Kenzie Blogs Life: Cookies

Dark Hot Chocolate Cookies

8:30:00 AM

December is a cold month here in Wisconsin, there is a ton of snow and all you really want to do is curl up in front of the fire with a cup of tea or cocoa, or lounge around in the bath. Christmas is also about baking, and while there has been a ton of cookies that have already been whipped up already, I decided to try out a new recipe.

Because you really cannot have enough cookies. Right?

There is an entire can of dark hot chocolate mix in my cupboard and I decided to use some of it up in my favorite form of dessert. Cookies. The first batch I made was awful, and the second was just alright but better and tastier! (They just didn't rise and that's because I didn't chill the dough)

Here's What You'll Need:

1/2 cup butter

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1/2 cup brown sugar

1 egg at room temperature

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 cup flour

1 cup hot chocolate mix

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/8 teaspoon salt

1 cup powdered sugar

large bowl

medium shallow bowl

Here's What You do:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

Beat butter until smooth

Add sugars and then beat again until light

Add in egg and vanilla

In separate bowl:

Stir flour, hot chocolate mix, baking soda and salt together

Then combine wet and dry ingredients

*Chill up to 3 hours

(which I didn't and then I redid the recipe and it worked better)

If you don't then your cookies will be flatter and that's okay!

Put powdered sugar in shallow bowl

Scoop cookie dough into ball shape and roll in sugar

Place on baking sheets

Bake about 8 minutes

Merry Christmas everyone! I hope you had a great holiday and I'll see you soon with more posts! What did you bake for the holiday? Let me know in the comments!

Baking

Funfetti Cookies

8:30:00 AM

It's holiday season, which means it's time to give in to all those sweets. I hardly baked anything this past summer, and being away at school means I have no access to a proper kitchen Recently, I went home and had the perfect excuse to try out a new cookie recipe! I only hope you'll love it as much as I did!

You may remember that a few months ago, I made this batch of cookies. And similarly I had found a box of funfetti cake mix and wanted to whip it up into a batch of cookies. So, here's what you'll need!

1. Baking Sheet

2.Funfetti Cake Mix

3.Veggie Oil

4.Vegan frosting (I used dollop)

5. White Vinegar

6. Baking Soda

7.Cup

First, you can totally un-veganise this recipe by using 2 eggs instead of White Vinegar and Baking soda. The steps are simple to follow and they go like this:

1. Heat oven to 375 F.

2. In large bowl combine cake mix, oil, 2 tablespoons white vinegar and 2 teaspoons baking soda, stir with spoon until thoroughly moistened. If it's a bit crumbly, just add a little bit of water (about 1 tablespoon).

3. Shape dough into 1-inch balls and place 2 inches apart on ungreased pan or parchment paper

4. Flatten cookies with bottom of cup about 1/4 inch thick

5.Bake about 6-8 minutes (or until golden brown edges)

For the frosting, I used this madagascar vanilla flavor from the Dollop company (which has many more flavors and you should check them out). Being a white cookie, I wanted to spruce up the frosting a bit and added red food coloring!

I hope you enjoyed this recipe, and have fun making it! It's nearly Thanksgiving here in the states, which means I am almost done with this semester of school then I will be heading off across the sea for four months! That's crazy!

Have you tried any new recipes lately? Tell me about yours in the comments! :) x

Cake

Mother's Day Recipe: Lemon Cake Cookies

6:00:00 AM

Can you believe that it's already May? And the second week of the month already? We're almost halfway through this year and that's crazy. Last weekend, my family, as well as many other families all over, celebrated Mother's Day. This is a day where we recognize our mother's or mother figures and shower them with chocolates, cakes, and flowers. I mean, they kind of deserve it...they did a lot of butt wiping for us when we couldn't do it ourselves.

Because we might not say thanks as much as they might want to hear, Mother's day is a day to not only say thanks but show just how much we appreciate our moms.

My Mother's Day Weekend consisted of walking up our favorite mountain, and just spending time with the rest of the family outside in the sun. I made some of these delicious lemon-cake cookies. I have hardly made any dessert foods, and I was excited to make these!

Here's What You'll Need

1 package lemon cake mix (I used the box cake mix from the store)

2 eggs

1/3 cup vegetable oil

1 teaspoon lemon juice

1/3 cup powdered sugar

Here's What To Do

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees (190 degrees Celsius)

Line baking sheets with parchment paper

In large bowl, combine cake mix, eggs, oil and lemon juice until well blended.

Put sugar into bowl and roll about 1 tablespoon of dough in it

Bake 6-9 minutes and let cool on cookie rack.

These are beautifully chewy, and refreshing, and just remind me of spring. I love them and can tell you that my family loved them as well! On real Mother's Day (Sunday) we ventured out to a great little place and had brunch.

What did you do to celebrate Mother's Day this year? Who are some of your favorite memories with your mom/mother figure? What women figures do you look up to?

I hope all the moms/moms-to-be had an amazing day!

Baking

The Legend of the Berlin Pretzel Cookies

9:00:00 AM

If you haven't noticed, my second semester away from home has come to an end, giving me more time to help bake which is something I love to do. These cookies, that I've titled this post after, have been passed down through generations and this season it was my turn to learn it. Along with traditions, there are usually stories told with them. For these cookies, the legend is...there has to be sun or they just will not work!

This year, my mom had previously made a batch and the days forecast for our baking day? Rain.

Here's What You'll Need:

2 hard boiled egg yolks-mashed

3 raw egg yolks

2 sticks butter (unsalted, room temp)

1 and 1/2 cups powder sugar

2 and 1/2 cups flour

Sprinkles

3 bowls (one large and two small)

(Christmas cheer and a sunny personality!)

Here's What you Need to Do:

To prep:

Have two small bowls, one with the egg whites, and one with the sugar and sprinkle mixture ready to go!

1. Combine flour and powdered sugar with egg yolks and butter in large bowl.

2. Add raw egg yolks and mix with hands until ball forms. This gets messy!

3. Roll small chunks into balls (about the size of a walnut and roll into strips.

4. Criss-cross one side over the other. (this is called a pretzel but it looks more like an awareness ribbon if that helps your forming.)

5. Brush egg-white glaze over pretzel cookie and dip into sugar. (repeat as you bake)

It's easier to bake each set one by one, instead of two pans at a time. You're also meant to wait until the pan cools off as they're very finicky (it's not only the sun that has to be right about them).

Luckily for us, the legend didn't hold out to be true for this batch and they turned out great! Maybe it really was our sunny personalities and just the feeling of Christmas cheer that made them turn out so well!

I hope you're brave enough to try these cookies, after all sometimes it works and sometimes it just doesn't! I think it's fun just to say "it has to be sunny". It makes them even more special, and I'm glad I got to learn how to make them! ( I posted this photo on instagram if you missed it!)

Did you try any new recipes this holiday season? Or even this year? Did you have any major flops or really great ones? Let me know in the comments!

See you next time! (Tomorrow is Officially the real Christmas! I hope you all have a GREAT holiday!! :) )

xx Kenzie

Baking

Christmas Baking

8:00:00 AM

It's December, and that means many things. Firstly it means that exams are coming up and I have been busy rustling around in my pile of homework and keeping up with due dates. All while munching on some Christmas cookies. Recently, you read about how I spent Thanksgiving day, but I had five days off. So what else did I do? I'll give you one guess.

Figured it out?

I was baking. A lot.

My grandma and I have our traditional baking time where we usually make truffles. I wrote a blog post about those last year and you can read them here. This year, we went all out on Christmas baking.

This year we started off with sugar cookie cut-outs. Even though I won't be home to decorate the cookies like I have in the past, I was still able to help cut the cookies into different shapes.

The dough was in a constant rotation of the photo on the left to the photo on the right side. There may have been a few stray sugar cookie dough bits that popped into my mouth as well. Whoops! What can you do?

After baking the sugar cookies, my grandmother helped me make these delicious turtle cookies that I was going to give to my mom (turtle is her favorite). The dough tasted amazing and I was so excited to try these cookies out and see what my moms reaction would be to the "secret" cookies! If you'd like the recipe for these, it's over on Sally's Blog. They're amazing and you should really try them!

While waiting for the turtle cookie dough to chill in the fridge, we quickly whipped up a double batch of my favorite cookies. Molasses. I made them awhile ago, though never blogged any photos of them. But here they are!

They taste amazing as well.

My mom stopped over to help us with the truffles. It went a lot faster with three people, which was really fun and actually even better since we got to enjoy them even sooner!

After making a batch of sugar cookies, truffles, and molasses, it was time to drizzle the caramel onto the turtle cookies for the final touch.

This feels like Christmas. I am even more excited to bake even more goodies after exams when I come home for a little over a month and can relax.

I hope you all are getting excited for Christmas as well!!
What is your favorite thing to bake?

Make sure to leave a comment!

kenzie

Autumn

Cinnamon Spice and All things Nice

11:00:00 AM

That's the saying right? Or something along those lines I guess. I love the fall season, it's time for chai teas (with soy or almond milk thank you), everything tastes like pumpkin it seems, and the holiday countdown begins shortly after Halloween. This blog post comes a bit after Halloween, as I was home during the little holiday.

After finishing off mid-term week, I needed to get away from the confinement and slight frustration that comes along with living in close quarters with someone else. I went home. I really get into baking after one thing is done and find myself with three different timers and three different dishes. I love it.

I decided that my first thing to bake was going to be these Iced Snicker doodle cookies!

Though I had never done a hand in on making these before I was eager to try it out and put my own twist on the recipe as always!

Here's what you will need!

Cookies:

2 and 3/4 cups flour

2 teaspoons cream of tartar

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup melted, butter

1 cup granulated sugar

1/3 cup brown sugar

1 egg at room temp

2 teaspoons vanilla

Rolling:

1/2 cup sugar

1.5 teaspoons ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon ground ginger

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon and 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg

1/2 teaspoon ground allspice

Frosting:

3 spoon-fulls of Rich and Creamy Vanilla Frosting (I used Betty Crocker)

About 1.5 tablespoons of vanilla

Sprinkle of Nutmeg

1 tablespoon of cinnamon

Sprinkle of ginger

1 tablespoon pumpkin pie spice

Here's What You need to do!

Cookies:

Toss Flour, cream of tartar, baking soda, cinnamon and salt together in a large bowl

In a medium bowl, whisk melted butter, granulated sugar and brown sugar together until smooth

Whisk in egg and vanilla until combined

Pour wet ingredients into dry and mix together with spoon

Cover the dough tightly and chill in the fridge for about 45 minutes.

Preheat Oven to 350* F, or 176* C

Line two large cookie sheets with parchment paper

Remove dough from fridge and roll dough into balls. (the cookies don't roll so make sure you flatten a bit!)

Rolling:

Mix spices and sugar together in small bowl.

Roll each dough in mix to coat evenly.

Place balls onto cookie sheets (about 10 per sheet)

Bake

For 10 minutes, though I only put mine in for 9 to get nice moist cookies

Frosting

Spoon out vanilla frosting into small bowl

Add in the Vanilla, and spices and mix with spoon.

With a knife, add a little bit to each cookie, or a lot depending on how much frosting you like!

The frosting is something I completely made up and went by taste for a lot of the spices

Baking is something that relives so much stress, and being away from home I really don't get to do that very often, so when I do come home I love to bake. These cookies were such a big hit for my house that my mom woke me up the next morning and we made a batch for my great-uncle and my grandparents. It's safe to say, this was another winning recipe for us all!

Do you have any favorite recipes that everyone loves? I hope you're weeks are all going great!

Hopefully the weather hasn't gotten to cold for you yet! I hope you try these out! Let me know in the comments what you think!

Thanks for reading!

Kenzie

(also if you follow me on twitter you will know that my fish Latte passed away, though it is sad, the semester was really stressful on him with having a roommate that doesn't have a set or even sane sleeping schedule and all.)

Blogtober

Taste of Autumn

12:56:00 PM

It's actually October, can you believe it? We only have 2 more months left of 2015. What a year.

With October, comes crisp weather, colorful leaves and pumpkin.everything.

I went home a few weeks ago, mostly to celebrate my dads birthday and also get away from my roommates crazy sleeping schedule. The drive from Uni to my hometown isn't very long and I was very excited to use my mom and step-dads new oven!

We were making Pumpkin Cookies! These are always a family favorite this time of year, and they're delicious to eat!

Here's what you'll need:

Two bowls

A mixer

2.5 cupes all purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1/2 teaspoon salt

1.5 cups granulated sugar

1/2 cup butter (softened)

1 cup Pumpkin puree

1 large egg

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Frosting (you can use vanilla or cream cheese frosting)

Directions:

Preheat Oven to 350* Fahrenheit, (176 Celsius)

Combine flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt in one of your bowls

Beat sugar and butter in your other bowl until well blended, beat in pumpkin, egg and vanilla until smooth.

Add in dry ingredients

Line baking sheets with parchment paper (or you can grease them, I prefer parchment paper because it's less of a mess to clean up after! )

Drop dough in tablespoon amounts and gently press down just a bit.

They don't spread too much!

Bake cookies for 15-18 minutes. I did mine for 15 and they were perfectly moist!

Now you've got naked pumpkin cookies! ( I had actually not pressed mine down as much but they still turned out nicely!)

Here comes the fun part.

With whatever frosting you've decided to use, spread just a bit over the tops of the cookies

How beautiful, right?

Letting the cookies sit for a bit actually helped in bringing out the pumpkin flavor, and as difficult as it is not not actually eat them fresh out of the oven, it's worth the wait!
I hope you give this recipe a try! I cannot wait until Christmas to bake more holiday cookies! If you have any recipes you think I should try out, leave them for me in the comments! If you do try these out make sure to take a photo and send it to me!

What is your favorite fall food? I hope the weather hasn't cooled down too much for you!

Have a great rest of your weeks!

Kenzie

Baking

Spring Sweets

12:30:00 PM

I'm cutting back on eating so many sweets, I swear! While I've been away living at University, there are a few things that I've missed and that my sweet tooth misses as well. And that's homemade cookies. As soon as spring break rolled around, I knew I had to whip up a batch.

Still trying to eat healthy while being home can be a challenge, finding a few alternatives to certain ingredients in a recipe can actually be quite easy!
I've made oatmeal cookies before (you can read that post right here), this was a bit different.

These don't have flour or eggs!

For this recipe you will need:

2/3 Cup (58 g) old fashioned rolled oats

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 banana

1 cup peanut butter

6 Table spoons brown sugar

1/4 cup butterscotch chips

1/4 cup white chocolate chips

One thing that was special about this recipe that I tried, was that I actually made my own peanut butter using this recipe from Sallys Baking Addiction. It made it even healthier and it's very simple to make as well! Though it is a simple recipe, you certainly do not need to make these, and while Sally used honey roasted peanuts, I used just plain salted peanuts as I wanted to try it out for myself and did not have honey roasted in my cupboards!

To start making these, take a medium bowl and add in the oats, cinnamon, and baking soda. In a seperate bowl, mix in your peanut butter, banana, and brown sugar. It's okay if it's not creamy, as I didn't use an egg. While I was doing this I got quite nervous but it turns out well!

After mixing, add in the butterscotch and white chocolate chips!

Now chill the cookie dough for 30 minutes in your refrigerator and preheat your oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit! (176 Celsius).

You'll now need two baking sheets, and if you don't like cleaning them after I would suggest using parchment paper. It comes in quite handy. And after your cookie dough is done chilling, you can scoop small balls onto the sheet, pressing down lightly to make sure they flatten.

After this, my cookie dough balls were kind of greasy/oily looking and I blotted them with a napkin to take it off. I placed about 9 cookies on one try and 5 on the other. You can certainly spread these out more evenly than I did!

Bake for about 9 to 10 minutes. I think mine were in for about 9.

After baking, take them out and let them cool.
These cookies are delicious and I was pleasantly happy with the fact that I couldn't really tell I had even put banana into it. Thinking about it now, I don't think I can at all.

I think these are actually going quite fast at my house, which is always a good sign and I will probably make more! Especially if I can take them to my dorm room for a little snack at some point!

I hope you enjoyed this recipe! I love baking and the fact that I can when I'm home, is great!

Are you making any goodies lately? I feel like spring has brought the little baker inside of me!

Hope you all have had great weeks!

Thanks for reading!

Kenzie

Christmas

The Christmas Tag

2:00:00 PM

With everyone doing Blogmas, I decided that I would attempt, and I do mean attempt, don't hold me to posting everyday because I just might...not do that but I will try my best to post more often this month! (Maybe three times a week?)
My good pal Heidi over at heidis1haven had tagged me in this tag. As it's too late to do the Autumn Tag (sorry Heidi) I thought I would dive right in and do this one. After all, it is Christmas time isn't it?

1.What is your favorite Christmas Movie?

This was a really difficult choice, as there are hundreds of Christmas movies out there. I think right now, Prancer the 1989 movie about santas reindeer that gets lost and a little girl has to fix him up and basically save Christmas has got to be one of my top choices.

2. Do you open your Christmas Presents on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day?

Depends on where I am. I usually have Christmas Eve dinner at my step-grandmothers house, where we get small gifts, but I still have the joy of getting up on Christmas Day and opening gifts.

3.Do you have a favorite Christmas Memory?

I'm not really sure if I haven't always liked Christmas or what's happened but all of a sudden I really love Christmas. I think this year might be my favorite. But in the past it was when my friends and I did Secret Santa!

4.What is your favorite festive food?

The Christmas Cookies of course!

5.What tops your tree?

A star

6.As a kid, what was the one crazy, wild, extravagant gift you asked for but never recieved?

I wanted a pokemon. A real one. Yep I was that kid. I never did get that though...must've gotten lost in the sleigh.

7.Do you prefer a real tree or synthetic?

I love the smell of the real trees, though I'm lucky enough to have both.

8.What's your favorite scheme for decorating a tree?

The most important ornaments go on near the end. The ornaments that sparkle the most and the colored bulbs (mostly red ones) go in the inside of the tree.

9.Giving or Recieving?

Giving. This year I made all of my own presents to give away, so I'm really excited and I hope everyone likes their gifts.

10.Christmas Day fashion?

Morning? My Christmas pajamas I bought last year, and during the day one of my favorite Christmas time sweaters, or one of the new pieces of clothing I had just bought.

11.What's your favorite Christmas song?

Like the Christmas movie question, this was quite difficult..and I'm not sure if I actually have one.

I do like "Do They Know It's Christmas" the one done by the various artists for Band Aid.

12.Christmas Cards or Texts?

Christmas Cards, though everyone in my contacts does get a message, I love getting cards in the mail and I love sending them out. It's the best.

I tag Anna

and Jenny

to do this tag!

Are you getting more excited for Christmas now?

Kenzie

Easy Mini Sugar Cookies

12:30:00 PM

Having had time off from school, and getting ready for the Easter festivities I decided it was time to bring out the baking pans once again. This recipe was really easy and so simple to make!

You'll need;
1 cup Powdered Sugar
2 Eggs
1 cup Regular Sugar
1 cup Margarine or Butter
1 cup Vegetable Oil
1 teaspoon Vanilla
4 cups and 4 tablespoons of Flour
1 teaspoon Baking Soda
1 teaspoon Cream of Tartar
One big bowl

Clearly, I forgot to put out the eggs and the cream of tartar for this picture. Oops!

Firstly wash your hands, as I hope you always do when you bake. Tie back your hair..nobody likes hairy cookies!

In this recipe you don't need to separate the wet ingredients from the dry, unless you really really want to. I just went down the list and added things. The cup of powdered sugar, then the eggs followed by the regular sugar (white sugar). The recipe did call for margarine but that was easily substituted for butter, which comes out as two sticks. Then the vegetable oil, followed by vanilla and flour and topped off with baking soda and cream of tartar.

I quickly found out that my little whisking machine was no match for the cookie dough! It was really thick! So I resorted to a spoon and at the end just using my hands. It did turn out looking delicious!

After having mixed the ingredients, stick the bowl of dough into the fridge for about 3-4 hours! I know it's really long, but you can start cleaning up the mess while you wait and maybe tend to that load of laundry that's been sitting there for awhile.

While they chill set the oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit or 190.5 degrees Celsius I believe.

Get the pans, I did two at a time so it would go quicker. I used parchment paper, as I usually do just so the pans wouldn't get dirty! It's so much nicer to not wash the pans during cleanup at the end!

Roll the dough into balls, this batch won't spread out so you can make them as big or little as you would like. I did them smaller just so it would make more and we could enjoy them longer! Plus who doesn't like bite sized cookies!?!

After placing the balls on the pan, press them down with either glass or the palm of your hand!

After this step, put the trays or tray in the oven for about 6 minutes. My recipe said not to "over bake" but I did have to go 7 or 8 minutes.

Also, careful taking the pans out of the oven if you do put two in..I lifted the pan on the lower shelf just a bit too soon which resulted in part of the cookie falling to the bottom of the oven and part staying to the pan.
Let's just say a burnt cookie doesn't smell as well as a nicely done cookie.

After taking out the pans, let the cookies cool.

Don't they look delicious!

After the cookies have cooled, it's time for the best part!
THE ICING AND DECORATING!!

There is a recipe for homemade frosting attached to the one I have but I went for store bought icing instead. Maybe I'll make another batch in the future and try it! I'll let you know!

Since it was close to Easter when these were made I tried to stick with easter-y colors! Mostly green and pink!

Also my mom chipped in and made an Easter rabbit while I attempted to make an Easter chick!

As the batch wound down and there became less and less cookies to bake, I wanted to try something new. I poured in the green sprinkles and pink with the batch in the bowl and kneaded them in it.
They turned out pretty cool! I decided to ice them as if they were dip cookies just to show off their pretty colors!

You can see the dip cookies I made in the back a little bit!

These did make a big batch but they went away quickly as everyone really liked them!

I hope you try this recipe!

Remember to follow me on bloglovin and all of the social media networks! You can see all of them on the "Get in Touch" page! You can also now comment without needing an account! :)

Pages

Dark Hot Chocolate Cookies

Funfetti Cookies

Mother's Day Recipe: Lemon Cake Cookies

The Legend of the Berlin Pretzel Cookies

Christmas Baking

Cinnamon Spice and All things Nice

Taste of Autumn

Spring Sweets

The Christmas Tag

Easy Mini Sugar Cookies

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