Kicking Off the Holidays Early

All week, I have been busy scouring the books for new (well, new to me) recipes to try and alter and share later. I found a ton and narrowed it down to five. I am not going to say what five recipes because at the moment I have ten and still couldn't make up my mind which five to use. 

However, I will tell you this, one of them is SUGAR COOKIES, the good old sugar cookies that your grannies used to make except, I am going to try and decorate them not like your grannies used to do. I will do my best to do them all up nice and cute. [crossing my fingers!] 

In all honesty, during my learning years, I was never fond of shaped/rolled cookies because of the extra step which is ROLLING! I hate dirtying my counter. Period. Today or this week is an exception. I will get down and dirty in my kitchen and show these sugar cookies who's boss. LOL

My mixer has been hard at work since yesterday's Divinity adventure. They turned out really good but I forgot to whip my egg whites til soft peaks, they didn't harden as much as I wanted them to but John loves them, so I don't care! I know the stuff is gonna get eaten. 

The pic above is showing butter and powdered sugar being creamed together to make the sugar cookies.

I didn't kid around.... Since Halloween is coming in a MONTH! Why not? I went ahead and added Christmas shapes while I was at it. I am trying to make my financier/my personal Santa/taste tester/handy man/ HUSBAND extra extra happy so come Christmas, he will bring me glad tidings of Joy and Happiness!!! lol

I promise I will post pictures of them all decorated and stuff. :)

Laterz!

Chocolate and Mocha Scones [Recipe]

Recipe Adapted from My Baking Addiction

For the scones

2 1/4 cups + some All-Purpose Flour
1/3 cup sugar or SPLENDA® Sugar Blend
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
2 Tbsp unsalted butter, cold or frozen
1/2 cup Ghirardelli bittersweet chocolate + 1/2 crushed chocolate-covered espresso beans
1/2 cup sour cream
1/2 cup strong coffee, room temperature
1 large egg

1. Adjust oven rack to lower-middle position and preheat oven to 400 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or a silicone baking mat.
2. In your food processor bowl, mix flour, sugar baking powder, baking soda and salt. Cut up the butter in small pieces and pulse it in with the flour mixture until you arrive into something that resembles coarse meal. Split in half. Add bittersweet chocolate in one and add crushed chocolate-covered espresso beans in the other.
3. In a small bowl, whisk sour cream, coffee and egg until smooth.
4. Slowly add in the sour cream mixture into the flour mixture and pulse them together in the food processor. Watch how much liquid you add into the dry ingredients. But if you happen to have added it all in there, just add a bit of flour at a time to get it where is it easy to handle or dough-like or where you can form it into a ball.
5. Place dough on a lightly-floured surface. Pat the dough into an 8 or 10-inch rectangle or square. Cut into 8-10 even squares, then cut the squares in half to make smaller triangles.
6. Place scones on prepared baking sheet, about an inch apart. 
7. Bake until golden, about 15 for smaller triangles and 18 minutes for larger triangles.
8. Cool on wire rack. Once scones are cool, prepare the glaze.

For the glaze

1/2 cup strong coffee

1 3/4 cup powdered sugar

3 oz  bittersweet chocolate
1 Tbsp butter 

1. Melt chocolate in microwave for 1 minute in 25 second intervals stirring each time to make sure the chocolate doesn't burn. 
2. In a small bowl, combine coffee and powdered sugar and whisk until smooth. Whisk in melted chocolate and butter until thoroughly combined. 
3. Drizzle chocolate on top of scones. 
4. ENJOY!!! :)

Note: I used Splenda for Baking when I made these scones. I have been using it the past couple of times I baked and I haven't seen or tasted a difference so far. This recipe doesn't require a lot of sugar anyway... So using Splenda Sugar Blend for Baking only made it much better! 


Happy Baking all!!!

Mocha Scones

So, I put gloves on and a mask and made these earlier. I couldn't stay away from my kitchen and the fact that I had all the makings for these tasty treats! No sneezing could've stopped me, I don't think. :) These things are easy to make and they are really good too. I can't wait to have one of these with my coffee tomorrow morning.

I split the dough in half and put Ghirardelli Bittersweet chocolate in one half and crushed chocolate-covered espresso beans in the other. So far, I have been really liking the Ghirardelli brand of everything and Lindt, too. I could tell an obvious difference from the two brands and the regular cheap brands at the store [that I used to use, but not anymore]. I don't mind spending the extra buck on the good stuff. :) 

My resident taste tester [a.k.a. my husband] is yet to taste them. He has had this belly ache since he got home from work and is just now starting to feel considerably okay. So I really don't know yet what he thinks about them. I should hear from the people I have shared them with soon. I didn't know one batch would make so many, which only makes these scones the perfect thing to bring or make for the next get together with friends.

I will share the recipe soon. I made a few changes to the process due to my laziness and the fact that I can't stand doing everything by hand when I have machines sitting on my counter that could do the job better and faster... So, please bear with me.

See you all soon folks!

These (Crazy) Ideas in my Head

I hope I still have readers. I feel like I have been gone forever. But I have been down with the flu, plus we are in the process of finishing up the living room makeover, including the other bazillion things and ideas I have in my head.

This is one of the reasons why I do not like being sick: I can't act on these ideas. These crazy ideas. Like, while I was sick and couldn't function, I wanted to make my own painted [accent] tiles... What I am gonna use it for, I still don't know but I want to make them. I also want to make my own thermal/blackout roman shades, but I can't decide what kind or color of fabric I want to use exactly and it is driving me crazy that I can't make up my mind. I am a decision maker, I don't doubt myself... but with fabric and sewing, my decision making skills are pretty darn useless. I also want to BAKE! I want to bake sooooo bad it is breaking my heart that I can't quit sneezing... STILL! Ugh! I was just looking at this mocha scones recipe a couple of days ago and I knew that I want to make them and take photos of them and show them off... because that is how I roll. I like to make people drool. Some lucky fellas get to enjoy them. :)

See, I have been sick with the flu for four days, and I can tell you, I feel fine. But until all the sneezing stops, I cannot act on these ideas and I am not going to handle food. I do not like being sick and I am going crazy because my brain won't stop working. It is hard. Very hard. 

Random Thoughts

Here's a random thought in a photo:

I have just put a new post on John's and my blog, showing what had happened to our living room during the weekend. Click here to see what we've done. :) The elements in the photo on top are just random thoughts. I need to decorate my living room. The walls are currently bare and needing some attention. 

Hmmmm... I wonder if these things will get me to where I want my living room to look like...