Pizzelles |
To my horror, I found out that I am running out of sugar (went through about 12 lbs total so far) and butter (that's about 8 lbs worth). So baking was cut short tonight.
Moral: Should check supplies before I head to the grocery store. I was so intent on getting eggnog (and rum...which is what I found out most commonly goes into eggnog. But I don't have nutmeg to sprinkle atop. Again, horrors!)
I cranked out almost 4 dozen pizzelles. Recipe is in the Recipes section. While I did that I worked on decorating the Santa's Cookies I baked on Thursday. To do that, I melted unsweetened chocolate in my double-boiler and dipped the cookies in halfway. Then I sprinkled crushed chocolate candies atop the dipped part. We'll see how they end up.
Finished Santa's Cookies |
I also started teaching Max the "Come" command. Hand signal for that will be one finger pointed down at the ground. I used the burnt pizzelles as treats. Aren't I versitile? Did you click on my Courier-Post
CookieCam story link yet? ;)
Yeah well I said AROUND 7:00pm. ;)
Tonight I'll be making pizzelles (very low burn factor) and decorating the peppermint cookies. I'll be partaking of eggnog as well. Cams going up now...click on the CookieCam link on the left to launch them!
Cookiecam will launch around 7:00pm EST tonight!
Requirements for tonight: (for me baking, not you watching)
Starbucks Peppermint Mocha. Venti, baby.
Parchment paper
Egg nog
Whatever booze goes into egg nog.
What am I doing?
Tip: These peppermint cookies look scrumptious. However, it seems that they have a lot of butter in 'em. When they bake, the butter seeps out of the bottom and acts as a lubricant. And since it (cough) appears my apartment building is built on a @^&@#$ incline, the cookies are sliding off of the #((&#% sheet and falling onto the (#%^&#( oven floor. WHICH causes (choke) smoke. WHICH causes the (cough) smoke alarm to go off. I've taken as much (cough, wheeze) of the burnt cookie crumbs off of the oven as I can tonight. (cough) But the smoke alarm keeps going off. Must be residual smoke in the apartment (cough, choke)
SO, in by far the stupidest move that has ever (cough) been blogged, I taped some paper towel on the ceiling over the smoke detector. (COUGH cough) That solved my problem. Don't worry, I'll untape (cough) before bed.
The CCPBC cookies are done and looking (choke) GORGEOUS. The peppermint cookies are done (although some are broken) and will be decorated. I'm made snickerdoodles earlier (wheeze) and am baking them now.
Max, the dog from Hades, is whining now so (cough) I think I'm going to take him out. David's up now...he can watch the cookies for a few. I think (cough cough) I need some fresh air. (choke wheeze)
Do me a favor and click on the link below. I'm trying to harvest a decent number of hits to the story strictly so I feel good about myself, OK? ;)
I mixed some "Santa's Cookies" earlier from a Disney Recipes cookbook that one of my buddies in the newsroom gave to me. I think they're going to be good. It's regular refrigerator dough with crushed peppermint candies mixed in. After baking, you dip half the cookie into chocolate (mmmmmmm!) and sprinkle w/more crushed peppermint candy. Much fun was had trying to crush the candy with a meat tenderizer without waking David.
Then I mixed and baked some Chewy Chocolate Peanut Butter Chip cookies (I did a batch of that when I started CookieCam this year -- but they disappeared mysteriously). I quit that because I had to run to Target to grab something for tomorrow before I forgot.
Long story short, I'm back, and going to continue w/the CCPBC cookies first. Got it? Good. Click on the "CookieCam" link on the left side to launch the cams.
And yes, I am wearing a skirt today in honor of my article being published. Wanted to look presentable for the new guests. I usually wear jeans.
I'm a star! I'm a star!
Kim, the cookies, and the CookieCam make a seasonal return
CookieCam goes live at 4:30pm EST today. For real. Going to try a new recipe, and make some more old favorites.
Peanut Brittle
The most difficult part about making candy is the timing. That's why I had the nuts and baking soda measured, and the pans buttered up well before I was ready.
When you boil corn syrup and sugar, it goes through different stages at different temperatures. The longer you cook the candy and the higher the temperature goes, the harder the final product will be. You really have to keep an eye on your candy thermometer. I went through 3 candy thermometers last year -- they're pretty fragile. Tonight the thermometer fell into the boiling corn syrup/sugar mixture. Luckily I fished it out before any damage was done.
Basically, you let the mixture boil until it hits 275 degrees. Then you stir in the nuts and let it go to 295 degrees, stirring occasionally. It took my candy about a half hour to even get to 275. Then it seems like only a few minutes until it hits 295.
As SOON as it hits 295, you take it off of the stove and stir in the baking soda. That gives it the airy, almost bubbly texture that peanut brittle has. Immediately pour it out and stretch it as thin as you get. I usually keep my peanut brittle thicker than normal. I like it really thick and crunchy.
It's a deceiving thing to make because it looks hard. And if you don't pay attention to the temperatures, you can end up with disaster. The only disaster I ended up with is a slight burn on my left index finger. But by now I'm not even feeling burns.
Current Score: Kim 17, Cookies 3, Oven 1
alrighty...let's give that peanut brittle a go. Then I get to package up some cookies for shipping. :) Remember, click the "CookieCam" link on the left to launch the live cam window.
Welcome to peanut day!
I did a batch of peanut butter blossoms and a batch of regular peanut butters. Have to run to Starbucks to meet mom for a bit, but I HOPE to make peanut brittle tonight. What a nutty trifecta that would be!
Ermmmmmm....I didn't bake tonight. But to make it up to you, here's a picture of last night's cookies from MY vantage point. When you see CookieCam shots of me yelling...here's why. ;)
Hey you! Yeah you! As you may or may not know, I work for a newspaper. And for the second year in a row, they asked me to write a piece about CookieCam. So if you are not related to me, and don't work for the Courier-Post,
email me before 9:00am EST Monday Morning and tell me why you watch CookieCam. You'll have to give me your first and last name and hometown for legitimacy, and you'll be named in my story. Which will be posted on the Internet, so you'll have some fame!
Cookie Tip!
Tonight, I made Stained Glass cookies. You use a basic cutout cookie recipe -- I used Gingerbread -- and you cut out a section inside each cookies. Then, you fill that cutout section with pulverized Life Savers. When you bake the cookie, the LifeSaver pieces melt and spread to fill the inner part. Here's what I discovered:
- If you're going to do this for the first time, or if you're horrible with cutout cookies, do circles. I used stars because that was the only shape that I had 2 same-shape, different-size cutters. It made it more difficult because the points are very easy to break.
- Use parchment paper on your cookiesheets. I did this after struggling with 2 batches.
- If you don't use parchment paper, there's a certain window of timewhere getting the cookies off the sheet is fairly easy. If you try to get them off too soon, the hard candy inside is still liquidy and it will run. But if you let them cool on the cookie sheet all of the way, the hard candy will adhere to the cookie sheet, and removing an intact cookie becomes difficult, if not impossible. Use a metal spatula and quickly slide it under each cookie to remove it.
- Melted Life Savers on your hand REALLY burns.
Also, if a cookie tastes bland and crappy, drizzling semi-sweet chocolate on it will help it 100%. Of course, chocolate helps everything!
So you know those shortbread I baked last night. Very very dull. Bland, even. So I'm melting some semisweet chocolate to drizzle over the tops -- maybe that'll help. Plus I'll bake the stained glass cookies tonight.
This Saddam-stuff today threw me in a tizzy. I had planned to bake from 10:00 am onward -- but that didn't happen. So now I'm thinking of sending the cookies out on Tuesday.
Have I mentioned the 500-600 word story due tomorrow? You know how yappy I am here, right? I open Word to type my story and...nothing. (whimper)
Cams coming up shortly...
