Stix on the Beach: Tales From The Happiest Hooker!

Let's Get Baked: Nuttin' Better Peanut Butter Cookies

 

• Heat oven to 375ºF. Stir together the 1/2 cup granulated sugar , brown sugar, peanut butter, butter, shortening and egg. Stir in flour, baking soda and baking powder.
• Shape dough into 1-inch balls; roll in granulated sugar. Place about 2 inches apart on ungreased cookie sheet (parchment paper works best!).
• Bake 8 to 10 minutes or until edges are light brown. Immediately press M&M's Hidden Mickey-style firmly in each cookie; cool on wire rack.
• Makes approximately 36 cookies.

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These are so delicious — that once the batch I baked was devoured, Marissa made some more! It's an incredibly quick n' easy Betty Crocker Peanut Butter-Chocolate Cookies recipe that has been ever-so-slightly altered by switching out the milk chocolate stars for milk chocolate M&M's! And with all the seasonal M&M's, you can bake 'em up for just about any holiday! In fact, be sure to leave a plate of 'em out for the Easter Bunny at the end of this month!

Let's Get Baked: Devilishly Good Chocolate Peppermint & Polka Dot Cookies

This may sound as though I'm possessed, but I'm not really a fan of cakes, cookies and chocolate. Shh. Breathe. Relax. It gets better in a few sentences. I'm more into croissants, cannolis, caramel-covered Vicodin. But I do love Devil's Food Cake (and its tinted twin, Red Velvet. Not to be confused with National Velvet, which is served at Burger King). So when I decided to make my own version of Pillsbury's Holiday Chocolate Peppermint Cookies, I went straight to Betty Crocker's Quick-Mix Chocolate Cookies recipe!

I'm still utterly amazed by the miracle food that is powdered sugar! There is nothing it can't do! This time around I made Buttercream Frosting with it! Pick yourself off the floor and go make some too! It's so easy, here's how:

*If you go to recipe page, don't accidentally add the sugar to the mix! The sugar is only if you will be rolling the dough in it to make as chocolate sugar cookies!

*I didn't wait for dough to become more easy-going. I let it chillax in the fridge for 15 minutes before I simply scooped out measured tablespoons of gooey chocolate, bitched nonstop about how I hate gooey stuff on my hands, and plopped 'em 2 inches apart on parchment paper. As soon as I took 'em out after 9 minutes, I smashed 'em down with back of spatula. It was oddly the most fun I had baking them.

*Don't leave 'em alone with anything that has a mouth. They will be G-O-N-E before you return.

Let's Get Baked: Be Gone Butter Pecan Cookies

One of my favorite cookies since being introduced to solid foods has been the Royal Dansk Danish Butter Cookies in the tin container. There always seemed to be an endless supply in my grandparent's pantry — but it's been a few years. Then this past holiday season, my daughter, Marissa, picked up a cute tin box(they put a bird on it) to store cookies in and when I opened it — sweet tokens of Danish buttery goodness magically appeared! It was a Christmas cookie miracle!

I was going to return and stock up on these delectable Danish delicacies, but we already had enough homemade goodies — and a cupboard with plenty of baking ingredients to bring in the new year. And it wasn't until the second weekend of February that I finally felt up to putting the leftover pecans to good use! I planned on making more Russian Tea Cakes, but the thought of having them not at Christmastime was screwing — hardcore — with my head. However, a buttery, nutty, British-y, biscuit-for-breakfast-with-tea-type-cookie sounded just right.

I searched for the most simple slice & bake shortbread style cookie recipe and found one at BakingBites.com! Along with the invaluable tips at SimplyRecipes (whose Butter Pecan Cookies recipe — which only makes one dozen compared to three dozen — is in my Must-Try queue) on how long to toast the pecans (six minutes at 350) and to cream the butter first before adding any other ingredient to the mix, made this first attempt quite satisfactory!

First couple of days the cookies reminded me a lot of the taste of praline candies and Royal Dansk Danish Butter Cookies. By the third day, they were tasting more like Keebler's Sandies Pecan Shortbread Cookies. I can imagine they can go stale pretty fast, so one of the more awesome things about slice and bake recipes is you can keep the dough frozen for several weeks and only slice off how many cookies you want to bake up quickly at one time!

I'm not going to write out the baking instructions 'cause Nicole at Baking Bites puts in the time and effort (and baking!) to do all that herself, and besides, it's a great excuse for you to go discover her blog and more recipes! Just remember the tips I shared from Simply Recipes and enjoy!

Let's Get Baked: Applesauce Oatmeal Muffins

I'm back on my hot-oatmeal-made-with-milk-and-topped-with-brown-sugar kick again. Then over the weekend, after remembering we had Tree Top applesauce in the fridge, I just had to have applesauce oatmeal muffins — even though I never ate them before. I wasn't even sure if I liked oatmeal muffins.

But there I was on Super Bowl Sunday, bringing up the Quaker Oats Applesauce Oatmeal Muffin recipe just before the half-time show! I tossed all the ingredients together, scooped the mix into the muffin liners, topped 'em off with extra brown sugar ('cause brown sugar is my crack), and threw 'em in the oven just in time to bawl my eyes out during Beyoncé Bowl and the Destiny's Child reunion (don't tell me you didn't shed a tear too when Kelly and Michelle popped out from that stage!). The muffins were done before Bey finished singing my personal theme song (a.k.a. Halo).

It was perfect timing because I had them for stress-eating during the Superdome power outage!

Here are a few tips:

1. There is no such thing as "too much" brown sugar for the topping.
2. Pay attention to (details in parentheses).
3. Do not serve warm. For one thing, muffins will be stuck to the liners. Second, muffins will suck. Put 'em in airtight container and wait till they are cooled off completely. The liners will peel off effortlessly and the muffins will taste so damn good. In my opinion, they were a hell of a lot more delicious the day after.

And don't forget: twelve applesauce oatmeal muffins a day keeps the hunger away!

A Hearty Meal

....because I love Christmas...and cookies...and hearts...

I don't care much for sugar cookies, but they are Marissa's favorite at the holidays. So this past Christmas I decided to do a little something special for her by making 'em the shape of hearts! I ended up baking the best sugar cookies, ever. Or at least in the last five years I've been using this recipe.

1 stick butter
1 c. sugar
1 egg
1 tbsp. milk
1/2 tsp. vanilla
2 c. flour
1 tsp. baking powder

Beat butter, sugar and vanilla until creamy. Add egg and beat some more. Stir in milk and dry ingredients. Beat it, beat it, beat it. Divide dough in half and let chill for an hour or more.  Chill out by crocheting for an hour or more. Roll dough on floured board to about 1/8 inch thickness. Cut with heart-shaped cookie cutter. Bake on cookie sheet at 375 degrees for 8 minutes. Cool. Totally. Fer sure.

The icing is so simple that you couldn't even screw it up if you were stoned out of your mind. Previously I have used the icing recipe that called for milk. And then I refused to eat the cookies because, hello, milk goes sour when it sits out. Right?

3 c. powdered sugar (DO NOT SNORT IT!)
1/2 tsp. vanilla
Pinch of salt

Mix it all in a big bowl, gradually adding water until it has the consistency of a glaze. Use a spoon to frost on the icing and immediately sprinkle on red sugar.  Then sprinkle red sugar on your macaroni & cheese. And on a salad. Basically use it as a substitute for anything that you would sprinkle salt and pepper on. It's that good.

Now go on, have fun and make 'em for someone you love! It's good for your heart.