Pumpkin Cookies

Happy Happy fall! I just love making fall desserts. I can't get enough pumpkin.. so pumpkin cookies it is. All the credit goes to Glenda Babcock for these amazing little suckers. Here's what you'll need

Crisco, sugar, an egg, vanilla, pumpkin, cinnamon, flour, baking powder, and pecans. In a large mixing bowl, beat together crisco and sugar

Once well combined, add the egg and vanilla

Beat; add pumpkin :)

Then mix in all your dry ingredients

Fold in pecans

Scoop onto a parchement paper lined baking sheet

Press down lightly (these don't flatten while baking). Bake about 8 minutes. Let cool on baking sheet a couple of minutes. Transfer to a plate or cooling rack. While cooling, prepare the brown sugar glaze. Listen... you MUST make the glaze. It makes the cookies 1000 times better. Trust. Here's what you'll need for the brown sugar glaze

Butter, brown sugar, powdered sugar, vanilla, and cream or milk. Beat together butter, vanilla, and brown sugar (The butter is actually just meant to be soft, not melted. oops. worked anyways!)

Mix until well combined. Add cream and powdered sugar

Whisk in well. Pour generously over each cookie

Here's the inside of a cookie.. I ended up experimenting and added butterscotch chips to some dough. I'm so glad I did, but that is definitely optional

These are very addicting, so beware. But enjoy :) Once again, Happy fall

Pumpkin Cookies

1 cup vegetable crisco

1 cup sugar

1 egg

2 tsp. vanilla

1 cup pumpkin

2 cups flour

2 tsp. cinnamon

1 tsp. baking powder

1/2 cup chopped pecans (optional)

1/2 cup butterscotch chips (optional)

Cream together shortening and sugar. Add egg and vanilla; beat well. Mix in pumpkin. Stir in all the dry ingredients. Lastly, fold in pecans and butterscotch chips. Scoop onto a parchment paper lined baking sheet. Slightly flatten the cookies. Bake at 375 degrees for 8-10 minutes. Cool on baking sheet a couple of minutes. Transfer to a plate, foil, or cooling rack. Now prepare the glaze.

Brown Sugar Glaze:

1 cup brown sugar

3 Tbs. butter, soft or melted

1 tsp. vanilla

1 cup powdered sugar

3 Tbs. milk or cream

Beat together butter, brown sugar, and vanilla until smooth. Add cream and powdered sugar. Whisk until well combined, adding more cream if glaze is too thick. Pour a generous amount over each cookie. Eat up! Store in airtight container up to 3 days.

Slumber Party with my Best Friends= Cookie Dough!!

Friday nights are perrrfect for baking! Most of the time we just hang out in the dorm and goof off. And I always like to kick the weekend off with a dessert, you know, just want to start out on the right foot. At work the other day we made these 5 Chip Cookies, and I wanted some really bad!! So I decided to make some myself. They are super simple, but so delicious. I only used 4 different types of chips (morsels), but you can't even tell the difference! Here is what you need:

 Milk, flour, sugar, brown sugar, butter, vanilla, baking soda, eggs, peanut butter chips, chocolate chips, butterscotch chips, and white chocolate chips.

First, melt the butter :)

Add the brown and white sugar and mix.

Crack in the eggs and add the vanilla. Mix until just combined. Be careful, since the butter is melted the mixture tends to slosh around a bit.

At this point it looks much different than most cookie dough recipes, but I think the melted butter makes it SOOO much better!

Now it's time for the good stuff! Add in the flour, salt, soda, and all of the yummy morsels!! Stir until all ingredients are incorporated.

Best dough EVER! We definitely ate plenty of this before we actually baked them. After you have eaten what you would like, refrigerate for about 30 minutes.

Bake...sooooo delicious!

 Here are my lovely friends enjoying the cookies!!!

Um, you're going to want to try and make these :)


4 Chip Cookies

2 sticks unsalted butter
2 1/4 cups bread flour
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 cup sugar
1 1/4 cups brown sugar
1 egg
1 egg yolk
2 tablespoons milk
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/4 cup of each of the following: chocolate chips, white chocolate chips, peanut butter chips, and butterscotch chips

Melt the butter in a heavy-bottom medium saucepan over low heat (or in the microwave about 1 minute). Sift together the flour, salt, and baking soda, all the chips and set aside.

Pour the melted butter in the mixer's work bowl. Add the sugar and brown sugar. Cream the butter and sugars on medium speed.

Add the egg, yolk, 2 tablespoons milk and vanilla extract and mix until well combined. Slowly incorporate the flour mixture until thoroughly combined.

Chill the dough and preheat the oven to 375 degrees. After the dough has chilled for about 30 minutes, scoop dough balls onto parchment-lined baking sheets. Bake about 8 or 9 minutes.

Big Blonde & Beautiful

This delectable treat is Smitten Kitchen's simple blondie recipe. We just livened it up a little bit! It's a combination of two very distinct flavors, so it might not be appealing to all tastes. However, it is easy to add or take away any "add-ins" that you wish. Our creative taste buds went for banana and butterscotch (You might be slowly catching on to our love for butterscotch)!! Here is what you need for the Blondies:

Flour, butter, brown sugar, butterscotch chips, an egg,  over-ripe bananas, salt, and vanilla. You start out by melting the butter in a saucepan. Once the butter is good and melted, add the brown sugar. Heat it on medium heat until it is smooth and bubbly.

Take it off the heat and let cool for about 5 minutes. While the butter and brown sugar mixture is cooling, mash the bananas.

After the bananas are thoroughly mashed, add them, an egg, and the vanilla to the slightly cooled butter mixture.

 Whisk all of this together just until combined. Then, toss in the flour, salt, and butterscotch chips.

Give it a good stir or ten (making sure not to overmix, once again). Pour in a greased 8x8 baking dish, and sprinkle with some extra butterscotch chips.

Bake for about 25 minutes, slightly cool, and most importantly...eat up!

They are definitely gooey :)

Butterscotch Banana Blondies

8 tablespoons butter, melted
1 cup brown sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
Pinch salt
1 cup all-purpose flour

1. Butter an 8×8 pan. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. On medium heat, melt butter in a small saucepan. Add brown sugar and stir until bubbly and smooth.
3. Take off heat and cool for about five minutes.
4. Mash bananas in a bowl with a fork until there are no big chunks.
5. Add egg, vanilla, and mashed banana to the pot with the butter and brown sugar mixture. Beat just until combined (being sure not to overmix).
6. Stir in salt, flour, and butterscotch chips.
7. Pour into prepared pan. Bake for 20-25 minutes, or until set in the middle (for us this was about 25 minutes). I prefer mine gooey so I lean more towards the 20-22 minute range, but even for me that was not long enough. In other words, it is possible that it could take up to 28 minutes until the are the desired "doneness".
8. Slightly cool and eat with vanilla ice cream if you so desire!

Here is the link to the original recipe so you can make whatever combination you can think of:
http://smittenkitchen.com/2006/11/blondies-for-a-blondie/

Why Can't We Be Friends?

Today's recipe is one of our all time favorite treats! It is not very challenging to make, but there is one tricky thing about it...you have to have a starter. Which brings me (Rachel) to the person this recipe is dedicated to today. Her name is Mrs. Woods. She is my suitemate's mom, and she is the first person to introduce me to Friendship bread. After bugging my suitemate for a year for the recipe, her mom gave me starter and the recipe! It felt like Christmas morning. After a year of waiting, I would be able to taste the butterscotchy-cinnamony goodness again. Thank you Mrs. Woods!!!

Since this recipe requires a starter, I had to follow a 10 day plan before I could bake the bread...talk about torture! Here is a link for the starter recipe: http://www.cooks.com/rec/view/0,194,156183-225206,00.html This recipe is pretty detailed, so it should be very helpful to anyone who is new to starter. However, if you have any questions feel free to ask Case or myself. I would love to give each one of you some of our starter if possible, so let me know if you want some!

After preparing your starter and doing each step it tells you to do, we are ready to begin! The actual baking of the bread begins on Day 10 of the recipe we will be giving to you. One of the great things about this bread is that you can choose almost any flavor you could ever imagine. So far the different flavors we have tried are:
1. Butterscotch Cinnamon
2. Coffee Cake
3. White Chocolate Coconut
4. Chocolate with chocolate and white chocolate chips
5. Chocolate with mint chocolate chips
6. Strawberry
7. Almond Poppyseed
8. Pistachio Almond
9. White Chocolate Macadamia Nut
10. Chocolate Peanut Butter

After all of our taste tests, my favorite remains the Butterscotch Cinnamon and Casey's is White Chocolate Coconut. Several of my friends at school really liked the strawberry, but to be honest, ALL of them are delicious. If you can find the pudding flavor in the store, you can make the flavor bread you want. And you can add any nuts, morsels, dried or fresh fruit, etc. your little heart desires.

Man, oh man I keep rambling!! Today we are making our two favorite flavors. Here are all of the ingredients for the basis of the bread.

Self-rising flour, eggs, sugar, vanilla, starter, milk, and oil. Throw it all in a nonmetal bowl and hand mix with a nonmetal spoon/spatula, but don't beat it to death (It will cause the bread to be tough and dry).

Since we are making two different kinds, we split the batter in half and added our favorite ingredients.

Casey's White Chocolate Coconut: sweetened & shredded coconut, white chocolate pudding package, 3 white chocolate baking squares (melted & cooled), 2 Tbs. coconut extract, and white chocolate chips. Yum. This is what it all looked like in the bowl together.

Stir and pour in the greased and sugared loaf pan.

Now for the Butterscotch Cinnamon Bread.

Place all ingredients into the bowl with the batter.

Mix together and pour into buttered and cinnamon-suagred loaf pan.

Now they are ready to bake...the waiting is miserable!! However, the finished product is well worth the wait.

 Get in my belly.

This bread doesn't last long at our house or in the dorm...you'll see why after you make it for yourself!


Friendship Bread

Day 1- You receive a fermented batter in a one-gallon ziplock bag/nonmetal bowl or container (or you start your own batter).
Day 2- Squeeze the bag (or stir) several times.
Day 3- "
Day 4- "
Day 5- "
Day 6- Add one cup of flour, one cup of sugar, and one cup of milk. Squeeze the bag several times.
Day 7- Squeeze the bag several times.
Day 8- "
Day 9- "
Day 10- In a large nonmetal bowl combine the batter with one cup flour, one cup sugar, and one cup milk. Mix with a plastic or wooden spoon. Pour four one cup starters in gallon ziplock bags and give away to friends and family with a copy of these instructions.
           
          To the remaining batter in the bowl, ADD:
               1 cup canola oil or other oil
               1 cup sugar
               1/2 cup milk
               1 teaspoon vanilla extract
               2 small boxes of instant pudding (flavor of your choice)
               3 large eggs
               1 teaspoon cinnamon (best in butterscotch & plain vanilla, but not in most of the other kinds)
               2 cups self-rising flour
               1/2 cup of fillings of your choice (morsels, nuts, fruits, etc.)

In a seperate bowl, mix 1 teaspoon cinnamon and 3 tablespoons sugar and sprinkle in well greased pan before pouring batter into pans. Bake at 325 degrees for 1 hour or until done. Test with a toothpick. Makes 2 loaves.

Looks like Grandpa got into the bread :)