Showing posts with label Food. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Food. Show all posts

Monday, December 21, 2009

Sugar Cookies

Today, I spent almost 4 hours making sugar cookies including frosting. I followed this recipe: http://gottalittlespacetofill.blogspot.com/2009/12/best-sugar-cookies-ever.html
I don't particularly like sugar cookies, but some neighbors dropped some off and they were fantastic, so I thought I'd give it a shot. I followed the directions to a T and still, I don't think the recipe is that great. The dough was really sticky and hard to roll out at first. The first batch came out really crispy so I decreased the baking time to eight minutes instead of ten.
I think that most sugar cookies come out tasting kind of like corn bread, there is this corny/wheaty tasty to them that I think is unpleasant. They tasted ok with frosting and sprinkles on them. I think that the frosting is key, no frosting and you get some weird version of corn bread.

The frosting I made with powdered sugar, butter, milk and vanilla. Turned out pretty good and a good consistency. I didn't color it but we had colored sprinkles. I'm not the best froster either so, some of them aren't very pretty. At least they're tasty and the frosting set up really well (not sticky anymore).

Over all, not a success, but maybe not a failure either.

Really should have spent those hours working my thesis. It is coming along slowly. Oh the guilt of writing a thesis...

Wednesday, December 16, 2009

"Cheesecake"

So, I am a big fan of foodgawker.com and a few weeks ago someone posted Apple Cranberry "Cheesecake." It's a raw, vegan cheesecake, the filling made with cashews. Here is the link to the original: http://www.rawmazing.com/recipes/apple-cranberry-cheesecake/
Well, we had a lot of apples lying around (I know that this recipe doesn't actually call for that many apples) so I decided to make my own version. I'm not vegan or a raw foodist, I just thought the picture looked so appealing! But I didn't have a few things that the recipe called for, including cashews, agave syrup and a dehydrator.

So, for the filling I blanched about two cups of almonds, ground them up with some honey (making it not vegan), Earth Balance butter and some cinnamon and nutmeg. For the crust I food processed flax seed, pecans, some brown sugar, olive oil and pressed the blended crust into a glass bread pan. Then I pressed some slices of apple with brown sugar on top of the crust. The filling I pressed on top of the apples, with more apples on top of the filing.

My boyfriend and I tried it immediately, I was surprised how sweet it is. But it wasn't very creamy which was disappointing, but obviously no diary that's going to be the way it is. He didn't like it very much either, but I think I might bake it today to see how it turns out.

Overall this wasn't a success, but then again, maybe if you can't actually have cheesecake, it's the best you can make do with. I think that it has some potential, maybe next time I'll actually use cashews and see how it turns out.