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!

Lovey Dovey Trifecta Cookies and Sweetheart Cupcakes

I’ll admit it–I’m a little vixen.

This crazy (good) cupcake-and-cookie love blast combo is brought to you by a little V-day vixen named Ala.

Consequently, the V-day jean-size-enlargement-of-everyone-around-me scheme was also instigated by yours truly.

Because let’s face it: us bakers siphon off our baked goods onto our friends, classmates, family, significant others, grocers, landladies, and cute cafe seat neighbors for one reason, and one reason alone.

We’re out to get your jeans.

But in all seriousness–does anybody else out there feel the same way? Or am I just a complete aberration in occasionally feeling this way?

Anybody who knows me in “real life” can tell you that I have a terrible habit of encouraging people to indulge in every single desire they have the misfortune to express to me. I do a pretty darn great job of it too, if I say so myself. If the president was as successful at reconciling cross-party views as I am at persuading my friends to hit up every single one of the Seven Sins in the course of one party, every congressional session would just be a bunch of people clasping hands and singing hallelujah to a blown-up picture of a red & blue donk-lephant-ey.

I’m not a moral degenerate myself. I’d actually like to think of myself as a sort of pre-transformation, goody two shoes Sandra Dee. (Did I mention that I saw Grease for the first time in a singalong theater on V-day? Fantastic! Young John Travolta doing pelvic thrusts on a car ::swoon::)

At the same time, if I bring this entire tray of lovey dovey trifecta cookies (i.e. the best, fluffiest, chewiest PB oat choco-chip cookies you will ever have) and raspberry cheesecake-filled sweetheart cupcakes to my friends, as I did on V-day, and somebody says…

“Oh my GAWD, these are AMAZING…”

and then follows that by saying

“Take them away from me, or I’ll eat them all!”

I will say…

You, eat them all?

“CHALLENGE ACCEPTED.”

Yes, I am that girl. The girl you love to hate, and hate to love. <3 Just say it.

If you ever have the misfortune pleasure of meeting me in “real life,” don’t tell me about how you really want to buy an entire jumbo-sized pack of Peeps from the store while we’re shopping.

Refrain from explaining why you’d really much rather be watching the entire BBC series of Pride & Prejudice (which I STILL have to watch) online than finishing your essay on the comparison between national patriarchal benevolence and hierarchical gender dynamics in a Maria Edgeworth novel (which I STILL have to finish).

And definitely resist telling me how much you LOVE this lovey, lovely cookie-and-cupcake combo.

Because you inevitably will be tempted, and I will subsequently make sure you never fit into your jeans again.

Singlehandedly and proudly.

Hey, I work hard at what I do.

Fortunately, you won’t have to work hard at either of these delectable treats the next time you want to show your love to somebody random! Jeans-sabotaging aside, they’re both super straightforward recipes and totally worth whipping up in a jiffy to share.

They’re Alfred J. B’lloon–frock (he’s the balloon, pictured above) approved!

So what are you waiting for? If you want to be a little vixen like me, or if you’re just a much better human being than I am and actually want to make these with as much heart as these cupcakes and cookies express, then I’m whisking you off to your kitchen and mixing bowl!

See what I did there?

Ha! Ha! Ha…

Oh, never mind. I’m such a dorky little Sandra Dee after all. <3

Why do YOU love to bake/cook?

If you loved this post, these photos, or this recipe (after giving it a try!), please let me know! I love hearing from all of you, and I promise I’m really not very vixen-y at all

Lovey Dovey Trifecta Cookies

Yield: 3 dozen cookies

Adapted from Allrecipes

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup butter or margarine, softened
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1/3 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 cup peanut butter (homemade or store-bought)
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 egg
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup oats (quick-cooking or rolled are fine)
• 1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
• 36 Dove Heart chocolates (I used chocolate and raspberry creme)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Lightly grease a cookie sheet and set aside.
2. Cream together butter, white sugar, and brown sugar until fluffy and smooth. Stir in peanut butter, vanilla, and egg until well-incorporated. Add flour, baking soda, and salt; mix in until just incorporated. Fold in chocolate chips.
3. Drop dough by small tablespoonfuls onto greased cookie sheet. Bake for 10-12 minutes in oven, until golden.
4. Remove cookies from oven and immediately press an unwrapped chocolate into the top of each cookie. Allow to cool for 5 minutes, then remove from sheet and cool completely on a wire rack.

Sweetheart Cupcakes (Chocolate with Raspberry Cheesecake Filling)

Yield: 1 dozen cupcakes

Original chocolate cake recipe from Averie Cooks

(I wasn’t sure how Averie’s moist, delectable-looking cake would translate into cupcakes. In the end, the cupcakes were still great, but a bit dense for my purposes–still love the cake, as did everyone else, but might substitute a different chocolate cupcake recipe next time! Below is the original recipe I tested.)

Ingredients:

• 1 large egg
• 1 cup white sugar
• 6 ounces plain Greek yogurt
• 1/4 cup oil
• 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup brewed coffee, warm or room temperature
• 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

Raspberry cheesecake filling ingredients:

• 1 (8 oz.) block cream cheese, softened
• 1/3 cup white sugar
• 1 egg
• 1/4 cup raspberry preserves

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line 12 cupcake tins with cupcake liners.
2. In a mixing bowl, whisk together egg, sugar, yogurt, oil, and vanilla. Stir in coffee and cocoa powder until smooth. Add flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt; mix until just incorporated. Fold in chocolate chips.
3. Pour batter into cupcake liners until each is about 2/3 full. Bake for 20-25 minutes, until toothpick inserted into center of each cupcake comes out relatively clean but with moist crumbs sticking to it. Remove from oven and allow cupcakes to cool as you prepare cheesecake filling.
4. For raspberry cheesecake filling: Whip together cream cheese and white sugar in a medium bowl. Add egg and mix in until mixture is completely smooth. Stir in preserves.
5. Assembly: Take a completely cooled cupcake and place on a cutting board. Running a sharp knife parallel to the base of the cupcake, slice off the muffin-top part that pops out over the cupcake liner. (In other words, you’re slicing the muffin-top from the base, so that the surface of the cupcake base is now as high as the cupcake liner.) Cut out a hole from the center of the muffin and fill generously with raspberry cheesecake. Carefully cut a heart shape out from the muffin-top and then replace the muffin-top on the cheesecake-frosted cupcake base. Voila! You have a cute raspberry cheesecake filling peeking out in the shape of a heart.

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.

 

 

Pina Colookies (with a Cheesecake Surprise!)

Wait. Back up. Why didn’t anyone warn me about this movie?

You know, the whole Ohana means family and family means nobody gets left behind and a freakin cute-as-heck blue mutant pet learns to love one?

Yeah. Talk about a bawl-fest at my crib last night.

My friend and I had a Disney movie marathon last night. A pack of tissues may have been lethally wounded over the course of the evening. The event might have involved the unleashing of an entire army of Disney stuffed animals.

Maybe. I’m not fessing up to anything except that we made these adorable Mickey Mouse pumpkin pancakes to celebrate:

We also might have had delicious food that my friend made for us. Again, whether or not I own something as embarrassing as stuffed Disney paraphernalia, I’ll let you decide.

As you can tell, I plead the fifth on that count. No self-incrimination here.

There may have been a tad more guilt involved in the making of this amazing amalgamation, which was entirely in keeping with the theme of Stitch’s rather mutant, unknown history. And really, what better way to celebrate a fictional account of an alien apocalypse in Hawaii than to make a fun, tropics-themed dessert?

If you didn’t already know, this stuffed cookie was inspired by the challenge Julie is hosting over at Willow Bird Baking. As you’re no doubt aware, she’s a fantastic gal and it’s always a pleasure creating things she’ll happily share!

The only problem with rewatching Disney films that you haven’t seen since you were about yay high (imagine me Lilo-sized–not that I’ve really grown since the fifth grade) is that you pick up on so much more that you never noticed the first time.

Crying during the ohana scenes. Check.

Understanding the total MAIN STORY about Lilo getting taken away from her big sister. Did not see that the first time at all. Check.

Wanting my own personal cuddle buddy Stitch. Uh, yeah. Definitely check. And bonus points for making it happen, too.

Did you hear that?

Wait! Shh. Listen…

“Me name Stitch. Make yummy pina colookies. Mmmm.”

Yeah, I’m going to make one sad, batty old lady when I grow up. I’m going to go hug my Stitch now. In the meantime, though, why not listen to the anthropomorphized blue blob and try making a batch of these pina colookies (pineapple cheesecake-filled white chocolate coconut cookies)?

Pina Colookies

Yield: 10 large filled cookies

 

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup butter, softened
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1 egg, room temperature
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon hot water
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 cup white chocolate chips
• 1/2 to 3/4 cup shredded sweetened coconut
• For the filling:
• 4 oz. cream cheese, softened
• 1 1/2 tablespoon pineapple juice (adjust to reach desired consistency)
• A few drops lemon juice

Directions:

1. Cream together butter and sugars. Beat in egg. Mix in vanilla extract.
2. Dissolve baking soda in hot water. Add to mixture, along with salt. Add flour and stir until just combined. Fold in white chocolate chips and coconut. Place in freezer for 20-30 minutes, until dough is relatively stiff and easy to handle.
3. To make filling: Combine all filling ingredients in a medium bowl.
4. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Place a small ball of chilled dough onto greased cookie sheet and press down gently with your thumb in the middle so that you create a small indentation. Fill with a small teaspoon-ful of filling. Place another ball of dough of equal size on top and wrap around filling, sealing sides of dough so the filling doesn’t leak when baking. Continue shaping cookies until all dough and filling is used.
5. Bake cookies in preheated oven for 14-16 minutes, or until golden brown.

Cookie Butter and PB Cookie-wiches

Let’s talk about Commercialized Holiday Mania.

Funflour Fact #1: Did you know that according to some studies, the number one fear in the world is not death, but public speaking? (I totally empathize!)

It’s catching. It’s contagious. And it’s extremely, rampantly…

Annoying.

You can probably guess who’s been receiving copious amounts of unseasonable (literally) emails as of late.

The great big Disney corporation has been sending me notices about its Halloween Bash since July. July, as in, the month of summer sunshine and the-only-place-that-sees-anything-remotely-autumn-like-is-Australia-where-it-SNOWS. And snow is considered winter, folks, not autumn. Don’t get me wrong: I love Disney. If I had to get a tattoo in an unnamed place, it would probably pay tribute to the cartoon version of the 100 Acre Woods inhabitants (sorry, A.A. Milne!). But when I get emails with a royal fanfare that trumpet at me, “Get your Halloween Bash tickets now, before time runs out!” while I still have my air conditioner blasting and sweat is dripping off the edge of my nose…

I don’t know what it is. Sometimes the holiday season cheer just feels sort of, you know–lacking.

Flour Power: I just signed up for a 1.5k open water swim to raise money for Breast Cancer Awareness this weekend. What have you done lately to help your community?

I say this as I drink out of my Disney-sponsored mug with a great ol’ picture of Grumpy on it and the caption: “BENEATH THIS GRUMPY EXTERIOR BEATS THE HEART OF A DASHING HERO.” I stole this mug from my dad…to whom I had given the mug as a birthday present earlier this year.

Did I mention that my life ambition is to become either the world’ greatest pirate who only steals gifts she’s already given to other people, or else a bigger grump than everyone else around me? So far I’m pretty well on track on both counts, thanks for asking!

It’s actually a bit like baking cookies. I’m really good at stealing back the things that I make and hand out to other people. You know that moment when the cookies just come out of the oven and you think to yourself, Oh god, those smell delicious–I can’t believe I’m giving all of these away! I’ll just try one and see how it tastes?

And then you try one, it melts in your mouth like a grand pile of epic gooey-ness, and that little cookie fiend in the corner of your mind screams for you to grab the cookies and run like all the furies of hell are on your tale.

Yeah. Think about that moment carefully, because you’re on track to become a pirate, too. We can even be ship-mateys, if you like. Arrr.

And the best part is, pirates and grumps (or grumpy pirates) don’t have to worry about getting a zillion and one emails in big glittery font telling them about how Christmas is “right around the corner.” Because it’s not. And unless you’re going to send me a present for every single day leading up to “almost-Christmas,” it’s not Christmas until I say it is. Until then, though, enjoy these! Ahoy, mateys!

What treat have you made for other people and ended up keeping because it was too good to give away?

and…

What’s your favorite/least favorite part about the holidays?

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Chocolate Chip Cookies Recipe adapted from Allrecipes Yield: 2 dozen cookies

Ingredients

• 1 cup butter, softened
• 1 cup white sugar
• 1 cup packed brown sugar
• 2 eggs
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 2 teaspoons hot water
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 cups semisweet chocolate chips or white chocolate chips
• 1 cup chopped walnuts

Filling Ingredients:

• For cookie butter filling: 1 cup cookie butter
• For peanut butter filling: 2/3 cup peanut butter, 1/3 cup softened butter, 1 to 1 1/2 cup powdered sugar, 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract. Combine all ingredients and spread as a filling.

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
2. Cream together the butter, white sugar, and brown sugar until smooth. Beat in the eggs one at a time, then stir in the vanilla. Dissolve baking soda in hot water. Add to batter along with salt. Stir in flour, chocolate chips, and nuts. Roll into small cookie balls (about 1″-diameter) onto ungreased pans.
3. Bake for about 10 minutes in the preheated oven, or until edges are nicely browned.
4. Using desired filling (or one of your own creation!), spread onto a cooled cookie and sandwich on top with another cookie. Serve your cookie-wiches and prepare to delight your guests!