Tahini Cookies

Some items should really be sold in much smaller containers. For example, chicken bullion cubes, fancy vinegar and cornmeal. Generally, you need just a tablespoon for the recipe and are left with a near-full container of the ingredient. Tahini is another ingredient that always languishes in my pantry until it reaches its expiration date.

Thanks to Cooking Light Magazine, my tahini now has more purpose! I recently noticed a new section in the magazine called the "Use it Up Challenge." The May 2015 (I'm a little behind in reading magazines!) ingredient was tahini! While all of the recipes sounded fantastic, I'm making the orange-tahini vinaigrette next, these tahini cookies fit the bill for my Sunday plans.

They come together a lot like a peanut butter cookie recipe, but the flavor is completely different. If you like tahini (which if you have it in your house, I'm assuming you do), you'll love these cookies. The whole recipe comes together in about an hour - from ingredients to baked cookies.

The recipe also makes a completely realistic number of cookies - 24. Even though this recipe comes from Cooking Light, I wouldn't consider it to be healthy or low fat. The recipe includes refined sugar and butter. Enjoy them for the flavor and try not to eat all of them in one sitting!

What ingredients sits in your pantry month after month? I'd love to start my own version of CL - Us it Up Challenge and help everyone use up those weird ingredients!

One Year Ago: Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Ice Cream Bars
Two Years Ago: Vanilla Ice Cream with Roasted Cherry Swirl
Three Years Ago: Simple Arugula Salad
Four Years Ago: Oatmeal Pancakes
Four Years Ago: Chocolate Buttercream & Peanut Butter Cream Cheese Frosting

Chocolate Peep Cakes

We're just a few days before Easter and I really wanted to use that Peep mold again! I decided to try out a few more recipes to see just what would work. Also, I wanted everything to be peep shaped after I made those peeps last week!

Today I present... Chocolate Peep Cakes!!!

Aren't they cute!

The chocolate cake recipe that I used was a simple one. In fact I wasn't really impressed with the one I chose, so I won't be sharing the cake recipe today. You could probably even use a store bought cake mix., if you are low on time! What makes these cakes come together even faster is the frosting.

These cakes are very similar to petit fours because I used a poured fondant frosting. It took two layers of frosting to completely cover the chocolate, but it retained all the details of the peep cakes! The addition of some sprinkles and black sugar pearls and we have ourselves some cute little cakes!

They are the perfect treat to finish off your Easter holiday! These cakes were also very fun to make, I think I'll try my hand at real petit fours in the future.

Two Years Ago: Perry's Ice Cream Factory Tour
Three Years Ago: Grilled Chicken and Potatoes
Four Years Ago: Tortellini Soup

Cookies for Monday

Sometimes you need something really simple and delicious.  Comfort food.  When it comes to comfort food dessert, nothing is more classic than chocolate chip cookies.  The boyfriend and I like to whip up a batch for Saturday night and turn on a movie.  

I may or may not have eaten a few spoonfuls of the raw cookie dough before it made its way into the oven.  I'm not feeling guilty about it, this dough is delicious.  Rather than using straight all-purpose flour, I swapped out half for rice flour.  The rice flour gives these cookies a really soft texture.  They are crispy on the edges and soft in the middle, my kind of cookie.

I would totally recommend using this cookie dough as a base for using up any of your excess chocolate chips.  Toss in whatever you have in your pantry.  Milk chocolate, peanut butter, butterscotch?  Toss them all in, this dough is the perfect base for anything you want to throw in there!

Half of these cookies will be making their way to work today.  One of my new coworkers has made it very clear that he love love loves chocolate chip cookies.  A new coworker always needs to make a good impression!

One Year Ago: Ginger-Curry Crackers & Whole Wheat Crackers
Two Years Ago: Boysenberry Buckle Muffins
Three Years Ago: Fruit Salsa

Wilde Chocolate Chip Cookies

1 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup rice flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
8 tablespoons butter
1/2 cup shortening
3/4 cup sugar
3/4 cup brown sugar, packed
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 eggs, cold
1 cup white chocolate chips
1 cup dark chocolate chips

Whisk together flours, baking soda & salt in a medium bowl.  In a large bowl, cream together butter and shortening, scrape down the sides of the mixing bowl.  Add sugars and vanilla and cream until fluffy.  Add eggs, one at a time, and beat until combined.  Scrape down the sides of the mixing bowl.  Pour in flour mixture and turn mixer on low.  Beat just until the flour is absorbed.  Add chocolate chips and mix by hand until chips are evenly distributed.  Cover bowl in plastic wrap and set in the fridge for 2 hours.

Preheat oven to 350 ºF.  Line baking sheets with parchment paper or Silpat sheets.  Scoop out 1 tablespoon cookie dough and roll into a ball.  Bake cookies for 11 minutes, or until they are browned around the edges.  Remove from the oven and let cool for 1 minute on the baking sheet.  Remove from the sheet and allow to cool completely on a wire rack.  (Or eat them hot, so good)

Christmas Fudge

We're in the home stretch of the holiday season and it's time to bombard you with a few more festive recipes!  I think we're just about two weeks away from not wanting to see anything peppermint, pumpkin or cranberry related for another year. Until that time comes I'm going to revel in those flavors! Get ready for a holiday countdown of flavor!

Up first is some pretty amazing and easy peppermint and chocolate Christmas fudge.  It's not the holiday season to me until I order my first peppermint hot chocolate from Starbucks.  This fudge is like a condensed, one inch square version of that drink.

I've made a few different varieties of fudge and I think I prefer this method to the classic boiled sugar method. No candy thermometer, no pot and no careful crystallization required. Just microwave, stir and pour. It's incredibly creamy and smooth. I made this batch of fudge for the boyfriends holiday office party and apparently it was gone in no time! I know I had a few pieces for myself.

One Year Ago: Eggnog Mallomars
Two Years Ago: Coconut Brownies

Three Years Ago: Dark Chocolate Hearts

Easy Christmas Fudge

A Wilde Original

1 (14-oz) can fat-free sweetened condensed milk
3/4 cup semisweet chocolate chips
2 tablespoons cocoa powder
3/4 cup vanilla chips
2 tablespoons powdered sugar
1/2 teaspoon peppermint extract
1/4 cup candy canes, crushed

Line an 8-inch pan with wax paper.

Combine 9 tablespoons (7 ounces) sweetened condensed milk with chocolate chips and cocoa powder.  Microwave on high for 1 minute.  Stir until the chocolate chips are melted and the mixture is smooth.  Pour into the prepared pan and smooth out.  Place in the fridge while you prepare the peppermint  layer.

Combine remaining sweetened condensed milk with vanilla chips.  Microwave for 1 minute, stir until mostly melted.  Add powdered sugar and peppermint extract and stir until smooth.  Pour over chocolate layer and smooth out.  Sprinkle with crushed candy canes and gently press in.  Place in the fridge for 2 hours to harden.

Cut slab of fudge into 25 squares.

Wilde Away

What does someone do when they've been laid off?  They go on vacation!  No wait, that doesn't seem like the normal thing to do.  Nonetheless, boyfriend and I are not in country right now, we are in Morocco!  In a way it's a good time to go on vacation.  It gets the mind off of the fact that I don't have anywhere to go in the morning.

Boyfriend and I are currently in the Sahara desert, riding camels around.  We got to spend the night in a Berber camp in the desert, where I saw the stars for the first time in a long time.  We have spent the past few days in Marrakech and will be moving on to Agadir tomorrow morning, where we will learn how to surf!  I'm very excited and totally frightened for my life.  The ocean is scary and I'm hoping we're surfing little baby waves.  On giant surf boards.  While wearing floaties.

Until I come back, enjoy these uh-mazing strawberry bars.  I made them just before we left, you know, in all my unemployed free time.  I really enjoyed them hot with a big scoop of vanilla ice cream.  For breakfast.  Don't judge.

Disclaimer: OXO was nice enough to send me some fun fruit-related products as a part of their blogger outreach program, including the strawberry huller you see in the first image.  I used the huller to remove the hulls of the strawberries.  You can use a paring knife just as well, I like tools.

Restaurant Wars 2013 - Cheesecake Factory

I wonder why I don't make cheesecake very often.

No wait, I know exactly why I don't make cheesecake very often.  It's because I would weigh nine hundred pounds.  Cheesecake is delicious and I have no self control around it.  This is why I was so excited about having the Cheesecake factory next on my list.  I was looking forward to that cheesecake menu.

For the most part, I have never been that impressed with the Cheesecake Factory's food menu.  I think it's because they have way too many options.  I want a menu with ten to fifteen great options, not seven pages of  sandwiches, burgers, pasta and entrees.  The power that Cheesecake Factory holds over me is in their two page cheesecake menu.

Boyfriend and I enjoyed a pretty basic lunch.  Apparently Cheesecake Factory realized that most of their menu items were super high in calories and has introduced a Skillylicious menu.  I ordered a salad and BF got a lunch-sized portion of pasta carbonara.  (He really likes carbonara and will order it off of just about any menu)  Since it was lunchtime, there was no way I was going to be able to eat my salad and a slice of cheesecake.  Luckily, they have these great to go boxes!

I asked the waitress which two cheesecakes were their most popular.  She suggested their white chocolate-raspberry cheesecake and their limited edition Oreo cheesecake.  I took a slice of each home and found out that I would be eating all of this cheesecake myself.  Boyfriend apparently doesn't like cheese in his dessert.  And he was the whole reason I got the Oreo cheesecake!  I guess I'm still learning new things about the guy I've been with for over ten years!

And you would all be so proud of me!  I had total self control with these two slices of cheesecake.  I had a bite of each once we got home from our day out and promptly put them in the fridge.  It took me until the end of the week to finish eating them!  I think it took me so long, because they weren't mindblowingly delicious.  The limited edition Oreo cheesecake was uber rich and had four layers of mousse, cheesecake, ganache and crumb.  It was just too much, you can see how it was falling over after a short ride in the car.  The white chocolate-raspberry cheesecake was half and half.  The top layer was amazing, but the raspberry-less bottom layer was just meh.

I decided to neglect the entire food menu of Cheesecake factory and try to recreate their white chocolate-raspberry cheesecake, in miniature form.  There was no way that I was going to have an entire 10-inch cheesecake sitting in my house, so my recipe makes six cupcake sized cakes!  I can handle having that many cute little cheesecakes in the house (especially since I'm the only one living in this apartment who likes cheesecake!).

Make these mini cheesecakes at home and enjoy the best part of going out to dinner at the Factory.

Cute, Colorful and French

I know, I know.  Macarons are so 2012.

I should move on to whatever this years big dessert treat is!  (actually, I have no idea what is supposed to be "IN" in 2013.  The internet says it's fancy popcorn, figs and push-pops.)  But you know what?  I love macs.  I think that they are cute and colorful and French, so I will go on making macarons until I run out of flavors to make!  Especially now that I've found my method for macs that works consistently without all the fuss.

First, I got these handy egg tools from OXO (through their blogger outreach program).  OXO suggested I make myself a nice omelet, but quite frankly, I don't really go for omelets.  I'm much more of a cinnamon bun for breakfast kind of girl.  If I'm going to eat eggs, they are going to be scrambled and it is going to be after six pm.  Worry not OXO, these egg tools fit perfectly for my other egg related plan - macarons!

I received an egg separator - perfect for separating those whites from yolks.  I also got a person powered hand mixer - just what my tired arms need for whisking sugar into egg whites over a simmering pot of water.  Finally I got a fancy spatula.  The tag said it was an omelet turner.  I put mine to use in the oh so important macaronage step of macaron making.  These tools should be remarketed to the macaron maker.  They worked perfectly!

The other reason I decided to make macs?  I found these freeze-dried raspberries at a gourmet grocery store in South Orange, NJ.  I knew they would make an amazing ingredient to a macaron, since the best way to flavor the cookie itself is with dry ingredients.  If you find freeze-dried mangos, let me know.  I totally want a mango-flavored mac.  How the French would sneer at a mango macaron!

With the tools and the cookies taken care of, there was just one thing left to deal with.  The filling.  Searching my cabinets I happened upon a block of Callebaut white chocolate.  Raspberry macarons filled with white chocolate buttercream?  That sounds just delicious enough to work.  (Would I rather have filled them with white chocolate ganache?  Yes, but I was out of heavy cream and I wanted to eat the cookies ASAP.)

So now we have raspberry and white chocolate macarons, OXO has a new marketing campaign for their egg tools and my pantry is cleared of two of the more eccentric items.  All in all, a good day!

See, so cute.  So colorful.  Bonjour macarons.