Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

One of my good friends loves carrot cake, so I decided to make this simple recipe for him. Fortunately, the cake recipe proved to be extremely easy and baked well. (Though the cake did rise quite a bit so that the top was slightly burnt.) Since my friend really loves cream cheese frosting, he demanded that I slice the cake into two separate layers so that he could have a better cake-to-frosting ratio. Surprisingly, I had plenty of frosting for my little cake - though the frosting was extremely runny (which was a bit of a surprise since I used less than a full quarter pound of cream cheese - perhaps it was due to the omission of the pecans.) The most difficult (and disastrous) step was attempting to frost the sides of the cake; my frosting did nothing up run down the sides and pool at the bottom. If I was making this cake again, I would either add an extra ½ c of powdered sugar to the frosting - or else merely frost the top of the cake and forget the sides completely.

Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting
(yields a 7-8" round cake)

2 eggs
½ c. and 2 T. vegetable oil
1 c. white sugar
1 t. vanilla extract
1 c. flour
1 t. baking soda
1 t. baking powder
¼ t. salt
1 t. ground cinnamon
1½ c. grated carrots
½ c. chopped pecans

For the frosting
¼ c. butter, softened
1/4 lb. cream cheese, softened
2 c. powered sugar
½ t. vanilla extract
½ c. chopped pecans (optional)

Beat together eggs, oil, white sugar and vanilla. In a separate bowl, sift together flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt and cinnamon. Combine liquid and dry ingredients and stir in carrots. Fold in pecans. Pour into greased and floured pan.
Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 40 to 50 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. Let cool in pan for 10 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack and cool completely. For the frosting, combine butter, cream cheese, confectioners' sugar and 1 teaspoon vanilla. Beat until the mixture is smooth and creamy. Stir in chopped pecans.

Spiral Sugar Cookies

In my continued quest for new recipes, I thought I'd try this cool spiral sugar cookie (and idea I've had for awhile but never knew it was actually possible.) Although this recipe isn't the most difficult I've ever tried, it was a bit of a pain due to the long periods of refrigeration! I was also a little worried about the dough when I first started, since there are practically no "wet" ingredients - though I guess that massive portion of butter made up for the lack of everything else. Sadly, I decided to omit the almond extract (since I didn't have any in my pantry and thought it wouldn't make that much of a difference.) When I finished my cookies, I definitely wished I had added something for a bit more flavor (either the almond extract or a bit more sugar!)

Surprisingly, coloring and rolling out the dough was perhaps the easiest aspect of this entire recipe. However, rolling the two doughs together into a spiral proved a bit of a nightmare. However, the end spiral came out very nicely, so I guess you don't have to worry too much about this when rolling the dough together. I also didn't want to wait four hours while the completed log chilled; instead, I opted to simply freeze the dough for about an hour (which seemed to work fine.) Fortunately, the slicing and baking of the cookies was quick and easy, so I was soon enjoying a beautiful buttery cookie!

Spiral Sugar Cookies
(yields 2½ dozen small cookies

2 c. flour
½ t. baking powder
¼ t. salt
⅔ c. powdered sugar
¼ sugar
1¼ c. butter
1 t. vanilla extract
½ t. almond extract
gel food coloring (any color)
2 T. flour
1 c. multi-colored nonpareil decors or sprinkles

Sift together flour, baking powder, salt, and sugars. Cube the butter and cut into flour mixture. Continue to combine until it has a cornmeal consistency. Add the vanilla and form into a ball. Divide the dough into two equal parts. To one of the halves, add almond extract, enough food coloring to obtain the desired color, and 2 tablespoons flour. On wax paper or parchment paper, roll the dough into a letter-size (A4) sheet that is about &frad14" thick.) Repeat with the non-colored dough on a separate sheet of paper. Place another sheet of paper atop each piece of dough and chill in a refrigerate for at least 2 hours. Once the dough has chilled completely, remove the top layers of wax paper and stack both sheets of dough together. With a sharp knife, cut the edges. Carefully roll the doughs along the long edge. (You might have to wait 10-15 so that the dough will be soft enough to roll.) Pour the nonpareils in a flat pan, and roll the dough to cover all sides. (I used sprinkles and used far less than a cup - though I had problems with my sprinkles not sticking.) Chill in the refrigerator for 4 hours. Preheat the oven to 325°F (162°C.) Slice cookie roll into ¼" slices and bake on a parchment paper lined cookie sheet for 15 minutes.

Thin Mints

I was searching Pinterest a couple weeks ago in my quest for new cookie recipes and came across this great recipe for the classic Girl Scout Thin Mint cookie. Since this was my favorite childhood cookies, I knew I had to try it; however, I also wanted to make it a little more festive for the holiday season. In researching several recipes, I noticed that most of them called for flavoring the chocolate with mint. I have been dying to use my snowflake cookie cutter (my absolute favorite cutter) and because of the overpowering nature of mint, I figured that the flavor of the chocolate would be buried a bit - so white chocolate could be substituted.

Surprisingly, the cookies themselves proved extremely easy to mix, cut, and bake. The only major issue I had due to the fact that my small toaster oven only allowed me to bake three cookies at a time. I had to cut and re-roll the dough several times over the course of the evening, and the dough definitely incorporated a lot of extra flour during all these extra rollings. (Had I been using a regular over and larger cookie sheets, this wouldn't have been a problem.) ANother problem I had at first was the cookies cracking when I tried to remove them from the cookie sheet (this was before I discovered that they needed to cool for a few minutes on the cookie sheet before transferring to the wire rack.) I'm assuming this would be less of a problem if a more basic (round) shape cookie cutter were used.)

When it came time to dip the cookies, I had no problems melting the chocolate (though it did require a couple tablespoons of shortening to get a silky smoothness.) Unfortunately, I found that when I actually dipped my cookie the weight of the added chocolate broke several more of my snowflakes. (I can definitely see why the Girl Scouts stick with basic circles!) However, after a couple cookie disasters (or sampling opportunities, if you want to be more positive), I mastered the dipping process. Sadly, my 2 cup bag of white chocolate only provided enough to coat about half my cookies. Fortunately, the cookies do taste exactly how I remember thin mints, and they are just as addictive!


Thin Mints
(yields 3-4 dozen cookies)

1 c. butter, room temperature
1 c. powdered sugar
1 t. vanilla extract
1 c. unsweetened cocoa powder
¾ t. salt
1½ c. flour

Chocolate Coating
1 package baking chocolate (I used white chocolate, the but traditional recipe calls for semi-sweet chocolate)
1 t. peppermint extract
1-2 T. shortening (if needed to achieve creaminess)

Cream the butter until light and fluffy. Mix in powdered sugar and continue to cream. Stir in the vanilla extract and cocoa powder. (THe batter will be the consistency of a thick frosting.) Add the flour and mix until all the flour is incorporated. Form the dough into two flatten discs and wrap in plastic wrap. Refrigerate for at least 15 minutes. Roll out dough on a floured surface (dough should be extremely thin - about &frac18".) Cut your desired cooking shapes and place on a cookie sheet. (These cookies do not expand much, so feel free to place them quite close.) Bake at 350°F (177°C) for 10 minutes. Allow cookies to cool for about 5 minutes on the cookie sheet before transferring to a wire rack. When the cookies are completely cooled, melt chocolate and peppermint extract (I had to add a couple tablespoons of shortening to get the desired smoothness from my white chocolate.) Using a fork, dip the cookies in the mint chocolate mixture and place on parchment paper. Refrigerate or freeze to set chocolate.

Funfetti Donuts

I wanted to make a fun treat for my students, and how can you go wrong with a donut topped by sprinkles! I found this basic recipe online for a funfetti recipe and thought I'd give it a try. Sadly, I somehow left the baking powder out when I baked it (though it didn't seem to have any adverse affect.) However, I'm still not that impressed with baked donuts - though just don't compare with the fried goodness that is a bakery donut! Fortunately, my students didn't seem to mind since it was still a mouth-full of sugar.

Funfetti Donuts
(yields 8-10 donuts)

1 c. flour
1 t. baking powder
¼ t. baking soda
¼ t. nutmeg
&frac13 c. sugar
¼ c. milk
¼ c. Greek yogurt
1 egg
2 T. butter, melted
1½ t. vanilla extract
½ c. rainbow sprinkles

Frosting
Approximately 1 c. powdered sugar
1-2 T. milk
1 t. vanilla

Preheat oven to 350°F (168°C). Sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda, nutmeg, and sugar. In a separate bowl, mix milk, yogurt, egg, butter, and vanilla. Add the liquid to the flour mixture and mix until just combined. Gently mix in the rainbow sprinkles. Bake in a greased pan for 8-10 minutes. When cooled, frost and top with sprinkles.