The Tastiest, Easiest Fudgey Pumpkin Cookies Ever and an Epic Battle

Gratuitous fudgey pumpkin cookie shot....something to look forward to....

The Nephew slept over Saturday night so I got to spend my birthday with my 3 favourite guys....Hubby, the Boy, and the Nephew! We watched a movie, watched the nephew get over tired from going to 2 other birthday celebrations, and had a massive Nerf dart gun battle. You know you are in trouble when you see this:

Or this.....

The poor little guy, because of the cast, he needed help loading gun for EVERY shot! It still didn't stop him from chasing the Boy into the bathroom and cornering him in the tub though!

Darts were flying everywhere!!

Eventually though, snacks were needed....energy was needed to keep up the battle.....

And to keep everyone happy!

A happy Nephew and his pirate loot!

The moment I saw these, I knew I had to make them.  I have made them twice now.  Since Sunday.  It is only Tuesday.  Hubby did take some to work and I did some to my mother in law's for supper last night. Cleo Coyle not only writes the Coffee House Mysteries, she manages to whip up some very tasty treats!  Cleo did a guest post on Dying for Chocolate and that post introduced me to Chocolate Fudge Pumpkin Cookies.  You only need a few items from the pantry to make these.

A box of devil's food cake mix, a can of pumpkin, vanilla, and chocolate chips!!!  For the glaze, all you need is butter, water, pumpkin pie spice, orange colouring, vanilla, and icing sugar. Seriously.....go to the dying for chocolate link, get the recipe, and make these....then go to the Coffee House Mysteries link and check things out.

Mix the mix, pumpkin, and vanilla

Keep mixing....it will come together

Add the chocolate chips

Scoop and bake

Make the glaze

Drizzle with Glaze

Seriously, make these cookies.....I dare you!!

Make sure to check out the blog hop for Melt in you Mouth Monday over at Make Ahead Meals!!

Until next time, stay warm and eat well!

Cook For the Cure

Every week in our staff room, someone has the nasty job of tidying up, running the dishwasher, and bringing in some treats on Friday.  It is a neat idea to keep things neat but sometimes it seriously feels like some people use it as a license to leave dirty dishes in the sink and leave their crumbs everywhere.  While I was loading the dishwasher, I grabbed a glass from the counter.  It turned out is was actually 2 glasses nested together and the outside glass was broken. There was actually a shard of glass on the counter! Lucky for me I notice before a grabbed tightly and pulled the glasses apart!

For the past three years, I have used my clean up week/treat day to raise money for the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation through their Cook for the Cure party. All I have to do is register my party online, tell my co workers that on my Friday I will collect donations for the CBCF.  Donations are optional and everyone is invited to snack.  The CBCF always helps me out by sending items to raffle off, things to use as thank yous such as post it notes and name tag lanyards.

This year's treats included: Brownies with pink icing, pumpkin spice cupcakes with maple brown butter icing, strawberry mini cupcakes with strawberry meringue icing, chocolate cupcakes with chocolate meringue icing, pink strawberry Star Wars sugar cookies, banana bread Marvel heads, and some chips with onion dip and popcorn....you know, just to have some salt!

Between donations and raffle tickets, the lovely people I work with, donated $500!!! WOW! Thank you guys!  The prizes sent to my by CBCF were 2 cookbooks with a pink apron attached to each one, 2 pink Webkinz poodles, and 2 pink ribbon travel mugs.  Each raffle winner was very happy to win their prize!! I really should have taken pictures, but I left my camera at home the day I did the raffle. (Shucks!)

Anyone interested in donating, please go to this link and click on the 'sponsor me button'.

http://my.e2rm.com/personalPage.aspx?registrationID=1254427&langPref=en-CA

Until next time, stay warm and eat well!

Cookies and a Sleepover!

Tonight my 5 year old nephew is sleeping over and we are having a blast making cookies!  What kind of cookies? Star Wars cookies!!! (My favourite kind!) Nephew is 5 years old and thinks the world of the Boy, who is 15....they are like 2 peas in a pod when they are together.  After playing with some Lego while watching the Mets game, it was time to make some cookies!

The Best cookie helpers...EVER!

 I pre made the dough so it would chill while the boys were playing.  This way the Little Kitchen was cleaned up a bit and we had some counter space to work. I used my go to recipe for sugar cookies, you know, the recipe used for the Sugared Snowflakes.

Best cookie cutters....EVER!!

I won't bore you with the recipe but the printable version can be found by clicking HERE
Baking with the boys is so much fun.  I will have to do it more often.

That Darth spatula is my favourite!

Hard at work to get those cookies cut!

The Boy is such a good big cousin!!

Sprinkle that flour!

Nephew LOVES to sprinkle flour!

Hey!  There's my favourite spatula again!

Now for the taste test!!

We decided it would be quite appropriate to watch Star Wars IV A New Hope while we ate our cookies.  After all the original movies are the ONLY ones worth watching!!
I think in the morning we will break out the pancake moulds!

Until next time, stay warm and eat well!!

Ricotta Cookie Re Mix: Changing Things Up

I have a confession to make! I am addicted to the Ricotta cookies!  So much that I am mixing things up a bit and baking new flavours.  The first time I add 2 tbsp of cocoa powder to help a much needed chocolate fix.  This time I went with peanut butter.  I do love peanut butter, it is one of my favourites.

That's the 2 kg jar of peanut butter!

After the first batch came out of the oven, they looked just the same.  They didn't spread at all.  I figured that the peanut butter probably doesn't spread the way butter would to I squished the rest of the cookies with 2 fingers before baking the rest of them.

They still tasted amazing....

 These cookies are a hit!  The peanut butter flavour isn't overwhelming, but just enough.  I may add more cocoa powder next time for more of a chocolate hit.  The white chocolate chips however where so nice in these cookies.  I highly recommend these cookies....go make them!!   Right now!!

Ricotta Cookie Re-Mix – Chocolate Peanut Butter White Chocolate Chip Ricotta Cookies

Printable version

• 1/3 Peanut butter
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1 cup light ricotta cheese
• 1 egg (or 1/2 a banana, thoroughly mashed and 1/4 tsp baking powder)
• 1 1/2 tsp vanilla 
• 1 cup whole wheat flour
• 1 cup all purpose flour (minus 2 tbsp)
• 2 tbsp cocoa powder
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp kosher salt
• 2/3 cup white chocolate chips

In a bowl mix together the peanut butter, 1/2 cup brown sugar, and 1/2 cup white sugar until creamed together and fully combined. The mixture will look damp and will stick together when pressed.

Add 1 cup ricotta cheese, 1 egg, and 1 1/2 tsp vanilla and continue mixing until well combined.

 

 

In a separate bowl whisk together 1 cup all purpose flour, 1 cup whole wheat flour, 1/2 tsp baking powder, 1/2 cup baking soda, and 1/4 tsp salt.  Little Kitchen confession: I sometimes add all the dry ingredients to the same mixing bowl on top of the wet ingredients, mix with a spoon, then mix the dry ingredients into the wet....just to save a bowl!)

Add the flour mixture into the mixing bowl and mix to completely incorporate the flour.

 

Stir in 2/3 cup (or more) white chocolate chips.

Scoop 1 tbsp portions onto a lined baking sheet, flatten slightly with 2 fingers and bake at 350F for 10 minutes.

Of course I still had some of the delectable Swiss meringue butter cream left over....sandwich cookies are in order!! I wonder if I should try these with a peanut butter frosting??

Until next time, stay warm and eat well!

What Ever Shall I Do??

I had quite the dilemma in the Little Kitchen tonight.  You really wouldn't believe it, it was just that shocking!!! While icing some lovely cupcakes and baking cookies for Friday, I found myself with extra cookies AND extra icing!!! After about 2 seconds of hard thinking (I didn't want to hurt myself you know) I decided to put the two together.....Ricotta cookies and Swiss meringue butter cream, together at last!  I won't need to eat for the rest of the week....

Ricotta cookie recipe here

Swiss Meringue Butter cream recipe here

Delectable things I tell you!  Here's to a terrific weekend to everyone.....despite the whole 'spring ahead' thing.  I think I really do need that hour....

You know, the Boy has a 6am practice Sunday morning....up at 5 am.....with the whole 'spring ahead' thing happening....that is just mean, even if it is all for the love of baseball!

Until next time, stay warm and eat well!

Cinnamon Heart Cookies and a Valentine's Day Story

Valentine's day is a coming....do you do anything special? I try not to get overly cynical during these 'Hallmark Holiday' but it is sooooo very difficult for me. Perhaps I am just cynical by nature, who knows?

Hubby and I used to go out for dinner and do all the cute couple type things on Valentine's day, really. We did. Then one Valentine's day about 13 years ago, we discovered on accident that Hubby had magically developed a rather severe allergy to fish and seafood....I mean driving high speeds in snow and ice to the emergency department type of stuff....I did actually blow a couple of red lights (the streets were bare, with no one else on them at the time).

I think one of the other scary things about that night so many years ago was that the med student treating Hubby turned out to be someone I went to high school with. I was in complete disbelief that this person even made it into med school, let alone was treating my dear sweet Hubby!! He even managed to give me super wrong instructions for how to use the epi pen they were prescribing for Hubby to carry!!!! Yikes!!!!

Anaphyalaxis can be a serious, life threatening allergy emergency. The biggest life saver is recognizing the signs and symptoms such as swelling of the face, neck, tongue, trouble breathing, hives, vomiting, cramping, diarrhea, coma, and death. Seems drastic, I know but the second you think any of these are happening, call and ambulance at once! We were already in the car so I drove Hubby myself. We got to emergency that night and I told the triage nurse he was in the midst of anaphylaxis, they took him one way to treat immediately and sat me down to fill out the forms!! Read more about Anaphalaxis here.
That really was a lot of excitement wrapped up into one Valentine's day for us. We now stay in and do our own cooking...as romantic as it gets when there is a 15 year old in the house!!

I did manage to bake up some heart shaped sugar cookies with a cinnamon royal icing...the students (and fellow staff) at work seemed to really enjoy them...I also truly enjoy the cheers of the students when they realize that Mrs. Morton has baked for them....music to my ears really!

The cookie dough is my favourite all time, stand by sugar cookie recipe...I use it for all things sugar cookies. You can add all sorts of things to it such as flavourings and colourings to suit your holiday or event needs. Many times, like with these cookies, I tend to flavour up the icing. At Christmas, I like to use peppermint in the icing and for Valentine's Day, I tried out this cute little bottle of cinnamon oil....great results I must say!
This is also my recipe for making the Star Wars cookies we all love so much!! (You can find the picture of these at the bottom of the page!



Sugar Cookies for all occasions
Printable sugar cookie recipe

• 3/4 cup butter, softened
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 2 1/4 cup flour
• 1/4 tsp salt

In a bowl, combine and set aside:

• 2/14 cups flour
• 1/4 tsp salt

In the bowl of your stand mixer, or in a bowl with a hand held mixer, or an old fashioned bowl with a wooden spoon, cream together until light and fluffy:

• 3/4 cup butter, softened
• 1 cup sugar

Add to this, and continue to beat:

• 1 egg
• 1 tsp vanilla (or flavouring of your choice)

Add the flour mixture and continue to mix until the flour is well incorporated.

Form the dough into 2 discs, wrap in plastic wrap and chill for about an hour. Chilling the dough makes is so much easier to roll out and keeps the cookies from spreading while baking.

Preheat the oven to 350F

Lightly dust the counter top with some flour and roll out a disc of dough to 1/8 to 1/4 inch thickness.
.
Using the cookie cutter of your choice, cut out the shapes of your choice.

Transfer the shapes to a silpat or parchment paper lined baking tray.


Bake at 350 F for 10 to 12 minutes or until slightly golden at the edges.


Allow the cookies to cool for a couple of minutes before transferring to a cooling rack.

Once the cookies are cool, decorate!!


I used the royal icing recipe from the can of Wilton powdered egg whites!



Beat together:

• 3tbsp powdered egg whites
• 4 cups icing sugar
• 6 tbsp warm water (adjust amount for desired thickness/thinness)

Since I wanted a thin icing, I add more than 6 tbsp of water.

,

I also add 1/16 of a tsp of this cinnamon oil to the icing. It is really powerful. It even has a warning on the back about not getting any in your nose or your eyes...also a warning about steam...very potent!! It is the kind used in candy making. (Although I do think that next time, I will add 1/8 tsp next time as there was a faint taste of cinnamon, I wanted a little bit stronger of a cinnamon flavour in the icing)

Also add any colourings to the icing at this point as well.

For these cookies, I want a thin icing as I am dipping the cookies into the icing, then letting the excess drip off with a little help from a spatula and letting them dry.

Dip, dip, sha na na na, sha na na na na!

Allow the cookies to dry for a couple of hours, or over night.

To see some other amazing treats, go see Lisa at Sweet as Sugar Cookies....check out her linky party!

Until next time, stay warm and eat well!!