BakeAwayGirl

When I'm craving something sweet and homemade, I bake one of two things:  brownies or chocolate chip cookies.  What can I say?  I like the basics.  I will eat tiramisu all day long, and if you want to bring me your fancy dessert, I'll eat that too, but my favorites will always be the classics. In my mother's house, if you ever bake a full batch of cookies, you're doing something wrong.  Lecture all you'd like about raw eggs.  I'll listen politely... as I stuff my face with raw cookie dough.  Mmmm salmonella!  My mother would rather have a spoonful of cold cookie dough than a warm chocolate chip cookie any day, so in her house, we made whatever dough she liked best.  As a result, we always made the standard recipe on the back of the Nestle Tollhouse chocolate chip bag. Which made flat, hard cookies. Blech. Not my picture! I tried undercooking them.  I tried melted butter, cold butter.  It didn't matter, they were always flat as a pancake and hard

You may have sensed a theme around here... we like Mexican food.  For Jeff, this is a relatively recent discovery and for me, it is a life long love affair.  Every Wednesday night of my childhood, we had chicken fajitas and it was my favorite night of the week.  So when I find a good Mexican recipe, I am automatically drawn to it. I just stumbled across this little beauty the other day and have had it on my mind ever since.  So today, after Rolled up, brushed with oil, and unbaked hitting the gym, I dragged Jeff to the store for the few ingredients we would need for it.  Mixing was easy and so was rolling, but I was nervous about baking them and having them hold their shape after.  Don't worry about that; it takes care of itself as long as you roll them tightly and place them seam-side down. As soon as we took a bite, we agreed that this will definitely feature itself in our kitchen again!  It can easily be doubled for parties, as well.  I'm uncertain about freezing th

Jeff and I were grocery shopping a while ago, and he paused longingly at a container of shortbread cookies, topped with chocolate.  Of course, this was your generic warehouse store, and the container of cookies held way more cookies than he or I should ever have in the house at one time.  I dragged my reluctant boyfriend along to stay on task, but the seed was firmly planted in my brain. Before coating in chocolate When we got home, I began my search.  Believe it or not, this recipe did not  come from Pinterest [pause for shouts of shock and awe].  You know how much I love Pinterest.  Pinterest is ideal for hours of lazy browsing through pictures of things that I will never or could never do and occasionally stumbling on something beautiful that I can and will do.  Searching for something specific, however, is not a task Pinterest serves well.  So I hit up Google and found a food network recipe. Now, these are shortbread cookies, which means the main ingredient is butter, sugar

For the Independence Day, I brought that Blueberry Buckle from the previous post, but I felt like a copout.  But it's a holiday!  I wanted something a little more... festive.  So I started searching Pinterest (of course), and I came across this picture: Well pinwheels are pretty easy!  So I gathered my ingredients and got to work.  These can be altered for whatever colors you want or whatever season.  At Christmas, I've sprinkled 1/2 tsp of cinnamon in the red dough for a bit of a bite.  You can play however you'd like. **Just be aware that these cookies need to rest in the fridge for roughly 5 hours.  You can make them in advance and just slice and bake when your guests come (or when you're hungry), but they will need at least 5 hours for cooling. Pinwheel Cookies:  4th of July Version Cutting the dough Adapted from here 1 cup of butter (2 sticks), room temperature 1-1/3 cup sugar 2 eggs 2 tsp vanilla extract 3 cups flour 1/2 tsp baking powder Smi

This blueberry cake is addicting, and it is unfortunately easy to make.  You're not a big baker?  Well, dear, I've found a recipe that you can throw together that will make everyone think you're a whiz.  This delectable treat was first brought to my attention at a family party by a family friend.  She mentioned that she got the recipe from a morning news show, but to be honest, I wasn't really listening and so I'm vague on the details. If you recognize this recipe, feel free to tell me in the comments section.  I don't want to be accused of stealing someone's recipe. I brought this to our 4th of July party yesterday, and it was a huge hit.  No one ever believes how stupidly easy it is too... yum! Blueberry Cake I got so carried away I forgot to take a picture! So I stole this one... which is exactly how it looks 1 tall can of pineapple (I prefer crushed, but you can use any style) 3 cups of blueberries (1 pint = about 2 cups) 3/4 cup sugar 1 bo

Every year, my aunt hosts Easter at her house, and it's a giant potluck brunch.  There's always more food than any one person should eat (doesn't stop us though).  We all come equipped with tupperwear so we can take leftovers home and eat for days.  As such, I like to experiment with new things because I know it will get eaten. One year, I tried out some new cake decorating... Chocolate cake, white butter cream icing -- 2010 Another year, I did some Easter-inspired sugar cookies.  This was particularly awesome because we were going out of town and I didn't even get to eat a single cookie! This year, my aunt asked me to bring cupcakes.  Well I just haven't been much in a cake-decorating mood lately.  In fact, I don't think I've decorated a cake or cupcake since February.  I'm dissatisfied with my frosting since it doesn't taste as delicious as the professional bakers.  Silly reason, but nonetheless, I am on the quest for the perfect fros