Dreamy Raspberry Streusel Magic Bars

What are you making for your mom or the mom-like figure in your life this Sunday?

I have to admit that I am not making these. Well, maybe I did….but there is no remaining physical evidence to indicate that I did.

That’s right. I ate my mom’s Mother Day baked goods gift.

Oops. Love you, mumsy.

The frontal lobe of my twisted brain reasons that I am flying my own sweet little self back home for Mother’s Day, and that my mom will therefore have everything she needs (i.e. me). Plus, she won’t miss what she never, er, knew she was missing out on. Right?

Right? Who’s with me?

You’ll understand what I mean shortly. Skedaddle off to the kitchen and make these gooey, crunchy, cinnamony, sweet, and simple bars–I guarantee you, they won’t last you until Sunday. And if they do–well, you’re either a saint, or you’re a mother yourself and have the patience of a saint.

And if you are a mother, you should totally hoard the entire pan, because–well, it’s your day, and you can. And who ever needed a better excuse than THAT?

Happy (early) Mother’s Day to all the wonderful mothers who fill up our kitchens with warm aromas and our lives with lots of love!

Dreamy Raspberry Streusel Magic Bars

Adapted from a fantastic original recipe at Mom on Time Out

Ingredients:

• 3 cups graham cracker crumbs
• 2/3 cup white sugar
• 3/4 cup butter or margarine, melted
• 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 3 cups sweetened coconut, flaked
• 1 (14 oz.) can sweetened condensed milk
• 1 1/2 cups seedless raspberry preserves
• 1/3 cup semisweet chocolate (for drizzling)
• 1/3 cup white chocolate (for drizzling)

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Lightly grease 9×13-inch baking pan and set aside.
2. In a large bowl, combine graham cracker crumbs, white sugar, 3/4 cup melted butter, and 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon. Press lightly and evenly into bottom of prepared pan.
3. Sprinkle coconut over graham cracker crust, then pour sweetened condensed evenly over coconut. Bake in preheated oven for 20-25 minutes.
4. Remove pan from oven and cool completely. While waiting for bars to cool, make streusel topping (recipe to follow).
5. Spread raspberry preserves over cooled bars. Press prepared streusel lightly into the jam.
6. Place semisweet chocolate in a microwave-safe bowl and heat on high for 30 seconds. Remove and stir; return to microwave and continue heating at 20-second intervals, stirring between each, until chocolate is completely melted. Do the same for the white chocolate. Drizzle melted chocolates over the bars, then cut and serve!

For streusel topping:

• 1  cup all-purpose flour
• 3/4 cup quick-cooking oats
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 cup butter or margarine, melted
• 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 3/4 cup chopped pecans or nut of your choice (optional–if you omit them, increase oats by 1/2 cup)

Directions

1.  Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.
2. Combine all ingredients in a medium bowl. Press lightly onto a baking sheet and bake for 10 minutes, until light brown. Crumble while still hot; set aside to cool completely.
3. Press into the tops of your magic bars!

Choco-Peanut Butter Ying Yang Cookies

NOTE: I was writing the following blog post when I learned the news about the Boston Marathon explosion. To those of you in Boston or with loved ones in Boston, you’re all in our hearts, thoughts, and sympathies. If you’d like to share your thoughts and condolences, please feel free to do so here. Boston, take care.

Instead of writing an alternate entry to commemorate the victims and their families, I have decided to go ahead and post my original entry. On a day of tragedy, there is that small hope of reminder that tells us to cling tightly to those we love–to live and laugh with them. My hope is that this post will bring a smile to your faces in the midst of all the conflicting, image-laden media accounts and that you can cherish Boston by sharing your smiles with those you love during these difficult times.

In a way, it’s appropriate that this post features ying yang, or two-sided cookies. Everything in life has two sides to it–you just have to figure out how to make the best of both. With terrible tragedy, also comes the stunning realization that there are heroes out there from every stripe of life waiting to help, and that the heroes we can appreciate most are often standing right beside us. Appreciate the heroes in your life today–tell them how much they mean to you.

****

There are some people in this world who are good at lots of things. We all have that friend who was high school ASB president, child actor/actress, swim team captain, math-lete extraordinaire, five-time winner of the MTV Best Smile Award, and a kick-ass poker tournament champion to boot. I often roar in their general direction from my underachieving, lazy day couch.

Some days I function just enough that I can overboil myself a bowl of instant ramen (yes, this is actually possible) before flopping with all the grace of an elephant seal into bed. This week, for instance, I’ve been a slobby mess scrambling to figure out my summer plans and still trying to stay on top of my own work, along with all of my students’ work. I sit here in my tattered Pooh pajamas thinking to myself, “Geez, you’re hopeless!”

It’s on the mopiest, Eeyore-iest of afternoons that I force myself to think of some things I’m actually pretty good at.

One thing I love is storytelling. I wrote some–okay, a lot of–erm, fanfiction in my day, and had a modest following that I’ve always been pretty proud of. Cue embarrassing romantic escapades in which Usagi (that’s Serena from the dubbed version of the anime, Sailor Moon) stares deeply into Mamoru’s (that’s Darien’s) piercing blue eyes and runs a trembling hand through his soft ebony hair before he sweeps her up into her arms and leans down to kiss her.

Yeah. Hai there, fanfic alter-ego. Let me wipe my hard drive and go skulk in a dank cobwebbed corner now before anybody recognizes me.

I’m never telling any of you my pen name. Ever. So don’t ask.

I’ve always considered myself more of a storyteller than a baker or a cook or a foodie. Do any of you writers out there feel the same way? I do, 25 hours, every single day.

Writing always came pretty naturally to me. I never really had problems drumming up an audience for my stories, online or otherwise. I once wrote a 250,000 word story for a fanfic/original story Valentine’s Day contest in 2 weeks and ended up winning a nice shiny virtual badge. To this day, it’s the highlight of my online writing career–and imagine how proud my parents and friends were that I had eked out all of one other contestant for the shiny virtual gold.

Oh, yeah. Did I not mention that only one other person entered? Derp.

To be completely fair, she’s about the biggest name in the fandom. Like, a really, really big name. And now she’s a published author and I’m an underpaid graduate student with a shiny virtual badge. I should probably put this on my CV…along with all of my other great voluntary and unpaid escapades.

One thing I am not–naturally, at least–is a good chef. Cheese curdles at the mere mention of my name, and the milk in my fridge trembles so badly it turns into one big milkshake.

Milkshakes. Yum.

Ask my friends. Anyone who knew me before or even during college can attest to the fact that I was not born with a spatula for a hand. When asked whether I had cumin in my pantry, I once answered, “Bless you. Did you sneeze? Here’s a tissue.”

It wasn’t until junior year of college that I even learned how to boil vegetables. For some reason, I always thought you dumped the chopped vegetables into the water first and then turned the heat off right before it started boiling. My dad was a total saint on this score. Case in point: after I strutted around like a rooster and served him the totally raw vegetables over a plate of oversteamed rice, he simply said, “Well, more nutrients.”

Raw vegetables = nutrients. Bless him.

As you can see, I’ve come quite a ways since then. These days, I’m baking at the speed of light and having a fantastic time sharing all of my oven adventures, but I still have WAY more baking failures than anyone ever believes. One of these days, I’m going to compile a collage of all the epic failures I’ve had in the kitchen (not just cracked cheesecakes, but charcoal-burnt pans over unattended stovetops and an oil fire that I nearly tried putting out with water which you should never do!!).

These ying-yang, perfectly chewy chocolaty and peanut butter-packed cookies from Sally’s Baking Addiction are a godsend that you will not mess up. Trust me on this one. My oven has the temper of a hormonal teenager and this is one of the few batches of cookies that came out chewy, fluffy, and packed with chocolate-and-PB goodness.

I HIGHLY recommend these for those of you who love chocolate and PB, and want a fancy-looking addition to your cookie tray that won’t throw you into fits of agony about whether they will “turn out.” All you need is to give yourself some extra time for dough chilling while you chill as well and make these scrumptious, simple, sassy cookies!

And now, excuse me while I go off to determine whether Draco and Hermione are canon.

Er. I mean, while I go nab another one of these scrumptious cookies. (Because no lie, I will do it.)

Don’t wait–print this!

Choco-Peanut Butter Ying Yang Cookies

Yield: 2 dozen cookies

Original recipe from Sally’s Baking Addiction

 

For the chocolate cookies

Ingredients:

• 1/4 cup butter or margarine, softened
• 1/4 cup white sugar
• 1/4 cup brown sugar, lightly packed
• 1/2 large egg (carefully separate it in half and reserve other half for the PB cookie recipe)
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
• 5 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoon milk
• 1/2 cup chocolate chips, semi-sweet (or dark or milk)

Directions:

1. In a medium bowl, cream together butter and both sugars until light and fluffy. Mix in egg and vanilla until smooth. In a separate bowl, mix together flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt. Add to wet ingredients and stir in until just combined. Carefully mix in the milk, then fold in chocolate chips. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 2 hours, or overnight. (See baking instructions below.)

For the peanut butter chocolate chip cookies:

Ingredients:

• 1/4 cup butter or margarine, softened
• 2 tablespoons white sugar
• 1/4 cup brown sugar, lightly packed
• 6 tablespoons creamy peanut butter
• 1/2 large egg (reserved from chocolate cookie recipe)
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup + 2 tbsp all-purpose flour
• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup chocolate chips, semi-sweet (or dark or milk)

Directions:

1. In a medium bowl, cream together butter and both sugars until light and fluffy. Mix in peanut butter, then add egg and vanilla and mix until smooth. Add flour, baking soda, and salt to wet ingredients and stir in until just combined. Fold in chocolate chips. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 2 hours, or overnight. (See baking instructions below.)
   

Baking instructions for choco-peanut butter ying yang cookies:

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Lightly grease a baking sheet and set aside.
2. Removing chilled dough from fridge, roll a medium-sized ball (about 3/4th the size of a golf ball) of chocolate dough, then roll a ball of the same size of peanut butter dough. Carefully smoosh the two together side by side, then roll that into a perfect round ball. Set on baking sheet and continue rolling ying-yang dough balls until you’ve finished with all the dough. (If you used too much of one and not enough of the other, you can always bake the cookies in just one flavor!)
3. Bake in preheated oven for approximately 10-12 minutes, and no more than 12-13 minutes. The cookies will seem slightly underdone when you remove them from the oven, but they’ll firm up if you leave them on the sheet on top of the oven for about another 10-15 minutes. Don’t overbake–otherwise your cookies won’t be chewy and fluffy!

Saltine Toffee ‘Crack’-ers: An Ode to a New DSLR!

I have not danced around with such elf-like mirth since they announced the summer 2013 release of Sailor Moon.

Guess who is the proud new owner of a DSLR camera?

I’ll give you a hint.

ME. Me me me me me me me. Did I mention me?

That’s right, folks–in the shameless spirit of commercialism, selfishness, and dragon-like hoarding, I have graciously received a shiny new DSLR camera for Christmas.

Jigs may or may not have been performed under my Christmas tree this holiday season.

Did I mention the fact that I also received a Playstation 3 AND the Disney Imagineering book?

This year’s forecast: Absolutely zero productivity levels, with a 50% chance of precipitation from the tear ducts–because I am going to be so darn happy playing around with all of my new toys that I will most probably break down into tears at some point and bawl like a baby.

A very, very happy bouncing crying baby adult woman.

In honor of this momentous occasion, I’ve decided to do absolutely nothing substantive in this post except gloat, revel, and bask in the glory that is focused pictures with appropriately blurry backgrounds. I’m still getting the hang of the whole “real-camera” photography deal (read: driving my parents crazy dancing around the house singing “What’s This?” a la Jack Skellington as I test out all of the nifty functions–and they are nifty), and now I don’t have an excuse to not learn about proper photo composition…

But I think I can live with that.

I can also live with a batch of these delicious saltine toffee ‘crack’-ers (thus dubbed as an homage to their addictive status) sitting on my kitchen counter at this very moment.

Those of you who have followed me for some time will know that this is a repeat recipe that you can find here…but the results were so pretty, and my camera was so here (YAY), that I had to share these photos.

What did you receive this holiday season that you’re most excited about?

and (as an unofficial question)

They’re by no means perfect, and I’m still learning, but how do you like them new photos?

(Expect some fun posts from here on out! I hope you’re as thrilled as I am to check out my upcoming projects, posts, and updates to this site as I begin the new year’s process of revamping my blog in honor of this new technological addition to the family!)

Pumpkin Pound Cake Truffles with Gingerbread Cookie Crumbs

I love the holiday season for many, many reasons. I’m sure you do, too.

Holding a very special place at the top of this list is the fact that, as soon as Thanksgiving ends, I get to cram my Santa elf-ear hat on my head, flip on the Christmas song station, and belt out the following line without the slightest trace of irony whatsoever:

“Your soul is an appalling dump heap, overflowing with the most disgraceful assortment of deplorable rubbish imaginable, mangled up in tangled up knots.”

Except “knots” sounds more like “naaaaAAAAAaaaahhhwtzzz,” and Thurl Ravenscroft sounds about a bajillion times better singing “You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch” than I do.

Seriously–if I had to choose one person to narrate my life, it would be him. Have you heard the man sing?

Perhaps on my less-fond holiday season list (if such a thing exists–which it really can’t) is the end-of-the-term rush to get things typed, stapled, and shipped off into the wild unknown of academia’s bureaucratic abysses. I was told that we won’t be getting our students’ evaluations back until as late as 8th week of next year.

It’s a wonder I’m not more of a Grinch myself.

On the contrary, however–I’ve been embracing this holiday season as if it were a friggin’ human-sized Pooh Bear.

Last night, my friends and I went to the candlelight procession at Disneyland. It was hosted by none other than Dick Van Dyke, sir Bert from Mary Poppins! Better yet, it was the grand man’s birthday: the best part of the night was when he stepped up to the podium at the front of town square, and suddenly a hum starting from the middle of this humongous crowd begins to grow. And suddenly, we’re all singing “Happy Birthday to Diiiiiick,” and, well–if that’s not a magical, holiday-filled moment, I really don’t know what is.

I’m still dead beat from this week–I realize that I haven’t whipped up anything in the kitchen that’s really excited me for quite some time. As I’m grading these final exams and counting down the minutes until I can hop on the plane homeward bound, I’m actually absorbing very little of what’s in front of me and thinking very much about whether it would be indecent to throw gingerbread cookies, cookie butter, and zesty orange cheesecake into the same baking pan together.

I have a feeling I can keep Santa from putting me on the naughty list if I just leave out a plate of these for him this year.

You’ve really got to try it–my friends absolutely melted when they tasted it, and if you have a particularly hungry Santa Claus (or other secular holiday spirit!) hanging around your house, you’ll definitely want to keep these easy peasy treats on hand.

Ho ho ho, and look forward to some really fun holiday swing posts again soon!

(I nabbed this delicious pumpkin pound cake recipe from the lovely blog I Wash, You Dry. Give it a try, too!)

Pumpkin Pound Cake Truffles w/Gingerbread Cookie Crumbs

Pumpkin pound cake recipe–as written at I Wash You Dry

 

For the pumpkin pound cake:

• 1/2 cup butter
• 1 cup sugar
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 3 eggs
• 1/2 cup plain Greek Yogurt
• 1/2 cup pumpkin puree
• 1 1/2 cups flour
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/8 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp pumpkin pie spice

Instructions

1. Pull out the eggs, butter, and yogurt and let sit at room temperature for 30 minutes.
2. Grease and lightly flour an 8″x4″x2.5″ cake pan.
3. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.
4. Place the butter in the bowl of your stand mixer and beat for a minute on high speed. Gradually add the sugar and let it mix on medium-high speed for 10 minutes. You’ll have to scrap the sides of the bowl every once and a while. You’re looking for a very light and fluffy butter mixture.
5. Once you’re butter is light and fluffy add the vanilla and beat for about 30 seconds.
6. Add one egg at a time, beating for 1 minute between each egg.
7. In a separate bowl combine the flour, baking soda, baking powder and pumpkin pie spice. Sift together to combine.
8. Alternately add the flour mixture, Greek yogurt, and pumpkin puree to the bowl of the stand mixer. Remember to scrap the sides of the bowl occasionally to make sure it’s being properly mixed.
9. Blend until the mixture is smooth.
10. Pour batter into prepared cake pan and bake at 325 for 65-75 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.
11. Let cool in pan on wire rack for 10 minutes. Then remove the cake from the pan and let cool to room temperature. Once cake is completely cool, cover and let sit over night or enjoy right away.
12. Slice into 1/2 inch pieces and drizzle with salted caramel sauce.
13. To make truffles, cube cooled pumpkin pound cake and freeze for at least 1 hour, or until very firm.

To assemble truffles:

• 2 (12 oz.) bags semi-sweet chocolate chips
• Gingerbread cookies, crushed

1. Melt 1 bag of chocolate at a time by placing in a microwave-safe bowl on HIGH for 30 seconds, then continuing to heat at 15-second intervals and stirring vigorously between each interval until chocolate chips are completely melted. Dip frozen pumpkin pound cake cubes in chocolate and quickly coat. Remove onto parchment paper and top with crushed gingerbread cookies or other holiday cookies of your choice. Allow chocolate to firm up before serving! (You can store these at room temperature in an air-tight container for at least a few days; keep them in the fridge for up to a week.)

 

Easy Saltine Chocolate Toffee Cookies

It’s 6:42 PM and you’re running late for a potluck. You’ve just spent the past three hours completely absorbed in who-knows-what at your computer (well, you know, but it’s certainly not work-related and you certainly aren’t saying), when you look up with that sinking feeling in your stomach, and realize…

You forgot to make something to bring.

If you’re like me, however, and you get that weird feeling in your tummy, it’s probably because you’re so excited that you get to prepare, bake, and eat these bars within 20 minutes of start time.

Seriously.

These are known within my extended family as “those delicious toffee fudgy indescribable cracker-based things.” Or, as one of my cousins so eloquently put it, “They’re so addicting, it’s like you actually put the crack in crackers.”

Let’s just say we’re not much for subtlety in my family. Eaters, however, we are. In fact, we’re just one amalgamation of really great chefs and bakers, which is why, when this Thanksgiving rolled around and I started getting family encore requests for this amazing dessert, I was sort of flattered.

The slightly sad part of the story is that I made these cookies well in advance, stuck them in the freezer so they’d stand up to the hour-long flight, towed an entire bucketful through security, and made it home with them–only to forget them in the freezer when we left for my grandparents’ house. So we were without them after all this Thanksgiving.

Of course, this could just have been my devious, diabolical plan to keep these deliciously addicting saltine toffee cookies to myself. But let’s say it wasn’t. In the spirit of Thanksgiving, giving, and all that jazz.

Heck, I’ll even share the recipe with you so you can make your own and won’t bother my stash. Then maybe next Thanksgiving, you’ll have your own stash hoarded away and you’ll understand what I’m going through, too.

On a completely unrelated note, Christmas lights have started going up on our street, and we’ve all started shopping for an exciting round of Secret Santa. Happy holidays, folks!

What’s your Thanksgiving go-to or most-requested recipe? Links welcome!

Easy Saltine Chocolate Toffee Cookies

Slightly adapted from Allrecipes

Yield: Approximately 28-32 chocolate toffee saltine squares

Ingredients:

• Approximately 28-32 saltine crackers, with salted tops
• 1 cup butter or margarine, room temperature
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 2 cups semi-sweet chocolate
• 10 undipped homemade lacy butter cookies, crumbled–or other toppings of your choice (see notes)
• For drizzle: 1/2 cup white chocolate chips, 2 tablespoons butter or margarine

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Line a 9×13-inch baking pan with enough foil to reach up sides. Lightly grease foil and line the bottom with a single layer of saltine crackers. Use more or less crackers as needed to fill up the entire bottom of the pan. Set aside.
2. In a medium-sized pot over medium heat, combine butter and brown sugar. Once the entire mixture gets to a rolling boil, set a timer for exactly three minutes. Do not stir the mixture while it is boiling; it should coalesce and become dark amber by the end of the three minutes. Remove from heat and pour gently over the saltines, making sure to coat the entire layer of crackers. (Avoid pouring too quickly, otherwise your toffee will all seep underneath the saltines!)
3. Bake in preheated oven for 5-6 minutes. Remove from oven and sprinkle chocolate chips evenly over the toffee layer. Wait 5 minutes for the chocolate chips to start melting, then gently spread the chocolate with a knife over the toffee until completely covered. Top with crumbled topping of your choice.
4. For drizzle: in a saucepan over medium-low heat, combine white chocolate chips and butter. Stir frequently until white chocolate and butter have combined and are smooth. Remove from heat and allow to cool. Drizzle over saltine toffee cookies.
5. Allow your toffee bars to cool slightly before breaking them carefully into saltine cracker-sized squares. Remove gently onto a wire rack, then allow cookies to cool completely before serving. (I usually allow them to cool at room temperature for at least a few hours before popping them into the freezer, but you can skip straight to the freezer if you’re pressed for time.)

Notes:

• Go wild with the toppings! If you don’t have any extra lacy butter cookies laying around (which I did), then you can substitute chopped nuts, candies, or anything else that strikes your fancy! You can also play around with colors and sprinkles for different holidays/occasions.

 

Chocolate-Dipped Lacy Butter Cookies

Dear readers,

Thank you all first off for all of your wonderful comments about the new “Lit, Wit, and an Oven Mitt” series I’ve been experimenting with during the past week. As all of you are probably only too keenly aware, writing and creating something even marginally distinct in the blog-o-sphere requires you to throw so much of yourself into your work. For those of you who had a chance to read the last two posts, I hope you found them nostalgic and satisfying, and that you’ll share the next installments of this series with your friends; for those of you who haven’t, you should definitely take a peek (but maybe I’m just biased! But really, who doesn’t love two fun recipe-sharing stories about Winnie-the-Pooh and Sam-I-am?)

Today, my friends and I watched a wonderful rendition of Jane Austen’s Pride & Prejudice, in which radio actors combined their amazing vocal talents during a live recording session with a completely gratifying display of visual theater. Needless to say, it was one of the best adaptations of the novel I have ever seen! The following post, the third installment of the LWOM series, is a tribute to my this-is-as-wild-as-it-gets-Thursday-night-#nerdgasmic feelings about the performance.

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good appetite, must be in want of a cookie.

A thin, crisp, sweet chocolate-dipped lacey butter cookie.

“A lady’s imagination is very rapid; it jumps from admiration to love, from love to matrimony, in a moment.”

A man’s imagination, however, cannot be said to be much less rapid. It jumps with equal urgency from chocolate-dipped lacey cookies to homemade fondant-draped wedding cakes, with no clear connection between the two thoughts to speak of, and unrealistic expectations concerning the oven-labouring capacities of his would-be wife.

If a woman is partial to a man, and brings over an entire tupperware-full of these quite delicious cookies, he must find her secret out. Men, after all, cannot rightfully be considered the stupider of the sexes; they are merely more deficient in those qualities that would render them competent judges of women’s whims.

In a word, if he finds a box of these cookies at his doorstep and checks his own excitement just long enough to taste a single crisp thin wafer, he will undoubtedly have proposed to her within the hour. Or if not, he will at least have the decency to purchase a considerable swathe of flowers and send to her a round sum of no less than that which Martha Stewart makes in a year…in addition to his eternal, undying affection.

In the real world in which we live, at least, this is how it should be. Whether or not the Mr. Darcy’s of Pemberley actually agree with this statement, is something best left to the personal scrutiny and experiences of the reader.

The writer will not to affect to impose her moral views in this case. It is to be noted, however, that every single honest young woman is in want of a Mr. Darcy equivalent, and would be well-deserving of her fate if all such reserved young men would cross our paths in a romantic fashion (preferably a ballroom dance), and just do the damn thing and ask us to have dinner with them already.

Or to visit a carnival.

Or to go paintballing. 

Or something.

Because honestly, men, as much as we’re all products of the 21st-century and huge proponents of gender equality and all that jazz, every single one of us still wants on occasion to be treated like a Romantic-era lady.

So says Jane Austen, the single rival to the Disney Corporation in successfully promoting bad matches and unrealistic ideals in girls all over the world.

I therefore leave you with this quote from the despicable, disastrous, and delightfully desirous Mr. Darcy:

“In vain I have struggled. It will not do. My feelings will not be repressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you.”

Yessir. Whatever you say, Mr. Darcy.

Chocolate-Dipped Lacy Butter Cookies

Original recipe from Allrecipes

Ingredients:

• 1 cup quick-cooking oats
• 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 cup white sugar
• 1/2 cup butter, softened
• 1 egg
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Cover baking sheet with foil and lightly grease foil. Set aside.
2. In a bowl, combine oats, flour, salt, and baking powder. In a separate large bowl, cream together sugar and softened butter until very fluffy, or at least 2-3 minutes. Beat in egg and vanilla. Add dry ingredients and mix until just incorporated. Drop by teaspoonfuls onto a foil, about 2 1/2 inches apart. Your cookies will spread a lot, so make sure not to crowd them too much.
3. Bake in preheated oven for 10-12 minutes, until golden brown. Allow to cool, then peel cookies gently off foil. You may want to use a new sheet of lightly-greased foil between each batch in order to ensure easy peeling (wrinkled foil will make it difficult to peel off your cookies).
4. Heat chocolate chips in a microwave-safe bowl at 15-second intervals on high in your microwave, stirring chips vigorously at the end of each interval. Heat only until chips melt halfway; remove from microwave and continue stirring vigorously until all chips melt. Dip tops of cooled cookies into chocolate; set onto parchment paper and allow chocolate to harden.

 

 

Cheesecake-Filled Chocolate Cupcakes w/Coffee Cinnamon Frosting

It’s still Thursday already Friday somewhere in the world! Thank God.

I may or may not have been blasting some Rebecca Black as I started a new page for this post.

One of the best parts of having an entire two-room bedroom apartment to yourself is that anything goes the moment your pinky toe crosses that blessed threshold.

Rocking out to One Direction and Carly Rae Jepsen into the weest of the wee hours? Of course.

Staying up all night at Disney movie marathon sleepovers that would make fifth-grade girls emerald with envy? Uh, yeah.

Dunking your entire hand into the bowl of cake batter instead of reaching for a mixing spoon because it’s in a drawer that’s ten whole feet away from you? Now we’re talking, my friend.

Lounging on your couch like a boss on a Thursday night in nothing but what your momma gave you and with a glass of pinot noir in your well-manicured hand?

Okay, I haven’t tried that last one. Yet. Apparently maintenance has the key to every apartment in this building, meaning they are allowed to come in without so much as a “hello resident-on-whose-territory-we-are-totally-intruding, you should really put your fig leaves over whatever you don’t want exposed to these eyes.”

Of course, by the time I’m finished with this kamikaze quarter of teaching, coursework, and having a social life the size of a pea, I may just throw in (or rather, away) the towel, grab my fig leaves, and start lounging to my heart’s content. With my pinot noir. For which I will accordingly acquire a refined taste that I currently don’t possess.

As with most things that don’t involve legal persecution or intense self-reevaluation of my worth as a human being, I grossly exaggerate here. My social life has actually been moving along quite swimmingly as of late, thank you very much.

I can’t go into any details about it, though

They might be watching reading.

By “they,” I mean the incredibly attractive young men working as incredibly successful entrepreneurs at an incredibly well-established corporation that still manages to hang onto its good ol’ homey American values.

You know, the ones currently residing in…my head.

Or Storybrook, to be more precise.

Yeah, I’ve started watching Once Upon a Time.

It kind of sucks…

…that my life has been summarily sucked up by it.

Ha.

You know what else sucks?

Not these cupcakes.

We whipped up a batch of these for one of the guys in our department celebrating his birthday this week. If you like a) the idea of a steaming mug of hot chocolate dipped into your morning wake-up call with a hint of autumnal flair, or b) being awesome, you need to try these cupcakes.

(These filled cupcakes were made for Julie’s baking challenge over at Willow Bird Baking–she’s a fantastic gal, so this is something else you should definitely check out if you like, again, being awesome.)

Cheesecake-Filled Chocolate Cupcakes w/Coffee Cinnamon Frosting

Yield: 15 cupcakes

Cupcake recipe adapted from Allrecipes

Self-filled cupcake ingredients:

• 1  cup boiling water
• 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1 1/3 cups and 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup butter, softened
• 1 cup and 2 tablespoons white sugar
• 2 eggs
• 3/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

• 4 oz. cream cheese, softened
• 3 tablespoons white sugar
• 1 egg
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. In a medium bowl, pour hot water over cocoa and whisk until smooth. Allow to cool.
2. In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs one at a time, then add vanilla. In a separate bowl, combine flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt, then add to wet ingredients alternately with cooled cocoa liquid. Mix until all ingredients are all just incorporated and smooth; your mixture will be relatively thin, and this is perfect!
3. To make cheesecake mix: In a medium bowl, beat cream cheese and sugar until creamy and smooth. Add egg, vanilla, and cinnamon; mix until well-incorporated. Set aside.
4. Place cupcake liners in a muffin tin and fill each liner about 1/3 of the way with batter. Carefully pour a small teaspoonful of cheesecake batter in (recipe below). Pour additional cupcake batter on top until the liner is 2/3 full; the easiest way to make sure your cheesecake batter doesn’t leak is if you pour the cupcake batter over it in one smooth sweep. (A slow pour will give the cheesecake time to ooze outwards.) Bake in preheated oven for 14-17 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in comes out clean. Allow to cool before frosting with coffee cinnamon frosting.

Ingredients for Cinnamon Coffee Frosting:

• 2 1/2 cups powdered sugar
• 2-3 tablespoons brewed coffee, cooled
• 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 1 tablespoon instant ground coffee, crushed into fine powder (optional)

Directions:

1. In a medium bowl, combine powdered sugar, 1 tablespoon coffee, and cinnamon. Mix together, then add additional coffee as necessary to thin out your frosting and reach desired consistency. (Adding the crushed instant ground coffee adds additional coffee flavor without thinning out your frosting too much. Add more to taste if you like!)

Note: If you want to add a nice chocolate drizzle to your cupcakes, simply melt 1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate with 1 tablespoon butter on the stovetop on medium-low heat. Make sure you watch your chocolate carefully and stir frequently to keep it from burning!