Lovin' From the Oven

Easy Peasy Sugar-Coated Roasted Pecans

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I had a huge bag of pecans at home that were about to expire soon.. so I was pondering on the list of things to do with them. I’m not really a fan of nuts in my baked goods, so I figured.. heck, let’s just eat them as is! This recipe is extremely easy and results in a very addicting snack. Once you eat one, you can’t stop! My dad was a huge fan, along with my boyfriend. They’re so great because you can take them anywhere stored in a Ziploc bag and snack on them at any time– whether on a road trip or watching a movie. They’re guaranteed to please.

I used a SILPAT to bake these nuts on and I highly recommend getting one if you haven’t already. It’s such a handy tool in the kitchen, especially for baking these. Nothing sticks to the surface and it can withhold such high temperatures. It’s a bit pricy, but worth every penny. It’s also simple to clean… who can complain with easy clean-up?

  • 1 egg white
  • 1 tablespoon water
  • 1 pound pecan halves
  • 1 cup white sugar
  • 3/4 teaspoon salt
  • 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Preheat oven to 250 degrees F. Grease a baking sheet or use a Silpat. In a mixing bowl, whip together the egg white and water until frothy. In a separate bowl, mix together sugar, salt, and cinnamon.

Add pecans to egg whites, stir to coat the nuts evenly. Remove the nuts, and toss them in the sugar mixture until coated. Spread the nuts out on the prepared baking sheet. Bake at 250 degrees F for 1 hour. Stir every 15 minutes. Store in an airtight container.

Heath Bar Toffee Cookies

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As if 12 days of cookies wasn’t enough for me, I had to keep on baking some more before the new year. I try to bake candies into my baked goods a lot, particularly the candies that I adore (HERE‘s a list of all the baked goods containing candy). I’m a total sucker for Heath Bar/Skor bars, along with my boyfriend, so I knew that I had to incorporate them into a cookie somehow. The result? A definite keeper. I underbaked my cookies, as usual, to keep them on the softer side. I also upped the brown sugar amount. My boyfriend loved these cookies the best out of everything that I’ve baked for the holidays. DO NOT skip the step on chilling the dough, otherwise your cookies will come out flat and spread! No one likes flat cookies, so refrigerate them! Overnight, if you have to. If you do, they’ll come out nice and fluffy like the ones pictured. 🙂

Ingredients

  • 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
  • 3/4 cup brown sugar
  • 3/4 cup white sugar
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla
  • 3/4 cups chopped Heath Bar pieces (Four 1.4 ounce bars)
  • 1/2 bag of Heath toffee pieces
  • 1/2 cup chopped walnuts

Directions

1 Sift together the flour, salt, and baking soda. Set aside. In a separate bowl, combine Heath Bar pieces & tofee with chopped walnuts. Set aside.

2 Cream butter until fluffy. Add the sugar and continue to beat until light and fluffy (a couple minutes). Beat in eggs one at a time, and vanilla.

3 Alternatively mix in the Heath Bar mixture and the flour mixture, a third at a time, until well blended. Chill cookie dough for at least 45 minutes.

4 Preheat oven to 350°F. On cookie sheets lined with parchment paper or Silpat, spoon out the cookie dough in small 1-inch diameter balls. Place dough balls 3 inches away from each other on the cookie sheets.

5 Bake for 10-12 minutes, until the edges are just starting to brown. Remove from oven and let cool for a few minutes. Then transfer the cookies to a wire rack to cool completely.

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I hope everyone had a great holiday and are preparing for the new year! I just have to blog about my Christmas because I’m still so excited about it. First off, I got my boyfriend tickets to the Lakers/Celtics game for his xmas present. Premiere seats! It was one of the most amazing games to be at and I had such a blast. My boyfriend is a die hard lakers fan, so he was ecstatic that he go to go. Plus, the Lakers won!! Boston sucks! (no offense to any celtics lovers) :]

Getting ready to go in our matching lakers shirts. Him with his favorite: Gasol and me with mine: Fisher.
Our view of the game from our seats. (We got there really early.. hence the reason why so many seats are empty)

Ok so the real thing I wanted to show you was this:
You’re probably wondering, “What the heck is that space looking thing?” Well, I’ve been wanting this for years and my boyfriend gave it to me for Christmas (along with Kurt Halsey art and something else coming in the mail, idk what yet.) 🙂 If you open it up, it looks like this..
It’s a Cricut machine! I know, best boyfriend ever, right?!? It’s basically an electronic die cut machine for scrapbooking. I’m seriously the happiest girl on earth and I’ll probably be scrapbooking for the next couple of days… there may be a delay on updating my baking blog. Haha, but don’t worry.. I’ll be back soon enough!

Day 6: Oatmeal Toffee & Walnut Cookies (With a hint of Cocoa!)

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This stormy weather has made me quite lazy! All I want to do is drink tea and cuddle up next to my fireplace while watching movies all day long. It was 42 degrees today! …. In Southern California! If it’s gonna get this cold, I wish it would just snow. That’s hopeful wishing on my part. [Now, people that are reading this from around the world must think that I’m crazy to be considering 42 degrees as freezing, you must bear with me because I’m used to 80-90 degree weather on a yearly basis. It’s always sunny in Southern California and hardly ever drops below 65 degrees!]

I’ve finally finished with my Christmas shopping and am quite ecstatic with what I got everyone. I love shopping for others– just the quest of finding a perfect gift to match everyone’s individual personality brings me joy. I hope you guys are done with your holiday shopping as well, seeing as how there’s only only 8 more days for last minute shopping!

Day 6 of my 12 Days of Cookies: Half way there! I decided to do a little twist on the usual Oatmeal Toffee/Oatmeal Raisin cookie. I added a bit of what I had on hand in my kitchen: walnuts & cocoa powder. I used just a bit of Ghiradelli cocoa powder, but would definitely up the ratio the next time I make these. You can hardly taste the amount I put in. Also, don’t over bake these babies! They taste better the next day, believe it or not. By leaving the cookie out overnight, the flavors really get to mix and then get to the perfect consistency. They’re crunchy on the outside, chewy on the inside. I made a half batch and pulsed my oats in the food processor until they were FINELY ground. These were adapted from Martha’s Stewart’s Recipe for her Oatmeal Raisin cookies.

Ingredients

  • 3 cups old-fashioned rolled oats
  • 1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1/4 cup cocoa powder
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
  • 1 cup granulated sugar
  • 1 cup packed light-brown sugar
  • 2 large eggs
  • 2 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
  • 1 cup toffee bits
  • 1 cup chopped walnuts

Preheat oven to 350 F.

Whisk together oatmeal, flour, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder and salt.

In the bowl of stand mixer cream butter and sugars until pale and fluffy (5 mins) and add eggs and vanilla until just combined. Add oat mixture and mix until just combined. Stir in walnuts and toffee.

Scoop onto a parchment lined baking sheet. Bake for 10-13 minutes, depending on the size of your cookies. Let cookies cool on sheet for five minutes and transfer to wire racks to cool completely.

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