Advent Activities Rundown

I cannot believe it is only three days until I begin our annual advent activity tradition. I posted last year about the things we included in 2009, the first year we switched from candy to fun, you can find that post here. Last year I had planned to post our activities six days at a time as they happened but the month was just far too busy for blogging and I only posted the first six. Instead of blogging them in January I saved it for a more timely post...now! I've had several requests for our list of activities. I'm still working on this year's list. Many of these will remain the same since in just two years they've become things the kids really look forward to.

But without further ado here's what happened in 2010:

December 1st
Decorate Your Own Christmas Tree in Your Bedroom

December 2nd
Ice Cream Sundae Bar After Dinner

The slip of paper had to specify after dinner or the kids would've been asking for these as soon as breakfast was over.

December 3rd
Write and Mail Letters to Santa

After they created their letters to Santa we drove to the mall to drop them in the large red mailbox Macy's has set up specifically to collect letters for Santa. The kids enjoy the large Santa mailbox and I like the fact Macy's donates a dollar for every letter to the Make a Wish Foundation.

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Double Chocolate Chunk Cookies

I must share these wonderful cookies with you.

No picture can possibly capture their deliciousness.

No matter how hard I try.

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Easy Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies

The cookies are entirely too simple, perfect for fall and completely adaptable to your tastes. They can be made with only a handful of ingredients...ingredients you very well may have lurking in your pantry right now. Great for Halloween or Thanksgiving get-togethers or just for this afternoon.

All you need is cake mix, canned pumpkin (not pumpkin pie filling), chocolate chips, cinnamon, nutmeg and ginger. I'm a big fan of Betty Crocker cake mixes. I always stock up when they're on sale.

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Duo of Cupcakes: Part Two, PB Blossom Cupcakes

The cookies were done now it was time to try and pull off baking them inside a cupcake for my friend. I follow Bake It in a Cake on facebook and I'm constantly fascinated by the creations. Before I ever discovered BIIAC I had already thought baking sweet surprises inside cupcakes sounded awesome. And I tried to create my own Buckeye Cupcake for my dad's birthday. I need to return to that creation and perfect it. I also have a dream in my head to create a cupcake with a truffle inside that is inspired off Baileys Coffee.

I digress. The task at hand is to bake my Peanut Butter Blossoms inside a vanilla cupcake. I used the cake and frosting recipe here. I didn't change a thing and I was very pleased with the result. Very.

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Duo of Cupcakes: Part One, Peanut Butter Blossoms

Yesterday was my friend's birthday. My friend loves cupcakes and peanut butter and I like to bake so I wanted to make her something special. Something she couldn't find in Atlanta on her annual birthday cupcake hunt. I saw these crazy cupcakes and knew I had to try and create them. The first step was baking the Peanut Butter Blossom cookies. I didn't want to use store-bought cookie dough because it tends to be too soft and thin. I needed these to holdup inside the cupcake. Bake It in a Cake linked to a cookie recipe but since I have not abandoned my quest to bake everything in the Martha Stewart Baking Handbook, I thought I'd check for a peanut butter cookie there first. No luck. The book only has a Peanut Butter Sandwich cookie. Not what I need. However, I stayed true to Martha and found a recipe on her website for Peanut Butter Surprise Cookies. They used mini Reese's cups and if I had any I would've done that too. Can you just imagine? But alas, I only had chocolate kisses. The comments on Martha's cookie indicated these would have a brownie like consistency. That sounded just right.

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Chocolate Butter Cookies with Umph!

The other week I made the super simple, super scrumptious butter cookies. I pondered in that post the results with chocolate cake mix. This weekend I found a box of Betty Crocker Chocolate Fudge cake mix in the top of the pantry and I just happened to have a pack of cream cheese in the fridge earmarked for a Martha Stewart Baking adventure. I could buy more cream cheese; I needed to find out if the cookies worked with chocolate.

I set the butter and cream cheese out to soften while I put the Christmas tree together. I then mixed the softened cheese and butter with a glob of creamy peanut butter, a pour of vanilla, one egg and the discovered box of chocolate cake mix. The mixed batter goodness that Thing Two and I had a sample of was then tucked into the fridge the requisite two hours while I figured out the Christmas tree lights.

With the lights aglow and Yoda watching over us I was now ready to scoop and bake. Twenty minutes later I was popping a warm chocolate cookie in my mouth and rolling my eyes back in pleasure. It was good. Very good. 

You couldn't really taste the peanut butter. I think I need to up that factor next time to really get a punch. Perhaps less cream cheese more peanut butter. I'll have to play around with it. Since the peanut butter wasn't overwhelming I thought the cookie could still use some umph to put it over the top.

I remembered my neighbor telling me the original butter cookies would be excellent with a touch of my buttercream frosting on top. I asked my man if he thought eggnog buttercream or Bailey's buttercream sounded better. He chose...

Bailey's! I'd never made such a buttercream so I just set to creaming the butter and Crisco, adding the powdered sugar then pouring in Bailey's a bit at a time until the taste seemed just right. I also added vanilla extract, almond extract and two drops of chocolate flavored oil.

I just did a small pipe of the Bailey's buttercream on half the cookies.

It took an already great cookie up a notch. And they tasted even better the next day.

I have a lot of the Bailey's buttercream left in the refrigerator. I think I see some cupcakes in my future.

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Straight to Your Butt(er) Cookies

My man was out of town last weekend and my wonderful neighbors invited the kids and I to come over for dinner cooked on their new green egg. When I asked what I could bring she suggested something sweet. After a week on my own with the little ones I didn't have much energy to bake come Saturday morning. Step in this simple, yet delish sounding recipe for Gooey "Butt"er Cookies I saw last week in my facebook feed from My Effing Cookbook blog. The ingredient list was short: yellow cake mix, stick of butter, block of cream cheese, spoon of vanilla and an egg. I had all that. The directions were easy: mix all, chill a few hours, scoop, roll into balls, and bake a dozen minutes. It was a win-win.

You can find the recipe for her cookies here. Be warned she's fabulously irreverent and full of peppery language. She also tells you in real world terms how things should be. My favorite from this recipe would have to be her description to determine when the cream cheese is softened: "Take your index finger, poke the fattest part of your thigh and that’s how soft the cream cheese should be."

Here's the resulting plate of butter cookies. They were so yummy. I baked a lot more than the tiny amount on this little plate. These were just the only survivors left after dinner to snap a picture of.

I think I may try to see what happens if I bake them using a chocolate cake mix next time. And yes, there will be a next time. And a next. And a next...

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Baking Martha's Black and White Cookies

Martha Stewart's Baking Handbook Black and White Cookies

Prior to my adventure to bake recipe number 5 out of 173 in Martha Stewart's Baking Handbook, my knowledge of the Black and White Cookie was limited to the Seinfeld episode. I see this cookie occasionally in glass bakery cases and recall Jerry's assertion to "look to the cookie" for racial harmony. 

“You see, Elaine, the key to eating a black and white cookie is that you wanna get some black and some white in each bite. Nothing mixes better than vanilla and chocolate. And yet still somehow racial harmony eludes us. If people would only look to the cookie, all our problems would be solved.”

Sadly it seems this New York specialty cookie was born not to show us how everyone can get along but as a way for local bakeries to use their leftover cake batter for extra profit. A little extra flour was tossed in with the batter and a cookie was made. Regardless of why this cookie exists, I'm glad I got to know it. Cake never tasted better as a cookie.

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Baking Martha's Cookies: White Chocolate-Butterscotch

The first time I baked these cookies was back in late July when the friend that picked the recipe off facebook was coming over for a playdate. Perfect timing to check another recipe from my quest to bake all the recipes in Martha Stewart's Baking Handbook off the list AND send cookies home with my friend and her kids so I wouldn't eat them all. At 5 Weight Watchers points per cookie, I did not need multiple temptations on my counter.

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