Lovin' From the Oven

Maple Snickerdoodles

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I tried using my bf’s 50 mm lens for these photos. I’m a complete newbie when it comes to this stuff; I just flip a switch here, flip a switch there, press a button, and snap a picture. I mess with the camera a little bit more and take another. I repeat this process about 60 times and cross my fingers that one of the photos turns out well. I told you, I’m a newbie. That’s what I do.
I used to hate this lens at first because I had to stand so far from the cookie to take the picture. I like to get up close and personal, but this lens would never take a good picture that close. The manual focus also threw me off. Now, I’ve fallen in love with this lens. Look at that focus, the blurred background, the way it makes an object look.. just dreamy! I know I still have to work on getting a very clear photo, but I’m more than happy to work with this lens some more in the future.
Let’s take a break from those cupcakes, shall we? Here, we have some maple snickerdoodles. I’ve had a love affair with snickerdoodles ever since I was in the second grade. Let me explain…

In second grade, I never cared for anything but climbing fences, playing red rover, and chasing boys (to kick them, of course). I was oblivious to boys liking girls, girls liking boys, or that whole other world where crushes existed. I didn’t care for boys.. I only cared for them when it was their birthday and they brought in cupcakes or cake to share with the whole class (Why didn’t we do this in middle school/high school?). Is that selfish? Maybe not for a 7 year old.

One day, a boy brought in Mrs. Field’s cookies to share with the whole class for his birthday. Since my mom never baked, I wasn’t really familiar with cookies or any dessert, really. I chose a snickerdoodle out of the box and took a bite. I, till this day, remember taking my first bite of a snickerdoodle. It was soft, chewy, and melted in my mouth. This was also probably my first time eating cinnamon because there aren’t too many Vietnamese dishes that use cinnamon (I grew up with a nanny that only cooked Vietnamese food) and my dad hates cinnamon, so it was never in the household. This boy asked me how my cookie was and I couldn’t stop raving about it. I kept telling him how much I wish I had another since one was just not satisfying.

The next day, he handed me a huge white box. I opened it up to see a dozen of Mrs. Field’s snickerdoodles. I repeat… a dozen. The box was lined with wax paper and had snickerdoodle on top of snickerdoodle. I just about died in heaven and ate the entire box by the end of the day. Looking back on it now, I realized he probably maybe possibly might’ve just had a teeny tiny itty bitty crush on me. Maybe. It took me until the sixth grade to figure that out– when he actually told me flat out that he’s liked me for years. I guess the presents-for-no-reason makes sense now. I just always thought he was a nice boy. I’m so oblivious, sometimes. But I’m still curious.. how the heck would a second grader be able to go out and buy a box of Mrs. Field’s cookies? Thank you, boy’s mom!

What is it with snickerdoodles and boys, anyways? Every boy (and child) that I know loves snickerdoodles! It’s the way to a man’s heart– I just know it. Why do you think I’ve been trying to perfect it for so long? The better the snickerdoodle, the better the boy. Hahah. Now I’m talking crazy talk. You’ll have to excuse me.

This is a snickerdoodle with a twist, adapted from The Busty Baker. I just added cream of tartar (because a snickerdoodle is not a snickerdoodle without cream of tartar) and rolled it in cinnamon and sugar rather than just cinnamon. Make sure to use good quality maple syrup! None of that Aunt Jemima garbage. These cookies will come out fluffy and soft with a crackly top.

  • 2 cups AP flour
  • 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
  • 1/4 tsp baking soda
  • 1/2 tsp cream of tartar
  • 1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
  • 1/2 cup salted butter (or you can use unsalted and add about 1/4 tsp salt)
  • 1 cup granulated sugar
  • 3 tblsp real maple syrup
  • 1 egg
  • 2 parts sugar to 1 part cinnamon
  1. In a medium bowl, sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, cream of tartar, and salt.
  2. In a large bowl, cream the butter and 1 cup sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the maple syrup and egg until combined. Add dry ingredients. Beat until just mixed.
  3. Refrigerate dough for at least an hour.
  4. Preheat oven to 350F.
  5. Roll dough into 1 inch balls. Roll each ball in the sugar/cinnamon mixture. Arrange balls on cookie sheets, 2 inches apart.
  6. Bake until tops are crackly, about 9-12 minutes. Remove from oven and leave cookies on sheets to cool slightly, about 2 minutes. Transfer cookies to wire rack to cool completely.

Cookies n’ Cream aka Oreo Cupcakes

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If you know me, you’ll know that I adore baked goods, Pixar films, and german shepherds. At work today, a joyful man brought with him the most adorable german shepherd I’ve ever seen. Okay, so every german shepherd is the most adorable one I’ve ever seen, but still… This was one good lookin’ dog. I had to go and ask his owner all about him, of course!

While talking to the owner, I found out that the dog’s name was Guinness, he was 4 years old, and he weighed 110 pounds. He was a service dog for his owner because his owner had narcolepsy. Apparently, whenever his owner would have an narcolepsy attack, the dog can sense it 10-15 minutes before it happens and grab his arm with his mouth. That way, the owner knows it’s coming and can take his medicine to prevent it from happening. The dog keeps the owner’s medicine around his neck and is allowed to travel with him everywhere. I mean everywhere. Because of Guinness, the owner can do everything normally– drive, travel, be independent. He takes a trip every summer with Guinness, and this year they were traveling up the west coast (they live in the D.C. area).

Guinness is allowed to go everywhere his owner can.. like on an airplane! He doesn’t even sit in the cargo area– he sits right on a seat next to his owner. Best part is, he doesn’t have to buy a ticket for his dog! Just talking to the man, I could get a sense of how much love and adoration he had for his dog. He really admired Guinness! I mean, who wouldn’t? I made a comment about how large Guinness’ ears were, and the owner replied, “Those ears? Want to see how large they REALLY are?” and pulled out his wallet. Inside his wallet, he had a picture of Guinness from when he was 8 weeks old with ears that were half the size of his head. I just about died from cuteness overload. Apparently, Guinness’ ears stuck straight up when he was 7 weeks old and didn’t even flop. Talk about a perfect dog. Gahhhh. I’m dying for a german shepherd even more now.

Well this recipe has no relation to my story whatsoever, but I just had to share it with you. Dogs are such amazing creatures and have amazing abilities. I’m still in awe of how they could train a dog to catch things like that and alert the people when we can’t sense anything ourselves. The owner also told me that before he got the dog, he used to have episodes every month. Now, he hasn’t an episode in five months. His episodes are much farther apart because of Guinness, and it’s because of him that the owner can do everything he does.

Oops, I got sidetracked again. Back to the cupcakes. The oreo at the bottom was a nice surprise and the cake was nice and fluffy. The sour cream kept the cakes nice and moist, and went well with the bits of oreos. You can also mix in some crushed oreos into the frosting, if you want.. but I just opted to throw some on top.

  • 1 package (18.25 oz) plain white cake mix
  • 1 cup sour cream
  • 1/2 cup vegetable oil
  • 3 large eggs
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract
  • 30 Oreo cookies
  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line muffin tin with 24 paper liners.
  2. Count out 12 Oreos and separate the top and bottom wafers. Make sure both sides have some of the icing on them. Place one wafer, icing side up, in the bottom of each liner. Set aside.
  3. Crush the remaining 18 oreos by putting them in a ziploc bag and using a rolling pin to roll over the bag.
  4. Place the cake mix, sour cream, vegetable oil, eggs, and vanilla in a large mixing bowl. Blend with an electric mixer on low speed for 30 seconds. Then, scrape down the sides of the bowl.
  5. Increase the mixer speed to medium and beat 1 1/2 minutes more. Measure out 1 1/2 cups of the crushed oreos and fold them into the batter until well incorporated. Set aside remaining crushed oreos for garnish.
  6. Fill each lined cup 3/4 of the way full with the batter and bake for 18-20 minutes.
For the frosting, I used the same one posted in my previous post and sprinkled some crumbled oreos on top.

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Honey & Crystallized Ginger Cookies

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Recently, I’ve been able to catch up with all of my friends because of my time off and it’s surely starting to feel like summer to me! This eighty degree+ weather makes me want to never work and just BBQ everyday. Well, that wouldn’t be too productive. I’d say the most productive things that I’ve been doing with my time off so far are finding a million additional food blogs to add to my reading list and gaining back the weight I lost from my surgery.

I’ve also been semi-obsessed with magic recently. I know what you’re thinking… “What is she.. in third grade or something?” Truth is, I’ve always been a magic fan. My parents used to buy me fun magician starter kits when I was little, but I can’t say that I ever became any good at it.
Bottom line is that I managed to find myself a person who was a magician AND a foodie! We emailed back and forth a couple times and I just had to share with you all how wonderful he is. His name is Los Angeles Magician Mike Jacobson and even has a blog where he rates french fries. Yes, you read that right.. french fries. Why didn’t I think of that? He has even been a guest on Ellen show before. You can see a bit of him here and here.
I was really inspired reading his story and talking to him because it made me realize that you really can do what you love. It’s refreshing to talk to people that are so happy with life because if you do what you love, you never have to work a day in your life. I will be a baker someday. I will have my own bakery– I will! I will! I will! Whew!
Now off to the cookies– these cookies are definitely different from the rest. They’re unique with their ginger flavor, but I think it’s quite tame, nothing too crazy. The taste might not appeal to all, but that’s just because it’s not your usual chocolate chip, peanut butter, or sugar cookie. I may have may have gone ahead of myself on this one and adapted the recipe from Eat Make Read when I really should have left it as is. By that, I mean subbing some of the white sugar for brown sugar without really thinking about the liquids that were already in it. I did also use honey instead of molasses, but that was something that I think I did right since I’m not a fan of the molasses flavor. Honey and ginger also go together quite naturally. Finally, I rolled some of the cookies in the sugar/cinnamon mix and others in turbinado sugar. Here are my adaptations, minus the subbing sugar part because I think the texture would be better as is:

  • 2 cups flour
  • 2 t baking powder
  • 3/4 T cinnamon
  • 1/2 t salt
  • 3/4 cup butter, softened
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 1 egg
  • 1/4 cup honey
  • 1/4 cup candied ginger, roughly chopped
  • 1/3 cup sugar
  • pinch of cinnamon
  • pinch of ground ginger

  1. Whisk flour, baking powder, cinnamon and salt in a medium bowl.
  2. In a separate bowl, combine the butter, sugar, egg and honey.
  3. Add the wet ingredients to the dry and combine well. Fold in the ginger and chill for at least 30 minutes.
  4. Meanwhile, combine 1/3 cup sugar with a pinch of cinnamon and ground ginger in a small bowl. Preheat oven to 375° and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
  5. Once the dough has chilled, roll the dough into small Tablespoon sized balls and roll in the sugar mixture. Place on baking sheet and bake for 8-10 minutes.

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