“Sorry My Dog Freaked Out Your Kid” Sugar Cookies

The fiancee and I are proud puppy parents to this little guy:

He’s a pug/chihuahua cross and at 7 months old, he’s still the feistiest little guy I’ve ever met…. for the most part. After a run around he passes out hard:

The other day we were down at our local park when our little fur baby jumped on our neighbours little girl (she’s just a wee one at about 2 years old). All he wanted to do was lick her face (one of his favourite past times) and be touched by her (he’s a lover, not a biter), but of course she’s a small kid and panicked at this gargantuan beast barrelling his way towards her. She immediately started bawling and her dad had to pick her up and try to get her to stop protesting that she wanted to leave NOW! Needless to say we felt bad.

Really bad.

Her parents insisted that it was ok, that she’s just a little scared of dogs.

That made me feel worse.. Has our badly behaved puppy implanted a life long fear of dogs in this little girl?

So what do I do when I feel like I’ve wronged someone?

Bake! (Not sure what that says about me and how I cope with stuff… but that’s material for another day)

And what better for a little kid than some fun sugar cookies. Plus they’re a breeze to make and are easily dressed up with icing to make ’em all sparkly and magical. Oh and I have a dog shaped cookie cutter 🙂

So I banged all the ingredients (recipe below) into my kitchen aid and let it do it’s thing. I let it chill in the fridge, then rolled that sucker out and cut out my little shapes. A quick spell in the oven and hey presto:

So my doggy cookies were a bit of a hassle.. those skinny legs were tough to get out of the cutter. Makes them slightly less menacing though, right?

I whipped up a simple icing, using milk instead of egg whites or meringue powder.

Instead of using a fancy piping bag, I just went with the plain old zip-lock technique. A little messy, but makes it easy to add the colouring. Just squeeze a few drops in with the icing then zip it up, smush it around and there you go (this would probably be fun to do with kids if you don’t mind things getting messy).

If you want to add sprinkles/sparkles, make sure you do it before the icing dries, which in my case only took about 20/30 minutes.

Then it was “sit and wait around till they set”…

I’ve packaged them up and I’m just finishing this post before I head out the door to deliver them ..hopefully I’ll make that kid smile today 🙂

Cross your fingers for me!

E

Sugar Cookies (from allrecipes):

• 1 1/2 cups butter, softened
• 2 cups white sugar
• 4 eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 5 cups all purpose flour
• 2 tsps baking powder
• 1 tsp salt

Directions

1. In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugar until smooth. Beat in eggs and vanilla. Stir in the flour, baking powder, and salt. Cover, and chill dough for at least one hour (or overnight).
2. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C). Roll out dough on floured surface 1/4 to 1/2 inch thick. Cut into shapes with any cookie cutter. Place cookies 1 inch apart on ungreased cookie sheets.
3. Bake 6 to 8 minutes in preheated oven. Cool completely.

 

For the frosting, I just blended roughly 3 tbsps of milk with 1 cup of confectioners/icing sugar. You can vary the amount of milk depending on the consistency you’re going for.

 

 

Recipe Card Wednesday: Chickpea Burgers with Tahini Sauce

So tasty 🙂

Meringue Mushrooms and Levelling Up

I used to be really into World of Warcraft, like really into it.

One of the things I took from my time in the realms of MMORPG’s (massive multiplayer online roleplaying games for the uninitiated), was the whole idea of levelling up. I would spend hours grinding away at NPC mobs in order to level up my huntresses agility, undertaking quests to increase my health, fighting against other players to get to the next level. It didn’t take long to realize that life is pretty much the same (apart from there being less orcs, elves and gnomes).

Levelling up your real life skills is essential and the other day, being the crazy baker I am, I decided to level up my piping skills. In the grand scheme of things, being good with a piping bag may not get you far, but it’s certainly something I’ve long thought of being a master at. Plus, I’d never made meringues before, so when I found this recipe over at the Joy of Baking website, I decided I couldn’t resist.

And who doesn’t love cute,mini mushrooms?

A forest of meringue mushrooms

Needless to say, it wasn’t a complete success, being my first time making meringues and my first time really using my piping bag (unless you count my past, messy cupcake frosting attempts – please don’t), but they tasted delicious and I think they look pretty cute 🙂 My first attempt came out looking like a reject from Willy Wonka’s Chocolate factory:

First attempt… failed 😦

The directions on the JoB page were a little daunting. I’m no perfectionist, more of a get ‘er done type of girl, so I used a tip for my bag that was too small (it was all I had) and I probably could have spent more time finishing them off, smoothing the tops and making sure they all stood up on their own (which they sure didn’t). I sprinkled them with a little cocoa and attempted to smudge them slightly to get that mushroom-y feel, but alas, they just look like meringues with cocoa on them. Luckily for me, my fiancee (the lucky recipient of my baking trials and errors) proclaimed them delicious and ate the lot.

+1 for my piping skill 🙂

Have fun levelling up! xo

Recipe: Amazing Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

I would’ve taken photos of the finished product, but honestly.. they went that fast. Next time you have a craving for a seriously delicious, chewy cookie, make these. You won’t regret it.

What to do With a Bag of Almonds?

I’ve had a bag of chopped almonds sitting in my kitchen for about a month and a half now. Every single time I open that cupboard, they catch my eye, nestled in their Zip-Lock bag between my organic vanilla and baking powder. So I finally decided to do something with them. I went searching and I found this little gem of a recipe over at the flourishing foodie

Mine didn’t come out looking quite as pretty as hers, but after a long day and some serious hours spent in the kitchen beforehand making pork chops, I couldn’t have been happier with the tasty little treats. I also chose to dust mine with some vanilla bean icing sugar. I also ended up using raspberry jam instead of strawberry – worked just as well.

Next time I won’t be so lazy and I’ll get my Canon 5D out to take pictures with, instead of using my iPhone.

 

strawberry almond thumbprint cookies

(makes 18 – 20 cookies)
(recipe adapted from Herriott Grace)

Prep time: 20 minutes
Cook time: 20 minutes

Ingredients
3/4 cup almonds, chopped
1 egg, separated
1/2 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
1/2 cup white granulated sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1 1/4 cups all purpose flour
pinch of salt
1/2 cup strawberry jam

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 350 F.

2. Chop the almonds and set to the side. Separate the egg white and yolk and set to the side.

3. In a med-large bowl, cream the butter and sugar until pale yellow with a hand mixer or stand mixer with the paddle attachment.

4. Add the vanilla and egg yolk and cream until light and fluffy. Add the flour and salt and mix until all ingredients come together.

5. With a small ice cream scoop #100, measure out 20 small balls. Roll them between your hands to form a uniform ball ~ 20.

6. Dip them into the beaten egg white and then roll them in the chopped almonds. With the bottom of a cup, flatten into disks. With the end of a wooden spoon, create small indents on the top of the cookies. Drop a tsp or more of the jam into the indent.

7. Place onto a cookie sheet and bake in the oven for 20 minutes. Let cool on a wire rack.

Welcome to the foxy baker…

Welcome to the foxy baker. My name is Eliza (a.k.a the foxy baker) – I’m a 25 year old video editor who spends an unhealthy amount of time in front of a computer screen. In order to maintain functioning legs and to prevent my brain from turning to mush, I spend as much of my free time as I can creating tasty treats (and usually making a complete mess in the process) in the kitchen or turning whatever I can get my hands on into little works of art.

I’ve taken the plunge into the blogging universe (with some trepidation) for a variety of reasons:

1. To share my baking creations with other taste enthusiasts.

2. To motivate myself to keep trying new things in the kitchen (and out of the kitchen)

3. To meet others, like me, who are amateur cooks and crafters, in order to share what works and what dosen’t.

4. To finally meet someone who can tell me what to do with the inordinate amount of vanilla bean infused icing sugar I have in my kitchen. Seriously. If anyone out there reads this and knows of some good recipes that call for vanilla bean infused icing sugar, let me know what they are. There’s a cookie in it for you.

the foxy baker