COOKIES O.O

We had a Masquerade themed cookie party at our place last month. Yes, that means, baking cookies like crazy!! YUM So I baked three kinds of cookies :) I had these candy corns that needed to be used so I tried something new. I made these chocolate cookies with candy corn and my peanut butter cookie with candy corn as well. Not as bad as I thought they might turn out. The candy corn gave these cookies an extra chewy texture, which in my opinion, made it taste great! The third cookie I baked were pumpkin cookies. I was disappointed with those, just cause I ended up falling a bit short on the pumpkin puree and it showed. The pumpkin flavor wasn't all that strong. So all you were getting outta it was mainly the cakey texture that pumpkin cookies have. Oh well, I guess it's just reminding me that, yet again, I can't win in everything. Here are some pictures of the cookies!

Not finding time

So it's been a while, but I honestly haven't been finding myself with much time. Yes, in other words, I haven't been baking :( It's tragic, I almost feel some sort of void in me. But besides this depressing piece of information, I have been cooking (I guess I need to eat, even daily, is what I heard). So here are somethings that I have been making myself for dinner.

I'm playing catch-up already?!

Wow, so I just started this blog and I'm already behind. That's embarrassing. So yes. This is a blog for me to share what I make in the kitchen but I haven't posted anything about food yet -weird. So I have been making stuff, I just haven't posted about them yet. Hm.. lets see. I first made caramel apples for the International Eat an Apple Day party that was at my house two weeks ago. I was debating between different ways of making it, manly the caramel. In the end, I decided to make my own caramel for once.

It had a nice milky taste to the sticky caramel that made it taste as good as it did. I don't know if I could go back to melting caramel candy anymore. Maybe if I get lazy or crunched on time...

The next thing I made worth talking about was some almond butter cookies and chocolate chip cookies.

The purpose of making these were to send them to my little brother that is currently in Calgary. He just got their so I thought I would send him a package. So the almond cookies don't have flour in them (gluten free!) just oats. I used raw sugar, which didn't really dissolve, so the cookies turned out kinda crunchy with little bits of sugar grains here and there. It made it kind of honey comb like. Then with the chocolate chip cookies, I ran out of normal flour so I had to use whole wheat, for the whole thing. It was a sad thing. I also changed the way I made this recipe, different from how I usually make it. So... it turned out flat. The whole wheat, as you can imagine, made the texture of the cookie grainy and with a hint of a nutty flavor. It reminded me of the time my freshman year roommate made chocolate chip cookies with bean flour (she is gluten free). Result: bean flavored, grainy cookies.

Lastly, I was craving rice crispy treats a few days ago. So I was out to make some nostalgic treats. But then it hit me, I forgot that we ran out of mallows! New mission: make some marshmallows! I've been wanting to try making them anyway, so it was a great time to start. It wasn't nearly as tricky as I thought it would be and not only that, I didn't have to completely finish making them! Luckily for me, I didn't want then in their solid form. After making the marshmallow cream I stirred away, making 2 1/2 trays of rice crispy treats!! That crazy large recipe of marshmallows made so much!!

So I made normal rice crispy treats, cocoa rice crispy treats, peanut butter rice crispy treats (mmhmmm... mom made these ones growing up), and cocoa peanut butter rice crispy treats. Good thing I have people to help consume these...

The start of something new

I guess I am finding myself giving in to creating a blog. Today is Labor Day so I figured I could start today. (Oh yes, Happy Labor Day!) So today was started off to a beautiful start, waking up at 6 to go rock climbing this wonderful morning. I met up with some friends at the trail head to hike up to the routes. There were quite a few of us so I only got in three climbs. The last climb made up for it though. It was probably my favorite climb I've ever done. The climb was a 5.9 that went up 115 ft from the starting ledge. As you can imagine, the view was beautiful. After our half-day climb we went to a disappointing restaurant (I'm not going to say the name) for lunch... a very late lunch. All in all, it was a great labor day!

A food blog! Like everyone else...

I'm not one for words, but it has come to my attention that I should be jumping this bandwagon. I am going to try to post, at least consistently. Just a little bit about myself, I LOVE baking :) I found that out my freshman year of college. It didn't really hit me until about the 5th cousin get together us cousins had. We held them monthly and I had at least made a cake each time. I started by just baking the typical cake box cakes with store bought frosting. Okay okay, I did bake a cake from scratch once before my freshman year. It was for a boy. It was the Hershey's "Perfectly Chocolate" Chocolate cake with its "Perfectly Chocolate" frosting. That's when my eyes were opened to how unhealthy frosting was! Don't get me wrong, the cake and frosting were really good! The frosting looked so professional, especially after being refrigerated. I just never knew frosting in all its "nudity". Anyhow, after all those cakes I baked freshman year, it dawned on me how much I loved to bake. I had a gluten-free roommate and so I found a flour-less chocolate cake that I had made for her. As years went on, I progressively branched out. I was exploring and re-inventing recipes, whether it was just to change it up or to healthify it. So, just before I leave this introduction post, you might be wondering when I find time to bake (seeing that I've been baking as a student)? When I'm stressed! When I have work to do but am too stressed just at the thought of it, I turn to baking.