Peppermint Hot Chocolate Drop Cookies

These Chocolate Drop Cookies look so cute and low maintenance so I thought they'd contrast nicely with the rather refined Jam Thumbprint cookies. Though perfectly adequate as they were, I thought they'd be more celebratory of the season with the addition of peppermint to make them like a peppermint hot chocolate. While I myself do not enjoy peppermint and am still haunted by vivid memories of gagging my way through every toothbrushing, this was the perfect opportunity to make them because I gave them all away.

Peppermint Hot Chocolate Drop Cookies (adapted from Ashleigh)

1 1/2 cups flour
3/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup unsalted butter
3/4 cup sugar
1 large egg
1 tsp peppermint extract
6 oz melted bittersweet or semisweet chocolate (of course the only things I had on hand was 4 oz milk chocolate and 2 oz dark chocolate)
1/3 cup milk

one. Sift and whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt.

two. Cream together butter, sugar, egg, peppermint extract. Fold in melted chocolate.

three. Alternately mix the dry ingredients and milk into the wet ingredients, ending with milk. Dough will look like a delicious chocolate mousse, if you're into that kind of thing.

four. Drop 1 tsp of dough and bake at a preheated 350 degrees for 10 minutes. Centers should still look soft and edges are just set.



(Photo by Ashleigh, via Mara - again, mine weren't so pretty)

Ina's Jam Thumbprint Cookies

First up on my list are these cookies. I'm a fan of the substitution of fruit for the typical chocolate (I'm not a big chocolate lover), although I will admit these are also really delicious with Nutella instead of jam. Plus, these look so beautiful with their jeweled jam centers. Ina Garten is fabulous, as always, but I added in almond extract to the dough because I love all things almond-flavored (for those who haven't yet, you MUST try almond bubble milk tea!).

Jam Thumbprint Cookies (adapted from Ina)

3 sticks unsalted butter at room temperature
1 cup sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp almond extract
3 1/2 cups flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1-2 tbsp water, if dough is too crumbly
1 egg beaten with 1 tbsp water, for egg wash
7 ounces sweetened flaked coconut
a few favorite fruit jams and/or Nutella (I used plum and peach preserves)

one. Sift and mix together flour and salt.
two. Cream together butter, sugar, vanilla and almond extract until just combined.
three. Add flour and salt to wet ingredients until the dough is just starting to come together. Add in water if the dough is still too crumbly.
four. On a floured surface, shape the dough into a disk, wrap tightly in plastic, and freeze for at least 30 minutes.
five. Roll the dough into little balls (around an inch in diameter) and with your thumb, form an indentation. You can make the indentation bigger so that it will hold more jam. The dough will also flatten so that it looks like a red blood cell.
six. Dip into the egg wash and roll in coconut. Drop about 1/2 tsp of jam or any amount that won't overflow from the center. Jam will melt and run slightly during baking so don't over-do it. Yes, I speak from experience.
seven. Bake for 20-25 minutes at preheated 350 degrees, until the coconut is golden.

Also for my third item, I decided on Pumpkin Spice Cake.

(photo by the Tea Kettle Corner - mine were tasty, but no where near as pretty)

Holiday Baking Frenzy

The Holiday Goodie-bag of 2010 Menu List:

• Jam thumbprint cookies
• Peppermint hot chocolate drop cookies
• A yet undecided cake or bread, or brownies - any suggestions?

This treat bag will be my Christmas gift to my coworkers. I've made and frozen the dough for the two cookies which I'll bake later this week along with the cake, bread, or brownies, when I finally decide. I'll also share the recipes when I get around to the actual baking part. I did actually bake this banana bread for my parents' dinner party tonight. It was served warm with vanilla ice cream and boy, this recipe is a keeper! Maybe it will be banana bread for my coworkers...

(photo via mary ruffle)

The Sing-Off

Hello, you lovely people! Are any of you watching The Sing-Off? I must admit, I have a serious thing for a capella. I'm pretty sure this penchant can be exclusively attributed to a couple performances I had the opportunity to experience in high school by the MIT Logarhythms. I guess they proved to be incredibly formative with their humor, energy, dancing, and inspired vocal talents because to this day, I find those who can do these things, like boys of all-male college a capella groups and musical theater types, to be inexplicably attractive. Devastatingly so. And the nerdier, the better. No? So just me? Well anyway, there's a new episode on tonight and you can catch up on previous episodes too. Also, Ben Folds is a judge. He's totally quirky and even a little bit awkward, but I've always been a fan of his lyrics and music.

I was watching the show last year too. Of course this would be my favorite performance: nerdy boys rapping about borderline inappropriate behaviors.

Namesake

 

This amazingness is not only what I pictured when I chose the title of this little space of mine, but it also has a packed and maized-out Big House! I still love the blue block M in the student section. Such spirit!

Thanks, Breanne!

Twenty Four

Twenty four. Twenty four feels so unimaginably old...

When I was ten, I remember thinking sixteen would be the age of mature innocence (if this phrase could indicate to you the complete oxymoron that I predicted of teenage adolescence). When I was sixteen, I thought twenty was old. And when I was twenty I thought surely twenty four would be the year I would turn into a "grown up".

But now I'm twenty four. I'm older than so many people in the world and younger than so many more. I still can't think where I'm going to be in ten years or ten years after that.

It's dark and quiet. I watch the neighborhood Christmas lights flicker outside my window. They shimmer and glow in the still silence, faintly illuminating the street below. The branches of the wild cherry tree in the front yard sway gently and cast comforting shadows against the back wall of my room.

You never know where you're going to be. I know this idea has been run into the ground and then some, but the thing is, you never quite believe things until you realize them for yourself. That's when you listen to the cliches as if you were hearing them for the first time - as if you were the first to ever think them, the first to ever feel them. Then that cliche isn't a cliche. It's just yours. Your truth. The truth.

Twenty four. So many have been twenty four before me and still more after. But this twenty four, let this one be mine.


(Inspired by S from 2006 when she was only 22, photo from weheartit)

Fitzgerald

I'm currently reading through The Short Stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald that I borrowed from the library. I'm making my way through them slowly and relishing every detail. Fitzgerald has such a seemingly effortless way of setting a scene with his carefully crafted words. For me, his lyrical language has been the epitome of great American writing ever since I first read The Great Gatsby in my 10th grade English class.

Anyway, my reading material appears to have found me at the perfect time. As I'm in a Fitzgerald state of mind, news is breaking out everywhere that Carey Mulligan has just been cast as Daisy Buchanan in the Baz Luhrmann-helmed version of Gatsby. She'll be playing opposite to Leonardo DiCaprio's Gatsby and Tobey Maguire's Nick. The casting, though, is really of minimal concern to me. I am generally wary of when my favorite books are made into movies (so, no, I won't be dressing up for the midnight showing of Harry Potter tonight), but sometimes I'm more than pleasantly surprised. So I'll keep an open mind about this as long as it is as gorgeous and heartbreaking as it has always been in my imagination and that it preserves my favorite line in the book (and perhaps one of my favorite lines in all of literature):

--tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther.... And one fine morning--

(all photos from the 1974 movie)