Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap 2015

It's been a busy year around the Wilde household. I've barely had enough time to cook real food, with next to no time to spend in the kitchen making something fun. I made sure to make time this season to participate in the annual Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap.

 

This year I decided to make a classic Christmas treat in mallomar form! Each year for Christmas, my mom buys my dad a box of cherry cordials. I always sneak one (or two) from the box and they always remind me of the holidays. 

Cherry-vanilla marshmallow sits on top of a crisp chocolate cookie. Covered in milk chocolate and topped with a candied cherry, these cookies taste just like the cordial candy, but without the liquid candy center. This recipe may sound daunting, but it's actually very straightforward. If you've never made marshmallow before, don't worry, it's much easier than it looks. The most difficult thing is piping the marshmallow onto the cookies. It takes a few practice pipes before you get the right technique.

If you are looking for one more cookie to add to your tray or bring to a cookie swap, give these a try! They look really impressive and taste even better!

One Year Ago: Candy Cane Mallomars
Two Years Ago: Gingerbread Mallomen
Three Years Ago: Pinata Cookies
Four Years Ago: Peppermint Mallomars
Five Years Ago: Browned Butter Spritz Cookies

J@H - Brownie Donuts with Peanut Butter Glaze

I have been looking forward to making my own donuts all year. Yes, I realize that I could have made donuts at any time, but it's been a crazy year and I haven't made breakfast once this year. I really need to make myself some French Toast this weekend.

A few years ago, I made a classic fried donut. This time I decided to go with a healthier cooking option and baked them. Rather than going completely healthy, I packed these with chocolate and covered them in peanut butter.

These donuts are dense and chocolatey, I can't responsibly tell you to eat these for breakfast.  I would suggest that you should make these and have them for dessert under a big scoop of vanilla ice cream.

I think that I need to make another batch of donuts. Something that is a little lighter and more breakfast appropriate. Maybe something packed with oranges or bananas?

Who am I kidding? These are delicious and probably just as good for you as having Pop Tarts for breakfast! The peanut butter frosting is the perfect topping to these dense brownie donuts. Get yourself a whole bunch of chocolate and butter and make these donuts! Then bring them to work and make all your coworkers happy (and fat).

One Year Ago: Loaded Potato Soup
Two Years Ago: Halloween Mallomars
Three Years Ago: Butternut Squash Cake
Four Years Ago: Pumpkin Raisin Muffins
Five Years Ago: Pear Cake with Pine Nuts

OXO Good Cookie - No-Bake Cookies

Today I am partnering with Oxo and this blog post is dedicated to Cookies for Kids Cancer. In my professional life I work in oncology research and see the impact that cancer has on not only the patient, but all the people in their circle. The organization Cookies for Kids Cancer raises funds for research to develop new, improved treatments for pediatric cancer. As a researcher, I could spend this entire post talking about the genetic drivers of pediatric cancer, but instead we are going to discuss how cookies can help.

The OXO Good Cookies program is partnering up with bloggers this month to raise awareness about pediatric cancers. For each blog post, OXO donates $100 to Cookies for Kids Cancer! In addition to this, OXO has brought out a special line of bakeware to help support the cause. Look for OXO products with the Cookies for Kids Cancer logo. For each item purchased, they will donate $0.25 to the cause. Specifically, you can get this adorable cookie spatula! For this recipe I used their non-stick half sheet pan, medium cookie scoop and cookie spatula.

I was happy to join the cause this month and create a blog post about cookies. There was only one problem - my oven. Since we bought our house last year, the oven has been acting up. Specifically, the controller board for the oven has been randomly shutting off. This first happened just before Thanksgiving last year. We were able to fiddle with it and it would turn back on, until last month it finally died. What to do? Make no-bake cookies!

These cookies take about five minutes to make, especially with use of the cookie dough scoop. There are just three steps - 1. Bring sugar syrup to a boil  2. Stir in oats and flavors 3. Scoop out cookies.

Seriously, it's that easy. Once that's done you just need to walk away for 30 minutes! These are the easiest cookies to make, especially when you have no oven!

Be sure to get involved in aiding research for pediatric cancer. You can either buy OXO products, donate directly to the fund or even host a cookie sway of your own! Every cent helps with research in the field and those cents add up to improved survival for the patients.

One Year Ago: Rigatoni with Pepperoni, mozzarella & arugula
Two Years Ago: Dulce de Leche cookies
Three Years Ago: Apple Pie Ice Cream Topping
Four Years Ago: Caramel Brownies
Five Years Ago: Thin Mint Ice Cream

Disclaimer - OXO provided me with a set of bakeware to use in this blog post.

• Cookies for Kids' Cancer is a recognized 501c(3) public charity duly incorporated under the laws of the state of New Jersey. Your donations are tax deductible to the fullest extent allowable by law. 100% of proceeds raised by Cookies for Kids' Cancer fund pediatric cancer research.
• OXO will be donating $100 to Cookies for Kids’ Cancer for each blog post dedicated to this campaign in October (up to our $100,000 commitment*.)
• *In 2015, OXO will donate up to $100,000 to Cookies for Kids' Cancer through product proceeds, bake sale matches and other fundraising efforts

Pumpkin Mallomars

With the return of the fall weather, something else is returning to our lives - Mallomars! Mallomars are too delicate and meltable to ship to grocery stores in the summer, so we always see the return of these sweet treats right around Labor day. Seeing them on the grocery store shelves made me want to whip up another batch myself.

If you've been a long time reader of WITK, you may remember that I made pumpkin mallomars several years ago. I think it was three years ago... Feel free to go back into the archives and check those out too, they're totally different from these pumpkin mallomars. The old recipe has a pumpkin marshmallo, vanilla cookie and they're coated in white chocolate.

Rather than getting fancy with the marshmallow, I stayed super traditional with a vanilla marshmallow. Where the pumpkin comes in is the cookie! A pumpkin cut-out cookie? How did I not think of this years ago? Adding pumpkin to a cookie recipe is so much easier than trying to balance the flavors and texture of a candy. These cookies came out of the oven smelling like Fall and so delectable, even without the marshmallow topping.

The marshmallow on top really brings these cookies to a whole new level. Actually, they taste just like pumpkin pie. Seriously! The delicate flavors of the pumpkin cookie and vanilla marshmallow taste just like you popped some vanilla whipped cream on top of your pumpkin pie.

Of course these aren't exactly like a traditional mallomar. Most importantly, they aren't covered in chocolate. I coated my first few mallomar recipes in chocolate. I came to realize that the chocolate flavor was covering up the mild flavors I was infusing into the marshmallow or cookie. Therefore, we will call these "Naked Mallomars" from here on out.

Also, don't let the homemade marshmallow scare you off. Personally I've made marshmallows at least two dozen times. It gets easier and easier each time you put a batch together. This vanilla recipe is simple, quick and takes no more than 15-20 minutes to go from ingredients to piping bag. Have marshmallow questions? Leave them in the comment section and I'll try to be of assistance!

One Year Ago: Watermelon Mallomars
Two Years Ago: Pumpkin-frosted, caramel-filled, vanilla cupcakes
Three Years Ago:Ramen Vegetable Soup
Four Years Ago: Pomegranate Ice Cream
Five Years Ago: Apple cake with Brown sugar icing

J@H - Snickers Bars

Sorry for my lack of posting lately. My kitchen is currently sitting in my living room.

Over the past year, the boyfriend and I have been updating, renovating and decorating our first house. We have been putting off renovating the kitchen because it is the biggest job in the house. We pulled up the old flooring (three layers of tile, Peel & stick tile and linoleum) on Saturday. Re-tiling of the kitchen has taken up the past few days with grout planned for the weekend. We still have to choose a paint color, paint and then install a backsplash. We'll probably be out of the kitchen for another week or so.

Luckily, I had time to put the finishing touches on these bad boys before pulling the appliances out of the kitchen. I've been looking forward to recreating this classic candy in my kitchen. It took a few tries to get the layers right, but the final product is so fantastic!

Rather than coating the entire candy in chocolate, I went with the simpler option and built the candy bar in layers in a 8x8-inch pan. First went in a layer of chocolate. Next I made and pressed in the peanut butter nougat. After setting overnight, I made three different batches of caramel before finally making one that I was happy with. I stirred in the peanuts and poured it over the top. Once the caramel set up, I added the final layer of chocolate.

Do these bars taste exactly like a Snickers Bar? No. But they do taste delicious. They are also a labor of love. There are several other Snickers Bars recipes out there on the internet that are easier to put together. If you want to make everything from scratch and avoid ingredients like marshmallow fluff and store-bought caramels, give this a try!

Though, after all the trouble I had with the caramel layer, I might go with the easy way out next time!

One Year Ago: Hazelnut Cream Cheese Brownies
Two Years Ago: Peach Melba Linzer Bars
Three Years Ago: Gorgonzola & Leek Risotto
Four Years Ago: Orange Cinnamon Bread
Five Years Ago: Spanish Chicken with Mustard-Green Onion Sauce

Happy 5th Birthday WITK!

I can't believe that it's been five years since I started writing here at WITK! I remember reading food blogs during my down time in the lab and thinking that I'd like to share my cooking online too! A lot has changed since those early days in the kitchen...

In 2010, I was living in Colorado and getting ready to move to Connecticut. It was probably the worst time to start a food blog, since my kitchen was about to be packed up and shipped off to the East Coast!

I spent a year cooking from my tiny studio apartment in New Haven, Connecticut, before landing my first real job and moving to New Jersey. Not just moving to New Jersey, but moving in with my boyfriend of eight years.

I spent almost two years at my first job before the company was closed and I found myself unemployed! During my six months of unemployment I started a lifestyle blog, Wilde in the City, interviewed at a half dozen pharma companies and traveled the US with the boyfriend.

These days I'm happily at a new pharmaceutical company, in a completely different position, traveling the world and occasionally getting into the kitchen. With my work and travel schedule, I've been lax with my posting here at WITK, but I couldn't let this date pass me by!

Since it's July, I thought that I would celebrate the fruit of the season - the Strawberry! The cake is flavored with ripe strawberries and layered with strawberry compote and fresh whipped cream. To top it all off, the cake is covered with an amazing cream cheese frosting.

Thank you for coming along on this exciting journey at WITK! I wish you could all come over and have a slice of cake. I guess I'll just have to eat it all myself!

One Year Ago: Neapolitan Cake 
Two Years Ago: Milky Way Cake
Three Years Ago: Sponge Candy Cake
Four Years Ago: Pizza Foccacia
Five Years Ago: Chocolate Cupcakes

J@H - Cheesey Popcorn

Making cheesey popcorn is almost as easy as buying it! Well, once you locate the necessary ingredients, but that's what Amazon is for! Go there now and place your order for cheese powder, buttermilk powder and popcorn kernels. You'll be making your own cheesey popcorn in no time!

Also, I have to mention that I did all of this without a microwave. We are still renovating our new house and haven't gotten to the kitchen yet. There are grand plans to install an over-oven microwave, but that hasn't happened yet. I tried a few different methods until I came upon this popcorn popping procedure. It pops all the kernels and doesn't burn the finished popcorn.

You may be asking if this cheese popcorn is "better" for you than the store-bought variety. The popcorn itself is so easy, it's worth ditching the microwave stuff. Sadly, if you're for all-natural everything, the cheese powder may be outside of your comfort zone. The yellow cheese powder contains yellow #5, a food safe synthetic dye. Want something a little less yellow? Try this white cheddar powder.

Natural or not, I ate the entire bag of popcorn in one evening. So good.

One Year Ago: Peanut Butter Bar Ice Cream Sandwiches
Two Years Ago: Nutella Thumbprints
Three Years Ago: Strawberry-Lemon Preserves & Ginger-Pear Preserves
Four Years Ago: Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Ice Cream
Five Years Ago: Crunchy French Toast

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

Thai Chicken with Peanuts

Don't want to spend a ton of time in the kitchen, prepping dinner and sweating over the oven? Make a stir fry! At least once a week during the summer you can find me tossing ingredients into a big pan and pouring on different sauces. Stir fry isn't really a science. I usually don't follow a recipe and cook up whatever we have in the fridge.

Yes, the stir fry is the ultimate pre-vacation meal. You can clean out the fridge and use up any meats and vegetables. For this stir fry, had a bunch of sweet peppers and carrots, as well as a pack of chicken sitting in the fridge. With a business trip coming up on Thursday, I decided to use up the stuff in the house, rather than buy groceries this week. Also, since I tend to make a lot of stir frys, I had all the ingredients for my sauce already. My pantry is a well-stocked stir fry zone!

What is your go to "Use it up" recipe? With so many business and personal trips this year, I find that I've been tossing way more food than I would like. Resorting to eating out each night is not the best plan either, for the wallet or the waistline!

Two Years Ago: Milky Way Cake
Three Years Ago: Peanut Chicken with Asian Slaw
Four Years Ago: Banana Coconut Muffins
Five Years Ago: Indian Chicken Curry

Butternut Squash Galette

This recipe is not really summer appropriate. I wound up with a bunch of extra butternut squash and was looking for a recipe to use it all up. I came across this recipe in The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook and knew that it would be perfect. While the flavors are more suited for Fall, this dinner tastes wonderful all year long.

This meal won't keep you cooped up in the kitchen for long. You can cook the squash and onions at the same time and use pre-cooked chicken. The summer months are the perfect time to use those roasted chickens from the grocery store. The hands on time for this recipe is pretty small, especially if you use a pre-made pie crust (my savior when it comes to pie crusts are those Pillsbury refrigerated crusts).

This is the perfect dinner for four people. Have a larger group? Just double the recipe! The boyfriend and I had this galette for dinner and then enjoyed the leftovers for lunch the next day. It's just as good hot as it is cold!

One Year Ago: Neapolitan Cake
Two Years Ago: Bacon & Strawberry Pizza
Three Years Ago: Buffalo Sponge Candy Cake
Four Years Ago: Pomegranate Moon Pies
Five Years Ago: Chocolate Cupcakes (High Altitude Recipe included)

J@H - Homemade Snoballs

I'm a few challenges behind on my Junk at Home 2015 challenge, due to travel and work, so I thought I should get back to it with a bang! This week I was scheduled to make my own version of Hostess coconut snowballs and I decided to make it all from scratch.

Even though I had to made four different things for this recipe, it all came together pretty quickly. Aside from the shredded coconut, you probably already have all of the ingredients in your pantry. Well, as long as you're a baker, if you don't bake a lot you may need to head to the grocery story for a few things (unsweetened chocolate, marshmallow creme, Greek yogurt).

While you can get Snoballs at the store once again, you should definitely try making them at home. It's so much fun! Look at these adorable little purple puffs! The colored coconut is so easy to make. Simply place a bag of sweetened, shredded coconut into a large zip top bag. Add a drop of gel food coloring and squish it around until the coconut is evenly colored. Alternatively, you can add the coconut and food coloring to a food processor and pulse until the color is even and the coconut is slightly smaller.

The big question - do they taste like the original? With the combination of marshmallow, coconut and chocolate, there is no way for these to taste like anything else! This was definitely a winner in my book.

Two Years Ago: Strawberry Bacon Pizza
Three Years Ago: Pesto-Yogurt Chicken
Four Years Ago: Baked Pasta Casserole

Celebrations

I'm wrapping up my fun with ice cream! Today it's all about bringing back childhood memories. We're doing that with sprinkles. Lots and lot of sprinkles!

I've been seeing a version of this cake around the internet and have been dying to make it in my kitchen. I mean, look at all of those sprinkles! It's so pretty! It's also seriously easy to do. No need to worry about smooth icing, piping bags or imperfections. Just cover your cake with frosting and pour on the sprinkles.

I didn't stop with just sprinkles on the outside, the cake is also filled with adorable bursts of color. This is the perfect cake for a birthday, whether the birthday person be eight or eighty! Just be sure to stock up on sprinkles, you'll need a whole bunch of them.

It isn't a birthday celebration unless there is ice cream to go along with your cake. As soon as I saw this Fireball ice cream among the flavors from Perry's escapes, I knew it would be the perfect pairing with my vanilla sprinkle cake. Nothing reminds me more of middle school than fireballs and this ice cream tastes exactly like the classic candy.

If you are in the region that sells Perry's Ice Cream, you should definitely go and try out this flavor. I was so surprised at how dead on the flavor was in this ice cream. It has a strong cinnamon and spice flavor, with little bits of fireball candy mixed throughout. You definitely don't need to eat an entire bowl of this stuff, a scoop with your cake will totally satisfy.

Feel like a kid again. For your next celebration eat lots of sprinkles and ice cream!

Two Years Ago: Spice-rubbed Chicken & Gratin Dauphinois

Three Years Ago: PB&J Mallomars

Four Years Ago: Chocolate Cupcakes with Strawberry Buttercream

Ice Cream Week - Grasshopper Sandwiches

It's day two of ice cream week! Today we're enjoying ice cream sandwiches, made with the biggest, richest cookies around, filled with ice cream, which is filled with more cookies! Ice cream sandwich Inception!

Summertime is ice cream sandwich time. Who wants to be tied to a bowl and spoon? With these bad boys, you're free to leave the house, roam the world and still eat ice cream. So perfect.

These particular ice cream sandwiches might be the perfect thing to share with a friend. The cookies are enormous and putting two of them together gives you something the size of a baseball. I decided to pair Perry's Grasshopper Pie with these rich cookies. The mint flavor of the ice cream is smooth and not overpowering. There are also crushed cookie pieces and fudge swirls throughout. The combination is totally decadent.

I only made up a few sandwiches with the Grasshopper pie flavor. I'm thinking these cookies would also be amazing with the Cocoa-Nut Bliss flavor - coconut ice cream with chocolate covered almond, fudge pieces and shredded coconut. What would you sandwich between these chocolate cookies???

Disclaimer -  As a member of their Inside Scoopers team, Perry's Ice Cream supplied me with a bunch of their new Escapes flavors. All opinions are my own. I'm only so happy to support this hometown brand because I grew up eating Perry's and they make a damn delicious ice cream!

Two Years Ago: Celebration Cake
Three Years Ago: Cinnamon Roll Cupcakes
Four Years Ago: Cream of Asparagus Soup

Ice Cream week - French Toast Crepes

It's unofficially summer! After a long winter here in New Jersey, I'm happy to be ringing in the warmer weather with some cool treats and bringing you a full week of ice cream!

I'm happy to be showcasing my favorite Western New York ice cream maker - Perry's Ice Cream. As a member of their Inside Scoopers group, I have had the opportunity in the past to get samples of their seasonal flavors, test some of their small batch samples and tour the factory. Over the past few months, Perry's has been introducing their newest creation online - Perry's Escapes.

Since I live in New Jersey, it's become increasingly difficult to access Perry's Ice Cream. Some Wegmans grocery stores sell the brand, but not all of them in my region. I was left to lust after these new flavors online, until Perry's offered to send me a sampling of their newest flavors. Needless to say, I was excited.

Perry's Escapes are small batch ice creams with rich flavors. Several of the flavors are ones that were previously only available at the ice cream stand (like Movie Time and Queen of Hearts). I decided to pick out three of my favorite flavors and create a tasty recipe around them.

First up this week - French Toast Ice Cream!

After tasting the French toast flavor (it takes like maple syrup, cinnamon and vanilla), I knew that I had to keep a hint of breakfast with this dessert. I made up a batch of miniature crepes, cut up a banana and piped on some whipped cream. Just like that, I had a sweet and satisfying dessert, that would totally be appropriate for early morning eating.

Disclaimer: As a member of their Inside Scoopers team, Perry's Ice Cream supplied me with a bunch of their Escapes new flavors. All opinions are my own. I'm only so happy to support this hometown brand because I grew up eating Perry's and they make a damn delicious ice cream!

Two Years Ago: Banana Bread French Toast
Three Years Ago: Spring Penne Pasta

Four Years Ago: Fruit and Yogurt Jars