Chocolate Peppermint Cookies

So I am so sorry this has been so long in coming! To say it has been crazy in my household is an understatement. Alas though I have found the time to sit down and share this recipe with everyone. This is a recipe was a huge success! Everyone who ate one of these cookies really enjoyed them.

I originally got the idea from Bake or Break’s Chocolate Peanut Butter Munchies recipe and from the fact that I love peppermint ice cream in my hot chocolate. And so I came up with this recipe. The chocolate part is pretty much the same and the Chocolate Peanut Butter Munchies chocolate part.

Chocolate Peppermint Cookies

Peppermint Cookie
1/2 cup butter
1 cup flour
1 teaspoon. vanilla extract
2 teaspoon. peppermint extract

Chocolate Cookie
2 cups flour
1/2 cup baking coco
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 cup butter
heaping 1/2 cup white sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 egg
1 tablespoon milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 teaspoons peppermint extract

Fudge Frosting
2 tablespoons butter
1/4 cup baking coco
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon peppermint extract
powdered sugar
crushed peppermint candies

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix all of the peppermint cookie ingredients together. Form dough into 30 balls. set aside. To start making the chocolate cookie, in a separate bowl stir flour, coco and baking soda together. In another mixing bowl, mix butter, white sugar and brown sugar until smooth. Add egg, vanilla, peppermint and milk to the sugar mixture. Gradually add flour mixture until a soft dough is formed. Form chocolate dough into 30 balls. Flatten each chocolate ball and place a peppermint ball on top. Form the chocolate dough completely around the peppermint ball. Roll into a ball again. Place on a cookie sheet and flatten with a glass. Repeat with the rest of the dough. Place cookies 2 inches apart on a parchment covered cookie sheet. Bake for 10 – 15 minutes. Cool completely.

In a sauce pan melt the butter to make the fudge frosting. Add coco, vanilla and peppermint. Add about 1 cup powdered sugar until desired consistency is reached. Fudge should be thick but spreadable. If the frosting gets too think add milk to thin it out. Frost each cookie with fudge frosting and then sprinkle the crushed peppermint candies over them.

These cookies are so festive and pretty. I hope you like them as much as my family does!

 Enjoy! grin.

The Lemon Drop Verdict

I forgot to let everyone know about the Lemon Drop Cookie  verdict. They were a big success. Within two days there were gone. I was so happy about that. grin. We decided to add them to our holiday baking line up. :)

oh the Christmas madness!

I can’t believe it has been a week since my last post! All the Christmas madness has kept me oh so busy. In the midst of the many mall trips I have managed to do some holiday baking. My sister and I had a cookie day and made lots of delicious recipes. My favorite cookie recipe from this season though was my peppermint chocolate cookies. I got the idea from Bake or Break’s Chocolate Peanut Butter Munchies recipe. I hope everyone likes it as much as me! I’ll post the recipe tomorrow…so stay tuned….

Lemon Drop Cookies

Lemon Drops are my drink of choice. There is something about the smoothness of the vodka mixed with the tartness of the lemon and the crunch of the sugar crystals that gets me every time. It has a way of reminding me of lazy summer days and childhood lemonade stands. And if you make this drink with vanilla vodka instead of regular vodka…it’s absolutely amazing! sigh. So, my goal…to make a cookie that gave me the same lazy summer feeling minus the alcohol. And although I can’t say I totally succeeded  the cookies are still pretty good. As always let me know if you have any improvements.

Lemon Drop Cookies

3 1/4 cups flour
1 cup butter
1 cup white sugar
1 egg
6 tablespoons lemon juice
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 teaspoon almond extract
1 teaspoon baking powder
3 drops yellow food coloring
pinch of salt

Glaze
3 tablespoons lemon juice
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1/2 tablespoon almond extract
1 1/2 cups powder sugar
3 drops yellow food coloring
milk

sugar crystals or raw sugar

In medium bowl mix flour, salt and baking powder. In a separate mixing bowl cream sugar, butter, egg, vanilla extract and almond extract until smooth. Mix in lemon juice and yellow food coloring to butter mixture. Slowly add flour to mixture until the mixture forms a ball. Shape dough into a rectangle and wrap in plastic. Refrigerate at least 2 hours or until cookie dough becomes hard. Cut rectangle into even slices. For harder cookies make the slices thinner. For softer cookies make the slices thicker. Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Bake for 20-25 minutes. Cool Completely.

In a medium sized sauce pan add all of the glaze ingredients except milk. Stir constantly over low heat. Add milk until you reach desired consistency. The glaze should be slightly runny.

Frost the cooled cookies with glaze and decorate with sugar crystals

These cookies are pretty tart. I like them that way but next time I make them I might try adding less lemon juice and more sugar. I also might take the lemon juice out of the glaze altogether and just use milk. I frosted these 2 different ways to see which one I liked better. The edged one looks really cute but then you don’t get as much frosting.

The verdict is still out on these. For Sunday dinner my father bought a cake from an auction so I just dropped these cookies off to my parents today. I’ll let you know what they think. But the husband actually tasted them even though he swears he doesn’t like dessert and he said they were pretty good. Hope you like them too!

Enjoy. grin. :)

An Apple Crisp Moment….

I was purusing a variety of food blogs as I usually do, to kill the annoying hour between 4pm and 5pm when I came accross Tomato & Sausage Risotto with Warm Apple Crisp By Love at first Slice. This got me thinking about how much I love apple crisp! It is one of those desserts that makes me warm and fuzzy on the inside. sigh. It is so good it causes me to think about cozy blankets and brick fireplaces on a rainy day. And what is better then that? And don’t forget,  it is super easy to make.

So, I thought I would share with everyone how I like to make my apple crisp. My recipe starts with the standard Betty Crocker recipe. Did I tell you how much I heart Betty? I like to use way more apples then the recipe calls for though almost double. I also like to make mine with 3 types of apples…one really sour really good for baking one like Granny Green Smith, one pretty crisp one like Honeycrisp and one smooshy (is that even a word? umm…) and sweet like Golden Delicious. Use more Granny Green Smiths then HoneyCrisps or Golden Delicious though. Otherwise your crisp will be really mushy and will cook down a lot. I mix all my apples together with a little vanilla, lemon juice, cinnamon, nutmeg, white sugar, and almond extract. I have no idea how much of each I put in so you have to do it to taste. Dump this mixture into a 9 x 13 greased baking dish and then make a double Betty Crocker recipe of crumble topping (I have already doubled the recipe for you). This makes it so every inch of apple has some of that brown sugar goodness on it.

Crumble Topping
1 1/2 cup brown sugar
1 cup flour
1 cup quick cooking old-fashion oats
2/3 cups butter
1 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg

Mix all of these ingredients together and then spread over apples. Bake this for about 30 minutes on 350 degrees. I like to serve this with vanilla ice cream or some homemade whipped cream. SO GOOD! The last time I made this was Thanksgiving and it was gone before I got some. grin. I don’t have a picture right now but next time I make it I’ll take a picture and post it. Enjoy!

2 & 4 = Yikes I’m one year older!

I can still remember my 13th birthday. Can you? It was supposed to be a surprise party but of course I found out. My mother used to call me “The Secretary” because she said I always seemed to know what was going on. I could be all the way upstairs and if someone was in the basement and said my name…I would hear them. Even though it wasn’t the surprise it was supposed to be it was still a great birthday…especially because it was the first time my mother made me….my cheesecake. sigh. My cheesecake has a chocolate graham cracker crust with a smooth sour cream topping and cherry pie filling swirled in the shape of hearts on top. SO GOOD! I have had this cheesecake for every birthday since then and this year was no exception. It was my 24th birthday last week and my birthday dinner on Sunday this means, I don’t have a new and exciting recipe for you this week. However, I am going to share my cheesecake recipe with you so you can enjoy it too. This recipe is from a  Land O’ Lakes cook book.

Sweetheart Cheesecake

Crust:

1 1/3 cup crushed chocolate wafer cookies  
1/4 cup butter
2 tbsp Sugar
Filling:
4 Eggs separated
1/2 cup butter softened
2 pkg cream cheese softened
1 cup sugar
1 tbsp cornstarch
1 tsp baking powder
1 tbsp lemon juice

Topping:

1 cup dairy sour cream
2 tbsp sugar
1 tsp. Vanilla
21 oz. can cherry pie filling

Heat oven to 325 degrees. In small bowl stir together all crust ingredients. Press crumb mixture evenly onto bottom of 9 inch spring-form pan. Bake 10 min. Cool. In small mixer bowl beat egg whites at high speed scraping bowl often until soft peaks form. Set aside. In large mixer bowl combine 1/2 cup butter, cream cheese and egg yolks. Beat at medium speed until smooth and creamy. Add remaining filling ingredients except egg whites. Continue beating. Scraping bowl often until well mixed. by hand fold in beaten egg whites. Spoon filling into prepared pan. Bake 60 – 80 minutes or until center is set and firm to the touch. Surface will be cracked. Cool 15 minutes. Loosen sided of cheesecake from pan by running knife around inside of pan. cool completely. Cheesecake filling will dip slightly upon cooling. In small bowl stir together sour cream 2 tbsp. sugar and vanilla. Spread evenly over top of cheesecake. Spoon out 2 to 3 tbsp. of cherry sauce from pie filling drop by the teaspoonfuls onto sour cream topping. Carefully pull knife or spatula through cherry sauce forming hearts. Refrigerate 4 hr. or overnight. Serve cheesecake with remaining pie filling.

 Enjoy! grin. :)

what makes sundays so sweet?

If you were wondering about the name and what the heck this site is all about, take a look at my About Sweet Sundays page! :)

sweet success!

Before

After

So, I Ignored my Husbands embellished complaints of me spending ALL the money on “those ingredients” and Monday morning I headed down to the big grocery store, which by the way is just underneath my city-chic, super-urbanized apartment, to get some more mashed pumpkin and pecans. Yea, Yea, I know that was a super long sentence..my mother always told me I was a bit wordy. I bounded back upstairs, armed with my ingredients, spread everything out on the counter and then realized I had absolutely no idea how to fix my disaster of a cake from yesterday. sigh. ahh…the Internet! Aside from the fact that it provides a reason for my employment this is why I heart the Internet. To Google I go…and I find this really cool blog on the science of baking with this really cool article on the science of baking cakes. The article has a lot of great tidbits…but basically my cake recipie was all off balance. So although I didn’t actually take the time to do all the baking math I still managed to find a way to make it all work. The steps are pretty much the same though. I also used half & half this time instead of milk to make it a little richer…yum yum! 

3 cups flour

¼ teaspoon salt

2 teaspoon baking powder

½ cup pumpkin 

1 teaspoon allspice 

1 teaspoon nutmeg

2 teaspoon cinnamon

5 eggs

1 cup brown sugar

1 ½ cup white sugar

3 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 cup pecans

 

¾ cup half & half

 

glaze:

1/4 cup of orange juice

1 tablespoon vanilla

about 3 cups powder sugar

Heat oven to 450 degrees. On a cookie sheet roast pecans in the oven until they darken. In a food processor or blender chop the roasted pecans until they make a sort of butter. Heat oven to 375 degrees.
Mix flour, salt, baking powder, allspice, nutmeg and cinnamon together. In a separate bowl cream sugar, eggs and vanilla together for about 30 seconds. Add pumpkin and pecan butter to creamed mixture. Cream for 5 minutes. Alternate adding milk and flour to the wet ingredients just until mixed in. Pour into a lightly floured fluted pan. Bake for 60-65 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the middle comes out clean. In medium saucepan mix orange juice and vanilla. Gradually mix in powder sugar until you reach the desired consistency. With a spoon drizzle glaze over cooled cake.

I hadn’t realized before that the last cake was too heavy to rise…so it just sank. This cake though, rose beautifully and looked amazing. Not being able to wait to get to my parent’s house to try the cake I immediately tasted a slice when it was still warm…and it was delicious! But success couldn’t be concluded on my taste buds alone. So, over to my parent’s I went. Swooping into the kitchen where my mother was making dinner, I whipped off the foil covering the cake to dazzle my mother and sister. They complied and responded with “ooohhhs” and “aaahhhs”. They loved it. My brother couldn’t stop eating it. My mother has told me that she tried eating the cake in the morning…warmed with a little dollop of whipped cream. She says it is mmwah! (which means good) After dropping the cake off at my parents for them to enjoy. I headed back home to find the husband sitting in front of the t.v watching ESPN. Flopping onto the couch and laying my head in his lap…I smile.
“Did they like it?” He asks.
“Yep…Isaiah couldn’t stop eating it” I grin, feeling rosy with my success.
“Good Job.” He raises his hand for me to give him a high five.
Slapping his hand with mine I grin.

aaahh…sweet success.

An ooey gooey pound of pumpkin…

You can always tell who was watching t.v last in my house. If it was my husband..then when you flick on the t.v you get ESPN. If it was me…you get HGTV or Food Network. Those are pretty much the only 3 channels we watch…so why are we paying so much for cable again? sigh. Anyway, Semi-homemade on the FOOD network is one of my favorite shows. So a couple of weeks ago the chef (you know as much as a watch the show I don’t know the women’s name..ummm) made a pumpkin spice cake by using a yellow cake mix and a spice cake mix and some mashed pumpkin. Well I just thought this was a pretty good idea  and decided it would be dessert for Sunday.

I wanted this cake to be super buttery and moist…so I started with a basic pound cake recipe from no one other then Ms. Betty Cocker herself….I heart Betty :) I changed the recipe around a bit and here is what I came up with:
 

3 cups flour

¼ teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 can pumpkin

½ teaspoon allspice

½ teaspoon nutmeg

1 teaspoon cinnamon

4 eggs

1 cup white sugar

1 ½ cup brown sugar

1 ½ teaspoons vanilla extract

1 cup pecans

1 ¾ cup milk

 

glaze:

1/4 cup of orange juice

1 tablespoon vanilla

about 3 cups powder sugar

Heat oven to 450 degrees. On a cookie sheet roast pecans in the oven until they darken. In a food processor or blender chop the roasted pecans until they make a sort of butter. Heat oven to 350 degrees.
Mix flour, salt, baking powder, allspice, nutmeg and cinnamon together. In a separate bowl cream sugar, eggs and vanilla together for about 30 seconds. Add pumpkin and pecan butter to creamed mixture. Cream for 5 minutes. Alternate adding milk and flour to the wet ingredients just until mixed in. Pour into a lightly floured fluted pan. Bake for 60-65 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the middle comes out clean. In medium saucepan mix orange juice and vanilla. Gradually mix in powder sugar until you reach the desired consistency. With a spoon drizzle glaze over cooled cake.

The result….an ooey gooey pound of pumpkin….

This cake was HEAVY! I mean really really heavy. As I was carrying it to the car to go to my parent’s house my arms got tired! umm…but I guess that could just mean that I’m really weak too…but really this cake was heavy. When we get to the car, I ploop it in my husband’s hands, “Babe…feel how heavy this cake is!”
“umm..” his face expression doesn’t change..which of course isn’t the reaction I wanted at all.
“Isn’t it really heavy?” I prod.
“It is a pound cake…it is supposed to be heavy.” he puts it in the back seat and gets in the car.

So of course the cake is so heavy because it is all dense and gooey in the inside. Not at all what I wanted. sigh. I announce to my family, after they all try to nibble it down and my mother tries to encourage me with, “Well honey, it does have good flavor.”, that I am going to try it again tomorrow. My husband says…”Mi you keep spending all the money on those ingredients.” giggle. This of course is a complete exaggeration