homemade birthday cake oreos

 

 In the past 3 hours I have:
1. Caught up on the latest episode of Glee
2. Baked a batch of oreos with cake batter frosting for my section tomorrow night
3. Filed both state and federal taxes (for free! love e-file)

I figured I'd continue with the run of productivity and actually update this blog IN REAL TIME. As in, the sharing of eating joy is occurring less than a day after these cookies were made :)

So what's the big deal? Apparently Oreo came out with a limited run special edition "Birthday cake" version to celebrate their 100th anniversary.

I managed to get a box on Amazon (as a surprise for the boy, who loves all things sweet and oreo), and I have to say, they really are worth all the hype. You open the box to the delicious smell of cake batter, crack open the cookie to find smooth white FUNFETTI frosting (you all know how I feel about funfetti :D), bite into the cookie and think, "Oreo, how could you have waited this long to release this cookie?"

 

And feel gross an hour later after somehow downing half the box (which has less cookies than the usual containers! marketing ploy, ahem?).

While they are worth the hype, they are not worth the $14 on Amazon. So, I decided to combine the "homemade oreos" recipe on smitten kitchen with some cake batter frosting experimentation. Surprisingly most of the funfetti frostings I found online used cake batter as part of the frosting-- however, I had my secret weapon from my previous funfetti recipes:

 tack that baby onto your usual buttercream frosting recipe, and you're golden :D

Homemade Birthday Cake Oreos

(makes about 18 2" diameter sandwich cookies)

adapted from Homemade Oreos, Smitten Kitchen

For the chocolate cookies:

1 1/4 c all-purpose flour
1/2 c unsweetened Dutch process cocoa
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tspn salt
1 c sugar
1 1/4 sticks room-temperature, unsalted butter
1 large egg

For the filling:
1 stick room-temperature, unsalted butter
1 c confectioners’ sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 tsp almond extract
1/4 c sprinkles*

1. Preheat oven to 375°F.
2. In a large bowl, mix the flour, cocoa, baking soda and powder, salt, and sugar. Make a hole in the center, add the butter + egg, then mix together until dough comes together in a mass.**
3. Take rounded teaspoons of batter and place on a parchment paper-lined baking sheet approximately two inches apart. Flatten dough with the palm of your hand. Bake for 9 minutes, remove from oven, allow cookies to cool for 5 minutes on the sheet before removing cookies.***
4. To make the cream, place butter in a mixing bowl, and gradually mix in sugar and extracts. See this sugar-frosting trick to use less sugar and get a nice whipped frosting.
5. To assemble the cookies, using either a pastry bag, ziplock bag with the corner cut off, or a butter knife, pipe/spread teaspoon-size blobs of cream into the center of one cookie.**** Place another cookie, equal in size to the first, on top of the cream. Lightly press, to work the filling evenly to the outsides of the cookie. Continue this process until all the cookies have been sandwiched with cream.

Eat and enjoy the fact that you won't feel gross and full of artificial flavorings even after the third one ;)


* Although the whole sprinkles still looked nice, I would advise smashing them a little next time into smaller pieces so the color really mixes into the frosting to get that funfetti look.
** I promise this will happen. It may not feel like it right away, but the butter and egg will eventually moisten all of the dry ingredients.
*** These cookies will spread, so do leave some room in between.
Before:

After:

**** Seriously, stick to a teaspoon sized blob. The first time I made these I forgot that a round blob will spread once you smoosh the second cookie on...leading to lots of frosting-oozy cookies. Have faith, one dollop will be enough :)

Oh an extra lone cookie? And some leftover frosting? Don't mind if I do... :D

Boozy Irish cupcakes

*Note: I meant to publish this last weekend (clearly), but lab work and an unexpected interview out to California pushed back my timing. Sorry for the delay!

With St. Paddy's coming up this weekend, the internets have been abound with recipes for combining Irish booze and chocolate. One particular recipe caught my eye-- irish car bomb cupcakes. I'm personally not a huge fan of the Irish car bomb as a drink, which consists of a shot of Baileys dropped (or poured, for you more civilized folk) into a pint of Guinness, followed by rapid chugging before the dairy in the Baileys curdles. I have met people that love this drink and those that find it boorish and messy-- personally I don't care how many of these you have near me, I just can't get over the idea of drinking something that's curdling as I drink it. I suppose if I was drunk enough to not be thinking about the curdling..but that's another story.

These cupcakes though...now these I think will satisfy anyone's qualms regarding Irish booze mixed together.  They're genius really, sticking the Guinness in the cupcake, some whiskey in the ganache filling, and then Baileys in the frosting (this stuff was so good I'm plotting other ways to incorporate it into other desserts).

When I hit up Wine and Cheese Cask (an awesome liquor and cheese store around the corner from me), and they told me I could buy Guinness by the can, that I could buy a small nip of Jameson, and a nice little bottle of Baileys (as I bought them I felt the need to explain to the salesperson, "I'm baking, not drinking tonight.."), I knew it was a sign I had to try making them.

These are a little more ambitious than my usual recipes-- they do involve multiple parts (cupcake, ganache, frosting) and construction (cutting out the middles of the cupcakes and filling them), but I think you'll find them worth your while! I certainly did :)

Irish Car Bomb Cupcakes (or Boozy Irish Cupcakes)
(makes 2 dozen normal size cupcakes, 12 huge cupcakes)

adapted from Chocolate Whiskey and Beer Cupcakes, Smitten Kitchen  

For the Guinness Chocolate Cupcakes
1 c stout (such as Guinness)
1 c (2 sticks) unsalted butter
3/4 c unsweetened cocoa powder
2 c all purpose flour
2 c sugar*
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp salt
2 large eggs
2/3 c sour cream (Greek yogurt is also fine)

Ganache Filling
8 ounces semi-sweet chocolate chips
2/3 c heavy cream
1 to 2 tsp Irish whiskey (optional)

Baileys Frosting
1/2-1 c confections sugar**
1 stick (1/2 cup or 4 ounces) unsalted butter, at room temperatue
3 to 4 tablespoons Baileys (or milk, or heavy cream, or a combination thereof)

Make the cupcakes:

1. Preheat oven to 350°F.
2. Bring 1 cup stout and 1 cup butter to simmer in heavy large saucepan over medium heat. Add cocoa powder and whisk until mixture is smooth. Cool slightly.
3. Whisk flour, sugar, baking soda, and 3/4 teaspoon salt in large bowl to blend. Make a hole in the middle (again, my 1-bowl cheat method) and add eggs and sour cream. Gently beat the eggs with the sour cream together.
4. Add stout-chocolate mixture to egg mixture and mix gently to combine. Begin gently mixing in the dry ingredients. Batter will be slightly shiny and very greasy.***
5. Divide batter among cupcakes, filling them 2/3 to 3/4 of the way. Bake cake until tester inserted into center comes out clean, rotating them once front to back if your oven bakes unevenly, about 17 minutes. Cool cupcakes on a rack completely.

Make the filling:

Transfer chocolate to a heatproof bowl. Heat the cream until simmering and pour it over the chocolate. Let it sit for one minute and then stir until smooth. (If this has not sufficiently melted the chocolate, you can return it to a double-boiler to gently melt what remains. 20 seconds in the microwave, watching carefully, will also work.) Add the whiskey (if you’re using it) and stir until combined.

Fill the cupcakes: Let the ganache cool until thick but still soft enough to be piped (the fridge will speed this along but you must stir it every 10 minutes).

Meanwhile, using a sharp knife, cut the centers out of your cooled cupcakes (my holes measured slightly larger than a quarter). You want to go most of the way down the cupcake but not cut through the bottom — aim for 2/3 of the way. A slim spoon or grapefruit knife will help you get the center out. Those are your “tasters”. Put the ganache into a piping bag with a wide tip (or use a small teaspoon) and fill the holes in each cupcake to the top.****

Make the frosting: Whip the butter in the bowl of an electric mixer, or with a hand mixer, for several minutes. You want to get it very light and fluffy. Slowly add the powdered sugar, a few tablespoons at a time.
[Great trick from Smitten Kitchen: "This is a fantastic trick I picked up while working on the cupcakes article for Martha Stewart Living; the test kitchen chefs had found that when they added the sugar slowly, quick buttercream frostings got less grainy, and tended to require less sugar to thicken them up."]
When the frosting looks thick enough to spread, drizzle in the Baileys (or milk) and whip it until combined. If this has made the frosting too thin (it shouldn’t, but just in case) beat in another spoonful or two of powdered sugar.

Frost and decorate the cupcakes. By the way, if anyone has any cupcake frosting tips please pass them along! Mine didn't look as pretty as I hoped =/

Happy (very BELATED in the case of this entry) St. Paddy's!

* This is what happens when you start baking at 11p and forget this critical ingredient:

Crumbly bitter things that have you wondering if the ganache and frosting are to make up the sweetness...until you realize oh, you forgot the sugar.

** Using the frosting trick above, I only needed 1/2c to get the frosting to the sweetness I desired. You may want more :)

*** I found the batter to be so greasy that I didn't need cupcake liners for a traditional nonstick cupcake pan. They just popped right out!

**** I found it optimal to fill the ganache to just below the surface of the cupcake. If you overfill the ganache, then when you start to frost the cupcakes the icing mixes with the excess ganache, and you get a swirly mess (see below)

hamantaschen!

jam, poppy seed, and almond filled hamantaschen

I was introduced to these delightful cookies last year, which are made as part of the celebrations for Purim, a Jewish holiday in which they were saved from slaughter by Haman (a member of King Ahaseurus' council who tried to get all the Jews killed) through the efforts of Esther, the Jewish Queen married to said King. She found out about Haman's plan and asked the King to spare her people-- which he did out of his love for her, and to top it off he also had Haman disposed of as well.

 So, as you can imagine it's a fairly happy holiday, to celebrate "hey! still alive!" and the downfall of Haman. The cookies are said to look like Haman's hat, with their distinctive three corners-- although, it seems an unfair tribute to him to make them taste so delicious.

 

Traditionally they're made with poppy seed filling, but they also taste wonderful with essentially any filling (even savory-- I saw a kale and garlic filling online somewhere) you want. My personal favorite is jam :)

 
I love the gooey sweet stickiness right when they're fresh from the oven, with the jam just bubbling and syrupy and dripping goodness everywhere...plus they look so much prettier too :)

Last year we went all out and made the poppy seed filling ourselves from scratch-- it was amazing and made the kitchen smell sooo good-- but this year we resorted to store-bought filling due to lack of time.  I had these grand ambitions to make an almond-ginger filling from scratch, but ended up having to buy almond paste at the last minute.  Of course, there is nothing wrong with using store-bought pastes and fillings, I just like the extra homey smells in the kitchen and feeling of accomplishment you get when you make something completely from scratch (see funfetti cookies recipe) :).

Hamantaschen cookies
(makes ~2-3 dozen, depending on how big you make your cookies :))

from Jewish cooking, ed. Marlena Spieler, via my friend Shaunna


1/2 c unsalted butter @ RT
1 1/4 c sugar
2 tbsp milk
1 egg, beaten
1 tsp vanilla or almond extract
pinch salt
2 1/4 c all-purpose flour

1.  In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugar until pale and fluffy.

2.  In a separate bowl, mix together the milk, egg, vanilla/almond extract, and salt.  Sift flour into a third bowl.*

3.  Beat the creamed butter mixture with one third of the flour, then gradually add the remaining flour, in three batches, alternating with the milk mixture.  The dough should be the consistency of a loose shortbread dough.  If it's too stiff, add a little extra milk.  Cover and chill at least 1 hour.

4.  Make your fillings (recipes below; or use a good, thick jam :D)

5.  Preheat oven to 350F.  On a lightly floured surface, roll out the dough to the thickness of 1/8-1/4 inc, then cut into 3 inch rounds using a cookie cutter.**

6.  Place 1-2 tbsp in the center of each round, then pinch the pastry together to form 3 corners, leaving a little of the filling showing in the middle of the pastry.***

7.  Place the pastries on a baking sheet and bake for about 15 minutes or until pale golden.

* In the spirit of laziness, I just made a little hole in the middle of the butter-sugar mixture, added and mixed the wet ingredients in there, and then added all the flour in at once. The dough turned out fine this way, just takes a little more effort to mix everything together (I also don't have a mixer and do this by hand).

** I used a pint glass and a small drinking glass to get 3" rounds and 2" rounds, respectively.

*** In reality, you'll be lucky to get even 1 tbsp in. For the jam ones especially, err on the side of less, not more, because if you have too much filling they will unfold and spread everywhere when you bake them. They look quite sad coming out of the oven, but they still taste delicious :). This is less of an issue for less watery fillings, like the poppy-seed or almond ones.

Fillings:

Poppy seed:
1 c poppy seeds, coarsely ground
1/2 c milk
1/2 c golden raisins, roughly chopped
3-4 tbsp sugar
2 tsp light corn syrup
1-2 tsp lemon zest
1 tsp vanilla extract

Put all ingredients, except vanilla, in a pan and simmer 5-10 minutes or until the mixture has thickened and most of the milk has been absorbed.  Stir in vanilla.

Almond-ginger:
1/4 c butter @ RT
1/2 c almond paste
2 tbsp granulated sugar
1/4 tsp almond extract
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
3-4 tbsp chopped candied ginger

Mix until smooth. Can be stored covered in the fridge or frozen for up to 1 month.

Note: you definitely do not have to be Jewish or celebrate Purim to enjoy these cookies :)

Rosemary Lemon Risotto with Carrots and Peas

Last Wednesday we had the first rain+snow+slush situation this winter (the weather channel likes to call it "wintry mix"; I prefer freezing-narsty-crap-from-sky). Generally I am a huge fan of snow, I love it and will frolic madly in it when it snows (disclaimer: I am from CA and I don't own a car), but I hate slush beyond anything else in the world. Stepping through a few slush puddles my first year here that deceptively looked solid was enough to do it.

So, when it was time to make something for dinner on Wednesday, all I could think of was WARM. I want something warm and filling and cozy. Luckily I had just starred on google reader a new recipe from Joanne's lovely Eats well with others blog for risotto with carrots and feta, which looked so warm (orange and yellow colors!) and inviting that well..the rest is history.

Rosemary Lemon Risotto with Carrots and Peas
(4 servings)

adapted from risotto with carrots and feta (Eats well with others)

4 cups vegetable broth
3 carrots, diced to desired size
1 cup frozen peas
1/2 white onion, diced
4 cloves garlic, smashed and then chopped*
1 tbsp olive oil
1 1/2 cups arborio rice
1/4 tsp fresh rosemary
2 tbsp lemon juice
1/2 tsp lemon zest

1. Bring stock to a boil in a separate pot. Add carrots and let simmer on low.
2. In a large pot or saucepan, saute the onions and garlic in olive oil until the onions are soft but not brown. Add in rice and stir until the grains are well coated in oil.
3. Add in the rosemary, then ladle in 1 cup of the carrots+stock into the rice pot. Stir over medium heat until the liquid is absorbed; repeat with all of the stock.
4. Add frozen peas and stir until the peas have thawed and are a bright green. Stir in the lemon juice and lemon zest.
5. Serve!

* I find smashing the garlic first with the back of a big knife releases the juices, and then chopping the smashed garlic increases the surface area of garlic that is exposed to the oil/food. I also realize that explanation sounded terribly nerdy.

I think for me what really did it for this risotto was the lemon-- it brightened up the flavors and gave it a nice fresh kick. I tried serving the risotto as-is or with a small dollop of goat cheese, which added a lovely creamy texture that is reminiscent of the risotto you get at a fancy restaurant (where they pour on the cream and cheese). Even though I love cheese (just try to get between me and a block of boursin, fontina, goat cheese..oh any cheese really) and I think it generally is a good addition to savory dishes this one for me really didn't need it!

apologies for the low picture content this time...my camera lens kept steaming up and the poor lighting led to very few nice pictures :( 'til next time!

Funfetti Cookies from scratch

Remember funfetti cakes when you were a kid (or perhaps just last week..)? There was something remarkably delightful about the fluffy cake-batter taste, the bright colors of the sprinkles, and not to mention the creamy funfetti frosting on top.

The best part of anything funfetti related-- the sprinkles!

 Last weekend I was at Shaw's, looking for something probably more important and healthier than what I ended up seeing-- a box of funfetti cake mix! But instead of cake, I had cookies on the brain; these thoughts combined with some googling resulted in tada! funfetti cookies made from scratch.

Apparently I was not the only one to be astonished at the lack of from-scratch funfetti recipes-- several other bloggers had already commented on this and came up with their own. Thanks to them, I mashed together several recipes to come up with the final product here. enjoy!

 

Funfetti Cookies with Chocolate Buttercream Frosting
(makes approximately 2 dozen 2" diameter cookies)

adapted from chewy funfetti cookies (The Teenage Taste) and funfetti cake (Annie's Eats)

1 1/2 cups flour
3/4 cups white sugar
1/2 tsp baking powder
pinch of salt
2 eggs
1/3 cup canola oil
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/8 tsp almond extract
1/2 cup sprinkles

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt together in a large bowl. Mix together evenly.
3. Add oil, eggs, vanilla, and almond extracts to the dry ingredients. Mix together slowly-- do not overmix.
4. Fold in sprinkles.
5. Roll into golf-size balls and place ~1" apart on cookie sheet lined with parchment paper*. Using the palm of your hand, flatten each ball down slightly (to desired size**; mine were about 1cm thick).
6. Bake for 9-10m. The center of the cookie should still be slight soft (yield under gentle pressure) when they are removed from the oven. Let cool on the sheet for 5-10m.
7. Frost and decorate as desired. I went with chocolate buttercream and more sprinkles :)

Chocolate Buttercream Frosting

1 stick butter, softened
3/4 cup cocoa powder
3/4 cup powdered sugar
1 tbsp warm milk***

1. Cream butter with cocoa powder and sugar. Add in milk to desired consistency.
2. Store unused buttercream in freezer.

* I didn't do this, and when I took my cookies out I had to scrape them off the sheet because the bottoms burned a bit (even though the tops looked fine).
** These cookies don't spread very much.
*** Warm is important. If the milk is cold, the butter re-hardens when you mix the frosting and you end up with frosting that has little chunks of unmelted butter floating in it. If the milk is hot, the butter melts and you end up with runny frosting.

happy funfetti-ing!