All posts for the month September, 2011

soft frosted sugar cookies

as much as i love living in dc, it definitely is hard being so far way from home. because it’s so far (and expensive) i usually only see my parents once a year. but guest what?

i’m going to see my parents tomorrow! i’m so so excited! i haven’t seen them since christmas/new year’s and we’ll all be meeting up in colorado to also see my awesome uncle, aunty and cousins, plus some of our amazing family friends. oh my goodness i can’t wait!

well something that i took away from living in hawaii is that whenever you go somewhere you have to bring something. in hawaii we call it omiyage – it’s a tradition when you go somewhere you bring a small gift like cookies or snacks from home and then you bring the same kinds of gifts or treats from wherever you went for family or close friends at home.

so i was trying to think of something dc or maryland-ish that i can bring to colorado for my family and friends. but i couldn’t really think of anything that would transport well. at home it’s so easy to think of things to bring, you know big island candies, chocolate covered macadamia nuts, etc. but maryland crabs just don’t seem to travel as well.

i finally came to the conclusion that i should make something instead. it would definitely be more fun and a bit more personal instead of just picking stuff up. but then what should i make? decisions, decisions. i remember i saw a recipe on annie’s eats for soft frosted sugar cookies and thought those would be perfect. i also recently found a recipe for nutella cookies that i may be making tonight, but we’ll see. but back to the sugar cookies – these are just like those super sweet, yummy sugar cookies that you can buy at the grocery store. you know, these…

(image from figureworld.com)

but they are even better because they are homemade! i hope everyone likes them. oh and i wrapped them up individually because it’s hard to stack or pack them otherwise since the frosting causes them to stick to each other. be sure to let the frosting dry a bit (i left mine to dry overnight) before packing them up.

the cookie dough recipe is pretty standard – you know, a lot of butter and sugar. yum! but you do have to plan ahead a little bit because the dough has to chill for at least an hour.

now it’s time to decide how big you want your cookies. for large cookies, scoop out a scant 1/4 cup. for smaller cookies, scoop out 1 tablespoon. i made smaller cookies because i needed them to fit in the little plastic bags i had.

then bake them just until very lightly brown on the edges. in fact, mine were only brown on the bottom of the cookie. for large cookies, bake 10-11 minutes and for smaller cookies bake 8 minutes.

now it’s the fun part! frosting and decorating the cookies. these would be perfect for holidays because you could easily decorate them for halloween with orange and black frosting, for christmas with red, green and white frosting, etc. since these weren’t for a specific occasion i just picked teal, yellow, and pink and also decorated them with some rainbow sprinkles that i had on hand.

beware, if you’re making smaller cookies this recipe makes a ton! i had 2 full baking sheets of these cookies. if you’re making larger ones, the original recipe said that it makes about 2 dozen.

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15 Comments

by miki on September 28, 2011 • Permalink

Posted in baking

Tagged cookies & crackers

Posted by miki on September 28, 2011

https://heymikiheymiki.wordpress.com/2011/09/28/soft-frosted-sugar-cookies/

funfetti cupcakes

for september birthday treats, both red velvet and funfetti cupcakes were requested. as i explained in the last post, i was definitely worried about the red velvet cupcakes but i figured the funfetti cupcakes would be super easy, nothing to worry about. but then when i went to the grocery store to pick up the cake mix they didn’t have any funfetti mix. uh oh!?!?! what do i do? fortunately, they did have white cake mix and since funfetti is essentially just white cake mix sprinkles, i figured i could just add some sprinkles to white cake mix.

but how much do i add? thank goodness for the internet i just googled it and found out that you need to add 1/3 cup of sprinkles for a batch of 24 cupcakes. that’s actually more than a whole bottle of sprinkles! wow! i had no idea there were so many sprinkles in funfetti cupcakes.

once you mix the sprinkles in, it looks just like regular funfetti cake batter. yay!

on a kind of related note, since i finally figured out how to make red velvet cupcakes from scratch, i think i’ll try to make white cake next. the past few times i’ve tried it just didn’t work. every time the cupcakes were dense and dry. yuck! since then i’ve just used box cake mix. but really i have nothing against cake mix, especially because it’s affordable, tastes fine, and you can change it up into all different kinds of cupcakes like key lime pie, strawberry cheesecake, and lemon raspberry. i know a lot of other bloggers/bakers despise cake mix but i’m not afraid to admit it, yay for cake mix!!!

2 Comments

by miki on September 26, 2011 • Permalink

Posted in baking

Tagged cupcakes, funfetti

Posted by miki on September 26, 2011

https://heymikiheymiki.wordpress.com/2011/09/26/funfetti-cupcakes/

red velvet cupcakes

the last time i attempted to make red velvet cupcakes from scratch, it did not go well. the first batch that i made i forgot to add the sugar. how can you forget to add sugar to cupcakes? i don’t know! but i did and the cupcakes ended up being absolutely disgusting. on try number 2, the cupcakes had sugar but they ended up being terribly oily. so oily that the cupcakes just felt like an oily sponge. definitely not good. i finally gave up and just went back to the grocery store and picked up a box of red velvet cake mix. fortunately, they came out fine. but the experience scarred for life and haven’t tried to make red velvet cupcakes from scratch since then.

until today. tomorrow we will be having birthday treats for my office (and chris’ too!) and red velvet and funfetti cupcakes were requested. since a couple years have passed i decided that it was time to conquer my fear of making red velvet cupcakes. i found a recipe for red velvet cupcakes on annie’s eats.

if you follow my blog, you know that she’s one of my favorites. she got this recipe from another blogger who tested out a few different red velvet recipes and this is the one that she decided was the best. i figured that was reason enough to trust that these red velvet cupcakes would work.

and drum roll please…

it worked! i finally made red velvet cupcakes from scratch. phew! it was a such a relief that they turned out. but believe me, i did have a box of red velvet cake mix on hand just in case they turned out terrible. fortunately, i didn’t need to use it. 🙂 the cupcakes are delicious and it reminded me why red velvet is one of my favorite cupcake flavors. these cupcakes have just the slightest cocoa flavor and paired with the rich cream cheese frosting, it’s simply amazing!

these are actually pretty easy to make, i don’t understand why i had so much trouble with the other recipe. either way, first start out by mixing the dry ingredients together…

then mix up the wet…

including a whole bottle of red food coloring (yikes!)…

next add the dry ingredients to the wet…

mix it up and then the batter is ready!

now fill your lined cupcake cups with the batter, about 2/3 full. (be sure to fill them a bit more than they are in the picture – the second time i made these, i filled each one closer to 2/3 – 3/4 full and got beautiful domes on each cupcake)

bake at 350 degrees F for 18 minutes…

finally, allow the cupcakes to cool completely.

now whip up some cream cheese frosting. i have to say, cream cheese frosting is my absolute favorite – i’m excited!

frost the cupcakes as you prefer. i used a large star tip and pipe a luscious swirl of frosting onto each cupcake.

and they are now ready to bring to work for september birthday treats.

happy birthday to our september birthdays!!!!

* 6/4/15 – updated with a few new pictures

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3 Comments

by miki on September 25, 2011 • Permalink

Posted in baking

Tagged cream cheese, cupcakes, red velvet

Posted by miki on September 25, 2011

https://heymikiheymiki.wordpress.com/2011/09/25/red-velvet-cupcakes/

banana crumb muffins

i found this recipe for banana crumb muffins a while ago but whenever we have leftover bananas i usually just make banana bread and then recently i started making 1 ingredient banana ice cream. but this weekend, when chris asked if i could use the bananas to make banana bread i asked if he would be okay if i tried out this recipe instead. he said it was okay, so on sunday morning i made a batch of these banana crumb muffins.

i’m so glad that i made them because they are super good! i especially love the crumb topping. i’ll probably still make banana bread more often but this is definitely a great alternative.

yummy, banana-y goodness!

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vegetable cobbler

last week, annie from annie’s eats posted a recipe for tomato cobbler. i had never heard of a savory cobbler before; only the sweet kind with fruit. so i was definitely intrigued. it looked so delicious but we didn’t have any tomatoes. but the idea stuck in my head so i went on a search for other savory cobbler recipes. then i came upon a vegetable cobbler recipe that looked perfect… well kind of perfect. i didn’t have all of the vegetables that the recipe called for but it also said that you could substitute any other vegetable you had on hand. so i guess it was perfect!

it does take some time though, cutting up all of the vegetables, cooking them on the stove, and then baking it. so it may be best for a weekend dish. but i did make it on a work night and we just ended up eating a little later than usual. no biggie.

chris had the cobbler with some left over lamb but i actually had it just by itself. it was a wonderful, meatless meal. the vegetables were full of flavor and the biscuits were amazingly light. this is a great way to not only use up some extra veggies you have in your kitchen but also to welcome in this cool fall weather.

to make this vegetable cobbler, first make the filling. i used sweet potato, baby red potatoes, carrots, corn, onion, and green beans.

then mix up the biscuit topping. i actually kind of combined the biscuit recipes from the vegetable cobbler and the tomato one.

next spoon (or i plopped – haha) the biscuit dough on to the vegetable mixture… i tried to spread it out a little but i was definitely worried because it didn’t look like there was enough to cover all of the vegetables.