Yes it’s holiday season again. I feel like it hit really early this year. I heard Christmas music at Bloomies before Halloween! This year I’m so happy to be surrounded by all the amazing holiday paraphernalia. Pumpkins all over the place! Turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, hams, you can’t miss it at any grocery store. Everyone gets into it. Starbucks with their special drinks, Dunkin Donuts with special holiday flavors so I figured it’s time for me to experiment with some pumpkin goodness.
We all love pumpkin pie. Those spices mixed with that rich pumpkin puree, mmmm mmm just reminds me of Fall. After 3 batches, I finally perfected the recipe for these scrumptious spiced pumpkin cookies. They’re more like muffin tops. Cakey and spongey like a moist muffin with a delicious maple icing on top. Perfect to fill the cookie jar for this holiday season!
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Posted by: Maggie Ha
Category: baking, food, mmmm, recipes
Tags: baking, cookies, cooking, desserts, food, holiday, recipe, recipes, sweets, thanksgiving
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Packing up and selling all my belongings has got me in a bad mood. I haven’t been able to cook dinners lately or bake things or just eat normally. I looked at what’s left in my pantry and what’s left of my cooking toys… I have just enough to make peanut butter chocolate chip cookies. YAY! Finally something that won’t stress me out and something delicious to post! Can’t think of a better way to cheer myself up, peanut butter + chocolate.
I’ve been meaning to make peanut butter chocolate cookies for a while now, I think that’s why I have 2 extra tubs of peanut butter in the pantry. Luckily no one has bought my cookie sheets or mixing bowls yet. So a little whisking here, a little taste testing there… and we have peanut butter chocolate chip cookies. Since I’m a sucker for ice cream sandwiches, I had to try these in ice cream sandwich form. I think they might better than my usual snickerdoodle option! It might be a while until my next cooking experiment post so I hope you enjoy it!
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Posted by: Maggie Ha
Category: baking, food, mmmm, recipes
Tags: american, baking, chocolate, cookies, cooking, food, recipe, recipes, snacks, sweets
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I was really excited about my 100th post, so much so that I made alfajores to celebrate. I have been meaning to makes these for quite some time. I’ve always wanted to try Matt of mattbites.com’s version because his photos look so scrumptious I want to eat the screen! But of course I can’t find store bought dulce de leche here so I had to make my own. I did it the cheater way 
simmering a can of sweetened condensed milk submerged in water for an hour and 45 minutes gives you delicious dulce de leche. I’ve always wanted to try that method! Sure the can could explode and I could possibly suffer burns but that’s the fun right? Okay to be honest I was scared the whole time. But the key is to keep the can completely submerged so it doesn’t explode. I used the biggest pot I could find and filled the entire thing with water… just in case!
So Alfajores… a delicious latin treat with two biscuits and dulce de leche in the middle. And then of course powdered sugar on top! I actually really liked the biscuit by itself with just a little sprinkle of powdered sugar. They’re a little cakey and not your usual cookie crunch. Almsot like a little pancake… in fact the house smelled like pancakes the whole time. Mmm I’m going to have another one now.
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Posted by: Maggie Ha
Category: Other, baking, food, mmmm, random, recipes, travel
Tags: baking, cookies, cooking, food, latin, recipe, recipes, snacks, sweets
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Mmmmm, chocolate chips with chocolate?! OH YEAH! I was thinking about making it a triple chocolate cookie by adding white chocolate chunks as well but the store was out! Double chocolate it is!
Vini’s coworker’s birthday is this weekend so I insisted on making some cookies for him to bring to work. I was told he likes chocolate, so here’s double the chocolate for ya! I hope they like it!
I played around with my chocolate chip recipe and came up with this. You might want to do a test on your first batch to see how you like them to come out. I did 11 minutes for the slightly chewier one and then 12 minutes was perfect for the completely cooked through ones. Test it out, have fun!
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Posted by: Maggie Ha
Category: baking, food, mmmm, recipes
Tags: baking, chocolate, cookies, cooking, food, recipe, recipes, snacks, sweets
{6 comments}
Does that sound right? Sandwich Lemon Cookies with Jam? Jam with Lemon Cookies? Well either way, it’s pretty darn good! The best part is that you can eat the cookies as is, or make them into jam sammiches with your favorite jam. I tried these with every type of jam I could find in the house. I think my favorite is the Beerenberg’s Satsuma Plum jam. The mixed berries one works well also, it balances out the lemon really well. I also used some very sticky and unique tasting Burnt Fig Jam… that one was interesting but good. Vote goes to the plum jam with a close second to the apricot! Try it out and see which ones you like!
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Posted by: Maggie Ha
Category: baking, food, mmmm, recipes
Tags: baking, cookies, cooking, food, lemon, recipe, recipes, snacks, sweets
{10 comments}
I am generally not a fan of sugar cookies. The ones I usually come across are smothered with frosting or look too cakey. The only sugar cookies I do like are from Diddy Riese in LA, and only because I get the snickerdoodles with cookies and cream ice cream in it.
These came pretty good, more cookie than biscuit and with a nice flavor. I put cinnamon and sugar on top of some to make snickerdoodles.
Ingredients:
3 cups of flour - I used pastry flour this time
1/4 teaspoon of salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/4 cups of granulated sugar
1/4 cup of packed brown sugar
1 tablespoon of lemon zest
1 tablespoon of lemon juice
1 cup of soft (but not melted) butter
2 eggs
raw sugar for topping (you can use rough colorful ones or just regular sugar as well)
ground cinnamon (optional)
preheat oven to 350°F or 170°C
Step 1: The Mixing
mix together the flour, baking soda, and salt and set aside. in a separate bowl mix together the granulated sugar, brown sugar and lemon zest. Then add in the lemon juice. Then add in the butter. Mix the butter in really well with the sugar - you shouldn’t be able to see yellow chunks. now add in 1 egg, mix, then add in the other and mix. Once you’ve got the eggs mixed in thoroughly - slowly add in the flour mixture from before. Add in only about a cup at a time, mix, then add in some more. Don’t over mix either!! Just enough to combine everything.
Step 2: Dollop & Bake
Use two spoons to make a 1 1/2 inch ball. Place on a baking sheet lined with parchment. Use the spoon to flatten the top so it ends up being around 2 1/2 to 3 inches in diameter. Sprinkle some cinnamon and sugar on top. (You can skip the cinnamon, it’ll be just as good!) Repeat until you have enough to fill the sheet leaving enough room for the cookies to expand. Place in the oven - middle rack - for about 10 minutes or until a light golden brown.
Step 3: Milk, Plate & Serve
Let the cookies cool on a cooling rack for approximately 10 minutes before pouring yourself a glass of milk to go with your cookies
Hope you enjoy this recipe! More on Thanksgiving recipes coming up this week!
Posted by: Maggie Ha
Category: baking, food, mmmm, recipes
Tags: baking, cookies, cooking, food, recipe, recipes, snickerdoodle, sugar
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Wow yummy. Chocolate chip cookies have about a million recipes. The one that comes on the tollhouse chocolate chip bags is actually a really good one. This one however, was altered from Martha’s kitchen. These are the thin crumbly yet slightly chewy ones. I don’t really like cakey chocolate chip cookies, if it’s cakey, it should be a cake! I used wholemeal flour again (because I have a big bag of it) so it’s slightly good for you
Ingredients:
2 cups of wholemeal all purpose flour (regular all purpose flour is the same portion as well)
1 cup of granulated sugar
1/2 cup of brown sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup of butter (or shortening)
1 whole egg
1 egg white
2 cups of semisweet dark chocolate chips
preheat oven to 350°F or 170°C
Step 1: The Mixing
In a bowl, mix together flour, baking soda, salt. Then in a larger mixing bowl, mix together the butter/shortening with the sugars (the white and brown!). Add in the vanilla, whole egg and egg white. Now fold in the dry mix from before. Mix with a spatula until all combined and then fold in the chocolate chips. The chips should be last!
Step 2: The Baking
use 2 spoons to form dough balls about 1 inch in diameter and place them on a baking sheet about 2 inches apart. they will spread so make sure you give enough space. bake for 12-15 mins - until golden brown. i like my cookies soft in the middle for some reason so i took them out at about 12 mins, keep them in there for another 1 -2 mins to get the middle solid. if you’re using 2 baking sheets, make sure you rotate the trays halfway through the baking time and switch levels.
Let the cookies cool on a cooling tray and enjoy! I actually made a few batches crunchier because Vini likes them crunchy - perfect for ice cream sandwiches just like diddy riese!
Posted by: Maggie Ha
Category: baking, food, mmmm, recipes
Tags: baking, chocolate, cookies, cooking, food, recipe, recipes
{8 comments}
day 2 - i’m eating more. but i’m so hungry still. I’ve had about a tub of carrots today. i don’t think i like them anymore. they’re very dry. i think i’ll try to steam them tomorrow. i have a sudden craving for those little vegan cookies that whole foods sells. yup, not going to find that here.
hmm. just googled vegan cookies, found this wordpresser - vegan cookies.
Posted by: Maggie Ha
Category: random
Tags: cookies, detox, vegan, whole foods
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