Remember in elementary school, when it was always the birthday boy or girl's job to bring cupcakes for the entire class? The store bought frosting, almost always chocolate, spread, not piped, sometimes there were sprinkles. Remember? I loved those days. Except the thing is, there's no school in July. Which means that I never got to be the one to bring the cupcakes and I just don't think I ever got over it.
So this past Friday, four dozen cupcakes came to work with me to the lab.
Chocolate espresso cupcakes, with pink frosting and rainbow sprinkles. A slightly more grown up (but just slightly) and polished version of the ones in my childhood memories. Score!
Another great thing is that I got to use some of my new baking gadgets.
My summer job is being a summer student in a lab at the BC Children's Hospital. Our lab researches new treatments for leukemia and also how to make bone marrow transplants less harmful to the kids. A couple nights ago, I was in a baking mood and tossed these together and brought them to work yesterday.
Wonderful Doctor N I work with sat down to prep an experiment she was going to do later in the day and says.
"You just received a nice compliment from Dr. S_____ . . .
On how I'm such a promising scientist?
On how I'm going to be a great doctor?
Really?
. . . On those cookies you brought."
Though I do love compliments on my career potential (Once a prof at school said that I "cut well" when we were dissecting, it pretty much made my day), compliments on my baking pretty great too.
I still remember the first time I went to Target. I remember all the types of foods that were there that we can't get up here in Canada. I know this probably seems odd to those of you reading from the states, but the thing is, Banana Nut Cheerios are kind of shocking to see for the first time when you've grown up under the impression that Cheerios are only sold in three flavours: regular, honey nut and multigrain.
Every time my family goes to down for some cross-border shopping we always make sure to import some of our favourite goodies from Target, American Costco (yes, we call it 'American' Costco), and Trader Joes. Goodies like my childhood favorite, Trix cereal, which isn't sold here anymore and, also plenty of nuts of every kind (Don't worry, nuts are sold in Canada too, they're just much cheaper in the states).
On a recent trip I picked up some cocoa roasted almonds since I remembered seeing them on the list of '125 Best Packaged Foods for Women' in my favorite magazine. They were delicious, but sadly, I have now run out and they contain artificial sweetener, yuck!
Fortunately, I have everything I need to make my own in my kitchen here at school because I've been craving them ever since I finished off my last pack.
This should last me until our next trip down south, maybe.
Cocoa Roasted Almonds
Yield: 2 cups
2 cups roasted almonds, cooled (see roasting instructions here)
1/4 cup cocoa
3-4 teaspoons icing sugar
generous pinch of salt
1 egg white (I used 2 teaspoons of meringue powder and 2 tablespoons of water instead)
Preset oven to 200F
Sift and mix cocoa, sugar and salt in a bowl large enough for the almonds, set aside (A large tupperware container would work well)
Toss almonds in egg white (I recommend a ziploc bagl, I made a huge mess with my plate-bowl contraption)
Add coated almonds to the dry mixture, cover and shake until well coated
Pour onto baking sheet in a single layer and bake for 20min
I am old. It feels like just yesterday that I arrived on campus, sleep deprived from the red-eye flight, knowing no one and extremely lost. But today I officially finished my last class of third year, thereby making me a little old lady, minus the little part. I'm not sure how I feel about this, but right now I think I just want to be in undergrad forever because the real world seems pretty scary.
Does the real world have cafes that offer 5 different types of dairy to put into your coffee? How about state-of-the-art gym's that I can enter with the swipe of my student card, gyms with smoothie joints with half-price Tuesdays? And professors that defer deadlines on 'compassionate grounds' when you drop your laptop and shatter the screen? I like my current world.
I think its best to brush away these panicky thoughts until at least halfway through fourth year by going to said card-swiping gym. Gyms are sacred places where you get to run, swim, elliptical away all that's concerning in the world. At the gym there are no exams, interviews, rejection letters, or the 'real' world to freak out about. At the gym it's just me, my 'Cardio <3' (I keep the <3 from my high school days for nostalgia) playlist, and the treadmill. I can handle that.
Another one of my favorite cure-all's are smoothies. There's really nothing more soothing than an icy drink that tastes like dessert. I had an epiphany yesterday afternoon that coconut, almonds and chocolate would make the perfect combination for one. You know, like an Almond Joy? Except I've never actually had an Almond Joy before, is it an American thing? Because if so, I'd like to know so I can grab a few on my next cross-border shopping trip. I'm hoping it'll taste like this so I don't have to rename my recipe and because this is delish!
Almond Joy Smoothie
Yield: 1 ~16oz. smoothie
3/4 cup almond milk
2 tablespoons cocoa
1/2 cup unsweetened dried coconut
1 small frozen banana
water to adjust consistency
handful chopped almonds
Almond extract (I don't have any but I imagine it would be delicious)
Blend all ingredients except the almonds, it might take a while to get the coconut smooth
It is often said that you get what you pay for and that quality will cost you. But when it comes to chocolate chip cookies, does that still hold true?
Showdown
Chocolate chip cookies are one of those things that are always good. Even when they're bad, they're good, unless of course you burn them. But even then they might still be pretty good. So would I be splitting hairs if I set out to find the 'better' chocolate chip cookie? Probably, but that's no reason not to.
In my freezer I had two bags of chocolate chips. One was Trader Joe's house brand, which costs about $2.50. The other was from San Francisco chocolatier Guittard, which costs about $5. Both are semi-sweet, perfect for cookies and both came with recipes printed on the back.
Guittard calls its recipe 'THE ORIGINAL CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIE' (yes, actually in capital letters) while TJ's modestly titled its as 'Chocolate Chip Cookies'. The truth is, both recipes were exactly the same except for the ratio between brown and white sugar. Another thing is that folks at Guittard like little baby cookies, because their recipe claims to yield seven dozen, while TJ's, two.
Comparing the chips alone, Guittard's are a clear winner. Their chips just taste smoother and with less in-your-face sweetness. But then again, this is a chocolate chip cookie test so I had to see how they'd compare when engulfed by dough.
I suppose the fairest way to have done this was to add each chip to its respective advertised dough recipe, but they differ so little and I personally really like brown sugar, so I chose TJ's recipe. I made the dough as directed and then divided it into two separate bowls before adding the chips. I then scooped out the dough with a level tablespoon and refrigerated it for an hour (apparently cookies are better if you let the flavours 'marinate', the NY Times said so). They were baked side to side for consistency (This is serious science).
Once they were all baked, cooled and anonymised, I set out to gather some data. Unlike most scientific studies, this was easy to recruit subjects for. All I had to do was offer people a cookie with one catch, they had to take TWO cookies. It was really hard, really.
I got quite a few interesting guesses on what was different between the two batches. "This one's store bought and this one you baked!" No. "These have sea salt" No. It was great fun.
The results:
TJ's: 7
Guittard: 11
Can you guess which is which?
I guess money does buy quality. But the numbers are pretty close, so I have other suspicions. First, you have to watch this:
Ok, watched it? I think chocolate chips are like Malcolm Gladwell's spaghetti sauce. There's no perfect chip, only perfect chips, as he would put it. Personally I liked the 'cheaper' cookie, I think the sweeter TJ's chips worked better because the cookie itself was quite sweet and they needed the sweeter chip to be able to stand out. On the other hand, one of my friend's like the more subtle Guittard chip and thinks its because she doesn't really like things that are over sweet. I guess my chocolate chip palate isn't so refined, but I am perfectly ok with that.
And yes, this post has a larger word count that the current state of the real lab report I have to hand in soon. Ugh, school.
Chocolate Chip Cookies
From the TJ's bag (This is half the recipe)
Yield: 6-7 dozen baby cookies
1 cup + 2 tablespoons flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 cup brown sugar, packed
1/4 cup white sugar
1/2 cup butter, softended
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1 egg (I replaced this with 1 tablespoon ground flax + 3 tablespoons water)
1 cup chocolate chips
Preheat oven to 375F
Cream butter and sugars. Add vanilla and egg.
Mix all dry ingredients and add to wet.
Scoop the dough in spoonfuls and refrigerate for as long as you can resist (Make sure you scoop then refrigerate, its really hard to do it the other way around)
I am a granola/energy/protein bar fiend. They're portable, tasty and can be quite healthy if you want them to be. Most importantly, they're also extremely customizable. Even though I have about 40-50 bars of many varieties lying in my room right now, none of them taste like the heavenly union between hazelnut and chocolate, which is a problem. Enter, the Nutella Granola Bar.
Nutella Granola Bars
Yield: 15 Bars
1 cup rolled oats
1 cup rice krispies cereal
1/2 cup unsweetened shredded coconut
1/4 cup chocolate chips (next time i'm going to replace these with more hazelnuts)
Just when you thought cupcakes were the cutest most adorable, sometimes saccharine member of the dessert world, someone came up with the idea of cake pops. Tiny little morsels of cake with the frosting already mixed in, covered in coloured chocolate and often adorably decorated, they're almost too cute to eat.
My cousin VP has an odd affinity for making cake from cake mixes. I'm really not sure why, but for some reason she brings up the idea of baking up some Betty Crocker Supermoist every time I visit. Not to say that we don't have fun baking from a box, there was the marble cake fiasco of 2010 when the batter over flowed all over the oven combined with the fact that we forgot to grease the pan. This time around, Nonna did us a favour and baked the cake for us, which means that there was plenty of chocolate cake lying around, just waiting to be enjoyed.
I took some back to school last weekend and already had in mind what I was going to do with it, cake pops of course! I watched a few instructional videos on Youtube and I was set. I made some buttercream frosting from scratch and added in some peppermint extract for good measure.
These were so much fun to make and made for a super cute belated birthday treat for my BFF SP.
Mint Cake Pops
Yield: ~50 pops
Cake mix, as prepared (I think I had about the equivalent of about 1/3 of the box)
1-3/4 cup candy coating wafers
Food colouring (see note)
Frosting of your choice (see below for recipe)
Crumble cake into a large bowl
Mix with frosting and form into balls (I used a level tablespoon to measure)
Allow to freeze (at least an hour)
Melt candy coating in the microwave
Add food colouring if using
Using toothpicks or lollipop sticks, dip cake pops into chocolate, allowing extra to drip back into bowl
Allow to dry by sticking into a block of styrofoam or box
Note: I only had white chocolate melting wafers on hand and wasn't sure if it was safe to use liquid food colouring with it without the chocolate seizing. Don't worry, it is.
My name is Vivian and I am an addict, a caffeine addict. I know this because I felt great yesterday morning and decided to forgo my daily date with my coffee maker. I thought, it couldn't be that bad, I don't feel tired at all. I couldn't be more wrong.
Caffeine withdrawal is not fun. I almost dozed off in Pharm class a couple times and nearly fell off the stool I was sitting on. I was impatient and short with my lab group members and our TA and even skipped out on my workout I was in such a bad mood, which probably wasn't a very good idea.
Maybe it wasn't the caffeine at all, maybe it was the fact that a little thing called Daylight savings took an hour from me without my permission. But regardless, I think it's better to be safe than sorry so I took no chances this morning and decided to caffeinate my oatmeal.
This morning I was lazy and just put some instant coffee into my oatmeal, but what I'd really like to try is to cook my oatmeal in a bit of coffee. It was still delicious, like eating a mocha for breakfast, I mean, it WAS eating a mocha for breakfast and took care of my coffee cravings just swimmingly.
Mocha Oatmeal
Yield: 1 bowl
1/3 cup quick oats
2/3 cup milk
1 teaspoon sugar (maybe more if you like it sweeter)
1 tablespoon cocoa
1 teaspoon instant coffee
Mix everything together and microwave for 2 minutes.
Quinoa (sounds like Keen-wa) is a seed that comes from the Quinoa plant that is native to South America. It's considered a pseudograin as it is not part of the grass family (I didn't know that was a rule. . . But anyway) and has been a staple food since the time of the Inca's. Today it's become one of those trendy foods that claim to be so much better than the type that can be found at any grocery store (think: Acai berries, agave).
And what is a rice-like pseudograin doing in my chocolat-ey treat you ask? Well, I found a neat recipe that was just begging for me to try it of course. And I'm glad I did because my rice brownies taste like the usual flour variety but are much much better for you. Quinoa is one of few plant foods that are a complete protein, which means that they have all the essential amino acids that us inept humans can't make ourselves. Plus they are gluten-free, so you can mix and mix and mix the batter all you want and not have to worry about the bad things that happen to baked goods when flour is over-mixed.
This is what cooked quinoa looks like
I hear that brownies come in three varieties: cakey, chewy and fudgy. I would say that the chewy type would be my favorite so these turned out a little too cakey for my liking. They were also incredibly moist, maybe even too moist so I would consider reducing the milk a bit for a 'drier' brownie. I adapted the recipe from the website of my local grocery store and added in some instant coffee and chocolate chips for an extra decadent treat (had to balance out the healthi-ness of the quinoa, these are still brownies, after all)
Quinoa Brownies
Yield: 16 squares / 9" pan
1/2 cup uncooked quinoa (or cooked equivalent if you're using leftovers from dinner)
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 cup milk (reduce if you wish)
1 tablespoon instant coffee
2 tablespoons oil (I used corn)
3/4 cup sugar (maybe more if you have a sweet tooth)
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup cocoa (I used dutch processed)
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 chocolate chips
Cook quinoa in a small pan or rice cooker with 1-1/4 cup water (If you've never cooked quinoa before, read this), fluff with fork and allow to cool
Preset oven to 350F, line and grease a square 9" pan with foil (see note below)
Dissolve instant coffee in milk
In a separate bowl, mix sugar, cocoa, baking powder and salt
In a food processor (I use a magic bullet), blend cooked quinoa, milk, oil and eggs until smooth
Pour contents into dry mixture, mix and pour into pan.
Sprinkle with chocolate chips and bake for 30-35 minutes
Allow to cool (if you can) and slice into 16 squares
Per square:
94 calories |11.2g sugar |3.8g fat
Note:
Here is a trick I learned somewhere along the blog-reading path. To line a square pan with foil eaily, flip it over and cover the outside of the pan. Then simply remove the foil and place it inside the pan. Voila.
March 1st was the day my beloved cousin AP was born. It is also the day that Bosnia and Herzegovina declared their independence in 1992 and the birthday of Justin Bieber (perhaps you've heard of him?). But more importantly, it is National Peanut Butter Lovers' Day!
This comes to me as a shock because I've lived all these years under the impression that everyday was PB lovers' day. Surely a dip/spread/stand-alone meal as delicious as PB deserves more than one day a year to celebrate its many fans. But I guess when there's only 365 days in year and you're competing with World Nutella Day (Feb 5th) and National Chocolate Chip Cookie day (May 15th), you'll have to settle for the first day of March.
I celebrated by abandoning my anatomy notes and baking up these marbleised PB Chocolate cookies. I needed somewhere to start so they're loosely based upon this widely acclaimed recipe from allrecipes.
These turned out chewy and wonderful and I have to constantly remind myself not to offer any to my nut-allergic roommate PB (love how ironic her initials are). The only disappointment I have now is how I have 1/2 cup less of peanut butter in my cupboard than before.
In my opinion, bite-size versions of foods are always better than the real thing. I prefer baby carrots to full size ones and would choose a cupcake over a slice any day. Mini desserts are great because you try a few varieties without feeling too guilty. Besides, they're just plain cute, which is quite an important characteristic to hold as a dessert, I would say.
So while it may be difficult to commit to a whole slice of cheesecake, good luck saying no to a little bite-size chunk covered in chocolate. Besides, you don't need any utensils. And the fewer dishes I need to do, the better.
I actually 'made' these by cutting up some leftover cheesecake from my sister's birthday (I too, am shocked that 'leftover' and 'cheesecake' was just used in the same sentence, but the birthday girl greatly overestimated her cake devouring abilities) but I have included a recipe below if you're making these from scratch. It is adapted from one on the AllYou website.
I have no words to describe how amazingly these turned out other than the fact that I would not protest if I were to have to eat nothing else for the rest of my life. We had a bunch of zucchini laying around in the fridge that we need to get rid of before we all leave for reading week and I had come across this scrumptious looking recipe from 'For the Love of Cooking' and adapted it. I'd write more but I am currently still in awe of how something made with whole wheat flour and vegetables could be so delicious. . .
Chocolate Zucchini Muffins
Yield: 6
1 cup whole wheat flour
1/3 cup sugar
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/8 tsp salt
1/8 tsp baking powder
3 tablespoons cocoa
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/3 cup milk
1/3 cup canola oil (try replacing some of the oil with apple sauce!)
1 egg
3/4 tsp vanilla
3/4 cup shredded zucchini
2 tbsp chocolate chips
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease or line a muffin tray.
In a large bowl combine the flours, sugar, baking soda, salt, baking powder, and cocoa. Mix thoroughly.
In another bowl, whisk together the milk, oil, eggs, and vanilla. Add the shredded zucchini and stir. Slowly add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients until just combined. Spoon batter into the prepared muffin tray, filling each cup to the top and sprinkle with chocolate chips.(fill empty spaces in the tray with water for moister muffins)
Bake for 18-22 minutes or until a tester inserted in the center comes out clean.
The concept of frozen milk with added sugar always seemed like an odd thing to eat for dessert to me, but through some food chemistry reasons I will never understand, ice cream is absolutely and always delectable. And though I would like to eat it as if it were its own food group, the fact that were hovering around -25C windchill right now makes it slightly less acceptable to be eating it all the time. No matter, I'll just eat my ice cream in cookie form!
These were a bit of an experiment so the recipe below includes my suggestions of increasing the almonds, reducing the oats, and reducing the baking time for chewier cookies. Alternatively you can just store them with a muffin or slice of bread, which will soften them right up.
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (165 degrees C).
In a large bowl, cream together the butter, brown sugar, and white sugar until smooth. Beat in eggs one at a time, then stir in vanilla. Combine the flour, baking soda, and salt; stir into the creamed mixture until just blended. Mix in the quick oats, almonds, and chocolate chips. Drop by heaping spoonfuls onto ungreased baking sheets.
Bake for 9-10 minutes in the preheated oven.
Straight out of the oven, press marshmallows onto cookie, return to oven for a minute until slightly melted
I brought back a canister of Hershey's unsweetened cocoa from the holidays and sadly, it's almost empty. That is, I've consumed an entire canister of cocoa in about a month. At least it's supposedly full of anti-oxidants. . . I would go into a lengthly explanation of how there's actually little evidence that eating the antioxidants will do any good, but I will spare you all from my grievances on food packaging health claims for now and move on to more delicious things. I personally find pre-formulated hot chocolate mixes dull and over sweet and like to make my own, always served in my monogrammed anthro mug. There's a basic recipe on the back of the Hershey's canister that I follow loosely but tonight I had the great epiphany of adding one of my other favorite foods to my hot chocolate, PEANUT BUTTER. The PB sort of sinks to the bottom if you don't stir constantly, leaving an awesome treat at the bottom. I wouldn't go as far as calling this Reese's in a mug, but it is pretty good. . .
Peanut Butter Hot Chocolate
Yield: 1 mug full
1 cup milk
2 tablespoons cocoa
2 teaspoons sugar (you can add more, but I don't like mine too sweet)
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 teaspoons peanut butter
Fill the mug with half the amount of milk and microwave until very hot (~2 minutes)
Add all other ingredients and stir
Add the rest of the milk and microwave until hot, again
** Alternatively, you could do this on the stovetop on low heat, but I don't like to do dishes.
Per mug-full (with 1% milk and light peanut butter):
This post is a little late but I've been debating for a while now whether I want to include too many posts here that are not related to baking since this is supposed to be a baking blog. The thing is, smoothies are sort of their own food group in my diet and I'm always on the prowl for new recipes so I've decided that I'm going to use this blog to share them too. My smoothie recipes are usually inspired by a smoothie I've tried from an actual smoothie shop or a dessert. On my way back home for the holidays, I had a brief layover in Toronto Pearson airport and was on the search for a small meal amid the plethora of over-priced junk food that was available. Without much success in the realm of solid foods, I decided to try a Chocolate Vivanno Smoothie from Starbucks. And then I got addicted . . .
I remember when Starbucks started selling smoothies a few years ago and had read a couple reviews saying that they tasted too banana-ey since an entire banana is added to the 16oz drink. That's not a problem for me because the concept of 'too much banana' is foreign to me. I actually have to deliberately buy overripe bananas to bake with as they never stick around long enough to reach the prime baking level of ripeness at my place. I've watched very intently as the baristas make this and my recipe does have some differences. They make the Vivanno with a room temperature banana and just add plenty of ice while my recipe includes a frozen banana. Also as I will likely never have access to their top secret mocha syrup, I've replaced it with cocoa. It took me a couple tries to get this smoothie right, but here it is!
What do pitted prunes, dried cranberries and almonds have in common other than being vaguely 'healthy' ? When you combine them you get something that tastes just like cookie dough. Amazing? I know. I found this recipe after reading the food column in the National Post. The column's called 'Making love in the kitchen' and is written by nutritionist Meghan Telpner. Though I disagree with some of her strong views against additives like MSG, the recipes all seem pretty interesting and she had me at the word: Truffle. I halved and made a few changes to this recipe, both on purpose and by accident and I'm glad I did because these are little morsels of chocolate-y heaven. Next time I'm going to make them as directed.
Chocolate Truffles-ish
Yield: 31 truffles
1 cup almonds
1/4 teaspoon salt
7 pitted dates
2 tablespoons dried cranberries
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 tablespoons honey
1 tablespoon water
1/2 cup shredded coconut (separated)
Blend all ingredients except for 1/4 cup of the shredded coconut in a food processor (I used a magic bullet)
If I was the lyricist of the Sound of Music, I would have included potluck dinner parties in "These are a few of my favourite things". Because although 'raindrops on roses' are pretty fabulous, they pale in comparison to the delightful experience that dinner parties provide. The chance for everyone to show off their culinary chops (or lack thereof) and share recipes gives insight into the people you've known for ages in a way conversation alone never could.
When it comes to potlucks, I'm always quick to volunteer to do dessert. Dessert is fun and provides room for plenty of creativity without infringing on gluten-free, lactose-intolerant, vegetarian territory. Also, even if you don't do a great job, everyone will most likely enjoy what you've made. Mediocre dessert is still better than no dessert at all. Which brings me to the chocolate strawberries I made for the dinner party I attended last Thursday.
I had planned to get them done Wednesday night after my student council meeting, and had thought ahead to ask my roommate to bring me back toothpicks when she went home the previous weekend. This way, the strawberries could chill in the fridge all Thursday and be ready to serve by dinnertime. Unfortunately, Murphy's law would never allow such an organised plan to follow through. My meeting ran until 11:15pm, I couldn't find the toothpicks and my roommate had already gone to bed (8am class, gross). So I improvised. I thought spaghetti would be a great substitute for toothpicks to hold up the strawberries until they set, which worked, sort of. I got about a dozen of them done before I called it a night and stuck them in the fridge, forgetting a very simple fact. Spaghetti cooks and softens in water, strawberries contain water. Therefore, spaghetti left in strawberries turns to mush, which would leave strands of weird mush for my guests to discover. Thankfully, I had a few hours between classes the next day to de-mush the ones I had made the previous night and dip many more with actual toothpicks and forgot the incident by dinnertime. Moral of the story, don't attempt to replace cooking implements after 4 hour meetings.
My good friend SP requested my baking skills last week as she was planning to make a 'cupcake castle' for a friend's 21st birthday. Though I had no idea what exactly a 'cupcake castle' was, I was glad to help. This was under the assumption that she wanted help with the cupcake part, and not so much the castle part as I'm quite sure castles aren't exactly my area of expertise. Since I was going over to bake anyways, I thought that we may as well make it bakefest and baked up something too.
The copious amounts of oranges I've been consuming in the form of smoothies recently was the inspiration for these cookies. And since chocolate is good in almost anything. . . Chocolate orange cookies were an obvious choice.
This recipe is loosely based on another chocolate cookie I made during our December exam period. I also made them as freeze-and-bake style cookies as I realised that this was much faster than to scoop out individual portions of dough. Besides, this makes for very aesthetically pleasing perfectly circular cookies. This recipe makes for many many cookies (I ended up with 114) but the dough can be kept frozen until your next craving, which is another great thing about freeze-and-bake cookies.
This one is definitely going in the 'favourites' pile. They are thin and crispy and taste just like those chocolate oranges that you smash before eating. Except better.
After eating quite a few these delicious cookies from President’s Choice and deciding that the thin Chocolate Coconut kind were my favorite (see below), I’ve set out to create the perfect Chocolate Coconut Marshmallow Sandwich. I optimistically thought that I would be able to do this with one go, but it appears that this experiment is still a work in progress. Here’s a summary of attempt 1 and 2! Also, thanks to the all-consuming huge lab report I have due next week, I currently only know how to write in the form of lab reports. So here it is!
Objective:
Thin crispy chocolate coconut cookies with marshmallow centre
ATTEMPT #1 (January 2, 2011)
Reagents and materials:
2 1/4 cup flour
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1 cup milk
2 tbsp water
3/4 cup cocoa
2/3 cup sweetened shredded coconut
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp vanilla
3/4 cup butter
18 large marshmallows
Methods:
Oven was preheated to 350F.
Butter and sugar were creamed and vanilla added, followed by milk and water.
Dry ingredients were then added and mixed until a homogenous dough was formed.
Level teaspoons (small cookies)and tablespoons (large cookies) of dough were distrubuted onto a parchment paper lined cookie sheet and baked as follows.Tbsp: 8 min; Tsp: 6 min
Half a marshmallow was then placed on cookie halves and broiled until marshmallow was lightly browned, another cookie half was placed atop immediately out of the oven to form sandwiches
Results: 3 dozen thick soft cookies with theright level of sweetness, needs more coconut
Future Experiments: Try more baking time and more liquid (more water, less milk) to get flatter cookies.
