to oven, switching positions of sheets; bake until cookies are just set, 6-8 minutes more. Let cool on parchment on wire racks.

Hummingbird Cake

Alright, so I made my hummingbird cake this morning and it looked scrumptious! It was a little chunky, but I don’t really see any way to avoid that. I got to taste a little sliver that I had to cut off (what a shame… :P). It was very moist like banana bread, but had the nice coconut, nut, and pineapple textures. I used Art Smith’s Hummingbird cake recipe. He’s a chef at some shmancy restaurant in LA or something.
My problems started with the frosting, though. The cream cheese frosting was very tasty, but I had a VERY hard time getting it smooth. If anyone has any suggestions for how to frost cakes smoothly I would love them. When I did the cream cheese frosting, I did the crumb coat and refrigerated for 20 min, but it didn’t seem to set up very much. So when I did other layers of frosting, you could still see the cake underneath. I don’t think I had enough frosting, but I’m sure there are other things I could to avoid these problems. You can look at my pictures to get an idea what I’m talking about.
I made gumpaste flowers and put one in the middle along with some toasted coconut [YUM!].

-Natalie

Cake:

3 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups granulated sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 cups chopped ripe bananas
1 cup drained crushed pineapple
1 cup vegetable oil
2 large eggs , beaten
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup (4 ounces) finely chopped pecans
Icing:

8 ounces cream cheese , at room temperature
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter , at room temperature
1 pound confectioners’ sugar (about 4 1/2 cups sifted)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
To make the cake, position racks in the center and bottom third of the oven and preheat to 350°. Lightly butter two 9″ round cake pans, sprinkle evenly with flour and tap out the excess. (If you wish, butter the pans, line the bottoms with rounds of parchment paper, then flour the pans and tap out the excess.)

Sift the flour, sugar, baking soda, cinnamon and salt into a bowl. In another bowl, stir or whisk the bananas, pineapple, oil, eggs and vanilla until combined. Do not use an electric mixer. Pour into the dry mixture and fold together with a large spatula just until smooth. Do not beat. Fold in the pecans. Spread evenly into the pans.

Bake until the cake springs back when pressed in the center, 30 to 35 minutes. Transfer the cakes to wire racks and cool for 10 minutes. Invert the cakes onto the racks (remove the parchment paper now if using). Turn right side up and cool completely.

To make the icing: Using an electric mixer on high speed, beat the cream cheese and butter in a large bowl until combined. On low speed, gradually beat in the sugar, then the vanilla, to make a smooth icing. Note: I found this frosting to be too thick to spread on a cake, so I added some probably around 2-1/2 tablespoons of milk and 1 more oz. of cream cheese.

Place 1 cake layer, upside down on a serving platter. Spread with about 2/3 cup of the icing. Top with the second layer, right side up. Spread the reaming icing over the top and sides of the cake. The cake can be prepared up to 1 day ahead and stored, uncovered in the refrigerator. Let stand at room temperature 1 hour before serving.

Hummingbird Cake (coming wed)

Alright, although I’m sure no one reads this blog, I just wanted to put it out there that I am going to be making a hummingbird cake this tuesday and wednesday. Hummingbird cake is banana cake with pineapple and coconut. It’s got mashed banana and crushed pineapple in it, so it’s very moist and delicious. :)

Just wanted to put the word out.

 

-Natalie