Confidence Restored

After last week's baking disasters, I finally redeemed myself with some peanut butter & chocolate chips cookies and oatmeal cranberries cookies.

You know sometimes you just have this big craving for some Reese's peanut butter cups? Well since I am in HK and they don't sell them here (how could they!) I had to look for alternatives that would stop this specific, intense sugar fix. Luckily, I came across this wonderful recipe that uses a cup's worth of peanut butter. *evil grin*

I followed the recipe exactly the first time around and found the cookies a bit too sweet for my taste and the peanut butter flavor a bit too strong. But nonetheless, these cookies were still as sinful as ever. You will totally forget your calorie count once you tasted these.

Anyways, I changed the quantities of the ingredients slightly this time, and they came out perfect (at least to me).

Peanut Butter & Chocolate Chips Cookies
(recipe adapted from Smitten Kitchen)

*Makes about 24 cookies
1 1/4C all purpose flour
3/4t baking soda
1/2t baking powder
1/4t salt
1/2C butter, room temperature
3/4C smooth or chunky peanut butter
1/2C white sugar
1/2C brown sugar
1 large egg
1T milk
1t vanilla
1/2C chocolate chips

1. Preheat your oven to 350F / 175C.
2. Cream butter until light and pale yellow. Add sugars and peanut butter and mix together until well incorporated and smooth.
3. Lightly whisk together egg, milk and vanilla. Stir into butter mixture.
4. Measure dry ingredients and gradually add to butter mixture. Stir until well mixed. Fold in chocolate chips.
5. Line baking trays with parchment paper. Scoop a spoonful of dough and roll them into 3/4" balls. Place on prepared trays and press down slightly.
6. Bake for 12-15mins. Let cook on tray for 3mins before transferring to cooling racks to cool completely.

EAT and store the rest in an airtight container. But I promise you that these cookies won't last the week.

Here are my oatmeal cranberries in the making and in the oven.

I had my yahoo radio on while baking and an AWESOME song to bake along to is Cee-lo Green's Forget You. Totally can move to the beat while you cream butter. I was holding onto the big bowl of butter with my spatula, dancing around the kitchen. Can you picture it?






(image from bluebeat.com)

It has not been my week ...

.... in baking that is. 2 days in a row, 2 failures. Right now I don't even want to be near my mixing bowls, whisk and spatulas. I don't understand why I always have a hard time baking cakes, or anything for that matter. Almost always nothing comes out the way they are supposed to.

Knowing that I still have a tub of yogurt in my fridge, I thought it would be fun to bake a yogurt cake with a lemon glaze. All sounded simple enough and it shouldn't be too bad if I follow some guidelines. So 350F, buttered mini loaf pans and I started mixing the batter. All was well and mixed in 20mins and into the oven for 30mins before checking. The mini loaves were rising beautifully in the hot oven (I should have taken pictures of that). But when I used a skewer to poke them to check if they were done, the whole thing just collapsed on me! I baked it for another 5 mins and took them out and they just turned into heavy and dense yogurt loaves! I don't know what went wrong, but here's the recipe that I used:

1.5C flour
2t baking powder
1/4t salt
1C yogurt
1C sugar
3 eggs
1t lemon zest
1/4t vanilla
1/2C veggie oil

your very simple and basic yogurt pound cake recipe, yet I still managed to screw it up.

With yesterday's flop, I thought I should go with something I am more familiar with, cookies. I've been baking them nonstop for the past couple of weeks and all turned out delicious. Dav, my friend, gave me a recipe and said is the best chco chip cookies ever. And so I gave it a go with confidence that nothing will go wrong and I will be able to enjoy a fresh batch of cookies in an hour. Was I wrong!

I don't think there is anything wrong with the recipe. It was just idiot me who forgot to refrigerate the dough for at least an hour before baking!! With so much butter (ratio of butter to flour is 1 to 1 in this recipe) in the dough, how could I have forgotten to chill it first!!!! so my first 2 batches of this supposedly heavenly treat turned into a blob of mess - or thin choc chip crisps if you want to be nice.




(then i tried to shape them into those fancy French buttery cookies and rested them on my rolling pin)

Totally NOT my week for baking at all. I now believe that your mood reflects on the results of your dishes. I have been rather grouchy and moody for the past couple of days (yes, I am blaming it on PMS) and my dearest Dr Chan just told me that I should cut back on desserts because white sugar is bad for my skin and whatever else I have. With not so good news, I am letting my oven take a break until next week.