Apple Pie > Birthday Cake

Apple Pie is a well-known, well-loved dessert. Though America commercializes greatly on it, it’s actually been around for much longer than most people think. There are lots of different variations or types of Apple Pie. Most common are Dutch Apple Pie, which uses cinnamon and lemon juice flavourings, or Tarte Tatin, a french “upside-down” apple pie tart where the apples are actually caramelized in butter and sugar before baked. Most Apple Pie’s are presented with a double crust layer — usually a normal pie crust below with a lattice crust on top. For my Apple Pie, however, I did a double crust layer with three slits in the middle instead of a lattice. Why, you ask? I simply didn’t have time to lattice the crust while my syrup was simmering on the stove. It would have taken far too long and it’s very difficult to stir and make a lattice crust at the same time.

Don’t be fooled into thinking all apples used in Apple Pie are the same. In Apple Pie, the type of apples you use heavily determines how your pie will come out and how it will taste. Traditional Granny Smith apples that are used in most Apple Pie recipes will give your pie a very tart flavor. In contrast, using Red Delicious or Fuji apples will make them a lot more sweet. Depending on how you like your apple pie to taste (also factor in if you’ll be adding any cinnamon or juices), make sure you use apples that will complement your other ingredients. A good Apple Pie will always have the right amount of tartness and sweetness. That’s what makes it so delicious.

I made my Dad an Apple Pie for his birthday because he loves Apple Pie. He likes his very sweet and cinnamon-y with a large scoop of vanilla ice-cream plopped ontop of it. I was very scared to present my pie to him because I had never made it before and my dad is brutally honest when it comes to my baking. If he doesn’t like it, he’ll tell me straight up. So, I was trying to please a strict critic; not to mention it was his birthday so I had to make sure this tasted good.

I took a breath of fresh air when he took a forkful of it and said it was absolutely delicious. Another smile when my Grandma said it was one of the “best apple pies” she had ever tasted. So, I have to heavily thank Grandma Ople for sharing her Apple Pie recipe on allrecipes.com with the rest of the world, as it was the basis for my Apple Pie, though I added ingredients and used different flavored apples to get the taste that I wanted.

I don’t really like Apple Pie myself (though I am a fan of the refrigerated crust…) this turned out to be a huge hit with my family and I think next time I make it i’ll lattice the crust. The only mistake I made was pouring the rest of the syrup over the double crust when it wasn’t latticed — I was only supposed to brush it. Either way it turned out good and it can only get better, it seems, with practice.

Apple Pie

(Adapted from Grandma Ople’s Apple Pie on allrecipes.com)

Ingredients:

• 1 recipe pastry for a 9-inch double crust pie
• 1/2 cup unsalted butter
• 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
• 1/4 cup water (omit 1 tablespoon of this if you use vanilla)
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
• 4 Large Red Delicious Apples, peeled, cored and sliced

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees F (220 degrees C). Melt the butter in a saucepan. Stir in flour to form a paste. Add water, white sugar, brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg and vanilla. Stir ingredients together and then bring to a boil. Reduce temperature and let simmer, stirring occasionally.
2. Place the bottom crust in a 9-inch pie pan. Before filling with apples, brush with egg wash (1 lightly beaten egg) and sprinkle with cinnamon sugar (or ground cinnamon.) Fill with apples, mounded slightly. Gently pour 1/4th of the syrup over the apples and stir apples together slightly to ensure all slices get coated with syrup. Cover with a lattice work of crust. Gently pour the rest of the liquid over the crust. (If you are not latticing the top crust, put most of the syrup over the apples and leave enough syrup to brush the top of the crust with.) Pour slowly so that it does not run off.
3. Place pie dish on top of a baking sheet lined with foil and place in lower wrack in oven. Bake for 15 minutes and then reduce the temperature to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Continue baking for 35 to 45 minutes, until apples are soft and crust is golden brown (mine took exactly 45 minutes).
4. DO NOT SERVE WARM, syrup will be runny. Let sit for at least 3 hours or overnight at room temperature or store in refrigerator with foil on top until ready to serve.
   

-Alexandra

Soft, no molasses ginger cookies

There’s something that just feels right when it comes to baking with ginger spices during the winter. Besides the fact that it’s a seasonal thing and therefore our brains just put two and two together automatically; it really does fit well. Opening up the oven while these cookies were baking while a chilly breeze swept through the window had to give the most euphoric feeling ever. As someone I knew once said everytime he took a bite of his favorite oreo cakesters, “some foods are way better than any sexual experience.” While I’m not sure if that’s the same case here, it definitely does give you that heavenly aura.

These cookies were not hard to make at all, and are extremely melt-in-your-mouth yummy. They taste like a softer, lighter version of gingerbread cookies. Possibly because of the no-molasses and the fact that I melted half the butter instead of softening it (which was a mistake worth making, it seems.) The idea wasn’t to bake these without molasses at first, but I just found that I didn’t have any on hand therefore a substitute of some kind must be used. They still tasted amazing regardless of the lack of molasses and hold their shape well as long as you bake them for exactly 8-9 minutes and leave them on the pan for 5 minutes before taking them off. They come out of the oven puffy and retain some of that puffiness when you take them out and do not spread incredibly wide when baking. So far everyone has given good reviews for these and I myself admit that if I was not watching what I eat I would probably snack on these for the rest of the day.

Anyway, if you do make these, make sure you refridgerate the dough for atleast an hour. Seriously. Otherwise, it will be far too sticky. Unless you don’t mind getting your hands a little more messier than need be.

Soft, No Molasses Ginger Cookies

(Adapted from allrecipes.com)

Ingredients:

• 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons ground ginger
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 cup butter, divided (half soft, half melted)
• 1 cup white sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 tablespoon water
• 3/4 cup brown sugar dissolved in 1/4 cup hot water
• 1/4 cup white sugar

Directions:

1. Sift together flour, ginger, baking soda, cinnamon, cloves and salt. Set aside.
2. In a large bowl, cream together the two butters and 1 cup sugar until light and creamy. Beat in the egg until it is well-incorporated, then stir in the water and ONLY 1/4 CUP of the brown sugar once it is dissolved in the hot water. (This is VERY important. Do not use the whole 3/4 cup. The only reason why I don’t know the exact amount is because I forgot to measure it.)
3. Gradually stir in the sifted ingredients into the mixture.
4. Cover dough in foil or some kind of wrapping and refrigerate for at least 1 hour.
5. When ready, take out. Dough should not be firm but not as sticky as it was when you put it in the fridge. Preheat oven to 350 degrees and lightly grease baking pan with no-stick cooking spray.
6. In a small bowl, dump 1/4 cup of white sugar. With floured or greased hands (so the dough doesn’t stick easily) roll the dough into walnut sized balls or as desired (I did mine half the size). Then roll the balls into the bowl of white sugar until fully coated. Place cookies 2 inches apart on baking sheet and flatten slightly with the back of a lightly greased cup.
7. Bake for 8-10 minutes (mine took 8-9) in oven. Let cookies cool on the pan for exactly 5 minutes before removing to wire wrack and cooling completely. Store in airtight container. If the edges start browning, take them out of the oven immediately as they are very easy to burn.

While the walnut sized balls make about 24 cookies, I halfed the size and made about 40 bite-sized ones that baked just as long and came out perfectly. Remember to keep them on the pan so they can finish properly and you can get that soft texture. Cookies should not crumble easily but should not be crisp or hard either.

Toodles.

-Alexandra

Pumpkin PIE Bars?

Everytime winter rolls around, I get this small giddy feeling in my stomach. Anticipation swells up and I silently wait until that fateful day where I roll out of bed, drag myself out of my room and am greeted with the sweet pleasant smell of winter.

I can’t explain it. I really can’t. As soon as the weather begins to shift here in humid-stricken Florida, everyone can notice it. The sun is out, but not so hot that we’re all sweating. There’s the chilliest of breezes and the sky is so bright baby blue that you feel ten times small. The air is fresh and clean, the windows are all open, and the sound of cars passing by is somehow relaxing.

I love these kind of mornings because when I was a kid, I woke up to one and my mother made me hot chocolate and cereal for breakfast. It was a Saturday morning and the best 90’s cartoons were playing on our small T.V. set. I wrapped myself in a warm blanket, drank my hot chocolate and ate my lucky charms while watching Dexter’s Laboratory. I don’t know how old I was but I remember that in that moment I fell in love with the winter season. There is not a day that goes by where I don’t want to relive that morning. Not that it was anything special, but it was the first time as a kid that I felt this weird sense of peace and happiness in just the simplest of things.

So whenever the cold fronts come around, I’m immediately reminded of how beautiful life is just because of that one morning. Sure, it’s temporal. But it’s enough.

Onto the point of my post though. I haven’t updated a lot lately. To be honest I’ve been kind of in the background, making my own recipes and testing them out. One recipe I tested this week came out pretty good but there’s a lot of changes that need to be made. Some of you might know what it is, and some of you don’t. Before I post it I want to perfect it. It makes me excited to know that I’m close to making something that I can call my own. I’ve also been searching for the perfect chocolate chip cookie recipe. I’ve gone through two different ones already and I’ve found that neither of them have really lived up to my expectations. Whether it be the recipe itself or how I’m making it, I don’t know. Either way, the search continues. When I do find the prefect recipe though, I’ll let you know. 😛

I did, as always, bake for church though.

Sorry for the crappy quality picture. I took this picture at 3 AM when I made them. It’s called Pumpkin Pie Snickerdoodle Bars. To me, it was more Pumpkin Snickerdoodle Bars, as it did not have the creamy texture that pumpkin pie does. However, it was still good. It has a very, very thick crumbly cookie base which makes up at least 70% of the bar itself with a cakey pumpkin like layer over it. I sprinkled it heavily with cinnamon/sugar mixture and glazed with white chocolate/pumpkin spice. To be honest, i would not recommend the glaze used in the recipe. Mostly because my chocolate ended up being far too thick. That might be because I used a microwave though, and did not use a double-boiler. If you make them, I would highly advise you to do that instead and see if it gives better results because my glaze was far, far too thick and hardened way too quickly for me to even glaze over the bars with.

Either way, they were good. They seem to not age well though, as the flavor becomes bland after a day or so. It’s perfect to make for a church breakfast or dessert or to eat with hot tea (as seen in picture.) Everyone liked them, except my sister who promptly told me that they did not have enough sugar. I’d make ’em again, but would definitely use a different glaze then the one provided in the recipe. (Which, by the way, comes from dozenflours blog.)

Pumpkin (Pie?) Snickerdoodle Bars

(From dozenflours food blog)

Ingredients

• SNICKERDOODLE LAYER
• 3 cups all-purpose flour (I used 2 cups all-purpose and 1 cup whole wheat flour)
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 cups packed brown sugar
• 1 cup butter, room temperature
• 2 eggs, room temperature
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
• PUMPKIN PIE LAYER
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 cup white sugar
• 1 cup butter, at room temperature
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
• 2 eggs, at room temperature
• 1 1/2 cups canned pumpkin
• TOPPING
• 2 tablespoons white sugar
• 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

Directions

• Preheat oven to 350F. Lightly grease a 9×13 inch baking dish/pan with non-stick cooking spray. Line with parchment paper if you desire.
• To make the snickerdoodle layer, sift together the flour, baking powder, and salt. Set aside. In a large bowl, beat together butter, sugar, egg and vanilla until smooth.
• Stir in the flour mixture until well-blended. The batter should be thick and cookie-batterish (we are, afterall, making a snickerdoodle like layer). Spread with the back of a spatula or with the palms of your hands evenly into the pan.
• To make the pumpkin pie layer, use a mixing bowl with a paddle attachment or use your hand-mixer to mix together the sugar, butter, eggs and canned pumpkin until smooth. Add flour, baking powder, salt, and pumpkin pie spice. Mix until well-combined. Pour over the snickerdoodle layer and smooth out the top.
• Combine the cinnamon sugar topping in a bowl and spread generously, but evenly, over the pumpkin layer.
• Bake for 33-45 minutes (NOTE: Mine took 25) or until a toothpick in the CENTER of the pan comes out clean or with just a few couple of crumbles.  Let it cool for about an hour. The bars may deflate ontop a little bit but dont worry, it’s supposed to. The edges might be slightly crispy and will burn easily if left in the oven for too long so make sure you watch these carefully.
• When bars are cooled completely, cut them as big as you wish (mine made about 20 normal sized) and store in a covered container. Best served on the day they are made or the morning after.

If you really want to have a white chocolate glaze, look up a well spreading one that does not harden right away. Make sure to glaze ONLY AFTER the cookies have cooled and not while they are still warm.

That’s all from me today. (:

-Alexandra

Bringing in the fall season.

I think that there is a time in every baker’s life that she, or he, realizes that it’s time to take a small step forward with the difficulty of what he, or she, bakes. Expanding your boarders is a scary thing, and change is something that I am not good friends with. I’m the kind of person who likes to keep things smooth. Don’t get me wrong, I’m adventerous, and I take far more chances than I should — but I could never be one of those people who move into a new house every few months or can’t stick with one job. I’m also not one of those people who make the concious decision to get better at something. This is mostly because I tend to gradually mature in activities or tasks. Take graphic design, for example. I sucked at it, a lot. But the more I did it, casually, the more I got good at it. I didn’t even see myself getting better at it until I looked at my old stuff, and at my new stuff.

Even now with what I’ve made I’ve grown a lot. However, I tend not to push outside my comfort zone, because I don’t feel like i’m experienced enough yet to make a lot of things on my own. But lately I’ve had a lot of ideas for baking, and I’m seeing now that sometimes taking the leap forward isn’t always a bad thing. As long as you know where you’re going to land and how exactly you’re going to do so.

So I’ve been studying a lot about baking. How it works. The chemistry and science in it. It’s all very daunting, and rather scary. But I figure that as with anything else in life, nothing good comes easy. That’s why I’m not going to just give up and stick to the books. I want to make things that I myself have created, not just read off recipes and make those, although I enjoy doing that as well.

Take these pumpkin muffins in the picture above. I got them from allrecipes.com and really didn’t change much about it. They turned out great and all, but I feel as I should be doing more. Adding my own kick to things, so-to-speak. So, along with the new flavors of fall, will also come a step in a new direction for me. It’s a relatively small one… but it feels abnormally large. I’m going to widen my horizens and start occassionally trying out my own recipes, or adapting original ones to create what I want something to taste like or look like.

While i’m up to studying though, feel free to make these muffins. I have to say, they didn’t give me that much trouble. In reality, it was my saucepan that was giving me trouble — not the recipe. Which would be why I was talking in my earlier post badly of it. I’m really not good at boiling anything, or making something into a sauce. Especially when I’m in a rush (in this case, getting ready for church, decorating cupcakes and baking muffins all at the same time).

I don’t really like pumpkin all too much in itself, but in baking it can be good as long as it’s mixed with other ingredients that balance it out well. The muffins were bite-sized but they came out very moist and cakey. They were a really big hit at church on sunday and everyone loved them. They were a very good mixture of spices and did not need any pumpkin spice in them at all. However, they did tend to burn a little easily and the oven temperature to bake them was far too high in my opinion, so I lowered it down considerably on my second-batch and I think they came out a lot better that way.

Mini Pumpkin Muffins

(Recipe from allrecipes.com)

Ingredients:

• 1 (15oz) can 100% pure pumpkin
• 1 1/2 teaspoons ground ginger
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1 cup dark brown sugar (I used light brown)
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 2 large eggs, lightly beaten
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt

Directions:

1. Heat oven to 400F degrees and spray 36 mini-muffin cups with no-stick spray.
2. Bring pumpkin, ginger, cinnamon and cloves to a simmer in a medium saucepan until puree thickens enough to start sticking to the pan bottom. It should take 6-8 minutes. Turn hot puree into a bowl, then whisk in the brown sugar and oil, then slowly beat in eggs.
3. Meanwhile, whisk the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a medium bowl; whisk into pumpkin mixture until combined.
4. Divide batter among the muffin cups and bake until golden or until a toothpick can come out of the center without any batter on it. Bake for about 10 minutes. Let stand in the pan for a few minutes then transfer to a wire wrack to cool.

That’s all from me for now.

-Alexandra

Uh Oh Oreo?

I love oreos. I love how they taste nothing like real cocoa and the filling tastes nothing like vanilla but rather almost pure sugar. I love how savory it tastes when you dip it in cold milk and let it suck up the liquid just enough that its got a soft crisp without being soggy and wet. And I love how after you eat one and you have a cup of milk, it makes the drink taste 10x more better. Unfortunately, oreos and I don’t get along. After one night of eating two sleeves (thats 20 cookies, folks) worth after not touching junkfood for 4 months, I realized that I could never enjoy oreos again.

That did not mean, however, that other people couldn’t. While my stomach and I both agree that oreos are not something that we want to mess with in even small quantities (honestly, I bit in half of a cookie last night and wanted to puke just from that) there are still loads of people out there who enjoy these sorry excuse for chocolate and vanilla cookies. Those people, as you can guess, are mainly in the kid/teenager area. Although my boyfriend who is going to turn 20 next year (oh wow) could probably eat an entire oreo cheesecake; these little delights are a treat for any kid who enjoys eating sugar by the mouthful.

Therefore, for sunday morning sunday school, I looked up some oreo recipes. At first, I was doing this for my boyfriend, since he is an oreo fiend. But when I came upon these little temptations, it was no guess as to what I was making for the kids this weekend.

The recipe was relatively easy to make. A basic vanilla cupcake with crushed up oreos stirred in. The batter itself was enough to drive me crazy, and I was surprised I was able to surpress myself from eating all of it. Honestly, it tasted like cookies’n’cream icecream in batter form. And I cannot even begin to explain how much more delicious it is than the icecream.

The frosting, however, was not the vanilla buttercream the cupcake recipe calls for. Instead, I got creative. What would go well with a chocolatey cookie? And then I thought smores. And then I thought: marshmallows.

Struck with inspiration, I decided to decor these cakes with marshmallow buttercream icing, which, thankfully refrigerated well overnight. Add a quarter of a oreo cookie ontop and you’ve got yourself something that kids will be begging for more of. Literally. Begging. As in, I got asked 3 times if there was any left-overs at the end of church. By 3 different kids.

I haven’t tasted the cupcakes, because like I mentioned earlier; Oreo’s and I don’t get along well at all. But, from what everyone told me, they were stupendous and no one thought twice about the marshmallow icing, so I suppose I hit the nail on the head with this recipe.

Oreo Cupcake Ingredients:

(Original from bakingbites.com)

• 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup butter,  room temperature
• 2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 3 egg whites, room temperature
• 3/4 cup whole milk (I used fat-free)
• 1 1/4 cups crushed oreo cookies (10 cookies will do the trick)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350F. Line 24 muffin cups with baking cups.
2. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder and salt.
3. In a large bowl, cream together the butter and the sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in vanilla extract, and then beat in the egg whites one at a time, making sure each is well-incorporated before adding the next.
4. Working in 4-5 additions, alternately add the flour mixture and milk to the sugar mixture. Keep your mixer on low speed as you do this. When combined well, stir in the crushed oreo cookies.
5. Spoon batter evenly into baking cups, about 2/3 full.
6. Bake for 15-16 minutes at 350F, or until toothpick/fork can come out without any batter (crushed cookies are fine)
7. Cool on wire wrack completely before frosting, or store in air-tight container till you’re ready to serve them/frost them.

Marshmallow Buttercream Icing Ingredients:

• 1 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
• 1 jar (7oz) of marshmallow creme’ or fluff. (Yes, you will need the whole jar.)
• 1 cup powdered sugar (you may want to use more if you want a sweeter taste)
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions:

1. Beat butter with mixer on high speed until nice and creamy.
2. Beat in marshmallow creme’, spoonfuls at a time.
3. Reduce speed to low and add in vanilla and powdered sugar.
4. Increase speed to high until frosting is fluffy.
5. Frost, or pipe onto oreo cupcakes. Or refrigerate in air-tight container. If refrigerating overnight, leave out for 45 minutes at room temperature uncovered until frosting cupcakes.
6. Garnish with oreos chopped into quarter portions or as desired.

I’ll post more later, because I also made something else to start rolling in the fall season. Let’s just say it has to do with pumpkins, muffins, and the frustrating unpredictability of baking.

Toodles.

-Alexandra

Homemade Girl Scout Cookies: Samoas

There are a few perks that come with having a friend who also loves baking as much as you do (if not more). When you go over their house, these little perks blossom wonderfully. Some of them include:

1. Steal their cook book recipes.

2. Make good use of their nice electric mixer.

3. Using their ingredients.

Well… At least, that’s what happens when I go over Lauren’s house to bake. 😛 We haven’t hung out in awhile for various reasons, but I decided that it was definitely time to spend some time together. She loves baking probably 10x more than I do and is going to Miami to become a pastry chef. She wants to specialize in wedding cakes, which I’m all for because she seems to perfectly suit that persona. She’s pretty knowledgable about baking and even taught me a thing or two last night. Not to mention that she, like me, is very much a perfectionist. Though, she messes up a lot less than I do. Anyway, that’s besides the point.

We ended up baking at her house instead of going out, which was A-OK with me. We dragged our butts through her cooking recipes and came up with three things to make: Samoas (or Caramel de-Lites), Walnut Chocolate Chip Cookies, and Apple Cinnamon Muffins. First, let me just say that I will only be able to share one recipe with you, and IMHO, it’s the best one out of the bunch. Second, I’m sorry I have no pictures of the muffins but it was late getting home and I didn’t take any back with me because she is planning on selling them today to make some money. However, as you can see, I did bring back with me a few cookies to show off and share with you.

The Walnut Chocolate Chip Cookies was originally Hazelnut Chocolate Chip Cookies. I don’t have the recipe on me right at this moment, but I will be getting it later. They were incredibly easy to make, and were the first things we tackled. They have a delicious almond (yes, almond) cookie dough, along with 70% cocoa bittersweet chocolate chips inside and glazed on top, decorated with finely chopped and toasted walnuts, since we had no hazelnuts and we saw no reason to spend more money than we had to at Win-Dixie. They came out perfectly and we were very satisfied with them. Like I said earlier, I don’t have the recipe for them on me right now, but I will be posting it when I do, so be on the look out 🙂 I guarantee you it’s worth it.

As for the Samoas… You may, or may not, be familiar with them. Though, they look a little more like mini-donuts than the heart-shaped cookies that we decided on. Samoas, also known as Caramel de-Lites, are a type of Girl-scout Cookies.  In other words:I think the picture says it all :P.

Really though, they were my favorite, and quite possibly the most delicious ones out of the entire three recipes we decided on. I’ve never in my life had a Girl-scout cookie before of any kind whatsoever, so respectively, I have nothing to compare it to quality wise. What I do know though is that this cookie in itself has given me a new love for making caramel coconut flavored cookies, and I’ve already come up with my own recipe for one that will be put into practice whenever I get the chance.

They were relatively easy to make, but very time-consuming. And the cookie bases must be watched very carefully because they have the tendency to burn easily due to their thinness. Samoas are usually made using small donut pans for shaping, but Lauren did not have any so we shaped them in little hearts instead. For the hole in the middle, she used the circle of a straw, sucked up the cookie dough, and then spread out the hole with the tip of the straw to widen it (We had no small cookie-cutters to use). It worked amazingly well (she’s a genius, I swear) and though some of them did come out a bit burned, it made a nice batch of cookies. The chocolate spread easily on. Really, the only thing that took a long time was toasting the coconut.

I really think they came out so well because instead of using plain, nestle toll-house bittersweet chocolate, we used 70% Cocoa Ghirardelli Bittersweet Chocolate Chips, which gave an excellent twist to both the Samoas and the other cookies. Though they were pricey, it was well worth it, and a whole 12oz. bag got us through 2 different batches of cookies with a decent amount of chocolate spread left over.

Anyway, I do have the recipe for these and we didn’t change much at all about it except that we needed more flour due to the Florida weather. Try to follow it exactly because it worked perfectly for us, with the exception of our chocolate substitute. It comes from a lovely site called www.bakingbites.com. You can find tons of other awesome baking recipes there that are delicious and easy.

Homemade Samoas

(Recipe from: bakingbites.com)

Cookie Ingredients:

• 1 cup butter, softened
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• up to 2 tablespoon milk (whole or lowfat)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350F.
2. In a large mixing bowl, cream together butter and sugar.
3. Mix in the flour, baking powder and salt at a low speed, followed by the vanilla and milk, adding in the milk as needed to make the dough come together without being sticky. It should come together into a soft, not-too-sticky ball. If it’s really sticky, add more flour.
4. Divide the dough into 3 batches and roll out a batch at a time between pieces of wax paper to about 1/4-inch thickness. (If your cookies are browning quickly like ours did, make it thicker. If not, make it thinner. Test out a cookie in the oven first to make sure.) And use a 1 1/2 inch cookie cutter to make rounds, or shape them in whatever way you desire with about 1/2 inch wide holes in the center. Continue this with the rest of the batches of dough. (Alternative donut-pan version can be found on the website.)
5. Place on a parchment lined baking sheet and bake cookies for about 10-12 minutes. Make sure to check them often. When edges are lightly gold or brown, take them out and cool them on the baking sheet for a few minutes before transferring to a wire wrack to cool completely.

Topping Ingredients:

• 3 Cups shredded sweetened coconut (Unsweetened is fine, too)
• 12-oz good quality chewy caramels
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 3 tablespoons milk
• 8 oz. of 70% Cocoa Ghirardelli Bittersweet Chocolate Chips or 8 oz. dark or semi-sweet chocolate (Chips are fine as well)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 300.
2. Spread coconut evenly on a parchment-lined baking sheet (preferably one with sides) and toast 20 minutes, stirring every 5 minutes, until coconut is golden. (Make sure to keep an eye on this, too)
3. Cool on baking sheet, stirring occasionally. Set aside.
4. Unwrap the caramels and place in a large microwave-safe bowl with milk and salt. Cook on high for 3-4 minutes, stopping to stir a few times to help the caramel melt. When smooth, fold in toasted coconut with a spatula.
5. Using the spatula or a small offset spatula, spread topping on cooled cookies, using about 2-3 tsp per cookie. Reheat caramel for a few seconds in the microwave if it gets too firm to work with.
6. While topping sets up, melt chocolate in a small bowl. Heat on high in the microwave in 45 second intervals, stirring thoroughly to prevent scorching. Dip the base of each cookie into the chocolate and place on a clean piece of parchment paper. Transfer all remaining chocolate (or melt a bit of additional chocolate, if necessary) into a piping bag or a ziplock bag with the corner snipped off and drizzle finished cookies with chocolate.
7. Let chocolate set completely before storing in an airtight container.Makes about 3 1/2-4 dozen cookies.

As for the Apple Cinnamon muffins… Let’s just say her dog probably enjoyed them more than we did 😛

And not because they were bad, but because I dropped about 4 cups filled with muffin batter on the floor when putting them on the baking sheet xD

Plus, the recipe needs major tweaking, or maybe we just messed up the recipe because we quadrupled it… Either way, it tasted good, but there was definitely something wrong, because it came out as more of a Apple Cinnamon Muffin Souffle than a solid, cake-like muffin.

Anyway, I’ll be updating later with some chocolate chip cookies that were supposed to be going to my brothers Awana tonight. Turns out he’s not going. So I guess they are heading Chris’s way.

-Alexandra

7 AM Sunday Morning Coffee Cake

Let me just say that I haven’t been up this early (of my own accord) in ages. And at first, I wanted to roll back into my snug bed and sleep for another 3-4 hours or so. Especially being up so late last night baking snickerdoodles for the kids. Which, by the way, came out puffy and delicious.

Motion blur snickerdoodles! Aaaaah. Actually, that’s not photoshop. That’s my camera with a smudge on the lens that refused to come off. Still, decent picture and was the best I could do at 1 AM in the morning 😛 I was terrified that these were going to come out flat, as everyone who reviewed Mrs. Sigg’s Snickerdoodles from allrecipes.com were saying that their batch came out that way. Now, that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Some people like their snickerdoodles like that. Me? I like mine soft, chewy, and puffy. So, with a few alterations to the recipe, I was relieved when they came out exactly how I wanted them. The melt-in-your-mouth interior of this cookie made me actually want to have more than one, which is rare for me to say. I didn’t change a lot, except I took them straight out of the oven and off the pan to cool at 8 minutes and I used a cup full of butter, no shortening. Also substituted the baking soda and cream of tartar for 4 tsp. of baking powder. Results? Yum. I think that’s all that needs to be said in that respect. Although, I did make one tiny mistake when making these. I used 3 teaspoons of white sugar and 3 tablespoons of ground cinnamon. I mixed the two up when writing them down and ended up with a more browner look to them than a lighter one. Oh, and it was a lot more cinnamon-y. Oh well. They still came out fantastic and I’m not sure anyone really minded.

My brother did find it very odd however that when baking these, I did not use an electric mixer. Everything was combined by hand. He, of course, would have none of this. You’d think for a kid who doesn’t care about wearing week old dirty clothing wouldn’t mind getting his hands a little messy. When I told him that the cookies will come out better if I mix it by hand, his response was:

“…Ewww. That doesn’t even make sense… Gross. You’re touching eggs.”

I admit, I laughed. 😛

Really though, they did come out better without the use of an electric mixer. I never realized how much of a science baking was until I started reading more about it. I’m still learning.

Well, after the snickerdoodles came what my post will actually touch more on. Quite possibly one of the best coffeecakes I have ever tasted, but one of the more hateful experiences baking.  Overnight coffeecake. Yes, you heard me right. Overnight. As in, refrigerated. Now before you get all, “what!? it’s not a cookie! you’re not supposed to refrigerate cake batter!” There is no way that refrigerating the batter made the coffee cake taste strange, weird, stale or “off” in any sense. I was originally going to make Cinnamon Streusal Coffeecake in a nice, large 10in. cake tube, but both the cake and the streusal needed a whopping 2 cups+ of all-purpose flour, which I would be needing for my chocolate chip cookies this Wednesday. Oh, and that’s 2 cups flour for each individual one. Not both put together. So you can imagine that I had to scrap that little recipe out the window. Instead, I did some emergency searching, and came upon this little beauty of a recipe…

At first, I thought I was in the clear. It seemed easy to make. Nothing complicated. And I got half-way through making the batter, when suddenly the recipe called for a cup of sour cream. So, remembering that we had some in the refrigerator at one point this week, I go into the fridge looking for some.

Nothing. At all. If it’s there, it’s hidden well within the bowels of week old forgotten food that has been left to die a miserably, lonely death. I panicked slightly… but of course, the joy of baking is that there is substitutes for nearly everything. So I took advantage of my good friend google, and found on Yahoo! Answers a nice substitute. 1/4 cup of softened butter and 7/8 cups of buttermilk. To my surprise, I had both on hand. With a sigh of relief, I returned back into my kitchen cave and proceeded with the recipe.

Then I got to the streusal. Now, I made a different streusal then it said on the site to make. This is mostly because I wanted that crumb-cake/coffee-cake like appearance and because I wanted it to have a light cinnamon taste on top. Plus I had a crapload of pecans in my cabinet that needed to be used. So I went ahead and put them to work. Except that I had to roast them. Yes, roast them. Why, you ask? Well, because I wanted it to be extra crunchy and toasted. I’ve never roasted pecans though. I have, however, roasted almonds. So of course I thought to myself, it couldn’t be that much different than roasting pecans, surely!
Wrong. I stove-top roasted those almonds, and it worked out nicely. But with pecans? I was getting more and more frustrated when I saw them not toasting at all, or the shells peeling off. That was not supposed to happen. Once again, I retreated to google, and once again, found an answer. I had to put them in the oven. Duh! I thought to myself. Except that would take a whole ‘nother 10 minutes of my time, and it was already 2:30 AM. I considered scrapping the pecans all together at this point, but I trucked on. These things happen in baking. Expect the unexpected, right? Well, I put them in a small baking dish ontop of some foil, covered them in a bit of vegetable oil and let them sit in there for 10 minutes at 350 degrees (stirring them at 5 mins.) They came out nicely and blended well with the streusal, which was a lot more stickier than I expected. I ended up having to double the streusal ingredients (another crack in the sidewalk…) to be able to cover the whole batter. Even though at the time I was getting more and more frustrated as things kept going wrong (I even chipped the side of one of my glass bowls! 😦 ) I am glad that I persevered through it, because it was worth it.

Unfortunately another part of this recipe was the fact that I had to refridgerate overnight, and then let it sit out at room temperature for a nice 30 minutes before putting it in the oven… which it had to be in for ANOTHER additional 30-35 minutes. Great. I was going to bed at 3AM and had to get up even earlier than normal. This is why I did not update my blog until today. I was way too tired, too exhausted, and just wanted to rest.

I woke up of my own choice around 7/7:30. I originally set my alarm for 8, but apparently my brain decided it wanted to be awake an hour earlier. And I couldn’t have agreed more.

It was absolutely gorgeous outside. Cloudy, stormy, and dewy, but chilly and not humid whatsoever. I haven’t been up this early in so long that I was even more appreciative of the early morning skylines. I did not mind at all the wet grass beneath my bare feet as my over-large pajama pants swept across the ground when I went to go take pictures. I took a lot more than this, obviously, but this one and the one at the beginning of my post came out the best, I think. It was a nice experience. I’ve always loved early morning weather during the fall. Even though in Florida, it hardly gets cold; it can get chilly at times and most of that chilliness comes from the early morning fog. Not to mention, I love that clearing, after-rain smell that always fills the air. So refreshing, and so nice. Sitting outside with a hot cup of green tea and an apple while my coffee cake sat on the counter warming was a great way to start the day, especially with everyone around sleeping soundlessly all tucked in their beds still. There is a certain calming feeling that comes with knowing you’re the only one in the house whose awake in the morning. Though I was tired, it was so beautiful and majestic out, I just couldn’t help but feel so small compared to the broad skies above me. Truly, it seemed like God himself had finely crafted each nimbus with his fingertips. And after such a stressful night (for more than reasons pertaining to baking) it was a very nice moment to spend.

But. This is not a personal-life blog. It’s a food blog. So let’s get back on track, shall we?

Once the coffee cake sat out for 30 mins, I put it inside the oven and set the timer to 35 minutes. It looked weird, and still felt cold, but I trusted the recipes instruction and prayed to God that it would come out as good as I was hoping. Meanwhile, one by one everyone in the house was just starting to wake up. So, trying to speed up time, I decided to make whole wheat banana buttermilk pancakes. I’d give you the recipe, but honestly, I lost it, and I was busy hurrying around getting ready for church and cooking that I did not take any pictures. I do assure you though, they were very tasty, and if given another chance to make them I will provide the recipe and pictures. 🙂

When the coffee cake was ready to be pulled out, I was delightfully surprised. Not only did it make my whole house smell like a bakery, but it just looked scrumptious. To make it look, and taste even better, I sprinkled the streusal with powdered sugar which, I think, made it that much better. I tried a little bit of it and it tasted so moist and warm and crunchy and cinnamon-y all at once. I knew these would be a hit at church, so I cut them into bars, packed them up along with my container of snickerdoodles for the kids and headed on to church.

Everyone loved it. Suffice to say, there was no left-overs, and I got a lot of compliments. Oh, and yes, the kids did love the cookies as well. I had two cookies left over which Michael quickly devoured as soon as we got home. My dad complained about me not saving him any coffee cake, but a nice little reminder of how I made him pancakes this morning, still had muffins in a container at home, and that he had the opportunity to take some at church was warning enough not to say another word about it. Though, I think for his birthday, I’m going to make it for him because I have a feeling he would’ve loved it anyways. Plus, they photographed extremely well. If I wasn’t so scared of my waist line becoming larger than I already feel its become, I would’ve probably ate the whole cake myself.

Overall, great outcome with the cookies and the cake. No complaints, although a friend did joke about how it tasted like sand just to tick me off. I answered him back with a swift punch in the arm. Ah, never joke negatively about a bakers goodies. Especially when the she herself knows it came out good.

(P.S: I am highly amused at the fact that it is called “coffee cake” yet has no coffee ingredients whatsoever in it. Yes, I know, it’s because it’s cake that you eat with coffee. Still though. I just can’t help but find that a little funny.)

Mrs. Sigg’s Snickerdoodles

(Adapted from original recipe found at allrecipes.com)

Ingredients:

• 1 cup butter (2 sticks), softened
• 1 1/2 cup white sugar
• 2 eggs
• 2 tsp. vanilla extract
• 2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 4 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 3 tablespoons white sugar (for rolling dough balls in)
• 3 teaspoons ground cinnamon (for rolling dough balls in)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C).
2. Cream together butter, 1 1/2 cups sugar, eggs and vanilla with bare hands. If you’re worried about the eggs not being combined enough in the mixture, stir them in instead of using your hands.
3. Combine flour, baking powder and salt in a small bowl with a spoon or some kind of clean utensil. Then, with your hands, blend in the dry ingredients with the mixture.
4. Shape dough by rounded spoonfuls into balls. If dough is too sticky/runny, flour your hands before shaping each ball.
5. Mix the tablespoons sugar and cinnamon in a small bowl. Roll the balls of dough in it until well coated. Try your best to have it retain its shape while doing so. Place 2 inches apart on ungreased baking sheets.
6. For chewier, puffier cookies, bake for exactly 8 minutes. They will not look done, but trust me, they are. Remove immediately from the pan and transfer to wire wrack to cool. For crisper cookies, leave in for an addition 1-2 minutes before taking out. Let sit on pan for a minute before moving it to the wire wrack. Cookies will also become flatter if you do this.

Overnight Coffee Cake with Cinnamon Pecan Streusal

(Original recipe for coffee cake from allrecipes.com)

Ingredients for Coffee Cake:

• 3/4 cup butter, softened
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 eggs
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon nutmeg
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup sour cream (or 7/8 cup of cold buttermilk with 1/4 cup softened, warm butter)

Ingredients for Cinnamon Pecan Streusal:

(Note: You may have to double these ingredients to coat the whole batter)

• 1/2 cup brown sugar, packed
• 1/3 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/4 cup butter
• 1/2 cup pecans, coarsely chopped and roasted
• Powdered sugar, to decorate (optional)

Directions:

1. In a large mixing bowl, cream butter and sugar. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Combine the flour, baking soda, nutmeg, and salt together; add dry ingredients to the creamed mixture alternately with sour cream. Pour into a greased 13-in. x 9-in. x 2 in. baking dish. Spread until whole pan is evenly filled.
2. In a small bowl, combine the brown sugar, flour, butter, and cinnamon. When streusal starts to come together, stir in pecans. Sprinkle little bits over the coffee cake until mostly covered. Cover with foil, and refrigerate overnight.
3. Remove from the refrigerator 30 minutes before baking and let sit on counter at room temperature with the foil removed. Bake, uncovered, at 350 degrees F for 35-40 minutes or until a toothpick can come out clean when inserted near the center. Take out of oven and cool in pan for 10 minutes. Sprinkle with powdered sugar. Leave in baking dish and serve immediately, or cut into desired sized bars and transfer to wire wrack for an additional 3-5 minutes before storing into an air-tight container.

That’s all from me for today 🙂

Next stop: Chocolate chip cookies! Woohoo. The boyfriend will be excited.

-Alexandra

Whole Wheat Chocolate Chip Ginger Muffins

Ok, I couldn’t wait.

Normally, I’m good about baking only once or twice a week. But I couldn’t help it. I really wanted to make something… Just not anything big. And not anything using all-purpose flour, being that I’m reserving that for this weekend and next wednesday. That means I had to go and use my full bag of whole wheat flour. Which was fine by me.

I like whole wheat things. I like whole wheat bagels. I like whole wheat bread. I even like whole wheat oatmeal cookies. But most of all, I like whole wheat muffins. Put a bit of margarine or some fat-free cream cheese on it and you have a delicious, carb-filled breakfast thats taste is worth the ridiculous calorie amount that comes with it.

So, I decided… Why not make a little something before bed that the rest of the family can enjoy in the morning?

At first, it started out as just plain, whole wheat muffins. I didn’t have any little muffin cups so I had to settle for some foil cupcake cups instead, which worked just as well although they did come out a bit small… (See below picture)

But then I thought to myself… Why make just a plain, whole wheat muffin? Why not spice it up just a little bit? So I searched through the disaster which is my baking shelf and came up with the combination of two things: Chocolate chips and ground ginger. Perfect, especially for this time of year where ginger becomes very, very popular to bake with. And plus… the smell that it lives the house with is so good; why even use febreeze? If I baked muffins every morning I’d probably get the same, nice smell that it leaves. 😛

So, I bravely went to experiment, and came up with these little delicate muffins. Though, you’ll have to forgive me. I chose to photograph the retarded one with the nipple-top instead of the smooth topped ones.

I’m sure there’s a caption here about how the muffin is screaming in agony as I cut a part of it out with my fork, but i’m too tired to come up with one.

Needless to say, they came out really good! I almost burned them. Almost. But after baking so much, I’m starting to be able to tell when my goodies are done baking in the oven and are ready to be taken out before they burn. Though it’s harder to tell with muffins. The easiest and most convenient way to tell is to stick a toothpick into the muffin and, if it comes out clean, the muffins are probably done baking. This method is commonly used with other desserts such as cupcakes, cakes, and cheesecakes. It’s pretty darn useful, and it will tell you if the insides have been baked thoroughly enough or still need some time. In other words, if you’re sticking your toothpick in, and it comes out with gooey stuff all over it, then you probably need to leave them in for awhile longer.

Anyway, moving on, the results came out good. The muffin has a crisp top and a cakey texture on the inside. The ginger isn’t subtle but it isn’t strong either. Using just a teaspoon seems to give it the perfect balance. The muffins were also rather chewy, so if you want a melt-in-your-mouth muffin, these probably aren’t for you. The only thing I didn’t like was that I think I could’ve used more chocolate chips. At first I thought I used too many and that there would be too many in the muffins, but it seems like I used just a tad bit too little, so I will try using more next time I make these.

Whole Wheat Chocolate Chip Ginger Muffins

Ingredients:

• 1 Cup Whole Wheat Flour
• 1/2 Cup White Sugar
• 3 Teaspoons Baking Powder
• 1/2 Teaspoon salt
• 3/4 Cup Cold Milk
• 1/3 Cup Canola Oil
• 1 Egg
• 1/2 Cup Semi-sweet Chocolate Chips
• 1 Teaspoon Ground Ginger

Directions:

1. Heat oven to 400 degrees F (205 degrees C). Grease bottoms of 12 muffin cups.
2. In a medium bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, and ground ginger. Stir together until well mixed.
3. In a small bowl, combine milk, egg, and oil. Using a small non-electric blender or a whisk, blend the ingredients together.
4. Add liquid mixture to the dry mixture and stir until the dry ingredients are moistened and the batter is lumpy. Stir in chocolate chips.
5. Fill the cups till about 2/3 full. Bake for 20-25 minutes (Mine took about 23 exactly before they were ready to come out) or until toothpick or fork comes out clean when inserted in the center. Cool 1-2 minutes in the pan before removing. Serve warm or store in an air-tight container to keep moist.

And that’s all from me. Tomorrow, I really get my baking on… Hooray. :D!

-Alexandra

Sugar cookies: Major Success?!

I need to get a new camera. Honestly haha. The only good lighting I get with the one I use right now is outside and I can’t possible take all my food outside and take pictures of it. However, this came out very nicely:

The sugar cookies I made on Wednesday morning apparently blew everyones mind. I got an offer to make cookies for my brothers awana friends every Wednesday, and even my Dad, who is the pickiest person ever, loved them. I made 53 of those cookies. There’s only 4 left after two days of being out on the table on a nice little platter. I suspect my Grandma and my little brother are the main culprits. xD

I’m excited about the proposal to bake for Awana… It would be a great opportunity to get more known for my baking. And I’ll take any excuse to make some scrumptious cookies. I’ve already began preparing for Halloween, or, as we like to call it in my family, “fall fun night” (We don’t celebrate Halloween.) I’ve got some great ideas to put to use and I’m excited to put them in practice.

And I can’t wait for tomorrow. I’ll be (hopefully) baking Snickerdoodles and trying my hand at Coffee Cake. I’m itching to get back in the kitchen, and going shopping tonight to get some ingredients I’m low on.

Can’t. Wait.

-Alexandra

Sugar Cookie Palooza!

Let’s forget for a moment that I have no idea what the word “palooza” means and just assume that it correctly describes what I have just spent all morning doing.

Yesterday night, I found out my nephew was sleeping over our house. So, being the nice Aunt I am, I decided to go ahead and make some sugar cookie dough yesterday and chill it overnight so I can cut out some cookies and decorate them in the morning. Yeah, well…

Turned out to be more than I expected. Oh, and that’s not all of them, by the way. I have another plateful on the kitchen counter right now. I literally spent all morning from 9:30 AM to 12ish decorating these cookies. Thankfully, my little brother and officially baking helper gave me a hand decorating them. At first, I wanted to give them a really professional look. Get some royal icing, maybe a nice glaze, whip out the piping bag and go to town on decorating these cookies. But when he wanted to help, I knew that idea had to be thrown out the window. Thankfully, it was fun. He did really good although I tried my best to keep him away from the frosting. I used a sugar cookie recipe from allrecipes.com because I wanted to make soft, gourmet like sugar cookies. You know, like the kind you buy from the stores that practically melt in your mouth. Well, the recipe I used, called Michelle’s Soft Sugar Cookies, did not disappoint… at all. Combine that with a nice soft sugar cookie icing, and some sprinkles, and you have cookies that may not look completely professional but sure tastes like it. I didn’t change the recipe at all, but I did use my own sugar cookie icing recipe because it seems to work, and taste best.

Soft Sugar Cookies

(Thanks to Michelle from allrecipes.com for a perfect recipe!)

• 1 cup butter (2 sticks), softened
• 1 1/2 cups white sugar
• 3 eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons cream of tartar
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt

1. Cream the butter and add the sugar gradually while creaming. Beat until light and fluffy. Add eggs one at time, mixing well after each addition.
2. Stir in the vanilla. Add the flour, cream of tartar, baking soda and salt gradually to the creamed mixture, stirring in by hand. Cover and chill dough overnight.
3. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Line baking sheets with parchment paper.
4. Roll dough out on a floured surface to 1/8 to 1/4 inch thick and cut into your favorite shapes. Place cookies onto the prepared baking sheets.
5. Bake at 375 degrees F (190 degrees C) for exactly 8 minutes or until edges are slightly golden brown.

Sugar Cookie Icing

• 1 cup powdered sugar
• 2 tablespoons whole milk
• 2 teaspoons light corn syrup
• 1/4 teaspoon almond extract (vanilla works too, but messes with the food coloring)
• food coloring of choice

1. Stir together powdered sugar and milk until smooth, making sure there are no powdered chunks. Beat in corn syrup and almond extract until icing has a nice glossy tone and is creamy. If it’s too thick, add either more milk or more corn syrup.
2. Seperate into different bowls for different food colorings, spread onto cooled cookies. Takes about 2-3 minutes of being put on cookie to harden enough to put cookies ontop of eachother.

And that’s it! Sure was a job, but I got it done. I don’t want to look at another sugar cookie for a good couple of weeks. Or months.

I’m thinking of making some chewy, gooey chocolate chip cookies sometime next week after church for the boyfriend. He’s a big fan of CC’s, as he likes to call them. 😛

Catch ya later.

-Alexandra