Cookie Mountain

So our friend Alex was up the other day, and he showed me what has to be THE cutest video I've ever seen.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQGpxFmxrBc

I have to agree with the girl in the video, cookies are DELICIOUS! So in honour of finishing 3/5 exams this week, I decided to go on a cookie-bake fest. Weapons of choice? Chocolate chip and Snickerdoodles (a family favourite).

Most of the time when I want a really good recipe, I go on www.allrecipes.com. It might not be the fanciest site or have the best photographs (for that, I'll continue my foodgawker obsession), but I love the user reviews of all of the recipes. The recipe adjustments people make can really help out the recipe and I find it's easier to find a recipe that works this way.

SNICKERDOODLES
Ingredients

* 1/2 cup butter, softened
* 1/2 cup shortening * 1 1/2 cups white sugar
* 2 eggs * 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
* 2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
* 2 teaspoons cream of tartar
* 1 teaspoon baking soda
* 1/4 teaspoon salt
* 2 tablespoons white sugar
* 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
Directions
1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C).
2. Cream together butter, shortening, 1 1/2 cups sugar, the eggs and the vanilla. Blend in the flour, cream of tartar, soda and salt. Shape dough by rounded spoonfuls into balls.
3. Mix the 2 tablespoons sugar and the cinnamon. Roll balls of dough in mixture. Place 2 inches apart on ungreased baking sheets.
4. Bake 8 to 10 minutes, or until set but not too hard. Remove immediately from baking sheets.

These were fantastic! My roommates (and myself) gobbled them up at an alarming rate. Make sure you cook them for only 8 minutes!!!! Or else they get too hard and they are nowhere near as good. You want a crisp outside and a chewy middle.



CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES
Ingredients

* 2 cups all-purpose flour
* 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
* 1/2 teaspoon salt
* 3/4 cup unsalted butter, melted
* 1 cup packed brown sugar * 1/2 cup white sugar
* 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
* 1 egg
* 1 egg yolk
* 2 cups semisweet chocolate chips

Directions
1. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F (165 degrees C). Grease cookie sheets or line with parchment paper.
2. Sift together the flour, baking soda and salt; set aside.
3. In a medium bowl, cream together the melted butter, brown sugar and white sugar until well blended. Beat in the vanilla, egg, and egg yolk until light and creamy. Mix in the sifted ingredients until just blended. Stir in the chocolate chips by hand using a wooden spoon. Drop cookie dough 1/4 cup at a time onto the prepared cookie sheets. Cookies should be about 3 inches apart.
4. Bake for 15 to 17 minutes in the preheated oven, or until the edges are lightly toasted. Cool on baking sheets for a few minutes before transferring to wire racks to cool completely.


Personally, I'm a fan of milk chocolate chips, so I used 1C of those and another cup of the semi-sweet, because these are very sweet chocolate chip cookies. I'd also recommend reducing the salt a bit as the dough was pretty salty and I was worried you would taste it in the cookies. I refrigerated the dough before using it to get the cookies to come out fluffier, but this made the baking time a little variable since I didn't think to store it in the fridge in between batches.

Molecular biology

Another procrastination method! It's exam time (they started Monday) and it's getting stressful. What's a girl to do except make some tasty chow?

I find that exam time is pretty bittersweet. It's nice to have something to work towards and look forward to, but you still have to do all that work to get there. So during my study break (which ended up being an all-night break.. whoops!), I decided to do something that takes a little more effort than my usual cupcake fare: cinnamon rolls!

Also, like my exam preparation, I'm a pretty last minute kinda girl. So these cinnamon rolls were yeast-less, because I definately did not think ahead to buy any, and it was pretty rainy so leaving the house was a no-no. Luckily, the good lovely folks at Sugarlaws had a great no-yeast cinnamon recipe which I used. Unfortunately, we didn't have any cream cheese either!! So I made up an icing recipe which I have zip recollection of how much of what I used since I was throwing things in left and right hehe.

Icing Sugar
Milk
Vanilla Extract
CornstarchVanilla Ice Cream (it gave THE best flavour)



Basically I just mixed the icing sugar with milk and vanilla extract. We were practically out of icing sugar too (can you tell a grocery run was in order?) so it was too runny. I added cornstarch, nuked it for 30 seconds and it wasn't much thicker. More cornstarch and the ice cream were then added, then I microwaved it again for about a minute and it came out surprisingly great. LOVE cornstarch, I think it's so neat, I recommend YouTube-ing cornstarch and Non-Newtonian fluids for any science kids out there.



Cinnamon Rolls

INGREDIENTS
1 cup warm milk
2 eggs
1/3 cup butter, softened
4 1/2 cups bread flour1/2 cup sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder

1 cup brown sugar
1 tbsp water (eliminate if you’re opening a new package of brown sugar)
2 tablespoons ground cinnamon
1/4 cup butter, softened

4 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature1/4 cup butter, softened
1 1/2 cups confectioners’ sugar

DIRECTIONS

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees. Mix the first six ingredients together in a large mixing bowl, mixing thoroughly until the dough forms a large ball. Meanwhile, in a small bowl, combine brown sugar, butter, water and cinnamon.
Divide the dough into ten pieces, and roll each one into a 2″ by 10″ rectangle. Spread the dough with the cinnamon mixture. Roll each strip into a tightly formed roll. Place rolls in a 9×13 inch baking pan, allowing some room for the rolls to expand. Bake the rolls until just starting to turn golden, about 15 minutes. While rolls are baking, beat together cream cheese, 1/4 cup butter, and confectioners sugar. Spread frosting on the rolls before serving.

Makes 10 cinnamon rolls.



For me, this made more than 10 cinnamon rolls, but I did not really measure out how big 2" by 10" (who does!?).