C is for COOKIE! | Just About Baked

Chocolate Almond Blossoms

August 24, 2014
Mir
C is for COOKIE!
8 Comments

Going back to teaching after a summer off is always quite a wake-up call. You see, we teachers get up early. In my case, crazy lady early. I like to fit my workout in first thing in the morning, so that means I’m up by 4:15 on most days. On the plus side, all I have to do after work is play and do homework with my kids, give them dinner, do baths, and put everyone to bed. And then grade lots of papers.

So yeah, it gets a little bit tiring. Especially after rising at the late hour of 6 A.M. during the warm summer months.

But hey, we always adjust! Human beings are super adaptable. In a week or so, I’ll be feeling no pain. Until then, sugar has to give me some extra energy. Hello, cookies!

My Birthday (Cookie) Cake!

August 17, 2014
Mir
C is for COOKIE!, Cakes, Let Them Eat Cake
16 Comments

My birthday cake is kind of a problem every year. You see, I am the family cake baker. So when it comes time for someone to provide a cake for me, there’s usually a debacle of some kind.

This year was no different. My husband tried really hard to get my favorite Baskin Robbins cake, but they now have some non-functioning system where you can only order a cake online, except it doesn’t work. He tried everything. Calling, going in, ordering online. Nobody would let him get a friggin’ cake. So I wound up baking my own. But that’s okay, because then I know it’s perfect!

Birthday Cake Mini-Cheesecakes

August 6, 2014
Mir
C is for COOKIE!, Cupcakes and Cheesecakes
14 Comments

My birthday is coming up later next week, y’all. Feel free to shower me with gifts! I’m not picky. I’ll take just about anything. Except thrift shop clothing. No matter how hard I try, I just can’t jump on that bandwagon.

I was at a meeting the other week and a woman I really like started talking trash about people who celebrate “birthday month” or “birthday week.” I wanted to yell at her. A lot. Because heck yeah, it’s my birthday month! Eat that, you meanie!

Except I like her. Just not when it comes to birthdays.

Toffee Bars (Dairy-Free!)

Some recipes are more special than others, and there are always reasons behind that. Food ties in strongly to childhood and nostalgia, and that’s why these bars strike a particularly deep chord within me.

Along with Entenmann’s chocolate frosted donuts. Man, do I yearn for those on an almost daily basis. But we’ll get into that one another day!

Carrot Cake Whoopie Pies

August 1, 2014
Mir
C is for COOKIE!, Cakes, Let Them Eat Cake
26 Comments

I’m starting to feel it. The sense of looming dread begins as August begins and summer starts its slow descent toward autumn. Sorry about the gloom, everyone. But as much as I love summer, I hate how short it is! Shakespeare wrote that “Summer’s lease hath all too short a date.” Duh, Will. Tell me something I don’t know, okay?

Someday I’m going to live in a warm climate. Someday.

But for now, I just have to do things to keep myself from getting all maudlin. Enter these whoopie pies!

Magic Middle Cookies

When I was in college, this really eccentric husband-wife team oversaw my dining hall. They looked like a sweet older couple, but he always made really dirty jokes and she would shoot you the evil eye forever if you so much as left a scrap of food on your plate. But they fed me, so I was grateful.

Every now and then, they’d serve the best slice and bake cookies in the universe. No, I’m not exaggerating, so leave me alone. They were really the best. And I’ve hunted them down for years without any luck. It’s so sad!

They were rich chocolate cookies, huge ones, with an amazing peanut butter center that reminded me of a Reese’s peanut butter cup. Can you wonder at all why these were my idea of perfection? Years later, I learned that this kind of cookie is called a Magic Middle. And while they are magical, they can take a while to make with both the cookie dough and the peanut butter center dough. So I made up a shortcut, a cheat, a whatever. And they taste even better than the labor-intensive ones!

Pink Velvet Cookies

My kids don’t eat my desserts.

Let me backtrack. When I became a mom, I decided I would bake for my children. They would take freshly made cookies for granted, know the exact texture and thickness of a perfect brownie, and crave my homemade creations with nostalgia when they grew up and left home.

I didn’t realize that small children don’t really like anything decadent. You have to keep it simple. Like, a plain cookie. A sugar one. With nothing else. Sigh. It doesn’t really appeal to my creativity, I’ll tell you that!

But I finally hit upon a cookie that both they and I love! Thank the powers above, because I was in the mood to be cute and girly today, not boring.

Peanut Butter Ganache Cookie Bars

So this week I went back to work for all-day leadership meetings. I’m a teacher, which means I get summers off, but I’m also the elected faculty representative for the other teachers in the building, so I work a bit here and there when my colleagues are off having beach time.

Anyway, I’ve come to a very important conclusion about going back to work.

It makes me more productive! I know, duh. But it makes me work better everywhere. The house is neater. My bills are paid. And I baked three different things today, all of which I’m so excited to share with you! And the first is this evil little puppy right here.

Bakery-Sized Chocolate Chip Cookies

The first time I ever saw Superman (the good one, with Christopher Reeve), I got really confused when they showed the Kryptonite. See, it was glowing and green and all bright. It didn’t look remotely like a chocolate chip cookie.

If Superman were real, that’s what Kryptonite would be for him. Because I know that’s what chocolate chip cookies mean to me, and the rest of humankind as we know it. Nobody can resist them. Seriously. I’ve never met anyone (except my chocolate-hating son, but we’ve all agreed that he’s beyond understanding) who hates a chocolate chip cookie.

Twix Cookies

Have you ever been to DC? You know, our nation’s capital? If you haven’t, get down here immediately! There is so much to see and do, and a lot of it is free!

Well, kind of. The National Zoo is free, and they have a cute baby panda named Bao Bao. But in exchange for watching all of the adorableness as he tumbles down hills while trying unsuccessfully to stand up, you have to pay a $22 flat fee to park in the zoo lot. So it’s not exactly free, unless you want to go with street parking. Which you could, if you find a free spot. Or take the subway. But that’s not free either.

Okay, I’ll stop griping. Really, the National Zoo is very nice. Even with the absence of giraffes. And the monuments are free, too. And the museums. But not all of them! That International Spy Museum is a tricky biscuit.