Oatmeal Pumpkin Spice S'mores Cookies

Oh hai guys.  I'm just going to pretend that I have not been neglecting this blog for two months.

And what better way to break the ice than with Fall's It Flavor:  Pumpkin Spice.  

You know you love/hate it.  It's everywhere.  Ice cream, coffees, donuts, trail mix, pancakes, pop tarts, tea... It's out of control.  Sometimes its overly sugary and disgusting, sometimes it's pumpkin spice heaven.  I have had pumpkin pancakes that make it taste like fall exploded in my mouth.  And I have thrown away an entirely full container of TJ's pumpkin spice chai tea latte mix that made my teeth hurt after one sip.  It's a pumpkin spice gamble.  

No gamble here, however.  These Oatmeal Pumpkin Spice S'mores Cookies are not sugary and disgusting despite having so many components.  The pumpkin is subtle, the dark chocolate not too bitter and the oats help to balance out the sweetness of the marshmallow glaze.  Yes you heard right, these cookies will give you the taste of a sweet marshmallow glaze in every bite. 

Oatmeal Raisin S'mores Cookies

Makes 25, bake at 350* for about 12 minutes.

Cookies

1 c. flour

2 1/2 c. oats

1 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp nutmeg

1/4 tsp ginger

1/4 tsp cloves

1/4 tsp baking soda

1 1/2 c. light brown sugar

1/2 c. butter, room temperature

1 egg

1 tsp vanilla

1/2 c. pumpkin puree

1 c. dark chocolate chips 

Directions:

1. Sift flour, cinnamon, salt, nutmeg, ginger, cloves and baking soda together in a bowl.

2. In a stand mixer, cream butter and sugar together until fluffy, around 5 minutes.  Add in egg and vanilla and beat until smooth. Add pumpkin puree and beat until smooth. 

3. On low, slowly add flour mixture to wet mixture and continue mixing until fully incorporated.

4. Turn off stand mixture and fold in oats and chips by hand.

5. Scoop dough onto lined cookie sheets and bake until edges start to slightly brown.  Remove from oven and let cook on a wire rack.  

Marshmallow Glaze

1 c. powdered sugar
1 tsp milk
3 tbsp butter
1 c. mini marshmallows

Directions: 
1. In a saucepan over low medium heat, melt butter completely.
2. Add marshmallows and stir until melted into butter.
3. Add milk and stir, remove from heat.
5. Slowly add powdered sugar and whisk mixture quickly until no lumps remain.
6. Pour over cooled cookies.  

I made these for no other reason than because I still owed people cookies from my AIDS Walk fundraising that I started back in April. Ha.  Hey, when it's hot it makes it really hard to bake.  Alas, it is now late October and the last heat wave from our California Indian Summers seems to have left us for good.  Chilly Fall mornings try to make me put on pants now. I'm resisting the pant wearing part of Fall, but the baking part?  I think it's time to embrace it wholeheartedly. I don't mine wearing aprons (or awesome baking gloves) one bit. 

xo,

Anna 

Chocolate Peanut Butter Rice Krispy Treats

A short, light post today.  Just to prove to you all that I really like peanut butter.

I am not even kidding when I say that some days when I wake up and lie in bed trying to convince myself to get up and start my day, I only get up because I bribe myself with breakfast.  FOOD!  Every single morning I spread peanut butter on top of a toasted whole wheat English muffin and it melts in the nooks and crannies and it is bomb.  Add a cup of coffee and I am one happy girl. 

That's what I had for brekkie today.  And then followed it up with a bar... or two of these bad boys. Peanut butter (creamy and crunchy), chocolate, cereal, marshmallows, caffeine, carbs?  Those are all my food groups right?  

Chocolate Peanut Butter Rice Krispy Treats

Ingredients:
6 cups Rice Krispy cereal
5 tablespoons butter
1/2 cup crunchy peanut butter
10 oz. bag marshmallows
1/2 cup peanut butter chips
1 1/2 cups semi sweet chocolate chips 

Directions:
1. In a saucepan over low heat, melt butter completely but do not let boil.
2. Add in marshmallows, stirring frequently with a rubber spatula to prevent sticking.
3. Add peanut butter and stir until combined.
4. Remove from heat and immediately add in rice krispy cereal.  
5. Scoop mixture into a 9 x 13 pan lined with wax paper. Pat down with a greased piece of waxed paper until smooth and even. Let set a few minutes. 
7. Melt semi sweet chocolate chips and pour over top of rice krispies.  Let set a few minutes.  
8. Melt peanut butter chips and pipe on as much or little peanut butter on top of the chocolate chip layer as you'd like.  I piped on chevron stripes just because I could.  :)  Let set.  (You can speed up the process by putting these in the fridge for a few minutes.  But be careful, too much time in the fridge and you won't be able to cut through the cereal!   
9.  Enjoy!!!!

I love the layered look of these, don't you? 

Rice krispys treats have become my go to treat for when I am either too lazy or it's too hot to bake.  I made some cookie butter rice krispy treats before, but thought I would try peanut butter out since that had been my original intention month ago.  If you recall, I wanted to do peanut butter but a friend threw cookie butter in instead, giving me a mini heart attack in the process.  So this was my redemption to myself.

Peanut Butter redemption is the best, by the way.

I owe so many people cookies it's ridiculous.  So I shall be back soon.

xoxo,
Anna

Thai Tea Cupcakes

I have a real problem on my hands.  It comes in a plastic cup, you push a giant straw through the top, it has tapioca pearls at the bottom, it is filled with iced milk tea and I just can't stop drinking it.  Oh boba, you're exactly the kind of problem I like to have. Luckily all my friends have a similar problem.  Boba parties, yo.

And luckily-not-so-unluckily, Pam decided she wanted  thai tea cupcakes for her birthday dinner this year.  I say luckily because I got to make these bad boys. Iced thai tea is my favorite flavor!  I say unluckily because when a pound bag of thai tea came to my doorstop I literally made my tummy hurt "testing" the flavor.  I drank a lot of cups of tea.   I also felt the need to stop by a local Ice Creamery to try their Thai Tea Iced Cream for dinner.  Twice. After the gym though!  That makes it sound better, right?  Or Worse?  I'm just educating my palette, totally acceptable.

Before I get to the recipe or the flavors though, let's take a second and discuss these liners.  I'm sure you can find them anywhere, but I found them at this adorable cake supply shop in Berkeley where they sell cupcake shaped spatulas, SPRINKLES, cookies, liners and anything else you may need.  It's named Spun Sugar and I want to move in there.  And I mean, orange scalloped liners?  The only thing more appropriate for Pam would have been if they'd been lace, too.

To keep with the orange theme of the liners and the cupcakes themselves I had to make orange flowers to top them off.  They were super simple to make.  Just melt orange candy melts, pipe out some squiggly flowers on some wax paper and add a cluster of white pearl sprinkles in the center.  As long as the candy melt is still soft, they will act as glue.  Pop  in the freezer for a few minutes to speed up the drying process.  Way too easy.

Thai Tea Cupcakes
Makes 24 cupcakes, Bake for aprox. 15 minutes. at 350*
Adapted from Bowen Appetit

2 cups whole milk
1/4 cup condensed milk
3/4 cup thai iced tea mix
2 1/4 cups cake flour
2 1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
2 sticks unsalted butter, room temp
1 3/4 c. sugar
4 eggs, room temp
1/2 tsb vanilla extract

2 1/2 sticks unsalted butter, room temp
1/4 block cream cheese
3 cups powdered sugar

Directions:
1. In a small sauce pan/pot combine whole milk and condensed milk along with the thai mixed tea mix.  Bring to a simmer, stirring occasionally.
2.  Remove from heat and cover with a lid, let seep for 10 minutes.  Pour mixture through a fine sieve and let cool to room temperature. You will only use 1/2 a cup of the thai tea milk mixture.
3. Whisk flours, baking powder and salt together in a bowl and set aside.
4. In your stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment cream butter and sugar together until fluffy.
5. Add eggs in one at a time and beat until fully incorporated.   Add in vanilla.
6. Alternate add in flour mixture and thai tea milk mixture to the stand mixture, starting and ending with the flour.
7.  Scoop batter into lined cupcake liners and bake until done, around 15 minutes.  Cool fully before frosting.


Thai Tea Frosting
2 1/2 sticks unsalted butter, room temp
1/4 block full fat cream cheese, room temp
1 tsp vanilla
3 c. powdered sugar
1/2 cup thai tea and milk  mixture (see below)

Thai Tea and Milk mixture:
3/4 cup condensed milk
1/4 cup whole milk
1 tbsp  thai iced tea mix

Directions:
1. Combine the two milks in a small saucepan/pot along with the loose thai tea and stir occastionally until mixture simmers (not boils).  (8-10 minutes. )
3. Remove from heat and cover pot with a lid and let seep and cool for an additional 10 minutes.
4. Strain tea through a small sieve.  (Note: Boiling and straining will reduce the liquid down by almost half.  You should have 1/2 a cup.)  Let the mixture cool to room temperature.
5. In a stand mixture, cream butter and cream cheese together until fluffy on medium speed.
6. Slowly add in the Thai Tea and Milk Mixture and continue beating.
7. Add powdered sugar 1/2 a cup at a time and beat.
8. Add vanilla in and beat until fully incorporated.
9. Pipe onto cupcakes.

The frosting came out perfect.  The cupcakes need one additional tweak -- which I have changed here. They should come out perfect... now  ;)  I especially like the color. A light orange color all around, with the smallest little specks from the tea leaves. Coupled with the other orange accents and I made Pam a happy girl.

I'm really proud of how pretty these came out.  I was tempted to have Pam take pictures of them for me instead.  But since it was her birthday and she was busy stuffing herself with pizza, I gave her a pass.

For the record, yes Pam gets her every birthday request granted.  She is spoiled like that.  I have no doubt she is already formulating ideas for what she wants next year.

And to no one's surprise I will leave you now... to go find some boba.

xoxo,
Anna


P.S.   MINIONS LIKE CUPCAKES TOO!

Oatmeal Cranberry White Chocolate Chip Cookies

By the time I post this, I will have made these cookies three, maybe four times.  They're that good.  They're really just like my regular oatmeal raisin cookies but instead of raisins they have cranberries and white chocolate chips.  So that obviously means they are delicious.  Let's be honest though, what cookie is not delicious?

I don't understand people who don't like oatmeal raisin cookies. So naturally, I won't understand anyone who does not like this cookie, either.  Dried fruit DOES have a place in sweet treats.  It's no fatty ice cream cookie sandwich, but it is something important with a rightful place in my internet cook book.

Cranberry White Chocolate Chip Cookies 
Makes 36, Bake at 350* for around 9 minutes

1 3/4 c. flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp nutmeg
1 c unsalted butter, room temp
1 c sugar
1 c brown sugar
2 egg
2 tsp vanilla
2 1/2 c oats
2/3 c dried craisins
1 c white chocolate chips

Directions:
1. In a bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg.
2. Cream butter and sugar together in a stand mixer.
3. Add in vanilla extract and egg and beat until fully incorporated.
4. Add in flour mixture to batter.
5. Fold in oats, then craisins, then the white chocolate chips
5. Scoop out dough balls onto parchment lined cookie sheets and bake until edges are brown.  DO NOT OVER BAKE!
6. Let set on cookie sheet for 1-3 minutes and then place on cooling rack.

I made these for a pool party, for a park BBQ and just a few weekends ago I baked some batches as part of a fundraiser/bake sale for the upcoming San Francisco Aids Walk on July 21, 2013.  There's been stacks and stacks of cookies at my house lately.

I've been baking for a few weeks now; a dozen cookies as a thank you to anyone who donates online to a good cause.   If you'd like to donate please feel free to support me by clicking here.  You never know, you may get a delivery of cookies at your door step yourself.   ;)

xoxo,
Anna