Lovin' From the Oven

Baby Shower Cupcakes

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A friend of mine asked me to make some baby shower cupcakes, 60 to be exact. She gave me complete freedom with what to do and what flavors to make. The only things she told me were: 1. the colors were red and yellow with a splash of pink and 2. the theme was roses. Here’s what I came up with:




I molded some chocolate roses to add on top of the frosting. I made a couple different cupcakes, Brooklyn Blackout (pretty much a darker devil’s), tie-dye, Cookies n’ Cream, Cinnamon Toast, and Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough. The frostings I made were dark chocolate buttercream, vanilla buttercream, cookie dough, and cinnamon cream cheese frosting. I’ll be posting each one individually this week, so keep a lookout for them!

I packed all of the cupcakes into these boxes lined in wax paper and drove off to deliver them. They all traveled so well! What a relief!

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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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Levain Bakery Copycat Chocolate Chip Walnut Cookies

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I feel like all I want to eat is sweets ever since my surgery. Maybe while they were poking around my insides, they took out the need to eat regular food and substituted it with tons of sugar. That would explain it.

Also, ever since I came back from New York, I can’t stop thinking of that darned cookie from Levain Bakery. It was seriously the best cookie I’ve ever had and the best part of it is that they served it warm! I can’t recall one bakery that serves any of their baked goods warm. It was also probably the biggest cookie that anyone’s ever served me and I dream of it every night. Don’t judge me.
So the moment I came across this recipe on My Baking Addiction, I HAD to give it a shot. If there was any chance this recipe was anything like Levain’s, I’d be in heaven. Sure enough, this is one good cookie. Even better when you make them extra large, as I did. I adapted it just a bit, and here’s what I did:

Ingredients

  • 2 sticks cold and cubed unsalted butter
  • 3/4 cup granulated sugar
  • 1 1/4 cup light brown sugar
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract
  • 2 3/4 cup all purpose flour
  • 1 teaspoon table or fine sea salt
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1/4 tsp baking soda
  • 2 1/4 cups good quality semisweet chocolate chips or chunks
  • just unter 1 cup chopped walnuts
  1. In bowl of electric mixer fitted with paddle, cream together butter and sugars until well blended and fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, mix in vanilla and beat until well incorporated.
  2. Add flour, salt, baking soda, baking powder and mix until just combined. Gently fold in chocolate chips/chunks and nuts.
  3. Refrigerate dough for at least an hour.
  4. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
  5. Roll cookie dough into individual balls. Make them HUGE! I got 12 cookies from this batch.
  6. Place each on sheet pan and bake in the preheated oven 15-20 minutes depending on how gooey and rawish you like the interior, until very lightly browned, taking care not to overbake. Mine took 16 minutes.
  7. Let cool on rack and store what you don’t immediately eat in an airtight container.

For all of you near the LA area, I’m glad to say that I’ll be participating in this year’s Eat my Blog charity bake sale! Do drop by and say hello if you can, there will be plenty of great desserts and great bloggers supporting a great cause!

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