Pirouettes

I know it's a little late to be posting Christmas cookies, but I finally have time to write.....

I saw this post on Smitten Kitchen early in December for making pirouettes. We love the pirouettes that come in the brown and white cannister, with their light delicate cookies and yummy chocolate filling.


The little girl and I were looking for a cookie to bake a couple of days before Christmas, and I remembered the post. We quickly mixed together the batter (it doesn't take any time at all - just one bowl and a whisk) and then I got to the time-consuming process of baking the cookies three or four at a time.

I used a heaping teaspoon and spread the batter into circles.


They baked for about four minutes until slightly golden. I used a silicone knife to peel them off the pan and quickly rolled the cookies around a plastic cocktail stick.


Once cooled, I melted some chocolate and spread a variety of sprinkles on little plates. The little girl and I had fun dipping the ends of the cookies into chocolate and rolling them in sprinkles. We took them to our annual caroling party where they lasted all of 30 seconds. So yummy!


And what to make with the leftover egg whites? Why, the homemade eggnog that I've been eyeing for months, of course. Equally delicious and the half-batch did not last long around here. :)

100% whole wheat lunches!

On Monday, I begin making four school lunches each morning because somehow (don't ask me how), my little one heads off to kindergarten this week.

I think the biggest change is going to be preparation... I can occasionally fly by the seat of my pants when making lunch for hubby and myself... And I was able to punt with the little guy's lunch a couple of times last year. But she doesn't eat the pre-prepared organic snacks (jammy sammies, smoothie pouches, applesauce pouches) that I used as emergency back-ups for him. And they prefer such different foods. And then I have to take into account time: I need to put in easy-to-eat foods that they can get through in their super short lunch period. And the little guy is much hungrier these days.

Anyway, I need to prepare. Today, I spent four hours of the afternoon making some 100% whole wheat lunch box goodies: Hamelman's toast bread, KAF's whole wheat blueberry muffins (for him), KAF's whole wheat chocolate chip muffins (for her, made with a little less sugar and less than half of the called-for chocolate chips), and KAF's whole wheat chocolate chip cookies (for all of us, made with half the called-for chips, in tablespoon sized for this weekend and teaspoon sized for lunches).

I've started making a lunch schedule, too, which hangs next to our weekly dinner plan. Wish me luck!

A journey to whole wheat

When I first started baking, I followed every recipe exactly...most breads and all cookies/muffins/etc relying exclusively on unbleached all-purpose flour. Some of my bread recipes during my various challenges called for other types: whole wheat, rye, pumpernickel, corn. My cabinets filled with different types of flour, but it was still the all-purpose that we purchased in twenty pound sacks and cycled through at unbelievable speed.

Eventually I heard enough/read enough to realize the benefits of whole grain and, following many recommendations, I started subbing in whole wheat - and then white whole wheat - for a quarter of my all-purpose flour. Gradually I started adding more and more, until finally, with this unprocessed challenge, I wondered, "What would happen if I used all white whole wheat...would anyone even notice?" The simple answer is: No.



Burger buns: I used KAF's best beautiful buns, but subbed in 400 g white whole wheat and 20 g vital wheat gluten. Made twice - gorgeous, fluffy, buttery buns both times.



Crackers: I used this buttermilk whole grain cracker recipe, subbing in a combination of white whole wheat and ground flax seeds. Yum!



Muffins: I've been subbing in increasing amounts of white whole wheat flour for the all-purpose in our muffins: garden harvest, banana chocolate chip. Scones, too, starting with Smitten Kitchen whole wheat berry scones. Sometimes I put in a scoopful of all-purpose, but the majority is always white whole wheat. Everyone gobbles them up just as quickly as before.



Pizza crust: I tried my first 100% whole wheat pizza crust this past week, and it was amazingly delicious. I used this recipe from KAF, omitting the sunflower seeds.



Spaghetti noodles: I've already written about these; we love them!



Tortillas: My biggest unprocessed/whole wheat success story may be these tortillas. We've had them with fajitas three times in the past two weeks, and they are so good. The kids aren't big fans, but they've tried them every time, in the hopes that eventually the taste will become more acceptable. Hubby and I love them, though, and I am getting so much better at making them. Last time, it took me only 20 minutes to roll and cook the whole batch!



Cookies: While this unprocessed challenge has helped us cut down on sweets a lot, every once in a while you need a little something, and I was intrigued by these 100% whole wheat chocolate chip cookies from KAF. It's true that they have a fair amount of processed sugars, but we tried them anyway. The little girl and I had fun baking them together this afternoon. We made tiny teaspoon-sized cookies, which baked perfectly in eight minutes, and hit the spot as a little after-dinner treat!

The biggest unprocessed challenge: Snack time!

We knew going in to this month of unprocessed eating that snacks would be the hardest part. We are accustomed to having snacks when we get home from school, after the kids go to bed, all day long on the weekends. :) But all of these snack foods: crackers, pretzels, chips, nachos, candy are now forbidden. The only one of our usual snacks that we could still have is nuts - almonds, pistachios - and dried fruits.

Because of this, hubby and I have both been snacking a lot less, which I know is good for us. But still, there are those afternoons when lunch was too small or too long ago, or it's just been one of those days, and you need a little something.

I have experimented with several different crackers:
Wheat thins - they were okay, better with cheese. We ate them all, but I wouldn't make the recipe again.

Then I tried homemade ritz crackers. Hubby thought the flavor was spot on; I thought they were okay. After a night in a covered container, they were really soft, which I didn't like. Again, we finished them, but I wouldn't make them again.

Finally, today, I had homemade cracker success. I made whole wheat calzones last night using one of KAF's whole wheat pizza dough recipes. The calzones were delicious: leftover spinach-homemade ricotta mixture from the cannelloni, plus organic chicken sausage sauteed with onion and sweet peppers, and fresh mozzarella.

I made 9 or 10 calzones, but still had a little pizza dough left. So following this KAF recipe for pizza crackers, I rolled the leftover pizza dough really thin and let it rest while I preheated the oven. While that was happening, I heated up some olive oil with garlic and salt and pepper (since I was already making garlic bread for tonight's dinner). I brushed the garlic olive oil on the pizza crust and baked the crackers for 12 minutes. Unfortunately, that was too long, and most of the sheet got too dark. However, the pieces that didn't burn were absolutely delicious. I will definitely make these again!

I also tried this recipe for buttermilk-whole wheat crackers (can you tell that I've been in a cracker mood?). I did vary the ingredients a bit, based on what I had on hand: 250 g white whole wheat flour, 70 g ground golden flax seed, 1 tbsp sugar, 3/4 tsp baking powder, 1/2 tsp kosher salt, 5 tbsp EVOO, 3/4 c buttermilk. I followed the same process as in the recipe, but again I brushed the crackers with the garlic olive oil and then sprinkled sesame seeds over the top.

The other winning after-school snack is popcorn - either regular, with butter and garlic salt, or this recipe for kettle corn. The recipe is absolutely delicious and really quite easy, although it does contain some regular granulated sugar; I'm curious to try one of the honey or maple syrup-sweetened popcorn recipes that's floating around out there.

The kids, unfortunately, don't really like to snack on dried fruits or nuts much. The little guy's favorite food is a giant sugar-laden blueberry muffin from the grocery store. A while before we went on this challenge, I banned those muffins, and we've gone back to mommy-made muffins. His favorite when he was a toddler were muffins based off of this garden harvest cake from Cooking Light. I use all white whole wheat flour, reduce the sugar by a bit, and eliminate the nuts (he hates them); I bake them in a muffin tin for 24 minutes. He loves these muffins: for breakfast, for lunch, for snack.

I also made mini-whole wheat banana mini-chocolate chip muffins for a breakfast snack this past weekend; they were a huge hit. I used my favorite banana bread recipe, subbing in all white whole wheat flour, reducing the sugar, eliminating the bourbon and the nuts, and adding a few mini-chocolate chips.

We also tried these healthy cookies, disbelieving that a cookie with no sweetener and no flour could really be good. With the exception of grinding up the almonds, the kids did it all. The cookies were...okay. We ended up eating them all, but no one could eat more than one in a sitting. We won't make the recipe again, but it was fun.

Lastly, we bought these smoothie pops and are experimenting with them. Our first try was vanilla yogurt plus a little orange juice concentrate: a big success!

Mint chocolate brownie cookies (Virtual cookie exchange)

Winter appeared with a bang last weekend, dumping about 14 inches of snow on us by bedtime on Sunday. Great fun for the kids; not so fun for us, especially living in the frozen tundra where they don't cancel school for a measly foot of snow.
School may not have been canceled, but the weather took its toll on the roads. It took my husband 90 minutes to travel home from work, a drive that usually takes 30. As for me, I was standing on the corner, waiting for my kindergartener's bus, in 19 degree weather, with a little girl who suddenly had to go potty. We stood freezing and waiting and worrying (and her, after a while, crying and dripping wet) for 45 minutes.
By the time we got home with our tired boy in tow, Mama needed a glass of wine. Or a brownie. Or a massage. Or all of the above, times 10.
I'm not actually a drinker, so instead I started browsing for a quick chocolate pick-me-up treat. I stumbled on these brownie cookies from KAF, and they looked like just the thing. The little girl washed up, and we got to work.

I had picked up some Andes mint chips the other day, and since chocolate and mint is one of the best combinations ever, I decided to doctor the recipe just a tad.
I'm not sure I'd describe these as brownies, but they definitely aren't like a regular cookie, either. They've got the most marvelous fudgy texture with a crackly top, and the family and I found them completely irresistible.
My friend Di is hosting her annual virtual cookie exchange today, and I'm happy to bring these along to the party. They come together quickly, and will improve your mood, whatever Mother Nature throws at you.

Mint chocolate brownie cookies
barely adapted from King Arthur Flour
8 oz bittersweet chocolate (I used a quality 70% 4 oz bar and 4 oz of semisweet chocolate chips)
1 1/2 oz unsalted butter
7 1/4 oz sugar
3 eggs
1 tsp espresso powder
1 tsp vanilla
4 1/4 oz all-purpose flour
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
3 oz mint chips
3 oz chocolate chips
1. Melt the chocolate and butter together in the microwave in 30 second increments, stirring after each, until the butter is melted and the chocolate is almost melted. Stir until the chocolate melts completely.
2. Beat the eggs and sugar in a mixer until combined. Add the butter/chocolate and beat until thoroughly mixed.
3. Use a spatula to gently mix in the rest of the ingredients.
4. Put the batter in the fridge for 30 minutes. (I actually left some in for a couple of days so we could bake a tray whenever we wanted.)
5. Preheat the oven to 325.
6. Drop the cookies in tablespoon-sized balls onto a pan covered with parchment or a baking mat. Bake for about 13 minutes, until the tops have some cracks or look set. Cool on the pan for 5 minutes and then remove to a cooling rack (or your mouth).

Waffle cones, take 2

Tonight I tried the waffle cone recipe from David Leibovitz's Perfect Scoop. Again I was surprised by how quick and easy the process was. DL's cones were much thicker than Jeni's and much less fragile. They also needed to cook longer, almost twice as long (1:30 as opposed to :45; Jeni's burned at a minute). I'm glad to know I can achieve a thicker cone, even with the pizzelle iron. Hubby said he thought he preferred the taste of these; I actually preferred the taste of Jeni's, but liked the sturdiness of these.

We enjoyed them with Jeni's darkest chocolate ice cream, with mini chips and cookie dough mixed in (inspiration thanks to Di). Summer dessert perfection.

Ice cream week cones

Today's theme for Phyl's ice cream week is sorbet or other non-dairy frozen treats. I didn't make sorbet. But I didn't want to be left out. So I'm posting a non-dairy treat FOR frozen treats. :-)
A year ago, my friend Di posted about getting her own waffle cone maker and I became obsessed. Which is funny, because I have never liked cones; I always order my ice cream in a cup. But suddenly, waffle cones sounded soooo good and I began ordering them whenever we went out.
Finally, I decided to bite the bullet and use some of my remaining birthday money to buy a waffle cone maker. Well, after a lot of soul-searching ;-) and researching, I actually bought a pizzelle maker to use for waffle cones. The waffle cone makers come in 7-inch, which seemed huge for the kids, or 3-inch, which sounded too tiny to be worth it. Pizzelles are 5-inches, which seemed just about perfect. Plus my mother-in-law makes pizzelles each Christmas and I love her recipe (hint hint), so this way, I can make my own and I'm not spending money on a single-use appliance. Ta da!
I tried Jeni's recipe (Di posted it here). It was so much fun. I made cones and little bowls, and not only did we love them with ice cream, but they were amazing by themselves as cookies. I ate an embarrassing number by myself.
Check out Phyl, Rebecca, Margaret, and Di's actual sorbet/non-dairy frozen treat posts!

Hungarian shortbread (TWD: BwJ)

Our first May TWD recipe is Hungarian shortbread, a recipe from Gale Gand.

In general, I'm not interested in desserts (especially cookies) unless there is a strong chocolate presence. Every once in a while, an almond flavor will suffice. But a butter cookie with jam filling? Meh. So imagine my surprise when I absolutely 100% loved these cookies!!

I made a half-batch in an 8x8 pan. The shortbread itself was easy to throw together in the mixer: flour, baking powder, salt, unsalted butter, egg yolks, and sugar. The dough is then wrapped in plastic and chilled in the freezer for 30 minutes before being shredded into the pan on the large holes of a box grater. I had a few questions as I got ready to assemble and bake the cookies: should I butter the pan? The recipe didn't call for it, but that seemed weird to me, and several of the places online where this recipe is printed call for buttering the pan. In the end, I did. And several of the people on the Ps&Qs for this recipe mentioned prebaking the bottom crust or it wouldn't fully bake; should I? I ended up putting the bottom part of the crust in the oven for about 5 minutes while I prepared the jam; and then I baked the cookies for 45 minutes to get the top golden. The bottom was much more done than the top; next time, I'd probably skip the prebaking stage altogether.

If I'd filled these with the rhubarb jam called for, it'd be a sure bet that no one would eat them, so I used the last bit from a jar of store-bought mixed berry preserves and part of last summer's strawberry jam. I first used the 1/2 cup of jam called for (I was making a half-recipe), but it didn't seem like nearly enough, so I ended up using quite a bit more (probably a cup total for the half-recipe).

As I said, I was shocked by how much I loved these: sweet, crunchy, buttery, with a bright hint from the jam. Delicious!

Check out all of the other TWDers' shortbreads here: and please visit our hosts' pages to see the recipe: Lynette of 1smallkitchen and Cher of The not so exciting adventures of a dabbler….

Viennese punch cookies (Modern Baker)

I don't usually do this...when I was browsing the cookie section of The Modern Baker to pick my "official" blogging recipes, I picked this one just for the picture: a beautiful shiny pink top, with a chocolately brown layer in the middle, and a shortbread-looking cookie on the bottom. These Viennese punch cookies are so pretty!

If I'd read more carefully, I probably wouldn't have chosen them; they are not child-friendly, with a significant amount of rum in both the filling and the icing. And the brown layer is not a chocolate filling.

Nevertheless, while mine didn't look as lovely as the ones in the book, these were fun to make!

The bottom cookie layer is delicious, made with butter, confectioner's sugar, ground almonds, and flour. I struggled a bit with the dough, finding it too sticky to roll out, but it was easy to just use my fingers to press it into the appropriate thickness. After cutting out the cookies (I used a 1 1/2" round cutter and got 10 sandwiches from a half-recipe), the remainder of the dough is also baked. These cookie scraps are ground and used with apricot preserves, a tiny bit of chocolate, orange and lemon zests, and rum to create the filling. Finally an icing is applied: warmed confectioner's sugar, rum, water, and food coloring. (If my frosting looks a little runny, it's because I added a little extra water when I was stirring, forgetting that the sugar would melt when the filling was heated.)

I took these to our friends' house for a barbecue this evening, and the adults enjoyed them. (I made TWD Hungarian shortbread for the kiddos; post coming on May 1.)

Showers of food

Photo credit: Asha Thao

One of my good friends from work is having a baby. At my old school, this meant all of the ladies in the school got together in the school library for a little informal baby shower. But apparently high schools are too big for that kind of thing, so showers are done by department...which kind of left me in charge. This is not a good thing, as showers are not my forté. I have been lucky enough to avoid having to host a shower up until this point; my strategy is usually to delay volunteering until someone else offers. :) I barely tolerated my own showers. I am not good at the formal thing, nor the cutsie thing, nor the everything-matching thing. I don't enjoy the games or the piles of presents. I don't think of the little details, like having everyone write out a little piece of advice for the mom-to-be.

Luckily another friend in the department offered to co-host, and she is an excellent party hostess. She has a beautiful house, complete with matching serving dishes, :) and is really good at all of those things I mentioned above. But she doesn't like to bake. She took care of the cutsie, I handled the food...it was a match made in heaven. :)

Yesterday afternoon, twenty past and present teachers gathered to gossip, eat, tell baby stories, and wish our friend well.

Photo credit: Asha Thao

The mom-to-be requested chocolate cake with chocolate frosting. I tried Dorie's cocoa and buttermilk birthday cake with a chocolate ganache frosting from the best chocolate cake ever. The cake didn't seem quite done at the suggested time, but I should've pulled it out of the oven anyway; it was a little overdone, dry and crumbly. The one thing on my list that I didn't have time for was a Swiss meringue buttercream to decorate. Oh well, the flavor was still good and the cake was a hit...practicing my decorating skills will have to wait.

I also made lemon bars from my America's Test Kitchen Family cookbook and NM's truffle brownies. The lemon bars were extremely lemony (6 lemons' worth of zest and juice), and they were quite tasty. I was disappointed with their stamina, though: they didn't hold up well to being transported and moved around. NM's brownies were amazing, as always.

One of my favorite new recipes that I tried were these soft frosted sugar cookies from Tracey's site that I have been drooling over for months. They were even better than the ones from the store, which are a guilty pleasure of mine. And they were so cute!

My other favorite new recipe is these turkey and spinach rolls, which have been on my to-try list ever since Andrea posted them nearly two years ago. I can't believe I waited so long to try them. They were so easy, and soooo delicious. And such a good base for so many other cute sandwich creations. I used the soft dough from ABED that I always use for buns, with half white whole wheat flour. I rolled it out into a giant rectangle as though I were making cinnamon buns, and then spread it with Boursin cheese, spinach leaves, and a couple different kinds of turkey. Then I rolled them up and sliced them, cinnamon bun style, put them on a baking sheet covered with parchment and stuck them in the fridge overnight. The day of the party, I just had to take them out and let them come to room temperature and then bake them for 25 minutes. Everyone who tried them loved them, and people commented on how much easier they were to eat than other party sandwiches. This is definitely a repeat recipe.

A day of hearts

I've always loved Valentine's Day...what could be bad about a day dedicated to chocolate, flowers, hearts, pink, and love?! (And the fact that it always meant yummy treats for my birthday never hurt, either.)

 Breakfast: Heart-shaped cinnamon rolls (sweet dough from ABED & pink frosting)

 Lunch: (For my little Valentines) heart quesadillas & strawberries

 Dinner: Emeril's cola pot roast & Dorie's basic biscuits (BFMYTY)

 Dessert: Iced heart-shaped cookies (from KAF)

and a romantic Valentine Death Star for my main Valentine.

Happy Valentine's Day! :)

Wordless Wednesday: Dorie's chocolate oatmeal drops (BFMYHTY)

 

Fig bars (Modern Baker)

I was so excited to see that Nick Malgieri's Modern Baker came with a recipe for homemade fig newtons...they've always been a favorite of mine!

It took me forever to get around to making them, though, because I couldn't find the dried Calimyrna figs that NM calls for. Finally, Phyl said that he thought regular mission figs would work, so that's what I went with.

The dough is NM's biscotti regina (I made a 1/2 recipe). The dough is rolled into long ropes, pressed out into rectangles, and then folded around the fig filling. I only had 8 ounces of figs, so I made a 1/3 recipe of the filling with figs, water, apricot preserves, dark rum, cinnamon, and cloves.

My bars baked for a long time without ever getting golden; finally when they had just a hint of color, we pulled them out. I thought the filling was spot-on for fig newtons...delicious! The outside was more like shortbread than a traditional chewy fig newton; I'm not sure if that's because I baked them for so long? Regardless, hubby and I enjoyed these!

Coconut pecan chocolate chunk bars (Modern Baker)

I'm just loving the cookie section from The Modern Baker. The only problem is figuring out which recipe to try next!

Luckily, Kayte saved me this time, posting this amazing picture of NM's coconut pecan chocolate chunk bars. Once hubby caught a glimpse, he was in full support of my stopping everything to make them immediately.

These have a taste reminiscent of seven layer bars, but with a cleaner, better flavor. They start with a buttery dough pressed into the pan and baked lightly. The topping is made with brown sugar, eggs, sugar, vanilla, coconut, pecans, and chocolate (I used a combination of chopped 60% and semi-sweet chocolate chips).

NM says to store them at room temperature, but I saw that Margaret had put hers in the fridge to firm up, so I went that route.

While these were yummy straight from the oven, chilled, they were ah-maz-ing! Definitely a new favorite around here.

Better late than never: Dorie's CCCs

Finally, finally after reading so many of my Twitter pals' delicious TWD posts, I caved and ordered my very own copy of Baking: From My Home to Yours.

TWD: BFMHTY started before I even knew that food blogging existed, or had even heard of Dorie Greenspan. In fact, if I remember correctly, I believe that in January 2008 when TWD started, I was busy with a not-quite-one-year-old, trying to figure out how in the heck I was going to deal with the new baby who was due in a few short months.

Anyway, I've made quite a few TWD recipes, after seeing the recipes posted on my friends (and others') blogs, and finally realized that if I was going to make so many of those recipes, I needed to own my own copy of the book. And it is gorgeous! I am so excited to own it...I can't believe how many incredible recipes there are and how many variations. The pictures are amazing and I love the baking techniques. So I know I'm late to the party, but I'm really happy to be here. :)

My first official recipe that I baked from the book (rather than from recipes posted on blogs) was her chocolate chip cookies. There were no surprising ingredients, but I did follow Dorie's advice to use quality chocolate, chopped in chunks. I did need to shorten the baking time, as mine were really brown after 10 minutes. Regardless of degree of doneness (I experimented with several baking times), these cookies were amazing: almost toffee-like, tons of chocolate, filled with buttery goodness.

This is all that was left for a photo.

Honey peanut wafers (Modern Baker Challenge)

The other night, I posed this question to my husband: "Should I go to bed early or stay up for a bit and bake some cookies?" Can you guess how he responded? Yeah, kind of a no-brainer.......

Still, it was close to bedtime, so I wanted something quick and easy. I paged through my Modern Baker book and found just the thing: honey peanut wafers, a cookie on my to-do list that doesn't require softened butter or a mixer.

In fact, this cookie is incredibly easy. The only ingredient that might not be in your pantry already is honey-roasted peanuts. But if you pick up a canister to have on-hand, you'll be able to decide to bake cookies, preheat the oven, mix them up, bake them all, do the dishes, eat a couple, and still be in bed in an hour. That's what I did!

First, you whisk flour and baking soda in a small bowl. Then in another bowl, you whisk an egg, honey, and melted butter. Fold in the flour and then the chopped honey roasted peanuts (there are a LOT of peanuts in this recipe!). The batter is really wet, but I just used my scoop. I only put about six cookies on the sheet because I was worried about spreading (NM says to space them FOUR inches apart; I've never seen directions to space them out that much before!)...and rightfully so. These spread a ton and grew huge in the oven.

The verdict: Not surprisingly, considered they're called "wafer" cookies and they spread so much, these cookies are really thin. Parts of them have an almost-toffee-like consistency, and then there's a nice crunch from the bits of peanut. They have a very strong peanut-honey flavor (again, not surprising), so if you didn't like either of those flavors, you wouldn't like these. But if, like me, you love both peanuts and honey, these cookies are delicious! They're very sweet (I could see cutting down the honey just a bit), but we all (my hubby, dad, and me) found them quite delicious and addictive. (The kids, who are anti-nut, wouldn't even try them.) I will definitely make these again when I'm looking for a quick salty-crunchy-sweet treat!

Donna Hay's rainbow whoopie pies (Twitter avatar fun)

Our first chef-of-the-month for 2012 is Donna Hay, chosen by Kayte. I'd never heard of Donna Hay, but apparently she is a very famous and prolific Australian cookbook author. I spent quite an enjoyable amount of time browsing her site and checking out recipes. She has a kids' section, which especially appealed to me.

Baby girl and I picked the rainbow whoopie pies...baking them together was a perfect way to spend a Saturday morning! I've heard a lot about whoopie pies on the blogosphere over the past year, but had yet to try any. We still have a counter-full of holiday cookies that hubby's mom left for us when she visited last week, so I knew we didn't need a lot more sweets, so I just made a third of the recipe.

The cookies were easy and the little girl had fun dumping ingredients into the bowl and using the scale to make sure we had the right amount. DH says the dough is wet (which it is) and difficult to form into balls, but we used one of my cookie scoops, which worked just fine. I actually got 16 cookies from the 1/3 batch, and they were perfectly done in 15 minutes. While they baked, I made the filling with marshmallows, butter, and a little white chocolate. Unsurprisingly, the taste and texture was very similar to a rice crispie bar. I'm a little confused about the amounts; I made over 1/3 of the filling recipe, and yet it was only enough to fill the three sandwiches you see in the picture above. So we had ten plain chocolate cookies leftover (unfortunately, I'm out of marshmallows so I couldn't make more filling).

These were delicious little treats! Hubby especially enjoyed his with his coffee, although I'm not sure they technically count as a healthy breakfast treat. :) And the leftover cookies made perfect ice cream sandwiches for dessert. ;)

Donna Hay's rainbow whoopie pies
scaled from Donna Hay
makes 8 or 9 whoopie pies (this is 1/3 of the cookie recipe and 2/3 of the filling recipe)

83 g unsalted butter, softened
60 g light brown sugar
55 g superfine sugar
1 egg
125 g all-purpose flour
17 g cocoa
scant 1/2 tsp baking powder
100 g marshmallows
20 g unsalted butter
40 g white chocolate (chips or chopped bar)
rainbow sprinkles

1. Preheat oven to 300º.
2. Beat butter and sugars together in a large mixing bowl until pale and creamy.
3. Add egg and beat until combined.
4. Sift flour, cocoa, and baking powder on top of the wet ingredients and stir until combined.
5. Use a cookie scoop to portion cookie balls onto parchment-lined baking sheet.
6. Bake cookies for 15 minutes, until baked through. Cool on wire rack.
7.While cookies are baking, make filling: combine marshmallows and 20 g butter in a small saucepan and cook over low, stirring constantly, until smooth. Off heat, add chocolate and stir until smooth. Set aside to cool. (It will get firm and sticky instantly, so I transferred it quickly to a bowl to cool.)
8. Match cookies up by size. Put filling on one side, put another cookie on top, and sprinkle the sprinkles around the outside.

Three-way gingersnaps (Modern Baker)

Several of my Twitter pals were baking together from The Modern Baker this past weekend. I really wanted to join in and make the three-way gingersnaps, but a debate tournament and a family trip to the science museum ate up my weekend and left me with no time for baking.

But those gingersnaps were calling my name, so last night, I quickly whipped up a half-batch. These are called three-way gingersnaps because they're made with three different forms of ginger: ground ginger, fresh ginger root, and chopped crystallized ginger. (I didn't find fresh ginger root when we were grocery shopping this weekend, so I used bottled minced ginger from the fridge.)

The gingersnaps also have honey instead of the traditional molasses, so they were a little lighter in color.

These were absolutely delicious. In fact, the half-batch (about 3 1/2 trays of cookies) is just about gone. My dad, who loves gingersnaps, said they may have been the best he's ever eaten. I am positive we'll be making these again...maybe even within the week! :)