Disaster Chef: Cinnamon Roll Pancakes

When I found this recipe on Recipe Girl a few months ago, I knew I wanted to make it even though it is soooo not healthy. But sometimes, you just gotta indulge. In this instance, my son asked me to make them, and I told him I'd make them for his birthday. Of course I then forgot all about it. But he didn't. On his birthday morning, he reminded me, so I put them together. They do take a loooong time, since they have 3 different components. I wouldn't just whip these up any day, since they took hours to make. But for special occasions, yes. My son already asked me to make them again for his next birthday. Knowing him, he'll remember, too.

Without the frosting.

For these, you have to make the cinnamon swirl, the pancakes, and the frosting.

First, I made the cinnamon swirl.
4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) butter,  melted
1/4 cup + 2 tablespoons packed light brown sugar
1/2 tablespoon ground cinnamon
Mix ingredients and pour into a ziplock sandwich bag. Set aside.

Next, I made the frosting. I'm not sure why mine turned out so dark, maybe the vanilla I used was too dark? I used pretty much exactly what the recipe specified, but mine was sort of caramel colored instead of a nice pearly white like the original recipe:
4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) butter
2-ounces cream cheese, at room temperature
3/4 cup powdered sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
Melt the butter, then stir other ingredients into pan, mixing well after each addition.

On with the pancakes. Mix together
1 cup all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 cup milk
1 large egg, lightly beaten
Mix together flour and baking powder, then other ingredients, mixing until moistened but still a bit lumpy.

Pour about 1/4 c. batter for each pancake into a skillet and let cook a couple minutes before cutting corner out of sandwich bag and drawing the circle on the pancake.You might have to squish the baggie a bit if the cinnamon mixture has separated. It should be toothpaste consistency as it squeezes out of bag.

Once turned, the cinnamon swirl melts into the pan, leaving a crispy, sugary, hollowed out swirl pattern in the pancake.

Turn it out onto a plate with the swirl side up. Drizzle with frosting to finish. They don't need anything extra--no butter or syrup.

As I said, these were sinfully delicious. I never use white flour exclusively, but I really wanted these to taste like cinnamon rolls, so I did this time. They were very decadent and delicious, very sweet and rich. I would make them again for special occasions, but not for an ordinary day. They are an indulgence for sure.

Disaster Chef: Kale Soup aka Zuppa Tuscana (Olive Garden copycat recipe)

I've made this dish a handful of times. It's my husband's favorite, and a popular meal I've made for my family. It's an Olive Garden knockoff, though I add a few things and change it up a bit (I'm incapable of following a recipe exactly). It can be eaten as a side, but we always use it for the main course as it is very filling and complete all on its own.

I have used different sites for the recipe every time I've made it, but this time I grabbed this one off Pinterest, from My Kitchen Joys.

I cut the recipe in half, since I was using potatoes and kale from my own garden, and I only had a bit of each. Here's the halved version, which serves 4 as a main course.

2 cups potatoes, sliced 1/4" thick.

In the pot.

3/4 cup onion chopped

2 cloves garlic, minced

2 cups chicken broth (I didn't have this, so I used 1 c. water, then added an extra cup milk at the end)

2 cups water

2 slices of bacon, cooked and crumbled (I never add this and never miss it)

1/2 Lb. Italian sausage

1 packed cup kale, chopped

1/2 cup heavy whipping cream (I used whole milk, plus the extra cup to make up for the chicken broth, which made it plenty creamy)

*I also add a can of beans, usually red kidney but this time white kidney, as my husband and son like those better.

Place onions, potatoes, chicken broth, water, garlic in pot and cook on medium heat until potatoes are done. Meanwhile, brown sausage and crumble. Add sausage and kale. Add salt and pepper to taste. Simmer for another 10 minutes. Turn to low heat, then add cream. Heat through and serve. 

Every recipe for this soup that I've used calls for putting kale in at the end, with the cream, but I don't like my kale very tough. It's still plenty chewy after cooking 10 minutes. This soup is a big hit with everyone who has tried it.

Recipe: 4 spoons of goodness
Product: 5 spoons

Disaster Chef: Buckwheat Noodles with Honey Lime Sauce

Finished product.

I was looking for a good recipe to make with buckwheat noodles, which I LOOOOVE, so I grabbed one off pinterest. I like more veggies in my meals so I used a whole carrot. I then discovered I didn't have any green onions, so I used about 1/4 of a regular onion and fried it (along with the grated carrots, since I don't really like raw carrots much).

I followed the dressing recipe from Joylicious blog  closely, though!

Ingredients

• Handful of buckwheat soba noodles (the ones I get come in handy serving-sized portions)
• 1/2 lime, squeezed (I didn't have a fresh lime, so I used about 2tbs. lime juice from a bottle)
• 1 tablespoon soy sauce
• 2 teaspoons honey
• 2 teaspoons sesame oil
• 1/2 carrot, shredded (I grated one whole carrot and sauteed it...the next time I made it, I also added a couple sliced mushrooms and some shredded cabbage and sauteed everything...it was delicious!)
• 1 tablespoon toasted sesame seeds (I didn't have these so I left them out)
• small handful of cilantro, cleaned and chopped
• 1 tip of a green onion, cleaned and chopped (I used 1/4 of regular onion, sauteed)
• 1 teaspoon oil
• 2 eggs

The sauce mix.

Instructions

1. In a medium pot fill with water and bring to boil. Drop noodles in and cook for 4 minutes at medium heat at a gentle boil.
2. Rinse carrots and herbs and pat dry. Shred carrot and set aside. Finely chop cilantro and green onion and mix with shredded carrots (and if you're me, saute them now).
3. Test to see if noodles are semi firm, if so turn heat off immediately. Allow pasta to further cook in the hot water for an additional 2 minutes. Meanwhile prepare the dressing.
4. In a bowl combine lime juice, soy sauce, honey, sesame oil and sesame seeds. Whisk well and set aside.
5. Test noodles for preferred firmness/softness and strain. Return noodles to pot and mix in carrots, herbs and dressing.
6. In a medium pan, heat oil over medium high heat. Crack egg(s) carefully into pan and fry until edges are browned and whites are set (sunny side up). Flip over and cook for about 1 minute for over easy, ~ 2 minutes for over medium, ~3 minutes for over hard. (I did all this in the same pan, just pushing the veggies to the sides and frying the eggs in the middle, then tossing it all on top of the noodles and sauce, and mixing it as I ate to get some sauce on the veggies).
7. To serve: Place noodles in a bowl and top with fried eggs. Feel free to add a dash of chile powder or chile sauce for an extra punch!

This recipe is wonderful, because it is so versatile and easy! I've made it three times, changing it every time. Sometimes I add extra veggies, sometimes I use only one egg, sometimes I add chili powder or cayenne on top. It's one of my favorite Pinterest recipes, and I think it's the only one I've gotten around to more than once. I love buckwheat noodles, and I've made this three times in the last month. I think I'll just add whatever veggies I have on hand, keeping the noodles, dressing and cilantro the same every time.

Recipe:  5 spoons of easiness
Outcome: 5 spoons of deliciousnsess

Disaster Chef: Peanut Butter Baked Oatmeal

My son is a picky eater, so sometimes dinner is a bit of a battle as it seems he never gets anything he likes. Once in a while, I like to let him choose dinner. Usually he’ll ask for a grilled cheese sandwich or something. But after trying baked oatmeal at my sister’s house, he’s really wanted me to make it. So, I looked up baked oatmeal on Pinterest and found about a billion recipes. He chose peanut butter baked oatmeal, and even though it’s summer and I encouraged the more summery blueberry baked oatmeal, he wanted the pb version, so that’s what I made.

Here is the recipe, off the fabulous Tidy Mom.

• 1-1/2 cups quick cooking oats (I used regular and increased cooking time to 30 mins)
• 1/4 cup packed brown sugar (here I used 1tbs black strap molasses)
• 1/4 cup white sugar (I used xylitol instead)
• 3/4 cup milk (whole milk)
• 1/4 cup melted butter
• 1 egg (I used 2)
• 1 tsp baking powder (I used 1/4 tsp baking soda here)
• 3/4 tsp salt (and left this out)
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1/2 cup Skippy® Peanut Butter (I used East Wind organic)

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350° and grease a 9×13 pan. Mix all ingredients together in a large bowl and stir well. Spread in to pan and bake for 20-25 minutes (I used 30 mins for regular rolled oats) or until edges are golden brown. Serve with warm milk poured over top (I used cold milk and sliced bananas, like Tidy Mom suggests).

As you can see, I altered nearly everything in this recipe. It wasn’t very sweet when it came out, and my son complained about it, but he ate up a whole big bowl full. If I was making it for breakfast, I wouldn’t want it to be super sweet anyway, and with bananas and milk, it was just sweet enough. I also added an extra egg, since we have our own and I like to use them whenever I can. I don’t use baking powder, so I used ¼ tsp. baking soda instead. And I left out the salt, since I’m very sensitive to the taste of salt in baked goods.

The outcome was pretty tasty, but I don’t know if I’ll make it again, and not in the summer, for sure. It’s heavy and wintery with the peanut butter. I might try the blueberry one this summer, though. It was super easy and only required one bowl and one pan.

Recipe: 3 out of 4 spoons.

Product: 3 out of 4 spoons.

Disaster Chef: Traditional Beef Stroganoff

Last month I posted about a beef stroganoff with wine sauce. While I was looking for stroganoff recipes, I found many, most with cream of mushroom soup. While I liked the wine sauce, I wanted to try my hand at a more traditional stroganoff, too. So I made this for my family.

I'm not big on using prepackaged foods, so I made my own cream of mushroom soup. See recipe on last week's post, here.

The recipe I used this time was a quick and easy one from Everything in Moderation, again using ground beef, although I used lamb. I admit, I'm not the hugest fan of lamb, and I ended up with a lot of it when one of my friends offered me a year-old sheep. Since it was raised outdoors and not mass-market, of course I accepted. I have to find recipes that will somewhat disguise the flavor, so this one seemed like a good one for some of the ground lamb. But I don't think it would be much different using beef, except beef may have a bit more fat in it.

Here is the recipe. It was super easy!

1 lb. lean ground beef (I used lamb)
1 med. onion, chopped
1 T. Cornstarch
1/4 cup cold water (I used milk here)
1 tsp. garlic powder (here I substituted 3 cloves of fresh garlic, minced)
1 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. black pepper
2 cans cream of mushroom soup (I used 2 c. cream of mushroom soup and 1/2 c. whole milk)
1 (16 oz.) pkg. dried egg noodles (we used quinoa for a bed instead of noodles since my sister is gluten free)
1 cup sour cream (or plain yogurt)

Brown beef and onion in skillet till meat is done and onion is transparent (I also added about a cup of sliced portabella mushrooms to the pan with the onion and meat). Drain grease (I didn't do this). Dissolve cornstarch in cold water and pour onto meat. Stir in garlic (saute another 1-2 mins if using fresh), salt & pepper and soups. Cook for five minutes, stirring constantly. Reduce heat to low and simmer for another 10 minutes (everything was done, so I removed from heat after about 3 minutes). Meanwhile, cook noodles (or rice or quinoa) according to pkg. directions. When done, drain . Remove meat mixture from heat and stir in sour cream and mix well. Add to noodles and mix till well blended.

We topped the quinoa with stroganoff, though you can mix if you want. One of my sisters did not like this recipe at all, but everyone else thought it was okay. I liked it, and my son ate some, though he complained and picked out all the mushrooms. So, for a picky eater, maybe not.

Recipe: 4 of 4 spoons.

Clear instructions, very easy.
Product: 3 of 4 spoons. Tasty enough. I'd make it again, though my family isn't a big fan.

Disaster Chef: Pear Pecan Steel Cut Oats (project pinterest)

I bought a bunch of steel cut oats a while back because I heard they were healthier than rolled oats. I didn't know how to cook them, so I did the overnight oatmeal with the first batch. It was okay, but my son did not like the 'chewy oatmeal.' So I ended up eating all 5 jars that I'd made for the week. The next time, I tried to cook it, but didn't leave it in nearly long enough and it was very chewy.

This time I made it the right way, cooking it for a long time with lots of water as directed in the article on two vrooms blog.
Here's their recipe:

1/4 tsp salt
1 c. steel cut oats
1 T + 1 tsp butter
1/2 c. pecans
2 tsp sugar
2 pears (peeled, cored, sliced into chunks). If you don't have or don't like pears, try this recipe with apples instead.
3 T honey
1/4 tsp cinnamon
Half and half

In a medium size sauce pan, boil 4 c. water and salt. Add steel cut oats and wait for it to boil again. Turn the heat down to medium-low. Simmer (uncovered) for 25-35 minutes, stirring often.

In a frying pan, melt 1 tsp butter. Add pecans and sugar. Stir 1 minute: the sugar should melt and coat the toasty pecans. Move them to a cutting board and chop coarsely when cooled.

Right before your oatmeal is done, melt a tablespoon of butter in the frying pan again. Add the pears and stir occasionally for 3 minutes. The juice should come out of them and they should be hot all the way through. Add honey and cinnamon.

It turned out delicious. My son even ate it a couple days, though he still prefers rolled oats. For this recipe, I used pears from the tree outside our new house, which was exciting. I'm not a big fan of pears, but I wanted to find ways to use up the ones on the tree, since they were there and obviously all-natural and organic and not sprayed. So we collected a bucket of them and used some in this recipe. I made it later for my husband, and he liked it, too.

I did not prepare the pecans as directed in the recipe. I just used plain pecans. I added more honey to the pears than the recipe calls for, and more butter, and I cooked the pears for probably 15-20 minutes before they got juicy and somewhat cooked. I didn't want to cook the pecans, as I don't like the way sugar-coated things feel between my teeth. Plus, raw nuts are healthier. So I just threw a handful of raw pecans on top. This breakfast was great all week, healthy and tasty. Sure, it's still just oatmeal. But it was as exciting as oatmeal gets
.

Disaster Chef: Baked French Toast (Project Pinterest)

This was a recipe I tried out during Christmas break when my family was here. My son isn't the biggest fan of French toast because he says it's too soggy, but he loved this. The recipe can be found here, on Parade.

Here's the recipe:

Ingredients

• 1 (12½ oz) loaf of favorite bread (such as challah), cut into 1-inch-thick slices
• 3 cup whole milk
• 7 large eggs
• ½ cup light-brown sugar
• ¼ cup real maple syrup, plus more for serving
• 2 tsp pure vanilla extract
• 2 tsp cinnamon
• ¼ tsp nutmeg

Directions

1. Generously butter a 13 x 9–inch casserole. Arrange bread slices in dish, staggering in rows.
2. In large bowl, beat together milk, eggs, brown sugar, maple syrup, vanilla, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Pour over bread and press down, making sure slices absorb liquid. Cover with foil.
3. Refrigerate overnight.
4. Preheat oven to 350°F. Remove foil and bake casserole 55 minutes to 1 hour, until puffy and golden. Serve with more maple syrup, if desired. 

I used whole wheat bread and spread it out on two dishes because when I layered the bread, it wasn't under the milk. We only had 2 cups of milk, so I used that and a half cup of half & half. Our chickens definitely don't lay large eggs, so ours were small. I used only 2 tbsp. of sugar and syrup, and 1 tbsp. of cinnamon and 1/2 tsp nutmeg. I baked until the bread got puffy and took it out. It got nice and crisp on top, and everyone liked it, even my son, since it was not at all soggy.

Disaster Chef: Pumpkin Pancakes (Project Pinterest)

So, maybe the first or second thing I ever made off Pinterest was pumpkin pancakes. But apparently I didn't pin the recipe! So this past fall, when we had tons of pumpkins from the garden, I went looking for the recipe I made the year before. Of course I didn't remember it/couldn't find it. But there were about a million pumpkin pancake recipes, so I picked one and rolled with it. This time I made sure to pin it, since my son really likes pumpkin pancakes.

I followed the recipe from table io pretty closely.

Ingredients

Wet Ingredients:
• 1 1/2 cups milk
• 1 cup pumpkin puree
• 1 egg
• 2 tbsp vegetable oil (I skipped this)
• 2 tbsp apple cider vinegar
• 
  
Dry Ingredients:
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 2 tsp baking powder (left this out)
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 2 tsp pumpkin spice
• 1/4 tsp ground cloves
• 1/2 teaspoon salt (left this out)

Instructions

1. In the bowl of a stand mixer, add the wet ingredients and mix using the flat beater attachment. In a separate bowl, stir together the dry ingredients with a spoon or whisk. Pour the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients and stir until just combined.
2. Heat a griddle or skillet over medium heat. Spray lightly with cooking spray and add about 1/4 cup pancake batter. Cook the first side until lightly brown and the edges begin to set. Flip the pancake over and cook until browned. Place a clean kitchen towel over the cooked pancakes as you prepare the rest.

I mixed all of it by hand and the batter was super thick. The kind of thick where the pancake doesn't cook in the center. And nothing is more yucky than raw pancakes batter in the center of an otherwise delicious pancake. So I added more milk to thin the batter. But then they got all weird and foamy like my snickerdoodle pancakes. At least these ones didn't taste all weird and sour! I added more flour to thicken them up, and then spread the pancakes very thin. The batter doesn't flow out nicely, so I had to spread each one in the pan, but once I did that, they cooked all the way through and were tasty enough for my son.

Pancake success.

Rating: Recipe 3.5 out of 5 spoons, after I figured out how to cook them.

Needed better instructions on spreading doughy batter. Wasted a few pancakes before I got it right.

Disaster Chef: Lazy Crockpot Lima Beans

I started this meal how I start most of my meals: I had some time to cook. I didn't know what to cook. I went to the fridge and the pantry several times. I saw a package of beans I'd had for quite some time. I don't know anything to make with lima beans except succotash, so I went to Pinterest, like always. And I found this crockpot recipe from this blog. I had most of the ingredients, so I gave it a shot.

Let me just say, that when I'm cooking in the crockpot, it's because I'm being lazy. I don't want to have to cook stuff in a pan first. So I just dumped all the ingredients into the crockpot instead of doing all the prep work she requires in her recipe. I also added some frozen kale, shredded turkey (Thanksgiving leftovers come in handy) and a can of corn, since the spices gave it a southwestern type flavor. Also, I did not use precooked lima beans, so I cooked it a bit longer than she calls for.

Here's what I used:

1 pound dried baby lima beans, rinsed and soaked
2 TBSP olive oil
1 onion, diced
1 bell pepper, seeded and diced
2 jalapenos, seeded and diced
salt and pepper
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 TBSP all-purpose flour
2 c./1 can chicken or beef broth and enough water to cover all ingredients (if uncooked beans, about 4 c. extra water will be required for cooking beans)
1 can crushed tomatoes/1 pint canned tomatoes if you do your own
1-2 c. kale, chopped (frozen or fresh)
1 can corn
1-2 c. leftover turkey or chicken (optional)
2 TBSP cumin
2 tsp chili powder
2 tsp paprika
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
2-3 TBSP maple syrup

Toss everything in the crockpot, make sure it's all just covered with water, and cook 6 hrs on high or until beans are soft.

*A word about beans: To properly cook beans, they should first be soaked to remove naturally occurring toxins, as per Weston Price's directions. The night before you want to cook your beans, put then in a large bowl and cover with a good amount of water. I'd recommend at least twice as much as the beans or more, as the beans swell while soaking and you want them to be covered with water. In the morning, pour off the water, rinse the beans real quick, and throw them in the crockpot with new water. If you don't know who Weston Price is, you should. He wants you to eat lots and lots of butter :)

I added some Parmesan on top, because I add it to every soup, even when it doesn't go. I don't think the original recipe would have been enough for a meal, but with all the additions, it was a meal, not just a side dish, though it could serve as either. It's not my favorite, but I'd make it again if I couldn't think of anything else to make. Everyone ate it, and it didn't get complaints.

Recipe: 3 out of 5 spoons

Disaster Chef: Snickerdoodle Pancakes #foodiefriday #projectpinterest

Another disastrous Disaster Chef project here for you today. This week it’s snickerdoodle pancakes. Remember my post about making snickerdoodles, and how I didn’t have any cream of tartar? Well, I got some. And I made snickerdoodles again, and they were everything a snickerdoodle should be. I was so inspired, in fact, that the next morning I decided I’d make snickerdoodle pancakes, which I’d seen on pinterest while searching for the cookie recipe.

First let me say, pancakes can be tricky. I did my fair share of burning them when I started making them a few years ago, and had a number turn out with raw centers. But my son LOVES pancakes, so I got better at them. In fact, now it’s one of the few things I consistently rock. I make all varieties—apple, pumpkin, banana, blueberry, plain…And my son loves them all. Because, let’s face it, I’ve become a pancake expert.

I was just cooking for my son and me this time, so I halved the recipe. It can be found here.

Think this looks moist and soggy? It's worse!

Snickerdoodle Pancakes

Author: Melissa @ No. 2 Pencil

Recipe type: Breakfast

Cuisine: American

Prep time:  5 mins

Cook time:  10 mins

Total time:  15 mins

Serves: 4

Snickerdoodle Pancakes!

Ingredients

• 1 cup of all-purpose flour
• 3 tablespoons of sugar
• 2 teaspoons of cream of tartar
• ½ teaspoon baking soda
• ½ teaspoon of kosher salt
• 2 teaspoons of cinnamon
• ¼ teaspoon of freshly grated nutmeg
• 1 cup of sour cream
• 4 tablespoons of melted butter
• 1 egg, lightly beaten
• ¼ – ½ a cup of milk

Instructions

1. Combine dry ingredients in large bowl and whisk to combine.
2. Add wet ingredients and whisk just until combined.
3. Use ¼ cup of milk for thicker, fluffy pancakes. Add more milk for thinner, tender pancakes.
4. Pour ¼ cup of pancake batter onto hot non-stick griddle.
5. When edges of pancakes start to set, flip and cook until light golden brown.
6. Serve with butter and warm cinnamon vanilla glaze.
7. Makes about 16 pancakes.

I don’t know if it was the cream of tartar (it seemed like it called for an awful lot), but the batter was this really weird gelatinous consistency. I did use plain yogurt in place of sour cream, since I didn’t have a container of sour cream on hand. But I’ve used this substitution lots of times, and it’s always worked fine. In fact, I always use yogurt in pancakes, because it gives them a wonderful tender quality. This time, not so much.
   

Waiting, and waiting, for this to solidify...

I put the first pancake in with high hopes. Then I proceeded to wait, and wait, and wait for it to get solid around the edges. Finally, it looked sort of solid so I tried to slide a spatula under it, but it sort of folded up. I did manage to get it turned, then waited a few minutes and took it off. It had taken a long time to solidify around the edges, so that side was a little overcooked. Fine, it was a bit burned. But still edible. I decided to eat that one myself and make a better one for my son. As I browned his pancake to perfection (see picture), I ate the one I’d made. IT WAS TERRIBLE! It was super sour for some reason, and even though it was scorched on one side, the middle was all gooey. Not raw, mind you. More like…foamy pudding. Or that whipped yogurt Yoplait put out a few years ago.

The one that looked good.

These things would not cook! Even though the second one looked beautiful, it was all gooey in the middle too. I tried adding more liquid, then more flour, then turning the pan on the lowest setting, which couldn’t burn anything if you left it all day. I left a pancake in there on low for about 20 minutes, even putting a lid on it so the top would cook, even if it turned out cake-like. No. It NEVER cooked. It just solidified the gelatinous goo.

This was a huge disaster, unless you like really gooey, gummy, sour pancakes. I will never make it again.

The cinnamon glaze was good, though.

Warm Cinnamon Vanilla Glaze

Author: Melissa @ No. 2 Pencil

Recipe type: Glaze

Cuisine: American

Prep time:  5 mins

Cook time:  1 min

Total time:  6 mins

Serves: 4

A warm cinnamon vanilla glaze to serve on top of Snickerdoodle Pancakes.

Ingredients

• 1 cup of powdered sugar
• 1 teaspoon of pure vanilla extract
• 1 teaspoon of cinnamon
• 3-4 tablespoons of milk
• 
  

Instructions

1. Whisk all ingredients together in a small bowl. Warm in small pan over low heat.

Disaster Chef: Snickerdoodles, Project Pinterest #10 #foodiefriday

My son has been asking me to make him snickerdoodles for a while now, although I’m pretty sure he only likes the name and doesn’t actually know what they are. So, we were actually home together one day (never happens) last weekend with nothing to do (REALLY never happens), so I made good on my promise and broke out the Pinterest to look for a recipe. Turns out snickerdoodles require cream of tartar (I know—what the heck is that?), which I obviously don’t have. I did, however, have everything else, and some of the recipes said you could use baking soda instead of baking powder and cream of tartar. But they all said that the cookies wouldn’t have that classic doodle flavor without the cream of tartar. But I never let lack of ingredients hinder me (see my cookie cake fiasco if you don’t believe me), so I forged onwards.

Below is the recipe, from Culinary Couture's sweet blog. 

Snickerdoodles

Yield: 2 1/2 to 3 dozen cookies

Ingredients:
1 and 3/4 cups + 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1/8 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup butter (one stick), room temperature
1 cup sugar
1 egg
2 tablespoons milk
pinch of vanilla powder (or 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract)

3 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon

Directions:
Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper. 

In a small bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, cream of tartar, and salt. Set aside.

In a large bowl, beat butter for 30 seconds until creamy. Add sugar, and beat until light and fluffy. Add egg, milk, and vanilla, and beat until well combined.

Gradually pour in dry ingredients, beating after each addition, until well blended. Dough will be slightly sticky, but workable.

In a small bowl, combine 3 tablespoons sugar and 1 teaspoon cinnamon. Shape dough into 1" balls, then roll into cinnamon-sugar mixture. Place on prepared cookie sheet and flatten slightly with the bottom of a glass.

Bake for about 8 minutes. Let cool on cookie sheet for 5 minutes, before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely. 

I like to make my cookies pretty big, so I used a little bigger balls (o.O) and didn't make quite as many cookies. They turned out super pretty, but like all the recipes said, they didn't taste quite like they should without the tartar. Will put it on my shopping list if I try again. They turned out a bit dry, but they all got eaten, so I can't say they were a complete failure. 

 

Disaster Chef: Cookie Cake (Pinterest Project #7)

Though I'm no cook, as most of you know, damned if I wasn’t going to try to make a cookie cake for my son’s birthday. That was what he wanted, and I figured, it’s just like a cookie, right? How hard can it be? You don’t even have to separate the dough into cookies. You just throw the whole mess on a cookie sheet and bake it and, voila, I’m the mom of the year. Of course that’s not how things turn out in the Hillbrand household.

First of all, I got a basic recipe off Pinterest that looked easy enough. I don’t like frosting, and neither does my son, so I figured I’d skip that part, which was the only complicated part of the recipe from Chasing Delicious. If you remember from my previous posts, it’s a difficult thing for me to stick with a recipe. So, again, changes I made are in parentheses. The coconut oil was a necessity, as I found out once I began that we only had one stick of butter in the house. It worked out well, though. I added some whole wheat flour and cut the sugar a bit, but kept it to a minimum so it wouldn’t taste too ‘healthy’ for the kids at the party. We didn’t have many chocolate chips, so I chopped up at 3 oz. chocolate bar and put that in. I would have added white chocolate chips, but we didn’t have any, so I skipped that part. It still ended up with tons of chocolate, as you will soon see.

Ingredients:
8 oz. unsalted butter, at room temperature (I used 6oz. butter, 2 oz. solid coconut oil)
6 oz. light brown sugar (4 oz.)
6 oz. granulated sugar (4 oz.)
2 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla extract
13 oz. all-purpose flour (8 oz. white flour, 5 oz. whole wheat)
3/4 tsp. salt (I always skip the salt--I don't like the salty taste in many desserts)
3/4 tsp. baking soda
6 oz. milk chocolate chips (I used about 4 oz dark choc chips)
6 oz. dark chocolate chips (3 oz. Green and Black Organic's 85% cacoa bar, chopped)
4 oz. white chocolate chips (I didn't have these or I would have used them. Instead, I added about half a cup of chopped walnuts).
Instructions:
1. Preheat the oven to 375°F. Line the bottom of the pizza pan with parchment paper and grease the paper and sides of the pan; set aside.
2. Cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy, about five minutes.
3. Add the eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each.
4. Add the vanilla and mix in well.
5. Add the flour, salt, and baking soda and mix until a batter forms.
6. Add the chocolate chips and mix until they are evenly distributed.
7. Spread the dough into the pizza pan.
8. Bake in a preheated oven for 20 to 22 minutes until the edges begin to brown and the center has set.
9. Cool in the pan for 10 to 20 minutes until cool enough to handle.
10. Remove from the pan and cool on a wire rack until cool enough to decorate.
11. Decorate with frosting as desired and serve.

So, here I got the cookie dough and spread it on the parchment paper as directed, on a flat pizza pan. It looked all round and wonderful. I was starting to actually feel quite pleased with myself.

I put the cake in the oven. About five minutes later, I thought that since I wasn’t going to frost the cake, I should make a big chocolate 7 on top of the cake. So I grabbed a pot holder and opened the oven and pulled out the pizza tray. The tray came sliding out, and the parchment paper with the cookie did not. It slid off the back of the tray into the oven. The paper couldn’t support the weight of the melting cookie dough and proceeded to dump a huge sliding glop of chocolatey goodness into the bottom of the oven. I might have screamed. I may have cursed under my breath. I grabbed the paper and pulled it back onto the tray. Luckily I was able to salvage most of the cookie. I had a time trying to scrape the chocolate mess from the bottom of the oven, though. All that chocolate had melted, so it looked like chocolate cake batter by the time I had scraped it to the edge of the oven. Chunks of it fell down between the door of the oven and the oven itself, but I managed to get enough of it out that it wasn’t smoking.

Then I had the cake to worry about. Since the dough was still all melty, I was able to reform it into a roughly circular shape. But all the melted chocolate made the parts that had been disturbed brown, while the rest of the cake looked like a chocolate chip cookie. It was entirely hideous! I might have started over at this point, except that…I had no butter. It would have taken 45 minutes to run to the store to get some and get back, and I didn’t have that much extra time before I had to get my son to his birthday party. So, I soldiered on with my wounded cookie cake.

When it was done, I pulled it out and let it cool, as directed in the recipe. Then I transferred it to a wire rack, whereupon it broke in several places. I had already decided I’d have to frost it to conceal the mottled color, so I figured it would be okay. I also broke off a little piece near one of the cracks to make sure it was edible, and it wasn’t half bad. When it had cooled completely, I was ready to frost it. I had quite some trouble getting the paper off the bottom of it, so I’d recommend pulling that off when transferring it to the wire rack to cool…if that’s something that someone else doesn’t know to do! As a newby, I had no idea. I’m pretty sure I’ve never used wax paper before, or I’d probably have known to grab the edge along with the pan when I removed it from the oven!

Now I was ready to frost the cake, but of course I had no frosting, since no one in the house likes it. And as it turns out, you need butter to make frosting. I searched several recipes until I found this one, which was the simplest I could find. I searched through the fridge and both freezers and, lo and behold, I found a rogue stick of butter in the freezer! Finally, something was going right.

I set the butter on top of the stove for a while, but it didn’t seem to be thawing and I really needed to get going. So I threw it in the oven, which by now was almost totally cool and hadn’t been on for a few hours. Now here you can tell me I’m really stupid, because I didn’t put it in a bowl or anything. But it was frozen solid, so I just threw it in and ran to take a quick shower. I came hurrying back, opened the oven, and found a big pool of oil in the bottom of the oven and a little chunk of butter in a wrapper on the rack. I definitely screamed, and, since my son wasn’t in the room, cursed thoroughly. Then I rescued the remaining butter and set to work on the frosting. Luckily, I had just enough (minus one tablespoon) for the frosting. I spread a thin layer on the cooled cake, which (mostly) masked the more unappetizing aspects. Then I attempted a clumsy “Happy Birthday” on top in colored icing. I felt very fortunate that my son was too excited about his birthday to even care about the cake, and was completely forgiving even though it was an epic fail. However, it was a hit at the party despite the appearance. Even my mom liked it, and she hates cookie cake. The walnuts totally made the cake. They were just what it needed to make it a little different from the generic. And, the frosting was amazing.

I don’t know that I’ll ever attempt a cookie cake again, as I was somewhat traumatized, but I will definitely use the frosting recipe again. It was super easy, creamy and just sweet enough.

Frosting:
1 block cream cheese
4 tbs. butter (half stick)
 1/2 tbs. vanilla
1 c. powdered/confectioner's sugar
Beat with mixer until smooth and fluffy.

Overall rating:

Cake-3

Frosting-5