Frosted Sugar Cookie Bars

So... I really love sprinkles (I've found that this is a common trait among baking bloggers). I'm that person who always reaches for the sprinkle covered donut (is it donut or doughnut?), who drowns my sundaes in sprinkles, who chooses funfetti over vanilla or even chocolate, who always says "yes!" to "do you want sprinkles on that?" (not that I get asked this very often :P). I love the pop of color sprinkles can add to any dessert.

This recipe is definitely one that is going in my go-to recipe collection. It's fairly straightforward to make. The cookies turn out soft and chewy with a nice touch of fluffy frosting on top. And in addition to being tasty, they're nice to look at. You can use whatever color of food coloring for the the frosting and the sprinkle mix of your choice to decorate the tops. With all the dreary winter weather lately, I find that a rainbow sprinkle covered sweet, like these frosted sugar cookie bars, can really brighten up the day :).

New Year's Eve Macarons

Happy New Year Everyone! I hope you all are enjoying the holidays :). I'm currently trying to get all my holiday cookie photos edited, but hopefully I'll have them up soon. This year I made a variety of cookies for Christmas and then a few more sweets to celebrate New Year's Eve last night. I'll start with posting my New Year's desserts, then move onto my Christmas cookies.

For this New Year's Eve, I really wanted to make some black and white macarons. Today I'll present my black macarons, and in my next post, I'll share my white macarons. Other than black and white, I also associate New Year's Eve with a ton of glitter and confetti, which inspired my manicure from last night: mixed rainbow glitter (Deborah Lippmann Happy Birthday) over black nail polish (Chanel Black Satin). In turn, my manicure became the source of inspiration for these macarons.

I knew I wanted to make these macarons glittery and rainbow, since I figured that would contrast well with the black color, sort of like how fireworks show up so well with a dark night sky. So, I decorated them with the edible equivalent of glitter and confetti: shimmer dust and sprinkles. I also wanted to try something new, so rather than just cover the macarons with nonpareils, I ended up spelling out "NYE" and "2014" on the macarons to make them just a bit more fancy. These were definitely the perfect dessert for celebrating New Year's Eve.

^A preview of my white macarons.

Homemade Celebration Oreos

It's been a while... Originally I planned this post for July 4th, so I could use my red, white, and blue sprinkles, but there was a terrible heat wave and I couldn't summon the fortitude to turn on my oven.

Hot weather + baking = no way!

When I finally got down to making these cookies, July 4th was past, so I wanted to adapt my original idea into something less holiday specific. That's how I ended up with these Homemade Celebration Oreos. Remember when I made TKOs (Domo-shaped ones, to be specific)? Well, I thought they were wonderful, but they definitely were not what I think of when I crave an Oreo. What I want in an Oreo is a crisp, chocolate, slightly salty cookie with a white, shortening-based filling, which I got by combining two popular homemade Oreo recipes (the one from Flour Bakery for the cookie and the one from Retro Desserts for the filling).

To give them a special homemade touch, I covered them with rainbow sprinkles (3 kinds... because I could :D)! Perfect for any celebration since desserts and celebrations go hand-in-hand. Great for a birthday. Any sort of party. Or just because you want to brighten up someone else's day. But feel free to customize them for a specific occasion. Red, white, and blue sprinkles for July 4th (pictured below). Green, red, and gold sprinkles for Christmas. Assorted baby blue or baby pink sprinkles for a baby shower. The colors of your favorite sports team. The possibilities are endless!

P.S. Feel free to make them sprinkle-less. They're just as delicious ^_^.

P.P.S. I still made some 4th of July cookies in the end. Just because :).

Cinnamon Apple Macarons

Fall is definitely here. The leaves are changing, it's getting chilly, and suddenly I'm craving the warm, cozy scent of cinnamon as well as pumpkin baked goods. I say it's the perfect time to bake some Cinnamon "Apple" Macarons.

I'm going to straightforward; these macarons aren't very apple-ly in flavor. It's more like cinnamon with a hint of apple. My brother calls them Apple Jacks Macarons, you know, like the cereal, which is actually pretty accurate. But I find them pretty cute, so I couldn't resist posting them anyway.

They are technically still Cinnamon Apple Macarons in that they look like apples and taste like cinnamon :). I think if I were to make them again, I'd devise some sort of apple jelly center to up the apple flavor. But despite the lack of apple flavor, they still taste wonderful. Happy Autumn Everyone!

Olympic Macarons + News

I know that I said that I'd blog about the Southern Dinner Party in my Mini Moon Pie post, but since the Olympics ends today, I decided to do an Olympics themed post instead. But don't worry; the Southern party photos and details will definitely come another day.

But before I talk about the Olympics, I first want to let you all know that I'll be starting medical school at the end of this month! I'm super excited :D. And I intend to keep this blog running even after school starts. That's partially the reason I've been MIA here this past month. I'll be living in the dorms for my first year, which means not having my own kitchen, so I've been baking like crazy, taking advantage of the kitchen at home, preparing back-up posts in case I really won't have access to a kitchen in the coming months. So hakuna matata :).

Back to the Olympics. Did you all watch them? My favorite events are always gymnastics and swimming but this year I've discovered that I also like pole vaulting and synchronized diving. I set out to bake something simple but Olympics themed and somehow ended up making Olympic ring macarons :P. Technically these are more meringues since they didn't form feet, but since I used a macaron recipe, I'm going to stick to calling them macarons. I also made individual rings with the leftover batter and they ended up with feet, so go figure. Keep these in mind for Sochi '14 and Rio '16!

Mini Moon Pies

Last Friday, my friend Monica and I hosted a Southern Dinner Party. We set up a backyard buffet of Southern dishes, with an abundance of different desserts, including the Mini Moon Pies I'm posting about today. I'll share my party photos with all of you in my next post :).

For now, let's talk Moon Pies. If you've never had one, a Moon Pie is made up of two graham cookies sandwiched around a marshmallow filling, dipped in chocolate. Sort of like a s'more, but not. I remember eating Moon Pies a few times as a child, but only once in a blue moon because they were so hard to find.

Moon Pies also come dipped in other coatings like orange and banana, so rather than just the original chocolate, I thought I'd also include a different flavor. If you've been following my blog, you probably know that I adore the combination of mint and chocolate (ex. Mint Chocolate Chip Truffles & Grasshopper Tart), so what better other flavor to include than mint? Plus, the mint color is lovely.

This is a great recipe to experiment with. Try using different extracts/liquids for the marshmallow filling and flavor/color the coating differently (maybe orange or lemon?). Definitely try this out. Not only are these Mini Moon Pies cute to look at, they're pretty darn tasty; they were the first dessert to go from our buffet.

P.S. If you choose to make mint and chocolate coated mini moon pies, don't throw away the extra coating! Use it to make homemade Andes chocolates (recipe at the very bottom of this post).

Easter Chick Cookies

Spring is here! Today really felt like spring. I noticed pretty flowers blooming all over, the sun shined brightly, and birds were chirping.

Hope you all had a good Easter! I celebrated by making some chick cookies. I already made chick sugar cookies two years ago for Easter, but this year I thought instead of flat decorated cookies, I'd come up with some actual 3D chick cookies. After some trial and error, these turned out pretty well. They're the perfect springtime cookie.

Since Easter usually involves lots of candy like chocolate rabbits and jellybeans, I decided to make a cookie that was less cavity-inducing than the typical Easter dessert. I found this recipe that makes a nice, lightly sweetened cookie. I love the combination of lemon and honey. Because the recipe only uses a little bit of butter the resulting texture of the cookie is soft and cakey, in a good way. Finally, the coconut adds a hint of flavor and some cheery color. Enjoy!

Jack-o'-Lantern Cookies

Halloween is tomorrow! Which of course, means some Halloween baking. Since I always make something with pumpkin around this time of year, I decided to make some pumpkin cookies this year.

Every year, I always think about carving a Jack-o'-Lantern, but I never do. It's always either realizing I have nowhere to put it or being too lazy to clean up the mess that comes along with it. Well, this year, I came up with a solution to this desire to carve something: Jack-o'-Lantern cookies, carving cookies not pumpkins. It's entertaining and not too difficult to do. Plus pumpkin and chocolate just seem to go very well together. Overall, a fun and delicious fall activity.

Penguin Icebox Cookies

That's right, penguins! I loved reading all your guesses and reasoning last post. Now I've got hippos, monkeys, elephants, and Totoro on the brain for future projects :). But, for today, let's talk about penguins.

For some reason, when I think "cartoon penguins," I picture cute little blue penguins, not black ones. But now that I've pondered over this, I realize that this may be the influence of too much Sanrio in my childhood, if there is such a thing :P. There used to be a penguin character named Tuxedo Sam, a little guy with a red bow tie and a spiffy sailor hat, and he was indeed pastel blue. But because I wanted to use my ube powder (purple yam powder), I decided to make these penguin cookies purple. And that is why these penguins are purple.

P.S. Two pictures above, you can see the last animal in this icebox cookie series. Not as difficult to guess as the penguins were, I think :P.

Cranberry Pistachio Biscotti

Finally, I'm on my last holiday related baking post. Just in time, since winter break is ending for me and school starts again tomorrow. Luckily this recipe isn't one of those "makes sense only during Christmas" recipes. These cranberry pistachio biscotti can definitely be enjoyed any day of the year.

I think of biscotti as the perfect afternoon pick-me-up. These cookies have the right amount of sweetness and crunch to tide one over until dinner, plus they're great with a cup of coffee or tea. Whenever I get the chance to make biscotti, I typically make almond biscotti. But, I thought that for the holidays, I would try something new, so instead, I made these cranberry pistachio biscotti. They're tasty, and I love how the green of the pistachios and the red of the cranberries look.

Red Velvet Shortbread Fireplaces

Hope you all had a great New Years! I can't believe it's 2011 already. To continue with my holiday cookie posts, today I have a recipe for Red Velvet Shortbread Fireplaces.

Since people make and decorate gingerbread houses all the time, I thought it'd be interesting to switch it up a little and just decorate a certain part of the house: the fireplace. I mean in real life many people really do decorate their fireplaces for the holidays, whether it's with stockings, holly, wreaths, or holiday lights. I decided to keep it simple with just a string of lights and a small fire :).

Domo TKOs

I'm not too sure why, but I find Domo-kun absolutely adorable. So, it was bound to happen that I'd bake something Domo-themed. In case you don't know who or what Domo-kun (どーもくん) is, he's the mascot of NHK, a Japanese TV station. He's a brown, fuzzy, rectangular creature with a perpetually open mouth who apparently hatched from an egg, and he appears in short stop-motion segments on NHK.

I got the idea to make some sort of Domo chocolate cookie, but it couldn't just be any old cookie. And then it hit me, why not Domo-fy TKOs? TKOs, Thomas Keller Oreos, are what I think of as a grown-up's Oreo. They're rich and decadent with salted chocolate wafers sandwiched around a creamy white chocolate ganache center. And so I did just that, giving a playful makeover to the fancy adult treat.

*Edited 1/30/2011: To all of you who want an alternative dough to work with, try Domo Icebox Cookies. The dough is easier to work with, and they aren't sandwich cookies. But, of course, they're equally cute!

Chocolate Orange Madeleines

So... I'm not very fond of oranges. I love all other types of citrus, but orange has never been my thing. I do have a few exceptions (orange zest, orange extract, and orange chocolate pairings), but any other form of orange is a no-go for me. Thus, these madeleines fit the bill perfectly; they combine chocolate and orange in such a way that even non-orange fans such as myself can't resist their charm.

Originally this recipe called for lemon zest, but I didn't have any lemons, so I subbed the zest of a whole orange instead. It was definitely a good move; chocolate and orange make a good combination (then again, chocolate seems to make everything better :D). This delightful recipe by Pierre Hermé was quite successful; it was one of those few instances where my cookies looked exactly like the cookbook picture. These madeleines are like mini cakes, with a tender crumb and distinctive humps, perfect with a cup of tea.

Glee Cookies!

Any Gleeks out there? I happen to love TV comedies, plus I'm a sucker for musicals, so Glee definitely fits my bill for awesome TV. Because the season premiere for Glee's second season is tomorrow, I decided to make some Glee character sugar cookies.

The challenge I had with these cookies was translating real people into a cartoon-y cookie form. Luckily, all the characters on the show have distinguishing hair and clothing, so it wasn't that big of a problem. I used the Glee Season 1 Volume 1 DVD set as my reference for the characters (which explains why some characters are missing and why Quinn is still a Cheerio), so for non-Glee watchers, if you're wondering who is who, you can always search up the DVD cover.

Seems like there will be some interesting couple drama in the upcoming season with the introduction of John Stamos's character as Emma's new beau, a love triangle between Artie, Tina, and Mike, the now post-baby Puck and Quinn, and Rachel and Finn getting back together. Oh, and fun cameos like Britney Spears, I can't wait!