Michael’s Way

April 14, 2016April 14, 2016 ~ Angela ~ Leave a comment

Hey all! How has everyone been? I’m dropping in with a quick post about some cookies I just made! I didn’t get a chance to take any nice, professional looking photos before I sent these out the door (new work responsibilities, grad school and attempting to have a life in between have me feeling like everything is moving at warp speed these days, know what I mean?) but I wanted to do a little write up, mostly to spread the word about a great charity.

Michael’s Way is an organization in the Philadelphia area that provides assistance to the families of children battling pediatric cancer. According to their website, “Michael’s Way has raised more than $6 million to lessen the financial hardships of hundreds of families whose children are suffering from cancer. 100% of money raised, as well as private donations and grants received from foundations goes directly to the families, not to overhead.” I think that’s pretty amazing given the number of “charities” that spend more per dollar on salaries, marketing and who knows what else than they do on actually helping people.

For the third year in a row PMC Property Group is sponsoring a bowling party at Lucky Strike in Philadelphia to raise money for Michael’s Way (4/20/16 – details here if you are interested!) and I was more than happy to make some Michael’s Way logo cookies for the event!

So here’s my crappy picture of what turned out to be a pretty cool cookie!!

If you suck at bowling or aren’t in the area, but are interested in making a donation to this wonderful organization head over to their online donation form!

Funny Bunny

March 30, 2015March 29, 2015 ~ Angela ~ 3 Comments

I know a really fun lady who asked me to make some Easter cookies for her grandkids so when I saw these Wilton icing decorations in the stores last week I knew I had to use them somehow. I’m pretty sure she’s going to love these funny bunnies and I hope her grandkids do too!

Valentine Cookies 2015

February 13, 2015February 12, 2015 ~ Angela ~ 6 Comments

Even if you hate Valentine’s Day you still love cookies, right? Here’s this year’s batch!

Apple Pie Snickerdoodles

December 15, 2014December 15, 2014 ~ Angela ~ 5 Comments

I was super excited to participate again this year in the Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap which raises money for Cookies for Kids’ Cancer. Food bloggers sign up and get assigned three other food bloggers to send cookies to. This year I sent cookies to Ashley at Memoirs from My Kitchen, Claire at Simply Sweet Justice and Renee from Tortillas and Honey. More on who I received cookies from later…

First, on to the recipe!

I love snickerdoodles, and when I tried Apple Pie Candy Corn from Brach’s® around Halloween I knew I wanted to combine the candy with that quintessential cinnamon cookie. I know it’s no longer candy corn season but I just checked and as of right now you can still buy a bag on Amazon. So if you do want to give these a try you don’t have to wait until next fall!

You can use any snickerdoodle recipe that you like. I happened to have a few bags of Betty Crocker® Snickerdoodle Cookie Mix hanging out in my pantry so that is what I used. Easy and delicious!

Apple Pie Snickerdoodles

Ingredients

Ingredients and measurements will vary depending on what recipe you use for the snickerdoodles. The following instructions are for use with the Betty Crocker® Mix:

1 bag of the cookie mix which contains a packet of cinnamon sugar
1 stick of butter (1/2 cup), melted
1 egg
1 tablespoon of water

In addition to the ingredients to make the cookie dough you will need 1 bag of Brach’s® Apple Pie Candy Corn

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (350 degrees F for a dark or nonstick cookie sheet).
2. Pour the cinnamon sugar from the packet into a small bowl.
3. Combine the ingredients needed to make the dough in a medium bowl until a soft dough forms.
4. Take about 1 teaspoon of dough and press one piece of candy corn into it. Cover with a bit more dough, making a ball around the piece of candy corn. Make sure no part of the candy corn is poking out through the dough.
5. Roll the ball of cookie dough in the cinnamon sugar until coated.
6. Place dough 2 inches apart on an ungreased cookie sheet.
7. Bake for 8-10 minutes or until edges are set.
8. Remove from oven and press another 2 pieces of candy corn into the top of each cookie.
9. Place cookies back in oven for 1-2 minutes, just long enough to soften the candy corn so it will stick to the cookies.
10. Remove and let cool for 2 minutes before transferring the cookies to a wire rack.

This will make 2 dozen cookies. Store in an airtight container.

Again, the ingredients and instructions here are if you are using the cookie mix. If you are using a different recipe please follow the baking instructions for that recipe, just adding one or two minutes back in the oven after placing the candy corn on top.

You could skip inserting the candy corn into the center of the cookie but I wouldn’t! It melts inside, infusing the cookie with a delightful apple pie flavor!

I received three FANTASTIC batches of cookies from some awesome bloggers. The first batch was Chocolate Chip Hazelnut Snowball Cookies from Marcie at Flavor the Moments. I love that she added chocolate chips to the traditional snowball cookie!

Next came Browned Butter Nutella® Slice-n-Bake Cookies from Sara at Cake Over Steak. Nutella® makes everything awesome and these cookies were no exception!

My last batch of cookies was from Maurita at Get the Good Stuff. She sent Ginger Shortbread Rounds. I LOVE shortbread cookies, and the addition of chewy bits of ginger took these over the top!

I have to say now that the swap is finished, it’s pretty depressing coming home every day from work knowing that there is no chance there will be a box of tasty cookies on my doorstep. If any of you out there are feeling generous and want to just randomly send me cookies, let me know so I can give you my address! 😉

Special thanks to Julie from The Little Kitchen and Lindsay from Love and Olive Oil who are the masterminds behind the Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap! Thanks for all your hard work ladies! Can’t wait to do it again next year!

Cookie Postcards

December 2, 2014December 2, 2014 ~ Angela ~ 6 Comments

I recently participated in another Operation Cookie Takeover mission. If you don’t know what OCT is all about you should check out their Facebook page! The quick rundown though is this – people nominate deployed soldiers to receive cookies from the volunteers who have signed up to bake and send them. Volunteers have shipped over 37,000 cookies to deployed soldiers since 2013!

This was the fourth mission and my fourth time participating. It was also, by far, my favorite experience.

My idea for this round of cookies was to create a cookie “postcard” – a handwritten, edible note of thanks. I have been seeing a lot of cookie decorators using the stamping technique to embellish their cookies and thought this would be the perfect opportunity to give it a try. I used a rectangular cookie cutter to make my postcards and covered them in a layer of white royal icing. Then I picked up a few postage related stamps from the craft store, read this tutorial on cookie stamping from Fancy Flours and went to town.

Cookie Stamping — It’s always best to practice first… : )

After trying out a few stamps I decided I liked the postmark one the best, so I stamped each of my postcard cookies with it. Because my cookies weren’t perfectly flat, sometimes the stamp didn’t lay the ink down evenly in all spots but I figured that was okay – most postmarks aren’t completely uniform so I’m calling it “authentic.” I let the ink dry overnight and then packed the cookies up and took them into work the next day for the fun part!

Along with my cookies I brought in a few sets of edible ink markers and set up a cookie signing station in an empty cubicle. I invited all my coworkers to stop by and write a note to the troops on one of the cookies.

Here are a few of them:

And here are all 24 together!

Thanks to the help of all my awesome friends at work these turned out so much better than I imagined. I was so excited to ship these off to the Marine that I was matched up with. I hope they all made it in one piece!

3rd Annual Go Bo! Foundation Bake Sale

October 7, 2014October 16, 2014 ~ Angela ~ 1 Comment

Fall is seriously THE best time of year. In addition to all the usual favorites (cooler weather, apple cider, gorgeous fall foliage, pumpkin EVERYTHING…) it is also the time for fun things such as my birthday (next week!), Halloween, signups for The Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap and the Go Bo! Foundation Bake Sale!

This amazing bake sale is put together by Jill from Jill FCS Funky Cookie Studio to support the Go Bo! Foundation’s mission of funding cancer research and helping the families of children with cancer in Door County, WI. This year cookie artists from ALL 50 states AND 17 countries have donated their time and efforts to this worthy cause. If you are in the area you should definitely go check it out! Don’t worry though if you can’t attend because you could seriously spend hours scrolling through the Go Bo! Foundation Bake Sale Facebook page looking at all the fabulous contributions. There are some seriously talented cookie decorators out there!

This year Jill asked that in addition to whatever themed cookies we wanted to make we also send at least one butterfly cookie. So here are the cookies I shipped out to WI last week:

“You only live once so make it count.” – Bo

If you would like more information or would like to donate, please visit www.gobofoundation.org.

Chocolate Dipped Double Caramel Apple Oreos

September 12, 2014September 14, 2014 ~ Angela ~ 7 Comments

I have a problem with Nabisco and all these new Oreo flavors they keep coming out with. Cookie dough, banana split, Reese’s, fruit punch… Don’t they know I have a hard enough time not eating an entire package of regular Oreos?! I managed to survive the summer without going completely hog wild but then they had to go and make caramel apple flavored Oreos.

CARAMEL. APPLE. OREOS.

I love caramel apple. Please enter exhibits A, B and C into evidence:

A. The BEST freaking drink I have ever made – the Caramel Apple Pie Cocktail.
B. Super yummy and super easy Caramel Apple Cheesecake Cookies.
C. My “disgustingly good” Pumpkin Caramel Apple Magic Bars.

I started seeing these new fall flavored Oreos all over Instagram about two weeks ago. I heard they would be available at “select” Target stores. I had to have them. I couldn’t find them.

So I did what any normal person would do in such a situation. Last Friday, I asked all my coworkers before we went home to look for them if they ended up at a Target over the weekend. That is how I scored a package. Then they popped up in my Target so I bought two more.

I tried one and they were pretty good but they weren’t quite caramel-y enough for me. I mentioned this to a very wise friend who immediately suggested dipping them in caramel (thanks Greg!). I loved the idea but was worried about the stickiness factor so I decided that not only would I cover the cookies in caramel, I would also cover them in chocolate!

You’re welcome.

These were really easy to make! They took me about an hour and a half start to finish – no baking necessary! – and they were a HUGE hit at work. I love it when you get such a big payoff for minimal effort!

Chocolate Dipped Double Caramel Apple Oreos

Ingredients

2 packages of Caramel Apple Oreos
1 (14 oz) package of caramels, unwrapped
2 Tbsp water
2 (12 oz) packages of semi-sweet chocolate chips (melting chocolate or chocolate bars would also work)

Directions

1. Line two baking sheets with wax paper and lay out 3 dozen of the Caramel Apple Oreos.

2. Melt the unwrapped caramels and 2 Tbsp of water (you could also use heavy cream instead) in a saucepan over low heat, stirring constantly.

3. Spoon the melted caramel on top of the Oreos. I just kept the caramel on the burner and worked on the counter next to it. Keeping the caramel warm prevented it from starting to harden back up while I was working with it. Once the Oreos are topped with the caramel put them in the refrigerator until the caramel is set – about 15 minutes.

4. While the cookies are chilling in the fridge melt the chocolate chips in a double boiler, or in the microwave.

5. After the caramel has set dip the Oreos into the melted chocolate, making sure all sides are covered. I dropped the Oreo caramel side down into the chocolate, and using two forks made sure the sides were covered before flipping it over to cover the bottom. Lift the cookie out with one of the forks and place back on the wax paper lined cookie sheets.

6. Once all the Oreos have been dipped let them sit until the chocolate has hardened. Store in an airtight container in a cool, dry place and they should keep for a few weeks. Not that they will last that long!

Full disclosure: For some reason, on only some of the Oreos, the caramel oozed through the chocolate. I’m not sure why this happened, so if you are an expert in candy making and can provide some kind of explanation or tips on preventing this, please leave me a comment!

The leaky caramel didn’t really matter though because these cookies are FAN-FREAKING-TASTIC! The caramel and chocolate combined with the golden Oreo cookie are reminiscent of a Twix bar. Add in the caramel apple flavor of the cookie filling and you have a decadent treat inspired by the flavors of fall!

Of course, after I finished making these I saw a new Instagram post with a picture of Pumpkin Spice Oreos! Oh Nabisco, why do you do these things to me?!

Oh, right. So I can make stuff like this!!

If you’d like to see MY picture of the Pumpkin Spice Oreos when I get my hands on them be sure to follow me on Instagram!

Star Cookies

June 20, 2014June 19, 2014 ~ Angela ~ 6 Comments

I recently had the pleasure of making two batches of star shaped cookies for very different purposes. The first set was purple and pink starfish for a beach themed bridal shower.

The second set was for Operation Cookie Takeover. Tons of awesome people have volunteered to send over 12,000 cookies to our troops serving overseas! I am so happy for the opportunity to contribute once again to such a great cause.