The Best Sugar Cookie Recipe I've Ever Tried...Bar None!

I was given this recipe (I believe it's orginally from America's Test Kitchen) and told that if I tried it, I would never go back to any of my standby sugar cookie recipes again.  That was an accurate statement.  These cookies are so moist (and they stay moist!), but they still have a little bit of that chewiness we all love in our sugar cookies.  The addition of cream cheese gives them an unbelievable flavor.

Ingredients:
2 1/4 c. all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups sugar (+ additional to roll the cookies in)
2 oz. cream cheese
3/4 stick of butter
1/3 c. oil
1 large egg
1 T. milk
1 T. vanilla

DIRECTIONS:

Whisk together your flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt.  Set aside.

In another large bowl, whisk together your sugar and cream cheese (I stuck my cream cheese in the microwave for about 20 seconds first). Then add your butter (melt it first), oil, egg, milk, and vanilla.  Whisk it together until it is all smooth, and there are no lumps of cream cheese.

Add your dry ingredients and stir together with a spatula.

Next roll the dough into balls.  The dough will be very sticky, if you run your hands under cold water, the dough won't stick to your hands.  Then roll the dough in sugar and place onto a baking sheet.

Use a glass to slightly flatten your cookie balls, and sprinkle a little more sugar on top.

Bake at 350 degrees until the edges are just beginning to brown (~12 minutes).

The Perfect Summer Treat--Lemon Butter Cookies

Lemon Butter Cookies

Ingredients:
2 sticks of margarine
1 cup of sugar
2 egg yolks
1/4 t. salt
2 t. baking soda
2-3 t. lemon extract
3+ c. flour

Directions:
(1) Melt the margarine in the microwave.
(2) Add the sugar, and stir until thoroughly mixed.
(3) Whip the egg yolks with a whisk, and stir into the butter and sugar.
(4) Add the salt, baking soda, and lemon extract, and stir together.
(5) Add the flour.  The dough will be sticky--add flour until you are able to roll the dough into balls.  Rather than adding more than 3 cups of flour, I put my dough in the freezer for about 15 minutes so it wouldn't stick to my fingers.
(6) Roll the dough into balls, and then roll the balls in sugar. 
(7) Use a fork to press the cookie balls down (criss-cross). 
(8) Bake for about 10 minutes at 350 degrees (makes about 3 dozen).  These do not look "done," so test with your finger to avoid burning them!

Made in the U.S.A.

          When I find something I like, I like to share it with others.  I get excited over fun and unique products that are made in the U.S.A.  My husband actually found this and bought it for me; it is a metal water bottle with a mass transmit map of the subways in Boston.  He knew how much I would love a reminder of my time living in Boston and my adventures on the trains.  I thought it was such a neat idea that I looked the company up online--Liberty Bottle Works.  Not only did I love that the bottle is a U.S.A. product, Liberty is actually the only American maker of these metal water bottles.  The company has so many different designs, and I was truly impressed that they seek local artists to design the bottle art--I figured someone else might be just as excited about a water bottle!     

Chocolate Peanut Butter Cake

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and grease/flour a bundt pan.

Ingredient List:

1c. butter                    2 1/2 c. flour
1 c. sugar                    2 t. baking powder
1 c. brown sugar         1/2 t. salt
1 c. peanut butter        1/2 c. milk
5 eggs                         1 t. vanilla
4 oz. baking chocolate
Chocolate chips
Peanut butter chips
For topping:  chocolate chips & peanut butter chips

*In large bowl, combine butter (melted), sugar, brown sugar, and peanut butter.  Beat until mixture is smooth.  *Add eggs, continue beating after adding each egg. 
*In a separate bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt.
*Alternate adding the flour mixture and milk to the batter and blend it together.

 * Separate the batter into halves.  In one half, add peanut butter chips (I usually do about half a bag).
* Melt the baking chocolate in a double boiler.  Let it cool slightly before adding it to the other half of the batter, and add the chocolate chips to this half.
* Scoop the batter into the bundt pan in alternating sections.  Gently pull a butter knife through the sections to slightly swirl the flavors.
Bake until an inserted toothpick is removed cleanly.

This cake will take a while to bake (~an hour) because it is so thick, and even if the outer edges seem like they're getting darker than normal cakes, the inside is very moist and the whole cake is delicious.

For the topping, you can use any type of glaze or frosting.  I just melted chocolate chips and peanut butter chips and poured it over the top.

Easy Lemon Meringue Pie

I had never made a lemon meringue pie . . . or a meringue of any kind, so I was not expecting my first attempt to be successful, but it was!!!  My aunt requested this pie for Easter, and I found a recipe online and tweaked it slightly.  I used my own trusty pie crust recipe.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

My Pie Crust:

Combine 1 1/2 c. flour with 1/2 t. salt.  Cut in 1/2 c. of shortening until the mixture is well combined (coarse crumbs).  In a separate bowl, beat an egg and stir in 1/4 c. water and 1/2 t. white vinegar.  Add to the flour mixture and stir together (I also usually throw a couple teaspoons of vanilla in).  Knead the dough, roll it out, and put it in your pie pan.  Pre-bake the crust, but leave it slightly undercooked as it will go back in the oven with the pie-filling.

Pie Filling Ingredients:

1 c. sugar               2 T. butter

2 T. flour                4 egg yolks  

3 T. cornstarch       1 1/2 c. water

1/4 t. salt                2 lemons

1 t. lemon extract

Meringue Ingredients:

4 egg whites

6 T. sugar

1 t. lemon extract

*Squeeze the juice out of both lemons (watch out for the seeds), and zest both of the lemons.

*In a medium saucepan,  stir together the sugar, flour, cornstarch, salt, water, lemon juice, lemon zest, and lemon flavoring. 

*Heat slowly, continuously stirring until the mixture begins to boil.  Add the butter and keep stirring.  

*Put the egg yolks in a separate bowl, and add some of the heated sugar mixture to the egg yolks and stir then add the entire yolk mixture back into the sugar mixture.  

*Continue cooking until the mixture is nice and thick, then pour/spread into the pie shell.

*For the meringue, put the 4 egg whites in a bowl and beat until it is very foamy (I used my stand-mixer, put it on high, and let it go for about 10 minutes).  

*While beating, gradually add the 6 T. of sugar.  Keep whipping the egg whites and sugar until the mixture looks like whipped cream.  

* Mix in the lemon flavoring. 

*Spread over the top of the lemon mix in the pie shell and bake until the top of the meringue is golden brown (approximately 15 minutes).

Putting Myself in a Berry Good Mood!

    After my last class of the week, I rewarded myself by baking some delicious strawberry cupcakes for my co-workers!

Pink food is just fun.

Strawberry Cupcakes

Ingredients:
2 c. sugar
2-3oz. packages strawberry gelatin
1 c. margarine (melted)
4 eggs
2 3/4 c. sifted flour
3 t. baking powder
1 c. milk
1 T. vanilla
2 c. frozen strawberries, ground in food processor or finely diced (stirred with some sugar)

     In a large mixing bowl, cream butter, sugar, and gelatin (just the powder) until the mixture is fluffy.  Add the eggs and vanilla and continue mixing.  In a separate bowl, combine the flour and baking powder.  Alternate adding the flour mixture and milk to the batter.  Finally, mix the strawberries in.  Either bake as a cake in a 9x13 or this will also fill two 12" cake pans.  I made about 40 cupcakes (spray the baking cups with non-stick spray).  Bake at 375 for about 15 minutes (done when the toothpick comes out clean).  I put a very light frosting on top of mine (using butter, powdered sugar, milk, and vanilla).  These are moist, full of flavor, and a very sweet treat!!!



Delicious!



Arts & Crafts



Coffee Filter Wreath



     I have a serious Pinterest addiction.  It's amazing how creative people can be, and while I've never been overly creative, I've always wanted to be, and now Pinterest has given me the opportunity to copy other people's creativity and pass it off as my own!  My husband and I have not been married very long, but I have been trying to make our little home feel "homey."  As a student, I do not have the budget to go out and buy new furniture or fancy art for our walls, but I am fortunate enough to be married to a carpenter--a very talented carpenter.  We love doing projects, and our latest passion has been finding old furniture at garage sales, thrift stores, etc. for him to work his magic on!  He has the ability to take any old piece of wood and transform it into a beautiful, very expensive-looking piece!  As I tend to make a mess of everything (as in there is more stain or paint on me than on the the project), I mostly "ooooohhhh" and "ahhhhhhh" over his projects while I stick to the ones involving rubber cement and hot glue.  I was pretty proud of how my first "Pinterest project" came out.  I saw somebody had made a wreath out of coffee filters.  At first it did sound slightly tacky, but it looks beautiful!  I got several packs of coffee filters, a bare bones wreath, tea bags, and coffee all at the Dollar Tree (seriously--this was a $4 project!).  I then dyed half my filters in tea and half in coffee and let them dry all on top of each other.  Then one by one, I scrunched up my filters and hot glued them onto the wreath.  I even did one for my mom after I finished mine--and with hers, I dyed several filters pink (using red food coloring) and let them dry on top of the wet tea/coffee stained ones.  It worked better than I'd hoped giving the pink a very antiqued look.  Several blisters later, I had a new wreath for my door and one in the mail on its way to my mom's door!  Even my husband was impressed with how it looked (although he is probably not the most objective judge).