Experimenting gone right!

In my previous post I wrote about something I fiddled with, a new experiment with ingredients that didn't go so well. It happened before that instance too. (I'm still not over the mousse catastrophe).

Now I've made snicker doodles before.


I made a chai glaze that I was worried about but they ended up being fantastic so I knew I couldn't screw up a basic snicker doodle. (I highly recommend the recipe from yours truly) And since I can't just keep things simple I wanted something more than just cinnamon and sugar. It's still pumpkin season and without adding real pumpkin, partially so it would last longer, I made another glaze. I've gotten better at glazes/icing, where it actually looks like it should and I'm pretty proud of this one.

I usually use a mix of spices to get that pumpkin flavor. You know, cloves, cinnamon, nutmeg and ginger. And in a glaze or an icing you need is powdered sugar and some sort of liquid. If you want more of a clear glaze you can use water but I wanted it to be more like icing and a different consistency so it didn't look slimey. In that case you'd use milk or half and half but I found the best of both; my favorite coffee creamer this time of year. Pumpkin Pie Coffee Mate. I just mixed that with powdered sugar and even just a touch of shortening to thicken it up and it ended up being a lot better than I thought. If you are just trying to whip it up quick like I did without breaking out the mixer, make sure you get your arm muscles ready to go so you can continually whisk to get the air it needs. A good 3-4 minutes if you can manage.

I have found this to be the easiest method for frosting cookies. Just dunk them upside down and quickly flip them over and place on a cooling rack or a plate. I fell in love with my new three tier cooling rack from Wilton and it works perfectly if you just put some paper towels, wax paper, parchment paper or even tin foil below so you don't get icing all over your workspace. 

After a dip into the pool I sprinkle some pumpkin pie spice, or you can use the extra cinnamon sugar, just cinnamon, cloves, etc. etc. Let them rest and you're ready to go. 

Once again I have amazed myself. Not to toot my own horn but, toot toot! That's twice now within a month, remember these??

This is again something I will make again, or at least a variation. I haven't given up on experimenting despite some disasters I've made, from cookies and brownies as hard as rocks and mousse that turned into soup. I'm not giving up and hope you learned as much as I have!

Beach Bums

Well, it's been awhile since I've pulled out the oven mitts but now that life has settled down a little, I'm back in business. It also helps that I've basically turned my boyfriend's kitchen into a bakery. I may have taken over three or four cabinets but I don't think he and his roommate mind getting cupcakes for cabinet space.

I've had this idea for awhile, thanks to some help from Pillsbury and finally made it happen. It's super simple but super cute. Pick your favorite cupcake recipe and grab some Teddy Grahams.

Make the cupcakes like normal and your favorite frosting (I chose vanilla cupcakes with cream cheese frosting) and smash up some graham crackers or some Teddy Grahams to use as 'sand'. This is where the fun stuff comes in. Find some drink umbrellas at the grocery store, plant a Teddy Graham belly-up and give him some shade. 

Be warned: I tried using some red icing to draw a beach towel underneath the Teddy Graham. Sounded like a cute idea until the icing ran off the cupcake and it looked like a Teddy Graham murder scene and less like a beach scene. 

Not only are they cute but the cinnamon Teddy Grahams added an extra kick to the vanilla cupcake, just enough cinnamon crunch to make it more than just a normal cupcake. 

Super simple, super cute and just in time to finally get some nice weather out here. 

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Tea time!

Enough with the coffee for a little bit and on to full-leaf tea. I've never baked with tea before and thought I'd give it a shot. Coffee's easy to bake with, it will pretty much be good in anything, but tea is a whole different animal and it's hard to tell whether it's going to be good as a cake or if you should just let it be tea.

Still debating this idea with Blueberry White Tea.

I started with a basic pound cake recipe (lots of butter, lots of eggs) and used full-leaf tea. Normally people will steep tea bags in milk and add it but I found that the full leaf tea really works. You can't just have tea leaves buried in your cake though so you have to find a way to infuse it into a liquid you'll use in the cake. Milk could work but you risk curdling the milk if you leave it on for too long. In this case, I melted the butter and the let the tea leaves steep there. Take it off the flame when the butter melts and let it sit like you would tea (normally about four minutes). Let it sit a little longer because you don't want to pour hot butter into your cake batter.

Strain the butter with a tea press or a tea strainer when it's cool enough.

You can definitely taste the tea in the cake but I'm starting to second-guess my tea choice for the cake. It could have even been the poundcake recipe I used, not one of the best. On the other hand, the home-made icing is perfect, and makes them look great too. Amazing what butter, powdered sugar and milk can do.