Cowboy Cookies, from Baked Explorations

Wahoo! a properly butch cookie, get the name, the size, the salty pretzel addition.  Yep, it gets 9/10 on the butch scale (and 10/10 on the yum scale).  Of course my saying wahoo and giving marks out of ten probably gets me 20/10 on the geek scale.  Well, it's too late to try to be cool now.

I bought Baked Explorations on the strength of the first book, Baked, the recipes I tried from Baked were totally delicious and just worked, which is what I like in a cookbook! lol.  I've now made two recipes from Baked explorations and although I didnt get a picture for #1 (the carrot and coconut scones, delicious, I added a little less sugar than suggested and served them with a curried lentil soup) I'm counting this book in! I have b2/m2'ed it and it stays.

And Cake Win!

Or, how my mojo returned!

 Today is October birthday #2 and in the interests of getting right back on my horse I decided to gamble it all on a new recipe.  Killing off a birthday cake and an item from the b2/m2 list.  I bought the Greyston Bakery book a while ago from tk maxx (home of an ungodly amount of cookbooks) but had yet to bake from it.

 The carrot cake baked beautifully, even and flat on top and perfect for a birthday cake!  This carrot cake uses melted butter instead of corn oil, and I like that! butter is good.  I hate cream cheese frosting, for frosting, to eat from a bucket it's just fine.  I knew as soon as I smeared some onto the cake that the consistency was off.  But it looks ok... the carrot decorations are just a follow on from my pumpkins, in our house any excuse for marzipan is a good excuse.

The cookies, well, the cookies were totally unnecessary.  But who doesn't love a cookie? these were a lovely confidence booster! I like a nice, wholesome looking hessian kind of cookie.  These fit the bill. 

Greyston Bakery Oatmeal Chocolate Chunk Cookies

1.5 cups plain, unbleached flour

1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

1 tsp salt

2 sticks unsalted butter at room temperature

1.5 cups packed soft (dark, I used) brown sugar

1.5tsp vanilla extract

2 cups old fashioned rolled oats (I used a local mix of spelt, rye, barley and oat flakes)

3/4 cup shredded coconut

7oz dark chocolate chips

 if you're playing along use the waitrose conversions, they worked just fine.

Preheat the oven to 180, get two baking sheets and line with parchment paper (the non stick one, I was taking no risks here).

Whisk together the flour, salt and baking soda.

In a mixer cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy, then add the egg and vanilla, keep beating till it becomes a light, creamy mix.  Scrape down the sides and beat briefly.

On low speed mix in the flour until just barely combined.  Mix in the oats, coconut and chocolate using a spatula.

 Either drop the dough by the spoonfull and hope for the best or weigh the dough, divide by 24 and make perfectly round cookies (you just know what I did, right?) that bake evenly.  With this dough each (unbaked) cookies weighs nearly 50g! big cookies.

 Space them evenly on the sheets and bake for 12 to 15 minutes, till golden brown.  Cool on the sheets briefly then move to wire racks to finish.

 Enjoy, with a big glass of milk.

Cute little cookies

Please, be gentle.  Cookies, iced cookies, not one of my strong points.  I prefer the roll into a ball, dunk in sugar and bake variety, or maybe the cut out with a cutter and pretend it's a plain/folksy/Steiner thing.  However, perhaps all this will change? I borrowed the totally gorgeous Biscuiteers book from the library (and would like to have my own copy eventually! ) the other night and have since been itching to make something, well, cutesy.

The recipe (adhered to strictly, I love this level of do as we say in a book) produced a lovely lemony cookie, despite the fact I rolled them a little to thick I think.  Applying the icing, it wasn't exactly a breeze, but for a first attempt I'm pretty pleased with them.

 Obviously the first ones I tried were Halloweeny, I love Halloween! seriously, a lot, I'm like a crazy dyke version of Martha Stewart (only without her gazillions of dollars, hordes of minions and snappy dress sense, obviously) and it is now officially pumpkin season! I noticed while making these biscuits I only have one exceptionally crappy pumpkin cutter, this must be put right, as soon as possible... because, who knows when the strange urge to bake may strike? after all, I do have half a batch of this dough in the freezer and another box of royal icing in the baking cupboard.

And finally... a tip, from me to you (because I care) if you should happen to be in the trade department of a well known home improvement store, enquiring as to the availability of 2" thick insulation grade styrofoam board, do not, I repeat, do not tell them it's to make a gravestone.  They look at you funny, just saying.

Librarything (and how my books got out of control)

I thought perhaps a link to my Library thing might be helpful, to illustrate the scale of the book collection... I enjoy making lists (as you will later see I also enjoy calculators and rulers in the kitchen, it's part of my nature) so Library thing really appealed to that part of me.  My catalogue, unfinished as it is.

The obsessive book collecting started when I left home and started to learn to cook, it was a self defense thing, one more frozen ready meal and I would have gone crazy. One day I was in a charity shop and whoa, so many cookbooks!  Finding out about cookbooks was second only to the discovery that I adore cooking, when the going gets tough I go to the kitchen.

 Once they were aware of my growing stack of books family members started passing theirs on too. Fast forward to now and, Christmas, birthday, yup, it's a book (which is great for me, I love books) or a book token... not to mention the random eBay/tk maxx/charity shop/Abe books etc hauls that sometimes follow me home.

 Now with the b2/m2 project on the go I'd like to say I was being more selective, but I cant.  D'oh!

The bake two/make two project....

I have an addiction, to books (all books really, but cookbooks in particular...) and it's gotten out of hand. They roost in the dining room, on the windowledge in the kitchen, in the bathroom, by my bed, under the sofa... you get the idea?
A veritable legion of the papery undead, some batter spattered and worn, others that still have new book smell.

I kind of thought (after clicking on submit order once more, thank you book depository) that it might be a good idea to thin the herd, but, how to pick? So I hit on the idea of baking/making two items at least from each book, if they work it stays, if they dont (or are just plain bleh) it goes. No ifs, buts or whines.

So, where to start?