Mexican Chocolate Cookies

With Thanksgiving upon us and with the prospect of apple and pumpkin baked things in the forefront, I just really wanted some chocolate.  I have seen recipes using Mexican Chocolate in cupcakes but not cookies.  I have seen a recipe for cookies with this type of flavor profile but it didn’t use any Mexican chocolate.  So I found my new favorite chocolate cookie Pretzel Coated Chocolate Cookies and set out to adapt it (I still want to make those cookies as is though, it seems like a great idea).  It was super easy.  My cookies look flatter than hers but they have a nice soft chewy texture that is just pretty darn good if I do say so myself.

Abuelita chocolate, I prefer Ibarra but Costco had a mega size container so...

I don’t know how familiar you all are with Mexican chocolate, but it is awesome.  It is slightly spicy and cinnamony and it comes in big circles that you place in a saucepan with milk and you let it slowly cook on the stovetop till it melts and makes THE BEST hot chocolate ever!  I always dip my Mexican cookies and Pan Dulce in it and yes, suck out the warm chocolate milk that gathers in the crevices before biting into what has now become a warm softened and chocolatey cookie or bread.  It is like dipping a donut in regular milk or hot chocolate but ten times better (my husband would disagree but he is WRONG!).  It is just magic food.

Ground up, with added sugar and cinnamon for topping.

So making a cookie that can taste like that was such a personal victory for me.  Although, give me Pan Dulce and a mug of Abulita and I will pick that over anything anyday, mostly because of the whole sensory experience.  Even just smelling these cookies though, it is like sniffing the chocolate milk as it is cooking, I couldn’t even believe it.

Right out of the oven!

My GeekyLink today is all about Fringe.  I listen to the The Fringe Podcast, if you are a fan, I highly recommend it.  I am sorry, I have been watching Fringe since season one and never knew till listening to the podcast that the pictures, going into commercials, were a FRICKIN CODE!  Here is the link Fringe Glyphs to decode it if you want or you can just listen and they will tell you what it is each week.  Now I want to go back and decode all the stuff from previous seasons.  I feel like such a moron!  Also, they mentioned that there is going to be a Fringe/Spongebob Squarepants crossover coming in February.  Yup, you read that right, Fringe and Spongebob Squarepants!  No official pictures or anything yet, just an IMDb page.  IMDb can be wrong sometimes, O but I hope, I hope this is right.

Apple Fritter Cake and UFOs

Dang, was this recipe was an evolution!  I just set out to adapt a recipe that used cake mix but make it without cake mix.  I did it, the cake part itself turned out great!  I was really proud of myself but overall I thought the cake was too sweet.  However, I loved the glaze on it!  It was just like a donut glaze, and since the overall effect of the cake was that of a coffee cake and I had just bought a butt load (yes, I said butt load) of apples, I thought I’d make an Apple Fritter Cake!  Also, because I wanted to cut down on the overall sugar content I changed my base recipe and decided to start my adaption from my all time fave Joy the Baker.  She has this awesome Strawberry Coffee Cake that is a big hit in this house.  It is one of my husband’s favorites, so I know it is good.

The tart apples cut the sweetness a bit.  Cinnamon just makes it better.  It really tastes like an apple fritter!

Before we get into anything else, is anyone else completely overwhelmed by the season yet?  Not just the holidays necessarily but for my kids the end of soccer season and the beginning of performance team is coming up.  The end of the year party and playoffs are stuck into the days that the girls don’t have practice or dance.  O yeah, dance.  My girls love to perform so I sign them up to be on performance team where they go to local festivities and dance.  We have those coming up.  There are two parades they are in starting today.  Plus Angela insisted on trying to make a classmates birthday party right after the parade…we’ll see.  Man o man, it is all coming up: Thanksgiving, a birthday party for three family members at once a few days later, three dance performances, two days of playoffs, dance Christmas show and party, soccer party, school parties, Christmas, Robert’s third birthday, then New Year’s, then vacation (which is never vacation for a mom, right?).  I just need to breathe and make lists and I should be OK but I need to keep remembering that!  Breathe and make lists!  Breathe and make lists!  Seriously, just listing everything coming up has made me feel better, thanks!

My GeekyLink for this week is something I discovered last week but had to wait because The Hunger Games trailer was released before I could share it with you. Army vs. UFO (1942; Los Angeles), I had never heard about this.  Now I don’t even remember how I came across it but I found it completely intriguing especially growing up in Southern California and being a longtime lover and follower of UFO lore.  Eyewitness to History is one of the links under the video and I really liked it because it sets the stage for the things that went on during that time.  Air raid drills and blackouts and anti-aircraft target practice late into the night set the stage during a World War II era UFO sighting that was either nothing that went way too far or something that just gave up after us firing at it for two hours.  Anyways, I thought it was pretty cool.

Tomato Basil Bread and OMG The Hunger Games!

This bread was probably the easiest bread I have made in awhile.  This bread was just OK.  I found the recipe on Food.com and they say to eat this bread with soup.  Soup wasn’t on my menu last week.

Then I decided to make a grilled cheese with it and to use my husband’s provolone as opposed to my usual cheddar.  Did I tell you that this was the BEST BREAD EVER?  I love this bread for that grilled cheese!  It probably would have been good for a soup too, especially if you are a dipper.  The flavor profile was that of a caprese sandwich but I didn’t have any mozzarella on hand so it was not a true caprese.  (Okay, I did have shredded but I didn’t realize it till I started writing this post, dangit!)  I challenge you to make this bread and make a grilled cheese with mozzarella plus put basil and tomatoes INSIDE!  I would have, but I used all the basil I had for the bread and haven’t had a new tomato growing for awhile.  The best thing about this bread was that my super duper picky Sarah, ate the grilled cheese without comment or pause.  This is the girl that can find the teeniest tiniest onion and pull it out of whatever she is eating with her pinky and give it to me because she isn’t willing to eat it.

I think, even though it is so simple, that it is a grilled cheese worthy of Closet Cooking.  The man can cook and he has TONS of great recipes.  However, he is the “go to guy” if you are looking to change up your grilled cheese.  The man is obsessed!  His pictures and variations on grilled cheese are pure magic for a lover of comfort food.

My GeekyLink for this week is the The Hunger Games trailer!  Ahhh!  I have watched it about three times so far and have teared up every time.  First of all, great book.  Read it!  Second of all, I love the way the trailer was done.  They show SO MUCH of the beginning and end it at the Cornicopia (the beginning of the Games themselves).  I thought it was just a great way to do it.  You might also want to check out the Entertainment Weekly breakdown of the trailer ‘Hunger Games’: Let’s Dissect the Trailer!

I was debating whether or not to have my eight year old read the books.  This, however, is no ordinary eight year old.  She finished all of the Harry Potter books in about nine months and that is including time off in the summer.  There is some hard stuff in those books.  However (Spoiler Alert!), I guess nothing like picking 24 young people to kill each other on TV.  I was going to take her to see it anyway, though.  Plus, if it is worth Scholastic Points, she will be willing (It is.  It is even in her book order, she is going to order them with the money she was awarded for having the most Scholastic Points for the first trimester).  I love that kid.

Cinnamon Cranberry Apple Muffins and Happy Accidents

I was so frickin (yes, I said frickin!) mad at my husband yesterday.  My family would say, “So what else is new.”  But no really, yesterday I was totally justified.  You see, he has a very funky work schedule (he is a truck driver) and I always try my best to be very accommodating.  I mean, he has to sleep, there are peoples lives on the line!  I try to keep the kids as quiet as possible, even taking them out when I don’t need to go out, just to keep the house quiet for him.  Sometimes, though, he just doesn’t cooperate.  It is not that he has trouble sleeping necessarily, it is just that if he knows that he HAS to sleep it makes it harder for him to GET to sleep.  My problem is that on his days off he likes to stick to his work schedule.  While I understand that, it is much harder to stick with in everyday life.  You see, I was in the middle of making a batch of muffins that I had never made before.  They should have been done by the time I was supposed to leave to pick up my preschooler from school.  They weren’t.

To be fair, I never asked for his help but he was awake at this point (he even dressed my son to go with me) and he usually isn’t.  It was his day off.  I was making remarks about how he was ruining my muffins but he never said a word.  So out of the oven the muffins went, just minutes from being done.  And, as I feared, once I got back from picking up Sarah, my muffins were all sunken in, unsalvageable.  Luckily, it was a big batch, I had nine more to bake and I over baked them!  That is when I lost it.  He told me I should have told him when to take them out but I told him I didn’t know when that would have been as it was a new recipe.  He told me to make them over.  I told him I was out of cranberries.

Ready for the oven!

I was bummed.  After eating a bit of over baked muffin, it got me thinking.  I started to see the flaws in my muffin.  I was thinking what else I might change and how I could make it better.  The original recipe calls for a cup of oil.  The first time around I changed it to one cup of brown butter but I think that it was too much.  In the topping, I first used 2 teaspoons of cinnamon and although it made my house smell phenomenal, it was a bit much too.  The first time, I only used about 3/4 cup of cranberries and when I ate my over baked muffin I wanted more.  That meant a quick trip to the store because I was also out of brown sugar (how did that happen?).  I also decided to used my white whole wheat flour instead of all-purpose flour, just because.

Can you see his little muffin face saying, "Eat me"?

These muffins are awesome!  They would be a perfect addition to any Christmas breakfast.  They have less sugar and butter than before (yay, for applesauce).  They baked up so pretty with perfect little domes and everything.  The topping is so awesome, it adds a nice sweetness and crunch. Plus, with the brown butter and cinnamon, how much better could your house smell?  We ended up going out to dinner (yay, for gift cards) and once we sat down I had to thank my husband for helping me to make a better muffin.

My official GeekyLink for this post is about the Hunger Games.  If you haven’t read these books yet, please do so!  I am gearing up for the movie coming in the spring and so have this picture from Vanity Fair to share The Young Cast of The Hunger Games.  Scroll over their faces and you will see who is playing what and if you haven’t read these books, it will give you the gist and hopefully make you want to read them.  However, I do want to tell my Doctor Who fans about a contest You Might Be In BBC America’s Next Doctor Who Special. Yes, You.  So take a look if you are interested.

Chocolate, Caramel, Peanut Butter and Pretzel Cookies

I got the idea for these cookies from Sugar Cooking.  I thought, wow these are kind of like a Take 5 candy bar.  I was going to make them as is but the more I thought about it, I realized they were missing something…caramel.  There are also no peanuts in this cookie and I know a Take 5 has peanuts and peanut butter but the peanut butter chips will have to do for both.  Plus, how many other things can I stuff into this cookie?

This many!

If you don’t want to deal with cutting up the caramel, I suppose you could use toffee chips to get that flavor but you won’t get the chewy.  Let me tell you, that chewy is what keeps you coming back for more.  I ate way too many of these.  The crunchy, salty, chocolaty, peanut buttery elements don’t hurt either, let me tell you.  But oh, the chewy!

My sister even liked these cookies and she is one of the most picky people I know.  I didn’t even think she would try it just because of all the different elements.  She, just like my husband, doesn’t pull any punches when it comes to the stuff I cook or bake so when they like it, I know it is good.

The two most important things about this recipe are to a) chill your dough and b) let your cookies cool on the cookie sheet till you can take them off cleanly or this…will happen.

Follow those two rules and you shouldn’t have any problems and you will be thrilled with the results.

My GeekyLink for this week is Blogtor Who.  They have a Doctor Who podcast and they even did a podcast for Torchwood: Miracle Day.  The funny thing is, one of the commentators just recently started watching Doctor Who.  Sacrilege for someone doing a podcast about it I know, but it is awesome because now they are starting over, podcasting the Series (Season) 1 Doctor Who episodes with Christopher Eccleston aka The Ninth Doctor.  They put a new one up every Saturday!  Seeing as you can get those episodes on Netflix, why not follow along?

Candy Corn Cookies and Other Halloween Goodies (for next year)

Man o man, Halloween.  I was late posting last week because of my own children.  I was able to make these cookies a week early for my younger daughter, Sarah, because some mom at her school took the day that I LIKE to bring the snack.  Ultimately, though, that probably cut down on my holiday stress.  I had to adapt them because they were supposed to taste lemony.  Yeah, a bunch of four year olds biting into a candy corn colored and shaped cookie bite into it and taste lemon?  I don’t think so.  I changed that whole situation.  Also, this was the second recipe I tried.  The other one didn’t make enough, I overcooked them, and they looked funny.  The colors on those were completely correct where as the color on these is only right on half but I figured the preschoolers wouldn’t care.  Plus the method was way easier and the cookie itself was better.  I was thinking that you don’t even have to make them candy corn, you could color coordinate them for a party and just cut them into squares.  It would be way cute and easy.

Can you tell which ones came out better?

Thankfully, Sarah, didn’t want me to bake her anything for her dance class party either, she had me make bags of Ghost Poop (marshmallows in a bag with a label, saying Ghost Poop, it went over VERY well).  For Angela’s dance party, I made these cookies from Martha Stewart which were just OK.  The chocolate ones came out better than the plain ones.  They were simple (really super easy) and looked pretty, though.  Angela hadn’t asked me to bake anything either she just wanted me to make bags that looked like tombstones but I couldn’t find plain black bags in time.  I will be looking early for next year, I really liked the tombstone bag idea with a personalized tombstone message for each girl in her group.

The dough, chilled and unwrapped.

I made cupcakes for Angela’s school that I had seen on Pinterest but the recipe called for almond extract and I felt was not so kid friendly.  I was thinking I might have to adapt it myself but luckily, The Girl Who Ate Everything did it for me.  I did make them mini so as to accommodate the number of people in her class and not overload them with sweets.  They were so easy.  The recipe uses cake mix and tastes lovely.  It turned out, as Angela told me Sunday night, that nothing had been mentioned about a party on Monday and she wasn’t so keen on me making anything just in case there wasn’t a party.  I didn’t care, I had already told my sister I was going to bring the leftovers to Halloween (along with a batch of Candy Corn Cookies) and I figured if they weren’t having a party, what 9 year old is going to object to a free mini cupcake, whatever the reason?  They didn’t have a class party but they handed them out just before school ended.  I noticed that her teacher from last year also stopped her as she was walking to the gate and asked her for one.

Cut into pieces, trimming round edges.

Halloween went well.  Angela went as Hermione Granger and seeing as she is almost done with the seventh book, it was very fitting.  Sarah was a fairy and Bob went as Spiderman (sans mask, kinda hard to get a two year old to wear a mask if he doesn’t want to).  My nephews went as a ninja and a hobo and my little cousins went as Captain America and Bumblebee.  Bumblebee had the best mask and I was so impressed that my little cousin kept it on.  My husband broke his toy knife on Captain America’s shield and I told him “Duh, it is supposed to be impenetrable.  What did you expect?”  It was my son’s first year really saying “trick or treat” and “thank you” on his own, so that was neat but he was over it all fairly quickly and went back to the house early.  Sarah, did very well, not one complaint and except for mommy adjusting her wings after each stop, she was as happy as a clam.  She says she wants to be a kitty next year so we shall see if she doesn’t change her mind.  I actually think she won’t but you never know.

My other efforts

My GeekyLink is again from my Pinterest page and after I saw this don’t you dare, I did go back and check the Tenth Doctor Episode Forest of the Dead to double check to see if this exchange happened just like in The Wedding of River Song and yup, it did and I got chills and it was awesome.

One of the best parts is you can place A LOT on a cookie sheet. They hardly spread at all.