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Homemade Thin Mint Cookies

February 19, 2017

Every time somebody asks me about this blog, I get a bit antsy and say something along the lines of, “I’m not blogging much these days, but I’d like to start it up again.” This is my first attempt in awhile to revive this space and get back into the routine of sharing the going-ons of my kitchen. I’d like to get more creative with my food photography and also redesign the site, but I have to start taking more photos and posting more often for that to happen. I have also toyed with the idea of making this a personal blog versus just a baking blog, but for now everything is staying as is.

I’ve been in the kitchen a lot lately and have been trying a bunch of new recipes. I’m getting more into baking with alternative flours and experimenting with vegan baking, but I will always love me a cookie made with good, old-fashioned butter. These homemade thin mint cookies are butter based and are also surprisingly from Heidi Swanson’s Super Natural Cooking. It is a pretty standard cookie recipe, but I suppose what makes them “natural” enough for Heidi’s cookbook is that they are made with real ingredients versus the crap (for lack of a better term) used in the beloved Girl Scout version. For the record, I love the boxed cookies–I order a few boxes every year, but this homemade version takes thin mints to a whole other level.

homemade-thin-mints-dough

There are two basic components to thin mint cookies: the chocolate cookie base and the mint-chocolate coating. The chocolate cookies are made with butter, confectioners sugar, whole wheat pastry flour (all-purpose would work fine too), cocoa powder, vanilla, an egg white and salt. The dough is super chocolaty, easy to work with, and doesn’t really spread when baking.

homemade-thin-mints-chocolate-coating

The mint-chocolate coating is just melted chocolate with some peppermint oil or peppermint extract stirred in. [If you are a food nerd like me, you may want to read this article detailing the difference between the oil and the extract. I've got more notes on this in the recipe.]

Once the cookies are coated in the mint-chocolate, you can throw them in the freezer to set. Et voilà! A beautiful, homemade version of everyone’s favorite Girl Scout cookie.

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If you’re interested in other homemade versions of store bought treats, here are a few more recipes for homemade peanut butter eggs, wheat crackers, and graham crackers.
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Chocolate Cream Pie

September 28, 2015

We celebrated Andrew’s 31st birthday over the weekend! It is crazy to think that Andrew was 21 (a spring chicken!) when we first started dating. Over the years I have baked him various treats to celebrate his birthday—many cakes (in recent years it’s been this cake mentioned in my last post) and several chocolate cream pies. This year I decided it was time for another pie year.

Chocolate cream pie may seem like an odd choice for a birthday, but it was Andrew’s favorite childhood dessert that his mom made. I took up making them for him after we got married. BEST. WIFE. EVER. But really, that’s what he thinks when I make chocolate cream pie.

chocolate-cream-pie-crust-making

Sometimes I make a chocolate crust for this pie, but I decided to go with a standard all-butter pie crust this time around. The recipe I used for this crust is slightly different than my go-to pâte brisée recipe (used here and here). I found this pie crust to be flakier and more tender, which I am a fan of, but I also found that the crimped edges on this crust did not hold their shape at all (a common problem with all-butter pie crusts as explained here). I suppose it’s a small price to pay for all that glorious flakiness.

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For the chocolate filling, I used a 61% cacao content bittersweet chocolate, but I have used up to 70% cacao content chocolate in the past with delicious, albeit richer results.

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The chocolate filling of the pie is what I like to call a pudding-custard hybrid. It is thickened with cornstarch like a pudding, but also uses egg yolks like a custard. There is even a bit of gelatin added to make the pie more sliceable. The result is a velvety smooth, creamy, and wonderfully chocolatey filling.

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Once the filling has had time to set in the pre-baked pie crust, all that’s left to do is make some whipped cream and shave some chocolate overtop.

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chocolate-cream-pie-garnish

There’s nothing I don’t love about this pie. It’s Andrew’s favorite for a reason, partly because it is nostalgic, but mainly because it is just SO GOOD.
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Pink Ombre Cake

March 19, 2015

I wasn’t planning on writing a blog post on this cake so I wish I had more pictures, but I think you can get the idea with the few pictures I did take. I made this pretty pink cake for a sweet little 2-year old named Paige. I don’t think Paige had any opinions on what she wanted for her birthday cake, but her 4-year old brother, Morgan, had one request. He asked me very politely if I could make the cake chocolate and to quote his aunt, “he doesn’t think it’s cake unless it’s chocolate.” You’ve got to love a 4-year old who already has some life philosophies.

Lucky for Morgan, I have a tried and true chocolate cake recipe. It’s That Chocolate Cake that I first made for Andrew’s 28th birthday a couple years back. For Paige’s cake, I swapped out the chocolate frosting for a whipped vanilla buttercream that I tinted a few shades of pink.

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Normally I just smear frosting onto cakes any which way, but I took the extra step to crumb coat the cake before frosting it with pink buttercream. Crumb coating ensures that your final layer of frosting doesn’t have any pesky cake crumbs in it and gives you a nice smooth base to work with.

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For the ombre effect, I tinted my whipped vanilla buttercream three shades of pink and watched this video for guidance. I also made a cute little cake topper with a couple of bamboo skewers, baker’s twine, pink paper, and a hot glue gun. The cake was a hit at the party! I think Paige approved of its pinkness and Morgan was happy to see chocolate on the inside.
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Chinese Almond Cookies

February 21, 2015

The last time my mom came to visit she gave me two 8-ounce bottles of almond extract, three large tins of tea, and two bottles of my favorite chili sauce (which is not Sriracha, by the way). Her annual visits from Cleveland always involve food gifts, which I happily look forward to. She once even hauled a Costco-sized bag of pine nuts to me, just because she knew I liked to make pesto. She is so generous and thoughtful in that way.

While I know that I will go through her gifts of tea and chili sauce quickly, I’m pretty sure that I now have a lifetime supply of almond extract. She loves baking with almond extract and knows that I do too, so in her mind she was probably thinking, “Why not stock Connie up?”

sifting-almond-extract

I admittedly haven’t even opened her bottles of extract yet because I’m still finishing up a bottle of my own, but I know I will get to them eventually. This recipe for Chinese almond cookies alone takes 1 tablespoon of almond extract, which (not surprisingly) is my mother’s recipe. I’m pretty sure she quadrupled whatever the original amount was because she is the type of person who would want an “almond cookie” to taste like almonds and not just hint of them. I would know because I’m that type of person too.

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Between the almond extract, almond meal, and almond slices in this recipe, there is plenty of flavor in these cookies. They are also delicate in texture and not too sweet. My mom is the queen of “not too sweet” and this is just another one of her recipes that goes to show that you don’t need a ton of sugar to make something delicious. You just need a ton of almond extract.

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Challah Cinnamon Rolls

February 3, 2015

You should know from my post on Jackie’s challah bread that my love for challah runs deep. I’ve made a couple of loaves this year already and then the other day I did something kind of crazy and kind of genius. I turned my lovely challah dough into a batch of sweet and sticky cinnamon rolls. Totally crazy/genius, right? I can’t take credit for the idea, as I got it from someone else, but I’m happy to report that they taste as amazing as they sound.

sprinkling-challah-cinnamon-rolls

To make the cinnamon rolls, I made my challah dough as usual, but instead of braiding the dough, I rolled it out to a big flat rectangle. Then I sprinkled generous amounts of cinnamon and brown sugar on top. I didn’t measure, but my philosophy here was “more is more.” One thing I thought of while typing this, is that it wouldn’t be a bad idea to smother the dough with softened butter before sprinkling on the cinnamon and brown sugar…not a bad idea at all. I’m going to have to try it with my next batch.

rolling-challah-cinnamon-rolls

After the dough was sufficiently covered with cinnamon and brown sugar, I rolled up the dough, sliced the dough, and arranged the slices cut-side up in a baking pan. Then, I let the dough rest to proof for a bit before baking.

challah-cinnamon-rolls-before-proof
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Almond Coconut Heart Cookies

February 13, 2014

I am loving these sweet little heart cookies. They are light, not too sweet, and have the perfect flavor combination of almond and coconut (a combo that I have also used here and here). The dough is made with almond flour, oat flour, and shredded unsweetened coconut, giving them a delicate texture while also making them gluten-free.

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Jackie’s Challah Bread

October 2, 2013

When I lived in New York, my friends Jackie and Milena hosted a potluck dinner almost every Friday night. It was our time to feast and gossip, and it was my favorite way to start the weekend. Every potluck had a theme (like “breakfast for dinner” or “English tea party”). No matter what the theme though, Jackie’s challah bread was always on the table.

To me, Jackie’s challah is pure comfort. Nothing could melt away the stresses of working and living in New York quite like that bread, and I looked forward to eating it every week. When I moved to Houston, I had to say goodbye to a city that I loved, dear friends, potluck Fridays, and Jackie’s challah.

Luckily, Jackie gave me her recipe. Unfortunately, I have to make it myself now.

challah-bread-ingredients

I’m convinced that no one can make challah quite like Jackie, but that doesn’t stop me from trying. I adapted her recipe slightly so that I could use instant yeast (versus active dry yeast–although I know she uses fresh yeast sometimes too) and I changed it so that the recipe yields one loaf instead of two.

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challah-bread-rise

One thing that sets Jackie’s recipe apart from other challah breads is the amount of sugar in the dough. It’s sweeter than most with a mixture of sugar, brown sugar, and honey.

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Fresh Fig Tart

September 18, 2013

You know you are getting old when you find yourself at a party that revolves around a 4,000-piece world map puzzle. It may sound a little lame, but let me tell you it was a lot of fun. What better way to spend a Wednesday night than with friends, good food, wine, and a giant puzzle?

To help out with the event, I promised the host that I would bring dessert. I had planned on making a triple chocolate cake concoction that I have had marked in one of my cookbooks for years, but when I saw the fresh figs at Whole Foods, I immediately changed my game plan.

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fig-tart-assembling

With a basket of beautifully ripe figs and Martha Stewart’s Pies and Tarts book (signed by Martha by the way) at my disposal, this Fresh Fig Tart was born. I made a few minor tweaks to the book’s Strawberry and Fresh Fig Tart to accommodate my lack of strawberries and my slightly smaller tart pan, with great results.
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Mango Frozen Yogurt

September 5, 2013

If you had asked me how I liked living in Houston 2 years ago, I would have probably given you a list of reasons why I missed New York. From the culture to the food to my friends, and even the subway (I’m a disaster behind the wheel)—there wasn’t a thing about the city that I didn’t miss. I truly believed that it was the city to live in; and to be honest, I still think it is in many ways. However, I have been embracing Houston more and more as time passes.

Today, if you were to ask me how I like living in Houston, I would tell you about the house we bought, the great neighborhood we live in (even CNN Money thinks so), and our new Southern pace of life. I’d go on about the great cost of living and how the move has allowed us to have the time and money to travel. In the last 2 years, we’ve been to France, Australia, Peru, Japan, Taiwan, Belize, Guatemala, and Mexico. And that doesn’t even cover the countless trips we have taken within the US (including our West Texas road trip, mentioned here). This is something that living in New York could not have afforded us.

So when we spent this past Labor Day weekend back in New York City (I’m getting to the Mango Frozen Yogurt part, I promise), I was singing a new tune and telling people how great Houston is. The trip did however reinforce my belief that Houston, while great, is still missing some things. And when I say “some things,” I mean a good ice cream place.

mango
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Homemade Peanut Butter Eggs

March 29, 2013

Cheap candy has long been a weakness of mine. Generally speaking, I’m pretty good about not eating processed foods, but packaged candy is one of those foods that I can’t seem to shake. It tempts me at checkout aisles, calls to me at movie theaters, and I can rarely resist it. Peanut butter egg season in particular is something that I look forward to every year.

Most years, I buy a few packages of those yellow wrapped eggs at the grocery store and Andrew and I demolish them well before Easter. This year, in an effort to be good, I didn’t buy a single package. I thought maybe I could go the year without them—that is until I saw a photo of these homemade peanut butter eggs by the Minimalist Baker on Pinterest.

Once the idea was planted, I had to try making my beloved peanut butter eggs at home. I took a less healthful approach than the Minimalist Baker, who uses dates to sweeten the eggs instead of cane sugar, simply because I didn’t have any dates on hand. I made a few tweaks to another recipe I found online and while they are not guilt-free (everything in moderation, right?), they are far superior in quality than the store-bought version.

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The peanut butter centers are made with natural/organic peanut butter, butter, and sugars, and the chocolate coating consists of quality milk chocolate melted with a bit of virgin coconut oil.

dipping-peanut-butter-eggs

Forming the eggs and dipping them in chocolate is half the fun of making these peanut butter eggs. (Obviously, the other half is eating them). The peanut buttery dough is like a stickier version of Play-Doh and the melted chocolate is so smooth and velvety, you may be tempted to sip up the leftovers.

Once completed, these indulgent little eggs have the perfect balance of sweet and salty just like the original version–except that the homemade ones taste a heck of a lot better!
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